Salazar Slytherin

ugh. through no fault of the day, today was horrible. i woke up sick as hell, and angry about it. stayed in bed way late, and didn't really even want to put clothes on. we did have our confession meeting at 6pm at the house, so i managed to throw something together for that, but aside from that i haven't really done anything today.

you know that feeling you get when you've got a fever and you feel ridiculously hot to the point of sweating, even though it's a perfectly comfortable temperature indoors? that's what i'm dealing with right now. it's not terribly pleasant. i really don't want to call out of work tomorrow, mostly because i can't really afford to, but also because i just don't like doing it. i don't like inconveniencing other people, and i know it would probably do so. blah. i guess we'll see what happens when i wake up.

Regulus Black

today was effectively a non-day. i spent pretty much the whole of it working on a video to be put out tomorrow, and the song that goes with it. it's a wizard rock song, the release of which is sort of inspired by [and/or cashing in on] the release of the last harry potter movie this week. the song is something i wrote about a year ago, and never recorded or even thought much about until quite recently. i wrote another song about angry birds, which i should probably record and release while that game is still relevant. we'll see. anyway, aside from that, there's not much to say. i'll probably be up a while longer, working on the music some more.

Quirinius Quirrell

today was exciting! christin and i both forgot to set alarms, so we didn't get up in time for church. that's not the exciting part, though. we decided to head down to d.c. to catch the contour and hang with some youtube friends. ran into tom and laura, whom i was not expecting to see. a pleasant surprise indeed! got to hang a bit with the people there, and i even got recognized for the first time by someone i didn't know! it was very cool. thanks for saying hi, teri, if you're reading this.

each of the artists played a handful of songs acoustically under a big tree in the national mall, which was about the same as last year but still quite fun. i actually knew most of the songs this time, which made it more enjoyable. mike was great as always, and we even brought the dog, who was a big hit with all of the performers and most of the attendees. good times, good times. we came home and i edited pictures for most of the night, which can be viewed on my facebook or g+ pages. i put this video up, too! love it.

Pansy Parkinson

i'm developing this nasty habit of posting updates two at a time, and i'm not liking that. quite a dull saturday this was, with the exception of a quite remarkable nap after work and hanging out watching better off ted and grey's with christin at night. good times. we still aren't clear on the whole car thing, which is stressful. we're either losing christin's car at the end of august, or we're buying it and keeping it. not sure which one will happen, but it's not our choice, and that's the truly frustrating thing. oh well. that's all, really. not much to say at this time.

Olympe Maxime

day off. didn't feel much like one, for some reason, but rainy days seldom do. it was a pretty big storm, and out of nowhere. it hasn't really come down like it did today for a while, at least to my noticing. 450 was even flooded, which was interesting and annoying at the same time. i woke up and did some graphic design work, which was nice. headed to the post office box, then to the mall to buy harry potter tickets [which we didn't actually end up getting] for part 1 of deathly hallows at 9pm next thursday. exciting!

we had hunan express for dinner, and i probably ate too much, but it was amazingly good. watched a few episodes of 'better off ted' as well, which is a great show. can't believe it got canceled, but i guess i never heard of it until well after it was over, so i can't say i'm terribly surprised about it. we went to becky's house after that and hung out with her, watching some house hunting show. then we watched a few episodes of grey's anatomy and headed back to the house... now it's time to sleep. not the most interesting day on paper, but it was a day none the less. tomorrow is not going to be too much fun. opening on a few hours' sleep. but what else is new?

Nicolas Flamel

sometimes, when i go and open the store at 8:30 in the morning and don't get my first customer until 10:00, i feel like i'm wasting my life. granted, i still got paid for that hour and a half i spent essentially doing nothing, but it doesn't feel right. it's not productive, it's not valuable, and it's not something i enjoy. once again, granted, this can account for a large majority of things people do with their lives, and i'm not alone in this. regardless, i still feel like i should be doing something different. hopefully i will, soon enough.

work was boring, but i got off early. came home and tried to win $100 tickets to hong kong, but that was sort of a bust. i did get cheese logs, though, which were wondrous. i'm such a fatty. we had a good confession meeting where we talked about God's love. it's interesting to talk about it from a reformed perspective, one which teaches it in light of His other attributes as opposed to using it as a starting point and defining it as essentially glorified human love. it's different. it's particular. it's sacrificial. anyway, that's all for now.

Mafalda Hopkirk

the title of this post is probably my favorite name from the harry potter series. i don't know why, but i get it stuck in my head all the time. today i made this in the morning, worked a closing shift, then edited the video at night. it was good times! i also cleaned up a copy of the script and sent it to a potential employer. pray for that, if you think about it. today was a long, tiring day, and i don't really have much to say about it, aside from the fact that i'm quite tired and want to go to bed. and i kind of like my schedule for next week a lot. i have three days off in a row. that's a lot of days!

tomorrow i have to open, which means i should be sleeping right now, but i'm in blogging mode and promotional mode. it's not good to be in promotional mode at 3:41am, because people aren't, like, you know... up and stuff. so no one sees the promotional material. curses! i must repost everything tomorrow, but i have this crazy obsession with getting the 'main promotion' done the day of. well, technically, the day after, considering the video didn't finish processing by the end of 'today.' dumb. dumb, i say! it's time to sleep, i can't stay up any longer.

Luna Lovegood

today i didn't work, but i did have a call with a prospective employer in the realm of english education, which is great. there's this company that may or may not want to hire me to essentially do what i'm already doing on youtube in a slightly more educational and less entertainment oriented fashion designed for 18-22 year old asian girls who want to study in the u.s.a. or something like that. i don't know, the conversation happened fast, and it was all a bit fuzzy, and i was walking the dog at the time, and i don't know what else. anyway, i sent him to my youtube channel and i'll be sending him one of my scripts tomorrow and we'll see what happens.

anyway, speaking of scripts, i wrote the script for tomorrow's video. it's kind of lengthy, but we'll see what the magic of editing can do. it always ends up that the scripts i write with less of an idea of what i want the cohesive theme of the video to be always end up being the longest. i get this idea that i want to weave into the whole of the video, and i keep coming up with new ways to work it in until i sort of... pack the script too full with ideas and end up having to cut stuff for time. i'll probably have to cut one major part tomorrow, but i already know what it'll be, and i can always post it as 'bonus' material on the second channel. which i will.

i was supposed to have filmed this video today, but between thinking about the script for way too long, being engrossed in a novel, watching youtube videos [queue at 40 and dropping], and doing little errands, i just didn't get it done. it's okay, i've got tomorrow before work to get it all set up and filmed and maybe even edited. that depends on how early i get up. it's 4:35 and i'm not really all that tired. tempted to just stay up, but that never works out well. granted, going to sleep and hoping i get up on time doesn't always work well either, but here's hoping. goodnight.

Kingsley Shacklebolt

as much as i love america, the constitution, and the liberty provided me by those things, the fourth of july just isn't a particularly interesting holiday to me. it may have something to do with the way we celebrate it by blowing stuff up and roasting dead animals, but it probably has more to do with the fact that it comes one month after a terrible date in chinese history, and three days after another chinese holiday i'm not particularly fond of. if there's one thing i'm not, it's a chinese nationalist. i'm not an american nationalist either, but looking at what america was and now is and looking at what china was and now is... i'm sort of conflicted. this post made a lot more sense in my head, so i'm going to stop typing it now.

James Sirius Potter

morning was groggy. church was lovely. potbelly's was delicious. green lantern was okay. popcorn belly was troublesome. home was relaxing. nap was wonderful. better off ted was funny. internet was entertaining. booking a flight for amber to come visit christin while i'm in california was arduous [but rewarding]. catching up on youtube subscriptions was refreshing. dinner was alright. cake was amazing. dog was happy. cat was indifferent. christin was sleepy. i was content.

and now, it's time to sleep.

Ignotus Peverell

ahh, today. stayed up majorly late last night, so i woke up super late today. headed off to work and that was miserable. get this: the people that came this morning weren't from l.a. they weren't even from westfield. it was one dude coming to take pictures of the kiosk for the architect that is working on our modifications and [i think] the sun-blocker panel slash canopy thing or whatever they're going to build to make the hot, murderous sun not destroy our chocolate. so yeah, essentially, we worked ridiculously hard to make the store look perfect... for no reason.

such is my life. vacation soon. that makes me feel better.

when i got home, christin and i looked at some pictures and networked socially together and apart. i got on tinychat with some youtube friends and acquaintances [google+ has brainwashed me into putting arbitrary label on everyone]. that was good times. talked memes, editing software, and even some starcraft. russ is hilarious. inside comments, inside jokes... can't post those here. less than two weeks until harry potter, and less than a month until vidcon. wow! everything is creeping up so quickly. i'm excited. i've begun the search for a job that is actually pertinent to my field of study. that's not going super great, but i'm getting some response. woo! alright, it's time to sleep.

p.s. the show 'better off ted' was/is hilarious. watch it on netflix.

