Complicated complications

Greetings one and all!

With all of the blogs I follow filling up my Google Reader with BEDA posts, I felt the need to update this old thing. Once again I’m not entirely sure what to update you ON, but you know subject matter really isn’t what’s important about writing a blog post.

Right?

Anyway. . .

As I move from day to day through VEDAug I find myself looking over my list of topics again and again and coming up against the age old issue of not feeling drawn to make any of them. As I said in my video yesterday, it’s not that I don’t want to make videos on those subjects, it’s just that when I get right down to it I don’t want to. Contradictions = win.

I’ve even been considering scripting some of the videos to make their actual production easier, but that feels so very much like, I’m not even sure how to describe it. It feels like going through the motions and having VEDAug become about just posting videos rather than using it as a diary for this very special month for me.

But on the other hand what exactly have the videos I have posted thus far--or any of the other proposed topics for that matter—done as a chronicle of August? The videos have either been crappy short clips because I needed to make a video that day, or they have been and/or will be primarily “scripted” subject matter that restricts me from just recording my life day to day.

And then there’s this issue that I really don’t know what my videos will be like if I stray from the security of a topics list and make videos more like the ones I made when I first started so long ago, where I would just talk about the weather (literally) and what I had done that day or would be doing that day or the next couple of days. To be honest, I really don’t much like those videos and don’t really want to fall back into that type of vlog style. Not to mention the fact that I have gotten such an amazing response from the videos that were drawn from the topics list or were just generally ABOUT something.

It’s just a complicated matter and I really don’t have any answers at this time. Maybe I’ll do a once and week check it about what I’ve done, what wedding related stuff has come up or been handled, general life stuff that I may want to talk about (maybe NOT the weather). What do you think? I know not that many people read this, but I would value any input you would like to give me.

Until next time,

xoxo

The VEDAug Squad (and then some!)

The VEDAug Squad!

(I apologize if you’re listed under your username and not your actual name, it just means I don’t know it yet!)

Comment or message me on YouTube and/or Twitter to be added!

Carmen – http://www.youtube.com/user/uberwren

Emily – http://www.youtube.com/user/Cophenalypse

Jessie – http://www.youtube.com/user/tallatstarbucks

Syd – http://www.youtube.com/user/LexicalTrap

FrogUmbrella – http://www.youtube.com/user/FrogUmbrella

Anneliworld – http://www.youtube.com/user/anneliworld

Bethan – http://www.youtube.com/user/Bethumps

Stevie – http://www.youtube.com/user/stevieisnotanoctopus

Quelbrie – http://www.youtube.com/user/quelbrie

Thomas – http://www.youtube.com/user/totoroovertherainbow

Amanda – http://www.youtube.com/user/skywriter11

Melanie – http://www.youtube.com/user/Gvf77x

Siling – http://www.youtube.com/user/OMGTHERERNONAMESAAGH

Alix – http://www.youtube.com/user/theteaproject

Alex – http://www.youtube.com/user/Alexhasgoneinsane

Donny – http://www.youtube.com/user/donnyhouse
Nsnick88 – http://www.youtube.com/user/Nsnick88

United Vloggers of VALA

(that’s right, I gave you a name, deal with it)

Sarah – http://www.youtube.com/user/imSarahSnitch2

Alex – http://www.youtube.com/user/AlexCarpenterTwo

Luke – http://www.youtube.com/user/lukeconard2

Updated VEDAug Topics!

Not an exciting post, just an updated list of potential VEDAug topics for anyone interested to see. Expect a video about this in the next day or two because there are questions I need to answer, there's information I need to share, and points I need to clarify.

1. Fire Dragon Challenge (unless I have already done that by the time 8/1 rolls around)
2. On contacting representatives: Do’s and Do Not’s
3. Why I hate English Classes (Part I)
4. Why I love The Wizard of Oz (Part 2)
5. Advice on University
6. What’s a Quaker? (SPICE)
7. What’s a Quaker Wedding?
8. Number one piece of advice on planning a wedding
9. Why Cicadas?
10. My Three (books I refuse to travel without)
11. Five of my favorite movies
12. On Being a Nerd: Own who you are
13. Response: Nerd History (owlssayhooot)
14. Response: Growing Up (owlssayhooot)
15. All About Greyhounds
16. Five of my favorite animes
17. My internet history; why I know HTML
18. Why I hate “It gets better”
19. Why you ACTUALLY shouldn’t like Twilight
20. My tattoo experience
21. Domesticity Woman!
22. What on earth is my major?
23. Simple Knitting Lessons: Casting on
24. Simple Knitting Lessons: Knit and Purl
25. 10 Things that make me Happy meme
26. Music
27. Vlad Tepas
28. Rob Zombie
29. A day in the life
30. Coloring
31. Questions Video (only if I have enough viewers)
32. Oddities about me: Primitive mindset
33. Inception: You’re doing it WRONG!!!
34. I think I might be a hipster

A blog post. . .

