Sunday, February 28, 2010

2/28/10 - Let's Update a Blog!

Hey guys, SlimKirby here, welcome to another weekend update for this silly little blog.

This has been the last week of February, and it just so happens to be the last day of February as well, which means March is upon us. First off, I'd like to give a quick shout-out to my dad who is celebrating his birthday tomorrow. Not going to mention how old he is because he would hurt me, and move my Netflix requests further down his account's queue, and nobody wants that. If you are curious, just remember that he has a 21-year old son, so that should give you some idea.

March also means that my Spring Break is coming up REALLY SOON! In fact, it will be upon me after this week, so I just have to make it through some assignments and some mid-terms, and then I can relax. Speaking of relaxing, I'm doing A LOT better this week than I was last week. This week was easily 100 times better. It was still tiring, but nothing terrible, and just thinking about the fact that I have a week of relaxation after this week....gives me a feeling of joy. It won't be complete relaxation as I will still update some videos for you guys, but that has never been a bother.

Anyways, quite a few things have been happening as of late. For one, I am SUPER STOKED because a release date for Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Metroid: Other M have been announced by Nintendo, and Galaxy 2 should be upon us during the month of May (they said May 23rd). As you guys may (or may not) know, I was a huge fan of the first Galaxy, and I just can't wait for the sequel. MegaFreak400 posted a trailer at the Blargg Pit this past week if anyone is interested in checking that out. As for Metroid: Other M, I think it looks great too, but Galaxy 2 is easily higher up on my priority list. I will definitely check out Other M too though, just because of how unique it looks.

Also, Tiger Woods is still in the news.......my god, won't that thing just die already? The only reason I bring this up is that I'm a big fan of the PGA Tour, so Tiger Woods is a name I have been familiar with. In fact, since he is not my favorite golfer, I've already been sick of hearing is name just from all the tournaments he has won and how famous he is. However, this whole situation is just bull crap. I don't support what Tiger Woods did, and yes, he probably disappointed a lot of his fans, which is understandable, but honestly, the only reason we are still hearing about it is because the media WANTS us to hear about it, most likely because they have nothing better to report. This whole thing should be between him and his wife and his family....and not between him, his family, and everyone who owns a television, newspaper, or Internet. I remember, I was reading some news articles the other day, and I came across a page-lengthed article that was basically "Someone got a picture of Tiger Woods jogging last Wednesday!" And? Can't a man jog anymore? That's not news....that's harassment. If this was an ordinary person being followed by some creep who was stalking their every move, they could file a police report and get a restraining order. Tiger should just file a police report against the media. It would make those undeserving individuals lose their jobs and open up some windows to create jobs for more deserving and unfortunate individuals. Obviously though, that idea wouldn't work, so unfortunately we are stuck with with our "Hollywood Watch" structure of News and Media. It's because of this bull crap that I decided against going into Journalism.

Anyways, I think I'll start talking about Youtube now, because I have a few things to mention.

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Copyright Update and Back-Up Progress:

Well, I have some good news, and some...neutral news. I finally got a response from Youtube about the counter notice. Unfortunately it was a notice that said "Your notification has been sent to the claimant," so unfortunately we have more waiting. Either way though, if Scholastic doesn't respond to the claim in 10-15 business days, the whole thing gets dropped, so that is definitely some positive reassurance.

Once again, thanks to the always helpful MegaFreak400 for even more back-up progress. He took the liberty of not only finishing all that was left for Link's Awakening, but he also backed-up all of Kirby Super Star last Friday as well. I really appreciate you help man. Besides that though, I did successfully back-up Mario Party 2 as well, although it took more time than I would have liked it to. We are surely getting there....

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Current Projects (Advance Wars and Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island)

As I've mentioned in various places, I am now on a slightly new schedule for the updating of these projects. Hopefully the new schedule will speed up Advance Wars in the long run, since I definitely don't want to be doing that project forever, and also, hopefully, it doesn't really slow down Yoshi's Island either. There isn't much to discuss otherwise though, so I'll leave it at that and talk about the main thing I wanted to mention for this update.

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Super Bomberman 2 and Mario Party 6:

These games have been on my "Future Projects" list for awhile now, so it's about time that I actually gave some insight to when they would actually begin. Well, this past week I did some calculations about when I would finish both Yoshi's Island and Advance Wars, and I determined that the former will be finished at the end of March, and the latter at the end of April. Of course this depends on a few factors (possibility of multiple uploads on a Yoshi's Island day is the main one). These project beginnings are a bit later than I originally intended them to be, but I kind of underestimated the length of Avance Wars, so that's more my fault than anything.

