Borderlands, Failed Job Interview And Other Notes

 Hi everyone,

Yesterday I had a job interview that was a hybrid position and everything was going perfect until I learned the job was not in Philadelphia on a major NJ Transit route, but down at the south end of Cherry Hill which is nearly impossible to get to and actually impossible to come home from based on the hours. I'm very disappointed because all the duties I would've done would've have ultiized my experience working for the Courier Post, Cheatp Trips and Maximum Research!

Now the interview ran long and I ended up being late for work, so I stayed on the 'phone' longer than scheduled, and I did not get a complete interview... hell didn't even one started!

On the plus side I may have another strong aspect to interview for an even better job, have to remember to return a call first thing in the morning!

Tonight's stream of Borderlands started off with me focused on various side quests related to New Haven and the Scrapyard, but we were joined by random players, one of whom took me to what was essentially and end game area where I was heavily under powered, but the goal was to level me up quickly and to work towards the final boss of the DLC content to be able to get the best loot in the game. Basically I ended up just following around and trying not to get downed or killed... so it ended up being a very unsual night.

Did end up getting achievements sooner than I would have thought all the same, so it worked out in that regard.

Borderlands: Game of the Year Edition Achievements

• Discovered The Scrapyard: Discovered The Scrapyard
• Weapon Aficionado: Reached proficiency level 10 with any weapon type
• Making a Monster: Built the New Car: Monster
• Pandora-dog Millionaire: Earned $1,000,000
• Ding! Hardcore: Earned level 30
• Athena, Out: Rescued Athena

For the raid we dropped in on SweetLinder who was playing Sea of Thieves and Hint: Showdown over at twitch.tv/sweetlindir

Finished a commission requested based on Justice League Dark: Apokolips War, and now my attention turns to a Mass Effect commission request... and top it off I have another request on file for a WWE short story.

Iceman won't be able to join us for Wednesday night's streams, so we're taking a break from Resident Evil 6 this week, and so I'll feature Borderlands instead. I got several side quests to turn in, and if we're joined by the player who was with us tonight, we may go back to that DLC content. We'll see.

The scheduled start time for the next stream is 9:30 PM Eastern over on twitch.tv/fredcasden

Have a good night everyone!

Borderlands, Work and other notes

Hi everyone,

We had work on Monday, and got off to a good start with a solid interview and then it mundane, which wasn't helped by the fact I over ate when I ordered some Chinese Food, but re-heated General Tso's chicken never tastes good!

Tonight's stream of Borderlands saw us taking our time and knocking out various side quests and objectives while making our way to New Haven, which is where Marcos and Scooter hangs out, which also puts to where we can meet Tannis. We had more random help, but my lack of speed when playing a FPS that isn't Overwatch is very apparent. as I struggled to keep up with someone who clearly put in a ton of time into the Borderlands franchise on the console side.

We're continuing Borderlands on Tuesday's stream with the goal of knocking side quests first before meeting with Tannis, depending on where they take me and how easy it is to get around. It will be open to all random players, so it could end up kind of nutty

Borderlands: Game of the Year Edition Achievements

• Rootinest, Tootinest, Shootinest: Killed 5 Rakk in under 10 seconds
• There's No "I" In "Team": Completed 15 missions in co-op
• You call this archaeology?: Applied an elemental artifact
• .21 Gigawatts: Killed 25 enemies with shock weapons
• Master Exploder: Killed 25 enemies with explosive weapons
• Ding! Expert: Earned level 20
• Made in Fyrestone: Completed all missions in the Arid Badlands
• Paid in New Haven: Completed 5 missions in the Rust Commons
• 12 Days of Pandora: Mastered the technology of Pandora

For the raid we dropped in on TokuSHOUTsu during the marathon of Ultraman Ginga S over at twitch.tv/TokuSHOUTsu 

Did a lot of writing as well, writing a Persona story based around a corrupted Velvet Room attendant and started work on a new commission request based around Justice League Dark: Apokolips War, while also getting another commission request for a Mass Effect story based around the mission that takes places on Sanctuary in Mass Effect 3

I have a virtual job interview on Tuesday afternoon, hopefully is goes well.

Our next stream is scheduled for 9:30 PM Eastern, assuming there is work in the evening. I might start early if there isn't, but since  I have two stories to write, I may work on those.

So on that note, have a good night and we'll see you next time over on twitch.tv/fredcasden

Overwatch and other notes

 Hi everyone,

Tonight's stream of Overwatch certainly saw more losses than wins, in fact we won only two matches in the last two hours, but we did win the final match of the night. What we ran into was a lot of questionable folks who weren't bothering adjusting to what the opposing team was doing along with not playing their roles correctly. Big thanks to PandaSweet and Odeu for being apart of the fun over all!

Characters that I used included Kiriko, Reinhardt, Orissa, D.va, Junker Queen, Ashe, Tracer, Bastion and others, unfortunately I picked up no plays of the game this week on stream, but I had some particuarly good matches in terms of statistics. But we did get an achievement as Mei.

