Today's Notes 4/30/21

 Good morning everybody,

Well last night's stream ended up indeed being split, first of course was Star Trek Online, where we knocked out a series of endeavors with Sorra, which lead to a couple of humorous moments, such as me quoting General Chang from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and then riffing on Another One Bites The Dust, plus we started breaking in a new ship under Zagreus. We spent some time in the Badlands as well as the Dyson Sphere and just did random stuff.

(Note to self: I really need to remember to hyperlink clips for every post lol)

Twitch Clip: Another One Rescued.... to the beat of Another One Bites The Dust

The second half of the stream was focused on playing ARMS for the Nintendo Switch, and needless to say its fun as hell. The tutorial does a really good job of breaking things down for new players to understand, it's kind of like the arcade version of Punch-Out in many ways. Of course the only character I was remotely familiar with was Min-Min, who as you may know, is kind of my main when ever I choose to load up Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. We went through the 'arcade' mode, to see what the base game is like, including some of the mini-games... then things went nuts when I went into online mode and played against other players, I actually ended up winning a couple of matches. The online play was really super smooth, no noticeably lag, and the variety of different game types really impressed me. I love the two-vs-two system, where it's just chaos trying to keep track of which opponent I want to focus on while staying in range my my partner. 

Twitch Clip: Hey I Won!

Super windy outside today, opened the door and the force of win was just pushing it to stay closed as if saying 'no you stay in side' 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was really easy going, only 25 minutes as we pushed past my personal high scores for a month. It's really rare when I see the daily set give two 3 minute sets, one to open and one to close, so I do feel a little eager for more, but considering how I pushed myself this month with how my weight kept fluctuating around the 250-251 mark, taking it easy seemed like the right thing to do.

For Tonight's stream we'll be jumping back to the PlayStation One era with ECW Hardcore Revolution, the first of two ECW games published by Acclaim after they lost the WWF license to THQ. Hardcore Revolution was practically a reskin of WWF Attitude, and thus a nuclear launch code is needed to do just about every type of move in the game. So tonight is gonna be interesting to say the least.

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

Today's Notes 4/29/21

 Good morning everybody,

You know how people were complaining about it being a chilly March and April? Well considering the heat spike for today, I rather it be chilly than hot and humid! 

Anyway, last night's stream of The Division was pretty solid, as we found a lot of collectables covered and advanced the plot, as indicated with the achievement unlocks of 'The Engineer' which is to rescue Paul Rhodes and 'Can't Stand The Heat' which is to clear out the villain group know as The Cleaner's main base. Also went into the Dark Zone to earn the 'Worth The Wait' achievement. Big thanks to Iceman for his help in getting all of this done!

The United States Postal Service is being really fucking weird as far as the Philadelphia Processing and Distribution Center is concerned because any time my mail ends up there it always ends up in some weird as fuck holding pattern. My research has shown this has been going on there since the fall of 2019 (based on reddit postings and other online complaints a simple google search shows), it's now the end of April and they clearly have not sorted things out there.They want to blame COVID-19, but this goes back over a year for the same facility!

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was little bit wonky, still solid, but because I was looking into what the hell is going on with the USPS. Still today's session was good enough that this has been my best overall much since August of last year, and it will become my best month period working out tomorrow because I'll past my all-time estimated calories burned by just doing a 20 minuet workout (I of course will do a 30 minute workout tomorrow lol)

Tonight's stream will of course start with Star Trek Online for the first couple of hours, then we'll switch to something else on the back end. Not totally sure what will be on tap for the second half of the stream, but I'll think of something!

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

Today's Notes 4/28/21

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream was shorter than expected, because while we did finish Uncharted:Drake's Fortune, making it the 15th game we've beaten this year, I'm surprised that the final eight chapters took me less time to get through that chapters 1-7 last week and 8-15 on Monday night. And this is factoring in the many... many times I died. Maybe it's because the last third of the game is more action heavy and has fewer puzzle platforms to navigate, and it's not like there were that many to begin with. Still everything fell into place story wise, and the ending was satisfying if a bit odd considering the final battle was against the main villain's side kick. Speaking of that final battle, that really came down to pattern recognition of knowing when to move out of cover to attack and advance.

