#Seattle

Michael Apollo Lira

Sep 5, 2022
4 min

Running The Gauntlet

Running the gauntlet - Wikipedia I really like that phrase. I think of it as a clever or snarky way to describe a possibly haphazard journey to... somewhere. I use the phrase whenever I’m at Costco and want one of their delicious $5 rotisserie chickens. It’s no coincidence that these killer $5 deals are in the furthest corner of whatever Mordor-like expanse of a Costco maze you happen to be in. Because if you want this amazing deal, you must venture and traverse treacherous

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Michael Apollo Lira

Mar 21, 2022
4 min

The company we reflect

The food you eat, the attitudes you carry, your affect towards the world around you. The people you affiliate with. The company you keep. Every meaningful thing we do in our life impacts not only our own well-being, but the world around us. You reflect what you immerse yourself in and expose yourself to. We’re absorbent creatures. We take in, and we exude. And so the cycle goes. We are often a mirror to the world around us. Our affiliations matter. They can heal and the

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Michael Apollo Lira

Feb 13, 2022
7 min

A doozy of an update

Well hello! I haven't updated for some time. For anybody who regularly reads my blog, I am so sorry for this. There are many things to talk about, and I don't think I'll be able to reasonably cram it all into one blog! But life has been quite busy. And to add to it, my computer doesn't work terribly well anymore. The monitor is failing on it, which means I can only really use it from inside of my recording booth. And while that's fine and dandy for things like recording

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Michael Apollo Lira

Jan 9, 2022
4 min

Humility in Victory

Harry Potter Mania. I remember it sweeping the nation in the early 2000s. A story that swept up children and adults alike through its well written charm. There were long lines of people waiting for the books on their release days, not unlike what people do today for coveted electronics. Cookbooks naturally followed, with recipes named after either famous characters or certain foods highlighted in the books. And I also remember seeing the news talking about wand making cla

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How it Started and How it's Going: The Booth

Michael Apollo Lira

Nov 22, 2021
9 min

How it Started and How it's Going: The Booth

It's said that the most important part of your audio's quality comes from your recording environment. Any voice over artist worth their weight in salt has, through either ingenuity, monetary means, or a combination of both, figured out a way to acoustically make the most of the space they have to work with in order to record quality, competitive audio. On a not-as-related note - is salt even worth that much anymore? You may hear varying values assigned to mic quality vs. en

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Michael Apollo Lira

Nov 15, 2021
3 min

You don't know what you don't know

There's a saying out there that goes "you don't know what you don't know". It's simple, yet it speaks volumes when one starts to actually realize just how much is out there that you DON'T actually know. If there's one thing I've learned in life - it's that the more I learn, the less I know. Is that a side effect of learning?? There's a phenomenon described as the Dunning-Kruger Effect that's relevant to this. The Encyclopedia Britannica describes the Dunning-Kruger Effect

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Michael Apollo Lira

Oct 23, 2021
7 min

The people you know

I'm going to start this blog off with a memory and a few thoughts of mine to go with it. If everything happened according to plan, what good would life really be? I think the real beauty in things working out is when they don't happen according to plan. Life and this world are too complex to simply go according to plan. Where does resiliency form in that mix? Extra-ordinary resiliency, adaptability, and growth all generally occur when things don't go according to plan. Gr

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Michael Apollo Lira

Oct 9, 2021
6 min

Mastery

I've seen it said that it takes 10,000 repetitions of a skill to master it. I've also read that it takes 10,000 hours of time to master a skill. Either way, that's a LOT of work to really become a master at anything. Bruce Lee By those standards, I don't think I'm a master of many things - like, at all. Even as far as nursing goes, I haven't spent 10,000 hours placing IVs, giving CPR, placing catheters, etc. What I CAN confidently say is that I've incorrectly done a multi

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Michael Apollo Lira

Sep 14, 2021
4 min

Where are you right now?

I have a busy mind. It's frequently preoccupied and distracted - more often than it ought to be, in all truth. I often find myself thinking about the future; coming up with things I need to take care of, or creatively scheming what needs to happen in my life to continue to grow and have fun. While it's important to have your sights set forward, it's also incredibly important to be sure you're paying attention to the now. It's where you are! It's where life's happening, and

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Michael Apollo Lira

Aug 25, 2021
3 min

A watched pot never boils...

...and watched auditions don't get heard. At least that's the conclusion I've come to. Conventional wisdom in the voiceover and voice acting ethos is that it's bad practice and wasted energy to see if any auditions you've sent have been listened to, marked as shortlisted, etc. Checking doesn't change the outcome. If you get it, you get it. Once you've sent it off, it's now off your plate, off your shoulders, and the ball is in somebody else's court. ...except I still like t

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Michael Apollo Lira

Jul 22, 2021
4 min

What do dentists and voiceover coaches have in common?

