SUIA (Steven Universe IS Awesome)

Awhile back I talked about making a post dedicated to Steven Universe covers, so here it is! Complete with a (probably) one-time use graphic that I just decided to make an hour before I posted this! I actually started this post months ago, and I just keep adding to it. Steven Universe is such a great show, and it has such amazing music. The composers and song writers are musical geniuses, and so many people have taken notice, you can get absolutely lost on YouTube if you just search "Steven Universe Song Covers." So, since most of you probably don't watch the show and would have no reason to search such a thing, I'll do the work for you and pick out the best ones. Some of the songs will be repeated, but I love different artists takes on different songs.

I'm just going to group these by song, and I'm not going to do introductions to most of the videos because some of these are people I follow all the time, but a lot of others are just ones I've come across online, and I don't really know who they are beyond the fact that I like their cover. Though a number of these people I discovered while researching this post, and I subscribed right away.

And just so you know, this is definitely going to be a long post, so make sure you have the time to watch, or plan to come back. :)

Steven Universe Theme



Is it a cover if it's sung live by the cast? I don't care, I love it anyway. :p



Giant Woman/Let Me Drive my Van into Your Heart



Be Wherever You Are



Comet



Stronger Than You



This has pretty much become the iconic song of Steven Universe. I could probably do a whole post on just this song along, but I won't, I'll limit it to two very different versions.



Something Entirely New





Peace and Love (On Planet Earth)



It's Over Isn't It?





Both of You



Here Comes a Thought





What's the Use of Feeling, Blue?







Love Like You (End Theme)

TIIA5 (The Internet Is Awesome)

Let's kick this off, the way I seem to start most of these, with a Lindsey Stirling video.



I have to say, I liked this video even better than the movie it was based on.

I haven't featured World Order in awhile, but if you don't remember, and haven't heard of them, just watch and marvel at their total body muscle control.



Next up is a YouTuber that I only recently discovered, Caleb Hyles, doing a medley from the musical, Wicked.



I bought this song before I'd even finished listening to it, and it's been in my current playlist ever since.

Peter Hollens recently covered Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow, and it was so good.



Incidentally, at the same time, his wife, Evynne, did a more traditional cover.



Let's end this with Player Piano again, this time with their version of the Doctor Who theme.



They've promised another Doctor Who video soon, I can't wait!

Lindsey Stirling Concert 2014

So today, I am going to another Lindsey Stirling concert! I went last year, and it was SO awesome! I took hundreds upon hundreds of pictures, but I never got around to posting any of them. Just like I never got around to posting the pictures from my trip to Colorado, or pictures from just about anything in the last year. But no more! Starting today I am catching up on all my photo posting, and will (try to) never again get so behind on photos!

Let's begin!

We (my uncle Dan and I) got there about two hours early, thinking we would have plenty of time, and be some of the first people in line. We were not. There were LOTS of people ahead of us.

But we were far from the last. There were so many other people that arrived afterward, that they stretched far out into the field/woods away from the theater.

They started letting us in about an hour before the show. This was the stage.

The show was opened by Dia Frampton and her band Archis.

Dia is the featured singer on We Are Giants, my favorite song on Lindsey's latest album.

I love her drummer's energy.

This guys is pretty much the luckiest guy in the world.

The owner of this phone is also the luckiest person.

Maybe not quite as lucky as the guy who got a public-private serenade, but pretty lucky.

After the opening show, there was still some time before the main event and as we waited, I saw Dia herself come out, and just hang out below the stage. People started going down and talking with her, and then a line formed, and she was taking pictures with people, and I was like, "I can't let this opportunity pass me by!" And I went down. :)

We waited a little while longer and as the sun was going down, Lindsey appeared.

The show was amazing, and thanks to my long lens, I got a lot of good pictures.

Halfway through the show Dia came back out to sing We Are Giants. It was amazing.

Gavi, one of the two other guys that make up Lindsey's touring band.

And that was the show. It was so fun and awesome to see Lindsey live, not to mention getting a picture with Dia. I can't wait for tonight! Not only will we be going to see Lindsey, Karmin will be opening for her! Karmin is one of my cousin Shaina's and my favorite groups, and we are so excited to see them live! Stay tuned for pictures!

