That’s right you may have noticed a red banner at the top that says 10 years.  That’s because wetwired has been around for 10 years spreading joy and goodness sarcasm and badassery.  Over the course of this year you can expect 1.) The site to change  b.) Us to be lazy and the site not to change  thirdly.) more of the same.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

In our previous Weekly Wrap-up, we referred to the Large Hardon Collider as being turned on this past week. This was an error, as the article was meant to refer to the Large Hadron Collider.

The Large Hardon Collider, located between Croisement-Des-Epées, France and Timbre de Champignon, Switzerland is still being erected at this time and has not been turned on. It is expected to be fully functional by June 9th, 2010 barring any premature issues.

Wetwired regrets the error. Thank you.

Out.

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Okay, so there are a couple of updates on our 20th podcast.

First of all, we’ve recorded it- and this time, the podcast recording came out great. It also came out at over 2 hours of usable audio.

Because of that, we’re going to offer two separate recordings. The first will simply be Episode 20, with a running time around what we normally run at (lately, around 45-55 minutes or so). The second will be what I’m referring to as Episode 20.1. This will be the full version, almost 2 hours in length, with all of the topics we discussed (including a recap of my recent trip to Malaysia). We will make both available via iTunes, and I would suggest keeping whichever you prefer.

The second podcast will also have minimal audio enhancement (effects, music, etc.) save for the standard opening and closing music and editing for mistakes. It’s more of an unadulterated look at what we discuss on these shows.

All of that being said, look for these to come out this week. I’ll work on the podcast tonight and tomorrow, and hope to have it out by Thursday.

Out.

I’m not a big fan of recommending other blogs, podcasts, etc. To be honest, it never seems quite right. However, in this case I’ll make an exception.

One of our own, Marie, has a separate blog that she uses to write things that (fortunately) don’t quite fit within the political bitching, vents, jokes, shenanigans and other matters that we specialize in here at Wetwired. This is not a detriment to her other blog- point of fact, it is a compliment. We can get kinda goofy or too serious here depending on the topic, and we know that.

Recently (as in, I think, the last three days), Marie began posting audio versions of her blog posts.  They can be found here, and I recommend then for you to check out. She’s in the early stages of something I enjoy quite a bit as well- hearing the author perform the work. You get a feeling for what emotions and feelings were behind the words- something that can be difficult to do in writing without invective and bluster.

I also recommend looking at the rest of the blog, as these were the writings that put us in the mindset of “this will be a good voice to add to our own.” So far, we’ve seen nothing to dissuade of of that truth.

Out.

Okay, so lately we’ve been getting more spam comments coming into Wetwired. Most are filtered out. However, we’ve had some that are created as legitimate comments but then have websites linked or “personal agenda” messages that have no relevance to the article.

Naturally, this annoys the everliving fuck out of us.

However, rather than deleting good comments from asshole spammers I’ve decided I shall take a new approach. I will take an approach that, at least for me, is more… fun.

Take a look over to the right, in the comments field. When you see a comment with the name of “Spammer Commenter,” you’ll know it’s from someone that we felt was promoting an product other than a simple comment upon the issue. If you see “Dubious Assbag,” it will be from someone who didn’t leave a spam comment per se, but instead left an agenda comment of sorts. A good example of this happens any time we post a political article and someone chimes in with a comment that has nothing to do with the subject in question. They’re not a spammer, but they are most likely an assbag.

So, that’s that. Let me know what you think. Oh, and one fnal note- we are an equal opportunity mocking site, and as such it doesn’t matter which side of the aisle you come from- if you’re an assbag, we’ll note it.

Out.

Wetwired is now iphone friendly to those browsing to the site on the iphone.  We’re using a wordpress plug-in that auto-formats the site to a special theme that has some cool features.  Anyway check it out if you have an iPhone.

