September 2024 Entry:
- Whoa, this month was all over the place.
MISC=========================
- Got a massage at Cloud 9 (09.01). It had been a while since I first went there. I always meant to go back, just never did. Got a foot and Swedish combo and it was great. While I have daily pains in my lower back and feet, there was way more tension and pain in my right shoulder.
Afterwards I tried a new (to me) boba place called Teapioca. I wanted to go to Gyro Hut a few buildings down, but no one part of CAB DJ was available and I still don't like eating by myself. I got the Cherry Blossom Lemonade Blast. Normally when I try a new boba place, I get the Oreo shake, but I originally planned to get it elsewhere soon. Plus the lemonade was a limited time deal (seasonal I assume). The drink was refreshing, but not one I'd recommend to someone over something they're used to. But I do want to go back to try their Oreo shake.
- Plans didn't go well this day, but dinner at Made In Medellin made it better (09.02). I pass by Made In Medellin almost every work day. I do like Colombian food, but I was always putting it off. Went in and it was a nice small atmosphere. Literally heard music from when I went to Colombia. Although the workers mainly spoke Spanish so communication was tough. Basically their English was as good as my Spanish, ha. The worker that was helping me took out her phone and pulled up Google Translate and I did the same. I typed out a message letting them know I went to Colombia many years ago and wanted something that reminded me of it. Ended up ordering a Bendeja, which had beans, rice, arepa, plantain, chicharron, avocado, and beef. It was rich and filling. Took about a third of it home. I'll be back and might visit their other location and food truck.
- Had a $4 coupon for CVS about to expire so I got some new snacks (09.04). It's been a bit since I've had Cakesters, but I haven't had the peanut butter ones. They're fine, but a little dry. Reese's Popcorn is as advertised and is a delicious combination. Most of the coworkers were surprised how much they liked it.
- Linkin' Park is back with new members (09.05). The new singer is really good. She makes old songs sound refreshing and does the vocals justice. Got goosebumps during certain songs.
https://www.billboard.com/
- Tried another new boba place called Kravin' (09.06). Apparently they've been around for a bit, but I never knew of them. Nice small place. Good customer service. And a drive thru if you need your boba on the go. I of course got the Oreo Smoothie to see if they passed the test and they did.
- Watched UNCONDITIONAL (Papa Joe) (09.29). This was full of emotion. Of course something suggested by supershigi makes me cry, ha. I'm glad I watched it. It made me think about things in my life.
- It wasn't that long ago that I mentioned Diggnation on this blog (08.04). Seems like I wasn't the only one enjoying the reunion. They're now doing shows regularly again, yay. Not weekly, but at least once a month and that's more than enough for me. It's just cool to see them doing this again after so many years.
- It has been 1 year since I last streamed (09.28). I knew the day was coming. I had gone back to old posts around that time and even watched the last stream a few times over the past six months to get a refresher of things I said.
One thing I was looking forward to was the end of daily archive posts. All YouTube VODs were scheduled to go up a year after the original stream. I had a reminder set on my phone on when to post to Facebook and Twitter/X. While it was a small thing, it did feel good to permanently delete those reminders.
I made a post about the one year anniversary (?). Link provided. But it was something I wanted to put out there. And after changing the subtitle of my social media name, that should be the final stamp on streaming. I don't think there's anything else to do or so about it.
GAMES=========================
- Demo Showcase Shorts were all over the place. Lots of reasons to not do a long continuous streak. I did have to re-sort the Demo Folders on my Switch since one filled up (200 max). Might have to re-sort them again since a few letters have more than others. As of typing this (09.28), there are less than 80 left.
- The Best Friend Forever tradition continues (09.01). New year, new partner, new dog. This time it was Sacha and Mist (FKA Titan). I had already seen Sacha's story when I played it with Rannchan on her stream years ago. So I knew how it was going to play out. The main difference for this playthrough was me not voicing it out and learning of the fast-forward function. Streams were 5-7 hours long. This run was under 3 hours. Fast-forward only works for dialogue you've read before so that's the bulk of it. The issue that comes from fast-forward is sometimes characters don't appear/disappear from screen timely and sometimes dialogue choices are incorrect. Other than that, Mist became one of my most balanced dogs too with all 5s and a 6. Two more runs left.
