blog dot cameronbanga dot com

New Website

2009-03-13T15:22:00.002-05:00

If you're checking this blog post out, you've probably noticed that this is no longer "www.cameronbanga.com." I've decided to do a little bit of an update and you can now see that the site has become a bit more plain and basic. I really just wanted the homepage to do a better job of explaining who I am and what I do.

I'll still keep this blog here at blog.cameronbanga.com, so this site won't change much at all. It just won't be located at the same address as it used to be.

If you have comments or suggestions about the new look, send me an e-mail to Cameron@CameronBanga.com.
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What's Up with Four48

2009-03-04T13:34:00.003-06:00

I've been receiving a bunch of IMs/Wall Posts/Tweets about when the next Four48 event will take place, so I figured it would make a bunch of sense to write a little post on the current status of the team and why you haven't seen any events as of late.

The lack of action on the Four48 front has nothing to do with a lack of desire among the team or should it indicate that we will never throw another event. It's just that any game marathon event takes up an unbelievable amount of time and resources which we don't have right now.

I really hate making it sound like we don't love doing Four48 events, because I think I can speak for anyone who has helped out with an event when I say that we enjoy it pretty much more than anything in the world. Who wouldn't like playing video games with friends for unbelievable amounts of hours while raising money for charity? It's tough when I get asked often as to when the next event is going to be and I don't have a solid answer because I feel as if it seems that I don't care.

I guess I just want to go into a bit of depth as to what is involved in a Four48 event which will hopefully give a bit of insight as to why these things are so hard to organize.

First, you need a bunch of people. Most importantly, two or three people need to be above average gamers to get through 48 hours worth of game play. While we usually play through the Zelda series, which isn't always an exceptionally difficult, real simple puzzles and bosses become extraordinarily tough after 20-30 hours without sleep. I usually spend my entire time during a marathon watching the computer and technically set up and interacting with viewers. Add a person to help keep people awake and make Taco Bell runs and you can see how you pretty much need a full staff on hand throughout the entirety of any game marathon.

Next, you need adequate space with reliable internet. We typically broadcast using only my Macbook and Justin.tv, which is pretty bare minimum. We would love to have better cameras, microphones, etc, but then you add a lot of cost and technically mess. In addition to my computer sucking as much bandwidth as possible through ethernet cable, we also tend to have two more laptops and maybe an iPod Touch or two surfing the web to keep up with Skype calls, viewer e-mail, blog responses, Digg comments, chatrooms, and the like. As you can only imagine, internet reliability is a must. We also need a location where people don't mind 5-10 somewhat loud college kids roaming around for two straight days. It works great when we're all at school together and can use dorm rooms, but not so much when we're outside Valpo. We had our last event at my house and my family was great about it, but to a point it gets tough to live your ordinary life of going to work and living around the house when you have a team of college kids running around trying to beat Zelda games without sleep. I thank my parents and brother for their tolerance, but don't feel like I should throw that kind of lifestyle upon them at home.

Which leads into the next big problem, the only time that most of us have to do this kind of event is when we're at home on break and spread hundreds or even thousands of miles apart from other Four48 team members. I know personally that my life is crazy right now, with most days lasting from 9am to 1am with class, homework, or work filling in all the time in between those hours. Add on an internship and homework on the weekends and it becomes increasingly difficult to find two days to set aside for a marathon. I know everyone else on the team is in a similar position, which makes it real hard to get the necessary team of 5-6 people to have a successful event. The crazy thing is, even if you find the time for one of these events, a majority of the work comes before and after you're ever on camera. We spend tons of hours working before a marathon to prep those who will be playing games, send e-mails to promote the event, answering e-mails after the event, and talking to media outlets in the case of our more successful events. To give you guys a bit of an idea, I spent at least a half hour conducting interviews with about 10 newspapers, radio stations, websites, podcasters, etc after our first marathon in 2007. It all just adds up to be an unmanageable amount of time.

So with that, I just wanted to give a bit of insight as to why you haven't seen a Four48 event in the last couple of months. We're not "broken up" or anything, but we don't have an immediate plans for the near future either. Fear not my friends, we will one day rise again like a phoenix and save the world from a lack of charitable gaming marathons. It just won't happen next weekend haha.

Special thanks to the couple dozen of you who have contacted me in the last month or so via IM, Facebook, Twitter, E-mail, or even in person to ask about Four48 and what's going on. We really appreciate your continued support more than we could ever let you know. It's crazy that we're a over a year removed from our initial marathon and people still seem to care about what we're up to. As an apology of sorts, I know that there are a couple of you who often contact me and don't get a response. It's not that I'm ever ignoring you or anything, it's just that I often get a significant amount of messages or IMs and don't get time to catch up. I'll try to get better at it, promise.

Hope this answers all the questions I've been getting. If I didn't get to your specific question, hit me up on Facebook or e-mail me at Cameron@CameronBanga.com.

-CB
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Zach Braff Interview

2009-01-19T23:53:00.002-06:00

It's been a while, so I figured I would get a quick post in. Life's been flying by and I need time to catch up haha. Classes are picking up pretty hard and I added two internships this semester. One is working in with this newly started business in Valpo and the other is with Dawdle.com. Add those jobs onto the radio station and I'm a pretty busy boy.

Speaking of the radio station, I had the really neat opportunity of interviewing Zach Braff a couple weeks ago on the day of the season premiere of the new season of Scrubs. I didn't really know this before hand, but he is apparently a really big celebrity to most people. I had more people ask me questions about him and the interview than when I had a chance to interview Woz, which the inner nerd in me found utterly ridiculous.

Anyways, here is a link. I would love for you to leave a comment or send me an e-mail to Cameron@CameronBanga.com. I really want to know what you like/hate about the interview and how I can improve.
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Twitter for Beginners

2009-01-02T23:55:00.006-06:00

I wanted to throw a quick guide together for those who are interested in using Twitter, since I have been getting some questions about it as of late. If you really know me, then you are most likely aware of the fact that I am a HUGE proponent of the service and I want every single person I know to use it.

So what is Twitter and why should you use it? If you're on Facebook (and I'll assume you are if you're even somewhat interested in checking out this guide), I want you to think about what the purpose of a Facebook status is. Do you change your status often? Do you ever find yourself checking out what your friends are up to? It can be addicting to know what your friends are up to at any given time, can't it?

Twitter works essentially the same way as your Facebook status, except it works a lot better with your cellphone (you use that a lot, don't you?). You can have your updates posted on your blog. You can even have your Twitter sync with your Facebook status, so that way your status will update when you tweet (a common word for a Twitter post, you'll catch onto the lingo quick enough).

Frankly, there are a lot of ways to use the service and it's hard to explain to someone who has never tried it out. Hopefully, this little beginner's guide will give you a small look into why Twitter can be so dang cool. Let's start by taking a look at the sign up process.

When you first visit Twitter.com, you'll find yourself at this landing page. After your initial account creation, you will enter your user name and password to log-in. If you don't have an account yet, you just need to click the big green "Join the conversation" button to begin.

The sign-up process is fairly simple and similar to other websites that you may have joined in your internet career. In Twitterland, it's fairly common to use your real name as a user name. When looking for things to avoid in a user name, remember that each tweet (the slang word for a Twitter post, you remember that, right? you're catching on already!) can only be 140 characters long and it is advantageous to keep your user name short (I should have thought about that when I chose CameronBanga, oh well, no going back now). You also may want to refrain from using underscores (they look like this _) because those tend to be hard to type in on cellphones and you want it to be as easy as possible for friends to get in contact with you.
Now that you have successfully signed up for a Twitter account, let's take a look at what you need to know about your home page. Mine may look a bit different than yours right now and that's alright. You can always tweak the colors and look of the page like I did, but the basic principles always remain the same. At the top left corner, you'll see a huge Twitter logo. Click on that at any time to return to this home page. Below that, you'll see a huge text box asking you "What are you doing?" With this box, you enter in tweets (I don't have to explain the word anymore, right? see, you're catching on super quick). Your tweets can be as basic or extravagant as you would like, that's the beauty of Twitter. The only rule is, your tweet can be no longer than 140 characters in length. You can tweet one hundred times a day, five times a day, about important events in your life, or about the lady in a funny hat next to you at the grocery store. It doesn't matter at all, but you do need to keep it under 140 characters in length. You may think that this limits your artistic freedom to express what you truly feel, but it really doesn't. Brevity is key and just may be Twitter's greatest strength. Below your tweet box, you will find the timeline of tweets for the people you follow (we'll talk about how to follow later). In Twitter, you follow your friends, family, or just people you find interesting. Imagine a person you follow to be similar to a Facebook or MySpace friend. This is just a big list of everything that they are tweeting in real time. Check this out and keep up with friends often, because that's the main point of Twitter. Taking a look at your friends' tweets would be like checking out your friends' Facebook statuses. Moving further along the tour of your home page, you will find a little menu bar on the top right of the page. Here you can view your profile, find new friends, or change your settings. Below that in the blue box on the right, you will see the number of people you are following/following you. You can also check out your @replies (what is that? we'll discuss later as well), direct messages (again, we'll talk after the tour), favorite tweets (you can favorite tweets that you find to be super hilarious or useful for easy findings later), as well as a tweet roll for everyone using the service in the world.

So we've taken the tour, you have a user name, but you don't have anyone to follow. Now you need to use Twitter's search tool or get a user name from a friend that you know on the service (as a general note, everyone's Twitter page can be found at twitter.com/username. for example, I can be found at twitter.com/cameronbanga). Once you get to the page of a friend or company you would like to follow, you'll be presented with a page that look's similar to this.
This is my soon to be friend, Darth Vader. You may have heard of him, since he was a big movie star long ago in a galaxy far, far away. The page looks similar to yours, except fo a big "Follow" button below the avatar. If you want to follow a person (and I really want to follow Darth Vader), then click that gray button and you'll be presented with this screen.
Now, everything Darth Vader tweets will be in the timeline on my home page. Everything is starting to make sense now, isn't it? The more people you follow, the more tweets in your timeline, the more fun Twitter becomes. Go find some friends and follow them on Twitter, but keep reading this guide after you're finished because I have some more important things to tell you about your favorite new web service.

Check out your settings menu (you can find that in the menu bar on the upper right portion of any page on Twitter) and set up your device for your mobile phone right now. Trust me. Twitter is an experience that you get the most out of once you immerse yourself in it. Click the Devices tab and set up your mobile phone (the site has instructions for you, they are real easy to follow and you should be able to set it up in now time by yourself). You can now send(just send a text message to Twitter's text number, 40404) and receive tweets through your cell phone (well, not exactly receive yet. there are a couple steps that we need to do first which I'll talk about in a minute). Remember that standard text messaging rates do apply, so be careful if you don't have unlimited texting. Twitter itself doesn't charge you a penny for this service, but you can go through a bunch of text messages real quick by receiving or sending tweets. Like I mentioned earlier, you do need to go through a couple more steps before receiving tweets on your cell phone. Let's go back to Darth Vader's page.
Remember this screen from when we followed him? If I want to receive Darth Vader's tweets to my mobile phone, I need to click the little bubble next to On below "Device updates." This may seem like a pain in the butt, but it makes sure that you only receive text message updates from people you really want to recieve them from. It may not seem like a big deal at first, but you will soon find yourself following a bunch of people and it may become somewhat overwelming to receive everyone's tweets to your cell. Are we done and will I receive Darth Vader's next tweet to my cellphone? Not quite. Let's go back to our home page.

Scroll down the page the little and below the pictures of everyone you are following, you'll see a couple more bubbles under "Device Updates." You need to make sure that the bubble next to phone is blue and filled in. Now, I will receive Darth Vader's (and any other people I set up for) tweets on my cell phone. I can reply to those from my mobile phone as well. Wait, what is a reply you ask? We'll let's talk about that right now.
When you hover over any tweet in your home page timeline, you will see a hollow star and arrow appear. The star allows you to favorite a tweet. By clicking on it, the color of the star will become yellow and you can find that tweet in your favorites page. By clicking on the arrow, you can @reply to a tweet.
@Replies are Twitter's way or specifically aiming a tweet at a specific person. Here, I let Aaron know that I enjoyed his suggestion. When he clicks on the @Replies tab on the right part of his home page, he can see every tweet that has ever been directed to him. You can use @replies to answer questions, as I just did. You can also use it to tell other Twitter users that you are hanging out or doing something with a specific person, as in this example, "Hanging out with @hcassin and @adamamin. Going to see a movie." As you can see, it's better to have a short user name so that when people @reply you, your user name doesn't take a whole bunch of characters out of the 140 character tweet limit. Twitter also allows for direct messages, which are private between you and the person you are direct messaging with.

So now you can maybe just start to see the benefits of signing up with Twitter. It's a great social networking tool and allows you to keep up with tons of friends through short tweets. You can learn a bunch more about people you know and work with while also having an amazing way to get in contact with them as well. So now that you know the basics, what else is there to learn about the service?

There are lots of great tools and services which help make the Twitter experience ever better. As a I mentioned before, Twitter is best when you fully immerse yourself in the experience. You need to use your phone, a desktop client, TwitPic, etc in order to gain the full benefit of Twitter. Let's take a look at some of the other Twitter tools that you can use.

TweetDeck is an Adobe Air application that gives you a fully functional client on your desktop. Here you can make tweets, see your timeline, see @replies, create groups, and follow popular trends without needing to hit your web browser. Once you start following a bunch of people, you will enjoy groups and easy viewing of @replies to keep up with all the tweets flying your way.

If you want to see what other people are saying around the Twitter universe, check out http://search.twitter.com. Here, you can enter in a key word and see what others are saying about any topic. It's a great way to keep up with popular topics in the news or to see what people are saying about the company you work for, your favorite sports team, the weather, or anything else.

On an iPhone or iPod Touch? Check out Twitterific or the many other Twitter apps available on Apple's Application Store. These apps allow for more functionality on the small screen.
TwitPic is a website that lets you easily post pictures in tweets. Just sign in using your Twitter user name, follow the instructions, and you can send images through e-mail or text message which will be posted by link as tweets from your Twitter account. It's a great way to break from the 140 character threshold, since a picture is worth a thousand words. And I'm pretty sure that if you had a thousand words, you would also have more than 140 characters.

There are tons of applications and websites which help you get more out of Twitter and you can definitely check those out and learn about them on your own as you use the service more and more. Hopefully this guide helped you take your first steps into one of my favorite web services and if you have any questions, feel free to send them to me at Cameron@CameronBanga.com.

Twenty GameCube Games That Wii Owners Can't Live Without

2008-12-24T14:13:00.004-06:00

With tomorrow being Christmas, it's safe to assume that a Nintendo Wii or two will wind up under someone's tree (the one million sold in the US last week have to go somewhere, don't they?)

With this huge influx of new Wii owners, there is guaranteed to be a rise in the number of people suffering from tell tale symptoms of "gamer in need of new sweet new games" disease. It's a horrible condition and I definitely want to do my part to help keep the outbreak at a minimum.

Now, I don't want anyone to take this article as an attack at the Wii's current game library. There are plenty of great Wii games to choose from and you can check out IGN, Joystiq, or 1UP for info on those games. I'm here to cater to a different crowd.

With Wii sales now totalling over 43 million units worldwide, Nintendo has more than doubled the total console sales of the GameCube. That's great and I'm glad to see Nintendo return to gaming prominence, but that still means that there are AT LEAST 21 million Wii owners who never got a chance to own the wonderful purple console with a handle. They missed out on tons of classics with hundreds of hours of great gameplay.

With the Wii being completely backwards compatable, owners who never had a GameCube also find themselves with an extensive library of titles available for cheap. If you're a new Wii owner on a budget, there is an unbelievable amount of triple A titles awaiting your purchase in the discount bin at your local GameStop. I'm here to help let you know which of those titles are worth your time and hard earned dinero.

I've compiled a list of what I feel to be the 20 best GameCube titles around. The list is definitely of the countdown variety, so go with the lower numbered titles first if possible. However, you really can't go wrong with any title on the list. I've also given a little description of the game and if you click the name of each title, you'll be linked to the corresponding GameRankings.com page for a more indepth review.

Disagree with my top 20? Did I miss out on a key title? Send me an e-mail to Cameron@CameronBanga.com or hit me up on Twitter at @CameronBanga.

Now without any further ado, here is the list of 20 GameCube games that Wii owners can't live without.

20. Pikmin 2 - A RTS done right on a console. Pikmin 2 is the same great gameplay from Pikmin with more depth and detail. Controlling the Pikmin is over half the fun in the game. Pikmin isn't for everyone though. Some might find the controls tricky and complicated if they aren't familiar with RTS games.

19. Mario Power Tennis - I had a hard time deciding on if I should add this game to the list. With Wii Sports bundled in with the Wii, gamers can play tennis to their hearts content. However, Power Tennis offers more depth and detail and will keep tennis fans busy for a long time.

18. Super Monkey Ball 2 - If you haven't played any Monkey Ball game before, you're missing out on one of Sega's greatest gaming gems. Anyone can enjoy this puzzle hit. The later stages will push even the most skilled gamers into an intense level of concentration. Everyone should own either Super Monkey Ball 1 or 2 for the GameCube.

17. Star Wars Rogue Leader: Rogue Squadron II - This game has held a special place in my heart ever since I picked it up on the GameCube's launch night. The missions are varied and interesting enough to keep any gamer happy for hours.

16. Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour - A great solid golf game. Much better than the golf game thrown together in Wii Sports. It doesn't feature motion control, but this game offers a fair amount of unlockable characters and courses. I do think that Mario Golf for the N64 is a better game. If your willing to wait, I would hold out and spend my money on the N64 version of this game whenever it is released for the Virtual Console.

15. Resident Evil (aka REmake) - The original Resident Evil won the hearts of many gamers when it was released for the PS1. I had never played the original, so this was perfect for me. Controls can be a little lackluster at times, however this is still a quality game.

14. Super Mario Sunshine - This game might have received more shit than any other game in the GameCube's lifespan. I guess that is what happens when you are technically a sequel to Super Mario 64. No, this game does not revolutionize gaming like Super Mario 64 did in 1996. That doesn't make it a bad platformer. I recommend that everyone checks out this game, just don't expect anything to be leaps and bounds over Super Mario 64.

13. F-Zero GX - It didn't sell too well and it wasn't well recieved by many. Plainly stated, this game was hard. Very hard. If you have the patience to practice and master this game, it could be one of the most rewarding things you have ever done in gaming. ONLY FOR RACING DIE HARDS.

12. Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes - Poor sales of this game and Eternal Darkness lead to the end of Nintendo's friendship with Silicon Knights studio. Don't let sale numbers fool you, this game is of superb quality. This game is another quality rerelease on the 'Cube. Again, if you have played the original, you might want to take a pass. If you have never played this Kojima classic, be sure to pick it up and enjoy. It only takes about 15 hours to complete, but I guarantee that it will be the best hours of your life.

11. Animal Crossing - Many will argue with me about placing this game so high up on the list. Simply stated, this game created a new genre of sorts. It was often compared to the popular "Sims" games which doesn't quite do this title justice. You WERE an inhabitant of the world in which you created. Day and night passed and people changed. The DS version released a little over a year ago was a better game. The GameCube version just helped create and define a title which will carry great power on Nintendo systems for years to come. That alone deserves a top position.

10. Lost Kingdoms - One of two real sleeper titles I still have on my list. This game is amazing and I almost promise that you have never heard of it. The story and graphics might be typical but the gameplay isn't. This game focuses on collecting a team on monsters in a deck of cards. The concept it hard to explain in words, but the game is wonderful in action. Definitely worth the seven bucks or so you will find it for at your local GameStop.

9. Eternal Darkness - A game that defines the GameCube. It is amazing, yet it sold like shit. If Nintendo has a kiddy image, this game didn't help create it. The story and gameplay are better than any other horror game on the market. What made ED stand out was a certain gameplay element which I really won't go into detail in because it ruins the game. Want to know what that element is? Do yourself a favor and go purchase this game.

8. Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door - I just finished this game less than 24 hours ago. Never before has a game given me such mixed feelings. Part of me wants to praise this game as a great RPG that should be number 2 or 3 on this list. The other part of me placed this game at number 8. This game is slowly paced and involves several fetch quests. The battle system is great and I want to keep finding bigger and badder enemies and bosses. The game would rather send me on a fetch quest and that just pisses me off. This game does have depth on it's side. If you find every badge and shine, you will easily put 50-60 hours into the adventure.

7. Viewtiful Joe - An amazing franchise that saw it's rise and fall before the Wii was even released. The original VJ was a wonderfully fresh side scroller that made games feel like kids again. Capcom would overkill the franchise with too many sequels in too short a time span. That shouldn't stop you from picking up the first game. Just a friendly tip, go through the game first on child mode. Adult mode will kick your ass.

6. Metroid Prime - Considered by many to be the greatest Metroid game. I think 2D Samus is a little better, however this is still a great game. FTS fans and adventure fans will both find this game amazing as it wonderfully intertwines the two genres.

5. Tales of Symphonia - The RPG that PS2 owners wished they had. It made up for the lack of any meaningful Final Fantasy on the system. This game provided a hell of an adventure with a great story and even better gameplay. Battles never got old and the game offered tons of collectible items that could make fights even better. The game does have several fetch quests which do piss me off. They are however placed out evenly enough and sparsely enough that I never even cared.

4. Beyond Good and Evil - This game is easily the Cinderella of the list. Ubisoft delivered a gem which was released on all last-generation systems. It also sold poorly on all last-gen systems. This game was a hit on every level. Story, music, character design, level design, difficulty, and gameplay were all perfect. The game's one flaw is it's length. It is only about 13 hours or so long. I do give Ubisoft credit for keeping the game short instead of just adding in a big cup of boredom to extend the game's length. I bought this game for ten bucks about two years ago and it is still one of the best investments I have ever made.

3. The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker - Another Nintendo game that received a ton of flak. Cell-shading or not, this game is a triple A title. Don't let the colorful appearance fool you, this game is beautiful. The game is polished and a welcome addition to the Zelda series. The game is unbelievably polished. Every moment is wonderful. Well, except for the Tri-Force shard hunting late in the game. Damn fetch quests.

