...and boy...did that return flight suck!!

Here's the rundown of what causes me to say so:

1.: Larnaca airport is building a new terminal. By November the 10th (last Tuesday) all flights by Cyprus Air are leaving there, by November 17th (next week) all others will. So right now there's the "old" one (where I had to go to) and the "new" one (where 90% of all the businesses on the airport went). I thought I can sit down for a nice comfy cup of coffee at the airport's restaurant, but it was literally boarded up.

2.: Metal detector buzzed again (damn shoes!)

3.: My seat was at the very back of the plane, where the seats are so close together that I didn't even fit in between them... had to stick my knees between the seats in front and pray that the guy in front didn't put his seat back :(

4.: Why does the air conditoning on a plane always feel like the pilot has the window down? I mean cool air is all fine but hey: this isn't a giant freezer! Now my almost healed sniffles is back with a vengence!

5.: To top it off, the guy behind me took out his laptop bag from the overhead compartment and dropped it square on my head. Ouch. Well, he did at least say sorry... :(

6.: Missed the train (connecting the airport to Vienna on a 30-minute interval) by about 5 seconds. So I had to wait half an hour to go to Vienna, which takes 16 minutes, head for my parke car which took about 7 minutes and head home for 55 minutes...

Needless to say, I'm totally done for the day.

I'm currently on Cyprus in my hotel. It's nice, even though it's not summer anymore. But one thing drives me mad: the internet is only available in the lobby here. ARGH! Won't be able to join FPS live - at least not for the entire show.

I'll have a look at the replay on Friday, when I'm home again. At least I can launch the download from here, so the show will await me at home.

I'll also update the wiki later during the week in case nobody else does. Pretty annoying. Last course was set from Tuesday to Thursday so I could travel Monday and was at home during FPS but this time it's from Monday to Wednesday... Bummer. This is going to be the first show I'll miss live in a looong time. Just check the roll calls :)

A bit more research showed this:

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/youtube/thread?tid=3fddcf6fe7dcc9e0&hl=en

But that kind of sh** makes me question YouTube's system (note: I make my living in writing computer programs and teaching others to do so)

1a.: how cluttered and bloated must that code be to even allow for such a mix up?

1b.: Where's the guy who wrote it hiding in shame now?

2.: how bad are the update policies at YouTube for a fix to take days to be applied?

3.: Why is it possible at all to have a "0.5" rating? It clearly isn't intended to be ever possible so I wuldn't even bother implemeting it at all (i.e. only have images/css content for 1-5 defined)

*grrr*

I know that some people out there don't like pawpet stuff and some others dispise furry stuff... and many of them are trolling around too. It's why I set comments to be screened (not that I ever hid one :)

Imagine my shock as the "my videos" page of YouTube showed all my videos rated at a half star... The video page however displayed the four or five stars the videos currently should hold. After the initial shock I realized that since it's not possible to rate the videos at zero stars there should not be only half a star average ever. Sometimes the video pages and my video page don't quite sync up so I'm almost but not quite calm again. Somebody might mass-rate videos at zero through an application anyway...

Here it is: How To: Trick or Treat

But where to begin...? It's boring to start at the beginning, so let's go back even further :)

( Making of... )

( And some belated feedback to the IRC )

...and tomorrow:



I hope that I get it done by tomorrow's FPS... keeping claws crossed here - that is whenever they aren't used to puppet :)

Ahh... they call that "winter" already - with close to 30°C weather during the day. I bet it'll get cooler eventually but until then, I'm happy with the warm weather here on Cyprus.

All those air-conditioning is giving me a headache though and having slept only 2 hours before departure doesn't help either.

OK, I'm officially "very annoyed" now...

I have done several videos in HDV format now but it's the first time I'm trying to encode the result in MP4 as HDV (i.e. H.264 HDV HQ preset in Adobe Premiere CS4) and it has the format set to the right parameters: 25fps (PAL) 1440*1080i with aspect ratio of 1.333 (i.e. anamorph).

