Wednesday, April 8, 2020

March 2020 Entry

March 2020 Entry: 

How is everyone doing? Hope you have all been safe and healthy. We all know what's going during this time in the world. It is very serious and important. I am one of those that don't like to see and talk about it all the time so you won't find me talking about it a lot myself. There's a time and place, I just don't want it to be all the time. The one thing I will encourage is to help spread more positivity and support. And to those that this is effecting more than others, stay strong. Can't wait to high-five and hug people again. 

MISC========================= 

- Remember that bad ENT I mentioned a few months ago? I received a letter in the mail about a payment (03.04). I was surprised by this because I thought I had paid everything for previous visits. I called them and had it explained to me, but had to call someone else to make the payment. That first call...it reminded me of why I didn't like them. Just business. Didn't ask if I was doing any better or why I stopped going to them. At least the payment part went easily. And that should be it from them. 

- I ordered a pack of Violet Crumble Nuggets (03.04). They are delicious. I took my time with eating the entire bag and stretched it out to at best a week. Definitely wouldn't mind having more. 


- I got tagged on Twitter about 4 fictional female characters that mean a lot to me (03.05). For the post, I went with only video game characters. I did think of non-video game characters. The 3 I had in mind was Daria, Jessica Rabbit, and (someone I can't remember right now, ha). I had a fourth and its a wrestler, but I felt people would have commented on that since the person is real and I would have countered with the person they portray is fictional, but ended up not doing that. 


- Someone that was a really close friend in middle school contacted me over Facebook (03.11). It was cool reconnecting as a flood of memories came back. And we were both proud of each other in what we were currently doing. Hope to see you sometime, dude. 

- Normally I would have gone to Best Buy to pick this up, but I ordered it from Amazon instead. A few days later, my copy of Superman Red Son arrived (03.20). And in a rare case, I watched it the same day. Normally I try to get it within a week. Granted I didn't watch all the extras in one day, but I did finish it all. I enjoyed it. There were many surprises throughout for me since I only knew of the premise of it. 


- I am part of a Facebook group for Jubilee Media called Goodhumans. With what's going on, they made a post to see if anyone in the community wanted to connect with each other and I threw my hat into the mix. I received my email of who I was paired with (03.24). Since then, we've been texting when we could. Unfortunately, she's currently in Korea so the time difference factors in us missing each other here and there. But she's cool. We both like games and Kpop. It's nice to have a new friend. 

- Other than streaming, I was thinking about how else to fill out my days. A site I used to use for watching movies was no longer available so I was trying to find other ways to watch movies for free. Thankfully I saw someone post a link on Facebook about the best ways to watch free TV/movies and one of them was Prime Video through Amazon. I took a few days to find what was free to watch. Some that are free with ads and some are through signing up with another service. But I ended up finding a nice variety of different movies. I started watching them at the end of the month (03.31). You can read what I thought about each movie after I watch them in that Twitter thread. 
 

WRESTLING========================= 

- Elimination Chamber was fun (03.08). Had some highs and lows throughout. Little did we know this would be one of the last PPVs we'd see with a crowd. 


- With what's going in the world, wrestling is the only live sporting event happening. Companies are complying with rules set in place and have been running empty arena shows. It definitely is different, but they are doing their best with the limited sources they are allowed. I will say thank you to all the wrestlers and those behind the scenes that are doing this and helping us forget things for a few hours. 

WORK========================= 

- We had a school come in for a morning session (03.10). First time in a while that I woke up so early. Had to be there at 9AM and didn't get there until 10-15 minutes after due to morning traffic (forgot that's a thing). There were about 40 kids and they took up all our rooms. They were a smart group of kids too and, for the most part, well behaved. The teachers were also very helpful with making things smoother. Unfortunately, Agent Apollo couldn't make it so we had to ask Agent PQ last minute to join us, which she was able to. 

I really enjoyed after the sessions where we did a presentation for the kids to talk about how we put escape rooms together. The kids were very interested and had lots of questions. They sure did open up when I asked if they had suggestions for rooms they would want to build, ha. Overall, pretty good day. 

And I took a nap for 2 hours afterwards. It had been a while since I took a nap and an even longer time for a nap to not throw off the rest of my day.  

- I was asked to work Downtown for a shift (03.14). It was me and Agent Apollo holding things down. I had to quickly relearn The Scarlet Scam as I have not run that room in years since moving over to Memorial. There were quite a few changes I didn't know about, but thankfully Agent Striker sent me some videos the night before so I could see them. The other thing was the briefing. I didn't have it down for the two sessions I did for Scarlet (I was good for Dark Side). But it felt nice running Scarlet's after so long. Shout out to Team Oh (a bachelorette party) for being fun and complimentary. 

Later that same night, the staff received an email about halting operations. While we had already started to clean on a more frequent basis and offer teams gloves (for the past week), Agent Raynor felt it best to shut things down until April 30th. We even had sessions the next day, but we cancelled and refunded all sessions from that Sunday until the 30th of April. 

- We had a meeting scheduled the following Monday (03.16). Originally it was supposed to be Downtown, but with the shut down, it turned into a Zoom meeting. It was good to see everyone's faces together virtually. But Agent Raynor went more into depth about his decision to halt operations, plans for the time being, and then announcing that we were launching a Patreon. If you would like to contribute to it, click on the link (and thank you if you do).