Helena Ravenclaw

zug zug. another month has come and gone, and i'm closing the store on a friday night. i got cheese logs today, which were wonderful. work was slow, dull, boring. choose your adjective, really. we spent most of the night cleaning up for tomorrow's big visit from westfield's l.a. people or whatever the heck it is. i don't know entirely, and i don't really care to know. all i know is that the store looks great, and i left it way too late [10:20 or so], but flanda and i did a great job. came home and christin was totally asleep on the couch. messed around on google+ a bit, fixed some bugs in a new acquaintance's skin for it [great improvement over the original] and yeah. that's all i've got for now. goodnight.

Gwenog Jones

of the hollyhead harpies, i presume? so yeah, google+ is rad. been playing with it last night and all today, and that's great fun. only a few friends got on in the initial invite storm, but we managed to find a loophole and i've got a bunch of people on there with me now. it's like a stripped-down facebook with some notable improvements and only a couple downsides. hopefully those will get fixed, and/or facebook will step their game up and improve their product to make it more attractive than google's offering. as something of a google enthusiast, they've already sort of won me over, but i do like facebook as well.

i guess when it comes to social media marketing, i've pretty much got no choice in the matter but to use both, but if that's the case, i don't know how i've managed to live without tumblr or dailybooth [a.k.a. the beast and the man of sin]. we'll see how long i can hold out. speaking of holding out, i worked an opening shift on about 2.5 hours of sleep, so forgive me while i go and essentially pass out in my bed for a while. i'll likely get up early and begin 'work' on my youtube queue. it's a beast, but i shall conquer it before vidcon. this i swear! of course, during vidcon will be nearly impossible, since i've busted my laptop. double bugger all the way 'cross the sky... so totally un-intense. boo. anyway, sleep now. goodnight!

Fred Weasley

this is a thing that was made by me, which you should watch and enjoy! i spent most of the day making it, fending off all manner of interruptions in the form of broken laptops and broken tripods and crappy sd cards. but alas, i have vanquished the beast of a video, and it is now available for your viewing pleasure! man, i really have been reading too much fantasy. not quite halfway through game of thrones now, and it's picking up. great read. the wife and i are almost through with the series, which we started watching earlier this week. she's liking it.

so i went on ashford's site and it looks like i've maintained the 4.0 gpa afterall. go me! 100% on the final, which is not surprising, but at the same time i wasn't entirely sure about it after i had written it. granted, i'm a bit hard on myself, but i dunno. i guess i did well. now for the waiting game with jobs, applying and hoping, et cetera. can't really look too extensively for anything until after the trip to california. mom and dad are giving me some money for graduation, which is cool. essentially paid for half of my camera, but i may use a bit of it to get a kindle. i like the app and i'd like the actual device a bit more. realistic, like paper, not backlit so i don't kill my eyes. anyway, yes.

i got into google+ today, and it's fantabulous. i'd say more, but it's way too late to be posting blogs as it is, so i'm just going to head off. more on that front tomorrow!

Ernie Macmillan

hufflepuff. that should be an expression, like 'balderdash!' i think i'll try and make it a thing. so today i worked in the day and went to go see super 8 [which was phenomenal] while my wife got a tattoo. a harry potter tattoo, to be exact. it came out really nice, but i didn't want to go watch. she doesn't get why, but i dunno. i'm just not interested, that's all. anyway, it was a full and busy day, which ended with me trying my best to attempt to catch up at least a little bit on my youtube subscriptions. that didn't last long. didn't even get any of the script for tomorrow done! terrible me, i suppose. but alas, it is time for sleep. so short a post.

Dean Thomas

as of this moment, i have completed all of the work associated with my bachelor's degree in english language learner studies at ashford university. i think that means i just graduated. online school is weird. anyway, i don't feel any different, but i do feel a bit relieved to be done with that monster of a final paper. it gave me some trouble, and more than usual, despite my typical 'wait until the last minute to actually find out what the topic of the final paper is' manner. i should probably stop doing that, but i guess i will by virtue of the fact that i won't have to write another one.

ever again, if i don't want to. that's a freeing thought.

so on the topic of trouble, i think my laptop completely died today. the good thing is that i got every bit of important zero and one off of it when i bought my desktop, but the bad thing is that i was using it to write my paper this morning. yep. so i actually wrote this paper one and a half times, as i was about halfway through it when it went 'ker-plunk' and i lost everything. spent a while trying to get it to work again, to no avail. but alas, the paper is done and i didn't really need the laptop for anything in the end. though now there's no way i'll be able to produce video while i'm in california on vacation. bugger. i'll have to pre-film. sleepytime. work in the morning. double bugger.

Cormac McLaggen

what a worthless sunday this was. this morning i woke up and felt absolutely terrible, sort of like my stomach was eating the rest of my guts from the inside out. i have no idea why. christin says it's because i ate too much cake, but i think she's crazy. there's no such thing as too much cake! but in all seriousness, i have no idea what it was, because i didn't eat all that much food at all, let alone the cake in question. just felt terrible. after she got back from church, she picked me up and we went to her parents' house for lunch. hot dogs, rice, baked beans, and iced tea. delicious.

last night, with the help of daximus the brave, i managed to get my cv done. that was a grueling experience, but a good one none the less. i put it to some use, but now i'm not really sure what to make of the whole situation. i'm being purposefully vague here, but there's a reason for that. anyway, to make a long story short, tomorrow is my last day of school and i'm getting a piece of paper that says i'm slightly more awesome than i was before [and a few thousand dollars poorer for it in the short-term], so that's a thing. hopefully i can find a job now! a real job! hooray jobs!

Bathilda Bagshot

remembering the moments

it’s so unclear

re-living it just to disappear

it’s always the wrong way

and never the same

it's dragging and staggered

into a dull replay

lying down in sleepless eyes

wide awake so caught inside

this aimless endeavor

it’s sure to leave its mark

blacked-out and beaten into our skin

deeper now that it's sunk in

feeding on all of this damage it’s done

the deeper you look

the harder it is to find

it’s so safe and so secure

blacked-out and beaten into our skin

deeper now that we've fell in

Alastor Moody

it's friday, yet i feel no compulsion toward 'getting down' as they say in the common tongue. that's probably a positive thing. today i opened the store and headed home to my lovely wife, tired as all get-out. we ate dinner together and then got a call from our friend judy who is apparently back in town. huzzah! she's been out on navy business [intelligence] in europe, so that's a thing. we went to a bar and i had quite honestly the best chicken tenders i've ever eaten in my life. no exaggeration. and probably some of the best bbq sauce as well. man they were good. expensive, but good. the fries were okay...

but man, those tenders were beer-battered awesome on a plate.

after that, we headed back home where christin got a sudden craving for... bread. yeah. so i went and got some bread and a couple donuts and headed back to the house to watch game of thrones episode one [yeah, i'm making her watch it now]. she liked it. we'll watch more tomorrow, but now it's bedtime. bah. i didn't get much accomplished today, but christin is going out with her brother tomorrow night so i'll have time to do it then. excellent. yes. good. great. grood. and now i must sleep for a very long time. goodnight!

Zinc'd

it's been said that there is absolutely nothing notable about thursdays, but that's not entirely true all the time. it's generally true about today, but that's because most of the day was spent working. after my nightmare of a mid-shift, i headed straight to elder ken's where we went through about three short pieces of one section of the confession. it was good times, that's for sure, and i came home and ate 20 chicken mcnuggets for dinner. like a boss! no, but seriously, they were really good. i've finished game of thrones [all that has been done thus far] and started working on the book. it's really good. really, really good.

hard to believe this is my last week of school, possibly ever as a student. weird. christin and i have decided to try and apply for jobs in hong kong now and see how things work out. if i get one that pays enough to justify the move, we will move this year in around september or so. that's exciting, but i'm trying not to get my hopes up since it may not happen. there are a lot of jobs available, but competition can be really steep and i think my being overseas and not british will be disadvantages to them wanting to employ me. not sure. i'd love to do a skype interview though, that'd be wonderfully modern. anyway, it's time for sleep.

Yore, Days Of

it's wednesday. i made this. watch it! it took me pretty much all day, and i worked really hard on it, so if you'd share it around that would be wondrous. i'm not really up to typing anymore about this day right now, so that's going to be it. just watch the video! back to work tomorrow.

