Updates

Well it has been a long time since the website has been updated. I have been very busy with school and other things so now I can finally get things done.

Here are the numbers for the past few weeks.

Video views: 47,399

Channel views: 1,821

Subscribers: 27

Finally work can resume on our latest project. Expect it early next year.

Something Will Seriously Eventually Get Done Sometime Maybe

Ok. We do plan on doing something. And are working on a lot of micronation stuff. The Nationalist Union of the Federal Republics of the State of Wayne (NUOFROSOW). And this Thanksgiving there will be new content. Absolutely promise. Maybe. So anyway, how bout thems elections? No one really knows what happens from here. Still, Obama will probably only get one term, and even if McCain or anyone else had won this election, they would have only gotten one term. Here's why. The United States has so many problems facing it in the future besides the economic turndown, that everyone is expecting so much that can't be delivered. People are going to be in for a letdown when Obama can't get the money together to pay for his social programs, or anything else with a ten trillion dollar debt. And raising taxes on anyone can only help short term. The negative effects of taxes on small businesses (or any other size; why do you think Halliburton moved to Dubai?) is too big to support the economy. The only way to quickly fix the situation is to slash taxes, privatize social security, pull all troops out of the Middle East immediately, and begin shutting down the Fed. But a lot of that is a story for another time. Anyway, we'll eventually have new stuff.

Numbers

Here we go folks.

Video views are up to 43,390. Channel hits are up to 1,742. Subscribers are up to 25. Exciting, I know.

Hopefully by the end of this month we will have another movie out. We have been quite busy lately and I believe I can get back to work on some stuff in the coming weeks.

APPLY! APPLY! NAUGHW!

NUOFROSOW@GMAIL.COM

La pasportoj estas kompleta! Petu nun!

The passports are complete! Apply now! The application is below. Copy it, answer the questions, attach a picture in an email to NUOFROSOW@gmail.com. Then email it.

NATIONALIST UNION OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLICS OF THE STATE OF WAYNE PASSPORT APPLICATION

FULL NAME:

NATIONALITY:

SEX:

DATE OF BIRTH:

PLACE OF BIRTH:

ADDRESS:

PICTURE OF APPLICANT:

HAVE YOU EVER BEEN A MEMBER OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY?

WTF?

What is this? Because it isnt a presidential election. Its the same people saying the same thing about the same issues over and over and over again and expecting it to make us believe they will change the world. This sucks. It sucks. Who the hell got us into this situation? EVERYONE! Because every effing person has gotten so freaking complacent about everything that nothing will ever change. Past 150 years. Same parties. Same effing political parties. What a whole crap load a good they've done us. Why the hell aren't people getting mad and rioting and doing something that may actually change something? Because they're EFFING BLOGGING INSTEAD! Who the hell thought up blogging? Because its freaking ruined this country. Absofreakinglutely ruined this country. We're so complacent. Absolutely complacent. We want to encourage everyone to vote, but, LOOK AT THE CANDIDATES; THEY SUCK! Absosuckfreakinglutely. We should be boycotting voting is what we should be doing. Boycotting the vote. Because voting for the past hundred years sure has gotten us a whole BUNDLE of good stuff (i.e. the federal reserve, entrance in WWI, the great depression (thank the gov't: Smoot Hawley Tariff Act ), the Korean War, the Vietnam War, nixing of the gold standard, Iran Contra, Lebanon affair, Kosovo affair, Gulf War, Iraq War, list goes on forever). SO WHAT THE HELL? WHAT THE HELL HAVE WE GOTTEN FROM VOTING? SUCKINESS! Because no one is willing to stand up and protest. People are so complacent. Just juggling the government from one sucky party to another. It sucks. So help! Don't vote! Throw some rocks at someone! DO SOMETHING!

Numbers

Time for the bi-weekly view update.

Video views are up from 40,622 to 41,519, just 103 off of 1,000 views. Not too bad but we can do better. We are hoping Black Spider will help our daily views increase.

Channel views are up from 1,693 to 1,708 and increase of 15 over the past two weeks.

We are really happy that we got another movie up and may have another one, the one we planned, up by the end of the month. I just need to get working on it.

The Black Spider

Today we have released our latest movie, The Black Spider. Toby Wittle, a mannequin, lives out his normal day and wakes up the next day with a crazy idea. The idea proved to be fatal.

We made the entire movie today and we like the way it turned out. Check it out here.

This was not the video we had planned, that one is coming, but is very tedious.

So, About That...

Yeah, we really havent actually finished a new movie yet.  But we're getting really really really close.  It will definitely maybe possibly but might not be out by the end of this month.

Oh yeah, and more later on plans to start a micronation.

The return of Numbers

I know. It has been probably a month or two since I gave an update on our views. I decided a few weeks ago that I would wait for a special occasion to finally start up again. An occasion that I feel is special, has occurred. Let's look at the views.
Video views are up to 40,622. Channel views are up to 1,693. Subscribers are up to 23.
The occasion was that we broke the 40,000 total view mark. Exciting huh? The new subscribers is pretty cool too. Anyway, I hope everyone has a nice Labor Day.

I Aboslutely Swear

I Absolutely absolutely swear that new stuff is coming. Like actual movies in things. Yeah, our first in a long time. But it's coming. Absolutely absolutely absolutely we are going to have new stuff hopefully by the end of the month.

