WUMF: May 2013 Edition

STOP THE PRESSES!  He has a WUMF out on time!

Yes, don’t let it fool you.  I’ll be back to my lazy, procrastinating ways in a month.  But, for now, enjoy this WUMF on time.

YouTube Report

OK, so it’s been about four months since I began the YouTube thing and it’s still very much a work in progress.   I can, however, report that I have finally seen some positive analytics.   I AM ON MY WAY TO MAKING $0.28!!!!!!  

I have only Dead Island Riptide’s lag to thank for that.     I bought and played the original on PS3, but thought it would be a great way to get some views by playing the new one on PC and recording it.   Well, I was wrong.   FRAPS and DI:R are not a good mix for smooth FPS.  The video lagged so bad I thought I was in a reject bullet time sequence from a Bollywood version of the Matrix.

Instead of putting up a playthrough of me whacking zombies with household objects, I put up an angry rant at how bad the lag was and it has been one of the most viewed videos out of my entire collection.  So, I shifted  my focus away from straight playing and onto stuff like tips for recording old school games.   I put out a couple of one off videos of me playing with no dialogue and only music.   It harkened back to my days as a videographer in high school, when I would put together music videos, finding the right music to match the montage.   It felt familiar and fun again.

But, I just don’t have the time to do all that.  So, I continue to play games, but I am trying to spotlight more indie games than big name companies.   Helping out the little guy seems to be a good way to gain karma in the online world.   So, I’ll keep doing a regular mix of big name and little name gameplay videos.

OBX Fire Safety Week

I just want to remind you all that next week is mandatory Fire Safety Training in the OBX.  For those of you unsure of what that means.  Here you go.   And then, the cops showed up...

Seeing as how I now have a YouTube channel, maybe I’ll do a vlog this year.  Maybe.  No one wants to see the big ugly mug in 1080 HD, I’m sure.

Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Let’s Go Pens.  That is all.

Facebook

People.  Please.  For the love of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, stop believing everything you read on Facebook.   No one will share their mythical Powerball winnings with you.    That picture won’t do something spectacular if you share or like it.   All your good deeds, here on Earth, will not be negated by scrolling past that picture of Jesus.  Just stop.  STOP!

Why I Won't Build My Daughter a House

“Daddy, build me a house.”

That’s what I get these days.  Not, “push me on the swings.”  Not, “Can I have a glass of water?”   My daughter wants me to build her a house.  

Of course, I am no architect.  I once built a living room fort that was condemned by the housing authority.  Luckily, my kid isn’t referring to a real live structure with concrete and wood.  She wants me to build her a house in Minecraft.

Because she did well in school last week, I decided to reward her by putting Minecraft Pocket Edition on her Tablet.   I didn’t know what I was setting myself up for when I did it.

She’s watched me play Minecraft on my PC for awhile, now, and I thought that she had absorbed the basics, but she hadn’t.   So, I gave her a tutorial on her tablet.   I built her a little hovel in the side of a mountain and set her off and running.   Then, she’d come back and give me updates, every so often, as she placed a new block or had done something remarkable.

Then, she started walking up to me on a regular basis asking me to find her home.    “Daddy, it’s getting dark out.  Can you get me back to my shack before the zombies get me?”   She didn’t understand that I set her to peaceful mode to start.  I wanted her to get her feet under her before she went on and played for real.

Again, she comes up and asks me to drive, handing the keys to me as I stand in an unfamiliar location, with no landmarks with her lording over my shoulder.   It was like some weird survival game where you have to find your way out of the wilderness with nothing more than a Swiss Army Knife and a pack of matches.   Time after time I would walk her back to her shack, leaving her inside the safety of her hovel.   “YOU DIDN’T PUT ME IN BED!”

“Yeah, because, by the time I give you back the tablet and you get situated half of the new day is gone.”

She wasn’t getting it.   Soon, her requests took on a grander theme.

“Build me a house.”

“Build me a town.”

“Build me an amusement park.”

