RELEASED: Jim Nolan – The Death of Anderson Buchwald

Jim Nolan, Private Eye at Misfits audio

I had just a small part in this one, but the production quality on this one bears a listen even without me. Whether you’re into classic noire-style audio drama or you’re just looking for a way to burn 40 minutes during your commute, I recommend you give this one a listen.

CLICK HERE to download

or go to the Misfits Audio website for more information and douwnload options: http://misfitsaudio.com/comments/archives/1435

 

Real Life Action Movie : Story Swap 1

Have you ever lived through a moment that felt like it was pulled from an action movie? Do you know someone who has? My father has, and this is my attempt to tell that story. If hearing this makes you think of a story from your life, share it back with me.

 

 

This video is part of a Storytelling project I am putting together. Get more information about the whole project here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MA74ALuMdvE

I propose that we shoot the breeze together.

Just a little announcement for a storytelling project I’m starting. I’m going to start recording some stories from my live and from the life of my family for my kids to enjoy or be embarrassed about later. I’m hoping that friends will see them and be like “that story reminds me of another one…” and they’ll share back and maybe we can assemble the stories into a podcast or something. Not everybody has a million stories worth sharing, but everybody has one.

Side note: recording this on video was a good thing as it has helped me become aware of how truly fat I am. Must – lose – weight. Hopefully you’ll get to see my size reduce as these videos progress.

Thoughts on [Amazon Kindle] Fire

I declared 12/26/11 "Bring your Kindle Fire to work day"

I haven’t mentioned my new Kindle Fire to a lot of people because my nerd friends think it’s a reason to start an “it’s not better than iPad” rant that never has any facts in it that apply to me or my situation. However, the less nerdy folks have been curious about it and I keep sending the same answers, so I figured I’d make a post about it here that I could add to as I wanted, that I could copy/paste from as wanted, and that might help you if you’re considering buying one. So here goes…

A friend asked:

What do you think of it?  I’m curious because from what I was reading it seems like it could be the first viable opponent to the iPad out of all the tablets.

I said:

I like it a lot. I’ve had an iPod Touch and I wanted something basically the same as that but bigger and a bit faster and this is exactly what the Kindle Fire is (except that it’s Android, so I some of the apps aren’t available). As far as a competitor, it depends on who you ask. The iPad is strong enough to actually be a light productivity machine while the Fire is really just a media player and web surfing machine. However, when you consider that media playing and web surfing are 95% of what you do on an iPad anyway…you have to decide if that 5% is worth 2.5x the price.

I think the biggest damage it’s do is to the iPod Touch & iPhone, not as a competitor, but as a price-dropper. If you need a media player you can take on walks, then the Touch is still the way to go. But if you want to use it around the house, why not get the bigger screen for the same price? The Touch already dropped from $250 to $200 to compete, I think it’s going to have to go lower. Plus, like it or not, the value of the iPhone is somewhat tethered to the iPod Touch, so the further they take one down, the further the other will likely drag. Which could indirectly drag the iPad price down too.

It’s not a direct competitor but it’s the best tablet that isn’t an iPad that I’ve seen, it’s backed by Amazon, and it’s priced to move. I usually have it with me. You’re welcome to borrow it for a while and play around with it. I haven’t had it long enough to start putting porn on it, so there’s nothing to hide.

# # #

KINDLE FIRE PROS

• The 7″ screen is perfect for web viewing and games and movies are spectacular on it.
• The Silk browser works as smooth as it’s name. It’s streamlined to move fast and maximize the screen.
• The Micro USB connector would be better and more versatile as a Mini USB, but it’s miles ahead of the proprietary connections on Apple devices.
• Some would consider the limitations of the Amazon app store to be a minus, but having gotten some cheap apps from Apple with no recourse for a refund, I like knowing that an actual person has seen and approved every app in the store.
• It may be a screen instead of ePaper (or whatever Amazon calls the screen of the regular Kindle line), but I still find it pleasurable to read on this screen
• It’s so large compared to my iPod, but still small enough that I’m considering getting a console mount for it in my car so I can use it as my MP3 player there. You’d have to be way more ego than brains to attempt to put an iPad up there anywhere.

