Annoyed With Dishes Tuesday
Aug. 19th, 2025 11:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickIf you're wondering "WTF does that mean," I just ended up really annoyed tonight after supper because I kept having to rewash dishes my parents had already washed because there was food stuck to them. Meaning I was a little late getting back on the computer, meaning I was late getting to my various write-ups, and -- yeah. It's just another example of how I never seem to have enough time for anything anymore because there are always Things I Have To Do, and then my brain at a certain point goes "right, no more Things, I just want to rot" no matter how much stuff I have left. It just -- it really irritated me tonight. I dunno why. Just a bad brain day, I suppose. *sigh* Anyway, the write-up --
Work – An all right day at work – I did the usual morning reports while my coworker did the GL, then called a bunch of people about overpayments (two of whom called me back – one wanted a refund, the other said it would be fine to apply it to next year’s campaign), then spent most of the rest of the day working on obituaries. With some brief breaks to take some credit card update calls (one at the beginning of the day, one at the end), and to discuss the “overpayments” situation with the assistant director going forward (she doesn’t want a small overpayment being moved to the next campaign year to stop big donors from getting a letter, which fair – we’ve decided we’ll wait until the director himself gets back from vacation and talk about it with him). Nothing particularly exciting or horrible, which suits me just fine. We’ll see what tomorrow brings!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night with “Discworld: Adventures in Ankh-Morpork | Oxventure One-Shot | (ft. Dominic Allen)!” The crime-solving shenanigans with Constable Surly (Dom), Constable Igorina (Jane), Detective Bartholemew (Mike) and Constable Cliff (Johnny) continued tonight, and included:
A) Some confusion between Bartholemew and the hard-of-hearing Rufus, the owner of The Lamp & Needles Tavern, regarding the roles of the squad, after Rufus declared he liked Surly but not Bartholemew – Bartholemew identified himself as the “bad cop,” Cliff as the “large cop,” and Igorina as the “lisping” cop, then tried to go “forget it, it’s fine” when Rufus overheard the last as “wisping cop.” Rufus was like “it’s not five, it’s eleven,” prompting Bartholemew to be “it’s five o’clock somewhere!” Resulting in Rufus pouring him a whiskey. XD Well, that worked out nicely for him!
B) Surly managing to use his infectious personality to get some info out of Rufus about their possible miscreant, John! You know, the weirdly-normal man in the brown suit who is of average height for a human. :p As it turned out, Rufus did know John – he was one of the regulars at the place, and had a tendency to get a little too drunk and start unburdening himself of his woes. And the other night, while in his cups, he’d started going on about how unfair the world was, and how he could fix everything if he had a dragon...yeah, as you might imagine, some worried looks were exchanged around that time between our heroes! He also revealed that the man was rather lacking in money, and had paid for last night’s drinks by leaving a mysterious object behind – a weird cross between a telescope and a pocket watch that Igorina, after some investigation, recognized as a “theoddolite,” a piece of equipment architects use! With this particular one labeled “Stone On Stone.” Surly and Cliff both came to the conclusion that Jon was probably going to blow up a building for money (helped along by Rufus telling them about how John apparently owed his last dollar to Miss Effin – sorry, Miss ETHIN), while Bartholemew suggested that, given the way John was talking, he might be planning an assassination attempt on Vetinari (Surly’s response to that was a snort and a “good luck” XD). Anyway, after finishing up with Rufus (including Bartholemew very unsuccessfully trying to prod the man into indicating which direction John went in when he left, instead just becoming very emotional and warm from the whiskey), the group decided it was time to follow up on their leads. Surly asked if Cliff knew what “Stone On Stone” meant (because, well, troll – Cliff was like “give me a minute to work out if that culturally insensitive” XD), but unfortunately on a poor roll, Cliff did not (and managed to twist his ankle besides!). So instead, prompted by Igorina, we saw –
C) The gang heading to Nobblers & Sons! Fine purveyors of artisanal coal (great snacks for trolls), who were supposed to make a delivery of coal dust (aka dragon treats) to the Sanctuary that morning, but who had never shown up. The group found the shop mysteriously closed when they arrived, but since they had “The law is really more of a guideline” Bartholemew with them, they soon got inside. Poor Cliff immediately froze up because he wanted very much to take some coal, but knew that would be wrong – Bartholemew tried to help by snitching him a bag of coal dust and saying “it’s all right, I stole it, nothing to do with you,” but that just led to Cliff deciding he had to submit the bag as evidence. And then Surly took a picture of the whole thing, causing Cliff to say in horror that he just broke bad. XD
