Anotherblog

Hosted dinner, sick

We had the hosted dinner last night, and it was good:

However, at lunchtime today, a cold swiftly announced itself.  I’ve been feeling a tiny bit off for almost a week, but the onset was rather sudden.  One sneeze, and suddenly my throat was sore and my nose was announcing increased activity, and a dull throbbing headache was pulsing directly behind my sinuses.

Poopy.

On Prague-matic

The jet-lag continues to lag, and I am having trouble keeping awake enough to do all the work I ought to be doing. Tonight, I avoided the temptations of last night’s carousal:

not to mention the pretty touristy sights:

but was unfortunately unable to avoid the temptations of San Juan:

…for which I got my highest ever score.  I realise the score is a long way from the theoretical highest score, but I’m still pretty happy with it.  Getting an early prefecture seems vital to doing well, which makes me think that it is a little overpowered, and might be better priced at 4.

Back to work.  Properly, this time.  And then I can sleep at last.

Meeting room

Here’s our meeting room in Prague:

We run meetings with simultaneous IRC sessions for minute-taking, and so that we can instantly link to text, etc. It’s pretty cool, and very efficient. However, we’re completely lost when the internet connection is inadequate for fifteen people simultaneously using IRC and constantly accessing things on the web. Which is surprisingly often.

Also, here is Doug. He is taunting me with cheap bananas.

In Prague

I’ve heard great things about Prague, but haven’t seen much: Sun’s office is in the suburbs, and so is the hotel.  So far, I’ve just seen a big long tree-lined street, and the distant city in the valley below (we’re on a hill).  And the office.  A typical work trip, then.

RSS now working

So, one upgrade to Wordpress 2.04 later, RSS is working.  Hooray for Wordpress.

In Prague

The hotel room here in Prague has no mini bar, a TV that has a screen smaller than my laptop PC and which is not really visible when lying in bed, no shampoo, and a lumpy bed in a small room.  It does, however, have wireless internet access, and therefore counts as entirely civilised, as far as I’m concerned.

My eyes currently look like this:

…so I’m going to bed.

Heading off soon

Soon off to Prague, Greece, and Heidelberg. No archery for a month. Sebastian will be staying on for a while - I definitely trust him - and will hopefully still be around when I get back, ’cause he’s excellent company. But I doubt it. We’re doing a farewell party/short-film showing on Friday night, inviting a whole lot of people over for BBQ and beer and comedy. Should be good, though it does mean I’ll have to finish editing tonight or tomorrow. No time, Tolouse!
Also, work is hard going at the moment. Still stressing out muchly over the talk; started working late; got lots to do and no time to do it. Time to sleep.

Japanese Test

Um, yeah, I passed. 98/120. But it was still lousy: the test was easy, and I just hadn’t practiced some bits at all, and I realised as I was doing it that this is not how tests usually go: I can usually have *some* sort of a shot at all the answers, but with this one, there were a whole lot that I just had to leave blank. I got 60/65 for the spoken bit (which I thought we did rather well, and was reasonably happy with the result) and 38/55 for the written, perilously low (and making me suddenly realise that yes, I do get hyper-competitive with tests, which is probably why I still have nightmares about my Uni ones).
Also, our CEO didn’t show up to congratulate us, which filled me with relief.
We went out to a Japanese restaurant in St Leonards for dinner afterwards, and it was a very pleasant evening. The sushimi was excellent. And that was that: the end of the Japanese Beginner’s course, and I’m not going to do any more because it’s just too much stress. I shall continue to learn from CDs in the car instead, which is much more my current pace.

Featured in another Irregular Webcomic

I’m featured in another Irregular Webcomic. Turned out rather well, I think! Note the wacky hair streaking, sign of pending mid-life crisis etc.

The still-not-quite-named short film

This film exercise has been rather unusual, and very heartening.  It was an unambitious thing, done comfortably within the 24 hour requirements (ie. although I was editing up until the last minute, I didn’t lose much sleep, and I still did my midnight teleconference).  We created it in a semi-structured way, and at each stage we were confident that what we were doing was usable.  And what we showed on Wednesday, although lacking some grace notes (such as sound), was precisely the film I had promised over lunch on Tuesday.  It still feels a little unreal to have a project come in on time.

Naturally, we’ve been talking about what to do next.  Sebastian and I went through it last night, did some trimming and expanding, and came up with a list of shots that we could usefully add.  At lunch, and via email, I discussed it with the lunchtime crowd and I started to really get a feel for what the film is about; what is essential to its style; and what changes would help it, and what changes would harm it.  This film, more than any other I’ve been involved with, uses its time.  Each second of the film has a purpose and a focus (it’s somewhat easier for a four and a half minute film, it has to be said.)

I’m being mysterious, I know.  I don’t want to say too much about it until we have the next version, so given my usual prevarications, you may never see it.  But I’m confident it will emerge.  Firstly, Sebastian is keen to push it along.  Secondly, we’re following some computer programming methodologies (loosely) which mean - I hope - that we never leave the film, overnight, in a semi-finished state ie. at the end of each day the current version of the film is releasable.  That’s where we are at the moment; and that’s where I want to be from now on.

When it’s finished, I’ll probably submit it to tropfest.  It’s not up to the polished top-16 standard, and probably won’t be even by then, but it’s a convenient final deadline.  Then I might do a FF of it.  I’ve always wanted to do that to one of my own films, and this could be a good excuse to explore the roads-not-taken for the film, and explain why we did what we did.