MadMatt Plays The Sims 4

Hey MadMatters,

So I've been trying something new out, that being "Let's Play" videos on my channel.  I see so many other people doing well with similar videos.  I'm talking about THOUSANDS of views, hundreds of comments...

I don't seem to be having a much luck.  I think I got about 50 views on the first one, 30 on the second, and well... 4 so far on the third, although I just posted it.

Technical difficulties aside (the first two videos), what am I doing wrong?  Is it my personality?  My gameplay style?  I really enjoy doing these videos and they are a lot easier for me to crank out than the things you are used to seeing on my channel.

So, any input would be greatly appreciated.  Check out the videos below.

Until next time guys,

K-LUVYABYE!

Oh, and don't forget to check out my merch store.  I've added two new shirts and a mousepad.
shop.spreadshirt.com/madmattsays

Episode 1: (no game audio)

Episode 2: (shitty game audio)

Episode 3: (I think I've finally figured out the audio)

My Thoughts on Calum McSwiggan

Hey MadMatters,

So who has heard all this shit going on with Calum McSwiggan?

Yeah, me too.  When I first heard, I was devastated.  First Pulse, then this... at VidCon? In LA?

It made me feel so...  targeted.  It's like we all just jumped into a time machine and went backwards.

It's scary to think that you can't go out into public for fear of getting your ass beat, or worse.


Well imagine my surprise to hear that things are not quite as they seem.  There are a million stories all over the internet, each crazier than the next.  But what seems to be clear to me is that this was NOT a hate crime.  In fact, those stitches across his forehead are from a self-induced injury (he himself admits this). WHAT?!?!?


People who claim to be his 3 "attackers" (two gay men and a transexual if I remember correctly) have a completely different story involving a flirty drunken Calum who was looking to have a bit of "fun".  I don't know if these are actually the people involved are not, but if they are, and if what they are saying is true, SHAME on you Calum...
SHAME.  SHAME.  SHAME.


It absolutely disgusts me to think that a person would do this to seek attention or for a larger YouTube following.  This isn't a game.  There are no checkpoints.  You don't get a do-over.

For the sake of the LGBT community, the YouTube community, and his many followers, I hope he is telling the truth.  But the more he speaks, the more I think this isn't going to happen.

What is your take on all of this?  I want to hear from you.

Thoughts on the Pulse Shooting...

I wasn't even there...

I wasn't even there but I can hear the shots being fired... I can smell the blood... I can feel the life leaving my body. It easily could have been my partner, my mother, my friends, my co-workers who never heard from me again. But I wasn't even there.

I try to go on with my day, but it feels like I'm just going through the motions. It's like I'm just a shell. My mind races and hops from here to there. With every person I pass, I wonder if they hate me. What I am.. Who I am.. Are you going to kill me? Are you going to pull a string and blow up in front of me at the gas station when all I wanted was a soda and a hotdog? What are the chances?

This is no isolated incident. This happens all over the world, all the time, and it has for centuries. Culture by culture, we are killing each other off. All in the name of... who exactly? Gods? Deities? Dollars?

But we don't think about that. We think about work, and new cars, and satin sheets, and appliances. We measure our worth by what neighborhood we can afford to live in and how many inches our TVs are... because that's what matters. That's what is important.

After all, that kind of thing doesn't happen here. That's elsewhere. Across the oceans, in a land far, far away. It almost sounds like a fairy tale doesn't it? But it's not. This is real. They are real. We are real... and we are dying.

Living in a Tiny House

Hey MadMatters!

As most of you know, Jim and I are still trying to figure out what to do with our property in Geneva.  During my hours and hours of digging through the interwebs, I kept finding people talking about living in "tiny houses".  I've looked into this option before, somewhat.  Watching a documentary titled "We The Tiny House People" counts as research, right?

Anyways, the whole idea of downsizing and living in a tiny space was quickly dismissed.  However, upon revisiting this concept, it's actually making more and more sense to me.

What are my common gripes about our current home?  Well... there is always a sink full of dishes to do.  There is always a pile of laundry in the bedroom.  My decorative items haven't been dusted in months.  The floors need mopped.  We just don't have the time.

Yes, even in our modest 1,150 square foot house, it's becoming apparent that it's too much for two people with full-time jobs to keep up on.  But does it have to be this way?

