March 2025 Entry:
March was busy. Get ready to read blocks of text.
MISC=========================
- Caught up on Elimination Chamber a day after (03.02). If I haven't mentioned it before, I don't mind wrestling spoilers. I need to catch up on social media in general so it's hard not to avoid it. But I'm of the mindset of "I can't wait to see how that happens." Did things play out how I predicted? No. Was I upset about that? No. All the matches were really good. The returns and surprises were magnificent. The rest of the road of Wrestlemania is going to be a fun ride.
- I received a letter from Nintendo (03.04). That in itself was surprising as that's nothing you receive in the mail every day. Looking through the envelope, part of me thought it was a gift card because I could see a number. I opened it up to read the printed paper first. It was a correction to a misprint they made on their yearly calendar, but specifically the NSO one. September had the days misaligned. The misprint had the first of the month starting on a Wednesday instead of Monday. Odd that I didn't notice that myself. But it was still nice of them to send a corrected version free of charge.
- Surprised a friend at work for their birthday (03.05). It would have been the only time to do it, but the look on their face and just having fun was worth it. Afterwards I tried out a new (to me) boba place; Daboba. The pictures of their drinks and desserts were eye-catching. It's a nice big place and they were blasting Kpop when I got there (Red Velvet - Cosmic, aespa - Live My Life, etc). While I could have gone for a passion fruit drink, I chose ice cream since there was something really good looking on their website. They didn't offer the specific thing on the site, but I still got Rainbow Ice Cream with boba. It's basically a very fruity ice cream and the flavors were strong in a good way. Definitely wouldn't mind coming back for more.
- I finally deleted my Twitch VODs (03.02-03.06). I went through the slow process of getting from 5672 hours to 86 hours. First I deleted anything that wasn't special like a viewer's choice, guests, etc. That brought it down to 529 hours. Next I deleted the sponsored streams and the new total was 397 hours. Next on the chopping block were streams that had guests that were not on camera or mic, which wasn't a lot. Combine that with me cherry picking some of the viewer's choice streams and the total was 212 hours. Then the rest of the viewer's choice streams were removed and the total number of hours was 125. At this point the total was so close, but it was about what to specifically delete. I was going to delete some of the 100th streams (300, 700, etc), but I realized something; I accidentally deleted the 100th stream at some point. That made the choice easier to delete every 100th stream bringing us to 86 hours. The only VODs left on Twitch are:
Anniversary streams
Guest streams
Rakuen: Deluxe Edition
Speedruns (Aldred Knight and Ravva)
Stream 001, 500, 997, 998, 1000
Trailers
The VODs have already been archived to YouTube. It was ongoing even when I was streaming. Except for maybe a handful in the beginning, every stream was uploaded and scheduled to go up one year after the original Twitch stream. So if you still need to have those on in the background or want to relive any previous streams, you can give that YouTube channel a click (and subscribe if you want) or use the handy dandy Master List.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1IDcSqiA-enU5WLbVPlReYQel1X-7rXKkdyoLifnIpxU/edit?usp=sharing
- An hour into my day, I fell down a small set of stairs in the house (03.15). These stairs are not the main stairs, but just two steps that lead from the master bedroom to the rest of the upstairs. I don't know how. It's not like I didn't do my morning stretches. I do recall I felt I was a little off the step than normal. Landed on my knees and my arms. I had a bag of chips in my hand and it didn't spill. Got up, dusted myself off, and continued the day. But I also took that as a possible sign of bad things happening later on in the day.
- Busy day with friends (03.19). First I saw G and Rannchan for some lunch at Jade Ly (G's suggestion). A nice small Chinese restaurant I've never been to. Their selection was vast. I went with curry shrimp since I haven't had that combination in a long time. While I saw G not too long ago to let them borrow Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition, I haven't seen Rannchan in a while nor had I hung out with either since Christmas. It was good catching up with them for a couple of hours.
We split and I went out to go see NE. They were in charge of their store for the day and he invited other HeXagon members to come by if possible. I let him know I was on the way and to pick a drink from Teapresso. Unfortunately I didn't see that they were closed until I got there. I quickly checked for another boba place I haven't checked out and found Boba Yes. It was similar to other small boba shops with a decent selection. I ended up getting a standard cookies n' cream smoothie (the usual test) and it was good. Finally made it to NE's work and gave him his drink. Apparently I just missed the rush. I chilled there for a good hour talking about multiple things (Kpop, wrestling, etc). I ended up getting the new DC x Sonic comics for G before leaving. Good seeing NE again.
One final stop with bringing the comics to G. Stuck around and talked with G and Rannchan for about an hour. Got to see the newly updated Sonic collection in person finally (only saw on streams). It's very impressive. After that, I went home. Stayed out longer than expected, but seeing some friends was needed by all of us.
- Sonic Prime was the movie/series of the month (03.01-03.23). Watched one episode a day and really enjoyed it. I wasn't digging it at first because it felt slow establishing new universes and the different versions of the characters. Very much a Sonic isekai. But I was more invested once there was more of a singular goal. The action really picked up too. I couldn't help but think there were Avengers inspired scenes. Part of me wouldn't have minded another version of characters appearing, but I think this was the right amount. I didn't like all of them and felt a few could have been left out, but they at least had differing personalities and weren't simple copy and pastes. This also seemed like the right amount of episodes too. There were enough twists that I don't know what else they could have done without padding it. And I couldn't help but think that Sonic Prime would make for a fun musou game. Overall, thumbs up from me.
- Made sure to do some important things I've been putting off for no reason (03.23). The first was to have all my tax papers filled and printed out. I will make an appointment soon.
Another was to fill in an application to renew my driver's license. Thankfully I could do it online and don't have to go to the DMV. I might have to next time since the photo will be a decade old. The last time I went for my current license was when my wallet got stolen in 2012.
