Jonathan Coulton: A Laptop Like You Video

This is a video I made for Jonathan Coulton's song 'A Laptop Like You'. It stars my trusty PowerBook G4, which I bought in early 2005, just before moving from New Zealand to Geneva. I recently replaced it with a MacBook Pro, but just like Jonathan Coulton, my PowerBook would not retire without becoming an internet superstar.

The song in the credits is 'When You Go', also by Jonathan Coulton. Both songs can be found on http://JonathanCoulton.com, and they are licensed under Creative Commons, which means I can make videos like this without fear of being accosted by lawyers. His song 'Code Monkey' is also referred to in this video.

Bram Tant (http://www.youtube.com/dantes1976), who valiantly confronted various Vista hassles in order to pretend to be my not-really-love-interest for about 50 seconds, also makes music. Probably the best place to look for him at the moment is in the upcoming Masters of Song Fu competition, somewhere difficult-to-find on quickstopentertainment.com.

Not-necessarily-fun facts and bloopers:

There's another video for this song on YouTube, which also features a Swiss flag.

My MacBook Pro actually weighs 42g more than the PowerBook.

This is the 42nd video I've uploaded to YouTube.

I filmed so many takes of the 'break it in two pieces' scene that I think I ruined the contacts or something; my PowerBook's battery doesn't charge any more.

The grey T-shirt is from Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference 2004. I originally intended to zoom out to show the back of it (which says 'WWDC 2004' after the video chat, so that it would be clear what year we were in (and perhaps amusing when the same T-shirt is used to sleep in years later) but the video chat ran a bit longer than I had anticipated.

The opening sequence was filmed on the MacBook Pro, and you can see a few icons there for things which didn't exist when I got the PowerBook.

The Calendar Dashboard widget shown did not exist in that form when I got the PowerBook G4. I did have a Dashboard at the time, since I had a beta of Mac OS X 10.4, but the calendar didn't look like that until 10.5.

All of the effects shown in the video chat are possible on the PowerBook G4, using CamTwist. However, Bram had problems starting a video chat in Skype (he was on Vista at the time) so we ended up faking the video chat. Since it was fake anyway, I recorded it on the MacBook Pro.

You can see this in the short fake video chat in the credits, where I forgot to hook up the iSight to the PowerBook, and put the PowerBook somewhere where it would not have seen me with that background anyway. It was late. I guess I could have had the iSight in the right place to see me from that angle... that is, not on the PowerBook's screen.

Bram unexpectedly got a laptop like that on the day he filmed his part, so we could have had a real video chat after all. In the end it was easier to perfect the fake one, though.

Lyrics (from http://www.jonathancoulton.com/songdetails/A%20Laptop%20Like%20You%20(Demo) ):

Here you are at last
To bring my cold lonely soul sweet release
From my weary past
Always searching, the one missing piece was you
And I beg you, come away with me
And together we will find a place to call our own
I cant wait to see what I can do
With a laptop like you

Its not your CD slot
Or the Unix on which you are based
You make my lap hot
Cause underneath your aluminum case theres love
And I forgive your strange one-button mouse
I forgive the way your keyboard leaves marks on your screen
I can overlook a fault or two
For a laptop like you

We will always be together
In love in spite of everything
Hang on tight through wind and weather
Heaven knows what time may bring

In a year or two
You will seem big and heavy and slow
I will carry you
To wherever it is laptops go to die
And dont think it wont be hard on me
Howm I ever gonna find a way to justify
The money I will spend on something new
For a laptop like you
For a laptop like you

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wishes1973: Hah very cool, but your hair changes at the end and becomes long!

Cernoise: Yeah, that's deliberate, because it's a few years later. ('In a year or two' according to the lyrics, about four and a half years later according to the calendar, which accurately represents the time I used the PowerBook.)

wishes1973: I did have to laugh at the credits which are almost as long as the video clip heh :D I WANT MY PANTS BACK!

Cernoise: I was racking my brains trying to think of more credits to add so that it would seem like credits and not the extra half-song video that it was, but by that time it was after 2a.m. and I couldn't be bothered. Do you realise that since nobody knows I was wearing your old pants for the 'you make my lap hot' part, that comment makes you look like a crazy person?

wishes1973: Thats ok, i dont mind looking crazy, in fact im somewhat used to it!

2MuchAwesomeChannel: This is full of wonderfullness and win, very cute video that captures the playful spirit of the song with lots of heart. You did an excellent job, and I'm impressed with your attention to details. The technical notes about which Calendar Dashboard Widget was available when and with which release number are hilarious. Bram did a nice job too. Thanks for mentioning Masters of Song Fu. -TMA Russ

InverseClown: This is brilliant.

Author: Cernoise; Uploaded: Nov 10, 2009; Duration: 4:52; Views: 734

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