Thanksgiving isn't about food or reunions. No, it's about one thing.

Battles are won and lost over many different types of tables: Beer pong and poker to name a few.

I feel I have mastered both of the aforementioned but one remains a struggle for me: The ping pong table.

Once every year the dust comes off of the crusty and faded red-and-yellow paddles and the table dominates my grandparents garage.

Naturally, every year I feel confident in my game. I’ve been working out for a month now and my stamina is much better than last year.

The struggle comes because there’s still one relative that continues to haunt my Thanksgiving Eve nightmares.

My sister? Her game’s laughable. My cousin? I once beat him 21 to -3. My aunt? Blacked out drunk.

No, no, this competitor is no one else but my 79-year-old grandfather.

It’s not that we’re that bad; he’s that good.

The guy is a freak of nature. He doesn’t know what “caps lock” means but he can paint the corners of the ping pong table any day of the week.

Trouble is he claims to only play once every year: Thanksgiving.

Well, as we all get settled in at my grandparents, he casually walks by the table and grabs a paddle.

He looks at it like he didn’t have this set up all along, he then looks up at me and smiles.

“You want to play?” He asks.

These four words triggered the ping pong battle of 2008.

He gave me my choice of paddles and I stood on my side ready and confident. This year, I will finally take down my grandpa in this five-game series.

Game one went to my grandfather, 21-15. The score doesn’t indicate how poorly I played. The rust was evident and I was down 19-7 at one point. But on those 15 points I scored I built confidence.

Game two also went to my grandfather, 21-19. This time the contest was intense. My cell phone in fact flew out of my jacket during the match as I dove for the ball. My efforts came during a loss, however, and all of a sudden this best-of-five series was shaping up to be a sweep.

I put the paddle down and gave us both some time to rest. I was mentally and physically tired, and my grandpa.. OK, well maybe it was just to give me time to rest.

During this intermission I played two games of beer pong and finished a few side beers and as I grabbed the paddle to partake in game three I was feeling a little buzzed.

Doing my best John Daily impression, I jumped out to a quick 7-2 lead. Maybe the drinks helped.

After a few impressive rallies my lead swelled to 18-9. All of a sudden I realized Daily may have been on to something. Despite the fact that we were out of beer, I stayed buzzed and won the game.

Game four remained in my momentum as I cruised to a 21-16 victory. My grandpa’s eyes bled of defeat and I felt confident I could finally beat him. The taunts of him saying “how does it feel to lose to a 79-year-old man” ran through my head and I used that as motivation.

I felt like he was Michael Jordan circa 2000 and I was Kobe Bryant. After all these years finally it was my time.

But game five ended almost as quickly as it began. His power, poise and confidence led him to a brilliant 21-14 victory.

The title and the series was his, and he was ready to go again. However my grandma pried him away from the table.

And that was it. The man who cooked my turkey this year stuffed me at the ping pong table (Sorry, I had to get in one bad Thanksgiving Day PUN).

So he set the paddle down once again for another 365 days, or so he claims.

You can look at that as 365 days of waiting, but I look at it as 365 days of training.

But before we folded up the table and stashed it away I got a quick game against my aunt, who may or may not remember the result, but I scored a cheap victory.

I needed something to hold on to until that soon to be 80-year-old man utters those four words that start the Thanksgiving Day battle of 2009.

Youtube Live 2008!!! It was.. well.... mediocre

What Youtube did this week is like when television went to color, or like when you bought Sierra Nevada instead of Coors Light.

Youtube.com upgraded and went live.

For years it was known as a site to upload and watch old videos, but on Nov. 22 they did something that the rest of the Internet has done over and over again –  they put on a production that was unedited.

In case you haven’t been on there in a month or so they have been promoting the holy hell out of this event. They brought in the biggest Youtube stars and put together a good amount of mediocre crap.

Seriously, it was like the MTV Music Awards, but for poor people and Youtube-obsessed teenagers.

