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Take her to the Book Store!
ok… So, DatingGenius stumbled onto this great new technique for kicking it to geek-chicks! :D (assuming you’d want to do that in the first place)….
This chick was talking about how happy she was that she was on a date, and the guy took her to A BOOK STORE!!! :/ … Now, of course, DatingGenius thought this was a ridiculous as well as RETARDED idea, so I needed to get to the bottom of this…. hmm… does anyone know proper form for referring to one’s self in third person? It seems strange to say “HE needed to get to the bottom of this”… hmm… anyway…
Now, obviously, taking a chick to a book store doesn’t help you to get on, ASAP… which is the entire reason you took her out in the first place. If you didn’t want to tap that, you wouldn’t be on a date with her. You’d be HANGING OUT. So, since she considered herself on a date, the job of the guy was to demonstrate to her WHY she should be his girlfriend/fiancee/wife, whatever he has in mind for her. All he was expressing to her by taking her to the book store was that he DIDN’T intend to hit it anytime soon, and he’d rather read a book then try to get her alone in a bar bathroom with a couch and a lock on the door.
So we got into this conversation, and I can just see the LIGHT in her eyes while she’s talking about being in this book store, and being happy about his choice of books, because if they weren’t into reading the same kinds of things, she wouldn’t have been as interested in him, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah….. So I’m like WTF is she talking about? His choice of books? Do you even know if this guy likes chicks? Do you know if he’s going to tap it proppah? WTF difference does it make WHAT BOOKS HE READS if you’re DATING this guy, trying to find a boyfriend? :/
See, that’s what’s wrong with relationships, and that’s why the cheating and divorce rates are through the roof. People hook up for the most RETARDED reasons! :D … HEY! We like the same books! Let’s go out with each other! OKAYYYY! :D … Next thing you know, they’re calling themselves boyfriend and girlfriend, and he’s trying to screw her five times a week, and she’s trying to screw him five times A MONTH! :O
See the problem there? They didn’t check the IMPORTANT stuff before giving each other meaningless titles. That’s why taking a chick to a book store is RETARDED before hitting it, because it’s a waste of your time. You’re checking to see if y’all can be *FRIENDS*, NOT boyfriend/girlfriend.
However… hehehe Like I said, this chick was going for the okey-doke, so it occurred to DatingGenius that this was a valuable concept that needed to be explored.
As we all know, Chicks give sex to get relationships and guys give relationships to get sex. In the case of GEEK-chicks, though… they’re not thinking about the sex AT.ALL! :D They’re not even planning to barter it to you to get you to call them your girlfriend. See, what you have to remember about the geek chicks is that most of them grew up…… geeks. :D They were NOT the fashion plates. They were NOT the popular girls. They were NOT the pretty girls or the cheerleaders. They were NOT in high demand whatsoever by the male population. Therefore, by the time they get to dating age, they’re not used to being physically touched.
The reason this is important is that when they think about themselves with their hypothetical “boyfriends”, all they’re thinking about is someone to do stuff with. They have no mental concept of actually getting laid, other than by some fluke. They have no intention on “giving it up” on a regular basis, because that’s not their physical experience of life. SO… If you go out on a date, and you suddenly come to the realization that this girl is a geek, switch gears! Go into “fun stuff we can do together when we’re boyfriend/girlfriend” mode.
Take her to the book store.
Go roller blading with her.
Buy her ice cream in Central Park.
Take her to the waterfront in Brooklyn so you can see the Manhattan lights at night…
All that waste-of-time stuff that you wouldn’t actually do with a regular chick… DO IT! :D This way, you endear yourself to her because you socialize in the same way she does. You come off as one of those geek-guys that had the same experience of life that she did. BADA-BING, BADA-BOOM, next thing you know, you’re tapping that, and all is right with the world! :D
DatingGenius
Navigating “The Kid Thing”
If you go out with the same chick for more than one week, the odds begin to increase exponentially that she’ll want to have a kid with you.
Biologically, that’s how women are built. If you consistently hang around them, they start to see you as a viable protector/provider for your pending family.
Meanwhile, the guy’s just happy to have a cute chick to look at and to ‘get on’ whenever he feels like it.
