Today's Notes

Good afternoon everyone,

Well we had Comcast come out... again... as the degradation of my service basically forced it, and lead to me filing a complaint with the FCC. Now there was a reported outage in the area today, but because my service didn't go down fully, I was able to keep my appointment, and quite frankly I wasn't going to let them talk me out of it. The tech came and found issues with the line running to the modem, combine with two old drop lines that were still attached to the tap on the telephone pole (one was the original line to the house from when my father lived here, the second was from when I had issues in 2007-08.), and also for whatever reason the main cable line was secured to the electrical line, which can direct interference.

I will say this about Comcast techs, when they have came out here, they were on the ball, they didn't try to bullshit me in anyway. They understood what I was trying to convey, and they each found issues wrong that they went to address. Hell the guy who came here today actually explained different details about how Comcast uses a closed system and there should be no frequency issues but that an drop line still attached to the tap but not to the house could be cause a number of issues if someone used a ham-radio. Hell he even said I could improve the stability of my connecting by dropping the cable boxes which run off the main line.

That said I did reach out to Verizon to get a price quote on what they charge on a month to month basis, and it seems, cost wise that would be the way to go. 

Now of course we didn't have a stream last night because of the issues that popped up on Thursday night that carried over to Friday. I did do some off-stream gaming of Overwatch and teamed up with PandaSweet getting the wins needed for the Roadhog Paichimari skin. So while that was the plan for Sunday night, getting done last night helped take my mind off of the issues. Big thanks to PandaSweet for joining the fun as we ran a series of Mayhem matches.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was short, because of all the other hassles I had to deal with. IT was a really quick 22 minute workout, and the shorter the session the toughter it is for me to get into a good rhythm. Still we got the work in!

Tonight's stream, if all goes well, will features the wrap up of Zero Escape Virtue's Last Reward, as I have three character endings (Luna, Quark and Phi's, which is the true ending) to get plus one bad ending to get. Depending on how long that takes, we may end up doing something extra, but I'm not completely sure.

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

Today's Notes 3/12/21

 

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night's stream of Star Trek Online was particularly unstable, as the stream experienced a couple of resets, massive dropped frames and all sorts of other issues including massive lag and latency in game. From what I could tell, this seems to be a case of my ISP (Comcast) either throttling my upload and even download speeds. This was something I was noticing as far as download speeds during the afternoon for my day job, where loading of a webpage needed for my job would take unusually long to connect. I did call Comcast last night, they said to literally write down every instance it happens for a week. 

Well the only ones I can properly track are the streams because it would be impossible to track each instance that happens for when I'm working during the afternoons.Ah well, we did manage to get a lot of things done for nearly every one of my STO characters last night, some story progress here, an task for operation there. But the thing is when I tested playing Overwatch via the Switch last night after the stream, I had no issues... maybe it's on Twitch's end, I'm not completely sure, because when I do the auto-config in OBS, it always comes up with about the same recommendation 3000 KPBS 1080P 60 FPS.... and I set my settings for 2700 KPBS 720P 30 FPS.

Oh well, we'll document things and push onward as they said, as the plan for tonight is to wrap up Zero Escape Virtue's Last Reward so that Saturday we can run the PS3 that arrived through its paces to see how it performs for an extended period of time.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was pretty solid, a bit of a higher Fitness Age score, but all in all, it felt good. Didn't do anything extra because I was testing various internet speed things to try and trace the source of the problems I had last night. We did reach a new milestone in Fitness Boxing 2 this morning, unlocking the Cruiserweight Puncher Lv.3 Achievement which involved having a total punch count of 121,500, with my exact total being 122,113.

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

Today's Notes 3/11/21

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream of ESPN Major League Baseball saw five games being played, with my Philadelphia Phillies winning all five games covering a game against the Chicago White Sox, three against the Minnesota Twins and one against the Detroit Tigers. We did make sure to get Rheal Cormier into games to acknowledge his passing earlier this week. It is very weird when playing older sports games and then realizing guys who were included in them are no longer around. It's probably more noticeable with WWE games because wrestlers from the 80s and 90s had no self-control over their own indulgences.

