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Bit Frustrating Thursday
Mar. 17th, 2022 11:25 pmBeen a bit of a grumpy day, unfortunately -- a few annoying things at work (including a late lunch), bit of a stressful ride home thanks to traffic, Mom seemed in a bad mood when I got home for unknown reasons. . .just not at my best for St. Patrick's. At least I was able to find and wear a shirt with green in it? *shrug* Anyway, here's the updates:
Work – Another quietish day – fair number of phone calls, though. Most of it, for me, was reviewing stuff and seeing what I could fix before the week ended – removing overpayments or payments that had failed, adjusting payments, stuff like that. Stressful in the sense of “why the hell can’t people fix things WITHOUT my intervention.” >( And one of my coworkers is going to be out tomorrow, and it ISN’T the talky one, so. . .we’ll see how Friday goes!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike tonight to continue with Part III of the Oxventure “Peak Performance!” Dob managed to do a killer landing on the roof of the cabin to conclude his walk through the tree branches – and then tried to listen down the chimney and got a faceful of ash. XD Honestly, I think that sums up Dob in a nutshell. . . Anyway, the others went inside via the front door after determining the owner wasn’t home, and found a hunter’s cabin FULL of various taxidermy – bear, mountain goat, mountain lion, all that fun stuff. Merilwen thought it was tacky as fuck even WITHOUT the creepy necromancy stuff going on. After some discussion and a lot of Dob yelling ideas down the chimney (and just BARELY catching Corazon’s telescope when Corazon tossed it up to him), they determined to settle in and wait for the trapper to get back. Prudence, Corazon, and Egbert all hid in appropriately-sized taxidermy; Merilwen turned into a cat to hide better; and Dob stayed on the roof and did a shockingly good job of hiding beside the chimney. It took about an hour, but the trapper did eventually return – a large, grizzled man with scars and furs – and a cat pelt hat.
A cat pelt hat that looked exactly like Merilwen.
It is here that I should probably remind you that Merilwen’s very first Wildshape form is an exact duplicate of her beloved friend and pet, the wildcat Simon. Whom she once saved from a trap.
Yeaaaah. The trapper, by the name of Vex, wasn’t even that surprised to see her when he spotted her cat form, having already guessed he was being tracked. The gang revealed themselves and regrouped as Vex, in that nastily cheerful way of some villains, explained that his magical snares always get their prey – once something is marked by them, when it dies – from the trap, another cause, or old age – it comes straight to him. It didn’t even matter that Merilwen saved Simon and gave him a burial when he died of old age – Simon just dug his way out of his own grave to return to Vex. And Vex made him into a hat.
Good time to remind everyone that Dob got hurt on one of these traps? Everyone was immediately like “DOB DON’T DIE.” XD Merilwen was appropriately livid about all this, and after informing him that she was going to MAKE him take the Simon-Hat off, Part IV started with everyone rolling for initiative! Unfortunately, Vex got a nat 20, while Merilwen actually ended up going LAST. Sheesh! Vex’s first move was to grab his mace, then run over to a bear taxidermy and use his evil magic to bring it back to life. Dob TRIED to counter with “Crown of Madness” to make him attack his bear zombie, but unfortunately Vex was able to shrug it off. Corazon then grabbed a torch –
And SET THE BEAR ON FIRE. And then hid outside, because Corazon. Egbert, seeing HIS opportunity, drop-kicked Vex into the flaming bear, dealing him a fair whack of damage AND setting HIM on fire too! Prudence, who had been considering sweet-talking the guy because ooh burly evil necromancer, decided that for Merilwen she’d instead let off a nice powerful Eldritch Blast.
And rolled a one. Meaning the blast went off, but with such recoil that Prudence accidentally blew off the entire roof. Very loudly.
THE DRAGON IS AWAKE, EVERYONE! THE DRAGON IS AWAKE AND IS COMING IN A FEW MORE COMBAT ROUNDS! Merilwen immediately decided the important thing was to save Simon-Hat and dashed into the flames to retrieve it, managing not to set herself on fire in the process, though she did get burned. She also cast Entangle on Vex, forcing him, while on fire, to also battle a bunch of very entangling vines. Badly. And the bear was no help at all, as it just ran outside and tried to put itself out in the snow, which did not go well for it. I left it with Dob deciding to sacrifice his rapier with Heat Metal to really weld Vex to the floor – everyone was like “whut” but his reasoning is that Vex might break free of the vines, so an extra way to hold him in place for the dragon while they all scarper is a good idea. Tomorrow – last half of the last part, where we see how the gang gets out of this one!