Xin Dynasty

it's getting harder to come up with titles starting with 'x,' but this one is particularly interesting, as pointed out by the wikipedia article on the subject. good times. today i slept in, walked the dog, took a nice shower, and headed off to work. it was, well, you know... it was work. becky and i spent the first few hours organizing things and cleaning the stockroom, which was a disaster area. there was way more broken glass on that floor than any of us likely imagined, which is frightening to me. the rest of the day passed incredibly slowly, as we had virtually no business [nowhere near what it cost in labor to staff the day]. bad day for chocolate and coffee, i suppose.

once i got home, i started scripting tomorrow's video, which is going to be loads of fun to record. as i said on twitter, i think i'm really getting the knack for figuring out an overarching theme for each individual video that i can weave into the different sections. it's challenging, but i think i manage it well enough. tomorrow's is all about silent letters, inspired by a commenter. i never thought i'd get enough people commenting on videos to do things like this, but it looks like i'm really doing it now. i love the new format, i love doing youtube, and i hope i can keep doing it. if i could do it full time, i totally would, and i'd love every minute of it. that the Lord would see fit to allow me to do so, i'd be immensely happy.

looking at the day tomorrow, i've got quite a bit to get done, and i think it will be no problem to accomplish. laundry, ugh, but other than that, i predict an enjoyable 24 hours. then it's back to opening the store on thursday and friday, and christin is working friday night as well. but it's not all doom and gloom, i've actually got saturday off, which is exciting. i didn't even ask for it! next week is another story, i have no idea when i'm working. wish i did, so i could plan things. i hope i have monday or wednesday off. monday for the paper, wednesday for the video. but we'll see, and i'm sure i'll manage no matter what. can always write on sunday or film on tuesday or what have you. i'm rambling now. it's bedtime.

Wormwort

one more week of school left. odd. i'm not sure that i feel entirely prepared to move from student to teacher in many ways, but i'm sure i'm more prepared than i was before i began. granted, i may not feel more prepared, but i have faith that the few worthwhile tidbits provided me by my formal education were sufficiently beaten into my tangled mass of grey matter. maybe that's optimism, but it sure feels pessimistic to look at it that way. probably because it is. anyway, i hope i'm able to find gainful employment sooner or later, in an effort to more comfortably ride out the remaining years in the united states.

*sigh* i'm just ready to be back there now, you know?

but it probably is smarter to get christin on track with school before heading out again. she gets so bored when she's nothing to do in the day, or at least she did when we were there before. she thinks it best, so i do as well. look at me, i'm typing like i'm from the middle ages. too much game of thrones, methinks. there it goes again! anyway, work today was dull, but it passed quickly. though most of my day was spent updating the registers and working alone, i did get to work with becky toward the end. i like working with becky, even if it's only for a few hours. came home and hung out with the wife, watching bad television and cooking lasagna. yum. that's about it. i did the last of this week's homework and vegetated a bit. time for bed.

Veegs To The Neegs

so today is father's day or something, and i actually did call my dad. he's doing okay, but he just had teeth pulled the other day, so you know. not the best. anyway, christin and i were pretty much just worthless today. the only thing we managed to accomplish was watching a couple episodes of doctor who together before christin went to sleep. other than that, it was just a lazy day in general. we had a nice time relaxing, though. it was a nice endcap to our mini-vacation, but tomorrow it's back to reality. back to work. blech.

i did my quiz and watched some youtube after she went to sleep, then watched the first episode of game of thrones, which many people have recommended. it was pretty compelling, but i could do without the gratuitous nudity and out-of-place f-bombs. *shrug* we'll see how i like it after a few more episodes. until then, it's sleep time. work at 10am tomorrow. not really looking forward to that, but i am looking forward to depositing my paycheck! huzzah. hopefully my stipend will come tomorrow as well, so we can actually go buy a new car for christin. that'd be wonderful.

Urgencies

we didn't end up going back to the city today. we all woke up way late and decided that it would be a better idea to just relax, get some food, and head down to princeton for the gathering before going back to the house and eating dinner there. so that's what we did! we met up with my friend justin; my youtube acquaintances leslie, amanda, and ev; and my new pals devin, michael, and nikki. it was a great time, and we actually stayed for about 3 hours or so. we hung out on the princeton lawn, and went to a boba/froyo place that sold pretty decent shaved ice. i got green apple, and it was quite amazing.

the idea of passing on the frozen yogurt to get shaved ice was a result of me declaring myself john's vegan brother for the day. i actually did manage to maintain a totally vegan diet for the entire 24 hours of the day, which i'm sort of proud of but in reality it isn't all that difficult. for lunch, i had a boca burger at red robin, and for dinner we had vegan macaroni and cheese, which was almost as good as real macaroni and cheese. like, i'd seriously consider making it just because it tastes great, even though i'm not vegan per se. anyway, we got home and made the mac&veegs and watched clerks. well, we tried to watch it, but netflix was being crappy.

anyway, we had a great last night with julie and johnny, and it's time to bid farewell. i'll see them again in july, but christin won't see them probably until the wedding. sad times! oh well. it's time to sleep and not type more things into a box on the internets.

Thrame Of Gones

ahh, new york city. it really isn't like anywhere else in the world. we checked into the motel 6 in piscataway, new jersey and headed up to staten island where we took the wonderful ferry into the city. as soon as we got off the boat, it was raining pretty heavily, but it passed very soon. this happened a few times throughout the day, so it was a bit annoying, but also kind of neat. it was nice that it wasn't raining non-stop the entire day, though. we saw ground zero and saint paul's, went to the cosby house, ate in chinatown and headed back to the hotel to unwind with some drinks. it was a good day. this is, of course, a gross oversimplification, but it's about all i feel like typing at the moment. goodnight.

Seat Hanger Onner

the following is a list of facts about today:

i slept 8 hours, and it was glorious. i worked a closing shift. i ate a chicken sandwich and two breadsticks for dinner. i played a lot of words/hanging with friends. i had dairy queen before leaving work. i didn't have to pay for it. i came home. i responded to comments on youtube. i watched a few videos. i did my homework. i am up later than i should be. i am going to new york tomorrow.

okay, so that last one's not really a fact about today, but it clarifies the previous one, so i'm gonna say it's good to go. yeah, today was fairly uninteresting, but you know, it's a thursday. tomorrow we head up to nyc for two days [though we're staying in jersey], and that will be excellent. i probably won't have wi-fi, so i probably won't update tomorrow, but that's nothing new. the trip will be fun, because i said so. actually, it's mostly because new york rules and my wife is awesome and my sister is awesome and my sister's fiancé is... well, you get the idea. time for sleep so i don't fall asleep on the way up! goodnight.

Rainn, Will's Son

my wife just walked to the toilet and i turned to see her, but my vision was blurred because there's only one light on and it's right in front of me. well, that and the laptop staring back at me. it's weird that i had to stare for a minute to see if she was even there, because there wasn't enough light and my eyes hadn't adjusted to the lack of light to see even a dim outline of her frame. weird to think about how what we see is really just light reflected off a human body, not the body itself, or anything else for that matter. we see a reflection of what is, and a shadow of reality. weird. it's too late to be thinking like this, isn't it? yep.

just finished writing a paper that i should've written two days ago, and then should've written last night, but didn't end up writing because i couldn't concentrate. this time, since i don't open tomorrow [which i did today], i was able to stay up way later than julie, johnny, and my lovely wife, and get it all done. which i did. it was alright, i guess, but i probably could've written better. anyway, i also made this today, which i'm pretty proud of. i think it came out very solid, and the views [and how rapid they came] seem to agree with that thought.

i finished filming as soon as i got home, which was kind of difficult because i'm not feeling good at all today. i almost got sick in the toilet at work this afternoon, which is bad news bears. managed to keep it down for the rest of the shift. well, most of it really, considering i did go home a half hour early. once i finished filming, i edited for about a good, solid five hours. that's a long time. i probably could've gotten it done faster, but i spent a lot of time talking to johnny during the whole process, as well as a lot of time unnecessarily obsessing over audio sync. i think it paid off in the finished product, though, and i'm very happy with it all.

now it's bedtime, because it's very close to my absolute upward limit of time i can stay up 'til [4am], and i do actually have to work tomorrow, even though it's a late shift. that was a terrible sentence. goodnight.

Queasiful

today i scripted and filmed most of tomorrow's video, which was a blast but frustrating at the same time. i didn't budget my morning well, and ended up sleeping in a bit later than i wanted, so i didn't have time to finish filming it all today like i had planned. on the plus side, i think the audio is going to be much better on this video than the last one, which was still better than the other recent ones. good times railroad! today i worked a closing shift right after getting on the video train to footage town. it wasn't particularly memorable, but working with flanda is always humorous.

i like the way this script turned out. it's not as punchline-driven as the last one was, but it's way more comprehensive and has an overarching theme throughout the show. i won't reveal what it is now, though i'm writing this the next day when it's already been released so many of you probably already know what it is. ha! silly silly. anyway, that's about it for this day. when i got home, we watched some more firefly and called it a night. a good night, of course. goodnight.

