Today's Notes 5/11/21

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream was really good, particularly in regards to achievement hunting. The game for the night was Day of the Tentacle, and the remastered version that came out a few years ago has Steam achievements, and on the initial play-through in 2019, we came across 50% of them, so last night was about getting the majority of what was left, which involved learning that there were certain object combinations that could be use (such as combining a fork and cat while using Laverne).

Here's the full list of what we managed to get last night.

1. Music Appreciation Award: Reach yesterday without turning the stereo off
2. Rap Sheet: Forger: Try to sign the contract yourself with the quill pen
3. Alas, Our Lazy Speechwriters Didn't Cover This: Talk to Washington, Jefferson, or Hancock while they're outside
4. Master Plumber: Flush 50 objects through time
5. That Should Have Worked: Hoagie uses battery with Chron-o-John instead of plug
6. Now You're Pushing It: Try to microwave the hamster again after he's thawed out
7. Can't Win and Chew Gum at the Same Time: Laverne tries the chattering teeth on her human during the human show
8. ESRB Violation: Laverne thinks about eating the cat
9. Rap Sheet: Fraud: Try to alter the contract with Booboo-B-Gone
10. You Call That a Hint?: Try to wash the dirty car with the brush
11. Missing Pink: Try to mix the red paint and the Booboo-B-Gone
12. I'm Sure He'd Never Notice: Try to swap the textbook with the stamp album
13. That Joke Never Gets Old: Squirt five different people with disappearing ink
14. And Then the Universe Implodes: Try to mix the disappearing ink with Booboo-B-Gone
15. Voiding the Warranty: Try to put something metal in the microwave
16. And Then the Universe Explodes: Try to mix the decaf and caffeinated coffees
17. Most Annoying Guest Ever: Ring the front desk bell 100 times 

Now there are two achievements left but they are both tied to playing the Maniac Mansion game which I'm not to keen on, maybe that'll be an excuse to play Day of the Tentacle again next year.

Twitch Clip: Laugh Darn You!

Following DOTT, we had extra time so we loaded up Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on the Switch for a few races, and went up against other people from around the world... and promptly got my ass kicked. Still had fun, but yeah, Mario Kart 8 is not exactly a racing game I go out of my way to play because of the weirdness of the control layout.

Big thanks to long time friend of the channel ShadowStrkr for gifting me Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons!

After the stream I messed around with Mortal Kombat 11 and discovered a few things, one that the story mode is its own separate download for whatever reason... and two that this game has some the most exploitable ways of getting achievements ever, with the use of AI battles to run through the towers. Now I've played in Mortal Kombats 1, 2, 3 (Vanilla and Ultimate), Trilogy, 4, Deception, Vs DC Universe, 9 & 10.... so I wonder where along the line did Nether Realm Studios choose to eventually make a Mortal Kombat simulator. Anyway here are the achievements we unlocked last night

1. Blood In The Water: Spill 10,000 pints of blood
2. Kollected: Perform 2 different FATALITIES with Kollector
3. Bugging Out: Perform 2 different FATALITIES with D'Vorah
4. Princess Power: Perform 2 different FATALITIES with Kitana
5. Struck Down: Perform 2 different FATALITIES with Raiden

Twitch Clip: I'll take a 9th place finish

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session lasted about 1/2 an hour, solid work out of three ten minute exercises. We're up to 89 points on Bernardo's Best Friend Achievement, so things are on track to get it done by Saturday! Also forgot to get the proper screen shot for today's session, but hey the main screen one shows my streak of 309 days!

Not completely sure what we'll be doing for tonight's stream as of yet, we might dive into Brothers to see if I can get through that in a single night with a blind play through if I don't come up with anything.

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

Today's Notes 5/10/21

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night's stream of Overwatch was a lot of fun since this week Mayhem matches kicked into the Arcade mode at 8 PM Eastern Time. Certainly had a fair share of wins and losses. Big thanks to PandaSweet for joining in on the fun. Also picked up three plays of the game last night, two with Dva and one with Reinhardt. In addition to Mayhem, also messed around with a few other arcade modes included 3 vs 3 elimination and capture the flag... only because free loot boxes were attached to each one.

Twitch Clip: Boom-Shakalaka!

Twitch Clip: But I Have Pineapple!