Sooner or later, she’s going to start testing you with questions about the future. SOONER is the time to act, rather than later, once you realize what’s going on. If that whole “family thing” wasn’t in your playbook, and you don’t want to break up with her ASAP and start over with a different chick that doesn’t like you as much (meaning you have more time until “the kid thing” rolls around again), there’s only ONE thing to do…..
…
Buy her a dog. :D
That’s right friends, BUY HER A DOG!!! :D Works every time.
Besides shoes, there are a few things that women *LOVE*. You’ve probably noticed this already in your own relationship. Women love:
A) Attention
B) Feeling like someone needs them
C) Telling people what to do
Once she gets used to fulfilling these three things through YOU, she starts thinking about the next level. Actually… This is why she wants to have a kid with you in the first place… You paid her too much attention, you let her feel like you needed her, and you acted like you were listening when she told you what to do.
So now, she’s asking these LTR / family-oriented questions and you’re like “How the hell did she come up with all this ‘relationship’ stuff? :/” … That’s right… She made it up on her own, with zero prompting or indication from you that you were doing anything but enjoying your time with her.
Lots of guys’ reaction to this is to start acting strange, have WAAAAAAY less sex with this girl in case of an unfortunate mishap, and break up with her as soon as possible for *ANY* reason they can figure out other than “um… I’m not trying to have a kid with you… PEACE! :D”. If you don’t want to go that route, yet have ZERO intentions of having a kid with her… Buy. Her. A. Dog!
You will notice how in society today, women treat dogs like babies.
They carry them around in bags… Yes, women carry babies in bags. You’ve seen those reversed-backpack things they walk around with the kid in.
They keep them on leashes… Yes, women have kids on leashes… go to the mall and check. Extendable too, just like regular dog leashes, except it doesn’t go around the kid’s neck.
They feed them.
They get attention from them.
They tell them what to do.
They feel like the dog needs them. [Interestingly enough, this is a function of the fact that they FEED the dog. The dog needs FOOD, not HER. However, it still fulfills the necessary emotional requirements to deflect her from stopping taking the pill or poking holes in your condom collection that you left in her crib.]
They take the dogs into stores to shop.
They take dogs with them to outdoor cafes and eat lunch together.
They kiss their dogs.
They sleep with their dogs.
Etc, Etc, Etc……
Besides the myriad identical substitution features, she gets to feel like you and she “have something together”. This has the same relationship-maintaining qualities as buying her an engagement ring to deflect her from asking you about getting married, but that’s a different topic. :D She thinks that “buying a dog together” is an indication of commitment / relationship, so roll with it. Meanwhile, as far as I know, dog food costs less than diapers, and if the two of you end up breaking up, you don’t have to pay child support or pay for the dog to go to college.
The other obvious benefit to buying your girlfriend a dog is you don’t have to spin the wheel of fortune wondering what her body’s going to look like after 9 months of stretching and more eating than she *normally* does. Speaking of which… Did you notice how maternity-wear came into style RIGHT AFTER media attention came to how girls were walking around in the streets with “Muffin-Tops”? That would be the amount of flab that hangs out over their belts when they wear jeans that are too small for them and shirts that aren’t long enough to cover that up. Somebody was really smart to start selling pregnancy clothing to girls that aren’t even pregnant. :D
So, yes. Buy her a dog. You get all the same features as a kid (well, minus eventual language ability) with less current expense and ZERO exit expenses like child support or alimony. You maintain your relationship and don’t have to dump an otherwise perfectly good chick. You maintain her figure and therefore your impetus to get physical with her… which was the whole point of having her around in the first place! :D
DatingGenius
Dude… Where’s My Twitter Link?
As I reported back on June 28, 2007, Twitter ‘ruined my life’ [link].
I realize _now_ that there’s something that I left out.
Today, Charles Hope twittered… Yes, “twittered”… There’s no such thing as a “tweet” or else the app would be named “tweeter”…. Anyway… Charles twittered that the “older” link was no longer at the bottom of our Twitter pages. I checked it out, and sure enough, there was no link allowing me to check back past my first page of the most recent posts. I figured that since they’re always doing tests and trying to improve how twitter works, it was a programming error and that it would be quickly replaced. Then, someone mentioned an issue with spam, and that the link was deliberately removed in response to it.
