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Shitty Phone Saturday
Feb. 12th, 2022 11:25 pmDay started out okay -- made my smoothie, cleaned my room, cracked the windows open briefly because for a short period of time it actually got above 60 today, had lunch, was ready to hop on the computer and watch some videos or start gaming --
And then Mom told me the sim card for my phone had arrived, so we could do that after lunch. Yeah, fine, gotta be done, hopefully now it would just be activated and we could leave all this shit behind. So we got the new sim card into the phone once we were done eating, and went on the website to activate it. . .
And after resetting my account password, got into said account to find that I apparently already had an active phone #. On a Samsung Galaxy S8. The phone they said the PREVIOUS sim card was already tied to.
Cue an hour fighting through the Boost Mobile phone menu on her phone, and Mom angrily telling the people on the other end that she was beyond pissed off that we kept getting sim cards apparently tied to a Galaxy when she'd said from the START that I had an iPhone. We finally got a guy who (after Mom told him to move back from the phone because he was breathing into it and making it impossible to understand him) was able to get the installed sim card working and the correct phone onto the account, but FUCKING HELL. Oh, and the fun didn't stop there, because along the way I told Mom about an e-mail I'd gotten about one of our e-mails being shut down for inactivity, assuming SHE'D gotten it as well -- nope, it was only sent to my e-mail address for some reason, and what followed was ANOTHER hour of getting THAT mess straightened out, with Dad screaming about how dare they shut down the e-mail address and how we needed to switch providers --
*sigh* Anyway. Long story short, my fucking piece of shit iPhone has service now and is in my bag; the e-mail situation has been resolved to the best of our ability; and I ended up losing about three hours of my afternoon to all this shit between the phone calls, trying to help with the e-mail stuff, and then getting myself calmed down because I started crying from the stress. Hilariously, what helped the most was listening to ANGRY music because calmer stuff just caused a relapse. Moral of the story is FUCKING AVOID BOOST MOBILE. I paid for a year, so I'll take the plan for now, but. . . *sigh* Fuckin' hell, I should have just gone with the shitty cheap phone from Tracphone.
ANYWAY -- despite all that bullshit, I managed to get through most of my to-do list:
1. Clean my room: Check! Started after my breakfast smoothie, around 10:45 AM, and ended shortly after 1 PM, right before lunch! Again, not a lot of dust build-up in these colder, have-to-keep-the-windows-closed months, so that suits me just fine.
2. Keep up with YouTube Subs and the two Sims-related videos in my Watch Later: Half-check – thanks to the phone and e-mail drama, I didn’t have time for the Watch Later videos and instead kept it to the two in my Subs –
A) First up, Call Me Kevin, with another Project Zomboid challenge – where he cannot touch green! In practice, this means none of his characters can run on the grass or use anything green. Since the game takes place in a suburban neighborhood where everyone has lawns and there’s a wood nearby, this is quite the challenge! And he ended up burning through four characters during a fourteen minute video – first up was “I hate Green,” who naturally was dressed all in red; he managed to get himself a baseball bat in his starting home and carefully either smashed in the heads of or outran his zombies on the pavement for quite a while, picking up a backpack but having some horrible luck actually getting into buildings (locking himself out of the medical center because he broke all the windows he could access trying to jimmy them, for instance). He eventually just ended up in the middle of a horde near some sort of alarm going off and couldn’t outrun them anymore, being dragged to the ground after eight hours and nineteen kills. The second and third guys barely survived any time at all – Second spawned in a nice blue house WITH THE BURGLAR ALARM going, and while he had a nice hammer as a weapon, an ill-fated turn down a dead-end dirt road led to him touching grass before being torn down by the horde; Third spawned in a GREEN house and was unable to find any weapons at all – sheer luck led him to dodge a few hordes, but eventually he got cornered in the bathroom of the local motel. With green carpets, no less. The luckiest spawn was the fourth, a woman with a mohawk, and even SHE got a “burglar alarm’s going off” house to start – her stroke of luck, after a few hasty escapes and picking up a spatula, was finding a working red car and just running over as many zombies as possible. She ended up making a giant pile outside the local warehouse, then disassembled everything wooden inside to improve her carpentry skills and barricade all the broken doors and windows so she could stay in a nice concrete haven forever. XD I don’t know how he comes up with these challenges, but they are truly amazing to watch, let me tell you. XD
