Irritating Monday

Any day that starts with me going to the toilet, only for the toilet to not flush properly, is not a good day, I have to say. *sigh* Fortunately Dad was able to fix the issue, but it took up a MAJOR chunk of my time this morning trying to sort it out, meaning I had to wait until this afternoon to finish off my F:NV YOLO Remastered write-up from yesterday. Which then made it so I got to all my OTHER stuff later than usual this evening, and -- yeah. Bit of a snowball effect there. I dislike it immensely. >( Stupid PMS making focus and writing more difficult! Stupid write-ups always taking so freaking long!

*sigh* Anyway -- at least the toilet's working now, and yesterday's entry is all set. Let's finish off TODAY'S entry now, shall we?

Work – It proved to be a somewhat annoying Monday at work, which was unsurprising given how my day actually started:

A) Most of my morning was spent doing the GL, which was one of those where I had to reference past GLs constantly to make sure all the recently-added-in payments that the credit card company posted on Friday were correctly added into the old totals – they were, it just took a little while to confirm!

B) Then a good chunk of my afternoon was spent doing another QC file for the upcoming thank-yous – but thanks to various interruptions, I was unable to finish it (came fairly close, though, so I should be able to wrap it up pretty quickly in the morning)

C) And as for the interruptions, two of those were from the very processing company who had sent me the QC file – asking us about a gift from someone who hadn’t specified WHICH parish-with-a-common-name she wanted her gift to go to, and hadn’t provided any way to contact her to ask (our boss eventually said “have them credit the one closest to her address”), and informing me of some credit card nonsense that apparently happened late on Friday which will need to be resolved pronto. Hmph – I do NOT like feeling like the only competent one in the room!

Yeah – not exactly a fun time. At least the phones were mostly quiet, with my longest call of the day featuring someone just checking up on the recurring gift she’d made over the weekend and confirming that it would result in the amount she wanted to give yearly being credited to her parish. *nods* We’ll see if things improve tomorrow or not!

To-Do List –

1. Get in a workout: Check – but rather than returning to the Oxventure for today’s bike ride, I instead visited the regular OXBox channel to check out their latest Hitman video – “Hitman 3 Ways To Play MILLA JOVOVICH | Patient Zero Requiem: Explosions! Firing squads! Rampage?” Yes, the trio of Andy, Jane, and Mike returned to their classic “Three Ways To Play” format for Hitman videos to cover the latest Elusive Target contract, “The Harbinger!” Starring, as per the title, Milla Jovovich, actress and star of the Resident Evil films. Which was very appropriate as, also as per the title, this particular contract was a follow-up to the “Patient Zero” series of missions the game released – quite a while ago, as the game recently had its tenth anniversary. O.o Yeah, I’m shocked by the passage of time too. Anyway, you may remember those missions (dedicated to taking down a horrible doomsday cult) mostly for the climactic finale, where a deadly disease ravaged the Hokkaido hospital – followed by Mike ravaging it as he tried and failed repeatedly to contain the virus. XD However, while the teaser at the start of the video hinted at the gang having to once again contain a deadly outbreak before it became a plague upon the world, we didn’t quite get to that in today’s pedal session. Instead, we covered –

A) Everyone arriving at the Dartmoor mansion in England, to attend a fundraiser hosted by their target, Lilith Devereux (Milla), who was taking over the Ether Company from its former CEO, Gregory Carlisle:

I. Andy rocked up in a red hunting jacket and tight horse-riding trousers and marched straight into the house, talking about how much he loved killing foxes

II. Jane went the stealthy route and started in the staff room, disguised as a member of the lowest tier of security, who made sure to rob said staff room for anything useful

III. And Mike of course showed up as a clown with a briefcase and had to sneak in via the kitchen, where he proceeded to brain a waiter with a baseball (which Mike was insistent should have been a CRICKET ball, given the location) for his outfit and sic his homing briefcase on the unfortunate chef who witnessed the act. XD

( It got long again, who is surprised )

2. Continue editing Chapter 6 of “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland”: Check – yeah, I know I said yesterday that I was going to keep going on Chapter 5 of “The Van Dort Vacancy,” but honestly the spot where I left off yesterday was actually a pretty good point to take a break, and I do want to get this final LB:DQ chapter up sooner rather than later. Plus I got to the editing late, and this particular story doesn’t need me to watch reference videos at this point in time. *nods* Anyway, today’s editing session took me through:

A) Jack asking Alice to confirm she was at the museum to get the sarcophagus for LaCroix (“The jester prince did indeed send me to grab that terrible talisman”) – then noted that he seemed to have a lot riding on it to get so upset about its disappearance. Alice took the bait and said that he’d claimed the city would rest easier, knowing it was in Camarilla hands – Jack snorted at that idea, saying he wouldn’t rest easy if all LaCroix was hunting for was Grandma’s ashes, then said he had a different scenario that he wanted to run by Alice –

Before asking her if she knew what diablerie was. And when she said “if I did, I’ve forgotten, remind me,” explaining that it was when a vampire sucked another “drier than dry,” consuming both their blood AND their soul. Alice was like “we can do that?!” – Jack confirmed they could, and added that if a younger vampire diablerized an older one, the younger one got all the older one’s powers. Meaning there might be a darker reason behind LaCroix being so desperate to get the sarcophagus… *grimace* Alice wasn’t sure if the idea of LaCroix getting the power of some ancient sleeping vampire made her want to hide under the bed, stab something, or both.

B) Alice, doing her best to keep calm after hearing this news, stating that it was a good thing Becket was so sure the only thing inside the sarcophagus was a dead human – Jack, however, was not convinced, allowing that Beckett was smart, but that one of his blind spots was not believing the Antediluvians were still around. And that, sure, he was willing to allow that there could be nothing in there – but there could be something too. Alice, rather distressed by this point, asked what the hell he wanted her to do about it –

And, to her surprise, the answer was “do as LaCroix wants, for now.” With Jack’s reasoning being that any vampire who gets their hands on the sarcophagus is going to be thinking about cracking it open and drinking whoever’s inside. At least if LaCroix has it, everyone knows where the hell it is! (Meaning everyone would rest easier, ironically.) And he noted with some amusement that getting the sarcophagus and getting it open were two different things… Jack, you couldn’t be telegraphing that you’re involved with this sarcophagus business any more if you tried. XD

C) And Alice noting that she had to find the damn thing before anyone could try popping the lid, and asking Jack if he had any tips for dealing with the Nosferatu and Gary – Jack told her to remember that it was their domain, so their rules, and said she’d probably be fucked with at least a bit, but not too much. And that Gary, for all that he was a dick, was straight with anyone who was straight with him, and honored his deals. All Alice really had to do was go in and be herself, and see what Gary thought of that. Alice promised to keep that in mind.

And so this particular page ended with Alice preparing to head out so she could get packing and brave Hollywood! Tomorrow, though, we make this absurdly long chapter just a little bit longer by adding a new scene – namely, Jack informing Alice for future reference that there’s ways to loophole Dominate. Like writing something down when someone forbids you to speak of it. ...Alice is going to be so mad. XD

3. Watch something on YouTube: No check – didn’t have the time or the focus to try and find anything worth watching. We’ll see if this changes tomorrow!

4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: N/A, as usual on Mondays – nothing to do over on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler)! Though I did spot a post on polyamorousmood that I’ll probably be adding to my drafts, or even my queue, tomorrow...

Good, managed to finish this one before bed, hooray. And now I am off to bed to actually try and get some sleep. *nods* Night all!