Lots Going On

It's been a while since my last post, and a good deal has happened since then. For instance, I am currently writing this on a brand new laptop. Note that I said "writing," not "typing." That's because it has tablet functionality and I can actually write on it, which has me pretty excited. Now, those of you who know me well will know that I'm normally not a big fan of Windows, but as the tablet functions are going to take some time to get working in Ubuntu, along with the sound, Wifi, and fingerprint reader, I'm currently using Vista. I have to say that I'm finding it "not bad." I've only had things not working to the point of having to reboot about 4 times since I got it on Saturday. The handwriting and speech all work with it though, so I'm thinking that for school, I may end up using windows to do most of my written work. I'm planning on install the 64 bit Ubuntu, as the Vista installation is 32 bit, and it would be nice if at least one OS could make use of the 64 bit processor.

In other news, my high school prom is on Friday. I'm looking forward to it. I'm not going to the large after party, as it seems a bit much. A small group of us are getting together afterwards to hang out and be responsible and whatnot. It should be fun. What I'm not looking forward to is the Thursday right before prom, in which I, and almost every other grade twelve guy in the school, along with those of any other school with a prom this Friday, will all be trying to pick up there tux at the same place. Should be... hectic. Well, that's about it for this post. Until next time.

not that I don't have more news, I'm just saving some for other posts.

Long Weekend

This weekend, I'm getting a rather good impression of the old saying; "Distance makes the heart grow fonder." My girlfriend, along with most of our mutual friends, have set off on the annual school band trip. They left last night. I'm having a hard time believing they've only been gone for a day. Even though last weekend had 3 days, I have a feeling this will be the real long weekend. They'll all be back on Sunday. I hope they're having a ton of fun. I should really look at this with a more positive spin. My girlfriend is off having a blast in Disney with her friends, and I've got a weekend completely free of distraction. Maybe I'll be able to start some kind of project, although I'm not sure what kind at the moment. The website I was working on has teetered off for the moment, as my dad hasn't had time to further the business plan upon which the whole site will be based. I do have an updated version of it that needs and upload though. I also felt inspired enough to do a fairly run-down looking version of my logo. I really like how it turned out.

I got a new camera today, a Jazz DV179. I got a really good deal on it, and am happy with it so far. I just wish I could get its webcam mode working in Linux. I did manage to get a ridiculous picture of my brother. I guess he didn't know that when someone points a camera at you, you shouldn't make a face you wouldn't want them to take a picture of, because they can and will.

Next week, I get to drop my history class, move my spare to third, and get a first period Communications Technology class. I'm pretty happy about that. I've been spending my spare in that class anyway, and never wanted history in the first place. I just wish I would have found out that Communications and Animation are no longer the same credit earlier in the semester, as this would have been much easier.

It seems I've become a bit of a tech support person since march break. I volunteered teaching seniors computers for that week, and am doing it again this week. I got my picture in the paper, and another lady looked me up in the phone book and asked me to come help her. I also found myself at my brother's friend's house helping his mother with a problem. It's amazing how well people insist on paying you for this kind of service. I have never once stated a price, or asked for payment, I've even said, "no, really, that's a bit much" a few times. Despite this, the going price for my services seems to be ten dollars an hour. I am in need of a job, maybe I should send out fliers...

Well, this post has exploded a bit from what I originally meant to put here, and I should probably be getting to bed. Until next time...


Maybe now would be a good time for that "CSS attack" on my blog that I've been planning...

Film Festival

In my last post, I may have alluded to the fact that my school was putting on a small film festival type event. I've been working on a clip in blender since mid march, and was planning on submitting it to the festival. The Actual event is tomorrow, and my video was not submitted. I hid some snags at the last minute which meant I missed the submission deadline. Which isn't a big issue in and of itself, but it was the final straw. I wasn't to happy with the way the clip turned out. I had to leave it rendering overnight at my school, and eventually cut it short before it could finish rendering the last 60 frames or so. I had to cut it short so that I could bring it home that night so I could put it on disk in order to meet the deadline. Unfortunately, I failed to remember to actually copy the video onto my thumb drive.
So the video got cut down from 24 seconds to 22, (from 720 frames to 666, freaky, huh?) I have no real sound figured out for it, other than that the main background was going to be a Shepard tone. I was going to put some kind of music over that, but never got around to it. I didn't end up putting any real plot or anything into it, and none of the scenes I had pictured ever made it into the clip. To top it all off, I forgot to adjust one of the textures, and the position of a object, so it's glowing in a way it shouldn't, and is all glitchy where it meets the ground.
Lets run through that again: 22 second clip, with no sound or plot, and wasn't anything how I wanted it, and looked bad at points. I don't think that exactly qualifies as film fest material.
Of course, I'm not letting it go to waste, no siree. I've added a title screen, the Shepard tone, and replaced the missing frames with a preview animation of those same frames. It may not look all that great, but here it is:

And special thanks to our schools communication teacher for letting me use a school computer to render