ANYWAY – after all that, the gang started doing some actual police work, starting with seeing that the door to the back courtyard had been roughly jimmied open with a crowbar. They headed out to investigate, and found a set of wheel ruts that matched the type they’d seen at the Sanctuary...and a distinct lack of a carriage to fill them. Hmmmm. Bartholemew then led the way upstairs to see what was going on above the shop, and opened the door onto a modestly-but-pleasantly appointed room –
With a man gagged and tied to a chair in the center of it. Very dead on account of the giant dagger in his chest. Igorina attempted to remove it as evidence, but on a poor roll ended up dragging it across the man’s chest and spraying herself with yet more blood (the woman is a walking gore lasagna, to paraphrase Jane) –
And causing the man to suddenly start shouting against the gag! Seems their murder victim had become a zombie post-mortem – which meant he was available for questioning! So question him they did, causing him to reveal that he’d been murdered by some fellow with a bag over his head, wearing a brown suit and ranting and raving about golems and how they’re taking jobs and whatnot. Hmmm – the plot clumpens! Anyway, the man (Crispin Nobblers, as he eventually introduced himself) was very annoyed at having been murdered – though he perked up a little when Cliff pointed out that he no longer had to worry about “life in-sewer-ants,” noting that he’d had a policy and that it might be a silver lining to the whole mess. No carriage insurance, though, meaning he was pretty well screwed when it came to that theft, poor chap. The group promised Crispin that they were on the case and that, if they found his carriage, they’d put in the impound lot so he could pick up it up. Crispin was appreciative and asked Bartholemew if he had any tips for being a zombie – Bartholemew was like “lavender – it really hides the smell.” XD Anyway, with some new facts learned, poor Crispin freed from the chair, and the dagger bagged up for the rest of forensics to have a look at (because poor Igorina, on ANOTHER bad roll to examine it, ended up picking up the trait “doesn’t know what a dagger is” and thus couldn’t identify it for the life of her), the gang proceeded onward! Which led to –
D) The gang heading to the mysterious “Stone On Stone” – which, as per their questioning of Crispin, was an architectural firm in the area with a golem on staff. This establishment was actually open, and upon letting themselves inside, the group saw all sorts of people sitting at little desks drafting (including the golem), a woman checking all their work, and newspaper clippings on the wall about various buildings the firm had helped create – including their most recent contract to refurbish the Misbegot Bridge over the river Ankh. (Johnny was immediately like :O over that!) They managed to get the attention of the woman in charge, who brought them up to her office – and after a bit of questioning, she confirmed that they had had a John on staff until recently – a John Johnson, to be precise. However, they’d had to let him go because a) his behavior had become increasingly erratic (apparently partly because his landlady, Miss Ethin, had recently raised her rents), and b) they’d hired the golem Plots to help with drafting, and thanks to his ability to draw everything as it would eventually look when finished, they’d simply hadn’t needed John anymore. Cliff quickly realized what was likely going to happen (as quickly as a troll could, anyway), and attempted to charm the woman into revealing if the Misbegot bridge had any particular structural deficiencies that might be vulnerable to an exploding dragon – his diamond-tooth smile proved a little too reflective for her liking, but fortunately Surly was there to jump in with his infectious personality and sway her into giving them the inside scoop. She thus told them in strictest confidence that the supports on the bridge were NOT doing well and desperately needed shoring up – but that information could NOT get out, as the firm NEEDED this contract to go well (as they hadn’t been getting many jobs lately). The gang promised to keep it on the down low, and I ended this particular chunklet with Surly telling her that she’d be able to get her “theoddolite” back by writing to the Watch office after the investigation was over – the woman was a bit grumpy about having to give it back (having been very pleased when Igorina pulled it out, as apparently they’re worth $20 AM, which is a lot), but was mollified when Surly promised her that they’d compensate her if anything happened to it. And then was somewhat UN-mollified when Bartholemew started going on about the “bad old days” and how, if it disappeared during the investigation, it might not be worth her time to try and track it down. XD
And there we have it for now! Tomorrow, it looks like the gang will be heading over to Ethin’s Boarding House (as they got the address off the lady at Stone On Stone), and we’ll see if they’re right about John targeting the Misbegot bridge! There may be a twist or a turn yet to this story...
