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Feeling Kinda Brain-Fried
Mar. 13th, 2025 11:53 pmDunno if I'm just suffering from lack of sleep or if the red curse is sneaking up on me, but yeah -- I am really tired tonight. So let's try and wrap this up quick --
Work – Back to the (now much better lit – I’m still astonished at how BRIGHT it is in there with the LED lights) office today, where I spent much of the day working on catching up on what I missed yesterday. Namely a bunch of e-mails from one of our vendors who needed me to check on potential duplicates and figure out if so-and-so was such-and-such’s wife and all that; taking a few credit card calls and returning some calls/e-mails people sent the other day; and clearing up a few obituaries at the very end of it all. *shrug* Nothing too exciting, but the day went by! With fortunately a minimum of political nonsense from my coworkers behind me – they only started at the very end of the day. We’ll see what Friday brings!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night with “Opening our business in Sims 2 Rags to Riches - Part 2” by James Turner! Today’s chunklet was all about the duo working on and in their store, trying to make money and earn customer loyalty stars – and I’m pleased to say it went fairly well! Here’s the highlights from today’s shenanigans –
A) Semaj managed to impress the initial reviewer and get a Best of the Best award off him! :D He also did a pretty good job moving merchandise to the other Sims who came in to browse the goods on offer, having gotten a Silver Sales badge by the time I stopped. Building up experience with the cash register was a little trickier, but he did get a Bronze badge in that by the end of my workout. Still no Gold Toymaking badge, though, which is starting to annoy James a bit.
B) Iled, by contrast, was able to get her Gold Pottery badge and unlock the final big item she could make – a giant pot! A very lucrative giant pot, as it costs $60 to make but sells for over $300. James had them pivot to selling just giant pots near the end of the episode, and customers just snapped them up! They may not exactly be RICH yet, but Iled and Semaj are doing a lot better than they were before!
C) Case in point, the house got a couple of small-but-significant upgrades as the profits rolled in – James invested in a nicer fridge, a better stove, and a food processor so the pair could make better, faster meals; nicer dining chairs so they could eat in more comfort; and a new shower that was actually the same as their old one, just not constantly leaking because for some reason the old one broke and couldn’t be repaired. XD
D) And the business, thanks to Iled and Semaj’s efforts, is already at Rank 3! :D James has so far poured all their perk points into straight-up cash infusions, which has given them some much-needed savings – as I said, they’re not exactly rich, but they do have $18,034 in the bank! Hopefully that’ll be enough to upgrade their house and allow them to do the “downstairs business, upstairs living” thing James is so keen on.
So yeah – things are looking pretty good for Semaj and Iled these days! Well, mostly – their lives these days basically consist of “craft things for ages, take care of needs, maybe chat over dinner at the crappy table” or “Iled crafts things for ages while Semaj makes sales pitches to customers in the store.” And while Iled’s been doing okay with her aspiration thanks to James making her and Semaj learn cooking to up the variety of meals they can eat (she’s a Knowledge Sim – skill-building makes her happy), Semaj – oooh. His Fortune aspiration is well in the red. *wince* (Yes, despite the fact that he’s running his own business – none of his wants have related to that yet, it appears!) We’ll see if that comes back to bite James at any point in the last twenty-odd minutes of the video – after all, Semaj’s already had a visit from the Social Bunny...
2. Continue working on Multiamory March prompts: Check – got the “Day 15: Matching,” “Day 16: Outsider POV,” and “Day 17: Soulmates AU” prompts all edited! Though the last one ended up giving me a little bit of trouble, I have to admit – not only did I struggle a bit to get the wording right, it also kept going JUST over 500 words. I finally got it into a shape I’m happy with that is 499 words by LibreOffice Writer’s count, but it took longer than anticipated! But hey, it’s all good now. We’ll conquer a few more tomorrow!
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check – got in a double dose of Josh Way today, since the only other thing in the Subs was another GrayStillPlays compilation (which of course will be saved for a workout) –
A) First up, yesterday’s video – “Fun With Shorts: How To Conduct a Meeting!” An aggressively-70s informational short about how to properly hold a meeting, featuring the unruly members of a neighborhood improvement association, a weak-willed president nominally running the thing, and a narrator who was very keen to berate said president for every mistake she made. Chaos ensued – mostly because the attendees wouldn’t stop talking over each other until the narrator yelled at them. XD As usual, Josh came in clutch with the riffs – though I confess, the one about how “madame” and “president” are two words you can’t put next to each other in America kinda stung. *sigh* But it was a good time nonetheless!
