Benie's General Blog

The day I’ve been dreading has arrived; the weigh-in of Dan’s FAT Weight Loss challenge. I weighed myself after my afternoon walk, and I now weigh 258! That’s two pounds from 260! 😀 Woo!
This means my weight loss plan is working!! All I have to do is just keep it going. I rewarded myself with a bag of chips for losing the weight (though I probably just gained a pound).
Given the fact I lost two this week, that means I should lose around… 8 pounds for the entire month IF I keep at what I’m doing.

About Dan and Steve, they too lost weight. Very good. They of course didn’t tell us what they did. However, they did tell us how it went the first week. Dan says that his weight loss has been “OK” (as in, not great or really bad). And Steve, I can barely understand his Essex-born language. I think he too lost two pounds, which is impressive.
Dan’s reward (to himself of course…) was the opening of a LEGO figure that he bought somewhere, and it was actually in USD instead of Euro. It was a guy in an ape outfit holding a banana.

So, Week 1 done. Let’s see how I, and everyone else fare in Week 2.. starting tomorrow! Maybe this week, I won’t be all “OH GOD…” after walking twice around the block. 😛

Tomorrow’s the first Weigh In for the two. I have been repeatably asking Dan on Twitter, how his father has fared with the whole weight loss thing. And he never answers this question. He hardly (if ever) talks about his own weight loss at all, like it never even happened.
Personally, if Dan really wants this to be a thing, he should be more …. involved in it. Aka, actually share his secrets to weight loss. It feels like…. it feels like this was supposed to be between him and his father. So why did he “drag us” into it, if he won’t give us updates how the two are doing with their goals?
And why am I the only one that cares about this? *shakes head* I think you already know the reason. My attitude hasn’t changed in many, many years.

If this thing was nothing (aka, they might not be losing weight at all) but a way to promote healthy living with the power of his Youtube popularity, it’s pointless to say anything negative about it to a public forum (as I would be the ONLY one ‘against’ it).
Thankfully, this is my blog, and no one reads this damn thing. So I won’t have my words get used against me by commenters.
Where others would be feeling “Wow, this is a really great thing you did Dan!”, I…I half feel like I’m “wasting my time” with this whole diet shit. I’ve always felt that (even before this crap started). Even if I was to have an actual wakeup call where I nearly die to to a serious health thing that happens to me (which what caused my father to change his life), it still won’t make me suddenly see I gotta eat better, and exercise.
It’ll scare me, sure. But it (and this) aren’t going to “wake me up”. I really have nothing to live for. Just put a bullet in my head, as death has to be better than being someone I’m not (a healthy me).

That’s not to say I’m not even TRYING to lose weight(due to this). I am. Since last Friday, I’ve been walking a mile everyday and not eat as much. But I’ll be damned if you think I’m changing what I eat. I like my grilled cheese sandwiches, four-cheese pizza(with nothing else on it), and PB&Js very much to give that up for broccoli or a salad. Seriously, you’re better off ending my life before I go through those extremes…

On top of it, my parents claim I need to walk faster (literally jog) to burn off calories. They also recommend a ‘water diet’. Which is to drink water to curb hunger cravings. Yet I got to eat something, as I’ll be literally starving my body of nutrients by just doing this and this only (and that’s even worse than what I’m doing).

I did made a thing (and an account) on Dan’s subreddit (that never got responded to), telling that community, how I have my doubts what I’m doing is even helping. And also wondering if there’s others like me who are also doing this. Again, no responses. And it’s been three days now. Very disheartening. Especially after seeing one guy who made a thing as well (not directed to me, but it should) that one would have to walk 5-7 miles a day… I can barely handle 1 without feeling I’m going to pass out due to hyperventilating.

Anyway, that’s what’s on my mind right now. I will continue as hard as I can, to focus on just walking and eating less, and hope to God it helps. I’ll settle with losing even a 10th of a pound. Because at least I know I’m actually making progress.
But it all boils down to one major thing; You have to have a positive attitude of yourself to lose weight and keep it off. But oh, what’s that? I don’t? Yep. 😛

I’m still watching Dan’s videos, even after removing his Twitter feed. He now has a new series, called ‘FAT‘. He talks about himself and DadCubed have started a challenge to lose weight. They’re going to eat less and move more, and they’ve started today.
Every Thursday this month, they’re going to do a Weigh-In. If they lose any pounds, there’s going to be an unboxing video. But if one or both of them do NOT lose any pounds… a challenge is issued to the loser(s). What those challenges will be, are to be determined at a later time.