B) And then second was GrayStillPlays and another GTA V parkour board – a skydive around the big Cheeto Sun someone built! Consisting of an initial skydive around the perimeter of the Sun itself, working his way through various tubes and thumbnail holes in bullseyes and whatnot – and, of course, windmills; then a teleport over to the “Solar Twister,” which was two distinct tubes – one sponsored by Sprunk with windmills and JETS inside to dodge, followed by a drop through a few thumbnail holes into another tube with more cutouts to snake through and one last windmill to dodge. Poor Gray had a lot of trouble holding onto his sanity in this one, folks! Though I think landing on the bullseye at the end and getting to blow up his tormentors with a rocket launcher helped a little. XD
3. Play Sims 4 and see about getting Smiler into Foxbury Institute: Check, though I didn’t actually have Smiler apply to university – instead, my focus was on getting them to socialize, grow as a vampire, and build the skills necessary so they can get into Foxbury’s program for Psychology, my chosen major for them. Ended up playing through a couple of days with them:
Monday – After quickly hitting Victor and Alice’s house to give them both the “Polyamorous” trait from “Wonderful Whims,” and adding the “Study Spot,” “Party Place,” and “Convivial” lot traits to Smiler’s home, I chose Smiler’s new vampire powers and weakness as a Minor Vampire – grabbed Detect Personality and ranked up Occult Student to Occult Disciple, and took Withered Stomach as the weakness. Also voted on their local NAP (they tried for Fun-Loving Community, but Water Conservation won the day), before I sent them back to Laurel Library to use the research machines to up both Research and Debate skill and Logic Skill. And since they went in the DAYTIME this time, they were able to meet a bunch of people – including Lilith Pleasant, which was cool! :D After introducing themselves to a whole bunch of Sims and chatting with a few (and also Detecting a few Personalities), they headed back home for a bubble bath, then sent a playful text to their island buddy Nalani (who’d previously asked if she could share their number with another friend, Leslie Holland). She invited them out to hang by the Ancient Ruins in Windenburg – it happened to be SNOWING there, so they didn’t immediately burn to death, but it got pretty chancy when passer-by Yosef joined the conversation. Nalani ended up peacing out, and Smiler ended up feeding from Yosef before fleeing back home to darkly meditate and grab some sleep. They also picked up a beach-cleaning Odd Job, so once it was dark and their Vampire Energy was back to full, they went back to Nalani’s place to chat, watch the stars, make proper friends (yay!), then clean the beach. Their efforts got them a foul catfish – and the Eyes and Heart of Sulani! O.o Also $106 when they finished combing for trash. Nice! They also developed the Preference “Likes Singing,” which – given their love of music, feels appropriate.
Tuesday – The day turned while they were singing to themselves on the beach, so I send them back to Laurel Library to do some more researching on Fitness and Logic. Midway through, though, they got too thirsty to concentrate, so I sent them over to Pepper’s Pub with Leslie to get to know her.
. . .Leslie's a StrangerVille NPC and one of the infected. And Smiler thinks she’s BEYOND attractive. I think it’s that big Mother-induced smile. :P (Seriously, part of me thinks that Smiler should do some of the StrangerVille storyline, but the most in-character outcome would be getting the town to the highest infection level and then LEAVING it there because possession makes people happy and fills their needs!) They chatted for a bit once the possession wore off, but Smiler actually had the best luck with Lilith at the bar – luring her upstairs to feed from, then losing a game of ping-pong to her. XD Also met a few other Sims, which allowed them to complete part of the “Friend of the World” first milestone – now they just need a third friend! Which – they are not going to get if they keep showering in the rain outside the pub, I think. XD
I sent them back home to study up on their vampire lore once they were clean, but then a text came in from Nalani asking if they wanted to hit up GeekCon and participate in the tournaments. Smiler was game and invited along Vlad and Lillie (first person they ever met) to come with. Got in some good socializing, but the contests for some insane reason were a no-go – Smiler would go to the location, then IMMEDIATELY turn around and walk back to the couch where some of the rest of their group was sitting. Which was not good, given they were spending a LOT of time in the sun. . .I had to cancel out the social event and then have them run inside the nearby karaoke bar to save them. >( On the PLUS side, though, right at the start of the con, they got the “inheritance” phone call – and as I am smarter than James Turner, I had them chose “under what conditions” and thus got $2,500 right away without having to worry about a wedding. :D Yay, money! They also got Bat Form for quick vampiric travel, and drank the bartender (hey, if anything is more appropriate. . .). Then it was back home where I got them a laptop, had them level up some more Vampire Lore skill (now they can make plasma packs from fish and frogs, yay), then had them practice their Charisma and Debate skills in between dark meditations until early Wednesday morning. Just need to get a little more Logic skill now, and hopefully they’ll be good to apply to Foxbury’s Psychology degree!
