CRISIS...Averted!

Back to work. Back to Dallas...which, in many ways, was the prequel to this life's new novel.

Before I left for Detroit, I captured all my Dallas footage into FCP with the intent of loading it all to YouTube for Deb to review. Easy. Right?

Then Final Cut, Compressor and Quicktime all crap out at the same time on Nessie...right before I leave town. Nothing I can do about this while on my vacation of luxury.

10 Days later, I'm home...leaving Nessie accidentally behind on the floor in Heather's living room. Fucking lame! I needed to clean her up and take her to Apple for some TLC...like yesterday. She'll be back tomorrow, thanks to Fed Ex and $40.

So, I figure I'll re-capture everything into Premiere on my good old PC. Annoying and time consuming...but it'll do.

I gear up, ready for the battle, the tedium and I'm screwed...My version of Premiere doesn't accept 24P video!

FUCK! I freak out.

And I don't have access to my office at VCU...school's closed until January 5th! Freak out some more.

So, I take a breath and I take a chance...

I plug in my camera/capture device and hear the PC dingdong-device-detected bell. The prompt window opens. What would I like to do?

One of the choices is to capture into Windows Movie Maker -- a fine program for soccer mom's and teenagers to make family videos...nothing I EVER use...I'm TOO GOOD FOR WINDOW'S MOVIE MAKER, right?

I click it.

Not only does this little tyke of an edit program capture all my footage, it doesn't drop any frames, have any audio issues or compress the video in an unwatchable horrendous way! I've already got 2 tapes captured and I'm on to the last one. Three videos are already posted to YouTube. I'm already half done! Still drinking coffee in my pajamas...working from home like I like to do...taking breaks to sit in the warm sun...chatting with friends and listening to Electrelane. Not stressing out...anymore.

Because this means I don't have to transcribe the tapes, word for word, into WORD. Play, pause, type, play, pause, type. And repeat. And repeat again. And again...until all 2 hours of videotaped interviews are written out and readable. BORING. And for the rest of this beautiful day...this would have been my sentence for a crime I did not commit.

So...Windows Movie Maker you are my Rita Hayworth and THIS is my Shawshank Redemption.