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from the red sky of the east
2004-07-12 10:31:16
No work this weekend, and probably none tonight. I was deadly sick and spent most of Sunday asleep, but I'm still suffering and fairly unable to work, which sucks huge. I'm talking narcoleptic. I'm supposed to either build up my system today (parts should be getting in relatively soon, like before noon) or finish drafting, but it's looking more and more like I may have to drop back to just sleeping again.
Ideally, I'd build up the system in an hour or two, sweat any bugs out of the BIOS, then set memtest to run overnight and start burning in the paste on the CPU. My current lodgings suck for thermal factors, and the last thing I need is to set this new and expensive gear on fire.
Club was cool, especially as Monster was confirmed for 78 eps. Given that it ran for 8 years in Big Comic to huge popular response and won a comics prize in 2001, it's not too surprising -- Urasawa has enough stature that both of his prior-adapted series (Yawara and Master Keaton) have covered the whole of the manga...despite the casualties occasionally inflicted on the production values in order to do so. Fortunately, this does not seem to be the case this time around; I've seen so far only one messy cut from Mad House in the first 12 eps, and it was quite a surprise (though good casting) to hear Naruto's voice coming out of Dieter's mouth. Shonen leads don't often become idol-seiyuu, but this was obviously a case of getting the right performer regardless of cost. Wonder how long it's going to be before 20th Century Boys finishes and gets a similar treatment....
offtopic:
The new Green/Orange Line terminal underneath Causeway Street is so AWESOME that it almost makes me want to stop stealing T and subway fares....or at least writing the T administration a letter to that effect. It's so cool that I may not miss the old elevated steelwork of the former platform, which I took one of the last Green Line trains out of two weeks ago when they closed it. It's almost as nifty as the Red Line stop at Porter. Too bad it'll be unusable all through the convention...which was placed at the Fleet solely because of the abundant and easy rail access. And then they close down the train lines. It's stuff like this that makes people think they aren't noticeably less stupid than the Republicans.
Signed on at club Friday night, and will proceed to nab unusual source effective this coming Friday. Rare OVAs, H2, the end of CMB...it's all out there, waiting to be taken. And hopefully by that time I'll have a finished PoT video and an operational modern system....
--Kai out
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driven in | driven out
2004-07-09 09:47:56
Current video: Nightingale, "The Glory Days" to Prince of Tennis. Progress check: 79%. Expected catalog number: #89. I indeed started drafting last night, but was interrupted by random system failures and an electrical storm. Suck. The weekend, though, looks wide open. It's just me and my brother in the house, so the likelihood of having to do anything else at all is rather small. Left to our own devices we tend to alternate between working out and vegetating in front of various CRTs. The video'll be done by Monday....as will all the remaining beer.
Club tonight has more Monster...and I sincerely hope they run to an odd point for DNC week, as the idea of taking the Blue Line up to Revere in order to possibly catch a shuttle bus to Lynn to take the last train is not encouraging. I'd be safer just sticking and being homeless in Cambridge or hanging around the Fleet to try and find some out-of-town anarchists to crash with. This week and next, though, no problemo. Just the standard-issue baseball mobs to contend with.
Got an interesting idea yesterday for SH091 (projected), finally using a Cales song. This will go in Magix as soon as I blast up #90 (by next weekend), or possibly under some Linux environment (Dynebolix looks interesting) on the new box. It might be used as a fall-demo sort of thing (I've never done a 'various' video that wasn't a demo), but like #86 it'll try to stand on its own as much as possible. Gotta kick up the pace.
Of course, once I have an environment that will actually support DVD-rippage and nonlinear editing, there'll be no shortage of potential projects...just the time to do them all. Hopefully I can be more efficient this year at school even while adding in a full-time job search and more working hours. It would suck to not make it to 100.
--Kai out
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it's like believe or die
2004-07-07 10:09:16
Was running around last night on errands and did no work on the video. Also non-smartly left my headphones at home, so I am *not* listening to either Running Wild or the Beck (manga) tribute while working today. Suck.
Tonight looks much better for drafting. I swear I'm actually working on this video, really I am. I hate how slow things have been going, and while most people work much slower, I'm really getting frustrated at the amount of chronological time that has been required for this really simple 14-ep video. This should have been a three-week project, max, but it'll probably run six. No idea how I used to keep up my old pace, because I'm doing very little different.
