Archive for the 'Video' Category

I started using YNAB—You Need A Budget—for a couple of years now. It’s software that implements for basic rules about how to handle budgeting. It’s much simpler than Quicken and it provides some functions that Quicken never will. Quicken is good at showing you where your money went, while YNAB will show you where your money will go.

One of the biggest helps with YNAB is the shift in thinking about where the money comes from for spending. The first rule of YNAB is to build a buffer of one month’s worth of expenses, then only spend money that you earned the previous month. While you spend last months income you accumulate the buffer for next month. You always know how much money you have to spend because you already made it last month.

YNAB 3 is going to be amazing!

When they announced the winners at the end of the tryouts for So You Think You Can Dance season 5 they played the song “Look at Me (I’m a Winner)!” by the Aquabats! Check it out:

I went nuts and uploaded the clip as fast as I could when I didn’t find any hits anywhere else on Google for The Aquabats and So You Think You Can Dance.

I hope you have a wonderful week. Christmas is the best time of year, troche even if it is freezing all over the place.

From a YouTube comment on a Christmas Video I posted there:

I think that the confusion lies in the view of the Trinity, drug taught from the very beginning of the Church. There is One God, co-eternal with the Son and Spirit. God was never like man nor will man ever become like God. Hear O Israel, the LORD is One. No other diety. Lucifer was not the brother of Jesus.

Because of the limit on post-length at YouTube I am responding here.

You are correct that those are some of the doctrines that cause some Christians to label the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) as a non-Christian religion. Most members of the LDS Church have a different and more inclusive definition of Christian. The LDS definition of Christian simply means anyone who believes in Jesus Christ and who worships Him. This definition probably has its roots in the Book of Mormon passage from Alma 46:13-15.

13 And he fastened on his head-plate, and his breastplate, and his shields, and girded on his armor about his loins; and he took the pole, which had on the end thereof his rent coat, (and he called it the title of liberty) and he bowed himself to the earth, and he prayed mightily unto his God for the blessings of liberty to rest upon his brethren, so long as there should a band of Christians remain to possess the land—
14 For thus were all the true believers of Christ, who belonged to the church of God, called by those who did not belong to the church.
15 And those who did belong to the church were faithful; yea, all those who were true believers in Christ took upon them, gladly, the name of Christ, or Christians as they were called, because of their belief in Christ who should come.

This is why most any Mormon you meet will be incensed when someone even insinuates that Mormons are not Christians. I am a Mormon and I think I understand both sides of this issue. When a Mormon calls himself or herself a Christian, they mean that they are a follower of Jesus Christ. Whether most Evangelical Christians believe that or not is another question entirely.

I do not believe the same creeds that Evangelical Christians believe, but I call myself a Christian because I believe that Jesus Christ is my personal Lord and Savior and I strive to follow, praise, and honor him. I hope that this video helps me do those things, if only in some very small and insignificant way.

The most recent album by They Might Be Giants, The Else, closes with this really catchy song called The Mesopotamians. Now you can watch the video for The Mesopotamians! You might find that it bears a passing resemblance to The Monkees, which is undoubtedly the inspiration for the traveling band concept. Near the beginning of the Monkees video they are walking toward the camera with their arms behind each others’ backs. Near the end of the video for The Mesopotamians they are shown doing the same thing. There are a few other parallels, but I’ll let you find them yourself.

Tonight we had our little Christmas at home. My Grandparents couldn’t be with us when we opened the gifts we got from them, so they asked that we video tape it to get Krissy’s reaction. Please excuse the poor production values in the following presentation, as they were all 100% intentional and are all a part of my artistic genius.

Unfortunately, it seems that political ads don’t have to actually tell the truth or use pesky facts to convince people of who and what to vote for. Most political topics can’t be accurately explained in 30 seconds or less. I wish the following video were possible to get on television during commercial breaks. If you don’t know what Net Neutrality is or why you should want laws in place to guarantee it then please take the two and a half minutes to watch the video below. The cable and telephone companies, who constitute the majority of high-speed internet service providers (ISPs), want to make more money at your expense. You will probably see commercials that try to convince you that Net Neutrality is bad, but they won’t talk about why, except by trying to scare you by threatening to raise cable and internet bills. These ads against Net Neutrality are nothing more or less than that; they are threats. The user oepapel on a discussion about Net Neutrality at digg.com summed it up best.

The ISPs (the gatekeepers) are basically saying “We want more money. If we can’t charge Google extra because of some Net Neutrality law then we are going to charge you, the customer. So don’t vote for the law and we won’t charge you more. Deal?”

It’s not that they lied, it’s that they skipped right to the end of their thinly veiled threat to raise prices if they don’t get their way. It’s a giant temper tantrum. They see the internet and their customers as an asset to be sold to the highest bidder, only nobody is bidding. None of the content producers are taking the bait. God help us if one of them does because then they ALL will have to in order to stay competitive. Sure, your internet [access] might be cheaper (and that’s a big assumption) but you traded your freedom away to get it. Hope you kept the receipt…

The ISPs are threatening to raise your bills unless they can force other companies with popular websites to pay the ISP just to grant you access to the popular websites. This idea just makes me so angry! And this is only one of the possible misuses if Net Neutrality is not passed into law.

The first time I ever about this was when my sister-in-law, Sandy, showed this to the family two or three years ago. Amy Grant wrote and sings a song called “Breath of Heaven (Mary’s Song)” talking about the feelings that Mary had while carrying the Savior of the World. It turns out that a short film put out by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints called “The Nativity,” and “Breath of Heaven” are almost exactly the same length. Many of the scene changes match the changes in the music and many of the images match the lyrics. When I first saw this it was difficult to get going because it was a VHS tape with the video and a seperate CD player that had to be started together at just the right moment for the effect to be really noticeable. I took the video from the DVD and combined it with the audio from the CD, and this is the result. The Amy Grant music has a much greater impact than the original audio in my opinion. Enjoy!

DOWNLOAD: MPEG2 Nativity with Breath of Heaven 314MB

UPDATE: A few Evangelical Christians have decided that this video doesn’t make any sense since Mormons aren’t Christians.”

How would you like to get paid for stuffing your face with pizza? The Postie Patrol is one way PayPerPost.com rewards its users. They pick a random active user and stop by their place. They give them a choice of tasks to complete for money. The person picks one and craziness ensues. You will see that they have a huge truck in the video. This truck is affectionately nicknamed the Blue Monster. The one in the video that challenges the postie is the founder of PayPer Post, ambulance Ted Murphy. Check it out!

I just heard about this artist over at my favorite accordion-related blog so I thought I would check out her music. It is really catchy and I like it a lot. Here is a video of a song from her newest album. I hope you love it!