Tired Rainy Friday
Aug. 25th, 2023 11:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickI haven't been sleeping great this week, unfortunately, so I am feeling pretty tired. . .and the weather being utterly miserable today didn't help. Loads of rain and general cruddiness. But I HAVE managed to actually get some stuff done today, mostly by using my extra time off to catch up on some stuff --
Work – Another fairly quiet day, though chatty coworker was back and being annoying as usual. *sigh* But I got through the GL, some duplicates, sending someone a bill, and doing a credit card call, all with minimal fuss. And much better music on the radio. Still, good to be out for the weekend again! Even if it is a rainy, cleaning weekend. . . I mean, I do have Honey Nut Cheerios and granola to look forward to for breakfast tomorrow. That’s nice. :)
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – last night on the bike this week, with the following Sims-related videos –
A) The final twelve or so minutes of “I'm playing as the chef in my restaurant! Dine Out (Part 3)” from James Turner! For the third day of running the restaurant in this episode, Addison gave Agatha another promotion as chef (because, again, all that training she and the waiters had been doing meant they were DEFINITELY in need of better salaries), but ended up dropping their ingredient quality slightly to offset costs, confident that her cooking skills would make up the difference. And they were right! The restaurant had a lovely, bustling day, with Addison getting their first five star review from the lovely Hazel and their dads Kevin and Reginald coming to visit (and giving just four star reviews, despite Addison taking their order personally, prioritizing their food, and giving it to them for free). There were a few glitches – one couple gave one star reviews, possibly because they never got served – but at the end of the day, Addison had gotten a solid four star rating and made enough of a profit to buy some more vertical planters and turn them into faux meat walls so they could use the resultant cubes in their dishes. :D Things are in fact going very well for them so far! Next time, though, it’s time to check back in with Breanne in the main LP and see how SHE’S doing. . .
B) And two short Petey Plays It lists –
I. “There Are 6 Secret Sims 4 Collections You Never Knew Existed” – Petey going over some of the “secret” collections in the games, the ones that the game does not officially track but which exist nonetheless – like the spirit doll collection you get if you try collecting the forest spirits in Mt. Komorebi, or the underwater photography collection if you get really into scuba-diving in Sulani, or all the various spectral trinkets you can get by appeasing spirits and completing gigs as a Paranormal Investigator! There were also a couple of “honorable mentions,” like the medal collection you get by going through the Military career, or the various trophies you can collect by being a celebrity/really into drama club (as Petey included the accolade you can get if you max out your level in the Drama Club afterschool activity as a child or teenager). Fun stuff, and a reminder to have Alice pick up an underwater camera and some scuba gear should the gang go back to Sulani on another vacation!
II. “7 Club Ideas For Your Elder Sims | The Sims 4 Get Together Guide” – Petey suggesting ideas for clubs specifically themed for elder Sims! The inevitable “knitting/cross-stitch” club was indeed mentioned, but Petey also suggested such ideas as a gardening club, a general country club for elders to socialize and maybe play games, a “we’re still cool, damn it” club where they get together to read books and watch classic movies, and a “woohoo for widows” club where the local widows can get their flirt on (Petey specified that he came up with this after thinking about where a Black Widow challenge Sim would end up after she aged out of the challenge, but I’m sure you could do it with regular widows too XD). Fun stuff, and a good way to get the old creative juices flowing when it comes to clubs your Sims could make. . .
