I think I’m going to have to cancel the videochat this month since I’m still sick and I have no confidence of my throat being in good shape by the 14th at this point. While I could push it back another week, it starts to not make much sense since it will come up against the February videochat.

This is one of the slowest recoveries I’ve had in years, though I think I am getting overall better. I would classify my status as “sick” now, an upgrade from “zombie” earlier, but it still feels like there’s a frog in my throat. Even if I’m healed up by this weekend, talking for hours maybe shouldn’t be the first thing I do once I’m well. I really have no idea when my voice is going to be back, but I hope to slowly start working on more things, particularly the website and the movie. In the event that my voice comes back sooner, a video this month is still possible, but I can’t predict anything right now.

I sometimes think of the viewers as my boss, so on that note, I’ll either be working on things related to the videos that don’t involve any voicework, or staring into space in a stupor, doing absolutely nothing. This concludes my performance report for 2018.

This is a quick update I’m doing to let people know everything is on hold. I’ve been wavering in and out of a complete state of misery the past few days, being sick with something. I was able to see a doctor today and have been diagnosed with Tracheitis. It’s much more than a sore throat as it can be an effort to do much of anything in my current state. So while any voicework is off the table, I can’t guarantee I’ll get much else done either. This also makes me think fast zombies are ridiculous, because feeling like a zombie, I can say moving slow + occasional lunging makes much more sense.

I’ve had some medications prescribed to me however, so hopefully I’ll get better over the coming week. The next videochat with fans is postponed for sure; I’m pushing it back to January 14th, but nothing is guaranteed until I get better. You don’t have to be too worried about me as I’m pretty tough, but it does mean NOTHING is happening for the time being. If I get better over the next few days, I’ll try and catch up on emails or work on the website, but this has hit me hard enough that everything is going to be postponed as long as it needs to be.

Happy Birthday to me! Having a birthday right during middle break, I usually try to avoid working on it, but this time, I got all the files back for Freeman’s Mind, so I decided to finish it off, so here it is! This is going to be the last video for this year as I am still sick and can’t do any more voicework until I recover. My original plan was to have an additional FM and DGN episode this month, but that will just have to wait until later. The good / bad news is I have so many other things I can work on instead that it may be a mixed blessing. I’ll enjoy the not being sick part when that happens though.

Also at this point, Youtube’s demonetization bot is in full swing without much recourse around it, I’ll discuss that more on the next videochat. I’m willing to bet the video will be flagged as not suitable for all advertisers within a few hours of this post, then marked as suitable for all advertisers after I manually submit it for review. Youtube is not wise.

Just barely made it before Christmas! I was intending to get this episode out on the 23rd, but it didn’t exactly work out that way. I think this is a relatively good episode, although I don’t know what happened, but I think my vocals might be more grating than usual. I swear, it feels like on the microphone if I talk normally, then I sound placid and dull, and if I speak up then it sounds like I’m only shouting. It’s something I hope to improve, but I honestly didn’t have any spare time to try and make it better. My apologies if this one is harder than usual to listen to. To top it off, I’m actually recovering from being sick, so it’s possible I may have to put a hold on new videos until my throat recovers.

The next Freeman’s Mind is already recorded however, so that will be ready as soon as I get the sound effects. Have a merry Christmas!

Here’s the much delayed next FM episode! Even though this one took a long time to come out, only part of that was from my end. This means I’ve been able to work on the next Freeman’s Mind in the meantime, which I’m hoping to have out before Christmas. More stuff coming!