P.S. Check out my photo blog HERE for bigger, better pictures from the night.

TIIA3 (The Internet is Awesome)

You know the drill, the internet is awesome, here are a few examples.

Lindsey Stirling recently covered a Hatsune Miku song, and it was amazing.



Next is a song by Sia. Sia has become one of my favorite artists, but I have hesitated to share some of her videos, because of their controversial nature. This performance of "Elastic Heart," from Ellen, was awesome, and, as far as I know, completely uncontroversial, so I'm sharing away!



Speaking of Sia, Alaa Wardi recently covered Chandelier, and it was just as awesome as the original!



Peter Hollens just released his cover of The Hanging Tree from the Hunger Games, and it was amazing.



Next is the first musical outing by YouTuber Brittani Louise Taylor who is know for her skits, vlogs, and occasional musical parodies. She has never tried her hand at writing her own song before, and I think she did pretty good for a first try!



I recently discovered a new acapella group called VoicePlay, and if you know me, you know I love me some good acapella. And VoicePlay is good acapella. Here they are covering Lana Del Rey's version of "Once Upon a Dream" from Maleficent.



Let's finish this off with another Peter Hollens video, Song of The Lonely Mountain, from The Hobbit. If you're a Lord of the Rings fan, you should totally check out Peter's covers of the songs from all the movies. They're all so great.



That's all for now, hopefully it won't be another 3 months before I do one of these!

The Internet Is Awesome

So, apparently I completely abandoned my blog last month, school has been ridiculous. I was planning to do more posts while I was on Thanksgiving break, but I was busy all last week too.
I started this one before I went back to Ames, but I never finished it. This will most likely be it before Christmas break. I'd promise to have more posts then, but I'm not good with those kinds of promises. I'll promise to do at least one, and we'll hope for a miracle.

So, I am changing the title of these post, again, but I think this time it'll stick. I got the name from a Pomplamoose song, see below, and it perfectly describes these posts, and will let me add non-music videos later on if I want to.

Here's the video that inspired the title!



It's such a strange video, more of a spoken word piece than a song, but I really like it. I've played it so many times I can almost 'sing' the whole thing along with her.

This next video is a collaboration between two of my favorite YouTube artists/groups, Lindsey Stirling and Pentatonix.



I loved this so much I immediately shared it on facebook, and right away I was told it was creepy. I didn't think so, I just thought it was awesome. Well come to find, out Pentatonix WANTED it to be just a bit creepy. So joke's on me I guess.

This next one is just Lindsey Stirling. It's not one of my favorite songs of hers, it has more of a country flair which I'm usually rather, 'meh' about, but it is one of her best videos.



I think I'll take back what I just said. The song must have grown on me because I just watched it again, and I liked it a lot better than before.

Now for a solo Pentatonix video.



This is one of my favorite songs from their latest album, and even though the video is really simple, I really like it. Japan is on the bucket list in my head that I've never written down.

Speaking of Japan!



Owl City hadn't released anything for way too long, so this was an awesome surprise! I already love the song, and I can't wait for his next album!

Let's finish this out with a bang! OK GO!



This is probably now my absolute favorite OK Go song. And the video is amazing. They put more work into their videos than pretty much anyone, and it shows.

As I was going through my saved music for these posts, I realized that I had more than enough for two posts, so if I get time, I will do another post. Stay tuned!

More Music!

I've decided that these music video posts will be called More Music. Until I don't like that name anymore. The name change was a split second decision like 2 seconds ago. Sometimes I can be fickle.

Behold the worst Owl City music video ever. That's not to say it's bad. As it is an Owl City song, there is no way that it could ever be bad by default. That's just impossible. But it can be not as good as any other Owl City music video. And it is. It is not as good as any other Owl City music video ever.



I love the song, I just don't like the video. Literally the only part that I liked was the female wolves dancing. And the music. I love the music. Also, if there were any illuminati symbols mixed into those flashing pictures, I'd love that too. I love it when people do that kind of thing. Freak out the paranoid conspiracy theorists watching. If I ever make anything like that, I'll cram it full of so many symbols it'll be flagged by all manner of tin-foil hat society.

