I've got just five days to learn saber form so I can make it to my next sash level next graduation.
Okay, those five days just happen to be this and the next four fridays, so I can just possibly take a few of the days in between to practice...
Which is good, because I find it takes a certain chunk of effort to learn a new routine! The doing isn't hard, but the sequencing is. That's the way my brain works (or doesn't work, as the case may be).
Lucky for me, I have a video camera! What a useful device -- and to have gotten one for Christmas, how great is that? Connie, who is showing me the ropes on Fridays, has agreed to let me videotape her. Instant training on non-Fridays.
My brain is a bit blurry today... the last couple of days have been fuzzy as I come down from the big push of the previous week. Time to start focusing on schoolwork again, at the same time as I warm up my 3l337 balloon twisting skillz, restart my game research and, due to the mad enthusiasm generated by Monday, try to learn magic effects again.
Do you smell smoke? Is that smoke coming out of my ears? Nurse!
This one is so real, but I think it was from a dream. I can't tell...
I'm really little, and with my mom. It's sunny and hot, and we are in the city somewhere. There is the street, buildings, grime and broken sidewalks.
I'm in a small playground with a sandy floor, surrounded by chainlink fence. There is a small climbing thing, perhaps a see-saw. One side of the playground is a red brick wall, the side of a building. I'm there with may a few other kids.
My mom comes and gets me and we leave, walking. I have a vague sense of a tricycle here, but that may be unrelated.
For some reason, this memory is paired with another in my mind. In the other one, me and my parents are in a large foyer of a large public space. There is a cafe off to the left and stairs and doors and stuff scattered around. It seems like a museum or some kind of interactive space, where we look at things and poke at things.
It's an interestig place, white with some big colored areas.
Ahhh... it's all a jumble.
Well, for about three hours my journal showed what could be considered spoilers for the Alain Nu show, which would be in very bad form.
I posted an edited version of an e-mail I sent my dad and son, which described the effects in some detail (how they looked, not how they worked, mind you)... but driving home I realized that more people than just my family read this journal!
So I quickly took down any possibly offending details.
If you want to know how it went... come to Even Saturday and ask me in person!
I've been neglecting this journal lately, but for good cause.
Some time ago, my friend Ronn Brashear (he directed Haunted Trails in 2000 then moved to California, and he's a magician and magical thinker, also known as Sam Haine) contacted me and let me know of a need they had, to make televisions wig out as part of a magical effect. I thought, sure! I can do that! And said I would do it.
Time passed.
Then, a couple of weeks ago, they said, yes, we need it, can you do it by the end of January? Sure! I started my research and quoted 'em $2,000... they choked a bit (they had budgeted $500), but said they might be able to do that.
So then I did MORE research and lowered my cost to $1500. And they were good with that. Then I learned that it wasn't the end of January, but the 22nd or so. I had not much more than a week to invent the damn thing.
Thus began my struggle with hardware.
So Sunday night at about 6:00pm I drive south to SA, just an hour and a half away. Get to the hotel. Not long later, I meet up with Ronn (who is a consultant on the show) and we go out to eat and I learn about the effect they are doing (my first introduction to the actual trick).
Oh, some background.
TLC/Discover is doing four shows (in a series) of magic featuring "Man of Mystery" Alain Nu... and each show will have something like 20 or 30 effects in it, so Alain is totally working his ass off, and he's actually pretty stressed out by it all. But he also has good consultants helping him, like Ronn and also, for this shoot at least, Bob Fitch. The show should air between April and June, accounts vary.
So Alain calls up about 9:00pm and we go to his room in the hotel. Magic detritus littered the space, and it was cool. And from there they started hashing out the scripts for the next day... really. They are writing this thing as they go along, no rehearsal, nothing. Just a list of tricks, times, and locations and an outline. The poor bastards are really behind the 8-ball. I threw in my 2-cents worth here and there, for what it was worth.
This goes on until 2:30 in the morning and I stagger off to my room. Where I spend ANOTHER half hour making sure it works, and doing some re-writing of the effect to match the current script. Then I sleep until about 8:00 am Monday.
Here are the players in this fun day:
Ronn Brashear
http://www.samhaine.com/
Alain Nu
http://www.nu-magic.com/
Robert Fitch
http://fitchmagic.com/Fitchbio.htm
http://www.ibdb.com/person.asp?ID=88537
Read Bob's pages. He was AMAZING to work with, AMAZING to watch him work with Alain... it was AMAZING to even be in the same room with him. Damn! I mean, the man's a living legend, a god among magicians and performers... dude!
So, I had an interesting day Monday.
When I was in California, probably the second time, I was probably 12? Or maybe it was the first time, when I would be eight or so. I hope to convince more of my family to record their memories, too, so I can fill in my gaps.
Anyway, I had this REALLY COOL TOY! It was WATER and colored SAND. Can you belive it? It was amazing.
The sand, or whatever it was, had the ability to stay dry when under water. Something about the surface tension would cause the sand to clump underwater so you could sculpt nifty underwater landscapes.
When you pulled a blob of sand out of the water, it would still be dry... as soon as it hit air, it transformed from a blob back into loose, dry sand.
That was so cool.
I think I saw this product again, once, on a shelf. It seems so much... smaller.
I've been talking to the various people involved with this project, which is LOTS. Ronn Brashear is, apparently, the magician I'll be working with... which is cool, because he's a friend. Then Alain Nu is... umm.. beats hell out of me. His wife Tanya is great, too. Then there is James the money guy with the production company and the camera dude Ron.
Rehearsal with Ronn (not Ron) will be Sunday, assuming I can get ahold of him. The shoot is apparently at a Circuit City in San Antonio on Monday.
I think.
So, like, I'm trying to get a TV signal out of my new graphics card and, like, you know, it's not working because computers are totally crap and all, so I'm plugging and unplugging stuff and reading the documentation (I'm SO SURE) and getting nowhere, when I find that one of my plugs isn't (plugged, you know), so I plug it, but then remember that I have to boot with it in so the card can, like, autodetect the TV because it TOTALLY won't send to it if it's not there, so I power down, plug, and then poke the power button.
Nothing happens. The computer won't start.
BEAT IT TO DEATH WITH A HAMMER!
I struggle against my first instinct, unplug and replug a few random connectors on the mobo and it, like, totally boots and sends to the TV and, like, tubular dude! I'm going to be on TV!
I was in junior high, so this was probably my 14th birthday party. I actually knew a few people by then, some of which could be considered friends, or at least, acquaintances. Two or three at least.
Somehow, I decided to invite some of 'em over for a birthday party. I knew nothing about birthday parties, or parties of any kind.
Previously, I had built a Lissy... this is a modified television, with the deflection coils driven by a stereo amplifier instead of the tuner. This creates Lissajous curves on the television, created by the differences in the left (vertical) and right (horizontal) signals.
THIS, in turn, was a nifty project that I was inspired to create by a little toy I had when I was twelve or or so. This was a little tower with a light in it and a pair of spinning mirrors. This projected whirling spirograph-like shapes on the wall/ceiling.
Anyway, my idea of a party was to get together, listen to music, and watch the nifty Lissy.
The memory still inspires in me the urge to reach back through time and smack myself for being such a complete and utter loser.
Needless to say, it sucked.
Work has been good, which is why I'm late on this update. Busy busy busy! And cheerfully so.
I just stuffed lunch into my face and I'm taking the next fifteen minutes or so to digest it. Mmmm...
On an unrelated topic, I think the building maintenance people switched our toilet paper supplier or brand or something, downgrading to a cheaper (if that's even possible) form. Bastards.
A month ago or so I was given a heads-up about an interesting project to put static/distortion into a bank of televisions as part of a live performance of a mentalism trick (to be recorded in front of a live audience, that is). Last week I was contacted by the production company and asked for a quote! Woot!
So I spent four or five days exploring possibilities, quickly honing into the tools used by VJs (rave style) to do live effects at dances. Nifty stuff! A whole new world.
Anyway, I submitted my information yesterday to the guy doing the performance (I don't have his production company's e-mail) and now I'm sitting here hoping they go for it. My cost is about three times what they wanted to pay, but then I'll be doing some custom software development to get everything just right, plus I'll be manning the effect during the performance.
I hope they go for it, not just to earn my $1,500, but because I get to buy some nifty hardware to make it all work better. I'm looking at the ATI AIW 9600 something-or-other XT. I was hoping to go with nVidia, but (sadly, annoyingly) the Radeon-based ATI was better. Bastards.
Oooh, and a MIDI over USB control surface. Mmmmm, new toys.
So keep your fingers crossed!
