As my finger steadily improves, and my doctor at last feels assured that I'm not going to lose the first two knuckles (which, apparently, was a possibility; though this was not relayed to me until it ceased being a threat), I have learned to type with nine fingers, again without having to look at the keyboard. We must adapt to survive.
For months now I have debated the practicality of creating more podcast, acknowledging that I have no one with whom to chat. I've listened to hours of people talking alone and it is always an effort. The worst is people mumbling about themselves (as I'm doing now) and taking ten minutes to get to the point ~ which is almost always a class in how to be Captain Obvious where it comes to advice. People talk too slow or hedge their opinions far too much; I get awfully tired of a podcaster who thinks enough of himself that he's going to make 200+ audio recordings of his own voice, but still feels the need to repeat some version of "your mileage may vary." Personally, I'd like to think listeners are smart enough to figure that part out for themselves, and not think they're duty-bound to believe all that they hear. I know that no one hesitates to tell ME that they disagree, without my giving permission. Somehow, it only reminds me how desperately these podcasters want to be liked.
I have had more time to explore and experiment with the sound of my own voice, since I haven't been able to type which much ease of late. I'm unsure of my voice and of my content. I'm sure there's little chance of anything I have to say being popular. My chief concern is that I don't run out of things to say after the first 8 hours. Any such content, popular or not, will have to remain free ... but I do hope to use a podcast to draw in new followers and Patreon supporters, just as anyone else does on the internet. I worry, however. I've found that when I start talking passionately about D&D, my dissatisfaction with the state of play and with the content I encounter from other websites and the game's production company simply boils out of me.
I'm not sure why I'm so angry. I suppose because I'm being told to believe in the blatant abuse of the game I love, or that I'm told that disrespecting the intelligence and free will of players should be business as usual ... and because I know that this is propaganda that's been disseminated for decades by the company. I'm just as furious that cheating and lying to people has been used as a promotional tactic to sell the game to children, who have grown to be adults ~ who now defend this as a legitimate DMing approach. The philosophy has become so pervasive now that parents raised to be these players are now teaching their own children that cheating with dice and manipulating the game's rules ad hoc are perfectly fine. What sort of children are we raising?
This is not the only problem I have with the company's agenda. I want to create a podcast with a positive bent, but I don't know how to silence myself entirely. And because disparaging the company ALSO means challenging the myopic belief system of those grown-up children who fell in love with the company's products than with the game itself, I once again find myself in a place where any podcast I might put together will be as despised as I was when I first started blogging. People, on the whole, have gotten used to me now. They may not like me, but they read me, because they know there will be content here. A podcast, however, means reaching out to a lot of people who have never heard of me, and pissing them off. I hesitate to go down that road again.
But, I'm still me. And the solution to the dilemma is to admit that I'm not going to produce a podcast that censors myself. Which means, engendering enemies and swallowing that as need be. I'm thicker skinned today than I was in 2008; and I think a podcast gives less opportunity for detractors to directly piss on the material presented. Yes, people can go make their own content slamming me, but they can't slam me inside my content or on my page; and no advertising is bad. There will always be people who hate us. And there will also be those who appreciate what we do. That is the first rule of the internet and of real life. However many enemies we will make, we also have the power to gather together a family who will support our cause. It does well to remember that.
I hope to have a preliminary episode up in a few days. It isn't going to be great, but it will be authentic. If we look at anyone producing quality content right now, we know their early stuff lacked the polish of their present work. I have to believe that I have the capacity improve also. I've already learned a great deal about audio in the last few years. At this point, I've just got to leap forward, and stick with it.
Showing posts with label Podcast. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Podcast. Show all posts
Saturday, March 7, 2020
Friday, June 29, 2018
Nostalgia
I have heard from people who were not pleased with my treatment on Al and Chad's podcast. But I do rush to point out, it was not I that set the agenda; nor the time constraint. I approached the podcast with the desire to express my thorough belief that the game must be taken out of the hands of the game seller and put into the hands of the game player. I feel I got that point across, and that it was made stronger by Al's repetition that I made good points, without either Al or Chad mounting an argument against me.
However, I would like to be interviewed by someone with a more pin-point agenda. Rather that talking about the Satanic Panic and how outsiders built their case, I'd rather be talking about how we build a case today to change how outsiders feel about the game. Rather than talking about whether edition wars are good or bad, I'd rather talk about why the change in content between editions created factions and what those specific factions stood for ~ that is, why people felt the need to hate others. I'd rather dig down into the day-to-day subjects of play, game rulings and world design, than returning to the same questions about the past.
Building my own podcast, I questioned if I should ask DMs how they got started. I felt it was a question that deserved examination, from the standpoint of each person, compared to each other person. But having heard the story repeated, I am beginning to think it is the least valuable question we can ask one another. Should I ask mathematicians to tell me about the first time they added numbers together? Or politicians about the first time they did a book report in elementary school? Or soldiers about the first time they played guns with their mates? What is that going to tell us? Why are we as participants in this game so infatuated with the way we started?
I argue it is because, for most people, playing this game exists in a constant universe of them having "lost" something. Why investigate our memories of the Satanic Panic? Why investigate our memories of when the game reached the mainstream? Why ask our feelings about how the game has changed, without producing facts or evidence of investigation, so that at least we might be describing history? Why is it that we are so locked into the past? And specifically, that past when we first started playing?
