AudioMo Captioned Audio - Day 30

The image is from a Tex Avery cartoon called Swing Shift Cinderella. Woofie and Grannie are dancing up a storm. Well, Grannie is having a good time. Woofie is doing the best he can under the circumstances.

For AudioMo 2024, I'm thinking about doing some stuff on censored or banned cartoons. Censorship isn't always bad. It can inspire an artist or creator to find away around the block and make a better work of art.

Or, in the case of racial insensitive cartoons, there are a lot of them, they should be posted with historical context and the problem with them. 

That does not happen on YouTube. The people uploading them are more interested in clicks for cash.

Few more things;

AI has certainly improved the captioning process.  The apps that I tried this year:

Blink app on iOS and Android

New mobile app that allows you to record yourself and then it transcribes and place captions on the video. 

Works really well but you have to have a video ready for it to work. I couldn't figure out how to upload a picture, record audio and then have it caption. It is good and I need to play with it. I used the Android version.

Microsoft Clipchamp

Made it easier to add captions. Not perfect because I had to fiddle with where the sentence began or ended. Very good for under two minute videos.

Headliner

Frustrating. I could not adjust the container box location. I had to make more corrections than I would have liked. 

Do not get me wrong, this is a good program for the intended purpose. Making audiogram videos for podcasters. Locking down features is not a bad thing if the user isn't experienced. I just have problems with it. Other people love it and I know why but nope, not for me.

FlexClip

I bought this years ago and didn't like it. It has changed and evolved and boy, this is now my go to when it come to short video captioning. Accuracy is very good. Easy to use overall and being able to move the caption box location is important to me.

For quick videos under three minutes I would go with Clipchamp or FlexClip.

Clipchamp is free with a Microsoft account or if you sign in with a service like Google or Facebook.

There is a free version of FlexClip that caps at standard definition 480p, If you have to do a lot of short form videos test it out to see if it meets your needs.

As a reminder, you can create videos via PowerPoint, export the video and then use an app to place your captions.

Probably should have put this on the other blog. Oh well.

AudioMo Captioned Audio - Day 29

As I mentioned before, I'm was a superhero girl. If you had powers and a costume, you were a-ok with me. Never would I have even touched a romance comic.

This cover of Lovelorn would have given me the creeps.

As I mentioned in the audio, it is stupid.

The guy might think she is a tomboy because she can chop wood?

Bah!

Or the actual ding a ling who is kissing someone in high heels.

At a logging camp.

There are better covers and romance stories but it took decades before I found an access point to understand them.

AudioMo is an international celebration of personal audio however you define it. You can do one day or thirty. 

It happens in the month of June. Folks are participating via Mastodon, Twitter and perhaps even BlueSky. If your portal has a means of searching, you can find it via the #AudioMo tag. 

AudioMo Captioned Audio - Day 28

Pride 2023 also happened in June and one of the most contentious ones in recent memory.

There have been gay characters and in June, DC comic put out a compilations of some of the prior stories that they have published.

AudioMo is an international celebration of personal audio however you define it. You can do one day or thirty. It happens in the month of June. 

Folks are participating via Mastodon, Twitter and perhaps even BlueSky. If your portal has a means of searching, you can find it via the #AudioMo tag.

AudioMo Captioned Audio - Day 27

 In 2021 There was a joint project between Allegany Health Network and Marvel. 

A special issue was created to celebrate and point attention to the Emergency Medical Service workers who dis some impossible things during the pandemic. You can read it for free at the Marvel website.

AudioMo is an international celebration of personal audio however you define it. You can do one day or thirty. 

It happens in the month of June. Folks are participating via Mastodon, Twitter and perhaps even BlueSky. If your portal has a means of searching, you can find it via the #AudioMo tag. 

AudioMo Captioned Audio - Day 26

June 2023 was also Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Awareness Month. In case you did not know, there are a number of superheroes that have a mental health condition or disorder.

It is not a new question when people pipe up about The Batman's mental health status.

In a way, I think the question is directed to the wrong entity. Folks need to be looking at Bruce Wayne.

AudioMo is an international celebration of personal audio however you define it. You can do one day or thirty. It happens in the month of June.

Folks are participating via Mastodon, Twitter and perhaps even BlueSky. If your portal has a means of searching, you can find it via the #AudioMo tag.

