Alright ladies and gentlemen, here we go with my annual Oscar picks. For my newer readers, let me explain what I do.

List of Nominees, followed by who will win (based on what I think will be picked by the Academy) and what should win (based on what I think is the most deserving). Sometimes they match up. Sometimes my “should win” predictions end up being the winners. Finally this is followed by a brief (though not so brief this year) discussion of why I’ve made said selections.

This year was a tough one to call. This is in part due to the fact that when you get right down to it, I think there were really only like 11 films nominated for anything, and in many cases every single film in the category was so deserving that picking just one was damn near impossible.

However this year also marks my best year for seeing the nominees (not that it was that hard to catch them all considering there were essentially 5 movies nominated for nearly everything). There were very few I didn’t see, so for the most I’m not talking out of my ass.

Overall Predictions: Slumdog Millionaire should be the big winner, but chances are The Curious Case of Benjamin Button will be the big winner. More on this in a bit. But, lets get on with it.

Best Actor
Richard Jenkins for “The Visitor”
Frank Langella for “Frost/Nixon”
Sean Penn for “Milk”
Brad Pitt for “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
Mickey Rourke for “The Wrestler”

Who Will Win: Mickey Rourke
Who Should Win: Sean Penn

This, like many of the selections this year, was incredibly hard to call. There are simply so many deserving of the awards this year that picking just one is damn near impossible. One call that was easy to make was that Brad Pitt will not win (unless of course Benjamin Button does a full sweep and takes everything… which it shouldn’t). Not only should he be disqualified on account of the fact that for, probably 50% of the movie it’s a digital recreated version of his face stuck onto another actors body (techincally amazing yes, but how the academy would let that slip by is beyond me), he was nothing special. And I’m a Brad Pitt fan! I just don’t think that this should be the film he wins for.

As for Rourke, his performance was incredible. There’s no question about that. However, Sean Penn was playing a real life character and he nailed it. He was 100% believable the entire time. And I don’t even like Sean Penn. True, Frank Langella had that going for him aswell (playing a non-fictional character), and he was spectacular, but while he may have gotten Nixon’s manerisms down, I still can’t tell if he was avoiding doing an “impression” (vocally) for artistic reasons or simply because he couldn’t do the voice. And in all honesty, I thought Michael Sheen was better as David Frost anyways.

But who the hell knows. It might even go to that guy I’ve never heard of in that film I didn’t know existed! Who knows.

Best Actress
Anne Hathaway for “Rachel Getting Married”
Angelina Jolie for “Changeling”
Melissa Leo for “Frozen River”
Meryl Streep for “Doubt”
Kate Winslet for “The Reader”

Who Will Win: Kate Winslet
Who Should Win: Angelina Jolie

Again, a tough one. You’ve got, arguably, one of the finest actresses of our time (though I’ve never been all that wild about her) playing a bitchy Nun so naturally she seems like the obvious choice. But having seen Doubt, she’d be the first person I’d say shouldn’t win. Then you have the English “thesp” playing the German Nazi Woman with a deep dark secret. How could she not win!?

However my money is on Angelina Jolie. Personally, I’ve never been wild about her (though she was good in Girl Interupted), but her performance in Changeling was outstanding. Not the least bit preachy (“Ooo, give me the Oscar! My accent is so good! Look at my range!”) she is 100% believable, even if no one on screen will believe her. Not to mention (and this is the most important one) she overcame her own celebrity and became her character 100%, and when you’re a star like her that is a damn near impossible thing to do. Not once did I go “Oh wow, that’s Angelina Jolie. She’s married to Brad Pitt. She has lots of children”. She became the character. She was Christine Collins, not Angelina Jolie as Christine Collins. She even stopped looking like Angelina Jolie. If I hadn’t known that was her, I probably would have spent most of the movie thinking, “Where have I seen her before”. Doubt has me thinking “Oh there’s Meryl, acting up a storm”. The Reader had me thinking “Oh there’s Katie. Acting up a storm. My, I haven’t seen this much of her breasts since I was 9. And my lord, her armpits are hairy”.

But then again, I was totally off last year and it went to the total underdog. Perhaps Anne Hathaway will win shocking us all. Or maybe it’ll be that girl I’ve never heard of in that movie I didn’t know existed.

Wouldn’t it be weird if both those films I didn’t know existed got best Actor/Actress…

Best Supporting Actor
Josh Brolin for “Milk”
Robert Downey, Jr. for “Tropic Thunder”
Philip Seymour Hoffman for “Doubt”
Heath Ledger for “The Dark Knight”
Michael Shannon for “Revolutionary Road”

Who Will Win: Heath Ledger
Who Should Win: Heath Ledger

Okay. Yes, Josh Brolin was stageringly good in Milk. Yes, Philip Seymour Hoffman was fantastic in Doubt (but he’s Philip Seymour Hoffman, he’s good in everything). Yes, Robert D. played a white man playing a black man. Yes, Michael Shannon played a crazy guy. But Heath Ledger was The Joker. And not only that, he was better than the previous Joker, who was played by Jack fucking Nicholson. Some snotty nosed people have said “Oh if he wins, it’s only because he died” and true, that plays a big part of this (after all, he’s the only one of the bunch who can never win ever again… well almost). But I remember sitting in the theatre watching The Dark Knight and being genuinely terrified of his character, and that rarely happens to me. I mean Robin squirms at lots of stuff, but I have a pretty tough stomach, and certainly rarely get creeped out by characters alone. But he was phenomenal (I’m running out of synonyms for great, can you tell?). Of course, we may never know if our opinions are clouded by his death, because there is no way to watch that film and not have his death loom over that part. But let’s put it this way:

Every single actor nominated is deserving.
Every single actor nominated is fantastic.
Every single actor did something unique for them.
But Ledger is the only actor who cannot win again. Let’s do him this honour. Let’s honour the fact that he was such a talented young man, taken from us all too soon. Let’s honour his memory with this award. Give it to the other guys in the future (besides, Hoffman already has a statue at home).

Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams for “Doubt”
Penélope Cruz for “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”
Viola Davis for “Doubt”
Taraji P. Henson for “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
Marisa Tomei for “The Wrestler”

Who Will Win: ?
Who Should Win: ?

Sorry guys. But try as I might this is the hardest one to call yet. Amy Adams we can write off right now (of course now that I said that she’ll win). She was nothing to write home about. Viola Davis was really good for the 14 minutes she was on screen, though I’m not sure that she’s good enough to win an award. Taraji P. Henson was arguably the best part of Benjamin Button, and I would be very happy if she won. Marisa Tomei has won in the past, and she was really great in The Wrestler (plus she got nekkid, so you gotta give her props for that), and I might argue she stands the best chance. However, the one that keeps sticking out in my mind is Penélope Cruz. And not just because she was in a Woody Allen film. It’s mostly because she was convincingly crazy. Anyone can do crazy, but it takes a lot to come off as convincingly crazy, and she nailed it. Plus she made out with ScarJo.