I still wasn’t concerned, because I know that I can type http://twitter.com/home?page=2 directly into my browser to get to the next-most-recent page of posts. No dice. Pages 2, 3, 4 and 5 all returned the exact same Page 1 entries….. MINUS the entries that had fallen off the edge of the flat Earth, because new people had twittered since I had last refreshed. :/
The link removal wouldn’t be a big deal to people following a handful of people, but when you’re following > 230 people, like I am, it’s a major ‘problem’ and jacks a critical amount of functionality that I get out of Twitter. Fortunately, out of the > 240 people following me on these social status-update sites like Twitter and Pownce (and Jaiku? … Haven’t heard from that app in AGES!), Veronica Belmont replied to my status update on Pownce [link], informing me not only that it was a temporary issue, but pointing me to the Twitter blog where Biz Stone had already addressed the issue earlier this morning. Fortunately, she replied on Pownce, because on Twitter, her post would have scrolled off the bottom of my “page 1″ and been (temporarily) lost forever, unless she had added an @BillCammack to it and it would have alighted in my “replies” section. So, thanks to Veronica, this is a different post than it would have been. :)
Photo Credit: Jared Klett
For me, one of the values of Twitter is that you don’t have to pay attention to it and it will save the status updates for you. I’ve gone back as far as 11 pages, which span several hours. That’s normally where you lose the “older” link. This means that when it’s crunch time, and I’m being my most effective and efficient, I can release Twitter from my mind entirely and only get back to it when I have processing cycles for it. Removing the “older” link from the first page means that I have to constantly remember Twitter to check it on the web site or I’d actually have to install a widget which would keep sending me the messages, non-stop, all day, consistently distracting me from what I’m trying to do. Neither option’s optimal.
It’s one of those things that you don’t miss until it’s gone. :) Taking the “older” link from the front page of Twitter turns it into the home page of Facebook. As far as I can tell, there’s no way to increase the number of pages of updates that you can see on Facebook’s home page. They’re not even in chronological order. If they were, you wouldn’t see that an entire stack of your friends just joined a new group… You’d see individual instances with other types of updates in between them. When I get to the bottom of Facebook’s ome page, I invariably wonder what happened BEFORE the edge of the flat Earth that the rest of the updates fell off of. Of course it’s a good ploy to make it so people go to Facebook more often specifically so they DON’T miss the revolving-door updates, but that doesn’t work for me personally, so removal of the “older” link on Twitter is nothing short of a disaster. :)
I just checked my page right now, and there are only 20 twitters on the front (read: ONLY) page. Amongst the > 230 people I’m following, the oldest post is a whopping 22 minutes old. :/ I’ve been writing this post for more than 20 minutes, so there’s an entire ‘generation’ of comments that I’ve entirely missed and will never ever see unless they fix their spam bot issues within the next 8 hours or so.
This isn’t the stock market, so it’s not mission-critical for me to know in real-time what my Twitter friends are doing, thinking or saying. However, I was glad to read in the Twitter blog that the “older” link is going to be reinstated ASAP. Part of my daily productivity is using down-time during rendering, uploading, etc to catch up with what’s been going on in the last couple of hours since I even THOUGHT about Twitter at all. 22 minutes worth of status updates from > 230 people isn’t even a drop in the bucket.
Good thing I checked twitter within 20 minutes of Charles’ post, or I would have been completely in the dark as far as WhereTF my “older” link went! :D
Bill Cammack • New York City • Freelance Video Editor • alum.mit.edu/www/billcammack
Richard’s First Show!!! :D
My cousin Richard did his first Operator11 show today. I think it came out fun and interesting. He was learning the system while the show was already running! :D
If you enjoyed the show, leave Richard a comment on his community.realfans.tv page! :D => [link]
Livecasting
My excellent friend ActionGirl hung out with me today. We did a dual-channel livecast using ustream.tv.
Livecasting, if you’re not familiar, is one of the newest internet fads, but it’s also NOT new. Technology has advanced to the point that the average joe has the ability to broadcast his or her life effortlessly and without cost (except for the obvious costs of computer, webcam, broadband connection, etc).