Now, it might seem a bit mean of me to deny my child all these requests.  After all, this should be a bonding experience for us.   However, she will continue to rely on me to solve her problems in Minecraft as well as the world.   That’s one of the great things about the game.   It forces you to be self sufficient.  You have no instructions.  You have no direction.  You are simply plopped into an open world with all the tools you need to build a kingdom.   They are just not assembled.   It’s a safe construct with no negative repercussions.  We aren’t leaving you in the wild and telling you to find your way home.   I’m giving you a game that you can play on the couch, wrapped up in your blankets,  with all your stuffed animals gathered around, watching.   I’m hoping the  problem solving gene kicks in and she begins to assess the real world in the same fashion.  The things she learned in the game, in order to survive and advance, can be applied to life.

Or, I’ll just find her in the yard, punching a tree.  It could go either way at this point.

See how my kid handles the world of video game development.  She's not bad.

Game Dev Tycoon - Fixing the Unicorn and Dragon Relations

Rage, Rage Against The Emptying of the Pot

How many times has this happened to you?

You’re the first one in the office and need coffee badly.    You’ve got a ton of shit to do and need to get those deadlines met.     The eyelids droop.  The attention wanes.  The sound of snoring is coming from your cube.   CRAP!  It’s you.  You’re tired.    Maybe your team decided to lose a heartbreaker of a game in double overtime the night before.   Maybe you spent half the night dealing with a particularly glitchy video editing application.  Maybe you just decided to catch up on half of a season of Game of Thrones so that you can walk into the office without the fear of “Spoilers are Coming!”   I HAVE EIGHT MORE HOURS OF THIS!

So, you shake it off and head to the office kitchen for some much needed caffeine.    Once you get there you notice there is no coffee to be found. 

“That’s right!”  You say, “I was the first one in today.” 

You sigh and resign yourself to making a brand new pot.    The next four minutes are agonizing.  Realizing that a watched pot never brews, you decide to go to the bathroom, drop off that mail that needs to go out, and head back to the kitchen.

Your fresh pot should be there, waiting for you, like a good dog after the war, warm and loyal.   So, you enter the kitchen, passing that one guy you don’t like, carrying a cup of coffee. 

“Damnit!”   That douche bag violated my pristine brew.   

You shrug off the evil thoughts and head for salvation in a cup with equal parts cream and sugar.

EMPTY!

The pot is empty.  That M-F-ING ASSHAT not only took the last cup, he didn’t start a new pot, either. 

So, you do the steps all over again and realize that you are still behind schedule.  So, you go back to your desk and barrel through a few tasks, hoping to get back before the time is up on your re-brew.

You run, not walk, to the kitchen and now there is a crowd forming around the pot you brewed.   The timer goes off and in a Pavlovian response, they pounce on it.    The ratio of people to ounces of coffee is too great.   Once again, you are out of luck.   AND STILL NO ONE STARTS A NEW POT.

You slink back to your desk, another pot on, and there is your boss, standing at your cube, looking at their watch.  “You’ve been in unavailable status for nearly 20 minutes.”

What excuse can you tell them that doesn’t end with you re-enacting that scene from Office Space with the Bobs?  So, you take your licks and barrel through the next hour, just getting shit done.

You head to the kitchen and finally there is a fresh, untouched pot waiting for you. 

Too bad it’s decaf.

And you see, officer, that is why I sideswiped that Starbucks truck on my way home.











This really didn't happen.  This is simply me being creative.

While You Were Sleeping Part 1: What the cicadas missed from 1996-1999

Welcome back, cicadas.   I know you’ll have been gone awhile, so I decided to put a list of all the things that have happened since you were around the last time.   I wrote these down as they happened. 

Let’s see, that was 1996? What’s been going on since then.

1996-1999 (The world might explode at that point, so I stopped here.)

NEWS

The Summer Olympics, which were in Atlanta that year, had a bomb explode causing one death from the explosion, one from a heart attack, and  111 injuries.  A man who found the bomb and cleared people out of the way, saving lives, was accused and persecuted in the eyes of the media before the real bomber was found in 1997 and convicted.  Don’t worry though, the media probably won’t screw up again in 17 years, right?

Princess Diana was killed in a car accident in 1997 in Paris after being chase by paparazzi through the city.  They stood around and took pictures of the wreckage instead of helping.  But… not worry, paparazzi wouldn’t cause any more issues since, right?

