Not The Most Focused Saturday
Jul. 1st, 2023 11:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickAt least, not on the things I expected to be focused on -- my to-do list should sum it up nicely --
Cleaning: Pretty standard day – managed to get it all done before lunchtime, though admittedly we ate lunch slightly late. XD Started dusting around 10:41 AM, finished vacuuming around 1:09 PM, so yeah, about two and a half hours overall. Laundry was folded into the stuff Mom was already doing, meaning my sheets and pajamas came up around 3:30 PM. Not too painful, and now I don’t have to worry about it for another fortnight!
Tumblr: Didn’t do a heck of a lot in regards to my own tumblrs (nothing really going on with either Victor Luvs Alice or Valice Multiverse), though I spent a good portion of the day reading other people’s tumblrs (found some polyamory stuff that I’m currently working my way through, since it’s relevant to my Valicer-and-other-Valice-related-polycule nonsense). But I DID get 35 pictures of the latest Chill Valicer Save update sorted before I got to bed last night! Currently working on the remaining ones – and it’s looking like I in fact got halfway through last night, as I’m guessing the final count for the pictures is likely to be 70. We’ll see! At least I have a long weekend to get them up and into the queue. :)
Sims 4: Ended up having a pretty short session thanks to starting later than I wanted to (as above, I got caught up in reading tumblrs, plus I was waiting for the Amazon person to come with today’s delivery, as it included a batch of the mini-notebooks I use for making notes on my playsessions so I can come back and report on them to you – filled up my last one a couple of weeks ago. I now have sixteen of them in a variety of colors, each with 100 pages, so – I should be set for a while!), but I made some important updates to my mods, AND I got some prepwork done for the upcoming Valicer wedding, so far from a total loss of a day –
A) As indicated, I spent some time before playing updating my mod list – MC Command Center had recently updated, as had BrazenLotus’s “Core” mods – and as she specifically mentioned fixing a problem I’d noticed while working on the store the last time I played, textless interaction bubbles on her retail fridges, I wanted that update! I also took the opportunity to get a couple new mods from her – an “iced fish retail fridge” that works like the “produce stand” fridges I got previously (so now the Van Liddelton grocery store can have a seafood section), and a mod that allows you to put fish and herbs into retail fridges (because otherwise you just can’t and there’s no point in having a fish-themed one). So that’s all good and ready to go for when I get back to the store!
B) After that, and after getting my notebooks, I finally got into the game itself about an hour before beanbags (below) commenced, figuring that the LEAST I could do was load up the household and look at what the weather was supposed to be like in-game for the next couple of days. As it turned out, Summer Friday, the day they were on, was supposed to be cloudy. . .but Summer Saturday was supposed to have thunderstorms, so I went “Right, scheduling the wedding for later today!” And so I did, with Smiler inviting Alice, Angela and Lilith Pleasant, Clement Frost, Felipe Sisson, Rory Oaklow, and Nalani Mahi’ai to an 11 AM wedding at the “Not So Micro Chapel” that I updated last week! Interestingly, the game also generated one of its random pop-up holidays for the same day – “Night On The Town,” where any community lot that serves food and drink is offering freebies – so I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to set up a goaled wedding, but the game let me check the box, so. . . *shrug* Fine by me – the gang will go out for free drinks or something afterward. XD (Ooh, maybe karaoke in San Myshuno?)
C) With that sorted, and Smiler standing right next to their dresser in their room, I had them use the “plan outfits” feature to see if I wanted to make any updates to anyone’s formal wear. I ended up changing Smiler’s top hat in their tux-and-tails outfit (it was previously a brown one with a yellow band; I made it just the plain black one to match the tux) and giving them some new makeup (changing their eyeliner and giving them some purple eyeshadow), then updated their slightly-less formal outfit to have a more yellow-toned shirt-and-waistcoat combination than a brown-toned one. Trying to keep them on brand here! I temporarily messed around with maybe changing the color of Alice’s old wedding dress for the occasion (and accidentally set it as one of her beast form’s formal outfits as a result, because I’d forgotten to unlink that form and her human one – honestly, though, her beast form having a wedding dress option just freaking amuses me, so I left it XD), but decided that she and Victor should keep their original looks, given they are renewing their vows (and getting some pictures for their wall) the same day, and thus left it white. Victor’s wedding outfit I didn’t even think of touching – largely because it just so happens to have a yellow-and-black waistcoat! XD Talk about fate. . .