The file opens fine in QuickTime - the so called (as in "self proclaimed") "standard" for MP4 files. But WTF? QuickTime player opens the file and as always the colors appear way too bright - I'm used to that by now. But it completely ignores the aspect ratio, resulting in a nice 4:3 video that is totally distorted. AND the interlaced lines are clearly visble. AND it stutters and jumps around playing at most 10 frames per second...

Now I recently read that Windows Media Player 12 (comes with Windows 7) can play MP4, so I give it a try... And behold! All the glory that is my video! Crisp colors, no visible interlacing, smooth playback (maybe it is 25fps maybe not but there aren't any jumps at least)

To me this is another fine example of incompetence - I don't want to turn this into a flame war about operating systems or video standards but I can already see some very pissed iFans are going to bash M$ again for doing a better job... and THAT is what's bugging me.

In case you think I'm too picky, here's the two screenshots (SAME VIDEO FILE, NO TWEAKED SETTINGS ON EITHER PLAYER!)

...now and then. This time, I did a little birthday picture for bigbluefox but it had to wait for my second blue marker...

It's BBC for BBF - a BigBurningCake for BigBlueFox ;)

I was looking for an English article during my research of the "gun accident" in the Austrian military and couldn't find any by yesterday. Today the article here is the only English version I could find. Although they call it a "missile" - I'm not that familiar with military chargon but to me a missile is a "guided projectile" that either is remote controlled or self steering... Austrian armed forces to my knowledge only have one device that warrants the term "missile" and it is for ground/air purposes. What hit the town was a shell fired from an M-109 howitzer however... an artillary gun... clearly such a projectile can not be controlled after it leaves the muzzle of the gun.

On a side-note: I'm not the only one to wonder about our military here... a reader's letter in an Austrian newspaper said something along the lines of "It must be clear to potential enemies how to overcome the Austrian military: let it train long enough" ;)

This Pawpet Newsflash is based on true facts - i.e. the report is true, the "speculation" about what transpired is made up by me...

The past day (as in "24 hours") were rather interesting for me with regards to my attempts at drawing some stuff... Here's the run-down:

1.: I chatted with yamavu yesterday until about midnight. After he left, I decided to do a sketch, just to practice a bit. But I never draw "just because", so I wondered what I should practice and what picture I'd do to incorporate that. Came up with "cloth" and "nose". I pictured a "free floating" nose and kept wondering how to incorporate cloth. Then it hit me: a hoody! But that wouldn't be funny in itself so I turned it into a wandering monk: figure almost entirely hidden behind the robe/hood and a rat to give me an interesting exercise.

2.: Sat down and started do doodle... surprisingly, the nose/hood was finished without any efford at all... So I couldn't just stop there! I addedthe body and a little bundle bound to the tail. Still it felt rather easy. But it was late and so the pencil sketch landed on FA here... - I still feel rather happy about that sketch because it turned out almost exactly as I pictured it before I started to draw! A personal success that somebody who hasn't tried to draw can hardly understand :)

3.: Next - after work - I decided to ink/color the sketch and it turned out rather well too, so I put it up on FA as well...

4.: Chatted with Yamavu again and pointed the sketch/colored version out to him. And he surprised me by sending me his interpretation of my little rat monk... or monk rat character.

5.: there was some flattering feedback in IRC too - but since those were queries, I won't post the names/words here! Thanks, in case you read this!

I can not find words for how I feel right now... I know that my drawn "art" still sucks when compared to any established artist out there, so I'm not bragging here. But I now get the feeling that I'm actually improving and that it might be worth to keep practicing.

Ugh... I know, practice makes perfect. But I don't know how people can draw (sometimes) dozens of sketches a day - I'm still happy I kept my "one sketch a day" goal up for the last four days ;)

Anyhow, I re-inked my "Rummage Skates" submission of last weeks FPS and colored it too. I'm rather satisfied with the result, what do you people out there think?

In related news, I managed to get in on the "5$ a sketch" commission of Kipper and got a really cute version of myself: That is one giant stylus!!!

