Yeah… “Estimated funds availability^*“, It seems like eBay has finally gotten so many complaints about fraudulent buyers/board members complaining about how eBay Buyer Protection is costing them money by the second that they decided to implement this in an attempt to provoke “successful fulfillment”… What? How does eBay think this will provoke “successful fulfillment?” All this does is make people want to leave eBay for other places, I mean seriously; whatever happened to trust? You mean to tell me that the times that I fulfilled the obligations successfully didn’t count? I’ve been doing this since 2010, I’ve shipped mostly on the day the buyer paid up front, I’ve been known to be honest in my descriptions, I’ve been known to communicate with my buyers whenever there’s a problem. So what is it with eBay treating me like I’m a first time seller and giving me restrictions that I worked hard to lift? Did they implement this months earlier, did they implement this today and I didn’t get a message about it? Well, disregarding the date it was implemented, it’s obvious that it’s a bad idea.

I mean let’s go to what they require for them to lift the “Estimated funds avaliability^*“.

• It’s been more than 90 days since your first successful sale;
• You’ve had more than 25 sales transactions; and
• You’ve had more than $250 in total sales.

Okay, it’s been 90 days since my first successful sale; maybe I’ve had about $250 in total sales but I don’t know if I had more then 25 sales transactions; point is, how is anybody who casually uses eBay able to live with this bullshit? I mean not everybody is here to set up a store, not everybody is a hardcore eBay user and not everybody is willing to wait 2-3 weeks for your money; some people need the money now and those people may be honest people who are willing to fulfill their obligations. I mean in two to three weeks, what happens if they don’t get their money by then… I admit, there are some people who are willing to scam people for a quick but but I feel like this situation can be fixed by eBay actually enforcing their rules instead of just implementing this weak ass quick fix; I mean billions of people wouldn’t be scammed if eBay just got off their lazy ass and enforce eBay. I mean why should we casual eBay users have to suffer just because eBay is incapable of enforcing their site? We’re not scammers, we’re honest decent people, why should we be put in the same group and be subject to very strict regulations that require us to meet these requirements in order to lift the restrictions? Answer me that eBay. Speaking of which, let’s see what’s under the asterisk…

Yes, you read it right. “^*The estimated funds availability date may change because of eBay or PayPal policies.” As if things couldn’t get any worse; I mean I have to worry about whether or not eBay or PayPal policies could affect the delivery funds; and as everybody knows, dealing with eBay and PayPal can be particularly picky due to the strict amount of policies and horrible communication that they have; I mean I once opened a PayPal case with a seller of an item who’s item didn’t exactly arrive; it took me alot of weeks of phone calls to PayPal in order for me to get my money back and the case resolved. Adding to that is the reasons which eBay specifies why your payment can be delayed; with reasons such as “not meeting the minimum performance standard required of all eBay sellers.” and “a higher then normal level of risk associated with this transaction or with your account.” What? You mean to tell me that I need to meet a minimum performance standard? But I already fulfilled the obligations, shipped the packages within one day and have reasonable community; you mean to tell me that all of that doesn’t count?!?! It seems like that if you want it to count then buyers have to leave feedback to you and since barely anybody does that (maybe “don’t forget to leave feedback.” should be fucking blinking?) I have a lower then expected performance standard then I would have if people left feedback… Maybe they should take into factors other then feedback?

And what is it with high-risk… I mean “a sudden spike of eBay Buyer Protection cases/PayPal disputes or claims” can mean anything, especially since a user account can fraudulently create cases and therefore fraudulently create risk. Not everybody is honest you know, and there are ways of gaming the eBay system, this is just a malicious way of doing it that doesn’t seem to benefit the users who legitimately file eBay Buyer Protection cases/PayPal disputes or claims and the people who work hard to ensure that everybody who uses eBay is happy; and even if it’s proven as fraudulent, it’s not going to get resolved instantly; no, it’s going to take a few days because eBay/PayPal will have some policies that they have to fulfill before they give you back your full rights you had before the case. Also… “unusual selling activity, items with an exceptionally high selling price, or sales in a new category or a category such as tickets, travel, or gift certificates” I can understand the new category thing (still think that eBay should at least do the trust thing.) but what constitutes as unusual selling activity or items with an exceptionally high selling price. I mean for all I know I could be selling the item at the appropriate price and I could be selling the way I usually sell, how can PayPal know what constitutes as unusual or exceptionally high?

You know the argument that’s been going on about what constitutes as copyright violations or fair use, same arguments apply here. The line between that isn’t exactly as clear as crystal just as much as the line between whether or not what they consider as unusual selling is considered usual to us, therefore PayPal/eBay can decide to lengthen the time before we get our funds due to what they perceive to be unusual selling or high-risk (that is to us usual or normal-risk) and there’d be little to nothing we can do about it because they’re the ones who control everything and well, with the way they handle disputes; it’ll likely take you many moons before you can ever get your point across and even if we manage to prove our points to eBay/PayPal; they’ll still restrict our funds because we still fit their definition of unusual selling/high-risk selling; I mean whatever happened to proof changing what we can do, whatever happened to our rights and our right to free speech (okay, I’m speaking in terms of fair use but it still applies here.) Speaking of which…

My estimated date the funds would be available would be four weeks; four. That’s pretty long for someone who has been on eBay for about a long time. I mean sure, I noticed that there were steps I could do to get quicker access to my funds like shipping the item. So I did and guess how much time it now takes me… Yup, three weeks… I just got a week cut off from the estimate. You know, I shipped it on time; I shipped it as quickly as I could and yet they all they can manage to do is take a week off my estimated funds availability. It’s just like this Discover commercial, except replace card replacement with expected fund availability. I mean seriously, I ship on time and I manage to get a week off. I shouldn’t even get a fucking four weeks because I’ve been selling for a long time, I mean do I, a longtime user have to meet their strict requirements in order for me to get my funds instantly? Even though they’re strict and they’re going to turn me away from eBay? Do I even have a choice in the matter? No… what do you mean no???

