A few months ago, I wrote a blog that, among other things, dealt with me getting an animation assignment from my new boss, who was a former N.C.O. (Non-Commisioned Officer) in the Army, and how I was really scared of this guy.

Well, I might have done my Boss an injustice writing about him seeming like a type who would poke fun at others for his own amusement, because he does seem like a fairly ok kind of guy. He seems to have a mild understanding of sensitive people after all. Good.

Anyways, this blog isn't so much about him as it's about the trouble I'm having right now. See the thing is, my boss needs the animation in MPG/MPEG format, otherwise he can't use it.

For those not in the know (because you'd only know about this stuff if it has any relevance to you – not sure how many of you know about these things), video files on a computer are compressed and decoded in various different formats, the most basic and "raw" being a format called .AVI which is what I normally use

The MPG/MPEG format is more widely used (I think). Unfortunately, my animation program is only able to render (that is transfer into video format) the animations into .AVI and .MOV formats (for video – it can also render it into still images), so I needed a program to convert .AVI to .MPEG.

Long story short, I ended up purchasing such a piece of software on the internet. Now that I've finally figured out how to actually activate it (another long story involving not very user-friendly and generally uninformative instructions that basically amounts to me thinking it would arrive by mail and waiting longer than needed for it), it turns out that there's a really aggravating problem with the software:

It converts the file no problem, but on the converted file, it plays the video TWICE and only the first part with actual sound.

That is, it converts a 16 second video file into a 32 second video file, which not only loops the video one time too many (I don't need the video to loop! In fact I need it to very much NOT LOOP!), but it also increases the file size unnecessarily. See, one of the advantages to actually converting an .AVI file is that MPEG compression usually takes up less space.

Well thanks for nothing you rascal of an insubordinate piece of software…

I already sent a polite complaint to the dealer (and I believe producer of this marvellous piece of coding), because despite my long history of being abused by vastly inferior Humanoid individuals BECAUSE of my polite nature, I have, after all, observed that being polite in such dealings will get you farther than going all Neanderthal on your business partner.

Nobody wants to deal with a raving jerk who uses an insult every two words…

And I also got a nice, quick response back, which stated that they had tested the software extensively and not found the problem themselves (well duh! You wouldn't sell a piece of code if you hadn't already tested it extensively!).

The tech support went on to suggesting that I download the latest version of the software and assuring me (correctly enough) that my registration (and activation) code would still work. I did, but discovered that it was essentially the exact same version as the one I used before and I went as far as to test it – same result.

As of this writing, I'm contemplating what sort of response to give them – I would obviously need to give them the technical specifications for my computer, but maybe I need to give them additional details as well?

I'm also contemplating (no really!) going out to a store and look for such software myself – it'd mean I'd have wasted ten U.S. Dollars on a faulty program I ultimately would have had no use for, but I *need*. To. Convert. That. File.

And I really, really hate to keep people waiting. My Boss would have had a usable animation in his hands more than two weeks ago if I'd just had the software I needed then without stupid glitches and all.

The worst part of this is that I've shown uncharacteristic lack of foresight – I guess it's the stress of an uncommon situation that has made me bumble about like some fool…