Mostly lemon based

Category: Creative

  • V is for virtuous

    Which is how I’m being with not swearing at Premier. I don’t know quite what it is about Premier which winds me up so much – but it does just annoy me.

    The editing functions are nice, but why does exporting video have to be a trial by experiment affair – especially when rendering each time takes ages. I’ve no idea why it won’t export video that anything else can actually view, or why everything leaps up and says “this video has not been rendered for sequential viewing. You should reinterleave the video before exporting it to a slow medium” and then plays something of such staggeringly poor quality that it’s unwatchable.

    I don’t know what settings it *should* have, but none of the ‘default’ options work. I just end up fiddling with it until it works, which is tedious and because I’m normally tired and “just want the fucking thing to save the fucking movie” by the time I get to exporting, well, my patience tends to be a bit thin.

    This is my last attempt of the night though. And I need to work more tomorrow, so, well, we’ll see what happens. I’ll probably play a bit but I can’t afford to spend my whole day trying to coax it into rendering video.

  • What’s that you say? I’m meant to be getting rid of crap?

    Well, I saw it, see, and despite my ‘getting rid of crap’ plan I asked for it, I mean, I never thought I’d get it.

    Look! Over there! A Really damn cool video.

    Yeah, um, I might have got a 21″ monitor… that goes with the other 21″ monitor. Freakily, my room now has compaq and digital logos. I may also have, well, bought a FX 5500 dual head graphics card. I better edit some damn video now :-)

    Of course, with Pride coming up… well… It *is* traditional.

    It took me about an hour of solid pissing about to cram the monitor into the ‘space’ of my desk. When I say space. Let’s just say, it’s a little tight in here now.

    The office with two monitors of doom.

    Clicky for the big version.

    It’s a bizzare feeling to be surrounded by a mixture of anicent and modern. My main monitor is made by a company subsumed by the company who made the monitor next to it, which was again consumed by the company that made the printer to the right of them. The tech in here ranges from the 30s (the fan on the window sill) through to the printer (last year) and the keyboard (this year). A lot of it’s second user (the laser under the desk, both monitors, the fan, the light, the speakers, the camera used to take the picture, the chair, most of the folders, the mic… Anyway, so that’s my office. I can’t wait to get a graphics card with working XP drivers; and having dual head. Ooooh. I am still a geek somewhere deep down. It should make editing video that bit easier anyway :-)

  • I’ve always wanted…

    …to make a film. And I can say that honestly. When I was in my teens I laid my hands on a 8mm cine camera and made a film with my friends (no, I won’t be sharing that). And the film bug bit me. But I can’t write. I really, really have no apptitude for script writing. Well, for any kind of narritive writing, fiction, that’s the word I’m hunting for.

    Yeah, so I’ve go no talent for it, believe me I’ve tried.

    So, what I need is someone to produce a script for a nice simple short that I can make with people that I know. Of course, you’d think with the number of people I’m friends with who write this would be possible, but somehow it’s never worked out that way.

    Anyway, so I’m having a whine. I want to make a film. A short, just a short will do. For now.

  • Arrogant Worms…

    So, yesterday we headed down to Dorset (Bournmouth, specifically) to watch the Arrogant Worms. Unless you’re an avid watcher of the LJ ‘what music am I listening to’ thing, know me personally and thus have had it inflicted on you, or are Canadian, then you quite possibly haven’t heard of the Arrogant Worms. They are fantastic, okay, and you should get some stuff and listen and uh, yeah. I’m a bit tired right now, incidentally (yeah, yeah, shut up) for reasons that’ll become apparent.

    So, we took the scenic route to Bournemouth, me, Chrissy and Lauren in the Mog and John, Kate and Nikki in the Honda, them leading, me following, Me, Nikki and Kate in my design of teeshirt, and with my little GPS going ‘WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU GOING?!’. The route TomTom 5 had was somewhat different to the route that TomTom 3 believed in, not aided by us traveling through ‘The Void’ for a while (new roads built since my GPS’s map data was created…).  We stopped off in an exLittle Thief for lunch (better than a little thief) and finally rolled into Bournemouth around 1530. We mooched, making it to ‘ShakeAway’ (see Liz, I’ve tried them both now, and you’re right, it is better) – who do an absolutely stunning Strawberry Cheesecake / Oreo / Flake / Marshmallow milkshake that is just so unhealthy as to warrant an entire new foodgroup.

