Today's Notes 2/28/21

Good afternoon everybody,

It's the start of a new week, and the end of the month of February here in 2021, and I like to think so far this year has been better than last year, at least professionally speaking.

Anyway, last night's stream of Zero Escape Virtue's Last Reward was a lot of fun, as we got the endings for K and Alice, with a lot of plot development for the later, not to mention the revelation that K was Sigma... or Sigma was K... or some sort of nonsense along those lines. Big thanks for the re-subs and the raids that happened last night as well, made things extra special. That said, there was at least one awkward moment for comedic purposes thanks to Japan being Japan with regard to dialog involving Alice and cucumber. Yeah, safe to say that came out of no where, and was probably VLR's version of 999's Devil woman gag for Lotus.

Speaking of Zero Escape: 999, I'm kicking around an idea for a fan fic based on some obvious things regarding it, and considering how fucking weird the Zero Escape timeline is, one can safely say anything is possible.

Had a long Fitness Boxing 2 workout session today, and it seems that there was an update to put 'Hell Mode' exercises up first when doing longer workouts, or at least it seems that way to me.  We reached a new milestone achievement with Light Heavyweight Puncher Lv. 2, which was to have a total punch  count of 104,000, with my exact total being 105,109 total punches thrown. No noticeable change in my weight since the last time I stepped on a scale, but as long as I'm not gaining that's a good thing. 

Still not sure what's going to be the next major game I'm going to be diving into, I have been giving some strong consideration to a few games on both the Switch and Xbox One, but haven't made up my mind yet. But we'll be starting something new for Monday's stream.

Tonight's stream will focus on Overwatch, and since the Lunar New Year event ended last week, there's not really a pressure to get wins needed to unlock stuff. Of course will try to win, but there is no need to stress to much about people being out of position... even though I naturally will of course wonder what the fuck some people are doing! 

And on that bombshell, we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden

 

Highlights for the week of 2/21/21

Here are highlights from my twitch channel (http://twitch.tv/fredcasden) for the week of February 21, 2021, which included Overwatch, 1979 Revolution Black Friday, Fitness Boxing 2 Rhythm & Music, Super Mario Bros 35, Tom Clancy's The Division 2, ESPN Major League Baseball, Star Trek Online, Hades, Super Smash Bros Ultimate, Smite, Paladins, Power Rangers: Battle For The Grid and Zero Escape Virtue's Last Reward! 

Today's Notes 2/27/21

Good evening everybody,

Last night's stream started with Hades and who would've thought that I would reach final boss twice...  defeat him and then realize I have to beat him twice in a row! Yeah it was a hell of a good night, and I can see where the grinding and maxing out every one of Zagreus' base stats (via the mirror in his room) will come in handy as well as the 'God Mode' where you take less damage each time you die. Looks like I'll be keeping Hades in mind as an option for some nights for a long time, because I discovered that the game does have qualifications for a 'true ending' which is to beat it 10 times, and since not every play-through is the same because you don't know what boons you're going to get, mastering every single aspect seems like the smart way to do things!

We also loaded up Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, finishing classic mode with Cloud before doing a few PVP matches using Min-Min, it took me a while to remember how to play Smash, and while I didn't win any of the matches agaisnt other players, I got my fair-share of knocks outs and had a few good moments.

oday's FItness Boxing 2 session was not the usual one for a Saturday, since I did a workout with Hell Mode yesterday morning, today's was a standard exercise set plus a little extra as I began work on Janice's Free Exercise achievement. I do have to say the thing that gave me the most trouble today was doing right-weaves from the orthodox stance, as I felt I wasn't getting a good enough rotation with my hips. Also having to do a right straight punch into a right-weave is fucking evil.

Tonight's stream will be focused on Zero Escape Virtue's Last Reward, as I believe we'll be starting with one character ending (K's if I remember right) and then going down the path of the one set of chromatic doors we never opened before at the beginning. So we can expect to see Zero Jr quite a bit tonight I think! 

Over on the Official Ghostbusters YouTube channel, the Real Ghostbusters episode Slimer Come Home premiered this week, and it probably has one the saddest moments when it comes to cartoons, when Slimer runs away from home, which in and of itself is a tough seen to watch, but then you lay on top of it a sad sounding ballad (Remember Home from the Real Ghsotbusters soundtrack) and well, too this day, it brings tears to my eyes a bit. That's when you know something is good, you can watch something and know how it goes, if it can still draw emotion from you, it proves it still holds up.

