Windy But Warm Thursday
Mar. 31st, 2022 11:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickActually made it into the low 60s today! But it was a gloomy one, and the wind just picked up as the day went on. Rain too -- it's gonna be a stormy night, apparently. And then get cooler again over the weekend. *sigh* Damn New England weather. . .won't let it stop me from updating, though!
Work – Another one of those days where it was busy, but in a relatively quiet way. Helped my coworker out with some gift posting, got in contact with someone who needed to redo their gift, tried e-mailing the credit card company again about stuff. . .I made myself a little “to-do” list of stuff that needed to get done, and pretty much crossed off everything, yay. :) Tomorrow, though, I am there alone, and – well, we’ll see what happens! Suppose in a way it’s appropriate for April Fool’s. . .
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another half-hour of the Oxventure “Faire Trial!” We picked up with the start of the joust – Egbert on his cool-as-a-cucumber griffon steed; Corazon-as-Cedric having real trouble keeping the anxious “is this my owner or not” Percy calm. Johnny had them roll to control their mounts as they rushed each other – Egbert did a lot better with his griffon than Corazon did with his. And then came the actual jousting, and –
Egbert rolled a twenty. Pulling off a MASTERFUL unseating. :D Corazon, who had been starting to get a little TOO into the Cedric role, fortunately remembered this is what they WANTED to happen and leaned into it, letting himself be tossed off in a suitably dramatic way. Percy ran off, “Cedric” declared himself unfit for further combat, and essentially chased his retinue off by claiming he was going to punish himself back in his greenroom by letting himself be stung by bees. XD Egbert was absolutely thrilled – and aww, who should be waiting for him back at the griffon pen but Max, who was impressed and congratulated Egbert on his excellent showing, agreeing to hang out and see how he did in the rest of the trials! Yay new NPC friend – whom Egbert got fourth-wall-philosophical with for a bit about the nature of reality and how it seems luck really determines how well you do anything in this world. XD
After that, in the interest of time, we had a couple of quick “montage-style” events. First was reversing a carriage around a corner, for the obvious “driving test” joke. Egbert rolled and – ANOTHER NAT 20! Holy shit, the crits like him today. He did a masterful “handbrake” turn which looked super-cool. After that was pamphleting a crowd of random people in a little fenced-off area to get them interested in his god – hang on a second, I’m looking up HOW they spell what they call them – La Vache Mauve! (I am pretty sure they’re supposed to be a joke on a cheese mascot – the Laughing Cow, maybe?) Anyway, yeah, it was time to pass out as many pamphlets and encourage as many converts in 90 seconds as possible! Corazon and Merilwen snuck into the crowd to act as shills for the god (Egbert caught Corazon, but fortunately believed he’d been chosen by lottery to be in the crowd), while Dob sidled up to another paladin working a different crowd and Prestidigitation-ed him to smell terrible, scaring all potential converts away. (Prudence, not seeing an opportunity for good evil at this point, went and got some more candy floss and another balloon – this one a cow’s bladder filled with hornets! She was very happy with them both. XD)
And then – time for the obstacle course, aka the Gauntlet! Egbert was actually quite looking forward to this one, as he remembered it being fun. There were two such courses set up, with Egbert going up against a random paladin he didn’t know (to discourage the Charismatic Cheat Friends from trying to sting the poor guy to death with hornets – Prudence notably pouted). The course consisted of three doors to smash through, a large water trough to jump over, a knight on a small platform to battle (Gladiator-style!), and – an old woman just sitting at the end. Who was apparently INTENSELY magical, according to Prudence’s scan. . .but we haven’t gotten to her yet. Here’s how the team has handled each obstacle so far:
Doors – Egbert smashed the first one no problem, but ran into some trouble with the iron bands reinforcing the second door. Dob quietly cast Heat Metal at Corazon’s suggestion to soften the metal, and Egbert was able to take it out (with the watchers thinking it had something to do with him being dragonborn). The third door proved to be even tougher, though he did manage to deal some damage with his regular mace. . .and then Corazon and Prudence, both watching nearby, yelled at him to try the handle. Everyone thought this was a hilarious joke – until the door proved to be unlocked. XD Through Egbert went to the next obstacle!
