Viddler

What kind of reminder do you use to remember a task you need to get done? With all the electronics around us everyday, the humble Post-It note reminder is being replaced with reminders in mobile phones, online calendars, and even a simple alarm on a wristwatch.

Online services — such as Remember The Milk — offer ways to enter countless reminders, have them repeat (or not), and keep you focused on the tasks in your life. There’s iPhone apps and you can receive reminders via e-mail, but what if you live in your RSS reader (Google Reader, Bloglines, NetNewsWire, Safari, etc)? Well, Remember The Milk and most reminder services allow you to subscribe to your ‘Reminder Feed(s)’ through all good RSS readers. Though, most services require you to sign up.

ReminderFeed doesn’t require that tedious signup process we’re all familiar with. As Molly McDonald shows you in this DemoGirl (subscribe) screencast, all you need to do is create the reminder and subscribe to it. Simple!

I do like the fact that you can add a password in order to edit the task whenever needed. This is definitely a neat set-it-and-forget-it type of site that will definitely be handy for those that use their RSS readers a lot.

Remember: If you’d like to suggest a video for a feature on the Viddler blog and front page, then please send me a message, link it up in our forums, or just comment on this post. That’s as simple as subscribing to a feed!

Another week, another educational episode of Scam School (subscribe) with Brian Brushwood. Don’t let the word ‘educational’ throw you off though! This isn’t some kids show in an afternoon time slot. This is an adventure through social engineering in which you’ll see bar tricks, scams, street cons, and learn how they’re done too! These scams will ensure that you never have to pay for a drink again; your audience will demand to buy you one… two… three… more?

What are you waiting for? Learn how to magically put anything through a table. Your future restaurant experiences are about to get a whole lot more interesting!

Ta-da! No wonder Brian is an award-winning magician; he makes it look so easy. Well, it is pretty darn easy, hey!

If you want a few more of these scams up your sleeve (pun!), then check out all of Scam School’s timeless videos!

Follow @ScamSchool & @shwood on Twitter to keep up to date with the show and Brian, respectively.

Remember: If you’d like to suggest a video for a feature on the Viddler blog and front page, then please send me a message, link it up in our forums, or just comment on this post. Easy as!

Major League Baseball (MLB) wrapped up its 19th annual All-Star FanFest in St. Louis yesterday. All that is possibly jargon to anyone that lives outside the United States — like myself. Therefore, I’m going go quickly fill you in. (If you’re American, you can skip the next few paragraphs).

Last summer, I was traveling the United States and was very fortunate to learn all the fun, technicalities, and events surrounding MLB from the family I was staying with. One such event was the All-Star Game that occurs annually in mid-July. MLB consists of two leagues: National and American. That sounds silly because America is a nation, but it’s just the way the differentiate between the junior and senior league in baseball.

The All-Star Game (better known as the “Midsummer Classic”) is between players on both leagues. Obviously, not every team on both leagues can play, so the players are selected by a combination of the fans, coaches, managers, and other players. You can expect some top players to be picked each year. The game is played usually played on a Tuesday in mid-July to mark the halfway point in the MLB season. Also note: the current president of the U.S. gets to throw the first pitch of the game [video]. Neato!

While the game alone is a big deal for fans (they get to see many of their favorite players in the one place), it is preceded by a few days of FanFest. The MLB All-Star FanFest is an interactive baseball theme park that is the largest baseball fan event in the world. Yup, it’s a big deal! The theme park is erected at whichever stadium hosts the All-Star game. This year the All-Star FanFest was held from July 10 to 14.

At FanFest you can interact with the game of baseball in many ways. They have batting practice, fielding practice, a Steal Home Challenge, video batting cages, and many other activities that get fans (mostly kids) involved in the game and even take home souvenirs of themselves playing.

One of the newest and most technologically cool activities FanFest® All-Star Video Game Zone. This year, you were able to play MLB ’09 against friends right next to you or friends across the other side of the globe via the PlayStation Network. Um, giddy!
Jeff Rubinstein, Social Media Manager for the PlayStation Blog (subscribe), checked out who was playing MLB ’09 in this video:

Personally, I don’t know Edwin Jackson’s status level in the MLB (‘course there’s always Google), but that’s bloody awesome that army girls and boys all the way in Kuwait were able to play some virtual baseball with an All-Star pitcher!

Phew! That was a lot of baseball goodness! I think I’m going to cool off with some YaffleJuice!

Yo, remember, if you’d like to suggest a video to be featured on the Viddler Blog and front page, then please send me a message or leave a comment on this post.

Happy Monday, Viddlerers!

I’ve mentioned before that you can find art everywhere. Michael Jackson revolutionized the concept of music videos all the way back in 1983 with his Thriller music video that has a runtime of 13:43. It cost a total of US$500,000^[1] to create and that was a lot of money those days especially when the average budget for a music video was $50,000.

