Day: January 27, 2006

You all know me, I’m an easy going guy. Nothing really rocks my boat.

But when the dreaded Friday approaches, I cringe.

Sure, I’m happy that it’s the end of the week. I would be stupid not to. Work seems a little more slack on a Friday…it’s like I am the leader of a zombie pack and I am a zombie myself.

But, the one thing that irks me, is the following conversation that happens with people.

Me: “Hey, how’s it going?”
(Random person): “It’s Friday!”

ARGH! I know it’s Friday! Everyone should know it’s Friday. Friday is not an emotion. I know these people are only trying to say “Hey, I’m doing pretty good. The week was hard but it’s the end and I’m looking forward to relaxing this weekend.”

But give me something with substance here people! It irks me when they use a day of the week to convey their emotions. You know it wouldn’t even be so bad if someone replied:

(Random Person): “I’m doing pretty good. It’s Friday!”

Hey, I can relate. I hear ya man. Good times are a-coming, especially when you have plans to see the Jeff Healey Band tonight with some friends. Can’t complain.

But when you just say “It’s Friday” it irks me. Especially when the same people do it. It’s like ‘their thing’ to say when Friday is coming up.

I’m going to try out the ‘It’s Tuesday’ for awhile and see how that treats people. What will people think? Will they think I’m happy because it’s new release day for most different forms of media (aka new CDs, new movies, etc.). What about if I said “It’s Wednesday!” Does that mean that I’ve made it to hump day and I’m good to roll down the other side of the hill. Maybe if I still collectec comic books this would show that I’m glad it’s Wednesday because there are some new comics on the rack.

Oddly enough, I don’t have this feeling when it’s Monday. I think there are a few people who say ‘It’s Monday’ and I just don’t bother to care either way. Maybe it’s because I’ve led my pack of Zombies from work on a Friday but still am a Zombie when I return to work on the Monday.

Happy Friday People.

A stroke of ambition hit me late last night and I decided to test out the TV tuner card Mike lent me to see if I could digitize my old videocassettes.

Success! Sort of?

The thing works…I started recording a Smashing Pumpkins: Intimate and Interactive concert back from…1998? It records in real time so I figured it would try and tape the entire 6 hour tape. I left it running overnight and when I awoke, I found it did in fact tape the 2 hour long show, but didn’t bother capturing any other footage on the videocassette. Another drawback is the fact that this 2 hour long MPG file is 8 gigabytes large…I would need a dual-layer DVD to put this onto.

Granted, this is after setting it up for 45 minutes and letting it run overnight. I’m sure this weekend I will find the answers to the following questions:

• The resolution of a TV set is 320×40. But if I record at 700+ it turns out to be less in size. What’s up with that?
• Is there a way to bring down the size while recording? When trying to create the DVD, it does start talking about how it’s WAY too big for a conventional single layer DVD and attempts to downgrade the quality, but it only shaved off 500MB. So two options appear: 1) Figure out a way to record it into a lower quality to begin with. 2) Use a program to downgrade to a nice 4.7GB size (perhaps DVDShrink? Does it work with MPGs?)
• What do I do with all the old videocassettes afterwards? I’m talking EVERYTHING. I want to first transfer any home videos, as well as stuff I’ve videotaped off of TV. Then I will ahead and tape actual movies. But afterwards, should I just chuck them in the garbage? In essence, I have converted the videos and they will be on a nifty DVD. I have heard that DVDs degrade over time, but so do videocassettes…
• Can I make a business out of this? Someone told me that a business charges $75 per hour of video that they convert to DVD. That is insane. I mean, I haven’t gone through the whole process of making a DVD yet, but I don’t think it will take too much of my time. MAYBE if I have to search for different scenes and make a menu and whatnot.