Some End of the Summer Reading

Probably everyone needs to read these.  It gives you a great idea of the cause of our current economic woes:

here

and here

Banned- Watch this video

http://reason.tv/video/show/61.html

It's a scary thought to think what's banned next.

Fun with Economics

In the past few months, there has been a lot of concern about the health of the economy, U.S. and world. And while it's not as bad as most news would make it seem (at least not right now), it's headed down for a really rough ride. Most people try to place the blame on obvious targets; GWB, his administration, Congress, oil speculators, oil execs, etc. The truth is, if one entity deserves the blame (as a note, there's always multiple causes), it's what I call the fourth and unregulated branch of government: the Federal Reserve. Before I get into detail about the problems of today, let's go back and analyze the causes of the Great Depression. There were several factors that led to the Depression; it was partly natural, as recession cycles are quite normal in correcting inequalities in supply and demand. The real issues are based in what exacerbated the problem. One of these issues is debt, due to cheap credit (sound familiar?). Another is great reduction in international trade due to the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, passed in 1930, which increased tariffs on over 20,000 imports. Even though this came after the initial crash, the unemployment rate of 7.8% in 1930 increased to 25.1% in 1933, and in retaliation to the act, countries around the world raised tariffs on goods, effectively crippling international trade (Yay for gov't regulation!). Even worse than the Tariff Act, though, was the policies of the Federal Reserve. After WWI, Great Britain attempted to briskly return to the gold standard. This lead to deflationary pressure, and the unemployment and price inflexibility lead to Britain asking the US to help. The Fed did so by allowing US currency to inflate. With US currency inflating, British currency could also inflate, as it could not do so on its own. And here we have the Great Depression. Yay gov't regulation. FDR then came along with the New Deal, which was extremely well intentioned, but in the end, not near as effective as hoped; the unemployment rate by 1938 was 19%, when in 1933 when the New Deal was started it was 25.1% (There was some good out of it, though. The FDIC, for example. Social security could be much more efficient if privatized, but that's a different blog post). What really got us out of the Depression was WWII. Now, my basic point behind the Great Depression flashback is that the Federal Reserve (and gov't regulation in general) really kinda sucks. Today, we're letting our economy go to waste because the Fed decided to have a short term fix by drastically cutting interest rates. That's not to say that gov't regulation isn't necessary in all situations (in a perfect world, it wouldn't; in a perfect world, I'd be anarcho-capitalist); it would currently be necessary to help regulate the really sucky mortgages and subrime loans, (though an educated public could take care of that problem). Anyway, back to my point, the Fed has mostly proven itself ineffective in fixing problems, though it seems to have a knack for exacerbating them. Now, don't put all blame on the Fed (though, again, they do deserve the most). The presidency has a played a part, also. Under Bush, we saw the largest expansion of the federal government since FDR (my sister calls Bush a totalitarian Democrat, his (and the neocons) policies and perversion of the Republican Party is why I no longer associate myself with that party). Also, his "stimulus package" was just a huge waste of taxpayer money (it only increased consumer spending for one month by one percent [it was only geared to people with income under $75k, truth is, the people most likely to spend it and therefore inject money back into the economy are those with higher incomes; not politically wise, but nonetheless truth]). Congress you can blame for supporting such legislation. You can also blame Congress for blocking drilling in ANWR and offshore. It doesn't matter that it'll take years to get the gas (we'll have alternatives by then), the impact on the psychology of the speculators is immediate. Today, when Bush lifted the ban on offshore drilling, oil closed down $6.45, the hugest drop in seventeen years, down to $138.74. Congress doesn't even have any legislation in the works to allow offshore drilling. For anyone who said that oil prices wouldn't drop immediately if we drilled elsewhere because it takes years to get it out of the ground, today officially destroyed their logic. So uh yeah, I feel like that hole thing was a huge digression. Summing up, the Fed is bad. If I remember anything else to post, I'll post it.

A Quick Thought on Children

So, I was thinking one day. We always associate children with innocence. But for what reason? What makes them innocent? Well, when I was at the McWane Center in Birmingham. There was this game there where you put this headband on and there was a little ball on the table under a slab of glass. The less you thought, the further it moved. There were screens that showed brain activity. Anyway, one of my friends was challenged by a girl who was approximately three to play. She won hands down, and the screen showed very minimal brain activity. My point is, do we associate children with innocence because they don't have the ability to think deeply, or have and deep thoughts at all? Does the inability to think make you innocent? Does a dark side naturally come with comprehension? Just a thought.

Numbers

After two more weeks we have come up with around 1,000 more views.

Our video views are up from 35,381 to 36,513, an increase of 1,132.

Our channel views are up from 1,534 to 1,566 an increase of 32.

The last two weeks were pretty good and we hope to see more great weeks in the future.

SproutCore

Two words have been in the lips of every major tech news site for the past week. Those words are Sprout and Core. Put them together and you get SproutCore, a javascript framework for easily creating rich internet applications. So what does all that mean? Well you could google it and find many blogs that have done an excellent job of explaining it but this is what it boils down to for me: Through command line and the use of special and clear classes one can build a web application in very few steps and use SproutCore's build tools to validate and build the code for deployment on your server. Now that probably didn't make much sense either. If you want to create a web application using the open language of Javascript (as opposed to flash or silverlight which requires a plug-in) then SproutCore makes this task easy. Apple has latched on to SproutCore and helped make it really great. The new Mobile Me service that will be offered next month was made using SproutCore and it sure looks great in the previews.

