For those who might not know, the original tagline for YouTube is why it existed: To broadcast yourself. It’s also how the platform became Time Person of the Year that one time. The platform has long since abandoned its roots in favor of ad revenue. Google’s dual aggressive war on Ad Blockers and aggressively pressuring people to subscribe to YouTube Premium are both part of this. Speaking of: In recent months, subscribers in Europe have been reporting on Reddit–and this should come as no surprise–that they have started seeing ad breaks despite being subscribed. As a reminder, YouTube aggressively pressures anyone not subscribed to do so weather they have an account or not to buy a subscription. They promise an Ad-Free Experience first and foremost. Well, that’s now been proven to be a lie.
Don’t even get me started on the random AI-handled account suspensions and demonetizations. Everyone denies using AI for content moderation on their platforms but it’s obvious that they do. More so given they all removed the ability to contact a human staff member–mostly because they likely reassigned all the human staff who previously handled content moderation to other roles. This is also how and why Facebook, Xitter, YouTube, Tiktok and other platforms have been allowed to be flooded with the tsunami of AI-generated slop we’ve been seeing over the last few years in particular.
On a related note. The oversaturation of AI-generated content on YouTube has actually forced a growing number of content creators to show their faces since last year largely to reassure their subscribers that the content they make is being made by real people, not AI. See, they don’t show their faces largely because they don’t want the focus to be on them but on the content they make. That’s great. The problem is when people use AI in their content and don’t at least disclose this.
I don’t just mean obvious AI-generated video, images and text but AI-generated audio. THAT is the part that is most alarming for many people and rightfully so. More so given the tech exists–and is now publicly available–to mimic a person’s voice with near-100% accuracy with AI. I’m sure some of you have at least heard about the rising cases of phone scams involving AI. How scammers do it is they extract the audio from online content and use it to duplicate someone’s voice with near-perfect accuracy. It’s fooled a lot of people who’ve gotten a phone call from a loved one claiming they’re in trouble or were kidnapped and need you to wire transfer money or buy some prepaid cards. Then right after they do this, they find out they were scammed.
This is to say nothing of spoof videos being put on social media to make people look like they’re saying things they really didn’t say. I’m not talking about parody videos but people posting AI-manipulated content to make it sound like the person speaking is promoting horrible things.
Speaking of:
Paul Warburn is a well-known YouTuber who records videos on an almost daily basis in which he largely talks about the Russia-Ukraine Conflict. His insights are spot-on, world-renowned and are now being cited by journalists.
Five months ago, he made this video after learning someone in Russia spoofed his channel and is producing Deepfakes. As one commenter to the video said, if you think Deepfakes like this one won’t soon be near-impossible to tell from the real thing, you’ll be the easiest to fool. The clear purpose of the spoof account is 100% about making Paul sound like he’s “switched sides” and now supports Russia.
Switching gears to something else that’s finally been getting exposed in recent months.
Last year saw YouTube get flooded with Japanese Salaryman videos. By fake I mean staged. In the clearly carefully edited videos, Japanese men and women depict themselves as Salarymen being overworked and underpaid. While it IS true Japan has long been known for its “Overwork” Culture–Koroshi is a term they invented, literallt meaning “death from overwork”–the Japanese Salaryman videos grossly exaggerate things.
Eagle-eyed people who actually live in Japan quickly caught on to various inconsistencies:
The subject almost always films themselves counting “their very little pay and how they will divide it until the next”. Believe it or not, direct deposit is the most common way people are paid in Japan though you can elect to be paid in cash.
Despite being “too poor to eat daily”, the subject seems to be able to afford a daily meal in high-profile Izakayas where you’re paying the equivalent of $20-$30 USD per visit.
When giving a “tour” of their apartment, despite claiming to be “minimalist by necessity” designer watches, handbags and other expensive knickknacks can seen in plain view.
Sharp-eyed viewers note the subject’s “workplace” is actually a cheaply rented office space within walking distance of a nearby transit station.
This is to say nothing of the videos being “narrated” with text clearly generated by ChatGPT. Don’t believe me? Open ChatGPT and drop this prompt or one like this prompt in it: “Draft me a script like the ones used in those popular Japanese Salaryman videos.” That’s literally it.
Oh and the reason they don’t show their face is because they know that if they did, someone will figure out who they really are and might even approach their family about the videos they are making. On that note. Did I forget to mention these content creators are raking in hundreds to thousands of dollars in donations per video? Yes, really and it’s the REAL reason we’re seeing YouTube getting flooded with these videos. People figured out it’s very profitable to make this kind of content. Do they tell their audiences what they’re seeing is 100% fiction? Of course not. “A fool and his money are soon parted” to say the least. Look, it’s one thing if these channel owners outright said everything is 100% fiction. It’s another to make people believe it’s real and that’s the problem.
High-profile content creators are leaving YouTube for mostly Patreon and now their subscribers are following them. They’re leaving largely because of YouTube’s inconsistently enforced content moderation policies as well as Copyright Strikes against people who make reaction videos in particular. The DMCA strikes are being done because of the use of copyrighted material used in the video content. Fair Use allows people to use or feature copyrighted material in the videos for example and education purposes. Reaction videos fall WELL within that but they are still being targeted for DMCA takedowns. This is also why a growing number of well-known content creators who mostly make Reaction Videos are urging their YouTube audience to switch over to Patreon.
This has been an ongoing thing with YouTube ever since Google bought the platform 20 years ago. For those who might not know or remember, YouTube came up not long after the RIAA took down Napster. Those who were in high school or college in the early 2000s might remember the original imfamous version of that former filesharing platform. It lasted a few years before the RIAA (Record Industry Association of America) was formed specifically to take down Napster and won. Three lessons were learned from Napster that have since become staple: Streaming content, Cloud Storage and Online Stores. It all started with Napster which later returned as a legit online store. As an aside, this is well known but the anime streaming platform Crunchyroll started as a pirate website before becoming legit.
Anyway, it was a few years after Napster’s takedown that YouTube emerged. Some regarded it as a spiritual successor to Napster, using it to upload and share copyrighted media. This drew the attention of both the RIAA and the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) as well as others who demanded YouTube remove videos featuring copyright-protected content. It wasn’t until after YouTube was bought by Google that the platform now had the manpower and infrastructure at scale to handle how big the platform quickly became and would continue to become over the next 20+ years.
For those who might not know, maintaining the world’s largest video streaming platform is not cheap.
In the early 2010s, Youtube introduced ads. At first it was an average of one 5-second ad per video or a 15-second ad that could be skipped after 5 seconds. By 2015, there were multiple ad breaks up to a minute long and some were unskippable. To make matters worse, YouTube would soon begin blocking people from watching videos with Ad Blockers enabled. Then, along came YouTube Premium. Not to be confused with the separate YouTube TV, YouTube Premium removes ads for a fee. Yes, really: As of this post, it’s now $16 a month or $155 a year respectively. Google literally blocked Ad Blockers so they can force people to pay them to remove ads.
Or rather that’s what was SUPPOSED to be what it’s for: Earlier this year, Premium members began reporting on Reddit that they are seeing ads despite clearly having YouTube Premium. In short, Google lied to everyone while gradually increasing fees and prices. No surprise. Mind you, the part I said earlier about maintaining the world’s largest video streaming platform–YouTube–not being cheap is factual. Literally every country on Earth including users from North Korea, Afghanistan and China use YouTube, which is based in the U.S. and is owned by a U.S. company (Google). That’s a LOT of just daily bandwith. Give credit where credit is due, even Google can’t eat the financial costs of maintaining YouTube for literal billions of daily users indefinitely.
This is also why breaking up the platform into 6 to 7 websites would probably mak a lot more sense. I would do the breakup like this:
Current YouTube: Largely slice of life, travel, education, vblogs and current events. No AI-generated material allowed, for all ages.
YouTube Kids: Same as the above but strictly for kids 17 and under. All content uploaded subject to review, etc. before being made public.
YouTube TV: Split off as a separate platform and service entirely.
YouTube Shorts: Basically, YouTube’s version of TikTok. Uploaded videos cannot exceed 5-10 minutes in length max.
YouTube Media: For videos and live streams related to topics like video games, anime, sports, TV, movies, etc.
