However, I will likely only use this blog to post information on videos and to promote stuff, if you really want to form a friendship or a casual online acquaintance or something (buddy-ship?), you can reach me easier via PM on YouTube or LiveJournal.
Now that that is out of the way, I have plans that are too big for my current ability, so, I'll be upgrading over the next few months. Hopefully it will take less time than I expect, for me to be making videos with consistent frequency.
Meanwhile, I have just over 400 videos on my youtube account right now. I'd like to talk a bit about the whole YouTube thing... on the one hand, it is a great invention, and it still remains one of the best sites for a combination of posting videos, receiving and moderating feedback, and linking into offsite stuff.
For people who are eligible (I'm not, by nationality), being a youtube partner also brings financial perks... enough that some people can make it into a second or part-time job.
However, for me, it was always a random, "do whatever" thing... but it turns out that my brand of "whatever" was actually above some of the semi-professional stuff out there. This is due to my intense training for
The whole "being on YouTube" experience helped to boost my confidence, and also, I learned a lot, not only from my own interaction with visitors to my channel, people who leave comments and send PMs and such, some of whom became good friends, but also, from watching some of the more educational videos on the site.
Jimmyrcom, Keyeske, Bipolar or Waking Up, and others have helped me to develop my thinking process a lot, and inspired me to also think of ways in which I can help others with true edutainment (entertaining education). Sadly, I don't think I'm capable of doing anything close to their high level of education, just yet...
LPers like HCBaily, Valis77, LuccaRPG, and many others have also been an inspiration, esp. as they make me feel more at home. Although they vary in the amount of planning and organization that they use, they all love playing games for the sake of the experience, and that is something that I previously felt alone in.
It seems that as time goes on, the vast difference between people with taste who make conscious choices, and people who do things solely out of peer pressure, common conformance, and so on, becomes more and more clear.
In fact, it is hard not to get caught up in a rush to be just like everyone else.
Despite my focus on the Persona series, I am actually, less interested in gaming and more interested in personal development (back to self liberation again). Society and Economy are both forces that put restrictions on individuals, but even after you overcome some of the external restrictions, the internal ones remain, and can lie dormant, sapping strength and destroying potential for progress, growth, and success.
The Persona series is generally, a more "realistic" series in terms of setting and the challenge faced. There is constant pressure to pay attention to what you want, and how to get it, whilst balancing a myriad of positions within several systems. More realistic than the "save the world" mythos common in the other big two series (Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy).
For example, in Revelations: Persona (aka P1), you have to manage your Spell Card inventory whilst also planning your excursions into battle zones carefully. It can be 3-4 hours between save points, and it really bites to lose all of the work you put in during a random battle, because you weren't properly prepared.
Persona 3 and 4 make "life lessons", i.e. philosophies that can be applied in the real world, much more explicit, with their emphasis on Social Links and their deeper development of even causal NPCs (for example, the shop-keepers who talk about things from their own perspective).
I never played the cellphone game (or games?), and prob. never will, so I can't comment on them... but Persona 2 was basically messed up. Innocent Sin may be the better half of the series, but I haven't played it all yet, only a dozen hours or so... and Eternal Punishment failed to keep my interest, due to its inane Tarot Card system, which is inferior to both Spell Cards/Negotiation and Shuffle Time (although I hate Shuffle Time, the Compendium makes up for it to a degree).
Well, that's all for now. When I have more solid plans, I may announce them.
Overall, though, this will be the year that my awesomeness begins to multiply.