2. Resident Evil 4 - The most amazing survival horror game of all-time. Easily one of the best games of the last generation. Personally, I still think the controls are a wee (wow a bad pun) bit wack. Don't let that make you think twice about this game. It is still an unbelievable experience. The best part about it is the price. You can find this game for around $15 or even in the Resident Evil 10th Anniversary Pack which includes RE 0, REmake, and RE4 for a great reasonable price.

1. Super Smash Bros. Melee - Every once in a game comes along that is damn near perfect. Melee is that game. No other game on the GameCube provides the hours of fun of this first generation GameCube game. I will go out on a limb and say this game could quite possibly change your life. The amount of depth in this game is enough to drive any perfectionist to insanity. Collecting trophies, unlocking characters and levels, and playing countless multi-player matches against your friends will continue to be fun even after as much as 100 hours of gameplay. If you have a Wii or a GameCube, go buy this game now. If you don't have the cash, sell the computer your reading this on and go buy this game. You'll make the right decision.

Well, that's it for my top 20 list of GameCube games. If your a new Wii owner who has never owned a Nintendo system, go pick yourself up a WaveBird controller and a few of those games. Any game on this list will be a great addition to any library. If I missed any games or if you want to argue with my order, be sure to leave a comment or e-mail me at Cameron@CameronBanga.com

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Things to Accomplish in 2009

2008-12-23T12:41:00.002-06:00

So, we're just over a week away from twenty-o-nine and it's crazy to think that another year and up and gone. 2008 may not have been as savage as 2007, but it was a great 366 days none the less. It's now time to prep for the new year and what would celebrate the occasion better than resolutions?

Here is a list of a couple things that I would like to work on in 2009. We'll see how many of these I actually stick with.

Eat healthier - Going to supplement fruit for crap foods more. No eating after 8:30pm if possible. I would also like to drink more water.
Find more time to read - Even if it's not books, I would like to keep up with RSS feeds, news sites, and Alltop.
Learn more about economics - I am really starting to enjoy the subject I decided to spend 4 years studying in college. I really want to grasp economics better this year.
Find a workout schedule that works again - I need to start running again or something. I got out of the habit just over a year ago and have been kicking myself ever since.
Start meditating regularly - I have done it a couple times and would love to get in the habit of doing it on a regular basis.
Schedule time better - I need to sit down and iCal my life to death. I need to be more productive and organized with my time.
Organize two great Four48 events - I would really love to see continued success with the philanthropic group we started about a year ago.
Be a better leader, friend, and person - Kinda self explanatory. I want to be a mensch.

I may come back to revise or add to this list later. Any suggestions? Comment me or send me an e-mail to Cameron@CameronBanga.com

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We Need Four48 Suggestions!

2008-12-20T14:12:00.000-06:00

So, it's been about 5 months since we last had a Four48 event. Back in July, we played through seven Zelda games in seventy hours while raising $2500 for Child's Play with the help of the Mario Marathon team. The Four48 team played through the four 3D Zelda games in 47 hours 28 minutes and was able to finally get past the Majora Mask hump and accomplish the goal we originally had last January.

It was an amazing two days as we took Skype calls from around the world, saw the making of McNugget McFlurries, and danced the night away to Rick Astley. Needless to say, we would love to do another event soon.

We're looking for ideas for our next event. While we still need to look at schedules and see what if a marathon is possible in the near future, we would love to see if anyone has a great way in which we can play games while raising money for charity.

For example, I had this crazy idea of playing Mario Kart outside while handcuffed to some sort of immovable object. It was hard to get other team members excited about the idea, but it was a thought haha. Anyways, we're looking for the most outlandish and crazy ideas for the next marathon and need your help. Have a suggestion? E-mail it to me at Cameron@CameronBanga.com, leave a comment, or get ahold of me through Facebook. We would love to make whatever we do next the most memorable Four48 event EVER.

Can't wait to hear from you.
<3 Cameron
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The New Internet and How It Changes Organizational Management

2008-12-18T10:04:00.003-06:00

This last semester, I had a real interesting class on organizational behavior. While many of the fundamentals that we learned were fairly simple (I mean, who thinks that it is a great job to yell at employees?), it was amazing to see examples of just how bad management in this country can be.

For our final project in the class, we had to write a paper focused on a current trend in management and then look at research to see if the trend has been successful. Being a huge social media nerd, I wrote my paper on web 2.0 products like Twitter and their influence on the corporate world. Because the topic was similar to things I typically blog about, I have decided to post a copy of the paper here. Let me know what you think, I am curious as to if anyone agrees/disagrees with me.

As a little note: I had some footnotes and cited articles for the paper, but couldn't get those to translate over to this blog post very well. If you are really interested in the works I used, e-mail me at Cameron@CameronBanga.com and I'll send you a list.

Introduction
Over the last ten to fifteen years, the internet has become one of the most valuable tool used by a business. During this transition, several significant developments by companies like Google have helped drastically change the way that some companies go about managing collaboration, communication, and social interaction between employees. While these technologies are growing by the second and can be nearly impossible for the typical internet user to keep up with, it is necessary for managers to consider the following question; in what new ways could our company use new internet technologies and can these new services bring benefits to a company? Let's begin by taking a look at a new service which is revolutionizing internet communication.

Research

1. Communication and Twitter
Communication is one aspect of business that can never become obsolete with technology, but technology and the internet are bringing about drastic changes in how companies communicate internally as well as with customers. Using the internet for communication isn't a new idea, in fact it was the motivating factor behind the US Government's research and funding for projects which lead to the internet as we now know it back in the 1950s. E-mail and instant messaging have long been the methods of choice for businesses and households alike, with an estimated 60 billion e-mails sent worldwide per day.1 However, the future of internet communication may just lie in the lands of a growing web start-up called Twitter, a short form communication tool in which users "tweet" messages of a maximum 140 characters which are then passed on to other users within the network. Recently, the web company has seen it's fair share of press after rejecting several bids by social-media giant Facebook for an estimated 500 million dollars worth of stock options. Why would any company spend half of a billion dollars on a web start-up that didn't pull in a dollar of revenue last year? For one simple reason, Twitter has the potential to change the web like text messaging changed the way teens use cell phones. In fact, Twitter works a lot like text messaging by giving users a network of friends in which they can send tiny messages. Twitter allows users to send and receive updates in web browsers, through text messages, and by desktop based computer applications. If you use a computer or cell phone at all during the day, it is easy to stay connected through Twitter and keep tabs on what's going on in the lives of any number of people. A network of coworkers all using Twitter can send quick updates throughout the day, much like by e-mail, but with less clutter and the conversation history is available and searchable forever. For example, one person in the office could send a Twitter message stating, "the office copier isn't working, IT was called and are on their way" and would eliminate the need to fill e-mail boxes with a bit of somewhat useless information while also keeping coworkers up to date on an ongoing office problem. This is just one simple example but the same principle can be applied to situations in and out of the office as one can easily keep up with updates while out of town at meetings or at a conference. The service has also changed the way that many companies market or deal with customer support. Online retailer Amazon uses their Twitter account to alert followers of online deals while JetBlue airlines keeps a customer service representative in charge of their Twitter account twenty-four hours a day, giving customers the opportunity to send messages through Twitter to the company directly while at the airport if service, such as the use of a wheelchair, is needed. One company which has worked extensively to integrate Twitter into the workplace is online shoe retailer Zappos.com. The company opened it's doors in 1999 and in less than ten years has developed into a company which will sell over one billion dollars in shoes this fiscal year. Zappos encourages all employees to use a Twitter account, which CEO Tony Hsieh sees as an important relationship tool, "We feel Twitter allows us to develop a more personal connection with our customers and employees. We don't really view it as a marketing tool, it's more of a relationship-building tool. The telephone is the same way."2 Though the service does provide many unique opportunities internal communication as well as with building relationships with customers, Twitter has forced many of the companies which have embraced it to develop new codes of conduct and expectations for employees using the service. Many see Twitter as an fun and interesting way to communicate and exchange ideas, but it is important to remember that everything on the site is public and has repercussions. Somewhat jocular or unintentionally inappropriate statements on these sites have seen a magnifying glass as the corporate world learns more about how to interact with the internet world. One highly discussed and noteworthy situation of the internet meshing with the business world which has somewhat set precedent for the future of the corporate web occurred back in 2007 when a vice-president of the PR firm Edelman posted the following on his Twitter account, "PC Mag is another. I have a free sub but it goes in the trash." Soon after, PC Magazine Editor-in-Chief Jim Louderback viewed the post and wrote a rather lengthy essay on the topic and gave a personal insight into his thought process on how to handle the public insult of the publication.3 While this story ended in a somewhat happy ending as both men settled their differences over the post and were able to reconcile any differences or misunderstandings, it is still looked at by many who follow this social media revolution as an important reminder that all things on the internet are said in a public manner and that any conversation or poorly thought out blog post could result in serious relationship and ultimately financial ramifications for a business if these tools are used without simple consideration as to how other people will react to any posted content.

Research and Conclusion on Twitter
While the jury may still be out on the overall effectiveness of Twitter as a communication device, important information can already be drawn from research on site growth. Like any communication service, it is quite clear that if the service is indeed effect, people will use it and migrate towards it. If it doesn't work and users don't find it effect, people will refrain from using the product and will move onto other alternatives. Twitter has seen strong growth with businesses and corporate users, with one recent brand survey finding that over 650 businesses, governments, musical artists, and writers frequently using the service.4 Another 2007 study conducted by several University of Maryland student researchers have found user growth rates for Twitter to remain constant with intermittent periods of exponential growth as new industries or potential user bases learn of the service.5 Even though Twitter is still young, research has shown that users are flocking to the communication service and that the program could drastically change how managers communicate with employees and companies with customers.

2. Office Software Suites
Another way in which the internet and Web 2.0 philosophies are mixing up established office principles is through digital document creation and collaboration. For years, Microsoft's Office suite has been the industry leader in developing word processors, spreadsheets, and presentation software and if you've ever worked in an environment with a computer, you've used Word, Excel, or Powerpoint. It's long been accepted that if one is to work in an office environment, basic skills in these programs is essential and expected. Managers often have no need to train people on the basics, but problems do arise when collaboration must occur with documents. While Microsoft Office has become extremely prevalent in the work place, managers often find difficulties when employees have documents lost after computer failures or when difficulty arise in e-mailing documents. In an attempt to make office document work simpler, web giant Google has developed a worthwhile competitor in Google Docs. The suite is entirely web based with a word processor, spreadsheet editor, and presentation creator which work entirely through a web browser. The trio of office programs comes as part of the Google Apps team of online programs which are targeted at home consumers as well as businesses with features such as automatic document saving which occurs every sixty seconds, the ability to save the document to a computer in a multitude of file formats such as .word or .pdf, the ability for multiple users to collaborate on and edit the same document, and an extensive revision history which allows the user to go back in time and edit the document from a previous point before changes were made. The Google Docs suite also is beneficial to employees on the go or for those who often work out of both a brick-and-mortar and home offices with the software making all of a user's documents available from any internet capable computer on the planet by just logging into the Google Applications website. While this feature set rival's Microsoft's suite, it is also provided at no cost whereas Microsoft Office can run between $150 and $680 per user license which can be quite costly for even a small business with only several dozen employees. Price tends to be the primary reason why users are moving to the new Google backed suite, as Google offers their suite for free with the ability for businesses users to buy a premium user package which gives phone support, larger storage space, and several other features for only $50 per year per user.

Research and Conclusion on Google's Office Suite
Like Twitter, Google Docs has had little time to see research done on it's retention rates among business users or to develop user satisfaction reports. However, the current research statistics on user growth has shown that the suite has something going for it which managers are buying into. USA Today ran a report earlier this year finding that Google was able to bring on over half a million paid premium corporate and small business users to the service in it's first year with millions more using the free service. Not only are businesses moving from Microsoft's Office suite to Google, but they are doing so at an exponential rate with the service seeing over 20,000 new users per day. 6 While new software packages like Google Docs do not carry the Microsoft Office trademark which many corporations have come to trust, it seems quite clear that many managers are already looking to migrate to new services as ways to cut cost and become more efficient in the office place.

3. Corporate Blogging
A third way in which many managers are seeing change in the workplace is through a recent development called corporate blogging. Blogging in and of itself is much a recent web idea, gaining strong momentum in 1999 when programmer and popular online writer Peter Merholz gave the practice of keeping a web journal, or web log, the now household name of blog. The name stuck and the practice of keeping a blog grew exponentially with the launch of web service Blogger late in August 1999. It was estimated that only around 30 established blogs existed at the time of Blogger's launch, a number which exploded to over three million by the end of 2004.7 As individuals began to use this new form of internet media to document their lives and share opinions on any multitude of products, it was not initially apparent that blogging and the workplace would ever coincide. It wasn't until 2002 when blogger Heather Armstrong was fired from her job as a graphic designer due to blogging about her work experiences that managers were forced to rethink workplace policies and include corporate opinions upon employee kept blogs. For a couple years, blogging was seen as a leisure activity and much like a private journal. It wasn't until blog entrepreneurship companies like Weblogs Inc. were formed about a year after the Armstrong firing that corporations realized large amounts of people were reading these blogs and that they were being used as a marketable form of media much like a newspaper or magazine. With such large audiences flocking to this new form of media, corporations and their managers were forced to reassess how firms could integrate these blogs into a company and thus corporate blogging was formed. By forming new corporate blogs, managers have been forced into determining what kind of format the blog should follow and which employees inside the company are doing the blogging. No one formula has been the only key to success and many different companies have been able to gain large followings through this form of viral marketing. Large traditional companies like Boeing, General Motors, and Johnson & Johnson have found success in allowing upper management such as vice-presidents or CEOs discuss important company decisions or the corporate stance on topics such as changes in the economy through well thought out posts which real much like marketing literature. In contrast, Web and technology companies tend to have somewhat different company blogs with companies like instant messaging start-up Meebo, live-video broadcaster Justin.tv, and social news aggregation service Digg typically encourage team members like programmers or customer service representatives to develop context for the company blog which focuses around recently released products and company culture in an extremely personal and often playful manner. Many well established companies tend to see blogs a potential advertising and marketing venture much like a television ad or company literature whereas younger web companies see the blogs as a way for customers to feel connected to the company while giving sense give a greater transparency to the business. What may be most interesting when looking at blog search engine Technorati's list of top corporate blogs is the fact that neither type seems to see a great preference from readers and that many are interested in learning more about the companies who produce the goods and services which they purchase.8 Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh sees their multiple blogs as simply a way for the company to make consumers feel as if they are doing business with regular people while also emphasizing important aspects of their company culture, "[Blogs] for internal use, potential customers, existing customers, and potential employees. We don't really care too much about what gets posted as long as it's consistent with our brand and our core values."9 While these new corporate blogs can take on nearly any face and are mostly a tool which falls into the responsibilities of a marketing department, their use and integration is of the utmost importance to any manager. With proper management, these blogs can provide employees a way to become involved in the companies external image and promote a sense of personal importance in the overall picture of an organization. However with poor management, these blogs can often become a part of the company which leaves employees feeling bitter and left out if favoritism takes place.

Research and Conclusion on Corporate Blogging
Early research on the adoption of blogs in business has shown strong signs that this form of media will become commonplace in the workplace and an important issue for managers in the next several years. Corporate research firm Melcrum conducted a large study in 2007 to learn more about how blogs have worked themselves into the business world and the results gave strong evidence that social media is here to stay in the corporate world. 55% of respondents were using blogs or planning to start one in the next year, 63% used video-sharing sites like YouTube to advertise and inform customers or employees, and 43% stated that they were dedicated to using podcasts as a way to communicate with customers and employees. Not only are companies working toward improving their internet presence, but they are also looking to dedicate more company resources toward social media projects. Over half of those surveyed in the Melcrum study stated that they are looking to expand their social media budgets over the next year.10 While blogging may be an issue which belongs in the hands of a companies marketing department, the last several years of development in the medium have shown that it will be important for any manager in an organization to properly understand the purpose and goals as well as inner workings of a companies blog in order to help the organization grow while also ensuring that the blog becomes a positive internal teamwork tool as both large and small companies alike begin to add blogs as an expected part of an organizations online presence.

Conclusion
After looking at these different ideas and innovations which are drastically changing how businesses definite their online presence, the ramifications on managers is clear. While such technologies are still young and developing and thus it is often difficult to find current research or statistics on how users perceive the quality of these new internet solutions. However, early user numbers and growth rates found through several research projects have shown that businesses are flocking to these new internet tools at adoption rates and levels of exponential growth that tend to favor the idea that tools such as Twitter, Google Docs, and corporate blogs are not fads or trendy topics. Instead, we are seeing a philosophical shift in how managers must prepare their companies to deal with this evolving internet. These technologies or similar online services will soon become expected norms and not just the trendy or hip thing to do in business. Managers must make decisions and change how an organization interacts with customers and develop their internet identities. While this change may be seen with some discontent by veterans of conventional business and managerial techniques, I think the last several years have proven that the change is coming sooner than later and that those with the power to change a business must learn that it will very quickly become a situation where one must adapt or be threatened with extinction.

________
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My Roommate's Top 20 Albums of 2008

2008-12-14T13:38:00.002-06:00

Cameron's Note: You would think that by being GM of a radio station, I would be fairly opinionated about music. It shouldn't be hard to compose my own "BEST OF 2008" album list, right? Not so fast on that assumption my friends, because I don't think I could ever know enough about music to actually judge it accurately. Even if I did compile my own list, it would only consist of bands like Fall Out Boy, Metro Station, and All Time Low. You know, bands that only pre-teen girls and Cameron Banga care about. Luckily, my roommate Chris knows quite a bit about music and is much better at putting together a top album list. I tend to agree with most of Chris's top 20 (although I do think Oracular Spectacular should be higher), so I asked if he would guest post the list on my blog. I hope you enjoy Chris's top 20 albums of 2008 and definitely suggest you check out these bands as well.

Chris Zaplatosch's Top 20 Albums of 2008
By Chris Zaplatosch

2008 was certainly an interesting year for music. Where 2007 was "all my favorite artists are releasing awesome new records," this year was all about new bands. Sure there' s plenty of returners, but the fact that 8 or 9 out of these 20 are debut albums certainly says something. Anyway, enough chatting, I'll just let the list speak for itself:

20. We Started Nothing
The Ting Tings

I’ll be honest: half of the songs on this London duet’s debut album “We Started Nothing” are great, and half are mediocre. The thing is that the half that are great are really good pop songs. And that’s really all I have to say about that.
Standout Tracks: Great DJ, That’s Not My Name, Shut Up and Let Me Go

19. Oracular Spectacular
MGMT

MGMT came out of nowhere this year and released one of the most popular albums of the internet world. And it’s a solid album. It’s probably the one on this list that I’ve spent the least time with, but I’m fairly confident it belongs here. The only question/concern I have with MGMT is if they can keep this up. They’ve got potential, and I’d like to see what they can do from here. But it’s a great first album from more young talent.
Standout Tracks: Time to Pretend, Kids, Electric Feel

18. We Brave Bee Stings and All
Thao Nguyen & The Get Down Stay Down

This record probably would have earned more praise this year if it weren’t for an already overwhelming amount of admiration for other bands. Thao’s second album finds her with a full sized backing band. And while it sounds like this concept is still somewhat new to her, she handles it well with a variety of compositions. And, she’s got a voice similar to Feist, and everyone loves Feist, right?
Standout Tracks: Bag of Hammers, Big Kid Table, Feet Asleep

17. Fleet Foxes
Fleet Foxes

Fleet Foxes were one of the most hyped up bands of this year, with some good reason. They’re one of those “well, this is good, but I’m not sure it’s blowing my mind” kinds of things. I see it as a combination of something like Band of Horses with Bon Iver and some serious influence from Simon and Garfunkel. People wouldn’t stop calling this chamber music. I’m still not really sure why though. To me, its lo-fi folk rock that’s very good at what it tries to be. Its enjoyable, but doesn’t really scream “talent” or “fun” to me.
Standout Tracks: White Winter Hymnal, Ragged Wood, He Doesn’t Know Why

16. God is an Astronaut
God is an Astronaut

2008 wasn’t the best year for post-rock. There weren’t a ton of great releases, but towards the end, God is an Astronaut pulled through with their self-titled, fourth LP. For those that really can’t get into post-rock, one of the things I think is great about this album is its accessibility. Most of the complaints about post-rock genre is that it’s boring. With pretty heavy guitar driven songs, this album certainly isn’t very boring. Given that, it’s not quite as relaxing as most post-rock, but it certainly makes for some great music.
Standout Tracks: Echoes, Shadows, No Return

15. Narrow Stairs
Death Cab for Cutie

Oh Death Cab. Some love you. Others will hate you eternally because you “sold out” on Plans by signing to a major label. Me? I think Narrow Stairs is pretty good. This album is still pretty different from breakthroughs like Transatlanticism, and still probably sounds similar to Plans, but with a little more of their earlier album feel. As such, I feel like it should make many fans of Death Cab pretty pleased. I thought it was solid.
Standout Tracks: No Sunlight, Grapevine Fires, You Can Do Better Than Me

14. Voyager
Walter Meego

Hey, ever wonder what it might sound like if Daft Punk and Of Montreal collaborated? This is probably what that would sound like. It’s a surprisingly good release from a couple of recent graduates from the University of Illinois. And my goodness, when the song Keyhole breaks down, its literally as good as most things Daft Punk have done. Great debut album from a promising electronic group.
Standout Tracks: Forever, Keyhole, Girls

13. The Stand-Ins
Okkervil River

I wanted The Stand-Ins to be as good as The Stage Names. And while the two are companion albums (The Stand-Ins is what would have been the second disc of The Stages Names had it remained a double album), this one just isn’t quite as good. However, that in no way means it still isn’t a good album. It’s a little short, coming in at only 8 real tracks. But man, quality of those tracks is good. Lost Coastlines rivals Unless Its Kicks as an album anthem. Starry Stairs is literally a sequel to a song on last year’s album, which is quite crafty. This album still retains most of the qualities we all love about Okkervil River.
Standout Tracks: Calling and Not Calling My Ex, Lost Coastlines, Starry Stairs

12. Skeletal Lamping
Of Montreal

I get the feeling that maybe this should be a little higher on the list. Either way, it is what it is, regardless of if I’ll regret it 6 months from now. Of Montreal are back this year, and just as weird as ever. Shifting from the tensions of drugs and depression from last year’s album, this one seems to focus on more sexual themes. So the interesting lyrics are certainly there. Kevin Barnes’s vocals are as fascinating as ever as he reaches high notes that make many people feel uncomfortable. I’ve got a little bit of trouble with a few songs on the second half of the album being a little lackluster, but overall, its an impressive feat to follow up a great album with another very good album in a period of just one year.
Standout Tracks: For Our Elegant Caste, An Eluardian Instance, Gallery Piece

