NZXT PODCAST - #224 - 40 Years of Tech and One Legendary Stick (Ft. DaPoets)

Episode Date: July 10, 2026

On this week's episode of the #NZXT Podcast... We are joined by Terrence, aka DaPoets, a PC enthusiast, overclocker, water-cooling fanatic, and the self-proclaimed "Voider of Warranties". We go over his origin story from BBS forums to his content creation journey to the legend of Da Stick. Also... Wil Wheaton, if you're listening, can you please unblock DaPoets?  Follow DaPoets here: https://solo.to/dapoets

Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 224 of the NZC podcast, the official podcast at NXC Community. This podcast is recorded live on Fridays at 10am Pacific Sanitarime on the official NZC Twitch. It is available to stream on demand on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and SoundCloud, and re-recordings on YouTube. My name is Mike Kim, and before I introduce our very special guest, I want to say a special shout-out to Intel for helping us sponsor to NZXT Intel Club and this podcast. As you see, we're wearing the NZXT Intel shirts right now. For those that don't know, you guys can join the club at nzxt.com slash club or estimation point club in the chat. You guys can earn poochie points by doing quests, you know, like talking, like engaging

on one of our social posts. Joining here in the Twitch chat, you guys will see there will be some notification of people getting rewards for watching the podcast. And then you guys can use those points to enter into the giveaway for a plushy set. shirts and a monthly Intel PC, which is dope. And I think someone in the chat here actually won one, I think literally like a month or two ago. So super cool, super awesome. And it's free.

So go ahead and go to nzxty.com. Shepoint club in chat and start now. The more entries you have now, the more quests you do, the more entries you have into giveaway, more chances you have to win. So please do it as soon as you can. And I think that is it for the intro. So now I'm going to go ahead and introduce our very special guests. Introducing a creator who's been building PCs since the days of dial-up and bulletin boards.

An overclocker, a water-cooling fanatic, and a self-proclaimed voider of warranties. From L.A. to the floor of CES, he spent decades helping people find their balance in tech and in life. Everyone, please welcome to the NCC podcast, Terence, aka the Poets. The poets, can you introduce yourself to our audience and tell us what you're all about? Allow me to introduce myself. Yeah, you did an amazing job. Thank you for that intro. But yeah, hello everybody.

Thank you, NZXT for having me. Thank you, Intel for the great partnership. It's been an amazing experience working with both companies, Intel for years, actually. Let's see, I've gone to Malaysia to tour their facility there for where they make CPUs, as well as their Arizona one too. But yeah, thank you for having me on this podcast. And I just like to kind of showcase tech

that is kind of lifestyle tech related that I think is awesome. So that's most of my content right there. Yeah. I mean, guys, if you guys have not seen his like TikTok and YouTube and stuff like that,

it is awesome. I will go into your content later. I do want to point out, you post so much. I was trying to I was just like oh you know let me just I my favorite thing to do is look up people's first ever videos YouTube it's easy you go to YouTube you can check the videos and click oldest boom easy yeah talk you have to kind of manually to do it so I was like as I was doing work I'm like oh let me scroll mm-hmm how many months do you have to scroll yeah oh it took me I think I'm not trying to

exaggerate I think it literally took me 10 to 15 minutes to get to the bottom of your TikTok feed. I'm surprised we've been able to do that. It was so many. I love it. I'm just like, oh my gosh, this is so many posts. Because I've had like CES is where I've made like just during those like five days or so like 120 plus videos just in that time period. So yeah, that's they thank you. I hope you liked every single video while you're doing. That would have added another probably half an hour to an easily. But let's Let's go all the way back. Before the poets, let's go all the way back.

Well, we asked you some questions for you to answer. And you got into gaming on Palm and you built your PC back in the 1980s. So I would love for you to explain like how did a kid, first of all, get into computers and gaming at that age? Honestly, it's from my parents. My parents were the type to push us into areas where they weren't sure if we would love or we would hate. It's just like give us the exposure. So like we grew up skiing in Buffalo, New York. You know, I used to race giant slalom and super giant slalom.

You know, we used to like go all over the East Coast competing. Played soccer. I was even in gymnastics as a little boy. Like we did so much. I have three younger brothers. Like my father first taught. me to play chess when I was in kindergarten, you know. So it was just one of those things where just complete exposure to so many things. And the PC life was one of them. You know, my father wasn't all

that familiar with, you know, computers and stuff, just like most parents weren't back in the 80s. And so he was just like, yeah, new technology. Let's, you know, keep that exposure going while he's like rocking his car phone back in the day, you know. So, yeah. And, uh, yeah. And, uh, He had a good friend that actually started a dial-up ISP in Buffalo, called it like Apollo 3 Communications, I think it was. And so he sourced his, you know, PC equipment from him. And we kind of put together the PC. And back then it was just like basically motherboard, like soldered CPU on there. And so there wasn't much to put together.

But like we got it in the case and we got, you know, the power going. and you know got the monitor huge CRT monitor you know you know attached to it and the keyboards that weighed like 80 pounds and yeah it was it was a cool experience you know building that with my dad and um of course our first hard disk drive failed after like a month because all new technology right so we lost all of our data but we didn't know how to use it we were learning on the fly so like all of our games and applications were just installed in c-colon like No directories, just like files writing over files and everything. And yeah, this hard drive was like, yeah, I can't do it anymore.

So that, but that was like the amazing time of PC growth. Everything was new. And then when we could do dial-up, because we were doing this like before, really, we had 1,200 bond modem. That was amazing as well. So we're using like floppy disk drives. And even before then, we actually had the Atari X-E, which was. was not quite a console, not quite a PC, but it had a keyboard and a floppy disk drive attachment. So there was just like so much we could do way back then that was just new. And because

it was new and we're always learning, that really just kind of enforced my love of technology. So anything that was new coming out, yeah, we were just kind of all over as a family. And that's just kind of how it started. And it just never stopped. That love just never stopped. Do you remember the specs of that first PC that you got? I want to say, well, the main memorable one that I remember that we spent a lot of time on was a 386. And then we upgraded that to a 386 DX2 and then upgraded that to a 486. And I think the 486, if I remember, was 33 megahertz. It was, that's how fast it was back then.

And then when I think I might have eventually taken that to college, because we had that for a long time. And I upgraded the RAM to 12 megs of RAM, which was the most RAM any PC had on my entire university campus. That's crazy. 12 megabodes was 12 megablets of RAM. Oh my gosh. Yeah.

And people were like, why do you need some? much ram. I'm like, yeah, just wait. There's going to be more coming. And yeah, I was always kind of ahead of the time, you know, back then. And I loved it. You know, I didn't want any type of tech restrictions. So I wanted to play, you know, command and conquer on DOS with no issues, you know, things loading up up until, you know, like battlefields started coming out. And I had four hard disk drives and raid zero. So I was always like first on the map and to hop in the jets. So I I just tried to be ahead of the curve as much as possible because I loved it. It was just always a passion.

So, you know, gaming is kind of where I came up with my name, De Poets. I know we can go into that later. But it was just the love of tech. And then seeing how tech was also really forming the financial worlds as well. You know, like the stock markets going from, you know, pencil and paper. on the stock floor, stock exchange floors to now barely anybody's on the floors and it's pretty much all digital, you know. So I've seen all of that going from 1,200-baud dial-up modems, going to the library to look up the local BBS phone numbers to dial into to now like that

being archaic and you can't find that anymore really and emulating that experience now online, you know, to play games like trade wars and shadow dynasty. and all kinds of stuff. So they're a space dynasty. That's what that was. But yeah, things evolve quickly now, like very, very quickly now in the tech worlds. So it's even more fun for me now than it was back then

because things took their time to progress. Now it's like every few months, something new is coming out. And when something new comes out, it's like, hey, we have this coming out, you know, just a few months later. You're like, should I wait? Should I, you know?

So, yeah. It's a wonderful sector to kind of be in, you know, this tech space. I, you kind of talked a little bit about it, but, you know, you played Trade Wars. You played Command and Conquer. What games were you specifically playing during this time and which one was like your your go-to favorite game? Back in the early DOS life, there was a game called SOPWIF. It was just like a little tiny airplane game, 2D.

