Written by It has been a busy week behind the scenes here at SurrealPolitiks.
So busy, in fact, that I’ve been putting off something I figure I’ll try to get done with you this evening. If you’ve been around awhile, you may recall a piece I put out titled “On Beauty”. This was very warmly received, and so much so that I busted it out of the paywall for public consumption. As I have been putting together “Best Of” compilations for distribution, this stood out as something I would like to use as introductory material for new listeners, but in reviewing the text and the audio, it became obvious to me that some adjustments would be needed.
This stemmed from the fact that I was referencing prior content, largely. To those of you who had been listening the whole time, this makes perfect sense. It is not suitable, however, for introductory content because new listeners have not been listening along. I also made some errors on the recording which were not easy to simply edit out.
So, I re-wrote much of the piece, and tonight, I’ll read the revised version aloud during the member show, hopefully well enough that I can cut it and distribute it.
You may have heard I had a birthday recently, and while I years ago stopped seeing the aging process as a thing to celebrate, I have not ceased to be fond of gifts. I received a few, some quite generous, and this has helped to facilitate some equipment upgrades around here which I am very happy to report on.
I have already mentioned acquiring the top notch video capture card. An Elgato 4K60 Pro. I recently also acquired an NVIDIA RTX 4070 video card. This is not only a substantial upgrade in its own right, but allowed me to move my existing RTX 3060 to my secondary PC in the studio. This means I now have two computers with modern video cards instead of one, and this has some significant benefits associated with it.
I have, for one, managed to use AI to transcribe every episode of the Radical Agenda, SurrealPolitiks, Outlaw Conservative, and Some Garbage Podcast. Not only this, but all the recordings I have of my appearances elsewhere, my private and unreleased recordings, and various clips and recordings I had stored in my audio folder, which numbered in excess of 17,000 files.
Much of my equipment purchasing marathon stemmed from issues we had with guests. Both remote and on site. With the capture card and GPU, I am confident the issues with remote guests have now been completely resolved.
And doing this gave me the idea to get into the game streaming market, which I was surprised to find out was such a big deal. I’ve conducted some tests with my own game systems here, a Nintendo Switch and a PlayStation 4, and I have this set up quite nicely. I did a few test streams, and the technology is fully in place. I still have some branding and business decisions to make, but I plan to soon start doing regular game streams to see what works and I look forward to your feedback on this.
I may give this a shot tonight, actually. We’ll see how things go, and what you are all in the mood for. I’ll be interested to get your feedback on some strategic ideas I had.
Notably, much of the discussion has revolved around playing popular games. Notably Grand Theft Auto 5, and Red Dead Redemption 2, both of which I have acquired. Something that occurred to me as I was shopping for games is, there are many games available, dirt cheap, in the PlayStation and Nintendo online stores, some of which look pretty cool. These sale items rotate and by spending $1.99 each whenever the sale items change, one can rack up a lengthy collection of titles.
I had a thought that, perhaps by testing these titles out, I might find a niche that would draw in more eyeballs. I recently purchased several such titles, and perhaps I can demo some with you this evening. Though, I suspect, this will be better watched on the streaming player above the chat box, since the video conference does not handle this very well.
Some less glorious items acquired will be no less helpful. I bought some equipment cases and cables. Among my favorites of these were what is called a “Gig bag” marketed largely to DJs, which is designed to keep cables organized when moving about. I also picked up two large 28″ x 17″ x 7″ protective cases. One of which easily stores a mixer, two headphones, two mics, two laptops, two mute switches for the mics, a headphone distribution amplifier, a USB audio interface, and several cables. Basically, all the audio equipment I require for a two person live show.
My drivers license had expired while I lacked internet access. I just got it renewed, since in New Hampshire, if it is expire for more than three years, you have to take your road test again. Running out of time, I ran to the DMV to straighten this out. Next month, I can file a motion with the court to have my supervised release terminated, and given the probation department’s near total lack of interest in me, this seems a thing worth doing. Once I can get back on the road, things will get really interesting.
All that and whatever is on your mind this evening, and every Wednesday, at 9:30pm US Eastern in our Members only live video chat.
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