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Very Meh Monday
Feb. 9th, 2026 11:47 pmIt was a cold, icky day today, and the PMS was really PMSing at points -- especially during work. Why? See below:
Work – Kind of a frustrating day at work today – mostly because there was yet more bullshit related to our credit card company and their inability to do anything right. Specifically:
A) While we fortunately only had one person call in today wanting to do a credit card gift, we couldn’t do said gift because every time we tried, we’d get an error message about an unspecified problem with processing the payment. An error message that our processors also got when they tried processing one particular credit card gift, according to the exceptions we received today. I e-mailed the company twice today, but didn’t get a response – which isn’t that surprising, as they do enjoy leaving me hanging.
B) And, during the end of the day wrap-up, I discovered yet more pledges missing their initial payment on their pledge because there seems to be a bug with importing them if they have a payment processed on the same day the pledge is made. So now I have to check a bunch of credit card pledges both we in the office and our main processing company have put on to see which ones are missing payments. *facepalm*
Yeah, that – that was irritating. Especially for someone on her period and thus already permanently irritated. >( The rest of the day went okay – I spent most of the morning doing the GL, as it was pretty big due to all the gifts posted Friday, and the majority of the afternoon going through some of the other exceptions in the bundle and working on overpayments and stuff like that. But it’s just – it NEVER STOPS with this company, I swear. I hate them so much, you don’t even know. Ugh. We’ll see what happens tomorrow, I suppose...
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night with The Adventures Of Useless Steve as I started the final episode of his first series: “Fallout: New Vegas - The Worst Courier - Grand Finale - How Useless Steve 'Saved' The World!” The first half of the end of Useless Steve’s base game adventures included:
A) Useless Steve investigating the Omertas Family (the gang that runs Gomorrah, the casino and brothel with a secret drugs menu P. D. Shoot Remastered has frequented more than once) for the NCR as part of their final-act questline and solving their problem with the family in a rather – unique way. The quest is supposed to go “you find out that the Omertas are building a bomb to attack the Strip after allying with the Legion, and help their lieutenant Cachino take over Gomorrah and kill them” – but you see, Jon hates Cachino too, because he’s an asshole who abuses the prostitutes and apparently kidnaps the one he “likes” the most, Joanna, once he becomes the owner of Gomorrah (she straight-up disappears from the game when he ascends to the throne, and Jon thinks she ends up in his bedroom and isn’t allowed to leave again). So he didn’t particularly want to put Cachino in charge. So, instead, he had Useless Steve pickpocket Cachino’s personal diary off him, detailing all the ways he’s been screwing over the Omertas gang with his own small-time operations; turn it into the guy at the door to the private part of the club, who sent Steve up to talk to the two men in charge, Big Sal and Nero; give the journal to Nero, who called Cachino into his office for a private “chat” that ended in his death –
Then – having prepared for this earlier by using Fire Act Nectar (which boosts Agility a lot) and a Sneak skill magazine to raise his Sneak to the appropriate level to sneak more “holdout” weapons into the casino – murdered Big Sal with Pew Pew and made a run for it, because this stopped the Omertas from blowing up the Strip (since they were down a boss) without having to put another scumbag in charge of their territory! Yes, it technically failed the quest, and Steve came EXTREMELY close to dying during his escape from the casino even with his power armor thanks to all the guards shooting at him, but he made it out without being followed, and was able to report back to Colonel Moore and straight up lie to her that the Omertas were planning on targeting New Reno, and the NCR didn’t have to worry about them. XD Jon even dipped briefly into an alternate universe where Steve actually worked with Sal to help create the bomb to confirm that Steve would never learn exactly what the bomb was for and thus couldn’t say anything different to Moore if he killed Sal then. *nods* Good information to have for those of us who might feel a little iffy about changing one asshole for another!
B) Useless Steve then taking on the task to destroy the Brotherhood for Colonel Moore, and showing off how easy it was even for a low-to-no skills character like himself – because while the main computer to actually start the self destruct sequence was locked behind a level of hacking Useless Steve would never achieve, the computer that generated passwords to get into the self-destruct computer was NOT. All Steve had to do was pickpocket three keycards from the Head Scribe, Head Paladin, and Elder McNamara (which was easy for him to do because they had no weight and very little value, meaning with the help of a Stealth Boy, he was able to easily snag them all), use them on the password computer to generate the passwords needed to get into the self-destruct computer, then open up the self-destruct computer and trigger the self-destruct. And then run for the exit while the Brotherhood steadfastly refused to evacuate, taking a few hits along the way but getting out safely thanks to the Stealth Boy. The Brotherhood thus blew up, and Steve was able to tell Moore about another successful mission while vowing never to go near Veronica again because she might have, uh, opinions on what he just did.