AudioMo Captioned Audio - Day 25

This is a memory of the body builder ads/cartoon where our non-hero who is slim of form, makes a life changing decision.

AudioMo is an international celebration of personal audio however you define it. You can do one day or thirty. 

It happens in the month of June. Folks are participating via Mastodon, Twitter and perhaps even BlueSky. If your portal has a means of searching, you can find it via the #AudioMo tag. 

AudioMo Captioned Audio - Day 24

Pep Comics was still having stories about The Shield and The Hangman. But Archie is on the cover and will stay on the cover for the remainder of Pep Comics. 

You will notice that The Shield now has panties on and a deeper shade of blue in his costume. 

Archie was so popular that the owners of the magazine started thinking about a radical change in direction.

In the meantime, Archie has a real life radio show on the NBC Blue network. That is what the second image in the graphic is demonstrating. 

And also on the second cover who is holding the curtains in the shadows.

AudioMo is an international celebration of personal audio however you define it. You can do one day or thirty. 

It happens in the month of June. Folks are participating via Mastodon, Twitter and perhaps even BlueSky. If your portal has a means of searching, you can find it via the #AudioMo tag. 

. 

AudioMo Captioned Audio - Day 23

Madam Satan could not seal any deal and was vaporized and probably demoted. Her replacement? 

Well, he is a young man from Riverdale whose life orbits around his friends, family and his town.

Still a filler in a book of action superheroes but something happened. Well, a lot of things happened.

The audience was tired of superheroes. 

There were a lot of them. Many created for propaganda purposes. The publishers couldn't transition them into "normal" life. 

Some tried to depower their heroes so that they would fight gangs and random crooks.

Other transitioned into westerns, romance comics or went the kiddie funny book route.

Pep Comics had The Shield, Dusty the Boy Detective and Hangman. Plus assorted adventurers as back up features. 

There were funny stories in Pep but in no way the major focus of the book.

Until that redhead showed up. Who was a major hit with the audience.

This is the last cover with the three primary heroes.

AudioMo is an international celebration of personal audio however you define it. You can do one day or thirty. 

It happens in the month of June. Folks are participating via Mastodon, Twitter and perhaps even BlueSky. If your portal has a means of searching, you can find it via the #AudioMo tag. 

AudioMo Captioned Audio - Day 22

Ah yes, this character had a very limited run. But her replacement was highly influential. But before we get to him you gotta talk about Madam Satan. 

Madam Satan was a filler story inside of a comic book called Pep Comics. The first story has her meeting her in-laws who ask her what does she want with their son?

Being honest, she wants his money.

And that led to a series of actions that led her way down south.

She meets up with the devil who commissions her to send more souls down his way.

Madam does try and she does some awful things but there seems to be some kind of power or intervention that stops her from sealing the deal. 

Honestly after three additional stories, there wasn't any place for the story to go.

A new filler would have to take the spot.

AudioMo Captioned Audio - Day 21

Brenda Starr was one of the first comic strips created by a woman for a national newspaper. Dalia Messick, professionally known as Dale Messick. 

 

Brenda Star, Reporter was a hit in comic books, movies and help to open the door to other women writers, artists and creators.

AudioMo is an international celebration of personal audio however you define it. You can do one day or thirty. It happens in the month of June.

Folks are participating via Mastodon, Twitter and perhaps even BlueSky. If your portal has a means of searching, you can find it via the #AudioMo tag.

AudioMo Captioned Audio - Day 20

Steve Ditko was the co-creator of Spiderman and the creator of Doctor Strange. 

 

After Ditko left Marvel, he did some time at DC Comics and at Charlton comics with creating or co-creating The Question and The Creeper. 

This is a short bit about an independent but no less influential book called Mr. A. 

 

 A binary hero of sorts. Not by gender but by how he views the world.  Good or Bad. No space for nuance. No excuses. No mitigating circumstances. The scales of justice must balance no matter what or who it harms.

This is Objectivism at it was expressed by Ditko in this work.  What amazes me is what he does with line art in black and white. So different than the early days with Spidey and Dr. Strange which were explosions of color.

AudioMo is an international celebration of personal audio however you define it. You can do one day or thirty. It happens in the month of June.

