MILES to GO || before I sleep

TokyoPop sponsors a fanfiction competition with cash as the prize!

Of course, the catch is that it must apply to a very specific one of their "manga," Queenie Chan's "The Dreaming." I'm assuming Queenie's a fanficcer herself and gave permission for this, and Tokyopop is interested in seeing how the non-artists of fandom will respond to the idea of a) getting published and b) getting "cold, hard CASH!!" for it. I also figure Queenie herself might be on the judging panel...

Very interesting. I've never read "The Dreaming," but I might just start with this competition as a possible foray into the world of "professional fanficcing." Sounds fun.

I should probably note, they're not CALLING it fanfiction on the site, but that's totally what it is.

Postspam ftw!

So about, oh, 10 minutes ago I finished my STA Travel 193 Karaoke entry. It's currently exporting from iMovie '08 (*cringe* I can explain!) into a format that everyone and their dog can view-- in other words, a format I can upload to the contest website before it closes/changes tomorrow night. It needs to be under 40 MB though... which is the hard part.

My whole plan was to use iMovie (I wanted to use iMovie HD, aka '06, but for some reason it wouldn't detect my built-in iSight. I have iChat AV, no other iSight programs were open-- and when I *DID* open things like Photo Booth or iMovie '08, they detected the camera just fine. WTF?) and record myself all gussied up as Songstress Yuna singing to, what else, Jade's version of real Emotion.

I slaved for a pretty long time just to make a passable karaoke version of Jade's real Emotion ~FFX-2 Mix~. Yes, I know there's the instrumental version of Koda Kumi's ~Original Mix~, but I didn't want to sing in Japanese (too cheesy for the contest, somewhat difficult), plus the ~Original Mix~ is nearly twice as long as the ~FFX-2 Mix~ of which there is NO karaoke or instrumental version. So I made one.

Well, lamesauce was poured all over when I recorded it- I had to play the music in iTunes and use my IR remote to play it, but then capturing the video from iSight meant a delay-- plus, I had to physically CLICK using the touchpad, which meant either the music would be off-sync or there'd be a weird amount of time where I was adjusting the video. I chose the latter, since re-syncing the music would be a pain in the ass. I could just cut the video of me leaning forward to the computer anyway.

But having it play in iTunes meant my voice over the USB mic was barely audible, and the setting for "playing audio while recording," didn't work the way I expected it to, so I ended up creating and trashing a few projects that HAD to "assemble" after I realized "Oh shit, this isn't working!" So that added time. Anyway, I read the manual and figured the tip on plugging headphones in for the audio so it wouldn't interfere with the voiceover (aka my singing) would work-- and it did, but now you can hardly hear the background music, which obviously doesn't make for good karaoke.

In any case, I've tried so many different things and all the iMovies are frustrating me to the point where I'm just happy with what I've got. It'll suck if I don't win, but come on-- it's not exactly a talent contest. I'll be happy if I do, but honestly? I don't have the energy to put forth the EFFORT to make something so satisfying even I would be impressed (were I a judge giving away a 9-day trip to Japan). That's kind of sad, really...

Anyway, Mom wants to know what I want for Christmas, and after this week's brou-ha-ha, I think I'll tell her I want the one-to-one training Apple offers. I really need to learn iMovie and GarageBand. I'd RATHER learn it from a friend or something (hint hint), so...? Anyone have any experience in this area? You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours-- I'm a woman of many talents...

Damn, I've got that DDR song stuck in my head. "Cafe, cafe, cafe cafe, cafe cafe cafe!" or something.

Okay, so a couple of new things:
(1) Seems I grossly misinterpreted what was going on with god_101 in terms of someone dying or whatnot. Of course I'm still extremely worried about him, but everyone handles break ups (as the case truly was, not someone dying like I thought) differently. If he wants to be open to the help that his friends are willing to give, then my offer still stands. But I won't put mental strain on myself taking blame for something I honestly have no control over.

(2) Okay, I'm making one giant exception to my own rule that I posted for the contest on weekly_ygo. In this week's issue (#20), I decided in lieu of an Editor's Choice, I'd hold two contests, one for a community layout/icons, and one for WikiFic. The deal is, whoever makes the community layout and icons will get a paid account (or extra time/userpics, whatever, if they already have a paid account) and whoever adds the most full-length, brand-new articles to WikiFic within the next week will get their very own unlimited subdomain on seventh-star.net (or, if they don't want a seventh-star.net subdomain, I will register a domain of their choice -that is currently available, of course- for two years and host a Yu-Gi-Oh fansite and related material). I thought this was a great idea, but no one commented on it AT ALL in the post. So this is the ONE place where I will pimp the contest, in the hopes that people simply spread it by word of mouth, comments in LJs, etc. I don't want anyone else MAKING POSTS about it, but everything else is fine, and I hope we get some participation. If you have any questions, see the latest issue or just ask me. :)

(3) Yuck, Jury Duty. And I can't get out of it, because it's the second time I've postponed it, and saying you're related to a lawyer, a socialist/communist, a student, too far away, don't have a car, don't have money to get there... none of it works. They see that I live a mere 9 miles away from the Van Nuys courthouse, and I get slammed with Jury Duty. Worse, one of my bosses said I can kiss Japan goodbye if I end up getting stuck in a trial that lasts months on end. I just hope I don't get called at all, but my Group number is *1* so what's the chance of that? *sigh* At least I'll be getting paid next week, and I found a decent, cheap bus schedule for getting there if I can't get a ride from Grandpa.

(4) Inspiration... for the wrong thing. I have ideas for almost all of my 30kisses, but getting them written out is another matter altogether. I've started most of the good ones, and unfortunately they have the potential to turn out to be long -sort of like how I didn't think about Prophecy Girl, Something to Somebody, and Death and Absolution would be multi-chapter whoppers, but THEY ARE! But if I do want this to be one of my 30kisses, I have to figure out how it could work for a theme that isn't taken, and not make it look like it's part of Prophcy Girl (because one particular scene -no dirty jokes involved, honest!- totally screams Prophecy Girl, and I don't want that). The only problem is, I only have 2 themes that don't have any ideas for them at all, and that's because they're the hardest themes for me: #17 - kilohertz, and #21: violence; pillage/plunder; extortion. This idea I *MIGHT* be able to make work for #21, but it would likely take a very different turn than I intended (and still be Prophecy Girl-esque because of it).

But the very beginning of the fic just makes me giddy because it's so evil. :> Well, in my mind, anyway.