Today's Notes 2/21/21

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night's stream of Zero Escape Virtue's Last Reward was really productive in terms of reaching major story points, as we unlocked the achievement called 'I Can't Believe It's No Murder' for being able to prove that Alice wasn't killed due to one of the effects of Radical-6 being suicide, in addition to getting the character endings for Tenmyouji (In Root Beer Veritas) and Clover (Secret Agent Woman), with the obvious details being revealed that Tnmyouji is indeed Junpei and he never was able to find Akane/June after the events of 999 but he adopted Quark, while Clover along with Snake ended up working with Alice who seen in the post credits scene of the first game. The thing that most people will find odd is the age difference between the two, as for Clover and Alice it's only been a year since the end of 999, but for Tnmyouji it's been way longer. The reason for that gets explained.... much later on.

This week The Division 2 is having it's Hollywood event, which means Tuesday night will be dedicated to checking that out since Iceman and PowerThumbz talked so much about it and how the rag doll effects are turned way up. Which means I won't be starting a major game this week, instead Monday night we're going to open with 1979 Revolution: Black Friday on the Xbox One, because I've already played the Steam version, so we can get some easy achievements to boost my gamer score. We'll probably pair it up with something else because it's not a particularly long game.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was solid, but a little 'weave heavy' which lead to so misses, which is odd because since I'm moving back to doing doing the workouts towards the right side of my desk, one would think I wouldn't be missing anything because I'm standing much closer to where the Switch is docked at. But yup, misses still happen. When I do Fitness Boxing 2 sessions for a stream, you won't see any step movements because I don't quite have the good enough angle to be able to perform those without hitting something solid. Also tossed in an extra set, so my daily exercise totals seen in the screen shot is actually lower than what I actually did.

Tonight's stream will be focused on Overwatch in my pursuit of Reaper's skin that corresponds with the Lunar New Year event, as we need to reach a total of 9 wins for the week. Because of the computer fiasco this week, and with Overwatch being one of the first things installed on the new rig, I already have a few wins, so the pressure isn't too intense to try and get them all in one night.

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

Best of the Week of February 14, 2021

Here are the best moments from each stream from my Twitch Channel (http://twitch.tv/fredcasden) for the week of February 14, 2021, which included the following games Overwatch, Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm and Music, Animal Crossing New Horizons, Super Mario Bros 35, Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix, ESPN Major League Baseball, Star Trek Online, Hades and Zero Escape Virtue's Last Rewards!

Today's Notes 2/20/21

Good evening everyone,

You ever get that sudden feeling to look for something and you think you know where it was, but then you realize it's not there and then you look up how to get replacements? Well that happened to me today! Not going to go into full details of it, but that's part of why this posting is later than normal.

Last night we tried out Hades on the Nintendo Switch, and as I've stated before rouge like games are not something I normally dive into, because of the random nature of it. Of course seeing that it had a 'god mode' of sorts where you get a little tougher every time you die to be able to withstand more punishment is a good thing. I got surprisingly far, making it the boss battle against Theseus and Asterius at the end of Elysium twice! Again, first night playing it and I just about made it to the half-way mark. Not sure how often I'll stream it, but it certain is a game that can fit in as 'filler' when I finish another game and I don't want to end a night early.

Got back to work on a commissioned story piece last night, and I figure it's probably already double the normal length I'd do, since everything I write typically ends up being 2000 words or less, depending on how interested I am in a particular subject... and this story is already about 3500 words.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was nearly perfect, okay there were a few only 'okay' rated reps performed but only one miss!  We passed another milestone, unlocking the Super Middleweight Puncher Lv. 2 achievement which is to reach a total punch count of 92,000 HITS, my exact total is 92,957. Also did a weigh in today, I'm down to 253 lbs, which means I met the goal I set for myself back when I switch from the original Fitness Boxing to its sequel. So now my new goal is to get down to 240 lbs. 

Popped into Animal Crossing New Horizons for the first time in a couple of days, was kind of weird to see Hopper hanging out in Sherb's place. Also Pietro and Antonio seem to be the most DIY focused of everyone on my island as of late

Tonight's stream will see us returning out focus to Zero Escape Virtue's Last Reward, as I believe we have to resume from an AB game point and select Betray before jumping back further to also select another Betray option. Should be a lot of fun and probably a chill stream on all fronts.