2. Continue writing “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland”: Check – did this before my workout today, continuing on from Alice hearing Victor in her room after her shower – he let her know he was making her a surprise, and Alice dried herself off before poking her head out to see he’d built her a nice blanket nest. Because they make HIM feel better, and he just – wanted to do something nice for her. Alice was pretty thrown by anyone being NICE to her after the night she’d had, let me tell you. But she was very appreciative, getting her nightgown (and underwear, which heavily-repressed Victor was a little awkward about) from him and climbing into the blankets once she was decent. Victor told her about how he did get a small group of trick-or-treaters earlier, and she remarked he clearly had a better Halloween than she did. Tomorrow, we wrap up with her telling him what she can about the Grout visit (obviously she can’t mention the Nines bit, but she can tell him everything else), some Valicey hand-holding, and Alice kind of jokingly telling Victor to find out where the sarcophagus is to help her out with her next mission. (Next chapter begins with Victor giving Alice a map of the museum and telling her what he was able to find out on his trip. XD)
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check plus – Not only am I fully caught up on my Subs again, I also managed to clear out a few things from the Watch Later, yay! Nice to not have a bunch of videos hanging over my head –
A) First up, from the aforementioned Watch Later, a pair of OXBoxtra lists –
I. “7 Ridiculously Expensive Gaming Accessories for When You Win the Lottery” – Mike, Jane, and Andy taking us through a bunch of gaming accessories and rigs that are a bit, uh, STEEP for the average consumer. Ranging from “actually kind of practical, just maybe a bit too expensive” (the Omni One VR Treadmill, a small round treadmill with attached harness and included headset that a person can walk on so they don’t keep walking into walls or onto planes going to Denmark – just a bit steep at $2,595) to “okay that’s really expensive but it can at least be used for more than just gaming?” (the MWE Emperor 200 Workstation, which comes with three big monitors, a swinging desk arm, and a nice ergonomic chair that can be tilted backwards and forwards at your leisure, all for $44,750) to “ACTUAL RACE CARS ARE CHEAPER” (the Vesaro Formula V100 Full Car Stage 3 – a perfect recreation of an F1 race car with included wrap-around screens and a motion rig so you can perfectly feel every bump and grind as you race virtually! All for $150,000 – and, as Mike said, some ACTUAL RACE CARS can be bought cheaper, allowing you to race in actual real life instead of in your living room. That being said, Mike, I still think you secretly might want at least one spin in the V100 Full Car Stage 3. XD). Basically, if you’re a rich video game fan, feel free to splurge on these while the rest of us make do with cheaper stuff. Or save up our cash for a cool steampunk keyboard ($1,300 seems reasonable compared to the rest of this nonsense!).
II. “7 Amazing Rewards You Got Too Late for Them to Be Useful” – Ellen and Luke taking us through those video game rewards we got too late in the game for them to be useful. From the awesome motorcycle in The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild which is the final reward in the game’s final DLC (meaning you’ve basically just completed everything the game has to offer beyond riding around on your new motorcycle), to the infinite rocket launcher in Resident Evil Remake that you only get if you’re already good enough to beat the game at normal difficulty in three hours or less (as Luke said, don’t give the SPEEDRUNNERS the ultimate weapon, give the guy who SUCKS the ultimate weapon), to the Quantum Destabilizer in Half-Life which you get RIGHT BEFORE you go through the alien portal and doesn’t work nearly as well on the dangers there as it does on everything on earth (though Ellen posited that Gordon didn’t care so long as he didn’t have to socialize with his coworkers anymore), games have a nasty habit of giving us something amazing just when we don’t really need it or can’t use it anymore. I suspect this one is very quickly going to get a commenter’s edition. XD
B) Then it was over to the Subs to catch up on yesterday’s Josh Way – “SKETCHY: Simba!” Josh drawing cub Simba with his leaf mane from the “I Just Can’t Wait To Be King” musical number, as he remembered it and decided he wanted to put it to virtual paper. A very nice drawing as usual, and it was rather amusing to listen to Josh talk about how much he loved the original cartoon and thus wasn’t a fan of the CGI “live action” remake (in fact he refuses to watch any Disney live action remake, despite going to the movies weekly), and how he wishes Disney wasn’t into the corporate malfeasance so he could just draw his fanart without thinking about their stupid monopolies. XD Trust me, Josh, I know how you feel.
