Thirty Second Stories (.com) is ALIVE

Once again, I'm starting a new project (semi-permanently putting the last one on hold), and I need your help. This one completely depends on the creative contributions of others in order to succeed.

First, I need to collect a core group of 30 second stories. This initial group would be on any subject, sad, funny, scary, absurd. But all of them concise, communicating some sort of story in 30 seconds. I would ask that people send me audio recordings of themselves reading the story - nothing fancy, a laptop or iphone voice recording would be fine. For the launch of the website, I would need a decent amount, ideally at least 25 or 30. (more on this at the end of this post that will probably be too long)

Since everything that I do has to involve randomization, apparently, these stories would play on the website in random order, automatically, and would never end. The user would just hit a button, then sit back and listen to stories. A short (2-3 second) musical interlude would play between the stories as dividers/palate cleansers.

the rest of this idea depends on whether or not the reception to the original launch is positive. just for fun, let's say it is. then...

on a weekly basis, i would do a call for submissions on a theme: injuries, heartbreak, puberty, yahoo chat rooms, etc. these newly collected stories would be collected in a new channel for the website, which would be updated weekly with the new content. visitors would then be able to either choose to listen to a specific thematic category of stories, or just listen to the default random mode that would include stories of all sorts. it's my hope that by doing this it would give people a reason to return to the site, and that these frequent visitors would be able to just skip to the new content.

if i can get total strangers to start submitting stories, i will be very happy and i think it would start to gather momentum. it's my hope that i would eventually be receiving enough new stories that i would be able to exercise tyrannical discretion by selecting only the best ones to be featured on the website.

but the whole thing, i think, hinges on whether or not i can collect a solid batch of initial stories. if i can get 25 or 30 good stories to demonstrate the concept (and provide 12-15 minutes of content on launch day), it will be a lot easier to get total strangers to contribute new stories and keep things fresh.

so...here's the ask: would anyone here be willing to contribute? if so, could you please let me know so I can start to get a head count? you could either just let me know in this thread or email me at [MODERATOR REDACTION] at gmail dot com. if you're willing to help out, the next step, of course, would be for you think about what story you want to tell. it would probably be a good idea to write it down and read it out loud a few times to make sure that it gets in under the 30 second threshold.

phew. guess that's it. i'm really excited about this idea and i'm hoping that at least some ilxors will be too. if the website comes out anywhere close to how i imagine it to be, i think it will be really fun and addicting to visit. any ideas/suggestions/criticisms are welcome here too, of course.

Whoa. Your ideas are consistently brilliant ZS. I'm on board!

:) thank you! Once I get the core group of volunteers together I'll send out an email with details and instructions.

heh, i'm just realizing that NYE is a pretty idiotic time to try to spread the word on this! i will cool my jets for a few days and bump again in the future, 2015

I'm down. Your projects are A+++.

thanks!

the coalition of the willing is growing exponentially

What a good idea. Will join in.

I would do so

Fantastic, thanks!

Could those that are interested (how's life, old lunch, amory blaine, future people who indicate interest) please send me an email as well so I have your contact info? I shouldn't have said "or send me an email" upthread because it turns out that I DEMAND an email! :)

fuck yeah, i can't wait

I would love to also!

Great, thanks! Send me an email please! :)

by the way, i should have mentioned this earlier (i should start a list) but since i forgot i'll put it in bold: if you know anyone else (ilxor or irl-er) who would be interested please send them my way as well

Sent!

i'm in dude. i mean, i haven't read your proposal yet but i'm in.

will email you tomorrow/weekend. and i can amplify this to a music pro list i'm on that would be very receptive to it if you'd like?

Uh isnt this a kids in the hall bit

I would be all about doing this but I never feel like I have any stories

forks - you mean sending it out to the list before it launches to get interest? that might be really helpful, but it also might be even more helpful to wait until after the website is up and things (hopefully) enter the phase 2/total stranger submissions stage. i guess it depends on how much interest i can get right now from people i know. i'm up to about 7 or 8 people right now, but i haven't started to contact old friends and acquaintances who i think will probably be interested in helping. tl;dr i'll let you know! (ps and it would be great if you could contribute something!)

shakey - shiiiiit! i hadn't seen those before, though i just watched the "bears" and "bachelor named joe" bits. i think this will turn out to be different than KITH, though, for better or worse (worse).

silby - that's ok, i understand! if this thing ends up working out there will be plenty of opportunities in the future. i'm guessing that having a theme might help, too.

