2014 Annual D-Bag Awards Part 1 - What Am I Doing?

Should I just give it up?  Should I quit this?

What the hell, Internet?  Did I become lazy?  Did I get a life?  Did I actually do work? 

20 blog posts last year.  TWENTY!

That’s abysmal.  I did 123 in 2008 and averaged close to 95-100 a year, until I hit a creative or ambitious wall with 2014.  Granted, 2013 and 2014 were pretty much bad years as my content will attest to.

In any case, I couldn’t close the book on 2014 without doing my annual D-Bag of the Year Award.  And if you’ve been keeping score, I kind of mailed it in the last two years as it is.

In years past, I would go through this tournament consisting of several rounds matching like nominees such as The Grim Reaper vs. Mother Nature.  

2014 has had its fair share of celebrity deaths like Mike Nichols, Richard Attenborough, Joan Rivers, Lauren Bacall, James Garner, Mickey Rooney, James Garner, Ruby Dee, Bob Hoskins, Sid Caesar, Casey Kasem, Shirley Temple, and Eli Wallach.  That was some of the Hollywood Old Guard.  The notable names connected to a younger generation of entertainment consumers included David Brenner, Bob Hoskins, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Meshach Taylor, Harold Ramis, Jan Hooks, Maya Angelou, Christine Cavanaugh, Edward Herrmann, and Robin Williams.  That’s nothing compared to the lives lost through tragedies like what happened with airplanes overseas disappearing or crashing, deaths in Ukraine and the Middle East from war and strife, and deaths of police officers and/or alleged criminals like Ferguson, New York, Cleveland, or even my own backyard Pennsylvania with Eric Frein going all Rambo in the backwoods of PA after killing police officers.

But Mother Nature gave as good as she got plunging us into stretches of subzero temperatures with Polar Vortices, a late fall snowstorm in the Pacific Northwest and New England, cyclones, earthquakes, mudslides, landslides, and eruptions as well. 

I’ve also recounted in past years how various businesses promoted themselves with such great audaciousness, like Apple infuriating some of its consumer base with an automatic download and install of U2’s new album via iTunes, whether they wanted it or not.  There was also Hobby Lobby and the controversial Christian values trumps the ACA for contraception case before the Supreme Court.  Probably the biggest and most forgotten story was the NFL’s domestic abuse problem and how it quickly faded once the season got into full swing.

Then the business of politics always took a lot of the focus as nominees in the category would include people like Congress for constantly being a blight on the Democratic process.  Republicans for the ridiculous amount of time and energy wasted on trying to overturn the ACA, and immigration, and women’s rights.  The Democrats could not escape themselves as they completely dismantled themselves from doing anything during the midterm elections because they just didn’t care and it showed at the polls when they got walloped by the GOP.

But, I always found it easy to pick apart the individuals in my round up.  Chris Brown was an easy target as he was constantly finding himself being a royal d-bag, but this year he seemed to take a backseat to others.  2014 probably would have had me compare nominees like James Franco for being a creepy bastard with that underage girl over texting.   Shia LeBeouf would have been up there with his Joaquin Phoenix level meltdown, had that been real, declaring he was not famous, became the unknown comic, cut his own face for Fury, claimed he was raped during the filming of a movie, plagiarized a graphic novelist, and tried to mug a homeless man of Mickey D’s.  It could all be a stunt or he’s just drunk and off the reservation. 

NFL and the NBA all have players, owners, and commissioners who love to be douches.  The NBA had LeBron James, who went back to Cleveland, which made Cleveland look like such a whipped city because they welcomed him back with open arms.   Donald Sterling made the list this year after his much publicized remarks caught on tape by his “female friend” V Stiviano.  The NBA gave him a lifetime ban and forced him to sell the team which he fought.  In the end, justice kind of prevailed but the means to the end involved Ms. Stiviano being pretty much a d-bag in her own right.  

