We've said it before, but in light of recent developments it seems prudent to mention it again. At Strutta, we respect and protect your privacy.

Not just our privacy policy but also our game rules protect you as a member of Strutta.com. A quick glance through a few Strutta games and you may quickly notice that there is a distinct lack of copyrighted material on the site. That is because Strutta is a competition site where players upload their own videos (and keep the rights to those videos, to be sure) to compete. Entering copyrighted material that was created by someone else would be cheating, so we keep a close eye on this, and we invite you to police it as well. (Click the image above right to see a screenshot of the rating toolbox).

If an item is obviously a copyright violation, select "Invalid" from the link on the bottom right of a game or video page, and a Strutta moderator will follow up on it. 

Keep playing and voting, and feel free to rate videos at your leisure. 

 

One hundred and forty one years and one day ago, the British North America Act came into effect, uniting Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario, creating the Dominion of Canada. Add six more provinces, three territories, some beer, beavers and the Internet, and we have the modern nation we know and love.

To celebrate, Strutta's favourite cat (not to mention the only feline with its very own Strutta account), Flippy Cat, built an enormous Maple Leaf out of red and white dominoes, then proceeded to knock them all over, as Flippy Cat tends to do. Check out the video below:

Advertisers are slowly discovering the Interwebs and how to use the poor resolution and "user-generated" orientation of sites like YouTube to dupe people into believing that the impossible happened, that grainy = true, that anyone can leap a car if they're wearing the right shoes. This is an interesting trend in that it makes advertising far more bearable to watch, and also forces viewers to be a little less gullible (but it looked so real!). Of all the fake "real" videos that have popped up on the web recently, here are two of the most convincing:

Over the last couple of days, there's been a video getting sent around of a ball girl leaping up a left-field wall to make a catch during a televised minor league baseball game. It seems to get a lot of its viral fuel from the fact that people want to believe a little ball girl could make the catch. The video itself is riddled with signs that it's fake, like the fact that all of the billboards around the field have been blurred or whited out, and there's simply no way that little girl could make a leap like that. But what is it an ad for? Look at what's beside the girl's chair when she sits back down at the end of the video.

The office-worker rampage choreographed by "Wanted" director Timur Bekmambetov is probably the best of the fake videos. It's the use of security cameras and cell-phones to shoot the scene, not to mention the professional actors in the office, that convinced a lot of people they were seeing what it's actually like to work at an office in Moscow.

Manitoba's Archangel Fireworks will represent Canada on July 23rd as the HSBC Celebration of Light ignites with a Godzilla-themed pryotechnic display in Vancouver's English Bay, where Strutta will be on hand as the official videographers of the competition.

Come by and check out the firework displays, then watch them afterwards on Strutta to decide which one you think is the best. Canada's entry will be followed up by the US display on July 26th, China on July 30th, with the finale on the 2nd of August.

Friday afternoon saw the Strutta offices alive with conversation, as dozens of members of our beloved tech community graced us with their presence to enjoy a few tasty libations.

That is, we offered free beer and a crowd gathered. Much fun was had. Raul was on hand to photograph and blog the gathering; his photos are below in the slideshow. In case you hadn't heard, Raul wants you to follow him on Twitter. 

Thanks very much to everyone who came! It was a blast, and a great way to kick off Summer in Vancouver.

Tags:

• beer
• friday
• gastown
• hummingbird604
• strutta
• vancouver

People sometimes tell me they have this really great idea for a Strutta video but they're shy and worried about how they'll look on camera. Luckily, there's a way around this problem and it's called "acting". Acting allows us to be much cooler on camera than we are when we're not on camera. It's also a skill, just like tying our shoes, knitting or shooting, so it's something we can all learn. And the best way to do that is probably to get advice from a pro, like James Franco, currently starring in a web series on funnyordie.com called "Acting with James Franco". Check it out below and learn how to sniff jackets and better express yourself on camera.

By now, most, if not all of us have seen Weezer's Pork and Beans video. Surprisingly, (or not that surprising) it turns out the concept of using youtube 'celebrities' in a music video is not that original an idea.

In 2007 The Barenaked Ladies, a canadian band known for creating humorous music videos and having a clever stage act, released a music video called Sound of Your Voice. Haven't heard of it or seen the video? Me neither, until I noticed The Globe and Mail today and skimmed this article. The article asks readers if the weezer video is "Tribute, coincidence or ripoff". They also make reference to other similar videos: an episode of South Park , and The Meth Minute 39.



You may also recognize: BaratsAndBereta, The Evolution of Dance guy, Numa Numa, Battle of the Bands, Eepybird, Where the hell is Matt, Geriatric1927, Brookers, boh3m3, thewinekone, and Winston Spear.

Somehow this video went under the radar for me and the few Struttians I mentioned it to, can it just be blamed on SEO fail? or because it's Canadian content? The very fact that the music video view count has less views than BaretsAndBereta's Barenaked Ladies contibution video, seems to suggest just that.

Strutta.com has seen a bit of redesign, meant to help you navigate your way through the site.

The biggest change, and the first you'll notice is a new homepage:

We've also added a page for hot players and videos, and the "logged in view" of the homepage is now an informative dashboard, for players to better understand their current status.

We think these changes make it easier to play and understand Strutta. What do you think? Comment below, or speak your mind more privately, if you wish.

What's hot on Strutta? Let Alexa be your guide and check out these choice picks:

1. Jay Grandin- Chocolate Love I'm a big fan of stop motion animation, and after taking part of a few films myself, I know just how much time (and patience!) and organization is needed to compete one successfully. Chocolate love is well done, clever, funny, sweet and sticky.
   
2. Freddie Wong - Guitar Hero 2 Rush YYZ on Expert Freddie steps down from the Guitarhero God Heavens to bring us an earth shattering performance of YYZ by Rush. Complete with dramatic camera angles, a motorcycle, and the iconic smashing of guitars. Who ever said Rock and Roll was dead?
3. Ross Howard-Jones- Open a Beer with a Beer Who /hasn't/ found themselves in a situation where there is no bottle opener? The game Best Bottle Opener has new ways to open a beer bottle, some very strange, ranging from a chainsaw to a piece of paper? Ross' video of using another beer to open a beer is smart, and something I could actually attempt to do. I mean who has a chainsaw around when they want a cold one?
Tags:
• animation
• beer opening
• bottle opening
• favourites
• freddie wong
• guitarhero
• picks
• stop motion
• strutta
• top players
• top videos

So Jordan suggested I throw together my top three Strutta video picks for the week and I'm going with these three:

1. Soulja Boy with Technique - The new Weezer video for "Pork and Beans" includes three guys in the background doing the Soulja Boy dance but I'd have to say they didn't get the funniest Soulja Boy dancers out there. Of all the renditions on the Internet, this one, in the "Most Cranked Soulja Boy" competition on Strutta, is my favourite:
2. Campus Cribs Episode 3 - The University of Wisconsin deserves its title as the Greatest Party School in America. To help us live vicariously through them, the students at UW College Life have been uploading a ton of hilarious videos to Strutta, including this parody of "MTV Cribs", in the "Funniest Joker" competition.
3. Tim Fort's Kinetic Art - Tim Fort creates art with what he calls, "impulse-transmission techniques". This video is in the "Best Dominoes" category but goes far beyond knocking over a couple of dominoes.
Tags:
• dominoes
• kinetic art
• Soulja Boy
• University Wisconsin
• video