Overwatch 2 Achievements

• Cold Snap: Freeze 4 enemies at once with Mei in Quick or Competitive Play.

For the raid we dropped in on The offical channel for Mystery Science Theater 3000 over at https://www.twitch.tv/mst3k

Made up for the time lost yesterday but writing the Mass Effect short story commission, creating an whole alternate lore for different version of FemShep that fits in with the world of the previous 35 entries in the series. It turned out rather well.

Our next stream is scheduled for Monday night at 9:30 PM Eastern with the continuation of Borderlands. We'll focus on the side quests I picked up, in addition to leaving the option open for people to join in. Of course if there is no work, I might start early, depending on if another story commission comes in.

So it's a light post tonight, so on that note we'll see you next time over on twitch.tv/fredcasden

Borderlands and other notes

Hi everyone,

So as a lot of folks know tonight's stream didn't start until 8:30 PM, because of reasons beyond my control that could've have been prevented thanks to someone actually being prepared for folks to visit them even though the date was sent a month in advance. We left at around 8:40 AM this morning on a two hour car trip to North Jersey, so it was around 10:45 AM when we got there, and when I'm heard that we should 'drive slower', that already put me in a foul mood and put me on edge the entire time, because I was figuring at the latest we'd be leaving by 4 PM to come back, so I would have enough time to refresh from the two hour car ride... but nope, we didn't leave till 5 PM and I didn't make it back home till right before 7 PM.

And I'm someone who likes to do a bit of prep before the stream, make sure everything is working as it should, have my drinks and snacks ready and those pre-flight checks can take 30 minutes... but since I was coming home after a two hour car ride, I needed much more time.

The stream tonight saw us starting up the Xbox version of Borderlands, and like my Steam play-through several years ago, we're playing as Lilith. But unlike my Steam play-through, I opened up the game to be public, so random people can drop in and out at anytime, which throws off the team balance to a very large degree. I got a fair bit done solo as I was doing all the side quests before we were joined by random folks. I still got several side quests to do in the first area before moving on, but I'm a higher level than I would've been since Sledge is already defeated.

We're going to put Borderlands in the Monday-Tuesday-Thursday slots of the schedule going forward.

Borderlands: Game of the Year Edition Achievements

• Paid in Fyrestone: Completed 5 missions in the Arid Badlands
• Discovered Skag Gully: Discovered Skag Gully
• Ding! Newbie: Earned level 5
• Truly Outrageous: Killed an enemy with the Siren's action skill
• Pyro: Killed 25 enemies with incendiary weapons
• Ding! Novice: Earned level 10
• Get A Little Blood on the Tires: Killed 25 enemies by ramming them with any vehicle
• And They'll Tell Two Friends: Played with at least two other players.
• Discovered Sledge's Safe House: Discovered Sledge's Safe House
• Fence: Sold 50 guns to a shop
• Discovered Headstone Mine: Discovered Headstone Mine
• Group LF Healer: Rescued a groupmate from death in a co-op game
• Wanted: Sledge: Killed Sledge
• United We Stand: Defeated the Rakk Hive, the Vault Boss, Sledge, Krom, or Flynt in a co-op game
• There are some who call me...Tim: Equipped a class mod for your character

For the raid we dropped in on oldish22 who was featuring Path of Exlie over on twitch.tv/oldish22

Obviously got no writing done at all because of how Saturday went over all, I hope to get a good portion of the Mass Effect short story commission done on Sunday.

In fact I didn't get ANYTHING DONE THAT I HOPED TO DO... as in prep-work was done for meals I was hoping to making for Sunday and Monday.

Sunday's stream will start on time at 7 PM Eastern (unless there is a power our internet outage) an we'll featuring Overwatch, see you then over on twitch.tv/fredcasden

The Last of Us Part II and other notes

Hi everyone,

Friday was a mixed bag on various levels, for one I did some yard work early in the day... and went through three spools for my lawn trimmer just to get the sidewark and part of the yard done. I really need to just dump weed and grass killer on every bit of vegetation around my house to kill it all off.

To top it off, I quick order of some stuff from DoorDash was nearly delivered to the wrong address, and I was super pissed. At least the driver realized their mistake when they drove past my house and saw me waiting for my delivery.

Sadly work got cancelled again, putting a huge dent in things as I was counting on my next pay check to basically cover half the cost of a new fridge.

On a more positive note, we did start The Last of Us Part 2, and the first four hours alone are so much better than the entire run of the first game which I played last year. The controls are so much better, and the fact that I can customize them to negate some of the terrible button combinations and actions is very helpful.

I particularly love that Joel basically get his comeuppance for his actions at the end of the first game, setting up a interesting revenge plot for Ellie, while we also see things from the antagonist's Abby's point of view as well.  The achievements are much more manageable and fair  when compared to the first game as well.

I'm actually looking forward to playing The Last of Us Part 2 again next Friday, which is a feeling I didn't really have with the first game last year.

