Random Youtube Tuesday!

Sorry guys, I usually try to have at least one *normal* post in between the RYTs, but I just didn't get to it this time.
I'll be doing Christmas posts this week, but if you wanna see right now what happened Christmas-wise at our house, you can go to my mom's blog.

Anyways, onto what you came here for.

Today's theme is...nintendo!
I actually came across these Nintendo-related videos at the same time I found the beatboxing flutist a couple of weeks ago.
First off is the tetris theme...played on a euphonium and an electric guitar.



In our house, acapella groups are one of our favorite things to listen to...as you may have noticed in previous RYT posts. (And next week's post, also!)
However, I must admit that this is one of the cooler ones I've heard.
I love the acting that goes along with...it's hilarious!



That's all I've got this week! See you next week with more random youtubes!

Moment of Panic is Past Now...

Little moment of amusement for you all.
I got done on the computer early today, so I thought I'd play on our Wii.
I went over, turned it on, put the disc in...and it wouldn't work. No matter what I did, I couldn't get it to work.
I went online and looked it up, and a lot of the Wiis bought around the same time as ours were having major disc-reading problems, so I started to panic. Today would be a bad day for the Wii to go down.
I tried to call Nintendo, but they weren't open yet, so I sat and hyper-ventilated for a half hour.
I finally get through...go through all the basics.
"Is the Wii turning on?" "Yes." "Is the disc clean?" "Yes." "Which way is the Wii, vertical or horizantal?" "Vertical." "Which way does the game label face when you put it in?" "To the left." "...is your Wii on?" "Yes." "Is there a disc in?" "Yes." "Press eject for me." "Ok." "Try flipping it over." ".......oh. Oops."

I had the dang things backwards.
The technician said it's a common mistake, though...when you look at it, it looks as though you're putting the disc in upside down if you're putting it in right side up.

I had me and Stevie in just a panicked state, since I couldn't figure out what was wrong.

We've got our crisis over with, now we shouldn't have any more this Christmas, right?

*laughs*
Have a Merry Christmas, everyone.

Random Christmas Youtube Tuesday!

That's right! Today I'm bringing to you a couple of random youtubes that are Christmas-related!
First off, we have a lovely Christmas carol sung to you by some guineas pigs! (No, not ours...my camera skills are in the lacking.)


It's remarkable how often guinea pigs come up in the RYTs...must be because I spend more time clicking from one subject to the next if piggies are the subject.

Anyways.
Next is a trio of singers, revamping a favorite Christmas carol.



It's almost as fun to watch the guys in the background as it is to listen to the singers. *grins*

Finally, to get in a more serious mood for Christmas, one should always hear the Christmas story...
Though I've never seen it quite like this.



That's it for today. See you next week!
Have a very Merry Christmas!

I'da thunk...

That military intelligence would be smart enough to come up with their own expressions?

Gather round, children, to hear tell a story that begins in the not so distant past...
A father must leave, and decides to pass on his most cherished wisdoms to his eldest child...so that this child might carry on his most important work...
It is a worthy goal...or would be, if it didn't have to do with raw meat.
Let me fill in some specifics. The father mentioned above? My dad. The "eldest child" would be me. And the wisdoms and the work...are the fine art of barbecue.
Yes, my father optimistically tried to teach me how to use his huge, fire-spitting, monster from hell (also known as a grill) before he left. I listened, nodded, watched...then me and my hair skedaddled out of there.
I love fire...I have to say that. I like to watch it, throw stuff in it, and poke it with a stick. When you take this fire and bring it up to hair level, however, I have problems. I can just see klutzy me catching my hair aflame...and so the beast and I have an agreement - I let it sleep while Dad is away, and it doesn't eat my head.
However, a year without barbecue is a long time when hot dogs are one of your favorite foods. Boiled doesn't cut it, nor does microwaved. You hafta have that blackened, sooty taste for the real sensation.
Or something close to it, anyway.
So we started "grilling" hotdogs for family barbecues. Inside. On the stove. Where no wind will send flames licking hungrily at my head.
Since it wasn't "real" grilling, I came up with a name for our cheater's meal. The "faux"becue.
Here we have a picture of one such event done recently. Note that even loose, my hair never comes near to danger.


And yet we still get the beautiful grill marks sought after by chefs everywhere.