I could get behind this, is there a way to search ilx posts by popularity

haha, i wish, but i don't think so. it would be really great to get one of your stories, though.

I'm down for this (and I sent you an email).

thanks - got it. :)

darraghmac (and a few others upthread) - could you send me an email so that I can include you on the forthcoming details/instructions message?

ZachRScott at gmail dot com

I'm myusername @ gmail throw me on the list

I sent mine via ILX mail, should I resend?

would you mind? my ILX mail is hooked up to a gmail account I never use so I always forget about it. sorry about that!

Sure, no probs.

zs: I'll wait till you're up and running to blast out. I'm writing a piece to record now.

the coalition of the willing is growing and strong: 29 people!

30!

Horse_ebooks is on board

This sounds fantastic! I'll fling over an email now just in case you're in need of surplus contributors...

Got it! And up to 32 now. Having a surplus is good because it's likely that at least some of the 32 people won't end up submitting anything. And if it goes a little over 30 people, the all the better. I suppose if somehow I ended up with 50 people in the initial coalition of the willing, I could stock up some of them so that i'd have some content ready to go for the first update.

damn getting under 0:30 is gonna be hard. first draft was 1:45

Yeah, it's gonna be tricky.

38 people are willing to try though!

Believe it or not, my initial idea for this (conceived nearly entirely during a long pee at a rest stop somewhere on New Jersey) was called twenty second stories, but my gf wisely advised that I add another 10 seconds!

I got my story down, those years working alongside advertising dickheads have not been altogether wasted.

Are you accepting more contributors? I would like to do this.

Of course! Just send me an email at [MODERATOR REDACTION] at gmail dot com and I'll send instructions.

can i forward the instructional email to ppl who i think might be interested?

xps Οὖτις, that was a dickish post.

xpost
yeah of course! i can't believe the instructional email was like 30,000+ words and i forgot to mention that! also if we reach a certain threshold of recordings (maybe 50 or so), i may end up saving up half of them to use for the first update to the site.

i don't think shakey was trying to be mean, just pointing out that it's not the first time someone thought of the idea.

SENT

(my submission, that is)

I know I'm biased because I want this thing to work, but what a fantastic first submission! It's so good it's almost uplifting

firsties yall

stoked for the whole project- I'm assuming there will be a visual component too?

yeah, on two levels, sorta:

1) i will probably just make a jpeg for each story, something related to the specific story, or at least inspired by it, with the title overlaid. these images would change out every 30 seconds or so. i'm probably staying away with gifs for this one, just because i know some people are not into them at all, and also i don't really want to distract from the stories too much.

2) i'm extremely lucky and happy to have a good friend of mine who is a graphic designer helping me out with the user interface. we're working on it over the next 2 weeks but i think it will be a big improvement over the UX of the last few things i attempted to do myself.

these images would change out every 30 seconds or so.

this is maybe the dumbest thing i've ever written, which is a lofty achievement. they'd change with every new story. ugh ugh ugh

also jan 19th is the tentative goal for the launch

i just sent a few things
lemme know if that wasn't any good

why not gifs? even mellow subtle gifs

i would do it if i was good at the mellow subtle stuff, but i'm just not. this is mellow for me:

http://i.imgur.com/84b8aP2.gif

boogiteeboogiteeboogitee

policy on swearing

this reminds me of lots of old web 0.5 art concepts, but in a good way!

policy on swearing is to go ahead and do it if it's important for the story, i guess.

thanks, s.clover, and you should contribute a story!

i have a few in already, and up to 45 volunteers. if i can get to 60 i may do 30 stories on the day of the launch, and then have 30 more ready for the first update.

made me think of you z - http://gimletmedia.com/episode/the-anxiety-box/

I'm in for this if it's not too late to sign up.

