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!

Tags: coverville, joco, nme, podcasts, vegas
I'm feeling: excited

I just logged in to the computer after getting home and saw that TwitterFriend & FarPoint podcast friend C.A. Sizemore lost his wife suddenly and unexpectedly this morning.
The Tribe has already started a fund to help him out. If you have a few extra bucks, please consider donating something.

Tags: podcasts, twitter
I'm feeling: sad

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...

Tags: books, goat-fucking, podcasts, scott sigler

Infected, by Scott Sigler is being released in hardcover tomorrow, April 1st. You should go buy it. I haven't read/listened to this book yet, but I have read some of his others and they were good. I'll be hitting Borders tomorrow to pick up my copy. I'll also be using THIS COUPON to get 40% off of it. You should too. Here is the propaganda from Scott's website about the book.

“Sigler is masterful at grabbing the reader by the throat and refusing to let go. Just when I thought I knew what abyss he was leading me across, he knocked the bridge out from under ... I think I screamed the whole way down ... INFECTED is a marvel of gonzo, in-your-face, up-to-the-minute terror.”
—Lincoln Child, New York Times bestselling author of Deep Storm and Death Match

INFECTED will be published April 1, 2008, in hardcover by Crown Publishing. The book has already been optioned for a movie by Rogue Pictures.

INFECTED SYNOPSES:
Perry Daswey is 6-foot-5, 265 pounds of angry ex-linebacker. He knows all too well that if he doesn't control his quick temper, people get hurt. Through constant focus, he has locked his violent past away in the deep dungeons of his mind.

The infection changes everything.

Strange microscopic parasites tap into Perry's bloodstream like tiny little vampires. They start as bright orange blisters, but soon take the shape of triangular growths just beneath his skin. The "Triangles," as Perry calls them, try to control their host by manipulating hormone levels and flooding his body with neurotransmitters -- imbalances of which cause paranoia, schizophrenia and excessive aggression. As Perry begins a desperate battle to cut the Triangles out of his body before it's too late, his self-control dissolves into raging, murderous madness.

INFECTED REVIEWS:
"Part Stephen King, part Chuck Palahniuk, Infected blends science fiction and horror into a pulpy masterpiece of action, terror, and suspense. Three recommendations: don't read it at night, or just after you've eaten a full meal, or if you're weak of heart. You've been warned!"
—James Rollins, New York Times bestselling author of The Judas Strain and Black Order

“Sigler is the Richard Matheson of the 21st Century…smart and creepy, INFECTED is a flawless thinking-person’s thriller. Bravo to a bold new talent!”
—Jonathan Maberry, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Bad Moon Rising and Ghost Road Blues

"Horror mavens rejoice! INFECTED is a revelation -- a novel that lives up to its hype. From page one, the story of a mysterious smart-virus that turns its hosts into deadly drooling drones creeps up on a reader like the ratchet of a roller coaster climbing toward its inevitable crest. Sigler brings the folksy character detail of Stephen King, the conceptual panache of Clive Barker, and the oozing, shuddery pathologies of a David Cronenberg movie. Zombies, spies, conspiracies, and gallons of goo make this the fastest read in the west! Highest recommendation!"
— Jay Bonansinga, National Bestselling author of SHATTERED, TWISTED, FROZEN, and THE SINKING OF THE EASTLAND

"Sigler has a unique talent for keeping readers on the edge of their seats; I absolutely had to know what was going to happen next. Infected is full of mayhem, action, and gore--and you won’t be able to put it down."
— Dave Wellington, author of 13 BULLETS and the MONSTER ISLAND trilogy

"Scott Sigler's Infected is a bucking pulp pony that throws you this way and that, and just when you think you've got your balance, that ole pony bucks the other way. All in all, one hell of an exhilarating ride, and highly recommended."
—Joe R. Lansdale, World Horror Convention Grand Master and six-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Bubba Ho-Tep and Lost Echoes

Tags: books, goat-fucking, podcasts, scott sigler
I'm listening to: There's So Many Ways I Could Kill You - Madsumo

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.

Tags: pimp, podcasts

I haven't heard who the winners were for most of the Parsec awards yet, but I did get the scoop on one of the categories: The totally awesome Leann Mabry not only won the Best Reality Podcast for the super-cool Tag in the Seam podcast, but she also received the Joe Murphy Memorial Award. Way to go, Leann!

And the James Marsters news is slowly filtering in too. He injured his knee while filming Torchwood. He has a new guitar and she's a very pretty blue. He was approached about possible doing more Smallville.

And, the tidbit that made me squeeeee a little bit: James said that he had enjoyed kissing John Barrowman more than he enjoyed kissing Sarah Michelle Gellar!

James snogged Captain Jack!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
'scuse me while I wander off to my happy place now, k?

Tags: dragoncon, jm, podcasts, torchwood
I'm feeling: happy
I'm listening to: Black Jesus - Everlast

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!

Tags: brain, fed-ex, goat-fucki, ilife, independent film, iwork, music, podcasts, scott baio, tdah, tv, twitter

I'm getting a copy of the new iWork!
Brian kicks frickin' ass! He's giving it to me because of the work on the database that I do for him. Holy freakin' cow! His offer was sooo unexpected.

Tags: coverville, iwork, mac, podcasts
I'm feeling: grateful
I'm listening to: Elijah - Animal Logic

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

Tags: podcasts, wingin it
I'm feeling: sad

I have been caffeine free since February 10th (with the exception of chocolate, and some random sips of Diet Coke that are less than one can's worth).  Today at work I was hella-tired due to my foolishly trying to catch up on too many Tivo'd shows last night. So I got a 20oz Diet Mountain Dew from the machine. WOW!!!! Now THIS is what caffeine is supposed to do! Too bad daily intake of it creates a tolerance that negates its effects. So yeah, I'm not slipping back into my old caffeinated ways, but it's nice to know that when I am dragging so bad that Ritalin has no effect that I've got a cheap convenient legal drug to pick me up. 

My computer at work got a trojan somehow and IS had to re-image it for me. I was able to put all my important docs on a flash drive to save them. I also decided not to copy any podcasts since they can be re-downloaded and they can be so space intensive. Instead, now I have to try to remember all the ones to resubscribe to. (And yes, all you podcast ladies on my flist, yours have already been added back in!)

Because I didn't lose any documents it's actually kind of nice having a "fresh" computer. Seems to be moving a bit less sluggish. I did have to spend a fuckload of time this morning though getting all my settings back the way I like them. The menu bar goes at the TOP of the screen, darn it! 

One nice thing was that I learned that it is *OK* to have iTunes. The rule here is "NO INSTALLING ANY SOFTWARE ON YOUR MACHINE! IF YOU NEED IT IS WILL INSTALL IT!" Well, given that I felt it was a better risk to put on iTunes than to see if there was a better podcatcher option. So I did it. Then, when my machine was all new the IS guy was still here making sure everything worked. When I dragged the Windows Media Player shortcut to the recycle bin (and possibly said something derogatory about it...) he smiled and said, "Oh, that's right. You had iTunes." So I laughed and told him he must have imagined it since we aren't allowed to install programs. Then he said that anything by Apple was OK. 

It is Friday tomorrow!! Yay! I get to see Jon Stewart tomorrow! 

genevra and akdar will also be joining us because I still needed to get genevra a birthday gift. 

And now my lunch is over. See y'all later. :)

 

Tags: babble, jon stewart, life, podcasts, work
Current Location: work
I'm feeling: hyper
I'm listening to: the voices in my head

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.

Tags: cancer, podcasts, wingin it
I'm feeling: depressed