If you are anything like me, you have a few shirts that you like to wear constantly, maybe one or two pairs of jeans that you love, and the rest is just stuff to wear when the other stuff is dirty.  You don't think to wash laundry because you have a whole closet full of clothes still.  So you wear these clothes that I've started calling "the others", and you are uncomfortable ALL DAY!


But what if you only had a couple shirts and a couple pairs of pants?  Well, I bet you'd be more likely to wash those clothes, since the alternative is to go to work naked.

This translates through to the kitchen as well.  What if we only had 3 or 4 of everything instead of the 8, 12, 24 that we have now?  I bet it would take a lot less time to do dishes.

Less floor to mop, less knick-knacks to dust... this is sounding better and better.

But is it really feasible to live in such a small space?  I don't know.

I watched a video about a woman who built a tiny house for herself as a social experiment.  She was going to live in this house for one year and write about her experiences.  It only took her a short amount of time to decide that she would never live in a full-sized house again... because she didn't need to.  So she stayed in her tiny house, which allowed her to save more money than she had been previously.  With this money, she bought a piece of property in Hawaii and built a tiny house there as well.  And it looks AMAZING!

Here's her tiny house in the jungle, in HAWAII!  She uses a water catchment system that is plumbed to the house.  The house has solar panels on the roof that powers everything she needs.








Since she chose to elevate her tiny house, she has amazing views, right from her bed.  Best of all, it only cost her about $11K to built!





Tiny houses are now on my radar as a solution for Geneva.  Even if we don't live in it full time, I think it would be nice to have a little "home away from home" in the woods.  Just a place to relax, get away from everyday life, and not have the normal stresses that come along with a traditional home.

What do you think?  Could you live in a home like this full time?  What about part time?

Hopefully, time will tell.

Until next time guys,
K-LUVYABYE!

What We Did With Our 10 Acres in the Country

Hello MadMatters!

If you happen to be following along on my YouTube channel, you would know that Jim and I have recently acquired 10 acres of land/swamp in the quaint little town of Geneva, FL.  This is actually the property that my mom and dad lived on when I was born, and it's where I was brought to from the hospital.  :)

If you haven't been following along, shame on you, but feel free to catch up by watching the video by CLICKING HERE!

While owning 10 acres is initially exciting, we are quickly learning that it is entirely overwhelming at the same time.  What's awesome is that the possibilities are almost endless.  The downside to this however is... well, that the possibilities are almost endless.  We've had the property for almost a year now, and here are the options we have come up with.

1) Sell it! One of the first things I did was list the property up for sale, just for Esses & Gees.  It's 10 acres of property with city water, electric on site, a pond, and the impact fees have already been paid.  That should be worth something, right?  After about an hour spent on Zillow and Realtor.com, it became quite obvious that finding "comps" for land wasn't anywhere near as easy as it is for houses.  We called our realtor and ended up going with a starting list price of $124,900.  Then we crossed our fingers.  

There was some activity... I think we got a cash offer of $75,000.  We weren't interested, obviously.  Another thing that stayed in the back of my mind during this process was a little thing called Capital Gains Tax.  Since the property virtually cost us nothing, we could potentially lose 25% of the sale price OFF THE TOP! Thanks for playing.  25% doesn't sound too bad until you do some math.  Let's just assume for a second that we accepted that $75,000 offer...

$75,000.00 x 0.25 = $18,750.00

or

$75,000.00 - $18,750.00 = $56,250.00

So basically, we could sell the property for less than we thought it was worth, give the government almost $20K (I could buy a new car with that), and walk away with less than half of what we actually wanted... and let's not forget about closing costs.  Nope, this wasn't going to cut it for me.  

2) Develop it!  During my initial Zillow and Realtor.com research, I found that properties with a dwelling on them were a) worth a heck of a lot more, and b) sold faster than vacant land.  So, off I went looking for used mobile homes.  I found a few decent ones around $5K.  Not bad.  But then I have to have it moved from wherever it is to Geneva.  

A little Google magic told me that I could be looking at anywhere between $2K-$5K just to move it and have it blocked and strapped down.  Yikes!  But before I could buy a mobile home and have it moved, I needed to have some land cleared so that there was actually somewhere to put the dang thing.  

