VloggersBlock

BEDA: April 17,2009

I think all YouTubers get it from time to time; the amazing ability to have nothing sound interesting enough to talk about.

It's not fun.

I mean, I have ideas. I have a lot of ideas. When I get an idea I text it to my email and then stick it in the REMEMBER folder. I have things that will be filmed, I'm just not really in the mood at this point in time. Maybe tomorrow, or maybe even later tonight, I'll get the motivation to talk about something that excites me but for right now, I'm checking Twitter, Gmail, and entertainment news online and I'm just sorta in a blah mood. Or maybe it's because I just ate.

Yay, being American.

Blogs are different, especially during BEDA because I'm forced to find something to talk about. Even talking about having nothing to talk about like I did a few days ago. But then again, I found something to talk about. I'm going to move on before I cause a blood vessel to burst.

I have footage from Mark for making a guitar video. He's awesome. You guys will love it. I just need to film my sections for the video. I could film something with Angela if she wasn't traveling around Toledo with her mom. I could just do a normal vlog and talk about stuff but I'd like to have a few more things to talk about because it would be a very short boring video. I could write more sketches and film them later or even write a few songs...

Ya know what, that's what I'm going to do.

I have nothing else to do today so I'm going to jump in my bed with a notebook and a pen and start writing. If I fall asleep, I fall asleep. I don't have to be anywhere today.

I love Saturdays.

KFC: Oh, Why Have You Forsaken Me?

BEDA: April 16, 2010

KFC. I love you, but this affair has to stop...sometime soon. Well, nevermind.

The restaurant chain Kentucky Fried Chicken always seems to have a new innovation in food around the corner. Remember the TV ads for KFC's “Famous Bowl”? It consists of mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, cheese, and chicken. Take those ingredients, put in a bowl, and stir.

Then you'd be introduced to the world's laziest fast food craze to date.

Don't get me wrong, I've had a Famous Bowl or two in my day and they were actually really good. When I go to McDonald's or Burger King I always eat the fries first and then the sandwich. It's always in that order so the fries don't get cold. I'm weird but logical.

Anywho.

Recently, KFC unveiled their new-age food item, the Double Down sandwich. Let me give you a run down on what the Double Down sandwich consists of.

Two thick and juicy boneless white meat chicken filets, two pieces of bacon, two melted slices of Monterey Jack and pepper jack cheese and Colonel's Sauce. Yea, quite a mouthful. Not to mention, no bun. The tagline for the sandwich is "This product is so meaty, there’s no room for a bun!" Doesn't that just sound just so American?

So, of course, I ordered one.

To get to the point of the subject of this blog, it's not that I didn't enjoy the Double Down sandwich. It's not even that it was a tad bit expensive ($7.99 for the meal)

It's that it was too awesome.

People say, "Too much of a good thing is a bad thing," and with food, they mean that eating too much food has negative consequences on the body. The problem with my body plus the Double Down sandwich was not that there was too much Double Down for me to eat, it was that my body ate it too fast. Again, very American, am I right? So, I inhaled that thing in maybe two minutes(?) and it tasted wonderful. I'm not even an evening-bacon kinda guy and I loved it.

But have you ever eaten something fast and then felt it crawl down to your stomach? Yea, that happened. Plus, seeing as how the only food I ate previous was a large chocolate egg (the egg from my DailyBooth picture) it probably wasn't a good idea to dive right into a couple pounds of grilled chicken deliciousness.

Now, before you guys get any ideas, no I didn't get sick, no I didn't regret it, no I wasn't stuck in the bathroom for hours throwing up. My body is pretty awesome when it comes to processing food and by now it's used to the fact that A) I'm a boy so I eat a lot, B) I'm an American so I eat a lot of junk, C) I'm a college kid so I eat a lot more junk, and D) I try new things which, ya know, means I try new things.

So in conclusion, if you like chicken, try the Double Down sandwich at least once. Your fingers will get greasy with chicken but it is so totally wonderful.

America is always coming up with ways to get us fed and plump.

Like, for a slaughter.

But that's its right.

I heart America.

Rockstar

BEDA: April 15, 2009

As a lot of you know, today is RockstarRaquel's birthday and I posted my video to her early this morning.

Needless to say, she pretty much loved it.

