Doctor Who Review Delayed

If you’re here fresh from seeing today’s video, looking for my further thoughts on Doctor Who and the recent episode, Planet of the Dead, please check back tomorrow. There have been some snafus getting the text review up. With luck, it’ll go up in the morning before I head out of the house, and there’ll be another blog tomorrow night.

This post may or may not be deleted after the review is up.

If you haven’t seen today’s video yet, check it out.

*Sigh.* BEDA is proving a bit harder to keep up with than VEDA.

BEDA Day 15: What I grok

Money.

I discussed money a good deal yesterday. I did so first in my video, in which I talked about lacking the deep understanding for money that some people seem to have. Then, in yesterday’s blog, I discussed why I want to be rich, and why it would never work out.

In the course of finishing that blog, I started thinking even deeper about the subject, and a thought occurred to me.

If you missed yesterday’s video, I used the word “grok” – from Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein – to describe  having a deep understanding of something. To grok something is to understand it as part of yourself. Anything you do not grok is something foreign, something that you understand on an intellectual level but never really get, deep down. I talked about how I don’t grok money, certainly not the way some people seem to be able to grok it.

Most of the comments on that video involved some form of agreement – none of my viewers seem to grok money, either.

Thinking about it more, it frightens me to realize that I probably grok money more than the people who have it.

Right now, the world is in what the media is calling an economic crisis. Please forgive my use of this overused term – I am aware that it gets annoying to hear those two words repeated over and over. However, I can’t think of a better word to describe the situation we’re in.

Well, I can, I think that “shitfucked by shortsighted douchebag fuckasses” is a little lengthy. Especially when I tend to add another colorful description onto it with each subsequent use.

So, we’re in an economic crisis. We got into this situation because, as a society, we’ve become very centered on wanting more, and not thinking very far into the future. Everything is about making more in this fiscal quarter than we made in the last quarter.  Always more – it’s never enough to say “Well, we can make about the same and we’re sitting pretty damn well.” No, it has to be more.

Nevermind that it’s not feasible, nevermind what decisions will be more or less beneficial in the long run. It’s all about more, more, more right now, now, now.

To pile problem on top of problem, the same people that are good at getting that more tend to want to hold onto it. The rich get richer by not spending. The poor stay poor because we tend to spend a larger percentage of our money.

So we’ve got the poor people giving their money – or, more to the point, becoming deeply in debt to – the rich (be they people or corporations). The rich then keep it, hoard it, or at best spend it amongst other rich people. This doesn’t help anyone. Trickle-down economics is bullshit. Money moves up, not down.

These people do everything they can to hold onto their money. They save past the point of common sense. They take it way past just having a healthy cushion of savings. They have to have more than they have now. They can never have less than they have now. It’s an unending beast of a compulsion that our entire culture keeps feeding.

So here’s were I come to the frightening realization that, if you look at it this way…I do grok money. I grok that money has to keep moving to be of any use to anyone – the individual or the society as a whole. I grok that we need taxes. I grok that people need to spend money for anyone to get money.

I grok that you really can’t have your cake and eat it, too. An old saying, but it applies well to money. You can have the cake, sitting there on the counter, looking very pretty, or you can eat it before it goes stale. You can have your money, sitting there in the bank, looking like a very large number…or you can spend it before you realize that there’s no money left to earn, because you already have it all.

So maybe I do grok money. At the least, I grok it better than the people who are still trying to get water from a dry well to fill a pool that’s already overflowing.

You know what I don’t grok, though?

Why don’t they grok all this?

BEDA Day 14: If I were a rich man

If I were a rich man,
Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.
All day long I’d biddy biddy bum.
If I were a wealthy man.

-from Fiddler on the Roof

I want to be rich.

My reasons for desiring a state of monetary surplus, however, will probably keep me from ever having very much.

Most people who strive to increase their funds seem to be trying for things I’m not looking for or already have. I’m not looking to use money to elevate my status above others. Sure, like anyone, I have some desire to be looked up to. However, people already praise me for my talent in various fields. Plus, I have a little sister who’s always trying to emulate me in some fashion – and believe me when I say you don’t need any more status than the adoration of a little sister. It’s a high honor, with plenty of responsibility attached.

