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Two hundred sixty first entry - Jen's Early Morning Musings
2007-01-29 07:45:20
Time - 6:32, Noise - Train - "Ordinary"
Something I've never quite understood was the tendency for students to skip classes. It's not an inherently bad thing, but most students don't structure it well and end up skipping tons of classes on key days.
I see it like this: take an inventory of what classes you have and their policies on attendance. Then, assuming it's either a "miss more than 3 classes and your grade drops" policy or a "guess what? teacher gets paid whether or not you show up" policy, you should allot three days of potential missing. The first day should be for illness. In my case, I don't miss class unless I have an OMC-dying-in-bed-kill-me-now-PLEASE sort of sickness - which is obviously extremely infrequent. The second day should be for lack of interest. There are some days when you just DO NOT want to get out of bed, and it's perfectly alright to consider staying home a day, just as long as you don't make a habit of it. The third day should be alloted for unforseen circumstances. Death in the family? Anime convention coming up? This is the day reserved for those events.
Of course, the type of classes and their demands should always factor in. I would skip a Spanish class sooner than I would skip a math class. Why? I'm good at Spanish and bad at math. I'm going to struggle more in the latter if I miss a day than if I miss some pointless discussion on how corn revolutionized the Latin American world.
Skipping class isn't a bad thing. Perfect attendance is like telling someone they can never call in sick to work. It might last a while, but you're bound to run into something that prevents you from coming eventually. Of course, you should try very hard NOT to miss your classes, since you did pay to be there (in most cases), but it won't ruin your academic career if you do it like everything else - in moderation.
And with that, I have four hours of class to be attending today. Be back this afternoon!
See you, folks.
- Jen -
Two hundred sixtieth entry - Jen's Tech Korner
2007-01-28 21:19:43
Time - 7:56, Noise - Aya Hirano - "God Knows"
So, um... been playing with my new capture card - which is great, by the way. I wouldn't feel bad about editing with anything that comes from that, because it looks damn near as good as ripping (at least with videogames).
Unfortunately... I've run into a problem that I've never had to deal with prior to this: interlacing. I read the guides, and I tried out all of the Avisynth filters that were listed there, but the results were less than stunning. All of them more or less did the job, but they all left my video quality looking like shit.
I mean, seriously! Look at poor Lady (face not shown)! She's being eaten by the Interlacing Monster and these filters are just joining in on the fray.
Original:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v711/dj_ultima_the_great/PoorLady.jpg
De-interlaced:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v711/dj_ultima_the_great/PoorLady2.jpg
And it's like that for every filter on the page. Naturally, I don't count Blur() as a means of de-interlacing. That's just cheating - and it's not even *useful* cheating.
So yeah... I'm really not sure what to do. The capture card seems very promising for the future... if I can just get past this hurdle. As it is... this looks nearly as bad as my old card did (if I release the horror that is my "action" video upon the world, you'll see what I mean).
Now... I think it's time I went off and re-downloaded some more videos. I got all the way through my Cardcaptor Sakura ones earlier today. Maybe I can make it to Kingdom Hearts by bedtime.
See you, folks.
- Jen -
Two hundred fifty ninth entry - figured some things out... baffled by others still...
2007-01-28 02:48:01
Time - 1:10, Noise - Intelligent Qube OST - "Crisis Visit"
So... I figured out my codec problem. Turns out, it wasn't really a codec problem at all...
There were a ton of problems when trying to set up the new system, and somewhere along the way... *something* happened to my hard drive. Jarred (my friend building the compy) wasn't sure what went down, but he knew the files were still there. When he re-installed the drive into the new compy, all seemed well. Skipping describing the details, I have a drive now with mostly good files, but there are some corrupt ones, too. Some music and pictures were hit, but the videos were hit hardest, and all were affected in some way. So, I have to re-download them all. All 300 of them.
There is a good side to this. My connection is fast, my list is fairly accurate, and I gave away my old hard drive to my best friend about a year ago. The significance of this last part is that she got it full of data, and she hasn't gone through the majority of the videos yet. Thus, any ancient or unique videos not on the .org are still, presumably, safe with her. If I get stuck on any after that point, I'll check The Vault. If I'm still missing some videos, then this journal (briefly) and the forum are going to become my search method. And, of course, there are the excess methods of PM-ing and/or e-mailing the creator - IF I know who created the video... which... if it gets to that point, it's very likely that I won't know who made the video anyway, because these will be very old and hard-to-find AMVs.
