BTW, I'll be your Mt. Ararat
Apr. 3rd, 2005 10:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolariHUGE entry:
April Fool's Frustration
So I've had these plans for a while now about doing an April's Fools joke, something simple like swapping the comics around, or replacing them completely. Both take a LOT of work to do. #9 came up with a neat idea of redoing that week's comics with my left hand, right down to the template and lettering. That was still a lot of work, and I couldn't get to it in time (It was March 30th in the evening, April 1st was the next day). So I settled down to mirror image EVERY image on site at once.
I have this old old old old DOS image program. Whoever wrote that was literally a decade ahead of his time. This program does EVERYTHING, including batch conversion of images. You simply tag the images you want to convert, then choose the "special effect" you want done to the image (in this case "Mirror") and then tell it to save as the original file.
Simple, right?
Like hell it was.
This miraculous program, the only one I had that did batch conversions simply said it wasn't going to run in an XP environment. Ever. Unfortunately, I was working on my home computer remotely, so I couldn't just jump into DOS and try running it from there, because my connection would have died.
So I downloaded DOSBox and tried to get it to run from there. Wether it ran or not I never found out, since one of the "detections" it does for your video card causes it to go into a full screen DOSBox...and REmote Desktop choked on that.
So then I tried the Microsoft Virtual PC to see if it would work there...only to find out it that Virtual PC doesn't come with its own version of DOS. I looked on my home PC drives, and none of my backup CDs were in there (I still have DOS 6.22 on a backup). I did find a IMG file of a Dos Bootdisk, and with a LOT of fiddling got a floppy bootable version of Dos 7 on the virtual machine, and up and running. Plugged Display into that and it plotzed.
So I was angry about that. Display could mirror every image on my site in seconds, and I'd already spent a couple of hours just TRYING to get it to work via a Remote Desktop.
So I figure, well...Display is an amazing program for 1996...maybe someone has tried writing a Win32 version of it. Or, maybe there's another program that does batch processing I can get installed quickly....
So I installed GIMP. However, you need to be pretty proficient in scripting to get GIMP to run in batch mode. I barely passed my "Hello World" program with a D-. Paint Shop Pro's batch functioning only converts file types, nothing else.
I DID, however, find an old trial copy of Jasc Image Robot. It seemed the last version of that was made in 1999, was written for Win9X, and did everything I needed it to. So I ran it, saw the little "You have 1 day of 30" trial message, and highlighted some 500 files for converting. I pressed start, it began and....
"THIS TRIAL VERSION OF JASC IMAGE ROBOT ONLY CONVERTS 5 FILES AT A TIME."
D'ohh!
So I decide to look up the site Image Robot had for buying it, and was taken to a Corel page. Corel no longer sells image robot. Or sells the registration keys. Or anything.
Dammit.
So, I decide to be completely irresponsible and hit one of the site I use for hunting down software cracking programs (I mean, I WOULD pay for it, if there was someone to pay). So after turning on ALL my virus programs, ALL my pop up blockers and making a system restore, I dove into the world of l33t s4qs 2 0wnz0r j00.
I found a crack for it pretty damned quickly, and applied it. Restarted the program:
"A TROJAN HAS BEEN DETECTED IN IROBOT.EXE, THE INECTED FILE HAS BEEN DELETED."
D'ohh.
So here I am, 1AM on April 1st. Disenheartened, disenchanted, and I decide to say "screw it, we'll try again next year."
The rest of the evening is pretty uneventful until I'm about to leave. As I sign out of my machine and check the date for the time clock, it's 5:30AM...MARCH 31ST.
MARCH HAS 31 DAYS?! ::checks knuckle counting method:: Holy cow, it DOES.
Needless to say, I was fooled a day early, the comics all got reversed as they were supposed to, and it was a lot of fun.
Things moving on the Trinoc Front
as we get closer to the convention date, things are slowly getting into motion. Originally, I didn't want to get involved with the inner workings of the con this year, as I find dealing with committees pretty frustrating. But this year, I kinda put in an idea for a Webcomic Win Lose or Draw Parody ("How the hell do I draw the word 'THE?!'" "I HAVE TO DRAW 'EVERYTHING IN THE UNIVERSE?!'").