You're just kind of flying around like this doing loops and then like shooting things on the ground and in the air That was so fun. I can't even tell you how many hours I have on that Then there was a Stock a trading game that I absolutely loved So I would make trades in this game and it was kind of real time then I would go and deliver my newspapers because I was a paper boy and Then come back after like an hour and see how my stock trades went in this game and I thought that was was a lot of fun. That was on DOS. And definitely Command and Conquer. I was big into Command and Conquer, the first one. And then Red Alert came out, loved Red Alert. But then when I hit

college, that really kind of hit it because then I was around other people my age that just loved gaming. I was in the males honors house on campus where I studied at university. And so, So they're only like seven males in the house. So it would be like three o'clock in the morning. And we have like my PC. I was on the first floor with another friend of mine, his PC on the second floor. So we had an Ethernet cable going up the steps connecting our PCs to play StarCraft, the first StarCraft against each other.

And that was a hell of a good time. We'd be like yelling at each other at 3 a.m. And people in the house would be like, what do you guys do? And cables running up the steps. And that was a blast. And that was actually my first use of the name the poets in a game. And I got that name because I went to Lincoln University, the first, you know, historically All Black University.

And they used to do like poetry nights. So a lot of people would do different stand-up poetry and have like their stage names and stuff. And I was heard different variations of de poetess or Floydic and all kinds of stuff. And so I just kind of came up with the name de poetry. And it stuck with me then. And then when I logged into Starcraft for the first time, I'm like, you know what? That's my name, the poets. And I don't even know what year that was.

What was that? Like 97 maybe when Starcraft came out. Yeah. So I've been to poets since 1997. Wow. That's an awesome. So that stuck with you the entire time, basically. Yeah.

Every single video game, I was always the poets. Wow. Actually, I guess that is a. a fun little transition we could talk about. So, you know, you are a content creator. You post everything. Anything and everything I've seen, you are posting. So first, I want to talk about your first ever YouTube video that you posted,

or at least the oldest that we could find. You probably may have posted it private to some, but this is the oldest ever video that you have. And it is a Cinebench of your. Mdd threadripper 3970 X. Yeah. And I think you just go into. Yeah.

Look at this. This is, this is, um, gosh, that is awesome. And you know, I took a lot of cues from, um, like J's two cents, um, uh, bearded hardware. Um, Kyle bitwit. Let's see here. Definitely, you know, gamers nexus a lot in terms of like the analytical part. And that was an interesting time in my life, you know, so I was kind of making a transition personally. And I was like, you know what? I need to dive all in to something that I've always loved

and that was tech. And I was like, okay, let me go to MicroCenter because I was living in L.A. at the time with a Tustin and got myself a 3970x. which was not cheap back then, not cheap at all. And built a whole water cooling setup around it. And absolutely loved that process. I think I watched a ton of J's 2 cents videos back then on custom water cooling as well as, man, who else? And there was like a long list. Definitely Linus.

And yeah, so that was my first real water cooling build. How'd I do? I mean, looks awesome. So I love that you called it deep blue. I remember that from the chess and the first like age of it. So what was so awesome? Like what was like, obviously it's a blue thing, but you're like, I need to name this deep blue. Well, it was a bit of not even relating to the color blue at all.

It was because I love technology and I wanted to name it something that wasn't just obvious, like Blue PC or something like it. I just wanted to name it something that meant something to me growing up. And I had always played chess with my father and like his attorney friends and all kinds of stuff. And so the first, you know, computer chess, you know, experience that like was groundbreaking was deep. way back in the day for those that aren't aware. And it was always envious of people that got to play against computers, you know, when it came to chess. And so my father, when I was younger, got me a Radio Shack computer chess board, which still works today. I still have it.

Yeah, Radio Shack had some amazing equipment that just never failed. And so, yeah, I still use that on occasion. and so deep blue was just kind of like it made sense because it was a powerful PC nobody had a thread Ripper 3970x at the time you know 32 cores 64 threads let alone custom watercooled so that actually is kind of how I got into TikTok as well but because I was setting that up with with YouTube I was just like you know what let me let me just filmed this, film the experience. And it was kind of cool to put that together to show not only the capabilities of a CPU that most people just would never purchase, but like

the custom water cooling aspects, showing the temperatures, the speed of it and different scenarios synonybench, stuff like that. And then one day I filmed it on TikTok because TikTok started becoming a bit more popular and I was like I'm not going to dance but I didn't see too much tech content on there so I just said all right let me just film using my Android phone so and do those videos look horrible but I just filmed my water cooled PC thread of a PC and I went to bed and like the next day I had like 5,000 followers with tons of questions I was like okay This is a thing, especially when I had been making numerous videos on YouTube, and I was barely cracking like 500, you know, followers on YouTube. So TikTok just kind of took off for me.

And it was great interacting so much with viewers because that gave me, I guess, more ideas to make future videos based on their questions and their enthusiasm on different things. And the YouTube questions were there, but YouTube is just a different beast altogether. There really was a different beast altogether back then. But for TikTok, it was so fast moving with all the different meme music and different things that you could do, like trends and all that stuff. And I was just being me. Like YouTube, you have to like structure things and has to be like well done. Everybody was just being themselves back then and TikTok. And that was so great.

And you can see like the video is shaking. The lighting is horrible. and I'm just trying to just get a little bit of decent footage on whatever phone I was using back then. And it was fun. It was just fun. Yeah. And now I'm at 450,000 followers on TikTok and Instagram has become like my second biggest platform. I'm still doing YouTube. Like I use them all. I try to be platform agnostic. Just upload to everything. But whatever platform takes off, you know, that takes off. So just thank you. you everybody for liking subscribing follow me on this journey it's been amazing but what was tech content like always a plan i know you said you just did it for fun but like did was there ever a point where you're like oh this is like becoming something way more than just like i'm just posting um for years it was always just i'm posting because i love it that's that's always just been really

what it was. I was never really about the free products thing because a bit of my background, you know, so I'm a partner in a wealth management firm. I've built a bank branch. I've built two investment firms. I sell them in office in Beverly Hills. My main office is in downtown Buffalo, New York. So life's been good, you know. And the thing with tech content creation, it's actually gone hand in hand with my wealth management side because I first got licensed in like the 90s in wealth management so I've been doing that a long time it's been turnkey but the the tech aspect of things has just kind of developed in a way where it's become more and more and more fun because of all the people I've been meeting you know all the events

that I attend all the cool technology that I get to experience I had a time like embargoed stuff. I had to take stuff down in this video behind me because I was like, oh wait, this is an embargo, that's an embargo. And that's just fun to like learn new things because I literally have to have like multi-hour conference calls with developers of products to teach me how to use this stuff because it's brand new. Like there's no YouTube tutorial for how to use this stuff.

It's not out yet. So that's a lot of fun. And that instills a lot of my passion. But I guess the last year or so, I had to take it more seriously business-wise because, yeah, some months there's a lot of money. There's a lot of money. And more so than my wealth management firm, you know. So it's understandable why a lot of people, that are doing well in this and get the viewership

and the interaction with different partner companies and stuff, why they say, hey, I'm just going full time in this. And yes, I could have gone full time a while ago. But in my circumstance, I love my wealth management. I love the tech content creation and they go hand in hand because of the balance between the two. I learned so much working with Intel, AMD, and Vida,

you know, nothing that's, you know, I shouldn't know. This is all like public information, but I get to learn more about it. Like I, instead of just like reading the Wall Street journals, like I get to ask questions with the developers and stuff. And so I retain a lot more. And so we can make better decisions for clients, you know. And so with all of this exposure that I get, it seems like my motivation for the next video is just always increasing that little bit more. And I'm always just kind of really thankful for the positivity of my viewers as well. Because they're like never negative.

And that's been an amazing thing to me. Or maybe I have blinders on. I don't know. It's been amazing to see so many people around the world and you kind of like tell me their stories. Especially you South Africans. Holy cow, you came out in this last giveaway. My mind was blown and Germany. Shout out to Germany.

It's weird how small the world is becoming because of tech content creation. And even when people are responding to my videos in Arabic, you know, so I'm hitting that translate button and, you know, I'm responding back to them. I love that stuff. And so I can't wait to go to Germany later this year, possibly, going to Cologne for Gamescom. That'll be my first time there. But all of this is just from tech. And it really just increases my desire to make that next video. And hopefully that wasn't too much of a rant.

And I answered your question. But yeah, the passion is there. And it just keeps growing. I guess that's like one thing that I would love to talk about is for those that want to get to content creation. I know there's lots of people here that would love to be in your shoes or to start their tech content creation journey. How do you have any tips for them?