Anyways, Super Bomberman 2 will start after the completion of Yoshi's Island. It may not be "right away," but within a week of the ending. Consider this game to be the replacement for Yoshi's Island on the schedule after YI finishes (unless I decide on a new schedule somewhere down the road). The game itself won't be terribly long, but it may last til the end of Advance Wars (that is what I am hoping anyways).

Mario Party 6 is not set in stone just yet, and Advance Wars is kind of the determining factor for that. As I said in one of the above paragraphs, it really just depends on if I decide to alter the schedule again to make it go a bit faster. Anyways, since I should be starting Mario Party 6 around the start of my summer vacation, I may be able to do 2 boards per week (faster than Mario Party 5) which should make that a pretty quick project (since there are only 6 party boards). I'll talk more about this project the closer we get to it, but it should be here in 2 months, at the very least.

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CrystalStarStudio:

Last week I mentioned giving my thoughts on Chapter 2, and the chapter host K-Man. However, I will save that for next weekend, when he will actually be done. Either way, he will finish up this week, and Chapter 3 "may" start this week as well, hosted by ThePastaKing.

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Anyways, that is about it for this update. See you guys next week, and have a good first week of March! =)

Sunday, February 21, 2010

2/21/10 - What a Week....

Hello everybody, SlimKirby here!

Welcome to another update of this FANTASTIC (overexaggeration of course) blog. I do apologize for the somewhat lateness of this entry, but I have to admit that this did slip my mind until a bit ago. I truly wonder, though, that if the reason I didn't remember until now was because I actually forgot or if I had nothing of major note to mention in this entry that it just slipped out of my head. Either way, I did make a commitment to updating every week, and that is what I am here to deliver on.

Last week I mentioned that I was starting to get a bit burned out with all the stuff I do, and let's just say that this week did not help relieve any bit of that. By the end of this week, I was a wreck...so much that nearly my entire Saturday was ruined, and that IS NOT a day I ever want to ruin. Thankfully, I think this weekend will be a bit different, but I can only hope.

For anyone wondering if Youtube is the cause of this stress, don't be ridiculous. I spend 30 minutes to an hour every 3 days on Youtube stuff and my schedule has plenty of free time for that work. As for uploading/updating, that's nothing of concern either as I upload the videos during my shower or whilst I eat breakfast, and they never take more than 10 minutes to upload. As I think I have said before, I use Youtube and LPs as a way of decreasing the stress, because I get to play games =D! If I was ever put into a situation where I had to put off or cancel an upload, I would not hesitate. I would feel bad, but my real life comes first.

Anyways, some of you are probably wondering what exactly I have to say or impart to you for this update, so let's get on with it!

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Video Backing-Up and Copyright Stuff

Apparently I forgot to mention any word whatsoever about the whole copyright thing last week. It's not really that I forgot anything, it's just that nothing has happened. I even checked before making this update and Youtube still has not given me any information, and it has officially been 2 weeks now. If I don't get anything by next weekend, I'm more than likely going to find a way to contact Youtube about the problem directly, because this counter notification form doesn't seem to be going anywhere. I mean, I wish I could at least have an update of some sort, like if it got sent in and the claimant is verifying, or if it is in a big pile of notifications, or...really anything. I really don't like waiting when I have so much at risk.

For the time being, I'm just going to continue to backing-up my videos and hoping I'll get a response very soon. I finished backing up The Simpsons: Hit and Run the other day, and Im hoping to get Mario Party 5 done tonight as well, so work is definitely being done, and the more projects I get backed up, the less I'll have to do in case disaster strikes!

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Advance Wars:

Still some slow-goings with this game, but hopefully things will start picking up with the new upload schedule that will start being implemented next Friday, where I will be uploading more videos of this per week, and slightly less videos of Yoshi's Island.

Currently, I have just reached the first branching path of the game, and I have destroyed many, many enemy units! =D

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Yoshi's Island:

We're more than halfway there! OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHH! LIVIN ON A PRAYER!

Ok, sorry about that, but Yoshi's Island is indeed halfway done at this point, and with the new update schedule, I recon there will be at least 3 1/2 more weeks of the project, so it will be done by about mid or late March (about when I predicted).

