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Somewhat Stressed Out Sunday
Dec. 21st, 2025 11:46 pmYeah, unfortunately today has not been the most relaxing Sunday, which I attribute mainly to:
A) Me spending a little more time than I might have playing Portal, thinking it would be fine because almost all of the OXmas videos that have gone up recently have been really short -- only to be surprised with a 23-minute one today (more details below)
B) The new washer arriving pretty late in the afternoon (around 4 PM, a half-hour later than they said would), meaning I basically couldn't wash my blankets today because I would have never gotten them back in time for bed what with all the OTHER laundry that needed to be done. :( Plus at one point I thought Mom had forgotten the laundry again (this happens a lot because the laundry is in the basement and she's often busy upstairs, meaning I'm the one who remembers and thus is the one who has to handle it), which kind of annoyed me because I thought she wanted to put the washer through its paces to make sure it worked and I didn't know what kind of cycle she wanted to try next (and I was trying to get in my workout too) -- fortunately, she hadn't, and I didn't have to throw in a load just as I was getting on the bike! So far, everything seems to be working out fine, but we'll see how things go over the next few days...
Combine that with the usual Sunday Stress of trying to get my write-up for the day done WITHOUT staying up absurdly late, and -- yeah. You get a very wound-up Vicky. I don't like it any more than you guys. *shakehead* At least this is the last Sunday where I'll have to juggle two videos...as it stands, let's see how much I can get done, write-up wise:
Tumblr: Well, while I am going to have to once again leave the ask I got on Valice Multiverse for another day (or just delete it entirely, it’s kind of a stupid, nothing ask), I was able to get a couple of things done on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – namely, I got two Christmas fic posts completely sorted (Marie and Squid) and one mostly sorted (Nebby)! I also attempted to do a “hey if you want to do something nice for me for my birthday go give Valicer In The Dark some love” post, but made the mistake of trying to turn it into a VITD masterpost and was then confronted with just how much I’ve already written for this universe, meaning I couldn’t finish it. XD I took a moment this evening to copy all those links and such to another draft to become a proper masterpost later – tomorrow, I’ll clean up the “birthday” post and put it up sometime in the afternoon!
Portal: I am pleased to say that this Sunday of Portal-ing was a triumph – I may not be able to make a note here saying “HUGE Success,” but I can definitely make one saying “Pretty Damn Big Success,” as I got one Gold and two Silvers on the Challenges for Chamber 14, and completed the Advanced version of Chamber 17! :D Let me give you the deets:
A) First, I attempted the three Chamber 14 challenges – Least Steps, Least Time, and Least Portals. As you may remember, I attempted the first two back on Wednesday, failed to get even Bronze on either (though I did come close on Least Time), and started complaining about how tough they were and how I had no idea how I was going to complete them while I was doing my write-up for all of you – only to suddenly have an idea. An idea that I thought would make completing those challenges much easier. An idea that I quickly realized could also be applied to Least Portals to complete THAT challenge as well. An idea that I put into practice today. What was that idea?
USE THE BOUNCE. Specifically, I realized that the floor in most of the main chamber – notably, right in front of the “victory lift” – was portal-able – meaning, if I flung myself into the big pit between the lift and the pellet-catcher/cube pedestal area (you know, the one that becomes stairs so you can get up there), I could use portals to bounce myself out of the floor in front of the lift and skip straight to the ending elevator without even doing the puzzles! :D It seemed a solid idea to me, anyway – so how did it work?
Reasonably well. It wasn’t the challenge-obliterator that I initially assumed it was – mostly because it was very easy for me to get disoriented while bouncing (the camera is NOT kind if you try to move it while going up and down – I ended up doing flips a LOT), but – with some practice and a lot of luck – I got decent scores on all three challenges. In order, we had:
Least Portals – This was the easy one – all I had to do was approach the pit, climb the stairs once they formed, then wait for the pit to reappear before shooting a portal at the base of the victory lift and one into the pit. One leap and a bit of bouncing later, I managed to get Chell to land on the lift platform and walk into the elevator. Chamber completed with a grand total of two portals, earning me Gold for that particular challenge. :D
Least Time – This one was harder, mostly because I had to move quickly, and – well, as I said, it was very easy for me to get disoriented while bouncing around. While I quickly figured out that the fastest way to do things would be to put a portal under me at the base of the victory lift, drop myself out of a portal over the pit, then shoot another portal of the same color I just fell out of to activate the bounce, my first four attempts to beat the chamber in as little time as possible fell victim to me doing flips and thus being unable to get my bearings and actually get ON the victory lift platform. Fortunately, fifth time proved to be the charm, and despite the game’s best attempts to confuse the hell out of me, I managed to get Chell through the portals, onto the platform, and into the exit elevator in a mere 18 seconds. :D Only earned me a Silver, as getting a Gold requires you to do this chamber in a mere TEN seconds, but I was still pretty proud of myself!
Least Steps – The worst one, because I had to find a way to move around without, well, moving around that much. I made my initial attempts before trying Least Time, and treated it much how I ended up treating that challenge – go to the base of the victory lift, put a portal under myself, shoot another portal over the pit, then shoot a portal into the pit to activate the bounce. And while those did get me past the Bronze-level minimum of 55 steps – with my first attempt taking a mere 30, and my second 25 – after I tried Least Time and got Silver on that, I became determined to get Silver on this one too, which mean taking 20 or less steps. So, after another regular attempt that got me down to 24 steps, I started looking for ways to walk less in the chamber –
And then got the idea to put a portal right in front of the entrance elevator, and one in front of the victory lift, to bounce myself to where I needed to be without having to walk through the short hallway that leads to the chamber. Unfortunately, while this was a good idea in theory, in practice it just led to me bouncing between the two portals and getting very disoriented indeed. @.@ I had to take a step out once I got in front of the victory lift just so I could get my head on straight enough to shoot the next portal over the pit! And then, of course, I accidentally shot the wrong color portal while falling into the pit and set up an infinite fall instead of a bounce, damn it. *facepalm* I kept at it though, and managed to CORRECTLY set up the bounce on my second attempt –
Only to fall victim to getting flipped around between portals again and not land on the victory lift platform because I couldn’t see where the hell I was going. *shakehead* My third attempt ended much the same way – but fortunately for my sanity, I got lucky on the fourth and managed to orient myself enough to actually land on the platform and scurry into the elevator, taking only 14 steps in the process. Which, luckily for me, was enough for Silver. Much like Least Time, you can only take ten steps if you want the Gold – but I don’t know if I’m going to bother going for that. Getting Silver was tough enough!
