Kickstarter And The Personal Touch

Some of the folks who browse around the internet have heard of Kickstarter, it's basically a fundraising thing for projects of varying scope from independent films to new technology.

One such example of a item which launched via Kickstarter is the Pebble Smartwatch, I didn't back it personally but I bought one later.

And through time I've ended up backing a couple of projects on Kickstarter, one thing which makes the whole thing slightly different is that the more you give, sometimes, the more you get, so you could pledge money just to get the product (like a DVD, CD or the item itself) or you could pledge more and get more 'perks' as a thank you for pledging more.

When I look to backing a Kickstarter I always see what the range of the perks is, now you don't HAVE to take any perks, you could just pledge money, usually the higher end 'tiers' of perks have interesting things attached to them, from Meet and Greets with the creators to personal thank yous.

Now a Kickstarter works on a thing of that people 'pledge' money towards supporting the project, the project will have a goal and a timescale for that, lets say a project has a £2000 goal to be raised within a month, if the project meets it's goal it's successful and the money is taken, if the goal isn't reached, say it raised £1999 and time ran out, then it failed and nobody's money is taken.

So not everything is guaranteed to win on Kickstarter, there has been success stories but there have also been failed projects, due to lack of interest or poor planning.

So to reel this back to what I'm talking about, 'The Personal Touch'.

The strange quirk of Kickstarter is that it makes projects all the more personal, you know who gave you money, who believed in your project, who supported it and how much they gave.

The last couple of Kickstarters I've backed I have nearly always gone with a high level perk for varying reasons.

Havok and Hijinks is a really quick and easy card game featuring some wonderful artwork with absolutely adorable baby dragons, I'm all for dragons, especially when they're being protrayed in a nicer light than a big baddie, this Kickstarter had a top tier pledge level wherein they would create and print your -own- dragon card to use within the game, working directly with the creators and artist to create it, I knew I HAD to back at this level and the results are wonderful.

Note, there is text on the 'backside' of this card with the tired side, I have three cards and one of them has no game text which is the right one here.

So I have my own personal, professionally done game card for this charming wonderful card game, usually to be included in a card game like this, you'd have to be best friends with the creators, but since I gave my own money to support the project, this was my reward for doing so.

I have mentioned other Kickstarters I have backed in the past in the posts 'The Experiment Of Spoons', 'My Love Can Change That' and 'Technology And Charity'.

Which got me a animated cameo in a popular webseries' intro, a thank you credit in a music video (as well as a personal thank you from the musician involved, read 'Technology And Charity' for the full story).

There is another similar fundraising site called 'Indiegogo' which works the same way to Kickstarter but it'll take the money off you first, it'll refund you if it's unsuccessful, I backed a film called 'Ashens And The Quest For The GameChild', it's available on youtube fully able to be watched by anyone, it's good fun and a enjoyable romp. Plus it is now available to purchase at Amazon or your local entertainment retailer.

Stuart's look to camera just slays me.

I got some DVD's from the project and my name read out in a personal 'Thank You' video which Stuart Ashen reads out the names of everyone whom backed the project, now I'm not going to make you sit through a over hour long video just for one little bit.

Yes I could've used my real name but I decided to use my screen name instead because I wanted to get a reaction from them and I did, really made my day when I first saw it.

So what's next, well I've not gained anything like a cameo appearance in a film or video game like some other projects have provided but you may never know what's around the corner.

What I am currently backing is Eric Stuart's latest project, a 4 Song EP called 'Character', Eric is a fantastic musician and song writer and I really recommend checking out his works!

New York Part 2

Times Square!, Its much smaller in real life.

Well moving onwards, we got taken to this botanical gardens which were staggeringly beautiful in their size, we spent quite a few hours wandering around the gardens.

Later the same day we got taken to a pizzeria, to try some proper New York style pizza it was called Luigi's and I'll always remember it as the place which spoiled pizza for me forever... because it was that damn good.

Photos do these slices of pizza absolutely no justice, absolutely the best pizza I've ever had, I got a pen from the restaurant which now reminds me that I'll probably never have pizza as good again, until we go back that is!