- My Brother Ate My Pudding! completed (09.03). Got it on sale for 50% off and thought it would be fitting to play it this month since I played the other 3 games on stream back in 2021. It plays pretty much like Mom Hid My Game. The silliness is there for sure. But just like the others, this is a short game. Going through all 30 stagest took about an hour. Getting all the Game Over screens added close to an extra half hour to it. Did I enjoy it, yeah. But I wouldn't recommend it at full price.
- Added more to my Bust A Groove/Move collection (09.03). Got a demo for the first game, the alternate red cover for the second game, and a key holder of Frida. Out of those, I only knew of the red cover as I had seen it available to buy online. The demo is a nice addition. The key holders, I never knew they existed. Did some research and there are two sets. A-set has 9 and B-set has 8. Too bad the majority are alternate color versions of certain characters. I found a few on eBay and the cheapest goes for around $50. While I'd like these to be the next big thing I collect, I don't know if I'd pay that much for them. I technically got Frida for $25-$30. And while researching those, I found other Bust A Groove/Move strategy guides I wasn't aware of. Those are going for less than the key holders so I might aim to go for those because I've seen all those available where I have only seen a few of the key holders being sold.
- Disney Speedstorm was the free-to-play game of the month (09.03). I think it was originally pencilled in for February, but it got bumped up to go along with the theme of the NSO games being played (not all). It's...fine. Seriously, it plays well. Lots of characters and customization too. But you either play the seasonal cups or random races to increase your stats and receive in-game currency. Were there incentive to beat things rather than buy things (in-game money or real money), I would have liked it more.
- Got the new Splatoon amiibo (09.05). They're awesome looking. I especially like Pearl's outfit. I really want to see fans cosplay these outfits. And the amiibo collection is once again completed, ha.
- R.C. PRO-AM was the NES NSO game of the month (09.05). One of my older cousins had this and we played it as kids. It was tough back then and it still is now. I only got as far as I did thanks to the rewind function. The CPU cars will naturally be faster than you even with maxed out stats. Which meant precision driving and slowing them down with missiles (if you had enough). I only got as far as I did (stopped after 24 as levels loop after) thanks to the rewind function. A few hours later I was informed that the maximum trophies you can get is 36 so I technically should bump this down to a finished rather than complete. But there was no way I was going to go for more. I was satisfied with what I did.
- Picked up my copy of Ace Attorney Investigations Collection (09.06). Not sure when I'll play it, but I'll get around to it. But while I was there, I met one of the new workers who was Filipino. Not only that, I got to catch up with the manager who has been bouncing back and forth from another location. Glad he's doing well. I also made a snafu when reserving games. I accidentally reserved Echoes of Wisdom a second time. I realized it when I got in my car and checked my notes and saw that it was already marked off. Thankfully they were able to switch that second reservation to another game.
- Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages was the Game Boy NSO game of the month (09.09). Only my second time playing it. Previously had it on the 3DS Virtual Console. I didn't recall much of it and wasn't completely invested in it as I was playing. It's not that it was bad either. They did a good job putting this adventure on the Game Boy. I did know that it links with Oracle of Seasons and that Ages was more puzzle based while Seasons was more action based. I chose to go alphabetically. See you in a few months, Seasons.
- While cleaning and rearranging things, I found a Super Famicom (09.12). DC gifted it to me 10 years ago when he was cleaning stuff out. I remember picking it up and having a brief chat with him and his wife and saying hi to his son. But I'm lost on why I simply tucked it away in a corner rather than putting it with all the other game stuff I had been collecting. It's part of the collection now at least.
