money looks back

you need $10, a hole punch and post it note or some other colored paper. dot the eyes with a marker. get really creative with the eyes: blood shot, one bigger than the other, kitty, demon, monster. you could also make them look like this opened and closed. works with every bill except the $1.

ohhhhhh! I like those…

post lens surgery. saved the eye but lost some parts. no more eyelid. but it can still see! see…from the Twitter

the camera that I haul around every where ended up with a ding on the inner front lens ring that prevented the automatic lens cover from totally opening. it stopped halfway. I don’t think I tool a picture of it’s half-ness but it doesn’t matter. as it was the camera was done. which is sad because I know it which means I like it so I use it. in looking at the ring it appeared that it could be pried off which would offer one of a few solutions: bending back the ring, removing the lens doors or actually fixing it so it could work again.

it was easy to pry off and once that was done it was easy to bend the ring back to normal. putting it back together proved impossible. there was no way to attach the tiny springs without tiny tools which I have none of. so I removed the doors and springs saving them for some reason. then I snapped the ring in place which took lots of force. then I snapped a shot to make sure it wasn’t borked. then I was done!

at some point this little camera will get replaced by the next Canon. but until that day it’s good go for taking the day to day.

okay that was not fun. the usually is a normal-ish and oddly similar to an Applebee’s. but tonight I might as well have been in “pick a Marina bar, any bar!” and think odious experience. okay, not that I seek out the Applebee’s but I certainly don’t seek out the Marina. that’s the place where you meet every girl ever and every boy seeking the same. the mob looks the same page of the catalog. white shirts, grey tops, black bottoms and fashionable boots.

so these douche bags are there trying to pick each other over and over and I’m already over it by the time I find my way to the bar. somebody gives up a seat because I have that look in my eye of I’m about to change you into a different dimension. and not because it’s Saturday and you’re in my bar. but because I’ve had another version of my relationship with Final Cut Pro. you know, it’s either working for you or you want to break up with “it” but it’s the Holiday’s and somebody’s Mom will be disappointed. just so you know, my Mom doesn’t care.

over there in the corner was every girl ever who was so loud you could hear her every word over the very loud of loud people being loud. that’s one loud loud. savages is the better way to describe them because they order shots of things that no human person should shoot. she seemed rationally disappointed that there isn’t a way to have a clear tasteless alcohol plus Red Bull so she whines “okayIwillhavacosmo” because that’s what she knows despite the fact that she doesn’t like that drink every time. it’s pink, tastes like candy and she’s not paying for it until later. pay it forward baby.

but back to the loud girl. can you believe that one of the white shirts actually wanted to take her home? please oh please we all said! take her. this is such a good idea. secretly between us we empty into the karma pile merging it with pay it forward bridge toll for the dude behind me fare points to make that happen. and eventually it got quiet. she left! hurray! there was that 3 minute moment of oh yeah I like this bar again. but wait… crap, there’s that screeeetch again. she had to pee.

and then the lights went up. but not because it was last call. it was far from that right then. but the scary lights made them go away one by one. never underestimate the power that low lights or maybe no lights does to make them into something that they are not. with lights on the word dim comes to mind. go with that.

we had a few more and then one more. then it was my bus. and that’s were my whole night repeated itself for the third time. I have to ask, when did deja vu come in threes? I thought people died that way. I’ll just mark this day down as the 1, 2, 3 dying experience without the dying part.

next time you look at a shot and wonder how in the world they were able to get a film crew there for the day just remember they probably just made it from nothing instead.

here’s a quirky sketch I made. I was inspired by the O.

collect all 9. that’s right 9. the artist decided that Pluto is a planet. or at least in his opinion it’s a planet.

link

5 Opening Gala at the Yerba Buena. 4PM-8PM

6 Double IPA Festival in Hayward. Noon-ish.

7 Beerunch before the @ESBale Stupid Bowl & Home Brew Festival. http://mateveza.com/beerunch

8 Triple Rock Sour Beer Festival 4PM

9 Triple Rock Barrel Aged Festival (afternoon) followed by the Tionfest at Toronado

10 ??

11 Paxton Dinner somewhere. details here. or it’s Oyster Fest at Magnolia and Sierra Nevada at the T.

12 Bill Brand Tribute at Drakes

13 Barleywine at Toronado

14 Brewers Tea at 21st Amendment followed by the Celebrator 22nd Party

GET HERE!

