A Fairly Meeeeh Tuesday
Apr. 7th, 2026 11:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickThe weather was fairly crappy -- cold and partly cloudy, with wind and the occasional passing rain shower; the traffic to and from work was not great (with the ride in being especially annoying right at the end thanks to some badly-synced lights at the intersection I have to turn at leading to a lot of gridlock); and my Mom had to take an Uber to my work to borrow my car after the battery in the truck died (as she needed to bring Dad to the hospital for an MRI today to figure out why he's having a lot of neck pain these days). This AFTER arguing with the billing department at the hospital over a procedure we prepaid for but was never done (because of the aforementioned neck pain). So yeah, bit of a frustrating, annoying day overall. :( Though I have to say, my portion of it wasn't TOO bad:
Work – Well, my return to the office was happily not OVERLY busy, but I did have plenty to do –
A) After doing the usual morning reports, I spent a decent chunk of the morning going through our voicemails and calling a couple of people back – one who wanted a new billing statement for her pledge to replace her incorrect one (her last payment was processed after it went out), and one who wanted to remove himself, his parents, and his mother-in-law from the mailings (with further research revealing his mother-in-law and father were both dead, so I updated the records accordingly)
B) I also took a call from a guy looking to see if we had received his gift yet – we had not, which was worrying, as he apparently sent it out in January. As it was an IRA check, he said he’d call his broker to see if it had been cashed or not after my coworker and I confirmed we most definitely didn’t have it – we’ll see what happens and if he calls us back!
C) After lunch, I set about getting rid of some of the gifts that were on our system but were meant for the newspaper office – ironically, just as I was writing up the memo to Fiscal to get them to issue a check to the newspaper office, a guy called in to let me know that he too had sent in a gift intended for the newspaper that had been wrongly credited to the Appeal, so I had to update it to include that one (glad the guy called, but sheesh)
D) And then I spent most of the rest of the day doing some roster maintenance by going through some of the old obituaries I still had hanging around and cleaning up some people with similar names
And that and taking care of some exceptions we recently received was basically my day! No great shakes, but I was expecting it to be a LOT busier, so I will take that level of activity. We’ll see what it’s like tomorrow!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – and I chose to stay the Hitman course this week by starting “HITMANNIVERSARY! Hitman 10th Anniversary Stream | The BEST Maps and Our NEVER-BEFORE-TRIED Missions” by OXBox during tonight’s stationary bike ride! And yes, Hitman (No Subtitle), the original in what became the World of Assassination trilogy, did in fact come out ten years ago – it was released in 2016. You may feel old now – the OXBoxers sure do! XD Anyway, the first half-hour of the stream featured:
A) Mike doing a quick community contract in Sapienza (their favorite map from the original game) to snipe a politician making a speech on the beach from the church’s clock tower, which involved:
I. Mike discovering that you can go into the butcher’s shop next to the apartment building where the ICA safehouse is (and that it has a big old freezer behind it)
II. Mike confirming that he has genuinely learned nothing over ten years of playing this game and its sequels (despite later claiming that this is his favorite game of all time, as he loves how interconnected everything is and how you can cause such lovely chaos; plus, Miami is just one of his favorite video game levels in general) by being unable to initially find the briefcase his sniper rifle was stashed in when he entered his safehouse (Andy had to point it out to him on the mini-map)
III. Mike executing the sniping mission quite easily, and everyone admitting that sniping targets is the most boring way to kill them
IV. And everyone wondering if Mike was going to end up with an unheard of “Silent Assassin, 5 Stars” rating on the hit, because he did it so quickly and professionally...only for him to somehow end up compromised while running up the street with his briefcase and only end up with “Marksman Sniper Assassin, 2 Stars.” Mike was rather annoyed. XD (To be fair, it probably never would have been a perfect score, as everyone immediately saw the guy die…)
