Again, I was pretty sure I was done with Episode 5 when I sent it in. Then I just got an email from John saying that not only could he not open the file, his Mac doesn’t show the file as even existing.

Of course.

I am at a complete loss as to how this happened. The DVD was burned on the superdrive of a Mac Powerbook G4, and it worked on that computer. The spare copy we made works fine on my computer as well. There’s no reason it shouldn’t work, except for one: Murphy’s Law. Because it’s important, it has to be fucked up. That’s just the way things work, as surely as it does in Better than Life and you’re Arnold Rimmer. If you’re looking for something you need, you know you’re not going to find it because it has fled to another spatial dimension, and there it will stay until you don’t need it any longer, whereupon it will be there, staring you in the face in every drawer you open, every time you look under the bed, on every shelf getting in your way as you search frantically for some other object which has transported itself to the other dimension. Science can’t prove this yet, but someday it will. It will have to, because there’s no other explanation. One day a century from now scientists will discover this dimension, which will then become like a cosmic desktop trashcan, the place where we know we can find what we’re looking for. Of course, once we know that, off they’ll go to somewhere else where they can’t be found.

But for now, there’s nothing I can do about the situation, save for sending in the spare copy tomorrow, which is too late, but it’s all I can do. There’s no reason the spare copy will work, since it was made with the exact same machine on the same kind of DVD, and contains the exact same information. Any copy I made would be the same. Of course.

I had a good time at Maoman’s pool party on Sunday up at The Village. The pool was nice and blue and cool, albeit full of splashing kids, and the weather was just hot enough but with enough cloud cover to keep from incinerating everyone. There were, as always, quite a few foreigners at the pool, most sitting in loungechairs reading John Grisham-esque novels. Afterwards we tried to have dinner at Kiki, a Sichuan restaurant I walk past to and from work every day, but the line was so long we ended up at IR China at the Estrogen Mall across the street. The food was good, but expensive, and watching our order being taken on a PDA just isn’t worth the extra hundred dollars on the bill, especially considering the small size of the portions.

When I went to Milifilm today after work to pick up the spare DVD, I ended up talking with the director in charge of their little group, a long-haired, bespectackled fellow called “Ah-gao”. He plays Digeridoos and comes up with dancing animations to accompany the music. Just outside the old-style wooden windows cicadas were making their trademark summer sound. They really have a nice setup there. I talked with Vincent about perhaps working together on a project in the future. They certainly have a lot of useful resources. I’m thinking about doing something with a bit more local flavor this time, something technically less flamboyant but more solid in terms of simple story. Of course, this means I don’t know what I’m going to do next, besides lay off for a bit and recuperate before diving into making the DVD version. I was thinking of taking a couple of days off and going south, perhaps to Orchid Island with Kirk, but Kirk can’t go any time soon as he’s busy looking for work. Also, I can’t honestly say I can even afford to go anywhere, since I still have quite a bit of debt to pay off. What price sanity?

I took the MRT and walked down to the casting agency near the corner of Dunhua and Heping. It was in the basement of an empty looking building, and consisted of one small room with lights set up. The one employee took some pictures and video of me looking grim and arrogant (not a stretch, I have to say), and that was it. They’ll let me know in a few days if they want me to do the gig I guess.

I did so much walking around on Friday that my feet were sore today, so I spent most of the rest of the day at home and doing laundry at the laundromat on Civic Blvd. The Dancing Mango Fruit Festival is going on downstairs, however, so I had to keep music on all day as a distraction. I’ve let my room go for the past couple of months due to filming and other things, so I took the time today to pick up a bit. The festival is going on tomorrow as well, no doubt accompanied by the drum people. Fortunately Maoman has invited me to the Copa Cabana Xizhi for a pool party tomorrow afternoon, so I can at least get away from the cacophony for a bit. I have to admit I’ve been longing for a dip for the past few days, especially when I pass the pool at the Howard Plaza Hotel on my way to or from Milifilm. Reminds me of lazy poolside days when my family was living out of the Langford Hotel in Winter Park, Florida while we looked for houses before moving to the area. Mmmmm. Unfortunately Googling the Langford brings news that it has closed, fallen into disrepair, and is scheduled to be torn down. Oh, well.

