Benie's General Blog

So I’ve been thinking of this for awhile now. I need a better homepage which displays more. Yet I have no idea how to go about doing it. That ‘insane imagination’ I had when I was younger (before 2009) is gone. It’s how I was able to create TheBeaverDam.com and do a somewhat good homepage. But even that, I questioned if it was ‘professional’.

What I got now is an absolute shame. And I’ll be honest here. What angry did for the homepage, wasn’t any better. Sure, it had a different background color. But also, beniesbuilds.com didn’t have so much happening now. Videos being released, and me having no room in my Games Blog (after posting one of my ‘Benie Fails At’ series), for future blog posts.
I promised nothing would change. That I did. Yet now there’s a problem. Since the blog is the only way people would know of a new series release (where they’re being linked to), it would be ‘swept under the rug’ by new blog posts. And that’s not right.

And also if I sticky it (to make the series stand out), the fact the post is so long due to the videos (because I want people to be able to view them without needing to directly go to Youtube), no one is going to want to scroll down and discover the new blog posts. The only way to solve both problems, is to have the videos posted on the homepage.
Yet again… I don’t know how without making it look even more messier. :/

Another idea is to host a new “Benie Fails At” blog. But that’s only a band-aid to the real problem; the homepage.
I’m thinking of going on the MRT and ask if anyone would be interested in making me a new homepage. It’s really all I got, since Chief resigned due to collage life. And I don’t know of any website that I could join its forum, and ask them if they could do a homepage for me.
This isn’t 2002-2003 anymore. I can’t do what I did back then.

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EDIT: I took care of it. I asked around, and thought I had help (with the guy claiming he knew a guy who could help me and would do it for free). But the guy hasn’t responded in two days. But as I was explaining what I was looking for with the videos on the homepage, I thought to myself “Hmm… I wonder if I can do this on my own”. And I believe I got a pretty cool thing there.
All I did was I made a table under the first video, and had all four of my videos inside of it. And that seems to work. Though the page is off to the side, people with higher monitor resolutions should have no problem of going over the homepage.
It shows what I want it to show. So now I don’t need help. I pretty much figured it out on my own.

The ole “Oh, really? I never would had guessed!” phrase is used once again. Let me just give you a few “Wow, I fucked up there” moments when recording the two recent videos for Youtube…

1. Grow Home, of when BUD is first seen. I… and I really can’t believe I said this as it takes me back to the old days of when I was in school, and we were doing this newscast thing in my Junior year… err sorry.
I said “Hey, it’s me!”.. and I want to fucking REMOVE that shit! But to do so, requires me to completely.. fucking redo the ENTIRE FUCKING VIDEO all over again!!

2. Super Time Force Ultra. This was a pain in the ass to work with, as the tutorial level just went on and on and ON… past the 15 minute limit that a standard video can do. And then the share option of my PS4 decides to say “I’m done!”, while fucking HALFWAY through the recording!
So I’m literally forced to say “God damnit! I can’t record the tutorial because it’s too long!”. And to be honest, viewers would want to see actual gameplay instead of the tutorial.

And then there’s the last thing. A thing I really can’t do anything about, as I was born with it: my voice. I cannot stand my own voice, let alone hearing it in a video. It sounds so… retarded and childish, and it makes me sick. Why couldn’t I had been born with a more deeper, understanding and less mono’ish voice (like most big time Youtubers)!?

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Maybe this was a bad idea. Just feels unfair. This is the ONLY way I can think of to make giving my opinion on a game, better than I could with a written blog post. Plus I’m bored, because I’m fed up with ESO:TU becoming as hard to kill shit as Wildstar.
The only way to do this right, is learn how to edit videos instead of be all “Well, it’s not like anyone’s going to care what it sounds like. It’s unlisted, and no one even goes to my blogs.”

