Unhappy Wednesday
Sep. 28th, 2022 11:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickFirst off, my morning was rushed and off-kilter because I had to eat my muffin earlier than normal (and cold) and brush my teeth before 7:30 so Dad could drain the house in preparation for installing the new sink and all that, AND I had to leave for work earlier because the installation people were coming at eight and I had to be out of the way by then (Mom pulled my car out for me, happily). Then I got to work only to find the usual reports we get in our e-mails were missing -- after rebooting in case it was something to do with my e-mail, I asked my coworker about it, and it turns out SHE hadn't gotten them either. Turns out it was a glitch on the database's end. Then, after some quiet time, we got a text from one of the directors (currently at home) -- he'd just tested positive for COVID. So THAT was hanging over my head the rest of the day until I could get home and test myself! (Negative, thankfully.) And then I ended up leaving a bit later than usual, and THEN when I got home, only SOME of the cabinets were installed -- turns out they sent THE WRONG ONE for housing Mom's new oven. So now we have to wait for Mom and Dad to talk to the person at Lowe's about it so we can get the right one and -- *sigh* Couple that with a few other little technical glitches, me PMSing, and me feeling like I was always running against the clock and losing. . .it's been a not-great day. *sigh* At least I did reasonably well on the to-dos:
Work – Another quiet day, for the most part – spent it mostly cleaning up that list of duplicates I decided to work on, and other duplicates/roster maintenance stuff I happened to come across. (Or was sent to me by my boss.) Also FINALLY got some of the credit card nonsense sorted at LAST, only took a MONTH – *heavy sigh* Past the halfway point of the week. I’ll keep concentrating on those duplicates.
Beanbags – Yes, surprisingly – we managed to fit in our usual three rounds after I’d gotten the COVID test sorted. And I ended up having another great day, going from threes to fives to sevens in the first game and then keeping it high for the second. While Dad had a slightly better day than yesterday, and Mom had a slightly worse one – final scores were me W-W-2; Dad 2-3-W; Mom 3-2-3. *shrug* We’ll see if tomorrow is any better!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night with the “OX Blades In The Dark” score, “The Cab-Con Caper!” After taking a look around the stage and confirming that trying to go in through the “proper channels” – a desk manned by a man and a woman into the backstage area, behind a bunch of temporary partitions – Edvard decided to join Kasimir under the stage, with Kasimir lifting the skirting with his cane. This help, along with Edvard pushing himself, got him a decent Prowl roll, and he was able to slip under – though not without a security guard noticing his sudden disappearance by the stage. It hasn’t yet caused any trouble, but it did lead to a segment being filled in on the “Kicked Out” clock. . .
But that was a worry for later! The boys managed to successfully crawl their way to the back – Kasimir attempting to lead a Prowl roll, but ending up rolling terribly while Edvard got a six, meaning Edvard helped Kasimir sneak (to be fair, Luke decided this was because Kasimir was all slippery from his goat poo samples) – and emerged in a little back area that was kind of like a bit of an office. There was a waiting area; a bunch of crates strewn about; a bunch of little temporary roofless cubicles for people to meet in or whatnot; the back of the desk Edvard saw before; and steps up to the back of the stage itself. Edvard decided he wanted a look in the cubicles – as Luke informed him there were no handy stairs or ladders, and trying to climb up to the roof would take too long, he set about constructing himself a box staircase to get a peek. Kasimir, meanwhile, decided to go the direct route and head up on the stage to take a look at Bessie and if she had any food. She did indeed – a trough full of various veggies, like potatoes, cucumbers, cabbage. All sorts of good things for good goats! Kasimir couldn’t help noting that Bessie ate better than HE did most days –
Cue the goat hissing at him and starting in on her dinner. Kasimir was rather taken aback by this turn of events, as you might imagine. XD He decided to poke around the stage and see what he could find that might indicate why this goat is the way it is, arguing that by being super careful and trying not to get poo all over everything, it could be classed as Prowl, one of his best stats. He rolled –
A three, which was a fail. Poor Johnny was basically a broken person at this point with how badly Kasimir was rolling. XD He did find a clipboard noting the schedule of injections and plotting out Bessie’s resultant speed, but not only did he get poo on it, he ALSO got caught by one of the Clelland workers! Fortunately, Kasimir had earlier had a flashback which indicated that he’d gone to one of his information broker friends and asked for some help learning the lingo of the cabmen so he could pretend to be one of them. He’d rolled a three on the Consort role for that – Luke decided this meant that he only remembered two of the key phrases he’d been taught (there had been wine involved at the meeting, so. . .). Fortunately, that was enough to bluff to this guy that he was a worker as well (hired to clean out the treadmill, in fact, thus explaining his poo-y nature), and he tried asking about the injections, claiming that he was worried about said poo. The guy said that they weren’t supposed to talk about that, but if he really insisted on bringing it up, then he could talk to “creepyface” (aka Dr. Creepyface, as I shall call him) in his makeshift lab, pointing it out to him when Kasimir asked. Kasimir thanked him and promised not to mention the guy, and he in turn promised not to mention Kasimir’s poking about. Not bad!
