I don't know what to think of November. It was all over the place.
MISC=========================
- More Splatoon amiibo acquired (Pearl & Marina) (11.06).
- The Music That Defined The 1990s
- RIP Kevin Conroy (11.11). This was a rough one for me. I know I'm not the only one that hears his voice when they think of Batman. He was such a constant for that character and in the animated DC universe. Not only was he my favorite Batman, but he probably was my favorite voice actor overall. You will be missed. Thank you for being Batman.
- The first of Splatoon 3 amiibo are out (11.11). I say the first as they usually have the hosts in amiibo form. If that trend continues, we have at least 3 more on the way. My guess would be on the one year anniversary of Splatoon 3's release. Small Fry gets the title of being my 200th amiibo.
- nectar loveprint (11.12)
- The family now has Xfinity and access to more streaming services. One of those is Disney+. First thing I thought of was to see if there were any Marvel movies/shows I wanted to see. There are a few like Wanda Vision, but I decided to start with Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings (11.12). Mainly for the Asian representation, which was great. The movie was good too. Didn't know anything about Shang-Chi before this so it was nice to learn of a new superhero.
- And while adding other streaming services to the streaming box, I put my Prime Video account on it. One of the recommendations caught my eye and it was for Anjelah Johnson: Mahalo & Goodnight (11.12). I know during my stint of watching and reviewing Prime Video content, I did watch an older special of hers. This one, I had never seen. It was hilarious.
- My deck of Spectrum arrived (11.15). I'm a big fan of Jubilee and the videos they put out. When they announced the Spectrum card game on Kickstarter, I jumped on it right away. It might be the only Kickstarter I ever backed as far as I can recall. The rules for the game make sense, but I still see it better as an ice breaker and a way to learn more about others. As of typing this (12.11), I have yet to play it with anyone.
- Oreo Cakesters are delicious (11.15). The one time YouTube ads made me buy something, ha. They might be a new favorite snack. If anyone wants to buy me some, I'll gladly accept. The Sunkist was a little disappointing. I think I was expecting it to be more flavorful, which it was not.
- After 3 years, I finally got a haircut (11.18). I knew I wanted to and almost did back in September, but couldn't get an appointment. So I figured as close to the 3 year mark as I could. That would have happened during Thanksgiving week and that would possibly have been busy for my stylist to fit me in. It was good to catch up with her. I showed her two examples from different Kpop stars. The one I wanted more wasn't doable. The one we went with was also not going to look exactly like it, but it was more feasible especially if we kept going with it over time. She actually cut the ponytail right off without any warning, ha. Once it was over, we had a little heart-to-heart about life. I think the vulnerability of having 8 inches of hair cut off hit me. As of typing this (12.11), only my mom has said she liked it although she always said that anytime I cut my hair. One person on Twitter objected, but I've never met them in person nor do they see me on streams to know how my hair actually looked prior. And unless I point it out, no one else has commented on it. It's a big deal to me and that's all that should matter, but I guess I expected at least a few others to say something.
- RIP Jason David Frank (11.20).
- Met up with an old Kpop friend (11.21). We originally met through Soshified and the events that happened in town. We had remained in contact through social media, but it's been years since we saw each other in person. We initially met because he saw my amiibo posts and offered to sell some he had that I was missing. We met and ate at Kura. Spent a good 3 hours catching up on everything and planning possible future outings. It was good to reminisce. He also ended up giving me the amiibo as a gift, which makes him the first person to ever gift me amiibo. Thank you so much.
- Got some early Black Friday purchases for myself (11.23). Normally stuff on my wish lists aren't discounted during this time, but quite a few were getting discounted throughout the whole month. Downloaded a handful of digital ones and got Doki Doki Literature Club Plus as well as NEO: The World Ends With You (secondary wish list).
- My first Thanksgiving since the pandemic started (11.24). The last time I saw the majority of these family members was Thanksgiving three years ago. It was good to catch up and eat some great food. Nice to see a few new faces in the family too.
- Survivor Series was fun (11.26). Knew someone that was in attendance and we messaged back and forth a bit. So dang good.
- Had a 17 day hiatus for Ring Fit (11.28). That was due to events mentioned earlier and general laziness. There are days I feel too tired to do a session, but I'm trying to get better at it.
H.E.R.========================
- No news on the new location. Unfortunately time is running out.