At least they’re doing a good thing by reminding us that the funds would be delayed, even though they didn’t remind me at the time I created that auction… Seriously check it out…

I mean now you remind me? Now you remind me that my funds will be unavailable?!?! All being pissed off aside, it would of been nice if they at least told us via an email or an eBay messages; I mean this is a major change, again I understand if you want to stop scammers in their tracks but this is something that affects all of us; seriously, even a quick Google search shows that there are people from 2010 who are pissed off by this change; those people are honest eBay users just like me, they just want to sell stuff, they don’t want to wait 4-3 weeks for their funds to arrive due to this “estimated funds availability^*” thing and what eBay/PayPal perceives as the reasons to implement it. I mean again, haven’t these people heard of trust, or is that for people who meet eBay’s requirements.

All I know is that eBay has to reconsider this feature or else their losing a member to the thousands who walked away from the site due to this bullshit.

Recently I made a payphone call with a credit card after I was stranded out in the middle of nowhere. Yes I’m still one of the few people who doesn’t own a cellphone, smart or otherwise… And yes, I thought that payphones were still america’s trusted institution but I guess I should of rethunk that when I saw only like one payphone in a city populated to the thousands.

After I entered my credit card information and made the call that no-one picked up. I woke up the next day to discover that there was $32 charged to my credit card. Go ahead, re-read that last sentence. I can wait.

Now, phone calls usually cost about 50 cents, and that’s if you’re lucky enough to be carrying change at the time. I mean our society has been so reliant on credit cards that carrying things around like dollar bills and change has become a thing of the past; and the fact that I didn’t even bother to even consider to carry any change just proves how dependent we really are; of course, the very idea of a payphone company using credit cards to commit fraud just sickens me, I mean what kind of “math” are they using to calculate their rates?

Of course, we don’t get to see how much it actually costs whenever we use our credit cards. Take a look at the picture below…

It may be blurry but you can clearly tell that they don’t tell you the fees for a credit-card call; and they don’t even treat it like that, they have the audacity to treat it as a collect call. That logic is just fucking palatable, it’s insisting that I entered my information so that I could pay the fees that the other person was calling, and that other person was me. How the fuck does that even make sense? Collect calls are usually you call one guy and the guy gets a question on whether or not he should accept it or not; you don’t accept the fees until you accept the call. And since we’re going by the definitions of a shady payphone company, I’m guessing everybody accepts the call unwillingly.

Now, the payphone that I encountered said that it was managed by Pacific Communications; a company that I have never heard about before in my life but appears to be based in Arizona. Seriously, I haven’t seen any of their payphones from where I’ve been, this is like the first of their payphones that I’ve encountered; and I’m guessing there are more of these babies since well, unsuspecting people enterting their credit cards and calling up collect is a good business opportunity.

Even more shocking is that Pacific Communications is only just a part of it, behind that lies a company named Custom TeleConnect Inc. which just happens to be taking advantage of the gaping hole left behind by all of the payphones being taken away. What, everybody has cellphones nowaday, we just have to assume that nobody will ever use a payphone because they just so happen to have a cellphone; what a waste of money these payphones are going to become… Also they’re in Las Vegas… Yeah, take a second to realize that you’ve just been tricked by a company barely anybody has heard of.

So have millions of people in the US, a simple Google search for Custom TeleConnect Inc. will reveal tons of reports and stories about how they got scammed by this elusive company. Hell I feel bad for that family who got charged a whole lot of money due to some convict calling them repetedly despite the fact that the family didn’t want him calling. I guess he too was unaware that he was bringing extra suffering by charging the family hundreds of dollars for about 10 calls, most of which made it to voicemail. Speaking of which, there was even one who got charged despite the fact that the call didn’t make it through; yeah you heard me, the call did not make it through; that is downright low to charge him/her for a call that didn’t even go to voicemail!

Of course, there is something more downright low then charging unsuspecting people hundreds of dollars; it’s trying to get the money back from these people…

When I got my statement, there was a phone number that wasn’t even the phone number of the phone company; it was that of a printing service that was specifically for payphones. I mean really, if you didn’t want people calling to give you refunds for your unfair charges then maybe you should of done a better job at it. I mean really, if all you’re going to keep doing is giving out “compromises” for people who dispute the charges like half-off your call which costed about $32 to make then you don’t really deserve to be a company; really…

This happened when we called the number that we eventually got from the second charge they served me, and it turns out that what I called was the billing department and the bigger surprise is that there were people working there. I mean really, do they know that they’re working for a downright deceptive company like this? I mean if all they can do is just offer me and other people 30% off for a call that didn’t even make it through then let’s face it, it makes them worse then AT&T. Didn’t really matter at the end though, I got the money back through my bank and I didn’t have to give those people my credit card number. Let’s face it, if I gave them that number then I would of discovered another unexpected charge on my statement; and I’m guessing even more people would of found themselves back in this scam they’re trying so hard to avoid.

But even though I got the money back, I am still pissed off by what they’re doing. What they’re doing is praying on people who just so happens to be stupid enough to forget their cellphone and stupid enough to use their phones to make a collect call or to make a credit card call; I’m more surprised by the fact that the government hasn’t done anything to stop this, seeing as how this stuff is; let’s say I don’t know… Illegal! They don’t even tell you how much it costs or how much it’ll costs them, and I doubt that the operator will be of any further help with that matter. I don’t know how they’re getting away with this, I don’t know how they can justify those fees that they push on everybody and I certainly don’t know how the owners can justify even ripping people off like this!