At this point the action cut back to Edvard, who’d successfully stacked crates without arousing suspicion and was able to peer into one of the cubicles – Dr. Creepyface’s lab, in fact! Full of the typical mad alchemical nonsense. :D Edward quickly spotted a rack of syringes, all filled with murky red liquid that seemed to swirl of its own accord. Kasimir came over just then, and the two quickly conferred, Edvard saying that he was pretty sure he could get into the cubicle and steal some of the liquid if Kasimir could get Dr. Creepyface out of the way for a bit. Kasimir said that was a good plan, and quickly faked being in a panic over Bessie choking. Dr. Creepyface was grumpy, but grabbed a couple of syringes and went to look at the goat. Edvard got himself over the top without much trouble, and injected a little of the mysterious serum into his now-empty alchemical bottle, figuring that would be a good way to take some without anyone noticing anything missing.
Kasimir, meanwhile, got Dr. Creepyface up onto the stage, then – pushing himself so he could get a better roll – managing to put him into a perfect sleeper hold with a lucky six, hiding him under the table disguised with hay and just straight-up stealing one of the syringes he’d brought. XD With now more than enough shit (literal and figurative) to give to their mysterious employer, the pair decided it was time to leave, grabbing some empty crates to try and pretend they were workers going to refill the hay. They attempted to sneak past the front desk people – while Kasimir’s poo was useful for getting the woman to point out a service entrance rather than risk him getting shit on her desk, the man noticed that they had no lanyards marking them as staff. . .
CUE THE EXPLOSION OF THE HYDRAULIC PISTON. As Luke put it, “Fire! Fire! A humiliating fire!” Obviously, this rather took everyone’s minds off two men holding crates, and Edvard and Kasimir were able to book it toward the front fire exit – which was getting VERY overwhelmed, so Edvard just smashed a window with his crate, leading to the rest of the crowd throwing whatever they could get their hands on and swarming out into the street. The local guards were trying to keep everyone together, explaining this was a potential crime scene and all, but Kasimir and Edvard were pretty sure that they could use the terrified crowd to their advantage to slip away –
Hey, Kasimir, remember how you rolled terribly to set up a getaway gondola earlier? The scrawny kid now standing atop the anchored tall boat in the canal, yelling your and Edvard’s names sure does! XD Fortunately Edvard was able to distract the crowd by claiming one of the barbershop quartet hired to sing at the Astor booth is the REAL Amadeus Astor and get them to swarm the guys, and even with the kid basically shrieking to all and sundry that he was giving them a secret ride, they were able to get away. Kasimir, as you might imagine, started smacking the idiot around for damn near rumbling them. XD And THEN tricked the kid into shaking on an agreement – you don’t tell anyone we were here and I’ll stop smacking you around – which allowed him to use the special Spider ability “Ghost Contract,” marking both of them with a stylized anchor tattoo to symbolize the agreement. . .which will inflict LEVEL 3 “CURSED” HARM ON WHOEVER BREAKS IT. Level 3 Harm is “you are basically incapacitated,” sooo. . .yeah, kid was suddenly VERY eager to keep his mouth shut. XD That’s basically it for the score – tomorrow I conclude with the downtime action, then move back to Sims for another episode of James Turner’s High School Years Rags To Riches!
