Snow Melting Wednesday

It was a little slick this morning, but fortunately I didn't personally hit any trouble spots -- though I did hit a lot of traffic, bleeh. And then it warmed up into the 40s in the afternoon and did a fair amount of melting, so that was good. I mean, we're still going to get SOMETHING Friday night into Saturday, but we don't know if it's gonna be snow, rain, a mix, or what yet. Just gotta take this weather thing one day at a time!

As for my to-dos --

Work – A busy day, though fortunately not totally overwhelmingly busy (like it kind of was in spots on Monday). Fair amount of credit card calls (including having to stay on the phone with someone as they navigated the website); had some reports to run that revealed a certain gift hadn’t been imported; got a bunch of gifts and exceptions at the end of the day, that sort of thing. I got done what I could and managed not to leave late, and that is all I can really ask for. (I certainly couldn’t ask for an easy commute - as stated, traffic was HORRIBLE today, especially on the way home. Bleh.)

To-Do List –

1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, starting the next Oxventure, “Bride Or Die!” This was actually one of their live shows, and – as might be implied by the title – was all about Dob and Katie Pearlhead’s wedding! Or rather, the night before said wedding. There was a lot of tizzy involved in setting up tents and flowers and all that – when Katie came over to see how the gang was doing, the first words out of Dob’s mouth was an apology for the chair backs being the wrong hue. Egbert, meanwhile, was “taste-testing” the buffet. XD Corazon, as best man, was determined to drag Dob and his friends away from all this and onto a proper stag-do (constantly handing Dob rum to swig down, which he did with Katie’s permission), but Katie just had some last-minute details to iron out before they went off. Firstly, their officiant had backed out, so they needed to find a new one – Corazon promptly volunteered himself, but Egbert pointed out that HE was the ordained paladin and had Proficiency in religion and all, so he could marry them extra hard! Katie agreed, ignoring Dob trying to signal to her to NOT take Egbert up on said offer. XD The other thing was she’d changed her mind about the boutonnieres (those little flowers you wear in your buttonholes), and she wanted Dob to pick up some during his trip into the woods on his stag do. She knew exactly the kind she wanted to – bright blue, with lots of little thorns. . .but you couldn’t touch the thorns or you’d die instantly, and you couldn’t smell the flowers otherwise you’d die in two days, and they’re really dangerous but they’d be PERFECT, you know? Dob agreed and promised to get her some as soon as possible, no need to pick up any gardening equipment. XD

And so the group set out into the woods! After Corazon tried to get Dob to actually kill a stag (Dob deliberately whiffed the shot and got Merilwen to fake a stag dying noise – regardless of the fact that it was STANDING RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM; Corazon allowed them the deception), he moved onto to hitting Dob with paintballs from a flintlock gun while Dob looked for the flowers. It took some wandering, but he and the others eventually found themselves in a greasy, marshy place (Corazon insisted it wasn’t his grease; too low-grade) where the flowers were growing. Egbert and the others reminded Dob (ready to just dive in) that even SMELLING the flowers is dangerous, so Dob said they needed to stuff their noses and mouths with wax. They didn’t have any on hand, though, so Corazon instead Greased up everyone’s noses. And then used Mage Hand to further block any olfactory organs (good, because Egbert eventually set his grease on fire). XD Prudence did try to point out that he could use Mage Hand to just PICK THE FLOWERS, but Corazon decided he liked this plan better. Prudence then handed over some leather scraps to Dob so he could handle the flowers safely, prompting Corazon to point out she has Mage Hand too – and that it’s a cantrip, aka Easy Free Spell. Prudence liked her plan better. XD Dob threw the leather over the flowers like a net, then reached into pick them –

Cue him getting a roll of four on his Dex roll and coming SHOCKINGLY CLOSE to pricking himself and dying horribly. Only the sudden interference of a dimensional rip (Prudence insisted it wasn’t her doing; they’d know if it was) and a blue-gray creature with a horrible underbite jumping out and rapping his knuckles with a club stopped tragedy. Dob, nursing his knuckles, asked what gives, and the creature – a boggle, as it turns out – told him that he’d been about to kill himself on the dangerous flower. Turns out there was a whole community of boggles living in the area, all with clubs to protect passersby from the danger of the flowers. (Merilwen pointed out to Corazon that he had promised they’d go clubbing, and Johnny VERY reluctantly gave her inspiration. XD) Dob began arguing with the head boggle about how Katie had asked him to get these VERY SPECIFIC flowers, and how he couldn’t bring anything else back to his precious flower (though there was some initial confusion with Corazon announcing himself as “the best man” generally, then going on about HIS special day, leading the head boggle to think THEY were getting married – Dob had to explain that any marriage between him and Corazon existed entirely for tax purposes). The head boggle was firm that he shouldn’t take these, though, they were deadly, and the others attempted to bring up the fact once again that Katie was kind of obviously trying to poison Dob. Dob refused to believe his constant stabbing stomach pain was anything but love, and Corazon ended up shooting him in the crotch with more paintballs. XD (Egbert immediately said he assumed Dob would not want him to Lay On Hands to heal that; Johnny VERY reluctantly gave him inspiration. XD)