That’s not to say that their channel, www.youtube.com/live, isn’t put together well; or that there were no bright spots at all, but after watching all the highlights you get a feeling that unless you live on Youtube and watch every stars video then this was an event you should stay away from.

But if you love “hip” and “cool” new music like Soulja Boy and Katy Perry, then my God you should have gone.

This Youtube meeting thing isn’t new, however, the San Francisco-based event is a variation of what they did last year.

In 2007, they rented out a wharf and invited everyone from Youtube to come and film each other. So essentially you had people filming other people filming other people.

So maybe this is an upgrade?

Even Bo Burnham, who is an intelligent and talented comedy performer, barely got a few chuckles out of me with his song.

Seriously, look at the people who are part of the “headliner” list: “Juan Mann”, “Willl.I.Am”, there are so many plays on words that even Groucho didn’t show up because he was embarrassed.

Sure, Youtube probably spent a lot of money putting this together, but if you’re a casual fan that just wants to catch some clips then watch carefully, because if you don’t know who the “star” is the jokes will make no sense.

However, many of the critics and those who attended have given the show positive feedback and there are already talks of Youtube 2009, I’m shaking with excitement.

But a glitch that helped me realize why the show was so bland popped into my head a few hours after it was over.

Youtubers and the stars on Youtube take the time to write out skits and then perform them using several takes per scene.

So if you try and get all of these people together and attempt to pull off an amazing live show, well, the results are obvious.  The Youtubers there really do have good channels and most of them are entertaining but the comedy just wasn’t there, the bits were average at best and Katie Perry was the main star – go ahead and grade it for yourself but Youtube Live 2008 gets a “C-“

Honestly, I’m just bitter that I wasn’t invited.

Forgive me, but I'm feeling a little hot for words

If you know or are a hot chick then you need to jump on this video thing and you can make some good cash.

Seriously, think about it. Youtube is one of the hottest places in the entire world to spread whatever is on your mind to a lot of people.

Why not promote the hell out of a hot chick, give her a gimmick and cash a check?

Of course, this wasn’t all my idea. In fact, most of the credit goes to “Hotforwords”.

In case you don’t know, she’s a Youtube sensation that pretty much sits there and explains the origin and story behind words.

This is an amazing idea for a couple of reasons.

First of all, no one wants to learn about words, but if you bring a hot blonde and use the D.U.M.B.A.S.S misdirection (as explained in my first blog) then instantly you will have hits.

Now you have to get them hooked.

Why not make it interactive? What Hotforwords does is she allows video requests. So people get on camera and ask her about a certain word to define.

Google would seem like the obvious answer if you really wanted to know, but Google isn’t dressed in a silky nightgown or cleavage-popping tank tops.

The interaction with the viewers will bring more submissions and thus an endless supply of material to film.

So there is enough content for this gimmick to last through two more depressions. the hot girl is there. the organization and presentation is there.. Now you watch the plant grow.

She does break my cardinal rule, however, and asks people to subscribe to her in the beginning of each segment, but she’s hot so it’s OK!

Anyway, with everything there now it’s time to make money.

Well, after checking out the website I was actually pretty impressed.

The organization is well done as they have put all of her submissions in alphabetical order and have a lot of options to choose from… including the store.

The only thing she has for sale is a calendar, yes a calendar, 12 months of Hotforwords.

In fact, she doesn’t even expose her real name. On the cover it literally says HotForWords.

Here’s the reason I won’t buy it.

Her videos have a screen shot of her more naked than she actually is in the video. So every time you click you get fooled into seeing a girl with actual clothes on as opposed to the almost naked on you see in the thumbnails.

Well, here we have her calendar with her in only a bra (which is falling off) so one must deduct that HotForWords is in bathrobes in January and slacks in November.

Not only that it’s $14.95 plus shipping and handling.

But let’s think about it for a second. She has 139,000 subscribers. Out of those many subscribers at the minimum you’d have to think that 1,000 will actually by this product. That makes a total of $15,000.

