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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Monday, July 1, 2019

June 2019 Entry

June 2019 Entry

June went by fast. And I feel tired. If you are a regular reader, I actually swapped the video game section and work section around. There hasn't been too much to talk about work-wise lately.

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- Picked up Batman VS Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. (06.04). Much like recent DC animated movies, I didn't watch it until at least a week later (06.11). I really enjoyed this one. Good amount of action, good amount of humor, and a great crossover overall.



- I bought a new wireless keyboard and mouse (06.04). Don't remember if I mentioned in a previous post, but the one I purchased earlier this year had a bad keyboard. A lot of the keys wouldn't register unless I pressed them really hard and sometimes it would work. The mouse was fine though. With this new one, the only key issue is the "G" key. Mouse again is fine.

- Went for a cleaning at the dentist (06.25). I did have to reschedule the time on this as it was way later that I would normally schedule it. They also contacted me about coming in even earlier, which was no problem. But I wasn't seeing the normal dentist this time. They had someone new cleaning my teeth. And...it was the worst cleaning I ever had. I'm used to dental pains from my 30+ years of going to the dentist, but this was too much pain for just a cleaning. She dug in way too deep, wasn't to good with the tools (why do I have to hold the suction), her communication was bad (would turn me by pulling my chin with her finger), dropped a tool on my tooth, and was overall messy. I toughed it out, but made sure to let the staff know. I did ask if she was new and it was obvious. They thanked me for their feedback (my Personnel Manager critiques kicked in). I really could not imagine a kid or anyone that doesn't like going to the dentist in general be operated on by her for a routine cleaning.

I ordered a new car charger and it arrived on this day too. I'm pretty sure my dad lost my previous one, which was really good. He got a replacement and it doesn't work. Thing is I don't know when he replaced it, but I kept forgetting to get a new one.

And I did get contacted by someone on this day as well. Hopefully it leads to good things. 

- A couple of streamers I had befriended on Twitch were planning to visit me (06.28). Unfortunately, last minute car problems forced them to cancel the day of. I was prepping last minute things and was about to message them for an ETA when they gave me the news. Sucks, but better to be safe.

They were also going to do one of our escape rooms with a couple of friends that night. Still went out with those friends to catch up with them. Talked about their kids, old friends, games, work, etc. Always good catching up.

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- Another fun NXT TakeOver with NXT TakeOver XXV (06.01). Did horrible on my predictions, but that doesn't stop me from enjoying the heck out of the show.



- Procured tickets to a future WWE Live Super Show (06.20). First row. Been a while since I've been first row.

- Took Agent Ocean to an NXT Live show after work (06.21). Had a blast. I feel like I'm missing one match from the card like a women's singles match, but nothing is coming to mind. 

Street Profits (w) VS Forgotten Sons 
Jordan Myles (w) VS Cameron Grimes (fka Trevor Lee)
The Outliers VS Matt Riddle & Velveteen Dream (w)
Raul Mendoza VS Damian Priest (w) 
Reina Gonzalez & Rachel Evars (w) VS Lacey Lane & Jessie
Kona Reeves VS Kushida (w)
Mia Yim VS Shayna Bazler (w)
Keith Lee VS Adam Cole (w)

Highlights of the night were Mike Chioda dancing with the Street Profits post match, realizing who Damian Priest is (Punishment Martinez), and the last two matches for the titles. The ladies put on a great outing (yay for Shayna getting cheers, she's so good). Keith Lee VS Adam Cole was a fantastic match. Cole hitting a Panama Sunrise/Canadian Destroyer on Lee, wow.



- Stomping Grounds was also a fun PPV to watch (06.23). Lots of unexpected things happened and the matches were for the most part very good.


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- Went Downtown for the company meeting (06.07). Nothing special with this one. We played Jackbox games together and I got to see the changes done there. Also took a couple of Grandma's canes home for myself since that room is retired now.


- Agent Ocean and I went to a Yelp event (06.18). It reminded me of conventions I've gone to for other jobs and networking. It was fine. Got a lot of business cards and garnered interest. Unfortunately the place was small and cramped because of all the people invited (very hot). Plus they were playing the music too loud so everyone was basically yelling at each other the whole time. Highlight of the event was a 50-year old woman being a bit too friendly with me, ha. We also went to Hella Bubble afterwards and that is a wonderful boba place. Highly recommend for what they make and their customer service. Plus they had a copy of Otrio you can play there.