I’ve also been working on the webpage for Episode 5, including a new poster. It’s a work in progress I guess. I’ll put the page up on July 1st, when the episode is available for downloading. After that, I think I need a break, maybe a trip south or something, since I can’t afford much else as far as getaways go. After that, I will need to get to work producing the “Lady X Does the Renegade Province” DVD as well as some long overdue updates for this site.

While I’m glad that SARS is receding, its departure means many annoying people are back in business downstairs, including the drum people, the idiots with megaphones at Bossini (I switch them off whenever I pass by) and various loud festivals featuring enormous speakers. Things are returning to normal; in Taiwan that means it’s getting loud. Summer is well and truly here, blistering yet sauna-like heat, constant cicadas, and half-nekkid guys driving little blue trucks. I had a plate of mango ice cream topped with mango slices and doused with chilled mango sauce the other day for dinner.

I was transferring Episode 5 to DVD-ROM yesterday at Milifilm when I noticed that two of the guys who work there were trying on orange jumpsuits downstairs. I asked them what was up, and it turns out that they’re doing a silly instant noodles commercial featuring astronauts. They had some stills from the movie Armageddon of Bruce Willis, Ben Afflect, et al, and suddenly one of the guys asked me if I wanted to play one of the astronauts. He claimed I look vaguely like Bruce Willis, something people here tell me on occasion although I don’t see it at all. The guy pointed at the picture of Willis, who was scowling in that particular shot (and, come to think of it, every other shot as well), and said, “Can you look even meaner?”

“Are you kidding?” I replied. “Do you have any idea how many people I’ve alienated just by looking at them wrong? Why, I’ve caused more people to have vague, inexplicable doubts about my motives in one day than you do in a year, gosh-dern it!” He made a call to the casting agency, and I said I’d pay a visit to let them have a look at me. Who knows, it might be fun. Anyway, the guys at Milifilm are nice, and they’ve helped me out a few times with DVD-burning.

Blogger’s new system can’t seem to deal with my Chinese blog, which is consequently hosed. Hopefully I’ll find a way to deal with it, or even move it to another service. Incompatibility seems to be a common yet irritating development with “upgraded” systems. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is my philosophy for web design, as you can see from this site, which hasn’t changed it’s design in over two years. Oh, I could add pretty blue circles to my background, but that would mean that only people in Anadarko, Oklahoma could read the site. Still, it would be New and Improved!

That said, I still really, really want a new G5.

回到正常了嗎…現在可以再開始寫了. 最近把短篇發到 www.ladyxfilms.com 的網站上, 趕快去看一下. 我們是

怎麼了？

Blogger’s been moving this account over to their new and improved system, so I haven’t been able to post until now. I wouldn’t have had time the past few days in any case, as I’ve been too busy getting Episode 5 ready to send off to the exec producers in time for the premiere on July 1. I spent the entire day yesterday at Darrell’s going through the music he had come up with, rearranging some, adjusting timing, and in some cases coming up with new music for certain sections. I got over there at around 11am, but we didn’t finish until almost 2 in the morning. I think it was time well spent, though. There’s a bit more action in this bit, and editing was even more difficult, but all in all I think it’s going to be good. All I need to do now is get the portable hard drive from Milifilm, download the episode from my computer, take it back and have them burn it onto a DVD for me to send off to Japan. Hopefully I’ll be able to get it out by tomorrow afternoon.

Episode 4 has been pretty well received, all in all, especially within the context of the Lady X project. When I got in to work today I found that some of my co-workers had seen the episode, logging in from the URL on the poster in my cubicle. The only problem most people have with it is the fight scene, but that was of course the biggest risk we took in the entire episode. I had hoped to avoid having to resort to the oft-used “Our actors don’t know martial arts so I’ll just shake the camera around and cut a lot” school of fight-scene editing, but it looks as if I was a bit too optimistic. I’ll re-work everything for the DVD version in any case. I think I might need some time off before I dive into that, though. Things have been rather stressful lately, on several fronts. My father was in the hospital and everyone in my family was nervous for awhile as they didn’t seem to know exactly what was wrong with him, including the amazingly incompetent doctor. He seems to be doing better now, though.

