Other Hobbies – The Backlog Quest

I Purchased Equipment Before Starting YouTube

June 8, 2020 FeeBee

I did the exact opposite that is recommended for when first starting out on YouTube. I went and brought several items, most of which could have waited until I had myself properly established.

Did I need to spend money? No, I did not. So why did I do it? I’m in a finical position that I can spend a bit of money each pay going towards something that I don’t need or at least just yet. I have always loved new technology, and these have been my first purchases of the kind for a few years. I have found most of them useful for other things outside of YouTube.

My purchases so far have been:
● Adobe Suite subscription
● Elgato HD60
● Blue Yeti Microphone with boom arm
● Acer Predator Helios 300 laptop
● Canon EOS 1500D camera
● Overhead camera tripod

Out of all those items the only one that turned out to be an actual need was the Acer laptop. A few months after buying my laptop, my desktop computer stopped working. One power surge too many fried the power supply and motherboard. I was hoping it was only the power supply and that I could get that computer back up and running. Sadly it wasn’t. The power supply didn’t go to waste, it’s now in my Windows XP computer, replacing a power supply that sounded like a helicopter taking off. Because I already had my laptop, all I needed to do was transfer everything that wasn’t already on the laptop.

The least useful has been the Elgato HD60s. Every time I want to use it I have to change the sound settings using the Elgato software and on the computer itself. Sometimes it works. Sometimes I have to restart the computer before getting the sound to work. Other times I have to uninstall and reinstall the audio side of the Elgato software. I have not been able to get the Elgato to play sound via an analogue which is what I need to work to record gameplay footage from my XP computer which had reverted back to being my gaming PC. Something that isn’t an issue since majority of my game collection work better on an older PC than anything new.
I don’t know if it’s just doing something wrong. The Elgato HD60s has been more trouble than it’s worth when I attempt to record my gameplay for more channel.

The Adobe suite I would have eventually got even without the intention of using it for YouTube. I have a copy of Adobe Photoshop CS3 on my XP computer which I wanted to upgrade for a while before I got the subscription to the Adobe suite.

The Blue Yeti microphone, I love the microphone itself one I worked out how to make it stop buzzing. The boom arm that came with it doesn’t sit how I want. I’ve watched videos on how to adjust it multiple times, and no matter how I adjust the tension on the arm, it just collapses on itself. I end up having to use other items to prop up the arm to a level that I can actually use it.

The most recent purchase is the Canon EOS 1500D camera. I have wanted a Digital SLR even before I started YouTube and my blog. It’s the first one I have purchased. The overhead tripod had made some of my video footage that I want to record easier to record while keeping me out of the footage. I was previously using two rulers propped on a bookcase which limited where I could record. This was something to make everything else for me.

All these purchases were not made at once, they were spread over a couple of years because it has not been an overnight thing for me getting my YouTube channel operational.

Do I recommend doing what I did? No I don’t. Do I regret any of my purchases? No I don’t. They’ve been fun to play around with in my free time. I have found other uses for everything, even if it’s not towards my YouTube channel or blog. Even the Elgato HD60s has been useful for outside of YouTube, I used it to convert a PowerPoint presentation to video from an older version of PowerPoint that didn’t have the option to convert to video.

I Couldn’t Narrow My Focus

June 1, 2020 FeeBee

I did a lot of research on YouTube and blogging before I started my channel and my blog. The thing that they all tell you to do is find your niche, narrow your focus. I tried to find just one thing I want to talk about. I have so many things that I like and want to talk about.

Did I talk about anime? At one point most of the video’s I watched were about anime and manga. I spent a lot of my time on anime forums before YouTube was a thing. The first videos I watched on YouTube were anime episodes that were split into two or three videos an episode with horrible quality and horrible subtitles. Back then it was the only way to be able to see certain shows at all. There was no legal means back then for a lot of the shows that interested me. While I love anime and do want to talk about it, what was the point of having a channel dedicated to just anime and manga when I have not been keeping up with recent anime? I stopped watching seasonal anime and have no plans to start watching seasonal anime again. I still have things that I want to talk about when it comes to anime and manga, just not enough for it to be my focus.

Or did I talk about the books? My favourite past time when I was growing up. I don’t have to buy books to talk about them since I already have a collection. I have the same issues with reading as I do anime, I don’t read as much as I used to. Since I made my YouTube channel, despite not releasing as much content on books as I intended, my reading has picked up but not back to what it used to be as a teenager. I have finished reading more books this year than in the last ten years.

Or did I talk about technology? I have always had an interest in technology. I have every single computer that my family has ever owned. I had a PDA and replaced it with an iPod touch when they were released. I went out of my way to get a Gameboy when I started working because I always wanted one growing up and never had one. I don’t buy tech gear too often since I ran out of space to store everything. My money for tech gear is now going towards paying off my house. I feel a bit guilty about owning so much stuff. Stuff that hardly gets used.

And then there was gaming. I love gaming because I love playing through a story. My favourite games are DOS and early Windows games that tell a story, point and click adventure games being my favourite. I love watching gaming channels on YouTube. I watch some game-through but prefer those that talk about the history or facts about the games. I don’t feel like I know enough about any game to dedicate a channel to just games. I now spend more time watching other people play games rather than playing them myself. The only game that I play on a regular basis is Guild Wars 2, and even that is much reduced in recent years. I wouldn’t be doing anything online with Guild Wars 2 because I play to connect with friends that I no longer see in person. I don’t want to mix something that I do as a break for work with something that while a hobby is a form of work. I still need something that gives me a break, and that thing is Guild Wars.