A lot of people seem to be trying to find happiness through money. They believe they can fill some gap in their lives by being richer. I already have a good amount of happiness in my life. I have family, I have friends, I have creative outlets and a kind of inner peace attained last year upon reflection of the five wonderful years that had passed since the day I’d planned to end my life.

In the song “If I Were A Rich Man” from Fiddler on the Roof, the singer indicates he wouldn’t work. That’s not me, either. I never want to stop working. I idolize people like Georges Remi – better known as Herg%C3%A9, the creator of Tintin – and filmmaker Robert Altman. These were people who worked until the end of their lives. I want to be like that. I’d even like to do some teaching, in between projects, after I complete the stories I first set out to tell, years ago.

No, I don’t want to be rich for these reasons. I want to be rich so that I don’t have to think about money.

I want to be rich so that I can be generous. I want to buy relatively expensive things from small, locally-owned stores. I want to leave large tips at restaurants. I want to send money to charities and charitable projects. I want to be able to send money to friends in need. I want to make enough money that I actually owe taxes, instead of the government owing me a refund. I know that last one sounds strange, but I believe in taxes. I believe in progressive income taxes, especially. I believe that people who have more should give more, and I’d like to be one of those people.

I want to have enough money to not need more all the time. I want to have enough that I can do things for people, for free, and have the time to devote to whatever it is.

I get myself into so much trouble, as things stand, because I’m constantly doing things without thought of money. I get in over my head because I can’t dedicate myself fully to these things; I have to spend too much time concerned with money.

I dream of an ideal world that can never really happen – because rich people don’t get rich by thinking like this.

There are probably a lot of people who start out thinking the way I do, who strive to earn and earn so they can get to that point, so they can reach that ideal world where they can be generous with their prosperity.

Unfortunately, people don’t get rich by spending, giving, or being generally free with their money. People get rich by scrimping and saving – innocent terms that can be easily transformed into stinginess and hoarding once the original motive is lost. It’s not money that changes people. It’s the path that takes them there.

Ultimately, it’s not easy to get rich – and even harder to stay rich – if the reason you want to be rich is so that you can let your savings bleed out.

So, if I were a rich man?

It probably wouldn’t last.

BEDA Day 13: The most precious Jewell

December 31, 1999.

I was a Freshman in high school. I didn’t believe the world as I knew it would come to an end – be it from the lack of foresight in early computer programmers or from any more supernatural or religious causes – but I was certainly caught up in the rest of the Y2K hype.

It was, after all, a new year. More than that, it was a new century, a new millennium – or the last year of an old one, strictly speaking. Either way, it meant that the first two digits of the year would change for the first time in the lives of most of the world’s population.

I didn’t know what this new era would bring.

I had no idea that nine years, three months and thirteen days later, I’d be living in Tacoma, thinking back to that particular New Year’s Eve. I wish I could remember what I was doing, that night, as I stood on the precipice of such an important year.

2000 was the Year of the Dragon, according to the Chinese zodiac. It was a leap year, the first century leap year since 1600. It was even designated the International Year for the Culture of Peace.

Over the course of that year the United States would elect a new president. The world would have its eyes glued to the Summer Olympics. The judge in the United States v. Microsoft trial would officially rule that Microsoft had committed monopolization. My older sister would give birth to my first niece.

All monumental, yes, but more monumental still was something I never would have expected: I fell in love.

Not romantic love, mind you. No, far from it – a better love. Platonic and protective. Half brotherly and half parental. A love that would teach me what’s most important in life. A love that still grows stronger every day.

On April 13, 2000, my little sister, Jewell, was born.

I didn’t know, at the time, that I would come to call her my sister. Her father was a complete stranger to me. Her mother was my abuser, a cousin who – in her short time living with us – had crippled my psyche. Before this drug-addicted psychopath had lived in the same house as me, I had never known the sensation of being genuinely afraid that someone would hurt me. I’d never felt the terror of really believing that someone I knew was fully capable of killing me.

