Brainwaves of Sken

[12:58] Me: So, just the ninja training then?
[13:04] MC Cazizzy: You know about that!?
[13:06] Me: Well, yes.
[13:06] Me: I have a mole.
[13:06] Me: Also, a spy.
[13:07] Me: The mole doesn’t help much. mostly roots for tubers.
[13:07] Me: I don’t think they’re going to make the pennant this year, though.
[13:07] Me: You know. The Tubers.
[13:08] MC Cazizzy: I had $50 on their last game. I’m mad…

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This week has been less social than many, in all the ways that I generally am. Very little WoW, very few evenings abroad. It was nice to actually get some things done, but not as many as you’d think. ;)

Comcast finally knocked me down to the basic channels, which is more than fair since I’ve never in the history of living here actually paid for cable TV.

I made a spontaneous visit up to see Lucy mid-week, having dinner with her Vet friends, watching her try on a Bridesmaid dress for a wedding in a few weeks, and otherwise just spending time in the presence of my fiancee. It’s convenient timing, as she’s going up north with a vet friend and her family this weekend, which may be bookended by a visit from her mid-week next week. We seem to have this down – it isn’t an ideal living arrangement, but we talk every day, share what’s on our mind without reservation, and take time out to see each other. I am pretty happy with that.

I need to spend more time working out plans for the wedding. I’ve started to get some graphic ideas that I’d like to incorporate into digital save-the-dates and invitations and signage, so that’s a start. Lucy’s pretty into the idea of cupcakes for a wedding cake, so I might need to check out the local bakers and see what’s what. Also, I need to figure out what we’re doing for music (we don’t even know for sure if we want live music, a DJ, or an MP3-and-a-friend setup), decorations in general, and photography. Thanks to everyone who sent us links, we spent much of the evening together going over the various styles and prices!

I have not made any plans for this weekend yet except the Programming meeting for Penguicon at Castle Bradaki (Bradaki is clearly the plural of Bradakis, duh) where I’m hoping at least one dude from i3detroit (the new hackerspace) will show up and talk about their machinations.

It being a long weekend, there’s the possibility I might try to make it up to fest, but I will not weep if I miss out on Ren Fest this year. Spending more time doing my own thing this week has me primed, I think, for good conversation, which is somewhat difficult to do when you’re wandering around Holly. If I do go, it’s 100% certain I won’t be dressing up – it’s been two years since my toggles broke off my outfit.

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Last night, far later than I should have started such a project, I threw together the pieces of Medkat’s wedding that I shot on the P.o.S. camera I have. I cringe when I look at the graphic quality (and my lack of tripod), but the audio was pretty priceless.

So even though this was a very dirty project (as in, I wanted to give them one clip to watch instead of having to open each one up separately), I ended up tweaking the audio so they could hear their own vows and no one got blown away by applause, and as long as I was there, removing what pops and clicks I could.

By the time I was done, of course, I’d thrown in flashes to white and audio dissolves, put up an intro graphic, and put far more thought than I intended into it. *chuckle* It was 3:30 in the morning, and it’s time to go to bed.

So… I start prepping to render out a video for the first time on my new computer in Premiere CS4. I struggled for a moment until it downloaded the proper codecs, and then found out it now has a “queue” feature.

What’s that mean? It means I can tell it to render out an Mpeg video and THEN an h.264 video (a la youtube and the like) and whatever else I could think of… and go to bed!

I didn’t go to bed though, because I wanted to see if it really would follow through with the crazy times it was telling me.

See, on the “spare-no-expense-five-years-ago” laptop I previously had at home, and the “spare a little expense, but still very nice 2 years ago” desktop at work, rendering an Mpeg video would take… oh, perhaps 3 or 4 times the length of the video (an hour and ten minutes = 4 hours, more likely five).

Total time to render the mpeg last night? 35 minutes.

And it was true to its word. I may have peed a little. It was that cool.

Honestly, nothing has made me so interested in actually doing -work- at home (and believe me, I have a million video projects I’ve procrastinated on) as seeing those numbers. It also validated my purchase decision – I put together my own PC from parts I chose (it’s been a good six years since I’ve done that), and it is fast in very useful ways.

Squee.

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So, I went to the meeting tonight, and they seemed to have all their ducks in a row – just tonight, the local hackerspace group confirmed the location they will be moving into in Royal Oak this month. Melanie and I cruised by the area and I think we figured out where it will be, which looks pretty good to me.

I chatted a bit about Penguicon and how it was a great place for them to expand their contacts in the local hacker community. We might have a few of them at the meeting on Saturday, which is pretty sweet. We’re really hoping to get them on a few panels this year for the DIY track. More about that after the programming meeting this weekend!

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Also also wik, Lucy and I are trying to spare some time to consider our wedding. One of the things on the list is, naturally, photography.

Being someone who does photography makes me a pretty annoying critic, on occasion. I’m interested in a photographer who is more interested in documenting our day with style and artistry than in someone who wants to set up an incredible fantasy. We’re social people (okay, I’m social people and she’s happy to let me lug her along ;D), and I think some of our best and sweetest moments are amongst our friends.

Many of my friends are photographers or know photographers. If you know someone in the Michigan area who you think might fit that idea, please let me know, and I’ll check out their work.

Thanks!

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Dang it.

I was hoping I could find these awesome tins (or similar) locally, but I haven’t been able to find them on any online sites, at least not listed under “tiffin”. :\

I think they’re awesome, and would like to start bringing my lunch in this way.

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It came from my hotmail account. I haven’t used hotmail in years (I use gmail now) – I only use it for IM, really. Which makes that old address book rather … awkward, when it comes to sending out apology emails.

Fortunately it seems many of the people I haven’t been in touch with for years seem to have moved on from their old email addresses as well, as my “oops, please disregard” email has largely bounced.

Hasn’t bounced from the exes, though. *sigh* That would be too easy.

I changed my hotmail password to something unique and promptly deleted the entire address book, so that should be that.

If you were one of the folks who got the email – I guess I’ve known you for awhile! I hope your computer is incapable of opening RAR files. :D

(In a really strange note, it appears some people were getting emails to addresses they used -before- we knew each other … could this be an IM-based attack, where the email addresses are populated by a vulnerable instant message list?)

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Skippy says he received what may have been a virus-laden email from me, AND I got an email from my aunt who says I have the wrong email address for my grandmother (which is not true, my address for her is correct)… which makes me concerned.

I haven’t used anything but web-based email in many years, other than at work. Where I don’t email either skippy or my grandmother. If you have received one of these emails, please tell me the address so I can narrow down the problem. I’m still skeptical, but I’m not going to say some wacky new virus doesn’t hijack your gmail or hotmail or whatever.

EDIT: My aunt tells me that wrongly-placed email -did- have a virus in it. Time to track that sucker down.

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