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

Today's Notes 2/19/21

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream of Star Trek Online was pretty damn solid from start to finish, as we went through every one of my characters doing one thing (either a mission, task force operation, patrol or other activity), so folks got to see the wide variety of 'captains' I've used. For some of the characters, it was their first time being used in a couple of years, and boy are some characters badly under-powered with how Star Trek Online has evolved over the year in regards to how some things stack. 

We did have a little 'scare' last night as the power did go out while I was putting together last night's highlight video for the Facebook page. Near as I can tell, because of all the ice, wind, snow we've had, it's pushed the branches of a neighbor's over-grown, poorly maintained tree down on the power lines near the transformer. The asshole in question refuses to do anything about how the tree's branches and because he has 'stroke' with the city council, no one has ever forced him to fix this issue. To give you an idea of how much of a horse's ass that guy is, he has a dog in his yard that he keeps out doors pretty much year round, even in cases of excessive heat and cold while also being one of the asshole who sets up outside of a local elementary school during election time to 'convince' people to vote for who he wants. 

Anyway, we had a solid Fitness Boxing 2 Session today as I'm getting use to setting up for the exercises being to the right of my green-screen as opposed to the left. I might have to drop side steps and front-back steps because i would need to move some furniture to have the room necessary to perform both comfortably. We reached a new milestone called Super Stamper Lv. 3 which is to log in 70 days of daily exercise, or as the game calls it 'acquire 70 stamps'. It doesn't have to be consecutive days, but it helps if you do exercise a bit daily.

For tonight's stream, we'll be trying out Hades on the Nintendo Switch, this game was highly recommend by one of my viewers a few weeks ago as something they thought I would be interested in. When it comes to rouge like dungeon crawlers, they are not my forte, and part of the reason why I haven't gone back to Diablo III was because of how overly complicated things involving gear got. 

But you know what's funny, the lead character in Hades is called Zagreus, which is a name I never associated with Greek mythology. In fact, I associate the name Zagreus with Doctor Who through the Big Finish published audio dramas! In fact, my main character in Star Trek Online is called Zagreus, and the character is a female liberated Borg drone, while in Greek mythology, Zagreus is the name of a son of Zeus and Persephone. I say 'a son', because we all know Zeus got around.

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

Today's Notes 2/18/21

Good morning everybody,

Well we got the new computer set up to make sure everything is working, and so far so good, we did a full stream last night, which ran smother than before. I don't have many direct programs installed on it, only the bare stuff used on a routine basis (OBS, Libre Office, VLC, Discord, Steam, Origin, etc). With only a 1 TB SSD, I'm considering everything. Besides, most of the games featured on stream are running off of my PS2, Xbox One S and Nintendo Switch. 

Last night's stream of ESPN Major League Baseball didn't start until after 8 PM EST, which meant we only got four games in, winning 3 out of the 4, sweeping the Mets in a 2-game set, and splitting the first two games in a four game series against the Braves. What was unique about last night's stream was that I realize I can set the aspect ratio for how it's captured and broadcasted to 4:3, granted I still see the game on my main monitor as 16:9, but having the that option really helps in making sure older games don't look blurry and stretched out for the viewers.

It's snowing outside again... but thankfully starting on Saturday / Sunday, the weather starts to pick up. Really worried about my friends down in Texas who have had either no power or rolling blackouts since the start of the week. Please stay safe down there. 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was a little on the short side, being about 24 minutes, 32 if I count the stretching. This was mostly do to me considering where I should be standing as the new rigis about where I would be to throw left hooks and the last thing I'd want is to hit the side of it. Might have to move a few things around to give me the room I need so I can continue to do special Fitness Boxing streams on Mondays, since I think moving back to the opposite side (Where ya'll could see shelving behind me) might be the best course of action. But we'll test that later on.

Tonight's stream will feature Star Trek Online will be like last week, a random hodgepodge of things featuring all of my characters. Will have to make audio adjustments on the fly because of the new PC. I did play a quick STF last night, and needless to say the RX 580 makes a huge difference in how the game looked. Granted it looked gorgeous on a GT 1030. Stream should start at about 6 PM EST if the weather doesn't screw with things.

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

Today's Notes 2/17/21

Good morning everyone,

Well as you probably saw, last night's stream thankfully ran without incident outside one minor hiccup that I can't quite track down... but at lot of my concerns will be alleviated when my new rig arrives, and according to the tracking of the package it should arrive sometime today, and with my luck it'll be right when I'm working. 

