Tag: YouTube

Phone it in Friday CXLVI: YouTube Roundup CCVI: Videos with the Ululating Guy in Them

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Okay, this week’s PiiF:YTR is a bit of a stretch, but it is Phone it in Friday, after all. Frankly, yours portly just hasn’t uploaded as much to YouTube as of late, and I’m trying to work ahead on the blog a bit, so here’s the harebrained “theme” for today: videos I’ve uploaded with a doodle of this guy:

I wish I was this passionate about ululating

For whatever reason, that weird, ululating guy has been working his way into my videos, which are admittedly fairly low-effort, and really just vehicles for pushing my original music, which is slightly less low-effort than the videos themselves.

Perhaps it’s his striking blue eye—the result of using this cool pen Dr. Wife got me (it’s actually a whole set of metallic-colored pens)—which looks like a spice-addled denizen of the various Dune novels. Maybe it’s his baggy yellow jumpsuit, which seems to harken back to the parachute pants of MC Hammer.

Or maybe it’s just that it was conveniently located on my phone when I needed some images to slap into my little movie maker app.

Whatever the reason, that guy has popped up in a couple of my recent videos. Let’s look back on his illustrious career as some manner of ill-defined religious zealot:

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TBT^2: Tarantulas and the Hygge

The Portly Politico3 Comments

It’s the first day of autumn, which means things will be getting chilly in another month—or, given we’re in South Carolina, another two or three months. Regardless, we’ll all soon be cozying up with chili and blankets and sweaters.

Let’s hope, however, that our furry-legged arachnid friends, the burrowing tarantulas, don’t decide to cuddle up with us! Fortunately, that’s unlikely in these parts, as tarantulas are mostly kept as pet, and even that’s a pretty small niche of pet owners.

I stumbled upon today’s post back during the heat of the summer, when I was dreaming of the hygge (if not massive spiders), so I thought I’d reblog it to commemorate the start of all. It turns out that it was exactly six years ago today that I lost reblogged this piece. It seems that the “toothsome” Patricia is still making tarantula content, too; kudos to her for sticking with her niche and making something cool.

With that, here is 24 September 2020’s “TBT: Tarantulas and the Hygge“:

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Phone it in Friday CXLV: YouTube Roundup CCV: Link’s Awakening Music

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I’ve been playing through Link’s Awakening on my Zelda Game & Watch again, and recently got to the portion where Marin sings “The Ballad of the Windfish” for the residents of the Animal Village. I also finally figured out how to get this frog dude—whose sprite is directly from Super Mario Bros. 2—to sing his crazy, discordant tune. I filmed both scenes on my iPhone SE’s camera and posted them to YouTube with a little text commentary sprinkled in for good measure.

You can purchase a Zelda Game & Watch here (the following is an Amazon Affiliate link; I receive a portion of any purchases made through this link, at no additional cost to you): https://amzn.to/3SGkl1X

I highly recommend grabbing one; it’s amazing having Zelda games in your coat pocket!

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Lazy Sunday CDIII: Bird Feeder Follies

The Portly Politico2 Comments

Our bird feeder has been a source of much amusement and joy. It’s also yielded some fun YouTube content!

This Sunday, here’s a look back at some recent posts featuring our fine-feathered friends (and Nugget and a lizard):

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Phone it in Friday CXLIII: YouTube Roundup CCIII: The Lizard Who Thinks He’s a Bird

The Portly Politico2 Comments

Our little ten-dollar bird feeder has been a real blessing. We get to see all sorts of cardinals, finches, and wrens. Because our sunroom windows are tinted, we can get really close to the window to observe the birds.

What I wasn’t expecting was to find a lizard—probably an anole—hanging out in our bird feeder one day last week! And what’s remarkable is that the little guy has popped up on the feeder a few times since then.

Swoosh!

What’s it like when a lizard thinks it’s a bird? Do lizards pursue alternative lifestyles? Or is this lizard just beating the heat with some free food?

Let’s watch, shall we?

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Lazy Sunday CDII: Chapel Stuff

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It’s been a Chapel-filled week here on the blog, so I’m dashing off this quick Lazy Sunday before dashing off to play bass at church:

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

white ringed flycatchers perching on a branch

Phone it in Friday CXLII: YouTube Roundup CCII: Nugget and the Birds

The Portly Politico6 Comments

Remember Gumby? He was that green, bipedal, Claymation humanoid with the orange pony, Pokey. I always liked Gumby and his amorphous, shape-shifting ways.

Apparently, our three-legged dog, Nugget, has beef with the Gumbster. She has a Gumby toy that she loves to shake around. Lately, she’s been pulling Gumby’s soft inner fluff out the poor fellow, and yours portly ends up being the one picking it up. Perhaps Nugget is trying to get me to exercise a bit more.

What Nugget has not been mauling—thankfully—are the birds that come to our bird feeder. I bought a ten-dollar bird feeder at Lowe’s and hung it with a nail outside of our sunroom. Dr. Wife loves the birds, especially Peepers (a female cardinal) and her “boyfriend,” Big Red (a male cardinal).

What’s cool is that the birds are so enamored with their treats, they’ll let me walk right up to the window and look at them. I can get some pictures of them, although they tend to come out a little dark thanks to the UV coating we have over the windows. One day I’ll do a post of nothing but bird pictures (and my self-indulgent commentary).

Today is not that day. Instead, I’ll be sharing a video of a cute bird eating—and of Nugget locked in battle with her Claymation foe:

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Open Mic Adventures CLXVI: “Softly and Tenderly”

The Portly Politico2 Comments

I was working on an alto saxophone arrangement of the hymn “Softly and Tenderly” by Will L. Thompson last week, as I am planning on playing it for Chapel this week at school. I’ve always liked the hymn, and I recently attempted it on sax for a Sunday night singing at my old church. While playing it, I realized I was unclear one some of the notes in the melody, so there was a chunk where I was kind of adlibbing my way through.

That being the case, I thought it would be worthwhile to have a version for alto sax as sheet music. This arrangement is really more of a transcription; that is, I attempted to put on paper what I play when I am noodling the hymn on sax. I tried to replicate the various ornamentations that I add on when I play.

Once I had the transcription I wanted, I didn’t grab my alto sax right away. Instead, I grabbed my bass! I played bass with our new church’s praise band for the first time this past Sunday, and I needed to practice some of the pieces for service. Since I had the bass out anyway, I decided to play the alto sax arrangement on the bass!

The result is the feature of today’s post. The typical key for “Softly and Tenderly” is concert Ab major. That puts it in the key of F major for an alto saxophone (for transposing reasons I won’t explain here, because while I think it’s cool, it’s also kind of tedious and boring). So, by playing on the bass (which I think of a concert-pitch instrument, but which technically transposes everything down one octave), I was shifting the key to concert F major (meaning if I played it with a pianist, the pianist would have to play in F major, not Ab major).

See? Kind of tedious. The bass rendition, however, is not:

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