Hold my beer and watch this!

Head over to the new blog!

2007-06-08T09:54:00.001-07:00

I haven't updated "Hold My Beer and Watch This!" here at blogspot, because I moved over to my own server a few months ago! All my videos are available there at the Videos category. The Feedburner feed you know and love uses the new URL, so if you're subscribed through Feedburner or iTunes, you don't need to do anything.

Thanks for watching! Come back soon!

Games Vlog Intro

2006-11-28T20:36:00.000-08:00

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Click here for the movie! (MPEG-4 format, 8 seconds, <500 KB)

This was originally conceived as the intro bit for a new videoblog on board games and card games, titled "Batteries not Required." While I'd still love to do the show, I've come to terms with the fact that I don't currently have the bandwidth in my life to do so.

The stop-motion animation took approximately 4 hours to film, and maybe another 2 or 3 to do the music for. Yes, that's about 7 hours of work for 8 seconds of footage. On the other hand, it was actually kind of soothing, and I listened to an audiobook while I worked.

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Toastmasters Speech 7

2006-11-28T20:26:00.000-08:00

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Click here for the movie! (MPEG-4 format, 11 minutes, 30 MB)

I did this speech a couple of months ago, but only now have gotten around to editing and posting it. To be honest, I was more than a little embarassed by this one. Not only is it not very good, and badly rehearsed, but I'm sure my high school friend who periodically lives there and has devoted most of his professional life to studying Indonesian culture and history will laugh his head off at my inaccuracies and foolishness. For which I can only apologize and point out that, well, this was a researched speech, not a thesis. ;)

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Cat Training Video

2006-11-15T10:13:00.000-08:00

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Click here for the movie! (MPEG-4 format, 5.2 MB)

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Beer in Grand Rapids

2006-08-27T11:26:00.000-07:00

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Click here for the movie! (MPEG-4 format, 13 MB, 4:45 minutes)

As you may have guessed, I am fond of beer. A week ago, I was in Grand Rapids, Michigan at the tail end of my book tour, and visiting my dad. We decided on Friday to go out beer tasting, and took the camcorder along for the ride. If you're going to be in Grand Rapids any time soon, check out the pubs we visited and vlog them yourself!

Founder's Brewing Company
648 Monroe Ave. NW
(616) 776-1195

Graydon's Crossing
1223 Plainfield Ave. NE
(616) 726-8260

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Siblings

2006-08-23T17:09:00.000-07:00

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Book Arrivals!

2006-07-29T20:28:00.000-07:00

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Sunglasses

2006-07-25T11:14:00.000-07:00

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Click here for the movie! (MPEG-4 format, 452 KB)

This is my first successful stop-motion animation videoblog post. One thing I really wish I'd done with the Dummies book was include more on animated videoblogs, but I guess I can do that with articles or perhaps another book (we had to cut pages from the Dummies book as it is).

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, I tried doing a stop-motion animation vlog with some toy dinosaurs. It was a phenomenal failure-- I couldn't do anything right. Everything was out of focus. I wound up trashing the whole project, but I was glad I had tried. For one thing, it showed me how things aren't always as easy as I think they will be. For another, it made me go out and learn more about stop-motion animation. I read a website on it, and downloaded a program called Frame Thief that does the single-frame capture necessary to do stop motion animation. After that, I got out a prop (my sunglasses) and some fishing line (to manipulate the prop like a puppet) and set about making my first stop-motion animation video. Added a short audio track of me whistling tunelessly, just to fill the silence.

It's short and completely unplanned, but I think it came out pretty well, don't you?