B) And second, because I felt like I had enough time in my allotted hour of gaming to attempt it, I headed over to the Advanced maps and tried out Chamber 17! Which, if you need a refresher, is the one where you’re expected to lug the Companion Cube everywhere, using it to protect yourself from high-energy pellets and weigh down buttons. The goal is to get three pellets into three catchers to activate three platforms that allow you to get to the final button you need to press – then dump the Companion Cube in a handy incinerator nearby so you can actually access the elevator. The Advanced version makes the following changes:
I. The Companion Cube itself is now the Companion SPHERE – aka, it’s a ball. (And sadly, it doesn’t even have hearts on it – it’s just a plain white version of one of GLaDOS’s cores.) While you can still stand on it and use it as a shield and whatnot, it DOES have a tendency now to roll away if you put it down in the wrong spot, so you gotta keep a more careful eye on it.
II. It is now harder to get high-energy pellets into the pellet catchers:
a. There is pellet-blocking screen hanging from the ceiling in between the tilted platform where the catcher is, and the tilted platform where normally you send a pellet out to bounce off the ceiling into the catcher. I first put a portal on the ceiling in front of the catcher to see what would happen, and then – when the pellet went straight down and fizzled out – tried putting a portal on the tilted platform, letting the pellet bounce off the screen, then hastily putting another portal on the ceiling as the pellet went back into the original portal to try and get a bounce.
...Somehow this worked. I don’t know how, I didn’t actually see the pellet go in (I looked away assuming the scheme would fail), but it did, and that’s the main thing. XD
b. In the room where the catcher is blocked by two doors, the buttons to control both doors are now up on metal pedestals on either side of the second door, instead of one being on the floor where Chell can stand on it. I think the intended way to solve this is to put the Companion Sphere on the button that opens the first set of doors, then, once the pellet passes through, trap it momentarily and hurry the Sphere over to the other button so you can open the other set of doors and get it into the catcher. However, the way I solved it was to try and weigh down the button that opened the second set of doors with a camera stolen from Doug’s Ratt Den – then, when that didn’t work, and I proved unable to get the Sphere between the two buttons in time to prevent the pellet from bouncing away wildly and fizzling out between the doors, using the camera instead as a stepstool to get up onto the pedestal so Chell could stand on the button as intended. XD Hey, it worked!
c. In the big metal room where the catcher is on the wall perpendicular to the releaser, and you have to bounce the pellet into it, there’s a big old pellet-blocking screen in front of it, meaning you now have to bounce the pellet up and over the screen before it can go into the catcher. This one was the hardest to do, as I quickly learned it was very easy to bounce the pellet in such a way that it went straight into Chell instead. D: I died a LOT in there, which is kind of embarrassing given I managed to get the pellet into the catcher first try when I tried the regular version of the chamber! Fortunately, I eventually got a lucky bounce from underneath the pellet, and it finally went over the screen and into the catcher. Hooray!
III. There is a whole added room right before the final button where you have to fling yourself and your Companion Sphere through a small square-shaped hole in a screen midway through the room via a pit right in front of the screen. I admit that I’m not good at flinging myself holding things, and indeed this took two tries – mostly because I put the exit portal a little too far down the wall the first time I attempted it. Hilariously, though, my tendency to lose the things I’m carrying while flinging myself in this game worked in my FAVOR this time, as I managed to get the SPHERE through the hole on the first attempt, allowing me to try the second one without worrying about it. Yay!
IV. And I wouldn’t swear to this one, but I am pretty sure that they removed all portal-able surfaces in the final room, where you have to put your Companion Cube/Sphere on the button to open the room with the button to activate the incinerator, then rush to get the Cube/Sphere and drop it in the incinerator to open the elevator before the incinerator closes. I am like – 88% sure that you can use portals to get the Cube nice and quick in the normal version of the room, whereas in this one you just gotta run. Which, they give you a generous time limit, but I kept getting caught on the side of the door while trying to get back to my Sphere, so I did have to try this twice too. XD But I got there in the end, and made it to the ending elevator.
So yeah – one challenge fully completed, two more mostly completed, and one more Advanced Chamber checked off the list (literally, the game puts a check mark on the ones you’ve finished)! I’d say that’s a Pretty Damn Good Success. :) Now I just have to find a way to complete one more Advanced Chamber to get the Fruitcake Achievement...either that or just move onto Portal 2 already. We’ll see. XD
Workout: Welp, I was HOPING to watch one of the many adaptations of A Christmas Carol over on Netflix tonight, really get into the spirit of the season now that Christmas is looming on the horizon – but as it turns out, they’ve kind of got bupkiss when it comes to Christmas movies, especially Christmas Carols. So instead, after looking at my options, I went with watching an episode from The Great British Baking Show Holidays, which features four returning bakers from the regular series competing to be the Christmas Champ instead. Not that I know who any of these people are, but – eh. It’s seasonal, and I like watching people make yummy treats! :p So far, I’ve gotten through the Yule Log challenge (the lady who made the gingerbread latte-inspired log had the most beautiful swirl, I gotta say – though least apparently all the contestants’ entries tasted good) and the Technical Mince Pie challenge (nobody could figure out how to make the lattice top, but one guy’s particularly boozy pear filling impressed judge Prue, who always likes a tipple XD). Tomorrow, I’ll watch the Showstopper portion, then probably move onto the next episode. *shrug* Better than nothing!
FreeTube/Invidious: I’m pleased to say that, at the very least, I got in both my Sunday videos, hooray –
A) First up, after finishing my Portal write up above, was the latest day of OXmas – “XMAS CHALLENGE Day 9: Andy vs. Mike | Baby Steps Versus Challenge! 👶” Yes, today the boys went head to head in walking simulator Baby Steps – a game where you must make basement dweller Nate, mystically transported to some strange land where there are no comfy couches for him to sit on and he is forced to be outdoors, walk through said land by controlling each of his feet individually. You know the game QWOP, where you had to control each limb with a separate key? Well, as per “max_2da-max336” in the comments, this is “QWOP 3D.” XD Anyway, Mike and Andy’s challenge was simple – starting from a big old pool of water, direct Nate across the treacherous landscape, navigating over and/or around rocks, logs, stairs, and – in one case – a very narrow bridge, to reach a mysterious giant candle burning atop a big hill. They each had ten minutes to accomplish this task, and whoever got closest to the candle won – or, if they both reached the candle, whoever got there the fastest won. So, how did this go?
