Today's Notes 3/2/21

Good morning everybody,

Last night we started up Dragon Age Inquisition on the Xbox One, and I have to say I do like the character creator and how it was just detailed enough to give me options to create the Inquisitor Evelyn the way I wanted to with spur of the moment decisions. The biggest lacking detail is of course hair coloring options, but that's been an issue with me regarding BioWare games for a while. As far as the game play goes, much like with Mass Effect it was very easy to get caught up doing side-quests, and I was quickly reminded at how large the scope of the land is when one has to walk everywhere. The combat system, much like with Dragon Age Origins and Star Wars KOTOR I and II with its real time strategy is something I'm not a fan of, so my goal is to basically level up as fast as possible to basically brute force my way through everything.

Of course we will be continuing Dragon Age Inquisition tonight, and I will of course name tonight's stream after a line from The Inquisition song from Mel Brooks' History of the World Part I. Speaking of which if I could have figured out a female variant of the name Torquemada I would've named my character that! 

I really need to sit down to fitness the fan fic I started regarding Zero Escape 999, granted I already have the intro and set-up finished, just need to outline the rest.

I went to commission a new art piece from DaemonsWolf (www.darkwolfcreative.com) and they have started work on what will be the next start screen for my Twitch channel which will feature characters from Kingdom Hearts, Hades and Zero Escape Virtues Last Rewards. I've already seen the early draft of it, and I love the placement of everyone. Can't wait to see the finished results!

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session felt very off, as I didn't quite get my legs under myself the way I like when it came to doing dodges and blocks, don't get me wrong I worked up a good sweat, and even did an extra set, but this totally felt like an off-day overall when. Did get a new milestone achievement with Light Heavyweight Puncher Lv. 3, which was to have a total punch count of 108,000, with my exact total being 108,430.

Popped into Animal Crossing New Horizons this morning as well, and while I have seen my island residents looking for certain items, I have not once, prior to today seen one ask for a certain insect to be caught, in this cause Agnus wasn't a Tiger Butterfly While easily accomplished, it does serve as a reminder that sometimes jumping into Animal Crossing can easily take up more time than one would expect. 

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

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Today's Notes 3/1/21

Good afternoon everybody,

You know when surprising things happen it always means it's a good day? Well I got a $25 Amazon Gift Card from my day job, apparently there was some contest going on that I wasn't aware of, so... yay! 

Anyway last night's stream of Overwatch was nothing but Mayhem matches, we got on such a good roll that we ended up winning 9 out of the last 10 matches played! And when you factor in, these were Mayhem matches, winning can be very difficult, and we had a fairly good mix of attack and defense objectives. Big thanks to PandaSweet and Kalenal for joining in on the fun!

A lot of folks were curious about where I Raynhardt skin I've been using for Reinhardt as of late, because apparently they were not aware of the Blizzard Anniversary bundle, which will be around till September of this year. It is account wide, so even if you get the Bundle on PC, you will have the skin available on other platforms.

Staying on Overwatch, as part of the Monday bonus stream, I did feature the Nintendo Switch version of of Overwatch, winning two matches and using Moira and Lucio. There are some big differences with the console versions of the game as some things that are left click with a mouse on the PC version are right trigger with a game controller. I do wonder how Overwatch plays when the Switch is not docked.

Anyway, Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Session was obviously done on stream being a fairly long work out, with over 2000 punches thrown. We reached a new achievement goal with the Supreme Stamper Lv. 1 achievement which was to acquire 80 stamps or basically do 80 daily exercise sessions. 

We also featured Super Mario Bros 35, which closes down on March 31, and I had some... not so good runs, as my timing with some jumps were way off, and I ended up plummeting to my death. Still as filler goes, Mario 35 proved to be a nice little game to have around for extra streams!

Tonight more than likely we'll be starting up Dragon Age Inquisition, playing the Xbox One version... and I think for each stream I do of the game I'm going to use lines from History of The World Part I, in particularly the lyrics from The Inquisition.

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

Today's Notes 2/28/21

Good afternoon everybody,

It's the start of a new week, and the end of the month of February here in 2021, and I like to think so far this year has been better than last year, at least professionally speaking.

