Archived Posts

Just a quick note to all who may be interested in browsing through the history of posts included here:

The posts you will find prior to this one were all transferred to this site from previous incarnations of The Spirit Blade Underground Weblog. For this reason, many of the links they contain will be out of date or non-functional.

Please feel free to e-mail me if you have any questions or have trouble finding what you're looking for. I'll be happy to help however I can!

Happy browsing!

-Paeter Frandsen

Wednesday, October 15, 2014 Help Kids By Getting Cool Stuff For Yourself!

Spirit Blade Productions and Christian Geek Central are both participating in the October 25th Extra-Life charity event to raise money for children in serious need of medical care.

Our small team of five participants is taking on the task of collecting a combined total of $1000 in donations for this cause. As of writing this we are at 22% of our goal with 11 more days to reach $1000! That's a good start, but we need YOUR help to reach the finish line! And you can even get some cool goodies while supporting the cause!

From now until the end of Sunday, October 26th, every penny received from purchases at the Spirit Blade Productions online store will be donated to the Christian Geek Central Team's fundraising efforts for the Extra-Life charity. So go treat yourself or a friend to some cool goodies and know that you're helping kids who really need it in the process!

There are also special bonuses for those who donate to Paeter Frandsen's personal Extra-Life  efforts (which also contributes to the overall CGC Team goal) on or before Thursday, October 23rd:
 

Receive download links for every product in Spirit Blade Productions' digital library! (Donation of $20. Includes Spirit Blade: Special Edition and song bundle, Spirit Blade: Dark Ritual and song bundle, and Pilgrim's Progress: Similitude Of A Dream! $35 value!! Include your e-mail address with donation. Links will be issued by October 31st.)

Paeter will play a game (if available to him) or sing a song (if on i-tunes) of your choice during his 24-hour live stream for Christian Geek Central! (1st 5 donations of $25.)

Co-host an episode of the Spirit Blade Underground Podcast with Paeter! (1st 3 donations of $50. Include your e-mail address with donation. Redemption of this bonus prize expires March 1st 2015.)

Please help us represent Christ well as we aim to look outside of ourselves toward the needs of others. Even a donation of $5 would be a wonderful help to us as we endeavor to tangibly and visibly bear the image of Christ to these kids and their families.

To help us reach our goal:

1. Visit the Spirit Blade Productions store 
or
2. Click on any team member on the Christian Geek Central Extra-Life Page! 

Monday, September 8, 2014 Gamers Helping Kids! Join The CGC "Extra Life" Team!

Hey Everyone!

The Extra-Life marathon gaming charity event is just 7 weeks away! I'm now officially entering "recruitment mode" in hopes of filling the ranks of the Christian Geek Central Team!

There are two chief ways you can be involved in this event:

The first way to be involved is to do your own gaming marathon as a part of the Christian Geek Central team. (Any kind of gaming, including board/card and Pen and Paper RPGs!)The Extra-Life organization is pretty loose with the "rules" of the event. So if you can't do 24 consecutive hours of gaming, you are welcome to split it up over multiple days. In the spirit of teamwork, participants are encouraged to complete their hours sometime on or near October 25th. You can choose to do it alone or involve your friends/family. No one from Extra-Life will be keeping track of when or even if you do your marathon hours. It's all on the honor system and the bottom line is about raising money for children in need of medical care. You can let your donors know that even if you burn out before hitting 24 hours, all of their donation will still go to the charity.

Raising money is actually very simple as well. You are encouraged to contact as many people as possible with the goal of getting at least 10 people to donate $10-$20 to the cause, with your personal goal being to achieve $100-$200 in donations. If you're shy or don't like writing, Extra-Life also provides a nice letter that you can use or modify as you seek donations. You also don't have to collect any money yourself, but simply direct people to a webpage where they can donate online.

As a member of the Christian Geek Central team, you are welcome to choose the Phoenix Children's Hospital as the hospital you wish to support, or choose from hundreds of other hospitals that are also part of the Children's Miracle Network.

For more information, or to sign up to join the Christian Geek Central Team and do a marathon, go to:

http://www.extra-life.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.team&teamID=15081

As you can imagine, doing something like this takes some advance planning to make room for it in your schedule, which is why I'm recruiting so early. I hope to have most of the Christian Geek Central team signed up by October 1st. Late-comers will of course be welcome to join, but they will have less time to raise funds for the event.

So if this option interests you, please take a good look at your schedule, talk to those in your life it will effect, and then visit the link above to get started!


The second option is, of course, to donate! if you'd like to donate in partnership with my efforts, you can do so here:

http://www.extra-life.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.participant&participantID=92024

However feel free to wait and support another team member if you'd like. I'm making this option available now but will not beginactively seeking donations until the beginning of October.

I hope you'll be able to partner with me in both a celebration of the gift of games and an effort to be the hands of Jesus in the lives of hurting children.

Thanks!

