March Fools, everyone!


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    Hey, y'all know that [url="http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Make-It-Work.aspx"]WTF radio play I produced[/url], right? Well, I hosted it on Soundcloud and it's been so popular that it scored 3,324 plays on March 31st-- the day before I uploaded it.

    "Dates are hard" - Soundcloud



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    Hey, y'all know that WTF radio play I produced, right? Well, I hosted it on Soundcloud and it's been so popular that it scored 3,324 plays on March 31st-- the day before I uploaded it.

    "Dates are hard" - Soundcloud

    What's even more alarming is that there seems to have been an increasing number of plays starting at the beginning of March 30th. And then people slowly lost interest as it was published.



  • Of course! This is always how it goes. Just look at how Apple introduces new iThingies, like the iPhone 5: people were very interested until it was actually released (and turned out to be crap).



  • Some timezone problem I guess.



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    Hey, y'all know that WTF radio play I produced, right
     

    why is there a dry cloth in your throat?



  • @Ben L. said:

    And then people slowly lost interest as it was published.

    I lost interest before it was cool.



  • @bstorer said:

    @Ben L. said:
    And then people slowly lost interest as it was published.

    I lost interest before it was cool.

    I never listened to it, so does that mean I never lost interest? or that I always lost interest?

    Somewhere there is a cat that I feel kinship with.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @OzPeter said:

    @bstorer said:
    @Ben L. said:
    And then people slowly lost interest as it was published.

    I lost interest before it was cool.

    I never listened to it, so does that mean I never lost interest? or that I always lost interest?

    Somewhere there is a cat that I feel kinship with.

    That's just noob talk. No one experienced in the ways of NYC would say something like that.



  • I lost interest in this thread before Lorne created it.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @El_Heffe said:

    I lost interest in this thread before Lorne created it.

    Bah! Interest rates are being kept artificially low by the Fred.



  • I have OVER THREE YEARS of lack of interest in this thread!


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @dhromed said:

    @Lorne Kates said:

    Hey, y'all know that WTF radio play I produced, right
     

    why is there a dry cloth in your throat?

     

    Because if I took a drink of water, it wouldn't be dry anymore.

     



  • Seriously though, Lorne. Why a radio play? Do you long for the glitz and glamor of the Great Depression? Are you trying to lock up a sponsorship deal with Calumet Double-Acting Baking Powder? Or are you just trying to be so twee that NPR can't resist putting you on the air?



  • @bstorer said:

    Why a radio play?
    Been there.

    It seems like a good idea. Then later, "Holy Fucking Fuck what the fuck was I thinking".



  • @RobFreundlich said:

    I have OVER THREE YEARS of lack of interest in this thread!
    Set that to music and label it "The Hipster National Anthem".



  • @bstorer said:

    Seriously though, Lorne. Why a radio play? Do you long for the glitz and glamor of the Great Depression? Are you trying to lock up a sponsorship deal with Calumet Double-Acting Baking Powder?

    Give the guy a break, he's just trying to make ends meet since Vaudeville went tits up. Seems there's no one willing to pay to see a guy in blackface and a straw top hat dance the hornpipe to a banjo quintet no more..



    Lorne Kates, the "good years".


    @bstorer said:

    Or are you just trying to be so twee that NPR can't resist putting you on the air?

    NPR emailed to say "Not all things considered.." (Ho ho, I crack me up..) Seriously, though, NPR has standards. The only way they'd put this on the air is if the narrator had an oppressively-thick and winsome inland Maine accent and he periodically interrupted the story to give folksy wisdom on tapping your own maple syrup or establishing single-payer health care in the United States.

    I've done radio plays. It's rough. You know how they say a guy "has a face for radio"? Apparently it's possible to be too ugly even for radio work. Try explaining that to your WPA case manager..



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    The only way they'd put this on the air is if the narrator had an oppressively-thick and winsome inland Maine accent and he periodically interrupted the story to give folksy wisdom on tapping your own maple syrup or establishing single-payer health care in the United States.

    Needz moar narratives about Mexican immigrants in Dixon, Iowa who are flying in the face of ConAgra and Monsanto by making artisanal, GMO-free huitlacoche.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @morbiuswilters said:

    Lorne Kates, the "good years".
     

    Ah, back when I still had the money for my twice-daily moustache shapings. I knew a place that'd do them for two nickles (this was back before Prime Minister Borden discovered dimes while fighting proto-Nazis in the trenches).

    @morbiuswilters said:

    if the narrator had an oppressively-thick and winsome inland Maine accent and he periodically interrupted the story to give folksy wisdom on tapping your own maple syrup or establishing single-payer health care in the United States.

