before i get started, let me just say that i came from james’ site a few minutes ago, and he has a banner ad at the top of the page. it’s for some dvd rental shit… it flashes a couple of phrases across the top: “rent dvd’s online”, “no late fees.”
i definately thought that “over 11,000 titles” said “over 11,000 titties.” anyhow…
once again, i’ve been busy as shit the last few days… things have finally cooled down for a while though, so here’s one of those recap-type thangs…
my knee has been fucking KILLING me… i don’t know what’s wrong with it, but every couple months my right knee just starts throbbing non-stop. time to start a drug regiment again… either that, or start drinking heavily.
it finally happened. after all my traffic stops (see the stories section if you don’t remember – 37 in a 35, liscense plate light out, 73 in a 60, speed, etc…) i finall got a ticket. two of them actually. one for rolling a stop sign and one for not having my insurance card (if you recall, i went to aerosmith and had the contents of my wallet destroyed in the monsoon-rain, including my insurance card.)
pulled me over, wrote me two tickets, and took my drivers liscense. needless to say, my good friend michael the lawyer is on this one already. gonna cost me a fortune, but it’s better than the insurance company uping my rates.
i just finished a group project for my english class… we had to research and develope a new product and write up a proposal pitching this new product (or service, in this case.) pain. in. the. ass. we came up with a pretty good idea, or at least i think so:
we developed a new service for a pizza delivery place. rent (and deliver) movies in conjunction with food. rent movies, deliver them, and pick them back up in three days – make that stereotypical cheap date real easy – noone has to leave the house for anything… i think we did a damn fine job, considering that 2 of us essentially did the entire project. now i just need to do the emails for the email assignment portion of the class – it’s worth like 20% of the semester, and i’ve done essentially none of them. we’re supposed to mantain conversation on a listserv. oh well, i’ll get caught up somehow… since it’s business related, i’m thinking about pitching my new business idea to the list looking for feedback.
speaking of that. what do y’all think of this? i’m thinking of starting my own business to get a little extra income. i have a converter that can capture VHS tapes (or tv, or any kind of video or audio input, really) and convert the video to DVD/SVCD/VCD quality video. i dont have a DVD burner yet, but i’m thinking that i can charge people x amount and convert their home videos to digital format (since VHS tapes decay and, well, suck.)
here’s what i’ve got so far. $7 for the first disc, $5 for each additional disc – vcd is good quality and can hold 70 minutes on a CDR. SVCD is EXCELLENT quality and can hold around 35 to 40 minutes on a CDR. both vcd’s and svcd’s can be played on almost all recent dvd-players and in cd-rom drives on computers. $10 for a DVD+R when i get the DVD burner.
what do you think? don’t you think people would pay $7 to have their crappy deteriorating VHS tapes converted onto a VCD/SVCD/DVD that is digital, isn’t magnetic, has no tape to be eaten by a VCR, and doesn’t decay with each use? videos of of weddings, little sister playing soccer, and christmas with great-grandma and shit like that?
i think so, especially since the lowest price i could find it for on the internet was $15 to $20. i saw some prices as high as $45 a DISC. i think i could make a little money off of it, and save some people a little heartache in the long run, too.
for whatever it’s worth, i’m also converting bootleg concert videos to VCD/SVCD as well.
let me know what you think – too much? not enough? worth it? interested? know anyone who is? 
maybe i’ll try to put up a cheapie website with some sample video clips so people can check out the quality.
oh, by the way, i’m looking for a program i can use to manage my live show collection. now that db.etree.org has gone down once, it can surely go down again, and i’d like to be able to maintain an accurate database on my computer in the instance that db.etree.org goes down and loses my information, or doesn’t come back up at all. if you know of one, let me know before i go and program my own.
and if you’ve got any ideas/questions/comments/smart remarks about the video business, please drop me a line, i’m looking for any and all input.
, but I don’t have all that much to report about his life. But here’s something interesting I learned from him this evening: Brian says that, according to Waldo, “Pantala Naga Pampa” does not mean “Welcome to our Home,” as everyone had previously thought. Apparently, “Pantala Naga Pampa” comes from some Native American language, and means “There is a Python in My Pants.” Which I’m glad I know, since I had always wondered how to say that. This and other monumentally useful information can be found in the new version of the Nancies FAQ, which is extremely comprehensive.