And on that note we'll see you over on twitch.tv/fredcasden later this evening!.

Today's Notes 2/26/21

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream started with Star Trek Online, but it wasn't totally dedicated to it as only got around to a couple of my characters because the game were having server issues and had to perform some sort of emergency restart. Now every time I've seen that happened it meant the servers would be done anywhere from 15-30 minutes... so we had to switch things up.

So we powered up the Xbox One just after the Xbox Live servers came back online, because apparently they were down most of the late afternoon and early evening. So luck was on my side, and for the first time in a while we played Smite,with the focus on Arena matches. We got a few wins and took a few losses, but this is why I keep games like this around for when things go wonky with Star Trek Online.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session actually went longer than usual for non-Monday, as I realized the game actually had new DLC, in particular No Mercy / Devil Mode for more characters. Today's work out was very solid from start to finish with very few miss-timed punches and misses... hell if anything, the few misses I had involved my left hand, but unlike most times when there's a miss, I felt like I pulled my punches instead of following through. 

Also loaded up Animal Crossing New Horizons this morning, as Ozzie is leaving my island, Pietro lost a bag and Hopper & Agnes had a little argument that needed a little resolving. Rather busy morning on my island of Ocean View/

Not completely sure what's on the agenda for tonight's stream, as we might end up focusing on things involving the Nintendo Switch, so maybe Hades, Smash Bros Ultimate, Mario Kart 8, etc.... we'll see what ends up coming to mind after I finish work and have dinner.

And on that note we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

 

Today's Notes 2/25/21

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream of ESPN Major League Baseball opened with a lot of audio adjustments as we dealt with not being able to monitor the audio from my PS2 through OBS, the audio doubling creating an echo effect and other silliness that made the first 30 minutes of the stream pretty damn awkward. We did win 4 out of 5 games, finishing up the series against he Braves by splitting the last 2 games of the 4 game series we started last week and then sweeping the Mets in a 3-game set. 

The big positive as that I realized I could use OBS to project what the Elgato was capturing on my main monitor so I could see things in the correct aspect ratio. This will go a long way in making sure games from the PS1 and PS2 era are presented and played in the way they were originally intended. Of course this lead to me having to adjust to playing ESPN Major League Baseball with a 4:3 ratio as oppsed to the stretched out 16:9.

Did have some unintentional comedy when I went looking at the in-game scouting reports, and man was the game rather cruel to one Chase Utley in what was said as you can see in the screen shot. Now yes Utley made his Major League Debut in 2003 and there were a lot of questions about how well he'd do as an every-day second-baseman, but the scouting report basically saying he had no usefulness is just mean. 

Yesterday on the official Ghostbusters YouTube channel they premiered the Extreme Ghostbusters episode True Face of The Monster, which actually touched on racism and general discrimination. Keep in mind for a syndicated animated series in the late 1990s, having an episode even mentioning such topics wasn't exactly common. Combine that with the legend of the golem from Jewish forklore, and you got a very underrated episode. That said, it was pretty clear which actors from the regular cast were pulling double-duty in doing multiple roles which exposed how limited Alfonso Ribeiro was as a voice actor.

Had a solid Fitness Boxing 2 session today, even though Janice's voice is annoying as hell. Lasting 35 minutes (43 if I count the stretching), we threw 1,292 punches. We unlocked new milestone achievements today as well. The first being Light Heavyweight Puncher Lv. 1 which was to have a total punch count of 100,000, and the other was 'Janice's Trainee' which was to perform 10 daily works outs using Janice as the trainer (this also counts stretching)... which means to move on from using her as the trainer I'll have to do Free Exercises (no dailys) 10 times... and with my approach to my routines , that could end up taking a few weeks. 

Tonight's stream will focus on Star Trek Online, we'll bounce from character to character, doing random stuff and so forth, so no real direction this week, just having fun with what's there.

