2006 has been such a fast year. But only in retrospect.

Yesterday, I got my hands on a PS3 finally; after looking for it since it was released in November. Now I have something to occupy my time for years to come, if the PS3 doesn’t flop in everyone’s face. However, I’m sure a company with pockets as deep as Sony should have no problem supporting this system. Well that’s all I want to say about this. And by the way, the graphics are fucking ridiculous. Six more years from now and there will be another generation of consoles, given the world doesn’t end in 2012.

As for the rest of the year, this must be my most important year. College graduation is the big one. That marked the day where school was finally over. Something I’ve been looking forward to ever since I realized the prison that was education. I think it was in second grade. So about 14 years. School has its benefits, but for the most part, it was a monotonous repitition of life. And a good half of the things taught in school are completely useless in life.

The next big thing would be me finding a job and making my own money. Now I don’t have to my parents for monetary support. It’s just a pain that they keep telling me to stop spending so much money when in fact I don’t really spend that much money in the first place. I’m trying to save up to buy a car for fuck’s sake. And speaking of cars.. well I’ll wait some other day to talk about that.

Another big thing is this website. I finally have my own website with a moveable type engine that is fully scalable. Thank you Wordpress and all the great people who design the different layout skins and those who program the addons. If it wasn’t for all that, this place would just not be what it is today.

My last year can be split into two parts. January to June were the last days of school. It was the most kick back time of my life. Two classes and lots and lots of relaxation. July to December were the starting days of a working life. A first hand taste of the daily grind of life. Traffic, deadlines, close calls, missed opportunities, successes, failures, paychecks, etc. I wouldn’t have it any other way. I like to earn what I receive in life. Anything else would be unacceptable.

So what’s in store for this new year? Nothing. There’s no life changing event when it comes to new years or birthdays. It’s all gradual. I guess I can predict what’s in store for this new year though. A lot of PS3, a lot less computing, and more time out in the real world.

—————————————————————————————————————–
| Here’s a YouTube friendly version of the video: View at YouTube |
—————————————————————————————————————–

Oh man, I spent a good two days making this AMV so do enjoy the video. Though it was two days, time flew by so quickly. Here’s a little quick summary of how I got all of this together.

The Song: “The Sweet Escape” by Gwen Stefani featuring Akon

I was listening to the radio on my way to work, as I do everyday, and this song started playing. I thought it was just some Xmas song at first, but after listening a little longer, I recognized Gwen Stefani’s voice. Radio stations rarely announce song credits these days, so all I knew was that it was a song from Gwen and I knew she had a new album out. The lyrics in the song for some reason reminded me of the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya because she mentions escaping and recreating her own world. The lyrics continue describing a personality that resembled Haruhi so much such as having affection for the narrator of the anime and so on. Just trust me on this one. So this was the first thing that pushed me towards making a music video.

The Software: Adobe Premiere

Maybe a month before I heard the song, I came across this program. I didn’t quite have a use for it yet, but I knew its potential. I already told myself that this program is what I will use for a future music video. I was going to use it for Advent Children, but this sudden inspiration for making the Haruhi music video outweighed it.

Preparation: Gathering the media

Clips:
Before I jumped into this giant mess, I had to understand what I was getting myself into. For one thing, I knew Premiere was not going to accept AVI files. I thought about converting all 14 episodes into MPEGs. I quickly threw out that idea because it would be too much useless content to sift through down the road. Instead, I went with going through each episode and cutting out scenes that I wanted to use. After cutting out some 80 clips, I had what I wanted. Anything else that I wanted I could come back to cut.

Music:
There was nothing I needed to do here. Had my mp3 and I was set.

Storyboard:
Like the novice that I am, I just kept the storyboard all in my head since I was the director and producer. I kind of drew out what I wanted in my mind with what I envisioned as I listened to the song. And I went from there.

Editing: Where all the magic is

It was basically my first time using the software, but I must say, it was ridiculously easy to use. I thought I was going to run into a lot of trouble, but it turned out to be as simple as drag and drop. The hard part was trying to figure out what scenes fit into which section of the song. I went through so many revisions. I’m sure I was cutting my clips left and right every 10 seconds. Throughout the whole process, I kept fearing that I might not have enough clips. Then there were times where I feared I had too many clips and not enough room for the really important ones. Miraculously, there were plenty of clips to go around. Unfortunately, I had to leave out a few.