In which I tell you how awesome and amazing Justin of Justtubed is.

Because he rocks, and is insightful and thoughtful and caring and just a gigantic teddy bear of awesomeness and if I ever meet him I want a picture/video of us hugging because he is adorable.

Run on sentence of love is run on.


Cheers!

P.S. I may or may not be the biggest brat on the internet right now.

VEDA: Planning block

Evening world (7:06pm EST).

Remember when I talked about my plan for doing VEDAug*? And remember how part of that plan was to make a list of vlog topics that I could choose from every day? Yeah, I’m having trouble with that part. I’ve been working on that list today and yesterday and I only have sixteen items, but I have no more ideas.

Items thus far are:

1. Fire Dragon Challenge (unless I have already done that by the time 8/1 rolls around)
2. On contacting representatives: Do’s and Do Not’s
3. Why I hate English Classes (Part I)
4. Why I love The Wizard of Oz (Part 2)
5. Advice on University
6. What’s a Quaker? (SPICE)
7. What’s a Quaker Wedding?
8. My Three (books I refuse to travel without)
9. Five of my favorite movies
10. On Being a Nerd: Own who you are
11. Response: Nerd History (owlssayhooot)
12. Response: Growing Up (owlssayhooot)
13. All About Greyhounds
14. Five of my favorite animes
15. My internet history; why I know HTML
16. Why I hate “It gets better”

But my brain refuses to give me any more ideas! Help me!

On Harry Potter(more)

So. . . Pottermore, eh? Or PotterWaitSomeMore by JK Trolling as said by breanna1992 in a comment on Alex Day’s latest video.

I did not set my alarm for 6:00 in the morning like so many of my Nerdfighter friends did, quite frankly because while I love Harry Potter, I do not love Harry Potter at 6:00am! I don’t love my own MOTHER at 6:00am.

But once I got up and got myself to work and settled into internet browsing I did check out the infamous Pottermore, only to be met with a very confusing message that I could either leave my email to be given instructions on how to register for the website in October, or that I should check back on July 31^st to find out how to register. . . was anyone else extremely confused by this?

Whatever, I watched JKR’s video and attempted to add my email address but it gave me this,

And honestly I just don’t care that much. Well, that’s not exactly correct. I do care, and in a strange way.

On the one hand I REALLY agree with Alex’s video which you should watch because he makes an excellent point that I strongly agree with:

On the other hand however I kind of don’t mine Pottermore as so many other fans seem to.

I have had so many problems with the Harry Potter fandom, and Rowling specifically for so many years, that at this point I’m a little disenchanted and cynical whenever I hear that there’s going to be some “exciting announcement.”

First there were the supplementary texts about Quidditch and Care of Magical Beasts. Then there was all the crap loads of merchandise, which included from clothes to candy. All of this was perfectly normal and acceptable.

But then came book seven, and that was. . . well, that’s a subject for another post, but the series was done.

Right?

No, apparently. Because after Deathly Hallows was released, Rowling had to go and make her announcement that Dumbledore was gay. Which was awesome and fantastic and I really do appreciate that she included a homosexual character who was strong and a good role model and who’s sexual orientation did not make them different from anyone else. That being said, what the crap was the point of making that announcement? Because Dumbledore’s being gay did not change who he was or how he behaved, it didn’t MATTER that he was gay. It never came up in the books in any significant way, and because the announcement was made AFTER the release of the final book it can really only be interpreted (in my eyes at least) as a ploy to stoke the fires of Harry Potter and ensure the franchise remains as profitable as possible.

Which, quite frankly, is pissing annoying.

So naturally when Pottermore became the great internet rumor of the past week I was less then excited. I figured it would be yet another media ploy to beat the dead horse of Harry Potter’s fame. Just another way to keep Rowling in business.

