Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Week 9, Task 20: Discover YouTube and a few sites that allow you to upload video

So this was an easy task for me. I am a YouTube veteran and have embedded videos in my MySpace blog before. In fact, I already did it here in my Week 6, Task 14 post. It is pretty straight forward stuff. I do have a hint for anyone who is getting frustrated by an interrupted feed (your video keeps stopping or "hiccuping"). Wait until the video is about half over, take your mouse and drag the progression marker back to the beginning of the video. You will have to watch the beginning again but you should be able to watch the whole video uninterrupted.

I generally enjoy using YouTube. My only problem with it is the amount of "you know what" you have to wade through to get to the videos you want. I definitely think there are ways that YouTube could be used for the library. I think it would be pretty interesting to have an instructional video embedded on our web page that explained how to use our online card catalog to reserve books, etc. We could also put videos in showing recent programming or events held at the library.

The video I chose was a music video. I'm a huge music nut and love almost all music; new, old and anything in between. I like this song for a multitude of reasons. The two biggest reasons being that the content of the song strikes a cord with me and because it is just pleasant to listen to. The music video is by The Fray. The song is "How to Save a Life". Here is some background info:

Taken From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

According to lead singer and songwriter Isaac Slade, the song was composed and influenced by his experience while working as a mentor at a camp for troubled teens:

“One of the kids I was paired up with was a musician. Here I was, a protected suburbanite, and he was just 17 and had all these problems. And no one could write a manual on how to save him.”

Slade claims that the song is about all of the people that tried to reach out to the boy but were unsuccessful. As Slade says in an interview, the boy's friends and family approached him by saying, "Quit [the problem behavior] or I won't talk to you again," but all he needed was some support. The verses of the song describe an attempt by an adult to confront a troubled teen. In the chorus, the singer laments that he himself was unable to save a friend because he did not know how. While this was the original intent of the song, the band has opened the song to interpretation.

Here are the Lyrics:

Step one you say we need to talk
He walks you say sit down it's just a talk
He smiles politely back at you
You stare politely right on through
Some sort of window to your right
As he goes left and you stay right
Between the lines of fear and blame
And you begin to wonder why you came

Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

Let him know that you know best
Cause after all you do know best
Try to slip past his defense
Without granting innocence
Lay down a list of what is wrong
The things you've told him all along
And pray to God he hears you
And pray to God he hears you

Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

As he begins to raise his voice
You lower yours and grant him one last choice
Drive until you lose the road
Or break with the ones you've followed
He will do one of two things
He will admit to everything
Or he'll say he's just not the same
And you'll begin to wonder why you came

Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life

Hope you enjoy it!






Another hint: If you are having difficulty changing the code with Blogger's HTML edit then you can paste the embed code into Word, then re-cut and past it into your blog.

2 comments:

david santos said...

Thanks for you work, is vert good, and have a good day

Hey there! said...

Thanks David Santos! :o)