I think it is because most people came to this game when they were children; younger than 16, at least. And that in that first formative period of their participation, the imaginary element of the game was more keenly felt than it is today. That as children, every adventure, every image, every moment of explaining what their character did, every argument over some rule, every nub and bobbin of the game was amazingly, astoundingly fresh and spectacularly divorced from the ordinary, common experience of being a kid in a school, under the control of authority figures. I think it is because for most people, D&D, or Role-playing, was their first real experience with total independence as a self-aware person, discussing a passion with other similarly aged self-aware persons.
And now it is hard to remember exactly how that felt.
By talking about it, we have moments where we're momentarily in touch with that feeling. It is visceral, not intellectual. We can't express it. We know it, but we can't grip it and hold onto it; for we don't think like we did when we were children. We're different now.
Yet I feel there are a majority of players who sit down to D&D games every week as if the ritual of playing the game in its most familiar incarnation, the old structured format from their childhood days, will magically resurrect the childlike wonder, the awe, that once possessed us when we cast spells and fought giants, when we watched the die bouncing over the table with open-mouthed reverence. I'm quite sure that many fully-grown adults believe this effect is exactly what the ritual produces.
I find that sad.
As I said in the podcast, I did not come to D&D at 9 years of age. There was no chance of that for me; the game did not exist until I was ten, and did not make its way into my world until I was 15. Moreover, I was a much older 15 than my peers. I could count several university students among my friends. My teachers had asked my parents three times to push me forward to a higher grade (my parents always refused). I was already deep into statistics and map-making, amateur astronomy (in which I would head out on my own into open farmer's fields in the summer time, after midnight, with binoculars and later a telescope, to record my sightings), writing books and plays, working as a summer camp counselor and so on. I had all the tools I needed in my mental pocket to make being a DM my life's work. I was never in awe of the game. I was in love with it.
This infatuation with the past, with how we got started, or what it meant to us, or how it felt the first time we went to a game con, or what it was like to be a young DM ... it's lost on me. I vaguely recall my first disastrous efforts, the desire to possess certain dice and miniatures, or the intensity of those around-the-clock sessions that would start at noon and go past midnight ... but that is not why I play now. I play now because I love it now.
The way some people approach the game, it reminds me of a husband who loves his wife because once she was pretty and very popular, and he likes to have her around because he enjoys remembering the woman she was. But I love my wife for the woman she IS ... the sweet, cuddly nearly-60-year-old who is fighting time with dignity and good humour. She's not who she was, and nor am I ~ and how sad it would be if we were both clinging to each other fantasizing about something that is long gone, that can never change, because we wouldn't let it change.
That is not love for me. Love is growth. It is living and seeing the next day, and making that next day special for its own reasons, regardless of what happened once upon a time. I am sad for people who are helplessly caught in their own nostalgia, who can think of nothing to talk about except what we did, what happened way back when, who used to think what and how terrible and awful it all that because a bunch of old people, who are most likely dead now, used to think the game was about worshipping Satan.
However, I would like to be interviewed by someone with a more pin-point agenda. Rather that talking about the Satanic Panic and how outsiders built their case, I'd rather be talking about how we build a case today to change how outsiders feel about the game. Rather than talking about whether edition wars are good or bad, I'd rather talk about why the change in content between editions created factions and what those specific factions stood for ~ that is, why people felt the need to hate others. I'd rather dig down into the day-to-day subjects of play, game rulings and world design, than returning to the same questions about the past.
Building my own podcast, I questioned if I should ask DMs how they got started. I felt it was a question that deserved examination, from the standpoint of each person, compared to each other person. But having heard the story repeated, I am beginning to think it is the least valuable question we can ask one another. Should I ask mathematicians to tell me about the first time they added numbers together? Or politicians about the first time they did a book report in elementary school? Or soldiers about the first time they played guns with their mates? What is that going to tell us? Why are we as participants in this game so infatuated with the way we started?
I argue it is because, for most people, playing this game exists in a constant universe of them having "lost" something. Why investigate our memories of the Satanic Panic? Why investigate our memories of when the game reached the mainstream? Why ask our feelings about how the game has changed, without producing facts or evidence of investigation, so that at least we might be describing history? Why is it that we are so locked into the past? And specifically, that past when we first started playing?
I think it is because most people came to this game when they were children; younger than 16, at least. And that in that first formative period of their participation, the imaginary element of the game was more keenly felt than it is today. That as children, every adventure, every image, every moment of explaining what their character did, every argument over some rule, every nub and bobbin of the game was amazingly, astoundingly fresh and spectacularly divorced from the ordinary, common experience of being a kid in a school, under the control of authority figures. I think it is because for most people, D&D, or Role-playing, was their first real experience with total independence as a self-aware person, discussing a passion with other similarly aged self-aware persons.
And now it is hard to remember exactly how that felt.
By talking about it, we have moments where we're momentarily in touch with that feeling. It is visceral, not intellectual. We can't express it. We know it, but we can't grip it and hold onto it; for we don't think like we did when we were children. We're different now.
Yet I feel there are a majority of players who sit down to D&D games every week as if the ritual of playing the game in its most familiar incarnation, the old structured format from their childhood days, will magically resurrect the childlike wonder, the awe, that once possessed us when we cast spells and fought giants, when we watched the die bouncing over the table with open-mouthed reverence. I'm quite sure that many fully-grown adults believe this effect is exactly what the ritual produces.
I find that sad.
