Video series brainstorming

I've mentioned a few times on this blog that I really want to start making videos, and in greater quantity than in the past. The last few I've made, while I've been proud of them, were more for other people than for myself. And one of the things I've constantly heard about video making, especially for YouTube (which is where I'd like to eventually put these) is that it's important to like the content that you make – create something you'd want to watch yourself.

Here's a list of some of my favorite YouTube channels, with brief descriptions of each (in alphabetical order, just because that's easiest for me to look up). I'm going to group some of them together, because among some of these groups they've made their own networks:

• Belated Media – Movie reviews, talking with other internet personalities, and received a lot of attention for "What If Star Wars Episode I Was Good?"
• Boyce Avenue – a musical group, known mostly for their acoustic covers of pop songs (though they do have their own songs as well)
• Brutalmoose, Caddicarus, NintendoFanFTW, and Yungtown – their group is called Hidden Block, and their videos all deal with video games. Each channel has their own series of videos, and each has a unique flair.
• CinemaSins – known for their "Everything Wrong With ______" videos. As far as I know, it's run by just a couple guys, and was started by just one guy with a great idea.
• Continue?, DidYouKnowGaming?, JonTronShow, PeanutButterGamer, ProJared, and That One Video Gamer – part of a group called NormalBoots. A lot like Hidden Block in that these are all video game based, but it was around first.
• Egoraptor – online animations, a lot of which are about video games. Egoraptor the person is also known for voice acting and for being part of the channel Game Grumps, a let's play series I also like.
• Epic Rap Battles – videos that pit two (sometimes more) famous people from history against each other in a rap battle.The people can be fictional characters, but a lot of times they use real people and base their lyrics off of historical facts about them or things they've done. (Isaac Newton vs. Bill Nye as an example, with Weird Al Yankovic featured as Isaac Newton.)
• Fail Army – just collects submissions from people around the world and compiles them into weekly videos. All the videos consist of people failing (usually by hurting themselves) in some fashion.
• Glove and Boots – a semi-regular vlog, but the main personas are puppets. Pretty funny ones, at that.
• Hot Pepper Gaming – reviews of video games, but the gimmick is that they're recorded live right as someone eats a hot pepper (usually a habanero or hotter), and sometimes features other famous YouTubers.
• How It Should Have Ended – takes the ending of popular movies and animates them, but changes it so that the ending either makes a lot more sense or is just funnier.
• juliansmith87 (and technically jefferydallas) – channels that feature very well-made videos, but about completely random things or topics. ("Malk" being a prime example.)
• LetsPlay, Rooster Teeth, and The Know – all from the same parent company (Rooster Teeth), and mostly related to video games. The Know, their news show, sometimes reports on general entertainment or astounding scientific advances. The Slow Mo Guys also came out of this, and while all they do is just show stuff that looks cool in high-definition slow motion... It all looks really cool!
• MysterGuitarMan – While recently he's been making projects over longer periods of time (which have also been turning out longer), some of the first things that got him started were short music videos that featured crazy good editing.
• OK Go – if you've seen this, this, this, or this, then you know why I like these guys.
• Old Spice – their channel usually to host their commercials, but every once in a while they just go crazy and have fun.
• PomplamooseMusic – A lot like Boyce Avenue in that they do some covers of songs, and some original music, but also like OK Go in that they sometimes have super creative videos.
• RocketJump – originally known on YouTube as freddiew, named for the creator of the channel Freddie Wong. A lot of video game related content, many of which use special effects to reenact specific games or scenarios. Recently their main focus has been to finish the last season of their series Video Game High School.
• Screen Junkies – known mostly for their "Honest Trailers", which remake movie trailers into usually comedic versions that are brutally honest of the movie's plot. They also have a couple other shows, one being "Movie Fights" where they have three people argue about different movie-related questions and someone scoring for each question.
• Smooth McGroove – a cappella vocalist who does covers of video game music.
• Studio C – a channel I'm kinda partial to due to my past involvement with Divine Comedy, this is basically just where they upload the sketches that get broadcasted on television. However, they've been focusing lately on expanding their online audience, especially after the popularity of Scott Sterling.
• The Game Theorists – many different series exploring the worlds of video games and how they connect to each other, their cultural influences, or possible explanations (the so-named game theories) of why things happen in these video game worlds.

