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It is a bust. I hasa sad.

9/22/2012

2 Comments

 
So, I fully intended to have a completed video. You know what they say about the road to hell? I can totally see that. I did have some issues though that were beyond my control.

Well, not beyond my control, more like beyond my coping capabilities, so I decided to walk away until I was less frustrated and come back and problem solve.Only I never came back. I am going to tell you about my week, because I think it may be cathartic, and maybe someone reading this can offer me some advice. Or a one way ticket to the looney bin, either one. :)

So I'll start with the issues I was having with the video. I was hoping that I could do everything on the iPad. One of the issues I have had with this thing since I got it is my inability to transfer music or sounds to my iPad from my PC. I can transfer music I have purchased in iTunes with iTunes, but nothing else. iCloud is the same way. I can move stuff to my PC that way, but it doesn't work for moving stuff to the iPad. In order to time the animation correctly I need to record the audio so I have at least a basic idea how long to make it. I need to be able to use the audio I timed. I found one free awesome audio recording app for the iPad. The big issue is I can't import it into Pinnacle. There is an option but it doesn't work. I am guessing there may be a paid version of this app, though I haven't been able to find it. And I wouldn't spend money on something that may not suit my needs. I can record audio in Pinnacle, but only to do voice over for current video. I also can't record audio then export it into a different project. I tried that. So that is issue number 1 that I am trying to get over. And that is about where it ends.

Then I had issues at work. Those were not fun to deal with. I won't give specifics here, but I was pretty much at the end of my rope. Then something happened that took me to the end of that rope and made me feel like I was being hung with it.

Wednesday was payday. I decided that since it had been such a shitty week I was going to treat myself to lunch at Wendy's and a movie. I felt I deserved the emotional break. So I head over to Wendy's, which is just down the street from my work, and I order my food. At this point I was really hungry, as working on issues had made me miss breakfast and lunch. My card was declined. My card was declined three times. Insert your own religious joke here. This has happened before. From time to time my bank just glitches and usually getting online and clicking a box makes it all better. I was hungry and extremely annoyed, but not panicked. So I went to the library to use the wifi and do the thing with the thing on my iPad. That is when I lost it. My bank account was empty. Completely empty. My paycheck was just direct deposited. Not to mention what was left that I was saving from my last paycheck. All the charges were at physical brick-and-morter places in Louisburg, NC WAY THE HELL on the other side of the country. To my credit, I did not yell or scream at the customer service people on the phone who kept transferring me cause it "isn't my department". I was shaking, as my blood sugar was extremely low and I was pissed off, but I didn't yell. I didn't even yell and swear when the bank's fraud person told me I would not get my money back. I did cry in her ear though. Loudly. But I got the card number cancelled, and I had a new one sent to me. Then I went home and yelled and cried for a long, long time. I would like to commend the guy who answered the phone at the Eugene Police non-emergency line. He was very sweet. Though his first words were "Are you sure it's not an emergency?" By the time I got someone from Fraud on the line I was a bit calmer. I learned from that officer that it is actually illegal for my bank to not give me my money back. Once I prove fraud, they have to give me my money back. And Oregon state law says a police report is enough to prove fraud. Then I went and opened up a bank account at a different bank, where I was told that the law also states that while I am waiting for my bank to clear their paperwork for the fraud they have to provide me with a 45 day provisional credit in the amount of the fraudulent charges. Which was damn near everything I had. I had $3 in cash in my pocket, so I guess they didn't clean me out completely. Ha ha. I have made sure they got all the paperwork, and yet I still have not seen anything of the provisional credit they are supposed to give me. This is a bank that was recently taken to court for skimming off student's financial aid. They would place a charge, real or not, then not notify the student for months, letting their late charges and penalties pile up until the next financial aid check came. Then they would just take that money out of it. Court has ruled they were wrong and have to pay it back. However they don't have to pay while they go through the appeals process, so it may be years before any of us get our money back. Money that was from student loans that I am still paying on. My point in that long digressive ramble was that I expect to have to fight to get both provisional credit and my actual money back. I plan to touch base with them again Monday, but I don't expect them to be helpful. All that took me the rest of Wednesday, Thursday and part of Friday.

Now it's Saturday. Most of my energy had gone into dealing with all that. Today I spent most of the day either sleeping or curled up with my iPad watching a show on Hulu called Who's Been Sleeping In My House? It's not what you think. This guy in Australia goes around to different houses in the country at the request of the owners and researches the history of the house. Kind of like Who Do You Think You Are and History Detectives all wrapped up in one awesome show. And I watched Doctor Who, of course. The Doctor makes everything feel better. :) Tomorrow I have to go back to work and try to get the fricken phone system to accept my programming for another line as it will be needed Monday, but after that I intend to try to problem solve the video issues.

So, it would reduce my stress greatly if any of you have a suggestion on how to solve my audio problem. And don't say "Buy a Mac". I didn't have money for that BEFORE the big clean out.

And as I feel the need to amuse myself with a non sequitur now, here is a spider that got into my water pitcher today. This water pitcher has a filter in the top and a hinged lid that has a fairly stiff hinge. I have no clue how the bugger got in there.
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2 Comments
Brad
9/25/2012 04:07:10 am

I've been there with my PC and iPhone and there's just not really an easy way to move sound between the two for use in projects. Even when I had a Mac, there were still limitations when I was trying to transfer things back and forth for music projects.

I know you've said something before about how a web cam wouldn't work for you for some reason, but HD webcams are really cheap now. I bought a 720p Microsoft Lifecam from Staples a month ago for just $29.99. Seems like getting something like that and using animation software on the PC would be a good option.

And pirate your software! Just to try it out and see if you like it, then pay for it if you keep using it. I bet there are a few stop-motion titles that you can torrent.

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Eleanor link
9/25/2012 08:52:52 am

I had a feeling it wasn't going to be easy. Damn it. There are several reasons why a web cam won't work.

Number one, I have no budget. I just got part time job after being unemployed for several months, after being underemployed for several months. Besides....someone just cleaned out my bank account, so I have no access to anything right now.

Number 2, web cams don't do well in small environments. They are made for broad focus, and not at all the quality you want for a stop motion. The guys I use are 1-1/2 inches tall. The set is necessarily tiny, and necessarily have to get a good close up. As anyone who has worked in macro photography knows, getting a camera to focus that well on something that small isn't easy. Getting sharp pictures is even harder with a web cam. It simply isn't built for that.

Also, the point was to try to use my new Pinnacle video app. I downloaded it while it was free. It looks like an awesome app and really want to play with it, but I need to be able to fix the audio issues before I can do any animation with it. I was hoping someone had a good answer for a way I can work around the Mac-and-PC-don't-play-well-together issue so I can make something with it.

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    Eleanor...nerd, musician, stop motion animator, techy, crafty. But not in the crafty crafty way...I just like making things. You can find me on Twitch & Twitter @TeaWeaselStopMO & Tiktok.

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