As I said in the podcast, I did not come to D&D at 9 years of age. There was no chance of that for me; the game did not exist until I was ten, and did not make its way into my world until I was 15. Moreover, I was a much older 15 than my peers. I could count several university students among my friends. My teachers had asked my parents three times to push me forward to a higher grade (my parents always refused). I was already deep into statistics and map-making, amateur astronomy (in which I would head out on my own into open farmer's fields in the summer time, after midnight, with binoculars and later a telescope, to record my sightings), writing books and plays, working as a summer camp counselor and so on. I had all the tools I needed in my mental pocket to make being a DM my life's work. I was never in awe of the game. I was in love with it.
This infatuation with the past, with how we got started, or what it meant to us, or how it felt the first time we went to a game con, or what it was like to be a young DM ... it's lost on me. I vaguely recall my first disastrous efforts, the desire to possess certain dice and miniatures, or the intensity of those around-the-clock sessions that would start at noon and go past midnight ... but that is not why I play now. I play now because I love it now.
The way some people approach the game, it reminds me of a husband who loves his wife because once she was pretty and very popular, and he likes to have her around because he enjoys remembering the woman she was. But I love my wife for the woman she IS ... the sweet, cuddly nearly-60-year-old who is fighting time with dignity and good humour. She's not who she was, and nor am I ~ and how sad it would be if we were both clinging to each other fantasizing about something that is long gone, that can never change, because we wouldn't let it change.
That is not love for me. Love is growth. It is living and seeing the next day, and making that next day special for its own reasons, regardless of what happened once upon a time. I am sad for people who are helplessly caught in their own nostalgia, who can think of nothing to talk about except what we did, what happened way back when, who used to think what and how terrible and awful it all that because a bunch of old people, who are most likely dead now, used to think the game was about worshipping Satan.
Wednesday, June 27, 2018
Geekery in General, Episode 200
A chance to hear me on someone else's podcast.
Here I'm interviewed by Al and co-host Chad Knight on DrivethruRPG. As usual, I go off the rails while we discuss early D&D, the Satanic Panic, Edition Wars, where the game has been and where it's going, while I slam the company, belittle the mainstream media, talk about early convention in the 1980s, berate the poor hosts for caring about the publication of game modules and make as many solid, factual arguments as I can about the potential of role-playing games and D&D and why we're not reaching it.
Here I'm interviewed by Al and co-host Chad Knight on DrivethruRPG. As usual, I go off the rails while we discuss early D&D, the Satanic Panic, Edition Wars, where the game has been and where it's going, while I slam the company, belittle the mainstream media, talk about early convention in the 1980s, berate the poor hosts for caring about the publication of game modules and make as many solid, factual arguments as I can about the potential of role-playing games and D&D and why we're not reaching it.
Wednesday, March 28, 2018
Fuck Apple
I have been asked repeatedly the last two days if I intend to steam the podcast through iTunes. I'm not a fan of Apple for many reasons, not the least of which includes having to work on a Mackintosh once upon a time (for a five year period). I've long believed that the best use of a Mackintosh tower, with its handle, would be as a boat anchor.
Podcast platforms are a scam. It is a means by which a 3rd party gains access to my content, so they can place it on their platform, providing that content to the user. If the number of minutes I require of the 3rd party's bandwidth reaches a certain point (and a podcast will reach that quickly), I will be asked to PAY the 3rd party for a service that youtube gives me for free. Meanwhile, for my content, I get nothing from the user. Nor does the 3rd party provide me with guaranteed views; I may get none. That, the 3rd party will tell me, is MY fault.
So, why should I pay a 3rd party to do nothing for me, while profiting from me? Because Apple, or some platform like it, is "prestigious." They're a brand. I'm supposed buy into that shit, that someone else's brand will automatically bring me views and attention. That's how Apple and companies like them work. They give nothing, they take, then they brand themselves as saints for giving the user "free" podcasts.
I understand the user's motivation, now that I've stumbled into this. "I can't listen to youtube at work; but I can listen to my iPhone! Yay. I can listen to podcasts at work."
So the response to me becomes, "If you are a podcast-maker, you are responsible for making your podcasts available to me, when I need them. That's just good business."
Yeah. Apple's business.
The user should realize that it is perfectly easy to rip an mp3 off youtube. And I don't care if you do. I'm concerned with the material being free. I don't care if you own a copy. Hell, I'll create a copy and you can download it straight from my drive, if that's what you need. And it won't cost you ANY bandwidth on your phone, period.
I'm not concerned with the proliferation of copies; I'm concerned with two things:
1) That you enjoy the podcast and learn something about role-playing from it, that changes your way of thinking;
2) And that you remember who IS the content maker. Not iTunes. Not Soundcloud. Me.
If that inconveniences you a little, because it breaks your hipster need to listen to everything through your precious iTunes, that's just tough. There are other ways to have this content on your phone at work without my having to suck up to Apple.
Podcast platforms are a scam. It is a means by which a 3rd party gains access to my content, so they can place it on their platform, providing that content to the user. If the number of minutes I require of the 3rd party's bandwidth reaches a certain point (and a podcast will reach that quickly), I will be asked to PAY the 3rd party for a service that youtube gives me for free. Meanwhile, for my content, I get nothing from the user. Nor does the 3rd party provide me with guaranteed views; I may get none. That, the 3rd party will tell me, is MY fault.