B) And second up, today’s video – “Mickey 17 Movie Review!” Josh’s thoughts on the new sci-fi/action/dark comedy film that’s hit theaters, about a guy who unwittingly signed up to be cloned indefinitely so he can act as the “canary in the coal mine” for everyone else on a space expedition – only for one of his clones to survive something they THOUGHT had killed him… Josh said that he was a little nervous about going into this one – both because the filmmaker, Bong Joon Ho, had just won an Oscar, and he was worried that might have gone to his head, and because the critics were already dinging it for being too convoluted – but then he actually watched it, and ended up having a GREAT time. XD Yes, he admitted it IS pretty convoluted, and yes, the Trump parody character in it is a little on the nose, but according to him it’s silly, stupid, ridiculous fun. Enhanced enormously by the presence of one Robert Pattinson, weird actor extraordinaire, in the title role. XD We all still like RPattz, right? But yeah, if you don’t mind the political and environmental themes being in your face, and you enjoy silly, brain-twisty stuff, this might be the movie for you!
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Partial check and check –
Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – I’d HOPED to get the “Day 15: Matching” Multiplayer Wonderland story into the queue tonight, but my increasingly-distracted brain forbid. So I instead set up a quick rough draft of the opening paragraph to at least help me on my way tomorrow. Just wanted to get SOMETHING in there!
Valice Multiverse – Over here, I just had one anon ask to slap in the queue: “You ever think about all those mosquitoes that ghoul themselves whenever they bite a kindred?” Poor Londerland Bloodlines Alice was like “well NOW I do.” XD Though she did wonder if it was even possible to ghoul an insect – Victor said he wasn’t sure, but he didn’t like the idea of supernaturally tough mosquitoes. :p Fortunately, as per a bit of research, I was able to reassure everyone in the tags that mosquitoes wouldn’t normally go for Kindred anyway – they search for prey at least partly based on CO2 exhalation, and special “odorants” given off by human bodies, and since vampires don’t breathe and don’t stink the same way humans do...I don’t think they’re FULLY immune to getting bit (a vampire using “Blush Of Life” sure ain’t), but it’s most likely pretty rare!
Aaand that wasn't quick at all, because the distraction brain is real. *sigh* All right, time to drag myself to bed before it can take hold of me again -- night all!
Work – Back to the (now much better lit – I’m still astonished at how BRIGHT it is in there with the LED lights) office today, where I spent much of the day working on catching up on what I missed yesterday. Namely a bunch of e-mails from one of our vendors who needed me to check on potential duplicates and figure out if so-and-so was such-and-such’s wife and all that; taking a few credit card calls and returning some calls/e-mails people sent the other day; and clearing up a few obituaries at the very end of it all. *shrug* Nothing too exciting, but the day went by! With fortunately a minimum of political nonsense from my coworkers behind me – they only started at the very end of the day. We’ll see what Friday brings!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night with “Opening our business in Sims 2 Rags to Riches - Part 2” by James Turner! Today’s chunklet was all about the duo working on and in their store, trying to make money and earn customer loyalty stars – and I’m pleased to say it went fairly well! Here’s the highlights from today’s shenanigans –
A) Semaj managed to impress the initial reviewer and get a Best of the Best award off him! :D He also did a pretty good job moving merchandise to the other Sims who came in to browse the goods on offer, having gotten a Silver Sales badge by the time I stopped. Building up experience with the cash register was a little trickier, but he did get a Bronze badge in that by the end of my workout. Still no Gold Toymaking badge, though, which is starting to annoy James a bit.
B) Iled, by contrast, was able to get her Gold Pottery badge and unlock the final big item she could make – a giant pot! A very lucrative giant pot, as it costs $60 to make but sells for over $300. James had them pivot to selling just giant pots near the end of the episode, and customers just snapped them up! They may not exactly be RICH yet, but Iled and Semaj are doing a lot better than they were before!
C) Case in point, the house got a couple of small-but-significant upgrades as the profits rolled in – James invested in a nicer fridge, a better stove, and a food processor so the pair could make better, faster meals; nicer dining chairs so they could eat in more comfort; and a new shower that was actually the same as their old one, just not constantly leaking because for some reason the old one broke and couldn’t be repaired. XD
D) And the business, thanks to Iled and Semaj’s efforts, is already at Rank 3! :D James has so far poured all their perk points into straight-up cash infusions, which has given them some much-needed savings – as I said, they’re not exactly rich, but they do have $18,034 in the bank! Hopefully that’ll be enough to upgrade their house and allow them to do the “downstairs business, upstairs living” thing James is so keen on.
