Not My Best Wednesday

It was kind of chilly, weather-wise (though it did get warmer than they said it was going to, which was good -- probably helped it was full-on sunny today); I found some more annoying stuff at work (which I will elaborate on in the write-up below); and when I got home, I discovered that my mother had not picked up milk like she said she would, meaning I had to go out and get it myself. Which was incredibly annoying, because I did not particularly WANT to go out again after getting home, and cut rather severely into my free time this afternoon, but...needs must. *sigh* Anyway, here's the write-up:

Work – It was a pretty “meh” Wednesday at work, it must be said:

A) I spent the morning e-mailing people about credit card stuff (one guy who needed a card update – fortunately he’d managed to do it himself by the time I contacted him – and four people who had two types of gifts running at once) and looking through the returned credit card pledge cards in the exceptions to see who still needed to be contacted (most of them – I just keep getting distracted by other problems)

B) Then I spent the afternoon looking through a handful of batches put on by our processors in March to identify more gifts that were meant for the newspaper office after getting a call from ANOTHER donor whose newspaper office donation ended up as part of our Appeal gifts. Found another seventeen or so people whose gifts will have to be taken off and the money given to the people at the newspaper. All because one church did a collection for them, and then sent the envelopes to OUR PO Box. *sigh* It’s annoying, it really is…

So yeah – not exactly a great day. We’ll see how Thursday goes!

To-Do List –

1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night with “HITMANNIVERSARY! Hitman 10th Anniversary Stream | The BEST Maps and Our NEVER-BEFORE-TRIED Missions” by OXBox! Today’s chunklet featured more of the gang playing “The Envy Contention” from the “Seven Deadly Sins” missions, and contained –

A) Jane finally managing to finish off Level 2 of the mission – well, after dying in a hail of gunfire in one of the lavender planters because everyone saw 47 punch Emma Carlisle unconscious and then snap her neck when Jane was unable to shove her over the railing because she turned around at exactly the wrong moment. XD But she was able to use the whole mess as a learning experience, and completed the level by:

I. Heading over to the kitchen by the buffet, knocking out the staff inside when they caught her trespassing (she managed to avoid the urge to snap their necks this time, instead sticking them in a nearby cupboard at Andy’s urging), and getting a waiter’s costume and the emetic rat poison vital to her plan

II. Going out and lurking by the canapes that Emma samples and managing to poison them at JUST the right moment this time – that is, after the old guy eats a few, but before Emma could – making sure Emma was the one who ended up with the dicky stomach

III. Following Emma around to the deserted railing where she chose to go and puke, with the intent of pushing her over – only to press the wrong button and end up subduing her instead. Prompting Mike and Andy to start going on about that being her “signature move.” XD She did at least manage to snap the woman’s neck and make her escape WITHOUT immediately being shot at this time!

IV. Taking advantage of the fact that she was able to go downstairs into the super-fancy technological heart of the winery in her waiter’s costume to get close to her second target, a scientist with a stupid haircut, and wang the special curvy cat-knife she’d been given as a reward at the beginning of the level (for Andy’s good work in beating the first mission) into his head – this did not go as smoothly as she might have hoped, as she had to get closer than she’d originally thought to actually hit him in the head with the knife (instead of just tossing it somewhere near him), meaning she got caught and had to flee in a hail of gunfire – fortunately, she easily managed to outrun her pursuers and get back to the kitchen, where she donned her original outfit and rejoined the party to avoid being murdered (again)

V. Making an attempt to get at the third target after realizing that 47’s weird mirror double “rival” in the high-fashion hoodie hadn’t gotten to her yet (in the hopes of crushing her in a wine press, as per the optional objective) – unfortunately, despite managing to knock out the guard on the doors she needed to pass through with a nice bottle of wine she found in while wandering the party, she was unable to get past him (mostly because another guard noticed the knocking-out and woke the guy up), and the high-fashion rival got the lady instead. Everyone was very annoyed he was allowed to kill her however and not use a wine press, and by his very uncouth celebration in the picture-in-picture

VI. Completing the mission by returning to the starting chair, and receiving her score – “Black Cat, 0 Stars.” Given how much bad luck she experienced during her attempts, that does feel appropriate. :p

( Here is your cut for ease-of-reading purposes )

2. Continue final edits on Chapter 6 of “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland”: Check – managed to do about seven pages today, covering:

A) Alice leaving Skyeline Apartments, talking with Wonderland about how bubbly Victor’s blood made her and how she’s grateful to have him in her corner, especially with most of the vampires of L.A. treating her like their servant

B) Alice looking to get a taxi and complaining both about the one cabbie that seems to be stalking her (even though that shouldn’t be logically possible) and – in her head – about her inability to say anything about the potential Blood Hunt on Nines out loud even to herself, and about how she would like somebody other than herself to show some sympathy for Grout’s lost ghouls (because what happened to them was horrific and shouldn’t go uncommented on)

C) Rabbit running off while telling Alice she shouldn’t get distracted and leading her to the abandoned hospital, where she was promptly nearly run over by a panicked man emerging from it; he told her that he was the host of Haunted LA, and that something had attacked his camera crew, and that it was coming for him, before running off in terror

D) Alice heading into the hospital in the hopes of trying to help the crew, and being forced to take the long way around all the various junk walls and such in her way, spotting camera feeds showing the unfortunate demises of two crew members along the way and getting to personally witness the third after getting down to the basement (which did not please her in the slightest)

E) And Alice spotting the monster apparently behind all the murders in the hospital morgue, and getting ready to knife them – only for Cheshire to advise her NOT to put her blade to work just yet, but to instead see what the “mantis” had to say, and thus instead approaching the woman for a chat

Not too shabby, I suppose – I would have liked to have made it to page 16 tonight, but I had a lot more edits to make in this section, so it just wasn’t happening. Tomorrow, we continue, starting with Alice’s conversation with Pisha! Hopefully I can get at least another seven pages done...we will see!

3. Watch something on YouTube: No check – which is getting quite annoying, as Josh actually uploaded another Fun With Shorts recently. I’m gonna have to carve out some time to watch that damn thing sometime this week!

4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: No check – I was hoping to figure out what I wanted to do for Song Saturday over on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) tonight, but it just didn’t work out.

Yeah, I was hoping to get more done today, but...well, apparently time forbade. At least I got the most important stuff done (aka, the LB:DQ editing). We'll see if Thursday goes a little better -- night all!