D) Anyway – I still had some time after that, so I figured “might as well get them a little further into the day” and had them start on their farm chores – Victor sprinkled a little feed for the chickens in the coop and made some more sacred candles from wraith wax before heading into the barn to fabricate more eco upgrade parts (have discovered they CANNOT be cloned with magic, aw); Smiler dumped a bunch of trash piles into the recycler before also heading into the barn to make a chatterbot; and Alice fought off her anger at being under a full moon (she may be immune to its Fury-raising effects, but that doesn’t mean she LIKES a full moon) to finish off her “Vorpal Rhymes” book, while Guidry kept coming in every so often to chat with her because apparently he was bored. *rolls eyes* Darn freeloading ghosts. Stop distracting Alice and molding clay and go back to fixing shit!
E) Anyway – Victor finished up the eco upgrade part (and quickly Repairioed a busted wind turbine) just as Shadow came into the barn looking for attention. To my delight, I discovered they could officially become Companions due to their high relationship, and I had Victor do just that, feeling the love before taking Shadow on a nice long jog around the neighborhood (Old New Henford is actually rather pretty in the dark – the little public garden area has a bunch of blue fairy lights in the trees! :D). Smiler finished up their chatterbot and made a computer chip (for future upgrades to their second gardening bot Bugs) –
F) And then I noticed just how badly the henhouse was stinking and was like “Ooops!” Smiler promptly got sent to clean out the coop and make sure all the chickens had plenty of feed. Alice finished her book while they were so occupied, and – as she was feeling a little filthy – I had her swap into her werewolf form to groom herself (as it occurred to me I’d never seen her do so as a werewolf – no, she doesn’t actually have a proper tongue to lick herself with in that form either). However, Guidry was still around, and changing in front of him caused them both to gain a negative sentiment where Alice felt bad for scaring Guidry. To which I reply YOU’RE A FUCKING GHOST, GUIDRY – EVEN IF SHE WANTED TO HURT YOU, SHE COULDN’T. *grumbles* And then he made a big deal out of her licking herself clean. *shakehead* She’s been a werewolf for how long, dude? Get over it.
G) Anyway – right after cleaning herself, Alice started getting antsy about being indoors, so I sent her outside to do a bit of scavenging as Victor and Shadow came home from their jog. Poor Victor was EXTREMELY stinky, but fortunately it was nothing a bit of Scruberoo couldn’t fix! Once he was clean, I had him evolve and water his growing cowplant (apparently you can’t just cast Floralorial on those things! Interesting. . .) before heading to the back porch to remove a twisted tendril, then into the kitchen to finish off a slice of fruit pie for breakfast. Alice meanwhile changed back to human form and spent a bit of quality time with Shadow (who’d been a little nervous about her werewolf form – I’m more willing to forgive the dog over this, Shadow is actually specifically a Jumpy hound), and Smiler finished cleaning out the cow shed and sorted out the compostables in the garbage. . .
And THAT is where I left off, at 7:24 in the morning for them! So we’ve gotten past the wee hours of the morn and are about three and a half away from the big event. :D Next time, it’s the actual wedding – AFTER Victor harvests the greenhouse. And Alice bakes a wedding cake (though, actually, I’d love to have them all work on it if at all possible. . .have to see about that). Hopefully it all goes well! And I remember to get some in-game pictures.
Writing: Got through another chunk of “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland” today – having opened up the secret door in the library, Alice has found her way to the weird medieval Tesla coil torture chamber (complete with dead body) that Grout had installed in the walls – Alice’s personal theory is that it’s a trap for any ghouls who might want to mount an escape. She’s currently in the process of working her way around to each lever to turn off the current to the coils, and has just found the Taurlfang (not that she knows the name of it yet – she just knows that this weird giant tooth makes her feel a little calmer while holding it. On Cheshire’s advice, she’s going to learn how to layer protective necklaces). Slowly but surely working my way through Grout’s house of horrors!