Episode 4 is now up on the Lady X website. Go check it out. Of course it’s work-safe, though everyone seems to assume that it’s pr0n of some kind (Ernie thinks “Dolly Deng” is the absolute best name for a Chinese woman EVAR, btw). In the meantime, I need to get Episode 5 finished, which means the final editing touches, working with Darrell on music, sounds, etc., and one more special effect that Dean is working on at the moment. Dean, Dolly, Maurice and I took some publicity shots at Dean’s place on Saturday, and then we went down to Darrell’s place to do some looping, made necessary by high wind noise out in Sanchong. The looping, which I’ve never done before, went very smoothly, and we were done after about an hour.

I met up with Rowan and Dean at Juke on Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately, it seems that the scene we shot with Rowan and Norman won’t be in the Internet version of Lady X, as their scene, although a good, solid scene, is around four minutes long. We’ll put it in the DVD version instead. This is apparently not the first time either Rowan or Norman has had footage left on the cutting room floor, but there’s nothing I can do about the time limits. After a long, coffee-laden lunch, Dean went home and I chatted with Rowan for a couple of hours on the sidewalk before walking home.

The manager in charge of our office at work has decided that he likes it better with the window open than with the air conditioning on. During the whole SARS thing, he had an excuse for doing this, but now the workers are rebelling. One woman who sits near the door complained to him today that all of the other offices are using their A/C, why can’t we? The manager, who happens to sit right next to the window, insisted on keeping it open and the air off. Fortunately I have a little electric fan left over from my days at the News I can prop up on my desk, but it only cools one side of me at a time. And the forcast, of course, is for high temperatures this week. Maybe I should go in to work in shorts and a wife-beater, you know, as a subtle hint. Something tells me, however, that nobody would make the connection. “Oh, that crazy foreigner!” is probably the only thing that would come to their minds.

Speaking of crazy, does anyone know how to truly get rid of Download Accelerator? I uninstalled the thing as it was screwing up my computer, but it’s like trying to break up with a clingy ex, and now both of my browsers still give me “Couldn’t load Download Accelerator, please click ‘back'” messages all the time. Grrr.

Well, I thought Episode 4 was done, but I got several emails from the EPs today saying the encoding wasn’t working. They’re using Macs, and Apple doesn’t recognize the Canopus codec without a special setup I guess. Of course, once I had walked over to Vincent’s company with a sample, borrowed their portable hard drive, re-encoded the show with the new codec, and transferred it onto the drive, I got an email from the EP’s that they had solved the problem on their end. So much for working on Episode 5 today, with the exception of updating some effects shots during lunch. I have to get that in by the 26th, or five days before it premieres on July 1st. Darrell already has a copy, but I need to get him an updated one, though we’re still working on the split, i.e. the opening scene for this episode since we’ve split it in half.

It’s been muggy again lately. I stayed up until after 3am last night tweaking footage and doing the poster. Then I went to bed, and got up about an hour or so later to go film the sunrise. The weather looked like it was going to cooperate, but at the last minute a cloud bank obscured the sun. I went downstairs and was chatting with the guard when a big BMW drove up. An incredibly thin, scantily dressed girl got out and greeted the guard as she walked inside. Once the elevator doors had closed, I wanted to ask the guard the girl’s story, but I didn’t know quite how to put it. “So she’s a….” I started.

“Yeah, she is,” he replied. “It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?”

“Are there many girls like that living in this building?” I’d noticed several here and there but I didn’t know how many.

“Quite a few,” the guard said, confirming my suspicions. “They always say hello to us guards so that we can’t ask what they’re up to. Like we’re going to ask them that!” he chuckled.

I chatted with him a bit more, mostly about the noisy dancing women, before coming back up and trying to get some sleep, but I didn’t feel much like sleeping after a particularly bad nightmare. It wasn’t the kind that is so scary it shocks you awake; it was worse in that it was the kind of thing that is just disturbing enough, not in a shocking way but rather manifesting itself in a deep, penetrating fear that keeps you inside of it.

