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and it all goes down the drain
2004-06-24 11:22:45
fact: Monster, in animated form, rocks.
fact: Monster, in animated form, progresses at a rate of almost exactly two manga chapters per single episode.
fact: Monster, as manga, shows a continual and non-terminating upward trend in overall quality over its current run.
fact: Monster currently includes 162 chapters.
fact: 162/2 = 81.
derived conclusion: waku waku waku waku waku waku waku waku waku
Unfortunately, it's not likely that I'm going to be able to SEE this far, due to shifts in paradigm of digisub distribution modes, and that the dark, brutal, depressing atmosphere that I like so much about it is like poison to most anime-club audiences. The room emptied so fast after Naruto got out last Friday that it wasn't even funny, leading to greatly depressed pizza sales -- a mistake that the MITAC heads will not make again. Too bad; it's too good for its own good.
I did no work on the video last night; tonight shows more promise, as there's a fair bit of stuff that can be profitably delayed until the weekend. I did however tune up the "jerk guide" a little and put it online; by fits and starts the page linked on the profile is starting to have actual content on it.
--Kai out
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cause they'll only bring you down
2004-06-23 10:00:30
Current video: Nightingale, "The Glory Days" to Prince of Tennis. Progress check: 51%. Expected catalog number: #89. This accounts for two eps last night, even though the percentage bump is a lot smaller than it's been before. This is because the "center" of the order has all the 1% marks...aside from the ones at the opening and close of the clipping area. In this case it was appropriate, though, because I got maybe 50 seconds out of the two eps under survey, and very little that I'm sure I'll have a place for in the final video. The rich stretch is coming up, and I've gotten through the really bad overall quality, so things are looking up...relatively. I'm still probably not going to be able to finish before the end of the month.
Fortunately, other distractions are dropping. Work is getting more straightforward, I'm getting through the backlog pile of manga (slowly), and I'm no longer as confused as I'm not attempting to have two Adachi stories in main memory at once. "Who is this character again? Which story is he/she supposed to be in? Do I have this backwards? What's the fat-kid-catcher called in this one again?" Awesome author, and his art style rocks, but he's got a major problem with the whole "different character designs" thing.
Have to send Kalium his copy of Magix; I really shoulda bought packing tape last night instead of just rewatching (more like re-listening since I was unpacking manga and reading Pretty Face and Katsu at more or less the same time) LoGH. It's too bad that the plans to bring this series over seem to be dead in the water; then again, it was never particularly sensible, from a commercial standpoint, to animate this in the first place. A turgid, politically-driven military sci-fi drama stretching its way across almost 200 episodes? They're gonna be queuing up in the streets all night for that one. Especially given their habits of killing off main characters.
The "listen to stuff that I haven't been" project rolled through the Running Wild best-of over the past two days, and I was singularly impressed with how good they are compared to other power metal bands, and how many songs I had gotten sick of before now sounded fresh and vibrant. Listening to Iron Savior and Freedom Call beforehand can have that effect. Then again, if listening to Freedom Call is required to make "Prowling Werewolf" and "Riding On The Storm" enjoyable......
--Kai out
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your heaven's a lie
2004-06-22 16:32:15
http://www.rpi.edu/~delucj/Quantum%20Possibilities.htm
that's it. go read.
--Kai out, again -
the dead lie unburied on the field
2004-06-22 14:11:00
Given the increased incidence of flat idiocy and meaningless drama on the forum parts of this site, and that I again didn't work on the video last night (probably will tonight, I'm within space defines), should I even be writing this? Probably not; without sufficient relevant content a .plan file just turns into a blog, which is a negative.
Some people are occasionally interested in what I do; a small heap of ops attests that people actually do watch my videos, and I do write ostensibly for publication. However, who I am is not of much interest to anyone.
Accordingly:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~psdel/pailotto.zip
This is the first single from the planned-but-as-yet-unfinished _Attack Semantics_ demo by oskulumObszenum. It's about 4 minutes long and utterly devoid of bassline. I might as well release this now; it's been done for a while and I'm still not sick of hearing it, so maybe there are other people out there with no taste in electro who might like it.
I'm hoping to get through two eps tonight, then two more before the end of the week. That's if I don't get dragged into literary discussions with my brother. His "Quantum Possibilities" is allegedly published somewhere, so searching for it may not be totally in vein; it's incredible stuff, Lovecraft for the post-Einstein, post-Sartre, post-Apollo, post-X-Files present. His language, unlike his longer, more traditional fantasy series (unpublished), actually doesn't clank and clunk so much, and the occasional organizational disorder and excessively narrow focus that characterize his work actually work to advantage in this one. He really captures the obsession and confusion of higher-order math, and brings out the terror that most people have probably never seen in quantum physics. It's good stuff once you get over the Lovecraftian archaisms, but I'm still better overall. I just have to buckle down and write some more; starting ideas and not doing anything with them is worse than never doing anything at all.
--Kai out
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the wounds of life will remain
2004-06-21 13:24:39
I did no work on the video this weekend, being severely distracted by the prospects of not spending money on video software. In the course of this activity, of course, I spent almost $40 on video editing gear....most of which I hope to get back once I get out to school.
The deal was that in the course of the ritual expedition to Building #19, I bought a copy of Magix 2.0 deLuxe Plus for a total of $12.98 plus tax. And then, of course, had to hook up everyone else I knew who was in need of dirt-cheap editing gear. I haven't installed it, though, so I'm not ready to bestow the mantle of greatness yet. This was because I leeched way too much manga last week, and still have more than 1.78 GB of unopened zips sitting on the HDD. (This was another huge factor in the weekend's non-productivity; or more accurately, the 1.5 GB of zips now *deleted* from the HDD was a productivity-killer.)
However, it's going to have to be installed before the current video wraps, so that I can at least work up a certain idea. The opening 30 seconds of the current vid is the toughest part, and 32 tracks of potential background removal will help a lot with that. This could also combine with some Meimi effects for utter sparkleage devastation...or prove too hard and convince me to solve the problem some other way. Whatever.
As regards club, Naruto was decent, the pizza was as expected, and Monster, while still being predictable, is getting to the level where it's so good you want to tattoo the logo on your *face*. It's like Master Keaton meets Black Jack, and if you don't like the sound of that, well, you're just a waste of carbon. And David Sylvian of Oto's-videos fame does the ED. This is what anime is like when it's not being driven by plastic-figurine collectibles-market demographics.
I still have to finish watching the 12 eps of Maison that I picked up, and I still have to lie down and listen all the way through _Nordland I_ and _Nordland II_ sometime. I've listend to _... II_ already, but I was doing some other stuff at the time, and it's two sequential albums with the same name for a reason.
--Kai out
JOURNAL: Kai Stromler (Kai Stromler)
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