And you know what that means?

Absolutely nothing.  That's right--jackshit.  And janeshit, too, if you'd rather swing that way.  But the reason I bring it up is because it's damn convenient timing.  See, this morning I watched this video:

... which was essentially the final nail in the coffin.  (Pun intended.)  I'll give you that the video is a little rough to watch--okay, it's a lot rough--but my guy here is definitely on the path of improvement.  If he pulls together some better audio and gets a little more aggressive with his editing, he'll have something pretty decent.

But that's not the point of this post.  The point is that tomorrow is Halloween.

The point is also that tomorrow, on Halloween, I'll be posting a new episode of Zaphod Zombie.  Maybe you should watch the first two episodes in preparation?

Yeah.  Krumbine and boobs.  Does it get any better than that?

And that whole B. Walker thing ... pfft ... whatever.  It's the Krumbine you should be checking out.  And the boobs.  Krumbine and the boobs.

Oh, HEY.  Have you noticed the TWO HUNDRED awesome videos on my channel?

No?

Yeah, me neither.

I think I need to do some weeding over there ... but before that, I think I might do Who's On First.  Yep, you heard it here, first!

One of the best explanations of Schadenfreude comes from the musical "Avenue Q".  If you've heard it before, you know what I'm talking about.  If not, well, skip it.

Personally, my favorite explanation comes from an episode of Boston Legal. I believe it's episode two, season two, where Alan Shore gives one of his trademark, long-winded, emphatic closing statements.  I won't quote the whole monologue (it can be found here:  http://www.boston-legal.org/script/BL02x2.pdf) but I will give you a snippit:


Schadenfreude. From the German words, Schaden and Freude, damage and joy. It means to take spiteful, malicious delight in the misfortune of others. We used to dismiss this as simply an ugly side of human nature, but it is much much more than that. Recently a Stanford professor actually captured Schadenfreude on a brain scan. It’s a physiological medical phenomenon. When we see others fall it sometimes causes a chemical to be released in the dorsal striatum of the brain which actually causes us to feel pleasure. If you watch the news or read the papers, which of course you don’t because the Judge said not to, but if you did, you would see the undeniable delicious joy of the media and the public over Kelly Nolan’s plight. I have no doubt that you want Kelly Nolan to be punished.
She married for money, she had an affair, she carried on naked in the pool with her boyfriend. She’s cold, materialistic, unlikable, and it might bring you all pleasure to see her go to jail. But as for evidence to establish that she committed a murder beyond all reasonable doubt? It just isn’t there. The only possible route to a guilty verdict here is Schadenfreude. Thank you.

... I mention all of this because it really has become apparent that I am a frequent and eager victim of Schadenfreude.  To the point, even, when I'm having a bad day and I see how miserable and angry other people are around me, I almost immediately brighten up.

Fucked up, huh?

Another example: I love watching how this whole financial mess is going down.  When the Dow loses hundreds of points in a single day, I just watch and marvel as everyone flies into unfettered panic.

I can't help it.

Schadenfreude.

In lieu of what was supposed to be my regular episode of krumbinesBRAIN yesterday, I ended up doing a bit of an editing project (which is hardly a substitute as the project only took about twenty minutes or so).

Initially, my plan was to do episodes of krumbinesBRAIN Monday though Friday.  This has now evolved to, instead of five episodes a week, I'll produce an episode or three sometime during the week.  I think that makes sense.  At any rate, I've been getting a lot of my material from the videos that I watch and I just haven't had that much inspiration for the past few days.

Okay, yesterday, yes, there were some good videos which will eventually be krumbinesBRAIN fodder, but with the final presidential debate happening tonight and my growing need for some good sleep (due to my illness I keep waking up in the middle of the night unable to breathe) I don't anticipate much free time to edit.  Which is what really takes the lion's share of my time.  For example, with this last episode (which was a beefy one, granted) I spent about ten to fifteen minutes taping the footage.  Then I probably spent about two hours encoding, cutting, reencoding and posting.  You know, thereabouts.

It's interesting because it gives me something to do (which I like and need) but the flipside is that it's very consuming.  I'll leave the TV on while I'm working, but I can't pay much attention to whatever's on because of the details in my editing.

So ... last night, instead of my usual episode, I did an editing project.  Youtuber Hellboyking has a series going called the #1 Fan.  He sent me an email asking for views so I checked out the latest installment.  It was short enough (just over two minutes) but I really felt the footage lends itself more to a trailer than an actual episode.  I left a comment stating as such, but then I decided to just cut the trailer myself.

So I did.