These are all channels I'm subscribed to, and ones I consider major influences on what I would like to make myself. This time I'm specifically looking for input from others. What are some ideas of videos that you'd like me to make? Or what are some kinds of videos you'd like to see yourself? I feel like somewhere on this blog I've already mentioned my main idea for a channel (reviewing movies that you can find for cheap, and reviewing the DVD that you'd get as a whole instead of just the movie). But I'm open and accepting of any ideas or suggestions.

So if you want, leave a comment – I can guarantee that I'll read it and take it into consideration.

Resolutions for 2015

I won't dilly-dally with  an introduction for this post, as it seems fairly obvious what it'll be about. And I already said in a post from yesterday that I'd be doing this today. So here we go!

1. Do better with exercise. I know that sounds pretty non-specific, so here's my plan to start out. I have a FitBit, which is a small device that looks like a watch that measures a ton of different things: steps taken, distance traveled, calories burned, stairs climbed, and active minutes throughout the day. My initial goal is to walk at least 10,000 steps per day, and if I manage to do that for a few weeks in a row then I'll up it by 1,000 steps. This could also include me doing other forms of exercise, such as playing Just Dance or using an elliptical, both of which I have easy access to.

2. Eat better. I really do want to get my weight down, so in addition to making sure my exercise habits are better I'll be disciplining myself on what and how much I eat. I've constantly had problems with this in the past: getting portions that would almost certainly make me full, getting seconds, drinks that aren't water – just not great decisions overall. My dad has been doing Weight Watchers for a while and has enjoyed it a lot, and I've thought a lot about joining as well. While I don't think my weight is at a danger level at the moment, I'm certainly not making the best choices for a healthy future. So while there are definitely many things that I can and will do to fulfill this resolution, I know how I'm going to start: no soda whatsoever. I actually did okay with this for a while a few months ago, but the holidays started up in November and I broke my streak. So that will be the first thing to cut, which should help a ton. (Jan. 8 update – I took a look at a Weight Watchers pamphlet yesterday, and they said diet sodas were okay. I'm usually not the biggest fan of them because of the taste, but I'm willing to give them a shot...)

3. Read at least one new book a month. This is a repeat from last year, but I know what I'm going to start with, and by the end of this month I'll have a list of one book for every month this year. So far I have Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, The Art of Manliness (thank you Old Spice for that one), and Unbroken which has just had a movie made of it, which we saw on Christmas and is quite good. Intense, though, as it depicts the true story of a survivor of a Japanese POW camp during World War II.

4. Make at least one video per month. While my resolution on this topic last year was to start up a media production of some kind, it just wasn't specific. And that was my problem with a lot of my resolutions – I liked them, but I wasn't clear to myself how I was going to go about fulfilling them. This is a lot more specific than "just start up" and gives me a deadline of when to get things done. My next post on here will be brainstorming ideas of what to make.

This doesn't really have anything to do with this resolution, but I couldn't think of anything else. And apparently, Friends is now on Netflix as of today. So there's that.

5. Continue dating, still working towards an eventual relationship that could lead to marriage. I feel like I did fairly well on my part last year. I dated around a lot, got a better feel of what I'm looking for in a relationship, and have a lot of possibilities in store for the future. I have the small series I write about already as far as dating goes (the "Plight of the Provo Bachelor" posts), so I don't plan on going into more detail at the moment on this subject, but probably will soon. An experience I had fairly recently kind of bugged me, and I'll get my thoughts out on the subject soon enough.

Well, not lies.

6. Write a blog post on Sunday every week. Again, more specific version of a previous resolution. And it doesn't mean I can't/won't write during the week as well, but if I make sure to set a specific day (and even then, a specific time) to write every week then I'll feel better about having this as a goal.

because I can write as much as I want!

7. Start working on movie reviews. One of the reasons I've been collecting so many movies is because I've been wanting to begin a channel on YouTube or at least a blog specifically reviewing movies you can get for cheap. I know this resolution isn't as specific as my others so far, but that's because at the time of writing this post I'm still a little scatterbrained as to how to get started with this one. I definitely have inspirations, like CinemaSins, ScreenJunkies, or BelatedMedia. We'll see what happens though.

