Less Angy Wednesday

Yeah, the irritation abated a bit today -- not all the way, I was still pretty grumpy, but as the day went on I ended up feeling a little calmer. Maybe because there was less stressful stuff happening at work today (and the majority of it happened in the morning), or maybe because I got a little more done, I dunno. Look at the daily write-up and tell me what you think:

Work – As stated, it was a less-stressful day at work for me this Wednesday, which I much appreciated. The main things I did today were:

A) Go through some pledge cards returned from our processors because the credit card information on them had failed or couldn’t be processed (by virtue of the card-holder putting her name and no other information), or the donor already had a pledge, and contacted who I could (I THINK I have figured out who the person who just put her name is on our system, but I wanna be sure before trying to contact her)

B) Take a credit card call and attempt to update a woman’s pledge to be on automatic payments...only for the system to crap out and give me a blank screen when I tried to put in the actual card. Cue me having to let the lady know I’d call her back and take the long way around into the actual credit card processor’s site so I could do it directly on there. >( I e-mailed them about the issue after I finally got the donor sorted, but who the fuck knows if they’ll ever get back to me

C) Have the biweekly useless credit card call with our contact at the credit card company, who as usual had no updates for me on anything *sigh*

D) And go through the rest of the exceptions and mark a bunch of people inactive or deceased – or both, in the case of a spouse dying – and cleaning up some other roster maintenance issues I stumbled across along the way

Not too bad, apart from that nonsense with trying to add that lady’s credit card. *grumble* I hate our credit card provider so much...we’ll see what happens tomorrow!

To-Do List –

1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night with the F:NV Dust playthrough by Many A True Nerd! Today’s pedal session saw me get through –

A) The last ten minutes of “Fallout: New Vegas - Dust - Ashes to Ashes!” Jon’s “getting my feet wet” prologue episode finished off with him checking out the remaining starting locations available, including:

I. The rest of the “Hidden Khan Armory by Red Rock Canyon” starting location – having managed to avoid the tunneler by the ruins of the house that hid the armory, Doc Mitchell made his way into the canyon, and discovered that the remains of the Khans’ territory had been taken over by tribals! Very unfriendly tribals who wanted to beat him to death for stepping foot in their lands. He ran circles around the longhouse to avoid the ones outside, then ducked inside and tried to take out the ones in there with a stick of dynamite on the basis of “if I die, you’re all going with me” – only to not kill any of the tribals, leading to him getting an axe to the head. Whoops. XD At any rate, Jon didn’t think it was the best starting location, but admitted you could probably do something with it if you could get some good guns and armor…

II. The Followers Safehouse! Which had some lovely, fairly clean beds, a pipe rifle and ammo, a Nuka-Cola in the fridge, and some corpses to loot, one of which had a lovely large backpack on him (-2 to Agility, but +35 to carry capacity, so yay). Venturing outside put Doc Mitchell not that far from Vault 22, causing Jon to muse about the viability of just running in there, as the upper levels weren’t actually that bad monster-wise...then he remembered that the entrance was guarded by mantises and started rethinking that plan. He also considered making a run for Jacobstown, but also scrapped that idea because he’d have to go through the forest and that was full of nasty insects on a good (aka, non-“Dust”) day. On the other hand, he was happy to note that there were plenty of farms along the northern edge of the map that he could raid, AND the safehouse wasn’t that far from The Strip, which he thought would be a good place to go to learn things and figure out where to travel next. (As someone who has read the TV Tropes page for this mod and knows how UTTERLY DEADLY The Strip is...oh, Jon, you are going to LEARN.)

III. Yet Another Shack! This one containing a makeshift scythe, a 9mm revolver and two bullets, a bunch of empty tin cans (making Jon think this was someone who tried to hole up here, but was forced out by the food running out), and a checklist with the entries “Scout perimeter [X], Catch dinner [X], Eat dinner [X], Die [ ] Two bullets left. Here goes nothing.” Jon immediately was like “so I just moved into this guy’s life Scott Bakula-style when he was about to kill himself” – Quantum Leap reference if you’re not sure (took me a moment to get it!). Anyway, Jon ventured out to see what was what, and promptly learned two things:

One, that the shack was actually Raoul’s shack, Raoul being a ghoul companion you can recruit in the regular game (he’s nowhere to be found here because the companions are all dead by this point in time)

Two, that that meant he was in a part of the world absolutely SWIMMING with deathclaws and cazadores. Jon immediately understood better why this version of Doc M wanted to kill himself, and naturally his time in this part of the world ended with him being killed by a deathclaw.

IV. And The Legion Safehouse! Which, uh, featured quite a lot of gore on the floor to start, because apparently there was a hell of a fight before Doc Mitchell arrived in this version of reality. Worse yet, the few available lootable corpses didn’t have much on them, with Doc M only getting a makeshift pistol with two bullets for a weapon – and when he went outside, while he found a nice handy campfire to cook food on, he also found a whole bunch of ghouls in the “test ground” just beyond the hills, ready to come at him and murder him. So not a great location! As you might imagine, shortly after this, Doc M died to Ghoul Reavers – though, with the help of some lucky crits (and the Reaver being unable to figure out how to get up on the rock to him), he made a fantastic last stand and took out the first guy trying to get him with the makeshift pistol! Jon demanded we remember this version of Doc M did that, and so I have recorded it for posterity. *nods*

Solid stuff! The episode ended with Doc M back in the strange corridors of The Beginning, though, with Jon thinking about what he’d seen and commenting that he’d like to respec the good doctor before starting the series proper, which led into…

