Category: Conspiracies

Create Awesome Online Content for Fun and.. Wait, What?

On By Kevin A. RansonIn Conspiracies, Creativity, Hollywood, Internet5 Comments

It’s come to my attention that many online outlets are feeling their share (and maybe more) of the financial crisis. Before getting into all of that, let’s take an unscientific yet completely random poll: how many people out there enjoy web content for free? Music, videos, ebooks, reviews, articles, news, how-to blogs, and whatever else? The follow-up question is, would you watch or participate if you could only do so by paying to get it?

With the exception of The Guild, Ask a Ninja, or perhaps videos made by Key of Awesome, how many of you think the makers of that content make money? Enough to live on? If you go to a night club to see a local band, a cover charge is expected, or at least a two-drink minimum. Web content, however, is so plentiful that people expect it to be free; if they have to pay, they can always go someplace else. The counterpoint to this, however, is “What is being sold?” If the content is being created to gain eyeballs, how does that translate in making money for time spent and the creativity that went into it? We’re not even talking about the material costs of props, photography or video equipment, or travel expense; the people who create these things have experience and give their time, so shouldn’t that be worth something?

Continue reading “Create Awesome Online Content for Fun and.. Wait, What?” →

Now Officially Plugged In

On By Kevin A. RansonIn Acquaintances, ConspiraciesLeave a comment

My old college buddy Greg commented on a Facebook post I made recently when I mentioned being a guest at Ancient City Con in Jacksonville, Florida. His exact words were “Why would you be a guest at a con? Are you exaggerating about something?”

In an official response to that, I’d like to invite Greg (and everyone else) to check out my profile on Officially Plugged In. It’s a site that helps distinguish who real people are online and their credentials, and I wouldn’t want you to mistake me for anyone else, Greg.

Read “Crypt of the Crystal Lich” Inside “Savage Insider!”

On By Kevin A. RansonIn Cemetery, Conspiracies, CreativityLeave a comment

Savage Insider asked me to write them a four-part serial, so I did! Savage Insider is an all-around eZine with adventure seeds in multiple genres and highlights of licensee companies. The price is free, and it will be available in PDF download form via DriveThruRPG. Check out “Crypt of the Crystal Lich, Part 1: Birds of a Feather” inside! http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=92629

The Checkout Gauntlet of Temptation

On By Kevin A. RansonIn ConspiraciesLeave a comment

Everyone knows by now that grocery stores are laid out to tempt you. Even if you come in for a loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stick of butter, all these things are usually in the back of the store, meaning the least you can do is choose which isle of temptation you’re going to walk down and back again with the one or two things you promised yourself that you’d only buy. Waiting at the register, there are plenty of cheap impulse buys within easy reach (ask any two-year old), but that’s nothing like the higher-priced items on an actual store-long isle.

Now, however, some electronics retailers (Best Buy, Frys Electronics) have come up with something far more insidious. Instead of several lines of registers to choose from (assuming they’re open, Walmart), everyone is herded into one line where they wait for or are directed to the next register. But to get to the end of that line, you must brave “the checkout gauntlet of temptation,” a narrow row of shelves brimming with accessories, gadgets, batteries, magazines, movies, toys, and other items far more costly than a mere bag of chips or pack of gum (and those are there, too, of course.) You can’t move to another line; all who enter and wish to purchase must pass the same way.

What’s next? Minimum purchases? And don’t think you can escape online. Just ask anyone who’s tried to complete a Vista Print purchase.

Houston, Texas or Jacksonville, Florida?

On By Kevin A. RansonIn Conspiracies, SatireLeave a comment

I’ve been in the Houston area for two weeks. I’ve noticed a few differences between it and Jacksonville.

  • Jack in the Box. They serve breakfast all day long. Can you hear me now, McDonalds?
  • Fry’s Electronics. Best Buy, Radio Shack, and HH Gregg dumped into a Costco building with Walmart prices (not to mention it looks like the International Space Station inside. Seriously.)
  • More comics stores AND more game stores.
  • It’s cooler. The temperature, I mean. Just a little bit.
  • They take hurricanes seriously. Stop being apathetic, Jacksonville.
  • Guns. Lots of ’em.
  • A renaissance fair that isn’t over a hundred miles away. And it runs for eight weekends!
  • My girlfriend lives in the Houston area. Schwing!
  • I ALSO live here now! What can I say? I’m biased.

The Chinese are Coming? What’s the Big Whup?

