E-Book Editing Fun

One of the many advantages owning an eBook reader has over reading the traditional bound edition is the ability you have to make your own edits to the book. Of course, this takes some work with software the book publishers might not approve of you using, but that is not something we need to discuss - is it? 

If I find an author I enjoy, but think he/she is using too many adverbs (especially during dialog) I can pick three or four of the most common, and remove them with no adverse effect. Thus, "'Go fuck yourself,' she said hotly." becomes, "'Go fuck yourself,' she said." See? The adverb is an unnecessary qualifier. If a writer's dialog requires an adverb or other descriptor to convey the emotion, then the dialog is weak. The above example works just fine without the adverb.

Sometimes an author can become too fond of a certain word(s). I noticed Terry Pratchett uses the words "quite" and "rather" and it started to bug me. I'm not sure if it's a chink in his writing armor, or just the fact that he's British, but I'd feel a pang of annoyance every time I read one of these words. Once again it was only a matter of moments to get rid of them. From then on "quite a lot" became "a lot" and "a rather large troll" was reduced to "a large troll."

One fun edit I read about was replacing the word "wand" with "wang" in the Harry Potter books. The result being wizards drawing and pointing their wangs at one another, or if an innocent bystander word gets swept up in the editing, you'll find Ron and Harry wangering around Hogwarts. I may or may not have taken this one step further by changing Voldemort to Buttface McGee.

After I post this, I plan on reading the first few chapters in the fifth book of Lee Child's Jack Reacher series. Over the first four books I found the sentence "So-and-so shrugged" or similar variants showed up about every three pages. Using the Kindle's "Search This Book" feature it turned out to be once every three and one-third pages. Way too repetitive for me so back to the editing board. Starting with this book instead of reading "Reacher shrugged," I'll be reading "Reacher did a sexy dance." Might liven up an already exciting series.

Andy to Andy - Hitler Apologists

It's the episode that took a week to record! The Andy's kick things off by discussing topics that were relevant last week: the Tosh rape joke fiasco. Then it's on to netflix vs. cable, and someone who is always relevant: Shaq. Bootleg fireworks are displayed. They decide to pause recording because they ran out of topics to discuss, but vow to return once they've come up with something. A week passes, and the Andys return to debate the possibility of Bigfoot, and somehow find themselves defending Hitler.


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Return of the Fence - Man vs. Owl

Andy and Bryan have returned from their tryouts for the US Olympic Cricket team, and are ready for another awesome podcast. They discuss Go Daddy's honesty and offering of vector images. From there it's a weird dream Andy had that might not be far from reality. Can a world class practitioner of Jiu Jitsu break a bear's arm? How would you do in a fist fight against an owl? What about an owl the size of a human? Wes Anderson has a following of hipsters. Mitt Romney gets booed by the NAACP, while a new HBO series lectures you on the news.

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Return of the Fence - Strugglin'

Andy and Bryan have been out in the heat shooting jump shots all day, but return in time for another podcast. They talk about the Supreme Court's recent ruling on President Obama's health care bill. Has Obama gone too far this time? No. They watch a prank call into a weird religious public access show, and then round out the show with some video game chat. They think they have discovered a way to revolutionize gaming, but then realize people have been doing it in their basements for years.

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Andy to Andy - Game of Groans

Angie joins the Andys in this extra long episode to discuss the ins and outs of Season 2 of Game of Thrones, and how it differs from the books. Warning: There are major book spoilers in this episode, but only for the first two books in the series. We don't discuss any future events for upcoming seasons. A couple spoilers tried to sneak past us, but were edited out. I can't guarantee all minor spoilers were caught.

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Return of The Fence - Show Toppings

Andy and Bryan are on the couch after a long day of ice skating. They talk Andy's rental car he is forced to drive, and watch a video featuring a guy that "don't take no orders from no women." Bryce Harper is a cocky asshole. Can you jam with the Console Cowboys? There's a video from a kid who looks like Screech Jr, very creepy. And finally, Bryan claims Dominoes has the best pizza in the area, and the show comes to a crashing halt.


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Andy To Andy - The Jackin It Paradigm

Another false start in this one, but quickly resolved. Andy shares a story about witnessing a car accident where he was the only decent person around, while the Other Andy tries to cram as many poop jokes in as he can. The Andys then move on to the Florida Zombie, a shark on a water slide, and what they would do if they found themselves in the Groundhog's Day scenario. After that it gets weird.

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