Today's Notes 3/27/21

 Good afternoon everybody,

Yesterday afternoon we had wins so strong it caused three power flickers as a result of branches touching power lines in my neighborhood... I know this because I could literally hear it happen. This is the result of some of my neighbors neglecting to maintain the trees on their property and the lower power utility, PSE&G not enforcing penalties on those customers who refuse to comply with regulations. It's as simple as that.

Anyway, last night stream was kind of random in that I selected Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury to start things off with, just to try and... it's fun little game. Those who remember my play through of Super Mario Odyssey know when it comes to 3D plat-former games, they are not something I'm good at, so combine that with the mechanics of the point of view switching back and forth from a 2D-view to an isometric view, and it's a whole new world of trouble for me. That said I stumbled and bumbled by way to the end of the third world before a new viewer named Benny asked if they could play as well, which gave me the opportunity to try and the online co-op (which can be for up to four players, local and online) and man did that get nuts as here I ended up trying to keep up with someone who knows the game inside and out. I spent more time falling behind, falling into pits and just not being useful at all. Still with their help made it to the end of the 5th world. So maybe on a random night we'll go back to Super Mario 3D world to see to if can be added to the finished games list.

Off stream last night, we set up the Xbox Series S console, replacing a busted tape deck that has been sitting on a shelf for ten years. Now with it's smaller storage space of 512 GB, it can't fully replace my Xbox One S, but the way I figure I''l use the One S for older games and things that aren't cross-generation, and the Series S for newer games and things optimized for it. The first game we put on it was Forza Horizon 4, which is a gorgeous racing game... and the load times are pretty fucking quick. 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was pretty solid, with a few odd misses, but nothing notable. In addition to the daily workout, we did a couple of bonus exercises (Front-Back Step and Double Combos) just to put in a little extra, since we did two real short daily sessions this week.

The Offical Ghostbusters YouTube channel added the Real Ghostbusters episode When Halloween Was Forever, and here's an episode that has some real notorious production errors involving Peter and Egon. That said, Samhain's debut was really awesome and it's the only episode of the series that actually had a follow up years later. Also, a gag in this episode of telling Slimer a cupcake / candy is in someone's socks to get them to do something I believe starts with this episode and it is something that i know is used again in the 1989 Halloween Special.

For tonight's stream we'll be back to Zero Escape Zero Time Dilemma, with our focus being on either Team D or Team Q. Wonder what SAW like death penalties we'll see this time.

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

Today's Notes 3/26/21

 

Good morning everybody,

Well we got an announcement right off the bat as we've officially added the Xbox Series S to my stable of consoles. Now why the Series S and not the Series X you may ask. Well first off, the Series X version is probably going to be impossible to find for the better part of the next year, with the simple fact any that are manufactured and shipped off to retailers are selling out within seconds. Also, to justify having a Series X, I would need to get a new monitor to get the most out of it, and 98% of my Xbox library is digital anyway. So the Series S makes more sense

That out of the way, last night's stream of Star Trek Online saw a lot of changes. One a deleted six of my characters because getting them all caught up will be impossible, so I've kept Zagreus and Sorra as main characters representing the Starfleet and the Klingon Defense Force, plus my two 'recruit characters' which are needed to unlock some account perks and such. We also ran into a lot of people sabotaging game play when it comes to Task Force Operations, where they either go AFK for the majority of the time or intentionally do something that makes completing the objectives impossible. This is why the developers put in a Buyout option when it comes to events that often involve dealing with a TFO, because they know it's a real problem. It got so bad last night I ended the stream early

So since I had extra time, I decided to start working on getting PlayStation Network Trophies, using games that I've played before on other platforms... and the first was Saints Row The Third, and boy was I not expecting the controls when it comes to the bumper and trigger buttons to be backward. L1 is to shoot, L2 is to toss a grenade....when on the PC and Xbox versions, it's reversed, R2 and R1 are also reversed as well for whatever reason. What were the developers thinking

Today's Ftiness Boxing 2 session was a solid 30 minutes (factoring in stretching) and was more for me to get loose today, as it's starting to heat up and getting a good sweat going is a hell of a lot easier when it's warm than when it's cold.

We've added Heavy Rain: Director's Cut  for the Playstation 3 to our collection, and so another acclaimed game that we'll eventually feature on Twitch.

Not completely sure what will be on tonight's agenda, probably some things involving the Nintendo Switch, but not completely sure.