-Paeter Frandsen

Tuesday, August 26, 2014 T-Shirts 15% Off!!

From now until September 2nd you can get our T-Shirt at 15% off the regular price! A variety of colors, sizes and fits are available, so don't miss this chance to express your Christ-honoring geekery and support the efforts of Spirit Blade Productions at the same time!

To take advantage of this sale, use the promo code SHIRTS15 when you checkout from our spreadshirt store!

Don't wait! This sale will come and go before you know it!

Thursday, August 21, 2014 Voyages Of The USS Sasquatch: First Flight

The Spirit Blade Underground Alliance is pleased to present their newest audio drama:

Voyages Of The USS Sasquatch: First Flight

A young graduate prepares for her first space-faring assignment aboard an unusual ship with an unorthodox crew. But danger doesn't wait for preparations, and soon the crew of the USS Sasquatch holds the fate of many in their hands.

Monday, July 7, 2014 Christian Geek Central Temporarily Down

Just a heads up that christiangeekcentral.com is temporarily down. We were recently the victim of credit card fraud. Our compromised credit card has been deactivated and I didn't realize that CGC was due to auto-renew (using the now deactivated card) on 7/6/14. Great timing, huh?

The good folks at GoDaddy tell me that the site should be back up in 30-60 minutes, or up to 24 hours on the extreme long side of things.

So sorry for this oversight on my part. Thank you so much for your patience!

-Paeter

Thursday, June 26, 2014 Too Many Good Choices!

This week I finished work on Scene 9 for Spirit Blade: A World Of Shadows, putting me over 1/4th of the way complete in mixing the entire project. (Well, much more than that if you factor in the work on the songs I've completed so far.) That may not sound like much, but to me it's halfway to halfway!

Scene 10 is a short but fairly heavy scene between Saolos and Merikk. Sean Anthony Roberts, who provides the voice for Saolos in both "Dark Ritual" and "A World Of Shadows", brought his A game to this scene, which makes it a great pleasure to work on, but also a real challenge to edit.

Sean is such a fantastic performer that he usually requires very little direction. He also tends to give me multiple, fantastic versions that are different yet equally appropriate to the moment in the script. As I sat editing scene 10 today I thought, "I want people to hear ALL of these takes!"

In the end I choose, as best I can, and then resolve to let the other takes be heard sometime later in a behind the scenes feature.

Already it looks as if I'll be able to finish Scene 10 before the week is over, which would be very gratifying. At the same time, I've begun praying that Yahweh will allow me to have peace and contentment regarding my pace and productivity, resting in his sovereign control over events and ultimate wisdom regarding what should happen when.

Either way, I hope to keep taking a break now and then to keep you updated. Stay tuned!

-Paeter Frandsen

Saturday, June 7, 2014 Podcast Delay

Just a quick heads up. We're having an internet outage that looks like it will last at least until late Sunday afternoon, so the podcast may not be up until Monday or later.

Using my smart phone hotspot, I managed to upload my video review of "Edge Of Tomorrow", which you can see right now at christiangeekcentral.com. But for some reason, my upload client doesn't like it when I try to use my phone to upload the podcast.

I will get the episode up as soon as I possibly can. In the meantime thank you so much for your patience.

-Paeter Frandsen 

Monday, June 2, 2014 Summer Days And Productivity

It's a miracle!

The summer has begun at the Frandsen household, which means both of our boys are home and full of energy. For a guy who tries to do much of his work at home throughout the day, the thought of this season is something I have dreaded. "Prepare to watch your productivity plummet, Paeter. Just assume that you won't make much progress on AWOS ("Spirit Blade: A World Of Shadows") until August."

What I wasn't prepared for was the social dynamic between my boys, and how it's actually helping me to get MORE mixing time into my schedule than I had during the school year with only our youngest at home most days.

Our youngest boy is the extrovert of the family. This means that unless he is interacting with someone, he's not happy for long. Which makes being alone with him all day very challenging if I hope to get any work done.

By contrast, our older boy is more like me. Highly imaginative and content to play by himself much of the time. When I only have him to worry about, keeping up with my work day isn't too difficult.

With our oldest now home from school, the little guy has someone else he can suck the life from *Ahem!* I mean- PLAY with. And when our oldest prefers to play alone, The Destroyer (as we often call our youngest) is often content with his new favorite hobby... playing in water!

So the water bill from our sprinkler may be on the rise, but so is my productivity on AWOS, to which I've so far been able to dedicate at least 1 MORE hour per day than what is normal during the school year. And often even more than that!

I'm sure the schedule will require tweaking as the summer moves forward, but this is a VERY encouraging and exciting development!

For those curious, I'm currently mixing scene 9 out of 38 (not 39, as I thought last time), which means that when I'm done with the current scene I'll be 1/4th of the way through the project! That might seem like a small slice, but for me it means I'm about halfway to halfway! Woohoo!

Here's hoping this momentum will continue!

-Paeter Frandsen