The NFL produced great d-bags this year like Adrian Peterson and Ray Rice, who were suspended for domestic violence, and supposedly Roger Goodell has “top” men investigating it.  Saying Roger Goodell is handling the situation when it comes to bad behavior in the NFL is like saying Wyle E Coyote is this close to catching the Roadrunner with whatever ACME gadget Amazon Prime just delivered him.   Also with bad behavior, Pittsburgh’s LaGarrette Blount and Le'veon Bell kicked off the season with a rollicking ride in Pittsburgh, while high, missing the team flight and getting pulled over by the police.  It seems a moot point when Bell has been one of the biggest play makers for the Black and Gold, and Blount, after getting less than an acceptable amount of touches, walked off the field and into the locker room, finally being cut by the team and resigned with his former employer, The New England Patriots.  He was happy to be home and Pittsburgh was happy he was, too, I guess.  Still, it’s a move that could be interesting IF and ONLY IF the Steelers are forced to face down their only playoff demon left in the Patriots.   Still, Blount was a d-bag for being a whiny bitch and pretty much a problem child that needed spanked.  If Blount rolls over Pittsburgh in a playoff rout, it isn’t enough to call for the heads of Haley and Tomlin in Pittsburgh.   Christ, people have been calling for them in week 1 and now the own the AFC North.  By the end of the season, another famous d-bag, Ndamukong Suh, finished out his year by stomping on Aaron Rodgers, leading to a suspension, which was appealed and turned over in another great moment by Roger Goodell’s mantra of cleaning up the league.   But then again, I have watched all of five minutes of NFL football this year, taking a much needed breather from all the hypocrisy and thuggish behavior that product has included.   So, it’s really a tossup in sports, but there are no losers in that division. 

Much has been made about women’s rights and the treatment of women this year.  The constant politicizing of women’s right to use contraception took center stage with the Hobby Lobby debate and springing off the Adrian Peterson and Ray Rice stories was the catcalling video “10 Hours of Walking In NYC as a Woman”.  It showed the “reality” of what a woman goes through walking around and being accosted by men of color in “various” NYC neighborhoods.  I use quotes because the 10 hours of footage was not presented in full for viewing.  When taken to task by Slate, the producer said (paraphrased), “White Men catcalled her too, but they were too far off camera or the sound was ruined by a siren.”    That footage was somehow not included.   So, I include the producer of this, not for pointing out the reality of what women go through, but because he did it piecemeal, contextualizing it.  And speaking of being a d-bag towards women, how about Artie Lange and his tweets about Cari Champion?  Or, better yet, the allegations and retraction (apology) by Rolling Stone over the story about campus rape at UVA.  And how about this, as innocuous as this is against women, Justin Bieber managed to piss all over women and the holocaust by writing “Anne Frank Was A Great Girl, Hopefully She Would Have Been A Belieber” in the guest book at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam.  That is far worse than those two cancer kids snogging and GETTING APPLAUSE for it in the same house from The Fault In Our Stars.  I jest because I loved the book and the film and thought it was a bit of a WTF moment which made me laugh.  Finally, the invasion of privacy, and sexual crimes against female celebrities due to iCloud hacks calls out a more philosophical question of what constitutes a sex crime?

But no individual’s d-bag story could have topped the one that pretty much crushed a lot of us 70s and 80s kids’ childhood memories when it was reported… A LOT, that Bill Cosby has had a long history of drugging and sexually assaulting women.  Since there have only been allegations and no actual charges filed (I Think) against Cosby and I wish it not true because I have adored the career of Cosby from his stand up to Fat Albert, from Picture Pages to the Cosby Show.   But, there is a hell of a lot of smoke to not think that maybe we should call the fire department. 

In the last segment I usually throw a giant generalization towards something like Me or the Media or Humanity to truly level the playing field in who I think is the biggest d-bag of the year. But one d-bag seems to challenge the faceless nameless category and this year it’s Hackers.   Hackers have been all over the place this year.  First off we need to realize that none of our information is safe.  Hackers hit every category this year.  We have business with all of our credit card and banking information hacked from Home Depot and Target, and NYC Taxi and Limo company.   The cloud was hacked and tons of pictures and videos were stolen from famous and non-famous account holders in what was called The Fappening and The Snappening.  Sony was hacked and emails detailing everything from pay inequality to what people really think of Angelina Jolie was shared.  Online gaming sites like XBOX Live and SONY’s PSN were hacked and kiddies opening up their new PS4s and XBOX Ones on Christmas morning couldn’t go online and shoot each other in the face, leaving them to face the brave new world of actually interacting with people face to face.  And then there is the supposed Sony hack by Kim Jong Un and his legion of TRS-80 hackers a la WarGames who threatened terrorism if The Interview was released.  Frankly, that movie should get its own award this year because I think this was an inside job by somebody looking to boost the hype over watching this film, not actually North Korea.

So, where does that leave us?  We’ve talked about sports and politics and business and celebs and technology in regards to who is the biggest d-bag of the year.  But what could possibly trump all those nominees? 