    (I’m getting to the gig, okay?). Then we mooched, definately mooched, down to the seashore / beach (incidentally, what’s with Bournemouth; where’s the faded glory? British beach town == Faded glory. It was all ‘nice’ and ‘clean’ and ‘pleasant’. It’s not right); where John / Lauren / Chrissy headed down the pier and Kate / Nikki / Me went seashell hunting on the beach, Nikki discovered that she’d not brought a spare film for her camera and I discovered that my rechargable batteries were flat.

    Woot.

    So a quick run to a beachfront store and we headed up to the pub next to the club where they were performing. Me with a new pack of Duracell and Nikki with a roll of film. Pubsnacks, chatting to other Arrogant Worms fans, and generally chilling out. We nipped out to check, the doors were open at the club so we headed in and got the best table ever ever ever ever. We weren’t just close to the stage, we were virtually on it. Right in the centre. Rarrrrr.

    Then they came out to do a soundcheck, complimented us on our teeshirts (or were they scared? It’s hard to say), we chatted to a nice lass from Canada (Halifax, Nova Scotia – see, I do have a memory) and I set my camera to pretend it had extremely fast film in it. We kicked back and relaxed, the room filled and Lauren and Chrissy arrived (having visited the oceanarium). Before the Arrogant Worms the were the front-people of a group called Djambo; who were excellent. Sadly they don’t make it over Brizzle way, but I shall be buying their CD.

    Anyway, I’m not going to talk about them, ‘cos though they were very good it’s late and I need to get ready for work, and I shouldn’t be writing this now, I should be doing my dissertation. Ha.

    So, then the Arrogant Worms came on. I’ve never seen them live (what with this being their first UK tour) and I have no words for how excellent they are live. I’m sure the small venue / intimate atmosphere helped, but they were wickedly funny, and the whole evening was spent laughing and doing Rippy the Alligator actions, and singing along with the Mounted Animal Nature Trail.

    It was so good I squee’d. I don’t often Squee and bounce around like an overexhuberant 6 year old, but I did. I Arr’d and clapped and cheered and… just had a truly *awesome* time. Now, I know, I suck at writing up gigs, I suck at reviewing things, that’s because all the excitement and fun just washes over me and I want to say *IT WAS FUCKING EXCELLENT*. And that’s all I have to say, generally.

    So I got their new CD (Beige) (I was wearing Beige, specially); I got the Christmas Turkey album too; got beige signed, took (blurry, very red tinted) photos of the gig and the band (discovered what my camera thinks of normal Alkaline batteries (not a lot; the ones that ended up working through the whole night, apart from brief breaks were the NiMH ones which said they were flat)), generally had an awesome time and then came out to find my car wouldn’t start. Half an hour later the AA came, bashed the startermotor (which’d stuck, which is what I thought, but I’d not considered bashing it) and we headed home – using Lauren navigation as for about 70% of the route my GPS was going ‘all the satellites are in a line. I cannot calculate my position. Damn them’.

    All in all I had an *excellent* evening….

  • The Sunday Catch-up Post

    So, it’s very strange. If I’m here, no one updates at the weekend. I go away for a weekend and have seven pages of LJ to read through. 7. Pages. Seven. Gah!

    Anyway, on Friday I got home from a (shockingly useful and interesting, no really, Work Based Learning Day) during which I handed in my NP5 placement documents (I passed, thankfully; however now I’ve got 10 weeks of ‘work’ on a new ward, during which my only outcome is to not kill anybody) and struggled through shaving my legs well (as opposed to the ‘adequate’ I normally do when going swimming) and gathering together the stuffs for my trip to Rocky Horror. I even remembered to take the map, so as I could pop in at Ray’s and collect the Towbar. Of course, it being me I managed to get out the door a staggering hour later than intended (though to be fair I did spend rather longer than I’d intended at Uni / Hospital, what with popping by to greet the new ward. Of course, I neglected to ask them what time their shifts start).

