Greetings from the Holy Land!

So it would seem blogging is back. I mean, my sisters blogging again, I'm blogging again…who else do you need? Here I'd thought this was kind of a fad which got old around mid-2009, and yet every once and again I decide to post my deepest thoughts on the internet where just about anyone and everyone can read it. I usually don't do this anymore unless I'm really having a hard time making a decision, as I suppose you could tell by looking at some of my previous posts, half of which seem to be about laptops. 

How have things been going here the last three months? Well if you asked me that, I'd probably tell you something like "pretty good" since there's way too much information involved in the answer to that question to put into words. So it's a good thing you didn't ask me, or you'd have just been wasting your time. Luckily, I've asked the question for you, and so I've decided to answer it in the only way I can think of- by writing it all out. Of course, when I come back to Milwaukee and everyone in shul or wherever asks me how Israel was, I'll have to give them the short answer, which usually leaves people pretty unsatisfied and kind of confused. 

Anyway, it's November now and I've been on the three-seder schedule for about three months now. And I must say it has started to get to me. I learn close to nine hours a day, and the rest of the time there doesn't seem to be much else to do. Everyone else here seems pretty bored. It's a good thing nobody listened to the no-laptops rule, because that seems to be the only thing most people do around here. We've even set up our own computer to computer network and played games against each other.

Now I know what you're thinking right now- "You're in Israel! How could you be spending your free time playing computer games with your friends?" It's a fair question, but I hope I'll have answered it by the end of this post. Of course the odds of me finishing this post seem to be diminishing- I've been interrupted twice already and I have another half an hour. 

Here's the truth- I don't really know what else to do with myself. Sure, in the first few weeks we all went to town and checked out ben yehuda and the old city and the kotel and all that, and it was cool for awhile. But now what? I can't exactly go touring Israel between 11:00pm and 12:30. I still do go down to town quite frequently- usually for felafel, a food which I can only eat in Israel for reasons I have yet to discover. But besides for getting food (and the food is good- many of you know it is the center of my universe) I don't see much reason to spend the money on the bus to go downtown. Many people go every night, and that's because they came here to party. I did not, and I'm kind of surprised that people like that actually wind up here. 

They've been a major damper on the experience, these party-people. Around half my yeshiva of 30 kids was made up of party-people when I first got here. Some have left, but a nice chunk of it is still, well, white trash. I had expected maybe two or three people to be like this, but when it's closer to six or seven it kind of ruins things. The front of the yeshiva always smells like cigarette smoke (and so does my room occasionally), people steal things from the fridge, the kitchen has been broken into a couple times already, etc. I didn't fly thousands of miles away from home when I was perfectly comfortable in New York to spend a year with people like this. 

There are of course some really great guys here, and I don't mean to exclude them. There are some of my closest friends from high school, without whom I probably wouldn't be here to begin with, and there's a number of other guys I've met also (pretty much everyone who isn't british, actually)  who are just fantastic people, and I'm glad I've had the opportunity to meet them. Without these people, I'm sure I'd be utterly miserable here. I mean, I've never been a huge fan of learning gemara, as I'm sure many of you know. I'm not bad at it, and I've been told by many knowledgable people that I actually have a flair for it, but that doesn't mean I enjoy it. But that's part of why I'm here. I thought I'd get the chance to learn more of the "whys" of my religion, rather than the "whats" which I've focused on my whole life already.

I discovered last year that the "whats" don't hold up without the "whys", and I wish I'd discovered that sooner. I was left on my own last year, with zero supervision, and what I discovered was that I was left with zero motivation. My davening was a joke last year, as was my learning, and I'm not proud of that. I had hoped that coming here would give me a different perspective on things, and would give me the motivation I need to come to davening without a minyan point system, and be able to learn without getting a grade. 

For the most part, I seem to have been mistaken. 

There is one part of my day where, about once a week, I can ask one of my rabbeim some of the questions I have about, well yiddishkeit. And that's not nothing. I've learned a great deal from those sessions since August. But I get the feeling that I'm wasting 90% of my time here by just piling on more and more gemara. My rosh yeshiva is convinced that if I stay for an additional six months, I will continue to grow in my learning. That's fantastic, but I'm not really interested in it, and certainly not in these conditions. In fact those words kind of make me nauseous at this point. I don't need to be better at reading a gemara- I need to know why I'm reading it in the first place! I mean really, I've spent the last ten years learning HOW to read a gemara, but I can't keep myself dedicated to it if I don't understand the reason behind it. 