Folks are participating via Mastodon, Twitter and perhaps even BlueSky If your portal has a means of searching, you can find it via the #AudioMo tag.

 

AudioMo Captioned Audio - Day 19

For this episode it is a look at two parody books that made fun of Marvel's and DC Comics intellectual property and sometimes a jab at their competitors. 

The books are Not Brand Echh! and The Inferior Five.

 

 

If I was hunger for something to read, I would have gone for Marvel's  Not Brand Echh!

But I really was into superheroes as a kid and wanted keep up with the doings of Thor and Namor.

For me, this would have been a fourth shelf selection.

AudioMo is an international celebration of personal audio however you define it. You can do one day or thirty.  

It happens in the month of June. Folks are participating via Mastodon, Twitter and perhaps even BlueSky. If your portal has a means of searching, you can find it via the #AudioMo tag. 

AudioMo Captioned Audio - Day 18

For a romance comic book publishers in the 1960s you have to adapt and make it work for you. The Women's liberation movement and civil rights required changes to the business. 

In this captioned audio recording, this is my theory of how this publisher made the decision.

 

 

When you think about it, a decision was made to re-work the previous artwork to make every one in the book appear African American. 

I don't know. This is something a roomful of people agreed on. One of the earlies form of a DEI recycling effort?

History is not easy or gentle to the brain.

AudioMo is an international celebration of personal audio however you define it. You can do one day or thirty. It happens in the month of June.

Folks are participating via Mastodon, Twitter and perhaps even BlueSky. If your portal has a means of searching, you can find it via the #AudioMo tag.

AudioMo Captioned Audio - Day17

This time is a look at a hero that does not have a six-pack of abs. In the comic book he was an intelligent supportive character. in the DCAU he was rendered as comic relief. 

Bouncing Boy hooked up with one of the Dual Damsels and I have questions that probably should not be answered.

AudioMo is an international celebration of personal audio however you define it. You can do one day or thirty. It happens in the month of June.

Folks are participating via Mastodon, Twitter and perhaps even BlueSky. If your portal has a means of searching, you can find it via the #AudioMo tag.

AudioMo Captioned Audio - Day 16

Lois Lane has come a long way. From a reporter to a woman determined to get Superman to marry her.

Then there was a period where it did not have to be Superman, just a person with super powers. 

 

Once her dress length moved above her knee, she started to become her own person. It took a couple of years but she got there.

And once she did, Supes came around and they were finally married, no imaginary story stuff.

The real deal. 

This is a brief verbiage about Lois.

AudioMo is an international celebration of personal audio however you define it. You can do one day or thirty. 

It happens in the month of June. Folks are participating via Mastodon, Twitter and perhaps even BlueSky. If your portal has a means of searching, you can find it via the #AudioMo tag. 

AudioMo Captioned Audio - Day 15

There was somebody that was having a bad day.

A bad thing happened. Sometimes the only thing you can do is to find time to gather some peace.

As to the change in animating letters, I was trying out highlighting the active word. In hindsight, I should not have chosen red. Red and green color blindness is very common. 

Learning as I go.

AudioMo is an international celebration of personal audio however you define it. You can do one day or thirty. 

It happens in the month of June. Folks are participating via Mastodon, Twitter and perhaps even BlueSky. If your portal has a means of searching, you can find it via the #AudioMo tag. 

AudioMo Captioned Audio - Day 14

Another thing about comic books is the huge one page ad where you could spend time learning about things you did not know existed.

 

You could get a BB gun and all the BBs needed to do some damage to something. You also could get shoe lifts to make you taller than you actually are and all kinds of goodies that would be shipped COD.

COD meant Cash on Delivery. You paid the mail carrier who would turn over the money to the vendor.

In theory.

This ad was in a western romance comic book. Where the rich girl fell in love with the farmer or rancher. I forgot which one.

There were so many of them that had the city girl or rich girl fall in love with the salt of the earth.

AudioMo is an international celebration of personal audio however you define it. You can do one day or thirty. 

It happens in the month of June. Folks are participating via Mastodon, Twitter and perhaps even BlueSky. If your portal has a means of searching, you can find it via the #AudioMo tag. 

AudioMo Captioned Audio - Day 13

It was a bad day. Things were going wrong. I was looking for something and discovered a box of disks.

