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A Pretty Decent Sunday
Feb. 1st, 2026 11:46 pmDad was definitely doing better today -- he had a decent night's sleep last night, meaning he was a little more awake and active today, and he ate more too. I'm glad to see some progress! Now we just have to see how things go at his doctor's appointment tomorrow...hopefully well, or as well as they can go under the circumstances. *nods* We also had lovely pie for dessert, in a sort of belated birthday celebration for Mom, so that was nice. :) And as for my computer stuff, I had a pretty productive day overall --
Tumblr: Well, I ran out of time to take care of the ask I got on Valice Multiverse tonight, but I did at least have a decently productive time on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler)! Well, sort of...while I didn’t actually do anything in my drafts over here, I did end up making some progress on this year’s set of Valicertines! Which is important, as Valentine’s Day is coming up fast. I spent the time before lunch looking through all my pictures of my old Chill Valicer Save (RIP), trying to find good ones and thinking “there’s got to be a way to use at least one of these pictures from an early trip to the Romance Festival Smiler took with Victor and Alice for Valicertine purposes” –
Then realized, “Hang on. If I take these two pictures of Smiler taking selfies with Victor and Alice, and pair them with a picture of Smiler looking at the in-game versions of the selfies on their old house wall, I could do the Now Traditional Valicertine’s Day Bonus Pic talking about ‘finding a polycule you can make memories with,’ perhaps...LOL, and then I could make fun of my tendency to take fifty million pictures of them together in later updates by finding some good pictures of all the in-game photographs I hung up around their house and going ‘so many fucking memories’ or something like that.” XD So yeah, I started making THAT image in Paint –
And then, while tracking down some screenshots of all the various photo collages I made for them for that, I stumbled across two pictures that I realized might make good regular old Valicertine’s! One of the trio hanging around in their swimwear with glasses of juice in Chestnut Ridge on one of their SimCity Founding adventures, which I turned into a Valicertine featuring the phrase “this is what Peak Polycule looks like” (it made me giggle), and one of the trio hanging out in the overlit back room of their old grocery store showing Victor flirting with Alice in a way that looked like he was flirting with Smiler too, which I turned into a Valicertine with Victor telling Smiler and Alice “you are the brightest things in my life” – before getting on me about how overlit the room and to tone it down when I got Paralives (again, just made me giggle). And I got most of the bonus image done too – found all the screenshots I wanted, now I just have to get them all nicely arranged on the background and finish off the text! But that’s something that can wait until next weekend. *nods* Still, good to be ahead of the game with these!
Portal 2: I returned to Aperture Science a bit later in the afternoon than I intended, thanks to the Valicertine stuff, but I also completed another four test chambers in about a half-hour, so it all worked out just fine. *thumbs up* Today’s tests included –
Chamber 5: The introduction of the aerial faith plate! Originally used to determine if test subjects could solve puzzles while flying through the air – according to GLaDOS, they could not. XD This chamber was pretty simple – you had a faith plate on either side of a big room filled with deadly water that would launch you across it in opposite directions (so the one at the entrance flung you to the exit, and vice-versa), with a third one in the middle. On the far side of the room was a big floor button that controlled the exit door, and a standing “cube release” button for the cube vent in the middle of the ceiling. Once you flung yourself over to that side, you could press the cube release button, which would, of course, release a cube –
Onto the middle aerial faith plate. Where it would bounce up and down forever. Meaning, to solve the puzzle, you had to launch yourself back across the room toward the entrance and catch the cube on the way. I was a little worried about this, as my track record for catching and holding onto objects while being flung through the air was not great in the original Portal (don’t ask me how many times I dropped the radios while trying to get them to midair transmission points) –
But, fortunately, Lady Luck smiled upon me, and I managed to get the timing right and grab the cube first try! And then successfully carry it back across and put it on the button to open the exit door – after taking a moment to use portals to kill GlaDOS’s latest security camera, of course. She repaid me by telling me an interesting science fact about how Chell was going to be breathing the same roomful of air for the rest of her life, thanks to it being easier to recycle the air down there than pump any fresh stuff in. XD
( Yeah, this got a little long, you know what I’m like now )
