JOURNAL:
MeriC (Meri Cantoni)
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The obligatory AWA post! Part 1
2002-10-01 18:50:58
I'm in my web design class right now as I type: meaning, this is the ideal time for me to write about AWA!
All in all: friggin' awesome con! I've never met so many AMV people at once. I was in such shock seeing so many famous people at once. Most people I saw before at Katsucon and Otakon, but this was the first time I really got to speak people. It was just.... wow. :)
The most surprising thing of all was having mine and VegettoEX's video win something in the Pro contest! We really thought we didn't stand a chance against the other videos in the category (this is Character Profile), especially Nathan and Jeff's "Engel" / Trigun video. All during the Pro showing, we thought we puked, cuz they "only showed the videos that didn't win," so we were waiting for ours to play. When the Pro winners played during Saturday, damn, I think Mike and I were gonna burst! Congrats to all those who won! This was a very very fairly distributed event, and I think all the videos that won definitely deserved their recognition.
If you would like to download our AWA Pro video (Trigun to "I'm Just a Kid" by Simple plan, video title "Alone in the World"), check it out here:
http://www.animemusicvideos.org/legacy/video.php?v=11328
And our DDR track "Smoke" can be downloaded here:
http://www.animemusicvideos.org/legacy/video.php?v=11326
End shameless pluggage.
Silly fun fact: Did you know that Jeff Heller (gambitt) and I went to high school together? It's true! Whodda thunk 3 years after graduation we'd end up ending music videos, and being in the DDR Project? Small world. :P
I intend on fully writing about my AWA experience soon, as soon as I'm back at home, not writing during class. There, I'll talk about our travels, con goings, and general meeting people fun. I had a blast, and everyone was so friggin' nice, I can't believe it. More to come soon. :P
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Wow... things.
2002-09-23 22:44:41
Looks like the site's back up. Good thing, too. AWA's this week, and I'm freaking out! So far, got about 70 CDs burned, 30 more to go. My hands are sore from cutting out covers. They're corny covers. People will have to wait to see them at the con. I crack me up. Ha.
Mike and I went to a show last Thursday, conveniently located right by school. There were 4 bands, two of which we LOVE, from the West coast. It was really fun. Totally packed house, the usual amounts of annoying skanky fake girls, and great music, great attitude.
Andrew (Mike's roomate) bought this game called "Seaman" for $10 the other day. It scares the crap out of me. They have ugly faces and talk back. I'm gonna have nightmares for a while, but it's daaaamn addicting. Like Sims.
Speaking of that, I have the best assignment: write a report and review of any video game I want, and look for sexist images. Ahhh, now this is the stuff I can do.
Heh, which brings me to another funny thing that's happened. I have a text book for one of my classes called "From Barbie to Mortal Kombat." On the cover is a picture of Barbie, and a character from Virtua Fighter. And this is only one item on a long list of things that are completely and utterly wrong in this book, which is basically criticizing games for not being "girl-friendly." Such bullcrap... feminists really piss me off. If they did their video game research, maybe I'd take this book more seriously.
Aaaanyways, back to the issue that matters! AWA this week, wheee!! Aside from missing 3 days of school, I'm really looking forward to it. I'm gonna terrified to see our DDR video and Pro video (oh yeah, it made it into the finalists for a category, but I'm not gonna say which one, buwahaha!) on big screens, since I've had lousy luck at other cons this summer in terms of video transfer (which the expection of Shoujocon, which turned out gorgeously). But, with so many other people there, I hope I'll be too excited to even notice if something goes wrong. Actually, the thing I'm most looking forward to is seeing the final DDR projetc completely. I'm like.... arg, gonna explode!!! So dying to see it, and I can't wait to show a copy of it the school's anime club.
Guess that's all that's been going on recently. I'm sure I'll have plently to comment on before or after AWA. Time to go play with Seaman *silly schoolgirl giggling ensues*.
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This crappy weekend just got a little better
2002-08-30 09:56:03
Today, I shall prepare for the crapfest that shall be AXNY. I gotta say, I'm not even too excited about going. But, I figure it's in NYC, and it would be stupid NOT to go, considering it's only a train ride away. Although, one good thing happened: finally got tickets to see the Cowboy Bebop movie Saturday night, which is basically my only reason for going to this thing. :P We won't be travelling into the city till tonight, so I have a whoooole day free (I took off from work today for the occasion, whee-ness). I'll probably miss some of the AMV contest (no big loss- considering AX's track record, they'll probably mess up, and they'll be no AMVs to watch anyways), since it starts at 8, and Bebop's at 11. But, since I know people who sent videos, I shall offer my moral support of ultimate fangirl blazing justice!
Yesterday was my last day of summer work. ;_; Fortunately, I'll probably end up doing the same job during the semester. This past week, new English teachers were going through teacher orientation. Part of their orientation included going to our computer lab, and receive training on how to make their "classpage" (basically a web page with their very own course information). So, teachers pretty much come in and out all day, and we (me, Mike, the intern, and the bossmen) have to help the new teachers go through the steps of making their classpage. Some people are very tech savvy, and only need a little help going through this process.
The others... oi...
