Just having a little fun!

Today is Friday and I’d love to go out and do something… maybe take in a movie at Atlantic Station, or something. But, I’ll be here at home near the bathroom. Yeah, it’s looking like it’s going to be one of those days. As for the remainder of the weekend, who knows. I’ll probably spend it doing YouTube videos and shopping online. I wonder if I can find a shoe sale…

Check out my new hair! But, excuse the swelling under my eyes. I was really tired and my allergies were really bothering me. I have no excuse for my eyebrows, though – just know they’ll be taken care of ASAP; especially before I wear this wig out somewhere trying to look cute, LOL.

I’m wearing the FREETRESS Equal synthetic lace front wig, in the style named Beyonce. Futura is the name of the synthetic fiber, and it’s heat safe up to 400 degrees. Yes, ladies, you can use your flat irons, steam rollers, and curling irons on this wig! One of the best things about this wig is that the hairline is made to mimic a natural hairline – no more straight-edge hairlines that make you look a HAM.

It’s 3:50 AM. I am awake. Damn.

The culprits? My shoulders. I tossed and turned for awhile trying to ignore their soreness, but I’m a side sleeper so it was a losing battle. So, I finally got up and massaged Icy Hot into both of them and put a heating pad on one. When I laid back down it was 3 AM on the dot. At 3:45 I gave up trying to get back to sleep and got up.

I went to the grocery store today and had to lift a few bags, some of which were kind of heavy. I think the up/down and side/side movement I had to do to load and unload the bags is the reason they were hurting. As usual, my right shoulder hurt the worst. My primary care doctor back home (before I moved here) said I needed physical therapy. I never followed up on that, but I think I need to.

Well, I’ve been up for 1.5 hours and I’m still not sleepy. I think I’m going to try to find some tutorials on how to create an introduction for my videos. I have Adobe After Effects, Adobe Premiere Pro, and Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum. The easiest method and program wins.

This video clearly states my position, and clears up a few misconceptions and assumptions that have made regarding the first video. Lots of white people were assuming that because I’m black, I must be a Democrat, and therefore I was defending Senator Reid because of party politics. They also didn’t think I’d feel the same if a Republican politician had make the comment. Actually, I would.

I want to make clear that none of this means that I don’t think Harry Reid is a racist. I don’t know anything about the man, so he very well could be, and if so I wouldn’t be surprised in the least. However, I still feel that the COMMENT he made, in and of itself, is not racist and bears truth. Ugly truth, but truth, nonetheless.

I just really wish black people, as a group, would engage in more critical thinking. Every time someone makes an unflattering comment about black American society and culture, they’re either automatically branded a racist or a house nigger. What makes this Reid situation so bad is that the comment wasn’t so much about Mr. Obama, as it was an acknowledgment and indictment of white racism! But, of course, nobody wants to see it from that point of view, because then we couldn’t play the victim.

Whites aren’t allowed to validly criticize us and blacks had better stay in line and shut up, lest they want to lose their “black card”. But, blacks are allowed to criticize any and everybody we want? What kind of bullshit is this? This kind of thinking has to stop or the black community will never improve!

They’ve kept the news quiet, but YouTube has finally started accepting the 960×720p HD resolution! This is huge because webcam makers like Logitech use 960×720p to record ¹ HD video, and until this happened these videos would not play in HD on YouTube.

What’s even better is that now I don’t have to hide a 960×720p video within a 1280×720p video by encoding the video at the higher resolution and letterboxing it. Now, I can just encode the video, like I normally do, and upload it. Way to go YouTube!

UPDATE 1/13/10 at 10:58 AM: The VIDEO NOW HAS 1,000 VIEWS!!
Update 1/13/10 at 5:09 AM: The video is now up to 958 views.
Update 1/12/10 at 8:20 PM: The video is now up to 862 views.
Update 1/12/10 at 2:41 PM: The video is now up to 823 views.
Update 1/12/10 at 10:03 AM: The video is now up to 746 views.
Update 1/11/10 at 10:00 PM: The video is now up to 645 views.
Update 1/11/10 at 1:22 PM: The video is now up to 559 views.
…………
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was quoted in a forthcoming book (Game Change), by journalists Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, as saying – privately – that then presidential hopeful Barack Obama could be successful as a candidate because of his light skin and ability NOT to speak “Negro dialect” unless he wanted to. The video has been up for just 19 hours, but it has already gotten 298 views and 54 comments.

I posted a video commentary on YouTube giving my take on the growing scandal/debacle. If you don’t have time to watch the video (about 9 minutes long), here’s the nutshell version: What Reid said is true and is not new, because Black Americans have been talking about this for generations. I don’t think he owes anyone an explanation or an apology, because I don’t think he has anything to apologize for. Agree or disagree? Let me know in the comments.

This is my third time living in Atlanta, and I don’t remember it ever snowing. We’ve had flurries, but nothing sticking. Last night’s snow is still on the ground, despite it being very sunny outside. For the last few weeks, Atlanta has not lived up to it’s nickname, Hotlanta!

I started back video blogging, but yet AGAIN, I don’t know if YouTube is the right place for me to host my videos. I want to place my vlogs on this blog, but I don’t want to eat up my storage space by hosting them myself, so that’s where YouTube comes in. If I don’t want my videos accessible by anyone on YouTube, I can make them private, and embed them over here, so that’s not the issue either. The issue is that unless one is uploading a HD video, the quality of YouTube’s videos leave much to be desired – even with their new default high quality encoding.

When I record a video, before it’s uploaded to YouTube, it has to be encoded. By the time YouTube gets finished re-encoding it for their system, the quality has suffered. So, since I have to encode the videos no matter what I do, I’m thinking of just quitting YouTube and hosting the videos on my Silverlight hosting account.

I have a 10 gigabyte Silverlight video hosting account provided for free from Microsoft that is sitting unused. I could encode my videos for Silverlight’s specs and upload them there. The best part is that the Silverlight storage is just storage – my videos won’t be re-encoded resulting in a degradation in quality. The end result is SHARP, CLEAR videos of high quality.

Hmmm… I have some thinking to do.

I don’t get accused of being an ABW (angry black woman) or BBW (bitter black woman) because I’m neither. It seems the issue with me is that my standards are “too high”. Nevermind that I don’t have unrealistic standards like height requirements or a list of “approved” jobs/careers. I think that to many men, my standards are too high simply because I have them.

Many are used to dealing with women with no standards, so they’ve gotten spoiled and lazy and think that’s the way it’s supposed to be. But, the thing is is that men have standards as well, and if a woman doesn’t meet them, they will NOT give us that same benefit of the doubt they want us to give them. They simply move on to the next one. But, when I do the same thing I’m wrong. That’s crazy as hell.

I made up my mind that for 2010 I was just going to do what I do, and not even think about men or relationships too much. I’m content being single and free, and there’s nothing wrong with a maintenance man for the time being.