Not Nearly As Exciting

So far this week has been pretty dull aside from all the insanity happening in the United States right now. Continuing the medication and it seems to be better aside from the stiff/swelling sensation in my joints when I wake up in the morning. My hands are the most affected where even now they feel...off. Also keep catching myself saying or typing the wrong word even though my brain thought it was the right one. Not sure if that's concerning or not.

Currently posting content for the following:
-Evil Within: Co-op, blind (have chapters 11 and 12 ready to publish)
-Sonic 2006: Solo, commentated (a very anticipated LP if your name happens to be Janette)
-Dishonored 2: Solo, blind (a very unanticipated LP if your name happens to be Janette)
-Pillars of Eternity: Solo, blind (will probably go on for eternity)

Working on:
-Evil Within
-RPG stuff
-Writing
-Sonic 2006
-Recording a Banished game but I doubt anyone wants to watch me try to stop people from starving and freezing to death for hours on end as the quest to circle the giant lake continues.
-Dishonored 2 (minor edits)
-Recording the last bits of Pillars of Eternity
-2k subs video. No idea what yet.

Also I may be getting a puppy. Keep you updated.

I Have a Service?

I guess NIPPON KOEI CO., LTD needs someone to reject LEGO cock rockets and mediate arguments between a couple of 40 year old men. There's only so many dicks I can manage, Nippon Koei...even if the service is not time consuming.

Take that as you will.

So.

This week has been interesting so far. Skied on Saturday which was fine other than the person I skied with nearly passing out on the hill, walked around a wedding fair for 4 hours holding jackets, looking for jackets and watching Carmen spray silly string out of a penis shaped dispenser into Mel's face (but they got a free limo ride to a club because of it so...), then we won our dodgeball game on Monday and I had a mild panic attack and nearly puked at the end of the game (for reasons I'll explain in a moment) and yesterday I was nearly fined for trespassing, made a dorky looking white guy flip his shit when I misjudged a turn and blocked his lane of traffic, got an update on the saga of the Italian Apartment and then got a passive aggressive note on my car for parking perfectly in the centre of a parking space.

So...

Where should I start?

Well, I've started a medication recently which will eliminate one checkmark off the stress box and create a whole new list to factor in. For the last five days I've woken up exhausted with stiff and painful joints and I'm an emotional trainwreck. Also I've been mildly nauseous and constantly hungry (no, I'm not pregnant).  Waking up and getting to work in the morning has been an astronomical struggle as it takes every ounce of my willpower to drag myself out of bed. Going to trial this stuff for a month and if it doesn't get better I'm going to ditch it.

Meanwhile the person I skied with on Saturday didn't have his breakfast, so I thought I'd be chasing an unconscious body down the hill. I think it was the one difficult run through the trees that really set him off. It was the one where my ski got wedged in the snow and it just popped off. I slid down about 30 feet and then a snowball rolled down and hit me in the face.

Wedding fair was for a friend, but we spent a very long time there walking down every single aisle collecting all the brochures and business cards and entering all the contests with labels that she printed off the night before. It got more interesting at the end when we found the guy dressed in a penis suit and another booth with the silly string dispensers. Thank goodness we had a big breakfast before this because I was exhausted after.

I was extremely stressed and anxious all day Monday and likely had some off food for lunch. The result was a stressful drive halfway across the city to a place I haven't been before that led me through two traffic circles and a dead end before I finally found the school. I spend the entire hour trying to balance hunger, nausea and wondering whether I was going to pass out. Then I took off pretty quick afterwards because I didn't want to puke in the gym. Thanks crippling anxiety and meds!

