Random Subject Saturday - Rebranding (Again...)

Hello and welcome to the last ever random Random Subject Saturday; where I tell you about an interesting new change to the blog, and some of the kewl new graphics I shall be designing for it.

Ooooooh. Mystery silhouette. Who could it be? Be sure to come back tomorrow to find out.

OddballGreg was a fun blog for me to create. But now it's going away... FOREVER. (Dun Dun Dun) Luckily for you, that does not mean you will no longer have my fantastically strange ramblings to read. (Teehee) Stagnation in life is unhealthy, so lets talk about how this blog is going to continue moving forward.

First of all, I would like to thank those of you who have been recurring readers for all this time. Those wonderful friends of mine who always give me that warm fuzzy feeling inside when they tell me that my post about cats was weird. I truly appreciate it, as I do appreciate the people I do not know who read my strange ramblings. I might never meet you, but I thank you all the same.

Anyways, ironically, the first Random Subject Saturday was the first named day this blog ever had. (The day naming was a tactic I used to help me figure out what on earth I would write about.) The amazing thing is that the day naming convention will actually NOT end on a Random Subject Saturday. (I thought I would do that, but figured one last Storytime Sunday would be nice.)

As such, you may be wondering by this point what exactly is changing with the blog. Quite simply, it's broadening it's horizons and growing it's goals. What exactly do I mean by that? Come back tomorrow for aforementioned Storytime Sunday for the full story on TCSA, but basically, I will no longer be blogging alone. (*gasp*)

"South Africans": That's a plural. And there's 4 letters in TCSA. Go figure...

Who will be blogging with me? A nickname of his is Canoe, and I've mentioned him on the blog before. If you want to know who he is before tomorrow, (which is when I will have conveniently finished all the new graphics for the blog.), you can find out by scouring the various posts I have previously made in the past.

The good news, is that the I will still be here, the blog will no longer be comparable in colour to mustard, someone new with interesting new opinions will be blogging, and I won't have to do everything myself.

The bad news is that I won't be doing every blog post, (Sorry if that was a main attraction for you, I promise it means the ones I do will be better in quality.), All previously shared (or saved) URL's for the blog will cease to work, and the blog will no longer be comparable to the scrumptious colour of mustard. (I'm sorry, I like the way it looks.)

For those of you who found the posts via Facebook, Twitter or Feedburner, the URL change will not be an issue, as the new URL *should* automatically be shared following the change. For those of you who use other means to find the blog, it might be worth looking at those other means of finding it again.

The upside is that the blog will be getting an official TCSA Facebook page, Twitter Feed and even... dare I say it, an EMAIL address. (*gasp*) Maybe a good thing, maybe not. This will thankfully be the final foreseeable change to blog links and information. Your support is mandatory *cough cough* much appreciated in terms of liking, following and sharing the new pages which I will be sharing in tomorrow's Storytime Sunday. (For those of you not interested in doing so, my personal Facebook page and Twitter feed will continue to share the new blog posts.)

In any case, I once again thank you for your support, and look forward to many more strange and interesting discussions and post in the future. If you are unsure of anything, do be sure to ask about it in the comments below or by asking me directly via Facebook or Twitter. Also, your sharing of this post with any friends you know who read the blog, (or don't), will of course be greatly appreciated. Regardless of what you do however, I thank you for having taken the time to read this post; hope that you have/had an absolutely FANTASTIC day, and I will speak again tomorrow.

Goodbye my friends.

Random Subject Saturday - Blogging Music (DjVick, ElectroDanceMovement, Others)

Hello and welcome Random Subject Saturday; the day of the week where I tell you what I listen to while writing on this blog, and where to find it if you're so inclined.

Yes... I made the "DJVick" text out of alignment just to drive you crazy... Image is a screenshot of https://www.youtube.com/user/DJVickOfficial

A lot of people have been asking me to talk about music... Truth be told, I'm not sure what I can really say on the subject, apart from perhaps what I listen to while I'm writing these blog posts. So I'm going to talk about some "Blogging Music" that I listen to each day while I write for this blog.

Blogging is not exactly an easy task. You have to figure out what you're going to say or talk about, try not sound boring, make sure that the blog looks good and is interesting to see, and mainly, put your nose to the grindstone and actually sit and type the posts out. For some people, that is somewhat easy I suppose, but I find the prospect of sitting behind a desk for long periods of time painful these days, and only mainly bearable thanks to what I fondly refer to as "Blogging Music" these days.

