Slightly Stressful Monday
Mar. 8th, 2021 11:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickIt could have been a lot worse -- most of the day was reasonably quiet -- but there were a few annoying bits, like getting calls from Fiscal pretty much the moment I stepped into the office, or having to fight with the computer I have to do credit card stuff on. But we had a pretty simple GL, and only one major issue, so -- win? I've had short weeks start worse.
Made it through the day, anyway, and then came home and worked on my standard to-do list --
1. Get in a workout: Check! Another bike ride, another episode of Jon’s Fallout 4 Survival Playthrough! Caught up with Grills as he went back up to the Prydwen to FINALLY catch up with Maxson post-the whole debacle with Danse. Amusingly, the game forced him to tell Maxson about what was going down (eventually, at some point – it’s been quite a while in-game thanks to the trip to Far Harbor) at Bunker Hill before he was allowed to get his official promotion to Paladin, taking Danse’s place in the line-up. FO4 trying and failing to give Jon a sense of urgency about the main plot, I suppose. . .
With promotion in hand, Grills next reported to Kells at Maxson’s order to receive his next assignment – wipe out the Railroad. Turns out the BOS had discovered their headquarters, and they wanted Grills to kill the heads with the help of a strike team – Carrington, Tinker Tom, Glory, Desdemona, and Deacon. Ingram also wanted him to hack P.A.M. and turn her into a loyal BOS robot so they could use her predictive capabilities – though, if he couldn’t, he was to destroy her so the Institute couldn’t get its hands on her. Ugh. Grills accepted both jobs with enthusiasm, BOS bastard. Though, strangely, when Kells gave Grills the additional job of taking out Virgil, Jon had Grills pop on the Sparkly Red Dress Of Charisma to inform him that Virgil had successfully cured himself and was no longer a threat. Shouldn’t you want to kill him just because he WAS a Super Mutant? You seemed okay with the idea of going back to Far Harbor to slaughter the Harbormen just because they were a little irradiated, after all. . . On the other hand, Kells was surprised, but decided the human Virgil, trapped in the Glowing Sea, was no harm to the organization – in fact, he could be a potential asset. So he said they’d just keep monitoring him and gave Grills a nice new legendary power armor helmet – Visionary’s, which refreshes action points faster. Seriously, Grills, you need more ways to refresh your action points?
With that all sorted, Grills headed down to the Old North Church and started gunning down people. Doc Carrington was the first to go, on the front lines in the church itself – Desdemona, Tinker Tom, Glory, and Deacon all followed in the actual headquarters. They – weren’t much of a threat, sadly, as only Deacon was the same level as Grills, and he had no armor to protect him from the Two-Shot, soo. . . Grills looted Tinker Tom’s clothes as a memento for his base, stole a Railway Rifle and a bunch of spikes for later use, reprogrammed P.A.M., lamented that he couldn’t sleep on any of the mattresses down there anymore, then used an Institute teleport to get back to base to look at his stuff. Both the Railway Rifle and the new Visionary’s helmet looked good, but in order to improve them further, Grills needed aluminum, and lots of it. So it was time to call in a vertibird and head back up north to the fishpacking plant near the Nakano residences to steal all the trays inside! No worries for Grills there, as he’s still currently on good terms with the Institute and thus the synths inside. We’ll see how long THAT lasts. . .left him to his looting. He mentioned wanting to do an experiment with doing certain quests in a certain order – I ASSUME what he’s doing is killing the Railroad, THEN triggering Bunker Hill to see if any remaining Railroad members show up. I assume so, because I don’t think the game is smart enough to know that the faction has been wiped out in regards to that specific fight, but we shall see.
2. Work some more on “In A World Of His Own”: Check! Finished Victor and Alice’s conversation on Ben’s back – and had him dunk them in the ocean once they reached the beach. XD I’d actually forgotten that I based this moment on the “Boston Tea Party” ride at Canobie Lake Park, where the water actually arcs over your head for a moment before coming splashing down. It’s awesome. :D Almost done with Chapter 3 now – just need to get Victor and Alice a bit drier before leaving them to make sand castles. And maybe fit in a bit more description of just what it is they’re wearing – I spent a good while designing Victor’s suits, I want to give them SOME time to shine.
