January 31st Entry: First Nearly Finished Month of 2018

GuuzakaTube                                                                                                   2018-01-31

January 31st Entry: First Nearly Finished Month of 2018

Probably should have just gone with "Last Day of the First Month of 2018" but oh well. This one should do just fine, and I'm 99% certain that nobody's going to say anything about it, so we're good! 😅 While we're on the topic of this, how exactly has the 1st month been? Variable. 😐 "Is that supposed to be a good thing or bad thing?" Well, didn't get to put out as many commentary videos as I'd like; the whole upcoming YouTube Partner Program 2018 changes, and the random arctic snaps coming and going, are some of the things I really didn't like about this month. What's been good? The milder outdoor days, some of the interesting places I've visited, and other things here and there. Now let us discuss the two Asphalt 8 videos I've just uploaded to the channel. 🚦🏳🏴🚩

Asphalt 8: Airborne - January 24, 2018

Too bad the actual video does not have any of the action you see in the images above, but fear not. That's what the video below this one is for. So what exactly does happen in this video? I look at some exclusive deals, discuss the BMW 3.0 CSL Hommage, discuss Class A Season Tracks and mastery rewards, and max out two Class A cars. Exciting? Likely not, but this was necessary, as I further prepare to max out and take home the BMW Hommage later this week! 🤯😱 Hopefully... 😬

A Few Renault Trezor Runs + A few Class A Mastery Races

This one! This is the video where lots of racing took place. I took the Renault Trezor for a few races in French Guiana, the Dodge Viper in a couple places, as well as the Chevrolet Corvette. Oh, and let's not forget the Lamborghini Gallardo in Dubai! It's really quite ridiculous, how you have to use free Class A upgrades to avoid spending thousands of tokens on a car, that they should have just made credits-only like everything else. Thankfully, it's only the BMW Hommage and Mosler Super GT that are like this. Greedloft wants you to fork out money on tokens for a fake arcade racing game really badly! Thankfully, people with sense, skills and patience, know better not to ever give into Gameloft's token greed! Seriously, the game is very fun and all, hence why I play it so much. But if there's one thing that could seriously go, is the push for in-app purchases. They can do better than that. Anyways! Though the setup is a bit of a pain, it was great to be able to record some Asphalt 8 videos that involve racing. Now for the burning question: will I be able to win the BMW 3.0 CSL Hommage and Renault Trezor? The answer is a cryptic one... likely yes, and probably not?! 😵😱😳🤯😭😖😓 It is extremely weird how at one point, test #31 Venice Flawless to be exact, I seriously contemplating on quitting and making do with winning only the Renault Treazor. Now, I'm feeling like I'm going to get the BMW and not the Renault! Why? Because of ----------------------- *drum roll* VENICE! Yep, Venice. Beautiful, beautiful, STRESSFUL-AS-HELL Venice! 👿👿😠😠😡😡 The problem? The impossible time attack on one them! Most people that I've seen pass this test, only passed merely by milliseconds! Let me emphasize this once more: MILLISECONDS! That's how bad it is! ☠ The reason being is that this Championship did not offer nearly as much time as some of the other ones did to complete bonus goals. Therefore, getting electric engines, which the Championship already did not give enough of, becomes are very difficult task. Pro'ing the car with an insufficient amount of electric engines? Impossible. So because these electric engines are very hard to come by, Gameloft, of course, proudly offers a kiss-my-butt exclusive deal that will give you tokens, engines and a bunch of other goods, for I believe $13 CAD? No thanks. 😑 I'd rather lose the Championship than to spend real money on pixels. If you're playing this addicting, yet frustrating game, and ever get the urge and desperation to fork out your money for tokens, DON'T DO IT! Repeat after me: "I WILL NOT SPEND MONEY ON TOKENS!" 🤣

What's Next & Other Ramblings

Wow, I sure got heated about Gameloft's token greed tactics up there! 👾 Now for here, I don't really think I have a ton I want to say here. Perhaps I should discuss what happened to the commentary videos that should have been on the channel this week? Truthfully, I haven't even started them yet, because I already had these two videos that needed to be edited. I could have just held them until the commentary(ies) were finished, but then that would have meant no uploads or blog posts this week. Therefore, I decided to just go with the plan of editing and uploading these gaming videos instead. But like I mentioned in last week's post, I seriously need to get that commentary video on the YouTube Partner Program 2018 changes done. I know, I know. It's very likely not going to make YouTube change their minds about their treatment towards smaller channels, but I really need to talk about it. That aside, what other things do I have planned? Well, likely an outdoors video, and possibly a gaming video revolved on the Renault Trezor and BMW Hommage - IF I win those cars! 😬 Better say a prayer for that! 😆🤣😜 

Weekly Roundup From January 22, 2018

The websites and promotions recommended from my network during that week. The promotions for some of them may not be there anymore, as I've posted this a little late, but it doesn't hurt to check them out.

