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Mostly A Day Off
Feb. 1st, 2021 10:50 pmFor some reason, my work never saw fit to actually update itself on the Closing and Delays website, but fortunately one of my coworkers texted me this morning about if I'd checked my work e-mail -- after she didn't immediately reply to my text back asking why (apparently she went to the grocery store), I lugged out my laptop to check myself, and it turns out they'd sent an e-mail stating that the building was closed, and those who could should work from home. Fine, but JEEZ -- have a thought for people who might NOT be able to check their work e-mail from home! Why are they suddenly allergic to the Closings list, seriously. . .
Anyway, I quickly realized I wasn't going to have much luck working from home -- everything I was working on is, well, at work. I called up my supervisor to let him know that, and he told me not to worry too much about it -- just keep an eye on my e-mail and put out any immediate fires if possible. So that's basically what I did -- kept the laptop up and plugged in, and checked it periodically. Only had two items of note -- two voicemails that I could listen to, with roster updates. Did both right after lunch. Other than that -- yeah, nothing. Fine by me! And tomorrow is going to be a late start -- opening at 10 AM. This seems reasonable, given that the actual impact of the storm was rather -- odd. We up here didn't get much snow at all -- it started later than predicted, and Dad doesn't think we got more than an inch of additional build-up. But in other parts of the state, they got like eight inches! It's supposed to change over to rain at some point (we're having a slight warmish spike as the week goes on, before it plunges back into the 20s next week) -- I just hope the roads don't get all icy overnight. That'll be fun to navigate if they do! *wince* But having some extra time in the morning tomorrow will be nice -- plan to sleep in a tiny bit (like maybe 45 minutes or so). Might as well, right?
Today was pretty damn nice too, frankly. Look at how I smacked down this to-do list:
1. Keep Up With YouTube Subscriptions: ULTRA-CHECK! Not only did I catch up on everything in my Subscriptions, I also caught up with everything in my Watch Later, plus some videos uploaded today! I have genuinely watched it all! :D
( Naturally, this got long )
2. Work on “In A World Of His Own”: Check! Rewrote the opening page today, tightening up some stuff and changing the location a tad – I originally had Victor and Alice closer to the waterfall that plunges the river into the ravine Victor accidentally falls in, but decided it was unrealistic for Victor to not hear it (even in his own dream world) and just had them be further along the river. Still got Snarks, though, so plenty of opportunities to make sure Victor at least gets wet. XD Because for some reason that became a running theme in later chapters, so I’m just embracing it for the story. XD
3.Get in a workout: Check – started episode 48 of Jon’s Fallout 4 Survival Playthrough! We rejoined Grills in Acadia, the synth refuge on The Island, wandering around and picking up sidequests for people. Got one from Faraday, DiMA’s loyal assistant, sending Grills to a wrecked ship in the south to find some storage drives that were supposed to be delivered; and one from Chase, which I guess is the third-in-command in the refuge, asking him to locate a lost synth (and revealing that Brooks, in Far Harbor itself, is apparently a synth! I thought he was just the local merchant). With those secured, Grills went and talked with Kasumi herself – he tried to tell her that she was just confused, but she insisted that it was better for her to be here trying to find answers than back home feeling like she didn’t belong.
She was, however, willing to let Grills in on a secret – namely, that something weird has been going on with DiMA, Faraday, and Chase. Kasumi was allowed to help with the computers that keep a bunch of DiMA’s memories on file, and she found some creepy stuff, like death counts from a nuclear annihilation scenario for the Island. She wanted to know the truth, and said that the trio have regular meetings near a storage room that would be perfect for eavesdropping. As Grills already had the key, he said he’d go in there and listen in. Jon admitted he wasn’t sure if this would work (apparently that interaction was bugged at first, and in “No Guns” he just went and talked with DiMA directly), but he was able to sit and wait, and hear DiMA, Faraday, and Chase talk about the rising tensions between the Far Harbor citizens and the Children of Atom, with Acadia stuck in the middle. Apparently, in a show of good faith in the past, DiMA gave the Children his old sub base. . .and left a bunch of his old memory storage discs inside. Chase wanted to go in and retrieve them (and decode them with the help of a program Faraday was writing), but DiMA was worried it would spark off total war. Once they were done talking, Grills went and snatched the program holotape from Faraday’s desk and told Kasumi, who said she’d help out as she could once they got the memory banks back.
That, however, is main quest stuff, and best left for another day. Jon decided that he wanted instead to go back up north, as he still had to find the body of Harold (the guy who went out to fix the Fog Condensers on the road to the water purifiers) and report in with some people at Far Harbor – and also set up Longfellow’s cabin as a base. So he and Nick hit the road again! Grills actually found the water purifiers FIRST, but was unable to activate them as he hadn’t found Harold (game won’t let you do the quest backward!). So they continued onward, and found a location that Jon hadn’t been in before – Beaver Creek Lanes! He’d previously thought this was just the name of the road he was on, but nope – fortunately, his viewers informed him this was a nice little prewar bowling alley to explore! :D And explore Jon did, killing some ghouls (one of which he basically STOOD RIGHT ON TOP OF – yup, good old -1 Perception Jon! XD Though he did get a nice Deadeye Hunting Rifle legendary drop), poking into some terminals, and picking up everyone’s favorite impractical Fat Man mod, The Striker! Shoots special modified bowling balls, was made as a gift for an injured veteran who loved bowling. Not great in a fight, but still a fun weapon to have around. Jon grabbed it, then finally found Harold and grabbed his “Fog Condenser Components” to fix up the Condensers on the way back to the water purifiers. Ended my watch time right before he fixed up the last one, which he fully expected to spawn ten million Mirelurks or something. We’ll see if he’s right next time!
