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Archive for the ‘General’ Category

Oohhh George Lucas is going to sue me!

This post has nothing to do with StarWars – sorry fanpeople (being PC).

I’m building an empire. That’s what this is about.

Many people know that I enjoy being creative. Everything from writing stories to designing crazy graphics. I want to make a living of just .. enjoying my imagination.

So, Studio646 is actually being re-developed for that purpose in mind. A place – an emporium – filled with mini-sites. Tony Lane, Median, Deadland Chronicles, Hitman Journal, Diary of a Deadman … yes, these are stories I’m working on … each will have these little blogs.

So, Studio646 Empire will be coming soon. I need to find a good host for it, build it .. and they will come.

Man, George Lucas and Kevin Costner are going to show up at my door and break my kneecaps ..

Ok, I’m backing up. I had made the attempt to leave the great 1and1 hosting – only to fail. It turns out they’re not that slow.

I tried to go with a company called FatCow. Yeah, laugh all you like. But it’s true. Turns out – when you pay $44 a year for hosting you’re paying for what you get. Lousy service and excessively slow servers. So, I turned tail and ran back to a host that is fairly fast – though not the fastest.

The lessons you learn I suppose.

BUT – now I can get back to blogging. Maybe regain some of the traffic I sadly lost in the whole “attempt to get a new web host” phase.

On the flip side – I’m building a few sites. Still trying to build Alcove Alley. I have a package plan that I’ll be implementing very soon.

Studio646 – if all goes well – will start being built into HOPEFULLY an empire of mini-blogs. From stories to RSS feeds to just a flat out profile website. I’m aiming for something that will be self sufficient and get a ton of traffic.

I have a few paid clients I’m slowly working on. I’m also working on a few projects with some friends that will hopefully put me up on the food chain above pond scum.

All-in-all … I’m back. And I’m hoping to get the party started .. again.

I’ll be moving my website to a new server this week .. it’s kind of scary since I don’t know how it’s going to work out. Horror stories of moving and migrating servers are all over the internet. I know WordPress has a fairly easy import feature – so most of this stuff is moved already, but I’m already running into issues with things such as my download tracking and such.

So, I’m shooting to have everything moved by the end of the week. You’ll probably see some changes in the content (downloads not working, etc) but the site should run nicer in the end.

So, until then …

This day and age, you don’t have to go far to see a new zombie move dig its’ way from the dead. Whether it’s the big screen, straight to DVD release or a YouTube indie flick you can find just about any flavor for your liking. You can take it further in video games. Resident Evil and Left4Dead are two of the prominent renditions of this past time that people (myself include) have been enjoying for many many years. You can also play zombie versions of Call of Duty online in Call of Duty Modern Warfare and Call of Duty World at War.

But why is this popular? What has these poor, misunderstood zombies ever done to you?

Well, other than eating your family (except for your black sheep uncle who you’ve always suspected to being brain dead) they tromped all over your yard, destroyed your house and they’re trying to eat you.

So, grab your 2×4 / chainsaw / axe / shotgun / etc and go on the hunt!

But .. why? What is so appealing about his genre that people are consistently remaking it – often poorly.

My appeal, at least while playing the Call of Duty version, is that I know the goal. It isn’t a huge plot. You don’t have to over think. You go, get a gun and survive. There is no gray area with this. There is no negotiating and trying to talk them out of nuking your whole life. You see a zombie you shoot it or you run. Maybe even both.

The outcome really isn’t going to change either. It’s either you get caught and eaten (maybe changed into a zombie too) or you bash them all until they’re all dead … again. You don’t have to think about later in life, once you take the zombie capitol, that you’ll have to live next to a zombie. You don’t have to learn a new language. Laws won’t be past allowing them to run for government positions. A zombie is a zombie.

There is no racism in zombies. They’ll eat anyone. You shoot any color of zombie. White, black, brown, yellow, red, green, blue, purple .. doesn’t matter.

Unification. You stand next to just about any living human to fight. Doesn’t matter if three months prior they where on the list for the Taliban … if a zombie horde stands in front of you two then at that point you are brothers till the end.

See, zombies make life easy. Fight and die. Together. That’s it.

Simplicity .. I like that. I don’t like this complex life thing.

I like the word ‘reformulation’.  Answers.com says it means “The act of devising or planning out in an orderly fashion once again.” With this definition in mind that is exactly what I’m doing.

It’s time to take the stories I have planned and reformulate the structure. Originally I planned on writing a})chapter at a time (for the blogellas [blog+novella=blogella]) and post it. However, I think the wisest course of action will be to write a slew of chapters and once I get a good bit done (and the story solidified) I can start scheduling these to be posted. That way I have direction, focus and a nice padding of story to sit back on.

See, I think big and scheme. Sometimes I look too far ahead and others I’m short sighted. It’s time for me to organize my thoughts and focus more.

What does this mean? Well .. not much really. Just that once I get things set in place my projects will feel less poinless and have more aim and … productivity.