Kinda Anxious Sunday
Aug. 23rd, 2020 10:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickIt's my own dumb fault -- one of the songs from the "Vampair" playlist last night was "The Art Of Poisoning," by Creature Feature, and while it's an awesome beat, I probably shouldn't have listened to it more than once, given that one of my main paranoid feelings these days involves the worry of cleaning chemicals ending up in my food. Couple that with Mom doing some cleaning around the house today, and. . .yeah, I had to deliberately pull my brain away from some anxious imaginings a few times! Fortunate for me there was another, even better song I can obsess over if necessary to keep my mind off things. . .
Even with not having the best mental health day, though, it was a pretty decent (if hot and muggy -- stayed the day in the AC) Sunday:
-->Spent a good chunk of the day on the YouTubes:
A) More TED-Ed riddle videos, because why not! Even if I can't solve them, I still enjoy watching them:
1. A Ragnarok-themed riddle (the actual Norse end of the world, not the Thor movie) about tracing a path over the snake that's eaten Vahalla to split it open and destroy it, without crossing any particular portion more than once (though you can cross your path where the snake crosses itself. (It's graph theory, and the trick is to find the spots where there's an odd number of "edges" coming out of a "node").
2. Sea monsters threaten an island city, demanding a ransom of pearls that can be divided equally between the seven lords, the ten commanders each lord has, and the twelve minions each commander has (so seven, eleven, and thirteen to make sure everyone gets a share). But the only pearls you have on hand are labeled in a long-lost language! What do you do? (Look for patterns, because there's something interesting about the number you get when you multiply seven times eleven times thirteen, one thousand and one. . .)
3. ModleVort is after you, but you've managed to trap him on a cursed board to buy yourself some time! But the rules of the game are as thus – pick four distinct, whole, positive numbers; ModleVort gets to choose one; you have to pick a square for him to move to whose center is exactly that number of spaces away. If you can't pick a square, ModleVort breaks free and kills you! How do you keep him trapped so that your friends can get there to help you? (Remember what you know about Pythagoras and his theorems, and remember diagonal moves are a legit play. Alternatively, as stated in the comments, spend so long deciding on your numbers ModleVort never gets to choose a number and move before your friends get there XD)
4. You're in a race to save your uncle, in a car of his own design. The car is very shitty and you'll need to take a shortcut over a ravine to win, which will require you to use the thrusters – but apparently, the thrusters each make something in the car go haywire, which in turn could lead to the ignition exploding, the oxygen levels depleting, or the reactor in the car leaking. How do you know which thrusters are safe to engage to make the jump? (By looking at each haywire thing and seeing how it matches up to the catastrophic failures, then determining which thrusters trigger the dangerous haywires. Alternatively, you lose the race because your uncle will probably be returned by the gang once they realize what a danger he is to society.)
5. Dragon jousting! We all like that, correct? Unfortunately, it's not dragons fighting each other, but merely serving as steeds to other magical creatures as they go about determining who gets to rule the center realm. You're the official scorekeeper, but you've overslept the day of the tournaments, and need to get up to speed quickly – and the wizard you bribed for info turns out to be cursed to lie even in writing. Your boss, fortunately, is currently oblivious to your failures and actually provides a bit of helpful information (the matches have been VERY low-scoring, and every team has played at least once), so how do you fix the card before you show it to him? (By realizing you can eliminate everything the wizard put on said card, and use the boss's information to figure out what the actual correct answers are – for example, the wizard said one team has played two matches, and the other only one, so you know that has to be the other way around.)
6. Your team at the superconductor lab has been scattered across eleven pocket dimensions! Your only hope for getting home is an unfinished robot with two levers and a button. You can change the position of exactly one lever to "lock" your dimensional position into its brain. Problem is, it teleports between pocket dimensions completely at random; its technology will interfere with the radios you have, so you won't be able to communicate once it's in action; and if the button is pressed, it will only teleport those who have pulled a lever home – and then apparently shut down, leaving any people who didn't get a chance to mess with it trapped. Also for some reason you can't tie a note to the stupid thing. How do you get everyone home? (By volunteering to be the button pusher, and designating one of the levers as "visits" and the other as "move it on." People only move the "visit" lever if it's in the "up" position – if it's down, they use the other lever, and you reset it once it hits you. It's going to take quite a few teleports, but eventually you'll see the robot enough times with the "visit" lever pulled down to be sure that all of the other members have touched it.)
7. And then, a little later, figuring out in which corner of a room to put a sunlight diffuser so as to flood a vampire's lair with sunlight, given that you know the Southwest corner is out because that's the spot the sunlight will enter, and it will bounce off the walls at a 45-degree angle until it hits a corner. (The trick here is to note that the way the light moves means that, when plotted out on coordinate paper, the light only moves through points where both the x and y-axis values are even, or both odd – so you pick the corner that fulfills that criteria!)
B) Finally pulled myself away from those to actually watch the latest Fun With Shorts – more Lone Ranger cartoons! Or, rather, a Tonto cartoon – LR doesn't even appear in this one! Instead, it's Tonto up against an evil geologist making "devil dolls" and trying to scare or kill people away with black magic. Tonto and his eagle manage to save the day, of course, but it's still a fun ride. Especially when the villain angrily berates Tonto for not believing, and thus not dying, when he tries to kill him by stabbing his "devil doll." XD Like, dude, you really think your victim is just gonna lay there and take it?
C) Then it was onto Call Me Kevin in the evening, with:
1. Bad Guys At School – A pretty jank Steam game about doing various "pranks" around school to earn reputation. Pranks include stuff like tagging the school walls with spray paint, and setting off a firecracker in the principal's office. Kevin, however, found that you can actually lift students above your head and yeet them into the horizon; run them over with a steamroller (they don't die, but they DO get hilariously compressed for a little bit); and jump off the edge of the world, encounter a shark, and PICK UP THE SHARK AND PUT IT IN THE SCHOOL POOL. Basically the game is bad but it is bad in that wonderful way where you can make a LOT of your own fun. And Kevin did that in SPADES. XD
2. Some cleaning games, like Street Cleaning Simulator 2011! Yes, apparently that is a thing. A very janky, poorly-put-together thing – poor Kevin was struggling for AGES with the controls – and then, after all that, he barely even got to clean his own parking lot. And Serial Cleaner, where you're a guy who cleans up crime scenes – not for the cops, probably for the murderers. Involves vacuuming up blood in a forest and throwing bodies into the trunk of your car! Kevin liked it until he got caught too much. XD And finally Viscera Cleanup Detail, which – well, you can probably figure it out. XD Kevin somehow found a way to make the crime scenes DIRTIER by accidentally walking in the blood and then emptying his dirty bucket all over the floor. XD Oh Kevo. . .
D) And then it was time for some GrayStillPlays, which included:
1. More Henry Stickmin Collection – going through more of the "Ghost Inmate" endings, and in these, the Toppats have actually launched their satellite! So now we have space adventures, including Henry going to steal their big-ass emerald on his modified space scooter, and Henry getting captured for the indignities he's inflicted on the Toppats and having to escape. XD Both paths included many delightful fails and lots of destruction – including Henry accidentally firing a super-laser at the Earth. Gray was pleased. XD Also, more fun with Raycon earbuds, here defined as "whacking them out of a pinata with a hatchet." Raycon must think he's doing SOMETHING right to keep sponsoring him like this!
