Regina Noctis

Every Thursday night, I get involved with stuff after I get home from my night class, and forget to change into the Magic Pajamas sometime within the first hour after I get home.

Ever since I got the two pairs of Magic Pajamas for Christmas, Thursday nights have been my sleepless night. A vast improvement, really, since every night used to be my sleepless night. I think that this may be my first up-until-the-sun-comes-up night since the end of December. This is a vast improvement. But I’m also stupid, and not only do not put on the Magic Pajamas so they can do whatever mystical things they do that eliminate my sleep disorder problems, I also make plans for Friday every time, which I then sleep through.

Just like I’m gonna do right now.

But at least I got a lot accomplished on the current assignment in Digital Imaging.

I never even filled up the number of userpics that used to be given to paid accounts, and never much used all of the 10 pics I did have uploaded.

What in the world am I going to do with 52 userpics?

Bye bye “stealth”-colored 97 Nissan Altima. Referred to over the years as stealth-colored because the official color – a dark teal – looked different to everyone. I’ve heard people arguing over whether it was a blue car or a green car. And in some lights, it looked black. Though most of the time since I moved to Hellano, it’s actually been dust-colored.

And hello to the bright silver Chrysler 300 Touring edition with leather seats and lots of bells and whistles. It was a long day and a lot of negotiation, but we got the price range we were looking for. From nearly $30,000 down to $26,500.

I’ve spent my vehicular time in either relatively small cars or land yachts. This one’s somewhere in between. I’m accustomed to cars that either let you feel something of the road, or sway like a ship at sea. This thing doesn’t feel right yet, because it does neither. It glides. It’s so silent and so smooth a ride, I haven’t entirely convinced myself that the wheels actually touch the road when it’s being driven. After being in the 300, I wouldn’t be surprised to stand by the side of the road and see the thing go by on hover jets.

I had the front passenger seat all the way back, and could not stretch my legs out far enough to touch the front of the passenger area without scrunching down in the seat. I’m not short, either. Just a bit shy of 6′. My uncle, who is very tall (he’s around 6′7″) was in the rear passenger seat behind me, and had more than enough leg room even when my seat was all the way back. Even the interior of my dad’s landbound aircraft carrier (maroon and white ‘78 Cadillac El Dorado) wasn’t this roomy. I can remember that, though I was a kid, my knees still were pressed right up against the seat in front of me. It currently feels strange to have so much space inside a car. I remember when I was a kid and always wound up on extended road trips with my folks. A car with this much interior space would have been a major boon back then. Road trips will have to be re-instituted one of these days, now that we have the appropriate car.

It’s been ten years since we last got a new car. I’d forgotten in the interim the bubbly must-play-with-the-new-toy feeling that a new car inspires in me. Since my instructor cancelled my Tuesday class this week, I’m going to go out and get to know the new toy much better. I haven’t yet driven it at all. Too short on sleep to trust myself behind the wheel of an unfamiliar car. It’s bigger, and I have to relearn my sense of where the “corners” are to be completely comfortable driving when I could have slept better.

But Tuesday, after an appropriate amount of sleep, it’ll just be the road, the new toy, and me. I can’t wait.

I was sitting here, quietly playing a game. There were several popping sounds that sounded suspiciously like gunshots, not all that far away. I’m guessing on the street out in front of the house. That would sound about right, since I have a seperate room, out in the back.

Then there was a pause of a few seconds, and an almighty great bang that sounded like it was from the yard.

I remembered that the psycho has begun, once again, to obsess on getting a gun, and it wouldn’t be the first time he’d gotten one if he has. So I called 911.

I worry that some or all of that came from inside the house. My grandmother’s bedroom is toward the front of the house, so those would sound distant, like they’d come from the street. My mom’s bedroom is right at the back of the house, the closest room to mine. And the last loud one could have come from there.

I keep wanting to run in and check on everyone. I’m torn. The sounds might have come from outside, and whoever it was could still be out there, though I did just hear the police helicopter go by overhead twice, so it’s probably actually safe. The sounds could also have come from inside, which would make the police helicopter meaningless, and whoever could still be in there. If it is someone with a gun, family psycho or otherwise, who is still there, all that I’m going to accomplish by charging in there with my bat is to get myself shot, too. At the same time, whoever could be gone, and my mom and grandmother might need my help, and here I am in my room, shaking. Because, whatever may or may not have happened, cowardice has won for the moment. I can’t bring myself to unlock my door and go out there.