And on that note we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

Today's Notes 2/24/21

Good morning everybody,

So you know how yesterday I was saying I fixed the audio for my streams in OBS? Well apparently I took it too far the other way, and my mic was booming through it whenever I raised my voice. So now it's back to the drawing board. The thing is what I hear and what ends up on stream are two very different things, and finding the right balance is not as easy as one thinks it should be.

Anyway last night's entire stream was focused on the Division 2, which mean when it started I spent the entire first half of the stream wandering around DC doing random tasks and stuff before being joined by Iceman, PowerThumbz and FnDanteSavage. Now apparently there were a lot of glitches going on as we did some missions on Hard that took way longer than they should have to get through, which was just crazy, but I think it was tied to the Hollywood event, where certain objectives needed to be done. It wasn't as fun as the Resident Evil event, were it was very straight forward in terms of how to deal with the enemies. Still we had a lot of fun.

The local power company (PSEG) is digging up the street to resume work they started last year involving the gas lines, which means my day job is going to be real interesting because there is no way for me to block out the sounds of a jackhammer coming from outside my home. I just know some smart ass at my job will say to me 'well move to another part of your house', yeah unlike other people I (now) have a workstation sized PC, which means moving it is not an option.

So today's Fitness Boxing 2 session saw Janice in the trainer's spot instead of Lin, the reason being is that their are some achievements associated with each trainer, unlike the first game, so to get them one must use the proper trainer. Janice's voice is more.... how shall I say... abrasive to hear, making me question who was doing the voice direction for it. Unlike with Lin, all of Janice's dialog matches in terms of tone, where Lin's was copied and pasted from the first game.  The workout today was really solid on all front, with only 1 miss and that was me forgetting how to do a left block from the South Paw stance. 

Tonight's stream will focus on ESPN Major League Baseball on the Playstation 2, with Philadelphia Phillies having two games against the Atlanta Braves then a series against The New York Mets. In terms of where we are in the schedule, it will be May 29, 2004, so we're about 1/3 through the season give or take. 

And on that note we'll see you later today over on twitch.tv/fredcasden

Today's Notes 2/23/21

Good morning everybody,

Well last night's stream was rather odd, as the game audio was so loud that even while making adjustments I could barely be heard, even when bringing my microphone closer. The good news is everybody got to experience the game audio in its full glory, but my commentary and riffs were barely heard. It is weird that happened, considering the day started with audio lagging behind the video. Now I think I fixed it both issues, one by making a few adjustments in OBS by listing my Elgato HD60S as a mic/auxiliary and also by boosting the gain of my microphone to being double standard. Did a test recording using Super Mario Bros 35 this morning and it seems to have solved things.

Now last night's stream which started with 1979 Revolution: Black Friday, and it's always a fascinating game to play from a historical narrative perspective, since it's trying to convey everything that lead into Iran's major shift in the early 80s in a 3 hour interactive experience. You could see a lot of parallels between the events this game was based on and modern day events which makes it very surreal when one considers how close we came to that back on January 6.

We also did some Paladins last night, and yes I'll admit I totally threw one match early going. You see Paladins is cross-platform, and when I was playing using the Xbox  One version with a team that players using the PC version, the one teammate in the role of 'Support / Healer' basically said he was not going to heal the tank, and since I was the lone tank on the team, I checked out of the match. Bad enough dealing with people who jump country servers which reduces latency for everyone, but to see someone say they are not going to assist the one person who was going to be on the front line was enough to grind me gears. 

For the first time in a long time, loaded up Power Rangers Battle for the Grid as apart of last night's stream, and finally got a chance to play as Scorpina, and safe to say the excuse that the developers wouldn't including villains that had 'human faces' was thrown right out the window because Scorpina's design and facial animations were gorgeous. That said, it did take me a while to get use to the controls again, and the game certainly felt slower than the last time I played it, which was about a 10 months ago.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was alright, with some very questionable misses do to the left joy-con de-syncing (basically whenever one moves it, it vibrates heavily as if trying to reconnect), which is of course weird since at this time I'm standing less than 5 feet away from where the Switch is docked. That said, we did reach two milestone achievements today, one's called Lin's Buddy which was to perform 10 free exercises (non-daily) with Lin as the trainer, and the other was Lin's Best Friend which I guess is done by doing 10 free exercises and 10 daily workouts with her as the trainer. Which means at this point 60% of the Fitness Boxing 2's in-game achievements have been unlocked... and I'll be switching trainers. 

