Very Tired Saturday

Basically, not only am I PMSing, I had a pretty long day out with the parents, taking a very long walk. Yes, out in the rain and the cold, though fortunately it didn't actually start raining seriously until the end of said walk. On the minus side, though, I'm pretty sure I hurt my right foot -- I stepped badly on a curb near the beginning of said walk, and while it didn't hurt much during the walk, it started hurting once I got home. Took some painkillers, and that helped, but I just looked at my foot, and I think I'm seeing some swelling, which -- not great. *grimace* I think I'm going to go get something for this to rest on, hang on...

Okay, attempted to elevate it with the help of the stool that my mom uses to sit on at supper (as we only have two proper chairs), but that proved to be very awkward, so I've just been keeping it up on my knee for the most part. Fortunately, the swelling isn't much, and it hasn't gotten any worse, so...hopefully it'll be better by morning! Think I'll skip my workout tomorrow, though, I DEFINITELY got my fair share of exercise today...

Anyway! Long walk took up most of the day, so I didn't get much done online, as you might expect. But I did accomplish a few things:

Tumblr: Not a lot of activity over here, but I managed some stuff –

Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – Just plopped some posts I liked over on my friend Squid’s tumblr into my drafts properly – one about how everything can be an AU for your favorite ship if you have “an open mind, a brave heart and an unhinged, obsessive brain,” and one of a meme depicting a man pouring a giant bottle of oil on a salad where the man is “Me,” the oil is “Overly-detailed and hyper specific AUs that only appeal to me,” and the salad is “Fandom.” Like, can you imagine two tumblr posts that are more me than that. *shakehead* So yeah, now they’re ready to be properly added to my queue at some point, yay!

Valice Multiverse – Just had one more reply on the Coven Wars “Forgotten Vows Alice meets Richard Lewis” thread, with Richard telling Alice that his brother brought him to her neck of the woods because he thought it would be somewhere less “stressful” for Richard – though he thinks his brother just thinks it’ll be easier to keep track of him in Sandford. Alice agreed that Sandford isn’t a particularly stressful town, but was curious why Richard’s brother wants to keep track of him...we’ll see if we get an answer on that tomorrow!

Writing: Got another page done on “A Murder Shared Is A Murder Thirded” today, with the gang making good their escape out the window (once Smiler shoved Bumby’s now-empty safe back into its hidey-hole in his desk drawer, that is – might as well make it harder for Bumby to realize what was stolen!). Alice got down the rope perfectly, drawing on her experiences climbing up and down the ropes and vines in Wonderland (yes, that was during her Rutledge trip, but that wasn’t THAT long ago); Victor got down pretty well, though he had a moment where his foot slipped while he was “walking” himself down the wall, causing him to spin, hit said wall, then cry out – none of which is exactly great for stealth (should have just climbed down the wall itself, buddy!) – and Smiler got down most of the way and then lost their grip and fell off. *wince* Fortunately they were fine, apart from some bruising – unfortunately, as Alice and Victor were helping them up, they heard someone call Alice’s name. Yup, it’s Dr. Bumby, having learned from Abigail that Alice had returned – next time, Alice gets to yell at him about what a shit person he is! :D That’ll be fun.

YouTube: Got to this later than expected, so I wasn’t able to watch everything I wanted to watch, but I did get through most of the videos hanging over my head –

A) First up, I had the OXBoxtra list video marathon, featuring:

I. “7 Elderly Game Characters Who Could Totally Kick Your Butt” – Mike and Ellen talking about those older characters in games who are still spry enough to whip you in a fight! From the elderly sniper Nana from Far Cry: New Dawn (who, despite her glasses and a bit of narcolepsy, can take out just about anyone with a headshot), to the creepy monster Granny Rags from Dishonored (who can summon loads of rats to eat your flesh and is immortal unless you manage to destroy her enchanted cameo), to the dying samurai master Issin from Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (who can and will kick your ass with flame-sword moves if you pursue the bad ending, despite being ninety and, you know, DYING), these senior citizens are very much NOT to be fucked with. Yeeps. O.o

II. “7 TV Shows in Games Those Cowards at Netflix Will Never Make” – Jane, Andy, and Mike talking about those fun in-universe TV shows in various games that will probably never get a proper real-life adaptation (and even if they did, they’d probably be canceled after one season anyway)! From the obvious Twilight Zone homage “Night Springs” from the Alan Wake games (featuring people playing host to the young of Lovecraftian monsters and inventing machines to make them immortal in the quantum sense), to the favorite show of the cast of Ace Attorney, The Steel Samurai: Warrior Of Olde Neo Tokyo (about a possible robot samurai who fights against the Evil Magistrate, with LOADS of backstage drama because this IS a game about lawyers solving mysteries), to the “okay I know this is a parody of anime but it’s probably best that they don’t make this in reality because holy shit offensive” cartoon Princess Robot Bubblegum from GTA IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony and GTA V (featuring the titular character in a sort of mech suit that fires rockets from her boobs but makes sure you can see her exposed thong), you’d think these shows would have caught the attention of someone at Netflix by now, but no. (On the other hand, as I noted, some of these shows you REALLY shouldn’t make. Seriously, the anime one is so cringe.)