YouTube Reviews and Reactions: Reaction videos and Review videos would go here. No length restrictions.
YouTube Live and Recap: General Livestreams and archived streaming content content go here.
For the transition, existing accounts can move specifics videos or batches of videos to the corresponding platform. Everyone gets a 6 to 12 month grace period to manually move their content accordingly. All video account holders are also notified via email. After the grace period has ended, accounts that have not transitioned are deactivated but can be reactivated by the user.
The hard split would solve a lot of issues longterm, the biggest ones being bandwith and server load. Google has access to the hard numbers. Why they never considered this makes no sense to me. I get tech giants being all about decentralization but when it comes to cybersecurity in particular, one lesson they still refuse to learn is decentralization ensures all is not lost when bad things inevitably happen.
In early November 2025, popular competative eater Joel Hensen shocked the competative eating world and fans when he released this 14-minute video online:
He has since released subsequent videos providing updates. Things are improving but very slowly. People in the medical profession who’ve commented on his followup videos have said he will likely be back to his old self eventually though it’s too soon to tell if it will be months or years. We’ll see. It’s worth nothing Hensen does have a day job: He’s a professional model. Due to his current health situation, naturally he can’t work right now.
Like all Pro Eaters, he eats normally when not doing food challenges. Most people don’t know this but yes, all these pro eaters have day jobs. Adam “Beard Meets Food” Moran is actually a personal fitness instructor. Yes, really. A Guy Named Eli, Leah Shutkever, Max vs. Food, Nathan Figuroa and so many others do in fact have regular or normal jobs when they’re not doing Food Challenges.
Randy Santel, who launched the website Food Challenges 15 years ago had a regular job before he decided to make being a Pro Eater a full-time thing about 10 years ago. He and fellow Competative Eater Katina Eats Kilos, who were dating for the last few years recently announced their engagement. When the two do the same food challenge, one goes first and then the other. They have their own separate YouTube channels and Facebook Pages so they record their challenges in separate videos. They have done several food challenges together though–both as a team and against each other.
If you take a look at that website, Santel doesn’t mince words about competative eating and food challenges in general: The human body is not designed to take in large quantities of food in one sitting, nevermind on a regular basis.
I don’t know if he still does this but Santel revealed in a YouTube video he capacity trains his stomach by buying four footlong Subway sandwiches and then eating them all in one sitting as fast as he can. He then does it again the next day but tries to beat his time from the previous day. He does this a day or two before doing a food challenge to prime his stomach ahead of the actual challenge. There is the real risk of doing irreversible or longterm damage to your digestive system from capacity challenges and the risks significantly increase if you do several in a short amount of time.
Some of you may have heard of legendary Japanese competative eater Takeru Kobayashi. You may also be wondering why he hasn’t been seen in any eating competitions for several years now. The reason is because he is now paying the ultimate price from over 20 years of constant extreme eating: He can no longer feel hunger and according to his wife, he can go days without eating. Yikes! It’s been said in human interest stories on competative eaters like Joey Chestnut for years–and Randy Santel has also been outspoken about this for 10+ years now–but the human body was not designed to do what pro eaters do to themselves largely for the entertainment of those who watch them on a consistent basis.
Former Pro Eater Eric The Electric dropped a video on YouTube near the end of 2024 announcing he was quitting Eating Challenges cold turkey due to mental health concerns after months of not uploading new videos of himself doing eating challenges. Those like himself, Leah Shutkeaver and Scott Eats who upload videos of themselves doing eating challenges feel a lot of pressure to be consistent with uploading videos. Eric recorded a lot of “whole menu”-type challenges during the Pandemic and I watched over three dozen of them for the first time in the Spring of 2024. Honestly, I’m legit surprised he survived them all. More so given he probably shaved a few years off the end of his lifespan.
I recently watched this interview Adam Moran did with Randy Santel for his Breaking Beard Podcast. It’s 2 hours long but is VERY insightful on the Competative Eater scene:
The episode is from September 2022 but it’s still very relevant now.
Santel highlights something in this video that we sadly don’t get a deep dive into and that is the fact some restaurants do cheat Pro Eaters by making a food challenge harder on purpose. Either by adding more food or making it spicer than it would be for a normal challenger. It’s not because they’re trying to kill a Pro Eater. It’s because they look up the Pro Eater online, see their exploits and then decide they want to ensure they fail and have to pay for the food. This is also why most Pro Eaters look up past challengers before they take it on themselves to compare. They want to make sure unless they request it themselves, they’re getting the exact same challenge anyone else would. It’s mostly for their own safety and fairness.
By the way Santel’s website does provide some very handy tips for approaching and recovering from Spicy Challenges. One such tip is eat a burger and fries a few hours ahead of your attempt. The reason is the grease from the burger and fries will cushion the heat from the Spicy Challenge. I can personally confirm that this is very affective. That and you NEVER want to eat very spicy food on an empty stomach. You NEED something in your stomach to cushion the heat for safety reasons. Seriously, you could literally burn a hole through your stomach or worse if you’re not careful.
This should come as no surprise but you won’t find a lot of competative eaters who actually like doing Spicy Challenges mostly for these three reasons:
If you’re lucky, the pain will only be temporary.
Most restaurants DON’T like to disclose what pepper(s) they use in advance
Afterburn Waiting Period after eating
To explain that last one, some places that offer spicy challenges include a 3 to 5-minute waiting period challengers are subjected to once they finish. During this waiting period, you have to sit with the burning sensation in your mouth, your stomach and on your hands without relief. It’s all about prolonging the pain with the hope that you give in or get sick and have to pay for the meal. It’s sadistic and more so given the chefs who make these spicy foods will tell you with a straight face when asked “LOL no I’m not dumb enough to try eating it myself!”. Meaning it’s all about making money off the challengers’ suffering.
That brings me to the legendary Eagles Deli Challenge in Boston.
As of now it includes 6 lbs of beef, 24 slices of American cheese, 24 strips of bacon and 5 lbs of fries (basically, a whole bag of their fries is dropped into the frier). It costs $80 and is a regular part of the menu as well. I’ve known about it for 20 years and although I’ve been to the restaurant a few times over the years, the amount of fries are why I’ve refused to do it myself. It’s just way too much and it’s also the biggest reason why few non-pros have actually beaten it.
It used to be the first person to beat the challenge got naming rights. The first person to beat the first version of the challenge was a guy named Nick Lachey (his version of the challenge is a regular part of the menu on that note). After that, they made the challenge progressively bigger. After being undefeated for over a decade, a Pro Eater known as Furious Pete beat it in the early 2010s. The restaurant refused to rename the challenge after him–despite the fact he recorded himself doing it–for years largely because he was a known pro eater. After years of public pressure and other Pro Eaters going on to beat it, the restaurant finally named it The Furious Pete Challenge and increased the difficulty again to its current version. They also said they will now only give naming rights for the Eagles Deli Challenge when “a certain number of people have beaten it” after a growing number of Pro Eaters beat it in recent years. My guess is they want to give naming rights to a local non-pro.
From what I’ve seen and read online, if you finish most of it within the first 25 minutes you’re in good shape to win. Most who do finish it usually do about 40 to 45 minutes in. You want to eat the burger first and as quickly as possible while it’s still hot. After that, then the fries. Complete the challenge and the meal is free, you get $100 cash, a T-Shirt and if you agree to eat two regular-sized burgers afterward you get naming rights. Of course, anyone who actually does complete the challenge likely isn’t going to be in any shape to then eat two more burgers afterward. That’s the whole idea.
Know what’s funny? I hadn’t posted yet which is good since two Pro Eaters recently announced they quit their normal jobs and will be Pro Eaters full time. The man on the top is Wayne Algenio, a Filipino American Pro Eater who also holds the Guiness World Record for most Reaper Peppers eaten in 1 minute. Yes, really. He previously worked part-time as a medical assistant in Florida. He revealed near the beginning of May 2026 after completing a challenge that he quit his day job to be a Pro Eater full time.
