Coffee

Apparently coffee after 7pm is great if I want to be wide awake at 2am despite being exhausted. Well it would be great if I was playing Hunted or something, but all I can do at the moment is wait for encodes and try and convince myself to do something useful. Like those papers for my bank that I meant to fill out two hours ago. What happened?

My hard drives are full of Neverwinter and Alien Isolation. One is malfunctioning and I still haven't looked into it because it is full of video that I need to remove. It also has all my laptop's back up files, which might be good to actually transfer right now. Yes. That is what I will do right now. It can work while I sleep. If I sleep. Excellent.

Let's see...what's coming up this week?
Today - Dead Space Chapter 2, Alien Isolation part 28 (if I get to editing it...suppose I could be doing that too)
Tomorrow - Hunted (more segments of chapter 2)
Friday - Lord of the Rings Parts 25, 26 ,27
Weekend - Videos from Neverwinter, Damned, Left 4 Dead and more Alien
Monday - Dead Space more Chapter 2
Tuesday - Hunted (last of Chapter 2)

Also, T-minus 7 days until I have no money. Paying off some debts. Good thing I stocked up on games during the Steam sale. Laptop is still functional (scare over the weekend as it wouldn't turn on and I got all mopey, accepting my laptop's fate...then I realized the outlet was dead and my laptop was just out of batteries). Car is in good shape. I need new boots. The sole has a hole and I'm kind of on a roll with the rhymes and I lol.

I'm done.

My Interwebs

My internet is so broken right now. Ever since the snowstorm last week that broke a bunch of trees in my city, it has been atrocious. It's really sad to think that these type of freak storms are going to happen more and more in the future. You can believe whatever you want about climate change, but after the last year and a half with freak floods, cold winters and storms that destroy half the trees in the city, there is no way you can convince me that we aren't in for a shitstorm of terrible weather in the future.

At any rate, a lot of online activities have become annoying. It will flip from being extremely slow and back to normal again in the span of an hour. Then it'll just drop for no reason. Therefore recording UT3 was especially aggravating. I have a good reserve of UT3 videos to upload as well as the final dungeon of Neverwinter. I also have a reserve of two Gamecube games recorded as well as a bunch of Guild Wars 2 I've been too lazy to produce. I'll have some new Schwa Can't MMO up soon, including a run of Archeage. Other than that, just have a ton of Bioshock Infinite to produce. Also, I ran out of Skyrim videos.

This week on YouTube:
-More UT3 missions (I'm so bad at this game)
-The final Neverwinter Dungeon (with my rogue not hunter)
-Penumbra Requiem (ugh)

What I need to do in terms of recording:
-Record more Skyrim
-Finish Dishonored DLC
-Record more Dark Souls
-Finish LOTR: The Third Age (this is...an experience)
-Continue Resident Evil 5 with Voyeur

A Little Bit of a Mess

Is the state of my videos right now. My hard drives are very full, which means a lot of work for me and a lot of video for you to watch. I spent the majority of the day here freeing up space. I am happy to announce that I have finally, completely, dealt with Penumbra Black Plague, and the final episodes will be available this week. I made a mistake and uploaded the segments out of order, and only realized it today when I was attempting to update the tags.

Meanwhile, I have begun recording Unreal Tournament 3. It has been...an experience. I am not very good...and we are playing on the highest difficulty. I will need to heavily edit the first two missions as we had to attempt them multiple times. We get better as we go though, so the rest of the videos should be full videos unless we hit problems again.

Right now my priorities are: Neverwinter (need to get that under control), Guild Wars 2 (not sure what I'll do with this yet), Unreal Tournament 3 (because it's taking up a non trivial amount of space) and Adventures with Boxes....I mean Penumbra Requiem (because it's...been a year). Thankfully, Requiem is short and does not take up much space.

I am likely only going to commit to those 4 projects for the time being, but I am still taking requests and I will eventually move on to other titles. I will keep a running list of the LPs that have been requested, or that I plan on doing at the bottom of this blog.