4. Write the first draft of this month's gift fic: Check – got a rough draft of my provided prompt, my friend Marie’s Valice daughter OC Madeline sneaking back in after a party, only to be caught by Alice, sorted. Just some basic family drama between them, nothing too wild – or nasty, as I don’t think that’s what she would want. We’ll refine it on Tuesday so it’ll be ready to go in just over a week’s time!
Additionally:
-->Got some drafting for Smiler Always’s FIRST update done on Victor Luvs Alice! I got the pictures ready late last night before heading to bed, then did the drafts with starter text on my tumblr this evening after writing. Good to be ahead!
Yeah, pretty productive with the few hours I had to myself, huh? Just glad I calmed down enough to actually play Sims and get in some time with Smiler -- I need a bit of a cushion in preparation for the My Wedding Stories patch! And now I'm doing a bit of chatting with others and keeping an eye on my RP tumblr while reading a bit of TV Tropes, so let's get tomorrow's hopefully-uninterrupted to-dos out of the way:
1. Keep up with the FO4 Playthrough Progression
2. Keep up with YouTube Subs, the two non-Sims videos in the Watch Later, and Jon's F:NV "Utter Chaos" episode
3. Play Fallout 4 and do Danse's introductory missions
4. Get the Valicetines ready to fire and finish up another ship meme
5. Get in a workout
Quietly considering that last one optional if necessary. . .we'll see how tomorrow goes. In the meantime, night all!
And then Mom told me the sim card for my phone had arrived, so we could do that after lunch. Yeah, fine, gotta be done, hopefully now it would just be activated and we could leave all this shit behind. So we got the new sim card into the phone once we were done eating, and went on the website to activate it. . .
And after resetting my account password, got into said account to find that I apparently already had an active phone #. On a Samsung Galaxy S8. The phone they said the PREVIOUS sim card was already tied to.
Cue an hour fighting through the Boost Mobile phone menu on her phone, and Mom angrily telling the people on the other end that she was beyond pissed off that we kept getting sim cards apparently tied to a Galaxy when she'd said from the START that I had an iPhone. We finally got a guy who (after Mom told him to move back from the phone because he was breathing into it and making it impossible to understand him) was able to get the installed sim card working and the correct phone onto the account, but FUCKING HELL. Oh, and the fun didn't stop there, because along the way I told Mom about an e-mail I'd gotten about one of our e-mails being shut down for inactivity, assuming SHE'D gotten it as well -- nope, it was only sent to my e-mail address for some reason, and what followed was ANOTHER hour of getting THAT mess straightened out, with Dad screaming about how dare they shut down the e-mail address and how we needed to switch providers --
*sigh* Anyway. Long story short, my fucking piece of shit iPhone has service now and is in my bag; the e-mail situation has been resolved to the best of our ability; and I ended up losing about three hours of my afternoon to all this shit between the phone calls, trying to help with the e-mail stuff, and then getting myself calmed down because I started crying from the stress. Hilariously, what helped the most was listening to ANGRY music because calmer stuff just caused a relapse. Moral of the story is FUCKING AVOID BOOST MOBILE. I paid for a year, so I'll take the plan for now, but. . . *sigh* Fuckin' hell, I should have just gone with the shitty cheap phone from Tracphone.