Even after she was no longer living with us, my tormentor still had power over me.

The fact that she was having a child was a sobering thought on many levels. My mother wrote a song about it once. It’s a favorite of mine; I still cry whenever I think of it. It makes me think of how things might have been. If my cousin’s child would still be alive today. If my little sister would still be alive today.

When Jewell was three months old, her father brought her to us. He was worried that my cousin was going to run off with her and live on the street. As a family, we had been involved in her life so far, to some degree. My mother was there for her birth, and we’d checked in since then – mostly through my mother, who had even been there at Jewell’s birth.

My mother and I were about to take a trip to Disneyland right about that same time. The trip was something that had been promised, and my Mom didn’t want to spoil it. So the choice was left to me: we could bring her along, take care of her…or not. The former would convince my cousin not to interfere, wanting her daughter to experience Disneyland. She believed three-month-old Jewell would be able remember it. The latter option would have necessitated that someone else take care of her. This was nothing new – she was frequently bounced around neighbors and other various babysitters.

She was a fragile thing. Earlier, she’d been the first baby that I’d ever held who was so young, so small. I’d been afraid to hold her, afraid of dropping her. She wasn’t as happy or carefree as a child her age should be. The difference between her and other three-month-olds that I’ve observed since is alarming. She hadn’t had enough bonding time with anyone, bounced around between babysitters as she was.

I said we could take her with us to Disneyland.

I didn’t think too much of the decision at the time. In the years since, however, my mother has frequently told me that if we hadn’t taken her with us, we might not have her today. Thinking back, now, I start to cry when I imagine life without my precious Jewell.

I’m not sure when, exactly, we bonded – whether it was before the trip or during the trip. All I know is that I fell very quickly in love – brotherly, protective love – with the small life I was helping watch over.

I did a lot of growing up in that time. I took my turns on night duty – sleeping next to her cradle, tending to her when she cried. I honestly think more teenagers should have to do this. Just one whole night of being responsible for an infant would teach them a lot about many things.

Jewell is nine years old today. I’ve watched that precious, tiny life grow into an amazingly smart, talented little girl. She’s always surprising me, always making me more proud of her. The hardest part of moving out of my parents’ house was leaving her. She’s almost like having my own child – I’ve helped her develop, I’ve introduced her to all kinds of things. If I ever have a child of my own, I can’t see it happening until after she’s grown up.

So I can’t help but think back to that New Year’s Eve, on the brink of a new era…not for the world at large, but for my life and family. I could never have guessed that it would be one of the most important years of my life. I could never have guessed that anything so important, so precious and so life-changing would come into my life. Even if I could have, I certainly never would have guessed that it would be the daughter of someone who had caused me so much pain.

She is exactly what her name says: a jewel. Precious, indescribable and oh so very rare.

I can’t wait to see what her future brings.

BEDA Day 12: Apples to Easter

Apples to Apples is quite possibly the greatest game ever created.

I’m not going to attempt to fully detail how one plays the game. You can check the Wikipedia article for that sort of thing. To be honest, I don’t think the game can be properly explained without demonstrating as you play. New people usually get the idea very quickly.

Today, of course, was Easter. The next two days are the birthdays of two adorable little girls (respectively: my little sister and my youngest niece). Given these events all mashed close together, it’s safe to assume there was family gathered today. The gathering was haphazard, informally put together more last-minute than the normal events, but it was fun. We ate, we chatted, we celebrated the birthday girls…and we played Apples to Apples.

All you need to understand, right this moment, is that Apples to Apples is a word game, and your goal is to win the cards with descriptive words on them: sticky, chunky, shiny, manly, etc. The first person to reach a certian amount of cards wins.

An unofficial side game that’s always fun to play is to apply the descriptive words to the person who’s won them – with varying degrees of humor depending on what the words are.