Now to finish fiddling with that balloon-animal reference and put it online with a donations button.
I swear, I have at least three too many projects going on, and I'm neglecting 2/3 of them.
But I enjoy it that way. I hate having free time, for some reason.
I keep clearing my task pipe -- finishing tasks before I get new ones, creating dead time.
Today I sketched in the bulk of the code needed to handle the USB startup handshaking, I think. There are pieces missing, mind you, not to mention unknowns to deal with, but these are out of my hands.
It's POSSIBLE I'll get boards sometime tomorrow... but still no word on when I'll get licenses for the software needed to develop for them. Just because our purchasing guy gets pneumonia for a week or so, everything is behind. Bah!
Because I'm insane and seem to be unable to say "no" to interesting, lucrative projects, I agreed to create a magician's effect to be filmed at the end of January in San Antonio. If they agree to pay me the two grand (which is $1,500 more than they budgeted), I'll then be forced to actually DO this.
Like I keep saying, sleep is overrated.
Probably the thing that kept me from turning into a serial killer was my grandmother, my aunt, and my great-grandmother.
I spent a bunch of time with these women.
My mom was mostly a shadow in the background of my life. My dad was great, though many of my memories of him are also murkey. My dad drove me to the electronics store near Long Beach a number of times and was very patient as I drooled over all the parts. We never really ever bought much, but I loved to window shop.
Strangely, I mostly remember Grandma and Dodi. I believe they were properly eclept Doris and Doreena -- two truly horrid names. Oh, and my great grandmother, Ena (Edna).
I like to say that I was raised by women, which is like being raised by wolves, only weirder.
At least, these women were pretty damned weird.
We all lived, for many years both before and after Washington, in a duplex. One half of the duplex housed my great-grandparents. The other half housed my Grandma and Dodi. The entire backyard, though I'm unsure if it was ever a "yard", was a warehouse-like building of about equal size to the duplex. The woodshop, tools, and my Grandfather (William Enis Crouch) lived in one half of this building.
The front half used to house an antique store, back when they sold antiques. When we lived there, it housed myself and my brother. My parents were headquartered in a small-ish room between the storefront (where we kids lived) and my grandfather's space.
I loved it. I can only imagine what kind of horror it represented to my parents, though.
Actually, I don't even know if my folks lived there or not. I barely remember them in that context! Most of life was school, projects in my own space, and the crazy women.
My great grandmother was a cat lady, you know the kind. Her husband, Ed, played saxophone or clarinet or some instrument in the back room. He was mostly just a shadowy presence in the background.
My time with her was spent in her living room with the dark, sticky carpet, watching roller derby on TV. I tried to avoid some places in her house, such as the kitchen... because I really did enjoy the pies that she would make for special events and some things do not bear thinking about too closely.
First Ed died and then, later, Ena. It was then that I learned, from a distance, that she had collected everything. Nothing was thrown away. Every room in the duplex was stacked, essentially, to the ceiling with papers and "stuff", all of which was marinated in cat urine.
My grandmother was endlessly supportive of me. To this day I think that I'm a genius because of her... though an objective test would probably show me to be an ADD hypo-manic enthusiast with little depth. But who am I to contradict my grandmother? To her, I was brilliant.
This was the one solid, neverchanging, predictable affirmation of good in my life. It was my rock.
She died when I was eighteen or nineteen and it was the only death in my family that I grieved. I still miss her. I sometimes feel her presence in my mind when I've done something that would make her proud. I think, yeah, Grandma would be pleased that I've done this great thing.
Grandma always had this goofy little lapdog -- a grandma dog, if there ever was one, called (wait for it...) Girl Dog. I shit you not. This dog lived like a queen.
We also had an illegal desert (or is that dessert?) tortoise in the back lane between the buildings. We sometimes grew tomatoes that were eaten by giant aggressive green tomato worms. I mean, these worms were like something out of a Stephen King movie, or some futuristic thriller where radiation has made all of the insects giant and hostile.
But I digress.
Dodi was also supportive but in a weird way. For a while there, I was her personal dress-up doll... I probably have photos of me at age eleven or twelve in this prince costume. I shudder to think of it now, but then it made me feel special.
I found my first Playboy in the trash after noting my Grandpa throwing it away. That was cool. Some time later, I discovered another one under my aunt's bed. This one I was able to browse by stealth, which was way more fun that having the leisure of the first one.