    Having piled stuff in the car I headed up the motorway. And for the first time in my life I am thankful to a Bentley driver, because as I was heading up the motorway the engine’d got a bit louder. Not *lots* louder, but the level of louder I associate with the exhaust manifold managing to slacken off and thus, giving the effect of hole’d exhaust. But given the fact that the exhaust I’ve got doesn’t really fit the manifold very well (for reasons I don’t understand given that it is the right part) I’ve kind of got used to this occuring.

    But as I tore past the Bentley he dashed out behind me flashing his lights rather excessively; I pulled sideways, looked round as he came past and he mouthed ‘your exhausts come off’ at me. I thought ‘arse’ and made a dash for the hard shoulder. He was half right; it’d snapped. The high quality, long life, stainless steel exhaust’s snapped just in front of the rear silencer. The application of a substantial amount of force and the thing came off and was dumped, unceremoniously in the boot. I pondered for a second and decided I still had one silencer and that’s good enough for the original mog, hopped in and headed on up the motorway.

    And hit traffic. I’d planned to nip by Ray’s on Friday… but this was clearly a flawed plan; insofar as if I ‘nipped’ by Ray’s then I’d not get to Chrissy’s until after we were s’posed to leave. In fact, given the traffic I was encountering getting to Chrissy’s in time to leave would be hard anyway. Fortunately, I have a plan for moments like this… “Drive faster”.

    So, yes, ignoring the near annihilation by careless lorry drivers, the near-emergency-stop to avoid becoming one with the minor and a 7.5 tonne truck, and the insane number of people convinced that being overtaken by a Morris Minor means that they must instantly speed up, pass the mog and then slow down again; ignoring all of that, I got there at ten past 6. A mere 1.5 hours later than intended.

    I flumped into a chair and Chrissy offered me a tea. When she came back I queried when we had to leave. A quick check of the time table and the discovery was made that ‘in about 20 minutes’ was the optimum (*only*) time to leave if we were to make it to London in time. Thankfully I’m pretty quick at getting a basque on, although the stockings really didn’t want to play. The new suspenders were a bit tight on the stockings and it took a while, but at any rate, we made it; looking something like this:

    Lauren and Chrissy

    Kate on a Train

    So, err, yes. That’s me. On a train.

    The Rocky Horror Show absolutely, totally and utterly rocked. It was such a laugh, and made me wonder why I’d left it so long to go again. Apart, obviously, from the ever present monetary issues. And it really is quite fun being a shameless hussy now and then, wandering through the streets of london in my undies. Although by the end of the day, when we got home (at 1ish, I think?) my feet were saying something quite rude about the 3″ / 4″ heels. I’d measure them but all my rulers appear to have disappeared. Anyhoo. There’s more rather random picture spam here (although only one more underwear shot, and that’s blurry). It really is random by the way, what with covering my wander round Huntingdon this morning.

    So, yes, then yesterday I spent most of the day asleep; and then having woken up, wishing that I had much stronger painkillers. Eventually I downed my usual brufen / paracetamol combination, drinking lots having not helped, and started to feel remotely like some kind of human being – which meant that by the time Dr Who came on I felt human. Due to Chrissy’s NTL box having a fit of insanity we watched it in 4:3, which was very odd (no, seriously, really quite odd, it’s obviously a Widescreen program, on a widescreen telly, but the edges were being chopped off). Good episode, although very very much a second half to the first one. Probably want to watch it again with the first episode – so as to get the whole flow of it.

    Eurovision came on I could eat Curry and drink Cider. Which turned out to be an excellent plan. And watching Lordi win Eurovision has got to be the Best. Thing. Ever.

    They simply Rock, and I await the Arockalypse with baited breath. I also have the Lordi Album now…

    Um. So. Yes. I fear I have become sick, I have the lurgee waiting with baited breath to consume me.

    Anyway, so I wandered round Huntingdon this morning and took a few shots of an abandoned house. At least I think it’s abandoned. The bizzare thing is that the hedge is trimmed, but there’s no signs of use on any of the locks, and there’s lots of broken windows. So I suspect that the council may have nipped round with hedge trimmers.

    And then I spent a very chilled out morning back at Chrissy’s, before piling in the car and heading back (via Ray’s, this time).