C) And finally, I finished things off with today’s GrayStillPlays – “Evolving grenades into world ending nukes,” aka Gray plays Big Bang Evolution! This is a mobile game where you have to combine bomb creatures to make new types of bomb creatures and work your way down various “evolutionary trees” to make weirder and weirder bombs until eventually you have incredible world-ending bombs. You earn money by tapping on your bombs, which you can then use to pay for various upgrades (like getting new low-level bombs to spawn faster) or to unlock new worlds to spawn bombs on. And this is one of those games where the numbers get weird fast – Gray was delighted to see the price of some of the later worlds be stuff like 19.1ab, aka “we went past all the real numbers two hours ago.” XD Gray decided he was interested in find out what went into a “Sound of the Void” bomb, so he tapped, combined, and tapped some more to make it through the beginning stage, the “Modernity” stage, the “Age of Steam” stage, and the “Sound of Disharmony” stage, going from simple homemade piles of gunpowder, to shells wearing cowboy hats, to shark-like torpedoes, to clockwork cartoon bombs, to airship bombs, to Taylor Squid musical bombs with speakers for boobs, to microphone bombs much like the one he himself records on, to the vaulted Seven Trumpets Of The Apocalypse. XD Gray was very impressed with his ability to destroy the world with music. Hopefully he’ll do another quick one showing a couple of other evolutionary trees and the other ridiculous bombs you can unlock!
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – rather than PLAYING Sims 4 today, I chose instead to get an early jump on getting the pictures for the next Chill Valicer Save update on Victor Luvs Alice sorted – another eighty pictures to sort out between however many posts! As for Valice Multiverse, nothing was happening over there, so I just shot another “Valicer In The Dark” explanatory post into the queue, since I still need to make that a proper verse over there. And, as a bonus, finally answered Moose’s messages, yay.
Hooray for a productive Friday! But now it is time to head to bed. *nods* Tomorrow, gotta start with the cleaning, but I'm also hoping to play Sims 4 and host a "family reunion" for the Valicer Trio (they're inviting a bunch of close friends over); catch up on the remaining OXBox video and keep up with Gray; finish off this chapter in "Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland"; and get some drafting done on Victor Luvs Alice (or at least catch up with my tags). *nods* Fingers crossed, everybody! Night all!
Work – Another fairly quiet day, though chatty coworker was back and being annoying as usual. *sigh* But I got through the GL, some duplicates, sending someone a bill, and doing a credit card call, all with minimal fuss. And much better music on the radio. Still, good to be out for the weekend again! Even if it is a rainy, cleaning weekend. . . I mean, I do have Honey Nut Cheerios and granola to look forward to for breakfast tomorrow. That’s nice. :)
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – last night on the bike this week, with the following Sims-related videos –
A) The final twelve or so minutes of “I'm playing as the chef in my restaurant! Dine Out (Part 3)” from James Turner! For the third day of running the restaurant in this episode, Addison gave Agatha another promotion as chef (because, again, all that training she and the waiters had been doing meant they were DEFINITELY in need of better salaries), but ended up dropping their ingredient quality slightly to offset costs, confident that her cooking skills would make up the difference. And they were right! The restaurant had a lovely, bustling day, with Addison getting their first five star review from the lovely Hazel and their dads Kevin and Reginald coming to visit (and giving just four star reviews, despite Addison taking their order personally, prioritizing their food, and giving it to them for free). There were a few glitches – one couple gave one star reviews, possibly because they never got served – but at the end of the day, Addison had gotten a solid four star rating and made enough of a profit to buy some more vertical planters and turn them into faux meat walls so they could use the resultant cubes in their dishes. :D Things are in fact going very well for them so far! Next time, though, it’s time to check back in with Breanne in the main LP and see how SHE’S doing. . .
