And the Secret is out… Terrance Zdunich is Count Tarakan – The Bad Ass Russian

It has been a busy year, and most of it has been spent in hiding while working on a few projects… specifically The Bad Ass Russian Project. This past weekend while at the Amber Does Dallas Repo shadowcast in Texas, Terrance Zdunich finally let the cat out of the bag and revealed that HE is The BAD ASS RUSSIAN, also known as Count Tarakan. Zdunich stars in the music video short “ISTANBUL” singing his darkly funny rendition of “Istanbul, not Constantinople.” The song was mastered and produced by horror legend Joe Bishara of Insidious, Repo & Night of The Demons, with music by Larry Andrews, CJ DeAngelus, Saar Hendleman, and Peter Mihaichuk.

Musical short directed by SpookyDan Walker…That’s me!

Please share it with your circle of comrades, and you will be Viktory!
Spookydan
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COUNT TARAKAN in ISTANBUL, NOT CONSTANTINOPLE
Starring TERRANCE ZDUNICH as Count Tarakan with music by LARRY ANDREWS, SAAR HENDLEMAN, JOSEPH BISHARA, CJ DEANGELUS PETER MIHAICHUK   Cinematography by WILL BARRETT Production Asst COURTNEY ORTEGA, BRIAN RYAN Still Photography by BRITTANY OLIPHANT  Makeup Effects by LISETTE SANTANA  Visual Effects by SPOOKYDAN WALKER, TAMMY SUTTON  Creature FX by JAYSON ALVINO, MOLLY RODMAN, SHEM BYRON  Produced by BRIAN SMITH, MARIA PERRY, MIA BRUNO   Executive Produced by TAMMY SUTTON Directed by SPOOKYDAN WALKER

Consider this an angry blog.

A month ago I cancelled Dish Network after almost 3 years of service. The picture froze way too often, and the technician who installed it literally just threw a cable over our house, instead of running the cords through (or under) the house.

So I signed up for Time Warner, which cost more, and has an unforgivably lousy menu/guide interface. However, they were great when dealing with getting it set up and working. The very first day of having Time Warner, I realized that one of the set top receivers was not working properly, and they had a new one out to me the very next day. But they have a much lower number of HD channels, and a really archaic channel guide.

A few days later I got this Email from Dish:

 So I decided to give them a call and see what it would really cost to get it back, since I really don’t like the Time Warner channel guide. Dish promised me 2 new set top boxes (for 3 Tv’s) both with DVR’s and HD. I even agreed to pay an additional monthly service charge to get all 3 boxes, but they waived the $95 installation fee to rewire the house. They would even get a technician out the very next day. I paid $137 over the phone to get this all locked in. This all sounded great!

This morning when the technician arrived, his work order was to reconnect my old (defective) boxes, nothing more…no rewiring, no promised DVR’s, no HD on one of the TV’s. So he called the headquarters to find out that the order quoted over the phone included none of the things promised to me.  He offered to reorder new boxes, but it would now cost be $444 to get them, and a 2 year service contract. I said no way, thanked him for his time and sent him away.

Then I called back Dish to find out what went wrong, I spoke to Angela, who immediately put me on hold, when she finally got to me, she was 100% condescending in talking to me about what I had ordered. Angela told me that I was wrong, and made it perfectly clear that everything I was quoted was not only wrong, but impossible. It was going to be an extra fee for the additional DVR (which I had previously agreed to) and additional fee for the 3^rd HD box (which I had previously agreed to). I was wrong, and I could barely get a word in as she rambled off all the reasons why I was wrong. And by the way it will take up to 4 weeks to get my $137 refunded.

I was wrong in believing what was quoted, and I was wrong in thinking that when I agreed PRE-PAID FOR a service, that I would receive what was promised.

At some point, Dish Network will be DEAD like Osama Bin Laden, and I hope they are sideswiped by a cable company that treats their customers like Human Beings. We all know about cord cutting and how Netflix has changed the way that people are receiving TV, not to mention how TV everywhere and online viewing habits are changing. With over 14 MILLION paying customers at Dish Network, I doubt that I am alone in receiving bad customer service.

At an average of $50 a month (times by 14 Mil subscribers) Dish takes in about $700,000,000 per month on subscriber fees, you would think that with that kind of money they could afford to hire honest people, who at least act like they care about customers.

Is there anyone else out there who would like an alternative to the current cable providers? Not just internet TV, but a cable company that offers alacart channels with great customer service. maybe its time someone changes the rules of Cable, and tries to provide a NEW solution to what seems to be a very flawed system.

