Yours portly is a little wacky. I like to play with my food—or, at least, my food containers.
That’s the setup for today’s videos, both of which feature the fearsome Eggcraticus, the villainous, ravenous egg crate who is out for eggs:
Tag: YouTube
New Music Tuesday I: “Herald”
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase through these links, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
Now that it’s 2026, it’s time to make a few changes to the blog. One of those overdue changes comes to the long-running weekly feature Open Mic Adventures.
According to a hasty review of my records, I ceased playing open mics—and, indeed, most live gigs outside of private bookings—in 2025. I simply lacked the time and energy—and interest. I much prefer rehearsing my students so they can play live.
That’s been one of the big changes in my life in recent years. I enjoy playing live, but as I get older, going to open mic nights and playing songs I wrote a decade (or more) ago lost its luster. It’s also amazing how once I got engaged (and now married), my desire to show off in coffee shops plummeted. If I’m going to play to impress anyone—always a dubious proposition—it’s going to be for Dr. Wife.
That’s all to say that I’m not ending Open Mic Adventures, per se—there’s always that chance I’ll get that itch to play and get some good video in the process—but that I’m shifting it into something more accurate: New Music Tuesday. The “Open Mic” appellation ceased to be accurate for most of 2025, as I featured more and more of my original electronic compositions.
Of course, good ol’ WordPress.com makes it easy to put together these weekly, multimedia posts. One thing I’ve come to love about WordPress.com is how intuitive it is to upload all sorts of media.
For example, here is today’s featured track, “Herald,” uploaded as a beautifully lossless WAV file using the “Audio” block:
I found this brief piece scribbled on a red tardy slip I had in my desk. I apparently wrote it down on 8 August 2023, and finally put it into my music composition software this morning. It’s a very simple, quick piece, indicative of the kinds of etudes I was composing at that time. As such, “Herald” is a brief piano fanfare, suitable for players at most levels.
Phone it in Friday CXVI: YouTube Roundup CLXXVI: Cute Animals
Regular readers will know how much I love animals. One of the more surprising changes as I approached middle-age is that I went from being aloof towards the animal kingdom to adoring animals. I’m not sure what changed or what clicked, but getting my dog Murphy was definitely a big step in that process.
Regardless, this Friday I have a couple of cute animal videos from below and above the waves:
Phone it in Friday CXV: YouTube Roundup CLXXV: Star Wars Figurines
I’ve been going through a bunch of my old stuff in preparation for moving items to the new house. In doing so, I’ve come across quite a few Star Wars action figures and collectibles.
I was a huge Star Wars kid. I loved the original trilogy and tolerated the prequel trilogy (indeed, I was super excited for the latter). I particularly loved the miniatures. I’ve sold most of the action figures in the following videos to a colleague of mine—he will take excellent care of them—but I am keeping the miniatures. They are so cool!
So, here are some recent videos featuring these fun figurines:
Phone it in Friday CXIV: YouTube Roundup CLXXIV: Cruise Art
Dr. Wife and I took a cruise for our honeymoon aboard Royal Caribbean‘s Explorer of the Seas. The artwork impressed, delighted, and even confounded me.
As such, I put together a brief video showcasing some of the art onboard the ship. This video only captures a small fraction of the collages, paintings, photographs, mosaics, etc., aboard Explorer of the Seas. The selections were often odd, but they really fit the atmosphere of the ship, and added a touch of elegance and class to the cruise.
Phone it in Friday CXIII: YouTube Roundup CLXXIII: Triple Soundboards
Last Saturday I wrote in detail about the three-soundboard setup I used for a school play. It’s a rather technical topic (although I don’t get overly technical with it), but I made a little video that will either a.) clarify how the setup worked or b.) deepen readers’ confusion.
Let’s find out which!
Phone it in Friday CXII: YouTube Roundup CLXXII: Cruise Shorts
The cruise bug has latched onto me with its luxurious pincers and won’t let go. Dr. Wife and I enjoyed an amazing honeymoon on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship, the Explorer of the Seas, which visited the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas. It was my first cruise, and I loved it.
Naturally, I took the opportunity to film some silly YouTube Shorts, three of which I’m sharing up today:
Phone it in Friday CXI: YouTube Roundup CLXXI: Blackbeard Sails into Civilization VII
In my never-ending quest for lo-fi, low-effort YouTube (and blog) content, I make the most of whatever limited assets and time I have to churn out highly-compressed but—I hope—charming content for the masses.
Such is the case with today’s post. I made this video with just one picture I took with my iPhone SE’s camera (mainly to show Dr. Fiancée that I was playing as Blackbeard the Pirate in Civilization VII). I recorded the voiceover with the Voice Memo app on my phone, and used iMovie (again, on my phone) to put in the picture (three times) against the voice message.