While perhaps somewhat strange (like myself), I've got a bunch of songs and mixes of music from YouTube arranged into playlists that I listen to while I blog. Two of the largely featured YouTube channels in the Mixes category are DJVick and ElectroDanceMovement quite simply because they have hour long sets of good music that can help me ignore the fact that I've been sitting in one place for an extensive period. (That's not a great thing with me. I'm a very active person. Imagine bottling up a Jackrabbit that's just been fed Redbull and Speed inside a tennis ball tin. That's me.) You can find the youtube playlist of these mixes that I listen to here: Mixes

The other one is something that is a bit more painful to add to, simply because it requires me to find each song individually, but on the other hand, it's a good representation of my music tastes if you're interested in that for some strange reason. Everything from Lana Del Rey, to Demon Hunter, to Cherry Kab and tons others can be found in this playlist. (There was some Taylor Swift at one point, but she got irritating. Teehee)

If you would like to go and listen to this random assortment of songs, you can find them here: Music

Admittedly, sitting behind a desk for long periods still freaks me out pretty badly despite the music, but it makes it somewhat better, so hey. And nothing good has ever been gotten easily, so I'm still more than happy to bash away on my keyboard to provide you guys with something to read each day. (And hopefully enjoy.)

In any case, so now the subject of music has been spoken on. You can stop nagging now. If you want to tell me that I listen to crap music, or wish to thank me for the playlists, you can do so in the comments below or on my Facebook or Twitter pages which you can like and/or follow using the associated buttons on the bar to the right. Also, don't forget to share this with some friends who need good music playlists I guess. I add new stuff to those every so often, and enough people have listened to them to make think they aren't all bad. I could be wrong... Regardless, I thank you for taking the time to read this article; hope that you have/had an absolutely FANTASTIC day, and I will speak again tomorrow.

Keep rocking my friends.

Random Subject Saturday - Tabletop Roleplaying Games

Hello and welcome to Random Subject Saturday; the day of the week where I expose some of my nerdier interests, and talk about how awesome they are anyway.

Assorted gaming dice; the trademark of any self-respecting nerd. And look, they even shine. (Teehee)

Have you ever sat down and thought: "Man. I wish there was a game that was like real-life where you could do anything you liked."? If so, you might be happy to find there are games like that. They're just inherently multiplayer and don't involve computers. If you are a 90's kid, or born earlier, you may have even played one.

Before I start, I should probably explain what I'm talking about, and clarify something. Firstly, I'm talking about "Tabletop Roleplaying Games" and secondly, they aren't so much games, as systems. (You'll get why I make that distinction in a moment.) Tabletop Roleplaying Games are the great grandpapies of modern video games. They're those crazy old coots that say "In my day, we didn't have any of this technology stuff. We had to use our imaginations to have fun." while watching Commander Shepard headbutt a Krogan. (Fistbump if you get that reference.)

To be fair, they aren't wrong with that. Don't get me wrong, videogames are great and will always be a favorite hobby for me; but playing a Tabletop Roleplaying Game is incomparable to that, despite modern games being based upon them. (Games like the original Fallout and Fallout 2 were based on a gaming system called GURPS.) To put it into perspective, one of the greatest strengths and weaknesses of videogames is their elimination of the need for imagination. Like the argument of TV over books, they simply remove all need for you to imagine what something is, because it's displayed at face value and requires no further forethought. Nice as not having to think can be occasionally, that can become extremely unfufilling if you ever get a taste of what imagination has to offer. Basically; if imagination were money, then videogames are expensive loans. They get you what you want, but basically rob you of a greater pleasure in the long run.

Inversely, playing a Tabletop Game is like putting a ton of money into a retirement fund. Maybe not as great at first, but the outcome is far greater than anything you could have had in the meantime. Since these Tabletop games are more like systems than the games you might be thinking about when I say the word "game", this allows them a far greater ability to pull in random aspects from anywhere and take the story anywhere. A computer game can only do what it's programmed to do, these tabletop "systems" as I've called them, are limited by a single thing. Your imagination.

What do I mean by that? Say you're playing a videogame and something annoying keeps happening. Maybe your character keeps dropping their weapon for example, and because of that, you would have to pick the stupid thing up every single time that happened. In the case of a Tabletop Roleplaying Game, and I'm speaking from experience, having done this in the first tabletop game I ever played, you can come up with all sorts of clever tricks to solve an issue like that. In my case, I was playing a somewhat poorly made archer character who kept managing to drop his bow. So I asked what it would cost to buy some leather and strap said piece of infernal pine to my characters arm so that I would not have to climb out of tree's to go retrieve the thing. The DM said that works for him, and so a painful issue was solved with some imaginative ingenuity. 

So what do you need to play these tabletop games? ("And what the hell is a DM?" I bet you're asking.) Well, you need yourself, maybe 3 other friends, some time, dice and the rules for one of these Tabletop Games. You might be thinking: "well, what about imagination?". That helps, but usually after a few games you develop one of those anyway, so no stress. 

