Not Much To Report Wednesday
Jun. 18th, 2025 11:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickWeather was once again pretty crappy -- gloomy and getting gradually more and more humid as the day went on. To the point where we put the air conditioners in the windows this afternoon, after I got home from work, so we could stay cool and dry tonight. *shrug* It makes sleeping easier, AND we were gonna have to do it soon anyway, as we have got some pretty damn severe heat coming our way next week. High 90s and humid as fuck. *grimace* Fun. But yeah, other than that, not too much to report, as my daily write-up shall probably reflect:
Work – Very quiet day at work – I had one call to update a person’s pledge with a new credit card, and one thing I had look up for my boss regarding someone’s gifts (wanting to make sure the amount we had on file was correct), then the rest of my day was spent on obituaries and related bits of roster maintenance. And quietly finishing a crossword in the paper when I ran out of those. *shrug* There’s really just not that much to DO around the office right at the moment! Makes me glad I’ve got tomorrow off, yay~
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike tonight, but not back with the Teens In Space miniseries on Oxventure! Reason being, we’re going out tomorrow to Cape Cod to play mini-golf (three courses’ worth), and it’s supposed to be very hot and summery, so it’s very probable I will not want to work out once we get home. So I’m saving the grand finale of Teens In Space, with the teens fighting a freaking leviathan, for next week. Instead, it was back over to Proxy Gate Tactician’s channel to watch a couple of his videos:
A) “Can You Beat Baldur's Gate 3 Using Only Throw?” – what I believe was the first of his “can you beat the game with this ridiculous challenge enabled” videos, where Proxy set himself the task of beating Baldur’s Gate III with a party that was only allowed to throw things! ...well, okay, they were also allowed to walk around normally, talk to people, and build towers of crates to climb to make their throws more powerful (because technically stacking crates isn’t an “ability” that consumes an action, bonus action, or reaction, and that’s what Proxy was avoiding), but that was about it. So, could Proxy’s brave party of halfling barbarian Bom Trady (and I JUST FUCKING REALIZED: TOM BRADY), Shadowheart, Lae’zel, and a dwarf hireling defeat the Absolute while only allowed to throw things?
The answer was “Yes, but it was a REAL PAIN IN THE ASS sometimes!” Mostly because for the majority of the game, most of the party members didn’t have any throwable weapons that automatically returned to the wielder after being lobbed, meaning Proxy spent a lot of the playthrough picking up all the knives to chuck at people, then going around and picking them up again after every fight. Some of the platforming sections got a little tricky at times too, as obviously nobody was allowed to JUMP – fortunately, this is where Bom being a halfling came in handy, as he was small and light enough for the other party members to throw across gaps. And of course he had to actually DO the terrible invisible maze in the Gauntlet of Shar, instead of cheesing it like he always did, a fact he complained mightily about. XD But he conquered all these problems with a combination of skill, luck, and incredible cheesing. With some of my favorite examples of the latter including –
I. Building a MASSIVE crate tower so Lae’zel could launch Bom down to the actual forge in the Grymforge to pick up his Mithril armor without having to jump (Bom then had to use crates to avoid the big automaton stomping around in the middle, but it was worth it to not have to give up either the armor or the challenge!)
II. Having the rest of the party members all gradually sacrifice themselves in one of the platforming sections so Shadowheart could get down to the Nightsong and kill her (as otherwise somebody would have had to “Help” her – as in, use an action to get her back on her feet – in an upcoming boss fight in order to progress it, and that would have broken the rules of the challenge)
III. Using the fact that you can cancel a “Throw” action before you actually throw to steal one of the big bads, Gortash, out of his own coronation as Duke and carry him all the way to a bridge before dropping him off the side XD
IV. Buying fireworks specifically to use as throwables against the Absolute herself because MOST thrown weapons miss the big old brain, but fireworks still cause damage so long as they explode near something – just not a lot, so he had to chuck a LOOOT of fireworks
V. And, on a meta level, carefully structuring the rules so it was only the four main characters in his party who had to be “throw only” – because, well, the Emperor HAS to channel a certain spell in order to, you know, defeat the Absolute and kill her. Given he’s an NPC and not an actively controllable character, this did feel fair.