GAMES========================= 

*To read Game Summaries for each game beaten on stream, join The Loading Screen Discord. https://discord.gg/kYt3tQ4 

- Starting this month, I'll be playing one game off the Mega Man Zero/ZX Legacy Collection a month. Mega Man Zero was an interesting game (03.02-03.03). It was tough for sure and I did make it tougher on myself by not using the Cyber Elves. It felt good to beat it though. 
 

- The first of 3 Demo Showcases for the month with Demo Showcase 33 (03.04). 
Neo Cab - Very interesting visual novel. It went on for about 90 minutes and the story and characters kept developing. 
New Super Lucky's Tale - A nicely constructed 3D platformer. A bit on the easy side, but I wouldn't mind playing it. 
Ori and the Blind Forest - As good visually and mechanically as everyone says it is. It has always been on my radar. 
Space War Arena - A different take on the tower defense format. 
Tic-Tac Letters by POWGI - Another fun word game by POWGI. Definitely dug this one, but it can easily be figured out through trial and error. 

So I cheated a little on picking a favorite with this one. Ori was already on my wish list so I didn't have any qualms about choosing it or not. Neo Cab was my favorite. I wanted to see where the story went and meet more interesting characters. 


- The NES game of the month was recommended by SNERDAPERDS and Solace (SolaceAndDread), Crystalis (03.05). This was a really good action adventure game. Pretty much like the original Legend of Zelda with RPG elements. It took 9 hours to beat and I enjoyed it. 
 

- I noticed I didn't have as many video game related shirts than I thought I did. So I went to TeeFury and ended up wanting this 80s shirt (03.07). As of typing this (04.07), I have yet to wear it. 


- Finally got around to playing AI: THE SOMNIUM FILES (03.09-03.19). Oh my gosh, this was a wonderful visual novel. Characters were well developed, there were branching paths that you need to go down in order to see the true ending, great voice acting, and so much more. As of playing it, it is my game of the year (sorry, Sayonara Wild Hearts). There's a lot to it and I go into detail with my game summary on Discord (the most I've written for a summary). 

And this was when the pandemic started growing bigger and we had halted operations at work. So this wasn't how I was originally planning to play this, but I played this every other day and I think that helped. There was a lot to take in with every 8 hour stream (50+ hours total) that having a day in between was a good break. 


- And shortly after getting one video game shirt, I saw another one on sale. Bowser is one of my favorite gaming characters so I had to have this King Koopa shirt (03.15). Wore it almost immediately after getting it. 


- Continuing to grow my amiibo collection with the Kirby Series amiibo (03.16). This would be first time having any Kirby merchandise. After making my list of which amiibo I have and don't and realizing there were only 4 in this series, I went to eBay and found some going at a fair price. Got Kirby and Waddle Dee from the same person and got a small discount on shipping, which evened out on getting Meta Knight (last) at a slightly higher price. And King Dedede was found around original price. So to win bids on all 4 within a few days was super cool. I might skip out on getting an amiibo in April because of getting 4 this month (we'll see). 


- I've only done this a few times, but I played Mario Kart 8 on another person's stream (03.18). This time was on TrashTori's stream. It had been a while and it was very fun to jump into Mario Kart again. Got my butt kicked, but it was so fun. And while I could have done the next thing at any point after getting a Kirby amiibo, I unlocked the final racing outfit in Mario Kart 8. 
 

- Our free game of the month was Angry Bunnies: Colossal Carrot Crusade (03.21). It's an Angry Birds clone. Instead of birds, you use bunnies. That's it. We "finished"it because we beat all the free levels. The rest are locked behind paid DLC. While I don't recommend it, I still enjoyed it. 


- Demo Showcase 34 was our second Demo Showcase of the month (03.22). 
Doodle God: Crime City - We played a Doodle God demo before and I liked this one better. Especially since you can see crime scenes coming together. 
Hyperforma - I had no idea what I was in for with this one, but it's pretty much a 3D block breaker. It does what it's supposed to and looks really good. 
Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 - They gave a good amount of events to try out in this demo. Some in 3D and some in 2D, which I was really excited for. 
New Star Manager - You play as the manager of a soccer team. You don't exactly play the matches except for certain points like shooting for a goal. And...yeah, did not appeal to me. 
Puzzle Box Maker - A mix of different game modes with a box aesthetic. 

My favorite was Hyperforma. It surprised me with the simple and familiar game play and with its visuals. Sadly, this was the first stream I can recall where no one (except me) said anything in chat. It was odd. Sure, Demo Showcases can be a mixed bag, but I thought people would show up for the Mario & Sonic demo at least. Oh well. 


- Continuing with the string of free games we got from QubicGames with Puzzle Book (03.23). Choose a picture to put together, choose how many pieces, and get to it. Very chill. I finished one every possible picture and changed the level of difficulty/pieces for stream. The next day, I had nothing planned, so I 100% completed the whole game. That consists completing each picture on each difficulty level. It took about an extra 10 hours to do on and off. Definitely needed to take breaks as my eyes were straining at points staring at the same picture for many minutes. Anyways, got my money's worth on this one. 



- Been looking forward to starting the Guacalmelee One-Two Punch Collection. Of course we start with the first game, Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition (03.25-03.26). I don't know why I've slept on this game. It has so many things I like such as wrestling. The combat is great, the humor is great, and the music is great. So many things are great about this game. I thought to possibly 100% the game, but part of it requires getting gold on the Devil challenges and some are tough to beat in general. So I had to settle with 94%. Can't wait to play the second game. 