Anyone Seen My Brain?

Cause it's either missing or completely fried. I was already tired last night, and then I only ended up sleeping an hour before my back began hurting and I had nerve pain shooting through my leg. So that's fun. Managed to fall asleep somewhere around 5am but then I had to be awake for work and...well here I am. I should be able to leave in an hour, but until then, I'm stuck staring at my grilled cheese trying to remember how long it's been sitting there. So I apologize for this post and its coherency. This is what happens when I get 3ish hours of sleep...with medication for my back...and I was already sleep deprived. 

Here is a list:

1) Unreal Tournament 3 has a tentative start date for recording. We will be playing September 1 (or very close to that depending on when the other three gentlemen are available to play) when I get back from going to my grandparent's cabin out in the boonies. 

2) I started another LP with GameVoyeur. We are playing resident Evil 5. I literally retyped "resident" four times and the shift key wouldn't register to capitalize it. So it is staying like that. That's what you get for defying me resident. Now everyone is going to stare at it and be uncomfortable. Anyway, that's started to go up here. I will post the playlist on my channel when a playlist exists.

3) Guild Wars and Neverwinter Nights look like other likely co-op LPs/videos in the future. I have no idea what the timeline on those would be though.

4) Uh...I didn't record any more Dark Souls. This weekend was a little rough on me unexpectedly and I ended up quite busy. I still plan on continuing it, but you may not get many more videos before I go off the grid. 

5)Fallen Earth stuff is up. I have another video for it, so I will be posting that before I leave.

K I keep seeing the little bit of paper at the end of the teabag in my drink move and it's freaking me out cause I keep thinking it's a bug.

6) You will be getting a lot of Neverwinter, Skyrim and Penumbra in the next few days. I can't remember if I have anything else prepared. It'll be a surprise for you if there is.

Today is Monday so....

Monday - Neverwinter Dungeon, The Pirate King Part 3, Fallen Earth Horse Video

Tuesday - Skyrim Part 12

Wednesday - Penumbra Black Plague Part 3, Neverwinter Dungeon the ice mountain one that I forget the name of Part 1

Thursday - Neverwinter Dungeon the ice mountain one that I forget the name of Part 2, Skyrim Part 13

Friday - Penumbra Black Plague Part 4

Saturday - Uh...something interesting I'm sure

Sunday - I will get back to you after I have a nap

Monday - I'm disappearing into the wilds of Manitoba to become one with nature, though I'll have videos queued up while I'm gone. 

Oh god this is a terrible cover of House of the Rising Sun. Please make it stop. I can't handle this. 

Huehuehue

My house is peaceful and empty again as all the relatives that have been staying with us over the past 2 and a half weeks are gone. They're all nice people, but I'm glad we don't have so many people here anymore. Gets a little claustrophobic and it's harder to explain all the inane gibberish I spew while LPing to guests.

Well, I caved and got a capture card. This means two things. One: I can finally do the Gamecube LPs that I want to do. I have three specific games in mind, which I will leave a surprise as I have no idea how well this is going to work. Two: Shauna and I may be able to do more horror LPs since she wants to get some for her PS3/PS4. For now, we're going to work on completing Bioshock Infinite. And I'm going to...uh...finish producing Penumbra...which is kind of maybe over 8 months old now. Heh.

I will be recording more Dark Souls over the weekend as my brother is out of town and I can steal his gamepad for prolonged periods of time without him needing it. Lots of Skyrim videos are produced, so you can expect those for the rest of August. Looks like I will be starting another LP with Voyeur very soon as well (once we confirm what it is we are playing). Might also be adding to the MMO series with a new game "Fallen Earth," but I am unsure of whether I will be playing a whole lot. It feels a little stale and incomplete to me. Plus I got mad about the horse steering. Regardless, you can expect a video of that experience up within the week.

Coming up this week:
Skyrim - Likely two segments
Neverwinter Dungeon - The one from the Pirate Skyhold area. I'm too lazy at the moment to look it up
Dark Souls - One or two segments. We'll see
Fallen Earth - Another very silly video approacheth.
Penumbra Black Plague - Slowly but surely it will arrive.

Phantom Mooing

Yes, mooing. I'm back from vacation over the long weekend. I at least managed to post a few videos from my phone while I was away though editing tags and descriptions was a pain in the ass. So I didn't do it until I got home. I will now be in town until August 16, which means videos will upload regularly.

It was a good weekend. I was actually pretty relaxed out there despite the number of people that showed up. Regardless, I got some swimming in and I didn't get sun burned too badly. Aside from the party barge blaring AC/DC in the middle of one of the nights, and the phantom mooing and windstorms on another, it went fairly smooth. I was happy to get away after the shit-storm I had to deal with at work in the form of the most disgusting group of people I've had to deal with in a very long time. I honestly felt like I had been thrown back into Junior High. Of course I get home to find out one person in my household covered in bandages, another with stitches in her head and one recovering from a cold. Seriously guys, I was away for THREE DAYS. Usually having me around causes these sorts of problems...

Probably going to be starting up another LP with Voyeur in the next two weeks. Not sure what we're playing yet, but it's sure to be silly. A new channel trailer is uploaded, because the other one was getting a little dated. I still have a few other non-LP related videos to upload this week as well. Skyrim is coming along nicely. Dark Souls is...a lot slower. I also have a skiing video to create now that I have the actual videos in my possession. We'll see how things go. At the very least, I have Neverwinter Dungeons I can post.

Maximum Silliness

Quick note: If you add me in Neverwinter (rins@drschwa is easiest), please give me the heads up before you do (on youtube, here or a message in game). There are a lot of bots and randoms that try to add me as a friend or to a party. I will decline the offer if I do not hear from you first.

A lot of videos planned for the next couple of weeks. I will be away again next weekend, but I will be in town until late August, then I am leaving for two weeks to the boonies. Internet is not certain in that case. My plan is to upload all videos and descriptions in advance and just post them from my publish them from my phone in that case.

Over the next few days you will see:
More of the Skyrim LP
The next Neverwinter dungeon (I think it's Grey Wolf Den...)
The first couple of Dark Souls videos (which means I'm committing to the LP aaaaaa)
Two special videos.

Also, I did a little reorganizing in some of the playlists on my channel. I now have a separate playlist for Neverwinter videos and compilations/random.

You Can Steak the Bus

One of the better typos of mine that I've come across. Took me a good amount of time to figure out what I meant, which is probably due to being tired rather than anything else. I am tired because it is hot. It is hot because the temperature outside has been ridiculous and my room traps heat. I also have a computer and a laptop, both of which are usually running. I have switched off my computer for the evening, so hopefully that helps. I just hope I don't burn out another fan motor.

Oh yeah and I hit 500 subscribers today. That's pretty cool. I do not have a video prepared yet, but I will post something...different...for the occasion. Not sure when it will be done, but I will be posting it soon.

Let's see...what can you expect out of the next few weeks...

-Half Life 2 Episode 1 is finished, so I will begin recording Episode 2 shortly.
-More Dishonored DLC. While it's not the most popular, it has been one of my favourite games that I've played over the past year, so I will be sharing those videos
-I will be making an attempt at Dark Souls once I get a controller hooked up. I will not be able to play on a keyboard. I took a look at the controls and it was...well disgusting to put it mildly. I hope to have some episodes up by next week
-More Neverwinter videos (montages and Schwa Can't MMO episodes). I will be posting two of the dungeons we completed (the ones I didn't have random crippling lag in) as we had a lot of fun playing them.
-I have Skyrim videos, so I will probably post those. It's not just clip shows either! It's an honest effort to try and LP some.

Alternator

Summer heat is getting to me a bit. Took a week off, binge watched Orange is the New Black, and worked on videos and writing. The phone I got to replace my old one (as it was beginning to fall apart) is defective (are you really surprised?) and so I must go and get that replaced. I expect the rest of this week to be filled with writing, uploading, encoding and trying to figure out if I should post anything special for 500 subscribers. I probably won't have anything ready in time, but we'll see. I have a couple ideas.

Half Life 2 Episode 1 and Dishonored DLC will continue to alternate. I will run out of Half Life videos first, so I'll probably start uploading some other content when that is finished. I still need to record Episode 2. I am just clearing off the Neverwinter videos off my drive and then I can start Dark Souls. I expect rage.

Got menaced by another dude in a truck yesterday. I swear I'm going to develop a nervous twitch every time I see a pick-up now. I pulled over to text message someone and figure out if I had the address right, and about 30 seconds later this man in a black truck speeds into reverse (seriously, he was going about 50km/hr in reverse) and accelerates towards my car and stops less than an inch away from my back bumper. So I'm effectively wedged between him and the car in front of me. Then he just sits in his car. At this point I'm freaking out because I had no idea what this person's deal was. I didn't do anything. I was actually going to leave before he did that, only I wasn't sure if I could still get out. Eventually this woman comes out from across the street, talks to the guy in the truck and then comes over and tells me I need to move to the loading zone. I told her I just pulled over to send a message and that I couldn't get out, but she wouldn't tell the truck driver to back off like AN INCH (he had like 5 metres to work with behind him...if he wanted to park where I was all he had to do was back off for a second at most). So I had to slowly inch my way out past the car in front of me, which I almost hit, and I got out of there. Seriously had no idea what these people's problems were. It wasn't an illegal place to park and the truck was faffing about in the street before I parked there. I hate downtown man.

Forgot a Title

This is the final week of my contract job. I'll be sad to leave this place, but I have a summer of part-time work, catch-up with LPs and writing ahead. July approaches and I'll be around for most of it. This is what you can expect for the next couple of weeks:

Solo LPs

Transistor - Finish uploading by the end of June.

Half Life Episode 1 - Begin uploading this week (probably starting June 25 or 26)

Dishonored DLC - Alternate with Half Life Episode 1

Dark Souls - IT BEGINS EARLY JULY. PREPARE YOURSELF FOR RAGE.

Co-op LPs/videos

Really up in the air to be honest. 

Unreal Tournament 3 will be delayed until the people I plan on playing with get some personal affairs sorted out. 

Borderlands 1 - Might be an LP

Neverwinter - Not really an LP, but I'm recording enough of it that it theoretically COULD be.

Magicka DLC - Probably going to do this with Voyeur

Evil Within - Late Summer/Early Fall (whenever it's released) with Shauna

Just Cause 2 - Multiplayer MOD has apparently been "updated." Max potential for silliness.

EDIT - Offer still stands to join us on the Dragon server in Neverwinter. Rins@drschwa, SvetlanaMcnature@drschwa. If you join, I shall make you pants. 

Soundtrack Thursday 22

I meant for today to be another Retro games day, but then I saw Child of Light in my suggested videos sidebar and heard it was good soundtrack. So we're starting with that today and we'll see where it goes from there.

Going to follow the recommended videos further to Beyond Two Souls. Will be interesting to see if we have anything resembling a theme by the end of the day.

Next up is Tomb Raider, still navigating through the recommended videos of course. This soundtrack should get me to lunch, and we'll go from there.

Assassin's Creed III: Liberation is next up on the list, though I cheated a little by not following the recommended videos. I did however, get the idea from it as ACIII was a suggested video.

While I haven't played it, I hear that Metroid Prime is pretty good. We'll see what it sounds like music-wise. I may not listen to the whole compilation though as it is almost 3 hours long. Depends if it's really good or not I suppose.

