Day 590

I went to a video editing seminar today. I'm not actually editing anything right now, but I enjoy hanging out with other editors and commiserating with them about clients who have decided to edit their next TV commercial themselves using iMovie. It's happened to me, and it's apparently happened to a lot of other editors as well. The seminar today was about Apple's new Final Cut X and the implications it has for video editing professionals. It looks like Apple has chosen to throw editing pros under the bus in exchange for making it easier for everybody else to put together better looking YouTube videos. This democratization of the creative process was the same general theme I heard the magazine publisher talk about last Wednesday. In the publisher's case, it was bloggers taking over the role once held by newspapers. Today, the message was more about everyone in creation thinking that they are a filmmaker.

I'm not really worried though. I guess if worse comes to worse, I can always go down to the Apple store and get a job at the Genius Bar. Even though a lot more people are using editing software and recording everything that moves with fancy camcorders, their knowledge of how these gizmos actually work is paper thin. There will always be a need for someone who can get under the hood and fix something when it breaks. Creative folks need to remember this. I make more money fixing botched writing jobs and failed websites than I do building these things from scratch. I don't really like Final Cut X, but I might buy it anyway, just so I can learn how to use the software and be ready when my clients turned filmmakers start telling me that they can't get it to do what they want.

My doctors office called me twice today to remind me of my appointment tomorrow. Either they're getting forgetful, or something is wrong. Often, when they are eager to see me, it is to tell me to stop taking some pill immediately. I'm really not fond of pharmaceutical companies. If you take any meds for an extended period of time, you are essentially a guinea pig. A lot of side effects don't even begin to appear until years after you initially started taking the pill. Personally, I'd much rather go back to eating bacon for breakfast and drinking generous amounts of wine with dinner. It's just not fair that bacon doesn't have any health benefits.

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Day 561

I didn't get the bed made until 6 PM this evening. It was really that busy today. The entire day was a blur of writing assignments, off-site meetings, web design projects and household chores. A trip to the vet with Dash was squeezed in there somewhere too. I like to stay busy, but there are limits to what I can do. It would be nice to have a little more time. If all the overnight panic projects simply became "next week would be fine" projects, everything would run a lot more smoothly.

I'm glad I didn't run out and buy Final Cut X the day it was released. I've started reading the reviews and apparently everyone hates it. I haven't seen so many people universally reject an Apple product since the old Apple Cube computer, which unfortunately I did happen to buy. I guess I'll continue to do my editing on an older version of Final Cut Pro and save my money to buy Avid Media Composer.

It was so hot at dog training class this evening that everything, including the dogs, seemed to be moving in slow motion. When people called their dogs, a lot of them appeared not to hear. The dogs just continued to lie in the grass with looks on their faces that clearly indicated they'd rather be inside, sitting near an air conditioning vent.

Dash's painting arrived in the mail today and it looked even better than the JPEG picture we'd seen earlier. The new picture joined Dot's painting and lots of porcelain Dalmatian figurines on a display cabinet in the living room. There is so much Dalmatian stuff on this cabinet now that it almost looks like one of those Buddhist home altars for people who have decided to worship dogs instead.

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