We’ve made it to December! That means 2021 is in the home stretch. It also means that the holidays are here and Christmas is just around the corner. As kids, it can’t come soon enough. As adults, it always seems to come faster than we expect.
I’ve already made my love for the holidays known, so I won’t belabor that. Instead, I’d like to offer something to improve the holiday ambience.
For a couple years now, I’ve grown quite fond of using YouTube Ambience videos to play in the background while I work. Whether I’m editing a YouTube video for my channel or writing a sexy story, I often find it helpful to play something in the background.
Certain music can be distracting, but other sounds and imagery can be very relaxing. During certain times of the year, I like to have videos of thunderstorms and rain falling in the background. During others, I like to have videos of blizzards and wind. It really does depend on the mood I’m in.
For this time of year, though, I go heavy on the holiday themes. Thankfully, there’s no shortage of YouTube ambience videos that offer amazing holiday imagery and soothing background noise. Some even play soft holiday themes. They both relax me and get me into the Christmas spirit.
Regardless of the work you do or what you do to de-stress, I encourage that you try playing these videos in the background. They’ll help you relax and embolden your Christmas spirit. Enjoy!
I hope everyone had a productive Black Friday shopping experience. At the very least, it should’ve helped burn off some of those lingering Thanksgiving calories. I think my experience was successful. I’ve got pretty much everything I need now. I can safely say my Christmas shopping for 2021 is done. Now, I can spend the rest of December enjoying the holiday festivities.
However, just finishing your shopping isn’t the end of it. You still have to wrap these presents. When you buy as many gifts as I do, that can easily take up an entire afternoon. It can be tedious for some, but I honestly enjoy it. I love wrapping presents as much as I love giving them.
Some take the easy way. They just put the gifts in bags or put bows on the boxes. I think that’s just lazy and not in the spirit of the season. I’m of the opinion that the way you present a gift is a reflection of the love and dedication you have to those you love. For my family, I definitely want to go the extra mile.
That said, wrapping presents can be difficult. I used to be pretty sloppy at it, even though I enjoyed it. Thankfully, there are helpful tools you can buy to make it easier. Also, there are YouTube videos out there that offer helpful tips that make the whole process so much easier. You may even feel foolish when you see that there are ways to make your gift wrapping look downright professional.
Here is one video that I found to be incredibly helpful from the channel, But First, Coffee.
Also, there’s this helpful video from HGTV Handmade that offers some similar advice. It also has an extra tip for wrapping presents that are oddly shaped and don’t easily fit in boxes, which happens a lot when you shop for kids.
I hope these help the gift-wrapping process. If nothing else, I hope it makes it less frustrating. Gift wrapping can be tedious for some, but none-the-less rewarding. The care you put into presenting a gift helps reflect how much heart you put into it. For the ones you love, that just makes the holidays all the more special.
The following is a video from my YouTube channel, Jack’s World. It’s just a brief message of thanks for all those who have helped my channel grow so much over the past year-and-a-half, as well as a personal story to help get everyone in the Thanksgiving spirit. Enjoy!
Every now and then, some news comes along that is so incredible and so exciting that words simply fail to convey the joy I feel. I could spend hours on end on multiple blog posts trying to do justice to those feelings and it would still fall short.
Just a couple days ago, some news came about with Disney’s annual Disney Plus Day that just filled my heart and soul with omega level joy. I’m still buzzing from it, so I’ll just say it outright.
Seriously, this is the kind of news you have to shake your head several times to be sure that it’s real. I’ve since lost track of how many times I’ve pinched myself or slapped my own face, on the off-chance that this is a dream. I’m now convinced that this is the real deal. The same X-Men cartoon that got me into X-Men and comics, in general, is coming back in all it’s 90s glory.
Now, rest assured I will be following this story. Before I wrote this, I began work on a script for a video on my YouTube channel. I have every intention of making that video a priority. It should cover the full breadth of my reaction, as well as my hopes and dreams for this series.
However, even before I could fully process my excitement, some assholes and whiny grifters began making content of their own. I won’t give their names or link to their content, but they’re the same assholes who whine about everything being “political” or “woke” or just plain “Too different/diverse for my liking.”
First off, fuck these people. Fuck them to the end of the multiverse.
Second, the very fact they’re whining about X-Men being “political” is definitive proof that they don’t know shit about X-Men or why this show was so groundbreaking. Thankfully, I’m not the only one who noticed that. On Twitter, stuff like this began popping up the day after the announcement.
Now, make no mistake. This sort of thing does nothing to temper my joy and excitement for this announcement. However, I’m already expecting asshole grifters like this to whine as loudly as the internet will allow, harping on everything they deem too ”political” for their liking.
They’ve done that with every franchise for the past six years and I don’t expect them to stop. Grifters will never stop, so long as there’s a grift to be maintained.
For that reason, I want to make one statement to these assholes and anyone who might take them seriously. Brace yourself because this might be a distressing revelation for some of you. It’s simply this.
X-Men was ALWAYS political.