Similar to quasi-scripted MSM shows like MTV’s “The Real World”, people now have the ability to leave a camera running and pointed at them as they go about their daily business. Some people livecast from work. Some people livecast from home. Some people livecast on the move with EV-DO modem cards and laptops, like Sarah and Lisa do on justin.tv.
I became intersted in livecasting after watching Drew Olanoff’s feed from PodCamp Philly. It was fun watching Drew roam the hallways and run into conference attendees and presenters. There was something cool about interacting with this live show that was going on, NOW. :) It was different because you could actually affect the course of the show, assuming the host was monitoring the text chat room. It was different because you could call your friends that you saw in the background and have them come over and talk to you on camera. It was cool because you were receiving information RIGHT NOW, just like everyone that was actually in Philadelphia for the conference.
So I wanted to check it out, and ActionGirl was down to experiment with me….. um…. was down to join me in my livecasting experiment. :)
We started out outdoors, utilizing free WiFi in the area. We were streaming about one frame per five seconds. Our video was choppy and our audio wasn’t much better. Some glitch occurred where ActionGirl had bars of wireless signal, yet was unable to connect to the internet at all. Strange. Next, I tried receiving signal via my EV-DO modem card and sharing my internet connection with ActionGirl via airport. That was really slow, but I’ve never tried that before, and I think it was due to my card not connecting properly. I didn’t have this diagnostics entry in my taskbar that I should have had, so I don’t figure the card was functioning optimally at that point.
We retired indoors and used WiFi connections to stream from each of our macbooks. Connection was quick, and I was able to embed both of our streams plus a text chat on one page and run that from my site. I later added our friend Chris’ stream, so we had three simultaneous live streams on the page.
Livecasting is tough to do properly, IMO, without monitoring your chat room(s). I suppose there IS no ‘proper’ way to livecast, since it’s really “anything goes”, but in order to interact with your audience, you have to read what they’re typing to you. If you’re not planning to interact with them, clearly, you don’t have to bother with that. I found myself responding late to comments because while we were saying something, the text chat was scrolling up and I’d have to read up to notice what people said minutes before.
I think the audience is as important as the host… Meaning that if you have the right audience, even if that’s ‘only’ one or two people who actually know you or are genuinely interested in what you do, livecasting can be a fun and rewarding experience. The best times today were when our friends were on, even just for a few minutes, and we got to interact with them and answer their questions. OTOH, when the audience isn’t prime, it’s tough, if not impossible to get revved up to deliver your best ‘performance’.
For me, *teamwork* is key. I’m not interested in doing my own solo livecast. If I know I’m going to be around interesting people or at an event that would be of interest to people I know, then I’m glad to broadcast it. It also helps if you actually like and enjoy the person you’re livecasting with so you know that even if NOBODY shows up, you’re going to have a good time that day. :)
Eventually, we called it a night. I felt pretty exhausted by then, actually. When we shut our feeds down, it actually felt strange to me to NOT be on camera. Once we came inside, we were on from around 6pm to 9pm, and even that felt like an eternity. I’m not sure how (or why) people do that during their every waking hour. I guess you have to be the type of person that enjoys random people interacting with you. I suppose some people do it for the fame or notoriety.
I don’t know that there’s going to be a way to monetize lifecasting. I experimented with product placement, including beverages and t-shirts. It’s tough to do well, live, trying to get products in front of a tiny webcam lens in the optimal size, focus and location. Still… A lot of people like to broadcast their lives, and a lot of people like to watch those broadcasts, so we’ll see where this fad takes us next. :)
Bill Cammack • New York City • Freelance Video Editor • alum.mit.edu/www/billcammack
Gratitude
I’m sitting here right now, in Manhattan, in my house, able to type this on my computer right now because of the dedication of my friend, homie, brother, etc… Lou.
