Status report
Mar. 15th, 2006 12:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robotech_masterSome say that "hell is other people"
But I know this for a fact
Hell is just your very own
Malfunctioning gastrointestinal tract
(See, I told you it was crappy.)
Well, this weekend I had my friend Travis Butler, otherwise known as![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tbutler, over for a visit. We got some good anime watched, as well as a couple episodes of The Prisoner and Fantasia 2000. In particular, we watched the first 5 episodes of Midori Days, a rather-weird anime that is a whole lot better than the premise would lead you to believe, Lupin III: Stolen Lupin, and Combustible Campus Guardress, an oldie but a goodie.
Here's a picture of Travis with my cat, who likes him better than she does me.
Travis headed out Sunday afternoon. Sunday evening, there was such a big storm that I ended up unplugging my computers and TV set and so forth, out of fear that they might get lightning-blasted. How big a storm? Well, we had the proverbial golfball-sized hail in my area. I nipped out and grabbed a couple of pieces of it, and stuck them in a plastic bag in my freezer for later perusal.
Monday, it was back to work. Don't have much in particular to say about the day; it was okay. When I got home, I found a weekend download project had completed and I was able, for the first time ever, to watch the movie, Mike Jittlov's The Wizard of Speed and Time. I'll probably have more to say about this movie in an entry in my essay journal one of these days, but suffice it to say that I found the movie to be one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. It may not be for everyone—you need to have a tolerance for silliness and a willingness to turn your brain off and just accept the magic—but if your inner child is still alive, this is a film that you both can enjoy.
Shortly after screening it, I also found a high-quality transfer of the original 3-minute short film, also entitled The Wizard of Speed and Time, that the feature film was inspired by the making of. It's a clever little piece of work, and it's fun to compare it with the remakes from the movie.
One neat thing about these films is, they're available online by the at-least tacit permission of Mike Jittlov, the creator. The film itself was the subject of a kafkaesque distribution nightmare for Jittlov, as the film's producer reportedly absconded with a not-quite-finished work print and the rest of the money that was meant to go for finishing it. Jittlov eventually got the rights back, but lacks the funds to complete the FX to his satisfaction or do a special-edition DVD release. However, in the interest of having his film be seen by people, he's granted permission for it to be distributed via the Internet, as long as it's not for profit. (If my memory serves, back in the early '90s Jittlov would dupe the laserdisc to videotape himself on request, after the fashion of anime fansub distributors.)
Thanks to the magic of the Internet, the movies can finally be obtained in decent quality for the first time.
The 3-minute short can be downloaded from either of the following URLs:
http://miskatonic.cs.nmsu.edu/~pfeiffer/WoSaT_Short.avi
ftp://ia300220.us.archive.org/1/items/WoSaT/
This is a color-corrected transfer to DV from a copy of the original film stock from Neil Nadelman's private collection. It's about 700 megabytes in size, and very high quality.
The full-length film can be downloaded via BitTorrent from this location. This is a 4.2-gigabyte video DVD file compiled from the laserdisc; it can be burned to a single-layer DVD and will then play on any DVD player that can handle burned discs.
There's also a 2-disc version, 3 gigabytes per disc, that may have even better video quality; here are links to the listings for side A and side B. However, I'm not sure how well-seeded those are, and the single-disc's quality is good enough for me at this point anyway.
And then, early Tuesday morning, I woke up with chills and the symptoms that inspired the doggerel at the beginning of this entry. Called in to work, slept 'til noon, noodled around on the computer, then slept from about 7 p.m. to 11 p.m., and here I am. I still feel a bit woozy, but I'll hopefully be feeling better by tomorrow. By an odd coincidence, my 6 month doctor's checkup is scheduled for 9:15 a.m. tomorrow, so at least I'll be able to see him about it.
I guess I'm gonna go eat something and try to sleep again.
But I know this for a fact
Hell is just your very own
Malfunctioning gastrointestinal tract
(See, I told you it was crappy.)
Well, this weekend I had my friend Travis Butler, otherwise known as
tbutler, over for a visit. We got some good anime watched, as well as a couple episodes of The Prisoner and Fantasia 2000. In particular, we watched the first 5 episodes of Midori Days, a rather-weird anime that is a whole lot better than the premise would lead you to believe, Lupin III: Stolen Lupin, and Combustible Campus Guardress, an oldie but a goodie.Here's a picture of Travis with my cat, who likes him better than she does me.
Travis headed out Sunday afternoon. Sunday evening, there was such a big storm that I ended up unplugging my computers and TV set and so forth, out of fear that they might get lightning-blasted. How big a storm? Well, we had the proverbial golfball-sized hail in my area. I nipped out and grabbed a couple of pieces of it, and stuck them in a plastic bag in my freezer for later perusal.
Monday, it was back to work. Don't have much in particular to say about the day; it was okay. When I got home, I found a weekend download project had completed and I was able, for the first time ever, to watch the movie, Mike Jittlov's The Wizard of Speed and Time. I'll probably have more to say about this movie in an entry in my essay journal one of these days, but suffice it to say that I found the movie to be one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. It may not be for everyone—you need to have a tolerance for silliness and a willingness to turn your brain off and just accept the magic—but if your inner child is still alive, this is a film that you both can enjoy.
Shortly after screening it, I also found a high-quality transfer of the original 3-minute short film, also entitled The Wizard of Speed and Time, that the feature film was inspired by the making of. It's a clever little piece of work, and it's fun to compare it with the remakes from the movie.
One neat thing about these films is, they're available online by the at-least tacit permission of Mike Jittlov, the creator. The film itself was the subject of a kafkaesque distribution nightmare for Jittlov, as the film's producer reportedly absconded with a not-quite-finished work print and the rest of the money that was meant to go for finishing it. Jittlov eventually got the rights back, but lacks the funds to complete the FX to his satisfaction or do a special-edition DVD release. However, in the interest of having his film be seen by people, he's granted permission for it to be distributed via the Internet, as long as it's not for profit. (If my memory serves, back in the early '90s Jittlov would dupe the laserdisc to videotape himself on request, after the fashion of anime fansub distributors.)
Thanks to the magic of the Internet, the movies can finally be obtained in decent quality for the first time.
The 3-minute short can be downloaded from either of the following URLs:
http://miskatonic.cs.nmsu.edu/~pfeiffer/WoSaT_Short.avi
ftp://ia300220.us.archive.org/1/items/WoSaT/
This is a color-corrected transfer to DV from a copy of the original film stock from Neil Nadelman's private collection. It's about 700 megabytes in size, and very high quality.
The full-length film can be downloaded via BitTorrent from this location. This is a 4.2-gigabyte video DVD file compiled from the laserdisc; it can be burned to a single-layer DVD and will then play on any DVD player that can handle burned discs.
There's also a 2-disc version, 3 gigabytes per disc, that may have even better video quality; here are links to the listings for side A and side B. However, I'm not sure how well-seeded those are, and the single-disc's quality is good enough for me at this point anyway.
And then, early Tuesday morning, I woke up with chills and the symptoms that inspired the doggerel at the beginning of this entry. Called in to work, slept 'til noon, noodled around on the computer, then slept from about 7 p.m. to 11 p.m., and here I am. I still feel a bit woozy, but I'll hopefully be feeling better by tomorrow. By an odd coincidence, my 6 month doctor's checkup is scheduled for 9:15 a.m. tomorrow, so at least I'll be able to see him about it.
I guess I'm gonna go eat something and try to sleep again.
