State of the channel update (Patreon)

A lot of creators have a general purpose update every month; I don't feel like that makes sense for me, but once in a while I feel like I should just let you all know what's going on.

The studio is finally tolerable again. I've shot two videos in... moderate heat. Unfortunately, for complicated reasons, I can't release either of them.

I actually shot one of them well over a month ago. It's a thorough investigation of the Microsoft Response Point PBX; I've had that "in the can" for so long that I can't actually remember when I shot it, but due to feeling extremely miserable about it, partly due to the studio STILL being sweltering hot and partly due to my finding nothing to sink my teeth into narratively, I can't get myself to finish editing it. I roughcut it like eight weeks ago, maybe longer, but every time I look at it I just think "This is the most boring video anyone has made in the history of youtube, you couldn't pay me to watch this, why would anyone else" and my enthusiasm turns to ash. So that's still sitting on some SSDs.

A couple weeks ago, I went in and shot a video about the Abit BP6. Except... it wasn't really about the BP6, it was about the Pentium II, and the first Celeron, and the incredible weirdness of Intel's late 90s business practices, and how that culminated into the BP6... but not in that order. Not... not really in any order. It ended up being 1:45:00, and did neither subject justice. I decided that it made more sense to release the video as two parts, so I cut out the back half, planning to release just the part about the BP6 on its own.

Shortly thereafter, i decided that the entire back half needed to be scrapped and reshot, that I had rushed it too much, cut too many corners.

Shortly thereafter, I decided that the entire front half needed to be scrapped and reshot, that I had rushed it too much, cut too many corners.

The story is intertwined, don't get me wrong; but what I should have done is made two completely independent videos; the lesson I should have learned from the Niveus series, is that even if I'm talking about two things that are joined by a common underlying phenomenon, if I attempt to merge them into a single narrative and tell the whole story in one breath, I will constantly trip myself up, telling myself "no no, don't spend too much time on that, it's just setup so we can get to the Real Story." In the end, neither story ends up being Real.

And so, here I am, months out from my last studio production, still putting out these bench videos. Let me tell you, the shine has worn off, and the public response seems to reflect that. I know my fans like em, but nobody else does (the view counts are pitiful) and frankly this just isn't what I got in this for. So I'm not releasing another one until I put out a proper studio video, the thing you're all paying me to make (let's not mince words here,) but every time I think I'm closer to that, it slips away from me.

It's frustrating, but everything's under control. New video... soon. Thanks for sticking with me.