Evil Genius Chronicles Podcast for November 23 2015 – Fixing Leaks and Fighting with Sticks

In this episode, I play a song from Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys; I give a podcasting pro tip; I talk about how Mad at Dad has already become part of my routine; I give an update of how Secret Weapon GTD is working for me; I talk about Adam Romer and his presentation at Bar Camp CHS; unsubscribing from Merlin Mann; stick fighting for grownups.

Here is the direct MP3 download for the Evil Genius Chronicles podcast, November 23 2015

Links mentioned in this episode:

You can subscribe to this podcast feed via RSS. To sponsor the show, contact BackBeat Media. Don’t forget, you can fly your EGC flag by buying the stuff package. This show as a whole is Creative Commons licensed Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported. Bandwidth for this episode is provided by Cachefly.

Evil Genius Chronicles Podcast for October 4 2015 – Vague Notions Become Real

In this episode, I play a song from The Invalids; I talk about Merlin Mann on Reconcilable Differences and his odd belief that he is under pressure to be a sports fan; I point out my appearance on Rob Greenlee’s section of International Podcast Day on Blab.IM; I talk about my new podcast projects Mad at Dad and Milk Fed Crime Blotter; I mention a great term that Sean Cullen coined; I finish by talking about my experience at a Bernie Sanders rally.

This week’s large factual misstatement comes when I refer to the podcast to which Ken Kennedy was recommending me was the Incomparable. In fact, although John Siracusa is a regular guest on that podcast, it was Hypercritical that Ken thought I should listen to.

Here is the direct MP3 download for the Evil Genius Chronicles podcast, October 4 2015

Links mentioned in this episode:

You can subscribe to this podcast feed via RSS. To sponsor the show, contact BackBeat Media. Don’t forget, you can fly your EGC flag by buying the stuff package. This show as a whole is Creative Commons licensed Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported. Bandwidth for this episode is provided by Cachefly.

Podcast Wisdom

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From Roderick on the Line episode titled “Goofus MacGroofus”:

John Roderick: “I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. Gene Simmons is Donald Trump in dragon boots.”

PS – I missed the whole t-shirt thing. I totally would have bought one if I had found out about this limited time offer five days ago. I’m on the “let’s do that again” list. If you join me, maybe it will happen.

Podcast Title Suggestion

Back to Work

I started listening to this episode of Back To Work. They have really been losing me lately with lots of talk about how hygienic hotel rooms are and other topics of percieved grossness in their environment. This might be overcounting because the subject bugs me enough that it seems like all the shows are about it, but I’d wager 75% of shows in the last few months have some of this talk. In this episode, sure enough by minute 3 they are discussing how people touch the lids of the disposable coffee cups. Come on, gentlemen, it’s time to reach deep inside to find a little bit of inner cowboy.

Because the show is teetering towards being more about that than helpful work topics, I think they should rename it. I’d suggest MAS*H, and they can even keep in the asterisks if they like. It stands for “Middle Aged Squeamishness Hour”. Seems right to me.

Back To Work Squeamishness

Back to Work

I am a listener of Back to Work on the 5 by 5 network with Merlin Mann and Dan Benjamin. In general I enjoy the show and sometimes get some real profound insights from it. However, they have a recurring topic on which they lose me. It feels in recent episodes they spend a lot of time talking squeamishly about the dirtiness of environments. They had multiple episodes talking about what they will and will not do, will and will not touch in hotel rooms. On episode #184, the one I am listening to right now, they are talking about public bathrooms.

I am leaning hard towards just hitting skip anytime this kind of topic comes up. This may be that fatherhood has inured me to grossness, although both of these gentlemen are fathers of similarly aged children. I know things are gross in my environment. My personal goal is to avoid the relatively-rare health and life threatening situations and to actively ignore everything else. Gross but benign – put it out of my head. Life is too short to think about this too much, especially when you consider the ubiquity of the things that trouble them.

Mileage may vary. Cataloging neuroses is like talking about dreams: yours seem important and everyone else’s are tedious.

Evil Genius Chronicles Podcast for August 26, 2014 – DDOP 27: Comedy Podcasts

In this episode, I talk about the comedy podcasts that I listen to and note the ones that bring me the most joy; as a bonus I talk about a couple of others that just make me happy.

Here is the direct MP3 download for the Evil Genius Chronicles podcast, August 26, 2014

You can subscribe to this podcast feed via RSS. To sponsor the show, contact BackBeat Media. Don’t forget, you can fly your EGC flag by buying the stuff package. This show as a whole is Creative Commons licensed Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported. Bandwidth for this episode is provided by Cachefly.

Links mentioned in this episode:

Evil Genius Chronicles Podcast for August 23, 2014 – DDOP 24: Weight

In this episode, I talk about my recent weight loss and how even when it goes well it is a struggle; I bring up a quote I heard that set my teeth on edge.