Since then, millions of music videos have been created and many of them on high budgets and no budgets. As with most creations the higher the budget the more elaborate the outcome. Moreover, as you’ve seen on Viddler’s Music Video Mondays, many indie artists are creating fantastic music videos on low budgets.

Today, I have a pretty popular music artist for you. 23-year-old Lady Gaga (real name: Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta). The music video for her song “Paparazzi” was directed by Swedish director Jonas Åkerlund and stars a Swedish actor by the name of Alexander Skarsgård as her boyfriend in the clip.

The music video for “Paparazzi” leans more toward the length of a short film than a music video of today’s standards (~4mins), so sit back and enjoy this story. I’ll have more information about the video and Lady Gaga below the video.

The following video has some explicit references. [End Warning]

Thanks to LadyGaga.net for supplying this video. Subscribe to their videos for interviews, photoshoots, and more music videos from Lady Gaga.

About the music video

Yes, that was Swedish spoken at the beginning of the video. The stylist for the music video was Jonas Åkerlund‘s wife. There’s no doubt the stylist, director, and cinematographer did an outstanding job in creating this music video. It’s not the first time a long music video in this flamboyant style has been created before, but this is definitely a video to be noticed.

On June 4th, 2009, the full explicit music video premiered on Channel 4 in the UK and Ireland. Sadly, I doubt many music video channels on television will broadcast the entire length of the video clip; most of the time even regular length music videos get cut off at the beginning and end. Alas, that’s what the Internet is for.

Lady Gaga’s music isn’t quite the music I enjoy, but I enjoyed this video a lot. I’ll also admit I sometimes don’t interpret the meaning of a song very well, so I’ll quote Lady Gaga on the idea behind the video:

“It has a real, genuine, powerful message about fame-whoring and death and the demise of the celebrity, and what that does to young people. [...] The video explores ideas about “sort of hyperbolic situations” that people will go to in order to be famous. Most specifically, pornography and murder. These are some of the major themes in the video.”
— “Lady Gaga announced as performer at MuchMusic Video Awards in June” by CP24 News

That’s a great article featuring an interview with Lady Gaga!

About the artist

American recording artist, Lady Gaga, started writing her debut album after singer-songwriter Akon recognized her talent and then signed her to his record label (Kon Live Distribution). In 2009, She was been nominated for several awards and won the MuchMusic Video Award for Best International Artist Video for her song “Poker Face”. I’m sure there will be more awards to come!

She is influenced by Davie Bowie, Madonna, Michael Jackson, Queen, and many more. You can tell those influences impact her on-stage wardrobe because she wears very extravagant outfits on tour — and in her music videos (as seen above).

Though she only started her career around 2006, she’s backed by five labels and her debut album, The Fame, topped at number one in Austria, Canada, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. It reached number four in Australia and the United States. Personally, I think his is because clubs in Europe are massive (have you seen DanceTrippin.tv??), and that’s where her music would be played a lot.

Remember: If you have a dandy music video you’d like to see featured on the Viddler Blog and front page, then please send me a message or leave a comment on this post.

Food and travel. Personally, I don’t think there’s anything better than a combination of those two activities. Yes, eating is the verb for food.

No Reservations continues its fifth season with episode 11 being broadcast on the Travel Channel tomorrow night in the U.S. In this episode Anthony Bourdain discovers hot dogs a foot in length at Sibaritico in Viña del Mar, Chile.

No Reservations broadcasts July 13th at 10 p.m. EDT/PDT on the Travel Channel in the United States.
Check your guides for local listings (I know it won’t be on in Australia for at least a month or more).

About the show

Technically, the name of the show is Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations. It premiered in 2005 with a 9-episode season. Since then, each season has progressively grown in the number of episodes (including various ‘special episodes’), and this fifth season is 20 episodes split in to 10 episodes broadcast during the winter months in the U.S. (earlier this year) & 10 episodes in the summer months (starting July 13th, 2009; ending September 14th, 2009).

So what’s the show about, huh? Well, if you can’t tell already, Anthony (whom is a chef, weary world traveler, best-selling author, and father, among other things) visits various locations around the world to discover local cuisine and lifestyles. Whether he’s hunting down lizards in the desert to chomp on, or just enjoying a giant hot dog (like in the clip above), he’s not afraid of trying anything.

You can follow @NoReservations on Twitter for updates about the show.

In what location is the best food you’ve ever tasted?

Remember: If you’d like to suggest a video to be featured on the Viddler Blog, then please send me a message or leave a dandy comment on this post.

Advancements in technology has allowed DJs to be more sophisticated with their music these days. Not only can they use CDs and LPs on their turntables, but the addition of a computer (generally a notebook such as a MacBook) has made available beats and mixes virtually unlimited!

