Audio-Visual Day

Technology provides the hash marks to our lives. When I was in the 4th grade (1957) we did the thing where fathers came to school to talk about their jobs. My mom worked just as hard as my pop but this was the 50s, so…

My old man brought a reel-to-reel tape recorder and everyone got to record — and listen to — themselves saying their name or something. Very cool. I’m guessing it was the first time many of my classmates had heard a recording of their voices.

VHS video recorder/players didn’t hit the consumer market until the early 70s. So when a teacher was too hung over or depressed to teach a class they rolled in the audio-video gear which, in my youth, was a film-strip projector. And I guess we thought that was cool technology.

How long before the hologram teacher instructs the class to strap on their VR goggles cause we’re touring the International Space Station this morning.

Bad Lip Reading: Redneck Avengers

Bad Lip Reading videos sit solidly atop my list of net humor (which, I suppose, is all humor now). Brilliant writing. Brillianter voice work. But this gets a special place in my bib overalls because everyone around me growing up (southeast Missouri) talked like this.

YouTube Channel Trailer

I don’t give a lot of attention to my YouTube channel. It’s just the place I park my videos so I can share them here on Google+ and on smays.com. But they provide a nice set of tools for managing your content and tips for how to create a good “experience” for people who find their way to my channel. For example, they recommend a brief (no more than a minute) trailer to give the visitor some idea of what the channel is about. It’s been a couple of years since I updated mine. This one has nothing to do with the video on my channel. I needed to fill that spot on page so I decided to put something together as quickly as possible.

I quickly scanned through 5,000+ photos, picking eight or ten almost at random. Then added some music that seemed to fit the images and my current mood. And it’s done. I almost added some quotes from favorite authors but decided that wouldn’t add anything.