VariousandSundry.com relaunches!

Well, not exactly.  But I promise updates five days a week for the next couple of weeks, at least.

It’s going to be me getting all of this photographic stuff out of my system.  Whereas AugieShoots.com displays images well, it’s not so great with the text side of things.  So my musings on photography will be the single subject for this blog for a little while.

Consider this a test.  If it works, we’ll see where we go next.  Thanks for hanging in there!

Yeah, it’s the first day of a brand new year.

It’s also the first day of my brand new blog.

Look for the official announcement here tomorrow. . .

(Yeah, I have no actual content today.  Sorry about that. Er, but Happy New Year!)

I have an announcement for January 1st.

Yeah, I know.  It’s a holiday and nobody will be reading. Don’t worry — everyone will catch up. But the announcement needs to come on Thursday.  You’ll see why.
This has been a teaser.

One of the amazing things about having a child is how well it focuses you.  I have less time to “do stuff” now, yet I’m still getting a lot of stuff done. I chalk that up to using my time more wisely, goofing off less, and focusing on productivity.

That all said, here’s my rundown of web-based projects these days:

Various and Sundry: This blog carries on, five days a week.  Some weeks are writing bonanzas, others are a bit more sparse.  It varies from week to week, but that’s the nature of the beast.  I wish I could write an original 500 word essay on a daily basis, but I’m not sure I could, even if this was a full time job.

Pipeline Commentary and Review: Recently celebrated its 600th weekly column.  I got ahead on the column in preparation for the baby’s birth, and while I’ve pretty much caught up on that lead by now, there’s still a backlog of stuff I want to write about.  This week’s column is a 4000 word monster, as I type this, though I might have to hack and slash at it a bit.

Pipeline Podcast: Coming up on its fourth anniversary at the top of 2009.  Can you believe podcasting is that old now?  The schedule has suffered due to back-end technical issues I continue to fight with, and time constraints at home.  Sadly, the computer with the good mic set up is in a room that shares a wall with the baby’s room.  So while I only get to record the podcast after she goes to sleep, I can’t use that mic because my booming voice would wake her up through that thin wall.  I’m looking at buying a Snowball USB mic for the laptop to bring up production quality.  For now, I record with a blanket over my head and the laptop to cut down on the echoes.  Ah, the glories of podcasting. . .

CBR Reviews: This is the biggest time sink, but also one of the most productive.  I am the editor of the CBR Reviews team, six guys writing reviews daily of the week’s books.  We published 80 reviews in November, and are getting better about publishing them closer to publication dates, and even in advance.

Secret Project 1: I think this one is stalled out.  It’s something I started thinking about before the baby was born, but I’m not sure how do-able it really is, given time and scheduling restraints.  But I’m keeping it in my back pocket.  It’s comics-related and nobody else is doing anything like it right now.  I want to be the first, but c’est la vie.

Secret Project 2: Vaguely and tangentially related to SP1, but there’s real movement on it. It’s something that would only take a couple of hours a week of my time and could be very successful.  Look for it in the first quarter of 2009, if it does happen.

Twitter: It’s like having another email account. It’s the first thing I check at night, clicking on the “Responses” tab to see who’s talking to me and who I need to write back to.  Lots of interesting people, lots of continuously-updating content, and designed to eliminate spam on its own.

Flickr: One thing that the baby has changed completely is my photography.  I’m doing less nature photography and more people photography, mostly the baby.  I invested in some lighting equipment and am experimenting with that now. Am thinking of selling a lens to afford a different one that’s more amenable to my current shooting style. Need to update Flickr more often, though for baby privacy reasons, it’s not likely.

Google Reader: I do 90% of my web browsing through RSS feeds via Google Reader now and share out the best links and stories I find there. I’ve started sharing them with notes now, to add some additional information to the feed.  If you’re a Google Reader, I invite you to friend me or click on that link to subscribe to my feed.  It covers more of the kinds of things I’m interested in, above and beyond what you see on this blog.

It’s that time of the year again: Holiday shopping season!

I’m not going to ask you to buy anything specifically. I won’t hard sell you anything.  I’m not pushing a book or something crazy like that.

But if you are ordering anything through Amazon in the next month for Christmas, there’s an Amazon banner at the top of this site’s front page.  Click on it to get to Amazon and this blog will receive a tiny fraction of the money you spend.  (Somewhere between 4% and 6%, depending on volume.)  It doesn’t have to be anything specific.  Just click through before putting items in your cart, and this blog will be credited with directing traffic to Amazon, and those nice folks in the Pacific Northwest will cut me a check in a couple of months.

