Fairly Standard Thursday

Nothing particularly exciting to report about today, mostly just the usual --

Work – Another fairly quiet day – ran some reports, did a QC file for a billing, did some duplicates, attempted to call a few people about credit card stuff (no one’s gotten back to me yet). Nothing particularly special, and that’s fine by me. Only one half-day more! :)

And then I got home and played beanbags and was TERRIBLE. *facepalm* I had a real problem with throwing them short today – or off to the side. *sigh* Dad as usual was pretty amazing, and Mom did really well, so I guess this helps balances out all the times Mom’s never won a game. :p Final scores were me 3-3-2; Dad W-2W; Mom 2-W-3. Dunno when we’ll next get to play – tomorrow’s forecast includes rain, and I don’t know what Saturday’s supposed to be like. We shall see!

To-Do List –

1. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike, ending one video and starting another –

A) Finished up Oxventure Presents Blades In The Dark – “The Wardens of Bellweather Crematorium!” Having managed to knock out Bakoros with a book in the fog, the trio were ready to head out – but not before Kasimir got a peek under the mask. Turned out it wasn’t anyone he knew, but it was a pretty recognizable face – really weathered, sallow cheeks and an eyepatch. Kasimir committed that to memory, and the trio took off, running out of the room and down a hallway through a bunch of Spirit Wardens going to see what all the fuss was about (Lilith quickly pretending that they were going to fetch even more help to excuse them running AWAY from the nonsense). They managed to reach the now-empty-of-Spirit-Wardens Rookery without incident, and Lilith took a peek through the revolving window for the birds to see what was out there. Plenty of sloping roofs and easy-to snag scenery, happily – she ticked some more load to produce a foldable grappling hook from a giant tome, then flung it through the window with a Finesse roll –

And got, as her highest result, a two. She initially thought “Oh no, Luke is going to bang me up even worse now,” but Luke decided to have them fail forward instead – Lilith DID successfully hook something on the ground so they could all zipline down (Lilith being VERY ADAMANT about going first so Luke couldn’t kill Tayrn as the failure) – BUT her previous Tempest fog had started to spread outside, leaving them all lost in the mist when they got back down to ground level. They were just trying to get their bearings when another Spirit Warden came gliding out of the fog, demanding to know which one of them was the Billhook. Kasimir took the fall, taking off his mask, and the Spirit Warden began gloating about how the jig was up and how foolish they were to think that there was only one Bakoros in the building –

Cue Lilith going “when all you have is a hammer” and casting Tempest again, this time to call a bolt of Lightning down on Bakoros 2. Who promptly exploded. XD Lilith stuffed his mask into her bag, and the trio made their escape, managing eventually to make it back to Meat Etc and Erin. She congratulated them on a job well done, then demanded to see the proof of the devices that Taryn was talking about. Kasimir was reluctant, saying that they could use the plans he knicked themselves, so she offered him a deal – they could get a copy so long as they didn’t horn in on her plan to blackmail the Spirit Wardens (as she didn’t care about the creation of brainwashed Hollows, she just wanted the Coin they’d pay to keep the plans hush-hush). Kasimir counter-offered “fine except we keep the originals and YOU get a copy,” Erin agreed, and they shook on it (Kasimir BRIEFLY considering if he should use his Ghost Contract on her, then realizing “nah, there’s no good reason to, what the hell am I enforcing”). And so the story ended with Lilith and Kasimir in possession of some truly dark techno-magic diagrams and with Kasimir no longer in trouble with the Billhooks. Nice. :) Next week, Barnaby and Zillah adventure in “The Horrors Of Castle Wisenshire!” :D

B) Began “Trying to throw a gold rated party! High School Years (Part 41)” by James Turner! This is the episode that I started before, then stopped when I realized that he’d already posted the first episode of Addison’s “Dine Out Reloaded” side LP and that I should probably watch that first instead. But we’re back to the main High School Years Rags To Riches Generational Epic series now, with the following key things happening in the first half of the episode –

I. Breanne now has a new romantic interest – a friend from school named Haven that she brought home today! James was originally only interested in having Haven talk to Addison so they have a better chance of getting the “sneak out” invite that they need to finish their aspiration, but then he noticed that both Haven and Breanne were flirty, and decided to run with it. The girls had a few successful flirts, then hung out in Addison’s room together – Breanne doing homework, Haven watching TV, and both of them watching Addison practice their guitar. (The parents also stopped by briefly, but James ended up having them go woohoo in their hot springs. XD) Breanne and Haven then went over to Teeter Rock, where they had a lovely stargaze before doing some more flirting and having their very first kiss (once James was able to find the interaction again). So Breanne may have a girlfriend in the very near future? She’s certainly bounced back from being stood up twice in the same day!