I hate to admit it though, but I've kind of been getting a bit annoyed with this game. It's nothing really the game has done to me, it's actually more of the response I have been getting. It feels like no matter what I do, I can't make certain people happy, even when I meet them more than halfway and way more than they even deserve. I'm tired of justifying my "relaxed" nature in my videos without people assuming, "YOU'RE TOO TIRED!" And even when the audio and video is desynched just a tiny bit (a problem I can't fix or control), the video is somehow unwatchable? I just don't get it. Oh, and here is one thing that really blew my mind. In 4-3, when I was having trouble getting a red-coin fly guy to appear on-screen, some commenters took the liberty of saying I was wrong and making assumptions over where the last red coin actually was, when I clearly show at the end of the video that the fly guy DID have the red coin I needed. I mean, I know some people like to comment while they are watching the video, and sometimes they make the mistake of posting corrections before seeing that the correction was unnecessary, but in this situation it made no logical sense. This is a 100% playthrough, one that I have done before many times, with no prior instances of asking for help, and no instance of me saying in the video description or annotation that I didn't find everything....why would you assume half-way through the video that I was wrong, especially when they ended up being the ones not to know anything? Ugh...sometimes people just make me want to hit my head against the wall.

I know I should take what Youtubers say (when they are like this anyways) with a grain of salt, but with the rapid rate at which my subscriber number is increasing....that's a lot of salt grains.

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CrystalStarStudio:

We still got K-Man, and from the looks of it, we will have him for another two weeks. Not that there is anything wrong with that, as he has been doing an ok job, but there have been some highs, some lows, and of course, some hilarity (it is K-Man after all). I'll give a full evaluation of the K-Man once he gets closer to finishing his chapter (since some of you are probably wondering my opinion of what happened in last Friday's video, let's just say I'll discuss that in the evaluation).

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Well, I have nothing else to really report, so I will leave it at that. I will try to keep my eyes peeled for stuff to talk and rant about for next entry, because I actually kind of enjoyed ranting about stupid Youtube comments. =)

See you guys next time!

Sunday, February 14, 2010

2/14/10 - Halftime for February!

Geez, already I can't believe another month is half over. These two weeks went by really, really fast. They went by so fast, I don't even know if it's a good thing. At least I can say that I am one week closer to another summer vacation (which I'm sure I'll still waste).

Anyways, even though this past week was fast, I did have some obstacles to break through. I struggled through some exams, I rattled my brain to solve some big Java programs I had to write, and fought the outside winter wonderland. One of the exams I had I did ok on, but the 2nd one I bombed...big time. Thankfully though, I have an exam I can drop in that class, so that will no doubt be the one I drop. And let me tell you guys, I'm already tired of the Winter weather, because it is getting mucho ridiculoso. I finally got to come home this weekend, which was nice, but I have a feeling that I won't be seeing the end anytime soon.

As for the Blargg Pit, since I haven't talked about it for awhile (and I feel like giving it some extra blog time to help boost some visits), things have been pretty uneventful. Right now, we are at the point where we are still trying to get used to all of the new responsibilities and the way we update things, and it's taking toll on some of us. Once we get more used to everything, we'll start considering some other feature implementation. We still got quite a bit going on though, so don't be afraid to check it out. ShadowMarioXLI is still hosting his trivia events, which occur every few weekends. PowerToMario and Gaming Nights, although going a bit slow these days, had a pretty successful event last night when we decided to give iSketch a try. It was filled with good times, and a lot of "pitifalls." Also, why the hell are there Metroid and Pokemon locations in a Mario list (Smash Bros. isn't a good reason). And of course, CrystalStarStudio's playthrough of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is still going strong. Truly, there is a lot you can check out at The Blargg Pit....SO HERE IS A LINK! GO THERE AND BE EATEN BY BLARGGS! I mean....AND BE GREETED WITH OPEN ARMS!

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Yoshi's Island

Last time I mentioned that the project would be jeopardy, but I can't say the same anymore. Yoshi's Island will continue as normally, and I do apologize for scaring you last week. And tomorrow, i will officially reach the half-way point of the main game, so hooray for continued progress!

For those of you wondering about the issue, well, as explained in 3-6, it was merely me getting tired of the video lag that was experienced through most of the 1st part of the game. I still have no clue why that even happened in the first place (since it was the same way I recorded both Super Bomberman and Donkey Kong '94), but I assume it's attributed to how graphically impressive Yoshi's Island is in the first place. Plus the fast-paced gameplay doesn't exactly make matters easier. Anyways, I just did some research and found a way I could record straight from the emulator (which is what I would have done at first, but the version I had didn't work properly).