The trailer was cut to the first :60 of AC/DC's "Back in Black" (which ups the awesome-quotient on virtually ANYTHING by about 100).  Middlebrook had some tough criticisms of my trailer, boiling down to the fact that some of the shots were just too long.  At first brush, I was a little indignant--I purposely trimmed the shots pretty short.  But ultimately, he's right.  The trailer is entertaining but if I had used a different portion of the song (rather than the beginning) and spent some more time on it (as opposed to the twenty minutes I did) I could have cut a :45 trailer (or so) that would have been much tighter and far more fun to watch.

Which is not to say that the current trailer isn't fun to watch.

It is.

And you should.  Watch it.  Now.

The other thing I wanted to talk about is how I constantly receive comments from people about how a certain video has such a low view count or how I have so few subscribers (122--two more and I'll finally beaten you, Emily!  Boo-YAH!  To everyone else: create duplicate accounts and subscribe to me to fake my numbers.  PLEAAAASE!  I'm so close to surpassing Emily ... I can TASTE it!).  Anyway, this happens so frequently now, that I've decided to instigate a new rule.  If someone makes that comment, they can turn around and share the video they're talking about with all of their friends and subscribers.  If they do this, I will make a video about them.

And if you've watched ANY of my krumbinesBRAIN episodes, you can only imagine what kind of honor this will be.

But let me clarify something here: I know my videos don't get a lot of views.  I know I don't have a lot subscribers.  And as much as I would like for this to eventually grow into something more than an activity that keeps me busy, that's exactly what it boils down to for me: just something for me to do so as that I don't die.

And I'm serious about that dying thing.

My point is that yes, I want people to watch and enjoy and be inspired by my work (as those who do see it are) but mainly I do it for myself.

I guess I'm just happy to have you along for the ride.

Stay creative ...

(click for the image for the full size comic)

Dude, every month is Zombie Awareness Month.

Just something I'm fooling around with ... tell me what you think.

(click the picture for the full size comic)

Work has been extraordinarily difficult lately--and not for any lack of effort on my own part, mind you.  With my recent cold/flu/endless drippy nose, I got some much needed time off work which leaves me invigorated and ready to take on the rest of this week (all two days) and the weeks to come with what Sarah Palin would happily call "tolerance".

I equate the atmosphere in this office to that of the stock market.  There is no confidence in our financial system these days and no one has any hope--or any bright spot to focus on.  It's difficult to keep moving forward when there is no light (even a dim one) to head towards.

It is important for people to have their own personal light.  Their own bigger picture and grand scheme.  We cannot rely on external sources to provide a path through these tumultuous times, but instead focus heartily on what we wish to achieve as individuals.  Perhaps it can't be accomplished right away, but the simple act of turning your focus onto whatever this goal (or goals) are, will make the bitter pill that is your day go down easier.

For me, it is two-fold.

1) I have been working on my digital consulting business, ironing out details and getting myself to the point where I merely need to start advertising in order to get this thing going.  I initially wanted to work simply by word-of-mouth and had distributed business cards to work that angle.  A few weeks later and the results have been disheartening.  Therefore, I plan to approach it from a different angle and invest a small amount in local advertising.

2) Since the start of the new youtube show (krumbinesBRAIN), I've been fortunate enough to experience some light and steady growth on youtube.  And since the start of krumbinesBRAIN, I have finally produced an episode that was a video response to a recent sxephil video.  The result of that has been an explosion of views for that particular episode and plenty of new subscribers (I believe I'm just about to hit 120, if I haven't already).  I plan on doing more regular responses to sxephil's videos (as my show lends itself to that angle) and will subsequently be preparing the launch of "Zombie Awareness Month" and the Dawn of the Thread clothing line.

That's what's keeping me going right now.  How about you?

There's been so much happening today and as each new item comes up, I say to myself that I'm going to do an episode of krumbinesBRAIN about it (as a video response) but I just don't have enough time in the day!  As it was, I posted 3 new videos this morning (and one last night) AND all that shit was written yesterday and today.

I'll be getting to these topics in the show in due time, so if reading isn't your thing, I'll probably end up touching on all this stuff by week's end.

I've always enjoyed the fact that what I do inspires the creativity in others.  Sometimes it's in a small way like how, after seeing how diligently I do my own creative work, my roommate started working on her own sewing project.  Other times, it's more impressive like how, after winning the "Pimp My Video" contest, samkendrey made a follow-up video to showcase the new t-shirt:

OR how the 2nd place winner of the contest (camo1000) did this awesome send-up of the new show:

AND, as I'm working on this, apparently I'm doing the one thing I thought I wasn't going to do.  I video response to sxephil.

I'm such a sellout.