On By Kevin A. RansonIn Conspiracies, Existentialism1 Comment

A video by “The Resident” this week threw out the following question:

Chinese are going to totes take down the US! And banks! Which may or may not be true (probs, though). My question is, who cares? What’s the big whup? Can’t someone else have their time on top without the US turning into a cowboy caricature again? This week, let’s talk about that.

It would be easy to say “those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.” One could also use the words “Red Dawn,” but that would sound paranoid. For your generation, let’s use an example you can relate to: moving back in with your parents.

You’re broke, you need a place to live, and your folks still have some cash. But to live under their roof, you have to follow their rules: what time you go to bed, when you can start making noise, financial expectations (rent? bills? food?), and generally calling every aspect of your former destructive lifestyle into question because you had to come crawling back for help. Do you really want that? To have another country (like China or the former British Empire) essentially tell you what you can and can’t do because you screwed everything up while on your own? And in this example, your children would also be subject to this, and so would theirs. How’s that for a big whup?

Grounds for a Beef?

On By Kevin A. RansonIn Conspiracies, Cullinarian, ExistentialismLeave a comment

According to Gizmodo.com, “an Alabama law firm is presenting a class action lawsuit for false advertising, claiming that what Taco Bell claims is ‘beef’ in their commercials is just [a] processed clustermass of disgust.” Here’s the actual ingredient list on the side of the shipping containers labeled “Taco Meat Filling.”

Beef, water, isolated oat product, salt, chili pepper, onion powder, tomato powder, oats (wheat), soy lecithin, sugar, spices, maltodextrin (a polysaccharide that is absorbed as glucose), soybean oil (anti-dusting agent), garlic powder, autolyzed yeast extract, citric acid, caramel color, cocoa powder, silicon dioxide (anti-caking agent), natural flavors, yeast, modified corn starch, natural smoke flavor, salt, sodium phosphate, less than 2% of beef broth, potassium phosphate, and potassium lactate.

What do you see? A little beef, oats, spices, and the mandatory preservatives. The claim is that only 36% of it is actually “flesh of cattle” while the reads like ingredients for a granola bar. The real complaint is that Taco Bell advertises this as beef, but should they really come clean and put “meat filling” into their ads?

Here’s what I know: it’s tasty! And now I also know the meat is at least half oats, which I’m told is good for me on the breakfast cereal boxes I read. Shouldn’t that be a selling point? The only things that Taco Bell does that ticks me off is refusal to create a Meximelt combo (those things rock but are overpriced) and let Mountain Dew “Baha Blast” onto the market so I can buy it by the 2-liter.

Stricter Gun Laws Due to Tucson Tragedy, Anyone?

On By Kevin A. RansonIn Conspiracies, Politicking, SatireLeave a comment

My friend Patty posted this today:

“To everyone who is calling for stricter gun laws in light of the tragedy in Tucson, may I offer this little tidbit: If guns kill people, then pencils misspell words, cars drive drunk, and spoons make people fat! Remember: Hold the person accountable for their actions, not just the means they chose to utilize!!!”

It felt a bit incomplete, so I added the following:

“Oh, and you forgot hammers destroy people’s thumbs, computers steal people’s identities, and chainsaws chase teenage virgins through the woods at night (not to mention axes, machetes, bowie knives, hooks, spear guns, and finger-bladed gloves.)

“Oops, almost forgot: no one thinks for themselves anymore. That means that anything you decide to do was obviously something you heard on television, the radio, or read online. Individual thought is a myth, just like personal responsibility. Just sit back, turn on the tube, and do everything your government says so they can take care of you.”

Has Mainstreaming Doomed Geekdom?

On By Kevin A. RansonIn Conspiracies, Creativity, TechnologyLeave a comment

It’s a good question. I used to know a couple who only listened to music that no one else had heard of, and the moment that underground band became known and “sold out,” that band was immediately tossed aside for the next unheard and unsigned wannabes. Now that the future is here and sci-fi, comics, cosplay, gadgets, and being online are cool, is traditional geekdom doomed due to mainstreaming niche interests?

I, for one, love the fact that what used to be niche has now gone mainstream. It’s a vindication that what we always thought was secretly cool finally caught on. No one has to meet in anyone’s garage to discuss their usenet group or what cool accessory they got for their Amiga or Timex Sinclair. There’s so much culture out there now that the mainstream can pick and choose while the elitists create and mold the next would-be cool thing. Between the Internet explosion, social networks, and a generation of kids growing up with this as the norm, no one can predict how cool and geeky the next thing coming is (and blooming idiots that think this is all just a fad can curl up in a box with their dead picture tubes and need not apply.)

For more, check out where all this was inspired from over at Lainspotting.