A bunch of people, believing that they were going to ride on a comet/alien spaceship, committed suicide in California, but it probably will be the last time that anyone died, believing something somebody told them to be true, right?

OJ Simpson was convicted of wrongful death in a civil trial, even though he was found not guilty in the criminal trial.  He’s probably not going to do any time for anything, so don’t worry.

Bill Clinton was accused of having an inappropriate relationship with an intern in the Oval Office.  So, his career and credibility are pretty much screwed for eternity.  It’s not like he’s going to have any effect on any future politics. 

The U.S. had a budget surplus, the first in 30 years.  Everything concerning the economy will probably be great until you return.

Two boys in Columbine, Colorado went on a shooting spree in their high school, killing 15 ppl.    They died in the incident from self inflicted gunshot wounds.   I think it will be an isolated incident and should be the last time we ever talk about guns or school shootings or anything like that.

Some guy named Osama Bin Laden set up a base of terrorists in Afghanistan and was responsible for the bombing of the American embassy in Africa.   Isolated incident.  Probably be the last time we hear his name, ever.

And don't worry about catching up on news.  I'm sure CNN will still be the best place to get news from on television.

TECHNOLOGY

DVDs are a new thing.  They might replace VHS tapes, so when you get back your Star Wars movies, you know the ones you got on Laserdisc, might not be worth anything.   In fact, they are coming back into the theaters, so we’ll get to see the same movies you have on those discs on the big screen.  Great, right?  You may want to stock on a bunch of movies on DVD when you get back.  They should be the best thing going.

The Internet is kind of taking off, a bit.  Not sure if it will still be around when you get back.  There is this cool website, though.  It basically goes out and looks for everything based on a set of words you type into the search field.  They call it a search engine.  Should be really popular.  It’s called Ask Jeeves.

Speaking of the Internet, there was a little web browser that was out just before you left.  It’s the biggest thing going.  Should be pretty advanced by the time you get back.  I’ll make sure you have the latest copy of Netscape Navigator installed on your Pentium II when you awake.   (update) Scratch that.  Pentium III.

I still need to find your password for your computer.   There’s some talk about this thing that will happen on midnight 1999.  We may have to print this list out and put it somewhere safe.  A lot of shit is going to break come January 1^st, 2000.  Hopefully, the list will still be here.

I took the liberty of creating you an account on a pretty sweet website.  You can meet a lot of people, put pictures of yourself on there, share stuff, make a lot of friends, too.   I will actively update it and make sure you keep making friends.   You’ll probably have 1000s by 2013.  Your site is www.myspace.com/cicadas

Remember all those mix tapes you had when?  I know you were pretty upset I left them in my car that one day during that heat wave.   Don’t worry, when you get back in 2013 you can do this new thing called CD burning.   All your music can be put on CDs, now.  And there’s this cool place you can find all those old Emerson Lake and Palmer songs to burn on your CDs.   It’s called Napster.

POP CULTURE

Will Smith, you know, The Fresh Prince, did a good job in a movie about Aliens attacking Earth.  It will probably be the greatest Sci-Fi movie, ever.  Though, I’m sure Mr. Smith is just content playing Fresh Prince on television.

There’s also a new Star Trek movie.    I see no reason to tinker with the Next Generation format.  They should be good for a number of films, just like the cast of the original series.

George Clooney is now playing Batman.  Should be good.  He’ll probably be Batman for a long time.

If you thought Toy Story was good, this new film from Pixar is pretty nice.  Glad to know they were able to do one more good movie, though I don’t know where they’ll go next.

I know how you liked Law & Order, so you’ll be happy to know it will probably be on when you come back.  Good show, not many like it.

Simpsons are still on believe it or not, even after almost 10 years.  Though, I’m sure it’s bound to done here real soon.  Probably only catch it in reruns in 2013.

Lot of talk about game shows making a comeback and something called a Reality Show.   Personally, I don’t see it working out.  Who wants to watch real life when Friends and Dawson’s Creek, and ER is still going strong.

SPORTS
The Yankees won the World Series three out of four times so far.  They'll probably win another ten before you come back.

