Kind Of Frustrating Monday
Dec. 22nd, 2025 11:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickAs you will see elaborated on in the write-up below:
Work – A not-particularly-interesting day at work, for the most part – it was “quietly busy,” in that I had plenty to do (mostly thanks to my coworker having taken the day off, meaning I had to handle her usual tasks as well as my own), but there weren’t a lot of phone calls or anything. The most interesting parts of the day were –
A) Listening to an over-five-minutes-long voicemail (the result of the guy who was calling not properly hanging up his phone) that turned out not to be even for us – he was calling for help from the social ministry people downstairs (I redirected him appropriately)
B) Getting another surprise Christmas present, this time from my old supervisor (who now heads up one of the other offices) – a box of caramel pralines and a $20 Amazon gift card. *facepalm* I stopped on the way home to get him the same $15 Dunkin gift card I got my coworkers to keep things fair (I really wish they’d given me more of a head’s up about Christmas gifts)
C) Getting a surprise box of Sweenor’s chocolates – though THIS, fortunately, was just a gift handed out by the Diocese itself (apparently at the Christmas party; I just got my box late since I didn’t go), so there’s no need for me to reciprocate it (yay)
D) And having to get my new supervisor’s help in looking up what the deal was with a particular check we received in the mail, as it involved logging into a separate site and using a verification code and all that, and it was her cell that the code would be sent to – turned out to be a bunch of matching gifts. *shakehead* Can’t just put that on the included paperwork, huh...
Yeah – other than that, the day consisted of running the morning reports; doing the GL; checking on any failed credit card gifts; doing some obituaries and other roster maintenance; then going through and putting on as many of the checks that came in today’s mail as possible. Nothing particularly exciting, but I will say it all made the day go by. *nods* Just gotta get through tomorrow now...
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night with the The Great British Baking Show Holidays collection on Netflix! Tonight saw me pedal my way through:
A) The end of the first episode, where the four bakers had to make “snow globe” cakes – a set of eight cakes with various fancy fillings inside, and a sugar dome over a Christmassy scene of some kind. As you might imagine, everyone had some trouble with making the domes (looot of cracking going on), but they all persevered, and everyone ended up with all eight of their cakes covered. After seeing the results, I knew the winner of Christmas Star Baker was going to be either Becca (for her lovely snowman macaroon cakes) or Paul (for his adorable penguin cakes) – and sure enough, Paul’s penguins carried the day! So he got the coveted cake stand – and good for him, he did consistently good work in the tent. :)
B) And the beginning of the second episode, with a fresh set of four bakers – Rav, Rob, Benjamina, and Sandy (distinct from Sandi, one of our hosts for this episode) – vying for that cake stand! I got most of the way through the “Signature” challenge, where they’re being tasked with making “snow bomb” tarts – basically a variation on a Baked Alaska, where they must make a tart, cover it in homemade ice cream, then encase it in meringue. Rob’s making a cinnamon apple tart with vanilla ice cream, for example, while Rav is going for a mixed berry concoction. I left off with the four working on their meringues – looking forward to seeing how it all turns out tomorrow!
2. Work on “The Van Dort Vacancy”: No check – between all the videos I ended up watching (below), and my attempt to share some of my fancy Sweenor’s chocolates with Dad going a bit awry (he picked a really hard one that he couldn’t eat because there was no guide to what anything was – I ended up having to cut it into little chunks for him), I once again didn’t have the time. *grrr* I am getting really sick of this...
3. Watch something on FreeTube/Invidious: Triple check, as I ended up watching three things – two of them videos that were recommended to me by my friend WeirdKev on tumblr that I wasn’t able to get to yesterday. In order, we had –
A) Recommendation #1 by WeirdKev – “The Elvis Problem | Fallout Pop Culture” by N_orte, which was a short about how references to Elvis, the King Of Rock & Roll, show up repeatedly in the Fallout series (particularly New Vegas, which has an entire FACTION based on him) – but none of the soundtracks feature any of his songs. Reason? Too fucking expensive to license, as per Jason Bergman, one of the senior producers at Bethesda and someone who worked on New Vegas. The King doesn’t come cheap, and they decided they wanted to get a wider variety of music for the same cost. Fair enough!