Writing: Managed to fit in another page’s worth of edits on Chapter 6 of “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland” right before my workout – today’s session covered:
A) Alice ascending to the upper levels of the “employees only” parts of the museum, passing through a rather uninteresting hallway (with just some band posters and a utility closet with a vacuum) before reaching the top – and getting jumpscared by a big old mouth full of sharp teeth just to the right of the door
B) Alice angrily telling the assembled Wonderlanders that now was not the time to set monsters on her – only for Hatter, Carpenter, the Insane Children, and the Queen of Hearts to all go “that’s not one of ours;” cue Alice taking another look and realizing that the mouth belongs to a model of a Velociraptor and that it’s part of the real world
C) Cheshire responding to Alice’s question about how the raptor even got up there by directing her attention to a sticky note on the wall nearby, and Alice venturing out (after a quick look around and noting this museum seems to have no guards) and discovering via the note that it was a prank by someone named Stanley (that his coworker Daniela did not find very funny)...and that he apparently has a habit of leaving his keys lying around unattended
D) Alice deciding to search for Stanley’s keys but – acknowledging that she might run into Stanley himself, which would be bad – saying that she ought to keep her time in this hallway short; cue Rabbit being pleased by her finally seeing sense, Alice warning him he shouldn’t get used to it as sometimes the way of the turtle is better, Mock Turtle being like “but even I don’t think my way is best,” Alice pointing out he’s a mock turtle and thus at a disadvantage, then letting him know he’d proven himself very good at sailing, swimming, and crying, and Mock proudly saying that “No one can beat a mock turtle when it comes to tears”
*nods* Not bad! Glad to keep making some good forward progress on this. Tomorrow, Alice creeps around the dinosaur and explores the half-ring of a hallway she’s found herself in – and finds a very useful secret hiding place...
Workout/YouTube: It being Sunday, my ride on the stationary bike and my evening video watching featured the same video – “Fallout New Vegas: You Only Live Once Remastered - Part 28 - Blood Money” by Jon of Many A True Nerd! This week’s episode of the adventures of our favorite drunken melee courier, P. D. Shoot, included –
A) Jon opening the video by admitting that he probably fucked up picking “Bloody Mess” (which adds +5% flat damage to all weapons and makes enemies more likely to explode in showers of gore) over “Light Step” (which makes you unable to trigger mines or floor-based traps) as P. D.’s Level 28 perk, based on all the comments he’d read on the last video scolding him for doing so, and his own knowledge about his own lack of perception. Too late now to change it, but – he wanted everyone to know he knew that was likely to come back to bite him and they were right to scold him. (He also mentioned he could have grabbed “Purifier” instead as well, which grants +50% damage to all melee and unarmed attacks against ferals, super mutants, and all abominations – which includes Ghost People, one of the primary antagonists in “Dead Money” – but the reason he didn’t consider it was because he didn’t KNOW it worked on Ghost People, so – that one is fair enough.)
B) P. D. swinging by her quarters in the Lucky 38 to rearrange her inventory a bit (namely, drop off everything from “Honest Hearts” except Joshua’s armor and reclaim her Protonic Inversal Axe), then starting her quest to get a bunch of XP (as she needs to get up to Level 30 before even attempting “Dead Money”) by visiting the Aces Theater in The Tops and promising to find some new talent for Tommy Torini! In exchange for a 3% cut of the door, no less (could have been more, but P. D. has NOT been improving her Barter skill and thus couldn’t pass the check – good thing she’s more interested in the XP than the cash!). P. D. immediately went outside and recruited desperate comedian Billy Knight, who was standing RIGHT BELOW the fancy marquee for The Tops, within SIGHT of the casino. XD (Interestingly, she could have gotten HIM a better deal with better Barter skill as well...Barter is a more useful skill than you’d think in this game!) Amusingly enough, the marquee he was standing under immediately updated with his name once P. D. recruited him, before Billy even had a chance to get in the building. XD Guess Tommy knew the people would like him!
( This one got long too, who is surprised )
Whew -- as usual, the YOLO Remastered episode took ages to recap! Blame it on being an episode where P. D. did a lot and kept bouncing between quests. Though I will say, I'm kind of glad she did it like that, because it allowed me to see just how many freaking Barter checks there actually were in the game. I was already thinking of giving Victor decent Barter skill due to his background as the son of fish merchants, but now I am committed to that course of action! Especially since, if I heard hbomberguy in his F:NV essay yesterday right, there's a way to use Barter to talk down one of the scariest guys in the game...