Ironically this is one of the few categories in which I have seen every single film. That’s part of what makes it so God-damned tough to choose.

Best Original Screenplay
“WALL-E” – Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon and Pete Docter
“Happy-Go-Lucky” – Mike Leigh
“Frozen River” – Courtney Hunt
“In Bruges” – Martin McDonagh
“Milk” – Dustin Lance Black

Who Will Win: Milk
Who Should Win: Milk

Granted, I have not seen Happy-Go-Lucky or Frozen River, but I think this is a hands down win for Milk (thus jinxing it…). For those who take issue with the film (yes, I’m talking to you Mark Kermode), you would be hard pressed to say that the writing is not impeccable. Not only were they able to re-tell a true story accurately on film, they rarely had to turn to dramatic license. Just about everything I saw in that film was reiterated in The Times of Harvey Milk. It’s just an absolutely fantastic, and important story.

True, In Bruges was really funny, and Wall-E was remarkably charming (I would even argue that it should be up for Best Picture), but Wall-E also didn’t have a whole heck of a lot of dialogue, which is very key (in my opinion) when it comes to a screenplay.

Since Milk won’t be taking home best picture (you’ll hear why in a bit), this is where they’ll honour it.

Best Adapted Screenplay
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” – Eric Roth and Robin Swicord
“Frost/Nixon” – Peter Morgan
“The Reader” – David Hare
“Slumdog Millionaire” – Simon Beaufoy
“Doubt” – John Patrick Shanley

Who Will Win: Slumdog Millionaire
Who Should Win: Slumdog Millionaire

Again, this one was tough to call, but I think it’s safe to say that Slumdog will take home the statue for this (unless of course its a Button sweep). Though again I must reiterate that it is a very tough call. Personally, of all the films listed, I think Frost/Nixon is the best of the bunch. That said, I haven’t seen the play so I don’t know how much “adapting” was done. If it’s anything like Doubt it may be damn near verbatim (I haven’t seen Doubt but have been listening to an audio recording and it appears as though they took the script of the play and just changed the stage directions of film directions). The Reader does have all the things the academy loves, but if they’re going to go for the “Oscar Grab” type of a movie they’d probably go for Button. Because as slow as Button is, it at least feels deliberately so. The Reader is just plain slow.

Best Animated Feature
“Bolt” – Chris Williams and Byron Howard
“Kung Fu Panda” – Mark Osborne and John Stevenson
“WALL-E” – Andrew Stanton

Who Will Win: Wall-E
Who Should Win: Wall-E

It’s fucking Wall-E. E-nough said. I don’t care that Bolt was in 3D. It’s Wall-E.

Best Foreign Language Film
“Revanche” (Austria) in German – Götz Spielmann
“The Class” (France) in French – Laurent Cantet
“The Baader Meinhof Complex” (Germany) in German – Uli Edel
“Departures” (Japan) in Japanese – Yojiro Takita
“Waltz with Bashir” (Israel) in Hebrew – Ari Folman

Who Will Win: Waltz with Bashir
Who Should Win: Waltz with Bashir

True, it’s the only one I’ve seen – but the 20 minutes I watched were remarkable. I mean, I could give a crap about the subject matter (me and war films don’t get along) but it was the coolest animation I’ve seen in a while.

Plus I haven’t seen any of the others.

Best Animated Short
“La Maison En Petits Cubes” – Kunio Kato
“Lavatory – Lovestory” – Konstantin Bronzit
“Oktapodi” – Emud Mokhberi and Thierry Marchand
“Presto” – Doug Sweetland
“This Way Up” – Alan Smith and Adam Foulkes

Who Will Win: ?
Who Should Win: ?

Don’t know, don’t care. If there’s one from Canada, I hope it wins.

Best Art Direction
“Changeling” – James J. Murakami, Gary Fettis
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” – Donald Graham Burt, Victor J. Zolfo
“The Dark Knight” – Nathan Crowley, Peter Lando
“The Duchess” – Michael Carlin, Rebecca Alleway
“Revolutionary Road” – Kristi Zea, Debra Schutt

Who Will Win: The Duchess
Who Should Win: The Duchess

While a big part of me wants Dark Knight to take home the award in all its possible categories (since it was so badly snubbed), a big part of me feels its the most deserving since it’s the only one listed that isn’t a period piece, resulting in some real creativity.

That said The Duchess is a costume drama set in Jolly old England in the 18th century. It’s pretty much a shoe in.

That said Changeling may stand a chance because it’s art direction was phenomenal (and was shot on the backlots, all retro style).

Unless of course Button sweeps them all…

Best Cinematography
“Changeling” – Tom Stern
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” – Claudio Miranda
“The Dark Knight” – Wally Pfister
“The Reader” – Chris Menges, Roger Deakins
“Slumdog Millionaire” – Anthony Dod Mantle

Who Will Win: Slumdog Millionaire
Who Should Win: The Dark Knight

Again, this is partially due to the fact that I want Dark Knight to take whatever it can. That said the Slumdog cinematography is spectacular. But, Dark Knight also had bits shot in IMAX, which is no easy feat. For that reason alone it should take it.

But seriously, The Reader? Further proof that if you make a movie about nazis and the holocaust you’ll get nominated for just about anything.

Best Costume Design
“Australia” – Catherine Martin
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” – Jacqueline West
“The Duchess” – Michael O’Connor
“Milk” – Danny Glicker
“Revolutionary Road” – Albert Wolsky

Who Will Win: The Duchess
Who Should Win: Australia

Alright, if Duchess doesn’t win art direction it certainly will take home costumes. Again, 18th century costume drama. That said, I watched a behind the scenes featurette on Australia and it’s costume design and let me tell you: this film should be taking home the Oscar. These guys went way out of their way on this one (what else would you expect from Baz?). Hopefully the academy will recognize that and give it to Oz.

Again it goes without saying all this could be overruled in favour of a Button sweep.

And also can I just say, what’s with Milk nomination here? Is this meant as a consolation prize? I mean the film is brilliant, and the costumes fit the period, but they are anything but special (considering it looks like they just raided the near by American Apparels and Urban Outfitters).

Best Documentary Feature
Nerakhoon (The Betrayal)
Encounters at the End of the World
The Garden
Man on Wire
Trouble the Water

Who Will Win: Man on Wire
Who Should Win: Man on Wire

True, this is the only one I’ve seen, but it was wonderful. Actually had me on the edge of my seat. Yes, a documentary that was that thrilling.

Best Documentary Short
“The Conscience of Nhem En” – Steven Okazaki
The Final Inch
Smile Pinki
The Witness – From the Balcony of Room 306

Who Will Win: ?
Who Should Win: ?

