Here’s one of those weird coincidence things dealing with my early history with computers.

It was a huge deal when I was 13 and my dad took us to California. I’d never been to California, and when I went there, this land of Atari and Apple, I was just amazed by it. I still am. But let’s stay focused.

At one point, my dad drove us past Apple headquarters. I was so excited, I made him pull over and photograph me there.

So, last year or so, I was browsing around, reading different weblogs as I am wont to do, and I am sure some discussion of japanese video games or music or something like that made me click on a weblog entry, and then off to the weblog’s creator’s information, and unfortunately I forget exactly where it was, but I happened upon this:

That’s right. The same cube, the same angle, the same year. (And the same type of crazy sunglasses to boot.)

Life, my friends, is weird.

Just wanted to dip my head in a second.

Editing, as discussed previously, so basically on break from writing weblog entries, but another part of production came to fruition and is announced on the Inventory weblog for GET LAMP.

I hired an excellent artist, Lukas Ketner, to do an inside cover in the style of what people think of as “the Atari Cartridge Art”. I think it came out really nice.

Details on it are in this entry on GET LAMP.

January’s a wash.

I mean, not really a wash for me, per se, but as far as outward appearances go, I am sure I appear to be dead. This weblog hasn’t really been updated, I’ve not been throwing out a ton of new stuff, I went to the hospital… it’s all because of the movie.

All I’m doing, day and night, is either editing this movie or doing busywork around the office while the editor renders out test material. I’ve been collecting and collating contributions for the DVD-ROM section, talking with the hired artist, making sure everything is in preparation with the duplicators… just whaling on this thing.

Time not spent on the project is going to translate to reduced quality at the other end. I’m not into reduced quality. You can’t just flab out in the final stretch. This is the time to show people why it was worth the wait, what it was all about. I do know where I took poor choices and the next project like this I do will probably be about to avoid them. But for the moment, I live with filming and sound choices of years ago, and I am assembling lots of material into a small space.

The first “cut” was 8.5 hours. That’s inaccurate, because some clips were just the full 3-4 minute monsters dumped in the timeline. It’s down to 6.6 hours and receding fast. Bonus features are making themselves known, cool stories that I think you’ll really like listening to, compilations of clips mentioning a subject that would have really slowed down the film but which I think a person quietly going through the DVDs will enjoy. Like the BBS Documentary, GET LAMP is a product of the DVD age – it takes advantages of that format.

Transcribers have been pretty amazing, enough that I’ve not been using everyone who volunteered. When the honking big features come in, it’ll probably be something I’ll have to barn-raise across all of them, but right now it’s like throwing a stick of butter into a fire – they just slam out the stuff and get it right back. Right now I’m at 2 hours of bonus clips and growing. Spoiler-filled clips are in a specially demarcated section so you know what you’re in for, and are on the second disc so you don’t stumble on it by mistake.

It’s so great to move from the realm of the fun into the realm of the done. To put something down on the folders and know it’s there, for good, with maybe a small revision to come. It’s like all these pieces flying into place, a jigsaw that assembles itself.

When I’ve shipped the stuff off, it’ll lighten up and I can get back to having a real online presence. But until then, head down.

So, there I was editing a movie and being a historian. Around Tuesday, I started to feel a little unwell. I decided to take some rest. Later in the day, though, I REALLY felt unwell, and began a torrid lost few days involving a bathroom, an overused bed, and quite interesting dreams. After a few days with greater and greater pain, I checked into the hospital.

After a battery of tests, I have been told I got dysentery.

The best guess is undercooked meat. I’m pretty bad about cooking snack meat all the way through, and the lottery finally ran out. I’m now on antibiotics, I did not contract something really killer like E. Coli (that was what the battery of tests were) and I will probably be discharged out of the hospital later today.

That’s a few days I didn’t edit, so deadlines on the movie are coming up. I will be redoubling efforts. I was able to do some non-editing business for the film in my hospital (free wi-fi!) but other than that, it was a very unfortunate time in the penalty box, and I have definitely had better weeks.

Some of my weblog entries sit in a simmering state while I look them over, so this year has looked decidedly thin for posting, but now it looks really thin. Will do my best, but the movie must take priority. I have a lot of people waiting on this thing, and I want it the best it can be. I’ve assembled a great team of people working with me on the finishing moves, so it’s going to be something else.

Anyway, the moral of the story is DO NOT GET DYSENTERY. If I save one life with that advice, it was all worth it. Dysentery, kids. It’s not cool.