That's something I couldn't get at YU, so I thought I'd come here and hear their take on it. So far, I haven't heard anything new, and my belief is that that's not likely to change. I have learned about quite a few other things I wasn't sure about, and in that respect coming here was a great chizuk, But I really was much happier in the states, and I'd still like to get back there as soon as I can. 

I realize that sounds like a mistake to a lot of people. Lots of people view Israel in this bold, perfect light. Like it's heaven or something. "How could you want to leave Israel? Aren't you enjoying yourself? What do you have in America that can't wait another six months?"

That's not the question. The question is, what do I have here that I need to stay another six months?

The best argument I can think of is the fact that my friends are here, my brother is here, my relatives are here, and my father's friends are here (and they've all been really great!). This more than anything else is what make the decision to leave early tough. I'm all too happy to leave the english lads and their cigarettes, as well as the subpar living conditions (toilet paper!), but when I think about leaving these amazing people, some of whom I've known my whole life, I hesitate. I had no close friends at YU, and that is the one aspect of it I'm not looking forward to. But I didn't really try last year, did I? I had my own dorm room, I spent more time at my sisters apartment playing xbox than anything else- who's surprised? I feel if I make more of an effort when I come back in January, the social scene in New York will look much better for me. And I can't make the decision to stay just to be with these people. I can't be with them forever. 

As for the land itself, people told me before I came about the "connection" you get with Israel by going, and how it couldn't be described, you just had to go see for yourself. Well, it still can't be described in my mind, because I still have no idea what those people were talking about. You can say three months isn't enough time to let a bond like that grow, so I guess maybe I just don't have the patience for it. Or maybe I'll never get it. Regardless, it's not something that's keeping me here. I don't feel any kind of connection to this place- I'm far more connected to Milwaukee, the place where I actually grew up. I don't feel at home here. Maybe I haven't been to the right places, but I just feel like the Jews that live here are just a different kind of people. It's a world I can't really relate to, where in some places it's ordained by halacha that you throw stones at cars, or pour bleach on seminary girls. If anything, going to charaidi places like netanya and mean shearim have shaken my trust in Judaism. 

We go to tishes in Netanya, with thousands of chassidim sitting around a table watching their rebbe eat, and the whole time people ask me "isn't this amazing? aren't you inspired?" But it just makes me feel more distant to my religion. I don't believe the same thing these people do. They are their own breed of Judaism. They don't inspire me, and I don't connect with them at all. 

That's four interruptions. I seem to be annoying some people, so I guess I'll end this off here. I think I've covered everything, right? I've completely lost my train of thought anyways. Overall, of course I'm glad I came here, and I think I've grown a great deal from the experience in many ways, but I am really looking forward to coming back. And the rosh can call my father if he wants to (on sunday, look out) but I do kind of wish, at least for once, someone would respect my decision. It hasn't been an easy one to make, but I've made it already. Please stop trying to change my mind, because it might work.  

Yup, it's still summer

Jeez, I could use a job.

Like a real one, the kind that pays money. I've applied to literally dozens of places this summer, with absolutely no result. No one has even thought to call me in for an interview. About a third of the jobs I applied to at least had the courtesy to tell me they were no longer interested in me, but the other two thirds just ignored me. Pretty annoying. Why did I spend all that time with Perel writing a resume? Oh well, I'm sure it'll come in handy eventually.

I may get a job working at my old high school this summer, but so far that seems to be a long shot. I've heard nothing from anyone official yet, but rumors have reached me that they need more people. "Trying's all we've got!"

The IDEAL thing which I would die to do this summer is work on the Transformers 3 movie which will be filming here the week of July 12th. But I have absolutely no idea how to even get in touch with the people who are looking for local students to be PA's, and by now I think it's probably too late anyways. The chances of me getting Shia Labeouf coffee are pretty slim at this point. But getting a job like that- just unbelievable. Can you imagine what that would look like on a resume?

As for what I am doing around here, well not a whole lot. I have some friends who are in town for the next week or so, and we're going to hang out as much as we can before they all go to their respective sleep away camps in New York or whatever. Perel's coming back tomorrow night, and she'll be here for a little while, so that'll be fun. Oh, and as for this whole Dr. Apikores video- it has, as I feared, come to a bit of a stall. We still have some shooting (and believe it or not, some writing) to do before I can finish it up, but hopefully I'll get that done within the next few days. I did just discover that the Askotzky's have a giant white screen on their second floor I can use as a background- so I'm going to see if that's possible. Also, now Perel can be in the movie if she so desires. So it may be a little while longer, but it will b grand.

