Viddler

Dan Aykroyd. You probably know him from his work in films such as Ghost Busters and The Blues Brothers. I some of my childhood favorites were My Girl and Coneheads. He was in those films too! Dan has acted, directed, and written a plethora of other films. He’s also a musician, winemaker, and ufologist. Yes, ufologist — collective efforts of those who study UFO reports and associated evidence. Is that cool or what?

Today, I have an array of videos with various opinions on Dan Aykroyd’s wines.

In 2006 Dan — who lives in Toronto — went in partnership with some of his favorite winemakers that he has met throughout his travels to places like Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe, and the Americas. Together, they have created a red and white wines under the Dan Aykroyd label that are inspired by the cultures and passion in the aforementioned locations.

First up, IntoWineTV (subscribe) reviews a couple of the wines Dan’s label offers. The host, Lisa Kolenda, and three wine experts share a humorous and positive view towards the wines.

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Aloha on this fine Monday! I have some more live music for ya this week courtesy of BalconyTV (subscribe).

i said yes (ISY) is a folk-pop band from the U.K. that has come far since they formed in 2007. The five members — Hugh, Robbie, Margot, Jim, and Kit — started out busking on a bridge over the River Thames in London. Their first gig was playing at the Art College bar in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Since then, they’ve toured the U.K. playing in various festivals, been aired on XFM (including a feature on the XFM New Music Rising podcast), 6 Music on BBC radio, and even recorded an album over new years 2008/2009.

Here’s ISY on the lovely balcony of BalconyTV in London, playing their single “When The Light Comes In”.

October 7th is going to be giddy for ISY! They’re playing a gig at The Allotment in The Betsey Trotwood, Clerkenwell, London. Tickets are £5. And, according to the poster, there’s free cake and watermelon. Broadcast 2000 (whom we’ve featured before) and Al Lewis & Sarah Howells will also be performing. Now if that’s not a bloody rockin’ deal, then you’ve never experienced free cake and watermelon before!

You can listen to i said yes‘ music on their MySpace, become a fan on their Facebook, and follow them on Twitter.

Remember: You can suggest a music video to be featured on the Viddler blog and front page. If you’d like to do so, then please send me a message, link it up in our forums, or just comment on this post.

“Bahahahaha WTF?” Yeah, that’s what I said when I watched this video. It’s totally unrelated to anything in any way.

Picture Is Unrelated (subscribe: vidisunrelated) is yet another fantastic spin-off of the I Can Has Cheezburger network of blogs. ICHC is a LOL factory, in my opinion. If you’ve never been to any of their sites, then you will end up spending days there. If you have seen the LOLs they provide, then you’ll still spend days there. The laughs never get old.

Many of the sites in the network now provide video, and PIU is no exception. Here’s a workout video that will throw a dumbfounded look on your face.

Yeah, poodles working out. And whatever kind of steroids that woman is taking definitely isn’t healthy!

I Can Haz MoaR?

All of the ICHC websites are driven by fan submissions. If you find something completely unrelated, then submit it to Picture Is Unrelated. Otherwise, browse the various other networks to see if you have something to submit on them.

Related: Check out FAILBlog’s videos.

You can keep up with all the unrelated photos of the Internet on pictureisunrelated.com, by following @picisunrelated, and being a fan on Facebook. Of course, all the videos are right here on Viddler.

Remember: If your pic/vid is unrelated, then you should probably consult a doctor. However, if you don’t have healthcare, then feel free to inform me about your favorite video and you may get featured on the Viddler blog and front page.

If you enjoy volunteering your time to great causes and services (like I do), then you’ll be interested in the charity behind this documentary. (Charity info at the end of the post.)

In 2008, WORLDwrite (a UK-based education charity – subscribe) completed production on a documentary titled Flush It. It promises to bring developing countries to the forefront of peoples’ minds in regards to their aspiration for water provision and sanitation of the quality seen in Western societies.

Thames Water (supplier of water in the Greater London and surrounding areas in the UK) hasn’t had the best reputation over the past few years (so I’m told), but they have some great ideas to solve the problems at hand. In the following video the Research & Development Director for Thames Water, Tony Rachwal, takes you through a waste water treatment plant in which some innovative ideas are being implemented. This clip didn’t make it in to the documentary, but it’s still very interesting.

Desalination plants are being invested in quite heavily in developed countries; after a decade of drought in Australia, Sydney has decided to build one as the result of a depleting fresh water supply. I was fascinated by that device they use to check the quality of the underground pipes. I’ve always wondered how underground infrastructures were monitored.