Yesterday was better for anxiety, though I was later than I wanted and needed to park in guest temporarily to make a morning stand up, then drive it all the way over to a road 5 mins away, then walk all the way back. I'd park at the building, but it's nice to save 200 dollars a month for other things. On my way back at the end of the day I decided it was a great idea to take a short cut down the dirt road that went along the tracks. I was stupid cause there were no trespassing signs, but I figured those were leftovers from construction on the building. Of course, the police officer who my coworker and I saw from the bathroom had looped back and I got the speel about train safety and trespassing and how I could get a fine of $287 dollars for using a road on CP rail property, which by the way, at least five people who were NOT CP Rail were parked on. Just saying. So now I'm in the system and if I'm caught doing that again I could get the fine (or if the officer is particularly bored or grouchy, arrested). So that's also fun.

Afterwards I got in my car, a little mad, and made my way up to job 2 and misjudged a turn because of the sun and a ridiculously high volume of traffic that I could have avoided had I been able to leave 10 minutes sooner. So I was sitting there blocking a lane of traffic for a good 30 minutes while I watched some dude have a fit in his car about it. If I hadn't been a little upset from the trespassing thing I would have probably started giggling.

Get up to work and parking is terrible and there's tons of people there for some reason. I found a spot where two giant ass soccer mom SUVs were RIGHT on the line. My car is small so I fit in there fine. I was a little close to the car next to me, but to be fair, they parked terribly and were borderline in my space. This didn't stop them from leaving a passive aggressive "thank you, couldn't get in my car, you parked too close" which I thought was insurance information for damage on my car I didn't see. So I'm driving down the road seeing this paper flap around (after I had used the wipers and wiper fluid), panicking that it was going to fly away with no where to pull over and grab it. When I finally pull the soggy paper off the windshield on the side road I threw it in my car and just kind of snapped. I destroyed the note thoroughly when I got home and grabbed a handful of snow to cool my face down. I forgot to take off my glasses first.

So I just sat there in the passenger seat with snow all over my glasses and face for a minute or two contemplating the futility of my existence.


Doing better again today. Woke up feeling less awful. I have to remember to go and move my car again cause...did the guest parking thing again and the last thing I need is a ticket. Then I have to walk all the way around a building to get back. Might bring some coffee or something with me.

Other than breaking the law and upsetting drivers, I've been working on finishing up an Emily, low chaos playthrough of Dishonored 2 and a lot of RPG stuff. Mesk is back on the RPG train and needs assets, so I'll likely try and give those a shot. Some of them will be useful for what I'm doing as well. Good news is we're exchanging all the assets we find, so there will be lots to draw on.

VTM re-play will likely resume sometime this week. We still have a ways to go to get back to where we were. We're also trying to decide what to play next. Shauna and I have resolved to work through the backlog of video this year. I'll be tackling SOMA, VTM and the rest of Sherlock and Evil Within, and she'll be taking on the next LP editing.


PS - Was just looking out the window again and really, the reasons the officer gave me of why it's illegal to use that road are mostly bullshit. If he had just said private property, that would have been fine, but he said it was the Railway Safety Act. The road is actually far enough away from the tracks to be considered safe. Also, there are currently 8 civilian cars parked there. Also I saw a guy WALKING ON THE TRACKS. Also there's a parking lot owned by one of the buildings across the tracks that is CLOSER TO THE TRACKS than the road. Not that I'm salty or anything.

Smell You Later 2016

Well, 2016. It was a year. 365 whole days. How 'bout that?

To be honest, kind of a rough year for LPs. I got more than I thought I would done, but with moving and some major things happening, it was a little hard to get as much as I wanted to done. 

Not finished Evil Within 'cause it makes me angry and Dishonored 2 seemed to be a better use of my time. Not finished my year-end video, mainly just because I'm trying to figure out what the best clips I can use for it are (almost done tbh). I couldn't remember what I released this year because I'm sitting on a lot of old stuff that I haven't published yet. Thankfully YouTube has date and time stamps to help me. Overall just a lot of video didn't get done because a) most of it requires extensive editing, b) I work 40+ hours a week because I like to eat food and live somewhere, c) a lot of random shit happened like my car breaking and my grandpa dying, d) it's been an emotional rollercoaster of anxiety, dread and depression all year. That's looking at things negatively though. On the flip side, my production standards and editing skills have increased, I managed to hold onto a steady job while many people here are struggling to find work due to a bad economy, I got a new car with door locks that actually work, someone close to me rekindled their love of playing guitar after playing at my grandpa's funeral, and I learned that I can survive a full-blown panic attack while driving a car. 