So how easy is this? Well I had to check it out, being constantly on the lookout for new ways to enrich the Mystic Teacup Project site, and see how it worked. So I started with the classic "Hello World" application tutorial. Of course I didn't follow the tutorial exactly. I replaced "World" with "There" wherever it appeared.

On OS X it requires the Terminal which scared me at first. After a few bumps in the Terminal road I had everything going well. The tags used were fairly self explanatory and as long as you know javascript that part should go smoothly as well. In the end you end up with a very sleek page with the "Hello World!" in big letters with a check box that says "Show Clock" above it. When checked the text will change from "Hello World!" to a clock showing the time in hh:mm:ss. It was easy and fast.

But I couldn't stop yet. I had to try somethings for myself to see if I could change things up a bit. I went through the tutorial again, but making some steps of my own. Instead of replacing things for example, I would add things and try to make it work. To my discouragement parts of it did and parts of it didn't. In the end I had failed at my task but there is major potential for those far better with javascript than I am.

See for yourself at SproutCore.com

Numbers

We had a great two weeks so less see how the numbers stack up.
Video views are up from 34,002 to 35,381 an increase of 1,379. I hope this trend of more and more views each week continues. I have no doubt that we will reach 50,000 total views by the two year anniversary of the site.
Channel views are up from 1,505 to 1,534 an increase of 29, another good week for our channel.
Genghis Khan continues to "lead the charge" taking almost 60% of the views we get, followed by A Separate Peace: Part 1 with 20%. The other videos come in at almost negligible percentages.

iPhone Ready

In preparation for the upcoming release of the iPhone's 2.0 firmware I have just completed and uploaded the iPhone compatible version of http://www.mysticteacupproject.com . By visiting the site on an iPhone or iPod Touch you will be redirected to a leaner and faster version of the site. It has almost all of the features of the standard version of the website including: Movies (which will open the youtube application on the phone or iPod), About Us, Contact information, Movie info ( most viewed videos and newest videos), a Thanks page, and of course a link to our blog. It looks good and works well so I hope you enjoy it. If, however you encounter any problems or bugs please contact us here. Enjoy!

Numbers!

So over the past two weeks we have done pretty well.
Video views are up from 32,853 to 34,002 an increase of 1149, a very good two weeks.
Channel views are up from 1,478 to 1,505 an increase of 27.
A Separate Peace Part 1 has moved into the top 5 for video views and will soon be a number 4 sometime in the next week. Thanks for all of your views.
The website has undergone many invisible changes that will increase the ease of use. A few changes have been made to the look of the site to make thins more centered and easier to read. Also on the long pages a "back to top" link has been made that takes you, well, back to the top of the page.
And so there you have it.

The Future

Yesterday I found myself looking at an advertisement for the futurist magazine. It was really interesting to read about all of these advancements in nanotechnology and robotics and everything else along those lines. It also talked about the huge possibilities of water shortages and food shortages due to drought and overpopulation. I began to think about what the future could be like. Actually, I've been doing that for awhile. It really is an interesting thought. I began to think about everything bad that could happen (and most very possibly will). Mass deaths due to famine and drought. The second cold war with Russia and China. Energy shortages, even. But then, I began to think about the good that could happen. On a side note (that will be related to my point), my old school has gone through a lot of changes the past few years. I don't go there anymore because it ends in eighth grade, but it still is important to me. At the end of my last year, my French teacher, whom I liked a lot, divorced her husband and moved to France to live with the widower of her best friend in France. It was really a shock, and it strangely deeply hurt me. They also decided to just do science fair every other year, and my favorite teacher their (my science teacher) was fired. This also deeply hurt me. I felt like the school was becoming more of a rich kid school and less of a smart kid school. Just yesterday, I went to their website to see what the school was up to. I read a message from the headmistress, talking about the past of Advent, and the future. She talked about how it was the first accredited, and the first integrated school in Jefferson County. It really did blaze some trails. And then she began to talk about a new $3 million initiative to update facilities, provide financial aid (it's not a cheap school), and support professional development (not actually sure what that means). It's the biggest overhaul of the school since 1990. She ended the message with this: "Congratulations, Advent, for a shining past; Godspeed for the future. Una S. Battles, Headmistress." And strangely it gave me hope for the future of the school. For all of the bad that seemed to have happened recently, there seemed to be a lot of bright days ahead for the school. Back to my original story, I began to apply this hope to the future of humanity, and realized that for all the bad, many good days can still lie ahead. Sure we may have energy problems and drought and famine and overcrowding, but so many new technologies being developed can fix many of these problems, like desalination plants, better techniques for growing crops, new energies (see windmills), and the much overlooked space program. Sure we will go through some rough times, but I think we'll come out on top, especially with the help of the space program. I wish the presidential candidates would talk about it more, but they just don't seem to. Even though I'm usually a very strong advocate of free markets, I like NASA, even if it is a government agency. It really has done a lot. And it plans a lot for the future, like a Lunar base and a manned trip to Mars. So back to yesterday me thinking, I began to imagine a human empire across the galaxy, maybe even across the universe. With bases on the Moon and especially Mars and other planets, we wouldn't have as many problems with overcrowding or food or water, because we could develop the ability to terraform and create those things on the planets we colonize. I think that's why I so much want to be an aerospace engineer. I think good things lie ahead. The road will be rough, and we may not get past 2012, but if we do, I truly believe the best for humanity is yet to come.