YouTube: Sadly, didn’t get to the OXBox RE4 Remake video (I ended my writing and got my ice cream just a BIT too late, since it’s nearly an hour), but I did keep up on GrayStillPlays, with “Which cars survives the biggest magnets in GTA 5?” Yes, Gray had another Alex Torture Board to get through, this one with his infamous “magnet” script in play. Challenges alternated between “Gray has to dodge shit being thrown at him by magnets” and “Gray has to deal with and turn a magnet pulling him in a certain way to his advantage,” and consisted of the Dump Magnets (a pair of magnets tossing a dump truck between them); the Sideways Magnet Pull (where Gray had to make a jump over a fairly hefty gap while a magnet on the side pulled him to the right); the Let’s Go Boating Magnets (one pit where a pair of magnets were slamming a tugboat up and down between them, and one pit where two pairs of magnets were slamming a speedboat and a sailboat up and down between them); the Above Magnet Pull (where Gray had to jump off the end of the roadway and land on a teleporting platform matched to a magnet above which moved from right to left (and then jumped back) to activate the magnet to pull him upward and give him the height to jump back ONTO the roadway); the Repelling Magnets (which was a maze of interlocked roads and barricades where a whole bunch of magnets continually sent RV campers crashing onto the course); the Continuous Sideway Pull (where Gray had to navigate a crooked path of platforms while fighting the constant sideways pull from the wall of magnets to his right); and then – beyond a checkpoint – the Magnet Tornado (suggested by a commenter, which consisted of a bunch of magnets whirling cars and WINDMILLS between them in a storm of Gray-ending nonsense). Gray tried a lot of vehicles, and found that the lighter stuff (such as a four-wheeled bike, Mom’s smart car and Dad’s wanna-be racer) just got flung around by the magnets in the “pull” challenges too much (and often had trouble making the jumps), while the heavier stuff (like the poor Wastelander and the Insurgent) were either too long to avoid being hit by the objects in the “flinging” challenges, or too heavy to be properly affected by the magnets in the “pull” challenges (though it is worth noting that the Wastelander was able to cheat one of the boat pits by successfully climbing the platforms Alex put around it). So the trick was to find the car that was small enough to avoid getting hit, just the right weight to be affected the right way by the magnets, and speedy enough to get past some of the trickier parts of the course. And that car turned out to be the armored car (painted pink, of course) with a native boost, allowing Gray to do things like boost his way through the sideways pull so he could turn left when necessary. I mean, yeah, the final Magnet Tornado was still an absolute bitch, but he did make it (in fact, he nearly made it twice, he just happened to run off the end of the platform the first time instead of going up the ramp to the win). And then promptly threw himself in front of a train in-game because it couldn’t be worse than what he’d just gone through. XD Poor Gray, he suffers so to entertain us. :p
Other: Finally dried out enough and cooled down enough that we were able to play beanbags this afternoon! And it was an up-and-down day for all of us, with all of us managing some pretty good throws (the first game in particular was a high-scorer for everybody) and some really bad ones (we all threw a zero at one point!). But we all won at least one game, with Mom and I managing to pull it together for two wins each. :D Final scores were me W-2-3-3-W; Dad 3-W-2-2-3; Mom 2-3-W-W-2. Not too bad, though judging by the score distribution, I’d say Mom was the ultimate champ. Her goal is for us to play five rounds every day this weekend – we’ll see if that comes to pass or not!
So yeah, not really a BAD day, just maybe less productive than I would have liked. Though I am glad to have gotten in most of what I intended to do, even if I didn't get to everything or do as much of it as I expected. And now I'm in the middle of being social, so I should go off and continue with that. Tomorrow is a Fallout Sunday -- goals are to at least get the starter drafts for the Chill Valicer Save update for the week started on Victor Luvs Alice; play Fallout 4 and continue clearing out Jamaica Plain of ferals (also have to remember to empty out Ada's inventory!) and update the Playthrough Progression appropriately; watch GrayStillPlays and Jon of Many A True Nerd; and get in a workout. Again, we'll see how well I do, though without the cleaning taking up my morning, I should have a little more time to get all this done. *nods* Night all!
