Talking About Stuff, with Mike and Christiana

A Monument to Pro-Life: A statue of a nude Britney Spears giving birth

o_0

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Ooh, this is kind of neat! www.OneWord.com

You click "Go" and it gives you the word of the day and a form in which to write anything and everything you can think of about that word. You have sixty seconds, and then when the time's up, you enter in your name and click post. You can then read all the other entries.

I thought it was pretty fun, and maybe could be useful as a little daily writing exercise, like stretching before you work out.

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Remember that thing I said about work finally moving forward? Well, I head in there to, at long last, start testing and what should happen?

Mechanical failure.

Can't say more really, but man.

Ugh

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Okay, I've posted about Julian Beever before, but he has new ones now, and his stuff is freakin sweet!

Check out one of the best sidewalk-drawings you'll ever see...



He's got more at his website!

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I hope it's real, because I seriously need to catch up on some sleep.

Mike and I recorded a couple of podcasts-worth yesterday, and I'll try to get one of those up tonight, but I just couldn't stay up to do any more of it.

I've been more sleep-deprived than usual all week, but that's okay, because it's Friday, and I have good news to report on a couple of fronts.

1) Nina Kimberly the Merciless, my podcast audiobook is going very well. I'm loving it, and getting some great feedback on it, and it has a couple hundred listeners already! Plus, I've completed chapter 7 and it's now online! Thus meeting my 1 chapter a week target two weeks in a row. Go check it out! It's free to listen!

2) The Podcast Pickle party is tomorrow night! Have you ever thought to yourself, "Gosh, I'm a pretty big geek, but what could I do to become even geekier?" Answer: Attend a virtual party with a bunch of podcasters in a chatroom with a live audio feed. Hooray!

3) At the day job, I've finally gotten some signatures on a couple of documents that I've been waiting to get approved for months now! It's been really frustrating, but now that they are signed, I can actually move forward with my project! Huzzah!

4) I got to go to Kabuki, a neat Japanese restaurant for dinner on Wednesday. One of those places where you sit around the grill and the chef comes out and cooks your food in front of you with all sorts of fancy knife twirling and so on. Plus, yummy. ^_^

5) Umm... It's Friday.

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One of the things I've had on my mind recently is word-of-mouth marketing. More specifically, I've been trying to think of any and every way that I can spread the word about Nina Kimberly. I really think that the Internet is really starting to change the models of how things are advertised and marketed. All the networking and blogs and message boards and so on.

Anyway, many musicians have been putting free mp3's of their songs online for a long time now, simply as a way to get their music to as many different ears as possible, and often with the hope that the person will then order the whole album, or go to see them in concert or whatever. That's kind of what I'm doing with this podcast novel, of course, but that type of marketing is becoming a lot more common, and I think it's fantastic.

For example, Elizabeth Bear () is making the first chapter of her latest (upcoming) novel, Blood & Iron available online, with two additional chapters to come in April and May. Now she's an honest-to-goodness published novelist, and one whom I really enjoy. (Check out my review of her 1st published novel, Hammered.)

Now, this isn't just a plug for an author I like (though it is that, too), but I also just wanted to point it out as an example of a trend that I like in advertising/marketing. Namely, giving something, or a part of something, away for free in the hopes that it will attract an audience. Of course, coupons and such have been around for a long time, but seeing it apply to something like a novel is relatively new. Before, the most you might ever see is a brief excerpt in a magazine or something, which would limit you to people who are reading that magazine. Whereas by putting something online, theoretically you are only limited to people who use the Internet, which is a LOT of people. At which point, the only challenge becomes how to get the word out about your promotion! And a good way to do that, is to take part in social-networking-type things like live-journal. ;)

Sounds like a good idea to me.

Oh, and by the way, that first chapter of Blood and Iron is really good.

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Which Princess Bride Character are You?
this quiz was made by mysti

snagged from Ilona!

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Well, apparently, although Catholics are not supposed to eat meat on Fridays during Lent, Corned Beef on St. Patrick's Day is okay.

Most N.J. Catholics in the clear to eat corned beef on Friday

Mike McClutchy's religion says it's a sin to eat meat on St. Patrick's Day, and the 49-year-old state employee wasn't happy about it.

Then McClutchy found out in church that Newark Archbishop John Myers has granted a special dispensation to allow Catholics to eat meat on Friday, despite it being prohibited during Lent.

You know, I don't have anything against people who are Catholic, but some things about the Catholic faith have always seemed a bit strange to me. I mean, of course tradition and so on is important, as is wisdom passed down over hundreds of years, but some of what they call for just seems really strange to me. For example, the idea that, unless given special dispensation, eating meat on Friday is a mortal sin. In other words, just as serious as, say, murder.

Though I suppose all religions have their quirks that seem odd to people from the outside. I know there are questions that I would have a hard time answering about my own faith, and that ultimately, that's where faith really comes into it.

So, some Catholics have been given permission to have corned beef tomorrow. Though if you are Catholic, I would double-check with your own bishop, because it would sure suck to commit a mortal sin by accident because you didn't realize that you were out-of-bounds.

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Um, that's all.


UPDATE!

Gee, do you think it would help if I finally remembered to refill my thyroid medicine after missing three days worth?

Hey everybody!

Sorry for my utter slackerocity here on the blog recently, though actually it's mostly because I've been super-busy with other things.

Anyway, a couple of quick things.

1) I was too busy last night for Mike and I to record the Survivor podcast, though we will do it this weekend, possibly tonight, by Sunday at the latest. Sorry 'bout that, but...

2) I was getting the Sneak Preview of Chapter 1 of Nina Kimberly the Merciless all ready! If you're new or just haven't been paying attention, that's my new podcast audiobook. The first five chapters will be released officially on March 10th, but there's a couple of audio previews you can hear right now if you head over to www.ninakimberly.com. And if you sign up for the email list at that site, you can get access to the Subscriber's Only area of the site, where you can listen to or download the complete chapter 1!

3) I've decided to stop producing my Podcasternews.com shows. This is purely a problem of too many committments on my part and in no way reflects any problem with Podcasternews.com. I still think it's a great service, and I'm really happy about the recent sponsorship deals they've got. I just couldn't get the shows done on time, and so I chose to withdraw them for the network for that reason and no other.

4) But! Mike and I have started a new podcast, and this one is a bit high-concept: Hey, want to watch a movie? Basically, it is podcast movie commentaries. Sometimes the best way to spend an evening is to kick back with a few drinks and a few friends and just watch a movie and talk about it. Well, that's what this podcast is all about. It's designed to be listened to while watching the movie on your own TV. The first show is already up, in which Mike and I watch, and talk about, Disney's The Black Hole. Even though we've only got the one show up so far, the response has been really positive so far. Next episode, Top Gun, with the best Top Gun Drinking Game ever!

That is all... for now.

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