Anyway, last night's stream of Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix saw u s finishing the game, and even if there was no issues on Monday night, there was no chance of finishing it then because it did take five hours to get through the final few areas of the game, because I happened to go off the beaten path, and needed to re-do a few battles more than once. The jarring difference between how the game looks normally and the final cut scenes being of a far superior quality did lead to some nightmare fuel in particular with Mickey Mouse. That said, even as thorough as I was being in getting various things done, we did miss out on two video segments, and I'm not sure if they are tied to difficulty settings or getting certain in game objectives accomplished. 

This morning's Fitness Boxing 2 Session felt good, as we got a good groove going and the Fitness Age score was back down to where I normally see it. Reached a new milestone in Fitness Boxing 2 this morning, clearing the Hypersonic Hitter achievement which was to perform 100,00 perfect exercises (punches, weaves, steps, ducks, blocks). I do need to do two more 'free exercises' (aka non-daily exercises) using Lin to unlocked it's related achievement as well. The reason why it takes so long is because I normally don't do a non-daily exercise set unless I feel I didn't get a good workout out in with the daily.... and that's whenever it feels like the daily short changed me!

Popped into Animal Crossing New Horizons this morning, nothing major on the island other I really should spread out all the festival things that were acquired on Monday afternoon. Maybe I should cut down some of the trees or move some of the houses around.

Tonight's scheduled stream is to feature ESPN Major League Baseball, picking up in late May with my Philadelphia Phillies taking on division rivals the New York Mets and the Atlanta Braves. Now the stream will be using the current PC because I really wouldn't be able to set it up the new one when it arrives and to get everything installed between when I finish work and when I intend to start the stream. Way I figure, it wouldn't be set up until after the stream so that Windows 10 updates can be done overnight. Obviously the big factor will be when the new computer arrives.

(UPDATED 11:10 AM)

The new computer arrived

And on that note, barring anything seriously going wrong, we'll see you later today over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

Today's Notes 2/16/21

Good afternoon everybody,

Well last night certainly was a nightmare scenario, as a power flicker in my neighborhood due to cold and icy weather was the start of several problems, one the stream last night was interrupted at about 3 Hours 30 Minutes, so this was about 9:30 PM It wasn't a complete outage of power, it's the lights dimmed then came back, the internet was knocked out for a few minutes. Things came back up and we resumed as one would do, then at about 10 PM EST everything went to hell, everything just went haywire to the point nothing was responding, couldn't even pull up task manager to see what was going on. Had no choice but to do a hard power down, which is something I hate to do. Things got worse when my PC would instantly shut down upon pressing the power button, it did it a second time, and on the third try it did power back up, but with a warning indicating one of the fans was not functioning.... but just holding my hands need the vent ports I could feel the fans moving. 

Needless to say this forced an emergency look into getting a new rig, because the last time I had anything like these issues were in 2011 and 2018. 2011, a power outage basically KO'ed it permantly and in 2018, that one was suffering from sudden hardware malfunctions. At the moment I'm writing this I'm running every diagnostic tool Windows 10 has to double check everything, and also in the process of backing up anything I already didn't have on an external hard drive, basically the entire afternoon is lost, so an unwanted day off from work, but if all tests out right I hopefully will be streaming this evening... we shall see if that goes well.

So these issues aside, last night's stream of Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix was going along very smoothly, as we closed out the in-game stories for The Coliseum, Agrabah, Halloween Town, 100 Acre Wood, Atlantica and The Pride Lands... and when all the issues started happening, thing were then going to be focused on Space Paranoids.Sadly the technically issues has resulted in lost footage, as I didn't even put together a highlight reel for my Facebook page to chronicle last night's events yet. Once every test is completed, we'll start pushing the hardware a little to see what it can handle at this point. If nothing catastrophic happens, things should be smooth, but even better when the new rig arrives.

Did do some blatant level grinding in Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix after I got my current PC powered up last night to where I could contact my job to let them know what was happening. Managed to find that one spot in the Pride Lands where numerous enemies appear, and it seems like a great spot of knocking out levels... which I found it sooner as I probably would've of boosted myself even further than I managed to do while I was checking the hard drive for disk errors till 4 in the morning.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 felt, even though it's back to back days of the Fitness Age score being 23... wonder if there was a patch update where they re-calculated how to score that, because normally I'm at a 21, and I know I was particular on point today. Did reach a new milsestone achievement called Super Middlewight Puncher Lv. 1, which was to have a total of 88,000 total punches thrown, with my exact total being 88,377.

And on that note we'll see you (hopefully) at about 6 PM EST for Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix over on twitch.tv/fredcasden