So, why should I pay a 3rd party to do nothing for me, while profiting from me? Because Apple, or some platform like it, is "prestigious." They're a brand. I'm supposed buy into that shit, that someone else's brand will automatically bring me views and attention. That's how Apple and companies like them work. They give nothing, they take, then they brand themselves as saints for giving the user "free" podcasts.
I understand the user's motivation, now that I've stumbled into this. "I can't listen to youtube at work; but I can listen to my iPhone! Yay. I can listen to podcasts at work."
So the response to me becomes, "If you are a podcast-maker, you are responsible for making your podcasts available to me, when I need them. That's just good business."
Yeah. Apple's business.
The user should realize that it is perfectly easy to rip an mp3 off youtube. And I don't care if you do. I'm concerned with the material being free. I don't care if you own a copy. Hell, I'll create a copy and you can download it straight from my drive, if that's what you need. And it won't cost you ANY bandwidth on your phone, period.
I'm not concerned with the proliferation of copies; I'm concerned with two things:
1) That you enjoy the podcast and learn something about role-playing from it, that changes your way of thinking;
2) And that you remember who IS the content maker. Not iTunes. Not Soundcloud. Me.
If that inconveniences you a little, because it breaks your hipster need to listen to everything through your precious iTunes, that's just tough. There are other ways to have this content on your phone at work without my having to suck up to Apple.
Wednesday, November 1, 2017
WTHSI
The Point of Insanity today released another podcast in which I am a participant, along with a regular reader of this blog. Carl and I chat with Scott and Chad on "Want to Hear Something Interesting?" The podcast just went up this morning.
I enjoyed this more, I think, than the one back in August. Hope you'll take the time to listen and make a comment or two here.
I enjoyed this more, I think, than the one back in August. Hope you'll take the time to listen and make a comment or two here.
Saturday, September 16, 2017
Say It
In the context of a proposed history podcast (because life continues), I have communicated some with a regular reader here who responded to the linked post. We have been talking and this is something we're interested in doing. It wouldn't be role-playing driven, though we might mention RPGs ... it would be the more difficult pretext of spitballing historical events, patterns and geography: either a particular moment, or a process that covers a lot of periods and cultures, or a specific cultural region.
We've been talking about an overview of the history of Korea, most likely from the late 1800s, in light of recent events ~ considering most people have little to no idea why or even when the peninsula was subdivided.
This reminded me of a Sam Kinison cameo in the 1986 film, Back to School, which was a fairly intellectual romp featuring Rodney Dangerfield. Still a lot of fun.
No doubt about it. I hold History sacred also.
We've been talking about an overview of the history of Korea, most likely from the late 1800s, in light of recent events ~ considering most people have little to no idea why or even when the peninsula was subdivided.
This reminded me of a Sam Kinison cameo in the 1986 film, Back to School, which was a fairly intellectual romp featuring Rodney Dangerfield. Still a lot of fun.
No doubt about it. I hold History sacred also.
Friday, August 18, 2017
Podcast: Ep. 55, Role-Playing and More
Here's a link to the podcast I recorded last week. It is out today:
Point of Insanity Network
No embed code at this time, unfortunately. But here's a graphic for what you'll see if you hit the link.
Saturday, August 12, 2017
Podcasting, WPIIA and Other Things
Yesterday, I finished my guest appearance on a Point of Insanity Podcast, specifically Whose Podcast is it Anyway, which will turn up on Friday, August 18. It was a lot of fun and I got to talk about some of the things I've lately posted about, along with slamming the company behind D&D, adding some talk about Sasquatches and about Russian history.
Listening to Chad, the Podcast presenter, talking about his relationship to the Reagan era (he turned 13 when the Wall came down), I was astounded by the knowledgeable distance between what he knew and something that was happening while I was a conscious and politically active, self-aware individual. I had turned 16 before Reagan was elected; I watched that campaign, my first (politically interested Canadians watch both the American and British festivals, as we are affected by both), and I remember very clearly what sort of things were being said about Reagan.
None of those things are being said now. Reagan is the go-to president when people want to talk about a Republican who did bad things but was basically of good character. Pundits will often say, "Reagan did this or that thing, but at least he was aware of the consequences of what he was doing." Like being aware makes it all better.
Reagan was awful. Worse than that, he was a joke. But the Iran-Contra thing had been going on all that summer and making Carter look like a worse joke. Reagan "got the hostages out," which he totally did not do, as anyone conscious was aware of at the time, but all that has disappeared into dry history books no one reads. I have lived long enough as a political animal to watch history being rewritten by the winners. Totally rewritten.
However, as you will hear, Chad seemed to find my few comments about the Afghani war and the coming down of the wall as interesting ... and that makes me wonder about how much raw history is being lost on a daily basis as people who remember first-hand what was going on in the 60s, 70s and 80s are passing away. History seems a mystery to most people anyway, since the education system (in Canada too, as much as anywhere) is shoving it aside in favor of social culture and social responsibility.
I can't say that the world "needs" me to settle in and write a ton of history, giving my take on things like the Reagan years or what it was like to listen to stories about Carter's brother or Gerald Ford's falling down stairs, both of which were so important a week couldn't go by without either being parodied or discussed. There are hundreds of thousands of history students who are already doing this, not to mention a major cultural effort of writing the history of everything via Wikipedia.
It reminds me, however, that people don't read history. If it happened before we were born, it seems to bear little interest for us; why care, everything that matters must have happened after 1964, the year I was born.