Anywho... Now that we've had one not-so-good Owl City video, here's an AWESOME one to make up for it.
BEHOLD: Owl City and Lindsey Stirling! My universes have collided, and it is a Beautiful Time!



It has such a great "Fireflies" vibe. I love this so much!

Next, Pentatonix. I want to call them amazing, but that word doesn't seem to be quite enough.



I love everything about this video. The singing/music, the lighting, the makeup and costumes, this video is halfway to perfection.

The song in this next video has quickly become one of my favorite songs. It is by the incomparable ShmoYoHo, aka the Gregory Brothers. I would suggest watching just the first three minutes of it though. After three minutes, the song is over, and it get's weird and awkward, and not it a funny way. And this is coming for someone who loved weird situations.



It could have been funny, but it was like... Not. I know you'll watch it anyway, because no one ever obeys warnings to not watch something, but at the very end you'll be like, "Why didn't I listen? I feel like I need to scrub the icky off myself with a baby wipe."

Rhett and Link recently came out with an awesome new song. I bought this for my iPod, and I have listened to it to death.



I have had, and sometimes still have, occasional OCD-like symptoms, so I felt most of this video. At least until it got ridiculous.

Here's another song from Kina Granis' new album.



This is my favorite song on the album. I love it.

Next is a song by a new band called The Madden Brothers. I had never heard of them, (Because they haven't even released one album yet) but they were featured on an episode of YouTube Nation, and I went to check them out. This is the only song on their channel so far, but I loved it, and if it is any indication of things to come, I'll be a big fan.



Once the choir came in I was done. Subscribed immediately.

Last, we have, for the first time in AGES, a new OK Go video. Bathe your eyes in the glory.



They have a new album coming out this fall, and I can't wait!

500 Posts!

This post marks the 500th post on My Random World. I can't believe I've hit that high. I don't really have anything else to say, just wanted to acknowledge this blogging milestone. I don't want you to feel gypped out of a legitimate blog post though, so here's some music for you.

These were picked for their music, not for their videos, like I usually post. That being said, I did make sure to get the official music video for all these, as it's much more enteratining to watch a video, than to stare at the still image of an album cover, and most of these are definitely worth watching.

Lettice Rowbotham

Lettice Rowbotham, (Yes, that IS that correct spelling), was a violinist on the most recent season (Series, for those in the UK) of Britain's Got Talent, and she blew everyone else away. I love the violin, but even I have to admit that it can sometimes get tired, so I love it when someone like Lettice comes along and brings something completely new to the performance.



I love her personality, her sense of humor, and everything about her, but I have to admit, the first time I watched her, I 100% expected a hilarious trainwreck when she started playing. I loved the interview, and loved her, but when she readily admitted that she hadn't even practiced, and she was too hungover to be nervous, I braced myself for the worst. I was thrilled to have my fears assuaged, and her previous admissions made her performance all the more impressive.

Her second performance was even better.



I loved that she used "Trust In Me" as part of her performance, and despite Simon's dislike of the second half, I loved it. I've grown to love dubstep if it's done right, and Lettice did dupstep right, not too heavy, and as part of the background, not the focus.

Lettice made it all the way to the finale and managed to literally drop my jaw.



I was amazed when she opened her mouth. I don't know that I've disagreed with Simon more when he said it didn't work. Thankfully the entire audience disagreed as well. Inwardly I cheered for their booing.

Sadly, Lettice didn't win, which is one of the single greatest tragedies of our time, but I have no doubt that she'll go places. I now follow her on both Twitter and YouTube, so I'll know the second she announces any new projects. I can't wait to see what she does next!

Lindsey Stirling: 1st Concert!

Tonight I went to my very first REAL concert ever! Lindsey Stirling was amazing! I didn't get to meet her, but I did get to meet Dia Frampton, and I got a picture with her. My computer is on the fritz at the moment, so until I can get the pictures off my camera, I decided to just write down some random thoughts I had during the concert. I'll post pictures as soon as I can.

Everything at the concert was so loud, you could litterally feel the music. These are a few of the thoughts that went through my head as I sat there.

This is Amazing.

My pants are vibrating.

Awesome!

I can feel this in my sinuses!

I think I'm in love. (With Dia Frampton) (But also Lindsey. :p)

I have the BEST headache!

This. Is. AWESOME!