See Part 2

The War On Thanksgiving

This has been heating up on social media and it’s beginning to piss me off.   I get it.  We shouldn’t be shopping on Thanksgiving.  We should be staying home with our families instead giving into the corporate machinations that drive greed and force retail workers to be on hand during the holidays instead of at home with their families who are probably hateful, drunk, and dysfunctional anyway.

The problem is that it’s not a perfect boycott.   Here’s why.

• Gas station attendants have to be on hand for you when you decide to pack up the family and go to grandma’s.
• Toll booth workers have to be on hand to collect on the turnpikes and expressways
• Hotels have to be staffed for you when you have to stay at the Comfort Inn because grandma has fifteen cats and you’re allergic.
• IT Analysts and System Admins have to be on hand for when Amazon or eBay breaks down because everyone who says, “I WON’T SHOP IN TARGET ON THANKSGIVING!” decides they will buck the trend by point and clicking their way through shopping instead of courting the brick and mortar versions of their favorite retailers.
• I could go on.

Look, I spent three years working on New Year’s Eve, Easter, Mother’s Day, and Thanksgiving in a hotel where the biggest problem was I had to cater to other peoples’ families instead of sharing in the holiday with my own.  It sucks, but it’s life.   Declaring with a graphic and a like that you won’t shop on Thanksgiving while doing other things that require support staff to handle your other activities is just hypocritical.  How about stay off social media on Thanksgiving.  Some poor IT person at Zynga or King or Facebook  has to be on hand because you’d rather stay home and play Candy Crush or Famville instead of shopping at Walmart.   And… some intern at Twitter has be on hand when you tell the world, “Gassing up at BP and turnpiking it with my fam instead of shopping at Target.  Suck it Wall St!”

You know, some people have no family.  Some people don't want to be around their family on the holidays, so working that day at time and a half pay might be something they enjoy or at least look forward to.  And you're robbing them of that because YOU feel YOUR AGENDA is the way it should be.  

Do I think stores should be open on Thanksgiving? No.  Black Friday?  Definitely, NO!  But it's not my problem.  It's not my place.  If people want to be assholes and corporations want to be greedy.  That's their business.  It's the framing of the argument that I take such issue with in this case.   Where do we get off high horsing our views and being placated because of it?  What entitlement crap gives us anymore say in this matter.  Vote with your dollar and don't shop.  But don't shame others into believing they're horrible because they do.  You're just as bad at other things that require support staff so don't act all high and mighty feeling that your own beliefs are solid and infallible.  Mind your own business. 

Oh, and don't read this on Thanksgiving.  Got it?

Now in Stereotypical Where Available

I recalled a great story told to me a few years back and I have to share it.   It’s all about language barriers and international travel.   This was told to me by one of the product marketing managers from my previous place of employment.   She was on a business trip in South Korea, meeting with sales reps, and they treated her to a night on the town.  I’ve done my best to recreate this from memory… it’s about five years old… of course, some dramatic license will be taken but the premise is intact.

After a long day of interacting with the sales force and their customers, they all decided to go to a restaurant for a later dinner.  It was a typical place in South Korea, not an Applebee’s or something internationally known.   The place looked a bit dated, but the food was great.  

Knowing that there was going to be a long flight back to the states, they decided to live it up a little and seek some post dinner entertainment.   One of the customers told the reps that this place had a private room that would be perfect.   He went and talked with the wait staff, none of which spoke English.   When he came back, he told the reps, who were bilingual, all about it.   This excited the reps but bewildered the product manager, dumbfounded by the lack of translation.  

They finished up their dinner and a very large man, almost bouncer looking, arrived at their table to escort the party to the private room.  He led them through the kitchen where various cooks and wait staff threw shifty glances.   At the back of the kitchen there was a large metal door.   It creaked open to reveal a dark staircase leading down into the bowels of the restaurant.    Once there, the only light source was the flickering of the fluorescent bulbs.  The poorly kept small tile floor looked like something out of a New York City tenement; missing small pieces of tile every so many feet.   The blackened walls looked as if they were once rich mahogany but had been painted over with thick coats of death.   At end of the hallway there was a door which opened into a single room.    It looked like a boardroom from hell or something out of the first Saw movie.   The same dilapidated flooring and poor lighting extended into the room, which almost cast a sort of blue glow.    There was a large rectangular table in the center of the room with swivel chairs around it.   On the other side, opposite the entrance, another, smaller door sat.