Tonight's stream will be split between The Division 2 and something else, not quite sure what will be in the lead off slot, as this will be a double header stream. The reason The Division 2 is getting attention tonight is because of the Hollywood event, which as I mentioned before was something Iceman and PowerThumbz hyped up a lot. 

And on that note we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden

Today's Notes 2/22/21

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night's stream of Overwatch was a lot of fun, and big thanks to PandaSweet for being apart of the fun as we each got the wins needed to get Reaper's new Lunar New Year event skin. We each had a few plays of the game, with mine being two for McCree and two for Torbjörn. It is funny that for so long of just being in the tank and support roles, but when saying 'fuck it', I'm going to play damage, I've developed some quirks that allow me to be very effective. Must be because I've seen so many other people play the damage role and not being involved in the front line battle.On a side note, I did get the Anger Management achievement which was to damage six enemies during a single use of Winston's Primal Rage in Quick or Competitive Play. Since I normally don't play Winston out of Mayhem matches, to actually get it was pretty cool.

This week's Real Ghsotbuster's episode was Mrs. Roger's Neighborhood, again a super creepy episode when you get into the designs of 'What' and it's Bird sidekick, but also the possessed Peter Venkman late in the episode. Some thing stood out to me was that in this episode, upon escaping the haunted house, the Ghostbusters have to deal with two lion statues that are actually blue and white ghosts, and in the Ghostbusters video game, you end up dealing with a pair of ghosts that were within the statues in front of the New York Public Library. It's an odd connection, but let's face it, it is a connection most people won't realize.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was solid, going 44 minutes (52 with stretching), and we reached a new milestone achievement with Super Middleweight Puncher Lv. 3 which was to have a total punch count of 96,000, with my exact total being 96,244. But since today's session was stream we did have to do deal with figuring out audio for the stream and for me to hear, which lead to some lag in what was coming through the speakers for me at first. I think I managed to get it set back up to how it was on the previous computer.

Over in Animal Crossing New Horizons, Ozzie will be leaving my island in a couple of days, the big reason why I'm letting him go is because his personality is way to similar to Sherb and Raddle's. Also finally caught a Oarfish. which made me want to catch more fish

We did do two runs of Super Mario Bros 35, and the audio lag I mention earlier was really noticeable, making it very challenging to time out certain things, particularly when having the Star invincibility power up. Didn't get a top three finish this time in either run.

Later today we'll be back on with the Xbox One version of 1979 Revolution Black Friday. and I'm not what we'll pair that up with to make sure the stream fills out to four hours, but I'll think of something.

And on that note we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden

Today's Notes 2/21/21

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night's stream of Zero Escape Virtue's Last Reward was really productive in terms of reaching major story points, as we unlocked the achievement called 'I Can't Believe It's No Murder' for being able to prove that Alice wasn't killed due to one of the effects of Radical-6 being suicide, in addition to getting the character endings for Tenmyouji (In Root Beer Veritas) and Clover (Secret Agent Woman), with the obvious details being revealed that Tnmyouji is indeed Junpei and he never was able to find Akane/June after the events of 999 but he adopted Quark, while Clover along with Snake ended up working with Alice who seen in the post credits scene of the first game. The thing that most people will find odd is the age difference between the two, as for Clover and Alice it's only been a year since the end of 999, but for Tnmyouji it's been way longer. The reason for that gets explained.... much later on.

This week The Division 2 is having it's Hollywood event, which means Tuesday night will be dedicated to checking that out since Iceman and PowerThumbz talked so much about it and how the rag doll effects are turned way up. Which means I won't be starting a major game this week, instead Monday night we're going to open with 1979 Revolution: Black Friday on the Xbox One, because I've already played the Steam version, so we can get some easy achievements to boost my gamer score. We'll probably pair it up with something else because it's not a particularly long game.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was solid, but a little 'weave heavy' which lead to so misses, which is odd because since I'm moving back to doing doing the workouts towards the right side of my desk, one would think I wouldn't be missing anything because I'm standing much closer to where the Switch is docked at. But yup, misses still happen. When I do Fitness Boxing 2 sessions for a stream, you won't see any step movements because I don't quite have the good enough angle to be able to perform those without hitting something solid. Also tossed in an extra set, so my daily exercise totals seen in the screen shot is actually lower than what I actually did.