- A surprise Nintendo Direct Mini happened (03.26). It was great to see as they had a lot of stuff to show off. Excited for quite a few things coming soon. 
 

- Shantae and the Seven Sirens now has a console release date (03.27). May 28th is the date. While there will be a physical release for the game (most likely via Limited Run Games), I'm going to get it digitally as well so I can play it sooner rather than later. I won't be playing it day one, but I do have it slated for June. 
 

- And the final Demo Showcase of the month, Demo Showcase 35 (03.28). 
AeternoBlade II - Great opening theme song. The game felt like previous AeternoBlade demos. The voice acting...not so good. 
DORAEMON STORY OF SEASONS - Very colorful and animated. Very much like a Stardew Valley game, which unfortunately is not my kind of game. 
The friends of Ringo Ishikawa - Fun beat 'em up with nice retro graphics and fantastic music. I did wish there was a little more direction with what to do. 
Galaxy Champions TV - Short and simple Smash TV style of game. Definitely not as bloody, but provided that pick up and play and challenge suited for this kind of game. 
Resident Evil 5 - Not bad. I was expecting worse since there is usually more negative surrounding this game. I'm at least more interested in trying Resident Evil 5 in the future. 

My choice for this showcase was Galaxy Champions TV. Out of all the demos, this was the shortest and it delivered in that short window of time. I was probably smiling the entire time I was playing it. I've always like Smash TV and haven't played anything similar to it in a long time. And in another first, I bought Galaxy Champions TV after the stream. It was on sale for 80% off (normally $7, go it for $1). 


- With an ARMS character being announced for the next Smash Ultimate DLC fighter, they also released a game trial for ARMS (03.29). It lasted for a little over a week and I was not sure if I wanted to try it on stream or not. It just depended on the schedule. Thankfully I was able to because I had the most fun with the game then I ever did (demo, Testpunch). The singleplayer was still tough, but once I started playing against others online with the chat, it was great. And I got to meet so many people from the ARMS community and they were very friendly (and really good). That's what a game trial should be for a game that's been out for a while; getting to try out the game and fans of the game coming to see new people enjoy it and enjoy it with them (that happened with the Splatoon 2 Special Demo as well). Good stuff. Can't wait to see which ARMS character will be in Smash Ultimate. 
 

- The final stream of the month was our SNES game of the month, Kirby Super Star (03.30). It was great to relive this title. It was one my younger cousins owned and we played it a lot. To add to this, I got to play some of it multiplayer with Barra_97. Thanks to him simply asking if multiplayer was doable, I now am going to think ahead for future SNES/NES games to see if others want to play with me. But ending the month with this Kirby game was fun. This also ends the 3 months in a row of playing one Kirby game on stream. While there are others that I could play, I'm not planning on it (for now). 



ETC========================= 

- ITZY - WANNABE (MV) 

My new favorite ITZY song. The song is good, the choreography is great, and their performances have been superb. 

- Dunk Lords Ending Credits Song 

- Red Velvet - Psycho @ReVe Festival FINALE 

I might have shared this video before, but it has been brought back to my attention. It's still so good. 

- That's a wrap on March 2020. Thanks for reading. Thank you for your support. More than every, take care. 


"Reprise the theme song and roll the credits." 

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Thursday, March 12, 2020

February 2020 Entry

February 2020 Entry 

Such a busy month, my goodness. 

MISC========================= 

- Jubilee makes a lot of good videos and I recommend them in general. But this video featuring the the owner and his new fiance was quite nice. (02.16) 


- Took a day off and the main item on the agenda was to watch the Sonic The Hedgehog movie (02.19). Originally I was going to watch it the day before, but my parents needed the car. But I went to see it before noon in an almost empty (another guy came shortly before the trailers and sat a row behind me). What a fun movie. I enjoyed it so much and wouldn't mind seeing it again. 



WRESTLING========================= 

- NXT TakeOver: Portland was wonderful (02.16). Great matches from great performers as usual. This also marked Cathy Kelley's last NXT appearance as she was leaving the company. She's incredibly talented and was actually the person I wished I could meet the most from NXT. Of course she'll do great with whatever she does, but good luck with everything outside the wrestling world, Cathy. 


- I haven't been talking about AEW, but I've been watching it. It really hasn't grabbed my attention outside of former WWE wrestlers. Plus others I knew of weren't being portrayed as great so I couldn't get invested. I had started to like some of them such as Darby Allin and MJF. But they definitely caught my attention with the PAC VS Kenny Omega iron man match (02.26). It was an excellent all around match and it was the first time I wanted to stay tuned to AEW over NXT. Ever since then, I have found myself more invested.  


- For the past few months, I've been listening to wrestling podcasts more on the way to work. It's mainly After The Bell, The New Day: Feel The Power, and Busted Open. I realized that earlier in the month as I didn't take out my mp3 player from my car to charge at home like I normally do.  

WORK========================= 

- Our weekends at work have been busy in February. On the first Saturday, we had 6 sessions (02.01). The second and third Saturday was a little more normal. But then the 4th and 5th Saturdays had 7 sessions each (02.22, 02.29). Keep in mind that these sessions were facilitated by only myself and Agent Ocean. Glad to have him as a trustworthy and reliable coworker. 