After the group got seated, the secondary door opened and two employees wheeled in a large boxy item on a dolly; electrical cords securing it to the greasy sides of the dolly.     The product manager began to sweat a little.    The scene was very quiet with some chattering of Korean between the staff.  Her focus went onto watching the staff hook up the box.  In international settings, electrical outlets and plugs do not resemble American ones so whatever this hulking black thing was, it looked menacing as it was being plugged into the wall.  

Immediate thoughts were that this was some sort of acetylene torch.  “OH MY GOD!”  She thought.   “It’s that scene out of Hostel.  They’re going to burn out my eyeballs!”   A second later the staff returned with a video camera and an evil looking black case, the size of a pistol.    No explanation for what was going on at this point, just the devices being brought in for what looks to be a videotaped torture.  “This is where I have to denounce the West and my family gets to see my death on YouTube, I just know it.” 

One of the customers, dressed in a sharp business suit, walked over to the AV cart that had been wheeled in and flipped the monitor on.  It remained black for the moment.  He adjusted the camera and began to play with the weapon case.   He opened it and removed a long barreled object, just obscured by the case lid.  “Oh, Jesus!  This is it.”   He pushed record on the camera and walked over to attach the unseen weapon to the black box on the dolly.  

There was a distinct hum.  

More sweat rolled down the back of product manager’s neck.  No one produced any kind of emotion other than stern focus on what was taking place.

Everything just screamed "run" in her mind.   Hopefully, she could make the stairs and be in public view before they tackled her and dragged her back into this death room.  

The customer flipped some switches and more lights flickered on the black box.   He walked over, his back to the table,  and stared at the camera, in view of the monitor, which was still blackened.  Suddenly, noise erupted from the dolly.  

Then, he began…

“At first, I was afraid, I was petrified…”

"What?" She thought.

“Kept thinking I could never live without you by my side.”

"Wait a minute?"

Still going, he walked over, flipped one more switch, and the monitor produced a teleprompter of sorts, displaying the rest of the lyrics to Gloria Gaynor’s song.

Smiles and head nods broke across the rest of the room.

Karaoke?

Staff wandered in with trays and drinks, placing down fresh glasses at each place setting.

KARAOKE!?!?!?

This became a top five story moment in my life.  I loved the suspense of it. 

The AngryCast update - Mongo Smashes and Build It

Part 2 of the series, “Mongo Smashes: Minecraft” has been up on YouTube since last weekend and for the two of you who are actually wondering,  “How it’s going?” I’ll tell you.

Slow.

Mongo Smashes: Minecraft Part 2
Hole in the Wall

As a new YouTuber, I do what everyone does; watch the ticks slowly go up by one each day.

Some days I wonder:

“Did I add to that?” 

“Did the number change?”

“Should I make more?”

Well, the answer to number three is, of course you make more.  I have five more episodes ready to go.  This experiment is only a failure if we give up.  We’re still only at $37 in costs. The path to Internet infamy was not done simply by Harlem Shaking it.  We're looking for sustained interest, here, not overnight sensation.

So, expect Part 3 to be up this weekend, along with at least one more “Build It” video.  Here is the latest:

Build It: Modern Empire Logo

The Beacon Shrine Part 3

The last part of the Beacon Shrine build is now up on YouTube.

It took forever to edit and post.  Here’s the breakdown of how that worked.

I recorded all of the footage President’s Day weekend using FRAPS, which I purchased. 

Then, I edited each episode down to length using Windows Live Movie Maker.  The first was about five minutes and the next two clocked in at 14 minutes and change. 

Then, I added in narration using Windows Sound Recorder.  After that was done, I saved it all into WMV format and then opened a new Windows Live Movie Maker (WLMM) project and dropped music in from MachinimaSound.

Total financial burden to produce YouTube videos to date:  $37.

Pros:

• Cheap
• Fun
• Creative

Cons:

• Cheap
• Time Consuming
• Frustrating
• Resource heavy

I used cheap twice because for some reason, my videos don’t have the same quality as others I’ve seen.   I haven’t figured out if it’s my FRAPS record settings or me continually making the project into a video file in order to add another layer of audio.   In any given project, WLMM only lets you add in one separate audio track.

I know a lot of other YouTubers use FRAPS to record Minecraft but not sure if they use WLMM to edit and post.  I just saw Sony Vegas 12 on Amazon for $60.  That would push my budget for an unproven venture to just about $100.  May have to mull that one over.