I started everything on a Saturday afternoon and worked late into the night to complete a rough draft. The next day, (which is today that I’m blogging this) was mostly spent reviewing what I did and making minor edits. The biggest time killer was exporting the video. It would literally take up to more than half an hour for four minutes of viewing. I had no choice but to do other stuff while the exporting was happening. And I had to export more than six times because there were some super small blemishes that ultimately ruined the video if I left it in.

The Final Step: Getting it on the Web

As crazy as it would sound, just getting it online was as frustrating as the exporting. I ran into so many setbacks. The exported video came out to be slightly over 100MB in size (..for a 4 minute clip..). YouTube, only accepts 100 MB or LESS! So I first tried exporting at a lower quality. Nothing happened. So I tried exporting at an even lower quality. Still nothing. Then I thought maybe if I converted it into some other format it would help. And it did. 100 MB turned into 30 MB and that was good enough for me. So I went over to YouTube and submitted the file. Worked out just fine. About 30 minutes later, YouTube goes into maintenance mode and I can’t tell if my video actually uploaded. At this very moment as I’m posting, it’s still under maintenance. Good thing I still have my website to host a “better quality” version of the video.

Final Thoughts: Why make it?

There’s always a method to the madness. I made it because this was a new song that just came out. People are going to be looking around online for the song; especially YouTube. I figured I could use it to promote my website along the way. I like making media that people like. I try not to fail in that department. I gave it my all on this amateur video. Sadly enough, I didn’t have the raws for the anime clips, so the subtitles are getting in the way. Hopefully, I can be forgiven for this due to the lack of time to prepare for all of this.

So I recently got my hands on a Creative Zen Vision M with a 30 GB harddrive. Because I am against purchasing iPod items because of all their copyright protection, I decided to get a thicker variant of the iPod video player which is by Creative.

Some of the functions I’ve stumbled upon so far:
The obvious: Plays music and videos.
Expected: Playlist options and Play Modes (shuffle, repeat, etc.)
What I didn’t expect: Image viewer, song rankings, and being able to choose to play certain songs that haven’t been played much; usually due to the shuffle mode.

It’s been two days since I’ve had time to play with it. Well, actually, I spent those two days fixing up my music collection. I had to rename all my ID tags on my MP3s so that the Zen could better organize my music. I didn’t realize I would have so much music.

Some of the faults I’ve found on this player, and the solutions:
- Really poor documentation. Their instructional manual didn’t even include a troubleshoot section. They just assume you are computer savvy enough to get things done. Luckily I am. But for those who aren’t, you’d best do everything right the first time around. The newer your computer, the better you’re off.

- Playlist construction. I tried making a playlist with just the player itself and it has a steep, and I mean steep, learning curve. I have an easier time navigating through my cell phone and using its features than with trying to create a playlist on the Zen. The way you create a playlist is to go through your songs, select them one by one, and then go to a different window and saving it. If you wanted to add more songs, you had to load the playlist first, get out of the Now Playing mode, go back to your tracks, and add them again. It was a lot of back and forth. And if you made a mistake, it would take time to go delete it off the playlist. Overall, I found it quite frustrating. The saving grace though is that you can create playlists on your computer while the Zen is plugged in.

- Stock earphones. They’re fucking huge. For a not so tall person like me, there was no chance in hell I could stick those things comfortably in my ears. I stuffed them in for a while, but couldn’t stand them stretching out my ears. So I went and got myself some earbuds. Problem solved.

- No AC adaptor. What’s up with that? They did include a USB cable that you can charge with, but it charges slower because power has to be routed through your computer’s power source, which is around 400 Watts and a chunk of that is already being used by your computer. A solution to this was to use my PSP charger, which works out just fine.

- Not enough settings control. I paid $250 +tax and I can’t even have a silent mode on the player. Increasing/decreasing volume and anything related to the navigation pad on the Zen creates a small clicking sound. Sure it sounds cool out in the open, but sometimes people don’t want to be bothered by the sound. Guess I’ll just have to live with it.

After I’ve added all the music I had on my computer, I still have music of years past that need their tags fixed and then uploaded to my Zen. I think I’ll do that slowly over a few weeks. I even bought myself a cover for it because I heard the black color model scratches easier. Although I’m sure they all scratch easy, the black one most likely shows them more prominently in the light. I also got a hold of an FM tuner so I can listen to the music in my car. I hope it works, else I’ll have to return it.

