DR Live Webcast & Changes to the DR Streaming Radio
Kids, this is going to have to count for your update for today. I am, at the moment, sulking and not ashamed to admit it - and since today’s a day off of work, I’m going to take advantage of it despite my sentiment towards the holiday. Not in the way I’d hoped - which is why I’m sulking - but if I can’t at least get a little tipsy and relax (thanks to cheap, flimsy plastic bags, a broken bottle of merlot, 12a alcohol sale cutoff times, and an absolutely disgusted mood that guarantees I won’t be venturing back out at 7a to buy another), I’ll compensate by being a lazy bum about writing anything of substance. You may want to read through this anyway, as I’ll need your feedback on something.
Changes to the DR Streaming Radio
It may or may not be live by the time you read this (that sidebar box only updates changes once every four hours), but I’ve replaced the streaming radio that was coming from my hard drive via a Microsoft Media Server stream and playing by a buggy WMP plugin. Instead I’ve loaded the files as separate MP3s into a Flash player called JW Player, which everyone should be able to use. If that slow-as-molasses sidebar still hasn’t updated yet, you can try it out below:
It doesn’t autostart (my preference) and streams everything from my personal domain, putting less strain on my laptop’s CPU. (It also avoids giving my ISP a heart attack over a streaming upload of 403MB of uncompressed media cycling 24/7, but I’m sure my web host will compensate by popping a blood vessel or two over bandwidth usage.)
It’s much nicer to use and look at, lets you switch between tracks, shuffles on default but lists alphabetically to make it easy to scroll to your favorite tracks, and organizes the track info in a painstakingly compiled playlist (that I probably made a typo on somewhere, knowing me). Since it’s Flash, it should work in pretty much any browser on any OS.
I had a reason for screwing with the live media broadcast, though, and that little WMP plugin isn’t gone for good.
Darkside Rainbow Live Interactive Webcast
You read that right, a live interactive webcast. That’s why I was experimenting with MMS streams coming live from my computer, and with Windows Media Encoder. One evening in December - I haven’t decided which yet, depends on the feedback I get from you guys - I’ll be hosting a live, one-hour radio talk show. You’ll be able to tune in via your web browser and the WMP plugin (by the way, I figured out why it wasn’t working in IE, so that will be less of a problem) or your default streaming media player; there’ll also be a live chat room that you can join to talk to others listening to the webcast and talk to me while I’m on-air. If you miss the webcast or it doesn’t work in your browser or OS, I’ll be posting an MP3 recording of it after the fact along with a transcript from the chat room.
Those of you who’ve known me for a while know that every once in a while I’d post pre-recorded rants to the old site. This…this is going to be very different, and possibly very awkward and embarrassing, but I’m game to give it a shot at least once to see how it works out. On the recordings I could work out what I wanted to say ahead of time, read it off, practice, and re-record if I flubbed. Live and responding on the fly to the chat room…oh, man. That has the potential for hilarious disaster. It might be worth it to tune in just to listen to me fall flat on my face. Some days I sound like a Oxford scholar, and some days I’m so amazingly inarticulate that I can’t even pronounce my own name.
…and some days I can say “low-density polyethylene compound” or “deoxyribonucleic acid” at top speed without missing a beat, but will get tongue-tied on “hello”.
Let me know if you’d be interested in listening in, and if you have any ideas for anything you want to hear me rant about, as right now I have no idea what I’ll talk about for an hour…though in the interests of staying on-topic, it really ought to be GBLTQ-related, hm? I can also do Q/A sessions on the webcast, or answer Ask Adri questions, so e-mail those in or send ‘em using the contact form if you want to get yours answered on air. Try to keep them brief, though, so I’m not spending twenty minutes just reading your letter out loud. Hell, if you want me to do shoutouts to your friends or something like that, I won’t mind.
If you want to tell me around what times would be best for you (and your local time zone), that’ll help me determine a date and hour to do this, as well. If I can nerve myself to. I get the feeling this is a catastrophe waiting to happen - but at least if I go down, I’ll go down flaming proudly (no pun intended).
And hey, if it turns out all right and moves smoothly, we might make a weekly or monthly thing out of it. Why the hell not.
I’m out of here, now. Happy…that day. Yeah, that day.
Seriously, though, I hope you’re all enjoying yourselves. Ciao, until tomorrow. I and my lack of wine are going to go sulk with a new DVD.
~Adri
darkside rainbow streaming radio, darkside rainbow live webcast, thanksgiving, f***ing cheap plastic bags, ask adri, gay advice column
November 22nd, 2007 at 4:55 am
Which DVD?
I would looooove it if you did that =D If it’s at a feasible hour I’ll make sure to be there! My timezone is CET/GMT+1 and it’s wintertime. I don’t mind getting up early for this, but anything later than 1 in the morning is likely to kill me 8D
I’m so excited!
Happy Turkey Day to those who have turkey today. With us, that’s a christmas thing.
