August 1st Update on the Status of Arkle Studios

Hey loyal listeners (the few I have left). So, yeah, this has been taking a lot longer than planned. The move got delayed due first to the timing of my unemployment hearing. How did that go? Sadly, the court sided against me even after my Taco Bell managers admitted under oath that they didn't know if I knew the policy I got fired for existed, which I didn't because it was brand new and I had not been briefed on it. Seriously, they put down as the reason I was denied my UE benefits that I knowingly violated the policy. I still have the packet they sent me for my appeal, and an audio recording of the hearing exists. Robin and Teresa admit; 1: That normally they inform employees about new policies and have them sing something but "did not do so" for the new social media one. and 2: that they posted it somewhere in the office and just assumed that I had read it. They say this even though when Robin fired me, she asked me if I knew about it, and I said "No," which was true, and which she didn't deny at the hearing. So yeah, Taco Bell is evil. Don't eat there. Ever. Let them try to sue me for defamation, like I said, I have a paper trail that can back me up. This social media policy they have now has chilling First Amendment implications. If an employee there, people who bust their humps for less than a living wage, can lose their job for the mere act of venting after a rough day... Anyway, so, much as I was hoping I could be recording by now, I had to vacate my apartment a bit earlier than planned. My landlord (also named Robin, coincidentally) was aware of my situation, and apparently had wanted me out sooner than I left. My now former roommate Bryan was surprisingly generous, letting me stay all of June and half of July while I was getting no Unemployment, and no job interviews during most of that time Yeah, I stopped getting interviews before the end of May, the month I was actually fired in. Employers aren't even bothering to let me know they "Went with someone else" anymore, I'm just being ignored. Joy. Oh, right California. I forgot to mention that here. yeah, I have to go live with my grandmother in Rialto, the city I grew up in originally before moving to Colorado in '91. It's that or homelessness since, thanks in large part to my now having been fired twice in two years (the first time actually being my own fault, which is why I don't complain about it the way I do with Taco Hell). Shipping my belongings has been difficult, given the lack of income. Even selling much of the things I own that people will actually buy (sadly not much as not even my portable iPod speakers were accepted by my local pawn shops) has not given me enough to send everything. Luckily, even though my ass had to be tossed on the 18th of last month, my Aunt Wendy was kind enough to let me store what I hadn't shipped yet in her garage while I stayed at my Dad's place, where I had very little space and no real privacy to speak of. And currently I'm house sitting for Wendy while she and her husband are on vacation. That's where I'm writing this from. I'll be here until the 10th, then back at my Dad's until the 15th, when my Mom and Step-Dad will be paying for my train ticket into exile. I know that sounds insulting, but I've talked this out with them, and they're sympathetic. They live in California themselves, across the street from my grandma's to be exact, but they want to be there. They get that Colorado has been my home for 21 years; except for a few conventions, all my happiest memories are here in the Centennial state. They aren't offended by this sense of dread I feel having to go back to an area that has one of the worst public transportation systems in the country (remember Who Framed Roger Rabbit? I wish I lived in that alternate-reality SoCal. Not because of the cartoon but because in that movie, public transportation won), which sucks for a PT reliant person such as myself. The only real bright spot in all this is that my grandmother will be letting me use her computer. And that, once I'm settled in anyway, is when I can start podcasting again. Because dammit, I miss this gig. I'd be doing it these next few weeks from Wendy's place if not for the fact that having only a Guest profile on her computer means I can't download the necessary software. So that's where things are at. Thanks for sticking things out with me, the 3 fans I'm sure I have left after this latest, and by far longest unplanned hiatus I've had since I started podcasting in 2008 Hopefully I can double that number for 2013. ;) P.S. Oh, and thanks to everyone whop checked up on me when news of the theater shooting in Aurora broke. Aurora is a suburb of Denver, so some early news reports said it was Denver proper where the shooting happened, and my fans and friends know I live in Denver, but not necessarily where, and The Dark Knight Rises is the kind of movie I would go to a midnight screening of if I had the money (fact: last midnight screening I saw? Terminator Salvation). I was actually more than an hour bus ride away, and asleep when it happened, but you guys had no way of knowing that at the time. So again, thanks for the concern.

And so it has come to this...

There should be no shame in asking for help. That doesn't make it any easier to do so though.

