Wednesday, December 4, 2019

November 2019 Entry

November 2019 Entry

November...you were an interesting month. 

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- I went to a new ENT (11.06). This was after taking my mom to one of her appointments so I visited the medical district a couple times today. I really liked this place. Everything was way better than the last ENT I went to. I didn't even get to finish filling out my paper work by the time we were done with everything. Seriously, the last thing I did was finish my paper work. But they brought me in as soon as they could. The doctor was very chill and easy to talk to and he did what I wanted to be done, which was take out the blockage in my left ear. It took a while as he had to squish and move things around. I want to say that whole process took 15-20 minutes. There were a few times we took a break because of the pain. Once he took the main chunk out, I could hear perfectly out of my left ear. The bad news was that I immediately became dizzy. The room was spinning and I got nauseous. After things settled down, the main ENT (who was also cool and easy to talk to) came in with someone shadowing him. They also set up a camera so they could show me the inside of my ear. The right ear was normal, but the left ear was obviously damaged (I have pictures). Other than me taking care of it, they were also concerned about the possibility of damage behind the ear drum that they couldn't see. They think the dizziness might be in conjunction with that. So I'm scheduled to come back for a CT scan as well as a hearing test and follow up.

I left to go pick up some prescribed ear drops. The ENT mentioned that the drops he is prescribing could cost $300 if my insurance wasn't accepted. In that event, he would have prescribed something cheaper, but less effective. So I went out...into traffic for almost 2 hours. But I made it to the Walgreens I asked to send the prescription since it was close to home. I had forgotten that Walgreens doesn't accept my health insurance. They recommended going to CVS, which does take my insurance, so they can transfer it there. Went there (10 minutes away) and the price was definitely under $100. They even helped me get a coupon to make it cheaper. But they were very busy so I was there for almost an hour. 

Quite a day, but I can hear out of my left ear. Everything is so loud now. I noticed it the most when I stream due to the ear buds. It's good, but I no longer hear other noises such as my phone vibrating or someone knocking on my door. Small price to pay to have my hearing back. 

- Picked up part 2 of season 2 of the Ace Attorney anime (11.07). It took a few days to finish watching all of it (11.12). So good. The anime is faithful to the game with some changes, it's shorter, and has original content for the series. I definitely recommend it to fans of the game series. I'm currently rewatching the whole thing with the English dub. I'm halfway through it all and it's pretty good. 


- I started to feel a little under the weather the weekend before a scheduled doctor appointment (11.11). It was busy when I got there and in the end, they confirmed that I had the flu. Picked up a prescription on the way home and then let work know I was possibly going to need to take time off. I actually did feel better and went to work a couple days later and streamed. But the flu came back that Friday. Took Saturday off. Felt better on Sunday, but played it safe and took that day off as well. The flu was gone by 11.18.

Other than eating a lot during my time with the flu, but I caught up on so much sleep. Ever since daylight savings kicked in, my sleep schedule had been thrown off. Thanks to Nyquil, I had at least 10 hours of sleep each night. 

- Finally got around to watching Wonder Woman: Bloodlines while I was sick (11.16). It was okay. Unfortunately, it was hard for me to get into the story and the characters so this one is hard for me to recommend. I really did enjoy the mini showcase of Death. And Superman: Red Son is coming out next and I've always heard that was a good series.

- My younger cousin had a wedding (11.23). He married his girlfriend of 10+ years. The ceremony was nice. Arrived with my parents at the church, but another wedding just finished so we and others thought we were at the wrong place. Another guest and I went in as we were both hesitant to go alone and they were there. We helped direct others in and during that time I saw the bride arrive and go to where she was to wait. I went and greeted family and took a seat. Saw my younger cousin enter the building and go up to front and waited for the bride. The ceremony was nice. After it was done, it was good to catch up with other cousins who I had not seen for a while. Took photos with the family and then the guests had to leave. 

The reception was about 10-15 minutes away and most of us went there, but the reception wouldn't be ready for another couple of hours. Hung out with cousins and took some time to relax as more guests arrived. The reception was great, the food was good, lots of dancing. Wonderful night. Congratulations to the newlyweds. 

