My Cool Stuff Page

Intro

Outside of my main hobbies, here are some of the things that I enjoy that you may enjoy too, if you give them a chance!

YouTube

The discovery source of the coolest things. Let me start this page with YouTube, since almost everything on this page was discovered from there!

From silly to interesting. Although YouTube launched in late 2005 and I joined in 2008, I didn’t take it seriously for my first five years, since it rightly had a reputation for mostly hosting only silly videos. But as their algorithm improved, and I did the occasional search for certain videos, something weird started to happen - it started recommending a decent percent of videos that I found very interesting, despite my never having searched for those topics directly!

Opened up a whole new world. Those great new video recommendations represented at least 20% of everything the algorithm fed me including new topics like:

• 🤸🏻 top talent acts
• 🥋 up-and-coming mixed martial artists
• 🦸🏼‍♂️ Hot Toys figure reviews
• 🎹 viral music sensations
  • 🧑🏽‍🎤 surprising new indie singers
  • 🕺🏽 exciting dance groups
  • 🎤 impressive acappella groups
• 🎷 NPR Tiny Desk concerts
• 🐒 exotic animals rescued and living with humans
• 👴🏼 retirement gurus
• 🏀 Houston Rockets insiders

Expanded my world of hobbies. And I also benefited from expanding my hobbies with channels like:

• 🤖 robot reviewers
• 🧠 AI reviewers
• 🦄 CG animation shorts
• 🛴 rideables of all types
• 🧱 LEGO city builders
• 🚁 drone reviewers
• 📱 the latest tech innovations

My personal news source. By 2015, I realized that there was a multitude of quality content creators who, in many cases, produced superior quality to the over-produced mainstream media. I was able to find independent, informed, detail-oriented, ethical news channels that did not necessarily break any news stories, but rather dissected them from all critical angles far better than the mainstream news channels. These became my primary news sources, and because of this, I am on YouTube at least an hour a day for news and anything else it throws at me! 🤪

Rideables

Not too fast, not too slow. When I was a young kid, my Dad would put me on his bike and ride me down big hills in the Bronx. I remember the wind in my hair and the exhilaration of the speed! While I now realize that this was not very safe, I discovered that I could replicate the enjoyment with modern, safer ways - my Segway Mini Pro and my Segway Electric Scooter both let me ride up to 15mph in my low-traffic neighborhood with relative safety.

Top Talent Shows

Never really watched these shows. On network television, I never bothered to watch shows like American Idol, America's Got Talent, and the The Voice. But when friends would tell me to check out a certain singer, comedian, or magician that appeared on one of these shows, I would search for the clip in YouTube. Which in turn, led YouTube to start feeding me talent clips, and then I got hooked on watching the incredible talent like:

	Preacher Lawson	Hilarious, physical stand-up comedian!
	Terry Fator	Flawless, innovative ventriloquist!
	Grace VanderWaal	Impressive, very young singer/songwriter!
	Shin Lim	Smooth, amazing magician!

And eventually when the clips were in sync with the current season, I would often follow my favorite people competing in the live shows on network TV!

Also, after watching so many clips, I did realize that a bit of the stories and reactions were scripted! 🙁 However, they were always based on a true story, and that never stopped me from appreciating great talent!

Viral Music Sensations

Discovering hidden gems. Mostly discovered from top talent show clips, but also just from my YouTube feed, I started following these viral music sensations, because they really impressed and thrilled me:

Child Prodigies
	Angelina Jordan	Soulful winner as a child, and even better from teen to young adult!
	Taj Farrant	Shredding so impressively since before he was ten, he was soon playing alongside legend Carlos Santana!
	The Warning	From three little Mexican girls doing classic rock covers on YouTube to performing to full stadiums worldwide as the new face of rock!
	The Graystones	You won't believe how perfect the classic rock covers are from a bunch of middle school friends!
	J8KE	Flawless rock guitarist also in middle school who impressed so much that he got to play in front of a crowd of 30,000!
	Rhys John Stygal	Could this be the reincarnation of the legend Stevie Ray Vaughan at just 15 years old?!
YouTube Superstars
	VoicePlay	Spectacular acapella singers, innovative arrangements, and often in cosplay to top it off!
	Ghetto Funk	A dazzling collective of hip-hop dancers that blow me away with their moves on every video of a classic cover that they put out!
	Postmodern Jukebox	Scott Bradlee and an ensemble of top musical talent reimagine modern songs in different older jazzy-type styles!
	Harry Mack	Mind-blowingly creative, super-fast-thinking, freestyle rapper with an awesome positive vibe!
	Tony Succar	Ingenious, dedicated, and the only one with the talent, drive, and creativity to get the sole license to reimagine Michael Jackson's song catalog, and then expertly rearrange it in Salsa form!
	Mimi Succar	Her son Tony knew her great potential, and got her out of local retirement to have her take on the world and even win Grammys with him!
	El Estepario Siberiano	Spectacular skill and unmatched drum acrobatics, adding a new flare to classics!

MMA

Long-time UFC fan. One of my best friends and I followed the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) all the way back in its inception with the legend Royce Gracie, and before MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) got regulated! Before seeing it, we thought that a heavyweight fighter who specialized in Boxing could win in seconds against a skinny Jiu Jitsu artist - and boy, were we wrong! We quickly learned that, between the main striking disciplines (Boxing, Kickboxing, and Muay Thai) and the main grappling disciplines (Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Greco-Roman Wrestling), grappling was often more effective. We appreciated the great strategy of both disciplines, and also enjoyed the powerful battles, while realizing that the resulting violence and blood was not for everyone.

Up-and-coming fighters. I watched the UFC off-and-on through the years, and more recently have relied on YouTube videos to keep me up-to-date with the most interesting fighters (not all UFC yet) who in 2025 are:

CG Animation

My CG story. As noted elsewhere on the site, I have been fascinated with animation, since I was a young kid. I have watched hundreds of animated movies and series. And, out of all the animation forms (i.e., traditional, stop-motion, CG or computer generated, etc.), CG animation (like Pixar's content) is my favorite, because it feels the most real (especially with its 3D appearance) - like robots, it amazes me how this form can take inanimate objects and make them feel alive!

Collecting animation. There are many movies and TV series which I have collected especially for their awesome animation (whether they are fully or partially animated). At one point, I just had to collect all the cool animation that was out there, so I ended up scouring the web for video files with cool animation in the form of animated shorts (mostly from indie artists), video game cinematics, and TV commercials. And I ended up collecting hundreds of them, making them accessible from my media server.

Contemplated giving it a try. Over the years, I have spent some time with designing and animating CG characters using software like Poser, Blender, and Unity. And, I have contemplated for some time now to possibly design a group of CG characters, design a CG scene or two, create some music, and then animate it all into a CG short.

My CG Corner website. In 2010, based on my love for CG animation, I created a site dedicated to it at cgcorner.com. At the time, this site was unique, since it had more details about more CG works than any other site I knew of. And I provided lots of cool features, including my reviews, topical thoughts, image walls, lightboxes, randomized short recommendations, powerful search functionality, views across key categories, etc. I tried to promote it in various animations circles (animation lovers and animators), but it never gained much traction in the 9 years I maintained it. However, there were a number of people that sent me nice positive feedback regarding the site 😀.

My CG FAQ. In an homage to my previous site, check out my page with my thoughts on computer animation (CG) movies, series, and shorts!

Cirque du Soleil

Took a chance, and then was hooked! We were not sure what to expect when we decided to try Cirque du Soleil years ago. But, to our surprise, we were so blown away by the spectacular mix of music, costumes, and acrobatics, that we have been hooked ever since! It is not the same as seeing acrobatic acts on top talent shows - the live music, the stage designs, the comedy, and the extremely dangerous live stunts sweep you off your feet and take you into a fantastical world!