Is anyone else bothered by the fact that the president is telling a CEO of GM to resign and he does it? Seriously.  I guess this goes with Geitners plan of taking over businesses that they deem “necessary” to the country.  So they’ll throw out the board, fire the CEO and then run it the way the government wants to run it…yeah, into the ground.

http://money.cnn.com/2009/03/29/news/companies/gm_bailout/index.htm

GM: Changes at the top

The administration officials were far more positive in their tone regarding the prospects for GM than for its smaller rival.

“We are very confident GM can survive and thrive as a company,” one official said, noting the company’s global reach, the strength of its research and development and the power of its various brands.

Nevertheless, significant changes are on the table.

One was the resignation of chief executive Wagoner, a 32-year veteran of the company who has served in the top post since 2000.

“On Friday I was in Washington for a meeting with administration officials. In the course of that meeting, they requested that I ’step aside’ as CEO of GM, and so I have,” Wagoner said in a statement posted to the GM Web site.

Wagoner will be replaced by GM’s chief operating officer, Fritz Henderson. Kent Kresa will serve as interim chairman.

“Having worked closely with Fritz for many years, I know that he is the ideal person to lead the company through the completion of our restructuring efforts. His knowledge of the global industry and the company are exceptional, and he has the intellect, energy, and support among GM’ers worldwide to succeed,” Wagoner said.

Something sounds fishy to me.  I mean I am not a fan of GM to begin with, but I am also not a fan of government control of businesses.

Apparently now you can’t use Miss or Mrs or Mister or Sir in language.   It’s not gender neutral as it offends female MEPs.  Yeah..you heard it.  From the same area that punishes people from defending their own property we get this.

The politically correct rules also mean a ban on Continental titles, such as Madame and Mademoiselle, Frau and Fraulein and Senora and Senorita.

Guidance issued in a new ‘Gender-Neutral Language’ pamphlet instead orders politicians to address female members by their full name only.

Officials have also ordered that ’sportsmen’ be called ‘athletes’, ’statesmen’ be referred to as ‘political leaders’ and even that ’synthetic’ or ‘artificial’ be used instead of ‘man-made’.

The guidance lists banned terms for describing professions, including fireman, air hostess, headmaster, policeman, salesman, manageress, cinema usherette and male nurse.

However MEPs are still allowed to refer to ‘midwives’ as there is no accepted male version of the job description.

The booklet also admits that “no gender-neutral term has been successfully proposed” to replace ‘waiter’ and ‘waitress’, allowing parliamentarians to use these words in a restaurant or café.

It has been circulated by Harold Romer, the parliament’s secretary general, to the 785 MEPs working in Brussels and Strasbourg.

Struan Stevenson, a Scottish Conservative MEP described the guidelines as “political correctness gone mad.”

He said: “We have seen the EU institutions try to ban the bagpipes and dictate the shape of bananas, but now they see determined to tell us which words we are entitled to use in our own language.”

Philip Bradbourn, another Conservative MEP, vowed to ignore the booklet, which he described as a “waste of taxpayers’ money” and called on Mr Romer to reveal its cost.

He added: “I will have no part of it. I will continue to use my own language and expressions, which I have used all my life, and will not be instructed by this institution or anyone else in these matters.”

Seven years ago, an attempt to amend noise laws came close to effectively outlawing bagpipes.

However, a number of bizarre EU rules remain in place, including a directive stating that every pair of rubber boots must be supplied with a user’s manual in 12 languages.

What the hell is an MEP anyway? Member of Europeon Parliment.

Did I tell you how much I love the Scottish?

Peter David is a prolific author of novels, comic books and television spanning over two decades of creative input towards Pop Culture. His influence on comics is well documented and known, having written what many consider the definitive takes on The Incredible Hulk and Aquaman. His writings for Star Trek have produced New York Times Bestselling novels, and his writings in fantasy and sci-fi continue to sell.

Recently, Mr. David was the subject of internet harassment for what was believed to be his role in the Scans_Daily site takedown. While that issue has been documented by many other sites (and his role in the brouhaha has been cleared as minor at most), we wanted to give him a forum to address the issue, as well as discuss other aspects of his career. Mr. David agreed to our interview request, and for that we are grateful.

