Thursday, February 28, 2008

Ball State Recruitment!

What you're seeing here is my first attempt at doing a Sacha Baron Cohen style prank where I just go out and fuck with people. It turned out pretty funny, so check it out:




My biggest problem with getting people to watch this is naming it. Right now it's titled "Ball State Recruitment Video Prank", which is about as unappealing a title as a comedy video could ever have. I was thinking about "Cody fucks with strangers", but it doesn't really describe what happens in the video very accurately. Somebody leave a comment giving me an idea for a title if you get one, because I'm at a loss here.

This video was done partly as a sketch and partly as my entry into the Fuck Muncie contest. Everyone in my fraternity was randomly put into groups of three and charged with the task of finding some way to fuck with the city of Muncie, either by doing semi-illegal things to annoy and screw with people, or just go up to them and harass them. The latter was legal and I had this idea for a video a few weeks ago, so it seemed like the best route to take. The camera is being held by Shane, the breakout star of Smoke Stoppers, and the phone calls are coming from our friend Jim.

The second guy I talked to immediately figured out that the video was a joke. When he is looking off in the distance and smiling he is actually noticing that Jim is on the other side of the Atrium calling me, and while his reaction appears to be awkward bemusement, it's actually disbelief at the fact that we're trying to pull such a stupidly obvious prank on him. Still, it looks like a funny reaction on-camera, especially when I edit out him stopping the interview and saying, "That dude over there is the one who called you, right?"

Still, the other three interview subjects give some pretty priceless reactions. Kudos to the freshman that I interview at the beginning for getting the biggest laugh. The reactions from the girl and the short guy were pretty funny too. However, the best reaction I got was one that didn't show up in the sketch. Just off-camera there were two girls eating dinner who watched me in total horror and disgust for talking to my girlfriend like that. I guess my only issue with this video is that I could have gone a lot more over the top with what I yelled than I did. Still, I'm pleased with how it turned out, so enjoy.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Don't ever challenge me

Do not, I repeat, DO NOT challenge me to childish drinking games. I WILL put you to shame. All triumphantly awkward dancing is left intact in this video.






Do not fuck with me under any circumstance. I was playing one on three. You think being outnumbered like that will faze me? Think again, bitches!

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

One star? Oh hell no.

Whenever I post a new video onto Youtube, the first rating I always get is a big fat one star rating, the lowest possible rating a video can get. Within the first twenty views I've got a one star hole to work my way out of. And it happens every single time. And that first one star is always followed by mostly four or five star ratings. That means one of two things: either the first person who sees the sketch is always coincidentally the only person who hates it, or there is someone who hates me and always makes a point of starting me off with one star. The very first place I advertise my videos is in my AOL away message, so I've narrowed the culprit down to either a disgruntled subscriber or a disgruntled former friend who still religiously reads my away messages. Here's my shortlist of suspects:

Arktikphrost or Movietvlover: These people left their Youtube accounts logged in at the computer lab at school so I subscribed them to my videos. If one of them is the one that's doing this, then I completely deserve it. I shouldn't be fucking with other peoples' accounts, that's pretty uncool.

Rob ********: I didn't post the full name for legal reasons or whatever. Anyway, when I was a freshman I went on a couple dates with this girl, and this dude named Rob who was apparently in love with her adds me as a friend on facebook and started sending me strange messages on AOL. Things didn't work out with the girl, and I wrote an away message eluding to that fact. He sends me a message of condolences. I tend to complain about classes and things that happened over the course of the day in my away messages, and a couple months later he sends me a message saying that I'm a crybaby who whines all the time, that he hopes I catch a terminal disease and die, and then ended the message with the cryptic insult "you glass bitch". He had at least four AOL accounts that I know of, so there's likely a fifth or sixth that I don't know of and therefore haven't banned. For all I know he still religiously reads my away messages and waits for the newest sketch to hit with some one-star fury.

Harry Pagels: I've known my dad all my life and he seems like he'd never do something like that. The key word is seems. Remember that part in Total Recall when Quaid's taxi driver buddy turns on him? The whole movie you were like "That's a stand-up dude. He'd never fuck Quaid over. Never ever." Then he totally did. I've got my eye on you, dad. Consider yourself warned.

Roger Ebert's ghost: This is a no-brainer. Anonymous culprits are always the last person you'd expect. Roger Ebert is still alive and ghosts aren't real. The average person would never suspect someone like Roger Ebert's ghost. Unfortunately for this spectral fatty, I'm not an average person. Welcome to the list, asswipe.

You: Look at you, reading my blog. Sitting there learning how I think without telling me anything about yourself. You make the perfect enemy, and worst of all is you know it.

New Student! New Sketch!

This one is fucked up....




I had the idea for this one about nine months ago and didn't get on it until now. Something valuable that I learned from this sketch is that if you act really pissed off when somebody comes near the camera, they won't interfere with filming. It seems simple, but there you go. We barged into the photography classroom Sunday night to film this thing. Whenever somebody would walk in to do their work I would totally cop an attitude with them and they'd apologize and run out of frame. I intruded into their classroom where they were trying to get their work done so I could film a comedy sketch where I have a dildo on my head that'll probably get 600 views at the most and I had them apologizing to me. Something about expensive cameras just makes you look more important.

This one was very fun to make. While we waited for Steve, the guy who's sitting to the left of me, to bring us the key to the classroom, we played catch with the dildo right in the middle of the hallway. Then we got to throw ketchup all over the classroom. We cleaned up the mess but the room still totally reeks of the stuff anyway. Finally I got to run through the main hallway of the arts and journalism building screaming and covered in fake blood while Carter chased me with a bloody dildo. The janitor in the background was most definitely not informed of what was happening. The sketch as a whole is somewhat shoddily made what with obvious glaring continuity errors and some fucked up sound, but it's definitely the most fun we've had making one.

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Fun tricks to get more Youtube views #1:

I'm going to let you in on a dirty little secret: whenever somebody leaves their Youtube account logged in at one of my school's computer labs, I subscribe them to my videos.