Close encounters of the Peanut kind

And here you have it, my obligatory blog of the month. The truth is, I think of stuff I should really write down all the time, but I guess there's just so much that none of it ends up on paper, er screen. And some of the stuff I'd really like to get into would take so long to write, and I don't have the patience for that kind of thing.
As you may have heard, I am working on a new Doctor Apikores video, and it is so far the coolest video I've ever made. It may be another week or two before it hits youtube, but rest assured it will be worth the wait.
So I guess while I'm here I might as well share with you my close encounter from earlier today. I was making lunch, which is a task which seems to be becoming more pathetic by the day. Today I was baking a piece of fish in the toaster oven, and I decided to eat something in the meantime, since it was going to take twenty minutes to bake. An ice cream sandwich in the freezer caught my eye. It was on the top shelf, and I didn't see what the flavor was, but it was in this fancy blue bunny packaging, so I was like what the heck- probably rocky road or something. Because they make that in ice cream sandwiches.
Anyway, I unwrapped it, and instantly recognized it as chocolate. Not my favorite, but good enough. I took a bite into this ice cream sandwich, and this is what I thought, in this order:
1) THAT'S not chocolate.
2) That's NOT chocolate.
3) That's not CHOCOLATE.
4) That's fricken peanut butter!
5) Who puts peanut butter in an ice cream sandwich>
6) OMG

So I spit it out as best I could, and rinsed my mouth out about 30 times. I don't think I actually swallowed any, but my mouth was still very tingly, so I went looking for the Benedryl. This drug proved elusive, despite the fact that our kitchen is completely stuffed with any kind of pill you can imagine. I finally found it, took two pills, and was pretty much out of commission for the rest of today. Annoying, but it could have been much worse, I guess.
I had come to wonder in recent months whether or not I was still actually allergic to the stuff, since I haven't had a reaction in many years. Well, question answered, I suppose.

Going through the book catalog with the crank-up radio blasting

"Forty-three percent off? But how much is it!!!"

I'm recording these quotes as they happen:

"I think this is the side where only girls can buy stuff, and this is the side where only boys can buy stuff. Look, 'Shark Adventure.'"

"'Easy to read'? I need some of those. I have hard to read books."

"Next page. These are my level I think. Nancy Drew?"

"Come on! Star Wars, the Clone Wars? It can't be both! It can only be one!"

"'Scratch and Win! Improve your math skills with these fun games!'"

Iguana: What's the party up here?

(Cranks up radio) "This is the party!"

Iguana: You and that thing are crazy. (leaves)

"Is 7 dollars a lot of money?"

"Do you like history? Do you want 100 historical photos? Does Iguana? Does Fudge? Does anyone in our family?"

"I already have a remote control car. I mean, Curby can't race upside down, but still..."

"Create your own slime? Ewww."

"Body Science! I love body science! Glow in the dark brain slime kit!"

"I wish I could draw sharks like that."

"How much can a bare bear bear?"

"A mink, a fink, a skating rink. Some of those aren't even words."

Yeah, yeah...

Eventually, I'll put something up. I'm officially too busy with finals and whatnot to blog right now. But for those of you wondering, the mice are still a problem, and I'm pretty annoyed at their persistence. They'll get theirs though, don't worry.

Reporting Live from the Muss lounge

Why am I two floors below my room with my laptop? Well, let me see if I can sum up what's been going on in my room the last 48 hours or so...

FRIDAY NIGHT
Getting ready to go to sleep, I see something scuttle underneath my doorway. I figure it's at worst a roach, but since the light's off, I can't see anything. When an extended search of the area reveals nothing, I convince myself it was a trick of the light and go to sleep.

SATURDAY NIGHT
Returning to my room after havdala, I open up my laptop and check my email. I then begin watching a youtube video.

TEN MINUTES LATER - FIRST SIGHTING
Something quickly moves across my desk behind the laptop.
First thought- What the heck was that?
Second thought- I think there's a mouse behind my desk.
Third thought- OMG there's a mouse in my room!!!

I move back from the desk and quickly put on my packers slippers. There's a brief moment where I see nothing- I then see the mouse very quickly move from behind the desk under the doorway. I carefully peer out the hallway, and see nothing. I suddenly realize that this is the thing I saw last night. Commence jibblies.