Cleaning: Pretty standard day – managed to get it all done before lunchtime, though admittedly we ate lunch slightly late. XD Started dusting around 10:41 AM, finished vacuuming around 1:09 PM, so yeah, about two and a half hours overall. Laundry was folded into the stuff Mom was already doing, meaning my sheets and pajamas came up around 3:30 PM. Not too painful, and now I don’t have to worry about it for another fortnight!
Tumblr: Didn’t do a heck of a lot in regards to my own tumblrs (nothing really going on with either Victor Luvs Alice or Valice Multiverse), though I spent a good portion of the day reading other people’s tumblrs (found some polyamory stuff that I’m currently working my way through, since it’s relevant to my Valicer-and-other-Valice-related-polycule nonsense). But I DID get 35 pictures of the latest Chill Valicer Save update sorted before I got to bed last night! Currently working on the remaining ones – and it’s looking like I in fact got halfway through last night, as I’m guessing the final count for the pictures is likely to be 70. We’ll see! At least I have a long weekend to get them up and into the queue. :)
Sims 4: Ended up having a pretty short session thanks to starting later than I wanted to (as above, I got caught up in reading tumblrs, plus I was waiting for the Amazon person to come with today’s delivery, as it included a batch of the mini-notebooks I use for making notes on my playsessions so I can come back and report on them to you – filled up my last one a couple of weeks ago. I now have sixteen of them in a variety of colors, each with 100 pages, so – I should be set for a while!), but I made some important updates to my mods, AND I got some prepwork done for the upcoming Valicer wedding, so far from a total loss of a day –
A) As indicated, I spent some time before playing updating my mod list – MC Command Center had recently updated, as had BrazenLotus’s “Core” mods – and as she specifically mentioned fixing a problem I’d noticed while working on the store the last time I played, textless interaction bubbles on her retail fridges, I wanted that update! I also took the opportunity to get a couple new mods from her – an “iced fish retail fridge” that works like the “produce stand” fridges I got previously (so now the Van Liddelton grocery store can have a seafood section), and a mod that allows you to put fish and herbs into retail fridges (because otherwise you just can’t and there’s no point in having a fish-themed one). So that’s all good and ready to go for when I get back to the store!
B) After that, and after getting my notebooks, I finally got into the game itself about an hour before beanbags (below) commenced, figuring that the LEAST I could do was load up the household and look at what the weather was supposed to be like in-game for the next couple of days. As it turned out, Summer Friday, the day they were on, was supposed to be cloudy. . .but Summer Saturday was supposed to have thunderstorms, so I went “Right, scheduling the wedding for later today!” And so I did, with Smiler inviting Alice, Angela and Lilith Pleasant, Clement Frost, Felipe Sisson, Rory Oaklow, and Nalani Mahi’ai to an 11 AM wedding at the “Not So Micro Chapel” that I updated last week! Interestingly, the game also generated one of its random pop-up holidays for the same day – “Night On The Town,” where any community lot that serves food and drink is offering freebies – so I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to set up a goaled wedding, but the game let me check the box, so. . . *shrug* Fine by me – the gang will go out for free drinks or something afterward. XD (Ooh, maybe karaoke in San Myshuno?)
C) With that sorted, and Smiler standing right next to their dresser in their room, I had them use the “plan outfits” feature to see if I wanted to make any updates to anyone’s formal wear. I ended up changing Smiler’s top hat in their tux-and-tails outfit (it was previously a brown one with a yellow band; I made it just the plain black one to match the tux) and giving them some new makeup (changing their eyeliner and giving them some purple eyeshadow), then updated their slightly-less formal outfit to have a more yellow-toned shirt-and-waistcoat combination than a brown-toned one. Trying to keep them on brand here! I temporarily messed around with maybe changing the color of Alice’s old wedding dress for the occasion (and accidentally set it as one of her beast form’s formal outfits as a result, because I’d forgotten to unlink that form and her human one – honestly, though, her beast form having a wedding dress option just freaking amuses me, so I left it XD), but decided that she and Victor should keep their original looks, given they are renewing their vows (and getting some pictures for their wall) the same day, and thus left it white. Victor’s wedding outfit I didn’t even think of touching – largely because it just so happens to have a yellow-and-black waistcoat! XD Talk about fate. . .