4. Do my best to complete the “Pub, Quickly” achievement in Untitled Goose Game and complete the game: Check! Though it took some fucking doing, let me tell you. About two and a half solid hours (split pre-and-post lunch) of finagling the pub to-do list to get it done before the church bells rang. The main problems were getting the toy boat (you don’t need to hold onto it for long, but actually getting the water level to where you can grab it can be a pain in the tail feathers) and figuring out the best way to lure the burly man back to have a bucket dumped on his head (you have to make sure the tomato is far enough back that he’ll go to the back area’s box instead of the two in the front area; you have to make sure enough people aren’t distracted and pushing each other around the map so that routines aren’t too disrupted; you have to make sure he isn’t distracted by other things; AND you have to make sure the ENTIRE sequence plays out before the church bells ring – I had TWO near-misses where the end of the animation was just as the bells ran out!). Woof! Though I did discover that, if you’re chased out the back gate, a reset will put you BEHIND the pub, meaning you can avoid having to figure out how to sneak in quickly as going in the back way will also cross off “get into the pub.” At any rate, I DID manage to do it eventually, and claimed my crown prize! All achievements unlocked, all to-do list items crossed off, game officially done! :)
5. Start designing Valicetines for this year: Check! In fact, I FINISHED designing my Valicetines this morning! Went through my Sims 4 screenshots and chose four pics from my recent vacation to Sulani with the Newcrest Liddell-Van Dorts to use (it was going to be three, but I decided to do two variations on a fishing-themed one, since they did a lot of that on vacation), then – still inspired – grabbed an old photo mashup from the archives and turned that into a Valicetine too. :D So I am well-prepared for the 14th! :)
Yeah, look at THAT. :D Admittedly, this is me working on an unexpected mostly-day-off where I woke up early and thus had some more time to fit in long YouTube videos and the like, but still. I am satisfied. :) Apart from my extreme annoyance at my job for forcing me to log into my work e-mail early, good start to February! :p
Now, of course, I still do need to answer my final DW comment, and do my best to get into bed at a halfway-decent hour, because tomorrow is almost certainly a workday, even if it is an abbreviated one. Still, the more time spent away from my office, the better, in my opinion. This just makes the weekend come quicker. :P Night all, hope you're staying safe!
Anyway, I quickly realized I wasn't going to have much luck working from home -- everything I was working on is, well, at work. I called up my supervisor to let him know that, and he told me not to worry too much about it -- just keep an eye on my e-mail and put out any immediate fires if possible. So that's basically what I did -- kept the laptop up and plugged in, and checked it periodically. Only had two items of note -- two voicemails that I could listen to, with roster updates. Did both right after lunch. Other than that -- yeah, nothing. Fine by me! And tomorrow is going to be a late start -- opening at 10 AM. This seems reasonable, given that the actual impact of the storm was rather -- odd. We up here didn't get much snow at all -- it started later than predicted, and Dad doesn't think we got more than an inch of additional build-up. But in other parts of the state, they got like eight inches! It's supposed to change over to rain at some point (we're having a slight warmish spike as the week goes on, before it plunges back into the 20s next week) -- I just hope the roads don't get all icy overnight. That'll be fun to navigate if they do! *wince* But having some extra time in the morning tomorrow will be nice -- plan to sleep in a tiny bit (like maybe 45 minutes or so). Might as well, right?
Today was pretty damn nice too, frankly. Look at how I smacked down this to-do list:
1. Keep Up With YouTube Subscriptions: ULTRA-CHECK! Not only did I catch up on everything in my Subscriptions, I also caught up with everything in my Watch Later, plus some videos uploaded today! I have genuinely watched it all! :D
( Naturally, this got long )
2. Work on “In A World Of His Own”: Check! Rewrote the opening page today, tightening up some stuff and changing the location a tad – I originally had Victor and Alice closer to the waterfall that plunges the river into the ravine Victor accidentally falls in, but decided it was unrealistic for Victor to not hear it (even in his own dream world) and just had them be further along the river. Still got Snarks, though, so plenty of opportunities to make sure Victor at least gets wet. XD Because for some reason that became a running theme in later chapters, so I’m just embracing it for the story. XD
3.Get in a workout: Check – started episode 48 of Jon’s Fallout 4 Survival Playthrough! We rejoined Grills in Acadia, the synth refuge on The Island, wandering around and picking up sidequests for people. Got one from Faraday, DiMA’s loyal assistant, sending Grills to a wrecked ship in the south to find some storage drives that were supposed to be delivered; and one from Chase, which I guess is the third-in-command in the refuge, asking him to locate a lost synth (and revealing that Brooks, in Far Harbor itself, is apparently a synth! I thought he was just the local merchant). With those secured, Grills went and talked with Kasumi herself – he tried to tell her that she was just confused, but she insisted that it was better for her to be here trying to find answers than back home feeling like she didn’t belong.
