April Vlog Up

Pretty sure I had more to say initially, like maybe talk bts shop or something, but if that be the case then I'm totally spanking. Um, spacing, / blanking.

I do think this is one of my best thumbnails though. The first vlog thumbnail that isn't just a literal screenshot with the title pasted over it. (I did fudge October 2018's thumbnail a bit. The camera wasn't that far to the right, I just moved the screenshot over a scoach and mirrored the background to hide the edges of the frame.) Had to make a couple of compromises when the thumbnail turned out narrower than I expected, but it still looks swell I think.

A Brand New World

It honestly doesn't feel like the same world anymore.

(The Toronto Star is an Excellent Publication of Crack Journalism)

https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/2019/04/28/how-an-abuse-victims-nerve-and-a-hidden-iphone-led-to-the-arrest-of-a-sundance-founder.html

'Nuther One

(title unrelated)

Cooking something up. What is it? In the oven. No I said what not where. It's something. Really quite something.

Not that much of anything at all though really.

The Beatles' The Beatles (White Album) is one of those timeless, like, timeless albums. Fleetwood Mac's Rumours. Feels like it was written five seconds ago, you know? Every time is the first time.

Torn! Tooorrn!

I'm not sure whether I want to look up spoilers to Avengers: Endgame or not. It's not like I've been avoiding any trailers or fan theories or anything, but now that it's out (it comes out Friday which is code for Thursday and in some places that's now code for Wednesday) I'm like, well... I really don't know.

Guess I'm avoiding Rise of Skywalker spoilers this year meanwhile. I watched the trailer and everything, but after that I was all: shoot maybe I shouldn't have done that. So that's as far as I'm allowing it to go.

Far From Home, though? I don't know either. I watched the trailer(s?) for that as well, but Homecoming was the original one I went out of my way not to spoil. (and still got spoiled for me anyway a little bit... stupid "trailers spoil too much" YouTube video essay, really I was practically asking for it...)

Addams Family Reunion ISN'T the Name of a Real Addams Family Movie; Guess that VHS I Saw Was Just an Actual Reunion Video and EDIT It Turns Out I Was Wrong Just Nobody Talks About It Much Because Technically It's Only the Pilot Movie to The New Addams Family Show

This has already been out and I thought I'd commented on it but going through the archives it turns out I hadn't???

But if I were to make a list of every single reason I love the Addams Family it would take an infinite amount of time, because just like all of it, so YOU BETTER NOT MESS THIS ONE UP GUYS.

Also, s c o o b y d o o c r o s s o v e r p l e a s e

(second edit: sweet one does exist, part of the New Scooby Doo Movies from back in '72. Also, what the heck "New" series? giving me everything I've ever wanted but then being so obscure I don't hear of these till now?)

HTMLMANKLAUSMAJORLROOMMINORSORTLROOMSECTION7CLROOMWEDGE

So the spam comments that I, just, decided to leave up, I decided to, just, check their links today because of course they have links. (The comment preview doesn't show links so you have to check out the comment directly.)

The first link is some hardware store website that returns a 404 (pasted as title.)

The second is an unsecure website and a little more interesting.

Into Your System. "Your system has been hacked by Shadow_TN #Hacked" and copy/pasting the html reveals that there's also apparently some sort of animation effect applied to the text?

(my system wasn't really hacked by Shadow_TN.)

I'm thinking though it may be some sort of test or something...?

<<span style="animation: blurFadeIn 3s ease-in 9s 1 normal backwards running; text-shadow: rgb(255, 255, 255) 0px 0px 1px;">>

opening up about religious belief can be hard sometimes.

https://youtu.be/f6gIRkrpLs4

This is definitely one that could use a Pretzelize Me Cap'n! blog to go alongside it. I'll write one up tomorrow.

(y'all)

JENNIFER y'all LOVE y'all HEWITT y'all AND y'ally'all SARAH y'all JESSICA y'all PARKER y'all ARE  y'all TWO y'all DIFFERENT y'all PEOPLE y'all. Are they both considered horses? SJP is; JLH being someone else makes sense since I've never thought of her as being particularly equine. And what's going on?

what 👏is👏 going👏 on👏

(complicated political legacies y'all)

Alright so I think I know what I'm going to do for my video this weekend.

(I really think I'm doing better though in a lot of aspects of my life. Better than what, I don't know. Average, I guess. It's not quite up to "my best life" standards, but, I'm feeling good about a lot of things. Still no word back from Walmart about anything, and honestly I'd be fine whatever way they dictate. Writing some solid chonking posts on this blog over the last few days, that's nice.)

I am going to need... PEEPS.

(Should be Posting)-->?

