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Actually Okay Friday
Apr. 5th, 2024 11:54 pmThe weather was a little better (not as cold and the sun was actually visible for most of the day), work wasn't too stressful (as seen below), and I won two out of four games of Yahtzee, with Mom and Dad each winning one of the other two. Plus I got yahtzees in three out of the four. :D I mean, we did have an entire freaking earthquake today -- not a big one, and not centered in RI, apparently it came from New Jersey -- but still. That just gave the building we were in a little shake and made me go "????" until they started talking about it on the radio. (And my parents apparently didn't notice it at all! Weird. . .) So yeah, not too shabby, as the to-do list will prove --
Work – As per the above, work wasn’t too bad today – the GL was NOT a nightmarish mess of trying to figure out what went where; I had some time to check up on stuff like failed transactions and obituaries; and the phones were pretty quiet, with just a handful of calls (and only one credit card call). Honestly, given some of the bullshit we’ve dealt with this week, I’ll take that to end it out. And my boss thinks we’re probably past the busiest period when it comes to gifts, so hopefully things will quiet down a bit more as we go on. . .
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – last night on the bike today, pedaling through the following –
A) The end of the first part of the Oxventure Two-Shot Wonder “D&D But. . .Everyone Has Amnesia!” Picked it up with the gang heading through the forest (Man-Bird flying a bit while Red and Tiddles rode the pony), with Tiddles and Man-Bird regaining a few scraps of memory as they went – Tiddles recalling a time where he apparently sat in judgment over a crying tiefling child for poaching, hating himself for laying down the sentence but knowing the Duke’s laws were strict and unmoving; Man-Bird recalling a time close to when he learned to fly, with him and a gang of other kids, human and aarakocra, trying to capture a feral cat, and failing until his brother turned up with a trout he’d knicked to lure it to them. They were attempting to puzzle out the memories when –
Tiddles heard a noise. Though he didn’t just hear a noise, because, when Luke had everyone roll Wisdom/Perception, it turned out that Tiddles had a +8 to that – and THEN rolled a nat 20. A delighted Mike admitted that was probably the highest he’d ever rolled in D&D. XD So yeah, with THAT roll, Tiddles realized that, to their left, there were exactly ten garbling aquatic beast-men dragging something big and heavy through the undergrowth. He reported this to the others as quickly as possible (lest a sudden gust of wind murder him in his fragile state), and after a little discussion on whether or not they should hide or go see what was going on, the decision was made to hide the pony (who gave Man-Bird a fond “oh, we’re doing this again, huh?” look and vanished behind a perfectly pony-shaped bush – Mike immediately asked if he could play this awesome pony when Tiddles died XD) and then sneak over to where the noises were coming from and take a peek at who or what was making them. Tiddles, despite having to move really slowly because of his injuries, turned out to be a NATURAL at sneaking (ANOTHER +8 to this particular skill!), and was easily able to lead the others through the undergrowth to the edge of a clearing, where they could see a group of ten Koa-tua fish-men (more fish than man, frankly), dragging along a big old waterlogged chest via a bunch of attached ropes.
And then Red and Man-Bird both rolled poorly on their sneaking rolls, tripped over Tiddles when he stopped suddenly at the edge of the clearing to show them the Koa-tua, and knocked them all into the open. The Koa-tua were immediately on guard, babbling in their watery language (Luke was clearly having a LOT of fun doing their voices) and threatening the trio with knives – the group tried their best to indicate they were friendly (and attempted to see if the Koa-tua knew them – no dice) and not interested in the chest. Tiddles had a thought that maybe the Koa-tua would like a gift, and reached into the pockets of his nondescript robes to see if he had anything on him that might be of interest –
And while he found nothing in his pockets, he DID feel something hard in the LINING of the robe. Unstitching the lining and pulling it out revealed it to be a golden signet ring – clearly of immense value, and clearly carefully smuggled to avoid losing it. A ring that must have been of immense importance to the person Tiddles was before.
