Video: Happy Birthday Erika

Optional Commentary:I came up with this idea in mid-April and decided "Oh, I have plenty of time to do this", and I didn't do it until yesterday. This is the process for everything I ever do.

This took way longer than I thought it would. I wanted to make the clips flow into complete sentences, but I realized that would be impossible in the time I had left (especially since I refused to stray from my own music collection), so it just ended up being a collage of weirdness. It think it worked better in my head, but I'm happy with the result. I like to think "Happy Birthday Martin Freeman" needs no explanation.

What's that, did someone ask for the list of clips? In order? Absolutely!

The Beatles - BirthdayDavid Byrne - Miss America
The Mountain Goats - No Children
Frank Zappa - Be-Bop Tango (Of The Old Jazzmen's Church)
Crash Test Dummies - I Want To Par-tay!
David Byrne/Brian Eno - America Is Waiting
Weird Al - Happy Birthday
The Mountain Goats - Southwood Plantation RoadThey Might Be Giants - Older
Frank Zappa/Captain Beefheart - 200 Years OldThe Flaming Lips - Free Radicals
Portugal. The Man - 60 Years
Portugal. The Man - 1000 Years
Primus - Is It Luck?
Cursive - Bad Sects
Weird Al - Another One Rides The Bus
They Might Be Giants - It's Not My Birthday
Pere Ubu - The Fabulous Sequel
Weird Al - Happy Birthday

And I inexplicably included a clip from King of the Hill where Hank says "Santini" at the end because why the hell not?

Erika laughed so hard at this that she started coughing. A rousing success!

Video: Enyaj Yadhtrib Yppah

OPTIONAL COMMENTARY:

Jayne is perhaps my biggest fan ever when it comes to my videos. At the time I'd been messing around with learning how to reverse video and audio (which takes about three shifty movie-editing programs that you can download from shifty backwoods websites in different shifty languages), so I put it to the official test by making her a backwards video to post on her wall for her birthday. I was surprised at how well it turned out, WAY better than it did in my head.

I actually wrote down a list of events to do in backwards order and memorized it so that it would look correct when reversed, including the overacted facial expressions and gestures. It had to be one take, or else the paper would already look crumpled if I tried again (and I'm not made of paper, ok people). The pressure was certainly on, my friends. Good thing I'm a professional.
I have a plan for a real, full-length backwards video in the future. I might have to drop eggs on the floor. This is serious business.

Video: A Typical Job Search Session

OPTIONAL COMMENTARY:

This is the first video that was not made because of procrastination. After graduation I had lost all ambition to make videos, but this was an idea I had almost entirely formed in my head for a few weeks before recording it. I had to wait until I was alone in my house so I didn't disturb my parents by being dumb for half an hour.

Since 99% of the friends I made in college were trumpet players in the marching band I was entirely surprised that nobody mentioned the fact that I OWN A TROMBONE. I would have bet at the time that at least one person was going to mention it, but nobody did. As a result I didn't get to tell the story of how, when I was 9, I really wanted to play trombone in school when we picked out instruments and my arms were about two feet too short to play it properly. I was devastated. I finally got my own trombone in 7th grade and my nerdy 12-year-old self was elated beyond belief that I finally got to play a damn trombone.

I never really liked playing trumpet, but I bet that fact is way more obvious to people than I think it is.

Video: Tom's Video Resume

OPTIONAL COMMENTARY:

Here it is, the peak of my video career. Nothing I did and nothing I ever do again will be as good as this one right here. People actually lauded me about it for a couple weeks after I posted it. In real life. I felt like a regular Z-List celebrity.

I almost called this finished and put it up on the internet before adding the Ren & Stimpy-style public domain music in the background, which would have been a terrible mistake indeed. The only thing I'm not happy with is my acting at the end, but I've seen so many movies where professional actors suck at crying so I'm not too broken up about it.

FUN FACT: I had to keep what was left of the coconut rum in a cup while recording this so I could replace it later. The liquid in the bottle is tap water. A couple people actually thought I was really a little bit drunk for this since it was convincing, which I think is a huge compliment considering I've never been drunk before and had to completely make up my own drunk behavior. I bet I'm a guy who punches walls while drunk. I don't want to be drunk, man, I don't want to be all angry at walls for no reason.

