Behind the Scenes at Chronic Insomnia

In the last two months Ryan and I have celebrated our 2 year anniversary and our 100th episode. If you missed that show, Ryan was ten beers and two white russians intoxicated right as we started the show. It was NOT a surprise when Ryan began to vomit right on the air. I think I should explain a little how the show is created every week. Here is a behind the scenes look at how Chronic Insomnia is brought to you each week.

First thing we do during the week between shows is share information and or ideas for comedy bits. After working through them over email, we bring them to the show on Monday nights. Very rarely do Ryan and I see each other outside of the show. Ryan works a lot and when and if we see each other outside of the show, it's for roleplaying.

Then Monday night rolls around. Ryan usually gets here about 9pm and we go downstairs and setup for the night. As we do that we discuss things about the show and figure out what we want to do for the night. Honestly most of the stuff we do on the show is riffed right there during the actual recording of the show. Ryan or I might bring an outline or an idea for something, but it gets tweaked and or modified as we record it. On some occasions Ryan will bring something completely written. Then we follow the script to the letter. None of the "show" is scripted, only the bits and comedy segments are ever scripted and a lot of those are riffed on the spot.

Ryan is a very talented writer and comes in with stuff that is fully realized and ready to go. In the two years of the show, I have only come in with like three bits actually written out, and most of them needed A LOT of tweaking as we recorded them. That explains why Ryan has the Masters Degree in Creative Writing huh?

Anyways after the first 30 minutes of bullshitting around we get to recording. This is where we work on any bits or segments we want to pre-record for the show that night. It might be a song that Ryan sings, a bit he has written for the show, like the Blackest Night thing from last week. This is where we record those segments. These usually take between 1-2 hours to record. The Blackest Night thing took about an hour or a little less. We could record them quicker, but both of us are perfectionists and it takes a while to get it to what we call "perfect".

At around 11pm or midnight we start the show. At this point all of our prep is done and we power through the main segments of the show. It takes about an hour and a half to record 60 minutes of show. We do ALL of the normal bits in the show LIVE. Nothing is rewound and redone unless there is a technical issue. This is what we would sound like totally live if we streamed the show. I don't censor us at all. The only thing that happens is I will go back and clean things up, like add effects in the background and or make something louder or quieter. This can take about 30 minutes. Then we are done. It's about 2am and we are both spent. We chat for 15 minutes about what we thought of the show and Ryan stumbles out to his car to drive home and I sit down and convert the show to MP3 and upload it to Podbean.com. The show is usually up by around 3am, but sometimes I am just too tired to upload until the next morning. The show is ALWAYS up before noon on Tuesday.

There you have it. A total rundown of how we create Chronic Insomnia each week. If you have any questions on the technology we use, just give us an email at thechroniccrew@gmail.com and I will try and answer any questions you have. I pride myself in our show sounding as good or better as any podcast out there. Thank you very much.

Michael

KY? Cuz I GOTTA!

So I went to a finer store near me to pick up a vial of KY Intense so I could experimentally slather some on the Manatee junk. Wha...you thought I was joking? (See opening monologue for episode # 100 to catch up)

Unfortunately, when I got there, I couldn't help but notice that the KY Intense comes in units the size of a Chapstick and costs $23.99!!!!

Holy Chockatollees. That had better be some good shit. That shit had better make her cum so hard her grandparents feel it. I believe that plutonium is cheaper by the ounce.

So I didn't get it. Look, I'm a scientist and a trailblazer, but I didn't think I'd have to take out a second mortgage for the stuff...

Directions we found that were pretty funny.

- Ryan

Topless Robot Transformers 2 Review!

Alison Haislip pointed out the funniest review of a film I have ever read, courtesy of Toplessrobot.com.

If you haven't seen it yet and are wondering if Transformers 2 sucks...now you know.

If you have seen it and couldn't quite put into words how and why it sucked...they did it for you.

- Ryan

Longbox Is Coming to Change Your World Forever!

After three years of development and negotiations, Rantz Hoseley made his first official announcements about "Longbox" at HeroesCon. Longbox purports to be an Itunes-style platform where comic book fans can download titles for a nominal fee.

This is very sneaky-important news, because Hoseley is a hair's breadth from changing the way comic books are produced and enjoyed forever. Let's do a little Longbox Q&A, shall we?

What the heck IS Longbox?
Think ITunes for comic books. You go to the Longbox website, and waiting for you is basically an online rack of new comics from a host of companies in a virtual comic shop. You choose which titles and which issues you'd like to try, pay a small fee, and bang - you've got your digital comic book to do with as you choose.

Just how small is that fee, exactly?
Longbox is recommending that publisher's charge 99 cents per issue. But it's a recommendation, not law. Publishers are free to charge what they like for their comics.

There are plans for block and subscription pricing, but no terms or prices have been announced.

So I can download my new books on Wednesday when the floppies come out?
Again, this is completely up to the publishers. It's possible the digital comics will be released simultaneously or even before the print books hit shelves. It's probably more likely that companies will delay their digital distribution in a vain attempt to save the monthly pamphlet.

Which Comic Publishers have signed on with Longbox?
At this point, the only confirmed publishers are BOOM! and Top Cow.

WHAT??? No Marvel? No D.C.?
At the moment, no. The thing to keep in mind, however, is that Hoseley has been developing this project for three years, and has wisely kept very quiet about it until it was ready to materialize. He's strongly hinted that Marvel is basically on board.

