Today's Notes 1/31/21

Good afternoon everybody,

Well let's talk about last night's stream first, granted we always do that, but remember the upload speed issue I was having back around January 10th and 11th that was resolved on the 12th when a Comcast tech came out to check all the exterior wiring, discovering that things that they should've been maintaining weren't touch in years, that lines were chewed up to the point actual signal degradation was happening? Well that came back in full force last night, as twice my Upload speed which was staying steady at 2500 kpbs (which is what I set it at) dropped to 1100 kpbs. The stream was interrupted at 9:20 PM, did a modem reset through Comcast, called them, and things seemed to sorted themselves out and we came back on at 10 PM, then at about 11:50 PM EST, it happened again. Called Comcast up and that time I kept the stream going so I can literally read off the upload speeds from Task Manager to them, and now they said the modem that I rent from them is 'too old' for a firmware update, which of course exposes Comcast to once again not maintaining equipment, letting customers know that what they have in their homes that they RENT FROM COMCAST is not current. 

For fucks sake, I was stuck with the Scientific Atlanta cable boxes that were in this house from my father lived here that he was issued in the late 90s and was only made aware they were out of date when I continued to have problems with my TV service! That said, after calling them out on that, they are sending a tech out today with a new modem which I'm going to have them set up and to take the old one because quite frankly, the updating of equipment on a regular basis is something Comcast should be doing, particularly if one is paying $200 a month!

Now in terms of what we were streaming Zero Escape Virtue's Last Reward, we didn't get to any endings last night because of the tech issues, but the awesomeness of Zero III, and some of the comedic elements in the game were awesome, as it gave me a lot to react to. I'm rather surprised that the protagonist Sigma has no voiced dialog as opposed to Junpei in the first game who did have a lot of voiced dialog. Still it adds to the immersion as I read off Sigma's lines. We went int the Magenta and Green and allied with Luna from the start, and were in the middle of the conversation with Golem when I shut down the second stream last night due to all the technical issues I was having with Comcast as I detailed above.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was solid, going about 32 minutes (40 if I add in the stretching), and everything felt good, things were going so smoothly that I even added a little 'Free Exercise' set on top of the daily routine to just to have things end on a positive note.

Now tonight's stream is of course scheduled for feature Overwatch and hopefully things will be smooth sailing. We are getting hit with a large snow storm, so hopefully that won't cause any issues in my area, but according to the local weather service I'm on the outer edge of the heart of the snow that's coming, and we're expecting six to twelve inches. If it was Casey Kisses I was getting hit with I wouldn't mind getting hit with something in that range, but when it comes to snow I don't want to deal with it.

And on that note, we'll (fingers crossed) see you later tonight over on twitch.tv/fredcasden

Highlights For The Week Of January 24, 2021

Here are highlights featuring all the games streamed over on http://twitch.tv/fredcasden for the week of January 24, 2021 which included Overwatch, Animal Crossing New Horizons, Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm and Music, Saints Row The Third: Remastered, Super Mario Bros 35, ESPN Major League Baseball, Star trek Online & Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward!

Today's Notes 1/30/21

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night's stream of Saints Row The Third: Remastered saw us finishing the game (going for the Gangstas In Space ending) as well as tackling the DLC for Gangstas In Space and The Trouble With Clones. The stream ended up being nearly six hours because I did get myself distracted with a few things on the side, such as going after some in game challenges. The end result being in just the six-streams dedicated to Saints Row The Third: Remastered, we did unlock 59 out 79 achievements, as the last 20 achievements are clearly a major pain in the ass to deal with. I do feel like I got cheated out of one, The Johnnyguard achievement as apparently something hit The clone of Johnny Gat right after I took out the last helicopter. Oh well. I can go and just do the opposite ending for Three-Way to get achievement number 60.

We're more than likely going to start tonight's stream early because we are beginning Zero Escape Virtue's Last Reward, and we want to avoid another stream going 11 hours. Already have my notebook on my desk, and set up OBS to capture the game before hand. 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Session may have gone only a half hour, but in terms of estimated calories burned it was on par with the last two days as today's set have more movements like turns, ducks and weaves.... actually today seemed totally focused on my mid section now that I think about it. We picked up a new achievement called Super Stamper Lv. 1 which was to acquire 50 stamps from daily exercises. 

