How many passwords is too many passwords? I’m beginning to think: when you have to sit there for anywhere from fifteen seconds to a minute trying to remember which password you used for which computer/site/whatever, you’re maybe reaching your limit. That’s the point I’m at.

Anyway, that has nothing to do with anything. It simply has to do with the fact that I’m a paranoid person who will probably end up wearing a tin-foil hat to keep the aliens from reading my mind sometime before I reach thirty… thirty-five tops. Of course, on the plus-side, if I get paranoid to the point of not being able to leave my house, maybe it’ll give me more time to do some of the things I love like reading books and playing video games, two pursuits I actually actively pursued this morning when I went to the mall for the dual purpose of picking up a book and a video game.

The video game that I picked up, by the way, was Final Fantasy XI for the 360. I’ve been a big fan of Final Fantasy since about the same point that everyone has been a big fan of Final Fantasy, which means VII. Of course, Final Fantasy VI (III for the SNES) was the shiznit too… whatever that means. But I skipped over XI because it was an MMORPG, and I just haven’t been an MMO person. But I was willing to try for Final Fantasy XI. I was willing to try since its original release, in fact, but for whatever reason, it’s taken me this long to finally get around to it (let that be a lesson to those of you who are still waiting on me to do… something: As I’ve said before, time works differently in my world, so I might need a little push every now and again to remind me that more time has passed than I necessarily realize).

By the way, I’m a fan of Peanut Butter M&M’s. Yes, I am.

But onto more important news… this week promises to be a hella-busy week for me. Not only am I endeavoring to begin what promises to be a long journey as a black mage in FFXI, but I have a lot of site work to do. I’ve got sort of a leg-up on the Adventures of Josh that’s supposed to go up tomorrow, but that really only serves to give me the time I need to play FFXI tonight. Legends of Az always requires a lot of hard work and concentration, Adventures of Ak’s return on Thursday will surely take AT LEAST several hours, and then there’s a very special edition of SPT this Friday that no one will want to miss (that includes those who may not be the biggest SPT fans). But it’s going to take a lot of work to get done in time.

And if all that weren’t enough: Spiderman 3 comes out on Friday! Yessir, I am absolutely swamped this week with activities for both work and play… So forgive me if I lose my mind a little bit this week. It’s because the killer bunnies are withholding. Long story… *sigh*

Well, I started the search a few weeks ago, and I have since sent out a few “feeler” letters to a few different artists. Unfortunately, I haven’t heard anything back from any of them - yet. I’m still staying optimistic, though.

One positive note, though, is that I have had some response to a few posts I’ve made elsewhere seeking musical talent. A few people have messaged me through MySpace, asking about the search, so there is interest out there.

In the mean time, I’m waiting on the Director to get me the next few scripts so I can start tracking down music for them. If all works well, we will have music for, if not the next episode, the at least the last episode of this season.

I’m really excited about adding music the LDCB. I think it will really help put some great polish on the series. Plus, as an added bonus for me, I get to hear a lot of new bands and new music that I otherwise wouldn’t have been able to hear. Two of my favorites so far are the bands Acrefoot and The Medic Droid. Check them out!

I’ll keep you all updated on how the search goes. And, again, if you have a band that is interested in contributing music to LDCB, please contact me at x.l.i.i (at) hotmail (dot) com.

-MK

So last week, I got caught up in a whole lot of reading. I blame Jim Butcher. I’m a big fan of his books, and last week, I got his third in the Codex Alera series, and even though I’m still in the middle of several other books, I just couldn’t resist digging right into it (thus is revealed one of the reasons I’m still in the middle of several other books: there are just certain series that I’m a little crazed about, and when I get one of those, they come in the way; the second reason is that I sometimes get too busy with the site to read as much as I’d like, and the last reason is that I have different personalities, and one will prefer a different book than another).

Anyway, I spent as much time as I possibly could throughout the week devouring the book, and when the weekend came, I got the chance to just tear right through the last two hundred pages or so, and I couldn’t put it down. It was great. It’s a very good thing that I’ll have White Night of the Dresden Files and the last Harry Potter book to read between now and the release of the fourth book or else it’s entirely possible that I could murder someone in my maddened desire for more. And then, I’d end up in prison… and while I’m sure that experience would provide some interesting new inspiration for AoA (Ak goes to jail, and then has to attempt to break out… hmmm… I need to write that down…), I think that would otherwise be a bad thing.

So this week, with Cursor’s Fury done, I intend to focus my attention instead on my own literary endevors, and try to bring Legends of Az back up to pace. My mind has really been to work on LoA over the past couple weeks, and I’m looking forward to immersing myself in the story. This is also why you’ll be getting Adventures of Josh this week, instead of AoA. With them at least partially done already, I don’t have to think about the story for them, so I can concentrate on LoA. And I figure, no one should really be upset. AoJ is really funny, and when you get those updates, you actually get more than one page at a time. So: everybody wins!

