Video blog: drinking a growler at 1.5x speed
April 29, 2013
I guess people know how easily influenced I am. Tori said, “you should vlog that.” I popped the top and thought, OKAYYY!
I’ve speeded up the video one and a half times because, due to the extemporaneous nature of my expounding, I was speaking quite slowly and deliberately. Magnifying the speed takes up less of your time and it makes me giggle, and maybe you, too. So it’s a win all around.
It also disguises how tight my Minnesota vowels are. Listen to how I say growler. Or, grohhler, apparently. It’s like I’m Canadian, or from Fargo or something, eh? And beer. I say that really tightly, too. But hopefully you won’t be able to hear my northern accent. Really, my whole mouth is tense when I speak, it seems.
Anyway, I may regret posting this but I also like to have fun, and I like to think I don’t take myself too seriously.
Video blog: drinking a growler from Kelly Doudna on Vimeo.
Update: The trouble I was having with the originally-posted version of the video was because I rotated the upside down segment to be right side up in iMovie 09 and the audio didn’t keep up. So I have undone that action and it has solved the problem. I should upgrade to iMovie 11.
Also, watch Tori’s video response to my video, link is in her comment below.
I got a free car wash with my oil change, yo
August 4, 2011
Even if you have the coupon for a $14.99 oil change and 7¢ per gallon off on gas, you still get a deluxe car wash for naught.
Yo.
The busy life of a rabbit
June 2, 2011
In 2003, when Robbin was just a bun, I captured ten minutes of still photos of him just going about his important rabbit business. I had printed out the photos and bound them together in a little book. I wanted to take a movie of me flipping the pages—because it sort of makes a little movie like a flipbook—but I moved five and a half years ago and I couldn’t find it. So I did the next best thing, made a quick video of the photos. That’s my former cat Dhia hanging out with Robbin.
I go out walking
April 2, 2011
Today, I recorded myself walking. Once again you’re thinking, oh how perfectly fascinating. Well, I think it actually is pretty interesting. The environmental noise is wonderful. It’s the everyday soundtrack to my walk home from work, though I hardly ever actually listen to it. There is something a little different to hear in each of these short clips, which change, roughly, with every change of pavement during my mile and three quarters journey home. The movie is about five minutes long. Thanks for watching!
You know I can???t dance
January 31, 2011
Here is a video of me demonstrating a dance move that I made up. I originally called it “The Washing Machine,” but then I decided “The Agitator” had a little more pop. Not only should you admire my funky break, but also please appreciate my Minnesota dead-of-winter indoor get-up of turtleneck and wool sweater, sweat pants and long underwear, socks and sheepskin slippers—figure-flattery at its finest! I do have a furnace that works, but I keep it set a few degrees lower to conserve. Besides, when I’m bustin’ a move I get hot real fast.
Leo Sayer – “Long Tall Glasses (I Can Dance)” – buy it here.
Watch this
December 6, 2010
I only just recently watched the video for “Walk Like a Panther” for the first time, even though I’ve loved the song since the first time I heard it on London’s XFM. I’m trying to figure out why I love the video so much. I think there are three reasons.
Tony Christie. The main one might be the guest vocalist. I knew that All Seeing I makes use of guest vocalists and for some reason, I thought the main voice on the “Pickled Eggs & Sherbert” album was Jarvis Cocker of Pulp. I guess he did a version of the song with All See I, too, but the radio and album version turned out to be Tony Christie, as I learned from the video. I think I’m charmed that he’s an old guy, relatively speaking. It would be kind of like Tony Bennet singing with Gorillaz or something. And he’s being such a good sport with the acting that he has to do for it, even though, here and there, he looks just a trifle exasperated.
Hand gestures. When I watched this video for the second time, I realized that what I first thought was an homage to the zombie dance in Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video was really customized gestures to go along with the chorus lyrics of “Walk Like a Panther”: fly like an eagle, prowl like a lion, leap like a salmon, keep up with me, and walk like a panther. Video actors one and all, young and old, move in weirdo almost-synchronization.
Sci-fi style. What makes it all come together is what I think of as the science-fiction style of videography. It’s shot through a robot-eye-shaped frame in the herky-jerky style, the frames go forward and backward to make that fake in-time-with-the-music impression, and it has wonderful 1970s faded photograph colors. Top that off with the location which to me seems like some anonymous Underground station complex in London.
It all just works.
Life is but a dream
July 21, 2010
In an alternate universe, maybe dogs would be allowed on the lawns at Wimbledon. In an alternate universe, maybe I???d still be in London.