If I could rant about people at my job for a moment, if you're going to give someone say like me constructive criticism, be sure to do it on a night where I'm not doing well. Because it not only comes across as wanting to sabotage someone's production, but I swear there are some dudes who clearly are not on the same page with one another over what advice to give because all they do is end up giving 'input' that is actually the opposite of what someone else told me to tweak. Bad enough I know as I try to do some day shift things this week that I'll have to remember how to do certain things that take a much different approach than what evening shift does.

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

Today's Notes 1/28/21

 Good afternoon everybody,

Last night's stream of Star Trek Online was certainly Klingon lore heavy, as we finally played the two new missions that are apart of the Anniversary Event. The first mission Knowledge is Power is another of the rare missions where we are not using our character for the majority of it, this time we get to play as J'ula who leads an away time consisting of Martok and Adet'pa down to Boreth to go on a quest to see what she must do to save the Klingon Empire. Lots of ground combat in it, but it does have some wickedly cool cut scenes where we see our character among the dead in a vision J'ula is having. The second mission, Leap of Faith will see any Klingon Defense Force character once again returning to hell, or Gre'thor to find the soul of a hero of the empire, L'Rell, who can help prevent the empire from completely dissolving. The big surprise here is the return of Gowron, which I should've seen coming considering his actor Robert O'Reilly, is also the voice of AaKar... so it makes sense. But now the stakes are risen higher, because not just the fate of Klingon Empire is at stake, but so is the soul of the former Chancellor.

Found out I do have some work this evening so tonight's stream will start at 9:30 PM EST, and the plan is to finish the main story of Saints Row The Third, and we might just jump into doing the DLC content, since all I have left in the game is main story missions anyway.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was really solid, only missed on motion (a sway back) from the southpaw stance. So nothing too bad, as I kept a pretty good rhythm the entire time. Also logged into Animal Crossing New Horizons and apparently it had a patch update but the only thing I noticed was the addition of a bench on the plaza for my residents to sit on. 

Now granted, some of Fitness Boxing 2 progress for the today will be negated because I ordered tonight's dinner from Papa Johns....it's been a while since I had a Pizza what can I say. 

On a positive note, I did finally get paid for the second commissioned fan fic I did this week, if you know where I would post such things, you can find it there (in fact it's actually in just two places on line), but Blogger's TOS prevents me from posting it here, unless I want to make some serious changes to this page and want my blog buried further than it already is!

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

Today's Notes 1/28/21

Good afternoon everyone,

Last night's stream of ESPN Major League Baseball saw my 2004 Philadelphia Phillies head into San Francisco for a three-game set against 'Joe Young' (aka a white switching Barry Bonds) and the Giants. We took two of three, but the big highlight was managing to throw a perfect game using Kevin Millwood in the first game. Which is funny because in 2003, Millwood through a no-hitter against the Giants, so I managed to one up what really happen in real life the prior year. Also made another move to further drive home the fact this is a video game, saw that the Blue Jays released Pat Hentgen, and since he's better than Vincent Padilla, sent Padilla to the minors. 

Now why isn't Barry Bonds in ESPN Major League Baseball (or any official MLB game in the 2000s that wasn't text based), it's because Bonds opted out of the Major League Baseball Player Association's license agreement and wanted to license his likeness his own likeness. The MLBPA basically made sure everyone got a fair share of the game's revenue.... but that's only if the players played by the MLBPA rules. There were a bunch of players who crossed the picket lines of the 1994 strike who were denined membership in the union and were replaced with guys 'having their stats', a big example being Kevin Millar. See it ain't just the Baseball Writers Association of America fucking players over, the player's own union does it to.

Today had a nice Fitness Boxing 2 session, that went 30 minutes, and only missed one movement, a right duck from the southpaw stance. Everything flowed real nicely today. No achievements unlocked, but that's okay, because to my surprise there was a patch update for the game that now carried over the consecutive days and stamps from the first game. Which means I have 206 consecutive days of doing daily boxing aerobics under my belt. It's awesome to have that properly tracked and makes me feel better for switching to Fitness Boxing 2 last month!

My copy of Xenosaga III for the Playstation 2 arrived today, and as it was listed it doesn't quite work with a PS2 slim, something about its disc doesn't seem to be readable on it. But since I do have a PS2 emulator on my PC, it does work with that... and I do have the fat PS2 DaemonsW0lf sent me than the United States Postal Service broke. Remember emulation is okay as long as you own the physical version copy of things. So when I start going through Xenosaga series (cause I did order a copy of Xenosaga II) we'll be able to go through all three games.

