Originally Posted: 4/3/2008
Repost Value: I’m slipping this one back into the stream today because Con-season is in full swing.  The New Media Expo is in Vegas this weekend.  ArmadilloCon is here in Austin, with John Scalzi as the guest of honor (of course, I’m FLAT broke and can’t go), and DragonCon is approaching faster than a ..er .. well.. fire-breathing dragon.  So, just a polite reminder, worship only when asked to.  And Mur seems to accept pie in form of worship. =D  To those of you attending conventions, we hope you have fun.

Is meeting people you enjoy the works of considered time well wasted? Considering I spent roughly ten minutes of time with two people at DragonCon last year and didn’t know them from Adam at the time except by name, I would say yes.

I had come by the Dragon Moon Press booth in the dealer’s hall because Jenn bought me a copy of Legacy of Morevi and I wanted Morevi. Tee Morris wasn’t there the first time, so Nick (FlippantMoniker) and I shopped around and then came back (with a giant stuffed boar in tow). Low and behold, there was Tee, whom I knew of because of Jenn, and some cadaverous male that I had no idea who was until Tee said his name. It turned out to be the Future Dark Overlord, Scott Sigler.

So, how do I act around these people? Jenn had gushed about how wonderful Tee Morris’ Survival Guide to Writing Fantasy and Billibub Baddings were and how much I would like Scott Sigler’s The Rookie. I wasn’t doing the podcast stuff at this time, hadn’t listened to anything they’d done, but I knew WHO they were, and that was enough to impress me.

What impressed me more is that I admitted to not knowing who they were by their works and they didn’t seem to care! They encouraged me to read their stuff, yes, but it didn’t change the way they treated Nick or me. Could be because we admitted to being the Brewmistress’ quality inspectors and they did seem to remember her beer, but I don’t know. They were exceptionally nice to both of us and it was in those moments that I decided… “Ok, when I get home, I’m gonna listen to the Rookie and to Billibub Baddings.”

Do they remember this? Probably not. Doesn’t matter. What matters is that in the span of ten minutes, they gained a listener who became a pimping junky fan of both of them because they were nice to me. I treated them both like average Joes off the street, didn’t fawn all of them just because I knew the names, and had a short discussion with them. Nick and I bought our books, had them signed by Tee, said our farewells and went on our way. A memorable moment for us, simply by the courtesy we’d received from them, that turned out to be time very well wasted, and all because we’d doubled back.

Etiquette and courtesy seem to be the hot topic among the writers and podcasters lately. John Scalzi has already blogged about it (read it, there’s good advice here), Mur Lafferty mentioned it yesterday on Twitter, and with convention season in full roar it seems to be a good topic for discussion.

My advice as a fan, just because you know who these people and you enjoy their works, doesn’t give you the right to expect favors from them. Treat them with respect and kindness and you’ll likely be treated the same way. Requests and demands are two different things and on a personal note, they owe us nothing. The podcasters especially, as they GIVE us their work already. Treat them like people, not gods, unless they’ve made it clear that worship is desired and expected.

Make those five or ten minutes you have to buy a book, collect an autograph and say hello all the more memorable by being polite and the time wasted would be well spent.

We’re taking a break from the usual entertainment mediums to discuss something more along the lines of live action.  Well, aren’t most forms of entertainment live action, you might ask.  Television, music, movies, there’s plenty of entertainment outlets that aren’t animated.  But how much of it can you lead around on a string or play cat fishing with?

I have three of these at home, and have to admit they’re the most entertaining things I have.  Even when they’re sleeping they can provide enjoyment from the sheer cuteness factor.  Got cat nip and you have a dazed, drugged cat that’s almost as malleable as Choo-Choo Bear from Something*Positive.

Sloane and I have a bamboo rod with a piece of rope tied to it, we play cat fishing.  We’ll sometimes go as far as to bait the rope with a rattle mouse.  The youngest of the feline brood, Dashiel, devours these things.  She’ll chase them around the house once she gets it off the rope and the next thing I know I’m stepping on pieces of mouse leather and finding plastic and cloth mouse halves in different rooms.  I keep trying to convince her that leaving a catnip mouse in the water bowl will not make catnip tea.  She still doesn’t believe me.

Bastian is the middle child, he’s roughly twelve years old and his favorite toy is laser pointer.  There’s nothing funnier than watching a twenty-five pound cat run across the floor or try to scale the walls to reach a tiny red dot.  He and Dashiel war over this thing sometimes, and they both pout when you turn it off.  Keep their attentions long enough with the pointer and sometimes you’ve got them turning circles to catch it.  It’s rather amusing to watch them sway off dizzily when you’ve finished.

