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the last that i'll taste in this life
2004-02-09 10:55:20
I sure hope that Teflon isn't poisonous for humans. It does, however, certainly make iced tea taste like crap when boiled off the bottom of a metal pan and thoroughly dissolved in said substance. Regardless, it's going to get scuppered; not being poisonous is no reason to drink something. I think I still have enough functional cookware to get by....
The demo's about two-thirds done now, and I'm reaching the end of my patience. I just want to toss the damn towel and make the stinking video, but I know I've got good source left in the last 4 eps I have to cut through; the problem is finding the time and the patience to do so. I've got to try out a new method for commercial source acquisition, and I've got at least one more video on the blocks that can be done regardless of whether or not that works. I've also got two weeks until my self-imposed deadline for first-stage editing on DSV, two shorter stories within spitting distance of completion (maybe 20 hand-pages between them), and solid plans for two longer works, which seem well-developed enough already that I could conceivably finish both by this time next year (one trad-Western, one Zombie Powder/Trigun-style neo-Western, for both people who care). With school pressing in more and more, it never seems like working on the demo is the most profitable use of the free time that I've got.
That's the problem with sticking around with something. You just keep plugging like normal, doing the drill, and all of a sudden you look back and you've got a body of work sitting around, and you've churned stuff out at just incredible rates. You remember how hard it used to be to structure a paragraph properly, and now you don't think twice about blasting out page after page after page. It's weird, but it's probably a good sign. If writers want to eat, they have to be productive; not everyone can hit the big time on royalties.
For now, though, I should focus on producing out my schoolwork; I can't afford another slip in Compilers, and after four weeks of nonstop number theory, today's Crypto actually involved cryptography for the last half-hour, which may mean that it's actually going to get interesting.
--Kai out
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can't change the facts
2004-02-07 22:47:13
Right, a bunch of work last night and today, despite conference and needing to sleep and nearly setting some cooking utensils on fire; I have about 5 titles left to do on the video and should be able to smash up at least 3 of those tomorrow, on top of the work I need to do for school. Work on the book should be resuming soon.
Offtopic:
One of the constants in the metal world is relentless hatred towards poser bands like Slipknot and Korn for tricking the radio into thinking that what they do is the standard in brutality. For those not in the know, there are shadowy bands out there that even Mortician is alleged to look up to, Mortician at whose name Cannibal Corpse and Carcass members give shudders of revulsion. And yet these bands tune down so that the bass strings are, in the immortal words of Infernal Keith "like evil jump ropes", and people think they're the second coming of Black Sabbath and Slayer. We hate them because they came up through the underground, and *know* that there are thousands of bands working right now, even with brutal death in relative decline, who make them look like adult-contemporary. And yet they make their living by hyping their lame and pallid music as 'brutal' and 'sick'. Dude, 'brutal' is for Defiled and Incantation. 'Sick' is for Pungent Stench and Exhumed.
Unfortunately, I'm not able to wholeheartedly join in this condemnation, because these bands do serve some purpose, namely, to open people's eyes. It may not happen very often, because a lot of people are content to stay where they're led and follow the trends they're given, but every so often these bands will reach someone who will respond to the brutality and become drawn in. They'll make heavy music a cornerstone of their lives, and slowly but surely find their way into the underground, where at some point they'll recognize that they were destined from the start for heavy metal, that they have been sworn to the black their whole life long, and that everything up to this point has been a necessary and inescapable step on the journey to the moment of discovery.
I've seen it enough times to know that you cannot 'make' a metalhead. But you *can* wake them up. If you feed them the pure culture it resonates better, and they develop faster, but there is not always a strong enough scene to allow this to happen. Sometimes, it has to come over the radio, or through some other avenue, and if that's the source, it can definitely suffice.
I know because I was one of those. Nobody fed me Blind Guardian and led me on to Iced Earth and Immortal like I've done with my brothers; I just happened to be fourteen years old in 1994, and there is no way to describe the impact that Jon Davis screaming "Blind" out of the radio could, and did, have on a person of that age, at that time. Think about it. Heavy music was at just about its lowest ebb in history, Metallica was on break, Bruce was out of Maiden, Halford was out of Priest, Ozzy was out of touch, and the goddamned alties were running the whole show. And then someone unleashes a burst of pure destructive fury like Korn's first disc, like throwing a severed head into a placid Starbucks. Every one of us intended for the scene but not already involved in it who heard something like that could not but respond.