With a HUGE thanks to kuddlepup for playing along with this... Hope you're all safe and sound at home again?! *hugs*

Sadly, the only non-white wall we could find in the public areas (and without too many people passing by) was semi-blu-ish-something... I wanted to key out the background behind Ezra but it didn't work at all. His ears and nose kept being keyed out as well. And a manual mask was just way too much work for this skit. I hope this "spotlight" look works too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WoZMV8W-Kc

...and posting two images from downtown Suhl.

First, this fountain made for a nice picture... would look even better without the constuction going on in the background. But other perspectives didn't have that nice light or had even more construction.

And this one struck me as funny... It's a direction sign... you know, one of those that usually point you towards a city or point of interest. But this one's about as useless as no sign at all. For the non-German speaking public: "Alle Richtungen" means "All Directions"...

OK, finally got some sleep and relaxation ;) Now to start sorting through the pictures and video material of the con...

Some more pictures, now that I sorted them a bit:

• Hey, look! It's Günther!


• Where'd the tech stuff go???


• Stripe Kazama and Uncle Kage


• Myrrh - in living color


• Improvised puppet show...


• ...and how it looked like.


• And one final picture

And I even have proof that Nightfox indeed DOES have regular clothes AND can look not-so smart... but he asked me not to post it, so it's for the vault ;P

Ah - finally able to sleep in a bit. No program scheduled for today, so It will not matter when I get to the Ringberg hotel...

Arrived at about 2pm and hung out a bit. Took lots of pictures again, talked with friends.
Exchanged a few words with 2 - English fail... not nervous, just fail at the worst moment possible ;)

Recorded another short bit with Ezra - I hope to have this one ready by the next FPS episode.

Also exchanged a few words with some of the EF pawpet players.

The player of "Poke" (using a puppy rod puppet) and a visitor (using a muppets like monster rod puppet) held an impromptu puppet session right in front of the reception desk. One of the BBF-Cams actually cought it - I would love to see that again! The BBF-Cam-Operator had a hard time keeping the camera steady for both the jokes that were told and the duration - he didn't have a tripod (hehe :) I only captured still images as I didn't have any tape for the camcorder left...

Ran out of batteries for the camera and out of tape for the camcorder so no AV from the last hour I spent there :(

As I was leaving, I was actually carrying John D. Mouser (i.e. my mouse pawpet) and it got nommed on by Snirf in front of the Ringberg. If somebody has pictures or video, I want it! ;P

WOW! Where to begin...

...in the morning might be a good idea I think... but can I even think anymore? I don't know if LiveJournal has a mood for my current level of tiredness... Please excuse any typos here: Lack of sleep + lack of dictionary could make for some unintentionally funny stuff :)

Today's first event was the fursuit parade... Well... Since this is my second visit to EF and thus my second con ever I could have seen one fursuit-parade - had it not been for my bad health last year. So this was actually a first for me. I've seen it on numerous videos of BBF and others on FursuitTV and the number of suiters came to no surprise. What came as a surprise though was the number of fotographers and videographers who (like me) tried to capture the parade... Let's say a two to one ratio between cameras and fursuits is a safe bet. I took pictures to prove it: The parade and the reverse view...
Anyhow, on the backside of the hotel the parade stopped for a better chance to take a picture.

Later on I went to a panel about music composition... yes, I went there. Didn't do anything good however. It was more of a discussion group among fellow composers and since I have no idea about music I just listened in... the description in the con book said: "for professionals AND newbies..." didn't think I'd be the only newbie there. But I did get some pointers about creative processes that I can apply to writing as well. So no total waste of time.

While waiting for the pawpet show to start (scheduled for 7pm) I took some pictures again, including one of Uncle Kage.

At about 5pm I noticed that the sign for the main stage event said "Pawpet Show, 8pm due to health issues")... Since Cheetah mentioned it after the pawpet show, I think it's OK to post what is known: Tani DaReal (who plays "Mika" the snow leopard) has come down with something that required her to go to the hospital. She was looking and acting fine though, so it doesn't seem to be anything too serious. Get well soon, Tani!