I’ll give you a moment to pick your jaw up off the floor, but it’s true. Take it from someone who has been following X-Men since Clinton Administration. As a franchise, a concept, and a narrative, it was always political to begin with.
It’s not about some handsome square-jawed demigod coming down to Earth and saving the day. It’s about people born different, using their extraordinary powers to find their place in a world that hates and fears them. It was always about minorities and their struggles. It was always about civil rights and social issues.
That’s not just my opinion. That’s exactly what Stan Lee and the creators of the original series have stated outright. It’s not exactly a secret, nor is it subtle. Hell, there are multiple episodes of the original show that belabor and explore that. It’s pretty overt, as it should be. After all, that’s what X-Men has always been about.
Now, I don’t expect this revelation to stop asshole grifters from doing plenty of grifting. I know the second someone in this show says something about social justice, racism, bigotry, or anything else that might offend you’re typical racist asshole, grifters are going to melt with the force of a trillion snowflakes. It’ll be infuriating and pathetic, but it will happen.
Never-the-less, I will NOT let that stop me from getting excited about this show, nor will I let it undermine everything I love about X-Men. This show is coming back in all its 90s glory and I, for one, am eager to celebrate!
Stay tuned for a more comprehensive reaction on my YouTube channel. In the meantime, let’s all just take a moment to appreciate this moment and the catchy opening theme that we’ll be humming until 2023.
The following is a video from my YouTube channel, Jack’s World. This video is my spoiler-filled review of Marvel Studios’ “Eternals.” I’m well-aware that this movie was quite divisive among fans and critics, but I never let that sort of thing keep me from appreciating a movie, nor should anyone else. This is just my opinion of this very bold, very different kind of superhero movie. Enjoy!
The following is a video from my YouTube channel, Jack’s World. It’s a new entry into my ongoing Thought Experiments playlist and it explores the limits of human competence over capability. I hope it sparks larger thoughts and more discussions. Enjoy!
Hope everyone has their costumes ready and their candy bowls filled. Tomorrow is Halloween! For some, there are already plenty of activities for today and tonight. There are spooky Halloween parties to attend and horror movie marathons to watch. I certainly have some plans of my own. After last year, I want to make the most out of Halloween.
So, in that spirit and in an effort to get everyone’s spine tingling in all the right ways, I’d like to share some scary stories. However, these aren’t just your typical campfire stories. These stories come courtesy of r/AskReddit, one of my favorite subs to browse. There are plenty of stories and discussions on that sub that are funny, gross, and sexy. My personal favorite, however, are the ones with a spooky twist.
People have their share of scary life experiences. Some are more fanciful than others, but a few are truly disturbing. Even if you’re not a believer in the paranormal, they still strike a chord, especially around this time of year. Now, that’s not to say you should take every story at face value. People do lie on the internet or exaggerate the truth. That’s something we should always keep in mind when reading stories on the internet, especially on a site like Reddit.
That doesn’t make the stories any less engaging. In some cases, it might even make them scarier. So, I found a couple of videos from a new Reddit-based channel I discovered, Reddit Aliens. This channel specializes in the spookier side of Reddit and knows how to pick some of the best scary stories from the sub. So, for those looking for a good jump scare before the Halloween festivities, I hope this helps. Enjoy!
Here’s another one purporting to contain scary true stories.
The following is a video from my YouTube channel, Jack’s World. It is another entry in my ever-growing Jack’s Comic Gems playlist. This time, I highlight a gem from the lands of Latveria with Fantastic Four: Books of Doom. Enjoy!
Halloween is less than a week away. By now, I suspect many he already consumed their fair share of horror and Halloween-centric content. I’ve even recommended some and it’s not too late to enjoy it.
However, at the heart of every Halloween celebration is horror. This is the time of year when we actively seek out the kinds of stories that will scare us. Even if you’re not a horror fan, this is the one time of year where you make an exception. You dare to test just how much you can fear you can take.
To that end, I’d like to share something that has only recently become one of my favorite internet phenomenon. It’s called a CreepyPasta. Rest assured, it has nothing to do with pasta. It’s just internet slang for a type of horror-centric legend that circulates on the internet. Think of them as scary campfire stories that you share online.
Some of these stories are just generic horror stories, but some can be legitimately scary. The infamous character, Slender Man, gained much of his backstory through CreepyPastas. There’s also a subreddit called No Sleep from which many CreepyPastas emerge. Some of those go onto become videos voiced by those with extra-creepy voices, such as MrCreepyPasta.
A lot of this is stuff that I was aware of to some extent, but it’s only recently that I’ve really started exploring the world of CreepyPastas. I’m even considering making one that I can put on my YouTube channel, Jack’s World. For now, though, and in keeping with the spirit of Halloween, I just wanted to introduce this world to others who might not be aware of it.
Also, to those same people a taste of the kind of horrors that CreepyPastas can offer, I’d like to share one of the most famous CreepyPastas of all time, the Russian Sleep Experiment. Please note that if you’re about to go to bed, you may want to save this for the morning. It will likely scare you in ways you never expected. Enjoy!
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