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Stavro Arrgolus's Blog
Topic: Editor's Blog- (8/10) Multifaceted Themes: Am I Crazy For Wanting This?
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fiogf49gjkf0d August 10 - 5 pm EDT
T he new show is posted. Requests for the next are being taken.
As it says on the show thread, the show is given a loose theme rather than admit it's more or less using random songs.
The big theme list made last year still has quite a few quirky things on it. I feel bad about using up these themes making only hour long shows when they could be so much more. I just don't have the energy to make 2 hour shows. Time I've got. Energy, not so much.
List or no list, I can't bring myself to make shows with pedestrian themes yet. Maybe Dr. D. can make shows about cats and alcohol over and over and over again but I can't. There has to be an angle to it if the shows go there. The week before last, I used the theme breaking feature to suddenly make the monkey show about dog abuse. It couldn't be about dogs alone; it had to be something about dogs - it didn't matter what.
And this was the nasty attitude I had when I made the show theme list last year. Mundane things weren't good enough. Everything had to have a weird angle it comes at its subject matter from. Why? To stop a single reaction...
I would find that, not so long ago, when I looked at upcoming shows and saw that they were about overdone topics - you know the ones I mean - I would think, "Not AGAIN! It's not like this is his annual show about this. He has the biggest collection of demented songs on earth! Can't he do something weird with this subject instead of just 'cats' again? How about 'Cats Shitting' or 'Cats Fucking' or 'Cats Clawing Your Face Off'?" There are more than enough cat songs to make an hour out of one of those.
With just a little extra push, you can turn "Oh Christ, not AGAIN!" into "WTF!". Is it crazy to want that? Oh, well. Until I run out of weird ideas, those are the kind of shows I'll make. If there's a cat song, it'll be part of something else - like a...country themed mini segment or something. Or it'll be clawing your face off.
Ok, I forgot again. Next time I'll start a new blog stack. If it takes forever for slow computers to load this blog, somebody say so and I won't make the stacks this long next time.
August 2 - 12:30 pm EDT
A fter a task-filled week, I've gotten to compiling the new show today. No surprises this time, just variations on the theme. Big variations.
Because there was so much to do this week, the show will be posted sometime next week, depending on how much I can manage this weekend. Also, Shark Week is coming, a bit of a respite from the scumbags of reality tv, so there's something else to preoccupy me. And preseason football... Ack! I want to get this done first...
The new show will have 3 themes - all loosely tied to the main one -
Seg 1: Birthdays
Seg 2: Cake
Seg 3: Death
For those of you who spotted the Eddie Izzard "Cake or Death" reference here, 10 points. I know there was already a show about death, but that was a couple of years ago and I put that show together for Wayne. This is more of a DIY thing.
As I make these shows, I notice the segments getting bigger and bigger. They're supposed to be 20 minutes and they average 23. Most of the new "Mad Music Hours" run 72-75 minutes. Not only is it free, but you get extra content. Can't be bad.
I need to start a new blog stack with the next post. This one's getting super long. Right after I get used to this new ergonomic keyboard I just bought. I went to buy a microphone, they were out of stock, so I came home with this thing.
July 24 - 2 am EDT
T his week, I'm in too much pain to make the long delayed hygiene show so it's being delayed yet again and the new show will be about monkeys.
I find both chronic pain and monkeys to be endlessly irritating, so a show about the damn dirty apes seems a no-brainer. The new show will be another one hour MMH and will not expand to a full MMS the way show 163 did.
You may also notice that in recent shows, the new theme breaking feature hasn't been appearing. There's no rule that says it has to be in every show. it will turn up where it best fits to send a show off in another direction. This makes shows more exciting & unpredictable, but sometimes, you just want to make a themed show with no interruptions.
July 16 - 10:45 am EDT
A nd yes, I know I'm just asking for it with a blog title like that. But come on. Thyroid cancer: in remission. Type 2 diabetes: DEAD.
I was diagnosed on May 13th and yesterday, my endocrinologist - that's right, my cancer doctor had to tell me; my foreign GP takes less than an interest in my situation. His culture must believe that old people are incapable of comprehending anything (and has a cow fixation, but let's not go there).
My endocrinologist, who's the very best specialist out of the army of specialists I see, and that's no exaggeration, told me that due to my efforts, i.e., not eating crap and using the Nordic Track regularly (a damn Nordic Track saved me! Go figure. Do they even still sell those?), I no longer had full blown diabetes - just an 'increased risk' for it. If I keep at it, I won't even have that.