The Disappearing Weatherman

So there's this weatherman for Fox 6 in Birmingham, and for like half a year now he's been gone and no one seems to know where he went. The channel wouldn't say. My grandmother said he was going through chemo. No one really new. Fast forward to a few weeks ago, I went to the movies with my family to see Baby Mama. It was a reasonably good movie. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are funny people. So anyway, it's before the movie in the theater, and right beside me sits down that weatherman. I was too afraid to ask him about it, so I just sat there. This, though, wasn't the weird part. The weird part was that sitting by him was Andrea Lindenberg, a news anchor for NBC 13. I really wish I new what was going on there. One of the craziest nights ever. That picture up there is of the disappearing weatherman walking out of the theater. Not the best quality, but still pretty cool.

Windmills

Everyone has seen a windmill before. They are a free source of ultra clean energy. But windmills are not used on a large scale except for in the the western U.S.. Why is that? Well the excuse is that there just isn't enough wind. Well I say no.

I have always heard that tossing a penny off of the Empire State Building won't hit the ground. There are two reasons for this. 1) The penny will hit the roof of a lower floor of the building. 2) the strong updrafts of wind will throw the penny up (to a point) and will greatly slow the fall.
So based on this and knowing that winds are constantly battering the tall buildings of the world I came up with an idea. Have horizontal windmills that are attached to the sides of buildings. They would capture this wind almost constantly and the energy would be stored in small batteries on each floor or so. This power would run the lights and other electronic devices and when that energy is used up (which would require a week or so of no wind) the traditional power source would be used. Think of the applications of this in a city like Chicago where the wind is always blowing.

This idea was more reccent and even more far-fetched, but here it is.
With the advent of the hybrid car craze I was thinking of a way to use windmills or the same principle to power a car. Picture this: A car, normal looking on the outside except the front where the grill is sits what looks like a fan. The fan is connected to the battery and as the car drives 70mph down the road that fan is spinning wildly, constantly charging the battery. Of course a normal gas engine would be present just like in today's hybrids but would be barely used, majorly cutting gas use. Battery technology is not good enough for a battery of this size to the constantly drained and recharged but in the future I bet this could be a reality.

People don't look at wind energy as a viable solution but I think that is a BIG mistake. Coupling wind energy with other forms of alternative energy can have very profitable results. Even if people are not causing Global Warming and hurting the environment, nobody likes high gas prices and I am sure we could all do with a breath of clean air. So because of all of this I have made a page about it. I plan to expand it in the future but for now it is very simple. I have taken advantage of Safari 3.1's new Webkit technology to give some really nice special effects. Please note they will only work in Safari so we recommend you download the most recent version from Apple's website. (It is almost as much of a Safari feature showcase as it is about windmills haha.) Click here to visit.

So Anyway

Okay I promise to do some really substantive posts in the next few weeks. One about Al Gore and one about the disappearing weatherman. I just have some stuff to do. But they're coming.

Numbers

So another 2 weeks have passed and let's look at the results.
Video views are up to 32,853 an increase of 1,063 - doing great
Channel views are up to 1,478 an increase of 36 - best ever?
Genghis Khan is poised to jump to the next thousand mark of 13k. A Separate Peace: Part 1 is also very close to it's first 1,000 views.

Numbers

Well I know it has been like three weeks since there has been an update but I had a surprise commitment all last week. And so without further ado here come the numbers.
Video views are up to 31,790
Channel views are up to 1,442
There is some exciting new of the last few weeks. Romeo and Juliet in 3:25ish has past 1,000 views. Also Odysseus has broken the 2,000 view mark.
So there you have it the most recent views of the MTCP.

Numbers

Well another week has gone by and we have some new numbers.
Video views are up from 29,923 to 30,381, an increase of 458.
Channel views are up from 1,421 to 1,425, a whopping increase of 4.

As it turns out the website isn't as iphone friendly as I had thought. There is a bug in the coding and I am still looking for a fix. Hopefully within the next couple of weeks it will be working.

Proof, Solid Proof

Yep I have proof. Proof of what? Not Global Warming or WMDs in the Middle East. No. Something much more important. Proof that Apple doesn't steal from people with its iTunes Store. Today, after using iTunes for forever, My balance has reached $0.00. No money left over. No $0.36 or other strange number of cents that will never be useful. I have used every cent that I have given to Apple through the iTunes store. I firmly believe that is can be replicated by everyone. When I noticed this I checked to see how many purchases I had made. 401 exactly. Not all of them were songs but most of them were. So on your 401st purchase check you balance and see how much it is. For me I have exactly zero dollars and zero cents left over. So don't give up. You will get that 36 cents back someday, you just need to keep purchasing.

