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14
Jul
2023
22:12
Author: Heath
14
Jul
2023
12:36
The Entertainment Industry
I made a post today about the SAGAFTRA and WGA strike and why I support it. It’s only noon and I’m exhausted already by the trolls and uninformed idiots with an agenda who have come out of the woodwork like roaches.
I want to make people understand the entertainment industry but also must accept that it is an impossible task. I’m curious as to how anyone with the spoons would have replied to the troll I deleted who laid out average salaries of TV writers and such as if it was ridiculous that they were asking for more. I couldn’t even. I’m tired. I can’t explain to every idiot why our industry is so weird, misunderstood, complex and abnormal. How making $2000 for a day of shooting a commercial may seem like a lot to people not in the industry but is NOT when you consider all things such as cuts that go to agents and such, and how that might be your only payday this month. How residuals are fair compensation and make up for the unsteady nature of our business and yes people do deserve to get paid not just once, but every time something is shown. The naysayers always have some come back like “Well then learn a real trade” or “Get a real job.” I want to make people understand and yet do not have the will. They just see the seemingly high numbers and have no understanding how that breaks down and can not be compared to a salary or hourly wage.
EVERYONE enjoys and consumes art. Needs it to survive. All the creators of it deserve what they get paid. Billions of dollars are made off it and the distribution of that is extremely uneven. Yet so many want to paint us as spoiled children who get paid ridiculous amounts of money for “playing pretend.” I want to make them understand, but I haven’t the spoons. And their minds are probably dense and impenetrable anyway so any attempt would be futile.
14
Jul
2023
12:34
06
Jul
2023
15:56
Threads Is Here
Let’s talk “Threads” day 1! Threads is Instagram’s new Twitter-like text-based social media platform. I had heard surprisingly little about it so I was totally shocked when suddenly it was live yesterday. By the time I signed up at around 10PM or so, I was already around the 7.6 millionth account (you get a badge on your Instagram profile telling you this information, which can be turned off if you wish).
I have really enjoyed my initial foray there. And big kudos to having something like 10 million people sign up and the app remained functional if maybe a little sluggish, but it held up! There has been some confusion and weirdness but still pretty great for such a huge simultaneous launch.
The first thing I noticed after signing up was that there were a bunch of follow requests awaiting my approval, but then other ones were just automatic. As far as I can tell, any requests that came in before I signed up, I had to approve, but any that came in after I did not (since I have a public account anyone can follow). I wondered how really big account would deal with logging on for the first time and having a million follow requests to approve, since I imagine most people do what I did which was the one-click “follow everyone I follow on Instagram” option.
I’ve really enjoyed the people I’ve seen there. At least in these golden early hours, it seems like a lot of really cool fun people with a really enjoyable atmosphere. Now the developers have made it clear that this is still in the very early stages with bare bones features so there will be a lot more coming. For example, at the moment you have a single “Home” feed. It’s algorithmic and there’s no way to choose “chronological” or “Just see people I’m following.” You will see lots of folks you aren’t following. There IS a setting however, if you dig into profile (bottom right)>settings (top right)>notifications>Threads and replies where you can set “First threads” to “From people you follow” instead of the default “from everyone.”
While normally I am big fan of the “People I follow, in chronological order” feed, I actually found myself enjoying the algorithmic feed and discovering cool, fun, new people to play with. I was surprised how much I liked it as my gut instinct was “Nope, hope they fix that soon.”
At the moment there’s no hashtags, no thread search (you can only search for people), no DMs, no edit post function (probably my #1 complaint), and a lot of other missing functions that I’m sure will come. Still, from what I’ve seen it seems very well received for the most part with people posting about how addicted they already are and how much fun they’re having.
Another common complaint is that by default the app vibrates every time a new notification comes in if you have the app open and are using it though it’s not obvious why it’s vibrating. I have notifications completely off on my iPhone for the app and it still does this. The only solution I found to go to profile>notifications and turn on the “Pause all” option which will only let you pause for up to 8 hours at a time.
When I logged on this morning, I found that weirdly I couldn’t see any notifications or replies that were more than few hours old, which I imagine has to be a glitch. I easily imported my IG profile info, and my verification transferred over as well. A few concerns that have been raised are that the app does ask for a lot of data permissions which makes privacy police VERY uncomfortable. Also once you sign up, you cannot delete your Threads account without also deleting your Instagram account. They are (at least for now) irrevocably linked.
Will Threads be the new “Twitter” over the trash fire that is now Elon’s abomination, as well as over BlueSky (which seemed to me to have the most interest), or Mastodon (which has not had a hugely wide adoption sadly)? Only time will tell, but if I was a betting man, I think I’d put my money on Threads. Why? First and foremost, people hate change. They want the path of least resistance and Threads offers that for anyone who is already in Instagram, which is a whole lotta people. While I personally found Mastodon not all that complicated, it just just different enough to put a whole lot of people off. They don’t understand “instances” or exactly where they should sign up or what that even means. BlueSky is still invitation only so most folks are still just waiting for their chance to get in and even try it (it’s also still in the very early beta phase). It’s supposedly going to connect to the decentralized Fediverse (if that’s meaningless gobbledegook to you, you are not alone, it’s still a very new and confusing to most), just like Mastodon and BlueSky. And admittedly it was very nice to just be able to auto-follow everyone I follow on IG, and already accrue almost 3K followers on a brand new platform, I’m guessing because of many of my 89K IG followers using that “auto-follow” option.