Hilariously! XD Mike ended up going first (as Andy won the coin toss, but elected to defer), and had a lot of trouble getting into a rhythm. Like, he’d manage to get Nate to toddle forward pretty effectively for a few steps, but then he’d have to turn the camera, or he’d step wrong on a rock, or one of the others would distract him, and BOOM! Down Nate would go. Mainly what he did was impress everyone with how good Nate was at doing lunges and splits as he stumbled through the level – dude can go down LOW when he needs to. XD But he persevered, and despite some setbacks, made it out of the starting jungle and to the hill with the candle, beating the narrow bridge (mostly by fortunately falling on the side next to some supporting rocks, instead of on the side that would send him plunging into the shallow ditch below to probably roll all the way back down the hill) to finally stop next to the big “Lost My Cup” sign midway up the path to the candle. Everyone agreed that this was pretty damn good –
And then Andy took the controller and revealed that he knows exactly how to play this game and how to get Nate to walk somewhere with efficiency. XD Meaning that, despite a few early stumbles, he made it to that “Lost My Cup” sign with about five minutes to spare. He then cheerfully continued onward, determined to reach that candle to cement his victory –
But it appears that pride does cometh before a fall, as the minute he secured the Christmas point, he suddenly seemed to lose all his skill in the game. Like, he made it to the top of the hill, but it involved a lot of stumbling, falling, squirming, and – well – accidental humping of rocks. I’m dead serious, Andy fell across a couple of rocks during his ascent to the peak, and his attempts to get up were very not safe for work. Everyone, especially Ellen, was equal parts amused and appalled. XD Furthermore, while he did make it to the top, he never made it inside the little elevated “box” that actually held the candle (along with a little campsite) – he did his best, but for some reason couldn’t ascend those last few wooden steps. Mike was pleased by that, at least – and by everyone giving him the moral victory for not humping the ground during his attempt. XD But morals do not equal points, and he’s still at the absolute bottom of the pack, while Andy has pulled into the lead with a total of 3! Tomorrow, Ellen and Jane will go head-to-head – what will their challenge be, and who will join Andy at the top of the leaderboard? We will have to wait and see!
B) And second, after supper, I had the weekly check-in with Jon of Many A True Nerd, watching “Fallout New Vegas: You Only Live Once Remastered - Part 23 - Blood On Your Hands!” The continuing adventures of Drunken Melee Courier P. D. Shoot as she –
I. Did a quick trip around the Mojave to get some necessary goods for her trip today back into the “Lonesome Road” DLC! Specifically, she picked up a Mantis Gauntlet from Blake in the Crimson Caravan for cheap (229 caps), which allowed her to repair her beloved Embrace Of The Mantis King gauntlet and up its damage a little; swung by the Legion Safehouse and met up with Veteran Atticus, who gave her a couple of Stealth Boys before almost immediately disappearing (talk about good timing); then traveled around and talked to all the drug dealers she could find in hopes of getting some more Turbo to boost up her dwindling supplies – most of her contacts didn’t have anything, but she was able to pick up two doses from the Omertas at Gomorrah (not as much as Jon was hoping, but better than nothing). *nods* Gotta make sure you’re prepared before venturing into one of the most dangerous DLCs!
II. Headed over to the Canyon Wreckage where one enters the Lonesome Road via the nearby drive-in to avoid dropping in right on top of the local coyotes and starting a fight! From her chosen location, she was instead able to easily sneak past them and re-enter the Divide, where she picked up a waiting ED-E the eyebot before heading back into the Hopeville Missile Silo to kill the remaining enemies inside – namely, two sentry bots that had respawned and reawoken despite P. D. turning off the security on an earlier visit. Fortunately, with the help of a couple of Stealth Boys to make her invisible for almost eleven hours (seriously, the bonuses you can get to extend the lifespan of these things are nuts) and the Protonic Reversal Axe, she was easily able to sneak-attack-crit them – and even better, with her boosted Repair skill, she was able to repair and hack a terminal in the main staircase room which ensured that all the local turrets would be on her side! Thus protected, she went and raided the office of one of the former commanders of the silo (a sergeant, I think, since I’m pretty sure the uniform P. D. looted off the guy’s corpse said it was a sergeant’s uniform – incidentally, it gives you +10 to Speech, so it’s a good, non-sexy alternative to the Naughty Nightwear if you need one of those), getting goodies and some necessary codes out of his desk, then grabbed ED-E (who she’d left in a corridor to avoid upsetting the sentry bots) and brought her over to the now-accessible mainframe room so they could continue on their journey. ED-E activated the mainframe with her magical computer-hacking powers –
And then P. D. took her back into a nearby corridor and got her to sit tight because some enemies were coming in and P. D. did NOT need ED-E getting her involved. With her necessary-to-advance-the-plot companion thus stashed, she pulled the lever to get everything running again and open the door at the other side of the mainframe room, then immediate hid in the banks of computer equipment as a couple of sentry bots spawned in looking for her and promptly started getting shot by her turrets. The sentry bots of course managed to kill the turrets, but they did end up both damaged and – more importantly – separated, with P. D. able to kill them both with sneak attack crits once line of sight was broken (via one sentry bot literally HOPPING out of a doorway – it was really weird to see O.o). Once they were dead, she was allowed to exit the silo and go explore the main base –
Only for ED-E to spawn in front of her as soon as she stepped outside and start talking to her with the voice of Ulysses, the main antagonist of this DLC! He had a long speech about how awful P. D. and his planned revenge on her and all that that Jon mostly skipped over (save to show off some of the moments where you could use SPECIAL and skill checks to get a bit of XP), but he made sure to showcase a special bit at the beginning that you only get if you’re a woman character who’s working with the Legion. Basically, Ulysses expressed some surprise to see a woman working in Caesar’s surface; P. D. noted his surprise, and he explained that in the Legion he knew, one needed “a weapon between your legs to wield one for Caesar” –
And P. D. sweetly asked if that was why he wasn’t in the Legion anymore. Ulysses was like “what do you – oh. Hmph. Save that fight in you for the road ahead.” XD Gotta love a good sneaky dick joke!