So what's the downside to these games? Well, you can't play them alone. A minimum of 2 people required, but it usually requires a skillful DM to make sure that it's not boring for so few people; so about 3 or 4 is best to start. And of course, before I delay any more, the Dungeon Master is essentially the Storyteller that makes these games work. (and technically only referred to as a DM in Dungeons & Dragons. Other games have other terms.) I should point out that it's a good idea to have the most imaginative of your friends as the DM, since they're the people that get the game going and dictate what is happening in the game. 

Your DM is the guy who sits and has some cool ideas for a story, writes them down and comes up with an adventure for the other players's characters to experience, and then describes things as those characters interact with the world he is portraying in the story. A difficult role to explain, but you could essentially liken the DM to the world's puppeteer, pulling the strings in reaction to the events caused by the other players. A hefty burden to carry as the person who determines if the story is one worth remembering or not, but ultimately rewarding if done well.

I will admit to being somewhat bad at explaining things occasionally, so instead of listening to my fanboyisms's, perhaps you're interested in seeing a game like this played. If so, while not quite the same as playing it with friends in person, my resident YouTube favorite Quill18 actually has a 4 part video series (1, 2, 3, 4) on YouTube of him playing the recently released 5th edition of the Dungeons & Dragons system, which he plays with some of his subscribers online. Check it out. While somewhat informal, it better demonstrates how things work than my ramblings.

So, I'm guessing, at this point, you're either bored stiff with my vague/detailed descriptions and nerdiness, or you're itching to try one of these games out for yourself. If you're the former, I understand. Pretending to be someone else and dictating your actions while someone tells you about the consequences of said actions isn't for everyone. However, if you're the latter, then you're probably looking to find out what kinds of Tabletop Roleplaying Games there are, and where you can get them.

Firstly, there are a ton of them... Waaaay too many for me to mention, and they're not even limited to "Roleplaying" games, which is why I've been talking about those specifically. There's strategy type games like Warhammer that I might talk about at a later date, and many others; but having never played those, I'm going to keep those discussions for other articles.

So what systems do I know about? Well, the first is obvious. Dungeons and Dragons, which is by the company Wizards of the Coast. Essentially the staple of these gaming systems, and maybe even the progenitor of them if I'm not mistaken; it's a fair place to start in terms of Tabletop Roleplaying Games. The rules are relatively simple and make sense, there are 5 editions worth of rules for you choose from, and basically everyone who's every played a Tabletop game has probably played DnD, so with a bit of luck, finding someone to play with shouldn't be all that hard. (Unless you live in South Africa, like me, then it's a mission.) Luckily, the website RPG.co.za has forums and such to help out with that sort of thing. (They're also run by the same people who hold the ICON tabletop games convention in South Africa each year.) Probably a good idea to check them out if you're interested, since that's where I found the people I played my first Pathfinder campaign with. There's also an online "Wiki" for the base game, so all you internet savants can go check out some of the things people come up with for their campaigns.

 (As an afterthought, if you do decide to play DnD, dodge 4th edition for your first campaign, it's combat rules are fairly draconian compared to the other editions.)

The other system I know about is a somewhat more... obscure game called Mage: The Ascension that was created by White Wolf; who are now owned by the CCP Games, the Iceland based creators of the MMO EVE online. (Again, an article for another time.) I say game, but in technicality there were many that were more or less the same thing, but spun in different directions for the game "universe" that White Wolf created, known as the "World of Darkness". Perhaps one of the most popular, (yet still fairly obscure), videogames based on the World of Darkness was Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines; which was again itself based on the ruleset for Vampire: The Masquerade. However, the tabletop rules I know of are for Mage: The Ascension, for one simple reason. That game is fucking cool. (Excuse the expletive, that's how cool it is.) Based on the aforementioned "GURPS" gaming system, these rulesets from White Wolf ranged on everything from Vampires to Werewolves, Regular Humans and Mages, to Fey and various other creatures, all as playable characters; and, for the more adventurous Storytellers, able to be used all together. Cool as that is, it is Mage: The Ascension that is of the most interest to me.

Mage: The Ascension takes the idea of doing anything you can imagine, and literally pushes it to it's limits. While I did say that these Tabletop Roleplaying Games are only limited to your imagination, I should add that there are the bounds of the rules for obvious reasons. A game is not a game without rules that everyone agrees to play by. Here's the thing, Dungeons and Dragons is pretty awesome, but depending on your tastes, slightly limited. It's great for it's medieval high fantasy and ease of access to new players, but for people looking for something more, things like it's magic are completely limited, and using it in a modern setting does make things difficult and confusing. The World of Darkness setting and Mage: Ascension has the opposite issues. It's modern, and it's rules are so broad that for the inexperienced, it can be overwhelming. (Damn it Greg, explain better.) Consider this: in Dungeons and Dragons, you get the "Magic Missile" spell that shoots three bolts of magic, everytime, the same way, every time you use it. Seems cool, but you would expect magic to be more freeform than that.