Apparently, when I send the finished video file to Telegram, it deeply compresses the video quality (although I think it does the same if I save the video to my phone and upload it to YouTube from there). The most it can muster is 360p, which might as well be a VHS recording that I’ve sloppily converted to a digital format.
Whatever the case, the video was a fun experiment. I hope you agree!
Phone it in Friday CX: YouTube Roundup CLXX: Food-Related Absurdity
Lately yours portly has been losing weight (I’m down about thirty-one pounds since July 2025), so I’ll often search for calorie counts for unusual food items to make sure I’m not going to blow my entire caloric budget for the day with one ill-considered snack. That has sent me down some gut-bustingly hilarious rabbit holes, where I will ask Google’s Gemini AI insane questions like, “how many calories would be in a four-pound baked potato, into which I cut canals and holes to increase fat absorption, and which I soaked overnight in pure goose fat; then, I bore holes into either end and insert luscious Italian sausage in the middle of the potato, after which I wrap it in thick-cut bacon and deep-fry it in beef tallow?”
The AI then usually scolds me for how unhealthy consuming such a sumptuous, greasy feast would be, at which point I try to double-down on the absudity.
Clearly, yours portly has an odd (and probably unhealthy, given my medical history) relationship with food. That strange obsession has manifested itself on my YouTube page.
Don’t worry, dear readers: I’m not a “lolcow,” consuming vast quantities of food for the sick and twisted pleasure of a hate-watching audience. I just like to do what every mother warns against: I play with my food.
Today’s videos are examples of that tendency to elevate food into absurdist humor:
Phone it in Friday CIX: YouTube Roundup CLXIX: 31 Days of Halloween, Part IV
Halloween is a week past, but I still have some episodes of 31 Days of Halloween to share! By now, most interested readers have sought these final videos out on their own, but in case you missed any of the later episodes, I wanted to share them today.
On 1 October 2025 I launched a YouTube Shorts series, 31 Days of Halloween. The concept is simple: one, one-minute (or shorter) Halloween/horror movie review every day for the month of October. These reviews are super lo-fi—just yours portly recording on a phone, sitting at a desk. No frills, no fancy editing, just me giving my impressions of the films in an unscripted, fast way.
A quick note: most of the links below are Amazon Affiliate links, typically linking to the movie on DVD or Blu-Ray, as well as the books they’re based upon (or the novelizations of the films). I receive a portion of any purchases made through those links, at no additional cost to you.
Day 23: Nosferatu (1922)
Day 23 is the 1922 German Expressionist silent film classic Nosferatu.
Grab it on Blu-Ray here: https://amzn.to/4oaPdlG
Or DVD here: https://amzn.to/4o1Et8P
Day 24: Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)
Day 24 is Werner Herzog’s adaptation of Nosferatu (1922), Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979).
Grab it on 4K here: https://amzn.to/4owQsLF
Or DVD here: https://amzn.to/4hvMBME
Day 25: Nosferatu (2024)
Day 25 is Robert Eggers’s adaptation of Nosferatu (1922), Nosferatu (2024).
Grab it on 4K here: https://amzn.to/47drBqx
Or Blu-ray here: https://amzn.to/3Wekckm
Or DVD here: https://amzn.to/3WekcAS
Day 26: The Phantom of the Opera (1925)
Day 26 returns to another silent film classic with 1925’s The Phantom of the Opera.
Grab it on Blu-ray here: https://amzn.to/47Hoh63
Or DVD here: https://amzn.to/4o4WGCF
Or get the novel here: https://amzn.to/3J8f5PN
Day 27: Psycho (1960)
Day 27 looks at a film on the border between horror and thriller, Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960).
Grab it on Blu-ray here: https://amzn.to/42TXr97
Or DVD here: https://amzn.to/3Jo6R63
Or get the novel here: https://amzn.to/47oiuC1
Day 28: Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)
Day 28 is a personal favorite, Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954).
Grab it on 4K & Blu-ray here: https://amzn.to/4hup92o
Day 29: Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)
Day 29 is the most unusual of the Halloween films, 1982’s Halloween III: Season of the Witch.
Grab it on 4K here: https://amzn.to/472YMgi
Or Blu-ray here: https://amzn.to/3WmPEwO
Or DVD here: https://amzn.to/3J0TvN7
Day 30: Halloween (1978)
Day 30 is the John Carpenter slashic Halloween (1978)!
Grab it on 4K here: https://amzn.to/4oxycBC
Day 31: The Thing (1982)
Day 31 is one of my favorite films, John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982).
Grab it on 4K here: https://amzn.to/4ntEaCB
Or Blu-ray here: https://amzn.to/3WL3SrH
Or DVD here: https://amzn.to/47bthkd
Thank You!
Thanks for watching 31 Days of Halloween! 🎃🎃🎃
Re-watch the entire series here:
Happy Friday! Until next Halloween!
—TPP
The Portly Politico 