YouTube!

My YouTube conquest continues! I have now posted two videos, one gaming and the other a sketch. The view count for the gaming video, which was Crusader Kings 2, overtook my first video and is continuing to grow at a steady rate! My sketch video seems to have had a slower start as I cannot find an appropriate platform to advertise the video. I have also gained four new subscribers, which, for me, is meteoric!

The Crusader Kings 2 video worked as a first gaming video, as the lack of action did not stress my laptop too much, and I could be more creative using the character creator. This allowed me to use a lot more humour naturally, but I'm sure upcoming videos will be even funnier.

My sketch video was on my top five pet hates, and I came about this topic from my increasing frustration with Touch ID on my iPhone 5s. It ignores me so much that I began to think about other things that annoy me, and I picked the five discussed in the video. A key idea I had for the video was the slow motion eating scene, but it didn't quite come out as I had hoped it would.
For this video, I had to wait until my housemates had moved out, which happened on the day of filming. This meant that filming didn't start until the light had dimmed and so the quality suffered slightly as a result. I knew that I would have the whole house to make videos, so I filmed large portions of the video in the kitchen. Having dispatched my tripod to my mother's house, I had to use my mic stand to hold the camera, and as my video camera ran out of battery suddenly at the start of filming, I had to use my phone, and even my iPad, to film the bulk of the video. The quality on my phone is actually superior to my camera, but my camera feels more reliable, and most importantly, has more space for videos.

Thank you so much for reading, I really hope you enjoyed this little behind-the-scenes look into my videos, which I feel I will write every week. I hope you enjoy the videos!

A Fresh Face

I have embarked upon my conquest of YouTube; that's right, I put my first proper video onto the site. It is a brief introduction of me and my current situation, and a declaration of my intent to publish videos every Tuesday and Friday. YouTube is something I have been interested in for a long time (I joined in 2006!) but have never had the confidence to make my own videos. Until Now.

Behold:

As stated repetitively in the video, personal videos will be uploaded on Tuesdays and gaming videos will be uploaded on Fridays, though what I failed to mention was that these will include a facecam, so you will always get a good look at my face! Tuesday videos will also include short sketches among many other things; the possibilities for Tuesdays are endless!

My humble set-up; the books act as a tripod.

The reason I picked these days was to spread the videos out so that my future subscribers (hopefully you!) would not be bombarded in close succession or left waiting for too long, and I chose to actually have a schedule simply to give viewers and myself some stability. I would have chosen Wednesday and Saturday, but as I work on weekends I felt that it was best to push it back a day to ensure I can upload consistently.

And yes, I shaved half of my beard for that thumbnail.

Please subscribe and stay tuned for my videos, and I promise that I will try my absolute hardest to bring you the best content possible! I am not particularly confident in front of the camera yet, as is evident in the videos, but I am sure that, with time, the quality will easily improve to stratospheric heights.

Thanks for watching and reading!

Robin

New phone!

So I am currently writing this on my brand new iPhone 5s! I upgraded my contract early and by god it is amazing. Honestly, it's probably faster than the iPad, it feels, might I say, 'lightning fast'.

The phone is phenomenal, better than the iPod Touch when I got it, better than the iPhone 4S when I got it, it is without doubt one of the best phones in the world. I got the Space Grey version, ideally I'd have gotten the black from the iPhone 5, but hey you can't have your cake and eat it.

Speaking of cake! My girlfriend and I are doing a detox this week, as we're at her house for 6 straight days. Whilst we've cheated slightly, it's only very slight and I'm already seeing the benefit (well, the scales are). I've already lost 7lbs, I lost it in the first two days and then maintained it, which is fantastic. I'm hoping to lose more, especially once I combine it with exercise again, but anyway, it's a struggle but I think it will be worth it.

I'll try to maintain my healthy eating after the week is over, but I won't say no to the (very) occasional treat. Eat in moderation! That's what they always say, right?