Deb however is having to deal with a pest making things tough, so I'm coming in to help out the comic track of the con. I thought it would be just a few things, but it seems I'm going to be making a few invites to the con, and trying to come up with a few panels. Nothing big, but definitely more than I thought I would....
Reading the Episode III script.
I was thumbing through some webpages online, and found out that the Episode III script was now on sale via an EBooks company. It was definitely legit (and the only way to get the script I knew of). It was also only $5. So I bought it, and read through it all morning.
Well...hmm....Bryan and I constantly say "George needs to knock this one out of the park." I don't think he really gets that far, but definitely makes a triple. There are still some scenes in there that worry me, but if they can be done RIGHT, they'll be good.
One is a chase through General Grevious's ship as it crash lands on Coruscant. If it's done in an Indiana Jones kinda way, or a "Luke/Han/Leia running around the Deathstar" kinda way, it could be very very very good. If it's done like the Super Amidala Brothers scene in Episode II, it will be very very bad.
YODA DOES NOT FART. Thank GOD for that. The extermination of the Jedi is not what I expected at all, but not a bad thing, either. No Boba Fett, one scene with Jar Jar.
The Annikin/Padme love stuff is still kinda stilted, but works much better than in Episode II. And let me tell you, just HOW Annikin falls to the dark side is REALLY REALLY REALLY tragic. Just a set of a one or two lies, at the wrong time, and it all comes crashing down.
Mace Windu does not "Go Down like some Sucka."
Palpatine's Declaration of the Empire is horrifyingly "relevant." Lucas has taken a character who was written to be "Nixonian" and scarily turned him into Dubya.
Three hands get cut off. Two legs do, too. Lots of decapitations. One twenty story fall. It's pretty dark stuff.
It's got me excited for the movie...if he can hit all the notes right, he might have a home run on his hands. If not - he's got a Triple.
Jenn's Day Out
Dean and I, in an attempt to spend a little time together (The Home Revelation is that with all the Emily/Jenn goo-goo eyes going on, I've neglected him a bit, and it was time for us to do something), decided to make a night on the town. WE headed off to the Frisco for his dinner (my breakfast). You can see the pics in the previous post. I love the Frisco, and I've talked about it here a bunch already. So in short:
1) Old Restaurant
2) Old waitresses
3) Old patrons
4) Excellent food (some of the best steaks I've ever had)
5) WONDERFUL cozy atmosphere.
6) Chicken Fried Steak = Filling. :)
From there, we ran across a highway or two to Casey's Shaved Ice, for some dessert. We drove around Hyde Park and took a few shots of the parking lot where Carrie in Closetspace lives (308 West 47th is in a Parking Lot). That parking lot has these incredibly bright football stadium lights on EVERY NIGHT. Can you imagine living in an neighborhood where it's ALWAYS as bright as noon, even at 3AM? Not to mention filled with drunks and honking cars on football days?! Insane....
From there we hit Book People for a few hours, where I picked up a "Making of Episode III" book. We stayed there until Book People closed up, and I went to the check out. And lo and behold, what do I find there...?
Now, what's so special about this candy? Well, it's REALLY REALLY REALLY rare to see this in the states, since it's a candy made in Canada. And not only is it Canadian...
...it's my sweetie's favorite candy (as you can see here, modeled by the lovely and talented Emily's Hand). Coffee Crisp gets mentioned QUITE a bit in our conversations. I'd made a mention that I'd love to try one...and it seems I got the chance. I consider this a Cosmic Notification of the Acknowledgement that Our Love is Acceptable to the Higher Powers of the Universe. :)
It's basically a Big Kat candy bar with a slight coffee taste to it. Very good, and very layery flakey wafery crumbley. Like eating a chocolate coffee covered piece of plywood, but much more tasty and a LOT less splinters. :D But - she pays 65 cents for them at the grocery store. I pay $1.35 for them at the highfalootin' book store.
I DEMAND MORE OF THESE.