They also encourage everyone to do this, to make it a real thing of promoting fitness. Seeing how I’ve been going from 230 to 270 pounds, I’m going to do this as well. Eat less, watch my calorie intake, and walk a mile every day. Then every Thursday I’ll weigh myself to see if my weight has changed. I don’t know what I’ll reward myself with if I win, or what I’ll have to do if I fail. I guess, knowing I lost weight is probably the best way to win.
It’s not going to kill me by doing this. It will, if I don’t… and this is a good wakeup call. If Dan and Steve are going to do this, I’m going to do this.

I’m the 617th person to sign up to this challenge. You can see my progress with this chart. To put yourself into this challenge, go here (you don’t need a Reddit username to join). If you’re from the US (or aren’t a fan of Metric units), you’ll have to look up a few conversion calculators on the internet, to convert FT to cm(for Height), and LB to Kg(for weight).
Also, good luck if you decide to join this! I wish myself the same. It will be very hard, as I tend to snack a lot and not burn off those calories (more of a sitter than a mover). But if I can do this, I can go even further than a month. I plan to lose 50-70LB by the end of the month (well, at least try).

And that something, wasn’t disabling Adblock. It was removing Dan from my Twitter feed. I can’t handle his constant whining anymore. Yes, this is also ironic because I too whine a lot over things I cannot control. We all do, I believe.

Now I’ve done a discussion on my Games blog about basing your ONLY source of income off of Youtube, and I got a few.. unpleasant responses from that blog post. Mainly “You’ve never made a video in your life to know what hell he goes through to give us this content. You have no right to talk”.

Actually, I do. As an American, I have Freedom of Expression. And also Freedom of Speech. And I use those freedoms quite a lot. But this is beside the point. I do know what he goes through. It’s exactly why I don’t want to go through said hell… not even as a profit.
Another one which really made me think (and I’ll spare the contents of what they said to me), is basically how I have it easy.
But even if I did have a job, a real job, it wouldn’t be based from Youtube. Hell, I would never even consider doing videos as a job; more like a hobby. Dan has forgotten this. He’s let greed take over instead of doing them for fun.

Yet is it greed that turns typical Youtubers into people that wish they can smack everyone upside the head that uses an Ad blocker on Youtube? Possibly. And it also is a sign of desperation.
And before I go further, he’s said in one of his Real Life videos, that he has a backup plan incase Youtube ever bottomed out. He should consider that plan now. Hell, he should had even considered using that plan before he became Youtube Famous.

If I was Youtube Famous? I wouldn’t care about the money. My job (as little as it may pay) would help sustain me. Dan’s problem is he’s hired a team of people. What, you thought he was alone in this? Hardly. Sure, he does the editing and stuff, but he doesn’t moderate forums, chatrooms and stuff, or manages finances. Nope. He has helpers to help him do that. Now, this isn’t pathetic. It’s actually good to have help. Yet what is, is these helpers to even ask for money. What happened to volunteering?

Why? Why does he have all of this going? Because it’s greed all around. He (and his helpers) have gotten used to the easy money that Youtube’s given to him over the years. Now all the sudden, their policies have changed to charge him more money. Plus the use of Adblock Plus is increasing, and it’s taking away even more money from not viewing those annoying adware-filled ads, which help fund him. This is why he’s bitching about it.
Now let me go back to the whole “if I had a real job” thing. Youtube, like a real job, can be both unstable. You can’t fully rely on your boss paying you. Shit happens. Yes, it’s bad. It gives you a reason to bitch. I understand that. But like Youtube, it’s something you.. have to prepare for.

There’s another side to this that Dan does go over quite well. He says that the fact he provides free content, the least you can do is watch a 20 second ad to help support him. It’s like supporting any creator. Game developers. Mod developers. They make their content for free, and all they ask is a donation; a way to show your support for that author.

Well, that is true. But look where I just said “as a donation”. Hint hint. As in, if you provide your free content for the intent not to ask for money, then this is good. This is the way you’re supposed to do it.
But if you’re like Dan, who makes content in the intent to make money, you’re literally begging for money. And begging is never good (unless you’re a dog who happens to be reading this blog post, then it’s cute).