30,000

We have passed 30,000 total views today. This is a very exciting landmark. As of a few months ago we had around 20,000 video views and that was our 1 year anniversary. Obviously this year will be even better. Maybe we will end up with 60,000 by the next anniversary.

So Anyway, the Western World Almost Collapsed Last Sunday

I guess most of you have heard of what happened to Bear Stearns. They were working on a merger with J. P. Morgan, and their stock collapsed. A bunch of people were pissed off that the government bailed them out, but not homeowners. If the government hadn't bailed out Bear Stearns, it wouldn't have mattered. What people don't realize is that if Bear Stearns had collapsed, J. P. Morgan would have collapsed, and in a huge domino effect, all investment banks, the U.S. stock market, and eventually the Asian and European markets would have collapsed. We don't realize how close we are to the tipping point. Politicians for some reason seem to not want to talk about it. Here's something else for you. By 2017, social security will be insolvent. By 2018, so will Medicaid. While at one time for every senior there was 48 workers, soon it will be less than three per senior. The system is collapsing. Also, our U.S. dollar isn't backed up by anything. Nixon got rid of the gold standard in 1971. The history of all currencies not redeemable in gold and silver isn't good. All have collapsed. Don't think just because we're America it won't happen to us. We're next. So, instead of just talking about the collapsing dollar, I'm planning on buying about a thousand dollars worth of American Silver Eagles. .999 ounces of silver a coin. Maybe you should consider doing the same.

Numbers

Well I realize it has been about three weeks since I gave a numbers update. Despite the wait there are amazing numbers to show. Because it has been so long I won't calculate the change from last time so here it goes.
Video views are up to 29,923. We are so close to 30k. Boy that will be an amazing day.
Channel views are up to 1,421. I think the average per week is increasing.
Subscribers up to 20! Yes an increase of 2 over the past three weeks. That is really exciting.
I have some ideas for some movies I will be making in the future so those can only help more.

iPhone Friendly, Videos Update

Well the Mystic Teacup Project website is now (hopefully) very iPhone friendly. We love the iPhone and I had been planning to make a site for it for a long time. With updates to Dashcode it was like 10 steps (because I added some stuff) and could have been three. Now if you visit www.mysticteacupproject.com on your iPhone or iPod Touch you will be redirected to a special page. It is essentially an RSS feed from the blog. It operates just like a native application. There are three links near the top of the page. The second two SHOULD launch the Youtube app on the iPhone and play a video. I have no idea if that works yet, but according to what I have read it will work just fine.


Today I also cleaned off our Youtube account a bit. I removed around 5 movies from the channel after analyzing view growths and content quality. Don't fear though. These videos are not lost to the vaults just yet. Sometime soon they will be returning as Mysticteacupproject.com exclusives. They will be in a higher quality format and better than ever.

Website News!!

Well if you were to click this link -> link (http://www.mysticteacupproject.com) then you would see a whole new website from what you are used to. The new interface is cleaner and easier to look at. Some of the extraneous links have been removed and other special features have been added. The logo will be remade soon and will fit centered on the page. If you are using the latest version of Safari, which we highly recommend, then clicking on the text under the logo will give you a surprise and maybe a fright. Clicking the red info bar that is at the bottom of every page will do the same thing. The latest version of Safari can be downloaded here. If you don't have Safari I guess you will be missing out on the coolness.

A little warning: The site now has more images and may take a bit longer to load. The images, however, are what make it look so good. Another thing is that I haven't viewed the site on Internet Explorer, so I don't know how it looks. A helpful tip is to avoid IE altogether.

If you find any problems please contact us. Thanks, the MTCP Team.

Site Under Construction

The site is currently under construction and will be newly outfitted with new CSS and a new look. Through the work I have done the old site now is a pain to look at and I used to admire its look. Haha I can't wait to have the new site up and cooking.

Happy Easter

Well happy Easter from the MTCP. I hope everyone is enjoying spring and warmer days to come. Perhaps in the following weeks there will be something new for everyone from us.

Conservatism Is Absolutely Not What You Think

So just recently, William F. Buckley, whom many consider to be the father of modern Conservatism, died. But true Conservatism, what he represented, is not what most people think of when they hear Conservative. Most people today think of interventionism, preemptive war (i.e. Iraq War), stricter drug laws, and "morals" (or a kind of perverted definition of it) such as the Federal Marriage Amendment. Well, William F. Buckley is much different. He represents real true Conservatism, which the over zealous religious right has totally pushed out of the Republican party. William F. Buckley was against the Iraq War. He supported the legalization of marijuana. He was against the Federal Marriage Amendment. The religious right has hijacked the Republican Party. So, this is my idea. We need a new political party based on real Conservatism, libertarianism, and a little bit of anarcho-capitalism. Let's combine the Libertarian Party, the Republican Liberty Caucus, the Jefferson Republican Party, some of the Blue Dog Democrats, some of the Reform Party, and the Marijuana Party. Let's form a real force of Libertarianism in America. Even though Ron Paul (whom I still extremely support and would like for him to head this new party) thinks that we can take back the Republican Party, I think it might be too late. We're gonna have to form our own. Let's do it for Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. Let's do it for William F. Buckley. Let's get back to real Conservatism, which in truth, is nothing more than the most driving boot-straps philosophy of them all: libertarianism.
www.lp.org
www.ronpaul2008.com

Numberz

Well over the past two weekz we have done pretty well. Our video viewz went up from 27,514 to 28,458 almost 1,000 viewz over the past two weekz. Our channel viewz went from 1,403 to 1,415 a pitiful loss compared to last weekz channel viewz increase. I don't know why that happened but we must have had a down week. Our most viewed video is up to 10,280 viewz and obviously makez up over a third of our total viewz. Hopefully within the next two weekz we will have another video into the 1,000z and another video breaking 2,000. Exciting stuff.