Today, during one particular round of this game, my brother-in-law read his description off of the cards he’d won. The words made him sound like a cheap hooker, which I noted aloud.

My dad then read off his cards while we were snickering about that, and the timing could not have been better. I can’t remember any of the cards specifically, but I remember that they set the stage perfectly for me to make a crack about my dad being my brother-in-law’s latest customer.

That’s when my older sister suddenly pointed out – as loud as she could and barely able to contain her laughter – that my dad’s name is John.

If you don’t get it, you probably don’t understand most of my humor.

In any case, moments like that happen in Apples to Apples all the time. Occasionally, with the right group of semi-inebriated geeks, you may even have a table full of people randomly break into song.

It’s a great game for bringing out inside jokes with friends, as well as a wonderful game for getting to know new people. It can be played at family gatherings, amongst schoolmates or alongside other drunken party games a few hours past midnight.

I can honestly think of no game more fun than Apples to Apples.

BEDA Day 11: ‘Twas the night before Easter

‘Twas the night before Easter, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The baskets were placed on the table with care,
In hopes that St. Cadbury soon would be there;
The children were up, thinking hard in their beds,
Lists of poss’ble egg hiding spots ran through their heads,
And Mama in her lingerie, and I in my “cap”,
Had just settled our loins for a long springtime “nap” —
When out on the lawn there arose such a hoo-ha,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the doo-da.
Away to the window I flew like a hare,
Tore open the shutters, and tripped o’er a chair.
The blooms springing forth from the new garden’s buds,
Looked disturbingly similar to Jesus Christ’s blood;
When, what ‘cross my wondering eyes should now sweep,
But a giant-sized egg, pulled by marshmallow peeps,
With a cotton-tailed driver, so lively and quick,
I knew over drivers would call him a dick.
More rapid than Peter’s denials they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and call’d them by name:
“Now Sugar! Now Chocolate! Now Yellow Dye Twins!
“On Toothrot! On Trans-Fat! Diabetic Chagrin!
“To the top of the place! And don’t you dare fall!
“Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!”
As weak nerds before the wild football team fly,
They vanished from sight, most likely to cry;
Then up on my poor weak roof they crash-landed,
With egg full of candy — and Jesus Christ – stranded:
And then in a twinkling, I heard from the stairs
The prancing and pawing of the giant Christ Hare.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Through the stairwell the Christ Bunny came with a bound:
He was nude but for fur, from his head to his tail,
And his palms were all tarnish’d with blood and with nails;
A bundle of eggs was held in his paws,
And he went ’round and hid them, without any cause:
His eyes — oh how beady! His large ears: how long,
His cheeks were all whiskered, and he was wearing a thong!
His droll little mouth was buck-toothed and silly,
And the beard of his chin was as astoundingly frilly;
The ball on his buttocks twitched this way and that,
As he placed an egg dang’rously under a mat.
He wore a bow tie, and a crown all of thorns,
And his smile was a smile seen only in porn.
He was hyper and twitchy, right paranoid to boot,
And I laugh’d when I saw him – he was quite a hoot.
A one-hundred-and-eighty degree twist of his head
Soon gave me to know I had something to dread.
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And fill’d baskets with candy; then turn’d with a jerk,
And twitching the whiskers that tickled his nose
And giving a nod, up the stairwell he rose.
He sprung to his egg, to his team gave a wild bark,
And away they all flew, to be read of on Fark.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight —
“Happy Easter to all, and man this thong’s tight!”

BEDA Day 10: Judas

The whole Judas issue fascinates me.

It often seems to me that many people – from centuries past to modern day – delight in his suicide.

“Yeah!” they cry.

“Awesome!”"

“He had it coming!”

“Serves that treacherous son of a bitch right!”

Most people don’t say it in those precise words, of course. But that’s the subtext underneath it all: the concept of righteous vengeance. The idea that you shouldn’t feel sorry for the poor sap, because he brought it upon himself.

There are two reasons to have a a problem with this line of thinking.

