|
|
|
June 26th, 2009
08:42 pm - Seattle 48 Hour Film Project
I helped participate in the 48 Hour Film Project in Seattle this year (last weekend) with some friends I knew from Project London. I helped doing some boom op as well as provide some of the sound effects for the post production. We won't find out until the 9th if we've won any awards.
The idea behind the 48 hour film project is at the start of the project all teams are given a character with a brief background, line of dialog, and a prop that must be used in the production. Each team also draws a random genre to work in. Once you are given the information, you have 48 hours to write, shoot, and edit your film.
For this year all the teams were given:
Character: Kristy or Kyle Brown, Illustrator
Prop: a tie
Line of Dialogue: "Wrong. Guess again."
And our team drew the genre Horror/Suspense (which was awesome luck considering the location Jen our director/team lead managed to secure for us).
Echoes from Adventure Star Pictures on Vimeo.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/opiummmm/foxies/happy.gif) amused
|
June 18th, 2009
08:24 pm - The following is a tale of chance luck, woes, and triumph
A number of weeks ago I purchased an old Biamp Columbia series 32+/488 mixer board. A friend of mine from work had been talking with a guy he knows down at the bar he helps out at and found the guy was trying to get rid of the board for a pittance of $250. That's $250 for a 32 channel 8 bus, 8 aux mixer board. It's older, but it looked in really good shape. I didn't really have an actual use for it, but for $250 I couldn't really pass it up.
 | It took a long time for the guy to get something to transport the board with, but I finally was able to pick it up and brought it to the new apartment. It barely fit in the back of the car. I was expecting it to be about on par with the size of the Mackie 32ch 8bus board we used at school but it is actually about a foot wider and weighs about 115lb. But nonetheless, it was mine and ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) goobersotp came over and helped me get the board out of the car and into the apartment. |
| When I first brought the board home I started off by just setting it on top of my PA speakers (for lack of anything better to put it on). I went out the next day and picked up a pair of saw horses to set the board and things we're going pretty good. |  |
While doing my various testing of the inputs I was making use of the tape outputs to run into my old receiver which was hooked up to the PA speakers since the receiver only had RCA inputs and all the outputs on the board are on XLR connectors except the tape outputs. |  |
Finally I decided to go ahead and test the main outputs on the board. As I mentioned, all the outputs on the board are on XLR connectors which is all well and good, but I don't have many XLR-> 1/4" adapters so in order to test the main outputs I figured I would just test the outputs by running the outputs into one of the mic inputs on my small Mackie board and just leave the gain turned all the way down. It was just going to be for doing some quick testing. I hooked up the Biamp to the Mackie while I had my iphone playing some music on the sterep input of the board. The first channel wasn't putting out any sound but I was not really surprised by this as the board was $250, pretty old, and it wouldn't surprise me if there was some major issues with it. I went ahead and plugged the cable into another output to test the next, this too was not putting out any sound. I ended up testing 4 of the 5 balanced main outputs (Main L/R/M, Aux L/R). A couple of them were getting sound out, but still sounded a bit odd.
It was about this time that I smelled smoke.
( and made a mad dash for the power switch on the power supply )
Overall, this was a pretty crappy experience. New 32 channel 8bus/aux mixers run $3,000~$6,000. Granted the Biamp is pretty old (the dates on the PCB's were 1990) but it's in startlingly good condition. For as crappy as the experience was, I'd say I've learned quite a bit about troubleshooting and repairing (relatively) simple circuits. I also learned that just because you haven't turned on the phantom power on a mixer in over 6 months, check it anyways before plugging anything in. As near as I can tell it must have gotten accidentally switched on when I had to move the board out a while back.
Current Location: Lynnwood, WA
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/opiummmm/foxies/working.gif) accomplished
Current Music: Upstanding Youth - Paint By Numbers
|
May 19th, 2009
07:26 pm - Jumping on the bandwagon.
Ganked from codexrau
1) Who are you?
2) Would you consider me a good acquaintance? Would you like to know me better?
3) When and how did we meet?
4) Would you buy me a drink? What kind?
5) Give me a nickname and explain why.
6) Describe me in three words or less
7) What was your first impression of me?
8) Do you still think the same?
9) What reminds you of me? What do I remind you of?
10) If you could give me anything, what would it be?
11) How well do you know me?
12) Would you like to know all this if I were to fill out this questionnaire about you?
13) Would you meet up with me?
Current Music: Johnny Cash - Hurt
|
May 1st, 2009
03:34 pm - Out of the loop
Today work issued everybody a small bottle off purell and a box of Kleenex Anti-viral tissues... And to think I've been ignoring the news for so long I hadn't heard anything about the flu that's going around until a couple days ago... 
Current Location: US, Washington, Snohomish, Lynnwood, 204th St SW
|
March 1st, 2009
06:33 pm - Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow...
