hellziggy

Even though hellbob won't be able to join me - :( - I'm going out to Vegas in August! I'll be going for the New Media Expo. I'll be doing the free Exhibit Hall and Keynotes Only registration. Since I don't actually do any podcasting, it would be silly to do the full conference registration at $349!
It's gonna be so cool to meet all these people that I know just through podcasts and the internets!
If any of you on my flist are going to be there *looks towards Phoenix* be sure to let me know so we can meet!

But the BEST part of this trip?
The Coverville 500 Concert!
I'll finally meet Brian Ibbott in person after 3 years of email correspondence & keeping his song database for him. The concert he's going to have was the deciding factor in me going out there.
To celebrate episode 500 of Coverville he's hosting a concert of some of the favorite artists who have been played on his show: Richard Cheese, Jonathan Coulton, and Chance. Also, there will be a singer named Natalie Gelman who I haven't really heard. w00t! You know I loves me some JoCo. And Chance does the most awesome cover of Kelis' Milkshake ever!
If you are going to the NME and want to go to the concert, tickets will go on sale on June 1st. It's at a venue down by the MGM, so it's an easy monorail ride down from the Hilton. Only $20!

Remember yesterday?

I told you to go buy Infected, by Scott Sigler.

I even gave you a coupon to get 40% off.

So? Did you do it?

I did.

Lump wanted to read the book first though.

Now something seems different about her...

This is the post where I pimp all the cool kids I've been listening to.

Are you looking for some good fiction to listen to? You're in luck because there's a lot of it out there!

If you want a novel, here are a few to check out:

Playing For Keeps by Mur Lafferty
Playing for Keeps is a free novel delivered via podcast in audio and PDF form. It tells the story of Keepsie Branson, a bar owner in the shining metropolis of Seventh City: birthplace of super powers. Keepsie and her friends live among egotistical heroes and manipulative villains, and manage to fall directly in the middle as people with powers, but who just aren't strong enough to make a difference. Or that's what they've been told. As the city begins to melt down, it's hard to tell who are the good guys and who are the bad.
My husband, hellbob, just started reading this and he compared it to the Wild Cards series. I personally couldn't wait for Mur to finish reading the story so I bought the paperback version from Lulu.com.

Metamor City by Chris Lester
The Metamor City Podcast is an audio fiction series that is distributed for free through podcasts. It will feature a mixture of short stories and full-length novels, all taking place in one large world with an overarching story arc. Combining the narration of audiobooks with the music, sound effects and full vocal cast of a serial radio drama, The Metamor City Podcast provides an immersive audio experience of a world like no other.
The stories of The Metamor City Podcast take place in a high-magic, high-technology setting, an epic fantasy world projected into the near future. The action focuses primarily on the inhabitants of Metamor City, a mega-metropolis that is also the capital of the world’s largest superpower, the Empire of Metamor.
If you have ever read the Shadowlands shared universe, or Wen Spencer's Tinker books, Chris' blending of technology with magic has a very similar feel. It's one of my favorite genres.

The 7th Son trilogy by J.C. Hutchins, aka That Cliffhangering Bastard
7th Son chronicles the story of seven strangers who are assembled after the assassination of the U.S. president. They quickly discover they all appear to be the same man ... with identical childhood memories.
Unwitting participants in a human cloning experiment, these "John Michael Smiths" have been assembled to catch the man who murdered the president. Their target? The man they were cloned from; the original John Michael Smith, code-named John Alpha.
If you listen to this one you have a distinct advantage over the rest of us who already did: it's finished so instead of cursing at J.C. for the cliffhanger ending of a chapter you can just listen to the next one! Then, after you are thoroughly hooked, you can go to Geek Label and get your Beta Clone t-shirt. I am Beta Clone #131.

Nocturnal by Scott Sigler aka That Sick & Twisted Bastard
Something lives deep beneath the streets of San Francsico. Something that has been there for centuries, something that comes out at night ... to feed on the dregs of society. A sub-culture, with its own myths, its own legends of leader named The King that will lead them out of bondage, and their own demon, a hunting shadow known only as Savior.
But the legends of Savior's brutality have faded, the fear passed into stories told to frighten the young ones. When The King finally appears, just as foretold, the Nocturnals know their time has time -- the time to come out from under the streets and hunt humanity in the open.
This novel is up to episode 11 and Sigler has already made me cringe a few times during his reading of it. It's pretty violent and not for the faint of heart. If you have your heart set on only listening to novels that are complete you can also find Scott's previous novels, including Earthcore and Ancestor on his site.



If you are looking for short fiction, there's some of that out there too:

Escape Pod edited by Steve Eley
Pseudopod edited by Ben Phillips
These two are sister podcasts. Escape Pod is Sci-Fi and Pseudopod is Horror. Both podcasts bring you some of the highest quality audio fiction you can find out there, and it's free! Escape Pod even does all of the Hugo nominees that it can get permission for every year.