So, that problem is solved (for now). I still have the problem of the pictures and music to solve, but I don't think that those are nearly as much of a problem (since my best friend also has a great number of those things).
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Decided to nix the "6 Memories of 06" entry. I live a generally boring life, and the memories I would have to share from 2006 are really depressing. No matter how I look at it, that year fucking sucked. My LJ is a testament to that, because I was painfully emo for those 12 months.
Instead, I'd like to just look forward to this year and the good things that may come out of it. If God can just cool his fucking jets for a few months, maybe my family can live peacefully for a while. I don't mean for that to come off angrily... but rather, somewhat sleepily.
...because I'm sleepy right now. But I don't have a reason to sleep, and every reason to stay awake - namely, to get a start on those 300 AMVs.
...still haven't solved the mystery of the auto-restart, because it did it again today, BUT! ...I'm not going to worry about it anymore. I'm sick of getting worked up over it. I'd rather just download videos and not worry about my monitor randomly going black and pwn-ing my compy.
With that, I bid you all goodnight.
See you, folks.
- Jen -
Two hundred fifty eighth entry - Hmm... hrm... grr...
2007-01-26 19:35:31
Time - 5:10, Noise - slamming doors and slurping ice cream o_O
I'm in a bit of a pickle, so techies, tune in. As you all know, technical stuff isn't my strong suit, so I've just been trying to re-download all of the things that I remember having on my computer prior to the upgrade (and the subsequent loss of codecs - among other things.) This is what I have installed so far:
AMVapp (just a starter's kit; I still need to update some of the components in it)
VLC Media Player
Media Player Classic
3ivx D4 4.5.1
CCCP (12-15-06 version)
DivX codec
ffdshow
oggcodecs
...and I'm still having trouble playing some videos that I clearly remember being able to play before. Namely, I'm talking about the h.264 releases, since I had been wanting to see how smooth they were bound to be now. I can't get them to play at all. There's gotta be something I'm missing - something I forgot to install that I had last time. I already Google'd h.264 and anything I came up with is on that list. Suggestions? PM me if you know something, alrighty? Thanks.
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So... what I *really* did over break. Actually, these aren't much different than the things I said before (I just said them in less detail previously).
Visited my sister's house for Christmas and I ended up meeting a chunk of her boyfriend's family (they're gonna get married, so I guess it makes sense to introduce us sooner than later). I got to see my dog Princess again for the first time in a long time, as well. I got my hair done up in a bizarre style (which I'll attempt to get a picture of at some point, because I know one was taken). Between the two of them (I'm assuming it was all Brandy, though), they got me the new Evanescence album, fortune cookies, pocky, and a random animated Star Wars DVD. o_O Oh, and Brandy also got me a Borders gift card, which I promptly turned around and used to buy 'Anatomy for the Artist,' a huge book full of naked people posing. I'll conquer you once and for all, drawing - I swear it! *_*
I ran through Fatal Frame II countless times in order to get it up to speed run quality. I've managed to take a 3:30:00 run all the way down to 1:51:00. Not too shabby, and that's doing the entire game from scratch. I've also done runs with fully upgraded lenses and strong film for the camera, but despite speeding the battles up like that, I surprisingly haven't managed to get much below that time. I'd like to do a run where I use nothing but Type 90 and Type Zero film. See how fast that goes. Anywho, aside from speed runs, I was playing Final Fantasy IX to kill time. I got all the way up to the last location before I had to come back to college. I haven't started Final Fantasy XII yet - nor have I finished Tomb Raider: Legend.
I attempted to sketch a few times, but didn't really produce anything I was satisfied with. However, I do have my book now, as well as some other references to work off of, so maybe I'll get something done this semester. I started brainstorming for my next video over break, too. I already have a lot of the major sections laid out in my head, but I was trying to get some of the in-between parts up to par with the rest of the concept.
I re-read all of Tsubasa. I forgot how much I enjoyed that manga - although... hawt as it is, CLAMP has REALLY got to GET OVER their eye fetish. The recent chapters (the scanlated ones) are gorgeous and emotional, and I can't wait 'til they come out with it over here. Tsubasa is unfortunately fairly far behind, especially in comparison to xxxHolic, which seems to be keeping up with its releases over here.
Things I'm looking forward to in the world of anime/manga:
- Tsubasa Volume 17
- xxxHolic volume 8
- Tsubasa Season 3 (I think... but there was no teaser at the end of Season 2...)
