Monday, July 31, 2017

This Month in Internet (July 2017)


So the Photobucket crisis is behind me now. I still haven't updated a lot of my old posts, but I did update my previous TMI post. I went into the HTML, took out the code for the broken Photobucket links, and then uploaded the logo to that post. Then I copied the resulting code from that, and pasted it into this post. So if you see a logo above, then you'll know it worked, and that's probably what I'll do from now on.

On to the main article! These are my favorite videos from all around the internet from the month of July! Enjoy!

So let's start out this post with some music from my current favorite cartoon, Steven Universe. I have two videos here, the first is the creator of the show, Rebecca Sugar, singing one of the songs she wrote for it.



And the second is a mashup of the music done in 8-bit style by an artist I'd never heard of until this video came up in my recommendations, Joe Jeremiah. I took one listen and subscribed immediately.



Steven Universe has some amazing music, I've been saying for quite some time that I want to do a post of just Steven Universe covers, and I still plan to. Maybe I'll do that this month...

Caleb Hyles is back with a new cover, (with Jonathan Young and Adrisaurus) and while I have never played the game that the song is from, I really liked this song.



A few years ago, when Vine was still a thing, I came across an account by someone called Katie Ryan, the account had hardly anything by her, it was mostly just short clips of her daughter Ava  being hilarious. Vine is now gone, but Ava is not. She has only gotten funnier, and now that she's old enough she's writing her own characters, and she is just absolutely hilarious. If I hadn't been following her for years, I would not believe that someone this young could be so naturally funny without being told what to say.



If you want to see more of her, they compiled all of her old vines, so if you have a half an hour, you can just watch this video HERE. I highly recommend it if you need something to make you laugh. :) Also, just in case you need proof of her natural hilariousness, here's an interview she did with people magazine a few days ago.



Side note: "It's frickin' bats" has been stuck in my head for like three weeks, and it's now one of my all time favorite quotes. :p

Next up, Lindsey Stirling did a video with Kurt Hugo Schneider! I had literally just been thinking to myself just a couple days before they released this, 'I wonder why Lindsey and KHS haven't teamed up to do anything recently, they really should!' And like two days later, Boom! This came out! I think I'm like psychic or something. :p



And of course, KHS is a very prolific artist, so the video with Lindsey was far from the only one this month, he also did this video with someone I'd never heard of before, Lara Somogyi, but I loved her! She plays the harp! Like, no one does that anymore!



Now, before you go on to the next video, I must warn you, it is very weird. If you remember the few other videos I've posted with Poppy, you know that what is coming isn't normal, but I love things that aren't normal, so I loved this. :p And this song is just so weirdly catchy, it just gets stuck in your head. I'm just giving you fair warning in case you decide to proceed. :p



Mike Tompkins is back with another amazing cover!



And Pogo is back with another amazing original song! This doesn't have a video to go with it, but I LOVED the song so much, I just had to include it. :p



And finally, Simply Three released an EAR-MELTINGLY AWESOME cover of Eurythmics Sweet Dreams!

Friday, July 21, 2017

Photobucket Killed My Blog

Yes, that's an exaggeration, my blog is still here, but almost every linked image, my article logos, the fake likes and other images I used in my old Facebook parody posts, it's all gone. Photobucket recently, without warning, just shut down every single free account, and replaced everyone's images with this.


I thought it was a mistake, so I went to the website, where all my pictures are still stored, to find nothing. Nothing looked different, so I went to the address in the picture, where they nonchalantly tell you that their terms of service do not cover image hosting for free accounts. But, you can get that service by signing up for a "Plus 500" plan. They also don't have any pricing plans visible anywhere.

This still seemed sketchy, so I did some digging, only to find post after post of angry people who's blogs and businesses have been essentially held for ransom by photobucket, who, without warning, have turned off every image hosted on their servers. This started happening a few weeks back, and they have just been slowly going through and turning accounts off. I suppose since I've been using photobucket for almost a decade, I had more time, which is why I didn't notice anything until just now.

Now, I understand that they need to make money, but they failed to notify anyone, and further investigation revealed that they aren't even being upfront about the price, because the "Plus 500" plan, the only plan available for image hosting, is $399.99! I would have been mildly miffed had it been something halfway to reasonable like $19.99, but had they given plenty of advanced notice, and time for people to transition, I would have understood. The way that they have gone about this is tantamount to extortion, (if not just straight up extortion) and even if I have $400 just lying around, I wouldn't even begin to consider it.

Normally I wouldn't even write anything about something this, but this affects my blog so completely that I felt like I had to address it. Just look at the current sidebar, and you can see all the missing logos. I don't have the hours upon hours of work it will take to go back and update links, so, for all the old blog posts that had photobucket hosted images, they're pretty much dead. The TIIA posts and the posts with logos will still be readable, but the Facebook parody posts are basically ruined. I might go back and fix them someday if I'm bored and have time, but for now, for all intents and purposes, they're ruined.

Anyway, my most used logos will be replaced eventually, so I am looking for a new image hosting site. Preferably one that is free, so if you know of any good ones, specifically ones that allow html embedding, let me know!

Monday, July 17, 2017

7 Years

I very rarely remember my "Bloggiversaries," but thinks to Facebook's handy, "On This Day" feature, I realized that today was the 7 year anniversary since I started this thing.


I didn't remember writing that, like a lot of the things I find in "On This Day," but I just thought this was interesting. It really is just like me. For the last few days I'd been seeing posts from that year talking about starting a blog, looking for feedback, no one ever responded, but I decided to do it anyway. And that about sums up my decision process. I get an idea in my head,  I think about it long enough, and then I just decide to randomly go for it one day with no warning.

