Lincoln
Started: 2004-05-13 12:51:07
Submitted: 2004-05-13 13:46:21
Visibility: World-readable
As reported nearby, Bitscape, Kiesa, and I journeyed from Louisville to Lincoln yesterday afternoon to attend the latest and greatest fun and excitement to come to the festing.org crowd. We left right on schedule at 1300 MDT, after a minimal amount of fuss packing all of our stuff into Tobias in the rain. (I'd like a notebook of my very own so I could avoid dragging Ziyal along with me; if Kiesa ever gets around to replacing Elssbett (which is on her list of things to do), I'll donate money so Elssbett can become my personal notebook.) Bitscape and I alternated our music selections; the mystery album in Bitscape's rambling is Hotel Paper. I read The Mirandor Saga, an unpublished hard sci-fi novel by none other than my highly-literate younger brother. We arrived slightly ahead of schedule at 2100 CDT and found Yanthor, Humblik, and Linknoid in Humblik's third-floor apartment. It was raining again as we carried our stuff in, which made me glad I decided to bring the towel I protected my monitor with while carrying it into Tobias.
We claimed real estate, set up our computers, and spent a very long time trying to figure out what to cook for our meals during this Gathering. (My contribution comes tomorrow morning when I participate in the Epic Waffle BakeoffTM.) Nemo and Matt showed up. We journeyed to everyone's favorite warehouse grocery store, Super Saver, which I visited regularly during my time in Lincoln. I ended up spending a slightly-absurd amount of money on Hacker Nutritional Supplements (indulging a couple of my secret weaknesses) and Yanthor and Humblik spent a truly absurd amount of money on real food for our real meals.
Back in Humblik's apartment, as the hour passed midnight CDT, Yanthor proposed that we watch Arsenic and Old Lace, which turned out to be an immensely amusing 1944 screwball comedy starring Cary Grant as only one of a number of dysfunctional characters, all of whom hit their marks perfectly.
Kiesa went to bed and the rest of us (minus Matt, who departed before the first movie) watched The Gate, which most of us had seen, but Yanthor (who actually fell asleep during the viewing, which was much more of a comment on how absurdly tired he was and not the content of the movie) had not. Seeing it again reminded me how much work the audio needs and strengthened my resolve to make a subtitle track for the ADR-impaired so Willy's elegant insults are actually comprehensible.
How like a publican thou art! Thou sittest with thy glorious knowledge, and thou refusest to let loose the magnificent bounty to all! To the black records of forsaken souls shall history relegate thy name! O piteous woe for those who must suffer in eternity with thee! Thy insolence shall prove to be a testament to revulsion for all. A curse, knave, a curse on thee and thy kin for the next ten generations hence!
(I'm going to point out the shot-by-shot analysis of the dream sequence, which provides a fascinating glimpse into what Willy was thinking. I'm especially pleased by my cinematography daytime shots at the end of the dream, which got me the job of Director of Photography for Fences, which is now in principal photography and is slated for release sometime this quarter.)
I went to bed after The Gate at 0400. Linknoid cooked breakfast, which managed to be ready shortly after I woke up again, after a little less sleep than technically optimal. I played around a little with subtitles and timing for the next incremental DVD release of The Gate (which might, if we're lucky, include subtitles in not only English but French, German, Latin, and (English) semaphore). (It'd also be nice if I could tweak the illegible green opening titles, and chapter breaks couldn't hurt, either.)
I'm not yet sure what my project will be for the duration of the Fest. The thought crossed my mind to work on a bunch of video projects I've been queuing (The Gate subtitles, Effecti Speciali, and video tours of both of the places I've lived in the past year), and I'd also like to have a Spiffy Library Catalog System for all of the books Kiesa and I have floating around our apartment. Kiesa has attempted to locate a suitable library system but hasn't found any to meet her exacting standards. (Working MARC record import would be a definite plus.) The thought has crossed my mind to use this project as an excuse to learn some exciting new language or widget set; gtk springs to mind, although I'd also like it to be web-accessible. (I could write two completely-separate implementations, one in C++ and one in Perl, but that sounds silly. The main reason I'd want to use gtk is to write it in C++, and I have no compelling urge to write a C++ web application, although stranger things have happened.) I might be able to get more code reuse if I wrote it in Java, which does have some merit. We shall see.
I'm now more than twenty-four hours into my first paid vacation in my life, and I'm enjoying it immensely.