After a bit more arguing (and Dob letting slip that he’d thought they’d need to kill the boggles to achieve their goal, which the boggles found rather insulting), Dob was eventually convinced to try a substitute for the poison flowers (mostly based on the fact that Katie wouldn’t be able to smell the difference, either because she didn’t want to die or because of her giant (possibly special wedding-themed) pearl head). Corazon tried to put the task of finding a replacement on Merilwen, while Merilwen reminded him that he could do illusions. The boggles put the matter to rest, though, by saying that only twenty minutes away was a second community of boggles guarding what they thought was a more deadly strain of the flower, but was in fact an entirely harmless one. That village was made up of all the boggles the first village here found annoying, and the head boggle explicitly said that he didn’t mind if they killed THEM (though he wouldn’t join them on the trip because he didn’t want to be implicated). Dob was all for killing the “bad boggles,” so the gang took their leave and headed over to the other boggle community. Sure enough, when the group found a ring of them near the flowers, they were singing an annoying song over and over and over again. Merilwen turned into a bear from sheer frustration. XD Corazon moved his Mage Hand to stop up everyone’s ears, then went and kicked one of the bad boggles, hoping he’d land in the flowers to test if they were really harmless. None of the other bad boggles could be arsed to actually get up and catch their compatriot, and he smashed into the ground and broke his neck. *wince* Corazon then tried to get them to let them pick some flowers, but the bad boggles refused – I left it with Merilwen trying to intimidate them in bear form, and only rolling an eleven. But then again, boggles ARE incredibly small, so I wouldn’t think she’d have to roll high. . .we’ll see what happens tomorrow!

2. Continue writing “The Joker And The Queen”: Check – I have decided to include Victor giving some instructions on free-climbing to help everyone up the wall, and Rita has learned the price of hubris (here defined as “I’ve done some parkour in the past, I can totally do this”) and nearly lost her leg. Fortunately Victor was there to help hold her up as she got it sorted, and she explained that it was an accident at the race track where her dad works – driver lost control and drove into the stands. I’m already thinking I’m gonna have to rewrite the bit where the leg actually comes loose (need to do more research into how artificial legs attach and all), but what I’ve got will do for a first draft, at least for tonight! We’ll get it all sorted in the edits.

3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Another day of only Gray – GrayStillPlays, that is, and “Testing Cars vs GIANT BULGE in GTA 5!” Another challenge board from Alex, his longest yet, featuring Gray and a variety of trucks versus various bulges Alex created to test their off-road capabilities! Bulges ranged from “Harmless” (simple, if increasingly tall, hills), “Jurassic” (various natural landscape bulges, including a few “donuts” and a couple of sheer almost-mountains), “Tube” (various bits of tubing in high and higher arcs – one had a wind turbine embedded in it (natch), and one was basically just straight up), “Pop-It” (giant popping party things that could try and shuck Gray off the road with the force of their explosions), “Tyre” (bulges made of, of course, tires – I couldn’t help joking in my comment that the British spelling here meant that I now believed Alex is Alex Horne from Taskmaster XD), “Random A$$” (his spelling for YouTube, featuring bulges made out of the tops of drinks, buildings, and those weird human statues), and finally “Harmful” (featuring a bulge that came to a point, a few super-tall ones, and one right before the end that was essentially just a sheer cliff). Gray had a variety of vehicles to try, but he was only allowed to use them until they got stuck or went off the board (without any way to get back on; one car had enough bounce for Gray to get it back on there at the beginning at least), and only one could make it to the end. And indeed, as it turned out, only one could even make it past the Tube Bulges – the Wastelander, aka the rust bucket truck! (Though, admittedly, Gray didn’t even get to try one truck, because a landing jet took it out before he could get in – and then a SECOND one ALMOST took out the Wastelander! Fortunately it stayed on the board for Gray to try.) Only it had the necessary height, speed, traction, and weight to get past all the obstacles without getting stuck on a hill, or in a donut, or in front of a tube. Gray’s sheer RELIEF when he beat the final wall-bulge with it and made it to the win was palpable. XD

4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check, at least in the sense that I got the queue speed on Victor Luvs Alice reset from eight to one (whew). Still deciding on my Song Saturday – found a really old song on my blog that I quite like, but I’m not sure if I should do it this weekend or another one. . . (Also, just listened to the acoustic cover of it by a different artist and now I’m not sure if I want to feature THAT instead. . .) I’ll figure it out!

And that has been my evening! Time to turn in and prepare to do it all over again tomorrow. At least it's now a short week! Night all!