Today's Notes 2/1/21

Good afternoon everybody,

Well we still got snow coming down here in New Jersey today, which is just great... well not really, I hate snow. Because unless the next few days will melt it quick, snow just has a way of making things feel colder, because it's just frozen water. Give me a cold day or night without snow anytime anywhere. Anyway the tech Comcast came out yesterday, and made sure that all the new lines were good before replacing the modem. Apparently, the one I had was a model being phased out gradually, and it's replacement is the one Comcast just started to roll out in the past few months. I also swapped my two cat8 Ethernet cables to hardwired connect my Xbox One S and PC to it, so from this point the only things that should hinder my upload speeds (if anything) would be either my tier of service I'm paying for (and 200Mbps DL/5 Mbps Upload is more than enough for what I do) or my PC itself. 

Last night's Overwatch stream featured nothing but Mayhem matches, and big thanks to PandaSweet for joining in on the chaos, as we had our fair share of wins and losses and general epic moments.Speaking of Overwatch, the Nintendo Switch version of it will probably be the game that will replace Super Mario Bros 35 on bonus streams because SMB35 shuts down on March 31, 2021. So featuring the Switch version of Overwatch makes sense since the bonus streams typically feature three games.

And speaking of which, we did do a bonus stream earlier, with Fitness Boxing 2 leading things off, had a nice session as most folks saw, actually did real good on Front-Back Step movements this go round, but Side-Steps were a problem.... hell I missed 8 motions today, and 4 involved side-stepping. 

We did do some Animal Crossing New Horizons, I am loving that my residents are hanging out more in the plaza area, it makes finding them a lot easier day to day. Apparently Animal Crossing will be having an in-game event on February 15, I know Chinese New Year is February 12 this year, so I wonder what is being marked on the 15th?

Getting back to Super Mario Bros 35, we did one run and game in second place, only because, as usual I did a short jump that saw me plummet to my death! Still I finished in the top 3 and I'm pleased with that. More than likely I was going to lose because I ran out of time.

Tonight we'll be starting early because of a change in my work schedule, and we'll be starting up Kingdom Hearts II today. Last time I played that game was was back in like 2005-2006 on the PlayStation 2, so I doubt I'll remember much beyond the pain in the butt rhythm mini game involving the Little Mermaid.

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

Today's Notes 1/31/21

Good afternoon everybody,

Well let's talk about last night's stream first, granted we always do that, but remember the upload speed issue I was having back around January 10th and 11th that was resolved on the 12th when a Comcast tech came out to check all the exterior wiring, discovering that things that they should've been maintaining weren't touch in years, that lines were chewed up to the point actual signal degradation was happening? Well that came back in full force last night, as twice my Upload speed which was staying steady at 2500 kpbs (which is what I set it at) dropped to 1100 kpbs. The stream was interrupted at 9:20 PM, did a modem reset through Comcast, called them, and things seemed to sorted themselves out and we came back on at 10 PM, then at about 11:50 PM EST, it happened again. Called Comcast up and that time I kept the stream going so I can literally read off the upload speeds from Task Manager to them, and now they said the modem that I rent from them is 'too old' for a firmware update, which of course exposes Comcast to once again not maintaining equipment, letting customers know that what they have in their homes that they RENT FROM COMCAST is not current. 

For fucks sake, I was stuck with the Scientific Atlanta cable boxes that were in this house from my father lived here that he was issued in the late 90s and was only made aware they were out of date when I continued to have problems with my TV service! That said, after calling them out on that, they are sending a tech out today with a new modem which I'm going to have them set up and to take the old one because quite frankly, the updating of equipment on a regular basis is something Comcast should be doing, particularly if one is paying $200 a month!

Now in terms of what we were streaming Zero Escape Virtue's Last Reward, we didn't get to any endings last night because of the tech issues, but the awesomeness of Zero III, and some of the comedic elements in the game were awesome, as it gave me a lot to react to. I'm rather surprised that the protagonist Sigma has no voiced dialog as opposed to Junpei in the first game who did have a lot of voiced dialog. Still it adds to the immersion as I read off Sigma's lines. We went int the Magenta and Green and allied with Luna from the start, and were in the middle of the conversation with Golem when I shut down the second stream last night due to all the technical issues I was having with Comcast as I detailed above.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was solid, going about 32 minutes (40 if I add in the stretching), and everything felt good, things were going so smoothly that I even added a little 'Free Exercise' set on top of the daily routine to just to have things end on a positive note.

Now tonight's stream is of course scheduled for feature Overwatch and hopefully things will be smooth sailing. We are getting hit with a large snow storm, so hopefully that won't cause any issues in my area, but according to the local weather service I'm on the outer edge of the heart of the snow that's coming, and we're expecting six to twelve inches. If it was Casey Kisses I was getting hit with I wouldn't mind getting hit with something in that range, but when it comes to snow I don't want to deal with it.

