Happy Birthday Smiler! :D
May. 31st, 2023 11:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickWhile it was far from a perfect day, as my to-do list will out, I did have some nice Smiler-related moments, and I had a special ice-cream-and-banana treat for dessert in honor of the day -- though thanks to me getting caught up in making a quick special birthday post this evening, a lot of the ice cream had melted by the time I started seriously eating it. XD To be fair, it IS a pretty warm night -- I've got the fan going in my window at top speed. But yes, here's how my day went --
Work – Well, the ride in was absolutely hellish, with traffic backed up both on the main drag AND on the highway, meaning I was roughly ten minutes late when I finally got to work. Day itself was mostly quiet (especially since talky coworker was out), though we did have a few instances of annoyance – a gift having been put on as the wrong type and me having to correct it; an issue with connecting to the credit card people’s website while doing someone’s payment; and fun with matching gifts and trying to correct the campaign year they’re supposed to go to. And then I got out and hit the usual nonsense trying to get home – wasn’t as bad as it COULD have been, but it certainly wasn’t the delightfully smooth ride I got yesterday! Overall I’d rate the whole day as “enugh.”
As for beanbags, things went a little better there, with everybody getting a win – Mom had a strong start and then kinda fell apart; Dad was consistently good but struggled at times with the slide; and I had a very slow start that built up to a good finish. :) Final scores were me 3-2-W; Dad 2-W-2; Mom W-3-3. Not perfectly egalitarian, but pretty close!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – had another night on the bike as usual, watching the following –
A) “THE SMILER GAME!” by Eye Coaster! Yes, I had to watch something Smiler-related with my workout because it’s the coaster’s tenth anniversary, and I saw this pop up in my Recommendeds once and decided to track it down and check it out. It was honestly a really nice video, with Eye Coaster showing off the game via the medium of recording his iPod Touch’s screen (as he still had the game on that). It’s a cool game, where you play as someone controlling the coaster on a cut-down version of The Smiler, trying to marmalize people for points to buy upgrades, both to the track (putting in all the various inversions) and to the Marmalizer (adding and improving the Flasher, Tickler, Giggler, Inoculator, and Hypnotizer). I mean, I can see why it was taken off the store after the crash (the game’s conceit is that you’re working to keep the coaster car on the track, with it leaning VERY DANGEROUSLY to one side if you’re doing poorly – probably not in great taste after the accident), but it also genuinely looked like fun. Eye Coaster certainly enjoyed replaying it, and his enthusiasm was infectious. :) I left a nice comment and added it to my “Smile Always Alton Towers” playlist on YouTube once I was back on desktop. :D I also watched the trailer for the game right afterward – probably should put that on the playlist as well!
B) Oxventure Presents: Blades in the Dark – “A Crimsnight Carol!” Yup, starting the second of my Inappropriately-Timed Holiday Specials with a return to Volisport and the Bladeventurers – specifically, to Edvard and Lilith! After some opening banter in which Edvard stabbed Luke with a “slow-acting poison pen,” then realized he’d dropped the antidote pen somewhere (the poison took longer than two hours to act, so Luke would be fine for the adventure, which was the important bit), Luke set the stage – it was Crimsnight, that night where the families of Volisport gather, share good food, exchange presents, and board up all the windows and keep watch over the doors and fireplaces and such for burglars, as thievery was essentially legal for the next day. Edvard had very fond memories of being stationed up on the roof with a bat to ward off criminals getting down the chimney, with his father bringing up hot cocoa. XD Essentially, the old “Crimsnight” of fantasy adventure G’eth (which was based around one guy allowing criminals to try and rob him to test out his guards) and the Winter Solistice celebrations have combined into a very Home Alone-style holiday. I approve. XD