Dissection is going on a brief Euro tour. Here's hoping that Homeland Security won't keep them out of the States -- or that if they do, Nodtveit will successfully invoke the Satanic spirits of the primal darkness to get rid of them. That'd be wild, to see the GOP convention devoured live on TV by a howling chaos....
Wait, they're *already* doing it in New York. Foregone conclusion.
--Kai out
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no escaping | from those haunting
2004-07-06 10:58:49
Current video: Nightingale, "The Glory Days" to Prince of Tennis. Progress check: 78%. Expected catalog number: #89. I finished clipping and have all sourceable manga loaded, but did not do any drafting this weekend. The reason involved a lot of Maison and several hours of Ken Burns films, and a smaller amount of trying to build out a system for my brother that wouldn't wreck his budget or his spare time when running engineering apps.
Magix does indeed have a nontrivial learning curve, but I suspect I'll be able to quickly get the hang of it. AFTER the current video is drafted; I strongly suspect that VDub+AviSynth will pull off most of the effects I need at this juncture, and with strongly defined objectives, I can hit the manual and figure out "how to do X" rather than tackling "how to make a video" from scratch.
There is a new rev of the Jerk Guide online with much more content and better heading pictures. Huzzah for MSPaint, heaven's gift to the budgetless d-manga editor.
I now have, technically, everything I need to start assembling my system and starting work on stuff. However, this does not include a CPU cooler, and I have no desire to set my case on fire. So I order the parts tomorrow, and probably build out the box over the weekend. Whoever at iWill decided that putting the CPU right under the power supply was a good idea is in serious need of a lead-antimony cerebral endoscopy.
--Kai out
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winter's not the only dream around
2004-07-02 11:22:12
No work on the video last night as my brother was having some problems with his scavenged $25 computer that I was unable to resolve. OS not picking up the CD-drive with no problems in the BIOS. Of course, since this was a Packard Bell Retard Box (R), and at that one which had previously been messed with by installing a 5.25" floppy drive which he now suspects he put in upside-down, opening the case and double-checking the insides was in itself a nontrivial exercise. After we got the steel struts out of the way and replaced a potentially damaged cable (taking time to gawk at the mobo, on which we could locate not a single memory module), it still wouldn't recognize the drive, so Jake basically gave up. He's thinking about building a new machine from virtual scrap, but in total this will cost about 4 times (best case) what he paid for his system originally.
Mostly this is because there are still a bunch of cheap Socket 7 chips out there, but very very few places willing to sell a Socket 7 mobo. I think I can get the total cost of this system under $100, but with great difficulty. I'll be satisfied if I can get the total cost of the package under the shipping costs required to get it all in one place. Not having to buy any drives definitely helps here.
stuff:
SH071 is back online due to people whining about racist material on the Donut. Hail Loki, hail anarchy!
Rich Christy won Stuttering John's job and will now be a regular on the Howard Stern show....because metalheads like YOU and ME thought that when somebody retires from a career that has included sets with some of the most successful and critically acclaimed underground bands in history, he should be rewarded with a humor gig on national radio rather than having to settle for going back to being an electrician.
The proc and RAM came in yesterday. The system hull, surprisingly, is due in sometime tomorrow. Two days of nothing, then all of a sudden it's outbound from Columbus. The OS acquisition process has hit a snag though; the plan to swipe W2KPro from Michigan has fallen through until the fall. However, Gentoo has the advantage of being able to be obtained for free without trickery, and given that I'm not going to be running extremely demanding apps on this box (Magix will run fine on W95, allegedly), I should have enough system horsepower to do anything I want via emu until then. This means more better dev on school projects and less trips to the library late at night.
And there's the possibility that one of the HDDs that I dumpster-dived will still have a functional OS on it, which I can access. That's not to be ignored and will make hooking it in to my current system this weekend "verrah necessary". Of course, this whole project is much like trying to build a Formula 1 racer out of mostly duct tape and several Big Block Chevy engines yoked together in series, but doing it any other way would take all the fun out of it.
I should have some time to work on the video tonight; it won't take too long to check up the drive, and I don't have much else pressing to do. Transferring the ISO to the system that has a burner can wait until the drive has been confirmed non-bootable....and until I can actually order a video card for the new system. Aways helps to be able to see what you're doing.
--Kai out
JOURNAL: Kai Stromler (Kai Stromler)
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