Lowe’s

Hackett

Gobble

FabFitFun

Orange Peel

Yogi Surprise

Trendy Butler

Get Cairn:

Avon

Dermaclara

vegaLASH

Manscaped

Scotch Porter

Epic Water

rareEARTH

Personal Trainer Food

Pretty Litter

Package Guard

Colorful Images

Current Catalog

Fine Stationery

Lillian Vernon

Casetify

Frank and Oak

Silpada Designs

Jaanuu

Lou and Grey

Beauty Plus Salon

Jewelrycom

Gemvara

Little Mistress

Pauls Boutique

Bright Cellars

Genius Pipe

Redbubble

* This blog post contains affiliate links

January 25th Entry: Impending Doom?

GuuzakaTube                                                                                                   2018-01-25

January 26th Entry: Impending Doom?

No, this title is not desperate clickbait. Those of you that are regulars already know that I don't do that type of garbage, unless it actually lives up to the hype. If you're only interested in reading about the "Doom", and all other things not so pertained to the uploads I'm about to discuss, head right over to the usual "What's Next & Other Ramblings" section. Otherwise, let us take the time right now to discuss the latest uploads! 😃🌊

Asphalt 8 Airborne: January 16, 2018

Well, the video description sums up this video pretty well: check exclusive deals, open challenger league kit box, and go for a joke run with the BMW Hommage in the Research & Development course. There are other bits that take place as well, but that is the bulk of what the video was about. Now in regards to me not taking the BMW Hommmage event seriously, that's actually false. 😬 I've actually decided to go ahead and attempt to win this car. I don't know if I'll get it in time, and with the way it typically takes me a good 2-3 attempts to win a test, it seems like it might be mission impossible? Who knows, time will ultimately tell. Even if I don't make it, I could always attempt it again, when it's resurrected, but what if I become even busier by then? What if it takes a very long time to come back? What if the BMW Hommage becomes too irrelevant by then? Or perhaps the most dreaded fate would be: What it Gameloft drops support for Windows Phone by then?!😬😰😨😖 Mind you, they haven't said anything about this, but it could happen eventually, anytime this year? Hopefully not, but if they do, I hope they actually announce it in advance, unlike a certain other group, which just allegedly dropped support for Windows Phone in 2018 without saying a word! 🤦🏾‍♂️

Rehoboth Christian Reformed Church

So! Why exactly did I film this place and the others I'm going to discuss after this one? Because I felt like exploring Bowmanville's Scugog Street, and capturing some of the places there. Truthfully, this was actually something that I intended to get done since December 2017! Unfortunately, I couldn't do this because something would seemingly always come about. 😖😤😒 Well, I finally captured the places, but was very annoyed about those hindering circumstances. Oh well. 😓 Now inspirations and irritations aside, how did I find this place? Alright. Nothing spectacular about the architecture or anything, but it was good-looking place to photograph and film. Oh yes! I almost forgot to mention that for some reason, the strip between King Street & Scugog Street up to Scugog Street & Jackman Road, smelt very sour that day! 🤢🤮 Why? God knows! I don't know if there was a sewage leak, or if there were dogs that had urinated en masse that day, but wow! It was STAAAANKY!😷

Saint Stephen Catholic Secondary School

And finally Blogger is functioning again, so I can type this! 🙄 Good grief, Google! Can you not do a better job at making your brands function? Or do did you just buy them for the sake of gobbling up additional data from people? Sometimes I really wonder. 😑 Anyways! Let's discuss Saint Stephen, since that's what you came here for. This area is large! I wasn't sure about whether it was going to be medium-sized or what, but wow! While the building itself wasn't freakishly huge, the property itself had other additional buildings on it, it seems. Whether they have anything to do with the school or not, is something I have no idea about. So let's also get the obvious out of the way while we're at it: this school looks very similar to the Holy Trinity Catholic Secondary School. Surprising? Yes and no. Yes, because I've never seen it before. No, because they're both apart of the Peterborough Victoria Northumberland and Clarington Catholic District School Board. 😵 I know, that is a mouthful to say! Well, all in all, it was an interesting place to visit, film, and photograph. As you can tell from the photos on this blog, the front was my favourite area. 😄

