Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 87)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we check for the edges of the world, the edges of our hearts and think the very deepest of very tired thoughts.

• Ever wonder if the universe was a simulation? Well, keep your eye out for the edges... as Mr. Safety demonstrates here.
• Next, Cory (Mr. Safety) hangs out with his niece and gives us all the warm fuzzies!
• Finally, Hank Green is very tired, but he has thought thoughts. 

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 70)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos, we solve all of our problems, find some new ones and then look for answers in orbit!

• First, Hank, teaches us the 25 most important life hacks from Reddit. (Start keeping those good memories for next new years now!)
• Moving sucks. Cory, Mr. Safety, Williams reminds you to lift with your knees and to always think with portals!
• Finally, if you ever wanted to know if you can spin yourself while weightless then Destin from Smarter Everyday has your answer along with some help from on high.

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 47)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos we get a little frisky, hurt our brains with physics and resolve our cliff hanger from the last volume.

• First in this volume. Ninja Porn. Didn't expect that did you? Also that seems like better music than most porn gets ... I'm just saying. (From SMPFilms)
• It also turns out that the Universe is Weird. As you might have noticed if you've ever spent any time listening to Hank Green.
• And finally: Did Nathalie rescue Jack? Did Jack learn his lesson? Is Batman AWESOME? Pomplamoose resolves your tension! At this Bat Time in this Bat Volume!

Blog: Favourite YouTube Videos (Volume 39)

In this volume of my favourite YouTube videos we get musical, beautiful and designy.

• First, Hank sings to us about the Subway where he used to go (and then lays down the facts about advertising).
• Then we have a live version of Watsky's 4am, one of my favourite's of his songs. 
• Next Cory Williams flies us beautifully over his hometown.
• Then Karen Kavett shows us what she's been up to when it comes to interior design.
• Finally we end on a lip dub from Meekakitty, which combined with Hank's video above might be the best indication of the state of music in the summer of 2012. (Also Tessa's crazy-eyes really sell this video.)

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: Favorite YouTube Videos (Volume 26)

This volume of my favorite YouTube videos is a bit of a testament to the cool things people can make.

• So have I mentioned that George Watsky is a pretty boss poet?
• Have you ever considered building an economy based on things you can cut with a sword? It's worth thinking about. Also Jayne!Hank and Kaylee!Katherine is pretty damn adorable. 
• The next video is another from Fruity Ukuladies, furthering my belief that is possible to make anything better through the power of covers. 
• Sometimes an inside joke just has to go to it's logical conclusion. Here we see Corey and Katers finishing this one off.
• Finally we see the ways in which certain video games could have been significantly faster. If you're interested you can see some of the filming in Kater's blog.

Blog: Favorite YouTube Videos (Volume 25)

This volume of my favorite YouTube videos is musical, adventurous, strange and sciencey.

• The first video in this volume is from the FruityUkuladies and is there cover of Israel Kamakawiwoʻole's version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow". 
• The next video in this volume is KT Tunstall covering the Jackson 5's "I want you Back".
• Next is a video from Katers17, going adventuring in a hole in England. Watching this video I was reminded of the story of how Shigeru Miyamoto conceived "The Legend of Zelda" based on exploring the woods near his house as a child. 
• Then we see Corey "Mr. Safety" and Katers demonstrating a reversal of an important life lesson.
• Finally, we end on Mr. Charlie McDonnell talking stars.

Blog: Cool Things on September 28

This week has been pretty quiet, mostly due to me having things to do in the "real world" Either way I still found a couple of things that are pretty cool this week.

Podcasts

Recently the Nerdist Podcast interviewed Henry Rollins (Listen to it). I happened to listen to it this week and thought it was really worth listening to. Rollins is, as always, incredibly insightful and also passionate about some very interesting things (which is not to say that everyone needs to be passionate about Finnish noise metal, but it's good to see someone who is genuinely passionate about things). The Nerdist crew is also interesting in this one since Jonah and "Nerdtern" Kyle are also big music heads.

The Nerdist Podcast, may involve ... long snowflakes?

Flash Games

Sometimes you just want a game that you kick off and then it plays itself (or at least I do ... in fact I may be the laziest gamer ever). Other times you want to fill the world with zombies. For times when you want to do both (with nice pixel graphics) there's Infectonator II, by Toge Productions. In this game you play the role of the zombie virus crafting the perfect zombies to wipe out the world. You gain money from the people your zombies eat and use that to make your zombies better and better. The humans meanwhile will bring in better opposition to bring you down so you'll need to keep getting better. I haven't played a lot yet, but I really enjoyed the first one and so far this seems like a sequel that leaves the good parts in and improves on the irritating bits.

It's cold being a zombie sometimes. (via Toge Productions blog)

Then there are the times where you just want to command an army of Monkeys to pop every balloon in the world. For times like those there's Bloons Tower Defense 5 by Ninja Kiwi. This is a pretty straight forward tower defense game, balloons come in one end and you set up monkeys with different powers to pop them. It only takes one dart to pop a balloon but most of the balloons come with other balloons inside of them. I really like the level design on this one as compared to the earlier versions of this game and the power / organization of the monkeys feels a lot better as well. On the downside I think the levels are a bit too long, but at the same time it can be tough to get enough money to unlock the really cool monkeys. The other major problem with the game is that before the balloons start coming you can't tell where they come from on each map. Beyond that though this can be a lot of fun if you feel like a tower defense kind of game.

Every monkey should have a spiffy sweat band.

Then of course there are the times when you want to match three things together and get bigger things out of them. Triple Town (warning Facebook link) by SpryFox is not at all a new game, but was recently upgraded (on Facebook at least) and I've fallen back into it (with the help of a good friend, who really enjoys matching 3 things together). The core game play hasn't changed, but the way the in-game store works and the over world have been redesigned to make it a lot easier to play and give you more reason to play. It's worth checking out on facebook or wherever else it might be found (I really don't know).

All decked out for ... fallo'ween?

Videos

As far as I'm concerned, Corey, Mr. Safety, of SMPFilms is one the best film makers on YouTube. His cinematography is always amazing and his videos convey his love of California with amazing clarity. In this one (in a small ploy to get himself an iPhone5), he straps his old iPhone to a rocket and gets the best footage of his world yet.

Wrap-up

So we learned this week that I when I have real world work to do I play flash games. Hmm, see it is all about the productivity.

I've also been debating about this video from Geek & Sundry / Felicia Day, so I dropped it here. It's episode 9 of the Vaginal Fantasy Book Club. I have to confess that I haven't finished watching it (since it's incredibly long) and I'm not sure I'm interested in what these four are talking about (that being sci-fi/fantasy/horror romance(?) books), but they are a pretty entertaining group of ladies and the the mix of tentacles and whiskey really does demand to be watched.