Getting Hits in Places

It's still a little early to tell if this revamped refreshed look is giving us any new/extra readership. Some posts just get more hits than others, and all posts get more and more hits as time goes on of course, and so it's impossible to compare old post hit frequency with new post hit frequency, at least with the seemingly random hit pattern that occurs on my blog (I think it's bots for some reason??) and even then a lot of hit numbers are dependent on how clickable my post name is for some reason? and anyway, that's not what I want to talk about today.

Pouring effort into my IG posts, even if it takes up a comparatively insignificant part of the day, really makes it feel productive (or is correlation and causation swapped, and my productive-feeling days just more likely to have me squeeze a little elbow grease into my artwork??) I'm still doing that thing where I'm not checking my metrics on tonight's post until tomorrow, but from the brief sitting there that I did after I posted, setting what came in, I think it's going to be a popular one today.

Already though I'm feeling the tidal tug of whether I'm just churning out something soulless I'd know wood be pop'lar or knot. Still, even if I were to do that ever, I put my own little spin on things.

Jugband Rocket (Helvetica)

JUGBAND ROCKET

And it's in- oh my, this is also in Helvetica. I'll keep it, because Wes Anderson. I'm not sure how many (if any!) likes or subs my latest IG post has gotten me, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were one of my most popular posts ever, because a) not only did I put a lot of time and effort into this one, but b) dudes really love Wes Anderson crap, you guys.

Wes Anderson also uses Futura, which is just like, one of the greatest typefaces ever, also which Ikea used to use until they switched over to Verdana which is the typeface I normally use on this blog of course. I'm 99% sure I've told you all this before, but it's a neat connection appropriate to the situation.

This is a nice typeface. It helps that it's in bold; a lot more Andersonian. Versus this lighter register, feel that? Actually I'm not entirely sure this is Mordecai Helvetica, it may be the Google-owned Helvetica-based Roboto instead...?, (which coincidentally I download in my latest vlog, you seen it yet?) I mean look at these periods, they're round while the normal drafting of Helvetica's jots and iotas are rectangular. And the tail on the uppercase R, it's a straight line while the standard drawing of a Helvetica R's tail is curved. I don't hate either of those things, mind you; those are my least favorite things about the typical Helvetica rendering. Also, these glyphs look suspiciously similar to the ones on my Kindle Fire keyboard, an Android device...

Still, I'm not sure why they'd lie to us...

Muscle Memories, Tidbits on (Justified) Type, and Good vs Great Graphic Design

If I hadn't been just sitting here thinking for a few seconds, muscle memory would probably have forced me to adjust the settings from their default to change it to a 20 pt Verdana– but I've been sitting here long enough to realize that that IS the default text setting on this blog now and, man, that may take a while to get used to, I've been manually adjusting it to my preferred formatting for so long.

It would also be good if the text were justified instead of left-aligned; that's something I can manually adjust it to instead. Because, looking at this formatting, the ragging is a little unpredictable. Now instead, we can have rivers that run unpredictably! (Rivers means the word spacing in justified type that sort of lines up, in rivers, instead of the ragging being all over on one side.) That's a lot more of an issue with shorter lines of text, for obvious reasons– and between the large font and the recent readjustment of blog width, that's exactly a lot more of an issue now than it would be keeping either of the old formatting styles. Peeking over at a preview of this post, with this paragraph being justified and the top paragraph with the standard left-aligned formatting, I think the lines are just long enough to minimize river formation– blurring my eyes and focusing solely on the texture of the text, it's looking like a fine-marbled steak. Beautiful.

This isn't the first time it's occurred to me, of course, that I would have done a lot better on my graphic design homework if I'd actually put in any time or effort into it; maybe I would have been good enough to go for that BFA after all, and would still be in school for another semester or so, and would have gotten the chance to ever see McKenna again... Alright, it's the first time that's occurred to me (wcs) but it's not my first time realizing I don't have to be as poor a graphic designer as I gave myself credit for in school.

The difference between good graphic design and great graphic design is 20 hours.

Why does that have to be so true of everything else though too?