2. Keep editing Chapter 6 of “Londerland Bloodlines: Santa Monica’s Vale Of Tears”: Check – Alice has successfully set the Astrolite, and gotten a shotgun and another pistol for her trouble! Of course, now she has to get out of the warehouse before three minutes are up, and that still means getting past all those men with guns. Fortunately she’s still got enough juice left in her for some Obfuscate, and even MORE fortunately one of the thugs is arguing with Marcus again. Sooo it looks like she’s gonna have a clear shot to freedom so long as she’s careful. . .
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check – pretty easy tonight, given I only had one in there. So I also grabbed some Recommended videos I dropped in the Watch Later –
A) Started with a Plumbella video – “simmers, full story progression is here and she's GOOD!” A quick look by Plumbella at the newly-updated “Neighborhood Stories System” that came with this week’s patch, allowing for changes to happen to Sims who don’t personally know you and don’t want your opinion. It’s actually quite customizable too – you can decide whether you only want unplayed households to get this, or if you’re okay with played households having drama when you’re not there; what kind of things can happen to the Sims (adopt, have biological kids, move in or out, get pets, etc); and even go down to the family level for more personalized restrictions. Or there’s a global toggle for turning it on or off, if you are so inclined. Plumbella was very pleased by all of this (popping into the game briefly to play with options and see how it works in a dust-filled house full of books XD) – I’m happy enough to see it come into the game for those who really wanted it, but I’m probably gonna turn it off entirely because the “occasionally Sims I never play get married or have babies” form of progression from MC Command Center is enough for me. (Also, let’s be honest, I’m not entirely sure how much I trust it. *side-eyes latest pack*)
B) Then it was time for some Elden Ring-flavored lists from the OXBoxtra gang! We had:
I. “Elden Ring: 7 Useful Tips the Game Won’t Tell You” – Andy giving all the players out there some tips to help them navigate and survive the game better! Did you know that writing messages could get you a health boost at a critical moment if someone rates it (good OR bad)? How about that you can sort your inventory a variety of ways by finding the right control (clicking in the left stick on X-Box)? Drop rainbow stones to judge if you’ll survive a fall (if the stone shatters, you will too)? Get the Flask of Wondrous Physick to mix up your own tear brews? There’s all sorts of little things that might make your life easier in this game, and Andy is happy to share.
II. “7 Times Elden Ring Made us LOL” – Luke listing off some of the funniest things he’s seen in the game! Like having to slap Alexander, the Iron Fist, living giant clay jar warrior, in what passes for his keister to free him from some mud. Or watching Land Squirts blow each other up after poisoning one with a poison dart and seeing the explosive chaos spread. Or going up against a tough boss. . .who happens to be on a sad, weeny horse who probably very much wants to go home, thanks very much. XD Yes, Elden Ring is one of those grand melancholy epic FROMsoft games, but you gotta have a few moments of silly too to keep everyone’s moods up. :p
C) And finally, we headed over to the Subs for the Call Me Kevin video of the day – “Wrestling Games are the weirdest thing ever,” featuring WWE2K22! The latest in the WWE wrestling game family! Which unfortunately gives you a LOT of character customization options. . .such as an option to put a photo of someone’s face on your character’s face. And does not auto-scale it at all, so you could have this weird second face on your character, with two noses and eyes on top of eyes. And you can use a skin-tone picker on the lips to turn your character bright pink. And then mess with the sliders. And then – look, Kevin created an abomination and decided to call it Slippy Willy, is what I’m getting at. XD And then, after a tutorial that showed off their terrible ring entrance, put it into career mode with a background as an MMA fighter. Where it proceeded to beat up unprepared old men by kicking them in the back, run around the ring avoiding all combat in tag-team matches and other free-for-alls, steal the glory from its horribly maimed tag-team member in its first real match, and then finally have an eight-on-eight match – with ITSELF. Eight Slippy Willys, all fighting each other and knocking out the referee before any of them could get an actual pin. Neither Kevin nor his editor knew which one he was half the time. XD It was horrible and delightful, especially with the usual game glitches (facial animations are – not this game’s strong suit), and I kinda hope Slippy Willy makes a comeback at some point. Just to see how baffling they get. XD
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – three ask replies over on Valice Multiverse, nothing special.