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On Hold

2006-07-24T19:49:00.000-07:00

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Click here for the movie! (MPEG-4 format, approx. 4 MB)

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Toastmasters Speech #6

2006-07-17T18:46:00.000-07:00

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Toastmasters Speech #5: Straw into Gold

2006-05-26T07:53:00.000-07:00

Click here for the movie! (MPEG-4 format, 21 MB)

<a href="http://www.mortaine.com/Video/Toastmasters5.mp4"></a>

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This was a poorly-planned speech I did last week on the fiber arts. I had "speaker's block" until the morning of the speech, so I wasn't as well-prepared as I normally am (as evidenced by the fact that I don't have a practice video to show here). The goal of Speech #4 is to use body language and gesture. I didn't take advantage of the opportunity this topic gave me for doing so, and more to the point, I failed to get the heck out from behind the lectern! My next speech is scheduled for sometime after June 14. Expect more vlogs between now and then, though-- summer's here!

Toastmasters Speech #4

2006-04-28T17:42:00.000-07:00

Click here for the movie! (MPEG-4 format)

<a href="http://www.mortaine.com/Video/Toastmasters4.mp4"></a>

I am trying out a couple of ways to post videos, so if you get the annoying "Click to play ActiveX" in Internet Explorer on this video, or if anything else breaks, let me know.

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Vlog Week Day 7: I DARE YOU, HEATH!

2006-04-09T22:18:00.000-07:00

Click the picture to play the video.

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Vlog Week Day 6

2006-04-09T00:18:00.000-07:00

This video was supposed to come out better. In fact, I invested $30 in a page-turning transition, but instead of actually working, it ended up munging everything up (clips and video didn't match), hanging iMovie, and when I had to force quit, the video that recovered was from before I installed the transition, and I decided that, at 12:06 AM heading into Vlog Week Day 7, perhaps it was time to hang it up on Day 6 and let it go.

Kind of annoyed: are there any non-Apple transitions that actually work in iMovie 6?

PS: Spent a lot of time behind the camera today, filming a fish show. Also spent a lot of $$ on new fish. Um.... yeah, I have a problem. On the other hand, I also have very pretty fish.

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Vlogging week day 5

2006-04-08T00:04:00.000-07:00

Click here for the movie! (MPEG-4 format)

<a href="http://www.mortaine.com/Video/VlogWeekDay5.mp4"></a>

I wasn't very inspired today. So you get videos and pictures of the local deer in my neighborhood. Last year, we had a family of 5: 3 does and 2 offspring, plus "Buck," the male deer. I have some half-decent sketches of Buck from when he spent the night bedded down in the thistle farm behind our house.

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Vlog Week Day 4

2006-04-06T21:52:00.000-07:00

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<a href="http://www.mortaine.com/Video/VlogWeekDay4.mp4"></a>

Well, I'm posting this after having a lot of wine and a few ipuprofen. My back spasmed this evening, and I'm pretty much self-medicating the pain. I don't do this often, and I tend to be careful about it-- I once told my doc that "pain is a message to your body." My doc said "your body knows it's hurt-- take Midol and let me know if it's still hurting in a month." Hahah.

Anyway, this vlog post is about another member of my household who may or may not be in pain right now (studies vary on whether fish feel pain the way we do). She is also being medicated.

My fish, Janice, had a lot of really rough almost-sex (so far as I can tell, it was not a successful mating). She is now isolated from the male (in another zip code, in fact), and hopefully healing up. The meds I have her on are very good at fin repair, but I worry about her tail-- you can see that it's quite red, which means it may become infected. An infected fin is like nothing, but an infected body is potentially lethal. I actually think Janice might be my favorite fish, out of the 9 adults and 100+ babies I currently have.

Yes, Janice is a betta fish-- all my fish are. I have three otos on loan from a friend of mine right now, to clean up algae in one of my tanks, but they are going home on Saturday, at which time I may or may not come home with a new fish. You see, my local betta club is hosting a Regional Betta Show, with an auction to follow. So, yeah, I might end up with another fish or three.

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Week of Vlogging Dangerously: Day 3

2006-04-05T18:07:00.000-07:00

Click here for the movie! (MPEG-4 format)

<a href="http://www.mortaine.com/Video/Toastmasters3.mp4"></a>

Today's "danger" challenge was to vlog something physically challenging. My use of props in this speech for Toastmasters was tough, because the lectern is slanted and I was afraid of spilling a gallon of water all over!

