Today's Notes 8/16/21: More Fun With Friends

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream of Overwatch was a lot of fun, and not just because we nearly had a full Hype Train going. We got to play with a few viewers, PandaSweet was of course apart of the fun, big thanks to here as always, as well as new friends Chief Beef and Lorespade! We stuck mostly to quick play matches, with one super long Mayhem match that took a near hour to complete! Here are the results of the matches played last night.

1. Quick Play: Defeat - Brigitte
2. Quick Play: Defeat - D.va & Reinhardt 
3. Quick Play: Victory - Moira (Back Fill)
4. Quick Play: Defeat - Mercy 
5. Quick Play: Victory - Moira
6. Quick Play: Defeat - Dva 
7. Quick Play: Victory - Moira
8. Quick Play: Victory - D.va
9. Quick Play: Victory - D.va  
10. Quick Play: Victory - Moria
11. Quick Play: Victory - Moira 
12. Quick Play: Victory - D.va
13. Quick Play: Victory - D.va
14. Quick Play: Victory - Moira
15. Quick Play: Defeat - Moira
16. Quick Play: Victory - Moira
17. Quick Play: Victory - Moira 
18. Quick Play: Victory - Moira
19. Mayhem: Victory: Mei, Reinhardt & Sombra - Sombra (match went 40+ minutes)
    
20. Quick Play Classic: Defeat -  D.va & Reinhardt (Back Fill)
    

Now I can have fun with Overwatch solo, but there is something more fun with playing with people from the chat who've I' gotten to know over a period of time, it builds a nice sense of community, in my pokey little opinion. It's why I dedicate Sundays to Overwatch! Of course we do have clips from last night for ya'll to enjoy as well!

• That was indeed targeted 
• And that's how you do it!
• Somehow I ended up a ledge
• Somebody forgot about the payload!
• What Did The Mercy Say When She Hit The Wall Thanks To Bastion? 
• I Will Read It After This Match! 
• Definition of Desperation and Hope This Works! 
• I have heavy fingers 
• A Sub As The Match Start!
• Panda Charges In To Set Up The Victory!

As far as I know, Kalenal is still without power, hopefully they'll have power restore today as they do normally stream on Mondays over on twitch.tv/kalenal!

I saw the character trailer for Akira in Street Fighter V, and boy does she look like she will be a lot of fun to play. 

Took part in Dr Kawashima's Brain Training World Championship Competition #79 over the weekend, I placed 1688 out of 2689 for Photographic Memory overall, but in my age group of 35 to 39 I was 206 out 314. For the Connect Maze I placed 2327 out 2723 overall while in my age group I placed 255 out 296. In Calculations X 100 I placed 2297 out of 2673, and 269 out of 305 in my age group.  Lastly in Rock Paper Scissors  I placed 1246 out of 1701 while placing 150 out of 208 in my age group. There's got to be a better way to convey how I scored in this.

Today's Ftiness Boxing 2 Daily Workout lasted 31 minutes with an estimate calorie burn of 427 kcal. The exercises for today were the Body Straight Combo, Triple Combo and Uppercut Combo. We're now up to 91 out of 100 for the Karen's Best Friend achievement.

Fort tonight's stream we'll be starting the second half of Chrono Cross, we've already met Sprigg and are picking things up to where we would recruit Harle and begin the journey to get Serge his body back, since he's now Lynx! We'll get started in the early evening!

Have a great day as we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

Today's Notes 8/15/21: Weirdness After The Stream

Good morning everybody,

Last night got real interesting after the stream when a car went speeding around the corner in front of my house, hit the curb that leads to the area behind my home, hit my fence then ricocheted off to hit another fence of another person's home on the opposite side, then a tree resulting in their car flipping over. Thankfully, the driver survived and since it happened super late there was no one out on the sidewalks. Got the case number from the police officer that arrived on the scene... but fuck me, this was not something anyone should have to deal with.

