Hey there. In reference to the last item on the To Do List I posted yesterday that I’ve been working on ALL DAY, I just wanted to check in and simultaneously rip out all my hair as I wonder why the hell on earth is iMovie automatically letterboxing all 4,345,345 preliminary and entirely unedited clips that I’ve culled from the bazillion hours of raw footage we shot in Africa.

Indeed, I had just finished importing the last of close to 200 clips when the next thing I know I’ve got a dialogue box popping up that’s titled “Letterboxing” and below that it says “Please wait. This may take awhile.” EVen better there’s no “cancel” button. It’s just going to go ahead and letterbox.

And gawd damn right it’ll take a while. Those clips range from several seconds to several freaking minutes and I’m well aware how long it takes to letterbox one much less all of them (which it is doing — and did I mention I didn’t tell it to?). Not only that, but they’re unedited. I may just end up with a few choice seconds of most of them AND BY CHRIST I DID NOT WANT THEM FUCKING LETTERBOXED BEFORE DURING OR AT LEAST NOT UNTIL AFTER THIS ALREADY TORTUROUS ORDEAL!

Case in point: 15 minutes into it and it’s letterboxing clip number 10. Ten! Do the math 200 divided by 10 = 20 times 15 =300 minutes equals five fucking hours! At this rate it would be quicker for me to force-kill the program and just START THE HELL OVER!

You know that scene in the Diane Keaton’s Baby Boom where she’s up in Vermont or Maine or Nova Scotia for all I give a shit and her well’s gone dry and she finds out how much it’ll cost to tap into the county line and she has a four-alarm hysterical before fainting flat into the snow?

Oh but I can relate.

UPDATE (5:07 p.m.): I couldn’t take it anymore and I stuck a virtual shotgun to iMovie’s head and force-quit its ass. I feel better now.