- As part of the cleaning process, I unfortunately had to put away the majority of my amiibo collection (09.13). It took a few hours to dust and wipe down each one (minus a less than 20). Even the latest Splatoon amiibo are in there. Thankfully they all fit in the bin I was provided. The only ones I kept out were all the Zelda amiibo (reorganized and made to fit together, they were previously split), Detective Pikachu, the Yarn amiibo (Mega Yarn Yoshi, the 3 smaller ones of different colors, and Poochy), the cereal box, the Monster Hunter Stories Japan exclusives, the larger Monster Hunter amiibo (Magnamalo, etc), the Super Nintendo World Power-Up Bands, and the Qbby amiibo with the box. The new set up is less cluttered, but it really does suck to have this big collection simply relegated to a bin.
- Mario Kart 64 was the N64 NSO game of the month (09.15). This still holds up for better or for worse. Rubber-banding in Mario Kart was never an issue I'd complain about, but they were so close all the time even in 50cc and 100cc. Muscle memory clicked in so much except for some of the short cuts (I took none of them). But this felt incredible to replay. I wish I still had my previous list of game rankings to know where this fell on the scale. If it's not in the top 3, it's definitely in the top 5.
- The Last Friend was the favorite from Demo Showcase 104, stream 857 on 01.18.23. Got it for 75% off making it about $4 in April. Finally played and finished the game this month (09.17). Tower defense games aren't my normal jam, but I've liked a few especially if they had an interesting gimmick like Dillon's Rolling Western (hard game). The demo was fun and the fact that you get dogs with different abilities and weapons sold me. The actual game itself was as advertised. It never took itself seriously with the story and dialogue. The tower defense was simple to understand and offered enough of a challenge. There were only a handful of levels that I actually lost or didn't get 3-stars in. My main enjoyment was rescuing the large roster of dogs. Not only was it interesting to see what they offered, but I named them after Kpop artists/groups. I named them after members of TWICE, BabyVoX, Girls' Generation, ITZY, BoA, Cheon Sang Ji Hee - The Grace, and Red Velvet. For those unfamiliar with Kpop, that's 41 artists total. I named them simply in order of age rather than looking at the dog and thinking who it best fits (that would have taken too long). And I could have done everything in the game if it wasn't simply replaying older levels to earn bones to level up each dog and to get the remaining stars I missed. Solid overall. Try the demo if you're interested at all and judge from there.
- Tried the SWORD ART ONLINE Fractured Daydream OPEN NETWORK TEST (09.21). Another free-to-play beta so I had to push it up the timeline in order to try it during the beta periods. I know nothing of the Sword Art Online series other than the name, but I enjoyed what I played. It's similar to a musou game, but you play with others online to complete quests and take down bosses with large pools of health. The tutorial was slow, but did a good job in teaching the player the mechanics. Co-op quest was fun, especially seeing so many other players at the same time striving to do the same thing. I did not get a chance to do a Boss Raid because not enough people queued up for it (I waited for 10 minutes). I felt this would have been what Phantasy Star Online could have evolved to (faster, more players, etc). If you're able to get into the beta trials, give it a shot (might not be available when you read this or there might be a newer beta trial or the actual game may be out to play).
- Picked up my copy of Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom (09.26). This will be the first Zelda game in a while that I won't play on release date. I honestly can't recall the last time that happened. I'm pretty sure if I wasn't still following a scheduled structure because of streaming I would have played it right away. But I do have my hesitations about it. Other than the initial announcement, I've kept my expectations tempered as part of me is worried I won't like it. It could be an after effect from how Tears of the Kingdom turned out for me. We'll see. Echoes of Wisdom is currently slated for December.
- Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy | Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Spirit of Justice finished (09.18-09.27). Second playthrough ever since the 3DS in 2016. I read an old review I did for it and my opinion has changed for the better. The review was for the most part positive, but now it's more positive. The story was done really well. As it kept unfolding, I thought how cinematic it was. While I might have thought the characters were shoed-in previously, I liked them way more. That may be due to only being apart from them for a month rather than years. The pun names were wonderful, some of the best in the series. And I still agree with what I've said even back then; this is a good bookend for Apollo's trilogy. Speaking of that, Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy finished.
And this was never planned, but I beat each game in the trilogy on the 27th of the month.
