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Week Ends As Week Begins
May. 20th, 2022 11:47 pmAKA, with the news that ANOTHER one of my coworkers has gotten COVID. *heavy sigh* This was one of the back room people I don't see so much, and so far I'm still testing negative, but -- well, now I get to end Sunday on another test to see if my short week turns into a long sick break next week. I am just so FUCKING TIRED of this damn pandemic. . .and trust me, being PMSy is NOT helping.
Even with that, though, I have managed to get some things done:
Work – You can probably guess that learning ANOTHER coworker has COVID put a bit of a pall on the day. *sigh* And it didn’t help that midway through, we had some sort of computer glitch that severed us from the main network shared drive, meaning that IT had to come and fix our computers (I was apparently less badly affected than my bosses, whose computers were full-on locked up, but it was still annoying). I did at least get the training that’s been sitting in my inbox all week done, and got on some checks and took a few credit card calls. But it wasn’t the greatest Friday I’ve ever hard. At least it’s the weekend now. . .
Beanbags – No rain this afternoon, despite a few threatening clouds, so we headed out and played. Ended up having a very fair day in the end: final scores were me 3-2-W; Dad W-3-2; Mom 2-W-3! That middle game was a tough one too – we were all tied at one point, and Mom won just a point ahead of me. Still, glad to see us all sorted! :)
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, this time with a video from one Spinning Plumbobs, covering his “Fairies Vs Witches” mod! This is the same person who made the werewolf mod that Plumbella looked at a bit ago, so I decided to check out how one of his other major mods worked – mostly because if Smiler wasn’t a vampire, I’d have them as a fairy, I think. :p It’s a pretty in-depth mod – both Fairies and Witches are variations on Spellcasters, and have their own custom books, altars, spell sets, and whatnot. You become a fairy by traveling to the Sylvan Glade, meeting the ones that live there, and then finding a sprite to grant you power; you become a witch by summoning the ghost of an ancestral witch, going to the Glade, hunting down a sprite, and handing it over to her in exchange for magic. Fairies also can have wings, and there’s custom wings, plus an invisible “wing skin” that you can apply to specific outfits if you want your fairy to only have wings at certain times. They both use the Spellcaster needs panel, though in their case, filling up the orb at the top is a good thing, as that represents not charge, but XP! When you fill it, you can learn a new spell, choose a perk for yourself, or give yourself a power source to change what kind of fairy or witch you are. It’s all very well-done! I’m not in a position to install a new mod yet (we’ve got a patch coming next week, since the two kits are releasing next Thursday), but I might keep this one in mind. Be nice to have a couple more “occult” options!
2. Continue writing “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland”: Check – Alice has finished her conversation with Strauss (who has agreed to let LaCroix know she’s around, has volunteered to look into the plague business, and is currently talking to the Anarchs to get a feel for Nines) and is back on the mean streets of Los Angeles, musing how far she can trust him (the Wonderlanders are like “some, but not that much”). Next time we lead her to The Last Round, and straight into how rude the Anarchs can be, unfortunately.
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check! Three in, three out, plus a quick bonus –
A) Started with one of the shorter videos in my Watch Later – “WILLS, PETS, SPELLS & MORE: UNIQUE SIMS 4 GAMEPLAY MODS FOR LET'S PLAY'S, OCCULT & REALISTIC STORY” by Simmer Erin! Done while we were all waiting for the My Wedding Stories fixes, it was a quick overview of some smaller mods you could use to help make your gameplay more interesting. Simsonian Library’s “Pirate Treasure” and “RPG Spells” mods made it onto the list, as they rightly should – there was also a mod about Sims having wills when they die; a functional donut machine; and new argumentative interactions in case you want just a LITTLE more Sims drama. XD Ugh, I really should make a list of everything I truly want in my game so I can work on installing it all. . .
