Up and Down Thursday
Nov. 6th, 2025 11:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickIt was a day that had some true highs and lows, as my daily write-up will attest to:
Work – Well, today was the off-site “Renewal Day” event, and I am hear to tell you that I did not have a particularly good time –
A) The drive there and back, while fortunately not particularly trafficky, was also not particularly fun because, one, it was a route I wasn’t particularly familiar with; two, the freaking speed limit kept changing along said route (it’s 30! Now it’s 40! Now it’s 35! Now it’s 25!); and three, I had to go on a highway where the speed limit was 65 MPH, which is not a speed I generally like going at – especially since people in this state loooove speeding and thus people got pissy when I “only” went like 70 at most. *shakehead* I really fucking hate driving.
B) The event was held in the church’s attached gymnasium, which was a little chilly (I ended up putting my coat back on around lunchtime) and full of extremely uncomfortable chairs (it’s a good thing that they let us have stretch breaks, because I needed them)
C) The provided lunch was pretty shitty – pre-made platters from a local supermarket, served cold; as I couldn’t figure out what was in any of the provided wraps, I ended up having some chicken and some spinach stuffed in bread slices and a bit of broccoli salad (the former two items were not great, but the broccoli salad was actually fairly tasty, so yay there I guess)
D) And the presentations themselves were utter nonsense – like, there was a lot of stuff about “giving God back the initiative” and “going back to a Biblical worldview” and all that, which I more or less expected...and then one of the speakers started comparing Jesus on the cross to an AMBUSH PREDATOR (the idea being he was luring in Satan to take him out) and I was like “oh, you people are all completely mental.” *facepalm* I just – I don’t know. This is what I get for being a non-religious person in a religious job, I guess.
So yeah – not a great day. But, on the plus side, the bathrooms were actually in quite nice shape (cleaner than the ones we have in the Diocese); my coworkers at our table seemed to find the whole thing equally ridiculous; and – most importantly – we got out a couple of minutes early, meaning that – thanks to the lighter traffic – I was home by 3 PM. *nods* I’ll take that, at least! And tomorrow is Friday, yay~ Hoping it’s a good one!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike, and back with the special features on my 25th Anniversary Back To The Future Blu-Ray! Tonight’s pedal session saw me watch:
A) The last bit of the “Tales From The Future: In The Beginning…” featurette, which covered the creation of the time machine, including:
I. Its humble beginnings in the earliest drafts as a time chamber made out of a refrigerator (until a dissatisfied Bob Zemeckis went “actually, you’d want to make it mobile, wouldn’t you?” while he and Bob Gale were working on rewrites, cuing its transformation into a DeLorean)
II. The crew acquiring three DeLoreans (the A car or “hero” car for all the close-ups and whatnot, the B car for stuntwork and chases and long shots, and the C car for process shots (meaning that one got cut up so they could do close-ups of Marty in the DeLorean)) and hitting the surplus stores to grab all sorts of weird and wonderful stuff to pop on the cars to make them look like homemade time machines (because Doc was supposed to have built this thing in his garage)
III. And the Bobs working with ILM to design what traveling through time should look like – before deciding that an extended “going through time” sequence wasn’t necessary and that the time travel itself should be instantaneous (though they DID like this “fireball” sort of effect ILM came up with, which led to the iconic fire trails being left behind whenever the car broke the time barrier, so to speak)
Good stuff – even if it surprised me how close to the end of that featurette I’d been! I thought it was a lot longer. O.o
B) The entirety of the “Tales From The Future: Time To Go” featurette, which covered such things as:
I. The famous story where one of the bigwigs at Universal, Sid Sheinberg, tried to get them to change the title of the movie from “Back To The Future” (which he didn’t understand) to “Spaceman From Pluto,” only for Steven Spielberg to save the day by sending back a memo thanking him for the big laugh and pretending they’d all thought it was a big joke, making him too embarrassed to admit he’d been serious
II. The difficulties of doing the “Lorraine has the hots for Marty, her own future son” part of the plot, with Lea saying that the “innocence” of Lorraine being a teenager in the 1950s helped a lot, and Bob Zemeckis saying that what made it okay for him was Lorraine kissing Marty and then rejecting him because she was creeped out thanks to it feeling wrong (in fact, he noted the “when I kiss you, it feels like I’m kissing...my brother” line as his favorite in the script)
III. The transformation of the back lot into the town square of Hill Valley, after they realized there was no way they could film in a real town – including the refit of one of the buildings there into the iconic clock tower (basically, they just had to add the top clock bit with the gargoyles – which the set/prop guy found hanging around as leftovers from The Cat People movie) and the guy in charge of product placement being very careful to only get stuff that was genuinely available in the 50s (and talking about how Texaco in particular went above and beyond by helping them design the entire 50s gas station, telling them what pumps they needed and everything)
IV. The Bobs talking about how the original ending was supposed to see Marty and Doc travel to a nuclear test site to get the power they needed, and how it got nixed for budget reasons...and how that was a blessing in disguise, as the “lightning hitting the clock tower” ending turned out to be MUCH stronger and turned the clock tower into a character in the film in itself (it is genuinely impossible for me to picture BTTF being the hit it was with that original ending)
V. And the realization that they had a HUGE hit on their hands, starting with seeing everything coming together in the edit, going through the test screening audiences having SUCH a positive reaction that Sid promptly moved the official release date from August to July 3rd so it would be out in time for the Fourth Of July weekend, and culminating in BTTF being top at the box office for eleven out of twelve weeks (a feat that made it fairly unique among movies at the time) – which, naturally, led to talk of sequels…
Good stuff once again! :) I think tomorrow I’ll wrap things up by watching the final “Tales Of The Future” featurette – and then, next week, we break out BTTF Part II! With the June 2002 Bob Gale/Neil Canton commentary, of course. :)
2. Work on Valicer Polyship Week 2025 stuff: Check – chose to edit the Day Two prompt, “Rain,” before my workout, since I had the time. And unlike the first three stories I edited, this one went QUITE smoothly! Like, yeah, there were a few little stumbles here and there as I considered word choices and rephrased bits of dialogue and such, but it didn’t have to straight up fight with the damn fic from the word “go.” Talk about a nice change! Though I’m not sure if it’s because I was able to get to this particular fic earlier in the day –
Or if it’s because this particular fic was my Valicer In The Dark story. Featuring my beloved crime trio hiding under an awning after some sudden heavy rain spoiled their walk, and talking about Meta (the language of sorcery, which is one of Victor’s main areas of study as a Whisper) and how it doesn’t seem to have a word for “clear skies” (or, rather, it probably does but humans don’t know it, because devils in Akoros, where they live, aren’t exactly forthcoming with that information). Wrapping up with Victor using one of the words he does know to summon up a blast of heat to warm himself and his chilly partners. :) <3 ...look, if you don’t know that I’m utterly obsessed with this AU at this point, that’s on you, I have made it very obvious. XD At any rate, hoping this means that future stories will also not fight me as much – fingers crossed, people!
