Running A Bit Late

Let's get through this quickly so I'm not too late going to bed -- work was okay (more calmer stuff, though my talky coworker got on a roll during lunch that drove me nuts), though the drives in and back were more trafficky than I would have liked; weather turned out to be pretty good (at the very least, I wasn't freezing the whole day in a thin shirt). And as for the to-do list:

1. Get in a workout: Check! After three rounds of the beanbag game (Mom won the first game, I won the second, Dad won the third), another round on the bike led me to finish off Episode 6 of “Nuka-World Level One Survival!” Caught up with Minnie as she exited Mad Mulligan’s Mine (taking the park medallion and whatever other goodies she could along the way) and made her way back to Sheriff Hawke (though not without upsetting a few more Bloodworms). After letting him know that it was all “more fun than a bale of hay” and getting her “souvenir bottlecaps” (seriously – courtesy of the janitorial department, no less XD), Minnie went up to the flagpole and assigned the park to the Operators! Mostly because Jon likes their perk, though he admits they’re all decent. Which means he hasn’t quite decided which gang is going to get the short stick, and thus end up betraying him and needing to be put down. . .such decision depends on Minnie’s final build! Which currently is still looking pretty melee-focused, given that A) he took the “Blitz” perk to help increase the distance from which you can strike in VATS with a melee weapon and B) the guns he’s picked up from Nuka-World specifically all have most of their upgrades locked behind absurdly-high perk walls. Though he can put a reflex sight on the Western Revolver if he gets a little extra nuclear material and screws. . .

That’s for the future, though, if it happens at all. Jon decided to end the episode with another little trip outside the confines of the park, to the Nuka-World Junkyard! Not to help the Hubologists, mind, at least not yet – this was a trip to get Minnie something very important before she moved onto the next park. It was not an easy trip – her first attempt involved sneaking around a giant Stingwing nest, coming across some Pack murdering some scavengers (no good loot), and taking out some bloatflies before finally getting murdered by an Infected Bloodbug and its Bloatfly friend. Fortunately, the second attempt went better, as Jon took a much straighter shot at his destination. DID involve sneaking past some mirelurks. . .and flying ant swarms. . .and a Legendary Albino Radscorpion. . .but she made it! Even took out some Rad-Rat Pups along the way.

Of course, then a Mr. Frothy in the building she needed to get into nearly took her out with rads. XD Jon was annoyed. But the fizzy Handy was beaten to death in short order, the alien animatronic upstairs sniped, and Minnie’s prize reached – a star core! Yes, Jon’s heading back to the Galactic Zone next part, feeling a few more levels and a handful of star cores should get him past those bastard robots. Mostly because, with the cores he’s picked up, he SHOULD be able to deactivate some of the security. . . We’ll see how it goes for him in Episode 7!

2. Write some more on Londerland Bloodlines: Check! Nothing too special – Alice just had her encounter with the bum just outside Pawnshop Lodgings (she chose to give him five bucks for the Humanity gain, rather than taking him as a free meal), and has just followed the bleeding Mercurio into his apartment, wondering if one of her first acts as a vampire is going to be calling 911 for him. What, it is the most logical reaction to seeing him all messed up, I think! Though she’s going to forget about it soon enough, what with him (very briefly) pulling a gun on her due to mistaken identity. . .

3. Keep up with YouTube Subscriptions: Technically a two-thirds check, but the video I skipped is the latest episode of the Wyrd Sister’s Podcast, and it’s an hour long, so. . .yeah, unless I dedicate some time to it tomorrow (aka Gray’s Day Off), I won’t be getting to that until the weekend. I DID get to the following –

A) Started with Call Me Kevin playing The Sims! Yes, the original – this was a highlights video from a stream, where he made himself in the game, bought a house, and tried to live a life where he wasn’t get by a car. (He, uh, may have missed a word in his SimSelf’s bio. XD) Turns out, the Kevin who wasn’t by a car briefly got a job in a convenience store, before giving it all up to join the circus! He also bought himself a dance cage, where he regularly rocked out to country tunes; held a number of terrible parties (most of them so late that the guests left right after they arrived); killed five of his neighbors in his tiny pool (two for the crime of not watching his dancing; three just because they decided to get in there during a party); made a friend via the genie – then promptly lost him as a friend and ended up walling him in the kitchen to starve to death after he dared to drink one of Kevin’s blue potions; lost his job at the circus after one missed carpool too many; lost his guitar to the repo-man; decided to spend his days making all the blue potions and getting fined for them; accidentally inverted his personality (which made him suddenly super-neat, super-outgoing, super-active, and super-serious – nice stayed the same at five points); got his dance cage and his potion table set on fire by the genie; and ended the series with a gigantic flock of flamingos on the front garden. That’s – actually pretty successful for the original Sims! XD (Seriously, game was hard as BALLS, trust me on this.)

B) Then it was time for GrayStillPlays abusing Minecraft! Today’s experiment – creating a villager army! Every minute, a new loyal villager spawned as part of Gray’s crew of archers and builders. As you might imagine, things got chaotic real fast – there was much purging of the land as Gray went through all his usual steps to kill the Ender Dragon with ridiculousness. They upgraded their armor, they cast spells on Gray, they shot arrows at anything that looked at them funny – and with a new member every minute, things rapidly got extremely crowded whenever Gray tried to go anywhere. XD It got to the point where I was wondering if he was even going to get any Ender Pearls because his army happily went immediately feral on all the piglins. XD Not to mention, Gray still had his super-ore super-stuff, so he was able to get some overpowered gear of his own from a tree. . . The end fight with the dragon had his army speed-building to the top of every tower to destroy the regeneration crystals, then just raining death upon the dragon with their arrows. Gray turned on creative mode so he could fly and get a better look at it all. *sigh* GLORIOUS.

C) And then, just because it popped up in my Recommendeds recently, caught up with the latest Plumbella news – poor girl has tonsillitis that won’t quit, but she’s on new mental health meds and is working to rejigger her schedule so it works with her more “early bird” mentality (she prefers getting up early and doing stuff in the morning), so she’s doing better up in the old brain pan! I’m glad – she’s always been pretty open about her struggles with her anxiety and whatnot (apparently it’s a family thing), and it’s good to hear that things are improving. I just hope they stay that way!

4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – readjusted the queue speed to make sure my Thursday post goes out at the right time, and got my Song Saturday done (it’s – kind of a depressing one that has real “Victor getting tortured by his own hateful inner monologue” vibes, but it’s what I’ve been listening to lately!). So yeah, at least that’s set!

So yeah -- at least I was somewhat productive there! Now I just have to wrap things up in a timely fashion -- two days to go! Night all!