Tiddles was like “that was then, this is now,” and carefully knelt down to present the Koa-tua with the ring. XD They immediately were like “ooooh,” but thought it was offered in trade for the chest – and as the trio were unable to get the group to understand the concept of a “gift,” they decided “yeah, all right, you take the ring and we’ll take the chest.” The Koa-tua delightedly did the swap, taking the ring and dropping their ropes – and their robes, after Mike misheard Luke’s original comment and Luke thought it was funny – and heading into the forest with their new prize. The gang set about trying to open the chest – Red’s attempt to pry it open with a dagger didn’t work, but Tiddles (who also had great Sleight-Of-Hand) was able to use a claw to pop the lock. Though, for some reason, doing so inspired a little twang of guilt within him. . .
But there was no time for that – they needed to see what this chest contained! Which was mostly rather wet maps – including one of the very island they were on, with a note about smugglers in the corner. There was also the remains of a captain’s log, which Tiddles The Perceptive volunteered to read – cue Luke handing Mike an actual piece of paper with the words, and Mike struggling through it because Luke deliberately chose a weird font to simulate the water having made the log hard to read. The entry they were able to make out was the captain’s final one, stating that the prison ship they were captaining had run into a reef around the edge of the island and was taking on water, meaning that the dozens of prisoners below decks were likely to drown as the ship sank. They would release them, but they couldn’t risk the single blue-tier prisoner getting out. (Cue everyone looking at Tiddles’s blue robes. . .) So instead they took his own crew onto the lifeboats and left the prisoners to their fate (figuring it was at least SOME form of justice, even if they couldn’t take them to the actual prison where they were going) –
Taking the artifact that contained their memories with them. Yeah – it appears that the trio were in fact prisoners on that ship, who’d had their memories removed as part of their punishment, and they’d just happened to survive the wreck. Red and Man-Bird were furious and wanted their memories back, while Tiddles was more reluctant, wondering if they’d been really bad people before and not sure if he wanted to find out. Judging by his flashback, though, I suspect that he, at least, was a fundamentally GOOD person who ran afoul of an absolute asshole nobleman, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the same was true of the others. And so the episode ended with the trio agreeing to keep heading for the buildings Man-Bird had seen before to try and track down the captain and their missing memories. We’ll see how that goes for them next week when I watch Part 2!
B) “18 For Rent Gameplay Ideas To Try | The Sims 4 Guide” by Petey Plays It! Petey’s latest “here’s some stuff to do with the latest pack” video, this one covered ideas from “building your own residential rental empire” and “becoming the perfect tenant” to “become a break-in artist” and “host a neighborhood potluck to get your neighbors to bring you all the free food” to “collect all the tassels and make a shirt out of them” and “adopt a tiger at the sanctuary so you can get that adorable Tibert plushie.” XD I mean, the dude always gives you options with his lists, that’s for damn sure! Even as it reminds me that I would like the pack just for some of the gameplay options it gives. . .
2. Continue editing “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland”: Check plus, I am pleased to say, thanks to getting in a little extra writing today –
A) First, when I got home tonight, I added in some new score/story ideas to my “Valicer In The Dark” master doc that I thought up recently – the trio tracking down someone impersonating Smiler’s uncle Felix and scamming people (based on the fact that the Smiler Takeover had at least two distinct “Felix E. Lated” performers with very different looks); investigating some sort of craftsman that puts them in a Duskwalled version of the prologue of BG3 (so I can put Us directly in their world); and dealing with a snowstorm that snows them in for a few days (mostly for the image of Smiler leading a “family meeting” that is them, Victor, Alice, Elder Gutknecht’s ghost, a bunch of ravens, the dragon they got on a previous score, Us, and possibly a dog and a cat they’ve also picked up). Seriously, I have SO MANY story ideas for this damn verse, and I have never wished more than now that I had the ability to pause time or something so I could write them all down in one big burst of productivity. Damn linear nature of the universe! *shakes fist*
B) And second, tonight after Gray (see below), I finally got a full proper page on “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland” again, yay! Specifically, I was able to wrap up the opening scene with Victor trying to get away from thinking about Alice by walking around Santa Monica and eventually entering The Asylum – only to be found by one Knox Harrington, who was VERY eager to see him. Victor was a little – overwhelmed by the guy’s enthusiasm at first. XD Hilariously, I realized while introducing Knox into the story that the description I chose would actually fit SMILER just as well, as Knox also has yellow (if not glowing) eyes, and a big grin when Victor first meets him. I get the feeling those two would get along well. XD At any rate, Knox has revealed to Victor the name of his mysterious savior, and is preparing to impart further knowledge upon him, like the fact that vampires exist and he’s now the “ghoul” of one. XD Hooray for actually finishing this bit – next time, it’s back to Alice as she gets front-door service to Venture Tower to check in again with LaCroix!
