How I Spent My Dude-a-Palooza

First, I bit the bullet and bought a new camcorder/video editing software package. The reason was that our twins are STILL cute, and while The Cute Stage lasts a little longer with identical twins, it does end eventually. We have WAY more video of Max in his cute stage, and every other stage, than we have of the twins. My own slow realization (see: last 2 years transition from Corporate Man to Work From/Stay at Home Dad) that THIS is the time of my life, that my time will NEVER be more valuable than now, has reminded me that I'll want to look back on this time later when my time is less valuable, when my kids are more independent.

Another reason to bite this particular bullet is that I've always LOVED editing video into little movies. You may have heard the undergroud buzz about "Naked Stunt Sunday" or "The HERC Tape" or "Alabama Cart Surfing"? Well these were done WAY back in the day on my brother's computer in MO, when there was no such thing as consumer editing software or computers. That was about 7 years ago. Then about 4 or 5 years ago, I bought the consumer software (no longer needing a high-powered computer) and tried to edit video again. This was a nightmare, and had the physical & emotional effect of closing a garage door on top of my cranium. Repeatedly. The problem was that I had used pro-level software before, and THAT was not yet available to consumers. So the software was dumbed-down and gave me none of the flexibility or creative freedom I loved about editing video into little movies.

I re-entered the market cautiously and with a looming sense of dread for these reasons. My awful expectations were satisfied, when, the night after buying a new DVD Camcorder (I'd spent 1.5 days straight researching the purchase), I learned that you CAN'T EDIT VIDEO FROM A DVD CAMCORDER! Can you believe it? It's a dirty little secret. You can film stuff, edit it a little in the camera, then finalize it with DVD menus and stuff, and POW you can pop it right into your DVD player & watch it on your TV. If that's what you want, go get one they're cool. But if like me you want to edit the video in another program, you'll have to do backdoor workaround things tantamount to outsmarting the (very smart) DVD Camcorder Designers Guild of Japan.

This led to me spending 2 hours in Circuit City, re-researching the re-purchase, deciding if I should go up a notch to hard-drive camcorder or down a notch to Mini-DV. I'd already spent a chunk of my education fund, didn't want to spend more, so we now have a Mini-DV Camcorder. Oh, and one half of those 2 hours was spent convincing the salesperson that the Dirty Little Secret of DVD Camcorders was truly true. She finally believed me when I took her to a computer and made her Google "handycam dvd editing".

Wow. I really made that long story long didn't I? Sorry. The whole IDEA was twofold. Yes, we needed to capture more of these magical moments for posterity. And? Our boys? They'd LOVE to act up and act out and make little movies! The idea came while I was in CA to help Mom, and I spent some time with an old theater friend. We only see each other every few years, but when we get together (same thing with LV Ben. U out there LV Ben?) I. Laugh. So. Hard. I turn into a goofy, punchy, well, . . . theater guy. I turn into the person I started as. I reflected on this, between belly-aching bouts of laughter, and thought it actually sad that I'm never like that around anyone else. Why? Because my KIDS WOULD LOVE ME THIS WAY! I am goofy. I speak in character voices and I see the world through Funnyglasses.

So when I pondered on how to make this Daddy/Max Dude-a-Palooza a very special one, the way was clear. Max and Daddy were going to make a movie :). We plotted and planned while I got to know all the new doo-dads and software and instruction manuals. He had GREAT plans (I told him he could be the next Spielberg or John Woo, he said he wanted to be like Spike Jonze) and I had to keep reassuring him that we would make MANY movies. No, we don't have to do them all at once, and actually we should start simple so we can learn how the doo-dads all work.

So except for Sunday, which was rainy and gloomy and lazy, when we only went bowling and watched a lot of movies. . . . this is how I spent my Dude-a-Palooza:

To recap (WILL I EVER GET TO IT???), we've see the original Sesame Street masterpiece with it's pre-Floyd muppet and some Fezoobs. We've seen the brilliant Sandra Bullock's version from Muppets Tonight. We've even seen Brak and Space Ghost riff on this timeless masterpiece. With all respect to Cake (the band. Though the desert rocks as well) , and the entire "For The Kids" album (one of our family car standbys for long trips) . . .




The video quality is weak here, I'll have to learn how to make things look better on Google Video & YouTube. It'll look better next time!