Anyway – it being Crimsnight, most of the other Bladeventurers in the gang had gone off to celebrate and spend time with their families (if that was their thing), leaving just Eleanor, Edvard, and Lilith at Eleanor’s townhouse. Edvard and Eleanor were each engaged in scientific pursuits (Edvard specifically working on Wonderful Mechanical Man Mark II), leaving Lilith as the only one free to answer the door when there was a knock (armed with a poker, of course, because Crimsnight). However, while the visitor turned out to be a criminal, it wasn’t one there to rob them – instead, Lilith found Bazso Baz, leader of the Lampblacks, on the doorstep! He greeted her warmly and said he had a job for her, if she was interested – his second-in-command, Pickett, had recommended her especially for it! Lilith was naturally a little suspicious (as the gang’s relationship with Pickett is largely “you don’t try to shove us around or kill us, and we won’t tell Baz you were gunning for his spot”), but – after getting Edvard to deactivate the killbot he’d automatically unleashed upon hearing the door (a process that involved a lot of hitting it with a hammer) – heard Baz out. As it turned out, one of the major benefactors of the Lampblacks, Evan “The Geezer” Screws, was having a bit of a ghost problem, and was prepared to richly reward anyone who assisted him with it. Lilith was interested in rich reward and accepted the job, getting a map to the guy’s house from Baz (slightly bloodied, as SOME criminals made the very unwise choice to try and rob HIM on the way). She asked Edvard if he was up to joining her – he initially demurred, saying he wanted to keep working on his killbot so it could go down chimneys and kill criminals as a Crimsnight defense, but once Lilith pointed out that all that murder would also make it a criminal, the bot self-destructed from the paradox and Edvard admitted he did need the coin to keep funding his experiments into all these exploding robots. XD
And so the pair headed over to Scrooge’s – I mean, SCREWS’S house, where the miserly old fellow let them into an extremely cold room with no chairs and a single lump of coal in the fireplace. Edvard noted that, if he owned such a grand townhouse, surely he could afford more than a single lump of coal, but Evan was firm that “a fool and his money are soon parted” and that anyone who isn’t happy with a bit of bread and cheese, some tallow candles, and a lump of coal in the fireplace is a fool. People make do, if they’re deprived! His stupid tenants should learn that! Lilith and Edvard were both immediately like “okay, is this asshole even going to pay us?” XD Fortunately, when Lilith inquired about the reward, Evan said that if they helped him with his ghost problem, he’d give them five Coin (“which is a lot,” Luke hastened to say when Lilith looked disappointed). But not a penny beforehand, of course! Mollified, Lilith asked about the ghost problem, and – as you might expect – the trouble was that Evan had been visited by the apparition of his late business partner, Jacob Murley, and told that he would be haunted by three spirits to help him mend his wicked ways. Problem was, Evan rather LIKES his wicked ways and doesn’t want to reform, hence the need for a Whisper to head these ghosts off at the pass. Lilith tried to talk him into at least hearing the ghosts out, saying it would make for a good story, and he’d probably become famous through it – why, they might even do puppet shows about it! (A reference to A Muppet Christmas Carol, I am sure.) Evan was NOT interested in this at all and went on a rant about how much he hates puppets. XD A rant that was interrupted by the appearance of a cat burglar sneaking in his window – Evan promptly seized his cane and beat the man unconscious, in a show of brutality that was rather unbecoming of the spirit of Crimsnight – you’re supposed to smack the criminals in a fun, cartoony manner, not beat them half to death and then put them out the window to crunch into the snow! Edvard was a bit like “are you TRYING to get ghosts?” :p But yes, we’re doing a twist on a famous Dickens tale for this Volisport Holiday Special – we’ll see how Lilith and Edvard fare against the spirits of Crimsmas Past, Present, and Yet To Come starting tomorrow!