• iPhoto from iLife o9 adds face recognition but how come you can’t add titles?
• Numbers from iWork o9 would be more awesome with a web interface to pull data.
• Windows 7 is pretty (and it works) but why is everyone still using XP?
• Mac OS X 10.6 does nothing to make it a better experience.
• iPhone 3.o the invisible upgrade. remember don’t your jailbroke phone.
• iPod Nano 5th gen finally got an FM radio that I will never use.
• everyone else shipped new MP3 players to almost no fanfare.
• Twitter takes a left as celebrities and corporations move in. just remember, nobody cares about that you took a shit.
• your WordPress blog got hacked. again.
• AT&T still sucks it if you actually use a iPhone as a phone. the solution? get a iPod Touch and a phone phone if you have to talk.
• there’s an app for that. but how do you find them?! who has time to check out 100K crapwares!?
• smart phone chasers make devices then get surprised that nobody really wants them.
• wither ZFS.
• 1920×1200 is the new 640 x 480.
• Palm to iTunes. it works! no it doesn’t. it works! no it doesn’t. it works! no it doesn’t…
• Adobe shipped a new version of Director. still $1000. game off. Unreal (UDK) and Unity 3D made free versions. game on!
• the utility PC is undermining of the industry as G/OS, Ubuntu, Chrome, Jolicloud, Moblin, and Windows 7 battle it out for the race to the bottom.
• the return of the SLR in D form means that camera retailers have stuff to sell to buyers wanting to fill their bags full of crap. wait, what retailers?
• also in the returns department: Fake Steve returns. so did real Steve. Borg Steve never left.
• Boxee jumps out of Alpha with a why is this so hard to use surprise. plus it got hardware.
• facebook is the new AOL. speaking of AOL it got new logo(s).
• the Helvetica movie maker manages to out smug himself.
• Sun got eaten by the wrong giant.
• the Mighty Mouse became Magic.
• Chumby got cheaper. still looks for something to solve.
• Virgin America makes the new mile high club. that is, tweeting “I sent this for 28,000 feet while drinking IPA in cans. that’s right cans!”
• other stuff happened.

[rant]
QuickTime X officially ated my show. and I’m reverting to other tools from here on. Apple frigtards don’t get a second chance on this one. I’m livid about this loss. it is no small bug. because it’s beyond just some crashing problem that has to get solved. I have planning, travel, costs, guests, and lots of time wasted. but worse in not getting the performance.

generally I’d be all about finding what the problem, solution and resolution is to fix whatever happened. but here’s the thing. I’m not going to waste that time. instead I’m going to find another solution. this bug is like something we’d put up with 10 years ago. but this is OLD code. capturing audio is something we’ve been doing for 20 years now. that’s 26,280,000 seconds. or 175,200 hours. or 21,900 work-days. get it? [I]this should not be a problem[/I]. not now in 2009 now almost 10.

I will not scorch earth and flatly say that you should never ever never use OS X 10.6 in production but I will tell you that I’m not going to from here on. not after losing a show I’m not. instead I’ll revert back to 10.5.6 and work there.

the prior state of things was that QuickTime Pro could reliably record audio for hours. there was never an issue in three years of using the tool for this task. even across upgrades and updates it never came up as a question that QT was somehow less reliable. my thinking was not wanting to run “a whole editor” to do capturing. take a big footprint and make it smaller seemed to the best possible practice.

in all the years of using QT Audio Capture there were things that I just didn’t like. setting levels is for the birds. you have to use the System Preferences to get to dialed in. which makes it seem less professional. and the default capture states always have to be checked to make sure they don’t revert. I have longed for a better system that didn’t require a long check list but it’s the devil you know or at least thought you knew.

[/rant]

following up on my own rant I have to say that I’ve been incredibly lucky with what I have lost because of problems. in most studios the engineer will have some other kind of recorder recording a backup. that way all is not lost. I have a way to make that happen. and I guess from here on I’ll roll that backup. the mixer will certainly allow that to happen. it’s just one more thing.

my setup is not ideal. I don’t have a way for ME to see the board or recording devices while recording. I shouldn’t have to after the sound check though so I can pay attention to my show not my gear. one thing that will go far to fix this is to finish the full screen Level EQ and Timer. this way I could use that thing to VNC into the screen OR I could bolt a screen into the table. either is fine with me.

finally, I am at the point where I’m less interested in doing post production. my shows in 2010 will be supported by a “cart system” so I can drop in intro, extro, SFX and commercials during recording. or at least have better way to mark drop ins without having to find the section, break it, insert, etc. that means I’m thinking live even if I’m not.