Man, you really gotta keep up on that spam filter. The craziest stuff can get caught in there.
You really need to click on it to get the full effect.
God, your so stupid. like get a life. i bet your ugly, you fucking lowllife — Mclovin’
That is an honest-to-Maude submission to the fauxspring. I didn’t edit it, I didn’t fiddle with it in anyway. I didn’t even add that little apostrophe to “Mclovin”, because I’ve actually seen the movie from whence the reference comes. Pure internet, right there.
You know what’s more important, though? I hate Marko Kloos with every fiber of my being. He’s a way better writer than me, he’s got more tech toys than I’ll ever have, he can afford better fountain pens, he’s probably smarter than I am (but the fact that he has two little children and I don’t probably makes this a wash at the end of the day), and he keeps saying the exactly right thing about three days before I need it: I’ll just let it sit there in all its glory, and let you watch the thick, viscous irony dripping off it all morning.
———————-
If you want to subject yourself to the Wheel of Destiny, head over to my fauxspring and stick words in the box.
this is genus — from “hi”
What can I say? The fauxspring is an amazing step forward in taxonomic innovation.
You know what’s great about the internet? It’s absolutely saturated with the DIY ethic. Sure, DIY takes work, but it’s fun to be a maker. It’s an amazing experience to create something out of nothing, and anyone can do it. DIY is the foundation behind the business Dani and I have built. You can do anything with DIY.
No, I really mean anything. I don’t know if this is the “real way” DIY is supposed to work (it’s a punk thing, so there are no rules but many manifestos), but if you pick a goal, you can apply DIY principals to it until you’ve worked out the process you need to work at to bring your goal into being. All you have to do is aim at your target and try to work backwards to figure out what steps need to be taken to make it happen, and you keep breaking those steps down until they’re in chunks that you can accomplish, and then you do them (which is the hard part, as usual).
If you think like this long enough, you suddenly realize that the entire world is there for you to take apart and and put back together into whatever the hell you want it to be. You’re not the master of your own destiny, you’re the creator of your immediate experience. It’s empowering and it’s fun, because all of a sudden you start DIYing things you would have never considered doing before.
For instance, in my house, we’ve got DIY Celebrities. It’s true, you can create your own personal celebrities. Regular celebrities like Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie or Elton John are great celebrities, but why not pick your own? DIY celebrities can be selected for talents or careers or looks or whatever it is you’re interested in AND they’ll still talk to you on Twitter. Dani’s chosen celebrity is the rising-star “genre” author Seanan McGuier. My chosen celebrity is Minnesota Public Radio/NPR producer Sanden Totten.
Who is Sanden Totten? As far as I can tell, he’s a young rising star in NPR circles. His first “big break” was working as a producer on the MPR podcast In The Loop, which recently ended it’s run. He’s certainly not a major celebrity (yet). He’s just a guy on the radio who managed to put together the career I dreamed about having in college who’s active on social media and has fluffy rockstar hair. I harass him on twitter now and then, and when he responds, I squee a little. Is it logical? Of course not, but it’s fun. It’s just an extension of my personal philosophy of “be delighted easily”. I’ve decided that Sanden Totten is delightful*.
I’m not the only one who does this, either. I’ve observed several people who’ve taken similar approach to other non-celebrity podcasters, Steve Eley (founder of the wildly successful Escape Pod family of shows**) and Dan Sawyer (podcast audiobook writer/producer extraordinaire) in particular, but there are definitely others. It’s common with local rock bands (if you’re into local live music, who hasn’t just decided to go all fangirl on a local favorite? It’s a kick!), and my novelist buddy Katrina Stonoff gets it from both ends, being both a celebrity to some and a fangirl to Keri Noble long before Keri became a genuine big deal.
It’s silly. It’s fun. Why the heck not? It’s way more fun to be a fan of someone who’ll return your emails. Who have you declared your personal celebrity?
___
* and Sanden may have decided that I’m officially a creepy stalker lady. I accept that.
** In one reported case, Steve is also the official boogieman for one family, used to cheerfully threaten little girls who won’t go to bed. I’m enormously jealous of Steve for this.
In 2 weeks, I finally give up my day job and become a fulltime internet geek. I’ve handed in my letter of resignation to my boss, I’ve got piles of techdoc left to write for my replacement, and I’m utterly terrified.