She was, however, willing to let Grills in on a secret – namely, that something weird has been going on with DiMA, Faraday, and Chase. Kasumi was allowed to help with the computers that keep a bunch of DiMA’s memories on file, and she found some creepy stuff, like death counts from a nuclear annihilation scenario for the Island. She wanted to know the truth, and said that the trio have regular meetings near a storage room that would be perfect for eavesdropping. As Grills already had the key, he said he’d go in there and listen in. Jon admitted he wasn’t sure if this would work (apparently that interaction was bugged at first, and in “No Guns” he just went and talked with DiMA directly), but he was able to sit and wait, and hear DiMA, Faraday, and Chase talk about the rising tensions between the Far Harbor citizens and the Children of Atom, with Acadia stuck in the middle. Apparently, in a show of good faith in the past, DiMA gave the Children his old sub base. . .and left a bunch of his old memory storage discs inside. Chase wanted to go in and retrieve them (and decode them with the help of a program Faraday was writing), but DiMA was worried it would spark off total war. Once they were done talking, Grills went and snatched the program holotape from Faraday’s desk and told Kasumi, who said she’d help out as she could once they got the memory banks back.
That, however, is main quest stuff, and best left for another day. Jon decided that he wanted instead to go back up north, as he still had to find the body of Harold (the guy who went out to fix the Fog Condensers on the road to the water purifiers) and report in with some people at Far Harbor – and also set up Longfellow’s cabin as a base. So he and Nick hit the road again! Grills actually found the water purifiers FIRST, but was unable to activate them as he hadn’t found Harold (game won’t let you do the quest backward!). So they continued onward, and found a location that Jon hadn’t been in before – Beaver Creek Lanes! He’d previously thought this was just the name of the road he was on, but nope – fortunately, his viewers informed him this was a nice little prewar bowling alley to explore! :D And explore Jon did, killing some ghouls (one of which he basically STOOD RIGHT ON TOP OF – yup, good old -1 Perception Jon! XD Though he did get a nice Deadeye Hunting Rifle legendary drop), poking into some terminals, and picking up everyone’s favorite impractical Fat Man mod, The Striker! Shoots special modified bowling balls, was made as a gift for an injured veteran who loved bowling. Not great in a fight, but still a fun weapon to have around. Jon grabbed it, then finally found Harold and grabbed his “Fog Condenser Components” to fix up the Condensers on the way back to the water purifiers. Ended my watch time right before he fixed up the last one, which he fully expected to spawn ten million Mirelurks or something. We’ll see if he’s right next time!
4. Do my best to complete the “Pub, Quickly” achievement in Untitled Goose Game and complete the game: Check! Though it took some fucking doing, let me tell you. About two and a half solid hours (split pre-and-post lunch) of finagling the pub to-do list to get it done before the church bells rang. The main problems were getting the toy boat (you don’t need to hold onto it for long, but actually getting the water level to where you can grab it can be a pain in the tail feathers) and figuring out the best way to lure the burly man back to have a bucket dumped on his head (you have to make sure the tomato is far enough back that he’ll go to the back area’s box instead of the two in the front area; you have to make sure enough people aren’t distracted and pushing each other around the map so that routines aren’t too disrupted; you have to make sure he isn’t distracted by other things; AND you have to make sure the ENTIRE sequence plays out before the church bells ring – I had TWO near-misses where the end of the animation was just as the bells ran out!). Woof! Though I did discover that, if you’re chased out the back gate, a reset will put you BEHIND the pub, meaning you can avoid having to figure out how to sneak in quickly as going in the back way will also cross off “get into the pub.” At any rate, I DID manage to do it eventually, and claimed my crown prize! All achievements unlocked, all to-do list items crossed off, game officially done! :)
5. Start designing Valicetines for this year: Check! In fact, I FINISHED designing my Valicetines this morning! Went through my Sims 4 screenshots and chose four pics from my recent vacation to Sulani with the Newcrest Liddell-Van Dorts to use (it was going to be three, but I decided to do two variations on a fishing-themed one, since they did a lot of that on vacation), then – still inspired – grabbed an old photo mashup from the archives and turned that into a Valicetine too. :D So I am well-prepared for the 14th! :)
Yeah, look at THAT. :D Admittedly, this is me working on an unexpected mostly-day-off where I woke up early and thus had some more time to fit in long YouTube videos and the like, but still. I am satisfied. :) Apart from my extreme annoyance at my job for forcing me to log into my work e-mail early, good start to February! :p
Now, of course, I still do need to answer my final DW comment, and do my best to get into bed at a halfway-decent hour, because tomorrow is almost certainly a workday, even if it is an abbreviated one. Still, the more time spent away from my office, the better, in my opinion. This just makes the weekend come quicker. :P Night all, hope you're staying safe!