(I know, you think that everything that mattered happened after 1976 or 1983, but you're wrong)
Of course, we're willing to make some exceptions for things like Kennedy's assassination, that McCarthy thing and Nazis, but we don't want to get crazy, right? Not that anyone understands the fifty reasons why people would want to shoot Kennedy, or who McCarthy was or what started that witchhunt, or that Nazis were not just bad guys in Indiana Jones' movies, but hey, we're just interested in the important stuff, right?
I think it is a little sad. I could do a podcast every week where I did nothing but talk about history, potentially with time to look up small details on the net just to be sure I got the details right ~ and what's odd is that I'm sure that some people would really like it.
But my experience with Chad reminded me what I really need to make a podcast work: someone to ask me questions. I'm great at answering questions off the cuff. I enjoyed doing the bits with my daughter, but the issue there was that she steadfastly refused to be a set-up person for me (something about not wanting to be in the shadow of her father or some silly thing). I've played around with just talking, but it feels ... weird. If I'm just going to chatter, I'd rather write. I write better than I chatter.
I'd love to do more podcasts. I've looked, and I've had some others who have looked, but we haven't found any podcasts who are willing to step up. If anyone has any ideas ~ or connections, which is better ~ I can write the introductory email.
And if someone wants to dig in and go head to head with me, I have the means to record us and I have the guy to edit us (if he's still willing). So let me know. Could be fun.
Listening to Chad, the Podcast presenter, talking about his relationship to the Reagan era (he turned 13 when the Wall came down), I was astounded by the knowledgeable distance between what he knew and something that was happening while I was a conscious and politically active, self-aware individual. I had turned 16 before Reagan was elected; I watched that campaign, my first (politically interested Canadians watch both the American and British festivals, as we are affected by both), and I remember very clearly what sort of things were being said about Reagan.
None of those things are being said now. Reagan is the go-to president when people want to talk about a Republican who did bad things but was basically of good character. Pundits will often say, "Reagan did this or that thing, but at least he was aware of the consequences of what he was doing." Like being aware makes it all better.
Reagan was awful. Worse than that, he was a joke. But the Iran-Contra thing had been going on all that summer and making Carter look like a worse joke. Reagan "got the hostages out," which he totally did not do, as anyone conscious was aware of at the time, but all that has disappeared into dry history books no one reads. I have lived long enough as a political animal to watch history being rewritten by the winners. Totally rewritten.
However, as you will hear, Chad seemed to find my few comments about the Afghani war and the coming down of the wall as interesting ... and that makes me wonder about how much raw history is being lost on a daily basis as people who remember first-hand what was going on in the 60s, 70s and 80s are passing away. History seems a mystery to most people anyway, since the education system (in Canada too, as much as anywhere) is shoving it aside in favor of social culture and social responsibility.
I can't say that the world "needs" me to settle in and write a ton of history, giving my take on things like the Reagan years or what it was like to listen to stories about Carter's brother or Gerald Ford's falling down stairs, both of which were so important a week couldn't go by without either being parodied or discussed. There are hundreds of thousands of history students who are already doing this, not to mention a major cultural effort of writing the history of everything via Wikipedia.
It reminds me, however, that people don't read history. If it happened before we were born, it seems to bear little interest for us; why care, everything that matters must have happened after 1964, the year I was born.
(I know, you think that everything that mattered happened after 1976 or 1983, but you're wrong)
Of course, we're willing to make some exceptions for things like Kennedy's assassination, that McCarthy thing and Nazis, but we don't want to get crazy, right? Not that anyone understands the fifty reasons why people would want to shoot Kennedy, or who McCarthy was or what started that witchhunt, or that Nazis were not just bad guys in Indiana Jones' movies, but hey, we're just interested in the important stuff, right?
I think it is a little sad. I could do a podcast every week where I did nothing but talk about history, potentially with time to look up small details on the net just to be sure I got the details right ~ and what's odd is that I'm sure that some people would really like it.
But my experience with Chad reminded me what I really need to make a podcast work: someone to ask me questions. I'm great at answering questions off the cuff. I enjoyed doing the bits with my daughter, but the issue there was that she steadfastly refused to be a set-up person for me (something about not wanting to be in the shadow of her father or some silly thing). I've played around with just talking, but it feels ... weird. If I'm just going to chatter, I'd rather write. I write better than I chatter.
I'd love to do more podcasts. I've looked, and I've had some others who have looked, but we haven't found any podcasts who are willing to step up. If anyone has any ideas ~ or connections, which is better ~ I can write the introductory email.
And if someone wants to dig in and go head to head with me, I have the means to record us and I have the guy to edit us (if he's still willing). So let me know. Could be fun.
Friday, September 9, 2016
Whatever Happened to the Podcast?
My reasons for updating the whole world map as I did yesterday were part of a process of moving the podcast content my daughter and I created this spring from Soundcloud to Youtube:
We were having problems because while Soundcloud is free at the start, at a certain number of minutes it isn't. We didn't foresee that and did not want to spend any money on it, so the problem became how to reformat the content and add an image. We haven't had the means to do it, though in the end it was fairly simple. I needed to be in a better financial situation first, which has happened. I'm still in a lot of trouble, but I have at least a little spendable income. For about five months, even with the donations from readers, I have had zero disposable income. Every dime I've received has gone into rent, utilities, the basest of foods or management of debt.