Per Formats

monday, monday, monday! i'm behind again, and i honestly forgot what i did on monday besides go to work. blah. i opened that day, and it was pretty hellish because i didn't get a lot of sleep. what else is new though, right? anyway, having julie and johnny around has been pretty cool. christin always goes to sleep pretty early and i always stay up late, so having other people to stay up late with me has been a nice change of pace for me. granted, it's taking its toll on my youtube-watching in the sense that my queue is not diminishing in the slightest, but that's a small price to pay for the nice feature of having a sister and a good friend in your home.

we've been watching through firefly, though i don't think we'll finish the series while they're here at this point. johnny seems to be enjoying it quite a bit, julie as well. it's so good. ahh! i can't get over it. so that's been going great. monday they went up to baltimore to check out the sites for some john waters movies [johnny is a huge fan] and take pictures. they had a good time, which makes me happy. that's about all i have to say about that, but i must say this: epic meal time's got bacon for days, son. it's true.

Operation: Code Kansas

today i woke up at what i would consider a reasonable hour: 11:30am. considering i got to bed at around 5, i think that's pretty good. anyway, we went to the mall to visit becky at work and to eat lunch before heading downtown. we checked out a bit of the sights in annapolis, which was cool, and saw a juggler dude on the docks. he juggled a flaming torch, a huge knife, and a bowling ball while balancing on some ridiculous contraption. it was pretty dinosaurs. anyway, after a bit of that, we went back to town and got some food to make dinner at the house, which julie cooked up into some vegan tortilla soup. it was pretty amazing, actually.

we ate that and watched the first two episodes of firefly, then christin went to bed and johnny and i decided to watch black dynamite. good choice. it's basically a classic 70's blaxploitation film, but it was made in 2009, giving it extra awesomeness. i had heard about it on the nerdist podcast, and had meant to watch it, just kept forgetting about it. then i saw it on netflix instant and we just watched it. now i'm catching up on blogs, and julie/johnny are camping out, watching true lies and basically falling asleep to it. excellent. speaking of falling asleep, i'm gonna go do that. i really don't want to work tomorrow, but alas... i must make money. goodnight.

Newburger

oh, what a long day it was. woke up, went to work, and worked by myself until around 2pm. that was interesting, but by the time nikkie showed up i was pretty ridiculously hungry. i guess she thought she had scheduled someone else, but... nope. after work, i headed off to the laundromat to get the laundry done with christin and watch dumb game shows while waiting for the clothes to dry. beats the jersey shore, which is what's normally playing on t.v. there. headed up to pick up the julie and the johnny, whose flight was delayed two hours [giving us time to finish the laundry, which was good]. got 'em, got the rental car, headed back down to annapolis. good times.

we had dinner at house of hunan, which we've had before but only once. it was amazing, and they have a good vegan menu [for johnny]. i had some of the hunan fried bean curd and it was actually pretty dang tasty. not sure it was good enough to be something i eat every day or even regularly, but it definitely wasn't bad. after dinner, we went to applebee's for drinks, then back to the house to unwind and hang out before sleeping. we stayed up super late, and johnny and i ended up watching the entire plinkett review of the phantom menace. good stuff, man. it's 4:30, so i'm gonna go to sleep now. yeah. good call on that. looking like no church tomorrow.

More, A Torium

the night before something you've been anticipating for a long time always feels longer than other days. maybe that's why the work day felt so long today. i closed with alli, which was fine, but it just seemed really slow. didn't make much money, sales-wise, but that's not a huge surprise. tomorrow julie and johnny arrive, and i'll be opening right before i go off to pick them up. i didn't get the laundry done today, because i woke up late and didn't have time before work. we'll have to do it some other time soon. oh well! time to get a bit of sleep before a long day.

Lark Of Sky

today was delightfully unproductive, but fun. i woke up way earlier than i should have, after getting to sleep way later than i should have [couldn't sleep, obsessing over webshow] and headed to meet the wife and our nephews that she nannies. is that even a verb? whatever. we went to the children's museum, which was less like a museum and more like a cool place to play, and we had a great time. if you're friends with me on facebook, you can check out some pictures of us playing dress-up. christin tagged me. yep. good stuff.

i came home and i was supposed to do the laundry, but i just didn't. i think i'll get up at a reasonable hour tomorrow and do it then, because i can't think of any other time i could get it done in the near future. blah. instead of doing that, i abrogated my responsibility for another day and responded to youtube comments and watched a few videos. i also played a bit of guitar. hadn't done that in a while. i want to keep doing song wednesdays, but i picked wednesday for my show date, so that doesn't look like it's possible. oh well. maybe once a month. after that, we had our meeting with the pastor and watched the rest of season six of grey's anatomy. yeah. it just got real, son. it was crazy. one may say 'bananas.'

anyway, my homework is done [on time for once] and it's well past my bedtime, so i shall head off and leave you with this thought: dinosaurs.

Kirin Tore Up

today i made this. i'm very, very proud of it, and i like the direction my channel is going now. i've got it figured out, in terms of what i want out of youtube and how i want to represent what i do on there, and now all i've got to do is keep making awesome content and promoting it. i can do that better with a weekly show that has a somewhat predictable format. speaking of the format, what you see there is pretty much what you get: headlines, vocab, and a third [or fourth] other section that is in some way english-related. i just happened to get in two segments that talked about the same grammatical rule, which probably won't happen every time. but man, that'd be pretty awesome if it did, huh? i kind of happened upon this one, so don't think i'm a genius or anything.

i spent a good 6-8 hours on this video today, and it was absolutely exhausting, but well worth it. it won't take that long next time, because quite a bit of it was troubleshooting my audio issues, which i think i've got pinned down pretty well now. i'm now using my usb microphone as a boom mic, which i got working very well for this video. the first and last scenes were 'test' scenes, and i had it too low and boosted a lot, which led to weirdness. the other scenes [the ones that were shot in my room] had the boom above me, which worked better, and i recorded them onto my laptop instead of my p.c. i think the settings i chose on there worked out for the better, because the audio was just phenomenal. couldn't ask for better from my equipment.

the days are ticking down until julie and johnny arrive, and i'm super excited. it's been a while since i've seen either of them, almost a year now, and it's just going to be great. we're taking a trip up to new york city next weekend, which is awesome, and hopefully we'll get lots of downtime to just chill and hang out and have some drinks and watch stuff and talk. and. lots of ands. but yeah, i have to clean up a bit tomorrow because the pastor is coming to our house, since ken and debbie are out of town. also need to do something about the whole 'door to our bedroom is completely off one of its hinges and doesn't close properly' thing. tomorrow, perhaps.

Jewne

working is just this thing, you know. this thing you do. and i did it today, too! go me. christin visited me at work, and that was quite wonderful. we had dinner, or rather i had dinner and she hung out with me while i ate delicious teriyaki chicken. side-note: i can't believe i got all of my homework done on monday night. still. i just can't. when i got home from work, after tucking christin in, i went about shortening my youtube queue and writing tomorrow's script. it's going to be great, and i'm pretty excited about this new format. i was getting sick of the old one, with all its pressure and frequency, but that was a good thing to bring me to the point where i'm at now. i'm ready to do this thing, and i'm doing it the right way. life is good.

Investment Of Character

today i spent way too long doing homework. i hope to not do that again in the near future. actually, i will likely do it again in the very near future, in an attempt to get the bulk of this class' work done all at once, since my sister and her fiancé [whose last name, ironically, is class] will be here during the next few weeks of my class. excitement! i worked a closing shift with rachael tonight, which was good but a little boring. we met our sales goals, which is also good. i counted lots of things. i'm good at counting things, actually, which makes sense considering i counted things for a living at anderson's seed company. for three years. sometimes i miss that place.

after completing my paper, which i worked on after work, i watched some youtube videos in a feeble attempt to reduce my monstrous queue to a reasonable and/or manageable level. i got it down to 76 videos from over 100 without deleting many videos that i didn't actually watch. that's satisfying enough, i think. and now, instead of sleeping, i'm messing around with after effects and trying to come up with a suitable cool-looking intro sequence for my new webshow and other little segments slash projects. i like having that sort of thing done beforehand.

i should really go to sleep, though, considering it's about 4:32 in the morning. i'm also downloading the current world of warcraft patch. not entirely sure why, since i don't really have any time to play. i'd like to, i just can't really fit it in between all of the other things i do. granted, now that i'm cutting down my youtube production schedule, i'll have a bit more time for things of that nature, but i probably won't get into it again for a while. i'd like to have 'a life' for a while, which is something i don't feel like i've had for a long time. anyway, it's bedtime. i'm going to get up in 8 hours, watch some more youtube, and go back to work. then i have two days off!