A lot of people are talking about this kid named Tiger in golf.  Wonder who he is?

I know how upset you were that The Dallas Cowboys beat our Steelers in the Super Bowl.  I know they are America's Team, so don't be surprised when you come back and they still have more trophies than Pittsburgh. 

You were wondering about how hockey would turn out during your absence.  You were pretty unsure about it since two expansion teams went to the Stanley Cup that year.  I'm sure it was a fluke and probably won't happen again.  I mean, what does the Southern portion of the United States know about having a winning hockey team?  Go Canada, right?  They invented the sport.

Paved With Good Inventions

As we continue to hurl ourselves into Idiocracy territory, I thought about the last 20 years of my life.  After all, my 20^th reunion is this fall.  Good time to reflect.  Look back on my adult life.  Cry in the corner a bit.

What I discovered is that for all the technological innovation we’ve seen in the last two decades, we’ve become incredibly stupid and selfish.  If I could go back in time and change one thing, I might actually make the ultimate sacrifice.  I might try to prevent the invention of the Internet.

I know.

I KNOW.

What madness is this?  Why, on Earth would you un-invent the Internet?  Aren’t you writing a blog?  Aren’t you selling shirts, online?   Aren’t you trying, and failing, to produce YouTube videos?  Yeah, but that doesn’t change the truth.  And, before you start clutching your routers and barking madly, understand where I’m coming from on this.  It’s like Terminator 2.  No matter how hard they tried to keep Skynet from happening, it happened.  Granted, it happened in a bad way, a la Terminator 3, but it was inevitable.   Now, I don't want to keep the Internet from ever happening.   I only wish to delay the process until we are better equipped, mentally and emotionally, to handle it.

We were given fire by the Gods.  And we ended up torching the world.  We literally did not understand what we were given.    For awhile we just did silly things with the Internet.   Hell, we still do.  Cats playing keyboards, planking, Hadouken pics, Horse Head Mask videos.  But soon, it warped and became something different.   There was porn… so much porn.  Then there were cell phones and soon commercial WiFi.  iPods.  iPhones. 

Facebook, Instagram, Elvis Presley, Disneyland.

It spiraled out of control.   Slang (OMG, WTF,  ROTFLMAOBBQ)

We became addicted to technology.  Our lives revolved around little devices that did everything for us.   A phone replaced a pager, a camera, a gaming device, a laptop, watch, GPS, radio, Walkman, and tons of other devices.  It became the Swiss Army Lazy Man.   Texting gave way to sexting.   Polaroids gave way to selfies-in-a-bathroom-with-duck-face being Instagramed and put up on Facebook.  “Like, please!”  (read: I have no self esteem and need constant and instant approval to maintain my shell of an existence.)  Soon, there was cyber-bullying.   Hacking phones, emails, the need for 24/7 news that may or may not even be accurate spread like a wildfire.   We became unable to put the genie back into the bottle.

And, I don’t think we ever will.   Isn’t it odd that in the last 20 years we’ve invented things that bring us closer together, more so than ever before, yet put us farther apart in terms of actually connecting with people.  Used to be, if you wanted to reach someone, you had to catch them at home, by phone.   Now, you call their cell.  And, in a lot of cases, they want you to hang up and just text.    Also, isn’t it odd that in the last 20 years, so much technology has come about yet, what’s the last thing we cured?  Polio, I think.   We’ve created a generation of customers.

Our kids?  Our kids have become over-privileged and entitled. 

“Well, Johnny has an iPod and he’s seven.” 

“Well, Johnny is also a selfish brat that can’t wipe himself yet, but can send a text.  He probably still wets the bed.”

Nobody wants to work for anything.  And I don’t mean the 47% vs. the 1%.  I’m talking about EVERYONE.   Somewhere along the way, we lost our mission.   Our grandparents went to WWII.  They sacrificed a lot of things in order to keep the country running.   Now, we’re asked to give up something and suddenly,  since 9/11, our government is out to control or enslave us.  Take away our rights.  Funny.  Our grandparents sacrificed a lot in order to give their family a better life.   Our parents, well, at least mine, gave up a lot of stuff in order to make our lives better.   They scrimped and saved.  They went without new clothes or fancy appliances.  They made ends meet and did what they could to ensure that we never had to live like that, ever.   And somehow, we thought, “Oh, cool.  Great.  Thanks.”  And that was it.  We accepted their generous offer.  We watched as they worked hard and bled for us and we just took that better life and continued to not pay it forward, but instead we cheapened the thought.

