Gifts and Prizes

Today was rainy and cold and it made me sleepy. I’d like to propose an employee nap time at the day job, but I’m pretty sure that’ll get tossed out the window. Still, I can dream, right?

 

I was feeling well enough to go to work today. Things weren’t too crazy, so I kept a handle on the to-do list. One of my friends, a field bee, knows of my geekiness and brought me a gift from a con she was recently at.

Admittedly, this reminds me that I really need to catch up on Doctor Who. Now that we have ChromeCast, I don’t think I have an excuse not to. I’m not ready to say goodbye to Matt Smith, so maybe that’s why I’m procrastinating. As long as I don’t see his regeneration, he’s still my Doctor, right?!

Remember that post where I talked about the Twitter chat that lit a blogging fire under my butt (last night)? What I failed to mention was that these chats often come with giveaways, and the giveaway for last night was the book Everything But the Posts by Becca Ludlum, who also took part in the chat.

I won! I was one of 5 winners, and I sent FitFluential my mailing address. Whenever I win something, I pretty much tell the whole world. I’ll be doing a review on the book as soon as I read it, so stay tuned.

It was Jon’s turn to feel under the weather, so it was an early night at home. We ended up watching Zack and Miri again, and I caught up on some internet things. It’ll be another early night and then…

…tomorrow’s Friday!

Until then…

A.

Overwhelmed and No Internet

As I figured, I think the Gen Con posts are going to have to wait. It’s not late, but internet is spotty, I have a ton of pics to go through, and I really need to collect and organize my thoughts. The day was full and overwhelming, but in the best way possible.

So I’m thinking next week will bring some extra posts amidst the daily grinds. I’ve been trying to Tweet throughout the day, so if you’re on the edge of your seat, give @lifewithfelber a follow.

Now to rest and recover for another long one tomorrow.

A.

Kicking Things Into Gear…Or Not

Not a whole lot happened today, to be completely honest.

After work, I was supposed to get together with a friend from work to do some writing and editing, but she wasn’t feeling well by the end of the day, so we rescheduled for Friday. This means I’ve jumped off the “Should we go to the rodeo?” fence into the “Not this time” field, but I’m okay with that. It’s about 20 bucks we’ll save towards Gencon ($18 if you consider the coffee I’m going to buy Friday evening). However, I still ended up Hastings. I’m here with a hot decaf sitting next to me, chess players to my left and a really nice barista to my right.

I hope I’m not giving off a sweat vibe. I hit the gym before coming here. Instead of harder, shorter workouts, I’ve been doing some paced, longer workouts while watching Netflix on my phone. Tonight was “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest” and 75 minutes of exercise. I feel good. No complaints.  I may also have a stray hair or two hanging around because I finally went and got a haircut.

I was going to chatter about some of the things I’ve been doing at work to increase productivity and organization, but then I read about something else, and the only reason it struck me was because shortly before I even knew about this, I was formulating a bit of a paragraph on something very closely related.

Let’s talk about Kickstarter. Specifically, let’s talk about the recent debacle over a game “The Doom That Came to Atlantic City.” Not sure if debacle is the right word. Maybe disappointing mess to a mass of internet is a better description. The above link is the post/update that Erik Chevalier at The Forking Path sent to backers of the Kickstarter, a project that needed $35,000 and earned $122,874 by over a thousand backers.

Here was my initial response:  Aw, I kind of feel sorry for that guy. He bit off more than he could chew and completely screwed himself over. I kind of feel sorry for him. 

The internet, though, can be tricky. After reading more from that greatest source of news ever known as Twitter, I read more about it, including this post by one of the actual creators of the game, Keith Baker.  I also read the comments to see what the general consensus was. The answer? Fraud across the board, and after reading Baker’s post, I’m inclined to agree. The first post, seemingly apologetic, feels rather empty once one of the actual creator’s of the game comes forth with more details, a real apology, and the promise to try to make it up to the backers even though this wasn’t their fault and they will ultimately lose money on this.