- Another cool thing to happen on the last 2 Saturdays was having my last teams of the night want to stay and talk afterwards (this also happened the first Saturday of March). The first one went for over an hour and the other was about half an hour. It was great to see these teams be interested in learning more about us and say some good things about what we do. Thank you them.  

- Agent Striker joined us for a busy day (02.28). He was originally going to stay for the sessions and head back to Downtown, but he ended up staying the whole day, which was cool. But he also joined Agent Ocean and I as we went to Zero Latency. They came to HER a few days beforehand and offered us to check them out and we did. They're a VR place and it was all of our first time doing VR. We joined a group of 3 that was had been doing a few rounds before us and they turned out to be great teammates. We had a blast. Striker, Ocean, and I talked about all the good things about that place and definitely want to bring the rest of the team there for a company activity. 

- And to end the month, I already mentioned that we had 7 sessions for Leap Day (02.29). Combined with the day before (12 hours) and the more than busy Sunday after, I had worked for 30 hours in 3 days. Spoilers, it happened the week after. Didn't realize that at first nor did I feel tired during those times. It's just great that work has been picking up. 

GAMES========================= 

- Finally played Old School Musical (02.03-02.04). I saw StarSlay3r play it a long time ago and always had it on my wish list. The first stream was playing the game through and experiencing it for the first time on Normal. The music was incredibly good, had wonderful humor, and full of surprises. The second stream was playing it on Difficult. Didn't beat ever level on Difficult as it was...difficult. But it was still fun. Highly recommend it. 





- Demo Showcase 30 was our first Demo Showcase of the month (02.05). 

AI: THE SOMNIUM FILES - Very well animated and voiced visual novel that I had my eyes on and had already bought (so it was not eligible for being my favorite). 
Battle Chef Brigade - I originally thought this was an action game alone. But the cooking is a match 3 type game. It too was also animated and voiced well. 
Bear With Me: The Lost Robots - Not a bad point and click adventure. However, the bland voice acting was a turn off. 
Invisiballs - Couldn't really gauge this one as it is strictly multiplayer. Seems interesting. I tried using multiple controllers, but I'm sure it would be better with actually players. This was also a game that had a demo you couldn't download from the eShop for months. Had to directly download it from the Nintendo website. 
The Mystery of Woolley Mountain - And another point and click adventure. Had its own charm and flair and was a good game to end the showcase on. 

Such a great combination of demos today just in the sheer amount of variety. It was a treat. AI: THE SOMNIUM FILES was actually my favorite, but I already owned the game and prefaced it on stream. So the game I added to my wish list was Battle Chef Brigade. While I wasn't great at the match 3 part, I'm sure if I played it, I would get better at it. And if I do buy it, I'll get the physical copy. 


- My copy of Blasphemous from Limited Run Games arrived (02.05). Scheduled to be played in October. 


- Kung-Fu Heroes was our NES game of the month (02.07). It looked familiar and it definitely was after playing a couple of rounds. It wasn't easy. And thanks to those in chat looking up things on the game for me to help me figure out what to do. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great. I wanted to a nice game full of punching and kicking to fall in line with other games played later in the month. 




- Pantsu Hunter: Back to the 90s was a game I was looking forward to playing based solely on the anime art style (02.10). It looked like the anime I grew up on. Originally I had planned for this game to be played on multiple streams and at most run through a week of streaming especially when I saw there were 50+ endings to attain. But after starting it and seeing that endings can be gained very fast, this once planned 3-4 stream became a one-off (and thanks to that, I was able to fit in more games this month). Not the best visual novel you can play, but not the worst. Other than some grammatical errors, I enjoyed what it had to offer. 




- Our second month with a Kirby game in the form of Super Kirby Clash (02.11). It was also our free game of the month. Not a bad free Kirby game. It was similar to the 4-player Kirby game on the 3DS. Battle in short 5-10 minute bursts to defeat the enemy/enemies with AI buddies or others you know/don't know online. Got some information about the game from kenchien22 who had played it and learned about the time constraints of having points to actually battle. Originally this was planned to be 2 streams long as there is an end to it, but the time constraints and the in-game economy would have been the biggest hurdles to overcome. The game also got difficult as bosses took more strategy and hit hard. Still, not bad for a free game. 




- Another Demo Showcase with Demo Showcase 31 (02.12). This was a fun one all around. No issues with any of the demos. If I did, they were small gripes.  

Cadence of Hyrule - Already own and played it so I knew what I was getting into. The only question was how long the demo was since the levels were randomly generated. They had a certain section blocked off to travel on and then one dungeon. It was fun to play this again. 
Devious Dungeon 2 - We had played the first Devious Dungeon (don't recall if it was on stream or not), but it immediately was familiar. Jump, attack, and don't get hit in a medieval setting. 
My Big Sister - Simple retro graphics and a horror theme wrapped in adventure game. And it even ended on a cliffhanger. 
Songbird Symphony - Not a bad rhythm adventure game. Run around and solve puzzles and then do a boss fight with rhythm prompts. There didn't seem to be anything to harm you though. 
Wordsweeper by POWGI - Another fun word game by POWGI. It took me a while to understand the concept, but even then I was still guessing until I nailed the correct answer. 