B) Then (after getting distracted by tumblr for a bit), it was over to the Subs themselves for the latest Fun With Shorts – “The Picture's the Thing” Part 2! The other half of the short on how they made advertisements with etched plates back in the day. Turns out it took a LOT of skilled manual labor – carefully painting plates with special inks so that the right spots would be etched to the right depth, finishers going in with special tools, proofers looking over the finished product. . .all that to sell shoes, or cars, or weird drugs we know kill people now. XD Interesting stuff, enhanced by Josh’s riffs. :p
C) From there we went to Call Me Kevin and “I tried Red Dead 2 lasso only challenge and this happened…” Yes, it was time to see how much of Red Dead Redemption 2 he could complete with just his trusty lasso! Turns out it’s “at least slightly more than you might expect.” Kevin managed to successfully go up against some hunters who’d kidnapped one of his gang members and lasso most of them so his NPC gang could do the dirty work of killing them (except for the ones he killed pulling down cliffs); got dead drunk at the celebratory reunion party; went hunting for a giant grizzly and managed to survive a severe mauling without ever shooting his gun; took another person out drinking because why not at this point; lassoed and hogtied a sharpshooter he accidentally challenged; lassoed and dropped off a cliff a guy hawking a treasure map (and then grabbed the dropped map); and went up against what felt like the entire town of Strawberry with his friend Micah, lassoing people so Micah could shoot them, or hogtying them in the alleys, or occasionally dragging them into rivers to drown. This is where the game ended up breaking, though, as what it WANTS you to do is stay with Micah and shoot all these people, and Kevin kept leaving and tying the enemies up, leaving Micah to get stuck staring into the distance in the middle of town. *shrug* Nothing a little dynamite couldn’t fix! But yeah, completing the game with this challenge is a no. Having loads of fun with it? Hell yes. XD
D) And finally we had GrayStillPlays and the return of Solar Smash! The game has gotten a few updates, so Gray has updated his hax to play with these new updates. XD Like really upping the damage on the new “laser sword” (wink wink) to just vaporize planets in one go, even with the game paused. Or adjust the size and power to do careful cuts to turn a donut earth into a pizza earth. Or cut “Plz No” into the flat Earth. XD He also tried out the new locust swarm on various difficulties (meaning either they barely tickled the planet or ATE IT ALIVE), and created a “worm earth” by seeding the planet with the newly-updated worm monsters, before vaporizing it with the laser sword. And then seeing if they could survive a supernova. (Result: Kind of – they don’t actively die, but they do just pop out of existence eventually.) He also played with Blockworld (think Minecraft Earth) and turned it into a demonic Pac-Man with the laser sword and Cthulhu, just for funsies. Good to see Gray getting to do some serious torture to the planet again. XD
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – as of this writing, two ask replies in the queue on Valice Multiverse, including an announcement by someone who recently found my tumblr of a cosmic horror Valice AU they’re working on, so that’s cool. :D
So that's all good, at least. And now it's time to get the to-dos sorted for tomorrow:
1. Clean my room and do the monthly laundry
2. Keep up with YouTube Subs, get a couple of videos out of the Watch Later
3. Play Sims 4 and have Smiler throw an unofficial dinner party for Harvestfest for Victor, Alice, and the Pleasant twins
4. Write some more on "As Long As You Love Me"
Supposed to be a hot and sticky Saturday, so I think that'll do. *nods* Here's hoping it all goes well. Night all!
Even with that, though, I have managed to get some things done:
Work – You can probably guess that learning ANOTHER coworker has COVID put a bit of a pall on the day. *sigh* And it didn’t help that midway through, we had some sort of computer glitch that severed us from the main network shared drive, meaning that IT had to come and fix our computers (I was apparently less badly affected than my bosses, whose computers were full-on locked up, but it was still annoying). I did at least get the training that’s been sitting in my inbox all week done, and got on some checks and took a few credit card calls. But it wasn’t the greatest Friday I’ve ever hard. At least it’s the weekend now. . .
Beanbags – No rain this afternoon, despite a few threatening clouds, so we headed out and played. Ended up having a very fair day in the end: final scores were me 3-2-W; Dad W-3-2; Mom 2-W-3! That middle game was a tough one too – we were all tied at one point, and Mom won just a point ahead of me. Still, glad to see us all sorted! :)
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, this time with a video from one Spinning Plumbobs, covering his “Fairies Vs Witches” mod! This is the same person who made the werewolf mod that Plumbella looked at a bit ago, so I decided to check out how one of his other major mods worked – mostly because if Smiler wasn’t a vampire, I’d have them as a fairy, I think. :p It’s a pretty in-depth mod – both Fairies and Witches are variations on Spellcasters, and have their own custom books, altars, spell sets, and whatnot. You become a fairy by traveling to the Sylvan Glade, meeting the ones that live there, and then finding a sprite to grant you power; you become a witch by summoning the ghost of an ancestral witch, going to the Glade, hunting down a sprite, and handing it over to her in exchange for magic. Fairies also can have wings, and there’s custom wings, plus an invisible “wing skin” that you can apply to specific outfits if you want your fairy to only have wings at certain times. They both use the Spellcaster needs panel, though in their case, filling up the orb at the top is a good thing, as that represents not charge, but XP! When you fill it, you can learn a new spell, choose a perk for yourself, or give yourself a power source to change what kind of fairy or witch you are. It’s all very well-done! I’m not in a position to install a new mod yet (we’ve got a patch coming next week, since the two kits are releasing next Thursday), but I might keep this one in mind. Be nice to have a couple more “occult” options!