11. Trouble in Dreams
Destroyer

As far as I can tell (and I’m not incredibly familiar with Destroyer’s back catalogue), this sounds very similar to other Destroyer records, except that maybe it uses less midi elements. And I think that’s perfectly okay for him. Some songs are very laid back, easy going folk songs. Other’s add in a more rushed feeling using electric guitars. I’m not sure what else to say other than that this is another very solid record from Destroyer.
Standout Tracks: My Favourite Year, Dark Leaves from a Thread, Libby’s First Sunrise

10. Peaceful, the World Lays Me Down
Noah and the Whale

Did you love the Juno soundtrack? Of course you did. Well, this folk rock London quintet should be right up your alley. They simply craft well written pop songs. Like, 5 Years Time might be one of the best pop songs of the year. For the most part, there’s nothing too extravagant about any of these songs. They’re simple, but good. They prove that sometimes a ukulele and handclaps are all you really need to have fun in a song.
Standout Tracks: 5 Years Time, Give a Little Love, Rocks and Daggers

9. Hold On Now, Youngster…
Los Campesinos!

First off, great job Los Campesinos! for releasing not one, but two full length albums in 2008. That being said, Hold on Now, Youngster… was by far the better of the two. It came hot off the heels of the Sticking Fingers Into Sockets EP from last year, and was relentless with the indie pop, xylophone carried anthems. Death to Los Campesinos! might just be the best intro song on an album this year. It starts off the pace of the album at a furious pace, and while it does let up at times, there’s still an underlying theme of anxious youth throughout. You get the feeling that they’re thinking “we’re young, this probably won’t last long, so lets just give it our all,” and they play their hearts out.
Standout Tracks: Death to Los Campesinos!, You! Me! Dancing!, Sweet Dreams Sweet Cheeks

8. Starfucker
Starfucker

If you would have told me at the beginning of this year that a band named “Starfucker” would be in my top ten, I probably would have laughed at you. Sure enough though, here it is. Also, this is probably the album you’re most likely to read about and never have heard of before. Honestly though, check it out. Its electric pop music. Like, take Ratatat and combine it with Fujiya and Miyagi’s good music, maybe throw in a little low tempo Go! Team, and who knows what else. It really boggles my mind how awesome this record is. I’m a fan, and it hasn’t worn off. Go listen to it now. Seriously though dude, think about changing your name…
Standout Tracks: Myke Ptyson, Rawnald Gregory Erickson the Second, German Love

7. Re-arrange Us
Mates of State

For some reason, lots people just did not get into this album. It’s a shame too, because it’s a perfectly good Mates of State record. It’s more of what we love from Mates of State: cutesy lyrics from a husband and wife duo who play drums and piano (respectively, of course). The difference here from past albums is that they’ve abandoned the shrill, obnoxious organ sound that made some of their earlier work a little harsh on the ears at times. The result is a nice, smooth, and accessible album.
Standout Tracks: My Only Offer, Jigsaw, Get Better

6. Visiter
Dodos

Yet another new band that broke out this year with a fantastic debut. Dodos pretty much is two dudes. Guitar and drums. Doesn’t sounds like a whole lot, but that’s where Dodos wants to prove you wrong. Instead of having the drums just keep a rhythm, they decide to do a lot more with them. Its refreshing. They took the alternative folk deal and did something different with it. Also, seeing them live is quite an experience. Their drummer sweats a ton during live shows because he’s so intense. Also, there’s something very pleasing in having found them at WVUR before Pitchfork got a hold of them.
Standout Tracks: Red and Purple, Fools, Winter

5. Feed the Animals
Girl Talk

Is it wrong to put an album that technically has no original material in my top 5? Maybe. But does Feed the Animals deserve the spot? You bet. Greg Gillis’s second album after ditching the noise/static gig has him really finding his style. The album still has over 300 samples from other musicians mashed together, but there’s still a big development from his previous album. Individual songs last longer together. Like, a minute long Jay-Z vs. Radiohead mash up. It’s the most fun album of the year. Short and simple, this album is a dance party (which, similarly, is what basically composes Girl Talk’s live show). Its fun to listen to multiple times over and over because each time, you find a song you hadn’t heard in there before. It only took one listen to hear “Come on Eileen,” but it took 15 to hear “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley.
Standout Tracks: Set it Off, Here’s the Thing, Hands in the Air

4. með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust
Sigur Rós

When track one, Gobbledigook, starts the CD off, you pretty much say to yourself “Wait, is this really Sigur Rós?” The answer is yes. Fortunately the album isn’t all like that upbeat song, but it does show the band adventuring off into unfamiliar territory. For all extensive purposes, this is the first pop song from them. And it works out really well. Following that, there are two more short, upbeat songs. The album balances off towards the end with some more typical Sigur Rós songs: epic, long, and beautiful. The equilibrium works out well though. Sigur Rós wouldn’t be Sigur Rós without a few magnificent 9 minute long songs, but the shorter, practically pop songs are a refreshing change of pace for the band, and still retain their grandeur.
Standout Tracks: Gobbledigook, Vid Spilum Endalaust, Inni Mer Syngur Vitleysingur

3. Saturdays = Youth
M83

How can your band not be epic when you name yourself after an entire galaxy? Anthony Gonzalez, the main composer, doesn’t disappoint. Saturdays=Youth is one of those albums that you need to listen to many times to appreciate. It took me multiple listens to realize “Woah, their drummer is really, really good.” And between that, heavy electronic noise, layered vocals, guitars that often have so many effects on them you can’t even tell they’re guitars, it shapes up to be one deep album. It’s great to have an album that is great not just because it sounds fun or is catchy. Because it’s more than that. It’s actually very profound.
Standout Tracks: Graveyard Girl, Highway of Endless Dreams, We Own the Sky

2. Heretic Pride
The Mountain Goats

For the second year in a row, my #2 album is from an artist who’s been around for forever but I just discovered this year. This was the album that introduced me to The Mountain Goats. It combines the rushed, anxious vocals of Destroyer with the catchy literate folk rock of Okkervil River. The lyrics are clever and usually tell some kind of story, and the folky music makes me envision summer, even now in the beginning of winter. I don’t know how band leader John Darnielle does it, but for how simple this music is, it still manages to grab the #2 spot because of how brilliant it is.
Standout Tracks: Sax Rohmer #1, Tianchi Lake, How to Embrace a Swamp Creature

1. Vampire Weekend
Vampire Weekend

2008 was indisputably the year of Vampire Weekend. Their debut album took the quintet from Columbia University all the way to MTV in a very short amount of time. The thing is: they deserve it all. This album is flawless. It is a fantastic, straightforward indie-rock album. And one of the best things about it is its replay value. After having listened to it at least 30 times this year and having seen the band live twice, it just doesn’t get old.
Standout Tracks: A-Punk, M79, Oxford Comma

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What We Can Learn From Spaghetti Sauce

2008-12-13T21:12:00.002-06:00

So, I found a link to this video of a speech by Malcolm Gladwell on Kevin Rose's blog this afternoon.

While I know that 18 minutes is super long for a YouTube video, I definitely recommend that you check it out in its entirety. I was really able to take a lot out of the video, specifically with regards to perceived notions as to how one should treat the preferences or desires of others. We're all individuals and to run a successful business plan, you must cater to the individual and not society. Leave me a comment or e-mail (Cameron@CameronBanga.com) to let me know what you think of Gladwell's ideas, I am really curious to see what others think.

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I Need Your Opinion

2008-12-08T00:05:00.004-06:00

So, I have decided that it may make sense for me to get some personal business cards. I figure that since I am going to "enter the real world" here in the next year in a half, it would make sense to hand out a card with my contact information to potential employers.

I found this sweet site called Wordle today and I think I want to use a similar style of art for my business card.

Here is an idea of what I want it to look like. Colors will most likely change and I will add my phone number, but this is a good example.

What do you guys think? Any suggestions or opinions? I would love to hear them, so just send me an e-mail to Cameron@CameronBanga.com or leave a comment.

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Broadband and the Economy

2008-12-06T15:05:00.004-06:00

I was checking out President-Elect Barack Obama's weekly address to the nation on YouTube this afternoon and several interesting points were brought up with regards to his plan to create jobs and push pass this recession.

It is real encouraging to see a direct emphasis placed upon increasing widespread use of broadband technologies here in the USA. We are considered by many to be the most industrialized nation in the world and it's crazy to think that we are trailing so many countries with regards to broadband speed and availability. As a tech nerd, it's reassuring to see a president who will be devoted toward fixing internet related issues.

I am also interested in learning more of Obama's plan to spend a considerable amount of resources on infrastructure and energy conservation. I see this idea much more preferable than the idea of rebate checks or tax breaks because it will help to place money back into the economy while also making significant improvements on building or road efficiency. To get out of this recession, we really need to start spending money as a nation and the best way to jump start that is to get the government spending. In any economy, money sees a multiplier effect and a dollar spent is not necesarily an exact dollar for dollar transaction. As money is saved in banking, a small percentage of it goes into reserves and the rest is typically lent out by banks to others for spending. For example, when banks are forced to keep 20% reserves, a $100 has a total lending power of around $450. Thus, it is important to have banks lending and have people willing to borrow money in order to reach reach maximun spending potential and have a thriving economy. As people spend and save, that money is passed along and through lending a single dollar can have the power of nearly five dollars. However, when people aren't spending or lending (as is typically the case during a recession), a dollar doesn't see that passed on benefit and we lose out on perceived wealth.

Obviously this recession is the result of many bad decisions over the last five to ten years and fixing the economy isn't as simple as going out and forcing banks to lend. In fact, we've been trying these methods and they haven't really been working. Many might remember that the government passed a tax refund last summer which gave each taxpayer up to $600. Why didn't this money see a significant multiplication effect and benefit the economy? Well, studies have shown that people didn't actually spend the money they were given. Instead, they used the money to pay off credit cards, car loans, or mortgages. That may be spending money, but it doesn't have much of a multiplier effect because it goes toward paying off debt and not toward making expendatures which benefit the economy as a whole. We don't see the multiplier effect either because the money nevers goes to banks, so it isn't allowed to be lent out and given a chance to multiply. It just goes into the pockets of credit or mortgage companies.

Essentially, the $700 billion dollar bailout of Wall Street was suppose to work because the government was giving large sums of money to lending firms under the pretense that these companies would in turn give the money to businesses for spending. Should work and give us that wonderful multiplier effect as these companies spend the money and it goes back into banks for further lending, right? Well, not so fast. Instead of making this bailout money available for lending, many of these banks have been holding onto the cash in anticipation of needing it over the next two years to pay their own expenses. Again, no lending or spending and no growth for the economy.

So back to the topic at hand, how will infrastructure and green technologies help the economy? I think we can all agree that higher aggregate spending is good for the economy, so now we just need to figure out which way is best to kickstart that spending. Rebate checks didn't work and it doesn't seem that the bailout of Wall Street has done much either. One way or another, it's going to take more money from the government and lots of it. So, bascially what Barack Obama and his administration is suggesting is that we take the addition money that we need to spend and instead of giving another bailout or rebate check, we spend the money on improving our infrastructure and energy efficiency. The federal government will take proposals on how to best spend money on the improvement of roads or building efficiency and then give that money to those with the best proposals.

How does this help get us out of the recession? Well, states will receive this money and then contract out local construction firms to build roads, engineers to develop new bridges, heating specialists to make buildings more energy effiecient, etc. The money directly goes into the hands of American workers while also providing a lot of new jobs to help bring down our growing unemployment rate. Workers then receive paychecks for their work and spend it at local businesses who then save the money in banks. Hopefully then we will see our multiplier effect and a greater perceived level of wealth as well.

So what if this plan doesn't work and we don't see such an effect, like with the bailout or rebate checks? Here is the additional benefit this plan, we still get new roads, bridges, better buildings, and additional jobs for American workers. The saved money each year on road repair or energy bills will help pay for the costs of these projects alone in the long run.

It's basically the "New New Deal" and a similar plan to that which Franklin D. Roosevelt proprosed which helped the nation recover during the Great Depression. While Obama may have history on his side, we can only hope that this plan has similar positive effects on our current economic situation and brings us out of this steepening recession.

(EDIT: Quick note, just wanted to stress that I'm not looking at this as a "definite fix" to get us out of our current economic situation, but instead as a quick commentary on how Obama's plans in the video could benefit our current situation. Obviously, the problem is much larger and deeper than this and many other factors which go into fixing an economy.)

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Top 10 People College Twitter Users Should Follow

2008-11-29T16:50:00.002-06:00

So, I saw this post earlier today on TwiTip and it's follow up post which can be found here on the topic of top Twitter users to follow, specifically if you fit into a certain niche.

As a college student and frequent Twitter user who is really into technology, I could definitely put together a list of Twitter users I find useful to follow. This top 10 isn't sorted in a specific order, but instead as ten solid users anyone who is into tech and of college age should follow.

@zappos - Zappos may have the best service of any company in the nation and Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh gives great commentary on how he does it through his Twitter account.
@cnn - Definitely worth having for mobile updates. It's hip to stay informed and CNN's Twitter will keep you up to date with all important news headlines.
@pleasedressme - PleaseDress.me may change how we buy clothes in the future. Definitely worth keeping up with the future of online sales.
@mashable - Mashable has all the greatest stories on web start-ups and is definitely worth keeping up with if you want to be on top of all the latest web trends.
@problogger - Darren at ProBlogger writes the best content for anyone who keeps a blog. If you want to be successful at blogging (or the internet in general), you need to read his posts.
@cobracommander - With recent tweets like "Used Bluetooth headset during conference call today. Was informed later that it was clearly evident I was sitting on a toilet during meeting", CobraCommander delivers great comic relief between serious tweets.
@tinybuddha - Nothing makes my day more than getting a tinybuddha tweet on my cellphone. Great quotes which can really apply to everyday life. I only wish the account would tweet a little more often.
@kevinrose - Kevin Rose is what every guy like me (nerd into blogging and web stuff) wants to be.
@peterrojas - Peter has been the man behind Engadget, Joystiq, RCRD LBL, Gizmodo and more. This guy knows his stuff and is definitely worth a follow.
@nikolez - Every nerdy guy needs to know a nerdy girl who makes us feel a little more comfortable about our livestyles and to give us hope that we may one day have a chance with a female. NikoleZ is cute, hip, and can give us hope that we may one day find a girl who enjoys our ability to hum the Tetris theme.
@cameronbanga - I know this is number 11 but I had to include myself in my list. I'm cool, right? I really don't know how to classify my posts but I do know that my posts contain no MSG or preservatives.

Did I forget anyone? Let me know by sending me an e-mail to Cameron@CameronBanga.com.

-CB

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Productivity: Level 1.

2008-11-29T15:25:00.001-06:00

I'm currently sitting at what is quickly becoming one of my favorite coffee shops (Spill the Beans in Merrillville, IN) and just can't find any motivation at all. I've had this problem all Thanksgiving break and I really don't know what is wrong with me. Hopefully a quick blogpost will get me in the mood to write an economics paper.

Here are a couple links which will hopefully spark your interest.

Been listening to The Escape Frame's self-titled LP. We have The Hideout spinning at the station and it's the best track, so take a listen.

A couple of my friends signed up for Twitter, so show them some love. Check out @hcassin, @nathanbanga, @irbylgerbil, @jeff_vu, and @peglegmeg.

Been checking out a bunch of cool blogs lately and you should definitely take a look into them as well. Zappos's Life Coach blog, Treehugger, and Matt Green's blog are all real great reads.

Alright, now that this is out of my system I can only hope that my paper on trade agreements and their impact on the Austrailan economy writes itself.

-CB

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New Look, Hopefully More Posts?

2008-11-28T21:38:00.004-06:00

Hey everyone,

I have been sitting around at WVUR for a basketball broadcast and figured, what better time to do some updates to my website?

The format and overall look hasn't changed a whole bunch, but there are some changes of note. In the navigation menu to your right, you should now find my résumé. I've kept my recent tweets available for viewing and I would love for you to follow me if you use the service. I've also added a list of blogs I follow and the ability to follow this blog with your RSS reader. As another small addition, I added this widget which lists gives the name of people who enjoy my blog and follow it. I would love to see the names of everyone reading this content I spend time on, so I hope you all check that out and say you follow my blog so that I can check out your blogs or websites as well.

I hope that not all the changes to this blog are cosmetic. I began using Flock as a web browser today and I hope that leads to a couple more posts here and there. The browser makes it real easy to post entries, add pictures, link to cool stories, etc, so I hope to make use of the features and keep entries a little more frequent.

I know, I'm as shocked as you are. As always, send your comments or suggestions to Cameron@CameronBanga.com and I'll be sure to check them out and try to message you back. Definitely let me know what you think about the changes.

-CB

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With Much Regret.

2008-11-21T16:35:00.002-06:00

Hey everyone,

I know it's been a while since the last post and I wish I could bring better news, but I must inform everyone of a few things which may disappoint.

I know several of you were looking forward to a Four48 marathon this Sunday and I'm going to have to let you all down and let you know that we won't be having an event as planned.

It's not that we didn't try, it's just that a bunch of factors (both technical and timing) didn't work in our favor. Frankly, we wouldn't have enough Four48ers and there were some computer problems we would have to overcome and I just don't feel like we could have provided an interesting or entertaining marathon. It wouldn't be up to Four48 quality standards (as low as those standards may be haha) and the team wasn't cool with that.

Sorry to disappoint anyone who was really looking forward to it, because I was really looking forward to it myself. I really enjoy these things and would have loved to do a 10 year celebration of Ocarina of Time.

As for when the team will be back next, it's a little early to speculate. I would bet that if anything was to occur, it would maybe be in early January, but that would just be speculation.

Questions, comments? E-mail me at Cameron@CameronBanga.com.
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Less Than a Week!

2008-10-30T01:17:00.002-05:00

While I am still rather young, I have never found myself interested in politics before this Presidential election. I guess because I have never had to provide for myself or been forced to think about taxes, health care, education, or other issues that seem to take a fair amount of the focus in any election cycle.

However, Barack Obama has made me think a little differently I guess. While I know many disagree with my points of view, I see Obama as the one person who could bring the change that this country desperately needs.

While I can assume that you have heard of it by now, Senator Obama purchached air time tonight on 7 different television networks to give his closing arguments to the American public. If you didn't check it out, I definitely suggest that you spend a couple minutes taking a watch.

I definitely don't feel like I have the persuasion ability to convince anyone else to think or feel the ways I do, that's not my purpose in this post. If I can do anything though, I do hope that I can encourage you to at least take some time out of your day next Tuesday to vote. Many have fought to give us that future, so use your vote and help make the nation a better place for future generations.

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Who I Am Hates Who I've Been

2008-10-01T14:04:00.003-05:00

So, it's been just over a month since my last blog post (thanks Adam for the friendly reminder). I know that this extended length of time without a single blurb about my life makes me a horrible blogger and I may just be content with that. The last 45 days or so have been blur for me and a great one at that, full of memories I'm not sure I will ever have again in my life and I am super appreciative for that.

To prove that I haven't spent the entire last month eating Twinkies and popping collars (and to provide actual content to this post), I'm going to link over to a couple of other cool things I have been up to.

The biggest event of the last month has been a Relient K concert which the radio station I work for threw on September 27th. Helping put together a free show for nearly 1000 students was unbelievable. I got to meet a lot of cool people and see the smiles on many entertained concert-goers. We got a lot of great pictures taken at the event and I hope to post some here soon.

For those of you who know me personally or have followed the site, you may know that I love to conduct interviews. I have gotten some sweet interviews recently through work at the radio station, here are some of my favorites.

Matt Thiessen, lead singer of Relient K

Genevieve Shatz, lead singer of Company of Thieves

Evan Sears, lead singer of The Sapiens

Prof. Jennifer Hora, Valpo professor who worked recently on a pop culture book

I am also working weekly on a morning show for my station, WVUR, where we conduct interviews and piece together segments to entertain students and faculty on their drive to class or wake up. One of our more popular pieces is this psuedo-soap opera called "Pushing It Back." Take a listen to the first 3 short episodes and let me know what you think.

Pushing It Back - Episode 1

Pushing It Back - Episode 2

Pushing It Back - Episode 3

As the academic year progresses, more and more of my time will be going to the radio station and class work. I will try to be a little more regular on the blog however and keep posting links to what I am working on. I should have some sweet interviews lined up here for the morning show soon, with 3OH!3 doing a little over the phone interview with me next week. If anyone has a suggestion for a possible interview, send me an e-mail. Heck, if you read this at all, send me an e-mail and let me know what you think of my work. I love reading feedback. You can send all electronic transmissions to Cameron@CameronBanga.com.

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A Week with Twitter (Day 7)

2008-08-20T20:46:00.003-05:00

So it's been a week with Twitter and I think I am finally ready to give a final verdict. While a week may not be that long and it is difficult to give a rating or a ultimate decision to the service, I do feel like I got enough time to form a fairly solid opinion.

There are several things I really like about the service. First, I really enjoy the way that the service connects to both my cell phone and Facebook with ease. I always loved the Facebook status feature, but I always felt it was underused or not really cared about by users. If you're on Twitter, then you are obviously a big fan of this micro-blogging concept. The fact that I also have all my Twitter updates sync up with my Facebook status just makes the whole service more worthwhile. I also like the simplicity of just sending a text message to Twitter's 5 digit SMS number. I can also send replies to specific users through text just by placing @ infront of the users name in the message. It is easy and doesn't cost a thing over what your text messages usually cost.

When it comes to the downfalls of the service, reliability has been the big one for Twitter in the past and I have seen several small problems over the last week. While rare, I have seen several error messages citing that the service is overloaded and to try again later. I also feel as if Twitter could be better integrated into even more websites. I wish I could enter my Facebook information and see which friends have Twitter accounts. I wish the RSS feeds worked with my Google reader account. I wish I could receive and sent tweets through AIM. The service still has a ton of possibilities which need to be explored in order to bring in the traffic of other social networks.