Sorry for a much shorter post, it's hard to recant some things, the trip was overall a wonderful time, I've said that this was the single best trip to the USA I've ever had, the first time I went was fine enough but I was in a relationship which just didn't work out, the second time I went as a friend but it was overshadowed by times past, this time was full of bright wonderful memories, yes we had moments, as relationships do, but we're still together because even if you have a argument, the strength of the relationship can heal it, yes I'm admitting that we had some arguments there but the overall experience was so incredibly positive I cannot even bring myself to think of the negatives.

One thing I'll say is that during our city visit, I had a panic attack right in the middle of a subway station, it really rattled me that I broke down so easily over pretty much nothing, but my boyfriend was there whom pulled me back together, I'm only saying this because I cannot really honestly type all this out without mentioning a incident like that.

We are both already planning ahead towards our next USA visit, planning to make it a longer visit as well as visiting Anthrocon, the world's largest Furry Convention, with around 6000 attendees, it is in Pittsburgh but we are already looking at options of how to get there from New York state.

I certainly cannot wait to be a Englishman in New York again.

New York Part 1

The Empire State Building taken from just down 5th Avenue

Well, another long pause in the blog, yeah, it's just that mostly I've had nothing really to particularly write about nor the mood to write, three weeks ago I came back from my third USA visit but it's been a real struggle getting back into my usual rhythm of work, it's not usually this hard for me.

So yes, New York, it was wonderful visiting the states again and it was a blessing to be able to go with my boyfriend, one thing I'll say right away that this was hands down the -best- visit I've had to the USA.

We stayed with cousins of my boyfriend and they were the most accommodating, kindest, nicest, most pleasant people I've ever had the pleasure of staying with, the hospitality we received was truly exceptional, they made us feel like close family, barely halfway through the visit they were asking when were we coming back, it was such a delight to meet and be around people of such pure kindness.

To you all if you read this, thank you, from the bottom of my heart, Thank You.

The flight was more than fine, despite a issue which had caused some discord when I had pointed it out, in a nutshell Finnair decided to pull some of their planes to do maintenance on them, specifically the Airbus A330/340 and that they got LOT Polish Airlines to co-run with their 787 Dreamliner.

Uh oh, I thought.

A odd thing about Finnair's Airbus is that there isn't a B row in the seats, it goes AC DEF GH, why? I don't friggin' know!, me and my boyfriend had booked 25A and C, so we're sat together, when I learned about the aircraft change I looked up the 787 seat plan, ABC DEF GHI, er a seat's appeared between us, so I voice my concerns to my boyfriend whom promptly rang up Finnair whom said 'nothing changed', so we relaxed and thought nothing more, until we're at the airport and it's the 787 Dreamliner sat at the gate, thankfully the lady who was going to sit between us moved and sat at the window so we sat together at least.

The entertainment centre of the LOT 787 Dreamliner

The 787 is a lovely aircraft, it's one of the quietest planes I've been on and one of the most up-to-date ones, the windows don't have shutters they have these windows which darken at a push of a button so you could turn it all the way down but you could still see outside, it was really nice, plus all the seats had smart screens which had a variety of content on with cool little controllers which popped out at a push, I watched The LEGO Movie and The Hobbit 2 on these, the lady whom moved into what was my seat, her screen wasn't working properly, the sound didn't work, so she moved to another seat, leaving me and my boyfriend with the row to ourselves, quite lucky then.

That's me sorted, The Hobbit and Lego Movie!

The USA border was fine at JFK Airport if not exceptionally busy, we queued for quite a while, luckily when the US citizens had gone through they opened up the other gates to the rest of us, they filtered off the line from where we were standing so we got lucky, didn't have to wait for bags as they were already off the belt by the time we got through.

So tired from the flight, we had to make our way to East Northport, we had both never been in the area and we had a still sizable chunk of journey left to make, luckily the trains were not too hard to figure out, about a hour or so later we arrived, got picked up and taken to the residence.

"But I want the toy!", Cutest dog I've perhaps ever met.

After getting a quick tour of the home, and introduced to two really sweet dogs, whose names I cannot remember how to spell, pictured is Reina (I think thats how you spell it!), we got taken to a local Indian restaurant and had what was the absolutely best curry I've had, despite jetlag catching up like a looming shadow over the both of us, we had such a great meal, I knew that we were going to have a great time, I was falling asleep in the car on the way home, thankfully we got to bed and I slept like a rock!

