April 2022 Entry:
April felt looooooooong...
MISC=========================
- The WWE Hall of Fame was great to watch (04.01). The Undertaker's speech was unique, but fitting that he'd do something different. The cheers he got even before giving his speech, amazing.
- Wrestlemania 38 was so good (04.02-04.03). I enjoyed night one more than night two, but it was overall fun. While Becky VS Bianca was match of the both shows, Stone Cold VS Kevin Owens exceeded all expectations.
- New Mega Man shirt straight from the Capcom shop on Amazon (04.03).
- Learned about Kit-Kat Duos so I found a nice variety pack of Kit-Kats (04.07). All were really good, but I made sure to end with the original flavor in case one of the new flavors was disappointing. Highly recommend each one.
- Got 10 hours of sleep (04.10-04.11). It was needed. You'll read later about Rannchan's birthday stream, but that wore me out. One, I had no energy the next day. Two, so much eye strain. It was definitely from straining to look at my part of the screen from far away. It made doing anything the next day painful. I took lots of breaks and started to (and still use) the Night Light mode on my PC. I was worried about the eye strain continuing the following day, but thankfully it did not.
- My dad had knee surgery (04.12). His knees have been bad for a few years and only got worse. Watching him take the stairs in our home was heartbreaking. His pain was an 8. His surgery had been planned for a while. Originally it was planned for us to be there from 7AM-6PM. It took a couple hours to prep him. And when they finally took him into surgery, my mom and I ate lunch in the hospital cafeteria around 11AM. After eating, we went back to the waiting area and I started to play Wheel of Fortune. That might have been the only time non-friend gathering related I brought my Switch anywhere. Shortly after noon, we were told the surgery was a success and that they were transferring dad to a recovery room and waiting for him to wake up and for the anesthetic to wear off. It was about another hour before we saw him. That final portion of time was having the nurse tell him what he needs to do with a breathing device, his brace, and his walker. There were two other assistants that showed up to help with his range and motion as well as have him practice a lap with the walker. I actually had some time to talk to the nurse who I let know that she reminded me of an old middle school friend (I actually said highschool at the time). I knew it wasn't her, but we also figured out there was about a 3-5 year age gap. She asked about if I was looking for a partner to which she said she would have set me up with one of the assistants (who I spoke to after, she had the name of one of my exes). She also said to keep looking especially since there were lots of single women at the hospital. I went to pull the car around and drove us home and were back before 3PM. It went by way faster than expected (cheers to modern technology).
For the next few days, I did my part to drive my mom around for errands and obviously help out with more chores such as taking out the trash or getting the mail. A big change in my schedule was taking my dad to his physical therapy sessions. At first the therapy schedule was all over the place (7AM Tuesday, 3PM Thursday, 9AM Tuesday, 12PM Friday, etc, etc). That was too crazy so I spoke with my mom to see if she can get it changed to be less hectic. So now it will occur on Tuesdays and Fridays at 9AM for one month. Discord was made aware of the absence of those days, but not why. As of typing this (05.04), my dad no longer needs his brace or his walker, but is still taking it easy. However, I wouldn't be surprised if tries to start driving as soon as he's given permission to.
- 3000 squats in Ring Fit Adventure (04.25 ). That's more than I thought as I shied away from them a bit because it would be the most tiring thing to do.
- Round 25 of free content is in the books. My top 3 favorites were The Heat, Love 911, and Equilibrium (shout out to my friends for recommending it). Shout out to Love 911 which is only my second movie I saw starring Han Hyojoo and the second movie of hers that made me cry. I think I'll make an effort to watch more of her stuff. Next round is back to watching a series. I haven't mentioned this outside of this blog, but this might be the last time I watch 12 movies. Already brought it down once from 16, but I'm thinking 8 now that way I have more exercise time.