Either way, the project got saved thanks to my research, so I'm glad I can continue this great game!

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Advance Wars:

I'm going to go ahead and say this right now, just to get it out of the way...

This project is moving too slow for my own liking.

I mean, I just started campaign mode, and things really aren't going that badly or anything (the people who watch it seem to enjoy it, anyways), but I just keep thinking about the fact that if you look at the upload schedule in a specific way, I'm only updating 1-2 missions per week, and that is not a lot, considering how big this project will end up being. So I think I have decided that a change to the upload schedule is in order. This process will only decrease the weekly input of Yoshi's Island by at least one video, and that is still half of a world in one week. It's basically, instead of 3 days of Yoshi's Island and 1 day of Advance Wars, 2 days of Yoshi's Island and 1 day of Advance Wars, which seems to make more sense in the long run. Then, if I need to prolong/postpone an Advance Wars mission, I can do that. It's really not a bad system, if you ask me.

So I think I will implement this schedule after I finish World 4 of Yoshi's Island, which should happen at the beginning of next week. I'm doing this just because I don't want to be doing Advance Wars forever...I have a lot of other big games planned. =D

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Back-Up Channel:

Major work has been done to my back-up channel, SlimKirby64, which I guess I should put the link for, since I think I forgot to even mention this last week...
SlimKirby64

Although, when looking at the page, it looks like nothing is there. However, quite a bit of work has definitely been done. For one, Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance is completely backed up now, so if I lose my channel, I won't have to redo that monster of an LP. Also, work on both Simpsons: Hit and Run and Zelda: Link's Awakening (my two personal favorite projects) has started, and should be finished within this next week (or at least Hit and Run). I've also started uploading all of my current projects (Yoshi's Island and Advance Wars) and will continue to back those up regularly.

I would like to give a big thank you to MegaFreak400 for helping me with this process. Although he hasn't backed-up very much, every little bit helps and I owe him a lot for even taking time out of his schedule to help me a little (he even got put in his college's penalty box for going over the bandwidth limit (basically, a small suspension from Internet use in his room)). I'd also like to give a small future thank you to other CSS members who have also volunteered and considered helping. And then of course, thanks to everyone else and all of my subscribers for supporting me throughout this entire ordeal. It feels good to know I have fans who want to lend a hand and help in some way, even if it is just by leaving comments on my normal, everyday videos. The feeling is spectacular! =)

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Anyways, that is about it. Now, I have a lasagna to get to (my mom cooked =D =D), so I'm going to submit this entry and then go munch on that. See you guys next week for another entry!

Sunday, February 7, 2010

2/7/10 - More Like CopyWRONG Infringement

Hey guys! Hope you guys had a nice week, and welcome to the first update of the….almost new update schedule. I say almost because you are really only getting the update one day earlier (although I am a bit overdue due to not updating last week, but still).

Anyways, I had a pretty busy and never-ending week, if you couldn’t tell, and Youtube wasn’t even half of it. I had a huge amount of homework, and preparation for a number of exams I have this next week. It’s tiring, and it won’t be easy, but I always come through, somehow.

Also, Indiana got hit pretty hard this weekend in terms of snow, and after two days of sunlight, barely even a fourth of it has melted. I talked about this in my Yoshi’s Island video today, but the snow pretty much cancelled any plans I had this weekend. I was going to go home, but unfortunately, those plans did not come to fruition. Hopefully the same thing doesn’t happen this weekend…

Tonight is also a big night for sports and Indiana with the Super Bowl. Am I rooting for the Colts? Well, to be honest, I’m not a big fan of sports, particularly football, but as long as ShadowMario41 wants the Saints to win, I gotta root for the hometeam. I’m posting this entry while the game is going on, and at this time the Colts are up by 7, but I’m sure anything can happen.

Anyways, time to get to Youtube stuff, because I have quite a bit to talk about there.

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Copyright Claim (GRRR!):

Ok, so this was perhaps the highlight of my week…and definitely not in a good way. I’m still pissed off about the entire incident in the first place, and I’m even angrier that it seems like Youtube isn’t doing anything about it. I mean, I can’t really expect them to be miracle workers, but every day that goes by, the closer I get to something else happening, and I can’t afford another strike.