- I realized on the final day that I had worked 5 days in one week (06.23). I don't recall the last time I worked that much, but possibly over a year. Unfortunately it did catch up to me as I was talking with Agent Wolfman about how I don't feel important to the company anymore. It's nothing new, but I really don't have much to do anymore and have to find things to do like cleaning and maintenance and sessions when they happen. But anything else that's big, doesn't come my way anymore. I'm kept in the loop on some things, but yeah. When asked if I were a pillar of the company not too long ago, I said no.

- The Countdown has been retired (06.23). Thank goodness. While it will be revamped, I'd rather it not come back. I can only hope the newer version eclipses the first iteration in every way possible.

- The Escape Game invited us to try out their new escape room (06.27). They actually came to us earlier in the month since they had a new crew. For the room, it was myself and Agents PQ, Gig, Ocean, and Wolfman. While we did escape, the biggest compliment I can give was the production value of the room itself. The puzzles, not so much. That's normally what I say about all their rooms. Don't want to rag on it too much because I could. Not my favorite room of theirs, but it isn't their worst. 

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- E3 was fun as always (06.09-06.11). Below are my highlights.

FFVIII Remastered

FFVII Remake

Nintendo Direct



- Finished playing Final Fantasy X-2 from the HD Remaster on stream (05.29-06.10). I really enjoyed playing this game again. While there was a good number of people coming into the stream talking about why they didn't like it, I kept reiterating why I enjoyed playing it back in the day and why I was looking forward to playing it on stream. In the end, I'll say that I enjoyed replaying X-2 over X. 

I did play a good chunk of the game off stream to level up dressspheres and to take care of setting up a few of the sidequest completion. While we were going for 100% with the list in the back of the strategy guide, there were 2 quests I didn't complete because there wasn't a lot of explanation on how long those sidequests were, which was why I did some of them off stream. So I didn't finish the chocobo sidequest and the Infinito cloister trial sidequest. I did expect to get over 95% and ended up getting 97%.

One unfortunate thing that happened while streaming this game was that it froze multiple times. I think it happened 3 times in total. My Switch felt hot each time it happened, but it's not like I never played that long before. The worst time for it to happen was when I beat the game and the ending was playing it. Basically had to do the last few boss fights again to see the ending once. But those didn't take away from the fact that I really liked playing this game again.




- Had my monthly Demo Showcase (06.12). It was another interesting batch.

Airfield Mania - Didn't realize it was touchscreen only. I tried to make it work, but it wasn't. 
Block-a-Pix Deluxe - My favorite of this series. I liked that the chat was getting into it too. Hammer!
Croc's World - Simple platformer. Very familiar thanks to trying out Croc's World Run a couple months ago.
Gabbuchi - An interesting box puzzle game. Thought it would be a BOXBOY rip off, but it stood on its own.
Grand Prix Story - Another fun simulation game from Kairosoft. Possibly my top 3 from them.

In the end, I chose Gabbuchi as my favorite. It surprised me and had a simple and fun presentation and I could see myself playing it. Note to the Kairosoft simulation games, I always enjoy them, but it's hard for me to choose them over other games as it is a game I can't finish. I mentioned it previously on stream, but I like to finish a game and not continue playing it forever.


- Returned to the Ace Attorney Trilogy with Justice For All (06.14-06.19). I had a plan to divide the cases per stream and totally forgot how long the final case was and that went on for over 10 hours, ha. Still gave me goosebumps on key plot points. After beating it, I watched the second set from the anime (06.25). Just like the first set, this one wrapped up the second game really well. Can't wait for the next anime set to come out so I can get it.


- I was surprised to receive my second Twitch payout (06.18). Really didn't expect so soon after my first one. Yay. Twitch has pretty much paid for my gaming chair in full.

- Our free game of the month was Warhammer of of Sigmar: Champions (06.24). Not big on card battle games and it really showed when I played this. I understood some of it, but I couldn't get over having to learn about so many different cards and what they do, which made me not want to switch decks or individual cards. But the highlight was playing against a tournament player who found my stream. I told him to decimate me so we can see it, ha. Other than that, I wasn't feeling it too much. It's not bad, but just not my thing. Won't be returning to this one.


