Posts
So, another blog bites the dust.
I've enjoyed my 5 post tour de force or whatever it was here on Vox. I signed up because I thought the Vox blogs looked cool visually, and because I thought the blog "neighborhood" idea was cool.
However,
I've come to realize it has some fairly annoying drawbacks, including making it unnecessarily difficult for non-Voxers to leave comments, and not having some basic blog-type features like being able to hide part of your post under a "cut" etc.
Sooooooooo
I'm jumping ship and I'll be posting on Blogger for the forseeable future.
Hope to see you there.
Bryony stole it from Kim, I stole it from Bryony. Now it's here. Deal with it.
A) Four jobs I have had in my life:
1. First job ever: Receptionist for nuns. Seriously. FYI, nuns don't get a lot of phone calls.
2. US Army mechanic. Replacing engines on HMMWV's and shite like that
3. Waiter at Denny's. I recommend this job if you like serving, cheap people, drunk people, vomiting people, or people who don't speak any English. Once during my shift they found a bloody knife in the men's room. Seriously.
4. 1-800-GOT-JUNK?? That's right. I hauled garbage for a living. Don't be jealous. Not everyone's life can be this glamorous
I worked for 7 months as a copier salesman. I worked in a corporate office with a cubicle and everything, wearing ties, going on appointments to see clients, making powerpoint presentations and shit. God, I hated that job.
B) Four movies I would watch over and over:
1. Fight Club
2. Office Space
3. Back to the Future
4. Pulp Fiction
BONUS ROUND!
I saw The Matrix in the theater 7 times. That movie blew my mind the first time I saw it. Since I was a little kid I'd always had that "what if all this isn't real" thing in the back of my mind (The Truman Show was another good example of that). Plus, it was the best use (and not overuse) of special effects I'd ever seen. Sadly the sequels kinda ruined it for me.
C) Four places I have lived:
1. California
2. Ft. Benning, GA
3. Ft. Lewis, WA
4. South Korea (just south of Seoul)
BONUS ROUND!
I'm counting Ft. Benning, even though the three months I spent there I didn't really get out or anything, as I was in Basic Training. I also spent 3 months at Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD, and two weeks at Ft. Jackson, SC.
D) Four TV Shows that I watch:
1. House
2. The Office
3. Scrubs
4. Family Guy
5. The Colbert Report
BONUS ROUND!
I honestly don't watch any shows regularly, but if I am watching TV, it's probably one of those shows, or football. I absolutely hate reality TV and refuse to watch it. Also one of my all time favorite shows is Friends. Apparently I'm a fan of sarcasm. Who would have fucking guessed?
E) Four (interesting) places I have been:
1. NYC
2. Las Vegas
3. Seattle
4. LA
BONUS ROUND!
Despite having driven just about every inch of interstate 5 from Seattle to San Diego at one point or another, I have never actually made it over the border into Canada or Mexico. The only foreign country I have been to is South Korea, where I spent about 13 months. Oh, and I guess Japan, but that was just in the airport changing planes en route to Korea.
F) People who e-mail me (regularly):
1. Um, YouTube?
2. The Evil Secret Santa Never-Ending Email Chain of Death
3. Bryony
4. My mom
BONUS ROUND!
I am trying to train my friends to e-mail me instead of sending me MySpace messages, since I hardly ever go on MySpace anymore. It's not working.
G) Four of my favorite foods:
1. Burritos
2. Prime Rib
3. Mashed Potatoes
4. Anything Spicy
BONUS ROUND!
I didn't actually used to like spicy food that much, but when I was in the army the food was so fucking bland and tasteless that I got in the habit of putting hot sauce on EVERYTHING, if only to give it some flavor. Since then, the thought of spicy food makes my mouth water.
H) Four places I would rather be right now:
1. NYC. What can I say, I <3 NY
2. Vegas, I guess, but only if I was rich
3. Hollywood, as a high priced TV writer (the downside being I would currently be on strike, making me once again, broke. Hello status quo!)
4. San Francisco. It's a really cool place, and it's only like an hour from here. And I never fucking go there.
BONUS ROUND!