Mage: The Ascension takes that idea, and runs with it. While it makes place for what they call "Rotes", the focus of the game is based around the concept of molding reality to ones will. The rules don't detail spells and their effects, they talk about spheres of magic, and what kind of things can be done at various levels of expertise in them. A character who knows the Sphere of life can manipulate all things related to life, seeing life visually, to healing the injured, to eventually even outright snuffing it out or creating it with the click of his fingers. A character that knows the Sphere of Entropy can see the strings of fate about him, and begin to play with them as he carries gains more expertise, forcing normal dice to always roll sixes, or causing the supports of a wall to fail, bringing the rubble onto those nearby. Sounds fairly mystical no? And the best part is, it truly is limited by your imagination. (and your characters expertise within the rules obviously.) Anything from guns that never run out of ammo to time travel is possible within the rules of this game. So I'd say that's pretty awesome no?

Warning: The Next Paragraph contains heavy fanboyism. Read at your own risk.

I should point out that you've probably heard of a similar sounding game or two. Firstly, Magic: The Gathering and Mage: The Ascension are two separate things, the former being a card game by Wizards of the Coast. Secondly, Mage: The Ascension is in technicality a discontinued version of what became Mage: The Awakening, a reboot by White Wolf again. I'm gonna be blunt about this, though you're free to have a different opinion. Mage: The Ascenion = Awesome. Mage: The Awakening = Garbage. The technicalities being the Mage: The Awakening took some perfectly reasonable, sensible and just plain cool ideas, and trivialized them for ease of play, while ruining the idea in the process. Not saying it's a bad game, but in my personal opinion, it can't hold a candle to Mage: The Ascension.

The Danger has passed.

Oh yes, I mentioned that Mage: The Ascension was an old, obscure and rebooted game. You're might be wondering how you would get your hands on the rules and such for this game then. Thank goodness for DriveThruRPG, an online, print on demand service who offer the printing and delivering of all the related game materials for Mage: The Ascension, it's brother games, and even other games like Dungeons and Dragons if you're struggling to find them. A handy service to be sure. (And if I'm not mistaken, you can even just buy the PDF's of these books from them at a steal.)

In any case, before I decide to further carry on about how cool Mage: The Ascension is, I should wrap the article up. If you think I should shut-up about Mage, or maybe talk about/try out another gaming system, make sure to let me know in the comments below... Otherwise, I can't know now can I? Also, be sure to share this with any of your bored/nerdy friends out there, maybe they'll find something to like in this veritable wall of text. And of course, if you would like to see more articles likes this one, make sure to like my Facebook page and/or follow me on Twitter using the associated buttons on the bar to the right. Regardless of what you do, I thank you for having taken the time to read this and that I have redeemed myself for my lack of a proper article yesterday, hope that you have/had an absolutely FANTASTIC day, and I will speak again tomorrow.

Farewell adventurers. Safe Travels.

Random Subject Saturday - Reefsteamers (Actual Trains)

Hello and welcome to Random Subject Saturday; the day of the week where I tell you about thing's I've never done, and then ask if you want to hear about it afterwards.

If you're the type for knowing things or looking closely... you might note that's a German train. I did that for lulz really.

If you were born in 1980/90's or earlier, it's likely you've taken a ride on a train before and are fairly familiar with them. Perhaps you've even seen an actual steam train operating. Ironically, I haven't... but I'm going to today. So that's cool.

Fun fact, young people are deprived these days. Sure we have smartphones and stuff, but there are a lot of things that the older generations did that we have no clue about. (Don't believe me, ask a kid these days if they have a floppy disk. They're quite likely to ask you what that is.) It's unfortunate because those bygone era's required a fair bit more ingenuity in order to do the "simple" tasks we often take for granted these days.

Oh well, I'm going to see a steam train tomorrow. Actually... sorry, I'm going to see a steam train today. Figuring I was going to be out all day, I wanted to make sure I got this post done, and was thereby up at 2:30AM writing this. (Kinda brutal, ever felt like your screen was burning your eyes out of their sockets?) Still, I want to keep up my now 40+ day streak of daily blog posts, so I don't mind.

The event I'm going to is the "Winter Depot Open Day" held by a non-profit group of South African Steam Train operators by the name of Reefsteamers. Having never been to said event before, I'm not entirely sure what to expect, but in true respect to my adventurous side, I don't care and will likely find it fun simply because I haven't done it before. Besides, who doesn't want to see several tons of steel moving faster than you can run while billowing out a near solid cloud of smoke and ash? (Seriously; if you don't, tell me about it in the comments below.)

In any case, I'll be sure to take a camera, take some snaps and let you know what it's like there for tomorrows Storytime Sunday post. In any case, I'm off to catch 2 hours of sleep so that I am awake enough to take photo's of trains rather than my feet. If you're interested in hearing what a young and strange fellow like myself has to say about these monstrous metal contraptions, make sure to like my Facebook page and/or follow me on Twitter using the associated buttons on the bar to the right so that you can get the post, as I make it. In any case, I thank you for taking the time to read this, hope you have/had an absolutely FANTASTIC day, and I will speak to you tomorrow.