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check – another GrayStillPlays-only night tonight, with “When your road trip becomes 1000x more dangerous,” AKA Gray plays Extreme Roadtrip 2! This is a game where the idea is to get a car as far as possible across some sort of landscape – the beaches of Florida, the autumnal glory of Yellowstone, the forests of where the Iron Giant movie was set (no, seriously, the off-brand version of him was hanging out in the background), the farms of Easter, the cemeteries of Halloween, etc – while gathering up coins and oil drums, wrecking everything in your path, and launching yourself into near-Earth orbit off various ramps and land mines to do loads of cool flips before SLAMMING your car into the ground to activate various boosts to keep the pain train going. Gray of course was a huge fan of this concept and worked his way through a number of different cars, looking for ever more ridiculous speed and height in order to keep breaking his various distance records (he was easily getting over 20K meters per run by the end) and earning more cash for upgrades and bonuses. He quickly progressed up the ladder from your average family sedan to an off-roading Jeep, to a fancy sports car, to a 50s sports car (specifically named after Elvis), to a hot dog car, to an off-brand Batman car, to “The Prestige,” a fancy roadster that didn’t look as cool as the off-brand Batman car but still had INCREDIBLE speed and air. Hell, with off-brand Batman and the Prestige, Gray flew high enough into the sky a couple of times that THE GROUND STOPPED RENDERING IN SPOTS BELOW. Apparently the game thought “eh, he’s not coming down anytime soon, might as well save the processing power.” XD But yeah – simple concept + clean execution = Gray has a lot of fun barreling through various port-a-potties and Easter baskets and watching the numbers go up really really rapidly. XD You love to see it!
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: N/A for tonight – I’m good on Victor Luvs Alice for tomorrow, and there was nothing happening on Valice Multiverse, so. . . *shrug* We’ll come back to this later!
Yeah, not too shabby. As for tomorrow -- well, it's a cleaning Saturday, so that'll be my morning. And I'm thinking of skipping Sims tomorrow afternoon in favor of clearing out the Watch Later and spending some more time getting caught up on tumblr stuff and Valicer In The Dark stuff -- I love my Sims, but playsessions DO take up a lot of my day! We'll see. . .night all!
Work – As per the above, work wasn’t too bad today – the GL was NOT a nightmarish mess of trying to figure out what went where; I had some time to check up on stuff like failed transactions and obituaries; and the phones were pretty quiet, with just a handful of calls (and only one credit card call). Honestly, given some of the bullshit we’ve dealt with this week, I’ll take that to end it out. And my boss thinks we’re probably past the busiest period when it comes to gifts, so hopefully things will quiet down a bit more as we go on. . .
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – last night on the bike today, pedaling through the following –
A) The end of the first part of the Oxventure Two-Shot Wonder “D&D But. . .Everyone Has Amnesia!” Picked it up with the gang heading through the forest (Man-Bird flying a bit while Red and Tiddles rode the pony), with Tiddles and Man-Bird regaining a few scraps of memory as they went – Tiddles recalling a time where he apparently sat in judgment over a crying tiefling child for poaching, hating himself for laying down the sentence but knowing the Duke’s laws were strict and unmoving; Man-Bird recalling a time close to when he learned to fly, with him and a gang of other kids, human and aarakocra, trying to capture a feral cat, and failing until his brother turned up with a trout he’d knicked to lure it to them. They were attempting to puzzle out the memories when –
Tiddles heard a noise. Though he didn’t just hear a noise, because, when Luke had everyone roll Wisdom/Perception, it turned out that Tiddles had a +8 to that – and THEN rolled a nat 20. A delighted Mike admitted that was probably the highest he’d ever rolled in D&D. XD So yeah, with THAT roll, Tiddles realized that, to their left, there were exactly ten garbling aquatic beast-men dragging something big and heavy through the undergrowth. He reported this to the others as quickly as possible (lest a sudden gust of wind murder him in his fragile state), and after a little discussion on whether or not they should hide or go see what was going on, the decision was made to hide the pony (who gave Man-Bird a fond “oh, we’re doing this again, huh?” look and vanished behind a perfectly pony-shaped bush – Mike immediately asked if he could play this awesome pony when Tiddles died XD) and then sneak over to where the noises were coming from and take a peek at who or what was making them. Tiddles, despite having to move really slowly because of his injuries, turned out to be a NATURAL at sneaking (ANOTHER +8 to this particular skill!), and was easily able to lead the others through the undergrowth to the edge of a clearing, where they could see a group of ten Koa-tua fish-men (more fish than man, frankly), dragging along a big old waterlogged chest via a bunch of attached ropes.