Tonight's stream will be focused on Overwatch in my pursuit of Reaper's skin that corresponds with the Lunar New Year event, as we need to reach a total of 9 wins for the week. Because of the computer fiasco this week, and with Overwatch being one of the first things installed on the new rig, I already have a few wins, so the pressure isn't too intense to try and get them all in one night.

And on that note we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

Best of the Week of February 14, 2021

Here are the best moments from each stream from my Twitch Channel (http://twitch.tv/fredcasden) for the week of February 14, 2021, which included the following games Overwatch, Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm and Music, Animal Crossing New Horizons, Super Mario Bros 35, Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix, ESPN Major League Baseball, Star Trek Online, Hades and Zero Escape Virtue's Last Rewards!

Today's Notes 2/20/21

Good evening everyone,

You ever get that sudden feeling to look for something and you think you know where it was, but then you realize it's not there and then you look up how to get replacements? Well that happened to me today! Not going to go into full details of it, but that's part of why this posting is later than normal.

Last night we tried out Hades on the Nintendo Switch, and as I've stated before rouge like games are not something I normally dive into, because of the random nature of it. Of course seeing that it had a 'god mode' of sorts where you get a little tougher every time you die to be able to withstand more punishment is a good thing. I got surprisingly far, making it the boss battle against Theseus and Asterius at the end of Elysium twice! Again, first night playing it and I just about made it to the half-way mark. Not sure how often I'll stream it, but it certain is a game that can fit in as 'filler' when I finish another game and I don't want to end a night early.

Got back to work on a commissioned story piece last night, and I figure it's probably already double the normal length I'd do, since everything I write typically ends up being 2000 words or less, depending on how interested I am in a particular subject... and this story is already about 3500 words.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was nearly perfect, okay there were a few only 'okay' rated reps performed but only one miss!  We passed another milestone, unlocking the Super Middleweight Puncher Lv. 2 achievement which is to reach a total punch count of 92,000 HITS, my exact total is 92,957. Also did a weigh in today, I'm down to 253 lbs, which means I met the goal I set for myself back when I switch from the original Fitness Boxing to its sequel. So now my new goal is to get down to 240 lbs. 

Popped into Animal Crossing New Horizons for the first time in a couple of days, was kind of weird to see Hopper hanging out in Sherb's place. Also Pietro and Antonio seem to be the most DIY focused of everyone on my island as of late

Tonight's stream will see us returning out focus to Zero Escape Virtue's Last Reward, as I believe we have to resume from an AB game point and select Betray before jumping back further to also select another Betray option. Should be a lot of fun and probably a chill stream on all fronts.

And on that note we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden

Today's Notes 2/19/21

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream of Star Trek Online was pretty damn solid from start to finish, as we went through every one of my characters doing one thing (either a mission, task force operation, patrol or other activity), so folks got to see the wide variety of 'captains' I've used. For some of the characters, it was their first time being used in a couple of years, and boy are some characters badly under-powered with how Star Trek Online has evolved over the year in regards to how some things stack. 

We did have a little 'scare' last night as the power did go out while I was putting together last night's highlight video for the Facebook page. Near as I can tell, because of all the ice, wind, snow we've had, it's pushed the branches of a neighbor's over-grown, poorly maintained tree down on the power lines near the transformer. The asshole in question refuses to do anything about how the tree's branches and because he has 'stroke' with the city council, no one has ever forced him to fix this issue. To give you an idea of how much of a horse's ass that guy is, he has a dog in his yard that he keeps out doors pretty much year round, even in cases of excessive heat and cold while also being one of the asshole who sets up outside of a local elementary school during election time to 'convince' people to vote for who he wants. 

Anyway, we had a solid Fitness Boxing 2 Session today as I'm getting use to setting up for the exercises being to the right of my green-screen as opposed to the left. I might have to drop side steps and front-back steps because i would need to move some furniture to have the room necessary to perform both comfortably. We reached a new milestone called Super Stamper Lv. 3 which is to log in 70 days of daily exercise, or as the game calls it 'acquire 70 stamps'. It doesn't have to be consecutive days, but it helps if you do exercise a bit daily.