My voice is totally shot due to illness and likely to remain shot at least up through the deadline. You can have my spot.

hahaha, listening to the anxiety box now. i do have a few unused domains that i registered, but i fully intended to use them at the time! (i.e., the permanently sidelined channel2014). i have some friends who are like that dude for real though, in terms of domain registration addiction.

crut - not too late! can you send me an email? [MODERATOR REDACTION] at gmail

how's life - if you still want to contribute something after you feel better, feel free to send it whenever because there will be an update with new stories at some point.

i'm at 57 participants now. i'm still unsure whether i should just include all 57 stories (or however many i end up getting) at launch, or to go with just 30 and then stockpile the remainder for the first update.

You've mentioned 30 before. Just out of curiosity: why that number? Would you 'curate' and pick the ones best in your eyes, or make it random? Or do you feel having nearly 60 stories on there is too much for a randomized website thing?

30 is pretty arbitrary, but it equals about 15 minutes, and that's about how much new content I'd like to include for each update. So about 15 minutes on launch day, and then for the first update, add another 15 minutes.

I'll keep adding stories as long as I get them - if there are 1000 on there that are in the random selection pool, I think that would be fantastic.

As far as curating goes, that'll change over time, I think. For this batch that I'm receiving (about 1/3 ILXors, 1/3 old friends of mine, and 1/3 people that know of me through conferencecall.biz) I'll try to include every story. If this ever takes off and strangers start submitting, I would hopefully be able to just accept the very best stories, but that of course depends on how many I receive from strangers. If I do a big call for stories and only get a handful, I would just use them all, but if I got 100 or something (yeah right, but let me dream) I would be able to pick the cream of the crop.

are you getting a story from Kai

proooobably not!

i did receive the horse_ebooks story though, so that made me feel pretty good

Clear enough ZS, thanks. Will get cracking on mine this weekend!

starting to gather around a coherent visual theme (maybe). if i can figure out how to code it, i think i'm going to switch to only one randomized element - 30 second video files - rather than layering audio tracks over GIFs. that will allow me to create short visual accompaniments that are at least somewhat relevant to the story you're hearing. videos will probably still be made up of looping elements, but having it in video format will allow me to make slower transitions, add the title on the top of the story, insert something temporarily 20 seconds into if needed, etc.

we'll see how long i stick with it but i like the idea of focusing on two elements per story. like in this case the story a history of the table purchases that this guy has made over many years, so it combines a wood texture with passing clouds. i dunno. *wings it*

http://38.media.tumblr.com/95053bfccfc1b826e0e0288bce66c52a/tumblr_ni1jen4yR51qdmmiqo2_500.gif

30 seconds is a very short time for a rambling kinda talker

yeah, i'm a rambler myself, but i finally managed to get one down to 29 seconds.

i've put up a very professional looking placeholder at thirtysecondstories.com

oops, make that thirtysecondstories.com

ha

Can I just say ZS you send the best emails and email reminders? <3

Jfc though. Thought a 213 word write down of my story would hack it. Tried recording it, reading it aloud, and didn't get any further than a fifty odd words. Insane. 30 secs is a crime! Thought I could fit way more into it than I actually can.

Condensed down to 150 words and when reading it aloud it's still a minute instead of 30 secs. Time is fucking w/ my head here.

I found no way to do this other than experimenting while recording the shortest story I could think of then going back and stripping out all the words

Yeah that's what I am doing right now. Down to 127 words, 46 seconds. Off to kill more darlings.

ZS, can I call you a "Gifted Internet-artist" online without remorse? Because I would like to tbh

Brought it down to 80 words and it fits the 30 secs. Will record tomorrow when not lol sleepy or lol drunk.

Ah OK the 80 word guide is helpful. I've gotta edit a bit and then try mine out loud.

It's a tough nut to crack when trying it out! I thought 160 words would fit in 30 secs, turns out only 80 will make it when you don't want to be sounding like a chipmunk.