Video: Tom and Erika's Awkward Webcam Conversations Compilation

OPTIONAL COMMENTARY:

We recorded quite a few full conversations and chopped them up into the best parts. Conversations included philosophical college-level topics such as Oregon Trail and the many diseases within the game, the Charlie Sheen meltdown (which is completely dated and probably was anyway at the time of this video), poker, the Sims and interior decorating, and...Mormons. I can only imagine that this video is way more interesting and enjoyable to the people who know both of us and know how we actually interact with each other. This is basically it, minus the obvious awareness we both had that we were being recorded.

This video also contains evidence that I ignored fire alarms when they went off in the dorms. Seriously, if it was a Tuesday at 8:00 and you actually LEFT THE BUILDING when it came on, and you weren't a freshman, then you were stupid. End of story.

Video: Percussion Octet

OPTIONAL COMMENTARY:
This is the same video as Percussion Duet but with the video playing in each corner, each one about a quarter second or so off from one another. The music sounds way cooler in this version and middle section sounds like an aquarium.

I forgot to mention this in the other commentary, but I made one version of myself have hair that was more "combed" than the other to perhaps give the illusion that we were two different people. But I couldn't be bothered to put on a different shirt or something? How young and stupid I was way back when.

Video: Percussion Duet

OPTIONAL COMMENTARY:
Of all the videos I've made so far this one was by far the most fun. I don't care that it took me about an hour to finally get it right, and I didn't even get it fully right anyway. On the left I dropped my pencil at 0:59 like some sort of asshole. Inexcusable.

The day I'm writing this is 5-6-12, so I made this over a year ago already and since then I've been wanting to do another one to a much grander scale. We're talking four parts instead of two, actual planned-out composed "music", and a multitude of additional instruments possibly including scissors, a remote control, tupperware, a can opener, even maybe a toaster. Shit will be insane. I'm an incredibly lazy individual, though, and since graduation I haven't had anything to procrastinate on. Lack of procrastination can really ruin your ambition. Trust me on this.

Video: Cameron

OPTIONAL COMMENTARY:

I wish I had a Red Wings jersey, this would've been even better. People have been telling me that I look like Cameron from Ferris Bueller's Day Off since I first came to college. A kid in my chemistry lab pointed this out and called me Cameron for the rest of the semester. This might have been the first instance because I sure as hell never heard it in high school (in fact, I was referred to as "the little kid from Jerry Maguire" until I was 15 since I was still about 5 feet tall and I wore these ridiculously huge glasses).

So in class I get another "Hey, do you know who you look like?" and I finished the sentence for them. Then I was encouraged to reenact a scene from the movie. And here it is.

Ferris Bueller was, no contest, my absolute favorite movie when I was a kid. To look like Cameron as a strapping young gent is quite an honor, let me tell you.

Video: Card Trick

OPTIONAL COMMENTARY:
This one is pretty terrible and really only exists to test how well I could convincingly act in one unbroken shot. It probably took me about 15 takes, I don't remember anymore. Each time I was done I had to pick up a whole goddamn deck of cards off the floor a put it back together again. It wasn't worth it.

I barely got a response with this one. A certain someone who shall remain anonymous (let's just say his name is ERIC BURNS) couldn't wait to express his disappointment about this video to me during class the next day. I was just happy for the attention. He's a sexy piece of work, that one.

Video: A Typical Physics Study Session

OPTIONAL COMMENTARY:
"Thermal and Statistical Physics" was very nearly the most boring class I'd ever taken at college, but at least everyone I knew in my tiny physics department inner circle was also in the class and I was able to pass the time by drawing dumb shit, watching them play online poker (until it was shut down, of course) and Minesweeper, and reading Vonnegut and Ender's Game.

I made this video while studying for a particularly boring test for this class. I got resoundingly positive criticism for this one from people in real life, which only further encouraged me to keep making an ass out of myself and putting the results on the internet.

Video: Awkward

OPTIONAL COMMENTARY:
The first of many videos borne out of procrastination. Doing homework, studying for tests, and (especially) writing my thesis was way less fun than dicking around with Windows Movie Maker. I remember making this video at, like 1:30am and being very afraid to post it online due to the possibility that this was way stupider than I thought, but I woke up the next morning pleasantly surprised to see positive feedback. And guess what that positive feedback led to? Nine more stupid videos and many more to come. I hope you're happy.