Today's Notes 12/10/20

Good afternoon everybody,

Let's first talk about last night Star Trek Online stream, which of course started with the realization (after I was told) that once again skill invalid bug appeared and forced me to once again respec the character I was using... which means I will have to do that again for every other character I've created over the years. It is odd that the developers have introduced a bug they don't seem to be able to fix, months after it first appeared. Of course the stream itself went smoothly, as we have completely caught up on existing main-stream story content for Star Trek Online as it pertains to my Cardassian in the Klingon Empire. Now if I were to guess, the next chapter in Klingon Civil War story arc should probably be coming in January or February, because it will be very unusual if it dropped in the middle of December. Hell I remember an episode of the Tibbles in Ecstasy podcast where one of the hosts (the one who didn't sound like he was on ecstasy) complained about the lack of new story content in regards to how grinding became and that was in December of 2016... I only remember this because that was went I ended up in the hospital.

Now tonight's stream is of course not going to be Star Trek Online, since we did that last night, instead the plan is to team up with Iceman7667, PowerThumbz and FnDanteSavage for more Division 2 manhunt things in what will surely be another night of lunacy. We'll probably start as son as I finish work, which means I'll be very pressed for time to get things set up. This is why time zones can be such a pain to deal with sometimes.

Anyway, we got today started nicely with Fitness Boxing, and it was a burner that is for sure, with quite a bit of ducking in the sets. It is amazing in one regard with how in-frequent I see the step combos appear in the daily routines that when I do see them, I always struggle to match the timing on back steps, feeling like I jump the gun for lack of a better terms.

 

Of course I did manage to finish listening to yet another Doctor Who audio drama, The Marian Conspiracy which sees The Doctor (Colin Baker) finding a temporal nexus point tied to the family ancestry of Evelyn Smyth (Maggie Stables). This story is notable for it's the first Big Finish Doctor Who story at introduces an original companion in Evelyn, who is quite different than most companions in that she is in her 50s which makes many of the stories she appears in having a much different approach in which her age and physical well being become major plot point. Something else that is striking is this story's ties to Queen Elizabeth I, granted the focus is on Queen Mary I, but when one actually takes stock of how Elizabeth is mentioned or encountered through all of Doctor Who (TV, books, audio dramas, comics), it is obvious that too this day she holds a special place in the hearts of the British people. 

At this exact moment there are still 3,146 songs left on Twitch Sings, so we're two days away from my plans for Saturday night's broadcast and things are looking good!

Anyway, on that bombshell we'll see you later, have a great day folks!

Today's Notes 12/9/20

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night's stream, which ended up being a triple-coop stream with FnDanteSavage (twitch.tv/fndantesavage) and PowerThumbz (twitch.tv/powerthumbz) as we along with Iceman7667 had a blast doing manhunt things in The Division 2, the highlight video below only shows a small sample of the things we did as it was a barrel of laughs. This was so much fun we'll do it again on Thursday night, which means Star Trek Online will be moved up to tonight! 

 

So with Star Trek Online on the agenda for tonight, I did notice there was a patch update, which means there are notes to share here. Tuesday patch updates rarely happen with STO, and it's normally for large expansions or a lot of new content, but this seems more in-line of the Winter Event that is taking place, which is a big strange. Anyway, here are the patch notes

Star Trek Online Patch Notes 12/8/20

Winter Event:  

• Q has returned to begin this year’s Winter Event!  
• Compete and participate in Winter Events to earn Winter Prize vouchers that can be used to redeem the all new Fek'Ihri Gok'tad Carrier [T6]! 
• This year’s festivities will be integrated into our recently released Event Interface, as part of your Mission Journal. 
• Daily Progress toward earning your new starship can be obtained by participating in any of the following activities: 
  • Fastest Game on Ice 
  • Klingon Ice Fishing 
  • Tides of Ice 
  • The Fast and the Flurrious 
  • Cones of Conduct 
  • The Kramp’Ihri 
• Go to the Winter Vendor and check out this year’s new items! 
  • Purple Nanopulse Discovery-Era Bat'leth. 
  • Brand New Rainbow Sweaters. 
  • Brand New Grethor-Themed Bridge Officer Training Manuals and Kit Modules. 
  • Q's Chair Consumable Item. 
  • Rescue St. Bernard Pet. 
• For more information, please visit our Winter Event blogs at: https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news/detail/11479533-q%27s-winter-wonderland%21 