I head down to the guard on the first floor and let him know of the situation. He writes my room number down on a piece of paper, and calls someone, telling them I've seen mice in my room. After a ten second conversation, he hangs up the phone and tells me "housekeeping" will put down "traps" in my room. When I ask him if it'll be done tonight, he says "I don't know about that." Okay, worse things have happened. So I sleep with the mice for one night. Sudden realization that housekeeping does not come on Sundays causes more jibblies.
However, I don't see the rodent for the rest of the night. Believing it to have left my room, I block the bottom of the doorway with luggage, and watch dr who until 2:30, at which point I am comfortable enough to go to sleep.

SUNDAY MORNING
No sign of the vermin, but still on edge. I spend most of the day at my sister's apartment, returning at around 3:00.

SUNDAY 3:00- SECOND SIGHTING
I open the doorway to be greeted by the mouse. As if to welcome me back to our humble abode, it quickly scuttles from behind the desk under the doorway of a closet near the door. Not having checked that closet the previous night, I suspect that the mouse has and had been living there, although there's no food in there. Just a TV box. I move the luggage in front of the closet, take my laptop, and leave the room.

Now I'm going to head back up there, grab my wallet, and head over to rite aid to find some way of killing this thing. I have less than no faith in "housekeeping" coming tomorrow and laying traps. We will fight these rodents on the seas, we will fight them on the beaches. We will defend our dorm room, whatever the cost may be. We shall never surrender.

Hit the ground running...into a volcano

Coming back from these long vacations, I always kind of feel like a plane landing. After spending so much free time up in the air, relaxing, the hard thump of the wheels hitting the ground wakes me up and reminds me of where I am and where I'm going. The plane has touched the ground, but is still going nearly as fast as it was in the air. Over time it slows down, until finally it reaches the gate, and I suppose my vacation metaphorically dies at that point.


What was I talking about? Oh yeah, Pesach. Well, this Pesach was without a doubt the best Pesach I've ever had in my life. I've become more aware in recent months that you appreciate something more and more the less you have it. Now I have not exactly been separated from my family for a tear-jerking amount of time (as my mom put it, my limit so far has been six weeks), but by my standards, it feels like years. So when I finally come home, and all of my brothers and sisters are there, it's just such an amazing time for me. People say there's nothing to do in Milwaukee- but I don't really need anything. As long as those guys are around, I'm having a good time. My brother happens to be going away to the Israeli army soon, and I probably won't get another good look at him for the next fourteen months, so we spent plenty of quality time together (although most of it was in shul, I guess). One regret I have from this break is that I spent so much of it working. Well okay I guess that's not true, I spent maybe three or four mornings doing my superhero work downtown as a mashgiach. I'm not totally sure why I took up the requests- I guess it's because usually they don't ask me, and this time apparantly they really needed me, and I have a hard time turning down money. There were one or two days where I turned them down, and I'm really glad I did, because that meant more time I got to spend with my family.
But now I come back to New York and am once again faced with the realization that things like this don't last forever. Even when I do come back for summer break, it won't be the same as it was over this vacation, since my sister will still be working in New York, and my brother will still be in the army in Israel. Sometimes I just can't believe I'm thinking about going to Israel next year. I mean, it's true a lot of my friends will be there, but I have a rough enough time dealing with going to New York, I can't imagine what things would be like for me if I were to leave for six months at a time. I tell myself having friends there will make things better, but that's far from a guarantee. And I guess I need to go to Queens this weekend to check Landers out.
I guess in theory I shouldn't have time to be thinking about this (or writing it) since I have like two tests and a paper due in the same week I come back. But I really just can't bring myself to study economics right now. Maybe in ten minutes.
The truth is I don't have very much school left. I go home in another six and a half weeks, and I only have classes for about half of that. Finals shouldn't be too terrible, but I need to actually get back on top of things. It could just be because I came back with a lot of things I had to do outside of school, which hopefully by the end of today are all taken care of. I had to mail back the car keys I accidentally left in my pocket, wheel two gigantic, 50 pound boxes over to my sister's apartment, close a checking account (haven't done that yet), cash a check...I think there are more.
One problem is that it's hard for me to focus on my schoolwork, and think about if I want to stay here for next year at the same time. If I wait on that decision until the schoolwork is over, it'll likely be too late (dorm registrations are due April 21st...so I guess I need to know by then).
It's just that I've come back from the most amazing vacation ever, and I find myself back in the middle of all of these things. It's so hard for me to re-orient myself. I didn't know what I was going to do with all this stuff three weeks ago, and I haven't made much progress since. I guess I've had kind of a hard landing, not unlike the entire Polish government. Except I think I'm really just half off the runway, not half a mile away from it. If I can just steer myself in the right direction, I shouldn't have much of a problem dealing with these last six weeks. Then I can start looking for a summer job two months too late. Ugh.

