Everyone, slow the eff down on the road

Yesterday, I saw one accident on my way home from work. Today, on my way to work, I saw yet another accident.
Slow down people. I’m sick of hearing the now familiar screech-crunch sound.
Just two rules to follow and we’ll all be better off.
1) Yellow lights mean slow down, not speed up and go faster.
2) Put down the damn telephone. If it’s that important gets a handsfree or pull over. I watched as the crasher did not stop talking on the phone before, during, and after the accident.
That’s it, two simple rules and I won’t have to through hate in your direction.

Homemade dog biscuits

My daughter Zoe is in the Girls Scouts and recently has been working to help the local Pasadena Humane Society. One of the things they did, besides making cloth beds for cats, was to make dog biscuits.
Michele told me it was easy and that Piper, our dog, liked them. Alas, they were all given away, so I didn’t have a chance to see them. I had some free time on Sunday and decided to give it a try.
The recipe is from the Pasadena Humane Society:

2 ½ cups whole wheat flour
½ cup powdered milk
½ tsp. salt
½ tsp. garlic powder
½ cup ice water
6 tblsp margarine, shortening or meat drippings
1 egg beaten
1 tsp. brown sugar
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine flour, milk, salt and sugar. Cut in shortening until mixture resembles cornmeal. Mix in egg. Add enough water so that the mixture forms a ball. Pat out with your fingers the dough ½ inch thickness on a lightly oiled cookie sheets. Cut with biscuit or cookie cutter into shapes. Save the scraps and pat them out with the next batch. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes. Remove from oven and cool. Store in zip lock bag in the freezer.

We had also made some baked beans from scratch this weekend, so I had some bacon grease saved from that to use instead of margarine. Everybody loves bacon, even Piper.


I mixed up the ingredients and was a bit concerned over the use of garlic, but when I put the garlic in front of Piper, she seemed to like it.

I mixed things up and got the dough to a good consistency when I reached my first dilemma. I didn’t really want to roll out the dough and start using cookie cutters on it. I’ve done the cookie cutter thing before for gingerbread cookies and didn’t feel that a dog would exactly care.

So I reached deep into my youth and remembered the way my Grandmother used to make sausages. She’d mix up the meat, place a small amount into her hand, squeeze, and then toss the resulting shape into the frying pan. I thought that Piper likes sausage, so away I went, making Sicilian sausage shaped dog biscuits.
Onto the parchment paper went the dog sausage biscuits and into the over for about a half hour.

Sure enough out popped the biscuits, and damn if they didn’t smell good.

For the real test I handed one to Piper. At first she was a bit hesitant as you can see, but soon was munching away happily.
The recipe wasn’t hard at all, so if you have a dog, you might enjoy making your own treats.

Mini Ben & Jerry’s

Michele found these mini Ben & Jerry’s ice cream cups and the whole family is enamored with them.


I think they come in six packs, but I’ve never seen them fresh from the store, only scattered in the freezer after the girls have had a first chance at them.
Each cup is around 3.5 ounces of ice cream, a little over 200 calories per cup. Not exactly diet fare, but of you want a taste of ice cream, it’s a good way to keep yourself from eating a whole pint in a sitting.

Under the lid is a small spoon to eat with. Pretty handy once you finish to put the spoon inside, recap the cup and no mess.
Personally, I’m partial to Oatmeal Cookie Chunk, but I haven’t seen it in the mini cup yet.

Blogging NAB – Apple’s Announcements

This is what it looks like when I take notes at a broadcasting event.
These are my notes from Apple’s presentation where they announced Final Cut Studio 2 and Final Cut Server.
My notes will be decipherable to a TV person, but likely unreadable to others. Welcome to my world.
Apple tells me to not use my laptop during the presentation.

    Final Cut @ 800,000 users
    Final Cut Server –

      $999 – 10 concurrent users
      $1999 – Unlimited users
      Available “this summer”
      Proximity Artbox
      MAM software

        Proxy generation
        Search
        Access Controls

      Workflow Automation
      Templates
      Review and Approve
      Automated encode & publish
      Intergration
      Shot selection
      Rough cut editing
      Save as FCP
      Online/offline workflow

    Final Cut Studio 2 – $1299

      $499 upgrade from Final Cut Studio
      $699 upgrade from any version of FCP
      Available in May
      Final Cut Pro 6
      ProRes file format – 4:2:2 uncompressed 10 bit – “HD at SD file size”
      1 TB to 170GB file size compression
      Support from Sony HDCAM SR & Panasonic AVC-Intra, even Red Digital

    AJA Box – $3495 in July

      IO HD
      601 and HD In and out of ProRes
      Downconversin & cross conversion

    Open Format Tiumeline

      Mix formats, resolutions, and frame rates in a timeline

    Smoothcam

      Motion compensation

    Editable Motion Templates

      Motion form within FCP
      Replace objects from FCP
      Update all FCP projects from Motion

    Motion 3

      3D tools
      Mulitple cameras & light sources
      Vector based paint
      Match moving – motion path following of any object in the video
      Retiming effects
      Audio behaviors – animations responds to soundtrack
      Truly amazing 3d space visualization tools

    Soundtrack Pro 2

      Alignment of audio effects with video
      Advanced Take Management – dialog
      Surround Mixing

        Stereo & Surround mix in common project

      Conform audio tracks

        Sync changes between pictures & sound with workflow

      Waveform editor w/frequency spectrum view – truly impressive
      Mulittrack audio ADR tools
      Auto conform tool with change tracking

    Compressor 3

      Video encoding & transcoding
      Batch processing
      Clustering
      MPEG, H.264, Telestream plug-ins
      Video effects during transcode
      Almost 3x reduction in processing time from Compressor 2
      Allows use of Motion effects in transcode
      Specific control of multiple processor usage for rendering

    Color – Finish & Color Grading – SD, HD, 2k

      Real time professional color grading for FCP
      Task based workflows
      Familiar correction tools and displays
      Color FX package
      Profiles shared as ‘looks’
      8 secondarys

Truly a comprehensive package that any other vendor, especially Avid, will be hard pressed to match.

Twitter & the New York Times

The New York Times now has a set of Twitter feeds. Follow them, and you get your news via Twitter.
I’ll let the rest of the blogosphere blather on about Twitter and it’s impact. Maybe they will stop navel gazing about a blogger code of conduct for a few moments to make profound statements about paradigm shifts.
To me, I find the agility of the New York Times to adapt to new concepts to be amazing. Anyone who counts out newspapers as a viable media business is simply wrong.