…in any format. in case you didn’t catch that, i’ll say it again. dating sucks in any format. online dating or real-world dating, both fill me equally with trepidation.

i’m sorry it’s taken me a little long to get this post up here. it’s been up on youtube for a few days now and have even gotten some feedback.

a friend of mine from college suggested checking out okcupid.com. its another dating site, a free one, and where she met her husband.

free is good, however, before signing up, i looked at some reviews online, some comparisons between eharmony, match, and okcupid. as one might expect, all three have their pros and cons. according to most of the reviews i read, match is the best value for the money, with the qualifier that you’ll likely have to sift through large numbers of profiles to find one worth looking at more closely. this mirrors my experience with the site. eharmony seems to be good for those who are really serious about meeting someone, but allows for no interaction (you can’t even look at pictures or extended profiles) without a paid subscription, which would set me back about $60 a month. anyone want to pitch in to help? okcupid, according to my friend, is pretty good. however, because its free i’d likely have to sift through even larger piles of crap than match before maybe coming across someone promising. online reviews more or less say the same thing.

so, while i continue to contemplate how badly i want to be coupled (is it really worth $60 a month to me?) i might check out okcupid.

there are things about my personality and psyche, which i consciously left out of the video, that make dating an even steeper hill to climb than what i’ve already laid out. despite that part of me that wants to be coupled, there are other, potentially stronger, parts of me that simply have too much fear, doubt, and psychological damage to make dating anything more than an exercise in futility.

sorry, some things are just too embarrassing for the public forum of the internet…. you’ll just have to take my word for it. i hope you enjoy the video nonetheless.

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this is my first video recorded out and away from my bedroom and my house. i hadn’t planned to do it.

after a weekend of being lazy, i decided to go for a walk. i brought my iphone and earphones for music listening and had thought about recording a bit as i walked toward the back of palolo valley. it can be really pretty in the evening, or as the clouds are rolling over from the windward side. it was getting late in the day and i hadn’t gotten very far when i realized recording a sunset over waikiki would be a not-too-bad way to do my first “remote” video.

so, i hustled back to my house, grabbed the camera and mic rig, mini tripod and drove up to pu’uo kaimuki park. those of you who’ve been there before, know its got a pretty nice view of kaimuki and waikiki. when i got there, i found i wasn’t the only one. there were a few couples enjoying a late-afternoon picnic, some kids playing, and another guy looking to take some shots of the view.

after doing almost every video so far, i’ve learned something. something to make it better, hopefully, the next time around. what became abundantly clear while trying to sort out the shots, as well as later on while editing them, was that i need to do a better job of planning out the videos. i started out by shooting the 200 degree view, then did the sunset, then sat down to record myself. at the time, i thought i’d show the two other shots first, then record myself. however, i ended up, as you can see, showing you the view first, then myself, then the sunset.

if i’d put a little more thought into it, i would have realized at the time that this was the better way to do it and adjusted my self shot accordingly. i knew this was going to be a learning process.

and as i just finished uploading yesterday’s video, my bed time is fast approaching, and i’m already thinking about what i’ll be talking (and how to say it) for the next video….

oh, and by the way, you should take some time to check out dexter britain. i came across his music randomly while watching a video on facebook and think it’s great stuff.

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here’s my shortest video so far.

recorded late last night (or early this morning), i was too tired to be profound or very entertaining. sorry.

thanks to those of you who’ve subscribed, even if you weren’t credited in the video. youtube apparently allows people not to be listed when they subscribe to a channel. so even though i’m up to 12 subscribers (woohoo!), i can only see and therefore only thank those five.

if you’re one of those subscribers who i didn’t recognize, comment here, or change your youtube account settings and i’ll acknowledge you next time.

happy thursday (it’s almost friday!)

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i just uploaded another video, making it number three for the video blog.

i’m slowly getting better at the editing, though it takes much longer than i’d originally expected and for this one, i had to start over a couple times because i missed some things i thought should be axed.

anyway, in today’s video (even though it’s almost tomorrow) i show off some of my book collection that was propping up the camera and which have now been replaced with a proper mini-tripod….

a meeting with the governor, campaign staff, and office staff reminds me why i like the governor so much, despite my not always agreeing with him, and motivates me to migrate my energy to the ige campaign.

lastly, i talk about the hawaii people’s fund, a great progressive organization that funds smaller, grassroots non-profits. i’m proud to say i serve on the board of directors and encourage you all to donate. their motto is “change, not charity.” now, how great is that?

i had some problems with the camera’s auto focus this time, so i apologize for that. for the next video, i’m going to give the manual focus a try. oh, and look for an update on the smoking quit (hopefully this weekend)!

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