Again, don’t know, don’t care.

Best Film Editing
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” – Kirk Baxter, Angus Wall
“The Dark Knight” – Lee Smith
“Frost/Nixon” – Mike Hill, Daniel P. Hanley
“Milk” – Elliot Graham
“Slumdog Millionaire” – Chris Dickens

Who Will Win: Slumdog Millionaire
Who Should Win: Slumdog Millionaire

This is a fairly tough call. It seems only natural to pick Slumdog, but Milk did have some fantastic cutting, as did Frost/Nixon. Dark Knight wasn’t too bad but I wouldn’t say it stood out by any means.

As for Button, I think this one of the few nominations it doesn’t stand a chance. Everyone thinks the movie is too long, and part of an editor’s job is to not only make a long/slow movie feel shorter/faster, but to tell a director “YOUR MOVIE IS TOO GODDAMNED LONG!”. Not only that, much like Dark Knight I don’t remember it being anything spectacular. Certainly nothing like Fight Club.

Best Live Action Short
“On the Line (Auf der Strecke)”
“Manon On the Asphalt”
“New Boy” (Ireland)
“The Pig” (Grisen)
“Toyland” (Spielzeugland)

Who Will Win: ?
Who Should Win: ?

You know the drill…

Best Makeup
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” – Greg Cannom
“The Dark Knight” – John Caglione, Jr. and Conor O’Sullivan
“Hellboy II: The Golden Army” – Mike Elizalde and Thom Floutz

Who Will Win: Benjamin Button
Who Should Win: Hellboy

This is the hardest to predict, simply because you have to wonder what they’re taking into consideration. Yes, Button had makeup for 90% of the movie, but most of that makeup was digital. Dark Knight was an even split, with Ledger’s makeup being prothetic and Eckhart’s being digital (though incredibly convincing).

But that said, Hellboy actually had real makeup – I mean the Hellboy makeup is real, and that is absolutely incredible. So you have to ask what the academy respects more. Cool, convincing digital makeup, or the real deal?

Honestly, I think this will be the last year we have to decide. As more and more films move to digital makeup the old stuff will die out. If they were smart they’d split the categories (best digital makeup, best makeup). But in my honest opinion, digital makeup falls under the category of visual effects. For that reason Button should be ruled out (yes, “Old” Cate Blanchet was real, but big whoop). Dark Knight is commendable, especially for the use of brand new prosthetics which make acting much easier for the actors, but come on. Hellboy!

Best Original Score
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” – Alexandre Desplat
“Defiance” – James Newton Howard
“Milk” – Danny Elfman
“Slumdog Millionaire” – A. R. Rahman
“WALL-E” – Thomas Newman

Who Will Win: Benjamin Button
Who Should Win: Benjamin Button

Okay. This one is easy for me. Button for the win. The score is beautiful. Even Jamie Cullum thinks so! Granted, I do enjoy the Slumdog soundtrack, but if it wins it will only be because everyone thinks “Ooo, listen to that! Indian music. This is new!”. Milk apparently had a score? I thought most of it was just needle drops of opera music. As for Wall-E… I was too distracted by the visuals/sound design to notice a score.

This is the one of the few categories I think Button truly deserves.

Best Original Song
“Down to Earth” from WALL-E – Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman (music), Peter Gabriel (lyrics)
“Jai Ho” from Slumdog Millionaire – A. R. Rahman (music), Gulzar (lyrics)
“O Saya” from Slumdog Millionaire – A. R. Rahman and M.I.A.

Who Will Win: ?
Who Should Win: “O Saya”

This is never an easy one to call (other than last year). “O Saya” is definitely the best song from a movie soundtrack that I’ve heard in a long time, but there may be that desire to give it to Wall-E, because it’s Wall-E.

Honestly I have no idea. Though I have to say this is probably the fewest nominees ever. True, most of the songs last year were from one film, but only 3 songs?

Best Sound Editing
“The Dark Knight” – Richard King
“Iron Man” – Frank Eulner and Christopher Boyes
“Slumdog Millionaire” – Tom Sayers
“WALL-E” – Ben Burtt and Matthew Wood
“Wanted” – Wylie Stateman

Who Will Win: Wall-E
Who Should Win: Slumdog

Granted, if Wall-E takes it I’ll be happy. I do get confused between editing and mixing. But Slumdog had really cool uses of sound and for that reason I would say that it should take editing. However if editing actually means design then give it to Wall-E.

Best Sound Mixing
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” – David Parker, Michael Semanick, Ren Klyce, Mark Weingarten
“The Dark Knight” – Lora Hirschberg, Gary Rizzo, Ed Novick
“Slumdog Millionaire” – Ian Tapp, Richard Pryke, Resul Pookutty
“WALL-E” – Tom Myers, Michael Semanick, Ben Burtt
“Wanted” – Chris Jenkins, Frank A. Montaño, Petr Forejt

Who Will Win: Wall-E
Who Should Win: Wall-E

I presume mixing means design, in which case Wall-E is the only answer. Not only was everything created from scratch, but they did such an amazing job. Again, I don’t know which category is which, and Wall-E probably should take both.

Best Visual Effects
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” – Eric Barba, Steve Preeg, Burt Dalton, Craig Barron
“The Dark Knight” – Nick Davis, Chris Corbould, Tim Webber, Paul Franklin
“Iron Man” – John Nelson, Ben Snow, Dan Sudick, Shane Mahan

Who Will Win: Benjamin Button
Who Should Win: Benjamin Button

The only other category where Button deserves it. Hands down it is the technically superior film of all the nominations this year. It’s the Titanic of the decade. Yes the film was long. Yes the performances were “Give me an Oscar”ish. Yes, it felt slow. But come on: the special effects were absolutely mind boggling. Perhaps so much so you spent half the movie thinking “how the hell did they do that”. While I would argue their digital makeup is not as good as Dark Knight (Button’s looked too soft to me) but the fact that 90% of the movie has digital effects is pretty mind blowing. Not to mention after watching the behind the scenes features online, there was a lot of stuff that I had no idea was even done digitally.

This is a groundbreaking film. It is a landmark in digital effects. We’re getting to that point where its tough to tell what’s real and what’s fake. Scary for die-hard old-school folk like me, but also it does set the bar for films to follow into the next decade, and it sets it pretty fucking high.