With the backstory done, I return to the subject that inspired this post...
My dad is currently stationed at a forward operating base (FOB) in Iraq (the name escapes me so early in the morning), and they recently had a barbecue of their own.
Though they used *shiver* a real grill to do their cooking, my dad decided to be a copycat...and call it a "FOB"ecue.
[I'd put a picture, but I cannot find one at this moment. Apologies.]

Final School Update

I realized that I never did a final update on the end of the semester.
English: A in the class, don't know what I got on the final. Never got it back.
Religions: A in the class, don't know what I got on the final. Could've found out, but I would've had to stick around for 15 minutes after the LAST person finished their test, and just wanted to get home.
Spanish: A in the class, 80-something on the final.
Geology: A in the class, exempt from the final. *happy dance of happiness*
Algebra: B in the class, 80-something on the final.

Overall, pretty dang good.
Did about how I figured in Algebra (math is the bane of my existence), got the Geology A by the skin of my teeth...I still don't know how the Spanish teacher calculates his grades - I went in once to find out what I needed on the final, and he was all "Well...I guess I'll give you 90 in participation, because you don't really say anything, but you don't get in trouble, and I think that you've got about a 90 in homework...I think."
Anyways.
That semester is over for now...sold back most of my books (I tend to keep a couple each semester...this time I kept the Literature books because they were awesome, and the Geology book. At least temporarily. I need to see if the physical geology book is better than the historical one.)

Random Youtube Tuesday!

I managed to get a couple of posts into between youtube tuesdays this time. *grins*

A couple of weeks ago I caught a show on Discovery Channel that was really cool. It's called Time Warp. Basically, they take interesting situations and film them with a hi-speed camera to catch the details that would be missed with a regular camera or with the human eye.
That's what today's RYT is...a couple of clips from the show!
I hunted down some of the coolest-looking things to show y'all.

This first one is someone shooting arrows through various items filled with liquid.


Very cool looking.

The other video for today is kind of a compilation of the coolest moments on the show: from getting hit in the face with a water balloon to getting punched.



So that's it for today's Random Youtube Tuesday!
Come back next week for more cool, random clips to watch!

Isn't it cute?

A couple months ago, while I was going to my geology class, I had to pass through the science building. (Obviously) There was a crowd of people in the main lobby, and I wondered what everyone was doing. So I went over.
Plants. There was table on table of plants of all kinds, from tiny to huge. I finally figured out that it was probably the plant biology people selling their projects.
I knew that we were thinking of redoing our flower beds, so I wandered around looking. I didn't find anything at that time, so I went to class.
When I came out a couple hours later, they were still selling stuff (though their inventory had gone down considerably). I poked around again, and found the cutest little cactus. For a dollar. I shelled over the dollar and brought the thing home.
It was in one of those little plastic pots with holes in the bottom to let water drain, so I put it into another container so water wouldn't go all over my windowsill.
Then (aside from watering it every so often) I forgot about it.
Christmas rolls around, and we find a bunch of tiny ornaments in an advent. They didn't go to the advent, so I laid claim to them. The little nativity sits on my bookshelf while the little rocking horses...

Kind of a cutely pathetic little thing, no?

Last night I repotted it in a beautiful green pot. It's too big for it right now, but I think it will grow into it.
I've taken off the ornaments until it's settled into the dirt. I'll put them back on for Christmas.

It's an awesome little plant...it's lasted about two weeks longer than anything I've had before!

Recent Obsessions

So, I've been busy lately working on things...and obsessing about others.
I'll tell you about a couple of them. *grins*

First off, I've recently come across a few new websites.
Sort of.
The first site was actually found by my mom. I'd heard about it, but I'd never had interest in it.
Facebook. I'm on myspace (though not active), so I figured it would be much the same, but my mom poked me into joining. I've only been a member for a short while, but it seems to be interesting.
You know what's keeping me active on that site though? My penguin. There's a little game there where you can adopt little animals and take care of them. It's very cute.
Here's an image of somebody else's. I don't have a picture of mine yet. ^^"

The second site on my list I found a couple months ago, but it only recently opened up to new people, and it's going to close again soon.
It's called Waja Madness. It's an animal sim, for those familiar with the genre, where you get an animal of some sort and (depending on the site) breed it, take care of it, or show it in shows. Wajas focuses on the breeding aspect. It's breeding system is quite complex, letting you create thousands if not millions of different-looking creatures.
For example, The waja below is mine. Her name is Chocolate, and she's one of the most beautiful wajas to come out of my breedings so far. Her sire is Nightwind (a waja that I custom-designed. It's the middle image) and her dam is Carmella (a waja that was given to me for free. It's the last image). Their colors mixed to create a beautiful waja that people are already trying to get to to sell to them. *grins*
The site has wonderful artwork and extremely nice people. You ought to go join while they're still open. If you do join, look me up (ID: 82733 ) I'll give ya a free wajas to get started.