Let it be known that if you ever find yourself near a payphone and you have to dial *11 in order to make a collect call; don’t. In fact, I don’t think you should be carrying around only a credit card, you should carry around some change; that way you can’t get charged exorbitant fees by this “monstrosity”. One thing that also needs to be known is that this company needs to be taken down, and fast! The faster the better am I right?

I mean I get that society is constantly changing but in this day in age; we’ve got the internet, we’ve got 14 year old kids on the internet posting stupid crap that people seem to eat up and then we’ve got people who just try so hard to matter, try so hard to be cool and just fail at it. And these people are the ones forming the internet culture, also known as the realm of weird, stupid, and blatant. I mean we’ve got pictures of “lolcats”, shitty rage comics that I always somehow see on reddit (owned by Conde Nast Digital.) caption pictures, “verticals”, and signs of win, fail and epic. I mean seriously, there is alot of crap out there like this produced by people who try way to hard and they just eat it up. Hey, I’m not the kind of person to include “LOL” or “oh hai” into my posts, nor am I the one to monetize crap that 4chan has created (or say that everything is “awesome” and “epic”, man do I hate those terms and the way people are using it; it just makes everything look whorish.), nor do I fall to those memes that the media perpretraited.

Like with Rebecca Black, maker of the hit viral song “Friday” (which other people have produced and written) and the latest popular thing on the internet, which is thanks to Michael J. Nelson and that Tosh.0 guy on Comedy Central… Who I assume posted this because they thought she creating “the worst song in history” or so we thought. Yes they’re criticizing the video, the lyrics, basically anything due to the fact that well… Her video is both good and horrible at the same time (if that was just possible.) and I don’t see what the big deal is about her (and thousands of internet memes out there, not to say a few make sense.) If these two guys hadn’t posted it in their blog then we would of never heard of her and her video would just lay dormently with only a couple hundred or thousands of views. Which brings me to my point, most of these internet memes are only famous because the most famous blogs bring it to the uneducated masses, I can assure you that if something ended up on TMZ or one of the blogs on that vile “Cheezeburger Network” which just happens to be the producer of all the “memes” you see on the internet; then you’ll be hearing about it within seconds.

Both of the sites I listed are only part of a ring that contribute the worst in culture, that ring also includes most of AOL and Grawker and the entirety of NBC Universal (there may be more but I can’t think of any at the moment); sure, I may watch some of their TV channels and look at some of their sites but I’m focusing on the stuff that contributes to culture, so that doesn’t matter much to me. Most of these companies use their sources of media to influence the very fabric of culture, those in the ring are the worst offenders. I mean really; whoever thought of allowing Comcast to own NBC Universal is out of their freaking minds, I mean they already own some of the worst channels which put out trash that people manage to like, and they have the mindset of a 1930′s millionare who’s mean and snobby all because he has money (this shows in their piss poor customer service and almost monopolistic like behavior.) Buying NBC Universal and then removing the space from it just makes them the worst offender; they now have a massive media and news empire (and a couple of theme parks) they can use to influence everybody and anybody, and I just don’t trust Comcast with influencing society/the news, I mean you see what they did to geek/entertainment/style culture didn’t you? (There are FCC roadblocks but I think they’re very inefficient, rediciolously even. It’s only a matter of time before Comcast finds a way to use NBC Universal to it’s advantage while getting around the roadblocks.)

There is also News Corp which is also a horrible offender but much has been said about them on the internet so I’ll let it be.

Anyways, these corporations choose which stuff is hot and which stuff ultimately gets left in the dust bin. They can choose what goes on the front page, who becomes famous, who gets to make a million dollars (because the world revolves money, which is the main problem which can never be fixed.) The fact that we rely so much on these sources is a part of society’s downfall because we have to rely on notable websites in order to find out what’s hot, like a baby with his pacifier. And the content creators suffer because they have to worry about creating something that’ll get a lot of views, that’ll take advantage of current events and that’ll get a lot of money. Most of which is appearing on YouTube (with shit like TheFineBros. that guy who rants with stupid transitions and stuff, and those doing stupid stuff that’ll get a lot of views.). I appreciate those who take the time to put up a quality product (like that Left 4 Dead painting I saw where the children are fighting child zombies) but mainly most of YouTube and the internet contains of crap that stupid people and people trying to look cool will obviously like, which is the problem when you let the mainstream dictate what you like, I don’t let the world tell me what to like and I certainly don’t let the stuff influence the stuff I say or create.

I also don’t want to worry about creating stuff that the people should like; which brings me to why I don’t listen to mainstream radio anymore; the reason being that most of the stations are controlled by companies that have strict standards (companies such as Clear Channel and Cumulus.) You want to know the reason why radio is dead, it’s because they’re playing that stupid electro-pop stuff that is easily producible, sounds mostly the same and is easily disposable. Compared to those indie bands, I’m thinking they’ve thrown musical integrity out of the window in an attempt to make a popular song that will get stuck in peoples heads and onto their playlists as their favorite songs (easily the most shallowest songs ever.); and due to the power of payola (thanks to the major music companies UMG, EMI, Sony and WMG, who are also at fault because they’re the ones who can ensure that your shit gets radio play, and all for the signing away of a few rights and a guarantee that your albums will move units,  least you want to be kicked out into the cold.), they can ensure that that song will be played over and over and over again. (see the problem with money? Once you get a lot of it, it changes you, makes you really immoral.) Clear Channel stands out in the fact that you can upload your music to them and they’ll possibly play it on the radio station (or an New Music channel that can only be received by buying a useless HD Radio receiver.) if it’s good (read: shitty.) enough. The fact that I have to sit there and wonder (will Clear Channel play it? does it have a political message? does it speak out against democrats or republicans? does it have offensive subject matter?) about those questions just pisses me the fuck off, I have artistic integrity and I am not about to compromise that for a radio company that controls the rocker and black demographics, strip the soul out of an oldies station and lean heavily towards republican with their affiliation with Fox News. (Yes, I know it’s News Corp. but I watch some of their stuff; I will never watch Fox News or any of those news channels though.)