I think I just went deaf. So worth it.

Music Mix

I was getting tired of the old "Video Blitz" title. I'm not even sure why I chose that word anyway. Blitz. It means attack. Was I attacking you with videos? Sometimes I wonder about me...

Anyway, I'm changing it. I'll have to think of something else if I want to share videos besides music, but since that's almost everything I share, I figured this would do for now.

First up, Peter Hollens and his wife Evynne, just released a Phantom of the Opera Medley, and it is SO good.



I have loved the music of the Phantom of the Opera since I first saw it, and this is one of the best covers I've ever heard.

Next we have Lindsey Stirling. She just released a new album, and this is the title song. It's her first foray into lyrical songwriting, and it is a great start! Plus, Lzzy Hale's voice is amazing! And no, Lzzy is not a misspelling. I looked it up to make sure.



The other day she also released an orchestral version of the song. It's just as amazing as the original.



I hope that someday she'll do a whole album of orchestral versions. I love all her dubstep and dance stuff, but these orchestral versions are awesome as well.

Next up is Dear River, from Kina Grannis's new album.



It is kind of strange, with an odd ending, like, what, did they get turned into children? Whatever. I like oddness, and the song is great. :)

Speaking of odd, here is my latest find, World Order, a male J-Pop group.



It's Japan, so weird is almost a given. I love it. I have all their albums. This song isn't on any of them though, which is a shame, because it's one of my favorites. BTW, the girl group they go see is another J-Pop group, AKB48, in case anyone cares. :)

Next is Ariana Grande's latest single, "Problem."



I am usually not all that into "Mainstream Music," but there is something about Ariana's voice that is just hypnotizing. I can't wait for her next album.

I'll end with another of Peter Hollens' videos. It's a year old, but I just found it, and I can't believe I'd never seen it before. I love it!

Video Blitz: Safe and Sound

I thought about putting one of these in the last compilation, but I decided to wait and just do one post with all four videos. This is Capital Cities' Safe and Sound, covered by Kurt Hugo Schneider, Kina Grannis, MAX, and Zendaya. I was thrilled to see Zendaya collaborating with well known YouTubers. It just goes to show that the lines between traditional artists and YouTubers are blurring.

At first glance it appears that this is the same video four times, but there are slight variations in camerawork, choreography and arrangements. I've listed to them all over and over, and I can't decide which one I like best.

Each artist released their own version on their own channel.

First up is Kurt's. Though he barely sings at all in his version.



Then Kina's.



Then Zendaya's.



And finally MAX's.

Video Blitz 6

First up, Lindsey Sirling has a new album coming out, and this is the first single!



It's amazing! I can't wait for the whole album!

Next up, in case you're not totally sick of Frozen covers, this is an amazing version of Let it go, by Alex Boye.



I had avoided posting covers from this movie on my blog, since there were just SO many, but this one was too good not to share. It's a completely original take, rather than a straight cover like most of the rest.

Next, we have Karmin, one of my relatively new favorite groups, covering their own song, Acapella, with Mike Tomkins, and actually doing it in acapella.



I may like this version better than the original. I wish I could buy this one!

Next up, is another travel video from Devin Graham, featuring Dubai.



This place looks amazing. Dubai definitely went on my bucket list after I saw this video.

Last but not least, here is a Peter Hollens video, this time a collaboration with Kina Grannis.



As a bonus, I'm including an old Kina Grannis video that is so amazing, it deserves to be seen again.

Video Blitz 5

To start this post, tonight Adam Young released his latest Owl City track, and it's amazing. A. May. Zing.
This is just the audio, but I'm crossing my fingers for a music video. He hasn't released a music video since Shine Your Way, from the Croods, and that was just promotion for a movie. He hasn't released one for an original track since Shooting Star in October of 2012! It's been WAY too long!



To make this already amazing track even better, it features Lindsey Stirling! I had imagined what it would be like if they collaborated, but I never dreamed it would actually happen. He's almost a mainstream artist, she's a YouTuber, it's not often you see the two kinds of artists working together. But I guess the boundaries are blurring, and he also got his start on the internet, so I guess I shouldn't have discounted the possibility.

Speaking of Lindsey Stirling, She recently released an orchestral version of Transcendence, and it is amazing!



And the Landfill Harmonic make an appearance! I was so surprised to see them!

Next up is a Peter Hollens video, a collaboration with Mike Tompkins.



The video was meant to commemorate his wife's pregnancy. And speaking of his wife:

The last video I'll share today is Evynne Hollens' cover of Brave. I actually don't think I've heard the original of this song before, and I'm not sure I want to now. This one is just too good.



In case anyone is wondering, she had their baby a few days ago, and his name is Ashland James.

Edit: Never mind what I said above, about not wanting to hear the original. I looked it up. It is just as amazing, and I have to include the video. It's too good not to share.



I love the joy in uninhibited dancing. :)

Video Blitz 4

I haven't done one of these in awhile, so I had a lot of great videos to choose from that have come out over the last two months. It was SO hard to narrow them down!

First up is probably my favorite YouTube musician of all time, Lindsey Stirling. (I know this sounds so "Hipster-ish," but I love the fact that I can say I discovered her when she only had one music video on YouTube, and I've been watching her ever since.)



All the footage is from her first world tour. I love how they planned each shot and made her poses and moves all blend together in all the locations all over the world.

Next up is Peter Hollens and his wife Evynne.



I don't play WOW, and don't ever plan to, but you don't have to even know what it is to enjoy this song. It's amazing.

The next is an episode of Messy Mondays from Blimey Cow. Some of the jokes you have to have been watching the show for awhile to understand, but it is still gut-bustingly hilarious.



I about died laughing at the "Hip-Squeak."

The next video has been out for awhile, it's from one of my favorite YouTube Groups, Walk Off the Earth.



This song showed up in the video player on my 3DS ages ago, probably over a year, and I played it over and over, until it was replaced. (There's a rotating cycle of 4 videos in the 3DS player, none are permanent.) I forgot about it until last month when I rediscovered it, found their YouTube channel, and realized I'd seen some of their videos in the past, and I loved them. I subscribed right then, and bought their album.

The next song is another by Peter Hollens, and it is probably my favorite new song of all of these.



I loved this song from the first NOTE! I listened to it over, and over, and over! (And bought it of course.) I highly recommend that you follow Peter's link to the original video as well.

This next video is from William Joseph, the same guy who played the piano in the Dubstep Piano on the Lake video from my last Video Blitz post.



Love the cinematography, and the violinist is amazing as well!

I wouldn't feel right doing one of these posts without including the single greatest group on all of YouTube, Pentatonix.



They are incapable of making a bad song. Incapable.

Last, but definitely not least, probably my favorite video out of all of these, Lindsey Stirling's latest masterpiece. This video is so different from her other ones. Amazing special effects, awesome CGI, and amazing dancers with amazing choreography. It's so science-fiction-y, but still completely her style. It blew me away. I've lost track of how many times I've watched this video.

Video Blitz 3

First off, I'm just going to get this one out of the way, even though anyone who is anyone has already watched this thing like a million times already. Or just once, because they hated it. Those are some sad people.



I watched this video only a day or two after it was released. It only had around a thousand views, and I said at the time that it was destined for viral-ity. I was even more right than I knew, and it blew up BIG time. It is currently at almost 200 million views.

This next video has two different versions, and I love both. It's a collaboration between two of my favorite YouTubers, Peter Hollens and MysteryGuitarMan.



I think I prefer Peter's acapella version, but they are both so great.



This cover of Imagine Dragon's "Radioactive" is a perfect demonstration of what I said last year in my POST about Dupstep. When it is paired with something else, in this case a piano, it is so much better than when it is by itself.



As an aside, this video was shot by Devin Graham, one of my favorite cinematographers on YouTube.

I usually try not to have too many repeat artists in these posts, but I have to share another video by Peter Hollens. I loved this song so much, I bought it immediately, and it has climbed all the way to number 4 in my top 25 most played songs on iTunes in less than a month. And that's not counting all the times I've watched the video.



After I watched this video, I had to find out more about Alaa Wardi. I looked him up on YouTube and immediately subscribed. He is amazing.



No video post of mine would be complete without a Lindsey Stirling video. This one isn't one of her better videos cinematography-wise, it's essentially an ad for NBC's new Dracula show, but I'm sharing it because the music itself is BEYOND fantastic! I loved her original Debstep version of "Elements" but this new orchestral version? It is SO much better! It make me hope that eventually she'll do orchestral versions of all her music, because it's amazing!