I had considered using annotations instead of my voice for my review, but… I dunno. That’s probably even worse.
What I want, is to be able to separate the audio(my voice, not the game sounds) from the video, yet also make sure both are synced to eachother. This way, I can edit the audio; re-record areas I felt were not done right… instead of feeling I’m being forced to get the entire video right in one go.
I could just do the video without audio, then overlay audio over it via editing. But again, the audio will likely not be 100% synced with what is happening in the video. I could say “Just pause the video here if you want to read this” to skip through boring parts, yet the video could be me doing something else and not giving myself time to actually say it if I was actually recording.
The only way I know it’s synced.. is doing the audio while doing the video. Yet again, this requires a perfect, no screwup video on the first try.

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EDIT. I had an idea. Unfortunately it wasn’t a good one. My idea was to use Audicity to record my voice, while playing the game. This way I can sync my voice with it.
The issue is, I require a USB Thumb Drive to get my recording into my PS4, and I don’t have one. 😛
Plus I don’t think it’ll even work.

Say hello to benies-blogs.com! The new, official home of this and my Games blog!

I just got the blogs up after 5 times of reinstalling, due to multiple issues with the MySQL Databases. Here I saw an option to have multiple blogs using one database, so I tried ‘wp_1’, and ‘wp_2’. It.. sort of worked. Except the Games blog was having its own issues (which lead to more reinstalls).

Its issues, other than “WordPress is already installed”, was an issue I finally got fixed (and it’s also puzzling). When doing, or editing an existing post, the edit window was all white and I had no access to the controls. Plus, it was stuck on Visual mode. Couldn’t access Text.
I randomly tried (while having the Text tab selected) to refresh, and that somehow fixed the issue. So, yay. Did another refresh and it seems to work. I thought it was some kind of glitch that BBSpoiler (the plugin I use for spoiler hiding) was causing. Yet removing it, didn’t fix the problem.

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But the blog issue was the least of the line of issues I dealt with, of a hosting company that seems to be overworking their support team. My last conversation (of another issue I will list later), I could see the rep was struggling, saying he’s only one of the few that are working in the Support area, and having multiple people needing help. It actually makes me feel sorry for them, and regret all the nasty things I said (not actually telling them) about the hell I went through yesterday.

Yesterday was supposed to be the big move. Removing my current hosting plan and getting a duplicate one (so I can get benies-blogs.com for free). Seeing it was almost 2pm, I decided to go on and do my backups and get the ball rolling. Arvixe had different plans, showing the Live Support being ‘AWAY’ instead of ‘OFFLINE’. Hah. Great 24 hour support! More like great false advertisement… 😛
It went back up 15 minutes later. But then it decides to troll me. And no, I don’t mean the “all areas say Offline when their website says Online”. After saying “No, you didn’t answer my question. Get me to Live Chat!”, it shows a white screen of where the chat window is supposed to be. A white screen that refused to load up any further.
And it’s still doing it even as I re-type this (I did a post like this before, but lost it due to the reinstalls. No biggy, though).

Note that the Live Chat is the fastest way to get this done (as their phone support isn’t available ’till Monday). My only other option was to email them, and watch them throw darts (while blindfolded) at a calendar to pick what date they’ll respond to it. I swear they do this for tickets.
There is another (and seems to be the only) way to access the Live Chat. And that’s using the link when in their FAQ. It’s weird that this is the only way to access. Their homepage still gives the white screen. And it’s also happening through IE, and my phone (I’m a full Firefox user).

Anyway, the move. Sorry, I’m still annoyed by what happened. It actually turned to be in the favor of both Arvixe and myself. This guy told me there’s a thing where if the domain costs less than $10, they can switch my current domain with the one I buy… for free (and make it the ‘free domain for life’ thing). Of course I jumped at it, though I wish they had told me this a LOT sooner. I could’ve had this done back in August, instead of waiting ’till yesterday to get to it… :/
Well, either the people I talked to weren’t informed of it, or it had just recently came out as an option. But this is a fantastic option! This not only saves me $60, but it keeps the billing date intact! 😀
So I pretty much paid $9.95 to have a complete domain name change, because I found out later that my blogs are still there (just needed to be reinstalled, as I said at the beginning of this post).
Still, no more beniesbuilds.com! No more feeling questioned of owning it. No more seeing a ‘ghost’ of angry, laughing and saying “Let’s see you learn this on your own.” Now I feel there’s a true purpose, as the website’s name is it.
But even if angry managed to discover this website, he wouldn’t really give two fucks anymore.

And as I also said up there, there is another issue. An issue I’m sure angry would be able to fix if he was still working on the website. But since he seems to pretend I never met him (and with…good reason :/), I have to use Arvixe.
The issue is that my registered email, webmaster[at]benies-blogs[dot]com, isn’t forwarding emails to me anymore. Since the switch, anyway. So the rep “made” a ticket, so he couldn’t figure out what was wrong. He claimed I would get an email in a few hours.

I’ve waited several… no email. And while I was having to deal with the annoying cat sitting next to me, constantly wanting my attention every second (and I also had those blog issues to deal with. Having new responsibilities is hard at times), I made another Live Chat attempt.
Got to speak to the same guy I spoke to before. He did his usual ’10+ minute delays until I had to speak up’ treatment, and then I learned, he never sent the email. If my head was an egg, it would had cracked!! He told me he HAD sent the email HOURS AGO…
and this is when I learned about how he’s having to deal with several people at once. There I felt “…Oh wow. They’re working their India people to death.”, yet its not really a surprise to be honest. Chat support in India is so much cheaper to manage than hiring actual Americans, on a fucking AMERICAN-BASED HOSTING COMPANY!! Shame on those Arvixe bigwigs.

In closing, I feel this trend is only going to get worse to the point they’ll no longer be able to get away with their ’24 hour support’ bullshit. By then, I might consider going back to GoDaddy (the origin of beniesbuilds.com).
I do hope I’m wrong, or they at least reverse their decision of making their phone support having hours (and dates) of operation (to be 24 hours again). They claim they’re doing it to answer tickets faster. AHAHAHAHAHA… right! It’s WORSE than it was back in August!
But there’s one thing that’ll probably never change, and its their limited Indian support team.

And I noticed Arvixe has “fixed” their problem with me not being able to reach their chat! Yep. They fixed it! More like they’re now LYING about their “24 hour support” claim!
It now has on the website, the deceiving “Live Chat ONLINE” is now showing (for the first time I’ve seen it) OFFLINE in gray, and their phone support now has hours. Oh wow. Oh. fucking. wow. So much for ’24 hour support’ huh?

And also their phone support has a Monday/Friday time instead of “24 hour support”. I’m beginning to feel worried I may not get this done until Monday.

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EDIT: Their Live Chat just went up about 10 minutes after making a not so nice post on their forum. And I also got a response in it, stating how “Ohh, don’t worry, sir. They’re doing their jobs!”… the OFFLINE button says hello.
Though it could had been a simple matter of them having to do maintenance, or someone pulling out a plug (by accident) and disconnecting all the computers for their live chat. Yet how am I, or any other customer supposed to know this? When they don’t state the reason for the downtime.
All I see is “OHH SORRY!! We’re up now! We totally were doing our jobs all the time!”… *sigh*

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EDIT2: The reason I needed them, is to see how their billing system works. I had a theory(sorry, Ryan from 8-Bit Gaming) that they set the billing date by the hour as well as the date. So I wanted to ask, because I had a specific time frame to do this (sometime between 2-5pm).
And after getting the cold shoulder from one(he just stopped talking to me for no reason), and being nearly forced to threaten the other that I’m thinking of joining another hosting company, I got my answer. I still find it amazing of what I have to do to get an answer out of a rep from this company. It’s like, they don’t speak English. Some people claim their tech support is from India.