The last thing was to figure out why I couldn't send emails from my phone. It's been that way for 1-2 months. I don't normally send legit emails via my phone, but I send images from my Switch to my phone to my email to post on social media. It's happened before and I don't know why. And I'd be forgetful about it until I have to post screenshots. What I would do instead is post to Twitter, save those images, delete the post, and then post the images again. Anyways, figured it out. Until next time it happens again, ha.
- Was woken up in the middle of the night due to loud lightning strikes (03.24). The first one woke me up and I almost rolled back to sleep easily. The second one sounded closer. I figured that was it, but a few minutes later a third one went off and that sounded even closer. All of them sounded not too far off with the last two sounding like they were in our neighborhood. I do recall rolling over after the third one and seeing my PC was off. I was using videos to fall asleep since the 6-day work week so it was on that night. In the morning I pushed the power button and nothing happened. I was already thinking the worst happened with the PC dying again only after a few months. Then I remembered that my monitor was off and turned it back on. The computer was on the "your PC shut down unexpectedly" page. I restarted it and everything was okay thankfully.
- Picked up my copy of TWICE - 5TH WORLD TOUR [READY TO BE] in JAPAN SPECIAL (03.29). It was ready on Tuesday and I did try to go get it on Friday, but it rained. Went to the shop on Saturday before work. That was the longest I ever looked for parking, but it made sense for middle of the day on a Saturday. Picked it up and then went to a new (to me) boba place called Junbi. They were packed too. I did check out the menu beforehand so I knew what I wanted to get. Ordered a Cool strawberry refresher for Agent Ocean, a cool tropical refresher for myself, and The Flight, which was one of 4 possible riceballs (chose snow crab, salmon, and spam). The drinks came out in a few minutes, but I was told the food was going to be 10-15 minutes since there were 2 similar orders before me. Took my stuff and drove to work and was 10 minutes late. I texted Agent Ocean ahead of time. He enjoyed his drink. Mine was alright (got the wrong sized straw for boba). The riceballs were fantastic though. Definitely want to go to Junbi again on a not so busy day.
- I do backups and file transfers at the end or beginning of every month. I wanted to try something different to make some of the process faster. The previous technique was to (for example) delete a folder with photos because the newer folder has all of them plus more. But some are fairly large and take many minutes. So I made a separate folder specifically for that photo folder to only include the new ones. Then I would only transfer those files into the external harddrive to save time. I needed to get used to using those new "transfer for later" folders.
When it came time to finally move the files over, it was actually faster. But...I forgot to do that for the larger folders and instinctively deleted them and had to transfer everything again, ha. At least I know it actually is a bit of a time saver.
GAMES=========================
- Demo Showcase Shorts continues?
And...we did it. We have played all (minus one that's co-op only) demos currently or previously available on the US eShop. While there are 957 as of typing this, there have been 1046 demos. Many have been deleted over time. So what does this mean for future demos? They will be played when they come out slash the next day. Most eShop updates happen at 11AM and that's when I always check the eShop daily (also for free-to-play games and sales on my wish list). If a new one becomes available, I'll schedule to play it the next day. Not only that, I'll post them on other social media platforms whether they have accounts there or not. Although I might not go through the trouble of finding them, I'll still do my normal process and keep adding to a continuous thread.
0 demos remaining.
- First game completed this month was Valiant Hearts: Coming Home (03.02). Got it on sale for $10. This was originally a Netflix game. I was excited when it was announced, but didn't have Netflix back then nor would I be interested to play it that way. The reason I was excited was that I played Valiant Hearts: The Great War since I bought the physical copy of it that was part of Child of Light. Streamed the game in March of 2019 (6 years ago) streams 81-83.
This game wasn't perfect mechanically. It did play much like the previous title. But there were some poor transitions and a lot of heavy loading times. Other than that, it was fine. The art style was maintained, there were returning characters, and it wasn't too difficult. I did follow an online guide to make sure to pick up every collectible along the way rather than go back to find them. Just like the first game, it was an educational story stating real facts of the time during World War I. It's meant to tell gritty details, but nothing graphic. But very much like the first game, that ending...wow. It is a war story. This one does have emphasis on segregation. The story wasn't hooking me at first and that might be why the ending hit harder. While it is an educational game, it's not for everyone. I'd only recommend buying it if you played Valiant Hearts: The Great War. If you're interested at all and don't want to buy it, watching a playthrough would deliver the same type of experience.
- FRAG Pro Shooter was our free-to-play game of the month (03.03). Not a bad arena shooter. The ability to switch between your CPU squad members is neat. Other than that, there's not much to it other than playing more matches to earn currency and unlock loot (money, cards, characters, etc). Not bad, but I had my fill of it.
- Super Fantasy Zone was one of our Genesis NSO games of the month (03.03). HowLongToBeat said it is only an hour long and that's about right. 8 stages that were pretty much repeated with different environments and enemy skins and bosses. I liked it though. The variety of weapons is nice, but I stuck with what I ended up finding the most reliable. Fun short game.
- Thunder Force II was our second Genesis NSO game of the month (03.03). Another shooter type game. Just like Super Fantasy Zone, I did like the variety of weapons. While I liked the horizontal stages because they were standard affairs, I did not like the top-down stages. Neat in concept, but I wasted so much time hunting down all the base targets to advance to the next level. And it's a really difficult game. Not bad, but a tough challenge.
- Picked up my copy of Suikoden I&II HD Remaster Gate Rune and Dunan Unification Wars (03.06). I was told it was the only copy they got because I reserved it, geez. I didn't know it was a day-one edition that gives you a download code for some extras, which will make getting back into the game after so many decades easier. Crazy to think we had copies of both games back in the day. Wish we still had them, but the fact this is a release at all is awesome.
- Fire Emblem was the GBA NSO game of the month (03.04-03.12-03.16). The dates you see were the original dates I thought I'd finish it in. Then I had a 6-day work week and I knew it wasn't going to happen unless I extended it. During that specific work week, I made sure to at least finish one chapter or advance the story portion. I tried my best not to be in the middle of a battle because I didn't want to possibly forget what was going on. While I knew this was going to be a long game going in, I did have another game later in the month scheduled that was also long. Were it not for the 6-day work week, I would have kept it, but decided to reschedule that game.
This was my first ever Fire Emblem game I've played. I'm familiar with some characters because of Smash Bros and I know how popular the series became over time. I actually do have a copy of Fire Emblem: Three Hopes that I've unfortunately always rescheduled over the years. It was a gift from a friend and I'm pretty sure they bought it because of something I said when I played the demo. "It would be interesting if this was the first Fire Emblem game I play." I know it's not a tactical RPG like others and is a musou instead. But the reason the GBA NSO version was scheduled was because I was running low on GBA NSO games to play. This one also kept getting pushed back and it was just time to solidify it.
I would never have beaten this without save states and rewinds. I've definitely played a few TRPGs before (Final Fantasy Tactics, Project X Zone, etc), but I was never the greatest at them. This definitely reminded me why I usually stay away from these games; they're difficult. Lyndis' chapters were not so bad and were a good tutorial with gradual build up. Switching to Eliwood started fine, but the latter chapters were a challenge with some battles lasting over an hour. I did my best not to use rewinds a lot, but it was necessary. Getting to see how decisions played out and then taking it back was a relief and frustrating. There were times I rewinded as far back as I could. Rarely did I restart a chapter over. I made sure no one died, but boy did a bunch die, ha. While the cast of playable characters was large (missed a few), it did suck that some were put on the back burner because a new character showed up that was a similar class, but was better. I also skipped a few side quest chapters due to the time frame.
Overall, I liked it. It was going to be a challenge like I knew it would be. I knew I wouldn't do everything or even attempt hard mode. But the story and characters kept me invested. My first Fire Emblem game is now in the books.
- SUPER R-TYPE was the SNES NSO game of the month (03.17). This was a short game. 7 levels with two sections and a boss. One hit and you die and lose all your power-ups. Unfortunately I felt that the weapons were weak. None really felt like they were super strong, only situational. The music didn't help either as none felt energetic. There were moments of slow down that most of the time was caused because of your blasts. I have played other R-Type games and enjoyed those. This one...I was glad it was over in less than an hour.
- SUPER SOCCER was another SNES NSO game for the month (03.17). The only reason I played this is because it is the first game to be removed from NSO (03.28.25). I won't miss it. The game is functional, but incredibly difficult. During a regular exhibition game, I barely got any shots on goal. Same with defending the goal. I blocked a few shots, but more went through. I did score one goal when trying the shoot out mode. Then I tried all the passwords out. Specifically, I made sure to use the ending password so I could actually see the credits. Super Soccer, you will not be missed.
- Sonic Superstars wasn't originally on the schedule, but I pushed it up (03.18-03.22). The reason being was that the original game scheduled would have taken too long to beat within the month especially because of how long Fire Emblem went and the long Spring Break schedule I had.
Sonic Superstars was estimated to be done in a good short amount of time whether finished or completed. I chose to only finish this one. While there were some moments I enjoyed such as the level designs and Frozen Base Zone Act 2. But there were many moments that I did not like the game. One was there were glitches I ran into. Not a bunch, but they happened when it was highly inconvenient like during the last boss. The special stages (Chaos Emeralds or medals) weren't fun. At least the ones for medals felt nostalgic. The Chaos Emerald ones had some controls I couldn't grasp completely. I thought I did, but I only ended up with 3 Chaos Emeralds. The anime opening and closing was nice. I didn't expect for another mode to open up. When I researched what that was, I didn't feel the urge to do it. I might have wanted to back to get the Chaos Emeralds, but after my playthrough and especially the long amount of time spent on the final boss, I was fine with stopping there. There's some good, there's some bad. Overall, a mixed bag.
- Happy 2nd Anniversary, Mr. Saitou (03.23)
- Third game in MARVEL vs. CAPCOM Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics was X-MEN VS. STREET FIGHTER (03.23-24). I remember playing the arcade a few times in a mall back in the day. It was so cool to see these two series mixing it up and doing crazy moves. Even though there were recommended team ups, it was always neat to see what combinations others would make. I do think the X-Men were way better than the Street Fighter characters. Not that they didn't stand a chance, but I felt it wasn't always balanced. There were definitely some characters that I didn't click well with. The endings, which I have no recollection of, weren't that great. Some had a lot of dialogue, some were super short, and some were just silly. Thankfully I realized that seeing them all was going to be easier. Whichever of your teammates gets the last hit on Apocalypse, you play as them in one final match against your other partner. Win and you see their ending. Having a quick save made it simple to fight Apocalypse again, but making sure to get the final hit with the other fighter. That cut the time I spent with the game in half. It holds up, but I did need time to adjust to it.
- Game Informer is back. (03.25). They had teased an announcement, but to finally get the news is great. Yay for them being independent and having 100% of the team back. Cheers to them.
- A new Nintendo Direct happened before the Switch 2 Direct (03.27). I wasn't expecting much, but I did find games to be excited about.
No Sleep For Kaname Date - From AI: THE SOMNIUM FILES (07.25)
Gradius Origins (08.07) - pre-order Classic Edition from LRG the next day
Rift of the NecroDancer (today)
Rhythm Heaven Groove (2026)
MARVEL Cosmic Invasion (holiday 2025)
A new AI: THE SOMNIUM FILES game was not what I was expecting and it was my favorite announcement. Gradius Origins is going to be a fun collection to breeze through. Glad to finally see Rift of the NecroDancer on Switch. I'll wishlist it and wait for a sale. I've never played a Rhythm Heaven game, but have always heard good stuff about it. So I'm excited to finally play one. And the folks at DotEmu are doing more great stuff, but with the Marvel cast. No doubt it'll be a fun beat 'em up.
I am very curious about the Virtual Game Card. I do think it's the secret test that happened sometime ago. It has a lot of potential for the future digital games. Definitely can see some people using it within their household.
- Wrapped up SNK VS. CAPCOM SVC CHAOS (03.30). I had been chipping away at it at the end of each month since I got it last November. I mentioned it in a previous entry, but I had to lower the difficulty to 1 and give myself infinite supers. Even then it was still a challenge. The sucky part was trying to beat the game with every character. I did, but got the bad only text ending for the majority of the roster. Thing is, you have to unlock one of the two secret bosses and beat them to see the ending. The requirements are documented online, but there were times I swear I followed it correctly and the secret boss didn't pop up and I got the bad ending. Or there were times I thought I messed up and was still able to fight the secret boss. What made things worse is that if you lose to the secret boss, you get the generic bad ending. No retries, start over. This is where quality of life improvements would have been helpful. Having a quick save/load feature would have been glorious and I would have felt compelled to unlock every single ending. A lot of fighting game collections have that nowadays so I don't see why this didn't, considering they did other things like the borders and making it easier to access the secret characters.
I did make it a point to play as everyone once through whether I got their ending or not. Matches ended up being me repeatedly using supers and even then it wasn't great depending on the character. My other issue with the game was that it didn't feel balanced. Size mattered as some of the smaller fighters were naturally out of the way of certain attacks. Some attacks felt too weak or too strong. And the lack of impact for some was disappointing (quietest Raging Demon I can recall).
Positives include the roster itself and their designs. Other than those, CVS is way better without a doubt.
WORK=========================
- First lean and mean Saturday of the month (03.01). It wasn't even by design as a lot of the staff were unavailable that day, which sucks. At max we only had 6 staff members, but that was only from 3PM-5PM when 2 were done with their shifts. Most of the customers were fine. But there was this one kid that shortly after coming to the venue that immediately became an issue. He knocked over one of our posters because he kept touching things and was told by his parents to stop. They apologized and it wasn't the worst thing to ever happen. I mentioned to HW who was their game master to keep an eye on him and he replied that he could tell when he hosted them in. At some point we swapped as his shift was over and he filled me in on how bad he was. Most of the "hints" he sent was to tell the kid to stop doing something. I didn't realize how bad it was, but I had to tell him to stop doing stuff. You could tell his friends were fed up, especially the older one that was trying to maintain order. When I went to host them out, he was still being rambunctious and I used my low stern voice and let him know that I have to clean up what he did. He didn't apologize, but he sure became quiet. Even when leading them out, the older kid did not want to be part of the team photo. He talked to the dad and was quietly telling him what happened. At some point I went over to the older kid and thanked him for trying to keep him under control and I made sure my voice was low enough for the bad kid not to hear, but for the dad to hear. When I went to reset the room, I finally got to survey how bad things were. He thankfully didn't break anything, but that was the worst mess in that room. I yelled in frustration because not only was he a bad kid, but it should never have gotten that way.
On the plus side, there weren't any other bad teams after. Some weren't fun, but they didn't do anything to the degree of that kid. Definitely got to laugh with a lot of them. An odd note was I got a lot of handshakes. That made me realize that I had received a lot more handshakes lately. It might not always translate to reviews or even return customers, which isn't best for business, but I'd like to think I was at least part of making their nights memorable.
This also marks the last work day for VV at the sister location. It's unfortunate, but his family wants him to help and focus on the family business. I sent him a text with an image of a fruit roll-up and wood cleaner; one thing he likes and one thing he doesn't, ha. He's young, but a very diligent worker that always asks how he can help unless it's to do any cleaning, ha. Anytime we worked together, I was always confident with his abilities and knew he would help back me up on things I was learning. No one wants to see him go, but hopefully this will only be temporary. Regardless, thanks for being a great coworker, VV.
- Solo Tuesday after putting KA on-call (03.04). Only two sessions at the beginning that were nicely spaced apart. Then one towards the end of the night. All three teams were good and nice. In between I was finding things to do outside of normal organization and taking care of voicemails etc. Left around 8:20PM and made it home at 9PM.
- Solo day with no customers (03.06). Had to have IB be on-call again, but this is the first time in a while that we had no customers come in. I spent all day sweeping, mopping, and vacuuming all of our escape rooms. That took the majority of the day and it was tiring. I took a break after every two rooms. I also had time to sweep and mop the control room (gross to see a smashed Oreo under one of the desks, who knows how long it has been there) as well as the front desk area. Didn't have the time to mop the whole lobby so I at least vacuumed the carpet and rugs. 5 hours of cleaning and listening to podcasts the whole time and I was out of there at 7PM.
- Dead to busy day (03.07). Day-of bookings seem to be happening more frequently. The biggest downside was a customer spilled their slush drink in the hallway. One jokingly bumped into another and it fell out of their hands. They tried to clean it, but I quickly ushered them into their room as I knew I was going to handle it, which I did. Spent a good chunk of time mopping multiple times. First was to get rid of the spill, the second was to get rid of the stickiness, the third was to get the rest of the stickiness. A fourth time was needed the next day as I missed a few spots that were probably from footprints. Outside of that, the cute short girl from last week came back with some others that were with her last time with a few others. One of them was her son-in-law and that's how I found out she was dating someone. Still made some nice small talk and got in well with the kid.
- Lots of walk-ins (03.08). It made our Saturday busy. Another cute girl came in with her boyfriend and their friends. When they arrived, she was really cold and I pointed out that the fake fireplace we had in the lobby would actually heat her up. She didn't believe me until she went up to it and immediately thanked me. She stood with her butt towards it and stated out loud "I'm toasting my buns right now." After their session, they chilled in the lobby for a bit. I chatted with some of them. One of the guys mentioned how he has ADHD and that's why he was walking all around looking at stuff. That's when I remembered we had some fidget spinners that customers left. I gave him one and he was incredibly delighted. Shortly after, the cute girl mentioned how she wanted to see what the other rooms looked like. I pulled her aside to walk her back to see the Scooby room since that was the one she wanted to see the most. It was open-reset so I had to block a few things, but she was blown away. She thanked me for showing her and then relayed to her team how that's the next room they'll play.
- Spring Break means a 6-day work week for me (03.10-03.16). As best as I can remember, I don't think I've ever officially worked 6 work days in the same week. I might have done work related things to equal to 6 days, but never officially clocked in and given more than 40 hours on purpose. 47.5 estimated hours spread across 6 days.
Day 1 (03.10): Working at the sister location. That's the first time since January I believe. I had to quickly refamiliarize myself with things. It was great to work with SP after so many months since her and CG were fully dedicated to this location. Things felt familiar and it was good seeing her excel at what she does. I also got to meet two of the latest trainees they brought on board. KM was someone I heard high praise about and they were right. She's fantastic at almost everything (resets, cleaning, etc). She is a little shy talking to customers and she can get very angry while game mastering (she's working on both), but she will ask questions to make sure she's not wrong. Reminds me of KA.
The other trainee was JT and...I was immediately told by the owners to check on him. SP mentioned similar things as well. It didn't help that he started by forgetting his work shirt meaning he went home to get it and ended up being late. He's not great. There was an air of aloofness and needing to get his attention a lot. I ended up asking him a lot of questions such as what he's confident with and what he needs to work on. He was honest with his answers and I did my best to help with a few things. For example, his host speech was good. He said what needed to be said, but he needed to slow down and have a better flow. Sat down with him to make a simple bullet point note on his phone to use to help. So a lot of the shift I asked him to practice that, practice his resets (he knows he's slow) while the three of us ran the bookings. Another reason for that is because the others don't trust him to do all the other stuff. Basically they wanted to avoid any bad feedback from customers. There were a few times he was co-piloting with a game master, but he was not quick to respond to what the players needed. His typing was bad too. And I don't recall when I realized it, but I was training him like it was his first week. He's been there for a month. Same amount of time as KM and their skill level is vastly different. I let the owners know I'll need to talk to them afterwards about him, which I did after we closed up for the day. KM and JT left for the day while SP was closing up and replying to a few emails. I went to the ladies who were busy with the latest room build. First thing I said was "you should let him go." Went into details that were mentioned earlier. Talked about how there's a theory that he listens to music the whole day, but you can't see his airpods because his hair blocks them. The ladies didn't know about that, but none of the staff have caught him in the act outside of KM hearing music one time while walking by him. But I did attribute the need to get his attention all the time to that possibly. Then there was the color blindness. The ladies didn't know until that day. I only knew because I asked why his resets were slow and he mentioned it as a factor for one room. The ladies were baffled, but I explained that he probably didn't work on those puzzles when he was training. It's still bad he never mentioned it as part of the job is being able to identify colors since a lot of puzzles do deal with colors. I was all for cutting our losses and to not waste any more time and money on him. All the worries the ladies and the staff had about him after one month was something I figured out in one hour. They thanked me for my input and shortly after that SP and I left for the day.
On the drive home, CG texted asking to talk about JT as well. SP mentioned he'd want to talk to me to hear what I told her and the ladies. I called him letting him know that it would be a while for me to be back home so we could talk as I drove. Finally got to hear his side of the story and then mentioned everything I've said throughout the day. It shouldn't have gotten this far without being addressed, but at least they have my opinion to further drive the point home if/when they release him.
Heck of a way to start the work week.
Day 2 (03.11): At the sister location again with SP, KM, and meeting RW. He's decent. His skills are a good middle between JT and KM. Definitely can be better, but he's not bad by any means. He's stronger as a host for sure. We actually had a short day as we didn't have any towards the end of the day. So we left around 7-7:30PM.
On the way home, I finally got to visit The Boba Shop. I would always see it on the way to the sister location. I could never get it on the way home as they would be closed by the time I head out. Their venue was nice and spacey. They also had a variety of drinks. While I thought about getting my usual cookies 'n cream to test out new places, I knew I'd most likely eat something of that flavor later in the month. So I had two choices; passion fruit or green apple smoothie. I wasn't sure by the time the worker asked what I wanted so I simply asked if they could mix them. They said they could and that's what I ordered. Waited a few minutes, got my drink, took my photo, and then headed home while taking the occasional sip. Was it good, yes. But I do wish the green apple flavor wasn't as strong so I could taste both. I know how they both taste together as I've gotten them mixed before in snowcones. Still good, but not even in taste. Hopefully I'll get to try them again in the near future.
Day 3 (03.12): Back to the main location for the rest of the week. I was messaged to send some staff home early (ZM and RB) as well as put IB on-call because there weren't too many bookings. We did get busy later on and it actually would have been helpful to call IB in. I simply forgot that it was an option.
I did receive one of the best unique compliments ever. When we host a team in, there are things we say such as how locks work and the rules of what you can and can't do. For me, I have a flow to how I do it so it makes sense. After finishing it up and asking if the team had any questions, one of them said "your speech has an excellent cadence." Never heard that before and I thanked her for it and left with a smile on my face.
Literally 2-3 minutes later, a customer that checked in at the lobby had a question. He pointed out the hump day deal that played on one of the monitors that scrolls through other slides. He wanted to know if their family could apply that now. I gave the same reply I give to all customers is that you can't, but you found out about it because you're here and you can do it next time. Then his wife chimed in and said the following;
"That's BS! If a grocery store has a discount code and I see it, they apply it! Why can't we do that?! Is there a manager I can talk to?!"
This was said within 30 seconds and I didn't interrupt. I stared her in the eyes the entire time and then noticed how 2 different sets of teams were staring at us because they heard this woman yelling. I smirked and said "I'll fix that" and proceeded to apply the discount. Her tone almost immediately changed. Their team was next to go in and I went to our control room to tell the team that I was sending them back and that I would exit them when they were done. They asked what the yelling was about and I explained. Both agreed that she was in the wrong. We're not a grocery store or a business where you regularly check out at the register. You make the order ahead of time online and if you have promo codes, you apply it then. You don't retroactively do that because that brings up refund costs/options. Of course I agreed with them because...that's how it is and that's what we always say to customers. I literally said the same thing to two different sets of customers while that woman's team was in their room and they replied saying that they will try to remember it for next time, which is the normal response. When we have large discount codes, those are for the slow season. Holidays and Spring Break where we get a high volume of customers don't need bait like discounts to bring them in. I also texted the management team to let them know of a possible incoming one-star review. They were also on the same page about it, but we will edit our slideshow to either have a note saying that these codes don't apply in-store and during major holidays or delete the slide altogether and only post when they work on social media. When I exited the team, they were all smiles and had a good time. The woman mentioned how they definitely want to come back and not yell at me next time. I said something along the lines of "thanks for making me figure out a better way to word my message" blah blah blah. As wrong as she was and as much as I wanted to snap back at her, I kept it professional and even acted like she did us a favor. Anyways...
Day 4 (03.13): Opened with IB. While there weren't too many teams scheduled for the beginning of the day, they all showed up early so it still gave an air of business. CP, KH, and KA rounded out our crew. I did mention I would like to leave early if possible because at the time, the last block of bookings weren't booked. Of course I would stay if it got busy. And it did. I was almost non-stop hosting and resetting with little time to rest.
This unfortunately led to an incident. Two of our rooms needed resets so I went back to do them. During the first one, I was chimed letting me know that another team was about to be done in two minutes. I gestured to the cameras to go get them and continued resetting. Once I finished, I went to the next room and started resetting. KH came in saying "didn't IB message you saying a team was out? They're out now." I gestured to her to go get them since she was right there. I continued resetting and then went to the room she exited to reset a third room in a row. After that, I went back to the control room and I could tell KH's mood changed. I did apologize for not getting the team, but also thanked her for doing it. She didn't reply. Shortly after, I stepped back out into the lobby and then the door closed behind me. That to me was a definite sign that she was upset with me and was talking behind my back. That's kind of how she does things; she gets upset because something didn't go her way and has to complain about it. Should she have been upset, maybe a little. I should have gone to exit out that team as requested. However, if two rooms needed resetting that means a game master was not doing anything if each one was watching two games. Not only that, there were four of them back there. Plus when I came back to the lobby after resetting three rooms, there were no customers in the lobby. So I did not have to be the person to exit that team. There were 1-2 staff members available to do so. So if she was upset that I didn't get the team because maybe it interrupted the conversation or fun they were having in the control room, she's in the wrong. I texted Agent Ocean to let him know just in case she messaged him.
I had already asked IB early if he could stay longer (8PM instead of 6PM). He ended up needing to stay longer (10PM). I didn't even get to leave early like I wanted to. I left 30 minutes later than my shift was supposed to end. That's how busy we were. I was glad to leave as the incident with KH sapped the rest of my energy for the rest of the day and I was more than delighted to leave when I could.
Day 5 (03.14): Short busy Friday. Still felt some ill energy from KH and other staff members, but all I could do is my job that I know I can do. It was good seeing Agent Ocean after so long. I did get to leave a little early since the ending of the day was low on bookings. He knew I'd be okay with that considering the work week we were both having.
Day 6 (03.15): The final day of the 6-day work week was a busy Saturday. There was a small gap where we didn't have to worry too much, but then more and more bookings filled up as the day progressed.
We had one walk-in that wanted to do a room, but we were all booked for the next couple hours. We filled out their information, but they didn't want to pay until the actual booking time. At first we thought they were going to leave and come back, but they stayed for about half an hour. At one point they asked me to sell the experience to them and I tried. The main person kept asking me if anyone has cancelled and I had to explain how we won't know unless they call or they ultimately don't show up. I made sure to tell them that if they are going to leave, to let us know so we can release the booking and if they were going to stay to pay. Maybe another half hour, they all started to walk out. I noticed and made sure to ask if they were coming back or if I could cancel their booking. They said to cancel. Still couldn't believe they were just going to walk out without saying anything.
A few return customers (one from the previous day) got my energy up since they were fun to talk to. I did help out one crying girl. She was sad because her brother was going into the escape room and she wasn't going to see him for an hour. We had no parties scheduled so I hooked up our laptop in the party room and prepared it as a surprise. I asked her if she wanted to watch and she wiped her tears and nodded. I led her and the parents to the party room and pointed out the screen, explained what was going on, and asked a few questions to ease her worries. The parents thanked me a bunch with one person saying she was going to leave a good tip for us, which she did. She bought a bottle of water and left a $30 tip.
The rest of the night was busy and I was slowly losing energy. Thankfully any tension with the other staff subsided as they knew it was necessary to communicate and work together. The only other downside was not being able to get our 500th review. There were so many opportunities due to great customer energy and fun. I even said that they could be the 500th review. Some would scan the QR code and even type on their phones, but no one left a review (I kept checking). Other than that, I was able to leave 2 hours early since there were enough staff on hand to take care of the remaining bookings without too much stress.
And at the end working 6 straight days in a row, I worked a total of 42.5 hours.
- Converted HL to on-call and had a solo work day (03.18). There were only two bookings at the end of the day, but it ended up being four as there were two walk-ins at the beginning of the day. The first one came in when I was in the middle of cleaning. The second came shortly after I hosted the first team in.
After the first team was done (hot mom and her two kids), a customer came in. She said she had an odd request asking if we ever do surprise events like proposals. I said we did, but that the next team was about to get out and that if she could wait for about 10 minutes, she'd have all my attention after. After exiting the second team, we got to talking. She and her boyfriend were actually at the venue on Valentine's Day (I knew she looked familiar). She asked which other rooms were only for 2 and I pointed out the ones they had not done yet. She landed on one and then I brought her into the room. Fortunately or unfortunately, the last team just came out of there, but I let her know that I would have to spoil things regardless because of the surprise. To help, I showed her what the angle would look like on an iPad so she could know where to have him and where she should propose. It really didn't take too long, but it felt great helping someone who knew what they wanted. I told her I wouldn't be there for the proposal, but that she'd be in good hands with Agent Ocean. The day it happened, I did see the footage. There was one part that didn't happen properly, but everything else went well, yay.
And then there was a small lull to relax before the last two teams arrived. Both were fun. Made sure to close up properly before heading out to meet a friend I had not seen since January.
- Late change to the venue schedule and I was needed to work at the sister location (03.20). JT was let go that day. It ended up with myself and TR holding down the fort. It wasn't busy at first, but we had a total of 10 bookings scattered about. There were times where he had to watch 3-4 teams at a time while I was hosting/exiting 3-4 teams and resetting. It did change up our original plans of me getting more experience with rooms that aren't at the main location, but it was better to go with our strengths.
One bad thing that did happen was that one pair of customers straight up walked out. When I met them in the lobby to check them in, I got the feeling that this might not be for them. One had done escape rooms before while the other had not. Sent them into their room and it wasn't long before TR was mentioning that he was basically giving every clue possible and holding their hand. We figured they weren't going to escape so the goal was to get them to the "ooh" moment of the room. But at some point the "experienced" person asked the first timer if they wanted to leave. They replied "yes, it's confusing, it doesn't make sense, and I'm frustrated." TR caught them before they stepped out and asked if they wanted an explanation and they declined and left. At least the actual final team were experts and escaped their room with about 20 minutes remaining. TR exclaimed how they barely asked for help and it made watching the other team way easier. Glad they were our last team of the night.
- Short Friday (03.21). Definitely not hectic for a Friday. Agent Ocean went out to get some food and got me a slush from Sonic. I tried a random combination of grape and peach. Nothing super spectacular, but I liked it. At some point during the day, we finally got our 500th Google review. It has been sitting at 499 since last Saturday. Even letting customers know they could be our 500th review wasn't enough to get them to do it (literally had a few people pretend to do it in front of me). At least it happened. And since it wasn't too busy, I left a couple hours early.
There was only one issue with a set of customers. They were able to open a prop reveal that happens at the end of the game in the first 5 minutes. They were actually solving the final sets of puzzles and could have technically won in 10 minutes. We did check back on the footage and the customer didn't force it open. It simply wasn't properly locked. But the fact that the game master didn't catch that and let it get that far is horrible. I let Agent Ocean know about it before he left early as well.
- Semi-busy Saturday (03.22). Lots of kids and parties. Those weren't problematic, only loud. We did have a group of customers where one of their cars broke down not too far from the venue. We could see it from our lobby door. Each group member came in individually, but then were informed of the car and left to go help them. In the end, 2 of the 6 stayed out to make sure the car was towed and taken care of while the other 4 played in a different escape room due to timing. At one point, I decided to go give the 2 people some water. Agent Ocean was leaving early so he drove me over there even though it wasn't far. Gave them their water and talked to them for a bit before running across the freeway back to work.
We had two teams to end the night. The one I'll talk about was a walk-in; a couple and an 8-year old. At first I mentioned that our bookings were closed, but they wanted us to check if we could still run one. Double checked with HL if she was cool with it and she was. Booked them (she handed me her passport to get her information, which was a first). The young girl was very worried she might get scared so I removed a prop ahead of time. The guy seemed like a gruff no-nonsense person. After a few minutes into their session, HL informed me that they were basically asking for hints non-stop. I found it odd at first because the mom said she had played a few. It was to the point that they unlocked the next thing, looked at what they found, and then asked for help right away. It did make watching that session really easy, but we questioned why bother not trying and paying for us to basically give you answers the whole time. At least the little girl had a good time.
- Worked at the sister location again (03.25). Since it seems more frequent, I finally added my name to the list of game masters. I could have done that a long time ago since the process is easy. However I didn't know that I needed to use another email address since mine is used at the other location. I do think that could be changed for anyone that works at multiple locations because otherwise we'd all need multiple emails to register.
Not the most hectic day with KM. She has again proven reliable and diligent with her abilities. I'm thankful that she also knew how to game master our new room since I haven't played it yet. We only had 4 bookings to start the day, but then had a call for one of the last sessions and then a walk-in for another room at that same time. That put a damper on my plans as I had assumed we would possibly leave early. Anytime I'm working there now, I look for boba places nearby to try them out. I found a lot and some that were more for desserts. I wanted to stop by Munch Munch Mochi Donut after work. They had a lot of stuff I was interested in trying. I called to double check their closing time because it showed 8PM on Google and 9PM on their website. The person that picked up said 8PM is for weekdays and 9PM is for weekends. Figuring I couldn't visit after work anymore, I asked KM if I could head out to get stuff during the pocket of time when we didn't have any bookings. Originally I was going to stay as the manager, but she didn't have a car. I trusted her enough to be able to hold down the fort. Made the trip over (5 minutes away) and was surprised with how big their venue was. No one was there so I was able to easily make my order and wait for a few minutes for it to be made. Ended up getting a peach lemonade, a S'more mochi donut, and a glazed Oreo croffle. I originally wanted an Oreo puff, but they were out so they suggested the croffle (croissant waffle) as a substitute. It all looked good and tasted great...minus the peach lemonade. I did end up finishing it by the time I got home, but the whole time I thought that it didn't taste like peach or lemonade. At least the desserts were delicious and sweet.