For tonight's stream, we'll be trying out Hades on the Nintendo Switch, this game was highly recommend by one of my viewers a few weeks ago as something they thought I would be interested in. When it comes to rouge like dungeon crawlers, they are not my forte, and part of the reason why I haven't gone back to Diablo III was because of how overly complicated things involving gear got. 

But you know what's funny, the lead character in Hades is called Zagreus, which is a name I never associated with Greek mythology. In fact, I associate the name Zagreus with Doctor Who through the Big Finish published audio dramas! In fact, my main character in Star Trek Online is called Zagreus, and the character is a female liberated Borg drone, while in Greek mythology, Zagreus is the name of a son of Zeus and Persephone. I say 'a son', because we all know Zeus got around.

And on that note, we'll see you later tonight over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

Today's Notes 2/18/21

Good morning everybody,

Well we got the new computer set up to make sure everything is working, and so far so good, we did a full stream last night, which ran smother than before. I don't have many direct programs installed on it, only the bare stuff used on a routine basis (OBS, Libre Office, VLC, Discord, Steam, Origin, etc). With only a 1 TB SSD, I'm considering everything. Besides, most of the games featured on stream are running off of my PS2, Xbox One S and Nintendo Switch. 

Last night's stream of ESPN Major League Baseball didn't start until after 8 PM EST, which meant we only got four games in, winning 3 out of the 4, sweeping the Mets in a 2-game set, and splitting the first two games in a four game series against the Braves. What was unique about last night's stream was that I realize I can set the aspect ratio for how it's captured and broadcasted to 4:3, granted I still see the game on my main monitor as 16:9, but having the that option really helps in making sure older games don't look blurry and stretched out for the viewers.

It's snowing outside again... but thankfully starting on Saturday / Sunday, the weather starts to pick up. Really worried about my friends down in Texas who have had either no power or rolling blackouts since the start of the week. Please stay safe down there. 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was a little on the short side, being about 24 minutes, 32 if I count the stretching. This was mostly do to me considering where I should be standing as the new rigis about where I would be to throw left hooks and the last thing I'd want is to hit the side of it. Might have to move a few things around to give me the room I need so I can continue to do special Fitness Boxing streams on Mondays, since I think moving back to the opposite side (Where ya'll could see shelving behind me) might be the best course of action. But we'll test that later on.

Tonight's stream will feature Star Trek Online will be like last week, a random hodgepodge of things featuring all of my characters. Will have to make audio adjustments on the fly because of the new PC. I did play a quick STF last night, and needless to say the RX 580 makes a huge difference in how the game looked. Granted it looked gorgeous on a GT 1030. Stream should start at about 6 PM EST if the weather doesn't screw with things.

And on that note, we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

Today's Notes 2/17/21

Good morning everyone,

Well as you probably saw, last night's stream thankfully ran without incident outside one minor hiccup that I can't quite track down... but at lot of my concerns will be alleviated when my new rig arrives, and according to the tracking of the package it should arrive sometime today, and with my luck it'll be right when I'm working. 

Anyway, last night's stream of Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix saw u s finishing the game, and even if there was no issues on Monday night, there was no chance of finishing it then because it did take five hours to get through the final few areas of the game, because I happened to go off the beaten path, and needed to re-do a few battles more than once. The jarring difference between how the game looks normally and the final cut scenes being of a far superior quality did lead to some nightmare fuel in particular with Mickey Mouse. That said, even as thorough as I was being in getting various things done, we did miss out on two video segments, and I'm not sure if they are tied to difficulty settings or getting certain in game objectives accomplished. 

This morning's Fitness Boxing 2 Session felt good, as we got a good groove going and the Fitness Age score was back down to where I normally see it. Reached a new milestone in Fitness Boxing 2 this morning, clearing the Hypersonic Hitter achievement which was to perform 100,00 perfect exercises (punches, weaves, steps, ducks, blocks). I do need to do two more 'free exercises' (aka non-daily exercises) using Lin to unlocked it's related achievement as well. The reason why it takes so long is because I normally don't do a non-daily exercise set unless I feel I didn't get a good workout out in with the daily.... and that's whenever it feels like the daily short changed me!