B) Recommendation #2 by WeirdKev – “DRAGON RAP CYPHER - Freshy Kanal ft. JT Music, Rustage, The Stupendium, Cam Steady & more” by Freshy Kanal, a twelve-minute-long rap video with various artists pretending to be various dragons from pop culture – featuring such classics as Spyro (from the game series of the same name), Smaug (from The Hobbit), Spike (from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic), Mushu (from Disney’s Mulan), and Tiamat (from various editions of Dungeons & Dragons), among others. It was very impressive, everyone did an excellent job, but I personally found it a little long. Probably because a lot of the dragons were ones I wasn’t personally familiar with. Still, amazing job, good rapping, I won’t say they didn’t bring their A games.
C) And the daily dose of OXmas with “XMAS CHALLENGE Day 10: Jane vs. Ellen | Ghost of Yōtei Puzzle Box Challenge! 📦” on OXtra! Which, I’m glad this wasn’t the one that they put up yesterday, because it was the longest OXmas video this year at thirty-eight and a half minutes. Why was it so chonky? Because the girls got a challenge with a very generous time limit – namely, see how many of the twelve puzzle boxes sitting in the inventory of Ellen’s character in Ghost of Yōtei (a game that I know nothing about, other than apparently you can get puzzle boxes with goodies inside) they could open in thirty minutes! And why were they given so long to play around with the boxes and all the sliding wooden bits on their sides?
Because they needed that time, as Jane proved on her go – while the first few boxes are pretty straightfoward, they get trickier and trickier to open as you move down from Interesting Box to Manageable Box to Perplexing Box to Epic Box, to the point where you can lose a lot of time trying to figure out which bits slide, and in what directions. Jane in particular ended up getting a lot of help from Mike and Andy on her attempt (though the boys did offer some advice to Ellen too – as did Jane, who Understood The Frustration), and both women were completely stumped by the Epic Box and all its tiny sliding bits of wood in the end. But honestly, both of them did quite well on their attempts – Jane managed to successfully open nine of the twelve boxes within her thirty minutes…
And Ellen managed to get ten in about half that time. XD To be fair, she’s the one who loves this game (at least, if you believe her gushy videos from earlier in the year) and thus has more practice figuring out these puzzling puzzlers, so it only makes sense she’d be the better unboxer! But yeah, the game was called once she opened her tenth box (because I think at that point everyone was sick of watching someone manipulate a wooden puzzle box on a plain white screen – Andy in particular is not fond of puzzle boxes thanks to his Dad buying loads when he was a kid and just wanted to play with his Super Nintendo), and the point handed to her. So now it’s 3-3 Ellen and Andy, with Jane at 2 and Mike – being there. XD Tomorrow, we have the first of the free-for-all challenges – I’m really hoping Mike can win one of these and get a point on the board, at least – for his dignity if nothing else!
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Substitution check – in addition to answering the messages from WeirdKev once I watched the videos he linked me, I straight-up reblogged a couple of things onto Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) –
A) First, a bunch of drawings from my friend Nebby featuring Sir Dan Fortesque, Kiya, Professor Kift, Winston, Lord Palethorn, and Zarok from MediEvil and its sequel in a Nutcracker AU – with Dan as the Nutcracker Prince, Kiya as the recipient of the nutcracker from Kift, and Lord Palethorn as the Rat King (and Zarok as a weird dragon thing Dan ends up fighting). They were really well-done drawings – everyone looked awesome, and I was quite impressed! And you can’t say a Nutcracker AU isn’t in the spirit of the season.
B) And second, a “superpowers personality test” tag game that my friend Newt tagged me in, where you go take a “personality test” that consists of you choosing to react with either wide-eyed eager wonderment or “why the hell am I being dragged on this adventure”-themed answers as you traverse a mystical realm you were sent to by a strange envelope on your nightstand, and then being assigned a superpower based on what the test thinks your personality is like. I chose majority grumpy/practical answers, and got “Telescopic Vision” – which I presume means I can see like Legolas with his elf eyes. *shrug* Just a bit of fun – this is the test, if you are interested in taking it.
And there you have it. I swear, if I don't get to do any writing tomorrow...but right now, I have to get to bed, as I have officially stayed up too late again. *sigh* Couldn't just give us the whole week off...ah well. Night all!
