sfdebris

The Day The Earth Got Pushed

Delaying TDTESS, plus replacement titles for DM and my brush with COVID.

Blind Man's Non-Bluff

 AKA Why SG-1 is late (temporary blindness). Also my fear of dying in my sleep, how sick I got student teaching, problems with my cats, mistaking a train for Jesus, and why I may have spontaneously become Spider-man.
Enclosed is also a picture of my two new kittens, Scout in front, Daniel Tiger in the back.

Vacation + Requests

After much cajoling I am giving in and taking a vacation Saturday afternoon to Monday night. Since the fall of Western Civilization has gotten in the way, I've rented a cabin on a lake for two nights, and will be incommunicado during that time. I realize since I'm awful at answering emails it'll be hard to notice.

Between now and Monday night, consider the request window open for any series I already do. I'm working on finishing TLW before I leave, but I'll try to answer questions befor...

Big Trouble with Little China

I'm actually kind of proud of that title.

Things are in the default mode - nuts. They're doing an appraisal of my house on Monday, and seeing as how they need to be able to get through it from one end to the other (something even the cats have trouble with from all the junk that's piled up), it's been all hands on deck. Been having trouble keeping up with the dishes as a result, to the point where sometimes we wash a plate to use it. The other day I wound up eating Ben & Jerry's wit...

Rewards Sent

If you did not receive a message with your reward for the month, let me know. There's a new system, and I know I botched up one aspect of it already.

Hiccup

Hi. I just wanted to drop you all a note. I've mentioned before about my two attacks that were false alarms, believed to be stress. After this past weekend, though, it's been suggested to me that stress might be a symptom and not a cause, because when I'm off I don't feel any better. The suggestion is that when looked at in a larger context, I'm far more likely suffering from severe anxiety, and that my workaholic approach might be trying to alleviate the problem by replacing anxiousness with...

Restoration moves slowly

I get into a bit of why uploading the re-upload is moving far slower than planned, and why the politics of the moment is making it so. To lighten it up, I also tell a story of my inability to build a garage.

Choas: Bonus round

I wasn't sure how to get this post started, everything sounded so glib.

My uncle who is in his mid 60s, had a sudden, unexplained deterioration. It's not related to COVID, though that is complicating the situation, starting with the fact that his mother - my grandmother - has been kept effectively isolated because of the pandemic, so she's been going stir crazy for more than a month now (she got so stressed she almost called for an Uber to take her from Milwaukee to the Fox Valley, abou...

The certainty besides death

So, I don't know if you've heard, but the taxing of online goods has reached Patreon. Or it will come July. Fortunately for me, Patreon is handling all of the logistics of that on their end (bad enough I have to be an accountant for me, if I was an accountant for all of you we'd all be going to prison!).

What the sales tax is and how much depends entirely upon where you live. For some of you, this may have no effect whatsoever, as not every country or state places a sales tax for online...

I guess I've no excuses left...

...on why I can't start working on reviewing this series.

May Q&A

I thought I'd at least drop this for all of you now. I should be getting you your rewards (both for the month and for the week) this weekend, likely tomorrow. So if you're interested in a few small glimpses into my background and a rambling bit about Rise of Skywalker and Idris Elba Superman, here ya go!

Video Move SitRep

Today I fill you in on the Vimeo situation, the trials and tribulations of the algorithms, plus a little discussion of the COVID impact at Debris Ranch and a message for those who are struggling right now.

Rewards for May will go out early next week. Officers and up can expect the remainder of the April rewards before the coming weekend ends.

Not quite your April rewards

Sorry, was really hoping to get them to you today, but wasn't able to pull it off. The irony of the situation is that it looks like the COVID19 chaos has thrown Vimeo's staff off their game so that the videos are still playing, so if I'd spent the week not bothering with the move I'd have been fine. Aside of being a killer that's crippling the world economy and possibly ushering in an increase in authoritarianism, the virus has done me a solid.

Anyway, I don't have your rewards yet, so ...

Plan 46 From Outer Space

(Note: I don't do April Fools Jokes)

Just wanted to update you on the plan.

A not-so-quick census puts the number of videos only on Vimeo as 862. As of yet, there is no single home short of Bitchute where they can all go, and because of the lack of native fullscreen it is there solely as "better than nothing." It's also a lousy place for posting for all of you because there's no private video option, everything is just out there for all to see.

One Steadying Breath

Just a heads up that I've decided to take today as a breather. Tomorrow is the last day Vimeo will be hosting, so one way or another I'm going to have to commit to a strategy; I've spent some time exploring options (as this situation is very different from the Star Trek one), so we'll see what comes.

For all your kind words, thank you, I'll give you a personal reply this week.

For all of you who have been patient, I am grateful.

For all of you who, while the news predicted e...