- And minutes after posting images for beating Spirit of Justice, my import copy of Ace Attorney Investigations Collection arrived (09.27). Currently I have these games scheduled for almost a year from now. I'm excited to finally play a legit localized version of the second game so I might push it up, but we'll see.
- Super Mario Land was an extra Game Boy NSO game completed this month (09.29). The reason I chose to play it was because last year in August was when I played Super Mario Land 2. I almost played it last month, but it didn't happen. The game was shorter than I remembered. And I never knew there was an Expert route to play (second playthrough). More enemies mainly, but I was still able to run through it all. Good nostalgia kick.
WORK=========================
- The ladies bought a bunch of books for the new location. 187 books to be exact (09.04). Other than helping bring them in, we removed all of the book covers and sifted through them in case there was money in them, ha. We did find a few things like boarding passes and coupons. I made sure to put aside a Guiness Book of World Records from 1982 and a yearbook from 1950. The yearbook was interesting to flip through. And the Guiness Book is in the lobby now as a talking piece for customers.
- Cheers to a group of ladies that were a walk-in towards the end of the night (09.07). They came from across the building to see if any spots were open and we had a few even though it was beyond the original time spot. It was one of their birthdays so they were out having a bachelorette party. The leader of the group, she definitely was the leader, ha. She was good at making sure the ladies were doing things, took care of payments, directed things, etc. She helped make the process smooth. Unfortunately for me, she had a wedding ring. But they were still a fun crew to end the night with.
- I was keeping an eye on the latest set of Oreos to come out; the Oreo and Coca-Cola collaboration.They originally released on the 9th and I was checking stores nearby or on the way to work. A lot of places didn't have them or they had one or the other. Decided to check once again before work and found a Target that had both (09.10). Before that, I found the cookies at one store and the soda at another. I had never been to this Target before. It was 20 minutes away from work and not too out of the way. It seemed like a really nice one. I had not seen one with a pick-up section that was canopied off. Got in, waited for less than 5 minutes, and the worker brought out my stuff. Easy. Brought them to work. Agent Ocean and I tried the cookies and both had impressions about it. Specifically that it didn't taste as expected. Side note, we tried the soda the following day. He liked it and I had a tiny bit. It tasted familiar, but the little sip I had was bringing about a headache. I would have drank more, but yeah. Side side note; coworkers were back and forth on the cookies (some preferred the Sour Patch ones more like I do). And apparently none like the soda (I should have only bought one pack).
The day was slow so we went to HEB to buy snacks. Been a bit since I've been on a snack run. The day itself was slow. So we did take that opportunity to close up early and try a food place Agent Ocean had been referred to by customers; Roll-Em-Up Taquitos. It was a ways away and it started to rain. But the place was nice. I liked their aesthetic. The worker that tended to us was nice and chatty making sure we got what we wanted. It was delicious. Definitely want more so I'll keep that as another place to return to in the near future. Agent Ocean and I walked around the area for a bit after before parting ways for the day.
- Simple slow day (09.11). It was only myself and Agent Ocean. It reminded me of old HER days with us handling things. Thankfully we had 5 bookings total with 2 of them being replays.
- Unfortunately I had an extra day off (09.17). Agent Ocean messaged me that we were going to close for that Tuesday since no one booked. It reminded me of old HER days when we simply went home early because he had no bookings.
- Worked on a Friday (09.20). Haven't done that in a while, but we were low on staff. Plus having lost a day previously this worked out. It wasn't overly busy, so some staff stayed home and even were asked to leave early as they day progressed. At the end, it was myself and Agent Ocean. We had a cool team to end the night on. One of the team members said it was good to see me again and I played along. It took a bit before he said he wanted to do the room I showed him before that it clicked who he was. He was there a couple weeks ago with his son and friends. We were chatting with the team before sending them in. They were fairly good in the room. I complimented them on the teamwork I saw with one puzzle that usually takes other teams a long time to do. In the lobby, we gave them free small bottles of water and a coffee. Then I brought up if anyone wanted to try the Oreo Coke drink and someone did. I brought out a one can for them to share and they gave the puzzled reaction most give. Some liked it, some did not. Then it was more friendly banter about their kids. They were there for maybe 20-30 minutes after their booking before they decided to call it a night. We'll see some of them at a future date for some of their kids to play again.
