Happy Fifth Anniversary First YouTube Video

Yesterday was the fifth anniversary of the first video ever uploaded to YouTube. If you're expecting something monumental or visionary or anything other than boring as hell, you're going to be disappointed. The video consists merely of am 18-second clip of Jawed Karim, the co-founder of YouTube at...are you ready for it?....At...the San Diego zoo. That's right. The zoo. Not any sort of behind the scenes tour at the zoo (whatever that would even consist of) or anything like that. Nope. Just the zoo. The elephants to be exact.

OK, it's not JUST the elephants. Because that would be silly...or something. No, Jawed (is that like Jared with a lisp?) gives us commentary on the elephants. 18 seconds of pachyderm commentary. How exciting. And groundbreaking. But not much else. And actually, I was lying about the exciting part.

"All right. So, here we are, in front of the elephants. And the cool thing about these guys is that they have really, really, really long, uh...trunks. And that's...that's cool. And that's pretty much all there is to say."

That's pretty much all there is to say? That's a little bit more than I would have expected there would have been to say. They're freaking elephants. What did you expect there to be to say about them? Big ears. Long trunks. Impressive tusks. Back to you.

New iPhone 3GS + Video: New York 5 Train

I'm usually not a technological first adopter, whether it's hardware or software (except in peculiar cases, like Gifbuilder some years ago), but I did sign on for the original first-generation iPhone in the fall of 2007, after several fond years of using my RAZR phone with inconsistent Verizon Wireless service, and despite a vow from the mid-1990s that I wouldn't be using AT&T services again if I could help it. But I couldn't: our monopolistic capitalist system affords service carriers exclusive rights, so with the iPhone came AT&T.

I love Apple's products. I love(d) the phone. I love(d) it even more after the iPhone App store debuted. I didn't and don't love the service, which is prone to disappearing ("No Service") in various portions of the 3rd City, such as the university's parking lot, Sheridan Road as it curves from Evanston into Chicago, near Humboldt Park, on Lake Shore Drive at various points before you reach Michigan Avenue, etc. It also flickers in ghostly fashion in Jersey City near Jersey Street, not far from the old, iconic Colgate sign, which makes me wonder if that relic is radioactive, or if something else is breaking the signal.

No rants today, though, because as of Friday I will be continuing on with this same carrier, unless Congress finds a spine and breaks the service carrier monopoly policies, for two more years. I ordered and got the new iPhone 3G S. Almost as soon as I read about it online, I coveted one. The primary reasons were the improved speed, the possibility of better and more consistent phone connections when I'm in Chicago, and, above all, the video camera. The video camera! As J's Theater readers know, I am a terrible photographer but inveterate photomane. I love snapping pictures. I especially love snapping digital pictures (though I will not ever get rid of our 35 mm camera.) And I really enjoy taking video clips. My RAZR did not have one, and the first generation and even original 3G didn't either. So now instead of regularly carrying 2 (or even 3) cameras, as I'm wont to do, I will only have to carry 1, which also happens to be a phone, a DJ, a library, a clock and stopwatch, a news aggregator, a musical instrument, a computer, a....

Here's my second iPhone 3G S video, from last Friday, on the 5 train. I groaned when these artistes boarded the car, because they were following another charmer who claimed to have served in Iraq, but their playing was a rousing accompaniment up to 42nd Street.