Roses are red, Violets are Blue,
Valentine’s Day is tomorrow, oh lucky you!

Howcast is here to help you straight out of the gate,
With How to Make Coworkers Think You Have a Date.

If it’s a last-minute gift meant to impress,
Then How to Buy Flowers will be a success.

To properly ensure that the night’s not a yawn,
Learn How to Be Sexy, and you’ll turn him on.

If the night is a bust and you want it to end,
Learn How to Break Up and still remain friends.

Happy Valentine’s Day to you from the Howcast crew,
Here are some videos we made just for you.

SUSHISAMBA, a world-renowned restaurant that serves up a unique blend of Japanese, Brazilian and Peruvian cuisine, has added our Custom Player Widget to their site. If you want to learn a few things about sushi, check out this delicious playlist of Howcast Production sushi videos, staring Koji Kagawa, the executive sushi chef at SUSHISAMBA in New York City. This is a great example of how any business can bring a little snappy how-to entertainment to their web site with our custom player! Interested in making your own custom player? Check out our widgets, and get the right player to fit your needs.

Last week at the Alliance of Youth Movements Summit, Howcast hosted 17 inspirational leaders who have used online tools like Facebook and YouTube to effect social change. With an amazing range of speeches from participants such as Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, a conversation with the Obama campaign’s new-media team, and panels like Addressing Violence at Home moderated by Whoopi Goldberg, the summit was an unforgettable experience for everyone involved.

In case you missed any of the action in our live stream, tune into the Alliance of Youth Movements Hub and watch the panels from the comfort of your computer screen.

Highlights include:

• Oscar Morales sharing how he got 12 million people in 200 cities to take to the streets in protest against the FARC.
• How to Mobilize in a Challenging Environment.
• How to Utilize Digital Media to Create Social Change

If you are starting your own grassroots movement, download the field manual compiled from the participants’ tips and techniques on using online media to effect real-world change.

Stay tuned to the hub to read news from these movements and to share your own stories with them.

Howcast partners and directors are rocking the interview circuit today.

First, Nick Prueher, one half of Howcast Studios Director Milkhouse is the featured interview on today’s Chicagoist, discussing their Found Footage Festival. Very cool stuff. Check out their trailer on Chicagoist and make sure to stop by if you happen to be in the Chicago area on Friday. If you can’t make it to the Windy City on such short notice, see the famous duo in action with their zodiac love series right here on Howcast: What’s Your Sign.

Also getting some interview action is Nick Ayres, Interactive Marketing Manager for The Home Depot (a fantastic Howcast partner) on the MarketingProfs Daily Fix. Check out some of the useful Home Depot videos featured here on Howcast, like How to Caulk Windows and Doors —a must-watch if you want to seal in the heat and save some cash this winter.

And we have to mention partner NextNewNetworks, producer of the very cool ThreadBanger shows here on Howcast and on ThreadBanger.com.  In their latest episode, they feature Howcast’s creative costume ideas for Halloween: How to Make a Cowboy Costume and How to Make a Vampire Costume. Very cool indeed. If you’re looking for more costume ideas, check out the ThreadBanger video: How to Make Ninja Mittens and channel your inner Ninja on the 31st.

Since today is National Video Game Day we’re breaking out the office Wii to celebrate. Join in on the action celebrate the true art of Gamer Life with us.

Got No Game?

Every guy needs great game, but sitting on the couch won’t teach you how to score. In How to Work Out to Be a Better Gamer, learn exercises that will exhaust more than your wrists—and lead to mad points on the battlefield.

Anything Worth Doing Is Worth Doing Sexy

Just because you’re rocking out in the privacy of your home doesn’t mean you shouldn’t look good doing it. How to Look Hot While Playing Rock Band helps you set the stage on fire…even if that stage is your shag carpet.

Justify Your Love

Obsession is such a strong word. But in this case, so apt. How to Justify Your Video Game Obsession will teach you how to reason with those who can’t relate.

Get those digits limber and check out the entire Game on Playlist!

Our marketing assistant (and former intern) Luke was given the opportunity to attend the Democratic National Convention in Denver. He passed along this message that we wanted to share:

Greetings from the Mile-High City. I’m about to head into INVESCO Field to watch Barack Obama’s acceptance speech as the official nominee of the Democratic Party. The atmosphere is definitely charged—I’m hoping to soak in the full experience among all the activists and lobbyists, and maybe even meet a superdelegate or two. As this convention comes to a close and the Republicans get started next week, we’ve finally hit the home stretch of what has been a marathon election cycle. Before I arrived in Denver, I’d personally been kind of burned out on politics and the seemingly endless primary battles. But looking out at the sea of supporters here today I feel a spark of renewed interest, and I’m excited about following the newly formed (and soon-to-be-formed) national tickets. Maybe I’m caught up in the moment, maybe the historic nature of this race is just starting to hit me, or maybe I’m only now recovering from a bad case of Olympic fever, but it’s as if the energy of the conventions is helping me reconnect with Election ‘08. I look forward to this last segment of the campaign: the debates, the final rallies, and, of course, the rest of the convention speeches. What will happen next? I’ll definitely be tuning in to find out.

If you can’t make it to Denver like Luke, watch our Election ‘08 Politics Gone Wild playlist at and get amped up for the upcoming election.

If you just gotta squeeze in that camping trip before the end of the summer, there’s no better way to impress your friends (or that special someone) than getting primal with good eats, sturdy shelter, and safe passage. We’ve got a series of new camping how-to videos to help make your venture into wilderness as smooth as possible.