Anyway, the final leg of Uncharted Drake's Fortune wasn't all that long, and so we messed around with some other PS3 related things, mostly 3 on 3 NHL Arcade, basically your standard arcade style hockey game that at one point had on-line play. we managed to get a trophy unlocked because I changed some settings around to make thing easier because the games are quick. 3 on 3 NHL Arcade does not feature actual NHL Teams, just a collection of all-star players. Fun times to be had, but doesn't offer much replay value.

Also messed around a bit with the PS3 version of Sonic The Hedgehog CD, and oddly enough a trophy popped for it that I already had. I am thinking on a night where I don't have anything serious planned we might dedicate to beating it. Could be fun filler.

Yesterday at around 3 PM EST, totally lost power, and I'm grateful that I bought the battery back up power supply to make sure I was able to power down my computer safely. I do need to probably reposition one of my monitors to make sure one stays powered on via the battery back to make shutting my computer down easier in such a situation. That said, I'm glad PSE&G finally has an outage map that is mobile phone friendly to see an estimated power restore time... granted the time the power came on I lost two hours of work... but still, glad to see they have it.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was another solid 30 minute workout, and we did a bit extra that will basically ensure that April 2021 ends up my best workout month since August of last year, and we have a shot of passing the work I put in during that month! All comes down to the next two days!

Tonight we'll be back playing The Division, roaming New York and picking up on side quests and collectables in parts of the map I've already been too. We may be joined by Iceman, but I'm not sure.

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

Today's Notes 4/27/21

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream of Uncharted: Drake's Fortune introduced an element that I was not so keen to deal with: The jet ski. Now I get it in terms of a big action adventure game you need vehicle sections or something that breaks up the monotony of all the cover-base shooting that takes place, but the controls for the jet ski were just awful, where (as I discovered) need to hold down X and R2 just to speed up. Why? Why was that a thing? And this is not even getting into the fact the placement of enemies meant that both sections turned into 'remember where the bad guys are' and to pick them off at a distance. As I said last week, I enjoy the puzzles, the story and the characters.... but the action game-play is just a chore to get through.

That said we did make it to the start of chapter 16 last night, and so there is a possibility we may may finished Uncharted: Drake's Fortune tonight. 

Following the stream I did load up MLB The Show 21 to chase after the Winning In Style achievement, which involves "Win a game on any walk-off" (i.e. winning during the bottom of the last inning). Thankfully this can be a quick achievement to turn, just set up an exhibition game with three innings, play at the home team, keep the away team from scoring and then score in the bottom of the third (or extra innings). 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was solid, did a good half-hour for the daily, and since I had a little extra time did an extra set to make progress on Bernardo's free training achievement. I do have to say, the voice acting for Bernardo is rather good and pretty even with no really awkward phrasing or tone through out. That said, his character model's upper body seems too large for his lower body. 

On the collector's front , may have come across a trio of Star Trek games two for the PS2 and one for the PS3. Star Trek Shattered Universe, Star Trek Encounters and Star Trek (2013). Shattered Universe from what I understand is more a fighter-pilot type game involving Captain Sulu and the Mirror Universe, Encounters is kind of like the bastard cousin of Star Trek Legacy, where you get to use ships from different eras but there isn't an connected story to drive home the plot, and Star Trek (2013) is the game set between the first two films JJ-Trek Universe, and a game which I played using the steam version a couple of years ago. If I'm right, hopefully we'll add these games to my collection in the near future.

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

Today's Notes 4/26/21

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night's Overwatch stream was a lot of fun as we messed around mostly with the Archive missions, getting the new Mercy skin for the event. Big thanks to PandaSweet for joining on the chaos, as we made sure to get her the skin as well! I've really come to enjoy using Dva in the trio of Archive missions, as I've gotten the timing down on when to use her abilities down to an exact science.

Following the stream I did messed around a bit with MLB The Show 21, going after the Friendly Gesture achievement, which is to use Pinpoint pitching and, strike out 3 batters within an inning. The Pinpoint Pitching is not only just aiming with the right analog stick, but using the left analog stick to do a motion / design representing the pitch which is just weird. Also tried out the March to October and while pitching won't be a problem, hitting will be so that will be slow progress.

