Friday, August 2, 2019

July 2019 Entry

July 2019 Entry 

Oh my, July was full of events.

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- Took my mom to her appointments (07.17). What had been predicted to be a 3-4 hour trip turned out to be about 7-8 hours. While I know waiting for appointments can take a while, I didn't think the time would be doubled. I didn't prepare for that long an outing. Not only that, but I didn't sleep that much beforehand since we had to wake up early and I didn't eat until we got home around 4PM (I normally don't eat breakfast and I was expecting we'd be done by lunch time). It didn't make for a good day. Originally I was going to stream according to the original timing, but the large delay combined with my mood would not have made for a fun stream.

- Unfortunately more stress and wasted time happened a couple days later, but this time involving my dad and the car battery (07.19). My car had experienced some issues with the battery at the beginning of the month and we had to replace it with a spare. But I still had to jump that one once when taking my mom out and my dad still wanted to get a new battery. He mentioned to me about needing me to go with him to buy the battery, but was vague about the time when asking me to not busy myself with anything else. So I figured I can delay my stream because it would have been a short trip to get a new one. What he didn't tell me was that he was going to hang out with his friends until then and they would take us to buy the battery. There were some other issues that came up that made things more frustrating and confusing because he didn't communicate things well to me. In the end, I waited and wasted 3 hours of my time as in the end, he didn't need me to get the battery. I was not in the greatest of moods because of that, but thankfully streaming helped me feel better.

- While in Zoukiji's stream, I asked for recommendations for a snack from Denmark. He suggested a candy called Dumle. Those arrived a couple weeks later (07.22). I unboxed them in one stream and then tried them out in another one when Zoukiji was present. It is caramel covered in chocolate, but the caramel is really thick. It is good, but that caramel can stick around for a long time. I like it though and brought one bag of it to work.



- And the stressful outings did not stop this month. I had an appointment for an ENT (07.24). My hearing had been noticeably worse the last couple months and I thought I was due for another deep cleaning. After waiting for the doctor, he did his check on me was saying what it possibly could be. For some reason, that didn't register well with me. I don't know if it was his demeanor or the fact that he couldn't be positive on any possibility of what might be wrong with me. Again, I thought it was only my ears, but he thinks it is a possible sinus infection. Then I went to another waiting area where a nurse gave me multiple sheets of paper for prescriptions. The number of prescriptions threw me off and I kind of was over it at that point. Left the office, but my mom wanted to talk to the doctor herself because she was also concerned about the number of prescriptions given. We left and went to buy medicine. 

The Walgreens I normally go to didn't accept my insurance, but thankfully they pointed us to the nearby Kroger. My mom went to buy what she said were just a few vegetables while I went to get the prescription filled. They told me it will take an hour. Called my mom and she said she was in the vegetable section and I couldn't find her there. I went around the Kroger twice before giving up and calling her to say I would wait in the car. Half an hour and 5+ attempts to try to reach her again, she said she was done shopping. I was upset. I was hungry, needed to use the restroom, and I thought something might have happened to her since she didn't pick up her phone. I lost it in the car. I had to yell because it was not even noon and I was extremely stressed out. She came back with a cart full of groceries too despite saying she only needed a couple of vegetables. Went home, ate, called Kroger, picked up part of the prescription, went to another Kroger to get the rest of the prescription, went home. Then mom questioned the prescriptions again and said not to take one of them because I don't have asthma (which is true and we both don't know why it was prescribed). And while taking things for my ear that night, I basically couldn't hear. Unfortunately my mom had horrible timing and tried to talk to me at that time and I said multiple times that I could not hear her and I don't know why she's trying to talk to me. Once I was settled with the ear drops, I went to apologize to her, but it actually made me more frustrated as she couldn't comprehend why I was frustrated altogether and specifically why I was mad at her when she was trying to talk to me when I couldn't hear her...yeah.

I'm currently taking a nasal spray and applying ear drops until my next doctor's visit where I will be taking an auditory exam. I'm also supposed to get an MRI just in case and that has yet to be set. Unfortunately, my hearing has only gotten worse since that day and I'm experiencing more pain and headaches (possibly the prescriptions). So this has not been fun to say the least.