2. More Happy Wheels – yup, everyone's favorite gorefest is back! From delivering coke (nope, not the soda) to choosing whether people lived or died, blood was split all over the board. Though Gray's actual favorite accomplishment on this board was in fact a bottle flip challenge where he managed to land a bottle on the secret invisible ledge. Which, hey, seriously, good going dude! I'm proud of you. :)
3. And more GTA V, where Gray created a stairway to Hell (which was basically copy-pasting the same set of stairs and on-fire platform about a kajillion times because he maxed out the skybox. . .and then constantly accidentally flinging himself off into space as he tried to ride down it on a scooter), and then created Hell itself on the ground (meteors! roiling ocean waves! micro-gravity! giving Florida Man superpowers and then cloning him a hundred times! He had to put the game into slow-motion so we could actually see the chaos!). It was GLORIOUS. I have no idea how he intends to do anything else as magnificent with the game. XD
-->Messed around some in Sims 4 -- looked for more Fallout 4 lots and whatnot for a while on the Gallery, then made my "Bloodlines Alice and Cheshire" household in Create A Sim and played around with outfits for Alice for a little bit. Came up with some stuff that I feel is at least somewhat fitting for her adventures in and around Los Angeles. I still kind of want to do a save file where I send Victor and Alice to college together, then Victor gets wrapped up in the Fallout 4 apocalypse and has to do a Rags To Riches challenge, while Alice gets up getting turned into a vampire and has to do a vampire challenge of some description before they meet up again. I just need to get a save file that revamps a bunch of EA's worst builds first so I don't have to do it. And then figure out which neighborhoods to turn into the Commonwealth and Bloodlines!L.A. (I mean, I suppose Del Sol Valley is the obvious choice, but it be so small. . .) Something to consider later!
-->Wrote some more on Chapter 12 of "Secundus 2" -- Clara has made the big announcement of "screw the teaching job here, I'm in love with Emmett and want to move to Secundus." XD I mean, we all knew it was coming, right? Best part is, I'm literally about a page away from the end, so I should be able to wrap this up on Tuesday! So this is definitely getting posted next Saturday evening -- and then I just have to edit and post the epilogue chapter, which I think I can get done in September. In fact, let's see. . . *creates the last chapter file* Yeah, it's ten pages. I should have that done by mid-September at the latest! w000! :D
-->And then I caught up on webcomics before doing my Valice Multiverse queue -- one ask, two threads. Not bad, not bad. Also got a small head start on the pictures for this week's Newcrest Adventures update (more of Wheatley at his doctor job, then a date between Geeker and Dario) -- should see about getting a couple more before I hit the sack. Also have to answer the usual comment. . .typical Sunday evening stuff.
And that's about it! Time to wrap up, head to bed, and hope I don't have nightmares. Need some sleep before I go to work tomorrow, brain! Yes, I know, I don't want to go either, but this is the life we're living. *deep sigh* Night all!
Even with not having the best mental health day, though, it was a pretty decent (if hot and muggy -- stayed the day in the AC) Sunday:
-->Spent a good chunk of the day on the YouTubes:
A) More TED-Ed riddle videos, because why not! Even if I can't solve them, I still enjoy watching them:
1. A Ragnarok-themed riddle (the actual Norse end of the world, not the Thor movie) about tracing a path over the snake that's eaten Vahalla to split it open and destroy it, without crossing any particular portion more than once (though you can cross your path where the snake crosses itself. (It's graph theory, and the trick is to find the spots where there's an odd number of "edges" coming out of a "node").
2. Sea monsters threaten an island city, demanding a ransom of pearls that can be divided equally between the seven lords, the ten commanders each lord has, and the twelve minions each commander has (so seven, eleven, and thirteen to make sure everyone gets a share). But the only pearls you have on hand are labeled in a long-lost language! What do you do? (Look for patterns, because there's something interesting about the number you get when you multiply seven times eleven times thirteen, one thousand and one. . .)
3. ModleVort is after you, but you've managed to trap him on a cursed board to buy yourself some time! But the rules of the game are as thus – pick four distinct, whole, positive numbers; ModleVort gets to choose one; you have to pick a square for him to move to whose center is exactly that number of spaces away. If you can't pick a square, ModleVort breaks free and kills you! How do you keep him trapped so that your friends can get there to help you? (Remember what you know about Pythagoras and his theorems, and remember diagonal moves are a legit play. Alternatively, as stated in the comments, spend so long deciding on your numbers ModleVort never gets to choose a number and move before your friends get there XD)
4. You're in a race to save your uncle, in a car of his own design. The car is very shitty and you'll need to take a shortcut over a ravine to win, which will require you to use the thrusters – but apparently, the thrusters each make something in the car go haywire, which in turn could lead to the ignition exploding, the oxygen levels depleting, or the reactor in the car leaking. How do you know which thrusters are safe to engage to make the jump? (By looking at each haywire thing and seeing how it matches up to the catastrophic failures, then determining which thrusters trigger the dangerous haywires. Alternatively, you lose the race because your uncle will probably be returned by the gang once they realize what a danger he is to society.)