III. Headed into the ruins of the main Hopeville military base to get the Laser Detonator (one of those plot-important technically-a-gun weapons that P. D. HAS to use to progress in this DLC, as it’s the only thing that can blow up the warheads in her way – Jon decided that the rule was that P. D. could not use the weapon to deliberately blow up any enemies with warheads. If one just happened to end up next to a warhead she had to obliterate to progress, that was okay, but she couldn’t engineer that situation) and use it to clear the path to the next area – all while dealing what Jon feels are deliberate anti-Stealth-Boy measures Obsidian snuck into this DLC to stop people just sneaking past everything. Specifically, her path took her –
a. Around and over a bunch of ruined buildings over to the wreckage of a house – which she promptly had to hide behind to avoid the rockets being fired at her from an enemy who’d just appeared on a roof a little ways away and was scripted to know where she was long enough to try and explode her twice; she ended up taking just two hit points of splash damage, but that could have been a LOT worse
b. Across the road into what remained of a shop, then up onto the roof, where the rocket launcher guy was pacing back and forth frantically because he was SUPPOSED to be able to figure out where P. D. was, but couldn’t because she was just a little too stealthy for his AI – she managed to slip past him, grab the detonator, then sneak past him again and hide in the shop as a bunch of new enemies spawned in. Fortunately, they weren’t able to find her either – even when she used her new toy to blow up a warhead sitting on a truck in her way, because the detonator is a silent weapon and they don’t seem to notice the laser. Like, they were upset when the warhead went up (enough to make her back up the stairs a little bit and exit the shop from the side), but not enough to overcome her intense field of stealth
c. Around the corner around the shops to a wall overlooking a road leading downward, to the next warhead she had to detonate (sitting on another truck) – P. D. popped it with the detonator, then IMMEDIATELY booked it back the way she’d come because doing so had spawned in what Jon called Magic Homing Enemies – Marked Men who ran unerringly toward her location despite technically not being able to detect her. Fortunately, their arrival meant that the enemies behind her despawned, so she didn’t have to deal with all of them at once – and even more fortunately, one of them got stuck somewhere down on the road, and the OTHER one, sensing that P. D. was hiding behind a big wall of wrecked cars, chose to run INTO the side of the cars instead of trying to go around, allowing P. D. to sneak attack crit them. *nods* Gotta love when the dumb game AI works in your favor!
d. Back up onto the roof of the shop so she could pop a distant warhead in the Marked Man base to clear the last leg of her path, then – once she’d waited out them getting rightfully upset about having part of their base blow up, and doing an Atomic Cocktail to help protect herself from their energy weapons (and in one case, flamer) should they manage to see her DESPITE her incredible stealth skills (because, unfortunately, these were the most perceptive enemies in the world thanks to Obsidian’s anti-stealthing measures) – back around the corner and down onto the road to sneak through the base and into the collapsed overpass tunnel beyond! Fortunately, her Atomic Cocktail proved to be unnecessary, as she was able to slip past all the Marked Men without alerting a single one to her presence – there were a few moments of [CAUTION], but nothing more.*shakes head* Whew – that was TENSE, let me tell you! Poor Jon sounded like he was going to have a heart attack at any minute during the whole thing…
IV. Passed through the collapsed overpass tunnel (after a brief broadcast from ED-E about someone named “Grant” getting her “efficiency guidelines” approved by Colonel Autumn so she could experiment on eyebots without turning them off, which someone else – I think ED-E’s creator – was NOT happy about – sorry we don’t have time for your tragic backstory in this playthrough, ED-E!), using her incredible stealth skills to mostly avoid the terrifying tunnelers (vaguely humanoid creatures which look maybe a bit like a Fallout 4 Mirelurk King, which the game demonstrates are bad news by having one rip apart a deathclaw shortly after you arrive in the tunnel) living there. She did have to kill one, mostly because the game kind of shoved it in her face for “dramatic reveal” purposes, but all the others she was able to carefully weave between and around without attracting their attention. Good thing too, as they kept popping up in pairs. *grimace* Yeah, fighting two of those things at once would have been Not Good, even with the help of Turbo!
V. Traveled the High Road after emerging from the tunnel (and listening to another speech from Ulysses, where Jon confirmed that reputation checks – speech options that become available if you have a certain reputation with a faction – do NOT get you XP, shame), once again using her extreme stealthiness and invisibility to avoid all the enemies along the way. There was nearly an incident where she kept going into [CAUTION] near a bunch of deathclaws on the road, but fortunately it turned out that ED-E, who was following her without actually being instructed to, was the one getting in their faces – and once she picked a fight with one and got “knocked unconscious,” P. D. dropped safely back into [HIDDEN] again, whew. Anyway, she made it past everyone’s favorite killer giant iguanas (yes, deathclaws were made by modifying IGUANAS, who knew), left the road once the mines started showing up and climbed up the nearby hill instead, then safely made it to the Ashton Silo Control Center without a single enemy getting alerted to her existence. The game auto-revived ED-E and teleported her to P. D.’s location to unlock the big old console for her, and P. D. pulled the lever that opened the silo’s door –
And which also launched a nuke, because this game and especially this DLC is not subtle about its themes. The nuke flew off into the sky before exploding over a special area called The Courier’s Mile (which P. D. will NOT be visiting, thank you very much, she does NOT need to do anything there); the door to the nearby silo opened; ED-E relayed some more backstory about how her creator told her to run away from the facility before she was dismantled for parts –
And P. D. ignored all of it in favor of grabbing the first of the items that she came into this hellhole for – the Industrial Hand! Which is basically a big old gauntlet with a circular saw mounted on it that you can use to saw people. Why did she want this so bad? Well, it completely ignores Damage Threshold AND Damage Resistance, so it can cut through anything, has absolutely ludicrous Damage Per Second (136 – even her beloved Embrace Of The Mantis King only has 128), and – most importantly – does double damage on a crit. Meaning, when combined with the high DPS and all of P. D.’s various perks for improving critical hit chances and critical hits themselves...oh yeah. I don’t think ANYONE can survive a sneak attack crit from THIS thing.
And so the episode ended, with P. D. hanging out outside Ashton Missile Silo with her new killer glove! Next week, she proceeds further along the Lonesome Road, avoiding as danger as she can along the way, to get her other fancy new toy – which, apparently, synergizes with this one REALLY well. I’m looking forward to it! :D This game has so many amazingly good weapons, I swear – I want to learn about ALL of them from Expert Jon!
Okay, little later than I wanted to end, but at least everything is done. *nods* And now I have to go to bed -- I may only have two days of work this week, but I still have to get through them, which means I need to get SOME sleep. Night all!
