It Is Finished

Last night I accomplished the impossible.

I have finally, after over a year of anguish playing off and on, finished Sonic 2006. I have a lot of editing ahead of me, but I can safely say I will never have to touch the game itself again.

Unless there's interesting science to perform of course.

I won't have a final death count for awhile, but I have 67GB of video on my hard drive and approx 52.5 hours logged towards it.

Of that I want to say a good 5 hours was logged each to the Beach at the start and 5 hours to Kingdom Valley at the end. 3 or 4 was spent on Shadow's Desert level alone.

I'll have better stats once I go through it all, but this game...this game has taken a significant chunk of my 2017 year.

The point is, it's over.

Now people want me to do Sonic Boom, which I thankfully do not own a console for. I am safe for now.

The next Sonic game I will likely delve into is Shadow the Hedgehog, which is at least playable if not the corniest, most-cringe inducing Sonic game (aside from Sonic 2006) that I am aware of. It will not take me 52 hours to complete.

Happy Bioshock

Happy Christmas to whoever celebrates that and happy whatever to those who don't.

As my gift this year, I am releasing the hard labour of my last couple weeks (aka the rest of Bioshock Infinite). It's scheduled to release over the next couple days so it's not COMPLETELY spam. So, enjoy something that should have been finished 3+ years ago.

Yes Mesk. I'm actually done Bioshock Infinite.

And yes, I know you don't believe me.

We finally started getting a large snowfall. It's been strangely warm brown/grey wasteland for the last 2 or 3 weeks. Feels like mid-April vs December. Now it's freezing and I almost forgot to take a pop out of my car. Already had one of those explode in there this year back during Extra Life.

I'll be mostly at home until the new year, so I plan to keep working through my backlog.

Vintage LP

I'm currently in the process of editing and encoding some old video footage. Like, really old. I have about 2 and a half hours of this left.

I have a plan for the DLC for this particular LP. The DLC portions themselves were way more messed up audio/video wise that the original game.

Overall, the lesson here is to wait until the entire LP is complete before starting to post it to YouTube. Otherwise people are left waiting for years for something that likely won't get done fast, or will never get done at all (see Dark Souls, Saint's Row, Gauntlet, etc.).

There are a number of dead LPs on my hard drives that never even made it to YouTube. I may upload them as Patreon playlist bs, even though I doubt anything will come of that/I don't approve of the changes they made to the payment process. It's still possible to pledge what you want, but you have to math something fierce.

Either way, my free time is being split into three places: maintaining the scraps of a social life I still have (including going out and playing D&D), finishing LPs (including yet-to-be recorded footage with Shauna, and Mesk/HKS), and personal writing projects.

My priority is video if I can manage it though. I'm trying really hard to have a chunk of content ready for people's holidays in case they're interested in watching my drivel. The uploads have been really hap-hazard and broken this year as well so...there's that to make up for.

Toasted Profiles

So I'm playing Diablo 3 again after something like 7 years of not touching it. Mesk and HKS are running through it with me on a fairly high difficulty, so naturally HKS is the only one doing any real damage and I'm dying in hundreds of hilarious ways. Regardless, we're still in Act 1 and I'm something like level 40 and still doing minimal damage to enemies that have literally millions of hitpoints in health. Looking forward to when I post that to all the comments concerning why we're playing on that difficulty, why I picked that character and those abilities etc.

The thing that really gets my goat concerning Diablo 3 is that it's responsible for toasting my MeGUI encoder profile settings again. I started up the game and HKS and I were waiting for Mesk, so I decided to do a recording test because I screwed up so many of the Divinity recordings by NOT checking the mic was working properly and balanced. So I minimized the game, noting that things were acting a little weird, and checked the file. It was fine, so I re-opened the game and was just met with a frozen menu screen. It remained frozen for about 2 minutes so I figured the game crashed.

I pull up task manager and try to kill the process. It gives me a vague dialogue about the game, then the application is removed from the task bar.

But it's still in task manager and I can't relaunch the game. I try to kill the Blizzard launcher + the game which was still apparently running and I get an error saying that I can't do that because I "don't have permission." Like hell I don't.

So I continue to try and force it, and eventually everything just dies and all I have is HKS and Mesk talking to me on two black screens. I can't talk to them at all, so after a minute of trying a bunch of things to recover I just hard reset the entire machine to finally end it all.

I have NEVER had an application do this to my computer or outright deny me the ability to end a program by saying I don't have permission. I'm not even entirely sure how a MENU screen in a so-called Triple-A game caused this by minimizing the application.

At the time I had Sony Vegas and MeGUI running because I had been doing video work (not to mention a bunch of tabs in my browser I was still working with). I didn't reopen these immediately as I was trying to get back into the game and get it to work.

Eventually I launched the game again and had it work for a few hours. I died to skeletons a bunch of times, ran out of hard drive space and called it a day. At this point I decided to encode the video I had edited and prepped. I open up Vegas fine, but when I got to open MeGUI I get met with 200 SEPARATE ERRORS that I had to manually click through as every single one of my presets and profiles and previous jobs were corrupted and toasted. Apparently hard resetting the computer killed them all.

So now I have to hunt down my back up of the profiles and get MeGUI completely configured again to my settings.

Thanks Blizzard.

Myst 3 Released

Not that it's huge interest, but Myst 3 is fully uploaded with edited descriptions and can be found on the channel page under the puzzle games section at the bottom.

Or just...follow this link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6zNFlKs3yU&list=PLrqm7hgIicW4opSGLL1WoBPBQ1XoCIKFl

Also started Myst 5 and...I'm uh...not impressed so far, which is really surprising. Going to change some settings and see if it helps some but, yeah. I feel like by going full 3D they uh...kind of dropped the ball a bit. Also I want to punch everyone in the face and there's weird tablets that make me draw with a mouse and I felt like I was playing Dungeon Keeper 2 at first. Captain goggles won't leave me alone and that's part of what made the Myst games so good. There was an underlying feeling of tension and being completely, utterly alone to figure out all the puzzles. Here's there's just an obnoxious guy who follows me around saying he'll give me help and then just beams up to the Starship Enterprise whenever he feels like he's being cryptic.

Also they screwed up a small piece of the story and it bugs me.

At the end of Myst, Atrius is like, thanks for your help but I can't send you home (but have fun poking around a deserted island!). Then in Riven Atrius says that if I help him bring his wife back, then he can potentially get me home (and at the end I may or may not have gotten there?). Then in Myst 5, Yeesha states in her emo journal that I "returned to help save her mother" and I most certainly did not. I was already there and I agreed to do it partially cause I believed I could get home at the end.

Sheesh.

Will keep with it cause...I want to finish the series, but really...

Settled-Ish

I am so close to finishing Sonic 2006, but I rage quit because Silver's part of the final shin-dig makes me slowly die inside.

Also I'm moved into the new place now. There's lots of issues like the shower head needing to be replaced (it was just...drifting to the side when you use it), the bathtub fixed or replaced (it's an old jet tub and shoots out black stuff when you try and use the jets), light fixtures need to be fixed/replaced (the bulbs were all burnt out and like, broke when attempting to replace) and the faucet leaked. Other than that, it's pretty good.

At least the floor is in now.

Video work is slow again due to being too exhausted after moving things, unpacking and trying to fix. Also started a new contracting job, which I'm trying to figure out a comfortable working schedule for.

In either case, uploading has resumed as of today.

I'll try to go through the Extra Life footage and post the good parts soon. Sonic 2006 was part of that sooooo we'll see.

I Have Ink on My Hands

And my pen still isn't working.

Tonight is my last night living in my current residence. While I really like the new place and I'm excited to have the extra space, I feel a little sad sitting in a mostly empty room in a house I likely won't see again. I mostly liked this house and it's given me some great stories, even if they were annoying at the time.

Goodbye streetracers, swing lady, teens getting high in the park, people pooping in cars, people breaking into sheds, people peeping through windows, random cats that arrive and sit on me, Pokemon Go gym, trucks that speed through the dirt alleyway and crash into recycling bins, aggressive borking dogs on the corner and people driving the wrong way down the narrow one-way street after hitting the curb and making their tire explode.

At least no one pooped on my garage (happened to my boss last week).

Anyway...moving to a theoretically quieter neighbourhood. Only concern I have there is there's a good number of old people that might get weird about stuff, but we'll see. Already know that neighbours are watching since I got locked out of the house due to flooring people locking the wrong lock (don't have a key for the one lock) and I tried all the keys given to me like three times and tried them at the back door and then tried to force the doorknob and realizing someone was watching me and then leaving cause I didn't want to explain everything to the police.

This has since been fixed and the doorknob changed, but not before I had to get my grandpa's driver's licence, which was in my grandma's purse for some reason and a permission note from him to open the place...

Sigh.

Video work will continue when I'm settled. For now, been working on releasing Myst 3 (unreleased videos in public playlist on channel), not that people are all that interested in it.

Whelp.

Another reason not to travel to the United States by plane in the near future.

More "security" measures.

Driving all the way. It's fine. I'll visit Montana. TOTALLY cool with it. I'll count drive-thru coffee stands and cowboy churches the whole way to entertain myself. Take that TSA.

...

...

That or take a trip across Canada for the first time in my life. Never seen the East Coast and it's been YEARS since I've been out to Van City.


So we recorded more Divinity over the past few days. Also got through more Sonic somehow and I ACTUALLY found where I gave up on the game. I can't believe I made it that far without rage quitting. I know I never made it that far on Shadow's portion, and I'm pretty sure I finished Silver, but I never actually finished the game. Ever. I might actually end up trying to finish it during Extra Life this year before I move on to better games.

Then Mesk and HKS keep asking when I'll be doing Sonic Boom and Sonic Mania.

As I am currently unemployed, I've been focusing on getting other things done including getting through the massive backlog of recordings. As I think I stated in the previous post, I have finished Pillars of Eternity completely and am just in the process of uploading the last half of the series on YouTube. I also started processing Divinity OS2 and Resident Evil 7 as I need to get through those. My other priorities will be Dishonored 2 and Sonic 2006.

EDIT: I messed up the Divinity OS2 recordings. My voice is absent from 2 sessions and the third is awful quality 'cause somehow Fraps decided that my headset mic was a good option to use. This is why you ALWAYS check your settings and why when I forget I get super salty. I'm a little more than mad at the moment.

PoE Finished (Finally)

Finished playing the actual game a few weeks ago, but the encoding was completed today. There are 131 segments of 25-45 minute videos. This was for approx. 82 hours of gameplay, just one the one run alone. I enjoyed playing the game, but I'm not sure I'd play it again in the near future. It's just a really long game. It's good if you want to get wrapped up in a long RPG, but eventually my commitment to reading most of the dialogue out loud wore me down. Anyway, currently have up to segment 80 uploaded on YouTube. The rest should hopefully be up by Christmas.

Which brings me to this past week. It wasn't that great for the most part.

The wedding I went to was great aside from the ridiculous heat in Southern California (30+ degrees Celsius). I nearly passed out waiting in a line up on the last day we spent there as it was already 28 degrees at like...9 in the morning. I really don't do well in heat. I got home on Tuesday and found out in the International baggage claim on the phone that I had been laid off my job (I wasn't the only one).

Then I spent the next evening in the hospital because of severe abdominal pain. I got pissed off at the nurse cause she poked around areas that weren't the issue and then said I didn't seem like I was in a lot of pain. I proceeded to be sent home for an ultrasound the next day to which they found the issue. There's nothing they can do about it so I was doomed to remain in pain for the next 48 hours. Got some relief today.

Good news is that I have possession date for my new house, so I'll be dark for a few days in November, but I'll be hopefully permanently settled for a long time.

So I'm in the market for a new job. We'll see what I can find. For now, I have a lot of free time, so I'm going to use it to catch up on projects and just...sleep. Also going to try and play more Divinity OS2 with Mesk and HKS and make more progress on it. We played yesterday and I managed to get myself into a few precarious situations. I also created a pillar of exploding plant death.

So yeah, bummed out and in pain, but I'll keep on going and make the best of the extra time I have.

Undead

I am, quite frankly, exhausted. The house was way more chaotic than I anticipated, and the expectations of the people trying to sell it are hard to meet. I have a list of everything that needs to be done in my head, but like many large projects, I underestimate the time needed to complete that vision. My life has literally been packing, moving and cleaning since...Saturday or something. I've lost track of this.

I just have to keep the end goal in mind. Here's hoping we don't move again for a very long time.

The good news is I'm too tired to really be worried about not getting done in time/to be stressed out. The bad news is I'm pretty sure I'm getting sick. Also I managed to mess up my toe. There's like a whole chunk of my toenail missing on the one side and I have no idea how it happened. It never bled or anything. Maybe this means I'm undead.

Anyhow, will be leaving soon to deliver ketchup chips to the uncultured masses down south. I'll try to get some uploads up before I leave, but there's likely going to be less than the usual upload rate (which is like 4 videos a week currently -_-).

Also Shauna says I need to play Darkwood before Lunar-SSS, so cue all the innuendos from Mesk when he reads this.

Changes

First off, you may have noticed that I cleaned up the top portion of the blog a bit by removing that text I'm fairly sure no one read as I don't believe many people utilize that link. It has now been moved to a separate page along with a complete list of all LPs I've done to date, as well as some links to the sites and works of people I make LPs with. I may do some additional clean up like this for the bottom portion of the page as well since it's kind of a mess of information.

Next on the news list is I finished Pillars of Eternity. I didn't defeat the Master Below yet, which is something I may try to do again, but the main storyline is complete. I wanted it off my to-do list so I could focus on other projects/start another solo LP. I want to do the new Life is Strange game as well as Lunar-SSS (a request from Shauna). I still need to finish Sonic 2006, but that won't happen until the end of October because...

I'm moving again. This should be a more long-term move. Some stuff came up and I made the decision to move into my grandparent's old home (they moved to assisted living earlier this year). It's got more space and a bigger yard for the puppy which is nice. I think I mentioned this in a previous post, but it's actually a thing now. The remainder of this week will be dedicated to packing up, making sure the new place actually has a floor (we had to rip out all the old carpets cause they were shredded and disgusting due to my grandma's walker) and getting the old place clean and mostly cleared out. That all has to get done this weekend, because next weekend I'll be tied up at a friend's wedding.

With that in mind, we're getting a Starsworn session in tonight and I'll start the process of encoding the last segments of Pillars of Eternity. I have to edit one portion of the video somehow, but the rest will be easy. I also hope to get a little bit of Divinity OS2 in before I leave, mostly because I think HKS and Mesk have been wanting to play.

After these next couple of crazy weeks, I will be starting to get ready for Extra Life. I'll hopefully do an official announcement for that near the end of the month.

Fuzzy

Too much been going on lately. Everything has been a crunch to get things done and ready by mid-October that ISN'T video or writing related. Then Kristy made me promise to submit to a writing contest. Then someone else made me promise to submit to a local writing program. I don't have anything prepped for this.

I had to cut D&D short this past weekend and everyone was kind of just flailing since they needed me for a few information points. I would have stayed, but I had family stuff to take care of that night that I got last minute notice for.

Then I needed to plan a trip to Murica for a wedding. Only going to be away for a couple days, so I'm not taking a computer. I don't want the farce that is security touching my laptop if I'm not going to be there for more than a couple days anyway. After I learned that security can seize your electronics and poke around on them and demand passwords, I decided that it's not worth it. I promised I'd be at this wedding and I'm not going to jeopardise my flight privileges/get denied entry into the country because I refuse to let them poke their nose into my privacy. They already get to strip me of my dignity at the security checkpoints. They aren't allowed to look at my personal information.

And what really pisses me off is it does absolutely nothing to make you safer. It's all for show. They haven't caught ANYONE this way. Security at airports is pointless. I know a guy who accidentally forgot a hunting knife in his CARRY-ON bag and they didn't even catch it. This was in the last 10 years too. He walked on the plane with a hunting knife.

And creating more restrictions and telling people what you're looking for doesn't help because smart people will find away to get around your precautions! Especially if they know EXACTLY what your criteria and "detection" methods are.

Why do you think we don't tell people how we know they're cheating on the site I help run?

Yes. This is something that enrages me to my core, especially after they forced my 80 year old grandmother STAND with a healing broken hip while they searched her wheelchair. She was in pain the entire time. Worst she could do to you is tell you about her childhood in Trochu about a 100 times while captive on an airplane for 4 hours. Screw you and your "security".

This is why I hate flying. One of the reasons anyway.



I'm desperately trying to finish my projects and I'm just...all over the place. I tried finishing Pillars of Eternity, which I started around this time last year. I gave up on the Master Below (for now) in the hopes that I'd be able to finish the game and get the majority up on YouTube just to have some closure with that. I mean...I still have approx 40 episodes to post before I run out, but still.

Also played some more Sonic 2006. After about 2 hours of anguish in the desert, I gave up and tried my hand at train hell again. I had stopped caring at that point and somehow facerolled my way through the level and....gasp...PROGRESSED. I still have a significant chunk left and I need to finish the never ending tears of Shadow's desert level again.

I'm not joking. I was 21 minutes in, and it was still going. And that didn't count all the deaths either. 21 unbroken minutes of hovercrafts that you can fly across the world with, sand wave rooms, robot crotches, birds, walking up random walls, sudden camera changes and like 7 checkpoints. Yes. The damn level has at least 7 checkpoints, at least 4 transitions and it was STILL not over. I think I died in part 2 of robot pain. I can't even remember. I blocked it out. I was there for about 2 hours before I returned to the gelatinous blue wonder.

And then I bounced across the water for about 10 minutes before I decided I had wasted enough of my life on the game and went to bed.

I've processed at least another 4 segments of Sonic 2006 for YouTube. I unfortunately forgot to do a Session summary and deleted all the files I was using to edit. I'm too lazy to go through it all and make a new one so I might just skip that session summary.

Working on the next chapter of Dishonored 2. I really just want to process that, Resident Evil 7 and Bioshock Infinite. Remove them once and for all from my hard drives. I'm just drowning in footage.

It Happened

I was waiting for it to happen all summer. We almost made it all the way through when finally, a couple nights ago, a person crashed into the park.

We expect it was a drunk driver this time as they ran away from their car, but I was woken up by someone yelling. I had slept through the impact somehow, which is amazing since it completely totalled the car. The driver seemed to be fine since they got out of their car and fled the scene, but when I went down to look at the impact site the next morning, there's all this cracked concrete everywhere.

Anyway, the person who woke me up was my neighbour a couple doors down. The first thing I hear is him yelling "where you going buddy? You're on camera!" (a bunch of the neighbours finally caved and got cameras pointing at the park it seems). When looking out the window you can see this mangled car there with coolant spewing out of it and this guy just running away down the street. The police showed up like 30 minutes later to clean everything up and tow the car away.

Great response time.

I suspect this will be the last one before I move. Will be moving into my grandparent's old house before the end of the year as it's bigger and is currently available. Also has a bit of a bigger yard for my puppy. The good news is I won't have people breaking into the shed, or pooping in cars, or peeping in the windows, or crashing through the park, or getting lost and blowing out tires when they turn around on the one-way, or singing on the swings at 5am, or screaming at each other about Pokemon, but the bad news is the new location is likely to be a lot less interesting in terms of stuff happening. Maybe I'll just make friends with all the crows in the area and turn them into couriers.

That or make up my own neighbourhood drama and assign roles to everyone. It'll be hard to beat the duplex though...or my previous home with underdressed 80 year old Russians yelling at each other and randomly turning on super bright lights at 2am, or secret grow-ops/party houses who started 6-foot bonfires ON THEIR LAWN WITH PIZZA BOXES and danced around on the roof, or the people that over-watered their lawn to the point that water would pour down the walkway like a waterfall.

So aside from that craziness, started a Divinity: Original Sin 2 LP with HKS and Mesk. We've already managed to murder a few people. It happens it seems. I kept getting side-tracked since I thought the other two were with me. Suddenly they're murdering turtles. Oops. I got a severed head and returned back to them. I'll likely just let them lead in the future so I don't get myself into any unfortunate circumstances.

Also continuing to play Starsworn. Might not get a session in this week because people are terrible at notifying me about plans that have apparently already been made. I feel bad, but I essentially offered up my entire week next week to atone. This week has been filled with birthdays, chats with realtors, medical crap and work. Then this weekend I have my friend Igpy's reading to go to, then Saturday I have more birthday stuff plus helping out a friend. Then Sunday is free until the evening when it would matter, then I have some family commitments.

The Forgotten

So much has happened in the last couple weeks I'm not sure where to start...

Smoke in the air has been consistently bad. I think we had 1 day where I couldn't smell it. It's just been this oppressive hot and smokey hell for the past two months. 

Last week the battery for my car fob died and I had to manually unlock my car, which set the car alarm off and it wouldn't stop until I started the vehicle. I get to work that day, run upstairs and find the entire floor deserted. I stand there dumbfounded for a few seconds before I realize that our all-day training must be at a different venue. So I pull up the event on my phone and see that it's just a few blocks away at another building. I rush downstairs and back to my car, which I try to get into again, but this time I can't get the door to unlock and the alarm is just going off. At this point I essentially run away from my car and jog 10 minutes over to the place I'm supposed to be and enter 15 minutes late, tripping over everyone as I move to a seat at the back. Then I was all sweaty for like an hour as the school doodles made a come-back appearance in my notebook.

This week I attended a football game and there were fighter jets and biplanes and gatling guns that fired mini footballs and they threw beef jerky around at the crowd for some reason (it was packaged). I also got a nasty sunburn and mustard all over myself.

Then yesterday I borrow a deep frier to make some popcorn chicken for a potluck today. We over-filled the frier with oil and didn't think of the consequences. Woke up this morning with oil all over the counter and floor because the drainage tray filled up and overflowed when the oil was cool. So that was fun and now the house smells like deep fried oil. 

I finished Pyre completely, purchased and downloaded the new Life is Strange game (but haven't played yet) edited another session of Sonic 2006, and participated in another Starsworn campaign game.

I don't think I did an official summary of the first campaign game, but I feel like the last two sessions went really well other than me forgetting information I really should have known. The party seems to be meshing well with each other and I feel like we're all getting a chance to interact, ask questions and do stuff. I've been a little confused a couple times mostly because I'm not sure who information is intended for or what I'm supposed to share and to what extent. I suppose it's up to me a lot of times, but translating that into dialogue or action is a bit hard for me sometimes. I also feel like I don't ask enough questions if I'm unsure of something. 

The thing I forgot was a dude's name. I knew who he was, what happened to him, all the details, etc. But when I heard his name I'm like "oh that sounds familiar" and then just continued along with it. You don't hear me swearing in the video...just a tired sigh. I can, however, assure you I was cussing like crazy in my head. I can write the mistake off easily enough, but I was really mad with myself afterwards. TO BE FAIR THOUGH. I never actually MET the NPC. I encountered his body in a vat and read about him, but I had tunnel vision and didn't really make the connection between the vat and the dude because I thought the dude was in another tower. Long story short, I basically confused myself 'cause all the information was there and made sense, but I interpreted it wrong.

Anyway, first two games were really good. Mucky, HKS and Thal are easy to play with, which I wasn't really concerned about, but I always get anxious when starting up these kind of things with new people. As for the game structure, content, environments, etc. it's all solid so far in my opinion. I may be a little biased as I'm used to/familiar with Mesk's storytelling and have been for many years now, but I don't really have anything to complain about.

Back to Business...

Looks like I forgot to schedule videos before I left, so only a few posted. Sigh...

It was kind of a gong show getting ready to leave, so I'm not surprised. I didn't finish nearly as much as I wanted to while I was away. but I managed to get through Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest, a large chunk of Shadows of Valentia, caught up on Dresden Files, did a wee bit of tileset editing and worked on consolidating a bunch of writing into a few documents vs like...10.

I realized on my trip that I'm growing tired of extensive editing with LPs. I have such a backlog now and that's because a lot of what I've recorded has required a lot of editing. Pyre has been nice so far because I literally record, verify, encode, verify and publish. No text commentary. No syncing audio. Clean, simple, quick. I can focus on the actual games rather than picking through the video and manually editing all the bits, watching it 2-3 times through. It's time consuming and tiresome. Most of my co-op LPs with Shauna require a lot of editing, especially the newer ones, because of my inexperience recording with a capture card and no headsets. So there's a lot of echo, a lot of delay, and audio that really isn't matched up unless I record the streams separately and stitch them back together in post production. Then Vegas has a shit fit every time I try to edit the mp4s. And then I recorded the wrong format one time. Then I had the wrong resolution another time.

etc. etc. etc.

It's all fixable, but it's TIME. Time I want to spend on my RPG. Time I want to spend on my writing. Time I want to spend just...playing the games. I've been doing this for nearly ten years now. Maybe I need to change the way I do things, set up a schedule that makes this manageable, or simply just scrap a bunch of the projects.

It's been three years since we finished Bioshock Infinite and the files are still sitting, incomplete and in quite a state on my hard drive. I spent 2 hours last night figuring out if I even still have all the pieces. I have the entire Part 1 of Bioshock Infinite DLC recorded and the audio is just missing. Gone like the office supplies I made for the RPG. I'm sure I deleted it by accident. I may just...encode it and throw it up without commentary on the public drive in case anyone is curious. Shauna and I will just record all the DLC again if we feel like it because it got so screwed up. As for the actual Bioshock Infinite LP...the rest is a mess. I have 4 audio files for 2-3 dates of recordings, a chunk where you can't even hear us at all because my audio experiment went awry, and some pieces where the game just...crashed. I also found an audio clip where I forgot to stop the recording and we get an entire conversation about going to a shady money loan service to get money for rent because a visa hadn't gone through yet. It's not as exciting as it sounds.

Then we have SOMA which was just...boring. Like I feel like I missed half of what the game was about because it just really wasn't a good choice for a tag-team LP. That has been sitting, in its entirety, on my hard drive for about 2 years. We did that one after Alien Isolation. It's not a long game so...I should just suck it up and spend a Saturday working through it.

Next is Testament of Sherlock Holmes, which I admit, is a real treasure. If I want to work on anything, it would likely be that. I also have a bunch of commentary from Mesk on that one, which is equally entertaining, so I really need to finish that series.

After that we had Evil Within which I am so glad is behind me, though I need to remove some files still...because I had a PLAN and never carried it through. At least it's out of the way.

Then we have Vampire the Masquerade, which is another hilarious one I would love to dedicate time and effort to. The problem with THIS one is it's so, damn, long. It's a long game with a lot of side quests and a lot of it is just so bad in an entertaining way I want to make sure that I give it the time it deserves. Then...Shauna's computer blew up because of a virus and we lost a lot of the saves. We managed to recover it thanks to, believe it or not, my sheer stupidity when I ran the game off Steam and not through the patch (I failed to consult Shauna about this since she set it up). So we had to get past the glitched out beach again, but, we need to get back to where we where, which was unfortunately at the end of the game.

We shelved that one to play Resident Evil 7, which is released in part on YouTube already. I need to finish this one asap or it will go the same way as Bioshock Infinite, which is also released in part. I need to do mass uploads of these when I'm done.

Lastly from the Shauna co-op endeavours is Outlast 2, which is also fairly short, but needs A LOT of work. There were a couple issues on this which I THINK I can fix, but have to do with delay and echo.

From the Mesk/HKS LPs, there's a snippet of Gauntlet I still haven't touched that I found. I feel like this is another weekend project just to get it done.

As for my personal projects...

Sonic 2006 is another project that requires a lot of love and attention much like Sherlock and VTM. It's just too beautifully bad not to give it the time it deserves. It is honestly one of the worst games I've forced myself to get through. It has caused two panic attacks, multiple rage quits, tons of science and I think I puked once in the middle of a recording...but that was because of a bad reaction to medication. I'm only through the first three sessions of this and there's about 12. Multi-hour sessions. Ugh. I'm still not done recording either. I'm only about 66% finished.

Pillars of Eternity should be an easy one to wrap up. I'm just stuck on the Master Below and I'm getting mad about it. I keep rage quitting and I'll likely need to edit this one segment because of all the attempts.

Dishonored 2 is complete in terms of recording, but I've been editing down the parts where I get lost or spend a lot of time looking for runes so I don't bore people to death. This is ANOTHER weekend project to finish. Likely two days for this one.

Pyre is well underway, and it's an easy one to record, process and publish. I just need a good chunk of time to finish it.

Then, finally, there's War for the Overworld DLC, which I'm likely going to scrap at this point. I want to do it as an LP, but I need to start over. I don't even remember what happened anymore. Any of the DLC I have uploaded already I'm going to make unlisted exclusives for whoever wants to see them. I will not be doing text commentary for the rest, and I'll likely just process, upload to the public drive and delete. It's going to go the way of Half Life Episode 2 and Witches of Brigmore (which I also want to give another shot in the future).

Other video threads I need to pick up on:
-Posting the Myst games and just doing time stamps for them. These are all unlisted anyway so...meh.
-Playing Myst 5, which will likely be a holiday endeavour.
-Choosing and sifting through what Vermintide and L4D2 content I want to post. I have just...hours and hours and hours of video.
-Finishing the Witness, which is another easy, record, verify, encode, verify process. I just need to record the rest of the game.
-I ALMOST forgot about the Dungeon Siege Revival series that I started. It's...very dead. So dead. Deader than dead. I'm pretty sure I have footage of this though so I really need to just...get rid of it.

I am retiring and archiving the following:
-Dark Souls
-War for the Overworld DLC
-Fire Emblem Path of Radiance
-Red-Eye Retro

I'll likely add to this list as I go.

So I've decided that unless it's a simple matter of recording, encoding and releasing, I'm not taking on any more projects for the time being. I simply need to get through all the other stuff first. It's out of control.

Exodus...to the Boonies

Unfortunately, I will not finish Pyre before my exodus to the boonies for two weeks. I have a few more videos to post for it, and will finish promptly when I get back. I'll be uploading and scheduling content for that time, so it'll be like I never left! Not that anyone is chomping at the bit to get more. Well...not since that Sonic person who gave up when I stopped uploading Sonic videos. I'll have to get around to finishing these projects...

When I get back, Pyre will be high on the list of priorities. We will also be likely doing more D&D (provided things still go to plan) and Mesk expressed random interest to play Diablo 3. I might do that since I had a couple requests for it, but I haven't played that game in...I want to say 5 years. Whatever year it was released was the year I played it. Then I had all my gold stolen and I got bored.

While I'm away, I won't have much internet access, so I will be working on RPG assets, writing, reading, eating bread, drinking tea, sleeping, maybe playing through Thief 1, finishing Fire Emblem Conquest finally, starting Shadows of Valentia and trying not to get mauled by a black bear.

GOD MY EYES

I spent many hours auditing projects that have reached a specific support level to determine whether they reached their support level legitimately. I feel like I'm coming out of a deep sleep and my brain is a little fried. I spent a good 10 minutes mad at my spreadsheet because I couldn't figure out why two cells were highlighted green. I figured out later after that the search was still on, but not displaying properly. It was a maddening experience. Definitely been staring at a screen too long.

Pyre is released tomorrow, which means I'll be madly trying to free up recording space tonight after I get home from celebrating my brother's 21st birthday. I might even have access tonight, but I work tomorrow and will likely be way too tired to dive into it. I debated live-streaming, but I kind of want my first playthrough to be uninfluenced by others. If I really like the game, I'll consider streaming some in the future.

Also I have a Patreon set up now. Shauna finally made me give in and make one. While it's always nice to have a little extra money, it makes me insanely uncomfortable to set something like this up because I never started making videos and writing for money. I do it because I enjoy it and I'm learning from it. I do it because I'm creating, and that's all I've wanted to do since I've had conscious thought and memory. I'm not going to stop creating whether I'm getting money from people or not, so it never really appealed to me. It's not going to change or influence what I do either, and I don't want people to feel like I betrayed their expectations. Regardless, the people I work with are fantastic and I respect them a lot, so if I can help support what they do even in tiny ways, that makes me happy.

So, for the curious: https://www.patreon.com/EversorFatalis

And seriously, if you want to throw money around, you totally have the option of helping Kathleen meet her goals this year: https://www.extra-life.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.participant&participantID=249862&referrer=bfAphFbPfSched

Who knows, maybe if I DO make something, I can buy commissioned portraits or something else I currently lack the skill to make for the RPG.

Either way, I need to started uploading some of the public drive stuff as unlisted video. I'll forgo all of the third-party music ones though as many of those would likely be blocked or monatized and the whole point of not monatizing my account in the first place is because I want people to be able to watch free, ad devoid content (as lame as it is coming from me).

Discount Guy Fieri

Was driving to work yesterday morning and this dude that looks uncomfortably like Guy Fieri pulls up behind me at a red light. Was in a vintage car and everything. Dark orange and not red though. I couldn't stop staring and then I started laughing.

I had more to say for this yesterday, but then some stuff went down at work and I missed the announcement concerning it because I was out taking something to my car. Then today I found out Chester from Linkin Park died so I'm just...really sad. Sounds like he's been dealing with a lot of tough stuff for years now. I know a lot of people that love the band, the music and the person. I've been listening to Linkin Park since I was 12 or 13 years old, so that's literally more than half my life. I'm so glad I saw them live when they came to Calgary for X Fest that one year.


So yeah...I'll do a real update next week. All you really need to know is RPG work continues and Starsworn isn't actually cancelled, it's just postponed and will be changing a bunch.

Bot Hunters

Fast approaching is the release a few of the games I've actually been looking forward to this year. Pyre and the new Life is Strange stories are coming out this summer and I am super excited for both. I am most excited for Pyre because it's coming from a gaming company I actually trust to produce quality gameplay and storytelling. I'm just expecting the Life is Strange episodes to emotionally destroy me. I hope to put these two up there with Horizon in games that actually impressed me this year. Outlast 2 was one Shauna and I were looking forward to, but man was it lacking.

Over the past couple of weeks at work I've teamed up with one of my coworkers in dev and we've been hunting bots on one of the sites I do tech support for. It's actually been quite interesting because each person has gamed the system in very different ways. I mean, the results are essentially the same, but each one tried a different strategy and had varying results. I could safely say I'd know exactly how to fool us/our system and get away with it, but I definitely do not have the skills for it currently. Anyhow, I've gotten really good at spotting suspicious behaviour on the site. I feel like a cross between a bounty hunter and a detective...only like the most lame one in existence.

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/43yqdd/look-at-this-massive-click-fraud-farm-that-was-just-busted-in-thailand

It's a common problem rife on social media sites. Unfortunately, all it's going to take is a more clever person to beat the system. It's almost worth not doing anything since we know how to catch people as is and would be akin to a trap. It's just...a lot of work investigating each case. So we're automating detection and likely putting in a recaptcha to give bots a hard time. My coworker already explained how this could be circumvented, but it requires a non-trivial amount of work on the cheater's side (i.e. they need to actually know what they're doing).

Anyhow, it's keeping me busy at work and I get to make a lot of spreadsheets, which is keeping my inner data nerd at bay. I've only crashed Excel twice since this started and one of them was because I tried to extract and open a  report including 6 months worth of activity on a site with over 500,000 users. That was my bad.

The best part is some of the smart ones that have been confronted with their cheating and banished are trying to get more information out of us stating that it's not enough evidence to condemn them. It's so tempting to slap them in the face with it, but it's unwise to give smart people the tools they can use to best you in the future.


Update on the dude who said I was annoying (one of them at least...I think there's a club): He has started his own Dungeon Siege LP (no voice unfortunately) and has-----WAIT FOR IT-----changed his dislike to a like on my video since I was so nice. I'll be sure not to spend it all in one place.

Also, the D&D campaign Mesk was going to run is now cancelled, which is a little disappointing because I was looking forward to that. I hope he picks it up again, but I guess for now I can turn my attention and focus back to completing my writing and RPG.

Don't Know What Ure Doing

It's true.

I'll never understand the people who comment on your channel to tell you that you suck or that you're annoying, but don't actually give you any useful feedback or pointers. They're there just to get a reaction, though I'm getting good at frustrating or confusing people to the point that they just leave. It's a win-win really. They either keep coming back and boosting views/comments while I mock them, or they leave which means they aren't my problem anymore. The most recent one left after he failed at gaslighting and I told him I was eagerly awaiting his response with how much fun I was having.

EDIT: He responded and now we're talking about how tired I am.

This weekend was spent getting some semblance of control over my life again. I got mad at the kitchen when I couldn't find some things, started tidying it up and then it got out of control and I did a full clean of the entire thing. It looks beautiful and I will murder the first person to make a mess in there. The problem now is that the sitting area has a bunch of crap all over the place, so this project is going to spiral out of control really fast.

I read through/audited/edited 104 pages of WMRR on the weekend, which is GREAT because I have a bit more in the reader version of the file. I'm slowly building the things I'm happy with into the document and then we will handle the unpleasant bits. I'm worried that the first third of the series is starting too slow, but it's kind of important to see where the characters started and where they end up.

Worked on the RPG a bit, but only in the context of fixing things/adding assets. Long story short, fixed some fiddly bits, lost the stapler I made and then I broke steam by adding an erase event and trying to save while something played in the sound test. So yeah progress is slow in that department.

Shauna and I also finished Outlast 2 over the weekend. It ended rather...abruptly in my opinion in that I had started a new video/audio file expecting 30mins-1hour of more gameplay, but it ended up being 10 more minutes. Shauna came back from the washroom and the game was over. We gave a full-length review at the end, but we were struggling on a few points since we really weren't ready for the review yet. I was just angry for the first half of it because I still had a lot of questions that went unanswered.

I have...so much video content to catch up on I'm pretty much drowning in it. It's a lot of time and effort I could be spending on a lot of other projects that are interesting me a lot more. That said, I still enjoy making videos. I just feel bad when I'm only releasing two segments of Pillars of Eternity a week.

Roll Save Against Mondays

Kind of a tense, miserable Monday as I'm waiting to see if my dog will be all right or if he needs to go to the vet. Last night he swallowed a pork rib bone whole and it's my fault for letting him get at it. He's kind of an idiot and has a tendency to swallow things whole if he can, but now I'm worried he's going to get a bowel obstruction or that pieces of the bone will splinter off and hurt him. So far so good aside from a little vomit this morning, but if he starts showing some bad symptoms I got to take him to the vet. Friend of mine has a dog that ate squeaker toys on two separate occasions. Both times resulted in bowel obstruction. Her vet bill was over $12,000 dollars for the two visits combined. Thankfully she had pet insurance (her pup is fine btw). So I hope it doesn't come to that with Locke.

Today is also going to be a hot, muggy day so...that will suck as well.


Had the last one-shot session for D&D, which was a rollercoaster of insanity and panic as everything tried to kill me. Mesk threw me onto a rock with a fortress with no support (i.e. no friendlies) and had me interact with NPCs that were either crazy or wanted to kill me...or were crazy before they tried to kill me. Spent a long time trying to pull enough information out of it to piece together a bunch of plot-related timeline stuff, which was thankfully mostly stitched together at the end. I had to go afk a few times, unfortunately one of those times was immediately after I released fluid from a vat and got it all over me. Apparently if I had let that drain, I would have been possessed by a cat.

I know Mesk changed up some of the abilities on the fly as he mentioned one or two instances after we played. There was one part where a dragon was dive-bombing me on a bridge and thankfully I knew that I was about to get ambushed so I burned my free class ability spell to not die. I still got side-swiped by a flying talon, but wasn't grabbed by it thanks to Mesk's edits. I had a huge chance of just dying on that bridge, but I managed to avoid it.

I would say the first half was just exploring and trying to make sense of everything. I think it was because of the afk incident, but I completely missed that the dude in the liquid vat was the dude that the giant peeping eye orb told me about. I think it was getting blasted in the face with the liquid that made me forget. I thought he was in the tower, but it turns out there was something else in there I never got to. The second half was just frantic trying not to die as the entire castle's population tried to kill me. I pissed off some dudes downstairs, then ran upstairs after another dude tried to mind control me, then I ran to the central room where I knew an artifact was and just crossed my fingers that I could use it somehow.

I ended up fighting about...7 regular units, one crazy dude, an alternate version of my deity, a copy of myself, a giant demon and a giant blood monster by myself. So that was a little crazy. I figured it was going to be a timed thing since there was no way I was going to be able to take down the majority of the list above. The only thing that really saved me was this ridiculous aura that did damage any time a creature entered or stayed in it. It required concentration, but lasted up to 10 minutes. I MIGHT have messed this up because I'm not sure if I was hit before or after the aura went up (if I got hit during, the aura would have gone away). I'll have to check the video.

Anyway, all caught up to the start of the campaign, which will start whenever the others are ready. Realistically I can start any time, but it would be good before August as I'll be missing for a good chunk of it. I won't have real internet for 2 weeks unless I can convince my aunt that legit wifi out in the boonies is a good idea. The test sessions have been good for me to getting used to roleplaying more and actually forcing me out of my comfort zone. In one way it was easier when playing with HKS because I was just watching what he did and filling in when I thought it was necessary to step up. In the last two sessions it was just me, which forced me to keep thinking/moving things forward on my own. I have no idea if I'm actually doing any good or not, but Mesk seems to be content as far as I can tell.

The next big test for me will be playing with 4 other players and trying desperately not to make an ass of myself.


Finished Horizon last night, and I'm pleased to say that it was likely the best game I've played in a number of years. It's rare that I encounter a game that has such a consistent tone, fairly well-written dialogue and text, has USEFUL and interesting supporting documents (i.e. the text and voice logs you find), an engaging story, good controls (other than me initially getting roll and crouch mixed up a lot...but that's me not the game), and just an overall creative universe that you can tell the developers put a lot of time, effort and care into. Really the only gripes I had in that game were a few bad voice acted lines, some weird jumpy conversations with NPCs (mostly talking to people in side quests where people pop in, drop out of the air or aren't facing the right direction) and some physics bugs that were more hilarious than anything else. I only managed to get myself stuck in a rocky crevice once and it was easy to get out of with fast travel. Some of the NPCs were oddly shiny as well...like they were coated in a thick layer of sweat. In Nil's case, his chest looked like a Ken doll.

The majority of the characters were interesting. The majority of the character arcs had them learning and thinking about the world in different ways, but they were still the same people. Some of Aloy's motivations and interactions with the world changed and evolved, but her main core objective never changed, even when it made her selfish. I actually really liked this approach because I hate in games when characters just have an abrupt change of heart or have the sudden "redeeming actions" to let them be a good person in the end. People just don't work like that. It's always a process and it takes years to break down what you are and change it (think about it, everyone has that "slap in the face" moment where everything you are and believe is challenged and it shakes you up...but it doesn't immediately change anything). Also helped that Aloy was voiced by Ashly Burch, whom I have a lot of respect for as a voice actor. She also voices Chloe in Life is Strange, which explains why Aloy's voice sounded so familiar to me. I had no idea until the end when I saw the credits 'cause I'm an idiot and can't do a five second Google search.

At any rate, I definitely recommend the game. I burned through about 70-80 hours in a relatively short period of time.

Dangerous Draft

Kind of a busy weekend for me again.

Spent most of the day on Saturday throwing a bunch of old broken/worn out furniture out, moving books and other items around, managing a puppy and ripping carpets/staples out of a house. There is this lovely 70's style linoleum that was hiding under the carpet. And by lovely I mean rather hideous. It's this green-yellow pattern of suns and diamonds. The other linoleum in the bedrooms was this yellowy-gold pattern that looked kind of like marble cheese.

I also ended up transferring files off my grandfather's old computer, which was old enough to still have XP running on it AND not understand what the external hard drive was when I plugged it in. Also had to make a quick trip to the walk-in medical clinic when the spring-loaded arm that typically holds up the table part of a drafting table was sprung and sliced Oliver's face open. Missed his eye by about 2 inches.

I'm still trying to get rid of my grandpa's organ (like musical instrument...not trying to pawn off his liver or anything). I still have hopes that some hipster out there will want it/come pick it up, since there is absolutely no way I'm going to be able to move that thing on my own. I was going to also try to sell this old stereo from the 50's which has a turn-table and everything (definitely hipsters would want this), but I was told that someone in the family might want it since everything still works (just needs an FM antennae).

Yesterday was spent mostly walking puppies, participating in family events and playing Horizon. I think I'm pretty close to finishing the game, but we'll see. It's essentially the reason beyond lack of motivation that I'm relying on my never-ending stash of Pillars of Eternity video as I haven't done any actual video editing in days. I think the meds I'm on have really screwed around with my mood and made it a lot worse than it would have been off them, which is ironic because theoretically, it's supposed to help. That said, the thing its supposed to be doing is not working anymore, which means the dose is too low again and I'm not going through another dose increase. That was awful. So, I don't know what I want to do. Either way, this has meant that if I don't need to go out of the house, I've either been working on D&D things, or hiding and playing Horizon.

Planning another D&D session next weekend. It may be split over two days since Mesk said there's a lot of content he's planning. I'll also make sure to start early so we don't get another late night. Mesk joked about how we should just play yesterday, half-prepared. He said we could just wing it and have me die a disgusting death in the first 15 mins.

Got no idea what's going on this week other than that. Last dodgeball games are this week and next week, then I have very little commitments for the summer other than getting my grandparent's old house habitable.

Over-Thinking Schwas with Doors

Doors. Doors are my bane. I swear to god it's always the doors.

Busy weekend with a dodgeball tournament and a D&D session. My body is letting me know what it thinks about that today. Our team came in 5th in the tournament, which is fine cause it's for fun/charity anyway (though some teams take it a little more seriously) though I'm a little sad I wasn't really playing all that well. I think a few of the players' extremely fast throws + small gym + memories of whiplash cowed me a little.

My favourite part of tournaments. Quick Draw: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylKS84hQzKg

I've officially joined the Starsworn campaign as a regular player. I ended up making an Earthborn Trickery Domain cleric with a disadvantage on stealth. Figure that one out.

Mesk was kind enough to set up a 1-shot, especially since I ended up joining a little late (the full campaign is likely close to starting and Mesk probably would have already if schedules lined up a bit better). I feel a little bad too because I was unable to join until about 5:30pm because my dog wasn't feeling super good, but he still needed a walk, meaning I took him out later than I intended. Then I had to change and wash up a bit after because there was water and mud everywhere and half the park ended up on my shirt (and arms and feet and pants and...somehow...on my forehead). As a result, the 1-shot ran for 10 hours and we finished at like...4 in the morning. Poor Mesk.

To his credit though, he did a good job stamina-wise DMing that long. And he CONTINUED to challenge my decision making and creativity the whole time. By 4am though I was really stretching to recall details and think of useful dialogue for extra information. That was my fault though so...

This 1-shot was hilariously ridiculous. It started off with the most nat 20s I've ever seen so close together (unless you count the time Nick crit me 3 times in a fight and Jayde nearly died...and one was on the reroll I FORCED him to do). Anyway, we were way stealthier that we had any reason being and managed to sneak all the way into the ruins and a Starborn camp. Thank god Mesk was feeding me subtle (and not so subtle hints) through the NPC Darian as I think he saved me from a lot of catastrophic actions. Either way, I disguised myself and ended up playing the most dramatic chess game I've ever seen (which included a nat 20 and a 1 from me).

After the chess game of destiny I spent like...20-30 minutes over-thinking what I was going to do about a giant undead golem before I walked into the thing Mesk was probably screaming at me to just walk into and I managed to convince a super giddy Fireborn to roast the undead for me. That said, Darian dealt a pretty devastating blow to the golem and launched it halfway across the map taking two or three buildings with it.

After, I got to explore an underground facility, which had its own points of hilarity. The gimmick with a barrier/shield went right over my head as apparently, according to Mesk, all I needed to do was back into it. This is where the over-thinking issue comes up for me. I do this in video games too (especially puzzle games) where I'll think it's more complicated than it actually is (ex. just...closing a door re. Riven). So again, I think I wasted...A LOT of time, especially when the pressure was on to try and get into the centre. I could have shaved off an hour at least if I had been a little more observant...or thought to investigate it more (for once, throwing a rock at it led me astray).

Long story short, a lot of exploration happened, I climbed onto and knocked over a dresser onto a bug and squashed it, started stealing from statues, opened ALL the doors, avoided a golem drinking Mountain Dew, slammed the door in a bug's face and then touched things I probably shouldn't have touched. Then we squashed two bugs, talked the gentleman in the centre out of trying to kill us and then got him a new body. After some dramatics and a fight where I couldn't get up the stupid stairs and failed all but 1 of the blink actions (which was useless anyway because we just got telepooted up to the top on that turn), we ran outside to catch Mr. Chess Master Bonestaff and turned him into tomato sauce (to Mesk's dismay as he apparently had a bunch of chess-related moves and lines to use).

Aside from my occasional stupidity, the session seemed to go fairly smooth. I liked the premise and the setting, and Mesk found interesting ways to tie my character into the story. The music choices were really good, but the battle music was the best, as I'm a sucker for that kind of thing. It managed to distract from the fact that I was being nibbled on by bugs, rolling around in a sea of broken glass and smashing my face into cliffs.

One thing I'm really going to have to watch out for in the regular campaign is my tendency to comment and joke about what's going on in-game. I know some of the other players (especially when there's more than just one or two) find the chatter really distracting and feel it clutters up the chat. I'll have to 'hold my tongue' a little more. In addition, off-hand comments got me into trouble a couple of times (see: Dresser Incident). I figure if I say something, I have to own it, even if it has unfortunate consequences. I also forgot about a few mechanics (I forgot about the bonus to the dex mod at one time, thought one spell was 8 hours when it was 1 hour, got confused with concentration spells and then screwed up and didn't use Hold Creature when I should have). Roll20 didn't help a few times either when I got confused about who rolled what a couple times. I think I'm going to make a spreadsheet since the word doc is just not cutting it (less scrolling and more windows). I also want to review movement actions, as my character is likely going to rely on being able to move around a lot.

Lots of things to review (including spells), but I'm glad to have had this session to get used to these specific mechanics. I was also super smart and picked a spellcaster to get myself into 5e. I haven't really played a spellcaster before, so apparently I like to make things difficult for myself.

Biased Age

I aged another year this week. If I were even a mildly successful musician, I would have celebrated a bit more as I got past year 27. But I have no skills remotely resembling anything musical, so I think I was safe anyway. Shauna asked if I felt any older and I told her I was a bit biased because I played dodgeball for the first time in two weeks the night before and got smoked in the face during the second game.

Both of the teams and many players in that game are fairly new, and therefore had TONS of high throws, so I should know better. I saw three balls coming towards me and one was a bit higher so I'm like "I can totally catch that." As it got closer I realized a little too late how high it was and didn't have time to move my hands up to stop it. So I just took it straight to the right side of my face. My first thought was "ow". My second thought was "man am I glad my glasses didn't shatter." And then I panicked and looked for my glasses cause I was worried they DID break. They didn't, but they were about 6 feet behind me on the floor. I tried to get up to play again, but the GC told me to sit down. Probably good that he did cause I felt a little dazed afterwards. I...probably got a minor concussion cause I was a little nauseous and spaced out for the rest of the evening. Fairly certain I got whiplash too since my neck is killing me.

My body kind of hates me now. Hopefully with rest everything will heal on its own, but I'm hoping my neck isn't really screwed up because whiplash injuries can get worse/not improve over time. Either way, number 28 is off to a good start.

Got Horizon Zero Dawn to try as well as the new Fire Emblem for DS. I'm still not done playing through FE Fates though because I'm an idiot and played on Hard to start and the later levels of Conquest are just brutal. Tried Horizon Zero Dawn last night though and it's a fairly pretty looking game. I still managed to do something silly early on though by seeing if the player character would slide gracefully down the side of a mildly inclined slope. Suffice to say, she did not. I think I will gleefully enjoy the slide-squat for the rest of the game. The collision in this game looks like it will be hilarious. The voice acting quality is a little mixed so far too, which is fine cause either it's good or I get a chuckle out of it.

Still waiting to see what's happening with the Starsworn campaign, but I've got some stuff prepared (or at least partially prepared) just in case.

May try to get another Outlast 2 session in this weekend. It will either be that or FINALLY continuing one of the three D&D campaigns I'm in with Shauna and Nick. I haven't done much in the way of editing video, but I got some RPG stuff done as well as played through a bit more of PoE. I got wrecked by the Master Below. Many times. I tried like 7 times each time to get through the fight but the one ability is absolute bullshit. You can't really spread out because of the adds either. So I'll have to rethink strategy on that one I think. Maybe come back when I have one more level and some more appropriate weapons.

Combat Mechanics

I really need to review some of the combat mechanics in 5e it seems. I didn't understand or forgot that there's an entire action to disengage an enemy in combat as I'm really used to being able to use shift in 4e. I think the opportunity attacks are a little more devastating in this edition as well, since when it happens in 4e it tends to be a basic melee attack. Needless to say, I got my ass handed to me a few times I tried to escape enemies in this past weekend's D&D session. 

Mesk ran one more session for HKS to set up his character and I joined in once more playing as the NPC I did last time. I may be joining the regular campaign, which will be interesting as I'm getting rather attached to Renfis (this always happens with me though). I'm definitely more biased towards HKS' side of the campaign though as I'm more interested in the demon side of Mesk's Apex world. Either way, looking forward to seeing the interaction between all the characters when the time comes.

The session went well, and we started in the afternoon, which was really nice because it meant I wasn't up until 3am and hating myself the next day. I was also more or less awake and not struggling as much to recall details late-game. Though, the lack of sleepiness didn't seem to help me remember a lot of vital combat elements. The fights were larger and more complex as well, which I really enjoy, especially from a strategy point of view. 

I really liked the maps/locations we used this time. Having the environment involved in the overall mechanics and story was also interesting. I tried to not inspect every single thing this time, which I hope Mesk was happy with as I know he was scrambling a little last time to populate the rooms with STUFF to find. Also I noticed there was only one door to open, and it was more of a gate. Poor Renfis. 

Also HKS managed to roll around in more stuff due to some bad investigation checks which was just perfect. He's just going to have to roll around in everything from now on whether or not he actually succeeds a check or not. His character is going to think that's just how you look for things. 

In addition to the campaign, also ended up playing a long session of Outlast 2 on Monday. After playing a bit more, I'd say we're more or less enjoying it aside from the stupid pick-axe lady (which I'm sure someone is going to correct us on her real name about a million times once the video is posted). That said, we forgot our protagonist's name at the start of the session so...

We played about 4-5 hours of the game, which was added onto the original 1 and a half. Shauna looked up how far we had to go and apparently we're only on something like 2 or 3 out of 6 chapters. So uh...there's a lot of game left. I also have no idea how I'm going to handle editing this stuff. Usually when I do LPs with Shauna, there's no audio delay between what we see and what the system records. There is a delay here, which means syncing up the audio is going to be an adventure of epic proportions. 

As for my own projects, I picked up Pillars of Eternity again over the weekend in the hopes to finish the game and get it off my current project list. The only problem is there seems to be DLC as well and I'm not sure if I want to delve into that as an LP or not. It could mean a lot more content and A LOT more videos. I have some other games I'm going to want to finish as well...so we'll see what happens. I think I'm at the end of the main quest though. I still need to fight the Master Below, which Shauna says I HAVE to fight. Meaning if I somehow talk my way out of it, I need to reload and get my ass kicked. 

I also continued some work on the RPG. Really all I did was set up waypoints and some dialogue events. I have one string of dialogue that I would, ideally like to do, but it's going to require some mental gymnastics to determine what the order of operations on that is going to be. I've actually fully mapped the layout of Map 2 (not Map 1 cause I'm a little hung up on assets vs the image I have in my head). But I also need to make pig people for Map 2. I at least know how this map will function mechanically. I'll have two options for getting the main door open, a combat route and a puzzle route, cause I know there are people out there who aren't too keen on one or the other. I mean, I know how much Mesk loves puzzles. 

Anyway this week my focus is finishing PoE, having a character ready in case I join the campaign and trying to figure out what I'm going to do about the first area in the RPG.

8am Parade of Cars

I guess they all start work at 8:30-9am cause every single day there seems to be a coordinated exodus from the houses along the back alleyway. I swear there aren't that many properties along the alley though, so I have no idea where they're all coming from, whether they're taking shortcuts of if there's a secret Stepford-esque society I don't know about lurking somewhere in the maze of houses that is my neighbourhood. I'd believe it too. If you walk down one of the centre walkways in that area it's this eerie line of identically built, but slightly different coloured houses and it's quiet aside from the occasional child or dog in the backyards staring out at you with beady little eyes. Whatever it is, it's unsettling.

Anyway I'm like the antithesis of this orderly manifestation. Aside from the off-chance I'm up in time to witness the Parade of Cars, I'm usually the one who's running out of the house late with their hands full pulling on a jacket and trying to juggle my pack, keys and coffee, leaving laundry on the roof of my car, using the air conditioning/heat to dry my hair and eating week-old cookies from the package I left in my car on the way to work.

And these are on the days where I'm not carrying electronics out to the car, or having birds fly into my vehicle, or carting puppies around, or learning that someone took a dump in one of the cars.

I'm super healthy and organized.

While it's still Calgary's rainy, cool months, the season is fast approaching where I'll need to keep the windows open overnight. It'll be too hot in the house otherwise and we all know what that means: Shit that Happens in the Park is about to begin. It is with mixed feelings that I announce this will be the last summer witnessing the events in the park as I am moving again around September. I'll be taking up residence in my grandparent's old house as they have moved to a senior's assisted living home. The neighbourhood is almost deafening in it's quietness every time I've visited and is on a tiny side-road vs at the end of a major roadway. This means no more nights of people screaming about Pokemon in the sound-dish of a park outside, no more creepy singing swing lady, no more people turning around on a narrow one way street and bursting their tires on the curb, and no more street racers turning the greenspace in front of the house into a crash-test course. There is promise of trolling an overly nosey neighbour on the horizon though. This also may mean the return of the Crows as I think that the new neighbourhood is infested with them. Maybe I'll make friends with them this time and have a legion of birds at my commend.

So what does the rest of the spring and summer look like for me?

Well, I may be officially joining Mesk's Starsworn campaign with a regular character vs playing as an array of NPCs. This depends on the availability of the others joining, but either way, I need to seriously think about a character in any case.

Speaking of D&D, going to try to set up a session every other Sunday with Nick and Shauna to get through our own campaigns and make a bit of progress. I still need to produce the videos for these.

I'm going to try and make the RPG playable as one of my top priorities. I have a massive backlog of video, so I don't need to worry about not having any videos to release. The problem is a lot of this video is un-edited, so I really need to get working on the backlog. Top priorities for editing/recording right now are Resident Evil 7, Sonic 2006 and Outlast 2. I still have another special video I'm trying to produce, but, I need the Deletion Ceremony for Evil Within to happen first, which requires Shauna and I to finish re-watching the series (there are reasons).

I've made a lot of progress on writing this year, so that will likely continue. I have identified a number of issues with the narrative that I will go back to fix in the coming weeks. Really, what I need to do is get my documents organized because all of the work is spilt into about 10 pieces over a number of files in about 3 places.

As for current releases, Pillars of Eternity and Dishonored 2 should remain pretty regular. RE7 and Sonic 2006 will be the other ones posted as I finish them. Other than that, I have made it this week's project to get the rest of the Riven videos on YouTube with timestamps as I have left that project stagnant for too long.

Middle of August I'm checking out and disappearing for two weeks. Going to keep contact down to a small group of people and actually take some time to relax for once (I'll likely prep videos to release for two weeks and just press the "publish" button periodically...but it's not like I've been super regular with releases lately anyway).

What does right now look like?

Chaos mostly. Sitting back and watching the fallout of some of the events at work, because there's a lot of things I simply can't do anything about at the moment. One is just watching a person who has been cheating/boosting their work get caught and burned...the other is a little more disheartening. The latter is hard because I want to see these project succeed so badly, but things have been difficult, through no real fault of the particular person I'm working with on the client side. Also saying goodbye (hopefully temporarily) to a friend at work as she leaves to have her baby, but, with a company this small, anyone leaving at this point is kind of sad. I'm lucky I work with some great people.

As for what else is going on...dodgeball has a couple weeks left and then I'm joining in the Teddy for a Toonie tournament. I've checked out of my one job for the summer (aside from one final random shift...but meh). I have yet to decide if I will return in September (probably will just for Tuesday nights). Took a first aid and CPR course over this past weekend, which is probably why I have no idea what day it is most of the time this week. Now I have Stayin' Alive perpetually stuck in my head and know what happens when your eyeball falls out and is still attached by the optic nerve (you can totally still see out of it). Uhhhh all caught up on Game of Thrones, much to Shauna's delight. Carlo intends to do a final session playtest for his Fickle RPG, but not this week cause he's sick. Friday might get more recording done, Saturday is fooooood, Sunday is fooooood and also HKS' final session of pre-campaign Starsworn stuff and then Monday going to be playing Outlast 2 with Shauna in afternoon and evening.

So I'm busy and stressed, but still going. Really looking forward to those August weeks out in the boonies.

Side-tracked

Man, I would not trust a 7-9 year old to hold onto me on a motorbike for extended periods of time. I was going to talk about something else, but then I got side-tracked by a dude on a bike and this tiny little girl hanging onto him. Hey, I could be wrong. Maybe her grip is like a vice.

Anyway the purpose if this post was to share a bit about some RPGs a friend of mine has been running. He's been creating and play-testing games for awhile now. In this case, I've been joining in a few test sessions. The most recent ones we've played are a zombie outbreak in Calgary (I played a character named Tiffany who was an insufferable communications major who is kind of a know-it-all...she was constantly being lit on fire one way or another), an alien invasion playing as ourselves (I broke the soul of an old lady and got blasted in the face with a plasma cannon) and most recently, a few sessions loosely based on the Star Wars universe.

The game mechanics themselves are fairly simple, but the story-telling aspects leave a lot open for possibilities and really are only limited by the creativity of the GM and the players. For example, our last session. Here's my description to Mesk after we finished:

"so how do I describe this last session of Carlo’s fickle RPG…okay we got an old dude to decipher a map while some crazy robed cult dudes shot lasers at us in a hut while worms and preying mantis creatures fought each other. Alex missed when he tried to bomb them with his ship, Jon missed trying to shoot them, Oliver failed his grenade throw by forgetting to activate the grenade before throwing it, I missed hitting a mantis leg with a bar stool and Rob missed shooting the robed guys with a turret. The old dude finished the map, we all got on Alex’s ship and then Rob blew up the shack. The old dude fell into a coma for some reason and the map led us to an empty bit of space where a “ghost ship” jumped in

we decided to get on the ship to investigate, and every euphemism you could think of involving spaceships and fleshy things was made as oliver shot a worm thing, the fleshy bits screamed, we all started hallucinating and fleshy meat copies of ourselves came out to fight us. The party was split, our half was attacked by meat puppies while Alex and Oliver ran to try and kill the thing at the helm of the ship. I lost all my hp to the puppies, Rob lost his steel girder weapon to a flesh wall and then Alex flipped the exploit coin to blow up the constructs and flame thrower the flesh walls where the phrase “what would robo fett do” was uttered. Then a flesh construct of Alex’s character’s father manifested and broke his spirit so he was a weeping wreck on the floor

I got torn apart by flesh puppies, freaked out, rolled really well to launch myself forwards like a torpedo and threw a barstool at the father’s head

oh and I forgot that the flesh construct copy of myself whacked Alex in the face with a meaty barstool

a meat stool if you will

so now we have an old dude who is trying to convince Rob’s character than he can like make flesh constructs of his dead wife and son"

Long story short, Carlo hasn't finished play-testing all the elements, but Fickle RPG and his other games (mostly table-top and RPG) can be found here:
https://horizongamesblog.wordpress.com/2017/04/18/fickle-rpg-v0-5-and-remaining-playtestbrainstorm-ideas/

Touch ALL the Things

Had another session of 5e D&D with Mesk, this time playing with hks. I think this was hks' introduction to Mesk's Starsworn campaign in general, and like me, he hasn't really done too much of this before in the past. Both of us were a little unprepared for the session as we were a little busy during the week. I personally ended up putting all my character details together at the last second, but my liberal arts degree in BS came in handy as I pulled actions and dialogue out of my ass.

This session went way better for me in terms of engaging with the story and the events and taking more of a leading role in terms of exploration and interaction. One of my theories was just it was easier to work with a smaller group of people (i.e. what I'm more used to playing with just Shauna and Nick) and I didn't feel like I was interrupting other people's stories/dialogue. Another idea was that I was just more comfortable in general because I know Mesk and hks and have played other games with them in the past, vs the other group who are all essentially strangers to me. This doesn't mean that I wouldn't play with the other group in the future (cause that was fun too). I just don't know them as well.

Anyway, the campaign took longer than expected because hks and I pretty much went everywhere and touched all the things. We also did it in an order that didn't railroad the plot as much as Mesk anticipated. I became the official door opener somehow and kept exploring and investigating EVERYTHING. Poor Mesk had to make up some things as he went because of it.

I actually got to test out the combat which was fun as well. It's a lot more simplified from 4e D&D in that the abilities and skills are much more limited. In 4e you get a wide array of powers and feats to mix and match for combat. My other D&D campaigns have been mostly focused on the combat vs the storytelling, which is fair considering one group really loves fighting and loot, and the other group was brand new to D&D and hadn't had as much of the experience with the roleplaying aspect. That said, both groups had enough of it to balance. There is definitely more roleplaying in Mesk's campaigns vs combat, which I think is fine when you have that level of content to go through and flesh out. If we spent hours on combat, these sessions would never end (or would need to be paced much differently). An example would be a major fight Nick set up for Shauna and I which took about 4 hours to complete, and included ballistae, giant crocodile god monsters, a group of NPCS (who all uh...died heh) and about 3 or 4 types of lizardmen. In game time was likely about 10-15minutes. Nick gives out a crap ton of experience for these though, which gets us levelling up faster. We're between levels 10 and 12 in the three campaigns we cycle through.

(Nothing was as great as the time we recruited a bunch of giant purple vagina rocks to fight a succubus on a mountain and stop it from opening some sort of portal. We got the dude down to like 5hp left and he tried to escape by shape-shifting into a bat. One of the rocks got an attack of opportunity as he left and it miraculously hit, essentially back-handing the bat and killing the succubus. Nick placed a tiny little blood smear on the rock for our amusement. What made it even better was Nick tried to make him act all cool and dramatic and he got killed for his efforts.)

Mesk's other action that made it take a lot longer was that he made the session a kind of mystery and I'm kind of a sucker for mysteries and problem solving. I play too much Fire Emblem too, so I like the high-level planning and strategy, while trying to think of creative ways to accomplish goals or fights. This is part appealing to my interests and part experience as Nick often rewards us for thinking out situations or battles creatively.

So we opened all the doors, investigated all the things, and touched EVERYTHING. Then I misunderstood some of the backstory and confused both of them by constantly trying to blow up the station when I thought it was compromised. Oops. I'll just write it off as a quirk of the character I was playing.

Anyway, I tried a little harder at the roleplay aspect this time and Mesk seems to think it went well, so hopefully that's a good sign for future sessions. I unfortunately had to quiet down at the end of the session because my voice was starting to go again and it was like...4am when we finished, so the video again will be of varying quality. If Mesk wants me to revoice some things later, I'm totally fine with that.

Again, if I get permission, I will share links to the videos on the blog when they are complete.

Sunday at the Calgary Entertainment Expo 2017

I did not get many pictures today unfortunately. I intended to head down to the con early, but a situation came up at work. It ended up being a bit of a catalyst for a lot of things this week, but that's a story for another time. I'll likely do an update on all that after Dungeons and Dragons tomorrow night (writing this on Friday the week AFTER con). Anyhow, I ventured out one last time for Calgary Entertainment Expo 2017.

Surprisingly enough, it wasn't super busy that day. My main goal was to find Kathleen and hang out with her for awhile. Didn't end up meeting up, but I was able to see what the con looked like on the Sunday. I searched around for people I knew, the LEGO display and just last minute deals in general, but like the people I hoped to run into, they were no where to be found.

Fun story I heard from the con (I haven't confirmed this myself, so feel free to correct me) that Todd Mcfarlane got Stan Lee to come to the Expo despite Stan Lee deciding last year that he didn't want to do comic cons anymore. The stipulation was that since Todd got Stan Lee for the con, he could call the shots at his autograph booth. He mandated that all of his autographs would be free for the fans. So, as far as I am aware, for the whole weekend, fans got free autographs. His line-up was huge every single time I walked by while he was there. Seems like a decent thing to do to let fans see Stan Lee and at the same time give the man a break (especially since he agreed to come).

This is an awful picture of me, but I was trying to subtly take a picture of a mysterious gathering of cosplayers all standing in a circle. Occasionally a couple would be in the centre of the circle, but they weren't dancing or anything just...standing there or fixing costume elements. It was a HUGE circle too, so you wouldn't be able to talk to someone on the other side. I'm just going to assume it was a cosplay cult ritual to banish furries to the shadow realm (there was a furry in the centre of the circle at one point). 

Wandered around a bit more afterwards. I ended up getting stuck in a mass of about 100 people in one hall where one guy decided that a stressful, claustrophobic situation was the best time to hit on me and try to strike up a conversation. Like...good job trying to start a conversation I guess, but what about my stressed and strung-out face in the middle of a bunch of sweaty, smelly people screamed "hi I'm interested"? I pretended not to hear him with the excuse that he couldn't possibly be talking to me and escaped to pet a cute pit bull at one of the animal rescue booths. I was also an animal that needed rescuing so it was fitting.

I went outside to get some air and to avoid having a panic attack and ended up sitting next to a group of kids whipping tiny Pokeballs at each other as hard as they could. I watched a Batman cosplayer climb onto a statue and pose as a Joker cosplayer screamed at him until a group of people started smoking next to me.

Lessons learned for next year at this con. A lot more planning is required beyond the Thursday night, I need a person to distract me from the chaos, and I apparently can click and drag photos to wrap text around them. Why haven't I thought of this before...

Overall, mixed feelings about the con this year. Was super fun initially, but it definitely lost traction for me as the weekend carried on. I don't know if it was my attitude or just me getting old, but it was...different for me this year. The Expo volunteers and staff were excellent. They finally have a lot of the processes down to a science and the crowds are a lot better managed. I will be returning in future years, but hopefully they have more media guests I'm interested in seeing next year.

Saturday at the Calgary Entertainment Expo 2017

My main goal for Saturday at comic con was to see Mara Wilson's panel and to enjoy some of the amazing cosplay at the con. The weirdest thing is this was a couple days ago and I completely forget a few of the reasons I went to the con and what I did after Mara's panel, but I'm hoping it comes back to me as I write. It's there...I just need to find it in my head again...

Thank god for pictures.

I took the train down to comic con on Saturday as I didn't have to haul any goods back home and I didn't want to try to find a parking space down at the grounds. I ended up sitting across from a couple dressed as Rey from Star Wars and Black Canary, whom I would by chance be sitting behind during Mara's panel. Even at the entrance to the grounds, I could see there was a lot more people milling about. Also it wasn't freezing cold and raining.

I hurried to try and get to the panel, worried that I'd miss it as I had about 5 minutes to spare. I had to stop and get a picture of the only person I have ever encountered cosplaying as Red.

So that was super exciting. I ran up to the empty line where a volunteer told me to check with the volunteers at the next door to see if they'd let me in. They mentioned the Boyce Theatre might already be full (it was not), but that I might be lucky. I ran over to the door where I waited behind a couple trying to get inside the building for a panel. They were arguing with the dude for a bit until the volunteer finally got fed up and just told them to go over to the Corral entrance to try their luck there, and then walk inside to sneak over to the Boyce Theatre. Being the creeper I am, I just acted casual and followed them inside.

Though I kept thinking that I would be accidentally walking into some random panel by accident as I never ACTUALLY heard the couple say they were seeking out the Mara Wilson panel. I just guessed.

The theatre was about 3/4 full, so the volunteer was probably just saying it might be full in case they wouldn't let me in. The couple I saw on the train ended up sitting in front of me (that's one of them in the lower right there), but I'm antisocial so I just played Fire Emblem for 2 minutes until Mara was introduced.

And she was introduced with the wrong pronunciation of Mara. I initially felt like an idiot as I had asked a few people outside about where the panel line was for Mara Wilson and thought I had been saying it wrong the whole time. Turns out I was right (yay). It ended up being what I hope was a running joke as the moderator kept saying her name wrong, but Mara was really good about it.

The panel was excellent and Mara was really easy to listen to as she talked about some of her experiences as a child actor, her book and her real love of storytelling. She interacted really well with the audience as well, but to be fair, this has to be one of the only panels I've been in where there wasn't a REALLY awkward question of some sort. I think the most borderline question was something to do with Doug Walker (Nostalgia Critic) and a past feud between them.

My pictures are the blurriest pictures. The spotlights were really bright though.

One of the key things I was glad to go and hear about was her experiences with anxiety and how she deals with panic attacks and feeling uncomfortable. She recommended a lot of books (both about that topic and a bunch of her other current/favourite reads) and a few of her videos (one of which I used that night as I was really struggling with anxiety over the weekend). She gave a lot of advice about interacting with people online and how you don't need to take everything personally, or read things when their sole purpose is to upset you.

Overall, a fantastic panel and while it was the only one I went to, it was definitely worth attending.

And then I lost all the change out of my jacket pocket in the mass exodus from the theatre. I heard a little jingling noise and looked back to see a quarter. Had I stopped to retrieve it, I would have been trampled or tripped over so I just...left my $3.50 on the ground. Guess someone had a lucky find.

I wandered the con and picked up the Cyanide and Happiness game for Oliver while I was wandering around. I meant to get a picture of how busy the hall was, but this picture didn't really do it justice.

THIS ONE, however, gives a little bit better of an idea. I think this was the crowd that really threw me over the edge for that day as it was a little difficult to navigate anywhere. I went back for the "I Was Groot" coaster because it was so morbidly amusing, then I tried to search for the LEGO display, which I regret to say either does not exist this year, or I did not find it.

I ran into a few people I knew and chatted for awhile. They spent most of their day attending panels and autograph sessions (they were getting the Popfigure versions of all the media guests signed 'cause that's their thing). I should have stuck with them at that point as the crowd really got to me without any other people to distract me. I did, however, see some great cosplay.

I am so sad this picture ended up blurry (maybe I put my thumb on the lens or something), but his Pyramid Head was the best. He was wandering around the con with the Pyramid head gait, slowly limping and dragging the weapon. Everyone was hilariously freaked out except this tiny little 8-10 year old who walked up to him with a huge grin and asked for a picture with him. Pyramid Head held her head with one hand as a pose.

After that I saw about 5 different Pyramid Heads around the con that were good, but weren't at that level.

This in general was just amazing. The picture really doesn't do it justice as a volunteer was trying to break up the improvised photo session. It was a little ironic because there was absolutely no blockage here and had these cosplayers ventured past the autograph area they would have been trapped in a sweaty sea of people.

Have to admit this was one of my more favourite Wonder Woman costumes that I've seen. Loved the boots.

Another thing the con had everywhere this year was a bunch of life-sized Daleks. I spotted about 4 of them scattered around the con at different booths. There were also large cut-outs of bears everywhere, but I forgot to snap a picture of those.

Wandered back outside to get some fresh air and return to the Big Four and artist's alley. I snapped a few pictures outside to share an idea of how many people were on the grounds on Saturday.

A lot of the cosplayers, especially with the larger costumes, were wandering around outside to cool off and get pictures with people. My favourite is when cosplayers are taking a break as you just see someone like the Wolverine sitting around eating over-priced perogies on a sidewalk curb.

Speaking of Wolverine, I had a Wolverine cough in my face when I was in the main exhibition hall. So that was nice. I blame the mild cold I have now on him.

I found Justin at the tabletop gaming area (as I mentioned on Thursday, he teaches people how to play the games and helps run the tournaments on Sunday). I missed him on the not busy night, so I made sure to seek him out on Saturday.

Afterwards I headed upstairs to buy some soap and a bath bomb from Wednesday and ended up getting a really adorable Eevee hat that I'm not sure if I want to keep or donate to Extra Life (it's REALLY SOFT). Once I wandered upstairs a bit and (unsuccessfully) searched for the LEGO display, I decided I had enough of the con for Saturday.

I would return for awhile on Sunday...which was a little less fun than anticipated.

STAY TUNED.