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Decent If Somewhat Chilly Sunday
Oct. 24th, 2021 11:29 pmYeah, high today was only about 64, and it was fairly windy too, so. . .had to bundle up! And the next few days are supposed to be gloomy and rainy as well as seasonably cool, so bleh. I know it's not reasonable to continue hoping for 70-degree days, but it is kind of hard to go from that to low 60s with 40s overnight. Meeeh.
On the plus side, staying indoors with my computer allowed me to make pretty good progress on my to-do list --
1. Write some more on "Learn To Love Again": Check! Got back into it with Alice dropping down the rabbit hole herself the night after learning Victor was leaving London, and – of course – ending up in the Village of the Doomed. Where she was greeted by a rather puzzled Gnome, telling her that someone new had arrived in the village. . .and when Alice followed him to go see, who should it be but Victor. A very baffled conversation about how the hell he managed to get inside her very HEAD to follow. XD
2. Watch the three Sims-related videos in my Watch Later, keep up on YouTube Subs, and watch Jon's FO4 YOLO video: Check! Was a little worried that I wouldn’t get to them all, but I was helped out in a small way by James Turner not uploading today, and by carving out a little extra time this afternoon for Kevin –
A) Started late this afternoon with The English Simmer showing off some townie makeovers she’s been doing for a personal save file! I thought she was doing a more classic “no custom content” save file to eventually share, but no – this one heavily uses her CC and is a bit more personal. And it very much shows, as her made-over Sims. . .well, they’re certainly not MY style. A lot of them are cute, don’t get me wrong, I am impressed by the level of love and effort she’s put in, but. . .not for me. She did mention that making your own save by updating townie looks is a good way to reinvigorate your love for the game, though. . .and I HAVE wanted to try and spruce up the Chill Save’s file for a bit now. . .hmm. We’ll see!
B) Then it was over to Plumbella for a double dose of her Sims 4 content:
I. “each room is a different challenge...challenge” – Ooooh boy. This was a build where every room was one of the following challenges: “Different Pack” (room has to be a specific pack) “Different Style” (room has to be a specific style) “Different Decade” (room has to be themed to a specific decade) “No Mistakes” (you place something, it is THERE), “No Same Objects” (can’t use the same object twice), “No Same Swatches” (can’t use the same SWATCHES twice); “Random Budget” (amount you can spend on the room is randomized). She used a wheel to pick challenges, and got “No Same Swatches” for the exterior (she was grumpy, but managed to make it work with a variety of black swatches for windows and green swatches for wallpaper); “Different Style” for the kitchen (she went to the random number generator to get her style and got GARDEN – she somehow slung something together with a picnic table, some mushroom stools, some shelves, a sized-down fountain, a flower-arranging bench, flowers on the wall, and garden plots on the floor); “No Same Objects” for the living room (this one was okay, she just found objects that looked like they went together, managed on a technicality to make a nice TV console – two tables that fit together because their swatches are mirrored are still two different objects – and didn’t stress over curtains); “Different Pack” for the upstairs passageway (used James’s Random Pack Generator to get Luxury Party Stuff, which – has no walls or floors, damn. So she threw up some curtains and some wall decoration lights, a chair, a glow cube, and a buffet, and called it a day); “Different Decade” for the first bedroom (she got 1993 off a random year generator, so a 90s bedroom/office it was, to her delight – and she went all out, let me tell you!); “No Mistakes” for the bathroom (she ran with a wild pink-and-black swatch she picked for the tub/shower and made a very bold bathroom which she loved), and “Random Budget” for the master bedroom (got a budget of $4,669 from the good old RNG, went for a very purple, perky goth-type room, which I approved of). Amusing and incredible, and kind of makes me want to try it. XD
II. “predicting what the future Kits are with absolutely no evidence” – we’ve had two Kits so far in the “Season of Selves” to close out the year, and we’re due two more. And Plumbella decided she wanted to make some predictions based on the teaser names – “Sanctuary Vibes” and “Defying Style Boundaries.” The first kind of derailed into her complaining that so many settees and couches in the game currently look so uncomfortable, and she hopes the new kit is all about comfy modern stuff (which – you know, she’s not WRONG, there’s a lot of hard wooden shit in the game right now); while the second sent her down hoping for a more “maximalist” route with bright styles and colors (not realizing that one of these is a guaranteed CAS kit, not Build/Buy – though more bright colors and patterns in CAS wouldn’t be bad either). She’s just hoping for stuff she ENJOYS and makes the Kits worth buying, which is about the best you can hope for with these things! I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you, Plumbella.