2. Continue writing “Londerland Bloodlines”: Check, though I didn’t get my usual full page because today has been all about no time to do as much as I’d like. *sigh* But I got most of one, covering Alice learning about Fat Larry from Jack (because in fanfic land, someone’s got to point her toward him and his truck), and Skelter’s views on the Camarilla (unnecessary, because all their laws are common-sense stuff, and they’re too inflexible to see when they need to be bent). I figure she’ll pick up the quest to take care of Patty before leaving, and – probably head back to the Skyeline to meet back up with Victor, as I think trying to cram Larry into this mess along with all their exposition is a mistake. *nods* Have to pick up with you tomorrow, buddy!
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: One-half check – technically a one-third check, but the third video was the hour-long second half of the Wyrd Sisters Podcast finale, so that wasn’t getting watched tonight anyway. Gonna have to save that for the weekend. . .but yeah, due to timing, I only got in Call Me Kevin and “Beating the Sims 1 is the hardest challenge in gaming” – aka more adventures in The Sims with Balding Gladiator Jim Pickens! Kevin set himself a challenge for this episode – he was going to max out a career, have a loving family, and be happy for a change, or he was going to kill everyone in the neighborhood.
. . .the game crashed the moment he booted it up; his baby was taken away in the first few minutes by social services for neglect; his attempts to get a new one resulted in Jim and his wife Loretta falling out of love because they can barely stand the sight of each other; a burglar took a bunch of his most expensive objects, including all the suits of armor; and while Jim had a lovely day out in Magic Town, riding the little roller coaster and beating Apothecary Todd in a duel, he kind of failed in his objective to make friends so he could advance in his career. MURDER PARTIES IT WAS, THEN! XD Kevin started inviting people over on the regular, only to delete the front door so they had no choice but to hang around his house, falling asleep standing up and slowly starving to death. This had some consequences for Jim and Loretta, of course – being trapped places by the sleeping people, nearly starving because they couldn’t get to the fridge, the growing filth, Loretta in particular being constantly scared by the ghosts – but it did mean everyone was just as miserable as them! Even Kevin deciding to try making friends via the medium of hot tub socializing didn’t stop the agony, with Kevin literally FENCING PEOPLE IN so they couldn’t escape. By the end of the episode, he had a graveyard basically the size of Sim Nation – his game crashed again at one point, and when he booted it back up, it told him to hang on because IT WAS REPOPULATING THE NEIGHBORHOOD. XD Damn. Well, at least he succeeded in his goal to murder everyone! The easiest goal in the original Sims, I think we can all agree. :p
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – reset the Victor Luvs Alice queue to one, cleaned up my Thursday post with the Valicer snippet, then put that and the next set of Not-Incorrect Valicer Quotes (with a musical theme!) in the queue. Will figure out Song Saturday tomorrow.
At least I got all of the important stuff done. . .time to go to bed and hope Thursday is better. Night all.
Work – Another quiet day, for the most part – spent it mostly cleaning up that list of duplicates I decided to work on, and other duplicates/roster maintenance stuff I happened to come across. (Or was sent to me by my boss.) Also FINALLY got some of the credit card nonsense sorted at LAST, only took a MONTH – *heavy sigh* Past the halfway point of the week. I’ll keep concentrating on those duplicates.
Beanbags – Yes, surprisingly – we managed to fit in our usual three rounds after I’d gotten the COVID test sorted. And I ended up having another great day, going from threes to fives to sevens in the first game and then keeping it high for the second. While Dad had a slightly better day than yesterday, and Mom had a slightly worse one – final scores were me W-W-2; Dad 2-3-W; Mom 3-2-3. *shrug* We’ll see if tomorrow is any better!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night with the “OX Blades In The Dark” score, “The Cab-Con Caper!” After taking a look around the stage and confirming that trying to go in through the “proper channels” – a desk manned by a man and a woman into the backstage area, behind a bunch of temporary partitions – Edvard decided to join Kasimir under the stage, with Kasimir lifting the skirting with his cane. This help, along with Edvard pushing himself, got him a decent Prowl roll, and he was able to slip under – though not without a security guard noticing his sudden disappearance by the stage. It hasn’t yet caused any trouble, but it did lead to a segment being filled in on the “Kicked Out” clock. . .