Each calendar probably costs around $5 to make (max), which means they are taking home about $10,000.

It’s hard to know how many people are actually behind the production and upkeep of Hotforwords, but getting a couple grand in your pocket for putting out videos on Youtube isn’t a bad deal at all.

Not only that, but the Website is plastered with ads.

They have four static ads (mainly powered by Google) that pay out per click. Well again, with 130,000 subscribers and over 7 million channel views, you have to believe a good portion are venturing over to her page.

Not only that, you have to submit your questions from the page and not through Youtube (which would be easier). So they are directing traffic to the page trying to bring the hit count up which brings in more side revenue.

The way this whole production is put together is very impressive. The way they interact with the viewers and the way they promote their product. One of the few highlights left on Youtube, and no it’s not just because she’s hot.

I've been thinking of a good idea for a youtube series that could make us a lot of money, so if anyone is interested please e-mail me at youtube4real@hotmail.com.

Malabar: Grade: "A"

My water glass was always half full.

That was enough to keep me satisfied. However, that was just the beginning.

Meriam and the staff at Malabar took care of us and made us feel right at home in the restaurant full of older people and business men.

Usually servers tend to look at younger people as ignorant and bad tippers so they feel it necessary to just stereotype all of them and give all kids bad service.

But Meriam didn’t.

She made sure we were all doing well throughout our meal and besides the delay in dropping the bill everything was very timely.

Even then, as we were all sitting there trying to figure out who owes what she jumped in and asked if we’d like her to split the bill up individually.

This, too, isn’t seen too often. She knew exactly what everyone had and was very quick with the cashing out process.

Oh yeah, and the food was outstanding.

For those who don’t want to spend 15 dollars on an appetizer they have two good-sized pieces of French bread for under five dollars.

Their meals ranged from $9.99 to $28.50 and offer a wide selection of all different types of food. 

I had the mushroom swiss burger, which came with some of the best French fries I have ever had.

The burger was awesome, too. The mushrooms overflowed from the patty to the plate and the vegetable setup was done perfectly. Everything was fresh, and fresh is always good.

The only major problem seems to be the location it is put in. It is right off the freeway, which is a plus, but as you pass the side of it there is no entrance. So you have to go past a few fast food restaurants, take a right at the light, drive ¼ of a mile, turn right then navigate your way through the maze of entrances and exits to six other places.

It’s tucked away in the corner, which is good and bad. It’s good because you feel like you accomplished something in being able to find the place; and bad because you have to feel accomplished by being able to find the place.

Really though, walking in without a collared shirt or slacks you feel a little out of place. However, the staff treats you just like everyone else and the prices aren’t outrageous (not even for Dom perignon which was at a cool $175).

My portions were plenty, but it seemed that a few other dishes, like the Ahi, worried more about presentation than amount.

Other than that, the experience was phenomenal, and the overall grade for Malabar is definitely an “A”.

This place can be recommended to friends, even those who are poor, and is affordable to just about everyone.

And when I left, my water was still half full. 

Avril Lavigne: What is the deal with her and Youtube?

Before Youtube was Youtube, a girl came on the music scene and focused on epitomizing the rebel-like mentality that kids were feeling and she plucked those power chords ever so perfectly while doing so.

Yes, Avril Lavigne was a huge hit in the new millennium as she dealt mind-blowing songs like “Complicated” and “Sk8er Boi”. But for some reason the public didn’t like her much, hmm, weird.

She was called faux-punk and a wanna-be who is ruining music.

But the funniest part was, everyone loved to talk about how much they hated her but somehow everyone still knows the words to the radio hits.

Fast-forward five years.

Now the semi-annymous world of Youtube has taken the main stage and Avril is still holding on.

At over 106 million views her song “Girlfriend” holds the number one spot on most viewed videos ever.

In fact, a video, which simply has pictures from her wedding, has 10 million views.

Is Avril someone America just loves to hate or is she a dirty secret that people don’t want exposed?

Let’s investigate.