2. Continue writing “The Joker And The Queen”: Check – did the Smiler section today, with the gang ALMOST at the point of reaching the stairs, only for a final obstacle to appear in their way – Miles Cedars, Bagshaw, Norris, and Cundey, all very reluctantly stopping them from passing. As this is the most nonthreatening group of guards the gang’s come across yet, nobody REALLY wanted to do anything to hurt them, but they weren’t about to turn around and go back to their cells either. . .fortunately, Smiler was on the case to step up and bring the joy! To the point of incapacitation. XD Next time, we’ll see the results of that, including Wickerman being freaked out by the site of Miles Cedars GENUINELY smiling. XD
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check – just the GrayStillPlays video today, “Cars vs Collapsing Bridges in GTA 5!” Another Alex Torture Board, featuring Gray and a whole bunch of different vehicles versus a variety of very unstable bridges! We had the standard Collapsing Bridge (made up of floating containers that started falling the minute you started driving over them), the Floating Log Bridge (platforms on floating logs in VERY choppy waters), the Wooden Bridge (made up most of very destructible wooden pallets), the Magneto Bridge (made up of floating blue vans that bobbled in place as you tried to drive over them, basically forcing you to carefully find the spot that would not make them tip and dump you), the Indiana Jones Bridge (made up of destructible walls – you passed over some stop sticks, then had to outrun the boulder Alex had programmed to start chasing you and smashing up the walls), and finally – past a checkpoint – The Depressing Bridge (a bridge made up of platforms that disassembled and reassembled themselves every ten seconds – oh, and it went through the prison, so people were shooting at you). Gray tried a vast variety of cars, some of which did better than others – the Baller (and its included passenger) couldn’t make it past the wooden bridge; the Wastelander failed on the Magneto Bridge; and the Liberator monster truck actually made it all the way to Indiana Jones but couldn’t outrun the boulder – but finally hit upon a winner with the “pretty good all around” racing car, which made it over everything at a good enough speed to outrun the boulder and take on the Depressing Bridge all in one shot before Gray GOT shot. XD Another successful bout of Gray torture!
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – reset the Victor Luvs Alice queue speed to one, and put in a reblog of a bunch of OT3 writing prompts (possibly for use later with Valicer), a reblogged thing about how everything reminds me of my “blorbos” (which is extremely true when it comes to Valice and Valicer), and a reblog of “All Around Me” by Flyleaf for my Song Saturday (a song I have not featured in ages and which gives me very specific feels for my OTP/OT3). So that’s all set, at least!
*nods* Not bad, not bad -- but now I have to go to bed, as I have stayed up later than intended. Story of my life, I swear. . .night all!
Work – Well, the ride in was absolutely hellish, with traffic backed up both on the main drag AND on the highway, meaning I was roughly ten minutes late when I finally got to work. Day itself was mostly quiet (especially since talky coworker was out), though we did have a few instances of annoyance – a gift having been put on as the wrong type and me having to correct it; an issue with connecting to the credit card people’s website while doing someone’s payment; and fun with matching gifts and trying to correct the campaign year they’re supposed to go to. And then I got out and hit the usual nonsense trying to get home – wasn’t as bad as it COULD have been, but it certainly wasn’t the delightfully smooth ride I got yesterday! Overall I’d rate the whole day as “enugh.”
As for beanbags, things went a little better there, with everybody getting a win – Mom had a strong start and then kinda fell apart; Dad was consistently good but struggled at times with the slide; and I had a very slow start that built up to a good finish. :) Final scores were me 3-2-W; Dad 2-W-2; Mom W-3-3. Not perfectly egalitarian, but pretty close!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – had another night on the bike as usual, watching the following –
A) “THE SMILER GAME!” by Eye Coaster! Yes, I had to watch something Smiler-related with my workout because it’s the coaster’s tenth anniversary, and I saw this pop up in my Recommendeds once and decided to track it down and check it out. It was honestly a really nice video, with Eye Coaster showing off the game via the medium of recording his iPod Touch’s screen (as he still had the game on that). It’s a cool game, where you play as someone controlling the coaster on a cut-down version of The Smiler, trying to marmalize people for points to buy upgrades, both to the track (putting in all the various inversions) and to the Marmalizer (adding and improving the Flasher, Tickler, Giggler, Inoculator, and Hypnotizer). I mean, I can see why it was taken off the store after the crash (the game’s conceit is that you’re working to keep the coaster car on the track, with it leaning VERY DANGEROUSLY to one side if you’re doing poorly – probably not in great taste after the accident), but it also genuinely looked like fun. Eye Coaster certainly enjoyed replaying it, and his enthusiasm was infectious. :) I left a nice comment and added it to my “Smile Always Alton Towers” playlist on YouTube once I was back on desktop. :D I also watched the trailer for the game right afterward – probably should put that on the playlist as well!
B) Oxventure Presents: Blades in the Dark – “A Crimsnight Carol!” Yup, starting the second of my Inappropriately-Timed Holiday Specials with a return to Volisport and the Bladeventurers – specifically, to Edvard and Lilith! After some opening banter in which Edvard stabbed Luke with a “slow-acting poison pen,” then realized he’d dropped the antidote pen somewhere (the poison took longer than two hours to act, so Luke would be fine for the adventure, which was the important bit), Luke set the stage – it was Crimsnight, that night where the families of Volisport gather, share good food, exchange presents, and board up all the windows and keep watch over the doors and fireplaces and such for burglars, as thievery was essentially legal for the next day. Edvard had very fond memories of being stationed up on the roof with a bat to ward off criminals getting down the chimney, with his father bringing up hot cocoa. XD Essentially, the old “Crimsnight” of fantasy adventure G’eth (which was based around one guy allowing criminals to try and rob him to test out his guards) and the Winter Solistice celebrations have combined into a very Home Alone-style holiday. I approve. XD
Anyway – it being Crimsnight, most of the other Bladeventurers in the gang had gone off to celebrate and spend time with their families (if that was their thing), leaving just Eleanor, Edvard, and Lilith at Eleanor’s townhouse. Edvard and Eleanor were each engaged in scientific pursuits (Edvard specifically working on Wonderful Mechanical Man Mark II), leaving Lilith as the only one free to answer the door when there was a knock (armed with a poker, of course, because Crimsnight). However, while the visitor turned out to be a criminal, it wasn’t one there to rob them – instead, Lilith found Bazso Baz, leader of the Lampblacks, on the doorstep! He greeted her warmly and said he had a job for her, if she was interested – his second-in-command, Pickett, had recommended her especially for it! Lilith was naturally a little suspicious (as the gang’s relationship with Pickett is largely “you don’t try to shove us around or kill us, and we won’t tell Baz you were gunning for his spot”), but – after getting Edvard to deactivate the killbot he’d automatically unleashed upon hearing the door (a process that involved a lot of hitting it with a hammer) – heard Baz out. As it turned out, one of the major benefactors of the Lampblacks, Evan “The Geezer” Screws, was having a bit of a ghost problem, and was prepared to richly reward anyone who assisted him with it. Lilith was interested in rich reward and accepted the job, getting a map to the guy’s house from Baz (slightly bloodied, as SOME criminals made the very unwise choice to try and rob HIM on the way). She asked Edvard if he was up to joining her – he initially demurred, saying he wanted to keep working on his killbot so it could go down chimneys and kill criminals as a Crimsnight defense, but once Lilith pointed out that all that murder would also make it a criminal, the bot self-destructed from the paradox and Edvard admitted he did need the coin to keep funding his experiments into all these exploding robots. XD
And so the pair headed over to Scrooge’s – I mean, SCREWS’S house, where the miserly old fellow let them into an extremely cold room with no chairs and a single lump of coal in the fireplace. Edvard noted that, if he owned such a grand townhouse, surely he could afford more than a single lump of coal, but Evan was firm that “a fool and his money are soon parted” and that anyone who isn’t happy with a bit of bread and cheese, some tallow candles, and a lump of coal in the fireplace is a fool. People make do, if they’re deprived! His stupid tenants should learn that! Lilith and Edvard were both immediately like “okay, is this asshole even going to pay us?” XD Fortunately, when Lilith inquired about the reward, Evan said that if they helped him with his ghost problem, he’d give them five Coin (“which is a lot,” Luke hastened to say when Lilith looked disappointed). But not a penny beforehand, of course! Mollified, Lilith asked about the ghost problem, and – as you might expect – the trouble was that Evan had been visited by the apparition of his late business partner, Jacob Murley, and told that he would be haunted by three spirits to help him mend his wicked ways. Problem was, Evan rather LIKES his wicked ways and doesn’t want to reform, hence the need for a Whisper to head these ghosts off at the pass. Lilith tried to talk him into at least hearing the ghosts out, saying it would make for a good story, and he’d probably become famous through it – why, they might even do puppet shows about it! (A reference to A Muppet Christmas Carol, I am sure.) Evan was NOT interested in this at all and went on a rant about how much he hates puppets. XD A rant that was interrupted by the appearance of a cat burglar sneaking in his window – Evan promptly seized his cane and beat the man unconscious, in a show of brutality that was rather unbecoming of the spirit of Crimsnight – you’re supposed to smack the criminals in a fun, cartoony manner, not beat them half to death and then put them out the window to crunch into the snow! Edvard was a bit like “are you TRYING to get ghosts?” :p But yes, we’re doing a twist on a famous Dickens tale for this Volisport Holiday Special – we’ll see how Lilith and Edvard fare against the spirits of Crimsmas Past, Present, and Yet To Come starting tomorrow!
2. Continue writing “The Joker And The Queen”: Check – did the Smiler section today, with the gang ALMOST at the point of reaching the stairs, only for a final obstacle to appear in their way – Miles Cedars, Bagshaw, Norris, and Cundey, all very reluctantly stopping them from passing. As this is the most nonthreatening group of guards the gang’s come across yet, nobody REALLY wanted to do anything to hurt them, but they weren’t about to turn around and go back to their cells either. . .fortunately, Smiler was on the case to step up and bring the joy! To the point of incapacitation. XD Next time, we’ll see the results of that, including Wickerman being freaked out by the site of Miles Cedars GENUINELY smiling. XD
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check – just the GrayStillPlays video today, “Cars vs Collapsing Bridges in GTA 5!” Another Alex Torture Board, featuring Gray and a whole bunch of different vehicles versus a variety of very unstable bridges! We had the standard Collapsing Bridge (made up of floating containers that started falling the minute you started driving over them), the Floating Log Bridge (platforms on floating logs in VERY choppy waters), the Wooden Bridge (made up most of very destructible wooden pallets), the Magneto Bridge (made up of floating blue vans that bobbled in place as you tried to drive over them, basically forcing you to carefully find the spot that would not make them tip and dump you), the Indiana Jones Bridge (made up of destructible walls – you passed over some stop sticks, then had to outrun the boulder Alex had programmed to start chasing you and smashing up the walls), and finally – past a checkpoint – The Depressing Bridge (a bridge made up of platforms that disassembled and reassembled themselves every ten seconds – oh, and it went through the prison, so people were shooting at you). Gray tried a vast variety of cars, some of which did better than others – the Baller (and its included passenger) couldn’t make it past the wooden bridge; the Wastelander failed on the Magneto Bridge; and the Liberator monster truck actually made it all the way to Indiana Jones but couldn’t outrun the boulder – but finally hit upon a winner with the “pretty good all around” racing car, which made it over everything at a good enough speed to outrun the boulder and take on the Depressing Bridge all in one shot before Gray GOT shot. XD Another successful bout of Gray torture!
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – reset the Victor Luvs Alice queue speed to one, and put in a reblog of a bunch of OT3 writing prompts (possibly for use later with Valicer), a reblogged thing about how everything reminds me of my “blorbos” (which is extremely true when it comes to Valice and Valicer), and a reblog of “All Around Me” by Flyleaf for my Song Saturday (a song I have not featured in ages and which gives me very specific feels for my OTP/OT3). So that’s all set, at least!
*nods* Not bad, not bad -- but now I have to go to bed, as I have stayed up later than intended. Story of my life, I swear. . .night all!