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

Highlights For The Week Of January 24, 2021

Here are highlights featuring all the games streamed over on http://twitch.tv/fredcasden for the week of January 24, 2021 which included Overwatch, Animal Crossing New Horizons, Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm and Music, Saints Row The Third: Remastered, Super Mario Bros 35, ESPN Major League Baseball, Star trek Online & Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward!

Today's Notes 1/30/21

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night's stream of Saints Row The Third: Remastered saw us finishing the game (going for the Gangstas In Space ending) as well as tackling the DLC for Gangstas In Space and The Trouble With Clones. The stream ended up being nearly six hours because I did get myself distracted with a few things on the side, such as going after some in game challenges. The end result being in just the six-streams dedicated to Saints Row The Third: Remastered, we did unlock 59 out 79 achievements, as the last 20 achievements are clearly a major pain in the ass to deal with. I do feel like I got cheated out of one, The Johnnyguard achievement as apparently something hit The clone of Johnny Gat right after I took out the last helicopter. Oh well. I can go and just do the opposite ending for Three-Way to get achievement number 60.

We're more than likely going to start tonight's stream early because we are beginning Zero Escape Virtue's Last Reward, and we want to avoid another stream going 11 hours. Already have my notebook on my desk, and set up OBS to capture the game before hand. 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Session may have gone only a half hour, but in terms of estimated calories burned it was on par with the last two days as today's set have more movements like turns, ducks and weaves.... actually today seemed totally focused on my mid section now that I think about it. We picked up a new achievement called Super Stamper Lv. 1 which was to acquire 50 stamps from daily exercises. 

If I could rant about people at my job for a moment, if you're going to give someone say like me constructive criticism, be sure to do it on a night where I'm not doing well. Because it not only comes across as wanting to sabotage someone's production, but I swear there are some dudes who clearly are not on the same page with one another over what advice to give because all they do is end up giving 'input' that is actually the opposite of what someone else told me to tweak. Bad enough I know as I try to do some day shift things this week that I'll have to remember how to do certain things that take a much different approach than what evening shift does.

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

Today's Notes 1/28/21

 Good afternoon everybody,

Last night's stream of Star Trek Online was certainly Klingon lore heavy, as we finally played the two new missions that are apart of the Anniversary Event. The first mission Knowledge is Power is another of the rare missions where we are not using our character for the majority of it, this time we get to play as J'ula who leads an away time consisting of Martok and Adet'pa down to Boreth to go on a quest to see what she must do to save the Klingon Empire. Lots of ground combat in it, but it does have some wickedly cool cut scenes where we see our character among the dead in a vision J'ula is having. The second mission, Leap of Faith will see any Klingon Defense Force character once again returning to hell, or Gre'thor to find the soul of a hero of the empire, L'Rell, who can help prevent the empire from completely dissolving. The big surprise here is the return of Gowron, which I should've seen coming considering his actor Robert O'Reilly, is also the voice of AaKar... so it makes sense. But now the stakes are risen higher, because not just the fate of Klingon Empire is at stake, but so is the soul of the former Chancellor.

Found out I do have some work this evening so tonight's stream will start at 9:30 PM EST, and the plan is to finish the main story of Saints Row The Third, and we might just jump into doing the DLC content, since all I have left in the game is main story missions anyway.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was really solid, only missed on motion (a sway back) from the southpaw stance. So nothing too bad, as I kept a pretty good rhythm the entire time. Also logged into Animal Crossing New Horizons and apparently it had a patch update but the only thing I noticed was the addition of a bench on the plaza for my residents to sit on. 

Now granted, some of Fitness Boxing 2 progress for the today will be negated because I ordered tonight's dinner from Papa Johns....it's been a while since I had a Pizza what can I say. 

On a positive note, I did finally get paid for the second commissioned fan fic I did this week, if you know where I would post such things, you can find it there (in fact it's actually in just two places on line), but Blogger's TOS prevents me from posting it here, unless I want to make some serious changes to this page and want my blog buried further than it already is!

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

Today's Notes 1/28/21

Good afternoon everyone,

Last night's stream of ESPN Major League Baseball saw my 2004 Philadelphia Phillies head into San Francisco for a three-game set against 'Joe Young' (aka a white switching Barry Bonds) and the Giants. We took two of three, but the big highlight was managing to throw a perfect game using Kevin Millwood in the first game. Which is funny because in 2003, Millwood through a no-hitter against the Giants, so I managed to one up what really happen in real life the prior year. Also made another move to further drive home the fact this is a video game, saw that the Blue Jays released Pat Hentgen, and since he's better than Vincent Padilla, sent Padilla to the minors. 

Now why isn't Barry Bonds in ESPN Major League Baseball (or any official MLB game in the 2000s that wasn't text based), it's because Bonds opted out of the Major League Baseball Player Association's license agreement and wanted to license his likeness his own likeness. The MLBPA basically made sure everyone got a fair share of the game's revenue.... but that's only if the players played by the MLBPA rules. There were a bunch of players who crossed the picket lines of the 1994 strike who were denined membership in the union and were replaced with guys 'having their stats', a big example being Kevin Millar. See it ain't just the Baseball Writers Association of America fucking players over, the player's own union does it to.

