Tacos and Beer

Digitizing old video sources (stuff made in the 20th century) is a hassle for multiple reasons. Probably the biggest is that old video was stored in an interlaced format. This Wikipedia article digs into the details about interlaced video, but the short version is interlaced video is captured and stored as half-frames instead of full frames, and combining those half-frames for playback on modern displays (which are almost all progressive instead of interlaced ) can get messy. This is true for material that originated as video, and it’s also true of material that originated as motion picture film. The film-to-interlaced-video process often involved a hack known as three-two pulldown . That hack was necessary because of differences between motion picture film frame rates and video frame rates. Adding to the hassle of dealing with old video material is the fact that modern video editing software (stuff like Adobe Photoshop and DaVinci Resolve) just “fixes” the interlacing behind the...

The classic 1960s STAR TREK TV series is one of my favorite shows of all time. In the 1970s and ’80s, STAR TREK reruns were one of the best sci-fi things available. Especially to a youngster like me who lived in a rural area with no cable TV. I’m somewhat obsessive about the show. Especially now, since I have my DVDs of it ripped and readily available on my home media streaming server. Having watched every episode a few times (and favorite episodes several times), I have opinions. I decided I’d start making... The classic 1960s Star Trek TV series is one of my favorite shows of all time. In the 1970s and ’80s, Star Trek reruns were one of the best sci-fi things available. Especially to a youngster like me who lived in a rural area with no cable TV. I’m somewhat obsessive about the show. Especially now, since I have my DVDs of it ripped and readily available on my home media streaming server. Having watched every episode a few times (and favorite episodes several times),...

Today I found out that there actually is a real Frankenstein Castle . Really! It’s in Germany. That info about the castle comes from author John Scalzi, who also recently wrote about why, after being on it for a year, Bluesky is his favorite social media platform . I haven’t been on Bluesky for a year yet, but it is easily my favorite social media platform. (I like it because: no ads, no algorithm, and it’s simpler than Mastodon.) Via Andrew … who played the greatest guitar solo ever? Was it Prince? It was probably Prince . From 2016 but new to me, writer/director Shane Black talks about some classic Shane Black scenes with Screencrush . From CBR.com, the first time Garfield hated on Mondays . There’s a comic shop called Dr. No’s , and it’s only a couple hours east of me, so I am obviously going to have to visit at some point. And finally, this is a deep cut even for Gen X-ers… Back in the 1970s there used to be a Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew TV show . It was based on the...

The Venture Bros. is probably my favorite TV show ever. It’s like the one show I wish I could have worked on. It got canceled a while back, but the Venture Bros. movie is high on my list of best films of 2023. If you’re a Venture fan, here’s a good Swimpedia interview with the creators of show . I mean, it’s a good interview regardless, but it won’t make a lot of sense to folks who aren’t well-steeped in Venture lore. And speaking of great cartoons, here’s the lost-until-recently six-minute Boondocks pilot .