So yeah – it took some doing, but Proxy did beat Baldur’s Gate III using only “Throw!” Or at least came close enough to, if you’re not willing to let him wiggle out of having to let the Emperor channel that spell. :p Looking forward to watching the rest of his ridiculous challenge videos!
B) “How To Play Baldur's Gate 3 In First Person PoV (PC Only)” – a video Proxy made to tell everyone how he turned BG3 into a first-person game for another one of those ridiculous challenge videos! Because enough people wanted to know what he did and how he did it (including Swen, Larian’s CEO!) that he felt compelled to tell them. As you might expect, it was a complicated process involving multiple mods to change how the camera worked, adjust the character’s size so the camera wasn’t too high, and turn the character invisible for certain actions, like jumping. Fortunately for everyone who wanted to try it, Proxy was willing to share the settings he used for fixing the camera into place and getting the character the right height and all that. And for those of us who are perfectly fine with BG3 being third-person – well, it was interesting to see him fucking around with the game like that. XD Guess I should prioritize watching that “beating BG3 in first person” video next!
2. Continue editing “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland”: Check – having broken into the inner mansion and annoyed herself with another one of Grout’s tapes yesterday, Alice started exploring the rooms around the initial foyer today – and found them very wanting. Specifically, to her right she found a horrible surgical theater full of bloodstained beds and maddened ghouls that reminded her far too much of Rutledge; and straight on she found a second terrible surgery room, this one with chairs that reminded her of the one in Vandal’s hidden room in the blood bank where he was keeping Lily captive (as well they should, as I’m certain it’s the same reused model). Causing her to wonder if Vandal got his chair from Grout...and if Stanley the serial killer would have gotten along with the primogen, given their proclivities. *shudder* I left off with her preparing to leave – only for the Queen of Hearts to shout at her to wait. Because, as will become clear when I next work on this, she’s sniffed out something extremely potent in the freezer at the end of the room...
3. Keep up with YouTube “Subs”: Check plus, thanks to a video actually being in my Subs today –
A) First up, we had the latest from Josh Way – “Fun With Shorts: Despotism!” Yuuup, an old educational short from Encyclopedia Britannica about how one recognizes the rise of despotism in one’s community, using various ruler-based metrics (specifically, if power is spread out or concentrated; if respect is given to all or a few; if the economic distribution is equal or slanted; and if information is free to spread or tightly controlled). As you might imagine, most of Josh’s riffs were variations on “this short is TOTALLY NOT RELEVANT to our current situation in the United States!” *wince* Like, it was funny, but – damn. I did not need an old educational short from the 50s to let me know that the current world is kinda fucked.
B) And second up, we had the next video I had to watch from C. M. Alongi – “CaFae Latte Season 64 - TikTok Compilation!” This set of Tik-Toks featured:
I. JC ranting at a customer who came to say they had a problem about how, no, they WEREN’T going to say “Merry Christmas,” they say “Happy Holidays” because they have everyone from atheists to pagans to Jews to Muslims to Christians just behind the counter and Christmas is included in the “Happy Holidays” people do not need to be such ASSHOLES about it – only for the very amused customer to butt in and explain they found a hair in their muffin. An embarrassed JC gave them a new one, and the customer assured them the rant was okay – after all, THEY worked retail too. And had worked the Black Friday shift, so “know your place, peasant” (said with love – and a middle finger, but with love XD)
II. Drek being surprised by his old middle school guidance counselor, Mrs. Williams, showing up in the cafe – the two chatted about Drek’s current life plans, or lack thereof (with Mrs. Williams encouraging him to go to trade school); the fact that EVERYONE knew Drek was gay before Drek knew (apparently his old middle school teachers had a betting pool regarding when he’d come out XD); and Mrs. Williams’s current situation – turned out she too was now in retail (having burned out in her old job) and found it very relaxing! Turns out life is just easier when there’s no administrative drama and no need to call CPS on the regular. (Apparently based on something that really happened to one of C. M.’s friends!)
