As usual, post production took a while. We baked the cookies over a month ago, and some of you who I work with may remember me bringing in some of the cookies to share. The long production time was due to a few reasons: I’m lazy, it’s the longest episode so far, and this was my first video I edited with Final Cut Pro X. You may have heard that it’s not getting a great reception. I was optimistic at first, thinking that the bad reviews were just based on nitpicks or missing features that I don’t rely on. And when I first started (after purchasing and installing a new graphics card), everything seemed fine. It was actually pretty easy to do rough cuts. However, it was hard to pick up any momentum as the app kept crashing. Final Cut has come a long way over the years in terms of stability, and it’s sad to see it crashing and being buggy again. I don’t know if there was an update though, because recently it has been better behaved. And then beyond the crashing, I found even the simplest edits to be confusing. I simply could not figure out how to accomplish certain basic tasks, like having the music overlap with the video track. I was eventually able to figure most things out after reading the documentation, but the interface is so different than the previous versions of the program (I couldn’t even use the old keyboard shortcuts to enable my preferred tools), that it was really frustrating to feel like I was starting over. If I was a real video editor, one of those keyboard ninjas who can edit live while others watch from the editing room couch, I’m sure the differences would have been even more dramatic. So while I do appreciate and agree with many of the new concepts introduced in this new version, and I am learning where all of the controls have moved to, it’s certainly going to take some getting used to. Despite the rough start, things are getting better, I’m still optimistic, and I will be editing additional projects on Final Cut Pro X soon.

I recently (like, 10 minutes ago) woke up from a glorious nap after an exhausting day. And what was I doing right before I woke up? Dreaming about work. Here’s what happened at the end of the dream:

Some sales person was visiting Google to show off some new devices that I suppose he wanted Google to buy. After he talked for a bit and I advised him to “get to the demo,” we got hands-on time with the products. One of the products that I noticed, which at first didn’t appear to be functioning, was an inkjet printer. What caught my eye about it was a button for “Panini mode.” This is certainly relevant to my interests. I opened up the top part of the printer, just like one would to change the ink cartridge (I was preparing to tell the salesman that I don’t typically purchase inkjet printers), and inside was a hot sandwich! What an awesome demo. I was about to eat the sandwich when I realized that it included slices of banana, which I dislike. Still, excellent product idea.

There’s a glitch with the audio at the end, so just sing the theme song to yourself.

As you can see, my first attempt didn’t yield a perfect product. I kept at it though, and got a better result with my second attempt:

And here’s my third omelette:

I’ve made several more since, and my latest thing is adding more sauces at the end to enhance the flavor. In addition to the ketchup and Tabasco sauce, I now add salt, pepper, Worcestershire sauce, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar.

Since I had successfully eaten rice that had been prepared by others, it was time to see if I could incorporate it into meals that I make myself. I went to the store and found this in the rice section:

From Rice

As you can see, it comes with a teriyaki sauce, which comes in powder form mixed in with the rice.

From Rice

This is what it looks like before it’s cooked, mixed with some oil and water.

From Rice

The next step is to boil the mixture and let it simmer for seven minutes. After that, the instructions say you’re finished, but you’re left with this:

From Rice

As you can see, it only looks like a flavorful serving of rice. We can do better. Wysz can do better.

What I do at this point is open up my cabinet and refrigerator, and pull out anything that looks good. I think of this as “Joey logic,” based on the “It tastes like feet” segment on Friends.

From Rice

Teriyaki sauce, ketchup, Worcestershire Sauce, garlic powder, and BBQ sauce? This all looks good to me. Let’s add it to the rice.

From Rice

Now it’s looking much better. I think there’s just one more thing to add.

From Rice

Yes, bacon. Put it on:

From Rice

Stir it up:

From Rice

That’s how I make rice. Add egg to taste.

Of course if you’re into instant gratification, YouTube is serving up some carrots as well:

Part 1


Part 2

As a side note, I plan on mastering future episodes in HD. However, I plan on keeping the podcast to an iPhone-friendly size only, as I don’t want to deal with managing an HD simulcast. If anybody has suggestions on how I could handle the issue of producing a podcast for multiple devices, please leave your ideas in the comments.

I wish I could push these things out faster, but I’m editing on a computer that’s six years old, and I’m lazy. Hopefully I’ll upgrade my equipment in the nearish future so compression doesn’t take forever and I can edit in HD.

Here’s part 1:

And part 2: