Yikes!

So apparently, someone hacked into my blog and posted a rather, uh...inappropriate link in a new post. Looks like I'm having a crap load of bad luck with my various online accounts. Needless to say, I deleted the aforementioned post and changed my password, so hopefully I can avoid another situation like this.

This just isn't my week... =/

Hooray for More Crap

After what seems like forever, LK has finally made a sequel to his "Cr@psule Monsters" video:



Yeah, I know it's not LK's YouTube account, but he only puts non-abridged videos on his new account, and Blogspot won't recognize the code to embed Revver videos.

Funny stuff. A bit more random humor than in the first one, but the man himself said that he wasn't as pleased with this one as he was with the first one. Although it impresses me that even his "bad" material is still pretty amusing. Plus, you got to love the Pokémon references =)

All Moved In

By the way, in case you're wondering, I'm all moved into my apartment now, classes begin tomorrow, and my life has already become chaotic. I have an on-campus job that requires 10 hours a week, an a cappella group for which I'm the music director, so composing, practice, and performances will take out another 6-7 hours a week. Classes...let's not even get started there. And of course there's always the remaining time for me to just kick back, chill out, and be a college student. Don't get me wrong; I love making these videos, but doing it non-stop for days at a time becomes exhausting (not that it'll be possible to do much recording with other people in the apartment anyway), and I am trying to have my own life, especially since I only have a few years left at this school.

So it goes without saying that all of this upcoming insanity will make it difficult for me to make any new episodes soon. I don't, however, want to put you through an entire semester or two with nothing at all. Sadly, I won't have any idea on how to overcome that for another several weeks (after I find how exactly how busy I really will be). So for now, enjoy the blog posts and my current videos, and I'll do my best to keep this going!

GOOOOOLD!

Finally! USA basketball redeems itself by winning gold in the Olympics! After being completely destroyed (by USA standards = not winning gold) in the 2002 and 2006 FIBA World Championships and the 2004 Olympics in Athens, the United States Basketball team, nicknamed the "Redeem Team" by...well, everyone, beat Spain in the Gold Medal match this past Sunday.




These Olympics were HUGE for the USA team. Not only has the US redeemed itself in terms of basketball, it also redeemed its character. In the 2006 FIBA championships, the US team was highly ridiculed for its poor temper, arrogance, and just overall poor sportsmanship. This year, the team sailed to a gold without so much as snickering at the opposing team. They proved themselves talented and respectful, and once again, USA basketball is back on top.


This gold medal is the first for Kobe Bryant, a man who despite being a veteran on the team at 29 years old, made his Olympic debut in these games, the past two games eluding him due to an injury and the highly publicized sexual assault allegations. Lebron James, Dwyane Wade and Carlos Boozer, members of the 2004 Olympic team that won bronze, got the redemption they desired, as well as others like Chris Paul and Carmelo Anthony, who were part of a botched effort at the 2006 FIBA games. In fact, only Jason Kidd has a prior gold medal, and at 35 years old, he proved he still has some game left.


So redemption has been won, the USA is back on top, and I can breathe easy again knowing that watching USA basketball isn't cause for shame =P

Kinda Freaked Out...

Yesterday, around mid-afternoon, I logged onto YouTube just to check some of the comments on my videos. However, upon entering my info, I get a red message saying "This account has been permanently disabled." Naturally, I freaked out, so I tried searching my user name on the website and let out a huge sigh of relief once I found out that my account was still active and I was logged back in.

Then, today, something similar happened. I logged in successfully, but then when I clicked on a video, the system logged me out! I was able to log in again, but just the very unpleasant surprise of the past two days has got me a bit worried. Am I being targeted again? Will this account get deleted too? GAH!!

Of course you guys know that if my account does get deleted, I'll post information about a new account on this blog ASAP. Obviously, I'd have to rename the videos again (maybe..."Polkamans" or "Pokemoon"). I dunno, I'll figure that out when the time comes. But if this ever does happen, then I hope that those of you who read this will help spread the word to other people. I have plenty of subscribers that never read this thing, so I'll need help in letting them know about any changes I may need to make.

Episode 14

For your viewing pleasure, here's Episode 14!



A couple of notes about this episode:

1. Again, this is the first episode where I used that new microphone, so that would explain any differences in the audio quality.

2. All of the voices in the intro are my own, completely unedited.

3. If you're a basketball fan and you never had the opportunity to watch the NBA on NBC, you are extremely deprived.

4. This would likely be the last one for quite a while, as I am moving into my apartment in a few days, and I have a LOT of stuff to deal with as soon as I get there. Henceforth, starting Saturday, most of your comments, questions, requests, insults will have to go unanswered for at least a good week or so.

That being said, thanks for all your support and subscriptions! Hopefully I can get back to this after I get everything settled at school. I can't guarantee I'll be getting videos done quickly (I AM trying to have a life outside of my computer after all =P), but I am in no way planning to stop making videos entirely.

One More Week

No, not one more week until a new episode. I have one more week until I go back to school. Fortunately, I'll be in an on-campus apartment this year with just 3 other guys, all of whom know about my secret life of Polkamons. In that way, screaming "WAH WAH WAH" into a microphone will probably be slightly less awkward. However, I'd still likely have to wait until I'm alone in the apartment to do any recording, considering that I'd rather not have the constant echoes of Halo-induced "FUCK YOU, BITCH" in the background of my videos.

