27 posts tagged “youtube”

While I can now compose on Vox (not, incidentally, something I could consistently do from Christchurch, either, so we can now conclude the problems were not ISP-specific), is anyone else having problems with the YouTube conduit? I know at least one other user is.
   It gets me a bit worried how things fall down here regularly. But I don’t think we can blame Vox exclusively. I am sure the other site, in this case YouTube, is to blame in part, for perhaps changing its specifications.
   Still, YouTube clips are going to be fewer in number for a while, I expect.

We watched this (thanks again to Tanya) at the office a few days ago:

   Hyundai, which made one of the cars that got squashed by the 62-year-old woman in the BMW X5 (she has since been arrested), saw a publicity opportunity, and presented the owner with a brand-new i30 Wagon (Elantra Touring in Canada). I know, it’s an opportunity made for bloggers to blog about worldwide, but you know, I really don’t mind being a sucker on this and post this video knowing its purpose. It is a happy ending, as the company says, but it’s also a great brand equity-builder on a global level. It shows that Hyundai is responsive to web culture, and has given its concessionaires and subsidiaries the clout to pull these things off for the good of its customers. It ties in to a promise at the start of the recession that the company would help with customers’ car payments if they lost their jobs.
   One big mistake is that the Toyota Avanza (the car behind the lucky recipient) is in shot for a lot longer than the Hyundai that the owner, Todd Jamison, was presented with.

I think Vox might be back. I clicked ‘Create’ and the compose box came up instantly.
   How’s this for a sparring match? The Renault Sport Mégane versus the Ford Focus RS. The Renault has a 50 bhp deficit but still manages to keep up on the corners. No surprises which car I was rooting for.

To break the monotony of my Facebook complaints, here’s one about YouTube.
   No doubt many of you have seen this:

Except in my case there are no unread personal messages. There was yesterday, I read it, and the count remains on one, despite reloads. That’s right, in my world, YouTube does not count properly, just as for a long time, Twitter could not.

I watched an episode of Leverage on a Chinese site, along with some promos, yesterday. It looks OK, but the best way to describe it is Hustle-lite. It’s not bad: apparently, the creators wanted to re-create some of the heist shows of the ’70s (shows? I can only think of Switch) and came up with this idea: an honest man leads a team of four reformed crooks to help innocent people get back what is rightfully theirs. Apart from having a “client”, the show is not unlike Hustle, with a bit of It Takes a Thief thrown in. (Summary, however: Hustle is better.)
   The surprise was seeing Jekyll’s Gina Bellman as the lead actress opposite Timothy Hutton. Bellman is a New Zealand-born actress, and it surprises me that not more mention is made of her—especially when we are so ready to champion other programmes and movies with an even more tenuous connection with this country. (It’s a bit like how Andrew Niccol is treated here.) Here is a promo for the show with Bellman and Hutton, which illustrates that they are quite humorous people away from their acting:

   A good show, from what I could tell, but not a must-watch for me. It is in to its second season in the US.

Here are some more neat finds on YouTube. I have only a vague recollection of this show, but I might be confusing with others that had fake computer messages going across the screen (The Invisible Man, The Gemini Man, The Incredible Hulk, The Six Million Dollar Man, The Bionic Woman, etc.). Apparently, it was originally entitled Probe, but was retitled Search (possibly due to a conflict with another TV series). It didn’t last, due to a producer change and the idea of a revolving star each week (mixing between Hugh O’Brian, Doug McClure and Tony Franciosa). But the theme music and titles are great (note the use of the MICR typeface) and very early 1970s. They also hint at the optimism people had toward technology as a tool to aid mankind, in this case, an agency specializing in searches.

Here’s actor Peter Graves from earlier this year, commenting on his 58-year-long (and counting) marriage, and his thoughts on the three Tom Cruise Mission: Impossible films. I thought he was very diplomatic toward a colleague, the sort of respectful, traditional American manner that is very welcome. Mr Graves is still active in Hollywood, from what I understand, and long may he continue to grace our screens with his presence.

   PS.: We all know that Peter Graves is the kid brother of Gunsmoke’s James Arness, and according to this interview, the surname was originally spelt Aursnes. This remains quite a well known surname in Norway, where the family originally hailed from. The Graves surname is from their maternal grandfather’s side of the family.

I’m firmly an officious bystander in the whole “Michael Jackson thing”: I am sad people have lost a son, a brother and a father. But since the mid-1980s I have not been a big Michael Jackson fan. His death, while premature, is not going to make me suddenly say that I adored the man and his music. I’m not one of those people who made every single item on Amazon.com’s top 10 a Michael Jackson one. I’m not going to join his MySpace page and leave a tribute.
   But I do not think he was a nonce. When the media go on about child molesters ad nauseam, I am not surprised that some accused Jackson of molestation. Paranoia alone could have seen to that. Some may have seen dollar signs and took the man for a ride. Psychologically, I don’t think the man was capable of forming the sick thoughts that pædophiles have.
   He may have paid off some of his accusers, but think of it this way: if you are a lawyer and your client has the mentality, or tantrums, of a child, what do you do? A father might encourage his son to stand for the truth and go through even a difficult experience to build his character. Someone less close, knowing the person had millions, might just advise paying up to spare a fellow human being more emotional pain than he seemed capable of handling. Michael Jackson seemed like one such person: the stresses we might choose to bear were anathema to him.
   That is, perhaps, how one should think of Jackson: a man who preferred to live some form of childhood than recognize that he had reached adulthood. In his interviews, during the legal cases, Jackson came across in words and manner as a man deeply hurt, as a child might be. Visually, however, his damaged appearance through continual plastic surgeries swayed many of us into thinking he was a monster. It is easy to be fooled by what one sees, and Jackson was the victim of his own choices in that respect.
   I am not excusing him fully. I am not going to say that Michael Jackson lacked an adult’s mental capacity. He was able to reflect on his own mortality, according to his ex-wife Lisa Marie Presley on her MySpace page. He knew what was going on, even if he chose to shield himself from it.
   But he was a deeply troubled man, with a very different perspective on life because of his experiences. He chose himself to be as defined by his eccentricities as his music. Just as with Britney Spears shaving her head, many chose to poke fun at the person rather than say that they needed to be protected and looked after. Jackson’s plastic surgeries and his strange complexion were signs, in my layman’s understanding, of someone who chose to dissociate himself from his true identity. This was not about race, as many want to paint, but about a man who never understood who he was.
   Still, I have devoted a post to him. One part of it was seeing the negative comments pages with his videos are attracting on YouTube. He did not deserve many of them. The other part is that there was a Michael Jackson, once, who was a great performer, who never divided opinion as deeply as he does today. I choose to remember hits like this one.

I have never heard of this show from Seth MacFarlane, but I thought this video on YouTube was very funny. (Note: adult themes and cussing.)

What if Star Wars were made in the 1950s (and presumably in colour) and Saul Bass did the titles? A student worked on the following and I loved it.

   Another YouTuber responded with a parody of a parody, taking aim at the ‘remastered’ version: