You're gonna be bothered by how cool I am.

I was telling someone Saturday afternoon that, although my contract is up and I'm eligible for a new cell phone, I didn't need to spend the money for it right now (because I'm trying to save liek woah for December happenings). Wouldn't you know, twelve hours later, I'm walking out of a movie theater, take my phone out of my pocket, and have a spaz moment and drop it on the sidewalk. Now, ordinarily this would be no big deal; I can't tell you how many times I've dropped this thing and it's nothing. This time? One drop too many, it seems - my screen basically shattered. Nothing fell out, thank goodness, though I wasn't taking chances and just held on to it all the way home, and it STILL WORKS (iPhones - take a licking and keep on ticking!), but I have now slapped a piece of packing tape on the screen (which feels like a sacrilege) so that none of the pieces fall out and I can drag my finger across it and not cut myself. I actually went to the Apple store to make sure this would work and wouldn't interfere with the touch screen mojo. The sales guy predictably tried to sell me a screen protector, which seemed like the silliest investment ever, since I was only going to use it for a few days.

So now I *have* to get a new phone. Well, I probably could take this one somewhere and get the screen repaired or replaced, but who knows how much that would cost and eh, I've been eyeing the new iPhone (which handily comes out this Friday). What's gone out the window now, though, is my trip to Sleepy Hollow (AGAIN!). I've got to cut something out to help make up for the added expense, though, and it's not going to be BNAT or Christmas. This won't totally make up for it, but it will be a good chunk.

Speaking of BNAT, I ... may or may not have used my Final Draft A/V screenwriting software to write a script for my Enjoli video. Looking forward to giving my new phone's supposedly spectacular HD camera a whirl. That's assuming I can get one Friday. Yes, I know it's ridiculously stupid to line up at the store on release day when I can pre-order online, but then I have to wait even longer and there's no nice, helpful Apple geek that comes to your house and helps you set everything up like they do in the store. I don't think there's any danger of them running out at the Fifth Avenue store.

In other news, my annual cold has come to town. Bleargh.

Last week my MagSafe adapter for my Mac died. *sadface* So I bought a new one ($79 - ouch!) and it worked at first, then it didn't. I changed outlets, rebooted, etc. but still nothing. So I exchanged it for another, thinking it was just defective, but the new one didn't work either. So I made an appointment with a "Genius" at the UWS Apple Store and found the problem. I hadn't downloaded the firmware update that would have allowed my computer to recognize the newly redesigned adapter. Which I guess explains why it worked at first and then my computer basically went "wait, what?".

I really loved this week's Doctor Who, but it brought something I've been feeling lately into sharper relief. ( Spoilers, natch. )

Saw Contagion this weekend, which is excellent. Very methodical and precise, but covers all the ground you could ever want and more of what would happen if an epidemic like that ever struck our world. Not a whole lot of emotion, but what's there is really lovely. Matt Damon, Jennifer Ehle, and Kate WInslet get some especially lovely moments. And you can just tell that Jude Law is having the most fun of anyone playing an utter bastard of a character. In other movie news, OMG I CAN'T WAIT FOR DRIVE THIS WEEKEND!

In semi-social news, my Rifftrax meetup group is, errr, meeting up to watch Abraxas this weekend. Haven't been to one of these in a while, so I'm terribly excited. And then *next* weekend Cinematic Titanic is coming to town! It's Riff-A-Palooza!

Those of you who do season passes for TV shows on iTunes...

How do you store them once they start filling up your hard drive to capacity? The Doctor Who eps, particularly with HD, are taking quite a chunk out of the available space on my hard drive. Do you eventually burn them to DVDs or summat? Put them on an external drive?

Inquiring and tech-challenged minds want to know.

How did I not know until today that my laptop had a built-in sound card?! All I had to do was get a cord to run between my tape player and my laptop and voila! I can make digital files of my old cassettes!

My current project - a concert my high school madrigal group made at Bruton Parish Church in Williamsburg, VA. Eeeeeeee!

How did I not know until today that my laptop had a built-in sound card?! All I had to do was get a cord to run between my tape player and my laptop and voila! I can make digital files of my old cassettes!

My current project - a concert my high school madrigal group made at Bruton Parish Church in Williamsburg, VA. Eeeeeeee!

I've been trying to take some screencaps, but I can't get it to work. I have Windows XP and the PowerDVD program, but I don't have the version of PowerDVD that actually has a "capture" function. But apparently, I should be able to do it with the older program. I've tried hitting "Print Screen", but it doesn't work. I've also tried disabling the hardware accelerator (like all the FAQs tell you to do), but it still doesn't work. Every time I paste the image into another program it just pastes the playing movie in the new window.

Do any of you know how to get around this? The newer DVD software is not that expensive, but I'd rather not go to the trouble of getting it unless there's no other choice.

I've been trying to take some screencaps, but I can't get it to work. I have Windows XP and the PowerDVD program, but I don't have the version of PowerDVD that actually has a "capture" function. But apparently, I should be able to do it with the older program. I've tried hitting "Print Screen", but it doesn't work. I've also tried disabling the hardware accelerator (like all the FAQs tell you to do), but it still doesn't work. Every time I paste the image into another program it just pastes the playing movie in the new window.

Do any of you know how to get around this? The newer DVD software is not that expensive, but I'd rather not go to the trouble of getting it unless there's no other choice.

Does anyone know how to make a marquee with the sparkly animated stuff in the background? I see them all the time, but I can't figure out how to do it and all the HTML tutorials tell you is how to do a regular marquee.