Do I recommend Twitter? Well, that depends on who you are. If you have unlimited text messaging and are active on services like Facebook or Pownce. Personally, I don't see Twitter as much of a service on it's own and if you've been on the internet for a while, you most likely are already well involved in a social network. However, if you look at Twitter as a tool to enrich your experiences on Facebook, Pownce, etc, then it is definitely a great experience and well worth your time.

Overall, I give Twitter a 4 out of 5.

Have any questions, comments, or do you feel I am dead wrong about Twitter? Feel free to leave a comment.
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A Week with Twitter (Day 4)

2008-08-17T21:22:00.002-05:00

So, it's been a couple days since I kicked off my week with Twitter. I figure that now would be a good time to talk a little about the pros and cons of the micro-blogging site.

The Positives
It's real easy to use - Twitter is simple to set up and the developers make it real simple to integrate Twitter into a cell phone, iPhone, Firefox, desktop, Facebook, Pownce, etc. Not only is it easy, but the service becomes better when you use it more.

Great way to meet new people - In my couple days, I have already found several people to twit with who I didn't know before my experience with Twitter. I find myself interested in their daily activity and their funny tweets. Not only that, but I find myself responding to them quite often as well.

You can use it as much, or little as you like - The service is flexible. Are you a post machine? Go ahead. Don't like committing yourself too much? No biggie either.

It's a great way to stay connected - I follow Barack Obama, ProBlogger, and Mashable on the site. It is great to see small blurbs about what some of my favorite people anywhere.

The Negatives
Finding friends - I really wish it integrated with Facebook somehow so that I could find all my FB friends who are using the service. It really isn't that simple to find friends through the service and I feel like I am missing out on tweets from close friends.

Spammers - While this isn't a big problem right now, I see it as being an issue in the future. I have had a couple accounts begin following me which appear to be spam. I also see posts from more popular Twitters often complaining about spam. We'll see how Twitter responds to this problem as it becomes more popular in the future.

Better template options - It took me some time, but I finally think I have a sweet page template. However, I wish that the site had some more documention or tips on making a great looking page. I have had to get most of my information through Google, most of which has been contradicting at times.

We'll see what else comes up with the service in the next few days. Expect a final review here soon.
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A Week with Twitter (Day 1)

2008-08-14T16:29:00.004-05:00

I tend to have a little problem with trying out new web start-ups. I just really find enjoyment in checking out new sites that try to offer a new service. While I like to try out lots of new sites, I tend to only stay loyal to the big ones like Facebook, meebo, and Digg.

In the last week, I have wanted to start a new blog post series while also jumping feet first into Twitter. I figured why not write about my time with the service as I try it out and thus what hopes to be a new blog post series is born. In this "A Week with..." series, I will focus on a different start-up for a week while trying to get three posts in during the week period. The first will typically be day one or so, where I give an inital impression of the service. The second post will be at day 3 or 4 where I give a half-way update and focus on the pros and cons of my time with the service so far. The last post will be a short review and retrospect on my time with the start-up.

So without any further ado, let's jump into my first look at Twitter.

For those of you unfamiliar with Twitter, it is a micro-blogging/social network where users post short "tweets" with what they are doing or thinking. I have had a couple friends ask me about the service over the last couple of days and the best way I have found to describe the service is as what would happen if Facebook statuses had a baby with text messages and that love child was as addictive as all hell.

In my early experiences, I have found Twitter to not be a killer app within itself. If you were to use Twitter on it's own, you would notice little difference between the service and Facebook's status feature. You may be asking yourself then, "Why would I use Twitter if all my friends have Facebook and I can just use that?" Twitter has found itself success because it takes the status concept and puts it on steroids.
Twitter gives you a multitude of ways to update your Twitter while also integrating it into other sites as well. It's really a power app for people who want to stay connected. The more and more I explain the concept, I find it more difficult to explain it's utility. Let's just use myself as an example and make this a case study.

I am a tech-connected guy with a fairly large circle of friends. I am a text message fiend and love keeping updated with people. Facebook is my primary means of staying connected with friends from college, high school, and the large number of really cool people I have met through Four48 and other internet projects. I use it as my primary source of personal information and social network for people who want to get connected to me. I tend to hate AIM because it is a hard platform to use on the go and when you don't have a lot of time, because it tends to lead into long conversations which I usually don't have time for during the day. Wall posts on Facebook are awesome because it gives me a chance to send short blurbs to keep in close contact with friends on what time we are going to the gym or where we are going to dinner, because all I have to do is post it and they can get back and reply whenever possible. I feel as if a majority of my college friends fit into a similar mindset.

Twitter lets me update my status to others while also letting me check in on the status of others easily, while also integrating itself into many other social apps which are important to me as well. Simply, it lets you connect with a broader range of friends quickly and more simply then what I have found to previously be possible.

Twitter easily sets up with my cell phone through text messaging. All I do is sent a quick text to the number 40404 and my status is updated instantaneously. I can also choose which of my Twitter friends I want to receive mobile updates on. Whenever Megan Lee or darwinblues updates their Twitter, it is sent to my phone. Whenever some of my favorite people in tech like Kevin Rose updates his twitter, I could find out about it on my phone. Websites have Twitter accounts. Presidential candidates have Twitter accounts. If you want updates on it, you can get it easily whenever and wherever.

Twitter also integrates well with devices like the iPhone or iPod Touch through applications like Twitterific. I have installed it on my Touch and have enjoyed what I use so far. The interface is simple and it gives me lots of information on people in my network at my fingertips. I use my Touch all the time at school or when away from the computer and this is just another great way to stay connected with friends.

However, what I have found to maybe be the biggest feature thus far is Twitter's integration with Facebook through it's Facebook app. Whenever I update my Twitter, my status is simultaneously updated on Facebook to match. Now I can easily update my friends on Twitter and Facebook at the same time. If you are the kind of guy who wants to stay as connected as I do, this should be pretty much on the same level as manna from heaven.

So far, this looks to be like a service I plan on keeping up with in the upcoming months. It's flexibility is key and I can't wait to learn more about it. I'll be back in a couple days to give my second part in this series as well as some pros and cons of Twitter as I see them.

What do you think about this service? Are you a huge twitter user? If so, please feel free to follow me at www.twitter.com/CameronBanga. Have another web start-up that you feel like I should check out in a future installment? Send me a quick e-mail about it at Cameron@CameronBanga.com.
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Only Cameron Banga...

2008-08-07T19:35:00.003-05:00

Took this last week at the Apple Store on Michigan Ave in Chicago. I'm sure you can only imagine the looks on the faces of the 6 or so people who congregated behind Dillon as he took this shot. I'm not sure if they thought I was a real celebrity or just some big douchebag. They would have been correct if they thought the latter.
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Postcards Sent!

2008-08-07T19:05:00.005-05:00

If you donated over $10 to our Zelda marathon for Child's Play last weekend, then you qualified to receive a "Thank You" postcard from our team. I sent out some e-mails and quite a few of you responded asking to receive your card.

I got 38 of them addressed and sent today, for those who have already sent me their address. On my table, they looked like this.

I hope that those of you are receiving one enjoy it. If possible, take a picture of yourself with it when it arrives through the mail and I will be sure to post your picture on the site somewhere.

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McNugget McFlurry

2008-08-04T15:44:00.002-05:00

Thanks again to all of those who tuned into our 70 hour Zelda marathon last weekend. Myself and the rest of our team really appreciate your support in help in raising over $2000 for Child's Play.

To thank you all, I invite you to enjoy your own McNugget McFlurry.

All Seven Console Zelda Games in 70 Hours

2008-07-31T11:34:00.056-05:00

Ladies, gentlemen, boys and girls, gamers of all ages, welcome to one of the greatest gaming spectacles of all time! Well, that may just be a slight exaggeration. However, we do promise to provide hours of Zelda entertainment this weekend. Just how many hours you might ask? 70 to be exact. With the help of the Mario Marathon team, myself and the Four48 hoodlums will be completing every single console Zelda game by 5PM CST Sunday, August 3rd. It should be a great time and you can catch all the fun right here. This entire weekend is to help raise money for Penny Arcade's Childs Play charity, so if you have the ability to donate, please consider doing so through PayPal by using ChipIn widgets below and to the right. We also will be live-blogging the entire event here and holding some other cool interviews/entertainment throughout the event, so be sure to check a little futher down the page for a schedule. We will also be reading e-mails throughout the event, so send us some love at Cameron@CameronBanga.com.

Four48 Team - Zelda Oot - TP (Friday at 5PM CST - Sunday at 5PM CST)

Watch live video from CB_TV on Justin.tv

Donate!

FAN ART!

As a little bonus and incentive to donate, myself and the Four48 team will send a personalized postcard to the first 100 people to donate over $10. If we get over 100 people to donate $10, we will then give a postcard to the next 100 people to donate over $20. The entire card will be custom made by a team member during the marathon and then sent out.

Schedule of Events - More to be Added Later
Friday
5:00 PM CST - Interview with Brian Brinegar of Mario Marathon Team
Saturday
2:00 PM CST - Interview with Kristin Lindsay - Childs Play Project Manager
Around 9PM CST - Interview with CheapyD of CheapAssGamer
Sometime in the evening - Interview with Kevin Cassidy of GoNintendo
Sunday
Afternoon - Interview with Peter Rojas, founder of Engadget & Joystiq

Liveblog

Thursday, July 31st, 2008
11:30 am - Well, here we are, less than 8 hours or so from kickoff right now. I can't even begin to describe my level of excitement for what is going to take place here this weekend. I really hope that we can reach our goal and raise $2000 for Child's Play. Check out here throughout the weekend for live blog updates. I'll be in Chicago tonight at the Michigan Ave. Apple Store around kickoff time at 7pm CST, but maybe I can make an update from there to coincided with kickoff.

6:45 pm - In line at the Apple Store. Kick off is in fifteen minutes. Best of luck MarioMarathon team!

11:11 pm - Back home from Chicago and watching the Mario Marathon guys. We're at about $500 so far, which is UNBELIEVABLE. Dillon and I are chilling and waiting pretty much to just kickoff tomorrow. Amazing marathon so far. Digg us here.

Friday, August 1st, 2008
12:58 am - Heading to bed, I'll be back in the morning. Nearly $600 donated! Amazing guys, can't wait for our team to kick off our half tomorrow!

10:19 am - Up and getting ready for the marathon. Dillon and I may be riding solo until the rest of the crew gets here later tonight, so we will be reading e-mails and taking Skype calls. E-mail me at Cameron@CameronBanga.com. Skype me at CBanga and if Dillon or I will answer your call. We may get a rush of calls and won't be taking calls the entire 48 hours for sure, but we will do our best to get as many people on as possible!

2:55 pm - We're going to keep on taking Skype calls so give us a ring, user name is CBanga. Over $1400 donated so far, which is absolutely unbelievable. Can't wait to get to Majora or Wind Waker.

7:39 pm - Going well and getting done with OoT. Still 45 hours to go.

8:54 pm - Just beat OoT! Chris is off to start Majora's Mask. We're on pace, but hopefully this game doesn't screw us up like last time.

Saturday, August 2nd, 2008
2:10 pm - Slacking on the live blog due to some sleep deprivation. On WW and more importantly, on pace to beat the games by tomorrow at 5pm.

Sunday, August 3rd, 2008

1:13 pm - We did it! About 2 hours ago we finished Twilight Princess! We're in recovery mode right now, but are going to stay on air until 5PM. Dean is playing Master Quest so be sure to visit the site and give him a hard time.

Survey! - Did you check out the marathon for any length of time? If so, we would love for you to fill out this quick little survey. Send all your answers to Cameron@CameronBanga.com

1. How long did you watch the marathon?
2. Where did you find out about the marathon from? (Digg, GoNintendo, Zelda Universe?
3. If you don't mind answering, did you donate?
4. What were your favorite parts of the marathon?
5. If this was done again, what would you like see done different?

Links to us
http://mikeroth.tumblr.com/
www.gonintendo.com
http://www.zeldauniverse.net/zelda-news/mariomarathon-and-448-begin-zelda-marathon/
http://www.zentendo.com/news.php?newsId=1376
http://www.infendo.com/zelda/the-zelda-marathon-begins/

Interview with Kevin Cassidy

2008-07-30T15:39:00.000-05:00

In this episode of podcast.cameronbanga.com, Cameron talked over the phone with Kevin Cassidy (aka RawMeatCowboy) of the popular Nintendo blog GoNintendo to talk about the popularity of the site and just how Kevin writes up a new post approximately 500 times an hour.

Click here to listen to the podcast.

If you are interested in this podcast series and would like to listen to some of my other interviews with Tom Green, Steve Wozniak, or Peter Wilt, subscribe via iTunes.

This is Amazing.

2008-07-23T12:34:00.001-05:00

If you love MGMT like I do, this could quite possibly be the best video of all time. Saw this a couple weeks ago and after a re-watch this morning, I had to post it.
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Four Zelds in 48 Hours Seven Zeldas in 70 Hours

2008-07-17T19:08:00.010-05:00

~~Starting August 1st at 5PM CST, this page will be home to our run through the four 3D Zelda games (Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, Wind Waker, and Twilight Pricess) in a 48 hour period of time.~~

UPDATE 7/21 - Have you ever been sitting around on your computer thinking, "Gosh darn it, I really wish I could watch every single console Legend of Zelda game (besides the crappy CD-i games of course) through the internet on webcam over a 70 hour period." Well sir (or madam), your prayers have been answered in an off the wall gaming collaboration between two of the most well known teams in marathon gaming.

Starting at 7pm CST on July 31st, we will kick-off a team marathon with Brian Brinegar and his Mario Marathon team tackling the first three games of the series in a marathon which is sure to bring back nostalgia. I will be live blogging the event and may even make a guest appearance by their house.

Then beginning upon the completion of their marathon, the Four48 team will begin our run through the four 3D Zelda games. This time, we are guaranteeing success on the words of Chris Vavra, who has been practicing the game that killed us last time (Majora's Mask) in order to drive us to a victory.

You can catch feeds for both videos here at cameronbanga dot com as well as at the Mario Marathon site. We will be using the same ChipIn widget as well, so all donations will be pooled together throughout the event.

The Legend of Zelda, Adventures of Link, A Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, Wind Waker, and Twlight Princess. All in the span of a mere 70 hours. Get ready to hop along for the ride while we save Hyrule....seven times.

It should be a great experience and I hope you all enjoy it. More information will be coming in the next couple of days, so be sure to check out the site often. As for my original post below, it's all still relevent. Just replace 48 with 70, four with 7, and throw in the word extreme and awesome a couple times.

Some of you might remember that we previously tried this back and January and fell short of our goal from a gaming standpoint. However, through the support of thousands of people across the planet, we were able to raise over $1200 for Penny Arcade's Child's Play charity.

We've decided to take another run for a couple of reasons. First, we want to get the monkey off our back and actually beat these games in 48 hours. Second, all of us would love to spend a fun weekend together before college starts up again. Third, we want to raise more money for Child's Play and we've set a goal of $2000 for the weekend.

A video feed will be posted on this page beginning at 5PM on August 1st. However, we are taking donations as of right now if you have the ability to do so. Every dollar helps us get closer to our goal and no donation is two small. It's a great charity that helps provide toys and video games to children's hospitals across the country. You can donate using either PayPal or a credit card through using the ChipIn widget below.

As a little bonus and incentive to donate, myself and the Four48 team will send a personalized postcard to the first 100 people to donate over $10. If we get over 100 people to donate $10, we will then give a postcard to the next 100 people to donate over $20, and so on throughout the 24 hours. The entire card will be custom made by a team member during the marathon and then sent out.

If you're still reading at this point in the post, I hope that you have some interest in the marathon and you may be curious as to what you can do in anticipation of our broadcast (well maybe not, but in the rare occurrence that you are).

While waiting till August 1st, feel free to check out our archived video at www.justin.tv/cbanga. Here you can find some of our old footage and get a taste as to what the marathon will be like. You can also check out the old blog post here to read more about our last attempt.

I also encourage you to e-mail me at Cameron@CameronBanga.com if you are interested in helping in anyway with the marathon. We can always use people to help spread the word, make posters, and promote the broadcast. Try to find ways to raise some money to donate for the cause and set a personal donation goal. Sell an old game or two on eBay and donate the proceeds to the cause. Contact your favorite blog or even your local newspaper and link them to this post and encourage them to spread the word as well. Heck, just send us an e-mail of encouragement, we really appreciate them.

If you are still thirsty for more entertainment to occupy your wait, I suggest checking out old episodes of my summer podcast series on people who are doing cool things in tech and on the internet. 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.

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Interview with Michael Seibel

2008-07-17T00:04:00.002-05:00

Earlier today I had a chance to sit down and talk with Justin.tv CEO Michael Seibel about the video site which has become well known for it's ability to let anyone broadcast live video with ease. Definitely a great in-depth interview with a guy who is in the inside of the digital video revolution and I hope you all enjoy it. Feel free to leave comments below and let me know what you think.

Click here to listen to the podcast.

If you are interested in this podcast series and would like to listen to some of my other interviews with Tom Green, Steve Wozniak, or Peter Wilt, subscribe via iTunes.
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Interview with the Mario Marathon Team

2008-07-14T21:38:00.001-05:00

Play video games for charity? Silly you say? In this interview, Cameron talks with Brian Brinegar and John Groves of the successful Mario Marathon which was able to raise over $11,000 for Child's Play.

Click here to listen to the podcast.

If you are interested in this podcast series and would like to listen to some of my other interviews with Tom Green, Steve Wozniak, or Peter Wilt, subscribe via iTunes.
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Another run for Four48.

2008-07-13T14:42:00.005-05:00

It's been just about six months since our last run to attempt to beat Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, Wind Waker, and Twilight Princess in 48 hours. Our attempt was a mixed bag of emotions as we failed at our quest to save Hyrule, yet we were able to bring together gamers from across the world and raise over $1200 for the Child's Play Charity. It was definitely one of the coolest experiences of my life and something I will remember forever.

And today, I am pleased to let everyone know that we plan on trying to beat the games again. Right now, the schedule is to kick-off at 5PM on Friday, August 1st and then run through the games, all while collecting donations again for Child's Play.

We've have two goals for this event. First, we want to be sure that we do in fact beat all four games in 48 hours. We've been practicing a bit at the games and will definitely be using a Nintendo 64 for Majora's Mask this time in hopes that we don't have the game freeze on us multiple times again. Our second goal is to raise $2000 or more in donations for Child's Play. We will begin taking donations immediately through ChipIn. For those of you who are unfamiliar with ChipIn, it is a service that allows us to keep track of donations all while your dollars go straight to Child's Play.

We're going to be looking for help to promote and raise awareness about the event here in the next week or so. If anyone is interested, send me an e-mail to Cameron@CameronBanga.com. Otherwise, be sure to check out the site more here in the next couple of weeks for more details.

Interview with CheapyD

2008-07-12T14:53:00.003-05:00

Are you cheap when it comes to buying video games? If so, you might have heard of www.cheapassgamer.com. In this episode of podcast.cameronbanga.com, Cameron talks with CheapyD of Cheap Ass Gamer about new changes to the site and what current generation system is the best pick-up for those looking to save as much money as possible.

Click here to listen to the podcast.

If you are interested in this podcast series and would like to listen to some of my other interviews with Tom Green, Steve Wozniak, or Peter Wilt, subscribe via iTunes.
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Interview with Peter Wilt and Amanda Vandervort

2008-07-10T14:31:00.005-05:00

This morning I had a chance to chat with Chicago Red Stars President Peter Wilt and Director of Online Marketing Amanda Vandervort to discuss how the new WPS team plans to use to develop a strong fan base through both traditional and internet marketing. This interview is a great look into the inner workings of a professional sports franchise.

Click here to listen to the podcast.

If you are interested in this podcast series and would like to listen to some of my other interviews with Tom Green, Steve Wozniak, or Ron Richards, subscribe via iTunes.
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Interview with Steve Wozniak

2008-07-09T15:34:00.000-05:00

After a short break for the holiday, I have another episode of my summer interview series. Today I had a chance to talk to someone real special in the world of technology with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. In this interview I got a chance to talk with Steve about his current computer setup, his love for Segway polo, and what changes he would have made to the iPhone had he been on it's engineering team.

Click here to listen to the podcast.

If you are interested in this podcast series, subscribe via iTunes.
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More on My Interview with Tom Green

2008-07-02T15:39:00.002-05:00

I know it was a couple weeks ago, but here is the video from my interview with Tom Green. Check it out and let me know what you think.

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Gaming Marathons

2008-07-02T14:32:00.002-05:00

Hey everyone,

Sorry for the two-week layoff, life has been hectic since the beginning of June. Working on this site, preparing a huge concert featuring Relient K in September, doing some part-time marketing work for a company, and trying to keep a social life has kept me fairly busy. No complaints or excuses though, life is too short for either and I am loving everything that I have been able to experience in the last couple of months.

Anyways, I wanted to write a quick post about gaming marathons and my opinions on them, since I have gotten about 7 or 8 e-mails about it in the last week. By now, I am sure many of you have heard about the Mario Marathon that took place last weekend with quite a bit of success.

Congrats to those guys, who were able to successfully smash our total from January. It's amazing really to think that they were able to raise that kind of money. It's a great story to hear that nearly twelve thousand dollars will go to Child's Play through their efforts.

In several e-mails I have been asked if I mind others using the idea of a marathon for charity. By all means, if you are interested in taking on the task of staying up and playing games for however long, please use the idea and raise money for a cause. I feel as if people assume I dislike people using the idea or if I feel that others are stealing my idea through speed running games for charity. Frankly, I am never bothered by the idea of others using the idea to raise money for charities like Child's Play. If you want to play Mega Man, Metroid, Mario, Sonic, Bomberman, Superman 64, or Pokemon for 48 hours to raise money for a cause, by all means do so. Be sure to send me a link too, I love checking our your efforts.

Looking back since January, there have been countless efforts to marathon through games and raise money for charities that I have been aware of and I am sure many more that I have never even heard about. Looking back at e-mails and saved links, I did a little math and from what I can tell, about $20,000 has been raised through Four48 and other similar marathons from people who have e-mailed me asking for permission to borrow the idea or who have e-mailed me with thanks for inspiration. That number is phenomenal and I couldn't be happier at the idea that gamers have been able to use their talents at defeating Ganon, Bowser, Dr. Robotnik, and other villains to help raise money for great causes.