III. A customer with a service dog showing up at the cafe to order something for both herself and her dog – only for another customer to show up and basically demand to pet Mr. Maple when she saw him, despite the other customer saying that she needed him to concentrate on his job (she has fainting spells and he can warn her so she can sit on the floor and let her blood pressure stabilize). The Karen was only too happy to accuse the disabled customer of making it all up, and Bob was thus only too happy to curse her with the inability to pet any animal for two years, or until she learned to respect animal and animal owner autonomy. Rethu was like “damn, I would have just roasted her.” The Karen flounced off; the disabled customer ended up having to sit on the floor after Mr. Maple warned her of an upcoming incident; and Mr. Maple got an extra dog treat courtesy of Rethu, who justified it as a “Protector of the Realm” discount to Bob. XD Doggo definitely deserved that extra treat!
IV. Nicole showing up at the cafe shortly after this incident (and remarking on the new floor cushions Bob scattered around so any customers like Mr. Maple’s wouldn’t have to sit DIRECTLY on the floor) and ordering her hot chocolate...only for the guy in front of her to start asking where she’s from. And not accepting “Minnesota” as an answer, because, well, Nicole is black. Rethu and Nicole managed to shut him down after a couple of buts, with Nicole saying that no, she’d never done any DNA tests to figure out what part of Africa her ancestors were from because HIS European ones did their best to make sure she had no connection to them, and Rethu just telling him straight up he was not owed anyone’s family history and to stop being a racist. ...Granted, once he was out of earshot, Rethu admitted that he thought Nicole would have researched her family tree just because it seemed like her jam, and Nicole said she had, actually – her mother’s family has roots in a Union soldier from the Civil War who was probably an escaped slave, and her father’s in an enslaved family on a plantation. Meaning her family has been here longer than most of the people who question her family’s have been. She seemed a little rightfully smug about that. XD
V. And JC finding Erik’s lost last paycheck, which prompted a chat between them and Bob about how they haven’t gone to visit him in jail...but they do miss him a little, as he was entertaining (a bit clearly inspired by the “Hot Takes” video, as someone had complained about how the others in the cafe had so quickly stopped thinking or talking about Erik). This then led into JC wondering what Erik was paid – just over $20 an hour – and a customer overhearing this and being like “you pay your employees THAT MUCH?!” Bob explained $21.45 is basically the minimum living wage in the state and she wants her employees to be paid enough to, you know, live – the customer objected on the grounds that food service staff was being paid more than EMTs, but Bob said that, while it wasn’t fair, she didn’t have the ability to raise EMT wages. All she could do was pay her own employees well so she didn’t have to deal with them leaving or mutinying. Causing the customer to leave in a huff...and JC to ask how many mutinies Bob has had to put down in her life. She was apparently a “slow learner” back in the bad old days. :P
Good times! I do enjoy these compilations...though I’m getting a little sad that I’m getting close to the present day with them. Soon I’m gonna have to just wait around for the next one, same as everyone else who has caught up. Meeeh. Ah well, it’ll be worth it.
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Half-check – I just had Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) to worry about today, and I did find a song for Song Saturday to add to my queue by raiding the Poly Songs list created by tumblr user “polyamorousmood” – “Three” by Gaia Consort, which I ended up liking after a listen – but the actual post is nowhere near finished because I kept getting distracted. *shakehead* Still, it’s IN there, and I’ll hopefully have some time tomorrow afternoon/evening to finish it off, so – yeah, half-check. That feels fair. :P (Though, before I forget, the “Polyheart OT3 House Is Done” post went up today, so if you want to see ALL the pictures of the completed lot, here they are!)
And there you have it -- my day in a nutshell. *nods* And now I have to head off to bed, because it's another one of those days off where I can't actually sleep in -- we're leaving at 9:30 AM to head out to the Cape, meaning I want to be up by 7:30 AM to have enough time to eat breakfast and get dressed and actually wake up a bit. Which means going to bed normal time. Meh. *shakehead* Hopefully the day out will be fun enough to justify it! Night all!