In a case of when it rains it pours, having issues with both the washer and dryer at about the same time. Fucking weird how things like that can happen.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was streamed as it is every Monday as we did an extended session. There were a few humorous moments, such as me doing a jump when it was time to switch boxing stances, as well as not so humorous when I totally blanked on throwing a punch. Since we did extra in addition to the daily exercises, I've managed to equal the time duration of this past Saturday. Also April is my best month of burning calories since September of last year

Tonight's stream will be the continuation of Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, as we'll be picking up with the start of Chapter 8. With my understanding that there are 22 chapters in the game, that means we're about a third of the way through it, but my concern is going to be in regards to how many waves of enemies am I going to have to slog my way through.

Well we'll find that out later tonight over on twitch.tv/fredcasden! 

Today's Notes 4/25/21

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night's stream of ESPN Major League Baseball saw the wrap up of the 2004 season, as my Philadelphia Phillies finished with a record of 111 wins and 51 losses and that was with me simulating most of the second half of the season. A big goal was to make sure Jim Thome won the triple crown, and he did with a batting average over .400, 48 home runs and over 180 RBI. Now I thought about just simulating the playoffs, but Iceman was shocked I would do that, so on Saturday of this upcoming week, we'll continue with the first half of the post season.

Continuing to look for stuff of interest when it comes to older games and things of a collective note, and I think I have a bead on things like Die Hard Trilogy, WWF WarZone and Tomorrow Never Dies for the PSOne. Obviously the first of those three will go into my idea of having a 'Bruce Willis' night when it comes to games associated with him. The other two are more for completing collections, as I have WWF WarZone is the one game I'm missing related to WWE wrestling games from the PS1-PS3 era, and it's the last one I'm missing from the Acclaim published wrestling games from that same era. Tomorrow Never Dies falls into completing the James Bond collection of games, but I know I'm still missing a few. 

Finished a Rule34 fan fiction commission last night, and got $50 for it, granted my interest in the pairing of Kelly Kelly and Randy Orton was not exactly all that high, since Kristi and I did everything logically possibly with those characters during our long writing collaborations.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout was about 43 minutes, but since it's a Sunday we did about 20 minutes extra. In comparison to yesteday, this workout was a few minuets shorter but we still burned an estimated 1083 calories. We finised up Sophie's Best Friend Achievement today during the daily workout, so for the extra portion I did, we switched to Bernardo, and quickly unlokced his related achievements of New Student, Best Student, Stylist, Fashion Designer and Fashion Saboteur. At this point 80% of the in-game achievements are now unlocked. Also stepped on the scale today and I'm down to 249 pounds! 

Tonight we'll be playing Overwatch, as we do every Sunday, and we'll be taking full advantage of the Archives event which ends this week, so we'll be going after the Mercy skin right off the bat. We'll get this stream started at around 7 PM EST tonight.

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

Highlights for the week of April 18, 2021

 

 Here are highlights for the week of April 18, 2021 of things that went down over on http://twitch.tv/fredcasden! This week we played Overwatch, Fitness Boxing 2 Rhythm & Exercise, NHL Face Off, Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, Tom Clancy's The Division, Hades, Star Trek Online, Dragon Ball Z: Ultimate Battle 22, Knockout Kings, Rival Schools: United By Fate and ESPN Major League Baseball! 

Today's Notes 4/24/21

Good evening everybody,

Yup I totally slept in today, granted I didn't hit the sack till about 4:30 AM, and didn't get up till 3 PM, but hey I'm here aren't I? 

Anyway last night's stream was focused on games from the PlayStation One era and obviously these were games I have not played in probably 15-17 years.

First up was Rival Schools: United By Fate, as we went through the arcade mode on Disc 1 with Sakura and Hinata, and we did not get the good ending because I didn't realize you need to get through Raizo and his partner by using a team up super. We then messed around with the stuff on Disc 2 (or the Evolution Disc) which included a variety of different game modes and I still had my original save file so trying to to beat my old high scores was an interesting challenge.

