Somewhat Better (And Quieter) Friday

A few calls here and there, including two surprise credit card things, but most of the day was just sending a few e-mails and researching more of our new spreadsheet project. Nothing too taxing. And I ate my lunch around noon, so that was nice. :p I'll take it as the last day of work before a weekend.

Watched more Expedition: Back To The Future tonight -- apparently there's a father-and-son pair of superfans out on a farm in Massachusetts who have so many pieces of BTTF memorabilia and props that -- well, it boggles the mind. You can only see the place by appointment, and I don't even want to think about what that costs. O.o Josh got to drive Doc's Packard up to the place, and see the other two DeLoreans they own -- which are both "cars that were cut apart," in fact. XD The "process" car (which had the front and back chopped off for close-up shots), and the B car for stunts (the one that got smacked by the train -- apparently Universal pieced the damn thing back together! And then it hung upside-down in a Planet Hollywood for a while. O.o) They also revealed that two other cars are out of the running -- the fiberglass shell used for flying scenes, which has sadly been destroyed, and another car that was cannibalized for parts and last seen in the vicinity of Universal Studios Japan. So the hunt is on for a car used for a specific shot -- Josh and Chris went to the headquarters of the DMC (in Houston, Texas) to hunt that one down, and apparently it's SOMEWHERE in Florida. (NOT Universal Studios Orlando! The one there is a replica.) So they're going there next episode! It's been a wild ride, full of fun facts and a great look at all sorts of awesome BTTF stuff. :D And Christopher Lloyd remains hilariously chaotic, it's great. My only complaint is that the darn thing seems to have "buffering stutters" where the episode freezes for a few seconds, then skips ahead those few seconds. Sometimes backing it up lets you see the missed bit, but. . .ugh. The hell, Discovery Plus.

Anyway, beyond that, we also need to cover the Standard Weekday To-Do List:

1. Get in a workout: Check – more time on the bike, more time with Jon’s Fallout 4 Survival Playthrough! Caught up with Grills as he made a pit stop back at the Nuka-Rocket post-listening to Rachel’s tape. Apparently this is another one of Jon’s experiments – in his previous fight against Oswald, he discovered that getting him to leave peacefully requires a very hard speech check. He was wondering what would change with his character already knowing what happened to Rachel, and having her holotape in his possession. So after some water and probably a save, Grills headed for the Kiddie Kingdom –

And then Jon realized he was actually right next to the World of Refreshment, which contains the Nuka-Cola bottling plant. And with the game prompting him to clear that out, he decided, might as well take out some Nukalurks (who live in the Quantum-tainted waters) and go find the secret weapons’ lab underneath the factory! Eschewing the front entrance as taking too long, he instead went around the back and to the loading dock, slipping past some Nukalurks and into a convenient shortcut pipe.

And straight into a fight, as either the Nukalurks followed him in, or there were already a ton in there, because Grills was immediately mobbed by the damn things. Once again, the legendary slow time from his Martyr’s armor saved his life as he desperately shot up the monsters, using his Tesla shotgun to finish off the last of them. One Nuka-Quantum (the most powerful of the Nuka-Colas) to get his health back later, Grills crept into the factory proper –

And into some Assaultrons! Fortunately, Jon knew they were there, and they were reasonably low level, so he was able to take them out with minimal issues. With them out of the way, he was free to pop the door hiding the lab, slip inside, and grab himself some notes and designs from Project Cobalt – the project to try and weaponize Nuka-Quantum. Now his Thirst Zapper can cause mini-nuclear explosions with the stuff, and he can craft grenades that are genuinely twice as good as frag grenades using it. And, naturally, the plant has quite a few bottles of the stuff lying around, sooo. . . They’re good enough for healing that Jon probably isn’t going to waste all of them on grenades and ammo, but I do hope we get one demonstration. I wanna see the Quantum in action. XD

With that sorted, it was time for Grills to pop some Rad-X and slosh his way through the nuclear-waste-filled maintenance tunnels down over to the area just below the Kiddie Kingdom! He was able to kill the ghoul there without issue, but didn’t find Oswald – apparently the Glowing Ghoul Magician doesn’t spawn in properly unless you use the front entrance. Jon worked his way back up to said entrance, blowing the limbs off a few more ghouls along the way (and getting an Assassin’s Chinese Officer’s Sword from a Legendary) – and then Oswald spawned in, said a few taunting words, and turned on the misters filled with radiation, meaning Grills had to make a hasty exit lest he die from rads. It was here that Jon realized that there was going to be at least one more episode in Nuka-World, and he headed back to his Fizztop Grille base to end Episode 66. Episode 67 opened with him deciding that the best way to deal with radiation was to put his abused Power Armor back on, and start abusing his jetpack again. I left him doing just that, sneaking around to the castle at the back of the area and using a bus station there to hop up onto the walls, then the castle structure itself, cutting straight to the actual final boss arena of the area. We’ll have to see what effect the holotape has on Oswald next time!

