I was going insane. Between the computer doing strange things, work being a PITA and everything else, I finally started channeling into new strips. Last week had to be the worst week of my life. I’ll just give you highlights:
* No matter what I did, I couldn’t fix the problem with Ulead Videostudio going nuts on things recorded with the ATI software. It’s not on single things — like movies are fine — it’s when it has to view 3 files in a row from the same batch of captures, file #3 will always end up being 2k (no matter what size it is) and file #4 will crash Ulead.
* Ended up putting the old video card back in (again). Didn’t change things.
* I tried Pinnacle Studio 8 and that seemed to work for a handful of captures. Unfortunately, after a while it started to kill the capture’s sound tracking. Not sure why it didn’t do it in the early ones, but it sure as hell started doing it when I thought I had everything fixed. No more Pinnacle, had to reformat to get rid of it.
* Lost two weeks worth of captures essentially. 48khz (might be MHz, I’m not awake) sound was crashing my sonic dvd software. So I flipped it to 44khz. That was okay, until I went to burn to dvd and it took forever to recompile and then the sound didn’t match the movements on screen. Why? Oh yah, because it has to convert back to 48khz to put it on DVD.
* Also noticed that everything I put on MPEG plays fine on the machine downstairs and the machine in my mom’s computer room. Won’t play fine on these upstairs machines because I had installed the latest full version of Nero with the video editing software. Somewhere in the codecs for that software it makes it incompatible with some formats. MAKES SENSE TO ME. Yah right. Reformatted the TV Machine to get it off of there and will eventually have to reformat this machine as well.
* Works as long as you put the basic NERO 6 on — not the “full” version with the media studio crap.
* If this wasn’t enough to turn my hair white … I got my first speeding ticket in years. My mind? It was on getting home to check in on work. I swear my speedometer didn’t get over 40. The cop said I was doing 48. No way I could be doing that, but he’s the chief of police in a very small down where 30% of the town’s revenue came from that road and speed traps. He’s going to win the appeal because it’s so Deliverance out here it’s not funny.
* Work sucks. Work put even more stress on me last week. Everyone is PMS’ing. I’ve had more hate mail about things and spent a good 30 of my 40 hours last week answering it over message board pulls. I need a break. I seriously do.
So there are brief highlights.
Saturday night I started writing strips. I had been writing one a day for most of the last half of last week to try to get back into the flow of things. Saturday I started writing and when I was finished (well after 1 AM), I had broken the record with 10 strips completed. I haven’t had time to try that again, but I’m plugging along. I’m now 11 days ahead in the story and I’ll probably be writing our 400th strip either today or tomorrow and (hopefully anyway) keep on going for sometime.
I’m filling in plot holes, I’m getting rid of people who don’t want to be in the strip, and I’m going to blow your minds with this season. Well, hopefully anyway.
Oh, it snowed last night. Enough to make the ground slippery. Not enough to make a snowball, but getting stuck shoveling (on top of getting stucky hauling wood every day) is on my mind as I go take a shower and start the day.
k9