Best Director
Danny Boyle for “Slumdog Millionaire”
Stephen Daldry for “The Reader”
David Fincher for “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
Ron Howard for “Frost/Nixon”
Gus Van Sant for “Milk”

Who Will Win: Danny Boyle/David Fincher
Who Should Win: David Fincher

It could be argued that, much like in the year of Crash and Brokeback Mountain, the two heavy-weight films will be split and one will get Best Picture, the other Best Director. It’s a total toss-up. Personally my money is on Fincher, not just because he’s American, but because the man is an absolutely incredible director (not to say Boyle isn’t), and while Benjamin Button does have it’s flaws, it is a technical marvel and revolutionary (honestly, its up there with Titanic and Lord of the Rings when it comes to its technical achievements) and it takes a real visionary (not to mention someone who is absolutely insane) to pull off a movie like that. Plus, the man directed SE7EN and Fight Club, two of the greatest films of all time, along with Zodiac (though I think I’m the only person who actually likes that movie). He is an auteur in the truest sense.

Don’t get me wrong, Danny Boyle is fantastic, 28 Days Later is right up there with The Exorcist when it comes to horror films, and Trainspotting is, well, Trainspotting. However as good as he is, I think I would have to say Fincher is the bigger visionary, and when you get right down to it, he had the balls to take on Benjamin Button, even if the end result was flawed. It’s Fincher’s time.

Best Picture
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
“Frost/Nixon”
“Milk”
“The Reader”
“Slumdog Millionaire”

Who Will Win: Slumdog Millionaire/Benjamin Button
Who Should Win: Milk

Much like most of the categories this one is a little hard to call, and as such I had to put down two possible choices for what will win. My reasoning is this – Slumdog is the better of the two films (though personally I wasn’t all that wild about it), but Benjamin Button is the technically superior film and it also has the benefit of being American. That said, Mark Kermode put it best when he refered to Benjamin Button as “Forest Gump with A-Levels”. It is too long, and is a total “awards-grab” of a movie. Yes, it’s technical merits are outstanding, so let it win for those, and Fincher should get the Best Direction award. But it does not deserve to be called best picture.

As for the others: While Frost/Nixon remains one of the most interesting of the selections, it isn’t considerably ground-breaking technically, nor is the story all that new (except to us youngin’s). It is my second favourite of the two, but in all honesty I’m surprised it’s nominated over something like Doubt or even Changeling (one of my picks for best of the year). While The Reader certainly has all the right elements for an Oscar win (thespians, nazis, the holocaust, and a bleak ending) personally I think the academy will see past those (even if they don’t see past Benjamin Button’s Oscar pleas). If it does win it will be for those reasons, and nothing more. I found the film boring and slow, though the performances were quite good (though the best actor in the film, David Kross, wasn’t even nominated). As for Milk, let me put it this way: I saw it three times, over the span of a week, and enjoyed it every single time. The writing is impeccable, the acting outstanding, the direction superb. It tells a very important story that deserves to be better known (something the author intended). I disagree with Mark Kermode’s assesment that it is too televisual, personally I think it’s good that Van Sant didn’t use too much of his art-house style in order to appeal to a wider audience (though some would argue that anyone seeing a movie about a Gay Politician probably would be able to appreciate the art-house aesthetics). The film is honest, and true. Even considering it’s subject matter, it never once comes across as preachy, nor does it ever cry out “Give me an award!”. True, there is a chance that considering the liberal academy, and the fact that it is a “California” movie, there is a chance it may win. Certainly it would be seen as a nice “Fuck You!” to all those who voted yes on Prop (H)8. In my opinion it is truly the best picture of the five, but sadly I think it doesn’t stand a chance against the two heavy weights. But who knows? Milk was always the underdog and perhaps the film will follow in the footsteps of the man that inspired it.

And there you have it. My picks for this evening. The fun starts at 8.00 this eveningm so grab your bag of popcorn, your icey cold Coca-Cola and sit back, relax, and enjoy the show!

But I’m still pissed that they snuck Benjamin Button out just in time for awards consideration. Cheeky bastards.

As I’m sure many of you know, I recently aquired a copy of Eastwood’s 2006 production of Grease. In fact, if you’re reading this theres a very good chance you’ve already watched some clips from it.

I’ve been getting a lot of questions and requests and so I just wanted to let you know the plan.

As I’m sure many of you are aware I’m currently living in Toronto and so making DVDs for everyone would be somewhat of a hassle. However, I’ve come up with a solution that I think will work for just about everyone.

Rather than making DVDs and selling them and blah blah blah, I’m going to post the entire show online, for free, to stream and download. I think this is the best solution as it ensures that everyone, no matter where they are, can view the video. It won’t have any copy protection on it and you are free to download it and do as you wish. The quality will be slightly lower than DVD but unless you’re a real video snob you probably won’t notice. The file will also be able to be burned to a DVD so that you can watch it off of your computer.

I hope that this is satisfactory for everyone. I would love to make everyone DVDs, but the fact of the matter is it’s just far to complicated to organize (remember how huge the cast was), costly, time consuming, and it doesn’t help that I’m living in Toronto.

You certainly can download the file and burn it to a DVD and it will serve you nicely. If you don’t know how to do this e-mail me and we can try to work something out. Who knows, perhaps if I end up with some extra free time this summer I’ll try and organize something so that we can get DVDs.

I was also thinking perhaps we could try to organize a screening party back in the Eastwood Aud where we could all come together and watch the show on the big screen. Might be fun. I don’t know. Just a thought.

Anyways, I hope you all understand. If I could I’d hook you all up, I would. Sadly univeristy/jobs/life gets in the way.

If you have any questions on comments feel free to shoot me an email

adam at adamschoales dot com

Cheers to you all, and Merry Christmas.

Sonny… err… Adam.

Update: As I’m sure many of you have noticed, a couple weeks have passed and so far nothing has appeared online. I just wanted to re-assure everyone that the video is coming. I’ve been wrapping up projects for school/clients however everything is edited and the only step left is to compress and upload the video. Thanks for your patience. I think it’ll be worth it in the end.

Also, we now have our own Facebook page. Be sure to check it out and become a fan — it’s the easiest way for me to keep in contact with everyone.

So I had an idea (rare, I know).

Watching Casino Royale for the first time since I saw it in theatres and it got me thinking about the next Bond game. Now I may not be much of a gamer but there are two types of games I will never miss out on:
Mario Games
and James Bond Games.

However the last few installments in the series have… well… sucked. In fact with the exception of one (that had such an absurd title I’m not quite sure what the fucking thing was called) all of them since GoldenEye have been downright awful.

With this new game being produced by a new company – Activision if I’m not mistaken, who have, in the past, created some of my favourite games of all time (though not recently) – I’m hoping that things will improve. So here’s what I’d like to see.

Option 1: A return to GoldenEye: that is to say – it’s good. But not only good, it also follows the movie plot-line (for the most part) but also expands the story a little bit, adding extra scenes we never saw so that you can’t predict exactly how things are going to work. BONUS POINTS if the game actually offers ADDED story to the film – perhaps giving back/front story, or giving an alternate perspective on a scene we saw from the film.