The first is fodder for many philisophical discussions, and likely always will be: somebody had to betray Jesus. Somebody had to get the ball rolling so that he could die for our sins, right? The whole of the Christian belief system kind of hinges on that.

The second is a bigger issue still, however: Christians are supposed to forgive.

No righteous vengeance.

No eye for an eye.

Forgiveness.

Think about that.

BEDA Day 9: Blanking my mind

Sometimes I just don’t have anything to talk about.

Usually, these moments only strike when I have to talk about something – I have to make a video, I have to make a blog.

When I’m not ready to make a video, I have tons of ideas. My best ideas come while I’m in the shower. Someday, I’ll have to make a video in the shower. Someday – when I have a waterproof camera, washboard abs and the pecs of Christian Bale.

Oddly, however, people seem to like it when I run out of ideas. Perhaps because that’s when I start doing crazy things like singing a duet with Sean Connery, talking to a banana or making an impromptu YouTube-centric noir detective story.

Clearly, I need to get into this blank, improvisational, free-of-brain-crack state of mind more often. It’s imperative, if I’m to survive Blog/Vlog Every Day April.

The only question is: how do I blank my mind? It’s sort of like telling myself, “Don’t think about elephants.” Suddenly, hundreds of elephants are dancing through my brain matter.

The answer is painfully clear: I have to remove the situation that causes the most brain crack, the most ideas that never see the flashing lights of the Internet.

I have to stop showering.

From this point on, this isn’t just Blog Every Day April. This isn’t just Vlog Every Day April.

Adam Will Not Shower Any Day In April is now in full effect.

God help us all.

If you believed a word of that last bit, I’d like you to send me your social security number, bank account number and credit card information. I know some Nigerian royalty that would like to send you some money.

BEDA Day 8: What are the odds?

Today’s video has nothing to do with today’s blog.

As most people reading this should know, I’m participating in both Blog Every Day April (BEDA) and Vlog Every Day April (VEDA). I generally try to make my blog and my vlog somehow related.

So today, my blog would have talked a bit about hats, why I love them, John Helmer Haberdasher and perhaps even talk a bit about the changing social trends in hats.

But then something more interesting happened.

Yesterday, I wrote a blog about how, by and large, women have it easier when it comes to acquiring a following on the Internet – especially YouTube. It’s a known trend, and it’s something I think about from time to time.

The thought was brought to mind again through the discovery of imzUnicorn. And, though it prompted a tweet, it would not have turned into the topic of yesterday’s video and blog if not for the comments that my tweet prompted on Facebook.

In writing yesterday’s blog, I mentioned imzUnicorn. I didn’t think too much of it, at the time. She wasn’t really the point of the blog, she just happened to inadvertently inspire it.

I included her username and link because I thought that link-happy types – the sort that, like myself, have been trained by Wikipedia to spend hours clicking on every linked word to see what’s on the other side – would click through. Those that did would discover someone who is actually worth subscribing to.

I also did this with the confidence that she would never actually find the blog.

Today – just this evening, in fact – I received a message from her on YouTube. She’d found it and read it.

I fell off my chair laughing. What are the odds?

We’re subscribed to one another now, and I do advise checking out her videos.

And take most of what I say regarding boobs and Internet fame with a grain of salt.

I’m never wholly serious.

BEDA Day 7: Pimping the penis

I joined YouTube on June 22, 2006, after reading an article in The Oregonian about YouTube star Brooke Brodack, a.k.a. Brookers, getting a job through Carson Daly noticing her videos.

Now, I’ve no love for Carson Daly. I think he’s kind of a putz. Not him personally, mind you, just everything he represents. I don’t think I need to tell you, after that statement, that I was never a fan of Total Request Live. Or, for that matter, the gradual stripping away of music videos from Music TeleVision.

However, I’m trying to build up a career in film, and I’m honestly not too hot on the idea of settling for a respected but little-known indie filmmaker. I have stories to tell, stories that it would ge nice to tell with a larger budget and – most importantly – to the widest possible audience. It may seem conceited, but I don’t want my stories to go unheard. That would defeat the point of telling them.

