Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Free Daily Video Content

We now have a lot of videos.  One a day since March 1st, plus a couple of extras.  And they just keep coming, relentlessly day by day.  And day by day we learn how to better form the videos; better writing, better performances, better filming, better editing...  We love it.  Where we should be focusing more of our effort is in the sharing and promoting of our videos...but it's much more fun focusing on the videos, after all that's what started this project.

So yesterday while editing, I stumbled on a way to make it look like there was a TV playing in the background, partially obscured by a hanging model of a car.  This kind of experimentation and learning happens everyday and is a large part of the fun of it all.

And today?  Well it occurs to me that there are people out there with websites needing daily content to keep their sites looking fresh.  Perhaps they'd like some free daily video content?

Our videos always aim to be informative, funny and suitable for everyone.  Hmm... What does "suitable for everyone" mean?  Well, we won't do bad language and we won't do that 'drive by' vicious type of humor.  From time to time we may poke fun at Donald Trump, Rush Limbaugh and those who seek out controversy...as we're pretty sure they'll still be happy to be mentioned even though we're poking fun at them.  In essence, we try to keep things at level where our 9 year old son could watch without being shocked.  Though he may not laugh when the concept is beyond his experience.  They will only have implied naughtiness without gratuitous references to erm whatever... 

So if you'd like to use our videos, the playlist is here:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=UUB2sQL0CEoBZ5nTrBm4PsQw&feature=plcp

To embed it on your site you need this piece of code:

You can get the code yourself and choose the player size by going to the playlist and then clicking on 'share' and then 'embed'.

It'll look like this:

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Eejit.

Yup, that's me out of my depth again.  We had a last minute hitch with one of our performers, so I stepped in.  Normally, Lynn would have covered it, but she'd already been on for the 18th.

Lynn and I had fun, but we were both uncomfortably covering what we would call the other's job.  Though I think it's good for us both to see the other side, it's not easy to let someone sit where you would sit, and then watch them struggle.   In a way, however, it helps you realize what you do know and, as we're both struggling at the same time, we try to be as respectful as we can to each other...well as respectful as a couple that have been married for 10 years can be. {notsomuch}

In the video, I'm most unfair to Sir James Dewar.  Clearly he was a brilliant scientist and just lacked business knowledge or abilities.  Without the internet, how many of us would truly know of the potential value of patents?  And how many would know how to even go about getting one?  And I say this as someone who actually has a patent in their name.

Having written this, I suddenly realized something.  I generally refer to it as my patent, but I was essentially a student working for British Telecom at that time and so everything I did was owned by them.  However, something to do with US and Canadian law meant I had to be paid materially for the patent and so I was paid one US dollar and one Canadian dollar.   Valuable indeed these patents!  Hmm, maybe I was as business savvy as Sir Dewar.  Who's the eejit?

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Extreme Whack-job.


QUIK from Colin Kennedy on Vimeo.

I hate this video. Mostly because of the hopes I had.  I thought I'd love it and then I just couldn't get around the fact that if I was walking or driving around LA when he did this, I'd definitely wish to punch him in the face.   I know, this is an extreme reaction and for that I apologize.   I haven't hit anyone since high school, so even though I'd have wanted to, I wouldn't have done it.  There is some background to this reaction though.

When I was very young, under 12, I had a lot of accidents.  I broke a leg, got concussion, stitches and when my parents decided we should move house they did test hospital runs to see which routes were fastest.  Some of my accidents were inspired by the TV series 'The Fall Guy.'  I was young and stupid, but by age 12 my accidents stopped.  I'd figured out what caused the most idiotic accidents and I just stopped doing those things.

 I bought both my boys skateboards the moment they first asked for them.  I had one as a kid and loved it - I didn't even have that many horrific accidents on it. ;-)  I'd normally share good videos with my boys, but they aren't getting to watch Austyn's video.  Doing skateboard tricks on the sidewalk / pavement with side streets, pedestrians and traffic is bonehead stupid.  Like Jackass, but without the humor.

There's a behind the scenes video too.  I watched it hoping that there'd be clearly shut off streets and everything possible done to make it safe and warn innocent pedestrians.  But no, just spotters with walkie talkies.  And worse, Austyn moans about how difficult it was to make and is shown throwing his board away in disgust when messes up his stunts.  Petulant child behavior that I detest.

It reminds me of laughing at how heartless one of my friends had been to a cyclist.  My friend was walking across a side street when the cyclist was traveling at high speed down the main road.  The cyclist wanted to whip into the side street that my friend was crossing, but he was going way too fast.  He braked badly, lost what little control he had, and tumbled to the ground.  It was all so fast my friend was kind of rooted to the spot, braced and awaiting the impact of the cyclist.  Luckily for my friend the cyclist came to a rest just inches in front of my friend.  And then my friend, merely stepped over the bleeding cyclist, and walked away as if nothing had happened.  He was sooo angry at the cyclist, he couldn't speak to him and refused to even acknowledge him.

So am I over reacting?  Am I just old and soft now that I am a father?  I don't think so.  After all, I bought my sons skateboards and bikes, and I've even taken my 9 year old karting on 45mph karts.  I encourage taking risks, tease them when they bemoan their little scrapes and tell them to get back on that bike after a fall.  But to do skateboard tricks through a crowded city, crossing side streets and loading bays at a speed you can't stop from... Nope, that's the idiotic sort of thing I'd have done when I was pretending to be Colt Seavers.

 Let me know what you think... or just send me links to some better videos...
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