Sunday, January 18, 2009

First ASCII Art Piece of Mine in Ages

I cannot believe that I actually managed to create my first piece of block ASCII Art in ages... eons might be the better word to describe the time frame between the creation of this ASCII  and the last ASCII of mine that I created before this one.

The ASCII that I created was a long over-due request by Mad Max, the co-founder of the old scene group CPI, Canadian Pirates Inc., which I actually joined myself in September of last year.

I had this open request on my conscience for way too long and I am glad that I got this off my head now. I also hope that Mad Max will like the NFO file logo. I have to admit, that I got a little bit rusty (old maybe? :( ).

I sent the ASCII to him via email, but did not hear back from him since then. I will find out sooner or later :)

cpi-ascii-scrshot

I also Finished Something Else ;) !!!

I wrote about the amount (count) of different SAC releases across all pages earlier this year.  I also made stuff available for download in re-sorted and grouped bundles by content type rather than by SAC artpack.

More SAC Art Put Up for Access On-Line via Web Browser

That was all nice and good, but does not make the old-school art of ASCII, ANSI or Pixel Art accessible (viewable) online and across platforms.  Okay, so I took it upon myself to convert the thousands of ASCII and ANSI art pieces that several dozen artists produced over a period longer than 10 years and converted all of them into PNG image format, which is compatible with everything today. I also converted the Pixel art that was for a large degree saved in the old IFF (or LBM of Deluxe Paint II) format and other similar depreciated formats, which are today not in use anymore.

FlickrCol-SAC-ASCII-Art

1. ASCII ART Collection

All 3,000+ Superior Art Creations ASCII Art Pieces from 30+ artists and all 35 SAC art packs in one Flickr collection with 30 separate picture sets, sorted by artists most of the time.

FlickrColl-SAC-ANSI-Art

2. ANSI ART Collection

All 450+ Superior Art Creations ANSI Art Pieces from 25+ artists and all 35 SAC art packs in one Flickr collection with 10 separate picture sets, 9 sets for the nine most productive ANSI artists in SAC and a tens set with various ANSI art by 15+ SAC artists who did not produce very much ANSI art for the packs overall.

I created by far the most ANSI art of all (over 130 ANSI art pieces), followed by Rave with 105 pieces. Hetero did 72, Dark Star aka Puschel did 25, Raiser 24, Shot and Kenet 18 ANSI's each, SL aka Strike Light 16, Webpige0 12 and 56 ANSI art pieces created by over 15 different artists.

FlickrColl-SAC-PIXEL-Art

3. Pixel Art Collection

All 500+ of Superior Art Creations oldskool pixel VGA art pieces, logos for the most part, created by 30+ artists and all 35 SAC art packs in one Flickr collection with 16 picture sets. The largest number of pixel art contribution was done by the following SAC artists (alphabetically): Asphyx (ASX), Cokine (COK), Creator (CRE), Creator of Hell (CH/CoH), Desolation Angel (DA), Dream Design (DD), Eboy (EB), Fefst (FST), Ferrex (FX), HKultra (HKU), [K], Kenet, Moolok (MOO), Nerv (N,NR), Pasha (P), Puschel (PL), Roy, Sergeon, Senser (SNS) and Webpige0 (W0)

SAC artists who contributed to pixel art, but only very little were: Antibody (AB), B5, Bazilla (BAZ), ED, Flames, FX, GTI, Hetero (HT), IX, Marky (M), Mattey, Mr.Jezus, n]-[wa, Poldi (PD), Rave (RV), Silent (SiL), Sprocket , Techbit (TB), TPK

Putting over 400 MP3 Songs Up for Play-Back in Browser


All MP3 files are stored in a single "Directory" at Amazon S3 - Help Wanted and Appreciated

I already uploaded most of the 400+ tracker music files converted to MP3 to my Amazon S3 Account. I need to check and then upload if I missed any song and then think up a way to put them up somewhere for easy accessibility and play-back capabilities via web browser, without too long load-times or requirement for setting up another browser plug-in, which would have to be downloaded first. All this should of course take as little as time as possible, without sacrificing the accessibility of the music by platform restrictions.

Ideas and suggestions are welcome and appreciated. Whatever the suggestion might be, it has to run on MS IIS6 on Microsoft Windows 2003 Server, Classic ASP and/or ASP.NET and/or PHP 4. If it requires MySQL 5 and/or MS SQL Server 2005 portable or developer edition, fine. Also MS Access 2007 as database storage for some settings and catalog content would be alright.