Finished up another commissioned fan fic request today as well (well late last night before bed but it was today), and I remember one reason why I stopped doing fics on a regular basis, its that my dialog writing is just terrible. Ah well.

Tonight we'll finally jump into Star Trek Online's anniversary content, and since I already did the buyout for the event ship, we'll mostly focus on the story missions. To keep things simple, this will be done as apart of the Glory for the Empire series of streams that has been going on since the spring. This is mostly because the start date for the anniversary event was on Tuesday, while normally Star Trek Online releases new content on Thursdays. This is just to make sure I don't go batty keeping things straight.

And since I just go word that I don't have work this evening, we'll probably start tonight's stream a bit early. So we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden

Today's Notes 1/27/21

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night's stream of Saints Row The Third saw a huge focus on the actual story of the game, which involved mostly dealing with the STAG invasion of Steelport and dealing with The Deckers while also setting up the final act involving Killbane. There does seem to be a glitch for the Cowboy Up achievement which is to have a fully leveled up weapon in each slot, so I'm not sure exactly what's missing as I have all my favorite weapons to level four, and the melee weapons (baseball bat) only goes to level 2.... unless I'm forgetting about the grenades because those are 4 additional weapons that are actually needed to be use in the Remastered version as opposed to the earlier version of SR3. Will have to look into that the next time we stream this, which will probably be Friday night. And yes I will do the DLC content on stream which are of course Gangstars in Space and The Trouble With Clones.

Found out I don't have work this evening because assignments are coming a bit slow, so we'll probably start early tonight for ESPN Major League Baseball, at the very least we'll get in a complete series. Of course Kalenal (twitch.tv/kalenal) is having their Affiliate Anniversary today as well and I do want to pop in to say congrats too, so might wait till 9 PM EST to start. Plus this gives me some time to work on another commissioned fan fic too. So I got options. Anyway, speaking of work I do love how they assume I can just switch things on the fly... after all what's the point of telling them what hours I can guarantee to work if they want to wait to the last minute to shuffle things around, particularly when they never gave me the option to return my normal schedule starting next week because circumstances called for it.

Speaking of Baseball, the BBWAA (Baseball Writers Association of America) continues to be bunch of corrupt cucks who do nothing but devalue the Baseball Hall of Fame. For the second time in a decade, they elected no one to the Hall of Fame, when there are two people who should go in. Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens should've been in the Hall of Fame on their first ballots, but the worthless assholes of the BBWAA want to hold the generation they played in with some bullshit of performance enhancement, but give me a break, cheating of that sort still goes on to this day. Hell there is a lawsuit going on right now about that involving someone who was apart of the Angels organization! But here's the real kicker, guess who's going to be on the ballot next year for the first time? Alex Rodrirguez, and if he gets in on the first ballot with the allegations against him being even worse than Bonds and Clemens, then the entire BBWAA should be scrapped and the only people nominating anyone to the Hall of Fame should be those players already in the Hall of Fame and select alumni. The vote for Baseball Hall of Fame should not be in the hands of the sports writers anymore.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session felt good and I felt my timing was pretty good from both orthodox and southpaw stances today, but how the hell do I get a Fitness Age score of 25? Yes I missed a combination 8 punches / movements, which lead to only doing 121 out of 124 great combos, but it's always raises my eyebrow as I try to see how the hell this game is calculating the Fitness Age score. As I've said when one is use to seeing it at 21, to see anything above that is concerning. We did reach new achievements, one being Welterweight Puncher Lv. E which is reach a total punch count of 63,000 HITS, and the other was Subsonic Hitter, which was to throw 70,000 perfect punches, which is actually execute 70,000 perfect movements (punches, ducks, weaves, steps)  because my current total punch count is 63,521.

 Anyway on that note we'll see ya later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden for ESPN Major League Baseball! I think we're taking on The San Francisco Giants with someone who is clearly not Barry Bonds on team.