So I checked out YouTube, signed up for an account and uploaded a couple of videos. I’d already made the videos for other purposes. One was a music video for Sad Music For Happy Humans. The other was a video story I did for my college broadcast journalism class, about a now-defunct band known as Electric Melanoma.

In the fall of 2007, I started actively vlogging. Granted, many of my videos come out late, but I work damn  hard on them. I produce videos that I know people enjoy, and I’m working on producing more of such videos – on a more frequent basis and with a quicker turnaround between filming and uploading.

Today I discovered a YouTuber by the username of imzUnicorn. She’s an attractive-looking 19-year-old named Nicole. She joined YouTube on January 9, 2009.

At the time of this writing, she has 346 subscribers. Not many in comparison to some, true.

However, I only have 207 subscribers.

Now, I’ll grant that imzUnicorn is a good vlogger, from what I’ve seen. She doesn’t do that painful thing that bad vloggers do, droning on for ten minutes with lots of “ums” and silent gaps where they don’t know what to talk about. So I’ll say right now that imzUnicorn deserves subscribers.

However, the fact that she gained subscribers so quickly…I’ll confess, it irks me. It irks me because I see it happen all the time. The female side of the population has it pretty damn good on YouTube. It’s been well-proven that all a pretty girl has to do is stare at the camera and say nothing, and she’ll get loads of views and subscribers.

I decided to share my thoughts – condensed into 140 characters – on Twitter:

Sometimes I hate pretty girls, and their ability to get more subscribers than me on YouTube in far, far less time.

That probably would have been it for that thought. I probably would have forgotten about it within ten minutes. However, my tweet enticed an immediate reply on Facebook.

MOLLY:

hahahahaha that’s right, beeotch.

The TokBox was just discussing this: It’s all about boobs. That’s why girl vloggers frame below their shoulders more often.

Watching a vlog is one of the only times when it’s acceptable to listen to a smart girl talk to you AND stare at her boobs. It’s proven fact.

ME:

Curse you and all your boobilicious brethren! Wait, you’re females…that doesn’t work…curse you again!

The least you crazy mutants could do is pimp the penis once and a while. Y chromosomes have rights, too!

*cries*

*emo tear*

*death*

But seriously, I’m really rather irked that I just found someone who joined in January and has about 150 more subs than me and growing.

I’m more irked that I want to subscribe.

CHRIS:

The word you’re looking for is “Sistren”, I think.

ME:

Yeah, I know, but “sistren” doesn’t work with “boobilicious” – no alliteration.

And actually, that entire comment was an excuse to say “pimp the penis”. Which IS alliterative. And hilarious.

JOE:

How about “cabal of cleavage”? ^_^

KRISTINA:

I DONT TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE BOOB SITUATION. Pffft.

ME:

Oooh, nice one, Joe. “Cabal of cleavage” is right up there with “pimp the penis”. I’ll have to title a video “Cabal of Cleavage” one of the days this month.

Kristina: LIES! YOU SHOW YOUR BEWBZ TO THE RUBES ON TEH TUBES ALL THE LIVE LONG DAYZ! ARRRR!

…I have no idea what that was. I’m going to say I was possessed.

In other news, I would like to thank everyone in this comment thread for helping me decide to name today’s VEDA vlog “Pimping the Penis”.

And that was how I decided on the topic for today’s vlog. I’d been thinking, anyway, about promoting my friend Switch’s podcast, The Dangerous Kids’ Podcast. It’s one of my favorite podcasts, and I honestly think he could use more listeners – whatever few I can send him with my relatively few YouTube subscribers.

The Dangerous Kids’ Podcast is a great podcast, even if you’re not all that into gaming. The hosts are hilarious, their voices have a good radio quality, the things they talk about are informative, and the format is getting better all the time. They started with something that was already good, and they’re just improving on that with every show.

Unfortunately, that’s all the time I have. Part Two of my “Time-Lapse of a Chalk Artist” segment will have to wait until another time. It was just more important to pimp the penis.