And finally, today Pentatonix released their second album, which I had preordered ages ago, so it was waiting in my iTunes for me this morning, and they released this video to go with it. I can't stop watching it. The whole thing is just mesmerizing. This video is the perfect example of why they are my favorite group on YouTube.

Video Blitz 2

I haven't made a video compilation post in a long time, so I decided it was high time I did another. Plus I wanted an excuse to share Zendaya's new music video. I am loving this song, and I love the understated dance that goes with it.



Now that I've gotten that out of the way, first up, is Lindsey Stirling and Peter Hollens' latest collaboration. It's completely epic, just like everything else they do.



Next is a cartoon from the web series, "Bravest Warriors." I don't recommend all the episodes for everyone, since there is some mildly inappropriate, and sometimes really weird, humor in some of them, (Though if that doesn't bother you, check out the rest of them. SO funny! Sort of like a pg-13 version of Adventure Time.) but this one is completely clean, and absolutely hilarious. I have watched it more times than I can count. Catbug has always been my favorite character from the series, so I was so glad he got his own short to star in.



(As an aside, if you aren't bothered by VERY weird cartoons, click the link at the end of Dramabug to watch Bee and Puppycat. It is really good, but very random, and VERY strange, and depending on your tolerance level, maybe a little creepy toward the end. I love weird things though, so I really liked it.)

The next video I became obsessed with after I watched it. Or rather, I became obsessed with the song. The video kind of has a dark twist at the end, but I love the style of everything, and I love the song. I played it so many times that I decided I had to buy it. It is now my alarm tone that wakes me up in the morning. :p



The next one is a spoof of the video I shared the last time I made one of these video posts. "How Animals eat their food." I about died when they got to Americans. :D



This next song is an odd cover of a Rhianna song by the steam-punk band, Steam Powered Giraffe. (Guess why I LOVE their name! :D)



This last video is a collaboration between Todric Hall and the always amazing group Pentatonix. It's a tribute to The Wizard of Oz, and it is so good! I want full length versions of all these songs!



That's all for now. I'll keep collecting my favorite videos, and try to make another one of these posts in another month or so.

It's All the Smurf's Fault.

I'm so confused, and it's all the Smurf's fault.

I have always had something against the Smurfs. I don't know why, I just have. I can't explain it. They just looked kind of stupid. I know this is a dumb reason to dislike anything, but this is an irrational dislike. Reason does not apply.

But now... I'm so confused!!!! You know how easy it is to get lost in a YouTube wormhole right? You watch one video, which leads to another, which leads to another, and soon three days have gone by and you realize that your eyeballs have dried out? Well that happened to me the other day, and now I don't know how to feel about the Smurfs.

It started with Zendaya's new single. I literally had it on "Replay". (This has nothing to do with the Smurfs, I just love the song, and I wanted an excuse to post it here.)



While I was listening to the song, I saw a song by Britney Spears on the sidebar. I hadn't seen her for years. I thought she had gone crazy and run off to live under a bridge somewhere. The song was called Ooh La La, and it was from the Smurfs 2. I figured it was going to be a trainwreck, so don't ask me why I clicked it.



I was wrong. Wrong about everything. Apparently Britney Spears has cleaned herself up, had kids, and her song was... Fun? I had a strong urge to buy it, but I couldn't. I mean... Its the smurfs! Those stupid blue things! I know nothing about them. But I still hate them. I have problems. I know this.

Anyway, one thing led to another as so often happens on YouTube, and suddenly I found out that Owl City wrote a song for the Smurfs 2. Owl City!



How can I hate anything the Owl City contributed to? I can't! But how can I like the smurfs? I can't! They have such dumb looking, fat fingers, and their hats! Good grief, their hats are almost as dumb as those Touques with the fluffy ball on the top. (Touque is the Canadian word for stocking cap. My dad's Canadian.) These are legitimate reason for me to dislike them, and I cant give them up easily!

I started looking into the rest of the songs on the album. Why? Why did they have to be so catchy?



However, there is one GLARING exception. This. Just... This...



