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i sink below the waves
2002-10-03 11:57:53
Tomorrow, Sword willing, I'll finish the RX video. I don't know whether the one ep I still have to cut through is the real ep 10 or the Memories retrospective, but I'll take it either way (as long as it's still subbed by #HQA, which I haven't checked). New stuff or the chance to get scenes from the first third of #3, it's all good. Plus grabbing new stuff tomorrow night; club library is a Good Thing.
I have to listen to "Cathode Ray Sunshine" some more. I'm not doing it while clipping, but I'm getting my head filled up with songs by Cales, Primordial, Borknagar, and others that I like, but seem to flow too well with RX on 1/3 speed. More concentration! Faster pace! This video looks to turn out ok, even if I'm a little behind on overage, but it won't happen if I don't stay dialed in.
Current video: Dark Tranquillity, "Cathode Ray Sunshine" to RahXephon. Progress check: 70%. Expected catalog number: #54. It's going.....going to be completed, probably going to CSUN.
Con news: weird....Anime USA is like end of next week, and here I was thinking all this time that it was somewhere off in the future. Then again, "The future is now, spook head!" as a certain belligerent rabbit has been known to say. If Mindwarp is doing another contest as some people's posts (but not their site) seem to indicate, they will get #30 and #48, since there's really nowhere else I can send those two.
Read in the paper today about punk rock aerobics classes. GO TO A FUCKING REAL SHOW PEOPLE! Misquoting Darkthrone, we have here an instance of "ravishing dumbness".
--Kai out.
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living on the screaming of the mutants he's creating
2002-10-02 13:54:18
Wow, that's weird. I was in last night while waiting for some job stuff to go in, and saw that this record here was up to 500 hits,a nd the link was off the main page. I come in today and suddenly there's 503. Meaning people are actually searching this out, which is kind of freaky. Either someone went to the profile and decided the journal looked interesting, or, even scarier, there are people out there who read this on a regular basis. To the point: you folk are weirdoes if you do this. Either that or you are in the employ of various law enforcement or watchdog agencies, to whom I say: nlm mln
Los, lasst uns mit solche Unsinnigkeiten fertig machen. Bad: Ani-Magic contest is cancelled. Good: I can just send my current slate to CSUN with no mods. More good: my Sugoi Con slate is in and fine. Real good: past couple RX eps ahve been really rich, so I'm now about a minute short of 100% overage. Excellent: I solved the biggest hurdle which had been keeping me from using Meimi 1.46, and have fully switched over. I love the expansion they did to the f/x palette.
Not having a job is a bastard and a half, but I think I'm working on a resolution to that. However, that doesn't mean it don't hurt to have to choose between X vol 1 and GTO vol 4. I'm going to need them both, later, but "mo' creditors, mo' eviction notices", as Metal Steve has been known to say. I should also be working on developing a site and getting some hosting, but that's also pushed off until I can get some income rolling. Sword be praised that I'm a cheap bastard who piled up bank account digits rather than credit card debts all through college.
Current video: Dark Tranquillity, "Cathode Ray Sunshine" to RahXephon. Progress check: 60%. Expected catalog number: #54. Three episodes left, so I should be able to get the video done Friday. An eight-day wonder -- hopefully, it won't suck. Doesn't look that way right now, but you never can tell with these things.
Con news: just have to change a couple entries to reflect changes in premiere date, since there's no contest at Ani-Magic now, and decide what all's going to CSUN. The current project, #54, may replace #21 on the slate, and then #55 (under preparation, but I can't tell you what's in it till #54 wraps) will go to Ohayocon. I need to research next year's con dates, because it's going to be a long and tiresome offseason if I'm just putting up vids with no idea where you'll be able to see them.
--Kai out
rancid angel of death
flying free -
speak no more prepare to burn
2002-10-01 12:39:56
The current campaign continues, and the video reaches the 50% mark, with about half the eps on hand cut through, and overage sitting at about 10%, which given the normal decay rate should be about enough for this point. I should plan my playlists better; listening to Agalloch while clipping for a Dark Tranquillity video is almost guaranteed to cause problems. Fortunately (??) ep 5 was pretty spare on source, but I migh have taken some clips that I shouldn't have because they went with the current music, rather than the music that's actually going to be in the video.
Job front looks hopeful, but I'm being guarded as usual. The tech climate is still pretty shaky, even if medical and military applications are moving up.
Current video: Dark Tranquillity, "Cathode Ray Sunshine" to RahXephon. Progress check: 50%. Expected catalog number: #54. This song is pretty complex, and more laid-back than "Goliaths..." (the song on #43), so it's a good fit, but once again I'll be moving into new territory -- good practice for the IF/Vandread video on the slate, which'll involve many of the same issues.
Con news: waiting for results from Ani-Magic (this weekend, tho anneke sez not to go) before I submit to CSUN. It's looking more and more like the current video will end up going, more because I don't like double-dipping than because I think #50's going to pick up any hardware at said con. Ofcourse, this puts its status for Ohayocon (current target) under question, but the deadline for that is a long ways away, and I should be able to get a few more vids done before then; maybe even the one I had slated for there pending hardware.