So, there you go. I look forward to any more snarky comments I might get after posting this.

I was going to post this on the Games blog, yet this isn’t really related to gaming. Anyway, this is something I really wanna get off my chest.
I’m close to removing NerdCubed from my Twitter feed. Why? It isn’t his small talk that gets a shit-ton of likes everytime he says something insignificant, such as “Look at me, I’m a donkey!”

This has to do with his, what I feel are endless ramblings about European government. First off, why does he even care about their government if he claims he moved to Canada? I… what? I wouldn’t. If I moved from Europe to Canada, I would talk about Canadian Government. Obviously, he never moved at all and we all got Dan-trolled. Yet some still believe him, or are too busy going “DAN HAVE MY BABIES!!!!111” to care.

So anyway, going back to the whole ranting. I live in the US. I ‘love’ my country, yet I can’t stand politics and people who say “your vote counts!” … it really doesn’t. It’s all an illusion of choice. And until the world wakes up and sees that our opinions don’t fucking matter to the corrupt powerhouse that is Congress and the Senate, will the message ever be heard.

I heard talk that a World Economic Collapse is coming and soon, yet no one knows when. It’s when the people will rise up against their governments. I personally feel it’s going to be next year, because I’m personally sick of the BS, and the lies. And I’m sure I’m not alone.

And here I’m seeing Dan.. his latest tweet is wondering when they’re going to lower the voting age, as “more kids need to vote”. He doesn’t listen. Or maybe he does, yet refuses to answer my slightly snarky tweets. I don’t really care if he never does respond to me; only that he would agree that what he wants is a waste of time and money.
It’s like any corrupt game company…. EA for example when it came to Dead Space 3 (and how much I ‘loved’ the save point feature). They claim they listen to comments, yet… they don’t have to do them. But with a game company, we never hired them to make the games we play that they make… with politics, we do.

We do. We trust this man or this woman that we have voted in, to go into office and do exactly what s/he promised of their campaign speeches. They keep claiming that Washington is corrupted, and they will fix it…. and you know what happens? Nothing. Gets. DONE!
It’s a fucking waste of time to vote! Seriously! I want to say this to as many people as I can, to have their family and friends spread the message that our opinion doesn’t matter when it comes to politics. Minds (like Dan) need to be woken up. We are tired of this BS!

So it issues in the World Economic Collapse and we are literally fighting for food, water and gas (with no electricity), as if we just got hit by a meteor and we’re the last surviving humans on Earth.
At least.. the bullshit up in Washington will stop. Mostly. it unfortunately won’t stop lowlife con artists, but that’s another story for another time.

We got another Blood Moon coming this morning. The second of four Blood Moons. This one, from where I am, the moon will be visible in the Western sky when it happens, but complete its passage of Earth’s shadow on sunrise. It’ll happen around 6:57am, nearly an hour before sunrise.
This moon’s eclipse will be seen of its full entirety, if you live on the West Coast, Alaska, or on Hawaii. We’re fortunate to be able to see the Blood Moon as it happens. Back in April, all of the US got to see it(that didn’t have cloud cover). This time, we won’t have cloud cover.

However, there’s been slightly unnerving… and highly controversial news that this, and a total Solar Eclipse to happen on March 20th 2015, that “God is sending a message to every human being on Earth that great changes will happen”, so says the Bible.
That the Jewish will rise again. This could be the forth major tetrad. The last three all happened on major Jewish holidays, that major changes happened with the Jewish. It might happen again.

The question is, “do you believe in this”? The Bible clearly states, and I quote: “The day of the Lord will be, as when the Sun refuses to shine. And the Moon will be turned to blood.”
Having four Blood Moons…… and a total Solar Eclipse to also happen smack in the middle of it? Wow. If that isn’t a sign, I don’t know what is.
What will exactly happen, remains a mystery. Will the human race die off? Or will it just be another boon for the Jewish? .. Or will Terraria come to Real Life and have Demon Eyes floating everywhere to be our overlords?

There’s also a mentioned “a never seen before Celestial Event” to happen on October 19th(roughly 9 days away from now), of a comet that will get extremely close to Mars. It’s possible, the planet’s gravity will pull the comet in. Church People say this is another message from God about major changes coming.