Like if you had to do like these couple things, this would get you off to a good foot. The biggest thing is why somebody would want to get into it. Because it has to be sustainable. If the why is, man, I want free products. It's not sustainable. So like man, when TikTok started the first two years, we had such an awesome tech talk crew and like 90% of them you know stop making content

because once they got products they realized that that got old very quickly you get to the point where you don't care like okay I got another and this is very first world problem mind you all right so for this is not like braggadosis or anything this is tech content creation life so when you start getting all these products Like right now I have the camera mounted on a very expensive product. I'm using it to mount my camera, right? You're wondering like where am I going to put this stuff? Like, oh, I got another PC coming.

Cool, I'm looking forward to doing the review, but then where am I going to put it? So I've spun that so that I can do a lot of giveaways. Hey, hence giveaways, right? And I love doing that. But you have to understand why you want to get into tech content creation and is that why going to be sustainable? Do you want to do it because you like educating people? That's an awesome reason. That's why people go into teaching and they have long careers in teaching and retire with a pension and all that gets stuff.

There's no pension with tech content creation. So you have to make sure you understand how to run a business as well. And unfortunately, universities and high schools, they don't teach you really how to run a business. So there's a lot to learn when it comes to this. Also, and this is kind of a big thing, you have to understand the social aspect of this as well. So for me, I stay away from drama, yet there's a lot of other content creators that love the drama.

I'm a pick on Steve with Gamer's Nexus, because he's my boy, I'm cool with him. He will go down a rabbit hole, and tear a company to part and get the views from that. And a lot of it is very educational for his viewers. And a lot is, it's just good for things to be brought out to light. But you have to understand that not everybody is excellent at what they do. So there are going to be certain gaps, things that are missed.

And you have to be prepared to catch the flack from that as well. So if you don't have a lot of, I guess, grit and the ability to plow through things, to continue to do what you want to do, it can be a mental drain on you. It really can. That's why you'll see a lot of content creators actually say like, hey, don't read the comments. Just post your video and move on. And I'm kind of torn on that because some people can't handle criticism. You know, they just want it to be their way.

And if they get criticized, then, you know, they lose it. Some people can't handle the negativity that can come with this. So it's not all shiny five-star treatment everywhere. It can be kind of gruesome. So you need to make sure that you're doing it for the right reasons and the reasons that are sustainable. Anybody can tell you, like, try to have good lighting, try to have good audio. I just say, like, if you have something that you enjoy, pick up your phone and film it, hit record and hit upload. see how it goes and then every few videos just try to improve upon the quality of the videos if you

can you know learn a bit more about how to edit a video how to film maybe take uh some public speaking classes stuff like that that's always a great idea um but just film what you enjoy that's the biggest thing film what you enjoy i actually had a quick question about how you do your videos like like i said before you post a lot Um, but and then, but there are also videos like like sponsored videos that look like they're scripted. Do you do things mainly scripted? Do you do mainly things freestyle? Do you do a little in between?

Like how, how has that been like your style creating these types of videos? Um, for one, a lot of my videos are just my cell phone, right? That's as simple as it is. What's the best camera you have? it's the one that you can quickly reach. I do use the Samsung Galaxy Z trifold because I love the fact that with this bigger screen, I can easily edit videos on it and go.

Before this, I was using the Samsung Galaxy Z fold seven and then six and the five, like I had every fold just because it was easier to film, edit, and upload right there on the spot. That's I was able to do like 100 plus videos for CES, you know, stuff like that. Even though this past CES, I fine-tuned it a bit more and only did like 40. Only, only, only.

Then for more professional stuff, I love Sony. Sony's a great partner of mine as well for, in fact, they just sent me their Sony, Bravia 9 Mark 2, their true RGBTV, the 85 inch. So stay tuned for those review videos. It's in my garage. This is the Sony ZVEE1 with the GMaster 2 16 to 35 millimeter lens. I treated myself to this because I was like, you know what? Certain videos I need to take to the next level.

And you can always tell the difference on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, that I'm using this camera over any cell phone, right? The only phone camera that somewhat looked as good as this was the Sony phone that I used to use the Pro-I because they had a one-inch sensor, and that thing was amazing. But it's old now. So cameras can make a difference, but if what you're filming and your passion isn't there, then you can have the best camera in the world. It doesn't matter.

So just make sure you're investing wisely in your business if you do get a camera like that. Then let's see here. So camera gear, what was the second part of your question? Let me see. Oh, how do you do your scripting? Do you script? Do you script? Do you outline freestyle?

So I don't like doing scripts at all. I really don't because when I'm working on a project, working on a PC build or whatever widget, you never know what may happen while you're actually using that product. And so the realness in me really comes out when I'm like, you know, installing a CPU and, you know, pushing the lever down and the cap goes flying off. Like, who knows, like, what might happen. You can't put that type of experience in a script, right? So what I try to do if it's a, you know, paid sponsored thing where they want me to do a script, which is rare. Because normally just like, just do you, you know?

And I'm just like, cool. That's what I prefer. But if I am doing a script, I try to just make it as loose as possible so that it's still like the real experience of whatever I'm doing. Right. But there are some companies that are, you know, so structured corporate. They're like, hey, we need scripts approved and all that stuff. And that's fine.

I understand because, you know, I've been in corporate America, still kind of am in a way. But what I try to do with those is cheat. And what I mean by cheat is I'm just making my video anyway. And then I'm doing a transcription of what I did. So they're getting the scripts a lot of times based on what I already filmed. And then they're approving it anyway. And then I'm like, oh, here's the video. Oh.

Yeah. And so there are times where this script does help me because when I'm in the middle of something, I'll be like, oh, you know what? I phrased it this way, but it actually would sound better this way. So scripts do have their place in some of my production, but I just like being me. The main thing that I have gotten away from is poorly wording things or saying um a lot in my videos. I try to stay away from that. And if I hear it when I'm replaying it, I'll just reshoot right then and there.

So that's helped me a lot. be afraid to just film everything from scratch. I did that yesterday. I did a whole script that everything laid out. I did a voiceover, laid it all out, editing it, and I'm just like, nah, I'm just going to do my own thing. And it turned out so much better. And immediately that video got like 40,000 views, you know, within a couple hours. Sometimes it's just like that. You know, you just got to be like, no, I'm doing it my way. It doesn't feel right. If it doesn't feel right to you don't do it do something else that's that's that's the biggest thing i can say uh so yeah on on occasion scripts are wonderful and they they're very very helpful but for me i don't i don't like

it i don't i just want to be like hey look at the texture on this and it could be my first experience of seeing this and therefore they're getting the genuine reaction of that you're not getting any genuine reactions from a script that's not happening That's very true. I did want to talk. Now we're going to talk about kind of like the hardships of content creation.

Like from what you're saying, it's easy for you. You're like, oh, I could keep posting all these things. Like, I'm great at this. Let's do it. I would love to talk about the side that not many people see, which is the difficulties,

the hardships that come with it. So I would love for you to talk about the hardest, like part of being a content creator. Let me show you right now. Oh, yeah. That's the hardest part. That's Kingston. That's my baby boy.

And we have a baby girl in the way, Ruby. Congrats. Coming around Halloween. Yeah. And so, for example, when I'm in Taiwan, 12 hours different for for a CompuTex. So being able to video chat with him is, it was very difficult.

You know, I'm waking up, he's about to go to bed. If I miss him, he's already in the bed, that's it. You know, my next window is 12 hours later, basically, to try to video chat with him. But we pulled it off. You know, we got on average two video chats a day, or in a 24-hour period, I should say. And so when I got home, it wasn't as bad. He was like, oh, dad's here, you know, type of thing. in his one year and six months, you know, view of like that year.

