Subject: Re: So, just wondering, Stang

From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com>
Newsgroups: alt.slack
Date: Tue, Oct 29, 2002 1:01 PM

Alliekatt
<alleykatzen@hotmail.com> wrote:

> I know you're incredibly bogged down with massive amounts of "work" in doing
> the HoS and all those scans and CDs and devivals and stuff, but I was just
> curious, is there a timetable, or at least a general whereabouts of
> wheneverness, on when I get to see this year's glorious new Fist on SubSite?
> huh? huh? huh? huh? huh?
((SIGH -- seems like I do this on a yearly basis))

Well, just this morning I woke up wondering that too -- wondering if I
needed to rethink my schedge, YET AGAIN. I'm stuck between a sponge and
a soft soppy damp place. We have enough money to keep the PO box open,
but not enough to hire help, much less actually PRINT the long-laid-out
paper FIST. (They were being mailed out almost quarterly until July
'99, when we discovered too late that more "SubGeniuses" had been more
disappointed on 7-5-98 than we would have expected.) So, for the money,
and for the pure unrelenting SLACK of the products envisioned, I
desperately need to have a zillion new things in the Cafe Press
catalog.

BUT, I have found that prepping the art takes much longer than I
thought. (Having already spent much longer than I expected just
SELECTING from the 4,000 pieces.) For technical reasons that would
become clear only if you examine Cafe Press and compare the SHITTY new
age products with the GOOD new age products, each piece of art has to
be specially prepared for each type of product it's used on.

For instance, I left off last night on the wall posters of Heart
Ignition's "45 Dobbsheads". That art already fits the aspect ratio of
the 16 x 20 posters, but for the larger 23x35 poster I had to put its
own special "frame" around the art to make it fit the Cafe Press
configuration right -- lest Cafe Press do it. Consider also that I had
to use a special plug-in (Genuine Fractals) to blow the original 60 dpi
screen pic up to a 200 dpi PNG that would print ot 35 inches across
without pixels looking gross. That blow-up takes about 5 minutes even
on a G4 Mac.

So I just now caught on that what I wanted to do with the catalog would
take more like a MONTH than a couple more days. It's not just simple
converting of formats and sizes; I know how to bulk-convert, in fact
I'm an expert at that. Unfortunately the catalog work requires actual
thought and choices, not to mention devilishly exacting technical
tweakery.

So meanwhile I have this HUGE stash of HTMLed text that was
text-prepped before 5X-Day by Two Beans, Temujin and Phloighd. (There
was an equal amount that *I* was going to prep, but haven't had a
chance to get to.) I COULD go ahead and mount that text older TODAY
easily.

But it would have NO artwork, NONE of the current events shit, and I
just HATE to do that.

But, I might do it anyway. Do the HALF-ASSED Online Fist... and a
QUARTER of the new product choices A.S.A.P... then go back and fill in
the blanks -- more art basically -- as time allows.

It's plainly and simply a matter of me not having enough arms or enough
time. If only I could avoid that SLEEP shit... but I learned what
happens if I do. I'm just now getting my memory of the early 90s back.
I used to let Church work eat up my own personal Slack, and found that
that defeated the purpose worse than not working at all. Despite my
busy work day, certain things (read: PRINCESS WEI R. DOE) come first.

I have mailed whole sets of CDRs of all of SubSITE to several people
who have said they would help me revise it, but I have not actually
heard back from any of the ones I sent that to, except Two Beans, who
did do the new front page. Those CD-Rs also contain all the material
for the Online Fist.

I could keep sending out CDRs of SubSITE to more volunteers, but... I
know what happens when I do that.

So, my plan is to plug along like I always have. If somebody downloads
a page off SubSITE and sends me the revised HTML I will upload it. Like
I did with Mykal's revised 5X-Day index page. So far he, Noah Stewart
and Troutwaxer have been the only people to actually do that -- copy a
page and send it back improved.

4 or 5 other people have OFFERED to help, but they had so many
questions that in the time it would take me to answer them, I could do
the work myself. And in most cases I DID JUST THAT. I've lost count of
how many people said they were CGI experts and would fix the old
interactive ShorDurMar page for us. And then vanished. That's one I
don't have the knowledge to fix, though. My biggest mistake in the past
has been to wait for people who said they were *gonna* do something,
rather than just proceeding on with doing it myself. See Art Mines #12.
Five different SubGeniuses are about to fix that at ANY MINUTE, and
have been for 4 years.

Everybody wants to write stories and make cool artwork, but sometimes I
seem to be the only one who both knows the HTML and also will actually
DO more than a page at a time of it for SubSITE. (I know, ya get what
ya pay for, and as I said, we WANT to have PAID HELP again!) It's too
bad that the HTML that I know if 1996-era, but I haven't had time to do
the Adobe GoLive 5 tutorial. Hell, they came out with Adobe Go Live 6
since I GOT Go-Live 5. There are dozens of SubGenius "fan sites" that
are much slicker looking than SubSITE.

You cannot imagine how much I miss making my own graphics or, most of
all, making more animation and editing more video! I was born to do
that shit... but, god damn it. Gotta make rent first. Luckily the
editing of HOUR OF SLACK sates my A.V.-jones just enough.

It's a balancing act, for sure, but paradoxically I personally am
actually getting more Slack than ever. Not letting this glacial
slowness get me down is fairly easy because we have ALWAYS endured this
glacial slowness. Also I have gotten better at emotionally distancing
myself from biz problems. My wife and I eat great dinners, and then lay
around and watch a couple of cartoons every night like slobs, no matter
what other crisis is happening.