Heroismic

woke up, went to church, came home, watched a few videos, watched netflix with the wife, went to work meeting, came home, spent time with wife, went to sleep. now that we've got that out of the way, let's talk about schedules. the youtube schedule i set for myself at the beginning of this year, releasing a video every other weekday for an entire year, is a project i had high hopes for. it's also one i made before deciding what my channel would essentially be about, as well as before i made the decision to vastly improve my recording equipment and thus complicate my workflow. granted, these changes haven't really negatively impacted my ability to record, but they have made me more conscious of releasing bad or marginally good videos.

therefore, in the interest of releasing only the highest quality content i can provide, i've decided to quit my schedule and adopt a much more manageable one. i won't discuss the details just yet, but i will say that there will be at least one weekly video [a one-man webshow] and one monthly video [which has to do with literature]. the former will begin this week, hopefully, and the latter will begin next month, once i've had time to read the first book. i will also release videos as the ideas come to mind, basically the 'just chatting' videos where i rant at the camera or talk about one particular issue. you know, topical stuff. the weekly show will be formatted, with the intent of increasing my viewership. yep, i'm selling out early. get used to it. goodnight.

Gearhead

oh sweet, sweet saturday. the jewish sabbath, of course, in which man is meant to rest. but lo and behold, i must work this day and maketh a wage! i did. it was an 8-hour shift, but 11-7:30 doesn't look like 8 hours on paper, for some reason. it definitely felt like at least ten hours, but i made it! christin brought cheese logs for me and becky, which made things much better, though i had a kind of crappy lunch afterward, which sort of sullied things. blech. after work, i headed home to change my clothes and christin and i went to becky's place to hang out and watch netflix. on the way, christin got a hoagie from wawa [cravings] and i got two corn dogs [excitement] from the carnival down the street from becky's place.

it was awesome. i love corn dogs so much.

we watched a few episodes of grey's, but one of them wasn't working on the almighty netflixness. so we downloaded that while making becky watch the pilot episode of lost. we're trying to get her into it, because it's awesome and she's awesome and awesome people should watch awesome shows. anyway, yeah. she liked it. we watched the episode of grey's that we downloaded and now i'm back at the house. exciting day! not really, but it filled almost two whole paragraphs! is it sad that you can tell when i've been catching up on blogs by the fact that i give more and more detailed recaps of the day as the days go by?

that or, you know, you may have noticed that my facebook wall [where most of you likely are coming from] is plastered with like four networkedblogs posts in a row. i'm so obvious, what can i say? blech. i need to keep on this blog; i need to update daily, and i need to like it. i need to want to do it. i need to write more real things, interesting things, not just blather about my day. i need inspiration. i need to inspire myself to be inspired. does that make any sense? now instead of blathering, i'm just babbling. is there even a difference? are all these rhetorical questions annoying you as much as they're annoying me? i'm tired and i'm going to stop now. it's bedtime. church in the morning!

Fargot, North Dakoter

today was grueling, but highly enjoyable. got to hang with my two friends, justin and cody, in that order for most of the day. i left town at around 10am, got up to central pennsylvania at 1pm or so, and we hung out a bit while dealing with justin's video for the day. he's daily vlogging in june, you should watch him here. anyway, we ate lunch at a pretty okay pizza place, and headed back to the house to record our video. it's going to be amazing, and it'll come out on that channel i just linked on the 14th of june, which is super exciting. then cody got home, i met jaqueezy [don't ask] and we went for dinner at a bbq place that wasn't very good, took pictures in 'africa' and headed back.

that sounds less interesting than it actually was, but i'm probably doing it a disservice by speeding through it because i'm incredibly tired. i just drove three hours home, and the lack of sleep from last night and the night before [about 7 hours, tops, between both days] is really getting to me. i need sleep, but i work tomorrow at 11, so i can't get all that much of it, really. i think i may be making an announcement on my youtube channel on monday, but i'm not sure about it yet. maybe not for another couple weeks or so, we'll see. vagueness is my specialty.

Every Break

june second, two-thousand-eleven. weird. today i did things that were largely uninteresting, but i will wake up tomorrow and drive three hours to see friends and record videos with them. good times. speaking of videos, today i made this. don't watch it, it kind of sucks. well, maybe. i dunno. i'm not overly stoked about it, and it wasn't the most well thought-through or constructed video i've done. not by a long-shot. it's not that i'm not inspired, it's not that i'm not motivated, it's just that i don't have time to do what i want to do [or i don't 'make time' to]. granted, i'm a busy person, but i dunno. i'd rather release something half-baked than nothing at all.

maybe that's a flaw. i'm not sure.

as long as it keeps me working, i'd say it's probably positive. i spent a good deal of time working on this video, but all in post. the audio on this camera is kind of driving me insane, to tell you the truth. i think i got it sounding as best as i possibly can, but i'm still not very satisfied with it. maybe i need to mess with the settings some more. anyway, tomorrow will come early, and i am up late. i need to get some sleep!

Dumb, Found Dead

i just don't know. sometimes i just want to quit this blog and wait to see if anyone notices. i'm not needy or anything, but it seems like every time i get on here, i look at the comments tab and see nothing new. it just makes me wonder if i actually have readers or not. granted, that makes no difference [or at least i tell myself that], the readership level is not the point. but it does keep me motivated. that's why i want to quit to see if people will notice, ask about it, see how i'm doing. i think that maybe if i didn't blog what i was doing each day, or each week, people may ask me more often and try to interact on a personal level. that makes me want to quit, just to see.

but then my o.c.d. gets the best of me.

'cause i know i'd get tired of not blogging after a while and come back and want to do it again, and then i'd see this whole month or so of emptiness and either never come back or want to catch up and blog days upon days worth of drivel. nobody wants that. so you get this instead. you get me telling you that i want to stop, instead of me actually stopping. will it have the same effect? of course it won't. will it encourage people to maybe talk to me more or ask how i'm doing or care verbally? maybe, but probably not. i may be a pessimist, but it's almost always with good reason. people will get by with the bare minimum most of the time, and it takes effort and the capacity for extraordinary behavior to be a friend.

and that's probably why i don't have many friends.

State Your Topic

sick sick sick. our bbq party last night resulted in a nasty case of gastroenteritis. yay! but i did manage to get myself together and film this, which i'm proud of despite the fact that it wasn't what i really wanted to film today. that's okay, i had to do something low-impact since i did stay home from work and all. tomorrow i'm working a marathon shift from noon until closing, if i understood correctly, so that's a thing. hopefully i'm feeling better than i feel right now, but it seems the worst of it is behind me. pun intended. spent a lot of time in bed today, not a lot of interesting things to report. tried to work on schoolwork that is late, but just couldn't focus. time to return to bed. goodnight.

Tartelette

this weekend was gloriously unproductive, though i did manage to get my laundry done. christin and i also had the quintessential american memorial day barbeque, which was only a moderate failure. i didn't film, but i suppose i can do that in the morning or after work. not sure which it's gonna be, but it's much more likely that i will end up sleeping in rather than waking up early to film stuff. i have this episode scripted out, but i'm struggling to find the motivation to actually produce it. maybe i'm bored with this format already, and maybe i shouldn't have chosen to do it for an entire week. i may actually end it tomorrow, but i have an idea for thursday that fits perfectly. it may or may not be mind-blowing.

at this point, i wonder if my blog has retained any readership whatsoever. i've been late so often that i feel like now people just don't read anymore. maybe i shouldn't expect loyal readers to catch up with 4-5 entries at one time so quickly, or maybe people skip them. i can't do that, but that's just how my brain works. actually, i skipped several television series episodes, and now it's kind of making me crazy. i should probably fix that, but i just don't have the time. work tomorrow at 11, and it's 3am now. i guess that means i should get to bed so i can hopefully wake up and smell the filming.

Utah Educational Savings Plan

catching up. it's sunday, for realsies though. hopefully, this is the last recovery of failure for some time, but we'll see how that goes. i say that a lot. today, i slept in because my church alarm didn't go off, or maybe it did and i passed out again afterward. i really don't know at this point. what i do know is that i missed the service, and yeah. weird. but we had a good day of vegetation in front of the television, in which we did the same thing we did yesterday, except without the drinking and the chinese food [besides the leftovers]. good times.

tomorrow, i need to film for tuesday and thursday, though christin does have the day off and i'll want to hang with her. she may help me film, but i dunno. we'll see. we also have to do laundry, which i've been putting off for a while now. i also need to catch up on homework, which will be easier to do when i actually have the book for the class. silly textbooks and amazon's inability to notify me when my order has been canceled in a timely manner. blah. anyway, it's my last class. that's great. i'll be glad when it's over.

if i had won the youtube contest, i'd be on my way to chicago tomorrow. that's kind of a depressing thought, since i'm not going, but in the end, i'm sort of glad i'm not going. we couldn't afford it. speaking of things we can't afford, christin needs a new car soon. not sure how that's going to work itself out, but i sure hope it does. i need a new job, or for my current job to pay me enough. i also need to finish school so i can go back to full time without stressing out too much. anyone want to pay me to produce video? i'll do it cheap. ;-P i'm beyond tired, and i'm all melodrama'd out. goodnight.