My aunt herself tended towards the translucent nightgown and, as I later learned as parts of my anatomy started to care about such things, she was also quite shapely.
How many fourteen year olds do YOU know who had the hots for his father's sister? This kind of thing couldn't have been good for me.
Dodi was pretty damn nuts. She was an amazing artist but could never finish anything, because it was never "just right". She would pull an oil painting out of storage and fiddle with it endlessly, until it was ruined. But in fact, they were beautiful. If only she could let it well enough alone.
Whenever she went anywhere, it was proceded by (I swear!) a three or four hour ritual of getting ready... makeup, hair, clothes, sometimes all of the above three or four times.
And then once we got there, usually somewhere GREAT like Disneyland, she would poop out after no time at all. A great trial for a kid with endless energy and a desire to see everything.
She had an Australian boyfriend for a while, and he brought me gifts of cold-power rockets and land racers. Those were cool.
I had a budding friendship with an actual girl that was actually my age.. I don't know how old I was, thirteen is a possibility, but it could have been eleven or fourteen. We were slowly learning how boys and girls can actually get along and then, suddenly, she plays some kind of hard to get game. I don't remember the details, it was probably something like not wanting to talk to me or something like that.
Turns out that Dodi was guiding her along in some headgames that turned out badly for us all. During the process I rejected her completely (I don't do "head games") and even upon learning that it was my Aunt's doing I never reconciled again. I actually regret that. I was a rigid, inflexible, angry kid.
Dodi also loved high drama, and is the reason I dislike it. If there was an emergency to be crafted, a trauma to engineer, she was there for it.
Last I heard, she was the divorced (or possibly re-reconciled) second wife of an Iranian political refugee living on welfare in one of his mansions, covered with Tattoos for Jesus, and warping her three kids. But I haven't heard about her for years, so she could be even weirder now.
Grandma just coasted along through all this madness, a bubble of calm (or, more likely, denial) in this swirling sea of chaos. At one point when I was about fourteen (wild guess) she had a heart attack in the living room.
This room was amazing, a showroom for the best of the antiques that they collected. Chinese foo-dog chairs, old screens, paintings, vases, I don't know what all. And in the center, a giant crystal chandelier hanging down to just four or five feet above the ground.
The paramedic had the misfortune to stand up underneath this monstrosity and bang his head on the large, heavy, HARD crystal ball hanging at its nadir. Darn near knocked him silly.
I heard that Grandma was more concerned for him that for herself!
I don't know where most of that stuff went when she died. I should have gone to California at the time to pay my respects and possibly get a piece of my memories to take home with me. That's another thing I regret, but at the time I still had a burning hatred of California (actually, I still do) and did not want to put foot to soil in that dreaded state.
Yeah, good times.
There's more... lots more. All in good time.
It's so easy to just succumb to the drowsy Monday afternoon and do nothing... to skip out on my journaling, to avoid finding productive work to do, to just sit there and zone out into space.
Mmmm, Mondays.
Daniel came back to work today, but we don't have a license for the software I'm supposed to use, the hardware won't show up until Wednesday or so, and I've read just about everything that can be read on the subject.
What I want to do is to write "Hello World" on the target device and watch it output on the debugger.
Can't do that yet.
I guess that once Daniel settles in again (he moved cubicles just before he left on vacation) we'll work up the task schedule for the next two weeks.
Whee.
In my dream world, there are two connected areas. The one, a residential area, features in many adventures where I escape from dinosaurs and/or military or police bent on my capture.
This area is extremely hilly in areas, with large green shade trees and pleasant houses behind pleasant fences. Gardens are plentiful here.
North East of this residential area is the industrial zone, of sorts. This includes train yards, fenced areas stacked with machinery and metal, a large lumber mill, and areas of giant mysterious machines. And the surplus store... the joy and wonder of the surplus store, with its electronic instruments, parts, garbage, and hidden bargains.
Go further East and you reach the river. Across the river is a rolling green plain with the giant military/industrial fenced compound that I occasionally get to escape from.
To the West, or perhaps South? Directions in dreams are so arbitrary, the geometry of space nonlinear.
In the other direction there is downtown, an area of large blocks of large square buildings, a profusion of confusion, colors, lights, and signs -- all of which appear to be in a foreign language. Chaos. Chinese perhaps. Reminiscent of Chinatown in San Franscisco.