D) Anyway – I still had some time after that, so I figured “might as well get them a little further into the day” and had them start on their farm chores – Victor sprinkled a little feed for the chickens in the coop and made some more sacred candles from wraith wax before heading into the barn to fabricate more eco upgrade parts (have discovered they CANNOT be cloned with magic, aw); Smiler dumped a bunch of trash piles into the recycler before also heading into the barn to make a chatterbot; and Alice fought off her anger at being under a full moon (she may be immune to its Fury-raising effects, but that doesn’t mean she LIKES a full moon) to finish off her “Vorpal Rhymes” book, while Guidry kept coming in every so often to chat with her because apparently he was bored. *rolls eyes* Darn freeloading ghosts. Stop distracting Alice and molding clay and go back to fixing shit!
E) Anyway – Victor finished up the eco upgrade part (and quickly Repairioed a busted wind turbine) just as Shadow came into the barn looking for attention. To my delight, I discovered they could officially become Companions due to their high relationship, and I had Victor do just that, feeling the love before taking Shadow on a nice long jog around the neighborhood (Old New Henford is actually rather pretty in the dark – the little public garden area has a bunch of blue fairy lights in the trees! :D). Smiler finished up their chatterbot and made a computer chip (for future upgrades to their second gardening bot Bugs) –
F) And then I noticed just how badly the henhouse was stinking and was like “Ooops!” Smiler promptly got sent to clean out the coop and make sure all the chickens had plenty of feed. Alice finished her book while they were so occupied, and – as she was feeling a little filthy – I had her swap into her werewolf form to groom herself (as it occurred to me I’d never seen her do so as a werewolf – no, she doesn’t actually have a proper tongue to lick herself with in that form either). However, Guidry was still around, and changing in front of him caused them both to gain a negative sentiment where Alice felt bad for scaring Guidry. To which I reply YOU’RE A FUCKING GHOST, GUIDRY – EVEN IF SHE WANTED TO HURT YOU, SHE COULDN’T. *grumbles* And then he made a big deal out of her licking herself clean. *shakehead* She’s been a werewolf for how long, dude? Get over it.
G) Anyway – right after cleaning herself, Alice started getting antsy about being indoors, so I sent her outside to do a bit of scavenging as Victor and Shadow came home from their jog. Poor Victor was EXTREMELY stinky, but fortunately it was nothing a bit of Scruberoo couldn’t fix! Once he was clean, I had him evolve and water his growing cowplant (apparently you can’t just cast Floralorial on those things! Interesting. . .) before heading to the back porch to remove a twisted tendril, then into the kitchen to finish off a slice of fruit pie for breakfast. Alice meanwhile changed back to human form and spent a bit of quality time with Shadow (who’d been a little nervous about her werewolf form – I’m more willing to forgive the dog over this, Shadow is actually specifically a Jumpy hound), and Smiler finished cleaning out the cow shed and sorted out the compostables in the garbage. . .
And THAT is where I left off, at 7:24 in the morning for them! So we’ve gotten past the wee hours of the morn and are about three and a half away from the big event. :D Next time, it’s the actual wedding – AFTER Victor harvests the greenhouse. And Alice bakes a wedding cake (though, actually, I’d love to have them all work on it if at all possible. . .have to see about that). Hopefully it all goes well! And I remember to get some in-game pictures.
Writing: Got through another chunk of “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland” today – having opened up the secret door in the library, Alice has found her way to the weird medieval Tesla coil torture chamber (complete with dead body) that Grout had installed in the walls – Alice’s personal theory is that it’s a trap for any ghouls who might want to mount an escape. She’s currently in the process of working her way around to each lever to turn off the current to the coils, and has just found the Taurlfang (not that she knows the name of it yet – she just knows that this weird giant tooth makes her feel a little calmer while holding it. On Cheshire’s advice, she’s going to learn how to layer protective necklaces). Slowly but surely working my way through Grout’s house of horrors!
