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milk11
25 October 2009 @ 09:01 pm
Goal: Learn six new origami designs on one week.



Outcome: Success!

So. I learned a few new origami designs. And then I posted a video about it.

The Challenge

My dad taught me how to make a flapping crane using the program sheet at church, and I've been wasting paper during long meetings and lectures ever since. Every once in a while I'll learn a new design, but it's infrequent and they often don't stick. So the challenge was to find six new origami designs, make them multiple times to perfect and memorize the steps, and then make them on camera to prove I could do it. I tried to keep things relatively simple - the designs I picked are all intermediate at best - but they had to be things I thought were worth making. For anyone interested, here's a little more information on each of the designs I learned.




Lily
This attractive design has a lot of steps but it's pretty straight-forward. Lots of people seem to square off the petals in this design, but I say nay! Curl the ends for extra flare.
Instructions



Water Bomb
Ah, the classic water bomb. Known for it's cubiness. Come to think of it, I've never actually tried filling one of these with water. Does that actually work?
Instructions




Flower Stem
Universal flower stem. Very simple and functional. Compatible with any of the many flower designs that include an opening in the bottom, such as the tulip. I used the same size paper for both stem and flower, but if you opt for more realistic proprtions, use a larger square for the stem.
(Instructions below)




Tulip
There's plenty of super simple floral designs, and really beautiful but complicated ones. This tulip design really hits a sweet spot though - rather simple instructions for an adorable 3-D flower. That's not to say I had an easy time mastering this one - the first four times I made this I kept forgetting to flip the folds (step 4) and couldn't figure out what was wrong.
Tulip and Leaf Instructions



Jumping Frog
Not only does this design actually jump (as demonstrated), but it's also very cute. Turns out there are multiple simplified versions of this guy, but I like the detail on this one the best. It's not difficult to make, but it uses a lot of steps I've yet to encounter in another design, so it's was hard to memorize (don't tell anyone but I actually had to stop and look up a step in the middle of filming).
Instructions




Lotus Flower
I saw this design immediately wanted to try it. The instructions are deceptively simple, but first attempts were... less than successful. Not only do you have to fold the paper in on itself multiple times, there are a few paper bending steps that take practice. Good paper is key - I recommend starting with a larger square on thinner, but sturdy paper. Avoid anything thicker than printer paper or anything that tears easily. Once you get the hang of it, it's a quick design that's fun to make and turns out rather impressive.

The Video

Shooting the video was a challenge, since on my first attempt my camera lost power and turned off 2 minutes in, and I didn't notice till I was done folding. The second attempt got the whole thing, but I have to admit my camera angle could have been better. Live and learn. I made some minor edits (though I tried to hide them) both for length, and to cut out long sections where I'd picked up the paper and nothing was really happening on camera (due to the low angle).

As I mentioned, I did actually have to stop and look up the instructions for the frog in the middle of filming. I blame stage fright. Close enough, so I'm calling it good. Looking forward to my next long meeting that includes handouts.


Music used in the video is "Total Breakdown" by Brad Sucks, from his latest album Out of It. Used under Creative Commons, making the above video also a Creative Commons work. If you're not sure what Creative Commons is you should totally read up on it. You should also read up on Brad Sucks since he's a pretty cool dude.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
 
 
milk11
20 September 2009 @ 06:16 pm
Oh, hello giant praying mantis on our window. I haven't seen you in nearly a year! Catch anything good lately? There's a big black bumbly-fly thing that tries ramming our window screen nearly every day, but we haven't seen him in a while. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that would you?



Oh hello little snail! Woah, slow down there McSpeedy or this shot will be all blurry!



Hello rainbow! Wait, I'm not sure if that shot came out. Lemme take another. Wait. Hang on. Few more. That one might have come out... one more... Perfect!



Hello adorable little bus stop birds! It's too bad you guys hang around the same bus stop where all the crazy people show up, and not the one I usually wait at. If your bus hits the stop up the street I recommend switching.



 
 
milk11
11 September 2009 @ 07:22 pm
Four Things

To the person who reminded me that woot.com exists and that I should bookmark it, I'm sure your 10% cut will be in the mail shortly. JERK. Woot.com sells one item per day, usually at some absurd discount, which is available until midnight or until stock runs out - whichever comes first. In the past two weeks I've bought 4 (aaaalmost 5) items. Most of these are things I was looking to get eventually - I just needed someone to shove one in my face at half price. Which is great, but unfortunately it happened several times over the span of 10 days. One of these items just arrived a few days ago: My new camera!