We went for a ride this morning, and the mechanic had assured me a couple of weeks ago that they checked out the electronics on my old-ass 1993 GSXR sportbike. I don’t doubt that they did. I think today was a NEW problem. It was so hot today, and my engine was running so hot, I’m pretty sure it burned through my cable leading to my ignition fuse. When I took the tank off so I could check my cables, they were different from when I had sent them to the mechanic, so I’m sure they did SOMETHING, and I don’t doubt it was proper. However, the location of my wires is conducive to them getting burnt and essentially “shorting out”.
I had had this happen quite a while ago, and my good friend MK got me out of that jam. This time Lou made it happen, and I just plain wouldn’t be here right now if it weren’t for Lou helping me out. I’d still be in Chester, NY, or wherever we were when my bike shut off.
I had offered to Lou to continue on his trip and just pass back that way when he was done. I didn’t want to ruin his day, but he wouldn’t break out. I was really more upset that I had messed up his plans for the day than that I was stranded out in the sticks without enough bike-mechanic knowledge to get ANYWHERE NEAR my house, where I am right now.
Eventually, we got back on the road and came back home. Thanks, Lou.
……….
There really isn’t any more to say, but it’s still not enough. I’ve had people go the “well, I’ve done all I can for ya… now I have to go” route under similar circumstances, and it doesn’t feel good. That’s an incredible understatement. Similarly, “Thanks, Lou” doesn’t even begin to amount to anything near how appreciative I am that he stuck with me and helped me out of that situation. Not that I *EXPECTED* any less of him, because I met Lou more than half my life ago… But, it’s still nice to receive that gift of friendship…. of dedication. While I wasn’t thinking properly and couldn’t bring myself to find the proper solution, either because I was so upset or because I just didn’t possess the technical, mechanical knowledge to get myself out of that situation, Lou was on-point, and I’m getting to type this right now because of him. :D
I didn’t realize how blessed I was when I first got my bike a few years ago…. I mean, I did, but I never documented it. Another life-long friend, Jay, walked me through learning to ride and then rode with me for VERY VERY MANY of the 20,000-plus miles I put on my bike in two years. Fortunately for Jay, he met the woman of his dreams and got married! :D I hadn’t realized how much of what I considered to be fun in “riding” was actually the fun of “riding WITH Jay”. On top of that, I hadn’t realized how much I was ‘dependent’ on Jay’s technical knowledge of biking. I was *N.E.V.E.R*, *EVER*, ONCE… NEVER worried that I wasn’t going to make it home tonight if I went riding with Jay. NEVER. I knew that Jay took bikes (and cars) apart and put them back together again. This was in the back of my mind… along with his dedication to me as a friend, and my dedication to him. Again, though it doesn’t come close to expressing my heartfelt gratitude… Thanks, Jay. :D
Going riding is like going campaigning or going to war. You go out with a certain number of guys/gals, and you return with that same number. Similar to what’s said about war… It’s EXTREMELY IMPORTANT to trust whomever’s next to you in the bunker. That BELIEF carries you to your greatest potential in riding. This guy Todd went off what I consider to be a short cliff one time when we went on a group ride. We went back to find him and five of us literally LIFTED his bike out of the woods he fell into, maybe 30 feet below. His front rim was jacked, so I suggested that someone remove his front brakes, and he was able to ride with us all the way back to NYC, and to his home in either Queens or Long Island. The point is that we were going to FIGURE OUT how to get him home and get his bike squared away. PERIOD. Even though that was my first time meeting him, he was rolling with US, so MY goal was to get him home. PERIOD. That was the goal of the others too, and we made it happen, hoisting his bike with one hand each and grabbing onto trees with our other hands while digging our boots in to the soft dirt of the ledge we were climbing with Todd’s bike in tow. Todd got home. Mission accomplished.
There are some who will read this and discount my claim that riding is like going to war because nobody’s shooting at us. Well… When you go riding, you’re not SURE you’re going to make it back. I’m NEVER sure I’m going to make it back when I go performance-riding. Anything can happen, from mechanical failure to someone running you off the road to oil slicks or construction to someone rear-ending you. I always thank God when I make it back, because I know I didn’t have to. There are quite a few riding deaths every year. One of them was my friend “Avo”. I didn’t know him for a long time, relative to many other riders, but he was a great guy and a solid rider. When Avo died on the West Side Highway, that was REALLY the first time that I honestly felt like “if it happened to him, it could happen to me”.