And then I watched the announcement video, and I altered my perception.

It’s not that I trust it’s not a media ploy, because it most certainly IS. Just as Alex said, it’s a textbook example of a media ploy to garner attention and keep you hooked when there isn’t actually anything to be hooked to. However from what was said in the announcement and the ways in which that can be interpreted, it seems like an addition to the franchise that is not entirely formatted to make Rowling more money.

Alex was correct that the announcement lacked substance, but what it hints at is a community where Potter fans can interact with the story (seems like you go through the story making your own choices about wands and houses etc. while you read or “read” the actual text of the book), interact with each other in what I would assume is some sort of forum or discussion board, and also explore previously unreleased content.

While the last of those is the most controversial for me, because it can seem at first like a pretty douche move to withhold information that you fans want to know until it’s the supposed end of your franchise and then release it in one last burst to keep it alive (which I recognize is a little harsh, I actually do not feel this harshly about the situation, but the language helps to get my point across I feel); for me it feels different. It feels like in this last stitch effort to cash in on Harry Potter, Rowling is being more respectful of the fandom then ever before. This is something that will make her money and will keep Harry Potter alive still longer*, but it also FEELS to me very much like a gift, and olive branch to the fans. An honest and earnest thank you.

That’s how it feels anyway.

This post is already ridiculously long so I’m going to end it here, but I’d love to know other people’s thoughts on the subject so feel free to comment and start a conversation with me.

*Not to say that Harry Potter will EVER die. I wrote a paper about this, but basically what I truly believe is that Harry Potter represents the zeitgeist of my generation and thus will NEVER, EVER truly die or be forgotten.

And if you don't know what zeitgeist means you need to Google it, this post is long enough already.

Cheers!

Just one of those days

And by days I definitely means mornings/nights because it’s 3:27am as I write this. One of those dark times between night and day when I can’t fall asleep and I have a burning desire to fully engross myself in whatever my latest “project” is.

Unfortunately for me, that project is this blog. I don’t really know why exactly I say unfortunately because this is what I wanted after all, but it’s one of those desires that feels. . .  wrong to follow through with. While I want to be a better blogger and chronicle my life in this way, I don’t want to succumb so entirely that I drain myself of all the enthusiasm I had at the beginning of the project and abandon it that much faster.

Well whatever, I’m here now so I might as well write about something. Or NOT write about it as the case may be tonight.

Today.

Whatever.

The meme de jour among YouTube’s Second Generation has been the idea and concept of fame and how we as individuals fail or succeed to accurately classify the famous from the not so famous.

Savannah make a really great blog post and video regarding this subject, and it’s something that I actually want to talk about in video form myself, but it’s also something I want to touch on in this textual format as well because writing is a very different experience than talking. This is, as you should have guessed by now, why I said NOT writing about because while I’m going to write a few metaphorical scribbles here on the blog, the actual meat of my ideas and input on this topic will be in whatever video I manage to make on the subject.

Okay, enough of me being pretentious.

The idea of fame is a very curious one to me, in (very) large part because of my involvement in the YouTube Nerdfighter community. Within Nerdfighteria there are certainly “celebrities,” not entirely unlike more mainstreams celebrities like actors or musicians. Names such as KayleyHyde, Kristina Horner, Hank Green, Shay Carl, or Charlie McDonald. However, there is one very distinct difference that I recognize at the very least in myself and my own perception of these people when compared with mainstream celebrities such as Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, or Britney Spears.

That difference is accessibility.

Someone like Kayley of owlssayhooot is far more accessible to their fans* than someone like Britney because while Kaylay has thousands of followers both on YouTube, Blogger, and Twitter, she does not have SO many that it makes it literally impossible to notice even a single one of them.

It’s the forest/tree problem. You know, where you can’t see the forest because all the trees are in the way? When you’re an international figure who is instantly recognizable in virtually every country on the planet, it becomes just about impossible to know any of the people that are recognizing you because there are just so many of them. However when that group of people is smaller, say in the thousands rather then millions or hundreds rather then thousands, it becomes much more possible to know and connect with people individually.

I think I’m going to leave it there, lest I have nothing whatsoever to talk about in the video I want to make on this subject.

Until next time lovelies,

Cheers!

*As defined by Kristina Horner in this video right here.

