Today's Notes 11/30/20

Good afternoon everybody,

Actually was up at 9:30 AM, but last night I remembered I had a bunch of Doctor Who audio plays that I got from Big Finish and went through the effort of downloading all the ones I purchased up till the end of 2013. It's been a while since I listen to them, so it's going to be a lot of fun as the folks at Big Finish really went all out in creating plays that totally captured the spirit of the classic Doctor Who series.

We did do a bonus stream today, kicking off with Fitness Boxing, and had a solid 33 minute workout, as the focus on strength and cardio continues.Did have one missed punch that was totally due to the left handed joy con becoming de-synced from the Switch. Other than that everything was pretty damn solid from start to finish.But since this was a bonus stream we added to it with some Animal Crossing New Horizons, and visited the island of another player, and it amazes me what people have managed to do with the in-game tools. Granted I like my little tree covered island the way it is, but seeing the creativity others have put it still is awesome.The bonus stream was capped off with a top 5 finish in Super Mario 35... I probably could've finished higher, but I made a boneheaded mistake in world 1-4, but hey I did say i wanted to finish in the top 5 so I can't complain too much.

During this bonus stream we got a big raid from GGVexy (twitch.tv/ggvexy) who streams out of Australlia, meaning it was 4 AM local time when she ended her stream. So big thanks to Vexy for bringing her viewers on over. Since I'm on the East Coast of the United States, normally it would be me raiding her, so it was cool to have the tables flipped.

Last night's Overwatch stream was pretty meh, had a long losing streak of matches, so I was lucky to end on a win. Tonight we'll be resuming Kingdom Heart Re:Chain of Memories, and depending on work, we'll start the stream at 9:30 PM EST for sure, if I can start earlier, we probably will, but that's iffy at this point.

 And on that bombshell we'll see ya later! Have a great day folks!

Today's Notes 11/29/20

Good afternoon everyone,

You know that feeling when you wake up and realize that entire day has already gone by, that was me today, then again, yesterday I was busy testing an PS2 (one of the original models, you know the big fat one) and I couldn't get any picture or audio from it. I'm going to safely assume that the United States Postal Service may have broken something inside of it while it was in their possession for 18 days. Still that disappointment aside, I have looked into getting my old PS3 fixed, and I almost feel I'd be better off just getting a certified refurbished one as the costs are that different.

Kinda feel like having a pizza today, maybe I'll order from Papa Johns, they do a great job with some of the combination I like...the Super Hawaiian Pizza is always awesome. I do like the fact that Papa Johns has a more complete track your order system when compared to the last time I ordered from them. It's nice to see what the status of my food is.

And as I typed that, here I am about to talk about today's Fitness Boxing session which, left a lot to be desired when it came to me doing Triple Combos, for whatever reason I really didn't have any snap when doing uppercuts, resulting in a lot of missed combos, and a low score of a 92 for it. Ah well, the overall workout was solid, but to be off that much on Triple Combos when I normally will be about a 97-99 on that routine is disturbing.

That said, I'm not going to say I'm a better athlete that Nate Robinson, because I'm not... hell I'm nowhere close to being in the shape he was in last night when he got his Lurch-moving self knocked out by Jake Paul. I however will say I would probably throw more punches in a fight against Jake Paul to make sure I didn't embarrass myself on pay-per-view!

Last night's stream of Twitch Sings was the usual amount of fun, and I've noticed that Twitch has started removing completed videos where a person sings by themselves. It's a good things I've basically backed up all my duets up through yesterday. We'll continue to get as much out of it until it's totally shut down!

Tonight we'll be playing Overwatch over on twitch.tv/fredcasden, starting at about 7 PM EST, and I've certainly been putting in the match time to earn the in-game currency through level ups to stock up from the upcoming Winter event. It's always nice to see that I could easily purchase skins for free just by planning ahead. I do wonder who'll be getting new appearances for the Holiday season, and I doubt we'll be getting a new skin for Dva since she just got one for Halloween. 

I seriously wonder if Donald Trump is thinking that if he continues to throw his hissy fits people will just say 'fuck it' and let him stay being President... it's too bad for him that the real world doesn't work that way. He lost cleanly to Joe Biden, it was so clean that even Mister Clean would go 'damn that's pretty fucking clean'. Trump is a Loser. There are no ifs, ands or buts about it, he is a loser. 

And on that bombshell, that wraps up today's notes! 

Best Moments Week Of 11/22-28/20

 Here are the moments from the games played on my Twitch Channel for the week of November 22-28, 2020 which included: Overwatch, Fitness Boxing, Super Mario Bro 35, Animal Crossing New Horizons, Kingdom Hearts RE:Chain of Memories, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Super Smash Bros Ultimate, Paladins, Nickelodeon Kart Racers, Star Trek Online, WCW Nitro, WWF In Your House, ESPN Baseball 2K4 and Twitch Sings! Be sure to follow me on twitch.tv/fredcasden to join me live! 