3. Watch something on FreeTube/Invidious: Check – coming home early, and thus being able to take care of my writing early, allowed me some extra time this evening to catch up on one of the longer OXBox videos that I’ve been dying to watch – “HITMAN BRUCE LEE | Elusive Target The Infiltrator | Let's NOT Kill Bruce Lee!” Yes, as per the title, we had another elusive target mission starring a celebrity – but in this one, the celebrity was NOT the guy you’re trying to kill! Possibly IO thought it would be in bad taste for 47 to try and murder Bruce Lee, given the guy is, one, a beloved action star, and two, already dead – passed away tragically at age 32 from a “brain edema,” aka a fatal build-up of fluid in the brain cavity (thanks, Wikipedia). Instead, in this mission, Bruce Lee was in fact a fellow agent, trying to infiltrate the Concord Union (a dangerous Chinese crime family) and kill its deadly “Dragon Head,” Jiaolong Wu, via winning an underground martial-arts tournament where the prize is an audience with the guy. 47’s role was simply to facilitate that by eliminating any threats to Lee winning the tournament – and if Lee couldn’t do it, take out Jiaolong Wu himself. Andy was on the controls for this one, with Mike and Jane on the sidelines offering moral support and commentary – here’s the highlights from the mission:
A) Andy choosing to show up to the repurposed Bangkok hotel where everything was taking place in the “Vanity” suit from the Seven Deadly Sins DLC, which is silver and covered in peacock-feather-shaped mirrors – at one point, he mentioned he must be clanking like wind chimes whenever he moved XD
B) Mike disparaging the fashion sense of the random rich guy Andy choked out in order to gain access to his hotel room (so he could lure in and then choke out the guy who had the invitation he needed to access the tournament) – the man made the mistake of wearing shorts with a jacket, and Mike was firmly on the side of “if it’s warm enough for shorts it’s too warm for a jacket,” aka the side of righteousness and sense
C) Mike wondering why a hotel in Bangkok had Cockney guards, only for Andy to retort “you know as well as I do Hitman has three voice actors” XD (Jane then pointed out that recycling the voices, even if they didn’t necessarily make sense, was actually a smart move on IO’s part, as it meant they didn’t have to worry about someone doing any unfortunate accents that might get them canceled, or spending on a fortune recruiting voice actors for every place 47 visits)
D) Andy geeking out when 47 got into the tournament room and found Agent Bruce Lee preparing to have a match – cue 47 sitting down to watch and everyone marveling at the fictional Lee’s fancy moves (though Jane was concerned by how much his opponent was bleeding – Mike reminded her that this was an underground tournament and thus nobody cared much if one opponent was spraying blood everywhere)
E) The trio admiring Agent Lee’s yellow jumpsuit (taken straight from the real Lee’s iconic turn in his final, unfinished movie Game Of Death)...and me finally realizing why Phil Wang wore a similar jumpsuit in Series 7 of Taskmaster (I never saw the movie, so I never got the reference! ...also, let’s face it, Phil’s wang was the most iconic thing about that costume. XD I’m pleased to report Agent Lee’s modesty was a bit better preserved)
F) Agent Lee taking 47 aside to let him know about the extra targets marked for death by British Intelligence (three last-minute substitutions in the tournament that Lee thought were put in especially to target him)...except he only took him into the other room, right next to the open doorway looking in at the tournament ring – cue Andy getting distracted by another fight going on in the background while Agent Lee attempted to exposit on what they’d need to do to make sure he won XD
G) Andy wandering around looking at the general area while Agent Lee chatted with one of his opponents (and one of 47’s targets, Roland Chao) – then getting a message that Agent Lee had been drugged and being like “what?! I left him alone for 10 seconds!” XD
H) The resultant conversation between 47 and Lee showing off one of Hitman’s failings – namely, the game sometimes giving the wrong conversation priority in the subtitles. Cue poor Andy having to listen/read the random natterings of the couple drinking wine at the nearby table instead of Agent Lee telling 47 that he’d been drugged with a mild paralytic agent and needed either an antidote or – if worse came to worst – 47 to sub in for him during the next fight
I) Andy spotting Roland Chao standing right next to a balcony and rushing over to body him over it – only for Roland to turn around at the last second, forcing him to abort and Jane to comment about how that must have been fairly terrifying for the guy. XD Andy did eventually shove him over the railing, but only after following him around for a while to learn his route and catching him playing on his phone (Jane said he was probably addicted to “Hero Wars” XD)