Option 2: This is what we’ll call “ideal, if (and that’s a big fuckin’ if) they pull it off” situation: a return to the more classic “adventure game” style of gameplay mixed with the classic First-Person Shooter of GoldenEye.

You see Casino Royale really got me thinking about what we’re missing in ALL the Bond games, and that’s the whole Secret Agent aspect. Alright, sure you get to shoot people, blow stuff up, and use neat little gadgets, but there’s more to James Bond than that. Okay, not really, in fact the only thing other than that is sexin’ up sexy ladies with accents…

What I mean is it would be fun to have more sections with Bond being secret agenty – be it doing cool stuff on the computer, putting on disguises, sneaking around, seducing women, you know all the other stuff from the movies apart from the shooting and explosions.

The problem is many of these games have tried this in the past and have failed miserably – probably because they’re developed by/for kids who just want to get to to the shooting.  In fact their number one flaw is they don’t feel like a Bond film at all. In fact if anything they feel like a sequel to “Never Say Never Again” only with less Basinger and more old/fat/bald Connery. Sure there’s shooting, some gadgets, and some pretty ladies, but that doesn’t mean it’s any more fun than masturbation with a cattle-prod.

But it is possible to do it right. Look at Metal Gear Solid, a game known for delivering a healthy dose of action, stealth, and story. However I think the better example is something like Mission: Impossible a long forgotten N64 game. If you were to take elements from that, add in some more cool spy-like objectives (like finding a cell phone, taking the SIM, running a trace on the SIM, hacking into someone’s bank account with info from that SIM, OR SOMETHING like that), and of course add in some bitchin’ action scenes, you could have an absolutely fantastic Bond game that actually felt like a mini-Bond movie, rather than just an excuse to have a Pierce Brosnan sound alike run around like a moron. Again, this is why Metal Gear Solid is a very good comparison, as is something like Resident Evil 4 (one of the few games I’ve played that was as entertaining, if not more, than a film).

Again, the problem is in the execution. I think if Activision worked closely with the creative team behind the film (including the writers) and expanded the game from more than just a shooter, and more into an interactive version of the film (again, bonus points if it is an expanded story from the film) the game could be really, really bitchin!

Having said that, I’ll still buy it either way. Despite it’s stupid name…

James Bond Will Return.

I sent this email a couple weeks ago to his Steveness since I had heard of people getting some results by doing so. Having said that, I never really expected anything to come out of it, and realizing that I had sent it the day after the new iPhone announcement it was likely too get lost in the shuffle. I more or less decided I was going to let sleeping dogs lie…

It wasn’t until last night that I got so completely fed up with Quicktime that I decided it was time to send the letter again (this time updated with more information) and hope to God that perhaps this time around someone will take notice.

To: Steve Jobs (sjobs@apple.com)
Subject: Problems with Quicktime: Can You Help Me Out!?

Dear Mr. Jobs.

I sent this e-mail about two weeks ago, however I have a feeling it was lost in the shuffle of the new iPhone announcement. I thought perhaps now that things have calmed down a bit I should send it again.

The other week I was sitting around and an ad for the film “Be Kind Rewind” came on TV. In that ad were references to the movie “Ghostbusters” which got me to thinking, “Man, I really want to go watch Ghostbusters!”. So I headed up to my room to grab my Ghostbusters DVD only to discover that it wasn’t there. I then remembered that I had leant it to a friend a little while ago and never bothered to get it back. So I was stuck: I desperately wanted to watch this movie but appeared to have no way to do so. And then it hit me! The Canadian iTunes Movie store has just started renting movies, perhaps they have Ghostbusters available. So I logged on and sure enough, it did! I paid my 4 dollars, let the movie download (surprisingly fast I might add) and got ready to enjoy one of my favorite childhood movies.

I only wish that I could say the experience was as enjoyable as it was as a child.

I headed downstairs, hooked my Powerbook up to my TV and booted into Frontrow (more on this in a bit). I was a bit surprised to see that “Rented Movies” was not an option in the Frontrow interface. So I quit from that  and headed over to iTunes in order to play the movie. It loaded fine and I booted into fullscreen – and thats when the troubles really started.

You see, the reason I wanted to use Frontrow is because of the trouble I have with video files and Quicktime/iTunes. Ever since upgrading to Leopard I have been unable to play movies in fullscreen in Quicktime without a significant drop in frame-rate. Even worse, is that if I export a film from Final Cut Pro and try to run that file without even going into fullscreen the playback is choppy. The same with iTunes: the movies play just fine at normal size but in fullscreen the playback is awful and unwatchable. The odd thing is, all these same files play in fullscreen just fine in both Frontrow and VLC. It’s only Quicktime and iTunes that  seem to have trouble playing in Fullscreen.

And so it looked as though I wasn’t going to be able to watch Ghostbusters on my Computer. Thankfully I was able to copy the file to my iPod Classic and hook it up to the TV to watch it. However this too took a great deal of time since the iPod Classic didn’t seem to like my older generation iPod dock. After multiple attempts I finally was able to get it to playback on my TV. However, this was nerely 45 minutes later.

Sadly the troubles didn’t stop there. Following the viewing I noticed a new version of Quicktime was available and so I decided to update. Since the recent update to Quicktime 7.5 the problems have gotten worse. Now opening those same quicktime files from Final Cut pro result in choppy playback without going into fullscreen, and when I do go into fullscreen, the video playback is virtually non-existant. What’s worse though is that files that used to play just fine, even at their regular size (specifically .m4v files I had compressed from these larger files) were now playing back extremely choppy and had become completely unwatchable. As a video editor this is an extremely huge issue as I am no longer able to view my own work. How am I to ensure that they work for clients if I can’t even properly view them myself?

I guess I’m just disappointed. I’ve been using a Mac for 5 years now and have loved the experience ever since day one. I recommend them to all my friends and family, especially anyone who wants to get into video or audio production – but things like this make me hesitant to do so. What’s even more frustrating is that this issue has persisted for so long and no one cares to look into it.  Perhaps it’s because I’m on a PowerBook? Perhaps the newer version of Quicktime haven’t been fully tested with the PowerPC Architecture? I’m not sure. I find it very strange that everything worked just fine prior to an upgrade to Leopard, and not only that that things playback fine in other applications (including Frontrow, which is very strange). This issue has been plaguing me since January and no-one seems to take any interest in it. I’ve even made a trip to the Genius Bar to have them look into it – however they merely brushed it off claiming they didn’t notice any difference and that I must just have good eyes (I don’t see how someone couldn’t notice a nearly 50% drop in framerate). This was especially perplexing as every other trip to the Genius bar resulted in excellent customer service – they usually go out of their way to ensure I walk away happy. But when it came to this issue it seemed like no one could care less.

