Sweet Irony

J-Dubb does LisaNova does YouTube has been Muted.










So, YouTube recently muted my video, J-Dubb does LisaNova does YouTube because of copyright issues with a certain audio track. So now, one of my most popular videos has been turned into a silent film due to a rather small part in which this track is played.

I was meaning to blog about this earlier, but I literally ran upstairs in the middle of making breakfast when I realized something quite ironic...

The song that caused YouTube to silence my video is Simon and Garfunkle's The Sound of Silence!!

btw, have any of you had frozen oatmeal before? Neither have I, but I'm about to.

The Network - A Third Option part 1of 2

Looks like the season finale for The Network will be uploaded into two parts. Both parts fall under the title, A third Option. Part one has been uploaded now, and part two will be uploaded a day later.

When we last saw J-Dubb, trapped in a virtual forest within his own mind, he managed to gain back his memories. Subsequently, he found a way to see Belphegore's thoughts and finally, saw through his own eyes into the real world.

Happy Oregon Sesquicentennial?

Oregon Sesquicentennial
Wow, time sure does fly. First, you settle your oxen lead wagon trains in the fertile woodsy lands near the Pacific Ocean, and next thing you know, you're celebrating your sesquicentennial.

Wait a tic... what the frack is a sesquicen-whatchuallit? Well, I figured; a centenial is 100 years, so a sesqui-centennial must be about 600 years, right?

What!? The U.S. hasn't been around for 600 years, let alone Oregon.

According to the Oregon Lottery commercial I heard on my clock radio this morning, a sesquicentennial is about 150 years.

So, Feruary 14 marked the sesquicentinnial for Oregon.

Over a century ago, Lewis and Clark's trail ended in a place that would eventually become a state, which would house the "wierdest" city in the union. (Florida may be in dispute for this, however.) Interestingly, Oregon may be one of the most obscure states. I have had people ask me, "Oregon? Where is that?" One person even asked me once, upon answering where I was from, "What is that?"

Quick answer would have been, "the wierdest and most secretive state in the union." Seriously though, we're secretive for a reason. Stay the frack out, will ya? Go populate your New York and LA. If too many people move to Portland, it won't be the coolest... erm.. wierdest city in the union anymore. (My family actually migrated here from California when I was 8. Yup, I'm one of those California migrants.)

So anyways, happy sesquicentennial, Oregon.

The February 2006 Post

This image was the only thing I posted in February of 06. Each year I seem to go into a lull after the year change where I only have a few posts per month, and then I pick back up again in the summer. February 06 was in such a lull, all I could think of to post was this image of the Windows 2000 paperclip:

So I read some of my original posts last night from when I started this blog back in 05. It was interesting. My posts back then were kind of, um... not very good. Maybe it's just the whole "I am my own worst critic" syndrome, but I sincerely hope my posts have improved over the years. I think they have.

I remember back then, in my writing, I tried to imitate the tone of a local DJ, Tim Savage, who had a show on Portland's 101 KUFO at the time. I'm not so sure the tone translates into writing very well. Funny thing is, I don't even listen to 101 anymore, let alone try to convey the tone of a DJ.

EDIT: I actually listen to KUFO again and the link is back in the sidebar. I got tired of their main talent (Marconi) a while back, but I've tuned in more recently and I'm liking the people they have doing the shows now days.

EDIT 2: Nevermind; they fired the people I was listening to and hired a bunch of people whom I don't like, as I covered in a later blog post. I no longer listen to KUFO, again, and have removed the link from my sidebar, again. Wow, this is turning into Monty Python. When will "those responsible for the sackings be sacked?"

EDIT 3: I was reading this old blog post, and decided to re-link the sidebar of this blog to KUFO, for old time sake. Of course, I had to go to archive.org and pull up a capture of KUFO.com from 2009 on the Wayback Machine, as KUFO has not existed for quite some time, and was long ago replaced by a talk radio station. I'm actually writing this edit about 11 years after having written the original blog post. If you keep reading this blog, you'll learn the fate of KUFO.

Another interesting thing I found is that my very first "Nosferatu" Halloween post, from back in 05, has a new comment that someone just wrote this past December. Makes me wonder what other new comments my old posts have recieved over the years.

While I was at it, I thought I'd conjure up an image of this blog in its very beginning. So here is a picture of pretty much what J-Dubb's Theatre looked like right after it's first post, before it was even called J-Dubb's Theatre. If you click on it, it almost looks like you're viewing the actual webpage in your browser.

