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when blood ran through my veins
2002-11-18 13:00:59
Numbers are generally a pretty incomplete way of looking at anything, but it's simpler to use them than to go through the whole weekend blow by blow. Also:
22: Hours Kai spent awake between 4 AM Friday and 4 AM Saturday.
7: Approximate number of miles logged by Kai rather than taking the subway like a normal person.
3: US dollars Kai saved by doing that.
16: Ounces of roasted-garlic beef sausage consumed on-mission.
2.5: Approximate liters of Coca-Cola consumed on-mission.
1: Number of other food items consumed between 5 AM and 8 PM Friday.
3: Number of essential metal CDs acquired Friday.
9.99: Price in US dollars, before tax, of a Kubrick Trigun playset.
44.95: Price in US dollars of an Onegai Teacher artbook. (Guess which one made the cut.)
5: "Episodes" watched at club (4 Vandread + One Pound Gospel)
1: Tapes requested and not netted.
57: Minutes shaved in electronic completion of the GRE exam.
1510: Kai's cumulative score on the GRE exam.
1: GTO DVDs remaining to be released.
I'd judge my "off week" a success; now I need to get back in the swing of things and buckle down on the current video (along with ofcourse jobsearch and the grad school application process).
Current video: Gamma Ray, "Lonesome Stranger" to One Piece. Progress check: 29%. Expected catalog number: #60. I'm doing the requisite TMPEG work now, having done about three and a half hours of clipping on one *subbed* ep to get me to this point. If they're all this rich, this is gonna be no problem, and I may not have to use the movie for more than the intro -- if I can't provide that from the unsubbed eps.
The next video is in position, and it looks like it's going to be pretty cool, maybe even KK. The one after that's up for debate; I've got a neat idea that jumped up the chain, but that one'll take a good bit of work and smarts to get out right, if it gets done at all.
--Kai out
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like i'm underwater and i can't swim
2002-11-14 12:34:23
To clear up a potential point of contention: there are two bands using the name 'Pain' that have been used in AMVs. One is a punk/ska band from California, and the other is a S&M-influenced electro-goth-metal one-man project from Sweden. The latter, though, was entered into the database first (I know, because I had to add it), and should thus be considered the true 'Pain' for purposes of the .org. Others should be reassigned to 'Pain (USA)'; if some Namibian band starts using the name and gets used in an AMV, they would be credited as 'Pain (Nam.)', and so forth. The precedent for this is in the 'W' section of your local halfway decent record store: the sixties-seventies rock band War is filed under 'War' and the black/death metal band War is filed under 'War (Swe.)'.
Tomorrow will be the day of decision. The first MB DVD officially streets Tuesday, but sometimes the Kid has stuff early. If it is there, I'll get it, even if I have to kill somebody for it right there, their blood spreading on the carpet between the import CDs and the DVD racks. However, if it's not, I can wait until next week, and use this week to buy the Eikoden box with limited pencilboard, which will probably not be there next week. This is what is called the horns of a dilemma.
Current video: Still no progress! With fire and determination I fight off the impulse to work on this video, and obtain the necessary intestinal fortitude to beat the GRE into the ground. On the first practice test on the mailed CD, I scored 750-750, and that was going a little fast and making some dumb mistakes, particularly on the math section. I'll kick it up tonight on the second and last practice exam, and get sufficient sleep to wake up at 4 tomorrow to go in for the test.
Con news: GOD FUCKING DAMMIT PEOPLE WHEN WE GONNA HEAR 'BOUT NEKOCON? It seems as though everyone in the community who was there was also too blasted to pay any attention to the results of the contest. I don't care that much about it, but lack of reporting starts to get annoying after a bit.
just a speck in the spectrum,
--Kai out.
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speak out and we receive
2002-11-13 12:02:40
I honestly cannot recall the last time I posted anything in the forum. I look through there every time I'm on, but there's so little that I find interesting being discussed that I have no desire to join in. The notion of homogenous community in this hobby has always been ridiculous, but now it seems that I'm operating on a totally different wavelength than a lot of the people around here.
It might help if I had an idea of what this hobby was for other people. I grew my own technique based on nostandard equipment and some really vague guides put out by OV when this site was in its infancy, and when I finally DID encounter Phade's guide, I wrote a critique laying open what I thought were really blockheaded mistakes and failures of vision. Add in left-field taste in music and an unreal production pace, and you have a recipe for total disconnect.
Caught between two worlds: a ton of editing experience, but relatively little time in harness. A guy with a sub-7000 login who's been contributing for less than four months. If nothing else, it's keeping my work nonstandard and unpredictable.
Current video: no progress since last entry. Awright! Now I just have to keep on this 'pace' till the end of the week, and I'll be in prime shape to smash up those exams.
Con news: STILL waiting for Nekocon results. C'mon, someone follow up Fungie's post with some answers here!
--Kai out.
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darkness and silence
2002-11-12 14:33:25
Video #59 is up and listed, Legionair's screener is burned and mailed, _Old Rope_ is ordered and on the way, and I, Sword so preserve, am officially on AMV Break for the remainder of the week. Right now, I have to concentrate on GREs and the good job feelers that I've put out lately, rather than on pirates and German metallers plucking cowboy chords. This next one's gonna be a good video, probably pointed at Katsucon.
My Japanese has gotten to the point where I can utilize the materials in the club's unsubbed library and still have an idea of what's going on, allowing me to discover a whole bunch of stuff that I've never even heard of subbed, like Kujaku-oh and Nine. Watching Nine, I realized, I think for the first time, what a genius for storytelling Adachi Mitsuru has, even if he has to use the same cast all the time. The plot doesn't change much, either; if you've seen Touch, then you've pretty much seen Nine, but there's something special about the way he sets up his stories: sports comics that really aren't about sports at all.
More of Adachi's stuff needs to be brought over. I don't think ANY of his works are available commercially here, even the manga, and a lot of it isn't even fansubbed.
Current video: Gamma Ray, "Lonesome Stranger" to One Piece. Progress check: 25%. Expected catalog number: #60. Like I said, most likely little or no progress this week on this video this week while I prep for GREs, learn SQL, and polish off Gravity's Rainbow. It's pretty good, but I'm not sure I can take more Pyncheon after this.
--Kai out.
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riven in stone
2002-11-11 14:01:43
I can't fucking believe the Patriots won yesterday. The gods of chance are gonna present this team with a bill longer than Randy Moss' rap sheet one of these days.
Club was cool; RX appears to be growing a plot, or at the very least starting to separate itself a little from Eva, and I actually got to see all four eps of AzuDai this time around. Sing loud sing proud!
Current video: Pain, "Supersonic Bitch" to Armitage III Poly-Matrix. Progress check: 95%. Expected catalog number: #59. I've got the video roughed, and it looks decent, even if the lip-synch isn't that great. This may or may not go for competition, depending on how the HQ looks once I produce it. After this wraps, I'll be taking the rest of the week off to prep for the GREs; the next video isn't going to be going anywhere.
Con news: I'm a little burned about not making the finalist list for CSUN's contest, behind a bunch of videos that have been making the rounds, but I really shouldn't be. Not everyone can hack my kind of prod schedule, and there's nothing wrong, if you're in this for recognition, with just throwing your best video at every contest in sight. If you're going to be there, you might catch one of the four I sent if they were on the bubble in the opinion of the judges. Still no news from Nekocon.
Quote shared by Jim:
"That man has the constitution of a vending machine!"
-- Cobra Commander, on Sergeant Slaughter in some G.I. Joe episode
Sigs don't get much better than that.
--Kai out.
JOURNAL: Kai Stromler (Kai Stromler)
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