Love Is Blindness

Just a song one of my friends send me:

Christmas in the countryside

When I walked towards my girlfriends house two days ago it looked like Autumn. Rain and sharp wind everywhere. Then suddenly it snowed for four hours straight and we had Winter!

Today, on Christmas Eve, it was 10°C and birds were happily singing, my girlfriends cat demanded to go out and I swear I felt spring in the wind.

Stop trolling, nature!

Anyways - Merry Christmas everyone!

Alfapiomega’s Youtube etiquette v 1.0

The recent growth of my channel and the general rules of conduct on the interwebs has led me now for a long time to thinking about some sort of etiquette for subscribers and the general Youtube population. Because face it, guys, Youtube is no more orderly than a mob of drunken guys in a pub shouting political agendas at each other. And has about the same amount of decency.

Now please note that this is just a suggestion, not a law I will impose or anything and that it is a process in making. Therefore feel free to disagree with me, suggest additional rules or why you think that some rules I propose below should be abandoned, ammended or why different rules might be added. As always I offer you my position and if you provide me enough arguments for the contrary, I will change it ‘cos that is how we can all move forward, right? Right?! But so far this was the best moral compass for me when running around Youtube. And it worked better than shouting "FAG!" everywhere I went.

Rule number 1: Don’t live in the past
I have been here for two years and tried to get in touch with everyone who commented on one or more of my videos. But when someone comments on a Let's Play that ended a year and a half ago saying: “You should really consider attacking someone in the next episode” or “can I join you guys?” it is a bit annoying. I wonder what people think when they do that.

Rule number 2: Right place at right time
I had numerous occasions where I upload a part of one LP and someone comments: “Hey, when is the other LP coming in?” or: "You should really try to play this!" Now that is annoying as hell. I understand you might not be interested in this particular LP (we all have different tastes) but general questions/suggestions belong to the channel page (or that's what I think). You can comment there with ease and I will respond as soon as I see it. Just don’t spam other Let's plays demanding that I play something else. Know that at some other channels you can get banned for that. I dread that solution but you try getting annoyed by this again and again.

Rule number 3: Being vocal about unsubscribing or disliking something
Now what do I mean with that? Exactly what it means. As my channel grows I have started witnessing strange things. Like gaining 10 subscribers at one day or loosing 3 at another one. I am not saying that if you are subscribed to a lot of people and just have to let someone go you will send everyone a weepy message of how you will miss them. But I had about 650 people unsubscribe to me over time and not one of them actually ever told me why he did. I doubt it would be because they all died or because my channel died (whenever I go on a holiday or there is a longer pause I try to inform you guys ahead of time of why that is). I also haven’t drastically changed the content of my videos and I still try to move in one particular direction. So why haven’t some of them said: “Hey, bro, you know this thing that you do? It just annoys me so much that I can’t continue watching anymore. Can you do something with that?” It would be helpful.
Again I know that some people would just come and pass but this is exactly the reason why I might be doing something annoying for months without ever noticing. And exactly why I appreciate when people say: “Hey, yo, this word you keep saying, you pronounce it wrong and it is annoying. So get your shit together, yeah? Kthxbye”.

It's just...

...one of those nights.

Building a computer

I received a couple of messages from you guys that you would want to see photos of how I build the computer. As you requested them, here are some:

My tea cup and tea pot - without it I wouldn't be able to do anything.

Some of the boxes that the goodies arrived in:

The insides of the case and the motherboard box:

Other shot of the case:

The MEDUSA of energy cables coming from the PSU:

My CPU - the i5-3570k:

Motherboard, stock fan and the processor:

The core of the computer - motherboard with the RAM, CPU and a fan, behind is the new monitor:

Hope you enjoyed these photos!

What the hell is going on?

So I am definitely done with the TGN. I was a long time ago but the fact that I got a permaban on their forums tells me they are done with me as well. Also their “accidental” removal of every single post I made on the forums in the entire history of space and time and disabling my account isn’t really optimistic. I can’t really explain how I want to be out of there. Oh well, just a few more days.

