Ben Paddon

Category: Interwebs

  • Post Trauma

    PortsCenter 1.22 is uploaded, I’ve created and queued the pages for Retroware (today, just after 1pm PST) and PortsCenter.TV (tomorrow, twenty-four hours later), and I’ve also queued up the post for the PortsCenter Tumblr on Friday at 1:01pm.

    I need to get more organized with my post-production process. Shooting the couch segments of an episode only takes, at most, two hours, which includes setting up and tearing down the lights. Post, however, takes the better part of a day. I have to:

    • Record the voiceover,
    • prepare overlays for things like game captions, credits, etc.,
    • capture any game footage I might not have yet,
    • get the bones of the edit in – voiceover and shot material,
    • curate game footage and drop it in,
    • realize I’ve forgotten to capture footage of some other game I mention within the episode, so set up to do that,
    • add the background blur effect so it’s not just game footage on a black background,
    • select my music,
    • rebalance the audio tracks,
    • prepare the end credits, including game footage and footage from last week’s episode and footage from the next episode
    • (which usually involves capturing about 30 seconds worth of gameplay of next week’s game, unless I can’t be bothered like last week),
    • give it a watch-through, tweak any parts I think need tweaking,
    • re-record any voiceover I think needs to be redone or rewritten,
    • watch it again,
    • render the video,
    • prepare web assets such as YouTube thumbnails, featured images for PortsCenter.TV and Retrowaretv.com,
    • watch an episode of Futurama while the rest of the episode renders,
    • upload the episode,
    • prepare posts for PortsCenter.TV, Retrowaretv.com, and the PortsCenter Tumblr,
    • add annotations once the upload is complete,
    • and update the annotations for the previous episode.

    That’s a lot of work. Today it took me ten hours to get it all done. If I did color correction or any particularly intensive visual effects I’d probably never get any sleep. Is it any wonder I haven’t had time to do much behind-the-scenes stuff?

    Still, I am exceptionally proud of all 22 episodes so far. There’s two left to do, then I’m taking January off to rest, recuperate, and get ready for season 2 in February.

  • Facebook

    In compliance with the Internet Narcissism Act of 2004, I’ve created a Facebook Page where I’ll be posting updates about my writing projects and stand-up. It’s a little bare-bones right now, but it’s early days yet. Give me time, stop pestering me! God, you’re so impatient!

  • RedBubble’s AdeGee Stole My Art

    Back in 2006, I crapped out this piece of Red Dwarf fan-art for an “Instruction Manual Shenanigans” competition on the Penny Arcade Forums.


    Red Dwarf – Rimmer salute by ~squirminator2k on deviantART

    Six years later, AdeGee on RedBubble posted it as his own tee-shirt design, and has apparently sold one. Which is nice for him, I suppose, but less so for me considering he’s ripped off my design.

    I’ve left two comments on RedBubble – one on his news post, and one on the tee-shirt page itself. I’ve also tweeted @RedBubble asking them politely to pull the design as it isn’t AdeGee’s design to sell.

    I’d be very appreciative if some of you could contact RedBubble as well to let them know this design is stolen, as I’m sure they’re unaware of the theft.

    Thanks.

    Update: The shirt design appears to have been pulled. Result!

  • So I Said to this Bloke…

    It really pisses me off when people tell me that Texts From Bennett is fake. It’s not because I think the site is genuine – in fact I’ve no real opinion on the matter, largely because I don’t think it makes any difference either way.

    Would it really be less funny if it were fake? Not really. It’s still funny, and whether I’m laughing at the inane thoughts of a genuinely baffled American teenager or piercing satire that veers into Poe’s Law territory, I’m still being entertained. I’m still laughing. At the end of the day, that’s all that really matters. If nothing else, as my sister points out, we grew up in a town where people talk more or less like Bennett practically all of the time in a wholly unironic fashion.

    I have a similar reaction when people debate Karl Pilkington’s veracity. Is he genuinely that confused by life, or is he a character conceived by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, or possibly even Pilkington himself? Really, does it matter?

    The people who will decry Texts From Bennett as being fake, or accusing Karl Pilkington of being a very talented fraud, are like people attending a live stand-up show and shouting, “This anecdote didn’t happen! He’s making it up!” – to whit, they’re fucking ridiculous. The audience doesn’t care whether or not Bill Bailey joined a Welsh experimental youth theatre group, or whether Dave Gorman actually uses 50 pence worth of stationary for truly evil purposes*. The audience isn’t there for facts. It’s not a bloody lecture.

    What I’m saying is, if you look down on someone for having a bit of a giggle at a site like Texts From Bennett, then, y’know, basically, fuck off.

    * I’d wanted to use a different example – part of Dave Gorman’s stand-up set where he lists a number of amusingly offensive puns his nephew suggested he say as part of his act – but it doesn’t appear to be on YouTube, and I’m not going to be the one to upload it. Suffice to say, you should buy Dave Gorman’s DVD “Stand Up. Live.” if you want to see it.

  • Facebook – Site Changelog for May 2011

    • The “Keep me logged in” checkbox at the sign-in screen is now purely decorative.
    • We’ve added everybody to everybody else’s friend lists because, y’know, it’s basically all going that way anyway.
    • Pressing Alt+F4 will display a sarcastic message about Friendster shutting down. I mean, it’s about time, right? Thankfully that’ll never happen to us. People will use Facebook forever.
    • We might have sold your personal details to a company overseas that makes shower curtains.
    • On the plus side, expect some fantastic emails about shower curtains some time in the next few days!