I guess it would also be cool to visit a foreign country, but only one of the English-speaky ones like England or Canada or Australia, as I'm a fat, lazy American and can't be bothered to learn another language. No, really I'd also like to go to Mexico and Japan.
I) Things I am looking forward to this year: (meaning 2008 I assume)
1. YouTube gatherings (LA, SF, Toronto, NYC?)
2. Uh, turning 26? Yeah, there's one hell of a milestone for you.
3. Hopefully being less broke
4. I dunno. The SuperBowl? I guess I'm not looking forward to next year that much, haha.
BONUS ROUND!
2008 is the year I win the lottery. You heard it here first.
J) Four of my favorite books! (I did [not] add this one):
1. Memnoch the Devil by Anne Rice
2. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
3. American Gods by Neil Gaiman
4. Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk
BONUS ROUND!
Favorite Author when I was in Jr High: Piers Anthony. Yes, he of the constant comparison between science fiction and fantasy themes, and the world of Xanth: land of infinite puns.
K) Four favorite artists
1. I
2. Am
3. Uncultured
4. Swine
BONUS ROUND!
Um, I think Dali stuff looks cool. I think most modern art, abstract art, and especially Dada is pretentious bullshit.
The End.
. . . well, maybe not, but I play one on the internet.
What the hell is Kickasso rambling about now? I've started a new blog, sort of. No, I'm not abandoning this blog, the new blog isn't a new home my incoherent ramblings about nothing in particular, that's what this is for.
No, the new blog isn't even a blog, really, except for the fact that it's on a blogging website. What it really is is an online newspaper. An online newspaper/column that exclusively covers news that I totally made up. I call it The Daily First! And it's pretty much awesome.
There's three articles up so far, go ahead and check them out, and don't forget to click the "About" section for further explanation of the insanity.
Oh, and please leave me some feedback there. I'll love you forever.
So why did I start the "First!"? Well, a while back on my PabloSuckasso channel I made a video response to Kiwi, in which I answered the question "What is the best advice you've ever been given?"
My response was "Find out what it is that you love to do, and then figure out a way to get paid to do it" Well I think I've got it half solved. I love being funny. I could spend my life working at jobs I dislike just to make ends meet and find ways to be funny (like my YouTube channel) in my spare time, or I can start actively pursuing comedy as a career.
I'm already getting paid to be funny, (at least in theory, although I haven't seen a dime yet) with my new status as a YouTube partner But although I have a thousand subscribers now, I still don't get a lot of views (by YouTube partner standards), so unless I want to start totally whoring out my videos all over the place (which I really don't want to do) we're not really talking big money there.
It has also come to my attention that there are other video sharing sites that pay content providers, and I'll be looking into that too.
But in starting this blog, and rereading a couple old school papers I ran across on my computer I have come to remember something I had forgotten somewhere along the way: I really enjoy writing. That's where the "First!" comes in.
If eventually the "First!" gets enough attention, I could eventually launch my own website, like real newspapers have, with articles and perhaps even videos, I could host ads there and generate revenue in that way. That's if the "First!" really takes off though. We'll see.
A parallel goal of the "First!" is to give me practice in comedy writing, to sharpen the ol' skills as it were. It also gives me writing samples that I could use in pursuing work writing for something like The Onion or some other comedic publication. Likewise, the articles as well as my YouTube videos can serve a sort of comedic portfolio in pursuing other avenues of comedy writing, maybe TV, being a writer on a show like The Colbert Report for example. Of course, the more of an audience/readership I can get, the more weight those examples will carry.
Anyway, I'm really going to make a go of this. If it doesn't work out, at least I won't have regrets, wondering what could have been if I'd only tried.
I've been uncertain in terms of goals as of late. I haven't really had any idea where I was headed, career-wise. I've done retail, I've done manual labor, I've done customer service, I've done corporate America and sales, I've even done the military. None of it's me. But this feels right, this fits, this I'm passionate about.
Maybe it's not the most practical of career paths, but how could I in good conscience not pursue a life where I'd get to get up every day and do something I love?
So somehow I managed to disable comments on my last post.
I am so smart, S-M-R-T!!
Anyway, it's fixed now. Whatever.