- Busy day with low staff makes for quite a work day (09.21). It wasn't so bad, but there was an incident with a couple of the staff members where mistakes were made and voices were raised. I spoke to both at separate times to get their stories, how they felt, and what to do to improve. On a positive note, the two parties we had were simple to handle (compared to hellish parties). Shout out to the second party as the dad was part Filipino and we instantly bonded. Other than tending to them a little more, he and I had a 15-20 minute conversation as the party was winding down and the building wasn't too busy. Apparently he really appreciated it as he not only gave a big tip (so did the previous party), but he gave me a personal tip. Hopefully he'll come through again in the future.
- We started to schedule staff to help the build out in the Woodlands. The first day it was myself and Agent Ocean (09.24). The drive there wasn okay. One hour as expected, but I forgot about school zones since it was an early day (got there around 9:10AM). We actually stopped by the Game Show Battle Rooms first to introduce ourselves and they were kind enough to show us one of the rooms that wasn't in use. I was intrigued.
Then we went back to our location (a block down) and met the ladies there who gave a tour and a general plan of what was going on. They needed to buy something so Agent Ocean and I walked over to a breakfast place to get him some food. Ate outside then went to Dave & Busters (across the street from us) to check it out. The ladies returned with what we needed and Agent Ocean and I started on the metal sheet walls that were to go up in Antidote. We had a process of measuring, spraying, cutting, laying out (carefully to avoid bubbles and open spaces between sheets), and repeat. We did that until we were done with the roll we had and it was close to clock out time anyways.
We cleaned up at Dave & Busters because our bathrooms have yet to be installed. While we walked around there before, I didn't see the DDR machine until this second visit. Agent Ocean and I played our 3 songs (Brilliant 2U, Afronova, and Break Down). We were tired (me more than him), but it warmed my heart to play DDR after so long. Then we walked over to eat at Crawfish Cafe. Never been to that location before, but Iiked the layout. And of course the food was delicious. Caught up as we ate. As we were wrapping up, I said we should go back to Game Show to see if the other room was available to preview.
We walked in as another team of three (from a church group) were being shown the room and they said we can check with them. After being there for a couple of minutes, the manager we met earlier said "do you all have 45 minutes to spare?" Basically offered us a free game if everyone was able to. We were brought out to the lobby to get the full experience. Initially we thought we'd be in our groups we were with, but they mixed us up by picking different colored poker chips. Agent Ocean was paired with one other member and I was with the other two. We all came up with nicknames and team names and were brought in to play. It was super fun. I had a blast. Our team wasn't doing too well at the beginning, but we ended up winning thanks to the last game being conveniently enough points for us to win the whole thing, ha. Definitely want to come back with friends and/or coworkers. Thank you to the staff for allowing us to play.
The drive back...around 90 minutes. It was traffic time so it was expected.
The second day felt fast (09.26). NL was there first and I was there about 10 minutes after 9AM. The ladies weren't there until about an hour later so I gave a short tour of what I remembered. Then we walked outside so he could see what was around the area. Then we helped move some boxes in and then waited for the ladies to arrive to give directions. More of the metal sheets with what was left. It went by smoothly as I remembered how the process went with Agent Ocean. Although there were a few times NL would skip a step and I had to remind him. CG and SP showed up late due to bad traffic. They jumped in to help. Once we were done, we were tasked with replacing blue tape we used with gorilla tape as it was way stronger. It didn't take long to run out and NL and myself had to wait as CG and SP went to get more (and since they knew the area better than either of us). NL and I swept and vacuumed Antidote in preparations for setting up there. Yay for more gorilla tape.
We all went out to lunch with the ladies at Crawfish Cafe. Good food again, but I'm pretty sure the ladies didn't like it. The others did for sure. Ate, caught up on stuff. Went back to start putting up the metal sheets in Antidote. It took a bit to get one up because we had to measure it, cover more of it, and work together to hold it up and nail it. Even then, we had the wrong nails for the nail gun so we had to stop. It was close to the time to end the shift anyways. Fast day.
