A forebrain hemmorrhage in a blog post.

Because I'm just that tired. I neglected friday's post due to the LAN party, which was excellent. I neglected saturday's post because I was still tired from the LAN party and did not even get out of bed for the majority of the day and night. Tonight I neglect no longer, and plan to post a long one. It will probably be somewhat worthless, but I'm still just that exhausted. I love LAN parties, but clearly they are not particularly good for me. Oh well.

Alright. So, I have not done much for humanities this weekend, since I highly doubt reading books that are not class-related counts for anything at all here. I desperately want to start my independent reading assignments, but I need a chance to get out to the bookstore (bookstar is reletively close and well-stocked) and ask about it and everything. My guess is I will have time to do so by wednesday, so I will plan to get a ride from my father or whoever is driving me to piano lessons.

As for the flash, I will attempt to finish fixing it up tomorrow (shortening the travel portion and removing the bubble effect.) The revamped script is due soon as well, and so I will be helping with that, I hope.

At any rate, this is the best I can do for a blog post this weekend.

It's not lupus.

So I'm working on the storyboard. Well, the half that is not already completed.

Come to think of it...

Since I'm only doing half of it in the first place, that makes it a quarter. Hooray, I know fractions.

I'm also worried about what I should be doing for the independent reading assignment. I'm not exactly sure what qualifies a book for this assignment, but aside from "A Clockwork Orange," I've either read or am not interested in reading the suggested books. That leaves me three books to scout out, since I doubt I'll get points for reading Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. Why is that!?

F R E E Z E, please.

Alright, so tonight I scribbled out 3 storyboard panels. Exciting, no?

Anyway, tomorrow there's a Socratic Seminar. I'm not a fan of those. Well, not when I'm in them, at least. However, since it's a subject I feel strongly about (unlike outsourcing) I hope I can get some words out at least. After all, one should appreciate things like not being followed in convenience stores. I really feel like a lot of people probably didn't notice all their automatic privileges before we read this list, and I'm sure that a lot of people are going to say that they don't have some of these privileges; but we really do and it's not really okay with me.

I shouldn't type when I'm woozy and in an aimless rambling sort of mood, should I?

That wasn't terribly difficult.

I thought that I would have to spend hours searching the internet to find an swf-to-avi converter (I believe there is a program called "All To AVI"...), but as it turns out, flash gives you the option to export the animation as an avi in the first place. Huzzah.

So, I have it in both formats (swf and avi) for tomorrow, in case one of them is incorrect.

The only problem is that it is taking an eternity to upload this video, and I am positive it is in a compatible format this time around.

Oh, it's uploaded now.

I'm embedding it in this blog post and also posting the link.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6ZZUU9JTj0

10:10 asteroids!

Well, I finally finished the flash, after re-doing the maps several times. Here's hoping it looks alright.

Oh, I also went ahead and made the group a youtube account so that it's already been done when we need it later.

The username is 'borderwitchproject.'

Here's a link to the profile page:

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=borderwitchproject

I'm in the process of converting the flash (an swf file) into an avi file so that it can be posted to youtube.

DadadaDAdaDAAAA~ Bohr.

Finally home and able to blog.

Right, so Saturday (the 22nd) Laura and I interviewed Neil B. Turner, founder of "San Diego Christians for Secure Borders", an affiliate of the San Diego Minutemen. It was sort of a package deal, because he came with a woman named Sue who does not really have any affiliations, but clearly feels very strongly about the issue of illegal immigration and allowed us to film her voicing her opinions as well.

We woke up (very early, in my opinion) and went out to "Bobby's Hideaway Cafe" in Carlsbad, which is conveniently placed next to, as Neil referred to it, "a cesspool of migrant workers." Laura interviewed Neil and Sue while I filmed, and despite the answers being far from what we expected in some cases, we have a lot of good material. I am actually kind of upset that we have to cut so much of it out; it's like we could make a full length documentary rather than a six minute one.

ANYWAY, we had to omit a good deal of our questions as Neil and his group never patrol the borders themselves; we did get to see all of the signs they put up around areas, like the cafe we met up at, where illegal workers congregate. Neil and Sue's attitudes towards our questions were actually very surprising, and it was interesting to hear the views of people who care about the border situation for legitimate reasons and know how to express their reasons verbally. I also really appreciated that they didn't plan to push their views on us and actually they told us that they were grateful that we were even listening. It was a huge relief really, because going into the interview I was actually pretty terrified. It's hard to hear the word 'Minuteman' without feeling something negative, and it didn't help that the fellow who directed us to Neil (Jeff Schwilk) was in the Union Tribune the very same day for posting fliers on people's doors, calling them "Mexico Lovers" as a derogatory term.

Oh, also we ended up obtaining quite a bit of the fliers and informational packets handed out by the group, so if I can get them from Laura I'll be scanning them this week.

I'm sort of going on and on so I'll stop and work on the flash, which is very nearly done. I'll have to make a second flash as soon as I get a photo of Austin, so I'm hoping that isn't also due on Wednesday.

Why yes, I knew I had a blog.

And thus today I discovered that blogging is important. So much so that my computer monitor is now covered in sticky note reminders. It's obnoxious! 8D

This face is especially fun: >8{}

That all aside, tonight I continue to work on our flash intro. It will, without a doubt be done this week, and I apologize for taking so long. D: (I really need to stop it with the text faces, but I doubt I'll be able to wean myself off of them.)

I am a slow animator, probably because I detest motion tweens. I mean, not that they aren't convenient, because they certainly are, and not that they don't make the animation look smooth, because they most definitely do, but they're a bit, well... "Look, this object slid to the right at a steady pace. You may applaud now."

Actually, now that I think about it, the time I'm taking here probably doesn't have as much to do with my preference of frame-by-frame animation as it does with the nature of the animation. There aren't really any objects sliding at a steady pace, just a lot of appearing and fading, things which I've no clue how to do without using frame-by-frame techniques. So sorry.

Oh, and we get to interview our Minuteman, Neil B. (Skinhead) Turner on Saturday. I'm already frightened without having met the fellow.

He's affiliated with this website (http://unitedstates.fm/sdmm.htm), upon which Mexicans are at times referred to as Enriques. This is going to be the adventure of a tooth-time or not. D:

Oh, so in addition to all of this project stuff, we read a story tonight for homework, which, in my opinion, is the best type of homework, and I learned a new word, which is always neat. I had a bit of fun with it before I bothered digging the dictionary out though. It would be fun if vernal meant "of or pertaining to gentlemen named Vern." Not that it's real meaning isn't interesting.

Rambling, should be animating. Or leveling my healer up so that she can use the spell "Ray" and thus combine with my mage to use the Unison Attack "Prism Stars." Probably animating. Just a guess.

FLASH. Gordon.

The Megasized Project

I started a flash intro tonight. It was pretty flashtastic. It consists of a map of North America, and an epic journey. Soon to involve bagged milk.

The Not-Quite-So-Megasized Project. INCA ETC.

Posting sources as requested.

Scratch that, I've only got one recorded at home at the moment.

http://library.thinkquest.org/5058/incaart.htm

Bit of a cheap looking website, I'm well aware. Google isn't responding to my love. :< I have more credible looking sources tucked away in my school documents, and I'll be sure to post them tomorrow.

Oh, also! I'm going to make a tunic and a shawl this weekend. Hooray. If anyone still has a manikin (perhaps the one from Bussone's in 6th grade? What became of that poor, dismembered plasterchunk anyway? I've forgotten who donated it in the first place, so it may as well have been one of you, dear group members.) do let me know.