Record Breaking Friday
Feb. 10th, 2023 11:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickIn terms of warmth, that is -- I believe the high around here was 64 F, which is basically UNHEARD OF in February. The previous high was 58 F. And as the weatherman pointed out, over the course of a week we've gone from temperatures in the negative (Saturday) to record-breaking highs (today). It is frankly BIZARRE how warm it's been this winter generally -- even when we have super-cold days, the temperatures just yo-yo right back up to at least the mid 50s within a week or so. I mean, part of me is glad that we have avoided any major snow, part of me is annoyed that getting a snow day off work seems to be off the table this year, and part of me is like "climate change in action, be afraid." Can we just have normal seasonal weather again for five minutes?? *shakehead*
Anyway, you're not here to read about me bitching about the weather (I think) -- you're here to read about me reporting on the rest of my day! Which contains much less bitching --
Work – Another fairly quiet day, though there was some annoyance at the start with a slow ride in and a credit card call where the person had called both the general voicemail and the credit card line, and thus I was told no less than three times about a call I already knew about. *rolls eyes* Ah well. . .rest of the day was spent on the GL, cleaning up duplicates, marking a few people deceased, and sending out a tax letter – nothing particularly special! Which is JUST fine by me, thanks. . .
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike one last time, to watch –
A) The end of Oxventure Presents: Blades In The Dark – “The Astor Gambit!” I picked up with Zillah using the powers of flashback to teach Edvard how to swan-dive off a cliff outside Volisport just in case they ended up in this exact situation. . .and when Luke had her roll to see how well her instruction went, she rolled a 6! :D She and Edvard promptly said they made a nice day of it, took a picnic and everything, and Luke decided, to spare Zillah’s mind snapping at the very end of the score, not to force her to take any stress from said flashback because of that. XD He was ALSO nice enough to say, “oh, and of course you found a way to waterproof the papers you stole, using some sort of oilskin in the room” when they dove out the window. XD (I was fully expecting Edvard to quickly flashback and make some sort of waterproofing gadget, but that works too.)
But yeah – pair successfully dove out of the open window and into the river below, swam to the surface, and escaped largely undetected! Though Luke did note that Roth will DEFINITELY recall what Edvard did to him (should he survive the head wound) and that Alice will likely be able to describe Zillah as they did not scramble her brains as a precautionary measure. These aren’t official entanglements yet, but they did help generate Heat, leaving the gang at eight out of nine Heat on the meter! Meaning they were on the verge of taking a Wanted level (meaning official entanglements WOULD start coming into play, and the police would start really watching out for them). Edvard, smartly, chose to use a downtime action to reduce said Heat, spreading rumors that Astor and his company are just straight-up cursed instead of the target of criminals. This worked well enough to clear three Heat from the meter, allowing them a little breathing room – important when Barnaby is one of your co-conspirators. XD Edvard and Zillah both also chose to indulge their vices to reduce stress (Zillah by heading down to the fight club to beat some people up and get beaten up in turn; Edvard by sitting in on seances and tinkering with alchemy because he relaxes by studying the intersection of science and the supernatural), and Zillah went and found a doctor to heal her wounds, in particular her twisted shoulder (the team DOES have a long-term project to find a dedicated doctor, but Zillah understandably didn’t want her condition to get any worse). And so the score ended with them in possession of a copy of the blueprints for the Dimmer Sisters’ lock, yay! Next week I think I’ll go back to the Oxventure proper for a bit – do the three episodes before their second proper arc, “Legacy of Dragons” – then continue on with this! :)
B) “American reacts to Alton Towers (AMAZING UK amusement park)” by Ryan Wuzer! This is a guy whose channel is all about reacting to videos of other stuff, particularly stuff uploaded by British users. This video was him reacting to a review of Alton Towers posted by another YouTuber, Coaster Studios – and, as you might guess from the title, he was rather impressed. XD He thought the whole place looked really cool, that the coasters themselves looked awesome (he was amazed by the fact that Nemesis in particular goes through so much of the surrounding landscape), and that it just looks like a really fun couple of days out! I’m with you, Ryan, and it really annoys me sometimes that I’m stuck over here and can’t visit it. :(