For a quick update on what else I have been up to, you may notice that I haven't been broadcasting as much as I was previously. A lot of this involves the fact that it was difficult to create content of a quality I was happy about with one person. To be successful you need quality content, advertising, and execution. I just wasn't delivering and I decided to slow down on the broadcasts. I have however began a summer podcast series which I suggest you check out. Here is a link to subscribe via iTunes. I had a chance to interview some big names like Tom Green, Ben Heck, and Ron Richards, and I hope to add about five or six more by the end of August. Send me an e-mail as to what you think of them (Cameron@CameronBanga.com) and offer suggestions as to anyone you would like to see interviewed.

I'm also trying to set up a gaming marathon with the Four48 guys. Looking at hopefully in August sometime, but nothing is set in stone. We would all love to make another attempt at the Zelda games while raising some money for charity. If you are interested in watching, send me a e-mail or leave a comment.
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Gamer Against Society #1: Lil Wayne

2008-06-19T15:59:00.005-05:00

As we all know, whenever anything bad happens involving a teenage, video games are blamed as a scapegoat. Parents start to hate games, politicians push for bans, and late night news programs do specials on how Mortal Kombat kills babies. It's a sad cycle and one I would like to see brought to an end sometime in the near future as video games become a more socially acceptable form of media. This is the first episode in a video series which I hope will show not that games are on equal moral footing with Mr. Rogers, but instead that a lot of other things in society also need correction and close inspection if we're going to start pointing fingers.

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Interview with Ron Richards

2008-06-18T15:50:00.002-05:00

Earlier today I had a chance to talk over the phone with Ron Richards of Revision3 about the company and how they are making significant steps in changing the way people look at receiving their video content. Ever wonder what it's like to work with Martin Sargent or Kevin Rose? Curious as to where people in the industry see digital distribution in the next couple of years? Then this is definitely the interview for you.

Click here to listen to the podcast.

If you are interested in this podcast series, subscribe via iTunes.
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Interview with Ben Heck.

2008-06-12T20:57:00.006-05:00

I had a chance earlier this week to talk over the phone with console modder Ben Heckendorn about some of his latest projects. Some of you may remember Ben from his projects like the X-Box 360 laptop or Access controller. This is definitely an interesting interview for those into sweet console or controller mods.

Click here to listen to the podcast.

If you are interested in this podcast series, subscribe via iTunes.
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Interview with Comedian Tom Green

2008-06-09T17:38:00.004-05:00

One goal I had for this summer was to set up a series of podcasts which feature prominent up and coming ideas and people in the tech industry and what they are doing to change what's popular on the internet.

Today I was able to conduct my first interview with popular comedian Tom Green about how he is using new video broadcasting technology to broadcast a daily webshow.

Click here to listen to the interview.

If you are interested in this podcast series, subscribe via iTunes. Later this week, I'll have up my second interview as I discuss the development of his special gaming controllers for those with disabilities.
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Rock Climbing

2008-06-08T17:06:00.002-05:00

I have always been a big fan of rock climbing. When I was younger, there used to be a big indoor wall less than a mile from my house where I would spend hours trying to ascend up some pretty difficult walls. Nothing I ever did ever came close to this.

This guy was just arrested yesterday for trying to climb the 52-story New York Times building. That's a pretty cool thing to get arrested for. Hope you enjoy the video. Leave a comment with what you think about it.

Own a Wii and Looking for a Bargain? Buy These 25 GameCube Games for Less Than $250.

2008-06-04T16:10:00.014-05:00

As we take steps farther into June, it's undeniable that summer is upon us. In the video game world, the rise in temperature also brings upon a drought that doesn't affect front lawns but instead the home console.

The Wii isn't going to be a stranger to this phenomenon that occurs yearly as publishers hold titles and give developers a little more time to polish up games before the hectic holiday season. If you're a Wii owner looking to spend some time with new games this summer, you may be a little hard pressed to find something of interest.

Keeping that in mind, I have developed a list of games for Wii owners to take in if they are looking to keep themselves busy behind the joysticks all summer long. However, this list took games into account that contain a couple certain attributes.

First, the list consists of all GameCube games. Seeing as the Wii has already surpassed the GameCube in worldwide sales by over six million units, I figure there are one or two owners of the system who never had a chance to experience any of these games. They may be a couple years old, but each of these titles are still exceptional by any standards. Second, I took those with tight budgets into great consideration. I see myself as a frugal gamer and I am sure that there are many more who are similar. Thus, I started this list with a goal of compiling a list of not only quality games, but I wanted a list of 25 top notich titles which would fit into a budget of $250.

Titles listed blow are not ranked in order as to what I feel is best, I will leave that decision up to you (feel free to leave your rankings of the game as a comment). Prices accompanying the games come from either Amazon or GameStop. To be honest, I hate GameStop as much as the next gamer, but their online price list should be fairly accurate with what you would find at nearly any game resale shop. Same with Amazon.

Now without any further ado, here is a list of the top 25 GameCube games that can be bought with a budget of $250.

1. Soul Calibur 2 : $5.99 at GameStop - The Soul Caliber series established itself as a quality fighter on Dreamcast and the GameCube sequel didn't disappoint. Tons of characters, tons of depth, and a solid experience all around. As a bonus, the GCN version featured everyone's favorite Hylian, Link, as a playable character.

2. Resident Evil 4 : $9.00 at Amazon - Capcom's classic was re-released on the Wii with Wiimote capabilities last year, but for those looking to experience the hit while remaining frugal, this is the way to do it. RE4 is definitely one of the greater experiences the GCN had to offer and it's a crime not to give it a play through.

3. The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker : $12.15 at Amazon - Few games are able to provide such a killer combination of style, solid gameplay, and depth that WW did. It may not have been the realistic Zelda game that fans of the series were looking for when it was released, but the game is just another example as to why the Legend of Zelda series has few rivals in the world of gaming.

4. Metroid Prime : $6.99 at GameStop - Metroid Prime brought the favorites series of many into a 3D world and it did so with emphasis. Many even argue that this is the greatest game to ever grace the purple lunchbox. It's a space adventure game that features lots of exploring and solid shooting controls and is definitely worth every penny of it's price tag.

5. Tales of Symphonia : $21.50 at Amazon - Definitely one of the better RPG titles to ever hit the system and the Wii will see a sequel to this game which could hit US shores by year end. The game offers a solid 40 hours of game play in addition to a great story and solid controls.

6. Viewtiful Joe : $4.99 at GameStop - In today's world of mega-blockbusters, it is rare to find new intellectual property which are both critically acclaimed and big sellers. Viewtiful Joe was able to make the 2D side-scroller hip again and was definitely a sleeper hit of the last generation.

7. Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door: $10.98 at Amazon - Part of me wants to praise this game as a great RPG and the other part of me hates the title. This game is slowly paced and involves several fetch quests. The battle system is great and I want to keep finding bigger and badder enemies and bosses, but the game would rather send me on a fetch quest and that just pisses me off. This game does have depth on it's side. If you find every badge and shine, you will easily put 50-60 hours into the adventure.

8. Eternal Darkness: $17.99 at Amazon - A game that really symbolized the GameCube. It is amazing, yet it sold horribly. If Nintendo has a kiddy image, this game didn't help create it. The story and gameplay are better than any other horror game on the market. What made ED stand out was a certain gameplay element which I really won't go into detail in because it ruins the game. Want to know what that element is? Do yourself a favor and go purchase this game.

9. Lost Kingdoms: $4.99 at GameStop - One of a couple real sleeper titles I have on my list. This game is amazing and I almost promise that you have never heard of it. The story and graphics might be typical but the gameplay isn't. This game focuses on collecting a team on monsters in a deck of cards. The concept it hard to explain in words, but the game is wonderful in action. Definitely worth the five bucks you will find it for at your local GameStop.

10. TimeSplitters 2: $6.99 at GameStop - This game was brought to us by Free Radical, which was a team comprised of many of the same guys who developed GoldenEye for the Nintendo 64. The single player mode offers several difficulties, but the real meat and potatoes comes in the multi-player mode. You and your friends will have hours of fun with this one, I guarantee it.

11. Star Wars Rogue Leader Rogue Squadron: $5.99 at GameStop - This game has held a special place in my heart ever since I picked it up on the GameCube's launch night. The missions are varied and interesting enough to keep any gamer happy for hours.

12. F-Zero GX: $7.88 at Amazon - It didn't sell too well and it wasn't well recieved by many. Plainly stated, this game was hard. Very hard. If you have the patience to practice and master this game, it could be one of the most rewarding things you have ever done in gaming.

13. Super Mario Sunshine: $15.00 at Amazon - This game might have received more criticism than any other game in the GameCube's lifespan. I guess that is what happens when you are technically a sequel to Super Mario 64. No, this game does not revolutionize gaming like Super Mario 64 did in 1996. That doesn't make it a bad platformer. I recommend that everyone checks out this game, just don't expect anything to be leaps and bounds over Super Mario 64.

14. Mario Golf Toadstool Tour: $14.99 at GameStop - A great solid golf game. Much better than the golf game thrown together in Wii Sports. It doesn't feature motion control, but this game offers a fair amount of unlockable characters and courses. I do think that Mario Golf for the N64 is a better game. If your willing to wait, I would hold out and spend my money on the N64 version of this game whenever it is released for the Virtual Console.

15. Super Monkey Ball: $5.99 at GameStop - If you haven't played any Monkey Ball game before, you're missing out on one of Sega's greatest gaming gems. Anyone can enjoy this puzzle hit. The later stages will push even the most skilled gamers into an intense level of concentration. Everyone should own either Super Monkey Ball 1 or 2 for the GameCube.

16. Crazy Taxi: $7.99 at GameStop - This title may surprise a few people as it's a port of an old Dreamcast and Arcade hit. If you have never played Crazy Taxi, you owe it to yourself to try out this quick and fun driving game.

17. Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers: $2.99 at GameStop - Movie licensed games are never usually of top quality as developers fight huge time constraints to rush out a product under low budget to capitalize on a brand. EA did right with the Lord of the Rings series and this game provides great action at a minimum price.

18. Baten Kaitos: $9.99 at GameStop - A solid RPG title that was highly hyped, but never received a whole lot of praise. It has tons of depth and offers a great experience well worth the ten dollar price tag.

19. Killer 7: $11.99 at Amazon - A cult favorite of sorts among shooter fans on the Cube. The game has a great style and offers solid gameplay. People tend to either love or hate this title, but for $12, it seems worth the risk.

20. Luigi's Mansion: $9.99 at GameStop - Go ahead and laugh at me with the inclusion of this GCN launch title. The game is somewhat short, but it does offer a quality experience and a unique several hours of gameplay.

21. Prince of Persia: Sands of Time: $11.99 at Amazon - Considered by many to be one of the best games on the console and is a solid experience that helped Ubisoft establish itself as one of the prime third-parties of the last generation.

22. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time/Master Quest: $27.00 at Amazon - While this is the highest priced game on the list, it is extremely rare as it was only provided to those who pre-ordered Wind Waker. Ocarina of Time may just be the best game of all time and with this game, you are also provided with the Master Quest which gives the game all new dungeons which help ramp up the difficulty for those who had mastered the game in years past.

23. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4: $3.99 at GameStop - Tony Hawk revolutionized the sports genre with the release of his first Pro Skater game back in 1999 and the fourth installment is an extremely solid offering which provides deep gameplay, hours of replayablity, and a whole lot of fun for a real low price tag.

24. NHL Hitz 20-02: $2.99 at GameStop - NHL Hitz offers one an amazingly fun arcade experience which features a great single player experience, but the game really shines through multi-player. Grab some friends and enjoy the fun that this game provides.

25. SSX 3: $6.99 at GameStop - Another extreme sports game takes a spot on this list with a tight combination of both racing and tricks. The SSX series hit the Wii last year with SSX Blur, but many fans of the series see 3 as the best title EA's Big studio has produced.

So, I was able to find 25 quality titles for Wii owners looking to take advantage of the system's backwards capabilties, but what about the final total? Was I able to keep below the $250 price ceiling? You bet I did. If you wanted to pick up all these titles this summer, you could do so for only $247.33, which would be less than you originally spent on the white wonderbox.

What do you think about the list? Do you agree/disagree? What titles would you add to the list or knock off and how would you place them if you had to order them from best to worst? Leave me a comment or send an e-mail to Cameron@CameronBanga.com.

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Day 2: What Up Summer Plans?

2008-05-31T09:36:00.005-05:00

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

2008-05-30T19:12:00.006-05:00

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.

Kickoff 2008

2008-05-30T15:28:00.002-05:00

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

It All Starts On Friday

2008-05-27T13:46:00.004-05:00

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.

A Day in the Life of a College Sports Broadcaster

2008-05-22T13:43:00.003-05:00

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.

Welcome to Mario Kart

2008-05-17T13:52:00.002-05:00

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.

An Idea, Set Into Motion....Sort Of

2008-05-12T01:47:00.003-05:00

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.

I Think I Have a Plan

2008-05-09T20:12:00.003-05:00

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.

I Need a Summer Job

2008-05-04T12:28:00.002-05:00

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.

Four48 - The Fight To Become Best Man

2008-04-05T16:45:00.007-05:00

EDIT: I forgot to update last night, but Cameron pulled off the victory in three matches. It was a great 6+ hours of Brawling and thanks to all those who tuned in for part if not all of the broadcast. We appreciated it!

Welcome everyone to the event of a lifetime. Tonight is a night when Dillon, my friends Jason and Hudak, and myself will be playing an epic set of Smash Bros. matches to decide who will be the best man at our friend Tom's wedding.
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Feel free to send us e-mails, we will read them as always. The address is Cameron@CameronBanga.com.

Watch live video from CB_TV on Justin.tv

As a little bit of back story, about a month ago my friend Tom found out that he will soon be a father to a child. With this, Tom has also decided to look into also become a husband. While we were all very happy for him, a small debate broke out when we decided to determine who would be his best man. While we could bare knuckle box or play rock-paper-scissors, we decided that ultimately the best way to determine this would be through a game of Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

Here is what we are currently looking at for the match.

4 Man Melee featuring myself, Dillon, Jason, and Hudak (Sac may sub for a while since Hudak is at a picnic, no joke)
99 man stock matches
Best two out of three wins "Best Man" for the wedding
Items are on regular
First match will take place on Corneria, we will then have a poll to determine other levels

We'll be taking donations as always, you can click on the PayPal button on the right. Donations will go to Tom and his girlfriend to help pay for baby supplies.

Yeah this whole idea is ridiculous, but it's life. Enjoy the night and some Four48 madness.

At 6:00, We Go Live.

2008-04-05T14:28:00.003-05:00

"This is goodbye...or is it goodnight?"

Well, it's been a two-month or so hiatus for Four48. We haven't called like we said we would. We didn't send post-cards either. We apologize.

But, life happens, literally and figuratively. Pretty much everyone on the team has been busy with school and other life happenings over this period. I got a new job, Dillon's chin has become larger, Adam has fought numerous Rick Rolls, Tina worked on hiding her face more, and Matt was forced to sit and watch 2Girls1Cup about 27 times an hour. One of our teammates has seen even a more dramatic change.

I am sure most of you remember Tom. He's the lovable kung-fu kid with long-hair. Well, about a month ago, Tom found out he is going to be a father. Yep, Tom is going to have a kid. I know, crazy huh?

Anyways, with this child will also come a marriage. Yep, Tom is also looking to possibly get married. Sorry if this seems like a bunch to grasp, but a lot has happened since we were on air last.

So, in accordance with our jackass tendencies, we have decided to help make Tom's life a little easier by choosing the best man for his wedding ourselves so he doesn't have to. We're great guys, right?

So if we are going to choose the best man for his wedding, only one method would be acceptable. No, it won't be rock-paper-scissors. No, it won't be an epic game of four-square. In accordance with our gamer lifestyles, the only permissible way for this to happen would be with a game of Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

That's right, at 6:00pm CST, we'll begin a 99 stock match 4 of Tom's closest friends to determine who will be the best man at his wedding. Is this the most traditional way to select a guy to be you're best man? Definitely not. Is it going to be fun? Hell yes.

We'll have links to Justin.tv and more later. Invite your friends and be sure to bring some popcorn, it should be a blast. We promise laughter, insanity, and rick-rolls. We're trying to get online play working for some fun after our match, but no promises since we haven't been successful in the past. As always, we will be taking donations. However, tonight our proceeds will be going directly to Tom to help to buy diapers and baby supplies. It only seemed fitting.

See you all later,
-CB

Talk To You Every Now And Then

2008-03-16T12:56:00.002-05:00

I never felt so alone again.

About an hour or so and I will be heading back to the beauty and wonder that is Valparaiso, Indiana. A couple more months and I will be done with my 2nd year of college, how wack is that?

This week is looking to keep me fairly busy, which will be a nice change of pace after sitting on my ass all this week. Two tests (who schedules mid-terms after a two-week break?) and then 24 interviews for management positions at the radio station next year. The cool thing is, I will have a full staff after this week. The rough thing is, I will have quite a few difficult decisions to make between now and Friday.

I got a sweet e-mail from a guy named Bretthew this week. Apparently, due to frustration and desire to play Brawl, he ordered two copies of the game. He said he is sending me a copy which I will definitely be waiting for anxiously and will appreciate greatly. Thanks again Bretthew.

Hope you get some more gaming time here soon. Hopefully after this week I will get some real serious time with Brawl. I can't wait to really tackle single-player and online stuff.

Best of luck to everyone else this week, I will definitely need it. Hopefully I will get another post up here fairly soon.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl

2008-03-10T12:59:00.002-05:00

So, I originally wanted to get my first taste of Brawl through some Four48 action. However, due to being on spring break and just not being able to get the team together while we are spread around the country, it didn't happen. My friend Mike did pick up a copy of the game and I got about 5-6 hours of play with the monumental release, so I figured I would post some quick impressions.

Throughout the couple hours we played, I had a chance to play or witness about an hour of single player and the rest was in multi-player mode. I have to note, I didn't get any online play in. I really wish we could have played a bit of it, but it didn't happen since we had a fairly large group of players.

First things first, the characters all seemed very balanced and the level design is very well done. Over the last month or so, I have gotten some rounds of Melee in with Dillon and Matt Green. The one thing I remember from the GameCube title was that I found myself hating most levels besides Final Destination and Corneria. Maybe it was because we were still early into our overall playtime with the title, but I thought each level was very enjoyable (except for maybe the Mushroom Kingdom level and the Donkey Kong level). The characters also seemed much more balanced. I played primarily as Link (he's my homeboy, obviously) but tried out a variety of other characters. I found even what considered to be the weaker characters easier to use and be successful with.

The items all play really well, but their actually seems to be too many items in my opinion. I think this primarily comes from the new assist trophies. This feeling primarily comes from the experience of being on the receiving end of weapons and just not knowing what has happened and what idea was used and what the ultimate result of it's use will be. However, I think this is just an early response to the items and that with more play time I will learn to adapt to each better defensively without feeling so confused about each.

I also found myself using the GameCube controller most. I think this is because I am well experienced in Melee and this controller makes Brawl feel just like it's predecessor. The game controls like Melee and that is definitely not a bad thing. The controls were tight in 2001 and they remain the same way today.

The Space Station Emissary(is that the correct name/spelling?) felt a lot like Melee's adventure mode with additional cut scenes. There is a basic story, but it definitely isn't the reason you will be playing. Overall, it seems like a great addition and something I would personally like to play through to the end.

Hopefully these quick impressions give everyone a quick look further into the game if you haven't had a chance to play it yet. If you have any questions, feel free to e-mail me at Cameron@CameronBanga.com or leave a comment and I will try to respond back to you quickly.

I'm a New Soul

2008-03-08T01:28:00.002-06:00

"I came to this strange world hoping I could learn a bit bout how to give and take."

It's pretty late here, 1:30 or so in the AM, but I have decided to take some time to update since it has been about 3 weeks and I have taken an extended vacation.

I guess I should start by kinda recapping my last couple weeks. Some big events have kinda transpired I guess. They are somewhat the reasons behind my lack of postings.

First, I got a sweet new job for next school year. As some of you may know, I am currently the news director at WVUR in Valpo. I produce a show that runs 5 times a week and keep people updated with the happenings in the world. It's a pretty sweet gig and I enjoy it a bunch.

However, after an interview and application, I found out that I was chosen to be general manager of the station for next year. It's a pretty nice opportunity (we're the second largest organization on campus) and will give me a lot of great experience. However, after learning that I got the job, I had a couple weeks of crazy work in preparing a budget and getting ready to interview people who will make up our staff next year. I am also on spring break now and worked 40 hours this week, which accounts for my lack on time the last 5 days or so.

Anyways, I apologize, the gap is definitely unacceptable and I will work on it.

With regards to games, not so certain that a Brawl release special will be happening. We kinda had some stuff come up and with people being on break, I don't think it will happen. Sorry to disappoint, but it would just be a poorly executed marathon which we know you guys wouldn't want. It would also maybe only be Matt Green and I and you may not want that either (except for the person who wrote that homo-erotic fan fiction). Don't fret too much, we will see another big release or two before long (Mario Kart anyone?).

In other Cameron Banga news, my girlfriend returns from a week-long trip tomorrow. You guys may not care, but that means a lot to me. I should hopefully see her tomorrow and I am pumped.

The Chicago Fire also kick off their season here pretty soon. I have been following MLS news here for a couple weeks pretty hardcore and I am ready as ever for the season. Is anyone else a Fire fan? I got season tickets this year and am pumped as ever.

Well, I am off to bed now. Peace up everyone.

Tomorrow Comes Today

2008-02-15T20:11:00.002-06:00

Hey everyone, sorry for the late notice but I still wanted to update everyone on what is going on tomorrow with Four48.

After a bunch of discussion in our meeting last week, we hasve decided to take a couple week break. We just don't feel like we are giving everything we can and we haven't been happy with our motivation. We love what we do, but we still feel like we could improve greatly by just not hitting the webcam each week.

So to reassure everyone, we're not done forever. Not even close. We just need a while away so that we can make better content for you when we are on.

Right now, the tentative plan is to broadcast again in a couple weeks when Brawl is released. We are hoping for a longer Brawl marathon, but nothing is certain as of right now. We'll have more info in the near future, but assume that we will be back for an extended length marathon in the beginning of March.