B) Mike loading up a second Sapienza community contract for Andy to kill “Ghostface” (aka a guy wandering around in the horror movie villain costume from the Sapienza “Patient Zero” mission), since he figured it would be perfect for his friend – only for the target to be wandering around in the sewers out of sight, allowing Andy to basically immediately shoot him and complete the mission. Mike and Jane insisted he take the costume, which Andy was only too happy to do – he also tried to kick a picnicking family’s beach ball away, but it proved unkickable, sadly. The mini-mission – which only took Andy just under two minutes – ended in him speeding away in the nearby speedboat, and the game awarding him “Silent Assassin, 5 Stars.” Mike was furious. XD
C) And the gang deciding to play the two “Seven Deadly Sins” missions they never featured on the channel back when they actually released (their mini-series featuring them petered out after the fifth one)! After a discussion of their favorite suits from the previous missions (Jane naturally likes the red Lust one that make 47 look like Pitbull, and Andy’s fairly fond of the Gluttony one with the cape; by contrast, Mike doesn’t like the Pride one because it looks like a suit you’d hurt yourself on thanks to all the little mirror “feathers”), they chose to start with “The Envy Contention” – an escalation mission (one which you have to do three times, with each level getting progressively harder) where 47 had to race to kill a bunch of targets hanging out at the party at the winery in Mendoza before a mirror duplicate of himself (dressed in the level’s unlockable “high fashion” hoodie) could. And no, 47 was not allowed to just knock out his duplicate – Mike tested it out pre-stream and promptly failed the level. XD Andy played the first level, and made it look easy – slipping into the party without any issues; locating his target almost immediately; managing to lure him away from onlookers with the help of a convenient sprinkler by a big planter of lavender he could hide in (a plan actually suggested by Mike, though he hadn’t thought it would actually work); choking him out, snapping his neck, and hiding him in the planter; and finally running back to his chair to end the round, earning “Silent Assassin, 4 Stars” in the process (everyone was very confused as to why it wasn’t five, with the most popular theory being he somehow took too long at three and a half minutes). He then passed the controller over to Jane so she could try Level 2, where there were three targets, and optional “ideal” ways to kill them –
And that is where things started going wrong. XD For Jane has proven to be a little too prone to panicking in this level, wanting desperately to stay ahead of her duplicate (understandably, of course), and that so far has led to incidents such as:
I. Jane sneaking into the vineyard to try and obtain a vineyard worker’s outfit to get into the depths of the winery to smash someone in a grape press (seriously, that is a thing you can do and it is pretty horrifying), and managing to draw someone away from the herd by turning on a generator...only for that someone to be a woman, whose clothes 47 could not wear
II. Jane then knocking the woman out and taking the time to try and hide her, over Andy and Mike’s objections...only to end up throwing her into a box full of water/grape juice and accidentally drown her
III. Jane then ending up compromised from someone seeing her accidentally drowning the woman and having to hide in a nearby lavender planter for a bit...and when she emerged and prepared to go “knife crazy” (as per Andy’s suggestion), she ended up killing another woman who happened to see 47 lurking behind the grape vines – again, in FULL VIEW of a bunch of other people
IV. Jane then having to retreat back into one of the lavender planters while being shot at, and managing to sneak around two guards that followed her in there...only to then just run to a SECOND planter over Mike and Andy’s loud “GET THEM!”s. Causing her to get noticed again, draw even MORE guards to her position, and finally die shortly after the rival 47 managed to kill one of the targets off-screen (Jane was briefly baffled as to why “accident kill” appeared on her screen until the guys explained it was the RIVAL offing someone).