Venus DeMirror

after work [which i left early], i picked up a case of corona and a handle of 100 proof captain morgan and headed home to my lovely wife. we spent the remainder of the evening drinking, eating awesome chinese food, eating over half a cake [single layer — we're not that fat], and watching netflix. yeah, it's grey's anatomy. what can i say? i'm a woman. i didn't know you could stuff that much drama into one single television program, but yeah. you can. we watched, like, half a season tonight. tomorrow's prognosis: the same thing. and it's gonna be great. tonight was a great night in, and i wouldn't trade it for the world. i love my wife.

Worrywart

i never knew that word was spelled with an 'a' until right now. interesting. today i made a thing, and that thing is this. you should probably check it out. tonight, i will be spending time with the wife after our super-exciting meeting of the minds at the workplace, and tomorrow, i will be working a weird shift. 1-8 or something, on a saturday. i hope it's busy. anyway, today was not busy and quite uninteresting, with the exception of the bit of time i got to spend filming when i got home. it was intense, and i came up with some good stuff off-the-cuff. good to know that i can still improvise decently, even with all this new gear.

the adjustment to real hd and an awesome camera/lighting setup is slow, but steady. i'm liking it, and i'm up to the challenge, but i really do put a lot more time into it. i also feel like, as my values increase production-wise, and as my content stays level or appreciates, my viewership remains somewhat stagnant. i don't really know what to do to push myself up. some of my friends are trying to help, that's for sure, but i just feel mediocre. i don't like feeling mediocre. i want to be great. i want to make videos that people say 'everyone needs to see this.' or at least, videos that people say 'so-and-so needs to see this.' i'd settle for that.

Xena: Warrior Princeps

instead of reading this blog, which may be updated daily but contains little to no real content, i would advise that you check out my friend kelly's blog, which can be found here. she tells some great stories about growing up, reflecting, and motherhood. i tell you about my day, if i remember to write about it that day. this day, i did not. well, i did remember, but i didn't actually write anything because i was either too busy/tired at the end of the day to write anything, or i decided not to do it. likely a combination of both, really. so yeah. check out her blog, it's good. highly interesting and entertaining, and i recommend it.

Yodelheim

so this is a thing i did today. been hard at work with the videos, spent a lot of time on this one today, though not as long as i would've liked. i probably could've gotten the audio sounding a bit better. granted, i think it was good times railroad. i still can't remember why i say that, but i think i got it from josh. i miss josh. i should write him an e-mail or get his number and call him and catch up some time. i probably won't, but i should. he's a good guy, or at least, i think he is. he was. he's good people. i'm rambling. end of paragraph.

this week has been all about going, going, going, non-stop, insanity. i finished my second-to-last class ever for my b.a. and that's exciting. i got a 100% in the class, aced the final of course, and i just feel really proud of myself. gotta finish strong, can't mess up the last one. pressure's on! well, not really, it's the last class. it can't be that hard. i've had senioritis since three classes ago, so this is not what i want to be thinking about right now. how about we think about the fact that my sister is coming in just over two weeks! that's exciting times. woot!

Zoobiliee Zoo?

it took me a few seconds too long to find out the proper spelling of the words i wanted to use for this title. that bothers me. i must be slipping in my old age. well, as if you couldn't tell already, i'm catching up on my blogging. it's been a few days too many, and i've been working way too hard on this show that i'm doing on my youtube channel. here's the first video, and i'll link the second on the day that i actually made it, since this is supposedly tuesday. oh yeah, happy tuesday! good times. i worked this day, and i was excited because i had the next two days off. yep. that'll do, pig.

Arlington, VA

ever feel like you're just way too far behind? i do. right now. that's what i feel like. i remember when i was a kid, and by kid i mean teenager, and i would get so excited whenever i'd see stuff with the number '311' in it. like getting that number for my to-go food order, or having a total come up to $3.11, or anything like that. i would get so excited, because 311 was my favorite band at the time. i don't think i'd classify them as my favorite anymore, but the band will always hold a special place in my heart because of the time i spent as a huge fan of the band.

it's not even the music so much anymore, though i could still recite nearly all of their songs, but it's the nostalgia associated with them at this point. i saw the number show up today at taco bell, when i was picking up my order, and i thought about it. the thing i thought about was how, regardless of the fact that it no longer gives me that feeling of awesomeness every time i read it, it still affects me. the way that it affects me is strange and empty, because what i'm feeling is the reminder that this experience isn't part of my life anymore. things change. people change, people grow up. people move on, people start again.

Brawltimore

slept in today. way in. rested a lot during the day and thought about what to write for my second to last final paper of my undergraduate career, though my wife surely assumed i was just being lazy. actually, i know she did, because she told me that when she went to bed tonight. anyway, the paper is indeed done, and a day early at that! the reasoning behind this has to do with the fact that i have to close tomorrow night [sad times] as well as upload a video in the daytime [hooray!], the combination of which leaves little time for paper writing. this has effectively ruined my perfect streak of procrastination, and for the first time at ashford, i've turned a paper in before it was due.

not sure how i feel about that, actually.

so now i'm trolling facebook, watching youtube videos, and scripting out tomorrow's video in hopes that i can get it rolled out before i leave for work at 1:40pm. granted, i probably won't finish editing and upload the video until after work, but one can dream. i just hope i budget enough time to get all the filming done without compromising on length or quality, like i feel i did with my last video. i don't know why, but i'm feeling self-conscious about that video. it's not like it got negative reviews, or people didn't comment, or anything like that... it's just that i felt like it was really good and deserving of heavy sharing, but that didn't materialize. oh well, can't win them all, i guess.

next week's videos will be done in the style of a variety show, with segments and all. i'm very excited about that. the subject matter will be mostly english-based, with a few outliers and just outright bizarre/humor situations. it's mostly about exploring the format and trying to work the educational aspects into a natural flow of a television program, so i hope i can accomplish that at the very least. i think it'll be fine. this week, i will be starting my last class at ashford. that's very exciting to me. what am i going to do with my spare time when school is over? what a silly question that is. goodnight, sports racers. enjoy your burrito.

Crawdaddy

well, it's saturday the 21st and i guess the rapture didn't really happen. that's a big shocker, eh? wonder what camping is going to say. it looks like they're saying he's holed up in his house and not saying anything. i wonder if he's trying to hide and pretend like he was the only one that got raptured or something. that would actually be pretty funny, i think. lol. whatever. i'm just glad all the hype and nonsense is over, and atheists can get back to just hating God instead of hating on christians in general for the beliefs of one whackjob and his followers.

today was a long day. got up at 8, which is super early for me, and headed in to open the store by 9am, our new opening time. today was slow, especially for a saturday, but being there until 5:30pm and the slowness really took its toll. nikkie came in a few hours later than she was scheduled, so i was by myself for those two hours and didn't get a lunch break until like 2pm. that was kind of lame, but honestly, the day would've felt so much longer if i had taken it earlier. so i'm kind of grateful for it, actually. i had arby's for lunch, which was a mistake, but i think that goes without saying, really. i'm thinking heartburn!

after work, i headed home, where christin and i got to chill with mike and katie [the newlyweds] upstairs. they brought two not-so-little puppies that were found on her dad's farm. they're underfed and ridden with ticks and fleas, so they looked like hell, but they were super cute even despite that. took a bunch of pictures of them, but i'm way too tired to upload any of them right now, so yeah. if you're friends with me on facebook, look them up tomorrow or something. i have a bunch of pics i'm meant to post, but i've been busy. we went to applebee's tonight to hang with becky, which was fun. just got back and now it's way past my bedtime. i just felt like i needed to catch up on blogging before i hit the sack. which i have done. goodnight.

Deerhooves (Plural)

so, according to the whackjob harold camping, tomorrow is the rapture or something. which i don't really believe in, so whatever, but people are being weird and freaking out on twitter and facebook and such. some of the jokes are funny, but it's mostly just annoying to me. it really does go to show how shocked people are going to be when the world actually does end, which it surely will someday. but going out and predicting it and spending millions of dollars to promote said prediction and 'warn people' about it... that's just stupid. come on, people, learn your lesson.

anyway, yeah. dumb. so today i worked for quite a while and took some nice pictures while i was there. a few pictures, at least. worked with becky and nikkie closing, which was interesting. we had a weird evening. lots of changes are happening in the store, some good and some just weird, but for the most part things seem to be going forward pretty smoothly. i got some homework done, and i can't believe my final is due in three days. i should probably write it, huh? well, i've got the research and outline done, all i really need to do is 'write' it, which is the easiest step. that's okay. time to sleep for a short while, then wake up super early to work again.

