OddballGreg - Late Night Gaming Sessions

Payday: The Heist banner from http://starbreeze.com/games/payday-the-heist/. Complete with Hoxton rocking a clown mask and devil horns hand gesture. You can just feel the friendliness as a new batch of coulrophobia sets in..

Any gamer will tell you how easy it is to lose track of time when you're having fun. Recently, we here at TCSA discovered that Late Night Gaming Sessions aren't the greatest of idea's when you've got work to do and blog posts to write. Let's talk about that.

A few days ago, I noticed that the Starbreeze made game Payday: The Heist was going for the absolute steal of roughly R50 for 4 copies on the (in)famous game online distribution store, Steam. (I say roughly because that's a rounded number from after we converted the price from dollars.)

Of course, having heard about the huge reputation Payday has for being an awesome co-op game, and having played games like Left 4 Dead which are very much similar in gameplay, I saw no reason as to why we should pass up the opportunity to net 4 copies of a great game on the cheap. (I do not regret this decision.) Steam sales are notorious for the way they encourage people to open their wallets. (Or beg their friends to open theirs such as in this case. Teehee. Thanks JovialJman.)

In any case, a day or so after downloading Payday, backing it up to a flash and distributing the game files to my fellow would-be-criminals who were gifted the additional copies of Payday, it was decided that it would be fun to at last, try the game out and play a couple games while talking over Skype. Now, I don't mean to say we weren't thinking at this point. I will however, point out that Payday is a disgustingly huge amount of fun to play with friends, and the cumulative result of what supposed to be a couple games was a nine hour long Skype call and gaming session which resulted in myself, JovialJman and my brother being severely incapacitated for the next few days. (Friday, Saturday, Today to a lesser degree.)

As it turns out, planning bank heists, leveling up your criminal characters and just having a regular ball as you realize, for the 10th time in a row, that someone just hit a panic button and the S*** has just hit the fan again, can become rather addictive, even when we all knew we had things to do the next day. My brother and I were going to a friends place for the weekend and JovialJman had to work the next day. Suffice to say, I was unable to stay awake any later than 7pm and JovialJman was unable to work properly or write his already late post. Unfortunately, since I was not at home and had ruined my ability to write any posts while I was still at home, it would not be until today that I could finally write this post and finally publish it late. JovialJman is also in the process of, or already has, published his post from Friday as well.

Suffice to say, one 9 hour gaming session was the most schedule damaging thing we had ever done (yet.) Thankfully, part of the joy of the job is that we aren't getting yelled at for it. Though we are sorry for letting anyone down if they were looking forward to reading some new posts these past few days. On the upside, you'll be getting all the posts that should have been up, as well as the new posts as per our schedule in the next couple days, so better late than never right? (Please don't hit me.)

In any case, perhaps I shall do a proper review of Payday: The Heist in the upcoming few days considering it has the honor of being the first game to actually put us here at TCSA behind schedule. If you would like us to do so, or simply wish to moan at us for being so silly, do be sure to do so down in the comments below, or via Facebook/Twitter. If you have any friends who might be interested in reading up about Payday and perhaps seeing if it might be a game that they would enjoy playing, consider sharing this post with them so that they can see just how fun it can be. Of course, if you yourself would like to read that review, or any other of our posts, as they come out, consider liking the Official TCSA Facebook page and/or following us on Twitter to get all the latest posts, as they're published. Regardless of what you do, 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 soon.

Work hard and work first my friends.

JovialJMan - 100 Posts Special

"Because writing 100 posts is comparable to having a birthday... right?" - OddballGreg
"Who brought the 100 candles?" - JovialJman

98 Days ago (on the 18th of June), we started writing daily blog posts. Today, we've written 100 posts, (imagine that ...) Let's talk about some of the interesting things regarding the journey here, and crack a few jokes too.

Did you notice that there are more posts then days? (I didn't until yesterday). The reason for that is the fact that OddballGreg published 3 posts on one day, (I think he got a bit too excited ...) There have also been 2 days which the post were a bit too late and were not counted and indexed for that day; Greg's post yesterday ,being one, as he had no internet access (I am sure he facedesked when he realized that he could not post it on time). The other being Greg's Blogging Music post which went up at midnight but was seen as the next day.