The night finished up with a trip to Toy Joy, and a leisurely wander back home in the middle of the night for videogames and donuts. In all, a Good Day of Fun. I needed that. :D
April Fool's Frustration
So I've had these plans for a while now about doing an April's Fools joke, something simple like swapping the comics around, or replacing them completely. Both take a LOT of work to do. #9 came up with a neat idea of redoing that week's comics with my left hand, right down to the template and lettering. That was still a lot of work, and I couldn't get to it in time (It was March 30th in the evening, April 1st was the next day). So I settled down to mirror image EVERY image on site at once.
I have this old old old old DOS image program. Whoever wrote that was literally a decade ahead of his time. This program does EVERYTHING, including batch conversion of images. You simply tag the images you want to convert, then choose the "special effect" you want done to the image (in this case "Mirror") and then tell it to save as the original file.
Simple, right?
Like hell it was.
This miraculous program, the only one I had that did batch conversions simply said it wasn't going to run in an XP environment. Ever. Unfortunately, I was working on my home computer remotely, so I couldn't just jump into DOS and try running it from there, because my connection would have died.
So I downloaded DOSBox and tried to get it to run from there. Wether it ran or not I never found out, since one of the "detections" it does for your video card causes it to go into a full screen DOSBox...and REmote Desktop choked on that.
So then I tried the Microsoft Virtual PC to see if it would work there...only to find out it that Virtual PC doesn't come with its own version of DOS. I looked on my home PC drives, and none of my backup CDs were in there (I still have DOS 6.22 on a backup). I did find a IMG file of a Dos Bootdisk, and with a LOT of fiddling got a floppy bootable version of Dos 7 on the virtual machine, and up and running. Plugged Display into that and it plotzed.
So I was angry about that. Display could mirror every image on my site in seconds, and I'd already spent a couple of hours just TRYING to get it to work via a Remote Desktop.
So I figure, well...Display is an amazing program for 1996...maybe someone has tried writing a Win32 version of it. Or, maybe there's another program that does batch processing I can get installed quickly....
So I installed GIMP. However, you need to be pretty proficient in scripting to get GIMP to run in batch mode. I barely passed my "Hello World" program with a D-. Paint Shop Pro's batch functioning only converts file types, nothing else.
I DID, however, find an old trial copy of Jasc Image Robot. It seemed the last version of that was made in 1999, was written for Win9X, and did everything I needed it to. So I ran it, saw the little "You have 1 day of 30" trial message, and highlighted some 500 files for converting. I pressed start, it began and....
"THIS TRIAL VERSION OF JASC IMAGE ROBOT ONLY CONVERTS 5 FILES AT A TIME."
D'ohh!
So I decide to look up the site Image Robot had for buying it, and was taken to a Corel page. Corel no longer sells image robot. Or sells the registration keys. Or anything.
Dammit.
So, I decide to be completely irresponsible and hit one of the site I use for hunting down software cracking programs (I mean, I WOULD pay for it, if there was someone to pay). So after turning on ALL my virus programs, ALL my pop up blockers and making a system restore, I dove into the world of l33t s4qs 2 0wnz0r j00.
I found a crack for it pretty damned quickly, and applied it. Restarted the program:
"A TROJAN HAS BEEN DETECTED IN IROBOT.EXE, THE INECTED FILE HAS BEEN DELETED."
D'ohh.
So here I am, 1AM on April 1st. Disenheartened, disenchanted, and I decide to say "screw it, we'll try again next year."
The rest of the evening is pretty uneventful until I'm about to leave. As I sign out of my machine and check the date for the time clock, it's 5:30AM...MARCH 31ST.
MARCH HAS 31 DAYS?! ::checks knuckle counting method:: Holy cow, it DOES.
Needless to say, I was fooled a day early, the comics all got reversed as they were supposed to, and it was a lot of fun.
Things moving on the Trinoc Front
as we get closer to the convention date, things are slowly getting into motion. Originally, I didn't want to get involved with the inner workings of the con this year, as I find dealing with committees pretty frustrating. But this year, I kinda put in an idea for a Webcomic Win Lose or Draw Parody ("How the hell do I draw the word 'THE?!'" "I HAVE TO DRAW 'EVERYTHING IN THE UNIVERSE?!'").