Here’s the trailer to the film. You can find out more at the Flush It website. Read on to discover more about Flush It and WORLDwrite. (more…)

As an actor — that studies the craft off and on — I can appreciate fresh material. However, it is also fun to re-discover old scripts after years of not looking at them; I actually did that last week.

Theatrefolk (subscribe) is a resource started in 1994 by playwright Lindsay Price and actor Craig Mason. It contains original playscripts aimed at students in elementary school all the way up to high school. They’re not restricted for school performances though. Any non-professional theatre group can purchase the rights to practice, perform, and video record a playscript. Of course, professionals would just have to negotiate a different license.

There’s also a vast series of free tips on how to write playscripts, monologues, and other material, as well as directing those writings correctly. Theatrefolk is a great resource in general for all things theatre.

In this video Lindsay and Craig share their thoughts on Lindsay’s play Agatha Rex — an adaptation of the play Antigone, written by Sophocles around 442BC. It modernizes the story for the present day.

I must admit, that colorful background of published plays sure looks cool on video!

About the play

Agatha is a girl who stands up for her beliefs, regardless of the consequences. As student council president at Thebes High, she vigorously defends a student who is unfairly punished. Based on her actions, she could be expelled and lose an important scholarship.

Become a fan of Theatrefolk on Facebook and/or follow them on Twitter: @theatrefolk.

Remember: You can suggest a video to be featured on the Viddler blog and front page. If you’d like to do so, then please send me a message, link it up in our forums, or just comment on this post.

There’s no doubt many wine review shows have cropped up online over the past few years. Some shows focus on a particular niche set of wines, some go around to wineries & vineyards to explore the grapes that wine come from, and some stick to a local market of wines.

Tim and Kat, creators and hosts of Wine Around Oz (subscribe), have combined a little bit of everything, including some adventure! They’ve just begun a trip around Australia exploring all the local wineries it has to offer. They’re going to focus on the boutique wineries throughout Australia because they often hold the most interesting stories and unique wines.

They’re only in to their third episode (as of writing), so now it is a good time to subscribe and follow along on their adventure.

In this episode Tim and Kat get hands-on at the Silos Estate in Berry, on the South Coast of New South Wales. They help out during the bottling process, and rocket through over 2,500 bottles.

What a bunch of fun, hey! There’s a few episodes already up of Tim and Kat reviewing various wines from the Silos Estate. Check them out at Wine Around Oz.

You can discover more about the Silos Estate’s accommodation, winery, art gallery, and restaurant on their website. They’re also on Twitter: @SilosEstate.

In case you’re wondering, Wine Around Oz isn’t on Twitter. Yet. Once they have one I’ll update this post.

Remember: You can suggest a video to be featured on the Viddler blog and front page. If you’d like to do so, then please send me a message, link it up in our forums, or just comment on this post.

October is going to be an exciting month for Astro Boy fans! Not only is there a computer-animated 3D film being released at cinemas, but there’s also a new video game launching days before that.

Astro Boy was originally a manga (comics and print art) series created by Osamu Tezuka in 1952, and concluded in 1968. Two more series followed in 1972-73 and 1980-81. A television series was also created and aired from 1963-1966 followed by a series in 1980 and another in 2003.

The main storyline of the science fiction series consists of a futuristic world where androids (robots that look and act like humans) and humans coexist. Astro Boy is one such android which was created by by the head of the Ministry of Science, to replace his son Tobio, who died in a car accident.

I’m sure some of this storyline was used as inspiration for the film Artificial Intelligence: AI.

It’s been a long time coming for this video game release in conjunction with the feature film. Freddie Highmore (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Spiderwick Chronicles) and Kristen Bell (Veronica Mars, Heroes) are the voices for Astro Boy and Cora, respectively, in both the film and the video game.

This video by Joystiq (subscribe) takes you on a quick behind the scenes of voicing the video game with these two actors.

The 3D film is in cinemas in exactly a month, on October 23rd, 2009, and the video game will be available on PlayStation, PSP, Nintendo DS, and Wii just three days before that, on October 20th.

To keep up with all the latest gaming news follow @Joystiq on Twitter. If you’re interested in what Kristen Bell is working on, then you can follow her too: @IMKristenBell. Unfortunately there’s currently not a verified account for Freddie Highmore, so you can search for him and see which account is the most real.