But that was a worry for later! The boys managed to successfully crawl their way to the back – Kasimir attempting to lead a Prowl roll, but ending up rolling terribly while Edvard got a six, meaning Edvard helped Kasimir sneak (to be fair, Luke decided this was because Kasimir was all slippery from his goat poo samples) – and emerged in a little back area that was kind of like a bit of an office. There was a waiting area; a bunch of crates strewn about; a bunch of little temporary roofless cubicles for people to meet in or whatnot; the back of the desk Edvard saw before; and steps up to the back of the stage itself. Edvard decided he wanted a look in the cubicles – as Luke informed him there were no handy stairs or ladders, and trying to climb up to the roof would take too long, he set about constructing himself a box staircase to get a peek. Kasimir, meanwhile, decided to go the direct route and head up on the stage to take a look at Bessie and if she had any food. She did indeed – a trough full of various veggies, like potatoes, cucumbers, cabbage. All sorts of good things for good goats! Kasimir couldn’t help noting that Bessie ate better than HE did most days –
Cue the goat hissing at him and starting in on her dinner. Kasimir was rather taken aback by this turn of events, as you might imagine. XD He decided to poke around the stage and see what he could find that might indicate why this goat is the way it is, arguing that by being super careful and trying not to get poo all over everything, it could be classed as Prowl, one of his best stats. He rolled –
A three, which was a fail. Poor Johnny was basically a broken person at this point with how badly Kasimir was rolling. XD He did find a clipboard noting the schedule of injections and plotting out Bessie’s resultant speed, but not only did he get poo on it, he ALSO got caught by one of the Clelland workers! Fortunately, Kasimir had earlier had a flashback which indicated that he’d gone to one of his information broker friends and asked for some help learning the lingo of the cabmen so he could pretend to be one of them. He’d rolled a three on the Consort role for that – Luke decided this meant that he only remembered two of the key phrases he’d been taught (there had been wine involved at the meeting, so. . .). Fortunately, that was enough to bluff to this guy that he was a worker as well (hired to clean out the treadmill, in fact, thus explaining his poo-y nature), and he tried asking about the injections, claiming that he was worried about said poo. The guy said that they weren’t supposed to talk about that, but if he really insisted on bringing it up, then he could talk to “creepyface” (aka Dr. Creepyface, as I shall call him) in his makeshift lab, pointing it out to him when Kasimir asked. Kasimir thanked him and promised not to mention the guy, and he in turn promised not to mention Kasimir’s poking about. Not bad!
At this point the action cut back to Edvard, who’d successfully stacked crates without arousing suspicion and was able to peer into one of the cubicles – Dr. Creepyface’s lab, in fact! Full of the typical mad alchemical nonsense. :D Edward quickly spotted a rack of syringes, all filled with murky red liquid that seemed to swirl of its own accord. Kasimir came over just then, and the two quickly conferred, Edvard saying that he was pretty sure he could get into the cubicle and steal some of the liquid if Kasimir could get Dr. Creepyface out of the way for a bit. Kasimir said that was a good plan, and quickly faked being in a panic over Bessie choking. Dr. Creepyface was grumpy, but grabbed a couple of syringes and went to look at the goat. Edvard got himself over the top without much trouble, and injected a little of the mysterious serum into his now-empty alchemical bottle, figuring that would be a good way to take some without anyone noticing anything missing.
Kasimir, meanwhile, got Dr. Creepyface up onto the stage, then – pushing himself so he could get a better roll – managing to put him into a perfect sleeper hold with a lucky six, hiding him under the table disguised with hay and just straight-up stealing one of the syringes he’d brought. XD With now more than enough shit (literal and figurative) to give to their mysterious employer, the pair decided it was time to leave, grabbing some empty crates to try and pretend they were workers going to refill the hay. They attempted to sneak past the front desk people – while Kasimir’s poo was useful for getting the woman to point out a service entrance rather than risk him getting shit on her desk, the man noticed that they had no lanyards marking them as staff. . .