Some vital stuff to do this week in with jobsearch, work on vids, etc....but that's really here nore there.
--Kai out.
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with strength i burn
2002-09-30 12:01:24
FUCK SOLDATS! FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK! It's a damn good thing I don't know anyone involved with this fansub group, for otherwise their heads would be shortly transported to the World of Pain by a pair of hammering 13-inch fists. Why in the hell do they still feel the need to slap a watermark on their works, and why did they have to leave it on for the first SEVEN FUCKING MINUTES of RX3? Not that I'm INCREDIBLY FUCKING PISSED about not being able to use said battle and gravity well sequences in the current video or anything. Most of the rest of the encode was in knocked quality as well, but still.....five clips when I should have been able to get well over a minute.
Having exhausted my rage above and against a truly unfortunate wall, I can post-op the weekend. Friday: club, all good, RX gets even more Eva-like to the point where people are starting to use "Shinji" for Ayato, "Misako" for Haruka, and "Rei" for Korin; AzuDai is referred to as "your reward for sitting through RahXephon" and manages to be just as hilarious and disturbing as usual. Saturday: officially, nothing happens. I miss the best tour in years, but other than that, no matter what anyone else may say, nothing happened Saturday. I was tied up with job search stuff, and that was that. Sunday: Pats lose. Pack wins. Work on video and dupe everything I borrowed.
Mahoujin Guru Guru is pure stoner genius. I like this series more and more with every tape. For those not in the know, here's how to become a Guru Guru monster designer:
1. Get animation experience and references.
2. Buy 8-bit console system, RPGs, and a big pile of psychoactive fungus (legal in Japan, by the way).
3. For one month:
a. Play videogames
b. Eat shrooms
and
c. Doodle.
This produces weird monsters like the Psycho Fairy, Kasegi (both loser and Gold editions), the Tatejiwa Mice, and the ubiquitous Sappari Fairy that flies across the screen whenever someone says or does something particularly stupid. The "day in the life of a Sappari Fairy" mini-feature in ep 16 (or so) is just about the funniest thing I have ever seen animated, and I have a great deal of funny anime. It's a shame that Guru Guru will never be licensed, as it's too old and too bizarre.
Ofcourse, everyone said that about MB as well (s/bizarre/shoujo), and now we're six weeks away from Tokyopop putting out the first DVD of that show. Yatta!
Current video: Dark Tranquillity, "Cathode Ray Sunshine" to RahXephon. Progress check: 40%. Expected catalog number: #54. Working from 10 eps only, and even if more of them are subbed by Soldats rather than HQA, I should be able to get it done. "This is not a test of power" -- rather of skill and fortitude. I'd really like to have more, but my career has been built on working from what's available rather than finding media to match an idea.
Con news: I'm probably going to enter CSUN's contest; video #53 may premiere there, since I can't think of anywhere else to send it. The rest of the slate, though, is looking to be double-dipped....if I can finish the current one before the end of next week I may send that as well, since in a narrrow field I have a better chance to win at Ani-Magic with #50, and they don't want vids that have already won. I'm against double-dipping in principle anyway, but I think that #21 and #51 respectively shouldn't pose problems, as they're going to roughly concurrent contests in South Carolina and Ohio respectively.
--Kai out
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turn the nighttime into day
2002-09-27 13:56:00
It's done. It wasn't even STARTED this time last week, but it's done now, so I guess the new technique is a keeper. However, it also helped by pointing out the cause of that weird desynch thing that played hell with video #52; has to do with processing the rough-draft clips one step further than the HQs, but that's fixed here and will be for the future with a minimum of extra time. All about optimization.
With Ani-Magic crumbling down (at least from anneke's perspective), this means that I can send video #50 somewhere else if I have to without being overly guilted-up about double-dipping. I hate doing that, mostly because I do so many vids that it's not fair to the rest of the catalog to send the same video around everywhere. Also, it's better to expose a wide range of people to as wide a range of metal as possible rather than just doing up one REALLY, REALLY killer metal video and sending that all over creation. Where's VicBond's Savatage surge now? Dead and gone, because he didn't and doesn't hang his hat on metal evangelization.
Current video: Dark Tranquillity, "Cathode Ray Sunshine" to RahXephon. Progress check: 22%. Expected catalog number: #54. This may also become Kuroi Kenshi #6, but that's all dependent on how the video goes. Right now my main focus is going to be on making it different from #43, which was also about Swedish death metal and mystic giant robots.
Con news: mailed the Sugoi-Con entry yesterday; Ani-Magic seems to be coming apart, but you'll still be able to see at least #47 and #50 there, and maybe in the anime room of some LA-area con in February; AWA, of course, is going on right now, and you have a slim chance of catching some SH works on the VAT and a solid chance if you nab Red Wolf's CD-comp.
Not going to see that killer tour after all; too many things going this weekend, and the local date is in fucking Providence. Dammit!
--Kai out
JOURNAL: Kai Stromler (Kai Stromler)
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