Hey everyone, welcome to another edition of Homeroom Announcements, my Friday podcast type video where I give thoughts and updates about the Skooled Zone channel.

About once a month I like to shake things up on the Homeroom Announcements, so we're going to do something a little different today. I'm going to do my first unboxing. About a week ago, I attended a pretty cool event at the YouTube Space LA. It was a panel on video games which featured some popular YouTubers like Tom Cassell from the Syndicate. Very cool discussion on how gaming can positively influence people around the world and they went into a sub-genre of games focused on decision-making and education. Obviously this was right up my alley.

In one of the side booths, though, they had a Loot Crate display where they were giving out sample boxes. I took one home and decided that I might try a Skooled Zone spin on the traditional unboxing. I'm calling it a Trivia Unboxing.

As many regulars to my channel know, I do a spin on traditional let's play walkthroughs on the Skooled Zone where I give facts and trivia about the gaming environments during the gameplay. The channel's only been up a couple of months and is already generating some buzz.

So I figured why not apply that same kind of spin to a product unboxing? Life is all about experimenting, right? Trying new things. Living and learning.

Now let me just say right off the bat that Loot Crate did not sponsor this video. In fact, I actually applied for a sponsorship affiliation and they turned me down. I know, bummer. Probably because the channel is still new and I didn't have enough subscribers or views or whatnot. It's all good though. So I'm doing this completely independently. But hey, it's still good promotion for them and I can use this video as a sample to show other mystery box companies like Nerdblock, Bootybin, etc. what I can do. So let's jump right in it...

Welcome to my humble little workstation here. I gave you guys a taste of it a couple episodes back where I showed you the graduation plaque I got from the YouTube Creator Academy. But yeah, here is where the magic happens, as they used to say on Cribs. I like to keep it clean and clutter free. That's just me. But yeah, let's move the keyboard and mouse out the way and start unboxing.

By the way, I'm just using my smartphone to record this. I don't have a super nice vlog camera because I'm not a vlogger. If I was, I would definitely invest in a wicked DSLR or a GoPro or something. But I'm a gamer, so I'd rather invest my money in triple-A gaming titles for ya which are getting kinda crazy expensive these days. But anyway, I'm going to hold this as steady as I can and then probably do a little stabilization in post as well. So bear with me. Also, I'm just using natural lighting, so hopefully this all works out for my first little live vignette here.

Okay, so the theme of the last Loot Crate was Summoning. So we'll see what we got here. I may not completely open some of the items because I know that makes collector fans out there grit and cringe. Plus, you know, someday the unique items might be valuable if left in the box. But I can still give you some really cool factoids and I will be opening some of the items.

The largest item in the box is this Pokemon knit hat. First factoid of the day: these style of toboggans that look like Jayne Cobb's beanie from Firefly actually have a name. They're called chullos, spelled c-h-u-l-l-o. And no, Fox didn't invent them. They've been used by natives to the Andes Mountain region in South America for ages. The strings that hang down are so you can tie the hat under your chin. That way it doesn't blow off during wind gusts. There's a style of Russian hat called an ushanka that's similar as well. Think that's the Fargo hat too. Not sure, but pretty sure. The little book that comes in the Loot Crate box calls it a Laplander Hat, but I think Chullo is probably slightly more accurate. If I'm totally wrong, then I can tell you that Laplanders are another name for the Sami people who live in an area in the very northernmost region of Scandinavia. Either way, it's pretty cool with this hat because the little dangly jester balls are made in the shape of Poké Balls. Pretty clever there.

The next item we have is the Hearthstone stress reliever. Those familiar with Warcraft probably already know that Hearthstone is the collectible card game from Blizzard. I've never actually played it but I've heard it's pretty fun. These items are called stress balls and are actually very helpful in relieving anxiety or even carpel tunnel syndrome. Their origins date back to ancient China where metal balls called Boading Balls would be spun around in your palm to relieve stress. Today, the stress relievers are made from polyurethane foam and come in a variety of shapes. This is one of the items I'm actually going to open up because foam rubber won't keep forever. Years from now it'll be hard and brittle, so might as well enjoy it now. Always good to relieve some stress, especially when YouTube keeps screwing with my view count.

This item, though, is one I won't take out the box. Well, I'll take it out the Loot Crate box but not out of its own box. This is probably my favorite item out of the bunch. It's a die-cast toy car from the TV show Supernatural. Don't know how they knew, but Supernatural is actually my favorite show of all time. Used to be X-Files a while back, but I think it's actually couple of the same people that moved from X-Files over to Supernatural. But love Supernatural, awesome show, so I'm ecstatic that they put this in here. Because I also collect Hot Wheels cars. Well, not any more. But I still have a pristine collection from when I was a kid. So I'll be adding this car to that. The car itself, which Dean in the show calls Baby, is a 1967 Chevy Impala. Which by the way is also the model driven in Weird Al's “White and Nerdy” video, which I made a keen reference to in one of the videos of the Dishonored series I did. One of the viewers caught that reference.

Anyway, the Chevrolet Impala is named after a type of African Antelope. How's that for a cool factoid. The first Chevy Impala was made in 1958 and Chevy Impalas are still made to this day. And by the way, I am super psyched for Season 11 which started up this week. Got it all queued up to watch right after I finish this video in fact. That's right!

The next item we have here is a Simpson’s toy. I'll go ahead and open this one because I actually want to display this on my bookshelf. I actually have a sort of Asian theme in my apartment because I used to practice Kung Fu for many years. One of these days I'll give you guys an apartment tour. Maybe for one of the subscriber milestones or something. Oop, who's that? That's right. My life sized poster of Jackie Chan. That's sick. Would be so damn cool to meet him someday. That's actually one of the items on my bucket list. But anyway, let's open this up.

So the book calls this a Homer Simpson Golden Buddha. Hopefully Loot Crate doesn't get upset with me for correcting them, but the fat belly versions of Buddha are not actually the Buddha. The Buddha, who's real name was Siddhartha Gautama, was actually pretty lean and had a full head of hair. The depiction that you often see of the bald, big belly Buddha was actually called Pu-Tai. He was an Asian deity of folklore. In Japan, he was called Hotei. In all the cultures, he represents luck and happiness. That's why he's going on my shelf, alongside my little maneki-neko good luck cat. And look at that, they give you a little golden pretzel and a little strand of prayer beads. There's actually a name for those prayer beads. I'm going to put a little pop-up for it right now. I can't quite remember the name it but there'll be another factoid for ya.

Then we have a card for a free mobile game: Master Summoner. And a little summoner button, which is pretty cool. And by the way, here's how nerdy I am. Long ago when I used to play tabletop games like Dungeons and Dragons, I always played summoner type characters. They were always like my favorite play style. So this is totally trippy here.

Okay, let's wrap this up before I start rambling. The last item is a collectible coin and a code for something you can get with Hearthstone. The coin comes out of this little card here and you use it to scratch out something on the back. But I'm just going to leave it in place because it looks pretty cool just like that. Another nice little shelf item to show off.

And that about does it for my first Trivia Unboxing on the Skooled Zone. I hope some of these mystery box companies give me a chance to do more. That would be entirely awesome because this was a lot of fun. Guess we shall see. In the meantime, back to some wicked gaming videos next week. So have a good weekend and I'll see you on Monday with another trivia walkthrough.

LPK

Love, Peace, Knowledge.