- Picked up a Min Min amiibo and Nintendo Switch Sports (04.29). Nintendo Switch Sports originally was going to played on stream (in 2023 as a monthly thing for each sport), but is now strictly for exercise purposes. Although I'd be willing to make it a Community Challenge to make it a one-off. And prior to picking up the amiibo, I did do a chat and phone call about cancelling my online order to save on money for shipping, but it was too late to do that. However, I was given the option to return the shipped item as that is something they do all the time. Either way, got a Min Min amiibo.
I did a few errands for my dad before going to drop by G and Rannchan's to pick up the game he requested me to play on stream. I thought I'd get there later, but even after doing those extra errands and taking a different way, I was still early. Talked with Rannchan for a bit as G was still asleep. Once he joined, a lot of the talk was about all the game sales going on. Rannchan left for work and I stuck around a bit longer than I planned to catch up with G.
H.E.R.========================
- A friend asked if I do virtual escape rooms (04.18). This was odd for me. On one hand, I'm glad people still associate me with escape rooms. On the other hand, I haven't been doing it for 3 years and have been unemployed. It makes me think that I've actually had more people in those 3 years ask me about escape room more than the 6 years I was actually working at one.
I am also very worried about whether opening up the escape room again will happen or not. I don't have the money and the places we're finding (if at all) are either too much or not ideal. The team knows of my worries and I've pretty much said that if we don't even have a location by the end of the year that this probably won't happen. And then what? I don't know.
GAMES=========================
- Playing BIT.TRIP FATE made it apparent that there was an actual order to these games (04.02). FATE is next to last. Stubborn me will still continue to play the alphabetically. If anything, the playlists will be in canonical order.
- Dynamite Headdy was our Genesis game of the month (04.03). It was interesting, but there were quite a few things I found frustrating with it. Plus I had a realization that I might not like Treasure games, ha. I see why others like them, but there haven't been that many that I enjoyed.
- PAC-MAN 99 was fun to play again (04.04). Didn't get 1st place again (2nd was my best showing), but chat was enjoying themselves in their matches. Looking forward to it again for stream 799.
- Double Pug Switch was voted on in Discord to be played for stream 700 (04.05). I was really enjoying it and it provided a challenge. Unfortunately, the game wiped my save data 3 hours in. I didn't have it in me to work my way back up considering we still had one whole world left and the last 2 levels played were very tough. Had to end the stream early (did a Read A Review at least).
I did contact the developers and they had never encountered that before. To compensate for my loss, they gifted me 3 of their games, which will be played in the future. As for Double Pug Switch, won't be going back to that. Cruddy way to celebrate 700 streams.
- Stream Trailer 700 (04.05)
- The 3rd trip into the Trine: Ultimate Collection wasn't bad (04.07). Trine 3: The Artifacts of Power took a different approach by being fully 3D. It was an interesting take and did give room for my potential with the Trine formula. Still ran into glitches, but it was way better compared to Trine 2. One more to go.
- For RannchanDoesThings' birthday stream, we played Phantasy Star Online (04.09). Her, G, Kai, and myself were in attendance for 4-player fun, which I never did before. She also recreated our old characters from back in the day. Had some cool moments happen throughout such as beating a boss that beat us previously.
Afterwards, we hung around to talk. Got to know each other more, shared some deep stuff, and grew closer overall. And as I typed earlier, I suffered from eye strain the following day.
- Jet Kave Adventure was a favorite from Demo Showcase 37 back in 2020 (04.11). The demo save data actually carried over, but I started from the beginning since it was only 3 levels. It was super fun like I remember. There were a few parts that were not so good. Overall, I am glad to finally play it and recommend it especially if you are a fan of Donkey Kong Country.
- Demo Showcase 87 (04.13)
- Save me Mr. Tako: Definitive Edition is finally getting a physical release (04.15). The day it was announced, I noticed that LRG released the trailer for the game on YouTube. About half an hour later (I was in the shower), they started posting all that is coming with the physical release. I will and already have made an order for the game, soundtrack, and the Tako plush. Heck yes for a Tako plush. It's great that it's finally happening. I can remember joking about merchandise (I really wanted an amiibo) for Mr. Tako when I played the original game, so the fact that it's happening, full circle.