Work – Very quiet day at work – I had one call to update a person’s pledge with a new credit card, and one thing I had look up for my boss regarding someone’s gifts (wanting to make sure the amount we had on file was correct), then the rest of my day was spent on obituaries and related bits of roster maintenance. And quietly finishing a crossword in the paper when I ran out of those. *shrug* There’s really just not that much to DO around the office right at the moment! Makes me glad I’ve got tomorrow off, yay~
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike tonight, but not back with the Teens In Space miniseries on Oxventure! Reason being, we’re going out tomorrow to Cape Cod to play mini-golf (three courses’ worth), and it’s supposed to be very hot and summery, so it’s very probable I will not want to work out once we get home. So I’m saving the grand finale of Teens In Space, with the teens fighting a freaking leviathan, for next week. Instead, it was back over to Proxy Gate Tactician’s channel to watch a couple of his videos:
A) “Can You Beat Baldur's Gate 3 Using Only Throw?” – what I believe was the first of his “can you beat the game with this ridiculous challenge enabled” videos, where Proxy set himself the task of beating Baldur’s Gate III with a party that was only allowed to throw things! ...well, okay, they were also allowed to walk around normally, talk to people, and build towers of crates to climb to make their throws more powerful (because technically stacking crates isn’t an “ability” that consumes an action, bonus action, or reaction, and that’s what Proxy was avoiding), but that was about it. So, could Proxy’s brave party of halfling barbarian Bom Trady (and I JUST FUCKING REALIZED: TOM BRADY), Shadowheart, Lae’zel, and a dwarf hireling defeat the Absolute while only allowed to throw things?
The answer was “Yes, but it was a REAL PAIN IN THE ASS sometimes!” Mostly because for the majority of the game, most of the party members didn’t have any throwable weapons that automatically returned to the wielder after being lobbed, meaning Proxy spent a lot of the playthrough picking up all the knives to chuck at people, then going around and picking them up again after every fight. Some of the platforming sections got a little tricky at times too, as obviously nobody was allowed to JUMP – fortunately, this is where Bom being a halfling came in handy, as he was small and light enough for the other party members to throw across gaps. And of course he had to actually DO the terrible invisible maze in the Gauntlet of Shar, instead of cheesing it like he always did, a fact he complained mightily about. XD But he conquered all these problems with a combination of skill, luck, and incredible cheesing. With some of my favorite examples of the latter including –
I. Building a MASSIVE crate tower so Lae’zel could launch Bom down to the actual forge in the Grymforge to pick up his Mithril armor without having to jump (Bom then had to use crates to avoid the big automaton stomping around in the middle, but it was worth it to not have to give up either the armor or the challenge!)
II. Having the rest of the party members all gradually sacrifice themselves in one of the platforming sections so Shadowheart could get down to the Nightsong and kill her (as otherwise somebody would have had to “Help” her – as in, use an action to get her back on her feet – in an upcoming boss fight in order to progress it, and that would have broken the rules of the challenge)
III. Using the fact that you can cancel a “Throw” action before you actually throw to steal one of the big bads, Gortash, out of his own coronation as Duke and carry him all the way to a bridge before dropping him off the side XD
IV. Buying fireworks specifically to use as throwables against the Absolute herself because MOST thrown weapons miss the big old brain, but fireworks still cause damage so long as they explode near something – just not a lot, so he had to chuck a LOOOT of fireworks
V. And, on a meta level, carefully structuring the rules so it was only the four main characters in his party who had to be “throw only” – because, well, the Emperor HAS to channel a certain spell in order to, you know, defeat the Absolute and kill her. Given he’s an NPC and not an actively controllable character, this did feel fair.
So yeah – it took some doing, but Proxy did beat Baldur’s Gate III using only “Throw!” Or at least came close enough to, if you’re not willing to let him wiggle out of having to let the Emperor channel that spell. :p Looking forward to watching the rest of his ridiculous challenge videos!