So, the official time had been moved to 8pm and yet at 6:30pm I noticed a line starting to form at the doors to the main stage... went to the car to get my tripod and set up camp... felt a bit reminded of Star Wars there. At only a few minutes past 8 the doors actually opened and the room filled to the brim within minutes. I got a nice spot to set up my tripod and camcorder, the only sad thing was that I had to film at an angle (the center locations were either taken up by seats or there was an official camera there)

The pawpet show was amazing! Not as much of a tear jerker as last years but still: it had a nice story (including several deaths!) and neat special effects. Combined with backdrops by Tani DaReal and EosFox it was eyecandy! Here are a few pictures:

• The main characters have fun in the snow... (almost all of them)


• Mika gets taken prisoner... the plot thickens!

After the pawpet show finieshed, Cheetah held a speech about how thankful he was to the Ringberg hotel staff and... well... we experienced a BBF - a BigBlueFail in this case. The video BBF prepared for the Ringberg staff had some trouble and Cheetah had to stall for time.
I didn't get much of the final speech because I had to clean up my bags and pants because somebody wasn't thinking and put down a glass on one of the benches - the kind that tips over when a butterfly that ran out of polen makes an emergency landing on it. Argh!

So... including the stage events I have about 10 hours of video, and over 500 pictures to go through. This might take some time. But I will provide some material to FPS and some to Timduru. Nothing for YouTube in this case though.

Oh... tired again... Got up early (as in: 9am) and headed for the main hotel. I volunteered for the crew of the fursuit games and thus had to be there plenty ahead of time. As usual with EF, our event ran a bit late as well... but not nearly as late as some others :)
I was running around backstage making some last minute props and rushed on stage several times to bring/take some of the props... it was pretty funny to see the event from behind the stage, mostly on the backscreen projection for the audience... i.e. we saw it mirrored... weired!

Next I just relaxed as my feet were killing me, took some snapshots of passing by fursuits.

As I was making my way around the lobby I noticed Yamavu walking by with the GOH and tagged along for some pretty nice pictures (See example here...)

Up next on my personal agenda for today was Uncle Kage vs. 2. While it might not be a particular highlight for the US congoer, it is for me, as I can only make EF and so can only see their program once a year... and they had pretty much new stuff. I've only heard about half an hour before. Out of about three hours worth of material that I taped (I DID bring my tripod this time!)

Now it's almost 3am in the morning, I'm tired as hell and the fursuit parade starts at 11am - argh! I've discovered the reason for bad hygene at furcons! THERE IS NO TIME TO SHOWER! - just kidding, I never go a day without - but I'm sure there are people who do! And I've met them...

Now, I'm just going to fall into my bed and sleeeechrrrrrrr-zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz :)

*alarm rings* *tired* *pondering slamming the alarm clock like in the cartoons... no wait! That's my cell phone and it was expensive*

Wow. I totally will need the Monday after the con to catch up on sleep...

What happened today: First I held my panel "Video Editing" or, as I called it "Video Production 101". I expected a handful of people to show up and was pleasently surprised to see about 25 to 30 people listening to me... and nobody left either! WOW! I have seen panels where people walked out. I think it went OK by that standard.

Next up was a "Behind the Scenes" panel for the EF pawpet show, hosted and attended by some of the players. Yay!!! Finally made contact... not much but hey: they are quite busy too.

Until the evening events nothing really thrilling was going on... The "Magic Carpet Ride" was fun for those participating but it got boring to watch rather quick (J4I: they had a rig similar to a mechanical bull but instead of the bull, there was a platform with a carpet on it. Think "Aladin")

I had nice time walking around but didn't take quite as many pictures as yesterday as there were not so many suiters out and about.

The evening lineup had two events: "Stage Fever" (the fursuit variety show) and the fursuit dance with Croc and somebody who's name I forgot... sorry!

And it is now also an official furcon... 2 the ranting gryphon arrived yesterday and today saw the arrival of Uncle Kage!