From the Desk of

Kevin Tracy

2022-11-01

KEVIN TRACY: Good afternoon, everyone. I have a few brief comments and then I'll take questions.

First, I do plan on voting early this week and I do plan on voting straight ticket Republican for the first time since 2006. We finally have a line up of phenomenal candidates across the board in Indiana's first district, and I'm particularly excited about the candidacy of Jennifer-Ruth Green for US Congress. I honestly never thought I would see the day a Republican would stand a shot at winning Indiana's first district; which goes to show you how extreme socially progressive Democrats have pushed their party and how traditionally Democrat voter blocks in unions and ethnic minority groups are rejecting the new progressive turn of the DNC. I still don't know if the Democratic machine in Lake County is still able to turn blank ballots into straight Democrat ballots, but I think the race will come down to how successful Democrats are at corrupting the polls and stealing power from the voters. Yes, I believe voting fraud happens at a systemic level in Democrat-led communities. No, I don't think voter fraud cost Donald Trump the election. Biden would have won with or without voter fraud. I feel like I still need to say that.

Second, the web traffic numbers for KTracy.com are probably going to suck when they're released later this week. I'm not happy with the numbers, but I'm happy with the changes we're making to KTracy.com, and at the end of the day, this site is a reflection of what makes me happpy, not what makes visitors and search engines happy. We'll provide some more analysis on the traffic numbers in the traffic report.

Third, with the holidays coming up and then it being crunch time to plan The Wedding of the Century by April 22, I've informed the KTracy.com Staff that I will not be doing Comic Conventions, Art Fairs, Anime Cons, Fan Fests, or anything of the sort until 2024. Further, with the exception of apparel printed on demand by Printful, art prints, and copies of The MSPaint Comic comics; I'm shutting down the e-bay store and all of the decals we were selling on KTracy.com. The decals and e-Bay store will likely resume operations shortly after Katie and I return from our honeymoon.

With that, I'll take questions. Go ahead.

QUESTION: When will "Save the Dates" go out for the wedding?

KEVIN TRACY: I've already made the Save The Dates for The Wedding of the Century. They're 4x6 magnets with a picture of Katie and me smiling at one another in some weirdly romantic pose our photographer got us into. They've actually started to get disseminated to Katie's immediate family. I think some of her work friends are getting them this week. I actually plan on printing clear labels for the ivory envelopes later this week and hopefully getting them in the mail by Saturday.

Oh, on Saturday, my dad and I will be in South Bend for the Notre Dame - Clemson football game. The KTracy Manor will be having some work done that weekend and guests will be staying in the Manor, so I feel safe leaving it for a night game in South Bend.

QUESTION: How big will the wedding be?

KEVIN TRACY: We're shooting for around 240 attendees, including family, friends, and friends of the family. I think our current guest list includes 295 invitees, but there are some people getting invitations that we anticipate won't be able to make it. Katie's mom and I came up with a mathematical process for determining that. I'm actually really excited, and a little scared, to see how accurate our math was. I'll share the results when we get RSVPs next year.

QUESTION: When are you planning on releasing new videos?

KEVIN TRACY: Yeah, this hiatus from video making has been frustrating. Simply put, I went through a sloppy divorce a while ago and I'm somehow still dealing with some legal fallout from that. I have a couple of YouTube videos ready to go, but they discuss the divorce and I'm not comfortable sharing anything until the courtroom stuff is finally over with. Katie and I have been talking about doing an unboxing video for a KTracy.com Store haul. I just feel weird sharing that on YouTube without explaining the divorce for any long time fans on there, but we'll see. I don't want to discuss it on KTracy.com for the same reasons.

QUESTION: What is the status of the KTracy.com Podcast?

KEVIN TRACY: Delayed. I announced that in very early 2021 before I met Katie. She's taken a lot of my time, so the time I was planning on dedicating to the podcast has been spent with her. Well worth it, mind you! However, the podcast isn't even on my radar right now. It's mention on KTracy.com is really just a placeholder to remind me where and how I want to share the Podcast. If I had to take a guess, I would think the Podcast would start in 2024, maybe even 2025.

QUESTION: What was the plan for the Podcast, or what will the plan be going forward?