A) Me spending a little more time than I might have playing Portal, thinking it would be fine because almost all of the OXmas videos that have gone up recently have been really short -- only to be surprised with a 23-minute one today (more details below)
B) The new washer arriving pretty late in the afternoon (around 4 PM, a half-hour later than they said would), meaning I basically couldn't wash my blankets today because I would have never gotten them back in time for bed what with all the OTHER laundry that needed to be done. :( Plus at one point I thought Mom had forgotten the laundry again (this happens a lot because the laundry is in the basement and she's often busy upstairs, meaning I'm the one who remembers and thus is the one who has to handle it), which kind of annoyed me because I thought she wanted to put the washer through its paces to make sure it worked and I didn't know what kind of cycle she wanted to try next (and I was trying to get in my workout too) -- fortunately, she hadn't, and I didn't have to throw in a load just as I was getting on the bike! So far, everything seems to be working out fine, but we'll see how things go over the next few days...
Combine that with the usual Sunday Stress of trying to get my write-up for the day done WITHOUT staying up absurdly late, and -- yeah. You get a very wound-up Vicky. I don't like it any more than you guys. *shakehead* At least this is the last Sunday where I'll have to juggle two videos...as it stands, let's see how much I can get done, write-up wise:
Tumblr: Well, while I am going to have to once again leave the ask I got on Valice Multiverse for another day (or just delete it entirely, it’s kind of a stupid, nothing ask), I was able to get a couple of things done on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – namely, I got two Christmas fic posts completely sorted (Marie and Squid) and one mostly sorted (Nebby)! I also attempted to do a “hey if you want to do something nice for me for my birthday go give Valicer In The Dark some love” post, but made the mistake of trying to turn it into a VITD masterpost and was then confronted with just how much I’ve already written for this universe, meaning I couldn’t finish it. XD I took a moment this evening to copy all those links and such to another draft to become a proper masterpost later – tomorrow, I’ll clean up the “birthday” post and put it up sometime in the afternoon!
Portal: I am pleased to say that this Sunday of Portal-ing was a triumph – I may not be able to make a note here saying “HUGE Success,” but I can definitely make one saying “Pretty Damn Big Success,” as I got one Gold and two Silvers on the Challenges for Chamber 14, and completed the Advanced version of Chamber 17! :D Let me give you the deets:
A) First, I attempted the three Chamber 14 challenges – Least Steps, Least Time, and Least Portals. As you may remember, I attempted the first two back on Wednesday, failed to get even Bronze on either (though I did come close on Least Time), and started complaining about how tough they were and how I had no idea how I was going to complete them while I was doing my write-up for all of you – only to suddenly have an idea. An idea that I thought would make completing those challenges much easier. An idea that I quickly realized could also be applied to Least Portals to complete THAT challenge as well. An idea that I put into practice today. What was that idea?
USE THE BOUNCE. Specifically, I realized that the floor in most of the main chamber – notably, right in front of the “victory lift” – was portal-able – meaning, if I flung myself into the big pit between the lift and the pellet-catcher/cube pedestal area (you know, the one that becomes stairs so you can get up there), I could use portals to bounce myself out of the floor in front of the lift and skip straight to the ending elevator without even doing the puzzles! :D It seemed a solid idea to me, anyway – so how did it work?
Reasonably well. It wasn’t the challenge-obliterator that I initially assumed it was – mostly because it was very easy for me to get disoriented while bouncing (the camera is NOT kind if you try to move it while going up and down – I ended up doing flips a LOT), but – with some practice and a lot of luck – I got decent scores on all three challenges. In order, we had:
Least Portals – This was the easy one – all I had to do was approach the pit, climb the stairs once they formed, then wait for the pit to reappear before shooting a portal at the base of the victory lift and one into the pit. One leap and a bit of bouncing later, I managed to get Chell to land on the lift platform and walk into the elevator. Chamber completed with a grand total of two portals, earning me Gold for that particular challenge. :D
Least Time – This one was harder, mostly because I had to move quickly, and – well, as I said, it was very easy for me to get disoriented while bouncing around. While I quickly figured out that the fastest way to do things would be to put a portal under me at the base of the victory lift, drop myself out of a portal over the pit, then shoot another portal of the same color I just fell out of to activate the bounce, my first four attempts to beat the chamber in as little time as possible fell victim to me doing flips and thus being unable to get my bearings and actually get ON the victory lift platform. Fortunately, fifth time proved to be the charm, and despite the game’s best attempts to confuse the hell out of me, I managed to get Chell through the portals, onto the platform, and into the exit elevator in a mere 18 seconds. :D Only earned me a Silver, as getting a Gold requires you to do this chamber in a mere TEN seconds, but I was still pretty proud of myself!
Least Steps – The worst one, because I had to find a way to move around without, well, moving around that much. I made my initial attempts before trying Least Time, and treated it much how I ended up treating that challenge – go to the base of the victory lift, put a portal under myself, shoot another portal over the pit, then shoot a portal into the pit to activate the bounce. And while those did get me past the Bronze-level minimum of 55 steps – with my first attempt taking a mere 30, and my second 25 – after I tried Least Time and got Silver on that, I became determined to get Silver on this one too, which mean taking 20 or less steps. So, after another regular attempt that got me down to 24 steps, I started looking for ways to walk less in the chamber –
And then got the idea to put a portal right in front of the entrance elevator, and one in front of the victory lift, to bounce myself to where I needed to be without having to walk through the short hallway that leads to the chamber. Unfortunately, while this was a good idea in theory, in practice it just led to me bouncing between the two portals and getting very disoriented indeed. @.@ I had to take a step out once I got in front of the victory lift just so I could get my head on straight enough to shoot the next portal over the pit! And then, of course, I accidentally shot the wrong color portal while falling into the pit and set up an infinite fall instead of a bounce, damn it. *facepalm* I kept at it though, and managed to CORRECTLY set up the bounce on my second attempt –
Only to fall victim to getting flipped around between portals again and not land on the victory lift platform because I couldn’t see where the hell I was going. *shakehead* My third attempt ended much the same way – but fortunately for my sanity, I got lucky on the fourth and managed to orient myself enough to actually land on the platform and scurry into the elevator, taking only 14 steps in the process. Which, luckily for me, was enough for Silver. Much like Least Time, you can only take ten steps if you want the Gold – but I don’t know if I’m going to bother going for that. Getting Silver was tough enough!
