Playing with WordPress:

For the time it takes to figure this out, there will be a new technology. As someone who has website and digital design experience, but chooses not do to it as a full time career it feels impossible to stay up to date on technology. WordPress has been around for a while now yet I have chosen not to learn anything about it. Why? Fear that the time I take to learn it could be spent better somewhere else.

Yet, here I am playing with WordPress and realizing that I should have been doing this ages ago. It is so strange how fear can keep me from doing the simplest of tasks. I feel more comfortable with html, but I will go outside my comfort zone and play with WordPress… I hope.

I wanted to share a YouTube video my cousin made. I did another animation workshop at a library in Madison, WI. I was telling him about some of the cool videos that were made and he returned with this short animated video.

Cover Image

This graphic novel is full of great stories, great artwork, and nudity (always a plus).  After reading this graphic novel, I do wonder how much of the stories are true, embellished, or fabricated from blurred memories. The main character’s name is Jonathan A., which I assume is short for the Authors name but allows for embellishment through a character that is based off of Ames, but is a different person. I have to say it does make me want to read more of Jonathan Ames’ work. The basis behind his stories is Jonathan Ames’ tendencies to follow the desires of his id. It isn’t that he is completely out of control; instead he is fighting addictions on several levels as he is trying to make a living as a writer.

The Art was completed by Dean Haspiel. I am not familiar with his work since I am not a comic book coinsure, but according to his Wiki page he was one of the artists that worked on American Splendor which I read several after the move came out. He has a long list of works if you want to check it out go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Haspiel.

I loved the look of this graphic novel and feel the writing and art complimented each other on many levels. The use of black, white, and grey scale gave the book a unique look at the drawings where well executed.

In all the praises I have for this book, it has one major flaw. That is the ending falls a little flat for what I expected from such a great book. The book is full of humor, despair, all kinds of emotions but it does lack a definite feeling of closure. While I do not recommend this book to everyone, it is a must read for fans of those interested in the under belly of society, self-degradation, and human despair on the level of Hunter S. Thomson, Hemingway, etc.

“Nobody gets everything they want. That’s the way it is.”
–Jonathan Ames “The Alcoholic”

This is a response to YouTube is stealing my views, please read that article first.

So, this is basically what I found about the YouTube views. YouTube is attempting to calculate the number of real views versus people who watch the video over again and over again, software programs that create views, or other ways the view numbers can get inflated. According to the articles I read the best way to find out your current view count is to look at your analytics page. This should be the most accurate number.

It takes about 24 hours for YouTube to go through the processes to accurately determine what they consider the “true number of views”. This means if you check the numbers early they should be really close together, but can get further apart as the day progresses depending on the activity around the video. In turn, videos that are getting a lot of hits will have the most problems while videos with less than 20 hits per day should have the accurate number of views.

I realize I am not sure on how I want to use this blog. So far it has been random and far between posts, but I would like to one day use this website for something I feel is not pointless. Maybe posting more often would help or maybe figuring out how I want to fit in the world would be good as well.

Finding a way is important, but we will see what this new thought will produce…. Really these are old thoughts but action has been slow to follow.

My guess is many of you can relate to my inability to find my career or business identity. Who do I want to be, what do I want to sell, and how do I get there? I am lost in a world or WordPress and Domain names.

I can’t figure out why YouTube has a different number every time I try to view my video. It doesn’t go down or up. I will walk you through it in sequential order:

First I click on the tab “my videos” in the upper right corner:

Photos showing 254 views

254 Views according to My Upload page

Then I click on the link Now is the time for action! “Gimme Pizza” Herman Cain Remix Smashup:

Video page showing only 140 views

140 Views according to the video page

So at some point as I clicked the video, I gained negative 14 views…. Why would that be or why are the numbers never the same?

Video Search showing 188 views

188 Views according to a video search

Then when I did a search, not signed into my account, it shows 188 views in the search results.

Three different numbers all at the same time.  If YouTube doesn’t know exactly the numbers how does it know when to pay partners or how much? I am going to do a little research into this and get back to you in a few days hoping to have a few answers.

UPDATE: Click here