Back to LoA, I decided today that the prologue needs just a little bit more at the end of it, so hopefully, I’ll be adding that today. This is my general plan for LoA. There may be new bits and pieces added all week long, with hopefully a more sizeable addition on Friday. Don’t be surprised if we do a similar thing next week. The next episode of LDCB won’t be ready for a few more weeks yet, and while we’ll probably/hopefully have another SPT between now and then, I most want to get LoA back up to snuff right now. It’s my main goal. And getting more of the finished AoJ comics on the site is also a secondary goal. For reasons that will eventually become obvious, but I don’t want to give anything away, so you’ll just have to wonder what I mean.

And finally, back in nothing-to-do-with-the-site news, Hot Fuzz was just as great the second time as it was the first. Probably even more so. As I expected (knowing Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg’s work), there were a number of jokes that I never could have caught the first time around that I got the second time. I don’t think quite so much as in Shaun of the Dead, but perhaps that’s just because I’m more observant than I used to be, or more likely, I just know their style of storytelling better now that I’ve seen Shaun of the Dead thirty million times and have watched most Spaced episodes at least twice.

And tonight, my beloved Heroes returns for the first of five new episodes that will end the season. With a new episode of Drive on at seven… If you live in the Oklahoma City area and you hear a big boom sometime between 7 and 9 in the evening… don’t worry: it’ll just be my head exploding from the excitement. It happens sometimes. We just have to scoop up the brains, stuff them back in, and duct tape the head back on… I may have gone too far with that description… Anyway, I’m looking forward to it.

And that’s it. Hope you liked Episode 8. If there was something that confused you, such as what the heck was up with Not Dead Guy and Cooter, just assume there’s information there you haven’t been given yet… ‘cuz you know… there’s information there you haven’t been given yet. And that’s it. Episodes 9 and 10 will be the climactic two-part end to Volume 1, so… hope you’re lookin’ forward to it… Now, I need to go so I can make a new poll for the front page before my break. Later.

The search for YDK music has begun! Check out Xlii’s blog at http://www.myspace.com/membet to read more about it. It’s exciting news. Hopefully, it’ll turn up some results soon enough to perhaps incorporate them into Episodes 9 and 10, which I think will certainly be good episodes for some good music to enhance them. Speaking of Episode 9, we worked on that some yesterday. We got some of it anyway. No run-ins with the police to speak of this time. I think that’s definately a plus, but now that I’m blogging about it, it does seem like it would be more interesting if something had happened…

But as it turned out, the most dangerous thing to happen to us this time was that while we were shooting a part with Kyle for Episode 8 (yes, of course: always with Kyle), he slammed his finger and it swelled up and I’m sure was painful. I think I’m going to look upon this as a good thing, though, and my reasoning is this: Something always seems to happen with Kyle. Always. So as long as he’s not getting us arrested, maimed, or killed, then I think I’ll be looking at those somethings as “good.” The only other thing to happen with shooting was that Kyle and I showed up to Bill’s house, and Bill wasn’t there. Not wanting to have the cops called on us, we decided to go elsewhere to wait. Then, there was some phone-tag nonsense as Bill and I called each other back and forth repeatedly missing one another. And ultimately, Bill claimed that he told me 3 on Sunday afternoon, when he actually said 2 (he might have meant 3, but he said 2 - the email proves it). Aaaaaanyway….

We did also shoot some in front of Bill’s house, but we made sure Bill was out there with us, and I had Bill walk around shouting to the neighbors that we were cool and not to call the cops… I was actually kind of joking when I suggested it, but Bill did it anyway. I did get a little nervous when the neighbor across the street who is ALWAYS on his front porch, and was sitting there staring at us as he shot, suddenly disappeared into his house, because the LAST time that happened, the cops showed up shortly thereafter. But we wrapped up quickly and disappeared inside the house just in case, so it all turned out okay.

As is, it’s looking like we might actually make the date with Episode 8 debuting on Friday. I won’t make any promises because it’s not all in the can yet, so to speak, so there’s about a million things that could still go wrong, but at least at the moment, it’s certainly looking possible. I will say that if something happens to change that, you’ll still get SOMETHING on Friday. Right now, I really think we can look forward to what I believe will be a VERY entertaining Episode 8 (what we’ve gotten so far makes me laugh just thinking about it, and the rest that we have left to get does the same). But just to warn you of the possibility: anything can happen. I’ve lived long enough to know that…

In cooperation with YouDontKnow.net, I am officially announcing the start of the YDK New Music Search! Here’s the details.

YDK is an undertaking of several friends of mine from high school. While YDK has several different concepts, one of them is The Life and Deaths of Cooter Brown (LDCB). “The Life and Deaths of Cooter Brown follows the life of Cooter, an oblivious yet friendly guy. Some how, Cooter has managed to anger the wrong people, and now they are out to get him. But how does all that lead back to the Moonshine Massacre?”

