JOURNAL: Kai Stromler (Kai Stromler)

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  • lost myself a few days ago 2005-06-04 08:54:09
    SH101:
    - Source rip: complete
    - Music: complete
    - Precleaning: complete
    - Storyboard/planning: none/complete
    - Clipping: complete
    - Edit: 2:16
    - Postproc: none
    - Export: none

    I did some editing this morning and ended up getting into a dogfight with Magix about producing a MPEG2 test print that didn't look like total garbage. Fortunately, I can get it to do a non-interlaced AVI encode, so there won't be any problems when I hit the inevitable 2:53 wall. Editing and post should finish up sometime tomorrow morning, and the video may be posted tomorrow -- depending on due date and formats (haven't checked either) I may hold this one off till after Connichi-Con.....or release it anyways, because there are a bunch of people in its potential audience that won't have the opportunity to go to Germany for an anime convention. The video is looking good, even though the masks I did up turned out mostly useless.

    I'm off third shift, and things are looking a little brighter at work....except we have to support automation full-time now, which will mean a lot of diag-mailing. Fortunately the pressure is a little off, so I should be able to do video stuff in the mornings before I go in (second shift) and take Saturday off for the Monarchs game. We lost to Stuttgart in the home opener, which was just more downage on top of me not being able to make it to the game. Sometime soon I should also be looking over the tour dates in the mags filling up my car so I can find some shows to go to; it's summer in Europe and the muscles in my neck aren't pulled, there's something wrong here......

    --Kai out


     
  • von dir getrieben 2005-06-02 08:16:40
    SH101:
    - Source rip: complete
    - Music: complete
    - Precleaning: complete
    - Storyboard/planning: none/complete
    - Clipping: complete
    - Edit: none
    - Postproc: none
    - Export: none

    I finished up clipping today and created the masks I'm going to be using for primary message effect, so the video source is all in place; I just have to start editing. The music is extremely immersive and multilayered, so trying to do a timing chart in advance is probably counterproductive. There is probably going to be a lot of junk in this video; the next one will play it straighter.

    I'm going to be on second shift from now on instead of first, and I'm pretty sure I have the weekend off (and accordingly, sufficient time to make the video). This makes getting by a little easier, except for the part about "keep same hours as in US". That's a little tough, given the hours software actually works as opposed to the hours management here thinks they do.

    One way or another, things move forward. Sometimes, it's with terminal sleep loss and gurgling stomach from too many improperly-refrigerated frozen pizzas and too much Asian/Turkish takeout, but it happens.

    --Kai out


     
  • look behind the mirror 2005-05-31 15:32:07
    I should probably have done some work on the video today, but did not. Third shift is getting to be a real pain, though there are some indications that it may be over soon. Hopefully when I go for my residency permit on Friday it won't be in vain. Everyone else is being fairly positive, "the customer sees most of the remaining problems as software issues", but for me and the other two software/software-test guys on site, that sounds a lot like "Produce, goddamnit! 16-hour shifts! No time off until Labor Day!" Someone needs to read Fred Brooks again...........

    I also should have updated my German-diary page, but did not do that either...maybe in the morning. Additionally, I didn't do anything to secure pickup hosting when my current host goes dark. You'd think that with so much to do, I'd do at least some of it....besides making sure that my electricity won't suddenly get turned off.

    offtopic:
    The German metal press is a highly tuned and insidious machine. Once every two weeks, I have to tank up, at a cost of about 45e. When I go into the gas station to pay, there is *always* a new issue of either Rock Hard or Metal Hammer, with CD included, for about 5e. And, having gotten sick of the last CD from two weeks before, I always pick up the new issue and cover everything neatly with a 50e bill. They can pretty much take the active scene for granted, even without this evil plan, but by this stratagem they can keep people who work intensive regular jobs reading their rags and, by extension, into the music, which is an all-around positive. It also doesn't hurt that the German metal press is intelligent and professional, as opposed to the crap we have in America with the singularly useless Metal Edge and Metal Maniacs' self-destructive combination of mediocre articles and Tiger-Beat-in-black-T-shirts layout. I can't even remember the last time I bought a US metal magazine.

    In addition to the planned stuff on the SH list, I also trucked over several DVDs' worth of vobs from miscellaneous shows that I more or less totally forgot about. I'm going to have to look through them on an "eat what you kill" basis sometime in the mid-range future; once I finally get cranking on the current project and back on a semi-regular production schedule, there may be some extremely anomalous vids coming down the line in terms of anime source. I think I have Geobreeders, Death and Rebirth, Strange Dawn, and probably a bunch of other junk. I don't know what I'm going to do with them, if anything, but it'll be interesting to find out.

    --Kai out


     
  • behold | the ghost of a god 2005-05-27 15:26:24
    SH101:
    - Source rip: complete
    - Music: complete
    - Precleaning: complete
    - Storyboard/planning: none
    - Clipping: 50%
    - Edit: none
    - Postproc: none
    - Export: none

    I put in an hour before work today, and I don't honestly know whether I'm on pace to have enough source or not. Straight-cuts, I might be, but there is this real calling towards extreme weirdness taking advantage of the artstyle and extremely crisp transfer of Requiem, so the final direction (and, essentially, my ability to make the video at all) is pretty much up in the air.

    I could technically have been editing last night as well; we had three random show-stopper hardware failures and I spent most of my time doing nothing. Usually it's good when software has nothing to do, but software also has nothing to do when the machine breaks and doesn't get fixed.

    --Kai out


     
  • the final curtain has begun 2005-05-26 14:27:27
    I got the notification from UM today that they have finally found out that I'm not longer enrolled there, and so my service is going to be discontinued on my birthday (cue Gollum..........), so I have about two weeks (assuming I don't do shit while I'm still cranking third shift, as has been the case) in which to find a new host and get all my stuff trucked over there. The last thing I need at this point........

    offtopic and extremely retarded:
    I got some spam in my UM inbox today from Nelnet, wanting me to do student loan consolidation. The thing is, I already consolidated my student loans........through Nelnet. "Spam is bad enough, but this is *stupid* spam!", to misquote Red Storm Rising, which is actually somewhat appropriate as I'm sitting in a renovated former East Bloc army building.

    I'm working on getting source for the AMV Hell 0 tracks, but need to be sure to have my postal code in hand; addresses don't work the same way here as they do in the US. SH101 should start moving fairly swiftly tomorrow as well; I finished reading Monster and in this kind of production crunch (both work and otherwise), I'm not about to just load on 20th Century Boys and read that. Later......

    --Kai out


     
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