V. Jane retrying the mission and almost IMMEDIATELY screwing things up by running around with the special squiggly cat knife she’d been gifted thanks to Andy winning Round One out and visible to all – she put it away before disaster could strike, but STILL
VI. Jane then heading into the party and going for the target on the top terrace, Emma Carlisle (borrowed from Dartmoor) – the boys pointed out that Jane could poison some of her food when they saw her getting some snacks (as the optional objective for taking out Emma WAS to use poison), and she agreed and snuck into the nearby kitchen area to get some...where she was promptly spotted by the two staff members in there. Cue her beating them unconscious and snapping their necks while Andy was like “you don’t need to double-punch people who aren’t guards!” XD
VII. Jane then stealing the dead waiter’s outfit and grabbing some emetic rat poison to try and poison the canapes that Emma samples, only to first miss her opportunity because she tried to poison them while Emma was grabbing a few, and Emma’s animation took priority, and then to poison the wrong guy because it turned out there was another NPC who stood by that table and occasionally ate the food, and HE ended up chowing down on the freshly-poisoned canapes while Jane wasn’t looking
VIII. And when I left off, Jane then getting frustrated and going to shove Emma over the railing she was standing at – only to arrive just as the woman was turning around and punch her instead. Cue her snapping her neck and then having to flee as the gunfire started up again. XD At least she got her target?
Yeah, I think this is going to be a very interesting stream. XD Looking forward to seeing what comes up in the next half-hour! And if Jane ever completes this second round of “The Envy Contention.” Not looking good so far!
2. Start final edits on Chapter 6 of “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland”: Check – I dropped Chapter 6 into the Document Manager over on fanfiction.net this eve, and spent roughly fifty minutes making my way through it again from the start! So far I’ve gotten through:
A) Victor giving Alice his museum maps (including an official one he updated with notes and scribbles indicating cameras, guard patrols, and other points of interest, and a homemade one he made of the restoration area down in the basement) and Alice being like “I’m grateful but damn Victor you really didn’t need to do this”
B) Victor and Alice talking a bit about how depressing it is that Victor is certain that his parents were never glad to see him when they came home, and how glad he is that he moved an ocean and the better part of a country away from them so he could figure out who HE is
C) Victor offering to let Alice feed on him before she left, and Alice’s first attempt to drink from his neck revealing that he, well, has a vamp-kink that he did not expect to make an appearance there
D) Alice successfully feeding from Victor’s arm, and discovering that he tastes utterly divine...and then somehow seeing one of his memories (his father bringing home Scraps), which utterly confused them both when she told him about it
E)And Alice prepping for her night out, getting her jacket, knife, pistol, and some ammo, and exchanging goodbyes with Victor before leaving
*nods* And there we have it! Not bad, I suppose! It got me all the way to the start of page 8, at least!
...of 67.
...fuck, I’m going to be at this for the rest of the month, aren’t I?
3. Watch something on YouTube: No check, but that’s no surprise these days – starting to think I should just remove this as a list item and just note if I manage to watch something in the “Other” section instead at this point. Meeeh.
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check and check this Tuesday eve –
Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – Over here, I slotted three things from my drafts into my queue for the week:
A) A gif of the original American McGee’s Alice version of Alice rocking on her heels in front of Cheshire by pixiecorpse (with my tags noting that I’ve always liked that as a go-to fidget for her) for Wednesday
B) A set of Smiler-themed virtual stamps (some animated, some not) by m0-th for Thursday
C) And a short video of some Victor and Emily moments from Corpse Bride (including them watching the butterfly in the woods, Emily returning his ring, and Emily dissolving into butterflies at the front of the church) for Friday!
So that’s all right! Still have to figure out Song Saturday, but that can be done tomorrow.
Valice Multiverse – And over here, I had two asks to answer and pop into the queue:
A) One from an anon going “Behold! A thousand cereals! I collect cereals. It took me nine yeareals to collect the cereals. Yom Yom cereals good!” Which is probably another reference to something I haven’t seen...anyway, I had the Cuddlepile Valicer trio answer, with Smiler declaring the collection impressive and saying they liked the “yeareals” pun; Alice admitting she didn’t know they made this many types of cereal; Victor agreeing and saying this was genuinely impressive; and Smiler coming back in to say that the anon should open a cereal museum. Because that is the sort of thing they would suggest.
B) And one from mysterious-cat-official, earned during a game of Tumblr Snek, inquiring, “What video game has the best opening scene or level?” I replied OOC to this one, stating that the best opening scene belonged to Fallout: New Vegas, as I was genuinely wowed by the starting cinematic – and of course Benny’s speech right before he shoots you is a classic – but the best opening level belonged to Alice: Madness Returns, as the London stuff really hammered home Alice’s shitty situation, while the Vale of Tears stuff introduced you to the mechanics well and was very pretty to look at. *nods*
So that was nice too! Always good to get a little action over here.