But it was, it was wonderful because when he saw me, he was like drumming on something. He saw me put the drumstick down and just crawled on over to me. And that was just wonderful, you know, I love that. Plus the late nights, you know, if there's deadlines. I'm in the office till midnight, you know, one o'clock in the morning, trying to film, edit, and get things, you know, whatever I need to do. And therefore, I miss bedtime, you know. And I'm the one that, you know, gives him his bath, shower, you know, puts him to bed,

last bottle, all that stuff. And because the lady, she's working her butt off, you know, trying to chase him around all day long, you know, he just started walking. And plus, you know, she's pregnant. So when I tried my best to get home as early. as I possibly can to help out to give her that rest, that balance and take over. So it helps to have a strong partner in your life if you're at that family stage in life, definitely. So that is by far my hardest thing right now. Once you find that turnkey,

I understand a product. You film, you get it edited, you send it for, if it has to get approved, you send it for approval, stuff like that. Yeah, that becomes just another. day. That's the easy part once you understand the workflow. It's the exceptions and it's the, you know, the time away from family. It's the random things that come up. You're just like, oh, man, how am I going to deal with this now? Like I mentioned embargo stuff. There were times when, and every content creator runs into this, where like you're in a room with other content creators and you're getting a presentation from Lenovo or wherever with like 20 to items and so you're just filming, you're editing, upload, and then you're at another

meeting and you get an email from them saying, embargo violation, take this down. You're like, what is it? And it was like one item out of those 20 that you weren't supposed to upload and they didn't even mention it in that meeting. You're like, so, you know, that can raise like your blood pressure a lot. You're like, oh, let me take that down and stuff. And it's happened to me twice. The honest mistakes each time.

And honestly, as long as you're not. purposefully, you know, voiding those embargoes, the companies don't care. You know, as long as you're like, oh, I'm sorry, you take it down right away. Yeah, they don't care. If you're the type of content creator where you're leaking stuff or you're like promoting leaks, then yeah, you're burning bridges left and right. You don't want to do that. I had one recently with Sony.

I accidentally uploaded something because I misunderstood the dates and they emailed me. I took it down. And a few weeks later, they sent me their brand new TV. Yeah, it is just, just they know, they understand that you're human. And they're not the only company you're working with. And it can be hard to stand top of all these embargoes and NDAs and stuff. But as long as you're doing your best, you know, they'll work, they'll work with you. You know, so don't, don't stress too much.

So yeah, family, managing embargoes. And then, uh, there was, there was one third one that is, is definitely difficult. Ha, space. As a content creator, space is a big thing. Because when I first started this, I was just in my apartment filming and stuff started piling up and suddenly were stepping over boxes

and everything. So we moved. And very quickly, stepping over stuff as well. And then we moved again. And so now my office in downtown Buffalo not only did stuff pile into this office, but I had to get extra storage space down the hall. So I have another office where stuff is just there. So you have to keep that in mind. Stuff piles up.

And even though I do a lot of giveaways and, you know, and actually my viewers, you only see like the viewer giveaways. I give so much stuff to like family and friends all the time. It's crazy. Like my parents are set up with Wi-Fi 7. They have new PCs. The lady, her parents have Wi-Fi and new PCs. PCs and laptops. And yeah, I give all kinds of stuff away.

So I love the fact that I can do that. But you still need to keep stuff on hand for future videos. And therefore, you need to make sure that you can handle, you know, large PC cases or properly organized cell phones. Like there's some consecrators that have like hundreds of cell phones. John Redinger, he showed me his cell phone closet area. I'm like, how do you keep track of all this stuff? You know, he had rows and rows.

And he was like, oh, you want a cell phone? Just take one. So I took one. You know, it was cool. He gave me the note 10 back in the day. And I had like a shiny back and everything. Star Wars edition, too. It was really cool.

Yeah. So shout out to him. And it's great to do. I know I'm side tangent. It's great to collaborate. I've done a lot of collaborations with some great content creators. So that can be a challenge as well. to state somewhat on topic because everybody's schedules are so different and then to try to get things in sync with personality sometimes because not everybody has the same personality types.

But in the end, it's still so fun to get to know people and work with them as well. But it can be a challenge to travel to see people and get a project done within a certain time frame. So the scheduling aspect, that was the last thing. Keeping a solid calendar that is in sync with the career as a content creator as well as family. That is the big thing for me as well. So the lady and I have joint calendars where like I add something, she sees it and then, you know, so that is huge. It's big to stay on top of that. I hope I answered all of those questions.

No, no, you answered it very well because that was kind of leading into it. So you're talking about all these things, you know, got the bargain dates. You've got to deal with deadlines and late night. Was there ever a point in your career where you're like, I'm either getting burnt out or I may walk away from this at all? Hmm. It's always good no matter what you do to find that balance in life so that whatever you're, so that whatever you're doing is sustainable. That is something that I found a long time ago,

but you still need to take a vacation. You know, everybody needs whatever that vacation means to you. It could be sitting on the couch for three days and watching One Piece. Perfectly fine and valid vacation. I wish I did more of that because I'm only on episode like 475, so I still have like a thousand episodes ago. But for me, it's been the refreshing aspect of spending time with my family, honestly. Kingston, he's amazing.

He had me up until like midnight last night, and we were watching Moana again for like the millionth time. And it was just a pleasure. You know, I'm just watching him, just looking at this big huge 98 inch TCL monitor. or TV that we have that I was doing a review for. And shout out to TCL. They've been a great partner for many, many years. And so yeah, like also like seeing his eyes with the first time you saw that TV

because we went from a 65 inch or 98 inch and he's like, wow, amazing. But yeah, that helps with my balance. Everybody's balance is going to be different. It may be that you need to go take a cruise. You need to go um travel you need to just like do a staycation and because you know money's tight you just want to stay at home and do nothing whatever it is perfectly fine do it but also realize what the what the

issue may be that is forcing you to need that vacation because i think a lot of people miss that point and that's what's actually bringing them down in life so for me i almost need never ever take vacations i just don't um my last real vacation was not even my idea it was just because like family wanted to go somewhere and i'm just like okay i'll set it in my calendar and we had fun it was cool loved it i never would have come up with that and i was also like happy to be back in the office doing my thing because i loved it you know i love what i do so It that's going to be unique to everybody, obviously. And, you know, I have worked in jobs for years.

I'm just like, okay, I need a vacation. I can't wait for my two weeks vacation, all that stuff. And that was a great sign that I shouldn't be in that job, right? In my view. And so now what I'm doing, wealth management for part of my life and tech concentration for the other part of my life in terms of career, it's been a wonderful balance. and I think that's part of the find your balance in life type of thing. And yeah, I love it.

And somebody said, didn't expect to watch One Piece. Yeah, hey, I can talk for hours about anime. Top three anime. Real quick. Samurai Champleu and, oh, wait, do I have it here? Oh, no, I don't. It's at home. Cowboy B-pop.

Those are my top two. switch back and forth. Number three has recently become One Piece. Wow. Yeah. It took about 300 some episodes to get to that number three mark. And I absolutely love it. The one that I cannot add to that ranking is Dragon Ball because Dragon Ball, everything is just everything to me.

In fact, oh wait. Oh, yeah. Got to show it off. We're talking about this right before the podcast. Oh, that is so sick. Yeah, the lady got that for me. Tournament of Power. Absolutely love this.

Our shirts are actually based on Dragon Ball's little fusion. Yeah, exactly. All right, let me carefully put this back. So, yeah, I'm with the right, lady when she she gives me stuff like that oh yeah i also saw i had this question for later but we'll bring it up now so he said cowboy bebop samurai and then um currently one one piece i also saw uh your top four anime of all time the original list was trigon one punch man and cowboy beep up at sam mar champlu what would be that what would be the next one then what would be that fifth spot i guess um i was a bit

disappointed in the recent one-punch man so it dropped down the list a little bit I was a little heartbroken yeah I was excited when I was coming out so it immediately had to lose a couple of points but I love with all the um the fan made animations that come out um and actually mass star media mass star media go check him out he did anime war and um yeah yeah that's my boy that's my boy i've supported him over the years in terms of like retweeting his content i you know i've done patreon you know i've been active in a lot of his uh you know forms and stuff um he did an amazing thing where you know it's it's goku veta you know one punch man all kinds of you know luffy all kinds of anime um stars from around the verse coming together and

battling evil basically and it was spectacular and he's got more stuff coming down long so it could definitely check out anime war by mass star media then of course there's epic movies that have always loved like ninja scroll fist of the North Star the original way back in the day man I anime has always been a part of me and it's been anime and kung fu right Saturday morning kung fu, well, it would be noon, basically like wrestling and WWF back in the day. But yeah, that was hand in hand as well. So I was big into kung fu movies, then anime, because anime definitely came out long after my passion for kung fu movies.

