Taxes and Podcasting

Today I had an appointment to get my taxes done. I've gone top the say guy for over 6 years. Since I only worked five and a half months last year and collected quite a bit of unemployment (with no taxes taken out) this was the first time in years that I wasn't sure if I would have to pay. In all my years of working and doing taxes I've always gotten money back.. but I thought maybe this year would be different.

I don't know the exact amount yet (should find out next week) but he says from the numbers he sees that I should be getting a refund.. so that is good news.

When I got home from the tax guy, I had to finish up both my MASH 4077 Podcast and my Knights of the Guild podcast. Both are set to be released on Tuesday Feb. 15th. I had finished editing my MASH podcast earlier this week but still have to build the webpage and add show notes and upload it to podbean. My Knights of the Guild is another story... since none of the audio was recoverable (at least not in any usable way) I relied on a version that was recorded while we did the podcast.  It's not horrible audio but since it was the mic on the laptop it picks up eveyones audio and there are times when it's tough to hear our interviewees. But it's what we have and I'll have to work with it. We recorded about four hours of podcasts.. with maybe 3 hours of usable/interesting information. So today I had to find a splitting point. I recorded an intro and ending to the episode and added some promos. It's always done but I still want to do one more pass before I upload it to podbean. Still have a few days to do that.. but I should have both done by the 15th.

Sean's 30th Birthday Party

Today was my buddy Sean Becker's 30th Birthday party.. it was a surprise party so all the guests needed to be there by no later then 7:00pm. That meant I had to leave work early, around 5pm to get to Van Nuys by 7pm. Traffic in Los Angeles is a crap shoot.. sometimes it takes an hour sometimes two and I didn't want to be late. Fortunately.. or unfortunately it only took me an hour and I got to Kim's house at 6pm. I hung out in my car until my Padawan Troy showed up at 6:45pm.. he was my +1. We got to the party and helped out with setting up a bit.. then Greg Benson (party was at Greg and Kim's house) had set up a green screen and camera and had everyone dance for him.. after embarrassing ourselves in front of the camera we went back to the party where more and more people started to arrive. Around 7:20pm we got word that Sean was here.. we turned all the lights out and stood in the backyard quiet as can be. The minutes passed by, in order to get Sean to come over and not be suspicious Greg asked him to help him out with a skit.. so when Sean got here.. they actually went through the motions and got Sean into his outfit and started to explain what he wanted... it was funny because we are all right next to the garage and can hear everything but we all just stood there huddled together in the backyard just waiting for them to walk him so we could yell surprise.

Well what felt like hours, really just a few minutes Sean finally came into the backyard.. we yelled Surprise and Happy Birthday (and he was totally surprised) and the party started. My Padawan Troy was coming over to my house this evening so we could hang out on Saturday so I had planned to leave my Jeep and I would go home with Troy so I was going to get drunk. Those who know me, know I don't drink so I'm a lightweight and after 1 beer I was feeling the effects.. 2 beers and my face started to feel numb. On my third one Sean found me and was excited that I was drinking and challenged me to a drinking game. Well by the end of the night I was up to six beers and feeling no pain and Sean was on five. When I left he vowed to continue to drink and pass my six.. but I think I won that challenge since I wasn't there to continue to drink.. which I would have.

Anyways it was a great night.. got to hang out with friends, played some RockBand (well I sang.. and no I can't sing) but it's always fun singing with Felicia. Troy did inform me midway through the night that he forgot he had a gig the next day and couldn't hangout.. but said he would still drive me home (which was good since I was already drunk). It was lots of fun.. Sean is one of the nicest guys you'll ever have the pleasure of meeting. BTW if you don't know who Sean Becker is.. he is a very talented director/producer/actor.. but I meet him on set of Season 2 of The Guild (which he directed). Good times with good friends.. can't ask for anything better.
You can check out more Birthday Pictures HERE

X-Men - First Class

This is looking pretty cool... I really enjoyed all the X-Men movies.. yes including the 3rd one.. so I'm really looking forward to this one.