Cadence of Hyrule was not eligible much like AI: THE SOMNIUM FILES. I enjoyed all of them, but chose My Big Sister. It really surprised me (and Reversed2) and I wanted to see more. I bought it shortly after as it went on sale for 35% off. Looking forward to possibly playing it in October. 


- Our QubicGames game of the month was Geki Yaba Runner Anniversary Edition (02.17). It would have been One Strike, but I played it last year. Plus I had Geki Yaba Runner Anniversary Edition already and it was free because of another deal for owning One Strike. It's a runner game. Run, jump, get a few extra abilities, and collect socks along the way to saving a someone to marry. I actually enjoyed it. I didn't collect all the socks, but did beat all the levels (? because maybe more would have been unlocked had all the socks been acquired). Not bad for a free game. 





- I added Aldred Knight to the schedule due to the previous games being finished earlier (02.18). This is a game from QUByte Interactive (they gave us 99Vidas and Vasara Collection). I purchased and downloaded the game when it was on sale for a dollar (free with gold coins) and was just trying to find a time to play it and here it was. A simple action game; attack and don't get attacked, learn spells, gain upgrades, and save the kingdom. Not a lot of flash and bang, but it delivers as a proper game. Not bad for the price. 





- River City Girls is so good (02.21, 02.24). I'm so glad I finally got to play this. Everything about it is great (art style, music, game play). The only negative was accidentally leaving an area when attacking an opponent. This was so good that I played it a second time to get that 100% completion. No way was I going to let this be a one-off. I can't recommend this enough and wouldn't mind playing it again in multiplayer with a partner. 




- Got my copy Mega Man Zero/ZX Legacy Collection (02.25). The plan is to play one title from the collection at the beginning of the month for 6 months. 



- A third Demo Showcase in the form of Demo Showcase 32 (02.25). 

Boreal Blade - An online multiplayer battle. Wasn't into it at first, but once more players started coming online, I started to enjoy it. The trailers showed so much more that there was to offer. 
Fifty Words by POWGI - A super fun word game by POWGI. It's basically a really large word search from words as short as 3 letters to as many as possible. A good one to play with the chat online too as I definitely didn't see some of the words. 
Just Dance 2020 - A new year and a new Just Dance demo, but this time it had two songs...and one of them was Kpop (BLACKPINK). It was good to try out two songs. It's Just Dance and it was fun. Unfortunately the highlight of the video has all the music portions muted. 
Our Flick Erasers - Another demo from SAT-BOX. Another desktop game. It wasn't bad. It worked for sure, but the theme wasn't as interesting to me this time. 
Pacific Wings - An old school vertical shoot 'em up in the vein of 1942 etc. Very short and very simple. I liked it. 

For this one, Just Dance 2020 would have been my favorite. But the way I stream, it wouldn't be good for a long one and I'd be getting too tired (however, I could build the stamina back up). And after the fact seeing that the highlight was muted made me really not want to. So my choice was Fifty Words by POWGI. This might have been the POWGI game I was the most into. 


- I mentioned it in Discord about how many amiibo I was missing. I almost have a complete collection. So I said that I will at least buy 1-2 a month to inch closer to finishing it up while collecting new ones released. The latest ones to add to my collection were Dr. Mario, Digby, and Isabelle - Winter Outfit (02.26). Getting the the latter two through the Animal Crossing amiibo Festival pack also netted me a new Wii U game (don't plan to play it) and 3 amiibo cards. Will I collect all 100 cards? I looked into. So far, not right now. I'd rather concentrate on the amiibo figures. With these latest additions, I am only missing 44 amiibo figures (including Japanese exclusives). 



- For awhile, posting screen shots straight from the Switch to Facebook wasn't working. You could still post via Twitter though. I even spoke to someone on Nintendo's site chat and they were aware of the issue. But it basically took the whole month for it to be fixed. (02.03-02.27). At first, you can only post single photos and not batches, but batch posting was back after another week or so. 

- And our final game of the month was our SNES games of the month, BRAWL BROTHERS (02.27). I chose this one because it was a beat 'em up similar to River City Girls and I wanted to keep punching things. But...it's not that great, ha. The main thing was no invincibility frames. That goes for both yourself and for the enemies. I had to turn on an extra Angry mode to help with it. I found things to like about it (check out all the clips) such as chucking enemies and victory cheese, but I don't recommend it. 





ETC========================= 

- I watched my copy of BoA THE LIVE 2018"X'mas" concert (02.14). I love her. Watching these concerts always remind me of songs I haven't heard in a while and sometimes get to see newer songs performed for the first time. A couple things got to me during this concert. One was the performance of "Love Letter" because at one point in my life, I had associated this song with someone I used to like. So I actually haven't heard this song in years. I forgot how great a song it was and enjoyed singing it again for the first time in a long time. But before that was a simple set change where the curtains drop in the middle of a song (can't remember which song), but it looked so good. For a quick set change to bring a tear to my eye, powerful. Of course I'm incredibly biased, but this was a wonderful reminder of why I've always supported BoA. 



- To one of my best friends, congratulations on the birth of your daughter. To my other best friend, take care of yourself. I'm always here for you when you need me. Stay strong. 

- That's a wrap on February 2020. Thanks for reading. Thank you for the support. Take care. 


"Reprise the theme song and roll the credits." 

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Wednesday, February 5, 2020

January 2020 Entry

January 2020 Entry 

We're already a month into the new year. Went by fast. One small change to the blog entries from now on is the labeling of sections. While I always knew what they were and kept them fairly consistent, now they will be obvious to anyone reading. 

MISC========================= 

- While this could be part of the gaming section of the blog, I felt starting the entry with this. I reached out to Nintendo at the beginning of the year (01.01). It was something I had thought to do towards the latter end of 2019 especially when I had heard more viewers in stream say that Nintendo "needs to notice me." I did it through a Twitter DM as I had actually talked to them through that years ago. To this day (02.02), I haven't heard back from them. Not the worst thing as they could possibly be watching without me noticing. It's also not a "no." If I do reach out to them again, I don't know when and the method, but I'll let this one simmer for a bit just in case. 

- Of course after I mention I'd been sleeping well in the last blog entry, I had a night that I couldn't sleep (01.04). It was an odd feeling since it had not happened in a while. At most, I might have had 4 hours of sleep only. And it had to be a work day too. The tiredness only set it once the work day was over. 

- For the first time in almost 4 decades, I dropped pizza (01.06). Had my plate of 3 slices, sat down, almost finished the first one, the phone rang, I got up and set the pizza on the desk...but not enough and the plate fell. Toppings fell off, but at least the slices landed face up on the recently cleaned floor. I ate the rest, but it was a sad feeling of having dropped them that was tragic, ha. And that phone call...spam risk. 

- Plugging my cousin's new business where she makes wreathes and dream catchers (maybe more) called Pauline Makes (01.16). If you can, give her a Like on Facebook or a follow on Instagram. 


- Got a text letting me and others know that one of our friends wasn't in the greatest moods and needed some cheering up (01.19). Without a second thought, I knew I'd go do whatever was planned to hang out with him. A few of us (and some new faces for me) went to Sushi King. It was a good night of talking and great food. Can't ever complain about those moments. 

WRESTLING========================= 

- Went to Worlds Collide with my cousin (01.25). Arrived a little later than normal so there were no lines. Still had to wait for my cousin so we could go in. What a show. Great action from start to finish. While it wasn't a TakeOver, it was still an NXT vibe. I always like spotting where wrestlers are from where we're sitting compared to seeing them on screens (Grizzled Young Veterans, Bro-serweights, Dakota Kai, Tegan Nox, etc). Fun night of wrestling. 




- The Royal Rumble is one of my favorite PPVs of all time and this was my second time going to one (01.26). Got up early to get ready to be picked up by friends. Ended up parking by HER and luckily got free parking. Decided to eat at Jackson Street BBQ, which was walking distance from HER (customers and coworkers went there all the time) and to Minute Maid Park. 

We actually looked the menu for a while in line and then went outside so other friends could find us. As we went back in and started ordering, I see Izzy and her parents enter. So awesome running into them out of nowhere. Immediately shared hugs and talked up the food. Little did they know, I actually paid for their meal as well. Of course they found us after they got their food and thanked me. We all had some good food, caught up, and shared many life stories with each other. Now those were some memories forged with fellow wrestling friends. 

After eating, we split up. Izzy and her parents went to Minute Maid Park while we went back to our car to get our titles. Walked over to Minute Maid Park and rejoined Izzy in line. During that time, one of my friends started to do my face paint. I never did face paint for wrestling, but I had an idea to combine both Asuka and Kairi Sane's Kabuki Warrior face paint. It didn't take too long and looked really good. By the way, this face paint combination is also my new Tier 2 emote on Twitch. 

My cousins met up with me and joined us in line. Shortly after, a manager (?) of Minute Maid Park came out to speak to everyone waiting. Mainly mentioned the rules that WWE had in place that were not the usual for Minute Maid Park (clear bags and size, season ticket holders, etc). He also made a few comments that were wrestling related such as not going to hit us with chairs or climb ladders, ha. He also took my Rated R title and made a comment about title belts. Then Izzy's dad started a "you deserve it" chant and everyone joined in, hilarious. Many minutes later, we were in. 

We got our tickets and went in. We all split up again. Some went to find seats, some went to the restroom, and I was trying to find Izzy and her family as they insisted to buy me a Royal Rumble shirt as thanks for lunch. By the time I found them, they bought one, but it was a medium. They asked if I wanted to exchange it and agreed. Saw some of the shirts on display and immediately saw the orange Astros inspired Royal Rumble shirt. We tried going to the sides of the merchandise booths to ask for a simple exchange, but they insisted we go back in line. Izzy's mom went and was able to move fast through the line to make the exchange and got the shirt. I thanked them, they thanked me, and we took photos before heading to our seats. Another awesome memory made with this family. We met at the Royal Rumble in San Antonio 3 years ago and here we are again making more Rumble memories. I enjoy our random encounters and can't wait to see them again. 



The set up for the Rumble was cool. One of the dugouts was the area the wrestlers would come out of. We were on the second floor section and had a good view. We settled in as the preshow started and then the main show. The only downside of the show was that a bright light on top of the screens was shining on us the entire time. It didn't bother me so much as I was still looking down towards the ring, but I completely understand why others disliked it. Regardless, I had a blast the entire time. I yelled and cheered for everyone and counted down from 10 so many times. The biggest reactions of the night were definitely Keith Lee squaring up against Brock, McIntyre eliminating Lesnar, and the surprise return of Edge. Right before he appeared, I remember looking down at the entrance area and seeing pyro set up. I wondered "who has pyro" too, ha. While it was rumored he might be there, I didn't expect it (me bringing my Rated R title was because I brought it to the last Rumble I went to). "You think you know me" hit and everyone got up and lost it. The sound was deafening, the loudest live event roar I've been a part of. I freaked out and yelled so much as I and everyone else could not believe what we were seeing. As much as I screamed during this, there was a part where I was mouth-agape and watching on in silence. At that point, I was tearing up too. I just could not believe my second favorite wrestler was back. After he hit his first spear, I immediately said "be careful." Unbelievable. 

What an insane night of wrestling. If this isn't my favorite event I've been to, it's easily in the top 3. The whole day was amazing. I'll never forget all of these moments and memories that were created. 



- And of course the next night, I ordered the new Edge shirt. And this one arrived the quickest out of any order I made via the WWEShop (01.31). 


WORK========================= 

- Our annual holiday party was at the beginning of the year (01.05). Agent Blue Heeler and I had been planning it together. Neither of us helped with last year, but we were asked to plan it this time around. We had it at our Memorial location, had a gingerbread house making contest, played Family Feud (with Double Dare physical challenges), exchanged gifts (everyone got one personalized for them), and then those that stuck around played Betrayal at House on the Hill (crazy fun). Fun day all around. 


- We had a very busy day at work (01.18). Not just for our location, but both. Downtown had 9 sessions and we had 8 for a total of 17. For me and Agent Ocean, we each took on 4 sessions each. There was almost no time to take a break. If we wanted to eat, it would only be for a quick snack and then back into the action. It was very rewarding. It reminded me of the days that we would have 15+ sessions at Downtown alone on a regular basis on Saturdays. 

- Towards the end of the month, we had a company meeting (01.28). Hasn't been one of those for a while. The majority of the staff was there and it was mainly to get everyone on the same page and give a bit of clarity on direction for the year. After we went out to eat, some of us went to the original location that the company started at over 5 years ago. That was when we were in an attic of a building shared by 2-3 other businesses. 

- And throughout this month, I've actually been working Downtown more than usual. Not a whole bunch, but almost one day a week. It's interesting to be there and see the staff more often. It's a different energy, but it's not bad by any means. 

GAMES========================= 

- Looking back on the games finished in 2019, that's a lot. Even looking back on the previous year, it doesn't feel like I'm playing that many games. It is crazy to see me beating 50+ games a year when there was a point not too long ago that I wasn't even beating 10-15 in a year. 


- First game of the year was Sayonara Wild Hearts (01.01). I had been looking forward to this game ever since it was announced, but never found a time to schedule it. And wow, I really enjoyed my time with this game. It was short, but memorable. Those zodiac challenges...some are insane. I wouldn't mind a sequel or DLC for this one. The joke during the stream was that this is my game of the year. Still a solid contender for it. 


- First Demo Showcase of 2020 with Demo Showcase 28 (01.03). I had fun with each one of these demos. 

Bleep Bloop - A simple puzzle game. Move one color with one analog stick, move the other with the other stick, and get both of them to the goal. 
CONTRA ROGUE CORPS - Despite hearing bad things about this game, I thought it was silly fun. It's not like a traditional Contra game and that's probably what hurts it. If it didn't have the Contra name, there wouldn't be expectations. 
Lethal League Blaze - Only knew of this game from watching bamCRASHkapow play it on stream. Now I know first hand how fun it is. 
Venture Kid - A Mega Man clone, which is not bad. Wish it was a little longer as a demo. 
World Cruise Story - Another Kairosoft simulator. One of my favorites out of that crop. This also marked the last of the current Kairosoft demos at the time...and then 3 more got released not too long after, ha. 

All of these were enjoyable. In fact, I played through the first 3 two times each and the fourth game three times. Of course the Kairosoft demo went over an hour as usual and ended on a hilarious note (watch the clip). But my favorite was Lethal League Blaze. It is now on my wish list. 



- I thought I had never played Kirby's Adventure, but apparently I had on the Wii U Virtual Console. But now I have played it on the Switch NES app (01.06). Harder than I expected it to be. Not that it was impossible, but I died more than I thought I would. Regardless, this is the first of 3 months that I will be playing a Kirby game. 



- Our second viewer's choice vote on Discord was for a visual novel and Worldend Syndrome was the winner. I was looking forward to playing this one (01.07-01.14). Wow, this game sure had its fair share of twists and turns. Getting the bad ending was very surprising, but intended. And when I thought I'd only romance a few of the ladies, I ended up having to go through all of them to see the true ending. The endings prior to this one revealed a few things that lead up to the true ending, but nothing was truly solved until the last couple of endings. Things were resolved and it makes sense (so many twists and surprises) and I'm glad things got wrapped up. I just wasn't expecting the finale of this to be 11 hours. And the last 2 hours was watching the true ending and not making any choices, just watching it unfold. While I did enjoy it, I thought it could have been wrapped up faster. But as far as visual novels go, it's a good one. 


- Ordered my cheap copy of Starlink December 27th. Picked it up the beginning of January (01.09). Quality stuff for only $6. It's currently scheduled for August, but there's potential to move it around. 


- First purchase at my new GameStop were for the new amiibo (01.17). Richter looks good, but Dark Samus is hyper detailed. So good. 


