vlog brothers

I myself always have trouble striking a balance between things that are worth my time and things that I get obsessed with for a moment and they are very interesting, but then their presence in my life is not really necessary, but still hangs out and takes up mental space. The Internet is horrible for exacerbating this problem, as there are an infinite number of interesting things out there that are instantly assessable and yet still the same number of hours in the day.

My Google Reader reflects this state perfectly. I currently have 38 subscriptions to blogs divided into nine folders and I currently have 126 unread items. In ideal life, I would read every single Leonard Pitts, column as well as keep up with the super awesome Multnomah County Library blogs and read all of the Portland-centered posts of the Portland-centered blogs I follow as well as all the tiny house blogs and all my friend's blogs. But in reality? I make it a priority to read the friend blogs and flip through some of the others when I have time to kill. Google seems to understand this, as I think it only keeps the last month or so of blog posts in the Reader before it stops linking to them. At first I didn't like that, but now I find it comforting as there is no way to keep up with all my online interests without giving up too much of my "away from the internet" time.

All this is to say that I try not to have too many things I follow with any regularity. However, I am posting this to heartily recommend that everyone follow the Vlog Brothers. My friend Sara, who seems to follow many, many more things than I do online, sent me one of their video blogs back in October. It was so smart and witty that I had to find out more. They publish videos three times a week. Their videos are less than four minutes, creative, and funny. Like every other Nerd Fighter, I love them and I think you will too. This last week has been great:

Hank starts out the week by talking about 5 Conspiracy Theories. Hank is the more spastic of the two, I think. Of the two, I would marry John, but would be happy to have Hank as my brother-in-law.


Then John comes back on Wednesday with Top Six Conjoined Twins, inspired by a very large zit on his head. This is also the John Green, author of the YA books Looking for Alaska and An Abundance of Katherines.


On Friday Hank comes back with Top 5 Actual Conspiracies:


Here is the video blog before the first one I every watched (the first one I ever watched makes more sense when you've already seen this one)


And the first one I ever saw:


Also, if you need a workout, you could do the Fitness for Nerds, which is making me laugh so hard right now I can't type. And I'm just listening.


At any rate, if you, general public, are feeling grumpy and blue or just need some smart talk, I recommend some viewing of Vlog brothers videos