Next up with Knockout Kings, EA Sports first venture into boxing video games, and we messed around with fights in all three weight classes (Heavyweight, Middleweight and Lightweight) as well as the slugfest mode. I ended up winning the first two fights using Muhammad Ali and Oscar De La Hoya in their respective weight classes, but lost as Floyd Mayweather and Butterbean (in the slugfest mode). I did find myself trying to use the combos I often see as apart of Fitness Boxing 2 with all the button presses, but I can safely say Knockout Kings was very unresponsive at times.

Lastly, and the real highlight from last night, we messed around with Dragon Ball Z Ultimate Battle 22, a game which I have never beaten, even on its easiest setting. But the stars were aligned, as I made up my mind I was going to 'get good', picked Android 18 and we went through the 1P vs COM mode, beating every other character in the game. It may have taken me an hour to do so, because I took my share of loses, but we got through it and best part is I got footage to prove it. Since there are no unlockable victory endings, I'm counting Dragon Ball Z Ultimate Battle 22 as a finished game for this years tour.

Following the stream I messed around with MLB The Show 21 and got the call up from Triple H to join the Phillies main roster, earning the Welcome To The Show Achievement. Since I was playing nightly after the streams, and playing every game I was starting, it took me about a week from the when the game went live last Friday for pre-order purchasers. A lot of folks have done it faster by simulating seasons, which is a cop out I think.

Todays Fitness Boxing 2 Daily workout was only 38 minutes.... so I did an extra 30 minutes in Free Training and boy do my legs feel it! It paid off as we're up to 99 points for the Sophie's Best Friend achievement, which we'll get tomorrow, so we'll have a new trainer starting with Monday's session. I also set new personal bests today with punches thrown (2802), estimated calorie burn (1147.05) and exercise duration (1 hour 9 minutes 14 seconds)

Added Legends of Wrestling II for the PlayStation 2 to my collection today, I did have this game years ago, but traded it in and tracking down a copy at a fair price took awhile. Also found a copy of the manual for ECW Anarchy Rulz, too bad I couldn't find the original jewel case with the back cover. Ah well.

For tonight's stream we'll be wrapping up the 2004 season in ESPN Major League Baseball, playing the Saturday Night games of each week. We'll get started with this at about 7 PM EST because I want to get a shower and have dinner first!

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

Today's Notes 4/23/21

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream did indeed turn into a double header, with both Star Trek Online and Hades being featured.

What we did with Star Trek Online was get rid of the two 'recruit event' characters, and so I'm keeping Zagreus, my 10+ year veteran character, and Sorra, the Klingon Defense Force aligned character we rolled out last year. The way I figure is we'll gradually max out everything with Sorra (DOFF assignments, R&D, Reputation) and when that eventually happens I'll consider rolling out a new character. In terms of game play, we primarily did things related to the endeavors, and exposed once again how just queuing up for something for that (in this case Binary Circuit) takes way to long to do.

Following STO, we loaded up the Nintendo Switch to play Hades, and it took three attempts but we finally got through the game a second time. Granted it's been like two months since we first made it through. Like my first successful attempt we used the the Adamant Rail and was lucking to get the triple shot with no reload power, which made everything else easier. to slog through, Also Demeter's boon for casting, which tunes the runes into temporary beam turrets was a big help when I nearly failed on the third attempt.

New to my collection is Monster Hunter Rise, also for the Nintendo Switch, granted I've yet to play Monster Hunter World, but with both of these in my library, it gives extra options for syncing up with other streamers I know who play both games on a regular basis.

There's an official video of Bill Murrary and Ivan Reitman reacting to the Mini-Pufts that will be in Ghostbusters Afterlife, and you can certainly tell the difference between Murrary's joy for this and his disdain for the Paul Feig Train Wreck that was the 2016 reboot.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was about 30 minutes, and involved probably the hardest exercise for me... block combos, just never feel comfortable doing them. Anyway we're up to 94 points needed for Sophie's Best Friend Achievement, so two more extended daily workouts will finished that off, and that's not factoring in the extra I put in on the weekends. 