II. The kids’ personalities are continuing to develop – in an effort to try and get them both to have good enough character values to grow up with the special positive traits (which would allow Reginald to fulfill his Super Parent aspiration), James is doing stuff like having them brush their teeth loads and do school projects together for Responsibility, and write in journals for Emotional Control. We’ve also seen the start of Breanne’s photography career, with James getting her a tripod and a fancy camera to use with it. He’s still figuring out how it all works, but it’s a start!

III. After following Breanne to school (and bringing Addison along so they can make some new friends), James was once again confronted with the Creepy Teacher Kenta problem, and decided it was time to use cheats to solve them – namely, modify Kenta in CAS to be an elder (which is actually correct for the timeline, Kenta was teaching when Reginald was in school), and then attempt to just kill him off via old age. This – did not work PRECISELY as planned, as killing Kenta actually just automatically turned him into a ghost, with no death animation between. He started haunting the book cart in his classroom, and James decided “hell with it, we’ll see where this goes.” XD Hopefully a living teacher will be hired now! We’ll see what the second half of the episode brings tomorrow – beyond a party, since that’s what’s in the title. :p

2. Continue writing “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland”: Check – Alice has made it out of the Malkavian Maze section and back into the mansion proper! As doing the maze actually causes you to miss one tape recorder, though (you come out right next to the last one and don’t get to listen to the second-to-last one unless you backtrack), I made the executive decision to have the maze exit through a secret door into the room that has that second-to-last tape recorder so Alice could hear both. *nods* She had to fight one more ghoul along the way (well, I say “fight” – she snuck up behind him and shoved him into the hole you use to enter the room if you do the normal route through Grout’s lab), but she’s gotten as much of the story as Grout recorded, and she’s on her way into the “curio room,” with all of Grout’s and his wife’s possession – and also his wife’s preserved corpse. Yeah, Alice is not done getting the heebie-jeebies from this guy, that’s for sure.

3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Half-check as per usual this week, catching up on yesterday’s GrayStillPlays (again as per usual) – “Which car survives the lava pit in GTA 5?” Yes, it was another Alex Torture Board that acted as a pretty decent sequel to the “Cars Vs Explosions” Barbieheimer board, in that Alex turned the world into lava last time, and now Gray had to do challenges related to that lava! Specifically, he had to survive the “Good Ole Fashion, No Special Effects, Lava” Pit (a simple pit of lava that Gray had to jump – or, in the bumper car, go around the edge of), the Inferno Pit (I added special effects) (a giant pit with a huge plume of flame in the middle – and this time, trying to go around the edge got you teleported), the Save The Whales Pit (a lava pit with a bunch of whales – a humpback and a couple of orcas – jumping out of it regularly, making it harder to leap), the Terminator Pit (a pit of lava level with the road with four crucible pots cycling in and out of it with burning “Terminators” – and you couldn’t hit the pots or their wires, lest you join them in burning), the “Pit Inside Of A Pit” Pit (a cylinder pit with a smaller, rotating cylinder with a pie slice hole in it – you had to jump to the rotating cylinder, then jump to the other side without falling into either pit), the “Abstract Lava” Pit (a bunch of cylinders merged together to form a weird pattern – kind of a “breather level” as Gray got over it very easily), and the “Boss Lava” Pit (a giant road volcano with fences to stop Gray from trying to wallride inside of it and invisible yeeters on either side to stop him going around it – plus a windmill waiting for him inside because why not). Gray went through a LOT of cars, all more flammable than the last (especially when Gray tried to cheat the board by floating the Sherpa box car through the lava on either side of the course – lasted longer than I expected, though!), but the ultimate winner was an arena car with plenty of armor and a bull’s eye on the roof. This thing I think was the only car to make it over the Inferno Pit without losing its tires every time – and it did the freaking boss volcano first time too! Welcome to the family of Excellent GTA cars, Bullseye! Happy to have you! :D

4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – pretty simple stuff, just one ask reply over on Valice Multiverse.

Not too shabby -- as you probably guessed by the fact that I'm updating a little earlier than normal. :p But yes, that's Thursday in the can! Just gotta get through the final bit of work tomorrow, and then I'm off for eleven and a half days, w000~ Dunno EXACTLY what I'm gonna do yet, but it's just nice to have the time off! As it stands right now, though, I gotta get to bed so I'm awake to get through that final bit of work, so -- night all!