Meanwhile there were several other horrible things happening in my life. Nothing extremely personal but the series of disasters continues raging on. After the huge pay cut my boss announced and that I talked about in the last Information is power video my computer started acting weird while recording. And I mean like really weird. As a good example – when I try recording CK2 I immediately drop to 1 FPS (frame per second). No overheating, no error, just 1 FPS. After doing a lot of research and cleaning I blame Windows for this and I doubt anything other than a complete Windows reinstall will help with this. I have to admit that I don’t take a very good care of Petronius when it comes to Windows. Don’t believe me? When I had my laptop in service last time the dude actually wrote in the report: “We changed this and that and we STRONGLY recommend you clean your registries or better reinstall the entire thing”. So yeah. That’s that.

Why am I saying this? Well I am not sure if I’ll get around to recording in the next few days (basically until I get the new computer). I don’t know if you guys can imagine but it is so annoying it actually repulses me from any recording right now. Which is maybe good because if I uploaded something like that with 1FPS it would repulse you. So in the end when you think about it, I am doing you a favor.

To wrap it up the current plan is that when I get around to recording I’ll do just low profile games on my Computer (things most like KoDP, Cataslysm and EU3) and leave the real recording to the moment when I have the new computer. Then I will migrate the CK2, Civ5, Sacrifice, WoT and anything else that is a bit power hungry to the new steel. Well that is the plan. How will it work out I have no idea. I have been slacking lately at school and I could use some more time above the books. So enjoy this break to catch up with anything you wanted to watch, spam my messages with praise and recommendations.

I’ll be around.

It's just...

...one of those evenings.

Where the hell is Alfa?

If you are wondering why there are no uploads in the past few days know that Alfa caught some incredibly malicious type of common flu. Why do I say that? Because it’s true.

How did I catch it? Well my girlfriend was sick and, as always when she is sick, asked me one of those typical girl questions: “Do you love me even when I am sick and thus hideous?” And I haven’t thought of anything better than to kiss her. On her lips. Passionately. Telling her she is beautiful while in my mind I was thinking: “I haven’t caught it till now, why would this change it in anyway?”

Sometimes I am such a fucking moron I could just slap myself.

So yeah, of course the next day I woke up with the exact same shit as she had – fever, pain, nausea which eventually now that my immunity defeated it, turned to regular coughing and sneezing as my body tries to get rid of all that ugly dead stuff floating in my blood stream.

So yeah, it might take two or three more days before I will be ok to record again as constant coughing/sneezing is hardly sexy.

Again – I am a fucking moron and deserved every minute of this flu virus. So my apologies for the rupture in (space)time continuity.

But this sickness as many before brought me to the immunity system as a concept. Why hasn’t anyone made a genuine, good real time/turn based strategy with this theme? It is an incredible place if you think about it, the body. Endless waves of bacteria and viruses that know no mercy or surrender swarms it while the immune system hurls white cells, raises temperature and produces huge amounts of body fluids designed to destroy. Will you raise the temperature a 0,1°C higher? But then the body looses a bit of its taste for food and ability to function normally. Can you handle this infection? What about that one? What if it isn’t just common flu? What if you need antibiotics? Will you hold the fort before they come from the outside world? And what about the most serious diseases? Will you be able to slow down the terror, sacrificing parts of the bodies in hope that help from outside will come in time? Or will the world of medicine fails you and you will perish?

Now that shit I would play. Bonus points if there were medical accurate things included and total win if you get a body and lead it from childhood to death by old age. Holy hell can you imagine that? Difficulty settings? Easy – 21^st century. Medium – 18^th century. Hard? Dark Ages. And super hard? Stone age.

Just imagine the achievements. Will you play in dark ages and somehow manages to save the body from the attack of plague? ACHIEVEMENT – You survived hell! Oh god I want that game now. Finally something to play while you are sick.

I hate you! I hate you so much it actually gives me energy!

I woke up this morning and the sun was shining. It was a lovely day. After I brushed my teeth, washed my face and put some clothes on my girlfriend asked me if I want to use the computer that she let running during the night. And so I did.

Now if you spend enough time recording and dealing with Youtube it will become a bit like a drug. It’s the first page I usually check when I get to the computer as I enjoy reading the comments, checking the subscriber counts and views/likes and dealing with the statistics Youtube shows you. In another words – it’s fun for me.

