February 17, 2006 | Filed under: Uncategorized
Click the picture or right here to watch a brief (1.5″, Quicktime) Public Service Announcement
(remember those?) about the coolness of watching videoblogs on your desktop with the help of FireAnt. Or just read below!
Don’t get me wrong. I like television well enough. I like to indulge in stickygooey treats like “Pimp My Ride” and “Strange Love” and “Lost” and award shows. I like how NY1 puts the tempurature in the lower left-hand corner. Can’t leave the house with out that. Sometimes I need to totally zone out and TV is fabulous for that. It’s pre-programmed, it’s not interactive at all, it just sits there and hurls stuff at you. Hundreds of channels of not-a-whole-hell-of-a-lot. But there was no show that sucked me in this past season. Nothing I felt compelled to watch. Nothing that made me want to race home and see it…or record it for later. The last show that really got me was “Buffy“. Last year I loved me some “Lost” but this time around? Eh. “24” swept me off my feet the first two seasons but now? How many bad days can Jack Bauer really have? He’s far exceeded his “bad day” allowance. Last I heard he was supposed to be dead. Poor guy can’t even disappear properly. He needs to get out of the covert operations business and manage a Dairy Queen, or something.
In NYC, I work overnight shifts three or four times a week, leaving me with few primetime television opportunities in the first place. During the day I’m up and about (and usually too disoriented to set a VCR), running errands and cooking dinner and getting ready to go back to work. No time for tv there and really, there’s nothing on. In New Orleans, we don’t have a tv at all. So as a far superior tv substitute I turn to videoblogs. Some are pure entertainment, some are educational, many are personal, some explore current events, a couple are “shows” and several are just…weird & wonderful. See that link list called “Watching” over there in the sidebar? That’s about half of what I’ve been watching lately and a fraction of what’s out there.
Just like you can keep track of all your blogs in one place via RSS feeds, you can view all your vlogs in one place, too. You can watch them on the web, which is cool, or on a video iPod, or you can just bookmark all the webpages and hop from one to another, but I like them on my desktop. That’s where FireAnt comes in.
I like my “tv” as interactive as possible, thanks very much.
“This Ant Don’t Sting”
by MC MissB
Appears Courtesy of BadAnger G.A./Anagram Recording
February 17, 2006
@ 3:37 pm
I miss New York City … oh I do.
(Found you via Cathy …)
February 17, 2006
@ 4:23 pm
Welcome!
February 17, 2006
@ 8:13 pm
too cool, Miss B…..I tell you what I am watching some high quality “TV” right now….Keep up the good stuff….. And thanks for the kind words…..
February 17, 2006
@ 9:45 pm
I’ve been falling a bit behind in the vlogging universe, test and things coming up have me crammed, but I am releaseing a series of videos which will parody MTVs Cribs, but based on Dorm rooms… messy stuff
I wish I used fireant, I’m too lazy to set it up so I can be less lazy… if that makes sense.
Stop back by my vlog soon for updates, and Millers 100th post was fantastic, I can’t believe he used my parody of him at the end!
February 18, 2006
@ 5:23 am
To the lovely and very intelligent Miss B, wow, and wow again…you know how to use technology to its extreme! Rock and Roll! Thanks for background link…and, hey amazing to see my stuff plastered across the wall…wholli! molli!
Yeah, work (my jobs here in NIPPON ((japan)))…I do it, I know it…as we all do…on the other side of the rainbow, vlogging…this is the greatest thing that has happened to Nathan Miller in a long time!
I should watch more Japanese TV for language practice however I have found myself sucked so deep into the this amazing new place…there is no escape ladder, there is no reason for such a thing, happy, content, alive…
eat more tofu…I like mine with raw ginger root and a bit of soy sauce…daikon is nice too!!!
nm
and a lot b-s!!!
February 19, 2006
@ 2:13 am
I like the public service announcement nature of your post. I prefer FireAnt over iTunes at home. They don’t get enough credit, those guys. The tunes you have is fun listening- I have the same loops in Garageband. The way you have the keyboards, it’s like listening to McCoy Tyner (the reverberating latin piano part), Oscar Peterson (the piano rushes) and the organ part is Jimmy Smith.
February 19, 2006
@ 7:52 am
I’ve been having trouble wathcing the videos again (stupid computer!)
I will try again later today…I hardly ever watch tv any more…the best reality programming is happening right here!
February 19, 2006
@ 10:23 pm
That’s pretty cool.
I don’t really watch too much in terms of Vlogs other than yours.
I work regular hours, but I don’t watch all that much TV.
Anyway, MissB. Hope you’re having a good one!
J
February 19, 2006
@ 10:28 pm
I’m … back…..!
Wow! How’d you do that? I didn’t even know you could watch vlogs on a HDTV. I’ll definitely check out fireant now. Does your TV have to be HD? Just curious. AND I saw my vlog listed on your fireant list. HOW COOL IS THAT?!!! I feel so honored.
I look forward to catching up with all the other vlogs I missed during my past two weeks that I have been “gone” (in the brain, that is LOL).
Excellent vlog post!!! I am more informed than I ever was about vlogging and TV. And it’s FREE. How cool is that?!
February 19, 2006
@ 11:18 pm
I didn’t see my vlog on the list. *Tear
Great post. I wish I could figure out how to watch video blogs on my TV. (Even though I can watch videos from my ipod on my TV, I have yet to figure out how to sync my Ipod with fireant.
Keep up the good work as always,
Evan (http://e-vlog.blogspot.com/)
February 20, 2006
@ 12:17 am
Tried Fire Ant, and found the site very slow to load. And I submitted a couple vlogs to them, several times, and they refused to list them, so now I avoid their site completely. I just stick with Itunes now, it seems much better.
Usually I just watch my videos that I have made instead of watching tv, or I watch whatevere videos I find interesting in my Itunes subscriptions. I just wish there were more video blogs that were like tv shows. Chasing Windmills isn’t bad, but I’d like to see people doing more parodies of tv shows and making like 20 minute episodes.
February 20, 2006
@ 8:37 am
Wow- I love that projector set up. Damn! You really know how to do it up. FireANT rocks! I use it on my PC and Mac.
February 20, 2006
@ 9:02 am
I downlaoded it here from your site a couple of days ago but I have yet to figure out how to find channels to watch. You’ll have to post a dumb blonde *grin* section on who to use the thing.
Dawn
February 20, 2006
@ 10:47 am
wow, somebody got a mac.
I would die with no TV. lol
February 20, 2006
@ 11:55 pm
The problem with Itunes though Mike is that you can’t read the text from the post that the video was taken from. (At least I don’t think so and if I’m wrong you still can’t read to the same extent)Fireant is really easy to use once you get the hang of it and a lot of video blogs are adding buttons so you can subscribe to their feed via fireant with the click of a button.
As for the 20 minute episode idea…I really wish there were more of those too but I don’t think those count as videoblog posts but rather vodcasts. Diggnation is a really good vodcast to subscribe to with Itunes but I don’t know any others.
February 21, 2006
@ 1:58 am
Hey MissB, just wanted to let you know that the first episode of my Dorm Series is up, everyone loving it so far, I hop you enjoy it if you get a chance to watch it, its halarious.
February 21, 2006
@ 5:17 pm
The “is it a vlog” debate is always raging on the yahoo videoblogging group. Some cite length as the deciding factor, some say it’s the content and some say it’s the fact that it has dated entries and still others think that it’s any website with video on it. Personallly, I figure if what you’ve got is dated, has video and an interactive commenting area, then you’ve got yourself a videoblog even if your posts are two hours long.
I don’t have a video ipod so the using the itunes interface is illogical for me and I find their screen space to be too little. I think watching videoblogs has affected how I percieve the value of my “Entertainment Time”. I think my attention span (or my “hurry up why don’t I feel entertained yet” span) has been severely truncated. There’s currently only one vlog I’ve been keeping up with that has posts as long as 20 minutes, and I’ve actually had to schedule them in. I just don’t often have 20 minutes to devote to sitting in front of my computer to a single episode of anyting. THIS is where I find myself wishing I had a video iPod. I could watch longer material on the way to work. Also, my desk area is shoved into a hallway and just isn’t that comfy.
February 21, 2006
@ 9:28 pm
i do love your vlogs and I now love your vlogs more knowing you watch them on a big screen. how cool are you!
I especially love your bathroom.
keep on keepin on!
February 23, 2006
@ 9:44 pm
maybe we should all get together and get you a video iPod?
February 24, 2006
@ 9:40 am
I don’t know what I’d do without a TV. It’s just about my favorite part of my day, when I can sit on the couch, have a glass of wine and watch something has mindless as The Bachelor or Strange Love or any number of Law & Order reruns. Just thinking about it makes me happy…
February 26, 2006
@ 3:40 am
right on. *runs off to d/l fireant*
go mac!