Oop, it's been at least ten minutes. I should really study some economics now. With any luck, I'll at least feel like I did well tomorrow, and I can focus on my other tests.

Aaah, I've heard it both ways...

I need a break from overdoing!!!

Midterms!!!

Sorry, haven't had time to type anything in a while, I've been super busy juggling midterms, the play (which I'm doing tech again for this semester), economics homework, and the occasional modern warfare 2. But here's a hilarious video a friend of mine sent me.

The Tetris God

The wrong impression?

I had two strange things happen to me today which made me feel like I'd flashed back to the old WHEATS days. Oh, that's what my chavrusa calls my old school. Bear with me.
So I came back from one of my classes today to find that my door was wide open and my light was on. I thought that was pretty weird. I mean, I guess I can be pretty absent minded sometimes, but come on. That's just weird. But nothing was missing, I'd had my laptop with me, so I figured I'd just left it like that by accident, in a rush to get to class. Although my initial thought was like, what's going on? Are they searching my room?
I later found a security guard opening random rooms on my floor, and I guess he thought I was looking at him weird or something, so as I was opening my room up, he told me that they'd opened my room up earlier because they thought there was a leak inside, but it turned out it was in the room next door. I don't know if that makes me feel better or worse.
But anyways, later on I was trying to get back into my building, and found, as I often do later at night, that the door was locked. So I asked the guard in the booth if he could open the door. I was kind of out of breath as we had this little conversation, as I had just run from my sister's apartment to get my backpack from my room so I could get to a test I was probably already late for. This is how this conversation went:
ME: Can you open this door up please?

GUARD: How can I help you?

ME:...can you open this door up?

GUARD: (faint smile) No, the door is closed.

ME: Yeah, I know. Can you open it?

GUARD: No, no, it's locked.

ME: I know, that's why I can't get in. Can you open the door?

GUARD: It's closed right now.

ME: (suddenly understanding) Oh...wait what? This is the DORM building?

GUARD: Yes, the dorm is closed.

ME:...ok!

So I basically just had to run around to the main entrance and go all the way around the building. Of course, that entrance was wide open, and once I got to my floor I could find no reason why the place would be closed off. This whole thing basically cost me ten minutes of an extremely long test, but thankfully I still finished with plenty of time to spare. Although I have to admit that when I first realized that this guard was telling me the dorm was closed, my immediate reaction was like, "Why? Are they searching the dorms?"
Now I wish I could say that I've never actually had my room searched before, but unfortunately as of last year I can no longer claim that, which was when four rabbeim kicked me out of my own room and searched through my closet.
For those of you who may be surprised at my hesitation to go back to a full-time learning environment, this may shed some light on my point of view. This was actually something I thought about a few weeks ago, when I was reading the Yated at my uncle's house, and I read an article about whether or not it's right for a rebbe to hit his students. This caused me to drift back and remember fondly my experiences with, caring, sincere, patient rabbeim in the fourth, fifth, sixth, and eight grades. (end sarcasm)
I believe each one of these rabbeim brought me to tears on multiple occasions. And you know, it wasn't fun. And now I'm not saying I didn't deserve it all the time, but many times, even as I look back on it now, I did not approve of their methods. A few of them apologized to me afterwards, and I hold for them a bit of respect for doing that. But nonetheless, there's no doubt in my mind that these people are the reasons why I am so quiet today. It seems that I learned early on when to keep my mouth shut. And it's true, I remember many gemara classes where I would sit in my desk, trying very hard to not break down, and concentrating on how I was not going to say anything in this class ever again. I should just keep my mouth shut next time. Well, it seems I've learned.
 This was how I operated all throughout high school; I answered my questions myself, and never raised my hand unless there was really something I didn't know. Maybe that's a good thing? Is it a virtue not to say anything if you have nothing to say? It sure doesn't seem like it. Everywhere I go, everything I do, people ask me why I don't say anything? Am I afraid I'm going to be shot down and humiliated if I speak my mind? Or is this just the way I am now, with this mentality of being very careful with what I say, to the point where I don't even realize I have something to say unless it's something important?