*nods* Not too shabby, I suppose. And now I have to go to bed. We'll see what Wednesday brings -- night all!
Work – Well, my return to the office was happily not OVERLY busy, but I did have plenty to do –
A) After doing the usual morning reports, I spent a decent chunk of the morning going through our voicemails and calling a couple of people back – one who wanted a new billing statement for her pledge to replace her incorrect one (her last payment was processed after it went out), and one who wanted to remove himself, his parents, and his mother-in-law from the mailings (with further research revealing his mother-in-law and father were both dead, so I updated the records accordingly)
B) I also took a call from a guy looking to see if we had received his gift yet – we had not, which was worrying, as he apparently sent it out in January. As it was an IRA check, he said he’d call his broker to see if it had been cashed or not after my coworker and I confirmed we most definitely didn’t have it – we’ll see what happens and if he calls us back!
C) After lunch, I set about getting rid of some of the gifts that were on our system but were meant for the newspaper office – ironically, just as I was writing up the memo to Fiscal to get them to issue a check to the newspaper office, a guy called in to let me know that he too had sent in a gift intended for the newspaper that had been wrongly credited to the Appeal, so I had to update it to include that one (glad the guy called, but sheesh)
D) And then I spent most of the rest of the day doing some roster maintenance by going through some of the old obituaries I still had hanging around and cleaning up some people with similar names
And that and taking care of some exceptions we recently received was basically my day! No great shakes, but I was expecting it to be a LOT busier, so I will take that level of activity. We’ll see what it’s like tomorrow!
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – and I chose to stay the Hitman course this week by starting “HITMANNIVERSARY! Hitman 10th Anniversary Stream | The BEST Maps and Our NEVER-BEFORE-TRIED Missions” by OXBox during tonight’s stationary bike ride! And yes, Hitman (No Subtitle), the original in what became the World of Assassination trilogy, did in fact come out ten years ago – it was released in 2016. You may feel old now – the OXBoxers sure do! XD Anyway, the first half-hour of the stream featured:
A) Mike doing a quick community contract in Sapienza (their favorite map from the original game) to snipe a politician making a speech on the beach from the church’s clock tower, which involved:
I. Mike discovering that you can go into the butcher’s shop next to the apartment building where the ICA safehouse is (and that it has a big old freezer behind it)
II. Mike confirming that he has genuinely learned nothing over ten years of playing this game and its sequels (despite later claiming that this is his favorite game of all time, as he loves how interconnected everything is and how you can cause such lovely chaos; plus, Miami is just one of his favorite video game levels in general) by being unable to initially find the briefcase his sniper rifle was stashed in when he entered his safehouse (Andy had to point it out to him on the mini-map)
III. Mike executing the sniping mission quite easily, and everyone admitting that sniping targets is the most boring way to kill them
IV. And everyone wondering if Mike was going to end up with an unheard of “Silent Assassin, 5 Stars” rating on the hit, because he did it so quickly and professionally...only for him to somehow end up compromised while running up the street with his briefcase and only end up with “Marksman Sniper Assassin, 2 Stars.” Mike was rather annoyed. XD (To be fair, it probably never would have been a perfect score, as everyone immediately saw the guy die…)
B) Mike loading up a second Sapienza community contract for Andy to kill “Ghostface” (aka a guy wandering around in the horror movie villain costume from the Sapienza “Patient Zero” mission), since he figured it would be perfect for his friend – only for the target to be wandering around in the sewers out of sight, allowing Andy to basically immediately shoot him and complete the mission. Mike and Jane insisted he take the costume, which Andy was only too happy to do – he also tried to kick a picnicking family’s beach ball away, but it proved unkickable, sadly. The mini-mission – which only took Andy just under two minutes – ended in him speeding away in the nearby speedboat, and the game awarding him “Silent Assassin, 5 Stars.” Mike was furious. XD