While on the phone, she watched it four and a half times, constantly saying how great it was. It made me smile. But anyway, that's not what I wanted to type about today. I wanted to talk about what almost happened to prevent that video from being created.

On April 13th, I had most of the lines written and I even shot myself singing in order to create the mp3 track to build onto the next day. Things really didn't go as planned when Angela dropped me off at the tech lab to edit and I found out that there was a class going on until 10:30pm that night.

I didn't get anything done that night.

The next day, yesterday, April 14th, I woke-up went to class, and re-shot the audio. Then, after some errands, I shot some more scenes but then the sun started setting. The light that I was using was turning golden and there was a lot of shading in the area causing drastic differences in lighting. Aside from that, my computer kept telling me that the Local Area Connection was unplugged even though I wasn't touching the cable.

I was rather upset.

So then, around 7:00pm, I have the shots done, and I was on my way to go edit. Things were going swimmingly and I was so close to finishing the video when I got a phone call around 10:30pm. My apartment-mate needed the key to get into the apartment and the key was in my pocket because I locked the door behind me on my way out. My obvious solution? Run the key back to the apartment and then run back to the lab.

I totally didn't think this through.

Apart from leaving my video camera next to the computer I was at, I didn't save anything I was working on. Halfway back to the apartment, I remembered that the computers log off when idle for ten minutes. Log off. Seriously, log off. If that happened, I'd lose everything I was working on for the past three hours.

I ran.

The thing about my apartment is that it's about a half of a mile away from the tech building. I started running faster. I got back to the apartment and checked my phone. It had taken me five minutes to run there and I only had five minutes to get back to the lab before my computer before it logged off.

I flew.

I didn't care that my sides were burning. I didn't care that I hadn't ran this much in years. All I knew was that I lacked the time, patience, and energy to re-create the almost-completed video. That just made me run faster.

I burst into the lab (well, I mean, I didn't make any noise, it just sounded cooler saying 'burst into the lab') and got to my computer as fast as I could. The countdown on the computer read that it was about to log off unless I clicked a button in the next twelve seconds.

I clicked the button.

Then I walked back into the lobby and collapsed in a chair. I had made it. My stupid solution had paid off and I made it back to the computer without losing a scratch of work. Yea, I was pretty proud of myself.

Moral of the story? Leave your apartments unlocked at all times.

...or something.

Birfdays

BEDA: April 14, 2010

A lot of people that I know were born in this week.

A few days ago, it was my friend Nikki's bday. I have a mostly-finished piece of artwork for her. We just need to hang out again sometime soon so I can give it to her.

Yesterday was Steve's bday. I got a bunch of his YouTube friends to send me clips of well wishes and whatnots and the video turned out wonderfully. He loved it. It's weird reading about yourself, isn't it Steve?

As for today, I've been busy working on something for Raquel. That's why today's blog is so short. I'm busy working on her video which is a....oohh, you thought I'd tell you that easily, Raquel? I know you're reading this right now. Probably because I just texted you saying, "Hey, read my blog from today. There's a message to you in it," and you did.

You're a little white mouse. :)

Okay, that's mean.

You can be any color mouse you want.

Stranded

VEDA: April 13, 2010

The title sounds like an emo poem. This is not an emo poem.

You may be wondering how I'm stranded if I have the power of the internet, but as far as definitions of what the word stranded means, I'm actually not where I want to be right at this moment. Location-wise, not in my life.

You're disappointed that it's not as heartfelt now, right?

As much as I dislike Mac operating systems, a lot of the programs are very user friendly. If you don't already know, I generally use the Mac lab on campus to edit my YouTube videos. I use iMovie because it's very simple, fast, and I haven't taken the time to learn anything on Final Cut Pro quite yet. So, as you may have guessed, I want to be in the tech lab right now. Instead, I am using one of this dorm's GPA (group project area) computers, which is a Dell.

I came in search of the Mac lab about half an hour ago but quickly realized that it was reserved until 10:30pm tonight.

The reason I need to get into the Mac lab right now is because i have one or two video things to edit and an audio track to create. To stress myself even more, I became convinced that I needed to get into the Mac lab to upload the Pun of the Day video today and to type this blog but that was obviously not the case.

POTD is uploaded and this blog is minutes away from being published.

Win.

