Damian Grove's Blog

Aahhhh! Earthquake!!!

2011-08-23T13:24:00.001-05:00

Okay, so it wasn't that bad. But still, it was a little scary. I've never felt an earthquake before, so when my apartment building started violently shaking, I was a bit shocked. I didn't know what was happening. I thought maybe the building was falling apartment below me. Now I know it was an earthquake. Here's a good informative read:

http://www.centredaily.com/2011/08/23/2886986/reports-of-earthquake-in-state.html#ixzz1VsPY9gQ4

Apparently Virginia had a 5.8. I'm trying to call my family, and my phone isn't working at all (I don't know if Verizon is having problems or if they cut my phone service off since I owe them money). In any case, it was an interesting experience.

Internet Explorer 9 and Malware

2011-08-16T13:23:00.000-05:00

Despite the continuing decline of market share, the latest version of IE beats the competition in one very important area -- security. I have always felt it was more secure based on my personal experience. However a study by NSS Labs proves this:

Click here to see the study.

I'm sure all the anti-IE people will find some excuse to say IE still sucks, but this should make it a lot harder for them in the security realm.

Wal-Mart Needs to Press Harder on Advancing Women...

2011-06-20T23:58:00.002-05:00

... or at least that's what a "news" article from Anne D'Innocenzio has for it's headline. Click below to read it:

http://beta.news.yahoo.com/wal-mart-needs-press-harder-advancing-women-232243633.html

I hold no opinion on the matter at all. I'm just upset that the writer decided to insert her personal opinion into something that, by all journalistic standards, is supposed to be purely fact-based. I read the news often and occasionally have to weed out bits that I feel are biased one way or the other, but this is one of the worst cases of bias I've seen, and it's very hard to make an argument that it's anything but blatant bias. It's actually very offensive to me, and again that's without holding any sort of opinion on the subject.

I feel there would be less bias if people of all stripes came out in unity and pointed out things like this and called them what they are. The problem is what often is the case, what's seen as biased to one individual isn't biased in another individual's opinion. However there's no debate with this one. Everyone should call this one out. Anne D'Innocenzio shouldn't be allowed a pass on this.

Swag Bucks!

2010-12-01T00:17:00.000-05:00

My girlfriend has been getting Swag Bucks for several months now, and I became curious about it. I am always skeptical about these "earn easy money online" things.

After trying it for the past 24 hours, I am beginning to understand the appeal. You can earn Swag Bucks by doing several silly things. Basically, it's their way of getting you to allow them to show you some ads and special offers at no cost to you. You get Swag Bucks for using their toolbar (which is optional), using their search engine, entering Swag Codes, watching a bunch of videos, and other things like that. You even get Swag Bucks when your friends sign up and earn through searching.

I am already at 182. Granted, I've been working at it, but if I did my math correctly, I'd still get roughly 10-15 Swag Bucks doing the very easiest tasks which take two or three minutes in all. A purchase of $5 for your PayPal account (which in turn can be used for anything you want) would take about 60 days to earn enough Swag Bucks to get (700 are needed). This, on top of my Google AdSense earnings, would account for at least $5 per month, but probably more.

My point is, I see Swag Bucks as a worthy program to sign up for. It's not a lot, but it will add up. I view it like having a bunch of money in your bank account and you earn a small amount of interest on that money. It isn't to be taken super seriously, but it isn't worthless either.

I recommend giving it a try. Click the banner below to sign up. That button will also use me as a referal, so I will get some Swag Bucks when you sign up. If you like it, tell your friends about it!

I'm Officially Licensed to Do Business!

2010-11-12T21:23:00.000-05:00

I went down to the Commissioner of Revenue's office and got my business license for Damian's Computer Services. Because I only projected a small income between now and the end of December, my business license was free (although I still had to pay $10 to register my name with the county). I'm really excited about this. Combined with my job at the grocery store, I hope to start making a halfway decent income for a change. I will be doing quality computer repair work for very cheap, and I am hoping to be able to make a name for myself around town.

Now to get my business cards ready...

Best Customer Experience Ever!

2010-09-17T01:18:00.002-05:00

I had a lady today use Easy Shop, the scan-as-you-shop experience our store offers to shoppers. Randomly, we are required to give audits. The attendant's Easy Shop gun will go off when it wants to audit someone.

I went to give this lady an audit, and she seemed fine at first. I found she didn't scan the eggs, and I told her about this politely by suggesting my gun wasn't seeing the eggs on her order. She insisted she scanned them. As I continued, she asked if I was scanning every item. I told her I only had to scan some of the items out of each bag. She thought that was obsurd.