Deb however is having to deal with a pest making things tough, so I'm coming in to help out the comic track of the con. I thought it would be just a few things, but it seems I'm going to be making a few invites to the con, and trying to come up with a few panels. Nothing big, but definitely more than I thought I would....
Reading the Episode III script.
I was thumbing through some webpages online, and found out that the Episode III script was now on sale via an EBooks company. It was definitely legit (and the only way to get the script I knew of). It was also only $5. So I bought it, and read through it all morning.
Well...hmm....Bryan and I constantly say "George needs to knock this one out of the park." I don't think he really gets that far, but definitely makes a triple. There are still some scenes in there that worry me, but if they can be done RIGHT, they'll be good.
One is a chase through General Grevious's ship as it crash lands on Coruscant. If it's done in an Indiana Jones kinda way, or a "Luke/Han/Leia running around the Deathstar" kinda way, it could be very very very good. If it's done like the Super Amidala Brothers scene in Episode II, it will be very very bad.
YODA DOES NOT FART. Thank GOD for that. The extermination of the Jedi is not what I expected at all, but not a bad thing, either. No Boba Fett, one scene with Jar Jar.
The Annikin/Padme love stuff is still kinda stilted, but works much better than in Episode II. And let me tell you, just HOW Annikin falls to the dark side is REALLY REALLY REALLY tragic. Just a set of a one or two lies, at the wrong time, and it all comes crashing down.
Mace Windu does not "Go Down like some Sucka."
Palpatine's Declaration of the Empire is horrifyingly "relevant." Lucas has taken a character who was written to be "Nixonian" and scarily turned him into Dubya.
Three hands get cut off. Two legs do, too. Lots of decapitations. One twenty story fall. It's pretty dark stuff.
It's got me excited for the movie...if he can hit all the notes right, he might have a home run on his hands. If not - he's got a Triple.
Jenn's Day Out
Dean and I, in an attempt to spend a little time together (The Home Revelation is that with all the Emily/Jenn goo-goo eyes going on, I've neglected him a bit, and it was time for us to do something), decided to make a night on the town. WE headed off to the Frisco for his dinner (my breakfast). You can see the pics in the previous post. I love the Frisco, and I've talked about it here a bunch already. So in short:
1) Old Restaurant
2) Old waitresses
3) Old patrons
4) Excellent food (some of the best steaks I've ever had)
5) WONDERFUL cozy atmosphere.
6) Chicken Fried Steak = Filling. :)
From there, we ran across a highway or two to Casey's Shaved Ice, for some dessert. We drove around Hyde Park and took a few shots of the parking lot where Carrie in Closetspace lives (308 West 47th is in a Parking Lot). That parking lot has these incredibly bright football stadium lights on EVERY NIGHT. Can you imagine living in an neighborhood where it's ALWAYS as bright as noon, even at 3AM? Not to mention filled with drunks and honking cars on football days?! Insane....
From there we hit Book People for a few hours, where I picked up a "Making of Episode III" book. We stayed there until Book People closed up, and I went to the check out. And lo and behold, what do I find there...?
Now, what's so special about this candy? Well, it's REALLY REALLY REALLY rare to see this in the states, since it's a candy made in Canada. And not only is it Canadian...
...it's my sweetie's favorite candy (as you can see here, modeled by the lovely and talented Emily's Hand). Coffee Crisp gets mentioned QUITE a bit in our conversations. I'd made a mention that I'd love to try one...and it seems I got the chance. I consider this a Cosmic Notification of the Acknowledgement that Our Love is Acceptable to the Higher Powers of the Universe. :)
It's basically a Big Kat candy bar with a slight coffee taste to it. Very good, and very layery flakey wafery crumbley. Like eating a chocolate coffee covered piece of plywood, but much more tasty and a LOT less splinters. :D But - she pays 65 cents for them at the grocery store. I pay $1.35 for them at the highfalootin' book store.
I DEMAND MORE OF THESE.
The night finished up with a trip to Toy Joy, and a leisurely wander back home in the middle of the night for videogames and donuts. In all, a Good Day of Fun. I needed that. :D
