Friday, August 22, 2008

What bored little boys do with video cameras




We got one of these cool little Flip Video things. I admit I was a skeptic and wasn't very excited about getting it, but I tell ya - this thing gives new meaning to "plug and play." It is SO easy to use, even our 7 and 4 year old little boys can use it.



So... what DO bored little boys take videos of?


I sat down and watched the dozens of videos they took and noticed three recurring themes:

1. The boys like pretending they're secret agents, sneaking around and taking videos of Daddy with bed-head and Mommy's rear end. Sorry, not posting any of those videos, but they're darn funny to watch, especially with ES's sound effects, theme song humming, and orders to YB - "retreat! retreat!"

2. They have an obsession with the toilet. We have several videos like this:



3. They have an obsession with light switches and flicking them on and off.



In the longer videos of them sneaking around the house and recording LW and me at our groggy weekend morning finest (we're not morning people), you get combinations of all three of the above. ES will be running from recording LW in the kitchen through the hallway, and he'll stop to video the toilet before continuing around the dining room to the family room to record me in my chair with my bed head. Then he'll run upstairs and flick the lights on and off for a while. Pretty exciting, I know.

Anyway, with regard to the Flip Video... besides being extremely easy to take videos and play them on the little screen on the handheld unit, it's extremely easy to plug it into your computer's USB port and upload or edit the videos. There is software built into the handheld, and when you plug it into your USB port, it automatically installs the software. The software allows you to edit the videos and very easily upload them to any one of a number of video websites like YouTube.

2 comments:

Sagey said...

Yes, ours is orange. And don't you love those lovely Aloha Furniture Beds in the boys room? All the bedding went to VA except for a set of sheets and a fuzzy blanket. It is almost like camping here, so the boys are being creative in how the entertain themselves. ;-)

Jamie said...

ha ha ha... just those two videos had me cracking up, so i can only imagine how much you were laughing at the others. what a cool toy to get for them! i need to look into getting one for my nieces =)