Until then, enjoy life and chill. Maybe spend a Saturday outside? I know I am looking forward to that.

Feel free to send any questions, comments, or suggestions you have to Cameron@CameronBanga.com.

Seriously?

2008-02-10T13:59:00.000-06:00

I just bought a song by Buckman Page(a pretty popular band comprised of students here at VU) while sitting eating lunch at the Jesters cafeteria. I am now wring about this while finishing my glass of OJ. All thanks to my iPod touch. Technology is f'ing nuts. Now I go do homework.

PS. River and Rain by Buckman Page. Go buy it now.

EDIT: Glass of OJ, not class. :-(

cameronbanga dot com presents the Four48 Show Episode 5: A Link to the Past

2008-02-09T10:57:00.001-06:00

We're back at it this beautiful Saturday morning to play some more video games, this week we are tackling The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. For those of you unaware, A Link to the Past is considered by many to be the greatest Zelda game of all time. It's an adventure in Hyrule not for the faint of heart, and our teammate Chris is prepared to beat through it today in 4 hours!

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Watch live video from cbanga on Justin.tv
If you can't get the embedded video to work, check it out directly as www.justin.tv/cbanga.

As always, send e-mails to Cameron@CameronBanga.com so we can read them throughout the day. We're taking donations as always, except now we have decided to move to ChipIn as our service for donations, which allow us to keep track of donations while donating directly to Child's Play!

We'll keep a live blog here, so be sure to check back for updates all day long.

01:37 PM Saturday - So far, Chris is flying through the game. On pace to beat the 4 hour mark.

04:42 PM Saturday - We're done for the day. Chris beat the game in 3 hours 27 min and then Dillon and I beat through Sin & Punishment. Thanks for joining us guys, it was a blast.

Metrobuzzed

2008-02-08T01:47:00.000-06:00

Hey everyone, just wanted to give a post-humpday update as to what is going on this weekend.

We're going to go with a nice little game this weekend for Four48. Chris on our team is planning on taking on The Legend of Zelda: A Link to The Past starting at noon CST Saturday. Should be a nice little run if you are a fan of the game, or if you have never completed it (like myself). He thinks he can do it in 4 hours without even dying in the game once. Should be a fun little weekend, so we hope you all stop by and check it out.

Earlier this week, I got invited to do a little interview with MetroBuzz. It was a really sweet interview where we got a chance to discuss a little bit of the behind the scenes of our events while giving a little history of Four48. I definitely suggest you all check it out at their site here.

Well, I am off to bed. It's 2 AM and I have class at 9AM. Hopefully I can catch some Z's and enjoy the day. Besides, I need my rest to spend a couple hours analyzing the Chicago Fire's recently released schedule to maybe plan a road trip. Anyone else out there an MLS fan? If so, be sure to send me an e-mail.

Well, I Guess This is Growing Up

2008-02-06T22:34:00.000-06:00

I usually don't like to be emotional during blog posts. It really ruins my popular image as a real rad tough guy. I enjoy that image and I like to keep my position as one of the top three most threatening guys on campus (behind Nick Kovatch and Mike Stecyk).

But today, it finally hit me that this will be the first summer since 7th grade that I haven't been able to really hang out with Bud Sothman. That's a period of 7 consecutive that I haven't gone without the guy who is arguably my best friend in the world (he's top 5 for sure, to anyone who gets that joke). Sure I got the call from him yesterday. I got to hear the whole story of a successful internship(finally, he deserves it like no other) in Tampa, he'll live with his Aunt, and all this while basking in the sweet Florida sun. I really don't know how to put this to words, I guess it just now hit. No yelling at Rusty on early June nights, no River Rat runs after a first tube pop in July, no late nights of Wii bowling with Taco Bell, Fourth of July no walking by Victoria's Secret only to see Bud selling panties to a middle-aged woman, no White Sox games with gold diggers, no watching Calen Carr throw his headband into Section 8 after an amazing goal, no Tila Tequila season 2 (we can only hope, right?) marathons, and finally no celebration of my 21st birthday.

I'd like to say it doesn't bother me. Hell, I'm twenty years old and need to realize that eventually I will move on with my life and exit college, maybe move far away, an rarely talk to my friends at all. I'll forget all about late night watching Legends of the Hidden Temple and Friday nights at Zao Island, but for now it is still a tough thought to tackle.

Looking back, it's really hard to see where my friendship with Bud even started. I am sure he could tell you the exact day and hour we met, he has an amazing talent for that kind of thing. Earliest I can remember, I was casual friends with Bud when he IMed me about joining his bowling team with Andrew Martin. I really don't remember my motivation behind saying yes to the offer, especially since I blow ass at bowling. However, I like to think that due to my piss poor scores raising the team handicap and some clutch scores late in the season really helped contribute to our 3rd place league finish. Some Mario hopping a couple weeks later, an invite to his birthday party, and I think we were officially best bros. Hard to even imagine now that I look back at it.

I was going to make a top 5 list of moments spent with Bud over the last seven summers, but I figured it would maybe be a little more fitting to make a list of things that kinda hadn't happened at that point.

- It was 2001
- I was still at TLS, home of the Trojans baby. I hadn't attended a day of school with Bud and had definitely not started yelling BUUUUUUDDDD in any hallways.
- I had not met Jessica Jarman, hell, I hadn't even met Rachel yet. In Bud's love life, I just remember some story about I think Megan Imboden's parents hating him. Does that make sense Bud? Freshen me up on that story sometime.
- None of us could drive as of yet. We still relied on my Mom to take us to Deep River, even if Bud forgot his ticket and towel....twice.
- Jason didn't have long hair.
- Aviral was still 3 years or so away from even taking his first step in America.
- Bryce Drew was finishing up his first and only season with the Chicago Bulls.
- Landon Donovan had 1 career goal for the US National Team.
- It was a long time ago, I think you get the point.

Anyways, to wrap this whole thing up, Bud it is going to be a tough summer without you. I really can't imagine any break during June and July not having Bud Sothman in the big picture of things. It's maybe too early to tell, but I think I will make it through this ordeal alright and I just want to wish you the best of luck. Make the Bart proud and go kick some ass in Florida. Besides, by the time you get back, I'll be in mid-season form for the World Series and ready to three-peat while you are still down throwing simulated innings in Arizona.

Small note to go with this post about Four48. We'll be playing this Saturday, but game is not certain as of yet. Expect a noon start time or so and be ready to party. We're bringing our A game baby.

Super Tuesday!

2008-02-05T11:44:00.000-06:00

Here are some results to keep you busy, straight from Google.

Four48 vs The World: Round 1

2008-02-01T23:01:00.000-06:00

EDIT: Thanks to everyone who watched! We ended up beating the game in 4hrs 06 mins. Congrats to Wali Boyz! They will be winning a copy of No More Heroes! Hope you all had fun, check out the site in a couple of days for more information as to what we have planned next.

You asked for it and we're delivering. Welcome to Four48 vs the World: Round 1. Today, we're playing Resident Evil 4 in not only a race against the clock, but in a race against 7 teams worldwide. Click here to Digg this story!

All the action can be found on this page, just scroll down a bit. You will see the best quality and video speeds if you only watch one feed at a time, but feel free to watch all at a time if you want. If you want to chat up the whole event, check out our chat room here.

As always, we are taking donations with our proceeds going to Child's Play. Click here to donate!

And to make the contest a little interesting, the winners today take home a copy of No More Heroes for the Nintendo Wii and if we win, we're going to give our the game away to anyone who wants to enter in our contest. The contest is pretty simple. Just send us a picture of yourself with www.cameronbanga.com written somewhere on your body with marker. For examples, check out our fan art page. You can enter the contest multiple times, however if for multiple entries, you must send in pictures of different people with each picture. For example, you can't send in 5 pictures of yourself, but you can send in a picture of yourself, your girlfriend, and your little brother. Submissions only count if they are sent in WHILE team Four48 is playing. Pictures sent in before we start and after we finish don't count.

Here are the feeds. Be sure to wish us luck haha, we're playing for you!

Team Four48

Watch live video from cbanga on Justin.tv

Final Standings
1.Wali Boyz
2.Four48
3.Element of Legend
4.1108 losses to Four48
5.Matt McLost to Us
6.Kennyboy's Party People Who Lose
7.Boring Chris because he loses to us
8.LeechCharmer and 36hrs of PWNed by Four48

I Never Want to Act My Age...

2008-01-31T14:07:00.000-06:00

"What's my age again?"

So I actually took sometime to sit and look at a calendar today and I came to an astonishing revelation. In less than six months, I will be hitting the ripe age of twenty-one years. Twenty-one years on this planet already? Wow. Just wow.

I guess I am suppose to be happy and enjoy this upcoming event. It's the last big birthday until I hit forty or fifty, so I might as well have a great time while I'm at it. Maybe I am just a pessimist, but I really can't see anything positive about getting older. To me, it's just a constant reminder that I haven't really done anything with my life yet.

Saw a pretty big news story this morning. Amazon just announced plans to buy Audible for a cool $300 million dollars, which could turn into just petty cash for the company if the audiobook provider can keep producing as it has for the last 10 years.

Two interesting things come out of this purchase in my mind. First, will Audible keep ties with Apple after their contracts end later this year since Apple is easily the biggest name in digital distribution of media. Second, how will this agreement work into future revisions of Amazon's recently released Kindle? I'm not a big e-book reader and to be completely honest, don't know anyone who really is. However, it's hard to disagree with the fact that the Kindle is an impressive device with a super sexy screen. Add audiobook support and other multimedia features and you would definitely have a device which could make many ditch their laptops. It will really be interesting to see how this purchase pans out in the long run.

Quick Four48 update. We have 5 confirmed teams for this weekend's "Four48 vs The World" and a couple more maybes. If you are interested and can broadcast yourself playing RE4 starting this Saturday at noon CST, send me an e-mail at Cameron@CameronBanga.com

Also, our own Tom Platte is going to be interviewed by his hometown Kalamazoo Gazette (I believe that is the paper) because of his involvement in our charity. If you are in the K-Zoo (that is what you kids there call it, right?) area, be sure to keep an eye out for that.

Well, I am off to accounting. Best 75 minutes of my life, srsly. Well, maybe not.

Challenger Approaching!

2008-01-29T23:07:00.000-06:00

We had a pretty big team meeting tonight and after an hour or so of working out details, we have a pretty big announcement to make. We hope you all are as pumped as we are haha.

To get down and dirty with some details, I would like to let you all know about our "Four48 vs The World: Round 1" weekend we have planned for this weekend.

We have decided to take on other teams worldwide in a speed run of Resident Evil 4 starting at Noon CST. Anyone can enter to take us on but you have to meet a couple of certain requirements first...

1.) You need to be able to broadcast your entire run online through Justin.TV or Mogulus.
2.) You need to be able to start at noon CST this Saturday.
3.) You need to be able to stand losing to us.
4.) Seriously though, we are going to kick your ass.

We are also limiting the number of competing teams to 8 or so, depending on the number of entrants we receive, so contact us about competing ASAP. To sign up, e-mail me at Cameron@CameronBanga.com and be prepared to show that you have webcasting abilities. You will also need a copy of RE4 on any console (PS2, Wii, or GCN). We will be taking teams more or less at first come, first serve to compete based on who can prove they will have the means to broadcast by Saturday. Also, any e-mails asking for help to set up a broadcast will be ignored. You either know how to set it up or you need to check out Justin.tv or Mogulus for information through their help pages.

Now you may be asking yourself, "Why should my friends and I work to beating you this Saturday?" One simple answer. The first place team in this event will win a brand spanking new copy of No More Heroes. Sweet enough right? You play RE4 with your friends this weekend in hopes of winning a new game for the Nintendo Wii. And if you don't come out on top, you are going to be helping to raise donations for Child's Play with us, like we do every week with all our proceeds going to benefit the charity. It's win-win.

But what if (not really what if, but more like when we) win, what will we do with the prize? We don't want a new copy of No More Heroes (well, we do, but for this weekend we will pass on it). If we win the speed run contest, we will be giving the copy of No More Heroes to all those of you watching us on Justin.TV.

We'll be holding a contest throughout the day which you can enter by sending us a picture of yourself (or your friends) with the words www.cameronbanga.com written somewhere on your or their bodies. Bonus points if it is a girl (well, you don't have a better chance of winning necesarily, but you will win bonus points with Adam). You can enter more than once, however each additional entry must be of a different person (aka, the second entry must be your friend, girlfriend, mom, brother, etc. Just not you again. Multiple pictures of yourself won't be accepted). Also, entries will only be accepted starting noon on Saturday until we beat the game, so don't start sending them to us yet. Entries can be sent to Cameron@CameronBanga.com

More details to follow in the upcoming days, so be sure to head back here often to see if we have any updates. If you and your friends are interested in taking us on, get that e-mail to me soon and make sure that you have the set up to play.

Hope you are all as pumped as we are. Send me any questions or comments.

If I Could Do It All Over Again

2008-01-28T11:27:00.000-06:00

"I'd skip those mistakes I made back when..."

Happy Monday everyone, I hope you are all having as great of a day as I am. Nothing better than some classes, radio, and tons of accounting home work to look forward to before I get a chance to go to bed later tonight. It could be worse I guess, I mean, I could be Dillon Carter (I jest Dillon, srsly).

I have some nihongo (Japanese) in a few minutes to go catch, so hopefully I can live through 50 minutes of that class. I have really been falling behind in that class so far this semester and need to serious up my study habits with it. I do have tutoring with Kaori tomorrow, so maybe she will kick my ass into gear with studying my vocab and Kanji.

After that, I have to go head to the VU Police Department to see if I can appeal a parking ticket I got yesterday. If anything (among a multitude of things) really ruined my day yesterday, it was this. 5 minutes in a place I am not suppose to park in order to check my bank balance to make sure I don't overdraw and I get a $60 ticket to boot. Oh life, thou art such a fair yet cruel mistress. Wish me luck in getting this thing appealed, but I am not too optimistic.

Tried testing the iTunes rental service last night, but our internet connection in my dorm is so slow that it took about 3 hours to get the file downloaded. Apple states that you can begin watching the movie a minute or so after you click rent and I take their word with that fact. That is, if you have an internet connection which is somewhat modern; definitely something I am not really sure I have in my dorm. Speaking of campus tech frustrations, I still can't get my iPod Touch's mail client to connect to my school e-mail or to my GMail. Maybe one day I can live in a world where 1st class institutions have manageable tech solutions.

GMan was gracious enough to donate us a VC game last night. Props to you my man, mad props. I guess Matt decided on Star Fox 64 and I can't blame him, that game is definitely a masterpiece. I heard through the grape vine that Biiaru has promised a game this week as well and I may have to push for 1080 Snowboarding which just hit the VC this morning. I was watching the Winter X-Games on the TV in the Union last night, and I have an extreme sports itch.

I'll have more Four48 info about next weekend posted later this week, so check back often. We're still debating over a game or two, but I can guarantee that whatever we choose will be definitely worth the watch.

Peace up, A town down.

cameronbanga dot com presents Four48 Episode 3: Paper Mario

2008-01-25T23:40:00.000-06:00

Welcome back everyone to week three in our gaming marathon series. This week, we take on the N64 RPG often considered to be one of the big cult hits from the era, Paper Mario.
Digg Us!

Click here to learn more about donating to cameronbanga dot com and Child's Play.

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Here is our embedded Justin.TV page. If this feed goes down, we will try to get back up as soon as possible. Just keep refreshing this page and we will post updates as to the status of our channel or to possible other services we are using to broadcast the program temporarily if need be.

If you are interested in donating to us, please click here.

If you haven't been back to the site in a week or so, here is what you have missed.

LIVE BLOG...

09:52 AM Saturday - Getting ready to kick-off in under 10 minutes. Should be a hoot.

10:48 AM Saturday - We're early into the game and enjoying the sweet as hell art style. We're also reading e-mails, so be sure to send them to Cameron@CameronBanga.com

02:55 PM Saturday - So far, so great. Tons of people in the room and we are really enjoying ourselves. Mad props to Joystiq and GoNintendo for covering our story AGAIN this week. It is crazy to see the sites we all read daily cover us. We also got our story on Digg and are getting some good numbers there. If you haven't seen the story, feel free to check it out and digg us here.

??:?? AM Sunday - Hey everyone, sorry for the lack of blog updates. I went out with my girlfriend and her family to Dave and Busters in Chicago for her older brother's birthday (If you have been there, can you blame me? It's like an adult Chuck E Cheese!) and I forgot to teach everyone how to update the blog. Thanks for the donations and to everyone who checked us out! We appreciated it mucho. We'll have another post tomorrow or so with info about next week and a recap of this week.

Join our IRC Chat!
IRC Server - irc.systemnet.info channel - #448
JAVA Chat - http://dyo-ecksdee.com/448java/

We've Got All Night Just To Make It Alright

2008-01-25T19:45:00.000-06:00

"Would you take a walk with me?"

Only about 12 hours until we kick off our third weekend of marathon gaming. Just wanted to make a couple quick updates and announcements before we kick-off our quest to beat that game in 17 hours starting at 10AM CST tomorrow.

We finalized our second money transfer to Child's Play today after some money finally cleared through the systems. Today's donations? $364.15! Thanks for the amazing numbers, you guys just continue to amaze us. This brings our yearly total now to $1569.33.

We also discussed some new plans for donations at our last team meeting. While we do still feel that we need to upgrade our equipment to make the show better, we will not be taking any money from donations. We're looking into ways to finance upgrades, but we have decided that donations will not be our key to that like we originally considered.

I got a chance to talk with Jake at Infendo for a really sweet interview, which you can find here. I definitely suggest you check it out. We will also be interviewed on a podcast next week and featured in a magazine dedicated to comic books and games in February. All these opportunities are real sweet and I will be sure to post links as more becomes available.

Also wanted to use this post to make a real big announcement! We have decided to start looking for people to join our official Four48 Street Team. If you are interested in spreading the word about the site and our game marathons, check out this post here over at the Four48 Forums.

Well, I am out to catch a concert (Asteria). Before hitting the hay for a big day tomorrow. Hope to see you all early at www.justin.tv/cbanga. We'll be on about 10AM CST. If you miss me too much, send some e-mails tonight to Cameron@CameronBanga.com so we have some reading material early tomorrow.

UPDATE: Just got an e-mail from one of our good friends, Biiaru. If you don't know him, he is the guy that donated Paper Mario to us via Virtual Console which we will be playing tomorrow. He has let us know that if we beat 16 hours tomorrow, he will be donating ANOTHER VC game to us. I think we may have to up the ante and prepare to beat our 17 hours which we originally calculated.

He also wanted me to share that he has formed an IRC chatroom for the day tomorrow and that he will be in there starting at 9AM CST for an extended pre-game before we kick off at 10 AM CST. I definitely suggest that you join him in the chat. Here is the info...

IRC Server - irc.systemnet.info channel - #448
JAVA Chat - http://dyo-ecksdee.com/448java/

Just Got This via AIM.

2008-01-24T23:54:00.000-06:00

Just got this a couple minutes ago, what a sweet fan video. This will definitely stick in my mind for a while as one of the greatest fan pieces I have received.

Keep on rolling baby.

PS, we'll see you all Saturday, bright and early (10AM CST). Hope you're as pumped as I am.

If I Hadn't Blown the Whole Thing Years Ago...

2008-01-23T13:31:00.000-06:00

"I might be here with you..."

Happy Wednesday my friends out there in internet land! I'm in the Christopher Center library right now making this post with about 28 minutes left to go until class (Japanese Literature, fun fun fun!), so I may have to make this a little short. Apologies in advance.

To get some updates for everyone about Four48, we had our 2nd official organization meeting last night. The meeting was so productive, it blew my mind. I really can't stress enough how focused the group of guys (and gal) we have working on this project are. We are definitely devoted to bringing you all great free internet content to the best of our abilities as long as this whole thing works out. I know you all often read my posts or talk to me through e-mails, hell this is even cameronbanga.com. But, I gotta stress that their are lots of people here working behind the scenes that you don't know who are all working their asses off to try to get this whole thing to work. Mad props to them.

With regards to next week, I am going to make this official (the cat has been out of the bag on the forums and such for a while), that we will be undertaking Paper Mario for the N64 this weekend by means of the Virtual Console and a very generous gift by Biiaru. I've never actually played the game myself, so I may be more pumped than anyone to get at this game, especially since I LOVED The Thousand Year Door (well except for the fetch-quest filled last couple hours).

Since we are taking up such a massive RPG, you may ask how long this quest will take us. We have two answers to that...First, we have no real idea as to how long it should take. Second, we are estimating around 20 hours. Yeah, that's a freaking long time.

Because of this game's length, we plan on starting early (and this start time will most likely stay consistent as our weekly start time) at 10AM CST this Saturday. Yeah, it is mega early. However, we feel like we can reach our broadest audience AND give more people the chance to watch more of us during the day by going with this time.

The Street Team idea really took off in the forums, so if you haven't hit up that topic I suggest you check it out. We're definitely interested in going forward with this and I hope to have some really exciting information for everyone in the next couple days.

We have seen some interest in a true podcast, which we would also look into releasing weekly through iTunes. Nothing is finalize with this and we are kinda trying to test the waters with this idea right now. If you are interested in a podcast, please drop me an e-mail at Cameron@CameronBanga.com and let me know what you think and what you would like to see. We would definitely like to find out if interest is there before we go full fledged with a podcast series.

I got some Google Reader invites and that was sweet as muffins. If you e-mailed me about it, I added you (or tried to at least, I am new to the process). If anyone else uses Google Reader, drop me a line so we can become RSS BFF4Ls.

Well, I am off to Japanese Lit. Wish me luck with all this ancient poetry.

Back In Your Head

2008-01-22T02:03:00.000-06:00

"When I get a little scared. When I get a little scared. When I get a little...run run run."

Just wanted to post a couple quick musings tonight before I hit the hay. It's getting a little late (2:13AM to be exact), so I am going to try to type as quick as possible. If this is incoherent, I apologize in advance.

I really need to get over this late night kick, I am really starting to worry about my sleep patterns haha. Oh well, I am sure my body will correct itself to what it needs in the long run, right?