Charles Bowman Public School

Can you believe that this man is what the town of Bowmanville is named after? For all the years I've known about this place, I never knew that. 😯 Wow. Now, let's discuss the school named after him! Is it any good? No, it was kind of boring to walk around and film. 😁 The hilly park close to it was kind of fun though. I should also mention that I originally had no intention to film this place, because I thought that it would have been too far from St. Stephen Catholic Secondary School. Turns out that it was not far, so I decided to go for it. Upon reaching the grounds, I contemplated on top of the hill whether or not, I really wanted to cover this place. Well, I was there so I was like, "Just get this place done" Lo and behold, it is here! Now, not trying to make the place sound like it was horrible or anything, because it wasn't. I was just indecisive about coverage. "How come you didn't get St. Elizabeth C.E.S.?" 😳 Um, well, because I just didn't go there. Next! 😜⬇

                                                   

                          What's Next & Other Ramblings

If this title doesn't look perfectly aligned by the time I publish this, it's because it refused to move to the centre! Despite clicking on "centre" under the alignment tab, it just won't align for the bleeding life of it! 😡 AAAAAAAAGH!🤯😠😡 So annoying! Whoa, why am I bickering about Blogger's bugs here? Anyways! Let us now discuss the "Doom" and some other bits now.

Impending Doom?

If you've seen my Tweet or Instagram post about it, you'll probably have a very good idea about what I'm about to talk about: YouTube Partner Program 2018 changes! Yep, that's right! You know, 4,000 watch hours and 1000 subscribers by February 20, 2018, or be removed from it, until when you can meet that? Yeah! That's exactly what I'm talking about! And guess what? My channel is freakin' lightyears away from both! 🤯 Ok, hold up. That's being a little too dramatic right there, 😅 but seriously though; it's indeed "kilometres away" from both targets! Why are they doing this? Well, you can read the full article here. Complete non-sense! I've expressed my disgust against this on both of my social media accounts hyperlinked above, because this is indeed unfair to just cut small creators off, just because their number aren't big enough! 😠 This leads to a lot of questions: Will Google change their minds? Will my channel somehow make it in time? Will I quit YouTube entirely? Will I move to another platform? Will I continue despite the odds? Will I monetize through other methods? All answers will be revealed in the upcoming commentary video on this matter. 😐 Stay tuned for that, once it arrives.😶

The Fate of Subways Surfers

So yeah, as soon as the Cairo Tour that ran from late December 2017 - January 2018 finished, the Chicago event arrived and left Windows 10 Mobile users in the dust! Not a word has been mentioned from Kiloo to date, anywhere on the website, not on a blog, not their Twitter or something! If they have indeed abandoned Windows Phones for good, then they ought to just come out and clearly say so! They had done this with Windows Phone 8.1 and older, and made it clear and public why they ended support. They need to do the same for Windows Phone 10 users as well. It is wrong to have people pay for things in the application, and then go ahead and drop the platform without saying a word. Thankfully, I haven't dropped a dime on this game, even though I enjoyed it while it was supported. But seeing them drop the Window Phone platform without stating the cause, just makes me even happier that I didn't make any in-app purchases. What could the reason be? A bug? Low, unprofitable user base? A short break? Pure carelessness? Nobody at this point knows for sure. With evidence from this Tweet, there are others curious about the situation, too. With all this said, I will no longer play Subway Surfers on any of Microsoft's platforms, until when Kiloo starts to become more transparent about its updates towards the platform.

What's Next & Wrap up

So you now know all the extra goodies behind the latest videos, why this blog has been titled so, and why I stopped playing Subway surfers. That's if, of course, you actually read the entire blog. The only thing I need to tell you at this point, is what's next. So, you know a commentary video is coming in the future, but what else? Two gaming videos. The rest is currently up in the air at this point. For now, I'll get this post tidied up, post it, and continue with day to day actions.

