Monday, July 17, 2017

Now NOT To Make An Audiobook






Before I get into this I'd like to say that I mean no disrespect to the narrator of this series of audiobooks. Eric Vincent is a fine narrator, he was just not right for this project. Much like Ryan Reynolds as The Green Lantern, he is a competent performer put in the wrong role. He wouldn't even be out of his depth in pulp stories, as his voice and manner of speech would be well suited to almost any of Lovecraft's protagonists. But in listening to A Princess of Mars over the course of several days, just having finished it today, it became apparent that this audiobook is damn near an insult to the legacy of Mr. Burroughs, as well as the character of John Carter.

That being said, I bought this while at my last job because it has, as advertised, 7 of the John Carter books, coming to over 54 hours of audio. I believe I got it with one of my Audible credits, so 54 hours of John Carter for about $15 USD is a pretty damn good deal. Or, so I had thought.

The problems with this audio are numerous, and few of them are the fault of the narrator, to get that out of the way. As I said, somebody picked him, and they picked wrong. A Princess of Mars, at least, is told in a first person perspective by John Carter himself, not in third person or some other perspective. When I heard what John Carter was like, the last voice I expected him to have was Eric Vincent's thin, higher pitched, almost quavery voice. From the wikipedia description:


Carter stands 6 feet 2 inches (1.88 m) and has close-cropped black hair and steel-grey eyes. Burroughs describes him as immortal. In the opening pages of A Princess of Mars, it is revealed that Carter can remember no childhood, having always been a man of about thirty years old. Many generations have known him as "Uncle Jack," but he always lived to see them grow old and die, while he remained young.

His character and courtesy exemplify the ideals of the antebellum South. A Virginian, he served as a captain in the American Civil War on the side of the Confederacy. After the war, Carter and his companion Powell, who was also a captain in the Civil War, became gold prospectors. Carter and Powell struck it rich by finding gold in Arizona. While hiding from Apaches in a cave, he appears to die; leaving his inanimate body behind, he is mysteriously transported by a form of astral projection to the planet Mars, where he finds himself re-embodied in a form identical to his earthly one. Accustomed to the greater gravity of Earth, he finds himself to be much stronger and more agile than the natives of Mars.

Now does that sound like the man you hear speaking in the audio sample on Audible?  It doesn't even sound close to me. Part of the problem is the simple timbre of Vincent's voice, another part of this problem is that he doesn't attempt much voice acting, except on the Green Martians, with which he has limited success. I'm one to talk, I'm not exactly Peter Kenny over here, but I have been doing this voice acting/narrating stories thing for a few years, and I can tell when someone's really trying and when they're phoning it in. Although, maybe I haven't listened to enough of Vincent's work to know his reading style. He certainly tried to give the prose some punch as he was reading, with dramatic pauses and a non-monotone delivery.

But this leads me to my next problem: The editing. I don't know who the editor on this was, but I hope that asshole got fired and is flipping burgers somewhere. Part of why my audiobooks sound so seamless is that I edit out as many breaths and mouth noises as possible except in the case of dialogue, because it's meant to sound like someone is talking rather than someone reading a sequence of events. Now I'm certain that Mr. Vincent made his mistakes throughout the book, we all do, but the editor being able to edit those out while completely ignoring the vast silences lasting seconds, the deep breaths, and the swallowing noises that were left in the final product that you have to pay money for is unconscionable, and this editor deserves to lose his job over this.

At least in my opinion. Maybe my editing is a bit more intensive than other people's. But this seems to me to be a hallmark of professionalism. I, as a consumer, don't want to listen to the narrator breathing, or swallowing, while I'm trying to hear the story. It's immersion breaking, and should be kept to an absolute bare minimum. It was not in this series, and that reflects badly on the editor, not Mr. Vincent, although it's easy to see why people would blame him for it. Like how a singer in a band will be blamed for the lyrical content even though the bassist is writing all the songs, or something of that nature.

And then there's my biggest issue.

Because this whole project is so large, they've broken it up into several parts to facilitate faster downloads. This is all fine and dandy. You have seven books, split it into seven parts. That way I can download each individual book one at a time, listen to them, then move on to the next. That's how you would normally expect this to go, right?

Well guess what these geniuses did.

They split the books at the most asinine of places!

Part 1 is most of A Princess of Mars. Part 2 is the very ass-end of Princess (the last five or six chapters or so), and then we kick into The Gods of Mars with nary a break in between except to announce the title of the second book. The worst part of this is that there is an audio track at the beginning of each part that tells you who the narrator is, the writer is, the names of the books, and the company that produced this unevenly crafted abomination and spittle on Burroughs's face. And this is put around the end of chapter 25, right after John & Dejah marry.

