Well, dear readers, let’s begin with the most important news: the Blu-ray check disc arrived at the home environment. I had about two-and-a-half hours until I had to leave for dinner, so in that two-and-a-half hours I watched Tonight’s the Night, Revenge, and the first episode of Outside the Box. The good news is that it all looked great. The compression is first-rate throughout. I hadn’t seen either Tonight’s the Night or Revenge since they aired, and I was so proud of each of them – they’re really well done, and I think are completely successful in realizing what we attempted to do. You know what’s funny, though? If you read any of the Facebook musical theater group posts, they’re always saying, “Where are the new musicals?” Well, you give them one and they don’t care. They can’t even be bothered to even read about it. They couldn’t even be bothered to watch it when it was free. But some community theater crap production of a show, that they’ll post about. It’s not like Eric Petersen is unknown to Broadway folks and frankly it’s not like I’m unknown to them. But they can’t and won’t be bothered. It’s something I will never understand. The one episode of Outside the Box, which I really haven’t seen for eight years now, made me laugh out loud, mostly because Beth Leavel is a brilliant comic actor. After dinner, I watched the rest of the Outside the Box episodes, which was fun – a few of them really are kind of classic. Then I listened to the commentary track for Tonight’s the Night and that came out pretty well, I thought. I also watched all the short bits – Dirty Harry Strikes Back, the movie marathon trailer, the uncut Psycho songs, and whatever else there was. So, that leaves only the commentaries on Outside the Box to listen to and that I’ll do today. My notes were pretty simple and there won’t be any more if the commentary stuff on Outside the Box is fine. The song that plays over the menu is a good volume, but the sound on the videos, all of them, is quite a bit lower so I had to really crank the receiver to match the volume. Can’t have that, so I told them that the videos should match the menu volume level. So, that’s the main thing. The other thing may just be a player issue with the Oppo coming into each video a beat late, so you miss the first note or two of music. I’ve asked him to make sure those are all clean on whatever players they’re using. I’ve already sent those notes in. I’m sure we’ll have to do another check disc but I won’t need to watch it all, just check the volume level. In fact, I may have them do a test with just the menu level and then the first five minutes of Tonight’s the Night, just in case it isn’t quite right. That way, they don’t do the whole thing – if it’s right, then they can just proceed apace or apace proceed.
Yesterday wasn’t so bad – just a bit stressful, but we should have the last two releases today if the helper gets over there to pick them up, so those will ship and we’re still within the official ship date week. And the next release’s stuff is all coming to me this week and I know that one will actually sell really well. I wish the Blu-ray were selling well, but I knew it would be a slog. I’m going to try and have it reviewed on a few Blu-ray sites, and when it’s up at Amazon maybe we can get some of you to review it. I got eight hours of sleep, I answered e-mails, I did some stuff on the computer, and best of all I finally got the one video we’ve been waiting on, so that’s everything and we can begin getting the Kritzerland show ready – don’t forget, it’s this coming Sunday. We do hope all you dear readers will be with us – it’s going to be really fun and it would be great to have a full house with lots of comments for what will be the last of our online shows. And we’ll have a Zoom cast partay afterwards, where you’ll be able to meet all the singers. I’ll have that link closer to show day. The check disc arrived, and you know how that went.
Then I had dinner at the Smokehouse again, with Marshall Harvey. Their Monday special is prime rib, so we both had that, and it was very good. I did without the Caesar salad, so just the meat and veggies – very Keto and calorie-friendly. Well, I did cheat just a bit – Marshall ordered the half order of garlic cheese bread. I looked up the carb count for one piece of garlic bread and it was a rather shocking 25 carbs. So, what I did was I only ate the top of the bread, which is mostly the cheese part – so just that and about half the bread, so 12 carbs was just fine. And boy was it good. We had nice yakking, and then I stopped at the mail place and picked up a couple of tiny packages, then came right home. Then I did the check disc thing and then went to Ralph’s. I got more Sparkling Ice drinks and a few other things, then came home. I knew I needed an evening snack, so I had this zero net carb pizza crust thing. I cut it in half so that it was only 180 calories, I put on a bit of Prego pizza sauce, which is fairly low-calorie, some mozzarella cheese and four slices of pepperoni, then I put the whole contraption in the oven, let it cook for about fifteen minutes. It looked like all the cheese had melted nicely with the sauce so I thought it would be fine. It really needed another ten minutes, but I’d already cut it up, so I just ate it. The dough was a bit rubbery, which it wouldn’t have been had I cooked it longer, but it tasted surprisingly good even undercooked a bit. Since I have the other half, I can cook that half a bit longer. The rest you know. And now I’m listening to Previn and Perlman do the Goldmark violin concerto, which I’m enjoying, and which is new to me.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll do whatever needs doing, I’ll listen to the twelve Outside the Box commentaries and hopefully those will all be fine, and I’ll have no further notes – I also have to check all the text to make sure that’s all correct. Once I’m done with that, then I can start gathering together all the Indiegogo stuff. I do know the helper shipped either all or most of the books yesterday, so hopefully those will arrive soon – they’re all coming via priority mail. I’ll hopefully pick up some packages, and I’m expecting eight meals from a meal delivery company called Factor. They were having a big sale so I thought it might not hurt to try it, since it’s only seven bucks a meal – I got eight. This is a Keto-friendly service, so we’ll see how they are. I’d only do it occasionally, but at seven bucks a meal it’s a lot cheaper than what I’ve been doing. Then at some point, I’ll watch, listen, and relax.
The rest of the week is Indiegogo stuff, shipping the last two titles, getting the Kritzerland show ready, and doing whatever else needs doing.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up when I’m up, do whatever needs doing, listen to the rest of the commentaries, check the text on the various menus, get the Indiegogo stuff together and ready for the helper, hopefully pick up packages, eat a Factor meal or two, then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite kinds of pizza pies and toppings? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have gotten the check disc.