ANYWAY -- despite all that bullshit, I managed to get through most of my to-do list:
1. Clean my room: Check! Started after my breakfast smoothie, around 10:45 AM, and ended shortly after 1 PM, right before lunch! Again, not a lot of dust build-up in these colder, have-to-keep-the-windows-closed months, so that suits me just fine.
2. Keep up with YouTube Subs and the two Sims-related videos in my Watch Later: Half-check – thanks to the phone and e-mail drama, I didn’t have time for the Watch Later videos and instead kept it to the two in my Subs –
A) First up, Call Me Kevin, with another Project Zomboid challenge – where he cannot touch green! In practice, this means none of his characters can run on the grass or use anything green. Since the game takes place in a suburban neighborhood where everyone has lawns and there’s a wood nearby, this is quite the challenge! And he ended up burning through four characters during a fourteen minute video – first up was “I hate Green,” who naturally was dressed all in red; he managed to get himself a baseball bat in his starting home and carefully either smashed in the heads of or outran his zombies on the pavement for quite a while, picking up a backpack but having some horrible luck actually getting into buildings (locking himself out of the medical center because he broke all the windows he could access trying to jimmy them, for instance). He eventually just ended up in the middle of a horde near some sort of alarm going off and couldn’t outrun them anymore, being dragged to the ground after eight hours and nineteen kills. The second and third guys barely survived any time at all – Second spawned in a nice blue house WITH THE BURGLAR ALARM going, and while he had a nice hammer as a weapon, an ill-fated turn down a dead-end dirt road led to him touching grass before being torn down by the horde; Third spawned in a GREEN house and was unable to find any weapons at all – sheer luck led him to dodge a few hordes, but eventually he got cornered in the bathroom of the local motel. With green carpets, no less. The luckiest spawn was the fourth, a woman with a mohawk, and even SHE got a “burglar alarm’s going off” house to start – her stroke of luck, after a few hasty escapes and picking up a spatula, was finding a working red car and just running over as many zombies as possible. She ended up making a giant pile outside the local warehouse, then disassembled everything wooden inside to improve her carpentry skills and barricade all the broken doors and windows so she could stay in a nice concrete haven forever. XD I don’t know how he comes up with these challenges, but they are truly amazing to watch, let me tell you. XD
B) And then second was GrayStillPlays and another GTA V parkour board – a skydive around the big Cheeto Sun someone built! Consisting of an initial skydive around the perimeter of the Sun itself, working his way through various tubes and thumbnail holes in bullseyes and whatnot – and, of course, windmills; then a teleport over to the “Solar Twister,” which was two distinct tubes – one sponsored by Sprunk with windmills and JETS inside to dodge, followed by a drop through a few thumbnail holes into another tube with more cutouts to snake through and one last windmill to dodge. Poor Gray had a lot of trouble holding onto his sanity in this one, folks! Though I think landing on the bullseye at the end and getting to blow up his tormentors with a rocket launcher helped a little. XD
3. Play Sims 4 and see about getting Smiler into Foxbury Institute: Check, though I didn’t actually have Smiler apply to university – instead, my focus was on getting them to socialize, grow as a vampire, and build the skills necessary so they can get into Foxbury’s program for Psychology, my chosen major for them. Ended up playing through a couple of days with them:
Monday – After quickly hitting Victor and Alice’s house to give them both the “Polyamorous” trait from “Wonderful Whims,” and adding the “Study Spot,” “Party Place,” and “Convivial” lot traits to Smiler’s home, I chose Smiler’s new vampire powers and weakness as a Minor Vampire – grabbed Detect Personality and ranked up Occult Student to Occult Disciple, and took Withered Stomach as the weakness. Also voted on their local NAP (they tried for Fun-Loving Community, but Water Conservation won the day), before I sent them back to Laurel Library to use the research machines to up both Research and Debate skill and Logic Skill. And since they went in the DAYTIME this time, they were able to meet a bunch of people – including Lilith Pleasant, which was cool! :D After introducing themselves to a whole bunch of Sims and chatting with a few (and also Detecting a few Personalities), they headed back home for a bubble bath, then sent a playful text to their island buddy Nalani (who’d previously asked if she could share their number with another friend, Leslie Holland). She invited them out to hang by the Ancient Ruins in Windenburg – it happened to be SNOWING there, so they didn’t immediately burn to death, but it got pretty chancy when passer-by Yosef joined the conversation. Nalani ended up peacing out, and Smiler ended up feeding from Yosef before fleeing back home to darkly meditate and grab some sleep. They also picked up a beach-cleaning Odd Job, so once it was dark and their Vampire Energy was back to full, they went back to Nalani’s place to chat, watch the stars, make proper friends (yay!), then clean the beach. Their efforts got them a foul catfish – and the Eyes and Heart of Sulani! O.o Also $106 when they finished combing for trash. Nice! They also developed the Preference “Likes Singing,” which – given their love of music, feels appropriate.