With the threat of Ebola in southern Africa coming to the US, and the other threat of ‘World War 3’ with Russia’s President being a douche, and this sudden illness affecting American children… it could be possible that 2015 could usher in “the end times”.
Now, I’ve always believed God exists, but I’ll be damned I let him run my life, or listen to his ‘signals’ that “Y’all gonna die!!”
Even if I did, what could I do? Everyone dies eventually.

I mean, look, we been through this BS before of December 2012 being “doomsday”, and nothing happened!!! Church People swore up and down that we were fucking DOOMED! Even experts who claim they “are never wrong” swore it! Again… nothing happened. Still alive. We had Christmas. It’s now 2014. And guess what? Still alive!
Even the whole Y2K deal of 2000, when they said computers will take over the Earth(or something like that)… again, nothing happened. We’re still alive.

But this thing… this thing is going to last longer than all of those other things, and these four Blood Moons + a Solar Eclipse, WILL happen. I mean.. four Blood Moons. Blood is red-colored. And Mars getting hit by a comet. Mars is red. It’s almost a sign that Earth will follow the same fate near the end of 2015. And then the Solar Eclipse in the middle of the four Blood Moons.
If the signs are true and Church People are saying it IS happening… well…
I feel next year…. going to be interesting. Especially March 20th, when we hit the “mid peak” of the tetrad. This could be nothing to worry about. This whole rare tetrad thing, the Moon, the Earth and Sun just happen to be in the right place. It was bound to happen eventually. And it’s just a thing, and we’ll be fine.
Just fine…..I hope.

The brilliant minds at Google did it again. Now they had this system for awhile. Basically, it checks your video for copyrighted content. But this new system checks your old videos.
Why is this bad? Fraudulent copyright claims are popping up. For example, Dan made a video listing that Valve, has flagged one of his videos due to having Portal 2 content… yet, according to Valve’s official info about doing videos with their content on YouTube, they say they are allowed, and even allowed to make money off of it… yet for some reason, he isn’t allowed according to that.
Obviously this can’t be the real Valve. But the problem is, you got to go through living hell to dispute the claim. If they counterclaim it, you have to actually get lawyers and go to court… over a fucking video on YouTube. That’s… that’s going way too far here.
And worse, if you lose, you got a nasty copyright flag on your channel, and it goes bye bye until it expires. This could happen to Dan (Nerd3), if this dispute doesn’t work in his favor. And that would mean, he’s literally “fired”.

So far, I haven’t received any flags for my only public video of me doing the snapshot for the MRT Server. Jeb could easily flag my video, having Minecraft content in it. Thank god he’s not anywhere as bad as what I’ve seen from other small channel YouTubers.

This new system is flawed. This is worse than needing Google+ to post a comment. This could potentially remove future YouTubers from the Earth… such as myself. Was thinking of doing a Terraria Let’s Play, but I’m too scared my videos are going to be flagged.
And I’m not even in it to make money. I just thought of doing it to finally give my channel a reason for its existence.

How I wish I wasn’t living where I am. National Weather Service is predicting a Major Severe Weather Outbreak that stretches from New York to the Gulf of Mexico. And I’m in the path of this thing.

Severe Thunderstorms, isolated yet strong tornadoes, large hail, and highly-damaging winds are the threats. But there’s a good yet bad side to this thing;

Good: It’s a quick mover. Hopefully by the time it hits, the really strong storms will not be here until it passes.
Bad: The fact it’s a quick mover, it’ll produce highly-damaging, straight line winds. Even if we don’t see a tornado, the wind damage could be alot worse, and the chance that the power could be knocked out is quite high.

No shit, I’m scared. This isn’t a severe weather outbreak, this is a MAJOR severe weather outbreak. What could be “the biggest severe weather outbreak in this year” according to The Weather Channel. An unfortunate rarity. This is due to how fast the cold front will move through.

This… monster, I believe will move through my area by early Monday Morning or the Afternoon. Because The Weather Channel shows that in the evening, the front will be well East of us. And by the time Tuesday comes, it’ll be on the coast.
I want to hide or something. Move away. Go somewhere ELSE. But I’m fucking stuck here. I have no basement, and this is a small house.
I can only pray to the holy god that it won’t be bad, and do what I can do incase a tornado warning is issued or the power goes out.. and hope it doesn’t kill me.