Blog Settings Test

Is the default font verdana now? I think so but jsut popping this off to see (no inline style placed on this at all)

okay looks like it but i still need to make the text large to match

I've just been doing this all in the text editor, making it large and Verdana when the default was 15 pt and like Georgia I think but I've been keeping that as the blog default setting because the old posts had been written like that, in that style, and then the posts I wrote about switching styles over wouldn't make much sense? because they were originally written in THIS style here; am I just going to have to go back and manually adjust them so they look like their original settings, even though that's a lie by now? Queries queries.

Watching the IG Sub Count Slowly Tick Up

There's probably a lot more that I could be doing to gain a follower base. But I'm not doing those things? There's a balance there, and I guess I'm trying to attract the right kinds of people. Like how, you know, if they were really your friend they wouldn't make fun of you for it.

My number of followers on Instagram is almost in the double digits. (I'm kinda proud of that, but just looking at that fact there's this part of me that goes, oh, honey...!) It would be well into that if people-- and I don't mind it but the mindset and very concept behind it just baffles me-- well, for one, started following instead of just liking some stranger's (my) posts out of the blue, but my point for two is, didn't randomly unsubscribe :/. I mean, I suspect people are doing that; IG only tells you when people start following you, not stop it, but I'm pretty sure the number of people who started following me is quite higher than people who currently do so. That's probably a problem I could fix easily if I applied any of those, "lot more that I could be doing"s that I mentioned up in paragraph one.

The thing about being internet famous as I am is: I'm doing my best, or my better at least, like not totally phoning my work in like it would be so easy to-- and I'm doing it for them. I still decide what content to post, all for myself, but the quality control before it goes out, that's for them.

Style and Substance (Of Text)

This is feeling a lot better, this design. Everything is so much more readable, between the shorter line length and the greater value contrast between foreground and background. That's my training as a graphic designer in play; now to engage my experience as a writer. Meaning, now to work on my prose, getting it so that it's easier to follow along? That just means proofreading, going back over everything and making sure my ideas are follow-able. I'm just one pair of eyes, but it should be easy enough, right? It's not a very nice space to be in, when you realize that even you yourself as the author of a text have a hard time following along as you read it...

Do you think that it may be, too easy to read, now? Because I can't tell. I get caught up in a rut, paying attention to the scansion of lines without paying attention to the words themselves; just going, yep my eyes can flick over and find the next line down easily, this is good design.

And this proofread (rhymes with lead) writing lacks character. It's so bland I can't stomach it; it's like nothing is having any effect. Especially with the legibility being so high that the words just slide down your retinas the way they do. What was the last sentence about? You know what I don't remember.

Inktober Versus: Working Hard

I don't want it to be mutually exclusive, either posting to my blog or putting up an Inktober post, but right now... looking like it is. I need to make Inktober more of a priority, rather than an afterthought. The prompts are supposed to make it easier and not harder, but 1) I'm drawing a blank on "guarded" 2) alright no I'm not, the word immediately calls to mind Julie Taymor's character design for Nathan Gunn's portrayal of Papageno in the 2006 Metropolitan Opera production of The Magic Flute, but I really want to dig deeper than that, and 3) just because it's easier doesn't mean that it's easy; the more time you put into the project the better the results are going to be, and like anything else important, I'm just kind of shunting it all aside to work on it later, when I know I should tackle it as soon as possible and why do I procrastinate so much, I always enjoy myself as soon as I start working but for some reason that doesn't make me any more willing to do it?!

NaNoWriMo being half a month away, I shudder to think how that will turn out.

How much time did it take me a day last year, to write 1,667 words a day? I should be spending, like, that much time, each day this month.

Anyway I redesigned the blog a bit, tentatively. I'm not changing it back to that eyesore before, but I'd be surprised if I kept this same theme for anything but a little bit. I mean, I wouldn't read myself, the previous design, and this design has loads more class.

Now how to figure out the HTML to give us more leading between lines...

(EDIT: Figured it out! Now how to figure out the HTML to give me more spacing between the end of a post and the footer...)

Post Names!

Oh hey, as long as I'm on this blog and none of my others, I think I'll talk about post names. Kinda like the hashtag discussion of a couple of days ago, right? It's, I mean I think that the post names for the last few posts have been well-done dining, don't you? My hits have been, decent. So that's, decent.

