ROLEY

  • Journal, April 23rd, 2024

    • Today was the second day of testimony in the Trump ‘Hush Money’ case, and I a now certain of three things:
      • David Pecker was called up first for a reason, and that reason is to back up what Cohen says in his testimony. It’s a ‘pre-buttal’, if you like. Cohen’s credibility will certainly be questioned, and this is meant to corroborate his testimony. Of course, IANAL and all that.
      • I will be snickering to myself every time I hear ‘Pecker’ because I am 14 years old.
      • I cannot help but hear Idris Elba as Stringer Bell in The Wire. “Is you taking notes on a criminal conspiracy?” Go look it up on YT if you want the explicit version.
    • I’m a little hazy on which groups of people it’s ok to slaughter.
    • Elvis, Weed, Heavy Metal, Explicit Lyrics, Hip Hop, Video Games, and TikTok. What a nice little herd of scapegoats. There might be one difference with that last one: they might be scared of TikTok. Not because of China, that’s bullshit. Many TikTok creators actively took on the misinformation and disinformation about COVID during the lockdown. Some creators were able to get some of those people thrown off the platform and shunned in society, and some were even arrested. I remember one person who was able to get their hands on blank immunization cards and for a fee, would sign off on an immunization that was never given. The TikTok ban is about one thing, and that’s payback. When they realized they didn’t have the votes to pass it as a standalone bill, they tucked it into a so-called ‘must pass’ bill. So, we’ll see. I’m watching the Senate debate of this bill on C-Span, and there are some No votes after all. This will be interesting.
    • Looks like we might be getting new iPad/iPad Pros next month, Apple’s announced an event on 5/7. I’ve had an 11 inch iPad Pro since 2018, and it’s been a really great thing to take with me to work on writing on the go. That said, I think it’s time to accept that what I really want is a MacBook Pro. I bought the wife a 13 inch MBP in 2021, and I think it would be nice to be able to edit audio and video on the go. I’ve given up hope that Adobe will make a version of Audition or Premiere Pro for the iPad Pro, and I the iPad version of Final Cut Pro is not compatible with my machine. I think what I need is a MBP and an external hard drive to work from, so I can also edit from the iMac.

    That’s all for now. Herself would like me to take a break and pay her some attention. You now how it is.

  • Journal, April 22nd 2024

    • Did you happen to see DJT’s rant today? Unbelievable. I want you to keep in mind that this is only Day 1 of the trial. This is going to get so much more unhinged you won’t believe it, but it’s perfectly understandable once you accept the fact that the man has NPD combined with a clear mental decline. For the first time he finds himself not in control, and the lashing out is his attempt to compensate. However, he’s got no self-control, which is why he vomited his ever increasing list of grievances. Of course, he’s innocent. Everyone else is to blame.
    • Share this with your older family members or the technically challenged: Not all search results are equal, and some are downright nefarious. I was reminded of this yesterday when I read about a man who was trying to fix his printer, so he searched for [Printer] Tech Support. The top of the page were sponsored ads. He called one that tried to have him run something in the Command Prompt for Windows, and tried to charge him 750 dollars to fix everything. Of course these are scammers. Please share this.
    • Started watching Manhunt on Apple TV. If you like historical fiction, this is pretty good. Patton Oswalt is a pleasant surprise, and in Episode 3 you may find Confederacy Karen. Worth the watch.

  • Journal, April 21st, 2024

    • I’ve completed 9 episodes of The Pungoverse, which will complete what am envision will be a first season. I’ve decided that these will be vertical videos, which will require me to create visual reps of the Pungonians. I don’t think I’ll be using filters for the most part, with the exception of one character. I’m looking to start filming next weekend. I don’t have an ETA to release, but I’ve shed the guilt of having to do things on any kind of timeline. These will happen when they happen.
    • No one fucking warned me about X-Men ‘97. I love it, but you ripped my damn heart out.
    • The cyberpunk story is about two episodes in. I have no idea where it’s going. I can tell you it’s called TSUNAMI, and it’s based off an idea I had around 1999. Some elements of this story have been transferred from another story I wrote in 1988, specifically the main character’s assistant. The story is in the first person, and I hope to produce this with music and sound effects, rather than an audio book narration. It’s been a tough slog because while the basic idea has been in my head, the direction isn’t something I’ve given thought to until I started writing. I was splitting time between this and the Pungoverse until I realized that I couldn’t switch tasks like that. Now that Pungoverse is written, I will resume this after I complete and schedule the releases.
    • I’ve listened to The Tortured Poets Department three times now. I’m not a diehard Taylor fan, but I do like her later pop synth stuff. Here’s my take on the album: She has said that this is a dark chapter in her life that she’s closed with this album, so I don’t think it’s out of bounds to call this a concept album. It’s The Wall (Taylor’s Version), and of course I’m going to listen to something like that. If you’re looking for banger after banger, this isn’t it. This is a songwriter telling you her story the same way Billy Joel, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon told you about their lives. It’s a good album.
    • After the week that was, I feel like this would be an excellent time to repeat that if you’re forming your opinions from second hand information, you may be getting the wrong info. Never trust hearsay, sources that have a clear bias, or anything online that doesn’t have attribution that you can verify. That’s going to be very important for the remainder of this year.

    I’m going to try and get back to daily posts. No promises. And of course, here be the supermodel

  • JOURNAL: February 11th, 2024

    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.

  • PHOTOS: Atlantic Ave At 31st Street

    Saturday afternoon, filling time while waiting to pick up the daughter, thought I’d play with the camera a little. Some selections for your general derision. Enjoy

  • LINK: The Final Days of Coyote vs. ACME →

    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.

  • My Unvarnished Opinion of the Apple Vision Pro

    It makes Google Glass — and Glassholes — look reasonable by comparison.

    We’re doomed.

  • Cleaning the Social Media Gutter

    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

    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 →

    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.