YouTube: Sadly, didn’t get to the OXBox RE4 Remake video (I ended my writing and got my ice cream just a BIT too late, since it’s nearly an hour), but I did keep up on GrayStillPlays, with “Which cars survives the biggest magnets in GTA 5?” Yes, Gray had another Alex Torture Board to get through, this one with his infamous “magnet” script in play. Challenges alternated between “Gray has to dodge shit being thrown at him by magnets” and “Gray has to deal with and turn a magnet pulling him in a certain way to his advantage,” and consisted of the Dump Magnets (a pair of magnets tossing a dump truck between them); the Sideways Magnet Pull (where Gray had to make a jump over a fairly hefty gap while a magnet on the side pulled him to the right); the Let’s Go Boating Magnets (one pit where a pair of magnets were slamming a tugboat up and down between them, and one pit where two pairs of magnets were slamming a speedboat and a sailboat up and down between them); the Above Magnet Pull (where Gray had to jump off the end of the roadway and land on a teleporting platform matched to a magnet above which moved from right to left (and then jumped back) to activate the magnet to pull him upward and give him the height to jump back ONTO the roadway); the Repelling Magnets (which was a maze of interlocked roads and barricades where a whole bunch of magnets continually sent RV campers crashing onto the course); the Continuous Sideway Pull (where Gray had to navigate a crooked path of platforms while fighting the constant sideways pull from the wall of magnets to his right); and then – beyond a checkpoint – the Magnet Tornado (suggested by a commenter, which consisted of a bunch of magnets whirling cars and WINDMILLS between them in a storm of Gray-ending nonsense). Gray tried a lot of vehicles, and found that the lighter stuff (such as a four-wheeled bike, Mom’s smart car and Dad’s wanna-be racer) just got flung around by the magnets in the “pull” challenges too much (and often had trouble making the jumps), while the heavier stuff (like the poor Wastelander and the Insurgent) were either too long to avoid being hit by the objects in the “flinging” challenges, or too heavy to be properly affected by the magnets in the “pull” challenges (though it is worth noting that the Wastelander was able to cheat one of the boat pits by successfully climbing the platforms Alex put around it). So the trick was to find the car that was small enough to avoid getting hit, just the right weight to be affected the right way by the magnets, and speedy enough to get past some of the trickier parts of the course. And that car turned out to be the armored car (painted pink, of course) with a native boost, allowing Gray to do things like boost his way through the sideways pull so he could turn left when necessary. I mean, yeah, the final Magnet Tornado was still an absolute bitch, but he did make it (in fact, he nearly made it twice, he just happened to run off the end of the platform the first time instead of going up the ramp to the win). And then promptly threw himself in front of a train in-game because it couldn’t be worse than what he’d just gone through. XD Poor Gray, he suffers so to entertain us. :p
Other: Finally dried out enough and cooled down enough that we were able to play beanbags this afternoon! And it was an up-and-down day for all of us, with all of us managing some pretty good throws (the first game in particular was a high-scorer for everybody) and some really bad ones (we all threw a zero at one point!). But we all won at least one game, with Mom and I managing to pull it together for two wins each. :D Final scores were me W-2-3-3-W; Dad 3-W-2-2-3; Mom 2-3-W-W-2. Not too bad, though judging by the score distribution, I’d say Mom was the ultimate champ. Her goal is for us to play five rounds every day this weekend – we’ll see if that comes to pass or not!
So yeah, not really a BAD day, just maybe less productive than I would have liked. Though I am glad to have gotten in most of what I intended to do, even if I didn't get to everything or do as much of it as I expected. And now I'm in the middle of being social, so I should go off and continue with that. Tomorrow is a Fallout Sunday -- goals are to at least get the starter drafts for the Chill Valicer Save update for the week started on Victor Luvs Alice; play Fallout 4 and continue clearing out Jamaica Plain of ferals (also have to remember to empty out Ada's inventory!) and update the Playthrough Progression appropriately; watch GrayStillPlays and Jon of Many A True Nerd; and get in a workout. Again, we'll see how well I do, though without the cleaning taking up my morning, I should have a little more time to get all this done. *nods* Night all!