- Devil May Cry anime
Yup. Those are highest on my list right now of things I want badly. Unfortunately, I'll have to wait quite a while for any of them.
Hmm... I was gonna write my "6 Memories of '06" entry this time, but maybe next time. I think I need to do some more installing and whatnot.
See you, folks - and if there's a techie out there who can help me, please do. ;_;
- Jen -
Two hundred fifty seventh entry - thoughts of varying degrees
2007-01-26 00:40:08
Time - 9:46, Noise - Within Temptation - "Aquarius"
Yergh, yergh, and yergh again. Don't get me wrong. I am absolutely thrilled to have a new computer. It's just been a major pain. Basically, I used five hundred dollars to upgrade the components in my tower, while leaving all of the other desktop components the same (mouse, keyboard, speakers, monitor...). I had my friend - a relative computer expert - choose the parts (with the help of .org members), and he also put the whole thing together, cannibalizing parts from the old compy. However, there have been a slew of problems along the way, and I haven't had a day yet where everything was functional.
In any case, I'm slowly working towards the beautiful paradigm of what my computer used to be. I still need to do a lot of installing (X Chat is giving me issues; maybe I need to bug trythil again?), but when all is said and done, this should be a great compy. Good starting specs, and tons of room for expansion down the road.
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About the VCAs... sure, I entered. I know I'm not going to get anything, but it's fun to put myself out there anyway. I've been all but forgotten for Most Helpful Member, though... I guess I've been slacking off this last year. :D
Before winter break, I was excited for the VCAs, and I really wanted to nominate and suggest people... but now I've just lost all enthusiasm. By the time I got a computer that was internet-worthy, all of the editors I was going to suggest had already been pimped. (Just for the record, though, the editor I stand behind the most this year is aerialesque... who has managed to make better videos in a few months than I have in several years o_O )
In any case, I doubt I'll vote, unless I'm bored or happen to know a lot of the videos in the categories. Good luck to the ones participating, though. ;p
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I saw some people doing this a while back, so here goes... I had my brother snap a few pictures of me just before I came back, so they're super recent (unlike the junior prom pictures I had been using for some time).
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v711/dj_ultima_the_great/?action=view¤t=Picture003altered.png
It's not very pretty, but it's me as I am now. No Photoshopping or anything like that... just a little cropping off of the edges to clip the excess scenery that got in the photo.
I think I just heard the sound of all of the guys on this site hurling. ~_~
ANYWAY!
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Decided to set an interest gauge for a new MEP. Feel free to express your opinion on anything I've said in the thread, especially if you're thinking of joining:
http://www.animemusicvideos.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=76320
My computer isn't quite up to par yet (it's lacking some codecs and programs), but I should have all of it done around the time the project starts - if it generates enough interest, that is.
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My goal for February is to finish my "action" video. After that, it's absolutely necessary that I get working on my ACen video - THE Video, as it were. I won't have enough time if I don't get started on it by at least the beginning of March.
Actually... with the re-installation of various codecs, programs, and whatnot, I'm not even sure if my "action" video has survived. Thankfully, I always save (and keep!) versions of my videos as I'm working on it, so it's not like I couldn't re-create it if I needed to. However, if for some reason my project file is no longer usable, I think I may just quit the action video for now and work on the video for ACen. I'll get it all figured out this weekend, I'm sure.
I honestly don't feel bad about dropping the action video if I do, because it was a fairly bad capture quality anyway - even with Avisynth's help. Now that I have a much better capture device, it would be preferable to make the video with higher quality footage.
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I have a LOT of downloading to catch up on. At least four pages of video announcements (and probably more) have passed since I went on break, so I'll also be spending this weekend getting those videos that I missed. This will double as a way of telling me what codecs I'm still forgetting to install. I'm most excited to test out the dreaded h.264/.mp4 combo. I've had hell with them in the past, but I think I may have bested the dirty things finally with this compy.
As such, if this handles that encode like I think it will, I may invest some time learning how to do the encode myself. Don't worry. I don't have alternate hosting, so I'd still choose the XviD version for any videos I would wish to upload, but it would still be nice to have an h.264 to offer to people who want it.
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It's getting close to bedtime, so I'm going to end this entry. (I've been writing it on and off over about two hours now, after all.) Maybe my next entry will detail what I *really* did over break, as well as looking back on 2006.
Hopefully the compy will cooperate and not start the Eternal Reboot of Doom while I'm sleeping. : /
Nighty night, loves~<3
- Jen
JOURNAL: dj_ultima_the_great (Jen )
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