- And our monthly NES game was Double Dragon II: The Revenge (06.25). I mentioned it on stream, but this was a favorite for one of my older cousins. I saw him play it about 5-6 years ago. I can't remember the last time I played it. Certain stages seemed familiar, but latter ones didn't and it didn't feel like I had played it in a long long time. I also couldn't get the Tiger Knee technique down. It worked sometimes, but not consistently. But it was fun to beat the game for what is probably the first time ever (ending wasn't familiar). Cool having old friends show up to the stream as well as some new faces. If Double Dragon III comes out next month, that'll be the NES game we play. If not, hopefully it comes out and we'll finish that trilogy.



- And the last stream of the month was BOXBOY! + BOXGIRL! | A Tale for One (06.26). It was great doing these puzzles again. It wasn't particularly easier with just one box character. I was glad there was a different set of levels for single box play too. Took about the same length of time to beat just like A Tale for Two. Next month, we finish the game with A Tall Tale.


- And for some reason, I'm on an amiibo hunt. I got a used Charizard amiibo for a fair price (06.26). Unfortunately, it did have some scuff marks on the bottom. Plus I saw a new one for about the same price, but ended up winning that auction, ha. By the end of this month, I have bid on quite a few other ones and lost, but got 2 Animal Crossing amiibo new and cheap (Lottie and Mabel). So...this is a thing for me now; searching for new cheap amiibo. The scuffed Charizard ensured that I need to get them new. 

A few amiibo holy grails for me are the Qbby amiibo ($200+) and the Monster Hunter Stories amiibo set ($25+ each). Almost got a good deal for the Monster Hunter Stories set, but wasn't ambitious with my bids. The winning bid got a a good deal and I definitely would have paid that price. 

If you happen to come across cheap new amiibo, send them my way. I can also let you know which ones I'm missing.

- Woke up early and couldn't go back to sleep one night (06.27). I had already made adjustments to my gaming schedule, but kept thinking about upcoming demos. I pretty much spent an hour rearranging them to have certain themed games for consecutive months in a row (dating sims, retail demos, etc). We'll be taking a break from the Kairosoft sim games since we were doing one a month for a few months streak. I also decided to do a Demo Showcase for October, which I wasn't going to do since I wanted that month to be all "scary," but there were a good number of demos that fell into that category. Not only that, there's more than enough to do one Demo Showcase a month for the rest of the year. But I could stick an extra one here and there because we're bound to get more demos during the latter half of the year.

- Don't know why, but more of my highlights on Twitch are missing the chat. While it has happened once or twice before, it happened 4 out of the last 6 highlights. The worst so far is for the last BOXBOY stream where only fewer than the last 10 chat lines showed up in a 6:30:00 stream. I contacted Twitch about it and hopefully it gets resolved and doesn't keep happening.

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- BoA - Feedback (MV)

- TWICE - Breakthrough (MV)

- TWICE - HAPPY HAPPY (MV)

- Red Velvet - Zimzalabim (MV)

- To one of my best friends, I'm glad you're taking this big step to change things for the better. I'll see you soon.

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


"Reprise the theme song and roll the credits."

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Tuesday, June 4, 2019

May 2019 Entry

May 2019 Entry

May has wrapped up. Felt like a long month.

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- While I played the Ace Attorney Trilogy on stream, a lot of viewers asked if I had seen the anime, which I hadn't. But I finally bought the two available seasons of the Ace Attorney anime (05.03). I really like that it was two sets of subtitles; one is for the Phoenix Wright translations and the other is for the original Gyakuten Saiban translations. Nice touch. I only watched the first season in Japanese as I didn't want to hear the English voices (or else I'd try to imitate them on stream) and I plan to watch season two after beating Justice For All on stream. So far, retelling of the first game (minus the 5th case). 


- Went to the doctor for a check up and to look at a long standing rash (05.06). First time at this doctor and I do have to say, I was surprised that she focused a lot on mental health. Never had a doctor do that before. Got blood work done and went to get x-rays on my back and hips as those issues were more painful at that time. 

I did delay stream as these took longer than expected. And as I was getting things ready to stream, I accidentally hit the switch on surge protector and my computer shut off. When I tried turning it back on, it wouldn't go beyond a certain point in the start up. Took about 15-20 minutes. Once that was passed, the next thing wrong was that the stream deck and webcam would not be recognized. At that point, I decided to call the stream off. The computer was fine afterwards, but I wasn't in the right mood to stream. 