Edit: When the shaking finally stopped and I could get a grip on myself, I went into the house and checked. Everyone’s fine. What a relief. I think I’ll go collapse now.

We just finished a project in Digital Imaging. It was the first one we’ve done that hasn’t been solely a Photoshop project.

The school computer labs are all Macintosh, so what we wound up using was iPhoto, iMovie, and iDVD, in addition to prepping images in Photoshop. It sucked that I couldn’t do any of thwe work at home, but I had a huge amount of fun with this project. I really wanted more than the two weeks we had to put the thing together. Everyone else in the class felt the same. This project may have been the most fun I’ve had with any project I’ve done so far, in any class. I say “may have been” because I did have a lot of fun with the photography stuff my first semester, and I’m not sure which one I enjoyed more.

I just read back over this, and realized that I’m babbling. Lack of sleep. I didn’t sleep all night. I didn’t slip into the Magic Pajamas that seem to make me able to sleep in spite of my sleep disorders. But that’s a whole other story.

The project that we did in Digital Imaging that everyone loved to work on so much was, essentially, a short film. We were to study how image and music go together (in music videos, movie background music, silent movies, etc.) Then we had to pick a song, take images (most people did stills, because it’s what they had) and put them together so that they matched the energy of the music, images transitioned at appropriate changes in the music we chose, a mood was communicated, and so on.

Since I took so many pictures of Goth friends, and many were set in a graveyard, I decided to put together something vampire-themed. Where most people essentially did slide shows, I had a little plot going. Not much of one. There’s only so much you can do in under two minutes. And while it was something close to 20 years ago that I was studying animation, I remembered a little of it and put some very minor animation sequences into the work. Nothing I thought was particularly major or exciting, but I wanted more of a sense of motion than I was able to get with all still images, even when applying the Ken Burns effect.

People kept coming by to look over my shoulder while I was working, and I didn’t really think anything of it. Apparently word got around, though. I’d been sick on Tuesday, so I didn’t turn mine in with everyone else. All the other were played on Tuesday. Mine, of course, wasn’t. When I got into class on Thursday and burned my project to DVD, about four different people began begging the instructor – loudly – to play my project. Word had gone around that mine was fantastic and everyone wanted to see it. While I was fairly happy with what I had managed to put togethe, I didn’t think it was all that, really. But the people who’d been watching over my shoulder had been telling everyone else how great mine was. I was surprised, quite honestly. It felt great, though I did worry that they’d see the thing and be disappointed after all the hype.

During break, people who’d never said one word to me all semester were coming up to talk to me about the project and that they hoped they’d get to see mine before class was over. I tried to tell them that I thought it was decent, but not what it was being hyped up as, and got told to stop being so modest.

After break, Mr. Stallworth gave in and played my project. And when it was over, I got applause and lots of compliments, and people asking me how I did it. I was, again, surprised by the enthusiasm for it by everyone in the class. But I was also flying on the compliments for the rest of the day. I haven’t completely come down yet, and it’s a part of what contributed to a sleepless night. I felt too good to sleep.

I brought it home Thursday night, and my mom had waited up for me specifically so she could see the project. She wound up watching it three timees in a row, and then told me that as far as she’s concerned, it’s so good that everyone needs to see it. She plans to pick up a bunch of blank DVDs so copies can be made and sent around. She also talked quite a bit about making an avi or quicktime file out of it so it can be put online. She wants me to link it on Monkeyfilter, though self-linking there is a no-no. She’s trying to figure out how I can get away with it. Over my protests, I might add. I feel weird flogging my school project to the Monkeys. The “newspaper” for my web design midterm was one thing, since many Monkeys and Mofi in-jokes were mentioned throughout the thing. This isn’t the same.

As a compromise (and because none of my current software is capable of turning this thing into an avi or something, and I’ve no interest in buying something to do it) I figured I put the offer here. If anyone is interested in seeing this thing, and what use I made of the photos of , , and , (and it’s totally okay if no one does) either email me your snailmail address (email in the user info) or put your address in comments here. All comments are screened.

Okay, infomercial over. As you were.

Had some very stressful moments when I got home from digital imaging today. I’m not going to get into it all at the moment, though doubtless I’ll need to vent eventually.

I’ve had a stress headache for hours. I called and talked with him for about an hour, and the stress headache was gone within the first five minutes of the conversation.

After we hung up, I began thinking about everything again, and the stress headache has been back ever since.

I think too much. If my brain would just shut up for a while, the pounding headache and tight shoulders would go away.

Any volunteers to smack me on the head and knock me out for a while? That would shut my brain up.