Okay, I need everyone to listen very, very carefully...

JOhn KErry is a JOKE. The guy is no good. He's not the worst person on the planet, nor is he even close. However, he is not good presidential material.

But see, he's not really the bigger problem. The MUCH bigger problem is that people aren't voting FOR him. Most people are simply voting AGAINST G.W. Bush. Most Kerry fans don't care who Kerry is or isn't, nor do they care what he has or has not done. They just have this idea in their head that G.W. Bush has done more bad than good.

Thankfully, the numbers are in favor of smart people:
-Not only do the polls all show W in the lead over JoKe by some 8 percentage points, but now the elderly (let's consider them "voters" for the purpose of this discussion) have decided to back W as well. They realize that JoKe is not really going to be their best friend, and they know that he couldn't possibly care about their personal well being. Besides the elderly "voters" are the ones that JoKe wants to tax the most, because they tend to have money.
-Ralph Nader's poll numbers are increasing more and more each week. He stole Democrat votes in 2000, and saved us all from 4 years of Gore. Now he's all set to play hero again. Good for him. I disagree with most Green party politics, but I definitely think that a third party is necessary.

I will vote against John Kerry in November because I know him better than he knows himself. I'm not voting against him just because he's a Democrat, or just because he is John Kerry. The hatred for Bush is unfounded. The people who hate him most don't even know why exactly. Or they think they know, but all they know is a couple of sound bytes or information taken out of context. I don't even agree with 100% of what Bush has done, but he is a good man, and he is a good leader. He loves freedom and justice, and so do I. Who could possibly have anything in common with John Kerry? Even HE doesn't have anything in common with John Kerry.

I'm working on a Saturday?

Hope you're having a good time at HOME, Hilary. :)

Yeah, that is all I've got to say.

Alright, so right now I'm working on getting my posts archived by month (you can see that on the left side of the page here). Haven't figured it out just yet, but eventually it'll be working. Then, this page won't have so many posts on it. Won't that be nice?

Hope everyone's enjoying themselves. Keep on keepin' on...

Okay folks, here comes the obvious:

I haven't posted anything from my wedding on my website.

Now, although I've commented on it, and put a few words here and there, I realize that there isn't really much content other than that. Okay, so here's the deal. For the wedding video, I'm editing it myself, and I'm almost done. I'll actually have it on a DVD, with tons of video from other wedding events (shower, rehearsal dinner, some other stuff too) along with "special features." However, the ceremony (along with pre- and post-ceremony stuff) will be available ON THE WEB. I'm going to be streaming it using Windows Media Encoders, so you'll be able to watch it. It's even going to be optimized for dial-up users, so everyone can see it in beautiful full-frame glory. I'll probably have it done in a month.

For pictures, I've got quite a few scanned images, but as you can probably tell by visiting my picture page, I haven't put those pics up yet, nor have I put and pics up for much anything at this point. I guess it's been a pretty busy 9 months here since the wedding.

I know, I know...excuses, certainly, BUT....no more. It's all coming along soon here, so keep checking back.

If you don't want to check back, then I tell you what - e-mail me with your address and I'll send a big ol' e-mail out to let people know.

Okay, today's post is mostly about video editing (my career), so if you don't care about this stuff, just look at the pretty pictures here.

Adobe Premiere Pro is the best video editing software for the dollar. Period.

I know that anything from Avid is pretty much the pinnacle software for video editing (whereas, of course, Pinnacle software actually sucks). I just like Premiere for so many reasons. For starters, Avid is out of my range for now, and I don't need anything that extensive. However, compared with just about everything else out there, Premiere Pro wins. Apple's Final Cut Pro is only available on Mac computers, so I'm not interested. I've used Final Cut Pro (FCP) extensively, but it doesn't come close now. Sure, previous versions of Premiere were less than wonderful, but the previous version provided good competition for FCP. Still, FCP has been something of a standard for us mid-level professionals. In fact, it WAS a lot more user friendly compared to Premiere 6.5, but Premiere Pro (v7.0) has better rendering, better visual effects, and has some pretty amazing interaction with Adobe Photoshop. You can actually take a layered image in Photoshop, import it into the timeline in Premiere, and use the various layers as animation sequences. Obviously, no one else offers anything close to that. It's really great, since not every video editor is a graphic artist. With this capability, everyday joes like myself can create content that is above and beyond the abilities of other non-linear editors (NLEs) available.

Ulead sucks a whole lot. I can't believe some of the good reviews it gets, with its top-tier software claiming to be "professional"....it's not. I use it at work, and we all agree that adopting that platform has been a mistake. I've used Premiere on my home PC for a few years now, and until the recent 7.0/Pro version, it would have been suitable to my workplace, but maybe not an entirely superior NLE to the Ulead offering. Now...no questions asked. Hands down, Premiere wins.

I've been using a trial version of the new Pro/7.0 on my home PC, but I'm going to buy it real soon. I want the Pro video bundle, which comes with the brand-new After Effects (pro video effects...THE standard for this kind of stuff), the brand-new Photoshop, the brand-new Audition (audio editing and loop creation), the brand-new Encore DVD creator, and of course, Premiere Pro. It's a $1,500 package, but the combined price for buying all of those individual components would easily be $3,000 to $4,000. And hey, I need 'em all! There is an educational discount that brings the price for that package down to $800, but....well, I'm not in skool anymore. I've discovered, in fact, that the educational version is a FULL VERSION of all the software, the exact same package you'd pay $1,500 for otherwise (most educational versions are watered down along with the price, making it much-less-than-fully-functional). I gotta talk to my lil sis about getting that for me.

My friend Eric has also been using this software for the recent Overexposed Films production of "Teaching Marlow," and he has had some real fun with it. I'm using it to finish up my wedding video, and on a scale of 1-100, it gets a big-time 110. Naysayers, your day in the sun is ending.

I'm working late tonight, but that's alright,
I'd rather be here than in a fight,
And if it's all the same to you
I'll have that bottle of glue
and glue my eyes to the monitor on my desk.

It's been a long day, and I'm still working (although I'm on a "break" now, so I'm typing this real quick).

NOTICE the great and wonderful comment tool at the bottom of this and every post. Please use it.