2. Continue writing “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland”: Check – Alice has finished her conversation with Strauss (who has agreed to let LaCroix know she’s around, has volunteered to look into the plague business, and is currently talking to the Anarchs to get a feel for Nines) and is back on the mean streets of Los Angeles, musing how far she can trust him (the Wonderlanders are like “some, but not that much”). Next time we lead her to The Last Round, and straight into how rude the Anarchs can be, unfortunately.
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check! Three in, three out, plus a quick bonus –
A) Started with one of the shorter videos in my Watch Later – “WILLS, PETS, SPELLS & MORE: UNIQUE SIMS 4 GAMEPLAY MODS FOR LET'S PLAY'S, OCCULT & REALISTIC STORY” by Simmer Erin! Done while we were all waiting for the My Wedding Stories fixes, it was a quick overview of some smaller mods you could use to help make your gameplay more interesting. Simsonian Library’s “Pirate Treasure” and “RPG Spells” mods made it onto the list, as they rightly should – there was also a mod about Sims having wills when they die; a functional donut machine; and new argumentative interactions in case you want just a LITTLE more Sims drama. XD Ugh, I really should make a list of everything I truly want in my game so I can work on installing it all. . .
B) Then (after getting distracted by tumblr for a bit), it was over to the Subs themselves for the latest Fun With Shorts – “The Picture's the Thing” Part 2! The other half of the short on how they made advertisements with etched plates back in the day. Turns out it took a LOT of skilled manual labor – carefully painting plates with special inks so that the right spots would be etched to the right depth, finishers going in with special tools, proofers looking over the finished product. . .all that to sell shoes, or cars, or weird drugs we know kill people now. XD Interesting stuff, enhanced by Josh’s riffs. :p
C) From there we went to Call Me Kevin and “I tried Red Dead 2 lasso only challenge and this happened…” Yes, it was time to see how much of Red Dead Redemption 2 he could complete with just his trusty lasso! Turns out it’s “at least slightly more than you might expect.” Kevin managed to successfully go up against some hunters who’d kidnapped one of his gang members and lasso most of them so his NPC gang could do the dirty work of killing them (except for the ones he killed pulling down cliffs); got dead drunk at the celebratory reunion party; went hunting for a giant grizzly and managed to survive a severe mauling without ever shooting his gun; took another person out drinking because why not at this point; lassoed and hogtied a sharpshooter he accidentally challenged; lassoed and dropped off a cliff a guy hawking a treasure map (and then grabbed the dropped map); and went up against what felt like the entire town of Strawberry with his friend Micah, lassoing people so Micah could shoot them, or hogtying them in the alleys, or occasionally dragging them into rivers to drown. This is where the game ended up breaking, though, as what it WANTS you to do is stay with Micah and shoot all these people, and Kevin kept leaving and tying the enemies up, leaving Micah to get stuck staring into the distance in the middle of town. *shrug* Nothing a little dynamite couldn’t fix! But yeah, completing the game with this challenge is a no. Having loads of fun with it? Hell yes. XD
D) And finally we had GrayStillPlays and the return of Solar Smash! The game has gotten a few updates, so Gray has updated his hax to play with these new updates. XD Like really upping the damage on the new “laser sword” (wink wink) to just vaporize planets in one go, even with the game paused. Or adjust the size and power to do careful cuts to turn a donut earth into a pizza earth. Or cut “Plz No” into the flat Earth. XD He also tried out the new locust swarm on various difficulties (meaning either they barely tickled the planet or ATE IT ALIVE), and created a “worm earth” by seeding the planet with the newly-updated worm monsters, before vaporizing it with the laser sword. And then seeing if they could survive a supernova. (Result: Kind of – they don’t actively die, but they do just pop out of existence eventually.) He also played with Blockworld (think Minecraft Earth) and turned it into a demonic Pac-Man with the laser sword and Cthulhu, just for funsies. Good to see Gray getting to do some serious torture to the planet again. XD
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – as of this writing, two ask replies in the queue on Valice Multiverse, including an announcement by someone who recently found my tumblr of a cosmic horror Valice AU they’re working on, so that’s cool. :D
So that's all good, at least. And now it's time to get the to-dos sorted for tomorrow:
1. Clean my room and do the monthly laundry
2. Keep up with YouTube Subs, get a couple of videos out of the Watch Later
3. Play Sims 4 and have Smiler throw an unofficial dinner party for Harvestfest for Victor, Alice, and the Pleasant twins
4. Write some more on "As Long As You Love Me"
Supposed to be a hot and sticky Saturday, so I think that'll do. *nods* Here's hoping it all goes well. Night all!