I'd possibly be posting more on other social media sites if things were easier- but that's probably just an excuse; if I'm not into a habit I'm not into a habit. And I have very few habits, good or bad. Which is good and bad.

• I don't know my facebook password and I could reset it easily but I don't, and I'm logged in on my kindle so it's fine. Only where's my kindle? Lost it somewhere in my room as I was cleaning/rearranging it; it had been on top of a storage bin but I moved the bin and it slid off and poofed.
• And my wordpress is hard to get to. On my laptop, but I hardly use it because its battery can't charge so it has to be plugged in for me to use it, and I'm logged into wordpress on a different account than the one I generally use for pinterest and stuff. Once again an easy fix but it's nothing that important to me though maybe it should be?
• Don't know where my phone is ofc. There's places I could start looking but if I ask Dad about who would know who was there on the night it disappeared he'd just tell me it'd be easier to get a new phone, and so I don't ask, and so I continue not having a phone. (If I went inside then I would've might-as-well change clothes, and if I did that I might-as-well helped out outside, so I didn't and just stayed outside, and then went inside and didn't change into workclothes but went outside and helped anyway, and then when it came dinnertime I didn't want to stop working.) And what would I do with a phone, if I had it would I instagram art? Do I art in the first place that much or am I distracted by other things?

Who needs this many devices? Who needs them just to not use them? Who needs the social media?; besides the idea being it's good for brand.

Frankly I'm not really sure what I want out of my social media presence. A following?, but I wouldn't have anything to do with it really. Society just sort of tells me that fame is an end in itself, and it's like ok sure.

There's so much it would be easy to do. I'd probably be able to scrape in a few bucks a month if I wrote just a weird little book and published it digitally. But the book would need to be good or worthy of my time writing it or whatever so my desire for greatness keeps me from it. 

Though the greatness only comes in the polish, I've learned already from making YouTube videos even though I haven't really made anything that great from it. At least there I'm making things for the joy of it (alongside ofc a tangled host of other reasons that help press me through the nonjoyous times at least.)

There's that at least and it feels good to be doing that but there are other things I'm not doing, and letting myself be held back on. Like I'm always WAITING for the freedom to do the thing, because it's really going to take up such a large chunk of my time in the doing that I'd be glad I'd had a whole week's worth of hours set aside that one afternoon.

But afternoons aren't that long.

So I like play videogames instead or whatever.

Nothin's Ever Gonna Change

I'm not sure what's going on, or what's going to go on, or something. Latest update in the job saga, the application process has changed since I applied, so I need(ed?) to apply again? Only the assessment looks, re-failed. Even though I'd passed it earlier. So: could that have something to do with the change in process? Or: is the failure from this end, all an illusion somehow? It's a very strange saga.

On the positive side, my paycheck went through last payday, so I have been fairly compensated for the three-odd days of work that I managed to get in. On the negative side GAS IS SO EXPENSIVE, MAN. But I was able to fill up all the way today. Before the complications arose, of course. (I knew that I'd be getting a call today about my reapplication status; just never figured that the status would be: yes, you do have to reapply.)

And reapply to what?, meanwhile: the position I'd had doesn't show up as being open, looking at it. From one account, at least. I think it went through from the other, though. (Having two application accounts, after failing the assessment the first time. Passing by a narrowish margin from the second account, though once again, of course, both accounts' application's assessments say failed.)

So I don't know if I still need to do something, or can do anything. But it could always be worse, it's not like I'm going to starve without this job.

Our Lady

Paris is a hale city. She lives long. I remember what I was doing when I learned about 9/11 (waking up?) and I'll probably remember what I was doing when I heard about the fire as well. (Learning about 9/11?)

urgghhh I'm always just so late, not just "so late" but "just so" late. since I don't have to rush this anymore, getting it posted midnight the day after, I might as well go into more detail.

(Had the idea today *well yesterday, I schedule the posts beforehand which give me motivation to go in there and at least get something, before it just posts up as blank. And also allow me to polish.)

Late today (though I knew I'd probably be posting on this) because I was doing an extra helping of Duolingo, getting through an entire level of French on the topic of Paris. See what they had to say, see what's mentioned in the lesson. Notre Dame est dans le premier arrondissement. The Eiffel Tower is in the, what, seventh, eighth?

Also played on the latest Overwatch map, Paris, today? Not sure where exactly that takes place in the city, geographically. Somewhere on the Seine. You can see the Eiffel Tower from it.

I don't know. The 9/11 stuff I was learning about had to do with society's reaction to it in our arts, the impossibility of traversing that fine line between paying appropriate respect to tragedy, in a monetizable form, vs actually profiteering off it. Not that these tragedies are all that comparable; it's just something I'm struck by, via coincidence in time and space.