Another thing; the internet has grown to the point where it kills all kinds of culture that previously had a uniqueness. Take for instance the geek culture, I used to be a geek but I revoked the title myself due to the fact that being a geek or nerd is nothing special ever since other people have flooded the internet with their “prowess” and “geek wisdom“. Please, any person can take a camera and take an image; any person can take a microphone and talk about technology; any person can even review technology gadgets; any person can create tweets that they think is clever but it takes a master to make a great photo or a great podcast; and the quote that I said doesn’t even matter now that everybody is dumbing themselves down for this audience of self-proclaimed geeks who talk in lowercase and seem to have come out of the wrong side of the womb in terms of intellectual conversation. (not to say that many geeks aren’t intelligent, most of the new ones aren’t though.) I swear everything has to rely so much on flashy graphics and imaging to lure the general public into listening to people who barely know anything about what they’re talking about and have a ridiculously huge ego (which ends up making them look like hacks.) and there are more of these people then there are actual geeks who know about this stuff; which there were many of a long time ago. Back then it used to be about technology now it’s mostly about the coverage of cellphones, gadgets, social media sites, web apps and the occasional big event to break up the monotony. You barely get to see actual technology anymore.

Point I’m making is that society as we know it has been dumbed down with all of this technology and shit is that it’s killing it; I blame it on the fault of these parents who don’t raise their kids right and teach them about how hard the real world can be, which is the downside to everything as they choose to ignore reality and focus on themselves rather then face reality. I swear the internet is bringing out the worst egos in people and I have trouble seeing past the egos, makes me respect the person even less; not that there are many people out there worth giving my respects to, the only people I’m going to respect are those who can produce top-quality shit and those who mean something in this world instead of just dodeling off trying to become an “internet superstar”, which is pointless in my opinion. What’s worse is that society is starting to rely more on this technology to the point where we can watch the newest movies at our own home for highly inflated prices, that all of our books will be uploaded to digital and the resulting pages will be burned away (if they were ever foolish enough to think that digital technology would be reliable; what happens when an EMP bomb drops all over the US, all of the data would be lost!), that all of the old ways are obsolete and we should the newer ways are better. (this is true for Hulu, Netflix, Gamefly, travel sites, not so much for the other stuff.) Hey, I’m a big user of technology as the other man but I fear that are usage will turn into our biggest flaw that will bring upon our downfall; and with the way society is killing itself, I predict it’ll be very soon.

You can see just from a picture of Sarah Palin that she’s not fit the country.

This is your future president, a skimpy chick.

In my opinion, she’s underskilled, a convulsive liar and one that’ll use this position for personal gain. In her ongoing days as a Fox News correspondent (which I don’t watch fortunately), she has lied about basically anything in order to support her agenda. While it’s a known fact that everybody has an hidden agenda, she just says anything that she wants and nobody questions it; possibly because now that she has a reality show, she is automatically famous (the Kardashian effect, which has made E! unwatchable white trash.) Not only that but when it comes time for her to sit in that presidents chair and make important choices that’ll change America forever, she’ll just break down and order that we invade some random country that has some high-paying resource that’ll make the rich richer, but not before blowing up the new World Trade Center to make the war justifiable. (No offense to the 9/11 victims, that was a deadly tragedy that no one will ever forget.)

I admit, I’ve never even heard of Sarah Palin until she became a running-mate with John McCain, that’s how obscure she was. Ever since she’s been McCain’s running mate, her popularity has exploded to the point where she resigned as Alaska govenor, written a book and starred in her own reality series on TLC. “Sarah Palin’s Alaska”.

Yup, Sarah Palin’s Alaska consists of 2 hot men, 2 hot chicks and one little girl. Her Alaska has never been more defined then this.

People say this is her political relaunch. I say that it is their attempt to capitalize on Sarah Palin after she became a media darling. I mean why else would you watch this show, to get to know Sarah Palin and her political views? Hell no! You watch it because you like to see people’s weird lives and conflicts (like the Kardashians, who’s fame is unjustified.). I mean if all you get to watch is her cutting down trees and hunting bears and intimate romance then what difference is there at all? We don’t even get to see the kids ambitions and goals and dreams, only their lovelife and their love for their mother. Even Snoop Dogg’s Fatherhood had shown Snoop’s son working for K-EARTH 101, why couldn’t Sarah Palin do the same.

There’s also the possibility that the media could therefore work in her favor and therefore garner her the winning votes. I mean she’s been gaining traction due to a “social media campaign” (reason it’s in quotes because I doubt that it’s a social media campaign at all.) and potentially the media could overlook all of her flaws and just focus on the things that make her so great. I mean forget her policies, focus on Sarah Palin! Who gives a shit about politics when all we’re going to be caring about in 2012 is how good the candidates look. I mean she is going to be running America after all. I swear people should stop listening to the media and just use common sense.

The video above states some of the points that I’m making. She has done some weird shit in the past and she’ll continue to do and say weird shit like this. She’s armed with Facebook and Twitter so she can make all of the comments she wants and no one will question her. Apparently her opinions consist of the regular Republican tirade amplified by 100%. ObamaCare sucks, we need more weapons, we need less taxes, more money for us, more power, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Her opinions are in full effect with the rejection of START is based on the common republican fact that America must be all rich and all powerful (that means having powerful military with the ability to destroy any country that she wants.). Apparently I didn’t know we were at war with other countries except Iran. Again, Obama isn’t living up to the standards that other people put on him but it’s only a matter of time before she runs out of ammunition, and what can she run to for her political ambitions. Why Fox News, the Tea Party and FreedomWorks. Which brings me to number four.