The man on the bottom is known as Max vs. Food and he is the UK’s #1-ranked Pro Eater. This was true even before he quit his fulltime job working for a non-profit a few months ago. Earlier this month, Max was challenged to a series of handicap matches against multiple people in eating challenges. It ultimately took four people to beat him in a single challenge though in all four cases, Max still finished each challenge by himself. Think about that: Two people and then three people working together could not complete the same challenge Max did at the same time by himself and completed. Even with the one he lost, he STILL finished it by himself. Oh and Max is happily married on that note. His wife does accompany him for most of his challenges either to cheer him on or help with filming.
Follow them on YouTube as that’s where they post their videos. It’s quite something to watch and that reminds me. Scott Eats–another Pro Eater–revealed in a video he posted on YouTube several years back the reason most Pro Eaters are of thin or average build is because they naturally have more capacity. Heavier or big-bellied Pro Eaters have lower capacity due to the belly fat keeping their bellies from expanding more. When you think about it, that’s pretty logical.
By the way these Pro Eaters typically record their challenges for months before they sit down, edit them and upload them. Meaning new videos did not necessarily happen. Randy Santel recently started including date stamps with his video uploads and more so given he and his fiance Katina will be getting married later this year.
Bel Air Season 3 premeired Peacock on August 15. The last two episodes dropped on September 5. That was good news for me since it meant I could watch all of Season 3 before my Peacock subscription expired on September 8. For the second year in a row, Peacock’s annual premium subscription was increased by an additional $20 from $120, which is already a lot to $140. You’re better off paying for cable/satellite at that point. These streaming companies are getting greedy in their desperate and vain efforts to compete with Netflix (they’re 20 years too late with that now) but I won’t digress further.
Season 3’s release being in late summer 2024 instead of February like the first two seasons was likely done to accommodate some of the cast being tied up with other projects in the second half of 2023. I know Jabari Smith appeared in another TV show last year and the role required him to shave his hair off. They likely needed to delay filming Bel Air Season 3 to give time for his hair to grow back. For those in the U.S. who don’t know, Jimmy Akingbola is a Nigerian-born British actor and has a few big TV roles over there. His personal backstory is pretty complicated and a documentary he did about it can also be found on Peacock. From what I was able to find online, there likely will be a Season 4–and with the way Season 3 ended that’s a safe assumption–and will likely premiere next August too.
On that note, here’s a recap of major story threads from Season 3. Fair warning, there be major spoilers if you’re currently watching or plan to. If you don’t want to be spoiled, scroll past the picture below.
The season opens with Will losing his passion for playing basketball and decides to explore other things. He suddenly runs into his father Lou (played by Marlon Wayans) who has decided to live in Los Angeles. Lou reveals he decided to work on turning his life around so he could become a man worthy of his son. When he tells Will how much basketball meant to him in the past, Will decides to abandon his pro hoop dreams entirely in favor of focusing on building a business venture with Carlton.
Speaking of Carlton. He plays a huge role in Season 3 and more so when he meets Amira, another teen in recovery at a sobriety meeting. He decides to join Will in building their Blackccess brand mostly to keep himself focused and rebuild his life. We knew this would not be the same Carlton we knew from the first two seasons and that becomes apparent throughout the season.
Hillary and LaMarcus take their relationship to the next level and suddenly announce their engagement. Not long after that, LaMarcus suffers a head injury during practice very reminiscient of Buffalo Bills star Demar Hamlin from last year. LaMarcus seemingly recovers but it’s obvious he’s never the same again after that. More so given what happens to him during the final moments of the season.
Lisa, Jackie and Amira help Will and Carlton promote Blackccess. There is some friction between Lisa and Jackie who both recently dated Will. Jackie realizes right away Will still has feelings for Lisa and though she tries to put some space between herself and Will, the latter keeps bringing her and Lisa together until she finally snaps.
Phil and Viv’s marriage is tested when both are separately tempted. Phil decides break things off with Erica, an attorney he knew still had feelings for him whose Law Firm his recently merged with. I mean both personally and professionally. Viv is aware of their past and nearly gives into temptation she’s introduced to by a colleague when she suspects Phil is having an affair. This is also why Phil broke things off with Erica. He assures Viv she is the only woman he wants in his life and despite knowing it could hurt him professionally, he decides to cut his ties to Erica for good.
Phil decides to work with Omar Campbell, a real estate developer looking to build a shopping district in the neighborhood. Things are complicated by the fact Campbell is buying up properties in the area and Jazz’s store is next on his shopping list. Phil tries negotiate on his new client’s behalf but Jazz holds his ground despite his store being in serious financial trouble.
Will finds out about what’s going on and offers a solution to Jazz: sell his car for the money he needs at a car show. Jazz ultimately backs out selling his car at the last minute so Will comes up with a compromise: Win the money in a street race. He ultimately succeeds to Jazz’s relief.
Fredrick stays with Geoffrey while he’s in town but hangs out with Will and Carlton for the first half of the season. They both see a side to Frederick that shocks them both separately and together. Will inadvertently overhears Frederick talking on his cellphone with someone and is immediately suspicious of him. After the street race, Frederick hustles some guys and when Will and Carlton try to intervene, the three end up having to run for their lives. They lose the guys chasing them and that’s when Geoffrey conveniently shows up.
Geoffrey separately questions Will and Carlton about Frederick but they’re evasive. When he finds Frederick’s burner phone, he realizes his past may have finally caught up to him. He has Frederick take him to whoever he was talking to and is surprised to see it’s Penelope, his ex-girlfriend and Frederick’s mother. It turns out Roman, the man Geoffrey asked to look after her and their son got himself thrown in prison in the UK not long after he left for the U.S. That was when Penelope gave up their son for adoption and went into hiding herself.
Geoffrey sets up a meeting with Roman, who is revealed to be played by Joseph Marcell. For those who don’t know who he is, he played Geoffrey in the 90s Sitcom. Roman tells him the organization is in shambles and they want him back to help rebuild it. If not, his son will pay the price. Geoffrey offers a compromise and gives Roman a duffell bag stuffed with money. Roman doesn’t think the organization would be willing to accept it but reluctantly promises to use it to try to get them to back off. As is revealed a few episodes later, negotiations failed.
Lisa accidently finds out Amira may have started using drugs again. She gets Amira to flush the drugs in front of her. Amira later tells Carlton when she no-shows a meeting with his parents the anniversary of the death of her sister is coming up.
Phil and Vivian spend time together at a resort with LaMarcus’ parents and another couple. The third couple reveals they have an open marriage policy meaning invite others into physical relationships with them. They invite the two couples to join them for a night of passion but both couples turn them down at the last minute. Phil and Viv reaffirm their love for each other instead.
Overcome by social stress and the memory from her past, Amira relapses and overdoses. While she is in the hospital, Carlton learns about a tragic incident Amira caused in the past while under the influence. She’s carried the guilt from the pain she caused ever since.
The wedding takes place on Martha’s Vineyard in the season finale. Circumstances bring Jazz, who remained in Bel Air to the wedding to deliver something at Will’s request. He ends up staying for the wedding ceremony.
Just before the wedding, Geoffrey disappears. He leaves a cryptic letter in Phil’s office essentually saying his past caught up to him and he left to protect the Banks family. We find out before he takes off he finds out Roman’s negotiations failed so he leaves for the UK himself to settle things.
One of the final scenes shows Vivian holding a pregnancy test. We don’t know if it’s positive but assuming it is, it would match the canon of her character having a child during the original show’s run.
As previously mentioned, during their honeymoon Hillary walks into their hotel room to find LaMarcus unresponsive in bed.
This appears to be getting retconned in Season 4 but in the final scene of Season 3, we see thugs the organization snatch Will and drive off.
I drafted most of this last year and forgot about it. Fast forward to now. Season 4 just dropped on Peacock earlier this month (November 2025) and it will be the final season.
As a reminder, the concept of Bel Air started as THIS fan video back in 2019:
The actor Will Smith saw it, loved it and contacted the video’s creator directly. Two years later, the Peacock TV Series was born. Unlike The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, this show is a reimagining of the original show. Whereas the original show was a 30-minute weekly Sitcom, this version is a 1-hour weekly drama. The original show ran for 6 seasons. This one will run for 4 seasons. The sitcom was only supposed to run for four seasons but the network demanded two more so they did it. One of the tricks to ending a well-liked show is knowing when to end it, not just how. The Fresh Prince of Bel Air ended on an emotional high note that was pretty satisfying to say the least.