Anyway -- I'm off to bed, as, shockingly, I actually have work tomorrow. Yeah, I know. I am not looking forward to see how many e-mails are in my e-mail inbox. @.@ Hopefully it won't be too much of a shock to reintegrate back into the office...night all!
Tumblr: Well, I ran out of time to take care of the ask I got on Valice Multiverse tonight, but I did at least have a decently productive time on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler)! Well, sort of...while I didn’t actually do anything in my drafts over here, I did end up making some progress on this year’s set of Valicertines! Which is important, as Valentine’s Day is coming up fast. I spent the time before lunch looking through all my pictures of my old Chill Valicer Save (RIP), trying to find good ones and thinking “there’s got to be a way to use at least one of these pictures from an early trip to the Romance Festival Smiler took with Victor and Alice for Valicertine purposes” –
Then realized, “Hang on. If I take these two pictures of Smiler taking selfies with Victor and Alice, and pair them with a picture of Smiler looking at the in-game versions of the selfies on their old house wall, I could do the Now Traditional Valicertine’s Day Bonus Pic talking about ‘finding a polycule you can make memories with,’ perhaps...LOL, and then I could make fun of my tendency to take fifty million pictures of them together in later updates by finding some good pictures of all the in-game photographs I hung up around their house and going ‘so many fucking memories’ or something like that.” XD So yeah, I started making THAT image in Paint –
And then, while tracking down some screenshots of all the various photo collages I made for them for that, I stumbled across two pictures that I realized might make good regular old Valicertine’s! One of the trio hanging around in their swimwear with glasses of juice in Chestnut Ridge on one of their SimCity Founding adventures, which I turned into a Valicertine featuring the phrase “this is what Peak Polycule looks like” (it made me giggle), and one of the trio hanging out in the overlit back room of their old grocery store showing Victor flirting with Alice in a way that looked like he was flirting with Smiler too, which I turned into a Valicertine with Victor telling Smiler and Alice “you are the brightest things in my life” – before getting on me about how overlit the room and to tone it down when I got Paralives (again, just made me giggle). And I got most of the bonus image done too – found all the screenshots I wanted, now I just have to get them all nicely arranged on the background and finish off the text! But that’s something that can wait until next weekend. *nods* Still, good to be ahead of the game with these!
Portal 2: I returned to Aperture Science a bit later in the afternoon than I intended, thanks to the Valicertine stuff, but I also completed another four test chambers in about a half-hour, so it all worked out just fine. *thumbs up* Today’s tests included –
Chamber 5: The introduction of the aerial faith plate! Originally used to determine if test subjects could solve puzzles while flying through the air – according to GLaDOS, they could not. XD This chamber was pretty simple – you had a faith plate on either side of a big room filled with deadly water that would launch you across it in opposite directions (so the one at the entrance flung you to the exit, and vice-versa), with a third one in the middle. On the far side of the room was a big floor button that controlled the exit door, and a standing “cube release” button for the cube vent in the middle of the ceiling. Once you flung yourself over to that side, you could press the cube release button, which would, of course, release a cube –
Onto the middle aerial faith plate. Where it would bounce up and down forever. Meaning, to solve the puzzle, you had to launch yourself back across the room toward the entrance and catch the cube on the way. I was a little worried about this, as my track record for catching and holding onto objects while being flung through the air was not great in the original Portal (don’t ask me how many times I dropped the radios while trying to get them to midair transmission points) –
But, fortunately, Lady Luck smiled upon me, and I managed to get the timing right and grab the cube first try! And then successfully carry it back across and put it on the button to open the exit door – after taking a moment to use portals to kill GlaDOS’s latest security camera, of course. She repaid me by telling me an interesting science fact about how Chell was going to be breathing the same roomful of air for the rest of her life, thanks to it being easier to recycle the air down there than pump any fresh stuff in. XD
( Yeah, this got a little long, you know what I’m like now )
Writing: Managed to fit in another page’s worth of edits on Chapter 6 of “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland” right before my workout – today’s session covered:
A) Alice ascending to the upper levels of the “employees only” parts of the museum, passing through a rather uninteresting hallway (with just some band posters and a utility closet with a vacuum) before reaching the top – and getting jumpscared by a big old mouth full of sharp teeth just to the right of the door