It has only been half a month since I returned from my London vacation, but already it???s a distant memory and hardly feels like it happened at all. Maybe I was just dreaming that I finally got to meet the world???s best dog, Casper. Maybe I was just dreaming that puny little me was actually inside the ground at Wimbledon. I stepped off the airplane with no plans of how to spend my nine days in London, except knowing that I wanted to go to Wimbledon because I was there during the time of the tournament.
In hindsight, I probably should have walked around looking at things more, since I was there. It was the day of the men???s semifinal matches and once Dan and I found a prime spot at the base of Henman Hill from which to watch Andy Murray???s match, we didn???t much move.
Dumb as it sounds, it was very exciting seeing in person things that I had seen on television for years. There were Centre Court and No. 1 Court. There were the prim and proper ushers keeping everyone in place. There were off-duty ball-boys and -girls giggling with each other. There were rowdy fans demonstrating national pride. There were the proper strawberries and cream; we had stopped at Tesco and bought some there.
And let???s not forget that there was yet another large hill to climb to get to the neighborhood. It seemed like every day, there was a breath-sapping hill to climb. Perhaps it was the alternate universe. In my previous visits, I sure didn???t remember London as being so hilly, except for getting up to the observatory at Greenwich.
We took Casper out to parks a few times. Maybe when he was chasing his beloved tennis ball he was really thinking about running on a finely dressed grass court at Wimbledon. It would have been a gas to set foot on a court. I remember what a cheap thrill it was when I took five steps out onto the field once at the Metrodome here in Minneapolis. In an alternate universe, maybe I would be a tournament finalist.
Okay, back to reality.??
My theme song
April 8, 2010
Of course I have very many songs that I love. But a theme song? I never thought about it. I mean, it’s not like I’m a baseball player going up to bat.
So I thought about it. And I decided on “Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen from their album “Jazz.” This is for two reasons.
First, I have loved Queen since about 1975. As much as I love Del Amitri, which is a whole lot, Queen is my desert island answer. I can’t explain it. Justin Currie is one of the most best songwriters ever and is a brilliant, brilliant lyricist, but Queen overwhelms Del Amitri in musicianship and innovation. Del Amitri is the most awesome bar band ever. Queen is just awesome.
Second, “Don’t Stop Me Now” comes closest to embodying my personal joie de vivre. Do those of you who know me think otherwise? There are lots of other songs that shiver me timbers more, but for general mood and loose interpretation of the lyrics, this one does just fine.
Don’t Stop Me Now
My crazy Dasie
December 30, 2009
Related to things that make me happy are things that make me smile no matter what. My cat Dasie is one of those things. I like to think that all three of my critters are well-adjusted creatures with good mental health, but none of them exudes pure, infectious joy like Dasie does.
I adopted her from Feline Rescue in St. Paul last February. I had previously had two cats who lived to ripe old ages; then I started over with CJ in May of 2008. When CJ and my rabbit Robbin didn’t develop a close relationship, I decided it was time to find a feline companion for her. Robbin at the time had another rabbit, Bibi, but she’s no longer with us.
I met a number of cats, both at Feline Rescue’s shelter and in their foster care system. The front-runner was Pi, a beautiful long-haired white boy with a grey tabby cap, but he was in the middle of diagnosis and treatment for a heart murmur and wasn’t ready to go home yet. From his foster home I went out to human Stacy’s house and met Dasie, who at the time was called Sadie (the anagram is where the unusual spelling of her name originated).
In that environment, she was fairly reserved on the two occasions that I went to see her, but I could tell she was a nice cat. I had kind of thought that if I went black and white, I wanted a tuxedo but, as I learned when Robbin was picking out Bibi (I took him on rabbit dates and he met five or six other bunnies), your preconceived idea is often quickly usurped by the reality of personalities.
I confess that my impatience chose Dasie over waiting for Pi. I was perfectly willing to deal with the meds he’d have to take, having nursed my previous two for the last couple years of both their lives, but I have teeny tiny issues with willpower and instant gratification …
(Stacy, don’t worry, I am not the least disappointed that I did decide to adopt Dasie! Though I do wonder where Pi ended up, and if he did still happen to be available, I have thoughts of still making him Number 3.)
Dasie does everything with enthusiasm and flair. She doesn’t just change direction, she changes direction with a bouncy flourish. She understands that a particular head nod by me means she’s invited up. She doesn’t just jump up into your lap, she jumps up and butts her head into your chin to express affection. She doesn’t just sit in front of the space heater in the bathroom while you’re taking your shower, she sticks her head inside the curtain and is fascination by the water.
I can’t think of anything that she does that doesn’t make me smile and forget everything else for a few special moments.
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