Some of the good stuff I found:
- Drag and drop. Well, more or less anyway. I dragged a few videos into the player and then I was able to play them on the Zen. Awesome. While dropping, if a video was not compatible, I was given the option to converting it into another format. No need to download converters. It converted it for me. Now that’s cool.

- Shortcut button. Though for the most part it can be considered a waste of space on the already limited space for buttons on the player, I think I found a good use for it. I set the shortcut button to quickly jump to a list of songs that haven’t been heard much. So when I’m bored of my playlist or when it feels I’m listening to the same 20 songs out of 500+, I can click on that button and choose from a random 20 less-heard songs a song I want to hear.

- Subtitles in videos are no problem. It’s always a concern when the screen is about 2.5 inches. Surprisingly enough, subtitles show up nice and clear. That alone has opened the floodgate for me when it comes to video entertainment value. And because there are only so many pixels on the screen, the lack of pixels actually make the videos look super crisp.

So would I recommend this player over iPod video? Of course I would. Apple makes it hard to upload anything that hasn’t been paid for. Since I like watching anime, most of what I have are fansubs and really can’t be purchased. Not that I would want to. Then there’s the whole iTunes thing. I have free music as well as foreign music, which I doubt iTunes would even have in their database. Too much trouble in my opinion. I got the Zen Vision because it has less restrictions, which increases its potential for fun and enjoyment instead of being disappointed by compatibility and legal issues.

That’s what it feels like anyway. Usually there’s nothing really special to write about. But that’s not the point of writing a blog. It should just reflect my current thoughts at the moment I’m writing it. So I might as well give it a shot. So what’s on my mind? That would be the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Ever since last Friday, all I saw in front of me was just three days of work and then there’s four days of relaxation. It’s definitely something I need. Though I’m not close to burning out from work, it could potentially happen, so I’m going to really savor these four days. Just tonight, it took about two and a half hours from the moment I got off work to the moment I stepped foot in my house and took off my shoes. That’s really the downside of the Thanksgiving weekend I guess. The freeway was packed tonight. I don’t even want to know what it’s going to be like Wednesday night as more than the usual amount of people are on the road.

Along the lines of work, which takes up an average of 10 hours of my day, compounded with 3 hours of commute to and from, I’m starting to reconsider perhaps cutting down on my work hours. The first month of work, it was 8 hours each day. Then as the days went by, I’ve adopted a more destructive schedule which was an average of 46 hours a week. It definitely brought in the money at the end of the day. But is it worth it? I don’t mind reverting back to eight hours a day, but I’m addicted to the almighty dollar. What can I say? For now, I guess I can wait until the time is right: either by own choice or when I can’t take it anymore.

I think what I need to keep me blogging is a hobby. Although it feels like for some, blogging is their hobby. But I’m an artist at heart. Unfortunately, the conflict is that I don’t have time to work on my art. Why don’t I have time? Because it’s wasted on work. Perhaps maybe I should not work so much, but I need to work a lot to build a comfortable security for myself in case something unfortunate happens. And so I’m left with not enough time in my life to pursue my hobbies, which therefore cuts down the potential for blogs. Endless, vicious cycle! Yarr.

Oh well. I still love my website. It’s revolutionary. But Google has yet to notice. That’s fucked up.

I’m just posting this in case someday my source of information is lost. This is in regards to downloading videos off YouTube.

Step 1:
Go to YouTube video that you want. View the page source.

Step 2:
In the page source, search for “player2″

It’ll look something like:
player2.swf?video_id=(long string of numbers, letters, and symbols)”

Copy all content between = sign and ” mark.

Step 3:
Insert http://www.youtube.com/get_video?video_id= into URL
Insert copied content after = sign
Hit Enter
That should download the video as Get_Video with no extensions.

Step 4:
Go to downloaded file and rename it to whatever you want to and add .flv to the end as the file extension.

Step 5:
Download an FLV player. Plenty of them out there like VLC Media Player.

And that’s it. I’ve adopted this method for YouTube videos that I want to post on my site because I know how long my site will be around, but I sure as hell don’t know when a particular YouTube video will stay on their database.

Credits go to TIAN @ http://www.tian.cc/ for the tutorial.

So it’s a little after 2 AM in the morning and I finally got done a layout for my webpage that is decent enough for my liking. My previous version was magnificent, but because it used frames, it made it hard for me to share individual posts with friends. Therefore I switched back to a regular page loading system. I really don’t like it, but it grants me what I want more, which is the ability to present and share the things on my page and keep everything look the same. It has always been the reason why people pretty much hate frames and why I hate having to give up on frames. Anyway, I need to tweak a few more things and I’ll be set for a long while before I can’t stand the look of it. Soon enough, I can stop relying on other people’s themes and make my own theme. Well enough to design exactly what I need. The current theme right now will suffice.