2. Continue final edits on “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland” Chapter 5: Check – it took longer than I thought thanks to some tricky edits early on in the process, but I did just make it to page 20 out of 54 in my edits today, covering Alice tackling the candle puzzle in the library (and picking up the Weekapaug Thistle, of course); fighting the ghouls in the stairwell room (and feeling horribly guilty about it); listening to more of Grout’s terrible tape recorders (hating him more with each one); having a brief quiet moment on the tower walk above the house; and sneaking past yet more ghouls with the power of invisibility (so very useful). I left off with her having met 6768 and 6789 in the fake-mirror room, getting ready to listen to another one of Grout’s tapes – tomorrow, we see if I can get up to page 30 and through yet more of the terrible-awful-no-good-very-bad mansion! Be nice if I could get the new chapter up by Saturday, but we’ll see...
3. Keep up with YouTube “Subs”: No check – I simply did not have time tonight. You do not want to know how long it took me to do that write-up on the Oxventure Discworld one-shot up there. *facepalm* I have GOT to learn how to be less wordy in my write-ups...I just always want to share all the good jokes and whatnot with you guys...
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – nothing on Valice Multiverse tonight, but I knew pretty much exactly what I wanted to put in my queue for the week on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler):
A) For Wednesday, I have some fanart by benmix98 of the two Malkavian fledglings genderswapped – that is, the cheerleading-outfit-wearing fem!Malk was now a man, and the ready-for-the-rave masc!Malk was now a woman – the designs were really neat, so I really wanted to share ‘em. :)
B) For Thursday, I have some more fanart by benmix98, this time of Beckett looking at something while wiping blood from his lips – Beckett is best vampire, so adding that to the queue was a no-brainer. :)
C) And for Friday, some fanart by asylumpixie of a Malkavian OC in fancy Elizabethan clothes pouring blood all over the neck of a dressed-for-the-Napoleonic-Wars LaCroix laying in front of her – this is that incredibly detailed and gorgeous piece I told you all about in a previous entry, and I HAD to throw it in there.
Yeah, kind of foreshadowing the upcoming LB:DQ chapter with all this, I feel! XD Now I just have to find the right Song Saturday...but I can do that tomorrow. If I have the time of course.
Other: Another nice day, another round of beanbags – and this time, Dad absolutely smoked Mom and me. Just straight up wins every time. And poor Mom – well, she tried, especially in the last game, but she was never able to get ahead of me. Final scores were me 2-2-2; Dad W-W-W; and Mom 3-3-3. *shrug* Them’s the breaks, I suppose!
Aaand I have officially stayed up too late. *facepalm* I'd better get to bed before things get any worse -- night all!
Work – An all right day at work – I did the usual morning reports while my coworker did the GL, then called a bunch of people about overpayments (two of whom called me back – one wanted a refund, the other said it would be fine to apply it to next year’s campaign), then spent most of the rest of the day working on obituaries. With some brief breaks to take some credit card update calls (one at the beginning of the day, one at the end), and to discuss the “overpayments” situation with the assistant director going forward (she doesn’t want a small overpayment being moved to the next campaign year to stop big donors from getting a letter, which fair – we’ve decided we’ll wait until the director himself gets back from vacation and talk about it with him). Nothing particularly exciting or horrible, which suits me just fine. We’ll see what tomorrow brings!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night with “Discworld: Adventures in Ankh-Morpork | Oxventure One-Shot | (ft. Dominic Allen)!” The crime-solving shenanigans with Constable Surly (Dom), Constable Igorina (Jane), Detective Bartholemew (Mike) and Constable Cliff (Johnny) continued tonight, and included:
A) Some confusion between Bartholemew and the hard-of-hearing Rufus, the owner of The Lamp & Needles Tavern, regarding the roles of the squad, after Rufus declared he liked Surly but not Bartholemew – Bartholemew identified himself as the “bad cop,” Cliff as the “large cop,” and Igorina as the “lisping” cop, then tried to go “forget it, it’s fine” when Rufus overheard the last as “wisping cop.” Rufus was like “it’s not five, it’s eleven,” prompting Bartholemew to be “it’s five o’clock somewhere!” Resulting in Rufus pouring him a whiskey. XD Well, that worked out nicely for him!