I've got post name issues on my A Real Thing blog: named after the date and time of its authorship (yawn.) The last post there I shook it up and added a little more info than that to the title. Haven't gotten any more hits really, but more posting there may or may not reveal a better trend. We'll see.

Also my YouTube channel, I only post vlogs which are all vaguely named and, whatever. I'd do other videos if I could do any videos right now; I think it's the big one for my laptop... My birthday needs to come early this year; as rad as that lens is it's not nearly as important as that.

The Venom Stinger!

Working a shift at Fallon Theatre, taking people's concession orders and initiating the projector bootup sequence and helping figure out how to add items to the inventory system. And all that. I did have to miss VENOM but I did get to catch glimpses of the endier part, and, VENOM, man! 

Going back into the theater after the audience had all left but while the credits were still going on, we also got to catch the post-credits stinger. And... it's exciting. It's very, very...

It's a chunk of thing from Into the Spider-Verse, is what it is. There's a tag, like a comic book panel, which says Meanwhile in an Alternate Dimension... and there's a clip from Into the Spider-Verse. Or something. The events that happen in it don't occur even remotely close to how those same plot points play out in the trailers, so I don't know what's going on there, but...

There's, before the stinger, like how the licensed music is credited always at the tail end of the credits? The last of the songs listed was "Music from Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" which I thought was interesting, wondered how that fit in there. I'm not sure if it's making credit to music that occurs after it or not, or if there's even Into the Spider-Verse music elsewhere in the film, but anyway.

It was great, obviously. The whole scene there. And the bit or so I saw of the rest was compulsively watchable (and the guy who directed this is the same guy who directed Zombieland? so there's that?) but that's not what I'm talking about (I just love monster movies, and this hits the right thematic beats for me, so I'm digressing on it) so watch me make a cognizant point here:

I don't know if there's Spider-traces elsewhere in this film, but I wouldn't need them even if there were, as much as I love Spider-Man. This is enough for me. Because knowing that Spider-Man is out there somewhere, even if in an alternate reality, makes Venom feel like it's the same universe as the Spider-Man. The same universe as the Webb Spider-Man and the Raimi Spider-Man and 616 Spider-Man and yes even the MCU Spider-Man. Just, any Spider-Man, the same way LEGO Batman is every Batman.

And it feels, exciting. This stinger. As exciting as the vague titillating promise at the end of Iron Man 1, the notion of a crossover franchise when such a thing hadn't really been done before. That exciting. Before it became commonplace. Christmas all over again. I'm not joking here.

It also kind of reminds me of there being a legally mandated X-Men stinger randomly after ASM2, but this one's the same company so it actually makes sense.

On the 90s and the Notion that Mistakes Just Happen

(10/11 9:50 am)

Alright so spilling the ink was pretty suckish, but it wasn't my fault because Mom sad accidents and mistakes just happen. Like, she breaks a plate and spills some milk and it's fine and she doesn't blame herself because these things happen. But it blew my mind, the idea that mistakes just happen; I blame myself for everything. That plate being there at the edge of the counter? My fault somehow. My team losing in Overwatch? My fault somehow. The current political state? Not my fault. I do have some notion of what things I have control over or not.

I think it (meaning why I tend to blame myself) may have something to do with a) mental health stuff or something, or b) my growing up in the 1990s. A lot of my life can be pinned to one or both of those things. The 90s thing with this one though: maybe it's a generational difference? Specifically, all my elementary school years I hear the news, and it being the 1990s, all the news is about frivolous lawsuits. Or Pokemon cards. Or Elian Gonzalez. Also, celebrity scandals and crap. But mostly, frivolous lawsuits! And we made fun of them and whatever, ha ha of course it's not the defendant's fault, it's got to be the plaintiff's fault, but that still placed firmly in everyone's mind the unspoken notion undergirding the entire assumption: well, somebody's got to be at fault! That accidents don't just happen. And sure there were lawsuits back in the 1970s, but like nothing of epidemic proportions, that the national stereotype would be of Americans as litigious. 