C) Useless Steve then showing the easiest way to complete the mission to protect the NCR president when he visited the dam to bolster the morale of the troops – basically, trigger an assassination attempt as soon as possible so the president LEFT as soon as possible. XD ...but I’ll have to tell you about the rest of it tomorrow, because it is too late now and I need to go to bed.
2. Continue editing Chapter 6 of “Londerland Bloodlines”: Check – got another page’s worth of edits done today, featuring:
A) Alice dropping out of the ductwork into what she discovered wasn’t an office, but was instead a sort of combination server room and break room, with a couple of big server banks on two of the walls, and a table with a coffee maker and a microwave and a water cooler on the third (she was like “I wouldn’t put water anywhere near the expensive computer equipment, but then I’m not running the place”)
B) Alice searching the room for the key promised to her by the Insane Children’s scribbles...only to come up short; cue Cheshire appearing by the only door in or out of the room, advising her to look farther afield – but to beware that the field had eyes, and to avoid getting them trained on her, lest she ended up like a biscuit being devoured by a Bandersnatch (Alice: “I’ve never seen that, but I will trust you that it is messy and horrible”)
C) Alice taking a moment to listen through the door and hearing a guard inside – then peeking in and realizing it was the security camera room (lit like something out of a horror movie for some reason), being watched over by a man chowing down on a donut. A man who’d conveniently left a key on the console...but inconveniently left it next to him, meaning it was very hard for Alice to get it without being noticed. She was not pleased
D) Alice running down her options, realizing hitting the guy with some distracting Dementation was her best shot, and doing just that – fortunately for her conscience, the effect was to make him start giggling over a joke he’d wanted to tell his friend Caroline, and then get up and leave so he could let her know. Cue Alice happily grabbing the key, getting out of the room, and escaping back into the vents as fast as possible, thanking Victor for being more useful than she’d ever guessed he would be
E) And Alice examining the key and finding a big “B” on the fob – and then remembering that Victor had told her that the sarcophagus was most likely stored in the basement, meaning hopefully this was the exact key she needed to reach it.
*nods* Progress continues to be made, both for Alice and for myself! I left off with her realizing she now had to figure out where to go next – tomorrow, she returns to the T-junction in the ductwork and follows the other path to see where it leads...
3. Watch something on FreeTube: Check – managed to catch up on the final C. M. Alongi video in my subs for now: “BookTalk: Monstrous & Paperbacks - TikTok Compilation!” Another collection of skits of her various books/book series (Heart Of Iron, The Witch Who Trades With Death, Citadel, Blackwing, and Monstrous) talking to each other, featuring:
A) The group ringing in the new year, with Citadel noting it had been a crazy 2025 – only for Blackwing to ask, “Crazier than the year you and I came out?” and Citadel to agree that maybe things hadn’t been that wild. Monstrous was naturally curious as to what happened the year they came out – cue Citadel explaining that 2023 started with CM doing the “Accidentally Kidnapped” mini-series on TikTok, which spawned a rough draft of a book that got her a fan base on Patreon, followed by the start of CaFae Latte and the writing of Heart Of Iron, followed by the releases of the first two Blackwing novellas and Citadel, followed by CM leaving her food service job to do TikTok skits and writing full-time. Witch then pointed out that 2024 was the year of Heart of Iron’s Kickstarter, with Citadel adding that it also featured the release of the CaFae Latte cookbook, declaring it a “slow year.” Monstrous was incredulous and Heart Of Iron insulted, but Blackwing pointed out that the cookbook was more CM’s mom’s book than hers, and Witch added that most authors only aim for one book release a year to prevent things getting messy – the main reason she and Heart Of Iron being released in the same year worked was because she came out in March, and Heart Of Iron in October, meaning there was some breathing room between the two. Monstrous, now worried, asked if she was stepping on Heart Of Iron’s toes, but Heart was like “Nah, you’re only on Patreon right now, you’re not published” –
Then paused and confirmed, “You’re not published, right?” To which Monstrous replied, “No, but I am getting Kickstarted in February.” :P Blackwing was stunned (“Already?!”), Witch excited and congratulatory, and Citadel just “And the insanity begins anew.” XD
( Yup, It Got Long )
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: No check – I’d WANTED to try and come up with some more Valentine’s-themed Not Incorrect Quotes for Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler), but between work and the long write-ups, I just didn’t have the chance. :( Hopefully tomorrow!
