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Stavro Arrgolus's Blog
Topic: Editor's Blog- (6/1) Try The House Of Fun; It's Quicker If You Run
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fiogf49gjkf0d June 1 - 12:30 pm EDT
T his is a chemist's, not a joker's shop" www.madmusic.com/song_details.aspx?SongID=34704
That Madness song would make a good guest hosting theme song. I want to have a go at making MMS-156 when I'm feeling up to it. Read: being relatively pain-free. No way in hell to know when that will be. A few alterations to the script & playlist will be in order. The intensity will be ramped up a bit. No more avoiding too much 'bad language' or bodily functions or fluids and semi-fluids.
But then I don't plan on going crazy with such things, either. All things in moderation.
Although I have a copy of the instructions on how to upload a show, I've asked Wayne for the nuts & bolts of how he actually makes the show. Got tons of time to make it. After it starts, there'll be a show every week. Every week that I'm not in the hospital, that is. My next operation is tentatively scheduled for sometime next month. And if I die...well then, I'll have to stop. You know the rules - from the Kentucky Fried Movie...
What to do when you die:
1) Don't try to drive a car.
2) Do not operate heavy machinery.
3) Do not talk.
..Funny how I have time for this and not for doing that monstrous pile of dishes that have been sitting there for at least a month. Gotta get to it before all the mold and slime starts developing its own ecosystem. Lots of painful standing and bending involved in that project, so I'm procrastinating.
May 22 - 3:15 pm EDT
G oddammit! This pisses me off.
I've been bitching to Wayne about not being able to upload or download anything, thinking it's been the code changes causing bugs. But noooooooo! After a bit of trial and error, I've just found that it's been the crappily made add-ons for Firefox I have that were the culprit all along! BASTARDS! One has to keep it in their cranium that these things are literally made by just anyone and as such, are sometimes just bollocks no matter how convenient having them may sound on their page.
My bad, Wayne. - That's what the kids say today, right? (...cough, hack, wheeze...Get off my lawn!)
Guess if I want to upload things now, I'll have to use Chrome.
I've been using FF since it began...grumble, grumble....
May 9 - 2:15 pm EDT
H ere's the status of TMMS right now.
Wayne tells me there'll be shows this weekend. The completed script is for "Hygiene is Not A Dirty Word" (remember?...it's been a while, hasn't it?). IF there's a show posted, MMS-157 will likely be "Organ Grinder", a show about body organs and parts. You can imagine what I'm going to focus on in that one. It's another 'expanded concept' show which originally came from the podcast. The completed script for the new podcast, by the way, is MMP-19 - "It's Up Uranus".
The 2nd tribute show has me thoroughly flummoxed. There are so many deserving tributes now (and Maurice Sendak just died - I want to play "Chicken Soup With Rice" from the 1975 "Really Rosie" TV special www.madmusic.com/album_details.aspx?AlbumID=7546) that to get them all in, I'd need two shows at least. I've no choice but to put it off yet again until I figure out how to make it more than just a very long musical obituary.
That's what's holding this show up. Not what to do, but how best to do it.
Membership status remains flat in the low 300s. These are our core members who stick with the site. Spring seems to have brought out the spammers and I've been smacking them down on a regular basis recently. The ones from a few days ago are repeat offenders. I recognize one of the idiots who spammed about the same brand of shoes as the last time I got him and the jackoff running the Nigerian scam misspelled his location in the same way as before. I picture these fools having a badly worded script that all of them use.
In other news, the new show idea list I sent Wayne yesterday went over quite well - except for two ideas I knew he'd reject. Too dirty; not his style. He suggested a guest host for them and in the best Devo Spice tradition of FIDIM, I suggested that some editor guy who got Audacity working recently should make them. He approved. Now I have to find a way to Audacitize my voice and make it less horrifying.
I now have to leave this PC on all the time to avoid fighting with it for hours to power up every time I turn it off or put it in sleep mode. If I can't figure out what's wrong, I'll have to replace it. It's 3 or 4 years old; it's probably time for that anyway. I wonder if it's that round internal lithium battery that's doing this to both my PCs...
