Phaedrus

Hope you had a wonderful day!

Hope you had a great day, silvershock!

Congrats, C7! Here's to many more!

So, yes. Some folks are stretching their finances by seeing SPs. They may not be able to afford any more than the rate the lady they're seeing charges. Fair enough. I'm not going to judge anybody on the basis of their financial situation. However... although we might talk about money here on the board, we put a lot of effort into not doing so when we meet. Ladies don't like having to ask for the envelope. We guys don't like it much if she counts the money in front of us. We may vary in how much we dislike those things, but I don't think very many people think of them positively. Talking or thinking about the money ruins the fantasy that we work so hard to maintain. But then... you ask for change. This tells me two things: first, that you're too lazy to get hold of the right amount in advance; second, that you care little enough about a provider's feelings that you're prepared to put her through the awkwardness of dealing with it. Really, it's not hard to have the right money. No matter what the ATM spits out, is it really so difficult to make sure you have 10s and 20s in your wallet so you can make the envelope up to the right amount? All you have to do is... not spend them for a couple of days beforehand. And as for asking for change... so you not understand that we're dealing with a fantasy here, and that doing so destroys it? Do you not realize that even if you don't care, she might well do? Can you not work this out, or do you simply not care how she feels? As I said, I won't judge you based on your financial situation... but I have no problem with judging you for other things: firstly for your laziness, and secondly for either your selfishness or your stupidity, whichever applies.

Congratulations, Frank!

Never expected, always appreciated. At least, that's what the SPs say, and I've never had any reason to disbelieve them.

Japan has an annual penis festival. Who knew?

When it snows next week, it will now be Officially Your Fault. :)

Ze Frank is back. This time... . Includes some frenetic-looking octopodean sexytime.

For those of you who care about this sort of thing... Fairly good summary here, with links to further reading. You probably don't need to do anything about this unless you run your own web servers (and that means looking after the servers, not just having a website). Unfortunately, we have no idea who already knew about this, or how they'd exploited it, or what they'd done with the information thus gained...

Block flash, too. And make sure flash is configured to not store stuff on your machine; otherwise it can track you across browsers and across websites... In related news... M$ is bringing the start menu back :) http://mashable.com/2014/04/02/universal-windows-apps/

A particularly good ad... for a laxative.

MN2, I'm afraid I'm utterly bamboozled by your business plan. But yeah, it looks good to me. Up to now, the only plan we've had was something Lee came up with after watching South Park: 1. Remove underpants 2. ??? 3. Profit! Although it's worked so far, I agree there may be room for improvement, so if you want to take it on, please go right ahead! However, I'm afraid I can't work on business plans this weekend. I'm having way too much fun.

How To Read Dirty Books For Money I'm an audiobook narrator. I'm the voice pouring through your earbuds as you commute to work, sweat it out at the gym, or finish folding laundry. I'm reading you your YA, Fantasy, Inspirational Self Help, whatever you choose to listen to. More often than not though, I'm reading dirty books to you. I've been doing this for about a year - I've recorded just over 25 titles and it's the best job I've ever had: fun, relatively easy, and just weird enough. I mean who wouldn't want a job that sparks conversations where you say things like: "And THEN I had to read this thing about a serial killer-hairdresser-nun who falls in love with a literal purple monster that lives under the stairs in the basement of her dormitory (because I guess she's still in beauty-nun-college?). She goes down to do the laundry and they get it on and there was literally 3 paragraphs devoted to his monster-goo. I was so pissed off, I gave her an 80 year-old-lady voice." And everyone laughs, but then you take it too far and start moaning in your grandma-voice, and the room gets uncomfortably quiet again. Just me? Hm. Anyway. I was a little surprised to find a niche for myself reading Romance and Erotica. I don't know if there's something about my voice that lends itself to dirty book narration, or if it's just because I'm not afraid to say filthy things with conviction, but I audition for books in other genres, and 4 times out of 5, if I'm awarded a contract, it's for a dirty book. And hell, that is fine by me. That's what pseudonyms are for! People are always asking me how I got started doing this and you'd be surprised how many people want to try their hand at it. In case you're one of those people, here are 10 Easy Steps to Getting Paid to Read Smut. 1. Pick a pseudonym. I went with the old Middlename Streetyougrewupon. 2. Make a profile on a site like ACX.com. 3. Get a microphone. My Blue Yeti cost $150 at Guitar Center. 4. Find a place to record. My first studio was under a comforter on the floor of my apartment. 5. Pick some dirty books to audition for. These are located on ACX under Romance or Erotica. 6. Suspend your disbelief. Some of these books are not good. Some of them are cliche or poorly written. This is not your concern. You are here to make money reading dirty books. On the other hand, a lot of them ARE good. One of my favorites for example (Wanna hear what I sound like? Click there!) 7. Audition for some books, and when you get a contract... 8. Record the books. 9. Edit the books. (This will take twice as long as reading the books did. It is tedious and boring. I wish I could hire someone to edit the books for me. Seriously. Email me if you know anyone who is interested.) 10. Upload your audio files to the internet and click "I'm Done." Now your dirty books are on the internet and you will receive a royalty check as soon someone buys them on Audible, Amazon, or iTunes. And for real, people buy them. One of my best selling audiobooks is a book that is so bad I created a SECOND pseudonym to record under because I didn't even want my first fake name associated with it. It was a collection of short erotic stories that were so terrible the author included a recipe for meatballs when he ran out of ideas. But I sexy-read the shit out of it, and last month I received a royalty check for $623.30. Now I don't mean to give the impression that Audible is just giving money away. There are various skill-levels when it comes to dirty-book reading. I humblebrag and mambleyag that I am remarkably good at it. I've got a nice, low voice that easily sounds like a man's or a woman's (important for sexy-reading scenes between male and female characters); I've got suitcases of character voices, an ear for accents and years of experience storytelling and doing solo performance. I've got no problem locking myself in a closet for 2 days in order to finish a 9 hour book. (I'm proud to say that my studio has graduated to a walk-in closet from underneath the comforter in the middle of the floor). I love learning new words and proper pronunciations and playing all the parts, no matter how cheesy or racy or weird the script may be. I won't lie though: it's kind of hard being so happy with my job, but not really being able to share my work with most of my friends and family. I've played clips for my boyfriend and a few close friends, but aside from that, most people get a weird look on their face when I hint at the bisexual paranormal three-way I narrated today. And I can respect that. It's kind of like asking your friends to watch the porno you shot. At the end of the day, I'm having a blast, flexing my favorite muscles, learning new things every day, bringing an author's vision to life and getting paid! And I don't even have to get out of my pajamas or worry that my neighbors will recognize me. So. Have you ever done anything like this before? Are you going to take a shot at sexy-reading too? (Or do you have a secret identity already? And what have you been using it for?)

Happy birthday, Katrine!

Many happy returns, Leigh!

Hope you had a fantastic day, RG!

Congrats, Bianca! Here's to many more!

Wow. I'm impressed. Good job, RG!

A transcript from the Apollo missions. Because astronauts are totally professional at all times...

Sea level change off the coast of Chile, a few minutes ago. Magnitude 8.2 earthquake, that's why.