The other frustrating thing is that it takes forever to work in WLMM.  Sometimes it gets hung up and I have to wait for it to stop idling.   The conversion to a video file is also tedious and posting to YouTube could take a couple of hours at least.   I’ve been up late, set a video to publish and went to bed.  Then, finished off annotations and descriptions in the morning.

Now, my biggest problem is doing the actual content.  In my previous post, I stated I had a backlog of footage to edit and post.  I have three episodes done and won’t have to record new ones to work on until almost April.   I left off after recording for one day and now I have to look at the footage to see where the hell I was when I was playing.  I did some stuff on my own and recorded it for another video and I don’t remember the narrative I was working on at this point.

Also, it seems that the server I was playing on is possibly shutting down.   I can understand.  It takes money and time to run a server.   From what I gathered these were high school kids, so as the weather gets nicer, they probably have less time to devote to it.  Sucks that I donated $10 to the server and then they started experiencing issues and possibly shutting down a month later.   I’ll remember that next time I’m on one.

Until then, I will keep going, tweaking the process and letting you know because I know you’re all just at the edge of your seats on this stuff.  ;)

The Beacon Shrine Part 2 and Mongo Smashes Episode 1

Anticipation is not something I’m good with, folks.   I’ve been sitting on at least two projects that are ready to go.  Well.  They are ready as they’ll ever be.

Last post, I talked about the jump to YouTube and with that I posted the first “Build It” video.  The second is now up on The Angry Cast channel.  I have one more left to edit and a surprise add on, as well.   Meanwhile, I’ve been recording footage for the “Mongo Smashes _____” series and one episode is in the can.  I don’t want to release it until I’ve finished the first Build It project.

Why?

Well, for one, I did the first video on President’s Day.  The second went up this past weekend.  That’s five days in between.   I want to have some level of consistency with releasing videos as to not build expectations… I know… Like there is any, right?  Still, when I first started the blog back in 2008, I posted five entries a week.  That lasted all of two months and then I backed down to three a week, sometimes less.   I don’t want to hit a deadline, just to hit a deadline.  My schedule isn’t set and I play when I can.  Editing sometimes takes hours, if not days.  I don’t want to post all I have, now and then go three weeks with nothing.  

The second issue is that the Build It series takes far longer to produce.     Me just playing a video game, badly, is fairly easy.    But to record a build, edit it, narrate it, add sound, and publish takes time and I’ve got footage for one more section of the Shrine I did, plus a walkthrough of the other buildings I did for the Modern Empire server.  I want to space those out along with regular videos. 

In essence, I’m creating a backlog of footage, so I can use a timed release method for publishing.   Slow and steady, folks.  It’s one of the rules I have set down for myself.

The others being:

Have fun or don’t do it. 

Fail early.  Fail often.

Put some time into it.   Add sound and titles.

Don’t be afraid to record lots and edit out the horrible parts where you ramble or derp.

With that, I give you Part 2 of the Beacon Shrine Build It Series.

I've Got a Bad Feeling About This

With the news that The Disney Corporation has bought Lucasfilm, there is already talk about a sequel to Return of the Jedi and other shake ups in the a galaxy far, far away.  I just happened to have acquired a copy of the new script,  along with the re-re-release scripts of all six movies, which were smuggled out of the Magic Kingdom inside of an Astromech droid.  Here's some of the details of the new movies and the edits to the old ones due in theaters next year.

• New Death Star being constructed, looks surprisingly like Spaceship Earth.
• Entire Endor battle scene takes place between ants and grasshoppers.
• John Carter gets re-release date of 2014 with new effects, same script.
• Mace Windu rides ice chutes into Clone Wars.
• R2-D2 appears in new movie... looks a little like Wall-E
• Chewbacca now blue and sounds like John Goodman.
• Every time Luke whines, his nose grows.
• Episode III ending involves Ben holding baby Luke over a cliff while rebels bow.
• Jabba the Hut reimagined as sea creature.
• New musical numbers in the cantina...sung by the drink and silverware.
• Padme disguises herself as young Asian man instead of handmaiden.
• "I've got a bad feeling about this" line now "To Infinity and Beyond."
• John Ratzenberger still in Empire Strikes Back, but plays different characters in other five movies.
• Millennium Falcon speaks, sounds like Larry the Cable Guy.
• 101 Dewbacks rushed into production.
• At the end of Jedi, ghost of Simba appears alongside Yoda, Ben, and Anakin.
• Leia officially named new Disney Princess, shocks everyone with slave outfit.
• Boba Fett doesn't fly anymore, but he falls with style.
• Randy Newman hired to do the soundtrack for new movies.
• Opening crawl begins with, "A long time ago, in the office of P. Sherman, 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney."
• I won't mention what happens to Lando... but it involves Br'er Lobot.
• New Star Wars Holiday Special DVD delivered in time for Christmas... returns to the vault, Jan. 1st.
• Leia leaves Han and moves in with the Seven Ewoks.
• Jar Jar out...   Roger Rabbit in.
• Yoda now voiced by Robin Williams
• Han Solo now wears eyeliner and drinks rum.
• Darth Vader's mask... something's different. 

