Not So Relaxing Saturday
Dec. 11th, 2021 11:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickCombination of mild PMS bitchiness (you know the drill) and my aunt asking my mom for a favor which led to a lot of annoyed waiting around and bitching on her part, sooo -- yeah. Been a little tense around here today, I must say. But even with that, got my to-do list sorted out nicely:
1. Clean my room: Check – and thanks to my iPad having virtually no charge while I was eating breakfast this morning, I got a REALLY early start on it. XD Started about 10:30 AM, and finished by 12:40 PM! :D Now that was nice – though it helped that my room wasn’t particularly dusty either. Definitely good now until the New Year! (. . .look, Christmas is two Saturdays from now, and I’m NOT cleaning my room THEN.)
2. Keep up with YouTube Subs and watch the Plumbella video in the Watch Later: Check – all FOUR Subs videos, plus TWO from the Watch Later! Very productive video day –
A) Started with the video that tipped me over on playing Sims 4 today (see below) – the return of James Turner! Yes, he came back to making videos today, with a look at the massive renovation he did of the Chaz Ricks/Trenton Bigwallet/Hazel Monet house! :) They now have a nice, big country estate, with the entire family living in one place – he got rid of the smaller house on the back of the lot and replaced it with a water tower to store all his water collectors. The place looks great – he based it off David Beckham’s country home, and another country home he found on Google Images that had some castle elements. There’s a nice manicured lawn in the front, with all the various animal hedges, a beautiful sunroom near the back of the house for sitting in, a revamped kitchen and bigger dining room, and a split top floor where Chaz has one side (including a currently-empty spare bedroom) and Trenton, Hazel, and their kids have the other (complete with toys and toddler stuff and all that jazz). He even jazzed up the animal sheds! Makes me want to do some more building again! (Maybe over the Christmas break. . .)
B) From him it was over to my other Sims video offering of the day, from Plumbella – “You Go, Girlboss: The Bizarre World of The Sims and Celebrity Partnerships!” 45 minutes on celebrity partnerships through out the life of the main Sims franchise, from Drew Carey in The Sims House Party (fun fact – Jesse thought he played Ralph from A Christmas Story XD) to Bretman Rock’s “Find Yourselves” collab with The Sims 4’s “Season of Selves” (Jesse was like “I approve muchly,” I’m like “who the fuck is this person anyway?”). It was a pretty fascinating dive into how the partnerships have evolved – from big exclusive parties with celebs in the early 2000s to promote The Sims Online and The Sims 2, to the more muted “hey we’ve got all these famous bands recording songs in Simlish – oh, and Katy Perry is gonna help us make one of the most loathed stuff packs in the history of the franchise” Sims 3 vibe, to the “why the hell is Baby Ariel in Get Famous” business of Sims 4. Basically, it started out weird, and has just gotten weirder over time. XD Seems legit!
C) Then, this evening, I watched the latest Atop the Fourth Wall, just uploaded today – “Spider-Man Holiday Special 1995!” Hilariously, this means part of the Clone Saga – Linkara’s go-to for the end of October, aka Halloween – has now invaded Christmas, as this is a holiday special anthology that stars Ben Reilly as Spidey. XD Five stories, all varying amounts of decent: Ben Reilly helping save a girl, Jenny, who was trying to commit suicide (she’d recently been rendered homeless after her savings ran out), and then accidentally helping her restore her faith in herself by leaving her in a safe spot to fight a fire-themed supervillain, and her saving the life of a homeless man in the background when the fight got a bit out of control (Linkara said this was the best of the bunch and spent the most time on it – it was very sweet, though he pointed out poor Jenny is still homeless at the end and thus needs more than just an attitude change); a dialogue-less story about Black Cat finding toy thieves, getting them arrested, and then dumping the toys back at the orphanage they’d been stolen from Santa-style through the chimney (Linkara thought the lack of dialogue was weird, and at four pages, it was just too short); Venom taking on a gang of muggers assaulting street Santas (among others) and only not eating them because the latest victim pleaded for mercy on the basis of it being Christmas (Linkara felt it was a bit goofy, but enjoyable – especially the way Venom handles a Scrooge with a megaphone); a short story about Willie Lumpkin (the Fantastic Four’s postman) visiting Aunt May’s grave (apparently they had a bit of a thing) and being supernaturally led to a potential new love interest by magical May wind (sweet enough, but ruined, as Linkara pointed out, by the later revelation this May was an actress, as the writers JUST WON’T LET HER DIE); and a final story about Peter and Johnny Storm of the Fantastic Four apparently having a yearly Christmas meet-up on the Statue of Liberty, and Johnny – after learning what the hell is going on with the Clone Saga – agreeing to continue the tradition with Ben now (okay, but it’s kind of out of nowhere and mainly just serves, via flashback, as a way for Johnny to bitch about recent events in the Fantastic Four comic). There have been much worse Christmas comics on the channel, that’s for sure!
