Author Archives: Kier

About Kier

I've been on the web since about 1994. I have a background in a lot of things, including a five year stint as a journalist and over a decade of helping people get their message out to the world. I write on a number of subjects--everything from relationships to personal development to politics and every day life. I hope you get something worthwhile out of it.

Looking Into Blindspot

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Yep, pretty clear that if I want to quickly crank things out, the key is to do reviews or other things like this. Rattled it off pretty quickly, not a lot of editing needed, and it’s a current topic.

Some reviews will also keep for a while, making them great for a safety net.

The evolving plan is to do a few reviews like this every weekend–though usually of movies or things that have a more of a shelf-life than just aired pilots–and I’ll use that to build up a safety net that I can dip into when circumstances keep me from being able to do something brand new any given day.

Oh, and this show I’m reviewing in this vlog? It has a bit of promise. I really enjoyed the pilot and they did a good job of setting things up for at least the first season. We’ll see where else they go with it.

So, check out today’s vlog and let me know what you think about the show (if you’ve seen it).

Don’t forget that you have some say over what goes on for the next 100 days… click the big green button below here to get to the page where you can submit topic suggestions and questions (so I know what kinds of things you want to see go on in these videos).

[jbutton size=”xxlarge” color=”green” link=”http://durosia.com/vlog-questions” newpage=”yes”]Come Ask a Question Here[/jbutton]

Minority Report in Review

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It’s the new TV season so I have my pick of shows to talk about. So I’m going to.

These are comparatively quick and easy vlogs to crank out. Plus, I can also roll them over to ToobTalk (assuming I make the time to write up slightly more in-depth reviews).

This time around it’s a quick rundown of the things I generally didn’t like about the new Minority Report series. I’m still willing to give it a chance, but it’s starting out in a bit of a hole because of this first episode.

I think I’ll shoot another one or four of these this weekend, that’ll give me a little bit of a buffer for the coming weeks when I have things going on after work. I should also make sure the posting to YouTube from my phone works… that way I can still get something up even if I don’t want to burn a bugger video.

Anyway, here’s today’s bit of me jawin’ at the camera…

Don’t forget that you have some say over what goes on for the next 100 days… click the big green button below here to get to the page where you can submit topic suggestions and questions (so I know what kinds of things you want to see go on in these videos).

[jbutton size=”xxlarge” color=”green” link=”http://durosia.com/vlog-questions” newpage=”yes”]Come Ask a Question Here[/jbutton]

Trapped by the TV!

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In an odd turn of events, it took me almost as long to create the title card graphic as it did to edit the video today. (Proving once again that I’m really not a graphic designer… or, at least, not a good one.)

Today’s topic was based on last night’s experience trying, and failing, and then succeeding to watch Heroes Reborn‘s first episode in real time via broadcast HD (thanks to the little antenna I picked up the other day). It was, in a word, frustrating.

More than just having to deal with more commercials than I get on Hulu, it was absolutely having to be tuned in at a specific time–and then not being able to do anything else unless there was a commercial on.

So different from what I’ve been doing for the past few years.

I won’t be getting a lot of use out of that antenna. Good thing it was the cheap one.

So here’s my slightly longer than normal vlog about that…

[youtube https://youtu.be/U_eEDu9W4xY]

Don’t forget that you have some say over what goes on for the next 100 days… click the big green button below here to get to the page where you can submit topic suggestions and questions (so I know what kinds of things you want to see go on in these videos).

[jbutton size=”xxlarge” color=”green” link=”http://durosia.com/vlog-questions” newpage=”yes”]Come Ask a Question Here[/jbutton]

Equipment Check!

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Okay, really late again… but it wasn’t because of editing this time. I swear!

I actually took two hours to watch the premiere of the long-awaited continuation of the Heroes TV series, Heroes Reborn. I forgot how annoying it was to watch TV in real time… no ability to take just another few minutes to finish something else before you get sucked in.

Pretty sure I’ll be talking about that on Friday. 🙂

So, yeah, it really only took about an hour and a half to produce the video this time. Nice improvement over yesterday’s four hours. The quickness was mostly due to how smoothly the initial shoot went. Apparently (and not surprisingly) I can talk about tech to a camera better than I can talk about myself.

And talk about tech I did. You even get a look at the Audio-Technica ATR-6550 Shotgun Mic and Nikon D5500 I’m shooting this with. (Also a quick look at my phone and the video it shoots… and a spin around my immediate surroundings from my couch.)

Anyway, here’s today’s vlog… just barely while it’s still today…

[youtube https://youtu.be/AZaUxGcG9dQ]

Don’t forget that you have some say over what goes on for the next 100 days… click the big green button below here to get to the page where you can submit topic suggestions and questions (so I know what kinds of things you want to see go on in these videos).

[jbutton size=”xxlarge” color=”green” link=”http://durosia.com/vlog-questions” newpage=”yes”]Come Ask a Question Here[/jbutton]

The Long and Winding Road

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Yikes. Did not get any quicker on the edit tonight. Considerably slower, in fact.

Part of that was due to trying to take a shortcut without actually understanding what the program was doing. Yeah… won’t do that again.

Part of that was being more than a little disjointed in the initial filming. This is the sort of story I normally modify a lot depending on the reaction I’m getting from the person or people I’m telling it to. Without that feedback… things kind of start to drift and then, sometimes, just plain crash.

And there was a whole bunch that I cut out. Some of it was just plain awful, but other bits just didn’t have a place on the overall flow that I carved out during editing. (What you see in this video? Almost all completely spliced together from minute or less long clips… sometimes as small as just phrases… to put together a coherent whole.)

Yep. It’s an adventure. And I’m going to have to spend the weekend building up a backlog or this is never going to work as a daily thing.

Anyway, here’s the latest from Studio Kier…

[youtube https://youtu.be/ssFRzYo-Ug0]

Don’t forget that you have some say over what goes on for the next 100 days… click the big green button below here to get to the page where you can submit topic suggestions and questions (so I know what kinds of things you want to see go on in these videos).

[jbutton size=”xxlarge” color=”green” link=”http://durosia.com/vlog-questions” newpage=”yes”]Come Ask a Question Here[/jbutton]