Anyway last night's stream of Pokemon: Let's Go Eevee certainly saw a lot of roaming around as we battle away along route 15 to get to Fuchsia City, but we didn't tackle the join straight away, instead we knocked out one side quest that lead to Eevee learning another special move so it can move heavy objects and then went to tackle 'Pokemon Road', which if memory serves me right was a bike only path in Pokemon Blue, Red & Yellow back in the 90s. We caught a variety of Pokemon, Rapidash being the biggest find before finally taking of the Fuchsia City gym, which were all poison type Pokemon, which meant the use antidotes was certainly required, but none of my Pokemon were knocked out.

Afterward, found the special technique that allows Eevee to basically surf on the water to finally start capturing some water Pokemon, but then I remembered the Power Plant, and after looking it up because I couldn't remember how to get there, went to capture Zapados. The Power Plant is filled with electric type Pokemon and does have the potential to battle wild Electrodes since they look like Pokeballs. But since we were going after Zapados, that was certainly a battle against wild Pokemon, and a legendary one at that. Eevee weakened it before I swapped them out for Charizard who barely hanged on to deliver the final blows.

Capturing Zapados proved to be quite difficulty, because aiming with the joycons is virtually impossible, even using Ultra Balls, Zapados had a red ring meaning capturing it would be a challenge... so we went through about maybe 70 Ultra Balls and probably 50 regular Pokeballs + a bunch of berries before finally capturing it. I'm guessing the level of difficulty was justified because Zapados apparently does not flee, it's just a matter of sticking with it to capture it

So with all this done, I now have a better understanding of what it's going to take to capture Moltres and Articuno, and my attention will turn to the Seafoam Islands next week with capturing as many water type Pokemon I can find and battling my way to the next 

Of course we got clips for you to enjoy from the stream!

• We Will Mess Around With The South Park PS1 Trilogy On Friday! 
• That was super effective! 
• Eevee Just (Took) Out Its Soul! 
• We Got A Rapidash!
• Our 2nd Eevee Evolves Into Vaporeon
• We Got A Tentacruel 
  
• This Should Be Effective 
• Charizard Holds On To Put Down Zapdos! 
• We Captured Zapdos! 

 And since it's Sunday that means we have a highlight reel of all the stuff we did on Twitch this week, which includes Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise, Overwatch, Chrono Cross, Metal Slug 3, Smite, Tom Clancy's The Division, Star Trek Online, Triple Play 98, WWE Crush Hour, Street Fighter V and Pokemon Let's Go Eevee, plus some of the Just Chatting segments!  

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 31 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 569 kcal. The exercises for today were Double Combo #2, the Left Right Step Combo and Advance Combo #2. Kind of odd that all the missed movements I had occurred out of the South Paw stance. We're up to 88 out of 100 for the Karen's Best Friend Achievement, which I should accomplish I think by Thursday.

Also, Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session was streamed, so we got some clips of it too!

• Double Combo #2 8/15/21 
  
•  Left Right Step Combo 8/15/21
• Advance Combo #2 8/15/21 

I joked about it, but I was successful in tracking down a copy of South Park's Chef's Luv Shack for the PlayStation, meaning I now have the trilogy of PSone South Park Games (South Park & South Park Rally). With all three games in my collection, I figure this Friday night (August 20th) we'll have a South Park night featuring all three games. If anything I can joke about about how these are the games that Matt Stone and Trey Parker want people to forget existed.

With the start of a new week means we're playing Overwatch tonight, I don't think we'll have Mayhem as an option tonight since I know it was in the arcade mode list on Saturday, so this will most likely be a quick play only stream tonight.

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

Today's Notes 8/14/21: The Street Fighter V Story Mode Was Actually Fun

Good morning everybody,

First, sending out positive vibes to Kalenal and everyone out in Michigan who got nailed from the major blackout, hopefully the power companies will get everything back up ASAP! 