I still have yet to see an episode of Adventure Time, but these feel like wise words to me.

8. Attend a convention. The ones I have in mind are either FanXperience (happening this month), Salt Lake ComicCon (happening later this year), or RTX (in early August). Like I said in my last post, I did volunteer work at FantasyCon last summer, and while it was fun to go they won't hold it again until 2016. FanX and ComicCon are definitely the kinds of conventions I'm interested in, and RTX is one I'd love to go to as well, and especially for the people who put it on... except it's all the way down in Austin, Texas. So in addition to tickets just to the event I'd have to work out a flight, hotel, meals, etc. In any case, I want to go more to participate than to work this time around, because I feel like FantasyCon had a lot that I missed because I was working.

Because Galaxy Quest started with a convention. It makes sense.

9. Figure out my future. As I mentioned yesterday, I'm not going to school this next semester, and I'm planning on working for a while to save up some money. But with that as my current plan, it's not exactly what I had in mind to reach my long-term goals of getting married in the temple, starting a family, and getting into the movie business. I need to take some time and just reevaluate a lot of things going on in my life.

10. Keep becoming happier with myself. Again, I'm a little vague on how this'll happen for now. But part of that is that as I keep all these other resolutions, I'm confident that they'll all contribute toward this one. (Especially #9 – having a set plan on what to do always gets me in a good mood.) And I like being happy, simple as that. Choosing not to be happy just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. So I'll be doing things, many which are along the lines of these resolutions, that will help me become a much happier person, and happy with who I am.

There they are! Ten resolutions for 2015. I know they're pretty much taken from last year, but seeing as they are mine, and there are ways that I'm improving on almost all of them, it's totally fair game.

End of 2014: Resolutions review

I'm writing this post from my now-empty bedroom in Provo, about to leave and move the last of my things up to Alpine. It's been a while since my last post, so let me do some catching up.

I had originally planned on making a post every day in November with each post being something I'm thankful for. I started off okay, but stopped for a couple reasons. First, by the time of day that I was getting some of the posts in, it felt like I was doing it more to check off that I did it instead of actually writing meaningful things about each topic. (And, admittedly, I was planning on having these posts count towards one of my new year's resolutions, which I'll get to in a bit.) Second, a lot of friends of mine on Facebook did almost the exactly the same thing. Props to them, I'm glad that they're grateful for things as well, and gratitude is something the world could use more of. However... eh. I don't know, it almost felt like it cheapened my experience with it. My blog posts are things I consider special, meaningful, and unique. But in doing the same thing that everyone else was, I didn't feel like my list was going to be as special.
So while I have a list of things I'm grateful for, with one item for every day of the month, I'm holding off on publishing it until I have time to turn it into a video. That's something I feel like will be more unique, more personal, and just more fun overall. I need more experience making videos anyway.

That brings me to the next big thing that's happened in the last few months. I didn't end up getting into the film program at BYU, and what's disappointing to me is that they give zero feedback on what went wrong, what could have been improved, what my chances were of how many people applied and how many got in, etc. I get why they don't go over all that for every applicant, but still, it's not the best experience in the world to read a rejection letter, especially when you get it via email and regular mail, both saying the exact same scripted thing. And the rest of school hasn't been so great for me either; I won't go into detail about how bad, but I will say that I'm taking a break for a while. I'm moving up to my parents' home in Alpine and will be working to save up some money as a way to kinda get back on my feet and figure out what to do next in life. Not getting into two different programs at one school doesn't exactly make me want to keep attending school, if I'm being honest.


With the end of the year having arrived, the time has arrived to go over the resolutions that I made for 2014. I'll start by saying that it definitely helped by writing them all down in a place I couldn't lose it – I know how many times I wrote down resolutions in the past or paper or something and lost them soon after. So keeping them on here was certainly a plus. Here we go!