We were given so much without having to ask for it and yet, when it came to our children, or the next generation born into the millennium, they didn’t understand what our parents did to provide, because we were the end result.  We didn’t continue the trend.   We didn’t have to work hard anymore.   Technology caught up and made it easier.   Hell, I am just as responsible.   I work in an office all day, but I also run a business where I don’t have to put a lot of effort into it and am rewarded, monetarily.   Granted, I wish I could work more on it.   I know the quality would benefit, but at the end of the day, I get emails saying , “Congrats on your sale” with no deserving of that praise.  The Internet has done the work for me.

We take to Facebook and instead of sharing our lives with each other, we share half assed researched and cited examples of hate against one group or another.   I can count on at least one hand how many friends I have on Facebook that never say a word, yet post CONTINUALLY their disdain for one group or another in this world.   And 9 times out of 10, they share from one subjective group that is not even factual all the time.  It’s just a funny picture, or what they claim to be funny, slamming another person/group/religion/etc.   They don’t say “Hi”, or “How are you” they say, “Here’s why you’re all wrong and I’m right” in graphic form.  And for all that friending and sharing that goes on, I believe we are more so divided than we ever were as a civilization.   Friends are not friends, they are an audience for our amusement and our agendas.  We don't connect, we try to redirect.

We do not deserve the Internet.    If aliens were to come here, looking for intelligent life, we’d be blown off the face of the galaxy like we were a plague. 

“For the love of Blurg!   Zyphos, we must eradicate this menace on Earth before it spreads and infects us.”  

“How do you know that, Lishu?” 

“I saw it on Reddit.   And Grimjor saw a post on Zarnbook that he shared from "I bet this Gorpcar can get more likes than Firtarp.”

100 Andelorians like this.  (Picture of a tentacle in a thumbs up position.)

So, yeah.  Let’s go back, blow the servers and tell the geeks of the 90s to keep working on it and we’ll work on being better humans, so that one day, we may be deserving of such an awesome power.    Should be ready, sometime before the next Mayan calendar runs out. 

Tablet vs. Placemat: Raising Kids With Technology

I didn’t want to be the kind of parent that just lets their kid watch TV or play video games, just to stop the madness.   I looked at other parents that just let their kids amok and I thought, “Wow, really?”   Sometimes, I’ve found myself falling into that trap, though.   I get home from my hour long commute and just want to escape for a bit so NickJr or Angry Birds can rescue me for awhile. 

Now, we usually play an entirely different game when we eat dinner.   No television, unless we are out a place that has sporting events televised.   No texting, usually, until after dinner.  The usually covers things like, I need to ask that person a question pertaining to the conversation we are having.   We all eat together as a family.  I tend to not waiver on these because it’s the one time of the day we can all sit and be with each other without the trappings of our social and technological lives interfering.   

We have one kid and she’s a handful, to say the least.  She’s too damn smart for being only five and comes up with arguments that would make her an excellent trial lawyer.  She gets bored and when she’s bored she usually takes it out on us.  I don’t mean that I am complaining that she’s needy.  I mean that she’s an evil genius that has figured out the code for our patience.   Don’t believe me, I have an example.

She wanted to go for a walk one day after school.  Now, I’ve been trying to lose weight, so it’s not a bad suggestion.  It was just dark and gloomy and I didn’t want us to be out when the skies finally went pffft.   So, as we’re walking she comments that she wants to go down the big hill in our neighborhood.  I did not.  The reason being, if we go down a big hill, there’s an equally large and steeply graded hill that we have to climb to get to our house.

“But, Daddy, I have all this energy that I need to get rid of.  If I don’t then I’ll be bored when we get home.”

“Kiddo, that’s not exactly my problem, now is it?”