Anyway the big news from yesterday is that we now have a 'new' PlayStation 3 which means we'll be able to start featuring games from that era that were either PS3 exclusives or stuff that I already had for the console. We'll probably do a full test of it on stream in the near future, maybe Saturday since we're going to wrap up Zero Escape Virtue's Last Reward on Friday

Several PS3 games were added to my collection as well this week of Saints Row The Third: The Full Package, Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition, Assassin's Creed III, Bio Shock Infinite, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Crimes and Punishments: Sherlock Holmes, Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag, Tomb Raider, The Last of Us, Assassin's Creed Ezio Trilogy (which included Assassin's Creed II, Revelations and Brotherhood), Dragon Age Inquisition, Assassin's Creed, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, & Far Cry 3. Yes some of these I have in other formats, but they were included with the PS3 that we received yesterday, and most have PSN Trophies, so there's the joy of chances those for completion purposes. Not to mention seeing the differences between versions is always cool

Today marked 90s days of Fitness Boxing 2, which for me is consecutive days.... and if we included 248 days since we started doing Fitness Boxing. Still getting to 90 days, meant 90 Daily Exercise stamps which unlocked the Supreme Stamper Lv. 2 Achievement milestone.  Because I did not over sleep today, we did add another set in addition to the daily exercises too, so feeling really good right now.

With it being Thursday, that means things will be focus on Star Trek Online tonight, and with no new story content, we'll bounce from character to character doing different things.

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

Today's Notes 3/10/21

Good morning everybody,

Well I woke up late today, waking up at a little before 10:30 AM so I'm scrambling a little... totally my fault, as I ignored my own alarm this morning.

Anyway last night's stream of Dragon Age Inquisition was focused on the Storm Coast and Fallow Mire areas, doing a lot of side-missions and things that saw me basically roaming all over the place. That said we picked up a lot of new companion characters, probably the most stand out being The Iron Bull, who seems to be the most chilled out of all the side-characters. 

This week's Extreme Ghostbusters episode is Deadliners, which is probably the most goriest animated episode of any series ever, implied or otherwise. The cold opening is awesome, where you see a guy strapped to an operating table surrounded by three demons, then when it fades to black there is blood splattered on the screen. Also the episode is a big riff on the works of R.L. Stein which were very popular back in the 90s... I would know, because I still have some in my collection. At least I think I do.

Tonight's stream will be focused on ESPN Major League Baseball, as we'll be picking up during the 2004 seasons where the Phillies headed to Chicago to face to White Sox. Basically we're in the part of the season where it's inter-league play, so we get to use the Designated Hitter for a few games.

Despite waking up late, I did get in a 30 minute Fitness Boxing 2 session, I didn't included stretching in today's set so things felt a little stiff than usual, but I was mostly in-sync with the rhythm for each set, and since I was extra motivated, we got a real good sweat going.

Got a big package today, which I look forward to probably doing an un-boxing video for... or dedicating an entire stream around it's contents.

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

Today's Notes 3/9/21

 Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream of Dragon Age Inquisition went a lot longer than anticipated because I actually went into the portion of the game where you basically decide between allying with the Mages or the Templars, which in the context of how both are portrayed is an easy decision, since the Mages are basically victims of circumstance.... at least based on the fact I didn't do the Dragon's Keep thing at the start of the game to input decisions from Dragon Age Origins and Dragon Age II since I played the first on PC and never played the second. Still, we ended up recruiting a bunch of other characters, which means the making sure everyone is properly equipped with the best gear is gonna be a headache and a half considering how clunky the menu system is in DA:I. 

But that said we'll be continuing things tonight, granted it's going to be more focused on exploring one of the many open areas of the game world. So there will be little to no plot advancement as we roam around looking for items, loot and leveling up.

Saw an interview of Maria Kanellis defending the WWE's Divas Era... and once again she sticks her own foot in her mouth. Since that was the era when I was fully invested in watching WWE TV for fan creative purposes, I saw what was going on... and what she she doesn't understand is that just because that era had Mickie James, Victoria and Beth Phoenix, it also had the dead weight like Maria herself, Candice Michelle, Layla El and Michelle McCool, performers who basically justified the WWE not doing anything serious with the women division for the better part of a decade. There is a fucking reason why virtually no female wrestler anywhere says they were inspired by anything from that point in time while also saying they want to make everyone forget about that period of wrestling history. Because 95% of it sucked.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Session only went about 30 minutes (38 if I include the time for stretching) and yeah, certainly feel the difference between doing three days of 45+ minute workouts and doing a shorter one. Hell didn't even break 1000 punches for the day, granted today's session did involve a lot of blocking, weaving, ducking and swaying so it evens out in that regard.

