The word of the week is impetus.
July 4 - Plugging away
Hello, new month - hello, more of the same? All's well around here, for the most part, and
that's good.
I'm working my way steadily through my novel,
noting things down page after chapter as I go through each chapter - my
hardcopy of the 3rd draft is a sea of post-it notes.
The great thing about the detailed read-through
of the last month has been the explosion of ideas building on one another as I
re-familiarize myself with the world and the characters intimately. That
familiarity has led to much firming-up of ideas and threads running through the
trilogy that weren't all that clear a year ago, but now seem much more
well-defined after such a long hiatus from writing.
I'm genuinely excited about digging into the meat
of the 4th draft next week on my vacation. I'm planning on spending 6-8 hours a
day working on the draft, honing and refining the words so that they sparkle.
If I can, I'll get through 3/4 of the book in a single week, one long
experience of doing nothing but edit.
It worked for me the last 2 times, so why not
now?
July 5 - Vocal what?
What the heck is that sound, I wondered?
Years ago, I wondered what was going on with some
women's voices: they sounded like they had a cold or were trying to gargle when
they spoke. It was really weird, and my ear for some reason became sensitive to
it as the years went on.
Password this year and apparently that particular
vocal effect now has a name: Vocal Fry. Unsurprisingly, it's really bad to do
long-term, and even less shocking it's something that the Kardashian's do on a
regular basis - one more reason not to like it.
Essentially, it's when people( quite often young women )use of vocal
technique to lower the pitch of their voices which gains them more attention
due to the odd sound and resonance of the results.
Sure, it can be cute if you only hear it on
occasion, but when everyone is doing it, it's like a group of frogs croaking:
not attractive for cute whatsoever.
For me, it's extremely grating on the ear, and
while it certainly makes someone jump out of the crowd, it's the vocal
equivalent of nails on a chalkboard.
No thanks: just talk normally.
July 6 - Animated!
It took me a while, but I finally did it!
For a few years now, I've been looking at a way
to bring some of the characters of my novels to life in a new and unique way. I
haven't seen many authors able to animate their works without bringing in some
seriously-expensive talent or going the other route to do a cheap-looking
low-cost job in the visualization.
This week, I managed to get a Giveaway-Of-The-Day
copy of CrazyTalk, a simple 3-D
animation package that focuses on creating realistic faces that can be synced
to audio files or even text. I was somewhat hesitant when I first started
playing around with it, but within a few days this week I managed to get some
good results. A few more tweaks and I had this to show for my efforts:
it's extremely basic and only scrapes the surface
of what's possible, should I have enough time and effort you put into creating
something truly unique. For the moment, I'm just pleased that I've been able to
bring my character to life in a new way for other people to enjoy and in the
form that I am pleased to say is extremely close to the vision I have of her
from the novel.
I love technology!
July 7 - Video Capture? OK!
This month I finally gave in and tried again.
For years, I've been looking for a low-cost,
decent-quality USB solution for capturing videos from old sources like VCR's to
save them to my computer. Time and again however, the expense of the hardware
and software meant that I could only fiddle around with cheap used versions
from eBay that never worked properly or simply gave bad results for all the
time I invested in the attempts.
Watching a few sales online, I spotted this
little device on super-sale for $25 CDN:
It had some excellent reviews that also mentioned
certain software that performed well with the hardware - gems like that are why
I always keep my eyes open so that I can catch and make use of the advice they
offer.
The results were excellent from my old VCR test
tape, which given the age and nature of the medium was music to my ears( eyes? ). I've kept a few dozen old VCR
tapes in storage, mainly of shows that haven't been on the air for many years
or available on DVD. I'll be digging through that box occasionally this year to
digitize some treasures before they become unreadable on the medium.
Next up: finding some video processing software
to clean up the images and learning the techniques to do so. It's an
interesting side hobby with tangible results and I'm looking forward to
capturing some more videos to work with soon.
July 8 – Oops, Sugar?
After work today, I joined some coworkers on the
patio.
It was still windy out, but the sun was making an
effort through the clouds and I definitely wanted to be outside after extremely
busy week at work. We managed to get a really nice table at the very top level
of the rooftop area:
I had a nice glass of Blue Buck ale with my bison
burger and side salad, and enjoyed myself thoroughly. I felt full and happy
when I got back home, but around 7:30 PM I started sweating for no particular
reason while working on the computer from the couch: something was going on.
I tested my heart rate and saw it was quite
elevated: dang.
Admittedly, my heart rate increase wasn't all that
high, getting up to around 112-115 beats per minute. However, that was with me
simply sitting on the couch and my average resting heart rate should be around
75-85 beats per minute according to the measurements I've been making the last
year with my phone's heart rate app.
