Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 135)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we get invaded, get help and get dressed up.

• First, on Tested, Adam Savage gets rid of a Zeebler and we get to look at Marty Cooper's animation.
• Next, The Fruity Ukuladies get by with a little help from their friends.
• Finally, Dodger walks through all the links between cosplay and theatre and argues that theatre and cosplay are two fields that should be going hand in hand.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 133)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we get excited and watch Dodger build a table.

• We've seen Dodger build a couple of things in the past, but this time she decided to go big and built a table out of a pallet and wood burned the logo from Monster Hunter Tri into top. 
• The first video is focused on building the table top out of an old pallet.
• Next they age steel pipe to make the legs out of.
• Then it's time to burn the tabletop with the logo. (Over head projectors are your friends!)
• Finally, It's time to build the table all together.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 74)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we virtually attend a very geeky concert.

• First, Mr. Alec Hamilton sings us a song of the struggles of the chemist and his fondest love. 
• Next, lonlonjp provides an interlude, playing the Chrono Trigger Main Theme.
• Finally, Random Encounters and Dodger play us out with The Eevee Song. 

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 55)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, things are adorable, things are triumphant and things are sad. Also we've wrapped around back to that point I was doing Cool Things. (I gave that up, but still kinda keep the tradition going on twitter.)

• This volume starts with the introduction of Mr. Charlie McDonnell's Blippid Book. What's a Blippid Book? Well you'll just have to watch to find out, won't you! But you can rest assured Charlie was just as adorable when he was one as he is now.
• Next, Dodger tackles "They Bleed Pixels" which is a super unforgiving, but awesome looking platform. She never finished the game, but I really liked watching all the videos in this series since there's a lot of triumph when she beats the super hard parts. I also really like the way the wall jumps work in this game.
• Finally we have a memorial Coffee Time vlog by Dodger for her Papa, who sounds like a pretty amazing guy.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 31)

This volume of my favourite YouTube videos is pretty wide ranging including some video game music, some intelligent thinking about movies and some thoughts on YouTube itself.

• First in this volume we have a video of an original song "Guild Ho" from Dodger. The video feels a bit rough to me, but I especially love the enthusiasm in this.
• The second is a cover of "Terra's Theme" from Final Fantasy VI by Laura Shigihara and GBritaney. This is haunting and beautiful and really worth a listen.
• Next is an incredible video from Belated Media, in which he breaks down and rebuilds Star Wars Episode 1. I think his analysis is right on and that the movie he describes would have been significantly better (and not in the way that two hours of staring at a star field might also have been better, I mean significantly).
• Next Mr. Charlie McDonnall does a very cool real-life time attack of the landmarks of London. Cool video and good memories.
• Finally SMPFilms does his best to figure out what a YouTuber actually does.

Blog: Favorite YouTube Videos (Volume 28)

This volume of my favorite YouTube videos is a mix of heartfeltness and Zelda. Apparently this is how  new years 2012 went.

• The first video in this volume is from Hank Green reflecting on the death of his grandfather. Heartfelt. (Also QI is great.)
• The next video is from Red Ash Mason and he is slowly recreating all of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time in Minecraft, and it's pretty impressive. He's a bit quiet at the beginning  but if you want to take a look at a crazy project, this might be an interesting one.
• The third video is from Katers17, introducing a new class in Maple Story. (Well sort of).
• Next up is a vlog from Katers, where she and Corey finally admit that they've fallen in love. It's also pretty heartfelt, in the midst of a lot of stress (as life has).
• The last video in this volume is from Rawm, and I'm pretty sure that I watched it because Dodger plays Navi in it (I'm surprised I've been watching Dodger's videos this long). It's not exactly a favorite, but it certainly grows on you, and the visuals are also pretty amazing. 

Blog : Cool Things on September 14, 2012

I'm starting a new series of posts on the blog side where I'm going to mention some of the cool things I've run across. I hope this is roughly weekly, but the blog schedule has to flex to the actually being a student schedule.

This first edition is mostly things from youtube, where I'm a little better oganized about keeping track of cool things (and you don't have to worry there's at least a year's worth of favorite YouTube videos before I have to do anything there). In the future I will hopefully be keeping track of all the cool things.

Videos

Let's start then with the inimitable Dodger, who has started a let's play series of the game They Bleed Pixels. The style of the game is pretty cool, I especially like the character's pose as she jumps, and how reactive the game looks. It looks like it can become incredibly frustrating so I'm just as happy to let someone else play. Dodger's Let's Play style is enjoyable, she's actually good at games, and makes for great back ground listening. I also appreciate how she goes back at the end of the prologue video to pick up the collectables she missed. Check out the following episodes too, unfortunately there isn't a playlist of them yet.

Another cool video I found this week is Karen Kavett's video on how she created a Doctor Who Guess Who set. She's pretty inspirational on the getting excited and making things front and she makes some pretty cool things. The video features the music from Chameleon Circuit.

The last video this week is the 1000th video from the vlogbrothers (well, technically the 1001st). It's pretty cool all the things that have come together over the last five years. DFTBA.

Games

This week I've also been playing (a bit to my chagrin) Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a Dark Lord, a downloadable title by Square-Enix on the Wii. This game is a pretty cheesy tower defense game (in which you have to defend your tower ... rather than use the tower for defense). The concept is a little weird/j-rpg the mechanics are a bit simple (and sometimes frustrating) but for some reason this is a hell of a lot of fun.

Yeah, that's what it looks like ... (via GameFAQs) 

Podcasts

I've recently run across the not-at-all new Film Sack from the Frog Pants Network. In which Scott Johnson, Brian Dunaway, Randy Jordan and Brian Ibbot discuss a movie each week, usually a B from a while ago and see how it feels, if it holds up and whether people should actually be interested. Despite not being much of a movie buff myself listening to these four guys talk about films is really fun and the kind of thing you can put on in the background while getting things done. I've started listening both to the oldest episode and going forward and the newest one going backward and we'll see what happens when the film sack trains collide.

On a related note, Film Sack's cousin podcast Autopilot is preparing for it's second season. This podcast (put together by Scott Johnson and Tom Merritt) takes a look at the pilots of television shows and is informative and entertaining. They released the first season earlier this year, and decided to fun the second season through Kickstarter (rather than through sponsorships). I enjoyed the first season enough to get on board to give them a kick.

Wrap-up

I'd like to thank my friend Daley for his bump to the blog earlier this week. He runs his blog at lingwhatics.ca and keeps a good eye on the world both there and on his twitter.

And finally, although I'm sure everyone's had enough gangnam style, here's the crew of Weekend Confirmed getting overwhelmed by the spirit of ... dance ...