Since she has the Tea Party and FreedomWorks to fall back on, it’s only a matter of time before she is inducted president. I mean the whole Tea Party thing is due to Americans (mainly rich people and some middle class who earn more then other middle class siblings) wanting lower taxes. Lower taxes meaning that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. I apologize if I’m sounding like a broken record but that’s the way Republicans (and now some Democrats unfortunately since they basically made them right.) think. I mean the entire purpose to them is to get power and to decide what is best for America. Apparently they’ve taken the whole American spirit thing way too far now.

The people who are in the Tea Party are basically very uneducated masses who willingly believe the lies propagated by them. I mean we live in America but I don’t care whether they’re demanding too much or my healthcare is apparently going in the shitter. I’m not looking forward to amassing huge amounts of money, therefore the taxes don’t bother me at the least bit. However, these people have been tricked to believe that their America is screwing them and it’s all Obama’s fault. How can everything be Obama’s fault? I swear if a tree goes down, it’s Obama’s fault; violence in Egypt, it’s Obama’s fault. How the fuck can violence in Egypt be the fault of Obama when it is the fault of a Muslim dictator? Obama’s just trying to help.

Anyway, enough about the Tea Party, let’s move on to FreedomWorks which I have to remind everyone isn’t really Free. Same issues here, Less Taxes, Spending is out of control… This is where things get different here, they claim that taxes are at fault for hindering technological progress and the energy prices are going up because of the government. As if the government is behind every price increase and fault there is. We live in a country where every state is separate, the President just dictates global laws and looks out for the best interest of Americans. Every state has it’s own laws, it’s own taxes and it’s own government, they decide how education should matter, they decide how power should be priced. I mean Texas has very few gun laws, California has a strict gun law. See the difference? If the government were really in control then we would have guns in every home or the guns would be banned altogether.

The fact that these people mainly care about power and keeping illegals out of our American country proves they’re not out for the best interest of us living in the country. Don’t be fooled by the red & blue star logo. The site tilts primarily to the red, and so does Sarah Palin.

In my opinion, she’ll be a worst president then Barack Obama is. Even George W. Bush has said she isn’t presidential material, I’m going to keep this short and just say that she’ll bring us further into the recession, spend all of our money on the military, tighten up the boarder so that no “illegals” can get through and ruin international relations with countries outside of the US.

So there you go, 5 reasons why Sarah Palin should never become president of the United States. I get that some of you might have a different opinion and I understand that but this is how I feel and these are my opinions. They may not be 100% accurate but most of them is the truth. I swear if Sarah Palin becomes president, I may have to think about moving to a different country.

While I was reading up on the Egypt crisis on Twitter (which was resolved in only 18 days.), I came across an old acquaintance who I have not seen in 3 years (which is a pretty long time). So I clicked her account, clicked follow and I asked her a question. The next thing you know, she blocked me and she provided no explanation as to why. Funny seeing as how I did nothing to offend or alienate her, or maybe I did; or maybe it’s something else entirely. Who knows?

For those of you who don’t know, I have what people call autism which makes it difficult (not impossible) for me to respond to stuff properly. There were some bad (not illegal, just bad, stupid stuff) that I did in the past without regards to the rules (I was 16 at the time, I was in my /b/tard phase also known as the do something stupid to make myself laugh phase.) I know that being autistic is not an excuse for the things I did (the people reading this article might know what I’m talking about.) and I’m now willing to apologize for these things but I don’t know if the general public at large will be accepting of this (nor would I know how they react and how they would think of me afterwards.)

That’s the problem. People think of me as (this person who’s willing to manipulate anybody for a laugh.) but the problem is that there is a lot of stuff that I don’t do intentionally for a laugh. For instance, why would I follow a user I haven’t seen in 3 years? It certainly isn’t to make myself laugh and it certainly isn’t for other reasons. I mean I’m not able to react properly when I’m angry, I sometimes do stuff that I regret later (Dan knows what I mean, and he’s probably right on that one.) but this just makes me very angry, and gives me the feeling that these people don’t give a jack shit whether I’m autistic or not. If they went up and told me how they felt about me and explain to me why I can or can’t do this then I would be accepting of the reason (I’m still a human being you know.) It makes me sad that people would do these types of things (though I’m not sure if they’re aware of it.) It makes me want to get a webcam and start broadcasting myself on the internet 24/7 so I can show the people how I feel.

I may not fare well in chatrooms or forums but I join them so I can feel like I’m part of a community, so I can socalize. I did some stupid stuff there but I managed to get the stupid stuff out of my system before I could further cause damage to myself (the /b/tard shit, not the other shit.) I may not have much of a social life in real life (due to many factors such as the fact that I don’t have a drivers license or a car yet, but that will change within the month.) but I feel the need to interact with others. If people are going to think of me as that person instead of the one who wants a conversation (and yes, I still remember the outbursts) then they’re not my acquaintances/friends at all.

I know I may not change much to please all of you but I am not this emotionless person who lurks on the computer trying to make a laugh or disrupt anything. I may understand where some people are coming from but for acquaintances who think that, it’s just plain ridiculous. People should not have to block me thinking that “oh, I don’t want to deal with this person anymore cause he has autism, screw him”. No, if anything they should at least say something about the damn situation instead of ignoring it. I feel that if people are going to treat me like this then the autistic race might as well die out. I do not want to live this way, I don’t want to hold onto the anger that I’m having right now and I certainly don’t want to break out and do something stupid that I’ll regret later (I have learned my lesson.) This is hard for me to deal with but if people would just explain themselves and be open instead of assuming that I know this in my head when clearly I don’t then it would solve a lot of problems that I have. Thank You.