Snow, Global Warming, New Video, Site Updates

It is now clear. After the second snow this year in Alabama, Global Warming just can't be true. Alabama has already made it of the drought and ponds and creeks are full. There is standing water EVERYWHERE. Well even if Global Warming isn't real there are some things I feel like I need to say. Even if the world isn't warming up like we thought, that doesn't mean we shouldn't help the environment. It is not a lie or ruse that we will run out of fossil fuels, we will. To create an efficient renewable resource is killing two birds with one stone. Increasing the time we have on this earth by decreasing carbon emissions (Which if they aren't causing problems now, they will in the future.), and keeping the electricity on for many more centuries to come.
Yes the climate is definately changing and we need to change the ways we live if we want to go out in our yards and look up to a blue sky.

On a lighter note it did snow last night, and I made a little snowman named "Mr. Snowman."
He is the subject of a short video I made called "Mr. Snowman." You can check that out at either here or here(youtube).

The site has been refreshed a bit. The sidebar with newest videos as well as the news on the main page is up to date. The main page has been trimmed to only include news from 2008 to help make the page shorter and not require so much scrolling.

Ten Thousand!

Today, Genghis Khan reached 10,000 views! This is our first video with a view count with five digits. Yeah, that's pretty cool.

Numbers

Well I missed the Numbers update yesterday so here it is today. Our video views went up to 27,514 an view increase of 894 from the week before. This is better than the usual 600 per week. Our channel views went up to 1,403 an increase of 45 from last week. The biggest news of the week is that our video The Meal has past 1k views. This is our fourth video to pass 1,000 views.
Obviously we have a new banner for the blog. There are some banner surprises coming up for the approaching holidays so look out for those.

A new project.

I am starting a new project that will be only me for the most part. It is called "I Suck At Guitar Hero" and I do. There is a new blog for it, isuckatguitarhero.blogspot.com, and there will also be a Youtube channel dedicated to my terribleness with the fake guitar. Until the channel is up the blog will be your main source for daily reassurance of yourself. If seeing me fail as bad as I do doesn't make you feel good then I can't really help you in any other way. There may eventually be a page dedicated to this on the mysticteacupproject website. Again this is not a project by the entire MTCP but an offshoot that will tap into the mother tree for support.

Milkshakes

Well everyone loves milkshakes. At least I know I do. But there is one thing that really gets me. You know that point when you are drinking it where no more milkshake comes up the straw? I am not talking about when you are done but when the cup is about 1/3 full. It is like there are little caverns forming in the milkshake and you have to stir the milkshare up just to be able to continue your drinking pleasure. You have to continue this until you are done and that is really annoying. Well I feel like I am to the point in my life like when you get 2/3 through your delicious milkshake. Like I have caverns deep inside of me and I kinda have to stir my insides aroud just be able to cope. Actually not really that just seemed like a deep little ending to my milkshake experience.

Numbers 2-10-08

Well I missed last weeks due to computer troubles so this will look a little skewed.
Our total video views have reached 26,620 views. Channel views has gone up to 1358.
You can go back and check the last "Numbers" post to see how we did. I don't have enough time to do that for you. Some minor site fixes were made but no major changes have occurred.

And There Goes Another One

So, as most people know, Mitt Romney has dropped out of the race now, and I think people will be surprised at how big an impact this will make, just like John Edwards dropping out of the Democratic race did. I think everyone needs to go read his goodbye speech. It's actually really good. But anyway, him dropping out is either going to put more support behind Huckabee, bringing him neck and neck with McCain, or just totally deenergize the conservative part of the Republican party. This could possibly cause some vicious splintering in the Republican side. But on the Democratic side, it's probably gonna get even worse. Because Hillary and Obama are about neck and neck right now, there's a good chance Obama will pull it out just barely by getting delegates in the upcoming Democratic caucuses. Oh yay! Socialism in the White House!. But anyway, in the Democratic convention, most polls show that Hillary's got the super delegates, and she actually has a chance of getting the Florida delegates validated. If this happens and Obama is ahead before it does, it's definitely gonna mean all out war at the Democratic convention. I mean the like party splintering into two and some people dying kind of war. But still, it doesn't look good for either Democratic nominee. All polls show Hillary losing by a large margin to McCain, and most polls show Obama losing just barely to McCain. This margin would probably become bigger as people realize that Obama doesn't know a thing about foreign policy.
Anyway, what does all of this mean to Ron Paul? Well, he now has 42 delegates secured. Of course, he can't win with that, but if he ran for third party and it was a Hillary versus McCain election, he could garner a lot of support. At the very least, he would get a chance to serve as anyone's treasury secretary. God we need him as our treasury secretary. We need to get value back into the dollar. But either way, even if he just goes back to being a representative from the 6th District of Texas, his message of Freedom and Constitutionalism will never die.