BRANKO BRANKO!!

Once upon a time there was this chauffeur dude in that movie with a Graverobber…
My assistant Maria Perry found him and he sent us a picture of himself wearing our Repo Army Merch… The REAL BRANKO BRANKO wearing the sold out BRANKO BRANKO shirt! www.repoarmy.com TESTIFY!

The Zombie Invasion has started! But not quite the way you thought it was going to be, it’s on Television.
By SpookyDan Walker

After reading Jim Louderback’s (CEO of Revision3) insightful blog post on the state of the television industry, http://louderback.com/2011/zombie-cable-channels-seek-second-life-online/ I have decided to follow his lead and further the analogy that the entertainment industry as we knew it has officially DIED, but the execs are still walking around aimlessly trying to figure out what to do.

That’s right the zombies are walking among us. Let me explain. Last week I attended NATPE the National Association of Television Program Executives conference in Miami. This is the place where TV executives (IE: “ZOMBIES”) show off their wares, buy and sell their shitty shows, and speak on panels to make themselves feel like they are important. I am talking about men and woman in suits making 6 figures a year, and continuing to be the “dealmakers” for the major studios, TV Networks, and Cable Companies. Like the current feature film studio system, TV is changing so fast we can barely keep a handle on it. But this is great news for independent producers and online video content creators. The Zombies don’t really know what to do about the changing face of technology and how we are getting and watching TV.
*sidenote: The Zombies do know how to spend hundreds of thousands of $$$ on marketing their shitty TV shows.

In three days is sat in panel after panel of the top people in the TV industry talking about the various aspects of the industry. And in almost every panel, I heard the zombies talk about “Monetization strategies”, “the problems with Netflix, YouTube and Hulu” and “Branded Entertainment”. Even a top shelf guy who had formerly run giant NBC; Jeff Zucker (NBC) acknowledged that “How to get paid (in online video content) is the big question… we haven’t figured it out yet, but that’s the goal”. This question was echoed in almost every panel, but the Zombies don’t want to see or admit to the fact that the answer is directly in front of them. It’s already happening at YouTube, Revision3 and Smosh.TV. The Zombies don’t want to lose their fat cat jobs and cars because of the pesky online landscape, so instead of embracing it, they try to talk it down (Online video is the place to watch funny cats, not for quality content)
*sidenote: The Zombies are currently pretending to understand Twitter and Facebook, not because they want to, but because it just seems important.

The future of television and feature films is evolving in changing in that same way as the record industry did…its already becoming a different beast as we the consumers are changing our viewing habits. In music, as downloads were happening, people went wherever it was easy to get it…Napster, Torrents, ITunes. Now in Television, slowly people are dropping their cable providers for Hulu and Netflix. How long before HBO offers an app for $2/month to get their premiere content directly to your computer/Ipad/phone/Roku/Boxee? Really…what are they waiting for? I would happily pay for it…would you?
A better explanation of this is on VentureBeat.com by Ty Braswell http://venturebeat.com/2011/01/17/why-2011-will-be-do-or-die-for-tv/
*sidenote: The Zombies are trying to seem hip by wearing their expensive suits, with jeans.

There are many issues at hand, and at the core it is keeping production costs inside the production (not in the Zombies annual salaries), and getting the content to the viewer as seamlessly and intuitively as possible, by porting to Roku, AppleTV, Playstation3 and Boxee. Quality content is still king, but now more than ever, quality content is not going to be governed by studio executives, but by the forward thinking companies like YouTube, Revision3 and Smosh.tv who already have partnership programs in place to pay for the content, and deliver it to you for FREE.
*sidenote: The Zombies will tell you that TV has a much greater reach for advertisers than anywhere online…which is true, unless you are YouTube which reaches a global audience..

The best part about this is that the Zombies are not going to go down easily (they are going to need more than a double-tap to kill them). And the longer they keep collecting the fat salaries, and embracing the old television business model, the easier it will be for the new breed of producers to KILL them off.

I made a video for Kill Hannah last year, and I am told that its going to get released soon, but while you wait for that one, here is the latest amazing video from Chicago’s own Kill Hannah for the song Promise Me.

and for what its worth Mat PROMISED ME that The Sad Eyes video will be coming along soon woohoo

Check out the article on Shock Till You Drop to find out more!

http://www.shocktillyoudrop.com/news/topnews.php?id=17790