And to start off the year 2017, I got my first "get back in the kitchen" comment ever! I didn't think they actually existed. I thought it was a over-simplified joke that people made when talking about assholes on the internet. a) Either the laziest troll ever, or b) an idiot so frustrated with his life that he actually believes this shit.



It's okay though. This dude and the ambiguous "we" not only created my comments section, but the whole "website" single-handedly. I figured it deserved a special shout-out. Does Google even know? Also he seems to be another person who doesn't understand that you can edit your own comments on YouTube. That or he really likes spam.

Either way, 2016 LP recap video is up. Hope you enjoy!

PS - Almost complete Silver's storyline in Sonic 2006. I wasn't feeling well when I was playing it an ended up having a minor panic attack while playing and nearly puked. I actually had to stop playing for like 10-20 minutes to take a rage break, so I can safely say that this game is now hashbrowns-on-forehead bad. Two games now fit that category and they were both part of 2016.

Not The Collaboration You Want

So I got this in my email yesterday. I assume it was quickly deleted when the person discovered it's REALLY not the collaboration he wants.

I'm so sad that the message wasn't kept there, even if it is automated spam. I was so tempted to respond by saying that I can play keyboard (get it?) and offer a lot of squeals and sneezes to his work. The other part of this that amuses me greatly is that this bandhub site is basically data mining/searching for key words (the title of my video is also a Basshunter song). Apparently the only qualification for finding someone to collaborate with is liking Basshunter. This gentlemen has the highest of standards.

Hey, maybe it's some sort of clever marketing scheme that goes completely over my head or a scam, but I still had some giggles. I am the least musical person you will ever meet. I can't sing, I can't play anything and I can't dance.

In other news....SHAUNA AND I FINISHED TESTAMENT OF SHERLOCK HOLMES!!!111!!!1!!!!!

Yeah we started that in like...October.

October 2015.

Was really fun trying to remember wtf was going on and what we were supposed to be doing. Meanwhile Watson doesn't understand personal space. I will say the monkey jewel thief comes full circle in shocking and unexpected ways!

I'll try REALLY hard to get Sherlock and Evil Within out before 2017. Just get the silly and unpleasantness out of the way once and for all. I've been working on the RPG again instead of video work though. I am SO close to having the first area done/playable. I predict another 16 hours of work, which is nothing if I'm working on it full time. I am not. Also the fact that the bloody copier took me about 2 hours to get fully functional is a little embarrassing. Emulates real printers and photocopiers I suppose. I have the level/map plan hashed out in my project and a strategy for building/testing all of them. Turns out making a game is a lot of work when you're the only one building, designing, writing, creating assets and scripting. Also, I highly recommend going into a project like this with at least a little knowledge of what you're doing and not starting out at level 0 in terms of trying to figure things out. Either way, Mesk, HKS and Nick have been invaluable resources.

Problem is this week is a little busy. I work 14 hours today to get home round 10:30pm, then tomorrow I'll be home round 9:30pm, then Wednesday I'll be home around 10:30pm, then Thursday I'll be home around 11:30pm the Friday...oh maybe Friday I'll have some time. Then Saturday I may have the daytime free, but I'm busy 5pm on. Sunday obviously is Christmas and I'll be busy with family. Boxing Day....hmmm boxing day would be a good day to work on videos while everyone is out stressing themselves with sales and shopping...excellent.

We're Going to Win Christmas

It's really hard to decide which one enrages me more. Like Sonic 2006 is bad in every way possible. Sonic Unleashed, if I remember, was at least PLAYABLE, but I rage quit a few times and never finished the stupid thing. I got to the end of the game and it FORCED me to watch the same cutscene over and over and over every time I died. It was not a short cutscene and it was annoying as hell. At least Sonic 2006 has skippable cutscenes.