J) Andy commenting that, in this game, “people don’t tend to look at you unless you look at them,” and explaining that’s why he looks at the floor whenever he chokes people out for their clothes as a disguise. Yes, he did say this while choking out an unfortunate member of the kitchen staff to steal his clothes for a disguise XD
K) Andy using his new disguise to steal some deadly fugu fish from the kitchen (after overhearing two of the other chefs talk about it) and plate it up at the buffet (using the power of Hitman “instant cooking”) – cue another one of his targets, Zen, coming over, going “finally, some fugu!” and sampling it, and dying all before Andy could actually get into position to serve him XD
L) Andy tracking down the final target, Xiao Hu, in the gym and following her around for a while, looking for a good opportunity to kill her – before abruptly remembering that he didn’t check to see if Zen dropped anything when he died and running back to the buffet to see what had been left behind. Turned out it was a very good thing he did go back, because among the dropped items was an antidote for the poison Agent Lee had been dosed with! So Agent 47 found him and passed that over (once Lee was no longer “busy” walking around), ensuring he could fight in the upcoming matches
M) Andy then having 47 murder Xiao Hu by crushing her under a barbell while, oblivious, a fellow marital artist got water from the cooler mere feet away – it actually took her rather a long time to notice the dead body, allowing Andy – who had fled before he could be blamed – a moment to sneak back and grab a keycard off the corpse (not that he ever used it, but still – that’s +10 XP for unlocking goodies)
N) Andy wandering the level trying to find things to do because he’d been too efficient and killed all his secondary targets early – leading to him infiltrating the dead Roland’s office, and canceling a random “transaction” on his laptop (Mike joked it was his Disney+ subscription, and Andy and Jane agreed they were doing him a favor)
O) Andy finally sending 47 to just watch the remaining matches after spotting final target Jiaolong Wu upstairs but being unable to get to him – as expected, Agent Lee won the final round and was allowed an audience with Wu...where he immediately more or less revealed his identity, causing Wu to challenge him to a fight to the death (Andy and Mike were incredulous about this turn of events, while Jane was like “he has too much honor to be an undercover agent!” XD)
P) Andy watching Agent Lee and Jiaolong Wu duke it out, amusing himself by standing up every time they traded blows (i.e., almost constantly) – he did end up taking out a wrench he picked up in the gym to throw at Wu just in case things didn’t go well, but fortunately Agent Lee was able to solo the guy. And somehow kill him by lightly kicking him over like he did all his other opponents (everyone was like “??!?! XD” about this)
Q) Andy nearly screwing things up at the last minute by stealing the keycard to Wu’s body from his corpse and trying to use it to sneak into his rooms upstairs...while watched by a whole BUNCH of guards. Naturally, they immediately noticed, and he fled before anything bad happened. He then nearly went into the kitchen by accident while trying to make his escape, causing him to wonder why this was the hardest part of the level XD
R) Andy getting four stars and the “Clean ICA Assassin” rank for this mission where he let Bruce Lee do a lot of the heavy lifting – but apparently not getting the iconic yellow jumpsuit he was hoping to unlock, which quite upset him, Mike, and Jane (fortunately the comments were like “you did unlock it, you just clicked past it a little too fast”)
Whew! Long video – but a very good one. The trio noted that it felt like IO had put a loooot of effort into this particular Elusive Target, so it felt more like a proper DLC (though Mike noted that they do now sell these targets via their Arcade so you can replay them, so maybe that’s why), and it showed. And of course it’s always a delight to see the trio take on a new Hitman level or target – whether with Andy’s careful planning, Jane’s more casual winging it, or Mike causing as much chaos as possible. Or all three! XD Looking forward to the day when another one pops up!
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – didn’t have anything happening on Valice Multiverse, but I was able to select a song Saturday for Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) by going back into the depths of my tag for it – “Daft Mouth,” a smash-up of Daft Punk tunes with Smashmouth lyrics. Which, like the “Numb” 80s remix, should NOT sound as good as it does, but… XD Just a bit of fun to end the week off!
TL;DR: The "Renewal Day" event was stupid and annoying, but I had a good editing session and got to watch one of the longer videos in my FreeTube subscriptions, yay~ And now it is time for me to head to bed, because I need to get some sleep before Friday comes around. Night all!