Click here for the practice reel! There is some comedy in this one, of the slapstick variety. At least I didn't spill the *water* everywhere!

By the way, since a few folks have asked: I got my haircut about a month ago. My outro/ID is from about 3 years ago; I vary my hair length and sometimes color with some regularity.

Coming up later this week: file format poll.

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Week of Vlogging Dangerously Day 2

2006-04-04T19:45:00.000-07:00

Click here for the movie! (MPEG-4 format)

<a href="http://www.mortaine.com/Video/VlogWeekDay2.mp4"></a>

Um.... I don't have a lot I can say about this one. It's... I guess it's like a secret.

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The Week of Vlogging Dangerously

2006-04-03T17:34:00.000-07:00

Click here for the movie! (MPEG-4 format)

<a href="http://www.mortaine.com/Video/VlogWeekDay1.mp4"></a>

The Week of Vlogging Dangerously, or Vlog Week 2006 has begun!

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videobloggingweek2006

100%

2006-03-28T20:58:00.000-08:00

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<a href="http://www.mortaine.com/Video/March282006.mp4"></a>

100% of the book is done:

Release date: July 5, 2006

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Test Post: cestmonlivre

2006-03-25T08:26:00.000-08:00

Re-port of c'est mon livre, to test something out right now.

2 week old fry

2006-03-19T12:10:00.000-08:00

Click here for the movie! (MPEG-4 format)

<a href="http://www.mortaine.com/Video/2WeekFry.mp4"></a>

The betta fry are doing well, growing a little slowly, but growing nonetheless.

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Toastmasters Speech #2: On Videoblogging

2006-03-16T12:03:00.000-08:00

Click here for the movie! (MPEG-4 format)

<a href="http://www.mortaine.com/Video/Toastmasters2.mov"></a>

This is my Speech #2 for Toastmasters. The goal of this speech is to improve and demonstrate organizational skills. The first speech was introductory; you can find it posted here.

Afterwards, one of the members of my local Toastmasters group asked a question (we don't usually Q&A our speeches), and I answered him.

The Handout mentioned in this speech is available here (PDF), and here (MS Word). Videobloggers are welcome to use and modify it for other presentations as needed.

And as with my first vlog on this subject, I videotaped myself rehearsing. However, because I rehearsed this speech so many times, I decided to spare you all of the attempts and refinements, and have mixed my practice sessions into this video. It's smaller and shorter, in part because I only mixed up the introduction, and left out all the flailing around to express the body of the speech adequately.

A technical note: I hope all the folks from the Videoblogging Yahoo! Group will take a moment to mock me soundly for ranting about filming a screen and then doing exactly that, in the same week! All I can say in my defense is that the camera was supposed to be zoomed in far enough to keep the TV screen out of the field of view. Boo.

A second technical note: The practice and speech videos were shot on my new Panasonic PV-GS65 camera, which I am now seriously in love with. My husband is lucky this thing doesn't have a butt as cute as his, or I'd leave him for it in a heartbeat!

And a personal note: We have an impromptu speaking session called "Table Topics," in which the best speaker wins a ribbon. I won this week for my 1-2 minute speech on why we do "spring cleaning" in the Spring (because it's easier to throw away 15 lbs. of stuff you got over the holidays than it is to lose the 15 lbs. you gained on your hips-- sadly, I didn't videotape it). Table Topics, being a popular vote competition, tend to be won by humor and rants, both of which I get a lot of practice with and exposure to in videoblogging.

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Radio Silence

2006-03-12T14:22:00.000-08:00

Click here for the movie! (MPEG-4 format)

<a href="http://www.mortaine.com/Video/RadioSilence.mp4"></a>

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Obsessive Fish

2006-03-07T10:43:00.000-08:00

Click here for the movie! (MPEG-4 format)

<a href="http://www.mortaine.com/Video/ObsessiveFish.mp4"></a>

This is just... weird. I can't even explain it.

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