 General:  

• The minimum FoV players can set has been decreased to 35, from 50. 
• The “Ready Ship” and “Switch Ship” button is now visible while selecting any Ship or Shuttle while in Space.  
• Fixed an issue where the Ba'ul Weapon Bounce Passive was improperly triggering certain effects as though it were not a Passive, such as with Kemocite Laced Weapons.
  

 

Did pop into Animal Crossing New Horizons before I started writing this post, and safe to say Ozzie had a weird as hell line to say to me when I dropped by his house as indicated in the screen shot. Ozzie is a bit weird... just a bit LOL.That said, Biff will be moving off my island, as his personality is way to similar to Antonio's in my opinion.

This morning's Fitness Boxing session was pretty solid, did have a few odd misses that I highly question the validity of. I mean come on, if have a series of motions where everything is perfect, then suddenly a few misses through no fault of my own? It's enough as always to make me go 'Dude really?'. Still it will be interesting to see if I can break the 200,000 punches thrown barrier before my copy of Fitness Boxing 2 arrives. 

Wrapped up listening to Doctor Who: The Fearmonger early this morning, which sees the Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) and Ace (Sophie Aldred) looking to stop a creature that is stoking the fears of the masses to feed on, which of course causes chaos and mayhem during a time when a politician is running for office on a platform based on some rather.... unique positions. In many ways, The Fearmonger story basically can be used as a parallel to the political rise of Donald Trump, with how he makes so much noise to distract from the real issue at hand, setting up counter-protests to cause violence and such that it makes you wonder if The Fearmonger creature in the story is an actual thing. The funny thing, Fearmongers do exists, we just know them as the talking heads like Lou Dobbs, Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson.

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

Today's Notes 12/8/20

Good afternoon everybody,

You know that feeling when you go to sleep, then wake up a few hours later can't get back to sleep but when you do you end up waking much later than you want? Yeah happened to me lol

Anyway, last night's stream of Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories saw me getting through the 9th and 10th floors of Castle Oblivion which covered Hallow Bastion and the 100 Acre Woods, which of course meant we got to hang out with Winnie The Pooh. Kind of like the fact the 100 Acre Woods floor is basically just mini-games acting as a bit of a reprieve before the final leg of the game... and before we ran into the toughest boss in the game yet, Vexen. Now I'm someone who prefers brute force in his RPGs, so needless to say getting through Vexen was quite difficult, took several tries because he is the first boss that actually BLOCKS things out right. On the positive side when I woke up after I went to sleep last night, I did realize I could go back to completed floors and work on leveling up.... so that's what I did for an hour before going back to bed.... and eventually waking up at 1:30 PM.

 

Of course once awake, when I did wake up again, I went right to do Fitness Boxing and in retrospect I probably could've done that instead of level grinding in KHR:COM, but then I'd gone back to sleep lol. Anyway the workout was a good way to get loose and warmed up. I got to remember to balance on the balls of my feet when doing steps as it makes those so much easier to get into sequence with.

Tonight's plans involve playing The Division 2, and maybe teaming up with some buddies for potentially four-player madness. It basically would be just roaming around DC or New York, but it would be a lot of fun if that can happen. Steam will start at about 9:30 PM EST

As of this moment, Twitch Sings still has 3146 songs listed, so the plans for this Saturday's Frank Sinatra & Friends stream looks good to go. Still anything can happen between now and then, so keep those fingers crossed.

