Thread Hijacking

[cranefly]

Okay, enough of this shit.  For the good of all, I've decided to give the months a bit of a shuffle.

Henceforth November follows August.

Because this "This-ness" is getting downright tiresome.  You know what I'm talking about.  Don't make me have to misspell it out for you.

September and October can mosey their ways in afterward.  It won't kill them to wait a month.

I do this for the sanity of all.

So don't forget to set your clocks back.   Uh, no, that won't do it.  Your calendars.  You'll have to re-collate your calendars accordingly.

Enjoy!


P.S.  The one downside is that this doesn't give us a whole lot of time to decide who to vote for.

[Greg]

I think I know.

[cranefly]

In late 1987 I took a leave of absence from my job in Sunnyvale and moved up to Eugene, Oregon.  My intent was to write.  That, by the way, is where I met LCF.  But before that fateful meeting, I was just trying to establish the proper mindset, set my priorities, and try not to waste my time up there.  The above magazine arrived in the mail.  I don't remember why; maybe I was thinking of buying a database program, though it was the early years for them.  Anyway, I was struck by the lameness of the cartoon cover and felt that the word balloons required improving.

So I spent a good chunk of time trying to improve the cover.  It seemed very important at the time.  What more can I say?

Thus:


Well, it was better than the original.  Still, not by much.

I continued to toil away and arrived at...



And onward and upward, or downward, as the case may be...

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

That is a *quality* hijack.

[cranefly]

This morning I found myself perusing websites discussing how social security is handled for expatriates.

No idea what burr got under my saddle for that one....

[cranefly]

Today's moment of zen...

[Drunk Monk]

[cranefly]

In DM's Weapon of the Week thread (http://brotherhoodofdoom.com/doomForum/s...p?tid=6207), there's an artwork on the links to those three swords: the rubbing of an ancient Chinese horse.  It struck a familiar chord with me.  I'll link to it here.

It sparked a memory of when DM and I were working at Wing Lam Kung Fu School producing all those instructional videos.  The modus operandi (ass backwards but in the long run effective) was for me to shoot the footage of Sifu doing whatever, DM would then write the script (essentially voiceover), after which I would edit the footage in a way to accommodate the script, and finally someone would do the voiceover (too often me).  [I might have that order slightly wrong.  DM can correct me.]  The very earliest videos were something of a trainwreck, but before long we got it all down to a working system, and in the late stages we could actually complete a video in a day.

My memory is of the Iron Palm Training video, one of the later efforts, but definitely not one done in a day.  We had finished all the filming, and DM had written the script, and I had edited all the footage to accommodate it.  But here's the thing.  Prominent in the early portion of the tape is the tale of Ku Yu-Cheung fighting a Russian circus horse.  The video just showed Sifu pounding away on a bag or some other footage with subdued sound, and I think at this stage the video had been voiced (by Lance, who has a great voice).  But the tale of that fight was just too good and needed something more visual.  The video needed a horse.  The more I finessed the video, the more apparent it became that it needed a horse.

Of course, suggesting we get footage of a horse just wouldn't fly with Sifu.  He was efficient, matter-of-fact, just get the product out.  And he was almost always right in that regard.

So the workday ends, and I go home, and I eat dinner, and I'm thinking, that video needs a horse.  So I dig through various Chinese artbooks we have, and eventually I find a rubbing of a horse -- and very possibly the one shown above.  But I don't want to use it directly.  I'll paint a version of it.  Normally I work in oils, but for this to dry in time I'll use acrylics -- and I'll go monochrome, to keep it simple, and to look like a rubbing of something ancient.

I believe I decide to reverse the direction of the horse, and change the back legs to make it more dynamic and kicking.  And I change the head a bit to make it more demonic.  And I paint it very quickly.  Here it is:



The next day I bring it into work in my satchel, and I go about my work as usual.  But I'm waiting.  I'm waiting for my chance.  And sure enough, about noon, Sifu and Simo head out to lunch.

So there's a lounge area in the back of the office.  I don't recall if I was working in there at that time, but that's where my mischief was done.  I grabbed the camera and went back there, and I took something down from the wall and hung up my horse, and I filmed various zooms in and out on it and pans side to side, and I had what I needed.  I put everything back the way it was, and later I edited the horse into the introductory portion of the video.

I got carried away with that Iron Palm Training video.  I borrowed some sound-distortion equipment from a friend and filtered Sifu's pounding of the bag through it -- only for the opening, mind you.  But I thought it was pretty cool -- all these ominous reverberations as Sifu is pounding the bag.  Anyway, I did all of this out of Sifu's sight.

Of course, eventually he had to find out.  Later while I was playing the video back, maybe making copies or for some other reason, Sifu walks by and he hesitates and then stops.  He watches for moment.  And that's when we have one of our little conversations.

Sifu: There's a horse.

Me: Yeah.

I have no idea what Sifu ultimately thought of that horse, but it's there, and it is what it is.

[Drunk Monk]

I remember that horse and that episode! It was those little tweaks that made took those videos to the next level. Sifu didn’t appreciate them at the time, but I think he did over time. We did some fine work back then, given the parameters.

Oh wait, that’s on topic and to stay on topic on this thread, a hijacking is in order.

One of my asshole neighbors just got a new Toyota TRD off road and he/she parked it right in front of our bungalow so it takes up two spaces. Our street is weirdly narrow because of a yard greenway on either side that other streets in the hood don’t have. Parking gets tight. Ass. Hole. ASSHOLE!

[cranefly]

Dammit.  I was looking for a thread honoring the start of 2021.  You know, happy new year and all that.  Specifically, I was looking for New Year's resolutions.  But I guess Doomfolk don't do that.

I wanted to belatedly add one to my empty list.  Is that allowed?

Sure it is.

Anyway, I'll do that here.

Cranefly's 2021 New Year's resolutions (formerly empty):

1. Survive being stabbed in the back by a Russian.

[Greg]

Obviously, you are going to have add more information CF.

[Drunk Monk]

Obviously, you are going to have add more information CF.

Beg to differ. That’s quite enough info from cf, thank you.

[Greg]

Nope. I reject your assertion.

[cranefly]

It occurs to me that I was inaccurate enough to introduce a bit of ambiguity.

It won't be in the back -- closer to a Stro gang-initiation stab.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

Stro Gang Stab is a good band name.