December 31st Entry: Final Day of 2018

GuuzakaTube                                                                                                  2018-12-31

December 31st Entry: Final Day of 2018

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Ok, this is it: the final day of 2018! 🙏🏾 Therefore, this is naturally my final post of 2018. Wow, another year gone by.... 🌠😶 Let us take a look at 10 photos from places I've been, or things I've unboxed. A few of these photos, you've never seen captured on video, so enjoy! 😎🎉

 As I looked back at my own photographs, it reminds me of how blessed it is to be able to have the health, strength and knowledge to go places. However, if I must be honest, 2018 wasn't my year. 😶 But even with all the ups, downs, disappoints, laughter, and despairs 2018 may have brought, I am still alive and functioning. Being alive, means that there is the opportunity for a brighter, more fulfilling, exciting future. And if there is one major thing 2018 did for me, is it opened my eyes. After going through its unique good and bad, I now have a far better idea of what should be done to significantly improve the odds of getting the 2019 I want to see. Did you enjoy 2018? What did you overall think of the year? Are you ready for 2019? 

December 27th Entry: Post-Boxing and Christmas Day

GuuzakaTube                                                                                                   2018-12-27

December 27th Entry: Post-Boxing and Christmas Day

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Welcome! Did you have a wonderful, memorable Christmas this year? What about Boxing Day? Did you go out to shop on the first day? Perhaps you shopped online instead? Christmas may be over, but you still have to deal with both online and offline traffic of shopping people. Oh, and then there's the ultimate day -- New Year's Day! 🌠✨🎉😃 4 More days until 2018 is finished forever. 😶 What things will 2019 bring forth? 🤔 Only God knows... For now, let us proceed to discussing the latest uploads on my channel.

Unboxing Anker Powerline II Lightning Cable & BIRUGEAR Hard Shell

The obvious? I unbox a Lightning Cable and Birugear Shell. Boring! 😒 What you want to know is why I purchased those things. For the Lightning Cable, I only had one in my possession. It was also very long, so I wanted something shorter, thus the 30cm Anker Powerline II Lightning Cable fit the bill. For the Birugear Shell, I specifically mentioned that it was for my upcoming 4TB Seagate Backup Plus, so nothing too special about the story behind that. As you can see within the video, the Lightning Cable did its job, and is still performing very well up to now. 

Unboxing Blue Seagate Backup Plus 4TB 

So aside from unboxing a blue 4TB Seagate Backup Plus, what else happens in and off camera? I compared the sizes between the 4TB and 2TB Seagate Backup Plus. If you still haven't seen the video at this point, you should. The differences in thickness are greater than I thought they were! 😂🤣 And as such, the 4TB Seagate is naturally heavier. Not so much the point that it's a brick, but you can feel the difference. Perhaps what you would really like to know, is how well does it fare when transferring files? One day, I transferred 1.14TB of files to see what would happen. The result? It took 14 hours to move all of them! 😲🤯😱😳 I did not expect it to be fast, because after all, it's not the Seagate Backup Plus Fast 4TB. But still, we can all agree that that's pretty damn slow, eh? 🐢Nevertheless, I'm just glad it transferred them reliably, and without issues. At the time I type this blog post, the Seagate Backup Plus Fast 4TB costs $750 CAD! 😲🤯😱 Seagate Backup Plus 5TB X 4 + Ontario Sales tax = $723.15 

So this means that you could have 20TB of storage, plus $26.85 left to spare by going with that route. 😶 Yeah, wow. It pays to do the math, eh? Still, if you're ultra rich and want the speed, then by all means go for it. Even then, you still might change your mind after seeing this. Or will you? 🤨

Casual Instrumental Noise Session - Episode #16

If it wasn't obvious enough from the overt use of red and green in the thumbnail, this episode was dedicated to playing Christmas carols. 😄🎄🎵 Unfortunately, it was not a very rosy experience at all. 😖 I attempted the record the episode three times in total, only to ultimately end up keeping the 1st attempt. 😵 "So what exactly happened?" You must be asking? I did not like how the first attempt had too many cut offs after the first 10 minutes. It made it such a pain to record songs after that. So I then thought, "Hey, why don't I save the stock camera video footage to the internal space? That way, it'll be forced to save the entire video, right?" BIGGEST MISTAKE EVER! 😱 It kept running until nearly 70 minutes past! At that point, I was wondering what in the universe was going on? 🤨Shouldn't it stop and save the video already? How come the phone isn't getting any hotter? Turns out, that after running for 70 minutes, the camera decided that it was going to save just 8 minutes out of that. 8. 💀 No wonder I wasn't prompted about the storage getting full or the phone getting hot: because it wasn't actually recording anything past 8 minutes, despite giving me the impression that it was.  😠😡 INCOMING RANT! 