3. Keep up on YouTube Subscriptions: Check! Three videos to watch, and I got them all!
A) Started with Call Me Kevin and a sponsored video from Watch Dogs: Legion showing off the new multiplayer mode! Kevin, RTGame (Daniel), Kiwo, and Max all joined together as a gang of rather older individuals to hack things and do crime! And run really, really slowly as Kevin discovered. XD Notable highlights included poor Kiwo being run over repeatedly by hacked vehicles (often with Kevin driving them); Kevin managing to ram THREE boats into a dock during a mission to destroy some government super-cars (I assume so the cops couldn’t use them); various trips down the road with three of the characters balanced on top of a car – briefly XD; an attempt to play football broken up by the cops; two attempts to escape said cops by flying away on a giant drone (one unsuccessful as the cops basically exploded it by the time everyone got on; the other successful after they dropped the heavy cargo it was carrying); a trip on the London Eye (Max fell off and didn’t get to enjoy the view); and another attempt at football, where Kevin found his player wouldn’t actually play because of her age. XD It was good, chaotic stuff – exactly what you expect from Kevin playing with his friends. :)
B) Then it was time to catch up with GrayStillPlays, who is back in “torture himself” mode after his brief break:
I. More GTA V stunts – another parkour board from hell, this time featuring off-center ramp jumps right at the start! Took Gray quite a while just to complete the first bit of the board. Then we had some U-jumps, some barrel rolls of the front of an arrow (on two tires! Gray spent even LONGER on this bit), some standard leaps, some circle whirling, some tightroping, some basic navigating the path of dumpsters. . .basically this thing caused Gray ALL the pain. And all the beluga whale noises. XD Look, whatever helps him get through this bullshit.
II. More Minecraft parkour – this one all about jumps! There are apparently a variety of blocks that will give you various levels of rocket boots, allowing you to do increasing numbers of multi-jumps. This board creator made a series of testing chambers all about putting these rocket boots to their limits – usually by having you navigate increasingly-complicated glass-wall mazes. Also sometimes snakes. Gray took just a hair under five hours and just barely under 2,000 deaths (4 hours 51 minutes and 1,977 deaths to be more precise) to complete all the levels, and had to resort to FOOT PEDALS to do the jumps because his wrist was hurting so much. Again, Gray, these videos are great, but I implore you not to genuinely injure yourself. I am concerned.
C) And hey, quick one-and-a-half minute bonus video – outtakes from a Robin Williams sketch on Sesame Street with Elmo! Part of this I knew – Elmo accidentally messing up his last line and then retreating inside the box in shame – but there was an extra gag at the beginning where Robin mentioned Madonna’s lingerie and then remembered “Oh right I’m on Sesame Street” -- that was pretty good too. XD
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – got my Newcrest Adventures pictures for the week sorted and into starter posts in the drafts (three full-sized posts this week), AND one of my friends reblogged a writer meme that I quickly put into the drafts as well, so that’s good! Just gotta up my concentration game for the text tomorrow. . .
Yeah, not too bad -- though I would have gotten more done on item 4 if I hadn't gotten distracted looking at Nexus Mods and old posts on my own tumblr. Distracted Vicky is distracted. . .ah well, I didn't do any worse than I do most Mondays, so that's fine. Now it's time to answer comments and head to bed. We'll see what happens on Tuesday! Keep your fingers crossed! Night all!
Made it through the day, anyway, and then came home and worked on my standard to-do list --
1. Get in a workout: Check! Another bike ride, another episode of Jon’s Fallout 4 Survival Playthrough! Caught up with Grills as he went back up to the Prydwen to FINALLY catch up with Maxson post-the whole debacle with Danse. Amusingly, the game forced him to tell Maxson about what was going down (eventually, at some point – it’s been quite a while in-game thanks to the trip to Far Harbor) at Bunker Hill before he was allowed to get his official promotion to Paladin, taking Danse’s place in the line-up. FO4 trying and failing to give Jon a sense of urgency about the main plot, I suppose. . .
With promotion in hand, Grills next reported to Kells at Maxson’s order to receive his next assignment – wipe out the Railroad. Turns out the BOS had discovered their headquarters, and they wanted Grills to kill the heads with the help of a strike team – Carrington, Tinker Tom, Glory, Desdemona, and Deacon. Ingram also wanted him to hack P.A.M. and turn her into a loyal BOS robot so they could use her predictive capabilities – though, if he couldn’t, he was to destroy her so the Institute couldn’t get its hands on her. Ugh. Grills accepted both jobs with enthusiasm, BOS bastard. Though, strangely, when Kells gave Grills the additional job of taking out Virgil, Jon had Grills pop on the Sparkly Red Dress Of Charisma to inform him that Virgil had successfully cured himself and was no longer a threat. Shouldn’t you want to kill him just because he WAS a Super Mutant? You seemed okay with the idea of going back to Far Harbor to slaughter the Harbormen just because they were a little irradiated, after all. . . On the other hand, Kells was surprised, but decided the human Virgil, trapped in the Glowing Sea, was no harm to the organization – in fact, he could be a potential asset. So he said they’d just keep monitoring him and gave Grills a nice new legendary power armor helmet – Visionary’s, which refreshes action points faster. Seriously, Grills, you need more ways to refresh your action points?