“But, if I’m bored, it WILL be your problem.”

She’s five.  I’m scared.

Needless to say, we took the big hills.

But when we go out, she’s usually content, sitting there with a placemat and some crayons.   She has a vast collection of placemats with art all over one side and ads for home cleanings and excavating on the other.   So, when we went out this past week and brought along her Samsung Tablet, I was a bit disappointed that we caved to this type of distraction.  We usually sit and talk and she colors and really goes into her own little world.   Why are we placating her with this technological?  How dare we?

Then it dawned on me.  The placemats were my tablet.  The placemats were a distraction.  The placemats were used to keep me seated in one place instead of getting us kicked out of a restaurant for standing on the high chair and crowing like a rooster.   True story, though it was my brother that accomplished that task.

What the hell is the difference between a tablet and a placemat?

Well, the obvious is about $179.   Restaurants usually supply you with a placemat and a few crayons.  The tablet can be used to play games.  The placemat uses imagination or creativity.  Quite frankly, they both achieve the same goal.  The problem is, getting the most educational or creative benefits out of technology for your kids.   They also need to understand limits.  When the food arrives, the placemat and crayons get put away as should the tablet or other mobile device.    Maybe have a drawing or paint program for them to use instead of Temple Run 2 or Candy Crush Saga.

Now, I am not a doctor and can’t speak to the possible detrimental side effects of a child of five interacting with a tablet and what games could do to her learning abilities or possibly contribute to attention deficit disorder.   What I do know is that she’s not crowing like a chicken and as long as she doesn’t get in trouble for repeatedly talking in kindergarten she gets to use the tablet after school.

“But, Daddy, I just have so much to say!”

Yep.  She does.

I've Just Got A Lot To Say

Being five is hard.  I don’t really remember much about five.  I remember not crying the first day of kindergarten, securing my dignity for the next 33 years.  I remember taking my Star Wars record to school in the hopes that all the kids could dance to the soothing beats of John Williams.  In actuality, the teacher said, “You can’t dance to this.”  That’s when I put on the Cantina Song, like a boss.   But, I imagine it’s probably hard these days for a five year old to navigate the depths of Kindergarten in 2013, where you have to learn to read and count if you want to go to first grade.  My kid has had her share of trouble, mostly brought on by her personality.

They have a traffic light system for behavior.    If you’re completely awful, you get a red light.  If you do something wrong or get multiple warnings, you get a yellow light.   Walk the line and green is fine.  A blue light is reserved for the best of the ass kissers their school has to offer.  My kid has probably had equal amount of yellows as greens.  Most of the time, I question the validity of the punishment, but with her owning a tablet computer now, we gauge her use of it but what she brings home.  Sometimes, the explanations are a bit shady.

Like the time they were playing charades and she said, “Bum”, prompting her classmate to tell the teacher she said a potty word.  Well, that got her a yellow.  We interrogated her, because we were convinced she had to have said something worse.  Like, where could she have heard such language?  (troll face)  But she swore up and down that she did, in fact, not swear.  My wife eventually said, “Really?  You said bum?  Oh, for God’s sake, the teacher needs to get a life.”   And, of course, the next day, she got another yellow.  Her report stated that she informed her teacher that, “My mommy says you need to get a life.”   Well, apparently, everybody heard this statement at her school.  She was pretty up front with it.  

Then there was the time she was getting a couple of yellows, because she wouldn’t stop acting like an animal.   We had a long talk about “playing the game”.  “Look, I understand you’re five.  You pretend to be animals.  But, while you are in school, they don’t appreciate it.  So, don’t act like an animal at school.”  “OK”, she says.

A few weeks later, after a string of good reports and even a few blue lights, the yellow showed up again.   When we looked at her report, it said, “She was acting like a turkey.”   So, we told her,  “Look, didn’t we have this conversation?  We asked you to not act like an animal.  You promised us you would not do that in school.”  Her response?  “A turkey isn’t an animal.  It’s a bird.”   Now, I didn’t want to get into semantics over animal vs. bird.  So, we just face palmed.

Then, after a three day stretch of a green and two blues, she came home with another yellow.   “What did you do this time?”  She told her mother that she got into trouble for talking.  Her response to why, “I’ve just got a lot to say.”