Work – Well, today was the off-site “Renewal Day” event, and I am hear to tell you that I did not have a particularly good time –
A) The drive there and back, while fortunately not particularly trafficky, was also not particularly fun because, one, it was a route I wasn’t particularly familiar with; two, the freaking speed limit kept changing along said route (it’s 30! Now it’s 40! Now it’s 35! Now it’s 25!); and three, I had to go on a highway where the speed limit was 65 MPH, which is not a speed I generally like going at – especially since people in this state loooove speeding and thus people got pissy when I “only” went like 70 at most. *shakehead* I really fucking hate driving.
B) The event was held in the church’s attached gymnasium, which was a little chilly (I ended up putting my coat back on around lunchtime) and full of extremely uncomfortable chairs (it’s a good thing that they let us have stretch breaks, because I needed them)
C) The provided lunch was pretty shitty – pre-made platters from a local supermarket, served cold; as I couldn’t figure out what was in any of the provided wraps, I ended up having some chicken and some spinach stuffed in bread slices and a bit of broccoli salad (the former two items were not great, but the broccoli salad was actually fairly tasty, so yay there I guess)
D) And the presentations themselves were utter nonsense – like, there was a lot of stuff about “giving God back the initiative” and “going back to a Biblical worldview” and all that, which I more or less expected...and then one of the speakers started comparing Jesus on the cross to an AMBUSH PREDATOR (the idea being he was luring in Satan to take him out) and I was like “oh, you people are all completely mental.” *facepalm* I just – I don’t know. This is what I get for being a non-religious person in a religious job, I guess.
So yeah – not a great day. But, on the plus side, the bathrooms were actually in quite nice shape (cleaner than the ones we have in the Diocese); my coworkers at our table seemed to find the whole thing equally ridiculous; and – most importantly – we got out a couple of minutes early, meaning that – thanks to the lighter traffic – I was home by 3 PM. *nods* I’ll take that, at least! And tomorrow is Friday, yay~ Hoping it’s a good one!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike, and back with the special features on my 25th Anniversary Back To The Future Blu-Ray! Tonight’s pedal session saw me watch:
A) The last bit of the “Tales From The Future: In The Beginning…” featurette, which covered the creation of the time machine, including:
I. Its humble beginnings in the earliest drafts as a time chamber made out of a refrigerator (until a dissatisfied Bob Zemeckis went “actually, you’d want to make it mobile, wouldn’t you?” while he and Bob Gale were working on rewrites, cuing its transformation into a DeLorean)
II. The crew acquiring three DeLoreans (the A car or “hero” car for all the close-ups and whatnot, the B car for stuntwork and chases and long shots, and the C car for process shots (meaning that one got cut up so they could do close-ups of Marty in the DeLorean)) and hitting the surplus stores to grab all sorts of weird and wonderful stuff to pop on the cars to make them look like homemade time machines (because Doc was supposed to have built this thing in his garage)
III. And the Bobs working with ILM to design what traveling through time should look like – before deciding that an extended “going through time” sequence wasn’t necessary and that the time travel itself should be instantaneous (though they DID like this “fireball” sort of effect ILM came up with, which led to the iconic fire trails being left behind whenever the car broke the time barrier, so to speak)
Good stuff – even if it surprised me how close to the end of that featurette I’d been! I thought it was a lot longer. O.o
B) The entirety of the “Tales From The Future: Time To Go” featurette, which covered such things as:
I. The famous story where one of the bigwigs at Universal, Sid Sheinberg, tried to get them to change the title of the movie from “Back To The Future” (which he didn’t understand) to “Spaceman From Pluto,” only for Steven Spielberg to save the day by sending back a memo thanking him for the big laugh and pretending they’d all thought it was a big joke, making him too embarrassed to admit he’d been serious
II. The difficulties of doing the “Lorraine has the hots for Marty, her own future son” part of the plot, with Lea saying that the “innocence” of Lorraine being a teenager in the 1950s helped a lot, and Bob Zemeckis saying that what made it okay for him was Lorraine kissing Marty and then rejecting him because she was creeped out thanks to it feeling wrong (in fact, he noted the “when I kiss you, it feels like I’m kissing...my brother” line as his favorite in the script)
III. The transformation of the back lot into the town square of Hill Valley, after they realized there was no way they could film in a real town – including the refit of one of the buildings there into the iconic clock tower (basically, they just had to add the top clock bit with the gargoyles – which the set/prop guy found hanging around as leftovers from The Cat People movie) and the guy in charge of product placement being very careful to only get stuff that was genuinely available in the 50s (and talking about how Texaco in particular went above and beyond by helping them design the entire 50s gas station, telling them what pumps they needed and everything)
IV. The Bobs talking about how the original ending was supposed to see Marty and Doc travel to a nuclear test site to get the power they needed, and how it got nixed for budget reasons...and how that was a blessing in disguise, as the “lightning hitting the clock tower” ending turned out to be MUCH stronger and turned the clock tower into a character in the film in itself (it is genuinely impossible for me to picture BTTF being the hit it was with that original ending)
V. And the realization that they had a HUGE hit on their hands, starting with seeing everything coming together in the edit, going through the test screening audiences having SUCH a positive reaction that Sid promptly moved the official release date from August to July 3rd so it would be out in time for the Fourth Of July weekend, and culminating in BTTF being top at the box office for eleven out of twelve weeks (a feat that made it fairly unique among movies at the time) – which, naturally, led to talk of sequels…
Good stuff once again! :) I think tomorrow I’ll wrap things up by watching the final “Tales Of The Future” featurette – and then, next week, we break out BTTF Part II! With the June 2002 Bob Gale/Neil Canton commentary, of course. :)
2. Work on Valicer Polyship Week 2025 stuff: Check – chose to edit the Day Two prompt, “Rain,” before my workout, since I had the time. And unlike the first three stories I edited, this one went QUITE smoothly! Like, yeah, there were a few little stumbles here and there as I considered word choices and rephrased bits of dialogue and such, but it didn’t have to straight up fight with the damn fic from the word “go.” Talk about a nice change! Though I’m not sure if it’s because I was able to get to this particular fic earlier in the day –
Or if it’s because this particular fic was my Valicer In The Dark story. Featuring my beloved crime trio hiding under an awning after some sudden heavy rain spoiled their walk, and talking about Meta (the language of sorcery, which is one of Victor’s main areas of study as a Whisper) and how it doesn’t seem to have a word for “clear skies” (or, rather, it probably does but humans don’t know it, because devils in Akoros, where they live, aren’t exactly forthcoming with that information). Wrapping up with Victor using one of the words he does know to summon up a blast of heat to warm himself and his chilly partners. :) <3 ...look, if you don’t know that I’m utterly obsessed with this AU at this point, that’s on you, I have made it very obvious. XD At any rate, hoping this means that future stories will also not fight me as much – fingers crossed, people!