Anyway… I wanted to get this stuff down while I’m still feeling the immense *GRATITUDE* to Lou for sticking with me and changing his plan for the day from “having a good time” to “getting Bill back home”. I realize this is all my fault, and even though I completely LOVE my bike, I may very well need to sell it, because I’ve allowed it to become unreliable. It’s my fault that the bike’s unreliable. I bought it @ 22,000 miles and put another 20,000 on it in the span of two years. I allowed the ignition electronics to get jacked up. Nobody else. I’m either going to commit to getting it fixed PROPERLY or selling it and getting another bike. I’ve had enough of people saving me from the DEPRESSION of being WAY out of town with NO WAY to get home. :(
The bottom line is that riding isn’t about the bike you’re on… It’s about the people you share your experiences with.
Beleedat! :D
–
billcammack
Pretty Girls – Too Unapproachable?
Hey Derek. Thanks for the question! :D
Yes. There’s double truth in your statement. Pretty girls are perceived to be unapproachable, AND there are lots of pretty girls without men because of this issue.
See, first of all, girls are girls. :D When you live somewhere like Japan, there isn’t much difference between the girls, so they all have a chance to get guys. This leads to them being more approachable because they don’t develop a perceived superiority to the other girls.
In the USA, there’s a VAST DIFFERENCE between the looks of the girls. :D There are a few that are really attractive and a lot that are just totally busted. :D What happens here is that all the guys chase after the attractive girls and give them anything they want. This goes to the attractive girls’ heads, and they get this inflated sense of self-worth…. Until they hit 19 and their bodies stop maintaining themselves on their own. When this happens, if they don’t start working out, they get out of shape and become has-beens. :) This is when you see the zombie-like girls that you can tell used to be fine, but now they stumble around town opening their own doors and not having anyone rap to them in the streets or try to pay for them to eat or buy clothes. :D They are now experiencing what life is like for most of the population, and it’s pretty depressing for them.
Until that happens, though… They’re held up as the best of the best of American society. There’s nothing better than a fine chick, so they get everything they want and everyone listens to them and wants to be their friends. Because of this, MANY fine girls get conceited. They act bitchy towards people because they know they can get away with it. This has the effect of giving fine girls a bad name. People think they’re ALL stuck up because of the ones that can’t be gracious about their God-given good looks, which are actually the luck of the draw and have nothing to do with their own actual worth, but instead is a function of their parent’s genes.
So… Guys go out to parties and meet stuck up attractive girls and get tired of getting shot down so they stop approaching fine chicks. They start sticking to the more humble, more personally attractive and still decent-looking girls. This is why you see more girls in this range married. The guys looking to get married are tired of the incessant demands of hot chicks, so when it’s time to get married, they choose someone more ‘Down To Earth’.
Reader Derek writes:
Bill,
I hear that many a pretty girl are without men because they are perceived to be unapproachable. Any truth in that statement?
This is why a lot of pretty girls are without men, as you mentioned. Because they’ve been given a bad rap, everybody wants to hook up with them but nobody wants to keep them. Even if they have the sweetest personality, the guys that would be good for them are tired of dealing with women that attractive, so they have to go without. The only guys willing to kick it to them are players who know what they’re doing and enjoy the challenge. The problem with that is that these guys come in loaded for bear, and the hot chicks end up getting used and dumped.
So… What does this mean for attractive women? Y’all need to showcase your personalities AS.MUCH.AS.POSSIBLE! :D Let the guys know that you’re willing to hear what they have to say, and they’ll let down that shield that they built up from being rejected so many times by the upper echelon of American females. The best bet for very attractive women is to be friendly… not to EVERYBODY, but to the guys that you’d like to talk to you because they’re scared to death that you’re going to be some crabby bitch and they’re looking right past YOU at your not-as-attractive homegirl, because they figure she’ll be more friendly and likely to be good relationship material.
As for the guys… You have to realize that attractive women get a lot of stuff, but they’re also getting played left and right. Sooner or later, they get tired of that and want a “good man” to spend time with that actually likes them for who they are and not just because of their fantastic looks. Pick yourselves up after the thousandth rejection and don’t get jaded towards attractive women. Give them a chance to give YOU a chance and see where it goes from there.
