Posted on by Alexander Case

Quick Notes on Projects

Life stuff has gotten in the way a little when it comes to doing my regular weekend reviews. However, there is some good news! Nintendo Power Retrospectives will be coming back next month, as I’ve figured out a few of the technical hiccups I’ve been running into.

Posted on by Alexander Case

Deadly Fight in Hiroshima Video Review Blocked

As a quick heads up – my video review of Deadly Fight in Hiroshima has been blocked internationally by Toei. My written review is still up, but the video review is done. I might try re-recording the review as video only, but honestly, the video has had a pretty good life. This is the problem with trying to discuss a visual medium in another visual medium – sometimes the people who own the works want more control of the dialog around the work than the people doing the talking – which is even more of a situation if you’re working with creators from countries which don’t exactly have Fair Use protections enshrouded in law. Ah well.

Please support my Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/countzeroor
Buy me a coffee at Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/countzero
Watch my Live-Streams on http://twitch.tv/countzeroor
Check out my Let’s Plays at https://www.youtube.com/@CountZeroOrPlays

Posted on by Alexander Case

Vlog: Why I Switched Web Hosting Providers

I’ve changed my web hosting from WordPress.com to Bluehost, and I think it’s important to talk about why.

Please support my Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/countzeroor
Buy me a coffee at Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/countzero
Watch my Live-Streams on http://twitch.tv/countzeroor
Check out my Let’s Plays at https://www.youtube.com/@CountZeroOrPlays

Donation Links…

Posted on by Alexander Case

How To Support The Blog

Having moved hosting companies from directly going through WordPress to going through Bluehost, I’ve possibly gotten some new readers through the site getting re-indexed. So, while I have included notes at the bottom of each post on how to support the site, I haven’t elaborated any further on those methods. So, here’s a more in-depth list of ways to support me.

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Posted on by Alexander Case

My Next Two Let’s Plays

We’re coming up the end of Mark of the Ninja, so it’s time to announce my next couple games – if you’ve been watching my Twitch Channel (http://twitch.tv/countzeroor), you’ll already know what these are, but if you haven’t (and you should) here’s the picks – determined by a semi-unscientific poll on one of the Discord servers I’m on, since I didn’t get any responses on the Patreon. Both of these are games on my Video Game New Year’s Resolution List.

Next up is probably one of the biggest shames on my Pile of Shame—a game that I’ve played extensively, including for Nintendo Power Retrospectives, but never got around to beating (at least not that I remember)—Super Mario World. This Let’s Play is already completely in the bag, with all the videos recorded as of this writing.

After that, continuing my pincer strategy of making my way through both ends of the Final Fantasy series, it’s Final Fantasy XVI, including the DLC.

Please support my Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/countzeroor
Buy me a coffee at Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/countzero
Watch my Live-Streams on http://twitch.tv/countzeroor
Check out my Let’s Plays at https://www.youtube.com/@CountZeroOrPlays

Posted on by Alexander Case

Why I Switched My Hosting from WordPress.com

You may have noticed, in the past few weeks, that my site has been looking a little weird. That it’s had a few visual hiccups in terms of how it looks and is presented. (If you’re only reading everything I write on Patreon, you probably haven’t noticed). That’s because I’ve switched my web hosting from WordPress.com to Bluehost, and I feel it’s worth mentioning why.

A smaller reason why is, honestly, it’s slightly cheaper. I was paying about $300+ a year for my hosting through WordPress.com, in order to get a plan that allowed for advertising (in an attempt to finally reach my Google Adsense payment threshold). I’m paying about $250-ish a year with Bluehost, so that’s significantly less expensive.

The larger reason is that the person who runs WordPress.com, Matt Mullenweg, has been, frankly, acting like a git. He’s been harassing hosting providers and alienating plugin authors. It’s been involved enough that TechCrunch had to write an explainer article. In short, he’s he kind of git that, candidly, is causing problems for the WordPress platform as a whole – to enough of a degree where I can sincerely see WordPress forking, the way that OpenOffice forked to LibreOffice. If that happens, and the fork comes, if I’m still on WordPress.com for hosting, I can’t go either way. So, I’m off WordPress.com, and am now on Bluehost on the foreseeable future.

As a quick note – this has broken Email Subscriptions. In the interim, I’d recommend using RSS, or following my BlueSky or Mastodon accounts.

Posted on by Alexander Case

Quick Notes On Upcoming Content

The next game I’ll be Let’s Playing once I finish Halo Infinite will be Citizen Sleeper.

Also, I fell a little behind on putting episodes together, so I will be putting together a Youtube video on my experiences getting my CPAP machine and getting diagnosed with Sleep Apnea.

Posted on by Alexander Case

One other Medical Note – Sleep Apnea

One other quick medical note – that I’m not just posting here because I need to fill space, but because this is a sincere reminder. I recently got tested for Sleep Apnea, and it was determined that I do, in fact, have Sleep Apnea and will be getting a CPAP machine in the not-too-distant future. Again, I’m probably going to go more-in-depth with this once I actually get the CPAP machine. However, suffice it to say that over the past few years I have had some problems sleeping, and family members have reported that I snore – along with my observing some of my own snoring while napping.

This, combined with paying attention to my sleep data on my FitBit and with it how rested I am or am not lead me to come to the conclusion that I should take on a sleep study and get tested. I’m glad I did that – pro wrestlers from promotions like ECW have died from Sleep Apnea (Johnny Grunge), and Ryan Davis (who had the pleasure to meet at San Diego Comic Con the one year I went) had to deal with it it as well – and my Mom also experiences it – so I felt it was worth getting tested. So, this is my prompt to you, my readers and viewers, if you have problems sleeping, if you have issues with snoring or other respiratory issues, if any sleep-tracker you use shows that say, you’re losing over an hour of sleep a night, consider getting tested for Sleep Apnia – it could improve your sleep and save your life.

Posted on by Alexander Case

Quick Site News Note: Upcoming Medical Procedure

As a quick Site news note – I will be undergoing surgery for that lump on the side of my face that you probably have noticed getting gradually larger over the past few months in the middle of March (specifically on the 14th and 15th). Naturally, this will cause some disruption to my stream schedule and workflow. I will try to get enough of a buffer together that this shouldn’t cause too much of a problem, but I will likely not be streaming that weekend.

I’m probably going to do something of a video about this after the procedure to talk about the experience, at least a little. However, if there’s a disruption in my schedule around that time – that’s why.

As a quick heads up – for the foreseeable future, my streams will be on hold. My last few attempts at streaming had about 65% of the frames dropped, and that was with attempting to shut down any system processes that used network traffic and after replacing my router.

Part of these issues were what lead to the Lost Episode of my Super Robot Wars V Let’s Play, which I got into on the May 30th installment. Going forward, Let’s Play installments will be recorded offline, and then uploaded to YouTube. This may lead to something of a delay in cases where I run into footage that triggers automated copyright bots.

I apologize for the hassle – I do want to start streaming again at some point in the future. Some bandwidth tests outside of Speedtest that I’ve run have lead me to suspect that my upstream bandwidth is being throttled.

This is something of an unwanted reminder of the importance of Net Neutrality – and I recommend readers contact their legislators in their country of residence to make sure that no-strings-attached Net Neutrality is made the law of the land.