Courtesy of Etsy

This move angers me more than I can tell.  First off, Lucas was a pioneer.  When the technology didn't exist to produce the effects or sound that he needed to realize his vision, he invented it.   He was so against corporate intrusion that he primarily financed his movies with his own money, just to maintain control and buck the Studio System.

Now, that level of control proved to be a bit of a downfall as the original trilogy was redone, enhanced, edited, and re-released.  The most heinous of changes were Greedo shooting first, the inclusion of Hayden Christiansen in place of Sebastain Shaw at the end of ROTJ, and the replacement of Jason Wingreen's voice with Temuera Morrison in TESB.

Regardless of Lucas' constant tinkering, Star Wars represented so much more in the way of innovation and advancement in film making while Disney was seen as being very slow to adopt new technologies, allowing Pixar to become the juggernaut that it was in animated films.  Disney floundered until they eventually bought Pixar around 2006.

Some of the fan chatter I've noticed in the last 24 hours has been positive.  The supposed Episode VII talk seems a bit joking, but think about it.  Lucas says he has no plans for three more movies.  Those stories are done.  But with Disney in charge, suddenly there is talk?   I don't like it.  Disney sequels are notoriously done to make money and not actually deliver a quality product.  I smell a string of straight to DVD titles with little effort.  Now, Toy Story 3 seems to be the exception but Cars 2 reeked of Disney corporate machine churning out a sequel to bank off the original.  Remember the debacle with Aladdin 2?

I've got a bad feeling about this?
This list will be re-released next year with added scenes and better grammar.

Remember To Pay Your Taxes

I learned a little something about taxes this month.  I learned that ignorance does not excuse you from paying what you owe.

Six years ago when I started Mongo, Angry!  Mongo Smash!  I had little hope of ever turning any kind of profit.  I mean, after all, it’s an Internet business with hardly any overhead, manpower, or buzz.  Three years later, I went from zero profits to needing a 1099 and the meager empire was just taking its first breaths.  2010 was first year I had to do any kind of real tax consideration for my shirt sites.  I worked it all out with my tax guy and unfortunately, my return was cut in half that year.

This past year saw an increase of about 20% in revenue, while maintaining less than $500 of actual cost of ownership.  Seems great right?  It was until I saw my tax forms. 

I owed as much as I had coming back to me last year. 

So, where did I go wrong? 

I turned a profit.

That sounds a little ridiculous but it’s the truth.  Well, that and I forgot to pay the quarterly 1040 payments on the business.  Seeing as how my family’s income and my self-employment income all fall into the same bucket, I thought I was already paying on it.   Apparently not.  There’s a little thing called a 1040-ES that needs paid every quarter.

See, when you have a regular job with regular deductions from your paycheck, you don’t think about those things.   When you are the business owner and are only getting a 1099 from the sites you do business with, the responsibility falls on you to pay those taxes.

Unfortunately, Phase 2 is Pay Your Taxes.

So, I have to pay last years, plus a penalty, and the first quarter of 2012’s putting me in the red from the starting gate. 

I plan to meet with my tax guy after the end of the busy season and discuss deductions.   For one, I use a room in my house as an office.  That’s a total year of my electrical bill divided by the number of rooms in my house.  Then I can claim that.  I can also probably do that with my Internet connection since more than 75% of my Internet is devoted to shirt work.  I pay $60 a year to CafePress for a premium shop, $10 a year to Zazzle for free ground shipping, and I spend around $200 to do giveaways throughout the year.   Granted, I should be able to deduct my cable bill, my Entertainment Weekly subscription and my car since I will be making it an advertisement tool.   But, let’s not go from making t-shirts to making license plates, just yet.  Slow steps.  That’s how it works in my business.