Work – A not-particularly-interesting day at work, for the most part – it was “quietly busy,” in that I had plenty to do (mostly thanks to my coworker having taken the day off, meaning I had to handle her usual tasks as well as my own), but there weren’t a lot of phone calls or anything. The most interesting parts of the day were –
A) Listening to an over-five-minutes-long voicemail (the result of the guy who was calling not properly hanging up his phone) that turned out not to be even for us – he was calling for help from the social ministry people downstairs (I redirected him appropriately)
B) Getting another surprise Christmas present, this time from my old supervisor (who now heads up one of the other offices) – a box of caramel pralines and a $20 Amazon gift card. *facepalm* I stopped on the way home to get him the same $15 Dunkin gift card I got my coworkers to keep things fair (I really wish they’d given me more of a head’s up about Christmas gifts)
C) Getting a surprise box of Sweenor’s chocolates – though THIS, fortunately, was just a gift handed out by the Diocese itself (apparently at the Christmas party; I just got my box late since I didn’t go), so there’s no need for me to reciprocate it (yay)
D) And having to get my new supervisor’s help in looking up what the deal was with a particular check we received in the mail, as it involved logging into a separate site and using a verification code and all that, and it was her cell that the code would be sent to – turned out to be a bunch of matching gifts. *shakehead* Can’t just put that on the included paperwork, huh...
Yeah – other than that, the day consisted of running the morning reports; doing the GL; checking on any failed credit card gifts; doing some obituaries and other roster maintenance; then going through and putting on as many of the checks that came in today’s mail as possible. Nothing particularly exciting, but I will say it all made the day go by. *nods* Just gotta get through tomorrow now...
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – another night on the bike, another night with the The Great British Baking Show Holidays collection on Netflix! Tonight saw me pedal my way through:
A) The end of the first episode, where the four bakers had to make “snow globe” cakes – a set of eight cakes with various fancy fillings inside, and a sugar dome over a Christmassy scene of some kind. As you might imagine, everyone had some trouble with making the domes (looot of cracking going on), but they all persevered, and everyone ended up with all eight of their cakes covered. After seeing the results, I knew the winner of Christmas Star Baker was going to be either Becca (for her lovely snowman macaroon cakes) or Paul (for his adorable penguin cakes) – and sure enough, Paul’s penguins carried the day! So he got the coveted cake stand – and good for him, he did consistently good work in the tent. :)
B) And the beginning of the second episode, with a fresh set of four bakers – Rav, Rob, Benjamina, and Sandy (distinct from Sandi, one of our hosts for this episode) – vying for that cake stand! I got most of the way through the “Signature” challenge, where they’re being tasked with making “snow bomb” tarts – basically a variation on a Baked Alaska, where they must make a tart, cover it in homemade ice cream, then encase it in meringue. Rob’s making a cinnamon apple tart with vanilla ice cream, for example, while Rav is going for a mixed berry concoction. I left off with the four working on their meringues – looking forward to seeing how it all turns out tomorrow!
2. Work on “The Van Dort Vacancy”: No check – between all the videos I ended up watching (below), and my attempt to share some of my fancy Sweenor’s chocolates with Dad going a bit awry (he picked a really hard one that he couldn’t eat because there was no guide to what anything was – I ended up having to cut it into little chunks for him), I once again didn’t have the time. *grrr* I am getting really sick of this...
3. Watch something on FreeTube/Invidious: Triple check, as I ended up watching three things – two of them videos that were recommended to me by my friend WeirdKev on tumblr that I wasn’t able to get to yesterday. In order, we had –
A) Recommendation #1 by WeirdKev – “The Elvis Problem | Fallout Pop Culture” by N_orte, which was a short about how references to Elvis, the King Of Rock & Roll, show up repeatedly in the Fallout series (particularly New Vegas, which has an entire FACTION based on him) – but none of the soundtracks feature any of his songs. Reason? Too fucking expensive to license, as per Jason Bergman, one of the senior producers at Bethesda and someone who worked on New Vegas. The King doesn’t come cheap, and they decided they wanted to get a wider variety of music for the same cost. Fair enough!