J-Dubb's Theatre on Twitter

I'm finally on Twitter now. Don't worry, I don't expect most of my Tweets to be as whiny as my last blog post. :D

http://twitter.com/JDubbsTheatre

No Bulletins No Views

YouTube Bulletins and other YouTube changes

What's the deal? I uploaded my video, The Network - The Elusive Past about three weeks ago and so far it only has 42 views. This is also the first video I've posted since YouTube got rid of channel bulletins. It seems those bulletins weren't so worthless after all. Thanks YouTube for taking another step to make sure the partners and sponsored channels continue to rake in the views while sweeping the rest of your users into the closet and out of sight.

And on that note, is it just me or is YouTube trying to be Facebook? Bulletins have been replaced by this recent activity box, and now we have this homepage which displays the recent activity of all our freinds. Of course, this homepage is generally pretty sparse because most people don't like to have their recent activity displayed. Not to mention, it seems that most people don't even care that it's even there for them to look at. The question is, why does YouTube feel the need to be FaceBook? It's already YouTube for crissake! It's like Coke trying to be more like Old Navy. Come to think of it, Coke learned the lesson of changing it's formula back in the 80's. Is YouTube making the same mistake?

The other problem of YouTube trying to be everyone else, is that it's watering down it's flavor. Don't confuse this with a self help cliche, but basically, YouTube needs to be the best YouTube it can be. It can't compete with Facebook by trying to be more like Facebook, because Facebook isn't trying to be like someone else. They are capitalizing on what makes them Facebook. YouTube will lose against Facebook going that route, because people will choose the higher quality Facebook over the watered down Facebook. If a hammer tries to improve itself by being more like a screwdriver, it will lose out to both screwdrivers and hammers. Focus on being a superior hammer.

And give us back our bulletins for crissake!

J-Dubb out

"I'm Denny Crane!"

William Shatner is Denny Crane

The Network - The Elusive Past

Finally, two months in the making, The first part of the season 2 finale of The Network is ready:

Where is J-Dubb and who is the man known as "The Executive"?

The Network - The Elusive Past

.

The Network Update

The season finale for The Network series is back on track now. I've decided to release it in two parts; "The Elusive Past", and "A Third Option". The first part should be done sometime today.

Legend of the Green Dragon

You might remember a post similar to this one back in 2006, assuming you were reading this blog back then. Well, The Green Dragon's Back. Jon has put it up on his server again.

The Legend of the Green Dragon is a text based online game. It's really fun when there's a lot of players. Last time we only got a few regular players, whereas the first time we had masses. Let's see if we can do better this time. Come on over and try it out.

The Legend of the Green Dragon

And Another One

What's going on!? I just wrote a post about the changeover from 2007 to 2008 and how fast it went, and now all of a sudden it's 2009. Really!? I mean seriously, I just wrote that post and waited for the months to fill in under the 2008 archives and now all of a sudden I'm waiting for the months to fill in under the 2009 archives.

Well, sure enough, 2008 did not break 100 posts or even match the amount of posts from 2007. I did, however, tie with 2006 for 84 posts. Let's see if I can break 100 for 2009.

The other thing about 2009 is it's the last year of my twenties. After this year, it's the big ominous Three-Oh for me.

Superstar of the Week is Rusty Nails

Mele Kalikimaka

Superstar of the Week is Charles Dickens

Superstar of the Week is Brooke Shields

YouTube Bulletins vs Recent Activity Box

Removing YouTube Bulletins was a Mistake

So, the other day I logged onto YouTube and noticed that the bulletin box was missing on my profile. I went into my account settings to turn it back on, when I found that there were no settings for a bulletin. I went to several other profiles that I knew displayed bulletins, only to find that theirs were missing as well. I thought that maybe one of my Firefox addons were keeping the bulletins from being displayed, so I logged on to my Wii. Sure enough, bulletins are gone.

Now, every major website who's been in the biz for a while knows that anytime they make changes, they're going to get complaints and opposition. It happens to YouTube every time they make a minor cosmetic change. My concern is that YouTube may grow numb to user feedback. You see, the thing about the decision to remove bulletins is that it wasn't a minor change; they have taken away a major function of their website.

The bulletin system was the only way to get word out to large groups of people without spamming their accounts. Vice-versa, it was the only way to see what other people were up to short of going to every single profile to find out. You see, the bulletin board was... well... a bulletin board. An establishment puts up a bulletin board as a non-invasive way to communicate with people. Somebody who wishes to share a message can pin it to the bulletin board without taking the time to go around and harrass people. When somebody takes an interest in what is going on in their community, they can check the bulletin board rather than hoping to catch something by word of mouth. Without the bulletin system on YouTube, not only is it now more difficult to participate in the community, but it's sure to increase spam as well, as the alternative has been taken away.