Everybody Dance Now

today i made this. i kind of like the way it turned out, sort of like a half-sketch, half-vlog thing. the vlog part at the end is really short, but i think the point was made. i could've made the whole thing a vlog, or the whole thing sketch [the latter of which was the original plan], but i thought the hybrid approach was more interesting. i wanted to try doing a multi-angle sketch with no characters, and this idea popped into my head last night, so i did it. it came out well, though the color correction and audio sync were a bit of an issue. the microphone on this camera really is as bad as matt said it was. maybe worse, actually. oh well. sleepy time.

Fran Drescher's Dracula

work work. done building ship! today i opened the store, which was an interesting experience to say the least. the investors came yesterday and pretty much went bananas on the kiosk, changing policies and ripping off sneeze guards. weird, but probably good. i worked with tibet all day, which is always fun, but it's sad now that i know she's quitting soon. she got a job at a catering company that pays more, which is good for her, but it's no fun that we won't be working together anymore. we'll always have memories, and we'll hang out, i'm sure. harry potter!

speaking of harry potter, christin priced her tattoo today and it looks like it's going to be pretty cheap to get both of them done. about $210 for two pieces, both with color. mad cheap, yo. tonight, after christin went to sleep, i attempted to write a script for tomorrow's video, but i think what i came up with in trying too hard to come up with a topic is going to be pretty hilarious. we'll see if it plays out the way i'm hoping. intrigued? i sure hope so! yep. watched some youtube, ate some potstickers. life isn't perfect, but i can't complain. i close tomorrow. blah. goodnight.

Gopher Smell

ahh, content. herein i shall produce thee. clicketh! so yeah, that was a thing. back to work tomorrow morning, which will not be exciting. tonight i worked on homework mostly, which is why i'm up way too late and will likely forget to finish writing this and post it [good guess], so there's that. we had our weekly meeting with pastor taylor at the fields' place, which was quite wonderful. we talked about all sorts of topics, from harold camping to the importance of focusing first on the holiness of God before anything else. interesting stuff, and we learned a lot. we ate stouffer's lasagna, which was surprisingly delicious. it was a good day, but i'm making it sound boring now. yeah... that's all i've got.

He Is Lemming

it's monday, monday, gotta get down on monday. i pre-recorded tomorrow's video today and it looks fantastic. the quality is just... it's mind-blowing. compared to my old videos, these new ones will just look so amazing. i'll include a screencap of one of my favorite parts of the video, just so you can see the clarity. quite phenomenal. i got the adapters/holders for my lights today, as well as my second monitor, so that's a thing. i managed to work a way to get both softboxes attached to one boom microphone stand, though it's a bit ghetto. i'll need to buy a second stand soon to get something i can adjust a little better, but it works for now.

speaking of things i got today, i was pleasantly surprised when i went to the mail [i'm expecting a stipend check from my financial aid] and found a refund check from the i.r.s.! apparently it took so long for them to process our return because they somehow ended up sending us a paper check instead of electronic direct deposit. weird. i put in all of my bank information and stuff, you'd think they would default to the easier method of payment. maybe i entered something wrong and it didn't go through or something. no idea.

anyway, today was great. spent the rest of the evening cooking my wife spaghetti, which was wonderful, and we watched the last episode of community season 2 together. amazing. i started downloading the last two big bang theory episodes so we can watch the finale on thursday on actual t.v., which is something we rarely do, but the internet was hating on me. for some reason, our connection has been terribly slow all night, but really more like off-and-on slowness. sometimes it goes back to normal for a short time unexpectedly. weird. anyway, it's time to get some shut-eye. long day of doing many interesting things tomorrow!

Indescriptably Drastic

wow. today was a blur. got up a bit early and met cody and justin, who were parked [understandably] upstairs at lindsay's house. let them in and said hello, but then it was straight off to church! it was a long service today, or maybe it just felt that way because there was no piano. that always makes some parts of the service a bit strange. like the singing. anyway, i really enjoyed the time, and the Lord's supper is always wonderful to partake of. i don't think i've had it in a long while now, considering our attendance has been so spotty. no good.

the message was on james 1:19-20, about dealing with our tongues and being swift to hear slash slow to speak. this is something i really need to learn and process and handle in my everyday life. justin could related as a reporter, and cody took it very much to heart. we're a lot alike in many ways, even some of our downfalls. it's interesting, now, reflecting upon how our friendship has grown from me trolling his youtube videos to us being great friends. look at me, getting all sentimental and such.

anyway, i'll spare the details on the trip to d.c., but i'll say that we met up with some other youtubers [ev and crystal and crys' sister, cheryl] and had dinner at a fancy schmancy restaurant. it was like asian/spanish fusion. everyone enjoyed their food but me, but that's really no surprise. i'm too picky for fine dining, and my tandoori chicken did not taste like any indian food i had ever eaten in my life. blech. but it was a fun time, and that's what counts. to contrast, after that, i had probably the best frozen yogurt i've eaten in years at a place called fro-zen-yo. we enjoyed that as we walked to the national mall and hung out at some monuments after dark.

if you're friends with me on facebook, there's a photo album of the events here, for your viewing pleasure. if you're not friends with me on facebook... why not? anyway, it was a fantastic day, and it was sad to say goodbye, but we'll likely see one another soon enough. after all, cody and justin only live about three hours away in central pennsylvania, so i'll probably be taking a trip up there some time in the near future. as for now, it's definitely time for some rest, followed by a likely lovely two days off. new stuff tomorrow, hopefully!

Jerksalot Of Camelot

ahh, work. what's to say of you? not much, if you ask me. which you didn't. so i won't even say not much. i will say not anything. this morning was spent doing not much of anything, though i did get up at a reasonable hour today. tonight at work, we were going to have a great night, but it ended up being not-so-wonderful. tibet didn't come, so it was just me and becky, and we didn't get our big nugget tray from chick-fil-a for dinner. sad times! christin and i got in an argument, and i had a big, bad plate from sbarro for dinner. it was terrible.

but i got home and played around with my camera a bit, trying out settings and lighting and such. tomorrow will be an action-packed day of adventure, as i'll be heading out to d.c. with some friends from youtube. that'll be good. but for now, there's nothing really going on tonight. i was going to attempt to get to bed at a decent hour, but i ended up cleaning up the house [since we're having visitors] and getting all that squared away. but now it's far too late, so it's time for bed.

Kerning

it's friday! i got my new stuff today. excitement! new computer, much faster than my old one by a factor of, like, thousands. maybe not that much, but it's pretty exponentially better than the old thinger. dinger. majigger. i got one out of two monitors and the computer itself, as well as a 32gb memory card for the new camera... which i bought afterward! best buy was out of them, i was misled by the website. but i got it at hhgregg, and honestly, i'm kind of glad i did. i ended up getting a 3-year 'oops' plan that basically allows me to replace the camera/lens if anything happens. and the best part is that they give me the newest version of whichever one. good times.

oh, i posted this video today. check it!

after i got everything and set up the new p.c., i recorded a little bit to see what the camera can do. without the lights, there isn't a whole lot i could do in the house, but i got a taste of what good depth of field looks like in a viewfinder. after that, i headed out to see christin at work and bid farewell [for a short time] to judy [a friend of ours], who is getting shipped off to russia soon. did some homework while i was there, and we headed to applebee's afterward for drinks and late dinner with becky. that was fun! i actually took some video and edited it when i got home. this was the result. bedtime.

Leaving You Alone

that's right, you guessed it. more filler! i like pie. really, i do. actually, i like cake better, but pie is quite delicious. at the time of posting this blog, i'm watching this, which you should watch too. it's my friend justin's new band, sea breezes. they're good. it's like his old band, age sixteen, procreated with a shoegaze group and had this band as a child. i like it a lot, and i look forward to a proper release. wish the songs were longer, though. good times. okay, i think this paragraph is long enough. i hate posting these filler blogs. blah. wish i could remember thursday.

Mariachi Sucker

this is a filler post, because i was unable to blog this day and it's too far beyond the day. i have no idea what i did! i'm a bit nuts, so i can't stand there not being something posted for this day, as well as the next day, so i'm posting this nonsense here. don't read this. it's not interesting. there s nothing of value. actually, i do remember that on this day, i posted this video. you could always go watch that, if you're not doing anything else. if you've already seen it, or aren't interested, just move on to the next day. actually, skip tomorrow too, because it will be more filler. good day!