Max is the eldest at nearly fourteen, and knows how to throw his weight around.  He’s about twenty pounds and spoiled rotten, he won’t chase the string, you have to drag it over his ginger body to even get his attention, but whip out the oven mitts and you have a game on your hands.  He lets you know when he’s fed up though, it’s fastest you’ll ever see him move, just to get away from you and your attention.  He went rounds with one of Sloane’s friends for clipping a clothes pin to the end of his tail once.

As simple as it may sound, being a cat slave is often more enjoyable than the tripe they show on television these days.  They make great entertainment during half time of a football game, but then you get ones like Dashiel who try and play with the football as it’s arcing across the screen.

From watching Twitter I know that there are a lot of cat slaves who know what I’m talking about.  I’ve seen pictures of a pair of kittens, Beatrice and Benedict, who are trying to steal their slave, Tee Morris’, podcast!  Even JC Hutchins has tweeted coos of feline appreciation because someone decided it was cuddle in the lap time.

While I’m a cat person myself, there’s nothing more rewarding and entertaining than being a pet owner.  Whether you prefer the lazy swim of a fish tank or the happy wag of a puppy’s tail, no matter how you divide it the experience is heart warming.  And if all that fails, there’s I Can Haz Cheezburger and I Has Hot Dog for the ultimate in feline and fido humiliation.

Being a loving cat slave I will remind you of three things regarding pets:

1.    Do not give pets to people as a surprise gift.  More animals wind up on the streets or in shelters because someone said “Oh I just know so-n-so will love this puppy for her birthday!”
2.    Get your pet fixed!  There is a severe pet overpopulation problem, please don’t add to it.
3.    Some people don’t think of pets as pets, they think of them as little furry children with four feet that speak a different language, and will treat them as such.

So, go out and play with your pet.  They need your love and attention as much as everyone else in your life does and they will provide you with love and entertainment as long as they are happy and healthy.

And if anyone has fun pet stories, ideas for entertaining your pet or even want to discuss your favorite kind of pet, the comments are open, and not just for cat lovers.

Mur Lafferty linked to this in Twitter, and I’m sure many of you have seen it already, but it’s the first time I’ve every come across it.  The Machine is Us/ing Us is about 5 minutes discussing how we’ve changed, and how the Machine has changed, because of what we do and say.  It’s a very entertaning video that provokes a lot of thought.  I hope you’ll go take a look.

In this episode Mur recaps five of the original Stories of the Third wave that were found on the Playing for Keeps feed or in the PDF files that were released.  She’s added her own commentary regarding how these short pieces of fiction came about.  You’ll have to tune in for those and for the rest of the humor too.

This episode kicks off with JC Hutchins as he gives new life to the opening of the story.  Now I’m going to put a fine point on this one, when it was originally released in the PFK feed I had no bloody clue that it was JC doing the work.  None!  Now I admit, I laughed my tush off when I heard him turn the perfectly groomed, immaculate White Lightning into the mulleted White Trash Lightning.  It just made it ten times funnier for me knowing now to the voice belonged to.  A large part of me would love to see JC continue this alternate look at Seventh City’s hero and his flying Dodge Charger.  Yeeha!

The second part of this episode is all Christiana Ellis.  Here she offers a lesson every villain needs, the evil laugh.  She gives easy lessons and even a moment to practice.  I can think of a few villains who could take classes from Ms Ellis.  She’ll walk you through the vile “ha ha ha” to the sinister “lunatic scream,” and then some.  Though, something about her lunatic scream reminds me of The Wicked Witch of the West.  Trust me, you don’t want to miss this lesson.  Matter of fact, why don’t you hand me the class schedule, I want to see what else she’s teaching.

Third up is the always fun Future Dark Overlord and it’s as short and sweet as he can make it.  Ringside announcement of a Seventh City tag team battle royal between … well, if I told you that then you wouldn’t need to listen would you?  Still, it’s a match I wouldn’t mind putting money on.

The ever snarky Evo Terra takes over for part four and he’s blended Seventh City’s Third Wavers with the Heroes from NBC.  I can attest that this part had me giggling wildly and I haven’t even see Heroes yet (why yes, I do live under a rock, thank you for asking.).  I think what made this part fun for me wasn’t the mixing of the two things, but the awesome comments about poor television writing.  Definitely worth listening to.

