William Higgins Newsletter

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William Higgins Newsletter
Thursday, July 4, 2002
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I arrived back in Prague yesterday afternoon from my trip to Canada. I had a wonderful time and learned a lot about how to do the streaming video for PragueBuddies.com. Toronto was not at all like I'd expected. It certainly wasn't cold. When I left on Tuesday it was 42° outside and nearly every day in Toronto was over 40°. The BoysCondo is located on what we would call the '1st' floor of a building on Yonge Street, on the outer edge of the Toronto gay ghetto. When I met with Brian, the co-owner of the condo (in the first photo below, Brian is the cuter one), in Prague, he told me that I would have to see the place in order to believe it. He was correct, the size of his operation is truly huge. The space is over 12,000 square feet, and the condo is tucked into one corner of this vast warren of chat rooms. They are making live and recorded feeds for many sites. I'm showing you some of the photos that I made of their roof-top party. I've not included any behind the scenes photos of their studios. Suffice it to say, I think that I learned enough during my six days at the condo facility to launch a beta site of PragueBuddies hopefully by next Sunday afternoon.

Each year Brian and the CondoGuys throw a rooftop party for the Pride Parade. It's a bit dicey getting up there. You have to climb up a somewhat unstable ladder to get to the roof. It can be a bit tricky if you're carrying some equipment like I was or a cooler of beer like many others were. The scene on the rooftop was great. I'd bought a new video camcorder and decided to take some test shots on the roof. I didn't buy a heavy duty battery because I thought that there wouldn't be that much to film at the party. Wrong! My 'included' battery went flat after 22 minutes and the parade was just getting started good. Actually, it might have been a blessing in disguise. I definitely felt a case of sun-stroke about to set in. So, I went downstairs and watched the rest of the parade from Brian's office. Many of the condo guys were dancing in the windows. The condo was broadcasting the view live on one channel. So, I picked up their streaming video camera and played with it for several hours.

When I was not sitting with Brian or the other guys at the condo, including their very helpful chat monitors, I was running around Toronto buying equipment for PragueBuddies (We made a decision to do everything in NTSC, just like we shoot our videos). That meant that all equipment had to be purchased in North America, not Europe. I think that I pretty much got everything.

As soon as I returned to Prague, I discovered that I forgot THE MOST IMPORTANT ITEM on my list. I was unloading all of the suitcases in my apartment, and Buddy ran over to them sniffing, as if to say "Where is MY ball?" I had found this wonderful solid rubber ball, between the size of a baseball and a softball, for Buddy. It was so great because of its weight and bounce, I could throw it really far, and it would run away from Buddy. He really loved that ball. I would throw it down a hill and he could run after it forever. He ALWAYS found it and brought it back (for a cookie). Then one day, I made a mistake and threw it along a pathway, it went off the path, down a hill, and into the Vltava River before Buddy could catch it. Poor Buddy stood by the river bank for about five minutes looking for the ball. I finally convinced him that it was gone forever, unless I hired scuba divers to go after it. But I promised to get him another one during my trip to Canada. And what did I forget to do? Go by a pet shop in Canada and buy a ball for Buddy. I feel like such a heel. And Buddy looked at me as if to say, "I know that you forgot to get the replacement for MY ball that you threw in the river!"

There are a couple of William Higgins cheapness stories: Before I left, I asked my colleague Marek to call the travel agent and request an aisle seat on a row with an emergency exit. They have more leg room. Marek said, "I'll see what I can do." After awhile he sent me an sms saying, "Since you have the cheapest seat on the plane, you cannot make any requests." In order to get this cheap seat, I had to fly to Paris, overnight there, and then fly onto Toronto the following morning. So, I went through customs, and out onto the sidewalk to the hotel shuttle bus area. I waited about an hour. Shuttle buses kept going by. They were about the size of shuttle buses that car rental companies use. Each one, I would ask whether they were going to my hotel. I won't disclose its name, but the word 'Economy' was in it. After several rude responses from other shuttle bus drivers, one was kind enough to tell me, "Your hotel's bus stops here. But it is a very small bus." Sure enough, my bus eventually came along. It was the one with the broken windscreen.

