Speaking of Henry Green
In case you didn’t know, a few days after Henry was born, Alan Lastufka released a compilation album called DFTBA Lullabies.
It features many of the great DFTBA artists such as Hank Green of course, Tom Milsom, Alex Day, Dr. Noise, Craig Benzine, and even the Katherine! Most of the songs are covers, but there are a few original songs I believe. It’s very cute and the best part is that it’s FREE.
So a couple weeks ago I was playing Super Mario Wii, and Kristen was hanging out watching me wipe the floor with Bowser.
I kept losing my mushroom power on this one section and she blurted out “What doesn’t kill me, only makes me smaller.” I laughed. And then put it on a t-shirt. You can buy that t-shirt now from DFTBA Records: http://dft.ba/mario
w00p!
Dear nation: Do you need sweeping? If so, my new book is available and ready for the job.
Sometimes I forget how much of a big deal John is. Like, between YouTube and Twitter and gchat, it’s easy to forget he’s got a New York Times bestselling book that’s currently “sweeping the nation”.
Growing up I always had this idea of authors being, like, that dude from Misery. Living a solitary life in the snow-covered mountains. Finishing his novel on an old manual typewriter, with a single cigarette and glass of wine waiting for the final page to be composed. Carrying around manuscripts in old leather satchels… Not drawing on his face with Sharpie, and playing X-Box every day. I dunno. The way associations form in our minds is weird.
when will the TFioS box sets be sent out? :D
Anonymous90% of them have already been sent out. Usually it would be 100%, no problem, but unfortunately our only warehouse worker (and my girlfriend), Kristen, threw her back out the first night of packing. We only had a couple hundred boxes done at that point.
So over the last five days I’ve been working 12 and 14 hour days packing and labeling and sending out the box sets. I had my parents coming over every day after they got off their day job to help. I had nerdfighters I had never met who live in the area come over to help out because every pair of hands count.
This is the largest project DFTBA has ever taken on, and unfortunately we had to tackle it with our master packer out of service. To pack one single box set I need to…
1. collate seven discs
2. assemble postcards and a concert ticket
3. insert a piece of styrofoam and a wrist band
4. fold up the box set
5. wrap the box set in bubblewrap
6. construct the shipping box
7. place the box set in the shipping box
8. tape the shipping box closed
9. label the shipping box with each person’s address
10. slap a FRAGILE label on there, then move on to the next…
…times THREE-THOUSAND TIMES.
So, I fully apologize to those who receive their box sets late, but I am honestly working myself close to death to get them out as fast as possible while also being a good boyfriend and cooking for Kristen, helping her move from the bed to the bathroom, cleaning the house, etc.
I promise you will have it as quickly as superhumanly possible.
So I kinda just met the man who saved my life.
Forgive my awkward writing, I’m not feeling quite eloquent as of yet (that last phrasing was to trick you into thinking otherwise… Did it work?) I’m coming home from Wellesley right now, after attending the tour de nerdfighting. I met up with Jenna, got pretty fucking amazing seats, and the performance itself was fantastic. Afterwards, I waited for three hours in the auditorium until my number (824) was called… Then waited in line for about 20 more minutes. So worth it.
Background: my gym teacher’s father, and coincidentally my dad’s friend, Ron Magers, invented the sing-a-ma-jig… I’ve met him a few times, and when I found out I would get the chance to meet John, I asked Ron if he would write him a note… “John: love your blog. Thanks for giving my toys some air time. Wait till you see what we’re doing next!”
So I’ve waited for about 3.5 hrs to meet John, Hank, and the Katherine.
It went something like this…
John: Hi, what’s going on?
Me: Hi John. First off I wanted to thank you. And ummmmm I know you can’t sign personal belongings and I get that, but I just wanted to give you this *hands him note* because I happen to know the guy who invented the sing-a-ma-jig, and he happens to really like you, so he wrote you this for you.
John: wait like you know the actual guy who invented the actual toy?
Me: Yes the actual guy!
John: *grins that stupid wide goofy grin* That’s awesome!!!!
Me: Yeah ummm so I just wanted to let you know even though you can’t-
John: are you kidding? For the •actual• inventor? *laughs and winks* of course I can sign it! … Just don’t… Tell anybody.
Me: haha okay I won’t. (as he’s signing LfA) I also just really wanted to thank you… For ummm… Basically looking for Alaska saved my life. And so I’m really grateful for that.
John: (looks up) Wow, thank you, that means so much to me. I’m glad the gratitude is mutual! But seriously thank you for that.
Me: Thank •you• so much! And umm best wishes.
John: *Smiles again (god dammit)* Haha you too.
Love that this happened.
I just video chatted with John Green to show him the empty TFioS box sets. UPS dropped them off ten minutes ago. Now to stuff these with the CD and postcard bundles Kristen and I have been assembling over the last week.
The Fault In Our Packing
I only have about 500 packs of TFioS discs left to assemble, so we’re in the home stretch!
One thing I want to say before we send these out… There are seven different discs, four different postcards, a ticket stub, a wrist band and a piece of styrofoam in each and every one of these 3,000 box sets. There is a very good chance that at least a couple boxes will miss a CD, or one of the postcards, or we’ll skip a wristband.
We haven’t noticed any of these mistakes yet, but there’s bound to be one or two.
IF your box has two Disc 3s, or no DVD, or whatever… please just send us a nice email about it and we’ll be more than happy to make it right. Kristen and I are assembling these by hand, we’re both human, we both make mistakes. They are not intentional. We did print a few extras of each item just in case. We WILL make it right, DFTBA always does. Just stay calm and email us. =)
Okay, that’s all, back to the packing table.