Maybe the mocking of these lawsuits also went toward the millennial generation being so friendly with strangers and stuff. I don't know. Things can have upsides too.

Sold-Out Skies

(10/11 2:55- this and "tomorrow's" are backdated because like being busy with Inktober and stuff like that.)

Alright or maybe the idea that I don't want to see those numbers come in (of hits and stuff) is because of how those numbers got there. They got there through hashtags!, because I hashtagged them!, so that people interested in that kind of content would notice them!, because honey this is web 2.0, and that's the price of admission; and that's fine and everything but I'm setting myself up to be noticed when of course there's still that part of me which is all, no don't be noticed, don't let anyone see your artses, they're (hahaha, and the word of the day is precious today, the prompt for inktober!) they're inadequate anyway, and sure maybe they'd be adequate if nobody noticed them, but you're hashtagging them!!, and setting yourself up to be noticed when you're not quite adequate for that yet.

A-D-E-Q-U-A-T-E. That's with an a at the start and an e in the middle and an a-e at the end. Next time you want to spell that word. Don't even want to tell you my first crack at spelling the word; there was an "n" in there somehow...

But yeah hashing the tags feels like selling out and any engagement I receive from them seems invalid. Selling out!

I am, like, a naturally quirky person, I guess. Observing random things. Using the Chicken Dance as a means of transportation. Dressing up to stay in and dressing down to go out. I mean, I'm not consistently quirky or anything, I mostly walk places, but, maybe the fact that I am quirky only sometimes makes me... even quirkier? This is a problem I feel with like YouTube anyway; if I did any of this for the camera that'd be doing it, like, for the camera. But I see Hannah making silly videos and just like not caring?? So there's that concept.

Or Possibly Unfriendly Skies

Oh my gosh, people can be absolutely terrible to each other on social media, which is something I failed to take into account when I was trying to enumerate the reasons I'd refrain from keeping nose-to-nose with the twitches in my platforms' webs. It's not something conscious, obviously, since I didn't think about it, but maybe that's also a reason I'd set the phone down and walk away. The fear of being eviscerated. Or, no, the fear of being eviscerated and your critics being right. 

Which wouldn't be that off, I mean, the process of inking reveals I'm not quite as good an artist as I'd thought I was; for some reason there's nothing quite like laying down a definitive line to reveal underlying structural flaws.

But most likely your work is going to be met with indifference, which is warm and comforting at least.

I posted on both my IGs today, and each has but a single like at present... They are really hard sells, tough coming up with hashtags if I wanted to hashtag at all.

But the idea of making one's work palatable to an audience is quite a different discussion. Mmmnnng next time.

Flying the Social Media Skies

I almost forgot to post today; posting both a daily blog and a daily Inktober is kind of, well... (exhausting. it's exhausting, which is the prompt of the day, which is why I'm being so ha-ha funny about it.)

I've gotten likes on my posts, but actually haven't gained many followers. Like, one or two. It's just a week into this, and I don't need followers anyway, so, it's fine.

The first couple of times when my posts really began taking off (meaning receiving more than like two likes) I stuck around watching them pour in with alarming rapidity, but these last few days I've just been, not doing that. Putting the phone down asap and checking in much later to see what happened. And I'm not sure why, what motivates that. Is it a deliberate rejection of wasting time on social media watching something that I don't need to see played out in real time? Is it something else? Am I just afraid to be successful with a post or with anything?

Watching YouTube advertisements, it strikes me how many of them are about making lots of money; how many play to the audience's greed, in other words. It works on me for the first five seconds before I realize how naked it all is. (I knew I was opening a can of worms, but might as well just hammer out a couple of thoughts, even if I haven't though the issue full out yet.) To be rich is to be powerful (by the way how does "firing one's own boss" like the video title says even work???) Am I humble, or am I unambitious? And why, am I afraid of the responsibility? What am I working toward? I mean, I'm not working very hard but I am working; do I not work harder because I don't want the attention or what? I guess I'd be fine if followers just sort of showed up to my doorstep for no reason, but would I be willing to actually run outside and seek any down?

Anyway so I just checked my latest post and it's got five likes so far. Preettty goood. Four more people than I'll ever be, so I consider that so hecka famous.