Remember: You can suggest a video to be featured on the Viddler blog and front page. If you’d like to do so, then please send me a message, link it up in our forums, or just comment on this post.

David Moore, known on the Internet as MacDavid, has a little obsession with Apple, Inc. He — as many of us do — loves their products, philosophy, and omg-it’s-shiny-I-want-one-now.

David resides in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. There, he teaches music, studies video production (have you seen some of his hilarious videos?), and he tweets. Obviously.

While he’s not hustling his creative juices in music and video he’s launching projects like the How iMac Project — which launched last week. Note: This is not a project about Apple iMac desktop computers; it’s about how artists, bloggers, businesses, designers, sportspeople, and more use Apple’s products and technology in their lifestyle.

The best part about the project that it’s a collaboration between David and the user across the Internet: a user records their experience with the Apple products they own, the video is sent to David, he uses his fantastic skills to piece the videos together, and then he sends the video back to the user with the intention of them displaying it proudly on their website or blog.

Let’s use a real example. The first ever episode features the team at Tatango — a company founded by 24-year-old entrepreneur Derek Johnson.

Tatango started out as small-time text messaging service for his college fraternity brothers at the University of Houston that has since gone through a few facelifts as Derek’s vision for the service grew. In fact, at age 23, Derek dropped out of the Entrepreneurial program at U of H to focus purely on the growth and development of what we now know as Tantago.

The company uses Macintosh computers exclusively, and five members of the six-person team explain how they Mac in their various roles at Tatango.

So, How Do you Mac? Get involved at How iMac Project.

You can discover more about the services Tatango provides and who they are at Tatango.com. Obviously, both @Tatango and @MacDavid are on Twitter.

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, link it up in our forums, or just comment on this post.

Happy Monday! Music video time.

This is a neat collaboration between a singer-songwriter and a city’s tourism board.

Jon McLaughlin created the song “For You From Me” for the city of Indianapolis, Indiana. Jon’s home state is Indiana, and his debut album was aptly named after it. The music video for the song was created entirely in Indianapolis; showing off many of the activities available in the capital city. From the farmlands to the museums to the football teams; the video covers it all.

Local tourism ads are generally pretty creative, but I’d definitely love to see a music video during a television ad break rather than a typical 15-30 second commercial showing just a couple key things a particular place has to offer.

Indianapolis has a very informative and easy to navigate website for visitors and locals alike to research upcoming events, local hotspots, the best places to stay, and more. Doing Indy (subscribe) is their video podcast which highlights businesses and events around city. It’s like a travel show, but local. (I’ll embed the latest episode after the jump.)

For now, enjoy the wonderful musical talents of Jon and the lovely scenery of Indianapolis.

Pretty cool mashup, hey! I’ve never been to or researched much about Indianapolis (until now) and the video covers it all very well.

Visit Indy is on Twitter and Facebook — as any good city should be. Follow them for an interactive experience of the city’s latest happenings.

Continue on to see the latest episode of Doing Indy, featuring the best pizza joints in town. Delish! (more…)

‘Holy moly this intro is awesome!’ That’s what I thought less than 3 seconds in to watching the first episode of The Engadget Show. Of course, that’s just the beginning of awesome content featured throughout the show.

Yes, the result of those 21:9 teaser videos is finally here! Popular technology blog, Engadget (subscribe), has started a video show/podcast to compliment its weekly audio podcast content.

The first order of business was a 30-minute interview with Jon Rubinstein (the CEO of Palm). In this, Joshua Topolsky (editor-in-chief at Engadget) asks some great questions about Jon’s work at Apple, Inc, Palm, and what the future holds. Most of the questions were answered, but what’s a CEO without secrets.

In the second-half of the show Paul Miller and Nilay Patel (Engadget bloggers) join the stage to talk about the week’s news in technology.

I listen/watch a lot of technology content (TWiT, Diggnation, Tekzilla, etc), and I still think that The Engadget Show will manage to squeeze in to my viewing schedule as long as it isn’t too redundant with its information. Oh, okay, the intro sold me; music by Bit Shifter is unique and fun.

You can find all of the show notes for this episode over at Engadget’s page, including links to iPod/Zune-friendly videos, and HD torrents. Follow @Engadget on Twitter for the latest technology news, and when they post new episodes of their podcasts.

Remember: You can suggest a video to be featured on the Viddler blog and front page. If you’d like to do so, then please send me a message, link it up in our forums, or just comment on this post.