Actually, that’s not true. I’m not utterly terrified, I’m completely exhausted. When Dani took the plunge and dropped her day job, she’s been working like a fiend and the business has grown like wildfire. Since January, I’ve essentially been working 2 fulltime jobs and been trying to keep up with the artsy stuff I like to do on the side. I AM FAIL. I’m tired. I’m done. Dani’s made such amazing strides already I only need to contribute a very small quantity of money to the household budget to get the bills paid. It’s time to give up, go home, and get the fuck to work.
Does that mean anything to you folks? In theory, I’ll have more time to blog, so I can tell you all about the wacky adventures of the newly birthed professional freelancer (yeah, right). The business schedule is about to loosen up considerably, and with more working hours a week available to us, we should be able to take on more projects and get them out more quickly*. My skills will be filling out our professional offerings in new and fantastic ways, so expect lots of new cheap audio production and even more cheap php development.
It’s exciting. I can’t wait.
*: this statement hasn’t been reviewed, considered or confirmed by anybody, anywhere.
Holy monkey cannons, it’s been busy here around the Behind The Curve Homestead. If I was a better blogger, I’d have kept up with this stuff and there’d be no need for these crazy-huge updates, but I’m not. I’ve been busy. Let’s begin.
One
How about we start out with a nice dirty story? If you head over to Nobilis Erotica, you can hear Dani reading werewolf anthropological erotica, and no, I’m not kidding. (Foundling, Nobilis Erotica. Adults Only. NSFW. Etc.)
Two
Once you’re done listening to that, if you want to hear my melodious voice, Nobilis wrote a dirty story that’s currently playing on the Metamor City Podcast called Dreams of Change. The first part is here, and if you listen carefully to part 2, you’ll hear my melodious voice playing Jane Randall in a very short walk-on part right smack in the middle of the story. What, you don’t hear me talking? Listen again — I did this part as a last-minute favor for Chris Lester, and I’m guessing he didn’t realize I wasn’t quite properly voiced for a super-feminine role. I play the female half of a magical creature that flips at will between being a boy and a girl, and quite by accident I ended up with a lower voice than my male counterpart. So, for the sake of speed, they chipmunked me up a little bit. It’s a good story, though, if a little gratuitously dirty.
Three
Last podcast item: there have been a couple of Braindouche! updates since we last talked, the most recent having dropped tonight. And it also involved Nobilis, who is now officially my new online girlfriend. You see, I’m the idiot that offered to do all the production for his next podcast novel, Scouts Remastered, and, well…
So, I’m editing voice tracks the other day, and one comes through completely mangled. All noise. I don’t know what happened, and neither does the guy who recorded it, but once that was resolved, I listened to the ruined track again. It was interesting noise, if you can believe that. (If you listen to this podcast, you’ll probably believe anything.) So I says to the guy, I’m keeping this track for Braindouche!, it’s interesting noise and I’ll make something out of it.
So the most recent track is a piece of music called Surely. Go listen to it.
Four
In Nobilis-free news, Sweet Tarragon has a new shop yay! Sweet Tarragon has pretty much stopped selling on Etsy, yay! And the look is all redesigned for the new branding, yay! Go buy some stuff. The amazing part about the new Sweet Tarragon online shop is that we built the whole dang thing ourselves. Which leads me to…
Five
Our newest secret project has finally come fully to the internet, Wicked Plum Shops! The same technology that runs Sweet Tarragon can be purchased for a reasonable fee for anyone who wants their own simple, attractive ecommerce solution. The link is in the sidebar, so it must be official. Go check out Wicked Plum Shops, and say hi to our own personal wicked plum mascot, Bob. The whole thing is in limited beta, so while you’ll enjoy a fabulous discount on the service, you’ll need to sign up to get in line first. It’s still a baby, so we start nice and gentle.
Six
Jesus christ that was a lot of snow, and there’s more on the way.
Seven
I… can’t remember anymore. I know I’m forgetting things, but that’s enough for now. Click links, spend money, keep me out of bankruptcy, sleep well.
This might be one of the greatest internet kitten videos ever.
1. Sequoia has obvious, uniqure personality.
2. Sequoia’s handler/cameraman is obviously deeply in love.
3. Grarr bite bite bite!
4. Calico. Love the calicos.
5. OMG LITTLE PINK TOES!
Boosting The Signal: “Paypal is the worst company in the world”
I have had similarly terrible experiences with paypal’s “customer” “service”, and also invite them to bite me. Hopefully this guy can get a proper reaction out of someone.
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2010/08/30/paypal-is-the-worst-company-in-the-world/