Which lead me to think the book was over and I was already ruminating on what an awesome literary experience I'd just had...

When the next part starts up and Princess continues!

This is bad decision-making and retardation on such a massive scale that I doubt I'll be buying any of this company's audiobooks in the future. If this is the kind of care and respect they show to Edgar Rice Burroughs, the grandfather of modern science fiction, I can't imagine they would care too much about anybody else's work.

If you're looking for a John Carter audiobook collection, for the love of all the Jedaks on Barsoom, avoid this one!

Unfortunately for myself I can't find my John Carter dead-tree collection, so I'm kind of stuck with it for now. But you don't have to be! Take care when you're purchasing an audiobook! Make sure the company actually has respect for what they're working on!

Saturday, July 15, 2017

The JimFear138 Podcast Ep.59 - Jotun, Pulprev.com, and My Writing Method









Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of the podcast! This time I had to make an emergency recording. I thought I was going to have guests this week, but it didn't pan out, so I'm alone and rambling about shit I see as important. In this episode I go over the problems with dubbed anime, James Desborough and Jon Mollison's tiff, the glory that is PulpRev dot com, and describe my writing style as best I'm able.

Hope y'all enjoy!

MP3 Download of this episode:  https://ia600408.us.archive.org/25/items/jimfear_audio_productions/Ep59.mp3

Pulp Revolution & Good/Bad Criticism by Grim Jim: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iM8CAjNMi-Y

Pulp Revolution & Criticism by Nathan Housley: http://thepulparchvist.blogspot.com/2017/07/pulp-revolution-and-criticism.html

"The Best Bad Reviews I've Ever Gotten" by Jeffro: http://www.castaliahouse.com/the-best-bad-reviews-ive-ever-gotten/

Jotun on Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/323580/Jotun_Valhalla_Edition/

Summer of Conan by H. P.: https://everydayshouldbetuesday.wordpress.com/2017/07/13/summer-of-conan-howards-true-forebears-post-apocalyptic-fiction-not-epic-fantasy/

Getting Started: Where to Look & What to Look For by Bradford C. Walker: http://www.pulprev.com/2017/07/getting-started-where-to-look-what-to.html


 Social Media Dump:

Itunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/jimfear138/id1107844659?mt=2

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JimFear138

Tumblr: http://jimfear138.tumblr.com/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/JimFear138

Blogspot: http://jimfear138.blogspot.com/

Bandcamp: https://jimfear138.bandcamp.com/

Gab: https://gab.ai/JimFear138

Minds: https://www.minds.com/JimFear138

Vid.me: https://vid.me/JimFear138

Dailymotion: http://www.dailymotion.com/jimfear138

 Opening Music:
Honey Bee by Kevin Macleod: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100755
Honey Bee Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/









Saturday, July 8, 2017

The JimFear138 Podcast Ep.58 ft. CloudCuckooCountry









Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of the podcast! This time my friend CloudCuckooCountry wanted to come on the show to talk about the CNN Blackmail issue, which we do for about 40 minutes or so, and after that we get distracted and go on for about the rest of the podcast on various topics from internet culture to languages to some fandom beef that don't nobody care about. We also give you advice on how to use semicolons properly.

Hope y'all enjoy!

MP3 Download of this episode: https://ia800408.us.archive.org/25/items/jimfear_audio_productions/Ep58.mp3

Cloud's links:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/CloudCuckooCountry

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CloudCuckooCoun

Tumblr: https://cloudcuckoocountry.tumblr.com/


Social Media Dump:

Itunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/jimfear138/id1107844659?mt=2

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JimFear138

Tumblr: http://jimfear138.tumblr.com/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/JimFear138

Blogspot: http://jimfear138.blogspot.com/

Bandcamp: https://jimfear138.bandcamp.com/

Gab: https://gab.ai/JimFear138

Minds: https://www.minds.com/JimFear138

Vid.me: https://vid.me/JimFear138

Dailymotion: http://www.dailymotion.com/jimfear138

 Opening Music:
Honey Bee by Kevin Macleod: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100755
Honey Bee Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

 Closing Music:
Kings of Tara by Kevin Macleod: http://www.incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1500071&Search=Search
Kings of Tara Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Wednesday, July 5, 2017

The Real Problem Behind #CNNBlackmail

Read that screencap.

Now read it again.

A third time.

Once more, for the Gipper.

