Who Needs Things You Can’t Unsee?

I’ve been agonizing for weeks over this particular challenge. The challenge is called “Play Favorites”, wherein I was supposed to list my favorite things and add a few lines about each. I tried books, music, movies, mixtures of the three… The lists quickly became unmanageable and tangential. Then inspiration struck! My YouTube favorites!

So, without further ado here is a list of my YouTube favorites (in a method to the madness kind of order) more by category than a pure list.

1. Any list of favorites I make has to start with videos including Ryan Wieber, and of his videos the top are RvD2 and RvB2. For those not in the know those initials stand for Ryan vs. Dorkman 2 and Ryan vs. Brandon 2. These videos are works of pure awesome. Fair warning, RvB2 has a tweotch of a cliffhanger ending, complete with a brightly colored “To Be Continued” screen right before credits roll. Bastards.

2. Let’s just put all videos in which a kitten/ puppy/ baby animal/ baby falls asleep slowly in this slot. Trite, cliche and uber girly, but oh, so adorable!

3. Same list of living creatures in number two dreaming – preferably with funny noises, kicking limbs. Extra points for drool bubbles or the tip of the tongue sticking out.

4. The Mean Kitty Song – It reminds me of my buddy Matt and my cat, Miss Kitty.

5. Movie parodies – The best are Dark Knight and New Moon. Hilarious.

6. Turf – This is perfection. Kung fu action, comedy, pink polka-dot panties and a dash of anime style.

7. The deer playing in a puddle. Not technically a YouTube video (when it was sent to me), but it has since made it onto YouTube and was so awesome I feel compelled to add it to this list.

8. Videos of kittens/cats playing with boxes.  If there were a list below this particular category it would be topped by two vids – whack-a-kitty and the fat cat trying to hide in a tiny box.

9. Wimpy Boy Bands. These short vids had me laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes. The best, though (in my opinion), are as follows: Singing Showdown, En Espanol, First Boy Band Ever

10. Art of the Saber – This one feels a little disjointed because there’s no backstory beyond an overly dramatic VO monologue, but still it’s pure awesome. Two obviously talented martial artists engaged in a kung fu style lightsaber duel. Sweet.

Yes, I realize that far too many of these contained tiny kittens or moments of pure nerd. Face it, gang, that’s me: puppies, kittens, ligtsabers and MMO jokes. Could be worse… My entire post could have just been this:

Who the Hell Owns a Blue Satin Sash?

I don’t just blog and go to work, you know. I am an avid internet junkie with a long – loooong – list of favorites. My bookmarks list is in fact so large as to be almost unmanageable. Challenge six is “Curate the Web,” in which I was planning to simply post a list of my bookmarks, but as I said it’s a loooong list, so rather than subject you to everything I have instead compiled a sampling of my uber-faves. I could call these the creme de la creme of my faves, bookmarks and blogroll, but that would just be pretentious.

Because blogging itself isn’t.

1. Pen-palling sites:

• www.lettersets.com
• www.phoopies.com
• www.penpal-net.info

These sites are tons of fun for finding a penpal, paper and stickers to write your letters to your new penpal, or they may just be excessively pink sites to find the perfect gift for the anime/kawaii obsessed fan you’re friends with. Because no matter how much you like the color pink, Chocokitty or bishounen anime, there’s someone out there who makes you look like a noob and you will meet them.

2. Blogs on my blogroll:

• www.brigittedale.com – I know you’re all probably tired of hearing about her from me, but she’s so dang cute! It takes a  woman secure in herself to openly admit an obsession with cupcakes and then hold a cupcake playoff to personally name the best cupcake bakery in LA. That’s bold. Bold.
• www.FourFour.com – For the most part he’s merely chronicling the daily thoughts of a gay man as relates to the media, but he does it with panache. I started reading his blog because of my own obsession with ANTM (America’s Next Top Model). His recaps and crying counts make me snort out loud and his love/hate relationship with Tyra – not just the show or her judging, but Tyra herself – becomes as addictive as the show. I salivate at the thought of judging photos and have been known to yell at my poor husband when he blocks the tv before I’m done judging the photo myself.

3. Reading/Books:

• Ellora’s Cave
• Samhain Publishing

Two great sites for fans of paranormal, futuristic and/or sci-fi erotic romance. You can either download the ebook (Samhain Pub even has some novellas for free) or purchase in paperback. Few of these books ever show up in bookstores because the ladies buying them are hardcore collectors (no, no pun). You may have to dig to find an author that fits your taste, and there are a few stinkers in there. I won’t lie to you. On the whole, though, these books are great and comprise the majority of my e-collection. Fabulous stories with sexy, manly men and engaging female leads. Huzzah.

• Project Gutenburg – An interesting site where classics (some even in different languages) have been gathered for free download. There are some audio versions available for download as well, but they’re all read by volunteers so don’t expect James Earl Jones quality.
• Monterey Public Library – The local library here in CA. The poor desk clerks must be starting to dread my requests lists.
• Net Library – A site linked out of the SA Public Library system with hundreds of e-books and audio books for free download/checkout. They do have a shelf-life tied into licensing, but it’s easy to “re-check” a book, so if you have a card with the San Antonio libraries I highly recommend setting up an account.

4. Roleplay:

• www.rpol.net
• secondlife.com

Great sites (one does require you to download a program to play) where I can be whatever I want so long as I can act the part. It’s a great way to break my writer’s block sometimes – although it’s not working too well at the moment. It’s sad when blogging becomes procrastination for writing.

• www.lotro.com – Lord of the Rings Online. Lord. Of. The. Rings. On. Line. ‘Nuff said.

5. Keeping in Touch:

Twitter.com – Not only am I an active Tweeter, I follow Brigitte Dale, Felicia Day, Tyra Banks, Jamie Oliver and many many others. It’s an acceptable form of e-stalking.

6. Wasting Time:

Bubble Spinner – As addictive as popping bubble wrap with the added complexity of shooting pool. I can’t stop. I once spent fourteen hours – allow me to repeat, FOURTEEN HOURS – playing this game. Try it. I dare you.

6. Do you remember card catalogues?

Okay, this was going to be all about the awesomeness of Google, but is there really a need. You’ve seen. You know.

And that, folks, in a nutshell, is how I spend the majority of my time online. I could lie and say I was doing something cooler like hunting wikipedia for new information to then confirm or deny through printed media at the library, but if I wiki it’s usually in search of information through Wookiepedia or the Encyclopedia of Arda (more LOTR right there). So, yeah. That’s what I do.