C) Then it was over to the Subs for Call Me Kevin and YouTuber’s Life 2, where he did his best to make the world’s worst YouTuber! (Sponsored by Activison Blizzard, whom we all know is one of the worst gaming companies.) After discovering to his intense amusement you could basically end the game at the very first choice (by refusing your ticket to “NewTube City”), he created A, a terrifying fellow with a Captain America cowl, a blue beard, a seashell bra, leopard-print undies, and slippers, who made content with the help of his drone, Perv! Said content was essentially just asking for subscribers over and over again – he did other things in his videos, but he generally just cut out everything but asking for subscribers. He also posted random weird pictures to “Instalife” for the clout, fed some strange sewer monster popcorn and pizza, failed pretty much every main quest in the game, and slept through most of his days until he found himself at the YouTuber Awards! As an attendee. XD Look, when your best video gets 6 likes to 5 dislikes, you can’t expect to be gifted a golden drone right away! You gotta get into at least double digits. :p
D) Then, after supper, it was time for GrayStillPlays and Judge 3D, another one of those shitty mobile games he’s so fond of these days. :) In this one, you are a judge, and you are hearing only the stupidest of cases. Also, all the dialogue is Google Translate, and it is actually VOICE ACTED BY AI. It’s the most hilarious robotic shit you’ve ever heard, at least if you’re Gray. XD As for the cases, we STARTED with an eleven year old murderer and just went from there to an OJ “Sinson” parody and a guy who robbed a bank. Gray of course was his usual total asshole self and made sure no one left his court alive. XD Not that they made it difficult to destroy them, given the eleven-year-old openly admitted to stashing his gun in his toy box, Sinson to murdering his wife and her lover, and the robber to hiding money somewhere. XD Guys, have you never heard of an alibi? XD Ah well – at least we got the pleasure of a robot voice judge telling his secretary that he’d happily punish her anytime. XD
E) And then, finally, it was time for Jon’s Fallout 4 YOLO episode – “The Mistake!” A worrying title, though not unexpected after what he mentioned during yesterday’s speed shenanigans. . . So, what was the mistake?
Assuming Preston would forgive Finalley for becoming the Overboss of Nuka-World if Finalley wiped out the raider outpost at Sunshine Tidings and made herself enemies with the Nuka-World raiders. For some reason, Jon assumed that doing the entire Nuka-World raider questline, then unaligning himself with the raiders, without speaking to Preston at any point in-between, would mean Preston wouldn’t even acknowledge what happened. I’m not sure where this misapprehension came from, but it has cost him dearly. For, you see, Jon had a plan this episode, and that plan was –
Start Automatron. AKA, go see Ada, start that questline, and allow the evil killer robot swarms (plus the Rust Devils, can’t forget those assholes the Rust Devils) to spawn in the Commonwealth. And at the beginning of this plan, everything seemed to be going well! Finalley was able to kill off all the raiders in Sunshine Tidings by blowing up a frag mine near them, then headed back to home base to make a spare “Targeting HUD” helmet for herself, for use in dungeons where there aren’t any friendlies around to be enraged by the fact the HUD will highlight them as an enemy. After doing that and getting some sleep, she swung by Bunker Hill to drop off a quest for Deb (and get annoyed when she gave her caps, though fortunately she was able to trade it for a load of junk), then proceeded from there over to BADTFL, both to test out the HUD helmet (has a nice glow effect for living things, but CANNOT detect them through walls like Berry Mentats) and to pick up another copy of Guns & Bullets after killing the raiders. Popped out, killed some ghouls and some Nuka-World raiders wandering around and sniped off a bloodbug thanks to the highlighting, then jetpacked her way over to the fight and provided a little sniper support while killing a few ghouls, avoiding stray robot fire, and hoping not to anger a neutral scavenger nearby. Ada killed the rest of the robots, Jon remembered to switch helmets before speaking to her, then sent her over to Hangman’s Alley before changing routes to go to the Castle (and getting “Idiot Savant” on the quest, which Jon was initially thrilled about before remembering leveling up means tougher enemies). She got to the Castle, was spooked to see Preston sitting by a missile launcher but still tried to talk to him –
And he gave her the business, leaving Jon a stammering wreck. Because he’s been working toward the Minutemen ending this playthrough, and Preston being that pissed at him left him unsure if that was still a viable option. So he decided to go and take out the other two raider camps he’d set up just to see if that would help smooth things over.