Good morning my friends. (Teehee)

Random Subject Saturday - The Oddball Dialect

Hello and welcome to Random Subject Saturday; the day where I tell you about the extremely strange words that myself and friends use, and then try to teach it to you for laughs.

There are occasionally times when I really have no idea what to use for a header image, and just look for something vaguely relevant. Today was one of them.

Odds are, you have friends. Odds are even better, you've been friends with said friends for long enough that you've developed an understanding of the way they think and speak. If I'm correct, then Odds are good that you'll be able to relate to "The Oddball Dialect". (As I so named it 3 seconds ago and nobody has agreed to refer to it as.) That magical language that apparently only I and my friends speak. It's weird.

You may have noticed a fairly common trope on the internet where people poke humor at everything from languages, to accents, to slang, and everything in between. (Here's looking at you, YouTube.) So here's the fun, it occurred to me the other day that the people I spend a fair bit of time with, (and myself), seem to speak somewhat differently than others.

The difference isn't English to Japanese obviously, but there are occasionally times where even the most open minded individuals have difficulty following precisely what we're talking about. Even more interestingly, is that the words we use weren't made by us, but are simply an amalgamated jumble of slang, jargon, game terms and 1337 speak from such a wide variety of locations that it's weird to hear. (Seriously, where have you ever heard a bunch of people talking about an "APC ganking a nub tank for lulz?" And that's just mainly League of Legends jargon.)

As such, just for "lulz", I'm going to put a list of some of the strange words and terms we use, just for the laughs to be honest. Perhaps the words catch on, perhaps they don't. It'll be funny to see either way. So without further ado:

• APC: Usually means Armored Personnel Carrier, APC is also League of Legends jargon for an Ability Power Carry, which is character that uses their abilities to deal immense damage and let their team win. 
• ADC: like APC, but stands for Attack Damage Carry.
• Lulz: A word that came up, literally, because it sounds funnier than "lol" (laugh out loud, not to be confused with the abbreviation of League of Legends.)
• Teh Lulz: This is about as internet as it gets, teh lulz is basically "the laughs" and is often used as the reason when you don't actually have a good reason or just to be funny. "I did it for teh lulz."
• Gank: Some military folks would probably understand that to "gank" someone means to kill someone. Again, the term was appropriated to LoL (League of Legends) as a term for when several people gang up on a single enemy.
• Ossim: Like "Lulz" but for the word Awesome.
• Tank: A large, motorized military vehicle normally, a tank in gamer speak is a character with an immense amount of health whose purpose is simply to stand "soak damage" while other character deal it.
• Fanks: A funnier way to say "thanks".
• Facedesk: This one is somewhat common on the internet, but since I use it so often on this blog, here's a link to help you figure it out. (Teehee)
• BSOD: IT guy's term for Blue screen of death. 
• PICNIC: IT guy's term for Problem in chair, not in computer.
• Dakka: A fun term from the orcs of Warhammer40K, this is a general term for anything guns, ammunition and explosive.
• Nub: "None-useful body". It's about as insulting as you can get for some people for obvious reasons.
• Noob: Considered rather offensive among gamers, a noob is someone who is not new to something, but is bad enough at it that they could be compared to a Newbie.
• Newbie: Often shortened to Newb, someone who is new to something. Not to be confused with the offensive Noob.
• Sexy: An adjective to describe good things, strangely, this term has ended up being part of a greeting just to make people feel awkward. (Possibly, we say "Hey Sexy" because we're describing good things when we greet each other. But I could be wrong.)

Strangely, I feel like this isn't even half of the strange words and terms we use, but it's hard to remember this stuff off the top of my head. Perhaps I'll make a list of more for "teh lulz" at some point. If you would like me to do so, please tell me so down in the comments below. Also, don't forget to share this with your friends if you think that they also talk funny. (Or maybe just for lulz.) If you found this entertaining for some strange reason, or perhaps just like the way I write, perhaps consider liking my Facebook page and/or following me on Twitter using the associated button on the bar to your right. Regardless of what you do, "fanks" for reading, I hope you have/had an "ossim" day and I will see you tomorrow.

Go well my friends.

Random Subject Saturday - Hearthstone (A.K.A. My Newest Addiction)

Hello and welcome to Random Subject Saturday; that day of the week where I tell you about a really awesome game I started playing, and mention how terrible I am at it.

I'm really bad at this game...

If by some strange twist of fate you like card games, and don't mind playing them on a computer, then boy do I have the game for you. (It's certainly the game for me... It's almost physically painful stopping for long enough to write my daily blog posts.)