Our first topic, naturally, was around the Scans-Daily shutdown as well as the response to it. (EDITOR’S NOTE- Anything in bold or underlined is done by us for emphasis, and not by Mr. David.)

Q: Part of the underlying issue surrounding Scans Daily’s withdrawal is the continual debate on the Internet between “Free Information” movements versus the traditional intellectual property paradigm. Did you expect to be part of that argument when it came to this issue, and have you had to deal with this type of conflict before?

A: I honestly wasn’t expecting it, no, any more than the removal of movie trailers from various show biz sites prompted any sort of debate.  I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen “Trailer No Longer Available; Removed by License Holder.”  You don’t see the net erupt with people howling, ‘The internet should be a shiny happy place where all content is available to whomever wants it whenever they want it!  Let’s string up the guy who made that trailer get taken down!”  The argument had less to do with the removal of the material than it did with the shutting down of Scans.  And that was entirely the decision of Live Journal. Interestingly, the fury of fandom was aimed not at Live Journal, who actually did the deed, but me, who did not.

Q: You’ve mentioned being around on the Net for over 20 years in the comments threads on your site. During that time we’ve seen the rise and fall of Napster, the continuous debate over YouTube posting tv and movie clips, and the increasing use of BitTorrent. We’ve also seen the rise of iTunes, Hulu and other legal paths for the sharing of IP. As a creator of intellectual property, do you see there ever being a true balance of power regarding the needs of the consumer versus the needs of the provider?

A:Sure.  Look, if there’s money to be made, the licensors and copyright holders will find a way to make money off it.  Consumers will cry and moan that they should continue to be entitled to get something for nothing, but eventually they’ll have to come to terms with the idea that you get what you pay for.

The next topic was more specific to some of the responses we found in researching the incident, including some of he more unsavory elements.

Q: Another aspect of this recent Scans Daily issue has been demonstrated in the sort of “drive-by” commenters who came to the site, spewed vitriol and then left. It has varied from the fairly benign (“I’ve never bought your books before and I certainly won’t now”) to the rather disgusting (“You and your family can all die in a fire”). Is there any room left on the internet for real debate, or are we all victim to the “instant gratification” method of replying to an issue?

A: There’s always going to be both.  It seems that the drive bys constitute the minority.  I’m certainly hoping so.  What amazes me is the incessant repetition of a sequence of events that didn’t happen:  That I showed up on Scans, people were abusive, and I in a fit of pique, unable to withstand criticism, contacted Marvel to try and have the site shut down.  Except, no:  I saw the pages, contacted Marvel and said, “I thought I should bring this to your attention,” and only after that did I show up on Scans.

As for the abuse:  As if in decades of being on the web, no one has ever been mean to me.  Hell, the very first time I ever showed up on the net, back when it was Usenet, there were people saying all kinds of nice things about my work on Spec Spidey.  And I showed up and said, “Thanks for saying all those nice things.”  And the response was, “Go away.  Get out of here.  If we know you’re reading these comments, it will have a chilling effect and we can never say anything nasty.  You have no business being here.  This place isn’t for you.”  So what happens on Scans?  A poster informed me that Scans wasn’t intended for me.  A strange attitude for a public forum, but hardly new.  The only thing that caught me off guard was this whole “Die in a fire thing.”  When I called them on it, I was blithely informed that this is simple net speak, to be taken no more seriously than any other such “curses.”  To which I would reply:  Have you ever known anyone who ate shit and died?  Fucked themselves?  Gone to hell?  I’m thinking not.  That’s hyperbole.  I knew someone who died in a fire.  That happens.  That’s real.  And that’s repulsive.

In the next section, we delved more into Mr. David’s writing career overall. The first topic was regarding the recent decision by Marvel Comics to close the open submissions policy.

Q: Your early career was boosted by an open submission to Marvel Comics of a story called “The Death of Jean DeWolff.” Recently, Marvel decided to suspend the open submission process pending20review of their storytelling process. Does this decision spell trouble for other writers outside the medium looking in? Given your own experiences, what would you recommend to those writers who look for the same opportunity you were able to grab so successfully?