I almost forgot to mention this but there are still a few of the original living cast members who still haven’t made cameo appearances in Bel Air:
Will Smith: He’s the executive producer of Bel Air (also executive produced the original show). They’ve gotten pretty good at keeping leaks of upcoming cameos close to the vest until they happen so if he does appear in Season 4, it will likely be when least expected.
Alfonso Ribeiro: Played Carlton in the original show.
Karyn Parsons: Played Hillary in the original show.
DJ Jazzy Jeff: Played Jazz in the original show. A longtime friend of (the real) Will Smith.
Nia Long: Played Lisa in the original show. This show started her acting career. She is also married to current Houston Rockets head coach Ime Udoka.
Tyra Banks: Played Jackie in the original show. If her name sounds familiar, she was a supermodel in the 1990s and had a talk show in the late 1990s.
Excluding the late James Avery, the others made cameo appearances. In all of them, they appeared in scenes with their Bel Air counterparts. Both of the actresses who played Vivian in the original show–Janet Hubert and Daphnie Reid–appeared in a scene with their Bel Air counterpart in Season 1 though Reid’s Bel Air character returned briefly in Season 2. Tatiana Ali (played Ashley in the original show) played an outspoken teacher at her Bel Air counterpart’s school. As I mentioned above, Joseph Marcell (played Geoffrey in the original series) appears in Season 3 in two scenes with his Bel Air counterpart.
All that said and in closing. If you haven’t seen Bel Air yet, you can catch all 4 seasons in their entirety on Peacock. I did notice the series has started airing on USA Network (owned by NBC Universal which also owns Peacock). My guess is it either isn’t doing well in terms of ratings or some of the actors will not be available for another reason. Jabari Banks shaved his head for a role on a different show after Season 2. Season 3’s filming was delayed due to that commitment and also to allow time for his hair to grow back enough to film Season 3. I wouldn’t be surprised if Banks has other roles lined up and waiting for him. Bel Air was his first major acting gig and it’s certainly helped launch his career to say the least.
First and foremost, video files are massive. Nothing eats up storage space faster. The higher res quality, the bigger the resulting video file will be after you finish recording. It goes without saying you will want to have a dedicated high-capacity External Hard Drive for that. Anyone who regularly records Vblogs uses one. The bigger you can afford, the better. Another issue is naturally, you’re going to want to have decent equipment in the room you do the recordings in: A free-standing microphone–the more you pay, the better–a Webcam (doesn’t need to be expensive) and most importantly, a floodlight (yes, really). That last one is extremely important regardless of what kind of webcam you have. You need to make sure your face can be clearly seen by the webcam. Not big studio-quality floodlights. If you’ve seen various Vblogs, you probably also The floodlight also helps reduce or eliminate glare from your screen if you wear glasses like I do.
Ok so you finished recording the video. What comes next? Well, any competent Vblogger will EDIT the video before they updated. This is called Post Production. Add bells and whistles, trim bloat, etc. Depending on the length of the recording, this can be VERY time-consuming. I did this with a few videos on my YouTube channel a while back, I know what I’m talking about. For context, most of my YouTube videos are 20 to 30 minutes long. Editing them took at least an hour on average using Windows Movie Maker. Afterward, then there’s uploading them to YouTube. That can take anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes depending on the video file’s size and upload speed. After the upload completes, server side processes the video and this can take a few minutes to as much as an hour. A general rule is the longer the video, the longer everything takes.
I have nothing but respect for people who do it for a living or in growing cases do it AND still maintain a full-time job. More so after doing it myself for about 3 years.
All that said, I just feel more productive writing blog posts on WordPress. It’s that simple. The fact that I have 12 WordPress blogs with over 2,000 posts in 11 years between them speaks to that.
It does mean I’m now going to need to do what I held off doing for three years and reformat the 750GB Hard Drive I pulled from a desktop PC I scrapped three years ago. When I bought the first version of my current desktop, I separately bought a 3.5″ 4TB Internal Hard Drive to replace the 500GB system drive it came with. After installing Windows 10 and a few other formatting stuff, I was left with 1.99TB worth of free space. I now have about 230GB worth of free space.
How did I use up over 1.6TB worth of storage in 3 years?
I assumed it was Podcast episodes I’ve been downloading via iTunes since 2019 but when I checked, that only accounted for 223GB. I do buy HD movies and TV or Anime Episodes from iTunes from time to time but I stream them from my Apple TV Roku App. They do account for 147GB (Movies) and 104GB (TV Shows) stored locally though. Subtracting all those, actual Music in my iTunes library only accounts for around 17GB. My hard backup of my iPhoto local backup photos are 11GB right now on that note.
My non-iTunes Music Library is 41GB for a total of 58GB worth of Music while my non-iTunes video files account for 91GB. My Nintendo Switch Screenshot backups are almost 100,000 images but hasn’t reached 20GB yet. My Steam Library combined is currently 235GB. World of Warcraft is 159GB while the local files for Diablo IV are 121GB. None of my other Blizzard games exceed 30GB on that note.
Add all those numbers together and now you start to understand how I used up 1.6TB worth of storage in three years. I’m definitely gonna need to offload some stuff to the 750GB hard drive I mentioned earlier. It will likely be most of my Steam Library + WoW. When I played D4 on a free trial basis last year, all of the local files were downloaded to my computer. I haven’t played DII or DIII much in recent years on either my computer OR my Nintendo Switch so I’m probably gonna just uninstall DIV for now. I didn’t buy the game and I won’t consider that until I get a new desktop gaming PC at least.
In addition to reformatting my 750GB Hard Drive, I’m also probably gonna need to buy two 4TB External Hard Drives. I was already planning to get one for my PS4 which I’ve put off for almost 4 years. The other would be an upgrade for the 2TB external hard drive I got for my laptop earlier this year. After making the switchover, I would use the 2TB Hard Drive with my desktop computer in addition to the 750GB hard drive. As in using two external hard drives with my desktop computer.
Here’s show I plan to spread things around:
I plan to move my largest Steam games–anything over 20GB as of now–as well as WoW to the 2TB hard drive. I’ll uninstall D4 from my desktop and just play it from my laptop during Free Trial opportunities. The other games I’ll keep on my desktop hard drive since they’re not as big combined. I plan to free up at least 300GB from doing all that.
I plan to move my iTunes Movies + TV Shows to my 750GB Hard Drive. I’ll leave my Music and Podcasts on the system drive mostly because reorganizing everything would be way too much of a hassle in comparison. I would free up at least 250GB from doing all that.
By the way I also have a 5TB External Hard Drive but that’s my hard general backup of everything on both my laptop and my desktop. I don’t use it otherwise. I plan to do a big backup to it this weekend. I planned to do this the weekend before but that was before my previous desktop PC died. What I’m mainly going to back up are new podcast episodes, photos (iPhoto and Nintendo Switch Screenshots), iTunes purchases and documents from this past Semester at Bunker Hill Community College. I don’t expect the entire process to take very long once I get things started.
In addition to all this, I do still have a 250GB Internal Hard Drive and a 500GB Internal Hard Drive I’ve been using with enclosures for the last few years now. They were originally used in laptops on that note. I plan to better reorganize them to use them as mass storage devices when I don’t feel like bringing my laptop with me to my college campus. We’ll see.
…Whew.
With everything going on in the world these days, I am all about having important data I don’t want to permanently lose stored locally. I am not going to rely on cloud storage as that requires an internet connection to access. Its not like it was 20 years ago with cloud storage and providers know this. It’s why they’re now charging you for more storage if you want full access to YOUR data. For example: Why pay Apple at least $1 a month for 50GB (or more) additional cloud storage indefinitely to hold onto your photos and videos when you can just buy an external hard drive to store everything for free without an internet connection?