About a day ago I started playing Blizzard's online card game: Hearthstone. (And I haven't slept since...) Initially not sure if the game would be pretty fun, I had been for the most part avoiding the game ever since it came out a few months ago, barring the occasional TotalBiscuit video. (he being one of the YouTubers I spoke about here) That was until a day ago when I figured; "Well, I always say I'll try anything twice, lets give this a whack." Jeeze but is it way more fun that I expected.

A friendly title welcomes you to only thing you'll be doing for next few days.

 Hearthstone is a something of an Online Trading Card Gamed, barring the trading part, in which players use decks of cards comprising of spells and minions that they themselves can create themselves, in order to beat the opposing player. Sounds fairly much like any other card game you've ever played no? To be fair, you're mostly right. Those of you who are familiar with the card game Magic: The Gathering will find yourselves largerly at home with rules of Hearthstone, with creatures starting out asleep, or "tapped" as you would think of it in Magic, and the player has an allotted amount of mana to use each turn, with an additional regenerating mana crystal accruing each turn, up to a maximum of ten.

As it turns out, familiarity does not mean you'll be any better at the game.

So the question is, (as I'm sure you're wondering), if Hearthstone doesn't do anything new, why is it worth playing? To be honest, it's just good fun, and it's free. I've always been a believer that anything you get for free is something you cannot complain about, (barring a select few circumstances). The game bases itself around the earning of gold coins from quests in order to unlock new packs of (5) cards. What I like is that none of the cards are restricted by any form of paywall, and you can get any of the rarer cards with enough determination. For those of you without the time, but with the paycheck to want something quicker, Hearthstone does allow you to pay real money for packs with better chances of rare cards; and to be frank I think that is something of a fair exchange.

The opening of new card packs is about as fun as doing so in real life.
(I was too stupid to realize what to do with this screen at first though.)

And again, it's just good fun. Hearthstone is basically a result of the same argument that follows every installment of Call of Duty, without the long stream of actual predecessors behind it. Many people would argue Call Of Duty is stupid for doing the same things every year, and perhaps it is, but enough people seem to be fine with that, that they continue to buy it anyway. Why? Because it's fun. Ain't broke, don't fix it. As long as the current Call Of Duty formula remains popular, it will remain an annualized title. The same ideas apply to Hearthstone, which uses a lot of the better concepts from other card games, but does so in an entertaining way. And what more does a game need to be than entertaining? Again, it is also free.

Even when losing, which I do frequently, it's still an entertaining game.

Final verdict: If you're bored, or a card game enthusiast, I think Hearthstone is definitely worth a look at. Unoriginal it may be in terms of some of it's gameplay mechanics, Hearthstone is still a fairly large amount of fun to play and for some of the crazier types that enjoy learning the in's and out's of things (read: OddballGreg), also makes for an interesting puzzle in creating the best decks.

Anyways, that's enough out of me. I hope that you have perhaps found something of interest in this post, or at least were somewhat entertained by the strange things that I say. If you know of any other online card games you would like me to try, or perhaps have a comment of your own about Hearthstone, consider leaving it in the box below. Also, consider sharing this with any friends who are bored to death, maybe they'll like Hearthstone too. If you would like to see more posts like these or just want to read more of my strange ramblings, perhaps consider liking my Facebook page or following me on Twitter using the associated button on the sidebar to the right. Regardless of what you do, I hope you have/had and AWESOME day, and I will see you tomorrow.

Totsiens vriende.

Random Subject Saturday - Top 10 YouTubers that are stealing my life.

Hellooooooo and welcome to Random Subject Saturday; that day of the week where I reveal why I have no time in my days and then tell you how to ruin your schedule in a similar way.

YouTube logo is obviously the property of YouTube and not me..
(Just in case you were going to ask.)

If you happen to have a lot to do with your days; I highly advise you to do absolutely nothing with the information I'm about to give you. For the rest of you sorry, boring people, here's a list of reasons why I have no time in my day and how you can end up the same. (Here's a hint: They're YouTube channels.)

Part of the fun of YouTube is it's inherent similarity to TV. You pick a channel you like and you watch it. The problem with that being, depending on how many channels you like, you may end up sitting up at 11pm writing a blog post because you couldn't stop watching said channels. Is that a good thing? I don't know. Will that stop me? Probably not. So without further ado, here's my top ten list, in no particular order, of YouTubers that are stealing my life away. (And I'm not sure I entirely care.)

(Before anyone gets clever, all images are properties of their respective owners.)

1. Pewdiepie

What kind of self-professed YouTube lover would I be if I didn't mention Pewdiepie. Come on. Besides... I watched Pewdiepie before it was cool. (Hipsters are painful by the way) The bro army numbers in the millions and Pewdiepie's videos continue to hold the acclaimed popularity that's been in the news so much these days. (If you don't know who he is, I hope the rock you live under is comfortable; this should bring you up to speed.)

So why is he on the list? Well, apart from a bias because I like video games in general and have since a young age, his video commentary's are genuinely funny on occasion, (In my personal opinion of course. Please, don't start screaming...), and because he is a genuine person, despite the stardom he has accrued. Many people talk about his fame or the money he makes, but few bother to mention things like his hefty charity donations, his insistence on personally meeting fans despite security warnings and his refusal to hire a video editor, preferring to work alone. He's an entertainer, he's good at what he does and the common opinion supports that. (Opinion again.) That and well, I just enjoy the random things he does. (Teehee)

2. Quill18

Perhaps my favorite Canadian Youtuber out there, Quill18 (or Martin Glaude) is a relatively small YouTuber and video game commentator. A frequent player of intensively strategic games, and even the occasional board game, Quill18 holds the honor of being one of 2 YouTuber's I have ever bothered to go watch a live Twitch Stream of. Full of honest humor, plenty of which is unintentional when in his quest for a strategic victory, he does something unbelievably stupid despite sounding like he knows what he's doing. While other larger YouTubers have a greater variety of video's that take my interest from time to time, Quill18 is one of the few that has me returning day by day. He's also one of the few that has made me laugh uncontrollably, but that's more because of my increasingly stoic sense of humor than anything else. 

3. Northernlion (Aka Ryan Letourneu)

Another less known YouTube game commentary maker person thing. (And Canadian strangely enough. Are the Canadians invading the internet? Probably not, since even Northernlion himself says they're too busy apologizing for things.) Also a grand strategist, I find him immensely likable due to his distinctive voice and tendency to a class of sharper wit and humor than is typical in this electronic age. He is certainly worth checking out for, among other things, his 800 episode+ lets play of the Binding of Isaac. (And perhaps his shiny head, if his logo/caricature is anything to go on.)

4. JackSepticEye

JackSepticEye is the first Irish YouTuber I've ever watched. (And possibly the only one as well.) I may be biased since I like Irish people for some as-of-yet undiscovered reason, but the self-proclaimed "most energetic video game commentator on YouTube" is by far one of the funniest and, indeed, energetic YouTubers that you are likely to watch. Absurd, to the point where he yells out to his "ma" to see whenever he does well in a game, JackSepticEye is an extremely fun commentator to watch as he loses his temper at a variety of games and laughs historically at others. An absolute must watch in my book, unless you have no sense of humor.

5. TotalBiscuit

TotalBiscuit: Britsh? Check. Cynical? Check. PC only game reviewer? Check. Brutally Honest? *Scratches in the block so furiously the answer is undeniably clear.* TotalBiscuit is not actual a game commentator as the other YouTubers on this list so far, but is a reviewer of PC games as well as a very large authority on game information. His claim to fame is his no-nonsense approach to reviews in which he refuses to sugarcoat any issues he finds. A spade is a spade and a shit console port is precisely that to TotalBiscuit. If you are ever unsure if you should spend money on a game, TotalBiscuit is the reviewer to watch to see just what it is you'd be spending your money on. A cool guy if ever there was one.

6. Scott Manley
Part time astronomer, Part time YouTuber, full time space enthusiast. I found Scott Manley entirely by accident one of many YouTube video spree's that I occasionally embark upon. (Frequently... daily... shut up.) Highly intelligent, his video's are often entertaining both because of his gameplay and fun banter but also because of the highly logical and educated way that he approaches his video's. You're likely to learn a great deal just by listening to the various things he discusses while not-crashing a variety of Kerbal spaceships or combating aliens. His accent is also fairly fun to listen to as well. 

7. Operation Dx (Aka Michael Waddle)

Operation Dx is another space oriented video game commentator with a penchant for the theatrical. His young and honest enthusiasm for what he does is often a pleasure to listen to, and it is encouraging to see the way he researches or works on the things he talks about or plays; often pointing out things not many people would notice, arguing both for and against various things with himself, role-playing stories for the entertainment of his viewers and even just creating stories and music for his video's. While perhaps not as prolific or iconic as YouTubers, I still find myself often looking forward to his videos.

8. Markiplier

An English speaking half-Korean, half-German YouTuber, it should come as no surprise that this mixture of unorthodox ethnicity makes for an unorthodox person. Many of the larger YouTube commentators are known for a specific style of gaming; Markiplier is known for an uncommon level of comedic absurdity, even in the face of other giants like Pewdiepie. Sometimes suave and filled with bravado, other times screaming to the point of near vocal damage, Markiplier is bound to have you laughing at his highly variable hijinks as he attempts to portray himself as a highly skilled individual, only to lose all semblances as he gives into rage or fear, depending on what he's playing. Certainly an entertaining character no matter your tastes. Also one who's kept me up late at night laughing at his horrific surgery skills.

