It Was A Stupid Week
Friday, February 16th, 2024 12:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snoozefestaudio |
28F and overcast today.
Last I wrote on Monday, I had no papers sent to me from Bantam... and had to leave a voice mail with the receptionist.
Well, she called me back at 2PM, right as I was leaving for work.
She was trying to act like I must've received it but deleted it or lost it in a spam folder, but that was definitely not the case.
At any rate she re-sent the papers, but of course I could not do anything with them until midnight, on Monday going into Tuesday.
Late at night, after work, I had to print the shit up, sign it, scan it, and send it back.
Then on Tuesday I received confirmation that they'd indeed taken a ton of my money, and sent a link to a portal to check on things... but all week long that portal has been blank!
If they are doing anything at all, I have no idea what it is.
The way things have been going, I wouldn't be surprised if they just took my money and aren't gonna do anything at all, ever.
Meanwhile, I've been having issues with shit hitting my PNC checking account that shouldn't be!
So I looked into it and... turns out that goddam AllState never cancelled Dad's home insurance policy! So Since November, it's been auto-deducting that fee out of my account!
Meanwhile, on my AllState app, it says I'm all paid up!
So I finally got somebody on the phone today to see that this indeed was a mistake and he said he'd take care of it, and the money will be refunded.
I'll believe it when I see it!
I've spent the week working on YouTube videos.
I finished up the entire playlist for Coffeehouse Boyfriend on Sunday night and Monday morning.
Those are all lyric videos, featuring collages of drawings and photos from my past.
And the reason I did it that way was because the album is supposed to be like a home made mix tape with hand drawn liner notes.
But at work on Monday I got to wondering how I was gonna make videos for the Wig City album... now that I'd used up every last scrap of my own visual material.
So, I hit on the idea of using Night Cafe to create storyboard videos.
I started in on Monday night, and got it all done on Wednesday night, but the results are pretty damn nice!..
It took a while to realize I had to be doing the cuts on the drum beats (mostly cymbal crashes) rather than with the lyrics... but once I figured that out... I just love it!
I decided not to clutter the video with actual lyrics anywhere.
I can always enter those into the closed captioning... though, I haven't done it yet.
I'm currently working on the video for Wig City's second song; Shelley.
Night Cafe, of course, has it's limitations.
Certain things, like tripping, or driving, or even drinking, are nearly impossible for the AI to get right... so you have to work around that.
And even when you get it to understand you, it can take five or ten tries to get it to spit out the right shot... which burns through credits.
Every pic generated takes one credit.
But to upscale a good one to a higher resolution is another two credits.
But if you roll in the cost of the bad takes to get to the good one... each storyboard frame that makes it into the video costs around 13 or 14 credits.
The cost of credits depends on how you buy them.
They're cheeper if you do a monthly payment, which I'm not doing yet.
But if I'm serious about making videos like this for three more albums; Wig City, Lost Cause, and Alb-O-Matic, then I need to factor in that cost.
That said, the Rendezvous video above has gotten 97 views in the past 24 hours... which is not much in the grand scheme, but... for me, putting something on a new, unknown channel, that's a lot!
I do think they make the music more engaging.
I'm going with the anime art style, as I did for the still splash pics last summer, for a few reasons.
These songs don't lend themselves to hyper-realism, either in their production, or subject matter.
And I also think the anime frames will age a little better than other styles of AI generated art.
Thirdly, anime has just become a pretty universal way to depict things.
Most of the drawings I see made by kids at the grade school are in that style.
It's become the default cultural way to illustrate... globally.
Okay, so that's it, on a Friday before work!
Basically, nothing happened this week on the foreclosure front, other than Bantam taking my money, and promising to take more.
And... AllState also trying to rape me, but I think I've taken care of that?
I just don't trust what I'm told anymore!
I was told in November, that policy would be cancelled.
I was told by Ben that the refi was going through, and if it didn't, BMO would only slap a lien on the house.
I was told by Stephany that Dad would have ten years to pay off the HELOC.
And everybody else loves to tell me everything will work out and be fine... because they don't want to deal with my ongoing crisis anymore.
Hell!.. Dad even told me for years that his homeowners insurance would cover the mulberry tree if it ever fell over.
People lie!
But... yeah, I am trying to stay calm by focusing on creative things.
And now the weekend is at hand.
°¦}