B) Alice angrily telling the assembled Wonderlanders that now was not the time to set monsters on her – only for Hatter, Carpenter, the Insane Children, and the Queen of Hearts to all go “that’s not one of ours;” cue Alice taking another look and realizing that the mouth belongs to a model of a Velociraptor and that it’s part of the real world
C) Cheshire responding to Alice’s question about how the raptor even got up there by directing her attention to a sticky note on the wall nearby, and Alice venturing out (after a quick look around and noting this museum seems to have no guards) and discovering via the note that it was a prank by someone named Stanley (that his coworker Daniela did not find very funny)...and that he apparently has a habit of leaving his keys lying around unattended
D) Alice deciding to search for Stanley’s keys but – acknowledging that she might run into Stanley himself, which would be bad – saying that she ought to keep her time in this hallway short; cue Rabbit being pleased by her finally seeing sense, Alice warning him he shouldn’t get used to it as sometimes the way of the turtle is better, Mock Turtle being like “but even I don’t think my way is best,” Alice pointing out he’s a mock turtle and thus at a disadvantage, then letting him know he’d proven himself very good at sailing, swimming, and crying, and Mock proudly saying that “No one can beat a mock turtle when it comes to tears”
*nods* Not bad! Glad to keep making some good forward progress on this. Tomorrow, Alice creeps around the dinosaur and explores the half-ring of a hallway she’s found herself in – and finds a very useful secret hiding place...
Workout/YouTube: It being Sunday, my ride on the stationary bike and my evening video watching featured the same video – “Fallout New Vegas: You Only Live Once Remastered - Part 28 - Blood Money” by Jon of Many A True Nerd! This week’s episode of the adventures of our favorite drunken melee courier, P. D. Shoot, included –
A) Jon opening the video by admitting that he probably fucked up picking “Bloody Mess” (which adds +5% flat damage to all weapons and makes enemies more likely to explode in showers of gore) over “Light Step” (which makes you unable to trigger mines or floor-based traps) as P. D.’s Level 28 perk, based on all the comments he’d read on the last video scolding him for doing so, and his own knowledge about his own lack of perception. Too late now to change it, but – he wanted everyone to know he knew that was likely to come back to bite him and they were right to scold him. (He also mentioned he could have grabbed “Purifier” instead as well, which grants +50% damage to all melee and unarmed attacks against ferals, super mutants, and all abominations – which includes Ghost People, one of the primary antagonists in “Dead Money” – but the reason he didn’t consider it was because he didn’t KNOW it worked on Ghost People, so – that one is fair enough.)
B) P. D. swinging by her quarters in the Lucky 38 to rearrange her inventory a bit (namely, drop off everything from “Honest Hearts” except Joshua’s armor and reclaim her Protonic Inversal Axe), then starting her quest to get a bunch of XP (as she needs to get up to Level 30 before even attempting “Dead Money”) by visiting the Aces Theater in The Tops and promising to find some new talent for Tommy Torini! In exchange for a 3% cut of the door, no less (could have been more, but P. D. has NOT been improving her Barter skill and thus couldn’t pass the check – good thing she’s more interested in the XP than the cash!). P. D. immediately went outside and recruited desperate comedian Billy Knight, who was standing RIGHT BELOW the fancy marquee for The Tops, within SIGHT of the casino. XD (Interestingly, she could have gotten HIM a better deal with better Barter skill as well...Barter is a more useful skill than you’d think in this game!) Amusingly enough, the marquee he was standing under immediately updated with his name once P. D. recruited him, before Billy even had a chance to get in the building. XD Guess Tommy knew the people would like him!
( This one got long too, who is surprised )
Whew -- as usual, the YOLO Remastered episode took ages to recap! Blame it on being an episode where P. D. did a lot and kept bouncing between quests. Though I will say, I'm kind of glad she did it like that, because it allowed me to see just how many freaking Barter checks there actually were in the game. I was already thinking of giving Victor decent Barter skill due to his background as the son of fish merchants, but now I am committed to that course of action! Especially since, if I heard hbomberguy in his F:NV essay yesterday right, there's a way to use Barter to talk down one of the scariest guys in the game...
Anyway -- I'm off to bed, as, shockingly, I actually have work tomorrow. Yeah, I know. I am not looking forward to see how many e-mails are in my e-mail inbox. @.@ Hopefully it won't be too much of a shock to reintegrate back into the office...night all!
