JOURNAL: dj_ultima_the_great (Jen )

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  • Four hundred forty first entry - My harddrive appreciates it 2009-09-24 00:01:13 Time - 10:40, Noise - generic radio-friendly rock

    Looks like I'm not submitting anything to Geek.Kon. I didn't really think that I would get a video done in that timeframe anyway, but it would have been nice.

    On a related topic, I'm doing some digital spring cleaning. I've been accumulating videos over the last couple of years, and they just sit in some nebulous outside folder. They're not "New." They're not "Permanent Collection." They're just... there - and I didn't know whether I wanted to keep them or not. I hadn't even watched some of them. I think I might have been intending to write reviews for some of 'em, but that intention has kind of flew out the window, so I'm just wading through them slowly and discarding anything that doesn't catch my fancy.

    Additionally, I'm doing the same thing with my music collection. That's an easier process, really, but still a little time-consuming.

    So, I think I mentioned last time that I'm back in school for my fifth year, and I said what classes I'm taking. I've gotten to know my professors better over the last few weeks as well. French teacher is giggly and nervous. Tends to trail off when she's speaking. Daytime philosophy teacher is the spoken equivalent of elevator music. Easy to drift off in his class, which is bad since I'm dead center in the front row. Nighttime philosophy teacher is funny and is great at coming up with analogies for explaining things, but it's a three hour class in the evening, so it's tiring even under the best of conditions. Music Appreciation is great because my teacher is made of fun and badass. Band is band, as it always is. Same director, same time, same night, same level of entertainment every semester. The music this time around is really tough in some pieces, though. You know you've been in band too long when you start recognizing the majority of the composers you're playing from concerts you've done before. Tchaikovsky, Holst, Hazo, Whitacre, and somebody else I can't quite recall right now. Good stuff.

    I don't think that my RA likes me too much. She greets me all friendly and everything, but she keeps her distance. I think that she, like many others I've met, finds me off-putting. "One of these things is not like the others." Better yet, one of my favorite phrases to use in casual conversation when describing things that are a bit strange: "slightly left of center."

    It's a little early for bed, but I should get ready anyway.

    G'night, folks.


    - Jen 
  • Four hundred fortieth entry - just the usual stuff 2009-09-06 20:22:58 Time - 6:38, Noise - A Fine Frenzy - "Almost Lover"

    Woo hoo! Totally came up with a new video idea that I'm actually pretty driven to do. It isn't the Epic Video, but it's a good one. I think I'll call it Bunnies. That's how I keep thinking of the song whenever I hear it, so it's probably appropriate.

    So... Geek.Kon anybody? I'm still not 100% sure on whether or not I'm going, but I think so. I did the pre-registration, regardless. If I do go, I probably won't have a video done in time for it, but I'd like to submit one if I can. Anyway, this will be my first convention that is not ACen. I don't normally have the money for anything else, nor do I have the transportation to get to them, so for the last four years, I've only attended ACen. This Geek.Kon is an hour closer to me than that, though, so no hotel needed, and it caters to a variety of things instead of just focusing on anime. It supposedly has all of your fantasy, sci-fi, anime, and game needs and more, but it is smaller than ACen. I hope my schedule and my interest works out so that I can go.

    On a side note, I saw a video recently that has kind of stuck with me because I liked the execution of the concept. I usually find music by this artist to be very generic, but the editor here picked the perfect song and really worked with it well. While it could obviously use some improvement in some areas, please give a little love to this editor who seems to have fallen under the radar: http://www.animemusicvideos.org/members/members_videoinfo.php?v=171174

    Well, I'm back at college. Again. Fabulous Year Number Five, to be followed by Spectacular Year Number Six. No, I'm never graduating. Ever. Okay, okay, so after my sixth year, I ought to be done. I'm going to be struggling to make a twelve credit schedule each semester, though. (Twelve is the minimum to be a full time student, which is a status that I must maintain for financial reasons.) It's my French minor that is holding me up, so I'm just doing a few last general requirements and then filling up the rest of my time with BS classes. So, this semester consists of French (needed), two philosophy classes (needed), Music Appreciation (BS, but I play alto sax, and the sax specialist on campus teaches it, and as he's awsm, I wanted to take it), and of course, band. Can't have a semester without it. That's fourteen credits in all, which is a pretty average schedule for me.