For you Four48 fans, we will be having a team meeting tomorrow and we should have more information for you guys come Wednesday or so. We're looking to play Paper Mario this weekend, so let us know what you think about that title. I've never actually played the game, so I am pretty pumped. Also, our final totals aren't in from last weekend, because we are waiting for some stuff to clear money wise. However, we were over $300 for the night on Saturday, so we were fairly happy. Thanks again to all who donated and we can't wait to see you again this Saturday.

Got a chance to sit down with a reporter from the Post-Tribune tonight with Matt, Will, Chris, and Mike. I guess she is putting together a story on us which should be in the paper possibly this week? We'll keep you all updated when we find out more.

Got to play some Mario Kart 64 last night at a party over at my friend Eric's house. I stompped ass at Battle Mode but came in 3rd my one race of the night when we played Wario Stadium. I couldn't preform the wall jump glitch when others could. Am I a newb or what haha?

Matt downloaded Sin & Punishment off the VC today, which pumped me up beyond belief. I have been looking to play this game for about 7 years and wanted to import it badly back into the day. It's hard as hell and definitely VERY Japanese, but it is super sweet. I definitely suggest you check it out and I may get a full review on it up later this week.

I made a quick little poll on the forum to see if anyone would be interested in joining a Four48 street team. If you are interested and are a proponent of what we do, post in the topic and send me an e-mail to Cameron@CameronBanga.com.

Saw some cool links while on Google Reader today. If you use that RSS feed catcher like I do, please do me a favor and send me an e-mail so we can talk and set ourselves up as friends to check out each others shared stories, I love seeing what other people are checking out. Here are some of my favorites from today.

Pizza Hut is going to start taking orders from text messages. chz plz k thnks bai.

Landon Donovan is the US Soccer all-time leading scorer. Congrats Landon, keep on being the US Soccer badass you are. This is an amazing feat for the guy considering the fact that he is only 25 and arguably not even in his prime.

More changes coming to Facebook's news feed soon. Facebook is a really great company to watch if you love tech, since they have such an influence on the social networking market. Interesting to see how people respond to this.

And finally, I leave you with a song I just took a listen to on thesixtyone. I was originally going to embed Tegan and Sara, hence the title of this post. However, this came up on random and I couldn't not play it. Scottish rap, specifically a tribute to Tupac. Amazing stuff right here.
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cameronbanga dot com Presents Four48 Episode #2 : The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

2008-01-19T15:22:00.001-06:00

EDIT: 06:00ish AM Sunday - At sometime around 6AM, we beat Twilight Princess. I'm not sure because I passed out and woke up with little clue as to where I even was. Thanks again to the over 12,000 people who took time out of their night to watch us. With your help, we received over $300 in donations! I'll post another blog update tomorrow or late tonight, but for now, I sleep. Peace out everyone.

Hey everyone, welcome to our second "episode" of our series devoted to marathon gaming for Child's Play. Tonight, we're taking on the monster adventure we didn't make it to last week; The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.
Click here to donate to the cameronbanga.com team, with proceeds going to Child's Play.

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If you had a difficult time with the embedded video, you can try to check us out at www.justin.tv/cbanga

Digg this story

So this weekend we decided to finish what we started and get through Twilight Princess. This will be our first of what will turn into a weekly gaming fest, where we attempt to beat through a game a weekend while playing for charity. We will continue to take donations through PayPal, as we did last week, with your donations going to support Child's Play. You can click on this link here to donate to us via PayPal.

Some people asked for Matt's Wii Friend Code, here you go.
Wii Friend Code: 6124 8463 1335 0837
Just send us an e-mail titled friend code if you add him and be sure to e-mail us your FC as well, so he can add you as well.

So, we have a different kind of challenge this week. Our team member, Chris Vavra, couldn't join us this week, but in his absense he decided to throw a challenge our way. This week, he beat Twilight Princess on a speed run in 11 hours 26 minutes. He said that if we beat his time, he'll donate $40 to our fund. Matt Green is up for the challenge and he definitely thinks he'll be bringing us $40 by the end of the night.

As always, send us your e-mails to Cameron@CameronBanga.com. We'll be reading your questions and comments all night live on air, just like last week.

Just some quick notes about this site, if you haven't been around all week, we now have added forums for you to check out and join the Four48 community. We also added a fan art page and a Hall of Fame devoted to donors. You can check out all the links in the navigation bar to your right.

We'll also be live-blogging, so if you tune in late, be sure to just check below for updates so that you can catch up with all we have been up to.

03:51 PM Saturday - Starting to set everything up and get ready. Matt's in the mindset to beat TP in 11 hours, and I am believing in him. We'll see everyone in about an hour, hope you are all pumped.

06:00 PM Saturday - Just ordered pizza. We're getting ready for the long-haul. Mike from the Post-Tribune was here already to take some pictures, that was pretty sweet. Thanks again for the GoNintendo post and we have been posted on Digg. Looks like it is shaping up to be a great night.

08:21 PM Saturday - Thanks for all the great e-mails guys! Donations are picking up and we are at about $90 which is really tight! Keep sending in your e-mails, suggestions, etc. Also, be sure to register and check out our forums!

11:27 PM Saturday - Matt is plugging away and we are hoping the rest of the game will speed up. Close to on pace now, maybe a little behind. Here are some pictures sent so far tonight.

01:28 AM Sunday - Sleep is starting to overcome some in the room, but we are trying our best to keep on rocking in the free world. Matt is almost done with the snow temple. He is a piemp.

02:39 AM Sunday - Somethings going on, can I smell yo dick? PS look at this!

06:00ish AM Sunday - At sometime around 6AM, we beat Twilight Princess. I'm not sure because I passed out and woke up with little clue as to where I even was. Thanks again to the over 12,000 people who took time out of their night to watch us. With your help, we received over $300 in donations! I'll post another blog update tomorrow or late tonight, but for now, I sleep. Peace out everyone.

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Forums, Friends, and Cherry Coke...

2008-01-18T00:11:00.000-06:00

Haha, finally I get a little chance to sit down and write for a while. I am really glad I got a chance to do this today, since writing really gives me an opportunity to just chill and spew forth all the crazy stuff that runs through my head in one day. If you are a writer in any sense of the word, you definitely know what I mean.

Added some new pages to the site today, I hope you enjoy. We definitely don't have the most technically advanced web page on the internets, but I think we do really well with what we have. It definitely comes at the right price, since I really don't pay anything to keep all this up and running and cheap is definitely the way to roll when in college. If you check out to your right on our tidy little navigation bar, you will see that I added a "Hall of Fame" to the site. I'll try to keep this updated weekly and it will contain the names of everyone who thought enough of us to donate some money to our cause. Take a look at this list and say a little thanks to these people even though they will never hear it, they really deserve it.

I also added some forums to the site. I figure since you will only have blog posts and our weekly game-a-thon to check out as new content each week, you deserved something else to give you great reason to come back daily. I definitely encourage you all to register and make some posts, because we know that we have a pretty solid community thus far and it would be cool if you could all meet each other and fall in love. Yeah, I said fall in love haha.

Now onto some more personal stuff. I got to talk to my friend Melissa today for a while and that was pretty sweet. I got to talk to Jason and Bud as well, so it was a pretty good day with regards to talking to people. I doubt Aviral will ever read this, but if you do bro, you definitely need to give me a call because I am definitely wondering what is going on in your life. Spring break seems so far away, which is sad because that may be the next time I get a chance to see all those people in person.

Never got a chance to post some opinions on Macworld, so I figure now is as good of a time as ever to make a post. The "Steve-note" has come and gone and I got to admit, it didn't really throw out any surprising announcements but as a whole it was a fairly good showing. The Macbook Air may just be the most amazingly engineered device I have ever seen. I really need to get up to the Apple Store in Chicago after it arrives in a few weeks to just take a look at that thing and drop my jaw in amazement. A couple people I have talked to don't seem amazing, but I don't think they realize how amazing a break through that computer is in the "mini-laptop" genre of devices which the market has been craving.

I did drop the $20 for the January iPod Touch firmware update, which I don't really agree with, but found the need for anyways. Mail, Notes, and Google Maps made it worth it, since I am getting three extremely solid apps which I will use daily plus weather and stocks. A lot of people around the message board world found lots to complain about with the update and I have a hard time disagreeing with them. It does seem like a poor choice to make the consumer pay $20 for apps which should have been included in the device in the first place, but I also made the decision to buy the device before it had those apps knowing full well that I wouldn't be getting them at the $300 price tag.

I thought the most surprising event that took place during the event was the announcement of movie rentals through iTunes. Sure, we all knew it was coming forever ago. But, I don't know many people who thought that the service would have the amount of videos available or that the whole process would be as simple as it appears to be. I definitely may have to check this thing out this weekend to see how it works first hand (Megan Lee, I know you never saw Jackass: The Movie. Are you game to sit around my computer screen and watch it with me haha?).

Oh yeah, I almost forgot! I am super pumped about tomorrow afternoon! Tom and I are going to head to the local post office and set up a PO Box for our marathon gaming stuff. It's my first time setting up a PO Box and for some reason I am overly excited. It is like a rite of passage or something, I really can't explain it haha. Anyways, if you are one of the many people who e-mailed us about donating your old games (or even a person or two who was willing to donate a console?!), we will soon have a way for you to do so. We're hoping to be able to play through the games you donate on our weekly show to help expand our library because after a couple weeks, we would most likely be back to Ocarina of Time again. We will then take the games you donate and then resell them (most likely through eBay or a local resale shop) and then donate those proceeds to Child's Play as well. So if you don't have the PayPal account or hard cash to donate, you will always be able to send us your old games. We'll also be hoping that you send us some actual letters through the mail as well, that would be really cool and old fashion. We're all about old school here haha.

Well, I am off to shower and get ready for bed maybe? Got some Econ tomorrow morning which should me a mega sweet time. I'm not quite what the topic for tomorrow's class will be, but I can assure that I will find a way to dread it. It can't be that bad though, it only lasts 50 minutes. That won't kill me, right?

PS, here is a little bedtime treat for you. I listened to this while I was at the radio station today and while I am sure many of you have heard it before, it is still very kickass. I hope you enjoy some Daft Punk before bed, like I am going to do right now.

Welcome Back My Friends to the Show That Never Ends...

2008-01-16T00:08:00.001-06:00

Hey everyone, here is a late night update to give you guys the low down as to what is going on with myself and my late night gaming team. Got some rather big news which I hope makes you all as excited as it makes me and my party posse.

First things first, I just got the a final total on the money we had donated last weekend and the cash has been transfered to Child's Play.

We ended up with $1260.18 total, which was pretty darn good for about 24 hours of taking donations. We subtracted $55 for the three meals we bought over the weekend which included 5 or 6 pizzas, a dozen or so donuts, and a half gallon of Nesquick. Yeah, that drink is amazing. After some calculus level mathematics, we have a donation total in the amount of $1205.18. Over the weekend, we had some people doubt if we were going to actually donate the money. Being a veteran of the internets, I am fond of the age old principle of "pics of it didn't happen." I hope this silences any critics.

I think I speak for our entire "448" team when I say that it may have been the proudest day in any of our lives when I was able to click the "accept transaction" button on PayPal for that money transfer. I am pretty sure we are all in shock over that number and we really have to thank you all for your generosity. It could never happened without each of you and it really is just goes to show how far the gaming community will go to be a real stand-up, first-class segment of society.

Now, moving onto the future of the "4in48" project/team/website/etc. Myself and the rest of the team from this weekend (Matt, Tom, "Tina" [haha], Dillon, Will, Adam, Chris, Dean, Mike, and Mike) all got a chance to sit down and have some discussions tonight. We were able to come up with a pretty concrete plan and I hope you all enjoy what we have in store.

We have decided to continue with the "448" project immediately, kicking off with another life event this Saturday, again at 5PM CST. Because 48 hour sessions take a lot of many power and definitely kill your body (just ask us, we're professionals at it now), we have decided to have weekly live shows where we focus on playing through one game. The structure will be exactly the same. You'll have a live web feed of us playing a game, we'll be taking and reading e-mails and chat rooms, we'll be working to beat the game as quick as possible, and we will still be taking donations for Child's Play.

The only slight differences you will see are that we will only be playing one game a week, so the show can last anywhere from 8 to 20 or so hours a week. We still have plans for super long 48 hour gaming marathons in the future, but we will be holding them at special times of the year. Basically, you will be sure to have a chance to watch us every weekend for sure (God willing) and a select couple of weekends out of the year, you will get to watch it even more.

We were really excited about the response we got for working through Child's Play and we have decided to continue giving them donations as we work throughout the year. For donations from here on out, we will donate all money we receive at some sort of variable rate (we're not sure exactly what right now) which should stay somewhere around 75% for Child's Play, 25% for us. We really don't want to keep 25% if possible and are hoping to be able to give more to Child's Play many weeks during the year. However, we do realize that if we want to continue with this, we will have expenses. We would like to upgrade ourselves to better equipment (new webcam/better television/more powerful software/etc) to improve the quality of our show and the only way we can do this is through keeping a small portion of donations. We just want to stress that charity is our #1 goal and that if we do keep some money, it will go toward improving our stuff to make a better show in order to attract more viewers and more money for our ultimately more important cause.

That being said, we will be working hard to prepare a great gamefest for this upcoming weekend. This week, we're going to continue our quest through Hyrule and play through The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Pricess, so we hope you all tune in this Saturday at 5PM CST (and be sure to tell your friends as well). We're super excited and we hope you are too.

Also some quick other notes about the future. These really are all just short notes to tie up loose ends.

+ We are still looking for sweet fan art and pictures of you or your friends with www.cameronbanga.com written somewhere on your body. We're just arrogant pricks like that I guess haha. If you have something you want to send us, be sure to get it to us at Cameron@CameronBanga.com. We're going to get a page devoted to this kind of stuff real soon, since we had a lot of it come through our hands last weekend.
+ We are also looking to add prominent gaming figures as guests to the show to sit down and have phone conversations with us while we game and you watch. If you have a person in the business that you would like to see us talk to (we'll be sure to ask the questions you e-mail us, because that's how we roll), please send us an e-mail or leave a comment to this post with who that person is and we will work to get those people on. If you personally know someone who is fairly well known in the "biz" (take maybe Kevin Rose or Morgan Webb for example haha) or if you are a prominent figure yourself (Heck, you don't even have to be in the gaming business. It would be sweet to get bands, etc on the show as well) and you would like to be a phone guest for us, please feel free to e-mail us at Cameron@CameronBanga.com.
+ We're still taking game suggestions for future show episodes. We know you want to see Metroid and Mario, and are going to work on those. However, they may be saved for our "mega-marathons." We would also maybe be interested in taking game donations from you guys if you were interested in sending us your old games so we could play them on the show. We had a couple people mention this in e-mails since they didn't really have money to donate and we are definitely interested, we would just need to find out exactly how that would work. So I guess if you are really interested in sending us your old games so we can play through them (our collection is decent, but we definitely don't have enough to last forever), send me an e-mail and we will talk about how to get this done. It would also be sweet, because we could sell off your old games through a reseller or on eBay and also donate any profit we make off those to Child's Play as well.
+ We are leaving toward just calling us the "448" team and the show "www.cameronbanga.com presents the 448 show. However, if you have a suggestion for a better name, please contact us ASAP. We just don't have that kind of creative power haha.
+ I'll post more things here as they come up, but if you have any other questions, comments, or suggestions, please by all means feel free to contact us at Cameron@CameronBanga.com and we'll get back to you ASAP. Well, we'll try our best at least haha.
+ PS, we may be a little high on ourselves or maybe dreaming a little too much, but we have set a goal of $10,000 in donations to Child's Play by the end of the year. Thanks for your help so far and we definitely know we can do it with your help.

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There's Something in the Air.

2008-01-15T11:06:00.000-06:00

Just wanted to make a quick post about how pumped I am for Macworld. If I get the time tonight, I hope to write some reactions to the event.

Also, wanted to tease at a little announcement from us as well. Just wanted to confirm to everyone that we WILL be doing something similar to what we did last weekend again in the very near future, maybe even as soon as this weekend.

The 448 crew is meeting tonight and I will be making some proposals to them, and we will maybe start to hammer out something. Expect full details as early as tomorrow or Thursday, so check back frequently.

And if we do partake in a similar quest again, we're going to need game suggestions. If you have a game you would like to see us play, leave a comment to this post or e-mail the title to Cameron@CameronBanga.com.

Four 3D Zeldas in 48 Hours

2008-01-11T14:33:00.000-06:00

05:21 PM Sunday - 48 hours ago, myself and some friends sat down in my room with one simple task in mind. To play 3D The Legend of Zelda games for 48 hours and hopefully beat them all. I now find myself typing at a computer two days later, with maybe 6-7 hours of "nap time" over the last 2 days, writing what may be our last little blog update for this adventure.

I was uncertain of many things before we started, that's for sure. I wasn't sure we would beat all 4 (that turned out to be the case, sadly), I worked for hours setting up a webcam I didn't think anyone would watch (ended up being wrong on that one), and I'll be honest, I never even figured we would get through the 48 hours without just all quitting and forgetting about the whole dumb idea.

So we may have been an "epic failure." Some called us homosexuals, liars, or even racial slurs. We probably deserve a great deal of criticism, hell we never even started Twilight Princess or got past the final dungeon boss in Majora's Mask (in our defense, it did freeze 4 times, which was our downfall along with a lack of experience in the game and massive amounts of fatigue).

However, no matter how you feel about us after this whole thing comes to a close, one thing is certain. Our little cursed legend of our own got to be a great example of what the great gaming community can actually do if they band together and believe in something. I'm still drowning in e-mails of support from all over the world (on Saturday alone, we had visitors from over 100 COUNTRIES!). Some messages were short, usually a word or two of praise and maybe a joke. Other e-mails were long and detailed, explaining how we had somehow managed to make someone's day (I still don't see how, we just played games). But this weekend wasn't about us, the e-mails, or even the sweet limericks. Instead, it was about how a love for something as simple as a couple of video games can pull together the masses and raise over $1150 to help a bunch of kids through a kickass charity such as Child's Play.

To all of you, thanks again, even though I could never thank you enough. Whether you tuned in for 5 minutes or e-mailed us throughout the entire thing and lost sleep along side us, we hope you enjoyed every single second of it, just like we did.

To wrap stuff up, once some of the money clears through online check processes, I will get the stuff to Child's Play. I'll make a blog post once we get all that stuff finalized, in case you guys want to know when they actually get the money and what the final actual total is.

Thanks again for all the fan art/comics/pictures of you with cameronbanga.com written on yourself. If you sent us a piece of work, do me a favor and send it again next week so I can find a copy of it in the mass of e-mails we have. I want to keep the collection haha. If you want to make more art or pictures with writing on yourself, go ahead and send it in. We would love to see it and possibly post it on the site. If you had a more personal e-mail you wanted me to answer (anything more than good luck or a question Zelda related), feel free to send it again to Cameron@CameronBanga.com now that we are done with the weekend and I will have a chance to sit down and look at them.

And we also had a lot of interest from people who want to see us do this again. We are definitely interested, but give us a day or so to sleep and contemplate in the correct frame of mind. Bookmark us or add www.cameronbanga.com to and RSS reader and check back in a week or so when you can find more information.

If this last blog post sucks or is incoherent, I apologize. I am sure you will all understand haha. To Tom, Dillon, Natalie, Will, Sac, Dean, Chris, Adam, Mike, Jared (with his group of friends, sorry I didn't catch all your names haha), and the multitude of other people who I am sure were there for this and I am forgetting about. Thanks for being a part of this with me, it is definitely one weekend I won't be forgetting anytime in the near future. - CB

Alas, it has begun. Tom, Dillon, Matt, Adam, myself, and possibly several others are currently in the process of attempting to beat through Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, Wind Waker, and Twilight Princess consecutively in a 48 hour period of time. We will be starting at 5PM CST Friday and ending (hopefully) by 5PM CST on Sunday.

Here you will be able to find our webcam feed below. We encourage you to sit back and enjoy, if it is at all possible to enjoy watching people you don't know beat video games. Just look at it as if you are watching history in the making. We will also be posting "live blog" updates below, so if you are joining us late into the 48 hour mega adventure, I advise that you read the updates below to get an idea as to what is going on.

Watch live video from cbanga on Justin.tv
If the embedded video isn't working, feel free to try the direct link here.

Or try this feed.

I hope you all enjoy as you watch us create our own little legend. If you have questions, comments, or suggestions, please feel free to e-mail me at Cameron@CameronBanga.com.

Some people had mentioned before that they would love to send us a few bucks for pizza. If you are still interested, it would be great. Anything would help I guess, we are hungry college kids. Any left over cash will go toward sex, drugs, and rock and roll. You know, typical college stuff.
Feel free to Digg us as well.

LIVE BLOG TEXT UPDATES:

4:05 PM Friday - Less than an hour till game time. I have been watching some OoT speed runs in prep for the last hour or so. I will be leading off the whole thing with Ocarina of Time, so wish me luck. I'm definitely going to need to be on my game.

4:55 PM Friday - Starting in about 5 minutes. Excitement is building.

6:35 PM Friday - 2 Temples down in OoT. Webcast is somewhat better. I hope you guys enjoy.

7:45 PM Friday - In the Forest Temple, hopes are high. Energy is pretty good so far.

8:32 PM Friday - Working to be better at life. Currently working to get to the Fire Temple. Right now, we're on pace.

9:53 PM Friday - We're still early into the whole thing, but the support we have received has been pushing us through! We have had about 100 people watching constantly which is cool and we even got our first shoe on head pic! Thanks Ali!!

10:47 PM Friday - About to enter the Shadow Temple. Guess we made somethingawful? Hope it makes us famous. Maybe I'll get to meet Morgan Webb and Michael Jordan?

11:40 PM Friday - Almost to Spirit Temple. Ocarina in 9 hours? Looking like it. PS Thanks for the pics of girls with shoes... They are sweet haha.

11:48 PM Friday - We just got dugg. Dear God, save us please. Will we make it? I sure as hell hope so now.

12:35 PM Saturday - Trying to survive. Hope you guys enjoy all of this.

01:37 AM Saturday - Done with Ocarina and having a blast! Keep sending e-mails to Cameron@CameronBanga.com. We have a chance you guys! Hope you all believe in us!

02:11 AM Saturday - Having a blast, playing Majora. Keep sending some e-mails and spreading the love, your mail is definitely pushing us through lack of sleep. We love you all.

02:54 AM Saturday - WE JUST FROZE!! Luckily we saved pretty soon ago. Wish us luck, we need it.