3. Watch something on FreeTube/Invidious: Check – coming home early, and thus being able to take care of my writing early, allowed me some extra time this evening to catch up on one of the longer OXBox videos that I’ve been dying to watch – “HITMAN BRUCE LEE | Elusive Target The Infiltrator | Let's NOT Kill Bruce Lee!” Yes, as per the title, we had another elusive target mission starring a celebrity – but in this one, the celebrity was NOT the guy you’re trying to kill! Possibly IO thought it would be in bad taste for 47 to try and murder Bruce Lee, given the guy is, one, a beloved action star, and two, already dead – passed away tragically at age 32 from a “brain edema,” aka a fatal build-up of fluid in the brain cavity (thanks, Wikipedia). Instead, in this mission, Bruce Lee was in fact a fellow agent, trying to infiltrate the Concord Union (a dangerous Chinese crime family) and kill its deadly “Dragon Head,” Jiaolong Wu, via winning an underground martial-arts tournament where the prize is an audience with the guy. 47’s role was simply to facilitate that by eliminating any threats to Lee winning the tournament – and if Lee couldn’t do it, take out Jiaolong Wu himself. Andy was on the controls for this one, with Mike and Jane on the sidelines offering moral support and commentary – here’s the highlights from the mission:
A) Andy choosing to show up to the repurposed Bangkok hotel where everything was taking place in the “Vanity” suit from the Seven Deadly Sins DLC, which is silver and covered in peacock-feather-shaped mirrors – at one point, he mentioned he must be clanking like wind chimes whenever he moved XD
B) Mike disparaging the fashion sense of the random rich guy Andy choked out in order to gain access to his hotel room (so he could lure in and then choke out the guy who had the invitation he needed to access the tournament) – the man made the mistake of wearing shorts with a jacket, and Mike was firmly on the side of “if it’s warm enough for shorts it’s too warm for a jacket,” aka the side of righteousness and sense
C) Mike wondering why a hotel in Bangkok had Cockney guards, only for Andy to retort “you know as well as I do Hitman has three voice actors” XD (Jane then pointed out that recycling the voices, even if they didn’t necessarily make sense, was actually a smart move on IO’s part, as it meant they didn’t have to worry about someone doing any unfortunate accents that might get them canceled, or spending on a fortune recruiting voice actors for every place 47 visits)
D) Andy geeking out when 47 got into the tournament room and found Agent Bruce Lee preparing to have a match – cue 47 sitting down to watch and everyone marveling at the fictional Lee’s fancy moves (though Jane was concerned by how much his opponent was bleeding – Mike reminded her that this was an underground tournament and thus nobody cared much if one opponent was spraying blood everywhere)
E) The trio admiring Agent Lee’s yellow jumpsuit (taken straight from the real Lee’s iconic turn in his final, unfinished movie Game Of Death)...and me finally realizing why Phil Wang wore a similar jumpsuit in Series 7 of Taskmaster (I never saw the movie, so I never got the reference! ...also, let’s face it, Phil’s wang was the most iconic thing about that costume. XD I’m pleased to report Agent Lee’s modesty was a bit better preserved)
F) Agent Lee taking 47 aside to let him know about the extra targets marked for death by British Intelligence (three last-minute substitutions in the tournament that Lee thought were put in especially to target him)...except he only took him into the other room, right next to the open doorway looking in at the tournament ring – cue Andy getting distracted by another fight going on in the background while Agent Lee attempted to exposit on what they’d need to do to make sure he won XD
G) Andy wandering around looking at the general area while Agent Lee chatted with one of his opponents (and one of 47’s targets, Roland Chao) – then getting a message that Agent Lee had been drugged and being like “what?! I left him alone for 10 seconds!” XD
H) The resultant conversation between 47 and Lee showing off one of Hitman’s failings – namely, the game sometimes giving the wrong conversation priority in the subtitles. Cue poor Andy having to listen/read the random natterings of the couple drinking wine at the nearby table instead of Agent Lee telling 47 that he’d been drugged with a mild paralytic agent and needed either an antidote or – if worse came to worst – 47 to sub in for him during the next fight
I) Andy spotting Roland Chao standing right next to a balcony and rushing over to body him over it – only for Roland to turn around at the last second, forcing him to abort and Jane to comment about how that must have been fairly terrifying for the guy. XD Andy did eventually shove him over the railing, but only after following him around for a while to learn his route and catching him playing on his phone (Jane said he was probably addicted to “Hero Wars” XD)