So like master killer, five deadly venoms, you know, Jackie Chan stuff, you know, drunken master. I love all of those. and mainly because I've done martial arts my whole life, basically. I still do Taoist Tai Chi. I've been doing that like 30 or 35 years or something like that. I've stayed at temples. Like I've opened temples with all the fruit and the oils and stuff like that early in the mornings. Participate at Lantern Festival.

So I'm big and all that stuff. And I think that kind of carried over to my love for anime as well, seeing like all the different action scenes, you know, the Kung Fu anime, anime, movies. Yeah, but every now and then, not every now and then. I'd say maybe once a week, I always have like Cowboy Bebop or Samurai Champleu just like playing in the background while I'm getting my work done. So yeah. I actually did want to talk a little about it. I actually found a couple videos of you doing Tai Chi. And I kind of want to go into a little bit of like a health fitness era. Oh wow. Yeah, I did my research a little bit. That was that was that was a

Actually, that was Waikiki Beach in Hawaii. Gigabyte brought us out there to show us a lot of their new stuff and kind of a training. And then they were like, all right, let's go zip lining and stuff like that and a cruise. And it was a lot of fun. Paul's hardware was there, Bitwit, Kyle, PC Master Race, Teserag, all kinds of content corridors were there. And so I was like, you know, and I'm in Hawaii. I'm going to wake up in the morning.

do my Taoist Tai Chi. That's the basics that there. It has a hundred and eight movements. Wow. I also do Louis Bhafa. That's an older style of Tai Chi. Sing Yi as well. Tai Chi sword and Tai Chi Saber.

Do different styles of Tai Chi meditations that are more on the Louis Bafah side. And yeah, it's been a very fun journey. That's definitely helped me. me physically and mentally because I actually tore ligaments of my ankle back in university days and the doctor was like you know what you're never going to run again unless we have surgery and I'm like yeah I'm just gonna do more Tai Chi and then that following year I was starting on my university soccer team running full steam ahead and it fixed like my high school football injuries from like my

back and my knees and yeah it's it's been a wonderful thing Plus, I, when I have time, I'm a volunteer instructor. So all the instructors for my Tai Chi group, the Taoist Tai Chi Society, they're all volunteer instructors. So there's no like, you know, nobody makes money from it. It's all just for health. And I had an elderly student where after just like three months of her taking my class, she came up to me saying

that she was able to tie her laces, her shoelaces, for the first in years. Wow. Yeah. So I was like that's an amazing improvement for quality of life right there. You know, if you can't just do some of the bait that we think are some of the basics, imagine what else she's not able to do, you know, in life. And so yeah, when I have time, I love teaching and I hope to get back to it in a couple of years when I have more time. I did want to go a little bit into this health thing because one, that is an awesome story like to do it. I also found a couple videos of you punching a punching like a boxing machine. Everyone here, please just look at the power behind this shot.

Like, oh my God, look at the extension too from that shot. And then look how many, like how many, like how many score? The max is like a thousand or something like that. he got 907 that's it yeah that was that was the highest score that day and that was a star citizen bar citizen event somewhere yeah oh yeah lost los angeles yeah that was an la one look at that extension and full arm wow and then guys like you see this you're like wow he has a great punch that this video Oh

Oh, you found that one Yeah I'm talking about buying pre-built PCs there Yes How How do you How are you able to do all of this And also be a content creator

And also a husband and father too Uh Well, raising my baby boy and throwing them up in the air. That's a nice workout. Carrying them around. Yep. You know, it's about that balance in life. You know, you've got to eat right.

You have to eat right. I don't do McDonald's Burger King when he's ever. Like, I never do that stuff. The only thing that I consume is coffee. That's it. 100% right there. No, but seriously, it's, it is about, eating right that's first and foremost you know i never eat bags of chips um i i don't eat like

candy bars and ice cream all the time or anything like that and i used to years and years ago but as you get older you realize that that metabolism does not stay with you so you got to got to change the diet and you can still eat great food i still eat steak and all kinds of stuff you know but a lot of it's got to be in moderation you got to understand that that if you do eat some horrible stuff, you're going to end up feeling horrible and looking horrible. And skin gets poor and you're, you become lethargic, you don't think as well. Because the amount of food, the type of food you eat affects your thinking too. So I tried to, actually that shirt says live sore. Yeah, that was a, that was a good shirt as well.

So the thing is, it's all a balance. If you want to experience life in its fullest, it's hard to do it if your body can't do certain things, right? And it's hard to do it if your mind is lethargic and sluggish. You've got to get enough sleep, you know, kind of the turtle way, Master Roshi, you know, you got to sleep a lot. You got to make sure that energy is there. Goku would always say, I think I'm trained enough. It's time to rest. You know, you need that balance.

You can't just be the gym rat that's in the gym five days a week. You know, you're actually hurting yourself. So I do use my Samsung watch here to remind me about once an hour to get up. I might do some jumping jacks and pushups for like literally 30 seconds, right, just to get the blood flowing. But if you don't do that, suddenly eight hours goes by, suddenly a week. week goes by and you haven't done anything to raise your heart rate. So you just do it for 30 seconds once an hour or so and like you'll be surprised how your body will maintain itself. And of course, I go to the doctors as well. If the doctor finds anything, you know, pop some pills and then I'm good to go,

right? And then hopefully I'm just never having to take those pills ever again. Because living in Western society, we're exposed to so much. Like what is it? U.S. meat can't even be shipped to a lot of countries overseas, but it's the options that we have. So you have to, like, do the best you can. Oh, I did have McDonald's in Taiwan. And it was amazing. It was so good. And so many people were like, yeah, I went to McDonald's. It was amazing. Yeah, you go to the McDonald's here in Buffalo, New York, and you're, yeah, you're going to be constipated for two days. Yeah. So, yeah, it's completely different. So I do appreciate good, healthy food. but I'm not a foodie.

I hate eating food. I honestly do. I don't ever want to wait in line for food. I just want to scarf it down and move on. That's kind of how I am, but I appreciate good tasting food like sushi. You know, I'm a big sushi guy when I was in L.A. Not much good sushi here in Buffalo,

but there's a lot of good foe here in Buffalo, so I do eat that, yeah. For the last question before you get into some of the fun giveaways I have, Someone in the chat literally just asked. Oh, Taco. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Taco Colts.

Who was it that said it? Oh, from yeah, Taco says, did we discuss the stick already? And I mean, we have to. We have to talk about it. How did the stick? Which one? So NZXT sent me this bag and they included a stick in the bag. I had to find a tiny one.

I can't out do the original. original stick so i was like okay let me just find a simple thin easy stick that won't overpower it but we do want to talk about i mean look you have a literal mural behind you commissioned by the lady yeah like let's see here let's get that up there look out right let me let me change my my view so i can see what i'm showing you guys there we go yeah there we go i mean amazing so yeah the lady made that how amazing is that that's amazing the color are so good too. So good. So what, what? I know you explained this in the video that I saw, but some people do not understand. Where did they come from? So, and actually I just made a video

about the history of the stick. So ROG, Asus, Republic of gamers, they decided in their infinite wisdom to try to get me out of using membrane keyboards. And I have. stacks of membrane keyboards because I love the ergonomic nature that they could do, you know, for all these like new age mechanical switch stuff like I'm like there's no ergonomic ones out there, you know, so I don't want to. So R.O.G sent me the RG Strix keyboard. I was just putting that. I had like red optical switches at the time. And I was like, okay, not familiar. with this so as I'm filming I'm like let's go outside and poke it with a stick so I went outside in the backyard park area it was kind of like wet and rainy out there kind of cold had my jacket on found a stick film myself bringing it back inside and then just poking the keyboard while it's in the box with this and that was five and a half years ago and it's been with me ever

since and I've just been poking tech with this stick and there's a couple of reasons behind it. One, it's a stick like I'm a boy. Like what kid doesn't like sticks, right? And when my son picks up sticks, I'm like, yeah, he's found another stick, you know? But also there's a practical reason. When I'm filming certain things, like with this camera, for example, and And say the item is black because so much PC hardware is black, it's hard for auto focus to get that right. And I'm not always willing to take the time to do the manual focus. But if I'm doing this, pointing at things with the stick, it's basically focusing on the stick. Therefore, whatever I'm pointing at is also in focus.