I am boring but would contribute coding help if it's needed!

I am glad to see all you respectable people also procrastinated. Phew!

before this only very tall buildings had thirty second stories

and few people in buildings with at least 32 floors even VISIT the 32nd story. EVER. they don't know what they're missing.

i am trying to fix the video code and i'm having hilarious moments of ineptitude. also i have a knack for creating coding conundrums that are like UFO visits. they're fantastic and no one believes me. my current thing is that i finally figured out how to play the video full screen in the background automatically, but after celebrating for a few minutes and then reloading the page, it reduced the size of the video to half the screen, and the buttons on the website no longer work. it's baffling. so it worked perfectly, then upon every subsequent reload no longer works. i confirmed with my main squeeze that i was not insane and that it did work the first time, and never again, even though nothing changed except reloading the page.

i think the whole situation is heightened because i've been reading emmanuel carrere's the mustache and i feel like i'm the guy in the story.

also amory blaine you are way too kind and no, please do not, and if you, may you feel MUCH REMORSE!

Try clearing your cookies? It's the browser version of turning it off and then on again. Work sometimes!

yeah, i tried that! i think maybe it's the css somehow? i deleted out a few lines that were under the video tag, and that fixed it (for now).

anyway, basically i'm just dealing with a neverending series of stuff like that. but listening to neon lights so everything is good

Just pump your hands in the air like your little screen name dude and you'll make it through!

I recorded about 10 takes and sent ZS 8 of them, I could hear myself getting progressively drunker as they went on

You know what, I want to tell my one good story for this, Karl do I still email you to get instructions

I am delurking to say this project should be very fun.

I found it fairly okay to do it in 30 seconds, I did three takes and they were all in and around 30/31. My tip would be to think of it more like a haiku or something more surreal. I was surprised to feel like I could allow some space even within the 30 seconds.

Though admittedly my story was about a time I counted to 25 - after the first line it kinda told itself.

guys i worked an event tonite on the 32nd floor of a hotel

while you were up there did you hear any good...well you know

/dadjoke

silby - got your email, and I'll send you some instructions in just a bit.

a lot of my dadjokes are attempts at far side jokes but i can't quite get there

sounds like you're practicing your dad jokes!

i was going to do this but i didn't know if they were supposed to be true stories and the thought of strangers hearing my intimate true stories in my own voice made me queasy

Sent! Yay!

BCC'd myself but not getting it, please let me know if you received it ZS

hmmm - haven't gotten it yet, at least not at my gmail account. if you sent it to my zach at thirtysecondstories.com account, i'll check it when i get home from work and let you know.

it's kind of fascinating to listen to the stories and hear what people choose to talk about and how they go about fitting it into 30 seconds. hopefully that'll end up being interesting for others as well. i received a submission from my 4-year-old niece that no one is going to be able to top, though. it's 7 seconds long and leaves an unforgettable mental image.

!

do you still want more of these? I forgot about this.

Odd, will try and send again ZS.

4-year-old niece story!

Sure, go ahead polyphonic. The deadline I set for sending in stories is the end of today, and so far I'm missing over 40 of the 60 stories I expected, so I could use some more. (However I fully expect to be anxious all day about it and then receive them all at 11:55pm, because that's how deadlines work)

Sent again and think you received it this time!

Got it! Today is my day of cranking out one video after another (I hope). to this point I've felt kind of like your friend in high school who always comes up with band names and titles of songs and knows what to wear during the debut concert, but never actually practices or writes songs. time to make this thing

ok, the bad news is that each one of these videos is taking me about an hour to make, so i have quite a ways to goes. the bad news pt. 2 is that there's always a tradeoff between file size and quality, and since i'm trying to keep the video sizes small so that they'll load quickly, the videos are a little blurry and certainly the opposite of crisp. i could address this by playing them as normal size on the screen, but fuck it, i want them to play full screen.

the good news is that i have a semi-functional prototype going with 5 videos and i think this whole thing is going to work. i apologize in advance to the people who get one of my shittier visual/audio accompaniments, but i'm doing the best that i can with each one, and in some cases it just really *clicks* and it reaffirms that the effort is totally worth it