Yellow fever is bullshit, starvation is insane, and chickens are the future

This week I got a new game called Banished, which you might have heard of because it is fantastic! It's in the same sort of profession as The Settlers or Age of Empires (Or Age of Mythology if you swing that way, like me) in that you build a village and try and expand and keep everyone alive! There are no enemies or anything like that, it's just keeping disease and starvation away that are the main problems. 

So I played it for hours, I couldn't turn it off (except to play Overgrowth which I can't explain in words) and I developed a lovely little town called Elgheim on what seems to be a river delta. For a long time it was successful, growing slowly, but then disaster struck. At 30 peasants, they stopped breeding! Everyone was about 60 so they couldn't have children and there were two eligible families to have children. Long story short, it got sorted out and the population boomed. Starvation followed. Mass, mass starvation. So many deaths. 

I sorted the famine and kept going. At this point I still didn't have animals bear in mind. Anyway, the town grew, nomads finally came, I finally got some chickens, I built a new mine and then the second famine of Elgeim racked the town. It was atrocious, I pulled people out of school to get working in the fields, but to no avail. It lasted for years and was probably responsible for around 50 deaths in a population of less than 100. In the midst of this, yellow fever struck the peasants. Again, death.

I solved the fever but not the famine, and the effects of the Second Famine still linger 5 years on. I'll work to improve and maintain the town and get back to you!

Weight loss

OK so I'm starting that journey again. No Insanity this time, instead I'll be following a Men's Health workout! I'll be following their nutrition guide too, so avoiding carbs and sugars. I've dubbed it "Low Fat February" and that means I'm avoiding anything fattening like chocolate, sweets, and takeaway, as well as refined carbs like white rice and bread and all that, whilst increasing my vegetable and protein intake.

I just weighed in at 147.5lbs, which is 11lbs heavier than I have been recently, which is getting on for a full stone. I know I can lose about 5lbs this week and then bring it down slower from there, but I'm aiming for about 135lbs. Of course numerical measurements are essentially irrelevant, as it is body shape that I am trying to improve but it's a good starting point. I will measure my body when I find my damn tape measure!

Six pack, here I come.

First week back

OK I just typed this post but it didn't upload so here we go again -_-

So we've been back in university for a week now and by god it's boring, I've only actually been in once! It looks like this semester is going to be a lot harder than the others, the tutors are setting more work than they have been, and I'm so damn lazy!

So we're back at my girlfriend's house for the weekend because she needs a toe rebandage, so that's us for the weekend! She has to go back every week for at least three weeks, which is frankly tragic. So much travelling!

I've decided I am going to go out people watching and photograph taking so I can take nice pictures and improve my deducing skills at the same time, because I've decide it's time I get back into it and become Sherlock Holmes! I actually had a dream a few weeks ago where I was as omniscient as Sherlock Holmes, and the power was almighty! It was unreal being able to read absolutely every little thing around me and understand the whole world. I need more power!

It's her burfday!

Today is my girlfriend's birthday, 20 years old! She really enjoyed opening her presents, she got so many! Eleven from me I think, and she was so impressed with her camera. It's a shame we have no film! I honestly thought it would come with some but hey, we'll get some and it'll be fine in the end. £1 a picture isn't too bad really!

Also I didn't get the Three job, which is a massive shame, but whatever, it gives me more free time. The manager guy gave me some really friendly feedback, which was excellent of him.

I cannot stress enough how funny this link is - http://cheezburger.com/157189 - because honestly it makes me cry every time. It's a load of reviews from the sugar free Gummi Bears you can get on Amazon, and holy shit it's absolutely hilarious. I quote, "an anal jet engine eruption." 

So anyway tonight is my gorgeous girlfriend's birthday meal, and we're going to an Italian restaurant called Boccelli's which looks really posh and lovely. She's been telling me about it for a long time now, so I'm excited to go and see how it is!