My daughter and I stopped recording podcasts because of Soundcloud's format. Having solved that problem, I expect we will be getting back to creating new content. It's just a matter of making time to do that. I think we'd do best to call it a second season and perhaps adjust the format a little. We'll just have to see.
At any rate, all the podcasts can now be viewed on youtube.
We were having problems because while Soundcloud is free at the start, at a certain number of minutes it isn't. We didn't foresee that and did not want to spend any money on it, so the problem became how to reformat the content and add an image. We haven't had the means to do it, though in the end it was fairly simple. I needed to be in a better financial situation first, which has happened. I'm still in a lot of trouble, but I have at least a little spendable income. For about five months, even with the donations from readers, I have had zero disposable income. Every dime I've received has gone into rent, utilities, the basest of foods or management of debt.
My daughter and I stopped recording podcasts because of Soundcloud's format. Having solved that problem, I expect we will be getting back to creating new content. It's just a matter of making time to do that. I think we'd do best to call it a second season and perhaps adjust the format a little. We'll just have to see.
At any rate, all the podcasts can now be viewed on youtube.
Tuesday, May 24, 2016
Tao & Tao's Daughter Podcast Episode 5
At last! A fifth podcast, one week and two days late. After all the struggles with formatting and editing and trying to process the file we made into something that could be visual and go on youtube, we had to pay Soundcloud six cruddy dollars a month to up our top limitation. Even at that, it will only be good for this podcast and two more - and then it will have to be $16 a month. As I am facing right now being out of my place come the end of this month or - if I survive into June - next month practically for sure, that really bites it.
But, here is the podcast:
Warning, some of this is pretty severe. There's no reason it shouldn't be. So long as it is interesting, I'm not the least bit sorry.
But, here is the podcast:
Warning, some of this is pretty severe. There's no reason it shouldn't be. So long as it is interesting, I'm not the least bit sorry.
Saturday, April 30, 2016
Expand, Keep it Free, Request
For those who may be considering pledging to my patreon, today is the last day if the reader wants to see any publisher maps or trade content before June 1st. As promised to those whom I've contacted, the main content on the prices table has been created: more or less, with a few exceptions of things that may occur to me in future, I've made a complete transfer from my old document regarding the material costs for things. In terms of the trade system, this means the price of the thing that something is made out of: not the price of a gold necklace, but the price of the gold used to make said necklace. This has taken me a couple of months.
Going forward, there is only left to calculate the prices of the goods themselves. Unfortunately, I have some 950 goods to add . . . but so it goes. I estimate that there are something like 2,000 calculations on the materials tab. It isn't that I like to go big with these things. I'm trying to account for every object that anyone could ever want to buy: not only the things I've invented but all the things that I imaginably might invent one day, most often on request from someone in my game. This is a monumental task, particularly when one considers that I'm not limited to real objects - there is room in the system to calculate everything imaginary, as well.
Yesterday I was told by Chris, a well-meaning fan that I should expand the wiki, keep it free and accessible to all and allow patrons to request content. Good advice. For those who might be wondering, I have no plans to make the wiki into a pay site. I think the greatest mistake that I see every artist around me making is the desire to turn everything into cash. I know that of late I've been pushing hard across the board - circumstances have been forcing my hand. However, I rush to point out that I haven't diminished any of the content that I have always supplied for free.
Admittedly, this blog has suffered from a number of time-oriented obstructions. I talk too much about money, I talk too much about the jumpstarter and patreon, when I do get around to writing about D&D it is all opinion and without rule systems . . . it isn't the bygone days when I was writing tons of opinion and proposing rule systems that sometimes made it onto the blog. When I compare to other blogs, however, which seem to be full of opinions and chatter about books written by other people, game cons and deconstructing endless disconnected info details because it is 'interesting' - but lacking in any gaming adaptations - I feel I'm not doing too bad. Yes, I know, it's another disappointment when Alexis bitches about his life and does not advance something really practical like eight posts on how to start a campaign or get characters all moving in the same direction, but please have faith: tomorrow, I may get my crap together and post some of that.
Straight up, there's nothing a blogger likes more than a reader (and patron!) requests content. Content is the hardest thing to come up with on a blog. I write a surprising number of posts based on someone poking me in the ribs: told to watch something on youtube, asked if I really mean Shakespeare, challenged on my wisdom, pushed into detailing something about a system I'm writing and so on. This blog is, for those who haven't caught on yet, wholly interactive. If I'm not writing enough about things the reader cares about, the reader has only his or herself to blame. Between the book and the pricing table, along with trying to make my way in the dumbfuck world, I'm pretty distracted here - requesting content is the very best way to get me on a page we can both consider.
I am going to keep thinking of things that people would think are worth paying for. I'm sure more than a few people wondered why I didn't announce upon losing my job that I was going to start charging for D&D games. Fact is, this would be a very bad time for that and it isn't something that should be rushed into. It's a big step and it requires consideration, planning and commitment, something I can't do as long as I'm invested in the Fifth Man (book I'm writing - have you heard?). I don't want to do anything half-baked, ever. I'll launch that and anything else I can think of when its ready - and in the meantime, I'll be thinking over services that are worth launching.