    {takes notes for Episode 2}

     @Bossy Tor said:

    Seriously though, Lorne. Why a radio play?

    Serious answer, in short, because I've always wanted to do one.

    Growing up, there was a radio station in Toronto that had a two hour block on Sunday nights-- The Sunday Funnies, an hour of stand-up comedy, and Theatre of the Mind, two old-time radio dramas. Things like X-Minus One-- it was like getting an extra episode of The Twilight Zone and an extra copy of Analog rolled into one each week.  This wasn't all that long ago, but needless to say, before The Internet, where everyone can listen to all the comedy clips and radio plays they want at any time.  To give you an idea, the two shows went off the air roughly around the same time that Mitch Hedberg died. 2005-2006 sometime around there. Right around the same time Youtube exploded. Who the hell needed to stay up until 10pm on Sunday to listen to a single hour of a random assortment of comedy clips chosen by someone else, without the ability to skip the crap, listen to the good ones again, or delve deeper into a single artist's library?

    So I really enjoyed the medium-- short stories acted out in audio. I always wanted to do one.

    Flash forward to 2010, and Alex did that "hear-a-blog" thing where a professional voice actor read your blog entry in their professional and dramatic voice. For free, and would make their money somehow. (Note: they didn't make any money).  It was a doomed business model (Note: they are long, long gone), but I got to hear a couple of my articles "acted" out. I always thought it would be cool to hear more, and acted rather than read.

    I've pitched the April Fools entry for the past couple years.  For this year, instead of the route of "prank", I wanted to just do something big and different and weird and completely out-of-the-usual format.  Roll all of the above factors together-- combined with the fact that the "Daily WTF" format is perfect (ie: telling someone's story)-- and boom, let's do a radio drama!  Admittedly, I could call it an "audio play", but likening it to an old-time format is both April Foolsey AND WTF-ey.

    So there. Serious answer.



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    @Bossy Tor said:
    Seriously though, Lorne. Why a radio play?

    Serious answer, in short, because I've always wanted to do one.

    Growing up, there was a radio station in Toronto


    Gotcha. Canada's fault.

    @Lorne Kates said:

    I've pitched the April Fools entry for the past couple years.  For this year, instead of the route of "prank", I wanted to just do something big and different and weird and completely out-of-the-usual format.  Roll all of the above factors together-- combined with the fact that the "Daily WTF" format is perfect (ie: telling someone's story)-- and boom, let's do a radio drama!  Admittedly, I could call it an "audio play", but likening it to an old-time format is both April Foolsey AND WTF-ey.

    I actually respect that. Most April Fool's stuff is just stupid these days. I'd much rather see you use it as an opportunity to take a risk. But I hate this particular risk on the grounds that I loathe the web's fascination with taking content that is perfectly good delivered as text, and delivering as sound. Or content that should be sound and delivering it as video. Or content that should be video, delivered as animated gifs. Or content that should be animated gifs, but isn't thrown into the heart of the sun.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @bstorer said:

    But I hate this particular risk on the grounds that I loathe the web's fascination with taking content that is perfectly good delivered as text, and delivering as sound.

    I generally agree with you on this, but you'd miss out on the disappointment in hearing the voices and having to rethink how you read that person's rants in the forum.

    I was somewhat worried that the whole thing would end up being a shaggy dog story. Instead I was disappointed that it sounded like everything was going to work out in the end.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @bstorer said:

    But I hate this particular risk on the grounds that I loathe the web's fascination with taking content that is perfectly good delivered as text, and delivering as sound.
     

    While I agree with you-- one of the main reasons this is a special event rather than a new feature-- I would disagree that this falls into that category.  I think that was one of the major downfalls of hear-a-blog-- it was just a guy reading an article off, something you can do faster and better with your eyes.  In this case, the story was actually presented in a different medium, and used that medium to its advantage-- like that Mitch was meek, then beat down, then desperate, then finally snapped all came across in tone of voice and presentation. That JJ was an insufferable shit even when saying reasonable things came across in how it was vocalized. The chaos of a build breaking done in overlayered voices.  And the rant at the end-- I thought it was much more satisfying to hear it rather than skimming over a block of text of someone calling another person a fucking moronic idiot shitbag.

    I'm not saying you're wrong for disliking it-- sorry you didn't,  but I understand everyone likes different things.  But we did do more than "just present it as sound".


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Lorne Kates said:

    In this case, the story was actually presented in a different medium, and used that medium to its advantage-- like that Mitch was meek, then beat down, then desperate, then finally snapped all came across in tone of voice and presentation. That JJ was an insufferable shit even when saying reasonable things came across in how it was vocalized. The chaos of a build breaking done in overlayered voices.  And the rant at the end-- I thought it was much more satisfying to hear it rather than skimming over a block of text of someone calling another person a fucking moronic idiot shitbag.