B) And second, because I felt like I had enough time in my allotted hour of gaming to attempt it, I headed over to the Advanced maps and tried out Chamber 17! Which, if you need a refresher, is the one where you’re expected to lug the Companion Cube everywhere, using it to protect yourself from high-energy pellets and weigh down buttons. The goal is to get three pellets into three catchers to activate three platforms that allow you to get to the final button you need to press – then dump the Companion Cube in a handy incinerator nearby so you can actually access the elevator. The Advanced version makes the following changes:
I. The Companion Cube itself is now the Companion SPHERE – aka, it’s a ball. (And sadly, it doesn’t even have hearts on it – it’s just a plain white version of one of GLaDOS’s cores.) While you can still stand on it and use it as a shield and whatnot, it DOES have a tendency now to roll away if you put it down in the wrong spot, so you gotta keep a more careful eye on it.
II. It is now harder to get high-energy pellets into the pellet catchers:
a. There is pellet-blocking screen hanging from the ceiling in between the tilted platform where the catcher is, and the tilted platform where normally you send a pellet out to bounce off the ceiling into the catcher. I first put a portal on the ceiling in front of the catcher to see what would happen, and then – when the pellet went straight down and fizzled out – tried putting a portal on the tilted platform, letting the pellet bounce off the screen, then hastily putting another portal on the ceiling as the pellet went back into the original portal to try and get a bounce.
...Somehow this worked. I don’t know how, I didn’t actually see the pellet go in (I looked away assuming the scheme would fail), but it did, and that’s the main thing. XD
b. In the room where the catcher is blocked by two doors, the buttons to control both doors are now up on metal pedestals on either side of the second door, instead of one being on the floor where Chell can stand on it. I think the intended way to solve this is to put the Companion Sphere on the button that opens the first set of doors, then, once the pellet passes through, trap it momentarily and hurry the Sphere over to the other button so you can open the other set of doors and get it into the catcher. However, the way I solved it was to try and weigh down the button that opened the second set of doors with a camera stolen from Doug’s Ratt Den – then, when that didn’t work, and I proved unable to get the Sphere between the two buttons in time to prevent the pellet from bouncing away wildly and fizzling out between the doors, using the camera instead as a stepstool to get up onto the pedestal so Chell could stand on the button as intended. XD Hey, it worked!
c. In the big metal room where the catcher is on the wall perpendicular to the releaser, and you have to bounce the pellet into it, there’s a big old pellet-blocking screen in front of it, meaning you now have to bounce the pellet up and over the screen before it can go into the catcher. This one was the hardest to do, as I quickly learned it was very easy to bounce the pellet in such a way that it went straight into Chell instead. D: I died a LOT in there, which is kind of embarrassing given I managed to get the pellet into the catcher first try when I tried the regular version of the chamber! Fortunately, I eventually got a lucky bounce from underneath the pellet, and it finally went over the screen and into the catcher. Hooray!
III. There is a whole added room right before the final button where you have to fling yourself and your Companion Sphere through a small square-shaped hole in a screen midway through the room via a pit right in front of the screen. I admit that I’m not good at flinging myself holding things, and indeed this took two tries – mostly because I put the exit portal a little too far down the wall the first time I attempted it. Hilariously, though, my tendency to lose the things I’m carrying while flinging myself in this game worked in my FAVOR this time, as I managed to get the SPHERE through the hole on the first attempt, allowing me to try the second one without worrying about it. Yay!
IV. And I wouldn’t swear to this one, but I am pretty sure that they removed all portal-able surfaces in the final room, where you have to put your Companion Cube/Sphere on the button to open the room with the button to activate the incinerator, then rush to get the Cube/Sphere and drop it in the incinerator to open the elevator before the incinerator closes. I am like – 88% sure that you can use portals to get the Cube nice and quick in the normal version of the room, whereas in this one you just gotta run. Which, they give you a generous time limit, but I kept getting caught on the side of the door while trying to get back to my Sphere, so I did have to try this twice too. XD But I got there in the end, and made it to the ending elevator.
So yeah – one challenge fully completed, two more mostly completed, and one more Advanced Chamber checked off the list (literally, the game puts a check mark on the ones you’ve finished)! I’d say that’s a Pretty Damn Good Success. :) Now I just have to find a way to complete one more Advanced Chamber to get the Fruitcake Achievement...either that or just move onto Portal 2 already. We’ll see. XD
Workout: Welp, I was HOPING to watch one of the many adaptations of A Christmas Carol over on Netflix tonight, really get into the spirit of the season now that Christmas is looming on the horizon – but as it turns out, they’ve kind of got bupkiss when it comes to Christmas movies, especially Christmas Carols. So instead, after looking at my options, I went with watching an episode from The Great British Baking Show Holidays, which features four returning bakers from the regular series competing to be the Christmas Champ instead. Not that I know who any of these people are, but – eh. It’s seasonal, and I like watching people make yummy treats! :p So far, I’ve gotten through the Yule Log challenge (the lady who made the gingerbread latte-inspired log had the most beautiful swirl, I gotta say – though least apparently all the contestants’ entries tasted good) and the Technical Mince Pie challenge (nobody could figure out how to make the lattice top, but one guy’s particularly boozy pear filling impressed judge Prue, who always likes a tipple XD). Tomorrow, I’ll watch the Showstopper portion, then probably move onto the next episode. *shrug* Better than nothing!
FreeTube/Invidious: I’m pleased to say that, at the very least, I got in both my Sunday videos, hooray –
A) First up, after finishing my Portal write up above, was the latest day of OXmas – “XMAS CHALLENGE Day 9: Andy vs. Mike | Baby Steps Versus Challenge! 👶” Yes, today the boys went head to head in walking simulator Baby Steps – a game where you must make basement dweller Nate, mystically transported to some strange land where there are no comfy couches for him to sit on and he is forced to be outdoors, walk through said land by controlling each of his feet individually. You know the game QWOP, where you had to control each limb with a separate key? Well, as per “max_2da-max336” in the comments, this is “QWOP 3D.” XD Anyway, Mike and Andy’s challenge was simple – starting from a big old pool of water, direct Nate across the treacherous landscape, navigating over and/or around rocks, logs, stairs, and – in one case – a very narrow bridge, to reach a mysterious giant candle burning atop a big hill. They each had ten minutes to accomplish this task, and whoever got closest to the candle won – or, if they both reached the candle, whoever got there the fastest won. So, how did this go?