Popped into Animal Crossing New Horizons this morning, nothing major on the island other I really should spread out all the festival things that were acquired on Monday afternoon. Maybe I should cut down some of the trees or move some of the houses around.

Tonight's scheduled stream is to feature ESPN Major League Baseball, picking up in late May with my Philadelphia Phillies taking on division rivals the New York Mets and the Atlanta Braves. Now the stream will be using the current PC because I really wouldn't be able to set it up the new one when it arrives and to get everything installed between when I finish work and when I intend to start the stream. Way I figure, it wouldn't be set up until after the stream so that Windows 10 updates can be done overnight. Obviously the big factor will be when the new computer arrives.

(UPDATED 11:10 AM)

The new computer arrived

And on that note, barring anything seriously going wrong, we'll see you later today over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

Today's Notes 2/16/21

Good afternoon everybody,

Well last night certainly was a nightmare scenario, as a power flicker in my neighborhood due to cold and icy weather was the start of several problems, one the stream last night was interrupted at about 3 Hours 30 Minutes, so this was about 9:30 PM It wasn't a complete outage of power, it's the lights dimmed then came back, the internet was knocked out for a few minutes. Things came back up and we resumed as one would do, then at about 10 PM EST everything went to hell, everything just went haywire to the point nothing was responding, couldn't even pull up task manager to see what was going on. Had no choice but to do a hard power down, which is something I hate to do. Things got worse when my PC would instantly shut down upon pressing the power button, it did it a second time, and on the third try it did power back up, but with a warning indicating one of the fans was not functioning.... but just holding my hands need the vent ports I could feel the fans moving. 

Needless to say this forced an emergency look into getting a new rig, because the last time I had anything like these issues were in 2011 and 2018. 2011, a power outage basically KO'ed it permantly and in 2018, that one was suffering from sudden hardware malfunctions. At the moment I'm writing this I'm running every diagnostic tool Windows 10 has to double check everything, and also in the process of backing up anything I already didn't have on an external hard drive, basically the entire afternoon is lost, so an unwanted day off from work, but if all tests out right I hopefully will be streaming this evening... we shall see if that goes well.

So these issues aside, last night's stream of Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix was going along very smoothly, as we closed out the in-game stories for The Coliseum, Agrabah, Halloween Town, 100 Acre Wood, Atlantica and The Pride Lands... and when all the issues started happening, thing were then going to be focused on Space Paranoids.Sadly the technically issues has resulted in lost footage, as I didn't even put together a highlight reel for my Facebook page to chronicle last night's events yet. Once every test is completed, we'll start pushing the hardware a little to see what it can handle at this point. If nothing catastrophic happens, things should be smooth, but even better when the new rig arrives.

Did do some blatant level grinding in Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix after I got my current PC powered up last night to where I could contact my job to let them know what was happening. Managed to find that one spot in the Pride Lands where numerous enemies appear, and it seems like a great spot of knocking out levels... which I found it sooner as I probably would've of boosted myself even further than I managed to do while I was checking the hard drive for disk errors till 4 in the morning.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 felt, even though it's back to back days of the Fitness Age score being 23... wonder if there was a patch update where they re-calculated how to score that, because normally I'm at a 21, and I know I was particular on point today. Did reach a new milsestone achievement called Super Middlewight Puncher Lv. 1, which was to have a total of 88,000 total punches thrown, with my exact total being 88,377.

And on that note we'll see you (hopefully) at about 6 PM EST for Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix over on twitch.tv/fredcasden

Today's Notes 2/15/21

Good afternoon everybody,

Yup slept in today, because why not... but I've been up since 12:30 PM EST, part of why I was up late was because I was working on a new commissioned fan fiction project, kind of a unique cross-over. If you know where I post such things, you'll know where to find it when it's finished.

Anyway last night's stream of Overwatch was productive in that we got the nine wins needed for this week's Lunar New Year Rewards, a good portion of them came via the Capture The Flag Blitz mode. Earned one play of the game as Moira in a match where I had to spend more time playing defense than I would've liked because there was no other healers on the team. Let's be straight up, when it comes to Capture The Flag, the must needed heroes on a team are Lucio, Moira & Symmetra... because Lucio can speed boost anyone who has the flag back to base, Moira can flex from heal to damage, and Symmetra can set teleporters up from the re-spawn to the base, cutting down on travel time and set turrets up to make things a night mare either defensively or offensively for the other team.