I really didn't want to lose a day so I made a recording of just how tired and angry that software ate my podcast episode. And that I have a box of 50 high density non-floppy but called floppy disks.

AudioMo is an international celebration of personal audio however you define it. You can do one day or thirty. 

It happens in the month of June. Folks are participating via Mastodon, Twitter and perhaps even BlueSky. If your portal has a means of searching, you can find it via the #AudioMo tag. 

AudioMo Captioned Audio - Day 12

It was worth my 10 cents for any issue with Captain America and the Red Skull.

He was so bad. So evil. Why he wanted to take over the world is so baffling because he truly does not like human beings. Skull boy does like to have power and control.

This guy has no problem killing millions of people to get it down to a manageable size.

His identity has been re-conned a couple of times. Last I heard he was a trauma victim who grew up and really liked what was going on in 1930s Germany. Which is how he was constantly coming in contact with Cap.

The ultimate goal was to get rid of Adolf and set up a world wide totalitarian government.

Bad, bad man.

AudioMo is an international celebration of personal audio however you define it. You can do one day or thirty. 

It happens in the month of June. Folks are participating via Mastodon, Twitter and perhaps even BlueSky. If your portal has a means of searching, you can find it via the #AudioMo tag. 

AudioMo Captioned Audio - Day 11

In any form of literature, always consider who is doing the writing and drawing. Bias and cultural will be a part of the work. Not a good or bad thing but it can impact how culture is transmitted.

The majority of the romance writers and artists of romance comics were middle aged men. Men who were married and or had children. 

Don't get me wrong, a married guy can write about romance. They have for centuries.

But if the dominant culture tells those men that even after the reality of women working full blast during war time, the culture and advertisers said the only thing that she is truly capable of is to be in the home birthing babes and cooking dinner.

That left a lot of women who wanted something different out of the picture. They never saw her.

And the message in this particular comic from the daddy is "your are going to get married but do not marry a poor man."

So you have class stratification as well. 

There is an excellent website/blog called Sequential Crush. Lots of good stuff about romance comics and the people that created them.

This just my two cents about it.

AudioMo is an international celebration of personal audio however you define it. You can do one day or thirty. 

It happens in the month of June. Folks are participating via Mastodon, Twitter and perhaps even BlueSky. If your portal has a means of searching, you can find it via the #AudioMo tag. 

AudioMo Captioned Audio - Day 10

When they came down hard on comic books in 1954 Marge Malone was the poster child for maybe things are a little too graphic.

This was a one time only story in a crime comic book. The dame was a hoot but she was one of those limited thinking dames. 

If she had gotten out of her home town she could have built a nationwide crime empire. Never continue to soil the home nest. Especially if you have busted out of prison.

I always question who was being protected. Who was the innocents? 

Because at the time there was all manner of gang shootings, mob hits and the domestic violence event of the week on any block in the U.S.

Kids were not protected from real life. But they pitched a fit about the blood, gore and violence in comic books.

Not saying they didn't have a point about some of the excesses but there was no conversation possible about a balance. 

AudioMo is an international celebration of personal audio however you define it. You can do one day or thirty. 

It happens in the month of June. Folks are participating via Mastodon, Twitter and perhaps even BlueSky. If your portal has a means of searching, you can find it via the #AudioMo tag. 

AudioMo Captioned Audio - Day 9

I receive an email that tells me the doings in comic book land. This include graphic novels, novella and anything to do with sequential arts.

So for Pride month I found the book Fine, A Comic about Gender by Rhea Ewing.

It is a documentary/conversation that includes voices from people that live with that question.

Or are on their own path about exploring what does this mean for me.

AudioMo is an international celebration of personal audio however you define it. You can do one day or thirty. 

It happens in the month of June. Folks are participating via Mastodon, Twitter and perhaps even BlueSky. If your portal has a means of searching, you can find it via the #AudioMo tag. 

AudioMo Captioned Audio - Day 8

June 2023 had a lot of months in it. It was Pride month. It was Black Music Heritage month. PTSD Awareness month and a few more. 

So this one was a two-fer. A mini awareness tribute to Sylvester. 

When I first laid eyes on Sylvester, I didn't know what to think. I'd never seen anybody like him.

Later when he had his hit recordings, I knew he was the real deal. 