When I was a little kid I didn't really give a crap about people living way the heck off in New York, but I care about this.

Untangling Unicorn Store

https://youtu.be/lMY3uo3tQUQ

(i keep on wanna write "untanglish" every time; is that even a word? what a droll time!)

Too Much or Not Enough Break

I've got tomorrow's video, like, written for the most part, or whatever, but shooting it is kind of stressful because of all the gaps that aren't written that I just have to like ad lib my way through, and also the image isn't turning out like it is in my head, and also I just want to go to bed, but I know I'll thank myself massively if I just get my crap done sooner rather than later. But I still need a break.

So I'm writing this.

So Sō anyway; went to this concert this evening instead of filming, and I really don't want to talk about this right now either, but there's not much that I want to do right now. But a lot that I want done.

The thing about percussion especially is that there's nothing there to hold the audience's hand, not much structure either so it's tough to gauge how far into a piece you are just by listening to it. Everyone in the audience is left to their own interpretation of meaning, everyone experiences the same thing but thinks their own thoughts about it. There's a story there, but everyone has to tell it to themselves. Structure is what one wants it to be.

What Next?

I'm really not sure how I'm going to top last video, but whatever I choose I need to do so soon in order to get it shot and edited in time. If I were more decisive this wouldn't be so tough and I wouldn't waste- like, all evening I've just been passing time, not really doing anything deliberately, and that could improve.

Duo

I lost my Duolingo streak again a couple of days ago- too busy editing my video together; always seems to happen. But it was the smallest streak and thus the smallest loss so far.

Apparently you can take these quizzes to skip ahead levels on lessons though, is something I discovered today. And you get 20 points from doing one, instead of the just 10 you get from completing a normal lesson.

Analyzing "16 Reasons" Woo

So far Alex is the only (not-me) person who's watched the video, but he really really liked it and so like, what do I do with this? Today's been a kind of weird day for me You Tube-wise, you know that feel when you're browsing YouTube and you just lose hope for humanity and the platform, and you forget what drew you to the platform so much in the first place? But there is good worthwhile stuff out there, possibly even in the vapid lifestyle vlogs who knows. I haven't facebooked in, well since 2018 I think, but maybe I should share this on Facebook and get more feedback or whatever? But I have friend(s) who also have tried that with their YouTube stuff, and I was totally indifferent myself to their own movie opinions videos. So I don't know.

16 Reasons Why I'd Totally Marry the Joker Trailer

https://youtu.be/ViXwP31pMEE

Technically Fired Technically

Okay so today would have been my first workday since Sunday but- I mean I did go in today but not to work- turns out there was a problem with the I-9 form (I figured having to do with the part where you need to provide two forms of identification but that wasn't it.) What it would up being was something like this: that my social security number on the form didn't match my real SSN; it didn't flag it earlier because it was also the wrong SSN from my application. They couldn't fix it itself, apparently, and so what needed to happen was this: that I be let go, and rehired under a new corrected application. There were some steps of this process that can only be started tomorrow at the earliest, so I couldn't go in to work today.

I mean I've been really torn over do I even like my job, I like the milk part of it but there's also eggs involved and that's rough, not to mention a host of other expectations they don't tell you about, and, the pay's not fantastic but it's the highest wage I've ever earned, and, am I going to be stuck doing this forever, and, the work's alright but the schedule is terrifying especially because I'm so used to being free, and even so it'd be nice to have a bit more wriggle room and/or the foreknowledge of exactly which days I'd be working more than a couple of weeks out, and how likely is it that time off would be approved...

But I wanted to go into work today anyway, even though I couldn't, so I guess that answers that question.

Analyzing Vlog Woo

I don't know why but my latest vlog is getting any hits which is weird? I've been designing my thumbnails at 1/10th size for the past couple of days, making sure they're easily readable, could be it. Also, two of the hits were mine. The thumbnail has me with an open mouth in it, which seems more inviting and clickable? 

I'd been going to talk about this on Pretzelize Me Cap'n instead but I'm talking about it here, but looking back on it, the background music in this one was a mistake. Having watched it with and without music, music definitely helps keep interest up, but I think the particular choice in music was too down-tempo, though having tried speeding it up felt too frantic. Could have tried it sped less, but whatever, you don't care.

Each of these videos I'm treating like it'll be "the one," and I'll gain a follower base or whatever. Same with the posts on Pretzelize Me!, which is why I guess I don't post there as often as I should. The first step in making good art is the willingness to make bad art, and so I guess I'm willing to make this boring blog post, because I'm making anything at all, building my skillset up. Same idea with weekly videos ofc. But sort of balancing the improvement, with the idea that it'd be the one.