For what I can reason out, the salad dressing( of which I didn't have more than a small
drizzle )must have had an extremely high sugar content. My body started
metabolizing about an hour after I finished, as I have a somewhat slow
digestive system due to the lack of a gall bladder - I like my meals small and
regular now.
Today's little blip has shown that anxiety or
sugar affecting my heart rate is something that can sneak up on me, for the
most unlikely source. As always, I have to pay attention to what my body is
telling me and think through what my response should be. Discovering that I
have a rapid heart rate should not immediately dumped me into panic-mode but
rather the response: what's going on, what caused it and how can I react
appropriately?
Like one of my favorite authors famously wrote: Don't Panic.
July 9 – MOTU on Blu-Ray? Nice!
Tonight, my lady and I rewatched a classic 80's
movie:
The film was released in 1987 to poor reviews, but I
recall renting it with a fair amount of fondness in the early 90s, so I picked
up a Blu-Ray copy of the film recently for $10 on sale on Amazon, which had a
decent review that touched on the fact that this Blu-Ray version was actually
worth getting for the visuals.
Since my girlfriend hadn't seen either The
Last Of the Mohicans, nor the MOTU film, we watched them both back
to back with MOTU first on the docket.
It was surprisingly good, in both her and my
opinions. Spoilers below!
Story-wise, the film sets a good pace from start
to finish, with very few slow spots and surprisingly intelligent dialogue
choices. An example of such is the fact that when the heroes are on Earth, they
don't refer to the cardinal directions as 'spinward' instead of using North or
South: a nice touch.
There's also a nice sense of scale, in that Earth
is seen as, and referred to as, a 'cosmic backwater' several times in the film:
again, a nice subtle way to put us in our proper place as a setting for this
story rather than the center of all of events.
The real star of the film is Frank Langella, who
gives a masterful performance as the scenery-chewing arch-villain Skeletor. He
is riveting in every scene he's in, a commanding and dangerous figure whose
quest for ultimate power is what drives the movie. The other more maudlin
performances that attempt to tug on the viewer's heartstrings are nothing
compared to Skeletor's drive for power.
I think this is what really gives the film its
heart, and along with the genuine performances of the other actors helps to
carry this film above the other 90's-meh scifi films that you'll never want to
watch again.
Visually, the film's great to watch in Blu-Ray, with
colours and contrasts all sharply defined. The details you can see in HD are
extraordinary: the quality of the costumes really jumps out at you, as does the
sense of 'being there' in the 80's as well as on the planet Eternia. There's
nothing 'cheap-looking' about the film with the extra HD on, and it makes it a
whole new experience compared to the blurry low-res VHS release or the
clumsily-cut TV-movie showings. There's even a great fansite dedicated to the movie here.
If you haven't seen MOTU, go get it on
Blu-Ray for $10 online. It's great!
July 10 – Early Gifts!
My girlfriend is amazing!
While we were out today, we wandered back to
Cavity Curiousity Shop on downtown Victoria - it's PACKED with about 3x's as
much Sweet Stuff as you see in the video below from 2013:
While there, I had another look at a Panasonic
V4400 laserdisc player that was gathering dust on a shelf along with a V1100.
Noticing my longing glance, my lady told me she'd get it for me as an early
birthday present - wahoo! We purchased a few more things and the shop
owner knocked the price down to $60, a fantastic bargain given how heavy the
V4400 is( 28lbs! )which would be
killer to ship( and have a high
possibility of damage like my last player )plus a 1st-edition of I Am Spock - again, wahoo! :-)
Getting it home today, I set up the laserdisc
player on the floor for now( as it's too
big for my AV stand )and started it up. Everything worked! I carefully
loaded a disc( The American President )and pushed play.
A picture appeared: glorious and distortion-free!
:-)
I ran the movie for an hour, checking in on it as
the player warmed up to see if there were any issues. After an hour, the
picture was still solid - happy day! While it's not a double-sided player( meaning I have to get up and flip the disc
after an hour for movies )it's perfect for watching hour-long episodes of
Babylon5 on laserdisc that have been languishing unseen on my shelves since I
painstakingly collected them last year in order to see the better-than-DVD SFX
that the laserdisc versions have.
It's going to be a good rest of 2016: my lady and I will be happily ensconced in
Seasons 4 and 5 of B5 for months to come.
It was a busy week at work, which was draining,
and I didn’t get much of MY work done on the books. On the bright side, I had a great
weekend, which was energizing! I ended my Sunday with a game of Scythe in the evening, which took a few hours and I returned well
before 10pm. Even though I came in last( of 4 players )I learned a great deal from this, my second time playing the game... and I should do FAR better next time