The Last of Us Part II Trophies

• Apprentice: Learn a player upgrade
• Tinkerer: Upgrade a weapon
• Starter Set: Find 5 trading cards
• So Great and Small: Find the Engraved Ring

For the raid we dropped in on marslag who was also playing The Last of Us Part 2 over on twitch.tv/marslag

Picked up another commission request for a Mass Effect short story to somehow have MaleShep and FemShep interact as siblings. An interesting challenge to say the least

Heading up to North Jersey today with my brother and his family to visit my aunt. and her family. The plan is leave early in the morning, hopefully get up their around 10 or 11 AM, and then making it back up by 4 or 5 PM. Really hoping everyone is considerate of that fact. 

Spoke with the FnDanteSavage during the day just to see how he was doing, and turns out as much turmoil as I'm going through, he had his own misadventures this summer, but I'm glad to know he and his family is doing well.

So Saturday's stream, as far as I'm concerned is scheduled for 7 PM Eastern, and I want to experiment with maybe featuring something from Game Pass to get footage for an idea for content for my YouTube channel.

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

The Expanse, Street Fighter 6, Gears 5 and other notes...

Hi everyone,

Tonight's stream featured The Expanse: A TellTale Series... and I was impressed with how great the game looked, the voice acting, the dialog choices and the controls... everything was so immersive that I was caught off guard with the the first episode only ended after about 70 minutes. This basically proved the fundamental problem with TellTale Game's episodic release style, because for streamers and content creators, a 70 minute 'episode' just isn't good enough. Hell I could and have gotten close to two hours of play time out of each episode of the TellTale Walking Dead Season 1. 

The release of  the Expanse, does prove that the company's being Life is Strange: True Colors and Star Trek:Resurgence had it right by releasing the full game day one and letting players go at their own pace. A shame The Expanse is tainted by a archaic gimmick. Add on to that that you cannot access the options menus when starting the game and this not fully a positive experience.

So since the Expanse was so short, we played some Street Fighter 6, getting ranked placements as Juri and Ryu. We tried to do some Avatar fights, but couldn't find anyone to match up with in the Battle Hub.

Lastly, we loaded up Gears 5 for the first time in a while, doing an Escape, a couple of Horde runs and a PVE. We managed to complete a horde run, which was pretty cool, and picked up an achievement during an escape. 

The Expanse: A Telltale Series Achievements

• Captain Drummer: Complete Episode 1 of The Expanse

Gears 5 Achievements

• Buying Time: Used the Scrubber Room to slow down the Venom in Escape

For the raid we dropped in on daworstgamerever25 who was playing Rocket League and showing off their sound mixing skills over at twitch.tv/daworstgamerever25

Work was cancelled again, and while I'm partially covered for this week, going forward I'm in dangerous territory. Also doesn't help but I think one of the job I was applying far was blatantly misleading applicants with the address I was given not being for the company listed. 

Wrote a bonus story for my SubscribeStar followers based on Hellsing, which ended up being over 3000 words. It was something different based on what I know regarding the character of Heinkel Wulf.

Our next stream is schedule for Friday night at 9:30 PM Eastern with the start of The Last of Us Part 2... if work gets cancelled again, then we'll start early, since I do have to be up before 8 AM to prep for a trip up to North Jersey.

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

Resident Evil 6. Power Wash Simulator and other notes

Hi everyone,

Finished the short story commission related to Mass Effect first thing this morning, I was particularly inspired by some ideas I had for it. So at the moment commission slots are open.

Work got cancelled at the last minute, but I was told we should have an assignment starting on Thursday, which I hope gives us many hours of work.

Update on the Fridge, because it's so old, all possible replacement parts (Part # WR9X405) for it were discontinued... so I certainly have to look into getting a new fridge a lot sooner than I expected.

Tonight's stream opened with Resident Evil 6, which saw Iceman and I clear Chapters 2 and 3 of the Jake and Sherry campaign, along with the opening few sections of Chapter 4. There was quite a few deaths in Chapter Two as we tried to figure out how to escape the cave, along with getting hung up in searching for stuff in what was supposed to be a stealth section in Chapter 3. Chapter 4 saw us reach the point where Jake and Sherry run into Chris and Pierce in China, which some wild sequences involving a motorcycle and seeing the helicopter battle from a different angle.

For the second half of the stream I dived into PowerWash Simulator, clearing a couple of jobs in pretty straight forward fashion. 

Resident Evil 6 Achievements

• A Revolting Development: Complete Chapter 2 in Jake's campaign.
• Silent Killer: Use a stealth attack to take down five enemies.
• Let's Blow This Joint: Complete Chapter 3 in Jake's campaign.

PowerWash Simulator Achievements

• Sole Task: Complete the sole of the Shoe House last

For the raid we dropped in on SweetLindir who was playing Sea of Thieves over on twitch.tv/sweetlindir

Got some Miscellaneous groceries, some snacks, bread, drinks and things like that. Nothing major.

Realized I needed ink for my printer... because I haven't had to use my printer in probably five years.

Our next stream is scheduled for Thursday night at 9:30 PM Eastern, and we're going to feature episode one of The Expanse, the first major release from the revived TellTale Games. Sadly they are doing episodic releases for all five chapters, So we'll bounce to it on all the major release days.

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