Between not knowing how to use a mouse, check e-mail, navigate a web page, and pretty much not wanting to be there, we had our work cut out for us. Some people weren't that bad; they apologized for being a little slow-learning with computers, and that's fine. But other teachers... damn, I get so amazed when I find people who truly don't know what to do when placed in front of a keyboard. It's interesting. And we get to help 'em. But, summer's over, and now we're done with teacher training!
In AMV news... thanks to Ian's help and patience, Mike and I are re-encoding our DDR video and possibly our AWA video, because we suck at exporting apparently, and need to figure stuff out properly. I'm just looking at some of the files that encoded over night, and they look great. Hopefully, we can get these babies in the mail to Quu ASAP. Stress, be gone!
Well, with this full day off before me, I think I'll do some serious chilling, and play some video games. Ahhhh, relaxation!
If there's anything worth reporting, I'm sure I'll write about AXNY laters.
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Not as mad l337 as Hsien!
2002-08-21 11:25:53
Wheee, looks like the ol' DDR 2nd Mix vids are accumulating. Jeff's now done, and Mike and I finished the final encode of our "Smoke" track last night. All things considered (lack of time, song with incomprehensible lyrics, stuff...), I am so so happy with it! It's jolly good fun.
Random fun fact: Mike accidentally deleted a 1/6 of our video from the project timeline the day that we finished up our video. Luckily, we had a raw AVI of that section sitting around on my harddrive, so we were able to replace that portion with what we had in the AVI. SCARY!
More fun facts: Made a gazillion encodes of our final video, cuz we suck at exporting. Ian is now our savior, and will help us out. Ah always depended on th' kindness of Englishmen! ^_-
OK, so after this DDR video, and our AWA submission, ya'd think we'd go crazy. And then there's school starting in 2 weeks... but, I think we're ready for another romp shortly. :O The next one we have planned is something we're very excited about. Can't wait to start it. Just gotta delete all the Kenshin files off my compy, heh.
Work is still cool, cuz there's new computers on hella fast T1 lines, so I just leave the computer on all day and night and have people download AMVs off of me in download programs. Yes yes, work is great indeed. We use these machines for our own purposes, muwahahaha. Getting some "Angel" episodes to watch, since season 4 of Buffy is airing on FX right now, so we have to watch the two shows simultaneously. So, we gotta download Angel since the DVDs aren't out yet (but I think they're out in Europe, for some reason). We're also downloading where we left off with Chobits. God, I am slowly becoming addicted to this show. Maybe we can show it at JCA (anime club, basically) this semester. Want DVDs to make AMVs of it, though!! Good thing it's licensed! :) I'm also very into Angelic Layer now, no thanks to Mike. :P My god, it's a CLAMP fest! Next thing you know, I'll be watching X.... *shudder* nah, no chance of that happening.
Break done, back to work.
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....zaa?
2002-08-09 12:24:12
Friggin' nuttiest thing happened this morning at work. Mike and I enter the building we work in, and are walking through the halls, la la la. Boss ain't in the office, and his door is open. Ok, whatever. Walk more down the hall, and see him standing in the office of his colleague, Michael. As we get closer, we hear some audio, as if watching a TV or something like that. Then I think "oh, maybe they just downloaded something, and are watching it" (gotta abuse the university T1 lines, baby!).
We get to the room to see what's up, and we hear... Mike's roomate's (Andrew "Delux") voice!? No way! Then it occurs to me... they're watching my "All-Purpose DBZ Music Video".
What. The. Hell?! I shit you not, my bosses were watching an AMV of mine. O_o
Mad embarassment ensues.
"Uhhh... uhhhh... yeah... that's mine!"
"Yeah, I was browsing some of the old 'Web Authoring' class pages, recognized your name, and went to your personal site. There, you had a link to one of your sites, 'Temple O Trunks', it's called."
"Yes. That's my site... kinda old..."
So, they kinda stumbled on my site, and found my music videos. Funky shiznit. Nothing on the Internet is secret, hehe!
My boss, Barclay, is already aware that Mike and I watch anime/make music video, since we got him into "Lain" 'n stuffage. But, Michael is a lot less knowledgable (despite living in Japan in the 1970s, he claims, where they refer to anime as "cartoons," not "anime," which I find odd). Then, he asked us questions like, "how do you get the animation to go with the music? Did you animate it yourself? (oro?) How did you get the lips to match up with the singing?" We try to answer his questions, and I'm kinda feeling like I'm in the Twilight Zone... then our other part-of-the-year boss, Michael (yes, another one. There are 3 in the room at this point), comes in (and he knows we make AMVs too, since we had to do a video editing project for his department), and recognizes our work... this is too trippy.
I dunno if it's a good thing that my superiors are asking me about all this video editing stuff (makes for good potential to get more work), or if it's bad cuz they think I'm a weirdo who spends hours editing Japanese animation to music.. for fun!! Yes, us younguns today have a weird sense of "fun." If I can turn Barclay into more of an otaku, then it shouldn't be so bad.
Heh, he asked if we knew of any "Lain" music videos, cuz he wants to watch some later. That's a start.
And now, after this major weird morning... I depart on a much needed lunch break. Ja!
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