03:52 AM Saturday - Here are some pictures! Keep sending them in, we love it!

04:44 AM Saturday - Dead as all hell right now, but we are pushing through. We have a good amount of energy and have 36 hours to go. Keep sending the e-mails to Cameron@CameronBanga.com. We have gotten about 1000 right now and we love to read them haha. Here are some more pictures.

07:36 AM Saturday - We're alive and kicking, halfway through Majora's Mask. Just found out we're going to be on the radio in 15 minutes in Marquette, Michigan on 101.9. Pimpjuice.

08:50 AM Saturday - Majora's Mask, why are you so stupid? Still on pace, but frustration is setting in.

10:29 AM Saturday - Chugging along. We added a link so you can donate to our pizza fund if you feel inclined haha. We're still accepting fan pictures/art and will post more later this afternoon.

11:07 AM Saturday - Currently having technical difficulties likely do to extensive traffic from Joystiq and other sites. We will hopefully have the webcast streaming correctly as soon as possible. Stay tuned, loyal viewers, stay tuned.

12:57 PM Saturday - Hopes are high as hell! We have fallen back of our target time slightly, but we are determined to give our best effort to you guys. Our pizza donations went exceptionally well. We have money to pay for the pizza tonight AND some. Thanks to a great suggestion from Sam Switzer, we have decided to take our money we make from donations, buy ourselves a pizza to celebrate, and then donate the rest to charity (most likely going to be Penny-Arcade's Child's Play). More info coming, so if you like the cause, I guess we don't feel so bad by asking you to donate now.

02:00 PM Saturday - Oh noes, we just got rick rolled again. PS, we added a new chat to our list of links below. Check it out.

02:18 PM Saturday - stories@g4tv.com - There is the G4 e-mail addy. If you guys think we are that special, please feel free to drop them a line.

03:16 PM Saturday - Matt Green watched 2girls1cup earlier, here is his reaction.

04:34 PM Saturday - Majora's Mask is wooping our ass, but we are working our sleep-deprived asses off. The e-mails are really keeping our spirits high, so keep sending. Here are some more pictures.

06:31 PM Saturday - When the hell will Majora's Mask end? PS, over 600 in donations. We may make our goal of $750 for Child's Play.

08:20 PM Saturday - Life is amazing, but fuck Majora. Here are some more pics. Keep sending them, we love em.

10:08 PM Saturday - We have had multiple Majora freezings with the ROM on the Wii, but we are trying to still beat it. Feed just went down, but we are back on justin.tv again.

11:40 PM Saturday - 17 hours left and we're f'ing down bros. Majora kept freezing and our ace player passed out after almost getting to the end of the final dungeon and having it freeze 3 times, needing to restart the whole dungeon. He had been playing for like 16 straight hours and up for 48. Sleep took him over, we'll miss you will, thanks for your service. After a lack of weapons and fatigue, I was done and we decided it was best to move on to Wind Waker. Why the hell did we have these damn freezing problems?

We're going to push on and try to get WW done by early morning. We want to get TP in as well and then get back to the end of Majora. This blows guys, but thanks for the support. Thanks for the donations thus far, we made about 800 bucks so far. We are still hoping for the $1000 mark, but we definitely know we need to put on a show to deserve it.

Thanks for the support so far everyone. Let's see how this thing ends up.

05:34 AM Sunday - We're plugging along at Wind Waker. We may not make 5PM, but we're having a blast. Thanks for the support to the chat crew, you guys know who you are. PS, cameronbanga.ytmnd.com.

06:18 AM Sunday - Adam was awesome enough to make a comic for us. Here it is.

01:57 PM Sunday - If this is incoherent, I apologize. I have gotten about 6 hours of on and off sleep MAYBE since Friday morning. It looks pretty clear now that we won't make our goal. We are going to keep playing and see how close we can get to accomplishing just the defeat of all 4 games in general, however we do have class tomorrow and some sleep would be nice maybe? We're going to work our hardest because we owe it to you guys. Some of you just checking in may not be aware, but you all helped raise $1000 dollars for Child's Play through donations to us in the last 24 hours. Seriously guys? Zelda, sleep deprivation, Tina, and Rick Rolls aside, I really hope you all pat yourselves on the back and realize how amazing that number seriously is. I mean, I am still in awe to the face that what started as a link for donations in hope to make $20 for free pizza has turned into over $1000 going to, in our opinion, the best charity on the planet. Thanks a lot guys and I hope you all enjoy the home stretch. As always, keep the e-mails to Cameron@CameronBanga.com flowing. We could use to letters as inspiration to keep going haha. Think of them as our caffeine.

3:56 PM Sunday - At the boss for the final dungeon of Majora. Trying to beat this game by 5, that will be the new goal. Donations are still trinkling in, we are now at $1100. What an amazing number guys, thanks for all the help! This money will be going to Child's Play, and we are really pumped that we have been able to raise such a large amount so far. If you have been watching for a while, you have most likely heard a piece of literature work or two by Kohan. He was nice enough to send me an e-mail with the all works, here they are.

Limerick #1

It seems it's time to write you a letter
I don't know if for worse or for better
It must be so cool
To hear "Man, you rule"
And if the chick's not taken, man, go out and get her.

Limerick #2 (Directed toward Dillon)

It's nice to be here on such an occasion
And watch you rock on your Zelda invasion
Keep reading our mail
Play 'till you're stale
It'd be nicer if people didn't think you were asian

Limerick #3 (Directed toward Dillon)

A jew, an asian, an arab, a dude
Boy these people sure are crude
You can tell by your skin
The places you've been
Guess we'll be needing you nude

Limerick #4

Into the first real dungeon he goes
Will he beat it in time, who knows?
He'll finish the crab
With a dramatic stab
But if he dies, then hell, that blows

Limerick #5

A dangerous mountain bursting with fire
A great red dragon aperch on its spire
Seconds wasted
Brimstone tasted
If Link isn't quick, things'll get dire

Sonnet #1

It's been requested I write a sonnet
By the people in the channel
I will have to think much on it
Before it goes to the panel
These poems come with a reputation
With luck, I might inspire
I'll get these guys to make a donation
I'll write 'til I perspire
The grappling hook has been acquired
It will lead you on your way
Keep going even though you're tired
I guarantee we'll pay
Mash some buttons, kill some bad guys
A greater man you shall arise

Limerick #6 (After Matt told me to stop writing poems)

I once was having fun
Writing poems by the ton
Though Matt is cool
He then was cruel
You know, that really stung

Limerick #7 (Just recently, when I woke up)

I have slept for a good ten hours
Now it seems you're back at the tower
I know the task
But I must ask
Have any of you taken a shower?

Limerick #8

It's pretty tough to fight such a blade
Without a nice fairy to come to your aid
Scythes are a pain
But you'll be his bane
There's no need to be afraid

05:21 PM Sunday - 48 hours ago, myself and some friends sat down in my room with one simple task in mind. To play 3D The Legend of Zelda games for 48 hours and hopefully beat them all. I now find myself typing at a computer two days later, with maybe 6-7 hours of "nap time" over the last 2 days, writing what may be our last little blog update for this adventure.

I was uncertain of many things before we started, that's for sure. I wasn't sure we would beat all 4 (that turned out to be the case, sadly), I worked for hours setting up a webcam I didn't think anyone would watch (ended up being wrong on that one), and I'll be honest, I never even figured we would get through the 48 hours without just all quitting and forgetting about the whole dumb idea.

So we may have been an "epic failure." Some called us homosexuals, liars, or even racial slurs. We probably deserve a great deal of criticism, hell we never even started Twilight Princess or got past the final dungeon boss in Majora's Mask (in our defense, it did freeze 4 times, which was our downfall along with a lack of experience in the game and massive amounts of fatigue).

However, no matter how you feel about us after this whole thing comes to a close, one thing is certain. Our little cursed legend of our own got to be a great example of what the great gaming community can actually do if they band together and believe in something. I'm still drowning in e-mails of support from all over the world (on Saturday alone, we had visitors from over 100 COUNTRIES!). Some messages were short, usually a word or two of praise and maybe a joke. Other e-mails were long and detailed, explaining how we had somehow managed to make someone's day (I still don't see how, we just played games). But this weekend wasn't about us, the e-mails, or even the sweet limericks. Instead, it was about how a love for something as simple as a couple of video games can pull together the masses and raise over $1150 to help a bunch of kids through a kickass charity such as Child's Play.

To all of you, thanks again, even though I could never thank you enough. Whether you tuned in for 5 minutes or e-mailed us throughout the entire thing and lost sleep along side us, we hope you enjoyed every single second of it, just like we did.

To wrap stuff up, once some of the money clears through online check processes, I will get the stuff to Child's Play. I'll make a blog post once we get all that stuff finalized, in case you guys want to know when they actually get the money and what the final actual total is.

Thanks again for all the fan art/comics/pictures of you with cameronbanga.com written on yourself. If you sent us a piece of work, do me a favor and send it again next week so I can find a copy of it in the mass of e-mails we have. I want to keep the collection haha. If you want to make more art or pictures with writing on yourself, go ahead and send it in. We would love to see it and possibly post it on the site. If you had a more personal e-mail you wanted me to answer (anything more than good luck or a question Zelda related), feel free to send it again to Cameron@CameronBanga.com now that we are done with the weekend and I will have a chance to sit down and look at them.

And we also had a lot of interest from people who want to see us do this again. We are definitely interested, but give us a day or so to sleep and contemplate in the correct frame of mind. Bookmark us or add www.cameronbanga.com to and RSS reader and check back in a week or so when you can find more information.

If this last blog post sucks or is incoherent, I apologize. I am sure you will all understand haha. To Tom, Dillon, Natalie, Will, Sac, Dean, Chris, Adam, Mike, Jared (with his group of friends, sorry I didn't catch all your names haha), and the multitude of other people who I am sure were there for this and I am forgetting about. Thanks for being a part of this with me, it is definitely one weekend I won't be forgetting anytime in the near future. - CB

MORE CHAT ROOMS!
http://fantasy-host.com/zelda.html
irc://irc.ircstorm.net:6667 #zelda4
irc.wrongway.org ROOM= Zelda48
aim chat zelda4in48
IRC Server: irc.gamesurge.net IRC Channel: #zelda448
IRC channel on EnterTheGame. The channel is #4zeldain48
CONNECT TO IRC QUAKENET #48ZELDA
http://xat.com/LegendofZelda48

It's Going Down

2008-01-11T00:53:00.000-06:00

Tomorrow, I'm going to start something that I may be regretting.

It's going to be a long weekend. Bud, if you ever read this, I'm never going to give up and will definitely trust my instincts. But if you could, will you kiss the knuckles for me? I'm going to need it.

Watch Me On Your Computer

2008-01-09T17:57:00.000-06:00

As if the internet wasn't weird enough, technology has now advanced to the point where you can watch me whenever you want.

[EDIT, embedded TV station taken out. If you want to watch CB_TV, click the link on the navigation menu to your right.]

This is just me testing stuff out, hope you enjoy it.

Top Five Games of All-Time

2008-01-08T23:37:00.000-06:00

I admit it, I am a nerd. Through the course of my life, I have played hundreds of games spanning pretty much every platform since the Sega Genesis. I really shouldn't state that last fact so proudly, in fact it is a really embarrassing statistic now that I look back at it. I guess the only thing I can do is look back and cherish my time spent by putting together a top five list of my favorite games of all-time.

The list will be in order from five to one, but mind you that deciding between positions on the list is fairly difficult. In all reality, four could be three or five could be two. Besides the clear cut number one position, the rest of the games could be a toss up more or less.

5. Pokémon Red and Blue - I really had a hard time placing this set of games on the list and I can't put my finger on exactly why. I have definitely put more time into these games than maybe any other games I have ever played. Maybe I didn't want to inclue them because they make me feel nerdy? Maybe I can't see putting a handheld game on the list? Maybe because the sequels (especially Gold and Silver or Diamond and Sapphire) are arguably more solid games? I can make up a lot of maybes, but there is no denying the fact that these two titles helped launch a series which would go on to sell more titles than all but a handful of other gaming series.

4. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 - This game should maybe be as high as number two on my list, but I have a hard time placing it there because it is technically a sports game. However, no other sports game has ever been as deep or had such tight controls. The game was also one of the best balanced games of all-time. Career Mode lead rookies or veterans on a nice run of the brilliantly designed levels, but the real meat and potatoes of the game came through time spent exploring each local. Each level had an amazing amount of lines waiting to be discovered by those who took the time to tinker around with the setting. The sound track and amazing amount of unlockables helped push this game to near perfection.

3. Beyond Good and Evil - If there was ever a game that was an example as to why publishers never create original properties, this game is reason numero uno. This game is really a combination of a 3D Zelda and Pokémon Snap, if that combination makes any sense at all. The game has really exceptional characters, gameplay, music, layout, and story. Seriously, all those key components are extremely well executed. The game also offers a fair amount of collectibles and side-quests to pro-long the adventure. The game just suffered from a lack of correct timing. It was released along with some real blockbusters that kept it from gaining any mainstream press attention. The game was also short, only about 12-14 hours at it's longest, which isn't much for a game in its genre. If you can find this gem used on the GameCube for a couple bucks, do yourself a favor and pick it up. I guarantee it will be one of the best decisions you ever make.

2. Grandia 2 - While the lifespan of the Dreamcast may have been cut short a little too early, it had it's fair share of real gems. This game may have just been it's greatest, as well as it's most underrated. Grandia 2 is a 40+ hour RPG that follows the story of a young geo-hound as tries to help a young songstress and save the world. Yeah, the story may be cliché, but it has enough twists and turns to hold interest. The thing that really makes this game stand out is it's battle system. The turn-based combat feels fresh and intuitive even now. The game had a deep magic and item system that helped flesh out the system into a great game of strategy and wit when matched up against the wonderful bosses in the game. PS2 owners can be happy in the fact that this game was ported to the system back in 2002 or so, but it is quite rare. The PS2 port has been reviewed as a pretty poor migration from the Dreamcast, but if you can find a copy at a GameStop it is definitely worth the cash.

1. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - If you know me personally, then this definitely was not a shocker to you. The game simply revolutionized games as we knew them back in 1998. It had a great story at a time when most games still went with virtually non-existent stories. The musical score was easily Koji Kondo's greatest masterpiece. But first and foremost, this game redefined how we look at gameplay in a 3D world. The combat system was ages beyond it's time with a multitude of weapons which all worked to perfection. The Z-targeting system made it possible to battle several enemies at once without painful camera problems. All these key components as came together with perfect level layout, lovable supporting characters, and epic boss battles which kept you waiting for the next dungeon. While the game may look and somewhat feel dated today, nearly ten years later, the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is still a testament as to what gaming perfection should be.

I hope you all like my list. Again, this list is based off of games I have played and is limited to entirely my own preferences. If you have a question or feel like arguing one of my points, feel free to e-mail me at Cameron@CameronBanga.com

Welcome to 1994, aka the Internet at Valpo.

2008-01-08T20:02:00.000-06:00

Seriously, I haven't seen speeds this great since AOL 3.0. It's been like this for 72 hours and doesn't look to be getting any better soon.

For a while there I thought I was at a major university or something. Good thing classes haven't started and I haven't needed reliable e-mail or anything.

While You Are Waiting...

2008-01-08T00:13:00.001-06:00

I really wanted to write a long blog post tonight about my top 5 games of all-time, but I am real tired. Watching The Adventures of Pete and Pete wore me out.

So that post will come later, tomorrow maybe? In the meantime, enjoy this video. It still makes me laugh.

The Haircut

2008-01-07T01:43:00.000-06:00

Few words in the English language strike fear in my heart more than haircut. It really astonishes me that such a simple thing can absolutely rock my world in such a gigantic way.

It's a simple thing really, I drive a car to point A (hopefully an establishment devoted to the art of trimming hair), let a person take scissors to my head, pay for said service, and leave. On a difficulty scale set from one to ten, this should really be a negative five.

But alas, this the storybook ending I never get a chance to fulfill. Instead, I post-pone the event for weeks and make excuses until my hair gets to the point where I can start seeing it on the sides of my peripheral vision. Then, I beg my parents for a couple bucks (I can't bare to spend my own money on will eventually become a travesty) and dive out to Borics to have Dee or Floyd cut off my hair.

I guess the whole process of cutting the hair is fine, it is just the end result that hits me so hard. I hate the look of myself after a haircut. I guess it is a personal image problem, but frankly I look like shit after any haircut. No matter who does it, how hard they worked, how many many hours have been spent, or how much hair gel is used afterwards. It still looks like a tragedy, a trainwreck, or even worse, the 2007 Miami Dolphins season.

I guess I shouldn't get too worried. It will look fine in a week or so after it grows in a little. It always does...

Detlef Schrempf

2008-01-05T18:27:00.000-06:00

If you have never heard of former NBA great Detlef Schrempf, he was the first German born player to reach the NBA Finals.

Band of Horses wrote a song about him that I found on thesixtyone. How frickin amazing.

Note to Self; Check These Songs Out.

2008-01-03T22:55:00.001-06:00

Just found this iMix on iTunes. Gotta check out some of the songs later when I have time.

thesixtyone.com

2008-01-03T21:03:00.001-06:00

I recently saw the upcoming internet music site thesixtyone.com on Digg and decided to check the web start-up out.

If you havent checked it out yourself, thesixtyone.com is a self proclaimed "music adventure" where users have the chance to listen to a variety of music streaming over the internet in a flash browser. The main draw of thesixtyone is a points system where users can level up by listening to new music, inviting new users to the site, and by just logging in daily.

The site encourages you to then spend your points on "bumping" songs. If a song is new or not too popular, it costs more points to give it a bump. As songs work their way up the charts, it gets sent to the hot tab where users can find soon-to-be hits in a multitude of genres.

The site also offers random tracks at the section it calls "The Rack." Here, you are given a play button with some album art where you are encouraged just to hit play. After you play the song, you can learn how many bumps the song has and then download it in many situations. You can also add the song to your profile.

Personal profiles play an important role at thesixtyone.com. Here you can add a picture, choose a couple profile songs, or receive wall posts from your friends. The profile is set up really well, but really could use some more room for personal information so that my profile would feel a little more unique.

To listen to music on the site, a flash player is used on the top of the page. It is a simple player which shows album art, song title and artist, and volume, but this player works extraordinarily well. The music is really good quality for streaming music with no load time. The coolest feature of the little player is it's ability to keep playing songs when you surf around the website, which is a welcome addition for a site which is looking to revamp how you look at social networking.

Another little cool feature for Firefox users is the fact that if you have thesixtyone.com open in another tab, the song which is currently playing will show on the tab keeping you straight on which band and song are playing as you browse.

This all being said, thesixtyone.com still has a long way to go if it wants change the way people look at the attractive combo of free music and social networking. Here are the top five things I see the site needing to fix before it hits the big time.

1. Integration with Facebook/MySpace - The guys over at thesixtyone.com have a great website going on right now. The music player is simple and sounds amazing, which is really important for a music site but something that most other sites find ways to mess up. However, I don't see the site beating out these two networking giants in the near future. We need to see the site integrated into Facebook or MySpace apps and definitely into Google's Open Social to help spread the word about this community.

2. Music organization - The organization on the site isn't bad, but it definitely could see improvement. I see that I can choose genre or if music is hot or not, but where are my alphabetical listings? Can I see what is hot this week compared to this month? I want to be able to just sit and chart tons of different stats to see just what is being listened to. I would also like to see a longer list of genres or maybe some sub-genres. This will give me a way to find artists in my favorite genres, like skate punk or instrumental jazz.

3. Suggestions based off my musical tastes - Thesixtyone.com claims that it is a musical adventure, but it throws users onto the island without a map. Pandora is popular online because it takes bands you like and finds new music you will enjoy based on your tastes. I love my friend Cody Jones because he has similar musical tastes and knows what I like, giving me a long list of bands I would like without me having to do much searching. People don't want to listen to a hundred songs to find one they like. Wouldn't it be sweet if I could export my iTunes library, upload that file to thesixtyone, and then get recommended tracks based on the bands in my library and how many times I listen to certain tracks? Work to integrate that and I will be sold for life.

4. Integrate iTunes, the Zune Marketplace, and other music stores - I really like the ability to click a link and purchase tracks off of Amazon. It really makes it easy to legitimately purchase music I enjoy, but I don't want to use Amazon. From your site, it appears that you receive a small chunk of change for each song you sell. Do everyone a favor and put up links for other popular online music stores. You may see yourselves losing out on some purchases, but the increased traffic and user satisfaction will be well worth it.

5. Add podcasting - I know that thesixtyone is a music site, but the flash player and bump idea are really fresh. The site is really easy for artists to use and add content too, so why not podcasters? You could add tons of great spoken content for free and just add a huge wealth of audio content. Sure it isn't music, but I would love to have a podcast on the site and work for bumps. It would also draw a whole new crowd to the site and add a huge amount of visitors.

All in all, thesixtyone.com is a great music site and definitely worth a look if you are into music in the least bit. The social aspect works real well and with some minor adjustments, this site could really take off in the next couple of months. I will definitely be keeping my eyes on it for a while to come.

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U-505 and the Dyson Airblade

2008-01-03T20:26:00.002-06:00

Got a chance to make the trek up to Chicago yesterday, finally taking the train-ride to the city after I made promised myself to get there sometime over break.

The day started out pretty rough, waking up at 7AM after going to bed at 3AM. I really wonder sometimes why I subject myself to such horrid punishment. After some coffee, a donut, and a marginal amount of grumpy behavior, we were on the train and on our way to the Museum of Science and Industry.

Pretty much the coolest part of the day was the U-505 Submarine exhibit. When I worked at the bank a couple summers ago, I got to meet a guy named Zenon Lukosius. Zenon was an interesting guy who fought in World War II for the US Navy. To summarize his story, Zenon jumped on a sinking German submarine and replaced a sea strainer, saving the ship and helping the US learn German codes which ultimately helped lead to the end of WWII.

This was the first time I got to see the exhibit since I met Zenon, so I really enjoyed the chance to see the exhibit. It is a pretty cool piece of history and definitely worth checking out if you are in Chicago.

And if you do make the trip, be sure to check out the first floor bathroom by the escalator. Inside you can find the Dyson Airblade, which is definitely the greatest hand dryer of all-time.

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