"We got the Mini!"

The next day we woke up, minimal jetlag which was a blessing, we set off to get our rental car, which ended up being a wonderful little cream white Mini, it was such a perfect little car for us to have whilst in the states, my boyfriend was very anxious driving for the first couple days but he got the hang of it, and getting that car really helped us explore, no waiting on public transport or lifts from others, we could just go where we wanted and whenever.

My Boyfriends starter from Cheesecake Factory, Fried Calamari 

We took ourselves to a Cheesecake Factory, we'd seen it mentioned on The Big Bang Theory and decided we should go, it was a wonderfully presented restaurant, the interior was really lovely, we decided to get a starter each, whoops!, they were HUGE, one could've easily fed both of us with no issue, the food was great, the service was good.

My Starter, rustic garlic bread with a garlic oil dip and tomato dip

Over the days we went to alot of malls, I know that sounds so weird but, we're not really the 'sightseeing' types, we like retail therapy, one thing we both noticed is that in nearly every shop we went into we got seen to by a assistant, sometimes that's lovely but other times it's nice just to browse!, one time I was looking at a item and upon asking the assistant if they had any he kinda quickly answered yes but then decided to point me towards another similar item which was darn near double the price, I played polite and looked around, but it's that sort of tactic which can and did scare me off.

'Medium' (!) portion of boneless wings with Parmesan oregano sauce and ranch dip, drink was Mountain Dew.

Independence Day, we got given tickets to go see a baseball game, proper american!, earlier in the day we went to a Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant, there we got served by the nicest lady, even though working on a national holiday she was so nice, tended to us exceptionally well, chatted with us, asked what we was doing, all round wonderful service, why doesn't Europe have this level of service, yes we know they're working for tips (and we ALWAYS did tip), but you didn't feel that they were doing it for the tip, you felt like they were doing it because they could and by goodness, this lady did.

Wonderful view we had during the game

The baseball game was good fun, we got really into it, the weather was sketchy at first but cleared up lovely, one thing which amused me and my boyfriend to no end was that during one break in play, they played a scene from the film Independence Day, where the president makes a speech that rallies the troops for the flight against the alien forces, er, hang on, that doesn't seem quite right, yes it's a great scene from the movie but...erm... bares no relation to this day?

Also being a spectator is highly dangerous, at least 7/8 times baseballs shot into the stands, one got kinda close to us but that was NOTHING compared to the last pitch of the game, he swings, we hear a crack, great big baseball bat shooting towards us, the section we were sat in DUCKED, and I mean EVERYONE did, thankfully the net just behind the players caught it, but it would've been nasty if that bat hit somebody!

The Long Island Ducks are a minor league team but it was still a lovely evening out, we got some 'quackers' and baseballs from the store, I would've loved a team shirt but by god I'm not paying $80 for a single shirt even my Wigan Warriors shirt with custom naming on the back didn't cost that much!

There is so much to cover, I'll try make another post detailing more later, this one's gone on long enough!

Oh 'Appy Day

I recently acquired a iPad 4th Gen from my boyfriends brother, thank you!, mostly because I know of a ton of apps which just are not available on the Android platform and I've been wanting a decent sized tablet for a while, one thing Apple does well is the large tablet, so getting one is a blessing, here are a couple of apps which I've been playing.

Ticket To Ride (Available on App Store and Play Store)

A app version of the wonderfully simple but hard to master boardgame, I've sunk already a ton of time into this, you get routes to complete on a map and you have to place trains down to complete routes, sounds simple and it plays simple but its ruthless and a ton of fun!

Surgeon Simulator 'Touch' (Available on the App Store)

A app version of the crazy insane PC game hit from last year, this brings it to the iPad with all new touch controls and a few new mechanics to keep veterans of the PC game on their toes, such as your patient being able to have a heart attack, you just try to get that heart started in time, its not easy!
Infamous for it's dodgy slightly intentionally broken controls, this game is fantastic for a quick laugh and is certainly not for the squeamish!