I just sent out a Lymph Node Institute rerun to the stations instead of
an Hour of Slack this week. I have not planned to do any devivals
myself at all in the future until I catch up on all this other stuff or
unless they pay my full preaching fee ($1500). You know, HIGH WEIRDNESS
and THREE FISTED TALES would be in reprint right now, if I had ONE
SPARE WEEK to prep THAT material. But it's one of those things that
doesn't pay until after the job's done, and everybody PAID for that
FIST.

You know what else I told myself this morning? That I would not look at
this newsgroup but would just go straight to Photoshop or GoLive.

Perhaps I should take that as a HINT! For ONCE! But god damn it,
posting snotty comments in this newsgroup is my very favorite creative
outlet practically! (DON'T ASK ME WHY!!) Besides, I have never been
able to find anyone who would help me watch the newsgroup and
selectively archive it. Yet it's full of great shit amidst the shitty
shit which MUST be preserved! (Again, DON'T ASK ME WHY; I JUST *KNOW*
THESE THINGS.)

Now WATCH -- the main responses to this post will be that I am using
the wrong HTML program and that if I was on [name of other program
here] it would all be easy. Or... here, I'll mention a movie. "ALIENS
3." There. Now there will be a follow-up thread about the ALIENS movie
series.

And *until* the Revolution comes, the SubGeniuses will PARTY AND
BULLSHIT, PARTY AND BULLSHIT.

Perhaps that IS the Revolution, in which case most of us are already
doing the Right Thing.

Anyone who is about to tell me they want to help? DON'T!! *JUST SEND
THE ZIPPED HTML REVISION as an EMAIL ATTACHMENT.* That's the very best
way to tell me you want to help.

Which part should you start with?

PICK THE PAGES OR SECTIONS YOU HAVE IDEAS FOR and skip the ones you
have no ideas for.

And, thanks to all our listeners for listening, and to the pornographer
who buys a $100 monthly banner on SubSITE. Wouldn't it be cool if
someone besides me, and a pornographer, had something to sell.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: So, just wondering, Stang
From: twobeans@godhatesyou.com (Two Beans)

"Rev. Ivan Stang" wrote...

> I have mailed whole sets of CDRs of all of SubSITE to several people
> who have said they would help me revise it, but I have not actually
> heard back from any of the ones I sent that to, except Two Beans, who
> did do the new front page. Those CD-Rs also contain all the material
> for the Online Fist.

I was hoping that word of me doing the index page wouldn't leak out. I
perposly stayed silent in alt.slack/Yahoo/IRC when the new index page
layout was discussed. It was bad enough when I just did text editing
for ya, because folks bothered me with questions like "So, you RUN
SubSITE now, eh? When are you going to update it? When will you
include my rant/art/spoo next??"

I usually replied with, "I don't run the site. I just edit shit for
Stang. Quit bothering me, Rocknar."

Now that word has gotten out that I am acually DOING and HAVE DONE
stuff for the stite, I suppose that I will be bothered again.

THUS, I am taking on this stance on the questions about SubSITE
updates.

"When I am done killing Dracula."

Lately I have taken a shine to playing the "Castlevania" series of
video games emulated on my computer. So far I have killed Dracula in
"Castlevania: Bloodlines" for the Sega Genisis. Now I am in the middle
of "Super Caslevania 4" for the Super Nintando Entertainment System.

When I kill Dracula, I will work on a section of SubSITE untill it is
done. I will then mail the section to Stang. Then I will seek out
another venue to kill Dracula in. I'm thinking "Castlevania: Dracula
X" for the SNES.

Now excuse me, I have to go kill Dracula.

-2B

"Being desirous of allaying the dissension's of party strife now
existing within our realm, [I] do hereby dissolve and abolish the
Democratic and Republican parties, and also do hereby degree the
disfranchisement and imprisonment, for not more than ten, nor less
than five years, to all persons leading to any violation of this our
imperial decree." -Emperor Norton, Emperor of the United States and
Protector of Mexico --San Francisco Herald, August 4, 1869

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: Re: So, just wondering, Stang
From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com>

<twobeans@godhatesyou.com> wrote:

> I was hoping that word of me doing the index page wouldn't leak out. I
> perposly stayed silent in alt.slack/Yahoo/IRC when the new index page
> layout was discussed. It was bad enough when I just did text editing
> for ya, because folks bothered me with questions like "So, you RUN
> SubSITE now, eh? When are you going to update it? When will you
> include my rant/art/spoo next??"

Lonely at the top, isn't it.

> I usually replied with, "I don't run the site. I just edit shit for
> Stang. Quit bothering me, Rocknar."

Do like I do and just turn it completely around. Say, "Hey, I bet you
could revise those pages sooner than I could!" It worked on YOU...

> Now that word has gotten out that I am acually DOING and HAVE DONE
> stuff for the stite, I suppose that I will be bothered again.

That's what I used to think about being paid.

> When I kill Dracula, I will work on a section of SubSITE untill it is
> done. I will then mail the section to Stang. Then I will seek out
> another venue to kill Dracula in. I'm thinking "Castlevania: Dracula
> X" for the SNES.

Just don't use that Home Page thing that renovates all the links to
point at imaginary addresses on your own computer.

> Now excuse me, I have to go kill Dracula.

Slack comes first in the life of any initiate.

Hey, a new guy asked if he could do some TEXT EDITING.

"Some."

((devious Bender-like cackle))


Back to document index

Original file name: Re- So, just wondering, Stang - converted on Monday, 21 July 2003, 13:44

This page was created using TextToHTML. TextToHTML is a free software for Macintosh and is (c) 1995,1996 by Kris Coppieters