RP08

RAMMER JAMMER YELLOWHAMMER!

For those who don't know, this past Wednesday was National Signing Day, where all of the most important recruits in college football signed a Letter of Intent for the college they wanted to play football for. Well, recruiting was already looking good for Alabama, but after Wednesday, in two years I don't think anyone is gonna stop us. Even though we had a 7-6 season, we had the number one recruiting class in the nation! People in the North usually don't understand the importance of college football, but down here, it means EVERYTHING. At least to those of us who are actually Southern. Anyway, with players like Julio Jones and Star Jackson, ROLL FREAKING TIDE!!!

Sometimes, You Have to Look Twice

Okay, so yesterday (as in Monday, the 28th), when I was packing up my books at my locker and getting ready to leave school, I turned my head to the left.  Then, I looked back at my locker.  Then turned my head back and stared.  It took my a while to process it, but what I saw was my principal, Mrs. Baker, in the middle of the hallway, just about two or three yards away from me, talking to Tommy Tuberville.  They were just standing in the middle of the hallway talking.  In front of all of the kids leaving school.  How weird is that?  For those of you who don't know, Tommy Tuberville is the head coach of Auburn University football, so in this state, he's more important than the governor.  Sometimes, you just have to look twice.

Site Update

There has been a site update today. I made a new banner for the site which looks really cool. It is kinda Web 2.0 and futuristic looking. It is on all of the skins and looks really good. So check that out. Also I noticed a strange little thing in Safari. The "Minimalist" skin is defunct. I don't know what is making this happen because it works fine in Firefox. I have no idea about Internet Sucksplorer. I actually don't know how any of the site looks in Internet Explorer so try to use Firefox for the best or at least expected results. There is a link to a Firefox download on the home page.

The Impossible

I am sure that most of you have heard the paradox: Snow in Alabama. Well we have too. Every other year or so there is a wild prediction, 50% chance of snow. And pretty much every year since the blizzard of 1993 there hasn't been any snow to account for. The weather men and women sure like playing tricks on us don't they? Well this year seems to be a little different. Two days ago they were predicting snow again and it was an 80% chance. So that night at around 9:30 when it is still 45 degrees we went to bed knowing that the weather man was crazy. Our belief was confirmed the next morning to wake up to no snow and only 38 degrees outside. So we began our day and then around 9:30 AM the unthinkable happened. Little white flakes of ice were falling from the sky. It was snowing. Really it wasn't very exciting. About an hour later it stopped and there was a light dusting all over the ground. So we kinda played around in it for awhile and had some fun. Believe it or not there is still some snow hanging around today. The most amazing thing about the snow is that is was still around 38 degrees when it snowed which is not optimum temperature. I guess the moral of the story is that is really can snow in Alabama (just not very much).

Updates and Numbers 1-20-08

This was a pretty good week. Video views went up from 24,447 to 25,111, a 664 view increase. Over the past few weeks it seems we are getting around 640 views per week which is almost 100 views per day. Channel views went up to 1,341. For some reason our subscriber number did not increase... COME ON PEOPLE!! Well that is the breakdown for the past week. Now for the site updates. All of the pages have been set to display the same thing in the side columns to help with continuity. Expect some update to the about us page soon.

Censorship by Fox News (Who woulda guessed...)

Watch how Fox News totally ignores the fact that Ron Paul is
in between second and third in the Nevada Caucus during this 
clip.  The bottom of the screen shows the results in at that
time. Keep in mind that he finished in 2nd in Nevada.

WHY THE HELL CAN'T ANYONE SEE THE WRITING ON THE DANG WALL?!!?

It amazes me how no one seems to pay attention any more to the political scene. Just pick a candidate without even knowing much about them. Ignore all the freaking censorship on the airwaves. Why can't people see where this goes?
OK, first, we have a president who has basically doubled the size of government (Patriot Act, anyone? OK, what about No Child Left Behind?). We're also involved in a war that doesn't even really have a purpose. What the HELL does Iraq have to do with 9/11?!?! (The answer is nothing. We though it did, but once we learned it didn't, we just keep on pushin' on anyway for absolutely no reason at all) Plus, we're running up a budget deficit like no one has ever seen before!!! Come on, people! The Real I.D. program? Hello? You're gonna keep track of us with our driver's licenses through a microchip? Not only are you invading privacy, but you're forcing states to use a National Driver's license (What about the Tenth Amendment?)!!
Second, we have a field of presidential candidates who aren't worth two cents (except for the censored one, I'll get to that later)