So I've finally gotten around to doing some cleaning in my room. I've managed to get most of the floor done and I went through and got rid of a ton of stuff out of my closet.
Oh... and I finally finished unpacking from FC...
Current Mood: amused
|
February 25th, 2009
09:55 pm - Amp Modification Project
|
So with having problems with my old receiver, and having just gotten a pair of PA speakers I picked up a 100watt PA amp over the weekend off Craigslist. It's an old Radio Shack MPA-200 and it actually sounds pretty good.
It has 2 sets of Banana Plug/Binding posts so you can swap between sets of speakers, or run all 4 at once. One of the things I wanted to do was to replace one of the sets of binding posts with 1/4" TS jacks so I can use the speaker cables I had made up a while back out of the amp without having to concoct any kind of adapter.
The second thing I wanted to do was to replace the power cable. The one it has was non-detachable and ungrounded. I planned to replace it with a jack to use a standard power cord (like what PCs use).
|
( Photos of the process behind the cut )
|
So once it was all said and done I plugged it in to do a smoke test and it passed. Then I hooked up the PA speakers and tested it and it worked just fine.
|
Current Mood: accomplished
|
January 31st, 2009
06:29 pm - Pain in the ass.
Well, I went down to Circuit City over in Lynnwood to see if their discount structure has changed yet. I was looking at a camera lense (a Nikon 24~120mm f3.5~5.6 with VR) until I found that their 30% off took it down to be on-par with what you could order it for online.
I did end up picking up an amp installation kit thing (for the cables). I've been wanting to replace the amp I have for my sub in my car for a while now (The current amp I had was maybe 200watt peak pushing a sub that was rated for somewhere around 400~450 RMS, 800~900 peak). I also found a pretty cheap 800watt amp that I ended up picking up (it's a Sony, so not my first choice of brand but it's better than what I had).
( And more photo thumbnails and rambling )
Current Music: Zombie Nation - Kernfraft 400 (Sport Chant Stadium Remix)
|
January 27th, 2009
11:47 pm - FC Photos
Just finished sorting through all my photos from FC. Here they are:
Masquerade (188)
FNL (201)
Parade (163)
Critter Olympics (326)
Wandering Photos (85)
Dance - Friday (25)
Dance - Saturday (105)
Dance - Sunday (96)
Laser Imaging (after parade/group photo shoot, 28)
Hawaiian Dance (83)
I'm still doing some final tweaking so some photos may end up being moved to a different part within the FC gallery (mostly to clean up the Critter Olympics gallery and move some stuff to the Wandering Photos). When I have a chance I'll also probably go through the stuff from the parade to lighten them up a little bit.
And now to watch my DSL connection melt...
Current Mood: amused
|
January 20th, 2009
06:55 pm - Spawned from Skype conversations.
We were chatting on Skype tonight and we got to talking about crap that our respective towns/areas have. I think I won the conversation when I pointed this out on Google Maps:
As you can see on the left, we have Monroe High School where I graduated from. On the right we have part of Twin Rivers Correctional Facility.
See for yourself!
Current Music: Ghoti Hook - Walking On Sunshine
|
December 17th, 2008
12:04 pm - Brilliant
Current Mood: amused
|
December 16th, 2008
09:26 pm - It's about time.
Finally somebody explains what the hell they're saying.
New favorite word: Fisticuffs
Current Mood: amused
|
December 3rd, 2008
October 25th, 2008
06:43 pm - Keeping watch
So after the raccoon incident the other day I decided to try out ZoneMinder and setting up a surveillance camera. I started out with an ancient capture card I had and one camera. I've since replaced the capture card with a 4 input card and have 3 cameras hooked up to it.
Since doing so I've managed to capture some animals wandering around. I caught a Deer today using the new card, last week I caught the raccoon (though using the old card I was only capturing at 384x288).
http://zm.foxwire.org/events/5/745/Deer-r1-s1.mpg
http://zm.foxwire.org/events/4/496/Squirrel-r1-s1.mpg
http://zm.foxwire.org/events/4/66/Raccoon-r1-s1.mpg
I've also gotten some cats on video (mostly ours). I'm hoping the Raccoon will come back. It hasn't come around (or at least hasn't tripped the motion detection) since the first video I got). I've moved the camera to a better position to capture video over the water thing (see the Squirrel video).
On Friday Troy got to drive his clown car to work and we ended up at lunch at the same time so I got to ride in the clown car! :D It's a classic Austin Mini (not one of the new BMW MINIs. I don't recall what year it is, but I can fit into it and talking with him it gets like 40+mpg which is pretty awesome. At some point I wanna try driving it.
Oh god... I just realized I unconsciously used the proper OEM capitalization for the BMW MINI... BMW's pretty anal about that. Kinda like how HUMMER has to be in all caps too...