 

Today's Notes 11/28/20

Good afternoon everyone,

If you're a regular to this blog page, you'd have noticed I changed it's appearance yet again, trying to find a nice overall look is often problematic for this thing. I really wanted to use some of the artwork I've had made by Daemonswolf, but blogger is rather limited and clunky at times to get things set up right.

Anyway, this morning Fitness Boxing session was a little odd, as for the first time in a while footwork was incorporated, and man that threw off my timing in a bad way. Also for a Strength and Cardio session, it surprised me that the sets ended up happening in the orders of 8 minutes, 11 minutes and 15 minutes. Never seen that happened, normally the straight Cardio session are sets with that increase in duration.  And you may have noticed the trainer's attire is the same as yesterdays... yup totally forgot to change that... oh well.

 Last night's stream over on twitch.tv/fredcasden ended up being a variety stream featuring WCW Nitro, WWF In Your House, ESPN Baseball 2K4 and Animal Crossing New Horizons. Certainly a hodgepodge lineup to say the least when you think about it. Goes to show when I don't have a plan for a stream things can get really damn random! 

WCW Nitro still has some of the worse controls in any video game I have ever played, as getting any move to happen with Mortal Kombat style button combination was maddening... and combine that with the frequent (and I do mean frequent run-ins) forced me to go into the options menu to adjust a few things. We managed to get through the 10 match tournament mode, and for all intents and purposes we are counting it as a game finished on stream to count it for this years gaming tour.

On the other hand we won't count WWF In Your House for the gaming tour because of what I would classify as finishing the game is beating the WWF Championship mode (which is a series of 2 on 1, 3 on 1 and 10 on 1 matches). The lack of back ground audio, crowd noise or music really takes away from the game, as I remember WrestleMania The Arcade Game having some sort of back ground noise to add to the chaotic brawling. Much like WCW Nitro, the Mortal Kombat style button combinations leaves a lot to be desired.

ESPN Baseball 2K4 was a firm reminder that Visual Concepts made some damn good baseball games back in the day/ Granted I had to remember how to switch bating to 'timing only' because the true aim system was damn near impossible. Also the Barry Bonds stand in being called Joe Young sure was a Mighty bit on the nose. Much like with Michael Jordan in the late 90s with a number of NBA games, I wonder why Bonds wasn't in a bunch of MLB games in the early 2000s.

Animal Crossing New Horizons continues to be the ultimate chill game that I can easily go to in order to lengthen stream, or just for a bit daily light gaming. I am starting to see more interactions between the residents on my island, with Blanche actually asking Agnes to use her catchphrase as her own. Cute, fun stuff.

Good news in terms of things arriving in the mail, Daemonswolf of Darkwolf Creative (darkwolfcreative.com / twitch.tv/daemonsw0lf) sent me an old-school FAT PlayStation 2, it was shipped out way back on November 10th and it finally arrived today, after she and I both started hasseling the United States Postal Service. Looking forward to testing it out! 

Also in the mail today was an autographed picture of Jack from the Mass Effect franchised, signed by Jack's voice actor Courtenay Taylor, and I made sure to get a certificate of authenticity, even though I requested it be personalized to me (it's always nice to know its the genuine article). Love the fact she put down the line 'I Will Destroy You' on it as well, which was a nice touch. 

With today being Saturday, Twitch Sings is on the agenda, and at this point we only have a few more streams where we can make use of this awesome game. Sadly starting December 1st, a lot of songs are going to be removed from it, so hopefully a lot of my favorites will be around till the very end.! Tonight's stream will probably start about 7 PM EST.

And that will wrap everything up folks! We'll see ya later!

The Nonsense Of Comcast's Data Cap

This week Comcast announced they are rolling out their 1.2 terabyte data cap to all states that it provides Internet Service... and needless to say I have my thoughts and opinions on this.

Today's Notes 11/27/20

Good afternoon everybody, 

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving, and I know for a lot of folks, things were tough not being able to see family as per normal circumstances, but 2020 has not been a normal year to say the least. Still with things like Zoom, Skype and other video communication links, people can stay in touch a lot easier. Hell the IRS has been working on ways to expand how it can actually serve the public but incorporating that type of programming and you all know this year have more than proven its worth.

We got today off on a good start, with the fact I finally got an update on a package DaemonsWolf (twitch.tv/daemonsw0lf) mailed off to me more than two weeks ago. The United States Postal Service has been incredibly slow this November, thanks in no small part to the Donald Trump sabotaging it in order to tamper with the election that he LOST! (Yup, here's a reminder that TRUMP IS A LOSER). Anyway, if it arrives today, we might just have another variety stream featuring old school games... well old school as in late 1990s early 2000s.

Today's Fitness Boxing session felt real good, hell, you know you have a good workout when you feel that weird feeling jazzed up when you finish. Things just flowed really good, even though I may have missed more combos than I would've liked, and my timing could've been better, but felt really good afterward. It's always hard to describe, and since I'm doing this daily posts, finding different ways to talk about my workouts is not easy.