For those of you too young to know:

 Representation is important. It means something to somebody.

AudioMo is an international celebration of personal audio however you define it. You can do one day or thirty. 

It happens in the month of June. Folks are participating via Mastodon, Twitter and perhaps even BlueSky. If your portal has a means of searching, you can find it via the #AudioMo tag. 

AudioMo Captioned Audio - Day 7

It was a long day so I did another voice to text video about my review of my email. Sometimes I get ideas for the podcast or for a project I'm working on.

Sometimes it is a PR person trying to get me to do an interview with a client.

They tell me they love the show and my point of view. 

Just one small problem with that pitch. 

Coming up on eight years of doing the Anxiety Road Podcast.

I have never done an interview.

And my point of view might be implied concerning a topic.

But mainly I provided information resources.

AudioMo is an international celebration of personal audio however you define it. You can do one day or thirty. 

It happens in the month of June. Folks are participating via Mastodon, Twitter and perhaps even BlueSky. If your portal has a means of searching, you can find it via the #AudioMo tag. 

AudioMo Captioned Audio - Day 6

When I participated on Twitter, there was a way to upload a caption audio (video) file to the service.

All of the participants were there so I didn't need to use YouTube. 

Also, it restricted me to a certain amount of time and I do like the square shape 1:1 aspect ratio.

Well, on Mastodon at the time of posting this, has size limits on what you can upload. Some servers say 40MB. My server was closer to 5MB.

If I made the video low resolution I could squeak it on the post page.

This video is not on YouTube. Old school Blogger will allow me to upload and post a video to the blog.

I think it counts toward my storage. The sound is off by default. Good thing it is captioned.

You can press the speaker to hear my voice.

Anyway, this is an explainer text audio about why I use captioned audio.

AudioMo is an international celebration of personal audio however you define it. You can do one day or thirty. 

It happens in the month of June. Folks are participating via Mastodon, Twitter and perhaps even BlueSky. If your portal has a means of searching, you can find it via the #AudioMo tag. 

AudioMo Captioned Audio - Day 5

Frankie, America never got the chance to know you. Benny Hill beat you to it. 

And he was old school vaudeville. They could get the joke even if they couldn't understand the context of it.

I think I discovered Frankie by accident. I saw a clip of Up Pompei and scratched my head in confusion. So many double and triple innuendos that you needed a calculator to keep up.

Hmm. Come to think on it. No, I don't think PBS would have been able to air this show. 

This is more of a fleshed based cartoon. Nothing changes, whole lot of action but in the end, everything is put to right by our hero.

AudioMo is an international celebration of personal audio however you define it. You can do one day or thirty. 

It happens in the month of June. Folks are participating via Mastodon, Twitter and perhaps even BlueSky. If your portal has a means of searching, you can find it via the #AudioMo tag. 

AudioMo Captioned Audio - Day 4

The jungle. Comic book writers loved the jungle trope. 

The fellas really loved the Jungle Girl trope. So much love that there were a lot of books with women who took command of their place in the jungle.

  

 If I was a kid reading these kinds of books, I'd make sure that I would never get on a plane heading to "the jungle" You'd never see home again. 

 AudioMo is an international celebration of personal audio however you define it. You can do one day or thirty. It happens in the month of June.

 Folks are participating via Mastodon, Twitter and perhaps even BlueSky. If your portal has a means of searching, you can find it via the #AudioMo tag.

AudioMo Captioned Audio - Day 3

The way I participated with AudioMo was on Twitter. This allowed me to upload a 2 minute audio clip and keep it inside of the Twitter community.

You might have heard that Twitter is going through some changes. 

The site has become more hospitable to people (in my option) who are far right of center, who believe non-scientific things and consider minimal salt as the only flavoring substance acceptable on food.

I have reduced my contributions on Twitter to bare minimum.

Last I heard they are attempting to make a closed system. More people will leave.

Maybe Twitter users need a Superman to fight the forces of evil. Specifically, the 1939 dude.

He was all action. Didn't think about it, just did what it would take to make it right. 

Even if he was bone wrong in the way he went about doing it.

AudioMo is an international celebration of personal audio however you define it. You can do one day or thirty. 