A: Well, first of all, that’s not how my early career was boosted at all.  I was actually working at Marvel comics in the sales department.  I pitched an idea to Jim Owsley (now known as Christopher Priest) for a single issue of Spider-Man.  It was Owsley who then came to me with the notion of doing a four issue arc that would kill off Jean. (Editor’s note: Folks, this one was my bad. I misinterpreted some of my research on the topic.) As for the end of the open submission process…I’m obviously not part of the decision making that resulted in that, but I hope that Marvel reinstitutes it at some point soon.

We followed this with some questions regarding his overall work.

Q: You’ve been able to cross many different types of storytelling in your career- tv, comic books, novels, etc. Which medium is your favorite, and what makes it more special to you as a storyteller?

A: Probably novels.  Short of standing on a soap box and delivering a story aloud, it’s the purest form of storytelling.  It’s just you, your words, and your audience.  The advantage of television is the number of people you can reach, and the advantage of comics is that the collaborative nature can result in a better product than you can turn out on your own.  But as a storyteller, definitely novels have a special place.

Q: You’ve written several books for the Star Trek Universe, including books that have landed on the New York Times Best Seller list (“Imzadi” as an example). Star Trek is a bit different from other mediums as there are the performances by actors and actresses that can be used as inspirations for the story. Of the Trek novels and stories you’ve written, are there any that- given the right resources- you would have liked to see as a movie or episode arc?

A: Q-In-Law, definitely, would have been great to see as an episode.  In fact, Majel pushed hard to try and make that happen ..  Having Q square off against Lwaxana was something she desperately wanted them to produce, but she couldn’t convince them to do it.  That would have been great.

As a side note, I’ve owned a copy of this book for around 15 years or so. One of the funniest books I’ve ever read, and definitely a gem if you find a copy.

Q: You’ve written stories that have crossed between science fiction, fantasy and the fantastic. Of the many characters you’ve written about, which one do you most enjoy writing for? LIkewise, was there a character you’ve written that you couldn’t wrap your head around well enough in your opinion?

A: Probably Sir Apropos of Nothing, the subject of three novels and the IDW series.  He’s cranky, cynical, manages to see the downside of just about every situation.  He’s pretty much my alter ego.  In terms of characters I didn’t quite wrap my head around…probably Lobo.  I guest starred him in an issue of Aquaman and it was just lousy.  I couldn’t get a grip on him.  Curiously, I introduced Little Lobo into Young Justice, and later his inferior clone Slobo, and them I had no trouble with.  I guess Lobo comes across to me as such a juvenile character that I had no problem with him when he was juvenile.

Q: Do you have a “dream project” that you would love to do, given the opportunity?

A: The Phantom vs. Tarzan.  How cool would that be?  Failing that, Doc Savage.  Always loved Doc Savage.

We finished with a question about one of Mr. David’s well-known passions in life.

Q: How do you think the Mets look this year?

A: I’ve given up predicting.  Every year I think they look great and then injuries take their toll and then they melt down in September.  Frankly, this year I’m probably just going to be looking from a distance considering the price of seats.

Again, we want to thank Mr. David for taking the time to write to us and answer some of our questions. We will have a podcast soon as a follow-up to this discussion.

You can find works by Peter David on Amazon, by following this link.

Out.

That’s right, we’re heading downtown to check out the Office Space 10 Year Reunion Movie/Cast Party thing. Finley, Prax, Mimzi, and I are all heading down shortly and we’ll be doing two things:

1. Updating this post with pictures and info.

2. Updating the twitter feed on the right.

Stay Tuned:

We’re here at the Paramount Theatre in Austin Texas (Home)

Media ariving red carpet about to come out

More pre-star interview

G4 Personality

Lumberg: Gary Cole

Mike Judge (he plays the boss of Jennifer Aniston in the movie in case you didn’t know.  Mike is also writer/director of the movie, King of the Hill, Bevis and Butthead, etc..)