D) Then it was back over to the Subs for Call Me Kevin and a bite-sized piece of Hardcore One Chunk Challenge in Minecraft! Today was all about gathering resources – finally harvesting the wheat and expanding the tiny underground farm; making a separate pen by the wheat for a group of chickens being raised for meat instead of eggs (obviously populated by the Chicken Torture Pit); and creating a giant underground room for mobs to spawn in (complete with boats for them to sit in) so Kevin could gather their stuff. That one – worked a little TOO well, honestly, as after sitting up in the trees for a while (with floating torch blocks around to stop mobs spawning up THERE), Kevin came down to find a pit COMPLETELY FULL OF ENEMIES. Fortunately, this included like five million spiders, so Kevin was able to set up a “funnel” system to lure them out to a narrow gap where he could kill them and get string! There were a few Creeper explosions along the way, but he did get enough string to make himself a bed, yay! :D And considering how long it took him to get one of those in the PREVIOUS version of this challenge, that is saying something. Accomplishment Kevin!
E) And then we had GrayStillPlays and more Solar Smash! Today was all about playing with numbers while throwing either the Moon or the Earth at various planets to see what sort of damage they’d do. You know, typical Gray stuff. XD He first found a way to drop the damage to nothing, so the moon just bounced off Florida instead of destroying it, then began fiddling with intensity and range until he found the perfect way to just vaporize the Earth. XD Just going up to 30 with the intensity meant that the entire planet (all 100 billion people, as Gray can also control populations now) got murdered in one shot. Hell, not even the machine planet’s force field could stop a moon with that great of damage! And going up further basically meant that whatever you threw at the planet (Moon at the Earth, Earth at Uranus) got instantly poofed out of existence. We then had a fun game of “can Gray disrupt the rings of Saturn” (yes, but only if he turns the intensity down a lot), followed by “aiming the Earth at Jupiter’s spot” (such an obvious target). And of course he did a few experiments where Earth was subject to a mass mooning with the moons at baffling levels of damage intensity – the Earth semi-survived the first run, but was nothing but gas after the second. XD Oh dear, never give this man the ability to manipulate numbers is all I’m saying. . .
F) And then finally a surprise upload from P. B. Manning, the Wyrd Sister who actually puts up the podcast on YouTube – showing off some cute foster cats her roommate’s mother has for the moment, nomming away at their dinner. Awwww~
3. Playeither Bloodlines and go fight the Sabbat, or Sims 4 and do some more Chill Save stuff: Check to the latter – and look at me, I installed a new mod! Popped in something I’ve been meaning to get for a while – “Wonderful Whims,” a mod all about adding a (frighteningly in-depth) attractiveness system and new personality types to the game! It can also give Sims menstrual cycles, change how pregnancy works, and even add an STD, but I’ve turned all that off – I’m annoyed enough by my period in real life, I don’t need to deal with it in Sims. Victor and Alice, being a married couple, had pre-generated preferences to make them extremely attractive to each other (I did a little light tweaking to adjust a thing or two), and they each got a pair of “Personality Archetype” traits – Alice has “Everyman” (generic, wants to fit in) and “Artist” (creative sort), Victor “Artist” (again, creative sort) and “Jester” (likes to have fun). Opens up some new conversation options and such, but I get the feeling I’ll start really seeing the benefits of this mod in a fresh save, when I’m not playing with a pair who are already in a committed relationship.
As for the actual play session, it was solid but quiet – Alice started her term paper while Victor worked on his first song some more (ugh, why does this TAKE SO LONG), they chatted with their neighbor Felipe when he came over, went to classes – and then, inspired by the pop-up I got about it, they also both went to the Festival of Light in Mt. Komorebi! Not too much to do there, but they danced to the Japanese Folk music, had Taiyaki (fish-shaped cakes with different fillings – Alice had a strawberry one while Victor tried a matcha one), Victor took a selfie with Yamachan, and they both just generally enjoyed the atmosphere. And the fireworks exploding out of the nearby bonfire. XD I sent them home a bit early because they were both exhausted, but at least it got them out of the house! And I already have plans for in-game Saturday next time I play, since I saw on the calendar it’s the Romance Festival then. . .
4. Continue editing gift fics: Check – did Gigs’s today, cleaning up the scene with Lizzie and Bonejangles that she requested! Think it came out all right, even if I struggled with how I wanted to phrase things from time to time. Writing be hard sometimes, yo.