So guess adding this blog to my YouTube account, my other YouTube account, MySpace and Stickam wasn't enough. I've recently opened accounts on two new sites, Last.fm and Twitter.
Imagine that your iPod (because I know everyone in the universe but me has one now) was sitting alone in a bar late one Saturday night. iPod was feeling kinda down on herself, a litte insecure after she realized she'd gained like 80 gbs, and couldn't fit into the same size case as that bitch iPod Nano. All the sudden in walked in a dashing stranger. He said his name is "MySpace" and that he hoped it wasn't too forward, but that he'd really like to get into her "extended network". Well, iPod had probably downloaded one too many appletinis, but one thing led to another and nine months later Last.fm came into the world.
I was introduced to Last.fm by Kim a while back, but didn't actually open an account til the other day. It seems pretty cool, you have a page like on MySpace or whatever, but in addition to pictures, location, and all the usual stuff, it shows what music you've been listening to, the tracks you listened to most recently as well as what artists you've listened to most overall. It has like 17 kajillion songs on it which you can add to playlists and internet radio stations you can create. You can also "friend" people, check out what they're listening to and how high your "musical compatibility" is. It also does a bunch of other stuff like find people who listen to similar stuff, what it calls your "neighbours" (yeah, it's a UK based site). The only real downside seems to be that you can't really play a song on demand, just a playlist or station. But that's ok, it's kinda cool to not know exactly what's coming next all the time. I've been listening to it a lot lately (including right now).
It's also Kim's fault that I'm on Twitter. Twitter is basically a site where you can broadcast a couple sentences about what you're up to or thinking about right at that moment to all the people who "follow" you (which seems like unnecessarily stalker-ish terminology, but I digress). You can also "follow" other people and keep up with what they are up to. It's pretty similar to the "status" feature they added to MySpace not too long ago. It's been described to me as "micro-blogging" and I'm not sure if there's really a "point" to it, but then again what's the point of MySpace, or blogging for that matter? Anyway, I'm enjoying it so far.
So yeah, now I have even more reason to spend 28 hours a day on the internet. But the good thing about these particular sites is that they seem to be things that I can do in and around and concurrent to doing other stuff online. Like writing this blog. Anywho, if you're on either of these sites, or feel inspired to join, feel free to add me.
End transmission.
Ok, just kidding.
I hung out with the guys for a little while Friday night, but we'd all had a long day of traveling so we all headed to bed before too long.
The next morning Beccah arrived, having for the most part driven through the night from Michigan minus a couple stops, including an unfortunate run in with a deer. Her car was a little worse for the suicide attempt by Bambi, but she was in good spirits otherwise. With the gang all there, we decided to do what any group of wild 20-somethings would do in a strange city.
We went to the zoo.
Directly in front of us.
It was hot. [Oh god, some random person is going to come across this and think I really get my jollies off bear poop.]
And the zoo was FREE. The highlight though, may have been this brush with greatness, captured on film by the one and only Mark Denton. Then, despite the fact that almost all of us had the free zoo maps they give out, we managed to get lost and take the longest possible route to the exit.
After grabbing dinner at a diner (and getting a dirty look from the waitress, presumably for ordering a beer that wasn't Budweiser in St. Louis, hometown of "The King of Beers") it was YouTubin' time. We shot two videos that night, A YouTube Thanksgiving, and Reggie's birthday video.
It was so much fun, because we came up with the idea for both videos on the spot, and they were true collaborations, with all of us throwing out ideas and jokes left and right. Even my dad got in on the act, making a cameo in the birthday video. However, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that a huge part of the credit for the finished videos has to go to Shane, who did all the editing and animation.
Later, we shot a three second clip for a visiblemode video and opened up a Stickam room.
Sunday morning, Shane and Kent had to take off, but Mark and Beccah hung around and the three of us shot another, as yet unreleased video. **SPOILER ALERT** It is going to be awesome.**END SPOILER**
And then, it was time to say goodbye. I really wish we all could have hung out longer. These are all awesome, fun, cool people and I honestly can't say enough good things about them. If only we'd had more than a couple days to hang out. Ah well, I'm sure we'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when. But probably at one of the YouTube gatherings or something.
p.s. Here's what Kent and Beccah had to say about the trip.