Anyway, the answer is Yes. They do use the hour that one would make the account as the billing date(and of course the date itself). I was actually thinking the other way, that the hour didn’t count.
So, between 2-5 pm (with 4-5 being the prime time for me), I’m going to hope and pray their Live Chat is up to get this done. If not… well I can’t think that. This is the only way I’m going to receive a response today instead of Monday.

Likely, when this begins, this website will cease to exist (and you won’t see me typing this). I will be backing up my MySQL databases and blog posts, before I do it.

“This was a triumph!”
“60fps(yet in 720p)…. HUGE SUCCESS!”
“it’s hard to overstate my satisfaction…”
“Rocket Leeeeeague.”
“I fail bad, because, I suck.”
“But it’s fuuuuny beeee-cause, I get to watch myself fail! :)”
“Look at me still blogging, when there’s new videos to do.”
“Yet benies-blogs.com is right around.. the corner..” Fuck! I fail at singing too!

*clears throat* Riiiight. Anyway, I got done watching the test. It processed within 19 minutes after uploading (which was about the same time as the upload took). It looks really, really good. Frames were pretty solid. Sound was solid. Really awesome capture card, Sony. Maybe that’s where the $400 went to when I got it.
The only thing I was against, was I had no option to get it in 1020p. I looked around Youtube trying to find something, yet they were out of date with old menus (dating back to 2013).

But anyway, this great luck opens the gates to my Games blog’s alternative way to do reviews (hopefully without the threat of some company claiming I’m trying to make money off their product(s)).

I’ve been trying to find a good (yet free) service to stream my Video Game Reviews(and occasional Let’s Plays). I thought Twitch was a good candidate. Though they won’t allow me to do private streaming.

Saw a recommendation to go to Ustream. But using their “30 day free trial until you’re forced to pay $219 to continue using it” program, will not allow me to use my monitor as a camera. I literally HAVE to have a webcam.

So, a Webcam is like, what.. $100? $50? $30? But I don’t even want a webcam. I have no desire to show people my face or my room. All I want to show is what I play(aka my screen). That’s all. But nooooo! No. We gotta have MORE MONEY out of your pocket!
They treat me as the majority of people that stream videos, instead of what I would use it for. Base it off of the millions of others who do it, instead of the few that do it another way (like myself).

Then there’s dependent Livestream, a program I used back in.. what was it, 2009-2010? I think. Anyway, making an account is really ‘fun’. They don’t offer a Free option until you scroll down the page, and see it.
Thankfully, using Livestream Procaster is still free (and it still uses my monitor(s) as a webcam).

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So I finally found something I can use to stream PC Games… yes, PC Games ONLY. It’s not the fault of the software, but of mine. It’s not possible to capture my second monitor, when its input is coming from my PS4 instead of my computer. The only way to stream is from the source, which is the PS4 itself.
Yet to do this, requires either Twitch or UPayOutTheAsstream(Ustream). There’s no Livestream option. My only option is to use the built-in capture card of my PS4 and do Youtube videos instead (but list them as Private).

So anyway, I just got done pwning the AI in a 1v1 match (8 to 2) in Rocket League (usually I suck at that game). I tried to share the video (in hopes I’ll be able to list it as Private), yet it keeps telling me to sign into Google to link accounts, and I’ve done this twice. Obviously there’s a problem.
I’ve asked @AskPlaystation for advice on Twitter. Hopefully I’ll get a helpful response.

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EDIT: Apparently I was using the wrong Youtube account. I selected my other BenieTheDragon account, and it worked. I was able to upload the video no problem, and it’s currently on Youtube. Though I forgot I need to put it as Unlisted instead of Private for people to be able to click the link that I provide.

I don’t know why I’ve been so anxious to get this ‘renaming’ of the site done. I guess I’ll feel better when it’s done. Only two days to go, though.
I feel September 5th of every year, feels like a perfect time to do this. Even if I’m short in August of.. say next year, I’ll be guaranteed to have $60 to give to Arvixe.