C) And the gang deciding to play the two “Seven Deadly Sins” missions they never featured on the channel back when they actually released (their mini-series featuring them petered out after the fifth one)! After a discussion of their favorite suits from the previous missions (Jane naturally likes the red Lust one that make 47 look like Pitbull, and Andy’s fairly fond of the Gluttony one with the cape; by contrast, Mike doesn’t like the Pride one because it looks like a suit you’d hurt yourself on thanks to all the little mirror “feathers”), they chose to start with “The Envy Contention” – an escalation mission (one which you have to do three times, with each level getting progressively harder) where 47 had to race to kill a bunch of targets hanging out at the party at the winery in Mendoza before a mirror duplicate of himself (dressed in the level’s unlockable “high fashion” hoodie) could. And no, 47 was not allowed to just knock out his duplicate – Mike tested it out pre-stream and promptly failed the level. XD Andy played the first level, and made it look easy – slipping into the party without any issues; locating his target almost immediately; managing to lure him away from onlookers with the help of a convenient sprinkler by a big planter of lavender he could hide in (a plan actually suggested by Mike, though he hadn’t thought it would actually work); choking him out, snapping his neck, and hiding him in the planter; and finally running back to his chair to end the round, earning “Silent Assassin, 4 Stars” in the process (everyone was very confused as to why it wasn’t five, with the most popular theory being he somehow took too long at three and a half minutes). He then passed the controller over to Jane so she could try Level 2, where there were three targets, and optional “ideal” ways to kill them –
And that is where things started going wrong. XD For Jane has proven to be a little too prone to panicking in this level, wanting desperately to stay ahead of her duplicate (understandably, of course), and that so far has led to incidents such as:
I. Jane sneaking into the vineyard to try and obtain a vineyard worker’s outfit to get into the depths of the winery to smash someone in a grape press (seriously, that is a thing you can do and it is pretty horrifying), and managing to draw someone away from the herd by turning on a generator...only for that someone to be a woman, whose clothes 47 could not wear
II. Jane then knocking the woman out and taking the time to try and hide her, over Andy and Mike’s objections...only to end up throwing her into a box full of water/grape juice and accidentally drown her
III. Jane then ending up compromised from someone seeing her accidentally drowning the woman and having to hide in a nearby lavender planter for a bit...and when she emerged and prepared to go “knife crazy” (as per Andy’s suggestion), she ended up killing another woman who happened to see 47 lurking behind the grape vines – again, in FULL VIEW of a bunch of other people
IV. Jane then having to retreat back into one of the lavender planters while being shot at, and managing to sneak around two guards that followed her in there...only to then just run to a SECOND planter over Mike and Andy’s loud “GET THEM!”s. Causing her to get noticed again, draw even MORE guards to her position, and finally die shortly after the rival 47 managed to kill one of the targets off-screen (Jane was briefly baffled as to why “accident kill” appeared on her screen until the guys explained it was the RIVAL offing someone).
V. Jane retrying the mission and almost IMMEDIATELY screwing things up by running around with the special squiggly cat knife she’d been gifted thanks to Andy winning Round One out and visible to all – she put it away before disaster could strike, but STILL
VI. Jane then heading into the party and going for the target on the top terrace, Emma Carlisle (borrowed from Dartmoor) – the boys pointed out that Jane could poison some of her food when they saw her getting some snacks (as the optional objective for taking out Emma WAS to use poison), and she agreed and snuck into the nearby kitchen area to get some...where she was promptly spotted by the two staff members in there. Cue her beating them unconscious and snapping their necks while Andy was like “you don’t need to double-punch people who aren’t guards!” XD
VII. Jane then stealing the dead waiter’s outfit and grabbing some emetic rat poison to try and poison the canapes that Emma samples, only to first miss her opportunity because she tried to poison them while Emma was grabbing a few, and Emma’s animation took priority, and then to poison the wrong guy because it turned out there was another NPC who stood by that table and occasionally ate the food, and HE ended up chowing down on the freshly-poisoned canapes while Jane wasn’t looking
VIII. And when I left off, Jane then getting frustrated and going to shove Emma over the railing she was standing at – only to arrive just as the woman was turning around and punch her instead. Cue her snapping her neck and then having to flee as the gunfire started up again. XD At least she got her target?