1. Exercise a little every day, even if it means taking a walk for 30 minutes on a treadmill. Didn't happen. I thought about it a lot, but I wasn't self-disciplined enough to follow through with it. HOWEVER. I can guarantee that this will pass on as a resolution for next year, and I already know how I'm going to improve on it. (This will be detailed in my next blog post, which will go up tomorrow.)

2. Unless I'm specifically out with friends, stop eating so much late at night. I got better at this one, but it still happened more than I feel like it should. I did start getting into the habit of making food for myself, rather than going out for many of my meals, so there's that.

3. Read at least one new book a month. Definitely got started on this one, didn't go all the way though. I have a list of books that I will read, though, so like #1, this will continue to the new year.

4. Start up a media production of some kind. Still hasn't happened yet. I've made a few videos, but I'm waiting for "just the right time" to get things going. (That last part is in quotes because it's me telling myself that that's the excuse – I just need to start and not stop.) Something that was kind of interesting this last month that was successful was when I posted this. Imgur (pronounced "im'-a-jer") is a site that's basically meant for picture hosting, with a way to upvote or downvote pictures based on whatever the picture is about. Usually the funny or cool things get upvoted, and if you have enough upvotes your submission can make it to the "front page," which is known on the site as being notoriously good. My submission was about a care package (for lack of a better term) that I received from Old Spice for Christmas. (Really cool package, by the way, and I also made a video of me unboxing it.) I think because of the time of day that I submitted it, there was a high amount of traffic on the site, and enough people started upvoting it that it did in fact make it to the front page. If I were to submit it at some time like around midnight tonight, I doubt that many people would see it among all the other submissions (there are multiple images being uploaded every minute) and that it would have been successful in reaching the amount of upvotes it did. So while I haven't gotten to making a YouTube channel like I've wanted to, I have been studying how viralness and reach works. This video from Game Theory actually talks a lot about it as well, and confirmed a lot of what I've suspected for a while as far as how making a successful channel works. Enough on that topic for now, though.

5. Do my best to enter into a relationship that is leading towards marriage. I'm gonna count this one as a success. I feel like I've been a lot more confident about dating and can definitely see where I've been successful and where I haven't been. And while I am still single, I have a lot better feeling about my dating life and how to go about it in the future. (And I have people I'm interested in, with some visible potential in each on, so I have that going for me.)

6. Write at least one blog post per week. Didn't happen, obviously. I mentioned at the beginning of this post that I wanted to count my thankful posts towards my end-of-the-year goal of a post per week. While I might have had 52 by the end of the year (I haven't bothered to do the math for it, probably won't bother doing so), I'd have known that I'd be cheating myself on that total. This will be a resolution to keep for next year.

7. Watch the movies in my library that I haven't seen yet. While I've slowed down how many movies I've been collecting, I still didn't get this one done. And honestly, even though I enjoy having a ton of movies, it feels like there are some that I have just for the sake of having, knowing that I'll probably never watch them again. So that's something I need to tweak for next year.

8. Go to a convention of some sort. Success! Through a connection of my brother's, I was able to work at FantasyCon during the week of 4th of July. I helped with sales of autograph and picture vouchers; basically, you had to buy one of the vouchers from us before you could get whatever it is you wanted from the various celebrities that were there. And they had some awesome people in attendance, too! John Rhys-Davies, Sean Astin, Billy Boyd, Mark Sheppard, Simon Pegg (who I even got a picture with!!), and a whole slew of others. While I worked for the most part of each day, there was some time they gave us each day to roam around and check things out. Definitely a fun experience, and one I'd do again if given the opportunity. Though maybe not for a while, as FantasyCon won't happen again until 2016, and I'd rather go to a convention just for my own purposes now...

9. Be more outgoing. I feel like this goes a lot with #5, as I've definitely improved. Being social in my ward hasn't been too hard, as the last few callings I've had have required me to know just about everyone in the ward. And working as an EFY counselor over the summer really pulled me out of my comfort zone and had me working with teens, teaching them and helping them to be more social, which in turn had the same effect on me. I'd really like to continue that trend.

