Can you say "frustrated"? I knew ya could!

I have a dream. I dream of VLOGging, in addition to (rather than instead of) BLOGging. Blogger.com, the host of this page, used to have a way to RECORD video and then embed them in the posts; not that that ever actually worked for me, but still. I recorded a handful of test videos, attempted to embed them, and they never really did. Also, I never could seem to find where those videos ended up being "filed" on my hard drive.

However, even that option no longer exists. If I want to take a snapshot, the website recognizes my webcam:

but not VIDEO

When I click on the video link, the webcam option just isn't even there. Why not? It's the same webcam!

But here's the "other" thing about my webcam. The laptop recognizes that the hardware exists, and it says the drivers are up-to-date, even though the drivers are USB drivers, and not necessarily for a piece of equipment that is not "plug-n-play". The system has no software installed to just Turn On the damn webcam! So I went to HP's support pages to find the right drivers, and it recommended I install something called YouCam.

I have been Googling and Googling every way I know to ask the "why doesn't my webcam record video" question, and I've gotten a lot of "download YouCam" answers, as well as uninstalling the drivers for my webcam and restarting the computer (which I've done) and running hard drive diagnostics (which I've done), and even YouTube videos for installing and using VLC Media Player (which I've done) and YouCam (which I've done).

Every time, and I mean Every Fucking Time I've tried to use YouCam, it crashes in video mode. It takes still photos, but whoopdishit? I can take still photos right here! If I skip the video camera "record" button and try to check the system settings, it crashes. There are a bazillion fun filters I can apply to my photos or videos, but again, whoopdishit if I can't actually create videos?

So I tried to use VLC. It worked! ...except that the resulting video looks and sounds like ass, because when I tried to adjust the settings, it reverted back to "default", and it wouldn't let me set my preferences as defaults. I'm not going to link it here, even though I probably can. #SorryNotSorry

(This is where I did, in fact, attempt to upload that POS video; #FAIL)

So I think, tomorrow, in the daylight, while I'm not working on set, I shall take the laptop apart again. I shall blow out any dust that may have accumulated, and I shall Check All The Connections. It's very possible that none of the answer pages have figured out that maybe my hardware is hanging by one or two prongs of its connector chip, and so the software sees it there but is unable to properly communicate with it, and that is the reason for all of the #Fails. I hope that is the ultimate fix.

...on a side note, speaking of "fixes", I had turned off all my Windows Updates ages ago, and now, in thinking it might possibly be an update or something, I've been attempting to "check" for updates. Every Time I turn this sucker on to "fix" my webcam issues, I "check" for updates. It runs those checks for a coupla hours at a time before I just close the whole operation. No updates get found. That ain't right. Not a single Windows Update for my computer that hasn't been updated since "never".

*****A review!*****

Fences An African-American father struggles with race relations in the United States while trying to raise his family in the 1950s and coming to terms with the events of his life.: Okay, so really, what that little blurb means is "slice of life". I already saw and hated a "slice of life" movie this awards season, Paterson (not MBTS). This particular "slice of life" stars Denzel and Viola and a handful of others, and it ended up being my second-least-favorite of the movies I've seen this awards season. Probably because Denzel's character is irredeemable, and when we jump forward in the final act to his funeral, we don't care that he's dead. We're not even happy that he's dead. He just is, and we don't care.

Not that Denzel didn't portray this irredeemable character well. He's not a villain; he's just flawed to the nth degree, and never grows or improves at all, and by the time he's gone, you might feel a little relief on behalf of the others, but it's more like ... meh. Viola, on the other hand, should receive an award for still being intelligible with snot running down her face, because that was some serious snot that she took her sweet time getting around to wiping away.

I never read or saw the play. Maybe that's my error. I just didn't care for this "slice of life", and I was ready for it to be over almost an hour before it was (yes, I actually checked my phone). If I had walked out, I'da been unable to review it for you, so be grateful I suffered through it, so you won't have to.

*****Things I learned today*****

• Screenings at the Arclight in Hollywood are accessible by subway, even on Sunday, as long as you're not out too late.
• My SAG card does not get me on the subway.
• Even Denzel and Viola can co-star in a movie that wasn't worth my time (at least I didn't drive into Hollyweird!)
• No one on the internet knows why I'm unable to vlog.
• No one in my real life knows why I'm unable to vlog.
• Rachel is sending me something (probably a card, I would think); she verified that she'd already updated my new address in her files.
• I'm really succeeding in procrastination this season, what with not yet having updated Rachel's new address in my files, nor having purchased the nieces/nephews gifts, nor having purchased cards to send (and I really kinda wanna get all of this done, ya know, before next weekend).
• I re-remembered my Christmas socks! (that was the subject of my test video, which worked but ended up being for shit and waaaaaaaay too big to upload here)

So whaddya got for me? Any news? Any insights? Any updates? Any movies I still haven't reviewed that you're hoping I will? Any links to your Amazon wishlists? Feel free to comment, kids!