- A dear friend asked some of us to get together and it ended up being a session at HER and dinner (07.26). I didn't have my car so I was able to carpool there, to dinner, and home with different friends and it was good to catch up with them. It was interesting to see them go through Dark Side of the Moon and escape. Dinner at Guadalajara was good. We got into some deep questions and bonded. That was actually something I wish I was able to do with others, but I know not everyone is able to open up freely. But this time together was much needed. 

- And another stressful few hours with a family member (07.29). Not going to say who and what happened this time, but I was told the wrong amount of time that was needed of me. 

- Had a couple of feelers from different dating apps this month. Unfortunately, neither panned out. One of them would only comment once a week at best and eventually her profile went away. Another asked to use another platform to speak on. I got it and let her know how to connect with me (07.17), but she never messaged back through it. 

For the past couple of months, I have actually been look at my dating apps less. Some I only look at once a week while the rest were daily. Even the ones I looked at daily were only a couple times a day. I'm currently on 6 dating apps and I'm planning to delete 2-3 of them in the next couple of months. For the rest I'm staying on, I'll be changing my profile. 

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- Extreme Rules was a really fun PPV (07.14). All the matches were good and I had a great time watching it.


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- We had a long day at work early July (07.06). There were 3 sessions, but they were spread throughout the day from beginning to end. Agent Ocean suggested we go out to try the KFC Cheetos Chicken burger, which I was actually interested in getting on my own. We went out to get it in between sessions and we both liked it. I haven't gotten it again, but I will.


- I don't think there was anything significant about this day other than finding this unicorn in the dumpster (07.14).


- We sessions on this day, but the beginning of the day was slow (07.20). So Agent Ocean said we need to get rid of these large bags of ice that corporate customers left months ago.


During my first session of that day, there was a 3-year old girl that was part of the team. She was very cute and playful (asked if she ring the bell in the lobby etc). In the room, she sat down to draw and watch videos on her mom's phone as the team played. But when they escaped, the little girl started to put stickers on everyone for winning. She even gave me some. Even during the debrief after I took the team's photo, she gave me more stickers. Easily the most adorable thing I've had happen to me my whole (almost) 5 years at HER.


- On the 17th, we got the green light to install Mo's Safehouse at our location. I had always said we needed to have Mo's or any of our escape rooms when we first opened the Memorial location rather than the Versus Room. I jumped on the project immediately and made plans for it and gradually started to set the room up. Agent Wolfman and I went shopping for Mo's (07.28). It started with taking a lot of stuff from Downtown and planning to get some of the big set pieces (need to rent a truck). But we ended with buying other bigger pieces (TV, fridge, etc) from Walmart. It took all day to get everything and we were exhausted. Good day though. Still need to put the rest of the room together as we were given a small time frame to do it. I already said that we might need an extra week at best especially since transferring the bigger set pieces can take up one whole day. We shall see.

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- Finished Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age (07.01-07.10). This was the first time I ever played the game and it took a while to get used to it. Learning from previous Final Fantasy streams, I leveled up off stream and was starting to understand the game more. I wasn't a pro, but it got to the point that things were automated thanks to set Gambits. And all the hours of leveling up lead to a large number of random items found and picked up, which lead to being able sell and purchase much needed items.

The one main complaint I had was the traps laid out. Even if you can see them, your other party members could run into them. You can see the linked clip to see one of the worse times I ran into traps. But the game itself was good. Not knowing that the ending was coming was a fun surprise as I didn't originally label the stream "finale." I didn't know and was excited to know I was at the end of the game. I enjoyed it and I completely understand why others call it a good Star Wars story. Glad to finally have played it and have it under my belt. It ranks 7th out of all the Final Fantasy games I've played. 