Dropped into Animal Crossing New Horizons this morning as well and had a peculiar interaction with Audie, in that she lost her pull-up bar... which if the size of items in the game is any indication, is something that is close to seven feet tall. Granted I had the item in my inventory because I picked it up from Nook's Cranny a few days ago... but the question is how did Audie lose her own in the first place?

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

 

 

Today's Notes 3/8/21

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night's stream of Overwatch was pretty solid, plenty of wins and losses as per usual, as we split things between mostly being a tank and support and the start of the stream, then focusing on playing damage role. Picked up four plays of the game with Reinhardt, Ashe, McCree and Torbjorn, so had a good night in terms of having huge moments. Big thanks to PandaSweet for joining in on the fun!

That said, we did have one instance where I got overly frustrated with smurfs. For those that don't know, Smurfs are people with egos so large they create secondary accounts (aka buying Overwatch twice) so that they can match up against lower-tiered and more casual players so that they can basically beat up on players no dedicating hundreds of hours to playing ranked matches. Smurfing is cheating because you are avoiding playing at your skill level and it's to negate Match Making porcess.

We'll be streaming Dragon Age Inquisition later today, and I gave real consideration to dedicating tonight to finishing up Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward, but if I figure things correctly, if we do Zero Escape: VLR on Friday, we don't risk anything if it ends up taking longer than expected to finish, considering we have two character endings, one bad ending and the true ending to go through to wrap everything up, plus on more major puzzle room as well. So tonight being what it was supposed to be with Dragon Age makes sense.

We did do a bonus stream as per usual for a Monday, but it was only featuring Fitness Boxing 2, and we did a little extra so it ended up being a 55-minute work out session overall, with the daily only being like 47 minutes. We did reach a new milestone with the Cruiserweight Puncher Level 2 achievement, which was to reach a total punch count of 117,000. I forgot to look at my overall total punch count, but still, it's a lot!

Watched Robin Hood: Men In Tights last night, man what a funny movie that still holds up very well. Richard Lewis is just a joy to watch, and the dialog is just so smartly written... which is the case with all Mel Brooks movies. 

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

Today's Notes 3/7/21

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night's stream of Zero Escape Virtue's Last Rewards was real productive in getting things advanced towards the ending, as found the path that leads to the true ending and unlocked the information needed not only to deal with the anti-matter bombs that lead to the true ending but to also resolve the issues regarding Quark and Luna's endings as well. For all intents and purposes we should be able to wrap up Zero Escape Virtue's Last Rewards at the end of this week. We might end up moving it to Friday night because there may night be enough content left to max out a full 4-5 hour long stream, and for archive purposes I don't want to bog it down by pairing it with something else.

For tonight's stream, well it's Sunday night which means Overwatch is on the agenda. There isn't any in-game events happening this week, which means we can just focus on playing the game and not worry about pressing for wins. 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was another long one, which mean no progression was made in terms of doing 'extra exercises' to count towards doing Free Exercises with Janice. Still the workout itself was over 45 minutes and that's not counting the time spent towards stretching. I am considering for Monday's extra stream to have the daily work out be shorter to maybe do some extra exercises... but I'm up in the air on that. More than likely it'll be a longer style session.

Since I stream on Twitch, obviously the whole 'Boycott Amazon' issue has got my attention... but let me ask you something, why would I, as someone who has been able to earn additional income from streaming on Twitch, want to Boycott Amazon in support of people in Alabama who voted for Tommy Tuberville, a man who has proven to be anti-Trans and has a platform so out-dated it would make the corpse of Ronald Reagan go 'get with the times'.  Let me remind people that my day job involves Market Research, and a lot of that involved interviewing people for political polls, and many of which were focused on the state of Alabama. The only reason Tuberville got elected to the United States Senate is because of the hicks in Alabama liked him as Football Coach, and that's a fucking fact.

It appears Comcast, my internet service provider is having issues this afternoon... which is always frustrating to see just a few hours from the start of a stream. 

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