With all that expensive equipment the cost of hiring a DJ for a party or event can be out most peoples’ budget. Thus, I’ve been to many birthdays and parties where the DJ was some form of iPod on shuffle. Usually the host of the party will have access to the iPod, but if it’s left alone party-goers will tend to take over the music if they don’t like a song.

What if there was something in between a DJ and an iPod? What if? In this day and age if something is imagined, it can generally come true pretty quickly.

Yup, you can DJ on an iPod Touch and an iPhone! Jamble is the app you’re looking for. Jerad Hill takes you through this cool app on The App Podcast (subscribe).

Jerad is a web designer and wedding photographer from California. Like a lot of people these days, he loves technology and that love for it dates back decades ago when the CD player was released. He’s also an Apple fanboy, and when he heard that Apple was going to allow third party applications on the iPhone and iPod Touch (back in 2008) he knew he had to share his passion for technology with others. Hence, he created The iPhone App Podcast — later renamed to The App Podcast (as per request from Apple, Inc.) — to review applications and see whether they’re worth using or not.

In just a year the podcast has ranked as high as #2 in the Technology category on iTunes. Jerad has been asked to speak at many various technology events as a direct result of the podcast. Yup, he’d kind of a big deal.

If there’s an app you’d like The App Podcast to review, then go and submit an app on the website.

Don’t forget: You can suggest a video to be featured just by sending me a message or leaving a comment on this post. Easy as pie!

When I was a kid… Let me rephrase: During the late 1990s the popular gaming consoles were Sega and Nintendo. I had a Sega Mega-Drive and my best friend had a Super Nintendo. We’d play them all the time at each other’s houses — when we weren’t outside looking for lizards and spiders under the bark of trees.

I don’t think any of my friends or I could ever have imagined a world where you play video games all day and meet the characters in the game. That kind of thing would have probably made our fragile little minds implode.

Lisa Bettany (friend her up!) recently went on a tour of Nintendo’s headquarters in Vancouver, Canada. Let’s just say it would be a gamer’s dream. I’m not much of a gamer these days, but I reckon being able to have a chat with The Mario would be entralling; he’d been on so many adventures!

Of course, you can’t fit all of Nintendo’s awesome games in to one video, so I’ve embedded Lisa’s two-part adventure below. (Well, technically Lisa could have made this a single video seeing as Viddler doesn’t have any time limit restrictions, but many people have the attention span of a lizard, so it’s good to break it up.)

Here’s part-one beginning with Mario and then Matt Ryan shows off some of Nintendo’s new games for the Wii that were announced at E3 a couple of months ago.

Now on to part-two where Lisa plays the new Super Mario Bros. and tries to fly.

The links Matt mentioned at the end were getupandplay.ca and pickupandplay.ca.

What’s your favorite new game (Nintendo or otherwise)?

Don’t forget: If you’ve been on an awesome adventure, then perhaps you’d like to share it with the Viddler Community. All you have to do is send me a message and tell me about it. Giddy up!

No matter what your goals may be it can  sometimes be hard to find the motivation you need to reach them. If you aspire to own the New York Jets one day or just make people happy, then you just need to do what you do best to meet those goals. Generally, it’s best to set yourself smaller goals that you can meet in a short time period.

Publishing new videos on a regular basis can be very rewarding on its own. Not to mention when you start getting responses to the video.

Whether you’re overweight or not, exercise doesn’t always have the instant rewards that we would all like; to look fit and healthy. This is why it’s good to team up with friends to accomplish a common goal. A great example of this is The Diet — it started off as a contest between Colin and a couple friends, but has now become a much larger online movement to lose weight.

Similar team motivation is found at open casting calls for the T.V. show The Biggest Loser. Jennifer DiDonato from Made Fit TV (subscribe) talks all about motivation at such an event.

Check out other shows in the Made Fit family: Brides Made Fit and Moms Made Fit.

What gets you motivated towards your goals?

Remember: If you’d like to suggest a video for the Viddler Blog, then please send me a message, use our forums, or leave a comment on this post.

Did everyone have a rad 7th of July? I can’t even begin to explain how awesome it was. Sure, it was sad watching Michael Jackson’s funeral, but nevertheless a great day!

In preparation for episode 700 of Wine Library TV (subscribe), Gary thought really deep about what kind of thunder to bring to this momentous episode. In the end he discovered that the best shows are the ones that aren’t at some extravagant location or featuring a well-known guest; the best episodes are the ones that get back to the heart and soul of WLTV.

Gary reviews three wines that trigger specific moments in his career, and the Oak Monster does make an interesting appearance!

On the off chance that you didn’t happen to watch Wine Library TV episode 700 yet; here it is in all it’s glory.

Whats your favorite episode of WLTV? Leave a comment below.

Don’t forget: If you’re ever watching a video on Viddler and think/say ‘That was awesome!’, then you should totally message me and let me know about it!