She got more angry as I went on, and at one point she requested a manager. I didn't hear her clearly, so I politely asked her what she said. She replied "I said I want to speak to a MANAGER!", yelling really loud! I called the manager up, and he came on by. She was dumping all the groceries out of her bags by this point as she was yelling at the top of her lungs about how she was never shopping there again and how she's spent thousands of dollars there in the past.

We discovered that she had apparently done something wrong (mistakenly or intentionally, we don't know) at another store because her Easy Shop status was blue, which is one step from red (where the customer is banned from using Easy Shop). It was the very first time she had ever used it at our store. We don't know why it was blue, but the manager is looking into the matter at this time.

Anyway, that was the craziest customer experience I have ever had. I'd say it was pretty epic!

4.5 Years Later: My First Google AdSense Check

2010-09-04T23:15:00.003-05:00

Last week, I received my very first check from Google Inc. I've been part of their Google AdSense program since February of 2006, and I finally made enough back in July to get paid. I can't say how much I got paid since that would be a violation of the Google AdSense Terms of Service, but it's not anything to brag about when you take into consideration how long it took to meet the threshold.

The YouTube Partner program has dealt a modest amount of help to the revenue I earn each month, but it's hard to come up with videos that will go viral. I have had plenty of hit-and-miss moments, and the videos that have proven to be revenue generators are of a minority. My latest video for example hasn't done anything, even though I've done most everything I can think of to get it to pop up in the YouTube search results:

The experience I have had with YouTube and the Google AdSense program in general has taught me one thing -- no matter how much you think you know about how to get people's attention, you don't yet know enough. At least, that's true in my case. I would love to sit back and watch the professionals do their stuff and see videos go from nowhere to everywhere like magic. There's a method to it, and I haven't yet mastered it.

So, will I have to wait another 4.5 years to get paid again, or will I get this video thing truly figured out before then? I think my biggest problem is I never know who I want to be or what I want to be about when I do videos, and that isn't helping my efforts any. Maybe someone can help guide me in the right direction.

I Have A Car

2010-08-31T00:52:00.002-05:00

After my '99 Ford Contour was sold for scrap, I was officially out of a car. I had to drive my brother's old Chevy for two months, and that thing was ready to die itself.

Last week, I finally got myself another car. For $2500, I was able to get a '97 Ford Escort LX with 88,857 miles on it. For the short distances that I drive, this car should last me a number of years. My dad played a big role in me getting the car since I had not been able to find anything I could afford that was even halfway decent. The loan I had to get to help pay for the car should help my credit so I can borrow more and get a nicer vehicle down the road.

Needless to say, I'm a pretty happy person right now.

ProSonic Public Source Code Release

2010-08-17T02:31:00.004-05:00

Here's what I wrote on some forums:

PROSONIC PUBLIC SOURCE CODE RELEASE
AUGUST 17, 2010

Here it is, the entire source code to the ProSonic engine. This by no means is an indication that I have stopped work on this engine forever. However, I also have other interests that need my attention, so I decided to go public with my source code to this project.

You will need the Allegro, Zlib, and HawkNL libraries to compile this code. The DOS version is the exception, where all HawkNL references are ignored.

My goal with this project was always to make the perfect game engine for Sonic games that everyone would want to use to make their very own Sonic game. I am hoping with the release of this code, someone will come along and make this the engine I always envisioned it becoming. I have laid what I feel is a good foundation for beginning something big in terms of a quality Sonic fan game.

There are things that could be improved. The object manager could be tweaked to be more flexible with moving objects. The PROCODE scripting support could be improved to allow more complex routines and arithmetic. The 68000 code support is only good enough to allow a certain number of objects to run in ProSonic, and no VRAM emulation is implemented.

I am granting permission to everyone to use this code in any way they see fit. It would be great to get credit for anything that is used, but I won't try to sue you if you don't, because at the end of the day it's only a video game!

If you plan to use my source code for anything at all, even if it's just a portion of it, I'd love to hear about it. Send me an e-mail about it. My address is ymtx81z ata yahoo dotod com.

Enjoy!

—Saxman

You can download the source code here.

Ke$ha's Drug is My Love

2010-08-11T02:03:00.002-05:00

I don't even like Ke$ha, but I have to say that I have had "Your Love is my Drug" in my head now for a while. It's a catchy tune with a great hook. It's very reminiscent of the '80s sounds I have loved my whole life. I see this as a possible trend that is slowly happening. Maybe todays music scene is transforming into something more upbeat like this song is. I sure hope so, because this song by Ke$ha is a real winner in my book.