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

Today's Notes 3/25/21

Good morning everybody,

Comcast's streak of delivering the service I pay monthly for (or rather pay two months in advance for) continues to hold steady, as we had no stream issues last night. Then again the memory of having a customer who went to FCC is probably still in their minds.

Anyway last night's stream was all about ESPN Major League Baseball on the PlayStation 2, as we played five games last night (two against the Montreal Expos and three against the Boston Red Sox), winning 4 and losing 1. The one loss came against the Expos, and we could have had another loss considering how the in-game version of Curt Schilling baffled the hell out of me. Also went out of my way to find Terry Mullholland who was on the Cleveland Indians roster, giving me a much better option for an emergency starter than Joey Eischen. If fact we traded Eischen for Mullholland. Tempted to see if I could add Mike Williams to my bullpen.

I did do some off-stream grinding in Dragon Age Inquisition, cleaning up some quests in areas we've already covered on stream. while also getting some war table things done. Mostly done this so that the next time with stream it we're not back tracking everywhere! 

Today's Fitness Boxing session was pretty solid on all fronts, a nice standard session to get us back on track from yesterdays short one. Had a few questionable misses related to ducking and weaving from the South Paw stance, not much I could do with that.

Anyway, we have a few new additions to my collections, Super Mario 3D World (& Bowser's Fury), & Under Night In-Birth Exe: Late[Cl-R] Collectors Edition for the Nintendo Switch, plus Record of Agarest War Zero - Limited Edition & The ICO and Shadow of the Colossus Collection.for the PlayStation 3.

Tonight we have Star Trek Online scheduled, and the First Contact Day event has started, which is basically a bunch of daily activities to earn some in-game rewards, nothing major as we continue to wait for the next big installment of story content while also being amazed at how many bugs are in the game in existing content. 

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

 

Today's Notes 3/24/21

Good morning everybody,

You ever order something, and then for an unknown reason, the delivery organization (UPS / FedEx) either delivers to a drop-off point you didn't tell them to (such as what UPS has done to NidoranDuran) or suddenly asks for direct signature (such as what FedEx did with me) yesterday. Normally this is the result of the company one is ordering from being too cautious. Anyway, gonna try leaving the door tag that was left for me signed so they can just leave my delivery.

Anyway last night's stream of Dragon Age Inquisition was focused on what side quests I could finish along before going to the next major area, the Western Approach. We tackled a dragon and covered maybe 3/4s of everything that was reachable before having to go to the War Table to open up the remaining areas. Will probably put in some off stream time with it to tackle war table stuff.

The Official Ghostbusters channel added the Extreme Ghostbusters episode Te Infernal Machine, and if there was an episode that exposed Alfonso Ribeiro's lack of voice acting range, it's this one, as he has some very bad deliveries of Roland's dialog throughout the episode.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was kept under 30 minutes as it was more of a get up out of bed and get loose kind of set today. It's Wednesday so basically today's session reflected that. Still I was mostly on point, and had one questionable miss off of a left jab that made me go 'huh' with extreme annoyance.

Loaded up Animal Crossing New Horizons this morning as well, because it's Skye's birthday, and I do enjoy seeing the little party sets up that take place for each resident. 

Tonight's stream will be focused on ESPN Major League Baseball, as we'll be resuming the series against the Montreal Expos and I think we'll also be taking on the Boston Red Sox tonight.

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

Today's Notes 3/23/21

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream had no technical issues regarding my internet connection, which would have been funny considering I finally got a call from Comcast regarding all the issues I was having. The odd thing is I laid out every detail and they had no good answer to explain the poor over the phone customer service, the fact that @ComcastCares on Twitter was more responsive, and the fact they were going to charge me for issues that was their fault. Well that is one more thing to keep in mind if issues pop up again/

Anyway we tackled a lot in Dragon Age Inquisition last night, doing character stuff for Cassandra and Dorian, while also locking in the romance with Sera. We spent the majority of the night in the Emerald Graves, which probably was a mistake as I started running into enemies much higher in terms of level requirements to deal with, and I realized that Emerald Graves is meant to be dealt with later in the game. Still this means I should have an easier go at it tonight when I go to tackle other things.

Loaded up Animal Crossing New Horizons this morning for a bit, getting around the island and so forth. Tomorrow is Skye's Birthday so I have to remember to play it tomorrow morning before doing the journal entry or tomorrow afternoon before the stream. 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was a standard 35 minutes, give or take, with a few questionable misses but not as many as there were yesterday. Still rather irked about that. Didn't do an extra set, but we are ahead of last week's pace because of the longer workers out the last three days.