It should be said at this point that this was entirely my fault. I ate nothing but sugary crap for 9 years, so I should have seen it coming.
If I don't die first (always a possibility), by Labor Day, I'll be fit, at an optimum weight and will avoid eating that stupidly ever again. It's proved all too easy, so something screwy's likely to happen. I need to watch for it... All right, enough bastardly bragging. Now for the show news.
The next show will be a Mad Music Hour, MMH-164 It's (Summer) Solstice Time Again - AKA "Christmas In July". It will be just an hour and no attempt will be made to add to it as was done with show 163. Everything doesn't have to morph into an MMS now just because it can.
The final segment of 163 will be on hold until 164 is recorded. This isn't a problem as I found completed Xmas playlists & mp3 folders from last year that I couldn't make then as I was far too busy being ill. But I can make one of them now. With most of it complete, it'll be pretty damn quick as well. It doesn't take an intricate script to make an Xmas show, so that part was easy as well.
So today, as the 5th or 6th heat wave bakes New England, I'm going to do my laundry and make 2 separate internet shows. I'd get some walking in, but it's hot enough to boil a monkey's bum out there, so I'll take a trip on the road to nowhere on the Nordic Track while listening to one of my own shows on my iPod (for timing purposes, you understand - they're 20 minutes; the workout's 20 minutes - it's not at all narcissistic) and I'll eat things that aren't crap - the key to health.
Actually, the key to health is to get old and have all your taste buds die and to have a pitifully weak sense of smell so everything tastes like cardboard, thus allowing you to eat anything - even healthy things that would ordinarily taste like crap.
July 12 - 11:45 am EDT
H ope you've heard the new show - www.madmusic.com/playlist.aspx?Show=MMS-163
But it's not done yet. I had "so I don't die" tasks to do this week, so I'm going to have a go at recording and adding segments 4-6 this weekend. It's another show, but it's the same show. On Monday, or maybe a bit sooner, check the show page - there may be a new segment or 3. And just maybe the first new full Mad Music Show in 7 months. If the site's coding allows all this, it may be done this way more often. Maybe a lot quicker next time.
In "Spam Is Not Lovely" news, Wayne blocked the blogs from suspended spammers and they suddenly couldn't spam their shoe related idiocy. They now have to make a new account (and then watch me suspend it) every time they want to spam. Just to spam a site with little interest in counterfeit Chinese shoes. Not worth the effort, really.
Speaking of effort, for all the effort that went into making MMS-157 (the Halloween show), maybe I can wait a couple of months until actual Halloween season to finish it when it would be useful, because it does no good right now. I have a backlog of ideas to get to after 5 months of no shows at all. It's been more than a year since I came up with the hygiene show concept. It's time to get on with it. Right after Christmas in July.
In still other news, the murderous "kill the newly diagnosed diabetes right now" diet I've been put on continues unabated. I haven't had a morsel of processed pastry/crap in 2 months and I've been exercising - on my 19 year old Nordic Track yet - like a crazy codger. I've lost 18 pounds and 2 belt sizes in 60 days.
Insanely enough, I don't really miss the sweet crap. When you get old (especially when you have little/no sense of smell) all your taste buds are fried and most things taste like cardboard anyway, so it's no big loss.
June 21 - 2 pm EDT
Time for a show update.
As I mentioned in the forums, because of the interesting idea I have using the new theme-breaking feature, the out of season Halloween show that I'm making, MMS-157, must now be made in one big 3 hour piece - which will take a long, long time. My main concern is that you'll think I've stopped making shows again when, in fact, I'm just making an effort to make this one not blow goats.
I know it's setting the bar high, but I want this show to be one that...wait for it... you might actually want to listen to more than once. Yes, I know it sounds crazy, but holiday shows are supposed to be perennial anyway, so it's not an unreasonable desire.
A lot of fuss must be made about this show because it's made to fill a gap in last year's shows and is, therefore, not only "tailor made for yesterday", but is also a holiday show very out of touch with the current season. If I want it heard now, I'd better promote it a bit or it'll quickly be forgotten - until next Halloween arrives, of course.