B) Recommendation #2 by WeirdKev – “DRAGON RAP CYPHER - Freshy Kanal ft. JT Music, Rustage, The Stupendium, Cam Steady & more” by Freshy Kanal, a twelve-minute-long rap video with various artists pretending to be various dragons from pop culture – featuring such classics as Spyro (from the game series of the same name), Smaug (from The Hobbit), Spike (from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic), Mushu (from Disney’s Mulan), and Tiamat (from various editions of Dungeons & Dragons), among others. It was very impressive, everyone did an excellent job, but I personally found it a little long. Probably because a lot of the dragons were ones I wasn’t personally familiar with. Still, amazing job, good rapping, I won’t say they didn’t bring their A games.
C) And the daily dose of OXmas with “XMAS CHALLENGE Day 10: Jane vs. Ellen | Ghost of Yōtei Puzzle Box Challenge! 📦” on OXtra! Which, I’m glad this wasn’t the one that they put up yesterday, because it was the longest OXmas video this year at thirty-eight and a half minutes. Why was it so chonky? Because the girls got a challenge with a very generous time limit – namely, see how many of the twelve puzzle boxes sitting in the inventory of Ellen’s character in Ghost of Yōtei (a game that I know nothing about, other than apparently you can get puzzle boxes with goodies inside) they could open in thirty minutes! And why were they given so long to play around with the boxes and all the sliding wooden bits on their sides?
Because they needed that time, as Jane proved on her go – while the first few boxes are pretty straightfoward, they get trickier and trickier to open as you move down from Interesting Box to Manageable Box to Perplexing Box to Epic Box, to the point where you can lose a lot of time trying to figure out which bits slide, and in what directions. Jane in particular ended up getting a lot of help from Mike and Andy on her attempt (though the boys did offer some advice to Ellen too – as did Jane, who Understood The Frustration), and both women were completely stumped by the Epic Box and all its tiny sliding bits of wood in the end. But honestly, both of them did quite well on their attempts – Jane managed to successfully open nine of the twelve boxes within her thirty minutes…
And Ellen managed to get ten in about half that time. XD To be fair, she’s the one who loves this game (at least, if you believe her gushy videos from earlier in the year) and thus has more practice figuring out these puzzling puzzlers, so it only makes sense she’d be the better unboxer! But yeah, the game was called once she opened her tenth box (because I think at that point everyone was sick of watching someone manipulate a wooden puzzle box on a plain white screen – Andy in particular is not fond of puzzle boxes thanks to his Dad buying loads when he was a kid and just wanted to play with his Super Nintendo), and the point handed to her. So now it’s 3-3 Ellen and Andy, with Jane at 2 and Mike – being there. XD Tomorrow, we have the first of the free-for-all challenges – I’m really hoping Mike can win one of these and get a point on the board, at least – for his dignity if nothing else!
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Substitution check – in addition to answering the messages from WeirdKev once I watched the videos he linked me, I straight-up reblogged a couple of things onto Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) –
A) First, a bunch of drawings from my friend Nebby featuring Sir Dan Fortesque, Kiya, Professor Kift, Winston, Lord Palethorn, and Zarok from MediEvil and its sequel in a Nutcracker AU – with Dan as the Nutcracker Prince, Kiya as the recipient of the nutcracker from Kift, and Lord Palethorn as the Rat King (and Zarok as a weird dragon thing Dan ends up fighting). They were really well-done drawings – everyone looked awesome, and I was quite impressed! And you can’t say a Nutcracker AU isn’t in the spirit of the season.
B) And second, a “superpowers personality test” tag game that my friend Newt tagged me in, where you go take a “personality test” that consists of you choosing to react with either wide-eyed eager wonderment or “why the hell am I being dragged on this adventure”-themed answers as you traverse a mystical realm you were sent to by a strange envelope on your nightstand, and then being assigned a superpower based on what the test thinks your personality is like. I chose majority grumpy/practical answers, and got “Telescopic Vision” – which I presume means I can see like Legolas with his elf eyes. *shrug* Just a bit of fun – this is the test, if you are interested in taking it.
And there you have it. I swear, if I don't get to do any writing tomorrow...but right now, I have to get to bed, as I have officially stayed up too late again. *sigh* Couldn't just give us the whole week off...ah well. Night all!
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Date: 2025-12-24 05:03 am (UTC)