Today had a nice Fitness Boxing 2 session, that went 30 minutes, and only missed one movement, a right duck from the southpaw stance. Everything flowed real nicely today. No achievements unlocked, but that's okay, because to my surprise there was a patch update for the game that now carried over the consecutive days and stamps from the first game. Which means I have 206 consecutive days of doing daily boxing aerobics under my belt. It's awesome to have that properly tracked and makes me feel better for switching to Fitness Boxing 2 last month!

My copy of Xenosaga III for the Playstation 2 arrived today, and as it was listed it doesn't quite work with a PS2 slim, something about its disc doesn't seem to be readable on it. But since I do have a PS2 emulator on my PC, it does work with that... and I do have the fat PS2 DaemonsW0lf sent me than the United States Postal Service broke. Remember emulation is okay as long as you own the physical version copy of things. So when I start going through Xenosaga series (cause I did order a copy of Xenosaga II) we'll be able to go through all three games.

Finished up another commissioned fan fic request today as well (well late last night before bed but it was today), and I remember one reason why I stopped doing fics on a regular basis, its that my dialog writing is just terrible. Ah well.

Tonight we'll finally jump into Star Trek Online's anniversary content, and since I already did the buyout for the event ship, we'll mostly focus on the story missions. To keep things simple, this will be done as apart of the Glory for the Empire series of streams that has been going on since the spring. This is mostly because the start date for the anniversary event was on Tuesday, while normally Star Trek Online releases new content on Thursdays. This is just to make sure I don't go batty keeping things straight.

And since I just go word that I don't have work this evening, we'll probably start tonight's stream a bit early. So we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden

Today's Notes 1/27/21

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night's stream of Saints Row The Third saw a huge focus on the actual story of the game, which involved mostly dealing with the STAG invasion of Steelport and dealing with The Deckers while also setting up the final act involving Killbane. There does seem to be a glitch for the Cowboy Up achievement which is to have a fully leveled up weapon in each slot, so I'm not sure exactly what's missing as I have all my favorite weapons to level four, and the melee weapons (baseball bat) only goes to level 2.... unless I'm forgetting about the grenades because those are 4 additional weapons that are actually needed to be use in the Remastered version as opposed to the earlier version of SR3. Will have to look into that the next time we stream this, which will probably be Friday night. And yes I will do the DLC content on stream which are of course Gangstars in Space and The Trouble With Clones.

Found out I don't have work this evening because assignments are coming a bit slow, so we'll probably start early tonight for ESPN Major League Baseball, at the very least we'll get in a complete series. Of course Kalenal (twitch.tv/kalenal) is having their Affiliate Anniversary today as well and I do want to pop in to say congrats too, so might wait till 9 PM EST to start. Plus this gives me some time to work on another commissioned fan fic too. So I got options. Anyway, speaking of work I do love how they assume I can just switch things on the fly... after all what's the point of telling them what hours I can guarantee to work if they want to wait to the last minute to shuffle things around, particularly when they never gave me the option to return my normal schedule starting next week because circumstances called for it.

Speaking of Baseball, the BBWAA (Baseball Writers Association of America) continues to be bunch of corrupt cucks who do nothing but devalue the Baseball Hall of Fame. For the second time in a decade, they elected no one to the Hall of Fame, when there are two people who should go in. Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens should've been in the Hall of Fame on their first ballots, but the worthless assholes of the BBWAA want to hold the generation they played in with some bullshit of performance enhancement, but give me a break, cheating of that sort still goes on to this day. Hell there is a lawsuit going on right now about that involving someone who was apart of the Angels organization! But here's the real kicker, guess who's going to be on the ballot next year for the first time? Alex Rodrirguez, and if he gets in on the first ballot with the allegations against him being even worse than Bonds and Clemens, then the entire BBWAA should be scrapped and the only people nominating anyone to the Hall of Fame should be those players already in the Hall of Fame and select alumni. The vote for Baseball Hall of Fame should not be in the hands of the sports writers anymore.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session felt good and I felt my timing was pretty good from both orthodox and southpaw stances today, but how the hell do I get a Fitness Age score of 25? Yes I missed a combination 8 punches / movements, which lead to only doing 121 out of 124 great combos, but it's always raises my eyebrow as I try to see how the hell this game is calculating the Fitness Age score. As I've said when one is use to seeing it at 21, to see anything above that is concerning. We did reach new achievements, one being Welterweight Puncher Lv. E which is reach a total punch count of 63,000 HITS, and the other was Subsonic Hitter, which was to throw 70,000 perfect punches, which is actually execute 70,000 perfect movements (punches, ducks, weaves, steps)  because my current total punch count is 63,521.

 Anyway on that note we'll see ya later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden for ESPN Major League Baseball! I think we're taking on The San Francisco Giants with someone who is clearly not Barry Bonds on team.