Which leaves me to make a point I might have neglected to mention. I finally got a microphone that works well with my current laptop, this nice little Logitech trinket:

It's got the right amount of sensitivity, although the sound is slightly more rounded than with my older microphone. Not that big of a difference in the long run, but some of you might notice a difference between the sound of Episode 14 and all my previous videos. But at least it works well, and that's really all I've been looking for.

So that's it. In a week, my life becomes hectic once again (not that I've had that much free time for most of this summer, as you can see by my recent lack of YouTube productivity). But I'll do my best to continue living up to my usual mediocrity, and if that means waiting an extra couple of weeks for me to finish an episode, so be it. Because after all...



"I go for quality, not quantity!"








I swear, I do have a life... >_>

Olympic Fever and Still No Internet

Still having internet only on the computer that I have limited access to really prevents my ability to make posts as frequently as I'd like. Between that and the Olympics, I've not been getting much work done on Episode 14 (although the script is finally completed). But I mean really...can you blame me? It's the Olympics!

Any of you guys catch the opening ceremony? Ho-ly-shit, it was amazing! Of course, China really needed this badly in order to prove itself as a formidable economic power in the years to come, but even so, the fact that they pulled off something so grand was amazing!

The ceremony consisted of everything from dancing to martial arts artwork to drumming to people in lighted costumes creating dove images on the ground. What really blew my mind was how smoothly everything went. Every single act was done with unparalleled precision and unison between literally thousands of people per performance without a single repeat performer. Transitions were flawless, the displays were brilliant, costumes were superb, and the energy of both the artists and the crowd really delivered an Olympic opening without equal.

One oddity about the Olympics that I can't really wrap my head around, however, seems to be the inclusion of seemingly random sports and events that really don't get that much publicity in any other setting. I hadn't the slightest idea that the United States had a women's fencing team until I later read that it took home the gold, silver, AND bronze in said sport. Plus, whenever I try to catch a glimpse of swimming or tennis, I always wind up on something like handball, water polo, archery, or, get this...air pistol shooting. Olympic Nerf guns? No thanks. Not to take anything away from the participants of these events, but it just seems a bit out there for me.


Of course, a lot of the excitement has been placed on swimming. USA's own Michael Phelps is going for the title of best swimmer ever by winning more Olympic medals than any other competitor. And at 23 years old and with a total of 17 events in his sport this year, I'll bet my right foot that he'll achieve that (considering that as I type this post, he only needs one more gold).





Most of my focus, however, is on the men's basketball team, nicknamed the "Redeem Team" by many after a seemingly dominant USA team failed to achieve gold in its last 3 international competitions, including the 2004 Olympics in Athens. This year will be different, says me and every expert out there. Why? Because the players are finally feeling some shame after their
terrible performances AND because this year's roster is probably more talented AND more team-oriented.


Kobe Bryant, Lebron James, and Dwyane Wade: 3 of the biggest stars of the team so far. Kobe sadly hasn't been at his best in the first two games versus China and Angola, but Wade and Lebron have been monsters with Wade's nearly perfect field-goal percentage and Lebron's keen passing eye, not to mention his own scoring frenzies. The team beat China 101-70 and Angola 97-76. Future games are going to be tougher since they'll be facing European teams, many with strong NBA players such as Dirk Nowitzki and Pau Gasol, playing for Germany and Spain, respectively. Still, TEAM USA's still got the best talent, and this year, the best team effort. I see a gold on the way and redemption for "LeBronze."

Before I part, I must let you all know that I will be out of town from tomorrow, Wednesday August 13th until Sunday August 17. During said time, I will probably have zero, if not very limited, access to a computer. So expect no posts during that time and no response to your YouTube comments and/or messages.

Internet Sucks

Things have been rather strange and convoluted since my class ended last Friday. Basically, I come home for the weekend, go back up to school on Monday to move the rest of my stuff out of my apartment and get some paperwork finished for my new job at one of the on-campus gyms, and find out that the manager who I give the paperwork to gets off work at 5, so I wind up staying there overnight with no extra clothes, finally come back home the next day early afternoon, and THE DAMN ROUTER FOR THE INTERNET DOESN'T WORK! Thank you, Linksys...

I call tech support, some Eastern European girl walks me through a bunch of tests only to finally deduce that our router is broken. On the bright side, they're sending us a new one free. On the downside, it's not going to get here for another week. So my current options are to use my parents' computer- which is connected directly to the modem- when they aren't using it (like now), or to use the computer in the room next to mine by bumming a really weak and un-secure wireless connection from my next-door neighbors.

As you might be able to guess, that'll make it slightly more difficult for me to get on YouTube or my blog to do anything. Fortunately, my parents aren't using their computer for most of the day, but usually after 5 (when everyone else is online), I'm stuck. Of course I can still work on my videos, but uploading them whenever I get them finished will a bit more difficult unless this computer is available long enough to put them on YouTube (which, thanks to their somewhat recent removal of the upload progress bar, takes an unknown, but seemingly endless amount of time). Of course, that's assuming that I'll finish another video within the next week, and you know how "frequently" I crank out episodes ;)

But to put some of your minds at ease, I am indeed working on Episode 14. As to when it'll be finished, your guess is as good as mine (actually, probably not).

Spotlight Tres!

Mmhm, I told you I'd do it. Check it out:

Episode 13

There we go! Short of writing the script for this episode, I did ALL the work on this episode in one day! I'm just a bit tired, but I really wanted to get this thing out =)