B) “How To Play Baldur's Gate 3 In First Person PoV (PC Only)” – a video Proxy made to tell everyone how he turned BG3 into a first-person game for another one of those ridiculous challenge videos! Because enough people wanted to know what he did and how he did it (including Swen, Larian’s CEO!) that he felt compelled to tell them. As you might expect, it was a complicated process involving multiple mods to change how the camera worked, adjust the character’s size so the camera wasn’t too high, and turn the character invisible for certain actions, like jumping. Fortunately for everyone who wanted to try it, Proxy was willing to share the settings he used for fixing the camera into place and getting the character the right height and all that. And for those of us who are perfectly fine with BG3 being third-person – well, it was interesting to see him fucking around with the game like that. XD Guess I should prioritize watching that “beating BG3 in first person” video next!
2. Continue editing “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland”: Check – having broken into the inner mansion and annoyed herself with another one of Grout’s tapes yesterday, Alice started exploring the rooms around the initial foyer today – and found them very wanting. Specifically, to her right she found a horrible surgical theater full of bloodstained beds and maddened ghouls that reminded her far too much of Rutledge; and straight on she found a second terrible surgery room, this one with chairs that reminded her of the one in Vandal’s hidden room in the blood bank where he was keeping Lily captive (as well they should, as I’m certain it’s the same reused model). Causing her to wonder if Vandal got his chair from Grout...and if Stanley the serial killer would have gotten along with the primogen, given their proclivities. *shudder* I left off with her preparing to leave – only for the Queen of Hearts to shout at her to wait. Because, as will become clear when I next work on this, she’s sniffed out something extremely potent in the freezer at the end of the room...
3. Keep up with YouTube “Subs”: Check plus, thanks to a video actually being in my Subs today –
A) First up, we had the latest from Josh Way – “Fun With Shorts: Despotism!” Yuuup, an old educational short from Encyclopedia Britannica about how one recognizes the rise of despotism in one’s community, using various ruler-based metrics (specifically, if power is spread out or concentrated; if respect is given to all or a few; if the economic distribution is equal or slanted; and if information is free to spread or tightly controlled). As you might imagine, most of Josh’s riffs were variations on “this short is TOTALLY NOT RELEVANT to our current situation in the United States!” *wince* Like, it was funny, but – damn. I did not need an old educational short from the 50s to let me know that the current world is kinda fucked.
B) And second up, we had the next video I had to watch from C. M. Alongi – “CaFae Latte Season 64 - TikTok Compilation!” This set of Tik-Toks featured:
I. JC ranting at a customer who came to say they had a problem about how, no, they WEREN’T going to say “Merry Christmas,” they say “Happy Holidays” because they have everyone from atheists to pagans to Jews to Muslims to Christians just behind the counter and Christmas is included in the “Happy Holidays” people do not need to be such ASSHOLES about it – only for the very amused customer to butt in and explain they found a hair in their muffin. An embarrassed JC gave them a new one, and the customer assured them the rant was okay – after all, THEY worked retail too. And had worked the Black Friday shift, so “know your place, peasant” (said with love – and a middle finger, but with love XD)
II. Drek being surprised by his old middle school guidance counselor, Mrs. Williams, showing up in the cafe – the two chatted about Drek’s current life plans, or lack thereof (with Mrs. Williams encouraging him to go to trade school); the fact that EVERYONE knew Drek was gay before Drek knew (apparently his old middle school teachers had a betting pool regarding when he’d come out XD); and Mrs. Williams’s current situation – turned out she too was now in retail (having burned out in her old job) and found it very relaxing! Turns out life is just easier when there’s no administrative drama and no need to call CPS on the regular. (Apparently based on something that really happened to one of C. M.’s friends!)
III. A customer with a service dog showing up at the cafe to order something for both herself and her dog – only for another customer to show up and basically demand to pet Mr. Maple when she saw him, despite the other customer saying that she needed him to concentrate on his job (she has fainting spells and he can warn her so she can sit on the floor and let her blood pressure stabilize). The Karen was only too happy to accuse the disabled customer of making it all up, and Bob was thus only too happy to curse her with the inability to pet any animal for two years, or until she learned to respect animal and animal owner autonomy. Rethu was like “damn, I would have just roasted her.” The Karen flounced off; the disabled customer ended up having to sit on the floor after Mr. Maple warned her of an upcoming incident; and Mr. Maple got an extra dog treat courtesy of Rethu, who justified it as a “Protector of the Realm” discount to Bob. XD Doggo definitely deserved that extra treat!