After the stream I resisted the urge to do another late night going through stuff, but at this point I think all I got left are just boxes to break down. There might be another box or two filled with music CDs, but they are sorta buried where I cannot reach them at this exact moment.

Finally my copy of The Fifth Element for the PlayStation One arrived. And boy did the United States Postal Service send it through the ringer because this is the journey it went on. It went from the origin point of Drexel Hill, PA to Glenolden, PA to Cuncinnati, OH, to Warrendale, PA, to Philadelphia, PA, to Miami, FL to Opa Locka, FL to Bellmawr, NJ and finally right here to Camden, NJ. Make note of the origin point and final destination... and then ask yourself... if it Philadelphia was the 5th stop... how the fuck did it end up in Miami!

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was streamed as it is every Monday as of late and we set a new overall personal best for Estimated Calorie Burn with 1158.84. The daily session was about 43 minutes at a high pace and then I did addition 27 minutes on top of that. Needless to say I was completely cooked after that  because in the bonus stuff I put I was completely sluggish.

Twitch Clip: Don't Quit!

Twitch Clip: Put Power Into The Last Punch!

I was going through my game library to see what I could possibly finish in one night and noticed that we haven't played Day of the Tentacle since 2019, so we'll play that tonight. There are some Steam Achievements I could try and knock out during tonight's play through so that would be a bit productive in that regards!

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

 

Today's Notes 5/9/21

Good afternoon everybody and Happy Mother's Day!

Last night's stream of ESPN Major League Baseball wasn't without incident, as during game two of the World Series between my Phillies and the Red Sox, it was a slug fest when the game locked up, and I've noticed that only happens when so much happens in a game it just FUBARs everything. Still my Phillies are the 2004 World Champions. The real highlight was Game 5, which I'm calling the Boston Massacre, but my Phillies won 29-1, with Bobby Abreu hitting 3 grand slams. What makes it better is that the game glitched out and the in-game commentary of Rex Hulder and Jon Miller was absent, so I was providing half-assed commentary through-out. I segmented that out as a full on highlight because it was that silly.

Full Game: ESPN Major League Baseball: The Boston Massacre 

Since ESPN Major League Baseball is finished I'm not sure what's replacing it on the weekly line-up, I'm considering perhaps a football game, either NFL Game Day or a Madden game from the late 90s / early 2000s. Actually what I should do is play Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep to wrap up the 1.5 + 2.5 Collection. But we'll see how I figure that out come the end of the week.

Following the stream I went through organizing my CDs, and managed to reunited a bunch of music with their original jewel cases and liner notes the the exception of 2 where I'm missing the liner notes for. My CD binders are also neatly organized to where there are 4 CDs per page if liner notes are missing, and 2 CDs per page if I still have the liner notes but note the jewel cases. Also I put a bunch of burnt CDs from the early 2000 in their own little binder, and have another one set aside for various video games & video media which I didn't have cases for.

We're only a few days away from the release of Mass Effect Legendary Edition! I can't wait for Friday! My biggest concern is using the ME2/ME3 styled controls using a game pad since I only every played those games on PC. 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was about 70 minutes total with 40 minutes counting for the daily exercise. We're up to 82 points out of 100 for Bernardo's Best Friend Achievement, so I should have that wrapped up by the end of the week, either Thursday or Friday. Saturday at the latest.

With it being Sunday, that means Overwatch is on deck to begin the new week! Will we have Mayhem matches for more than just an hour? Actually, what Blizzard should have done is implement weekly PVE stuff, there are plenty of maps where mission objectives can easily be a thing... but then again, Jeff Kaplan was in charge and if he couldn't understand that smurfing was cheating then it's no wonder many of us are eager for Overwatch 2 now that he's gone. 

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

Highlight for the Week of May 2, 2021

Here are highlights of all the games featured over on http://twitch.tv/fredcasden for the week of May 2, 2021. This week we featured Overwatch, Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise, Nancy Drew Dossier: Resorting to Danger, MLB The Show 21, Tom Clancy's The Division, Monster Hunter Rise, Star Trek Online, ECW Anarchy Rulz, Virginia and ESPN Major League Baseball!

Today's Notes 5/8/21

Good evening everybody,

I did not get up till about 3 PM Today, but I have a good excuse this time, I was up till 5 AM this morning, because after last night's stream I got into another round of going through stuff to see what I could find, what I would keep and what's getting tossed.