    Still living in the dorms, as usual. I don't have the money to live in an apartment, so I'm sticking it out here. It's nice. No real problems with drunkards, smokers, or parties. Close to my classes. I get to keep my job. That's always a plus. Although, my neighbors to the left are pretty obnoxious. They're very loud at times, and at least one of the girls who lives in there has a metal-on-metal screechy banshee hyena laugh that cuts through any other noise you could possibly have going. Aside from that, though, it seems to be a decent place to live this year. I'll probably stay here next year, too.

    Ah, what else? Nothing, I think. I'll end it here, I suppose.

    See you, folks.


    - Jen 
  • Four hundred thirty ninth entry - 438 entries too many 2009-08-24 01:12:51 Time 11:41, Noise - Hootie and the Blowfish, muthafuckas

    New logo is cute. Kind of a streamlined version of last year's logo - all curves instead of spiky-looking, I mean. It fits with the main page color scheme very nicely but sticks out like a sore thumb on the forums. I approve.

    I figured out my epic video dilemma. I think, anyway. (Oh, and thanks for the suggestion, Amo-Chan; sorry for being negligent in responding.) It turned out that all I really needed to do was rearrange some of my ideas and think outside of the box for the missing anime. Now one of these days I might actually start editing this epic video. Maybe.

    I finally did it, guys. I played Portal. My utter detestation of FPS-styled games was overridden by my curiosity over the sheer quirk and imagination of this game, so when my brother loaned me his 360 and The Orange Box, I finally caved and played it. I breezed through the first fourteen chambers, got a little hung up on fifteen and sixteen, had to give some semi-serious thought to seventeen (mostly because I was attached to my companion) and had to really think it through on the last few chambers. More often, it was a matter of knowing what to do but not being able to do it. I died in the final "battle" twice because I couldn't figure out where her damn parts were. I consider it a pretty flawless game overall, but the fact that the parts would bounce a few times in one direction after they had been knocked off and then appear in totally unrelated places was a little frustrating and something that I expected the developers to do better with. That's okay, though. It's worth it to die once just to hear the whole monologue at the end.

    Final verdict? Portal is a short, but fantastic first person puzzler with pitch black humor the likes of which you will not find often.

    I still hate first person shooters, though. I'm not saying that they're all bad. Some are made excellently - Call of Duty 4 seems to be of that caliber according to what I've seen - and if I get my hands on BioShock, for example, I would definitely play it since the quality of the game outweighs the genre it was made in. I just can't stand that particular camera angle. Unrealistic third person three-sixty degree swivel camera for the win - for me, anyway.

    Oh. I've been ripping my entire collection of CDs for easy portability between home and college. Don't know why I never thought of this before. I forgot about some of the things I actually own. "Wait. Was there EVER a time when I liked Rod Stewart? Whoa, Hanson! Uh... fuck... yeah?" These are among other such gems. I was happy to find some of them, though. Savage Garden's 'Affirmation' album, anyone? Seriously, I would have married Darren Hayes if he wasn't gay... which, incidentally, made me want to marry him more. Anyway, I'm enjoying the stroll down memory lane, and I'm keeping an eye out for any potential AMV songs that I may have forgotten about over the years.

    I am, however, lamenting the fact that I only had Chumbawamba on tape. That's just blasphemy. 'Tubthumper' was a great, quirky album. I have to remedy this shit.

    Too long of an entry again. I should go.

    See you, folks.


    - Jen 
  • Four hundred thirty eighth entry - I have no friends; childhood ones, that is 2009-08-01 02:09:48 Time - 12:42, Noise - techno at a weird tempo

    So. I have a dilemma. I've had this idea for an AMV sitting in my brain (and on a text document, actually) for some time now. From time to time, I have random urges to try starting this video, but I instantly meet a brick wall. I'm missing an anime. I don't mean that I don't have access to what I need, but rather, I can't find what I need.

    I'm looking for an anime that could support a good sixty seconds of editing and contains scenes of a first childhood meeting. The characters need to be a boy and a girl below the age of ten, and unfortunately, I can't use Tsubasa. Because of the way I'm setting up the video, using that anime would cause a repetition of characters: Syaoran and Sakura, since I'm already using their Cardcaptor counterparts, which is regrettably not something I can infringe upon for this concept.

    I've been going through a typed list of anime I've seen and I just can't think of anything to use. Love Hina? Too few scenes. Elfen Lied? Already using it later in the video and the childhood scenes are largely too depressing. Ah! My Goddess? Again, I think the scenes were too few. Hmm... what to do, what to do... I feel like there's something out there that I've seen and works aside from Tsubasa, but I'm just not coming up with a good idea.

    Maybe I just need to rewatch some of the ones I have to see if there's something I'm missing or have forgotten. *sigh*

    See you, folks.


    - Jen 
  • Four hundred thirty seventh entry - I'm still watching you guys, y'know 2009-07-14 03:59:13 Time - 2:07, Noise - REM - "Losing My Religion"

    ...you know... I feel like I recognize less than half of the users on this site lately. That's not a complaint or anything. New blood is always a good thing. Can't hand off the torch if you're lacking someone to give it to. It's just a bit strange for me is all.

    I have to wonder if it's because of my general inactivity on the site that I don't notice as many familiar names or if it's because there are just as many of the older editors but also a huge influx of newer folks overshadowing it. Have my .org-ers left me?

    Or .org-ies. .orgies? Can I call you guys that? It sounds perverse.

    ...maybe I should just stick to "AMVers."

    Let's see... I haven't updated in a while because there isn't really much to say. I finished my senior year in college, but I have two more to go, so it's not exactly a big deal. I get the oh-so-coveted Super Senior status next semester. On a high note, I am finished with my major, so it's just my minor holding me up. I ended the semester with my usual set of half A's and half C's (somehow, it doesn't matter what classes I take, but I always get that split in my grades; always half one and half the other). At least I'm consistent...?

    I tried to get a job over the summer, but met with failure. To make up for it, my grandpa asked if I wanted to stay with him for a few weeks do some work around the house and outside, as well as run him to a few doctor's appointments. I agreed, and I stayed three weeks, got a lot of good grandfather-granddaughter conversation in, was allowed to take home a ton of old photos for my mom, and got a paycheck out of the deal. Nine hundred dollars for three weeks - sure as hell better than any other job I might have worked. Except prostitution maybe. I'm using part of it for school, part of it to kick off a retirement fund, and I just bought some clothes that might actually succeed in making me look more like a girl. (I needed new clothes for school anyway.) They were more expensive than I was happy with, but I've never bought really nice stuff before (I was a hand-me-down kid and have been a Wal-Mart teenager and adult since then), so I'm wondering if it'll be any better. I hope so.

    Anyway, I had no internet at my grandpa's place, so I actually considered editing for a while. Unfortunately, I had loaded my hard drive down with other media for the trip and didn't bring my external, so whatever I wanted to edit, I had to do it with five gigabytes of space. I had two games and one anime (and a bunch of PS1 games, but dummy me forgot that I never re-installed the PSX ripper after the OS crash). Anime would have taken too much space, so I tried out both games. One ripped just fine and the other had a format that I wasn't familiar with (.bik, for Bink Video, apparently). None of my usual culprits recognized the .bik files except the ripper itself, so I left it alone. I haven't researched into it too much since I got back - just enough to grab myself a player that can let me view the files. I still can't process 'em, though, so I guess I won't be using the source anytime soon. Anyway, I processed all the other clips for the other game, was just searching for a suitable song, and eventually found one...

    ...and then I remembered that I had an SNES emulator, so that booted my interest in editing out the window faster than the paparazzi posting Britney Spears lack-of-panties shots. A lovely Final Fantasy V file ensued. I'm bound and determined to murder Shinryuu this time around... which is apparently stupidly easy, so I think I'll tackle him before Omega. Maybe one of these days I'll get back around to conquering the Dark Aeons in FFX: International. I kind of got bored of putzing with the Sphere Grid after a while. It's annoying to fight the special bosses over and over to get stat spheres when they counter every single attack with Flare or Ultima. The damage is piddly at this point (I take care of it by having one person spam Pray the whole battle), but it's the animation sequence that drives me nuts. Pretty much every single one of the special bosses counters like that, though. Anyway, I really just wanted to play with the Dark Aeons and Penance, but the preparation needed to properly do that is so time-consuming. I was tempted to cheat more than once, but have thus far resisted the urge. But really... forty-two games of blitzball minimum to get Wakka's ultimate weapon and the sigil needed to power it up? That's just utter cruelty. I almost threw a party when I finished that task. Anyway, enough talk of that. I'm a "special boss" and/or "secret task" junkie, so I get really enthusiastic about that sort of thing.

    Well, this turned out longer than I thought it would, so I'm gonna go. Just wanted to say that I'm still alive - if anyone cared, that is, which is admittedly doubtful.

    See you, folks.


    - Jen 
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