Home Away From Home

You’ve got to get cozy out there in the wilderness. How To Set Up A Camp Site and How To Set Up A Dome Tent will help you first-time-campers find your home away from home in no time. And whether or not things went horribly wrong or you’re just an aspiring rock star, How To Get A Good Night Sleep In Your Car will get you comfortably tucked in so you can tucker out.

Snake Bites & Rashes

Before you venture into the wilderness, having a bit of first aid and survival tricks up your sleeve can save anything - from having a seriously bum rash - to saving your patootie all together. How To Treat A Snake a Bite will turn a possibly fatal misfortune into a brief hiccup in your travels.

Before an emergency squat in the woods (and thus possibly having to recall the wisdom of How To Treat Poison Ivy) you will want to be able to see that nasty stuff when it crosses your path. How to Recognize and Avoid Poison Ivy will keep your travel donut deflated and in the trunk.

Good Grub

Get in sync with your primitive ancestors and learn How To Build A Campfire. Once you got that blaze of glory cracking, get in touch with yer belly, and learn How To Cook Seven Simple Recipes Over A Campfire.

Where Am I?

Lost your way chasing Sasquatch? How To Tell Directions Without A Compass and How To Survive When You’re Lost in the Woods will keep you on track - and alive.

Why Wait? Sit back, relax and watch them all:

Scoping out someone new? Consult the stars to learn exactly how to make them fall in love with you.

Water

Learn about the quirks of slavish devotion and the power of insincere flattery. Watch How To Make A Scorpio Fall In Love With You.
Tracking a Cancer, but a bit lost on how to build a tolerance for tears? How To Make A Cancer Fall In Love With You will draw you a map in the sand that leads to the hearts of these lovable soft-shelled creatures.
Getting your hooks into a Pisces is no easy task. How To Make A Pisces Fall In Love With You will help keep this sign from slipping through your fingers.

Air

Chasing after a Libra? A touch of old-world charm and a few lines of Nietzsche, and soon you’ll know exactly How To Make A Libra Fall In Love With You.
Got a penchant for twins? Who doesn’t? Watch How to Make A Gemini Fall in Love With You. Twice.
Thirsty for an Aquarius? Watch How To Make An Aquarius Fall In Love With You to quench your thirst in no time.

Earth

Skip Emily Post For Dummies and watch How To Make A Virgo Fall in Love With You and you’ll have the Virgo of your choice wrapped around your pinky before afternoon tea is even served.
You don’t need to be a goat herder to understand this earth sign. Check out How To Make A Capricorn Fall In Love With You, and you’ll be herding your own fleet of goats together.
Watch How to Make a Taurus Fall In Love With You to master the gentle touch guaranteed to work when taking these bulls by the horns.

Fire

If you need to learn how to ram yourself into an Aries’ heart, you can make sure your aim is dead on after watching How To Make An Aries Fall In Love With You.
Rule #1: Don’t pounce on a Leo’s ego. For this and more precious tips on taming these wild cats, check out How To Make A Leo Fall In Love With You.
If you’ve got the grit for love and tension, check out How To Make a Sagittarius Fall In Love With You and you’ll know how to keep your dukes up while still in your clown suit.

Be prepared for a lover of any sign. Sit back, relax and watch the entire What’s Your Sign? playlist our new Custom Player. (If you dig it, and you will, just click “Grab the Playlist” to add it to your website or profile.)

The political campaign is a good example of the Howcast approach to tackling an “issue.” As a brand, we are committed to providing practical how-to information that genuinely informs and inspires people. That’s the baseline, but we don’t want to stop there. One of the things that makes Howcast different is that we do practical and straightforward, but we also find a way to present ideas with a twist as well. Sometimes that will mean an interesting twist within a more straightforward topic, and sometimes we might do an entire video just to present something with a fresh angle. For example, when we decided that we wanted to address the election, we talked a lot about what the “Howcast take” should be. There are endless pundits discussing the specific issues to death… we really wanted to focus on empowering people with useful information about how to interact with the election, and also provide a bit of fun and wry commentary and use the how-to format that we’re so adept with to poke a little fun and provide a little relief. So we have very practical videos like How to Register to Vote, which are presented in a fun way (in this case, its a giant slice of pizza who is doing the registering!), but we also have videos conceptualized from the script stage as a more unique and fun approach.

My favorite example of the latter is How To Become a Superdelegate. Rather than present the actual process, which is actually not that detailed or accessible or engaging, we instead came up with a comic-book based concept, playing on the “super” part of superdelegate, where the “how to” has touchpoints to all the classic super-hero origins. So that’s an example of an idea we did strictly because we thought it would be fun and imagination-capturing. And when the writers came up with the phrase “faster than a speeding ballot,” I knew we had found that Howcast magic that makes everything we do here so much more fun and accessible.

It’s Electric, Boogie-Woogie, Woogie

Electric Lemonade is a funky concoction that not only looks cool, but loosens you up enough to do the electric slide.

Spaniards Do It Better

Love wine? Love fruit? Learn How To Make Traditional Sangria, and blend all your favorite things into one delicious drink.

Cheers, Don Henley

It may be just another Tequila Sunrise, but it sure is tasty! P.S. It’s best sipped at sunset.

Pass the Pitcher, Grandma!

Long Island Iced Tea is not as innocent as it sounds. Drink more than one at your own risk!

For all the summer recipes, check out the full playlist here!