Turns out he’d not only left DEFENSES at both raider camps, over at Starlight Drive-In, he’d also left an old suit of POWER ARMOR. Not to mention, there were FOUR raiders living there, instead of the three he’d thought he’d left (plus one brahmin). He managed to snipe off a few, but then one got into the old power armor and came RIGHT UP TO HIM, so Finalley did PsychoJet and wasted him – and picked up Weakness for her trouble. Oh man. . .and then she couldn’t even reclaim the settlement until she’d gone around and spawned in and killed a single radroach that hadn’t spawned in before. Ugh. . .at least the Red Rocket outpost proved to be easier, as the raiders ended up first weakened by an attack by some Super Mutants, then a car explosion beside their base, then finally got murdered by a bunch of artillery fire from Tenpines Bluff, which was just within range. Not a scratch on Finalley either time.
And then she started on her way BACK to the Castle, discovered a bunch of Mechanist killer robots in her way, started jetpacking onto the roofs, discovered Super Mutants and Raider Scavvers nearby – and foolishly JETPACKED OVER A SUPER MUTANT BRUTE FIGHTING A RAIDER SCAVVER IN PLAIN SIGHT. She took a roughly 8.9 hit, but managed to keep it to just the one and sneak past the rest of the danger.
To find Preston still mad at her. Episode ended with Jon scrambling to figure out if his original plan was in any way still viable. Oh Jon. XD Fortunately, the comments are confirming what I figured I knew – while it’s no longer possible to have Preston as a companion (which is irrelevant in this particular run), and getting him friendly again is only possible if you complete “Open Season” (and that BEFORE you either a) ever put a raider outpost in the Commonwealth or b) ever speak to him at ALL – aka do the entirety of Nuka-World before rescuing him from Concord), he still very reluctantly acknowledges you as General, and you can still finish the game with the Minutemen. Finalley is just not going to be very popular among her men. Welp, that’s your bed, Jon – time to lie in it! (Because you’ve got Fatigue and need to sleep a lot more.)
3. Play either Sims 4 (more building)or Bloodlines (Chinatown): Check to the first – got back into my house build this afternoon, though I spent most of it obsessing over bathrooms – namely, if the downstairs bathroom should have a tub/shower combo (decided on “no” in the end and replaced it with a plant); if the upstairs “family” bathroom or the downstairs “everybody” bathroom should have the laundry stuff (I ended up going with the upstairs bathroom, simply because it had the perfect little “nook” for it); if the upstairs “family” bathroom should have a place to bathe (yes, though I could only fit in a shower with the laundry nook), and if I could get a soap dispenser on the side of the sink in the upstairs bathroom without weird clipping (sadly, no, even with MOO). I eventually got both bathrooms into a state that I could stand, but I was hoping to have a bit more done on the upstairs! Ah well, it’s all coming together, slowly but surely. . .
4. Get in a workout: No check – not THAT surprised, my motivation to work out is often not great during the worst of my period, and we’re still in that mode today. I will endeavor to fix that tomorrow!