It was at that point, where I finally vowed to NEVER EVER IN MY LIFE AGAIN USE THE STOCK MICROSOFT CAMERA! IT IS THE CRAPPIEST, GLITCHIEST, MOST TICK-INFESTED CAMERA APPLICATION I HAVE USED IN MY LIFE! OHHHH, BUGROSOFT! WHAT DUNG IS THIS?! WHAT DUNG IS THIS YOU HAVE PUT INTO YOUR PHONES?! WHAT A SLIDIN', STINKIN', RANKIN' APPLICATION! OHHHH, THE FURY AND FIRE! OHHHHH, THE HEAT OF THE DRAGON'S BREATH! OHHHHHH, WHAT DUNG IS THIS?! THE PRESSURE OF THE SERPENT'S CONSTRICTION! THE BITE OF THE GREY OF WOLF! THE STING OF THE BEE! THE SCREAM OF THE COCKATOO! THE MIGHTY PUNCH OF THE HUMAN! THE STOMP OF THE ELEPHANT! OHHHH, BUGROSOFT! WHAT DUNG IS THIS?! 🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬

😴Rant finished.😴

For attempt three, I decided to use ProShot. For some reason, I don't know why the 4K option is greyed out for the Nokia Lumia 1520, despite being a 4K capable device. I tried e-mailing the developer about this, only to get an automated e-mail explaining that he no longer responds to e-mails. Why? Because of the sheer volumes of e-mails and questions he gets. 😒 Lovely... That's why you should have a team in place for answering questions! 😑 I decided to just record at 1920 X 1080, as opposed to the 3840 X 2160 that I would have loved to do. The recording went well, and everything saved. Yay right? When I editing time came, I realized that the audio had too many distortions! 🤦🏾‍♂️ So much so, that I would have been better off recording the video with my iPhone 6s Plus. In fact, I probably would have spared myself this entire dilemma, if I had just used it in the first place. Why didn't I? Long explanation short, the mono channeled MOV files the iPhone produces, come out with distorted audio after they're processed in Windows Movie Maker. But despite that, they're not too bad in videos that aren't focused on the sounds of nature. All in all, you can see why I just went back to keeping the first attempt: to keep the video in 4K and have no audio distortions.

Unboxing BlackBerry Passport in 2018

"Another smartphone from years ago?" Some of you must be thinking. Well, you know what? Not only are they far cheaper, but have headphone jacks, no notches, most had microSD card slots, and the slab phones had a 16:9 aspect ration. Not the stupid 18:9 ratio that many of the 2017 and 2018 smartphones have. So in other words, aside from having weaker processors or no more software support, they have more hardware charms. So that aside, why the BlackBerry Passport? I'll tell you: I'm retiring my BlackBerry Q10 shortly after the 2019 New Year. 🙏🏾⚰🌹🕯😥 That will be a whopping 5 years! And yep, it's still working up to this day. No motherboard failures, no audio jack failure, no charging port failure, none of that nonsense. The smartphone that was my first smartphone. When the video comes, I'll discuss more "memorable" things, but for now, let us divert our attention to the BlackBerry Passport! 😄

Here are the four things that shock me the most about the BlackBerry Passport: 

1. How pleasantly large it is! 🙏🏾👍🏾

2. How bright and beautiful the screen is. 🌞

3. How weird the typing experience is. 👎🏾 Really wish they gave it a fourth row of keys. The missing numpad is truly awkward.

4. The lack of 4K recording on a flagship smartphone with a Snapdragon 801 processor. 😥

All in all, I love the BlackBerry Passport despite its shortcomings. No, I have no plans to buy the BlackBerry KeyTwo. It's awkwardly narrow, and I prefer my BlackBerry devices with BlackBerry 10 on them. When I buy an Android smartphone, it will likely be Samsung, LG, Sony or maybe even Razer.

Smartphone Wars: Triple Bird!

You can already tell right from the thumbnail what happens in this video. But what you don't know is why -- why did I do this in the first place? Well firstly, I wanted to do a gaming video this month. Secondly, I realized that with a 4th smartphone, I could film three of the major operating systems doing something: playing FLAPPY BIRD! 🐦🤪🕊 And so there the idea was born. 😆 Another fun fact: while I was sorting the videos into their playlists, I realized that this one did not fit in with the other gaming videos, so you know what I did? I created a brand new playlist dedicated to this unique category: Multiple Platform Mobile Gaming. Yes, crazy, but it was a "necessity". 🤣😂

Opening Some Wrappings

"Should I upload this to YouTube or not?" That's the question that kept going back and forth, when I had to make a decision about what to do with this video. Ultimately, I decided to upload it, because why not? There is nothing wrong with it, so I just combined what was actually two separate videos into one. What surprise gifts did you get for Christmas? 🎄🎁

What's Next & Other Ramblings

2019 New Year's! 😃✨🎉🎊 No, I won't be filming the fireworks for it, but it's both exciting and nerve-wracking to think about what lies in store for 2019. Hopefully mostly good. 😅 Stay safe out there, and have fun! 😎 This blog entry may either be the last, or second last of 2018, depending on whether or not I do a final entry on the 31st, like what I did last year.

December 4th Entry: The Novemberian Crowd

GuuzakaTube                                                                                                   2018-12-04

December 4th Entry: The Novemberian Crowd

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Who is this Novemberian crowd that I speak of? 🤨 Come on, could it be any more obvious? It is none other than the 13 videos that were uploaded between November 29-30. 😬😱 Yeah, I did not think that I was going to end up uploading that much videos either. I overfilmed and ended up with more than anticipated. 🤪 Alright, so let us dive into them now! 🌊🎄 

D'Hillier Park Autumn 2018 Visit

I have been here before. Exactly two years and 5 days ago, from the time it was filmed from the second visit. Confused? The first visit was originally filmed October 22, 2016. The second trip was filmed October 27, 2018. But of course, while I was filming the second time, I had no idea when exactly I did the first, until now. LOL. Has anything significant changed here since then? No. What is different is that I explored some forest trail at one of the parts. I also discovered another area that gave me access to the beautiful Lynde Creek. It was that same spot that led to my inspiration for the nature videos I filmed on the BlackBerry Q10, Nokia Lumia 1520 and iPhone 6s Plus. Read their headings below to learn more about them.

Lynde Creek Autumn 2018 BlackBerry Q10 HD

It's safe to say that it's been a good while since I've recorded a video entirely on the BlackBerry Q10. Ever since I acquired the Nokia Lumia 1520, the BlackBerry Q10 has largely just been a backup camera. And then when I acquired an iPhone 6s Plus earlier this year, it made the BlackBerry Q10 even more of a rarely used video camera. I have used the BlackBerry Q10 quite a bit for Instagram photos though. But even then, not nearly as much as I used to. The reasons for this are obvious: lack of optical image stabilization, no 4K video recording, and the tiny screen is just no fun to use. ☹ But nevertheless, I felt compelled to use it during my time in front of the Lynde Creek. How did it fare? Honestly, it is truly garbage in comparison to the glorious 4K of the Nokia Lumia 1520 and iPhone 6s Plus. The only area it did beat one of them, is in the audio department. 😬 More on that in the entry written for the iPhone 6s Plus. If you've already seen the pinned comment on the video, then you'll already know why. 😶 I wonder how this video would look if it were filmed with a BlackBerry Passport?🤔

Unboxing And Demoing Glider Gloves

I'm not going to bore you or waste your time with this one, so let's head straight to the burning question: are the Glider Gloves warm enough for a Canadian winter? Hell no! Well, unless your winters frequently stay above 8°C, then maybe. The only part of Canada where winters are that mild would be southern Vancouver island, and the southwestern coast of British Columbia. Even then, those areas rain a lot, and I don't think the Glider Gloves are waterproof. Also, let us not forget that even though most smartphones are water-resistant these days, not all of them are. Does this mean that the Glider Gloves are bad and useless? No, they're not, but do not use them extensively for temperatures below 5°C. I can tell you from experience that your hands will get uncomfortably cold in the fingers if you do. 🥶🥶🥶