So, I made a few phone calls.  Land clearing isn't cheap either! Damn.  Yes, this would be another $5K-$7K.  So the land is cleared, the trailer is bought, moved to site, blocked up, tied down... but then what?  Well, there's plumbing, electrical, sewer (oh yeah, that was $4.5K), HVAC, plus whatever cosmetic/structural repairs need to be made to a $5,000 trailer that was just moved 50 or so miles...

Mobile Home Purchase = $5,000.00-$7,500.00

Moving Mobile Home =    $2,000.00-$5,000.00

Land Clearing =              $5,000.00-$7,000.00

Septic Tank =                  $4,5000 (and this was a GREAT price)

Everything Else =            $????.00                   

                                      $16,500.00-$24,000+++

Even on the low end, this option was going to wipe out our savings account and probably max out a credit card or two, and for what?  To have a piece of property that still may not sell.  Nope.

3) Live on it!  To avoid losing tens of thousands of dollars to taxes, Jim and I could always live on the property ourselves.  If we like it, awesome, no tax loss.  If we don't, we could tough it out for two years, which would drastically reduce the amount of Capital Gains Tax we would have to pay for selling.  Sounds like a pretty smart idea, huh?  Well let's see how far this gets us...

If Jim and I are going to leave the comforts of our first home in the city (if you can call Deltona city), we didn't want to feel like we were "roughing it".  The first thought of course was to have a house built.  Wouldn't that be nice?  The only problem that I see with this is that building a house can be quite costly.  Sure, we could probably build a small house with builder grade finishes and be okay, but we already have one of those.  If we're going to build a custom house, I want it to be a custom house. While we both make decent money, building a large home in the woods at $100+ per square foot doesn't seem like the greatest idea.

So the next thought we had was to check out new mobile homes.  They've come quite a long way, both structurally and cosmetically.  We made the drive out to Ocala and visited a few manufacturers.  We ended up selecting a Live Oak home.  This model was a 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom, 2,400 square foot beauty with 9 foot ceilings.  It was even finished in drywall!

So we talked to the salesman, made our selections, gave him all the information we had about the property and left.  He got back to us a few days later with the numbers.  For this option, we were going to do a land-in-lieu sort of thing.  Basically, we put the property up as collateral against the mobile home.  They then roll everything in to the financing, and I do mean everything.  Land clearing, septic, the whole sha-bang!  After all was said and done, this mobile home was going to set us back about $112K.  This made me rethink everything...

Was it really a wise decision to spend over ONE-HUNDRED-THOUSAND-DOLLARS on something that was only going to depreciate in value.  This would also mean that Jim and I would now have two mortgages.  Sure, we could probably rent our current house out for about $850 per month.  This would more than cover the mortgage on it as well as help with the mortgage on the new home.  But what if the house sat vacant for a while?  Sure we could afford a month here and a month there, but what if it sat vacant for 6 months?  We would now be on the hook for two mortgages for the next 30 years.  That's a scary thought.

So what did we end up doing?

Nothing... we've done absolutely nothing.

Have any of you been in the predicament?  What did you do?  What would you do in our shoes?  I'll be looking for your responses!  :)  Until then...

K-LUVYABYE!

My Thoughts on the "Trans Bathroom Issue"

This post is going to piss a lot of people off, but you know what? FUCK 'EM!

I've wasted the last hour debating with a bunch of inbred morons on the restroom issue. I was asked  bathroom because of their sexual identity is no different than not allowing a person to use a bathroom because of the color of their skin or their nationality. This is discrimination, and it's not okay with me. 
earlier today why I even get myself involved with something that doesn't directly affect me. I didn't have an answer at the time but after putting some thought into it, I've decided that I involve myself because it DOES affect me. No, I am not transgendered, but I am a human. Telling someone that they can't use a a bathroom because of the color of their skin or their nationality. This is discrimination, and it's not okay with me. 

"We have to keep the children safe..." Apparently trans people are all pedophiles now as well, I had no idea.

Then there are the "middle-of-the-road" folk who agree but cry out for regulation. Where is the line drawn? Pre-op? Post-op? Here are my thoughts...

What's to be regulated? It's all you "not-in-my-backyard" yokels that are making this so difficult and tying this in to other issues that have nothing to do with one another. Did you know that many countries don't even have gender restricted restrooms? And why should they?