*This post contains affiliate links

September 22 & 23 Uploads 2016

09.23.16

September 22 & 23 Uploads 2016

The month end is getting close! For this entry I'll be discussing the following videos: What Do You Know About Canada?🍁, Can You Pass the U.S Citizenship Test? 🌐🚕🗽, Infiniti and Beyond!, Flapy Totem: Treat Your Little Red Bird With Respect!, and BMW and Mini.

BMW and Mini

I've done GM, so now I wanted to go and check out the Bavarian Motor Works and Mini cars. Well, not so much the Minis, but they co-exist with them because they are owned by them, so where you see BMW, you're going to run into Mini. Good? Bad? Depends on how you feel about them. For me, it's neutral, but anyways! It was fortunately yet another bright, warm, sunny September day, so I visited to the Endras location to film these luxury German cars. It seemed to be mostly Minis around the entrance and front, but there were a couple of great looking BMWs as well. There wasn't that much to film near the front, so I went further towards the east in hopes of finding lots of nice shiny BMWs to film, only to find that the gate was locked. Bummer. I was hoping to film at least 10 minutes of BMW and Mini action, but because I couldn't find any other non-invasive way of getting in, this resulted in a shorter than expected video. Nonetheless, I still got to take a good number of pictures before heading over to the neighbouring Infiniti dealership. The BMW X5 is the BMW I would take home if I were in the market for a BMW vehicle right now.

Comedy notice: Even though the Orange BMW was part of the used Infiniti inventory, I felt that it was better for the role it served, though you could argue that the blue mini behind the victim would've made more sense to use.

Infiniti and Beyond!

A bit punny and clickbaity probably, but hey, it really suits it! Infiniti is Nissan's luxurious crown, so it goes beyond being your standard, plain car! Or does it? Who knows. Unlike the tightly guarded BMW dealer, I was able to explore the entire dealership (minus the inside of course) so this allowed me to film and photograph just about everything. In the video, you hear me mentioning a “forbidden” construction area, but after taking a closer look, it turned out that it was not as forbidden as I thought. After I stopped filming and decided to go around taking full resolution pictures, I discovered that it was a Lexus dealership under construction. Nice! So this strip is going to be home to three luxurious entities: BMW, Infiniti and in December, Lexus. Could Porsche be next? Doubt it! There's probably no space, and it would be highly protected. If I had to buy an Infiniti that day, I'd take an Infiniti QX80 in Hermosa blue – Wait! That word: hermosa. It sounds very familiar... Doesn't it mean beautiful in Spanish or something like that? Let's quickly check—Yes! It is the feminine form of hermoso, which indeed means beautiful, but I had been under the impression that it might have been slang.

Flapy Totem: Treat Your Little Red Bird With Respect!

Ok, so the full proper title of the game is actually Flappy Totem Bird FREE, and it was developed by Ajani InfoTech Private Limited. This developer also has a plethora of other wonderful games and applications available for the BlackBerry 10 platform, so you can check them out in the BlackBerry World. I have no idea how good most them are, but they sound good judging them from the names. The app I'll be talking about from them is the one you just read and watched in the video: Flappy totem. Overall, I'd say that it's a good app, but I just wish that free version offered a bird that does not get “injured” and cause you to wait two minutes if you crash too frequently or too soon. Oh well. Can't always have your cake and eat it, and they do work hard, so I guess they deserve some pay for their hard efforts, even if it's a just a flappy spin-off. It's a nice one. The graphics are great, game play was smooth, and because the character is small and light, it makes the game to be one of the easier spin-offs of Flappy bird. Before I resorted to nonsensical, corny narrations, the audio was actually quite decent, but could still be better. Now about the narrations... um... I guess after the bird got injured, I couldn't bother with dealing with a workaround to capture the game's audio, so I lazily just resorted to commenting instead, even though it was horrible! Still, better than a silent game in my opinion, or perhaps silence would have actually been a better option! Maybe. Despite what I say about how the game should be free, you're honestly better off coughing up that 0.99¢ if you want to play this game. Otherwise, don't bother unless you're actually very good at playing flappy bird, or you'll find yourself seriously frustrated every time you have to wait two minutes from crashing too often. Who knows, maybe I'll actually come back to this game with the full version and original audio this time! We'll see...