Today's Notes 1/26/21

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night's stream of Saints Row The Third was very productive in terms of achievement hunting, as we knocked out 15 achievements due to my approach of doing all the side activities (i.e. Trail Blazing, Mayhem, Escort, Snatch, etc) as well as tracking down all the collectables and clearing out all the enemy gang operations to gain 100% control of Steelport. So what's left is mostly the story in terms of in-game completion. Again my familiarity with the game and having a very direct approach to doing stuff certainly helps in terms of getting things done. That said I am surprised that sthree of the achievements I unlocked last night are listed as diamonds which means less than 10% of people who have played Saints Row The Third Remastered on Xbox One have acquired them, and those three are Life of The Party (7.42%), Flash the Pan (8.59%) and You're The Best (9.05%). The first is tied to getting all the collectables, the second is for taking out all the gang operations and the later is for taking control of Carver Island.

So here's how to do all three of those.

Life of the Party: acquire the in-game radar to find all the collectables and use the Saints VTOL (or the Stag version) to go around Steeleport picking each one up, while most are on the ground, there are two hidden in caves, and several on rooftops. Using an aircraft like the Saints or Stag VTOL makes this very easy, and ties to the the next achivement.

Flash The Pan: As you are going around picking up all the collectables in Steelport using a VTOL, you'll more than likely be able to spot quite a few of the gang operations. Here's the thing, you have to be on the ground to take them out. There is one gang op that is on top of building in the center of Steelport within Morning Star Territory, and you will need to land on it to deal with what's there. To make this even easier, do all the other activities and get all the stores and properties first this way you'll can use the map to narrow down where you want to do your scouting, plus once you take out a gang op, you'll have three stars notoriety for the corresponding gang, so you'll want to have places to go wipe it clean in addition to your safe houses.

You're The Best: Carver Island is the bottom left portion of the map and is basically where all the Luchardores is focused at, doing all the activities, clearing out all gang ops and and acquiring all the stores and properties will get your 100% control.

So hopefully that helps those who have not completed those three achievements yet!

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was alright, again felt like my timing was a bit off out of the orthodox stance, but felt better than it did the last two days. Nothing special to report other than the left joy con re-setting itself cost me a few misses. It's amazing how long it goes without having any issues but then out of the blue, bam, it will re-set itself for no reason lol.

Star Trek Online's anniversary event starts today with two new missions, a new incentive for people to launch a Klingon Defense Force character and a new ship... and I just did the buyout on the event. I did notice not just ships but several bridge officer types are now listed as account wide so if you want an alternate Andorian on the your you can unlock that via the Zen Store and recruit them from where you get your Android Officer on Earth Space Dock. It's about time! Also all Tier 6 ships are account wide, but lobi ships still are not.... 

Finished the commissioned fan fic yesterday, and got promptly paid for it, goes to show if people agree to my terms for a commissioned piece things will go smoothly? Will I post the fic here? Nope because it falls under Rule 34 of the internet. I will say this my lack of familairty with current the current WWE product made it pretty difficult to come up with a set up, and so having to use a pseudo-reference to Miz and Mrs was my only option for it. But hey, it was done and now I move on to other things.

Anyway more than likely tonight we'll be continuing Saints Row The Third Remastered, at about 9:30 PM EST, there is a chance i could start earlier depending on when the assignment my job has finishes, we'll se how that goes!

Today's Notes 1/25/21

Good afternoon everyone,

Last night's stream of Overwatch was really good overall, as I picked up 5 plays of the games, 1 as D.va, 2 as Moira and 2 as McCree. Actually did a few different game modes, Quick Play, Capture the Flag and Mystery Heroes so things were a little looser than normal. The curse of running into 'new accounts' that are either too good to be actually new did rear its ugly head a few times, but not enough to be a problem most of the night. Big thanks to PandaSweet for joining in for a few matches. 

While I did wake up at 11:45 AM today, we did do a bonus stream of Fitness Boxing 2, and we did had a Rough day with a fitness age of 24, as I missed 11 movements overall, most were on side-side combos. Like yesterday, some of my struggles were out of the orthodox stance, but I don't think I'll have to deal with side-steps or even front-back steps tomorrow... hopefully. We did get new achievements, Today we unlocked Speedy Sound Tester which to use all songs on 'fast' speed, Welterweight Puncher Lv. 2 which is to reach a total punch count of 60,000 Hits and also Middle Fit Fighter which was to earn 50% of all achievements. Weight in at 256 lbs today so we dropped another pound this pass week!

We followed things up with some Animal Crossing New Horizons, and did partake in CJ's Fishing Challenge which was to catch 3 big time fish in a row, which also lead to me catching 2 fish I never saw before, and the bonus stream closed out with Super Mario Bro 35, where I had two top 5 finishes, but I mistimed jumps and ended up plunging to my death. I think I could've finished top 3 in at least one of them if my timing was better, ah well.