Last night's Star Trek Online stream was a long one, as we started at 6:30 PM EST and went to about 12:30 AM EST, doing a lot of missions in the Klingon Empire to get my Cardassian caught up on story events. We ended up maxing out my Alliance Battlecruiser and switched over to the Titan Science Destroyer to break that it. It's one of the few 'cross-type' ships as it can switch between being focused on being a typical escort or a science vessel. Being a hybrid for lack of a better term, it does lack some of the hull strength a typical science vessel has over an escort, but it certain pack a punch. 

With Comcast looking to screw over it's customers in 2021 (and I am one of those customers, have been since 2006), obviously falling asleep watching YouTube or Twitch streams is not going to be totally logical to do. Believe me, I often leave a lurk on as many Twitch channels as I can to give, and that bandwidth does add up quite a lot. So my intention is to start listening to audible books again, and obviously that means using Audible for the most part. Now the funny thing about Audible is it's desktop app on PC doesn't always work, in fact even if you download the audio book to your PC, it will still stop playing after 6 minutes. This isn't the case with the mobile phone version of the app though. It's really a weird thing, as it doesn't effect everything that I have in my library at the moment.

Anyway, what I started listening to was the audio book for Red Dward, based on the show of the same name and is narrated by Chris Barrie who played Arnold Judas Rimmer on the show, who does an incredible job of bringing to life not just his own character but the characters of Lister, The Cat and Kryten. Certainly a great listen.

That will wrap things up for now, see ya later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden for my usual nonsense!

Today's Notes 11/26/20

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone,

It's a day many use to say thanks to all thing that were positive in their lives during the year, but 2020 has been on hell of a year so far hasn't it? Personally I'm grateful I have a job that was able to easily switch to having people work remotely, and when this whole Covid-19 thing gets settles I hope my job keeps up the practice as it's proven to get more people onto shifts that they normally wouldn't work (case in point I prefer afternoons but as you all know I've mostly worked evenings forcing a change in the streaming schedule). Also I'm very thankful to everyone who has support my Twitch channel (twitch.tv/fredcasden) this year in different ways, through either subscribing, bits, straight donations, gifted games and so forth. You all make it worth doing!

I will admit I didn't get up till about 1:30 PM today, so yeah, the day is already passed me by for the most part, but we did get in the daily Fitness Boxing session, a nice solid workout that included Beginner Combo #1, Uppercut Combo #1 and Hook Combo #1. Hell at the time I'm writing this I still haven't eaten anything yet! But I will resolve that shortly lol bwahahaha.

Last night's stream was pretty epic, big thanks to Foxy_Melly and Mech3003 for choosing to re-sub to my Twitch Channel using their Twitch Prime subscriptions! And also we had a huge raid from DaemonsW0lf that ended up extending the stream and extra hour which was awesome. Oh in terms of what we did last night, it ended up being a night of variety, featuring Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Paladins &, Nickelodeon Kart Racers 2 Grand Prix. PandaSweet81 also joined in for some of the madness during the Paladins segment, and we were both reminded of just how bad and random people can be in not picking proper team combinations or focusing on the objective at hand.

Tonight we'll be doing a Star Trek Online stream, because of course its Thursday, and I'll probably start way earlier than normal because of it being Thanksgiving, or as I have called it the past few years, Treksgiving. We may end up doing several episodes to try and get my Cardassian in the Klingon Empire closer to catching up to the overall story.

Now if I can be serious for a moment, many of you are unaware of whom I use as an Internet Service Provider, that being Comcast who is rolling out more data caps on customers in 2021 (https://www.xfinity.com/learn/internet-service/data#e7d0f35e-2633-43bb-8248-d820d9ca6b59). Now some markets have already had data caps, and let me tell ya something a cap 1.2 Terabytes is not enough to account for Streamers, not to mention Comcast does not exactly bill its customers at the end of the month, the billing cycles at least for me are towards the middle of the month, meaning it's never an exact time period for these data caps to be calculated. Say for example if I had a big month of data usage in from September 1 to September 30, but my billing cycle is Sept 10 to October 9, and I receive my bill or my account info isn't updated to account for the next bill until October 10, the time frames do not match up. And let's be straight up here folks, Comcast tried to sneak this in for the states they are now putting under data caps by being very sly about things... one they plan on rolling out an Unlimited Data Plan next year as indicated on that page I linked to (indicated by the coming soon image)... but they put the information about the states being added to the Data Cap nonsense in small print, with the hope no one would notice. 

Starting in March 2021, customers not on an unlimited data plan who exceed 1.2 TB in a month will have a one-time courtesy month credit under the plan applied to their accounts, and will be responsible for any data overage changes after that. Blocks of 50 GB will automatically be added to customers' accounts for an additional fee of $10 each plus tax. Charges will not exceed $100 each month, no matter how much data a customer uses. *Includes the states of CT, DE, MA, MD, ME, NH, NJ, parts of NC, NY, parts of OH, PA, VA, VT, WV, and the District of Columbia.

And on that bombshell, we'll wrap this up here... time for me to go raid the fridge!