Completely coincidentally, today is also the two month anniversary of my YouTube channel. I uploaded the first video on May 17th, and just like my blog, it was something I'd been thinking about for quite some time, and then one day, with no warning to myself, I just randomly decided to film and upload a video, and I haven't looked back since.

Well, I guess that's about all. I didn't really have much more to say beyond that. I just found it interesting that in some ways I am a completely different person than the one who posted that first blog post 7 years ago, but as different as I am, I'm pretty much still basically the same person. And I know that sounds like something that makes no sense, but at the same time, it makes perfect sense. Just how I like it. :p

Monday, July 3, 2017

#TrumpFacts

Before we begin, I just want to say that this is not meant to be an offensive political post,  it's meant to be nothing more that the nonsensical randomness that all my other #TrueFacts posts are. Plus, I'm not only picking on Donald Trump, I did this to a ton of other presidents like three years ago as well. You can find that post HERE if you're curious.

Also, before we begin, I just want to say, that I tried to avoid the easy jokes. I really did. But there are just so many! Everyone always makes fun of his hair, his hands, his cold and distant wives, and I really didn't WANT to think of any of those kinds of jokes. I really did try to have everything in this post be just as weird and random as everything else I always write, but the easy jokes just kept coming to me!

So, to compromise, before we get to the real jokes, here are the dumbest, lamest, stupidest, easiest jokes, that I came up with. I'll leave these here, outside of the "Official" #TrueFacts list, as some bonus content that doesn't actually count as my list. They were too dumb to include, but they still made me laugh, so here they are.

I apologize in advance. :p
(not the real)

Did you know that Donald Trump's hair is actually a nest of living orange hamsters? #TrueFact

Did you know that Donald Trump has a secret White House pet that no one knows about? It's an orange beaver named Winston that lives on his head. #TrueFact

Did you know that Dunston Checks In, the classic movie from the 90's about an adorable orangutan who's living in a hotel, was based on Donald Trump's hair? #TrueFact

Did you know that before Donald Trump married Melania, 27 other brides got lost in the mail? #TrueFact

Did you know that Donald Trump's hands are so tiny that he has to use a carrot with an apricot poked onto each end to lift weights? #TrueFact

Did you know that during a rough patch in their marriage, Donald Trump once tried to ship his first wife Ivana to Abu Dhabi?  He forgot to poke holes in the box and she died.  #TrueFact
(I am SO sorry, I know it's terrible, but I just couldn't help myself. And also I was literally laughing at this for hours after I wrote it, so I had to keep it. :p)

Did you know that Donald Trump once tried to tear down the Muppet Theater because he thought there was oil under it? #TrueFact

Did you know Donald Trump once tried to open a fast food franchise to sell french fried frog legs as well as turn Kermit the Frog into his own personal mascot-slash-appetizer? #TrueFact

Did you know that Donald Trump once tried to seduce Miss Piggy and steal the Baseball Diamond from Lady Holiday? #TrueFact

Did you know that Donald Trump once kidnapped Big Bird and locked him in a giant birdcage in order to force him to perform at his circus? #TrueFact

Okay, yes, the last four jokes are all the plots of various Muppet movies with Donald Trump replacing the villains. I once heard a comedian say that Donald Trump was like a cartoon villain who'd bulldoze a kid's playground to build a hotel, so of course I imagined him as a Muppet villain instead. :p

Now, on to the real(totally not real) #TrueFacts! I make no promises that any of these are any better!

Did you know that Donald Trump uses orange marmalade as styling gel? His gorgeous coif both looks and tastes incredible! #TrueFact

Did you know that while the average human is 60% water, Donald Trump is actually 60% tanning lotion? And also like, 10% hemorrhoid cream. #TrueFact

Did you know that Donald Trump has a ventriloquist dummy modeled after himself named Li'l Trumpy? He uses it to talk to Melania when they're alone. That's the real reason she has her own bedroom. #TrueFact

Did you know that Donald Trump's childhood idol was Scrooge McDuck? That's why he's always puckering his lips. He's just trying to be like his beloved childhood hero. #TrueFact

Did you know that Trump Tower is actually one of Donald Trump's massive money bins? Most of his hotels and properties don't have any floors, they are just giant fancy boxes to keep his money in. Just another bit of inspiration from his fine feathered idol. #TrueFact

Did you know that Donald Trump once tried to recreate Scrooge's iconic money bin dive? In 1992, he installed a diving board at the top of his Plaza Hotel in New York. Unfortunately the Plaza went bankrupt in the middle of his dive and he ended up in a body cast for 6 months. #TrueFact
(And before you ask, yes, the moment he went bankrupt, all the money magically disappeared in a puff of smoke. I know it makes no sense! Does any of the rest of this?)
Did you know that Donald Trump owns a body cast signed by Scrooge McDuck? He actually went all the way to Disneyland himself to get it signed. Ivana Trump, his wife at the time, said it was the only time she'd ever seen him cry. It was a single tear of happiness, but it still counts! #TrueFact

Did you know that one of Donald Trump's first acts as president was to break the Presidential Lasagna Eating Record? The previous record had been held for 136 years by President Garfield.



Did you know that one of teenage Donald Trump's first jobs was to be the clown mascot for a small chain of hamburger restaurants called McDoogals? He did such a great job, they actually renamed the whole chain in his honor. #TrueFact

Did you know that the real reason that Donald Trump hates Hillary Clinton is that she rejected his elaborate musical-flash-mob-prom-posal back in 1963? He actually still has a secret crush on her, and is masking his wounded pride with insults. #TrueFact