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I also had an idea since watching 8-Bit Gaming’s “Super Mario Maker” playthroughs of the ’10 Mario Challenge’. By the way, really fun game. But god I wish I could use it on my Android phone(though I doubt it’ll be compatible). It’s only for the Wii U(which sucks). But this has been Nintendo’s typical fashion of only having their Mario-based games on Nintendo consoles(even during and after their breakup with Sony).

Anyway, the idea. Thought of doing private videos on Youtube, yet providing a link to them. This way I could actually do videos, and not worry about copywrite claims(as I won’t be making money from them). I could do a Super Mario 64 playthrough using an emulator.
Another thought I had, is using Twitch and broadcast my screen (but do so privately). Then link the videos there. I could do my “Benie Fails At…” series. Play some Rocket League from my PS4, and actually do proper reviews on my Games blog.

I’ll need to look into both options. Though the first, would require me to have recording and editing software. The second.. hopefully, I can just use my screen(s) as a webcam. As long as I have an option to do it privately, I shouldn’t(emphasis on “shouldn’t”) have to worry about Nintendo suing my ass (and my balls).

I went through hell, but I finally got the General Blog ‘pulled apart’ from what angry did. It actually was pretty easy now that I look at it. All I had to do was create a MySQL Database for both blogs(two separate databases), put the files where I want them, and work with that. Plus, it actually had a video tutorial on how it works, which was really helpful to me.

I also managed to get what angry did, undone (which was to put my Games blog as the homepage). I had to seek help from Arvixe on how I go about doing it. After the discussion (over the phone), it’s actually a lot simpler than I thought. All I had to do was just simply move the files to another folder. Though there was some issue of it not displaying right. The fix was to delete the database that angry made, and make a new one (with a new username and password). And that worked. Very happy.

Getting this thing, was a bit hellish. I had to use FTP to do it (cPanel only allows one file upload a time). But there was a problem. When angry and I had gotten the hosting plan back in 2012, they never gave us the port number or anything else that’s helpful. Again, I tried to use their Live Chat and I waited good hour, only to not get a response. So this is their “24 hour support”? More like 24 hour wait times.
I called them, and actually spoke to someone. He walked me through to FTP myself into the site. Gave me the port # and everything.

By the end, I told him about how I had to wait so long in Live Chat. He’s all “Oh wow, that shouldn’t be happening. Let me send this info to them so they can fix it”. I’ve said how long I waited for a response before, yet no one ever seemed to give a fuck. He did. Nice to see some good news for once.

So yeah. Back on beniesbuilds.com (for now). I also changed the homepage to point to the two blogs, and imported all of my blog posts from WordPress.com over to here.

Overall, this is a solemn “victory”. A ‘victory’ that should had never happened, if I didn’t get pissed off at Arvixe. Well… I tried to make amends with angry yesterday, but he just won’t have any of it. He’s done with me.
Which is why I want to get this ‘benies-blogs.com’ thing up ASAP. It’s the only way I feel will end this nightmare. It’ll feel that beniesbuilds.com, never happened. I literally want to take a match to it and just watch it burn. Burn away those memories of ever meeting the one that would call himself “Mr.Angry” (who now goes by the name of “Yoplitem”).
I’m sure he would be doing the same thing of me, just not anywhere as emotional as I’m being right now.

For 8 years, he tolerated my whiny piece of shit. That’s the longest I ever had a friend. Usually they don’t last longer than a week. And now he just can’t stand it anymore. And I really can’t blame him. But at least he, in ways, made this website have a purpose. I just wish he had told me that all the coding he did, was for me and not for him. But he’s not one that will speak up.
Then again, it should had been obvious to me. I mean, why would he even bother working on the site if it wasn’t for me? *sigh* Wish that came to my mind quicker.

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EDIT: I have fully gotten everything that’s not game-related out of my Games blog and into here. All of the posts I made are back in their proper area now. I also have deleted posts in my Games blog that say I’m using WordPress.com.
Lastly, my WordPress.com blogs have been removed as I no longer need them.