One negative thing about that day was that I knew the DJ. He used to work with us at HER 3-4 years ago. He didn't stay with us long as he all of a sudden stopped showing up after a couple weeks into training. Then something else happened where he lied about something that I won't go into. Leaving without notice already left a bad impression, but this added to it. He wouldn't have been a good fit for the company in the long run. I wouldn't have hired him. I'm pretty sure at the time I was only training staff, but not hiring yet. But fast forward to the wedding, his voice was familiar. Then I saw him and recognized him. I told a couple of my cousins how I knew him and they were shocked. I knew he did DJ gigs because he had mentioned it when we worked together. At some point, he went to every table to hype them up and I kept staring at him. He didn't recognize me and that's probably a good thing. I finally got to tell my cousin and his new bride about this during Thanksgiving, ha. 

Thanksgiving was great too. Small gathering, played with the young boys, caught up with others, ate, shared stories, laughed, and it was a short event. No complaints from me. 


- Normally I don't buy a lot during the Black Friday season, but this time I did (11.27-11.29). Wednesday started with Nintendo's Cyber Deals. I was already planning to buy a physical game as well so I did some math and bought 4 games. Downloaded Hob: The Definitive Edition, GRIS, and Batman - Telltale. Originally, I was going to go to a GameStop the same day, but then Amazon had the same deal for half off of AI: The Somnium Files. Saved myself the trip. The next day, I bought 2 wrestling shirts, Io Shirai and Undisputed Era. And finally on Black Friday itself, I checked my Amazon wish list for the webcams I was suggested to get. One was no longer available, but the same model with a privacy cover was $20 off so I ordered it. 

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- Didn't watch WarGames live due to my cousin's wedding, but I stayed up late to watch it after (11.23). NXT always delivers and this was no exception. The 2 WarGames matches were fantastic. Great job from all the men and women involved. Dakota Kai...so evil and done so well. 



- Survivor Series was great too (11.24). Went to a friend's home where I've gone before for other wrestling get togethers. Good to be around other wrestling fans. There were some fun surprises on the show too such as Dominik getting involved in the Mysterio/Lesnar match. 



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- Company meeting at the Downtown location (11.08). It has been a while. Good to have all of us together. We also did take our picks of stuff that was to be thrown away. We took some stuff back the Memorial location. That's about it. It was just nice to have everyone under the same roof. 

- Agents Blue Heeler and Striker came to the Memorial location for a couple of reasons (11.13). One was to have Agent Blue Heeler learn our version of Dark Side. She shadowed me for one session and she good after that similar to the others that had helped our location. The second was for Blue Heeler and I to talk about the holiday party. We were chosen to put it together since we put it together a couple years ago. Worked on some of critical items and I brought up ideas I had planned for the previous year, but was not given the chance. Can't wait for it to happen...in January. 

- And unfortunately because of the flu and the Thanksgiving week, I barely worked this month. It was nice to sort of take a break from work, but I was definitely excited to be back to work at the latter end of the month. 

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- First game of the month was Luigi's Mansion 3 (11.01-11.04). The main word I used to describe the game was "charming." Luigi and everything in the game is very expressive. It's hard for me to choose which I liked better, the first game or the third one. But for the third one, I did make sure to catch all the Boos and to find all the gems. There's a lot more to do, but I wasn't interested in doing that. 

I also played the online multiplayer game with a dedicated follower, softguitar. She was also working through the game too and neither of us tried the online mode. It was fun, but difficult. Within the hour we played, we only got to the second floor. I liked it though and wouldn't mind trying it again...but probably with 2 more players, ha. 



- There were 2 game sales that I missed. The first one was AI: The Somnium Files (11.05). I've been keeping an eye on it for sales and when it finally happened, I didn't jump on it right away and scheduled when I could get it. The day I planned to get it, the sale ended. But if you read earlier, I eventually did get the game. The sale was the same, but I got it from Amazon instead of GameStop. 

The second game I missed out on was Gal Metal: World Tour Edition (11.13). It was $10 new at Best Buy for a little over a week. This time I actually went to the store, to buy it. The store was sold out even though I checked online beforehand. Then the game was out of stock completely online so I couldn't even order it. A few days later, the sale was over. Because of these two instances, I made sure to jump on sales within the first 48 hours hence me getting those games I mentioned during Black Friday pick ups as soon as I could. 

- Terry Bogard is in Smash Bros (11.06). I tried him out the first day he was released and did what I do with every DLC character that was released. I have to say, Terry is my favorite out of the DLC characters. I really enjoyed using him. I do think it's because he's the one I have the most history with. 


- Demo Showcase 24 was sports themed (11.07). 

Desktop Table Tennis - Nothing special. Similar to other Desktop sports games I've tried. 
NBA 2K20 - As much as I found enjoyment trying this, I had a hard time playing it. I'm very used to passing the ball to a team mate and I take control of them. This time I was only me. So when I had to do things like stay out of the paint or be more of an assist man, I would forget to do that and try to do everything. It was hilarious getting benched, ha. 
Pocket League Story - Another Kairosoft sim game. This time we took on the role training a soccer team. Not bad. It was interesting watching the soccer matches take place. 
Super Kickers League - Another soccer game, but this time I was in control of the action. 3v3, no rules, and special powers. Made for a fast paced game. 
Super Mega Baseball - It took a while for me to get used to the targeting for hitting and pitching, but I did like this game. The last baseball game I can recall playing was...Wii Sports. 

My favorite out of the bunch was Super Kickers League and it now exists in my wish list. 


- At the time I thought I was over the flu. So the next game that was scheduled to play was R-Type Dimensions EX (11.14). This was a special stream because this was a Viewer's Choice stream. For one month, those in Discord voted from a selection of Demo Showcase favorites. And they chose R-Type Dimensions EX. 

It was a challenge. I died so many times even when I switched to the mode that continued respawning me where I was instead of having me start at a check point. The goal was to beat both R-Type and R-Type II in the modern and classic looking mode as well as attempt to see how far I could get with other viewing options. Definitely had fun playing this. Thanks to all those in Discord that voted. 



- Got the latest amiibo that were released (11.15). Chrom, Incineroar, and Simon all look fantastic. I also reserved the upcoming Dark Samus and Richter amiibo. 


After getting the amiibo, I played Growtopia on stream. It was our free game of the month and...yeah...it was not for me. None of it clicked with me and the flu kicking back in didn't help. This is the first time I decided to end a stream under the 3 hour normal limit I set for streams. One hour only and I was done. Can't recommend this one. 


- With the flu gone, I got to finally play Ninja Saviors - Return of the Warriors (11.19). I really liked the SNES version back in the day and this did not disappoint. For the first stream, I beat it 3 times as each of the original 3 characters. The second stream was for the 2 new characters and then one play through of hard mode switching between everyone. Shout outs to arctheladder who is a fan of the game and gave some helpful tips and advice. Overall, a fun brawler that I can easily recommend. 



- NES game for the month was Kid Icarus (11.21). Never played it before, but always knew it was difficult. Did my best without save stating, but had to use them. The main frustration was that someone came to check our internet connection as I was streaming. It lead to the connection getting cut and I had to wait about an hour before finishing the last hour of the game I had. So what would have been a one shot video ended up being split. Other than that, I'm glad I got to play this and beat. 



- More demos with Demo Showcase 25 (11.25). No theme this time. But we are still going with 1 retail game and 1 Kairosoft sim game. 

Cafeteria Nipponica - Another fun sim from Kairosoft. I really enjoyed this one as you manage a restaurant. Shout out to softguitar for helping name the restaurant (MOMMA Givin') and for helping with some decisions. 
Grass Cutter - Mutated Lawns - Simple puzzle game where you mow all spots of a lawn without dying. The one big thing that caught my attention was a victory theme that played that was just like the victory theme for Naval Warfare, ha. 
KILL la KILL -IF - A fun fighter based on the anime. It seemed to follow the story in the anime and the battle system was fast and frantic and fun. 
SCRAP RUSH!! - A Bomberman clone that wasn't bad. It felt slow, but I do think I would have had more fun with actual players instead of all CPU. 
Strikey Sisters - A fun take on the break out genre of games. It had interesting abilities you can use to attack your enemies, has a lot to collect, and really good voice acting (yes, a break out game has a story and voice acting). 

For this one, it was tough to choose because 3 of them really got (Cafeteria Nipponica, KILL la KILL -IF, and Strikey Sisters). In the end I chose KILL la KILL -IF. The fact that I watched the anime helped a little even though it has been 5-6 years since then, but it really got me interested in it again. 