See, the thing all these tech companies have in common with all the major streaming platforms is they figured out it’s more profitable for them to force people to be subscribed longterm with a “license” than have people pay a one time. This is also why they have been gradually raising the prices. They know people will complain but will still pay being why. Well, I quit Peacock after 6 years despite paying annually. It was $120 when I last paid and that was pushing it. $140 was a hard hell no from me. I stayed subscribed for WWE content for 6 years but I’ll switch to Monthly only for certain Premium Live Events (PLEs). WWE’s deal with Peacock is set to end sometime in 2026 and Netflix is expected to pick things up at that point.
Getting back to local backups of your data though. Seriously, if you give a damn you will invest in a decent computer. This one I just got a second version of is a good cheap option for example. Don’t have the space f0r a desktop? Get a laptop and an external hard drive. Connect your phone to your computer and start backing up everything you don’t want to lose. I’ve gone through several phones over the last 8 years. I learned the hard way not to rely on phones too much for data storage purposes. The more local backups you can have, the better. This is also why I have multiple external hard drives and Portable USB Drives. And I plan to get more as needed and as the prices eventually fall.
As for what I’m more concerned about losing, it’s easily my document files and photos. Fortunately for me, I already confirmed I can have all of both backed up on my 250GB External Hard Drive. I would not be bothered anywhere near as much if I lost everything else–music, podcasts, games, etc.–in comparison. My documents and photos are largely stuff I made myself. Same with the YouTube videos and audio podcasts I recorded.
For those who might not know, this movie actually dropped in Japan three months before Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire dropped worldwide. The funny thing is this movie actually overshadowed the other movie internationally. It’s not a knock on GxK but the nostalgia factor in GMO is impossible to ignore.
GMO is set in postwar Japan. The way the time period is portrayed is just chef’s kiss and more so when you consider how devastated Japan was by the time the war had ended. I’ll get into this in a separate post on my political blog but ideologically, Imperial Japan had a fatalistic “fight to the last man” culture that was supercharged with propaganda. This is to say nothing of the fact to the Imperial Japanese Military, everyone and everything was expendible if it meant causing pain to enemy combatants.
In the closing days of the war, Kamikaze pilot Koichi Shikishima gets cold feet and flies to a resupply island. That’s where he has his first encounter with Godzilla, who wipes out everything in sight. By the time Shikishima returns to Japan, the war is over. Shikishima returns feeling disgraced and although his neighbor Sumiko is shocked to see him alive, she doesn’t yet know what he saw. The next day while at the marketplace looking for work, Shikishima meets Noriko and her daughter Akiko. Shikishima is surprised to learn Noriko and Akiko are not blood related. Like him, they lost their families during the war and ended up finding each other just like they found him.
Just when it seems like things are starting to look up for the unconventional family, Godzilla strikes again a few years later. While working with a demining team, Godzilla emerges and attacks. Although both the U.S. Military and the Soviet Militaries are made aware of the threat, both sides are more concerned with each other than the force of nature Godzilla is. This leaves the people of Japan to deal with Godzilla on their own. As a reminder, Japan’s military after WWII is prettymuch nonexistent at that point in time. The people of Japan are prettymuch defenseless to say the least. The irony in the situation is during the war, every single person in Japan was ready and willing to die at a moment’s notice. Now that a force of nature has come to wipe them out, you can see through the characters that the people of Japan realize life should be valued more than anything.
During an attack on Ginza, Noriko is blown away from the shockwave of Godzilla’s atomic breath. She pushes Shikishima aside just before she’s swept away by the shockwave and flying debris. After the attack, Dr. Kenji Noda comes up with a daring plan to take down Godzilla. It’s very science-centric but it’s the only chance they have to stop Godzilla from rampaging across the entire country. Shikishima recruits Sosaku Tachibana, who also survived the first attack by Godzilla years earlier. They come up with a daring contingency plan to take down Godzilla.
By this point, all of Shikishima’s friends and colleagues know he’s a former Kamikaze pilot. After seeing Noriko ripped away from him, Shikisima is crushed and some suspect he’s got a death wish. More so given he came back from the war alive when he wasn’t “supposed to”. It’s obvious after Dr. Noda resolves to overcome the crisis without anyone involved needlessly sacrificing themselves that this is movie gives a nod to those still alive from the postwar era. It took a few decades after the end of WWII but Japan underwent a significant cultural identity shift and national identity change as it worked to survive and then thrive in their new normal.
Emperor Hirohito, who isn’t mentioned by name in the movie was spared legal responsability for the war crimes comitted by Japan during the way. The blanket pardon was done at the insistance of top U.S. Military officials who feared having to deal with an insurrection in Japan if they gave into massive pressure from most of their allies in the Pacific including China, Vietnam, Korea and to a lesser extent the Soviet Union. Publicly, it was explained in both the U.S. and Japan war crimes were committed by and on the orders of “some” Imperial Japanese Military officials without the Emperor’s knowledge. Of course, this was a big lie. It was a lie forcefully fed to the public in the interests of the U.S. not wanting to have troops occupying Japan longterm but I won’t digress further at this point.
Getting back to the movie. Shikishima saves the day after Dr. Noda’s Plan B fails. Godzilla is blown up and his remains sinks into the sea. It’s revealed Tachibana installed a ejection seat into the modified plane Shikishima piloted. That’s a nod to the fact the planes Japan used during the war did not have ejection seats. Due to this, Japan lost thousands of skilled pilots during the war needlessly because everyone and everything was expendable as far as the old government and military were concerned.
The movie ends with Shikishima and the other volunteers involved getting a hero’s welcome. Shikishima also gets the shocking news Noriko survived Godzilla’s attack on Ginza. He takes Akiko with him to the hospital where she was taken after Godzilla’s attack. In the postcredits scene, we see Godzilla’s sinking remains beginning to regenerate. This is to leave the door open to another movie and there likely will be another one.
Unlike the Godzilla movies made by Legendary Pictures, these movies were made by the original studio Toho inc. Ltd. My guess is like the early movies, these movies will not focus on continuity from movie to movie as much as telling a story within each movie. That isn’t to say we will not see the same characters return in future movies. That’s how it is in the American Godzilla movies right now actually.
Before I forget and in closing, I watched Godzilla Minus One on Netflix.
I knew when I got three years ago that it wouldn’t last for very long. Mostly because of how I used it. I figured that out when I realized I’ve had my laptop for almost as long but I didn’t use it as much in the same amount of time. I used the Desktop as my “main” or primary computer at home mostly because I didn’t want to put the heavy load on my laptop which I have to use an external hard drive with. I actually mostly use my laptop for gaming. Not my desktop. I do use my desktop for managing my iTunes Music and Podcasts though. I was actually planning to finally set up my laptop to also manage my iTunes library but that’s on hold until I get a replacement Desktop PC.
On that note. This is the desktop PC in question. As you can see, it originally hit the market almost 10 years ago. You would normally see it in a lot of offices, schools and libraries 10 years ago. When companies, schools, libraries and other places upgraded their machines, probably thousands of this machine hit the secondhand market. Apparently, this originally sold for $250 as-is and $400 with a monitor. When I first got mine, it was $175 Renewed. Three years later, it’s now $92 on Amazon. I did see it for sale on eBay for $72 with just the tower and power cable but I’m playing it safe getting it from Amazon. At least that way I’ll be able to track its arrival and know it was thoroughly tested before it was sold. Payment will be provided to me by a third party but I’m buying it myself at the end of this week.
Once I get the replacement PC, I’ll simply swap everything including the hard drive from the existing one to the replacement. Then I’ll simply be able to boot it up as if it’s the same one I’ve been using to now. I also won’t have to worry about having to reinstall everything since I’m moving the hard drive as well. What I will not do is leave the desktop computer running overnight anymore. I’ve never done that with my laptop on that note. I know the main contributing factor to the power box giving out was leaving it running overnight for 3 years. I don’t leave it running when I’m away from home though. I’ll probably just use Hiberation mode overnight which shuts to computer off but allows for a faster loadup than from a hard bootup. At least that way it’s not running 24/7 in my room which will be helpful during the summer.
All that said. This is a very, very good an reliable computer. Don’t let my negligance fool you. Anyone using this machine normally and with way more care than me won’t find themselves having to get theirs replaced like I am after just 3 years. This can and should last you at leasr 5 to 6 years or until you get a more recent model. On that note. Official support from Windows 10 will end in November 2025. This machine does not have minimum specs needed to upgrade to Windows 11. What that means is after November 2025, there will not be any more periodic system updates for Windows 10. This is something to be mindful of if you do decide to buy this computer.