It happens in the month of June. Folks are participating via Mastodon, Twitter and perhaps even BlueSky. If your portal has a means of searching, you can find it via the #AudioMo tag. 

AudioMo Captioned Audio - Day 2

 On this day for AudioMo, I talked about Thor and the need for heroes.

Basic process I used:

Locate an image that represented what I wanted to talk about.

Using a couple of image editors to extract or customize the image. I got better at it during the month.

• Quick and dirty - Snipping Tool 
• Image editing - SnagIt
• PowerPoint - Ability to layer images using the background command. Great for small images that cannot be stretched. This also made it possible to fit into 16:9 aspect ratio for YouTube.

 Didn't do it for this image because I hadn't figured it out yet how to layer an image in PowerPoint.

AudioMo is an international celebration of personal audio however you define it. You can do one day or thirty. 

It happens in the month of June. Folks are participating via Mastodon, Twitter and perhaps even BlueSky. 

If your portal has a means of searching, you can find it via the #AudioMo tag. 

AudioMo Captioned Audio - Day 1

For 13 years Ernmander has been running AudioMo from Twitter. I always listened to a few and occasionally contributed. 

This is an international celebration of personal audio however you define it. You can do one day or thirty. It happens in the month of June. 

In 2022 I did almost 30 days talking about cartoons and how it relates to modern day concerns about kids, censorship, parental rights and political opportunism. 

That sounds a lot more lofty that what I probably actually said. 

 

 

Anyway, time marches on and in 2023 I did the whole thirty days. But not on Twitter. I'm using a platform called Mastodon. 

I'm also signed up to Post.News and Spoutible. I didn't post their because there is no way to cross-post and I was up to my neck it work, homework, and all the other work I do.

I'm interested in trying to make audio accessible. Both for people that need it; speakers of second languages, hearing impaired or cannot turn on the audio at the moment.

So I created captioned audio pieces. 

The general topic is comic books with somehow linking it to modern stuff or my feeling about what is being presented. 

This is the intro to Day 1 of AudioMo

In Memory of Days Past - Grand Central Market Music

Before the time of the pestilence, people use to gather to listen to music. Sometimes it just so happened to be in places where people were eating.

 

I found this on one of my old hard drives. I think I didn't upload it before because I couldn't make it perfect. 

I was busy. Or wrestling with doubt about the value of posting music for the sake of music.

This is a time of book banning. Art being shamed for being dirty. 

It won't be long until they will come for the music. 

Anybody's music that isn't their music.

So I'm posting this in defiance, just in case. 

One Breath at A Time

Never let it be said that I don't have a thing for gizmos. I like things that help people communicate. 

This is a online app called Jiitter.Video. It helps you to make gifs and videos. The good thing about it (and I'm serious) is that it limits you to 60 seconds.

Image of woman performing a meditation practice .

It is designed to help you quickly make motion graphics, text animation and moving doo-dads.

I like it because it is not freaking After Effects. No disrespect intended. 

After Effect is a great program. Wonderful but stiff learning curve, the cost is high and I have yet to make time to learn how to work with it.

Because I haven't got any time.

Anyway, this service allows me to tippy toe into it.

So I'm making small baby steps of progress. 

Like I should be doing because I do not know how to do the whiz bang kinda stuff.

I want to make visuals to help inform folks about stuff.

That has been a long time goal.

I might be getting close to making something...acceptable.

The reason I like the limitation is that with other software that does similar stuff I get lost or overly hyped on what I could do. 

Two hours later, I haven't done a thing because I don't know how.

This rascal limits the duration of the video or gif. If you want more you can have it. 

Sixty seconds at a time.

This means I have to figure things out before I can go forward. 

Now they do have templates and a person with a lick of talent could knock something out in ten minutes. 

I only have a shred of it so it takes me longer.

That is okay. 

I want to teach with it. Not to make a knock off of a soda pop commercial.

Lusting After Duck Fat

It has been a while. I have to re-learn how to do this and convince myself this is what I should do.

Not that I don't want to blog. I do.

But being sucked up into the vortex of information makes it seem like other people's stuff is so much better than your own. 

It isn't. It is just different.

And the time thing. Other things I should be doing that I don't because I'm not good at them.

And when Mr. Toxification came to town, (No, not that guy, the other guy), it made it easier to break free. But I haven't. More like easing my way out. 