This is a screencap of the original article published yesterday (7/4/17) on CNN's website about a meme-maker that they had supposedly tracked down and "interviewed," for those of you that have been living under a rock for the past 24 hours. HanAssholeSolo is the reported Reddit handle of the perpetrator who made the gif/video that President Trump posted to his Twitter account of him wrestling Vince McMahon to the floor and pounding his head with a fist, with the CNN logo shopped onto McMahon's head.

Now this tweet was retweeted more than any other tweet by the President, yes, even the covfefe tweet. A lot of people all around the world saw it. That made CNN look very, very bad. Obviously this engendered some ass-pain in the subhuman degenerates at CNN, and they wanted revenge. Unfortunately for them, they've been attacking the guy who made the tweet for almost two years now, and he only seems to get stronger because of it. But, as Yoda once said, "There is another."

The meme-crafter himself.

So that's what they fucking went and did. They hunted this guy down, who by all reports other than CNN's own (which you should on no account trust), is a fifteen year old. Here's how the timeline went as revealed in tweets and the original article when the backlash was only getting started:

1. CNN found the guy and attempted contact via phone and email.
2. HanAssholeSolo realized they were after him, deleted ALL of his possibly offensive Reddit posts and released an extensive apology post reprinted in CNN's article on r/The_Donald.
3. He "talked" with CNN's K-File and explained how very sorry he was that he'd made fun of their serious and totally not fake news outlet.
4. They released that article wherein they wrote what appears in that screencap above, including the psychotic threat to reveal this man's identity should he do anything they dislike.

This in and of itself is bad enough, but what are the implications of this if CNN gets away with it?

If these propaganda mongers get away with this, if they are not punished, if they are not taken down to the ground for this, then that means they can do this to whomever they please, anytime they want, for any reason.

You, and I mean this very seriously, are next.

Look at how the Left eats its own for not being Left enough. There's an old saying, "Never punch left/right." What this means is that if you're right wing, you shouldn't hit people on the right wing. Vice versa for the left. Unfortunately for you, me, and everybody who has a moderate bone in their body, EVERYONE is right of the radical left. Therefore, if CNN is not metaphorically razed to the ground and the ashes spread to the four winds over this, ANYONE who steps outside of their ideological lockstep can and eventually will be targeted for intimidation, doxing, harassment, and possibly violence. And let's not pretend that CNN doesn't know that they can unleash the violent thugs of Antifa on anyone they point and screech at. They do. It's a real threat that we should all take very seriously. Why do you think HanAssholeSolo was so utterly, pants-shittingly terrified of having his identity revealed?

There are already other media outlets coming to CNN's rescue over this, locking shoulders and defending the actions of their fellow shitheels. This is because they see the immense power CNN just attempted to wield, and they want it for themselves. They want to be able to intimidate people into silence via the power of their media reach as well. Any outlet that does this can no longer be trusted on any level whatsoever. This is why we have to make an example out of CNN. 

These people are bullies, thugs, they're using mafia tactics against innocent civilians who made memes they disagree with, and, it turns out, they may be so insanely incompetent as to have fingered the wrong fucking guy!

But regardless of what they actually did, wrong guy or not, their intent is incredibly clear. They want to cow him, and by extension anyone who disagrees with their narrative including you and I, into silence out of fear of having the violent left unleashed on us by the moderate left.

Well, I think it's time to show them that we're not playing that game anymore.

I think it's time to hit back.

And it's time to hit back hard.

But where do you hit a multi-billion dollar media organization?

Right in the most important part of that description. The wallet.

There was another ethics in journalism movement from a couple years ago, can't quite recall the name, but they had a saying.

"Shut up and email."

There are numerous lists of CNN's advertisers. Kraut and Tea @RealKraut on twitter published a complete list including contact information on his account earlier. Email them. Don't use "-gate" appellations, that meme is dead, tired, and it gives you away. Position yourself as a customer or potential customer that is very concerned that they are advertising with a company that would go out of its way to be petty enough as to threaten and coerce a fifteen year old over an unflattering meme, and that this will lead you to seriously reconsider using their products so long as they are advertising with that network. Because we are either current or potential customers of all these organizations, and we have to make our displeasure with this ring loud.

These people have not only threatened one Redditor, they have threatened every single person who disagrees with them, worldwide. Because there are radical leftists in your country, make no mistake, and if you are outed by CNN, they will be able to find you. CNN has to be buried over this. There can be no coming back. If we do not show them that we will not tolerate this kind of mafia-esque tactics being deployed against innocent private citizens, we are all at risk.

We have about a three day window in which to make them hurt over this. Hit hard, hit fast, and most importantly, shut up and email.