Apropos of nothing, in anticipation of replacing the crap PC, I've undertaken a project involving cleaning all the crap out of a storage room, chucking everything I don't use and making a spot for a standalone computer. This is a relatively quiet room that can potentially be used to record DJ spots for TMMS since there's little ambient noise there.
That's not my motivation for doing this, though. My property tax bill screams at me, "Use every inch of your house! Look what you're paying for it! Stop wasting space, you lazy bastard!" Gotta do something with all those VHS tapes. Maybe I could put that entire classic Dr. Who series on eBay.
I also want to install my even more classic phone from 1946 on my desk in there. It has a ring that can wake the dead. Which would be useful around here since everyone's dead. Maybe their ghosts could mow my lawn. My back hurts too much to do it myself.
March 25 - 2 pm EDT
T ime for another blog entry.
There are a sizable number of bugs on the site now due to last week's bug fix. I've reported as many as I could. Getting a response is the tricky bit. Wayne has quite a bit on his schedule. I have one: "Don't die." I've been having quite a bit of trouble with this single task of late and as such, can't really identify with those who have so much more to do as those things seem trivial compared to my little task.
Then there are the shows. They've stopped again and the longer they're not being made, the easier it becomes to not make them on a more regular basis. Maybe I just nag him about it too much. If some of you would call his 1-800 number and ask for The Mad Music Show to return, he might be motivated to start making them again.
Meanwhile, I'm having to fight with my crappy PC to get the power to come on. I want to replace it - I don't need anything mobile like a laptop or a tablet since I never go anywhere but hospitals and the grocery store. Just need a decent PC that I can edit this site and play the occasional game on (i.e., one with a decent graphics card). Too bad no one around here sells such things.
So let's review:
Site bugs: Reported and awaiting response.
MMS-155: Script sent and is awaiting being made.
Asphalt Aardvarks™ : Unfrozen a month early because of the warm weather and romping in the yard - and occasionally catching the odd noisy child and biting the little bastard in the ass. Go, 'varks!
March 1 - 1:30 pm EST
Today, I saw the BSOD on this crap PC I bought from the damn Walmart three years ago this month to replace a supposedly dead PC of better quality that had just failed.
The news is screwy. At around 3 this morning, I got the old PC working again - the motherboard was apparently full of static electricity; I pulled the connectors out and plugged them back in. It started right up after years of being a paperweight. Who knew?
Now it looks like this newer PC will die soon and I may have to go back to using the old one. Good thing I have a 2 TB external drive as the HDD in the old PC is only 160 GB.
Snowstorm outside, so there's no going anywhere to do anything about it. I stocked up on food but not spare PCs - because that'd be stupid.
In other news, MMS-155 ('future' show) is tentatively scheduled for this weekend. No podcast will be run. Since the show was put together quite a while ago, I had more time this week to...fix old PCs.
The next MMS? I can't decide if I want to make the 'hygiene' show or take on the 'fake commercial' show concept which will take considerably longer, I expect.
While all this has been going on, membership levels have remained crap, so I've been trying to convince Wayne to attempt to get TMMS run on Dementia Radio or at least get a banner ad there the way The FuMP has. That might help a little. I was told last month that he would have a busy March, so I'm not confident.
January 12 - 8:30 pm EST
And I forgot my spoon, but I brought my straw (slurp!)
It's a new year (big deal), I'm still alive (for now) and the Mad Music Show is back...again...for however long it lasts this time. It only made it to March last year. With a little listener support, Wayne might be motivated to make more and we could go on to...Easter or something. Does rabbit taste like chicken?.. Just wondering.
The shows have been coming out pretty well recently and with the podcast back, they reach a few more people now. Show 151 is complete and I'm finishing the script now.
The new episode has evolved from a show about American excesses into a comic/musical commentary about how this new great depression began. Although we already know how, no one sings about it all that often - because the bastards responsible won't admit it or are in denial. I'll soon fix that. Listen to the new show on Sunday. For that matter, why not listen to all of the recent shows if you haven't already. www.madmusic.com/madmusicshow.aspx And call his 1 800 number and request something or tell him you liked the show. 