So first, last night's stream, we played a little indie game called Virginia. The reason was that earlier in the week long time friend of the channel, ShadowStrkr24 was going to gift me the game, but turns out I already had it. So while I was trying to figure out what to do last night I remembered I said we would play Virginia because he said it was short game beginning to end, and he was right, it took about 2 hours. Virginia is purely a cinematic game, with very limited game play involvement, to the point where all the achievements seem purely accidental to come across. It does has an awesome musical score and is a gorgeous game, though what the hell a lot of the symbolism meant in the game was lost on me. 

Twitch Clip: Can We Get Some Service?

Twitch Clip: What The Hell Is A Buffalo Doing Here?!

Twitch Clip: How The Hell DId You Get In Here?

Twitch Clip: Of Course It's Aliens

Following that, we jumped back to the PlayStation One era with ECW Anarchy Rulz, and boy does this game reflect the turmoil ECW was under in mid-2000, with the massive roster turnover, in fact one of the biggest rivalries in ECW in 2000 was Masato Tanaka versus Mike Awesome, but only Tanaka was in Anarchy Rulz and and Awesome was in Hardcore Revolutin while both men had highlights in each games video intro. Game play wise it is more streamlined than ECW Hardcore Revolution and probably is the most 'realistic' North America made wrestling game in terms of how you can only perform more impactful moves based on the 'health' of your opponent but that results in the matches going on forever. Case in point, as a joke I set a Tornando Death Match for a time limit of 40 minutes, where I was using Tommy Dreamer, my CPU partner was the Sandman and the opponents were CW Anderson and Billy Wiles.... the match ended up going the full 40 minutes. 

Twitch Clip: Dreamer WIns With A Diamond Cutter? 

Twitch Clip: The Only Way A Rhodes Is Gonna Get Over Is If They Wear Polka Dots! 

Twitch Clip: Who Booked This Crap? I Did!

Now as I said at the start last night I went through some more stuff, finding things to throw out, but things that I found were pretty cool, including my near complete set of the Star Trek The Next Generation novels, more computer game manuals, several games from the Windows 95/98 era including Tomb Raider, Tomb Raider II, Triple Play 97 and NBA Live 98. While the Tomb Raider games have seen re-release in modern times, if I could get the later two games to work it would be pretty awesome in regards to featuring classic sports games.

For Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session, the daily was 40 minutes plus we did an addition 30 with Free Exercises. This resulted in a new personal best with punches thrown of 2922 and a new exercise duration time of 1 hour 10 minute 49 sections. Best Friend Achievement for Bernardo saw a big jump to 78 points... so if I'm getting 3 points for the daily workout, I wonder what are the qualifications for each point in Free Exercise mode. 

For tonight's stream we'll be wrapping up ESPN Major League Baseball on the PlaySation 2 with the World Series between my Philadelphia Phillies facing the Boston Red Sox. We'll be playing each game, so there is a good chance we're going to sweep the Red Sox in four games!

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

Today's Notes 5/7/21

Good morning everybody,

Well half of last night's stream went about as expected, as we lead off with Star Trek Online, putting the focus on doing the endeavors for the week which involved completing three Iconian Task Force Operations, two Borg Task Force Operations, eliminated 10 Vaadwaur ground troops (which can only really be done on Kobali) and completing the Assault on Terok Nor Task Force Operation. While this seems very straight forward, one has to factor in the 'waiting' to get into certain TFOs, which meant doing all of that took nearly two hours in and of itself. That said, we did do a little extra in STO, as we split the time in it between both Sorra and Zagreus.

Twitch Clip: Release The Targs.... But They Stay Right There 

Twitch Clip: Sudden Panic!

After the 9 PM break, I decided to try something new with Monster Hunter Rise, loading it into my  Nintendo Switch for the first time, which meant there was a patch update that needed to be downloaded first. My first impressions are that it is a gorgeous game, but clearly has a learning curve in terms of figuring out how to use the command bar, selecting items and pulling off various tasks. Something the game doesn't inform players right away is that you're not just stuck with the giant sword you are given at the start, instead you have access to other weapons straight away. Monster Hunter Rise does give off the impression it's not meant to be played in long sessions. more like it's meant to be played on the style of doing one hunt a day, because if you're giving 50 minutes to do something, a good chunk of that time may be spent exploring and finding other monsters to hunt in addition to the targets assigned. So with that in mind, I'll put Monster Hunter Rise into same catagory as ARMS and Hades, in that it's a game that can be used as a go-to on STO streams or on nights when another game is finished early.