Kodak Zi6 HD video camcorder, in "My Electronics are Cuter than Yours" Pink. I researched for hours before purchasing so I know that this is a mostly awesome piece of hardware with a few noticable flaws. Low light recording... is pretty terrible. Medium light recording is alright. Ideal light recording is PRETTY AWESOME. The audio pickup is considered some of the best for the pocket camera market - it's pretty crisp. For the size of this thing, the overall quality is quite delightful, as long as you know when to use it.

There's also a still photo feature, but it suffers from the same issue: the photos are great unless you're, you know, indoors. Anything short of a really steady hand, and the photos get blurry fast. Compounding this is the fact that there's no built-in flash. Overall this feature probably isn't better than my current camera (and that's saying something), but it takes pictures a lot quicker, which is very nice.

Sunlight:



Low light:
Pictures can certainly look clearer than this, but it's pretty easy to get this general result.


Also, you may have noticed I chopped my hair off again. It's STILL dark from when I dyed it in July, but at least now it's more style-able (it's kinda messy in the photos but I promise - it looks cute sometimes!)

ONE MORE THING

On 9-9-09, albums from The Beatles were released, digitally remastered, and I'm horribly tempted to at least pick up a few of these surprisingly thirfty CDs. That day also saw the parallel release of The Beatles Rockband, which I am also horribly tempted to pick up. Problem: I don't own any of the next-gen consoles (if you think this is ridiculous, that's because it is). It could easily cost me over $500 to pick up an Xbox, the game, the instruments, and the extra instruments so you can play guitar and bass at the same time while singing three-part harmonies with friends. That's kind of expensive. So. If you happen to know of anyone, or perhaps yourself, who is looking to sell an Xbox for a reduced sum, or have any extra instruments you don't use, or want to send me cash, I might be very interested in that.

Also, since some of my aquaintances don't do rhythm games, if you happen to be in the SLC area and are interested in singing three-part harmonies with me, lemme know, just in case I actually pick this up.

You should watch:
Beatles Rockband - Opening Cinematic (gorgeously trippy)
Beatles Rockband - In Game Footage Trailer (with three-part harmonies)
 
 
milk11
29 July 2009 @ 04:21 pm
Boy I sure have been failing on doing those Anime Expo updates, huh?

Yup. I sure haven't been writing them at all.
.
.
.

Because I've been making a video of my trip instead!!!!1!11!!eleven!




Shorter and more concise than my enormously wordy posts would be, and fits on the page better than multiple photos. But alas, there is a less detailed account and less details on the images too. Woe. But it's only 5 minutes long and requires less work on your part, so hopefully it's entertaining enough to justify it's existence and the time I spent on it.

Special thanks to James and Jill, who both took cosplay pictures for me, and extra special thanks to Arianna, who also took cosplay pics but more importantly took those life-saving shots of the convention center and dealers hall!

For more photos, check out:
My AX09 Album
James' AX09 Album
<Placeholder for Ariana, Lauren, Erin, Jill, and John's AX09 online Albums if they ever create them>

For videos of our intreped adventures (and of me being lame), check out:
Jill's Blog

For other content featuresd in my videos, check out:
Trigun: The Movie Trailer by the awesome folks of Japan. *AIR GUITAR*  \m/ \m/
The Good Ship Lifestyle AMV by "LC"_Lapan.  Contains One Piece *spoilers* (You find out Sogeking's secret identity!!!)
Happy Mess AMV by Amvthug. This ADORABLE looking anime is named Bokura Ga Ita.
Tick Tock AMV by Lark. (Augh, I forgot that this one contains really brief Paprika nudity)
 
 
milk11
OH GOSH IT'S BEEN FOREVER SINCE I UPDATED WILL FINISH MY ANIME EXPO SERIES IN THE NEXT FEW DAYS BUT FIRST I HAVE TO UPLOAD THIS VIDEO AND I STAYED UP ALL NIGHT FOREVER FINISHING IT YAHOOOOO!



The format is a little different for this one (still 10 min long though). I decided to give myself a break and review a film rather than a full series, so of course I picked one starring a character with one of the most expansive histories in all of anime. The video contains a character overview, brief release history, and the promised review. You should check it out and leave a comment with what you think of this episode.
 
 
milk11
09 July 2009 @ 08:11 pm
Ok friends - I know you're wondering what exciting announcements happened at Anime Expo 2009. And if you're not I really wish you'd ask anyway, because for the first time going to Anime Expo, I bring back things that are truely and wonderfully exciting beyond "that new show looks interesting." But it's probably lucky that you weren't actually that curious, or else you would have already heard all this from much quicker news sources. So let's get right to it!

Trigun Movie! *WICKED AIR GUITAR SOLO*  \m/  \m/
Yasuhiro Nightow, who created the Trigun manga, as well as Satoshi Nishimura, the director of the anime series were Guests of Honor at AX this year. We had the fortune of going to opening ceremonies, where Nightow announced that he'd brought a never before seen clip from the upcoming Trigun movie of which there had been little info. You better believe we hightailed it to his panel on Saturday. No release schedule was mentioned, but we do know that Nightow is writing it, Satoshi Nishimura will return as director, and the show's original music composer is also on board. They didn't mention a release schedule - the internet indicates the movie will be released "sometime in 2009," but I'm pressed to find a reliable citation or anything less vague than that.

I found this recording of the clip on youtube - it's not nearly as beautiful as when I saw it but it has surprizingly good audio considering everyone in the room was screaming their faces off (or more likely, this is actually a recording of one of the later re-screenings of the clip).



Nightow got all sentimental that he has so many US fans for a series that's 10 years old. He recorded the crowd's reaction and told us he'd show it to everyone working on the product so they'd be inspired to work harder. What's amazing is that this movie is being made almost entirely on the strengh of the US fanbase, since the show wasn't nearly the runaway hit in Japan as it was here.

Trigun is a show that means a lot to me as a fan, and was pretty much the tipping point between "I know what anime is" to being.. whatever it is I am now, nearly eight years ago. I am pleased as punch that this movie is actually going to happen, and hope the movie will drum up enough new interest in the out-of-print series to maybe get me a shiney new Remix thinpak box set or something. TRIGUN MOVIE WOOO!

So Much Manga!
Four years ago I attended the Viz panel, and during Q&A got up and asked if there were any plans to release One Piece faster. I was met with blank stares and a vague "maybe but probably not." See, One Piece is currently being published 1-2 chapters at a time in Shonen Jump, which comes out monthly (as opposed to the weekly schedule of Japan's Shonen Jump). Because they don't want to release One Piece books before they'd run in the mag, volumes come out every 3 to 4 months, and keeps falling more and more behind the Japanese releases. Absurd! To put this into perspective, Shonen Jump's hottest title, Naruto, was released on an accelerated schedule, and Shonen Jump skipped ahead 30 volumes so the series would be relatively caught up to the Japanese version.

But this year, the most wonderful thing has happened! As Funimation's anime releases have picked up, Viz announced that they had gotten together with all other One Piece liscence holders (primarily Funimation) to discuss some sort of corresponding schedule, and to prevent the anime from passing the manga. Long story short (too late!) starting in January, Viz is releasing 30 volumes of One Piece in 6 months. At five volumes a month, that's more than one volume per week! This will put them fairly close to the current Japanese volume. Thank you Viz! Words cannot express. Sorry bank account.

Portrait of Pirates!
Funimation's One Piece related merch has been sparse, but it's been picking up lately. I've recently picked up a Straw Hat patch as well as the One Piece wall scroll (merch pictures later). But lo and behold, more is (probably) coming! There's a line of One Piece figures in Japan called Portrait of Pirates. The One Piece POP figures are large, high quality, high detailed figures which include the mains as well as some of the well deserving side characters. To allow you to glance upon a shadow of their greatness:
Luffy
Sanji
The Mysterious Sogeking
Mihawk
The Cutest Tashigi Ever
Child Nami (so cute!)
Child Zoro
Child Frankie (?!)

They're even more impressive in person - I have dealer's room pictures I'll post later. These were scattered around AX for varying amounts of a lot of money - the full 9 inch figures (1/8) were going for around $50, and the child figures were around $25 each. This is a large and growing set, so the thought of buying them all at once in the dealer's hall was not really an option (short of massive credit card debt). Lucikly, the first person I asked about the POP figures said "oh hey, Funimation's should be bringing these to the US in the next few months." Ju-whaaa? Later I asked the Funimation booth, and then Brand Manager Adam Sheenan directly at the Funi panel. There was no definite date or prices, or even a confirmation, but I definitely got a "yes we're trying to get them, and we expect to have them sooner rather than later." If I do decide I have space for more One Piece figures and decide to get this set, that'll at least give me time to get them one paycheck at a time, and hopefully at lower prices that don't include import costs and convention price gouging.

Other Stuff (some of these are not con exclusive info, but just stuff I picked up on)
  • RightStuf will be releasing a re-mastered (and cheaper) set of The Irresponsible Captain Tyler series and OVA collection. Temptiiiing.
  • I saw a little Eureka Seven at AX last year and was intrigued, but never checked it out. This year Bandai has announced they have the movie, which will be released in select theatres for a single-night event, which would be a lot of fun to attend.
  • Funimation has all of Dragon Ball (finally). The DBZ franchise doesn't interest me much, but this one might be fun to check out. Wait, there are HOW many episodes? Scratch that.
  • Slayer's Revolution will feature the original dub cast (minus Xellos' voice, aka, the voice that destroyed Sanji). This is mostly here for the benefit of my many friends who are Slayers fans, since I haven't seen any of it.
  • We'll soon see the launch of a new anime/manga related social networking site called ShoDojo - it will be a combination anime video player, chat, networking, discussion...blogging...type thing. You know, I'm not really sure what it's going to be. Interesting to see if so specific a networking site can really take off (and if it'll be any fun).
Hope I didn't miss anything. There was a lot of exciting stuff going on this year. Stay tuned for more updates on fun panels and events, cosplay sightings, and merch photos!
 
 
milk11
22 June 2009 @ 09:01 pm


Wooooo!

Exciting to see actual shots. This whole thing actually looks much higher budget than I was originally expecting, which is sweet. The costumes are going to look awesome, the bending is going to be fantastic, and the epic war scenes will indeed be epic. The only things that still need to be proven to me are the acting and the comedy. I propose they get someone to speak in the next one.

My trailer wishlist:
Bending shots
Scenery shots
Army shots
Aang and Momo being adorable
Katara water bending
Sokka telling a joke
Iroh being Iroh
Zuko obviously trying to be angry but instead just looking kind of silly but adorable
Appa!

Hmm... I need to make a bingo card.
 
 
milk11
16 June 2009 @ 07:12 pm
How did I miss this? These have apparently been out for weeks. Filming's nearly complete, and according to the producer's twitter (crazy world we live in) the Teaser trailer is coming together nicely. Anywho, pics under cut.

High Quality Avatar Pics )

Pics taken from Lastairbenderfilm.com

Not to be a needy fangirl but when do we get to see Sokka/Katara/Toph/Iroh? I know Aang's the title character and all, and Zuko's the main villain.. mostly.. but the rest of the crew are hardly sideline characters. Pics now plz thx.
 
 
milk11
11 June 2009 @ 07:34 pm
Oh snap, review number three will be in widescreen! Also, I'm told I can easily buy a terabyte hard-drive for around $100. Is this true? I want two. I thought it'd take me forever to top off my half-full 250gb external, but then I started making video reviews. It's kinda like buying brand new bags in WoW and then going grinding. Oh gosh I just said that.

Jill and I went to FYE the other day to look for animes. As usual I picked up a lot of things I don't have shelf space for, but guess what I found! Seasons One and Two of Hogan's Heroes! I told this to the other team-lead at work and he just stared at me for a few minutes and said "Whenever I flip past TV Land I say to myself 'who actually watches this stuff?'" He then stared at me for a few more minutes.

Speaking of work, skip this paragraph. Know what's is an acceptable part of life? Overlooking something that was your responsibility and then rationally dealing with the consequences and doing damage control. Know what is a really really annoying part of life? Having someone you answer to make a huge deal about it and tell you how unacceptable it is and how they'll probably just need to come down and do everything for you for the rest of forever. NO! I'm perfectly capable of responsibly taking care of my own irresponsibility! Leave me alone! Gosh!

I guess what I'm saying is that I hate when I'm perfectly aware of a failing and someone tries to point it out to me. Comes from being too prideful I imagine. It's a tough life when you're so awesome all the time.

By the way, Peach Girl's on youtube. Remember to let me know what you think (especially if you left feedback last time - did I do better? worse? almost there? Were I able, I'd be pointing directly at you Vengance.)

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milk11
08 June 2009 @ 12:29 am
Woot. Peach Girl. It's dramatastic.



Man, blip's resolution is huge! Youtube was being cross with me at the time of posting. If I manage to get the video up there I'll let you guys know - let me know if you have any problems with the blip version. Don't forget to leave feedback if you have any.


 
 
milk11
02 June 2009 @ 07:46 pm
Aublgalble! I'm so behind on my video! I took month(s) to finish the OHSHC video, but I figured I'd worked out most of the major workflow kinks. Apparently I missed a few! Like how slow I am at writing scripts (I AM VERY SLOW). I've also got a serious case of perfectionism. Eventually I'd love to marry my quality standard to my schedule, but this early on if I have to pick just one, it's going to be the quality standard. After all, if I'm not completely content with the final result I see no point in posting it. All in all I should probably be more surprized that it's as progressed as it is. Aiming to be done within the week.

Oh, and I keep getting distracted by TV Land too. They thankfully haven't aired Hogan's Heroes in a while but did you know that Bonanza is actually very good?! <3
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