Now for the next order of business, completing the formatting of my computer. Last week I reinstalled my OS. This week, I’m going to format my secondary hard drive. I don’t think I’ve formatted that drive since I bought it. Every time I formatted my computer, I left my data Hard Drive alone. But I think it’s time for a heavy format so it would be less fragmented and my computer can run smoother. Then maybe after all that mess, I can tackle my laptop. I consider all data on my laptop as expendable, but it has been so long since I’ve formatted it that it actually has accumulated some worthy data. Good thing I have some 350GB of external memory available for use. Makes formatting stuff so much easier when you don’t have to burn 4 gigs of data at a time which also involves running the risk of corruption on the DVD.

So many things to do. So little free time. Gotta make the most of the rest of this weekend until next weekend rolls along.

Nothing special for today. I just felt like typing up something. I guess the only thing special about today, though it really counts as tomorrow, is that it’s the end of Daylight Savings and it’s time to roll our clocks back. And everytime this time comes around, I always hear about someone not knowing which way to turn the clock. I don’t know about you, but it doesn’t take much effort to memorize the phrase, which I hear all the time too, “Fall back, Spring forward”. And that’s it. It’s too bad it isnt an extra hour from Sunday to Monday. I’m just gonna end up wasting it tonight. Well that’s all I’m going to say about this.

As for other blog thoughts, I’m always battling myself with the idea of a different website layout. I want to have a sleek design, but a sleek design kills functionality sometimes. And I hate it when that happens. Anyway, there’s probably another design project coming around. Right now it looks fine, but I’m always pushing for perfection. That’s the kind of artist I am.

And finally, I really need to format my computer. It’s starting to turn to shit. Only problem is that I have so much shit on my computer that it is the reason my computer is turning into shit. Maybe I’ll do it tonight. Nothing important happening anytime soon. Back everything up tonight. Format tomorrow. Done. Easier said than done I guess. At least I still have my laptop in case shit hits the fan. =)

It’s another Monday, and all I see is a carbon copy day of last week. Wake up early in the cold, get ready for work, drive to work at an average pace of 20 mph, be bored as fuck at work, then leave and deal with an even slower drive home. I sit here now, while writing this, preparing for the same routine tomorrow. But I should be happy. I should be happy I have a job. That pays well. It’s just the lack of other stuff that makes me unhappy. Two hours of my life everyday is wasted just on the commute to work. Because of that, it takes time away from my available time. Of course, I’d probably find a way to waste away that time. Technically, I have about 3 hours of free time each day. An hour is already wasted on hygiene and appeasing the hunger, so I have about 2 hours. By the time I can commit to anything of those two hours, minus all the various distractions, I have maybe an hour to do what I want. So what do I do with that extra hour? I’m wasting it on television and writing this blog rant. So why am I wasting my time? Because I’m dead fucking tired from work. But I should be happy. By payday, I will once again be reminded of why I deal with all this. It’s too bad that pay day’s in another three weeks. Bah. But, I guess I should be happy. Life could be worse. At least I can buy stuff I never use to make myself feel good about myself. Well that’s my rant. I’m slightly happier now. Until I wake up tomorrow morning. At least Fridays are worth looking forward to. /shrug + /dream of grinding the cash

So not too long ago, this puzzle was referred to me and I got caught into its madness. For a short period of time though. Anyway, here’s the puzzle:

http://www.borrett.id.au/computing/petals-j.htm

It’s all about the title.

Friday the 13th must be infamous for a reason. For some reason, I feel like I’m afflicted by its evil hex. The last couple of these Friday the 13th events I’ve had these bad things happen to me. Just little things where it just happens to be where I’m at the wrong place at the wrong time.

For today, I had to park farther than usual. Not a parking spot in sight. Then work was just a long drag of a day. The last 2 hours felt like a standstill. And of course, today happened to be the one day where there’s heavy rain after months of practically no rain. All day long, I knew I was gonna get affected by the strangeness of today. It was in the back of my mind all day. Driving home, it was laggy, it was wet, rain and dirt everywhere; it was an intense struggle just to get home. But finally, I managed to make it home without anything bad happen.

So instead of having one major bad luck event, I just had a really long day. So I still hate this fucking day. But at least it’s Friday and I survived.