With that all sorted, Grills headed down to the Old North Church and started gunning down people. Doc Carrington was the first to go, on the front lines in the church itself – Desdemona, Tinker Tom, Glory, and Deacon all followed in the actual headquarters. They – weren’t much of a threat, sadly, as only Deacon was the same level as Grills, and he had no armor to protect him from the Two-Shot, soo. . . Grills looted Tinker Tom’s clothes as a memento for his base, stole a Railway Rifle and a bunch of spikes for later use, reprogrammed P.A.M., lamented that he couldn’t sleep on any of the mattresses down there anymore, then used an Institute teleport to get back to base to look at his stuff. Both the Railway Rifle and the new Visionary’s helmet looked good, but in order to improve them further, Grills needed aluminum, and lots of it. So it was time to call in a vertibird and head back up north to the fishpacking plant near the Nakano residences to steal all the trays inside! No worries for Grills there, as he’s still currently on good terms with the Institute and thus the synths inside. We’ll see how long THAT lasts. . .left him to his looting. He mentioned wanting to do an experiment with doing certain quests in a certain order – I ASSUME what he’s doing is killing the Railroad, THEN triggering Bunker Hill to see if any remaining Railroad members show up. I assume so, because I don’t think the game is smart enough to know that the faction has been wiped out in regards to that specific fight, but we shall see.
2. Work some more on “In A World Of His Own”: Check! Finished Victor and Alice’s conversation on Ben’s back – and had him dunk them in the ocean once they reached the beach. XD I’d actually forgotten that I based this moment on the “Boston Tea Party” ride at Canobie Lake Park, where the water actually arcs over your head for a moment before coming splashing down. It’s awesome. :D Almost done with Chapter 3 now – just need to get Victor and Alice a bit drier before leaving them to make sand castles. And maybe fit in a bit more description of just what it is they’re wearing – I spent a good while designing Victor’s suits, I want to give them SOME time to shine.
3. Keep up on YouTube Subscriptions: Check! Three videos to watch, and I got them all!
A) Started with Call Me Kevin and a sponsored video from Watch Dogs: Legion showing off the new multiplayer mode! Kevin, RTGame (Daniel), Kiwo, and Max all joined together as a gang of rather older individuals to hack things and do crime! And run really, really slowly as Kevin discovered. XD Notable highlights included poor Kiwo being run over repeatedly by hacked vehicles (often with Kevin driving them); Kevin managing to ram THREE boats into a dock during a mission to destroy some government super-cars (I assume so the cops couldn’t use them); various trips down the road with three of the characters balanced on top of a car – briefly XD; an attempt to play football broken up by the cops; two attempts to escape said cops by flying away on a giant drone (one unsuccessful as the cops basically exploded it by the time everyone got on; the other successful after they dropped the heavy cargo it was carrying); a trip on the London Eye (Max fell off and didn’t get to enjoy the view); and another attempt at football, where Kevin found his player wouldn’t actually play because of her age. XD It was good, chaotic stuff – exactly what you expect from Kevin playing with his friends. :)
B) Then it was time to catch up with GrayStillPlays, who is back in “torture himself” mode after his brief break:
I. More GTA V stunts – another parkour board from hell, this time featuring off-center ramp jumps right at the start! Took Gray quite a while just to complete the first bit of the board. Then we had some U-jumps, some barrel rolls of the front of an arrow (on two tires! Gray spent even LONGER on this bit), some standard leaps, some circle whirling, some tightroping, some basic navigating the path of dumpsters. . .basically this thing caused Gray ALL the pain. And all the beluga whale noises. XD Look, whatever helps him get through this bullshit.
II. More Minecraft parkour – this one all about jumps! There are apparently a variety of blocks that will give you various levels of rocket boots, allowing you to do increasing numbers of multi-jumps. This board creator made a series of testing chambers all about putting these rocket boots to their limits – usually by having you navigate increasingly-complicated glass-wall mazes. Also sometimes snakes. Gray took just a hair under five hours and just barely under 2,000 deaths (4 hours 51 minutes and 1,977 deaths to be more precise) to complete all the levels, and had to resort to FOOT PEDALS to do the jumps because his wrist was hurting so much. Again, Gray, these videos are great, but I implore you not to genuinely injure yourself. I am concerned.
C) And hey, quick one-and-a-half minute bonus video – outtakes from a Robin Williams sketch on Sesame Street with Elmo! Part of this I knew – Elmo accidentally messing up his last line and then retreating inside the box in shame – but there was an extra gag at the beginning where Robin mentioned Madonna’s lingerie and then remembered “Oh right I’m on Sesame Street” -- that was pretty good too. XD
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – got my Newcrest Adventures pictures for the week sorted and into starter posts in the drafts (three full-sized posts this week), AND one of my friends reblogged a writer meme that I quickly put into the drafts as well, so that’s good! Just gotta up my concentration game for the text tomorrow. . .
Yeah, not too bad -- though I would have gotten more done on item 4 if I hadn't gotten distracted looking at Nexus Mods and old posts on my own tumblr. Distracted Vicky is distracted. . .ah well, I didn't do any worse than I do most Mondays, so that's fine. Now it's time to answer comments and head to bed. We'll see what happens on Tuesday! Keep your fingers crossed! Night all!