🎼♩♪♬♫♩♬♫♬♫♩♬♩_\o/_♫♩♪♩♬♬♩♬♫♫▁ ▂ ▃ ▄ ▅ ▆ █

𝄞

in other words,
▁▂▂▁▁▂▂▃▃▂▁▂▂▂▃▂▁▁▁http://i.imgur.com/yUCHVI9.gif▁ ▂ ▃ ▄ ▅ ▆ █

WANNA SEE PROTOTYPE

so i have quite a ways to goes.

when someone commits a speaking error in the heat of the moment, document it here

ZS are you going live at a certain time? Would be nice if we could gather in this thread and experience it!

eh zs if mine doesnt make first cut fu I'm out

ZS are you going live at a certain time? Would be nice if we could gather in this thread and experience it!

read this with "to" inserted before "live" and had a private intense moment! i was initially aiming for Monday the 19th to launch but there's no way in hell i can do that. i want to make sure i at least give my best shot to each story, and they're taking me quite a while to make. i rushed a little on two of them yesterday, and now in the cold sober light of sunday morning i know i have to go back and fix them. plus there's a bunch of stuff with the code and css that i need to address. anyway, i'm going to have to push back to the 26th for launch. i'm not sure what time yet but it'll probably just be around noon or so on whatever day it goes live.

Haha :)

No prob, git 'er done properly before launching imho. God speed my man.

i have 10 done.

i am really enjoying making these. i realize they're going to be amateurish compared to what most video artists can do but every once in a while they come out pretty well and it's so fucking satisfying.

i keep on changing the plan as i go, but now i'm thinking of releasing these as 10-story "episodes". the plan would be to launch with episode 1, and then follow up a week later with a 10-story episode 2. i have enough submitted stories already to take care of that. and then, if there's any sort of appeal to the site and people want to submit stories, do subsequent episodes.

i think that's a good idea. you could easily have a three month block as of right now.

oh no i didn't see this thread til now :( i wanna tell a story

stevie d you can still submit a story, i'm starting with 10 but i'm already working on episode 2 with 10 more, and then hopefully more after that. if you're interested can you send me a quick email at [MODERATOR REDACTION] at gmail so I can reply back with more details?

more boring developments (sorry for making this the most self-indulgent thread of all time but i've spent virtually all of my non-worklife time on this for the past few weeks so it's kind of subsuming everything else):

in addition to the website, i'm thinking about uploading each video individually onto youtube, for three reasons:

1) i'll be able to post high resolution versions of the videos. the versions on thirtysecondstories.com are low quality so that they can be loaded more quickly.
2) for the "credits" section on thirtysecondstories.com i can just point to a youtube playlist with all of the videos, each one with the name of the story and storyteller.
3) if one of the videos is particularly good or something, having a separate youtube version of it will make it possible for people to share it more easily.

i was gonna suggest that, good idea.

Thinking of referring to this as XXX Sec Stories to maximize confusion

Imagine someone sending you a link to www.xxxsecstories.com. Total missed opportunity.

hot college football action

XXX sec stories, free, high quality, topical

lol

http://i.imgur.com/CUmHSbc.jpg

slightly more informative placeholder up

definitely going live this monday, most likely at 11 am or so. i keep changing the organization of it every day but currently the plan is to launch with two episodes of 5 stories each. then i'll follow up with a third five-minute episode the following week (it's almost done already, i'm just trying to give myself a buffer just in case).

lookin good!

Yes looking great!

http://38.media.tumblr.com/d6043387c1c692a87efc103f5b04195d/tumblr_nir56wX1ey1qdmmiqo1_500.gif

11am U.S. eastern time to be specific.

Pumped!

ugh, why does TSS have to be toxic shock syndrome

i don't want people to get the wrong idea about these xxx sec. stories

they'll be fine if they follow the instructions on the tampon box

...better make it noon eastern rather than 11am.

so, mobile isn't going to work, at least not today. I think we have a work around, but for now it's only going to work on desktop/laptops.

YAAAAYYYYYYYYYY

THIS LOOKS AMAZINGGGG <333333

OK, it's up.

ThirtySecondStories.com

omg nearly crying... this is the best Zach!

And how immaculate you gave mine video... it fits so magnificently!

wow

These are brilliant Zach. Congratulations.

amazing work, there is so much potential for this idea, laughing my head off.

who is the table man? i laughed hard at that.

do you want us to use a hashtag?

table man is horseebooks

re: hashtag: you can if you want: #thirtysecondstories

Teacup! OMG

yeah, that's my niece. :)

I also really like the one about the guys throwing dollars - good deadpan ending.

Teacup one is hilarious. Zach this is great man. All that hard work def paid off.

:) thank you. These videos are some of my first, so I'm learning as I go.

ILXors have some great sounding voices.

The sound effects are a great touch!

"She won't pick them up... She won't pick them up..." <3

And Tom Petty hating kitty. And omg Xelerator asshole. And staring insect. 524 Tuba. <3

oh, one more thing: there are high-quality versions of each video on this playlist. in some caes, much, MUCH higher-quality versions! if you like a particular video, you can also use the youtube playlist to share individual stories with others.

oh man this is excellent, excellent stuff

thank you! :)

oh, minor thing, but you can pause the videos with space bar or skip to the next one with the right arrow.

Is L from DC one of us? That $20 story is terrifying, good god

whoa did not expect ronan to sound like that, or abbott!!!

The $20 one is Laura Warman. Not an ilxor but an amazing artist.

oh, minor thing, but you can pause the videos with space bar or skip to the next one with the right arrow.

I'll let my cat know.

whole project is awesome of course!

these are really enjoyable
my favorite by far was the praying mantis
for some reason the website played it 2x and i watched it 2x

My guesses were that the cat story was carl and the tuba story was LL. whoops! Can't wait to not be in class so I can listen to this all again.

ILXors have some great sounding voices.

^^

haha! omg lol. who was the tuba? i didn't even submit a story. i might now, if i can think of something i want to share.

abbott!

wow i had no idea that's what abbott sounded like either!
my voice is way lower, and much less fun

something about the intonations in abb's voice made me feel an LL vibe! I wasn't too surprised to find out it was abbs though
both times I've recorded something for Zach (mine isn't up yet) I've been sick so I sound way huskier than I am IRL

damnit i won't be near a laptop/desktop for a few days maybe

yeah, me and the benevolent coder guy are going to work on mobile support (again) later this evening. for now, though, don't forget you can always check out the youtube playlist, which should work on your phone: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtnDNzhDcq9sxH2LlcDATCyzLPtlF3kG9

beautiful URL! but yeah, the mobile/tablet thing is a bummer. right now i have a redirect in place that detects if it's a phone/tablet, then redirects to sorry.html with a message saying that mobile doesn't work yet, check it out on a computer. about a 1/3 of the visitors have been redirected to sorry.html so far today. :(

who found the body by the side of the road? that one was v dramatically delivered.

just a suggestion but maybe you should make a new ThirtySecondStories youtube acct?

these are really enjoyable
my favorite by far was the praying mantis
for some reason the website played it 2x and i watched it 2x

― groundless round (La Lechera), Monday, January 26, 2015 11:27 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm. did not play twice for me, but I would have enjoyed it.

xpost

that's Ronan!

There are a few more ILXor contributions coming in the next batch, too. Grady's was actually the very first one I completed, but I'm going to re-do it. I'm still at the extreme beginner's end of the final cut pro learning curve, and his was the very first one I did. I tried my best and was happy with it at the time but now it looks pretty bad compared to some of the newer videos and I wanted to do a better job. same deal with silby's story.

do i recall him doing some acting or something? he should record audiobooks.

RE: setting up a new youtube account, we'll see. It's tough to tell how much interest there will be. If someone ends up writing about it and it gets a big boost in traffic I might try to sharpen things up a little on youtube, but it's more likely that it will just fade into the halls of the forgotten internet. either way, i'm going to keep plugging away at new stories for the forthcoming weeks/months.

this is mostly very relaxing, but the mantis gaze made my heart race a little

I'm excited about this!