Water Jump – Oh hey, look, a situation that could use a fairly-well-made-fold-out-ramp! Dob tied some rope to it and flung it out in front of Egbert so he could run up it and get some height, while Corazon helped with a bit of Featherfall so Egbert could coast gracefully across the water. Dob DID whack himself most thoroughly in the face when he yanked the ramp BACK, admittedly, totaling the ramp and causing three points of damage to himself, but all in the name of friendship, right?
Gladiator Knight – Egbert and the knight squared up for battle on the little platform with their giant q-tips. . .and Corazon cast Grease all over the platform. Poor Egbert fell over thanks to a rather poor roll. . .but Johnny’s knight rolled a ONE, so while Egbert fell, he stayed on the platform, with the knight getting yeeted into the distance. XD A technical victory, but still a victory!
Oh, and as for Egbert’s opponent? Struggled on door number two, falling behind, then – thanks to another one from Johnny – absolutely STACKED it into the water trough and got trapped thanks to his heavy armor. Dob, being generally a good sort, jumped in to help – but got a punch in the face for his efforts, because that was OBVIOUS outside help, and that meant the wanna-be paladin was disqualified! He started sobbing on Dob’s shoulder, only for Dob to use Calm Emotions to chill him out and give him a pep talk about examining his reasons for wanting to become a paladin before getting him out of the tank and sending him off for a dry martini. XD Seal Gaiman promptly found his way into the tank and got his head stuck in the abandoned breastplate, amusing the crowd and causing them to throw him all sorts of food. XD (Egbert’s like “he already ate!”)
So yeah, been a VERY good trial for Egbert so far! But we still have to see what happens with the old woman. . .at least Merilwen is nearby in cat form if she needs to assist!
2. Continue editing Chapter 6 of “Londerland Bloodlines: Santa Monica’s Vale Of Tears”: Check – Alice is on her way back to her haven to retrieve that laptop, after having had a run in with a rather unusual cab driver. One that gives her the willies, for unknown reasons. . .and that ends her section in this chapter! But there’s one page’s worth of POV change to one Bertram Tung to wrap all this up. . .
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check – another “only one video in the Subs” day, so I grabbed some stuff out of my Watch Later as well –
A) Started with a trio of OXBoxtra videos:
I. “A VERY STRESSED DADDY | Who's Your Daddy on Xbox” – I added this to my Watch Later out of pure curiosity, as it seemed to be them playing Who’s Your Daddy again, but it was only eight minutes long. Turns out it was a “best bits” cut of the livestream video I watched a little while ago. Hey, fine by me! Always fun to watch Andy Baby really stress out Mike Daddy with guzzling bleach and gin, setting gasoline fires, and stealing the car. And them working together to see if Baby could ride the dog into the woodchipper (answer: no). XD
II. “7 Easter Egg Trophies Only PlayStation Nerds Understand” – Easter Eggs referencing PlayStation classics that only the discerning nerd will truly appreciate. XD Want a trophy for finding Nathan Drake’s ring from the Uncharted series, or a precursor orb from the Jak and Daxter series in The Last of Us Part II? Sure thing! How about one for unlocking all shiv doors in the first game that references one of Barry’s famously ridiculous lines from the original Resident Evil (no, not the Jill Sandwich)? And Astro’s Playroom for the PS5 has a reference to the most recent God of War if you shoot enough bunnies with a suction-cup bow and arrow and Kratos and his kid are in the game in bot form as is a Bloodborne Hunter and a Journey journeyer and– *deep breath* The game is cute and full of references, is what I’m saying. Luke squeed a lot playing it. XD
III. “7 Unauthorised Cameos You Won't Believe They Got Away With” – cameos in games with only paper-thin disguises to keep them from being hit with the lawyers! And sometimes not even that. . . Like the Clintons appearing in (among other things) Ready 2 Rumble Boxing Round 2 as “Mr. President” and “First Lady!” Or Spider-Man as a very weird boss in Revenge of Shinobi – which was actually okay, as Sega had Spidey’s license. . .but then the developers insisted on making him turn into a flying version of Batman, and you can’t mix your Marvel with your DC! XD Or Mike Tyson appearing as "Balrog" in the Street Fighter series – though its worth noting that he actually called “Mike Bison” back in Japan. Or “M. Bison” for short. Yes, the character WE know as M. Bison was originally called “Vega” before they quickly shuffled some names to avoid lawsuits with the American release. The weirdest one is definitely the first, though, if only because the rip-off cameo occurred BEFORE THE CHARACTER’S DEBUT – Sonic’s actual FIRST appearance in a game? In a free floppy given out in the Amiga magazine containing the game Quik and Silva, which featured a skinny knock-off version of him as a random enemy for the protagonists to fight. A month before the release of his own game. Now THAT’S gotta sting.