And finally, 10. Be happy with myself. I'd say I improved on this. I've had some trials this year, and I've had some successes. I want to learn from the trials and celebrate the successes. I want to keep moving forward and improving myself. I want to make sure that everything I do helps me be who I enjoy being, and who I want to become. Because every one is always changing, some faster than others, some for the better, some for worse, some in completely different ways than others. If you feel like you're doing nothing with your life, that's technically a form of change, though not really in any positive direction. I want to be moving in a positive direction, because I know how it feels to not go that way, and frankly I don't really enjoy it. I'm happier than I have been, maybe not by a huge margin, but like I said with the last resolution it's a trend I want to continue.


So there are my resolutions from this year. I think what I'm most satisfied with is that I was able to go over them at all; again, with the lack of maintaining a record of resolutions in the past, I've never really been able to do this. Tomorrow I'll have a list of new resolutions for 2015, more detailed and improved on than this year's. (Maybe. I'm hoping so.)



Also, as a note of coincidence, I mentioned that I saw Saving Mr. Banks on Christmas last year in my original 2014 resolutions post. We actually bought it and watched it as a family on Christmas Eve this year! I doubt that we'll make it a tradition, but I did find it funny that it was the same time of year that we watched it.

Month of Gratitude: Music

With about ten minutes left of day #4, I'm going to write this quickly, post it, and update it tomorrow.

Month of Gratitude #4: Music

I have a number of friends who I'm sure will agree with me that music is essential in their lives. Whether it be for working, working out, to invite the Spirit, personal enjoyment, or even just to get in a certain mood, music is great and can make you feel a number of emotions.

My music library is full of a massive assortment of artists and genres, and I add to it all the time, based on recommendations from friends or just things I hear that I like. And I almost always have a set of headphones on me so I can enjoy some tunes while I'm on the go. It truly is something I'm grateful for, especially because of how diverse it is and how influential it can be for literally billions of people around the world.

Month of Gratitude: Movies

Almost forgot this today! Yes, this is technically being posted on the 4th, but I started this post on the 3rd, so I say it still counts.

Month of Gratitude #3: Movies

As I've stated a few times before on this blog, I am a huge fan of movies, owning a sizable amount in my personal collection. I love being able to delve into another world for a period of time and experience things that I might not be able to on my own. Yes, books, songs, and television shows can do the same thing, but movies are great because they're often able to help one better capture what the original writer had in mind.

I think a perfect example of this is the Harry Potter franchise; I love all of the books, and as soon as the first movie came out I was instantly a fan of Daniel Radcliffe's portrayal of the now world-famous character. We got to experience his transition of the plain world he knew to the magical castle Hogwarts with him. We watched him grow and mature alongside Ron and Hermione, and went through a lot of the same things they did as we followed them throughout the years. We rejoiced in his successful Quidditch matches, we cried with him at Dumbledore's death, and we felt that same relief after the demise of Voldemort. Obviously the transition from the page to screen doesn't always work perfectly, but when it does it is truly a – dare I say it – magical experience. (Yes, I went there.)

I'm going to write more about this tomorrow, so again I can just get this posted and head to bed. But movies are most certainly on my list of things I'm grateful for.

Month of Gratitude: My religion

Month of Gratitude #2: My religion

I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the Mormon church. I've been a member of it all my life, with my parents raising all us kids in it. My mom's family has actually been members for generations, dating back to when the pioneers were crossing the country, but my dad was the first member of his family to be baptized and become LDS. He went on a mission to France shortly after he was baptized, and when he got home he decided to attend Brigham Young University (an LDS school) instead of Vanderbilt, and subsequently ended up meeting my mom there. I served a mission in southern Brazil, preaching and teaching others about my faith, and I'm immensely glad that I did, because I saw how much good it did in the lives of others. And now I'm at BYU as well, and I'm incredibly grateful for the clean, high-standard environment that it maintains. I've been to other university campuses (including a few in Illinois, one close to Provo, the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, and over the summer I went to one in Kentucky for a week of work) and by far this is one of the nicest I've ever been to. I feel that a lot of it, if not almost all of it, is because of the standards implemented by the Church.