The last segment in this episode belongs to Chris Lester and let’s just says it rocks.  He took Third Waver Peter and went back into his teenage years, dropping him into the world of his first ever Convention.  Poor Peter, his superpower against the unwashed convention masses.  The story is a hoot, has a throw back to Heroes once again, but I love how Peter is such a devoted Babylon 5 fan.  What makes this last part more fun is the number of podcasting names he drops in this segment.  Can you catch them all?  I think I did.

So that’s Episode 1 of Stories of the Third Wave.  There will be more of the original easter eggs from the PDFs included as August progresses.  They’re a fun, short reminder that we can get our greedy hands on Playing for Keeps on August 25th from Amazon.com.  Don’t know what the start time is for the chart race, but at least I’ll be able to get my copy on time.

Now..how to get it signed…

Rating:

If you haven’t already, then you MUST go over to the New World Orders website and listen. Why? Well, first-off, it’s an awesome story. Secondly, *I* do this week’s Conspiracy So Far. So, yeah. You are morally obligated to check it out.

What’s that?

[speaking out of the corner of his mouth like a bad ventriloquist] But Flippant, what if we’ve been living under a friggin’ rock all this time and haven’t been listening? And, we don’t want to have spoilers?]

Well -

A: Get out from under that rock.

and

B: Get to listening. They’re only 13 episodes in. You can do that in a day. Get to it! on excuses

Rating:

PLUS

(3 more penguins)

For my awesome, stellar performance.

Off the bat I have two things to say:

1 – I wish someone had said “Don’t listen to the last available episode until the Hiatus is ending.”

2 – Please keep your arms and legs inside the car at all times.

Good gods this story is about as wild, rolling and wicked as the biggest rollercoaster you’ve ever been on.  One minute you’re going straight and then you’re whipped around left and right in split second intervals before you’re taken into a calm chugging line leading up the massive hill.  You peak for a split second, able to see into the horizon and then WHAM down the hill, through the loop-d-loop where everything it turned completely upside down before you’re sent scattering through the turns again.  I don’t think we’ll even get the pause of the terminal when it’s all over with and we’ll be left with the permanent “Holy cow that was an amazing story,” right before we turn it back on because it IS just that good and you KNOW you missed something.

I only wish I had started listening to Metamor long before I did.  I’d heard ads for it everywhere and it always tickled my curiosity, but I only recently got the break from some of the other podcasts I listen to and this filled the gap nicely.  It’s also become one of those permanent places on my mp3 player.  Chris Lester has created a world that is so beautifully described that it’s easily envisioned in the mind.  He doesn’t get so heavy handed in the world and character description that it bogs down the story, but gives us just enough words to make it perfect and believable.

It’s the sense of believability that makes it the amazing story that it is.  True, we’re no where near Androgens and the like, yet, but there’s enough reality blended with fantasy to make it realistic.  The bulk of it reminds of the Shadowrun and Cyberpunk pen and paper role-playing games with some very excellent character growth and definition.  Metamor embodies the spirit of character driven storytelling while utilizing an amazing plot about Telepath named Daniel and many of his friends.

There are… two different ways to begin Metamor City.  Chris has a number of short stories that he released first, some of them involving characters you’ll meet in Metamor City – Making the Cut.  Making the Cut is the second place to begin the story.  It might be easier to begin with the first episode of Making the Cut then to begin with the short stories like I did.  But then I’m notorious for starting at Episode One and moving up from there.  Even if it’s a bit Pulp Fiction like with the short stories, Chris is an amazing writer and his progression in talent shows clearly as you work you way through the whole of the Metamor City podcast.

Even if you decide to start with Chapter One of Making the Cut I urge you to listen to two of the short stories that proceeds it.  The Huntress is the second episode released on the site, it’s voiced by the delightful Leann Mabry, and well, to quote the site “Take a walk on the night side! In this week’s episode we take a look at Metamor City through the eyes of Lieutenant Dr. Morgan Elizabeth Drauling, vampire medical examiner for the MCPD’s Forensic Investigation Division. Tonight, though, Morgan’s adventures have little to do with work, as a typical Friday night on the town soon leads her to a young woman in desperate need of help…”

The second is called Troubled Minds and features lots of voices.  This story will require a few tissues at the end of it’s two parts and is so skillfully written that you’re left wondering what the truth behind it all is and why these Telepaths are so important.  Again, to quote the site – “Students are dying at St. Theresa’s, a school and halfway house for wayward girls on the Street of Metamor City. Abbey Preston is visiting the school, seeking relief from the terrifying visions that have been plaguing her. Is something supernatural at work, or is it all in Abbey’s head?”