B) And then it was over to the Subs for Call Me Kevin playing the PS2 Matrix game! Because the recent movie didn’t go down well, so he was in the mood for a bit of nostalgia. Blocky, blocky nostalgia. XD To be fair, despite the less-than-perfect graphics, and a game that will freeze up if you jump at the wrong time, it still looked pretty fun. If only because you get to do all the cool slow-mo stunts and what-not the movies were famous for. Kevin played through the “prequel” opening level, robbing a post office before escaping onto the rooftops to flee a fight with Agent Smith. This involved many very obvious stealth attacks on employees; exploiting the fact that enemies can’t attack when you run into a cutscene; climbing on fences he didn’t even need to climb on; defeating random guards through the power of DANCE (aka the spinning dodge); exploiting his slow-mo “focus” moves at every available opportunity; accidentally falling down the gaps between buildings repeatedly; assaulting a bunch of guards in a go-nowhere hallway; and finally escaping Smith at the last second, before getting upset that his captain got all the credit while he did all the hard work. Sorry, Kevin, but I think HR grievances only exist in the Matrix – better luck next time!
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – four ask replies over on Valice Multiverse, nice! Still no episode up on the Wyrd Sisters tumblr, though. . .ah well, I did do my icon change for April Fool's on Victor Luvs Alice, so that’s good at least. XD (Changed it to a Victor/Smiler one from my Sims game just for funsies. We’ll see if anyone notices!)
So that's all sorted, at least. And now I just have one more day to get through until the weekend. . .night all!
Work – Another one of those days where it was busy, but in a relatively quiet way. Helped my coworker out with some gift posting, got in contact with someone who needed to redo their gift, tried e-mailing the credit card company again about stuff. . .I made myself a little “to-do” list of stuff that needed to get done, and pretty much crossed off everything, yay. :) Tomorrow, though, I am there alone, and – well, we’ll see what happens! Suppose in a way it’s appropriate for April Fool’s. . .
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another half-hour of the Oxventure “Faire Trial!” We picked up with the start of the joust – Egbert on his cool-as-a-cucumber griffon steed; Corazon-as-Cedric having real trouble keeping the anxious “is this my owner or not” Percy calm. Johnny had them roll to control their mounts as they rushed each other – Egbert did a lot better with his griffon than Corazon did with his. And then came the actual jousting, and –
Egbert rolled a twenty. Pulling off a MASTERFUL unseating. :D Corazon, who had been starting to get a little TOO into the Cedric role, fortunately remembered this is what they WANTED to happen and leaned into it, letting himself be tossed off in a suitably dramatic way. Percy ran off, “Cedric” declared himself unfit for further combat, and essentially chased his retinue off by claiming he was going to punish himself back in his greenroom by letting himself be stung by bees. XD Egbert was absolutely thrilled – and aww, who should be waiting for him back at the griffon pen but Max, who was impressed and congratulated Egbert on his excellent showing, agreeing to hang out and see how he did in the rest of the trials! Yay new NPC friend – whom Egbert got fourth-wall-philosophical with for a bit about the nature of reality and how it seems luck really determines how well you do anything in this world. XD
After that, in the interest of time, we had a couple of quick “montage-style” events. First was reversing a carriage around a corner, for the obvious “driving test” joke. Egbert rolled and – ANOTHER NAT 20! Holy shit, the crits like him today. He did a masterful “handbrake” turn which looked super-cool. After that was pamphleting a crowd of random people in a little fenced-off area to get them interested in his god – hang on a second, I’m looking up HOW they spell what they call them – La Vache Mauve! (I am pretty sure they’re supposed to be a joke on a cheese mascot – the Laughing Cow, maybe?) Anyway, yeah, it was time to pass out as many pamphlets and encourage as many converts in 90 seconds as possible! Corazon and Merilwen snuck into the crowd to act as shills for the god (Egbert caught Corazon, but fortunately believed he’d been chosen by lottery to be in the crowd), while Dob sidled up to another paladin working a different crowd and Prestidigitation-ed him to smell terrible, scaring all potential converts away. (Prudence, not seeing an opportunity for good evil at this point, went and got some more candy floss and another balloon – this one a cow’s bladder filled with hornets! She was very happy with them both. XD)