It's too bad I already had Mirror's Edge and Transistor in previous soundtrack Thursdays. The point is to listen to new soundtracks, even though I've listened to these multiple times other days of the week since discovering them. I am sad that there aren't more games with female protagonists. Character creation games don't count in this case. Seriously.

In other news:

I have decided to alternate Transistor and Half Life Episode 1 after Dishonored is complete. Which will be soon. I shall post the Dishonored DLC periodically. Just thought I'd mix it up a little. Shauna, Nick and I are playing Neverwinter again. If you play, feel free to add me as a friend/join us. My username is drschwa.

My writing is beginning to stress me out, because I want to write these parts properly. They're going to end up as heaping piles of drivel bits, but if I go in with a different attitude, they will be smaller heaping piles of drivel bits. This summer could be it ladies and gents.

I'm starting a new(ish) job September 1. I have a whole summer of part-time work and video games ahead unless I find something else before then. I will likely apply for volunteer positions in areas of interest and write during that time.

New desk at work for my final few weeks. I was going to keep my old chair, but then I tried out one of the new ones and it has MEMORY FOAM. So I have adopted this new chair and am enjoying it a great deal. I like the window view. I do not like that every single person working in the room has to walk behind me to get to their desks. Visitors also constantly have to walk behind me. It stresses me out.

I found out if I wear my ear buds and drink a carbonated beverage, I can hear fizz inside my head. It sounds like pouring dry sand into water.

I can't remember where I put my damn lactaid again. That stuff is not cheap and I like ice cream too much. Ugh.

This news section has rapidly become more trivial.

Twilight Days of my Hard Drive

So, here's the scoop. My hard drive is probably going to die in the near future. This is bad because a) it is my largest hard drive that I use to record all my raw files and b) because I have a lot of unproduced videos and projects stored on that drive. I have made archive copies of all the important old videos on my other drive for now, but I have an entire LP of Penumbra: Overture, the first 40 minutes of Penumbra: Black Plague, a ton of Neverwinter footage I never finished sifting through, two chapters of Half Life that are in the middle of being edited (and fixed as I had some problems with the recording) and all of the Amnesia: Machine for Pigs videos, which I am still using to produce a...special video. 

This means a couple of things. I no longer have the luxury of storing videos on this drive and working on them when I feel up to the task. These videos must be produced as soon as possible, so I cannot give them the attention they need. I was planning inserting text comments and jokes into Half Life and the Penumbra videos. This takes time as I have to watch the whole LP. I also need to resync some of the audio in Penumbra because apparently these videos want to make me miserable. I'm certain now that it's the lag in the games doing it, and since the voice audio and game are recorded in two separate places...this causes problems. Then on top of that, 25-45 minute videos take 2-3 hours to encode. I can only produce one video at a time unless I get creative (which will require the use of other hard drives anyway). 

What's worse is I no longer have a lot of storage space to work with. I currently cannot afford to buy myself new hard drives because I need the money I have for the holidays. I will have to wait until the new year. This drive is my 2TB. The others are all 600GB and lower. This is fine for some games, but the problem is my drives are full of OTHER footage. I am currently recording Overlord 2, which takes up a lot of space. An hour, thirty minutes takes 300GB of space. That's 3.3GB per minute. Yay Fraps. 

So, the point of this post, essentially, is to say that my video production schedule will slow significantly until I get this sorted out. The good news is, I still have Overlord 1 to upload, so you will continue to have a running LP. The bad news is, plans may change, footage may be lost and I cannot realistically start or continue a new LP without great difficulty. 

Last news is, regardless of whether or not the hard drive survives until the new year, I am working on some special projects for the holidays. I have a lot of...amusing unused footage lurking in the depths of my computer. Keep your eyes out in mid-December for new non-LP videos.

Also, it's not relevant, but, I have my drivers license now. It's kind of a big deal. Well...for me. Now I must attain a chariot worthy of my reign of terror on the road. I mean...that's a nice safe buggy to go on lovely Sunday afternoon drives around town. Yes...safe...