Today's Notes 5/28/21: Star Trek Online & More!

Good morning everybody,

Well I woke up unusually early today (a bit before 7 AM), and I already know there is no work today because usually Memorial Day ended up being a 4 day weekend before the Covid-19 Pandemic. 

Last night's stream of Star Trek Online was the first time in a while where we were able to dedicate the entire stream to STO because of the House United Content which featured two new missions. The first "Warriors of the Empire" basically introduces three patrols under the umbrella of a story mission, but this does has a ground portion that see the players going into the mycelial realm to help bring the Elachi into the final battle, since they were a big part of several missions over the last couple of years as it pertains to this story arc. The second mission, "A Day Long Remembered" is a major end point as the player takes part in the Klingon Civil War by being on the front lines, as J'mpok is basically STO's parallel to Donald Trump. This is probably one of the most ground combat heavy missions in STO's history making it a lot of fun. Of course, there was a new Task Force Operation, which is a crazy wild mess called "Remain Klingon" and unlike every other TFO, it actually connects with the story in that it shows what is happening in space. 

Now we did all of this using Zagreus, my Federation character, and so next Thursday, we'll go through it all again with Sorra, my Klingon Defense Force character. This is mainly to keep things even between both characters and to see what subtle dialog changes there are, because there are often are a few. For example, Sorra has gone to Grethor and met Gowan, so she would have a personal stake in making sure he was able to go to Stovokor. 

Of course we do have clips from last night which I'll list next

Twitch Clips: I have a surprise for them... haha!

Twitch Clips: We bring the thunder! We bring the noise! I'm A Spore Smasher!

Twitch Clips: We fight in the streets!

Twitch Clips: Mostly for that look J'ula gives Zagreus

Following the stream I messed around with a few things, played a little of Triple Play 97, and was amazed by the very obvious. With the rosters being set for opening day 1996, that means Curt Schilling is not on the Phillies roster at all. That said, I was pleasantly reminded that Triple Play 97 did have solid play-by-play announcing. Took me a while to figure out pitching, and it's probably going to take me while to remember the timing for hitting.

Also turned my attention to Power Rangers Battle for The Grid and ran a few online matches to try out Ryu and Chun-Li, and I can safely say this: they play nearly as they do in Marvel vs Capcom 3. There are a few differences, but anyone who has played say at least Street Fighter Alpha 2 will be able to jump into Battle for the Grid with Ryu and Chun-Li on their team and be able to hold their own.

Also loaded up Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons last night to get the final achievement in the game 

1. Whale Song: You practiced singing.

With that done, I'm basically out of achievements I could easily go for based on games I have currently installed on both the Xbox One and Xbox Series consoles. It's not like I don't have games I could play to get achievements, it's more of wanting to save those games to play them for the first time on stream. Granted I could go after the Xbox 360 version of the Mass Effect games achievements lol.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Session was 43 minutes in length, and involved a lot of step movements with the sets being the Left-Right Step Combo, Double Combo #2, Front-Back Step Combo (at the No Mercy setting) and closing out with Uppercut Combo #2. Also did  today's set using a Mesh Waist Trimmer which pretty much forced me to keep my abs tight, and needless to say, so it was certainly a different experience. Now I did miss a couple of punches and they were Left Uppercuts from the Orthodox stance, don't know what it is, but that is consistently a punching movement that I rarely get 100% on.  We're also up to 74 out of the 100 points needed for Martina's Best friend achievement. Also since work has been inconsistent lately, all of my workouts this week have been 40+ minutes, making this probably the most even week I've had, and we already past April's calorie burn today, as we're up to 21726 for the month of May. 

Now the reason I was using a Mesh Waist Trimmer is that since I started using the original Fitness Boxing last July and switching to Fitness Boxing 2 in December, I have lost 40 pounds, but as of late getting the pounds to drop have been a lot harder, so my mom figured it could help as most of my weight is in my mid-section. Every little bit helps as they say.

For tonight's stream, we'll be jumping back into Mortal Kombat 11 with the Aftermath story, which should probably take only take a couple of hours, but depending on that, we might go after the achievement for playing Casual Matches. 

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