III. “7 Secret Easter Eggs Hidden on Consoles Themselves” – Andy, Jane, and Mike talking about Easter Eggs not in games, but in the things that play them! Because consoles deserve secret treats too, damn it. :p Notable little fun surprises were the fact that the Nintendo Switch actually has different unlock sounds if you use the bumpers or the sticks to unlock it (with I believe the right bumper notably making a clown horn noise as you press it in); the XBox One X having a laser-etched image of Master Chief from Halo riding a scorpion (to reference it being “Project Scorpio” in planning) on its circuit board (and the other XBox One available at the time having a more generic image of a Spartan on its plastic covering); and the Nintendo 3DS having a secret Breakout-style game you could unlock by using its web browser, going to a new page, and tapping out the first six notes of the Super Mario Bros. theme – do it correctly, and the “most visited bookmarks” heading would turn into “Stage Select,” and all the urls would open up stages of the Breakout game where you broke apart the URLS written in colorful blocks (the best use of the web browser, in Andy’s opinion). Very interesting stuff – and I submitted a fun fact of my own into the comments for them to research! Namely, that the creator of the XBox is a huge sourdough bread fan, and the reason the iconic X looks like it does is because it’s the one you cut into the top of a loaf of sourdough. I read this on tumblr, so I’m not 100% it’s true, but hopefully it is and might end up in a commenter’s edition one day. :)

B) Then it was onto “All Small Business Perks Explained And Rated | The Sims 4 Guide” by Petey Plays It! A look at all fifteen small business perks in Business & Hobbies, with Petey explaining how they work and giving them all personal star ratings out of five. Petey naturally favored those perks that actually had some interesting gameplay attached (including the Schemer perks where you can fake payments to your employees at the risk of getting audited and fined, or set things on fire for increased insurance payouts, and the Dreamer perks that allowed you to CHUG THE WUTANT off-brand energy drink to get twenty-four hours of maxed needs and occasional super-speed followed by a nine-hour crash, and allowed people to pay you in rare collectibles instead of cash for items) or were just generally useful (the Neutral perks that boost the amount of renown your business gets thanks to “Simfluencers” and allow your Sim to train skills faster while the business is open). We also got a rare 0/5 for a Neutral perk all about using computers to mine Simocoin, simply because Petey loathes the very idea of crypto and hates that it’s in the game at all. *nods* Totally FUCKING agree, Petey. But the WUTANT perk in particular looks very fun, and like something my Smiler sims would use. XD One day I’ll be able to actually PLAY again…

C) And finally, we had GrayStillPlays – and while I was hoping to watch both videos waiting in my Subs, I ended up getting to them so late that I could only pick one. So I went with the longer one from today: “Infinite water pot holes in GTA 5!” A classic “which car can complete the whole challenge” torture board, featuring Gray testing an extremely wide variety of vehicles – everything from a trike and a quad, to super cars and off-road vehicles, to arena cars and military vehicles, to the OG vehicles, the Wastelander and the Mars Rover – against three challenges: a set of increasingly wide water potholes (set in the ocean, so the waves kept lapping over the course too); a set of super-wide water potholes with yeeters in them (meaning Gray had to get his timing and forward momentum JUST right so he could bounce over each pothole); and a set of “satisfying rapid” potholes (where the potholes didn’t get bigger – instead, the chunks of road between them got smaller). There were no checkpoints and no points to end – this was just straight up whoever got to the end was the new King of Water Potholes. So who won the crown?

The Mars Rover, baby! The surprise new kid on the block who can out-Wastelander the Wastelander a lot of the time. Gray gave all the other cars a fair shot of course, but almost all of them died in the first challenge, claimed by the growing potholes. Even the Wastelander couldn’t quite get to the end due to not having a great top speed! Out of everything given to him, only ONE other car actually made it to the yeeters – a giant-wheeled arena pickup truck that’s never actually won anything, so Gray was really pleased to see it get past the first part of the challenge. Shame he just could NOT get the timing QUITE right for it on the yeeters! *pats it* One day, Arena Pickup – one day. In the meantime, though, congratulations to the Rover, our high-tech champion! I’m sure the Wastelander wouldn’t want to give its crown to anyone but you. :P

*nods* Not too shabby, I suppose -- but now I have to head to bed, as it's getting late and I am tired. And probably should lay down for my foot's sake. Stupid stepping badly on a curb... Anyway, tomorrow's plans include poking around in the drafts of Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler); playing Baldur's Gate III and maybe checking in with everyone at camp now that we have Lae'zel; doing some writing (don't know what kind yet); and seeing if, without the workout, I can catch up on Gray's stuff AND keep up with Jon's. We'll find out, won't we? *nods* Anyway, night all!