And in terms of stories, next month might be the last one. I'm sure there's plenty to pull from if I really try, but the things that standout would be repeats. I had trouble thinking of one the last few months and did so in this entry.
Something I was disappointed with was after I stepped down as Personnel Manager. While it might have been good for me mentally, I think it did hurt the company more than I would have guessed. Not to say if I stayed in that position that things would have been alright, but the transition of my duties to the Operations Manager were not good. She didn't continue doing things the way I did. They were reduced to save time because she didn't have the time, which was an issue with her in general. If she could make things easy and streamline it, she did as the positive to her was saving time to do other things.
One thing was how the hiring process went. It was initially set up by Agent Majordomo and I feel like I perfected it once he stopped being part of that. Questions asked were meaningful, I got to learn of a person's character, and had a sense if they would gel with the team or not. Was I always correct, no. But I was the majority of the time. It was changed to having the interviewee fill out a lot of questions on a worksheet before even coming face-to-face with the interviewer. And then the interview was greatly reduced in general. I understand that it was to save time. This was also during the time where they wanted more facilitators and for them to only facilitate and not learn any other tasks, which hurt us a lot. We hired bodies that had a few that shined, but the majority ended up walking out on the company or were barely/never on the schedule.
The other thing that may have contributed to those same hires not being better and walking out was how discipline was handled. While I was in charge of that, I always talked to each employee that was getting a written warning. That way I can see if there's something going on whether it's at work or outside forces causing them to be lacking. The one story I always told was when Agent Ocean was on his second write up for being late to work. Third write up was a reason to let an employee go. I mentioned what I normally would to any employee, but then I let him know a few things; he was great at his job and the staff likes him and that him being late was not in my control, but it would be a dumb reason to get fired. Letting him know that got him to change things and he ended up becoming a manager. After I stepped down, time was saved as write ups were only placed in an employee's locker. I remember one time I had to go back to our Downtown location since they were understaffed and our location didn't have any bookings. I heard the Operations Manager say to another worker that they needed to sign their write up and give it to her. The employee replied back with something like "I'll do that with the other 2-3 I have." And it was brushed off as a joke and a few chuckled. I was stunned. How is your write up something to joke about and how do you have so many you didn't have time to sign...and why do you have so many and you aren't fired yet?
Again, not saying it would have been perfect if I still were Personnel Manager, but I think it would have been better. New hires would be better vetted and trained. The bad ones would have been fired or not hired in the first place. I ran a tight ship and was told that I was strict but fair. It just sucked hearing news of "I don't like working with this person" or "so-and-so just stopped showing up to work." Not too many read these blogs in general so a smaller portion would be former staff, but if any of them wished I stayed on as Personnel Manager to keep things running a certain way, I'm sorry. At that time I was doing what I thought was best for me as I wasn't sure I could keep at it with how other pressures and criticisms were wearing me out. In hindsight, I should have considered negotiating for change in upper management instead of giving up.
GAMES=========================
- Tried the game trial for OBAKEDORO off stream (11.01). I wasn't good at it, but I think I enjoyed it. I don't think I would have had fun streaming it unless there was a nice number of people in chat playing along.
- Kotodama: The 7 Mysteries of Fujisawa was a personal viewer's choice requested by Rannchan (11.02-11.04). She sent me a list (the most anyone has sent) and I bounced back and forth between a few before ultimately choosing Kotodama. I don't play too many match-three games on stream. Originally slated for 2 streams, but had to extend it to 3 since we were going for the true ending. And that was not easy to acquire due to multiple guides online having different ways to get it. That's what got me the most. Nothing like following a guide accurately and the outcome does not happen. Thanks to chat to find other guides, but that's what killed it for me. The game itself isn't bad, but boo to the inaccurate guides online.
- Joined G, Kai, and Rannchan for the first episode of GGSN (11.05). That stands for the G Game Show Network. We played 5 different game show games on the Wii. It was fun playing with them and it seemed chat was into it. My only negative was that the last surprise game was bad. I let them know afterwards too that I mainly remember that we ended the show with complaints about the controls. Not like the last last thing. It was deflating.
- Sky: Children of the Light was the free-to-play game of the month (11.06). Other than a few crashes, I enjoyed it. I wouldn't mind playing it with others as it does have a multiplayer component to it. That last level, you definitely need help. Thanks to someone that plays the game to be present in chat to tell me if I actually beat it or not.
- Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium was our Genesis game of the month (11.08-11.10). It's also the first in one RPG per month until further notice. This was also my first Phantasy Star RPG as I've only played Phantasy Star Online. And this month was 20 years since the name WingedVoX was created. Phantasy Star IV was not bad. I like that there was a macro option even though I didn't use it. It definitely helped to level up offline as well as use the strategy guide that G let me borrow.
- Bayonetta 2 was great to replay (11.13-11.14). Much like the first Bayonetta, this was my 3rd time playing it (Wii U, Switch, now). Boo for OBS connection getting interrupted. But this was fun. I always liked the sequel over the original. Next month, finally playing Bayonetta 3.
- Demo Showcase 99 was good (11.16). I know I sometimes gloss over Demo Showcases in these blog entries, but I must mention this one. Spiritfarer was my favorite in the group. I initially wanted to get this game when it was first announced, but wasn't too sure. The demo solidified it. And there was a physical copy on sale on Amazon so I bought it right after the stream. It arrived 2 days later and came with a lot of extras I wasn't aware of. I have figured out when to play it on stream, but it won't be awhile.
- AI: THE SOMNIUM FILES - nirvanA Initiative was initially going to be played during Ball-gust, but was rescheduled unfortunately. But I'm glad to have finally played it (11.19-11.27). It brought on the crazy as expected and had so many silly/insane things happen. I do still prefer the first game, but that's mainly because I didn't know what I was getting into. This time I had an expectation. They delivered well. Even got the extra ending and played the extra game mode that gets unlocked. This was originally going to be 6 streams, but as the final act was going on in the 6th stream, I knew I had to have an extra stream. If I didn't, it would have been a 12 hour stream because the ending and the extra stuff we did was an additional 4 hours. And speaking of hours, combined with the first game, I have streamed 100+ hours of AI: THE SOMNIUM FILES.
- WAIFU IMPACT was the 7th community challenge achieved by chat and their channel points (11.29). Boo for OBS disconnecting, but the game was okay. Not much to it. Almost 100% it, but the last thing was surviving 20 waves of waifus. I got to 18 and that took about an hour and I wasn't about to do it again. Not bad, not great.
- Mario's Super Picross was the SNES game of the month (11.30). It was a surprise to most as regular viewers know I'm not big on Picross. But it has a tiny tie to December's N64 game of the month. But I had a plan. I knew I wouldn't finish it, but I wanted to do as many as possible within the stream time with a guide. And the thing is, I actually liked it. I thought the presentation was really good. It might not be the best Picross game, but it was enough for me to consider going longer or doing the rest off stream.
ETC=========================
- Happy Birthday, BoA (11.05)
- Happy 7th Anniversary Cakes for ONCE & TWICE (11.07)
- Happy Birthday, Momo (11.08)
- This Ailee video may be 6 years old, but it gave me goosebumps. I watched it so many times. For a good week, it was the first thing I listened to.
- BoA - Forgive Me (MV)
- BoA was on K909 (11.27). I'm not familiar with the show, but she performed her latest single there along with a few favorites of mine. Some of her best live stuff. It instantly got me singing and grooving and thinking back to watching her concerts on DVD/Blu-ray (one coming soon). I have gone back and watched them multiple times and "performed" them like I used to.
- Red Velvet - Birthday (MV)
- KARA - When I Move (MV)
- KARA's comeback was something I didn't know I wanted. Not only is their song the favorite of the 3 girl groups currently promoting (all happen to have 5 members), but their appearances on variety shows are reminding me of how many of their songs I enjoy. KARA on Killing Voice is excellent and I've watched it a few times already. Nicole crying on IU's Palette really got to me. Nicole was always my favorite in the group since the beginning. I didn't keep up with KARA when she and Jiyoung left and Young Ji was added. Seeing them now is nice. Jiyoung grew up to be, who I believe, the face of the group after Hara (I still miss Hara). Young Ji is an excellent addition. And Gyuri and Seungyeon are the strong constants. Good to have KARA back.
- ITZY - Cheshire (MV)
- HOT - Candy (MV remastered)
Not much else to say to wrap this entry up. I'm actually surprised how fast this year has gone.
That's a wrap on November 2022. Thanks for reading. Thank you for your support. Be cool and be kind.
"Reprise the theme song and roll the credits."
