Month: March 2003

  • Random Factoids You Never Knew You Needed

    Just a few random facts for your (complete lack of) edification.

    • Budget Gourmet makes what may very well be the nastiest mac-and-cheese ever tasted by mankind. I think it’s even nastier than that time Christine made “green mac-and-cheese soup.” It’s bad, folks.
    • When you’ve spent your entire adult(ish) life using an electric shaver, and one day your Braun shaver breaks, it’s far better to kludge the damned thing into some semblance of operation than to peel bits of skin off your face trying to use a cheap straight razor. Hell, I didn’t even get most of the hairs, yesterday. Gah. To hell with that.
    • Mandrake Linux 9.0 makes a lousy place to start building Linux From Scratch, due to their complete failure to provide the glibc-static-devel RPM on the CD-ROMs.
    • Counting on the generosity of the AMV creator community to get professional feedback on your new video is a bit like counting on Dubya to introduce bold, forward-looking environmental legislation. (So far, two of my friends have said they like the video. I’d still like to get critical feedback, though. And ErMaC never did return my emails.)
    • Last but not least… when you spend two days reading books and playing Diablo II, you don’t get much writing done.
  • UnHuman: Metallica meets Akira

    It took me several months, but my new video is finally finished. What started as a request from one of KGON’s salesfolks turned into a quest for creative growth as an AMV creator. I pushed myself in a few new directions, and for the most part I’m happy with the results.

    The “official” download page has some more details, as well as the option to leave an opinion if you happen to be an animemusicvideos.org site member. Even if you’re not, you can still download from there. My own Downloads page has also been updated accordingly.

    Yay, me! I love the feeling of creative accomplishment. Yeah.

  • It’s nice to win one, now and again.

    Hot diggity damn. The Oscar broadcast led off with the Feature Animation category, and wouldn’t you know it…

    Spirited Away won.

    Oddly enough, I was right all along. Unless I’m mistaken, that’s one of the signs of the impending Apocalypse.

  • Past, Present, Future – Round Five

    Spring has sprung. The country’s at war. (And yes, in fact this is my very first mention here of that particular bit of idiocy.) For some reason the song that came to mind this morning was Midnight Oil’s “Too Much Sunshine”.

    PAST – So tell us, did you get too much sunshine as a kid? Or not enough?

    (It depends on how you look at it. I think I spent a lot of my childhood out of doors. Nowadays I have the soul of a cave-dwelling hermit, except for when I get the urge to walk in the forests. I love trees.)

    PRESENT – Being someone with a mild case of seasonal depression, I look forward to the return of sunshine to the world. Being someone who also loves living in a lively green part of the world, I respect and even enjoy the various kinds of rain we receive. Are you a rain or shine person?

    (Oh wait, I already answered this as part of the question. Damn I’m clever.)

    FUTURE – You’re appointed by the Joint Chiefs the task of coming up with a better term than “Sunshine Units” to describe nuclear radiation doses. Give it your best shot, Colonel.

    (Sir, I respectfully submit that “Sunshine Units” is a frelling absurd way to describe lethal radiation. In its place I suggest the term “Fizz,” which is clever because the “fizz” comes from nuclear “fission.” Er, yes sir, I know that we have fusion bombs. Sir, most Americans don’t know the difference between fission and fusion. Hell, most Americans don’t bat an eyelash when the President says “nuke-yew-ler.” Yes sir, that was disrespectful, and I apologize.)

    You have to know the drill by now. Leave a comment with a link or your answers. When linking back to the PPF, please use http://greyduck.net/ppf/ as that link will always take a visitor to the most recent entry. Thank you, and have a great weekend.

    Oh, and if you want to hear the Midnight Oil song, ask me and I’ll hook you up…

  • The Truth Revealed

    So many evil, bizarre and generally inexplicable things start making sense when you realize that…

    Frodo failed.

  • I just wanted to fix the printer, honest!

    Dr. Doug and Skippy emailed me this afternoon asking me to look into the ongoing printer problem in the Rosey studio. “Sure thing,” I said, “I’ll just pay Sheryl a visit.”

    I went in, looked at the printer, power-cycled it and was about to run a test print when Sheryl Stewart said, “Hey, I need you to read something.”

    “Uh, I don’t read very well.”

    “That’s okay,” she replied, “It’s supposed to sound bad.”

    “Okay, then.”

    And so I took part in an on-air contesting bit. The evidence is right here. (Nine hundred fifteen kilobytes worth of evidence, that is.)