November 22nd, 2007 at 6:57 am
Oooh, now everything flickers as I scroll down the site. I’m in IE, and this little bar keeps popping open at the top of my screen now, telling me that this website now wants to run an add-on called “Windows Media Player Extension.” My online banking site likes to ask if I want an update of “Quick Time from Apple Computers,” so the quizzy-bar isn’t a problem.
I could really do without that flickering though. It gives me a headache.
November 22nd, 2007 at 8:24 am
The site and player are working fine via my Mac OS and Safari. I’d definitely be interested in the live chat, although being sick right now with no idea when exactly it’ll clear up, I’m not sure if I’d be able to be around for it. If I’m able to be, I’ll definitely drop by.
If you were, I don’t know, in the same time zone or something, I’d be happy to supply you with a replacement bottle of merlot. In the “discreet” brown paper bag and all.
I hope you enjoy the day off even without the pleasure of the merlot.
November 22nd, 2007 at 8:46 am
That is definitely a cool idea! For me there is no such thing as a reasonable hour (university has screwed up with my biological clock more than your average bear..)
and not to worry, the Art of Moping happens to everyone!
(Dir En Grey is made of awesome…I almost saw them in concert last year when they came to Canada, though I would definitely have to say I like their mellow stuff more than scream-o. Hotarubi, Zakuro and The Final are my relaxing songs ^^
Peace, love and chocolate chip cookie dough!
November 22nd, 2007 at 9:15 am
The new player works perfectly for me.
I don’t know any of those songs o_O
November 22nd, 2007 at 1:04 pm
Sihaya: The DVD’s the third X-Men movie. I didn’t waste the money to see it in theatres after all the bad reviews, but since it was on sale for $9.95 I figured what the hell, I’ll see how Hollywood raped my childhood. …plus I really wanted to see the “I’m the Juggernaut!” scene everyone talks about.
Amy: You were seeing that because, as the post says, the WMP plugin was still active in the sidebar when you loaded the page because the sidebar takes quite a while to actually reflect any changes that I make on the back end. That wasn’t permanent. The sidebar’s updated and the Flash player is working now.
Michelle: Thanks for the sentiment, at least. I wouldn’t even care about the brown paper bag; I’d take any bag that wouldn’t break when I was twenty yards from home and send my merlot shattering all over the sidewalk.
I really hope you feel better, hon.
Lala: I don’t enjoy Dir en Grey as much as I did when I had my college crush on Kaoru, but they’re still pretty cool. The songs where Shinya drums like a wind-up monkey on crack and everything’s a bunch of jangling discordance bug me, but their later work is definitely quite good. There’s one song I really like, Mushi, but I can’t seem to find it on my hard drive and my CDs are buried waaaaaay in the back of my closet behind some disassembled furniture. Yurameki’s another personal favorite, though, and Mazohyst of Decadence. I left the latter off the list because it’s kind of “wtf” to most people. (It’s also the only song my tone-deaf butt can sing with any accuracy. This makes no sense, because Kyo’s all over the charts on that one.)
November 22nd, 2007 at 1:05 pm
If I ever needed more proof that listening to Utada and Naime Amuro turned me gay … just kidding.
Good luck with the live web chat. Hope you didn’t stay up too late (knowing full well the hypocrisy, heightened by the fact I just woke up).
November 22nd, 2007 at 1:07 pm
…so did I. ~facepalms~
November 22nd, 2007 at 1:18 pm
Hey, I had massive blood loss as an excuse …
November 22nd, 2007 at 1:28 pm
I had…um…er…
…oh, shaddup.
November 22nd, 2007 at 3:16 pm
Heh, I know absolutly none of those songs. Which is pretty unusual. Oh no, I lie, I’ve heard one of the Dir en Grey ones before. What’s wrong with screamo?
I think that’s an awesome idea, but if it’s when I’m in school I’ll have to sit in lessons with my laptop and headphones, and what will I say when someone asks what I’m doing?
November 22nd, 2007 at 4:23 pm
I’m really enjoying the streaming music. I’ve heard of a lot of the artists, but haven’t heard many of the songs, and it’s very effective for writing (or editing, which is a task that’s so much more prone to distraction).
I am also keen on the webcast idea.
November 22nd, 2007 at 4:30 pm
Shirvona: I’m not sure what time zone you’re in, but the webcast will definitely be after 7p US central standard time (it’s currently 3:30p US CST, for a frame of reference), as I can’t get free from my other jobs until after that time.
Rina: Funny you should say that, as I’m using it as a backdrop for writing right now and many of those songs are culled from my personal “writing mood music” playlist.
November 22nd, 2007 at 5:11 pm
That is soooo awesome! I have a “Writing Mood Music” Playlist too! It ranges from classical music to rock, with Fijian, Spanish and Arabic music in between. ^^
Peace, love and chocolate chip cookie dough!
November 23rd, 2007 at 12:15 am
You put Dir en Grey & Schwein on the playlist! I Love You! Platonically that is for the music xD
December 14th, 2007 at 10:06 am
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