Goodbye Steve Jobs

Much as I mock Apple and Mac products on my various podcasts, I do have two iPods, and I'm glad to have them. The iPod has, albeit in an indirect way, had a major impact on my life. I'm not a better person today than I was before the iPod came into my life because of the iPod itself, but having been given my Dad's hand-me-down iPod shuffle in 2004 led me to podcasts, which led me to the podcasting community, which led to new friends and new inspirations. I finished my first novel, I stopped being so self-conscious about my voice. I became less shy at sci-fi conventions. And I even got better at controlling my temper. These things might well have happened without the iPod. I listen to Podcasts at home as well, streaming from the website as opposed to through ear buds. But that's hypothetical. What is real is where I am today, and it was because of a little device made by the company Steve Jobs, who died today of the same type of cancer that killed Patrick Swayze, created was the doorway into the community that helped make it possible for me to be the person that roughly 2,000 of you a month know and love.

So thanks Steve. Your work will live on.

And Here's To You: Almost 3 years later

This Halloween will mark the 3rd anniversary of the release of my first completed novel, And Here's To You (which just recently became available at the iTunes Book store, hence it being on the mind. http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/isbn9781257516582).

Since then, I have finished two more fiction projects the same way I finished AHTY; National novel Writing Month, a.k.a. NaNoWriMo. If you don't know what NaNoWriMo is, to quote Nash, "What in the whole of fuck is wrong with you?" ;-) Seriously though, http://nanowrimo.org It's fun.

Anyway, one of those, KPKY is languishing in editing hell right now, while the other, Night of the Living Impaired sadly had to be trunked due to, well, the fact that "formaldehyde doesn't work that way," which was something of a storybreaker. Me losing all but 3 chapters due to a simultaneous loss of a thumb drive and my best friend's copy being corrupted and unreadable/uneditable certainly didn't help. While KPKY still has hope, NOTLI is dead (no pun intended), but regardless that means that even if I go the POD route again, it could be as much as a year before anyone sees a new completed project from me; a whole Presidential term.

This is not to say I've given up pursuing writing; I am full of ideas, and I am looking forward to this year's NaNo, as well as a little vanity project I'm starting prepping for; a little something that really only fans of my fiction and my podcasts would enjoy. The literary equivalent to Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back if you will. ;-) It's a non-fiction/comedy book I currently have titled "No Meat, No God, No Ke$ha" though that is subject to change.

But it is sad to think of how little of it I've actually gotten done in the past 3 years. There was this Star Trek fanfic project I was doing, mainly so as to get a failed RPG campaign out of my head because it was taking up space, but a combination of computer failure and personal failure (relating to college) killed that one in the crib. Most of it is my fault; for starters I let ONE reader of AHTY get to me, which nearly drove me to do the whole thing over again just because she and only she wanted it to be much longer, with more sex scenes. Agreeing to that was not just a mistake because she was the only one asking for it, but it was a mistake because it made me break one of the cardinal rules of writing; one that George Lucas needs to be reminded of. At a certain point, you have to let your project go. The baby bird you got carpal tunnel syndrome from working on can't stay in the nest forever. I spent months planning the revised, new and improved, 2.0 version of And Here's To You before writer Mur Lafferty and Matt Wallace helpfully pimp-slapped that notion out of my head on the Good Cop, Bad Cop segment of Mur's I Should Be Writing podcast (in this episode to be specific; http://isbw.murlafferty.com/2010/10/isbw-160-feedback/).

There is one thing I'd like to do over for AHTY, and this place is as good as any to bring it up since it is the anniversary (next month) and all. In one chapter (shame I don't have a copy on me where I can just look this up, confound it all) I put in a scene mocking the Hollywood romantic story cliche of the misunderstanding that leads to an unjustified charge on infidelity. The punchline of the sequence is Richard, the main male protagonist, having a *facepalm* moment before the bad stuff can happen and he basically chides himself for thinking it and he wonders where the thought even came from. And it never comes up again, and Richard continues on being his rational logical self.

Say it with me folks...

Not only that, but in retrospect (and a teensy portion of the blame lies with my editor for not asking more questions about this scene, whilst the flashback in the "November" chapter went through more re-writes than the NBC Wonder Woman pilot, and I'm still not 100% thrilled with it as flashbacks seems to be my Achilles' heel as a writer), it makes Richard look like a possessive jealous asshole.

Um, all that said, please go buy it. :-D It's a good read, that one-page long (possibly even shorter IIRC) scene aside. The PDF version is only $1.99.

So yeah, AHTY, 3 years later. Still mostly proud of it, and the recent addition of it to the iStore opens up a potential new audience to the book, which I don't think will be too dated (though it can probably be easily pegged as taking place in the early 2000s) for any of you fine folks.

And here's to more writing I can be proud of in the future. Good night, and good luck.