Then I heard about Need For Speed World, again I thought ”Could this be the return to grace Black Box’s NFS series needs?” It had all the elements of a good game, a massive online world, free to play, and best of all, it actually looked somewhat decent, at least according to the screenshots”. I signed up for the beta which I was never able to play but I came across this game again and I decided to try it out, to see what Black Box had in store for me. What Black Box had not what I had expected, I played it alot, over and over again, trying to see what was so special about NFSW but what I found good was the initial tutorial, the fact that traffic drove past game made barriers and the initial fun of the first few races. What I found bad was everything else…

What was EA/Black Box thinking when they made this game. Games are made for entertainment, not to frustrate and have you pull your hair out in total frustration, this is what the game did to me. First off, the game is good when you have a Tier 1 cars and you’re racing the tracks which are initially new but as you progress, you find new tracks which are longer and completely non-existent in terms of anybody playing the track in multiplayer. I got all these tracks that I’ve unlocked and the only way I can get an 8-car race going is in single-player, you’d think they’d make it easier to reach level 20 or something? Very few people are even around Level 20, there usually level 8 or 17 or 15 or something finding someone to play on those tracks can take a long, long time, making those unlocked tracks a waste of your hard earned grinding. Which brings me to the following two problems, the world is absolutely devoid of any sort of players, it feels like there are hundreds rather then the proported millions that EA claim populate this world, it makes me feel like I’m part of this world which exhibits the same lack of life as in Undercover. It’s very disappointing.

Second problem, you gain very little EXP from racing, leaving you to grind the same track over and over again to raise through the ranks, and when you want to race on other tracks, the competition is usually of a lower level then you, leading to you being the head of the pack and making the whole race feel boring as shit, the EXP you get is nonexistant which makes me wonder, what’s the point of racing on older tracks when you’re of a higher level? They used to be fun before but now, it’s just rediciolusly easy and overpowered. Anyway, the common MMORPG theory doesn’t work in this game, it works when you do something exciting like fight or team up but you’re racing all the time and you don’t get to team up. It can get boring, even if you win against a bunch of higher level opponents.

Speaking of which, did you know that statistics lie in this game, that you can easily get beaten by a Mazda RX-7, Lotus Elise (which should be a Teir 3 car in my opinion) or a Nissan Supara (those damned Supara’s) with inferior stats then yours? If you think no then you are 100% wrong, you will get beaten by one of those cars in almost any high level race (even when they’re a lower level), you’re be asking yourself this, how can they beat a car which has a higher top speed, acceleration and hacking? It’s simple, you pay real world money for BOOST, which is the in-game currency for anything involving enhancements. They get BOOST and then they buy card packs that allow HIGH PERFORMANCE PARTS WHICH I HAVE ONLY WON 4 TIMES, I know I shouldn’t be complaining about this but what use is racing fairly when you can use BOOST to buy card packs, get high performance parts that make your car ridiculously fast and win every possible race? As far as I know, EA has thrown out the book regarding fair gameplay, it’s all about da benjamins G! You gotta spend money to win! If you don’t then you know, can’t say it because it violates Bluehost’s TOS.

Additionally, they also grind across the wall and hit traffic and it does not affect their speed at all. This happens in every possible race so far, they pull back and then they RAM you at forces even Need For Speed shouldn’t be able to do. It frustrates me that they ram me into the wall and I lose all of my speed while their car goes speeding off at 100MPH, something people in the forum call wallriding. Apparently in the Need For Speed World, scientists have discovered an F-ed up version of physics, one that does not follow BASIC REAL WORLD RULES THAT ALL BASIC RACING GAMES AT LEAST FOLLOW. I have somewhat tried to resolve this situation by driving the opposite side of where they’re going to turn but this is inexcusable, the cars should be handling the same, not gain the sudden power of invincibility. Speaking of which, most of this is tied to poorly made networking code which fails at events almost 75% of the time. It doesn’t start up, it just dumps you back into the open world, forced to try again. And when your racing, then all bets are off, the cars can sometimes lag ahead of you even though you got a fast network speed and it also has the strange side effect of disconnecting you just when you think you’re about to win. I suspect that it has something to do with the rammers as well, it’s that bad.

There’s also the minor problem of the power ups, the rest of the power ups I can live with but Traffic Magnet angers me, not as much in a race because it’s easily blockable using Juggernaut or Shield but because multiple people can call Traffic Shield on you multiple times, I feel like they should of limited it to only 1 Traffic Magnet usage until the self imposed timeout runs out, makes it easier to race because you’re not constantly being baragged with Traffic Magnet and you’re not waiting patiently for your Juggernaut or Shield or Ready power ups to charge up. There’s also the problem of useless power ups such as One More Lap or Ready, while the Ready might be useful. One More Lap is something I barely use and yet I win it mostly every time in the lucky card draw, just goes to show how lucky I can be. There’s also a missing powerup that many forum readers have requested, a ghost powerup, if they implement that into the game then maybe, maybe there might be a shred of fairness in the world.

Additionally, the pursuit mode (which you can only access while hitting a police car, not when you’re driving on the streets or during a race), while cool, has lots of flaws. First off, the police AI still focuses on sucking and it shows when trying to ram you, the only thing it knows how to does. It foolishly drives itself into hazard zones and it easily lost my car during a pursuit tons of times. What gets me pissed off is the fact that instead of improving the police AI. they have the SUV’s that cannot be rammed, even with a powerup that ram you and send your car flying and it exhibits the same poor AI as the rest of the game, usually you can escape because it flips your car and the game spawns it outside of where they trapped you, allowing you to escape. It can also have the unintended side affect of sending you the right way or just at 100MPH, that’s not what pisses me off. What pissed me off is the sheer numbers that the police spawn in, instead of relying on AI which could actually make a police chase difficult, they have tons of SUVs that ram you from every direction, trapping you in a spot you cannot escape from even if you manage to squeeze your way out. It feels like in order to evade the police, I have to spend tons of money on power ups, therefore reinforcing the whole pay to win approach, which EA forces on you with it’s constant messages that you can buy stuff to make yourself feel like #1. I get that I can spend my money to recharge my power ups or have the cars before a certain level, guess what EA, I’m not falling for your mindtricks any time soon.

There are minor flaws such as the game not having enough game modes as before and the fact that you have to buy a second car slot in order to buy a more powerful car because you’re getting beaten by unusually powerful cars and you discovered that your old car was better because the stats misleaded you, which it can do in this game so beware. (Additionally I had accidently spend the boost on Money and Rep enhancers (they shouldn’t make those entire parts clickable, only the button) so I was forced to use up the 7 days of the amplifiers, hence my overall impressions of the game, it was also the worst $5 I have ever spent.) There is also a lame meeting place which is in actuality, a photo mode and a bad photo mode at that. It didn’t discard the UI when I took pictures of my custom designed Mitsubishi which I sold because I needed a more powerful car apparently. Also the traffic in this game stupid, as in it drives  in your way instead of out. I lost many races this way and I know it ain’t worth complaining about but really, they should make the AI cars at least smarter instead of dumbasses relying on guessing which direction the car is coming in. I mean come on, do they give out licenses to drivers without having to take a test, I mean who is running the virtual DMV in this virtual world! Come on, teach your damn drivers left from right, or do you not have elementary school in Need For Speed World?

In closing, this is the worst street racing game in history, they did everything wrong, they focused on the fact thay force the whole pay to win mentality on you and the fact that skill means jack shit when you can pay real world money to enhance your e-penis which nobody cares about in real life. I mean seriously, EA should force all their players to design their cars in the color scheme of money, add money symbols and add text that says I’m rich biatch! This is as stupid as companies having to force you to share the story, TAKE A PHOTO OF THE STORY YOU SHARED and place it on your Facebook page, and if whoring didn’t get bad enough. I don’t want my Facebook profile to be a whoring spot for various companies due to the fact that you have to do this to enter the contest. Whatever happened to just entering your email address and just having it randomly drawn out of a hat I mean come on, I know Facebook is a privacy hole and I should care but I don’t because of the fact that I have never even posted anything about myself on the website, except for a few photos but I don’t think they matter much to Facebook, at least I know what to post on my Facebook profile from now on.

Anyways, (even if it is free, it’s still bad). Flawed MMO concept (they should of had you drive to the races), lack of things to do in NFSW, lack of fairness in the game and a lack of general polish in general. This is officially the worst arcade street racing game by far. If you want my opinion, get Midnight Club Los Angeles, harder difficulty, more traffic, better multiplayer mode with an open world you can do anything with (unlike NFSW), better graphics, a cockpit view for those of you who enjoy it  and an overall feel of completeness and enjoyment. Trust me, you’ll enjoy driving around their Los Angeles more so then the world of Need For Speed.

“Since we started GeekBrief.TV, I’ve studied media successes to learn techniques for growing an audience and keeping them interested. Publicly writing something controversial is usually a very good thing to do. You don’t loose as many people as seems logical because people want to stick around to see what you’ll do or say next.” -Neal Campbell

Really… controversy… I guess it works for the people who actually know what they are talking about, people who usually have a good theory that will cause controversy because it clashes with the common watered-down stuff that the people have heard. Also people don’t stick around due to the controversy, they stick around because they light what the guy is saying and they want to hear more. I suspect this is the guy who used to watch “Rikki Lake” and “Jerry Springer” because they’re “controversial.”; I suspect he stopped this because he wanted to look more “smart” than he really is.

“When Cali found out what I did, it obviously it made her angry.  To her, politics is private and divisive. She doesn’t enjoy it in the least. I apologized, but also argued my case about the benefits of the controversy. We had recently had dinner with John C. Dvorak and he explained how he has used controversy in his long career as a tech writer to keep people paying attention. I thought Cali bought-in to the idea of creating controversy, but I was wrong.” -Neal Campbell

Well you’ve been married to her for like, I don’t know, 11 YEARS!!! You should know Cali at the time you impersonated her and posted that tweet about global warming. Not only does it show that you do not respect your wife’s wishes, it also shows that you’re 100% intent on controlling her career. Here’s what I think Neal Campbell was thinking in his head.

“Hmmm… If I impersonate Cali Lewis and if I post a controversial tweet then it will make my wife more famous! And it will also make me “Neal Campbell”, recognizable as the husband of a famous celebrity!” -The Thoughts of Neal Campbell

You seriously couldn’t consult Cali before you did this? Maybe she would do it, maybe she would say not; the point is, you impersonated her without consent for personal gain. And when you realized that Leo banned her from TWiT, then you realized you were wrong; because with that, your business opportunities started to go down the drain.

“She was deeply hurt by what I did. She is the kindest person in the world and she didn’t want to embarrass me. She’s lived with letting everyone believe it came from her because of our relationship.”-Neal Campbell

This is what also angers me. You hurt her, you posted that tweet and after all of that, she defended you… Woman should not have to defend Men from their mistakes; if Men never experiences the consequences brought on by their mistakes then they should not deserve to be called Men, just cowards. Worst of all; instead of apologizing for what you have done, you have instead let Cali take the blame. Not once did she feel obligated to say that it was you who did it; she let many business opportunities slip and it’s all because of you.