Not too shabby at all, huh? :) Always nice to fully complete one of these. Getting slightly worried about my final gift fic, though. . .hoping FF.net friend DC replies soon!
Right now, though, I'm doing some chatting with friends and keeping an eye on the RP thing, so let's do the Sunday to-dos now:
1. Continue editing gift fics
2. Keep up with YouTube Subs and see if Jon has a Fallout 4 video
3. Play either Bloodlines and go fight the Sabbat, or Fallout 4 and get everybody to Sanctuary
4. Get the Wednesday Chill Save update started in VictorLuvsAlice's drafts
5. Get in a workout
Probably should try to get a head start on the pictures tonight, in fact. . .let's see if I can get on that before bedtime. Night all!
1. Clean my room: Check – and thanks to my iPad having virtually no charge while I was eating breakfast this morning, I got a REALLY early start on it. XD Started about 10:30 AM, and finished by 12:40 PM! :D Now that was nice – though it helped that my room wasn’t particularly dusty either. Definitely good now until the New Year! (. . .look, Christmas is two Saturdays from now, and I’m NOT cleaning my room THEN.)
2. Keep up with YouTube Subs and watch the Plumbella video in the Watch Later: Check – all FOUR Subs videos, plus TWO from the Watch Later! Very productive video day –
A) Started with the video that tipped me over on playing Sims 4 today (see below) – the return of James Turner! Yes, he came back to making videos today, with a look at the massive renovation he did of the Chaz Ricks/Trenton Bigwallet/Hazel Monet house! :) They now have a nice, big country estate, with the entire family living in one place – he got rid of the smaller house on the back of the lot and replaced it with a water tower to store all his water collectors. The place looks great – he based it off David Beckham’s country home, and another country home he found on Google Images that had some castle elements. There’s a nice manicured lawn in the front, with all the various animal hedges, a beautiful sunroom near the back of the house for sitting in, a revamped kitchen and bigger dining room, and a split top floor where Chaz has one side (including a currently-empty spare bedroom) and Trenton, Hazel, and their kids have the other (complete with toys and toddler stuff and all that jazz). He even jazzed up the animal sheds! Makes me want to do some more building again! (Maybe over the Christmas break. . .)
B) From him it was over to my other Sims video offering of the day, from Plumbella – “You Go, Girlboss: The Bizarre World of The Sims and Celebrity Partnerships!” 45 minutes on celebrity partnerships through out the life of the main Sims franchise, from Drew Carey in The Sims House Party (fun fact – Jesse thought he played Ralph from A Christmas Story XD) to Bretman Rock’s “Find Yourselves” collab with The Sims 4’s “Season of Selves” (Jesse was like “I approve muchly,” I’m like “who the fuck is this person anyway?”). It was a pretty fascinating dive into how the partnerships have evolved – from big exclusive parties with celebs in the early 2000s to promote The Sims Online and The Sims 2, to the more muted “hey we’ve got all these famous bands recording songs in Simlish – oh, and Katy Perry is gonna help us make one of the most loathed stuff packs in the history of the franchise” Sims 3 vibe, to the “why the hell is Baby Ariel in Get Famous” business of Sims 4. Basically, it started out weird, and has just gotten weirder over time. XD Seems legit!
C) Then, this evening, I watched the latest Atop the Fourth Wall, just uploaded today – “Spider-Man Holiday Special 1995!” Hilariously, this means part of the Clone Saga – Linkara’s go-to for the end of October, aka Halloween – has now invaded Christmas, as this is a holiday special anthology that stars Ben Reilly as Spidey. XD Five stories, all varying amounts of decent: Ben Reilly helping save a girl, Jenny, who was trying to commit suicide (she’d recently been rendered homeless after her savings ran out), and then accidentally helping her restore her faith in herself by leaving her in a safe spot to fight a fire-themed supervillain, and her saving the life of a homeless man in the background when the fight got a bit out of control (Linkara said this was the best of the bunch and spent the most time on it – it was very sweet, though he pointed out poor Jenny is still homeless at the end and thus needs more than just an attitude change); a dialogue-less story about Black Cat finding toy thieves, getting them arrested, and then dumping the toys back at the orphanage they’d been stolen from Santa-style through the chimney (Linkara thought the lack of dialogue was weird, and at four pages, it was just too short); Venom taking on a gang of muggers assaulting street Santas (among others) and only not eating them because the latest victim pleaded for mercy on the basis of it being Christmas (Linkara felt it was a bit goofy, but enjoyable – especially the way Venom handles a Scrooge with a megaphone); a short story about Willie Lumpkin (the Fantastic Four’s postman) visiting Aunt May’s grave (apparently they had a bit of a thing) and being supernaturally led to a potential new love interest by magical May wind (sweet enough, but ruined, as Linkara pointed out, by the later revelation this May was an actress, as the writers JUST WON’T LET HER DIE); and a final story about Peter and Johnny Storm of the Fantastic Four apparently having a yearly Christmas meet-up on the Statue of Liberty, and Johnny – after learning what the hell is going on with the Clone Saga – agreeing to continue the tradition with Ben now (okay, but it’s kind of out of nowhere and mainly just serves, via flashback, as a way for Johnny to bitch about recent events in the Fantastic Four comic). There have been much worse Christmas comics on the channel, that’s for sure!
