The Flip Ultra Video Camera

The Flip Ultra video camera is a piece of crap. Don't buy one.

I've had mine since Christmas 2008 and in the last month it has entirely quit working twice. The opening screen comes on and doesn't go away. It is unusable.

The solution to this vile set of circumstances is to let it set without batteries for 24 to 72 hours. That's the solution. You have a camera that you can't use for one to three days at a time. So if you have something you want to record, just ask if it can wait for one to three days, till you can get to it.

What if everything worked this well. Your refrigerator quit working? Unplug it for three days, then it'll be OK. Till a week later when we have the same problem.

Flip cameras have lost me forever. There has to be a better brand. Like any brand.

Cutie Pie

Here's a darling little figurine I found today. I'm calling him Cutie Pie. Very nice, except for the little brown stain under his cheek.

In other news today I came across a video tape that I shot over 20 years ago. I didn't remember the tape and it wasn't labeled very well. I didn't think it was labeled at all. It all seemed blank, but then under the plastic on the insert that came with cases, it was one I took with a camera at the end of '88 and beginning of '89. We watched some of it. It was of our family, looking 20 years younger and it was definitely a different world from everything we're used to now.

It reminds me that none of this stuff is being remembered very well. We need to document every move we make, so that someday, when presumably we've quit documenting every move we're making, we'll have time to watch what we were doing way back when. Sometimes it's fun to see yourself looking completely different.

4 Minutes

"We only got four minutes to save the world." I like this song by Madonna and Justin. I got it as a free download the other day, from a sticker on a CD I bought.

I hear it on the radio once in a while and think how great it sounds. So now I can listen to it any old time. Ya-ha!

Four minutes is the amount of time we used to get on a Super 8 movie cartridge. I used to think how cool it'd be to have more time, so you weren't rushing through taking a movie. Little did I know four minutes was about right. Anything more than that you've got long, extended boring movies instead of the quick cuts and rushing from one subject to another.

I've had video cameras over the years, including a black and white one in 1979. It needed to be hooked up to a home VCR at the time, so it was impossible (for me) to be dragging it anywhere besides the apartment where we lived. The few videos that still exist are boring, the kids, I don't know what. But at least they have this to their credit, they're short.

My next video camera was a color one, and it seems like we could put a VHS tape in it ... or maybe it too was hooked up to a VCR. Now that I think of it, I don't remember taking videos around outside. The ones I took were inside. Someone broke in and stole it, so it's long gone.

There's the video feature on my Olympus camera, but it barely counts because the videos are just small crap. And the video feature on my phone, worse yet. Those don't count.

Now I have a Flip Ultra, and it takes video for around 55 minutes before it's filled up. I was just videoing the dog and thinking I should keep it around four minutes. I videotaped a thing yesterday that was 50-some minutes. The file is huge, hard to handle. You make a copy of it and it takes forever to process, like trimming it. Although it was a lot faster with the Flip software (still crappy) that came with it than with Windows Movie Maker.

McCain Denies Using the Word "Timetable"

It looks like Grandpa McCain is confused again, this time about what words he uses. You know, up in your mind there's this little gatekeeper. He's a little guy who stands right between your brain and your mouth, equal distance between one point and another. He's in charge of letting words through or telling them to stay put. But at some point in your life, usually as you age, you notice him slipping up and letting words pass through.

Did Grandpa McCain use the word "timetable" in relation to troop withdrawal from Iraq? It was just the other day! There's another little guy up there, usually works closely with the gatekeeper, called memory. All these little guys eventually retire or die, and that's when you're finished.

If you're missing the gatekeeper guy and the memory guy, you're on the way out. Check the evidence whether John McCain used the word "timetable."

McCain Confuses His Stand on Social Security

The Beatles - A Hard Day's Night in Yiddish

I got this link off the blog I was just mentioning, illusory tenant.

Time Lapse Snowfall Video

Very interesting, beautiful time-lapse snowfall video by Rob Ireton. The original is at this Flickr link.