- It has always bugged me, but I knew my settings were not at their best. I could always tell when watching my old streams of Smash Bros to others. So I did some test streams (07.03, 07.16). Used Smash Bros both times to do a fair comparison. The first time was with Double Take. He told me the stream looked crisp, but it was still a little slow so I went back to my original settings. The second time was with SolaceAndDread. It was almost similar to how it turned out with Double Take, but we tried a little more and got it to be better. Both him and Dread said it looked great. The downside was that it made my browser crash each time. I now watch my stream live through the Creator Dashboard. The browser sometimes crashes through that, but the important thing is that it looks good for the viewers. 

- Can't wait for Shantae 5 (07.05).


- Last month I talked about adding to my amiibo collection. Well I bought new ones online and one used one. I didn't take a picture of them until all of them arrived (07.08).



- The Switch Lite was announced (07.10). I'll be getting a turquoise one. I reserved mine along with Link's Awakening on the 30th. The reservations with different retailers went up as I was streaming. During my break, I saw that GameStop had theirs up as well online. Called them to see if it was reservable in stores and thankfully it was. I still wasn't sure how long the stream would last so I was hoping it would still be doable whenever I was done. Thankfully it was. The worker there remembered me from over the phone. I remembered him when I saw him and he's a good worker.


- One of two Demo Showcases this month (07.12). Trying a new format for how to talk about these. 

Attack on Titan 2 - A fun action game. Never watched the anime, but this made fighting the Titans exciting.
Ayakashi Koi Gikyoku -Forbidden Romance with Mysterious Spirit- - A dating sim...with horrible translations. The bad translations made the game more enjoyable honestly. 
Out There: Omega The Alliance - A resource management space game. Wasn't for me. 
Super Phantom Cat: Remake - A simple platformer. Wasn't bad. 
Voxel Shot - A multi-player shooter. It worked well. Unfortunately there was no solo play.

My favorite out of the batch was Attack on Titan 2. That's what I like about these Demo Showcases. Not only do some of the games surprise me (for better or worse), but the ones I end up liking are sometimes the ones I don't expect I'd be interested in at all.


- Finally got around to playing Cadence of Hyrule (07.16-07.19). It was the most requested game for me to play on stream and it was worth the wait. This game was really well done, more forgiving than Crypt of the Necrodancer, and is fun to replay, which I did. My first run was as Link, then Zelda, and then as Cadence. Each playthrough was faster and I got a nice crop of new viewers joining the stream. One of them was a speedrunner of the game and that introduced me to see some amazing players of this game. Not only were they amazing, but I learned new things and saw things I never saw in any of my playthroughs. 




- Another month, another free game to try out. This time it was Prime World: Defenders (07.22). It's a tower defense game and those aren't my favorite kind of games. I liked it and for a free game, it is good. I'd recommend it to others, but it isn't for me. 


- Completed The Messenger: Picnic Panic (07.23). The Messenger was my second favorite game last year so I was really looking forward to playing this DLC. It was short, but good. I did hit a couple of snags that I didn't have fun with. One was a race between your dark doppleganger. The other was the optional post game stuff. While it was funny to have a money sink hole, it wasn't fun getting 10,500 time shards to buy everything. That was what made the last 5-6 hours of the stream (went on to be over 9 hours) a slog. Had I just stopped at finishing the game, I would have enjoyed this more.




- And much like with one free game a month, we had our one NES game a month with River City Ransom (07.26). Never played it before, but always heard good stuff about it and it did not disappoint. Had one snag of not killing all the bosses and having to backtrack the whole game to find him. It didn't take too long, but it made for hilarious moments and great support from the chat. Glad to have finally played and beat this game.



- More amiibo (07.26). This is the latest line of the Smash amiibo, which include Isabelle, Pichu, and Pokemon Trainer. They look so good. 



- Another Demo Showcase (07.29). 
Croc's World 2 - A simple platformer. We've played Croc's World and Croc's World Run before. Nothing new from this one. 
Gakuen Club - A dating sim. Not poorly translated like the previous one, but not as intriguing or entertaining. 
R-Type Dimensions EX - A retro horizontal shooter. It only had one level to try, but you could switch from 2D to 3D on the fly.
SUPER DRAGON BALL HEROES WORLD MISSION - A card battle game with characters from the Dragon Ball universe. I'm not great with card games, but this one was fun and had me interested. The Dragon Ball characters definitely helped. 
X-Morph: Defense - An action tower defense game (?). Elements of tower defense and a free roaming shooter where you're the aliens going against the humans. It was an interesting blend of genres that really surprised me. 

My favorite out this bunch was R-Type Dimensions EX. I liked playing R-Type back in the day and this made me relive those memories. Switching back and forth from 2D to 3D along with the music and having different perspectives to play in is really cool. Plus this has R-Type and R-Type II. As of the day of the Demo Showcase, the game is 40% off ($8.99) for 2 more days, ha. I might wait for another sale (even if it was the same price). 


A reason for the 2 Demo Showcases this month is that we're backed up on demos. If we stuck with one Demo Showcase a month, we'd be good until midway 2020. Not only that, demos are added weekly and that can be from 1-5. We won't know until they are released. So I'll be doing 2 a month if I can (minus October) so that we can catch up on demos. 

- Masahiro Sakurai did a video presentation for the latest DLC character for Smash Bros, the Dragon Quest Hero (07.30). There was a lot to unpack about him. While I haven't played a Dragon Quest game before, I was looking forward to trying him out. Hero is interesting. The one thing that I was having an issue with was his down+B which brings up a menu with 4 random attacks. In training, no problem. In an actual match, I couldn't concentrate on what I was picking while fighting. I can do what I do and play every character the same at least. 


- Finished my complete playthrough of BOXBOY! + BOXGIRL! by playing A Tall Tale (07.30). The fact that your character is now 2 boxes high made for very different puzzles compared to A Tale for One/Two, which was very welcoming. Much like the other modes, I eventually had to abandon getting all the crowns and hitting minimum box limits as the levels got tougher. And I had to watch a video for the latter levels. But it feels good to have finished the game. I don't think I would have enjoyed playing all 3 modes back to back so I'm glad I spread them out monthly. 

And this was a very memorable stream. One reason is having the biggest raid I've ever had (27) thanks to TrashTori. She's a wonderful streamer from Australia. Definitely can say a lot of great things about her. That combined with a lot of familiar faces showing up for the stream that haven't been around in a while was great. Plus we had some interesting discussions and discussions don't happen to often in my streams. This will be one of those streams I remember and talk about for a while. 


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- ITZY - ICY (MV)

- One of my best friends and her daughter visited (07.03-07.06). Usually, I only see them for 2-3 days. This time was 4. I won't get into all the details, but this was a welcomed break from life for all of us. It was great to catch up with her, get our minds off some of our troubles, be there for each other, and have fun like we used to when we first met more than a decade ago.

Taking care of her daughter was fantastic. She said I kept spoiling her, but I couldn't help it. She was surprised that her daughter did things with me that she wouldn't with others such as actually look for me and ask about me. I did get a dose of the hard part of parenting such as bratiness and being in lose-lose situations. There was one night she asked her mom to ask me to share my cookies. Her daughter came up to me asking for cookies...and I didn't have any to begin with...so she cried. I wanted to go by her cookies right away because I felt so bad. Despite it being tough at times, her daughter is very good. When she listens to instructions, she listens and actually does as told (when she's good). And you can have conversations with her. I won't forget our conversation about her dream about kiwi smoothies.

One of the highlights of their trip here was watching fireworks together with them. The little had seen fireworks before, but never up close. Our original plan was to watch them at City Centre, but she was getting fussy so we went back home. An hour later, we drove out close to where I live because they always shoot fireworks there, but I wasn't sure if we'd see any. As we got closer, we could see them shooting in the air and both of them got really excited. We pulled into the shopping area where it was happening and they were losing their minds, ha. We didn't end up buying to fire ourselves because the line was too long, but it was wonderful to share that moment with them. I will never forget hearing her daughter exclaim and yell out every color she saw.

This visit strengthened our bonds. I love that her daughter enjoys spending time with me and is excited to have me around. And I love that my best friend and I can really on each other in the very worst of times. Any time and every time. Until we meet again.  



- And to my other best friend, congratulations (07.24).

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


"Reprise the theme song and roll the credits."

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