Monday, July 3, 2017

The JimFear138 Podcast Ep.57 - Pulp Revolution Round Table








Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the podcast! This time I sit down with Daddy Warpig, David J. West, and Kestutis Kalvaitis for a discussion on what is best in speculative fiction. The conversation tends to wander, but it was a hell of a time, and I hope all these guys will come back again for another show. We go on for about an hour and a half, and then Daddy Warpig and David sign off, and Kest and I go on for about another hour, mostly about Star Wars, bad movies, and video games.

Hope y'all enjoy!

MP3 Download of this episode:  https://ia800408.us.archive.org/25/items/jimfear_audio_productions/Ep57.mp3

Daddy Warpig Links:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Daddy_Warpig

Website: https://jasynjones.com/

Castalia House: http://www.castaliahouse.com/tag/daddy-warpig/

Geek Gab Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXWRzKz0Jtfi1Frrh8qPAew



David J. West Links:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/David_JWest

Website: http://www.kingdavidjwest.com/

Amazon Page: https://www.amazon.com/David-J.-West/e/B004AIN4W4/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1498449071&sr=8-1



Kestutis Kalvaitis Links:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/KKalvaitis

Website: http://kestifer.blogspot.com/



Social Media Dump:

Thirteen Floors: http://thirteenfloors.boards.net/

Itunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/jimfear138/id1107844659?mt=2

Twitter: https://twitter.com/JimFear138

Tumblr: http://jimfear138.tumblr.com/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/JimFear138

Blogspot: http://jimfear138.blogspot.com/

Bandcamp: https://jimfear138.bandcamp.com/

Gab: https://gab.ai/JimFear138

Minds: https://www.minds.com/JimFear138

Vid.me: https://vid.me/JimFear138

Dailymotion: http://www.dailymotion.com/jimfear138

 Opening Music:
Honey Bee by Kevin Macleod: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100755
Honey Bee Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

 Closing Music:
Kings of Tara by Kevin Macleod: http://www.incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1500071&Search=Search
Kings of Tara Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

A Friend In Need


Okay, so I know that this is going to sound weird, or iffy, but I wouldn't be putting this up here if I didn't trust these people. A friend of mine who recently escaped from her abusive family is currently staying with another friend. That other friend has recently lost his job. Their other roommate has also moved out. On top of this, the rent and the security deposit on their apartment is coming due this week.

Now I had a very, very long conversation with both of these friends about this, so that I could get all the details and make sure this is legit before I decided to put this on my blog. We came up with a few ideas to help them out, and that's where you guys come in. If you don't want to donate, or hire them out (because that's a big part of this), then I understand. This kind of thing happens all the time, and people just take the money and run. I'm not a big fan of this kind of thing, either. But if any of you guys are interested in giving some charity when the government isn't going to help (or at least won't help fast enough to make a difference), here's a place it can go. They don't need a lot of money, just enough to get them through this hump while Shaz finds a new job, which should be relatively fast, given he's in IT.

So first up is straight up charity, via Youcaring. You can find the link here:

https://www.youcaring.com/jackielovette-863645

However, if you're not so much interested in charity, then they have other options. As mentioned, Shaz is an IT professional, and Jackie is an artist, so they're taking freelance work and commissions to help raise the money that they need.

Shaz's IT specialties are as follows:
Java/J2EE
HTML and CSS
little bit of Python
Spring MVC and Spring Batch
Javascript
Maven
Hibernate4
He is also able to build computers. So if you need any IT work done, you can contact him at the following link:
https://www.freelancer.com/u/supershaz178.html

And Jackie is available for art commissions, so if you need a book cover, album art, a character design concept sketch, a picture for your D&D game, whatever your art need might be, you can contact her and get a sample of her work at the following link:
https://le-rouge-art-works.tumblr.com/commisions

I wouldn't be putting this up here if this weren't a problem, and if I didn't trust those people. So I'm willing to vouch for them that this isn't some kind of hoax. These are friends of mine, they need help, and the only thing I can do (being pretty damn poor myself) is try to put some eyes on the problem and tell people where they can go if they want to help. So if you wouldn't mind helping out my friends, if you have a little bit of cash to spare, then please hire them or donate if you're able.

Thank you very much for your time, and thanks to everyone who shares this as well. 

Edit: So I shared this around and within five or so minutes Oghma_EM on Twitter has started a raffle for Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin that anyone who donates or hires will be entered in to. So I'll be getting Jackie to keep a list of everyone that donates or hires them and will be announcing the winner in a new blog post once everything has settled.

Thanks Oghma. You're a better man than you give yourself credit for.