Skills and knowledge are just some of the things that are constantly changing and evolving in many fields. Did you know that nurses are required to acquire continuing education credits to maintain their license? On top of that, every 2 years we have to renew out BLS/CPR certifications, and for me personally every 2 years I've also needed to renew my ACLS (which is like CPR on steroids). Fun fact: I'm one of like 3 or 4 people in my institution to have scored "perfect" for

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Michael Apollo Lira

Mar 21, 2021
6 min

An Unexpected Journey

Some of the biggest opportunities in life sometimes present themselves unexpectedly. And you may not always recognize these unexpected happenstances as opportunity at the time that they present themselves. But things have a funny way of happening in life, and if you try to keep an open mind to new and exciting adventures, you could just find yourself living what you once thought to only be a dream. This particular opportunity interrupted a nap, some number of years back. I

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Michael Apollo Lira

Mar 15, 2021
3 min

"I'm so sad. You've changed."

"I'm so sad. You've changed." -an ex, some years back. I think one of the worst ways you could insult a person is to tell them that they haven't changed over a period of time. Life shapes and molds us, hopefully for the better as we learn and grow. If anything, "you've changed" were exactly the words I needed to hear. I hope she has changed and grown. I recently re-watched The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I remember first watching it long ago in theaters when it first came

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Michael Apollo Lira

Feb 24, 2021
4 min

Sacrifice

Sacrifice. That's a word that can mean so many things, to so many people. When I think about the word, I envision something along the lines of a block of blood-hued clay. Why blood hued clay? A sacrifice always costs something, and it has to be something that means something to a life. I think in the more traditional sense, religious sacrifices were made with blood. But there are other things that constitute "pillars" to pull from when one sacrifices. Time is a precious c

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The time I accidentally fed soap to some coworkers

Michael Apollo Lira

Jan 27, 2021
5 min

The time I accidentally fed soap to some coworkers

One time at work I accidentally tricked coworkers into eating soap. :( In retrospect, I can actually see exactly how this was a terrible idea. Hindsight is 20/20, as they like to say. Maybe it was because I was working night shifts at the time, and I just wasn't on my A-game? I'd like to think that over a decade in nursing experience has given some form of critical thinking skills, regardless of the hour that I happen to be awake. Though that was a big part of why I decide

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Michael Apollo Lira

Jan 19, 2021
3 min

The difference between diligence and insanity

This one has been bugging me. People like to say that the definition of insanity lies within the act(s) of doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results. We hear that definition over and over again, expecting different results too, I suppose. Now, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I'd like to turn your attention to Exhibit B. Please take note of the word "Diligent". The expert witnesses at Dictionary.com indicate that its definition involves the p

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Michael Apollo Lira

Jan 4, 2021
6 min

Your quest for The Holy Grail.

"Tell me what to do" "How do I get into voice acting?" It's an innocent enough question to ask, and you see it ALL. THE. TIME. People ask questions like these daily in various forums and platforms where voiceover artists convene and discuss, and they ask with the best of intentions. I think they hold a pretty simple expectation on how the answers are going to go: Well, you just do x, y, and z, and there you have it! You're in a booth with Troy Baker having a blast voicing

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Fantasy Sports (and nursing?) Leagues, COVID College Towns, and Tough Love

Michael Apollo Lira

Nov 16, 2020
5 min

Fantasy Sports (and nursing?) Leagues, COVID College Towns, and Tough Love

I'm terrible with general #sports knowledge. I couldn't tell you what teams are having a strong season, and I might even screw up a team's name with the wrong sport entirely. I even grew up in a college town that had absolute zeal for its home team (#GOCOUGS!), despite no real consistency in its ability to win a game of football (as far as I know). Which was actually kind of cool - because I could be across the country and if I see the good old #WSU Cougar logo on a person,

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Michael Apollo Lira

Nov 7, 2020
4 min

"I do voices" and other fun faux pax things to say

"I do voices!" "My friends say I have a great voice and should get into voiceover!" "I do a really good Solid Snake impression - check it out: METAL GEEAARRRR" David Hayter: if you're reading this, I'M SO SORRY. I love your work in Metal Gear Solid and the X-Men movies were fantastic. I keep trying to send you a (NON-POISONED) fruit basket for the holidays but your manager has blocked about fourteen different phone numbers I've used to try to contact you. (Ahem) If any of th

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Michael Apollo Lira

Sep 30, 2020
2 min

Well here goes nothing.

Blogging. I'm about to show my age here. Last time I had anything remotely similar to a blog, I had a MySpace page. Not only that, but I was convinced that MySpace would beat out FaceBook in the social media wars of yore. I mean after all, you could blog, right? Since then, I've been wrong about many, many other things! But being wrong is not the worst thing in the world. Being wrong and a jerk or an idiot - now you've got yourself an all-American situation on your ha

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