Premature Procrastination: The Future of Arkle Studios

This has been cross-posted to all Arkle Studios feeds.

One thing I failed to address though is that the current logo will be coming down. No new one has been designed to replace it yet, but I'm working on it.

*UPDATED* What I Have Read in 2009 w/ 1 sentence comments

Very funny; captures the spirit of the show.

Quite different from any adaptations, but still has a compelling story.

Damn you Peter David you cliffhangering bastard! ;-)

Ah, now some of the references in the Treason make sense.

I'm not big into supernatural thrillers, but I really liked the characters in this book.

In some respects, this sequel is better than the original, and it certainly sets us up for something big in future titles.

A nicely told story, that has sadly been (apparently anyway) retconned away by Season 4. :-(

Good DS9 story, but sadly the Jem'Heddar/Hirogen fight was anti-climactic.

Damn funny; this book kept me sane during my six day stint as a graveyard shift employee.


I can't believe I forgot to include this one on the list seeing as it's one of the most important books I've ever read.

Good book, but I had this sneaking suspicion throughout I'd heard this story before. ;-)

Not for the weak of stomach, plus if you've read The Rookie before this one, the ending loses some of it's impact.

I like how Anthony doesn't try to sugarcoat anything about his life, even the stuff that without context would make him look bad.

As a collection of short stories and essays, one sentence may not cut it, except to see it's a shame she only finished one full novel before her suicide.

If you want to know exactly why I never want to work in television, the fear that people like the main character of this book, a woman that TVtropes.org would call a Karma Houdini, is based (even if it's only loosely based) on someone real is why.

Read for completeness sake because of the Gateways crossover event, but I do admit the characters were better written in the book than they were on the actual show it's based on.

Aw, this collection of well (over) thought essays makes me want to rewatch the show again, as if I have time (unless I make a Gilmore Girls rewatch into a segment on my podcast maybe).

In my opinion, Peter David's run on The Incredible Hulk were the only issues of that title worth reading, though while fun the 3rd volume of the collection of his Hulks isn't quite as good as the first two, but I know for a fact it gets better after this so that' OK.

And that's my reading for 2009. Here's to hoping the 2010 list is a bit longer.

A fun little game for non-beleivers this Holiday season

Click to enlarge to full size, and let me know how it goes at my e-mail address, arkle AT comcast DOT net.

Regarding November

OK, so with NaNoWriMo coming up I'm going to be diverting a lot of the attention I normally give to the podcast to my writing. But I don't want to leave my fans (all 6 of them) in the lurch. So for the month of November I am going to >>> [ WARNING ::: DATABASE ERROR ::: CONTENT OVERRIDE ::: SOURCE: EXTERNAL ] <<< > source terminal location: UNKNOWN
> source terminal identity: UNAVAILABLE
> source login information: ENCRYPTED
> message begins

the post you are now reading is designed to dull your senses to THE TRUTH. do not live the life of the worker bee, the cog, the well-oiled piston in the MACHINE OF DECEIT!

there is a grand CONSPIRACY afoot. you have been taught to believe that you are UNIQUE, one of a kind. THIS IS NOT TRUE. long ago, a cabal of scientists created technologies to ensure that ANYONE'S MIND AND BODY can be duplicated.

human cloning isn't NEAR. it's already HERE. discover the truth at http://JCHutchins.net

you are being DECEIVED. break free from the cogs, flee the hive, become A PROPHET OF THE TRUTH!

kilroy2. was here ... kilroy2.0 is everywhere

>>> [ CONTENT OVERRIDE CEASES ::: DATABASE STATUS: RECOVERING ] <<<

and if I'm lucky they'll be benign ones like that dream where I helped Mur Lafferty move. No, that's not a metaphor, I mean carrying boxes up stairs and shit.

How did I get off on that subject? I don't even remember. Anyway, if any of you reading this are Buddys with me on the NaNoWriMo website, I look forward to the friendly comeptition and the equally friendly ribbing that all of you (except Nathan Lowell of course, who will hit 50k before the 15th) will get when I leave you in my word count dust. ;-) j/k. It's all for fun.

Which Crazy Writer Am I?

Brian completed the quiz "Which Crazy Writer Are You?" with the result Thomas Pynchon.

A great, brilliant, blinding enigma of a man comes screaming into the literary world; it has happened before, but there's nothing to compare it to now. Nobody has seen you since sometime in the early 1960s - indeed, you appear to be so adverse to the idea of being photographed that you've been known to jump out of 2nd story Mexico City hotels in order to avoid it. Rumors abound about your whereabouts and your goings-on... and yet you think it's okay to do a guest voice on "The Simpsons"? Is this just a game to you? Dare we look down at the footnotes of the text of the Day? Does a Day need to make sense by Day's end?.

