Expanding into multimedia

I'm a big fan of things like the Angry Video Game Nerd (see above), the gaming reviews at ScrewAttack and Bill Simmons' podcast, and all three have tempted me to make my own foray into multimedia. While I'm not really sure why people would want to see me on camera or hear the sound of my voice, I also don't know why they would want to read this blog, yet I still write. So why not do a podcast or videocast if I have some free time?

The odd thing is that I do have some professional and semi-professional experience. When I was in college, I had to do some video editing, and I did film myself doing a stand-up (i.e. when you see TV anchors standing outside of a building and talking about an issue). I even interviewed my friend Maggie for it; I should try to find that segment and post it online.

And when it comes to audio editing, I have even more experience. While I won't profess to being an expert on balancing levels or quality, I used to record and cut the audio for Dave Dameshek's Pittsburgh radio show, and I think I did a decent enough job at it. I did a few audio clips and interviews for East Bay Newspapers, when I worked for them. (Those definitely still exist, and I'll try to find and post them.) I was also on-air on the Dameshek show a couple times, and I was a caller on the final Adam Carolla Show.

Clearly, with all of that experience, I'm practically the King of Multimedia already. But, if I was going to start doing some of that stuff for this blog, does anyone have any requests? The easiest stuff would be to do music, movie or video game reviews like ScrewAttack and the Nerd do, so I'm skewing toward that if I do do it, but I'm open to other ideas.

Blogging about tweeting

[Left] Not about her.

I got a Twitter account a couple months ago, although it was primarily to promote this blog; I had no real desire to post 140 character updates about my life. Yet, this minimalist format has indeed snagged me a bit, as I've done 552 updates - tweets, as the kids call them - in the past four months or so. (I wish it was easier to look-up when I joined, but I can't find that button right now.)

Because you are so limited in terms of length, it forces you to be brief and to the point. It is kind of the opposite of blogging, where I just ramble for 800 words and then post a silly picture.

The oddest thing to me is how easy it is to add other people. There are things like a Major League Baseball feed that I'll normally add a person or two from each day, along with The Match Game's Charles Nelson Reilly, which is maintained by friends of the late comedian. (By the way, future idea for a posting - Best game shows of all-time, since The Match Game is on it.)

I also wonder what the semi-professional bloggers and writers and journalists think when they see my updates to my high school and Internet friends. I'm sure they are very interested in my comments to my friend about how I did an article about our mutual friend and my former roommate about him competing in some lifeguard games. The guys from Gamezebo probably get a real kick out of it, and think to themselves, "This is so utterly relevant!"

Kinda, sorta professional - Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Just so that I can keep track of it, and to allow my readers to share in my vanity, here are some of the things I've done the past two months:

July 18 - Interview - Blast interviews Harcos - Blast Magazine: This is an e-mail interview I did with the 1) the creators of the Mana Potion energy drink and 2) the programmers of an MMORPG. I thought it came out surprisingly well, since I was able to ask them some weird, video game-related questions that will (or should) appeal to hardcore gamers.

July 18 - Review - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - Blast Magazine: I thought this game stunk, but I gave it a 5 anyway because I was so despondent about it. I honestly don't think anyone even reads the reviews for licensed games; they're either in or out. You can tell the guy commenting on my review didn't read it. Also, I give a shout-out to Danielle, since she helped me playtest the game.

July 9 - Review - Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor - Blast Magazine: My review of a great DS RPG. I sincerely recommend this game, if you had a DS and liked any of the past Persona games or Final Fantasy Tactics.

July 8 - Review - Gemcraft - Gamezebo: A review of a fun tower defense game that adds a few twists. It has a leveling and experience system that is fun to utilize, and instead of focusing on buying 500 units like a typical tower defense game, a better strategy is to make a few uber-powerful ones. The game gets repetitive, but it's still good.

July 4 - Blog - Celebrate the Fourth with Secret of Evermore - Blast Magazine: A blog entry at Chibi Gamer, Blast's video game blog, about how Secret of Evermore deserves more credit for being one of the rare American-feeling games from the SNES RPG era and for its humor.

July 1 - Review - Droplets - Gamezebo: A short but sweet review of a so-so web game. The music and look of the game are great, but the actually game is subpar. There are cute squirrel-type things though, if you're into that.

June 30 - Blog - The roleplaying slums - Blast Magazine: Another blog entry for Chibi Gamer, this one about some of the worst RPGs I've ever played. Somewhat surprisingly, I didn't get any comments on it, which made me a bit sad.

June 29 - Review - Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern Hits - Blast Magazine: A review of the great Guitar Hero adaptation for the DS. I really recommend it if you like Guitar Hero and have a DS, since it's only about $30 or $40 and has some really good tunes.