Not completely sure what will be on tap for tonight's stream, as we can go several different ways. Obviously I do not want to start up a large game, which does negate a lot in my collection since at the moment we have Uncharted: Drake's Gold, The Division and ESPN Major League Baseball as the campaign games. Maybe we'll bounce around with some old school PS1 / PS2 fighting games.

Anyway we'll figure something out and we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

Today's Notes 4/22/21

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream of The Division was solid, as most of it was spent with me wandering around the first few areas, finding collectables and doing side missions and stuff, while trying to avoid getting killed. We were joined by Iceman in the later half of the stream, with him using a secondary character so I wouldn't be downed too many times due to the game's infamous armor scaling bug. Probably next Wednesday's stream will be more of the same when it comes to progression with this game.

Found a copy of ECW Anarchy Rulz for the PlayStation One, and while it didn't come with the original instruction booklet, I probably remember how to play it because I did have it at one point, but traded it in when that was a thing to do. I already had ECW Hardcore Revolution in my collection, so adding Anarchy Rulz was just to complete the set. Maybe I can steal an idea from legendary YouTuber MaxamillionDood and do a character legacy, maybe using Tommy Dreamer in all the games I have that he appears in, which are just six games (the 2 ECW games, WWE Smackdown vs RAW 2008-10 and RetroMania).

I went looking to see if I could find a decent looking DVD / CD tower, and fuck me, the only things I find are the wired styled slot in ones, awkward wall mounted versions and things that require more assembly that a Lego set. This is why I miss places like Tower Records, could just go and pick something like that up no problem.

Did some more MLB The Show 21's Road to the Show off stream last night, finishing up my first season stuck in Triple A and without simulating anything, and getting the 'invite' to be at Spring Training for the Phillies. If my player can make the club out of Spring Training, I'll have the final achievement unlocked for the Road to the Show campaign.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was pretty good, the Sophie's Best Friend achievement is up to 91 points, so if that keeps pace with 3 points a day, it should wrap up by Sunday. Granted last time I said that I ended up having to use Hiro on a Monday. Also, going by the length of the workouts, I should just about match the output I did last week overall. Of course it all depends on what tomorrow's session has involved, as the week of Fitness Boxing 2 run Saturdays to Fridays.

Tonight's stream will be split between Star Trek Online and Hades, the reason being, as you know, is that STO just doesn't have the content for me to justify a full stream, as the Task Force Operations are just not fun to do, and Space Combat just get down right boring if done so much. Hades will be brought in for the second half of the stream.

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

Today's Notes 4/21/21

 Good morning everybody,

Last night we started playing Uncharted: Drake's Fortune on the PlayStation 3, making it through the first 7 chapters... with a lot of deaths along the way. My initial impressions of the game is this, I like the story, I like the puzzles, I like the characters... but I do not like the combat, mostly because the control layout on what button does what is so counter-intuitive based on many other games I've played. Getting into and out of cover is often a pain in the ass, as is aiming with several weapons to try and conserve ammo where possible. Some of this is due to how the PlayStation 3 Dual Shock controller is designed. 

So I read into it... apparently the issues with PlayStation controllers and shooter games in the PS2 and PS3 era was because they wanted to keep things uniform with the original PlayStation controllers where when holding that controller, the index fingers rested between the L1 L2 and R1 And R2 buttons. So when the Dual Shock controllers were first designed, they made it comfortable to hold because of L2 and R2 placements in order to keep things in-line with the original controller design. Goes to show Sony was anti-gamer way back in the day.

After the stream I did progressed some more with MLB the Show 21's road to the show, since I've been playing every game my player starts, the way I figure I won't get a call up until the next 'season'. That said, the MLB Network commentary videos on how my player is doing does appear to have a limited number of videos, as I seen one involving Cliff Floyd at least twice about him being a former Minor League player of the year.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session lasted about 35 minutes, solid work out, and we're up to 88 points on Sophie's Best Friend Achievement. Nearly had a completely flawless session but one missed uppercut and a few badly timed punches doomed that in.

Tonight we'll be back to Tom Clancy's The Division on the Xbox One, we'll see if the map layout hold true that there will be areas of lower level enemies I can deal with on my own. Don't know if we'll be joined by Iceman or PowerThumbz, but we'll have fun regardless.

Since work has been steady, I've formally adjusted my Twitch schedule to have s start time of 6:30 PM EST Mondays to Fridays, of course I tend to start before that, but as I said, work has been steady. Granted, I now expect to be told there won't be day shift and I'll have to switch back to 9:30 PM starts.

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

 

Today's Notes 4/20/21

 Good morning everyone,

I am still surprised that I did not write yesterday's entry until after last night's stream, which just boggles my mind, because normally I would write it right after my daily Fitness Boxing 2 sessions and before I have lunch. It's just weird.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was about 30 minutes, pretty direct and to the point in terms of objectives. We're at 85 points of the 100 needed to complete Sophie's Best Friend achievement, and if things hold to form, I should have that done by Saturday or Sunday's session.

Anyway, as I mentioned in last night's post, Sony has announced they are reversing their decision on closing the online stores for the PS3 and Vita, and let's be honest here, Sony was entering a world of shit with how suddenly they announced they were closing those store fronts down last month, because it proved one thing was true, that Sony, in particular an idiot named Jim Ryan, who is the President & CEO, Sony Interactive Entertainment, is anti-consumer and would rather forget and erase history. One of the stupidest things they have said was 'Why would anyone want to play old games?'. 

Here's a reason: not everyone had the opportunity to play some classic and legendary games when they were new! And if people didn't want to play old games, why would publishers go out of their way to make remastereds of the original games. Hell Sony just announced they are going to do a remaster / remake of the Last of Us and that game isn't even ten years old! So the stupidity of their mindset just amazes me. Hell what is one of the big selling points for a PlayStation 5, to play Spider-Man and Final Fantasy VII Remake, 2 games that were released on the PS4, with 'new content'. Aka those are OLDER games that Sony is using to promote their newest console!

This is part of why I acquired  PS3 recently, just to piss Sony off, because tonight I'm going to playing a game I've never played before, which is I'll be playing the PS3 version of Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. Sure the PS4 version looks better, but just to stick it to Sony, going with the older version just makes so much more sense to me.

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

Todays Notes 4/19/21

 Good evening everybody,

You know for whatever reason I totally spaced on writing today's blog post.

Anyway, Sunday Night's stream was awesome as I tackled the challenge variations of the Overwatch Archive missions, getting the three I needed to get done... and the one that I never want to do ever again is Bulletproof Barriers, because getting a team that would make smart selections was getting frustrating. Granted I was using Dva but I discovered that Dva can eat a lot of damage. Also we helped PandaSweet get the 2nd week skin for Zenyatta, so all in all it was a good night last night.

This morning we did do a Fitness Boxing 2 stream, it went about an hour (when factoring in the small breaks between sets), and involved a lot of stepping, the portion of the workout that counted for the daily lasted 47 minutes, but with the extra bit we did, it ended up keeping on pace with the big three days of the week.

Tonight's stream we played and finished Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force, and I was reminded of two bugs, one being when the Harvesters invaded Voyager, sometimes the lift to escape the cargo hold does not activate, and also when using God Mode in the Forge, when Biesman dies, it will deactivate. Still it was a good to have that game finished. As people saw with how the enemies swarm you, there is no way to keep up with the action on normal difficulty.

Because we finished that at about 9 PM, we did some bonus gaming, and I thought about doing some Star Trek Online, but instead we played NHL Face-Off for the PlayStation. And It was my first time playing it, it took me a few minutes to get use to using the D-Pad and to figure out what controls did what. We played three games, winning only one of them.

Did some MLB The Show 21 off-stream to advance the Road to the Show stuff, where I basically had to force my player to become a starting pitcher. A few other tweaks has resulted in him becoming a AA All-Star, throwing a perfect game and pitching like Fernando Valenzuela.

Sony announced they are going to keep the PS3 / Vita stores online because a) they like money and b) they know they will have a major lawsuit on their hands regarding denying people access to what they purchased/ The stupidity Sony has when it comes to refusing to accept that there are some people who enjoy playing older games in addition to newer ones just confounds me.!

Tomorrow night, more than likely we'll be starting up Uncharted on the PlayStation 3, giving the Xbox One a rest since it saw heavy duty with Dragon Age Inquisition. 

Which means tomorrow morning's blog post will be rather short, unless something inspires me.

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

Today's Notes 4/18/21

Good afternoon everyone,

Last night's stream of ESPN Major League Baseball saw the switch to simulating 6 out of every 7 games, and even with this my lead in the NL East stayed at over 20 games. More than likely we'll finish the 2004 season next Saturday. That said, after discovering the 'power swing' button last week, we certainly made good use of it, because in the games I did play last night we were mashing homers left and right, boosting Jim Thome's total to 37 and not to far off of the league leader Sammy Sosa's 41 with about 5 weeks left in the season.

Randomly, because there was a player named Bubba Trammel, and when I saw him, I instantly started thinking of the old Bell Atlantic commercials featuring James Earl Jones, namely the 'This is the book that got Bubba cooked' and ended with the line of 'And this is Bubba', and showing a big ass fish. Goes to show I'm old.

After last night's stream, I ended up going through some of the lower shelves and discovering even more stuff my pops left behind, including a bunch of old Sporting News Baseball books from the mid and late 80s, because he used to play the APBA Baseball games.This also lead to me discovering that one of the shelves on the bookcase you can when I do Fitness Boxing streams not actually being part of it, and that it was added with some half-ass tabs. Thankfully I had two old heavy duty plastic crates that I fit perfectly in the lower gap, and so I laid the board-shelf on top of it. The result ended up being the shelf is lower than before and now I can stand up some of the taller books I have in my collection.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was solid, 47 minutes with the daily workout plus an additional 15 minutes just to maintain my heavy weekend workouts. Tomorrow's session will of course be streamed over on Twitch as soon as I wake up and have breakfast.

With it being Sunday that means tonight we'll be playing Overwatch, and we'll be taking it easy as we'll be playing more archive arcade modes, rotating through Uprising, Retribution and Storm Warning. Maybe we'll take crack at the variations of those modes, and if there is Mayhem active this week, we'll toss in those to.

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

Highlights for the Week of 4/11/21

 Here are highlights from my twitch channel (http://twitch.tv/fredcasden) for the week of April 11, 2021 which featured  Overwatch, Dragon Age Inquisition, Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise, Tom Clancy's The Division, Star Trek Voyager Elite Force, MLB The Show 21 and ESPN Major League Baseball.

 

Today's Notes 4/17/21

 Good morning everybody, 

Well we were up early once again, as PSE&G came out to remove the old gas pipe, having to leave the elbow that connected it to the outside because the only way that can be removed is if they basically dig up the street and part of my yard. But they sealed it so no water leakage should occur.

Last night's stream featured MLB The Show 21, where we played a few games, did a couple of Home Run derbies, unlocked several achievements, started Road to the Show where I made the shortest, fattest dude possible... looks like a mini Bartolo Colon. The two-way player nonsense is something I'm not keen on, even if I have a better understand of the hitting mechanics in the game. Still we had fun with it.

We added three things to my collections, Dead of Alive 5: Ultimate and Vanquish for the PlayStation 3, and Chrono Cross for the PlayStation One. Those who have seen my collection know I had Chrono Cross already, but the version I picked up is the Greatest Hits version that had the Square Enix logo print on it, instead of the SquareSoft logo which was on the original release. As I mention, if you know where to look on Amazon you can find some cheap older games that will eventually become harder to find. 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was 1 hour 5 minutes, but only 41 minutes were for the daily work out, the reason for the extra time is of course on Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays I try to do longer sessions, and today ended up being my longest duration for exercising to date. Granted these extra sessions often are around the 1 hour 5 minute mark, so it comes down to just a matter of seconds. In regards to the Sophie's Best Friend achievement, we're up to 74 points, needing 26 more to complete it. Also stepped on the scale and I gained a little to be up around 251-252.

(Note: Twitter was down, so I could not retrieve the screen shot of today's results at the time  this was posted)

Tonight's stream will be focused on ESPN Major League Baseball for the PlayStation 2, as I'll probably simulate several games, and if our lead in the NL East begins to shrink we'll then take it more seriously, this way we can get to the end of the season quicker.

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