And then Red and Man-Bird both rolled poorly on their sneaking rolls, tripped over Tiddles when he stopped suddenly at the edge of the clearing to show them the Koa-tua, and knocked them all into the open. The Koa-tua were immediately on guard, babbling in their watery language (Luke was clearly having a LOT of fun doing their voices) and threatening the trio with knives – the group tried their best to indicate they were friendly (and attempted to see if the Koa-tua knew them – no dice) and not interested in the chest. Tiddles had a thought that maybe the Koa-tua would like a gift, and reached into the pockets of his nondescript robes to see if he had anything on him that might be of interest –
And while he found nothing in his pockets, he DID feel something hard in the LINING of the robe. Unstitching the lining and pulling it out revealed it to be a golden signet ring – clearly of immense value, and clearly carefully smuggled to avoid losing it. A ring that must have been of immense importance to the person Tiddles was before.
Tiddles was like “that was then, this is now,” and carefully knelt down to present the Koa-tua with the ring. XD They immediately were like “ooooh,” but thought it was offered in trade for the chest – and as the trio were unable to get the group to understand the concept of a “gift,” they decided “yeah, all right, you take the ring and we’ll take the chest.” The Koa-tua delightedly did the swap, taking the ring and dropping their ropes – and their robes, after Mike misheard Luke’s original comment and Luke thought it was funny – and heading into the forest with their new prize. The gang set about trying to open the chest – Red’s attempt to pry it open with a dagger didn’t work, but Tiddles (who also had great Sleight-Of-Hand) was able to use a claw to pop the lock. Though, for some reason, doing so inspired a little twang of guilt within him. . .
But there was no time for that – they needed to see what this chest contained! Which was mostly rather wet maps – including one of the very island they were on, with a note about smugglers in the corner. There was also the remains of a captain’s log, which Tiddles The Perceptive volunteered to read – cue Luke handing Mike an actual piece of paper with the words, and Mike struggling through it because Luke deliberately chose a weird font to simulate the water having made the log hard to read. The entry they were able to make out was the captain’s final one, stating that the prison ship they were captaining had run into a reef around the edge of the island and was taking on water, meaning that the dozens of prisoners below decks were likely to drown as the ship sank. They would release them, but they couldn’t risk the single blue-tier prisoner getting out. (Cue everyone looking at Tiddles’s blue robes. . .) So instead they took his own crew onto the lifeboats and left the prisoners to their fate (figuring it was at least SOME form of justice, even if they couldn’t take them to the actual prison where they were going) –
Taking the artifact that contained their memories with them. Yeah – it appears that the trio were in fact prisoners on that ship, who’d had their memories removed as part of their punishment, and they’d just happened to survive the wreck. Red and Man-Bird were furious and wanted their memories back, while Tiddles was more reluctant, wondering if they’d been really bad people before and not sure if he wanted to find out. Judging by his flashback, though, I suspect that he, at least, was a fundamentally GOOD person who ran afoul of an absolute asshole nobleman, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the same was true of the others. And so the episode ended with the trio agreeing to keep heading for the buildings Man-Bird had seen before to try and track down the captain and their missing memories. We’ll see how that goes for them next week when I watch Part 2!
B) “18 For Rent Gameplay Ideas To Try | The Sims 4 Guide” by Petey Plays It! Petey’s latest “here’s some stuff to do with the latest pack” video, this one covered ideas from “building your own residential rental empire” and “becoming the perfect tenant” to “become a break-in artist” and “host a neighborhood potluck to get your neighbors to bring you all the free food” to “collect all the tassels and make a shirt out of them” and “adopt a tiger at the sanctuary so you can get that adorable Tibert plushie.” XD I mean, the dude always gives you options with his lists, that’s for damn sure! Even as it reminds me that I would like the pack just for some of the gameplay options it gives. . .
