What Is This Thing?

I know what you're thinking -- another dang blog of random content.  What is this, 2004?  Did you forget your LiveJournal password?  Are you advertising on Friendster?  So unnecessary!

And I'd agree, if I wasn't, well, me.  (Besides, TRANSFORMERS 4 wasn't necessary either, and millions of people still cared about that.)   You see, I love the world of oddball media, and I've tried to make a pastime of writing about those little corners of cultural history that I've come across to the best of my ability, most prominently on Daily Grindhouse, a fine site I still contribute to.  But recently, I've started getting burnt out on contributing -- I had plenty of ideas of things to write, but due to a variety of circumstances, neither the time nor the energy to actually bang the things out on paper.  I'm not a freelance writer -- I have nothing but respect (and envy) to those who are, but I can't really take the financial risks in going that route at this point in my life.

But I love to tell people about neat stuff.  One of my greatest pleasures in life is showing friends nifty bits of video oddities that I've discovered, and I've often made evenings of showing random things that I just happen to like.  And if I dare say so, I'm pretty good at liking stuff.  Because I like a lot of stuff.

Hence, this little corner of the internet.  Inspired by the likes of Dangerous Minds and Boing-Boing, I wanted to do my own little contribution to the world of "Here is something interesting."  Long ago, there were a few blogs I followed that did the same sort of thing – like "No Fat Clips" or “Bedazzled” -  but they seem to have fallen by the wayside.  "Watch This Thing" is a home for whatever random bit of video ephemera I happen to enjoy, and the fact that I can schedule post releases means that I can set this up in advance without stressing out about not having added anything in a while.  And Blogger’s interface basically means that I can have it as stripped-down as possible, so the sole intention of every post, the embedded video, is easily featured and the site is easy to navigate without having to get all complicated and such.

What will be added?  Well, the plan is for every entry to be as simple as possible -- a video link to something to watch, and a reason that it's worth watching.  Think of this blog as the internet equivalent of shows like “Night Flight” from the days when cable television was in its anarchic infancy, and they’d basically just show whatever happened to come their way.   It could be old or new, or something that made the social media rounds five years ago that I think deserves another look, in the form of a short film, a cartoon, a music video, a commercial, or just some random thing.  Any thing, basically.  As long as it's worth watching.

So here, watch this thing.