Wednesday, December 24, 2008

More bitching about YouTube. Today's topic: Copyright. Hooray! PLUS: Christmas. Woohoo! (longest post title ever.)

Ugh, I'm so annoyed. YouTube has been such a douchebag lately with copyright things, one of my favourite videos ever, the "Scarlett Sunday Blog" (at least that's what I called it) by billilovesmargot has been taken down yesterday due to copyright infringement.
A few weeks ago, one of my videos on my beta-channel has been removed due to copyright infringement as well. I can live with that, it wasn't a big deal really since it was only that channel and not a video I liked all that much, but it still sucked.
So today I open my gmail inbox, and find an e-mail there about a video on my beta-channel that I had already audio-swapped like a year ago.On December 19, YouTube posted a blog-entry about how Warner Music Group is no longer a part of their AudioSwap program, and how videos that contain Warner content will have to be swapped with different music in the near future.
Apparently, the song I was using on said video was Warner content, so the video got blocked/rejected now, and according to the e-mail, it should have been fine to just audio-swap it with a different song from their program.But when I went to My Videos and tried to go to AudioSwap, this is what happened:Every single time.

Now I didn't care much about the video I'm talking about here and I didn't wanna bother too much so I just took it down, it was old and quite lame in my opinion but the whole process is just highly annoying. I understand that YouTube has to do something about copyright infringement as soon as third parties are involved that claim copyright and all that stuff, but the fact that things just don't work as they should in such a case is just extremely dumb.

So much for that part.

Also, I realized I haven't blogged much this month, and now you get a super awesome long long long post to make up for it. Probably no one will even have the patience or time to read all this, but that's alright. Online diary ftw!!!1!11

It's Christmas, we Germans celebrate on the 24th, yes yes, and I have such torn feelings about this day.
See, I used to really like Christmas, and I still do partially. I enjoy the cheesiness about it, the sparkling lights everywhere, the decorations, the trees, receiving and especially making presents, or generally people in a giving mood. It's nice! Plus, it's winter, and it's my favourite season, so there you go.
Then again, Christmas eve has been rather depressing ever since my mom passed away in 2002, and now it's just me and my dad, having dinner together, exchanging a few presents, and then we both go our own ways again.
We've been invited by several family members over the past few years to spend Christmas eve with them, but apparently my dad is a huge fan of traditions now and for him that means we stay here at home, and even if that means it's a lame two person event. Oh well. It's just one evening a year, it could be worse.
Also, on the 25th and 26th my sisters come over with their spouses/kids/boyfriends, and a full house with people I actually like is always a good thing. So something to look forward to!

Just saying, I'm torn and I have my reasons.

Plus, as much as I do like the cheesiness about Christmas, there are also a lot of things that just plainly annoy me. All the "Donate here, donate there" crap around Christmas time is just way too much (now I'm not saying donating for a good cause is a bad thing, but if you're able to and feel like giving, then just do it and don't wait for a certain time of the year!), Christmas pop songs suck ass, everything is even more commercialized than usually, people who all of a sudden run to churches because they feel like it's being expected from them to go at least once a year are just dumb in my opinion, and the whole "ohhh let's be quiet and calm and in peace with everything and everyone" seems fake to me and unnecessary. It's not like all the problems in the world can go away for a friggin holiday just like that. I don't wanna play nice with people I just don't like for the sake of a simple day that isn't all that different to any other day of the year.

So as some sort of reaction to all this I tend to spend my Christmas usually listening to Death Metal or so-called Gangsta Rap, watch movies that contain a lot of gore (zombies prefered) and just in case I go out and meet people, I like to wear even more black eyeliner than usual and dress in a more.. well, let's say "unholy" way. If that makes sense.

I have no idea why I'm telling you all this, but I felt like it so why not.

I don't know what your plans are for the holidays, if you celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah or something else, or if you don't even celebrate anything at all, but I hope you're doing fabulous, my dearest blog reader, and enjoy the last week of this year.
I am sooo looking forward to 2009 because exciting things will happen, it's gonna be a crazy year and I feel really good about it.

Until then, glitter, hearts, rainbows and cupcakes,

Kiwi

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Unnecessary YouTube changes

Some of you might have heard about YouTube's most recent changes:
Customized thumbnails for partnered channels.
And that only a few days after releasing a blog post about how thumbnails are supposed to be more random now, so they actually represent the content of your video and cheating was supposed to be history.


Yeahhhh right.
I mean sure, it says you're supposed to be following the TOS when uploading a customized thumbnail, but still.. that's pretty much open for interpretation now, isn't it?

Alright so I don't wanna bore you with more rambling on about this, bottom line: It's dumb, and unnecessary and stupid and blah. The end.


(Then again, you can just have a little fun with it.. demonstrated in the pictures below ^_^)

I wish there was punctuation.

(please click on the picture so you can see it in full size and actually read it. Hilarious, and posted by an insane man who should just start admitting that he actually is obsessed with me and loves me oh so much.)

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Music! And a to-do-list

Music of the now - Vol. 6!


MusicPlaylistRingtones
Music Playlist at MixPod.com


(Not from mixwit.com this time, because website decided to be a huge bitch and didn't let me save it there. Boo!)

Hello dearest reader! It's been a while, and all I can say is:
I missed you.
I'm in such an e-mood lately, and I have two videos planned for next week that will be fun to make and hopefully fun to watch as well.
I'm surprised and happy about how people reacted to my latest Learn German video, and I'm glad I finally made it.


Here's a little to-do-list for myself. Just because.

- make more videos
- watch more videos (I'm so sorry about being all douchey [douchy??] about my subscriptions lately)
- update my blog more often
- check my damn google reader a bit more frequently so I don't miss all the great things going on there
- comment more, on blogs and videos
- have fun!

And that's it from me. I hope all is well in your part of the world, and I shall read/write/watch/etc. you all soon <3