Busy, Busy, Busy

BEDA: April 12, 2010

So, a lot of you, know that I have a lot of things going on. Between college, getting things in order for Florida, and a social life, a lot of Internt-ish things are going on as well.

It's weird seeing my videos reach over 1,000 views within a day of posting. I don't think that will ever get old. My How to Pick Up Women parody seemed to be a hit and I need to start getting a few more videos up in the next couple weeks while I still have the campus labs at my disposal.

This coming week I have to do a few video-type things for a different people, some for on my channel and some for on theirs. Also, I've been writing a lot more lately. On the same note, I have some people that I'm waiting for some stuff from. *COUGH*m00balot*COUGH*

You know who you are.

As I tell people on Twitter, be excited.

I love yous guys.

Stream of Consciousness

BEDA: April 11, 2010

I'm just going to type today as a stream of consciousness. This'll be bumpy.

I'm currently waiting for ckXcore to get a hold of me on what he wants to do about his Pun of the Day video outro. All seven clips that he sent worked but for some reason the video is muted on the last three seconds, cutting him off.

I just watched a video called "You know you're addicted to hayleyghoover when..." and my first thought was, "Hey, I should do a video like that..." Because, let's be honest, I totally could. But let's be more honest-er...that's a bit weird coming from a guy. :D

I might be lacking in the ability to figure out a solid topic to type about because I spent a lot of the day today typing a paper for class. It wasn't a long paper, it was just very involved because I had to find sources about something to do with Hispanic culture. I mean, it sounds easy, and I love projects with that loose of restrictions, but papers are a different story. I spent a good couple hours researching and figuring out my outline before I typed my first few words. Look at me, bein' all 'sponsible and whatnots.

I'm weird about typing papers.

I mean, not weird. More like, I do things differently in my head. I can barely ever do an outline on a subject for a paper unless I'm incredibly well-versed in the subject and I can come up with things off the top of my head.

For example, my paper today was on Las Fallas, a celebration in Valencia where they burn huge wooden sculptures. I didn't know much about the subject so I figured out how I wanted my intro to sound and trudged through the paper from there, ending with my conclusion, obviously.

A couple semesters back, I did a paper on "The Wasteland" by TS Elliot and because I've done papers on it before, I knew what to expect. I drew up a little list of subjects I wanted to talk about, and made connections through all of them until I had a pretty strong outline.

Well, this blog went better than I thought it would. Glad I found a subject to type about!

Until tomorrow.

Matt Smith: The Eleventh Doctor

BEDA: April 10, 2010

I told myself I wasn't going to talk about the new series of Doctor Who until I watched a few more episodes but since I'm halfway through episode 2 while typing this, I figure now is as good a time as any.

Matt Smith is The Doctor.

I don't mean that as a painfully obvious statement of fact; I mean it as he actually carries the role quite well. I mean, he's no David Tennant, but I digress.

There are a lot of pros and cons with any regeneration of The Doctor. People are going to love it, hate it, or judge the actor before they even give him a fair watch. I have no idea how the series will continue to progress but I will say that I'm starting to notice some heavy similarities and differences with the Matt Smith version than, say, the David Tennant version.

The Eleventh Doctor acts much more brash than his previous incarnations and he's not afraid to show a bit of an eccentric side, not hiding the fact that he has a very alien way about him. He seems to let emotions get the better of him sometimes, getting annoyed when things don't go as planned, which happens rather a lot. The Eleventh Doctor doesn't seem to ever have a master plan and it's more of a minute by minute, figuring it out as he goes, kind of solution. In a preview clip, it even shows Smith's Doctor firing a gun; something that Tennant's Doctor was adamantly against (usually. I mean, there was that tiny situation in his last episode...)

Apart from his overall youthful nature, the Eleventh Doctor seems to have a firm grasp on social media, citing Twitter and Facebook. He has an eidetic memory (I learned of that ability on The Big Bang Theory) and is able to scan a mental image for clues.

There are also many similarities he holds with previous incarnations including the fact that he can taste something to be able to tell the age. He also sometimes arrives incredibly late, mistakingly piloting the TARDIS years from where he intended. But most importantly, like his preprocessors, he has incredible leadership skills.

Matt Smith, you are The Doctor.