    Yes, I thought that came across quite well. If this were the normal way these things were presented, I wouldn't stick around, but as a special event, I thought it worked. Plus, no spelling errors (though I notice that there's now a transcript)!



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    Filed under: And just to piss you off more next year we'll do a goddamn short film

    Ooh, and the year after that you'll do an ARG, right?



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    And the rant at the end-- I thought it was much more satisfying to hear it rather than skimming over a block of text of someone calling another person a fucking moronic idiot shitbag.

    I believe the term you're looking for is "worst of the worst." And thanks for working that in there, I absolutely fucking died laughing when I hit that part.



  • @mikeTheLiar said:

    @Lorne Kates said:
    And the rant at the end-- I thought it was much more satisfying to hear it rather than skimming over a block of text of someone calling another person a fucking moronic idiot shitbag.

    I believe the term you're looking for is "worst of the worst." And thanks for working that in there, I absolutely fucking died laughing when I hit that part.

    I'm a bit upset that the programming language nobody had experience in wasn't Go.


  • @Ben L. said:

    @mikeTheLiar said:
    @Lorne Kates said:
    And the rant at the end-- I thought it was much more satisfying to hear it rather than skimming over a block of text of someone calling another person a fucking moronic idiot shitbag.

    I believe the term you're looking for is "worst of the worst." And thanks for working that in there, I absolutely fucking died laughing when I hit that part.

    I'm a bit upset that the programming language nobody had experience in wasn't Go.
    Or MUMPS - JJ sounded like that kind of smarmy guy that would be a MUMPS expert

    Of course, I've only known one MUMPS programmer, but he was JJ all over

  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @mikeTheLiar said:

    @Lorne Kates said:
    And the rant at the end-- I thought it was much more satisfying to hear it rather than skimming over a block of text of someone calling another person a fucking moronic idiot shitbag.

    I believe the term you're looking for is "worst of the worst." And thanks for working that in there, I absolutely fucking died laughing when I hit that part.

     

    You're welcome. I was thinking of you.

     



  • I used to listen to Radio Mystery Theater (hosted by E.G. Marshall) back in the 70's so, I smell what yer cookin'. I loved radio plays and enjoyed your's.



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    @bstorer said:

    But I hate this particular risk on the grounds that I loathe the web's fascination with taking content that is perfectly good delivered as text, and delivering as sound.
     

    While I agree with you-- one of the main reasons this is a special event rather than a new feature-- I would disagree that this falls into that category.  I think that was one of the major downfalls of hear-a-blog-- it was just a guy reading an article off, something you can do faster and better with your eyes.  In this case, the story was actually presented in a different medium, and used that medium to its advantage-- like that Mitch was meek, then beat down, then desperate, then finally snapped all came across in tone of voice and presentation. That JJ was an insufferable shit even when saying reasonable things came across in how it was vocalized. The chaos of a build breaking done in overlayered voices.  And the rant at the end-- I thought it was much more satisfying to hear it rather than skimming over a block of text of someone calling another person a fucking moronic idiot shitbag.

    I'm not saying you're wrong for disliking it-- sorry you didn't,  but I understand everyone likes different things.  But we did do more than "just present it as sound".

    If you had listened to the podcast version of my original post, you'd have found that my tone was actually more friendly mockery than actual displeasure. I'm a big boy, I can deal with things that aren't to my liking without (genuine) complaint. Still, your biggest mistake was in not adapting a Hanzo story. Maybe you could make them comprehensible.



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    Hey, y'all know that WTF radio play I produced, right?
    As someone who produces instructional videos for a living (only for internal use by my employer) I can appreciate anyone who tries to be creative like this.  It wasn't terrible, and you had fun doing it.

    Just don't do it again.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @bstorer said:

    Maybe you could make [a Hanzo story] comprehensible.
    The only truly incomprehensible part about them is why anyone would bother writing them up. (But I do work with a few Germans, so maybe I'm used to how they mangle things.)



  • @El_Heffe said:

    Just don't do it again.

    I view the endeavour like homosexual intercourse. Maybe it's not my cup of tea, but if an entire engine team of hot, uninhibited Canadian firemen--sweat dripping from their sleek, toned abs--wants to tie Lorne up in a chair knot and slather him in beef gravy like he's nothing but a plate of poutine--a plate of dirty, naughty poutine...yeah, you've been a bad poutine, haven't you? What's that? You want some cheese curds? Yeah, I'll give you some cheese cur--


    Wait, what were we talking about?


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