Well, that’s your newest tip for success.  As always, I serve as an example of what not to do for your benefit.

Peace out!

Mass Entitlement

Recently, the gamers of the world went after EA and the makers of Mass Effect 3 because they didn’t like the ending. In turn, BioWare is supposedly appeasing fans by providing a better ending.

Can you imagine another instance where the fan base had that much impact or influence on the way a company markets a product? Are customers more savvy? Are they less accepting? Are we too entitled?

I say “Too Entitled” because there was talk of a lawsuit. Really, gamers? Since when did the public get the ability to sue a video entertainment company because it didn’t like the product? Did us 30 year old+ fanboys sue Lucas for the Prequel Trilogy? Did we sue Spielberg for putting Aliens in the last Indiana Jones movie? No on both counts.

I expect value for my money, but at the same time, if I buy something that turns out to be crap… I just don’t buy anything else. I take to the Interwebs and complain like a child. I sell it to Game Stop for something else, recouping a small portion of my money. I don’t SUE THE FREAKING COMPANY?!?!?

With the distance between consumer and company shrinking every day thanks to social media, people tend to feel more entitled to voice their opinion directly at the source of their ire and demand some kind of retribution. It may be the best thing to happen to business by allowing more accountability for crap performance, leading to more quality in the future… or It will continue us on this trend of feeling that the squeaky wheel demands oiling above actually changing the wheel.

I liken it to the shift in the teacher / parent relationship where, when I was growing up and a teacher gave my parents a bad report, I was the one responsible for the problem. Nowadays, parents tend to say their kid is an angelic innocent and it’s the teacher’s fault. Get over it. Not every soccer game ends in a tie. Your kid is the instigator. The game world does not bow to your every whim. I get it, though. EA has a bit of a bad model; price things pretty expensively for a base product and then offer multiple micropayments for more, expanded content.

Still, social media has given the consumer another arm of contact and sometimes, depending on the company, it can yield positive results. But there is a responsibility as a consumer to act in a certain manner and, in turn, the company might do you a solid. Be a pissy customer and the company may just ignore you. Though, judging how BioWare is responding to the Mass Effect 3 issue, get enough pissy customers and you can change the world. But for the better?

Maybe we aren’t ready for this kind of interaction yet. Maybe we have been given the Twitter equivalent of the fire from Mount Olympus. We are still too young to wield it without burning down our village. Think of how well we adapted to QR codes. That was sarcasm. We haven’t. In fact, I saw perhaps the stupidest form of QR code placement.  It was on the back gate of a Tyler Mountain truck, driving on the Parkway East.

That’s safe.

“Hey, buddy, while you’re driving on a highway, tailgate us, whip our your smart phone and line up a camera shot of this small code on the back of our moving truck so you can go to our website… while you’re driving.”

What could possibly go wrong there? Well, maybe if you wreck, you can sue the company or take to social media and bring about restitution for your hardship. Because that’s more important than actually taking steps to prevent something bad from happening.

Here’s another little tip for you. Don’t buy a hotly anticipated game the nanosecond it comes out. Wait a week or two and see what other people have to say about it. You don’t have to be spoiled by others reviews… just cautious of the response. Can we do that?

Now, back to the early planning stages of my massive class action suit against Michael Bay for making the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles aliens.  Gotta get this done before a single shot of movie has been filmed.

That Whole Writing Thing I Was Going To Do

Last year, I made this grand proclamation that the state of Mongo, Angry. Mongo Smash! blog was one of in flux. I was losing the bandwidth to post with regular frequency in order to focus on other, more important obligations. However, I was going to concentrate that whole writing aspect into producing some original work in the form of an ebook, perhaps.

That’s still on the plate. I have not forgot about that. Still, I’ve run into several problems.

For one, time. I don’t have time to write out all that stuff. Truth is, I have the stories. I have PLENTY of stories. Whether they are good or not is up for debate. The material is there . Actually sitting down and writing it out is a bit harder. I’m already two chapters into a book that is most likely going to be the lead off title.

I was originally going to put up some nonfiction but my original plan was to see if I could actually sell something and make a profit without compromising my business model of being a lazy, cheap ass entrepreneur. Unfortunately, the material for that book is kind of dependent on others actually selling. Not to mention that the nonfiction business related book is a static view of an otherwise constantly changing and evolving state of mind. What methods I document for today’s market may change tomorrow, rendering the book passé and not worth reading. The point is to generate content that is readable and adaptable in any year.

