Another year another dollar... Astreamofconsciousnesspost.
Well, I finally completed my first year in my new position at work. For my efforts, I got an 8.5% raise. It's a shame I don't really feel so good about that. The money's good for what I'm doing, but it's what I'm doing that I don't like. I spent a lot of time getting my aero engineering degree, but the job I'm in challenges nothing but my sanity. It's just insane volumes of mind-numbing work that doesn't do anything to stretch my limits. If anything, it feels like I spend more time trying to help other people catch up with me than doing my job. I really should get off my ass and make a last push at a flight rated commision. I used to be dead-set against anything but Air Force, but with the Blue-Suits hemoraging personnel (pilots included) to afford a meager force of F-22's, my chances are slim to say the least. I've given a thought or two to Army Aviation, but if you want to stay in the seat of your Apache for more then a couple years, you're better off going Warrant Officer than a straight commision. Naval Aviation wouldn't be a problem, but I get the sneaking suspicion they'd try to shoe-horn me into a nuke-sub to work on a reactor. That just would not work for me. That's before I consider all the physical problems I face in getting there. I lie on the opposite end of the spectrum from most Americans. I can't put/keep weight on to save my life. My vision and hearing are both fine, and I haven't had any breathing problems in a decade plus, but there's a medical file out there somewhere that says I filled a prescription for an inhaler after the age of 13 (because my mother is a worry-wart). I kept telling her to stop. This was one of the few cases where I'd rather need it and not have it. I've grown out of it, but as long as that fucking little slip of paper sits out there somehwere, I'm more than likely screwed.
I think I'd like to try my hand at making an AMV (but not actually of the music variety). If I could refine it enough, I'd like to see if it could make the cut for AMV Hell 4.
But I want to do it with a different clip. It's a toss-up between a clip of Aisha from Outlaw Star on the bridge of her (for a short time) battleship, or Admiral Spoor in one of her many bizarre bridge scenes. I'm leaning toward the later.
Oh boy... welcome to hell, boyo! If you've never used Premiere and all the other things you have to have to make an AMV (like me with The Kanon Project {working title}), you'll be wanting to run your wrists through a tablesaw in NO time.
If you HAVE used the programs needed, then more power to you!
I've gotten past the 'hell' part of my AMV, and now it's in the 'grinding' part... maybe by the end of the month, the 'first draft' will be done. Maybe.
Posted by: Wonderduck at April 24, 2007 03:27 PM (aIFaX)
Heh, I haven't even met up with Virgil and started my decent.
I've never dabbled in this before, so I'm going to be searching out any FAQ's and how-to guides I can find.
I've got to figure out which software I want to use (and can afford). If there's something out there that makes life easier, but stings the pocketbook mightily, I may just suck it up and pay for it anyway. Of course that means I need to find other projects to get my money's worth out of the purchase.
Posted by: Will at April 25, 2007 07:42 AM (olS40)
Hah, I finally found where I put this comment! Will, if there's anything I can do to help you once you start trying to do this, lemme know. After (almost) finishing my first AMV, I know (first hand) the big pitfalls that will bite you otherwise. They bit me, and added three or four days worth of work to the project in the process, not to mention a lot of sanity.
I used Premiere, but I had a hand-me-down copy, so it didn't cost anything... otherwise, it would have cost an arm and a leg. For a simple, easy viddy, you could use Windows Movie Maker... It's not bad, per se, just really, really dumb.
If you're a member of animemusicvideos.org, download the amvapp. If you're not a member of amv.org, join up (it's free!), THEN download it (there may be a 2-week waiting period). It is worth it's hard-drive space in gold.
Posted by: Wonderduck at May 22, 2007 07:57 PM (aIFaX)
I've had an account over at AMV.org for a couple years (but I visit so infrequently, I always forget my password). I've actually got a couple projects (not all AMV's) in mind if/when I can get myself out from under the stack of jobs at work. That, and now that summer is back, my dad is probably going to start asking for help with his car restoration on the weekends again.
You know, I'd meant to offer up my services with your beta. I'm looking forward to seeing it.
Don't ever drive across Central/West Texas (or much of eastern New Mexico for that matter).
Spent Thursday in my truck going to Justin, Tx. 17+ hours. Saw the VLA in person and drove through Roswell. Otherwise, ugh.
Friday... zzzzzzzz*snork* what? Tornadoes? Baseball size hail? WTF? Please don't hit my truck.
Saturday... brrrr..... *freezes near to death and sleeps all day*
Sunday... An idyllic Dallas / Ft. Worth day. Went to the NASCAR event at TMS. Got to walk back because my hosts changed post-race plans without informing me.
Spent Monday in my truck getting back from Justin, TX. There can't be many places on Earth flatter than the terrain near Amarillo, Tx.
And that, is why I haven't been responding to a damn thing anyone has said to me.
That file sizes look more like what I should be seeing.
So very weird. When I first load any page in which this video object exists, the player doesn't appear at first. I get the generis object icon. It acts almost like it's buffering before bringing up the player (WM plugin in my case). While that's happening, I can see my cable modem is actively trying to grab the file. Once the object decides to actually do something, both the embedded player and Windows Media both appear. WM gives me an error about not being able to parse the AVI (because it's not actually getting ahold of the file), and the embedded player has all the controls grayed out.
While all of that is going on, it locks me out of clicking on the "Add Comment" link. You can click all you want but nothing happens. Is there some controller that is being used by both the embedded player and the comment editor?
There must be something I'm missing in my object tag. Or, I haven't got just the right path in the tag. Is it possible that Minx thinks I'm trying to hotlink the file from outside and is shutting me out? I know I can right click the direct link and save as (and if that's what I have to do, it's what I have to do).
Posted by: Will at April 11, 2007 06:42 PM (olS40)
3
Minx doesn't have hotlink prevention yet, so it's not that. I'm not 100% sure what it is, right now. Minx will serve up the file okay, but maybe there's something with the exact way the browser expects to receive an embedded object... I'll have to play with it a bit more.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at April 11, 2007 06:55 PM (PiXy!)
That seems to have fixed the comment hangup, but it's still not pulling up the content. crud.
Oh, and it looks like the uploads may be working just fine, but when the transfer takes too long, it doesn't route me to the File Info page when the upload is complete.
Posted by: Will at April 11, 2007 08:34 PM (olS40)
Oh, and it looks like the uploads may be working just fine, but when
the transfer takes too long, it doesn't route me to the File Info page
when the upload is complete.
Yeah, that might be the case. So all I'd need to do is tweak the timeout flag - I'll look into that.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at April 12, 2007 03:58 AM (PiXy!)
6
Maybe we should try it with a very small video file; it might be easier to debug that.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at April 12, 2007 04:05 AM (PiXy!)