Interview with Eric Rochow of Gardenfork.tv
This week, I had the pleasure of interviewing Eric Rochow, the creator and producer of Gardenfork.tv, his “internet show” or “videoblog”.
What is Gardenfork?
Gardenfork is an internet video show – iTunes video podcast about cooking, gardening, and other stuff. Other stuff can include car repair, or how to drop tree with a chainsaw. Its very eclectic; for example I’ve been doing a series of shows on BBQ, stopping at places whenever I can and interviewing BBQ experts, but then I’m also working on a show about how to repair cracks in your basement walls.
You can watch the show on our website: http://gardenfork.tv or subcribe to it through our page on iTunes.
Why do you do your show?
I’ve always been one of those people who wants to tell people about a neat thing I’ve learned, an interesting fact, a cool gizmo I just read about. This stuff swirls in my head and I’m just driven to want to share what I’ve discovered. Gardenfork is a great outlet for this desire to share information that our viewers, for some reason, like to watch.
And, its just a total blast to do. The viewer feedback is just amazing, and almost instant. Once we post a new episode, we start getting viewers emailing us with comments. The connection I have with the viewers is something you can’t buy.
Here’s a review on viewer posted on the gardenfork page on iTunes:
“Eric Rochow is not a self-promoting, self-congratulatory, larger-than-life celebrity chef. He’s the average guy doing an exceptionally good job putting together a podcast that entertains, informs, and encourages.
From the homey feel of his kitchen to the cutaways to watch the dog chew up a stick or yawn to the occasional multiple retakes as he flubs his lines, you can’t help but to love the show. Eric doesn’t pretend to be anything he isn’t and that is a breath of fresh air in today’s world of highly processed entertainment”
I think what appeals to people is that while I can talk in ‘Web 2.0 speak’ with the best of them, I can also talk about the benefits of a big block Chevy, ( FYI: that’s a specific type of engine produced by GM with dual quad carbs ) or how to keep flea beetles off your lettuce.
“Down to earth” is a phrase I’ve heard a lot when people describe the show. Its me doing a project, and that project may or may not come out they way I intended. I leave in the mistakes, because we’re all human, we make mistakes every day.
How did you get started doing Gardenfork?
I’ve worked in creative fields all my life: video, film, photography, design; and I had pitched several cooking-gardening shows to the lifestyle cable channels. The show ideas were always well received, but because no well known personality was attached to the shows, they weren’t picked up.
Last year I was on the web and ran across a video blog, crashtestkitchen, and the lightbulb went off in my head – I could produce and distribute my own cooking-gardening show – and I didn’t need the cable networks to do it.
Then we had our friends over for dinner one night, and I handed my friend Bill my video camera and said, “We’re shooting a cooking show tonight”. I made puttanesca, which is a favorite of mine, we had fun doing it, and that energy came through on the video. I had forgotten to turn on all the lights in the kitchen, so the video is pretty dark, so I called that episode “Puttanesca In The Dark with Bill”
How do you choose what to videoblog about?
Basically, whatever I’m doing on the weekend, I try to make a show about it. Last weekend I made Rhubarb Jam and tried my hand at canning, so we shot that. It was great. Sometimes I plan ahead, sometimes its just whatever project needs doing that weekend. Now we get viewer mail asking for shows on specific topics, like building a grape arbor, so I’ll do that as well.
I have to replace the clutch in my truck soon, so that will be the subject of a two part show. You can’t show how to change out a clutch in 8 minutes.
What’s your background? How do you know how to do all this stuff? :)
My parents are born and bred New Yorkers, my grandfather was a buliding super in the Bronx, but I grew up mainly in Wisconsin. We did a lot of hiking, fishing, hunting. When something broke, we didn’t call the repairman, we figured out how to fix it.
When I was 14, my father bought my brother and I a 1949 Ford Pickup. It was in pieces. We learned about cars by putting one back together. At the same time I started gardening, and when I moved back to NY, I started cooking.
I now divide my time between Northwest Connecticut and New York City, both of which are fertile ground for many episodes of gardenfork.