Now yes it's rare that the Saturday blogs are posted in the mornings, that's because I was unusually warm so early in the morning it woke me up!

Last night we focused totally on Street Fighter V, first going through it's story mode which I have to say was very enjoyable, in fact I enjoyed it a lot more than I did the story mode of Marvel vs Capcom Infinite. And since Street Fighter V came first, it makes me wonder why did Capcom fuck up so badly with MvCI.

Sakura Is Ready!

Anyway, SFV's story mode does have a plot that doesn't quite make sense that the latest plot to make M. Bison rule the world involves some 7 mini-moons that could cause some seriously bad vibes to increase his psycho-power, Charlie is a zombie on the hunt for Bison, and there are these trinkets that are important... and there are some very clear definitions of which characters are good guys, who are bad guys and who are kind of just 'there'. There is surprisingly a lot of 'lore building' as it relates to Street Fighter III and Gill, as SFV basically serves as the backstory for Kolin, who is seen as Gil's assistant when you face him in the SF3 games.

Cammy & Chun Li

 Now the fights in the story mode are thankfully single round encounters, which really helps considering it's very rare you fight as the same character in back to back matches, so it basically means you're going to get a turn with just about everyone in the game at some point during it. The one down side to this is that you don't always know who you're going to play as and if you're starting on the right side or left side of the screen. And the 'jobber' fights, against Bison's Dolls, a random cop and some other enemies keeps things fresh a bit and actually are incorporated into the story nicely... unlike how they were done in Marvel vs Capcom: Infinite.

Of course the star of the story mode is Zangief, who I'm declaring is part Krogran because he had some great moments tbat me laughing out loud. 

Once the story mode was done, I continued the stream and did some ranked and casual matches, plus worked in an arcade mode run as well. Surprisingly I won 5 ranked matches in a row, and since Sakura is my main, I think my overall record is like 18 Wins and 33 Losses.

Since Street Fighter V is a PlayStation 4 game, that meant there was an opportunity to get achievements!

Street Fighter V Achievements

1. Enlightenment: There is a power that resides deep within you. If you wish to know what that power is, trigger a V-Skill 100 times. Do so, and that power will belong to you.
2. One Step Forward: If you're at a loss for what to do, why not raise a character to level 5? It should help you realize what you're missing.
3. Your Story Starts Here: Your first goal for Story Mode is just to clear it once. You can probably guess, but I cleared it with Master Zangief first!
4. Addicted To Winning: It seems you've won 10 Ranked Matches. Never forget how it feels to win, or your future will soon be eclipsed by defeat.
5. Savoring The Win Streak: Achieved three consecutive victories in Ranked Matches, have you? It appears you are getting a handle on your power. Maintain your modesty, and focus on your training; the path ahead is long.
6. All Going To Plan!: Master Zangief! I fought in 50 network battles! The ring came to life with the clash of burning spirits! (Excludes Battle Lounge)

Ken & Ryu: The Epic Fist Bump

We also have clips for you to check out as well!

• Street Fighter V: Story Mode: What? Am I Bison?! 
• Street Fighter V: Story Mode: Honey Baked Hams 
• Street Fighter V: Story Mode: Juri Is A One Eye Monster 
• Just Chatting: What's In The Box!!!! 
• Just Chatting: Funkos! 
• Just Chatting: The Danger Mouse Funko... and badly singing the theme! 
• Street Fighter V: Story Mode: Backside to the Face!
• Street Fighter V: Story Mode: Zangief's Krogan Air Drop! 
• Street Fighter V: Story Mode: Zangief Poses In The Background! 
• Street Fighter V: Story Mode: I'll settle for that... 
• Street Fighter V: Story Mode: Zangief Is Part Krogan!
• Street Fighter V: Boot To The Head!
• Street Fighter V: Who Is Coming To Kick My Backside Now?! 
• Street Fighter V: I Got My Backside Kicked 
• Street Fighter V: I Win with An Actual Super... 
• Street Fighter V: That's 5 In A Row 

During the stream, I had a delivery arrive with four Funko Pops, which were Wednesday Addams (The Addams Family, Pop Television #811), Dr Peter Venkman Special Edition ( Ghostbusters, Pop Movies #744)  Captain Kirk (Star Trek Original Series, Pop Television #1136) and Danager Mouse - 2021 Summer Convention Limited Edition (Danger Mouse, Pop Animation #984). I don't chase after Funkos but I liked how these looked when I saw them..