On the Democratic side, we first have Hillary, who, with HillaryCare, wants to own the health of your child. Plus, all of her other ideas she's put forth sound very 1984... (Read her book (Large TV's in public places showing you how to raise a child?!? WTF??!?? (I hear big brother calling...)))
And then there's Obama, who with three years of D.C. experience (3 YEARS? AND WAS ONLY IN THE ILLINOIS SENATE FROM 1997-2005?!? HOW THE HELL IS HE QUALIFIED? (AND HAVE YOU EVER HEARD HIM SPEAK ABOUT FOREIGN POLICY?? I DON'T EVEN THINK HE KNOWS WHAT FOREIGN POLICY IS!!!)) is in no way qualified. And in the end, he is severely a socialist. Let's look at his tax plan. First of all, the only thing you'll see on his website about it is his series of tax credits for the middle class, which, is an admirable plan. Here's the catch: Instead of just decreasing taxes and not raise any, he's going to raise taxes on the rich. Now, while that might not sound bad, look at the facts. The group that injects the most money into the economy, and really keeps the wheels on it, is the wealthy. Plus, Reagan more than proved the theory of trickle-down economics. He changed the face of our country through it. When he cut taxes on the rich, the rich spent more, more money went down to the lower classes, and in the end, everyone had more money. This still goes on today in parts of our country. In Florida, stone masons are getting the ability to buy $80,ooo cars, because the rich commissioned them to build stone houses, and payed them a lot of money for it. Trickle-down works! Why doesn't Obama realize that? OK, Obama on education. He wants to (taken directly from his website) "Expand early childhood education, Improve our schools, and Produce more math and science graduates." Now, this sounds great, but over its whole life, the Department of Education has NEVER helped school districts. No matter what you do or say you want to do, the DoE is a waste of taxpayer's money that has done nothing but create standardized tests that happen to show nothing of if our schools are successful or not because they custom tailor the tests to each state depending on how dumb or smart it is. Anyway, expanding mandatory schooling to the K level is very much dictatorial and an invasion. For children that young, it should be the parent's decision. I don't know why Obama doesn't actually think of choices and the taxpayer. (Remember that any government programs dealing with school have ended badly and in stagnation (NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND!!!!!!! HELLOOOOOO!!! WHY DOESN'T ANYONE SEE THAT OBAMA'S DANG PLAN IS NOTHING BUT AN EXPANSION OF IT!!!!!!!!!!!) Don't even get me started on his Healthcare plan. That'd take a book. I'm sorry, I've spent too much time on this extremely socialist but extremely charismatic 1 1/2 term senator who doesn't understand foreign policy or the economy.

Oh, and as an important side note, I think it's important to note that both Hillary and Obama have said that they will not promise to withdraw all troops from Iraq by 2013.

OK, time for the big government soon to be practically fascist-socialist Republicans. First, there's Mister "Oh look at my hair because I don't want you to realize that I'm a worse panderer than John Kerry". All this man can do (Mitt Romney) is pander pander pander. No one can really know what he believes, because he changes it all the time!! What the hell? Plus, he fully supports the Vietnam Take II (The Iraq War).
And my least favorite, Mister "When I'm president we're gonna have a theocracy". How anyone could really listen to Huckabee and support him is beyond me. He supports the Federal Marriage Amendment, changes his position on illegal immigration based on what crowd he's pandering to, and while he says he supports the Fair Tax, his record in Arkansas would like to disagree. Plus, he gives no credence to science or evolution, and probably wants to expel everyone from this country who isn't a freaking Christian.
And there's Mister "9/11 Tourette's" who all he ever talks about is his handling of New York city on 9/11. I'll tell you something you probably didn't know. He wasn't the one who handled New York so well. He had practically nothing to do with it. It was his police chief who did everything for him. Plus, he supports gun control (Bye, bye, 2nd Amendment!).
And of course there's McCain and Thompson, but the first is too crazy and old and the second is too lazy, so I won't waste time on them.

And then, there's Ron Paul. The only candidate out of everyone in the field who really wants to make the National Big Brother Government smaller. The only one who will pull us out of Vietnam Take II. Wants to dismantle the CIA, the Fed, the DoE, the Department of Fear (aka Homeland Security) I could go on. The only one out of the Congressional-bound presidential candidates who has rejected the Congressional Pension Program. An OBGYN who has personally paid for all of the visits of his patients on Medicaid, out of the knowledge of how broken the system is. Never voted to raise taxes. Never voted for the Iraq War. Never voted for the Patriot Act. The only candidate who actually follows The Constitution. I could keep on going on, or you could go to www.RonPaul2008.com.

So that's my rant, I'll probably do more later.

Looks like censorship is at it again.

Numbers 1-13-08

This weeks views are as follows.
Video views: 24,447 up from 23,831 which was a 616 view increase. This is good because we generally receive 1,000 views every two weeks.
Channel views: 1,297 up from 1,256.
Subscribers (yes we got another one): 18!! up from 17. Subscribers are rare and we love them. Yay for subscribers. Actually why don't you make a Youtube account and subscribe today?

Numbers 1-6-08

Well the holiday rush seems to have ceased and the New Year is here to stay. So how did we do last week? Well we did amazingly well. Views went up to 23,831, a 1,441 view increase from last week. This was mostly due to our New Years video from LAST YEAR. It got over 900 views on its own. Channel views went up to 1,256. So this was probably our best week ever, we hope to see more like this.

More Updates!

Today the site was updated quite a bit. A new skin was added. It is called minimalist and is recommended for people with slow internet. But even if your internet is 128 mb/s it is still worth looking at. Also the most viewed videos and newest videos has been updated and is now current and will probably stay that way for awhile. And finally the Others page has some real content. The Dashboard Widgets have been added and are available for download by simply clicking the links. And also on the Others page a link to the Mystic Teacup Photography page has been put up. So I hope everyone will go and see these major changes and I hope everyone has a great '08.