Failed Hard Disk

2010-08-03T08:40:00.002-05:00

I turned on my desktop a few nights ago and decided once and for all, I was going to defragment the hard drive. It had been forever since it was done (possibly as long as a year). Disk Defragmenter likes at least 15% free disk space. I had about 12%. I decided to bite the bullet and clear off a bunch of stuff I really didn't need so it could do a complete and proper defragmentation of the drive. After several hours, I got it where it needed to be. I ran the process and let it go until it was done.

The next morning, I turned on my computer to check and see if it was any faster. As it was booting, I walked out of the room to do a few things. I came back and noticed that although every was up and running, the computer was running very sluggish. Everytime I tried to open a program or access any files, it would load very slowly. A few programs crashed randomly too. I knew it was something serious, and I knew it was definitely not a virus. What I feared became a reality -- upon restarting it, it wouldn't even boot up all the way into Windows because it said a directory needed by the operating system was missing.

Today I went out and bought myself a new hard drive. It's much bigger than the old one (500GB as opposed to 80GB). I haven't put anything on it yet, but I'm really hoping after I get the operating system loaded on there, I can access the files from my old hard drive and move them over. I've had hard drives malfunction and go bad, but I was always able to access files from them. This situation is different as the drive really seemed like it was dying a very painful death judging by the inability to read some very basic stuff from the drive. I backed up some of the important things, but not everything. I would like to keep as much as possible, and that is the big upcoming test I face.

Does anyone have any suggestions of what I should do?

A Minor Setback

2010-06-21T23:30:00.002-05:00

When I got my new laptop back in April, I had to borrow several hundred dollars to get it because I didn't have the money right then and there. I wanted to be sure I got the rebate on it, so I had to buy it that day.

Lately, I've been been getting 40+ hours at work. That's not bad for a part-time cashier! That overtime really helps too. Anyway, I've been catching up. I have car insurance and rent both due at the end of this month. I can pay my insurance in full if I have the money, and really that's the way I prefer to do it in order to save money down the road.

I have an issue that came out of nowhere -- my car doesn't run anymore! It died tonight in the parking lot at my work place. This is not what I needed right now. Just as things were turning around and I was getting extra money that could be used to get ahead again, now I'm probably going to have to shell out extra money that will set me back. The thing is, I don't really know what's wrong with it. It's been acting really weird these past couple of days. I will have it looked at ASAP, and I'm hoping that it's nothing expensive.

I'm fearing the worst though -- a problem with the fuel pump. So much for getting ahead.

I Was Suprised, But I Shouldn't Have Been

2010-05-01T14:13:00.004-05:00

I have been monitoring my viewership on my YouTube channel. The chart shown here shows my viewership from the time I first became a YouTube partner, up to yesterday. Now before the partnership, I was getting between 100 and 200 views daily without any video uploads. When I got the partnership, I decided to make a lot of my videos (including some very popular ones) private to give my channel sort of a clean start. As you can see on the chart, my viewership declined as a result of that. Everytime I upload a new video, you see a big spike on the chart, and then the viewership trends down again.

I want you to look at that huge spike all the way on the right. That is from the Justin Bieber video I put up. It's an enormous spike, and compared to the viewrship I had before the partnership, it's among the biggest spikes I've had since October 8, 2007 (the biggest spike was 499 views.) It's impossible to know how it compares to videos earlier than that date.

I've tried and tried over the past year to have something that would generate a large spike in viewership. I'm happy I found something, but only now has it become obvious to me why this Justin Bieber video works (and it's not just because Justin Bieber has lots of screaming girls falling for him.) There's a lot of people who are annoyed about Justin Bieber due to his music being a little too pop. In other words, it's entirely manufactured for the sole purpose of selling, and nothing else. I think that's pretty obvious, and many people resent it, so they start saying nasty things about Justin all over the internet. His die-hard fans see this and go the extra mile to defend him. My video is about Justin Bieber haters on the internet, and that subject strikes a chord with a lot of young people. If you play to people's emotions, you will surely get a big response out of it.

I might experiment with videos similar to this in the future to see how people react. It certainly worked for Daxflame. It is important to do it in the interest of my audience though. After all it is you, my audience, that makes this happen in the end. So thank you for helping bring some more life to my channel.

Sony Vegas

2010-04-15T02:23:00.002-05:00

I bought Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD today since my laptop uses Windows 7, which doesn't have a "good" version of Movie Maker. For those who don't know, Windows Live Movie Maker is very limited, and I can't get Windows Movie Maker v2.6 to see my Microsoft LifeCam VX-6000 at all!

Anyway, Sony Vegas is supposed to be a good replacement, so I bought it. The problem is everytime I record something with it, the video and audio are out of sync. With closer examination, it appears it starts recording the audio before the video has a chance to start recording. With standard playback of the raw AVI files, it is fine. When Sony Vegas tries to mix/encode the file for playback, that's where it becomes out of sync.

My question is, what can I do to stop it from screwing up? Is there a way to make the audio recording sequence wait for the video (as it should?) I don't want to do something crazy like destructively edit the audio so that it is in sync. That's a silly solution since that should not be necessary to begin with. I'm looking for a solution that will make it work the way it was meant to work. Can anyone help me?

Laptop

2010-04-03T23:45:00.003-05:00

I bought myself a laptop today. It took a big chunk of money I had, but it was worth it. I can now access the internet, and having this laptop will also make doing certain things for school a lot easier.

It's an HP Pavilion DV6-2173CL. It was a good deal for $700. It comes with a 15.6" screen, an Intel Core i3 processor at 2.13GHz, a 500GB 7200RPM hard drive, 4GB DDR3 RAM, a built-in wireless 'N' card, and Windows 7 64-bit. It connected to the internet without any issues. I'm still getting used to Windows 7 after having used Windows XP for so long.

The Most Boring Book Ever

2010-02-24T04:57:00.001-05:00

Try reading "The Structures of Everyday Life" one time. Just try it. I guarantee you will fall asleep, get distracted, or something along those lines.

I had to read a chapter (about 90 pages) out of it for my history class, and I couldn't do it. Normally I force myself to read a book when it's required, but history is bad enough, and having to read it is worse. When it goes into detail about food though, it's really bad. I don't care about how wheat traveled across the world. The author loves this topic apparently.

Tonight, I (at the age of 25) went to my mom and asked her to read to me. I sat down and took notes as I listened. It's a sad thing to do, but it was the only way I could get the job done. Anyway, I had a whole page of notes by the end, and I took those notes and wrote my paper that was due for my class. I better get a good grade!

Accepted at SU

2009-12-18T01:53:00.002-05:00

I got a letter from Shepherd University today saying that I have been accepted! I'm very happy about this. I'm aiming for a B.A. in economics. I'm already looking at what I can take, but in the back of my mind there's this little voice asking me how I'm going to pay for all of this! I'll admit up front that I can't afford it. However, I think I can get some financial aid. I hate owing anyone money, but it'll be worth it.

Scam Alert: Bogus Mail From CarSafe

2009-11-22T19:52:00.003-05:00

I got some mail that looked "important." It was one of those papers where you have to remove the edges to open it. It said the following on the front:

Make: Ford

REQUEST FOR IMMEDIATE ACTION - TIME SENSITIVE MATERIAL ENCLOSED

WARNING: $2,000 FINE, 5 YEARS IMPRISONMENT, OR BOTH FOR ANY PERSON INTERFERING OR OBSTRUCTING WITH DELIVERY OF THIS LETTER. U.S. MAIL TTT.18 U.S. CODE

TO BE OPENED BY ADDRESSEE ONLY
PLEASE RESPOND WITHIN FIVE DAYS

The first thing that's wrong with this is although it had my mailing address, there was no return address. Anything without a return address should be discarded, regardless how important it looks.

The second thing wrong with it is the period of time they give you to respond. Anyone who wants a response within five days for something you receive in the mail is being unreasonable and doesn't deserve a response as far as I'm concerned. Any reputable company would give you at least two weeks, but most likely a month.

Since I knew I had something good to write about in my blog, I went ahead and took the bate and opened my mail. Inside it has the following:

CarSafe
PHONE: 866-364-3336

Make: Ford

IMPORTANT

CALL 866-364-3336 TO EXTEND YOUR VEHICLE'S COVERAGE

** EXTREMELY URGENT AND TIME SENSITIVE **

SERVICE CONTRACT EXPIRATION - THIS IS NOT A BILL

EXPIRATION: 11-DEC-2009
COVERAGE: AVAILABLE

STATUS: PENDING

NEW COVERAGE:
PLATINUM COVERAGE
POWERTRAIN COVERAGE

MINIMUM FINANCE RATE AVAILABLE: 0%

Business Hours
MON-FRI
8:00 AM TO 7:30 PM

SAT
9:00 AM TO 2:00 PM

SERVICE CONTRACT EXPLANATION
REQUESTING:

1. EXTENSIONS AVAILABLE TO 2015
2. UP TO OR ADDITIONAL 150,000 MILES
3. NEW CAR COVERAGE / POWERTRAIN

COMMENTS:
THIS LETTER IS TO INFORM YOU THAT YOUR FACTORY SERVICE CONTRACT HAS EXPIRED OR IS ABOUT TO EXPIRE AND YOU MAY EXTEND YOUR SERVICE CONTRACT COVERAGE ON THE VEHICLE. YOUR EXTENDED SERVICE CONTRACT COVERAGE OFFER EXPIRES ON 11-DEC-2009

PLATINUM:
ENGINE, TRANSMISSION, TRANSFER UNIT OF 4X4, DRIVE AXLE ASSEMBLY, FRONT AND REAR SUSPENSION, STEERING, AIR CONDITIONING UNIT, ELECTRONICS, SEALS, GASKETS, BRAKE SYSTEM, HIGH TECH ELECTRICAL SYSTEM, AND MORE.

POWERTRAIN:
ADDITIONAL 100,000 MILES OF COVERAGE.

CALL TODAY: 1-866-364-3336
PLEASE HAVE YOUR MILEAGE AND VIN # READY SO WE MAY BETTER ASSIST YOU.
MON-FRI: 8:00 AM TO 7:30 PM - SAT: 9:00 AM TO 2:00 PM

If the coverage expires on December 11, 2009, why do I need to respond within five days? More important yet, who is CarSafe?

Never sign up with anything with a company you have no past relationship with. Through my research, it seems these people are the same (though the last digit of the phone number is 1 instead of 6.) The also seem to be tied to "Dealer Preferred Warranties" and "Edge Companies." In addition, several people have reported 636-757-7700 and 720-407-0465 in association with the number listed in my mail. I found this individual's solution quite amusing (although I can't claim that it actually works like that, but feel free to try!)

Recent News With Me

2009-11-17T01:12:00.002-05:00

People have been asking about ProSonic lately, and with that in mind I decided to go ahead and do a full update on my life at this point.

First off, ProSonic was supposed to have a Windows release in September, which got delayed to October. In case you didn't notice, that didn't happen either. The truth is I made a promise to a group working on another project you may have heard of called Sonic 2 HD. I decided I really had to keep my promise to them and do what I said I would do. So lately, I've been programming an editing utility for that project.

That's the reason I haven't been discussing ProSonic lately. I'd like to have ProSonic released for Windows (and perhaps Linux) before the end of the year. I can't promise that will happen, but I'll try for it. My main concern behind ProSonic is quality. I want to make sure it's truly ready to be released. I've been scared of deadlines since last year's release when I took a huge amount of flack for that release. I'd like to avoid that this time around.

In other news, I got a job at a grocery store as a cashier back in October. It took a while for it to become official due to a few complications, but I'm working the lines now. It's a lot to learn, but I'm getting better each and every day. The pay isn't the best, but I'm happy to have a job regardless.

Outside of work, I recently applied to Shepherd University. The only step I haven't taken is to send my official transcripts from my community college (which I'm expecting in the mail within days.) I'm hoping to be able to start there in the spring if the time frame works out (assuming they accept me.) If they don't, maybe I'll get accepted elsewhere, but Shepherd is where I'm most interested in continuing my education. I am also looking into some student loans which I will need to pay my way. Since I'm out of state, it will be way too expensive to pay for right now.

Finally, this isn't as important as the other stuff I mentioned, but I figured I'd put it out there anyway -- I got a haircut today. The lady who did my hair was obviously trying to pitch a sale, but I decided to take the bait anyway and had her put highlights in my hair. I have to say, I have never had anyone put as much effort into my hair as she seemed to do. She did a terrific job on it, and if she's still at the same place the next time I need a haircut, I think I would definitely consider having her do my hair again. I really like it.

That is all there is to say about me at the moment. I'll post more when some new stuff comes up!

Internet Issues

2009-11-01T03:51:00.002-05:00

I've been wireless internet accessless (like my wording?) for nearly a week now. I've trying everything I can think of to get my internet connection back. I've tried using my dongle on several computers around the building with no luck getting the thing to even see the router. The computers that are directly connected to the router all access the internet fine.