Right now, I’m just chomping at the bit and waiting for Chris to get settled into his new job, which takes precedence over the podcast, and get back to the podcast.  I don’t think I’ve been this anxious for the next piece of the story since Mur cliffhangered us in Earth.

A word of advice.  Don’t skip the chatter!  The cast calls in, particularly Nobilis, and it offers some interesting insight about the PSI Collective.  You learn some interesting things from the episode chatter, other than the fact that lots of people think Chris is brilliant.  I suddenly understand why Uber Nemesis Tee Morris is always barking at Chris about raising the bar.

And don’t skip the ads.  Even if you get to this after the Parsec Awards are over you’ll kick yourself if you miss the advertisement done by Darth Sigler and Emperor Hutchins.

If I had six penguins, this would get it.  Since I don’t….

Rating:

Before we begin a HUGE Congratulations to Tee Morris and Philippa Ballantine for an excellent run up the Amazon.com Charts on Friday!  I don’t have the exact numbers of where they wound up in the top 100 on Amazon, but they did hit 1 and 2 respectively in Movers and Shakers for a few hours.  Stellar job for them and their fans.  This is what’s called keeping it real, folks.  I’ll be ordering my copies soon.

Now that the Double Trouble rush has ended it’s time to gear up for Mur Lafferty‘s Playing for Keeps.  Her book is ready for its run on August 25 and I’m sure we can do the same for her as we did for Tee and Pip.  Let’s hear it for small press books and podcasting.  *insert best Kermit the Frog impression here* YAY!

On the subject of Playing for Keeps, as you can see (if you’re on site) we’ve changed out out “You’ve Gotta See This” banner to celebrate it’s release.  This one, as it’s a solo book, is actually clickable and will take you to the Amazon.com order page.  Just, hold off till the 25th okay?  That banner will be up until the end of August.

Time Well Wasted will also be doing articles on the Stories of the Third Wave, these you can find at the Playing for Keeps website.  I’ll have reviews for those up as soon as possible.

Submissions for Around the Podiosphere will be accepted until Wednesday, August 13, 9:00 pm CST.  I will be attempting to have that article up on Thursday along with C is for Cats in the ABCs of Entertainment series.

And now for something completely different….

TWW may be changing it’s posting schedule.  Starting August 18th I’m no longer perfectly free to listen to every recommended podcast and post at odd hours.  I’ll be starting my training for employment at AT&T.  That’s right, after nearly two years, yours truly will be rejoining the working class.  Part of me truly dreads this.

We’re going to try and ensure there’s not much of an impact on the blog but, it has been nearly two years and I’m simply not used to working anymore.  If there will be an impact we’ll be returning to a 3 day a week posting schedule.  I’m hoping this doesn’t happen, and for now we’re making no changes, but I refuse to leave everyone hanging dry and wondering if we’ve gone away.

Now then, I have Metamor City to finish catching up on and Stories of the Third Wave to get into.  You’ll get reviews for this as soon as possible.  Toodles.

–End of Line–

Okay, okay, okay,  So, I know I said that the 1960′s Dr. Who was surprisingly awesome.  And, it was.  Disk one was.. that is.. Disk Two came on Monday (much to my chagrin.  I was HOPING for Jekyll, disk two).   But, I popped it in to the DVD player, got out my bread ingredients, and planned for a long evening of watching and baking.

No such Luck.

While Disk 1 had, like, 50 gajillion episodes on it (well, 6 maybe)  disk two had … Two.

WELL FIDDLE-DEE-DEE!

The episodes thereupon weren’t nearly as interesting :/  The acting was EXACTLY what I’d originally expected from 1960′s programming, and the special effects were far, far, far less than special.  Like.  Camera person and director.. could you work on that whole: Walk toward the camera while I keep you in focus – thing ?  PLEASE?

Scared woman stares off past camera and bites her lip.  She takes a few steps forward, thus transforming into a relatively concerned blob.  In focus, out of focus, in focus.. hurl!

And (pain in the @$$ of all pains in the @$$)  I didn’t get to NetFlix in time to set Jekyll to be my next borrow.  Nope.. it’s Disk 3 of the elderly Dr. Who.  Well, crap.

Rating: