Monday, September 2, 2019

August 2019 Entry

August 2019 Entry

August...what a month.

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- I had bought this spicy tteokboki a few months back, but finally ate it (08.04). I thought I had made it incorrectly at first, but once I added the sauce and rice, it was similar to other tteokboki I had. By the way, it was really spicy. It tasted good, but it was that hurt type of spicy. I didn't have any of the things you would have at hand for eating super spicy stuff (milk, bread, etc) so I ended up drinking and spitting tons of water and brushed my mouth multiple times. The thing was that I liked the taste of it. If it were less spicy, I'd buy more of it. And this was the lunch I had before going to work. 


- I had a hearing appointment at the beginning of the month (08.05). So much time was wasted. My appointment was at 9AM and was the second out of 3 patients there. Waited for one hour to see the doctor arrive at 10AM. Then he proceeded to see the first patient and then the third patient. He told me later that he did that on purpose because my hearing test would have taken the longest. Understandable, but I wish he had told me that instead of just doing it. I was done with my hearing tests at 11AM. Unfortunately I was late for other appointments and had to push my schedule back by at least 2 hours.

My follow up was on the 14th. It was as if the doctor saw me for the first time. He didn't seem to remember me and asked the same questions again before looking at my previous visit notes and the hearing test. I had mentioned how things were getting worse too pain-wise and how the medications were giving me headaches and he kind of shrugged it off. The nurse came in to do a flush on my ears. My left ear was bad so I knew this wouldn't help. And of course my right ear was flushed fine, but that wasn't needed. Basically after 15-20 minutes of trying to flush out my left ear (which gave me a really bad headache the next day), the nurse quit because she wasn't making any headway. I explained to her what I explained to the doctor about how this was treated previously and she seemed to have ignored it. We finished up and I was given more pages of multiple prescriptions to take again before another follow up. Instead of going to get the prescriptions right away, I talked to my mom about how I felt. She already knew that I didn't get a good vibe from the doctor and that I  felt he wasn't listening to my concerns and wanted to do whatever he wanted and have me spend money on way too many prescriptions. In the end, she listened and agreed with me to stop going to that doctor. As someone else put it "if you don't think your doctor is invested in you, they won't be invested in your best health." The result of everything was I lost money and my ears were in the same condition that they were before seeing that doctor. As of typing this (08.30.19), my ears feel the same, the hearing level is the same as it was, but there is less pain, which is great. I haven't seen another ENT, but I will find one if things get worse.

- Bought Batman: Hush and watched it about a week later (08.09, 08.15). It was okay. Not horrible, but not great. I was disappointed with the reveal of who Hush was. Everything else was fine though. Hard to recommend.


- With some extra days off, I took some time to not stream and just relax. Did some light cleaning and moved and organized a lot of computer files. Part of the time off was spent watching the live action Aladdin movie (08.27). I really enjoyed it. Aladdin is my favorite Disney animated movie so this was one live action adaptation was one I was looking forward to, however didn't watch it when it came out. Then I heard so many bad things about it that I just figured I'd get around to it and I did. Maybe it was all the negativity around it that set the bar low, but it was a fun movie for me. I recommend it.


- I had been talking to someone I met on a dating app for a couple weeks. It was interesting, but I was cautious as I had been mislead in the past. Plus the fact that they were overseas had me worried. But the conversations were...actual conversations. We got to know each other a bit and it was nice having someone new to talk to casually as friend. Unfortunately, the conversation died down and became non-existent. It might have been the time differences as I would wake up when she was going to sleep and vice versa. It was nice while it lasted.

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- SummerSlam was a great PPV as usual (08.11). The Fiend, oh my gosh...so dang good. I didn't watch TakeOver Toronto II until later in the week, which I rarely do, but that was fantastic as well.



- The Boss is back (08.12). Sasha Banks is now Super Saiyan God Super Sasha.


- Went to a WWE house show with a friend (08.18). We had a blast. Front row. Great matches from beginning to end. But this was the first time I took so many photos (over 100). I've been front row before so I don't know why I chose to take photos this time. 

Kevin Owens (w) VS Samoa Joe
Lacey Evans attacked Becky Lynch during her entrance
The IIconics VS Fire and Desire VS Asuka & Ember Moon (w)
Drake Maverick VS R-Truth (w)
Lacey Evans VS Becky Lynch (w)
Drew McIntyre VS Roman Reigns (w) in a street fight
24/7 shenanigans
Shinsuke Nakamura (w) vs Ali
Sami Zayn VS Aliester Black (w) VS Andrade (Braun Strowman beats up Zayn afterwards)
The New Day (w) VS The Revival
Charlotte Flair VS Bayley (w)
Randy Orton VS Kofi Kingston (w)

And this was the most interaction I've ever received from wrestlers. Got a high-five from Asuka (her hands were so soft for such a killer athlete). Got one from R-Truth and told another friend about it since that is his favorite wrestler. Got 2 high-fives from Becky Lynch. The first one was in passing and the second was her after I said "you're the Man" to her so she took a step back to give me another one. Fist bumped Roman Reigns. And I got to touch Xavier Woods' tag title. At some point, the little kids around us saw how I was getting up and standing by the rail for high-fives. So after intermission, they all bum rushed the rail after every match and that's why I stopped getting high-fives, ha. Great night of wrestling regardless. My friend and I both needed it and it was great catching up with him. 


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- I have now been working at HER for 5 years (08.09).

- It was a slow day, but it ended well (08.13). We had one booking towards the end of our shift so my coworker asked if he could leave early so I let him. But half of the family team came late due to going towards our Downtown location and then traffic. We basically had to wait for another hour. During that time, I offered them (if they had no extra plans) to beta test Mo's Safehouse for free. They were interested, but wanted to see how they felt after doing Dark Side of the Moon. They had a fun time escaping and were really amped to test Mo's Safehouse. I needed some time to get ready and prepare, but the first best test of Mo's Safehouse went well. They gave some great feedback and I did make a few minor changes in conjunction with what they mentioned. I was glad to finally have beta tested Mo's Safehouse at the Memorial location.

- We get phone calls all the time at work, but this phone call made me smile (08.20). A customer inquired about booking and I walked her through the process. She mentioned that there was a section for a discount and asked if there were any available. I laughed and said that since she kindly asked, I gave her one (the one with my Agent name). She said something along the lines of "no wonder you're 7012 because you are more than 1000 a good employee." It was the kindest thing I've been told over the phone at work.

- An acquaintance from the dance studio I used to go to contacted me about a month ago about coming to do one of our escape rooms. She ended up coming the day after her birthday and they had a lot of fun (08.24). I offered her team to beta test Mo's as well and that happened at the end of the month. They had a good time with it. Hopefully they'll come back for Naval Warfare in the near future.

This day was a good busy Saturday that had Agent Ocean and I there all night. I offered my last session to beta test Mo's as well and they also came at the end of the month to do it. Great to get these beta tests in and have some good customers come through.

Shout out to Agent Kay on her last day. The few times I interacted with her, she was always very kind and was easy to joke around with. Wishing you the best with your future endeavors.

- We had a busy week at the end of the month (08.26-31). Corporate sessions throughout the week and a busy Saturday with beta tests and a late night birthday. Great for business. Unfortunately I did have a blow up over some frustrations at work to the point that I was cussing out loud. If you know me, that's not a good thing. It was good to get it out, but bad that it has gotten to that point. Hopefully this will go away sooner rather than later. But the busy week was full of good customers that had a lot of fun and that was a good way to end the work month.

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- We started the month like we had been for the past half year with another Final Fantasy game with Final Fantasy X-2: Last Mission (08.05). This became a one-off as I was not doing good at this game at all. Some people were interested in it and I can see why, but it wasn't my kind of game. I ended up watching all the cut scenes on YouTube.


- The first Demo Showcase of the month (08.07).
Aces of LuftWaffe - A fun shoot 'em up in a World War setting. 
Alternate Jake Hunter: DAEDALU: The Awakening of Golden Jazz - A point and click visual novel. Felt slow, but had a great art style.
GOD EATER 3 - Anime Monster Hunter. Easier to pick up with fast paced action.
Iris School of Wizardy - Continuing with our series of visual novels/dating sims. This was average.
Word Wheel by POWGI - A fun word based puzzle game where you need to use the letter in the middle of the wheel and its surrounding letters once. 

I ended up choosing 2 favorites from this batch; GOD EATER 3 and Word Wheel by POWGI. It was always tough for me to get into the Monster Hunter demos so GOD EATER 3 was a relief. Plus this was my first time playing anything of the series as my only interaction with the GOD EATER series was using characters that were part of Project X Zone 1 and 2. And I've always enjoyed the POWGI games. This one was very interesting, but the raid that happened during this really helped. They were joining in and trying to help me figure out words and that made it more fun.


- Originally, Last Mission was planned to be played for about a week. Since it ended up being a one-off, there was now more time to play Mario Tennis Aces (08.08-08.09). This was originally going to be a one-off without a real plan, but we got to play it twice to finish out the Adventure mode and then play some tournaments online and offline. I enjoyed it a lot. There were some really challenging parts that cropped up, but thankfully some of those could be skipped. Glad I got to play this.



 
- Our free game of the month was Realm Royale (08.12). Not a bad battle royale game. I was actually enjoying it a little more than Fortnite. The major downsides were the long load times and the game crashing quite a few times (mostly during squad mode).


-  We completed the Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney Trilogy by beating Trials & Tribulations (08.14, 08.16, 08.19). Similar with Justice For All, I planned finishing a case/cases each time. First day was the first two, the second day was the next two, and the final day was the last case. I'm always bad at remembering how long cases are...and I totally forgot that the last case goes on for about 10-11 hours. That was a lot of voice acting in one sitting. But if any other Phoenix Wright games release on the Switch and I stream them, I'm going to go with this type of plan. And I specifically planned to beat the final case on the 19th because I realized I beat the first game and second game on the 19th of the month. Those first two times were not planned and I didn't realize until shortly before I started to play Trials & Tribulations.



- Final Fantasy VIII Remastered got a release date (08.12). It's slated to come out early September. Unfortunately for Astral Chain, Final Fantasy VIII needs to take your spot on the schedule. Will I ever get to Astral Chain? I don't know. Ended up changing my reservation for it. But I am very excited to play Final Fantasy VIII again since the Playstation. I even found all the collectibles I had for the game (08.27). It was more than I remembered, ha. But I'll be showing those off in the streams.


- Our NES game of the month was Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (08.21, 08.23). I had only beaten this game once on the 3DS in 2013.It was still challenging, but it went faster than before. This could have been a one-off, but after doing an 11 hour stream, I was fine with doing a few short ones. Plus this marked my 150th and 151st stream. I did some editing behind the scenes and created a new intro/outro template out of the moving pause screen y0nderboy created. And the plan for the intro/outro music will be changed every 50 streams. This time it is an instrumental version of Asuka's entrance theme and a piano cover of TWICE's FANCY.





- After the first stream of Zelda II, I went to make a new shelf/playlist for it. But I learned that there is a limit to how Twitch Shelves you can have. The limit is 30, but 4 of those are mandatory from Twitch (highlights, recent broadcasts, clips, and all videos). It's lame, but not the worst. I can rotate certain series in and out per month. But when the time comes, I will have consolidate some streams such as the Ace Attorney Trilogy all into one, which will make some previous links I post for collections obsolete.

- The eShop has sales all the time, but a recent one caught my eye. SUPERBEAT: XoNIC was 97% off (08.22). To do the math, the game is $39.99 physically and $29.99 digitally. The game was $0.89. So I ended up using some gold coins I had in my Nintendo account and got it for free. Not that this had been a game I really wanted to play for the longest time, but I always kept my eye on it since it was a rhythm game. This price was next to impossible to pass up. I downloaded it and the DLC that was free for it and have it currently scheduled to play in December this year.


- Second Demo Showcase of the month (08.26).
Assault on Metaltron - A colorful and interesting tower defense game. Would have been interesting to try multiplayer on it.
Dragon Quest Builders 2 - A builder game similar to the first DQB demo. Slow to start, but it was not bad. I get why others like it.
Guns of Mercy: Rangers Edition - A fun arcade shooter (similar to one where you shoot bubbles with hook shots, don't remember the name). Awesome music and easy to pick up game play.
Hob: The Definitive Edition - A gorgeous adventure game similar to Zelda.
Worldend Syndrome - Another visual novel game. Excellent voice work and art style and story. 

This was a solid Demo Showcase. I enjoyed each game we tried. It was tough to choose between the last 3 demos as my favorite. Were we able to download Guns of Mercy earlier when it originally came out, this title might have been our overall favorite. It would have been Worldend Syndrome, but I have an idea for all the visual novel games we've been trying (I was tempted to continue playing it off stream, but did not). And I knew it was Hob when I was playing it. It almost instantly grabbed my attention in terms of visual and game play. I also recall reading brief impressions about the game online and I see what the buzz was about now. I plan to buy Hob at some point. It is currently scheduled to be played in December this year.



This was also the first Demo Showcase that I used the new custom thumbnail for. For a while, I didn't like that all Demo Showcases weren't given a proper screen shot. So just like the new intro/outro template, I'm using it for Demo Showcases as well. I even went back and made them for previous Demo Showcases and that's why I know we're at 21 Demo Showcases. Didn't realize we had done so many already.
 
- amiibo count is now 132 (08.27).


- Mega Man Zero/ZX Legacy Collection was announced (08.27). I was always interested in the series, but never got around to playing them. Since it comes out at the end of January, I'm thinking to play each game towards the end of each month so it will last half a year.


- Finally played Gato Roboto (08.30). Downloaded it the day it was released, but never to around to it, but I'm glad to have finally played it. It's a simple Metroid style game, but you're a cat in a mech suit, ha. I was able to 100% complete the game in about 4 hours. It's a fun and simple adventure pulled off well that I would highly recommend. If I remember, I'd like to watch speed runs of this game. 



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- Tiffany Young - Magnetic Moon (MV)

- Gary - Purple Bikini (MV)

- Red Velvet - Umpah Umpah (MV)

- BabyVoX Stage Compilation

- August 1st...so much happened. While work was not incredibly stressful, it was lame that I had to pick up catering that was supposed to be delivered and they were late with preparing it. After bringing the food in to a group of hungry customers (hungry customers can be rough to handle), I finally checked my phone to see a text from one of my best friends...her cousin who was a friend of mine had passed away. She told me to keep it private at the time, but slowly I started seeing friends change their profile images on Facebook to pictures with him and leaving comments for him. Since I was still at work, my emotions were switching back and forth from taking care of customers and thinking about the news I received.

He was such a fun person to be around. He always made you feel welcome and knew how to have a good time with anyone he met. It was weird...I couldn't get myself to go to his wake or his funeral. To my recollection, he was the second friend I knew to pass away...and it's hard. Made me think about a lot of things in my life too. I did do something for him though. For my first stream of the month, I found my old Rockets jersey and wore it (he was a big basketball fan and enjoyed playing it for real) and dedicated the stream to him. While the stream itself was lackluster (FFX-2: Last Mission), it was a little fitting. I could hear him laughing at me and calling me a "scrub" for doing so bad at it, ha. I also found a panda related game on the eShop and showed that at the end of stream just for him. You will be missed by so many, Tony.

But August 1st was not over yet. I had gone to meet a friend like I had planned and...it it didn't end well. Nothing horrible happened, but things didn't turn out as planned. Not to get into all the details, but I needed to call my other best friend to hear a familiar voice and calm me down. I'm still friends with the friend I met up with, but we aren't talking as much as we used to.

And then, I went to go meet my mom at my aunt's. My mom's brothers were in town from Canada for a few days. It was good seeing after so long (last time was over a decade ago for their mom/my grandma's funeral). And it was good eating and catching up with my other cousins that were there. But...there was a long discussion about things just as I was about to leave. It was a long talk about things I already knew and new things brought to light about others. Keeping it private, but a lot of things could be happening after September is over. 

This was a lot to process in one day. It was heavy. And things might be happening in the near future that will effect so much. Heck, there is possibility that nothing will happen either and things will continue as is. But if anything does happen, life will be drastically adjusted.

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


"Reprise the theme song and roll the credits."

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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. 


========================= 

- 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.


=========================

- 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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