5. Dragon jousting! We all like that, correct? Unfortunately, it's not dragons fighting each other, but merely serving as steeds to other magical creatures as they go about determining who gets to rule the center realm. You're the official scorekeeper, but you've overslept the day of the tournaments, and need to get up to speed quickly – and the wizard you bribed for info turns out to be cursed to lie even in writing. Your boss, fortunately, is currently oblivious to your failures and actually provides a bit of helpful information (the matches have been VERY low-scoring, and every team has played at least once), so how do you fix the card before you show it to him? (By realizing you can eliminate everything the wizard put on said card, and use the boss's information to figure out what the actual correct answers are – for example, the wizard said one team has played two matches, and the other only one, so you know that has to be the other way around.)
6. Your team at the superconductor lab has been scattered across eleven pocket dimensions! Your only hope for getting home is an unfinished robot with two levers and a button. You can change the position of exactly one lever to "lock" your dimensional position into its brain. Problem is, it teleports between pocket dimensions completely at random; its technology will interfere with the radios you have, so you won't be able to communicate once it's in action; and if the button is pressed, it will only teleport those who have pulled a lever home – and then apparently shut down, leaving any people who didn't get a chance to mess with it trapped. Also for some reason you can't tie a note to the stupid thing. How do you get everyone home? (By volunteering to be the button pusher, and designating one of the levers as "visits" and the other as "move it on." People only move the "visit" lever if it's in the "up" position – if it's down, they use the other lever, and you reset it once it hits you. It's going to take quite a few teleports, but eventually you'll see the robot enough times with the "visit" lever pulled down to be sure that all of the other members have touched it.)
7. And then, a little later, figuring out in which corner of a room to put a sunlight diffuser so as to flood a vampire's lair with sunlight, given that you know the Southwest corner is out because that's the spot the sunlight will enter, and it will bounce off the walls at a 45-degree angle until it hits a corner. (The trick here is to note that the way the light moves means that, when plotted out on coordinate paper, the light only moves through points where both the x and y-axis values are even, or both odd – so you pick the corner that fulfills that criteria!)
B) Finally pulled myself away from those to actually watch the latest Fun With Shorts – more Lone Ranger cartoons! Or, rather, a Tonto cartoon – LR doesn't even appear in this one! Instead, it's Tonto up against an evil geologist making "devil dolls" and trying to scare or kill people away with black magic. Tonto and his eagle manage to save the day, of course, but it's still a fun ride. Especially when the villain angrily berates Tonto for not believing, and thus not dying, when he tries to kill him by stabbing his "devil doll." XD Like, dude, you really think your victim is just gonna lay there and take it?
C) Then it was onto Call Me Kevin in the evening, with:
1. Bad Guys At School – A pretty jank Steam game about doing various "pranks" around school to earn reputation. Pranks include stuff like tagging the school walls with spray paint, and setting off a firecracker in the principal's office. Kevin, however, found that you can actually lift students above your head and yeet them into the horizon; run them over with a steamroller (they don't die, but they DO get hilariously compressed for a little bit); and jump off the edge of the world, encounter a shark, and PICK UP THE SHARK AND PUT IT IN THE SCHOOL POOL. Basically the game is bad but it is bad in that wonderful way where you can make a LOT of your own fun. And Kevin did that in SPADES. XD
2. Some cleaning games, like Street Cleaning Simulator 2011! Yes, apparently that is a thing. A very janky, poorly-put-together thing – poor Kevin was struggling for AGES with the controls – and then, after all that, he barely even got to clean his own parking lot. And Serial Cleaner, where you're a guy who cleans up crime scenes – not for the cops, probably for the murderers. Involves vacuuming up blood in a forest and throwing bodies into the trunk of your car! Kevin liked it until he got caught too much. XD And finally Viscera Cleanup Detail, which – well, you can probably figure it out. XD Kevin somehow found a way to make the crime scenes DIRTIER by accidentally walking in the blood and then emptying his dirty bucket all over the floor. XD Oh Kevo. . .
