Awesome Deals - Defense Grid: The Awakening for Free

I just got word that Defense Grid: The Awakening on Steam can be downloaded for free (legally) through an activation code you can get off of Facebook, by Logitech. I tried it out, and the activation code certainly did give me a copy of the game, so I'm sharing the info to you guys too. I'm not sure how long this deal will last though, so if you're interested in getting a $10 game for free, give it a shot. You just need to "Like" Logitech and Defense Grid. You can get to the Facebook page through the link on this page.

http://slickdeals.net/permadeal/95948/logitech-defense-grid-the-awakening-pc-digital-download

Thanks, Logitech!

404 Error - Blog writer not found.

It really has been a while since I've been posting on my blog lately, partially due to how busy I have been with work, as well as struggling with finding a good time to sleep due to many factors that's been keeping me up. Unfortunately, this will continue for another month for many personal reasons, including a bed bug infestation (which was one of the factors keeping me up; should have discovered them sooner), moving houses twice (once back to my parents' house up north, and again to help them get into their new house), and setting up and preparing for future posts. 

Poll - POLL NOT FOUND

It's already May, so here's... wait... 

It turns out that the polls aren't working on the site for some reason, and I can't get it to show any of the votes. I'm not sure how to fix it, so... it looks like polls will be taken down until further notice from the developers. 

Setting up for a Let's Play

After looking into what is required to do a Let's Play, I went and checked out the free evaluation version of Fraps, downloaded Audacity, and tested both programs out. Fraps certainly works a LOT better than this other, commercial screen recording program I tried out for free. I think it was Screen Recorder Gold that I tried out, but I can't be 100% certain since I uninstalled it a long time ago. Audacity probably isn't a necessity, but I wanted to be able to edit my commentaries, and this program is great for doing just that. Otherwise, Fraps IS capable of recording both the game's audio as well as an external audio source like a microphone, but the audio will be compressed together, making editing not-so-easy to do.

After the recording phase, I intend on working with Windows Movie Maker first to see how much editing I can do with it. I kind of doubt that I would need high levels of editing for my videos, at least not yet, but seeing how I've heard good things about Sony Vegas Pro, that is something I will look into later on.

But one of the things that slipped my mind was the issue of Copyrights. Having had issues with copyrights before, I'd like to know where the fine line is when it comes to them so that I know not to cross what legal rights I'm allowed and not. So here are some webpages that I found were somewhat helpful in regards to copyrights.

http://socialtimes.com/fair-use-youtube_b61891

As well as the "Copyrights" link at the bottom of YouTube's page.

Searching "Copyright Laws regarding Let's Play videos" on Google provided quite a few discussions in forum threads regarding the matter, with most of them pointing out that while it's technically a legal gray area, it's unlikely that a game company will file a copyright infringement lawsuit on an individual for uploading a Let's Play video.

Sooo... in the end, I'm still a bit iffy about how much content I can put in my videos, like... whether if I could put music from other games in them, or whether if giving credits to all things included would be mandatory.

I'll try experimenting a bit with a few recordings and see how well they turn out. It's about time I get some more content on this blog anyway.

Time to Experiment

There has been a lot of "Let's Play" videos on YouTube lately, and some of which have seen quite some success at getting an audience for simply playing the game while recording. I've always wanted to do one myself, but I don't exactly have the tools for doing that quite yet. Even aside from that, I don't have a gaming partner to be in the show with either, unfortunately. That might not be all that important, but I'm not confident in my own personality to be entertaining to the audience, especially when I may be too focused on the game.

I have been talking a lot about doing experiments on this blog with very little to show for it as of yet, but I may start looking into ways of recording my gaming sessions with Fraps or possibly stream the game on Twitch. I'm not entirely sure if Pugyuu can handle all that however, but that's what the experiment will be about. I will be posting updates regarding this, as I'd really like to put more gaming related entertainment here, and possibly a lot less walls of texts I end up having. Stay tuned!

Adobe Flash Fail

Don't worry, this is just an image; not actual flash on the site.

It feels fairly frequently that Adobe wants us to update our Adobe Flash plug-ins for our browsers; at least for FireFox for me. But honestly, I find that each of these updates they give us ends up breaking something else with Flash. What's up with that? Is Adobe even checking the updates for the recent browser versions before releasing them? Seriously, I've skipped the past 5 or so updates because one of them would crash my whole browser if I tried to access my webcam to go on a webcam chat. Another time, it would stop any and all videos I try to watch after one minute or something and won't let me continue watching them. As for the latest update that it asked us not even a week ago, it's not as bad as stopping the video, but the videos lose audio after a minute. What the hell, Adobe? Get your updates straight for FireFox already.

Demotivational Post

It certainly does seem like I've been updating a lot less frequently on this blog for some reason. I shouldn't be any busier than any previous months since the start of 2013, and yet my posting frequency is only decreasing. Why is that? Well, the simple answer is that I am not sure what I should talk about. A lot of things that I had to say have already been said on the blog. I try to bring myself to be more productive, but I end up being too tired from the morning job schedules. I'm wondering whether if this could be a sign of depression causing a lack of motivation on my part to be as productive as I could be. Honestly, I wouldn't doubt it. It's nearing half a year since Firion had passed away, and I certainly don't have much to look forward to each day. And yet, I am still being oppressed by the undeserving cats in this house who are still being pampered by everyone else when Firion never got any attention at all. This isn't a healthy situation I am in, but what else is there for me to do but to shut myself away in the sanctuary that I've made in this room for Firion, all by myself?