Finally, I've been obsessing over a new game I got for my DS last week.
It's called Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, and it's all about this defense attorney and the cases he tries.
Okay, already very cool to my Law and Order fanself.
The gameplay is awesome, and I never guess what's going to happen next. It's a big change for me, who can always figure out the plot and end of movies and books five minutes in.
The artwork is amazing, the story interesting. It's difficult enough that I have to think about what I'm doing, but it's not so difficult that I throw my DS against the wall in frustration.
Today I'm gonna try and finish it. *grins*

That's it for this week's obsessions. I'm sure I'll find some new ones soon. *laughs*

I couldn't resist

I know, I know...when I started youtube Tuesday, I intended it to stay on Tuesday.
But while I was posting yesterday, I came across something very, very cool which I couldn't get out of my mind all day. I wasn't going to post this for several weeks, but I thought it was so cool that I have to put it up now.

When I was searching for random youtubes yesterday, I got started looking at various musical oddities. You've already seen one yesterday, the hand-fart musician. However, that was not the coolest thing I came across.
This is.



He makes flutes look cool. (Which is saying a lot, coming from me. I hate flutes. Clarinet players of the world unite! *cough* Anyways...)

While the one above is my favorite, I also had to put this one. It's remarkable.



I wouldn't be able to play Flight of the Bumblebee normally, let alone beatboxing at the same time.

He's got a bunch of others...like Sesame Street, which is really cool.
I just couldn't resist putting his videos up, 'cause they're awesome.

He's got a cd out, though it's not in stock right now, and its only original pieces (I think). Still cool. *grins*

And, to end on a Christmasy note, the Nutcracker!

Random Youtube Tuesday!

Yep, here we are with another edition of youtube tuesday!
Today's viewing pleasure is for all you people who don't have time to sit and read my longwinded posts...both videos are jampacked into three minutes or less!

First up we have 50 jokes told in under three minutes! (Many of them nerd jokes, no less...and I laughed at all of them. Marvel at my nerdness. My favorite was the square root of -1 talking to pi. *grins*)



And staying with the same concept, here is "Momsense" by Anita Refroe. It's a condensing of all the things moms say over the course of one day into a song sung to the William Tell Overture.



Lyrics can be found if you go to the original site.

So that's it for another Youtube Tuesday.
I did have next week's found, but I forgot to write it down and thus...forgot it.
I'll have to find something different, I guess. *grins*

[Edit] I try to keep the number of videos down to 2, but I found this one when randomly browsing from the Momsense song.




You have got to go to the original site and look at some of the others - he's got 114 videos. He does everything from Flight of the Bumblebees to Bohemian Rhapsody. He's even got video game songs, like Zelda and Mario.
Stevie, I've found something for you to aspire to!

