another sam chan: the student blogger

We have a really special post today, with our first guest ever on anothersamchan.com, Mati Ma from Vancouver’s very own One Arm Bear! We talk about the band, Twitter (@anothersamchan, @onearmbear), the weather, American history, football, and get really deep, like diving board deep. We’re also giving away their debut CD, Blurred as well as NCAA Football 2009 for PS3 (in honor of Superbowl Weekend). So make sure you watch the whole show and get in on it! We realize its a bit long, but time flies when you’re having fun, and we sure did (have fun, not make time fly). Check it out and leave your entries in the comments section, or on twitter, facebook, email, and the rest of the social media round table. We’ll put anyone’s who has the correct answers in a draw and pick from there. The contest will go until February 10th, 2009. The questions, as promised, are below.

Battle of the Sexes Questions: One Arm Bear Blurred CD:
1.Vodka, Triple Sec, Cranberry Juice and Lime make what trendy cocktail?

2. Finish this ad slogan: “Maybe she’s born with it, _______”

3. Who won four MTV Music Awards for his/her pop hit ‘Livin’ la Vida Loca’?

NCAA Football 2009 (PS3):

1. What basketball star fought Arnold Schwarzenegger in Conan the Destroyer?

2. ‘Bonita’, ‘koi’ and ‘plaice’ are types of what?

3. What dot-gobbling icon became an electronic arcade game sensation in the 1980s? Remember to enter all three answers for a chance to win and leave your email so we can contact you.

If you’re interested in more of One Arm Bear’s songs, there’s a couple of them up on their virb, and remember to get tickets for SHOCKWAVE. We’ll see you there.

ps – go pittsburgh!

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It’s been well over a month since I did my first Video Blog, and I’ve decided to make some reflections. If any student wants a pointer to do better, here’s a huge tip I’ve learned in my 16+ years of school: teachers, professors, and T.A’s love reflection. Just like employees love asking their interviewees what they think their weaknesses are, teachers love knowing what you think you did wrong and what you can do to improve. Any educators out there concur?

Regardless, here’s a couple of things I noticed after watching it a few times:

Actually: I lost count after 20 but I think it was actually on-screen jitters. I don’t actually say ‘actually’ that much in real life. Actually, I barely say it at all. In blog and in real life. Absolutely came in at a distant second for most annoying words used in the video.

Compression City: At a ridiculous 400mb and 4 hours of upload time, the ‘quality’ was definitely not worth it. I filmed with a Sony T9 digital camera with the highest quality. I noticed no such quality benefits. Next time, I’m going to stick to the low quality and go for a quick upload so that I can actually get some sleep.

I’ve Got a Cramp Voice: Apparently my voice is actually lower in real life according to some, but I guess my own ears are out of wack. Besides having a ridiculously low tone, I also noticed that I sounded like I was having a cramp or constipated the entire video, what with my slurring and use of tones.

Overall though, I was satisfied with the way it turned out in one shot, and will be doing some more video work in the near future. You’ll have to keep checking my Tweet to see when though. Any recommendations on editing programs and video recorders? I’ve been looking at the Flip Mino but I’m not ready to splurge out 200 + a trip down to the states to get VGA quality.

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Those who were following my late night tweeting last night were given a heads up. I had been talking about cleaning my room, and lots of people wanted to see if I really did spend 3 days on it, so here we are! Apparently the fine version on my camera uses up 400mb for a 5 minute video which preceded a 5+hour upload on vimeo I thought I’d start off the busy month of October with something totally different. It’s not like video blogs are new by any means, but hey – its new for me. So enjoy, and give me a comment or a tweet if you liked it, or help me out and tell me why I should stick to text.

PS – The camera adds 10 pounds.

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