This time it's in the form of this week's Entertainment Weekly with its date being my birthday and with Jon Osterman gracing one of its collectors' issue covers. Osterman is not only a famous Jon, but is of course going to be gracing us in full visual motion when we watch Watchmen a week from today.
It looks as if even more people are going to be coming than I thought. I've got this friend who does what he calls "The Nerdtacular" every year. He rents out a theater and the first of his podcast listeners/site watchers/friends who reserve seats can do so until the place is filled. I've gone the past two years for Spider Man 3 and The Dark Knight. This Watchmen show next week is kind of like my own Nerdtacular (but I'd probably call it a "Geektacular" because that phrasage would be a lot more fitting).
Anyway, several of my circles are colliding for this. We got reps from The Cinematic Experience, The Homestarmy and even my bizarre book club. The book club actually discussed Watchmen last night, so I, you know, threw it out there.
So the birthday party started today. Rhett used his Tucanos coupon on me. We then head (probably) to Ming's Garden for dinner this evening if you can come. 7:10. That means I'll have the afterparty at Charlie Chow's Dragon Grill tomorrow (I've got a coupon that expires at the end of the month) if you'd like to attend that (limit five people on the coupon, but come anyway). Here's to gaining 10 pounds this weekend. Next week at Watchmen will be the conclusion of the party.
I'm obviously nervous about the movie. I almost don't care about how I feel about it; I mostly care about how others will feel about it. I feel bad that the last three people I got to read the graphic novel really didn't like it at all.
So I'm older now and suddenly technology thinks I'm too square for it. Maybe that's not the right phrase for it. If I had to pick a shape for technology it probably would be a square. The point is, I'm suddenly having tons of ridiculous technical issues with my shiz and it's completely out of nowhere.
First of all, there's weird stuff goin' down with my Cinematic Experience videos. Lemme try to explain. I use this program called Final Cut Express to edit them. Whenever a transition or a logo or text or something gets put into the timeline, the computer needs to take the time to render the information before the sequence can be previewed. If you attempt to look at the footage before the render process goes through, the screen will pop up with an "Unrendered" title card. That's fine -- whatever, 'cuz once the final video is exported the computer renders everything as part of the saving process. The final video has no trace of any unrendered screens and I even watch the final videos after they're saved to make sure nothing has gone wrong.
Lately, however the forbidden unrendered screens are appearing on Cinematic Experience videos on YouTube -- despite the fact that the videos I actually upload onto YouTube are actually completed. It's like YouTube has to wade its way through the good data to get to the bad data and then display it. No. Sense. At. All. Perhaps a Final Cut/YouTube jockey is reading right now and can figure out what's goin' on.
Other problem. My Jon Demand videos aren't syncing to my iPod after they're downloaded. Makes no sense. It took me forever to get them to download to my iTunes, so now that they're in my system they're not working. Either my iTunes or my iPod will not allow my own stuff to transfer over to my iPod.
Do me a favor people. If you have an iPod, subscribe to the video podcast called Jon Demand. It's easy. Just click here. iTunes should open right up for you. Now make sure you can transfer Jon Demand over to your iPod. Let me know if it works. It'll be fun for you too! Remember that charming video of me exercising? Well you can enjoy it on your iPod in the comfort of your bus ride home and not just on your home (work) computer!
This means a lot to me people.
Oh yeah, and happy birthday. Totally is.
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