So I got about an hour of sleep. And now it’s after 1am, and I still have more to do. I’m tired, but I’m not overly eager to go to sleep again. Perhaps a bit more tweaking is in order…

哇! 以整月沒有再此寫東西了. 真抱歉, 但是我最近實在很忙拍片. 終於拍完LADYX的第一段, 今天下午寄到日本. 現在要專心吧第二段做好. 第二段比第一段還要複雜, 但同時也會更精采. 希望我們會贏.贏的話就可以開始計畫下一部片子.艾唷! 還要花錢買攝影器材. 光一太DVD燒錄機要上萬! 天啊.

最近打開窗戶聽得到蟬聲. 真的超好聽. 每年春天聽到蟬的聲音心理就很舒服, 讓我懷念到我當時在東海大學的日子. 那時候也是我剛來台灣的時候. 我想短篇忙完了可能再開始找房子, 這次找比較郊外的地方, 又便宜,又大, 空氣又新鮮. 等到秋天, SARS很可能會回來, 到時候最好不要主在太市中心的地方.說道這個, 我最近有一位紐約電影學院的老同學, 現在人在他家鄉, 就是莫西哥的一個小鎮. 他一直邀請我到那帶一段時間, 拍拍電影, 看一下當地的風情.也許我會去, 但是一定要先把信用卡的錢換完, 而且還要好好村一筆錢才能去.

Boogie called me up last night as I was editing. We talked for a long time, as we have tended to do ever since we met in college. He told me that he has finally decided to leave Taiwan and live in the states for a year or so, just to see what happens. He’s been here nearly as long as I have, but his Taiwanese wife Amanda is living in the US now, and I think she probably wants to make her life there. I used to be waiting for Boogie to move out of his room over off Ren-ai Road so I could move in, but now I think it’s probably too small. Also, Boogie told me that he often sees nurses fleeing the Cathay Hospital’s SARS ward late at night for surrepticious trips to 7-Eleven. Probably not the best choice. For the same amount of money I could probably get a much nicer place a little ways out of the city anyway.

I put the soundtrack and subtitles on Episode 4 last night, and this morning I went over to the production company of Vincent, who appears in Episode 5 as a thug. The place is located in an old two-story house, part of a row of houses in an alley behind the Howard Plaza Hotel on Ren-ai near Fu-xing South Road. There’s a nifty garden in front, and the interior’s been re-done. They’re rent is NT$70k a month, so each producer has to make at least NT$10k a month to break even. It’s a really nice, comfortable place; I certainly wouldn’t mind working there. They mostly do post-production work on films. Vincent got one of his co-workers to let me borrow their equipment to copy the file onto a DVD-ROM, as it’s too big to fit on a CD-ROM. I was thinking of buying a DVD burner, but they are really expensive. I’ll probably have to buy one eventually, though, especially if we want to do a DVD, complete edition of the Lady X episodes put together, which, with all the extra footage, could be as long as 20 minutes, or the length of a half-hour TV show if you factor in commercials, etc. We could also have subtitle choices and some simple features. I still don’t know exactly what we would do with it, but it would be a cool thing to have, anyway.

After I got the DVDs I took one over to the closet 7-Eleven to send in to the executive producer in Japan. It turns out, however, that the DHL service at 7-Eleven only sends documents; they told me to go to the DHL office on Jianguo North Road, so, pissing and moaning in the pouring rain, I hailed a cab to take me there. Just after I had paid the almost NT$1600 to send a package to Japan as quickly as possible (“It will be even quicker in July,” they told me, “and also even more expensive.”), I turned around to see a friend of mine walk in. I vaguely recalled that he worked for DHL in Zhonghe; he just happened to be passing through the main office. He told the lady at the counter to give me the employee price, which was under NT$400. Funny how things work out sometimes.

So, Episode 4 is done. I came up with a poster that exhibits less-than-elegant design, but I like it. Feel free to take it and use it (no, not for a Fark photoshop contest! I mean use it in a good way). Now I have to concentrate on Episode 5, which is even more complicated than Episode 4, but should turn out to be a real beauty of an episode when we finally get it all done up.