Stream Update Early 2021

Hey Guys,(tl;dr at the bottom)

Some of you know it already but in January a few things will change about the stream, specifically about the schedule of the stream starts.

You know that I struggle with my toilet cycles since the cancer surgeries. It is very hard to predict when I have to go and impossible to say how often I have to go in what time frame until "it stops" and when I feel I have to go, I have to go. This robs me of the ability to schedule my day completely freely and I want to change something about it that hopefully gives me the freedom I want.

The biggest problem so far was maintaining a proper sleep schedule. Not only are the streams sometimes longer than planned but when I want to go to bed it happens often that I can't because the toilet cycle started and I have to wait until it's over. This results in a chain reaction where I'd sleep in and the stream starts later and later and the only way to fight it is sleeping less. Until now I scheduled it so that I always try to wake up around the same time and if I only get a few hours of sleep, that's life. Result is that I feel often tired and exhausted.

The way I want to fight it now is to completely open up my sleep schedule. That means I will go to bed when I am tired and ready and still sleep around 8 hours. Depending on stream lengths and when I go to bed will result into very different stream starts and day cycles for me. One stream might start noon, another 9pm in the evening.

What I hope to achieve is to be more productive. I have some projects in mind I would like to work on and also finally make some youtube videos I think about but never find time to work on but as it is right now I have a hard time getting into the day and after streams I waste a lot of time trying to sleep when I still have to go to the toilet every 15min. That's time I could just spend working and just go to bed when I am ready. I also hope to have more energy generally, more time to work out and feel less stressed.

I not only see positive things about it though. I had my stream schedule now for a long time and viewer numbers might suffer from it due to people not being able to catch the stream at their usual times, it also feels bad for me of course "taking it" from some people like that. It might also not work out the way I hope it does. Since my inner clock will be completely screwed I might not be able to gain any energy out of it and feel even worse generally.

That's why it will be a test for one month. Through January I will try to live like that and see how it affects me, my productivity and the stream. At the end of the month I will reflect on it and also make a survey for the community to tell me how you felt about specific points.


Speedrun content:

I set on a personal goal for my first touch with FF9, 8:49:59. Sticking too long to a new speedrun is something very unhealthy for me. Learning the run, getting into it, developing a feeling for the movement and strats, researching and learning the mechanics and practicing everything are all things that require much more time and energy than farming a speedrun I know for a long time already so I don't want to "overgrind" it on my first approach, we will then return sometime later and improve it.

After that goal we make a return to FF7, this time any%. I'll learn and route the run with slots and farm a good time for it. At the very least a better time than my No Slots PB which should not take too long but I will of course extend the grind if I am not happy with the run.

After that it's hard to settle on something specific since I don't know how long it will take and what the circumstances are then but there are quiet a few things we have to look at in the future. BoF2, FF7R and SoM sub 1:40 are probably the closest contenders.

That's it for a general update for early 2021 around here. I hope you set some good new year's resolutions for yourself and at the very least try to stay happy and healthy. Thank you everyone.

tl;dr:
- my sleep schedule will be random next month and as a result so are the stream starts to see if it's better for me and the stream, reflection on it and survey end of January
- We grind FF9 sub 8:50 and then go back to FF7 and do any%