And then other stuff happened.
The End.
[Prologue]
So I never got around to vlogging about my trip to St. Louis, so I guess I'll blog about it instead.
The gist of it is that I flew from here in San Jose to St. Louis, where my dad and his wife live, to visit for a week and celebrate Thanksgiving and all that jazz. While I was in town some friends from YouTube came to visit, some cool people from the easternish part of the country that I wouldn't normally get to hang out with including Mark (DentonUSA), Shane and Kent (OctoberRoad) and Beccah (LisaSimpson).
[Part I: The Journey Begins]
It all started when I got to the San Jose airport the Friday before Thanksgiving. I was originally scheduled to fly from San Jose to LAX and then on to St. Louis. But when I went to check in, they told me that my flight to LA was delayed and that I wouldn't be able to make my connection. So they rerouted me so that I would fly from San Jose to LAX to Chicago O'Hare and THEN to St. Louis, finally arriving at 9 am THE NEXT FUCKING MORNING. Naturally, I was not too pleased, but the guy at the counter told me that was the earliest he could get me to St. Louis, so what could I do?
So after enduring the ridiculous dog and pony show that the US airport security checkpoint, I got to my gate only to find out that they had secured another aircraft and my flight would be leaving on time after all. So I had to explain to the slightly slow airline employee exactly what had happened and get her to put me back on my original flight from LA to St. Louis. I did end up getting that squared away, and crossed my fingers that my luggage had followed me through all the flight changes and would be there when I arrived. But hey, at least I was going to get to St Louis on time, right?
Wrong.
When I got to LAX, I rushed from one terminal to another only to discover that my flight was delayed 2 hours, meaning that instead of getting in to St. Louis around 11 pm, I 'd be getting in after 1 am. Fucking lovely.
So I waited around in the airport, enjoyed the privilege of paying almost 8 bucks for a whopper, fries and a coke, and finally boarded my flight to St. Louis. I read some, this book called American Gods by Neil Gaiman. If you haven't read it, I highly suggest you check it out. It's one of the best novels I've read in years. I also was able to get a little sleep, and the next thing you know I was in the St. Louis airport waiting for my bag at baggage claim when who should walk up but my dad with Mark, Shane and Kent.
To Be Continued . . . .
So I had my ear pierced, that's right boys and girls, past tense. I had a bar through the cartilage, pierced in two places, what they call the "Industrial". It was the only piercing that ever really appealed to me. I had it for about a year and a half, until I decided to take it out this morning. And by "decided to take it out" I mean I accidentally dropped one of the screw-on balls that keep it in place down a drain. Sooooo, no more industrial. And yet somehow, life goes on.
Rest In Peace, industrial. You will probably not be missed that much at all.
So apparently it isn't enough that I have two YouTube channels and a MySpace (complete with blog I never use) and I have decided to start a blog here. I don't know exactly what purpose this will serve yet, probably me bitching and moaning about various things, being a smartass, and just generally wasting cyberspace. Probably I will talk about things here which I am too lazy/tired to make videos about. I just can't seem to work up the energy to make a video lately. It probably has something to do with the fact that I now have to get up around 5am Mon-Fri since I started working 6-2. I still have weekends off though, thank god. I am thinking about taking on a second job, too. Am I nuts? If by "nuts" you mean poor, then yes, yes I am.
Anywho, that's probably enough self-indulgent whining for my first post. Who cares, anyway? It's my blog and I'll cry if I want to. Cry if I want to. etc. Fuck you. Let this serve as a disclaimer, this blog is not for entertainment purposes. Read if you want to, but I'm not promising it will be clever, interesting or even coherent.
Let's see how long it takes for my real life people to track this down too. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind that my family and friends know about my YouTubing (despite the fact that most of them think I'm a crazy person for it), but there's something I kinda miss about when it was just my private thing, you know? I know, I know, I put stuff up on the internet wanting tons of people to see it, and then turn around and complain that it's not my little secret any more. Whatever. Maybe I am nuts after all.