SRSLY, I think I'm going to puke my pants. (Homestar Runner Reference)

Now I have a huge moral crisis. Do I continue to hold onto an unfounded hatred for a cartoon that never gave me a good reason to dislike it, and therefore miss out on adding a song by my favorite artist to my collection, or do I overlook one heinously awful song, give up my irrational prejudice, and actually give the Smurfs a chance?

I think I might have to watch the movie. That way if it really is bad I can have a good reason for thinking so. I didn't figure that anything was going to change my mind, so I looked up the movie to read about it. Apparently both Neil Patrick Harris and Jayma Mays star in it. What? Why?

This gives me two MORE reasons to stop hating it! But it's just so hard! For some reason, the Smurfs have been stored in the part of my brain where Barney the purple dinosaur lives, and I'm having a serious problem getting them out.

I don't know. I think I'm probably going to have rethink my life.

Monsters University

Pixar has done it again. This movie is every bit as good as I'd hoped. Yes, critics still dumped on it for being another sequel (prequel) but they're just stuffy film critics who wouldn't know a good film if it fell out of the sky and landed on their head, splattering all over their clothes. I'm writing this review in the middle of the night. I'm probably going to be a little weirder than normal.

Yeah, I'm sure you're wondering why I'm writing this now, Monsters University came out last month, it's old news. Yeah, I am late, but I still wanted to write something, because this was a really good movie. Though I am still on the fence as to whether or not it was better than The Croods, but I've decided not to pick a favorite.

Maybe.

I don't know. The Croods was SO good! Maybe it WAS better than a Pixar film? Can that happen two years in a row? A non-Pixar film being better than the Pixar film? I KNOW it won't happen next year. The movie is called "The Good Dinosaur." There is NO WAY any other movie is gonna beat that.

Anyway, this sounds too much like I'm ragging on MU for not being good enough, but I'm really not! It was so good! It's just that I really loved The Croods.

Monsters University was a great movie. It was unusual in that it kind of had the opposite message of most feel-good family films. Most films seem to tell you "Follow your dreams, believe in yourself, and eventually all your dreams will come true!" This film's message was "Follow your dreams, but be prepared, because they may not come true at all, and that's ok." That's a rather wordy message, and I'm sure that I could probably try to come up with a more concise way of saying that, but as I said before, it's the middle of the night, and my thinking parts aren't cogitating rightly.

The movie follows Mike (The green eyeball from Monsters Inc.) as he attends Monsters University to become a scarer. As we all know from watching Monsters Inc, Mike never became a scarer. The movie is all about Mike getting his dreams crushed. Sort of. It's about Mike's journey of self discovery, as he realizes that his life-long dream is unattainable, and how he comes to grips with that. But this movie is a lot more fun and funny than I am making it sound.

I won't give away any of the movie for those who still haven't seen it, but I do want to just highlight a few of my favorite things about the movie.

#1 The pigeon. If you have seen the movie you know exactly what I'm talking about. SQURAAAAAAAWWW!!!!

#2 Dean Hardscrabble. Best monster design ever. I hate centipedes, but dragon/centipede hybrids? Awesome! 

#3 Squishy's dance. It rivals Napoleon Dynamite's dance scene, as the best dance scene in cinematic history. Also, the music from that scene? I bought the song, and I've lost count of how many times I've played it. Here, listen for yourself. :)

#4 Squishy's mother. Listening to her tunes, and dancing while doing the laundry. Too funny.

#5 "I can't go back to jail!" Funniest line ever.

So there you have it. My better-late-than-never review of Pixar's latest masterpiece. If you haven't seen it yet, your need to. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll wish for a mutant pigeon of your very own.

Video Blitz

I have seen a whole bunch of great videos recently, and I wanted to compile them into one blog post to share them all. Because they are awesome. Enjoy. :)

The first video is from MysteryGuitarMan. He was the first YouTuber I ever followed, it was because of him that I discovered a wealth of independent talent on YouTube. This video is one of his best in a long time. For anyone interested, all the clips that are featured in the video are from other YouTubers.



The next video is another one that just made me laugh. A guy doing a Gollum impression covering a Taylor Swift song. You just need to watch it. :p



I hear this song every day at the store where I work, and I have to say, I like this version so much better. :D

The next video is a dance video. It is amazing. Watch it.



