Rick's b.log - entry 2021/12/10

Wawa has died

This morning, Wawa seemed a little agitated, but I told her that I'd see her this evening, and yes, I am well aware that there's bad weather coming (heavy rain all day). I gave her the morning Felix.

About a third of the Felix was eaten, and then it looks like she just went to her box, curled up, and conked out.

Mom and I found Wawa, as a very noisy kitten (Mew-chan) about ten years ago, so that would make her about ten and a half...ish.

Tomorrow she'll be buried by the big rock, alongside Tiny (Alice) and Nou. I think what upsets me about this was that she was the last link to "the before" (Mom times).

As I was muttering unpleasantries in two languages, Anna was up on the ledge screaming at me for not having fed her. I'm looking at the empty food pouch in my hand. Uh-hu. Well, I gave her Wawa's food too. And about forty seconds later: mew! you've not fed me! mew! Such is the mind of a cat.

At least Wawa died peacefully (wasn't attacked or shot or anything like that). I think she must have either been ill in some manner (I noticed that she didn't appear to have any heats this year), or felt that something was "off", and in hindsight she may have been wanting to say goodbye. If only she'd waited a day... I don't have work tomorrow...

She seemed fine on Wednesday. The three of us did a walk around the house, and she stayed by my side as usual while Anna ran off under brambles and up trees. Wawa wasn't one for climbing. She was a much more peaceful cat, which is why in the summer I'd have her out while I was in the hammock. She'd be happy to just sit beside me. Anna, Anna never stays still. Even in those rare times that Anna wants a cuddle, five seconds later she's changed her mind and is arms and legs trying to get away to chase ghosts. I didn't ever have Anna out when I was swinging in the hammock, as there'd likely be no hammock if I had.

Some pictures. There aren't many of Wawa, as unlike Tiny she barely ever stayed still when I was taking photos. And unlike Anna, she was black so the camera had a time focusing on her. Therefore, a lot of the photos I took (and deleted) are best described as "blurry dark object".

May 2012

September 2016

April 2021

April 2021

May 2021

August 2021

And, of course:

January 2019

Advent 2021 day 10

Mamie Fletcher's House 10

Incontinence

So Lucy, in a house of ghosts, will... leak... if her fear gets too high.

Oops! (shown at 2×)

The sound effect for this was made by placing my phone on the tile floor of the bathroom and gently tipping water out of a jug from about a metre up.
Then some editing and, there you have it. Splash!

Even more scared?

Ewww! (shown at 2×)

Yup. Scare her too much and a worrying amount of poop will burst out, with an amusingly squicky splat.

I had thought of having, let's just say visible poop effects on her body/clothing afterwards and a drop in movement speed as her morale plummeted. I shelved that plan as it would mean having a whole new set of animation sprites and, since it was primarily just for a tasteless gag, I really couldn't be arsed.

As for the sound effect, this one was actually quite difficult to find something that encapsulated the explosiveness of what just happened, if you catch my drift. A simple fake fart wouldn't do it.
After a lot of experimentation and naff ideas, the one I finally settled on was to place my phone in the bath (empty, of course!) and drop two sodden washclothes from ceiling height, to land at just slightly different times.
It, actually, took numerous attempts until I had an effect that I was happy with. Too close and it was just a splat. Too far apart, and it sounded odd.
The bathtub was, I think, for some reverberation. Dropping the cloths on the floor didn't sound right. But the metal bath did.

Amusing potty failure

Another idea I thought about, and discarded, is that if she - when falling - happens to land on a ghost, well...

Let's just say, I called these two "The Russians".

Walking, jumping, screaming, and taking photos...

The scream was taken from a website offering royalty free sound effects, though the disclaimer sounded a lot like "we are offering stuff we nicked from random places". I edited the sample quite a lot (for speed and duration).

My first camera sound was my old SLR. It's not automatic, so it was a mirror movement and wheel crank.
The next camera sound never happened. My old APS camera (remember those?) refused to do anything without a roll of film in it.
The final camera sound was a noisy fully automatic 35mm camera. Easy to fool into thinking there's film in it (dumb thing will happily wind on with the back cover open!), so with it thinking it was loaded, I just pointed and shot.

I lie. I pointed and shot about a dozen times. It was kind of noisy, so it had to be close enough to be heard as a camera noise, but far enough to not max out the microphone and sound bad. But it still didn't sound good. I think the microphone ACG is too aggressive. On a mobile there's little control over the recording level.

So I cheated. I found a number of videos on YouTube with people activating all sorts of cameras. I think half of these are supposed to be some sort of ASMR thing? Well, after gettng thoroughly bored, I came across one that was pretty much the same as my camera, only not a crappy recording. So I downloaded the audio, clipped out that specific bit of the audio, and fiddled with it as necessary for the game.

I probably need a proper mic and recording solution, but I can't justify the sort of prices that they cost just to record a few sound effects for a game.

Ouch, and Oh, Yes!

The original versions were me. I spoke them in a higher register than normal, bumped the frequency digitally, and slowed it down so it wasn't like a chipmunk. The result was... not a guy, but not a girl either. So it was great to have an actual girl provide the spoken parts.

Editing

Some further tweaking was performed using Jason Tribbeck's Sonor application (on RISC OS). Sadly Sonor doesn't understand stereo samples, however an amusing side effect of how samples are arranged is that if I resampled the mono sample to 88200kHz and saved it as a 16 bit PC file, then RDSP would 'see' it as a stereo file at 44100kHz. ☺

Tomorrow, the music.

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Rob, 11th December 2021, 22:41

So sorry about Wawa. It's terrible when you lose a cat, they do make themselves your family, and ten is no age really. My commiserations, and our thoughts are with you.

Rick, 11th December 2021, 23:50

I had Anna out while I buried Wawa. Interestingly, she sat quietly and watched, then let me pet her awhile. I don't know if she understood, or just picked up on the feeling...but it was appreciated.  (as, I'm sure, were the treats I gave her afterwards)

Rick, 11th December 2021, 23:51

Somebody has died on me every year for the past three years.  It's a little depressing.

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