Wow. It’s been a week, but my brain is still adjusting to the new reality of what’s happened. You guys not only sent more money than I was due to earn this year (without additional work), but this is easily the most money I’ve ever received at once in my life. Receiving this money has been like a weight being lifted, it should buy me all the time I need to get my life stabilized financially again. When I made the fundraiser video (which I was hesitant about doing in the first place), I thought the odds of getting enough money for the SSD were pretty good. The 12k figure I put on the funds raised thermometer was just a pipe dream. That was just me calculating how much I would need (with taxes) to supplement my own income so that I wouldn’t need ANYTHING for a year, and could focus just on making videos. I never expected to GET that much. I thought MAYBE I’d hit the 1k mark. Some people have asked if I’ve been super happy and excited about this. I was initially, around the 1k mark. Since then, I’ve mostly been in shock as I’ve never had anything like this happen to me before. But since it has happened, I’ll put it to use! This is the second-most thankful I’ve felt in my life (the first being when I accidentally had my carotid artery sliced open as a kid, was bleeding profusely and almost died), so, thanks!



How I feel about all this



FUNDRAISER OVER?

There was never really an expiration on the fundraiser, but I will be disabling the counter showing how much has been raised in the near future. The reason being is that only counts how much money is in my Paypal account, so if I withdraw anything, you would see the number go back down, not showing how much has been raised since. I’m still ALWAYS happy for donations and the “prize” of any line you want voiced is still applicable, for both past and future donators. Also I have added a link to all the isolated voice tracks to Freeman’s Mind so far (597MB) as a bonus. Also, due to popular demand, I’ve implemented some cryptocurrency donations as an option:

I honestly have NO IDEA where cryptocurrency is headed, but hey, I’ll give it a shot if people want to send me some! As always, anyone who donated will receive a “thank you” email from me, although I need more time to catch up on email replies to everyone, the response I’ve received has been overwhelming, it’s gong to take me a little longer to get through it all (also if you donate via cryptocurrency, I won’t know who you are to thank unless you also email me). I’ve spent most of this past week focusing on Freeman’s Mind.



WHERE IS THE MONEY GOING?

I’ve heard many stories before about people who win the lottery going broke after a few months because they spent it all. My brain is simply not wired that way. I’ve had enough financial stress over the past year that I’m going to make sure this money lasts as LONG AS POSSIBLE. I don’t want to go on a shopping spree and be back where I was the next day. I want to make smart decisions and still be making videos decades from now. If you’re curious, here’s what I have planned:

-Reserve cash to supplement food and rent: I want to make sure I’m always several months ahead for groceries and rent. This one thing reduces my stress more than anything else and is where the majority of the money will go.

-Smaller purchases I could have used for months: Stuff like replacing my broken shoes, replacing a ripped pair of paints, replacing my partially-broken headphones, in short, stuff I would have bought a long time ago if I hadn’t been economizing as much as possible.

-Some money for long-term volunteers: This is money for a small number of people who have given me a tremendous amount of help with the site or videos over the years.

-Computer parts: Maybe! Josh Phillips of LPC Gaming has offered to donate a 500GB SSD drive and some other viewers (thanks to Chris Cogden, Joe McJoey, and CyDrake583) have offered to donate some parts as well. So while this fundraiser was originally for the SSD, you guys have me covered there as well!

-Gorilla Gong: Besides making my videos, I want to improve the Gorilla Gong site, we have BIG plans for it, hoping to really make it explode with some of the features we have coming. I can’t reveal everything now, but it’s going to be awesome.

-Re-opening t-shirt shop: This is a low priority, but I do want to make this happen. The t-shirt will likely relaunch sometime in the future at a lower price to buyers with less money going to me (like a shirt), but many, many more designs to choose from.

-Long term stocks investing and MAYBE some trading: Now before everyone panics, I’m going to pursue this very, very cautiously. I’ve wanted to learn more about stocks for a while now since I want to put my money where my mouth is regarding things like peak oil and the economy declining. Additionally, I know of a trader whose advice I respect, so I may dabble in this, but not without expert advice. In any event, I will not be risking a significant amount of income in this, I’m not much of a gambler.

-More videos: Most of these don’t actually COST anything (besides the food and rent part), but I have promised to complete Half-Life for FM this year, also you can expect a lot more Game Dungeon later on. For the long term, I hope to divert some funds later for making the full length machinima movie I’ve mentioned before.

-Robot attack dogs: Some Japanese company is working on it. They’re having bugs in the AI where the dog doesn’t discriminate against the owner and got set back by some casualties.

So, while my plans are pretty conservative and not as entertaining as a kickstarter scandal, they should lead to more videos in the long haul.



MISC STUFF:

On thankfulness + guilt: I’m amazed how many people feel bad because they ONLY donated a small amount. Guys, I can get a leg of chicken + thigh meat from the deli for about .50 here. It ALL counts to me. Also, if you can’t afford to donate and feel guilty about it, don’t. It’s not like you OWE me the money, I’m happy to have you as fans. As long as I can stay afloat one way or another, mission accomplished.

On SrcDemo2: Many people informed me of this piece of software and certainly threw me a curve ball regarding motion blur. Now that I’ve had time to test it, my conclusion is it WILL cut down on the sizes needed some due to .PNG compression. However, I will probably continue using my motion blur technique as SrcDemo2’s requires a MUCH higher framerate to approximate the quality of mine, so the load on the CPU doesn’t make it very practical.

On RAID 0: While two fast drives in RAID 0 might handle most of what I need in terms of capturing, since I’m being donated a SSD, I plan to stick with my original plan, plus I was leaning towards that anyway since SSDs beat out RAID 0 in noise levels any day.

On Freeman’s Mind: I’ve completed the dialogue for the next episode, just waiting on some help with sound effects. I won’t be waiting for the SSD to arrive for THIS episode, so I’m going to clear up a ton of space to record this episode in HD. In any event, I’m working to get the next episode out ASAP.

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ADHD version: You guys have sent Ross a lot of money! This has changed Ross’s outlook on life, thank you! New Freeman’s Mind episode coming ASAP!

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