Rest assured, however, that none of those things are going to be services I'm providing for free - like the podcast or the wiki. If anything, when I have the time and the wherewithal, those are things I'm going to keep expanding, hopefully forever. I know I can get the hang of this podcast thing if I can just do it enough to get a proper feel for it. I'm not happy with any of the content so far: it seems scattered and too casual to me - yet I know instinctively that is part of its appeal. I don't know yet what a 'right' podcast will sound like . . . but I didnt' know what a right blogpost would sound like 8 years ago or what a right campaign session would sound like in 1980. We learn these things from experience.
Going forward, there is only left to calculate the prices of the goods themselves. Unfortunately, I have some 950 goods to add . . . but so it goes. I estimate that there are something like 2,000 calculations on the materials tab. It isn't that I like to go big with these things. I'm trying to account for every object that anyone could ever want to buy: not only the things I've invented but all the things that I imaginably might invent one day, most often on request from someone in my game. This is a monumental task, particularly when one considers that I'm not limited to real objects - there is room in the system to calculate everything imaginary, as well.
Yesterday I was told by Chris, a well-meaning fan that I should expand the wiki, keep it free and accessible to all and allow patrons to request content. Good advice. For those who might be wondering, I have no plans to make the wiki into a pay site. I think the greatest mistake that I see every artist around me making is the desire to turn everything into cash. I know that of late I've been pushing hard across the board - circumstances have been forcing my hand. However, I rush to point out that I haven't diminished any of the content that I have always supplied for free.
Admittedly, this blog has suffered from a number of time-oriented obstructions. I talk too much about money, I talk too much about the jumpstarter and patreon, when I do get around to writing about D&D it is all opinion and without rule systems . . . it isn't the bygone days when I was writing tons of opinion and proposing rule systems that sometimes made it onto the blog. When I compare to other blogs, however, which seem to be full of opinions and chatter about books written by other people, game cons and deconstructing endless disconnected info details because it is 'interesting' - but lacking in any gaming adaptations - I feel I'm not doing too bad. Yes, I know, it's another disappointment when Alexis bitches about his life and does not advance something really practical like eight posts on how to start a campaign or get characters all moving in the same direction, but please have faith: tomorrow, I may get my crap together and post some of that.
Straight up, there's nothing a blogger likes more than a reader (and patron!) requests content. Content is the hardest thing to come up with on a blog. I write a surprising number of posts based on someone poking me in the ribs: told to watch something on youtube, asked if I really mean Shakespeare, challenged on my wisdom, pushed into detailing something about a system I'm writing and so on. This blog is, for those who haven't caught on yet, wholly interactive. If I'm not writing enough about things the reader cares about, the reader has only his or herself to blame. Between the book and the pricing table, along with trying to make my way in the dumbfuck world, I'm pretty distracted here - requesting content is the very best way to get me on a page we can both consider.
I am going to keep thinking of things that people would think are worth paying for. I'm sure more than a few people wondered why I didn't announce upon losing my job that I was going to start charging for D&D games. Fact is, this would be a very bad time for that and it isn't something that should be rushed into. It's a big step and it requires consideration, planning and commitment, something I can't do as long as I'm invested in the Fifth Man (book I'm writing - have you heard?). I don't want to do anything half-baked, ever. I'll launch that and anything else I can think of when its ready - and in the meantime, I'll be thinking over services that are worth launching.
Rest assured, however, that none of those things are going to be services I'm providing for free - like the podcast or the wiki. If anything, when I have the time and the wherewithal, those are things I'm going to keep expanding, hopefully forever. I know I can get the hang of this podcast thing if I can just do it enough to get a proper feel for it. I'm not happy with any of the content so far: it seems scattered and too casual to me - yet I know instinctively that is part of its appeal. I don't know yet what a 'right' podcast will sound like . . . but I didnt' know what a right blogpost would sound like 8 years ago or what a right campaign session would sound like in 1980. We learn these things from experience.
Sunday, April 24, 2016
Tao & Tao's Daughter Podcast S01 E04
Here is our fourth podcast, recorded March 18 at the Indigo Bookstore in West Calgary. There are some issues. We edited fairly hard in order to keep the subject more or less on track, there is plenty of ambient noise (audio improves after fifteen minutes for some reason), there are seven people talking and for some reason, at the 27:30 mark the audio repeats itself for about two minutes. Oh well, we're learning. It fits that we talk about getting past making mistakes in the first five minutes because this applies to podcasts also.
Please enjoy:
Please enjoy:
Saturday, April 23, 2016
Podcast Tomorrow; Preview on Tuesday
Three days to the book preview. I've completed my end of the language editing at last - it is in the hands of my editor who, unfortunately, has been given less time than she really needs to look it over properly. That is all my fault; I've been struggling for the energy to do a good job since the kitchen work started and I've dragged it out a little long. There will be a preview sent out on the 26th, however, and it will be as long and as rich as I promised. If an odd word is left out in the last four chapters, if there is a small technical error, it will be because the editor just didn't get to the end of the work I've given her. Those issues will be fixed when the book is published.
I figure I have one more day of work on it - making the corrections the editor gives back and doing a last search through my document notes (which I write on the document in the form of text balloons through microsoft words) for continuity. The plot is complex, there are many details in the book and continuity has been a bitch throughout - it is always hard to keep an entire novel and all the intricate details of that novel in one's head at the same time . . . this is even more difficult with a mystery- thriller, such as I am writing, as the devil is in the details. I've never written a tale like this with this much depth - but I am extremely pleased with it and I think that when every last clue is fixed and herring caught, the book is going to be well worth reading more than once (just so the reader can enjoy all the subtle hints once they know where the story goes).
