Video Star: An Epic App

I’m all about an instant pick-me-up. That’s why kicking my Diet Pepsi addiction has been so tricky. Did I write “tricky”? I meant “such a failure”. I love that Diet Pepsi is something I’m addicted to that isn’t really bad for me. Except that -- this just in -- it is bad for me. Really, really bad.

This is why I don’t like to read the newspaper. Because ignorance is bliss, but once you’ve actually read the darn study, it’s difficult to ignore that your behavior isn’t just mildly inadvisable, it’s downright dangerous.

So I’ve got to get on that. Studies also show that successful kickers of bad habits replace the bad habit with another less bad habit. So now my fridge is filled with sparkling water, which is good, but I’m going through caffeine withdrawal, which is bad. And sparkling water does nothing to make me happy or give me energy.

Here’s what does: the app “Video Star”. You download it, for free, onto your i-pad or phone, and it lets you become the McG of video directors. (For those of you not in the know, McG is only one of the best video directors of all time, so good that Drew Barrymore picked him to direct her movie “Charlie’s Angels” -- which is also really good, perhaps not “27 Dresses” caliber but good. How can you not like a movie where L.L. Cool J. has a cameo and rips his face off in the first 5 minutes? But I digress…)

Video Star is my new, instant pick-me-up. Because it lets me film the Dynamic Duo as they make a video of any song on my  phone. Instantly. Easily. There are lots of special effects that I can tap, and -- voila!-- the screen is transformed. So the 6 year old is dancing around with rainbows behind her head for 20 seconds, then I tap the “comic” special effect, and it transforms her into a comic book version of herself until I tap the next special effect. At the end of the song, the video is available for instant viewing and laughter.

Fun, easy, free. This makes me happy and brings me energy just thinking about ways I can use this great app. Like film the Dynamic Duo doing a video of my favorite song of all time, Michael McDonald’s “What A Fool Believes”. 70s rock and the Dynamic Duo combined in a video on my phone? This is epic happiness, on a who-cares-about-diet-pepsi scale.    (Click this link to go to itunes to learn more about VideoStar app.)