We'll be back later tonight with Saints Row The Third and the stream will start at about 9:30 PM EST because I do have work this evening. We have a few activities to do within the game before we fully advance the plot forward. Basically the story itself hasn't advanced much since the rescue of Kinzie and recruitment of Angel, so plot points like getting the chair for Kinzie hasn't happened yet!

So on that note we'll see ya later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden! 

Today's Notes 1/24/21

 

Good evening everybody,

Well last night's stream of Zero Escape 999 started at 7 PM and didn't end until about 6:15 AM, as yes it took 11 hours to get through the final play through to get the TRUE ENDING of the game, which was worth it, even if my brain was fried with the some of the new puzzles we didn't see until after 3 AM in the morning.... the last two puzzles of the game which were so freaking obvious (answers being Password and 9) that I didn't realize them until someone in the chat pointed it out. That said, we'll be continuing the Zero Escape saga with Virtue's Last Reward starting this upcoming Saturday, and we'll move up the start time, although it does have a flow chart mechanic that will allow me to jump to certain points which would've been real helpful with 999. (and if it was there in 999 to jump to different points I didn't realize it)

So by the time I actually hit the sack last night or this morning it was about 6:45 AM... and I woke up at like 2 PM after last night's epic stream, and so to say I felt my timing was a bit off with today's Fitness Boxing 2 session isn't that much of an exaggeration, as I felt a bit out of sync doing  Right Weaves, Left Uppercuts and Right ducks out of the orthodox stance. Surprisingly I was nearly perfect with everything from the south paw stance today considering everything. Of  Left-Right steps were their usual hindrance for me, but not to bad overall.Also did a bit of Animal Crossing New Horizons, nothing major on my Island to report today other than I really have to figure out something for the rooms in my house to get my weekly house rating up from a B to an A, but of course I just like playing ACNH my way.

You ever get bothered by someone who wants you to do something, and you end up agreeing to do it out of spite even though you've told them to take their business elsewhere? Yeah that happened to me, so I'll have to find some footage of what some characters are like now a days on WWE programming to get an idea of how to write them for a fan fic piece. Believe me when I say, I told the person no about a dozen times since 2019, the last time I was really writing heavily, so I could look at this as a way of seeing if I still got it. Here's hoping I don't, of course I will put some effort into it, I do got my pride after all.

Tonight's stream, starting at 7 PM EST will of course kick off the new week with Overwatch, no real challenges needing to be completed just playing Quick Play and / or Arcade matches. Here's hoping I don't see too many smurf accounts tonight.

And on that note we'll see you in a bit over on twitch.tv/fredcasden

Highlights for the week of 1/17/21

 Here are the best moments from the games featured on my twitch channel (http://twitch.tv/fredcasden) for the week of January 17, 2021... the games featured were Overwatch, Fitness Boxing 2 Rhythm & Music, Animal Crossing New Horizons, Super Mario Bros 35, Saints Row The Third, Tom Clancy's The Division 2, Final Fantasy XV Comrades, ESPN Major League Baseball, Star Trek Online and Zero Escape: 999! 

Today's Notes 1/23/21

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night's stream of Saints Row The Third: Remastered continued my direct yet in-direct approach to playing it, which is doing all the side activities while trying to avoid as much as the main story as possible, this has meant that certain cut scenes were missed because I'm doing the activities as I come across them, so the Boss's first direct meetings with Kinzie and Angel are lost, which meant some things were done without context. Now yes, this approach is sort of how I played Saints Row IV Re-Elected and Saints Row Gat Out Of Hell last year , however unlike with those games, Saints: Row The Third: Remastered (and even in its original version) doesn't have a clear indication of what is and what isn't a major story mission. That said, we got 60% of the campaign done, over the course of three nights thus far... which means the achievement to get 30 hours of play time in, is probably more of a pain in the ass than it should be because of how efficient I am with Saints Row The Third in general.

As I was considering games to feature this year, my attention turned to a few things on my shelf, one being my copy of Xenosaga  for the Playstation 2, and while I can probably find copies of Xenosaga II on the cheap, the third game in the Trilogy, Xenosaga III is virtually impossible. Now I saw that there were hopes for a remastered collection to be put out, but those were dashed because Bandai Namco would rather do licensed fighting games than actually take a chance and revitalized original properties. I'm not kidding the reason Katsuhiro Harada of Bandai Namco basically said the concept of an HD remastered of the trilogy died in a profit analysis meeting, which is funny considering Bandai Namco has a long history of actually UNDERESTIMATING GLOBAL INTEREST.

