On Sunday morning, I had the morning to create stuff.
Of course, when it came to it - I couldn't think of a damn thing to write, or record, or make in any way.
So I ate ice cream.
Actually to be precise it's Ben & Jerry's Greek Style Strawberry Shortcake Frozen Yoghurt, which we bought from the shops purely because I love the advert so much!
I have a new video up on my YouTube channel, looking at how to make a healthy taco snack. Apparently this is quite controversial, the only thing you can do with a taco is load it up with spicy beef, rice and cheese, but having never been to Taco Bell I'm unable to comment.
And unusually for me, I actually have videos spare! I have two videos unpublished and ready to go, including one which is going to be the start of a year-long series, which I hope people will get on board with. Stay tuned!
Not my usual sort of blog post today, but nevertheless onwards we go...
I'm struggling a little with inspiration at the moment, for ideas to make up future posts. I have a handful of draft posts on stand by, but none of them are really that good (yes, amazingly the posts that go up on my blog do actually go through some kind of vague quality-review process before going live) and I'm aware that I'm not blogging as regularly as I like to, but am kind of stuck for ideas at the moment.
I was involved in a creative thinking workshop as part of work last year and maybe I should try some of the exercises talked about there. What do you do when you're short on ideas?
I wanted to flag up that my friends blog, http://blog.baddoggaming.net/, has kicked back into life after a quiet spell. Andy is a very funny guy and well worth a read.
One thing I did manage to do the other day was make a video of how to make the perfect mocha, which of course includes alcohol. Hope you like it.
And my guess the accents video made my dad fall off his chair laughing. See if you can work out which ones they are.
For more info about Chip Week, head over to http://www.lovepotatoes.co.uk - they like chips there, and all variety of potatoes. On their Chip Week microsite there's even competitions to take part in.
And, keeping up to date with the hot topics I was in London today, and there was a tube strike on. This was mainly disconcerting, as I was slightly worried that I wouldn't get to my conference (and back again) in time, but it did have two positives:
a) A lot of people decided not to travel to London, so the train had plenty of space - hi to the seven very nice ladies who cracked open the Bucks Fizz on the way down and had a picnic in the train (and offered it to total strangers such as me!) before spending a day in the capital, and;
b) At Kings Cross there was a big queue to get through the ticket barriers into the underground, and like any good English person there's not much I like more than an unexpected queue! It moved quite quickly as well which cheered me up no end.
True to my country, I love being mildly inconvenienced - it makes you feel as though you've achieved something by merely overcoming the slight challenge.
Anyway, onto my YouTube challenges, which is what I wanted to blog about today.
So, I set myself a bunch of challenges to improve my YouTube videos and channel in 2014, with the first one being to improve my home page, my artwork, all that gubbins.
Well, some of that has actually been done! I have refreshed my artwork (although it is still really bad - I need someone with some sort of talent for artwork and that can understand the YouTube template for channel art to help me! If you have some graphics skills and fancy volunteering let me know!)
I've also started using custom thumbnails for my videos, and you know what - they actually work! They do attract more attention which is great. Plus I made a new channel ad (which also is queued up in the free YouTube Fan Finder programme) so hopefully that will attract more attention too.
If that wasn't enough, I've also learned how to use Audacity to improve the audio on my videos, so fingers crossed there should be a lot less static on my videos in the future.
Time for Challenge 2 in my list of video challenges, and that is to watch other YouTubers! So I'm going to watch as many YouTubers as I possibly can. If you have any channels you particularly recommend, please put them in the comments, or if you want to mention your own channel, do that too!
Finally, I very much hope you've been enjoying my series of interviews with YouTube folk, the last one went live at the weekend, and featured the brilliant Brutall - if you haven't seen his stuff yet go check him out now, you will become addicted to one (if not all) of his video series!
I've been continuing my fight against the alien threat, trying to save the planet. So far I've taken down two alien bases, captured one of their commanders, and am now frantically trying to research some sort of craft that can take my troopers out to the aliens home.
True, they were the elite of the elite, the best warriors Earth had to offer. But the squad still took the opportunity to unwind by knocking on the alien's door and hiding.
In the meantime, the Commander of my forces, Dustyweaver, is wounded for two months after taking far too many plasma bolts, whilst his second in command, Simon, is very healthy, mainly due to his habit of taking cover, standing behind things like walls, trees, and other people.
In other news, I've released my next episode of MANEATING early, as it's just too funny to hold on till Wednesday. This time I decided to review a packet of Walkers Quavers. And because I'm that kind of guy, I got my son to help me.
Why do they sell you shampoo which is "for frequent use" - as opposed to what? Do they mean its not really nice shampoo, so its okay to be used every day, while you might want to keep your Pantene or T-Gel for best? Or can you get shampoo "for occasional use, be warned that if you use it more than three times a week your hair turns electric blue"? You don't get this sort of comment on other things. I've never seen soap that you can buy for frequent use.
Perhaps you could buy a deodorant labelled "for frequent use" as a somewhat blunt gift?
And it's with that thought of the day that I turn to three items of news!
Firstly, congratulations to Hull on being named the UK 2017 City of Culture. I think it's going to be really good for the city and the competition seems to have really inspired the area. I hope it makes a real difference to the future of the region.
Secondly, I have a guest blog of mine on the Yahoo! Answers blog! The Yahoo! Answers team have been very nice and let me blog over there about Yahoo! Answers (which I quite like going on), and fingers crossed another one of my blogs will be going up tomorrow!
And thirdly, the latest episode of MANEATING is being uploaded as I type, and should be available very very soon here. In this weeks episode I talk about Refreshers Squashies sweets, which are very nice. And there's loads to do on their official website - like a Wordsearch!
Well, the video camera is on charge, the brand new space invaders t-shirt is hanging in the wardrobe and I'm scribbling my YouTube channel address on the back of a load of free Vistaprint business cards I ordered for no reason ages ago.
Platform 2013 is a massive gaming expo taking place in Hull tomorrow and Saturday. Featuring the likes of Google, Microsoft, Multiplay, Sony, Konami... the list goes on and on. Loads of games to play, new hardware to look at (I believe PS4s will be in attendance), I'm very much looking forward to an event like this, especially one where I don't have to travel for 2+ hours to get to.
I haven't decided whether I'm actually going to do some filming or not, but I want to take my gear with me in case the feeling takes me!
Speaking of filming, my latest episode of MANEATING went live yesterday - this week it's the turn of Ryvita Wholegrain Crackerbreads to be eaten.
A quick blog post tonight, just wanted to flag up my new web series debuted this week, MANEATING! Content for my YouTube channel has been an issue for a while, I have difficulty making content, never mind quality content.
Anyway, I thought about what I liked doing.
And eating came to mind.
Hence Maneating - a show where I eat stuff!
Here's the first episode, where I eat an Alpen Light Bar. Mmm.