This downtown area is huge and I'm always worried about getting lost. My first visits were where I was lost, but eventually I learned how to find my way from the downtown back into the residential area, up a particularly steep hill.
I loved this commercial zone, in spite of its threat of geographical confusion. I especially liked the magic stores there. There were several, but most of them were sparse, lame things. One, however, was excellent.
It was next door to a shop that sold... something paper? Streamers? Or perhaps fireworks? I don't know. On the other side was, I think, one of several jewelry and/or art stores from the area. A few blocks down and around the corner was a department store with a giant toy section.
This one magic shop was all black velvet and point lighting. Large tricks abounded, small tricks under the glass case, books on the shelf. The proprieter was well versed in the art and demonstrated things for me.
I bought a bunch of things here over time -- floating match, I'm sure, and cups and balls. Some of the classics. I don't remember all of the items, though.
There were a lot of great stores down there. But those will be stories for another day.
I love hobby stores. The parts and pieces, engines for planes, kits, balsa, glue. I love making things and the hobby store is the mecca for all things crafted.
I even had a hobby store in my dreams. I would go and visit it, browse through the airplane engines trying to decide if I wanted to start with a small cheap one (e.g. a .049) or get a bigger, expensive one.
I would look at the airplane kits and think about making each one. Browsing to decide which one I liked best.
The nice, older people that ran the store were always very helpful.
As I grew older, my brain added a bizarre twist to the old shop. In the back corner there was a stairway to a restricted basement area.
Going down there I would discover a variety of pornography, mostly magazines I think, but also videos. It was a bit sparse, a smallish room, but very exciting. And the cool thing was, it was attached to the hobby store!
Later on I added these salcious details to other locations in my dream worlds. There is the beautiful, twisting, open-plan shopping mall with its tile floors, rich wood, multi-layer construction. The food court, the giant toy store, the department stores... and the book store. The book store of my dreams!
Of course, it also stocked naughty comics.
And scattered here and there, corner stores with the magazines behind the counter, except in MY dreams, they are on a revolving rack near the checkout.
I started life with a dirty mind and, not surprisingly, it hasn't gotten much cleaner with age.
Funny. Last night I had a dream not unlike my old elevator dreams.
I was going to visit my brother-in-law Jharod at a military base. Part of the visit included travelling on a trolley or train-like platform on rails, but it didn't have rails and in fact there were openings in the platform above the wheels.
Later in the visit we had to ride an elevator, but one that didn't travel just up and down, perhaps like the transport tubes in Star Trek? This one, however, had issues. The doors didn't close so we got to travel up and over while being exposed to the dangers of the open spaces and machinery.
It's so great to be working on something that makes sense. Mmmm, work.
Earlier this week I ordered books. Lots of books. Books on MMORPG development, books on game design, books on language processing. The first of these should show up on my doorstep today, with more coming over the next few days.
Sadly, I also had to spend a stack of money on textbooks for my current three classes. One management class and two programming classes... the programming should be pretty easy to breeeze through.
This does mean that I need to schedule my time to support the schoolwork.
I also need to beat my computer into submission. Right now I'm experimenting with system rollbacks to see if its a driver messing me up. I think the problems begain when I installed the color printer... though they certainly intensified with the failed visual studio install!
To complicate things, I stuck a second stick of RAM into the box, a move that traditionally makes this stupid computer unstable.
I may have to buy a new motherboard... but that adds its OWN huge can of worms.
Damned machines.
Awesome, I have been turned loose on the GOOD project! Woot! I get to write code! The hardware I'm writing for doesn't appear until next Monday the 10th, but I have a lot of USB stuff to learn and plan for this week.
Excellent. What a great new year's gift... Gus is a prince among managers.
I'm also plotting a new project for this year. I of course have the UnDead story that I MUST get started back on... and the movie project somewhere between March and May... and school, of course, will fill my time with pointless reading...
But the fun one is the online gaming AI stuff that I put off from decade to decade. I mean, I've been wanting to do some AI for NPCs for AGES. Of course, I doubt I'll be actually doing anything THIS year either.. you know, prior comittments and all that... but I can continue the dream another step.
Oooh, talking about dreams, the game/graphics engines these days are unbelievable. Catch the demos on THIS bad boy for some heart-stopping gametime rendering:
http://www.artificialstudios.com/