    And then I got back and my PC wouldn’t boot. Yes. hal.dll was apparently missing, and there were a couple of corrupt files on the disk. Now I’ll just say this once, okay?

    WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH WINDOWS?!

    There.

    I shut it down, and it *dies*. Well, semi-dies. A reboot and a checkdisk and it thinks it’s okay. I await the collapse of the tower of cards with a real fear (since it’s my work machine). *sighs*.

    I am starting to wonder if it’s time to start from scratch. New *everything*, because I can’t help but wonder how it’s going so badly wrong. Anyway.

    Having got the machine to boot I read this. This is a very good post. You should all go and read it. Go. Now. I wish I had the skill to express thoughts this well, but she’s managed to put everything I can consider thinking about this and the related issues it conjurs up.

    But then I read this; which is Awesome (no, not like a hot dog).

    I think you’re sufficiently updated on my life now, so I’m going to eat food; and vegitate; because I feel rough as hell.

  • Not quite image of the day

    not_quite_daily/20050501.jpg
    I saw this snail in the centre of the path on the way to the shops this morning and it just called out to be photographed. Enough that I went and got my milk, came back, checked it hadn’t wandered off, went home, got my camera and walked back.
    It took a couple of goes, the Macro / Autofocus on my camera seemed to struggle with the bright but very directional light.
    Don’t imagine for a second that this is going to be a habit :-)

  • Abandoned Filton

    So, before the Second World War there was a village outside bristol called Charlton*; it was a bit of an unlucky place really, because very close to it was the Rolls Royce Factory and Filton Airfield. Thus, during the war and the rather rapid expansion of the Airfield, Charlton disappeared under tarmac; and where it once stood a large number of RAF buildings were thrown up.

    Filton Airfield still exists, serving a variety of purposes; and today my housemate went for a flying lesson. We spent some time taking photos of her taking off and landing; but even with the strict instructions on where we could and could not go (what with being in the middle of the airfield) we did manage to snap a few shots of the remains of what had been the RAF buildings in the area that was once Charlton.

    I’d love to go back and get some more thorough shots; it’s all fenced off (which you can’t see in Google earth) and so we’d need (want) permission to get a proper look around.

    Anyway, the shots…

  • When she said ‘there’s a whole other side to Huntingdon’

    I didn’t quite follow her meaning…

    Hoe Express!

    (Sorry for the spamming of the journaling, but I’m doing a massive catchup post orgy (as in an orgy of posts, not as in posts happening after an orgy, obviously (well, possibly not obviously, but I felt I should make that clear (just in case it wasn’t (especially with the whole going out / getting laid (new hair cut) thing (dontcha just love nested brackets? (I do)))))).

  • Abandoned Press…

    Go, enjoy the lazyest gallery

  • Oh dear god I’m tired.

    So, Friday night, I’m planning my weekend away to say goodbye to Trey – who’s heading off to climates colder and more northern – and I arrive home after my day shift to a phone call which runs thus:

    Mum: “Kate… the cistern’s leaking again…. quite a lot…. do you think you could come down and fix it…”

    The temporary repair I did a while back (because I couldn’t get the right bit) had finally given up – well, actually it’s given up because I replaced the ball-valve with the same type of ball valve instead of going with my (feminine?) instinct and deciding that the plumber had fitted the wrong kind before and changing to the type of valve I thought it should be.

    Unfortunately I’d also agreed to collect my Victorian cistern for my new house (which I have not got) from Freecycle – before I left on Saturday – and so it was on Saturday morning that I flew out of the house and round Bristol to collect a toilet cistern. Having collected it the bloke said ‘do you want the toilet too?’ – I looked, and a Victorian toilet in *staggeringly* good condition (apart from being somewhat mud filled) became mine also. Of course, this meant that my original time saving plan was somewhat destroyed – having an *entire* toilet in the car was a bit much when travelling a couple of hundred miles.

    So, I switched back, headed home (enabling me (handily) to collect my camera); unloaded the toilet and cistern and piled back in the car only to discover… a car accident.

    Then I joined the M4 Roadworks queues. I got to my mums. I fixed her toilet cistern (seeing a pattern?). I jumped in the car and (more…)