But when I came this morning and found out that I have 17 messages I was really surprised. 17! I never got seventeen messages in one night before. So I checked them with great anticipation of “What the hell was happening while I was sleeping?!”. Was my channel blocked? Did someone started watching one of the LPs and send me a message after each part? I did not know. And guess what? It was all spam.

All of those 17 messages were from three guys (I guess they are guys despite the fact one of them used a nickname jameykitty or some shit like that), each sending me one 6 messages (one send only 5). And I really hate spam. It’s something that I truly despise. Not because it’s trying to lure you into buying something you don’t need but because of how it’s done and what they are selling. If they offered something worthy, something you can use I would definitely check it out. But they always offer shady, dangerous drugs or things that will eventually kick you right in the nuts. And the way they do it! Oh the way they do it! Like these guys sending me almost identical messages where, in broken English, they told me things like these (this is actually one of the messages I received tonigh):

where you from?

Hello there are video clips with the latest cool and a good work here. immediately visit the major sites for the best customers in http://bit.ly/subincrease

be sure to have a look at the site.

ur uyr
ook girls, I'm not sorry
And I'm not ashamed of my man
Even though he is poor and has an old car
He treats me like a queen, a man of truth
And even though he has an old car
What's important i
yrsyuuyzrewerr

uyrs uyrsry
sr yyr
678678

Receiver: AZshooterman, Adrian Radlowsky, Alfapiomega, FreestyleReplay, HyperrrBuRnx, InfinityFishingTeam, Jonnythabeast, Karl Erikson, Marlene Tucker, Mkillerbrew, MrMagnusAFC, PNsnHD, RGBRYN, RezurrectionDude, TheGenocidePlan, TheLipTV, TonyJCNJ, gulleyg, orce9174, yotsubakowai

What in the name of the holy is this shit? Do they think I am retarded? Does anyone even reply to these messages? Ever?! Seriously! What. The. Fuck?! This is not only insulting my intelligence but it stole away 1 minute of my life marking each these messages. I am sick of it.

I am not sure how much spam users get but it seems that the higher your subscriber count, the more spam you get on Youtube. This was not the first time this happened to me but the sheer numbers are higher than ever before.

Now this leads me to the question: “How do the big guys deal with this?" I can’t blame them for not answering fan mail and comments anymore. They must be lying under an avalanche of bullshit they receive every day/night screaming for help!

So this is my message to all the spam sending assholes out there:

Eat a dick, jameykitty.

What is love?!

When you start any sort of endeavor it is a good idea to learn something about it beforehand. So when I decided that I really wanted to create a blog I googled and I googled and I googled. And the only piece of information I learned from all the terrible, hideous pages I encountered was this: 

“Always define your topic precisely right from the beginning so that you know what you want to do”.

Because of that I now say: “What is love?”, “Why are we here?”, “What is the meaning of life?” and “Is there a god” are all questions I am not going to devote any time to. There you go.

Well at least the sheep has some kind of an idea about those things. As for me I have no clue about that stuff and I don’t dare to cast my ridiculous opinions on the pile of garbage others have created over the ages. I admit that it’s fun to drink tea, look out into the cold during long, winter nights but this blog is devoted to only one thing – me. And who am I? In case you wondered in here entirely randomly my name is Rudolf but I mostly go by the nickname Alfapiomega, or just simply Alfa. Other nicknames include Yb and Sfarog and when someone shouts “Hey, dickhead!” on the street I have the urge to answer to that as well. I have a gaming channel on Youtube (Alfapiomega) and this blog serves only one purpose – to get in touch with those who wishes to learn a bit more about me plus maybe a bit as a personal diary. Seriously - that is all. 

I learned to have no expectations of things I or anyone else does on the internet which leads to two interesting outcomes: a) I get never disappointed and b) the things eventually work themselves out on their own. I have all my faith in the fact that this blog will be the same. It will either work, strive and become an internal part of the mess I created on the interwebs or it will eventually fall into disrepair and disappear into the oblivion as many other shitty worthless things.

So there, I got the first post out and we will finally move to some of the interesting stuff. Like to bitching about everything.