Lots of blogs emphasize this at this point of the year, and I’m no exception.  You’re going to spend the money anyway, so why not help a brother out at the same time?  Pick a favorite blog and click through their Amazon links before you shop.

Thanks for your support and your readership.  It’s been a fun year, and there’s still plenty to go!

Here endeth the meta talk.

It’s been a wee bit busier than expected up here this week. The DVD update will appear tonight.

Podcast fans: Sorry to say, that got delayed to tonight, as well.

Management thanks you for your patience and continued support.

24 hours later, I’ve yet to receive an offer to buy me out.

I’m sure it’s only a matter of time, though.  It was a bit unfair of me to spring this on corporate America on a Friday.  I’m sure there’s a corporate office staying up late this weekend trying to raise the funds.  They’re probably working on a bond issue or something.  Two million bucks isn’t always “ready cash,” unless your Apple.

If you’re Apple, I’ll lower the price to $1.9 million, if you throw in a couple of iMacs.

Let’s wait this out till Monday.  Something’s going to come.  How can it not?  This is almost literally too good a deal to pass up!

I can be bought.

And it can be profitable to the both of us.

I’ll set the price at $1,000,000.

That’s not much these days.  That price won’t buy you many 30 second spots in prime time television.  Heck, depending on the show you’re buying ad time on, you might not get more than a minute.

I’m offering you something better:

My blog.  It’s for sale.  I’ll change the name to “[Your Company's Name Here] Presents Various and Sundry.”  Heck, I’ll buy that as a domain name.  I’ll make you the exclusive advertiser on a blog that updates at least five days a week.

You’ll get better than a million dollars’ worth of press coverage on the deal.  What better story for the tech press to fawn over for a week or two than your company buying up a no name meaningless blog.  It’s an amazing publicity stunt that makes no sense.  It’s PERFECT internet fodder.

This blog doesn’t have a big readership.  It’s definitely under a thousand readers.  It’s probably closer to 500.  It makes so little sense for you to sponsor it that it’ll command great attention.  We can do a joint press release that’ll light up the blogosphere.  I can get on one of those crazy Revision3 video podcasts.  I’d happily be a guest on Net@Nite. TechCrunch would be all over this.  I’m available to do press with all the cable news stations.  I can blog the experience, to boot.  It’s material for me; it’s tons of publicity for you.  I’ll wear a baseball cap and a t-shirt with your company’s name on it when doing all of these shows.

I can even talk to the point that this deal will mark the end of the second web boom.

I am a friggin’ sell out.  Just go ahead and buy me now.  My e-mail address is linked to my name at the top of the right column.

Sadly, someone already beat me to Buymyblog.com.

But I won’t let that stop me.  Others sell pixels for a dollar a shot.  Others promise to do outlandish things.  Some sell space for tattoos on their body, but I’m not going that far. I’m skipping all the work part.  I’m just going to do my thing and take your money, sponsor!
You need something more personal?  I’m going to be a Dad this fall.  I can be a stay-at-home Dad with your million dollars.

Wait, I forgot about the taxes.  Better make it two million bucks, just to be safe.

GoldenPalace, are you reading this? Call me.  I like to play poker, too. . .

Barring all that, I’ll take a Drobo for lesser terms.

Today is the day to get off the internet, as people who don’t understand what an April Fool’s Gag is supposed to be attempt to fool you into believing stupid things to make you look like an idiot. Even worse, several people decided to do “Early April Fools” gags last week. Idiots!

We here at Various and Sundry don’t believe in that kind of crap, so we’re just not updating today. Take everything you read today with a grain of salt. In a few days, the internet will return to normal and sort through what the real announcements were and we can discuss it then.

In the meantime, be nice to each other today, OK? And don’t go making crap up.

The promised Friday Q&A will be delayed to the weekend.  Stay tuned. . .

I’ve been remiss.  I’ve let the weekly “Ask Various and Sundry” feature lapse.  I’m sorry about that.

So, the mic is open.  What do you want to talk about?  Discuss it all in the comments.  Fire your questions away and I’ll answer them in the next week.

The previous entry is the 5,000th blog post to Various and Sundry. I thought for sure that I wouldn’t realize it until long after I posted it, but there we have it now.