While I would love to tell my friends to try renting movies from iTunes, how can I honestly recommend the service when there’s a good chance that they will have the same troubles as me?  While the additions of movies to the iTunes store is great, I don’t think I will be renting/buying anything again anytime soon (nor recommending my friends do the same) until this problem with fullscreen video is resolved. This is really unfortunate because I was really looking forward to using the service a lot! The ease of finding movies I want to see, the low price, and the incredibly fast download times (I still cannot get over how quickly it took a 1.17 gb file to download), make it such a great service. However, if I cannot watch with ease them then what is the point? To go through all of this hassle seems to negate all the convenience factors. Perhaps once these issues are resolved (or I can at least watch my rented movies in Frontrow, bypassing these large issues) I will then start renting movies from iTunes. But again, until I can actually watch them with ease it simply doesn’t make sense to do so.

Now nearly two weeks have gone by, and I wish I could say that things have gotten better. They haven’t. In fact, they’ve gotten much worse. Following the increase of issues with the latest Quicktime Update I did some poking around, posting on message boards and websites, asking others if they had any issues. Turns out I am not alone – and that this is a very common problem… for people with PowerPC Macs. It turns out that every single person who has mentioned having the same problems as me just so happens to be running a G4 or G5 Mac. I felt better knowing that I was not alone, but am still troubled by the problems I am having. If only it was just an issue with playback, perhaps I could just get by using VLC for everything. Unfortunately it goes beyond that. Not only is playback so bad that the files have become unwatchable, but encoding in quicktime appears to also be broken as I am currently unable to do any conversions using Compressor – something that I do quite a bit for my freelance video work. As it stands I cannot send a client their video as I cannot seem to get quicktime compression to function with Compressor. I’ve asked if anyone has found a solution and so far the only “solution” I’ve been told is “Replace your old PowerBook with a newer MacBook or MacBook Pro”. This, sadly, isn’t really a solution. Afterall, I’m only a student who can barely afford the snacks I’m buying let alone drop another 2 grand on a new computer just to get Quicktime working again.

Two weeks have passed and nothing has happened. No updates to fix the problems. No acknowledgement (either privately or publicly) that there’s even an issue. I don’t want much: I just want to be listened to, and either be given a solution, or at least have someone come flat out and say that; it’s not working properly on the older PowerPC architecture, that there’s no solution at the moment, and that they’ll try and work on finding one. I want to be able to enjoy my Mac again, not curse it like I cursed my stupid windows box for so many years.

Thanks for your time and I hope that perhaps this time around someone might listen.

ADAM SCHOALES

There you have it. My letter to Steve. Again, I don’t think that I’ll hear back anytime soon, but I plan to keep trying until someone decides to actually help me out. Also, feel free to leave comments on your experiences with Quicktime. After all, it’s harder to ignore a crowd than it is a soloist.

Update: Well, a couple days ago I sent off another e-mail hoping that perhaps the third time’s the charm. In many ways it was, and in many ways it was not. To make a long story short, I was contacted by a higher-up from Apple who was very gracious and helpful. After a few calls, and emails we came to the conclusion that we were going to have to re-format my computer. So today I spent all day doing so. After hours of prep, installation, and updates I went to see if my woes had finally been solved. Take a wild guess: they weren’t. Now I have to send my computer to an apple store/reseller to have diagnostics run. This means I’m going to be sans-computer for at least a day, if not longer (not to mention the fact that I’m 99% sure they’re going to tell me that there’s nothing that can be done to fix it).

At first I was quite happy: Apple finally got back to me, and seemed to care about my issues. However, the problem still hasn’t been fixed. So, while it was nice of Apple to get back to me they’ve more or less left me in the dark now. I have a re-formatted computer that I’ll have to spend hours on to get it back to the state it was PRIOR to a reformat (which was in the end not required). I also have to now make my way to either Waterloo or Toronto to get to an Apple Store/Reseller that can run diagnostics, and go without my computer for a few days.

And if after all this they tell me there’s nothing that can be done I’m going to be even more pissed than I already am (and believe me, I’m getting pretty God-damned pissed).

I’m not their guinea pig. I’m not alone in my problems. And yet, I’m going out of my way for them to solve their problem… I’m not impressed.

Update 2: There’s an old saying: patience is a virtue. Turns out that may actually be the case. A few days ago I was contacted by Stuart McKenzie, my buddy at Apple, who informed me that he had talked to the engineers at Apple and had been informed that they are working on a fix. Yes ladies and gentlemen, Apple hass finally admitted that this is an issue, that I am not the only one having it, and that they are going to fix it through a software update. There is currently no word on when this update will appear, but they assure me it is coming. Needless to say upon hearing this I was as happy as a clam. But they didn’t stop there. They wanted to offer me a little Good-Will gift as a way of saying sorry and thank you. Again, happier than a clam, 2 clams even. That’s customer service. They’re fixing the problem – and that’s all I could ask for. The gift is just an extra nice touch. Thanks Apple. I’m a die-hard fanboy again. Also, I wanted to appolgize for some of my comments in the last update – I was beyond frustrated and used it as a way to take out my frustrations. Don’t get me wrong: I’m still frustrated that I had to go through all of this – there is no excuse for Quicktime not working on a computer that more than meets the “System Requirements” (including the “Recommended System Requirements”). However, the fact is they are fixing the problem and that is all that matters. So, thanks Apple. No hard feelings?

So I know, it’s been a long while. I haven’t posted here in quite some time and I said I wouldn’t likely do so unless I had something of value. While I’m not sure if what I bring to you today is of any value, it certainly requires more than a mere Tumblr post and a miniscule Facebook link.

Ever since I’ve got home I’ve had plenty to keep me busy; Charlies, Birthdays, Cleaning, the usual. However now that I have a small amount of free time (while I’m not applying for every job known to man in order to shut my mother up) I wanted to take that time to do something somewhat productive. And what better way then to begin learning a new App. And so I though perhaps now was the time to try out that new copy of Logic Pro I have had sitting on my computer since September. I’ve never used Logic really, though I’ve used innumerable audio editing apps in the past, and have been looking for a nice audio solution for the mac (since Final Cut Pro really isn’t meant for sound, and Soundtrack Pro has apparently fallen over and died and is now refusing to do anything…) so it was time to try something new.

Of course, if you’re going to play with an audio app you’re going to need some audio. And that leads me to today. May first. The First of May. If you’re smart you’ve probably figured out where I’m going with this. Otherwise read on.

I decided that to learn how to better understand Logic I would put together a little cover of one of the greatest folk songs of our generation. The aritst: Mr. Jonathan Coulton (JoCo). The song: First of May.

I’ve had the instrumental for a while now, hoping to use it for the finale of “Living With Nate and Adam”. When that idea got scrapped I was looking for a good excuse to use it. Since its not really “Coffee House” appropriate, and May first was just around the corner, and I wanted to learn how to use Logic everything sort of fell into place.