Indeed, she does.   So, I am exploiting that trait.   She saw me playing a new game called Game Dev Tycoon and I was sucking pretty bad at it.  She offered advice on how to design a bestselling game and soon I was raking in the dough.    Later on that night, I decided to record her for an AngryCast video.

 

Mongo and Bailey Play Game Dev Tycoon
on The Angry Cast

WUMF: April 2013 Edition

You’re all expecting these to be at least a week now, right?  I know.  Bad blogger.  But, here it is, another WUMF.

Obligatory YouTube Update

So, we’re four months into this experiment and it’s been slow.   I’ve actually found it somewhat hard to record.  Sometimes I need to be in a talkative mood, or at least in a good mood.  I only get to record after 9pm and that’s usually when I start getting tired. 

That being said, I caved and started adding ads to my videos.  Now, to be fair, I’ve only added the ones that overlay the videos and don’t make you wait 30 seconds or more to start watching the actual content.    The reason why I did was that I ended up filling an entire terabyte hard drive in a short time and had to buy another three terabyte one to stave off space issues.  That now brings the total amount of money spent on equipment alone to nearly $300 if you count FRAPS.   Not to mention I bought three brand new games to do videos for.

I also started to see an uptick in a couple of my vids.   The funny thing was, they were crap.  I was trying to play Dead Island Riptide and the fps went to shit when I started recording.   The videos became more about how bad it was and was there a way to fix it.   Still nothing, but both have seen over 100 views.    Yeah, I know that’s still a crap number, but comparative to the rest of my work, that’s the highest view count, by at least three times, I’ve had on any video.   Because of that, I needed to monetize some, so I can start recouping my costs.  That is, after all why I am doing this.  I want to show people how you can do it and make money.

I’m still looking to post an update to all of this, explaining what I am doing, but I’ve found other things to do with my channel.  I have a couple of oddball vids that are either of a tutorial nature or just me having fun with the editing process.  Links below.

Random Bits: Atari Adventure

How To Record DOSBox With FRAPS

The Easter Bunny Is From Best Buy?

My daughter got a tablet for Easter.  She’s five and better at Candy Crush Saga than her mother.   How sad is that?   I was initially against her getting one because I did not want to foster that technology suck hole that has swallowed up so many over-privileged children, turning them into the asshats we’ve come to know and loathe in the world.   Still, she spent a lot of time playing Nick Jr. and Qubo games on her mother’s laptop that it became a bit annoying to have to share.

However, we do have limitations on it.  She isn’t allowed to just install apps without us helping, especially since there are free ones that are intended for 16-18+ age groups.   Also, if she gets a yellow light at Kindergarten, which is a warning, she does not get to use it that day.  And, if she gets one on Friday, that’s the whole weekend.   So, I can always tell how the day went if I walk in the door from work and she’s not on her tablet.

She’s also been running around making videos of the cats and commenting while she plays games.   Trying to be like Dad, I guess.

Mowmentum

Since December, I’ve lost 30 lbs.  That’s still a struggle as I bounce up and down the scale a few pounds.   It has gotten better.  In fact, I spent a lot of time outside in the yard and didn’t mind it as much as I normally do.   This past weekend, I mowed the entire yard, a feat that nearly induces a heart attack since I live on a hillside.   Last year, I would usually split grass cutting duties with my wife.  She would cut the top, flat area and I cut the hill.  However, she was at work and the yard was ragged.   The entire thing was growing faster than normal, so I bit the bullet and did it.   

I had to stop in between, primarily because we had a lot of downed limbs that I needed to cut up and toss.   So, in between the front and the back, I removed limbs.   In between the back and the hill, I sat and drank water.   Then, after every few rows, I had to keep dumping the bag.  

Now, I am usually not a big fan of bagging clippings but the first cut is always a high one and with the added moisture still in the air from April, it is better to clear the clippings instead of letting them stay in the yard to rot.  That mower is a beast, though.   It’s much easier with the standard, no bagger mower.   I just decided to keep on trucking and not stop and it was rewarding to look at a nicer, cleaner, yard.