Oh wow. My book is on Amazon.

Well, sort of. You still need to buy it through Lulu sadly. But, you CAN write a review there if you're one of the lucky ones who has read it, and mention where you got it. :-)

Celebrities I apparently look like

Jessica Lange? Really?

I Remember Joe

25 out of 32

You guys remember the soundtrack I made for And Here's To You? Of course you do, I talk about it quite a bit.

Anyway, just for the hell of it, I published it as an iMix playlist in iTunes! OK, so only 25 of the tracks actually made it up there, for various reasons I won't bore you with.

But here it is, And Here's To You, the iMix.

This was awesome news!

I got this in my e-mail inbox today.

-






Dear Podcast Owner

Your podcast feed, [ http://mevio.com/feeds/masterofnone.xml ] was successfully added and is now under review.


Sincerely,

The iTunes Store Team

-

How fucking awesome is that? If I make it up there guys, please oh please write some 5 star reviews for me. :-)

A little something for those tired of looking at Electoral College maps

The Pop vs. Soda Map

I myself use "soda," and have to admit to having looked down on people who've called it "pop."

Not that it matters anymore really, I gave up SODA in 2005. ;-)

A review of my first podcast interview.

From my Dad:

Please remember I love you when you read what I have to say about the Mur Lafferty interview. I swear I mean this to be helpful.

First of all, while the majority of your audience may know her, Judy and Jenny [my grandmother and aunt respectively] don't, so saying someone needs no introduction and then not actually giving them even a cursory one is not only annoying to the listener, but probably to your guest too.Not knowing her I can't be certain, but there were a few times when it sounded to me like she might be annoyed, and that was one of them.

Secondly, when it is natural in the course of the interview that you interject something about yourself,do it then move on quickly. These were a couple of the other times when she sounded to me like she might be annoyed. You spent too much time on you, when your interview was supposed to be about her. If you and your guest are connecting and there is a great give and take some of this kind of behavior can be excused, but you guys did not connect, and that was another thing that led me to believe that she was not enjoying it. She answered quickly and without much elaboration after each question. That definitely gives the impression she is not
into it or you as the interviewer. Plus, she could have asked a couple of questions of you out of sheer politeness, but she didn't which gives me the impression of a selfish person.

Lest I give you the impression that I hated it, I did not. You were complimentary without going overboard into kiss ass, and you sounded more secure than you
probably felt. But I felt the above things were important enough to bring them up.

-

My response:

Well, you aren't the first to bring up that point about the introduction. Mur herself mentioned it obliquely on Twitter. What didn't make it into the show was the part of our conversation where I told her this was my first interview, and she gave me some encouragement. "Hey, everybody's gotta start somewhere." One of the things she says on her show I Should Be Writing is you're allowed to suck. The more interviews I do the better I'll get and I'll avoid a lot of those mistakes. I just hope I get to do more interviews. ;-)

Also, part of the not connecting may have been that on her end she was getting a bad echo because I didn't have a headset and lost my headphone extension cord so I had my speakers on during the recording. Also, I failed to tell her ahead of time how I was going to be recording it. She said it was distracting to her, and if I could've done something about it at the time I would've.

Like I said, in the future I'll be better, and maybe down the line I'll get a second shot. Season 5 of the Heaven series is coming out soon. But even if I don't, I got a chance to talk to one of my favorite writers, and it was a pleasent experience overall, just like when I met Peter David. It just as easily could've gone the other way, like when Kevin J. Anderson rudely dismissed my question at a ComicCon panel in 2006. See if I ever help him promote anything, the jerk.

Anyway, as per the selfish remark, I also chalk that up to her being distracted by the echo, but to be honest it didn't bother me that she never asked me anything. I've listened to a lot of podcast interviews in the nearly 3 years I've been into podcasting and I don't recall any interviewee doing something like that with an interviewer unless they were already friends, and Mur and I really only don't have anything beyond the "fan/artist" relationship, which is fine by me. I don't have to be friends with everyone in the podcasting community. The fact that I have as many as I do this early in my podcasting "career" frankly is astonishing. Not that I don't appreciate Tosus, and Jack, and Mark mind you. ;-)

So, I guess that's it then. Remember, a G.O.A.T. bonus episode is coming August 5th, and there will be a regular episode on August 13th, but it will be light on content because I'll be at WorldCon all week.

And lastly...

Amazon.com. Buy it.