Plan VEDA Mark II

About this business with Vlog Every Day in August (VEDA Mark II from here on out). I’ve had a lot of people asking me if I’m really sure about this or if I really think I’ll have time to it, and won’t it be so stressful. The reason for all of this is that I’m getting married in August, so yes my time will be at a premium and I will be stressed but that is exactly WHY I want to do VEDA MII! I want to chronicle this stage in my life and I want something that is fun that I do for me and that is something I can escape into when I’m feeling overwhelmed with the weight of adult responsibilities.

Trust me, I’ve thought long and hard about this and I really do want to do it. And the reason I’m not as worried as the proverbial YOU seems to have been? I have a PLAN.

My plan is two fold, the first part of which is a list of rules and guidelines to keep my sanity. The second is to compile a list of roughly 50 topics that I can choose from to talk about such that I don’t have any (or at least many) videos of me going “Hey guys, I don’t know what to talk about, blahblahblah crap vlog is crap.” This list is something I’ll be working on from now until August first, and the former list is one that I already have some ideas for and that I wanted to share with anyone else who might be thinking about doing VEDA MII.

1. Videos must be posted between the hours of 3am and 2am (meaning 3am on day X and 2am on day Y, and thus 3am on day Y and then 2am on day Z, get it?).
2. Videos must be a minimum of 30 seconds, and a maximum of 4:00 minutes.
3. Exception to above rule is a video that is a review of something, in which case it can be up to 8:00 minutes long.
4. Failure to comply with the above restrictions will result in a challenge randomly selected form a list of pre-determined challenges available on this blog (that means if you want to suggest a challenge I’ll add it to the list and randomly choose one when needed).
5. I reserve the right to post pre-filmed videos during the 5 days surrounding the day of my wedding.
6. I reserve the right to not post anything at all or have someone else post a video for the day of my wedding and the two days following my wedding.

That’s all I have for now, if you have any suggestions I would love to hear them and if you’re planning to do VEDA MII please please tell me! VEDA Original had an awesome Team VEDA where people participating helped each other out, watch each others videos, and were generally supportive and awesome so a Team VEDA II is definitely required (in my opinion at least).

Anyway, until next time.

Cheers!

An introduction

Greetings one and all.

So. . . this is interesting. I should start by just mentioning that I’m really terrible at keeping a blog. Like, obscenely terrible at it. I go in with good intentions, but the ability to write and update regularly is just not something I posses.

However it still remains one of those things that I WANT to be able to do and WANT to try and do (again, and again, and again). And because of this we are here now, at yet another person blog this time with fewer pre-existing expectations about content or my own ability to write/upload that content.

Mostly I’m here because, for one thing I just like the idea of having a blog that I update and nurture, but also because I have a plan. My plan is to participate in VEDA Mark II, otherwise known as Vlog Every Day in August.

Oh, I guess I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. See, I have a video blog over on YouTube, which can be found here. I’ve been making videos of various sorts since April 2010. During that time I’ve made some amazing friends (who also have blogs as it would happen, and you can check those out by looking over the links on the left side of this blog, right over there *points left*) and grown very attached to this community called Nerdfighteria. Nerdfighteria is an amazing internet community of awesome started by the vlogbrothers John and Hank Green. The members of this community refer to themselves as Nerdfighters, and are nerdy people that fight to increase World Awesome (like art, and equality, and beauty) and decrease World Suck (like war, and poverty, and hunger).

Many members of this community keep video blogs (known by those in the know as “vlogs) and there’s this thing that some of them do called VEDA (Vlog Every Day in April) where they post a video every day in April. Another thing some of these Nerdfighters do is VEDA Mark II, which is my special name for the August version of VEDA Original.

All of this is going to be completely redundant if you’ve found your way here from anywhere else I exist on the internet (like YouTube or Twitter), and I do apologize for that. But I just feel like starting out with plenty of exposition is never a bad idea (can you tell I’ve been watching Lost, the most infamous “No exposition for you” show EVER?).

And what all of that was meant to tell you is that I am planning to do VEDA Mark II and that I want to use this blog as a way to connect with other people doing it and to keep track of the rules and guidelines that I plan to set for myself. Also to compile topics for the videos, because going into a month of vlogging without a plan is just about the easiest way to make crap ass videos that no one (including you) will want to watch.

I’m going to end this entry here and make a separate one for the actual nitty gritty of VEDA Mark II, but I hope you will join me in this journey.

Cheers!