Blooooooggggginggg

All righty then...
I realized the other day that I need to do at least one real blog a week, or it will look bad that all I do is youtube tuesdays. (Speaking of, I had them planned out for like three weeks, but I forgot what I was going to do. I'll try to remember. *sigh*) I'm also behind in blogs (still need to write about Thanksgiving, field trip, and much more). Today I thought I'd do a general update blog. Well, I'm currently coughing up my lungs. There's an illness going around the house that has knocked down me and Mom. If I don't post again, it's because it has killed me. (However, I think I may have lost a pound. *grins*) School is almost over - I have three finals next week, then I'm done 'til January 12th. I've got Math and Literature finals on Monday, and the Religions final on Wednesday. But wait! You're wondering why I didn't mention my Spanish and geology finals, right? Well, I took the Spanish one last week (he offered it early and I wanted to just get done), and I'm exempt from the Geology final for getting straight As on the tests this semester. (Except for the one last Thursday, but everyone failed that one...we get one test grade dropped, and that was mine. ^^") *happy dance of exemptness* Of the finals left, the only that will be any possible problem is the Math one...but I calculated it, and as long as I don't get below a 70, I'll get a B. Though Math is my worst subject, I should be able to get at least a 70. What else? I've been trying to sneak in more art-stuffs. This weekend I continued work on a project I've been meaning to do. It's kind of an experiment. When we went to Build-A-Bear a couple months ago and got animals, the animals were sent home in little box houses. I've kept mine all this time, 'cause I'm going to colour each of the four outsides with a different medium, then decorate the inside. I probably won't keep it for very long afterwards, but it will be an interesting experiment. I've already done three sides (marker, coloured pencil, and oil pastel). The fourth will be watercolour paints. I'm also a bit behind in requests from people online, and I'm working to catch up on that. There'll be some human pictures, an animal or two of various species. There's a foxlike canine I'm working on that I'm quite happy with so far. He's got a lot of expression in his face, which is something I usually have problems with in animal pictures. I've also tried my hand at making treats a couple different times this week, with varying amounts of success. First, since we had old bananas, I thought I'd make banana sludge...I mean bread. Unfortunately, the flour container was empty, and I mistook the powdered sugar for the flour. Yuck. It was bad. My later attempt at making Muddy Buddies turned out better. There was a girl in my Spanish class who had them a couple weeks ago, and I wanted to try them. They're pretty good. Better than the banana bread, that's for sure. What else have I been spending my time doing? Well, I reorganized my bookmarks the other day. I'd given up on some sites and joined others and it was getting to be a mess. One of the sites I joined is facebook. Mom joined a couple weeks ago, and her comments on the strange pointlessness of it made me curious, so I joined. I like it better than myspace, at least.
The other interesting site I recently joined is Wajas. It's an animal sim, for those who know the type, but the main thing to do is breed the canines together. It's a very complex breeding system, actually. Rather addicting. ^^ The art is beautiful, too.
If you join, I'll give you a free pup.
There's several other new sites I've joined, but none thrilling enough to talk about right now. *grins* Maybe another post.

Sooooo...I think I've run out of things I want to talk about for now. Gotta save some ideas for next time. *grins*
Hope I think of those youtubes I was going to link before tuesday. *frowns*

Random Youtube Tuesday!

Today's random youtubes come from this youtube profile.

I came across it a long time ago when I was looking for ASL songs people have put up.

This guy is an ASL comedian. He's a CODA (Child of Deaf Adults) who signs skits that are just hilarious.
Even if you don't know sign language, you'll laugh.

This one was the first one I came across. I was searching random songs and found this.



A little bit of explanation, for anyone who has no clue of ASL. When he fisrt starts interpreting, his signs are literal translations of the words. For example, "the party is jumpin'" he signs "party jumping" as in, this party is literally jumping up and down. When he rolls up his pant leg, he switches to ASL order and signing. It translates using the concepts of the words, not a literal one. Instead of signing that the rapper is driving, he becomes the rapper and shows what he's singing of doing. Finally, when he changes again, its in correct english word order...fingerspelled. It's impressive.

My other favorite video that he does is a story about his mom driving. It's kind of about deaf drivers in general, exaggerated. It's really funny.



So, that's it today. If you want to see more, check out his profile that I linked to earlier. ^^

School Registration

Registered for classes today. (Actually, registered for classes at 12:30 this morning. AM, not PM. In my next post I will blog about illnesses.)
Got some kinda cool ones coming up in the Spring semester. Took forever to find a schedule that would work, though.
Mondays and Wednesdays I have two classes, one in the morning, on in the afternoon. I've got Physical Geography (which I'm taking because it's the same teacher as in my Geology class, and I really like him.) at like 9, then Fundamentals of Baking at like 5. Yes, baking as in pies and cookies. (My brother keeps telling me that I need lots of homework for that class.)
On Tuesdays and Thursdays I have Physical Geology at 10:30. It should be lotsa fun.
Then I have one online class, Western Civilization. I never got to take this kind of class in high school because I accidentally doubled my American History class. ><

All in all, it looks like a fun semester.
I've managed to bug a couple of my friends into maybe taking Geology with me, so that'd be cool, too.