And I have to go to bed, so I'll fix the spacing tomorrow too. *shakehead* Remember when I could get these entries done in a single sitting? Ugh...night all.
Work – Kind of a frustrating day at work today – mostly because there was yet more bullshit related to our credit card company and their inability to do anything right. Specifically:
A) While we fortunately only had one person call in today wanting to do a credit card gift, we couldn’t do said gift because every time we tried, we’d get an error message about an unspecified problem with processing the payment. An error message that our processors also got when they tried processing one particular credit card gift, according to the exceptions we received today. I e-mailed the company twice today, but didn’t get a response – which isn’t that surprising, as they do enjoy leaving me hanging.
B) And, during the end of the day wrap-up, I discovered yet more pledges missing their initial payment on their pledge because there seems to be a bug with importing them if they have a payment processed on the same day the pledge is made. So now I have to check a bunch of credit card pledges both we in the office and our main processing company have put on to see which ones are missing payments. *facepalm*
Yeah, that – that was irritating. Especially for someone on her period and thus already permanently irritated. >( The rest of the day went okay – I spent most of the morning doing the GL, as it was pretty big due to all the gifts posted Friday, and the majority of the afternoon going through some of the other exceptions in the bundle and working on overpayments and stuff like that. But it’s just – it NEVER STOPS with this company, I swear. I hate them so much, you don’t even know. Ugh. We’ll see what happens tomorrow, I suppose...
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night with The Adventures Of Useless Steve as I started the final episode of his first series: “Fallout: New Vegas - The Worst Courier - Grand Finale - How Useless Steve 'Saved' The World!” The first half of the end of Useless Steve’s base game adventures included:
A) Useless Steve investigating the Omertas Family (the gang that runs Gomorrah, the casino and brothel with a secret drugs menu P. D. Shoot Remastered has frequented more than once) for the NCR as part of their final-act questline and solving their problem with the family in a rather – unique way. The quest is supposed to go “you find out that the Omertas are building a bomb to attack the Strip after allying with the Legion, and help their lieutenant Cachino take over Gomorrah and kill them” – but you see, Jon hates Cachino too, because he’s an asshole who abuses the prostitutes and apparently kidnaps the one he “likes” the most, Joanna, once he becomes the owner of Gomorrah (she straight-up disappears from the game when he ascends to the throne, and Jon thinks she ends up in his bedroom and isn’t allowed to leave again). So he didn’t particularly want to put Cachino in charge. So, instead, he had Useless Steve pickpocket Cachino’s personal diary off him, detailing all the ways he’s been screwing over the Omertas gang with his own small-time operations; turn it into the guy at the door to the private part of the club, who sent Steve up to talk to the two men in charge, Big Sal and Nero; give the journal to Nero, who called Cachino into his office for a private “chat” that ended in his death –
Then – having prepared for this earlier by using Fire Act Nectar (which boosts Agility a lot) and a Sneak skill magazine to raise his Sneak to the appropriate level to sneak more “holdout” weapons into the casino – murdered Big Sal with Pew Pew and made a run for it, because this stopped the Omertas from blowing up the Strip (since they were down a boss) without having to put another scumbag in charge of their territory! Yes, it technically failed the quest, and Steve came EXTREMELY close to dying during his escape from the casino even with his power armor thanks to all the guards shooting at him, but he made it out without being followed, and was able to report back to Colonel Moore and straight up lie to her that the Omertas were planning on targeting New Reno, and the NCR didn’t have to worry about them. XD Jon even dipped briefly into an alternate universe where Steve actually worked with Sal to help create the bomb to confirm that Steve would never learn exactly what the bomb was for and thus couldn’t say anything different to Moore if he killed Sal then. *nods* Good information to have for those of us who might feel a little iffy about changing one asshole for another!
B) Useless Steve then taking on the task to destroy the Brotherhood for Colonel Moore, and showing off how easy it was even for a low-to-no skills character like himself – because while the main computer to actually start the self destruct sequence was locked behind a level of hacking Useless Steve would never achieve, the computer that generated passwords to get into the self-destruct computer was NOT. All Steve had to do was pickpocket three keycards from the Head Scribe, Head Paladin, and Elder McNamara (which was easy for him to do because they had no weight and very little value, meaning with the help of a Stealth Boy, he was able to easily snag them all), use them on the password computer to generate the passwords needed to get into the self-destruct computer, then open up the self-destruct computer and trigger the self-destruct. And then run for the exit while the Brotherhood steadfastly refused to evacuate, taking a few hits along the way but getting out safely thanks to the Stealth Boy. The Brotherhood thus blew up, and Steve was able to tell Moore about another successful mission while vowing never to go near Veronica again because she might have, uh, opinions on what he just did.
C) Useless Steve then showing the easiest way to complete the mission to protect the NCR president when he visited the dam to bolster the morale of the troops – basically, trigger an assassination attempt as soon as possible so the president LEFT as soon as possible. XD ...but I’ll have to tell you about the rest of it tomorrow, because it is too late now and I need to go to bed.
2. Continue editing Chapter 6 of “Londerland Bloodlines”: Check – got another page’s worth of edits done today, featuring:
A) Alice dropping out of the ductwork into what she discovered wasn’t an office, but was instead a sort of combination server room and break room, with a couple of big server banks on two of the walls, and a table with a coffee maker and a microwave and a water cooler on the third (she was like “I wouldn’t put water anywhere near the expensive computer equipment, but then I’m not running the place”)
B) Alice searching the room for the key promised to her by the Insane Children’s scribbles...only to come up short; cue Cheshire appearing by the only door in or out of the room, advising her to look farther afield – but to beware that the field had eyes, and to avoid getting them trained on her, lest she ended up like a biscuit being devoured by a Bandersnatch (Alice: “I’ve never seen that, but I will trust you that it is messy and horrible”)
C) Alice taking a moment to listen through the door and hearing a guard inside – then peeking in and realizing it was the security camera room (lit like something out of a horror movie for some reason), being watched over by a man chowing down on a donut. A man who’d conveniently left a key on the console...but inconveniently left it next to him, meaning it was very hard for Alice to get it without being noticed. She was not pleased
D) Alice running down her options, realizing hitting the guy with some distracting Dementation was her best shot, and doing just that – fortunately for her conscience, the effect was to make him start giggling over a joke he’d wanted to tell his friend Caroline, and then get up and leave so he could let her know. Cue Alice happily grabbing the key, getting out of the room, and escaping back into the vents as fast as possible, thanking Victor for being more useful than she’d ever guessed he would be
E) And Alice examining the key and finding a big “B” on the fob – and then remembering that Victor had told her that the sarcophagus was most likely stored in the basement, meaning hopefully this was the exact key she needed to reach it.
*nods* Progress continues to be made, both for Alice and for myself! I left off with her realizing she now had to figure out where to go next – tomorrow, she returns to the T-junction in the ductwork and follows the other path to see where it leads...
3. Watch something on FreeTube: Check – managed to catch up on the final C. M. Alongi video in my subs for now: “BookTalk: Monstrous & Paperbacks - TikTok Compilation!” Another collection of skits of her various books/book series (Heart Of Iron, The Witch Who Trades With Death, Citadel, Blackwing, and Monstrous) talking to each other, featuring:
A) The group ringing in the new year, with Citadel noting it had been a crazy 2025 – only for Blackwing to ask, “Crazier than the year you and I came out?” and Citadel to agree that maybe things hadn’t been that wild. Monstrous was naturally curious as to what happened the year they came out – cue Citadel explaining that 2023 started with CM doing the “Accidentally Kidnapped” mini-series on TikTok, which spawned a rough draft of a book that got her a fan base on Patreon, followed by the start of CaFae Latte and the writing of Heart Of Iron, followed by the releases of the first two Blackwing novellas and Citadel, followed by CM leaving her food service job to do TikTok skits and writing full-time. Witch then pointed out that 2024 was the year of Heart of Iron’s Kickstarter, with Citadel adding that it also featured the release of the CaFae Latte cookbook, declaring it a “slow year.” Monstrous was incredulous and Heart Of Iron insulted, but Blackwing pointed out that the cookbook was more CM’s mom’s book than hers, and Witch added that most authors only aim for one book release a year to prevent things getting messy – the main reason she and Heart Of Iron being released in the same year worked was because she came out in March, and Heart Of Iron in October, meaning there was some breathing room between the two. Monstrous, now worried, asked if she was stepping on Heart Of Iron’s toes, but Heart was like “Nah, you’re only on Patreon right now, you’re not published” –
Then paused and confirmed, “You’re not published, right?” To which Monstrous replied, “No, but I am getting Kickstarted in February.” :P Blackwing was stunned (“Already?!”), Witch excited and congratulatory, and Citadel just “And the insanity begins anew.” XD
( Yup, It Got Long )
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: No check – I’d WANTED to try and come up with some more Valentine’s-themed Not Incorrect Quotes for Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler), but between work and the long write-ups, I just didn’t have the chance. :( Hopefully tomorrow!
And I have to go to bed, so I'll fix the spacing tomorrow too. *shakehead* Remember when I could get these entries done in a single sitting? Ugh...night all.
