jetpack_monkey_ljarchive

I'm not making any hard and fast Fiasco plans for Vividcon this year, since I have no idea how busy I'm going to be or how drained I'll end up.

I will bring the Fiasco "kit", so to speak, and I may throw together something impromptu should the opportunity arise in conjunction with appropriate amounts of energy.

Work has just informed me that I'm a paycheck away from hitting my vacation cap. I find this ridiculous because I feel like I take vacations *all the time*, but a quick check of my previous approved vacations shows this just ain't so.

I have the option of cashing out up to half of my maximum if I don't want the hours.

So my thought is:



I'll cash in like 1-2 weeks worth of vacation and use the cash and remaining hours to go visit some fannish friends in late June or mid July or something.

Probably only going to manage one location, but if anybody's interested in having a Jetpack Monkey around for an extended weekend (and has a couch), speak now!

Update, 2015-05-19: Sigh. It appears that updating my iMac to Yosemite was a mistake. Final Cut is choking on the previously reasonable 8GB of RAM. The Apple Store informs me that my model has special RAM that can't be upgraded. So my options are basically get a new iMac, stop vidding, or suffer. I may have to cash in the vacation time just to get a new machine. Bah.

I've spent the last two weeks working studiously on an ambitious project. I found a digital model file for a 2'4"-foot-long LEGO replica of the Normandy SR-2 from Mass Effect 2. I've been completely stoked about this ever since I found the file online several months ago.

I spent a couple hundred dollars on parts, building what I could while I waited for my orders to come in. I dealt with the frustrations of working with the LEGO Digital Designer's auto-generated instructions that would occasionally hang pieces in mid-air at step 100 only to come back to the connecting pieces at step 700.

However, the whole thing became a lesson in not jumping into the deep end of the pool without checking that it's filled with water first.

Throughout the building process, I ran into little idiosyncrasies that indicated to me that perhaps the designer had only put the model together conceptually and never practically. I was convinced of this when I put together the super-cool looking model stand and found it collapsed under any sort of weight.

I soldiered on, figuring I could design a sturdier stand later. After a lot of hard work and some ingenuity, I managed to create all of the individual elements of the ship. However, I was unable to connect them together. There were two or three major structural flaws in the backend of the ship that fed into each other. The designer had created a working (hollow) shuttle bay with hangar door. He'd also hinged the back part of the roof so you could see the little model bridge. Further, two of the key pieces that helped attach the front, bottom, and rear sides did so by a bare thread, disrupted by the slightest pressure (like, say, the pressure of attaching Lego bricks to each other).

I found the page where I acquired the digital model file again and found that, yes, the design was entirely theoretical, he knew of the issues with the model stand, and he'd never practically put the whole thing together because the pieces cost too much. I'd somehow missed all of this when reading through the first time.

To say that this has been a frustrating experience is... understatement. One of the joys of LEGO is watching strangely attached pieces somehow become something recognizable and whole. Here I got as far as recognizable.

I've stowed everything I've built into drawers for the time being. I'm going to refocus on my vidding until I don't have any further deadlines to worry about. Then I'll review and revise the design, eliminate some of the structural weak points, and complete the model. Maybe. I'm not actually terribly confident in my ability to do so.

I made two vids this year:

White Telephone (Halloween series) for terajk 

Moves Like Yaweh (Prince of Egypt) for settiai 

The posts are pretty barebones right now. I'll get notes up soon. I have plenty, as usual.

Title: Moves Like Yaweh
Song: Moves Like Jagger by Maroon 5 feat. Christina Aguilera
Source: Prince of Egypt
Length: 3:35
Warnings: Physical triggers (e.g., epilepsy or migraine: strobe lights, bright lights, "stuttery" cuts between 2-3 stills), sacrilege.
Made for: settiai 

Summary: A love story. With plagues. (sorrynotsorry)

Password: iamthatxtina

Download HD MP4 (coming soon)
Download SD MP4 (28MB) 

Notes: More notes later, but... I'm going to hell, basically.

So. Dreamwidth. I should catch you up. And stuff.

echan and I celebrated our five-year wedding anniversary on December 13th with a trip to Legoland. We stayed on the pirate-themed floor in a pirate-themed room. With bunk beds! Which I did not fit into well. The park itself was pretty cool. As an amusement park, it's so-so. As a display of the wonders of LEGO craftsmanship, it is a modern marvel. Miniland USA and Star Wars Miniland are very, very awesome. They also had miniature golf! I bought... many many many many LEGOs. I'm using them for purposes related to the last item in this post.

Speaking of echan, ze bought me an awesome thing for the holidays: Borderlands 2 replica Loot Chest. I'm using it store LEGOs.

Been side-watching Gilmore Girls with jmtorres (wherein she watches it and I pop in and watch it with her when I'm around). It's a fun show, but it's getting increasingly less happy-place as we get into the sixth season.

[redacted Festivids discussion]

Went to the Kings/Coyotes games on Saturday with niqaeli. Had a great time. I'm not into sports, really, but I enjoy a good game every now and again.

I have jury duty next month. I am... ambivalent.

I'm currently prepping to play Dungeons and Dragons with brokenallbroken, airawyn, rhi_silverflame, lizbetann, and diannelamerc. Our first session is January 3rd and I am... slightly obsessive. I don't want to get caught off-guard, basically. I did build a pretty cool dice tower out of LEGOs though.

I got defaulted on in Festivids. Unfortunately, I put all of my request notes in my Dear Festividder letter, so the pinch hit post seems suuuuuper-empty.

I called in sick to work today for separate reasons. I'm distracting myself with LEGOs and the D&D Monster Manual.

This just went up on the Vividcon website, so I feel comfortable properly announcing it here: I was asked to join the staff at Vividcon on the technical team! I think it was mostly to increase the average height of the staff, but I accepted and I'm super-excited to be a part of one of my favorite cons.

I'll try to keep the pre-amble short this year, because the requests themselves tell a story. This is a Festivids request list that is as much for my mom as it is for me, as we'll see in a second.

( Mystery Science Theater 3000 )

( Gamera (Shōwa series, 1965-1980) )


( Rocky Jones, Space Ranger )

( Ed Wood's Kelton Trilogy (Bride of the Monster / Plan 9 from Outer Space / Night of the Ghouls) )

( Manos: The Hands of Fate )

( Space Mutiny (1988) )

( Danger: Diabolik (1968) )

As for music: go with your heart. Or your head. Or your spleen. Whatever you feel works best. Nothing is off limits.

Fromviolace andkillabeez 
1. Describe your comfort zone—a typical you-vid.

I absolutely adore making multisource vids centered around a particular theme or film series. Drawing out meta-narratives and tropes is totally my jam. It's not just the vidding process, though. It's the research. The deep delve into film/television history, looking for those rare sources, finding new favorite sources (or suffering through sources that Should Not Be). Example vids: 

Fromviolace andkillabeez andkiki_miserychic :

2. Is there a genre or style you've yet to try your hand at, but really want to?

I am trying my hand at comics vidding right now and I really really really want to make a video game vid at some point. Mass Effect, probably, but I had a terrible idea for a Mario Kart vid (or, well, jmtorres had it and I stole it)