- So today would have been our free game of the month. It was going to be DRAGON BALL XENOVERSE 2 Lite Version. Booted it up, got a screen shot, started the stream...and then it was offline. I did notice that the number for free games on the Switch went down by one...and this happened to be the game that was removed. I had no idea it was for a limited time and it happened to end shortly before the day I planned to play it. 

So after a short 20 minute stream of trying to figure things out with those in the stream, I ended stream (deleted it) and got everything ready to play Robonauts instead (01.17). This was the next game regardless and it got bumped up. This was the first of 10 free games from QubicGames. It was a game I enjoyed the demo of long ago. It was short, it had enough of a challenge, and I enjoyed it. 


- If you saw last month's post, one of the Christmas gifts I got from my cousin was a download code for Untitled Goose Game and I made sure to make it a priority on the schedule (01.20). Wow, what a silly and fun game. The main adventure is short, but the extra tasks unlocked definitely extended it. Other than the one thing that happened on stream, I really enjoyed 100% completing this game. That final to-do item that got crossed off was very satisfying. Highly recommend it. 



- Second Demo Showcase of the month with Demo Showcase 29 (01.22). Very mixed bag of demos here. 
APE OUT - High energy, easy to understand, and tons of action. Short, but sweet. Being an ape was fun. 
Bot Vice - Similar to Wild Guns. Didn't expect that. It definitely had its own level of challenge, but I had a blast playing it. 
Disgaea 4 Complete+ - I'm not the biggest fan of strategy games, but I've played a few in my day. I've also played the demo of Disgaea 5. I liked that one. I didn't like this one that much. It didn't help that the tutorial was pretty much an hour long. Too much reading and not enough action. 
ONINAKI - I've heard good and bad about this game. I will say the battle system was repetitive, but the story had me hooked. Wasn't expecting that to happen. 
The Tower of Beatrice - A nice point and click adventure. The controls took a little getting used to, but then it was all about making things happen. 

The favorite out of this Demo Showcase was APE OUT, no doubt. Started the stream strong with it and it left an impression on me. ONINAKI was a close second, but I know I would have more fun with the shorter of the two. Who knows, maybe ONINAKI goes on a crazy sale and I pick it up anyways. By the way, it just occurred to me that I liked both games that that were all in caps, ha. 


- Our SNES game of the month was Breath of Fire (01.27-01.31). My only experience with the series was with Breath of Fire III on the Playstation. I think I beat it...not sure. But this was definitely an old school RPG. Very of its time and that's good and bad. I did level up off stream for 4 hours two separate times and it helped make things smoother. Following an FAQ helped as well. Overall, I enjoyed it. Breath of Fire II is scheduled for May, but it's still a maybe for now.

https://www.twitch.tv/collections/4mCiJAzo7RXUzg 


- Got my copy of Blazing Chrome from Limited Run Games (01.28). Can't wait to play it...some time. But I also tried out Byleth in Smash as well. Fun character. He/She is strong and I like my strong characters. Probably my second favorite DLC character for the game. 


- I asked in Discord if anyone wanted to see summaries for games after I beat them. While I normally gave my thoughts on a game on stream after I beat it, I handcuff myself due to timing. Thankfully a good number of people did want to see them and thus the Game Summaries section was born. Since it was toward the end of the month, I started to release them every other day until I was caught up. After that, I'll give myself 48 hours to come up with the summary. They aren't long reviews like I used to do way back in the day. It shows positives, negatives, and then a paragraph for the summary. And this will be exclusive to Discord so if you want to see them, join The Loading Screen. 


- Special shout out to my cousin for making me a Twitch banner as a Christmas present. She emailed them to me on the 6th and it was a pleasant surprise. Then I asked her about making my Tier 2 emote. That slot has been vacant for a couple months now. I asked a few others to make it, but they weren't able to or didn't have the time. The idea for it has been the same for a while too so I sent the idea to my cousin. A couple days later, the Kabuki Warrior emote was created on the 9th (took almost 2 weeks to get approved). Since we were on a roll, the last thing I asked were to update my Twitch Panels. At first I didn't have any ideas, but knew that I really liked what abomination1212 has. Using those as an inspiration, we got talking and idea generating. Took some time, but the new Twitch Panels were finished on the 26th. I swapped them out a couple days later and they are awesome. Go check them out on my Twitch profile.  


ETC========================= 

- TaeYeon - Dear Me (MV) 

- Kara - Runaway 

This song came up when I was sorting and arranging songs for my phone (01.24). I binged a few videos of their performance. One of my favorite Kara songs. 

- I mentioned it last month that my dreams have been very vivid recently. It continues. I do find it fascinating that the majority of them are with people I haven't seen in years. One dream that I can recall is a group of them ignoring me, but only one of them actually being nice and reaching out to me. Even last night (02.04), another one was reaching out to me saying things like "do you remember when this thing happened? It's almost the anniversary of that. Do you think you can come celebrate with us?" I don't yearn to reach out to them because I did make some efforts in the past and efforts weren't made from their end. Not to say they never tried. But the door is not closed to all of them. Some yes, others no. There are definitely some that I know the connection is there as reaching out to them for work purposes had raised curiosity and just general conversation to meet and catch up. Hopefully reconnecting with some of them can happen. 

- That's a wrap on January 2020. Thanks for reading. Thank you for the support. Take care. 


"Reprise the theme song and roll the credits." 

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