Not sure why the Fitness Age is 23...

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout Lasted 28 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 432 kcal. Not sure why the Fitness Age scored at 23, sure I had 2 misses (due to two right straights not registering when the punches were thrown) but that seems just screwy. Today's exercises were the Body Hook Combo, Uppercut Combo #2 and the Body Uppercut Combo. Also set a new record on Uppercut Combo #2 as I finally scored a perfect set with it. Progress towards the Karen's Best Friend achievement continued as we're up to 86 out of 100

A new personal best!

Off stream gaming,  I've been diving deep into playing Overwatch a lot off stream as noted before, but I have been focusing on a few personal challenges, such as seeing how if I can time escaping from danger as D.va. This has resulted in me having some really good matches, particularly in Mayhem where I've had three or fewer deaths as of late.Also my apathy towards being the carry healer continues to grow the more frequently I am thrown into matches where I see one or more 'new' accounts. Granted this has lead to me playing Brigitte a lot more, but since I'm using her out of spite, it's a weird tradeoff.

You know time is just flying by when you think: 'Didn't I just do my laundry' when you look at a semi-filled hamper. Of course I do my laundry every two weeks, but it's still an odd thing for me to think.

For tonight's stream, we're back to Pokemon: Let's Go Eevee, as we'll be working our way to gym badge number 6 by heading to Fuchsia City. 

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

Today's Notes 8/13/21: WWE Crash Hour Is Proof Of Vince McMahon's Insanity

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream was a triple feature of video games, Star Trek Online, WWE Crash Hour and Tripe Play 98. 

Star Trek Online was its usual fair of grinding out the endeavor quests that happened to be active on the day of streaming, but I did have to 're-roll', one because of a particular issue. You see there is a  endeavor quests that calls for facing the Tzenkethi on the ground, and there is only two ways to do that. One is to replay a story mission, and the other is to play Dranuur Beach Assault which require 10 players, making it one of the toughest endeavor quests to complete because no one plays it willingly. Which is a shame because it really is a stand out Task Force Operation that I actually won't just be going through the motions playing (i.e. Bug Hunt)

Once STO was done, we loaded up WWE Crash Hour for the PlayStation 2 and boy do I have opinions about the concept of this game. First off, it plays fine, the controls are easy to learn and of the characters / vehicles I used (Trish Stratus, William Regal and Steve Austin) everything seemed very responsive to my mad cap way of getting around the arenas. But the actual idea of WWE Crash Hour was actual foreshadowing into what Vince McMahon has done in the 19 years since it's release.

You see McMahon's desire of making the WWE about everything other than wrestling has certainly become more prominent over the past 19 years, with the WWE Studios Divisions, the WWE Network, Camp WWE the XFL revival, the Tough Enough revivals and so forth. He wants to have great influence over entertainment in general. Hell the WWE has become more of a badly over produced day-time soap opera at the expense of actual good decision making that it basically drove me away from being a fan. (Note: AEW is even worse)

But as the title of this blog indicates, WWE Crash Hour of Vince's insanity, because guess what someone had to pitch this idea to him at some point, and much like the WWE City in Scooby-Doo WrestleMania Mystery, you could tell that McMahon love the idea of controlling all of television and having his hand picked Superstars featured on everything because that has been his objective since the true peak of the WWE in the 1980s, because hey, he drove every other wrestling promotion out of business in the United States, certainly he (in his mind) could do the same to every other form of entertainment right? Thankfully the answer to that was no but as I indicate it came at the cost of driving long term fans like me away.

Don't get me wrong I still enjoy the WWE video games, but the actual product on TV... that can fuck right off.

Anyway, after WWE Crash Hour, we switched over to Triple Play 98, and after figuring out how to navigate the menus because it seems better formatted for Windows 98 (and I do have the disc for that version of TP98), we got into a game between the New York Mets and the Philadelphia Phillies. It took me a a few innings to figure out pitching, as I gave up 3 runs to the Mets in the first, and then figured out the timing for hitting to rally back to a 4-3 lead, then gave up a game tying home run in the top of the 8th before going a head 5-4 in the bottom of the 8th... and then somehow worked my way out of a 2-out bases loaded game. Needless to say it was an intense game. 

In comparison to Triple Play 97, Triple Play 98 is a lot better in how it feels to play in terms of executing hitting and pitching... base running is still FUBAR, but hey, it's a near 25 year old baseball game.

 Anyway here's the list of clips from last night.

• Just Chatting: My Memories Of Rampage World Tour
• Star Trek Online: A Fury of Strikes 
• Star Trek Online: Random Quoting Of Robin Hood Men In Tights is Random 
• Star Trek Online: The timing to catch her 
• Star Trek Online: Take Down The Flagship
• Star Trek Online: I am here everybody can relax!
• WWE Crush Hour: Trish is all about Talent & Ability 
• WWE Crush Hour: The Trash Talk Is Real 
• WWE Crush Hour: DUUUDE!!!! 
• WWE Crush Hour: Regal Has Control! 
• WWE Crush Hour: We Smacked Their Stupid Little Face! 
• WWE Crush Hour: A Win For Austin! 
• Triple Play 98: Olerud Makes Me Go Uh-Oh... 
• Triple Play 98: Iceman Would Be Pleased 
• Triple Play 98: A 2-Run Hit For Mickey Morandini! 
• Triple Play 98: It's way back! 
• Triple Play 98: Will It Drop In?! 

Yesterday we added Rampage World Tour for the PlayStation to the collection. Now this is a game I've only ever played in an arcade... sorta. You see there was a convenience story a few blocks from where I live now that often had two arcade machines, one was Mortal Kombat 3 (and later Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3), and the other would rotate in and out but at one point it was Rampage World Tour. I figure this will be a fine game to feature on a random Thursday.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 28 minutes with an estimate calorie burn of 428 kcal. The exercises for today were Hook Combo #2, Beginner Combo #1 and the Front Back Step Combo. We are now up to 83 out of 100 for the Karen's Best Friend achievement. 

Over on Twitter there was something about posting your four 'mains' from fighting games, and it actually took me a bit of time to come up with four. Obviously Sakura is my main in any Capcom fighting game she's in, going all the way back to Street Fighter Alpha 2... Cassie Cage was my main in Mortal Kombat 11 from earlier this year, Pai pretty much is my main in the Virtua Fighter series... but to come up with a fourth was a bit tough... so I went with Ragna The Bloodedge from the BlazBlue franchise because we used him a lot in the story modes.

For tonight's stream we'll be playing Street Fighter V, in particular, it's story mode, and I did forget we did play Mortal Kombat 11's story mode this year. Still, it'll be interesting to see if the story of SFV is better done than Marvel vs Capcom Infinite's. 

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

Today's Notes 8/12/21: Slugs of Metal

Good morning everybody,

Last night's stream started off with my just chatting about stuff of interest from work, such as the stuff involving public charter schools, and the big reveal that I now have all three strategy guides for the Xenosaga trilogy, plus the Art of Xenosaga Episode 1. Flipping through them was a big reminder of just how hard the first game of the trilogy was based on what I remember. Still having the strategy guides will be a big help. 

Onto the games we played last night, first up with Metal Slug 3, a game I have played before, but this was the Xbox 360/Arcade version of it. We manage to knock out two achievements and finish the game in about an hour (give or take). It did take over 50 continues, so if this was being played in an actual arcade, at 25 cents per continued, it would have taken over $12.50 to finish the game. 

Metal Slug 3 Achievements

1. Save President: Save President in the mission.
2. Mission All Completed: Complete all the missions.

For the next part of the stream, we loaded up Smite, and did three arena matches, using Athena, and happened to get teamed with players who recognized that I was using her Confound ability to pull enemies towards me to be ganged up on. It was pretty cool, hell, I had a ton of assists which was something I pride myself on when using Athena. So that was really cool.

At the 9 PM hour we switched over to The Division where Iceman and I mostly focused on the Underground. Going through the missions that seem to be randomly generated. Since we're playing this casually and going through it to find items, it was a stress free run. And we both managed to get the same achievement too!

Tom Clancy's The Division Achievements

1. Objectively Experienced:  Complete each of the 6 different mission objectives in the underground.
   

So with all that said, you can bet we have a lot of clips from last night which I'll list next. 

• Metal Slug 3: We Saved The President
• Metal Slug 3: Damned If You Do... Damned If You Don't... 
• Metal Slug 3: We don't need any helicopter! 
• Metal Slug 3: What Hit Me?! 
• Metal Slug 3: We're running out of room!
• Metal Slug 3: Final Boss! 
• Smite: First Blood As Athena!
• Smite: Using Athena's Ultimate To Get Out Of Danger And To Make The Save! 
• Smite: Reinforcements Are On The Way! 
• Smite: Time to Run A... We Go Not Runaway 
• Smite: 2 Kills In Less Than 30 Seconds As Athena!
• The Division: Get To The Supplies! 
• The Division: Dude Pick A Nickname
• The Division: Objectively Experienced
  

Something that did come up was Gears of War 3, and when we will play that, because Iceman does have a rotating schedule, so we might try and sync that up with his days off so we could get in full sessions instead of partial ones. So we will get to Gears of War 3, it's just going to end up a floating game where it might bump other things around.

Also when we raided Kalenal's stream (twitch.tv/kalenal) the subject of Final Fantasy 14 being free to play up to level 60 came up, and know that they play it, Oldish plays it, PandaSweet plays it, it's certainly tempting to consider. My big concern would be where to fir it in, and I could easily just pair it with Star Trek Online to make an MMO night, start with STO then jump to FF14. It is something to consider. 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 28 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 418 kcal. The exercises for today were Defensive Combo #1, Double Combo #1 and Defensive Combo #2. The progress towards the Karen's Best Friend achievement is now up to 81 out of 100.

Messed around with adding an 'on-screen' chat box where anything typed in the chat will appear on a designated area on the stream. This is will help with adding proof of trolling / spamming done by idiots. Also adjusted the end of stream screen to show credits of anyone who subbed, donated, followed or kicked in bits.

For tonight's stream, with it being Thursday, we'll be playing Star Trek Online to do the endeavor quests before checking out something else from my game library, maybe something from the PlayStation 2 era. We could try to continue Lupin the 3rd: Treasure of The Sorcerer King, or maybe something else completely! Who knows?!

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

 

Today's Notes 8/11/21: Whoa We're Half Way There

 Good morning everybody,

As ya'll may (or may not) know, I work in market research, and over time I've seen a lot of things change in out surveys are presented, but something surprised me yesterday. For the first time, I saw a survey where the pronouns used to the describe a candidate running for an elected position this fall were 'Their' and 'They'. It really struck a cord with me, because I often would use 'him'&  'he' or 'she' & 'her' along with 'their' and 'they' almost interchangeably when I'm talking about someone, depending on who I was talking about...but to see the those running for political office are starting to embrace the variety of ways of how pronouns can be applied to them, to me, is very cool.

Anyway, on to last night stream of Chrono Cross where we tackled Mount Pyre and Fort Dragonia, which meant we had a bunch of boss battles to deal with and spent a lot of time shuffling elements around to make sure I had the best match ups possible even if I wasn't swapping party members. In fact, with the exception of Greco at the start of the night, it was Kid and Leena backing up Serge... with Leena more often than not getting the final hit in every battle. With the strategy guide on hand we were able to properly set up for every boss encounter to the point of over kill in some cases.

There were a couple of encounters I was worried about the Sonofagun was as much of a pain in the ass now as it was 20 years ago, but the back to back fights between General Viper and Lynx, because if I built for one that meant the other fight would be a lot tougher than it expected. What I did was basically loaded up every green and white element I had on Serge, Kid and Leena with the hope I could overwhelm both before the A.I. started dealing out their heavy attacks, and it pretty much worked.

I do love how all of the foreshadowing comes to a head at the half-way point of the story, where Serge and Lynx swap bodies, and everything that happened was predetermined.... with one exception. You see at the start of the game, it was Van who was with Serge and Kid, not Leena. Hell Van can even be recruited until the second half of the game! Anyway, we'll continue Chrono Cross on Monday night!

But of course we do have clips for you to check out...

• Just Chatting: Considering A South Park Night
• Chrono Cross: The Frog Prince Is Summoned! 
• Chrono Cross: Boss Battle: FireDragon (Round 1) 
• Chrono Cross: Marcy Hates Everyone 
• Chrono Cross: Boss Battle: Taurusoid
• Chrono Cross: Boss Battle: GiantGloop
• Chrono Cross: Boss Battle: Bunyip
• Chrono Cross: The Foreshadowing Is Real
• Chrono Cross: Boss Battle: Viper
• Chrono Cross: Boss Battle: Lynx (Round 2) 
• Chrono Cross: Bring Forth The Feral Cats! 
• Chrono Cross: Truth Hurts Don't It? 

Yesterday in the mail, we added South Park, the first person shooter for the original PlayStation to the collection, and I now have the idea of maybe doing a Friday night stream where we play both of the South Park games I managed to track down. If I can find Chef's Love Shack then it would be a South Park showcase! 

Off-stream gaming, I went ahead and did the 'unlocking' of the Crossover stuff for Paladins involving gen:Lock in addition to clearing out the requirements to unlock all the basic stuff for Smite involving Stranger Things, just to make sure I have the skins available in case I want to feature either game. 

I also, briefly, checked out WWE Battlegrounds, and it really is the spiritual successor to WWE All-Stars in terms of how it feels to play, but the bull-shit way one has to unlock a lot of the characters certainly was frustrating and it's no wonder I didn't have this game as a priority to look into for a while. It does have a campaign mode, so we could do with it what we did with WWE 2K20 last year and stumble our way through it. 

WWE Battlegrounds Achievement

1.  I won!: Performed a pin successfully
   

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily workout lasted 31 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 532 kcal. The exercises for today were Triple Combo #2, Intermediate Combo #1 and the Biceps Shape Focus Combo. We are now up to 78 out of 100 for the Karen's Best Friend achievement.

For tonight's stream the plan is to do more things with The Division after 9 PM Eastern for the second half of the stream with Iceman, but for the first half... I'm not totally sure, but we'll mess around with something fun! 

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

Today's Notes 8/10/21: There Was Thunder

Good morning everybody,

Yesterday morning I finally got around to trying to schedule an appoint to get the first of the two shots of the Pfizer vaccine for Covid-19, and after getting very frustrated with how clunky the system was, I just called up a local CVS pharmacy and asked if they did walk ins. They did, so I walked by 250 lbs butt over to get the first shot. Felt the initial soreness in the arm right away, but when it comes to drowsiness really not much different from how I normally am if I'm not keeping my mind occupied. Now I did start to experience a headache but we always keep some Tylenol around just in case.

Additional note, because I've been working on keeping my weight under control, the walk to the CVS and back wasn't as bad as when I went to the Post Office last fall to mail in my vote for the 2020 election.