Because of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in my life, I have a solid foundation of what to believe in. I can make choices that I know will make me happy in life. That happiness is brought about because I'm keeping God's commandments, and from reading the scriptures written by various prophets throughout the ages, we know that that happiness truly is one of the blessings that God gives to us. It's a tried-and-true method that I guarantee works, because I've experienced it for myself: living the Gospel and striving to keep the standards and commandments brings long-term happiness.

Does it seem weird at times, what we do? Does it seem restrictive? Church for three hours every week (longer for some, with meetings before or after the standard block of hours every Sunday). No drinking alcohol, coffee, or tea. No smoking or other drugs. No sex before marriage. No, no, no, no, no. Seems almost weird compared to the standards of the world today. But here's the thing: I don't even want to do most of the stuff we're "told" not to do. Again, we have standards in place not to restrict us but rather to remind us what things will keep us safe from harm, out of trouble, and in good spirits.

Do we believe some crazy things sometimes? Like the fact that our spirits existed before we were born on Earth, and that one day we'll all be resurrected? And that based on our actions in this life we have a chance to live with our Heavenly Father? And that we have living prophets who help us know exactly what it is we need to do in order to get there? That might seem crazy to some, but to me it makes a lot more sense than a God who just decides if people go to heaven or hell, that's it, no questions asked. Or believing in reincarnation, where after I die in this life I'll come back to life as some other animal somewhere in the world. And it makes a lot more sense, and is more comforting to me, than not believing in anything at all.

Seriously, there are times when I just look at the sunset and pay attention to all the vibrant colors, or the sun peeking out through the clouds on a rainy day. And I look up, and just think that there is no way that it was all just random happenstance. Someone had to have made all this. Someone organized it all, created it all perfectly. And whoever did... well, I'd like to live with him. Learn from him. Be like him, and be able to make some of the same things. Now doesn't that sound awesome?

I'm a Mormon, and I'm proud of it. Ask me about it some time, and I'll be more than happy to tell you about it.

Month of Gratitude: My family

With Thanksgiving coming up this month, I thought I'd take the opportunity to write down some things that I'm grateful for in my life. But I really can't narrow everything down to just one post, so every single day I'm going to write a post about the thing I'm thankful for. Hopefully in later years I can continue this trend, because I know there are more than just thirty things I'm grateful for. So I'll just jump right into it, then.

#1: My family

I come from a decent-sized family that's grown a lot in just the past few years. Both of my parents are still alive and well (Rich and Lisa), I've got an older brother (Chris), two older sisters (Lindsay and Katie), and a younger sister (Sarah). Chris is going to get married at the beginning of December to a fine woman named Amanda, and Katie has been married for seven years to her husband Joe. Katie and Joe currently have three kids, Claire, Caleb, and Evalyn, with a fourth arriving pretty shortly. We've also had a number of pets over the years, including a number of fish, a guinea pig, and a few dogs, all of which I like to include as family as well. And I have a number of aunts and uncles from both sides of the family, with so many cousins I can't keep track of them all.

There is a lot that I can say about my family, so it's hard to pick just a few aspects about them that I'm grateful for. But probably one of the biggest qualities that first comes to mind is that they're incredibly supportive. And it's the good kind of support, too; I feel like I've tried to make a lot of good decisions in my life, and any time I asked them for help (or even if I didn't) they would be there cheering me on with those good decisions. If I was ever making a bad choice, they'd show their concern and counsel a lot with me about what I was doing and help me try to get back on the right path. Even if I didn't show it then, those times that they helped me make the right decisions are some of the ones I'm most thankful for, because I can see where I would have ended up in a lot of situations if I went with those bad choices.

My family's often just fun to be around. A few weeks ago we had a reunion of sorts up at my parents' home, with almost everyone from my mom's side of the family coming to visit for a while. Despite not being familiar with everyone there, I felt more like I was at home than many other places I've been in the last few years. Pleasantly comfortable would probably be the best way I could describe it.

I consider my family members my friends in a lot of ways as well. I've spent a good amount of one-on-one time with each of them, whether it be to go see a movie, going out to dinner, taking a road trip, or even just hanging out and talking. I can think of specific times with everyone (at least in my immediate family) where we've spent time together to grow that personal bond.

I love my family, and words can't describe just how grateful I am that they're mine. And I get to be with them forever.