General Discussion and Such

Believe it or not, this is the second time today I've had to rewrite this post. The electricity in my cabin has gone down three times, and I've re-watched/listened to Balls of Fury three times now. Still haven't gotten past the part where Freddy Fingers dies.

So, forgive me if THIS post isn't anywhere near as awesome as the other two attempts. You'll just hafta take my word for it, y'know?

Anyway, I know usually my posts have some of my work in it, but this is the first time since starting Penis Joke...I mean, The Pen Is My Sword, where I felt like I needed to make a real update and discussion post. I know I normally ask you guys to comment on whatever ya want, but for once I actually have a few questions to hit you guys up. By all means, answer me back here, in a personal message, or over at Shittychat where I sometimes play music and/or cyber and/or type in all caps and tell bad jokes.

I need to warn you though, it's a pretty tight-knit community of jerks from all across the Internuggets, of all races, colors, creeds (except Muslims), locations, and genders.

We especially like genders in there.

...what was I sayin'? Oh yeah, the questions~!

-Is it a bad thing that I'm trying to expand my audience or not? I also had a Call of Booty: Black Cocks joke (y'know, "we're trying to capture the CoD crowd" and general hatred of that phrase) and multiple cracks at my inner attention whore, but you get the idea. It boils it down to: I feel like I need to expand my readership, especially here at The Pen Is My Sword, and I can't qutie tell if if's truly my ideal or if it's just a weird empathy thing from Blogspot itself. I didn't feel this way over at Deviantart, and neither DA nor Tumblr makes me feel welcome as a writer (unlike here at Blogspot).

-I've got a new kind of advertising goin' down on my blogs, is it screwing things up for you? Making the blogs run slower or make them feel bogged down? Make ya feel like I sold out? All part of the same question.

-Is there anything you can suggest, design-wise, that you feel would improve my blogs? I know I need to learn how to, y'know, post pictures up here on my blogs (anyone wanna teach me? I have some weird block learning on my own). It doesn't help that I have a HUMONGOUS WAREHOUSE OF IMAGES straight jacked from the Internuggets. I mean, can I do that? Anyway, lemme know what ya think.

-Are my blog running good for you guys? I have to admit that I'm using a computer that's around 8 or 10 years old, I mean I BOUGHT the poor lil' thing nigh on six years ago and it was already used then. Now she's done VERY well by me though, despite missing a dedicated audio/visual card (apparently), but sometimes she bogs down something fierce. Doesn't help that I get my internuggets through Comcast WHO HAS A FREAKING MONOPOLY ON ALL OF LYNDEN. So yeah, no other option. But because of that, for some reason, Man-Flavored Milk will completely lock up on me and I have to down Firefox and restart the thing. I'm actually considering switching to Chrome simply because it seems to be more intuitive with googles-based products like Blogspot, Youtubes, Gmail and all that good stuff. I dunno, maybe it's me? Every time I hang out in a tech-based forum or imageboard, I always end up leaving disgruntled 'cuz I don't have the money for such stuff.

I dunno, bweh. Just...are the blogs even workin' for you guys? Or am I the only one gettin' frozen up and stuff? Like the moment any post with more than two youtube embeds screw me out. Hell, it's not fair if it IS just me 'cuz I'm the motherfucker who wrote 'em! Everyone havin' fun 'cept for me...

SHEEEEIT, anyway, hit me up sometime here or at Shittychat, where I've basically taken up as my new home on the Internuggets. It's a good place full of good feelings and naw we're a bunch of trolls who hate on everything. It's greeeeeat!

Project Updates

Extreme Existence: Battleworld

Well, I've gotten two kingdoms completely written out as far as design notes, what they look like, what they do, starting values. Still screwin' around with stuff, and I'm still goin' strong but the past two days I haven't done squat. Euch. The closer we get to Saturday the more I can only focus on that. If anything, gimme until Sunday and I'll begin to type up stuff like crazy again.

KAOS: Chaos Party Radio

So it looks like one way or another KAOS is gonna be goin' up. I've still gotta work on the blog for it, but that's only because we're kinda missing a microphone now. Here's the suggested groups, all starring yours truly -

Da Boys - That Bastard, his drummer and a good mutual friend. Currently on hiatus until we decide on what the fuck we can use for a microphone.

The Hooliganz - Video games, video games, video games. Normally pure rage and fanboy orgasms from yer boy and his closest homeboy and hardcore gamer extraordinare, Ace.

DJ That Bastard - Catch me on Shittychat playin' a delicious selection of musics in the chat room with my swagged out cam avatar and my godly green screenname. YOUUUUU! SHUT THE FUCK UP AND GET IN THE SOOOUP!

Jogpod - I'm actually going to be creating podcasts designed specifically for joggin' and such. Get yer blood up, get yer cardio on. GET MOVIN' YOU FUCK!

EVEN MORE BLOGS LOL

I haven't even begun on any of them, but there's a couple more blogs I gotta get workin' on soon. Three, technically. One for KAOS: Chaos Party Radio, another for my main band, and another for No Rhymes.

...at some point in time all this hard work is going to pay off, yes?

Just thought I'd let you guys know 'bout it. Man, though, I'd feel better about doin' all this good shit if I had more people on my followlist. Just sayin'.

Scream/Dreams

So here's what I'm thinkin'. I've got at least one short story, a whole bunch of lyrics, and a bunch of poetry in a file folder called Screams. Dreams, though, is going to be the second half of the book which'll have nothing but overviews, story overviews, character designs and other nonsuch concerning my other material. Now, here's the thing: when I write a concept, it has both character designs, episodic/completely story review, backstory and history of the world, everything, y'know? But it also reveals important plot twists, character development and the story from beginning to end as well.