That's the little trick. So it's not always my fat fingers that are in the shot pointing at things. And it gives me range so I can be over here filming like this and yeah, it works out perfectly. And then of course, when people are like, what's with the stick? And I'll just reply, stick around and find out. There you go. So the stick has multiple, multiple uses. And yeah, it's it's my best friend.

You know, it's got my heart. So I was said it in chat. The stick is slightly more popular than the poets. like just a little bit, just a little bit. I wouldn't doubt it. Yeah. I think a few people have been saying that this right here needs to be made into a desk mat or a mouse pad. Oh, that'll be amazing.

Like merch that way. So yeah, I'm thinking of doing something like that. So if you guys want some stick merch, let me know in the comments, you know. That's so good. I actually think that would be so cool. Like literally just like a small little mouse pad that just has a stick or you may even like a. an extended desk mat version where it's the whole that'll be awesome yeah the stick needs its own social media too yeah i wouldn't doubt it um and we do a lot of 3d printing as well

we have a bunch of 3d printer so a lot of people and say you should do like 3d printed sticks and like send them to people or you know whatever so um yeah starting to play around with those ideas you know we'll see uh okay so that is it for the questions we're going to do a couple fun little mini games that i have all right i like gaming this one this one's a fun one so this is the first time we're going to be doing this but i thought as someone that's an experienced builder this will be a very fun uh section this is best the year this happened in or released in so i'll give you the item or event or whatever it is and you just have to kind of guess what year or what era it was in okay okay all right we'll start off uh relatively around the same era as

when you started getting into it. Do you know the original date Pong Arcade was released? Oh, the original date for Pong. Was it 1978? Oh, you're really close. It was 1972. I was thinking 72 as well. Wow.

That's a, wow. It's crazy because you think Pong, you're like, okay, it's got to be close. think no, 19792 was the original arcade. I couldn't find the original date of when like Pong was like software was made. So I just found the arcade version. And I was like, wow, somebody too. Man, I wish I should have said 72 because I was like 72 and then for some reason.

So yeah. All right. All right. Next question. Let's make this up. Trade Wars one release date. You're talking about the BBS trade wars? Yes.

Oh, okay. Um, let's see here. That had to be. Let's see. 91. Could it be? 1989? Oh, again, you're in the same era.

84. Yeah, I thought you really well. That was really close, actually. Really? 84. Wow. Okay. Yeah. Oh, I don't know if you'll notice one.

This one's an odd one that I found and I was like, this is odd. Do you know when the first USB port was made? Oh, dang. USB. Yeah. Universal serial bus. I'm going to have to say with this one, there's probably some like wonky old school USB port technology that wasn't even popular.

therefore I'm going to say 19 19 oh geez yes B port 1981 oh 1996 okay yeah I was I was overest that was like that one's a weird because I'm like USB I'm like I was thinking like it has to be 2000s plus right like that was my original idea but I'm like I'm not surprised there was the 90s yeah but sometimes like they they make a standard and then shelve it for years and then it comes out and so I was like you know maybe it was like an earlier thing okay and then the final one do you know when the first Wi-Fi standard was released that 802.1 1.1 okay I'm gonna have to say 1994 bang nice really

And I was like, wow. Nice and done. Wow. Dang. I was like to like, you were like 1990s. I was like, okay. Well done. Nice.

It was released 802, 19802.1. It's in the name. Yeah, because I went to university in 1995. So I remember reading about it and hoping that my university. So we would adopt it, you know, the early stage, but that never happened in that early stage. So yeah, yeah, that's, that was my cheat. Nice. Nicely done.

All right. We're going to do a quick overrated, underrated, or property rated. So I'll just give you a list of things. Okay. And then you're just going to go, I think that's overrated. I think it's underrated or I think it's property rated. All right, all right. All right.

All right. RGB. Hmm. That is grossly. grossly underrated. Whoa. I've just seen a little bit of people starting to say it's a little overrated recently. Because have you seen, well, I'm sorry, everybody's seen.

When it comes to something that is yours, right? Customization, I think, is a wonderful option to have. There's plenty of bare bones PCs out there or like manufacturers like, and, um, Noctua where you know it's it's poo brown color and you know take it you know maybe they'll do black for something I I like the fact that RGB you can turn on or off if you don't want it turn it off right easy like this PC right here I think looks amazing with all the lighting

and you can just make it all white if you want therefore it's just lights or you want to make it a disco ball like for Christmas or something you can do that as well I would much rather always have that option to make it my own vibe on a random Tuesday than just be looking at something and be like, I'm stuck with this all the time. And so for a lot of people that, you know, just about will be like, oh, God, RGB is horrible. I never want to see the colors. Okay, but maybe you want the lights on at times, just white.

That's fine. or like a nice dim, like deep blue or something, just so that you don't trip over your PC at night. I always just want to have the option. That's something that I think should always be there. And I think that's why RGB is just so popular. And more companies coming out like SignalRGB and so many others that are just like,

hey, we can do a wall of fans and track you and stuff because I'm about to upload a video for Arctic. who was at Taiwan for Computex and SignalRGB did a whole wall of their PC fans that tracked you. So as you're walking by and stuff, the colors are changing. So if you do stuff like this, it's you in the background, just different colors. I think that's a lot of fun. So, yeah. You know what?

I was like, you know, I'm in the property rated. I'm not to think it's under or over. And I've seen a lot of people saying it's overrated. I hate RGB now. But the way you explained it, I'm on the train now. I think it is under customization, having the ability to that, that, you know, you changed, you changed my mind on it. You spend $3,000 on a PC.

I want to change the colors. I'm sorry. That's true. Okay. Which one is this for you under, over or properly rated? Custom water loop. Uh, as of today? Today.

Today. today, that's an interesting question because right now the popularity for it has plummeted so hard, justifiably so because of the efficiency of so many of these processors and the cooling capabilities of GPUs nowadays, that it actually doesn't make sense to do a custom watercooled built. You'll be hard pressed to find a processor that would even make a difference if you did do a custom order to cool versus just having an AIO or very good quality air cooler on it. And I mean, as big as these GPUs are, they're big because the coolers are humongous and therefore they're already quiet. I have tons of GPUs here and they're all quiet.

It doesn't matter which one you pick because of the fact that, you know, they've really refined that air cooling. cooling system. In fact, I have dual 5090s in this system right here on full load. They're always quiet. They're the Nvidia FE version, you know, the founders editions stack next to each other. And they're always quiet, whether I'm running an AI model on them, video editing or playing Star Citizen. Doesn't matter. Oleg monitors. Hmm. So this right now, I would say they are. are a bit overrated, mainly because of today.

I'm kind of- Last year, I would say they were properly rated. But as of today, the mini LED, especially like true-RGB technology, is giving OLED a run for his money, or its money, I don't want to say his. And the thing is, OLED traditionally has had trouble with text. So I'm always reading a lot of text.

on my displays and I can always tell when I'm using an OLED monitor when it comes to the text. Like sure, colors are great, but the text looks janky. You know, if you're reading as much text as I am, like contracts and financial stuff, Excel spreadsheets, I always prefer a non-OLED display for that. But now some of the, like, I guess more higher, let's see, QD OLED displays, those have somewhat fixed somewhat, fixed the text issue. It's not as good as non-O-L-LID displays, but it's getting there.

But the RGB display technology, or oh my God, the, what is that new Nvidia technology that they had a display in Taiwan? It was, what was that called? It wasn't OLED, but basically, like when you move things around the screen, it's as if it's a CRT monitor.

It's the same effect. So it's just pure movement. No ghosting, no nothing. I can't think of the name. Maybe chat will help me with that. But that looked absolutely amazing. Like it looked eerily good. So I just think today there's just more options. And people will eventually realize that OLED looks great for like movies. It looks great for games. But if you want something more versatile, there's other options that are out there. that still look amazing for movies and games, but better quality for texts and a few other things as well. And then the final one, since this was in your Twitter bio, I gotta ask it over, under or properly rated overclocking. Ah, overclocking is definitely underrated these days. For the right person, mainly because there's not much

wiggle room these days as like, geez, back in the day, my 8,700K, I would have like a 50% overclock on that thing or something. Like it was, it was dumb, stupid how much of an overclock you can get on CPUs back in the day and GPUs back in the day. Now these manufacturers are squeezing every little last bit out of it to the point where they just bring it back a little bit just to get even stability across the board for production lines. So if you have a golden CPU or GPU, you might have a little bit extra room to get a little bit more performance that you won't notice at all. But it's that experience of overclocking, knowing that you went a bit further and it's stable. I think for the right person, that is a fun experience. It really is. And you can

kind of compare that experience versus AI overclocking because, you know, Nvidia has their own like AI overclocking. You click the button and it'll do a couple of things and technically you're overclock and hopefully you're stable and it's done an okay job for that in the ovidia app but it still doesn't do as good a job as true manual overclocking for the right person that can be a lot of fun for the average person definitely not ram overclocking can be a game changer actually for certain games like Star Citizen if you're able to tighten your timings for the RAM, that can be fun.