5.Work on tumblr queues (specifically, the Spookfest Chill Save update): Check – got said Spookfest Chill Save update done after lunch (pretty simple, as it’s one of the usual one-post updates from the Chill Save) for Victor Luvs Alice, so I’m good there for a bit. :) And over on Valice Multiverse, three ask replies – struggled with the last one for a bit, but then came up with making it an Aperture thing, so all good. :)
So yeah -- as usual, I ran a little later than I'd like, but at least four out of five things are done, I only have one thing left in the Watch Later currently, and I'm all set queue-wise for tumblr and comment-wise for Dreamwidth. Let's head to bed and tackle another work week, shall we? At least we're almost at the point where I'll be getting more natural time off again. . . Night all!
On the plus side, staying indoors with my computer allowed me to make pretty good progress on my to-do list --
1. Write some more on "Learn To Love Again": Check! Got back into it with Alice dropping down the rabbit hole herself the night after learning Victor was leaving London, and – of course – ending up in the Village of the Doomed. Where she was greeted by a rather puzzled Gnome, telling her that someone new had arrived in the village. . .and when Alice followed him to go see, who should it be but Victor. A very baffled conversation about how the hell he managed to get inside her very HEAD to follow. XD
2. Watch the three Sims-related videos in my Watch Later, keep up on YouTube Subs, and watch Jon's FO4 YOLO video: Check! Was a little worried that I wouldn’t get to them all, but I was helped out in a small way by James Turner not uploading today, and by carving out a little extra time this afternoon for Kevin –
A) Started late this afternoon with The English Simmer showing off some townie makeovers she’s been doing for a personal save file! I thought she was doing a more classic “no custom content” save file to eventually share, but no – this one heavily uses her CC and is a bit more personal. And it very much shows, as her made-over Sims. . .well, they’re certainly not MY style. A lot of them are cute, don’t get me wrong, I am impressed by the level of love and effort she’s put in, but. . .not for me. She did mention that making your own save by updating townie looks is a good way to reinvigorate your love for the game, though. . .and I HAVE wanted to try and spruce up the Chill Save’s file for a bit now. . .hmm. We’ll see!
B) Then it was over to Plumbella for a double dose of her Sims 4 content:
I. “each room is a different challenge...challenge” – Ooooh boy. This was a build where every room was one of the following challenges: “Different Pack” (room has to be a specific pack) “Different Style” (room has to be a specific style) “Different Decade” (room has to be themed to a specific decade) “No Mistakes” (you place something, it is THERE), “No Same Objects” (can’t use the same object twice), “No Same Swatches” (can’t use the same SWATCHES twice); “Random Budget” (amount you can spend on the room is randomized). She used a wheel to pick challenges, and got “No Same Swatches” for the exterior (she was grumpy, but managed to make it work with a variety of black swatches for windows and green swatches for wallpaper); “Different Style” for the kitchen (she went to the random number generator to get her style and got GARDEN – she somehow slung something together with a picnic table, some mushroom stools, some shelves, a sized-down fountain, a flower-arranging bench, flowers on the wall, and garden plots on the floor); “No Same Objects” for the living room (this one was okay, she just found objects that looked like they went together, managed on a technicality to make a nice TV console – two tables that fit together because their swatches are mirrored are still two different objects – and didn’t stress over curtains); “Different Pack” for the upstairs passageway (used James’s Random Pack Generator to get Luxury Party Stuff, which – has no walls or floors, damn. So she threw up some curtains and some wall decoration lights, a chair, a glow cube, and a buffet, and called it a day); “Different Decade” for the first bedroom (she got 1993 off a random year generator, so a 90s bedroom/office it was, to her delight – and she went all out, let me tell you!); “No Mistakes” for the bathroom (she ran with a wild pink-and-black swatch she picked for the tub/shower and made a very bold bathroom which she loved), and “Random Budget” for the master bedroom (got a budget of $4,669 from the good old RNG, went for a very purple, perky goth-type room, which I approved of). Amusing and incredible, and kind of makes me want to try it. XD
II. “predicting what the future Kits are with absolutely no evidence” – we’ve had two Kits so far in the “Season of Selves” to close out the year, and we’re due two more. And Plumbella decided she wanted to make some predictions based on the teaser names – “Sanctuary Vibes” and “Defying Style Boundaries.” The first kind of derailed into her complaining that so many settees and couches in the game currently look so uncomfortable, and she hopes the new kit is all about comfy modern stuff (which – you know, she’s not WRONG, there’s a lot of hard wooden shit in the game right now); while the second sent her down hoping for a more “maximalist” route with bright styles and colors (not realizing that one of these is a guaranteed CAS kit, not Build/Buy – though more bright colors and patterns in CAS wouldn’t be bad either). She’s just hoping for stuff she ENJOYS and makes the Kits worth buying, which is about the best you can hope for with these things! I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you, Plumbella.