I’m sure this isn’t the first time this is happened, and I don’t think it’ll be the last, but it’s sad. When people are victims of fraud, it sucks. It’s a crappy thing to do to someone and it leaves the individuals feeling vulnerable and naive. When it’s done through a Kickstarter, the only comfort is that as a backer, you’re not alone. But you’re still out the X amount of dollars you spent, and the situation becomes a dark mark on a program that I believe has done good things for people.

About ten minutes before reading those posts, I had read two of my own Kickstarter email updates and had been struck by the fact that one of them involved a profuse apology for a delay in printing.  I wondered, “Do people really get upset by something like that?” I don’t know. Maybe they do. And maybe they’re in their right to be as such.

Jon and I have Kickstarted many things, and I can’t think of anything we backed that didn’t happen or that we didn’t get our backer rewards for. When I back something, I always do it with a wariness that what I’m supporting may or may not actually happen. It’s with the knowledge that I’m making a decision that might not pan out for me because stuff happens.

That doesn’t mean I think anyone should just casually throw money at whatever. Part of the reason I don’t get overexcited with delays is that I don’t kick in a huge amount of money to any of the projects (the exception being Reaper, but we felt that the company had a good reputation before the Reaper Mini Kickstarter). If I did, I’d probably have more anxiety over the whole thing.

I completely support that backers of this project are taking action, because dude needs to be held accountable. It just sucks that so many people are having to deal with it. It especially sucks for the creators of the game who put trust in a gaming company to make their work a success, only to be told “Sorry, guys. I screwed up. Deal with it.”

Regarding those Kickstarters I’ve helped fund, I’ve never had a problem. They’ve been very straightforward and honest and have delivered on everything they promised. I’d like to think that most of the people looking for funding are the same way, and that the bad apples are few and far between. I sincerely wish all the backers luck in getting their money back and I hope the creators continue to create and that something good comes out of this for them.

A.

Brushing Shoulders with Internet Fame

I have a certain perception of internet fame.

There are some people I consider to have a certain degree of popularity on the web. Usually it’s because of a blog or a podcast. These people don’t actually have to be well known by celebrity definitions. If they’re known to me, and they entertain me, I instantly think they’re super cool and internet famous.

Most of my “famous” people come from podcasts and blogs.  Also, internet fame for me doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with looking good or being a movie star. It’s more about being an interesting person who has something interesting to say. That’s not to say I don’t have my share of celeb fan stalking, but it’s hard to classify them all in one.

Twitter has been the best platform for making me feel like I’ve brushed shoulders with internet fame.  Not going to lie…when I get re-tweeted, I instantly feel super awesome. It doesn’t matter who it’s by, it’s a total ego boost. The exception to this is spam bots, but they mostly just follow me and send me weird links. Beyond that, I’ve gotten re-tweets from Lords of Acid and Woodchuck Cider. I’ve also gotten a Twitter reply from Chaz Bono, and I’ve had short conversations with people who’s podcasts I’ve listened to and enjoyed.

Tumblr is another platform that makes me feel special.  I recently had a post  through GetGlue that got several likes and reblogs.   I realize I didn’t do the work, GG did. But it was still fun. Tumblr itself has Tumblr famous people. One of those people actually follows me on there. We don’t interact, mostly because I have nothing brilliant to say, but I was completely fangirly the day she followed.

This past week, J. Felbs had his own brush with internet fame when the guys from The More You Nerd podcast took his challenge to listen to some Scrub Club Records music. He was totally geeked about it and so was I! I found TMYN  just a few months ago and it’s been our go-to podcast for road tripping. It’s funny, relevant to our interests, and it’s introduced us to new movies, music, and books (it’s thanks to Mike and Drew that we are now fans of the comic Chew).

Maybe it’s not the idea of “fame” that makes things like this fun. Maybe it’s just the fact that we’re getting to meet people we admire or feel we could be friends with if geography worked differently. It’s one of those wonders of the internet, and it’s a reminder of just how much social interaction is changing.  Normal people can now have a following if they’re interesting, and truthfully, I find some of the people I follow on Twitter to be more interesting than most of the media celebrities.

Who knows? Maybe someday I’ll do something awesome and have my own fifteen minutes of being internet famous.