Not too shabby -- and the YouTube was very satisfying tonight. :P Now I gotta head to bed -- one more day to get through until weekend! And it's supposed to be a really nice day too, so. . .fingers crossed! Night all!
Work – Another quietish day – fair number of phone calls, though. Most of it, for me, was reviewing stuff and seeing what I could fix before the week ended – removing overpayments or payments that had failed, adjusting payments, stuff like that. Stressful in the sense of “why the hell can’t people fix things WITHOUT my intervention.” >( And one of my coworkers is going to be out tomorrow, and it ISN’T the talky one, so. . .we’ll see how Friday goes!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike tonight to continue with Part III of the Oxventure “Peak Performance!” Dob managed to do a killer landing on the roof of the cabin to conclude his walk through the tree branches – and then tried to listen down the chimney and got a faceful of ash. XD Honestly, I think that sums up Dob in a nutshell. . . Anyway, the others went inside via the front door after determining the owner wasn’t home, and found a hunter’s cabin FULL of various taxidermy – bear, mountain goat, mountain lion, all that fun stuff. Merilwen thought it was tacky as fuck even WITHOUT the creepy necromancy stuff going on. After some discussion and a lot of Dob yelling ideas down the chimney (and just BARELY catching Corazon’s telescope when Corazon tossed it up to him), they determined to settle in and wait for the trapper to get back. Prudence, Corazon, and Egbert all hid in appropriately-sized taxidermy; Merilwen turned into a cat to hide better; and Dob stayed on the roof and did a shockingly good job of hiding beside the chimney. It took about an hour, but the trapper did eventually return – a large, grizzled man with scars and furs – and a cat pelt hat.
A cat pelt hat that looked exactly like Merilwen.
It is here that I should probably remind you that Merilwen’s very first Wildshape form is an exact duplicate of her beloved friend and pet, the wildcat Simon. Whom she once saved from a trap.
Yeaaaah. The trapper, by the name of Vex, wasn’t even that surprised to see her when he spotted her cat form, having already guessed he was being tracked. The gang revealed themselves and regrouped as Vex, in that nastily cheerful way of some villains, explained that his magical snares always get their prey – once something is marked by them, when it dies – from the trap, another cause, or old age – it comes straight to him. It didn’t even matter that Merilwen saved Simon and gave him a burial when he died of old age – Simon just dug his way out of his own grave to return to Vex. And Vex made him into a hat.
Good time to remind everyone that Dob got hurt on one of these traps? Everyone was immediately like “DOB DON’T DIE.” XD Merilwen was appropriately livid about all this, and after informing him that she was going to MAKE him take the Simon-Hat off, Part IV started with everyone rolling for initiative! Unfortunately, Vex got a nat 20, while Merilwen actually ended up going LAST. Sheesh! Vex’s first move was to grab his mace, then run over to a bear taxidermy and use his evil magic to bring it back to life. Dob TRIED to counter with “Crown of Madness” to make him attack his bear zombie, but unfortunately Vex was able to shrug it off. Corazon then grabbed a torch –
And SET THE BEAR ON FIRE. And then hid outside, because Corazon. Egbert, seeing HIS opportunity, drop-kicked Vex into the flaming bear, dealing him a fair whack of damage AND setting HIM on fire too! Prudence, who had been considering sweet-talking the guy because ooh burly evil necromancer, decided that for Merilwen she’d instead let off a nice powerful Eldritch Blast.
And rolled a one. Meaning the blast went off, but with such recoil that Prudence accidentally blew off the entire roof. Very loudly.
THE DRAGON IS AWAKE, EVERYONE! THE DRAGON IS AWAKE AND IS COMING IN A FEW MORE COMBAT ROUNDS! Merilwen immediately decided the important thing was to save Simon-Hat and dashed into the flames to retrieve it, managing not to set herself on fire in the process, though she did get burned. She also cast Entangle on Vex, forcing him, while on fire, to also battle a bunch of very entangling vines. Badly. And the bear was no help at all, as it just ran outside and tried to put itself out in the snow, which did not go well for it. I left it with Dob deciding to sacrifice his rapier with Heat Metal to really weld Vex to the floor – everyone was like “whut” but his reasoning is that Vex might break free of the vines, so an extra way to hold him in place for the dragon while they all scarper is a good idea. Tomorrow – last half of the last part, where we see how the gang gets out of this one!