That said, looking into the cost of having my old Playstation 3 repaired and ordering a refurbished one seems to be about even in terms of price. As much as I would not want to do business with GameStop, the fact that I could expand what I do on Twitch even further by having the option of using my PS3 library in addition to my PS2 and PS1 collection, to go along with things that are PC, Xbox and Switch exclusive would go along way in helping my channel stand out in terms of having so much variety in a retro sense. Besides how many people can say they would have the option of playing NCIS (yes there was a game based on the long running CBS series).

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session felt solid, as it went over 30 minutes (not counting stretching) and I felt like I actually did really well on step-forward and step-back movements, which as you know are things that just frustrate the hell out of me. Unlocked a couple of achievements, one was Welterweight Puncher Lv. 1 which was to reach a total punch count of 57,000 HITS, with my current total being 58,021, and the other being Sound Tester which was to have used all the in-game music at normal speed... and to finally get that I had to do a bonus set to select Boogie Wonderland as it was never appearing during daily work outs.

Tonight we'll be returning one last time to Zero Escape: 999 as we'll be going after the True Ending... which means I get to do all my running gags for this game in series one more time. I have all my notes, and I have a good idea of what doors to go through, doors 4 7 and 1, which probably will result in me having some puzzles I've never seen before outside of DaemonsW0lf's streams when she got the True Ending.

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

 

 

Today's Notes 1/22/21

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night's stream started with The Division 2 and it was a ton of fun, as Iceman, PowerThumbz (twitch.tv/powerthumbz), FnDanteSavage (twitch.tv/fndantesavage) and I finished up the latest manhunt. Even though I was a bit late because of work, we tore through the objectives at a good pace, even though I caught more damage than normal, but I guess that can be the case when you're playing with buddies, and general silliness can take place. Once the manhunt was completed, I went on to do some Star Trek Online, just some general task force operations, and it's a good thing I did as the count down to the anniversary event began, and there are daily rewards for logging in and checking the promotions tab.

Speaking of Star Trek Online, it was announced today that with the release of STO's 11th Anniversary update, they are releasing a feature that will allow players of all factions to fly the ships of their choice regardless of the default allegiance of that ship... which is basically something I said should have been the case going back to the obvious fuck up involving the Titan class ship back in December. Access to this feature will be automatically granted to any and all accounts that have at least one character that reached level 65 as a member of the Klingon Defense Force from start to finish. That means when creating a character you must selected Klingon Defense Force, not Romulan Republic or Dominion, the character has to be a species related to the Modern Klingon Empire (so Klingon, Gorn, Orion, Nausicaan or any other citizens that you can select when creating a KDF character). For players like myself who already have that done, simply log in with your Level 65 KDF character to have that status verified to have access to Cross-Faction Starships. Obviously this will be for when the 11th Anniversary Update goes live.

And my copy of Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 FES for the Playstation 2 arrived yesterday, I am curious how many cheap games for that system I can found here in 2021 to build up that collection since I will be freeing up a lot of shelf space this year.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was another 30 minute one, but based on how things track with the game, I should see some things increasing the next few days as it seems to have a pattern. Remember normally Mondays are the days I hit Fitness Boxing 2 the strongest since I'm often streaming those sessions on twitch. Anyway we followed things up with ab it of Animal Crossing and even some Overwatch on the switch, hell I even earned a play of the game as Reinhardt which was pretty sweet. I also compared the latency between the Switch and PC versions, and both are about the same, granted the Switch runs off of WiFi as opposed to the hard wired connection for my PC.

Tonight we'll be playing Saints Row The Third: Remastered and continuing the adventures of the Boss as we claim Steelport piece by piece. So expect a lot of side mission things being done first, including what I think are the pain in the ass Guardian Angel helicopter missions. Granted we did a couple of those on Monday, but they were all Piece focused and I think there are some for Kinzie as well. Anyway we'll get the stream started at about 9:30 PM EST

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

Today's Notes 1/21/21

Good afternoon everyone,

Last night's stream of ESPN Major League Baseball was a lot of fun, as we wrapped up the hold over series with the Cardinals, and then took two of three from the Diamondbacks on the road.... man I'm glad that the next time we play this game next week we will not be seeing the team from Arizona, as I believe the Giants and Rockies are the next two series. Big highlight of as night was crushing three home runs in one game as Jim Thome. It's always nice to smack a big fly and to do three in one game as one player felt awesome. That said, I continue to do a ton of line up shuffling to try and find a balance, and I might settle on 1. Jimmy Rollins 2. Maroln Byrd 3. Chase Utley 4. Jim Thome 5. Pat Burrell 6. Bobby Abreu 7. David Bell 8. Mike Liberthal, but I'm always tinkering trying to find something that seems like a good fit, keep in mind by bench includes Tomas Perez, Ricky Henderson, Ricky Ledee, Todd Pratt and Placido Polanco.

Something that is irking me is the number of 'new accounts' I'm seeing on the PC version of Overwatch lately, as the problem with smurfing continues to plague Overwatch. Smurfing, which is a player of high skill creating a new account to avoid playing against people of a similar skill. In 2018 Jeff Kaplan said it isn't cheating, but when you see it basically having other online head to head games like Apex Legends, Rocket League and Rainbow Six Siege saying it is cheating and players caught doing it will be banned. This is why I'm eagerly waiting for Overwatch 2, because in a PVE environment it basically will cut out the frustration of dealing with people getting around the rule.

Anyway, today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was pretty light, as we didn't even have 1000 reps to do, so I had to do a bit of extra Free Exercise to add on to today's numbers after the daily routine. That said both versions of defensive combos were apart of today's daily session which I think is the first time I've ever seen that happen, normally its one or the other, but never both back to back. Also nearly had a flawless session, but one missed right duck and few okay timed punches prevented that. Dropped into Animal Crossing New Horizons today, nothing major on my island to other than I notice I can probably put together a boxing or wrestling ring if I get four blue corner pieces... well I have one, just need three more. Will need to actually cut down some trees to make some room for it.

Tonight's stream will start a little after 9 PM EST as I do have work this evening and so I'll be scrambling after it's done to get set up for The Division 2, as we'll be co-streaming with PowerThumbz (twitch.tv/powerthumbz) and FNDanteSavage (twitch.tv/fndantesavage) and playing with Iceman as we knock out the second half of this week's manhunt!

So with that said, we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

Today's Notes 1/20/21 (Updated)

Good afternoon everybody,

Started work on doing my taxes today, and only just now noticed the hit I'm taking this year because of my day gig, there is often times I will be furloughed, so that resulted in a need to cover my own but, using New Jersey's unemployment to cover some weeks. And since some of those weeks were during the early COVID-19 relief through UI, that means whatever I would normally get this year in terms of a Tax Refund has been eaten up by the fact that the state of New Jersey didn't take 10% out to cover its taxes, which is funny considering how I was having 10% for the normal UI. I imagine that a lot of folks are going to be coming to same realization. Still have to wait for my 1099 from Twitch/Amazon.

UPDATE: Got my 1099 from Twitch/Amazon, and finished my taxes. Thankfully I've commissioned enough things to be made for my Twitch channel to balance everything out. So while I may not be getting a damn thing back, I don't owe anything! And that goes for both state and federal!

 

 

Last night's stream was really awesome as it was a triple co-stream with PowerThumbz (twitch.tv/powerthumbz) and FnDanteSavage (twitch.tv/fndantesavage) along with Iceman as we went through the first half of the new manhunt event in The Division 2, which saw us being massacred because Thumbz wanted to take out an elite patrol before we took a control point. It was a hilarious long stretch of time that took way longer than normal, but we got through it. Since we only did 50% of the manhunt last night, we're covered the other half of it on Thursday which means Star Trek Online this week will be moved to Friday... not that I have much to do in STO unless I want to start doing mission catch up streams with all my other characters. Anyway, in addition to the Division 2 stuff with the guys, I also did some Final Fantasy XV Comrades and managed to tackle a few things that I felt I was a bit under powered for and made progress in the first time in a long while. 

Had a solid Fitness Boxing 2 session today, with this being the 40th day since the switch from the original game, resulting in the achievement of Stalwart Stamper Lv. 3 being unlocked, which is done primarily of doing the Daily Exercises to get the corresponding stamp on the calendar. We've also unlocked the achievement called Hurricane Hitter which is to throw 60,000 perfect punches, which is not phrased correctly, it's to have 60,000 perfect motions, because it's counting punches, ducks, blocks and steps, since my actual punch count is 55,114 as of the time I'm writing this. Also did a bit a Animal Crossing New Horizons and Skye was considering leaving the island, and I made sure to say 'no don't go!', trust me Skye, Audie, Agnes, Blanch and Antonio are the ones I'm never letting leave!

Tonight we got ESPN Major League Baseball on tap, and since I know already there is no work for me for tonight (which makes taxes stuff even more pleasant to think about), we'll start early and go through as many games as we can. I know I have one game against the Cardinals to carry over from last week, so if I can get through the next two series as well (which are road games against the Diamondback and Giants) we'll be about where I was expecting to be if I saved my game two weeks ago! 

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

Today's Notes 1/19/21

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night's stream of Saints Row The The Third Remastered saw a big focus on doing 'activities' that count towards the progression of taking over Steelport. Much like with how I played Saints Row IV Relected and Saints Row Gat out of Hell, I do put a big focus of capturing territory before advancing the main missions, plus it there are several achievements tied towards doing the activities in the game. Speaking of which we did unlock three achievements last night, Bo-Duke-En which was to perform 50 quick vehicle hijacks (running towards a vehicle in motion and pressing wide to dive into it like The Duke Boys in the Dukes of Hazard TV show); Tank You Very Much, which was to completed all instances of Tank Mayhem; and Tune In, Drop Off, which was to Completed all instances of Trafficking.

Arriving in the mail today was brand new copies of nearly 20 year old games for the Playstation 2, Street Fighter Alpha Anthology, which was a 2006 fighting game compilation that collects the Street Fighter Alpha series (Street Fighter Alpha, Street Fighter Alpha 2, and Street Fighter Alpha 3) plus the the console-exclusive Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold and Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix. While I have played home version of Alpha 1 and 2 before, and the arcade version of Alpha 3 (in the 30th Anniversary collection), I have never played Alpha 2 Gold or Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix. Plus I understand there are two other games hidden on the disc, so it should be interesting. Also my copy of Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 along with another memory card for the PS2... what you don't think I'm going to delete old save data now do you? 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session felt pretty good, a few questionable misses but not enough to cause my Fitness Age to be scored in the mid 20s. New achievement with Super Lightweight Puncher Lv. 3 which was to reach a total punch count of 54,000 Hits, with my exact total being 54,006. Also started to chance the 'free training' achievements for Lin which is just to do an exercise set in addition to the daily workout. Which means at some point I'll start using the other in-game trainers to chase there related achievements as well. 

Tonight over on Twitch, we'll be returning to the Division 2 with the next manhunt starting today! We'll be teaming up with Icemany7667, FNDanteSavage and PowerThumbz, which also means a double or triple co-stream with the later two. Dante's twitch channel is twitch.tv/fndantesavage and Thumbz can be found at twitch.tv/powerthumbz) and since I already got word that my job won't interfere tonight, we'll be getting started at about 9 PM EST.

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

Today's Notes 1/18/21

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night's stream of Overwatch was a lot of fun, as it was straight up just Mayhem matches the entire way, got my first McCree play of the game of the year with a quad kill using Dead Eyes in an early match. Big thanks to PandaSweet for being apart of the fun the entire night! 

As I was looking for some Playstation 1 and Playstation 2 games to add to a list of things to stream at some point, I saw Persona 3 and 4 for the PS2 were avaliable. Yup adding those to my collection. I would like to find the Persona games for the PS1 but those are super rare near as I can tell. Besides Persona 4 is probably the most well know game in the series that isn't Persona 5 since the characters from Persona 4 have had a spin off, it was re-released twice and was involved with BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle.

We did a bonus stream today of Fitness Boxing 2, Animal Crossing New Horizons and Super Mario Bros 35. Today's stream was a little weird as it seems like there was an bitrate drops that forced the stream to be reconnected twice, and thus for this morning there are three VODs instead of one. We did a 45+ minute workout (not including stretching) that saw my Fitness Age drop back down to 21 since nothing I did involved having to move my feet. Over in Animal Crossing New Horizons, it was Sherb's birthday, so we dropped off a spice rack for him... and we had a 5th place finished in Super Mario Bros 35.

For tonight's stream, we'll be getting back to Saints Row The Third, I think we'll do a big focus on taking care of activities from around the map before doing any main story missions, since some things will end up being easier if we have places where back up Saints can easily lend a hand from.

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