Woah, I'm sorry, this was supposed to be a funny blog. But I've been thinking about this for a little while, and I guess I wanted to get it out there. It actually surprises me now that I never spoke with any of my high school rabbeim about this. Maybe I never figured it out until now. But I can tell you that with all of Dr. Stone's bellowing and stomping, he couldn't hold a candle to how much damage these people have done to me. Like I said before, maybe it's for the better. Maybe it's good that I know how to balance my words carefully. Goodness knows it got me through algebra, geometry, and chemistry in one piece. But take it from me- these rabbeim did not need to hit me. They did their job just fine with their words.

Look!

so yeah I'm really too lazy to write anything right now, but I realize I haven't posted anything in a while, so here's a video for you.

The next big thing

I tried to upload this to facebook, but they didn't seem to be interested in doing that. It's been uploading for the last half an hour, with nothing to show for it, sooooo....

I guess I'll just put it here and make the link my status. Good job facebook. Good job.

look familiar?

saw this while in gamestop with fudge buying tomb raider- because modern warfare 2 isn't "fun to watch."
to iguana- does this not make you think "roger wilco?"

"Vlog" sounds like some kind of messed up russian food

So it seems I haven't posted in a while. As in, since before winter break a while. I wanted to do a post like my sister did after her first semester of college, about what I've learned and how much I've grown as a person, but it takes so long to type these things up that I often wonder how she ever had the patience to type such long posts.

That's part of why I've been thinking about these vlogs that have been going around youtube. This one in particular, called "breaking nyc" is literally just this guy going around with a camera videotaping whatever he does during the day, including going to barnes and noble, going to school, and occasionally washing the dishes. And these videos get thousands, no hundreds of thousands of views- and he makes a new one every day. And I'm thinking- hey this is kind of like that blogging thing we used to do. Like back when we all did it. My father would put some funny story up once or twice a week, my sister would always have the best stories about our relatives in new york, Ezzie would leave funny comments, and every once in a blue moon my mom would put something up.
Now it seems me and iguana are the only ones who pay our blogs any heed at all. No one reads them, and no one writes them. They used to be such a great way for us to keep each other updated on what funny or exciting things are going on in our lives.

These days it seems you can turn that kind of thing into internet gold by putting it up on youtube. I'm not sure how these things get so popular- I mean the guy is funny, but seriously who wants to watch him do his dishes? And yet apparently this guy gets recognized in diners and stuff. If I was ever downtown, there's a good chance I'd run into him. His cousin (at least I think she's his cousin) meekakitty won $100,000 in an online contest through her vlog, when she asked the viewers to vote for her. She's using
the money to pay for college.

And by the way, both of their videos are very funny, and it's clear they put a ton of effort into them. I'm starting to wonder what would be more work- typing my blogs up, or turning them into "vlogs". The vlogs have potential to be really funny, and possibly even to catch on online (although I would never expect that to happen), but I think they require something these guys have that I don't: energy. Maybe that's why people will watch raywilliamjohnson make corn chowder, or watch meekakitty talk about essentially nothing for four minutes- because they do it in such a funny style. It's partly the editing, but it's also just the energy and excitement they put into it (meekakitty in particular). I guess that's something I don't have, although I really wish I did.

It would definitely be more awkward for me to video these things and put them up, but it'd also be funnier. Blogs used to be things people would read for a good laugh; now it seems to be a good place to go to see Shlock Rock advertisements. Remember when people would shoot coffee out of their noses reading stories about yonina's ridiculous books or conversations? (which I can assure you are in no short supply) What happened? Nobody has time anymore?

I admit that I've also slowed my blogging, from like a couples times a week to like once a month at best. It's definitely not because there's nothing going on (although occassionally that's true). But it's just that the whole thing has gotten kind of old. Writing these blogs seems to have become something I look upon as a chore. I used to get so excited when I'd laugh at something and say "that's going in the blog!" It seems to have lost some of its zeal over the last few years. That's what gets me thinking that maybe it's time for a new medium. Maybe the best way to bring life back to these blogs is to "vlog" them instead. And gosh darnit, if "breaking nyc" can get half a million views of this guy washing his dishes, I don't see what I've got to lose!

But shooting and editing is a lot of work, and this guy's youtube show, "equals three", apparently takes up most of his week. Although I don't think it has to. But you know, he's got fans. Thousands of them! That's pretty cool! I mean, what did he do? He set up some lights in a corner of his room and put up videos of him talking about...other youtube videos? And he gets thousands of subscribers! He sells t-shirts! You've gotta wonder, if he can do it, can anyone?

Now I'm not guaranteeing anything, and I'm not saying you can expect me to make one of these and put it up next week, but it's just something I've been thinking about.