Christmas Sweet

I have offically run out of singles for these Friday posts, so, yeah. Today Mannheim Steamroller, tomorrow, Trans-Siberian Orchestra.

Christmas Sweet: God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen



Carol of the Bells



I just love that one. Especially the middle. Ding, dong, ding, dong...

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing



I like that one, too. I like a lot of the stuff Mannheim Steamroller does.

See you tomorrow.

“There's more, much more, to Christmas Than candlelight and cheer; It's the spirit of sweet friendship That brightens all year. It's thoughtfulness and kindness, It's hope reborn again, For peace, for understanding, And for goodwill to men!” - Unknown

Greatest Twelve Days of the Year

Here's a couple of Miscellaneous songs, and by Miscellaneous I mostly mean "Christmas Music not done by Mannheim Steamroller or Trans-Siberian Orchestra." Regardless, both of these songs are very fun.

Aly & Aj - Greatest Time of Year



The following is perhaps the most uncouth version of "12 Days of Christmas" ever made, but I love it. It's so much fun.

Relient K - 12 Days of Christmas



Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful. ~Norman Vincent Peale

Peppermint Winter

Owl City's songs tend be quite nonsensical, but very fun. I hope you all will enjoy this one just as much as I did.

Owl City - Peppermint Winter



I wish we could put up some of the Christmas spirit in jars and open a jar of it every month. ~Harlan Miller


Until tomorrow!

Deck the Halls for Christmas Eve

Let the Christmas music begin!

For this first post, we have the two quintessential Christmas bands, Mannheim Steamroller and the Trans-Siberian Orchestra (TSO).

Mannheim Steamroller - Deck the Halls



I love this next one, don't get me wrong, but it always confuses me. This may be the very song that got me into TSO in the first place. Or it may not be. I always thought the song that got my attention first was TSO's 'Carol of the Bells,' but maybe not. The problem is that the song you find when you search for "Carol of the Bells" by TSO sounds exactly like Christmas Eve.

Oh well. No matter what you call it, it still rocks. (Ignore the fact that the video calls this song 'Carol of the Bells.' That's not the name I'm using.)

Trans-Siberian Orchestra - Christmas Eve in Sarajevo 12/24



I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. ~Charles Dickens

So, Yeah (Misc. Collection of Everything)

-->> Yes, guess who just remembered that she had a blog and that she hasn't updated for over a month. and she missed Thanksgiving, too.

Well, I'm a lot late, but this video is a Thanksgiving tradition, and darn if I'll miss it this year just because I was lazy. I love this song any time of the year.

Petra - Thankful Heart



Yay Petra!

I put up the winter/Christmas banner today. It's supposed to be for Christmas, but it's more of a winter-type thing. I don't know if I'll change the colors of the blog again this year. Can't remember if I did it last year or not.

-->> In miscellaneous unrelated news, Obama went out the other day and said that it doesn't matter if America succeeds or not, his children will be okay no matter what happens.

Generally I do try and express myself without swearing but sometimes that can be pretty hard. Via Gateway Pundit, via everyone he got it from:

“Our kids are going to be fine,” Obama told supporters at a campaign event last night. “And I always tell Malia and Sasha, look, you guys, I don’t worry about you . . . they’re on a path that is going to be successful, even if the country as a whole is not successful. But that’s not our vision of America. I don’t want an America where my kids are living behind walls and gates, and can’t feel a part of a country that is giving everybody a shot.”

Hey Odummer: BITE ME!!! this country is going down in flames and all you can do is try and use your kids for political gain and reassure them that's it's okay 'cause Daddy's set for life now and he can take of you, even if the rest of the country is on the highway to hell. (Courtesy of Mr Hope-a-Dope.)

He says that's not his vision of America. I agree. His vision of this country is much, much worse.

-->> And last, but certainly not least, it is Christmas time, and I'm thinking: Christmas music!  i'm planning on a  series of posts containing Christmas music. We'll see how it goes. I was a little concerned at first as to whether or not I would have enough music, then I realized that between Mannheim Steamroller and Trans-Siberian Orchestra alone I have enough. Anyway, here's the first one, which is more of a winter kind of song, but that's okay. It's techno, too, so some people may not like it.

Klaypex - Chinter's Will




That's all for this Round.
Ciao!

How to Embed a YouTube Video in Blogger Post, In About That Many Steps

In Photos.

So I see one of my Friends needs help embedding a video onto her blog. Thusly, while I was working on my Halloween post the other night I took [too many] screenshots of the embedding process. Now I can write up this [hopefully] handy tutorial. For the record, I use Internet Explorer 8 when embedding videos. I don't know why it would matter if you use FireFox, but I use IE. All the pictures you see in this tutorial -yeah, that IE. (Sad, isn't it?)

First you have to find the video.You all don't get any pictures for this. Go YouTube and find a video. I'll wait here.

All done? Alright, good. Now, you should have picked the video and have it open so you can watch it on your screen. Now refer to the following (click to enlarge):



Now, you see down there I have circled in red a little button reading 'share.' Once you have selected your video, click this button.

Once you have clicked this button, you should have this little window pop open beneath it. I have circled the embed button. This is what you want to click next.

This expands another little window. The text highlighted in blue is the embed code that you will copy and paste into Blogger. But before you do that, check and make sure that the video is the size you want (I use 420x315 because that fits well into the post section of my blog). Also, you may want to prevent YouTube from offering related videos. This box is usually selected when you open the embed window, just click on it to uncheck it. If 420x315 is too large for your blog - or blog sidebar, as I had three video embedded in the sidebar of this very blog at one point, but that's a story for another time - then you can use the custom boxes to find a size that fits your blog. If you type a number into one of the boxes, YouTube automatically matches it to make sure the video still looks alright.

But anyway, you have your code. Right click, and hit copy. Then get back over to your blog.

You are going to need to have your new post/ edit post window set to 'Edit HTML.' As you can see, it is one of the tabs at the top of the page. I usually try and have it set like that before I'm ready to embed teh video.

Make sure you have all of the spacing sorted out, then right click and paste the embed code.

You should be able to see the newly embedded paste code.

If this is the only vidoe you want to post, then hit enter once or twice to move the typing bar away from the code, and then you can either keep typing in the Edit HTML page or you can set the thing back to 'Compose.' If you have more videos to post, than keep the page in 'Edit HTML and repeat the previous steps as needed.

Use the preview button before you publish the post (or close the YouTube videopage) to make sure that the size you choose for the video fits the blog. This isn't always possible with some videos, but it's always good to check.

And this is where I should post a video to prove that my steps work, but these are the same steps I used for my Halloween video post-a-palooza, so if the Halloween Post doesn't convince you that I know how to embed a YouTube video into my blog, I don't know what posting one here is gonna do.

Anyway, I help this was helpful. Good luck embedding!