That annual thing I do with music and crap.
So, I’m sitting here doing some stuff, and listening to some music I’ve gotten this year, thinking about carving stuff up for the annual “best music I discovered this year” compilation that I make available for a couple of weeks around Christmas before “disappearing” it to placate the copyright gods. I thought I’d ask a couple of questions before I even bother to start on this year’s, though:
- Does anyone even listen to it? (If you’re scratching your head and going “What compilation?” I’m gonna take that as a no.)
- What’s your preference: a continuous running compilation with brief excerpts of each selection, or a longer radio-style podcast with introductions/comments/etc. between full-length selections? Or something else entirely?
One is actually much easier to do than the other – and it’s probably not the one you’re thinking, either. The compilation has become my own little mini-tradition that 2.8 people probably pay attention to, combining my personal favorites from the mainstream (and, more often, from way the hell outside the mainstream – it’s not like I really bother with radio or music video channels, or, for that matter, music videos anymore) and from various film/TV scores I’ve really dug.
But I thought I’d ask before taking the plunge. I’m picking music. That’s the easy part (almost). Putting it all together, that’s the tough stuff. Since you’re the poor sods who would, in theory, actually be listening to it (and perhaps I’m assuming too much there), I thought I’d ask.… Read more
Argh. For some reason that I can’t figure out and don’t really have the time to screw with much, Scribblings (the original, you might say, at theLogBook.com) is broken. Videos don’t work anymore for no real reason that I’ve been able to fathom, actually getting it to accept new content is hit-or-miss, and it’s just emblematic of the site as a whole – WordPress was supposed to liberate me to some extent, and let me just concentrate on generating content, because I write almost constantly, and don’t want to have to code pages almost constantly. But it’s maintaining the infrastructure that’s killing me. When I upgraded the WordPress that drives the episode guide, it completely wiped out all categories, and I’m still going through those 2,500-odd entries and re-categorizing them (i.e. Star Trek? check. Deep Space Nine? check. Season 4? check.)…I’m up to 1995 now. Which is quite a feat when the thing starts in the ’50s. It really renews my appreciation for just how much ground the site covers, how much written material (and hopefully well-written material) it represents…and makes the back of my brain throb and beg for More Help With The Damn Thing. It’s not WordPress’s fault, but the early days of the toddler era is not a good time for me to be able to find the kind of time it takes to prop up that infrastructure all the time. The news page has also been hit by the same bug, and I just. don’t. have. the. time. I’ve stopped updating the news page. I’ve looked for someone to take it over, but there’s only so much I can offer when the site’s revenue basically covers its own bills (and to be honest, that’d be a misnomer this year – the PDF DVD is what’s paying the site’s bills right now; the site itself – aside from hosting the ordering page for the DVD – hasn’t made a cent this month). Next year is theLogBook’s 20th anniversary, but I’m starting to wonder if it might not be time to start dialing the whole thing down a bit and just doing sporadic updates. When I feel like it. Rather than trying to generate, on a weekly basis, what I would’ve needed to fill the 6-page print fanzine that theLogBook was in the 1990s.