Went back to the doctor a week later to follow up on all the tests. By that time, the rash was gone even though it had been there for a couple of years. Everything else was minor. Low B-12, low Vitamin D, minor arthritis in hips, minor scoliosis, and small kidney stone forming. Currently taking B-12 shots every 2 weeks for a couple of months, a prescription of Vitamin D weekly, doing more stretching in general (and the new gaming chair helps), and drinking more water. Everything is being addressed so no worries.  

- Met up with one of my best friends to catch up (05.20). We went to eat lunch at Roostars, she showed me her new car, and then we got dessert at Coco. Other than catching up, she had mentioned meeting up with others she had not seen in a while. So I sent out texts to just set the wheels in motion.

That same day, plans for us to meet up again with another friend from high school happened. And as the week went on, another high school friend was added to the mix. Unfortunately on the day of, my best friend had to bow out due to a heavy work order that came in. So it ended up being a mini high school reunion (05.30). We went to Crawfish & Beignets and the food was wonderful and at a good price. Having this trio together was something that had not happened in possibly a decade since both had moved out of town.

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- Money in the Bank was so fun to watch (05.19). Great matches all around, but the actual ladder matches were so good. 



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- Forgot to post this last month, but I bought my copy of Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age (04.30). Can't wait to play it in July. 


- We started playing Final Fantasy X at the end of April and beat it close to the middle of May (04.30-05.13). It was great jumping back into this game after almost two decades. The HD remaster makes the game still look good and it was cool reliving these memories.

However, this was a tough series to stream for multiple reasons. It wasn't until the day we had a company meeting and some of us went to an escape room afterwards. That day was great, but I did end up missing a stream. I wouldn't trade it, but that made me want to make up the stream the following Monday, which was the day I went to the doctor and the PC crapped out. So I planned to level up off stream...but I couldn't do that without progressing the story so I missed another stream day. At that point I decided to have 10 streams to make up for it. I made sure to take a long break during each of those to eat dinner, but those were still draining. Stream 5 was especially draining as we attempted to finish the game and died at the final boss 3 times (each were 20 minutes long) and it ended up being close to 11 hours. Between that one and the final stream, I leveled up offline and planned more and that made beating the game way easier. 

A couple key things I noted in my head in regards to streaming came from this:
1. It is okay to level up offline. The audience doesn't have to see everything.
2. No more 10 hour streams. I figured that 8 hours had been a good number for me so I shouldn't exceed that time frame.



- A new trailer for the Final Fantasy VII Remake was released (05.09). Looks great.


- A new Demo Showcase (05.15). The games included in this one were Croc's World Run (simple runner), Mega Mall Story (2nd/3rd favorite from this simulation series), Pillar (interesting puzzles), Pokemon: Let's Go, Pickachu/Eevee! (not bad, but not for me), Riddled Corpses EX (a fun twin stick shooter). My favorite was Riddled Corpses EX so it was added to the wish list. 


- Downloaded my copy of Castlevania Anniversary Collection (05.15). Don't plan to play it anytime soon as it is currently slated for October 2020 (yes, 2020 so that we have "scary/spooky" games to play that month). But if there is a big lull in the year (as of typing this, those months this year are September, November, and December), we have these games available to work through. 


- In preparations for Cadence of Hyrule, I downloaded and played Crypt of the NecroDancer (05.18, 05.21). I thought this would be simple since it was a rhythm game. It was not. It took 90-120 minutes to beat the first dungeon. For the second stream, I played the final dungeon the entire time (7 hours) and only saw the boss twice. While I liked the game, I didn't think anyone would want to watch another multi-hour stream of me trying to beat the final dungeon. So this marks the first unfinished game on stream and I'm okay with that. I can always go back and try it again, but I don't plan to do that any time soon. 


One cool thing that happened during this stream was opening a gift from AGirlKeepSecrets. She was giving away one of her cross-stitches she was working on for Earth Day and I ended up winning it. It's the first gift I've received from someone I met through Twitch, yay. It sits in the background of every stream now. 


- Bought my copy of Resident Evil Origins Collection and downloaded Resident Evil 4 (05.21). Can't wait to jump back into these in October. 


- Played our monthly free game on stream in the form of Gems of War (05.22). It's a match three game with RPG elements and I actually enjoyed it. The five hours went by really fast. Definitely recommend it to anyone that wants a simple free game to play in their down time. 