Is producing Gardenfork.tv paying your bills?
Not yet, but in the future that is a very real possibility. More and more advertisers are moving to the web, and gardenfork viewers are a niche audience that certain advertisers very much want to connect with. The advertising wont be obtrusive, it will be along the lines of how PBS thanks its sponsors, with short pre-roll and post-roll clips.
In the very near future, your TV and your computer will be one appliance, its the ‘convergence’ everyone has been talking about, its finally happening. Gardenfork is part of this convergence of traditional TV and the Web. I wear the “media disruptor” label proudly.
Gardenfork has also helped me in business, as my multimedia company, choplogic, is now helping corporations create their own internal and external video blogs, text blogs, and community sites. My wife calls me “Husband 2.0″
Going forward, we are also in pre-production on a new internet video show, Real World Green http://realworldgreen.com, which is about practical things you can do to lower your impact on the earth. The goal is to appeal to viewers who may not relate to the current crop of ‘green’ programming that’s out there, our emphasis is on practical; less talk, more about things you can do.
Thanks Eric, and good luck with Gardenfork / RealWorldGreen! :D
Bill Cammack • New York City • Freelance Video Editor • alum.mit.edu/www/billcammack
Ladies, There’s Nothing Wrong With Aggressiveness!!!
Reader “Justice” writes:
Ladies I have to be completely honest with you. I’m sure some of you understand and know what I’m about to say. But, I’m going to put it out there anyway.I know a lot of you still think that you are somewhat old fashion. But come on! In this day and age how many of you are really old fashion? OK, do you know what I’m getting at yet? Alright, here is my point.
Last night I was at a bar with some friends just having a good time and chilling at our table. I was admiring and checking out the woman and yes, believe it or not, there were a decent amount of good looking women in this place. I will be going back there! But back to the discussion. While I was sitting there having a good time with my friends a pretty young lady comes up to our table and just starts up a convo and asks me to dance. I gladly accepted. We danced and had fun and that was it. No dirty dancing or talking shit to each other. She said she loved to dance and I told her if she wanted to dance again she knew where I was sitting. Well about 15 minutes later she came back for another dance. We danced two songs and then she went back to her friends and I went back to mine. We didn’t talk for the rest of the evening. At the end of the night as I made my last pit stop I stopped to say goodbye and that it was nice to meet her. She proceeded to ask if I came here much and would I be coming back. I told her it was my first time there but I think I will come back. She told me, point blank, that she liked to dance and would love to go out dancing with me sometime. I said that would be great and she said, “Here, let me give you my number.” I took her number and we took a picture together, set up a date for next week and said our goodbyes. All in all a very good night.
Now, let me stress the point here that this was not some slutty, ugly, crazy ass girl. She was very pretty, well dressed, well spoken and very sweet. OK, Ladies do you know what I am about to say?
The actions that this girl took last night made my week!!!! She knew what she wanted and took the initiative to make it known. I didn’t ask her for her number, ask her to go out, approach her or anything like that. There were no games! I HATE GAMES!!!!! Ladies, it is ok to be agressive sometimes. Don’t make us guys have to make that move all the time. You know why? Because in those kinds of games you could be losing out on something very good! In my case, I am a shy man. Don’t get me wrong, once the initial contact is made and the convo gets started I’m fine. My weakness is that I am shy about approaching and starting that convo with a lady that catches my eye. Unfortunately, some woman say that I seem kind of unapproachable at times. I don’t understand that because I’m about the friendliest person you will ever meet. But, my shyness does inhibit me a little.
Look, I don’t know where this chance meeting from last night will go. But, I can tell you that I have the utmost respect for this woman for making that move. So, ladies, drop the act that you are too good to make that move. If you like a guy and you want to meet him… don’t stand there and act like you are too good to strike up a conversation. If you do you may miss out on a really good guy. Here is a hint for you. You may like bad boys, but you will almost always regret getting involved with one. Most of the good guys are too shy to just walk up to you and start talking shit. In my case I’m a good guy but I can also be a very bad boy once you break me out of that shell.
So once again I say be aggressive and take a chance ladies! Chances are you won’t regret it!
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