When the idea of Longbox was spawned three years ago, none of the publishers would even speak with Hoseley. Now the worm has turned and everyone is in negotiations, trying to determine if Hoseley has an app that will work to bridge comics fully into the 21st Century.

So is Longbox that killer app?
Well, we really only have Hoseley's say in the matter, but the evidence looks good. What he's done is partner with Quicksilver and created a way to convert what publisher's already use in their current printing process (Adobe InDesign and Quark)into Longbox files.

Basically, that means two very important things. 1)Longbox isn't asking anybody to sink extra costs into developing software to integrate. Longbox integrated into them. 2) There's no proprietary software favoring one publisher over another. They can absorb comics equally easily from anybody.

So how do the comics actually look and read with Longbox? Again, we have only Hoseley to vouch for that. But he's a legitimate comic book fan (editor on Tori Amos's "Comic Book Tattoo") and a software designer. He thinks they work pretty darned well, and apparently so do Mark Waid and Mark Silvestri, or they wouldn't have signed on.

Can I download comics to my IPhone?
Not yet you can't. As of this moment, Longbox is compatible with your Mac, PC, or Linux. But there are plans right now to expand Longbox into the Kindle, IPhone, WiiWare, and X-Box Live.

Hoseley has read comics on his big screen TV with his X-Box, and says it's pretty damned awesome. The tech is easy - the tough part is getting them to use Longbox without making users pay extra for the privilege. Hoseley is committed to everybody paying the same price.

Anything Longbox comics can do that floppies can't?
Damn Skippy. Digital comics open up a host of creative possibilities. Early ideas are "behind the scenes" info and commentary from creators, a la extras on your DVDs.

Being that comics creators are some of the most interactive artists on the planet, I think you can count on someday reading an issue of Anna Mercury while listening to a less than sober Warren Ellis explaining why he hates you so much. Let's see your pamphlet do that!

Don't look for motion, comics, though. Hoseley....is not a fan of the motion comics.

Sounds good, but when can I start downloading these comics?
There is no solid launch date yet, but all signs point to Longbox going live some time in 2009. To keep up to date, check out Comic Book Resources. They've decided to partner with CBR to act as a kind of official mouthpiece.

How will this affect the comic book industry?
Of course that depends. If Marvel and DC don't sign on, probably not much at all. If Marvel and DC do partner with Longbox, you can tell the fat lady to pick up the pace singing about the end of the monthly pamphlet.

There is something satisfying about holding a comic in your hands, it's true. But nobody really wants to store the damn things, and nobody is really interested in the speculator market, which is the other main reason to want a physical artifact.

I think that many people will still continue to enjoy comics in book form. And they will use Longbox to make decisions about which stories are special enough to deserve that. In fact, I think it's very likely that Longbox would increase book sales.

Think about it- how many trades would you get sucked into if you could test drive more books? At a dollar per issue or with a subscription, even a limited budget could sample far more comics and develop an informed taste about them.

Your average local comic shop tends not to order much past the Big Two. Longbox will almost certainly offer a more extensive catalog than most shops currently do. And it's all a click away. That means more people seeing more comics, and that really ought to mean more profit for the publishers.

This will also punish a lot of comic book shops. They will be forced to become a hub for buying trades or find some way other than floppies to earn their living. Because that dinosaur is about to breathe its last.

- Ryan

Why We Rule

So I was perusing the June Previews. And I saw this page of featured items in the Collectibles & Novelties and was struck with an epiphany about how bizarre and awesome are the Legion of Nerds.

On the left hand side of the page: Unbridled Sex. Ah, yes. The ol' Secret Wishes Slave Leia costume. The only problem with that - what's the goddamn secret? Every card carrying nerd (or at least the ones with penises) who ever saw Return of the Jedi will tell you loudly and openly about this fetish.

This is sophisticated nerdism. Hot, wicked, heterosexual, social nerdism. Yes, we are capable of such feats.

On the right hand side: The Antidote to Sex. Tiny PVC representations of magical blue creatures roughly three apples in height. If you own any of these and display them in an open area where another human might see them, you are guaranteed to have no sex whatsoever for the duration of said display.

It does not get much more gay than Smurfs. Remember that in the beginning, there were no females. Gargamel constructed Smurfette as an evil confederate sent to infiltrate and destroy Smurf village.

Before that? And endless sea of blue dick. Everywhere you look, beneath every skin tight white pantaloon, a blueberry cock. Inside the show, the Smurfs were not terribly sexual. Inside of Peyo, their creator, beat the heart of an Epic Queer.

This is childish nerdism. Silly, closetly homosexual, asocial nerdism.

And it's all sitting there on the same page, and you know what? It makes perfect sense to me. It's just crap we watched and enjoyed between 1981-1983. We integrated both with no difficulty.

You want to save the world? You want to build some goddamn bridges? Learn from the nerds. We know about unconditional, open love.

We love ridiculous synthetic blue gayboys. And we will grab a tube of AstroGlide and love the ever lovin' shit out of a woman wearing that Secret Wishes Slave outfit.

We are nerds. And we rule.

- Ryan

Yeah this looks cool!

Tips For Hitting San Diego CCI This Year!

Thinking about hitting San Diego this year for Nerd Prom? You should be. Walter Spurgeon lists 100 things you absolutely need to know to squeeze maximum enjoyment from your trip.

Hit this link and check out the entry for May 25 for full details!