C) And a couple of Smiler-related videos – an old commercial from Krave cereal promoting The Smiler around the time it opened, and someone’s recreation of some of the videos from The Smiler’s queue line. Amusing enough stuff! :)
2. Continue writing “The Joker And The Queen:” Check – after getting them some snacks and ringing up a gas sale so they can fill up, Alice came outside to tell the ladies what was going on with the dead cashier and the robber she just killed – only for the SECOND robber to show up and try to shoot her. Only for HIM to take a sewing needle to the eye, as thrown by a panicked Victoria, allowing Alice to stab him to death. Victoria is currently wondering how the FUCK she made that shot. XD Will of the universe, Victoria! Alice will explain it to you momentarily. :p
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: TECHNICAL half-check – being Friday, tonight was game night (I have been introduced to the tactical complications of Parcheesi, including my Dad blocking the spot right in front of his entrance slot so he could get one of his pieces all the way around the board and causing a five-piece pile-up XD), so everything ran very late and I didn’t have much time for YouTube. So instead of Subs, I focused on the remaining OXBox video in my Watch Later – “7 Most Annoying Things Your AI Companion Will Do!” A list of complaints about bad AI behavior – from walking JUST too fast for you to keep up with your regular walking speed, but JUST too slow to keep up with your regular sprinting speed; to giving you patronizing, passive-aggressive hints on puzzles; to judging everything you do; to getting in the way of your shots when you’re trying to mow down hordes of zombies (though at least one commenter noted that it looked more like Mike kept backing up in such a way as to put his AI companions in Left 4 Dead in his sights XD). Suffice to say, AI companions can often prove the adage “with friends like these. . .” Though as I told Andy, if you don’t want Nick judging you for stealing Nuka-Quantums, maybe go and have him stand somewhere else so he can’t SEE you do it. (That’s how I successfully stole the chip I needed from the scavengers for Ironsides and his crew – asked Piper to wait somewhere else and then popped a Stealth Boy to get in and out as fast as possible. No ding to the old affinity meter at all!)
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – got some rough drafts of this year’s “Valicertine’s Day” and Polyam Shipping Day posts into the queue on Victor Luvs Alice before my workout! As for Valice Multiverse, nothing going on there at the moment, so I just went ahead and slotted in my second OT3 meme into the queue. I will continue to inflict Valicer upon tumblr and there is nothing they can do about it. :p
And that's about it, really! Doing the social thing right now, gonna head to bed in a little while. Tomorrow is a Cleaning Saturday, so I know how I'm spending my morning, at least. Also gotta recheck my mods and put them back in so I can get back to my Valicer trio in Sims 4, see about getting caught up on some YouTube stuff, and get the first draft of my gift fic written. Hopefully all achievable goals! Night all!
Anyway, you're not here to read about me bitching about the weather (I think) -- you're here to read about me reporting on the rest of my day! Which contains much less bitching --
Work – Another fairly quiet day, though there was some annoyance at the start with a slow ride in and a credit card call where the person had called both the general voicemail and the credit card line, and thus I was told no less than three times about a call I already knew about. *rolls eyes* Ah well. . .rest of the day was spent on the GL, cleaning up duplicates, marking a few people deceased, and sending out a tax letter – nothing particularly special! Which is JUST fine by me, thanks. . .
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike one last time, to watch –
A) The end of Oxventure Presents: Blades In The Dark – “The Astor Gambit!” I picked up with Zillah using the powers of flashback to teach Edvard how to swan-dive off a cliff outside Volisport just in case they ended up in this exact situation. . .and when Luke had her roll to see how well her instruction went, she rolled a 6! :D She and Edvard promptly said they made a nice day of it, took a picnic and everything, and Luke decided, to spare Zillah’s mind snapping at the very end of the score, not to force her to take any stress from said flashback because of that. XD He was ALSO nice enough to say, “oh, and of course you found a way to waterproof the papers you stole, using some sort of oilskin in the room” when they dove out the window. XD (I was fully expecting Edvard to quickly flashback and make some sort of waterproofing gadget, but that works too.)