Getting closer to the holidays and my opportunity to take a bit of a break. A community launch will be happening over the holidays, so I'm sort of on call if everything blows up, but other than that I will likely have time to relax a bit. I am very tired. Spent 4 hours attempting my grandmother's cabbage rolls. I did most of it right, but I accidentally used the wrong tomato product (sauce not juice) and slightly underseasoned the filling (but that may have been because I needed to layer them due to the size of the pan and the sauce juice stuff trickled down too far).

Did a gift exchange in the office as well and managed to score one of the Nerf guns my CEO got for it. There are four Nerf guns in the office now. Rob thought he was protected by his wall of monitors. His forehead sticks out at the top so Todd and I were trying to snipe it. Then Rob borrowed Todd's gun and started sniping the CE team. He lost one of the bullets in the process, but the CE pod is still well supplied thanks to Judy. The Nerf war has begun.

In other news, I do a pretty decent Tommy Wiseau impression.

Speaking of Sonic 2006, progress continues on editing the video for it. It will be part of my holiday "special" this year. I still need to put together a compilation of some sort for it. Not too sure what I'll do yet, but I had a couple ideas including making a new trailer for u toob. I should aim to finish editing Evil Within before the New Year. That and Murdered will be pretty much the only co-op projects I've finished this year. Yikes.

I can't guarantee anything for the new year, but know that I have a good stock of videos saved up so...shouldn't run out of content any time soon. My anxiety has been a little out of control lately and my sleep has been disrupted significantly 3 times in the last couple weeks. I'm tired a lot of the time and busy with holiday family stuff etc. so...I haven't had much time to work on personal projects let alone catch up on what a lot of other people are doing.

To the people I know who were put through hell in 2016 (aka the Blender of Misery and Disappointment), I hope you at least have a peaceful holiday season. I feel we're on the precipice of something big. But hey, on the bright side, if we all survive it, at least we'll have one hell of a story to tell.

A Few Thursdays in One

Not sure what happened last Thursday, and the one before but I got lazy or something and never posted the like...two paragraphs I wrote.

FIRST THURSDAY:
Good news! Germans can now watch my Bioshock videos on YouTube! Not that many Germans really cared or were hurting for it, but now I can delete those off my public drive. Hooray more space! 100GB seemed like so much for a public drive, but I'm actually pretty close to running out of space. Granted, I've been hosting a lot of other files in secret random folders all over the place.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di1XUB0YIzw

This orange. This massive, mutant orange. It either has slices that are delicious, or slices that are tough and disgusting. I don't even.

SECOND THURSDAY:
At home not feeling too good.

TODAY:

Yeah so, last two weeks. I haven't posted in awhile cause my motivation levels have been all over the place. November wasn't the greatest month and honestly, like so many others, I'm just waiting for 2016 to be over. There were some good things this year, but it was a pretty rough go in general for a lot of people. Not to say 2017 will be any better. I think things are all going to get a little too interesting.

Today I celebrate 2 years full time at my current work. I've been super grateful to have full time work over the past couple years because a lot of people I know have either been laid off or just can't find a job and that's not for a lack of skill, drive or intelligence either. Market is starting to pick up, but there are a lot of upset people here and I think that's going to have long-term ramifications.

So what have I been up to? Well the good news is, I look like I've been doing a lot because I had some long sessions of Pillars of Eternity and have about 70 segments prepared for YT. Shadow of Mordor has been done for a very long time now, but I'm still uploading the last 5 or so segments. I have a huge stock of Vermintide, Saints Row 4 and Left 4 Dead 2 that I haven't even started to upload yet. I also have a bunch of other random one-off videos complete (like Ultimate Chicken Horse with my brother and Oliver).