“The only way I can make it right is to publicly apologize.  A private apology is utterly insufficient because what I did pushed her into a public, political battle she didn’t want to fight. She lost friends and business opportunities because of what I did. I hope this blog post will mend some of those relationships. I also want to apologize to friends of GeekBrief.TV and followers of Cali’s tweets. The controversy experiment just wasn’t worth it, especially without her participation. I’m sorry.” -Neal Campbell

You know what’s even more insufficient, not apologizing at all… and now you apologize for placing her in a battle she didn’t want to fight in the first place. You know what, you’re not sorry; you did this “experiment” without consulting her, you did this because you thought this would help her career, but mainly you did this entirely for yourself. What surprised me is that Leo Laporte posted the first comment, and after reading that comment I found some words of text which really proves that you’re a shallow person. Note the highlighted words around a big red circle.

According to the highlighted text, he apologized way back then. Which means that Leo had at least enough emotion to contact Cali and apologize to her. You, you waited a year after the incident you caused and then you posted your “public apology”. While some people may hate Leo for his views on Global Warming and his views on the then 2008 presidential campaign. He is at least more human and less shallow then you will ever be in your lifetime. The conclusion, well it’s obvious. Cali divorces you; seriously. In my personal opinion, she does not deserve scum like you. While you guys used to love each other back then, I think it’s different now. When Cali became a micro-celebrity, it made you think “I’m going to make her into a celebrity, and then I shall bask in the fame and move to Hollywood as the husband of a celebrity.” If you were truly in love with her then you should not let the ideas of fame and success affect your head. Continuing on, it’s a “well known fact” that he produces the show… I’m wondering, isn’t this the reason why the show looks unprofessional.

I remember a time when I found a music video for Geoff Smith’s “Hello, Hello” and it was just, horrible. During the duration of the song, he focused on Cali buying the iPhone. While I do admit that the song was good, he could of done a few things; adjust the contrast of the video, shot it at a slower framerate and at least took the effort to make it a proper music video. This is the same for the video podcast itself; I read around the web that “GeekBrief.TV” has a certain “professional” element to it, I found myself to be more wrong. No offense to Cali Lewis on the more recent episodes but the ones she did with her husband in 2009 are in my opinion campy, unprofessional, cheap-looking and horrible. Not once did the guys even consider getting the lighting right, the obvious production errors fixed up or even the presentation right. Now while I’m mainly interested in the news when I’m looking at a podcast, I consider the presentation to be the most important thing I look for. Whether the host is likable, relatable or knowledgeable, and whether it will make me want to come back for more. I should not have to be focusing on obvious errors such as the ones found in your special you produced on “Leo Laporte”.

I just loved how you overlayed a title over another title, and I absolutely loved how you did not take more then 1 camera into the cottage. I swear that as I watched the videos you produced, I saw Leo suddenly get less clear and muddy throughout the video. I don’t know, you did not have the skill to have a camera directly facing Leo? Superproducer my bottom, you are the tech version of Solar, a guy who claims to care about her only to use and abuse Guru for his own personal gain; and Guru was lead to believe that there was nothing he could do to stop him, he was even forced to perform on stage despite Guru’s health, all for his own benefit. And the quality of the product, there was no effort put into the product; it was all rushed just to cash in. Sure the music’s good but the product feels like there hasn’t been any care put into it.

Also, his political views aren’t really the ones anybody political would recommend. Sure he’s against Obama but for one reason, what he’s going to do to his wallet. Not universal healthcare, not the fact that he isn’t really all that different from George W. Bush, but money. In this world, the rich control everything while the poor have to survive off of scraps. The world loves people who can make money in an economy like this and continue to make money, they are the ones who will survive into the future because they can afford all of the life extension technology. If his political views consist of only what he’s trying to do to his wallet then that’s pretty shallow in my book. I mean just because banks aren’t accepting mortgage offers like they used to after George W. Bush ruined the economy, that is no reason why you should start going all political. I mean just because they denied you for the mortgage (which could be for many reasons; bad credit score, history of underpayments, the fact that they think you will not pay it back in full) does not mean that the world is going to end, in fact it should of made you do things like get more sponsors for your tour or at least rent the damn bus; not go all political just because someone denied your mortgage application.

And closing out my argument is how he tried to save his marriage. Apparently he has gone to 2 support groups because Christians don’t believe in psychology. My advice; they should of just saw a psychologist to at least try to resolve their issues instead of a support group. Which leads me to my next issue; he should of just admitted her love for her instead of trying to find out what’s wrong and fixing it. You couldn’t of just walked up to Cali Lewis and say “I love you with all my heart, I know that I shouldn’t of placed you into a battle based on a hunch, but everybody learns from mistakes and we, we could overcome any mistakes if we stick together.” He couldn’t even do that? I thought you were a Christian… Which Christian represses their feelings of love for trying to find out what’s wrong with the marriage. Additionally, he even claims that he realizes that he has been reborn and now realizes that the marriage he had was magical… During the 11 years he was married to her, did you ever think that you think the marriage was magical? I guess he doesn’t know what he got until it got up and walked away from her, now he’s talking about how he’s reborn, how he wants his wife back and spiritual BS which I just plain don’t believe in (sorry believers of religion.). Neal, the day you started becoming a bad husband was when in my opinion, you started to use her for your own personal gain and when you started to subconsciously think you were bigger than god. Neal Campbell you are a shallow, ignorant, pathetic piece of human flesh and you should of never gone onto her Twitter in the first place and posted that message in the first place, and that is why you fail.