RE: 🏁 CrazyChallenge. The first season. The first game. 🚀 Contest with money prize!
Craziest thing that I've ever did? I'd bet it was working for 5 full days almost non stop with only only about an hour or hour and a half of sleep in those ~140 hours, fueled only by some good portwine. It happened soon after I got a position as the system administrator and all round tech guy at the Pilot animation studio of Michail Tatarskiy (and unfortunately right after his death) in 2007.
The previous system administrator was fired because of his incompetence, and that incompetence is what resulted in me having to do this. All the cartoons that the studio produces participate in various festivals with the entry condition being (at least back then) for it to be on DVD with a menu, as well as English subtitles.
One such festival was upcoming, and there was a batch of new cartoons that are part of the 'Gora samotsvetov' series of cartoons (that is "The Mountain of Gems" for all of you English speaking folks!) and there was supposed to be the prepared image with subtitles and all, so I wasn't as worried as I should have been.
The thing is that there was no such image, nor was there a backup in the several different archives, as there should have been according to the protocol.
So, I was getting a little bit behind on making thise subtitles, with my daily chores not leaving enough time for the deadline (or so I've calculated), and I receive my first paycheck. In the evening I go get a pizza, and visit the groccesry store. There I find they have some really good 'Magarach' port, that I've newer seen sold in Moscow before or since. So I buy foyr bottles, a couple of white and a couple of red, get another pizza, because I've always wanted to have a pizza at work and at that point haven't had the chance to, and go back for the night.
For next five days I do my daily chores in the day, and work morning, evening and night on the subtitles. At first my English skills are in doubt, so I am supervised by Eduard Nazarov, who became the creative head of the studio after the passing of Tatarskiy, but soon he trusts me enough to do well, and only does sit on the final pass for aproval.
By the fourth night I figure that I can get a bit of sleep in the winter garden at dawn if I do it half an hour before the cleaning lady arrives, since the first thing she does is to water the whole thing.
Anyhow, to make the long story short, I was able to finish the project, even with some nitpicking by one of the cartoon directors on the final day, so ever the perfectionist.
Here is the youtube video of that cartoon. There were four more, but go check all of this stuff on youtube, it is great!
Unfortunately apart from the livejournal entries around that period like this one, I don't have any visual proof of this story. :-> If I dig around, back in Moscow I should have some photos of those days.
Well, after that I've promised myself to never repeat something like that ever, unless the fate of the whole world is at stake, or I am offered several million dollars. And then I'd only consider repeating that. I guess that qualifies it as crazy? But still, a lot of people think of me as lazy, perhaps because of my image. :->
wow
Great story, it's very good that you write it here! "Describe" it's mean write story too
Amazingly!
That is a pretty amazing story, even in my wild college days I don't think I could have survived something like that. Must have been very stressful!