Lynde Creek Autumn 2018 iPhone 6s Plus 4K

"⚠If you have watched the Lynde Creek version shot with the iPhone 6s Plus, you will notice that the audio is distorted. This is very likely because iPhone's produce MOV files in mono audio. With Windows Movie Maker, you are forced to export them as MP4 files in a stereo format, which I believe causes audio distortion. If you know what settings to use on Windows Movie Maker to prevent this from happening, please let me know. If Windows Movie Maker should not be used for MOV files, list any good, inexpensive movie editors available on Windows 10. The Nokia Lumia 1520 version of these videos came out fine.⚠"

That is the warning you will see in the descriptions of these videos. Thanks to these videos, it is now crystal clear that my videos I produced with the iPhone 6s Plus really did have audio distortion that was not present until when they were processed through Windows Movie Maker. 😒 Before, I thought that maybe it was just me, but nope! It is 100% proven now. It's rather unfortunate that it has to be like this, because aside from the audio, the videos are otherwise gorgeous. The solution for now? If you'd really rather watch the iPhone 6s Plus versions for whatever reason, you can watch the videos muted, or watch them without headphones with the volume turned low. Quite interesting that the humble, lowly BlackBerry Q10 is more compatible with Windows software than it is. One would think that Apple with its mass appeal products would make the phones capable of producing videos in MP4 and in stereo, but nope! Over the months spent with this smartphone, I can really see why so many Android users poke at Apple's iOS for being such a "prison of an OS"; because it really is. 😬 Thank God I'm not the type of person that only "worships" one operating system! 🤣😂 If the Razer Phone 2, Sony Xperia XZ2 Premium and Red Hydrogen weren't so expensive, I would have bought one of them by now. 😢

Lynde Creek Autumn 2018 Nokia Lumia 1520 4K

With the exception of low light scenarios, the camera of the Nokia Lumia 1520 really doesn't disappoint. For a flagship that was released back in 2013, that is no longer being updated, the camera and performance remains stellar to this day. Now I know what you close observers are going to say, "Isn't this also the camera that you frequently complain about cutting off videos and not saving them?" Yes, you're right, it is. But do you know why it does that? Well, from asking around, I finally discovered that it was a glitch with the Microsoft camera app. Wow! 🤯 Surprising, eh? So what is the solution? Use another camera app! 😎 I did not discover the problem and solution at the time of filming this. But thankfully, the app did decide to save the entire video. 😪

D'Hillier Skies Autumn 2018 iPhone 6s Plus 4K

I absolutely loved the way the photos and videos came out with the iPhone 6s Plus for this video. In fact, I loved them so much that I actually took one of the 3840 X 2160 photographs and made it my desktop background. 🌞 Even with the distorted audio problem, the sheer beauty of the moving clouds and colours are nothing to casually shake off.

D'Hillier Skies Autumn 2018 Nokia Lumia 1520 4K

"Why are people still using DSLR cameras?" That is the question I literally asked out loud as I was searching through my photos to upload this one. Seriously though. The flagships then were really good, and the flagships now are in a whole other league. Some smartphones can now even do 4K@60FPS! 🤩 Such devices did not come until later 2017, and a handful have arrived in 2018. The colours in this video do not look as vibrant and punchy as the iPhone 6s Plus, but they do also look more lifelike? Comment on that and let me know what you think. 

Unboxing Canada Goose Men's Logo Pom Toque Past Season

Stylish, eh? No? Well, that would depend on who you ask. Canada Goose pom toques don't look extravagant by any means, nor do they need to. You know why? Because they do two things really well:

1. Cover your entire big head

2. Keep you warm in frigid temperatures.

While you can safely say that the price is too damn high for the Canada Goose Pom Toque, they're also actually worth it. How much do they cost? Depending on which "Season/Version" you're buying, Canada Goose Pom Toques can run you anywhere from $60 CAD to $150 CAD! 😵😱🤯😬😳 Buy hey, that's better than the $1000+ you spent on that iPhone XS Max and Samsung Galaxy Note 9 you're probably reading this blog post from! 😜

Unboxing White Jim Halo Polarized Sports Sunglasses

I have had adequate time with these sunglasses, so I can safely say that they are really good. Better and clearer than a lot of the other "casual" sunglasses I've worn. Have I worn them while fishing, cycling or anything like that? No, because I'm not a sports person. But I have worn them on walks outdoors, and they offer excellent coverage while providing true-to-life clarity.