Just an update on the move

Just though I'd mention things are going to be harder with this than I thought. I optimistically thought that I could open additional Youtube channels for some of the reviews, to distribute things that way and have a firewall between them and the main channel. 

However, that won't work. I tried with both Babylon 5 and Stargate SG-1, and both were flagged within minutes even when the videos were unlisted. I figure that if they can't get past the robot guardians, nothing that couldn'...

Spider-man Preview

So I wasn't able to get you any of your rewards for this weekend, but I had come pretty close to finishing this before the Vimeo stuff anyway, so I thought I'd finish it and share it with you. It's not much, a four minute piece, but it is four minutes more than you'd otherwise be getting from me. :-)

This is actually the completion of the longest outstanding project on the show. I began working on this in August 2008, but the tools weren't really there (I was still using Windows Movie M...

Pending Shuffle

I thought I'd post this here to update you all. The upshot is that I'm altering the schedule and taking a little time off. Details follow:

As you know, I've found out that I have to leave vimeo - they're giving me until the end of the month at least, so that helps.

What you don't know is that, with the numerous problems with my office, including the time the ceiling fell in during a performance, I've been doing some long-delayed work renovating it. This has left my Internet connec...

Leaving Vimeo

So, here's the situation with Vimeo.

I got an email last week about how, in response to them losing money (despite headlines about how they have proven the non-advertising business model as recently as last summer), Vimeo is changing their TOS so that those in the top 1% of bandwidth are required to upgrade to one of their "Enterprise" plans. I wasn't sure what that was, since it's not mentioned on the subscription area (I pay Vimeo $240 annually already). I thought, okay, mu...

Restoration Progress

The tl;dr of it is that I'm making headway and am hopeful to get back to what I'm supposed to be doing instead of wasting time on stuff that has already been done. That and a whole lot of griping. For anyone who misses the old angry style, it's like that, only scarier because this time it's genuine.

Star Trek Update

I thought I'd take the opportunity to fill you in on how the Trek restoration process is going, since that franchise is tied so centrally to what I do.

I spent a fair amount of January working on uploads. I've been trying a variety of hosting options for it, and each one requires me to add additional code to accommodate a different player, so that's a joy.

Anyway, for the time being, I've been taking a twofold approach to them. The primary site has worked out to be DailyMotion for...

The Millstone

I started this year with real optimism. I had a solid plan in place and it was working out, I've been hitting all my benchmarks without a problem, everything is positioned to make this the best year ever.

If it was not for CBS actively working to sabotage the show, everything would be perfect. This persecution is just a massive roadblock, people (understandably) want the old stuff back, and want the new ones without a hassle. I can't tell you how much this pisses me off, that one show i...

Stuff slightly delayed, also, what happened

As usual, I can't tell you anything without a long, needlessly drawn out explanation. TLDR, the last thing I need is arriving today, I'm hopeful that I can get your Saturday rewards to you tomorrow and the other items in a reasonable amount of time.

Also, in my story I repeatedly mention Dec 2012, when it was supposed to be Dec 2011. I don't know why I did that, but just mentally edit it.

Positivity

Happy Thanksgiving (early)! Here's info about how I can barely leave my sickbed, plus announcements on the officer level stuff coming next month, and (mostly) positive things to say about life.

Just a quick note about today's rewards

I hadn't anticipated today's problems with The Mind's Eye public release, which has set me back about two hours, not counting, to be honest, the blow to my personal morale. The following is what I was intending to get to you today:

Redshirts

-Eugenics War 32, Part 1

-Lone Wolf Book 1, Part 2

Officers

Discovery Ep 3

Justice League Unlimited: Patriot Act

Short Trek: The Escape Artist

Captain

Lone Wolf Book 11

Micro-Review: Zombieland 2...

More Problems With CBS

Your rewards are going to be late, thanks to CBS.

Backing Up, Schedule Changes, and Self-Pity

tl;dl The working order is going to be: Gravity Falls 9-12, X-Files Nisei and 731, The Guyver, Gravity Falls 13-20. Unmentioned in the audio, but Short Treks Ep 3: How To Make Beach Life Dull will be in there somewhere.

Tech Problem

I am always paranoid. Ever since the show started, I have had a fear that this will be the week when the Internet gets confused and replaces my new video with a Neo-Nazi rant over illegal images of children. It hasn't happened yet, but I worry anyway that this will be the time (you may remember when this came close to happening in the Blip days, when one of the new videos was replaced by a guy ranting about homeless people... it's scary when your paranoia is proven to be fully justified).

Psychology, Katrina, Puppets, and Jackhammers

Just a taste of what is part of my average day.

Migration in Progress

There's some technical issue that I'm trying to work past, once that's finished i should be able to start updating the website and seeing your emails. I'm hoping the forum isn't broken. I can post in it, but I don't know if I'm the only one.

Anyway, once this is sorted I can give you your early access and rewards. Sorry for the delay everyone.