I found a way to put Twitter stuff on my blog. Instead of sending updates that would be listed as blog posts, there will be a list of the last 3 or 5 tweats right about the blog. I don't think that'll be too intrusive.

I looked at WordPress earlier this week, tinkered around with it. It's pretty cool. I do not want to give up Blogger (I really don't know why). So I was looking at WordPress as a catch all for YouTube, Vimeo, Twitter, and Blogger. I think I could use WordPress to pull all that off, but I think it may just be easier if I find stand-a-lone solutions to get YouTube and Vimeo into the site. As mentioned before, I've already found a Twitter solution.

In the end, I'll probably just end up manually putting the videos as I do them. I need to redo the Media page anyway to include at least the new Vimeo stuff. I was holding out for them to allow free HD embedding, but alas, I think that's the only way they make money.  ¶ 7:06 PM

 
The Christmas Tree from A Musing Propaganda on Vimeo.

The Christmas Tree video. HD version on my Vimeo Channel.

I love my Christmas Tree. It takes a lot of effort to put it up and decorate it. Last year, the base broke, and the tree fell. We lost a few ornaments. I bought a new base and was able to get the tree back up. And this year, it's up again with a few new ornaments and yes, even a few different lights. I will not confirm nor deny that the weight of the lights had anything to do last year's "incident". You may also notice that most of the video is shot with just light from the tree. While this may not seem very bright at times, you have to be aware that my camera does not do well in low light at all. So I was surprised at how good things turned out. And yes, that is Twisted Sister playing.

This video isn't on YouTube. Why? Well, after three attempts and re-encode, the standard version worked fine on YouTube, but the HD version was messed up. Instead of a 4 min video, it was 54 seconds long. Maybe they were commenting on how I need to edit things down. I don't know. If in the future, I figure out what went wrong, I'll upload the video again to YouTube. But Christmas is like two days away.

Update: There is a forum post for this problem. I'm not the only one. Seems to have started Sunday. Uploading cuts minutes off of YouTube video.

Maybe this will be fixed before Christmas. I hope so. But if not, that's fine. I love Vimeo. Be sure to go to my channel for the HD version.  ¶ 1:09 AM

 

Storm of December 9th, 2008. HD version. May have to let it buffer.

Vimeo link.

On December 9th, 2008, we had a severe weather event. Two towns not far from me where stuck by tornadoes. Nobody died thank God, but there was lots of damage. That night I filmed some of the weather. About halfway through the video, the power went off on the other side of the street.

Source: MinDV 620 x 480i 24 fps exported to 720p HD, Quicktime MP4, H.264, 24 fps, Frame Distance 30, Frame Recording On, Deinterlace On, Bitrate 3,120 kbits/sec.

Now that YouTube has HD (their version of it), I really torn between Vimeo and YouTube. I really like the way Vimeo looks and their website. But YouTube has more people, and can be embedded in HD, as above (add &ap=%2526fmt%3D22 to the links in the embed code to get HD). With Vimeo, you have to pay to get HD embeds.  ¶ 5:13 PM

  Bettie Page died peacefully in her sleep today at 6:41pm in Los Angeles. She was 85 years old. She was also the Ultimate Pinup Queen. For those of you who don't know her name, you would know her when you saw her. There's really not a lot I can say to express how important she was to me. Above my computer, a framed Bettie Page poster hangs. I see her every day. She's on my amp and guitar equipment. She's been endless background images, avatars, icons, and I even hacked countless Linux bootscreens just to put in images of Bettie Page. She was even in the first video I ever uploaded to YouTube. A few of the links in the video are incorrect now, and it's full of errors and goofs and just plain ole' bad editing. But, because of her and the accompanying song, I left it up.

When I think of Bettie, I always think of beauty, sexy, naughty, and nice... smart curves and that haircut... my pinup.



Betty Mae Page aka The Bettie Page
April 22nd, 1923 - December 11th, 2008  ¶ 11:03 PM

  I created links to all the social things I have stuff on. You can see them above. I'm not 100% happy with it. I think I need to redesign the site to include all the feeds and such. The Media section needs to be redone to include all the feeds from YouTube and Vimeo. Maybe there should be some inclusion of Twitter. FriendFeed seems to be a catch-all, but I'm not sure how good of one yet. I rarely use Flickr anymore because lack of camera. And then there's FaceBook, which I'm not sure what to do about. Yes, I left out MySpace on purpose.

Anyhoo, I'm editing some November video to make room for the December video I plan to shoot. I want to get the construction of our Christmas tree plus all the various decorations around town. I'm also expecting bad weather. Probably be just non-stop cold, which doesn't look good on video.  ¶ 12:04 AM

  It's profile.to for FaceBook. I remembered finally.  ¶ 12:21 AM

  I've been tinkering with FriendFeed. It has a widget that includes all my social network feeds. I was going to add it to my blog, but I don't like how it looks. So, I'm going to have to come up with my own icons and links. I never thought I'd have so many social things, but I'm on YouTube, Vimeo, Twitter, Facebook, and now FriendFeed. Notice how I left out MySpace. I still hate that place. Oh, I forgot my FaceBook link, or I'd use it.  ¶ 4:25 PM