For those wondering what exactly happened here, well, in short, I got a bullshit audiovisual copyright claim on a video that didn’t have any copyrighted content (besides the video title). Ironically this claim was made on the video that I actually launched this blog on (I noticed that after looking over my entries the other day). Anyways, the copyright was by Scholastic for the title of my video “The Magic School Bus of Destruction,” which is a very pathetic thing to make a claim on. Anyways, this happened to be my 2nd strike on Youtube, which means if I get another strike, my account is pretty much terminated, so you can tell that this has been quite a big concern.

As for my options, I have already sent in two counter claims (basically, a form you submit to Youtube telling them that the claim was made in false pretenses). The first claim I sent wasn’t accepted because I didn’t use my G-Mail address (another bullshit thing that happened), and I’m eagerly awaiting the 2nd claim to go through. I’m not sure how long this will take, since I have gotten various estimations. Sonikdude101 (who I am very surprised even commented on one of my videos (since he is considered a more popular LPer)) said it would only take a day to go through, while people at the Community Help Forums said it would take a few weeks. It took 3 or 4 days to get the e-mail rejection in the first place, and who knows how long it will actually take with the right e-mail address.

Anyways, I just want to say to you guys that I really appreciate the support I have gotten from you guys over this entire incident. You guys have been phenomenal and it is nice to know I have such a good following here at Youtube. After this incident, and the whole thing with NintendoCapriSun, you have shown me that Youtubers aren’t just 1st Commenters and Sub4Subbers….they can also be very loyal and supportive. Just take it a little easy on all the Scholastic bashing in my channel comments, ok? I don’t like what they did either, but I am trying to resolve this issue now and things are being taken care of to make sure that even if it gets worse, there will always be a safety net.

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Advance Wars

Since I didn’t get to update Monday, I actually never got to formally introduce this game into my growing list of Let’s Plays.

First of all, for those wondering, I did mean to put that picture of Olaf into the scheduling video I posted last Sunday. It just so happened that a lot of you guys were able to easily identify it. I tried to shorten that picture as much as I could before I actually put it in there, but WMM has a limit to how short you can cut a video clip of a stilled image. Personally, I really didn’t care about you guys figuring out what my project was going to be, I just found it weird how nobody correctly guessed the game until that moment. Heck, even when I showed the picture, people still thought the game was going to be Kingdom Hearts (for whatever reason). Anyways, I figured that I would go ahead and give-away what the game was going to be 6 hours before I actually posted the video, as I didn’t really see any point to keeping it a secret for that much longer.

Anyways, the first week of the project consisted of the Field Training mode of the game, and boy was that fun (sarcasm of course). I do feel bad for having to go through that mode, for those of you who wanted me to jump straight into the game, but trust me, I did you guys a favor by waiting. I really didn’t want to spend entire videos of campaign mode explaining all of the mechanics of the game. Hopefully now we can get the game started!

It will be a long road ahead of us, but the Campaign Mode starts Tuesday, so I will see you then for that.

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Yoshi’s Island

I have some bad news about Yoshi’s Island, but I’m not going to get into that now. I’ll mention it next entry when it is more relevant (you may be able to guess from the videos this week). As for the project up to this point, I think it’s going pretty well. World 1 was kind of slow at first, but I think I picked up the pace for World 2. I also think I nailed the first World 3 videos well too. Many people seemed to really enjoy the “Two Stars” montage today.

For those of you wandering about the “bad news,” don’t let it worry you just yet. Just enjoy what I have and what will be posted this week for what it is and I’ll take care of everything else. Just expect a non-LP video related to the project at the end of this week…

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CrystalStarStudio

On Friday, we bid farewell to the always iformative MegaFreak400 and we say hello the absolute chaos that is KManRules1331 for Chapter 2.

Although only one video has been posted from our new host, I can safely say that it was the most hilarious video posted thus far, and if he continues his antics for the following videos, we will all be rolling on the floor….laughing our asses off.

But anyways, as I stated in the channel comments for that account, great job Mega at a solid job at the first chapter. You did great! =)

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Well, that is about it for no. I know I left you with some questions for this entry…
What will happen with the copyright situation?
Will Advance Wars be entertaining?
What is the bad news for Yoshi’s Island?
Is K-Man really that funny?

But I assure you….some of those questions will be answered this week. If not, then you wasted a lot of time watching my videos =D. Only kidding…have a good week guys!

-SlimKirby