Since it is Monday, we did a Bonus stream today of Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm and Exercise, it went about 47 minutes (56 when one counts the stretching), and for whatever reason throwing straights were a bit of a problem today, I expected some issues to come from side stepping, but it always irks me when it comes from a punch, particularly when I'm streaming the session and I can see that the punch was clearly thrown!

Popped into Animal Crossing New Horizons, and finally saw what the Festival Event was, as it's a strong reference to a Mardi Gras like celebration, where all the island residents are dancing, there are feather for you to catch, and if you turn them into the special visitor to the island (Pave) you'll be rewarded with different items related to the Festival Event. It was pretty cool, and Pave's dialog was certainly a blast to read. Now of course I have to say Hopper was the best dancer out of my island residents, then again, anyone short and chubby is a good dancer (which of course means I dance as good as I sing, which means I'm awesome! LOL!)

Also did a run of Super Mario Bros 35, which lasted about 12 minutes, and managed to pull off a 3rd place finish. We might end up dedicating a full night to it to get to level 100 before the Nintendo closes the game down next month. We'll see how things shake out for that.

Tonight we'll be back to Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix, as we are in the later stages of the game. We'll be picking up at The Coliseum and going after the Hades Cup, then we got things to do in Agrabah, Halloween Town, The Pride Lands, Space Paranoids, Hallow Bastion, Twilight Town and then finally the World That Never Was. Most of these are direct boss battle encounters, so things go right, we fight finish the game tonight. We'll see how that goes.

And on that note we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

Today's Notes 2/14/21

Good afternoon everybody,

It's Valentine's Day... and you know I heard a prediction from this lady that encountered an alien at a Holiday Inn that the world was gonna end on Valentine's Day back in the year 2016... which proves the trouble with aliens, that you just can't trust them when they get their fact's wrong. Occasionally, you meet a nice one, like Starman or E.T., but most of the time they turn out to be a big lizard.

Anyway last night's stream of Zero Escape Virtue's Last Reward ended up running seven hours in length because we got two Game Over endings, one To Be Continued Ending and one character ending, in this case the one for Dio, which reveals he's part of a cult that is looking to save humanity in some ass-backwards way involving everyone being the clone of the same person. The big tie in the 999 was also revealed with Clover informing Sigma (and by proxy the player if they never played 999) the details of the previous Nonary Games she was apart of... and revealing that Santa and June/Akane were on the run from the law as far as she knew. 

Watched the Real Ghostbusters episode Killerwatt yesterday, and it really is a stark contrast to Ghosts R Us, as the tone is much more darker as the ghosts are presented as more of a threat. The possessed items (power drills, overs, refrigerators, power generators) all have unique designs but the biggest nightmare fuel is the possessed Ecto-1 which I just realized how fucking creepy that thing looks after all these years. Something else I noticed and had to look up was the fact that James Avery (aka Shredder from TMNT 87 and Uncle Phil from Fresh-Prince Of Bel-Air) was the voice of Killerwatt, which is really noticeable when the Ghostbusters are facing him within the Power Plant. 

Today Fitness Boxing 2 Session was a solid 32 minutes (40 if I count the stretching), although my timing on left weaves was terrible, couldn't quite get into the groove on them and it raised my Fitness Age score for the day to 24. Again you see the results here daily, where I'm averaging a 21 Fitness Age score, so only when things go really bad during a workout session does that score change. 

Also, popped into Animal Crossing New Horizons and saw that all my island residents sent gifts of bouquets and chocolate to my in game character, which was awesome... however there was no opportunity to stock up on those items to give them to the island residents in return. Yes I could've re-gifted everything, but it's weird that Nook's Cranny didn't have those items in stock. Makes me question what's the deal with the Festival Day which we'll see tomorrow.

With it being Sunday, that means tonight's stream will be dedicated to Overwatch, and we'll be chasing after nine wins to get the next Lunar New Year event skin, which I think is for McCree. So hopefully we'll have good luck and get it done quick!

And on that note we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden