blog dot cameronbanga dot com

Hey everyone, welcome to the second day of what plans to be a summer long adventure into the life of Cameron Banga.

For those of you who didn't stop by yesterday, here is a quick summary of what took place...

I began broadcasting at 3PM CST and was quickly joined by about 30 viewers. It was a pretty good time which consisted of some chatting, podcasting, and a bunch of Mario Kart Wii.

I was also able to discuss a bit of my plans for the summer. The goal right now is to broadcast a good portion of my summer online through Justin.tv while playing video games, setting up interviews, and just enjoying time chatting with others.

As a bit of backstory, a couple weeks before the start of my summer vacation, I was filled with a sense of dread over the idea of committing myself to another summer in what is considered by many to be "corporate america." I had worked a couple of jobs each summer for the last couple of years and to be honest, I hated it. I totally understand that no one ever likes work, but I just saw it as a way of conceding my entire life to a mindset I don't totally agree with. We shouldn't be forced into jobs we don't like to make ends meet.

I then looked forward at my life and realized that this is pretty much my last summer where I could have any possible chance at total freedom and I really wanted to get a chance to dive head first into the world of online media. I wanted to broadcast hours each week on Justin.tv, much like I had done through my time with friends during the Four48 project.

So after some discussions, I was able to convince my parents to let me broadcast from the basement instead of getting a real job. The kicker, I needed to make a couple thousand dollars to pay for books next year, car insurance, and for part of my room and board next fall.

So the goal then became to somehow find a way to broadcast my life while also finding a way to bring in some revenue while playing games and chatting with others. I decided to come up with the idea of a social art project in the form of sending postcards.

While broadcasting each week, I plan on selling postcards which will be mailed out to anyone willing to pay only $5 for one. Using white index cards, I will totally customize each card for any individual looking to get a part of this project. Not only will each mailing be unique, but it will also be limited in number. Each card will be numbered and only a maximum of 1337 will be sold this summer (I'm a nerd, so I had to choose a nerd number, right?)

So my hope right now is that 1000 or so people will see in uniqueness of this little idea and find some enjoyment in this project. If you are interested in making a purchase of a postcard, you can click here to be redirected to my the PayPal link. There you can add a comment as to if you request something specific on your card, otherwise I will be sure to include a sweet drawing of a turtle or koala.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to e-mail me at Cameron@CameronBanga.com. Otherwise, feel free to check back on the site for updates or to tune into www.justin.tv/cbanga to watch live.

podcast.cameronbanga.com is a summer podcast series where I sit down and talk to people who are doing real cool things online and in the world of tech.

Want to listen to an individual episode? Feel free to take a listen to interviews with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, comedian Tom Green, Justin.tv CEO Michael Seibel, Chicago Red Stars president Peter Wilt, Cheap Ass Gamer's CheapyD, Revision3's Ron Richards, console modder Ben Heck, and Mario Marathon team members Brian Brinegar and John Groves.

You can listen to the podcast by subscribing via iTunes by clicking the following link.
Click here to subscribe through iTunes.

So we've kicked off the summer of Cameron Banga with a bang on Justin.TV. Shout out to Bertt, mattxlink, capgun, avrenim, smarmosaur, cp87, thomas_s, funkeephil, war1111, guz2k8 and a couple others I forgot for getting up the chatroom super early and chatting with me.

I mentioned to everyone in the chat my initial idea to gain some sort of income through this project. Again, the idea is to broadcast 20-30 hours a week and be a constant source for gaming news, tournaments, and just a whole lot of fun. However, throughout this process I am going to need to bring in a little bit of income to pay for school books, car insurance, etc. Thus, I have developed this concept for a social art project where I will send entirely customized post cards to viewers for only $5 a piece. You can learn more about the project as well as make a purchase here.
http://www.cameronbanga.com/2006/05/purchase-post-card-from-cameron-banga.html

Otherwise, be sure to check out the video below and enjoy the chat. We may be playing Mario Kart soon.

Watch live video from CB_TV on Justin.tv

So, I have been mentioning to a bunch of people my plans to broadcast a good portion of my life on Justin.tv in hopes of going the entire summer without working an actual job and through instead starting my own internet venture of sorts. Well, this will all start up this Friday, May 30th at 3pm CST. I'll be online explain some of the goals of the project, taking questions, and maybe even playing some games.

The plan is to spend about 10-12 hours online total during this "kickoff weekend" and then prepare a schedule for times I will be online next week.

The whole summer series of broadcasts should be a lot of fun. The whole idea is to build up a community somewhat full of people looking to just hang out in a chatroom/message board setting to play games and meet others, with me leading up the project through video blogs.

The broadcasts should be fairly informative as well. In the past year, I have received countless amounts of e-mails from people asking how they could set up their own blog/web domain/podcast/message board and I will be using these broadcast to teach others by example what can be done for free on the internet to those who look to gain knowledge on those topics.