That’s why fiction works. It’s not meant to be a treatise of what is actually going on at the moment. It’s left to be interpreted by the reader and good fiction is something that can be written a thousand years ago and still speak to the nature of humanity and the odds we face today.

You also have to take into account your audience. Because I’m a procrastinating slowpoke, I could write an epic novel about the supernatural, vampires, or swords and sorcery elements and it may eventually get finished after the whole craze surrounding those genres have worn out their appeal. Once again, passé.

That’s why I like the t-shirt business. It’s not hard for me to knock out a pretty decent design for a current event or meme while it’s still relevant. But those trends will die out and others will follow and I can keep coming up with stuff because the turnaround is minimal. Writing for a blog has that advantage, too, though the ability to generate a profit from it is limited.

With writing novels, there is more planning involved and I want to stay true to my ideas and my process without having to say, “Hmmm, zombie love stories are trending on Amazon. I better bang something out by the end of next week for people to gobble up.” I don’t work that fast or in that manner when it comes to storytelling.

I’m always reminded of the production triangle when it comes to things like these. For those of you unfamiliar with it, it’s a triangle with three sides, or areas, representing the choices available for a production or business project:

• I want it done Cheap
• I want it done Fast
• I want it done Well

The Production Triangle by mongo, angy. mongo smash.



You are only allowed to pick two. It makes sense, really. The same goes with writing. If you want it done cheap and fast, it will be crappy and riddled with errors. If you want it done fast and well, you going to have to pay more (as in time away from your job to work on it resulting in costing you more… or a publisher paying an ungodly amount for quality work, now.). If you want it done well and at a lower cost, you better be prepared to wait a while for it to be done.

The writing I hope to make money off of will probably fall into the category of “Done Cheap and Well”. Since I am lazy and a cheap ass.

A second problem is content. I have the ideas. I just haven’t got my arms around on the best way to present it. Do I write a short story and sell it for a buck, taking in around 30% of the profit? Do I plan out an epic series and hope that there is enough interest beyond the first book? How long should it be? Do I write a collection of short stories, perhaps with a common theme or interconnected to each other?

The work I’m currently two chapters in to writing is a basic haunted house story. I’m not trying to go and reinvent the genre. It’s simply a story that I had formulated based off of a weird dream I had a few years back. Consider it, Inception… lol.

What about marketing? Since I am planning on doing this on my own, I have my own marketing tools to rely on for some much needed buzz. Do I release the first chapter on my blog and then provide a link to download the rest of the book through Amazon or Barnes and Noble? What if it sucks? People may read that and not want to buy it. Then again, if I’m worried about that then I should feel really crappy if someone were to buy one of my books, sight unseen, and then write a scathing review. I may fool some people into spending their money but word of mouth will kill my chance at making a run at writing.

Lastly, it comes down to sustainability. DO I REALLY WANT THIS? Well, of course I do. If I can prove that even a hack like me can make a few dollars off of a book, then anyone can. But that doesn’t bode well for the industry I so often bash for having no originality or quality control. “Hey, look at me. I’m a complete and utter jackass and made money at writing.” If that works, I need to improve. I need to do more. I will be forced to stay on top of a little itty bitty experiment I tried to so if I could replicate the success of being a cheap ass, lazy shirt designer. If I can’t keep up with that and the time spent just to manufacturer a small amount of revenue is counterproductive to me being able to hold down a full time job, shirt design business, and family, then I run the risk of failing somewhere else, if I haven’t already.

I will suffer from what most businesses suffer from in the world, inability to manage what works. Companies that do one thing well, can generate a good profitability when that’s all they have to focus on in the course of their day. When they start trying to take on more than they can handle, the quality of their core business erodes. Think back to the triangle. Quality vs. Money vs. Time. But in this case, it’s Quality vs. Offering vs. Money.

Do you want to increase your offering while maintaining quality? You will have to increase the amount of money you spend to manage those ideas.


If you want to expand your offering but cut back on costs, you will lose quality.

And if you want to maintain low overhead while maintaining the quality of your work, you need to focus on a core business and not worry about the white space.

So, in closing, I guess that while I figure out how to achieve what I want, I will need to prioritize that list of three items and figure out where I need to focus my attention. Hopefully, I can manage to figure it all out before the ebook industry tanks like when I tried to push Mongo out onto MySpace and it all went pffft.

OK, I’ve babbled on long enough and I didn’t even earn a cent for all that. You’re welcome… I guess.