Next is an ad for Dennys. Why would I like a video from Denny's so much? It was made by Rhett and Link, and it is hilarious!



The next one is a sequel to the last one, and is just as funny.



This next one is a time lapse video of Riga, Latvia. I love time lapse videos in general, but this one seems especially unique to me. I really like it.



This last video I am sharing because it made me laugh harder than anything I've seen in a very long time. Seriously. I was in stitches the entire time. I have rewatched this so many times now, I have lost count. :D

The Croods: Movie Review

Last night my cousins and I did something we almost never do. We went to a movie on opening night. Usually, to avoid the crowds, we wait until a movie has been in the theater for awhile before we go see it. But for whatever reason we decided to brave the crowds and go see "The Croods" on the first night anyway. And we were all glad we did. It was amazing. In so many ways.

The Croods is about a family of cavemen who are forced to leave the safety of their cave and travel across a vast, unknown country in search of a new home. It is not like anything you might expect. The cavemen do not speak in grunts, none of the animals are real, and for a story supposedly set in "The Stone Age" this movie was teeming with gorgeous plant life.

As a minor side note before I really begin, I just wanted to say that something I found very refreshing, especially from a movie called "The Croods" was that it was not crude in the least! There was not one single burp or fart joke in the entire movie! Before I went to see it I thought to myself, wouldn't it be hilarious if they subverted the audience's expectations completely and did not have any crude humor whatsoever? Little did I know is that is exactly what they had done!

The one thing all three of us noted most about the movie was how incredibly hilarious it was. I know I tend to over-use the word hilarious sometimes, but this movie was genuinely laugh-out-loud funny almost the whole way through. The characters all had distinct personalities, and they were all funny in different ways. I loved the grandmother. I tend to love "Old Ladies With Attitude" characters anyway, so this was a natural favorite for me. The baby was also hilarious. She didn't speak, but was almost like a savage little dog. The scene in the beginning where they use her during the hunt to chase down the ram-bird was hysterical!

The main character of the movie was a teenager named Eep. I loved her name. Don't ask me why, but I just found it so funny that her name is Eep. Eep is like most teenagers, she wants more freedom than her parents will allow, but she has a real problem with her dad, Grug. He is extremely over-protective, and terrified of everything. His motto is "Never not be afraid." One day Eep meets a hot young caveman named Guy, who has a pet sloth named Belt. (Belt holds his pants up) Guy is the complete opposite of her dad. He is far more courageous than her father, he loves exploring the world, and he invents things like fire, shoes, and giant puppets. When they are forced to move, Grug begrudgingly allows Guy to lead them across the wilderness in search of a new home.

Aside from the writing and characters, I also loved the art and animation. Everything was so vibrant and colorful. It was a visual feast. The animals were also extremely creative. As I said before, none of them were real. One might expect to find all the stereotypical "Stone-Age" creatures in a film about cavemen, but this was not your typical caveman movie. This was pure imagination at its finest. The closest it came to having "Stone-Age" animals was a mammoth and a sabre-toothed cat, but neither of these were your typical creatures either. The Mammoth seemed to be part leopard, and the Cat was part macaw, but they didn't look strange at all. The design was fantastic! Almost all of the animals in the film were some kind of hybrid/imaginary creature. Aside from Belt, I don't think any of them were real animals at all. There were whales that walked on land, Swarms of piranha-birds, a crocodile puppy, and giant snaggle-toothed, spoon-billed, fish-turkeys.

The last thing I should note about the movie was the music. It was great. The two main parts that stand out most in my mind, are the beginning and the end. In the beginning, during the hunt, the music is done by what sounds like a cross between an orchestra and a marching band. It was such a strange choice, but it worked so well! And finally, the music at the end. Two words, Owl City. That's all I really need to say. It was so good. But don't just take my word for it, watch the music video for yourself!



To sum up my feelings about this movie: GO SEE IT!!! There is no way you will regret it! I left the theater with a huge smile on my face that would not go away, and I wanted to go back and see it again immediately! I haven't felt like that about a movie in a long time! There are quite a few movies that I am looking forward to seeing this year, but they are going to have to be EXTREMELY good if they want to top The Croods!