Listening to Korn aligned you with the heavy side, which was limited at the time to the few Metallica and Megadeth tracks still in rotation, plus some Sabbath classics and White Zombie, presently. You listened to these more and harder, and began to identify yourself as a metalhead, someone bound to a certain style, not willing to unilaterally buy what the mainstream was selling. Rage Against The Machine comes out of the woodwork; Tool comes out with a bang. Slayer comes back (admittedly with _Diabolus..._, but your taste isn't developed enough to tell how much this lacks). And Godsmack, four guys who grew up less than an hour away from you, blow up big time.
Of course, I got lucky living where I was and listening to one of the most influential commercial heavy-rock stations in the US. I got lucky in having goth friends already in the scene who duped me Type O, Death, and Danzig. I got lucky having an English teacher who remembered "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and led me to _Powerslave_ virtually by accident. But everything started with a band that everyone wants to write off as posers, and I know I'm not the only one. I know people whose dive into the depths was jumpstarted by Slipknot, years after I first tasted the blood, as well as people my own age who got that push. So I'm willing to put up with poser bands, to a certain degree; while Korn has been standing still since 1994, Slipknot at least is as heavy as the radio will allow them to be, and if you're going to be sellouts you might as well be useful sellouts.
I don't give a shit about the mid- and lower-tier bands of the nu-metal plague. If they all died tomorrow, it'd be a positive if I got their gear and assets, but neutral otherwise. But there are bands out there that have that use, to open the eyes of people who wouldn't be seeing otherwise, people who have to think they rock now so that they can understand how much they suck three or four years from now. As long as the mainstream isn't actively trying to kill the scene I'm in, I don't have a lot of that black metal drive to go out and kill the mainstream.
So, in a way, that's what I'm trying to accomplish in AMV: to be a useful annoyance, a gateway blunder. All I can do is get the music out there; it's up to the people listening to have what it takes to catch fire.
--Kai out
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please step aside
2004-02-06 01:03:56
At this point I probably ought to turn completely nocturnal. My job is always at night and there's never any problem finding a computer in the Media Union. The only problems are that the buses don't run out to the 24-hour supermarkets in the middle of the night, making shopping kind of tough, and it's not real smart to have to wake up in the middle of downcycles to go to class.
If I knew the 583 stuff would be this straightforward (so far anyways -- indicating big problems ahead??), I would have done it last week. Then I could be asleep now. As it is, I've got about a third of it done with two hours expended and six more before I have to think about going to class (and a lot of time after, but I'd rather be sleeping again so that I can make it through work tonight).
And what the fuck is up with all this 'wings' bullshit in the banners?? I've seen a couple accepted, even more on the trash heap lately, but I still haven't got a FUCKING CLUE what wings have to do with AMVs.
Well, other than in the minds of lackwits who suck at metaphors, anyway.
Nocturnal op cycle + noisy idiots in the lab + no progress on vid or book + impending deadline = KAI SO FULL OF HATE.
--Kai out
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for liberty | I will defy
2004-02-05 02:22:27
In the last ~24 hours, video #85 has jumped up 25 star points for an average of nearly 2.4, which is kind of scary. Yes, it's funny, but around 2 is where I'd expect it to finish, (and with the exception of the ever-climbing #60) though most videos tend to establish where they're eventually going to be ranked within the first 10 star scores.
Instead of sleeping, I cut through Neko no Ongaeshi for the demo. I'm going to regret that, as tomorrow and probably much of Frday will be spent coding, and sleep will be at a premium. I've got a solid handle on what's required for this, as well as a good grasp of the STL, but there remains the bastard task of sitting down and writing out all this damned code.
I'd better try to work this one as a hardware class; I'm a tool user, not a tool maker, goddamnit, why did I ever decide to mess with compilers?
--Kai out
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sadly sings destiny
2004-02-03 11:50:46
The weather here has been just awesome for the short start of this current week. I don't think it's gone below 30 since February started, which means I don't need to wear my field jacket outside.
School stuff has sidetracked any book progress and will continue to do so. At least it's just editing now, and it'll be probably better if I wait for my outside readers to get back to me. A lot of coding to do between now and Friday....good thing I've got the deliverable I need all done.
The loading of school activities into this week means also that I'll be able to go sunup to sunset this weekend and finish clipping for the demo, which is due in on next Saturday. After that, it's a short project with an obscure Swano track that'll be announced when it comes up. I should be able to finish another 2-3 vids before the end of the semester, hopefully in sufficient quality to compete with over the summer season.
And hopefully, I'll soon have a working capture/ripping setup, and I can get back going on the stuff I really want to make.
--Kai out
JOURNAL: Kai Stromler (Kai Stromler)
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