D) And then it was time for some GrayStillPlays, which included:
1. More Henry Stickmin Collection – going through more of the "Ghost Inmate" endings, and in these, the Toppats have actually launched their satellite! So now we have space adventures, including Henry going to steal their big-ass emerald on his modified space scooter, and Henry getting captured for the indignities he's inflicted on the Toppats and having to escape. XD Both paths included many delightful fails and lots of destruction – including Henry accidentally firing a super-laser at the Earth. Gray was pleased. XD Also, more fun with Raycon earbuds, here defined as "whacking them out of a pinata with a hatchet." Raycon must think he's doing SOMETHING right to keep sponsoring him like this!
2. More Happy Wheels – yup, everyone's favorite gorefest is back! From delivering coke (nope, not the soda) to choosing whether people lived or died, blood was split all over the board. Though Gray's actual favorite accomplishment on this board was in fact a bottle flip challenge where he managed to land a bottle on the secret invisible ledge. Which, hey, seriously, good going dude! I'm proud of you. :)
3. And more GTA V, where Gray created a stairway to Hell (which was basically copy-pasting the same set of stairs and on-fire platform about a kajillion times because he maxed out the skybox. . .and then constantly accidentally flinging himself off into space as he tried to ride down it on a scooter), and then created Hell itself on the ground (meteors! roiling ocean waves! micro-gravity! giving Florida Man superpowers and then cloning him a hundred times! He had to put the game into slow-motion so we could actually see the chaos!). It was GLORIOUS. I have no idea how he intends to do anything else as magnificent with the game. XD
-->Messed around some in Sims 4 -- looked for more Fallout 4 lots and whatnot for a while on the Gallery, then made my "Bloodlines Alice and Cheshire" household in Create A Sim and played around with outfits for Alice for a little bit. Came up with some stuff that I feel is at least somewhat fitting for her adventures in and around Los Angeles. I still kind of want to do a save file where I send Victor and Alice to college together, then Victor gets wrapped up in the Fallout 4 apocalypse and has to do a Rags To Riches challenge, while Alice gets up getting turned into a vampire and has to do a vampire challenge of some description before they meet up again. I just need to get a save file that revamps a bunch of EA's worst builds first so I don't have to do it. And then figure out which neighborhoods to turn into the Commonwealth and Bloodlines!L.A. (I mean, I suppose Del Sol Valley is the obvious choice, but it be so small. . .) Something to consider later!
-->Wrote some more on Chapter 12 of "Secundus 2" -- Clara has made the big announcement of "screw the teaching job here, I'm in love with Emmett and want to move to Secundus." XD I mean, we all knew it was coming, right? Best part is, I'm literally about a page away from the end, so I should be able to wrap this up on Tuesday! So this is definitely getting posted next Saturday evening -- and then I just have to edit and post the epilogue chapter, which I think I can get done in September. In fact, let's see. . . *creates the last chapter file* Yeah, it's ten pages. I should have that done by mid-September at the latest! w000! :D
-->And then I caught up on webcomics before doing my Valice Multiverse queue -- one ask, two threads. Not bad, not bad. Also got a small head start on the pictures for this week's Newcrest Adventures update (more of Wheatley at his doctor job, then a date between Geeker and Dario) -- should see about getting a couple more before I hit the sack. Also have to answer the usual comment. . .typical Sunday evening stuff.
And that's about it! Time to wrap up, head to bed, and hope I don't have nightmares. Need some sleep before I go to work tomorrow, brain! Yes, I know, I don't want to go either, but this is the life we're living. *deep sigh* Night all!
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Date: 2020-08-24 01:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-08-24 08:30 pm (UTC)York's response? Just a smile. XD
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Date: 2020-08-25 02:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-08-25 02:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-08-25 10:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-08-26 03:02 am (UTC)