Joalanovaubrat, biviēntés. (Stands for "Happy New Year, folks" in my conlang of Tovasala, né Relformaide, whose official wiki was swept away in Referata's September 2020 database crash, and whose revival at my ByetHosted creative-venture wiki is under hiatus as I seek enough hosting funds to keep the lights on; more on that a bit later.)
TL/DR: Prepare for a writeup as rambling as anything I've dished out in the past nine years of my tenure--and it shows as you read on. (4700+ words per Ecency's tracker--we've set a record.) Also, stay tuned for today's mildly interesting day counter.
22 days into 2021 (I started typing this on the 12th), and I've been caught up not only in the midst of this year's movie marathon (15 titles and five nonconsecutive days in so far), but also renewed enthusiasm as a Wikisource proofreader.
Yes, you read right: After an eight-year lull re: major projects, no thanks to G+ and whatever else standing in the way, I jumped back into Wikisource thanks to The Great Gatsby's entrance into the U.S. public domain days ago. As a matter of coincidence, I rescued the slightly similarly named Gadsby out of obscurity back when I last took WS seriously; that lipogram's U.S. copyright lapsed due to renewal failure back in 1968. (The one with a couple of "t"s was penned by none other than F. Scott Fitzgerald; the other with the "d" was typed by Ernest Vincent Wright.) At this writing, I'm engaged in a couple of "match-and-split" missions, while reaching back to another that got stalled long after my WS activity faltered away. (For those outside that site, "Match and Split" involves migrating traditionally transcribed texts to DJVU/PDF indexes--first by putting a special header atop the text, then pressing "MATCH", cleaning up en route to export, and finally letting one "Phe-bot" do the rest via a special "split" tab.)
Sadly, the likes of projects like WS ultimately did in the public-domain-reprint side of what used to be Constitution Books (whose Gadsby reprint I bundled with an essay of my own writing and research), because why bother selling tried-and-tested classics that are already available online for free anyway? The renamed Constant Noble label has since stayed around as a front for my unfulfilled projects--Unspooled, Sevton, RFM, et al.--and who knows when any of those might see the light of day in completed form.
All that renewed enthusiasm got me thinking: With Gadsby (and another E.V. Wright title, The Wonderful Fairies of the Sun) long out of the way, why not take a stab at the last Wright work that hasn't surfaced online yet? I'm talking about The Fairies That Run the World and How They Do It (1903), which is listed as being held by three U.S. libraries at WorldCat, and which I requested over the phone on Thursday 14th (before noon) via interlibrary loan with the HCPLC system. (I myself haven't gone to the Brandon branch in quite a long while, and said location has closed its doors since last March, when the COVID-19 pandemic started unfolding stateside.) In a matter of days, I'll remind the WS Scriptorium as well. Just so you know, I am not leaving my home (for the sake of my health) till this pandemic gets curbed, so either they'll have to mail it over to me or the superiors may settle for curbside pickup. Whatever happens, we shall soon see.
As I type these next several paragraphs (on the 15th), Wikipedia--of which I am a 16-year veteran--has turned 20. Which reminds me: The sooner I update my profile there (and at Wiktionary and Meta--the latter long out of date and which could really benefit from the new boilerplate I conceived at my ByetHost wiki last season), the better.
Meanwhile in the real world, the 15th also marked my deadline to spend everything I could on my $25 Target holiday gift card--as a first-time member of theirs. And spend it all I almost did--"right on the dollar", to quote my younger sister. (As you might have known from earlier bulletins, I have long yearned for a TD card instead if only for the Last.fm resubscription; despite my best efforts last time, a good deal of inaccurate scrobble data is still unaccounted for. The estimated artist count of ~3,750 is up for recalculation.)
The real reason I'm writing this right now is just to remind readers that:
Speaking of Malagasy:
Speaking of the Dixwell cousins and company: Yesterday (the 14th), the last 30 of the Central American Reflections crew affected by Eta and Iota finally settled into their new provisional complex in Mexico's Baja--right next door to Film Roman/Waterman's local branch. Unfortunately, the recent death of Disney animator Dale Baer (whose outside studio recently assisted in their efforts) has put a one-month dent in their plans. (Thanks, r/movies!) After the Panama City team pays their tributes, it's back to putting the finishing touches on Volume 5 under Kino Lorber's watch. Said volume is coming this March; if all goes well, look out for Volume 6 this Golden Week, and Vol. 7 on Memorial Day. (And you know what this means where I am: I must swap SD cards if I must go ahead. Only keeping the 16 GB starter pack around for now, because there are a good deal of story notes from earlier attempts at Unspooled that'll help me out sooner or later. )
Speaking of technology: The spare HP laptop I've kept around since late 2018 is officially on its last legs. (And has been that way since the end of October.) I have recently determined that ongoing demands from the WinSXS feature are the real culprit for the decreasing storage, already not helped by the fact that 32/29.1 GB for any Windows system is nowadays laughable and inadequate as they come. (Way beyond that--32 GB is the current size for Windows installation packages; no wonder I long forewent the occasional prompts for Windows Update.) Not even attempts with DISM could stem the increasing tide. In retrospect, I should've set a System Restore point when I had the opportunity--but how much better would that system have fared if I'd gone ahead? Well, looks like a 128 GB replacement is officially in our sights; again, that's part of what my anthro commission line is for. (Thankfully, everything of value was already on my USB decks and SD cards.) Or perhaps a few tech gurus at Reddit can diagnose the problem better than me?
And speaking of Christmas gifts: Apart from the Target card, this year's dowry amounted to little more than a pack of socks and a pack of underwear. (As for the socks, don't count on them yet till everyone's really safe to go out again.)
As I continue typing this post (on Monday 18):
Heading into the 20th (the inauguration of America's new President, Joe Biden), time for the latest on Rogatia:
Too bad 2020 did in what I originally had in mind for the darker incarnation of The Sevton Saga. Sevton was originally conceived as a slice-of-life story back in late 2005; evolved into an art-theft mystery by the start of the New Tens; and morphed into an action-packed revenge thriller once the Disaster-in-Chief stepped in. (Even in the Bulwark of the Atlantic, who's even missing him anyway?) With COVID-19 now in the picture, I retooled it as a Ready Player One homage with a synopsis sketch surfacing last northern fall at Byet. But days ago, it struck me how daunting a task it would be for our hero and sidekick, Diane and Wyorst, to carry on their mission in the virtual world. As a matter of consequence, I have now turned both into second-string, first-time 2D animators, going up against the likes of Disney, DreamWorks, and their ilk--even local, Elmshire-based company TJE.
Speaking of Rogatian entertainment: The Bulwark's national stations were sold last month by their owner, Aquarius Media (renamed in November 2018 from Rogatia Media Partners). Rogatia's national cable operator Stride, and American news site Axios Media, took over the holdings of the former HCP network. Aside from broadcasting, Aquarius' only other effort--ever--was distributing the 2019 public-domain furry documentary Rukus as filler for its outlets. After they unveiled their new brands on air on the morning of January 4:
Rogatia also used to have a Referata wiki, but like I said above (and in my recent RFM commentary), the Semantic MediaWiki host has practically bitten the dust. In light of its absence, I'll take time to list each and every current distribution firm with a presence in the Bulwark; giving them new profiles on GDocs as I find time.
Last but definitely not least, our New Year's Eve 2019 post (from the Steemit days) touched on Rogatia's copyright provisions for foreign works (40 years after creation--without exception in regular cases), but left the details regarding material from Rogatia itself undealt with. (This year ushered in material from the first 12 months of the 1980s.) To fill in a long-overlooked gap:
In the traditional sense, all works whose first publication occurred in Rogatia are no longer protected--regardless of age; Rogatia's government has actively encouraged using the open-source licenses provided by Creative Commons since the new law went into effect in March 2019 (in protest of Article 13). CC0 and Kopimi, used on this feed, are highly recommended. For which you can thank Hycam--and Nina "Sita Sings the Blues" Paley. (That alone just goes to show you how much they--and I--feel about the issue. Not to mention the Bulwark is on the verge of breaking away from the Berne Convention after coronavirus gets curbed elsewhere.)
In this year's first "404 Files":
Continuing on the last hour of January 21, going into the overnight and early morning of the 22nd (complete with two bits of "404" addenda):
(nine or so months later)--and Pixabay's "cdd20"--because thanks to looking deeply into "popular illustrators on Pixabay" on Google Images quite some time ago, I finally located the art I wanted to base my long-tentative red-panda picture on. (As a reminder, there are red-panda cub idols as supporting characters in the Unspooled mythos, taking a cue from the Q-Teez in Illumination's Sing.) Told you I knew what I saw all along.
