Hello again!

So the bad news....

I didn't win the blog challenge. I'm disappointed, but I'll survive. I had fun, got some good experience, and got to entertain you lovely people. Thanks to everyone who played along, left me comments, and gave me support. You guys are awesome.

The good news is...

The first episode of Notes From Undergrad is officially up on Youtube!



If you like it, please go to Youtube and rate it and subscribe to my channel. There are 5 episodes in total, and let me just say, they only get better. Also, be sure to check out my new home blog at amberayoder.blogspot.com I'll continue to create content and videos as long as there's someone out there who wants to see it. So, things are looking up and I am moving ahead, with or without a visit to JibJab.

See ya 'round the net!
~Amber A. Yoder

Hello?

If anyone from Experience.com reads these blogs, please let us know what's going on. The competition has been over for a long time, and we haven't heard anything from you. What's up?

Back by popular demand...

I'm writing this as I sit in the Cleveland airport, waiting for my connecting flight to Indiana. I'm going to Notre Dame to present a paper at the First Annual Midwest Undergraduate Film Studies Conference. I'm very excited. But when did I become such a globetrotter?



Ok...that was just wrong...moving on to more interesting subjects...

Well, I was going to write about how the “Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters” will be screening in Boston, much to the behest of Mayor Thomas M. ”

However, I just discovered that FOX now has a game show on entitled "Are you smarter than a 5th grader?". The show is hosted by Jeff Foxworthy and sports a panel of precocious brats and idiotic guests who struggle with questions such as "What is the capital of Massachusetts?"

Now granted...the people (or rather the officials) of that illustrious city have proven that perhaps they are in fact not smarter than a fifth grader. But why are we as Americans reveling in the fact that we are a bunch of loud flaming idiots? Watching this show is like watching the downfall of our nation in one thirty minute segment. Good lord, no wonder the rest of the world hates us. Just look at the television we're exporting to them! There's a reason that Baywatch reruns are still wildly popular around the globe. At least that abomination of a show had boobies in it. Also, who can withstand the draw of the Hasselhoff?

These puppies certainly can't...



Oh God...this blog just went from bad to worse. On another fun note, here's how Noah and I celebrated Easter:



It's a Yoshi Egg!

We've only just begun...

I haven't heard yet whether or not the competition is over or who has won it. But I will continue to post on this blog until I'm told not to anymore.

I have created another blog where I hope to continue posting and creating content once this competition is over. If you've enjoyed this blog, be sure to check the new one in the future. I've copied all of my old posts from this blog onto that one so they won't be lost forever once this blog goes down. Right now it's in a bare bones form, but I hope to have it up and looking professional once I have time (aka, have turned in my senior honors project).

Speaking of my senior honors project...

For those of you who don't know, I've spent the last year and a half creating a show about a group of college freshmen. There are 5 episodes, each around 6-7 minutes long, and they will be uploaded to YouTube (and elsewhere on the Internet) a little later in the spring. But until the show officially goes up, here's a little teaser to whet your appetite:




Be sure to check back at my new blog for news of when the show goes on-line, and you are welcome to subscribe to my YouTube account if you are so inclined. And thank you so much for your support and encouragement. You guys are great!

Live from New York, it’s Amber’s Blog!

As I mentioned in a previous post, we went to New York this weekend. Unfortunately, due to x-rays and airports, I don’t have any video footage for you guys. But, here’s a little scrapbook in the form of a photo blog documenting our adventures in the city!

We made sure to hit all the important stops. First we saw the Statue of Liberty. She’s one hip lady. Who knew she could do a pretty mean robot?



Then we went to the second most important stop: Mac Mecca.



We saw lots of high fashion on 5th avenue.


We also spotted a celebrity!



New York City nightlife is unparalleled. Here I am livin’ it up, New York style!


The highlight of the evening was a reception in the Anthropology department of the New York University graduate program. Can you say free booze?


Needless to say, we had a lot of fun on our New Your adventure. Hope you enjoyed the pictures. And if I win this contest, you’ll get to see some pictures from LA too!

OMG! We’re so cute!


*Note – the interview went very well. No promises, but “lots of potential”. Thanks for your encouragement and well wishes! *

Rappin' Rove

I'll make a post tomorrow about the New York trip. But I just had to share this with you guys.

Comedy gold.

For the MTV generation:

10 short rants for short attention spans (accompanied by drawings I did while bored in class today):

10: I hate it when girls do those tiny little ‘cute’ sneezes. How can they do that without blowing their brains out their ears? I tried to do it once, and just about had an aneurism. This is something I used to worry about when I was a self-conscious awkward middle school girl.