After searching “Avril Lavigne” her top 10 videos have totaled 265 million views. OK, so she’s popular.

The viewers are allowed to rate the video from one to five stars and with the mob-mentality it is easy to tell if people truly do like the video . Every one of her top 10 videos has either 4.5 or 5 stars.

OK, so she’s liked.

What about an insight on the community that’s doing the voting? There is no way to look at someone else’s video and see the age and sex of the people voting (which is a shame) so the only logical way would be random sampling.

For example, take Avril Lavigne’s “When You’re Gone”. It managed 34 million views and 73,000 comments.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bW2LTnzD-vE

It is way too time consuming to go through every comment so here is a snapshot of the comments.

Darkligher3491 has a pretty standard comment saying he/she adores the song. There is no added info on this persons channel to give away age or sex but the background is of Kelly Clarkson and says “Official Tour Merchandise Web Store”.

My guess is this person liked the image of Kelly as the background and copied it from the offcial site and put it on his/her own channel. Someone who does this tends to be in the range of 13-17. For the sake of avoiding stereotyping the sex will remain unknown.

Comment two talks about how a certain scene reminds them of their burying their grandmother. This person ends it with a sad emoticon and using grandmother twice in a five-word sentence.

Call me crazy but with a username like 13mymy13, the overuse of words, and an emoticon, all signs point to a 13 year old girl.

The third comment reminds me of someone who may have a pinky-twitching disorder because the shift button seems tO bE used a lOt.

This type of text is a dead giveaway. It’s either a 13-15 year old female or a cat that ran across the keyboard. According to her profile she is 15. I call her a she because the background is all pink and 90 percent of the time pink is associated with girls.

Finally, Aurras tells us how the video gave him/her goosebumps and the song is really powerful, OK, the sentence is put together decent but the context of Avril Lavigne being “really powerful” makes me think 16 or younger.

Her age isn’t revealed but again, the background is pink.

OK, so four random comments and the results look like this:

Person 1: Female?
Person 2: 13 year old female
Person 3: 13-15 year old female
Person 4: Female

Also, three out of these four are from Canada.. so is Avril.

Maybe it isn’t America that secretly loves her. Maybe it’s the adolescent youth up north that are running the numbers so ridiculously high. The only logical conclusion would be that the majority of her fan base won’t be able to legally drink until 2015.

The summary: Avril Lavigne has catchy songs that can either deal with the hardest of breakups or the excitement of new relationships. Her songs cover a wide array of topics.. er, relationship topics, that can really only be popular with those who can’t wait to go clothes shopping before school next summer.

Great, I got an answer but still have one question: Why is it that I still find myself singing “Complicated” in the car?

We Need Girlfriends: Yeah, it's better than anything on television

In an age where Two and a Half Men wins awards and the economy has dipped lower than McCain’s chances of winning the election, the world needs entertainment.

With out any doubt the first place to go is Youtube; more specifically a Youtube series.

To avoid any confusion a Youtube series is like a television series, only it’s on Youtube.

Good, now that we’re on the same page, check out We Need Girlfriends (if you haven’t already).

This series had an 11 episode run that followed three newly single 20-somethings living in New York. With the combination of great writing, acting and directing, this series had me instantly hooked.

The first few episodes are a bit iffy as the story tries to get established, but even after the first episode it’s hard to deny the addicting nature this series has.

The soundtrack isn’t too bad either.

The music is all local New York bands (I’m sure for legal purposes and local exposure) and has an awesome soundtrack that keeps up the tempo of the show.

The storylines are all solid and seem to come full circle as every character seems to grow throughout the episodes and the comedy, which constantly references Facebook and movies, is flawless.

In fact, this series was so good that CBS picked it up and plans to turn it into a series for its network.

I’m hoping you had the same reaction as me: “wtf”.

Good for CBS for opening their windows and realizing there is real talent on the internet and more specifically Youtube; and good for everyone involved on the We Need Girlfriends project for getting to this level.

But the chances of this show being pulled off by the network are slim to none.

First of all, many different sources say that the three original stars will be pulled and replaced.

Seth Kirschner, who plays Henry, has been involved in several other projects and they all seem to be good actors. They mesh perfectly together and provide that dynamic trio that covers all aspects of a human being.

If CBS thinks they can duplicate that by replacing something good then they can kiss any hopes of this series making it.
Not only that but the music obviously will be different. It will lose its local feel and its unique quality by providing music that a lot of people would never have been exposed to otherwise.

The only bright spot is that they signed on the writers of the show who will continue to write for the CBS series.

Maybe, just maybe, they can keep the good thing going but nothing would be sweeter than watching season two exclusively on Youtube.

However, getting the style of writing by CBS head honchos may seem to be a hard task and they won’t have the freedom to put whatever they want in the scripts.

Their talent is undeniable and if a rising producer had any guts, he needs to pick this crew up.

Everything is what made We Need Girlfriends an amazing series. It was everyone that brought the show together but bringing it to the TV screen may be like making “Joey” after “Friends”.

Keep everything that made the show what it is, if you don’t want to do that then don’t recreate the series. Simple as that.

How to get big on Youtube

The debates are finished. The issues are on the table. Now let’s get viral.

The Internet has offered an interesting twist in the saga of Presidential elections. Now we can dig up old facts, historic videos and new dirt – with a few lies in there as well.

More importantly, the smear campaigning and defamation to both candidates can now run rampant all over major Websites and the entire World Wide Web.

Propaganda can wear many faces. It can be comedic, serious, fearful or believe it or not.. complete lies. But as they say, that’s politics.

Youtube users have not failed to use the site as such, as thousands of videos are floating around attempting to defame the other candidate.  However one video personally made me laugh out loud and it wasn’t until the end that it hit me.

After watching many videos, this McCain one struck a nerve.

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Let me preface this by saying my political beliefs are not on the Republican side. Now let's proceed.

 This specific video posed as an interactive chain letter hoping to cause a ruckus among the Internet faithful, also known as E-faithful.

Instead of just text as seen in an e-mail or letter we saw visual evidence of the cross-talking of the presidential nominee. The video directed us through multiple cases in which Senator McCain seemed two-faced.

Now how to get this spread?

There’s only one solution: propaganda directing propaganda.

After the video ends it says: “It’s up to you to get the word out” as intense murder music plays in the background. And if this isn’t enough we see more text fade in:

“Send this to 10 people, and tell them to pass it on.” 

LOL. 

All of a sudden a feeling of “you’ve been had” fell over me. The Internet Chain Letter Video at it’s best.

There’s always been a strong belief in my group of friends that if a video has to ask you to pass it on or if you have to beg people to subscribe to you, then maybe your stuff just isn’t that good.

Devil’s advocate would say, well how else do you get it out there? But that’s a different argument in itself.

 

Maybe it’s the years of being told that chain letters fall in the same category as black-tar heroin, Rosie O’Donnell naked and a nuclear explosion – Stuff you never want to see in your life.

 But having this video tell me to tell other people and then to have those people tell more people seemed like begging.

 And to make things better the background is black and the text is blood red. Let’s see here, murder music, red text, begging… It’s one of those videos that will hit hard or miss hard. And the view count is…….

7,038,796.

It’s a political campaign ad that scares you into sending it to other people in the end (take notes if you plan on making it big on Youtube. That or see "Celebrities killed the internet star".)

In fact, this video comes from a user who is devoted on bringing John McCain down: All 302 videos.

He has over 24,000 subscribers and even has a background promoting his site.. And what do you know, it’s an interactive blog site jam-packed with liberal love.

And there you have it. Promote the crap out of smear ads, tell people what they need to do, get them to your Youtube channel which will get them to your website which will generate hits which will then generate revenue.

 Heh, maybe this chain video thing isn’t such a bad idea after all. Good thing I didn’t personally send this to 10 people like the stupid video told me to.

Wait a minute…