Current Mood: amused
|
October 24th, 2008
12:39 pm - WANT
http://www.mocpages.com/moc.php/63943
It's made out of freaking LEGOS
|
October 12th, 2008
12:43 am - Fuzzy intruder
 I was just getting ready to go to sleep and when I got up from my chair I heard something outside my window (which was open a ways).
I looked out the window and saw this guy messing around in the water feature thing we have outside my window.
I grabbed my camera and took some pictures. It didn't seem to really care about the flash on the camera (I don't have a window screen in the window at the moment, I broke it when I put in my window A/C for the summer, I just took it out recently and haven't replaced it).
|
October 2nd, 2008
09:14 pm - Music of win.
If you have iTunes (not sure if it's on Zune) go and get the album "It's Casual" from The Blue Collars. It's made of copious amounts of Ska flavored win. Good luck finding it anywhere else though (if you do find it somewhere else where you can get a physical CD of it let me know).
Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: The Blue Collars - Mazel Tov Cocktail
|
October 1st, 2008
07:31 pm - Busy week
Been a busy week this last week. Went to RF last weekend and had a blast. Unfortunately Jaycatt and Albina weren't able to make it but Tobias and Samara were able to make it (Sammy came for Sat/Sun). I have all my photos I took up over at my gallery. I honestly didn't really go to many panels but had fun just hanging out. I'm seriously considering volunteering next year as they were shorthanded in a number of areas. If I recall correctly from the closing, they went from 377 people last year to 599 this year which is a pretty sizable jump.
In other news, I finished my mod for my Nerf Vulcan:
Modded Nerf Vulcan from Foxworth on Vimeo.
I made a bracket that the ammo can will attach to to stay on the side of the gun. It had a couple mis-fires the first time around (because I let up on the full-auto switch which caused it to stop) but shot just fine after that.
Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: Tetris - The Blue Collars
|
September 24th, 2008
07:08 pm - Did you know...
 Did you know a military surplus ammo can for 200 cartridges of 7.62mm ammunition is the perfect size for holding belts of ammo for the Nerf Vulcan (Pictured) and can hold approx 75 rounds worth? Since I just picked up one of these Vulcans, and happen to have some spare 200 round ammo cans, I see a mod coming up for the Vulcan... (The supplied ammo holder will only hold a single belt of 25 rounds, but you can easily modify multiple belts together into one big belt...).
|
September 6th, 2008
09:56 pm - A funny thing happened on the way to the Lumberyard...
So codexrau, Dougal, lusipurr, my friend Josh from work, and I were playing TF2 Arena mode today. Needless to say it was quite awesome. In the process of our game we ended up coming up with a sub-game mode to play during Arena!
This new sub-game of Arena came about when we all decided to go melee only (the server we play on is an all-talk server with some really cool people that play on it, so this sort of thing actually works) but as with any server that tires to verbally set rules there is always one douche who doesn't play along. So our game play evolved and the game of "Kill the Douche" was born.
Initially the object of the game was, only kill the Douche not playing along before going after other people. Eventually the douches left and the game started to evolve. The new object of the game was everybody on the teams all went one class while the designated douches (1~2 per team) got to play whatever class they wanted. After using an ad-hoc system to determine who would be the Douches on the team it was decided the top 2 people on each team would be the Douche. Since it was Arena mode this worked out well because people would be rotated around and the douches would change based on who had to sit out. The people sitting out on the particular round would referee and declare the winning team and an end to the round.
Once all the Douches on a team were killed the game then went to melee only until the unofficial end of the round.
|
August 28th, 2008
07:31 pm - Concert Goodness
 Tuesday as I was heading home from work Mikel called me and asked if I wanted to go to the Weird Al concert down at the fair. Needless to say, I said yes. :) I ended up taking a metric butt-ton of pictures. Had to do most of the shooting at ISO1600, but I was running in burst mode most of the time which made for some neat sequences.
It was an awesomely fun concert but man does Al have to work for it. As you can see from the photos he has to go through quite a few wardrobe changes throughout the concert.
The only thing that I think could be remotely considered a down side to the concert was that it was raining the entire time and I decided in my infinite wisdom to wear my fleece jacket instead of... well... anything remotely waterproof. The camera got a little wet, but I had it hidden inside my jacket with me hunkering over it when not taking photos.
It was nice to be down for the concert because it gave me something to take my mind off the voicemail I got while down at the fair. While I was out my parents had called to let me know that my grandfather on my mom's side passed away. It's funny but I don't think his death really hit me as hard as I was expecting. I think a lot of it was he went downhill quickly and did not linger or suffer as much as my other grandfather. The best part was that he was able to spend his last days in his home instead of a hospital or hospice facility.
Current Music: Weird Al - Polkarama!
|
|
|