This is my 19th personal post , and boy has it been a strange journey here. I have had the very kind help of Greg, to help improve my writings, and he has said it has improved, (let us know in the comments if you agree or disagree). Ideas are limitless but when I have to think of a post for a day, then all the options seem to disappear, like magic, (somewhat strange for a novice magician)

TCSA has been going for 38 days, if you start counting from Greg's last Storytime Sunday, which, of course, I do, (that is over a full month of OddballGreg and JovialJman's joint ramblings on TSCA, (who would have thought it's been that long).

On 30th of July 2014 OddballGreg achieved 1000 total pageviews, (OddballGreg was all by his lonesome then). Today we are sitting at ± 2600. What an achievement! I would like to thank each and every one of you who have shown your support. Thank you.

Let's recap on some of the post that has seen a fair amount of attention (their page views are accurate as of the 23rd of September) :

The Magic of Performing Magic (75 views)

This was my 4th post and a somewhat follow up to my first post, The Disillusion Of Magic, which was recommended by a dear friend of mine, Clinton. I am rather passionate about the topic, which I really think shows in the amount of views it has gotten. It is my favorite post I have written so far as it allowed me to talk about a favorite pastime of mine.

Parkour and Muscle Damage (60 views)
"A story about a younger me jumping around on things, swinging on things, and hurting myself like you would expect. Also, turns out that parkour is still really fun even though I tend to hurt myself. I quite enjoyed telling this story about my usual bad ideas, and was quite proud when Parkour South Africa shared the article on their Facebook community."-OddballGreg

Tabletop Roleplaying Games (44 views)

"I may be a nerd, I may play Dungeons and Dragons, but so do a ton of other people in world, even though we have computers and videogame consoles. People really enjoyed reading this article, and I really enjoyed writing about a really awesome hobby. In fact, perhaps Jerome and I will write an article about the escapades of us playing DnD eventually." - OddballGreg

Statistics (And The People That Believe Them) (37 views)

"You probably still believe statistics, but since they make up such a large part of our lives, we can probably let you off the hook for that. Apparently, a fair percentage of people like reading about the potential statistics have for being wrong, but hey, percentages can be fudged now can't they?" - OddballGreg

The Truth About Spongebob (34 views)

This post was one that was recommended or suggested by my sister. I was struggling for an idea on the day and she said Spongebob is a representation of the 7 deadly sins, and thus the post had formed. I was still learning how to write a post with more accuracy so Oddball had to help a bit with that one. While doing the research for that one I came about a fair deal of other cartoons and their supposed connotations.

With the top page views as they are, if we were to speak about Spongebob giving magicians statistics of Role Playing games, after his accidental muscle damage from parkour, would that be the most popular post so far? maybe, (let us know down in the comments, what your idea would be for a popular post). Geocaching (Glorified Treasure Hunting) is less then a week old, but it has already climbed to the 6th position of the most viewed post. It goes to show that if the right audience is achieved, the amount of views should go up, and since there are people out there ,that I know of, that would like to start or already have started Geocaching they find it somewhat interesting and share it with others.

We have had views from many different places, here is a list of some; The United States, South Africa, United Kingdom, Germany, Poland, Netherlands, Turkey, Canada, Kenya, Italy, Ireland, France and the Philippines. We have a very diverse audience but it is scary to think that we have gotten a few more view from America, than South africa, they represent about 44% and 41% of our total pageviews respectively.

Do you have any thing that you would like us to talk about, or have any questions, please ask away down in the comments, over Facebook or on Twitter. Thank you for taking the time to read today's post. If you know of anyone that you think might like the blog, please share this with them, as I am sure they could find it of some interest. If you would like to see the newest posts as they are published, please like us on Facebook and/or follow us on Twitter. Thank you for your support and I hope you have/had a wonderful day. I shall write again overmorrow

Enjoy National Heritage Day (aka. National Braai Day) tomorrow buddies.

Storytime Sunday - TCSA

Them's a lot of words. Thankfully, it's only a temporary smattering of words. Header images will be pointedly more succinct from here on.