Mike Judge again

Michael Bolton: David Herman, who does a good amount of voice work now as well as TV.

Milton: Stephen Root

Samir: Ajay Naidu

Bob Slidell: John C. McGinley..you might also know him from Scrubs as Dr. Cox.

TPS report comes from Mike Judges engineer day Test project set

The cast gathering after the movie shows for a q&a – including “Payable Nina Speaking”

The squirels they were married was improvised line by Stephen “Milton”

Lumbergs coffee cup was pepsi or water.

Bobs “I celebrate the entire collection” was improv from John C. McGinley

Ha miginley is like dr cox in real life same personality.

Sequal ? No

There were 4 staplers, Mike Judge has the burnt one.

David Herman stated the whole movie is a blur, apparently he was “medicated”.  He later stated that he was the only member of the cast that was not on drugs at the time.

Gary Cole stated he hadn’t seen the movie in 10 years.

Diedrich Bader said his most interesting memory was of Stephen Root coming to his hotel room at 3 in the morning and asking him if he was really his friend several times – Deidrich assured him that he was and Stephen then said, “ok well I killed the prostitute, help me with the body.”

Hitting the printer/fax with bats

More destruction

The aftermath

Guy in front of us got his DVD signed by most of the actors and Mike Judge.

Lawrence : Diedrich Bader “Look out for your corn-hole”

Samir looking at the machine.

All in all, a lot of fun, we got to shake hands and meet most of the cast that was there – John C. McGinley is freaking tall.  Ajay (Smair) is pretty short.  Mike Judge does have a new movie coming out we were going to see a clip of it but due to technical difficulties we didn’t.  We may see a premier here though… cross your fingers.

When we were taking pictures, the Local Fox 7 news was standing next to me when he was recording the beating of fax/copier machine and interviewing Gary Cole. Check out the video of that happening here.

You may or may not have noticed two new posts that popped up that were not contributed by myself, Beerslinger, or Finley.  Through our previous post requesting help we’ve actually found several writers that have expressed interest in writing for the site for the sum total of a religious experience.

While we will continue to review some of the other new writers we are happy to welcome Marie Mattis to our team.   She will be posting about any number of topics and will hopefully enlighten all of our readers.

Wetwired is not a finalist in the 2008 Blog Awards. Which means… we’ll have to work double hard in 2009 to improve the site.   Part of that I think will come with getting some help on the coding side to make sure that the site actually does work on every browser correctly.

In retrospect I think I need to go back to the drawing board on the site and come up with something truly unique and graphically pleasing. But As I have discussed with others, what good is a great design if you don’t have great content so we’ll also have to double our efforts in the content side of Wetwired.   The design of the site has been with a central theme for the past couple of years and we all agree that the theme is pretty unique.   I think its most likely usability.

2008 Wetwired in Review

This year has been an interesting year.  Considering the previous year was a do-nothing year.  Meaning we really didn’t do a damn thing.  I didn’t update the site, we hardly posted, we kind of took the year off.  2008 on the other hand had major changes.

We switched from Movable Type to Wordpress.

We switched hosts to go-daddy (saving a ton of money at the sacrifice of speed).

We contracted a new artist to re-do the artwork that had previously got us into the finals of best blog design of 2005.

We finalized the new design(mostly).  Aside from the footer part taking until November to get complete…

We started, for the fist time in the 8 year history of Wetwired, to put up advertisements.  Google Adsense, and a few products that we’ve tested ourselves.  While stylistically it goes against everything  I hate; it made sense.  Believe it or not Wetwired is just about paying for itself (cost of domain and monthly hosting).   That in itself is something I really didn’t expect.

Wetwired has seen the most traffic it has ever seen this year.  And we’ve doubled our daily traffic from last year.

We have had a semi-regular podcast for the first time ever and it has been fairly successful.  Including being on itunes.

We’ve had the re-appearance of Beerslinger from his 2 year hiatus.  And we’ve had a couple new writers come on board (prax and larkynm) who unfortunately post infrequently, but are a welcome addition none the less.