The Day Pun of the Day Almost Didn't Happen

BEDA: April 9, 2010

My Pun of the Day project started out smoothly, at first. I was having all of my friends submit videos, the jokes were really funny and I had no problem getting to a computer everyday for the first couple weeks. YouTube goes by Californian time so I had until 3:00am my time to get videos up for the previous day. I had a couple close calls, but I would always get the POTD video up before 3:00am, my time.

Then, it happened.

I was waiting for my friend to come out of her dorm building because she and I were going to the bars in town that night. After waiting for the first ten minutes, because she's a girl and girls think they're allowed to take as long as they need, I glanced at my clock radio and realized that it was past 12:30am and our plan was that we go out to the bars until 2:30am, when they close.

Now, you could be thinking, 'Okay, the bars were going to close at 2:30am. If the bars are in town like you said, wouldn't that mean you could drop her off real quick and run home to post the POTD video before 3:00am?'

That would have been the case if we weren't walking.

You see, I'm over the age of 21 and I'm pretty responsible when it comes to drinking. Especially when it means losing my license, car, or parental 'cred'. And I live in a college town. There are cops everywhere and they pull people over randomly. I am not too keen on getting pulled over after drinking one beer.

Which is why we were walking.

Also, sometimes people send videos without the ending so I'd need to convert the file to work for my movie editor and then attach the ending, export the file, and upload the video. Lots of work for a small timeframe.

Plus, YouTube, you know I love you, but I wasn't about to explain to this girl that we had to go back to my apartment so I could upload a video to you(Tube) before we went to the bars. I'm all about acting like a nerd in my social life but when it comes in the way of my social life, sorry, but you take the backseat.

So, anyway, I'm sitting in my car, realizing all of this, basically panicking that I wouldn't get that night's video up on time. I pick up my phone and I call John who says he'd be able to upload the video before 2:00am and I don't even bother telling him how to add the ending because a video without an ending is better than no video at all.

After I get done explaining the password to him and what information to copy from the previous video, my friend walks out to the car. I get off the phone with him and she gets in the car. I could tell she had a moderately disappointed expression and I asked what was wrong.

She replied, "I can't find the charger to my phone and it's near dead. I just wish I had twenty minutes or so to charge it before we left for the bars." I took a look at her phone and saw that it was the same brand as mine.

"I have a charger for this back at my apartment," I replied, now realizing how horrible of a pickup line that could have been perceived as.

So we started driving back to my apartment. I was beaming on the inside because I knew while her phone was charging I could covertly upload that night's POTD.

Crisis averted!

My Phone

BEDA: April 8, 2010

I need a new one. Really.

My phone, for those of you creepers out there, my current phone is a MOTOROKR, and when I got it two years ago, it was the sleekest phone I had ever owned. Because, let's face it, when it comes to phones, I'm not very up on the times.

My first phone didn't slide, it didn't fold, it didn't even have texting. It had a one inch, thick plastic screen and a green/blue backlighting. My parents got it for me becasue it was free with the plan they were applying for and I only really needed it for calling when I wasn't coming home from school that day. This was back in my senior year of high school, mind you.

The fate of that phone was almost cut short by a line-dance at a country party just over a year into its short lifespan. It's one of the many reasons I avoid country parties nowadays. That, and I just don't care for the music.

Sorry, "y'all".

So, back to that fateful night. I got swindled into doing a line-dance with some friends because, like all situations guys find themselves in, there was a girl involved. My roommate convinced me to go dance in the group with him because he was kind of eyeing this blonde chick from across the party. Reluctantly, I became his wingman, seeing as how I already had a girlfriend back at home at the time.

So, we're dancing around in circles and squares and other geometric shapes, while the country fans are getting quite a workout and us other people were trying to keep up with the awkward kicking. Then we ended the number and someone shouted, "Hey, who lost a phone?"

It was me. I had lost my phone.

As I was getting my phone back from the guy, I noticed a sharp rock, half the size of a golfball, lodged into the thick plastic screen. During the dance, it had flung out of my pocket onto the gravel to be trampled without my knowledge. But it survived, somehow.

I mean, the screen had a huge hole in it but other than that, it worked fine. It survived another year with me until I could get a replacement phone.

And now, if I run out of ideas for BEDA, I can tell you about my next three phones!

Oh joy, right?