Valley Farm Public School

Yep, lots of outdoors and unboxings in this batch! So, what do I have to say about Valley Farm Public School? Interesting! Because this school is located on a farm down in the valley! 😃🍈🍉🍏🍐🍎🍑🍅🍓🍒🍄🌽🥒🥑🍄🥦🥔🥕🌰

🤥🤥🤥🤥🤥🤥🤥🤥🤥

Ok! We obviously know that none of that is true. It is just your average Pickeringian, suburban, regular ol' elementary school. While the school itself isn't terribly interesting, Major Oaks Park was pretty cool. Who am I kidding? I've visited that park numerous times in the summer, so I can say that I love it! 🌞 Especially that forested area. 🌳🌳🌳

Casual Instrumental Noise Session - Episode #15

Such a lovely photograph, isn't it? Well, you'll see the full set tomorrow on my Instagram. While the photo is beautiful, the music produced within this episode is anything, but that! 💀💀💀 Well.....Well, that actually depends on who you are. Some might describe this episode as "eerily beautiful" while others would probably click away as soon as the harmonics drop. If you have not seen this wild-as-an-animal episode yet, then watch it! 🤪👾🎶

Flappy Nyan

For this heading, I'm not even going to bother with the obvious: I played Flappy Nyan in this video -- DUH! You can see that! Instead, I will focus on what you don't know. That is, the fact that the original video was supposed to be 18 minutes long (21 including the outro song)! 😲 Yeah, really. So! What happened? Before I had the sense to ask a sensible community of experts for help, I resorted to my own shenanigans. I decided to hit the Microsoft home button whenever I wanted to terminate a video, to see if it would save all of it. This worked for a few test videos, but still cut off much of another test music video. 🙄 But despite that, I thought that it would have been a good idea to see what would happen with an 18 minute gaming video -- NOTHING! Like, literally nothing saved when I tried that. 

🤬😵😠😡😱😳🤪😰😬🤯😭🤬

So now you know why this video looks as though I had been recently playing it off camera; because I was. 😐 Thankfully, the temperamental Microsoft camera decided to save everything entirely, the second time around when I pressed the normal button. So yeah, now you have the full scoop behind this video! 🐱🌈

Flappy Adventure

Ohhhhhh, boy! Flappy Adventure! 😃 Unfortunately, this game is not as cool as the title would suggest. The graphics are great, and the gameplay is smooth, but it's not terribly interesting. It's also too difficult at level 5 or so, which hilariously caused me to rage quit! 🤣😂 One thing I should mention is that this is my first video destined for YouTube, that was not filmed with my Nokia's Microsoft camera, but with an alternate application. Not a fan of the 4GB at a time limit, but it's INFINITELY better than the wild, unpredictable, horrible, stressful, messy, pooey Microsoft camera! 😝😝😝 LOL! Seriously though, if Microsoft wasn't in such a hurry to kill off its own children just to sleep in bed with Android and iOS, the apps would be so much better. 😏

What's Next & Other Ramblings

What's next? Christmas music, unboxings, likely gaming, commentary and possibly an outdoors video. So yeah, it's quite a bummer about the whole audio on iPhones thing. I'm also really glad to find a working 4K camera alternative for my Nokia Lumia 1520. It should be noted that until I can come up with a resolution for the audio thing, the Nokia Lumia 1520 will once again become my primary shooter. Well, let's be honest here shall we? I was already biased towards it anyways, so that may or may not come as a surprise. Perhaps you may have thought I preferred the iPhone 6s Plus for its applications and better software support. Yeah, you're right, I do love it for that. But I really do not like how "castrated" it is without applications. And if you don't own something like a Mac or another gadget with Apple software, you cannot "use it to its fullest potential". 😑 Did you like this entry? Are you excited about what could come next? Comment down below and let me know! 🎄⭐🎶