We have been interviewed by the Daily Texan (UT paper) and we recorded the interview and offered it up as a podcast.

And lastly I think I’ve updated wordpress versions 6 times this year with some major changes on the back end.  It’s been a pretty good year for them as they (wordpress) have added some great functionality and some great user options in an overhaul of the administration side.

Wetwired in 2009

I think 2009 will be a continued rebuilding year as we look for more local Austin writers who are interested in contributing (for free).   When I look at the amount of money pumped into the site it will be a while before we regain it through advertisement etc but I do see the site fully paying for itself, the operating costs so to speak, and I think we can look forward to having some surprises for our few loyal readers with anything we have left over.

When it comes to traffic, we’ll be working hard to continue to optimize wetwired and post more original content and/or commentary that is of interest and that continues to add readership.  I suspect that if we actually get on the ball this year we could potentially finally break out of the small blog arena.  You would think that after 8 years of being a website/blog that we’d have more traffic.. but Finley, Beerslinger and I all atribute the slowness to 3 potential things.  1. Laziness.  2. Alcohol.  3. Waking up in the morning in the front yard and realizing that those are not our flamingos…

Lastly, Austin has a booming local blogging scene.  With freaking monthly meet-ups!  I’ve personally been in Austin since late 2000 and never been to one, yet we’ve been posting here for quite some time.  I have met (albeit briefly) one other local austin blogger.  She was doing an imprav with Cold-Towne Theatre.   So at some point I suspect that we’ll come out of our holes and make an appearance at one of the local Austin meetings.

As the 2009 looks fairly bleak when it comes to the economy, I think Wetwired will do just fine.

Postscript

If you are interested in contributing articles to wetwired or interested in just getting involved in a project let us know by commenting.  We’ll be on the lookout for new talent, and/or we wouldn’t mind showing someone the administration side if you just want to learn.

I’ve heard word that it is coming out today or tomorrow.  There are some major changes in the way it looks as far as the admin console is concerned.  I have not yet pulled it down to test but I plan on it prior to rolling out on wetwired proper.

One of the new features I’m interested in is the new graphics/buttons that were designed in a contest.

Wetwired is gunning for the Best Blog Design of 2008.

We were a finalist in 2005 for the Best Blog design.. unfortunatly we didn’t win.  But…we’re back again with a new design this year we hope to do well again.

Go here to look at what the site looked like back then.

So the rules are – we’ve already been nominated so if you’d like to 2nd or 3rd it please go click on the (+) icon next to wetwired. Go here to check it out.

CTI group is cutting 53,000 Jobs.

Fidelity cuts 1400 jobs.

JpMorgan is about to cut jobs as well.

JPMorgan Chase (JPM) is considering cutting thousands of jobs on the scale of cuts at Citi and Goldman, the U.K.’s The Sunday Telegraph reported. If JPMorgan slashed 10% of its workforce as Goldman has, its headcount would decline by about 3,000.

Lowe’s sales drop considerably.
Wetwired may seem entirely too slow.  That is because our host go-daddy seems to think there was no problem when I reported it on Friday last week.  It took a phone call today for them to go “oh, yes we think there may be an issue..” No ETA, on how long it will take to fix the issue.

GM is still having issues but here is the thing, they have been pushing higher wages, out-dated tactics and vehicles, gas guzzler vehicles actually and on average the Unionized Auto Workers make WAY more than the rest of the industry. The big three auto industry pay $25/hr more than any of the other companies like Toyota.  Seriously, you’re making a GM Yukon and you make $73.00/hr?  No wonder the freaking thing costs $50,000.  They don’t need a bailout, they need restructuring.

Hosting
Now I am on a shared hosted enviroment which means a single server could host many other websites.  This is fine – I recognize there is not going to be lightning fast hosting this method.  On the other hand, when a website times out like wetwired has done over the weekend and this morning.  That’s when its not fine.

I guess the only news that brings a smile to my face is the fact that OPEC is trying to cut production again and guess what? The price of oil is still falling.