Anyway, last night's stream of Zero Escape Virtue's Last Reward was a lot of fun, as we got the endings for K and Alice, with a lot of plot development for the later, not to mention the revelation that K was Sigma... or Sigma was K... or some sort of nonsense along those lines. Big thanks for the re-subs and the raids that happened last night as well, made things extra special. That said, there was at least one awkward moment for comedic purposes thanks to Japan being Japan with regard to dialog involving Alice and cucumber. Yeah, safe to say that came out of no where, and was probably VLR's version of 999's Devil woman gag for Lotus.

Speaking of Zero Escape: 999, I'm kicking around an idea for a fan fic based on some obvious things regarding it, and considering how fucking weird the Zero Escape timeline is, one can safely say anything is possible.

Had a long Fitness Boxing 2 workout session today, and it seems that there was an update to put 'Hell Mode' exercises up first when doing longer workouts, or at least it seems that way to me.  We reached a new milestone achievement with Light Heavyweight Puncher Lv. 2, which was to have a total punch  count of 104,000, with my exact total being 105,109 total punches thrown. No noticeable change in my weight since the last time I stepped on a scale, but as long as I'm not gaining that's a good thing. 

Still not sure what's going to be the next major game I'm going to be diving into, I have been giving some strong consideration to a few games on both the Switch and Xbox One, but haven't made up my mind yet. But we'll be starting something new for Monday's stream.

Tonight's stream will focus on Overwatch, and since the Lunar New Year event ended last week, there's not really a pressure to get wins needed to unlock stuff. Of course will try to win, but there is no need to stress to much about people being out of position... even though I naturally will of course wonder what the fuck some people are doing! 

And on that bombshell, we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden

 

Highlights for the week of 2/21/21

Here are highlights from my twitch channel (http://twitch.tv/fredcasden) for the week of February 21, 2021, which included Overwatch, 1979 Revolution Black Friday, Fitness Boxing 2 Rhythm & Music, Super Mario Bros 35, Tom Clancy's The Division 2, ESPN Major League Baseball, Star Trek Online, Hades, Super Smash Bros Ultimate, Smite, Paladins, Power Rangers: Battle For The Grid and Zero Escape Virtue's Last Reward! 

Today's Notes 2/27/21

Good evening everybody,

Last night's stream started with Hades and who would've thought that I would reach final boss twice...  defeat him and then realize I have to beat him twice in a row! Yeah it was a hell of a good night, and I can see where the grinding and maxing out every one of Zagreus' base stats (via the mirror in his room) will come in handy as well as the 'God Mode' where you take less damage each time you die. Looks like I'll be keeping Hades in mind as an option for some nights for a long time, because I discovered that the game does have qualifications for a 'true ending' which is to beat it 10 times, and since not every play-through is the same because you don't know what boons you're going to get, mastering every single aspect seems like the smart way to do things!

We also loaded up Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, finishing classic mode with Cloud before doing a few PVP matches using Min-Min, it took me a while to remember how to play Smash, and while I didn't win any of the matches agaisnt other players, I got my fair-share of knocks outs and had a few good moments.

oday's FItness Boxing 2 session was not the usual one for a Saturday, since I did a workout with Hell Mode yesterday morning, today's was a standard exercise set plus a little extra as I began work on Janice's Free Exercise achievement. I do have to say the thing that gave me the most trouble today was doing right-weaves from the orthodox stance, as I felt I wasn't getting a good enough rotation with my hips. Also having to do a right straight punch into a right-weave is fucking evil.

Tonight's stream will be focused on Zero Escape Virtue's Last Reward, as I believe we'll be starting with one character ending (K's if I remember right) and then going down the path of the one set of chromatic doors we never opened before at the beginning. So we can expect to see Zero Jr quite a bit tonight I think! 