The ride home...was bad. There was just a vast amount of traffic. About half an hour of slowly moving along the feeder before there was a steady flow on the highway. It would have been a 2 hour drive back home, but I stopped by Tea Villa for a drink (always saw it on the way to work) and then went to GameStop to pick up Echoes of Wisdom.
- 46 sessions (09.28). Only 2 bookings at the beginning of the day weren't made. It was going well with a few minor hiccups here and there. But then something happened around 7PM. We became behind schedule for a few rooms (teams were late and would still insist on buying drinks), some resetting mistakes happened, props were being damaged, etc. A few of us stayed 30-60 minutes after our shifts ended to help out. You could tell that myself and some of the night crew were exhausted. We have our suspicions when things might have gone awry, but we were able to push forward and make things happen. It has been a while since I've felt that exhausted during and after a shift.
ETC=========================
- TZUYU - Run Away (MV)
I clap and nod like a proud father, ha.
- aespa Karina - UP (MV)
You have had my attention previously, but now I'm locked in.
- HyoYeon - Retro Romance (MV)
This is one of her best. Extra points to the stylist.
- Late in the first week of September, I noticed I was itching more than normal. It was either in my hair or my back or legs or everywhere. Didn't think too much of it until it was more consistent and becoming more. It was only happening in my room. If I was out or at work, no itching. So I did start to plan to clean things especially since a lot of stuff did collect dust. One thing I thought was that my gaming chair was a source of dust. Reason being that when I did clean it, there was quite a bit of dust and hair stuck in the cracks. At one point I even realized "I'm really itchy when I sit in my chair." While I did clean it, there was still a frequency of itching in it. While I had been planning to get rid of the chair at some point, this was a turning point to swap it out. It seemed to have helped at the time.
One night at 3AM, I woke up being incredibly itchy on my wrists and ankles specifically (09.12). I tried to sleep it off, but it was too much and I took a shower. Afterwards I brought down my laundry to make sure to get it ready because it was full. That day off, I spent it cleaning around (sweeping, wiping, etc), threw out a bunch of old boxes (was holding to use for gifts), and the laundry (clothes and bed sheets) were done. It seemed to have helped, but not a lot.
Opened the windows to air out the room too. I wasn't itching as much. Then night time rolled in and the itching grew. It was getting late so I drank some ZzzQuil to sleep through it. The next day, I went out to buy cleaning wipes and dust mite spray (09.13). The main task was to dust and wipe down all the amiibo and pack them away in a tote. It was mentioned already, but it took about 2-3 hours to do this. I wore a mask the whole time so I wouldn't inhale the dust during the process. While I still don't like that the majority of my amiibo are packed up, the new setup isn't bad. Then I cleaned a few other things like old papers and organized a few parts of my room to make cleaning dust easier. Did it help?
The next day, everything was fine (09.14). The itching went from 80% to less than 20%. Figured all that was done helped. The minor itching wasn't bad either so I wanted to ride it out to see if it would come back after I came home from work. Unfortunately, it did. It wasn't super bad, it went from 20% to 70% or more.
The following day, the plan was to bring the mattress down and lay it out in the sun (09.15). My dad helped bring it down and we put it up against a wall outside in our backyard so that the sun beamed down at it. Then we beat the mattress to get any deep dust out as well as respraying it again with the dust mite spray. A couple hours later, we flipped it and did the process again. We also cleaned the bed frame as it also was carrying dust. About 5 hours later, we brought the mattress back up. To think my mom wanted to do this process the day before when I had work (she said it would take an hour). I'm glad I "got my way" because we took the time to clean things properly. And my bed sheets were washed again for the third or fourth time during this whole process. I also removed and cleaned my a/c vent just in case. This seems to have done the trick. The itching went down drastically.
Am I still itching? Not as much. It still is relegated to my room, but it is tolerable. I'm just glad it's not incredibly harsh like it was at the peak of the issue.
That's a wrap on September 2024. Thank you for your support. Be cool and be kind.
"Reprise the theme song and roll the credits."
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