Twitch Clip: Getting A Feel For It

Twitch Clip: I Am Not Good At This

Late last night, I went ahead a wrote a little book review on "Temporary Insanity: The Uncensored Adventures of Baseball's Craziest Player", which was of course Jay Johnstone. I was actually reading it casually over the last week, so figured why not do a little review on it. People are still selling copies of it on eBay, and Johnstone was memorable enough when he passed in late 2020, it got a fair amount of attention. The funny thing about the book, is that it was published in 1985, which was his final year in the Major Leagues where he was used only as a pinch hitter for the Los Angeles Dodgers. If I ever track down the other two books Johnstone wrote, I hope one of them gives a little insight into anything that happened in his final year as a big league player.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was a solid 30 minutes, using the same adjusted settings from yesterday. Could've been a perfect session but I got a little two loose when doing straight combos. We're up to 73 out of the 100 points needed for Bernardo's Best Friend achievement, and we'll put a big dent into that over the next three days of course. 

Tonight's stream is one of those to-be-determined streams, as I'm considering doing the story mode of Mortal Kombat 11 or just messing around with some old games in another variety night. We'll see what I come up with when we start things up at about 6:30 PM Eastern Time.

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

Review: "Temporary Insanity: The Uncensored Adventures of Baseball's Craziest Player"

There is a chance that Jay Johnstone (November 20, 1945 to September 26, 2020) had to be insane, a loon, a quack, a nut case... but one thing one could say about him for sure the man was a good baseball player that clearly left his mark with the many teams he played for during a 20 year career that saw him suit up for the California Angels, Oakland A's, Chicago White Sox, Philadelphia Phillies, New York Yankees, Los Angels Dodgers, Chicago Cubs and San Diego Padres. While he wasn't a star player, Johnstone was the definition of a role player, becoming known for being one of the best pinch-hitters of the 70s and early 80s, as well a two-time World Champion with the Yankees and Dodgers. But it his off the field-antics that probably make him one of the most fascinating players of all time.

In 1985, Johnstone (with sports writer Rick Talley) wrote the first of three books detailing many of the pranks, ribs, and shenanigans he got up to,  Now the only one I have in my collection, is Temporary Insanity: The Uncensored Adventures of Baseball's Craziest Player which was published in 1985, and it isn't a straight auto-biography at all. In fact, the tone of the book is set right away with the first forward written by Tommy Lasorda "I can't think of a ball player I'd rather have a in a club house than Jay Johnston, But he wrote a book? What with, a fire extinguisher? Shaving Cream?"

So before we get to the first of Johnstone's anecdotes, we have one of the great managers of all time, telling the reader that Johnstone is a bit unique. In the 12 chapters that follow, Johnstone talks about everything from how Ron Cey was a perfect target for ribbing in the clubhouse while going into great detail about a prank he pulled on him during spring training in 1980, to later talking about how Babe Ruth came back as Fernando Valenzuela, and using the behavior and antics of other players as a way of saying he's not as crazy as he seems. 

"Temporary Insanity" is a real delightful read, because of the amount of detail that Johnstone gives into each story told. Does the book jump around a bit, yes it does, but every chapter is focused on related stories and tales, that in a more traditional autobiography would be spread out and probably wouldn't come across as memory. Case in point, there is an entire chapter dedicated to Johnstone's thoughts on the Managers he played off, it's all grouped together. Yes there are stories about some of them elsewhere in the book, but in that one chapter, Johnstone goes into detail about their personalities and quirks, including a theory how the firing of Chicago Cubs manager Lee Elia in 1983 may have probably been what lead to the Cubs losing to the Padres in the National League Championship series in 1984.

Now, would I recommend this book, yes I would, however there is a bit of a problem, as it's a very hard book to find. I'm lucky I found the copy I had in a collection of books my father was going to toss out back in the late 90s, and like many items in my office, it's something I kept around. So if you're going to track it down, your best bet is to go on eBay. If you can find a copy, you will enjoy it, particularly if you're a baseball fan.