Good Ol' Windows

Man, is that something I never expected to type.

So I was in a recording studio with Flying Lab Sound Designer/Director/Engineer Jaclyn Schumate today. Jaclyn booked Seattle's Pure Audio, which was run by a stellar group of people and were incredibly understand and generous, going so far as to include delivered lunch and regular coffee runs as part of the overall service; I got to watch really talented actors (including a few friends) perform lines Chris Pramas and I had written; I got to sing one of my favorite shanties for the game. A good, if lengthy, day. The actors were amazing, their improvisations were better than anything I'd written, everyone seemed to have a great time.

Early that morning, I thought I had a brilliant idea, truly I did: To use my little snapshotty digital camera to record short little web interviews with the voice actors along with some video of them performing in the studio. I had a tripod, after all. And since I was bringing my MacBook, I'd be able to empty the little camera when it was filled up with .avi files. No problem!

And then with the problems. Not with the actors, or the recording of audio, but with my precious side project, the thing justifying my presence as more than just the guy saying "Couldn't she punch that second 'GYARRGHH!' a little more?" Unfortunately for my heart, which belongs to Apple--as opposed to my head, which tends to line up more with Microsoft--that problem seemed to lie in the MacBook.

My 2-year-old MacBook automatically tries to download the images from the camera. It used to try and use the proprietary Fuji software, but I set it to use iPhoto and that seemed to work fine in Hawai'i. And sure enough, after a couple of hours in the studio the camera was full. The camera and MacBook instantly made friends, and soon the laptop contained all the photos I'd taken that morning, as well as leftover action movies of our cat Remo chasing a laser pointer and my first voice actor interview of the day with former Pirates of the Burning Sea producer John Scott Tynes. So far so good.

Three more interviews, time to empty (I only have a 1GB card in the Fuji). I hook up the camera, the Mac loads up iPhoto, I click "Import," and...nothin'. For like, five minutes. Then the program shuts down, though it still indicates there are videos on the camera.

I have several minutes left on the camera, and reckon I can fit at least one more interview. Maybe something screwy is going on that will be fixed by recording more, I inexplicably reason.

This time, some success. The camera spits up a single photo and one more voice actor interview, strangely the third one I'd done and not the second. From there on out, for the rest of the day, no dice. "Import." "Preparing to import..." "Three items to import." "Import." "Preparing to import..." "Three items to import." "Import." "Preparing to import..." "Three items to import."

I ended up managing to cram the last interviews into less than four minutes, which fit on the camera. And I thought, for the first time in many months, "I'll be Windows can fix this." Yes, Windows XP, the once-maligned-but-now-we-realize-how-good-we-had-it version. I got home from the studio, walked up to my 4-year-old desktop PC, and said "Surprise me." Well, I figuratively said that by hooking up the USB cable. Then, in what was in fact no surprise at all, I saw the Fuji camera as just another drive I could open in the My Computer explorer window.

I opened it. The files were inside it. I dragged them to a folder on my desktop. They copied in about three minutes. I unhooked the camera, put the video files on a flash drive, and will now use a similar procedure to move the files onto the Mac where I can (hopefully) edit everything into something that will appear on the PotBS website.

Why couldn't I do the same thing on the Mac I did on my PC? I have no idea. I thought Macs invented that deal where whatever you've got hooked up or plugged into your computer appears on the desktop. I thought that was why it was a freakin' desktop. Instead, the Mac keeps forcing me to open a program that clearly doesn't want to move video from my camera to my laptop. I close the program down, but the camera doesn't appear as a peripheral or anything.

My point? Macs are like older, overprotective siblings who do everything for you so you won't put your eye out, kid, while you're playing with all that fancy whizbangery (and I do appreciate that whizbangery). PCs are like younger siblings who borrow your car, destroy it, and force you to rebuild the thing yourself, learning how it works in the process. Either way, you have to live with 'em both.

Yeah, But What Is It?

Much has been made of the Gliese 581c, a potential "Super-Earth" which I'm told by the Internets orbits a red dwarf star named Gliese 581. It's some 20 light-years from what will no doubt soon be called "Regular-Earth" in all of our textbooks and, indeed, in our hearts. And since we have safe light-speed travel in our popular fiction and entertainment, it's safe to say we'll soon build such technology to travel to Gliese 581C to explore this strange new world and figure out how to spread freedom there. By then, the planet will probably be called something like "New Earth," "Arbusto," or (with any luck) "Ceti Alpha VI."

This last begs the question: Isn't that name taken? Perhaps it is. Clearly we have a responsibility to first ascertain whether we already know plenty about this so-called Gliese 581c. And that means determining whether this planet has actually already been depicted in science fiction. Specifically science fiction movies or television. Even more specifically, science fiction movies or television I've watched. And maybe some comic-book planets. Perhaps planets from a video game or two. But that's it, okay? This is science, damn it.

The Gliese 581 system is in our galaxy, so that rules out any extragalactic planets--that means for the sake of argument I'm ruling out Star Wars worlds that are by definition situated in a galaxy rather far away. Besides, that's SPACE FANTASY! or so Marvel Comics always told me.