- We then played our monthly NES game with Double Dragon (05.24). I really don't remember beating this game in my childhood especially when we got to the latter half of the game. But we beat it in about 3 hours. I debated in my head whether to end the stream there or play another NES game like I have in the past when the first game was short. So I ended up playing Donkey Kong Jr and beat it since it was simple. But we also got a nice high score of 185000. I would have kept going if I was able to, but I'm glad that we got that kind of score at all. 



- My copy of Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon from Limited Run Games arrived (05.25). I actually got a notification that it arrived a day earlier, but it wasn't with our mail. Came the day after, which was weird. But we now have all our games for October ready and waiting. 


- Held another Demo Showcase this month for a specific reason (05.27). This time we played Aperion Cyberstorm (fun twin-stick space adventure), BOXBOY! + BOXGIRL! (a puzzle series I was familiar with), Doodle God: Evolution (a simple simulator?), Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom (an action platformer), and Ninja Village (another fun simulator game). My favorite ended up being Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom. It was tough to choose between that and Ninja Village (my second favorite out of that series of simulators), but I ultimately chose Monster Boy because it has an end to it. But this Demo Showcase would have definitely gone to BOXBOY! + BOXGIRL! had I not already downloaded it. I wanted to make sure to play the demo before actually playing the game on stream. 


- During the demo, I realized that there were multiple game modes for BOXBOY! + BOXGIRL! So I decided to play A Tale for Two (05.28). It's the mode that could be played with two players. It was fun and challenging just like the other BOXBOY games and I'm glad I was able to finish it. It was a completionist run up until the final world as those stages were very tough. I'm not sure when I'll get to the other two modes. It really just depends on the timing and schedule of games. It will either be at the end of each subsequent month (June, July) or at the end of every other month (July, September). We shall see. 


- Started Final Fantasy X-2 a little ahead of schedule (05.29, 05.31). It has been great jumping back into this world. While almost everyone that comes into the chat that didn't like the game always had something bad to say about it, I keep reinforcing why I like it (faster, more streamlined, etc). It's not a perfect game, but I am enjoying it all over again. 

One cool thing that happened during the first stream of the game was that a new comer to the stream followed, subbed, and then gifted enough subs for me to unlock our 3rd tier 1 emote. That was so cool. Now I don't have to rotate those out anymore, only the tier 2 emotes. 



- Over time, it always bothered me how the timing of the stream and Twitch was always off. It really bugged me the most during part 05 of Final Fantasy X that went on for almost 11 hours. In my head, I was going to end the time on 10:50:00 as it would have been weird to keep the end slate of the stream going on for 10 additional minutes. But once the stream ended, it was shy a few seconds of 10:50:00. So from that point, I made sure to end stream an extra minute over when I want it to stop. And if you haven't noticed, ever since playing Phoenix Wright, I removed the seconds from the stream highlights. Now all my streams will end on a flat minute count (hopefully at a 0 or 5) and 0 seconds. 

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- Company meeting with both locations together (05.03). It may be the first time that we've had a company meeting together since we split meetings. It was nice to see everyone at our location as it was the first time for some of them to visit. We played Google Trends together and our team won, yay. It was really fun. 

I stayed a little later after the meeting was over just to talk with others. And there was supposed to be a session to happen, but it never happened. We called and they told us they left a message with someone at the other location that they had to cancel. No message was ever received. But with that news, I blurted out that we should do an escape room (myself, PQ, Ocean, and Blue). We went to the same place that had the wizard and superhero room. We did their spy room and beat it with the second best overall time. We ended up bypassing one puzzle, but also lost some time missing out on simple thing. Not their best room, but I thought it was decent. Escape rate is now 83% with 29 escapes out of 35 rooms. 


- Some changes to the roster happened this month. Agent PQ and Agent Wolfman have switched locations due to projects and role changes. Agent Myth was released and I don't think I mentioned it an entry or two ago, but Agent Widdershins was also released. 

- And more changes are happening. One of those being that we retired Grandma Codebreaker (05.27). A little sad by that as I think it was a top favorite among the customers and didn't get a proper send off. 


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- TaeYeon - Voice (MV)


- In a tactic to pull away from being on Twitch all the time, I start watching older Korean variety shows. Among those were a lot of TWICE appearances on various shows and older episodes of Running Man. Fantastic stuff. 


- To one of my best friends, Happy Birthday.

- That's it for May 2019. Thanks for reading and take care.


"Reprise the theme song and roll the credits."

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