2. Keep editing Chapter 6 of “Londerland Bloodlines: Santa Monica’s Vale Of Tears”: Check – Alice has successfully set the Astrolite, and gotten a shotgun and another pistol for her trouble! Of course, now she has to get out of the warehouse before three minutes are up, and that still means getting past all those men with guns. Fortunately she’s still got enough juice left in her for some Obfuscate, and even MORE fortunately one of the thugs is arguing with Marcus again. Sooo it looks like she’s gonna have a clear shot to freedom so long as she’s careful. . .
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check – pretty easy tonight, given I only had one in there. So I also grabbed some Recommended videos I dropped in the Watch Later –
A) Started with a Plumbella video – “simmers, full story progression is here and she's GOOD!” A quick look by Plumbella at the newly-updated “Neighborhood Stories System” that came with this week’s patch, allowing for changes to happen to Sims who don’t personally know you and don’t want your opinion. It’s actually quite customizable too – you can decide whether you only want unplayed households to get this, or if you’re okay with played households having drama when you’re not there; what kind of things can happen to the Sims (adopt, have biological kids, move in or out, get pets, etc); and even go down to the family level for more personalized restrictions. Or there’s a global toggle for turning it on or off, if you are so inclined. Plumbella was very pleased by all of this (popping into the game briefly to play with options and see how it works in a dust-filled house full of books XD) – I’m happy enough to see it come into the game for those who really wanted it, but I’m probably gonna turn it off entirely because the “occasionally Sims I never play get married or have babies” form of progression from MC Command Center is enough for me. (Also, let’s be honest, I’m not entirely sure how much I trust it. *side-eyes latest pack*)
B) Then it was time for some Elden Ring-flavored lists from the OXBoxtra gang! We had:
I. “Elden Ring: 7 Useful Tips the Game Won’t Tell You” – Andy giving all the players out there some tips to help them navigate and survive the game better! Did you know that writing messages could get you a health boost at a critical moment if someone rates it (good OR bad)? How about that you can sort your inventory a variety of ways by finding the right control (clicking in the left stick on X-Box)? Drop rainbow stones to judge if you’ll survive a fall (if the stone shatters, you will too)? Get the Flask of Wondrous Physick to mix up your own tear brews? There’s all sorts of little things that might make your life easier in this game, and Andy is happy to share.
II. “7 Times Elden Ring Made us LOL” – Luke listing off some of the funniest things he’s seen in the game! Like having to slap Alexander, the Iron Fist, living giant clay jar warrior, in what passes for his keister to free him from some mud. Or watching Land Squirts blow each other up after poisoning one with a poison dart and seeing the explosive chaos spread. Or going up against a tough boss. . .who happens to be on a sad, weeny horse who probably very much wants to go home, thanks very much. XD Yes, Elden Ring is one of those grand melancholy epic FROMsoft games, but you gotta have a few moments of silly too to keep everyone’s moods up. :p
C) And finally, we headed over to the Subs for the Call Me Kevin video of the day – “Wrestling Games are the weirdest thing ever,” featuring WWE2K22! The latest in the WWE wrestling game family! Which unfortunately gives you a LOT of character customization options. . .such as an option to put a photo of someone’s face on your character’s face. And does not auto-scale it at all, so you could have this weird second face on your character, with two noses and eyes on top of eyes. And you can use a skin-tone picker on the lips to turn your character bright pink. And then mess with the sliders. And then – look, Kevin created an abomination and decided to call it Slippy Willy, is what I’m getting at. XD And then, after a tutorial that showed off their terrible ring entrance, put it into career mode with a background as an MMA fighter. Where it proceeded to beat up unprepared old men by kicking them in the back, run around the ring avoiding all combat in tag-team matches and other free-for-alls, steal the glory from its horribly maimed tag-team member in its first real match, and then finally have an eight-on-eight match – with ITSELF. Eight Slippy Willys, all fighting each other and knocking out the referee before any of them could get an actual pin. Neither Kevin nor his editor knew which one he was half the time. XD It was horrible and delightful, especially with the usual game glitches (facial animations are – not this game’s strong suit), and I kinda hope Slippy Willy makes a comeback at some point. Just to see how baffling they get. XD
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – three ask replies over on Valice Multiverse, nothing special.
Not too shabby -- and the YouTube was very satisfying tonight. :P Now I gotta head to bed -- one more day to get through until weekend! And it's supposed to be a really nice day too, so. . .fingers crossed! Night all!