I don’t mind obviously and not just because my laptop does meet the minimum spec requirements to upgrade to Windows 11. Microsoft is well aware third parties will step in and take over doing that for free.Windows XP is still the most popular iteration of the operating system 23 years after it was first released for various reasons. There’s online guides for those who may want to either downgrade their OS or more commonly, run an earlier version of Windows parellel to the modern one. I know a lot of folks who do that latter. They either partition the system drive or run their preferred OS off of a secondard hard drive. If I had my own home or apartment I would consider it personally.
In closing, the funny thing is I was planning to buy a second one of these machines. I just didn’t expect to need to under these circumstances. I’ll definitely get another so I’ll have two once I have stable income though. I almost forgot to mention this earlier but once the replacement comes, I’ll then have TWO extra 500GB hard drives. I swapped hard drive that came with the first one with a 4TB HDD as soon as I got it as a reminder. I kept the hard drive I swapped out and it’s been in storage ever since.On a related note, I also plan to add the 8GB memory from the first machine to its replacement. That will double the memory to 16GB. That should make it a bit faster I’d think.
About six years after Wendy’s (re)introduced its Biggie Bag Meal, McDonald’s is rolling out a $5 Value Meal of its own. The Value Meal would include your choice of a McChicken, Spicy McChicken or Double Cheeseburger as well as 4-piece Chicken Nuggets, Small Fries and a Small Drink. The total cost of all those items separately? $10 to $15. Your total savings would be $5 to $10.
Wendy’s Biggie Bag Value Meal is $6 to $8 depending on the sandwich you get in comparison. Burger King recently rolled out a Value Meal similar to Wendy’s and McDonalds in terms of pricing and what’s included. Taco Bell, KFC, Popeyes, Subway and Chipotle don’t have any meal deals below $7 on average either. Most of them had $5 and less meal deals 25 years ago though. I’m old enough to remember that far back.
What caused the shrinkflation we’ve been seeing since then? If you take the industry giants’ word for it, the cause is pressure from the public in recent years to pay all of their employees the $15 minimum wage. They claim they “have no choice but to pass the burden on to consumers” which is basically their way of giving two middle fingers to those who pressured them to pay their employees liveable wages. The problem with that arguement is these rising prices have been a thing since the mid-2000s. For those who don’t understand Economics 101, the purpose of any corporation is to sell as much as you can for as little as you can for as long as you can. The only real way to show them you’re not ok with it is to simply not buy.
It’s not that these industry giants can’t afford to sell their food cheaply and pay their employees a livable wage. They certainly can and more so with all the charity work most of them also do. It’s just more profitable for them to underpay their employees and overprice their food. Personally, I don’t expect the prices of their Combo Meals to fall below $10 anytime soon–I remember when some were $5–because they don’t see the need to slash prices that low. I’d be shocked if that happens. What they all should do though is not financially penalize people who DON’T want to buy a Combo Meal just to save a few bucks. Those 2 for $4 and 2 for $5 deals some offer are a good start. Throwing in the option of adding a drink of any size for an additional $1 or $2 more to that wouldn’t be a bad idea.
Contrary to popular belief, most young people and young adults DON’T regularly eat fast food. This has been true since the early 2000s and the menu prices getting so expensive is further discouraging young people from regularly eating fast food (and that may not entirely be a bad thing either!). Just 20 years ago, $20 was enough to cover combo meals for two adults and two kids. Now you need $20 just to get a combo meal for one adult and depending on where you buy from, hope the change is enough to get an item or two for a kid. Hopefully pressure from the public will get the Fast Food Industry to permanently lower the prices of everything because they need to if they want to stay in business longterm. Enough’s enough. They should not be trying to compete with the likes of Olive Garden, Applebees, Outback Steakhouse, UNOs and Bertucci’s pricewise. People have lowered expectations with fast food and they shouldn’t be trying so hard to change that. It’s not something to dislike either.
People want and need their fast food to be cheap and somewhat satisfying. When you mess with that, you can’t be surprised when people refuse to buy anymore. At the same time, cheap prices don’t need to come at the expense of giving the people who preparing the food a livable wage. It’s corporate greed at the end of the day. The irony in saying all this about the Fast Food Industry is if you care about healthy eating or just want to save some money, just make what you can get from these places yourself at home. You can buy everything needed to make several combo meals at home in a supermarket often for less than the price of buying one. Yes, really.
The Season 1 finale dropped on January 12 and it was quite the sendoff to say the least. It’s a real shame not a lot of people have likely seen this TV Series let alone knows it exists. The reason: It requires an Apple TV+ subscription to watch.
I got real lucky and ended up getting 3-month free trial for Apple TV+ from Roku in early December. This allowed me to watch all 10 episodes of the just completed Season 1 in their entirety. I actually got the subscription to watch the Tetris Biopic but when I saw this TV series, I decided to watch. I was glad I did.
Those who’ve seen Kong: Skull Island will find the opening moments of the first episode familiar. An aged William “Billy” Randa (played by John Goodman) is running from a giant spider and is cornered on a cliff. Another monster comes out of the water and clashes with the spider. Randa drops the bag of research data he’d been collecting on Skull Island. Monarch: Legacy of Monsters picks up the story from there.
One of the interesting things about this first season is it tells two sets of stories that are seemingly unrelated through the first nine episodes. In the Present Day (2015), it’s been a year since the events of Godzilla (2014). San Francisco is in ruins and the world is still traumatized by what happened. Cate Randa, who was a schoolteacher in San Francisco before G-Day travels to Japan where she learns her father Hiroshi had another family. She meets her half-brother Kentaro and his mother Emiko in Tokyo. They find data in their father’s Tokyo office and Kentaro decides to bring it to his friend May who is a hacker. This inadvertently sets off a globe-trotting quest to not just find out what really happened to their father but where the Titans came from.
In the Past–starting in 1952–we’re introduced to Cate and Kentaro’s grandparents Keiko and Bill Randa as well as Lee Shaw. Shaw and the Randas are the ones who created Monarch on that note. Before it was the multinational Titan-monitoring organization it is today, it was a minor department in the U.S. Military. Shaw and the Randas were the first to definitively prove the Titans were real. Remember the footage from reel from Godzilla’s (2014) opening in which the U.S Military tried to nuke Godzilla? We find out a bit more about that. Lee and the Randas also find out several years later Godzilla survived unscathed which was a nice touch.
Speaking of Godzilla. Our favorite Apex Predator does make a few cameo appearances. Aside from swimming by their grandparents in the past, Cate and Kentaro see him in the desert while looking for their father. He does make one more appearance in the final episode but I’ll get to that a bit later. While exploring an abandoned nuclear reactor in Kazakstan in 1959, Keiko is seemingly killed after she’s swarmed by giant bugs. Three years later in 1962, Shaw is part of an expeditionary team that travels through one of the Titan portals. A nuke is used to lure a titan up and the team along with their pod is sucked in. Shaw is the only one who comes back alive. He reveals in the season finale he was gone for about a week but in reality, he’d been gone for 20 years (!). It’s 1982 when he returns and the child Hiroshi he’d left behind is now a grown man. The events of Kong: Skull Island happened nine years earlier (1973) and Bill Randa was among those who died over there. I forgot to say this before but Kurt Russell plays the elder version of Shaw while his son Wyatt plays the younger version of Shaw.
May is seemingly nothing more than an overly cautious tech-savy hacker but we find out there’s a pretty good reason she’s so secretive. It turns out she worked for a medical tech company before the fled to Japan. She did some digging around and learned that there was more to the company than she realized. She released malware into the company’s servers that devastated the company and fled to Japan. When Monarch picks up Cate, Kentaro, Shaw and May in Alaska they’re confused about her being so overly cautious about confirming her true identity as she’s not wanted by law enforcement anywhere.
Circumstances end up causing Kentaro and Cate to ally with Monarch. May’s former employer finds her and takes her back to their offices in Seattle. Cate finds out about it and recruits Monarch’s assistance in getting her new friend back. Monarch reluctantly agrees to pay a huge price in exchange for May’s freedom: All the research data they have on Titans. We then learn the new name of the company that is the main antagonist of Godzilla vs. Kong: Apex Industries. For those who may not have seen that movie, that’s the company that created MechaGodzilla using one of King Ghidora’s heads to control it.