LDCB is a web series, written, directed, and acted by locals in the Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, area. Done on a shoe-string (or less) budget, it’s hard to get all we want into each episode. None the less, we do our best to produce the best and most enjoyable product we can. That said, we can’t afford licensing fees for music. That’s where this music search comes in.

We know there are numerous great unsigned bands out there just waiting to be discovered. MySpace is a great place for many of them to be found. So, usinig MySpace as our search platform, we are seeking them out! We would like to get samples of music from every genre, rock, rap, classical, country, metal, blues, jazz - you name it, we want to hear it!

Our idea is simple. We will get music we can use with the artists permission with out any fees, and the bands who are selected to be featured on our webisodes will get a bit of free advertisement (both as they will be mentioned in the ending credits as well as a banner/link on the LDCB website). It’s a win/win situation for everyone!

So, if you are interested in being considered, please send a friends list request to me and/or a message on MySpace. You can also email me at x.l.i.i (at) hotmail (dot) com.

I look forward to your submissions! And please check out LDCB and the other fun features of YDK at http://youdontknow.net!

-xlii

So…. I’m coming to the conclusion that March Mildness may have been a bad idea. I think our regular viewership has dropped significantly since that lengthy break. I suppose that the return of LDCB may bring them back. We’ll see…

Speaking of LDCB, I have said that I was planning on getting Episode 8 up by the end of this week. Well, that was actually poor planning on my part. I hadn’t taken in consideration all the things that would have to happen to accomplish such a feat. I do think that it’s entirely within the realm of possibility to have it up next week. So that’s what we’re aiming for anyway. I hope it works out, and I hope you all don’t hold my poor planning skills against me.

Also, in partially-LDCB news, it doesn’t look like too many people have seen it yet, but today’s forum exclusive comic actually features an LDCB character. See, I’ve decided that the forum exclusive comics are going to tell a Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are Dead kind of story, where a background character weaves in and out of various other YDK features. So while the Forum Exclusive comics started in AoA, it’s clearly taking a turn for the LDCB now. I’m looking forward to this particular version of the comic, and I hope others do as well. Maybe even enough to join the forums. We could use the company.

And speaking of the comics, I’m also looking forward to this week’s set of AoA comics. The inspiration of Tuesday’s comic just sort of sprung into my head randomly, and it made me laugh, so I figure it’ll make others laugh as well… at least so long as I translate it into a comic well enough. But I drew artwork for it last night, and I think it turned out pretty well. So… what am I even talking about? Sigh… I’m tired and kind of in a sour mood, so I don’t really know what to talk about.

 I won’t bother updating you on LoA. I’ve already laid out all the details of that, and nothing’s changed, so that will be as I said it will be. Other than that… that’s all I’ve got to tell you for this week. Keep coming back, and please: continue spreading the word about ydk. Thanks!

I nearly forgot I was supposed to write a blog today. But it’s still today, so… I’m good. I do want to, first, apologize to you all on the state of the website. The reconstruction was supposed to be done by now, but it’s still happening, and everything’s still a mess, and I feel bad about that. I have no excuse really, except that its a big undertaking, and I have been a little on the lazy side lately. But I do hope to get things back up and working properly in the next couple weeks.

But the even better news is that even though we’re still neck-deep in the reconstruction process, regular updates are going to begin again, particularly with Tuesday and Thursday installments of AoA. After a month of reduced comics and Wii-obsessed side-stories, we’ll be returning to the main plot of AoA, with a crazy new arc, at least one new character… AoA promises to really pick up again right away.

As for LDCB, it’s going to take a little longer to kick the new episodes back into gear, but Episode 8 should be ready to put on the site in a couple more weeks. With Episodes 9 and 10 soon to follow, I think I can guarentee the fans of LDCB have some really great episodes to look forward to. The series up to this point has all been to lay down the important information and put most of the major characters into place, but now, as we near the end of Volume 1, everything is really kicking into gear. Episode 8 is the last episode before the big showdown we’ve all been waiting for, but even Episode 8 is going to contain some fascinating new surprises. Some a little more obvious than others. And then, after Episode 10, when Volume 2 begins, I’m over-the-moon excited about every single episode in Volume 2. I don’t want to give away too much, but I will promise you this about Volume 2: You’ll learn a LOT about Moonshine, there will be several new characters, and I think you’ll be very surprised with which characters end up meeting their maker!

And last but not least, there’s LoA… I won’t get into it too much, since it’s all just stuff I’ve said before, but LoA is still set to undergo major revisions that could take some time. I can’t promise how long it will take to make those revisions or exactly how much there will be added or changed from the way it currently is. But I think the revisions will take the story leaps and bounds toward a higher quality, and I hope you all will take the time to read through it once it is revised, whether you’re new to the story, or one who’s been reading the chapters already.

 Now, I should probably go and get back to putting off doing the reconstruction… Later! Happy April!