It's been a perfect time to make it. Weeks ago, I bitched about a heat wave and that I wasn't installing the 16 ton AC for a few pussy-ass hot days and then an entire "cold, rainy June". And Christ, has that prediction ever been too accurate. The monsoon arrived almost immediately afterward and it hasn't stopped raining since. Rain, thunder, floods - real ark building weather. If summer wasn't here now, it'd be perfect weather to make a 3-hour Halloween show to.
Although this show is a done deal, the other show, MMS-163 "Is It Dementia", in which supposedly non-dementia is played and the listener is given a big dose of WTF and must decide if what they hear is, in fact, dementia, or, as I like to call it, "causing grievous mental confusion", is still being put together and you can still request songs for it while the special is being made. Production will begin upon completion of the special.
June 15 - 12 pm EDT
When I found the remaining puzzle pieces of MMS-157 - the lost Halloween episode from last year, namely the folder containing its mp3s that I thought I never gathered and the script I thought I never wrote, making the show recordable all but immediately, I posed the question:
"Should I make this Halloween show I all but tripped over or continue with this high concept, but somewhat labor intensive episode I'm working on now?"
It was at this point that Tim and Pete reminded me of something I knew but had forgotten. This isn't uncommon. I forget far too much these days. It's an all too familiar fact, and I'm paraphrasing now:
"People go apeshit for holiday specials at all times of the year - and they always will."
Yes, I had completely forgotten this. It would be hard not to with all the health (or lack of it) related crap I've had to endure of late. Then the damn basement floods.
Anyway, I can't ignore both a gift AND a gimmick handed to me at the same time. A completed show, ready to be recorded and an opportunity to make a Fall-based holiday show out of season with Summer & the 4th of July fast approaching. Everyone else will be working on sun & fun and I zap the site with this. Woohoo!
This is also an opportunity to close a big hole left in the TMMS show order left last year when this show couldn't be made. I'm assuming it was all hernia operation-related in one way or another. Well, whatever.
The show will likely take a week or slightly more to make. I used up the really good sfx on the first Halloween show (it came out rather well), so it's going to be quite an effort to make this next one nearly as good. That's where all the time will go. Coming up with ideas to make this show not suck.
So, to review: MMS-163 will be on hold until the Halloween show is complete. For now, it will be a 2-hour MMS, but it may be experimented with and segments may be added to it at some point after the completion of 163, making it the first Mad Music Special.
June 13 - 11 am EDT
After five months, I've finally gotten off my ass and made new Mad Music Hours.
The third effort of these, "Is It Dementia?", MMH-163, coming next week (These will be bi-weekly unless stated otherwise. I'm well enough to make them, but not that well. Not yet anyway.), will allow YOU to decide for yourself if what you're listening to is dementia or not. Though as editor, I'll decide if they go into the archive - if they aren't already there.
I asked Wayne about the prospect of adding segments to existing shows to make hour shows (eventually) into full Mad Music Shows. Since the segments are given silly and sometimes perverse names instead of numbers, this won't be too difficult. He said he might be able to change the page so the posted segment mp3s could be renamed. This would help a lot.
At some point, I want to stop and make the long delayed MMS-157, the lost Halloween show. I want it to be a full 2 hour show, if not the first Mad Music Special - the 3 hour version of an MMS and the 4th variety of MMS I conceived of when the shows were brought back. Last week, I looked in one of my large Excel spreadsheet folders and found it - and that this show's playlist was already completed, so I don't have to start from scratch on it.
Last month, my doctors diagnosed me with yet another horrifying disease to pile onto a very long list. I'm far from being a pussy-ass hypochondriac by any stretch of the imagination, but this is becoming ridiculous.
This one's my fault. I've been eating nothing but garbage for the last 9 years. Considering my situation, I felt entirely justified in doing so. The only positive thing I did in that time is give up beer...mostly. That's the only reason I weigh just under 200 lbs...instead of 300. Now I have to eat expensive tasteless things and become fit...or else. This will interfere with show production a bit.
But how did I deal with this latest attempt by my shitty health to finish me off? In a thoroughly pussy-ass girly man way. On the way home from one of the hospital visits, I went and bought some shoes. And both pairs were on sale, yet. I could have at least bought a piston engine or something. It's true, I haven't bought any shoes in at least 8 years, but still...
April 27 - 2:45 am EDT
I t's 2 in the morning and you know what that means..yes, another rambling blog entry. And school's out early and soon we'll be learning and the lesson today is..how to die - or not.
The other day, I went to see one of my many specialists who keep my sorry ass alive. I stupidly thought I could drive there without risking said ass. BZZZT! Wrong.