Yeah, I think this is going to be a very interesting stream. XD Looking forward to seeing what comes up in the next half-hour! And if Jane ever completes this second round of “The Envy Contention.” Not looking good so far!
2. Start final edits on Chapter 6 of “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland”: Check – I dropped Chapter 6 into the Document Manager over on fanfiction.net this eve, and spent roughly fifty minutes making my way through it again from the start! So far I’ve gotten through:
A) Victor giving Alice his museum maps (including an official one he updated with notes and scribbles indicating cameras, guard patrols, and other points of interest, and a homemade one he made of the restoration area down in the basement) and Alice being like “I’m grateful but damn Victor you really didn’t need to do this”
B) Victor and Alice talking a bit about how depressing it is that Victor is certain that his parents were never glad to see him when they came home, and how glad he is that he moved an ocean and the better part of a country away from them so he could figure out who HE is
C) Victor offering to let Alice feed on him before she left, and Alice’s first attempt to drink from his neck revealing that he, well, has a vamp-kink that he did not expect to make an appearance there
D) Alice successfully feeding from Victor’s arm, and discovering that he tastes utterly divine...and then somehow seeing one of his memories (his father bringing home Scraps), which utterly confused them both when she told him about it
E)And Alice prepping for her night out, getting her jacket, knife, pistol, and some ammo, and exchanging goodbyes with Victor before leaving
*nods* And there we have it! Not bad, I suppose! It got me all the way to the start of page 8, at least!
...of 67.
...fuck, I’m going to be at this for the rest of the month, aren’t I?
3. Watch something on YouTube: No check, but that’s no surprise these days – starting to think I should just remove this as a list item and just note if I manage to watch something in the “Other” section instead at this point. Meeeh.
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check and check this Tuesday eve –
Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – Over here, I slotted three things from my drafts into my queue for the week:
A) A gif of the original American McGee’s Alice version of Alice rocking on her heels in front of Cheshire by pixiecorpse (with my tags noting that I’ve always liked that as a go-to fidget for her) for Wednesday
B) A set of Smiler-themed virtual stamps (some animated, some not) by m0-th for Thursday
C) And a short video of some Victor and Emily moments from Corpse Bride (including them watching the butterfly in the woods, Emily returning his ring, and Emily dissolving into butterflies at the front of the church) for Friday!
So that’s all right! Still have to figure out Song Saturday, but that can be done tomorrow.
Valice Multiverse – And over here, I had two asks to answer and pop into the queue:
A) One from an anon going “Behold! A thousand cereals! I collect cereals. It took me nine yeareals to collect the cereals. Yom Yom cereals good!” Which is probably another reference to something I haven’t seen...anyway, I had the Cuddlepile Valicer trio answer, with Smiler declaring the collection impressive and saying they liked the “yeareals” pun; Alice admitting she didn’t know they made this many types of cereal; Victor agreeing and saying this was genuinely impressive; and Smiler coming back in to say that the anon should open a cereal museum. Because that is the sort of thing they would suggest.
B) And one from mysterious-cat-official, earned during a game of Tumblr Snek, inquiring, “What video game has the best opening scene or level?” I replied OOC to this one, stating that the best opening scene belonged to Fallout: New Vegas, as I was genuinely wowed by the starting cinematic – and of course Benny’s speech right before he shoots you is a classic – but the best opening level belonged to Alice: Madness Returns, as the London stuff really hammered home Alice’s shitty situation, while the Vale of Tears stuff introduced you to the mechanics well and was very pretty to look at. *nods*
So that was nice too! Always good to get a little action over here.
*nods* Not too shabby, I suppose. And now I have to go to bed. We'll see what Wednesday brings -- night all!