I've been giving some thought to doing some Fan Fic writing again, as I do have an idea based on some old promos I saw on YouTube recently. Chances are I'll let these slip on by or pass the ideas along to better writers.

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

Today's Notes 12/7/20

Good afternoon everybody,

We actually got up before 9 AM, so we ended up doing a bonus stream, leading off with Fitness Boxing and we got in a good set. Certainly went all out as always, and even though I had a few questionable misses, but everything felt good. I did go step on the scale today and my weight is around the usual 263-265 pound range (119-120 kilograms). As long as it's not going back up, I'm happy, after all, it was six months ago when I was weight 290! We followed up the Fitness Boxing session with Animal Crossing New Horizons, and I'm seriously wondering what someone was thinking with the pun for the Pond Smelt being 'Whoever Smelt It, Dealt It'... needless to say that was a silly thing to see this morning. We closed out the bonus stream Super Mario Bros 35, finishing with a top 5 finish, and I think I could've finished higher if I didn't jump and spammed using coins to get items... oh well.

Last night's stream of Overwatch certainly was fun and frustrating, because of how cowardly some people are, with how they won't push onto a capture point or move past a choke. It got to the point myself and PandaSweet who joined in for several matches decided to queue up deliberately to place as damage heroes... which lead to an incredibly cool moment of where I got the 'High Noon' achievement, which is getting four eliminations with one use of McCree's 'High Noon' ultimate... okay sure I got killed doing it, but it counts and ended up being a play of the game! 

Tonight's stream will see us going back to Kingdom Heart Re:Chain of Memories, with things picking up as we hit Hallow Bastion, which is the ninth floor of the thirteen within Castle Oblivion. I have thought about the plot of the game since last Tuesday, and the way I figure each floor is basically Sora digging through his memories to recall Namine.... which doesn't make sense, because if I remember what happened in Kingdom Hearts II from 15 years ago, Namine is just a part of Kairi and they merge back together. That is of course the trouble of trying to piece together the plot with the franchise whose plot is filled with so many plot holes.

At the time I'm writing this I finished listening to Doctor Who; The Land of the Dead, which is the fourth of the monthly main range Doctor Who audio drama done by Big Finished, listened to the 3/4ths of it last night before falling asleep. This story sees The Doctor (Peter Davison) and Nyssa (Sarah Sutton) arriving in Alaska, where the Tardis detects an unusual source of energy and the adventure leads to them encountering a strange house, monstrous creatures and simmering tensions involving mysterious circumstances. One of the strangest aspects of this story is the character Monica Lewis (Lucy Campbell) who basically acts as a 'companion by proxy' as she spends the most time working with The Doctor, giving quick witted responses to much of The Doctor's statements. 

And on that bombshell, we'll wrap this up here, we'll see ya later tonight at probably 9:30 PM EST over on twitch.tv/fredcasden! 

Today's Notes 12/6/20

Good afternoon everybody,

Ah Sunday's.... the start of the week, which of course means tonight over on twitch.tv/fredcasden Overwatch is on tap for the weekly chaos and mayhem that game brings. And considering this is the second week of December, that means we'll probably being seeing the start of the Winter Event as well in the near future. Really excited to see what new skins get added.

Of course, the day already started off with Fitness Boxing, with a 40 minute workout.... ok ok, it was 39 minutes I just rounded up. Really a nice session overall with straights, jabs, hooks and body hooks. My timing was a little bit off at times, but overall felt solid. Hell with the weather getting colder, the feeling of of the body warming up doing what is basically an aerobics set is really noticeable.

Last night's Twitch Sings stream was really awesome, being probably the most watched stream I've had of that game since prior to the announcement the game is shutting down on January 1st. As I've avoided last night, the plan to do a tribute to Frank Sinatra on Saturday really depends on his songs still being in the game come the 12th, and I've certainly done my best to have back up tunes as well in case anything gets removed from Twitch Sings. As of 3:45 PM EST today, there are still 3146 songs left on Twitch Sings, which includes everyone I listed in the previous post. So keep your fingers crossed folks.

