Lately I’ve been noticing a very annoying problem with Youtube videos. Whenever I go to watch one, 90% of the time I get an error message saying it’s no longer available. This even happens if I’m trying to watch the video on the video’s page, which doesn’t make sense at all. I’ve learned that other people have been having the same issue.

I tried to research the problem and from what I can find, it has to do with embedding. Apparently, once a video has been embedded on other websites (and consequently viewed many more times) the video times out and doesn’t want to load.

So far the only solution I know of is to just keep refreshing the page. If you’re watching the video embedded on a site, go to the video’s Youtube URL and try there (again refreshing if you need to). Eventually the video will load, because if the video’s URL is active then the video is available.

I know many people quit visiting the Smash Brothers Dojo once Brawl actually came out, but I still check it most mornings. It has become such a routine thing for me, just like checking e-mail, that I gotta say I’ll miss Mr. Sakurai’s daily posts and cheerful, sometimes awkward humor. Even so, since Brawl hit the shelves in Japan, the updates haven’t been as intertesting or entertaining as they were five months ago. Today, however, I noticed something a bit strange. The update is another screenshot collection - evidently you’re able to send him screenshots you take in the game. Either that, or these are just collected from the Smash Service submission feature. Anyway, if you scroll all the way down you’ll find this note:

Thanks for all of your submissions!

Please understand that snapshots depicting inappropriate content or containing inappropriate comments will not be eligible for selection.

To this point, I’ve received a great number of screenshots that focus on peeking at the undergarments of certain Brawl combatants. So let me just say it again—shots like these will never be posted to the Dojo or sent out to users via the Smash Service.

Can’t say I’m surprised this has been happening, but I did have a laugh at the fact that he had to make this statement. But then I started looking a little more around the images. For whatever reason, Sakurai decided to separate photos taken by Americans and Japanese and then give each side a link to the others. I clicked to view the Japanese gallery and browsed and then I found this on the bottom of page 3:

I honestly can’t tell if this is just another joke or if it was honestly missed. I have a hard time believing that a man in his position in his type of career would actually be in charge of maintaining the site all by himself. It’s heartwarming to imagine the Dojo as being entirely his own blog, but to assume he does all of the web design, file maintenance, and translations (into five different languages!) himself is a bit farfetched. At any rate, I have saved the above image and I’m prepared to upload it and edit this post in the event that it gets discovered by somebody in charge and is taken down.

Dojo updates will be done on the 14th, which is Monday. It will almost reach its one-year birthday. Although I would imagine perhaps it already has, if you take in the period of time when all we got was a countdown to JAPAN TIME.

That’s Delete Your Myspace Day

I got an e-mail from Simon Owens from Bloggasm with an update on International Delete Your Myspace Day:

Hey, I saw that you linked to my International Delete Your Myspace Account Day post earlier. Well, starting at midnight the celebration begins. I put up a brand new post in recognition to the event. It explains step by step how to delete an account:

http://bloggasm.com/international-delete-your-myspace-account-
day-is-here

Have fun and happy deletion.

–Simon

So what are you waiting for? Get going!

A note: I don’t even have a Myspace account. I never have and probably never will. But I still urge everybody to torch theirs promptly. With each Myspace account that is deleted, the Internet breathes a new gasp of life.