The commercial-free dementia stream is back and Wayne is planning to make its content more seasonal. The 2011 songs will give way to Valentines Day tunes soon and so on. Bookmark the stream on Winamp or whatever you listen to, turn it on when you're bored and be heard chuckling inanely making those around you uncomfortable and wondering what's so amusing. Fun!
The podcast is also back and you can get it at the same address as last year. If you have iTunes or something and you were getting it before, have a look now and there'll be new shows. The podcast is experimenting with new sci-fi and movie news features, so check them out and tell Wayne what you think of them.
Some upcoming shows:
MMS-153 - Nerdgasm: Songs Of Intellect
MMS-155 - The Future/Armageddon
MMS-156 - Hygiene Is Not A Dirty Word (bathtime tunes)
MMS-15X - "Fake Commercial" Show Concept
MMS-16X - Hand Me The Shovel (political/controversial songs)
MMS-16X - Hippies vs. Squares (3 segments each of 'pro-hippie' & 'anti-hippie' tunes)
HOW TO RECOGNIZE DIFFERENT TYPES OF EDITOR(S) FROM QUITE A LONG WAY AWAY
 
Viscount Vyslo Arrgula [vi-kownt veez-low arr-gyou-lah]
1105 - 1175 (Age: Very old indeed)
Status: Dead
Last of the Dark Age Vampires. Father of Tyro Arrgula, great uncle of Stavro Arrgolus and best known, in modern times, anyway, as the inventor [in May, 1928] of the infamous Rubber Hamster™ (Big Butch Lesbian [BBL] Industries, €2.50 MSRP).
During the site's reconstruction in Fall 2010, page loading would often grind to a halt for my main account, making navigation impossible. It was determined that the mod statuses were responsible for this problem. There was too much control information to load for each page. The creation of a non-admin editor account at least partially solved the problem. Viscount Vyslo to the rescue...
This persona is usually used only for video related sites (that's the deal with all the 'v's in the name - oh, aren't we a clever clox). Because of this, it became needlessly confusing and so the alternate account was changed to 'Tyro' after the fixes were completed.
 
Tyro Arrgula [tie-row arr-gyou-lah]
1965 - 1989 (Age: 46 ...cumulatively)
Status: Dead
Newest member of the Arrgula vampire clan. Cornish son of Viscount Vyslo Arrgula, younger cousin of Stavro Arrgolus and inventor [in June, 1985] of the Cement Civet Cat™ (Big Butch Lesbian Industries, €17.50 MSRP). The inanimate cat's most famous use (making coffee from its crap) is one of the most disgusting things invented by the Arrgula vampires - after all, they do not drink...coffee. The date of the invention is notable as Tyro is the only 'inventor' in his clan to create his amusing inanimate animal tchotchke while he was alive. Both the Stone Stoat™ and the infamous Rubber Hamster™ were invented hundreds of years into their respective creator's vampirism.
Or so says the bio in my copy of the Sims 2 Nightlife expansion. On this site, the account bearing this name was created exclusively to provide a non-admin view in order to test new site functions and to check the function of malfunctioning functions that become dysfunctional.
Elsewhere, it's used on sites that don't fit the categories of the other personas, each of which has a site specialty.
 
Stavro Arrgolus [stav-row arr-go-luss]
1945 -
Status: Alive - barely
"When gone am I, the last of the Jedi will you be."
Stavro is, indeed, the last of the (not at all vampiric) Arrgolus line and it will vanish when he (I) dies (anytime now).
He is best known for the invention (in October, 1970) of the Type III Asphalt Aardvark™ (Big Butch Lesbian Industries, starting at €140 MSRP), the ever popular smiling, grunting super-heavyweight outdoor lawn ornament that dispenses hot, driveway-sealing tar from its backside when you lift its tail. Available add-ons allow it to keep your yard free of annoying salesmen, religious people and small children.
This is the main account used on this site. It has the magical editor and moderator powers that are only occasionally used for evil. Does drop kicking Nigerian spammers count as evil? I'm thinking 'no'.
Like the other accounts, this one was specialized and originally used for music sites - and still is. It just kind of got away from me here and evolved into something more.
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Member Comments:
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fiogf49gjkf0d Time to make a new blog stack as this one has gotten quite long. The next post will be on a new page.
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fiogf49gjkf0d There was this bishop that put a stop to that. He usually gets to places too late to do any good, though.
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fiogf49gjkf0d I've been trying to find an insurance policy that comes with a nude woman, but I believe that it's no longer available. The best I can get is a nude lizard.
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fiogf49gjkf0d You would think so, but Graham said no and got pounded with a giant cartoon hammer.
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jmanforever:
Sorry to break from the skit, but 'YES' is a POSITIVE word, and nude girls are NEVER objectionable.
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fiogf49gjkf0d Sorry to break from the skit, but 'YES' is a POSITIVE word, and nude girls are NEVER objectionable.
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Stavro Arrgolus:
...(nude girl lying next to a giant 'YES' appears on screen for a fraction of a second).
But that would have been objectionable.
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fiogf49gjkf0d Ohhh, yussssss!
To drive the message home, my first impulse was to post the 'incentive' picture from the Mason sketch in Ep 17. "Would you like to give up being a Mason?" (nude girl lying next to a giant 'YES' appears on screen for a fraction of a second).
But that would have been objectionable.
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MarlinsGirl:
must we turn every blog comment into a Python Sketch.
Terri M.
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fiogf49gjkf0d must we turn every blog comment into a Python Sketch.
Terri M.
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fiogf49gjkf0d My nipples explode with delight!
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fiogf49gjkf0d I'm gratified you all liked it. I'll have enough sense to use BGM and WAV snippets (from Wayne's WAV site) to cover any vocal inadequacies on the actual show.
Madness has lots of good tunes with instrumental intros that could start a show. I sort of like the notion that everyone who guest hosts could use a different Madness song for a theme.
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fiogf49gjkf0d Pretty good Stavro!
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fiogf49gjkf0d It took a bit of adjustment with Audacity to get it sounding ok. I've got a new PC and the latest version of the aforementioned Audacity. I have a copy of the instructions Wayne sent the DJs for making & uploading shows. Hope it's still up to date. If the crappy mike works with the new machine, I'm ready to go.
I'm toying with using a different Madness song, 'House of Fun', for the theme when I guest host. It also has an instrumental intro which might go well with the show. Nah, that's probably too much.
I'll try an opening using the music next and see how that goes...when I'm feeling up to it.
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fiogf49gjkf0d You had me expecting much worse. That didn't suck at all! Go for it!!
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fiogf49gjkf0d  Works for me. You have a pretty decent voice, even if you don't think so.
Looking forward to hearing the First Mate filling in for the Cap'n! Arrrrrrr!
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Stavro Arrgolus:
Here's the first pitiful voice recording test for making a future MMS - www.madmusic.com/myfiles.aspx?id=3125
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fiogf49gjkf0d New post related topic
There's a lesson to be learned from all this... If Firefox won't do something on the site, it's probable one of its shoddily written add-ons. Disable the ones you suspect to see for sure.
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fiogf49gjkf0d Thank you for placing a bid anyway.
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jmanforever:
OK, well, I bid what I thought it was worth to me, then upped it, and I got shot out of the ballpark both times... so it looks like you will make money on this one Tim.
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fiogf49gjkf0d OK, well, I bid what I thought it was worth to me, then upped it, and I got shot out of the ballpark both times... so it looks like you will make money on this one Tim.
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Tim P. Ryan:
If you are looking for a good microphone, my eBay pimp just put the one I used on the shows I did up on eBay.
VINTAGE SHURE MICROPHONE w/STAND
-Tim
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fiogf49gjkf0d Thanks. Makes lots of sense. Guess I shouldn't have left it in sleep mode every night for 3 years. That'll fry the power supply. If this crapbox didn't have such bad graphics, I'd consider replacing the part, but I want to play ass-kicking PC games before the cancer kills me, so PC replacement it is.
I hear they don't make them anymore without horrid DRM that takes all the fun out of games. You can't even buy them now. You just 'rent the license' for a while. Greedy bastards. Only in America can you buy something, never actually own it, and stupid people still pay for it. Orwell's world is sneaking up on us bit by bit.
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fiogf49gjkf0d The symptoms you are describing sound a lot like my older pc. Had to push the Power On/Off button numerous times and once in a while it would fire up. Reboots were no problem but it was an issue once it was off. Power Supply Unit on it's way out. Once replaced it works fine again. If it were the battery you would notice things like the clock not keeping time/time zones wonky and stuff like that but it would power up ok.
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fiogf49gjkf0d Ja! ... Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!
Ha ha ha ha ha!
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fiogf49gjkf0d Thank goodness... For a while there I thought I was seeing double.
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Stavro Arrgolus:
The post I made in the main forum sounded like it would be a good blog entry, so I added it along with one or two other things.
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fiogf49gjkf0d The post I made in the main forum sounded like it would be a good blog entry, so I added it along with one or two other things.
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fiogf49gjkf0d The merge function is erroring. It was working yesterday. If you hadn't mentioned it, I wouldn't have spotted the bug.
Checking it again, the other song page seems to have vanished, suggesting the merge went through despite the error message. This is becoming all too screwy.
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fiogf49gjkf0d Pac-Man is listed twice, once as "Sudden Death" and once as "Sudden Death f/ Worm Quartet"
I think they should be merged under "Sudden Death f/ Worm Quartet".
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fiogf49gjkf0d Those sound like the sort of thing that would go into the 'hippie' side of the 'hippies & squares' show - "I love organic cooking; I always ask for more...". I haven't made it yet as I'm still contemplating whether I can get an hour of songs out of the 'squares' side of the show.
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fiogf49gjkf0d I got another topic for you. Healthy food from garden to table (or beyond). Songs like the Garden Song (inch by inch, row by row, I watch my garden grow), I like Onions, Chopping Brocolli, Yogi Yorgesson's adventures with Health food, etc. Is Ice Cream a healthy food, how about milk (Red light, Green Bike)? Ernie would have to deliver it.
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fiogf49gjkf0d No shows for a couple of weeks.
Without anything to do on that front, I'm going back to adding & filling out song pages as I did before I started making the shows. Getting something useful accomplished, as it were.
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fiogf49gjkf0d I have had no political calls at all so far this year. ...Then again, I have a non-published number.
Also, my son uses my home number for his Ice Cream Truck business... so I have an answering machine message that says... "Thanks for calling Andy's Ice Cream. We're currently closed for the winter, but your call is important to us. Please leave a message, and we'll call you back when we open for business next summer. Thanks!"
No one ever leaves a message.
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fiogf49gjkf0d Sigh. A week ago or so I was called by Ann 'droid' Romney.
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Stavro Arrgolus:
Dear readers, today is the day of "Super Tuesday" and NO robocalls have darkened my Thunderbird account.
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fiogf49gjkf0d Dear readers, today is the day of "Super Tuesday" and NO robocalls have darkened my Thunderbird account. Lesson: - be vigilant, be intolerant and be a complete bastard.
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fiogf49gjkf0d Damn PC has been dead all day and I've had to fight all this time to get its power working. It's only now at this 'magical time' around 3 am that it's decided to work again. For now.
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fiogf49gjkf0d Ball bearings in a straight Jacket. Okay, a round jacket.
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fiogf49gjkf0d 
In Soviet Russia, birth control pills take YOU!
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fiogf49gjkf0d As Carrie Dahlby once sang, the world is full of ...
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fiogf49gjkf0d That would explain the membership problem. You would think that during a depression, more people would need to laugh. Both of my parents grew up in the first Great Depression (well, my father was already an adult then...ghod, I'm old) and they both confirmed this when they were alive.
We had thousands of active members before 2008. Not only do we have only 300+ now, but for the past two years, we lost more after the holidays than we had before they started. We had 450 around Labor Day and we have 330 now. It hasn't been this bad since the site was broken and the pages took a week to load.
Maybe it's just all the hostility in the culture. The networks are unwatchable now because of reality TV (a gift from Satan, no doubt) and people are more assholic in general. Maybe Woody Harrelson is right...
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DJ Particle:
I think part of it is that the genre is going through a downturn in general....
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fiogf49gjkf0d I think part of it is that the genre is going through a downturn in general.