Anyway on to last night's stream of Chrono Cross, and the stream started late because the power got knocked out a bit before 6 PM Eastern and didn't come up till after 7:30 PM, and a number of sudden updates happened that kind of nerfed the game audio to a large degree. I made some adjustments that will go into effect tomorrow so hopefully things will sound decent! As far as what we managed to get done, we picked up NeoFio and Pip, which meant we delayed progressing the game to get the Life Sparkle needed for the former then went onto tackle the SS Invincible for the later. With the strategy guide on hand I was able to plan a bit for a number of encounters, such as having white elements spread across my party. We also went on to tackle Water Dragon Isle which meant Razzly got to massacre more dwarfs... and that sets up tonight's stream as we're heading to Mount Pyre next. 

Of course we got a lot of clips of last night's action for you to check out to get the context of things that went down.

• Just Chatting: Talking About Road Rash 3D & Ehrgeiz
• Just Chatting: Shockwave Assault
• Chrono Cross: Serge It's None Of Your Business...
• Chrono Cross: Can We Play This Here?
• Chrono Cross: NeoFio Blossoms! 
• Chrono Cross: We did not get the Moonglasses From Harle... 
• Chrono Cross: Picking Up Pip 
• Chrono Cross: Boss Fight: Dead Head 
• Chrono Cross: Leena wants to know... 
• Chrono Cross: Boss Fight: The Hi-Ho Tank

Since we were delayed for some time, I took advantage of the Nintendo Switch being fully charged and did some handheld stuff with it, I checked out the Switch version of RWBY Grimm Eclipse, and that is surprisingly more difficult to play with the Switches handheld mode because I couldn't quite see everything. It does play pretty smoothly. Also loaded up Pokemon Let's Go Eevee to do some catching / grinding and realized I skipped an entire route... Route 11, so I cleaned that out and then made sure we went back to where I saved on Saturday to keep things lined up nicely.

Yesterday's mail had a whole lot of goodies for me, the first being Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks for the PlaySation 2, which was Midways's 3rd attempt of a spin off game for the Mortal Kombat franchise. Funny enough the version I received was apparently apart of a box set, so it had no bar code. 

Next was South Park Rally, for the original PlayStation, it's your standard kart racer based on South Park during it's initial peek of the mid-late 90s. It will probably be work streaming once for the gag of it being a South Park racing game. 

Probably the gem of the new additions to the collection was Ehrgeiz for the original PlayStation, as it is a fighting game that does feature Final Fantasy VII characters, namely Cloud, Tifa, Sephiroth, Vincent, Yuffie and Zack... with the later 3 needing to be unlocked. From I understand beating the game with Cloud unlocks Yuffie and beating it with Tifa unlocks Vincent. 

Next we added Road Rash: Jail Break which is the last game in the series to be released for the PlayStation, as EA basically drove the franchise into the ground which was surprising when you look back and see that it basically was a game that made EA stand out beyond its sports titles.

And speaking of EA, the last game added was Shockwave Assault, also for the PlayStation, and this is a game I do have fond memories of, because I played the PC version. I don't think the nostalgia will hold up for the PSone counter part however. Also of note I still have the disc for the PC version from the mid 90s. 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout lasted 31 minutes with an estimated calorie burn being 462 kcal. The exercises for today were the Swayback Combo. Straight Combo #2 and the Hip Shape Focus Combo. We are now up to 76 out of 100 for the Karen's Best Friend achievement. 

As I continue to mess around daily with Dr Kawashima's Brain Training, I can confirm my dislike for Sudoku is reaching new levels. 

As stated earlier, tonight we'll aim to the continue Chrono Cross as we tackle Mount Pyre, as we're closing in on the half-way point of the game where things switch from use playing as Serge to playing as Lynx. I don't think we'll reach that point tonight, it's possible, but I'm not going to push it.

And so on that note, we'll see you about 6:30 PM Eastern over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!