At the moment, it’s definitely a fun new toy that has a very enjoyable vibe. I’m definitely very interested to see how it all shakes out in the long term.
06
Jul
2023
15:27
20
Jun
2023
14:11
Dream Theatre 75
At the end of night full of kinda crappy dreams, this was the finale. I was with a girl I dated in the early 90’s. We were at some kind of school dance in a weirdly laid out gymnasium type room where the elevated stands took up like half of the small court area and almost reached all the way widthwise across to the other wall and kind of half blocked the one entrance. She and I saw this girl in the stands in a bright blue sort of puffy Cinderella-esque dress pull out two razor blades with a malicious look. On that cue, several other girls in matching dresses of different colors pulled out razor blades too.
We retreated toward the door and found that some others had already found it was barred shut from the other side. As the razor girls came toward us, I grabbed a metal folding chair and swung it at the hands of the girl in blue hoping to disarm her and tried to retreat more. At that point I wasn’t sure what happened but it appeared that they had been overwhelmed by the rest of the crowd in the gym who I presumed had taken them down and got control of thing.
Next scene was my girlfriend and I laying on a bed in the corner right by the entrance to the gym as the Principal stood by the doors as someone unbarred them from the other side and opened them. I said “That’s pretty unsafe only having one set of doors in or out!” She agreed. My girl and I just laid there on this random gym corner bed recovering from the ordeal.
20
Jun
2023
13:50
14
Jun
2023
13:59
Simply The Best
I’m someone who’s always looking for the “best” or “most optimal” choice. When it come to literally anything. I often research “the best…” when buying something. Anything. New electric toothbrush? DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE OF “BEST ELECTRIC TOOTHBRUSHES!” Is there possibly a “better” pillow out there than mine? RESEARCH!
But it extends to much more ephemeral things too. My hair. I kind of like my hair longer but I also like it shorter. So then I think “Well shorter is definitely much easier so that’s probably the way to go,” but then somehow worry about what if longer is “better” somehow? Like if you polled the entire world what if longer came out on top and would therefore be better and appeal to more people? Same with my beard. I like my mostly silvery beard but I also like being clean shaven (and look about 10 years younger for what that’s worth). But again, somehow I search for an “optimal” answer knowing damn well there isn’t one. It’s all subjective.
Mainly I just find this an interesting personality quirk of mine and wonder where it stems from psychologically. It has its perks certainly lends to my analytical mind and why I worked in QA for many years, but it can also kind of be exhausting spending so much brain power analyzing and trying to decide something where there is no definitive “right” answer.
14
Jun
2023
13:58
06
Jun
2023
1:06
Dating History Patterns
For some reason I was just thinking about my dating history and the patterns that appear amused me.
“Girlfriend” #1 (~1987 I think, all dates will be hazy approximate guesses; really just a first kiss and a couple of weeks of casually “dating”): met doing a children’s theatre production of Tom Sawyer with ‘Magination Station
#2 (~’87 or ’88?): also just a quick casual thing that barely really qualifies (though I did write a kick ass song that would make you think it was some epic love affair): met doing a play (I can’t remember which one).
#3 (~1989): Met doing children’s theatre at ‘Magination Station
4 (~1991): Met when I was the villain and she was the heroine in the melodrama “Caught In The Villain’s Web” at StageCenter.
#5 (~1993): another super casual, occasional makeout scenario. Met doing dinner theatre.
#6 (~1993): Met in some theater production. Maybe “Smoke On The Mountain” with The Aggie Players (I wasn’t an Aggie though, just born and raised there).
#7 (~1994): Met when we both worked at Texas Renaissance Festival.
#8 (~1995): Met when we both worked at Sears (This one is the biggest anomaly).
#9 (~1998): Met on the internet. I can’t remember where exactly. A musicians group maybe as we were both musicians? She lived (and still lives in Australia). This was the super early days of internet.
#10 (~2001): Met on the internet on a message board for Buffy The Vampire Slayer. She lived in England. We quickly started dating. She visited here. I visited there and we got engaged in the airport in Scotland waiting for my plane back home. She moved here and we were married for 8 years.
#11 (~2009): We went to school together from elementary through high school but never really knew each other well. Re-met on FB around the time of our 30th reunion and lots of folks were reconnecting. She lived in another state.
#12 (~2011): Met on FB through a mutual friend’s post.
#13 (2013): Met in a production of Macbeth at City Theater.
The End.
I’m social media friends with about half of them. Many of the others aren’t on social media or we lost contact, but no bad blood with any of them.