For that matter, there's no way I'm going through all supplemental materials to figure out where these places I'm talking about are supposed to be. I just don't have that kind of time. I've narrowed it down to a few possibilities. Most of those links go to spoilers, by the way, so if you don't know who won the epic contest between Mork and the Fonz, beware. Speaking of which, first up is....

Ork
A distinct possibility. Orkans were, if memory serves, physically superior to humans (had Mork not fought against the indefinable mystic power of Fonzie's thumb, and simply slugged the Earth champion, he might well have conquered the planet back in the '50s). If Gliese 581c is egg-shaped, I say this is a slam-dunk.

Romulus
Ah, but if this is Romulus, where's Remus? Eh? Eeeeeh?

The Algae Planet
Certainly the most likely contender on the list. I have a feeling that a place orbiting such a crappy star (no offense to Gliese 581, but she's probably seen better eons) would have an equally crappy environment suitable really only for stuff like algae. And perhaps delicious candy.

A Really Fat Budong
Heh. "Budong."

Reach
It's certainly close enough to be Reach. Note that all I know about Reach is gleaned from a half-remembered Halo novel, and not The Fall of Reach. But if it was Reach, then Reach-ians would all have the strength of TWO men! Certainly such specimens would not be overrun by alien religious fantatics. Unless those alien religious fanatics used that old rocket-jumping trick.

Klendathu
Maybe. But if it is, why haven't they already flattened Earth with beetle-butt bombs? Think about it. Yeah.

The Genesis Planet
Don't be ridiculous. The Genesis Planet doesn't even exist yet. Barring some sort of temporal slingshot effect, that crappy shower-curtain guy from the future on Enterprise, a temporal rift, the Xindi, Q, or unauthorized or unintended use of the Guardian of Forever, the Orb of Time, a time-travel pod, a timeship, a temporal transmitter, chroniton particles in general, or the Nexus, it's just not possible.

LV-426
Totally could be this. Will we learn in time? And if not, does that mean Paul Reiser can finally be incarcerated for his role in this future debacle?

Kobol
Seems awfully close to Earth to be Kobol, but if we find pyramids or an abandoned opera house, it could well be.

Vogsphere
A truly terrifying possibility, and one that we would be wise not to overlook. Is the coming of the hyperspace bypass inevitable? I say we can't take the chance.

Caladan
If we find oceans on Gliese 581, this one cannot be discounted. Indeed, we should begin settlement immediately. Property values on Caladan are going to be astronomical, what with all those cool gothic-y castles and waterfront property.

Oa
Not a chance. Everyone knows Oa is at the center of the galaxy. Yeesh.

Arnessk
Man, I hope not. Eidelons give me the screamin' willies.

The Ball Homeworld
If we do not fight the Balls there, they will bounce all the way back here, take all of our jobs and all of the good places to live...in short, they'd roll all over us. The Balls must be thoroughly licked, and we must begin work on the anti-Ball technology immediately.

Terra
Why not? Randy Mantooth has to have gone somewhere. I haven't seen him in ages, but you can't swing a dead daggit without hitting Kevin Tighe.

Bajor
Just doesn't feel right. I'm pretty sure I saw Bajor's sun a few times, and it didn't look anything like a red dwarf. Then again, it's worth keeping an eye out for wormholes. A shortcut to the Gamma Quadrant would be worth it.

New Caprica
What are you, crazy? If this was New Caprica, wouldn't it be surrounded by a nebula that completely screws up Cylon DRADIS? Now don't you feel stupid?

Akir
You know, from Battle Beyond the Stars? Hello? This thing on?

Rimmerworld
Entirely possible, should the psi-moon that became Rimmerworld were to fall into some kind of encounter with a white hole.

Krypton
Oh, come on. Krypton blew up years ago. Even at 20 light-years distant, we would have seen it kerplode.

The Draconian Homeworld
Though I don't believe it was ever visited or depicted on Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, the Draconians had to live someplace, right? Someplace with lots of Tigermen, presumably. We already know these Draconians will attempt to destroy us some 500 years hence--what are we waiting for? Make peace with the bird people, give the mutants some public housing, and get on the horn to Doc Huer already!

Krankor
I'll let Phantom of Krankor make his own case. Only a fool stands in the way of Krankor.

Voicing Pirates

So I volunteered to help with voices and audio on Pirates of the Burning Sea, and yesterday we hit the studio to record incidental dialogue and what the sound engineer calls "exerts"--sound effects that play during avatar combat (duels, swordplay, and the like). And as is often the case, I didn't *just* get to skip a day of work to hang out in the recording studio and eat a free cheeseburger--I also learned a few things, too.

1) I only have the one pirate voice, and he's a combination of Steve the Pirate from the movie "Dodgeball" and the sea captain from the Simpsons.

2) My "proper English" voice bounces back and forth between Patrick Stewart and Jeeves.

3) Improvising in a Spanish or French accent is really hard.

4) The sound you make when you toss sand in someone's eyes is very similar to the sound you make when you get slashed across the cheek.

5) Everyone's favorite sound effect was the "I've just been stabbed in the eye" sound.