Month: February 2024

JOURNAL: February 11th, 2024

Journal

Yes, I know, it’s been a minute. Several. Welcome to the world of object permanence, where I forget it exists if it’s not right in front of my face. That said, let’s fill you in on where things are.

Over the past little while, I seem to have made a breakthrough when it comes to my life since 2020. Aside from the fact that 4 years is long enough to be anything, much less sad, I lit upon what I think is an inconvenient truth I had to face: There was a point where the writing was on the wall that I was going to be let go from my job, COVID or no COVID. There were yearly layoffs back then, and I had dodged two rounds. My job had been relegated to rewriting and voicing English versions of Japanese scripts with little to no variation between printer models. I was editing already-produced videos of illustrations with little to no variation either. I wasn’t creating anything new, I was reheating the leftovers. In a sense, I was set up to fail. Once I got to that realization, I realized that it didn’t give much of a base to qualify for a job in the field beyond that. So, if I wanted to do something creative with video, it’s up to me to do that on my own. TikTok is nice and all, and it’s quick and dirty, but I think I need to do something a little more substantial. Now, I’m no Casey Neistat. I’m just some guy with a camera that thought he was a multimedia guy until he realized he wasn’t. So maybe I should do something about that.

In other news, some progress updates:

The new Pungoverse season seems to be going a bit better, I’ve written two episodes so far. The premise is very simple. WYRD 101 has lost its broadcasting license due to a huge mistake. If you’ve been a fan of WYRD 101 over the years then this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Roley’s talent agent takes on the whole crew and suggests a pivot to all podcasting. This sets up a little bit of a satire of the current state of podcasting, and what I see as the homogenization of the industry. I also hope to revisit some long lost citizens of Pungo that I haven’t used in a long, long time.

The other project I’ve been working on is Tsunami. I’ve finished one chapter, and halfway through a second one. Tsunami is my attempt at a cyberpunk story, and I hope I can do the genre a little bit of justice since I’ve been a fan of it for so long. The main character is a Tracker of sorts, and falls into a little bit of a mystery involving augmented humans. It’s in the first person, and the main character is in the vein of the sarcastic type of detective I grew up being fascinated by, from Richard Diamond Private Detective, to Thomas Magnum.

Podcasting? Well, that’s what these two things are for. It’s possible I’ll serve something up soon, though I am not going to head back to the same old current events pod. It’s boring, and I really don’t want to think about the timeline we’re living in right now, or I’ll get nothing done.

I have two other ideas in the bucket at the moment, but they’re not fully formed thoughts yet. In other words, just like any other random thought in my head at any given moment. Update next time on that, hopefully.

See ya next time.

LINK: The Final Days of Coyote vs. ACME →

Blog

In a truly inglorious end, a source close to the movie doesn’t believe Warner Bros. would even announce that they hadn’t found a home for the movie. They would unceremoniously delete it. Never to be seen again.

I can almost guarantee that there’s at least one generation of folks who would have loved to see this as a payoff for watching Wile E. Coyote plaster himself all over the desert floor over and over for years. I certainly would.

I hope someone reconsiders this someday.

Cleaning the Social Media Gutter

Blog

I’m noticing that quite a few people that view my stories on Instagram are people that I don’t know, and want nothing to do with. I started to go through my list of followers, and I quickly realized that leaving my account inactive for a long period of time might have been a mistake. A quick note about weeding the garden: Instagram doesn’t really make it easy, especially on the desktop version. It’s just a small scroll box in the center of the page. I really would like a way to bulk remove/block people. That should be a no-brainer.

Yes, I realize there are 3rd party solutions that may allow you to do this, the point is that IG should allow you to do this. I’m going to look for those solutions so that I don’t have to waste more time in the weeds than necessary.

ARTICLE: More Unsolicited Olympic Opinions

Articles

With the possible exception of the Salt Lake City Olympics, most Games lose money. Most cities that agree to host the Games lose money. After the Olympics leave a city, in some cases those venues fall into disrepair (See: Rio). Finally, depending on the location or other circumstances, some countries boycott the Games like Moscow 1980 and LA 1984. I’ve always felt there’s a viable solution to this, and for that we look to a little cartoon from 1980.

Animalympics was an absolute sendup of the Olympics, voiced in part by Harry Shearer, Billy Crystal, and Gilda Radner. That alone should get you to watch this movie. Back in the day, you could count on HBO or Cinemax to have it in rotation during the Games. I’m not sure if it enjoys the same attention today, but that’s beside the point. The point is that all the games took place on Animalympic Island. One location made for the Games. Now, it’s not realistic for anyone other than Dubai to whip up an island out of thin air, but that’s not where you’d want to have Summer Games in any event. What would be more realistic would be for the IOC to pick one place where the Summer Games have been played, and one place where the Winter Games have been played. Bonus points if one location could do both, and the event venues are still in good condition or could be repaired for a reasonable amount. It’s got to cost less money than selecting a new place that’s never had the Games before, and possibly even less than a place like LA, who has hosted the Games twice before and about to have it a third time.

It’s time to give some consideration to making a permanent venue for the Olympic Games, so that we can remove the politics, territorial disputes, and the river of red ink that has followed it for decades.

LINK: Paris Olympic Medals Come With A Prize Inside →

Blog

I *love* the Summer Olympics. I’m a freak of nature that watches as much of them as I can. That said, here’s an uncomfortable truth about medals: some of them have been downright ugly. These are not.

The center of these medals are pieces of iron recovered from the Eiffel Tower during a past renovation, and the medals themselves look almost designed to catch sunlight. Might be hell for cameras, but they’re just beautiful.

LA 2028 should be paying attention. I will be, hopefully from the stands.