And then – time for the obstacle course, aka the Gauntlet! Egbert was actually quite looking forward to this one, as he remembered it being fun. There were two such courses set up, with Egbert going up against a random paladin he didn’t know (to discourage the Charismatic Cheat Friends from trying to sting the poor guy to death with hornets – Prudence notably pouted). The course consisted of three doors to smash through, a large water trough to jump over, a knight on a small platform to battle (Gladiator-style!), and – an old woman just sitting at the end. Who was apparently INTENSELY magical, according to Prudence’s scan. . .but we haven’t gotten to her yet. Here’s how the team has handled each obstacle so far:
Doors – Egbert smashed the first one no problem, but ran into some trouble with the iron bands reinforcing the second door. Dob quietly cast Heat Metal at Corazon’s suggestion to soften the metal, and Egbert was able to take it out (with the watchers thinking it had something to do with him being dragonborn). The third door proved to be even tougher, though he did manage to deal some damage with his regular mace. . .and then Corazon and Prudence, both watching nearby, yelled at him to try the handle. Everyone thought this was a hilarious joke – until the door proved to be unlocked. XD Through Egbert went to the next obstacle!
Water Jump – Oh hey, look, a situation that could use a fairly-well-made-fold-out-ramp! Dob tied some rope to it and flung it out in front of Egbert so he could run up it and get some height, while Corazon helped with a bit of Featherfall so Egbert could coast gracefully across the water. Dob DID whack himself most thoroughly in the face when he yanked the ramp BACK, admittedly, totaling the ramp and causing three points of damage to himself, but all in the name of friendship, right?
Gladiator Knight – Egbert and the knight squared up for battle on the little platform with their giant q-tips. . .and Corazon cast Grease all over the platform. Poor Egbert fell over thanks to a rather poor roll. . .but Johnny’s knight rolled a ONE, so while Egbert fell, he stayed on the platform, with the knight getting yeeted into the distance. XD A technical victory, but still a victory!
Oh, and as for Egbert’s opponent? Struggled on door number two, falling behind, then – thanks to another one from Johnny – absolutely STACKED it into the water trough and got trapped thanks to his heavy armor. Dob, being generally a good sort, jumped in to help – but got a punch in the face for his efforts, because that was OBVIOUS outside help, and that meant the wanna-be paladin was disqualified! He started sobbing on Dob’s shoulder, only for Dob to use Calm Emotions to chill him out and give him a pep talk about examining his reasons for wanting to become a paladin before getting him out of the tank and sending him off for a dry martini. XD Seal Gaiman promptly found his way into the tank and got his head stuck in the abandoned breastplate, amusing the crowd and causing them to throw him all sorts of food. XD (Egbert’s like “he already ate!”)
So yeah, been a VERY good trial for Egbert so far! But we still have to see what happens with the old woman. . .at least Merilwen is nearby in cat form if she needs to assist!
2. Continue editing Chapter 6 of “Londerland Bloodlines: Santa Monica’s Vale Of Tears”: Check – Alice is on her way back to her haven to retrieve that laptop, after having had a run in with a rather unusual cab driver. One that gives her the willies, for unknown reasons. . .and that ends her section in this chapter! But there’s one page’s worth of POV change to one Bertram Tung to wrap all this up. . .