If you are interested in keeping up to date with what sweet online events will be taking place through this website all summer long, I set up an e-mail mailing list for those looking to receive updates. If you would like to receive e-mail notices, just send an e-mail to SummerOfCB@CameronBanga.com . Subject and body of the e-mail are irrelevant, as it only takes an e-mail to sign up.

Questions or comments? Send me an e-mail to Cameron@CameronBanga.com or feel free to post a comment.

I've been sitting in a hotel room with ample amounts of free time since for the last three days, so I figured it was about time to maybe write up a short post detailing what I have been up to.

Since Monday night, I have been living the life of a sports broadcaster working the Horizon League baseball tournament and covering both play-by-play and color commentary for the Valparaiso Crusaders. As some of you know, I work as General Manager at the student run radio station at VU and when you work with our station's sports staff, you get the opportunity to travel with teams and broadcast on trips like this one.

If you have ever played sports competitively, you may be somewhat accustomed to the type of trip I am on. Our trip started with a seven hour bus ride on Monday and due to some late inning heroics by our team, we will be here until at least tomorrow. It's been a great adventure and through the experience I have been able to make a list of five things that everyone should know about that happens behind the scenes for a sports broadcaster.

1. You'll be given a lot of free time. - While on the road on a team bus or during time spent in the hotel, you will find yourself with little to do at certain times during the trip. Hopefully you are able to entertain yourself, otherwise you will find yourself in a state of complete boredom. The team will often be working in meetings or resting for the next day's game, but as the broadcaster you will instead be watching TV, walking around the area near your hotel, or preparing for your next broadcast.

2. You need to be able to study, a lot. - When given the free time, use it to study up on the sport and teams you will be broadcasting. It isn't necessarily algebra, but you will be putting a lot of time into it nonetheless. If you don't understand a baseball box score, you'll be forced to learn real quick. To be a good broadcaster, you need to know a lot of information in order to only use some of it during an actual broadcast.

3. Take advantage of free food, but watch your calorie intake. - Right now, we're broadcasting the Horizon League tournament, which is a pretty big college conference. As such, free food is abundant for people up in the press booth. Feel free to help yourself to the pizza or buffalo wings, but if you don't watch out you might find yourself picking up a few pounds. Junk food + sitting around watching baseball is not great for the body.

4. It's hard not to get emotionally involved. - As a broadcaster, it's your job to accurate relate the game in words for people over the radio or television so that they can visualize what is going on even though they aren't present. You try not to be biased and you do your best to put equal emphasis into both teams. However, when you see a team come back from behind you can't help but cheer a little bit in your head. You won't know most of the people you broadcast personally, but you definitely feel like you have known them your whole life after you follow their every move for three hours.

5. It really isn't that hard to get involved. - Whenever you tell someone that you broadcast college sports, they seem to think that the barrier for entry is nearly impossible to crack. To be honest, it really isn't that tough at all. If you are in college, many schools have a student-run radio station. All you need to do is go check out these stations and sign up for a sports staff they have and you can easily work your way up to the broadcast level. Most student radio stations are always looking for people because they are understaffed and would love to have someone interested in helping out. It isn't hard and it sure is a lot of fun.

Hope you all enjoyed this look into student broadcasting. If you have any questions about broadcasting, feel free to leave a comment or e-mail me at Cameron@CameronBanga.com. Also, feel free to take a listen to my broadcast tomorrow (May 24th) for Valparaiso's baseball game at 11am EST on www.sportsjuice.com.

Picked up Mario Kart Wii two nights ago and have played a couple of hours so far. I'll post more pros and cons and maybe a final review later (when I start webcasting in June maybe?). But for now, there are some things I REALLY like and some other things I am still WTFing about.

What do you guys all think of the game based off what you have played? Post your opinions as a comment, I would love to read them.

Hey everyone, just wanted to give a quick update on what my summer plans are looking like. Got some things sorted out today and it looks like most of this is good to go...

So I have blogged before about not wanting a real job and if you couldn't tell, I was pretty serious about this. Frankly, I don't want to sit in front of a desk all summer because I foresee myself doing that for the rest of my life. This is possibly my last summer of freedom and my last summer where I am not technically 100% adult.

So what is my plan to combat this need of society to clock-in to a 9 to 5 job in order to receive a pay-check? I plan on webcasting my life. That's right, as of right now I plan on sitting in front of my webcam for 20-30 hours a week and be myself.

The goal will be to turn this venture into something profitable. Essentially, I am creating a life blog which will focus around me trying to come up with a product or service that people would buy, making that product or service, and selling it with the ultimate goal of surpassing $3000 in profit, which would be the money I would be missing out on by not working a regular job this summer.

It took a bit of convincing to get my parents on board, but I think they finally realize that I have a shot. Well, they may not believe it but at least they are being supportive of their son. That's all that really matters, right? Sure, I am going to be living in their basement the entire summer but does that really make a difference? I am sure we will find out by mid-July.

What does this mean for you? Well, I really hope you spend part of your summer with me. I plan on playing a lot of video games (hopefully online if I can get my WiFi working with my Wii and DS) and working on the site to make it a better experience. Really, the choices will all be up to what the majority of people would like to see happen. I would love to set up tournaments for Brawl or Mario Kart and just sit down and chat a bunch. Some friends (Dillon, Matt Green, etc) have already promised a visit or two to my house, so it should be a fun time.

So why am I really doing this? Why would I spend what will most likely total between 300-400 hours on camera this summer? To be honest, I really want to prove a point. I want to prove that creativity can mean something in the world and that if people really want something, they can do it with some hard work. I want to be successful at this and I want to show that I can make money without wearing a tie and working at an office. Life is full of expectations from society and an overlying assumption that everyone must fit into a "norm." I don't want to fit into that role and I truly believe that if I work hard at what I want, I don't have to.

I'll have more details as well as some ideas as to what I plan to do to bring in revenue in the near future. The expected start date is on or around June 1st and following that, I will post weekly schedules as to when you can expect me online. Video streaming will all be done (hopefully) through justin.tv and I will be updating/maintaining this site constantly. If you have some ideas as to what could be done to make this summer amazing, send me an e-mail to Cameron@CameronBanga.com.

Otherwise, I hope you can start planning to spend some hours gaming it up with me and enjoying time meeting friends this summer. Imagine that this will be like summer camp and I will (hopefully) be the cool consoler who lets you sneak out after curfew to play kickball, take an extra piece of cake with dinner, and climb that ultra dangerous rock wall that no one is suppose go up.

So, I wrote a couple days ago regarding current predicament regarding a job. Frankly, I don't want one. I really don't feel like spending what could possibly be the last summer I spend before adult-hood working in corporate America as a tool for the man. Maybe that sounds a little bonkers, maybe I am just being a little bitch, or maybe I just finally got something right.

I have been thinking a lot the last couple of days about what options lie before me. I have applied to a couple big electronic retail chains but am yet to get a call. I figured I could see myself selling DVDs and MP3 players all summer, it couldn't be that bad, right?

Well, I may have a better plan. For those of you who don't know me all too well, I am a cocky bitch sometimes. I really feel like I can do things better than others and I have no doubt in my mind that I will succeed at what I do. Is that a bad quality to have? I am sure that sometimes it is. Has it helped me to get where I am in life right now? Definitely.

After a couple hours of thinking, I have come to the conclusion that I would be better off just sitting at home all summer on a webcam, working out ways to make money. Basically, I want to turn my life into a reality show. For those of you who have watched Four48, my summer would turn into me sitting and playing video games online for 20-30 hours a week. Friends would join me at times, hilarity would ensure, and we would all have a great time. All of this would happen while I worked up ways to make it rich online. Basically, I would sit at the computer and put my entrepreneurial skills to work for all the world to see.

My goal would be to make $3000, which is more of less the money I am less the money I would miss out on by not joining the world of employment. I have a couple "products" up my sleeve and really think i could make this work. I am pretty confident that I could come up with something that lots of people enjoy, all while playing video games and chilling out the entire summer. I mean seriously, who wouldn't want to play Zelda while chatting

I guess at this point, I really just need to convince my parents that I am capable and then hopefully set up a timetable to begin. I don't know how happy the parentals will be, but I will definitely let everyone know when I finally help them realize that I am going to make a living by sitting in their basement and playing Pokemon.

Feel free to e-mail me your words of support or advice, I may need them. Cameron@CameronBanga.com haha.

Hey everyone, sorry for the hiatus. School again is killing me and the GM position at the radio station is going to be much more work then I ever expected. The good news is, I will get to run the station that won Indiana College Radio Station of the Year, which is unbelievable. I really can't think of much bad with that, except for the fact that free time will be virtually non-existent. Regardless, I am pumped and I definitely suggest that you all tune into 95.1 FM when driving through Valparaiso or just check out our website www.valpo.edu/wvur. (if you check out the NewsCenter95 section, you can hear me report news, isn't that sweet?)

Only two weeks left here at Valpo and I am still looking for a summer job. I really have no idea what I am going to do, since I turned down this sweet internship I had last summer. I enjoyed it, but the driving was just a bitch to be honest. With drive time, hours worked, and a required hour lunch (who needs an hour to eat? It takes me 15 min), the job turned into a 55 hour a week affair. It pretty much just burnt me out and I didn't really enjoy it much to be honest.

So I need a job. I applied at Best Buy and Circuit City but no response from those two fine retailers yet. I may try to hit up some other places like Menards, Barnes and Nobles, Borders, and maybe Target? Who knows?

I was just thinking that it would be sweet if I could make money being Cameron Banga. I really am starting to wonder as to if it would be possible to make $3000 or so in a summer somehow through this website. Pretty much I could just broadcast a whole lot of my life and then see what happened. It would be a fun little project, but I really don't know where the revenue would come from. Maybe I will put some more thought to it.

10 days till freedom. Wish me luck on finals.