Would that kind of thing ruin it for me and you, the readers, if I were to release them in such a tome? Keep in mind this is also concerning my script ideas and comic book overviews and such.

Shit, we'll see. Lemme know what y'all think, eh?

If anything, I'll be posting some of those very story overviews and concepts here at The Pen Is My Sword, of these titles to expect:

-Bad Dog (a three-episode short serial followin' a legalized criminal consultant company co-owned by the Yakuza, set in my "Neo Tokyo" gameplay that has only been recently slapped into the Extreme Existence label)

-Dangerous Mismanagement 1, 2, 3, and 3.5 (Heavy Metal Dark Fantasy inspired by an old D&D group I ran with. Ninja female drow with more manias then sense and talks like Shampoo from Ranma 1/2, a group of rogues with no sense of dignity and an overarching storyline that has nothing to do with my Extreme Existence stuff. The sequel series, 2, is based around a particular "Royal Pirates" group, the third and three-point-five revolves around a futuristic version of the 1st series, "The Bloodhounds of Avantia" and caps off certain unanswered questions around all three previous series.)

-Hunting Grounds (my movie script idea alongside an old co-worker friend of mine. Someday I'll get to actually writing the script, I just never seem to be able to focus on it beyond what I've already written.)

-A Wizard Did It (a series of short stories centered in the modern day era where something unexplainable happens, resulting in the deaths of thousands or more. Mostly centered around the responses towards those unexplainable occurrences)

-Death Island (reality show/t.v. series that may or may not have people killing each other for real. Think Battle Royale.)

-Dirty Space (sexy sci-fi setting, think pornographic Star Trek)

-Kane and Kincaid (oooohh god, uber violent, maniacs and insane killers, and a supernatural organization that may or may not have God as their number one client, an old favorite)

Suffice it to say, I have TOOONS of stuff. Just haven't really ever posted yet, and I always seem to be too stressed to actually focus and write 'em...but stressed just enough to be able to write out the overviews and such. Hell, you guys have seen my style thus far - I have yet to really finish a project, and I number that amongst my greatest failings.

That also doesn't number my OTHER material, my Extreme Existence-oriented material, the Trinity High comic book overviews (collaboration with my homeboy Ace), my video-game based stuff, my pen and paper roleplayin' stuff, and...well, you get the point.

Yeah, we'll see. In the meantime, I'll post that stuff up here eventually, alongside my lyrics and poems and what short stories I feel willing to share with y'all. But the question is, how can I share these titles without giving away too much about the endings and stuff...or should I not worry about that and put them itno the Dreams book after all?

Last note: Scream will feature a mainly black background and sharply red-lined abstract art look on the cover, then you flip it over and it'll be a deep, verdant, forest green with a softer abstract look. I dunno, it's an idea. That and I was thinking of doing the table of contents so it looked like a corkboard and the actual titles and page numbers to look like sticky notes or just notes nailed in or somethin'.

What do you guys think?

My Main Band
Tomorrow we record and I'll live up to my word and reveal who I am. It's not like it's some major thing, but I DID say I'd give you guys the chance to peek under my "anonymous" e-persona and see what my real e-persona is.

Once again, I ain't anyone important. But I've actually grown to like being That Bastard, it's pretty much the same as my previous e-persona (who is pretty much me on the Internuggets, I don't hide behind masks and I don't do anything but face it straight-up and head-on), so I'll leave it up to you guys.

In the very least, I'll reveal the name of my main band finally and help you guys narrow down who I am. LOL, so exciting.

No, but I AM worried about tomorrow. I have yet to finalize how much it's gonna cost per hour with the dude (hopefully the surgery yesterday went down proper) and if not maybe the co-owner can negotiate with us instead. I dunno. I also haven't heard back from my bassist yet, my drummer keeps talking about how we should jam SUNDAY but hasn't said anything about tomorrow...unless I'm overthinking things and this is just how he deals with the butterflies, by not talking about it at all.

Beh. We'll see.

Tomorrow, the five songs we're down to record will be:

Steak and Eggs (our warm up song)
Avocado
That's The Sound My Balls Make
Shame You (with our guest guitarist)
1200 Lbs. Of Penis

It'll be as raw a cut as it gets, but that's all we need right now. Afterwards it goes up on Youtube, and I start whoring THAT out to everyone and their grandma, but especially a particular record company who is willing to listen to it. They haven't promised anything beyond that but at this stage of the game, that's all I expect.

I'm also going to probably sing a bit more, record 'em for posterity, and upload 'em tomorrow and play 'em in Shittychat. C'mon down and listen if you want, it'll be a capella with me making noises with my mouth, which is pretty much how we plan out the songs in the band anyway. Except for That's The Sound My Balls Make - that one actually came up completely on accident after we all heard a strange noise on the P.A. System and realized that it was the sound of the microphone, which I was holding loosely by the cord, was rubbing against my crotch.

I made the sound of it again, the guitarist used the ridge of his hand to make the sounds on the guitar with the bassist following suit, and the drummer started up the beat.

Then the song just came outta nowhere. I still have no idea how to write it, and we just do it naturally from beginning to end.

Yeah, weird how that happens.

Anyway, tomorrow will just be a big ol' "ABWABWABWA" party by yours truly, and all y'all are invited. From the time of recording, to posts made on The Pen Is My Sword, stuff uploaded to Youtube under our main band's gmail account, to me playin' those songs and more recordings by yours truly at Shittychat.

Here's to a good day tomorrow. Hell, I'll even settle for an average day.

Shit. We'll see.

Sincerely, That Bastard