C) Then it was over to the Subs for Call Me Kevin and YouTuber’s Life 2, where he did his best to make the world’s worst YouTuber! (Sponsored by Activison Blizzard, whom we all know is one of the worst gaming companies.) After discovering to his intense amusement you could basically end the game at the very first choice (by refusing your ticket to “NewTube City”), he created A, a terrifying fellow with a Captain America cowl, a blue beard, a seashell bra, leopard-print undies, and slippers, who made content with the help of his drone, Perv! Said content was essentially just asking for subscribers over and over again – he did other things in his videos, but he generally just cut out everything but asking for subscribers. He also posted random weird pictures to “Instalife” for the clout, fed some strange sewer monster popcorn and pizza, failed pretty much every main quest in the game, and slept through most of his days until he found himself at the YouTuber Awards! As an attendee. XD Look, when your best video gets 6 likes to 5 dislikes, you can’t expect to be gifted a golden drone right away! You gotta get into at least double digits. :p
D) Then, after supper, it was time for GrayStillPlays and Judge 3D, another one of those shitty mobile games he’s so fond of these days. :) In this one, you are a judge, and you are hearing only the stupidest of cases. Also, all the dialogue is Google Translate, and it is actually VOICE ACTED BY AI. It’s the most hilarious robotic shit you’ve ever heard, at least if you’re Gray. XD As for the cases, we STARTED with an eleven year old murderer and just went from there to an OJ “Sinson” parody and a guy who robbed a bank. Gray of course was his usual total asshole self and made sure no one left his court alive. XD Not that they made it difficult to destroy them, given the eleven-year-old openly admitted to stashing his gun in his toy box, Sinson to murdering his wife and her lover, and the robber to hiding money somewhere. XD Guys, have you never heard of an alibi? XD Ah well – at least we got the pleasure of a robot voice judge telling his secretary that he’d happily punish her anytime. XD
E) And then, finally, it was time for Jon’s Fallout 4 YOLO episode – “The Mistake!” A worrying title, though not unexpected after what he mentioned during yesterday’s speed shenanigans. . . So, what was the mistake?
Assuming Preston would forgive Finalley for becoming the Overboss of Nuka-World if Finalley wiped out the raider outpost at Sunshine Tidings and made herself enemies with the Nuka-World raiders. For some reason, Jon assumed that doing the entire Nuka-World raider questline, then unaligning himself with the raiders, without speaking to Preston at any point in-between, would mean Preston wouldn’t even acknowledge what happened. I’m not sure where this misapprehension came from, but it has cost him dearly. For, you see, Jon had a plan this episode, and that plan was –
Start Automatron. AKA, go see Ada, start that questline, and allow the evil killer robot swarms (plus the Rust Devils, can’t forget those assholes the Rust Devils) to spawn in the Commonwealth. And at the beginning of this plan, everything seemed to be going well! Finalley was able to kill off all the raiders in Sunshine Tidings by blowing up a frag mine near them, then headed back to home base to make a spare “Targeting HUD” helmet for herself, for use in dungeons where there aren’t any friendlies around to be enraged by the fact the HUD will highlight them as an enemy. After doing that and getting some sleep, she swung by Bunker Hill to drop off a quest for Deb (and get annoyed when she gave her caps, though fortunately she was able to trade it for a load of junk), then proceeded from there over to BADTFL, both to test out the HUD helmet (has a nice glow effect for living things, but CANNOT detect them through walls like Berry Mentats) and to pick up another copy of Guns & Bullets after killing the raiders. Popped out, killed some ghouls and some Nuka-World raiders wandering around and sniped off a bloodbug thanks to the highlighting, then jetpacked her way over to the fight and provided a little sniper support while killing a few ghouls, avoiding stray robot fire, and hoping not to anger a neutral scavenger nearby. Ada killed the rest of the robots, Jon remembered to switch helmets before speaking to her, then sent her over to Hangman’s Alley before changing routes to go to the Castle (and getting “Idiot Savant” on the quest, which Jon was initially thrilled about before remembering leveling up means tougher enemies). She got to the Castle, was spooked to see Preston sitting by a missile launcher but still tried to talk to him –
And he gave her the business, leaving Jon a stammering wreck. Because he’s been working toward the Minutemen ending this playthrough, and Preston being that pissed at him left him unsure if that was still a viable option. So he decided to go and take out the other two raider camps he’d set up just to see if that would help smooth things over.