This is post #5001.

It doesn’t really mean much, but it does make my fingers feel a little more tired than they did five minutes ago.

Maybe in another 5000 posts, I’ll finally find a focus for this site.

Paul C is the first questioner this week:

Which of the summer comic book related movie are you looking forward to the most?

It’s between Batman and Iron Man. Probably Batman, by a nose. As big a Marvel guy as I am, there’s something about that last Batman movie that makes me anticipate the next one.

Are plans for summer holidays this year or any places you would like to visit?

No plans made yet. Doesn’t look like I’ll be going to San Diego again. Places I’d like to visit? Too numerous, but I’d start with Belgium and Paris — the latter just so I can blow all my money at a comic shop and bring home a suitcase filled with BD albums I’d have to learn French to read.

I also want to bring my camera to the Grand Canyon.

Do you ever wake up one morning and decide you can’t be bothered to do a V&S post, or is it drummed into your head by now after going at it for so long?

Mostly the latter. Plus, I have a certain schedule going now: DVDs on Tuesday, Twitters on Monday, Questions and Answers on Friday, American Idol Wednesday and Thursday. . . I blow those dates sometimes, but I usually have something in mind for most days of the week. Given how many blogs I flip through each week, it’s easy enough to come up with a link dump or another topic of interest worth writing a sole post about.

Not that there aren’t times I’d rather step away from the computer and play Guitar Hero or read a comic or watch a DVD or something. I just tend to feel more productive this way. I’m building something here, you know?

Would also you rank the season 5 finale of The Shield as one of the best, most unexpected/shocking/brilliant scenes ever on TV?

Yes. I know I should expand on that answer, but I’m not sure how I could. Although for pure shock, nothing beats that ALIAS season finale where the car gets hit out of nowhere. I jumped in my chair at that one.

And for the obligatory nonsense question: You are stuck on a desert island, what kind of cereal do you take with you?

I’m not much of a cereal person. Being diabetic, I’m limited on the ones I can eat, anyway. About all I’ll do is eat puffed rice (think sugar free Rice Crispies) with some raisins. But if I were on that island, I’m going with Chex Mix. Does that count?

And Soon asks:

Do you think your podcast voice has changed over the life of the Pipeline Podcast thus far?

I go back and listen to bits of the older Pipeline Podcasts every now and again to hear if I’ve changed at all. So I kinda know the answer to this one already. My voice has changed, but not as much as I would have thought. Part of that has to do with the fact that, before podcasting, I had done college radio and local radio for a number of years. My voice was already pretty well honed at that point. Podcasting allows me to be freer and sloppier, is all. There have been two changes I hear from the beginning:

1. I talk faster. I worried too much about enunciating in the early days, and it slowed me down. I got some e-mail complaints about that, so I sped things up and that got to be very comfortable very quickly.

2. I’ve added better equipment, like a condensor mic and a compressor. Both of those help even out my voice, eliminate some of the hollow sounds that a “regular” mic produces. I’m still not happy with the final sound. I play with it every single week, but the change is never great enough. I’m constantly annoyed by something happening on the bassline. I can’t quite figure it out and I’m probably the only person who hears it, but I can’t get rid of it. I’ll keep trying.

Nowadays, I’m working on speaking at a lower volume into the mic.  I found myself shouting into the mic a little too much, so I’m trying to be more conversational and less over-the-top, as it were.

Thanks for the questions, Soon and Paul!

Please, post your questions in the comments thread below and I’ll try to get to them on Friday this week, which is the normally scheduled time for this “feature.”

And GO GIANTS!

Just to round out the year:

Above this, you’ll see a link for the Amazon Marketplace. It’s right under the tasteful “Various and Sundry” banner atop every page on this blog.

I just added a bunch of things to the Marketplace and by clicking on that link you’ll be taken straight to them. I never realized there was such a high demand for REBOOT DVDs, for example. There’s also some animated DVDs up there, including some Miyazaki works, a Nintendo GameCube game or two, and some TV-on-DVD.

All funds raised in this effort go towards the purchase of a digital SLR, which will provide lots of raw material for this blog in the months ahead.

Thanks! Back to normal blogging now. . .

Yes, I am reusing last year’s graphic. It came out rather well, don’tcha think? We’ll return normal hours tomorrow with a look at this week’s DVD releases.

Merry Christmas!