- My second playthrough of Trials of Mana happened (04.19-04.20). Played as the other 3 characters (Kevin + Charlotte, Riesz) and on New Game +. Thanks to special items that helped get the team up in levels fast and for keeping a lot of other things like money, this was easy. It was a little too easy at first so I swapped to Hard difficulty part way through the first stream. Was able to beat the game in 3 streams so the 4th stream was dedicated to the new content, which took longer than I estimated. Playing through to see new story beats and new enemies was great.
But this playthrough might have been good timing too. Ever since the fiasco of stream 700, I felt mostly blah for streams. Not that it was entirely horrible, but I wasn't as invested with some of them. It's rare for me to replay any game on stream, but this was also one of my favorite games of 2021. It felt familiar, it was fun, and I'm contemplating a third playthrough next year. Thank you, Trials of Mana.
- Vigil: The Longest Night was the second Personal Viewer's Choice redeemed ever (04.22-04.24). Shout out to Reversed2 for the redemption. I had seen a review for the game about a year ago and I did like the setting and art. It was a tough game though. Granted some of it was my fault for not realizing things that the game has to help the player. There were also similarities to Souls-like games like a stamina bar and tough battles that I knew would get me a few times and it did. But the glitches and other minor issues were things I couldn't prepare for. It wasn't a bunch of glitches, but when they happened (like the game freezing), it was hard to ignore. It's not completion friendly either. Still beat it and got two endings and also did things Reversed didn't do so he got to see some new things himself. Thanks again for choosing this game as it would be something that I wouldn't consider.
And on that note, GToTheNextLevel became the 3rd person to redeem the highly priced redemption and his game will be played next month.
- Free-to-play game of the month was SUPER BOMBERMAN R ONLINE (04.26). Classic Bomberman fun with some new twists. It was fun playing with others. Oddly enough, anyone I knew in chat that I played with got 1st place at some point. I did not, ha.
- Demo Showcase 88 (04.28)
- Kirby's Dream Land 3 was our SNES game of the month (04.30). Not the best stream unfortunately. Game was okay, but I'm not big on Kirby games to begin with. Mainly played it because Forgotten Land came out the same month and not because of the 30th anniversary like I jokingly said. But I did do the thing where if no one in chat was talking, I would listen to a podcast. I did one extra thing which was talk in someone else's chat. Never did that before. But I was lurking Rannchan's stream and saw that my name came up and was able to reply and answer a few questions. Silly sure, but I felt that was a new low showing how my streams aren't full of chatter all the time.
ETC=========================
- ITZY - Twenty (MV)
- Midnight Theories - The K-pop Industry's Rebels | The Forgotten Legacy of BabyVoX
I'm glad I saw this shared on my Twitter feed. While I knew a lot about BabyVoX, there was at least 15%-20% new information I learned. Great retrospective on BabyVoX. And since then, I did a deep dive and watched all of Midnight Theories' videos. Lots of good Kpop information you can learn. Highly recommend it.
- Something I didn't mention about Rannchan's birthday earlier was that there was a point we all weighed ourselves. While I knew I gained weight, I am the heaviest I've ever been. I definitely felt it as shirts and pants have been tighter to wear. So starting May, I will be doubling own on fitness. I'll be watching less and exercising more. You saw Nintendo Switch Sports already, but I also got Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise, which was a favorite from an old Demo Showcase. It will be the priority instead of Ring Fit Adventure, which will now alternate with Nintendo Switch Sports. Here's hoping for the best.
https://twitter.com/ArnellragasA/status/1515676451168677890
- I'm delighted that April is over. So much happened, I was in a funk, and while there were some highlights, it felt overall all negative. Time for May showers to bring May flowers?
That's a wrap up on April 2022. Thanks for reading. Thank you for your support. Be cool and be kind.
"Reprise the theme song and roll the credits."