Tuesday – The day turned while they were singing to themselves on the beach, so I send them back to Laurel Library to do some more researching on Fitness and Logic. Midway through, though, they got too thirsty to concentrate, so I sent them over to Pepper’s Pub with Leslie to get to know her.
. . .Leslie's a StrangerVille NPC and one of the infected. And Smiler thinks she’s BEYOND attractive. I think it’s that big Mother-induced smile. :P (Seriously, part of me thinks that Smiler should do some of the StrangerVille storyline, but the most in-character outcome would be getting the town to the highest infection level and then LEAVING it there because possession makes people happy and fills their needs!) They chatted for a bit once the possession wore off, but Smiler actually had the best luck with Lilith at the bar – luring her upstairs to feed from, then losing a game of ping-pong to her. XD Also met a few other Sims, which allowed them to complete part of the “Friend of the World” first milestone – now they just need a third friend! Which – they are not going to get if they keep showering in the rain outside the pub, I think. XD
I sent them back home to study up on their vampire lore once they were clean, but then a text came in from Nalani asking if they wanted to hit up GeekCon and participate in the tournaments. Smiler was game and invited along Vlad and Lillie (first person they ever met) to come with. Got in some good socializing, but the contests for some insane reason were a no-go – Smiler would go to the location, then IMMEDIATELY turn around and walk back to the couch where some of the rest of their group was sitting. Which was not good, given they were spending a LOT of time in the sun. . .I had to cancel out the social event and then have them run inside the nearby karaoke bar to save them. >( On the PLUS side, though, right at the start of the con, they got the “inheritance” phone call – and as I am smarter than James Turner, I had them chose “under what conditions” and thus got $2,500 right away without having to worry about a wedding. :D Yay, money! They also got Bat Form for quick vampiric travel, and drank the bartender (hey, if anything is more appropriate. . .). Then it was back home where I got them a laptop, had them level up some more Vampire Lore skill (now they can make plasma packs from fish and frogs, yay), then had them practice their Charisma and Debate skills in between dark meditations until early Wednesday morning. Just need to get a little more Logic skill now, and hopefully they’ll be good to apply to Foxbury’s Psychology degree!
4. Write the first draft of this month's gift fic: Check – got a rough draft of my provided prompt, my friend Marie’s Valice daughter OC Madeline sneaking back in after a party, only to be caught by Alice, sorted. Just some basic family drama between them, nothing too wild – or nasty, as I don’t think that’s what she would want. We’ll refine it on Tuesday so it’ll be ready to go in just over a week’s time!
Additionally:
-->Got some drafting for Smiler Always’s FIRST update done on Victor Luvs Alice! I got the pictures ready late last night before heading to bed, then did the drafts with starter text on my tumblr this evening after writing. Good to be ahead!
Yeah, pretty productive with the few hours I had to myself, huh? Just glad I calmed down enough to actually play Sims and get in some time with Smiler -- I need a bit of a cushion in preparation for the My Wedding Stories patch! And now I'm doing a bit of chatting with others and keeping an eye on my RP tumblr while reading a bit of TV Tropes, so let's get tomorrow's hopefully-uninterrupted to-dos out of the way:
1. Keep up with the FO4 Playthrough Progression
2. Keep up with YouTube Subs, the two non-Sims videos in the Watch Later, and Jon's F:NV "Utter Chaos" episode
3. Play Fallout 4 and do Danse's introductory missions
4. Get the Valicetines ready to fire and finish up another ship meme
5. Get in a workout
Quietly considering that last one optional if necessary. . .we'll see how tomorrow goes. In the meantime, night all!