KINDLE FIRE CONS

• My only complaint about Silk is that there are times I click a link and I’m not sure if it’s loading the next page unless I scroll back to the top to see the status bar.
• Outside use isn’t so great. The screen is more readable than a typical laptop, less than an iPod Touch, and far less than a Kindle — which you would expect.
• I still don’t get why you would create a media playing device and not jam it full of memory. A 32GB SD card costs $20 on eBay, and you’re telling me that this only has 6GB and no slot? I know they want to emphasize the streaming, but let’s face it — “the cloud” is still a decade or more away from being omnipresent in the US, and with memory so cheap and small, there is no excuse to not put 250GB into a watch, much less a computing device of any kind.
• I don’t know if this is specific to the Fire or if it’s an Android thing (I’m inclined to think it’s Android because I think I’ve seen it on other devices) but the process of selecting specific text and moving the cursor to specific places so you can edit is much less smooth than it is on iOS. Also, the predictive text and the way it chooses to automatically override is less intuitive on the Android device. On iOS, if it’s going to replace your ‘five’ with ‘finaglesnoggratten’ it tells you right by the word where you are writing and gives you the chance to kill it. On Android, it seems to do it right above the keyboard (and it recommends a lot of words that are really far from anything you might be thinking/writing), and doesn’t seem to tell you when it’s going to override and when it’s not, so you find out later, after you’ve already posted it to someplace like Facebook that won’t let you go back and correct errors. This makes typing anything on the 7″ Fire screen take three to four times as long as it does on my 2.5″ iPod screen, and that just should not even be possible.
• Please let us have the Google Docs and WordPress app. Damn it.

# # #

I have some other comments I’ll post here as I find them. In the meantime, if you happened by this post and have a question, let me know and I’ll toss it in the mix as well.

Related articles

• One Million Potential iPad Buyers Decided To Purchase Amazon Kindle Fire Instead [Study] (inquisitr.com)
• Amazon’s Kindle Fire Fits in with Other Mobile Tech – Quick Take (biztechmagazine.com)
• Amazon Kindle File Orders Cut Down by Half, at 3 Million (devicemag.com)

RELEASED: My narration of Poppies and Chrome on Escape Pod

This one came short notice, but I had the opportunity to read a short story for this weeks Flash Fiction Special on Escape Pod. I won’t say it’s my best reading ever, but I’m proud of it and the story was good which always helps. Actually the whole episode is good — check it out. Normally I’m not a flash fiction fan, but these stories are solid.

http://escapepod.org/2012/01/06/ep326-flash-fiction-special/

Related articles

• RELEASED: My reading of “Site 14″ on Escape Pod (matweller.wordpress.com)
• How to Write Great Flash Fiction? In a Nutshell (writingtipsforbetterwriting.wordpress.com)
• Winter Writing: Keeping The Flow Going (pittsburghflashfictiongazette.com)
• RELEASED: My Reading of ‘Night Bird Soaring’ on Escape Pod (matweller.wordpress.com)

Escape Pod Audio Drama

Image via Wikipedia

You may know, I edit for the weekly sci-fi podcast Escape Pod. They have never done audio dramas in the past, and this week we took a first foray into that realm. This is my first time editing for audio drama, and while there are a couple bumps and things I’d do better next time, I’m pretty proud of this as a first showing.

If you can spare some time to load your MP3 player or computer with a good post-apocalyptic audio drama, please check out Bad Dogs Escape - 

NOTE: All sound effects used in this episode came courtesy of FreeSound.org

Related articles

• RELEASED: My reading of “Site 14″ on Escape Pod (matweller.wordpress.com)
• RELEASED: My Reading of ‘Night Bird Soaring’ on Escape Pod (matweller.wordpress.com)

MARKETING:

MARKETING:, a photo by MatWeller on Flickr.

It doesn’t really look like a ring, but calling it ‘bed pan bologna’ would probably hurt the sales.

A gift to yourself

Come on -- who wouldn't want 12 holiday stories from the punky, charmingly demented Mur Lafferty?Image via Wikipedia

Now that all the shopping is done, it’s okay to think of yourself (and me) a little.

I have had the privilege for a year and a half now to work with some people I really admire on the unparalleled sci-fi short story podcast Escape Pod. In that time, they haven’t done a lot of fundraising projects. I’m not enough in the inner-circle to know the details of that, but I would lay money on the thought that they are generally too humble to ask for help, even though they put so much work into all they do.

But lately, they’ve been trying some special offers of premium content as incentive for people to donate, and trust me: the folks who donate come out WAY ahead in the bargain.

Their latest offering is twelve stories written by indie author superstar Mur Lafferty and read by some of the most awesome narrators in the business — and one read by me. Now, I’m not one to take donating money to places lightly. I just don’t have enough to throw around. But I have subscribed to Escape Artists for over a year now, and I can assure you that with three weekly podcasts — for stories in the sci-fi, horror and fantasy genres — plus premium content, $5 monthly is so little to give and with it auto-paying through PayPal, I hardly even notice it. Please consider making a donation and subscribing for free through iTunes for one or all of the podcasts and give yourself an awesome gift for the holidays.