J) Andy commenting that, in this game, “people don’t tend to look at you unless you look at them,” and explaining that’s why he looks at the floor whenever he chokes people out for their clothes as a disguise. Yes, he did say this while choking out an unfortunate member of the kitchen staff to steal his clothes for a disguise XD
K) Andy using his new disguise to steal some deadly fugu fish from the kitchen (after overhearing two of the other chefs talk about it) and plate it up at the buffet (using the power of Hitman “instant cooking”) – cue another one of his targets, Zen, coming over, going “finally, some fugu!” and sampling it, and dying all before Andy could actually get into position to serve him XD
L) Andy tracking down the final target, Xiao Hu, in the gym and following her around for a while, looking for a good opportunity to kill her – before abruptly remembering that he didn’t check to see if Zen dropped anything when he died and running back to the buffet to see what had been left behind. Turned out it was a very good thing he did go back, because among the dropped items was an antidote for the poison Agent Lee had been dosed with! So Agent 47 found him and passed that over (once Lee was no longer “busy” walking around), ensuring he could fight in the upcoming matches
M) Andy then having 47 murder Xiao Hu by crushing her under a barbell while, oblivious, a fellow marital artist got water from the cooler mere feet away – it actually took her rather a long time to notice the dead body, allowing Andy – who had fled before he could be blamed – a moment to sneak back and grab a keycard off the corpse (not that he ever used it, but still – that’s +10 XP for unlocking goodies)
N) Andy wandering the level trying to find things to do because he’d been too efficient and killed all his secondary targets early – leading to him infiltrating the dead Roland’s office, and canceling a random “transaction” on his laptop (Mike joked it was his Disney+ subscription, and Andy and Jane agreed they were doing him a favor)
O) Andy finally sending 47 to just watch the remaining matches after spotting final target Jiaolong Wu upstairs but being unable to get to him – as expected, Agent Lee won the final round and was allowed an audience with Wu...where he immediately more or less revealed his identity, causing Wu to challenge him to a fight to the death (Andy and Mike were incredulous about this turn of events, while Jane was like “he has too much honor to be an undercover agent!” XD)
P) Andy watching Agent Lee and Jiaolong Wu duke it out, amusing himself by standing up every time they traded blows (i.e., almost constantly) – he did end up taking out a wrench he picked up in the gym to throw at Wu just in case things didn’t go well, but fortunately Agent Lee was able to solo the guy. And somehow kill him by lightly kicking him over like he did all his other opponents (everyone was like “??!?! XD” about this)
Q) Andy nearly screwing things up at the last minute by stealing the keycard to Wu’s body from his corpse and trying to use it to sneak into his rooms upstairs...while watched by a whole BUNCH of guards. Naturally, they immediately noticed, and he fled before anything bad happened. He then nearly went into the kitchen by accident while trying to make his escape, causing him to wonder why this was the hardest part of the level XD
R) Andy getting four stars and the “Clean ICA Assassin” rank for this mission where he let Bruce Lee do a lot of the heavy lifting – but apparently not getting the iconic yellow jumpsuit he was hoping to unlock, which quite upset him, Mike, and Jane (fortunately the comments were like “you did unlock it, you just clicked past it a little too fast”)
Whew! Long video – but a very good one. The trio noted that it felt like IO had put a loooot of effort into this particular Elusive Target, so it felt more like a proper DLC (though Mike noted that they do now sell these targets via their Arcade so you can replay them, so maybe that’s why), and it showed. And of course it’s always a delight to see the trio take on a new Hitman level or target – whether with Andy’s careful planning, Jane’s more casual winging it, or Mike causing as much chaos as possible. Or all three! XD Looking forward to the day when another one pops up!
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – didn’t have anything happening on Valice Multiverse, but I was able to select a song Saturday for Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) by going back into the depths of my tag for it – “Daft Mouth,” a smash-up of Daft Punk tunes with Smashmouth lyrics. Which, like the “Numb” 80s remix, should NOT sound as good as it does, but… XD Just a bit of fun to end the week off!
TL;DR: The "Renewal Day" event was stupid and annoying, but I had a good editing session and got to watch one of the longer videos in my FreeTube subscriptions, yay~ And now it is time for me to head to bed, because I need to get some sleep before Friday comes around. Night all!