And there's even a short fiction VIDEO podcast:

Stranger Things by Earl Newton
Stranger Things is the first dramatic science-fiction anthology series shot in high definition and digitally-syndicated through the Internet, predating even the larger-budgeted Sanctuary.
Stranger Things depicts a world of ordinary people stumbling into the secret lives of the paranormal, the metaphysical, the unnatural, and the strange. The stories expose the bizarre and the extraordinary things happening all around us everyday, hidden behind the veil of the "real world."


There are also two podcasts that friends are working on that I just haven't had time to listen to, but I'm sure they're awesome so I'll pimp them anyway!

Paul Fischer & Martha Holloway produced the podiobook version of Serve It Cold by Ronnie Blackwell.
Detective Jonny C. Speed’s life can’t get much better. He’s booked into the French Quarter’s most luxurious guesthouse, and his day job as convenience store manager is 104 miles behind him in Catherine, Mississippi. He’s already taken care of one pro-bono missing persons job since he’s been in New Orleans, and his paying client’s cheating wife is a beautiful and very accommodating exhibitionist. Are things too good to be true? Of course they are. Jonny starts to worry when his client turns up dead, but when the suspects start dropping, Jonny and his crack team of beauty queens, recovering addicts, professional athletes, computer hackers, and pampered dogs find themselves caught in a twisted scheme of revenge that threatens to turn the town of Catherine inside out.

and Paul Maki (aka johnboze) is part of the cast of Buffy Between The Lines.
Buffy Between the Lines is a serialized, podcast fanfic audio drama written, produced and created by fans for fans. Each season will bring you 12 (or so) episodes in classic radio drama fashion.


There ya go. Even though there's no new TV besides reality shows during the WGA strike I've just given you hours of entertainment. Go, listen, and if you love what you hear drop a buck or two into the podcaster's donation jar.

My Fed-Ex package was waiting for me when I got home. Opened it up, and pulled out... iLife! Looked at Brian's original email w/the shipping info & sure enough he accidentally ordered the wrong one. After how much Fed-Ex annoyed me I just had to laugh.

Was going to go to the Apple store to see if it could be exchanged there and hellbob asked how much iLife goes for. Told him that it is the same as iWork, $79. Well, he thought iLife/GarageBand was way more expensive than that, $200 at least. So he's decided that if it's only $79 he's gonna buy a legal copy. So now instead of trying to exchange the one I got I'll just pick up iWork at the Apple store.

We watched the pilot episode of Sci-Fi's Flash Gordon. Ouch. Painfully bad. "imex. What's an imex?" hellbob compared Flash Gordon to a Sci-Fi Saturday feature, but without the heart & soul that makes them fun...

The Space Shuttle Endeavour landed safely this afternoon! The came home early to avoid the hurricanes an storms, and the damaged tile didn't cause any problems. Yay!

Found out on the ride up to the cabin that my technomonkey_m ♥ Me First & the Gimme Gimmes! You go boy!

Contemplating setting my Twitter account to protected. Not because I don't want people to be able to read my tweets, but because the random adds by people who add hundreds and thousands of twitterers annoy me, and those are always right after I make a post which would have shown up on the public timeline. I like the idea of real people finding me and adding me though. I dunno. I think they would also stop showing up on the RSS feed, but I think the only non-twitter person reading that is genevra.

Applied for several jobs during my emo day at home yesterday. Don't know why I never thought of it sooner, but instead of searching for the key word "photoshop" I searched for just "photo." There were a couple jobs at local custom labs that I applied for. There is one that I am really hoping calls me back because I am uber-qualified and the pay is in the range I need and since it is part time with the possiblility of full time I should hopefully be able to work it around the school schedule. Not even going to say the name though because I don't want to jinx it. I wanted that Memorial Blood Centers job that I didn't get too badly and don't want to deal w/that again. *edit* The one I was really hoping would call me back emailed me and wants me to call "at my earliest convenience." to talk about the position! Yay!

Because I was having such a bad day yesterday when hellbob stopped to pick up my drugs for me he also got me chocolate. Unfortunately Byerly's didn't have Vosges anymore. :(

My mood is definitely much improved today.

I have become oddly addicted to "Scott Baio is 45 and Single." No, I can't explain it, I just am.

A cool new way to see independent films that don't come to your town:
From poyboy's journal: ( Independent film Hannah Takes The Stairs is playing in NYC tomorrow, but if your city has IFC InTheaters you can watch it at home tomorrow too. )
Here in the Cities, when I put my zip code in the IFC site says that Comcast Cable has this but DirecTV doesn't. If you have Comcast and are a fan of independent film, you should look into this.

And while I'm pimping friends' stuff, y'all should go watch This Day In Alternate History if you're not already. There have been 41 episodes already. They're all about 5 minutes long or so, and they are a total riot. They are hosted by MightyMur, aka sailormur and HoboZero, aka cryptonaut. Find them HERE.

Also, are you listening to Escape Pod yet? Top notch sci-fi stories read by talented people. This is sfeley's baby, and he's a very good daddy! The latest episode, #119 Aliens Want Our Women, was read by the supah-sexay Leann from the TitS podcast. Go listen now.