Here is the direct MP3 download for the Evil Genius Chronicles podcast, August 23, 2014

You can subscribe to this podcast feed via RSS. To sponsor the show, contact BackBeat Media. Don’t forget, you can fly your EGC flag by buying the stuff package. This show as a whole is Creative Commons licensed Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported. Bandwidth for this episode is provided by Cachefly.

Links mentioned in this episode:

Evil Genius Chronicles Podcast for October 28, 2013 – “You Know Who We Are”

Here is the direct MP3 download for the Evil Genius Chronicles podcast, October 28, 2013.

You can subscribe to this podcast feed via RSS. To sponsor the show, contact BackBeat Media. Don’t forget, you can fly your EGC flag by buying the stuff package. This show as a whole is Creative Commons licensed Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported. Bandwidth for this episode is provided by Cachefly.

Links mentioned in this episode:

Evil Genius Chronicles Podcast for October 14 2013 – “Charlatan, Martyr, Hustler”

Here is the direct MP3 download for the Evil Genius Chronicles podcast, October 14, 2013.

In this episode, I talk about a concept I heard on the In Beta podcast about how to approach self-promotion; I talk about “appeal burnout” and being overwhelmed by calls to action; I talk about famous people using crowdfunding, and how the concern is less that they are subtracting money from the system and more that they are subtracting goodwill; I talk about Ben Franklin and his self-improvement regimens and how I might be trying to change too much stuff all at once in my life;

You can subscribe to this podcast feed via RSS. To sponsor the show, contact BackBeat Media. Don’t forget, you can fly your EGC flag by buying the stuff package. This show as a whole is Creative Commons licensed Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported. Bandwidth for this episode is provided by Cachefly.

Links mentioned in this episode:

Evil Genius Chronicles Podcast for September 13, 2013 – “My Life In Fandom #28”

Here is the direct MP3 download for the Evil Genius Chronicles podcast, September 13, 2013.

In this episode, I finish up the fandom series by covering the years 2000 to present; after that I discuss a few quotes I found funny from recent podcast listening.

You can subscribe to this podcast feed via RSS. To sponsor the show, contact BackBeat Media. Don’t forget, you can fly your EGC flag by buying the stuff package. This show as a whole is Creative Commons licensed Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported. Bandwidth for this episode is provided by Cachefly.

Links mentioned in this episode:

New Years Means Nothing

I’ve drifted away from the Merlin Mann hero worship, but today I saw a really good post from him about changing habits and making resolutions. This is one of the reasons I stopped making resolutions years ago. Creating a change you want to see in yourself and then tying it to a resolution is a kiss of death for it. It’s an admission that you will perform the puppet show of pretending you care and then forgetting all about it. Independently the other day I started assembling the list of projects large and small in my life that I want to make progress on. It was a shockingly long list which also explains why I don’t make progress. It occurred to me days after I started that I was leaving off projects for which I have web sites up and running. I registered domains for these things, set them up on my Hostgator account and even so it took a few days to remember I even had them. This signifies that I have too many projects in my life.

The sad thing is that I’d love to move on all of these projects. It’s true about me as about most people that I love starting projects and concluding them but I’m far less interested in executing on them. Although New Years and resolutions is not a triggering event for me to re-evaluate, the imminent birth of my daughter is. I can pretty much guarantee for the early part of 2011 we will barely be holding it together. We will be old parents dealing with a newborn at first, then trying to integrate working my day job with being the dad of a young baby. I know I will barely have any time, so I have to jealously guard whatever little bits of time come my way. This requires thinking through that list and making the hard decisions.

I want to work on all these projects. That’s why they are on the list. I just physically can’t work on them all so now it becomes the Sophie’s Choice model. If I could take one and only one project and work it all the way to successful completion this year, which one would it be? I think I know (although I’m keeping it to myself.) Now the question is how in the next week or three to do all the groundwork necessary so that I can decompose this into something I can achieve in bursts of 15 minutes of time stolen away from my life. It will be hard to put most of these things I care about into cryonic suspension as if they were going on an interstellar voyage. However, they will all still be there later if and when I ever get back to them.

I am already in the process of divesting myself of AmigoFish. Originally I was planning to shut it down but a white knight has emerged to keep it alive. The transition is under way and around the time my daughter arrives I should have only the minor role we specificied contractually in providing emergency system administration help. That’s painful because I’d loved to have made this more of a success but making the hard choice to no longer pursue it feels good. I can’t adequately time slice between 20 different things, so I’m keeping active the one or two that I care most about and everything else goes on hiatus. With luck 2012 will be a great time of refreshed enthusiasm and reinvigorated process. Possibly, it could also be a time of purging my metaphorical project pantry of the cans of beets I know I’ll never eat. Either way, I feel good about it.

May all of you have a successful year of making the hard choices and moving your individual ball down the field of your lives.