Godzilla’s final appearance in Season 1 takes place in the Titan homeworld. In Godzilla vs. Kong it’s called Hollow Earth. While trying to making their escape, Cate and Lee’s party is attacked by a Titan that happened to be nearby. Suddenly unexpected backup arrives from Earth: Godzilla himself. During the ensuing battle, Lee sacrifices himself so the others can escape safely back to Earth.
Remember when I said earlier Keiko was seemingly killed in the first episode? It turns out she survived and we should’ve seen it coming after learning what happened to Shaw in Episode 9. At the end of the episode, Cate is attacked by a giant boar-like Titan. Keiko shows up just in time to rescue her granddaughter. Keiko reveals she’d been in Hollow Earth for about 57 days (as a reminder, she went in there in 1959). In reality, she was down there for 66 years (1959-2015). When Cate, May and Keiko return to Earth in the final moments of the Season finale two years have passed. After Cate, May and Shaw disappeared Kentaro, Tim and Hiroshi form an alliance with Apex Industries. When Cate, May and Keiko return they happen to arrive on Skull Island. The final moments show Kong make his grand entrance above the facility.
It’s now 2017 in the Present Day meaning the events of 2019’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters haven’t happened in-universe yet. Given the final moments of Season 1 happen on Skull Island, clearly the show is taking cues from the movies and telling you where the next season will likely focus. By the time we return to Skull Island at the beginning of Godzilla vs. Kong, it’s been 68 years since Monarch’s expedition to the remote habitat and home of Kong. I’m pretty sure we’ll see the return of split storytelling in Season 2 as well. The flashback scenes would likely focus on what Kentaro, Hiroshi and Tim were doing during the two year gap while Cate, May and Shaw were missing. Kentaro, Hiroshi and Tim welcoming the others when they returned tells me they likely found info from when Shaw returned in 1982.
All that said and in closing. I don’t expect Season 2 to drop for another year or two mostly because most of the cast are currently working on other projects. I also think this series would do itself better on Peacock, Max, Amazon Prime or Netflix personally. This series deserves to be on a streaming platform used by more people. I’ll just put it like that.
Over the last 18 or so years we’ve seen the rise of online Cloud Storage. Everyone’s probably at least heard of Google Drive and iCloud for example. This has opened up a lot of possabilities only dreamt of in the early 2000s including unified data infrastructures across multiple devices and platforms. For example. When you buy a new iPhone/iPad or Android phone/tablet you can use the same info from your old device on the new one by simply using your Apple or Google info on the new device. It will then allow you access to everything not locally stored on any of the devices in addition to your entire purchase history indefinitely.
That brings me to the one glaring flaw ALL cloud-based storage systems have: They require an internet connection to use. Without an internet connection (broadband, Wi-Fi, Data, etc.), it’s useless. That’s to say nothing of these massive data breaches and Ransomware attacks largely orchestrated by hacking groups based in Russia, North Korea and China.
Until recent years, high-capacity hard drives and USB drives were hard capped to around 500GB to 750GB. Now you can commercially buy External Drives up to 12TB quite easily online. With all the data privacy concerns with social media platforms in particular, I strongly urge everyone to invest or reinvest in getting a desktop or laptop AND a high-capacity external hard drive. Most of the world accesses the internet via a Smartphone (iOS/Apple or Android). Its convenience drastically reduced the number of people who own a personal computer at home in modernized countries. At the same time, it helped connect people who live in developing countries to the rest of the world.
There’s nothing wrong with that but the problem is with everything on your phone, if something happens to it you’ll lose everything on it forever. Contacts, Photos, personal data, everything. Don’t forget what I mentioned earlier about the huge downside to relying on Cloud Storage: It requires an internet connection. Without an internet connection, you can’t access that data. The way I see it, if you can afford to buy a new smartphone or video game console you can buy a decent desktop or laptop no problem. A Laptop might make more sense as you can take it with you though. Get one and get an external hard drive too.
Two years ago, I was given a 5TB external hard drive for my birthday. I was able to not only back up all the data on my two computers to it but all of the data on all of the hard drives I recovered from broken computers over the last 10 years. Last March I accidently broke the USB cable for it while using it with my laptop and it malfunctioned, never working again. It took longer than I would have liked but I recently not only got a new 5TB external hard drive but I also got a 2TB external hard drive to use exclusively with my laptop. My laptop came with a 250GB SSD Hard Drive. In exchange for the laptop working faster, I have limited storage on it. This is why I invested in getting an external hard drive. My mistake with the hard drive that broke was using it not only as my Master Backup Storage but also using it as the primary storage for my laptop. With two external hard drives, that mistake has been fixed.
Before I continue, it’s worth noting I ALSO have four internal hard drives that I can use as external hard drives with the enclosures I bought for them. I have a 250GB HDD and a 500GB HDD that I took out of broken laptops I used to have. I reformatted them with their enclosures and use them for media storage. I also have the 750GB HDD from my old desktop. The computer crashed during a system update four years ago. I got the laptop my 500GB HDD came from shortly afterward and after getting an enclosure for the 750GB HDD, I discovered I could access all my files on it. Based on that, I was able to figure out the files in the operating system had become corrupted and it was unable to boot up anymore. At least I could still access my files on the hard drive which was good news.
When I bought my current desktop, I replaced the 500GB HDD that came with the computer with a 2TB internal hard drive. I used a separate USB Drive to create a Recovery Drive with my laptop and then used that to install Windows 10 on the 2TB hard drive for my then new desktop. I then went ahead and reinstalled everything that was on the 750GB HDD on the new desktop hard drive. I also put everything that was on a 500GB External Hard Drive I’d had since 2007–I’d been using it as my “If everything fails, use this” backup–on the new desktop hard drive. As for the 500GB internal HDD my desktop came with, I put it in storage as-is. I figure in the event the hard drive I swapped it with fails, I can just swap it back in.
Once I did all that, I went ahead and reformatted all my loose hard drives except the 750GB one. I’m probably gonna make the time to do that later this year likely in early Summer. When I got my replacement 5TB External Hard Drive, I wasted no time backing up 1.5TB worth of data to it. About 480GB of it is just my iTunes Library–Music, Podcasts, Music Videos, Movies and TV Shows/Episodes–while 60GB is all my pictures including everything I have stored on my iCloud AND every screenshot I took with my Nintendo Switch and backed up to my computer. When using a memory card, the Switch has a hard cap of 10,000 Screenshots and 100 Video Clips. Once you hit the cap, you have to delete screenshots/clips to make room for more. You can do that in bulk of course. What I did before bulk deleting was back up all the screenshots to my desktop. As of last month, the count’s 70,000+ Switch screenshots meaning I’ve backed up screenshots seven times so far. I got my Switch in late 2022 for reference on that note.
I have a pretty large Steam library, most of which can be played offline as long as you have the game files installed on your computer. I downloaded my whole Steam library to my desktop and to my laptop (via the 2TB external hard drive I bought for it). That’s about 575GB or so worth of data (it took 3 days with my laptop though I didn’t have it running the whole time). I also have a Blizzard account and almost all of their games which totals about 325GB worth of data. If you do the math, the total for everything mentioned as well as document files, video podcasts, audio podcasts and a few other things comes to around 1.5TB. This was also why I felt comfortable just getting a 2TB external hard drive to work with my laptop. It now has access to all the of the stuff on my desktop with the added benefit of me being able to take my laptop with me when I leave home.
All that said, let’s just say I now have a LOT of contingencies in place to help ensure I do not permanently lose any data hopefully ever again. I am also happy to say there is nothing imporant to me that I have in cloud storage somewhere that I do not also have a local backup of. I’ve gone through several computers over the last 20 years and a few cellphones over the last 6 years. Those are the main reasons I’m being this thorough with my local hard drive storages. The new 5TB External Hard Drive’s sole purpose is being a hard backup storage and will rarely be used outside of that purpose. This is also why getting a separate 2TB External Hard Drive for my laptop was important. They’ll always travel together and more so since I installed my Steam and Blizzard libraries directly onto it.