So yeah – things are looking pretty good for Semaj and Iled these days! Well, mostly – their lives these days basically consist of “craft things for ages, take care of needs, maybe chat over dinner at the crappy table” or “Iled crafts things for ages while Semaj makes sales pitches to customers in the store.” And while Iled’s been doing okay with her aspiration thanks to James making her and Semaj learn cooking to up the variety of meals they can eat (she’s a Knowledge Sim – skill-building makes her happy), Semaj – oooh. His Fortune aspiration is well in the red. *wince* (Yes, despite the fact that he’s running his own business – none of his wants have related to that yet, it appears!) We’ll see if that comes back to bite James at any point in the last twenty-odd minutes of the video – after all, Semaj’s already had a visit from the Social Bunny...
2. Continue working on Multiamory March prompts: Check – got the “Day 15: Matching,” “Day 16: Outsider POV,” and “Day 17: Soulmates AU” prompts all edited! Though the last one ended up giving me a little bit of trouble, I have to admit – not only did I struggle a bit to get the wording right, it also kept going JUST over 500 words. I finally got it into a shape I’m happy with that is 499 words by LibreOffice Writer’s count, but it took longer than anticipated! But hey, it’s all good now. We’ll conquer a few more tomorrow!
3. Keep up with YouTube Subs: Check – got in a double dose of Josh Way today, since the only other thing in the Subs was another GrayStillPlays compilation (which of course will be saved for a workout) –
A) First up, yesterday’s video – “Fun With Shorts: How To Conduct a Meeting!” An aggressively-70s informational short about how to properly hold a meeting, featuring the unruly members of a neighborhood improvement association, a weak-willed president nominally running the thing, and a narrator who was very keen to berate said president for every mistake she made. Chaos ensued – mostly because the attendees wouldn’t stop talking over each other until the narrator yelled at them. XD As usual, Josh came in clutch with the riffs – though I confess, the one about how “madame” and “president” are two words you can’t put next to each other in America kinda stung. *sigh* But it was a good time nonetheless!
B) And second up, today’s video – “Mickey 17 Movie Review!” Josh’s thoughts on the new sci-fi/action/dark comedy film that’s hit theaters, about a guy who unwittingly signed up to be cloned indefinitely so he can act as the “canary in the coal mine” for everyone else on a space expedition – only for one of his clones to survive something they THOUGHT had killed him… Josh said that he was a little nervous about going into this one – both because the filmmaker, Bong Joon Ho, had just won an Oscar, and he was worried that might have gone to his head, and because the critics were already dinging it for being too convoluted – but then he actually watched it, and ended up having a GREAT time. XD Yes, he admitted it IS pretty convoluted, and yes, the Trump parody character in it is a little on the nose, but according to him it’s silly, stupid, ridiculous fun. Enhanced enormously by the presence of one Robert Pattinson, weird actor extraordinaire, in the title role. XD We all still like RPattz, right? But yeah, if you don’t mind the political and environmental themes being in your face, and you enjoy silly, brain-twisty stuff, this might be the movie for you!
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Partial check and check –
Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – I’d HOPED to get the “Day 15: Matching” Multiplayer Wonderland story into the queue tonight, but my increasingly-distracted brain forbid. So I instead set up a quick rough draft of the opening paragraph to at least help me on my way tomorrow. Just wanted to get SOMETHING in there!
Valice Multiverse – Over here, I just had one anon ask to slap in the queue: “You ever think about all those mosquitoes that ghoul themselves whenever they bite a kindred?” Poor Londerland Bloodlines Alice was like “well NOW I do.” XD Though she did wonder if it was even possible to ghoul an insect – Victor said he wasn’t sure, but he didn’t like the idea of supernaturally tough mosquitoes. :p Fortunately, as per a bit of research, I was able to reassure everyone in the tags that mosquitoes wouldn’t normally go for Kindred anyway – they search for prey at least partly based on CO2 exhalation, and special “odorants” given off by human bodies, and since vampires don’t breathe and don’t stink the same way humans do...I don’t think they’re FULLY immune to getting bit (a vampire using “Blush Of Life” sure ain’t), but it’s most likely pretty rare!
Aaand that wasn't quick at all, because the distraction brain is real. *sigh* All right, time to drag myself to bed before it can take hold of me again -- night all!