B) And two short Petey Plays It lists –
I. “There Are 6 Secret Sims 4 Collections You Never Knew Existed” – Petey going over some of the “secret” collections in the games, the ones that the game does not officially track but which exist nonetheless – like the spirit doll collection you get if you try collecting the forest spirits in Mt. Komorebi, or the underwater photography collection if you get really into scuba-diving in Sulani, or all the various spectral trinkets you can get by appeasing spirits and completing gigs as a Paranormal Investigator! There were also a couple of “honorable mentions,” like the medal collection you get by going through the Military career, or the various trophies you can collect by being a celebrity/really into drama club (as Petey included the accolade you can get if you max out your level in the Drama Club afterschool activity as a child or teenager). Fun stuff, and a reminder to have Alice pick up an underwater camera and some scuba gear should the gang go back to Sulani on another vacation!
II. “7 Club Ideas For Your Elder Sims | The Sims 4 Get Together Guide” – Petey suggesting ideas for clubs specifically themed for elder Sims! The inevitable “knitting/cross-stitch” club was indeed mentioned, but Petey also suggested such ideas as a gardening club, a general country club for elders to socialize and maybe play games, a “we’re still cool, damn it” club where they get together to read books and watch classic movies, and a “woohoo for widows” club where the local widows can get their flirt on (Petey specified that he came up with this after thinking about where a Black Widow challenge Sim would end up after she aged out of the challenge, but I’m sure you could do it with regular widows too XD). Fun stuff, and a good way to get the old creative juices flowing when it comes to clubs your Sims could make. . .
2. Continue writing “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland”: Check – did this before my workout today, continuing on from Alice hearing Victor in her room after her shower – he let her know he was making her a surprise, and Alice dried herself off before poking her head out to see he’d built her a nice blanket nest. Because they make HIM feel better, and he just – wanted to do something nice for her. Alice was pretty thrown by anyone being NICE to her after the night she’d had, let me tell you. But she was very appreciative, getting her nightgown (and underwear, which heavily-repressed Victor was a little awkward about) from him and climbing into the blankets once she was decent. Victor told her about how he did get a small group of trick-or-treaters earlier, and she remarked he clearly had a better Halloween than she did. Tomorrow, we wrap up with her telling him what she can about the Grout visit (obviously she can’t mention the Nines bit, but she can tell him everything else), some Valicey hand-holding, and Alice kind of jokingly telling Victor to find out where the sarcophagus is to help her out with her next mission. (Next chapter begins with Victor giving Alice a map of the museum and telling her what he was able to find out on his trip. XD)
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check plus – Not only am I fully caught up on my Subs again, I also managed to clear out a few things from the Watch Later, yay! Nice to not have a bunch of videos hanging over my head –
A) First up, from the aforementioned Watch Later, a pair of OXBoxtra lists –
I. “7 Ridiculously Expensive Gaming Accessories for When You Win the Lottery” – Mike, Jane, and Andy taking us through a bunch of gaming accessories and rigs that are a bit, uh, STEEP for the average consumer. Ranging from “actually kind of practical, just maybe a bit too expensive” (the Omni One VR Treadmill, a small round treadmill with attached harness and included headset that a person can walk on so they don’t keep walking into walls or onto planes going to Denmark – just a bit steep at $2,595) to “okay that’s really expensive but it can at least be used for more than just gaming?” (the MWE Emperor 200 Workstation, which comes with three big monitors, a swinging desk arm, and a nice ergonomic chair that can be tilted backwards and forwards at your leisure, all for $44,750) to “ACTUAL RACE CARS ARE CHEAPER” (the Vesaro Formula V100 Full Car Stage 3 – a perfect recreation of an F1 race car with included wrap-around screens and a motion rig so you can perfectly feel every bump and grind as you race virtually! All for $150,000 – and, as Mike said, some ACTUAL RACE CARS can be bought cheaper, allowing you to race in actual real life instead of in your living room. That being said, Mike, I still think you secretly might want at least one spin in the V100 Full Car Stage 3. XD). Basically, if you’re a rich video game fan, feel free to splurge on these while the rest of us make do with cheaper stuff. Or save up our cash for a cool steampunk keyboard ($1,300 seems reasonable compared to the rest of this nonsense!).