Wrapped up the day with return customers and first timers. The first timers were a family of four with two kids that weren't the greatest (forced stuff open, the mom didn't seem interested, the dad kept trying to take photos, etc). The return customers were ones I've hosted and mastered for at this location so it was cool to be familiar with some of the regulars there now. While I've had customers recognize me from the other venue, it's nice to be recognized for being at the sister location.
- Slow day with HL (03.26). We each had our tasks to take care of as the small crop of bookings came through so we were busy regardless. I worked on doing some adjustments to discounts as well as work on editing a new video for our lobby (submitted for approval at the end of the day). Cheers to the teams for leaving big tips. Boo to the one team that said they would leave to get cash for tips and never coming back.
- Called off HL and KA since we had no bookings when the day started (03.27). Half an hour into the day, the first booking happened about 20 minutes before it started and it was the very first booking you can make. The customers had been here before and they asked about the difficulty between the rooms they were playing. Apparently they got out of the other in half an hour and were hoping this would give them a challenge. They happened to be doing the toughest room according to our stats. They actually did struggle to the point I had to nudge them even though they didn't want it otherwise they would have been upset for losing. One of the guys clearly said "that's bullsh!t" to one of the puzzles and a few times they were so confident in being correct even though I was asking them to double check things. When I went to host them out, they were so quiet and had nothing much to say other than asking about the difficulties of the other rooms.
Lots of phone calls interrupted the day. One was to help make a booking towards the end of the day, which totally cancelled my possible plans after work. There was also another booking that was made for the middle of the day. They were running late so I called and left a message. 20 minutes in, I called again and left another voice message being more detailed as to why we were calling. They called back shortly after saying they meant to book the next day. She apologized and I made the schedule change for them. But I wish they answered after the first call because I was holding off on other tasks waiting for them.
Called Agent Ocean to help finish setting up remote game mastering at our location for the sister location. Then I was able to finally start my proofreading project before the next/final team showed up. Basically I'm going to read through every piece of text in every room to check for any errors. I found 3 in the first room I went into. Sent an email out to let the owners know. The reason I'm doing this big project is because recently we were all shown a prop that almost every venue has with a spelling error...and that's bad. So on slow days I'll work my way through finding any errors.
- Busy Friday with a staff of 5 (03.28). Lots of kids came through in general, but we had one large kid group that took 4 rooms. The organizer was easy to work with at least and was patient when there were obviously other customers to tend to.
At the end of the night, we had a team that was a dad and his daughter. They were really sweet and fun to talk to. They unfortunately didn't escape, but I realized why when I walked in. HL had been editing our clues that we send and accidentally typed the code in the wrong order. I let the team know and gave them an extra 10 minutes as an apology. They were able to finish the room and we had a nice chat after. I talked to them about HER, he mentioned his business and invited me to come in some time. The mistake was unfortunate, but it was still a nice team to end the night with.
- As mentioned earlier, I was late on the final Saturday of the month by 10 minutes (03.29). The day overall wasn't busy for a Saturday especially towards the latter end of the day. Had some nice teams to talk to and chop it up with, a baby gave me high-fives, and we had our first successful Spanish session (giving all clues in Spanish).
ETC=========================
- DBSK/TVXQ - Killing Voice
- YEJI - Air (MV)
- SEULGI - Baby, Not Baby (MV)
I'll talk about the AirBnB subunit together, ha. After watching their music videos, I knew that I liked the choreography for Air more and the song for Baby, Not Baby more. That hasn't changed. They're both good for sure. Even though they've done challenges where we've seen them do part of each other's songs, I'd like to see them either dance together for the full song or swap.
- BabyVoX - Missing You Ver.2025
This is wonderful. Long time fans like me will appreciate the updated version. You can hear how their voices have matured over the decades. Their performance of it was emotional. You can see a few members trying to hold back their tears. More of this, please.
BabyVoX - Last Wish Ver.2025
- At the beginning of the month, I started to use Rogaine. I've always had a bald spot, but I found ways to cover that up for the most part. But within the last few months, I'd catch glimpses of it via our cameras at work. It didn't bother me at first until I saw it more and more and noticed it was growing more and more. Not only that, I did realize I was losing more hair. Not clumps, but more than a few strands would come out when washing my hair. Then I noticed how the front part of my hair isn't growing as much. Sure, the receding hairline had been receding, but I was oblivious that the hair up front was very short. My paranoia of how it looked to others grew more and more especially at work or around taller people. I eventually started to do research on products for hair growth as I knew of a few, but didn't know anyone personally that had used any.
The day I went to see my stylist last month, I brought it up to her. It was a good 5-10 minute conversation before anything else because she could tell I was very concerned. She recommended a shampoo to use along with suggesting Rogaine. We both mentioned how that's been around for most of our lives and is still around. It was one of the options I researched beforehand. After that, it was the normal shortening of hair as I cut off about 3 inches. She's used some coloring powder to fill spots the last few times I've gone. She suggests it, but knows it wouldn't be a thing I'd want to do daily. It's an option, but the powder can be expensive.
I bought the popular regrowth topical solution along with a thickening shampoo and conditioner (similar to the shampoo my stylist recommended). Thankfully I had some digital coupons I could use too and it made the price way lower than I thought. I held off on using it right away and figured to start it at the beginning of March. While you're supposed to do it twice a day, I figured I wouldn't be able to because of work. Once a day at the same time. I've only missed doing it once this month because I was out early and for the majorit of the day. It is doing what it says it's supposed to. Lots of the little baby hairs are falling out. It's also doubling as a light gel so my hair is more slicked back and not poofy. Is it working? I don't know. Depending on the lighting, sometimes it looks fuller and sometimes it doesn't. There were defintiely a few days that it looked more bald. But since I am doing half the dose, I wasn't going to expect immediate results. I think I'll notice more or less sometime in April. I'll keep you all updated.
- And to AS, stay strong.
That's a wrap on March 2025. Thank you for your support. Be cool and be kind.
"Reprise the theme song and roll the credits."