Steve Greenwell, narcissist, and the blog business

So, Dr. Drew has a personality test that you can take online that assesses how narcissistic you are in various areas. If you're interested in taking it, you can click here, and find out your own score. The higher the number, the more narcissistic you are, although Drew does stress that this isn't necessarily a bad thing.

If you want to have some fun with it, I can try to guess your score before you post it. My score probably isn't that surprising – I've taken the test twice and gotten a 21 and a 25, putting me well-above the “average” score of 15. The maximum is 40. I write a blog that is basically just me pontificating on various subjects, and think that other people enjoy it, which takes a certain amount of narcissism to believe.

And because the post the other day on the scheduling of this blog got such a great response, I've decided that from now on all scheduled posts will drop at roughly 4 p.m. EST every day. As long as issues don't pop up, there should be a new post at that time every day. This does not apply to “news” posts, although I don't do as many of them now, and any sort of “spur of the moment” post.

Summer vacation

[Left] The definitive summer vacation movie.

So, unannounced, I decided to take a few weeks off from the blog. This was partly because of my new job, which sucked up a lot more time then I would realize, and also as a way for me to just recharge my own brain and what not. It didn't hurt that a couple people I'm doing tag team blogs with took a while to respond, and that my #1 commenter went on vacation for a week, meaning that there wasn't a ton of outside pressure on me to write entries.

But. I'm back into the swing of things now! A couple of random notes:

1) I won't be including as many links and images on my posts. Sadly, some posts take far longer for me to format with various fun things than they do to type. It doesn't help that the computers I use – a desktop from 2002 and a laptop from 2005 – are really showing their age at this point. Right after I manage to move out, buying a new computer, even if it's using credit, is on my list. Maybe even before I move out.

2) Another way I can tell that this new job is sucking up a lot of my free time is by monitoring my weight. At one point I was at 200 pounds, ugh. That's not really acceptable for me, since I'm 5'9” and don't lift weights for a living, and my high school weight was around 160. For the past week, I've been trying to exercise at least once a day, and that has kept it in check for the time being, and I'm back down to around 190ish. Still, it's something I'm going to have to monitor. I'm not crazy about the idea of turning into Kevin James or George Costanza.

3) I've kind of stayed off Twitter during this hiatus, but I imagine I'll be back on it regularly now that I'm blogging again. To give people a bit of a peek behind the curtain, a surprising amount of my traffic is directly referred from Twitter, which has a different set of friends on it then here.

4) Speaking of hits, I should mention that I have officially made money off of this blog - $0.98. Woohoo! AdSense tells me that it is in my account, but I don't think I'll have them cut a check for me just yet...

Kinda, sorta professional - Monday, June 22, 2009

[Left] Studies show that an attractive woman increases traffic by 12,783%, even if she is only tangentially related to the original content. Picture originally from this list about Guitar Hero.

I've been busy lately, which is annoying, because it means I don't write as much as I should. Just so that I can keep track of it, and to allow my readers to share in my vanity, here are some of the things I've done the past week:

June 22 - Blog - Guitar Hero, Rock Band wish list - Blast Magazine
June 22 - Review - Black Sigil: Blade of the Exiles - Blast Magazine

Kinda, sorta professional - Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Also always awesome - Top Cat.

Since I know everyone is probably still reeling from the awesomeness that is the Steve and Danielle tag team effort, I thought I would keep it simple tonight and just brag about myself. Just so that I can keep track of it, and to allow my readers to share in my vanity, here are some of the things I've done the past couple months:

June 15 - Review - OurWorld - Gamezebo
June 14 - Review - Swords and Soldiers - Blast Magazine
June 8 - Review - Steal Princess - Blast Magazine

Later tonight, I'll also have a news post up, since it has been a while since I've done one. Sneak peek for the next two weeks: Entries on Hitchcock vs. Final Fantasy VII, the art of casting subtly hot chicks for commercials, how some of journalism works behind the scenes, and I'm currently in the opening stages of tag teams with two friends.

Kinda, sorta professional - Monday, June 1, 2009

Just so that I can keep track of it, and to allow my readers to share in my vanity, here are some of the things I've done the past couple months:

May 27 - Review - Puzzle Kingdoms for the Wii (3.0) - Blast Magazine
May 22 - Opinion - What will happen at E3? - Blast Magazine
May 12 - Review - The Dark Spire for the DS (6.5) - Blast Magazine
April 14 - Review - Moshi Monsters for the PC (9.5) - Gamezebo
Feb. 16 - Review - MapleStory for the PC (6.0) - Gamezebo

Later this week, I'll have another Gamezebo piece done; I have no real clue why it has taken me so long to churn it out. Yes, I said churn - it needs to come back in usage outside of in connection to butter. Thanks.