I was coming back and...are you familiar, dear reader, with rumble strips? They're the bits of the road that are excised by machine from the asphalt which, in turn, cause one to FUCKING DIE! I hit one of these (in the center of the road - WTF?!) trying to avoid a garbage truck and my car immediately stalled and all the controls locked up. I coasted to a stop, unable to get to the side of the road since the wheel was locked up and there I sat in the left lane of the fucking highway. No way to move and giant goddamn trucks coming at me.
This was one of those "RUN AWAY!" sort of moments, and that's what I did (you would have, too). After frantically calling 911 and AAA, a cop car pushed my dead Crown Vic over to the breakdown lane with his not dead Crown Vic. Why did I not die of a heart attack during all this? Muscle relaxant. It's great stuff. And no, meds aren't what caused all this. People hit rumble strips all the time and this shit doesn't happen to them.
After a while, AAA arrived and...here's the fun part. Did you know there's a fuel cutoff switch in your trunk that shuts your car down and locks up your controls if you so much as bump anything? I didn't. Or perhaps I just forgot. This whole "slow cancerous death" thing distracts me from details like that. So sue me. ...No, don't.
So the guy presses the button...and the battery is dead. Well of course it is. He gives the car a jump and I escape with my ass intact (except for all the terror, of course) and I didn't have to pay anything. It was a AAA battery, so it had years of warranty. This wasn't the first time I've been rescued by them. Having no living relatives to call for help sucks major portions of ass.
After making it home..driving verrry carefully (all [other] old people drive like this; maybe things like this happening are why), I cancelled my doctor appointment for next week and decided to stay the fuck home and not drive again until I have to. This is what I do anyway, but I'll do it more so for quite a while.
Just an addendum to all this. Did I mention that it's ok to use bad language in your personal blogs, but not in the forums? Just thought I'd mention that again.
April 20 - 9 pm EDT
T his week, everything exploded around here.
It was very much like watching Ep. 16 of Monty Python when they blew up anything and everything. It was a time for staying in the house and not letting anyone in who isn't in police riot gear. Fortunately, this is how I do things anyway, so nothing changed here.
As you may have seen on TV, others weren't used to living like that, so they kind of went apeshit. Our Arab friends left some 'arab coward mines' lying about and things went south from there. In some other place, they might have gotten away, but this was Boston they were fucking with.
Now one is dead and the other, if he lives (hope not) will be tossing salads and getting ass raped for the rest of his miserable existence, thus teaching them the important lesson, "Don't fuck with Boston". Naturally, I'm all for torturing the Osama wannabe and then crucifying him upside down on live TV. But that's just me.
As all this began, I posted below what the ultimate result would be much later and not what was going on as it happened. Maybe old cancer patients think far ahead because we're fixated on our own unavoidable mortality. That's what I do. It's 4/20 and medical marijuana is now legal here. Wish I had some. I'm certainly eligible. After this week, I could go through quite a bit.
In a month or so, I'm going to try to get a podcast in - if I can figure out how to get it onto iTunes. If not, it will be a Mad Music Hour. But household chores come first. After a year of no vacuuming, the dust bunnies are big enough to ride on.
April 16 - 2:30 am EDT
I t was 3 pm when I heard the sound.
Woke up from my nap and I looked around
In the echo of my tinnitus ringing
The sense that something terrible had happened again
Got out of bed and turned the TV on
And they said the marathon was gone, gone for good...
It's 2 in the morning, so that must mean it's time for a blog entry.
Yesterday, I went to the dentist to get 2 fillings in my upper teeth. An occasionally on-hand supply of Flexeril & Vicodin preceded the trip, making the procedure and the outrageous payment tolerable. Not a word about the marathon during the drilling, filling & billing. It's not like the outcome was in question or anything. When I got home, I had a brief look at the African Marathon, that travesty of running in my home state that had long since been taken over by Kenya (just like the presidency...kidding) and Ethiopia in 1990 and they've had an iron grip on it ever since, hence the sarcastic name I give it. This year was no exception...
Since I couldn't eat anything without tearing apart my numb cheeks, a nice nap was in order. When I got up and turned the TV on while half-awake, parts of Boston many dozens of miles away had been turned into a wasteland and the winners were forgotten (just as well; the East Africans ran away with it again for the 24th year). I was then presented with a still half-dreaming WTF moment I had not experienced watching this travesty of 'sports' before. It had became news coverage and the local stations have been covering it ever since. It's quarter past 2 in the morning and it's still on for Chrissake!