So the other night I went into my basement, recorded my vocals, plopped them in with the instrumental, did some mixing and voila: I’ve just recorded my first single.

Now I’ll be the first to tell you I am no singer. I hate my voice. I truly do. Some have told me that I’m not an awful singer, and I’m sure they’re not lying, but the fact is I cannot stand to hear myself sing. This is why normally I sit behind the scenes making other people sound good (or rather, better). But alas, since Robin hates the song with a firey passion it looked as if I was going to have to record the vocals myself. As such, they’re crap. Maybe not crap, that’s a bit harsh, but weak. I am not a trained singer, I don’t like singing, but I had to do it so I did. I sat in my basement and recorded these Monday night at 12:30. I was tired, my throat was sore, but I did what I had to do.

Why am I telling you all this? Main reason: so you don’t write nasty ass comments about my horrible singing voice. I already know, don’t waste your finger millage. Instead, sit back and enjoy the brilliance that is JoCo.

Again, I want you to bear in mind this whole thing was mainly done as an experiment with Logic to see if I could better understand it, as well as a tribute to Mr. Jonathan Coulton – and incredibly talented guy, who is really shaking things up in the music biz. Never heard of him? Don’t worry, very few have. I first heard of him But believe me once you start listening to this guy you won’t want to stop. He’s so incredibly talented, funny, smart and above all a nice guy.

The final product isn’t too bad. The vocals still stick out too much (I haven’t mastered that professional blend) but overall it gets the job done.

If you like the song be sure to check out Jonathan’s site for a whole load of great stuff (including lots of freebies like the “Song a Week” podcast) as well as this episode of TWiT in which JoCo guest stars (especially if your interested in getting into the music biz), and finally this awesome video of Jonathan performing “Still Alive” (the theme from “Portal”, which he wrote) in front of a live audience… using Rock Band. If you’re like me you’ll be hooked.

First of May – Performed by Adam Schoales

You can also head over to my Tumblr for a streaming version, if thats your sorta thang.

Oh yeah, this song is definitely not safe for work, so you may want to use headphones.

Outdoor fucking starts today!

You know it’s been a while since you last posted a blog when you turn up to the site and it’s undergone a complete redesign. Eeep.

Hello friends. No I’m not dead, though after this weekend I’m surpised by that fact. You’ve probably noticed that I haven’t updated in a while. I wish I could say that it was mostly because I was “swamped with work” (my usual excuse) but I’m going to be honest: I’ve been too lazy. Actually that’s not entirely fair to say, the truth is I haven’t had much to say. I mean it’s only every once and a while I can come up with enough material to squeeze out a full blog post, and when I do they usual tend to be really fuckin’ long and no one reads them anyways.

But I’ve still be around. Oh boy howdy have I still been around. Just not in the usual places.

Fact is, I’ve hopped on the Web 2.0 bandwagon and joined The Twitter (as Merlin likes to call it) and been frequently updating my Tumblr. The reasoning behind this is two-fold:

1. It’s brain dead simple.
2. It doesn’t have to be much of anything.

I’m sure to some of you the idea of letting everyone know:

Hey, I’m sitting on the can and I just can’t seem to squeeze this one out…

isn’t very appealing. But Twitter is so much more then that. If you need to get something thats on your mind out there it’s a great outlet. It’s a great community, and I’ve heard that people are very responsive to other twitterers. Of course it helps if your well known across the blogosphere, so little ol’ Adam Schoales doesn’t get much of a response. But hey, Leo Laporte’s daughter messaged me back once – so I’m working my way up the ladder.

As for Tumblr – remember how I said recently I just haven’t had much to say? That’s what’s so great about Tumblr. I can just post little things; be it a picture I find humerous, a favourite quotation, or a great link. I just throw it up and walk away (just walk away). Simple as that.

Which leads me back to this blog. I hope to do something with it. I hope to post weekly journals this summer. The fact is, no one is really reading it and when your in university you can’t help but feel that time would be better spent doing school work then writing a 6 page essay about Billie Jean that will never get read by anyone other than yourself, and possibly Bill. And after John Mayer’s latest insightful blog post I can’t  help but think that I gotta make some changes around here. I don’t know what yet, but we’ll see. I don’t plan on changing the world, my influence isn’t that great (yet), just something new. Or old. I don’t know.

So thanks to all you readers out there, who ever you may be. I hope that you do continue to come visit, add me to your RSS feeds and check out all my other projects. And please, if you like anything you see give me some feedback (hell even if you hate it give me some feedback). I like to know that what I’m doing is out there being enjoyed, even if it is by a select few.

In the meantime if you really want to stay up to date with all the fun things I’m doing the best two places to do so are over at my twitter and my tumblr. Or you can head over to the Contact section of adamschoales.com where I list just about everything I’m on. Or even better, sign up at FriendFeed.com and once you add me you will be fed just about everything I’m doing on the net… well, almost everything.

There ain’t no RSS for Pr0n… yet.

This post is a big overdue, but I wanted to share it…

A few weeks back we recorded an episode of Living with Nate and Adam entitled, “Tuck Club”. It was more of a mini-movie then an episode really. We worked with Magic Bullet to achieve that Fincheresque look, we got the same soundtrack, we did take after take after take…

In the end the results were good. But not great. And so I spent another few weeks going back and cleaning everything up, fixing the sound, and most importantly getting the compression just right. This is the point where once again I thank Jeff Macpherson aka Dr. Tiki for all of his help with the compression process and tell you to go check out tikibartv.com for more fun and games! And no, I’m not doing that for money or cause Dr. Tiki told me to, I’m doing it because I feel that you really should! They’re great people churning out some of the highest quality content on the web!

The one thing about this episode is that it is littered with inside jokes/references. I guess in a way you could call it our Post-Modern Intertextuality episode. Anyways, to better clarify all of this for you, and so you have a better understanding of the episode I’m going to break down what you need to know/see to really get the joke.

Welcome to Fight Club – This is the scene from Fight Club that the first half is parodying. Sorry the quality is shite but its the best I could find online. This is probably the most obvious parody since many people have seen Fight Club. If you have not yet, what the hell are you waiting for?

The Tuck – This is the less obvious parody for many (of course, if you actually do know the scene you’ll know it’s not one that is easily forgotten). In this highly disturbing scene from The Silence of the Lambs… you know I’m not even going to bother to write out the explanation. If you don’t get it watch the clip. But, you’ve been warned.

But What about this Tuck, and Tuck Club, and WTF!?
Good question. The long story short was that this all came about during the shooting of 3x. While no one is really sure who started it or when it started (Bill claims we were doing it in the radio room for a while…) it became an inside joke during the shooting and resulted in a few clips of us dicking around which can be watch at my facebook.