B) Surly managing to use his infectious personality to get some info out of Rufus about their possible miscreant, John! You know, the weirdly-normal man in the brown suit who is of average height for a human. :p As it turned out, Rufus did know John – he was one of the regulars at the place, and had a tendency to get a little too drunk and start unburdening himself of his woes. And the other night, while in his cups, he’d started going on about how unfair the world was, and how he could fix everything if he had a dragon...yeah, as you might imagine, some worried looks were exchanged around that time between our heroes! He also revealed that the man was rather lacking in money, and had paid for last night’s drinks by leaving a mysterious object behind – a weird cross between a telescope and a pocket watch that Igorina, after some investigation, recognized as a “theoddolite,” a piece of equipment architects use! With this particular one labeled “Stone On Stone.” Surly and Cliff both came to the conclusion that Jon was probably going to blow up a building for money (helped along by Rufus telling them about how John apparently owed his last dollar to Miss Effin – sorry, Miss ETHIN), while Bartholemew suggested that, given the way John was talking, he might be planning an assassination attempt on Vetinari (Surly’s response to that was a snort and a “good luck” XD). Anyway, after finishing up with Rufus (including Bartholemew very unsuccessfully trying to prod the man into indicating which direction John went in when he left, instead just becoming very emotional and warm from the whiskey), the group decided it was time to follow up on their leads. Surly asked if Cliff knew what “Stone On Stone” meant (because, well, troll – Cliff was like “give me a minute to work out if that culturally insensitive” XD), but unfortunately on a poor roll, Cliff did not (and managed to twist his ankle besides!). So instead, prompted by Igorina, we saw –
C) The gang heading to Nobblers & Sons! Fine purveyors of artisanal coal (great snacks for trolls), who were supposed to make a delivery of coal dust (aka dragon treats) to the Sanctuary that morning, but who had never shown up. The group found the shop mysteriously closed when they arrived, but since they had “The law is really more of a guideline” Bartholemew with them, they soon got inside. Poor Cliff immediately froze up because he wanted very much to take some coal, but knew that would be wrong – Bartholemew tried to help by snitching him a bag of coal dust and saying “it’s all right, I stole it, nothing to do with you,” but that just led to Cliff deciding he had to submit the bag as evidence. And then Surly took a picture of the whole thing, causing Cliff to say in horror that he just broke bad. XD
ANYWAY – after all that, the gang started doing some actual police work, starting with seeing that the door to the back courtyard had been roughly jimmied open with a crowbar. They headed out to investigate, and found a set of wheel ruts that matched the type they’d seen at the Sanctuary...and a distinct lack of a carriage to fill them. Hmmmm. Bartholemew then led the way upstairs to see what was going on above the shop, and opened the door onto a modestly-but-pleasantly appointed room –
With a man gagged and tied to a chair in the center of it. Very dead on account of the giant dagger in his chest. Igorina attempted to remove it as evidence, but on a poor roll ended up dragging it across the man’s chest and spraying herself with yet more blood (the woman is a walking gore lasagna, to paraphrase Jane) –
And causing the man to suddenly start shouting against the gag! Seems their murder victim had become a zombie post-mortem – which meant he was available for questioning! So question him they did, causing him to reveal that he’d been murdered by some fellow with a bag over his head, wearing a brown suit and ranting and raving about golems and how they’re taking jobs and whatnot. Hmmm – the plot clumpens! Anyway, the man (Crispin Nobblers, as he eventually introduced himself) was very annoyed at having been murdered – though he perked up a little when Cliff pointed out that he no longer had to worry about “life in-sewer-ants,” noting that he’d had a policy and that it might be a silver lining to the whole mess. No carriage insurance, though, meaning he was pretty well screwed when it came to that theft, poor chap. The group promised Crispin that they were on the case and that, if they found his carriage, they’d put in the impound lot so he could pick up it up. Crispin was appreciative and asked Bartholemew if he had any tips for being a zombie – Bartholemew was like “lavender – it really hides the smell.” XD Anyway, with some new facts learned, poor Crispin freed from the chair, and the dagger bagged up for the rest of forensics to have a look at (because poor Igorina, on ANOTHER bad roll to examine it, ended up picking up the trait “doesn’t know what a dagger is” and thus couldn’t identify it for the life of her), the gang proceeded onward! Which led to –