Nearslighted

i accomplished many things today, but only a few of them were things i had set out to do. many of the things i had set out to do were not accomplished, as i was seriously impeded by lack of creative energy. couldn't write a good set of lyrics and a song structure to save my life. i had a song stuck in my head [which i won't mention, because it's embarassing], and usually the way for me to get it out is to listen to it way too many times. i did that. it didn't work. i listened to it on my way to and from the gym, which was nice to go to, but yeah. didn't work.

earlier in the day, i went and visited the lovely wife at work. she pulled a double today, so i'm sure she's ridiculously tired. seemed like it, since when she came home she immediately plopped down on the bed and nearly fell asleep before i could even rub her feet! so yeah, hanging with carter and her for a few hours around lunchtime was cool. came back to the house with the intent of writing, recording, and filming the song/video for tomorrow, but got none of that done. i did record what i had intended to be friday's video [will end up being wednesday's — no song this week], so that's good. but most of the time was spent being uninspired and chatting.

tonight, i priced computers and cameras. it looks like i'll be picking up a well-priced gateway i7 number from a wholesaler, because honestly it's cheaper than buying the components and putting it together myself, plus i get the added bonus of a warranty and legit operating system. i also found two pretty nice 23" acer led monitors for under $300, so that's good. if the wife approves the deal, i'll be buying the computer and camera as an early graduation present for myself. kind of lame, i know, but i don't want to ask people for money. i want to make good videos and sell them real products. would help to get over the writer's block first, though. perhaps new gear will bring new drive/inspiration.

Octopus Complex

so today at work, becky and tibet bought a party platter of nuggets to share [with lego man] for lunch. when the people at chick-fil-a asked how many people were in the party, tibet responded quite enthusiastically with, 'two!' that made me laugh. i made this before i headed off to work, and edited it when i got home. i'm pretty satisfied with it. the funny thing is, in the beginning of the video i play with the macro function [to simulate nervously adjusting focus á la luke conard], and i was afraid that i had accidentally left it on macro for the remainder of the video.

i didn't. that was a relief.

yeah, my wife called me at work to inform me that the switch was 'on the mountain,' which was nice of her to do. speaking of work, i had a pretty good time. me and flanda chilled, it wasn't busy at all, so we didn't do a whole lot of anything besides clean. we cleaned a lot... i have tomorrow off, then two days of opening before a free friday [w00t!] and a saturday of closing. hooray for decent work schedules! i have no idea what next week is going to be like, but i hope it will enable me to play with my new camera if i end up ordering it this week. excitement!

Permeate

too late again. too much on my mind. too much food in my belly today. too much salt consumed. tomorrow i close the shop, today i went to church. i'm a member of the orthodox presbyterian church now, which is good news. tomorrow i'll film and produce a video, and maybe it will be good and enjoyable and people will like it and share it around the internets and i will enjoy that. or it will be not good and the opposite will happen. who knows? not me. now it's time for sleep with hopes that i don't sleep too long. tomorrow is swiftly approaching. goodnight.

QI

i've said it before, and i'll say it again: opening the day after you close should be illegal. it's always no fun, even if you work with awesome people [which i did]. on top of that, i got three hours or less sleep last night, and today is the day before mother's day. granted, i did have a lot of fun at work and the time went really fast because we were busy, but i was really tired by the time i got off. i had a pretzel from auntie anne's after work, which i bought with my tip money, and it was good... but not as good as the amish market. blah.

unfair comparison, really.

so i came home and spent some time with the wife. we went out to applebee's for her second day in a row, and got some delicious food, then headed home to watch movies. we watched 'easy a' [love that movie. emma stone and amanda bynes ftw!] and 'dead alive.' holy crap. i hadn't ever seen the latter before, but it was totally ridiculous. blood-and-guts b-movie horror status. i'd heard the name many times, but never watched it. now i need to see 'bad taste' to complete the peter-jackson-bad-horror-flick experience. but for now, it's bedtime. goodnight, sirs and madams!

Remember All That

ahh, friday. i closed up shop tonight and headed back home to work on excessive amounts of late homework that took way too long. meanwhile, my wife went out to applebee's with her friends and my co-worker/friend becky. boo them! well, boo homework for preventing me from going out with them. it's okay, i got everything done and that's good news. anyway, this class is good. i've got a 100% in it, despite the fact that i thought it was going to be way harder than my previous classes. good to know that i'm still good enough at school and research and study that i can pass a class that is actually somewhat challenging.

i'm also learning a lot in this class, a lot of it which is dispelling some pretty blissful ignorance. now that i think about it, a lot of my education throughout this degree program has done that. i know a lot more about the american education system, especially when displayed in the context of the global position and outlook on bilingualism [read: they support it, we don't] and it's pretty easy to get depressed and disillusioned. it almost makes me want to quit, but at the same time, it makes me want to change things that much more. i hope that by making educational resources aimed in the right direction and encouraging the right things, i can make a difference. hopefully i'm not just being idealistic.

Scram, Maggot!

no work again. instead, i stayed home and made this, which is a parody of this. you should watch both, but if you only watch mine, you'll still find it humorous. because it is. i didn't plan to do this video, but the other night on tinychat, cody, justin and i came up with the idea to rewrite the video to be about myspace instead of youtube while illustrating some of the absurdities of the original video. i think it worked out pretty well, and the response has been pretty phenomenal. love it. that is enough for today, i'm a tired monkey. goodnight.

Texas Tea

a.k.a. black gold? sure! i worked today, but it was only between 2pm-8pm. weird. oh, i didn't mention in yesterday's blog entry that i walked a lot and did the laundry. while the latter is not important [though it provided a means for the former], the former is kind of important. see, i need to exercise more, because i am getting what the french call 'le fat.' i know, i know, that's not really what the french call it, but it's what i call it to make something somewhat serious sound funny. i eat like hell, and i drink too much soda, and i am just generally a bad person in that department. that changes, starting today.

instead of pepsi, i'll be filling my massive, 44oz. cup with unsweetened iced tea, because it tricks me into thinking that i'm drinking something delicious in a way that just drinking water doesn't. the flavor has to be there, or i won't 'want' to drink it. yum. tea. anyway, i'm trying to eat a bit healthier as well, and working out is a gradual thing for me. i walked for about an hour yesterday, and tomorrow i'll be heading to the gym because it's my day off. i'm also going to film a video! it's going to be awesome, as long as i don't mess it up. i have a great idea, courtesy of justin strawser a.k.a. thejealousone a.k.a. justtubed. he's awesome btw.

anyway, more about today! i got to work with tibet and becky, which was pretty epic. we talked a lot and did stupid things and said stupid things. we decided that we need to start making some youtube videos and become famous there so we don't end up selling nail kits. long story. don't ask. maybe i'll explain it some time soon, but i doubt it. i got the results from my paper that i wrote on monday night [which i didn't tell you guys about], and i got a 100% on that. so i've got a 100% in the class so far, which is hilarious to me because i thought this class was going to be really hard and involved. it's not that way, really, i just have to pay a bit more attention and do a bit more research/study on it.

in other words, i spend 5 hours per week on it instead of 2.

when i got home from work, christin and i watched an episode of the cosby show together [she is almost through season five, which is impressive even for her] and once she went to bed, i watched a lot of youtube videos and chatted with friends on skype. my queue is down to 46 now, including a lot of videos that were posted today and a few that i found on facebook and twitter. i'm plugging away here, really, i am. i'll get caught up soon enough, then i'll have nothing to do but be productive and stuff. who wants to do that?!?!? well, maybe then i'll actually finish my album and website. ha! i should... probably prioritize those things, though.

Underapprehended

having a day off after only one day of being back to work from vacation rules. wow, that was a confusing sentence. anyway, today i made this, which is a response to this. you should watch the second link first. i think it came out pretty good. i like using buford as a sarcastic rhetorical device to illustrate the lack of common sense present in the world today. i sort of made that video on a whim, instead of the other video i was going to make today [talking about losing the contest] which i was going to make instead of the other video i was going to make today [with chinese me]. whew! full of confusion today.

i spent a long while last night [read: tomorrow] catching up on blogs, and i did everything but this one, so i'll be posting two tomorrow. i mean right now. i'm even confusing myself now! i need to type something non-confusing into this here box in order to make myself feel centered. hello. my name is buel burton newman the fourth. i like jellybeans. excellent! not confusing at all. and who doesn't like jellybeans, really? now i'm sitting here wondering if jellybeans is actually a word, or if it's meant to be two separate words. chrome apparently thinks it's one, so we'll go with that.

most of tonight was spent on tinychat with my friends cory and justin, as well as a bunch of other people that i don't really know that well from the internets. it was fun. i met a few people, but when more people started joining and going on camera, it just got overwhelming and weird. so i kind of tuned out for a while, then just left to work on clearing out that good 'ole youtube queue. i've got that massive queue down to something like 60 or so, including videos that have come out today, so i think i'm doing okay. too many subscriptions still, methinks.

speaking of which, i unsubscribed from like 20-30 people today, because i've realized that i can't possibly continue to watch this many people, and my subscription count was just too high. so now i'm under 150, which is good, and i got rid of some people that never made videos and others that just made stuff i didn't like. others included some big youtubers that i just don't care about that much, so i just dumped 'em. meh. they don't need me. i hope i never get to the point where i am regarded as expendable by people, though. that would be just really sad. i won't take it to heart, though. time for bed, as i am up way too late. goodnight.