In other news, I have a podcast that I will be putting up tomorrow - the fourth in a series. This one was recorded among my players at the Indigo Bookstore, on March 18. Unfortunately, the sound quality in the first third is less than ideal. It was something of a free-for-all among seven people and so it won't be like the first three I've put up. We recorded it on a phone like a microphone, using a selfie-stick; in parts it works very well; in others, where the ambient noise gets too high (my sound editor for this did her best to buffer it out) it is just annoying. I hope the gentle reader will forgive; like anyone doing their first, early podcasts, it is a learning curve. We all feel the content is worth the listen, even if it takes a patient listener.
I wish I could put up something else other than details about my life. I have done zero work on actual D&D since a week ago yesterday; which seems like an age and a half to me. My blog posts make this evident, as I'm not talking about D&D. This is what happens when we chase deadlines; my May and June - for now I realize there's no way I can have the book completely finished before the end of June - will be much like my present. I am sad about that. But the book is worth the effort and that's why I do it.
I figure I have one more day of work on it - making the corrections the editor gives back and doing a last search through my document notes (which I write on the document in the form of text balloons through microsoft words) for continuity. The plot is complex, there are many details in the book and continuity has been a bitch throughout - it is always hard to keep an entire novel and all the intricate details of that novel in one's head at the same time . . . this is even more difficult with a mystery- thriller, such as I am writing, as the devil is in the details. I've never written a tale like this with this much depth - but I am extremely pleased with it and I think that when every last clue is fixed and herring caught, the book is going to be well worth reading more than once (just so the reader can enjoy all the subtle hints once they know where the story goes).
In other news, I have a podcast that I will be putting up tomorrow - the fourth in a series. This one was recorded among my players at the Indigo Bookstore, on March 18. Unfortunately, the sound quality in the first third is less than ideal. It was something of a free-for-all among seven people and so it won't be like the first three I've put up. We recorded it on a phone like a microphone, using a selfie-stick; in parts it works very well; in others, where the ambient noise gets too high (my sound editor for this did her best to buffer it out) it is just annoying. I hope the gentle reader will forgive; like anyone doing their first, early podcasts, it is a learning curve. We all feel the content is worth the listen, even if it takes a patient listener.
I wish I could put up something else other than details about my life. I have done zero work on actual D&D since a week ago yesterday; which seems like an age and a half to me. My blog posts make this evident, as I'm not talking about D&D. This is what happens when we chase deadlines; my May and June - for now I realize there's no way I can have the book completely finished before the end of June - will be much like my present. I am sad about that. But the book is worth the effort and that's why I do it.
Sunday, April 3, 2016
3rd Podcast
The 3rd Podcast from my daughter and me is posted on Soundcloud:
It's a little silly at the beginning, I think; my daughter and I cut up a little and chortle at each other's words. There's a lot of hand gestures going on that the mic doesn't catch and obviously we have known each other a really long time. But I think it is terrifically sincere, so if you're tired of people trying to read content and interview like professional journalists and news journalists, this will be refreshing. Have a listen when you can and then have a look at the other two posts I put up today.
I will be posting another podcast no later than April 24; I am thinking of trying my hand at this without my daughter (who is a busy youngster) so that it isn't quite so long a wait between podcast content.
It's a little silly at the beginning, I think; my daughter and I cut up a little and chortle at each other's words. There's a lot of hand gestures going on that the mic doesn't catch and obviously we have known each other a really long time. But I think it is terrifically sincere, so if you're tired of people trying to read content and interview like professional journalists and news journalists, this will be refreshing. Have a listen when you can and then have a look at the other two posts I put up today.
I will be posting another podcast no later than April 24; I am thinking of trying my hand at this without my daughter (who is a busy youngster) so that it isn't quite so long a wait between podcast content.
Sunday, March 13, 2016
The 2nd Podcast Episode
Introducing the second podcast from myself and my daughter:
We recorded this about two weeks ago, along with the 3rd episode that will be posted April 3rd. We're planning on doing twelve episodes altogether, releasing one every three weeks - here's hoping that we'll build up a good strong audience!
We recorded this about two weeks ago, along with the 3rd episode that will be posted April 3rd. We're planning on doing twelve episodes altogether, releasing one every three weeks - here's hoping that we'll build up a good strong audience!
Sunday, February 21, 2016
Tao & Tao's Daughter
In the interest of giving the blog reader a little more bang for the buck (and inspiration), my daughter and I discussed the possibility of creating a podcast. This we have now done - surprise!
First, I'd like to give my thanks to Cameron Cushing @Epicsphere for his help in editing and support in getting this project off the ground. Cameron is an old hand at podcasting and his advice was most valuable.
Readers should be able to tell that this is indeed my daughter; we are much alike. I know that concept will cause some to turn a deathly pale.
And so it begins. Of course it may all crash and burn, but it's best not to think of the future. Warning: some of this content is blue.
Come on and make a $25 donation; get a little swag and help make a difference.
First, I'd like to give my thanks to Cameron Cushing @Epicsphere for his help in editing and support in getting this project off the ground. Cameron is an old hand at podcasting and his advice was most valuable.
Readers should be able to tell that this is indeed my daughter; we are much alike. I know that concept will cause some to turn a deathly pale.
And so it begins. Of course it may all crash and burn, but it's best not to think of the future. Warning: some of this content is blue.
Come on and make a $25 donation; get a little swag and help make a difference.
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