( Doc Mitchell finally starts his for-sure canon adventure! )

2. Continue editing Chapter 5 of “The Van Dort Vacancy”: Check – I returned to the heist in Duskwall tonight, working my way through –

A) Victor finally opening the safe for everyone and informing them that, while what was inside was mostly documents – deed to the cannery, contracts with various ships, his parents’ wills – there was a drawer full of “petty cash” – AKA, ten satchels with a Coin’s worth of scales in them each. Kasimir gently nudged him out of the way to verify, then, once he was satisfied Victor was telling the truth, proposed an even split of five Coin each. Barnaby promptly swooped in to be like “Oh, I’m sure Master Van Dort and his friends won’t mind if we take six or seven” –

Prompting Alice to inform him that she took on six Bluecoats at once with a kitchen knife and won, before she and the others killed Bumby. Barnaby immediately decided there was something to be said for an even split between the parties. XD

B) Victor taking a couple of satchels, then offering one to Smiler and Alice, explaining that he hoped they knew he wasn’t about to run off with the money, but if it would make them feel more comfortable to hold onto at least some of it, he was fine with that. Smiler promptly reassured him that they knew he wasn’t about to abandon them, closing his fingers around the satchel –

And then Alice was like “we do know that, but it makes sense to split up the money, just in case – gods forbid – one of us gets caught so we don’t lose the entire take.” Cue Smiler agreeing and reopening Victor’s hand. XD In the end, Victor and Alice both took two satchels each (since they had bags and thus more carry capacity), while Smiler took one. Money successfully split!

C) Victor hoping they could get back out without any trouble, and Smiler pointing out that they didn’t see anything getting in their way – all they had to do was walk back down the hall the way they’d come! Even if Slugs woke up again (which Victor was sure he wouldn’t), they knew now that Victor could tell him to stand down. Alice agreed, but said that the tricky bit would be getting out of the house, and asked Victor where the best exit was – Victor said the tradesmen’s entrance after a quick think. Kasimir told him to tell them about on the way, as he wanted to get going now that they had the money – Victor obligingly shut the safe while explaining that the tradesmen’s entrance was just a few hallways away and led back to the same courtyard as the servant’s entrance. Smiler asked why the tradesmen didn’t just come in the servant’s entrance then –

Prompting Barnaby to go “because they’re tradesmen” as if Smiler should automatically know what that meant. Victor explained more helpfully that Nell wanted them to have a separate entrance to get them in and out of the house quicker (especially the night soil man, who tended the toilets), and to keep them from stealing snacks – noting with annoyance that Mrs. Pemberly wouldn’t let such a thing happen anyway. She is indeed an old battle-axe! And we like that about her. :p

And that’s where I left off! Tomorrow, the escape continues as the gang proceeds back down the hall and Barnaby says he won’t be going through the tradesmen’s entrance because, well, it’s just not him. :P Oh Barnaby, you gorgeous liability...

3. Watch something on YouTube: Technical check on the basis of I watched my usual “research videos” to prep for working on “The Van Dort Vacancy” above, which tonight included –

A) Another few minutes of “Colouring Books, Trains, and A Great Big Dog – The OX Crew Play BITD” by CaitlinRC (including Mumbles of the Gut-Cutters very efficiently stabbing a man to death and Edvard kicking to pieces some Astor-brand Shrek Lanthorns – you’d understand if you’d seen the series XD)

B) And the whole two minutes of “Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride: Piano Duet” by VyrovCZ (which, naturally, was the piano duet between Victor and Emily – I hadn’t watched the clip in a while, so I figured it’d be a nice change)

*shrug* I’ll take what I can get! Especially when it involves funny Oxventure Presents: Blades In The Dark clips. :)

4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Technical check and check – you’ll see what I mean down below –

Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – Didn’t do anything with my queue tonight over here, but I did straight-up reblog an important post from littlefingies about how we have until Friday, May 22nd, to submit public comments to the FCC in an attempt to get them to rethink doing a new TV ratings system that warns people about “transgender and gender nonbinary programming” and “the discussion or promotion of gender identity themes.” *shakehead* Just another day under this administration, folks!

Valice Multiverse – And over here, I put the two anon asks that I discovered late last night into my queue this morning:

A) One stating that they’d discovered a new word on Twitter, “indislop,” that had been invented “in response to a bunch of independent animated shows being high on popularity at the moment” – and following that up with, in summary, “how do I delete Twitter, like go back in time and make sure it never existed, it’s horrible there and I hate it.” *nods* Mood. I had Cuddlepile!Smiler respond that, unfortunately, time travel wasn’t real, but they could at least provide a WikiHow article on how to delete your Twitter account, with Cuddlepile!Alice adding that, maybe someday, a real life Doc Brown or The Doctor or the like would show up and allow us all to right a few wrongs. If only…

B) And one posing the question “If bad dreams are nightmares then are good dreams daystallions?” I had Forgotten Vows!Alice comment that she understood the logic behind the anon’s thought, but that using “daystallions” automatically made her associate the term with “daydreams.” Though, as she was pretty sure most daydreams were nice fantasies, she allowed that the term could still work.

Hooray for getting those sorted in time for the Wednesday queue!

Other: Finally finished my comment on Nebby’s “MediEvil Resurrection II” fanfic, hooray! Now I just have to answer her comment on “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland...”

Yeah, not too shabby, I suppose! And now it is time for me to head to bed! Fortunately, it is rather cooler tonight, since the heat was chased away by some rain earlier. Very glad of it, let me tell you! *nods* Night all!