Sitting around the table eating dinner, talking about our experiences earlier in the day of taking a new friend from Switzerland around town, Amy told another friend about a squirrel we saw on the campus of Notre Dame. We had stopped to watch it and take pictures. Amy noted how it walked kind of funny, "like it had constipation". "What does constipation mean?", Haley asked. Conversation continued, the adults ignoring the question. "What does constipation mean?", Haley repeated. Our friend from Switzerland spoke up, saying that "it's when you can't do something you want to do". The rest of the adults found this clever answer to be quite funny, causing us to laugh, and continue laughing for some time. (Yeah, maybe you had to be there.) After laughter subsided, Amy felt compelled to explain to Haley more fully what she had meant by that word. Upon hearing her explaination, our Swiss friend began laughing with embarrasment as he realized that he had not fully comprehended the meaning of the word, himself, until that moment, and realized why his comment had been so funny to the rest of us. We all had another good laugh.
I recently came across Cardstore.com, where you can select and personalize a card and have it sent for you through the U.S. Mail.
Of course, they have more than just Mother's Day cards. There's birthday cards and other holiday cards, too.
I checked it out and found that: - the cards are attractive, and there are many to choose from - it is simple and quick - the cards can be personalized with your own photos - it is very reasonably priced
I think this is a great idea. Being able to select and send a card quickly and easily like this sure beats the old way (going to the store to get a card, preparing the envelope, and affixing the stamp - at least we don't have to lick them anymore) in my mind...
...not that I really send cards, anyways. But, now I have that much less of an excuse. What could be simpler?!
I wonder how many people currently use this service or would be interested in it. Or, which of you usually send Mother's Day cards, birthday cards, etc? And, what motivates card giving? I just added a couple related polls on the right side of my blog, so check them out. I'd be interested in the feedback. Or, leave a comment telling me what you think.
And, if you're thinking of sending a Mother's Day card, you'd better do it now before it's too late...
OK, I'll try to make this brief... because I'm really quite over this video, but I did want to document (for my own or for others future reference) some of the things I did to make the video.
I used VirtualDub for much of the video editing. To join multiple video clips, I ended up using MediaJoin (that I found somewhere out there). It took me some time and trial and error to find decent and free software for my purposes.
My main concern was to be able to reverse video. After some searching and testing, I found I could do this using VirtualDub and AviSynth. The AviSynth script (that you just drag and drop onto VirtualDub) to reverse a video is like this: Reverse(DirectShowSource("C:\Video\video1.AVI", 29.97))
I also wanted to have some slow motion clips, which I found that I could do with a script like this, which would make it half speed: Reverse(DirectShowSource("C:\video\video2.avi", 29.97)) AssumeSampleRate(22050) AssumeFPS(12.5)
I found myself somewhat frustrated and saddened that my walking clips were pretty shaky/bouncy, due to Amy simply filming me while she was walking backwards with the camera. I found one very cool piece of software that can be used with VirtualDub to de-shake video. I was skeptical at first, and it took some learning and tinkering (and it does have it's own pros and cons), but it ended up helping improve some of the shakiness quite significantly. Here's some info on it: http://www.sundancemediagroup.com/articles/deshaker_guide.htm
One thing that I thought would be pretty simple ended up not being as easy as I thought. I had wanted the words on the screen to show up in the black letterbox bars at the top and bottom of the video, so that it didn't show up over the actual video. But, I had such a hard time trying to find free software that would let me easily place the text in that specific of a place. I eventually ended up using Windows Movie Maker to add the text and just had to deal with it covering up the video since I couldn't place it on the screen where I wanted it.
So, that's really it. It was fun, and I enjoyed the process. And, I'm glad it's done.
Here's a couple takes from the filming process, just for fun.
FYI, at this point the voting over at http://www.islandreefjob.com/ is done. The top vote getter, along with 10 others of Queensland Tourism's choosing (who will be announced April 2), will be flown to Australia for an interview process.
This guy didn't win. I think he came in second in the voting, but I personally liked his video/application better than the one who came in first. I like it in part because it's a music video like mine, just more interesting and well done.