That can be a whole weekend-long experience trying to find the right combination of timings versus speed versus wattage and all that stuff. But once you do, your FPS actually can skyrocket in a game like that that really utilizes better timings. For plenty of games, timings almost don't matter as long as they're not really horrible. But that is one of the games where it does make a difference.

So you can have fun tightening those timings, getting a better overclock. And then suddenly you're like, oh, this is a better gaming experience, you know. And therefore, with RAM costing so much, you may want to start trying to overclock your RAM people to get a little bit more life out of it. You know, maybe in three years we'll get some brand pricing that's actually somewhat okay. But right now, I was just in Micro Center in Tustin, California. California they had 32 gigs for a thousand dollars oh yeah yeah it was it was rough or you can get 64 gigs for a hundred dollars more there you go the timings were worse and the speed was worse but hey you know that can need the space damn that's pain yeah painful painful

oh yeah it was the g-sync pulsar thank you lurp up 86 that's what it was gsing pulsar yeah so yeah That was a good monitor. Yeah, good monitor type. All righty. I'm going to do a couple little rapid fire questions, and then we'll go to announcements and then hand it back to you for some fun little stuff. So go ahead. These are just simple questions.

Answer however you like. Thermal pace patterns. What is your thermal pace pattern? Um, the more goop, the better. Get it on there. Ooh, you just like, you just go for it. Yeah. But if I'm doing it,

If I'm doing a, like I have test benches over here, I actually will manually apply, except for the latest Arctic thermal paste. That one is of a consistency where it's best just to goop it down and then don't use an applicator. But for there's plenty of other thermal face out there that using an applicator to get an even spread is definitely the way to go for a consistent run on the benchmark. I guess mainly because let me just back up when you're just doing a like a dot here there whatever type of pattern and you you're placing the CPU down you are putting a bit of uncertainty for are you getting the hot spot you're getting the majority of the

IHS and that could make a difference of one or two three degrees and therefore when you're actually testing a product you you want to make sure that certain variables are just not there right and the whole wives myth tale thing of you might get air in between the IHS and the heat sink is not a thing because there's so much pressure between those pieces of metal that it's all squeezed out anyway and actually had a discussion with Derbauer about that and he made a video about that too and so I just try to make sure that it's consistent across the board for my testing I have more CPUs to test as well so I got more of those videos coming on the line but I am not

opposed to just making a happy face either. So there you go. I like that. What is your favorite D&D class? What version? Which one do you do 5.0, 5.5.5. Are you, well, you know, 5V has been the more recent. Like the new rules are still evolving.

The 2024, 25, yeah. So there's new rules. Right now with the new rules, I'm enjoying a multi-class. because I played right now with some friends. And so I am a cleric and wizard. And so I like to be with the option of being in the rear with the gear to support everybody. But then with that cleric aspect of being able to throw in a spell and just get into the mix and turn everything into a meat grinder, I love that as well. So yeah, that's me.

It's why I like Cleric. And then on the wizard side, it depends on exactly what type of build I want to do. But I have abjuration wizard right now for this current build. I like that. Who would you rather have as your DM, Matt Mercer, Brannley Mulligan, Matt Colver, or someone else? Felicia Day. Oh, beautiful answer. I would have a, Brea.

I love how they did. Felicia's this great great answer wow that's a fantastic answer Felicia had a book that came out years ago and I was so happy to see it in Barnes and Noble like I took a picture and I tweeted it to her and she responded I just love seeing like the growth of people in in the craft and now the guild if you're not familiar with the guild go watch it go binge it it's on YouTube it's probably one of my top five favorite That's not a TV show. It's a YouTube series, but shows ever.

Like, I love it so much. And they're doing a, not a remake, a continuation of it. So they're raising money right now. So if you want to participate in funding for the guild, they go do it, please. I just posted the link in the chat for you guys. So please go support them. Yeah, yeah, there you go. Yes. Man, see, now I got to go watch it again. So, so good. And actually, I have a bit. of a should i say this story yeah go for so on my on my personal account so i have my depots account and then my personal account uh will weton blocked me yeah what yeah yeah for what because

i'm guessing it was this and and let me have a follow up after i tell you so the the guild had ended and years later um i i i i It was like on something again. And so I tweeted, you know, Felicia and Will Wheaton and a couple of others. Because Will had like responded to some of my tweets in the past. And I said, oh, you guys should do like a reunion, you know, something for the guild again. And then the following week, I'm like, wait a minute, I'm blocked by Willow. And what the heck happened?

And that was the last thing I tweeted to him. And now hindsight, I had learned that Will had gone through a few things, you know, in life personally. And so I'm guessing my tweet of, hey, you guys should do a reunion probably sparked something. And then a couple, what, three years ago, I'm with Will Wheaton and LeVar Burton and and Dave B. Mitchell, who is the voice of Raiden for Mortal Kombat and Knuckles for a lot of the games for Sonic. And so we're all just kind of talking, having a good time. And, you know, Will and I get along so well. Like just conversations great.

LaVar Burton and I, we actually used to get our haircut in the same barbershop back in the day, too. And so we're just having a good time, just talking. And so I'm figuring that it was just a random day where he read my tweet and he was just like, I don't want to deal with that and plot, you know. So I'm not going to bring it up to him next to my see him, but I thought it was kind of funny, you know, that I got blocked by Will Wheaton. That's a fun. That's a great story. And there was no like heinous.

Like you're just, you're like, oh, I loved it. And that's, I don't blame you for that. Like, no one should blame me for that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What is your favorite chess opening? Hmm. Um, I actually, I don't want to. get into my chest opening just because I play against some of you people.

But do you know the move that if your pawn is up a bit further and then another pawn does the double move, their opening move? On Passant. Yeah. And then so then you can actually take that pawn by moving your pawn into the space that they took. That's my favorite move in chess. Forget the exact name of it right now. It's escaping me.

But in chess club, back in like middle elementary school, I used, yeah, chess club, middle school, I don't remember, fifth grade. I used to pull that move on some of my fellow students, and they would be livid saying I'm cheating. I'm like, it's a move. Look it up, you know, because it was one of those non-traditional moves that was even more rare than castling, you know. So I used to always like to whip that out against my fifth grade students back of the day. I think I've only done an en passant once in my entire time playing, but it's the best. It is the best.

Yeah, if it's not like something that you should, I'll do. I'm like, I you got to do it man. Yeah, when's the next time you can say you do it? It's not the best move for me right now, but I'm going to do it. Exactly. Who is your chess goat of all time, the greatest of all time? my pops honestly he's the one that taught me first when I was in kindergarten he really gave me the tools and resources to fine-tune my chess skills and knowledge would give me chess books and one of his close friends he passed away a number of

years ago would travel the country competing in chess tournaments and so one day I actually saw him at a place called spot coffee in downtown Buffalo he was playing with some friends and he was he might have been like 65 70 years old at that point and he asked if I wanted to play and I'm like yeah sure so play real quick and I ended up beating him and he competes or compete at the time in multiple chess tournaments around the country and my parents could not believe that I beat him Jim Davis was named and I think that was just because like I was constantly always playing against various computer chess websites and like my Radio Shack chess board and reading the chess books growing up.

And so I didn't really know how good I was until like I played against him. And he was like, yeah, okay, good. Hey, was it speed chess? Was it like regular? No. Wow. It was timed, but not speed, you know. So I think it was like 30 minutes each.

time. So plenty of time. Yeah. Well done. Well done. So good times. Yeah. Let's see. Okay. I got two more questions for you before we ended off. Easy, fun one. Since I saw you're a little bit into coffee, what is your favorite coffee order? Black. Oh, just straight. Just straight black. Yep. Depending on how heavy gravity is on Monday, I might have one or two shots of espresso in it. But that's a great one. way of saying a little bit more gravity on Monday. I'm going to use that now. That is a fantastic say.