As for one of our marathon attractions? I reserve almost no nice words for it; nor can I remember half the details. I was introduced to feature #11 in this year's edition--a 1993 animated musical version of Dickens' David Copperfield (watched on 6/1, 4:35 a.m.; YouTube "fanload")--through an NSFW tribute by "bbmbbf" ages ago. (Again, responsible adults, search out that one.) Whatever the Latino wolf drew (that's his fursona) is better rendered and crafted than this 91-minute atrocity of a would-be contender in the field of "animal characters do classic works"--and by "atrocity", we mean the modern-day styles of the songs (by Kasha + Hirschhorn, who I hope have done better before or since) definitely do not fit in with a 19th-century Victorian England backdrop.
There's a sweet birth scene in the first few minutes--right before the first tune ruins the mood--and a smattering of decent character designs abound (those of the title character, his mother, and his girlfriend--all cats--and Mrs. Pegotty the mole). But they alone are already not enough to save the proceedings, and the less-than-stellar, weaker-than-Saturday-morning animation clearly does not even help matters any. This was a nationally broadcast (on NBC) primetime Christmas special?! Heck, even Taiwan's Wang Film (and their U.S. contemporary, Hanna-Barbera) flexed far more muscle on their worst day.
Take my word for it (in true LeVar Burton fashion), this is definitely one time where you're better off reading the original book. (Or better yet, settle for the tried, tested, and true--all from Disney: Oliver & Company, The Great Mouse Detective, and Robin Hood.)
I've long moved on from IMDb (remember their message-board fiasco from a few years back?), but next time I log on, I'll give it the lowest score in my system--a 5 out of 10. (And yes, I'm pretty sure "zero stars as a rating-scale feature" remains a running gag in their site requests department.) Abandon hope, all ye who watch....
On the upside: The after-segment refresher, "Dog Brain" (1988) from International Rocketship, was 1,000 times way better than anything I (and the nephew who watched along while deciding to sleep over in the upstairs loft) was subjected to. Then again, so were the previews (for Cats Don't Dance and Oliver '88).
If nothing beats the dud of this lineup, it'll really be too soon.
O.K., rant over. Now, as we wind down, time for one more Dixwell-related bit (because we need a picture to spruce things up): "Peach Raccoon!" by u/berrry-tea (from r/DrawForMe), based on a suggestion by this contributor and uploaded under this feed's PD waivers with permission. A few hours after press time, look for this at the usual sources.
Which is reflective of the biggest irony in all of this: Sam and Alfred remain allergic to peaches as grown-up procyonines; the former turned 19 last holiday season. No wonder the likes of this critter are their nemesis in occasional breaktime scribbles at Briarwood.
As for the last word: After missing out last year, I did tune in to ABC for the 2021 ball drop (courtesy of New York affiliate WABC-7--off-market), but with connection/buffering issues partly militating against me. The CNN coverage, with Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen, provided a backup--and that's where I saw the stroke of midnight. (No telling what app I used; keep in mind we've gone a year without traditional cable--but that's O.K.)
¤¤¤¤
Through all of this, I feel pretty much like the turn-of-the-century college lady-cum-letter writer whose writeups I've revived match-and-splitting after that long Wikisource sabbatical. That's right: I'm referring to Jerusha Abbott, or Judy, who wrote to Daddy-Long-Legs Smith in the 1912 young-adult classic named after him. At my current rate, we are set to finish the migration anytime by or around Wednesday 27--as we move on to other titles and appealing topics. (Once again, don't expect any reprints from Constant Noble any time soon.)
So that's it for your fellow Captain until such time as we meet again. Come next week, meet the "Lost Five" from the last days of my Steemit phase; in the weeks ahead, more cabbages, more kings, and a couple more Notebook entries galore. (And don't forget to support my ByetHost site's upkeep with a $9.99 commission; I'm still learning the ropes, and must settle for black outlines next time around.) Until then, take care, stay safe, wipe down all you can, wear masks if you're out...and God bless.
All of us, and Mr. Floyd's family.
And justice--and freedom--for all!
Onward and upward...
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