Can You Pass the U.S Citizenship Test? 🌐🚕🗽

Ok, I know it's the Canadian Test video that mentions the discussion, but since the USA test video was done first, it means that you'll see the problem that plagued the quizzes I've done two days ago on it first. My first attempt to recorder the video was with the namesake application Screen Recorder, but after I figured out that it only recorded one minute and eighteen seconds out of fifteen minutes, I was crossed! After that, I didn't even bother attempting to use it again, so I just decided to use ScreenCorder instead. Ideally, I wanted to film it in front of my microphone, but because my phone no longer gets wifi in certain areas of my home, I had to resort to recording in another area. “How will I record the sound?” I wondered. I then decided to go with running the Parrot application in the background to see how it would go, and it worked! The sound was recorded and my voice sounded even louder and crisper than what it would in my bedroom! When editing time came, it was a nightmare... the audio was on point for some parts, but became grossly off frame in some parts. Why?! Even when I threw the unedited audio onto the unedited video, it still wouldn't sync! What?! I tried all sorts of methods including sliding, trimming, adjusting etc., but no avail. When I eventually saw that I was going nowhere with this, I had two options: one, abort the video. Two, put up an “excuses” slide. You know what the deal is, because you're reading this and have watched the video, so I went with option #2 to warn people and let others know what was up. Well technically, that was done on the Canadian test video, but the American test video did have an annotation near the end that mentions the off-sync audio issue. So now I'm curious: what happened with Parrot? Did something get borked while it was recording? I know it obviously distorted my voice sometimes, which I filled in with a beep in one of the parts. Speaking of that, as funny or not funny as some of you may have found them, that was the intention: to fill in unbearable goof-ups and occasional distorted words. I originally wanted to leave them out, but I thought that it would've been a better idea to use fillers to make the audio length match the video length, but with or without, original audio and unoriginal audio, it still didn't work... Sigh... Next time, I'll honestly just have to find a way to get my wifi back, but that's the problem: why the hell doesn't my phone have reception in some areas anymore? It is the router to blame? The house? The operating system? Who knows! Probably the operating system, because my computer usually manages to get signals, whether they're good or not, so it might just be that. Speaking of operating system, BlackBerry 10 has really and sadly become such a big joke! It was supposed to see 10.3.3.3 or something like that from when, and hasn't, and probably never will, despite the so called commitment they keep lying about. John Chen, I'd rather you just say, “Sorry, were done with BlackBerry 10 for good now,” than to keep lying and saying that you're committed. Now that I've spent a considerable amount of time explaining, complaining and ranting, it's time to briefly mention the quiz itself. Majority of the answers I had no idea about, but as mentioned above and in the Canadian video itself, that score was originally much lower, but I must have accidentally clicked a link that took me out of the quiz. This caused my results to become skewed by the time I came back to it. The quiz was fun, but editing time was painful thanks to the broken audio that couldn't sync!

What Do You Know About Canada? 🍁🍁

Since I already got all my negativity and complaints out with the American entry above, I can focus solely on the Canadian Test itself for this one. This test was even longer than the American version and offered no trivia, so it was quite a serious test! Not my commentaries though. They were quite ridiculous, hilarious, offensive or overkill depending on the way you view it. So, why did I take these tests? Well, I haven't done any quizzes on the channel before and despite how I joke about them not being games, they are indeed a type of game, so why not? If I did America, I felt that it was only natural to go ahead and take the Canadian test. I fared poorly on both tests and proceeded to making cheesy commentaries on how I was not going to be allowed to live in either countries after failing their tests, and that I would be sent through an unsanitary ship or plane back to Jamaica to be slapped, whipped and pick bananas. Again, if haven't said it already, do not take this ridiculous video with it's equally ridiculous commentary seriously, or else you're ridiculous yourself for taking ridiculous commentary seriously! Anyway, after the poor audio results with these videos, I'm determined to do another quiz video in the future with accurately synced audio this time! Don't know how I'll fix the wifi, but as mentioned last time, experimentation and progression is the reasoning behind my lousy videos. Actually, the solution is quite clear: Screen Recorder is the way to go for mobile commentary videos, but I'll just have to shout at the developer to fix his app!!!! Ok, so I won't shout, but you know what I mean. It's an application with great potential, so it's a shame to see it act so painfully unreliable sometimes!

Asphalt 8: The Missing Lamborghini

Where is it?! Yikes! Looks like I didn't record a session this time, but hopefully will another time.