Tonight, I tested my dongle at my friend's house to see if he could access his router, and it succeeded. I accessed the settings for the router here to see if it was being shared, and it was. So my conclusion is that the most likely scenario is the router is going bad. This is not good for me. I'm unable to directly connect to the router from where I am. This hampers my YouTube ventures, as well as communication between people I have been working with on some side projects of mine.

It appears my ability to do much of anything online is going to continue to be crippled for the time being. I may have to buy a new router. I'm hoping that isn't the case, but it isn't looking good.

Anyone want to share their horror stories of routers failing on them? It seems it's all too common unfortunately.

Mentally Disturbed on YouTube

2009-10-07T11:05:00.004-05:00

This sent a chill down my spine. Check out AverageNegro's YouTube channel. He says he wants black people dead because they pose a direct threat to the national security of the United States. He himself is black. On his channel, he writes the following:

It's pretty simple. In order to secure a more perfect union, the deterioration of the United States must be fixed by implementing forceful tactics. There is a gap in the security of the nation called colored people. There are too many incarcerated and the ones free have no knowledge of the world outside the United States which is dangerous. Immigrant colored people are equally dangerous. Colored people harbor and befriend every kind of white person imaginable except law abiding Americans. Colored people should be stomped down on mercilessly because it is the right thing to do.

He continues:

I want many colored people dead to save America

I hate to give a voice to someone like this, but it's scarey to think that people like this are real. Clearly he has issues. He sent me a friend invite, but I refused it. He is also a supporter of the Klu Klux Klan.

What do you people think about this?

All About Me

2009-10-05T23:25:00.002-05:00

I made a video about myself. Check it out:

Yes, this means I am doing new videos. I'm attempting to energize my viewership once more and see where I can take my channel. Enjoy!

Looking Out for People

2009-10-02T02:07:00.002-05:00

I'm angry right now. I want to vent, but everywhere I think of venting only seems to put my post at risk of being trashed, so I'll vent on my blog.

When you run a website or forum, like it or not, your job is to look out for people who's information you collect. If you run a message board and you have members there, you are responsible for anything done untoward to your members. The members themselves are responsible for choosing a secure password, but regardless, hacking into a member's account isn't right. So when someone who has done this to several members of a community, screwed up the forum's database, and has a history of trouble-making, I want to see that person gone for good. That is the kind of person the community doesn't need.

I'm talking about Sonic Retro and the forumer who goes by the name x64. How can anyone be stupid enough to let someone like this back yet again? It's also personal for me because he tried to blackmail me once. Granted, the information he had wasn't anything serious, but it was still wrong.

He is a member of Pound Stuff. I view this group as essentially the 4chan of the Sonic scene. They make jokes that are very provocative, sometimes funny and sometimes stupid. There are few moral boundaries to much of what they do for the "lulz." It is mostly (but to be fair, not entirely) made up of anti-social people who have nothing better to do with their lives. He also played a role in the distribution of someone's home mailing address and phone number on the internet, a disgusting tactic that has been glorified on 4chan, Skype, and across some other social networks that unfortunately sometimes draw careless pranksters. Yet, he feels he has done nothing wrong at all.

I'm tired of top Sonic Retro staff members not caring about their members. If they really cared, they wouldn't let people like x64 back in! It's that simple. I've said plenty of nice things about some staff in the past, but I have very little good to say anymore. The arrogant part about it is they act like nothing unusual is going on. Now x64 is posting, and I'm just sitting back waiting for him to cause problems. There is something very morally disturbing about this in my opinion. I know some members don't say anything because they don't want to create any conflicts, and I respect that. I also realize that not everyone who associates with x64 or Pound Stuff is bad. I do feel however that something has to give. How much longer can trouble makers get a free pass just because they're able to buddy up with staff members? In the political world, that would be called "corruption."

I haven't decided yet if I'm going to continue going to Sonic Retro. I go there mainly to promote my YouTube channel, but I could always find other ways to do that. I just wish someone would tell me up front that they too are disturbed by this. I for one cannot begin to fathom how something like this isn't viewed as a big deal.

I Bought a T-Shirt

2009-09-24T13:22:00.002-05:00

I didn't even take much time to think about it. I normally think about things for a long time before deciding to spend money, but I get bored with restricting my spending sometimes. I just spontaneously put in an order to get a shirt from this website. If you're not familliar with it, here's a video:

How to Become a YouTube Partner

2009-09-21T02:54:00.002-05:00

I've been getting a lot of messages about my partnership with YouTube. For months, I've been saying I wanted to do a video with tips on getting accepted. I have finally done it:

Hopefully that helps some people!