D) Then it was back over to the Subs for Call Me Kevin and a bite-sized piece of Hardcore One Chunk Challenge in Minecraft! Today was all about gathering resources – finally harvesting the wheat and expanding the tiny underground farm; making a separate pen by the wheat for a group of chickens being raised for meat instead of eggs (obviously populated by the Chicken Torture Pit); and creating a giant underground room for mobs to spawn in (complete with boats for them to sit in) so Kevin could gather their stuff. That one – worked a little TOO well, honestly, as after sitting up in the trees for a while (with floating torch blocks around to stop mobs spawning up THERE), Kevin came down to find a pit COMPLETELY FULL OF ENEMIES. Fortunately, this included like five million spiders, so Kevin was able to set up a “funnel” system to lure them out to a narrow gap where he could kill them and get string! There were a few Creeper explosions along the way, but he did get enough string to make himself a bed, yay! :D And considering how long it took him to get one of those in the PREVIOUS version of this challenge, that is saying something. Accomplishment Kevin!
E) And then we had GrayStillPlays and more Solar Smash! Today was all about playing with numbers while throwing either the Moon or the Earth at various planets to see what sort of damage they’d do. You know, typical Gray stuff. XD He first found a way to drop the damage to nothing, so the moon just bounced off Florida instead of destroying it, then began fiddling with intensity and range until he found the perfect way to just vaporize the Earth. XD Just going up to 30 with the intensity meant that the entire planet (all 100 billion people, as Gray can also control populations now) got murdered in one shot. Hell, not even the machine planet’s force field could stop a moon with that great of damage! And going up further basically meant that whatever you threw at the planet (Moon at the Earth, Earth at Uranus) got instantly poofed out of existence. We then had a fun game of “can Gray disrupt the rings of Saturn” (yes, but only if he turns the intensity down a lot), followed by “aiming the Earth at Jupiter’s spot” (such an obvious target). And of course he did a few experiments where Earth was subject to a mass mooning with the moons at baffling levels of damage intensity – the Earth semi-survived the first run, but was nothing but gas after the second. XD Oh dear, never give this man the ability to manipulate numbers is all I’m saying. . .
F) And then finally a surprise upload from P. B. Manning, the Wyrd Sister who actually puts up the podcast on YouTube – showing off some cute foster cats her roommate’s mother has for the moment, nomming away at their dinner. Awwww~
3. Play
As for the actual play session, it was solid but quiet – Alice started her term paper while Victor worked on his first song some more (ugh, why does this TAKE SO LONG), they chatted with their neighbor Felipe when he came over, went to classes – and then, inspired by the pop-up I got about it, they also both went to the Festival of Light in Mt. Komorebi! Not too much to do there, but they danced to the Japanese Folk music, had Taiyaki (fish-shaped cakes with different fillings – Alice had a strawberry one while Victor tried a matcha one), Victor took a selfie with Yamachan, and they both just generally enjoyed the atmosphere. And the fireworks exploding out of the nearby bonfire. XD I sent them home a bit early because they were both exhausted, but at least it got them out of the house! And I already have plans for in-game Saturday next time I play, since I saw on the calendar it’s the Romance Festival then. . .
4. Continue editing gift fics: Check – did Gigs’s today, cleaning up the scene with Lizzie and Bonejangles that she requested! Think it came out all right, even if I struggled with how I wanted to phrase things from time to time. Writing be hard sometimes, yo.
Not too shabby at all, huh? :) Always nice to fully complete one of these. Getting slightly worried about my final gift fic, though. . .hoping FF.net friend DC replies soon!
Right now, though, I'm doing some chatting with friends and keeping an eye on the RP thing, so let's do the Sunday to-dos now:
1. Continue editing gift fics
2. Keep up with YouTube Subs and see if Jon has a Fallout 4 video
3. Play either Bloodlines and go fight the Sabbat, or Fallout 4 and get everybody to Sanctuary
4. Get the Wednesday Chill Save update started in VictorLuvsAlice's drafts
5. Get in a workout
Probably should try to get a head start on the pictures tonight, in fact. . .let's see if I can get on that before bedtime. Night all!