  • An accidental horror

    As much as I love horror – and when I say horror I mean actual horror, not “OH NOES HERE COMES A GUY WITH A KNIFE RUUNNNN” horror, or Saw-esque Torture Porn – I’ve never really considered myself any good at writing it. Nevertheless I accidentally found myself writing some horror this afternoon on Twitter after the sound of a yelling homeless man outside echoed through the building.

    Originally I just tweeted about that. Then, as a joke, I decided to tweet that I’d barricaded the door. But it didn’t stop there.

    Here’s the story in full:

    I hear the rambling and moaning of one of the local homeless people. But it sounds like it’s coming from inside the apartment building…

    I have locked and bolted the front door. A chair is propped under the door knob. I hear him salivating on the other side. Terror, panic.

    Scratching at the door. I peer through the peephole to see a creature, perhaps once human, covered in hair and tinfoil, looking back at me.

    He examines the door, the peephole, momentarily transfixed. An indecipherable cacophony of dead language shrieks from his maw.

    An eye, red like a ruby with a yellow dot-like iris, presses against the peep hole. It is sudden, unexpected, intimidating.

    I can almost smell his hatred seeping through the door, as no doubt he catches the scent of my fear.

    I am pressed up against the peep hole now, too terrified to move, too transfixed by the creature to look away.

    His head suddenly jerks away, looking elsewhere. He sniffs the air, eyes closed. A slight smile creeps out from under his beard.

    He skulks away down the hall, mumbling otherworldly nonsense. He has found better prey than I.

    It is only now I become aware of the sweat on my brow. I wipe it away, relieved – I have been freed. But a neighbor will not be so lucky.

    The building fills with the sounds of garbled screams, of crunching bones and gnashing teeth. A fleck of blood splatters across my window.

    I open the door and peak down the hall. The creature, its belly filled with flesh and its mouth filled with blood, cries out with joy.

    A singularly abhorrent sound that seems to penetrate the mind and reverberate through the bones.

    I slam the door shut, retreat to my bedroom, shut the door, hide under the duvet. I wasn’t spared at all. I was chosen to be witness.

    I think it loses something being transcribed in this nature – I got a few messages after I’d wrapped it up thanking me for a nice bit of a creepy suspense, and at least one from my friend Pascalle asking me if this was really happening) – and reading it back like this doesn’t feel anywhere near as exciting as it felt while I was writing it on-the-fly.

    Anyway, here it is. Archived for your pleasure. Or something.

  • Stop telling me what I can and can’t use Twitter for

    There have been a number of articles over the last year or so telling us what we shouldn’t be tweeting about. Pretty much everyone I know has seen this “article” on The Oatmeal, and there are a number of other articles on the subject. You don’t want to know what I had for breakfast? You’re not interested in my day-to-day ramblings, or what’s going on in my life?

    Well then here’s a question for you: Why the fuck are you following me on Twitter?

    By choosing to follow someone on Twitter you’re effectively saying, “I want to know what is going through this person’s head at any given moment.” If you’re following me, I can only assume you have some kind of interest in me, or my work, or what I get up to in my free time. Is that an excuse for me to post any old random shit, or an invitation to push said shit onto your phone? No, of course it bloody isn’t. But if you’re following me to find out when Jump Leads updates and instead find yourself having to endure tweets about the latest episode of Doctor Who or my musings on the future, why continue following me? Why continue to follow anyone on Twitter who is actively tweeting things you have no interest in?

    And yet people with this sort of attitude instead find themselves tweeting complaints about the person they’re following. Why don’t you just save yourself the effort and just unfollow the person? Depending on whether you’re using a Twitter client, it can take anywhere between one and four clicks to stop following someone. Surely that’s much less effort than typing some passive-aggressive tweet about your disinterest in my socks.

    So fuck you, “Don’t Tweet About This” article writers. I’m going to tweet about my lunch. I’m going to tweet about my vacations. I’m going to tweet about writing, and hanging out, and the events I go to, and emotional breakthroughs. Is it self-indulgent? Yes. But self-indulgence is the very core of what Twitter is.

    If you don’t like it, you know where to find the unfollow button.

  • “Let us know if you *knuckle-crack* change your mind.”

    I’ve let my McAfee antivirus account lapse, mostly because I don’t really like the idea of paying an annual subscription fee for a piece of software that they also release a new version of every year, meaning if I want to keep my antivirus software 100% current I basically have to pay for it twice. That’s a bit shit, but it’s the type of shit that McAfee can get away with. Apparently McAfee is one of those companies that tries to lure you back by making you shit your pants rather than by throwing the usual insincere “We’re sorry you’re leaving” messages at you.

    Here’s an excerpt the latest of five emails I’ve received since Friday:

    Internet thugs are motivated, ruthless…and silent. They use stealth to invade your computer system. It can happen so quickly, you won’t even realize it—at least not until after your credit score plunges.

    They slip in the night, clad in black. They creep into your megabits and datapixels, surreptitiously pilfering every jiggawatt you have into their infosacks. And before you know it , BAM! You’re laying out on a table in Mexico’s Canadian district with some half-drunk, half-mad bandit sucking gin from your belly button while his associates steal your kidneys. All because you didn’t resubscribe to McAfee’s antivirus. Is that what you want? Is that the future you want for you and your family?

    Membership starts from $49.99 a year.