I've been considering doing reaction videos for my YouTube channel, problem is while technically I count as a millennial, anything that would be considered for  'First Time Watching Reaction', I've already seen, because I'm closer to being Gen X in terms of what I've seen and read over the years. 

Anyway, we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

Today's Notes 3/22/21

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night's stream of Overwatch was one of those nights where nothing seemed to flow to well in terms of match ups, with either horrible selections from damage-role players or just people over thinking what they should do. But we did have a lot of fun, big thanks to PandaSweet for joining in on the fun! Even picked up three plays of the game last night.

With the expansion in terms of options of what types of games I can feature on my twitch channel, the need to use a wireless controller for some consoles has popped up, and so I finally caved and got a rechargeable battery / stand for the Xbox One controller. With the strong possibility that later in the year or early next year we'll add the Series X or S to the roster, the need for a wireless controller does indeed grow.

Staying on that subject, we've added a few things to the collection with three new factory sealed Playstation 3 games, Persona 5, 007 Legends  and Records of Agarest War 2. The later of which is part of a trilogy and I'm looking for the other two games in the series at this time. In addition, two new Switch games, Overcooked 2 which was recommended by PandaSweet last night, as well as ARMS, which was the first year Switch game release that actually showed that boxing aerobic games were possible for the console

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Session was.... bad, not because it was stream, it was bad because I missed way more motions than I'm use to seeing, as I was particularly bad from the South Paw stance which almost never is the case. Sway Backs was a major problem. Still we reached a new milestone with the Heavyweight Puncher Lv. 3 achievement which is to have a total punch count of 135,000 with my exact total being 136,317. Since this was a streamed session we did three extra workouts as well so I have set new personal bests in Estimate Calorie Burns and  Exercise Duration. 

Tonight we'll return to Dragon Age Inquisition, and I will admit (again) that since last Tuesday, I've been doing some off-stream game-play with it, advancing a lot of dialog by accident and doing war table stuff. Safe to say though that probably the first thing we'll do with tonight's stream is probably lock in the Inquisitor's relationship with Sera... I do wish I didn't advance dialog as much as I did off stream, as the prank sequence was a lot of fun. 

Anyway, we'll see you later today over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

Today's Notes 3/21/21

Good evening everyone,

No I did not over sleep today, actually I got distracted with a few things and nearly forgot to do my daily notes.

Last night we started up Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma, and I can safely say this game certainly takes the elements know from the SAW franchise that were implied in various ways in the first two games and just goes over the top with them, with deadly traps and scenarios. ZTD does see the return of Junpei, Akanae, Sigma and Phi, but they are all secondary characters, and the flow chart and progression of the story certainly is more random because it's split between three groups of people. So we focused on one group last night and I think we'll keep that pattern for the next few Saturdays/

Now since we now have PlayStation 3, finding content to feature using it becomes a challenge, because my existing PS3 library either has stuff I've featured on other platforms or are games that I know I can't get much out of for a stream. So looking into the library of PS3, seeing what I can get cheap because retailers still have their inventory that they are looking to move we started adding things... probably the luckiest find so far is Lego Dimensons, finding the 'starter set', which is not just the game but the basic Lego set that came with it... and I have this dumb idea that maybe if I can find the add on sets, we can do streams where I'm putting the gimmicks together then play out the actual levels. Part of why I think this will work is that I have two web cams and I could set one to angle down at the top of my desk as I assemble stuff.... which would expose the fact that I'm not really good using my hands with stuff,  which is something I always tell people when they say to me, 'you can upgrade your computer yourself'.

I do love the fact that now in terms of what I stream has become more varied in terms of the platforms I can use, there is something really awesome about having the options to say lets do something super new, or lets go back to a prior gaming generation. Now if I could only remember to run my mouth and don't get super focused on what's in front of me, I could build some momentum.

Today marked 100 days of doing Fitness Boxing 2 (258 days since we started using the first Fitness Boxing) and thus with today's session we reached the Supreme Stamper Lv. 3 milestone, which was to perform the daily routine 100 times.  Today's session lasted 47 minutes (55 with stretching) and things were going well, didn't have any misses until late in the session, and even then at least a couple were questionable. 

Tonight's stream will be focused on Overwatch as we do every Sunday, we'll do some Quick Play matches, and if Mayhem is in the Arcade mode today, we'll do that too!

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