Videos aren't loading consistently for me though (Mac OS X/Safari). Let me know if you want me to check for JS errors or something

OMFG how did I completely miss all this!? I saw the (original) thread title and assumed it was a TV show so I havent looked :( I missed out!

Whose is the praying mantis tale?

nah, you're right on time. :)

xpost hmm, that's weird - other than the obvious mobile/tablet thing i haven't heard of anyone having any problems loading the video yet.

when you say they're not loading consistently, what do you mean? there's a long pause before one starts? or does it ever get completely stuck between videos?

praying mantis tale is an ilxor, but i'm actually not sure who he is on ilx! credits here

he has an amazing speaking voice as well.

he does, and Ive no idea who that is on here either - own up man!

PS happy to add an antipodean drawl to proceedings if you ever need further worx later on!

Yeah I want in on this as well, this is amazing

XXP - I am the mantis :)

Irl the little feller did a very cartoony single take and flinch, it was funny and anthropomorphic, but KM's kinda sinister mantis matches my dour retelling perfectly.

Also it reminds me of the cover of Katy Lied!

do i recall him doing some acting or something? he should record audiobooks.

thanks :) am doing my first pro play this year. i want to get into some voiceover stuff eventually too. i was kind of messing with the body story, wanted to go for a kind of noir feeling.

i have started doing my own audio stuff as i really enjoy it - this is fairly rough but take a listen if you like: https://soundcloud.com/ronan-fitzgerald/fatherpatfrancis

followed!

the mantis story had a great video and reminded me of when i was similarly confronted by a possum staring at me while i was lying in bed.

i like how they all feel fantastical, not that i don't think they are true, just that their brevity and the different accents and topics give it this cosmic feeling.

i swear i will check this out on my 3-day weekend.

i wd have to send you mine on cassette. :)

these sound great

also did you get my email

also will you accept untrue stories at any point in the future, I mean I have my doubts about teacup

Don't worry morbs it'll only take you 5 minutes or so, max!

wins when did you send it? I thought that I'd responded to everyone but maybe I missed it somehow!

I just need to make 2 more and then I can finally do an update. Looking doubtful that it will ever work on mobile, though. (

(Eyeless sad face)

new episode, Monday at noon eastern. 5 new stories (including ilxors silby and and tangenttangent and gr8080). for other ilxors whose stories i haven't gotten to yet, i'm sorry. i have a deep backlog and they're kind of taking me forever.

this update will add support for iPad and Android, but not iPhone (fuck! hopefully it's coming home. we're still working on it).

yay!

alright, episode 3 is up!

hahaha you went with my drunker take (of course)

nice! these are v cool

i'm finally going to bite the bullet and reach out to a few of the places that helped me out with articles for conferencecall.biz to see if they're interested in writing about this. i hightly doubt it but it's worth a try i guess. i know it's not a big deal but i already went around to a crew of people when introspections.me came out and they were all like "yeah man it's really cool, ahem, er, uh i'll ask my boss if i can write about it but we're really busy this week so yeah i don't know, er", and i feel like if i bug them again for thirtysecondstories and then they don't like it, they're going to quietly filter my emails to the Spam folder.

This'll probably get attention, but even if it doesn't just keep doing stuff. With this kind of shit, the deeper your back catalog, the better it'll be when yr shit is actually covered

record a bill simmons rumor into your website

good stuff!

Thanks Bill! or rather, thank all the people who contributed the cool stories.

who had all them tables

Horse_ebooks

Saw an ad that reminded me of these

which ad?

I've been phenomenally lazy over the last month and haven't made any progress.

It was an American man talking about his shoes

No wait he was talking about his hairstyle over an image of his shoes

hahaha

http://i.imgur.com/bJe05yv.jpg

pert plus
buy

i don't think i ever heard ep 3 and just ran em by now
come back!

you're way too kind forks!

i am trying to figure out wtf i am doing in life right now

Making more of these, naturally

<3 these