IV. Nicole showing up at the cafe shortly after this incident (and remarking on the new floor cushions Bob scattered around so any customers like Mr. Maple’s wouldn’t have to sit DIRECTLY on the floor) and ordering her hot chocolate...only for the guy in front of her to start asking where she’s from. And not accepting “Minnesota” as an answer, because, well, Nicole is black. Rethu and Nicole managed to shut him down after a couple of buts, with Nicole saying that no, she’d never done any DNA tests to figure out what part of Africa her ancestors were from because HIS European ones did their best to make sure she had no connection to them, and Rethu just telling him straight up he was not owed anyone’s family history and to stop being a racist. ...Granted, once he was out of earshot, Rethu admitted that he thought Nicole would have researched her family tree just because it seemed like her jam, and Nicole said she had, actually – her mother’s family has roots in a Union soldier from the Civil War who was probably an escaped slave, and her father’s in an enslaved family on a plantation. Meaning her family has been here longer than most of the people who question her family’s have been. She seemed a little rightfully smug about that. XD
V. And JC finding Erik’s lost last paycheck, which prompted a chat between them and Bob about how they haven’t gone to visit him in jail...but they do miss him a little, as he was entertaining (a bit clearly inspired by the “Hot Takes” video, as someone had complained about how the others in the cafe had so quickly stopped thinking or talking about Erik). This then led into JC wondering what Erik was paid – just over $20 an hour – and a customer overhearing this and being like “you pay your employees THAT MUCH?!” Bob explained $21.45 is basically the minimum living wage in the state and she wants her employees to be paid enough to, you know, live – the customer objected on the grounds that food service staff was being paid more than EMTs, but Bob said that, while it wasn’t fair, she didn’t have the ability to raise EMT wages. All she could do was pay her own employees well so she didn’t have to deal with them leaving or mutinying. Causing the customer to leave in a huff...and JC to ask how many mutinies Bob has had to put down in her life. She was apparently a “slow learner” back in the bad old days. :P
Good times! I do enjoy these compilations...though I’m getting a little sad that I’m getting close to the present day with them. Soon I’m gonna have to just wait around for the next one, same as everyone else who has caught up. Meeeh. Ah well, it’ll be worth it.
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Half-check – I just had Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) to worry about today, and I did find a song for Song Saturday to add to my queue by raiding the Poly Songs list created by tumblr user “polyamorousmood” – “Three” by Gaia Consort, which I ended up liking after a listen – but the actual post is nowhere near finished because I kept getting distracted. *shakehead* Still, it’s IN there, and I’ll hopefully have some time tomorrow afternoon/evening to finish it off, so – yeah, half-check. That feels fair. :P (Though, before I forget, the “Polyheart OT3 House Is Done” post went up today, so if you want to see ALL the pictures of the completed lot, here they are!)
And there you have it -- my day in a nutshell. *nods* And now I have to head off to bed, because it's another one of those days off where I can't actually sleep in -- we're leaving at 9:30 AM to head out to the Cape, meaning I want to be up by 7:30 AM to have enough time to eat breakfast and get dressed and actually wake up a bit. Which means going to bed normal time. Meh. *shakehead* Hopefully the day out will be fun enough to justify it! Night all!
no subject
Date: 2025-06-19 08:44 pm (UTC)According to Google, the numbers for New Jersey are $7.24 poverty, $15.13 minimum, and $24.76 living wage for 1 adult no children. But even though I make a little over $27 and so does husband, we still can't seem to get above water.
no subject
Date: 2025-06-21 03:51 am (UTC)Oooof, that sucks -- though then again, you are two adults with a kid...and it's also possible Google pulled up some old information for you. Add in all the inflation and higher prices we've had to deal with, and -- yeah. It's fucking tough out here in Capitalism Land!