I see less people posting new comedy stuff on SoundClick, and I see less people posting new stuff in general. The Sideshow has been silent for almost 2 weeks now. Not as many WoW parodies/songs either, and whereas it used to be that just about every WoW song got machinimated into a video, now very few do.
Less people have been listening to Dementia Radio. Luke's show, which used to get between 30-40 listeners a week, is down to about 20, which is what my show was getting back in 2007.
It's the genre in and of itself :( That's my theory anyway.
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fiogf49gjkf0d And we have to keep up with the tech. That's the mistake Dr. D made with his site for quite a while. Our shows have to be listenable on all types of smartphones and such things without difficulties.
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fiogf49gjkf0d We could prey on the market DrD has been cultivating at Reed College if Wayne can find out how to advertize there. I would think some would be interested in getting streams of Mad Music just for joining.
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Stavro Arrgolus:
...but how do you market to such a diverse audience with many different musical backgrounds?
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fiogf49gjkf0d That's the trick, isn't it. What's the demographic for this genre? It's hard to pin down. Mostly male, mostly white, mostly Anglo - but certainly not all.
And age group? Hoo boy... I suppose I represent the high end of that spectrum, but kids like this music as well. The majority seem to be in the middle somewhere - those who heard Dr. Demento in the '70s & early '80s.
I told Wayne to buy Google ads himself instead of just displaying them, but how do you market to such a diverse audience with many different musical backgrounds?
78s... I'm still planning on a show called "Ye Olde Daze", but, like the all-request show, I'll have to push it back because it's been done recently. This'll teach me to keep my big gob shut and not post show ideas.
Now I have to go out and shovel the heart attack inducer and become completely exhausted. I'll put it off as long as possible.
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fiogf49gjkf0d Hey, 156 is double 78, maybe time for more 78s, once every 78 shows wether we need it or not.
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Stavro Arrgolus:
Some upcoming shows:
MMS-15X -
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fiogf49gjkf0d Maybe if some more of us actually clicked on some of the ads, Captain Wayne might have some revenue to do mount a Google Ads campaign.
We also need to find where our market could come from--older DrD fans or new to funny music school-agers, college-agers that will pass things along via their social media (including real word-of-mouth).
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Stavro Arrgolus:
...(only 160 joined - the lowest ever)
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fiogf49gjkf0d Like last year, we lost more than we gained during the holidays (only 160 joined - the lowest ever) and are now under 400 which we had managed to hold on to for most of last year.
People are missing some good shows.
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fiogf49gjkf0d Tracking the lastest 100 current member log-ins, it is 78 hours, one of the longest spans of time that I have tracked. Also only 7 new users within that time. Just under 400 members at this time, down about 100 from Christmas.
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fiogf49gjkf0d I do, too. Of course, there aren't enough songs about bathtime alone to fill 2 hours, so the show will be about all kinds of cleanliness. Inside and out.
Gettin' cleaner than clean from end to end.
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fiogf49gjkf0d MMS-15X - Hygiene Is Not A Dirty Word (bathtime tunes)
I have a feeling that we will hear Hyapatia Lee and Meri Wilson soon.....
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fiogf49gjkf0d As one member pointed out. Use the old RSS feed to remind MMS subscribers that a new show has come out and they can come and get it.
Maybe even send it out mid-day Monday, a more active time to act on it, instead of 10pm Sunday night. The majority of MMShows don't lose thier freshness.
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Stavro Arrgolus:
....we need to advertise.
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fiogf49gjkf0d After losing 50+ actives at once, I looked at my old email and there it was - the bulk email had been sent on the 16th all right. Today is day 30.
This year, because only 160 came back out of the 12,000 or so on the mailing list (making me question whether they actually all were sent - or worse, if they've all lost interest), only 50 disappeared instead of the hundreds we usually lose at once in January.
If we want more members, we need to advertise. That's just how it is.
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fiogf49gjkf0d Well, here we go again. 40 members left since yesterday--it must be 31 days since the first batch of mass-emails went out.
Meanwhile, the time it takes 100 unique members to log on has expanded to 90 hours, almost 4 days. Within that 100, a lot of familiar names, within the last 100 not all members that had joined in the last 30 days, most older members to only visiit once a year or so.
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