My biggest fear is getting a 2×4 rammed into my back and being paralyzed permentally (or slowly dying from it), since tornadoes use them as missiles against your house. But to be honest, my bigger fear should be the winds with this storm. Wind damage doesn’t scare me. Tornadoes do.

First off, I want to give a big FUCK YOU to angry who is doing shit to this blog I did not ask him to. Good thing I managed to bypass his attempts to block me from posting.

And now for the reason of the title. It’s the night after some scary (if not life-threatening) shit happened, and I’m not talking a heart attack or anything. If you don’t know by now, I live in Southern Indiana. Near Louisville, KY. And we were under attack by severe weather.
Last week, they predicted severe weather on Monday (the 30th, yesterday). What was particularly worrying was The Weather Channel’s “TOR-CON” value had us in a 6/10 chance of a tornado … that’s a 60% chance of seeing a tornado of 25 miles of a given point. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it that high.
Sunday Night (the 29th) gave us some rain. “Nothing severe” the weatherman said, yet showed us going under a Moderate risk by 12am EST. He told me the cold front was supposed to move in by 5am.
All the rain did was moisten the atmosphere for the monster that was getting ready to rain down hell on us.

I did my best to stay calm, and treat the night like a normal night, and was planning to go to bed at my normal time, which is 4:30am (hoping to sleep through it). Around 12:10am the wind started picking up outside. Time continued and I noticed the Outdoor temp of my Atomic Clock was going up, steadily. Also started feeling alot of humidly in my own room, and my space heater wasn’t on.
Around 3am I decided to go to bed early since I was too scared over something I can’t do shit about, thinking I could just sleep right through it. I almost did until 4:19am, when I was woken up the second the first tornado warning siren started to wail outside.

Knowing now is the time to panic and with my heart beating like crazy in my chest, I got up, grabbed my bedspread and my pillow, wrapped my body with the bedspread, and tried crawling under my computer table. I unfortunately couldn’t fit, so I tried to stay as low as I could to the ground, covering my head with my pillow as the sirens continued to scream.
A few minutes later, the sirens stopped, yet I wasn’t about to move from my spot because in the past the sirens stopped yet a tornado nearly hit our house.
About three minutes later, it felt like the thunderstorm that produced the warning was right ontop of us and was raining heavily and having extremely gusty winds.
Remembering what I learned from watching Storm Riders on The Weather Channel, I thought “This means the updraft got cut off by the rain. Means it won’t produce a tornado” and got up and went back to bed, hoping that was it.

4:31am, the sirens started up again. Yelling “It’s not over yet!!” I went back to where I was before, trying to hide under my computer table. And again after a few minutes, the sirens stopped.
I started thinking “second false alarm…”, but this time I waited for a good five minutes. My father was up at this time, watching the weather and I heard bits and pieces coming through my closed door. One started to make sense, about “Tornado warnings now east of the Metro”. I got back up, grabbed my portable TV that I accidentally knocked off my end table while trying to run for my “place of safety”, and turned it on when I got back in bed.
Weatherman showed the worst of the weather has passed us, yet I was glued to the screen, concerned about anymore tornado warnings.
Time went on, and the sirens never sounded again. Soon they said everyone north of the line was in the clear.
I wanted to jump up and dance when I heard the news. But instead I went back to bed.

Daylight came and the NWS began accessing the damage. Three confirmed tornadoes touched down. An EF2 for the first one (that triggered Tornado Warning #1), an EF1 dangerously close to us. Was north of us (Tornado Warning #2), and a strong EF3 east of us that hit Eminence, KY pretty hard.

I feel lucky to be alive, and even more lucky we still have power and a house. And that was just a Moderate risk, yet it seemed like a High risk.

And guess what? Another risk of Severe Weather is going to erupt pretty much the same fucking time, this Saturday. It’s too early to tell exactly what it will do or where it will go, so it’s not really a concern ATM.

So, that’s why I wanted to post this. I’m sure I’ll sleep like a baby tonight knowing I won’t have to deal with that shit until Saturday, which is still a ways away.

I’ve also learned something. For years weathermen and myself believed that if you get any sun, storms would intensify. This… thing already had the energy it needed by pumping in hot, humid air ahead of it. Which is why the temp was going up outside.
This thing was alot more worse than last Thursday’s storm.