When it came time for Bill and Mitch to visit us I thought it would be fun to take our short “Tuck Club” blooper and do it as a shot for shot remake of the scene from Fight Club. Everyone was down for the idea, and Bill being the genius he is came up with the idea of tacking on the Silence of the Lambs parody. And so there it was.

Now hopefully you have a better understanding of what’s going on. And appologies if I scarred anyone for life with that Buffalo Bill clip. And for all you Fight Club fans, be sure to check out this trailer parody which turns Fight Club into a James L. Brooks style Rom-Com. It’s hilarious!

Would you tuck me?

Oh, and more congrats is in order for Robin who got a call back for Triple Sensation this morning. Looks like I may soon be dating a celebrity! (albeit a Canadian Reality TV celebrity, a celebrity none the less)

I want to tell you a story. I was very hesitant at first because I knew that I would have to take quite a bit of flack from some people, however I feel that in the end it is best for everyone that I share this story. You see, this morning my Mac died. Okay, not so much died as crashed, but for all intense and purposes it died.

Now this is the point at which Reid will say: “I thought Macs didn’t crash”, or “I told you they suck”, or just plain “Ha ha!”. But before he and his PC Zealots (read: losers) jump on the Mac Hate wagon I feel I must relay the whole story to you, and explain why despite all this I still love Macs, in fact probably more so then ever.

You see yesterday I was discussing how much I love the new Macbook Pros and how badly I wanted one. I should have known better. Last time I did this was with the new iPods and it caused my dear sweet iPod to die on me. You think I would have learned my lesson… but apparently not.

I woke up this morning to a completely black screen. This was nothing unusual, in fact it has happened to me on numerous occasions and usually all that was needed was a reboot. So I rebooted and went to the washroom. When I returned I found one of the worst images a mac user could see… the blinking question mark folder. Shit.

Essentially to make a long story short(er) my drive had become corrupted, and was going to need to be reformatted. Shit.

Now normally this is the point in which I would curl up into a little ball and make small cooing noises, whilst rocking back and forth. However today was slightly different. How you ask? One simple answer: SuperDuper!

You see, because Leo and Merlin remind me nearly every other episode of TWiT or MacBreak Weekly I eventually decided to download a copy of SuperDuper! and start cloning my hard-drive. Essentially what SuperDuper! allows one to do is make a direct 1:1 copy of their drive to another bootable drive in case something like this does ever occur, and with the newest version you can even store it alongside your Time Machine backups (more on that later).

So once I determined that my Hard drive was indeed corrupted, I booted into my firewire backup drive and was back up and running my Mac exactly as it was a few weeks ago (I last made a backup when Bill and Mitch were over). This meant that I had essentially everything, minus a few applications/files… including a couple of projects that I’ve been working on for class. Shit.

But fear not sweet children, all is well! Because dear sweet Uncle Steve was smart enough to build an automatic backup system into Leopard. Yes, I speak of course of Time Machine. Thanks to Time Machine I was able to go back to last night and restore my home directory to the state it was in last night, which meant anything that was newly created between now and the clone I made a few weeks ago were back on my mac. Bitchin’!

So why do I love macs more so then ever? The whole process took only a few hours of my morning and I was back up and running. Were I on a PC I likely would not be in the same position (in fact when this happened to me a few years ago on my PC I lost everything, as did my Dad the three times his PC crashed). Were it not for SuperDuper! and Time Machine I would probably still be curled up in a ball cooing away.

Having said that, this is not a perfect system. Just having Leopard/Time Machine doesn’t mean you are fine if your Mac dies. Time Machine will merely keep a backup of your files however you cannot boot to the drive as is and be up and running in a few hours like I was. In fact the process is much more complex. That’s where SuperDuper! earns it’s name.

As I mentioned before, you can clone your hard-drive using SuperDuper! and make a bootable backup, alongside your Time Machine Backups. The process is fairly simple and instructions can be found here.

I got lucky. I had a recent clone (not as recent as I would have liked, and I have learned my lesson about that), had all my media on seperate external drives, and had been running Leopard which meant Time Machine was backing up my important data. However this could have ended badly, like it has for so many before me.

So this is when I get all serious. Backup your data! Go to Costco tonight, buy a 500gb firewire drive (they’re dirt cheap these days), download SuperDuper!, set up a schedule, and start backing up. If you have Leopard, make sure Time Machine is up and running. If you don’t have Leopard you should really consider it – it’s a really great OS and Time Machine is incredible. In fact by reading this sentence you have hereby agreed to follow my instructions and start backing up this weekend. While today you may not understand why its worth taking the time/money, you might just be thanking yourself tomorrow. Believe me, your drives will fail eventually, and three weeks before finals is a bad time to lose your data!

So backup for Christ’s sake! You can thank me later.

God bless you SuperDuper! You’ve earned your name.

Okay, I know, I haven’t updated in forever. I’ve been busy. Shoot me. But this is worth it. I feel I must take the time to congratulate Robin on getting into Randolph Academy for school next year! I felt I must say something since I didn’t bother blogging her Birthday… whoops. This is incredibly exciting because not only will she be studying musical theatre, but also she will be much easier to visit/call (good ol’ free incoming). Of course the downside is she will be finished school before me… despite starting a year later.

So congrats Robbi! Hope you weren’t planning on telling everyone yourself…

…cause the whole world knows now! Thanks Google!

Not to flog a dead horse, but have you watched the latest episode of Living with Nate and Adam yet? If not, that’s okay because now you have three, count ‘em, three ways to do so!

First way: watch them on my website at videoblogs.adamschoales.com
If you choose to do this you will be able to read up on the history of the show and see the latest episode streamed directly to you in streaming flash video encoded by yours truly! (I also get more hits to my website which is always nice!)
Second way: watch them on Facebook
Not the most ideal as you have to be my personal friend (though, if you’re reading this you likely are). Having said that, you can also leave comments here which is always fun!

Third (and brand new) way: watch them at Vimeo
What is Vimeo? It’s like YouTube only more directed at content creators, rather than people looking to upload videos of their friends acting like idiots (yes, I realize we are doing the same thing, but our videos have stories…). Why Vimeo? ‘Cause. I liked the interface, I liked the options, and Stage6 is going bankrupt. Perks of Vimeo include the ability to leave comments (you may need an account but that’s easy peasy), the ability to download the original file (for iPod if that sort of thing interests you), among other fun little things. Trust me you’ll love it there!

So there you go! 3 fun and easy ways to keep up with Living with Nate and Adam! If you want to keep on top of everything we’ve got that covered to! Just become our “fan” over at our Facebook Page and we’ll keep you updated whenever we do something new. Who knows, if this thing blows up you can say you were a fan from the start. And if it blows up in the other sense, you will have proof that you were one of those losers who watched us make fools of ourselves over the internet.

Now you too can Live with Us!