 

By the way, beyond the holiday story give-away, Pseudopod (the horror story podcast) has their own giveaway that you will get for your subscription which also rules! Details here: http://pseudopod.org/2011/12/10/metacast-trio-of-terror-promo/

My inner nerd is peeing his pants with glee!

Welcome to the Equinox!

…really, it was just my inner nerd. I’m just wet there from leaning on the bathroom counter. No, really.

Forget that. Much more important is the reason why I’m all fired up. Don’t tell the men in charge that I’m sharing secret documents, but I just received an email from Star Fleet –

Greetings Mat!

It is my pleasure to offer you the role of Crewman Noah Lessing in “Star Trek: Equinox”. Please reply to this message to confirm your acceptance.

Production will begin after Christmas, and you will receive your copy of the script at that time.

Thank you for joining us, and welcome aboard the Equinox! 

Camren T. Burton
Co-Creator / Co-Executive Producer – Star Trek: Equinox

Not impressed? You hate audio dramas? All fanfics are lame? Stop making fun of me mom! I’m gonna be somebody! Just kidding. Seriously, I know some of you folks may not be as much into the audio drama stuff or fanfics or Star Trek, but I’m a big fan of all of the above and I am very excited to be in on this — especially since Hidden Frontier has a long history of doing honor to the original franchise.

This story centers around a ship from what is regarded by many to be the best episode of Star Trek: Voyager. It’s a research ship, and it’s small, which has me thinking that encounters are going to have to be a lot more nuanced ventures than they would be if you were in a Galaxy Class starship like the Enterprise. Point is, it’s exciting, it’s intriguing, and I hope you’ll check it out when it debuts to hear my brilliant “Aye, Captain!” if nothing else.

That’s fine, but I want to see a fan film teaser trailer you say? Done.

Who doesn’t love Devo?

In case you don’t know him already, allow me to introduce you to one of the hardest working men on the grind to make the jump from ‘net fame to bigtime — Tom Rockwell, a.k.a. ‘Devo Spice.’ Tom is a certified nerd. He was a (if not ‘the’) founder of TheFuMP.com, which is basically the Mecca for geek parody music. Think of Tom as Fagin to an orphanage full of Weird Al Yankovic clones. Except that he has also done his share of time as one of the orphans as all or part of the talent behind the band/nerdcore group Sudden Death. You are really missing out if you don’t have a copy of the Fatal Error album, but really you can’t go wrong buying any of his music (Personally, My Atari is my all-time favorite Sudden Death tune), and you you should. Go right now. I’ll wait.

Back? Did you buy every song you could find? Good. I knew you would. I’ve actually had the pleasure of meeting Tom in person at Nerdrage Philly where he had the misfortune of watching me dance and the courtesy to not laugh so loud that it would hurt my feelings.

Point is, he’s a good guy, a smart guy and I would back him on just about anything. Which is why when I saw he had a Kickstarter campaign for a new project, I jumped in to pledge without even reading the details, which is a big thing for me because I’m way too poor to be throwing $5 bills all over the place. Thankfully, since then I’ve had time to go back and read over what I signed my life to, and I’m proud to announce that this time my impulses were correct.

Throw a buck in the hat. Come on...all the cool kids are doin' it.

Tom’s been hard at work concepting a new iOS game and needs our help to bring it to fruition. It’s a cool concept that I genuinely think people will love the moment they see it, but you can learn all about that when you go to the site and watch the video. But let’s be honest: the success or failure of any pop-culture entity has very little to do with quality and a lot to do with marketing. Angry Birds, Adam Carolla, VHS, AOL: all simple, lackluster and in some ways inferior products that have become pop culture juggernauts because somebody knew how to sell them. That’s the best thing about Tom’s project Rollers. The boy has a jump on the marketing with his already established fan base, he has tenacity to work the hustle, and he has you.

You? Yes you. If you jump in for a couple bucks, you buy your place on the team. You do your part to share it with your friends when it comes out, and it’s an instant success! a simple ‘like’ on Facebook and maybe a tweet and – BAM! – you’ve backed a winner! Plus, if you buy in at the right level, you’re going to get insider info and updates on the game when it comes out, and you can even work with Tom on building new levels for future updates. Seriously, imagine if you could boast at parties that level 34 of Pac Man was all your doing. This is your chance.

Get in on the ground level. Support a good man. And if nothing else, think of it as charity work to help someone who has lived his whole life in New Jersey.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/371528925/rollers-iphone-game