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check – another “only one video in the Subs” day, so I grabbed some stuff out of my Watch Later as well –
A) Started with a trio of OXBoxtra videos:
I. “A VERY STRESSED DADDY | Who's Your Daddy on Xbox” – I added this to my Watch Later out of pure curiosity, as it seemed to be them playing Who’s Your Daddy again, but it was only eight minutes long. Turns out it was a “best bits” cut of the livestream video I watched a little while ago. Hey, fine by me! Always fun to watch Andy Baby really stress out Mike Daddy with guzzling bleach and gin, setting gasoline fires, and stealing the car. And them working together to see if Baby could ride the dog into the woodchipper (answer: no). XD
II. “7 Easter Egg Trophies Only PlayStation Nerds Understand” – Easter Eggs referencing PlayStation classics that only the discerning nerd will truly appreciate. XD Want a trophy for finding Nathan Drake’s ring from the Uncharted series, or a precursor orb from the Jak and Daxter series in The Last of Us Part II? Sure thing! How about one for unlocking all shiv doors in the first game that references one of Barry’s famously ridiculous lines from the original Resident Evil (no, not the Jill Sandwich)? And Astro’s Playroom for the PS5 has a reference to the most recent God of War if you shoot enough bunnies with a suction-cup bow and arrow and Kratos and his kid are in the game in bot form as is a Bloodborne Hunter and a Journey journeyer and– *deep breath* The game is cute and full of references, is what I’m saying. Luke squeed a lot playing it. XD
III. “7 Unauthorised Cameos You Won't Believe They Got Away With” – cameos in games with only paper-thin disguises to keep them from being hit with the lawyers! And sometimes not even that. . . Like the Clintons appearing in (among other things) Ready 2 Rumble Boxing Round 2 as “Mr. President” and “First Lady!” Or Spider-Man as a very weird boss in Revenge of Shinobi – which was actually okay, as Sega had Spidey’s license. . .but then the developers insisted on making him turn into a flying version of Batman, and you can’t mix your Marvel with your DC! XD Or Mike Tyson appearing as "Balrog" in the Street Fighter series – though its worth noting that he actually called “Mike Bison” back in Japan. Or “M. Bison” for short. Yes, the character WE know as M. Bison was originally called “Vega” before they quickly shuffled some names to avoid lawsuits with the American release. The weirdest one is definitely the first, though, if only because the rip-off cameo occurred BEFORE THE CHARACTER’S DEBUT – Sonic’s actual FIRST appearance in a game? In a free floppy given out in the Amiga magazine containing the game Quik and Silva, which featured a skinny knock-off version of him as a random enemy for the protagonists to fight. A month before the release of his own game. Now THAT’S gotta sting.
B) And then it was over to the Subs for Call Me Kevin playing the PS2 Matrix game! Because the recent movie didn’t go down well, so he was in the mood for a bit of nostalgia. Blocky, blocky nostalgia. XD To be fair, despite the less-than-perfect graphics, and a game that will freeze up if you jump at the wrong time, it still looked pretty fun. If only because you get to do all the cool slow-mo stunts and what-not the movies were famous for. Kevin played through the “prequel” opening level, robbing a post office before escaping onto the rooftops to flee a fight with Agent Smith. This involved many very obvious stealth attacks on employees; exploiting the fact that enemies can’t attack when you run into a cutscene; climbing on fences he didn’t even need to climb on; defeating random guards through the power of DANCE (aka the spinning dodge); exploiting his slow-mo “focus” moves at every available opportunity; accidentally falling down the gaps between buildings repeatedly; assaulting a bunch of guards in a go-nowhere hallway; and finally escaping Smith at the last second, before getting upset that his captain got all the credit while he did all the hard work. Sorry, Kevin, but I think HR grievances only exist in the Matrix – better luck next time!
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – four ask replies over on Valice Multiverse, nice! Still no episode up on the Wyrd Sisters tumblr, though. . .ah well, I did do my icon change for April Fool's on Victor Luvs Alice, so that’s good at least. XD (Changed it to a Victor/Smiler one from my Sims game just for funsies. We’ll see if anyone notices!)
So that's all sorted, at least. And now I just have one more day to get through until the weekend. . .night all!