2. Continue editing “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland”: Check plus, I am pleased to say, thanks to getting in a little extra writing today –
A) First, when I got home tonight, I added in some new score/story ideas to my “Valicer In The Dark” master doc that I thought up recently – the trio tracking down someone impersonating Smiler’s uncle Felix and scamming people (based on the fact that the Smiler Takeover had at least two distinct “Felix E. Lated” performers with very different looks); investigating some sort of craftsman that puts them in a Duskwalled version of the prologue of BG3 (so I can put Us directly in their world); and dealing with a snowstorm that snows them in for a few days (mostly for the image of Smiler leading a “family meeting” that is them, Victor, Alice, Elder Gutknecht’s ghost, a bunch of ravens, the dragon they got on a previous score, Us, and possibly a dog and a cat they’ve also picked up). Seriously, I have SO MANY story ideas for this damn verse, and I have never wished more than now that I had the ability to pause time or something so I could write them all down in one big burst of productivity. Damn linear nature of the universe! *shakes fist*
B) And second, tonight after Gray (see below), I finally got a full proper page on “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland” again, yay! Specifically, I was able to wrap up the opening scene with Victor trying to get away from thinking about Alice by walking around Santa Monica and eventually entering The Asylum – only to be found by one Knox Harrington, who was VERY eager to see him. Victor was a little – overwhelmed by the guy’s enthusiasm at first. XD Hilariously, I realized while introducing Knox into the story that the description I chose would actually fit SMILER just as well, as Knox also has yellow (if not glowing) eyes, and a big grin when Victor first meets him. I get the feeling those two would get along well. XD At any rate, Knox has revealed to Victor the name of his mysterious savior, and is preparing to impart further knowledge upon him, like the fact that vampires exist and he’s now the “ghoul” of one. XD Hooray for actually finishing this bit – next time, it’s back to Alice as she gets front-door service to Venture Tower to check in again with LaCroix!
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check – another GrayStillPlays-only night tonight, with “When your road trip becomes 1000x more dangerous,” AKA Gray plays Extreme Roadtrip 2! This is a game where the idea is to get a car as far as possible across some sort of landscape – the beaches of Florida, the autumnal glory of Yellowstone, the forests of where the Iron Giant movie was set (no, seriously, the off-brand version of him was hanging out in the background), the farms of Easter, the cemeteries of Halloween, etc – while gathering up coins and oil drums, wrecking everything in your path, and launching yourself into near-Earth orbit off various ramps and land mines to do loads of cool flips before SLAMMING your car into the ground to activate various boosts to keep the pain train going. Gray of course was a huge fan of this concept and worked his way through a number of different cars, looking for ever more ridiculous speed and height in order to keep breaking his various distance records (he was easily getting over 20K meters per run by the end) and earning more cash for upgrades and bonuses. He quickly progressed up the ladder from your average family sedan to an off-roading Jeep, to a fancy sports car, to a 50s sports car (specifically named after Elvis), to a hot dog car, to an off-brand Batman car, to “The Prestige,” a fancy roadster that didn’t look as cool as the off-brand Batman car but still had INCREDIBLE speed and air. Hell, with off-brand Batman and the Prestige, Gray flew high enough into the sky a couple of times that THE GROUND STOPPED RENDERING IN SPOTS BELOW. Apparently the game thought “eh, he’s not coming down anytime soon, might as well save the processing power.” XD But yeah – simple concept + clean execution = Gray has a lot of fun barreling through various port-a-potties and Easter baskets and watching the numbers go up really really rapidly. XD You love to see it!
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: N/A for tonight – I’m good on Victor Luvs Alice for tomorrow, and there was nothing happening on Valice Multiverse, so. . . *shrug* We’ll come back to this later!
Yeah, not too shabby. As for tomorrow -- well, it's a cleaning Saturday, so that'll be my morning. And I'm thinking of skipping Sims tomorrow afternoon in favor of clearing out the Watch Later and spending some more time getting caught up on tumblr stuff and Valicer In The Dark stuff -- I love my Sims, but playsessions DO take up a lot of my day! We'll see. . .night all!