D) The gang heading to the mysterious “Stone On Stone” – which, as per their questioning of Crispin, was an architectural firm in the area with a golem on staff. This establishment was actually open, and upon letting themselves inside, the group saw all sorts of people sitting at little desks drafting (including the golem), a woman checking all their work, and newspaper clippings on the wall about various buildings the firm had helped create – including their most recent contract to refurbish the Misbegot Bridge over the river Ankh. (Johnny was immediately like :O over that!) They managed to get the attention of the woman in charge, who brought them up to her office – and after a bit of questioning, she confirmed that they had had a John on staff until recently – a John Johnson, to be precise. However, they’d had to let him go because a) his behavior had become increasingly erratic (apparently partly because his landlady, Miss Ethin, had recently raised her rents), and b) they’d hired the golem Plots to help with drafting, and thanks to his ability to draw everything as it would eventually look when finished, they’d simply hadn’t needed John anymore. Cliff quickly realized what was likely going to happen (as quickly as a troll could, anyway), and attempted to charm the woman into revealing if the Misbegot bridge had any particular structural deficiencies that might be vulnerable to an exploding dragon – his diamond-tooth smile proved a little too reflective for her liking, but fortunately Surly was there to jump in with his infectious personality and sway her into giving them the inside scoop. She thus told them in strictest confidence that the supports on the bridge were NOT doing well and desperately needed shoring up – but that information could NOT get out, as the firm NEEDED this contract to go well (as they hadn’t been getting many jobs lately). The gang promised to keep it on the down low, and I ended this particular chunklet with Surly telling her that she’d be able to get her “theoddolite” back by writing to the Watch office after the investigation was over – the woman was a bit grumpy about having to give it back (having been very pleased when Igorina pulled it out, as apparently they’re worth $20 AM, which is a lot), but was mollified when Surly promised her that they’d compensate her if anything happened to it. And then was somewhat UN-mollified when Bartholemew started going on about the “bad old days” and how, if it disappeared during the investigation, it might not be worth her time to try and track it down. XD
And there we have it for now! Tomorrow, it looks like the gang will be heading over to Ethin’s Boarding House (as they got the address off the lady at Stone On Stone), and we’ll see if they’re right about John targeting the Misbegot bridge! There may be a twist or a turn yet to this story...
2. Continue final edits on “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland” Chapter 5: Check – it took longer than I thought thanks to some tricky edits early on in the process, but I did just make it to page 20 out of 54 in my edits today, covering Alice tackling the candle puzzle in the library (and picking up the Weekapaug Thistle, of course); fighting the ghouls in the stairwell room (and feeling horribly guilty about it); listening to more of Grout’s terrible tape recorders (hating him more with each one); having a brief quiet moment on the tower walk above the house; and sneaking past yet more ghouls with the power of invisibility (so very useful). I left off with her having met 6768 and 6789 in the fake-mirror room, getting ready to listen to another one of Grout’s tapes – tomorrow, we see if I can get up to page 30 and through yet more of the terrible-awful-no-good-very-bad mansion! Be nice if I could get the new chapter up by Saturday, but we’ll see...
3. Keep up with YouTube “Subs”: No check – I simply did not have time tonight. You do not want to know how long it took me to do that write-up on the Oxventure Discworld one-shot up there. *facepalm* I have GOT to learn how to be less wordy in my write-ups...I just always want to share all the good jokes and whatnot with you guys...
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – nothing on Valice Multiverse tonight, but I knew pretty much exactly what I wanted to put in my queue for the week on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler):
A) For Wednesday, I have some fanart by benmix98 of the two Malkavian fledglings genderswapped – that is, the cheerleading-outfit-wearing fem!Malk was now a man, and the ready-for-the-rave masc!Malk was now a woman – the designs were really neat, so I really wanted to share ‘em. :)
B) For Thursday, I have some more fanart by benmix98, this time of Beckett looking at something while wiping blood from his lips – Beckett is best vampire, so adding that to the queue was a no-brainer. :)
C) And for Friday, some fanart by asylumpixie of a Malkavian OC in fancy Elizabethan clothes pouring blood all over the neck of a dressed-for-the-Napoleonic-Wars LaCroix laying in front of her – this is that incredibly detailed and gorgeous piece I told you all about in a previous entry, and I HAD to throw it in there.
Yeah, kind of foreshadowing the upcoming LB:DQ chapter with all this, I feel! XD Now I just have to find the right Song Saturday...but I can do that tomorrow. If I have the time of course.
Other: Another nice day, another round of beanbags – and this time, Dad absolutely smoked Mom and me. Just straight up wins every time. And poor Mom – well, she tried, especially in the last game, but she was never able to get ahead of me. Final scores were me 2-2-2; Dad W-W-W; and Mom 3-3-3. *shrug* Them’s the breaks, I suppose!
Aaand I have officially stayed up too late. *facepalm* I'd better get to bed before things get any worse -- night all!