9. MathasGames

A younger, newer YouTube game commentator, Mathas himself states on his YouTube channel that he "Play games... badly." While perhaps not setting himself up for anything big with that statement, Mathas is fun in that he doesn't overreact to the occurrences within the games as do other YouTubers. While overreacting can most certainly be funny, sometimes it's nice to sit and listen to someone who plays games like a normal human, even if he does unaccountably stupid things and misses the obvious while he's at it. A friendly pleasant voice to listen to, I find Mathas to be an enjoyable commentator to listen to when you're looking for something a little more relaxed to listen to and watch.

10. Epic Rap Battles of History (ERB)

What? A non game related channel on this list? Blasphemy. (No not really.) Epic Rap Battles of History is another name that has become big news (literally) both on YouTube and even in other forms of media as a part educational, part comedic representation of historical characters and facts having rap battles against others. They do occasionally do fictional characters though. ERB is a joy to watch because of the level of research they put into the character they portray, often revealing little known facts about people such as Nikola Tesla or George Washington through clever rap lyrics. 

And that, as they say, is it. There are many other YouTube channels which I enjoy checking on occasion, but these are the most notable of them. Hopefully you've found something of interest in these pages, either in the form of an entertaining new character to watch online, or maybe a just why my sleeping habits are so terrible. In either case, please consider leaving a comment in the section below. Perhaps even consider liking my Facebook page to get daily updates of when I upload a new post, or simply share this with friends you think, need something new to do with all their spare time. Thank you guys for reading, and I hope you have/had an AWESOME day.

Aurevoir Friends.

Random Subject Saturday - Why weekends are so short

Hello and welcome to Random Subject Saturday, the day I choose to talk about utter tripe for your entertainment.

An accurate depiction of most people's emotions before
 and after the weekend.

Today, while sitting in the back of vehicle on a rather long drive from a N Gauge Guild Meeting, I realized two things. 1. That I'm rather tired and 2. I hadn't uploaded or even thought what I was going to talk about in this post... (So if you had hopes of me talking about anything interesting or thought provoking, I suggest you stop reading for now and come back another day, this article is not serious in the least.. At all...)

So then you ask, what could I conceivably talk about that I've thought up in almost no time at all? Hell, I dunno, I guess I'll talk about the real reason weekends are so short. I mean, there has to be a reason why we would be forced to go to work/school for 5 longs and agonizing days in a row only to have the infinitesimally small 2 day respite that is the weekend?

The truth of the moment, (*giggles*), is that it is actually a social experiment designed to determine the effects of E.M.I.N.E.M. on the average person's mind. Researchers have found that this E.M.I.N.E.M., which stands for "Extended Mental Inactivity and Neurosis caused by Eternal Monotony", is the leading cause in work related stress and a lack of satisfaction with work and life in general. The government's want to see how this E.M.I.N.E.M. affects the typical person's mind so that they can better control the populace in accordance with their dark alien overlord's demonic orders. (More on him at 8.)

What they don't want you to know is that the weekend is actually just a concept created by humans for 2 days of rest to prevent this new phenomenon from destroying all humanity through insanity. It was determined that: "2 days was long enough to keep us relatively sane by relatively insane scientists who may or may not have been on drugs at the time"; says a reliable source from somewhere on the border of my exceedingly overactive imagination.

Their suggestion for a cure: Listening to the music of a rapper who incidentally has the same name as this strange phenomenon. Also, a complete and utter disregard for any crackpot theories made by anyone that calls themselves "OddballGreg". (Teehee)

So there you have it, news. Straight from the donkey's mouth. Hope you found this mildly entertaining at least ,(I know I was laughing while I wrote it.) and I hope you had/have an AWESOME day.

That's enough out of me. Farewell my compatriots in madness.

Random Subject Saturday - Structure

Today's Random Subject Saturday blog post is sponsored by the word "Structure".

Right you are, you devilishly handsome man. As you might have, or not, figured from reading my previous blog posts, there has not been a whole lot of structure to what I wrote about. (What you talking about? There has not been any structure.) *Cough*

Anyways, I figured that people on the internet like to know what they're getting when they start reading a blog, so I decided on a list of general guidelines with which to structure my blog posts so that you guys know what you're going to get each time you come back. Of course, this blog is primarily for entertainment, I would prefer to be making you guys laugh as much as possible, but aside from that I also would like to talk about interesting things in the world and in my life since, really, most humor comes from those things anyway. So below are the names which give a rough indication of what I'll be talking about each day... mostly.

Madness Monday 

Technology Tuesday 

Website Wednesday 

Thespian Thursday 

Philosophy Friday 

Random Subject Saturday 

Storytime Sunday

Anyways, that brings us to the end of our not so random, Random Subject Saturday. Have a suggestions for next week's Random Subject? Let me know in the comments below.

Cheers People