It certainly was good to meet so many fans in Canada. Actually, the beard is famous enough that many folks came up and introduced themselves. I particularly want to thank the long time member who took me to dinner and recommend 'No Jet Lag." This happened the night before my flight, and I didn't have enough time to go out and shop for any. He was kind enough to drive back to his home in the suburbs and bring back his supply and leave it for me at my hotel. I can't say for sure how well it works, but at this moment, I do not feel any jet lag. When I arrived in Prague yesterday afternoon, I felt like I'd been kicked by a horse. By this morning, I felt more like I'd been run over by a fire-truck. But as of this writing I feel fine. The acid test will be what I feel like in the morning.

So, I left Toronto and it was a blazing 42° outside. I drew a seat on the airplane next to a very delightful 16 year old French foreign exchange student who was returning home. He spoke nearly perfect English, and had spent the last six months in Canada learning English. He also spoke German very well. My, how the world is changing. We had a long conversation well into the night. Then we arrived in Paris and there was a hard rain and 15°. He was not a happy to return home to that kind of weather. I said, "Welcome to Europe." When I arrived back in Prague, it was still very warm, but by this morning the cold front had moved in. Gosh, I thought that we'd have a hot summer in Europe.

That 42° temperature in Canada inspired the plot to my next movie. It will be an homage to Cadinot. I'll start off with an Army physical and continue with a lot of bivouac. At least that's what I thought in Canada. Then I arrive back in European reality. At least we can do the physical, no problem.

Gosh, I hope that all of my fellow Americans are enjoying their Fourth of July. I don't think that you'll have any worries about the weather upsetting your festivities.

I'll go to Drakes for the Party at 20:00 and come back to finish the Newsletter a little bit later.

William Higgins Insider Audio Commentary, High Quality

William Higgins Insider Audio Commentary, Low Quality

(For Members Only)

As you can only read this if you are inside of the Members area, Brian has just now informed me that a very early beta of Prague Buddies is on line for testing. This will contain no live streaming, and still needs lots of work before we go on line with a later beta, but you might give it a look at http://www.praguebuddies.com

This is only for testing and customer comments.

I would like to remind all of those of you who have been sitting on the fence about joining that we will be raising the price soon. I'll reprint my previous statement about why it's necessary to do this:

I do have one announcement that I'd wished I wouldn't have to make. As most of you may have noticed, the US dollar has been in a pretty drastic decline recently. This will be good for the members who live outside of the United States. But for the rest of us it is pretty bad news. Americans will find foreign travel more expensive. And for us, it has been particularly difficult: All of our income to the site is in US dollars, but our expenses are in Czech Crowns. That means that so far each shoot costs us about 25% more to do. It also increases the costs of our bandwidth by about 25%. It has been just about a year since we have raised prices at the site. And we will soon be forced to raise them again soon. I want to give everyone as much advance notice as possible. When we raise them, as long as Members retain their current membership without interruption, the price will not go up. But if Members cancel and rejoin again later, they will have to pay the higher price when rejoining. If you have been thinking about joining, then now is a good time to do it. Anyone who joins now, will be grandfathered in at the lower price. Please rest assured, we certainly have no plans to cut back on the quantity of quality of our offerings in fact we will soon be adding live streaming video at no additional charge for members. I will try to give as much advance notice of the price rise as possible. So, please watch the Newsletter carefully for the announcement.

New sets:

Fitness Party! #98880

The Paratrooper's Helping Hand #98878

Hynek & Vana Scene, camera 2 #98913

Joska, camera2 #98910

New video clips:

98880 Fitness Party!, camera 1, Vid Clip # 1

98880 Fitness Party!, camera 2, Vid Clip # 1