Editing co-op videos (and a couple of my solo vids) is WAY behind. I did an inventory of what I have and what I still need to do and here is what's still outstanding:
-Bioshock Infinite - By far the oldest content still left. I really don't want to edit this, but I feel obligated to because it wasn't a bad LP...it just has major sound desync issues...
-Gauntlet - I actually found about an hour and a half of this that is still unedited.
-War for the Overworld - I have some DLC content I haven't finished watching and editing yet, which is unfortunate because quite a few people seem to like this.
-Dungeon Siege 1 revival - It was revived and died. I still have about 2 hours of video to go through.
-The Evil Within - Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh fml.
-SOMA - Haven't started this aside from...uh...well...
-VTM: Bloodlines - There was an accident. Shauna's computer was blasted by a rootkit and we lost our save file all the way up to the Glitchy Beach incident. It's recoverable, and I have plans for this, but we'll have to play back to where we were (and we were at the end of the game). I have all the video files thankfully.
-Pillars of Eternity - I'm in Act 2. I've been playing for over 65 hours.
-Extra Life 2016 content - A holiday project for myself. I will post this as part of the end of the year extravaganza.
-Sonic 2006 - See above end of the year extravaganza comment. I have some amazing plans for this. If I can get away with borrowing the PS3 a bit longer, this LP might actually kill me. I've been streaming it whenever I play for commentary by Mesk and HKS.

I feel like I'm forgetting something, but that's kind of a common feeling with me lately.

I plan to play Dishonored 2 next, but that may be late December. I have a week off between Dec 24 and Jan 1 so I want to do that then. Michael and I will likely do holiday games again (may bring my computer so we can marathon Army of 2 and record it).

Also this happened yesterday:

Forgot to turn off the outside water taps and one of the taps completely exploded. We've had an unnaturally warm November, so we completely forgot. We'll need to get a new tap for the outside, but thankfully there was no internal damage to the house.

The Elephant in the Room

This week...I tell ya. I'm not going to talk about the obvious, cause frankly I'm sick of it. Sick and tired and just...

Extra Life was great and we managed to raise just over $1200 for the Alberta Children's Hospital. Thank you so much to everyone who watched, donated or stayed awake in solidarity. You are all awesome. I managed to make the full 24 hours PLUS 1 hour because of daylight savings time. I got to the time and my knees and back were KILLING me. I stretched out on the floor to help that feel better and I guess I passed out for awhile because the next thing I knew was a cat was rubbing against my hair and face. The capture card worked well, so I'm really happy with that purchase overall. Also glad I worked out most of the issues with it the night before. Don't ask me how I fixed things cause I still don't know.

I got my new car this week. That's pretty cool. It's small and red and actually accelerates when I press the gas pedal. The door locks work. It has FOUR doors. I can open it remotely instead of spending 5 minutes trying to get the key to work manually in the lock. And yet, I'm still sad about poor Sir Charles.

Missed soundtrack Thursday because I was too busy all day yesterday trying to pull some resources together to launch three new communities in the next couple of months with work. Next week will also be busy. I'm back in a state of always thinking I'm forgetting to do something.

Working on a few projects right now. Writing like crazy when I have a chance. I haven't touched Pillars of Eternity in about 2 weeks because of all the stuff that's been happening. May play some more tomorrow. Evil Within is still ALMOST done, but I haven't had motivation to edit. Have a few Left 4 Dead videos I want to post. Extra Life videos are currently going up, just slowly because they're rather large videos and my poor bandwidth can't handle it. I've been streaming Sonic 2006 and recording while I play so...I'll be pulling the highlights out of that. Dishonored 2 came out today. I plan on getting it and playing it just...$80...

Also, someone has been particularly vindictive on YouTube and has gone through all of my Dungeon Siege 3 videos and disliked them. Like...all of them. There's 59 there. It might be the dude who called me uneducated and then incorrectly told me how to pronounce the name. I DID butcher the name to his credit. Either way, I just laughed in his face and then Shauna swooped in. I just don't think this person realizes that he gave me a swath of extra views. That and the dislikes actually contribute positively to the rate in which videos are found.


As for the elephant in the room...all I'll say is someone at work crowned the cut-out with a tinfoil crown and I don't remember much of Tuesday night other than Tails' death screams and Elise's mutant neck.