Because I have real life and virtual friends in the joint.

Anyway, this is about Duck Fat.

I was messing around Woot. Which I should not do because I get frustrated.

Epic Rendered Duck Fat found on Woot.com

Duck fat is expense. But it is also dang tasty.

Especially on fries.

Being a birth frugalista, it is hard for me to justify buying a jar of duck fat. And lord have I tried to crowbar a reason to buy some duck fat.

Most of the time, the price helps keep me away from it. Usually sells for at least $18 to $20 plus dollars.

But on the day I'm typing this, it is as close to affordable as it is going to get.

I should do this.

• It taste good.
• I could put it on brussels sprouts and broccoli. I need help getting them down my throat.
• I'll never find it cheaper.
• Potatoes!

I shouldn't do this. 

• I've never cooked with it before.
• I'm not supposed to have potatoes on a regular basis.
• It is the lust for the deal, not the value of the deal. Except it does have a value.

So, one of two things will happen. 

I will fret on this all day and not buy it.

Or.

I will buy it and then chastise myself that this might be or not be a good thing to do.

Neither one of those methods are healthy. But it is what I got at the moment.

Experiementing with Caption Audio

When I participated in AudioMo 2022 I learned a lot. 

Sure, making an audiogram is increasingly easier than it has been in the past. But I didn't necessarily want to have a video that had nothing to do with the topic.

The audio is the means of communication. However, when posting audio on Twitter it forces the users to another screen or device.

On Twitter the video stays put. 

And for folks that can see the text in the video it communicates the same thing.

This works for folks that prefer sighted communication.

Folks that are learning English as a second language.

Users that cannot turn on audio but want the content.

Not 100% happy with it. I want to fill up the space which is not the point of the video.

The original format of the video is square 1:1 but YouTube is 16:9 aspect ratio.

Nothing I can do about it because posting video on Twitter is 1:1 and I don't really want to make three or more versions depending on the platform.

AudioMo and a Single Picture Audio Text Video

I was pleased with the audio text video. But I wanted more. Not much more. Because some of the things to share really need an image. 

Or maybe me taking the time to figure out how to descript a very visual image.

That time thing is tough.

Yes, you can talk about comic book in a purely audio format. You can talk about the history, the cultural force that affect them and much more.

But what if the comic book character in question was not popular?

Almost everyone has their vision of Batman, even if they have never touched or seen the comic book.

But what about the being known as Fantomah? I can describe her literally being two faced but taking a look at a bit of a cover image saves a lot of time.

This version was created using a service called Headliner. You can upload the audio and image. They will do the transcription and then combine all into a audio-Text video with an image.

I know there are spelling mistakes. I made a poor choice of background and text color. On Twitter it is much smaller so it is hard to read.

Conceptually, it work.

But it doesn't.

But it does.

Figuring Out AudioMo and Audio Text Recordings.

It has been a while since my last post. Pandemics. Social and political upheavals. Embedded stupidity.

Parts of me want to zoom and go. Other parts just need a refrigerator and a blanked and let the world go by.

For the past twelve years in June, audio blogging aka AudioMo has been happening on Twitter. I've enjoyed listing and every once in a while plunk a recording up.

This year I wanted to participate. It had been such a long time since I've done any group participation type stuff. And I can talk about what I want.

That is usually stuff nobody else in their right or left mind wants to talk about.

Sooo, I'm mindful that audio recording shuts a lot of people out of voice communication. People have been taking about it for years.  Problem is that on the consumer level, software and technology did not make it easy to do open or closed captions to audio. 

Still hasn't really.

So this is a work around is to use audio with open captions in a video. Not a talking head video with captions.

An audio recording with text transcribed on the screen.

For example: a brief take on the 1938 Superman and the need for heroes and superheroes.

I created the video using a company called Descript. It is a service that provides transcription services, some light audio editing and the ability to take two minutes of audio and create a podcast text video clip aka an audiogram.

It does a lot more but I am still learning how to use it.

It works well. But the standard plan only allows for two minutes of text video.

This is both a good and bad thing

I can upload to Twitter and Bob's your uncle, I have an accessible audio recording.

It maintains the spirit of an audio recording. Those that can't turn on the volume or are not native English speakers a way to check out the action.

Work in progress but it is a start.