In which I break my arm patting myself on the back...

I’ve always felt that one of my strengths in this little quest of mine to spread awareness of Alizée to North America—and indeed, in life in general—is my ability to be honest in my evaluation of how well things are working, and my commitment to go back to the drawing board to fix things when necessary. It can be frustrating sometimes when I realize I have made a misstep, but I can honestly say that continually evaluating, refining and upgrading the Op Drop disque has actually been one of the most fun parts of the experience, for me.

As a result, the Mark IV disques I dropped this past weekend are a vastly superior, more professional product to the Mark I’s, much more likely to be picked up, explored, and convert Lili-heathens into outright Alizée fans. But even the Mark IV’s aren’t perfect—I’ve been inexplicably having a persistent labeling issue with these ones that I wasn’t with the Mark II’s and III’s, which I think is going to force a slight redesign of the face label, and one of the videos on the disque didn’t come through the transition from FLV to VOB looking as good as I’d like. I can definitely see a Mark V disque on the horizon.

The thing is, because I’m so open about the process—which is kind of the point of the blog—and free with sharing frustration or self-criticism, I get the feeling some of you are getting the impression that I’m down on myself or getting discouraged. And while I genuinely appreciate all the words of encouragement left in the comments, let me assure you that this isn’t the case. Though I may come across as glass-half-empty sometimes, that’s honestly just me working out loud (as it were), looking for opportunities to do things better. Please don’t mistake it for pessimism.

By my count, I’ve dropped just a shade under 300 disques so far. That's not too shabby for one guy working on a shoe-string budget. People are beginning to notice. And we’re still in the early stages, yet—I have plans for yet another massive Op Drop at the upcoming Nuit Blanche event in early October that ought to make the Fan Expo operation look like a training exercise.

Though there’s been bumps along the way, I honestly couldn’t be happier with or prouder of the way Op Drop has progressed so far. Overall, I think it’s been a success. Hopefully Alizée would agree.