9: Net Neutrality – you people should know what it is. We need to create legislation that will make the phone companies not regulate which websites you have access to. For example, if your ISP has a contract with Yahoo and not Google, your access to Yahoo will be easy and simple, but Google would not load if you try to visit it. This is a serious issue, as it leaves issues of dissemination of information and free speech at the whim of huge Internet Service Providers. Learn more about it and help save it here.



8: Rumors have it that Wacko Jacko is going to have a giant robot replica of himself that will roam the Las Vegas desert as a promotional stunt for a show he will be doing in Vegas. He wants the thing to actually shoot laser beams. What’s next? Mecha Streisand? Oh wait…

7: In May I will be graduating from a prestigious top 50 private university with honors. But everyone I talk to tells me that I will most likely have to work for free/intern if I want to break into the film/TV/media industry. Doesn’t that seem wrong? I’m not asking for a lot of money, but I would like to get a living wage. I am college educated! I should at least be making as much money as the kid who over-salts your fries.



6: It’s “PUNK’S NOT DEAD” with an apostrophe. Just because you’re rebellious doesn’t mean you can’t be intelligent about it. Come on.

5: In the dining hall the other day, the rice was still crunchy. In other news – I am graduating in May.

4: The RIAA recently laughed off the fact that The Consumerist voted them the “worst company in the world”. He also called Steve Jobs a hypocrite for his previous statement against DRM (digital rights management). Now I agree that Jobs’ statement, when unaccompanied with appropriate actions, is rather hypocritical. But how can these guys laugh at the fact that so many people are displeased and unhappy with the way they operate? Don’t they know that by doing things like that, they are losing support rather than gaining it?



3: Conan O’Brien isn’t taping shows this week! Why do I care? I’m flying to NYC tonight (big interview tomorrow!), and I won’t get to see my idol! Guess I’ll just have to loiter around the NBC studios and hope to catch a glimpse of the cast of Law & Order: SVU.

2: The state of rap and hip-hop right now is terrible, at least for mainstream artists. Perhaps you’ve also recently heard these amazingly compelling lyrics:
I'm hot cuz I'm fly
You aint cuz you're not
This is why, This is why
This is why I'm hot

No, this is why I don’t listen to mainstream radio anymore.

1: In the dorm I live in, our apartment is upstairs and downstairs there is a computer lab and a gallery space. As part of the arts department visiting artist program, some dancers have moved into the gallery downstairs. Now, I’m sure they’re wonderful people, but at all hours of the day (including right now) they are stomping, yelling and singing. For the past 2 weeks I have been awakened by singing/primal screaming and serenaded to sleep by stomping an a rousing rendition of “Yankee Doodle Dandy”. I think I may soon become homicidal.

That is all, have a great day!

In Search of Sasquatch

Noah and I went to Salt Fork State Park this weekend and did a little adventuring. You may not know this, but Salk Fork is a hot spot for Bigfoot sightings. In fact according to the link, "there were six or seven sightings in the first two weeks this park opened." Noah and I set out to capture some footage of this elusive creature, and we created the following video. What you will see may shock you.



*Note* Noah and I initially intended to simply make this short comedy video. However, during our shoot, we came across some information that intrigued us. We now plan on attending the 19th Annual Bigfoot Conference and EXPO on May 19 and filming a feature length documentary while there. More news on that to come, so stay tuned!

Pirates of the Midwest.

You may have noticed that my user name is BloodyBonnie for this blog and for my YouTube channel. That's because I fancy myself a pirate. The name is actually a twist on Anne Bonnie, who was a pretty interesting female pirate. I may not live near the ocean or know how to sail a ship, but that doesn't mean I can't be a pirate:

Guess who's got me angry?

Close. In the New York Times yesterday, there was an article about how the new fees proposed by the Dark Lord…I mean…the RIAA and imposed by the Copyright Royalty Board could spell the end of independent streaming radio. This is an issue that I touched lightly upon in my first blog entry, but I would like to elaborate a little bit more.

You see, internet radio stations were already paying homage to the Dark Lord in the form of royalty fees for songs. In fact, they were paying even more than regular stations. A law passed in 1995 states that “companies that transmit music using the Internet, cable or satellite must compensate both” the owners of the recording (the label) as well as the performer – while regular radio stations do not have to pay to use recordings.

As if this wasn’t unfair enough, a new law was recently passed stating that streaming internet radio stations must sacrifice a fee for each performance of a song - where a ‘performance” is considered one song heard by one listener. So these stations will be charged for each and every listener they have. To make matters worse, these fees are being charged retroactively back to the beginning of 2006! The Dark Lord is truly cunning.



Why do I care so much about this? Well, for starters, I’m a DJ for Denison University’s radio station – and we are streaming online at www.wdub.org (shameless plug). I am fairly certain that these new fees would cause us to lose our streaming capabilities (which we’ve only just had for a few years). But moreover, I enjoy being able to listen to streaming radio. It is a great way to discover some new music, rather than spinning through your same music collection over and over again.

It makes me really angry that there are a bunch of greedy old fogies out there attempting to control a technology that they don’t even understand! This is a direct quote from the New York Times: “At one point in the proceedings, according to the transcript, one member asked if the term “albums” could refer to CDs as well as vinyl records.” These are the coots who claim that they know what is best for the industry! Clearly these guys are in touch with the pulse of the future. They are obviously the ones who should be directing how new technologies are used.

So the moral of the story is: contact your representatives, senators and various overlords. Tell them to save internet radio. Boycott the RIAA. And be sure to tune into “Punks n’ Paddies” on Saturday nights 11:30pm-2:00am for a blend of Celtic and Punk rock that’s sure to get your freak flag waving (yep, another shameless plug).

Adventures in FUNemployment

I'm hoping that potential employers will be looking at this blog. So incase anyone out there is interested, I need a job upon graduation. Please, someone give me a job! I don't want to end up unemployed:



(this video was made with Rob and Matt of the Partners in Crime Studios. Check out their site!)

Spring Break and Robots

SPRING BREAK!! WOOHOO!!

Let me tell you, it is a non-stop party in these parts. Actually, it’s something like going back to the Stone Age. My parents don’t even have dial-up any more, so I spend my days being a wireless nomad in various coffee shops and hotel lobbies. And to make matters worse, my folks don’t have cable, and it’s pledge week on PBS!!

While I have been sitting on my butt and binging on Chai Lattes and the best of Yanni in concert, the folks over at Virginia Tech have been plugging away. They have created a robot called Dynamic Anthropomorphic Robot with Intelligence (or DARwIn) who will undoubtedly be the next great American hero. This great American will be competing in the 2007 RoboCup – the prominent tournament for the “traditional Japanese sport of robot soccer”. DARwIn will be the first ever American created robot to participate in this competition. When asked for a statement, he replied: “1000101110011100110110011”.

This is big. This will be like when the US defeated the Russian hockey team in the 1980 Olympics. Only with robots, so it’s instantly 5,000 times cooler. Better yet, we will have the home turf advantage. That’s right, get your tickets now for the 2007 RoboCup to be held in Atlanta! Watch out Japan, even your dancing Qrio cheerleaders can’t save you now.

Assimilation complete.

In the news, Viacom is suing Google/YouTube for over $1 billion in copyright damages. The folks at the multi-million dollar corporation think that they are losing a lot of money to YouTube. However, according to their 4th quarter financial reports, their net profit nearly quadrupled to $480.8 million. We should feel sorry for them. Clearly they’re the ones being victimized here.

I’ve got to say, I really don’t understand why these big corporations are so against free advertisement. I mean, ultimately that’s all that these pirated videos are. They don’t seem to understand that the people who are posting them and watching these videos are already loyal consumers of their products. The folks who post and watch episodes of South Park and The Venture Brothers are already huge fans of the shows. If anything, they are gaining more viewers and fans through the people who watch these videos. Don’t these corporations have marketing people working for them? If they were to work with the internet rather than against it, I’m sure that they could find a very lucrative way of providing their content free of charge.

They are even upset that some users have been posting commercials and music videos! Now does that make any sense at all? They spend thousands, if not millions of dollars to create the commercial or music video. Then they have to spend thousands, if not millions of dollars to put the commercial on air. So why would they not like the fact that someone out there liked the video enough to post it, FOR FREE, somewhere where millions of people will be able to see it?
Why is it that the big media corporations are so afraid of the internet? Because it would require them to rethink their entire approach to business. Rather than be innovative, they prefer to be stuck in their ways and hope that it somehow pans out for them. Their logic seems to go something like this:



The media corporations, like Viacom, need to think about what the internet and the media industry will look like in 5 or even 10 years, not how they can stop one person from pirating videos today. This is why I believe that the new start-ups of today will be the major players in the media industry in a few years. The people who are working and creating on the internet right now are setting the framework and laying the ground rules for the direction the industry takes in the future. In conclusion, my message to the big media corporations is:



(I apologize if this entry is too rant based and not all that funny, but I had to get it out of my system. I promise to return to teh funniness next time.)

Classic Blogging

I think I'm starting to get the hang of this blogging thing. Perhaps I should do what this guy is doing:

Mascot Movies

I’m not sure if you’ve heard about this, but the Burger King mascot is slated to get his own feature film. In related news, the Geico cavemen are in talks with ABC about getting a half-hour primetime sitcom. Now, some of you pretentious artsy fartsy types out there can say what you want: that this is a sign of the decline of our nation, our collective intelligence and creativity. Say what you will, but I want in. Clearly there is money to be made in this industry, easy money. I mean, how hard can it be to excrete out a script based on a corporate mascot? Why, in the time that it took me to read the article, I came up with these 3 great movie ideas:







Hollywood will love these. Time to sit back and wait for the money to roll in.

It's spring and the smell of nerds is in the air.

In The New York Times today, there was an article about the newest ad campaign by Calvin Klein. The campaign, to be released next month, is for the latest line in the CK scent collection: in2u. in2u is billed as the CK One of the new millennium. The marketers at CK are attempting to latch themselves to the 20-something consumer base, the “millennials”. Their media materials feature such hip slogans such as “She likes how he blogs, her texts turn him on. It’s intense. For right now.” These ads are aimed at a generation that CK describes as “technosexual”. In fact, last year CK actually got a trademark for the term “technosexual”. They believe “it could become a buzzword for marketing to millennials”.

Now, never mind the fact that the name “in2u” evokes the image of a pedophile trying to lure some middle school girl in a chat room to meet him for dinner. This form of 1337 5p34k is typically indicative of a lower-level-life-form trolling to “pwn” various “n00bs”. (My parents who read this blog just said “huh?”). The strangest part of this new ad campaign at CK is the term “technosexual”. What does that even mean? Someone who gets turned on by dual processors? A person who likes to have sex with robots? Will technosexuals be fighting for equal marriage rights in the near future?

You gotta to hand it to Calvin Klein; they certainly have created an air of intrigue with this new product.

I am also very intrigued by the scent itself. How on earth did CK manage to bottle the smell of nerds? It must have taken them years to come up with just the right blend of soldering iron, canned air and orthopedic inserts.

Now, there haven’t been any images of the ads for this product released yet. But, based on their previous ad campaigns, I have rendered my predictions on what the ads will look like:

old Calvin Klein ad










Ad for CK's new in2u for Men

















in2u for Women


















Now that, my friends, is hott.

It begins...

So I somehow managed to land this “Will blog for experience” gig. In case you don’t know, the deal goes like this: 5 finalists have been selected by Experience.com to blog for 3 weeks. At the end of the 3 weeks, whichever blogger has gotten the most traffic on their site will get an all expense paid trip to LA to spend the day shadowing the creators of JibJab.com. It’s a pretty sweet deal, especially since I spend a large majority of my life either filming things, thinking about filming things, being on the internet, or thinking about being on the internet. So a chance to peek at the inner workings of a viral video production company like JibJab is a really amazing opportunity.

However, now that the initial squealing and excitement has died down, I’m faced with a question: What do I blog about? Should it be a nerdy blog, with links to nerdtastic webcomics, and delightfully nerdy photos like this one:

(this was the jack-o-lantern I created this past Halloween). Nerdy things certainly have a following on teh internets, and I could defiantly pander to that audience.

Or, should I make this into a self-righteous, rabblerousing political blog?

I could rant about how the RIAA is taking advantage of everyone from consumers of music to the musicians themselves. I could provide links and articles about their attempts at silencing independent streaming radio. Lord knows that there aren’t enough of these kinds of blogs in the ‘blogosphere’.

On the other hand, perhaps I should keep this blog lighthearted. No one wants to read about politics anyways, it’s just depressing. Perhaps I could cheer you up by showing you pictures of adorable animals and quirky Japanese products.

This is the kind of fluff that everyone loves and no one could possibly find offensive. More fluff = more traffic.

As you can probably tell, this blog is going to be something of a hybrid of all of these things: sometimes nerdy, sometimes political, sometimes simply fluffy, but (hopefully) always entertaining. I can promise you that I will try not to bore you with the mundane details of my everyday life…that’s what livejournal is for. I’d like to know what you guys want to see from this blog, what your interests are and what you think of the things I post. It will be a journey we take together (and now I sound like a damn hippy…). So sit down, log on, and be sure to check back regularly, because: