Fresh off a satisfactory beginning at creating little home videos and posting them on YouTube, and with a small Xmas budget for self-gifting, I upgraded from Sony Vegas Studio 4 to Vegas Studio Platinum 7.
With the software upgrade came an instructional DVD. However, the DVD would not play in the PC. Windows Media Player had appointed itself the default player for DVD’s, but its error message said the necessary codec was not installed. Does that sound as weird to you as it does to me?
Microsoft graciously linked to a page with the necessary codec listed for sale. Well, thanks for the convenience, but this is the internet, so I went out looking for something both legal and free. Checked Google, checked Wikipedia, checked Softpedia, Tucows, and Sourceforge. Found a recommended codec and installed it, then rebooted. Still didn’t work. The only difference was that the error message changed. Something about the screen resolution and/or color.
OK, let’s assume Windows Media Player just isn’t going to work.
Pat went to bed. I kept searching, this time for a freeware media player. Settled on VideoLAN - VLC media player. Installed it, rebooted. Picture was good. Sound was garbled.
Then, recalled that CD’s burned lately in the Plextor drive were having the same kind of sound problem on playback, but only when played back in that drive. One more time, went looking. At the Plextor site, found and downloaded a firmware update 1.09 dated June 2006 for the PX-712A and installed it over version 1.07.
Rebooted. Loaded the Sony DVD again. Called up VLC and pressed play. And it played perfectly.
One Good Link: The bad events in the world are the things that most often make the news; “If it bleeds, it leads,” is the way one newsman put it. Going against the current is the Good News Network, which shows again and again that not everything on earth is going to hell in a handbasket.
One Video Link: The classic commercial about cat herders… surprisingly, sponsor EDS doesn’t have the video anywhere on its own site.
One Other Link: Uniwatchblog is opinionated about sports uniforms. Three of those opinions are that classic style is best; Logo Creep must be stopped; and purple is an abomination.
The website Cats! Wild to Mild reports that while the cheetah is the fastest of all cats, with a top speed of 70 mph, the domestic cat is no slouch either, reaching speeds up to 30 mph.
Caitie is probably going well under 30 in this photo, but our little calico, even at age 10, still can show the kind of speed that blurs photos and that makes her a Good Cat.
There’s a guest video this week because I had other obligations during the Thanksgiving weekend, and just couldn’t make the time to put together a Good video.
I’ve subscribed at YouTube to Bonnie Underfoot & Victor Tabbycat, whose blog also may be found at 2tabbys.blogspot.com. In this short video, Bonnie and Victor are earning tasty treats with cute behavior.
Starting off on a serious note: my sister Sandy in Michigan has a growth on one of her ovaries, and she hasn’t yet received the test results. It’s a long, painful wait for her and her husband John. We’re all hoping it’s benign and that surgery to get rid of it would also relieve her constant pain…
– Next, Mr. Kelly says: “To Franny Syufy, on behalf of myself and all the Good Cats (and my humans, who couldn’t have done it without us), thank you very much for your kind words and the honor of being your choice as About.com’s Cat Blog of the Week. I would say we are humbled by the honor, but we are cats and nothing humbles us.”
Thank you, Big Guy. We appreciate your honesty. And thank you, Franny — she’s been a mainstay at About.com for close to 10 years. All best to you and Asa, and your own 4 cats, Bubba, Jaspurr, Joey, and Billy.
– This morning, as a treat, Kelly and Caitie get “Baby chicken” (Beech-Nut baby food), while Nicky and Lizzie prefer stinky goodness. Here’s how mealtime goes at our house: Pat sets down Caitie’s dish in the family room, away from the greedy boys in the kitchen… and since Lizzie’s Cosequin is in her dish of S.G., Pat special-delivers the dish to where the torbie lies in the living room, then stands guard to make sure the boys don’t push Lizzie away.
While Pat is in the other room, Kelly walks away from the food remaining in his dish, and goes to Caitie’s dish, and Caitie walks away. Nicky then goes to Kelly’s dish and polishes off the last few bites of the Big Guy’s baby chicken. Nicky wants Lizzie’s dish too, but Pat won’t allow that.
Minutes later, Kelly returns to Nicky’s dish…then his own…and then Caitie’s…
– Memo to self: never go grocery shopping at Wegman’s early on a Sunday. Pat tells me that she was in Times Square one New Year’s Eve and it was incredibly crowded, but if it was more crowded than Wegman’s this past Sunday morning, then I don’t want to go there…
– Observation: cats can sense when their human needs to go somewhere, and nearly always will jump on their lap 5 minutes before then…
Googling turned up many possible answers, but the one in the link above seemed the safest and least demanding of my technical knowledge, so I downloaded TweakUI from Microsoft’s site and made the change as instructed. Success. Git ‘er done!
– Pat saw a sign for new house under construction that read: “Priced under the $210’s.” The editor in her immediately said, “What’s wrong with just plain ‘Priced under $210K’?”
– The numbers guy at the Wall Street Journal goes myth-busting, testing the often-quoted claim that a single female cat and her offspring can produce 420,000 cats over just seven years. His conclusion: that figure’s way too high, but get your animals spayed or neutered anyway…
– Caitie’s BKP (Bad Kitty Pees outside the box) for the week: 2; one Friday morning, one Wednesday night.
– Speaking of Bad Kitties: On days when she watches granddaughter Diana, Pat opens the garage door very early and leaves it open until Diana’s father Jack arrives and brings her inside. This past Monday morning, Jack said that when he got here, there was a orange cat in the garage. Maybe that’s the one who keeps marking the Kelly Cat’s property. Of course, the orange cat’s owner should take responsibility for keeping it off other people’s property, but I only tell Kelly that it’s a Bad Kitty, and we don’t want Bad Kitties here, we only want Good Cats…