II. “7 Amazing Rewards You Got Too Late for Them to Be Useful” – Ellen and Luke taking us through those video game rewards we got too late in the game for them to be useful. From the awesome motorcycle in The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild which is the final reward in the game’s final DLC (meaning you’ve basically just completed everything the game has to offer beyond riding around on your new motorcycle), to the infinite rocket launcher in Resident Evil Remake that you only get if you’re already good enough to beat the game at normal difficulty in three hours or less (as Luke said, don’t give the SPEEDRUNNERS the ultimate weapon, give the guy who SUCKS the ultimate weapon), to the Quantum Destabilizer in Half-Life which you get RIGHT BEFORE you go through the alien portal and doesn’t work nearly as well on the dangers there as it does on everything on earth (though Ellen posited that Gordon didn’t care so long as he didn’t have to socialize with his coworkers anymore), games have a nasty habit of giving us something amazing just when we don’t really need it or can’t use it anymore. I suspect this one is very quickly going to get a commenter’s edition. XD
B) Then it was over to the Subs to catch up on yesterday’s Josh Way – “SKETCHY: Simba!” Josh drawing cub Simba with his leaf mane from the “I Just Can’t Wait To Be King” musical number, as he remembered it and decided he wanted to put it to virtual paper. A very nice drawing as usual, and it was rather amusing to listen to Josh talk about how much he loved the original cartoon and thus wasn’t a fan of the CGI “live action” remake (in fact he refuses to watch any Disney live action remake, despite going to the movies weekly), and how he wishes Disney wasn’t into the corporate malfeasance so he could just draw his fanart without thinking about their stupid monopolies. XD Trust me, Josh, I know how you feel.
C) And finally, I finished things off with today’s GrayStillPlays – “Evolving grenades into world ending nukes,” aka Gray plays Big Bang Evolution! This is a mobile game where you have to combine bomb creatures to make new types of bomb creatures and work your way down various “evolutionary trees” to make weirder and weirder bombs until eventually you have incredible world-ending bombs. You earn money by tapping on your bombs, which you can then use to pay for various upgrades (like getting new low-level bombs to spawn faster) or to unlock new worlds to spawn bombs on. And this is one of those games where the numbers get weird fast – Gray was delighted to see the price of some of the later worlds be stuff like 19.1ab, aka “we went past all the real numbers two hours ago.” XD Gray decided he was interested in find out what went into a “Sound of the Void” bomb, so he tapped, combined, and tapped some more to make it through the beginning stage, the “Modernity” stage, the “Age of Steam” stage, and the “Sound of Disharmony” stage, going from simple homemade piles of gunpowder, to shells wearing cowboy hats, to shark-like torpedoes, to clockwork cartoon bombs, to airship bombs, to Taylor Squid musical bombs with speakers for boobs, to microphone bombs much like the one he himself records on, to the vaulted Seven Trumpets Of The Apocalypse. XD Gray was very impressed with his ability to destroy the world with music. Hopefully he’ll do another quick one showing a couple of other evolutionary trees and the other ridiculous bombs you can unlock!
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – rather than PLAYING Sims 4 today, I chose instead to get an early jump on getting the pictures for the next Chill Valicer Save update on Victor Luvs Alice sorted – another eighty pictures to sort out between however many posts! As for Valice Multiverse, nothing was happening over there, so I just shot another “Valicer In The Dark” explanatory post into the queue, since I still need to make that a proper verse over there. And, as a bonus, finally answered Moose’s messages, yay.
Hooray for a productive Friday! But now it is time to head to bed. *nods* Tomorrow, gotta start with the cleaning, but I'm also hoping to play Sims 4 and host a "family reunion" for the Valicer Trio (they're inviting a bunch of close friends over); catch up on the remaining OXBox video and keep up with Gray; finish off this chapter in "Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland"; and get some drafting done on Victor Luvs Alice (or at least catch up with my tags). *nods* Fingers crossed, everybody! Night all!