But yeah – pair successfully dove out of the open window and into the river below, swam to the surface, and escaped largely undetected! Though Luke did note that Roth will DEFINITELY recall what Edvard did to him (should he survive the head wound) and that Alice will likely be able to describe Zillah as they did not scramble her brains as a precautionary measure. These aren’t official entanglements yet, but they did help generate Heat, leaving the gang at eight out of nine Heat on the meter! Meaning they were on the verge of taking a Wanted level (meaning official entanglements WOULD start coming into play, and the police would start really watching out for them). Edvard, smartly, chose to use a downtime action to reduce said Heat, spreading rumors that Astor and his company are just straight-up cursed instead of the target of criminals. This worked well enough to clear three Heat from the meter, allowing them a little breathing room – important when Barnaby is one of your co-conspirators. XD Edvard and Zillah both also chose to indulge their vices to reduce stress (Zillah by heading down to the fight club to beat some people up and get beaten up in turn; Edvard by sitting in on seances and tinkering with alchemy because he relaxes by studying the intersection of science and the supernatural), and Zillah went and found a doctor to heal her wounds, in particular her twisted shoulder (the team DOES have a long-term project to find a dedicated doctor, but Zillah understandably didn’t want her condition to get any worse). And so the score ended with them in possession of a copy of the blueprints for the Dimmer Sisters’ lock, yay! Next week I think I’ll go back to the Oxventure proper for a bit – do the three episodes before their second proper arc, “Legacy of Dragons” – then continue on with this! :)
B) “American reacts to Alton Towers (AMAZING UK amusement park)” by Ryan Wuzer! This is a guy whose channel is all about reacting to videos of other stuff, particularly stuff uploaded by British users. This video was him reacting to a review of Alton Towers posted by another YouTuber, Coaster Studios – and, as you might guess from the title, he was rather impressed. XD He thought the whole place looked really cool, that the coasters themselves looked awesome (he was amazed by the fact that Nemesis in particular goes through so much of the surrounding landscape), and that it just looks like a really fun couple of days out! I’m with you, Ryan, and it really annoys me sometimes that I’m stuck over here and can’t visit it. :(
C) And a couple of Smiler-related videos – an old commercial from Krave cereal promoting The Smiler around the time it opened, and someone’s recreation of some of the videos from The Smiler’s queue line. Amusing enough stuff! :)
2. Continue writing “The Joker And The Queen:” Check – after getting them some snacks and ringing up a gas sale so they can fill up, Alice came outside to tell the ladies what was going on with the dead cashier and the robber she just killed – only for the SECOND robber to show up and try to shoot her. Only for HIM to take a sewing needle to the eye, as thrown by a panicked Victoria, allowing Alice to stab him to death. Victoria is currently wondering how the FUCK she made that shot. XD Will of the universe, Victoria! Alice will explain it to you momentarily. :p
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: TECHNICAL half-check – being Friday, tonight was game night (I have been introduced to the tactical complications of Parcheesi, including my Dad blocking the spot right in front of his entrance slot so he could get one of his pieces all the way around the board and causing a five-piece pile-up XD), so everything ran very late and I didn’t have much time for YouTube. So instead of Subs, I focused on the remaining OXBox video in my Watch Later – “7 Most Annoying Things Your AI Companion Will Do!” A list of complaints about bad AI behavior – from walking JUST too fast for you to keep up with your regular walking speed, but JUST too slow to keep up with your regular sprinting speed; to giving you patronizing, passive-aggressive hints on puzzles; to judging everything you do; to getting in the way of your shots when you’re trying to mow down hordes of zombies (though at least one commenter noted that it looked more like Mike kept backing up in such a way as to put his AI companions in Left 4 Dead in his sights XD). Suffice to say, AI companions can often prove the adage “with friends like these. . .” Though as I told Andy, if you don’t want Nick judging you for stealing Nuka-Quantums, maybe go and have him stand somewhere else so he can’t SEE you do it. (That’s how I successfully stole the chip I needed from the scavengers for Ironsides and his crew – asked Piper to wait somewhere else and then popped a Stealth Boy to get in and out as fast as possible. No ding to the old affinity meter at all!)
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – got some rough drafts of this year’s “Valicertine’s Day” and Polyam Shipping Day posts into the queue on Victor Luvs Alice before my workout! As for Valice Multiverse, nothing going on there at the moment, so I just went ahead and slotted in my second OT3 meme into the queue. I will continue to inflict Valicer upon tumblr and there is nothing they can do about it. :p
And that's about it, really! Doing the social thing right now, gonna head to bed in a little while. Tomorrow is a Cleaning Saturday, so I know how I'm spending my morning, at least. Also gotta recheck my mods and put them back in so I can get back to my Valicer trio in Sims 4, see about getting caught up on some YouTube stuff, and get the first draft of my gift fic written. Hopefully all achievable goals! Night all!