Hilariously! XD Mike ended up going first (as Andy won the coin toss, but elected to defer), and had a lot of trouble getting into a rhythm. Like, he’d manage to get Nate to toddle forward pretty effectively for a few steps, but then he’d have to turn the camera, or he’d step wrong on a rock, or one of the others would distract him, and BOOM! Down Nate would go. Mainly what he did was impress everyone with how good Nate was at doing lunges and splits as he stumbled through the level – dude can go down LOW when he needs to. XD But he persevered, and despite some setbacks, made it out of the starting jungle and to the hill with the candle, beating the narrow bridge (mostly by fortunately falling on the side next to some supporting rocks, instead of on the side that would send him plunging into the shallow ditch below to probably roll all the way back down the hill) to finally stop next to the big “Lost My Cup” sign midway up the path to the candle. Everyone agreed that this was pretty damn good –
And then Andy took the controller and revealed that he knows exactly how to play this game and how to get Nate to walk somewhere with efficiency. XD Meaning that, despite a few early stumbles, he made it to that “Lost My Cup” sign with about five minutes to spare. He then cheerfully continued onward, determined to reach that candle to cement his victory –
But it appears that pride does cometh before a fall, as the minute he secured the Christmas point, he suddenly seemed to lose all his skill in the game. Like, he made it to the top of the hill, but it involved a lot of stumbling, falling, squirming, and – well – accidental humping of rocks. I’m dead serious, Andy fell across a couple of rocks during his ascent to the peak, and his attempts to get up were very not safe for work. Everyone, especially Ellen, was equal parts amused and appalled. XD Furthermore, while he did make it to the top, he never made it inside the little elevated “box” that actually held the candle (along with a little campsite) – he did his best, but for some reason couldn’t ascend those last few wooden steps. Mike was pleased by that, at least – and by everyone giving him the moral victory for not humping the ground during his attempt. XD But morals do not equal points, and he’s still at the absolute bottom of the pack, while Andy has pulled into the lead with a total of 3! Tomorrow, Ellen and Jane will go head-to-head – what will their challenge be, and who will join Andy at the top of the leaderboard? We will have to wait and see!
B) And second, after supper, I had the weekly check-in with Jon of Many A True Nerd, watching “Fallout New Vegas: You Only Live Once Remastered - Part 23 - Blood On Your Hands!” The continuing adventures of Drunken Melee Courier P. D. Shoot as she –
I. Did a quick trip around the Mojave to get some necessary goods for her trip today back into the “Lonesome Road” DLC! Specifically, she picked up a Mantis Gauntlet from Blake in the Crimson Caravan for cheap (229 caps), which allowed her to repair her beloved Embrace Of The Mantis King gauntlet and up its damage a little; swung by the Legion Safehouse and met up with Veteran Atticus, who gave her a couple of Stealth Boys before almost immediately disappearing (talk about good timing); then traveled around and talked to all the drug dealers she could find in hopes of getting some more Turbo to boost up her dwindling supplies – most of her contacts didn’t have anything, but she was able to pick up two doses from the Omertas at Gomorrah (not as much as Jon was hoping, but better than nothing). *nods* Gotta make sure you’re prepared before venturing into one of the most dangerous DLCs!
II. Headed over to the Canyon Wreckage where one enters the Lonesome Road via the nearby drive-in to avoid dropping in right on top of the local coyotes and starting a fight! From her chosen location, she was instead able to easily sneak past them and re-enter the Divide, where she picked up a waiting ED-E the eyebot before heading back into the Hopeville Missile Silo to kill the remaining enemies inside – namely, two sentry bots that had respawned and reawoken despite P. D. turning off the security on an earlier visit. Fortunately, with the help of a couple of Stealth Boys to make her invisible for almost eleven hours (seriously, the bonuses you can get to extend the lifespan of these things are nuts) and the Protonic Reversal Axe, she was easily able to sneak-attack-crit them – and even better, with her boosted Repair skill, she was able to repair and hack a terminal in the main staircase room which ensured that all the local turrets would be on her side! Thus protected, she went and raided the office of one of the former commanders of the silo (a sergeant, I think, since I’m pretty sure the uniform P. D. looted off the guy’s corpse said it was a sergeant’s uniform – incidentally, it gives you +10 to Speech, so it’s a good, non-sexy alternative to the Naughty Nightwear if you need one of those), getting goodies and some necessary codes out of his desk, then grabbed ED-E (who she’d left in a corridor to avoid upsetting the sentry bots) and brought her over to the now-accessible mainframe room so they could continue on their journey. ED-E activated the mainframe with her magical computer-hacking powers –
And then P. D. took her back into a nearby corridor and got her to sit tight because some enemies were coming in and P. D. did NOT need ED-E getting her involved. With her necessary-to-advance-the-plot companion thus stashed, she pulled the lever to get everything running again and open the door at the other side of the mainframe room, then immediate hid in the banks of computer equipment as a couple of sentry bots spawned in looking for her and promptly started getting shot by her turrets. The sentry bots of course managed to kill the turrets, but they did end up both damaged and – more importantly – separated, with P. D. able to kill them both with sneak attack crits once line of sight was broken (via one sentry bot literally HOPPING out of a doorway – it was really weird to see O.o). Once they were dead, she was allowed to exit the silo and go explore the main base –
Only for ED-E to spawn in front of her as soon as she stepped outside and start talking to her with the voice of Ulysses, the main antagonist of this DLC! He had a long speech about how awful P. D. and his planned revenge on her and all that that Jon mostly skipped over (save to show off some of the moments where you could use SPECIAL and skill checks to get a bit of XP), but he made sure to showcase a special bit at the beginning that you only get if you’re a woman character who’s working with the Legion. Basically, Ulysses expressed some surprise to see a woman working in Caesar’s surface; P. D. noted his surprise, and he explained that in the Legion he knew, one needed “a weapon between your legs to wield one for Caesar” –
And P. D. sweetly asked if that was why he wasn’t in the Legion anymore. Ulysses was like “what do you – oh. Hmph. Save that fight in you for the road ahead.” XD Gotta love a good sneaky dick joke!