YouTube posted this, reguarding bulletins, on December 3:

Regarding bulletins, we've listened to you, and most of you didn't see the value in bulletins as they are today. So, we're taking a first step to make bulletins more useful. Although the bulletin box will be going away, now you can broadcast a bulletin directly to your channel visitors in your Recent Activity box. This not only provides a fun place to shout out personal updates and news, but also provides an additional way to communicate and engage with your channel's fans.

Most of us? Can you elaborate on that? What was the sample group whom you decided represented the majority? One thing about that; anybody who didn't "see much use" in the bulletins had the option to turn them off in their profile anyway. So why take them away from THE REST OF US who were actually using them?

And what's the alternative? I can now post a bulletin to MYSELF in the new recent activity box that MIGHT be seen by a few other people. In fact, they've pretty much made the YouTube freinds feature pointless. The whole point of having a freinds list was the abiltity to communicate with and see what your freinds are up to without having to go profile to profile. Now all that the freinds list is, is a list.

One drawback of the bulletins was spam, ie people posting several of one message, chain letters, ect. But the cool thing about bulletins was if somebody violated them, all you had to do was remove them from your freinds list and never hear from them again, unlike profile and video comments which can be spammed by anyone.

As for the recent activity box; I don't really see a problem with it. It's really only a consolidation of things that YouTube already had like recent comments, recent ratings, that kind of thing. Privacy settings can be adjusted to allow only what you want to display. It is a bit redundant; showing things like recently favorited videos, which already show on your channel anyway. But it doesn't interfere with regular YouTube activity. The problem with the removal of the bulletins is that it does interfere with regular YouTube activity.

Now, mixed in with the irate masses, there are a few people saying things like, "it's time for a change", and "you'll get used to it like all the other changes." Now I agree that changes are normal and natural and that it's okay for YouTube to change their site. But, as I have previously stated, this particular change is not just a mere annoyance, but a major drawback for many users.

YouTube's blog post

Bulletins Gone - How to Contact YouTube vid

Does God Love Your Bulletins? vid

I Want My Bulletin Box Back vid

YouTube Bulletins - Where Did They Go? vid

Dissapointing YouTube Site Update vid

No More Bulletins? What is YouTube Trying to Pull? vid

YouTube search results for "YouTube Bulletins"

Superstar of the Week is Chow Yung Fat

Who Are These People?

YouTube: most subscribed and changes
Wow; I've been incredibly busy these last several months and haven't been able to do a lot of the things that I normally do, like spending time on YouTube. Today I took a look at the most subscribed lists. A lot's changed.

I remember when it was a big deal that Smosh had over 100,000 subscribers. Now everybody on the first three pages have at least that many and Smosh has 6 times that. Not to mention that Smosh has moved down to the 3rd most subscribed channel after dominating 1st the most subscribed spot throughout the majority of YouTube's life.

Now, a kid calling himself Fred is in the number 1 spot. I first learned of Fred a few months ago after Nalts made a response to one of his videos. I watched one of his videos, and had no desire to see any more. Fred is a young guy who speeds up his voice in chipmunk fashion in order to portray a 6 year old character. He had a feature spot during YouTube Live, but I had no idea until today that he had sprung up to the number 1 most subscribed spot.

There's a few people on the front page who have kind of always been there, like Smosh and JamesNintendoNerd. HappySlip and sxephil are up there now. They've been on the list for quite a while, but I don't recall seeing them on the front page before. Then there's people I've never even heard of like, nigahiga and therealdemilovato.

People who were once prominent, like Boh3m3, Renetto, and Blunty3000, are now nowhere near the most subscribed all time list (although they are still on the most sbscribed directors list if you navigate back a few pages.) Makes me wonder if most people even know who they are anymore.

I remember, when I first started out on YouTube; actually I started out watching videos towards the beginning, but when I first started getting into the whole YouTube community thingy, the talk all over YouTube was the whole Lonelygirl15 scandal thing. Then the talk moved to "is DaxFlame for real", then the LisaNova spamming incident, then Renetto and his "revolution", then Magibon. I have no idea what it is now, but I wonder how many people on there nowadays even know who Lonlygirl15 is.

Superstar of the Week is Ron Perlman

The Network - Requiem

It's been awhile since we've heard from Belphegor, the Network Executive. What's he been up to during this time? And how about J-Dubb? Where is he and how is he faring?

Here is the backstory if you haven't seen it yet: The Network - Darkness Rising