CUE THE EXPLOSION OF THE HYDRAULIC PISTON. As Luke put it, “Fire! Fire! A humiliating fire!” Obviously, this rather took everyone’s minds off two men holding crates, and Edvard and Kasimir were able to book it toward the front fire exit – which was getting VERY overwhelmed, so Edvard just smashed a window with his crate, leading to the rest of the crowd throwing whatever they could get their hands on and swarming out into the street. The local guards were trying to keep everyone together, explaining this was a potential crime scene and all, but Kasimir and Edvard were pretty sure that they could use the terrified crowd to their advantage to slip away –
Hey, Kasimir, remember how you rolled terribly to set up a getaway gondola earlier? The scrawny kid now standing atop the anchored tall boat in the canal, yelling your and Edvard’s names sure does! XD Fortunately Edvard was able to distract the crowd by claiming one of the barbershop quartet hired to sing at the Astor booth is the REAL Amadeus Astor and get them to swarm the guys, and even with the kid basically shrieking to all and sundry that he was giving them a secret ride, they were able to get away. Kasimir, as you might imagine, started smacking the idiot around for damn near rumbling them. XD And THEN tricked the kid into shaking on an agreement – you don’t tell anyone we were here and I’ll stop smacking you around – which allowed him to use the special Spider ability “Ghost Contract,” marking both of them with a stylized anchor tattoo to symbolize the agreement. . .which will inflict LEVEL 3 “CURSED” HARM ON WHOEVER BREAKS IT. Level 3 Harm is “you are basically incapacitated,” sooo. . .yeah, kid was suddenly VERY eager to keep his mouth shut. XD That’s basically it for the score – tomorrow I conclude with the downtime action, then move back to Sims for another episode of James Turner’s High School Years Rags To Riches!
2. Continue writing “Londerland Bloodlines”: Check, though I didn’t get my usual full page because today has been all about no time to do as much as I’d like. *sigh* But I got most of one, covering Alice learning about Fat Larry from Jack (because in fanfic land, someone’s got to point her toward him and his truck), and Skelter’s views on the Camarilla (unnecessary, because all their laws are common-sense stuff, and they’re too inflexible to see when they need to be bent). I figure she’ll pick up the quest to take care of Patty before leaving, and – probably head back to the Skyeline to meet back up with Victor, as I think trying to cram Larry into this mess along with all their exposition is a mistake. *nods* Have to pick up with you tomorrow, buddy!
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: One-half check – technically a one-third check, but the third video was the hour-long second half of the Wyrd Sisters Podcast finale, so that wasn’t getting watched tonight anyway. Gonna have to save that for the weekend. . .but yeah, due to timing, I only got in Call Me Kevin and “Beating the Sims 1 is the hardest challenge in gaming” – aka more adventures in The Sims with Balding Gladiator Jim Pickens! Kevin set himself a challenge for this episode – he was going to max out a career, have a loving family, and be happy for a change, or he was going to kill everyone in the neighborhood.
. . .the game crashed the moment he booted it up; his baby was taken away in the first few minutes by social services for neglect; his attempts to get a new one resulted in Jim and his wife Loretta falling out of love because they can barely stand the sight of each other; a burglar took a bunch of his most expensive objects, including all the suits of armor; and while Jim had a lovely day out in Magic Town, riding the little roller coaster and beating Apothecary Todd in a duel, he kind of failed in his objective to make friends so he could advance in his career. MURDER PARTIES IT WAS, THEN! XD Kevin started inviting people over on the regular, only to delete the front door so they had no choice but to hang around his house, falling asleep standing up and slowly starving to death. This had some consequences for Jim and Loretta, of course – being trapped places by the sleeping people, nearly starving because they couldn’t get to the fridge, the growing filth, Loretta in particular being constantly scared by the ghosts – but it did mean everyone was just as miserable as them! Even Kevin deciding to try making friends via the medium of hot tub socializing didn’t stop the agony, with Kevin literally FENCING PEOPLE IN so they couldn’t escape. By the end of the episode, he had a graveyard basically the size of Sim Nation – his game crashed again at one point, and when he booted it back up, it told him to hang on because IT WAS REPOPULATING THE NEIGHBORHOOD. XD Damn. Well, at least he succeeded in his goal to murder everyone! The easiest goal in the original Sims, I think we can all agree. :p
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – reset the Victor Luvs Alice queue to one, cleaned up my Thursday post with the Valicer snippet, then put that and the next set of Not-Incorrect Valicer Quotes (with a musical theme!) in the queue. Will figure out Song Saturday tomorrow.
At least I got all of the important stuff done. . .time to go to bed and hope Thursday is better. Night all.