III. Headed into the ruins of the main Hopeville military base to get the Laser Detonator (one of those plot-important technically-a-gun weapons that P. D. HAS to use to progress in this DLC, as it’s the only thing that can blow up the warheads in her way – Jon decided that the rule was that P. D. could not use the weapon to deliberately blow up any enemies with warheads. If one just happened to end up next to a warhead she had to obliterate to progress, that was okay, but she couldn’t engineer that situation) and use it to clear the path to the next area – all while dealing what Jon feels are deliberate anti-Stealth-Boy measures Obsidian snuck into this DLC to stop people just sneaking past everything. Specifically, her path took her –
a. Around and over a bunch of ruined buildings over to the wreckage of a house – which she promptly had to hide behind to avoid the rockets being fired at her from an enemy who’d just appeared on a roof a little ways away and was scripted to know where she was long enough to try and explode her twice; she ended up taking just two hit points of splash damage, but that could have been a LOT worse
b. Across the road into what remained of a shop, then up onto the roof, where the rocket launcher guy was pacing back and forth frantically because he was SUPPOSED to be able to figure out where P. D. was, but couldn’t because she was just a little too stealthy for his AI – she managed to slip past him, grab the detonator, then sneak past him again and hide in the shop as a bunch of new enemies spawned in. Fortunately, they weren’t able to find her either – even when she used her new toy to blow up a warhead sitting on a truck in her way, because the detonator is a silent weapon and they don’t seem to notice the laser. Like, they were upset when the warhead went up (enough to make her back up the stairs a little bit and exit the shop from the side), but not enough to overcome her intense field of stealth
c. Around the corner around the shops to a wall overlooking a road leading downward, to the next warhead she had to detonate (sitting on another truck) – P. D. popped it with the detonator, then IMMEDIATELY booked it back the way she’d come because doing so had spawned in what Jon called Magic Homing Enemies – Marked Men who ran unerringly toward her location despite technically not being able to detect her. Fortunately, their arrival meant that the enemies behind her despawned, so she didn’t have to deal with all of them at once – and even more fortunately, one of them got stuck somewhere down on the road, and the OTHER one, sensing that P. D. was hiding behind a big wall of wrecked cars, chose to run INTO the side of the cars instead of trying to go around, allowing P. D. to sneak attack crit them. *nods* Gotta love when the dumb game AI works in your favor!
d. Back up onto the roof of the shop so she could pop a distant warhead in the Marked Man base to clear the last leg of her path, then – once she’d waited out them getting rightfully upset about having part of their base blow up, and doing an Atomic Cocktail to help protect herself from their energy weapons (and in one case, flamer) should they manage to see her DESPITE her incredible stealth skills (because, unfortunately, these were the most perceptive enemies in the world thanks to Obsidian’s anti-stealthing measures) – back around the corner and down onto the road to sneak through the base and into the collapsed overpass tunnel beyond! Fortunately, her Atomic Cocktail proved to be unnecessary, as she was able to slip past all the Marked Men without alerting a single one to her presence – there were a few moments of [CAUTION], but nothing more.*shakes head* Whew – that was TENSE, let me tell you! Poor Jon sounded like he was going to have a heart attack at any minute during the whole thing…
IV. Passed through the collapsed overpass tunnel (after a brief broadcast from ED-E about someone named “Grant” getting her “efficiency guidelines” approved by Colonel Autumn so she could experiment on eyebots without turning them off, which someone else – I think ED-E’s creator – was NOT happy about – sorry we don’t have time for your tragic backstory in this playthrough, ED-E!), using her incredible stealth skills to mostly avoid the terrifying tunnelers (vaguely humanoid creatures which look maybe a bit like a Fallout 4 Mirelurk King, which the game demonstrates are bad news by having one rip apart a deathclaw shortly after you arrive in the tunnel) living there. She did have to kill one, mostly because the game kind of shoved it in her face for “dramatic reveal” purposes, but all the others she was able to carefully weave between and around without attracting their attention. Good thing too, as they kept popping up in pairs. *grimace* Yeah, fighting two of those things at once would have been Not Good, even with the help of Turbo!
V. Traveled the High Road after emerging from the tunnel (and listening to another speech from Ulysses, where Jon confirmed that reputation checks – speech options that become available if you have a certain reputation with a faction – do NOT get you XP, shame), once again using her extreme stealthiness and invisibility to avoid all the enemies along the way. There was nearly an incident where she kept going into [CAUTION] near a bunch of deathclaws on the road, but fortunately it turned out that ED-E, who was following her without actually being instructed to, was the one getting in their faces – and once she picked a fight with one and got “knocked unconscious,” P. D. dropped safely back into [HIDDEN] again, whew. Anyway, she made it past everyone’s favorite killer giant iguanas (yes, deathclaws were made by modifying IGUANAS, who knew), left the road once the mines started showing up and climbed up the nearby hill instead, then safely made it to the Ashton Silo Control Center without a single enemy getting alerted to her existence. The game auto-revived ED-E and teleported her to P. D.’s location to unlock the big old console for her, and P. D. pulled the lever that opened the silo’s door –
And which also launched a nuke, because this game and especially this DLC is not subtle about its themes. The nuke flew off into the sky before exploding over a special area called The Courier’s Mile (which P. D. will NOT be visiting, thank you very much, she does NOT need to do anything there); the door to the nearby silo opened; ED-E relayed some more backstory about how her creator told her to run away from the facility before she was dismantled for parts –
And P. D. ignored all of it in favor of grabbing the first of the items that she came into this hellhole for – the Industrial Hand! Which is basically a big old gauntlet with a circular saw mounted on it that you can use to saw people. Why did she want this so bad? Well, it completely ignores Damage Threshold AND Damage Resistance, so it can cut through anything, has absolutely ludicrous Damage Per Second (136 – even her beloved Embrace Of The Mantis King only has 128), and – most importantly – does double damage on a crit. Meaning, when combined with the high DPS and all of P. D.’s various perks for improving critical hit chances and critical hits themselves...oh yeah. I don’t think ANYONE can survive a sneak attack crit from THIS thing.
And so the episode ended, with P. D. hanging out outside Ashton Missile Silo with her new killer glove! Next week, she proceeds further along the Lonesome Road, avoiding as danger as she can along the way, to get her other fancy new toy – which, apparently, synergizes with this one REALLY well. I’m looking forward to it! :D This game has so many amazingly good weapons, I swear – I want to learn about ALL of them from Expert Jon!
Okay, little later than I wanted to end, but at least everything is done. *nods* And now I have to go to bed -- I may only have two days of work this week, but I still have to get through them, which means I need to get SOME sleep. Night all!