Thanks and Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Thursday, January 08, 2009

Extended Cirque du Soleil KA and Love Videos

It has been a while since I created any extended videos about any of the Cirque du Soleil shows. Well, I have been busy and finished now two very extended videos for the Cirque du Soleil shows "KA", which is currently performed at the MGM Grand hotel and casino in Las Vegas, Nevada and the for the show "The Beatles Love", currently performed at the Mirage hotel and casino, also in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The last extended, 28 minutes long, video (78 MB download in AVI format) that I did was for the Music Concert/Show "Delirium", which was running in movie theaters for a short time already and where I am still waiting for the DVD release.

I still remember the C&D letter that I got from the Cirque because of my videos and therefor will not embed them here in this post for you to watch, without leaving my web site. Like I did with my old posts as the reaction to the letter, links with image place-holders will have to do hehe.

Cirque du Soleil "Love" Video

The "Love" video is a whopping 55 minutes long. You can download the video in AVI format (422 MB in size) here.

Backup link to video on Google Video

Cirque du Soleil "KA" Video

The "KA" video even tops the "Love" video, being 57 minutes long. You can download the video in AVI format (384 MB in size) from MediaFire.com via this URL.

Backup link to video on Google Video

As I always say, no video recording will be a substitute for watching a Cirque du Soleil show live and in person.

However, I hope that my video releases will put some pressure on Cirque du Soleil and MGM to release show DVDs for the resident shows in Las Vegas and elsewhere for people like me, who have seen the shows live already and for people who can not afford the trip in person to Las Vegas and watch the show there. They will have at least the next best thing available to them, which is watching a canned recording of the live show at home on DVD.

You can find links to the videos and other videos that I created for other Cirque du Soleil shows at my updated and extended Cirque du Soleil Primer Article by the way. Video downloads in AVI and WMV format for all my Cirque du Soleil videos can be found at this shared folder at the file sharing service MediaFire.com.

Informational Videos about the Cirque

I created a series of informational videos about Cirque du Soleil merchandise, which you might find interesting as well. I covered only the digital content though and not the clothing and other "schwag".

All links are going to the video recordings at my YouTube.com account about Cirque du Soleil.

To get a nice overview of the Cirque du Soleil shows from the past and present, check out my 5:37 minutes long video, which is an extended version of the 2004 promotional video "Then & Now" from the "Midnight Sun" DVD, covering the 9 new shows since 2004 in addition to the existing 11 shows of the original video.

This extended introduction to the world of Cirque du Soleil covers the following shows: La Magie Continue, Cirque Reinvente, Nouvelle Experience, Saltimbanco, Alegria, Mystere, "O", Dralion, Quidam, Varekai, Zumanity, KA, Love, Corteo, Delirium, Kooza, Wintuk, Zaia, Zed and Believe.

Cirque Complaints and Suggestions

I also created a video with some complaints and suggestions that I have about the Cirque and their merchandise.

Backup link to video on YouTube.com

1. I hate that they miss almost on every official sound track CD for any of their shows the music for several of the acts in the show. It is not an official sound track, if it is not complete!

2. It took me almost one year to find the official sound track CD for their seasonal show Wintuk. I even contacted their customer service who was not able to help me. I got a pirated copy of the album, which was not hard to find at first, until I finally found the web site with official Wintuk merchandise last year in December. The site is not in the search engines at all and why they do not offer the OST in their Cirque Boutique web site with their other CDs and DVDs is a mystery to me.

3. Many of their merchandise is not available for purchase, if you select as shipping location the wrong part of this planet (such as Asia). For an international company, touring world wide and having fans world wide, it is a shame to leave people out in the dust without the ability to legally buy many of the merchandise from the Cirque du Soleil web site. Especially the digital content like CDs and DVDs should be made available, because people can get those anyway, yes, illegal and as pirated version, but what do you want them to do, if this is the only option to get the stuff? People want to do the right thing. People want to pay the money. Don't force them to do the wrong thing, because there is absolutely no reason for it.

You don't believe me? See for yourself. I took some screen shots of the Cirque du Soleil online store (Boutique).

Some difference there, eh?!

FIX THIS!

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC