Today's Notes 11/4/2020

Good Morning Everyone,

Well it's a nice brisk October morning, I got up a bit before 9 AM, got my Fitness Boxing routine in, it was a Strength and Cardio session, which I think will be my focus fully going forward because when I stepped on the scale I saw that my weight has gone UP TO 121 KG (267 lbs). I will admit I've been bad with the snacking lately... I really got to get a handle on that the way I did heading into this month.

Last night the plan was to play Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but I was keeping a close on the Presidential Election prior to the stream and let's just say, my heart wasn't in to playing something where I would see little progress made on. So we switched things out for Final Fantasy XV Comrades, and surprisingly we did see a lot of progress made with that, as I stumbled onto the fact that some of weapons can be upgraded and crafted into better gear which has made a lot of things so much easier. On the flip side, I did also learn that some of the best gear is behind a different currency path which meaning FFXV:C is more of a grind than it already is.

Tonight over on twitch.tv/fredcasden, we'll be playing Full Throttle: Remastered, the original Full Throttle was released back in 1995 and was published by Lucas Arts.  The Remastered version was done by Double Fine Production who also handled the remastered versions of Day of the Tentacle and Grim Fandango. We need a good adventure this evening that's for damn sure.

One. last thing.... and this goes out to anyone who voted for Donald Trump, fuck you... fuck you and your ignorant, self-serving attitude... you are without a shadow of a doubt, a fucking piece of shit just like he is, and the world will be better off without the likes of you. And I'm saying that from both a professional and personal level, because for the last four years I've had to deal with more verbal abuse from Trump voters and Trump Apologists who have sold their souls just to have a TV star in the White House because he has their lack of integrity and honor. To all of you who voted for Donald Trump, I'll see you in hell. 

Quick Thoughts: Ghostbusters II

For the Halloween watch along in my discord this past week, the film selection was Ghostbusters II, the 1989 sequel to Ghostbusters... and while it is in many ways a re-telling of the first film, it does has a number of things that stand out about it that make it a positive viewing experience after 30 years. 

First and foremost is that the GB2 actually continues the story from the first film and shows time has passed. The fact that first thing we see when the film starts is 'Five Years Later'... and then Dana with her baby on a chilly November/December evening says a lot when you think about. Not to mention it does give a strong follow up to things that happened in the fist film that most people gloss over. Let's remember, government agencies in their first film started to raise questions about the Ghostbusters, obviously first and foremost was the EPA... and there is a line in GB2 from Winston to Ray stating 'You conjured up a 100-foot Mashmellow Man'... meaning that the Ghostbusters were probably interviewed about what happened on top of central park west, leading to wonder if Ray's unintentional 'pop in there' moment was what caused the city, county and state of New York to shut the Ghostbusters down. Second, it actually gives everyone something to do, meaning Winston has moments to shine... even though his absence and lack of involvement with anything to do with the initial investigation into the circumstances of Dana's baby is something that still bothers me to this day.Speaking of said investigation, the whole situation involving little Oscar is never an afterthought, it is the center focus of the film with the pieces gradually falling into place for our heroes.

On the negative side is the amount of cut content from the film, some of which we see the montage that takes place after the court room scene, such as Louis and Slimer's interactions, which included Louis learning how to use a proton pack, as well as Ray being possessed by Vigo while driving the Ecto-1A after starring into the eyes of the Vigo painting at the art museum. As I mentioned before some elements from the first film are basically re-told, primarily Venkman and Dana's relationship, but one could argue that Venkman needed to mature quite a bit from where he was as a character in the first movie. The Ghostbusters not being in business at the start of the film could be counted as a negative, or at least the reason for it because by 1989, in the Real Ghostbusters cartoon, they established that there was periods of time when ghost activity would be pretty low for one reason or another, and that could've and should've been the reason why they had some odd jobs here and there.

One more thing of note, when Dana goes to Egon to get help following the opening of the movie, Egon's experiment regarding human emotions (the arguing couple and the child given the puppy) basically lays out the entire premise of the film regarding positive and negative vibes. I wonder how many people actually realize that.

Today's Notes 11/3/20

Good Morning Everybody,

It's Election Day here in the United States, and so let me state the real obvious: if you vote for Donald Trump you are betraying not United States of America, but you are also betraying humanity. There is no fucking reason that you can give to justify voting him. If you vote for him you have the brains of a fuck trout, and no I'm not talking about the Angels outfielder, I mean you have the brains of a fucking fish that is easily caught and cooked for dinner. 

Anyway, last night's stream of WWE 2K20's Bump in the Night and Wastelands DLC content was interesting, if it really over-exposed the bugs with the game when it comes to executing what moves you want to do. Hell it took 5 minuets just for the game to realize I want to perform a leg grapple and not pull the opponent up to their feet. I do feel this would've been a lot more fun if there were not in match objectives to perform for every little thing, most of which does not make sense. Anyway there is still the Southpaw Wrestling and Empress of Tomorrow DLC stories to do, which we'll do as apart of next week's line-up.

This morning's Fitness Boxing session was alright, very light as it was only about 42 minuets based on the in-game time. Left knee continues to bother me at times, particularly when I'm set up to throw punches from the right side (since I'm naturally right handed), so trying to stay in rhythm is a big more of an issue. Still nearly was perfect with everything to day.

Bioware is pushing N7 day hard this year with merchandise and promotions surrounding Mass Effect... and I'll admit I did put my order in for another N7 Hoodie, and SR-2 hate and the complete comics collection. I am really hoping on Saturday they are announcing the remastered trilogy collection and or Mass Effect Andromeda 2.... preferably both. If its just a 'cast reunion' type deal that we've seen with movies and shows this year I'll be very disappointed.

Tonight's stream at 9:30 PM EST will of course be focused on Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, probably will be looking for temples and towers. The advantage of open world games is things can be done in any order... which is also the disadvantage when you really think about it. Of course every stream I do is over on twitch.tv/fredcasden. 

And that concludes today's notes, have a great day folks!

The Improbable Happens: Super Mario 35

October 31, 2020... on a night that began with Twitch Sings and included Hyrule Warriors, I loaded up Super Mario 35.... and somehow managed to finish in first place!

Today's Notes 11/2/20

Good Morning!

Hope everyone had a good weekend and will have a good week. For those of us here in the United States, tomorrow is election day and if you did not already return your mail-in ballot or gone to vote in person during early voting (why not?!) remember to vote tomorrow! 

We got this Monday off to a start with a Fitness Boxing stream, as you know it really depends on if I feel like streaming a session of it or not, or just to make sure it's represented in the weekly featured content list (aka the best of the week stuff lol). Was a solid maintenance workout, left knee was bothering me a bit, but that's nothing new. What's odd though is I went to bed an hour earlier than normal and still woke up later than I wanted. I can't win for trying.

Last night's Overwatch stream was a lot of kick ass fun, as we made sure Kalenal and PandaSweet got the Echo skin for the Halloween event, and we worked in some normal Quick Plays as well. Perhaps the real highlight for me personally was somehow getting a Play of the Game as Widowmaker in Junkenstein's Revenge....and it had nothing to do with playing her the way the character is meant to be played

Recently Twitch added the 'request to be unbanned' feature so that people who were banned from channels could see about getting their bans lifted, and someone tried to get their ban lifted from my channel, keeping in mind they were banned for trying to get someone else's ban lifted and being disruptive to my broadcast. And since the chat logs are shown to give an indication as to why they were banned, yeah safe to say they didn't get what they wanted. Also didn't help that their message said I had no reason to ban them.

Tonight's stream will see the return of WWE 2K20 and we'll be checking out the DLC content, starting with Bump in the Night, which now that I think of it I probably should've streamed that on Friday since it is Halloween themed.... oh well, live and learn I guess. The evening stream will start at 9:30 PM EST over at twitch.tv/fredcasden

 

Today's Notes 11/1/20

Good Afternoon, 

Hope everyone had a nice Halloween, I sure as heck did with my brother bringing his family over for a bit, and of course, the Saturday Night stream was focused on Twitch Sings. We had a nice amount of Duets and Solos... but that's not all we did. At about the 10 PM hour, I switched over to try Hyrule Warriors, and I can safely say that is something that if it had online-multiplayer it would certainly be something to get streamed on a semi-reoccurring basis, but the real highlight came when on a whim I switched to Super Mario 35.... and actually managed to come in first place! It was really surreal as when it happened i couldn't quite believe it thinking something went wrong with the game itself.

Anyway this week's lineup is going to certainly have a lot of variety in it, as WWE 2K20 will return for Monday Night's stream which will be dedicated to the DLC content, with Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild being featured on Tuesday night. Wednesday we're going to dedicate to a game called Full Throttle which I believe is one of the few Lucas Arts point and click adventures I've never played. Thursday is of course Star Trek Online, but Friday will featured Twitch Sings because Saturday is N7 Day, which means I'll be starting up a run of Mass Effect, this time the Xbox 360 version, so we'll be getting achievements and things along the way to boost my gamer score.

We did start today with Fitness Boxing, more of a maintenance workout because I didn't get up until after 12 PM EST...fucking Daylight Saving Time... anyway it was a solid workout as you'll see by the results posted below. And with it being Sunday, that means Overwatch is on tap for tonight, and while I have the new Echo skin for the Halloween event, we'll be mixing in Junkenstein's Revenge with other stuff. That will start at 7 PM EST over on twitch.tv/fredcasdem

Best of the Week 10/25-31/20

Here are highlights for the week of October 25 to 31, 2020, and this was a packed week as we included a whole lot of games this week... which included Overwatch, Fitness Boxing, Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Nancy Drew: Legend of the Crystal Skull, Star Trek Online, Animal Crossing New Horizon, Final Fantasy XV: Comrades, Nickelodeon Kart Racers, Paladins, Twitch Sings, Hyrule Warriors and Super Mario Bros 35!