Author: Teel

Author, artist, romantic, insomniac, exorcist, creative visionary, lover, and all-around-crazy-person.

To Do list for today, 5/12/2008

(in no particular order)

  • Shave
  • Make breakfast
  • Record Dragons’ Truth Promos:
  • — 30sec audio promo (35 seconds)
  • Cancelled: — 30sec video promo
  • — 60sec audio promo, incl. Ep.1&2 teaser
  • Added: — 60sec video promo (I’m still finishing up onthis, but it’s recorded)
  • — 60sec video promo, incl. Ep.1&2 teaser
  • — 60sec audio promo for Ep.3
  • — 60sec video promo for Ep.3
  • — Video reading from Ch.1 (<5mins)
  • Check on ASU re-admission/FAFSA (FAFSA received, transcript not yet, check later in week)
  • Look at Podiobooks.com submission guidelines
  • Upload basic audio promos & new outro to Podiobooks Mentorship forum
  • Fold clean handkerchiefs
  • Put together tithe ($5 short – get more cash before next Sunday!)
  • Pay April taxes (business) (State paid – need to take $1.34 downtown for City Tax, because they don’t allow online payments yet.)
  • Print First Friday balance sheet
  • Do necessary filing (piles of stuff on desk)
  • Recycle old Canon printer
  • Look up how-to re: Bookkeeping, online
  • Write followup letter for 4 First Friday contacts –  mail paper letters, if possible
  • End of day: Shower

NOTE: Most of these are small, fast things.  There’s no real reason I can’t accomplish everything here in 1 day.

Oh, and I’ll come back through and strikethrough items I’ve completed, periodically through the day.  Too bad making this post wasn’t on here.

Items completed, not on original list:
  • Blog about to-do list
  • Take out the recycle / to the curb
  • Calculate Biblical figure timeline from Adam through Israel, verify Adam died before Noah was born, Noah was still alive when Abram(Abraham) was born, Methuselah died AFTER the flood, and if I did my math right, the flood lasted negative two years.
  • Murder my neighbor for blowing leaves around his yard with a gas-powered blower at 11AM, whil I’m trying to record promos for Dragons’ Truth.  Seriously; do your yard work on the weekend, man!
  • Make dinner (bleh – not good tonight)

Printer woes

To begin with, I will admit that I intentionally purchased the cheapest of all printers, the $20 HP D1415, whose (tiny-reservoired) included ink cartridge retails for $18.  ie: I bought a $2 printer.  This is because my previous near-$100 printer had died (taking >$40 in ink cartridges with it), and I wanted to take the time to shop for a printer with a better value proposition than average.  The Canon printer, which had died, was selected because it’s replacement black ink (separate from color, of course) was $5 to $7 each – the cheapest of inks I could find at the time.  This ~$2 printer had been selected because it was cheap, and the included ink should have lasted until I could complete research on what printer I actually wanted.  Based on previous printing habits, it would have.

Alas, I recently started printing my own labeling for my audiobook packaging, which uses a lot of ink.  Poof, need replacement ink.  Went to the local Cartridge World and bought some cheap ink, will go back to talk to them about cartridges, probably.  Ink is just one problem, though.  Half-way through a two-sided print out (ie: one side is printed, the other side hasn’t started) the $2 printer suddenly started having paper jams.  Sometimes that paper actually jammed, sometimes the printer simply seemed to be imagining that it was jammed.  Doesn’t seem to like the heavy-weight paper for the Jewelbox inserts.  Bleh.  That is a very frustrating and time-consuming and wasteful fight.  It does not make me happy.

So, I’m looking for a printer with:

  1. Good value $$/ink
  2. Ability to correctly handle heavyweight paper
  3. As small of margins as possible, esp. on legal-size paper. (Like, .08″ if possible)

I had also been looking at the Epson R-Series printers, for printing directly onto CDs, but apparently Epson printers have terrible value/ink, even with the “high capacity” cartridges.  So, I’m not 100% sold on that.  Any suggestions/advice would be welcomed.

Speed Racer

Mandy and I went to see Speed Racer last night, and we both loved it.  Laughing out loud, clapping, jumping out of our seats, cheering and hollering…  We found the movie to be very engaging.  We both agree that if that is what motor sports was like, we would watch them.  I mean, that stuff is awesome.

In addition, as we got to see the world the film takes place in, the megalopopis city at the heart of it is just breathtaking.  If there was a GTA-like game (ie: open-ended, explorable, sandbox type environment with cutting-edge graphics) set in that world/city, I would have a reason to buy that game.  Ooh, and if it WAS part of the GTA franchise, if you got to play as those goofy gangsters, the central story line might actually be fun for people to play!

Of course, the hyper-saturated colors of the world, especially of the wardrobes, was awesome.  If I could buy clothes as brightly colored as that, I would.  I have only seen one or two garments available for sale with as richly saturated colors as most everyone in Speed Racer was wearing throughout the film, and I bought them immediately, or lamented their not being available in my size.  Bright colors are awesome, and I wish clothes manufacturers thought so.  It’s almost enough to get me to take up sewing, as well, and make all my own clothes from scratch.  Almost, but not quite.

Oh, am I not saying much about the movie?  Watch the trailer, it’s just like that, I don’t need to tell you.  Oh, and I apparently missed it (on account of I try to avoid watching anything with commercials in it, if possible), but it was directed by the Wachowski Brothers and James McTeigue, with visual effects by Gaeta, which is largely what made the whole film an awesome experience.  If I could afford it, I would go watch it again and again to try to catch all the thousands of tiny but wonderful background details in the effects shots.  John Goodman was great.  Matt Fox was less than great, but … alright.  Susan Sarandon was … busty.  Like, stuffed bra, like, distracting.  Anyway.  Speed Racer.  Fun!

Dragons’ Truth Audiobook

I hear it’s better for SEO (which I believe stands for “Blah Blah Blah,” or “I don’t Really Care,” I can never remember which) for me to make each blog entry contain only one topic instead of posting a big post covering several subjects.  So, tonight, multiple posts.  Let’s see if the silliness of this doesn’t cause me to forget several of my topics.

First: The Dragons’ Truth Audiobook.

I’m as satisfied with the recording as I’m going to be without doing a complete re-record from scratch, and after spending the last month recording, editing, and going over and over and over Dragons’ Truth I’ve remembered why it’s my least favorite of my novels, and have no interest in repeating the entire process immediately.  Maybe next year, or perhaps later this year, if I write a sequel (or the prequel I recently thought of and which -I believe- would make a much better book, all around), I’ll record both of them at the same time for a re-release and “box set” containing the pair.  Bleh, who knows?  Anyway, the recording is done, the mixing is done, I’ve got the Podiobook-compatible files ready and broken into eight episodes ranging from about 28min to 46min in length (avg. ~35min, if I recall correctly), I’ve got CD Master disc images of the MP3 CD and the 4-disc Audio CD versions created and ready to burn.  I’ve received the packaging for the MP3 CDs, designed it all, inside and out, and even have the first two copies burned, assembled, and shrink-wrapped. (Yay, shrink-wrap!  Very nice end-product!)  I forgot to take a bunch of photos of it being assembled to post – I’ll remember to photograph everything when I put together the first of the Audio CD packages, and do a couple more MP3 CD packages at the same time.  The packaging I chose for the multi-disc Audio CD sets will arrive Monday (UPS-willing), and I’ve begun working on the cover for that as well (which is a headache, btw, and I’m not sure my printer is up to the task.  If I forget, remind me to try: Print from two sides, 50% opacity on overlapping center, scream and cry when alignment is inevitably off), so with any luck, those will be good to go on Monday as well.  ((ooh, I forgot to buy more labels for those.  Sigh.  Add that to shopping list.))

Erk.  I just spent two hours (since the last paragraph) adding the MP3 Audiobook to modernevil.com (and updating the styling a bit).  You can now order the MP3 Audiobook.  I will add the link for ordering the audio CD version as soon as I have a copy in hand that I consider salable.  I’ve priced both the MP3 CD version and the AudioCD version a little lower than I probably ought to have, but since there’s no sales through standard retail channels (I don’t have & can’t afford mass production, warehousing, distribution, et cetera) for the audiobooks -which is to say that I’m manually making them with my own two hands and then shipping them out- I don’t have to worry too much about making sure I still get a profit after retail takes 50%+ like I do with my paperbacks; I’m the sole retailer.

The Dragons’ Truth Paperback is $12.99.

The Dragons’ Truth Audiobook on 1 MP3 CD is $12.99.

The Dragons’ Truth Audiobook on 4 Audio CDs will probably be $25.99.

If I offered a version that contained the paperback and all 5 discs for $44.99, would anyone buy it?

–Oh, and since I’ve passed 1:30AM now, I’m not going to do the other posts tonight.  At least one of them requires more Photoshop work.  I’ve made a list of them, and I’ll post more tomorrow.  LJ people who notice this post: I’ll cross-post tomorrow, too.  Goodnight!

Incorrectly sad; music credit != big deal

I don’t know why, but this little thing is causing me all sorts of psychological trouble, a wrenching feeling in my gut… It’s pushed me away from the computer (the work space) in the middle of the day, and I’m laying in bed with the cat, feeling bad. I know, intellectually, that this feeling, this reaction, is incorrect, is irrational. Either way I decide to go on this tiny question, it barely matters. But I still feel very strongly about it and am having to fight with myself over it.

So, here it is: I’m working on changing the “outro” for the podiobook version of Dragons’ Truth, and struggling with whether or not to include a music credit, and if so, then how it should be put. I did everything. I wrote the book, I recorded the audio, all the voices, I composed the music, I’ll even be burning the discs for people who buy it. I did everything. It feels weird/wrong to list it all out. If I’d used someone else’s music, sure, credit them. Have to. In fact, NOT having to put in a music credit was probably 1/3 of why I decided to compose my own music… No one to press charges when I don’t mention the music is theirs. So now, being told by trusted voices in podcasting/podiobooks that I ought to have a music credit, even though it’s mine is… Weird. It feels wrong. It conflicts with my intentions.

I don’t know. Maybe I’ll take a nap.