Turns out he’d not only left DEFENSES at both raider camps, over at Starlight Drive-In, he’d also left an old suit of POWER ARMOR. Not to mention, there were FOUR raiders living there, instead of the three he’d thought he’d left (plus one brahmin). He managed to snipe off a few, but then one got into the old power armor and came RIGHT UP TO HIM, so Finalley did PsychoJet and wasted him – and picked up Weakness for her trouble. Oh man. . .and then she couldn’t even reclaim the settlement until she’d gone around and spawned in and killed a single radroach that hadn’t spawned in before. Ugh. . .at least the Red Rocket outpost proved to be easier, as the raiders ended up first weakened by an attack by some Super Mutants, then a car explosion beside their base, then finally got murdered by a bunch of artillery fire from Tenpines Bluff, which was just within range. Not a scratch on Finalley either time.
And then she started on her way BACK to the Castle, discovered a bunch of Mechanist killer robots in her way, started jetpacking onto the roofs, discovered Super Mutants and Raider Scavvers nearby – and foolishly JETPACKED OVER A SUPER MUTANT BRUTE FIGHTING A RAIDER SCAVVER IN PLAIN SIGHT. She took a roughly 8.9 hit, but managed to keep it to just the one and sneak past the rest of the danger.
To find Preston still mad at her. Episode ended with Jon scrambling to figure out if his original plan was in any way still viable. Oh Jon. XD Fortunately, the comments are confirming what I figured I knew – while it’s no longer possible to have Preston as a companion (which is irrelevant in this particular run), and getting him friendly again is only possible if you complete “Open Season” (and that BEFORE you either a) ever put a raider outpost in the Commonwealth or b) ever speak to him at ALL – aka do the entirety of Nuka-World before rescuing him from Concord), he still very reluctantly acknowledges you as General, and you can still finish the game with the Minutemen. Finalley is just not going to be very popular among her men. Welp, that’s your bed, Jon – time to lie in it! (Because you’ve got Fatigue and need to sleep a lot more.)
3. Play either Sims 4 (more building)
4. Get in a workout: No check – not THAT surprised, my motivation to work out is often not great during the worst of my period, and we’re still in that mode today. I will endeavor to fix that tomorrow!
5.Work on tumblr queues (specifically, the Spookfest Chill Save update): Check – got said Spookfest Chill Save update done after lunch (pretty simple, as it’s one of the usual one-post updates from the Chill Save) for Victor Luvs Alice, so I’m good there for a bit. :) And over on Valice Multiverse, three ask replies – struggled with the last one for a bit, but then came up with making it an Aperture thing, so all good. :)
So yeah -- as usual, I ran a little later than I'd like, but at least four out of five things are done, I only have one thing left in the Watch Later currently, and I'm all set queue-wise for tumblr and comment-wise for Dreamwidth. Let's head to bed and tackle another work week, shall we? At least we're almost at the point where I'll be getting more natural time off again. . . Night all!