My 4th Gen iPod Touch and the 3rd Gen iPod Touch I bought as a backup 6 years ago have both officially stopped working as of this week. I’m devastated and more so given Apple officially discontinued the iPod line last year. The move was largely to push people to get an iPhone though it does use the same firmware as iPhones. The only difference is the iPhod Touch does not have any of the communication features or hardware an iPhone does–specifically a SIM Card slot. Once I have stable income, I’m gonna buy some refurbished iPods via eBay. The only thing to watch out for is battery life since my 4th Gen iPod Touch stopped holding a charge in cold weather after a few years. I literally had to keep it plugged into a portable charger during the winter to keep it running.
This time, I’ll focus on getting newer model versions of the iPod Touch–5th Gen and later–with at least 32GB storage capacity. The 4th Gen iPod I had was 32GB and so was the 3rd Gen iPod I had. I’ve been checking out listings on eBay and Amazon. I ultimately decided to go with eBay instead of Amazon for my iPod hunt since I plan to buy several older model iPods and I’ll have a much easier time getting just one for well under $100 each from eBay (I’ll only buy from sellers based in the U.S. on that note). While 8GB and 16GB iPods typically sell for $15 to $40 on eBay, I’d only buy them in those sizes if I was giving them to someone who either can’t or doesn’t plan to add anything to it. In cases like that I’d have to preload them with content before giving them away.
All that said. The main reason I’m getting multiple iPods is largely for the many podcasts I listen to via Apple Podcasts. I actually download all the podcast episodes I listen to onto my desktop computer first. That way, I permanently have them when and if they’re no longer available on Apple Podcasts. Oh and yes they are part of the hard backups I mentioned earlier. Another reason is battery depreciation. Meaning the battery stops holding a charge even after you supposedly fully charge it. It will just shut off despite showing as “full” with no warning. That’s what ultimately killed my 4th Gen iPod Touch which I got 14 years ago preowned. The repeated power offs messed it up so bad it stopped rebooting properly. As for the 3rd Gen iPod, some dead pixels I knew about when I bought it eventually made the screen flicker white in addition to general stability issues. It got worse until finally it White Screened for good.
The 4th Gen iPod Touch is apparently imfamous for battery depreciation on that note and that’s why I’m gonna focus on getting 5th Gen and later iPods. I found two 5th Gen iPods from the same seller–one 32GB, the other 64GB– on eBay that are being sold for a combined $100 after taxes (both items have Free Shipping). I’m gonna make arrangements to acquire them one by one by early April. I’m staggering when I have time to program one before I get the other. Once I have both of them though, I can hold off on getting newer model iPods until I have stable income. The two I’m gonna get for now will cover my everyday needs. I’ll mainly use the 64GB one with the 32GB one acting as a backup that I’ll keep in storage at home. I’ll continue to use key mobile apps I use on my iPad primarily though I do plan to migrate most of the Freemium games on my iPad to the iPods based on compatability. We’ll see.
The thing about iPods to keep in mind is the same apps you use on an iPhone also work on an iPod and iPad. For example, I run Pokemon Go through my iPad (I often use my cellphone as a hotspot when I’m away from home on that note). With older iPods the same core apps such as Apple Music, Apple Video, Apple Podcasts, iBook/Bookcase, iMessage and Facetime do work though you’ll have some stability issues with the older models. You actually can use iMessage and FaceTime on older iPods–provided the device is connected to a Wi-Fi network or Wireless Hotspot–to communicate with people who have an iPad, iPhone or another iPod. You simply need to know the other person’s iCloud email (for example “[email protected]” and/or whatever the email you used to make your iTunes account). Oh and no, distance does not matter. As long as both people are connected to the internet, it doesn’t matter where in the world you are or what Apple device you use. That right there adds a lot of value to iPods as communication devices. They do “chirp” for new message notifications by default as well.
Did I forget to mention the older iPods have Bluetooth functionality? Meaning you can pair them with Bluetooth speakers (and other devices). Not a bad thing to keep in mind especially if you don’t plan to use wired headphones. That’s also the biggest reason to get a few of the smaller storage size ones. You can simply put one genre of music or only Podcasts on one which shouldn’t take up that much space on average. Movies and TV Episodes–especially in HD–take up the most space. I do know on newer Apple devices, you can stream purchased Movies and TV episodes via the Apple TV app without having to download them first. With older devices you will need to download them before you can watch them though. Using iTunes from a computer helps keep things organized but if you read what I said earlier about having two computers, hopefully you understand this already.
Streaming apps like YouTube, Netflix, Crunchyroll and Viki will also work on the older iPods though you’ll likely be forced to use older versions of them due to compatability contraints on older devices. If you already have an iTunes account and downloaded them to a newer device, you can simply redownload them from the older device by going into your purchase history in the App Store from the older device. The same is true if you want to do direct downloads from iTunes or Apple Podcasts from the device instead of your computer. On a related note. While iTunes purchases and new Podcast subscriptions are automatically added to your iCloud account, if you want to download them to all your devices you’ll need to either manually do that or transfer them from a computer.
I forgot to say this before but you can import music to iTunes purchased from elsewhere such as Amazon Music (Computer required). The same is true for CD Rips. You can also access movie purchases from iTunes on Amazon Prime Video and a few other steaming apps like Movies Anywhere and even Xbox Live. They both allow you to link your Apple account on that note. For those who buy Blu Ray movies, most of them typically come with a code for a free digital copy. Always redeem the redemption code as soon as you take ’em home since they expire eventually. I’m speaking from personal experience on that note.
By the way you CAN watch digital media you bought from iTunes offline from either your computer or an Apple device BUT you’ll need to download it first. Plan accordingly if it’s something like one of the Star Wars, Lord of the Rings or Avengers movies in HD. Those files are MASSIVE after all. It’ll probably be a good idea to first download them to your computer and then sync them to your Apple devices to save some time later. There is no limit to how many Apple devices you can sync media to from your computer on that note.
This is true even if your iTunes info is not on the target Apple device. What theat means is you can add music and podcast episodes to an Apple device without using your own iTunes info with it. This is very handy especially in cases where you want to give an iPod to someone who either doesn’t have a computer or is not tech savy themselves. It’s also handy if for example you want to ship a preprogrammed iPod with music, videos, podcasts and other stuff to someone in another country where internet access is limited. You can also get free voice recorder apps through the app store which can come in handy for someone. Plus like I pointed out earlier you can communicate with someone who has an iPhone, iPad or their own iPod as long as the iPod is connected to the internet. If the person getting the iPod has reliable Wi-Fi access, yes you can keep in touch.
I’ll end with this since it’s something anyone with online data in particular should seriously start thinking about: What do you want happening with your online accounts and your data overall when you die?
I do know Facebook does allow a designated party partial access to the accounts of someone who died provided you provide a copy of a death certificate or funeral program as proof the original account holder is in fact deceased. Alternatively, you can pre-designate specific people to get partial access to your account if you die as well. With partial access, the designated person can either deactivate your Facebook account for you or change it to a memorial account.
One thing all websites and social media platforms need to do is make it as easy as possible to scrub the internet of all of your information and data. A master kill switch of sorts. You hit the switch and everything is erased immediately, unable to be recovered. With everything going on in the world these days, all online platforms including iTunes, Google/Gmail and Battle.net (Blizzard) should have a master data wipe feature for all account holders. What’s that? “What if your account’s hacked and the hacker wipes all your data?” I actually wouldn’t be bothered by that and on a related note. Hackers have already proven 2-Factor Authentication (2FA) CAN be breached. I’m not gonna say more than that because I’d rather not give anyone ideas.
All that said. More so now than 25 years ago, the consumer should do everything they can to be 100% in control of their data at all times. It’s why I’m unapologetically obessed with local backups of all my data to say the least. It’s funny given around 60% of the data is music, 30% is video games, and the last 10% is my documents, manusripts and podcast files.
…Podcasts? Yes, video and audio podcasts.
I haven’t recorded anything since Spring 2021 though. Might be time to start doing that again soon. We’ll see =)
Serene Adventure.net 
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