"Ime" with a "T" in Front

Time is a valuable and precious gift, which we should always remember to invest wisely. What have I been doing with my time this evening then? I could have been using it to make art or listen to an informative podcast, discover new music or study a classic work of literature. Nope. Instead I hit 100% of my nostalgia markers rewatching an old learn-to-read educational video from my childhood. It's not very good, but I loved it.











The Readers' Palace was always the most vaguely unsettling place; maybe it's because the film is poorly structured (alongside other problems) and tie up all story threads before they enter into it, leaving it narratively purposeless and superfluous. Or maybe it's how Snoz Ali describes it as somewhere you'll always want to stay and never want to leave...

Anyway See-a-lot was a babe, like, the hottest. Stone cold fox. Just saying.

Trench Out, For Legal

Alex and I podcasted about it immediately after we listened to it, so you can hear my thoughts there once it's edited and posted up.

soundcloud.com/whateverwewant7

Hammering Out My Thoughts a Bit More (More TLJ Stuff)

I ask if there's a political component to TLJ hatedom or fandom. The rhetoric does seem to reach political levels. 

1. There's a current brouhaha with Supreme Court nominee where absolutely everyone is falling down party line over which side they support, so that should provide a good metric if we want to get empirical about this. Go up to people, ask them two questions, and see if there's any correlation. 

2. Patrick (H) Willem's video about how he loves TLJ, not about how critics are wrong or anything but about how much he loves it and wishes that haters could see what he sees in it, somehow got proportionally more thumbs downs than the video specifically about TLJ criticism; even though there wasn't really any negativity in it, like they just hated how he could like it. Sounds political to me.

3. Of course part of the criticism against the padding on Canto Bight is political- the scene is much more effective if you bring outside opinions/baggage into it; the film itself doesn't do much to have us hate these war profiteers generally, barring some relatively light animal and child abuse from the horseything racers and handlers. If you're naturally disposed to hatred of, say, multi-eggsacked opera stars, you're going to get a lot more catharsis out of that sequence.

4. Thinking that The Last Jedi was a mistake is also much more likely to happen if you think The Force Awakens was a mistake and that Disney should just have... let the past die, kill it if they have to? (Which of course plays into the, people who hate TLJ for the opposite reason, because they loved TFA and TLJ undid much or all of what happened in that film.) Not sure if this is an indictment against capitalism or what.

5. I also asked if there's any part that TLJ haters can agree is good. The beginning parts, I guess? I'd have to look more into it, but for sure not the part where Luke is... I'm sorry, but when has Luke ever not been a whiny emo about everything? I'd have to rewatch RotJ I guess. And also, look into parts everyone can agree were good.

6. Speaking of the beginning parts, I loved the movie obviously but I wonder if I'm actually a hater. The part we theoretically can all agree on to be good, I might actually hate it because I love it? Explaining: I don't think that Poe's actions directly caused the fleet to be destroyed; there was a freak accident that happened to be while he was disobeying direct orders, but he was doing the right thing (the film presents his side of the argument clearly and competently so clearly wants us to be on his side.) Does my still loving Poe Dameron even though I see people arguing something about how this goes against his characterization or whatever, make me wrong and thus a hater because I'm loving the movie the wrong way? Well, no, but... thinking about opinions too much is confusing.

7 a. The non-film media, television and stuff. Do those who dislike the idea of new Star Wars films do so on the ground that they're films?, like we can just ignore the shows that's fine, but we can't ignore the movies? There's something about the movies and how they're a big part of the overall cultural dialogue, whereas television is just part of specific Star Wars and canon dialogues.

7 b. Anyway I want to tangent and gush about Star Wars TV for a bit. I could do a whole series just on the feels The Clone Wars gives me.

7 c. Resistance is premiering on Friday. Excited? Excited. Because of all the Poe Dameron in the trailers.

7 d. 1. Jon Favreau began shooting the new show The Mandalorian, coming to Disney's upcoming streaming service.

7 d. 2. Another tangent; Netflix has basically nothing anymore; Hulu is where it's been at for a large chunk of the past year at least. Disney's going to be better than Netflix for sure.