- Our SNES game of the month was Super Metroid (11.26, 11.29). So...this was an interesting one. I think it didn't help that I saw how well I played it last time. Back in 2013 was when I played it on the Wii U Virtual Console. I collected 76% of the items in under 5 hours. That set a bar that I didn't need. In the first stream, I did hit a brick wall and got incredibly frustrated. One was the sand that I could not easily jump out of and two was being told I was where I needed to be when I actually wasn't (didn't have the Gravity Suit or Grapple Beam). Then I tried referencing the FAQ I had opened, but it was good if I had followed it step by step so I couldn't find out where I was supposed to be. I don't being lost in general, but the extra pressure of being stuck on stream...don't remember if that's ever happened before. At the time, no one was active in chat to help, but thankfully Taycake came in around that time and helped find videos for me. I was grateful for that, but also a little dumbfounded that I didn't look at videos like I normally would. Thing is...this all happened after so many cool things happened on stream. Multiple gift subs and multiple raids and more kept happening. An hour later, I hit that brick wall. 

The second part of the stream, I had some determination. Sand was still problematic at times. But I was making tons of progress and finding things. The day before the stream, I actually scrubbed through the last one and marked down which items I found alongside an FAQ. There were only a couple items I messed up in keeping track of so there was a little bit of wasted time. But I also ended up taking the longest break I ever did because cousins I had not seen in 20+ years made a surprise visit. I told chat what was going on and that I was catching up with them. I just didn't think it will be 2 hours, ha. It was great catching up with them (old memories, stories, etc). I came back to the stream and then it took about another hour to complete it 100%. So this stream of Super Metroid was very interesting and very memorable. 



- I started uploading old Twitch streams to YouTube (11.17-11.25). These are unedited and will go up as is. I had thought about doing this before and was going to start it and announce it on my anniversary stream, but I didn't pull the trigger on it. But when I had the flu, I wanted something to do that wasn't strenuous and so I started. It took 8 days to upload all the streams from when I started streaming up to Demo Showcase 25. All are uploaded and scheduled to post. For the rest of 2019, a stream from 2018 will be published every day. Once 2020 hits, every stream will be published on their one year anniversary. For example, if a stream happened on January 2nd in 2019, it is scheduled to be published January 2nd in 2020. And now after every stream is finished, not only do I highlight it for Twitch archives, but I upload and schedule it to YouTube as well.

There were a few issues while doing this: 
1. Some videos won't let me edit the information any more. Even after they go live, I get the message that an error occurred. And this happened for several game titles. I believe it was because some of the game category titles were very long such as Child of Light: Ultimate Edition/Valiant Hearts: The Great War. 
2. One stream can't be uploaded. It's Part 08 of Travis Strikes Again. The reason being is that part of the conversation were Japanese artists and laamb_s introduced us to one...and that resulted in 5 copyright strikes on YouTube. One was enough, but wow...5. Other streams had copyright claims for songs being played during the stream, but the video will only be blocked in some countries.
3. 2 videos ended up having the message "Processing abandoned. The video could not be processed." That sucks because there was no message prior or during their "completed" uploads. I only found out after thinking to look back on the videos for some reason. The 2 videos that happened to were Part 01 of Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy X-2: Last Mission. I'll reupload those soon. 

Reasons for doing this and why in this fashion: 
1. Archiving purposes. I've always been like this with videos. I have all the streams on a harddrive, they're all up on Twitch still, and now they'll be on YouTube (minus that stream of Travis Strikes Again). 
2. Another way to reach a different audience and another way to view the content. 
3. Having Twitch streams go up a year later on YouTube doesn't take away from Twitch. Watching on Twitch allows for interaction and a visible chat while YouTube (in this form) won't. 

So if you need another way to see my old streams, you now have that ability. Subscribe and such. Funny story, I lost one subscriber after the first archived stream went up. I'm only a little over 40 so I'm not expecting views or subscriptions to skyrocket. 


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- Happy Birthday, BoA (11.05).


- RIP, Goo Hara (11.24). 

- It was good to hear your voice (11.28). I was getting worried and thought the worst had happened. We'll talk soon.  

- That's a wrap on November 2019. Thanks for reading and take care. 





"Reprise the theme song and roll the credits." 

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