MASH 4077 Podcast on Itunes

Well my MASH podcast is finally available on itunes (yay!!) http://bit.ly/fEDBMS (please subscribe) It's only been up for about 12 hours and it's already #75 out of the top 200 TV/Film Audio podcasts.... wooo hooo. It does help that we are the one and only MASH podcast currently on itunes.. but hopefully folks will come because of that and continue to listen because they enjoy the show. I'm almost done with episode 2, editing before and after work the past few days. All I have left to do is one final audio pass to make sure everything sounds great. Very excited to see where this podcast goes.. with over 250  episodes and the fact that we are doing only 2 episodes a month.. this can go on for 20 years. 

The Gays Vs. The Bible

:: Getting on my Soapbox::

It seems that many (not all) Christians and Christian groups use the Bible to justify their horrible actions, most notable in recent years has been gay bashing. My question is how can some sins be worse then other sins.. I'm not a religious person but my understanding is that all sin is bad... so why do some Christians/Churches choose to gravitate and enforce some sins but over look so many more. First of all here is the passage from the bible about homosexuality.

Leviticus 20:13 "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them."

So according to the Bible and God all gay people should be put to death. I guess we should be happy that they only call us names, make horrible signs and websites and tell us will be burning in hell for eternity.

But my real question is why doesn't the Church enforce these other wonderful laws/sins from Leviticus??

Don't have a variety of crops on the same field. (Leviticus 19:19)

Don't wear clothes made of more than one fabric (Leviticus 19:19)

Don't cut your hair nor shave. (Leviticus 19:27)

Any person who curseth his mother or father, must be killed. (Leviticus 20:9)

If a man cheats on his wife, or vise versa, both the man and the woman must die. (Leviticus 20:10)

If a man sleeps with his father's wife... both him and his father's wife is to be put to death. (Leviticus 20:11)

If a man sleeps with his wife and her mother they are all to be burnt to death. (Leviticus 20:14)

If a man has sex with a woman on her period, they are both to be "cut off from their people" (Leviticus 20:18)

Psychics, wizards, and so on are to be stoned to death. (Leviticus 20:27)

If a priest's daughter is a whore, she is to be burnt at the stake. (Leviticus 21:9)

People who have flat noses, or is blind or lame, cannot go to an altar of God (Leviticus 21:17-18)

Anyone who curses or blasphemes God, should be stoned to death by the community. (Leviticus 24:14-16)

God seems to want to kill/stone/burn alot of people, but doesn't that go against one of the ten commandments #6 Thou Shall Not Kill.... Seems like a contridiction to me.

What I don't understand and the main reason I am doing this blog.. is why Religious folks pick and choose what they will and won't follow from the Bible. How can one sin be worse then another sin.

I'm not bashing Religion or Christians, some of my best friends are very religious and I respect them and their beliefs 100% but what I don't like is how some Ultra right / Ultra Conservative Religious folks use the Bible to justify their hate and their actions.

:: Getting off my Soapbox::

Sorry for the rant.. but this topic has always bothered me and I wanted to get it out there on my blog.

A Healthier Me - Day 177

 Well this was the day I was going to start working out again. Been down sick the past three weeks and was really looking forward to starting back up. Around 3am I woke up in the middle of a coughing fit and had a hard time catching my breath.. it was pretty bad. I laid there awake for another 2 hours not feeling so hot so I went to my alarm clock and changed my alarm from 6am to 7am and opted not to start working out.. at least not until I am 100% better.

But since it is Monday I weighted myself this morning, currently I'm 207.5

That's a gain of .5 lbs for the week.. which honestly isn't that bad. I'm trying to eat better, which I guess is working but without working out I'm not losing weight.. just maintaining. I hope sometime this week or by Monday next week I'll be able to start working out again. I plan on taking up running in the early AM.  I'll keep you posted.

Super 8 Trailer

Don't know much about this movie but from this preview it looks like it's right up my alley.. I can't wait to see it this summer.

Recovering Audacity Files

Well yesterday was our 2nd Anniversary for my Knights of the Guild podcast. It was a bit over 4 hours long but at about the 4th hour Audacity crashed and did not save anything from the past four hours. So today I attempted to recover the media. I searched online and found a program that is suppose to recover the media.  I did manage to retrieve the media but since it's so long it's split into over 400 different audio bites and it's all out of order. So now I have to go through each clip and try and piece everything together.

I'm happy I have the original audio and it sounds great but I'm not looking forward in trying to piece over 400 audio clips together... at least I have nine days to do this.. of course I still have work and I have to edited another episode for my MASH 4077 podcast by the 15th as well. I see good times ahead for me. I'll keep you updated on my progress.