KEVIN TRACY: Originally, it was just going to be me and my buddy Travis bullshitting on Twitch for an hour. We actually had two semi-successful podcasts in the past. Matters of Opinion; which was Travis' original podcast from 2008 through 2011 or 2012. Then, I think in 2014 or 2015, Travis and I jointly launched the Brainfrack Podcast. Unfortunately, Travis was going through a messy divorce; which kind of screwed that up. Travis makes a phenomenal host; which is why I wanted him in on it originally. However, I'm not sure what the KTracy.com Podcast will focus on. Katie may want in on it. It may not be as politically charged as you might expect from me. I'm really not sure. Truthfully, the older I get, the more important my Catholic faith is becoming; which is making blind loyalty to the GOP difficult, especially in the Trump era. If I do a political podcast, it may not find a large audience like our previous podcasts. Furthermore, Travis's political beliefs have become more libertarian since then as well. We may not be able to have a regular, great podcast given our divergent political beliefs. I've got time to think about it and brainstorm with Travis and Katie. Truthfully, Travis may not even be interested anymore.

QUESTION: What new photo galleries do you have planned for November?

KEVIN TRACY: I made a road trip to Weed, CA and Oregon in either late 2004 or early 2005. So there's that. Plus, the Kevin Tracy Museum of Art and Photography interns recently discovered a long-thought-lost disposable camera of my second-to-last day in the Air Force. Because we worked intel, there were never pictures of us doing our jobs. I knew I would want pictures of that one day, so I asked Matt to get some photos of me in uniform around Beale AFB. Truthfully, I don't really love any of the pictures we took, but they're still meaningful to me as they capture my last days in the Air Force. Within that camera, there were also pictures of Matt and I shooting his M1 Grande at a firing range just outside of base. When the interns restored these photos, I was lost in nostalgia for a good while. So, I plan on getting those digitized as soon as possible and put online sometime this month. I may also share some 2003 photos of our Fourth of July celebrations in the desert outside of San Angelo, TX. I know some Air Force buddies of mine would love to see the old pictures, and may even have some pictures to donate to the collection.

QUESTION: How are the product reviews performing in your web traffic?

KEVIN TRACY: Carl can talk about that more than I can. I know the reviews for the AU-A04 studio microphone and the MK850 Keyboard and Mouse from Logitech are performing marvelously and contributing a good amount to our web traffic. So, I think we'll see more product reviews in the future.

QUESTION: Does that mean KTracy.com and your YouTube channel will be product review things?

KEVIN TRACY: We'll see. I really do love creating art, and I know myself well enough to know I can't JUST do product reviews. I'll be bored out of my mind eventually. I think my YouTube channel, like KTracy.com, is just going to be a "Kevin Tracy" thing. I'll review stuff, make art, build things, make convention videos, and hopefully have fun with Katie. Hopefully, people will be interested enough to come along for the ride and get some laughs along the way.

QUESTION: Is KTracy.com satire?

KEVIN TRACY: Absolutely.

QUESTION: Any comment for All Saints Day?

KEVIN TRACY: Get to Holy Mass. It's a holy day of obligation here in the United States, so butts in pews, people!

QUESTION: Any ideas when or where you'll be going on your honeymoon?

KEVIN TRACY: Neither Katie nor I have valid passports yet, so that may limit us. Because I don't drink and because Katie doesn't swim in oceans, an all inclusive may not make the most sense. We're discussing it and shopping for deals. We'll make sure photos are shared in the Kevin Tracy Museum of Art and Photography when we get back.

QUESTION: What's the status of your Fitbit?

KEVIN TRACY: Well, after I bought a new Fitbit Versa 4, I got a message from Fitbit asking me to send them some more information about the broken Fitbit Sense. So if I can find the broken Fitbit, I'll send them what they're asking for. I doubt they'll cover the device since it's at least 3 years old, but in case they have a solution, I'm going to avoid opening the Versa 4 until I run through my options with Fitbit on repairing the old one. I'm really pretty pissed that we spent all that time automating the Fitbit data on the sidebar and then my Fitbit breaks.

QUESTION: What happened to the Fitbit?

KEVIN TRACY: Really clever Planned Obsolescence wrecked my Fitbit Sense. I'll discuss this more in a later post on KTracy.com.

Thank you everyone for the questions. As a reminder, if you have questions you'd like me to answer, feel free to send them through The Contact Page.