I wanted to talk about it all. I want to talk about what I am reading, playing, watching. What technology I am using. So I decided that despite all the recommendations to have a narrow focus, that I was going to talk about my books, DVDs, games, technology, anime and manga on the one channel and see what I enjoy talking about long term. That is where my blog name and first YouTube channel name comes in, The Backlog Quest because it will be a quest to get through all my unread books, unwatched videos and unplayed games. I will get the chance to talk about different technology along with way because I have different consoles for the games in my backlog.

I recognised that one hobby did not fit on my YouTube channel dedicated to reducing my backlog, and that is my writing. Writing is the hobby that I do the most of in my free time. It’s what I talk about the most in my day to day life. I don’t feel that I know enough about writing to have a separate blog for writing which is why I have a section for it on here despite having them separate on YouTube channel.

So attempting to narrow my focus was really a fail. My passions are too broad. While my overall likes have stayed the same for many years, my attention often shifts between my hobbies. I am trying to get myself to the point that I do a little bit at a time of everything. For right now, that is not working. I have just accepted that I have a broad focus and will work around it.

Other Hobbies

I knew I wanted to do something online

May 25, 2020 FeeBee

I have wanted to do something online for a while. That thing online was not a blog. My reason for not wanting a blog is because I have always been self-conscious about my inability to see simple spelling and grammar mistakes despite my best efforts.

I didn’t want to do a blog at first because I have learning problems that relate to English. I cannot remember if it is dysgraphia or dyspraxia or if I have both. I usually tell anyone that asks that I have dyslexia because everyone understands what dyslexia is without having to explain much. I have very poor spelling; I do not understand grammar and have certain words that I cannot tell the difference between when they are on paper. My learning problems don’t just affect my written work they also affect my balance and motor skills. I was self-conscious at first about writing a blog because I know there are going to be spelling and grammar issues. I am still self-conscious about those issues so I have spent far too much time fretting about even making my blog live in the first place and will probably end up fretting over every single post I share.

I wanted to share something online despite my issues with English and my self-consciousness about everything I do. I have been sharing fanfiction for years. While sharing my fanfiction has helped my self confidence with being able to share my work online at all, I also go through slumps when I think I have finally managed to catch all the obvious spelling and grammar errors only to have even more pointed out to me after I post. Those missed mistakes send the confidence nose diving. Since I decided I was not going to do a blog, three years ago, I started researching and learning everything I could about YouTube and Twitch. Twitch is the platform that interested me the most since I felt that talking live to others would be the fastest way to build my confidence. I did attempt to do some live streams through Twitch. Even with everything set to the lowest settings and playing side scrolling platformers, my internet spent the entire time buffering and lost most of my streams. I am not able to get faster internet unless I move house, something I don’t plan to do anytime soon since I own my house and like the area I live. I just hope that the internet infrastructure will be improved in the area I live in eventually and that I can then do something live like I have always wanted.

Despite deciding I wasn’t able to do Twitch I still watched every video I could about how to do Twitch along with how to do YouTube. I researched for a long time and purchased a few items for the channel that I planned. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. It ended up being a bigger learning curve then I thought to start YouTube, and I still have not got myself to the point where I am able to film and upload videos regularly.

With choosing to do YouTube I found myself having to relearn how to use Photoshop. Something I used to do for fun and I had to relearn how to edit videos. I thought I could pick up where I left off, but that was not the case. Everything I used to know was gone. I had to relearn from scratch. It was not like riding a bike. I couldn’t just pick up from where I left off and go.

The hardest thing has been recording the audio. I have recorded audio for many videos that I have not ended up sharing because I have said sentences in the wrong order or not said certain words at all. I tried to do audio for this blog post, but it didn’t quite match what I had typed out once I was done. If I read off a script I still have the same problems along with the issue of being able to tell that I was reading off paper because there is no life in my voice and I pick up the sound of the paper crinkling in the background. I am just not happy with the quality of audio I am producing at the moment. It is something I have to push myself to keep recording and keep practising because it is something that will improve with practice. A few videos have got to sharing point, and even those I was willing to post I consider terrible. I have been in none of the videos I have shared, using still images for most of my shared videos. I don’t want to be on camera, and I still need to improve my editing skills and my photo taking skills and recording skills in general. There is so much that I still have to learn and so little time to learn while keeping up with full time work, housework, yard work, seeing friends and family and my hobbies. Finding the time to learn everything has been more difficult then I assumed when I decided I was going to do something online. I didn’t expect that doing YouTube would be easy which is why I spent so much time researching. It was still harder then I assumed.

I don’t plan to give up on either of my YouTube channels. I will keep chipping away, and I will improve over time. Like I have kept chipping away at my writing daily, the hobby that I consider the most important of all my hobbies.

My main reason I decided to blog is that this side of the internet is not hard. I did not have to research on how to make a website or how to write my blog posts. I was writing out all my scripts for my channel and have more scripts written out then videos recorded, more than I have time to record. At my current skill level when it comes to recording and editing I don’t think I will be complete my recording of backlog videos anytime soon. Writing what I want to say is easies then actually saying it and sounding confident while saying it is hard. Putting my videos together has needed relearning and that relearning has been slow. I found writing down all my troubles that I have had so far is helping. I want to make progress with something online so I am going to start with this blog and attempt to post on a regular basis.

I look at other people doing YouTube and Twitch, and I think to myself, I can do this. I know that I can do this. But it has been hard to get myself to keep going after I have started. I have started a blog and YouTuber to build up my confidence. I know that I can do this.