If I mention something which was a little disappointing it's 'Sherlock The Network', it's only on the App Store and it's billed almost as a addition to the hit tv series, it stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman as Sherlock and Watson respectively, you're one of the latest members of the homeless network and you help solve cases and the like, sadly other than the wonderful videos and voices of Benedict and Martin the game lacks any other real substance and for a game which cost nearly €5, is a real shame, one for die hard Sherlock fans, as I am, but if you're not, best steer clear.

The Whole World And You

This world is full of amazing events, even the strangest things can happen from a cat saving a boy from a dog to a 'baby' t-rex throwing a pitch at a baseball game.

So yes strange and sometimes wonderful things can happen in this wacky ol' world of ours but it also goes to stand that alot that is out there is complete and total bunk, out to mislead or even potentially take money away from you or damage your computer, as a user of the book of face I see all too often these stories which I call 'clickbait', stories which read like "first I was saddened but then I was shocked!", who the frig has that as a headline or link title, oh wait, people who just want other people to go to their website, people get money from people visiting websites, it's a easy enough thing to set up. there was one particular instance which i've seen in which a man falls down and asks for help, someone walks by (saddened) then someone helps him (shocked!), what more concerns me that what about the person FILMING the entire thing, they saw it why don't they help?, because it's a set up.

Not to say that genuine acts of kindness don't happen or that selfishness doesn't exist, but you have to take a lot of these supposed articles at face value, yes it was filmed but you have to think, who shot the video, why did they keep recording, I mean who records a video at a distance of a man in distress?

I'm a avid reader of this lovely site called snopes.com they look into a lot of hoaxes and 'clickbait' articles, as well as covering urban legends, 99% of the time you can find something that someone has shared on facebook of dubious intent on there already busted, whats that? Flight MH370 was found in the Bermuda triangle? busted, that is just -one- thing I can bust instantly, there is a story about a 'cancer killing fruit' which they are looking into.

Don't believe everything you click, use your brains people and if you seriously believe some of the more 'out there' stories, "They're spraying chemicals in the air after airplanes, it's geogengineering, it's poisioning us!!!!1", I have a couple rolls of lovely tin-foil you can make a hat out of!

(also, those 'trails' are caused by hot exhaust from the engines being put out in a -cold- sky, it's colder the higher you go!)

I'll always find strength...

There comes a day where you find a way to escape
A blank page, now I'm writing out my own fate
I've grown tired of running away from a thing called reality

And I will scream from the top of my lungs
I'm living to fulfill my hopes
(Can you hear me?)
I'm no longer taking the safer way out of anything
(We'll never go back home)
I'll always find strength from those who will help me
They'll always be there by my side
(I'm on my way)
The hope for tomorrow
Will help me ease all my pain today

Today I had a bit of a run in with some rather unpleasant comments via my twitter, I'm not going into details but when random strangers are judging you for who you are and what you on a public space, it's not nice, each and every comment was filed and reported for abuse on Twitter, I don't stand for it, I'm alright but I'm shaken and only a little upset.

I have to thank my coworkers and my boyfriend who where there when I needed someone to talk to, I was more rattled than anything, you guys make my life awesome, I try not to let idiots upset me, I can be thick skinned but sometimes things can pass through and hurt, everyone I know is supportive of who I am and what I do, it's just a shame that there are idiots in this world that the rest of us have to put up with.

Thank you all.

The Next Generation?

So I finally snagged myself a PS4 and I'm very happy with it, it's early days for the system and I think it's got great potential, recently it gained a update in which you can edit videos which the system records automatically, it's a really useful feature for me so I've tried it out with a bit of footage that I've got already, I'm looking at doing longer more proper videos in the future, this was edited entirely on the PS4 with all in game footage. And yes that is a Lego Smaug roasting a sausage.

All footage is PG rated, no swearing, few moments where those who have a fear of heights might not like so much. Taken from Metal Gear Solid V Ground Zeroes, Infamous Second Son and Lego The Hobbit.

I think I may just use the editor to trim down videos to export to my PC for proper editing, the transitions it does make it look a little professional to a point but it's missing 'character', it's just cookie cutter templates, but it's a step forward.

My only gripe with the PS4 is the choice of titles is small but it's early days yet, there are some fantastic games on the horizon and I'm looking forward to playing them!