Maybe I'm just not quite ready to deal with terrorism happening right here.
No matter if the Arabs or whoever are found to be responsible, this means an otherwise comparatively friendly sport will be taken over by Big Brother because of this. There'll be metal detectors and bomb sniffing dogs and pat downs and virtual strip search machines just to run in a race - if it's run at all. More police state for nothing. And we won't be any safer, just even less free than before. This fucking blows.
We might as well give up now and go to Russia to have the 'Boston' Marathon. Not a lot of Kenyans would be allowed to survive that. It'd be more entertaining as well if what the Russians post on YouTube isn't staged. Tanks crossing the roads for no good reason, MiGs buzzing the runners from just 20 feet above. Guys spinning out their cars, followed by lots of drunk fighting. That's entertainment. And nothing would explode unless the de facto dictator Vladamir Putin ordered it. The "race" was getting too commercial anyway. This is something Russia could actually fix.
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April 18 - 5:45 am EDT
Reading it again, in retrospect, I should have gone on a bit about the victims. Maybe, just maybe, living with that whole "The cancer can come back and kill you at any time" thing makes me more than just a bit callous. My bad.
Now something else had blown up. Since my insomnia gives me no choice, I've been watching the coverage all night and playing Sims 3 (my witch is learning alchemy) as I did when I first wrote this. I'll let the people who live in that area bitch about that just as I did about our local brush with terror.
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Member Comments:
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fiogf49gjkf0d The Kickstarter campaign for Shadow of the Eternals, the sequel to the now classic innovative survival horror game Eternal Darkness, failed with less than half the needed funds.
I would have liked to have played that one. Too many games blow goats these days...
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fiogf49gjkf0d Yes exactly Dave.
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Dave AuJus:
www.madmusic.com/song_details.aspx?SongID=12810
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Stavro Arrgolus:
I'd want to make another show an hour later. Not to mention all the fur in my mouth...
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peterpuck9:
Perhaps you can turn a show about cats into a show about chinese food...
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fiogf49gjkf0d Nudge Nudge!
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Stavro Arrgolus:
I'd want to make another show an hour later. Not to mention all the fur in my mouth...
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peterpuck9:
Perhaps you can turn a show about cats into a show about chinese food...
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fiogf49gjkf0d www.madmusic.com/song_details.aspx?SongID=12810
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Stavro Arrgolus:
I'd want to make another show an hour later. Not to mention all the fur in my mouth...
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peterpuck9:
Perhaps you can turn a show about cats into a show about chinese food...
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fiogf49gjkf0d I'd want to make another show an hour later. Not to mention all the fur in my mouth...
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peterpuck9:
Perhaps you can turn a show about cats into a show about chinese food...
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fiogf49gjkf0d Perhaps you can turn a show about cats into a show about chinese food...
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fiogf49gjkf0d I'm glad at least somebody likes them. Though I often wonder if the character I use is too over the top. I tried to sneak in Tyro Arrgula in one show for variety to see how that would go.
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Dave AuJus:
Your crazy one hour shows are still better than no shows at all.
Keep up the good work.
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fiogf49gjkf0d Ain't that the truth. When I have the time, I don't have the energy. When I have the energy, I don't have the time. The older I get, it feels like I have neither.
Your crazy one hour shows are still better than no shows at all.
Keep up the good work.
Stavro:
The big theme list made last year still has quite a few quirky things on it. I feel bad about using up these themes making only hour long shows when they could be so much more. I just don't have the energy to make 2 hour shows. Time I've got. Energy, not so much.
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fiogf49gjkf0d "It's hot enough to boil a monkey's bum in here, Your Majesty", he said and she smiled quietly to herself.
She's a good sheila, Bruce, and not at all stuck up.
I remember when William was born. A crazy guy broke into her room at the palace. She wasn't stuck up then either.
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fiogf49gjkf0d Here's to your good health report! And at least you never got scurvy.
I'd get some walking in, but it's hot enough to boil a monkey's bum out there...
That's a strange expression Bruce! I heard the prime minister use it......
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fiogf49gjkf0d Congrats on getting healthier. Keep up the good work.
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fiogf49gjkf0d And now, a post to put this blog on top of the list so there's a chance in hell it might actually get read once or twice. Maybe.
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