The current system actually poses MORE of a safety risk... Where does a mother take her toddler age son to use the restroom? You can't just send him into the men's room. He needs supervision. And obviously, you can't go in there, MEN ONLY... and you might get "raped". 

Let's reverse it, which is an even worse scenario; the father/daughter restroom situation. The choices are: send her into the ladies room unattended. BAD IDEA... Kidnap, whatever... Go into the ladies room with her? EVEN WORSE, after all, you may just "rape" someone. Or take her into the men's room... yeah, didn't think so. 

And it doesn't end. What about an adult son with his elderly mother? What about an individual who is mentally disabled and needs assistance? 

I don't think the issue here is who is using what restroom. I think the real issue, at least this is what I keep hearing from everyone, is that public restrooms pose an issue to people's safety... 

So can someone please explain how the gender a person identifies as has ANYTHING to do with your safety?

Top 5 Places to Visit in Sanford, FL

Just to show you all that I do talk about some pretty cool stuff sometimes, I'm posting one of my most popular posts from one of my other blogs here, for your viewing pleasure!

After glancing over this quickly, it has occurred to me that I may need to make an updated Top 5 list.

***

Hello everyone,
Monday's over for the most part... HOORAY! ***EDIT: It has just been brought to my attention that today is not Monday.. it is in fact Wednesday.  Where is my mind?***  And now for something completely different.  Sanford, Florida is my hometown.  I grew up there and have tons of fond memories.  Sanford used to be amazing back in it's day heyday and it shows; there is a lot of history there (which I adore), a lot of which you can actually see to this day.

Anyways... the recent Treyvon Martin case has definitely damaged Sanford's reputation.  If you are unsure who Treyvon Martin is, look him up on Google and then please let me know what bridge you have been living under that you have been able to escape all forms of news media.  So, Sanford is now going through a "revitalization" phase of sorts.  Businesses have been hurting, so many are doing all they can to show that Sanford isn't such a bad place after all.  The following is my feeble attempt to do my part.

5 Places You Must Visit In Sanford, FL

A view of Downtown Sanford at Magnolia and First Street

1. Downtown Sanford - If I listed everything in downtown Sanford that I thought was worth seeing, you would never be able to make it through this post in one sitting.  There are so many old building from the late 1800's and early 1900's, many of which have been restored, that house businesses and apartments.  The architecture is so eclectic... I've never seen anything like it in my 23 years.  If you visit the museum, you can even get a walking-tour that highlights all of the must-see buildings.  This may not be a big one for everyone, but it definitely is for me.

2. Historic Homes of Sanford - After checking out the businesses, why not check out some amazing homes?  Take a trip down many of the streets that reach to the Downtown area (Sanford Ave, Palmetto Ave, Park Ave) and you will find some AMAZING homes.  Some of these have been restored and are registered with the Historical Society.  I'm a big history/architecture guy, so these places tend to take my breath away.  I've admired these places since I was a kid and I think it's time you take a look.

3. Sanford Grammer - This building was the old high-school, then I believe it was the grammer school, and now it's a museum.  I remember going there on a field trip in 4th grade and how interested I was in all of the exhibits.  If I remember correctly, there is also a garden out back.  It's definitely worth stopping in for a few minutes.

4. Little Fish Huge Pond - Ok, this one is actually Downtown too, but still, if you are looking for a few drinks (beer only.. maybe wine, I can't remember) you have to at least check this place out.  It's the smallest little hole in the wall you'll ever see, but it's a very strange place.  There's crazy artwork everywhere, there are couches to sit on, a dining room table... it kind of feels like hanging out in your buddy's basement.  Oh, and every time I've gone, there's always been really good live music.

5. Lee's Chicken - This place has the best chicken, and sides for that matter, that I've ever had in my life.  It's been in Sanford forever!  Maybe I'm partial because it was in walking distance from my old house, but still!  I've never had anything that wasn't delicious.  Oh! And the sweet tea is to die for, just make sure you ask for the crushed ice from behind the counter.  Stop in for lunch, and don't forget your appetite.  

And there you have it... my top five favorite places to visit in Sanford, FL.  I could go and on forever about downtown, but I'll save that for future posts :-)

matttipple.blogspot.com ~ Original Post Date: 05/16/2012