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Good things, cheap things and $_$ things
2001-09-29 23:39:15
For some whacky reason, I haven't checked my answering machine for while...and what do I find? The repair shop called on Thursday - $288.90 and I'll have my SVHS deck resurrected! YES!!
Now you're probably laughing at me because I look foolish spending so much on a repair, especially on a video deck in this brave digital age of ours. Yes, I'll be eating ramen for a while, but at least it's better than the replacement cost of a JVC 7800 deck (the best price I could find was $600 - not much less than what I paid in the first place). The Digital Time Base Corrector and noise reduction feature is a pretty damned expensive toy only available on the high end JVC decks and it WORKS!
Finally! I can master those fansubs for the University of Manitoba anime club. Good old analogue fansubbing is still hard to beat in image quality, IMO. I dare any video codec to look as sweet and be just as portable. I think video tape will be around so long as DVD-R remains mega-pricey.
And in other good news, but not so expensive. I managed to score a SCSI DVD-ROM and for the same price as the IDE version! Now that I have a Pioneer DVD-305S 10x slot-loader I can start to do some major AMV damage!
But first the application of a little firmware hack... :) - "I know you are, but what am I?" 2001-09-29 01:02:31 Sam Farha's first journal entry provided the one chuckle a day that I need to get though life's little problems. ROTFLMAO. Even though it means that I don't know where I stand in the greater scheme of things, I'm glad I'm not on that list ^_^
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/me blushes
2001-09-28 17:18:14
Aww, crap... I really -WAS- drunk when I made that last entry. How embarassing -_-;
Last night, I had the gang over for some beer, pizza and movies. It was a good night and all, but afterwards, for some strange reason, I sat down in front of the computer, opened the latest project, stared at the screen for a while and then sort of blew a mental fuse. Quite a few ugly thoughts crossed my mind, so I ended up documenting it in the journal, not really giving a crap as to who would see what. I -was- in a foul mood when I wrote that piece, regrettably.
However, I think I answered my own questions with that last line:
Maybe I should just bury myself in Premiere...
...stop thinking...
...and just do.
I'd like to thank Lee Thompson for the e-mail with the following advice:
"...relax, let yourself be motivated from the INSIDE, and if you don't make each video better than the one before, who cares?"
True :) -
Performance anxiety
2001-09-27 22:53:07
I'll begin this little bit of BrainDump(tm) with a disclaimer:
I don't lend much creedence to statistics. Too easy to twist and mould them into whatever one wishes. Especially the AMV.org "Top 10%" and "Top Fav AMVs" lists. The odd gyrations of the stats there can make one's head spin...but recent, undeniable changes in those lists brought the following thoughts to the forefront for me.
I know Odorikuruu has been creeping up the charts and a sudden change today gave me a shock. It displaced a Kevin Caldwell AMV from second place! Don't get me wrong, but the thought of, "Holy Quck! I'm second to the AMV God!", did flit across the radar screen of my ego for a moment...just before it was shot down by a few missiles :)
The AMV deadtime that I'm experiencing now while I save up for my next computer upgrade is giving me some time to think...and not very nice thoughts, they are.
Awards from Anime North, Mindwarp Entertainment, Anime Expo, Anime Weekend Atlanta. 127 praise filled opinions. 12500+ Download hits (I know that roughly 8000-8500 successfully completed transfers have been made from my personal server, if I've kept my records straight). 212 points on over 109 personal top 100 lists...and now the displacement of Caldwell from his seemingly impervious spot on the board.
And this was only one video. Most producers wouldn't have such luck over numerous years and multiple AMVs.
At this point, a certain line from the movie Bladerunner comes to me, uttered by the character Eldon Tyrell to his prodigal son, the Nexus 6 replicant Roy Batty, "The light that burns twice and bright burns half as long - and you, dear Roy, have burned ever so brightly."
What the hell have I gotten myself into?! It's popular, almost too popular. It makes me uncomfortable thinking such things as, "This next AMV will blow them away!" Odorikuruu is only my fourth real AMV. Have I peaked too soon? Have I raised my personal best too far and too fast? Every AMV producer wants to improve; to always make the next AMV better, but now I'm thinking that there's no way I can be any better. With every edit I make, a little voice in the back of my mind peeps up with, "But was that last cut as good as Odorikuruu?".
I'll bet at this point, all you more experienced AMV producers - yeah, you d00ds with the multiple AMVs and awards - are probably sighing and thinking, "Ho, hum. Been there. Done that." And that would be my point. You've been there and done that. How does one deal with the follow up after the first real big hit AMV?
As much as I think, "Do it for yourself", I can't help but feel, as well, the eyes of the audience watching and waiting for the next AMV.
Bah!
/me smacks self over head with a '72 Chevy Nova
The preceding was nothing more than the beer fueled, anxiety ridden, irritatingly whiney yet real worries of one unimportant AMV producer...and in the scale of all things, unimportant indeed.
Maybe I should just bury myself in Premiere...
...stop thinking...
...and just do.
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Living in fear...
2001-09-18 20:15:03
...of the repair bill I'm going to get for my SVHS deck.
Three weeks ago it went "Snap! Crackle! Pop!" and there weren't any Rice Crispies(tm) around. A quick peek under the cover showed a rather large black spot under a power regulator, of course with the numbers scratched off so people who took electronics technology (like me!) can't fix jack-squat >.< So it still sits in a repair shop in Mississauga, waiting to ambush my pocketbook o.o
This puts a huge dent in my ability to run test masters for the DiGi Charat Spring Special script that I'm working on. In fact, the dead deck just kills my fansubbing capability for the Western Anime Video Explosion (University of Western Ontario) and UMAnime (University of Manitoba).
Yeah, yeah. I know. Bitch. Whine. Moan. Blah. Blah....But isn't this what the journal is for? :)
At least I can find solace in the other item that arrived with my DiGi Charat Vol.6 DVD....Cowboy Bebop: Future Blues OST. I swear that the laser in my player will end up burning a hole through the discs before I get tired of listening to them :)
I've been listening to the OST so much that I've come to an odd conclusion.
The Japanese can't Jazz.
It's either that the musicians are simply not putting any soul into the music or Kanno's jazz compositions are actually constraining the possiblity of any improvisation. Don't read me wrong here! I love what I hearing from The Seatbelts, but I'm noticing that it feels like stiff sheet music, rather than the free flowing, "open source code" jazz that I normally hear on CBC Radio 2 every weeknight. I'm certain that I'll be flamed on this comment by most Kanno fans.
/end braindump(tm)
JOURNAL: aokakesu (Jay R. Locke)
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