Exactly 62 days ago I started putting out blog posts every single day. I've gotta say... that's really freaking hard to do. (Trust me, it's a miracle if I remember to eat breakfast 4 days in a row.) Still, it's been fun, and now some interesting new things are happening to change things up.

First and foremost, allow me to introduce my awesome friend Jerome Damhuis (AKA JovialJman, Canoe, and various other strange things we call him for fun.), who is the first of an expected 3 to be joining us as crazy South Africans with too much time on their hands. (He's the blue fellow in the header image that is actually far taller than the image would have you believe.)

While perhaps not as eloquent as myself, Jerome has a penchant for understanding things that confuse the living hell out of me. (He can solve a Rubik's cube which is inhuman in my opinion.) While his first few posts may seem a little unsure, he is new, so do avoid being too critical of his posts. I'm sure that he will bring plenty interesting conversations to the blog, as well as some fresh perspective on the world. We may even occasionally make comments on each others posts just for a change of pace. (The possibilities are endless!)

At this point though, you are probably wondering 3 things. Why did I decide to stop blogging all by myself, where on earth did TCSA come from, and why is this blog this disgusting blue? Firstly, I should point out that I also think the blog looks fugly with the blue, but in honor of JovialJman's joining, it shall stay that way for just one more day. (Thankfully, even he hates it. Teehee)

To answer the other questions though, I decided to stop blogging all by myself because after 62 days of blogging, I've realized that blogging is REALLY hard to do daily for so long. I cannot think of any other blog run by a single person that pumps out content on a daily basis. (With good reason I think now.) There were days where I was facedesking multiple times a day in an effort to think of a good topic to discuss. It not always straightforward. The other problem is that it's stressful. I had to be within reach of my computer every day to make sure a post went up in the 24 hours slot, or had to sit late into the night writing posts ahead of time if I wanted to go anywhere. (That gets a little exhausting. Just so you know.) So thankfully, with the advent of co-operative blogging, I will have more time. Sure I won't be the author of every days posts now, but I'll be a lot happier for it, and the posts I do will be of a higher quality as a result. (No more posts talking about me being too sick to write a post.) Besides, you'll probably thoroughly enjoy reading the content written by the good people who have or shall be joining us in the future.

To answer the other question, we've got to go back about 3 years, where myself, Jerome, and the as of yet unnamed blogger for the green letter were discussing ideas for the future, and how we wanted to do all sorts of silly things like make a YouTube channel. (We're still gonna do that mind you, give us a month or two.) Deciding it sounded like a great idea, we came up with TCSA. Those Crazy South Africans. (A fitting name for us lot if you ask me. Teehee) Fast forward 3 years to the present, and the three of us had never quite forgotten about that idea, despite being busy with other things. Long story short, Jerome came along one day and asked if I wanted him to help with blog, which reminded me of TCSA. Considering I was using this blog to start an eventual YouTube channel anyway, it made perfect sense to change the blog to support our longtime dream. And so here we are.

You will notice that there have been multiple changes to the blog as a result. For one, a lot of the Blog's information has been updated, it's now an ugly blue, there are new Facebook and Twitter pages for TCSA, and it's now an ugly blue. Did I mention the blue? Okay, just checking. Anyways, your support in liking and following our new Facebook and Twitter pages is, as always GREATLY appreciated, as is your continued support. It's you awesome people that make it so much fun writing out these strange stories each day. And if you guys think it would be great fun to see what kind of strange things we'd get up to for YouTube, then you had best get sharing and help us get to that point. We also want to see what strange things we'd get up to. (Fairly certain it'll be funny even if we don't know what we're doing.) And of course, we are looking for sponsors to help us get there. If you would like to be featured, spoken about, mentioned or advertised on the blog, or just want to say hello for some reason, be sure to do so with our fancy new email address. (*gasp* an email address. Teehee) Drop us a message at thosecrazysouthafricans.tcsa@gmail.com and we'll be sure to get back to you if we can.

As always, regardless of what you do, I thank you for having taken the time out of your day to read this lengthy blog post; hope that you have/had an absolutely FANTASTIC day, and I will speak again soon.

Farewell my friends.

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.