I'm stealing that. Wow. A little bit of more gravity on Monday. Wow. I love that. I love that quote. Yeah. And then the final ones,

since I always like to end it on like a nice feel good one. What is your favorite? Coffee was feel good. That's true. What is your favorite memory from your community? Oh. Memory, oh, that's a good question. Favorite memory from my community.

Love asking this question. Hmm. So the lady and I were walking on the boardwalk here in downtown Buffalo called Canalside. Right. So you have downtown, you have like there's different battleships and submarines there. And then there's like a sand area for kids to play in and different like a park area. Really nice. Downtown Buffalo has done it so well.

and nice sunny day so we're just kind of walking on the boardwalk you know just couple being a couple and this young little boy walked up to me and said oh you make you make YouTube videos you're the poets and just the cutest little black boy you know might have been 10 years old and his eyes were just all wide and everything and you know asked him his name and you know we had a conversation and you know you He was just so happy. I think that is a moment that will always stick with me, especially the fact that I was on a boardwalk in Buffalo, New York. I wasn't at Micro Center or like CES or anything. Like, it was just, you know, random day that we're just enjoying outside. And so seeing smiles on the faces of my community members firsthand is, something that always just it hits me. When I was at Microsenter a couple, like two weeks ago,

something like that for an event. Yeah, a number of my viewers were coming up to me. And in a setting like that, I expect it, because of an event and people are gonna be there and stuff. And seeing all their faces and everything and having their conversations, you know, where they're introducing themselves, I'm learning about them and their PC builds

and things that they, they want to do in life. I love all of that. I really, really do. Look forward to it. But the randomness of just being a Cadill side and this little, little kid comes up to me is that that means everything.

It really does. That's awesome. I love that. I always love it because you always hear like the most wholesome thing and you're like, it's all worth it. Like everything you've done, it's all worth it. And I love that. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, life's been good. Life's been good. All righty. Let me go into some announces for the people, and then I'll hand it back over to you, the poets, for some fun stuff. So, first of all, thank you for Intel Club, the NCT Intel Club,

for, you know, everything that's been going on. Intel, you've been awesome as helping a sponsor and giving away tons of free stuff to you guys. So, like I said, before, to be in the podcast. But as, like I said, in the beginning podcast, you guys go to nccc.com slash club or Asimation Point Club. In the chat. Oh, there's Shippy right there. Yes.

I love Chippy so much. If you guys want to earn Pucci points, you guys do Quest to earn Pucci points. And then from there, you guys can enter into a giveaway that we do every month for a shirt, plushy set, which you can get Pucci right there and a Chippy Plushie. And the Brigades Prize of All, a monthly Intel PC. I think it's a Player 1 Prime PC from us. So you guys go to nccc.com slash club. So sign up, participate in our community, earn Poogee points.

And I recommend starting as soon as you can because the more points you earn, the more entries you have into the giveaway. So again, special thanks to Intel for helping a sponsor. The Poets, do you have anything fun coming up that you'd want for the audience to learn? I'm going to have a new rap album with this hoodie. That's an Intel hoodie. That is what we're giving away today as well. Oh, yes. So this, yeah, this is cool.

And it's like reversible. It is reversible. Yeah, this is the coolest darn thing in the world. Things that are coming up. Well, I'm always doing giveaways at some point or another. That's like, hence this giveaway that has been amazing. Typically my full PC giveaways last about a month so that I can actually show the PC hardware, you know, talk about the individual components, give people a chance to, you know,

enter and what I chose to do with this one was I just picked a viewer you know I didn't do anything like crazy jump through 12 different hoops or anything it was just more like an appreciation to my viewers and I really really appreciated a couple of people that actually said hey I don't need a PC but I know this person that could definitely use it because they don't have a PC they're always missing out on different things that their friends are doing online. And so that's who the winner was this time. It was somebody that was recommended.

There was still a viewer, but it was another viewer that actually recommended that they be a winner. And so I checked out their stuff. And yeah, they were definitely deserving. And not saying I'm going to do that for every giveaway, but I thought that was pretty darn cool. Because obviously, like, 99.9% of people in the comments,

they're like, pick me, pick me. which is the point of giveaways. It's fun. But that stood out. That really stood out. Then when it comes to the next one, I mean, I have so much stuff. So please come take it and throw a giveaway. And so there's always going to be something going on.

In terms of the next big thing, I always have a lot of travels coming up. So I have a conference coming up about AI and San Frans. in a week and a half, two weeks. And then right after that, I'm flying from San Fran to San Diego for Comic-Con. So I'm going to have content from both places. And I'll be working with a couple of different companies there to really kind of showcase what they're doing at Comic-Con. I'm really excited for that. Definitely going to be covering Pax West.

I'm going there for Seattle. And I think some major companies are actually going to be there this time as well. packs kind of had a little falling off with a lot of the bigger companies and I think it's starting to get up there now so I'll be there and honestly I want to play D&D but I want to film a lot of tabletop stuff and some like old school vintage gaming as well like Nintendo you know stuff like that I want to get into some of that but in the end it's always about Always listening to what the community has to say as well. So when I'm at these events, and people like, oh, that was cool when you filmed that,

I'm always happy to an event like that, go back and like go more in depth and film that type of stuff because it's just fun. And it's giving my viewers the ability to experience an event that they're not able to attend. So that's sometimes why I film 100 plus videos. Yes, and stuff like that. You know, look at this thing. it's cool. If I think it's cool, I'm sure somebody else will think it's cool too. So that's really what's going on. Where can our audience find you? Ah, pretty much everywhere. The poets on TikTok,

the poets on YouTube, the poets on Twitter or X, whatever it's called these days, the Poets 42 on Instagram. And I'm on blue sky as well as the poets and threads as the Poets 42. And smoke signals. I do pay attention to smoke signals. So, yeah. That's about it. Do you have any final thoughts or messages you'd like to share with the audience? Just be kind. Be kind to others. Be kind to yourself.

I know that sounds lame and cliche, but there's so much going on in this world right now. And the world is in pain. It truly is. This is something that if you find, follow the golden rule, you know, do unto others as you would have them do on to you, the world would be in a much better state right now. And I think following the golden rule is very important for this AI development as well. Develop your models in a compassionate way, people, so that when, you know, our future

AI overlords, you know, take over, they're compassionate to us too, right? Okay, hopefully. But no, seriously, like what you put into your work or a project or the AI model, whatever it is, you know, be wholesome. Be loving and just kind of spread that around to others as best as you can. I love that. Well done. Well done. So for those that are here, we are giving away an Intel hoodie that the post is off, an Intel shirt and a mouse pad.

Um, we have a secret code word that gives a thousand extra entries into the giveaway. Mr. DePoits, what would you like the code word to be? You ready? One, two, three, four, five. And that reminds me, I have to change the combination of my luggage. All right. Righty. By the way, you have a fantastic voice for radio. Just saying you have a fantastic voice for radio. Thank you very much. I am changing up the code right now for you guys. Hold on, hold on. Let me, let me update the gleam. But the code word will be one, two. Oh, one, two, three, four, five. Did I do it? Did I do okay on that? Do I do okay? Very, very well done.

I'm updating to gleam right now. It's going to take a little bit. So once I update it, just make sure to refresh your gleams and get a thousand extra entries into the giveaway, y'all. But I'm watching chat and what, nobody gets the reference. Am I that old? I actually, I met Mel Brooks a number of years ago in Beverly Hills. We were at the same restaurant having dinner. And we ordered the same exact thing.

And we got to chat outside for a while. And it took every ounce of willpower for me not to reference spaceballs at all while we were having this conversation outside. And yeah, yeah. So it's from space balls, people. Watch space balls. Oh, space balls so good. Oh, my gosh. So good.

Well, thank you guys for joining us. And thank you the poets for joining us on the NCC podcast. Remember, tune in live on Fridays at 10 a.m. Pacific Standard Time on the official NCC Switch. And don't forget to listen to previous episodes on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and SoundCloud, and you can rewatch this Vod on YouTube. If you have any questions for us, send an email to podcast at nzicc.com or tag at N6T on social media platforms. Thank you so much to the Polis for joining us today. Fantastic insight.

Fantastic insight into the content creation world. And have a very safe weekend, everyone. Take care. Thank you. Goodbye.