Big thanks to DaemonsW0lf (twitch.tv/daemonsw0lf) and BluVelvet (twitch.tv/bluvelvet) for the raids last night, it is always cool when folks choose to direct their audience to my pokey little channel. DaemonsW0lf was doing a live reading of Metro 2033 while BluVelvet was also doing a Twitch Sings stream. They are both awesome, and I hope you check both of them out when they are live!

Finished listening to Doctor Who: Whispers of Terror last night, which is such a fun story that sees The Doctor (Colin Baker) and Peri (Nicola Bryant) arrive in an audio museum as mystery involving murder and a political conspiracy is taking place. One of things I love about Colin Baker's portrayal of the Doctor, particularly in the audio form is just how bombastic his voice is, yes he can be really subtle, but the loudness of The Doctor speaks volumes, even when one considers the coat he wears! 

And on that bombshell that will wrap up today's notes, we'll see you over on Twitch at about 7 PM EST! Have a great rest of your day everyone!.

Best of the Week November 29 to December 5, 2020

Here are the best moments from my Twitch Streams for the week of November 29 to December 5, 2020, which features Overwatch, Fitness Boxing, Animal Crossing New Horizons, Super Mario Bros 35, Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories, The Division 2, Star Trek Online, Celebrity Deathmatch, Showdown: Legends of Wrestling and Twitch Sings!

 

Upcoming Stream - December 12: Fred Casden Presents A Birthday Tribute To Frank Sinatra

Back in August, I had the idea of dedicating December 12, 2020 to doing nothing but all of the Frank Sinatra songs on that were on Twitch Sings... then Twitch announced they were shutting down Twitch Sings, and on December 1st, a ton of songs were removed including half of the songs listed. Needless I was disappointed... but with the hope that no more songs are removed from Twitch Sings between now and December 13th, the Frank Sinatra Birthday tribute is what I'm planning to do. To fill things out I'll include songs from Dean Martin, Ella Fitzgerald, Sammy Davis Jr, Vera Lynn, Louis Prima, Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole and Marilyn Monroe. 

Obviously I'll be performing a lot of solos, but hopefully I'll find duets that night to work with to include others in this celebration of The Chairman of the Board.

Again this will be for Saturday December 12, 2020, starting at 7 PM EST over on twitch.tv/fredcasden

Fingers crossed that all songs listed below are still on Twitch Sings come this Saturday!

Frank Sinatra
Bad, Bad Leroy Brown
Fly Me To The Moon
Fly Me To The Moon (Slow Version)
I Get A Kick Out of You
I've Only Have Eyes For You
I've Got The World On A String
I've Got You Under My Skin
Love's Been Good To Me
Luck Be A Lady
Luck Be A Lady (Live)
My Funny Valentine
My Way
Old Devil Moon
One For My Baby
Summer Wind (Solo)
The Lady Is A Tramp
The Way You Look Tonight
Witchcraft
You Make Me Feel So Young

Sammy Davis Jr
I've Gotta Be Me 

Bing Crosby
White Christmas

Dean Martin
Baby, It's Cold Outside
Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!
On The Street Where You Live
Return To Me
Send Me The Pillow That You Dream On
Since I Met You Baby
Sway (Quien Sera)
True Love

Ella Fitzgerald
All The Things You Are
Blue Moon
Blue Skies
Cheek To Cheek
Cry Me A River
How High The Moon
I Love Paris
Let's Do It (Fall In Love)
Love For Sale
Misty
My Funny Valentine
Puttin' On The Ritz
Stormy Weather
Too Darn Hot

Louis Prima
Just A Gigolo / I Ain't Got Nobody

Marilyn Monroe
Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend

Nat King Cole
(I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons
When I Fall In Love
Autumn Leaves

Vera Lynn
A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square