Over on the Official Ghostbusters YouTube channel, the Real Ghostbusters episode Slimer Come Home premiered this week, and it probably has one the saddest moments when it comes to cartoons, when Slimer runs away from home, which in and of itself is a tough seen to watch, but then you lay on top of it a sad sounding ballad (Remember Home from the Real Ghsotbusters soundtrack) and well, too this day, it brings tears to my eyes a bit. That's when you know something is good, you can watch something and know how it goes, if it can still draw emotion from you, it proves it still holds up.

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

Today's Notes 2/26/21

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream started with Star Trek Online, but it wasn't totally dedicated to it as only got around to a couple of my characters because the game were having server issues and had to perform some sort of emergency restart. Now every time I've seen that happened it meant the servers would be done anywhere from 15-30 minutes... so we had to switch things up.

So we powered up the Xbox One just after the Xbox Live servers came back online, because apparently they were down most of the late afternoon and early evening. So luck was on my side, and for the first time in a while we played Smite,with the focus on Arena matches. We got a few wins and took a few losses, but this is why I keep games like this around for when things go wonky with Star Trek Online.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session actually went longer than usual for non-Monday, as I realized the game actually had new DLC, in particular No Mercy / Devil Mode for more characters. Today's work out was very solid from start to finish with very few miss-timed punches and misses... hell if anything, the few misses I had involved my left hand, but unlike most times when there's a miss, I felt like I pulled my punches instead of following through. 

Also loaded up Animal Crossing New Horizons this morning, as Ozzie is leaving my island, Pietro lost a bag and Hopper & Agnes had a little argument that needed a little resolving. Rather busy morning on my island of Ocean View/

Not completely sure what's on the agenda for tonight's stream, as we might end up focusing on things involving the Nintendo Switch, so maybe Hades, Smash Bros Ultimate, Mario Kart 8, etc.... we'll see what ends up coming to mind after I finish work and have dinner.

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

 

Today's Notes 2/25/21

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream of ESPN Major League Baseball opened with a lot of audio adjustments as we dealt with not being able to monitor the audio from my PS2 through OBS, the audio doubling creating an echo effect and other silliness that made the first 30 minutes of the stream pretty damn awkward. We did win 4 out of 5 games, finishing up the series against he Braves by splitting the last 2 games of the 4 game series we started last week and then sweeping the Mets in a 3-game set. 

The big positive as that I realized I could use OBS to project what the Elgato was capturing on my main monitor so I could see things in the correct aspect ratio. This will go a long way in making sure games from the PS1 and PS2 era are presented and played in the way they were originally intended. Of course this lead to me having to adjust to playing ESPN Major League Baseball with a 4:3 ratio as oppsed to the stretched out 16:9.

Did have some unintentional comedy when I went looking at the in-game scouting reports, and man was the game rather cruel to one Chase Utley in what was said as you can see in the screen shot. Now yes Utley made his Major League Debut in 2003 and there were a lot of questions about how well he'd do as an every-day second-baseman, but the scouting report basically saying he had no usefulness is just mean. 

Yesterday on the official Ghostbusters YouTube channel they premiered the Extreme Ghostbusters episode True Face of The Monster, which actually touched on racism and general discrimination. Keep in mind for a syndicated animated series in the late 1990s, having an episode even mentioning such topics wasn't exactly common. Combine that with the legend of the golem from Jewish forklore, and you got a very underrated episode. That said, it was pretty clear which actors from the regular cast were pulling double-duty in doing multiple roles which exposed how limited Alfonso Ribeiro was as a voice actor.

Had a solid Fitness Boxing 2 session today, even though Janice's voice is annoying as hell. Lasting 35 minutes (43 if I count the stretching), we threw 1,292 punches. We unlocked new milestone achievements today as well. The first being Light Heavyweight Puncher Lv. 1 which was to have a total punch count of 100,000, and the other was 'Janice's Trainee' which was to perform 10 daily works outs using Janice as the trainer (this also counts stretching)... which means to move on from using her as the trainer I'll have to do Free Exercises (no dailys) 10 times... and with my approach to my routines , that could end up taking a few weeks. 

Tonight's stream will focus on Star Trek Online, we'll bounce from character to character, doing random stuff and so forth, so no real direction this week, just having fun with what's there.

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