So anyway, there's a bunch of the random stuff floating in my brain today. Yes, I was having a VERY bad day yesterday. But I am much better today. Better living through chemistry, yo.



*note* although this post has the goat-fucking tag, it does not contain any actual goat fucking. The tag still just amuses me and I wanted to use it!

Bummer of a post here: http://www.michaelandevo.com/2007/06/03/evo-has-left-the-building/

Cheyenne Wright drew and posted this tribute to Joe yesterday. So appropriate because I can just hear Joe asking to play with the shield. He is a Kick-Ass Mystic Ninja, after all! 


I listened to the episode of Wingin' It that was recorded this weekend. It was pretty good and the gang did a good job of putting out a normal show. Then at the end they were talking about Joe and how he would be gone soon and that they are going on hiatus until they feel up to recording again. Ended up trying to see through tears to do my work. :( Cancer sucks.

Well shit. Last November I had posted about Joe from Wingin' It having a tumor in his abdomen. His surgery was today.
Evo just posted this update a little bit ago:

10:15 PM MST

Final update for tonight. Mike called me an hour ago, and I’ve been pondering what to write. So here goes.

The prognosis is pretty shitty. The operation is over and the doctors have decided that Joe’s cancer is inoperable. Hey — now you have an “i” word to hate.

It’s spread in too many places, is invading too many organs and has found too healthy of a blood supply. Cutting it out would simply endanger Joe, so there’s no point. They took a sizeable chunk out for for further study. With luck, this particular variety is vulnerable to either chemo or radiation therapy — cuz the knife isn’t the right tool for this job.

Docs say that he should be out and back home in a couple of days. Pray, cuss, rant, rave. Do what you need to do. With luck, there are therapies which will be helpful. More on that in the coming weeks/days when we know more and tests come back.

Dammit.

I've never met the guy, but in over a year of listening to the gang down there in Phoenix doing several different shows a week I feel like I know him.
I know that he is a good person with a good heart who doesn't deserve this.
I know that he has people all over the world pulling for him.
I know that he's got about the best support system ever in Michael, Evo, Summer and all the other folks down there at Draco-vista studios.
I just don't know if that's enough and it is just really damn unfair.
Fucking cancer.

Because I've been slipping in my Coverville pimpin' duties lately I feel obligated to bring you the list of the top 40 favorite cover songs as voted on my the listeners of Coverville:

40) Ana Ng, covered by Self
39) Age Of Consent, covered by Grant Lee Phillips
38) My Way, covered by Sid Vicious
37) I Don't Like Mondays, covered by Tori Amos
36) Heroes, covered by Icehouse
35) Comfortably Numb, covered by Copper Box
34) We Will Rock You/We Are The Champions, covered by Jonathan Coulton
33) Highway To Hell, covered by Hayseed Dixie
32) Don't Worry Be Happy, covered by Yum! Yum! Orange
31) Mahna Mahna, covered by Cake
30) Redemption Song, covered by Johnny Cash and Joe Strummer
29) Crazy, covered by Ray Lamontagne
28) Oops...I Did It Again, covered by Richard Thompson
27) What a Wonderful World, covered by Joey Ramone
26) Plastic Jesus, covered by Billy Idol
25) Hallelujah, covered by Allison Crowe
24) Don't Dream It's Over (live), covered by Howie Day
23) Sympathy For The Devil/Livin' For The City, covered by Opie Gone Bad
22) Bohemian Polka (cover of Bohemian Rhapsody), covered by Weird Al Yankovic
21) (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, covered by Devo
20) Hotel California, covered by Gipsy Kings
19) Teenage Dirtbag, covered by Scala Choir & Kolacny Brothers
18) ...Baby One More Time, covered by Fountains of Wayne
17) Straight Outa Compton, covered by Nina Gordon
16) Nothing Else Matters, covered by Lucie Silvas
15) Istanbul (Not Constantinople), covered by They Might Be Giants
14) I Will Survive, covered by Cake
13) Hey Ya, covered by Mat Weddle
12) Bitches Ain't Sh*t , covered by Ben Folds
11) One, covered by Johnny Cash
10) Comfortably Numb, covered by Scissor Sisters
9) Common People, covered by William Shatner (w/Joe Jackson & Ben Folds)
8) Mad World, covered by Michael Andrews and Gary Jules
7) Wonderwall, covered by Ryan Adams
6) Milkshake, covered by Chance
5) Baby Got Back, covered by Jonathan Coulton
4) Lithium, covered by The Polyphonic Spree
3) Hallelujah, covered by Jeff Buckley
2) Toxic, covered by Nickel Creek
1) Hurt, covered by Johnny Cash

You can download the five episodes where these songs were all played at the Coverville website, as well as find links to the songs in iTunes and Amazon (if they are available there)

If you're looking for a specific cover song or artist that's been played on Coverville, the database is updated through episode 251

Look what I bought at the grocery store here!!!

You're going to have to come over soon! *evil grin*