2. Work some more on “In A World Of His Own”: Check – finished up the new version of the DDR section, where Victor and Alice are waltzing rather than doing separate dances to the same tune. I mean, it’s supposed to be them dancing to the same music box music that ended “Finding You” – why wouldn’t I have them dancing together? (Reason – I was picturing it specifically as the DDR machine I’ve seen in Dave & Busters and only realized the waltz version would be better afterwards.) At any rate, they’ve earned their ticket and are finally heading inside! Time to meet the Conductor! :)

3. Keep up on YouTube Subscriptions: Check! Three videos to watch over in Subs-land –

A) Starting with the latest Fun With Shorts – “Year 1999 A.D. Part 1!” An aggressively 60s look at a vision of the future where people live in houses made of hexagonal units; giant slide projectors can show you plant cross-sections you saved from your botany experiments; kids learn from home and flunk if they get three wrong on a test; and whatever the mother does will have to wait until Part 2 but who cares because she’s a homemaker. :p Though yeah, the early look at “remote learning” certainly hits differently these days!

B) Then it was over to Call Me Kevin, and oh look, SEGA sponsored him to look at Two Point Hospital JUMBO as well! And unlike James Turner, he is not here to play the game properly. XD He is here instead to make lots of money! By hiring cheap doctors and only one janitor; building a marketing department before a surgery; completely ignoring an epidemic breaking out during a CEO visit; building a giant cafe while patients are storming out or dying from the long waits; filling the main hall with strange button-powered accordion-playing robot men to keep the patients entertained (seriously, what the FUCK); building the world’s longest training room to train all of his staff at the same time; and getting rid of the only toilet after it broke down one too many times. XD Yeah, he ended up pretty deep into the red – but he also won EMPLOYER OF THE YEAR, so. . .standards. Two Point Hospital don’t have ‘em. XD

C) Then it was time for GrayStillPlays and more Happy Wheels! And ooooh BOY did he have some amazing levels tonight. Very first one was a drunken bottle run, using Nixon on the Segway, where you got catapulted into a bunch of mines and other dangers before being yeeted back the OTHER way to the win platform. He resorted to dropping his FPS at first in an attempt to win, but then managed it with a good old-fashioned speed run. XD Then there was the “Scrotum Trauma” level, where the only way to go was the secret way, full of harpoons and arrows and men getting shot in the balls with same; a deceptively simple rope swing where the slightest off timing meant getting stabbed in the balls with swords; a super-long bottle run with bottles that just get more and more widely-spaced; another baffling bottle flip where, through sheer luck, he got the “Yeet-Lord of the Yeteruses” area (tiny platform next to the bottle drop) ON THE FIRST TRY – and then flipped a bottle so hard it FLOATED; and crawled his way past an impossible glitchy jet wall after sacrificing his son to its wrath. XD Good times, as per usual.

4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check! Three asks in the Valice Multiverse – one surprisingly thoughtful question on asking Forgotten Vows!Alice what she thinks might drive her in a Victorless existence. I said, essentially, turning Houndsditch into a PROPER sanctuary – while she’s definitely going to be lonelier and sadder in a non-Valice world, she’s still got a job to do, and she’s going to do it. *nods*

Not too shabby, especially with the Friday Night Writing Thing on the horizon. Just gotta catch up on tumblr and answer my last DW comment. . .oh, and prep tomorrow's to-do list:

1. Watch the three OXBox/OXtra videos in my Watch Later, along with the Red Plumbob video and Subs videos

2. Play some Sims 4 and set up the Newcrest McFly's vacation to Mt. Komorebi

3. Write some more on "Londerland Bloodlines"

. . .and I'm planning on skipping the workout tomorrow, so -- that's about it? Though we may get a chance to play the beanbag game, weather permitting. I'll report on events as they happen! In the meantime, good night!