I just love the moment in A New Hope when Luke turns off his targeting computer. The character's need superseding the character's want. 

I'm not sure if there's a metaphor in there about anything; I just think it's excellent filmmaking.

Questions and (Un?)related Answers

What makes good television? Is there a political component to disliking The Last Jedi? Is liking La La Land over The Greatest Showman a "movie person" thing to do, with mainstream audiences more likely to lean toward liking the latter more? How much of The Last Jedi can we agree is good? Can one aspect of good television be termed, consistent character dynamic amongst the main cast, the plot the same every week, with the background changing occasionally? NCIS is hypnotic, but it can't be the formula that makes it so compulsively watchable, can it? Is it possible to bottle chemistry? Love and passion into a project of course being a prerequisite, is it possible? Or is the love and passion put into the project, itself the bottled chemistry?

The Show Goes On is the most studio-mandated thing of all time, it's just absolute machine-produced garbage, and yet it still works somehow.

We recorded the pilot to the podcast today- not really even trying and it came out well. The fact that we didn't want any dead air, that we just had to speak what came into our mind, made it spontaneous and fresh, and produced instant running gags.

For Real This Time

Better. You can... you can look now.

Is the background music annoying? I think it's kind of annoying. I like the idea of it, but I think I could have composed more for it, instead of arranging one threadbare track to last for 11 minutes. I'm much better writing songs with lyrics than I am instrumental music. I've got years of musical snippets from dreams that I woke up to record, and I suppose I could arrange those.

september???? still kinda proud but what happened here

This one is like last month's, also unlisted. I wrote in the doobly-doo the reasons:



not listing this one either, *sigh...*
I think the issue with the OBS/Premiere interaction, how they don't play well together making the framerate all jonkity, detaching from the audio track so the lipsync floats randomly etc, is that my OBS had recorded at 30 frames a second instead of 24 (more precisely 23.976 that is)?? I could just look it up why it does that, but it's too late to save this one, and I'm pretty sure I'm right, because I've gone over all other variables.
And everything else was so good, too. The lighting was great, the editing was smooth, I'd composed music to go into the background but neglected to put it in actually but that's fine... Then, at the other end of compilation, all this hard work and, it undercranks on me like a Keystone Kops episode.

IT WAS A LEARNING EXPERIENCE, OH WELL.

Payments and Imaginary Walls

My Patreons are cancelled, my discounted ebook is ordered (but I'm not sure if the discount go through yet?) and the only active subscription I've got going on is the Adobe Creative Cloud. And the Amazon Prime student package, which they're still giving me.

Looking at the Amazon thing today, they have me being a student still until May 2020. Was that when I'd intended to graduate initially? It seems a little out there. I should correct that somehow. And start paying more, because that's the honest thing to do. Like I'm even paying for it myself.

It's bizarre how much money people make, and yet how expensive things are. If I had a job, I'd be able to cover everything I'd been paying for up till last month, on like a day's wages. Of course in real life there's a whole lot more to be paid for, but each individual thing would be negligible. I can see how it adds up, how people can get swamped by debt because they don't even realize it's coming on.

I think about that, seek ye for the kingdom of God, and after ye have obtained a hope in Christ ye shall obtain riches, if ye seek them. What the kingdom of God means. Really I don't want money for myself, I just give it away prodigiously, like the Patreon thing. But I need money also to live. And to make money would be to sell your goods/services, which is like, also blessing others, if you're actually any good. Speaking at least from an artist point of view. A w s t h e ti c. Not sure why people are spelling it out like that nowadays. I'm so rtired.

But wouldn't giving away that be better , you may ask? No, of course not, and this isn't speaking from like a Christianity-supports-Capitalism-somehow perspective (which I've never understood!?) but from a perspective of, Jesus told the dude to sell everything he owned, not give away everything he owned. Doesn't make it feel much better, to ask money in return for what I do (and this is hypothetical here, because actually I've never been paid for anything in my life, at least not anything anybody else couldn't do.) (Maybe that's why I'm uncomfortable with it, because it's literally never happened to me.) It's like there's a wall of pretended morality there, but my qualms are actually excuses/rationalizations masquerading as moral arguments.