Summery Tuesday
Apr. 14th, 2026 11:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickThe temperature soared into the high 70s/low 80s today -- though, hilariously, the Chancery was cold enough inside that I kept the sweater I started the day in on for quite a while. And ended up opening my window a crack not only to get fresh air, but to let in some warmth. :P I'm currently sitting here in no bathrobe and a set of light pajamas with the ceiling fan going because it's still so warm in my room. I'd put in my window fan as well, but unfortunately we've already had some rain tonight, and may get more as the night goes on, so I can't risk it. Meeh. :( I guess we'll see what happens tomorrow -- supposed to stay warm right through Friday, after all!
As for my actual day, that went decently well:
Work – Twas mostly a day of catching up on things this Tuesday at the office:
A) I went through the Easter Collection report that we got yesterday afternoon and posted each parish’s amount to its record; I also finally figured out where the envelope containing the actual cards the parishes send back with their checks went (turns out it was still in the Fiscal office – never actually made it into internal mail like the processor down there said)
B) I finished off some obituaries that have been sitting on my desk since February (I always had something else more pressing to do! Most of the people turned out not to be in our system anyway)
C) I checked out some potential duplicate records I was made aware of last week and cleaned those up (turns out a guy was marked deceased in error because he happened to share a name with someone else who lived on the same road who had died some years ago – and I don’t think they were even related, shockingly enough. Usually this shit is the result of a father dying and the same-name son being mistaken for him!)
D) And, after lunch, I pulled some scans of pledge cards and such and did a bunch of reversals to correct some errors I found last Friday (gifts posted to the wrong record because they got the wrong sticker put on them, or payment being applied to late-arriving pledges – and in one case, both)
Throw in a handful of credit card calls from people making payments or one-time gifts, and you have my day! *shrug* Nothing too strenuous, happily. Though I still have plenty of catching up to do tomorrow...especially since we got another bunch of returns from our processing company this afternoon. *shakehead* It never ends...
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike again tonight, this time to watch a video from Jon of Many A True Nerd that I saw back in February but never had time for: “Bonjour, Cream Inside - Valentine's Day Special - The Worst Game I Have Ever Played!” As you might guess from the title, Bonjour, Cream Inside is a, ahem, naughty game – not straight-up porn, but there is sex, and it is depicted in such a way that Jon has had to break out the Censor Hedgehogs a couple of times (I’m not 100% sure why he uses hedgehogs to censor sex, but I suspect it may have something to do with a certain “hedgehog song” from the works of Sir Terry Pratchett :P). The nominal plot of the game is that you are Wesley Green, a talented young baker who, after winning a contest, moves to Paris, takes a room in the apartment of an old friend of his mom’s, and gets a job at a famous delicatessen making baked goods while simultaneously finding himself surrounded by various hot women, many of which run around with their boobs mostly exposed or in Gothic Lolita outfits – and the reason Jon decided to give it a go is because the game’s Steam page claimed that you could focus either on Wesley’s baking or on bedding as many of these women as possible, so he decided to see what happened when you focused on the baking. XD So far, Wesley’s adventures have included –
A) Arriving in an Extremely English Paris (Jon spotted a red double-decker bus of the kind you might find in London, and grabbed his French Girlfriend Claire to confirm that no, those things do NOT appear in her home country) and misidentifying his contact “Madame Tarfel” as “Madame Truffle,” causing both Jon and, apparently, his own mother to call him an idiot XD
B) Meeting Madame Tarfel, aka Polet (or “Pollet,” depending on if you believed the name written above the dialogue box or in it – Jon ended up just calling her “Madame Chicken” because he couldn’t stop wanting to call her “pullet” XD), revealing that his father was a famous pastry chef, Moret, during their conversation (Jon immediately decided Wesley was genetically superior at making cakes as a result), and then – after asking what the fuck she was burning, his head was spinning – learning that Chicken thought her apartment was haunted because of all the stuff that kept breaking and thus she was burning incense (Jon was like “...gonna be honest, didn’t expect to deal with a haunted apartment in the sex and/or baking game”)
C) Paying off his rent for his room for a month by – hanging up some pictures that had recently fallen down, as represented by Jon completing a mini-game where he tightened four screws (Jon was pleased by the mini-game, but also surprised because that is not the kind of screwing he expected to do in this game XD)
D) Going to the delicatessen and learning that the woman in charge, Madame Beaumont (it is unclear if her first name is Anna, as per the name of the shop, or Sofie), had no idea why he was in her shop or any memory of signing up to take on the winner of the contest he won – fortunately, she was willing to let him work for her for at least three days (since she needed the help anyway) and write him a glowing letter of recommendation if he did a good job, which Jon thought was probably the best way this situation could have worked out
E) Completing a cupcake-baking mini-game to prove his chops...then, the minute Madame Beaumont left for a while, meeting a pretty girl his own age, Meredith, and being immediately challenged to make something “experimental” by her because she wanted something different and his boss wasn’t there; he ended up making her cupcakes following his father’s secret recipe rather than the delicatessen-approved one, which Jon didn’t approve of (nor did he approve of Wesley coming out from behind the counter to sit with Meredith, because what if someone tried to steal from the till?) but which won Meredith over
F) Learning more about Meredith, who has a cat named Baguette and three dogs, Button, Pita, and Rosemary – the first of which lived with an alcoholic who didn’t care for him, leading to Button eating the man’s face when he died (yes, Meredith just volunteered this information out of nowhere, and yes, Jon was like “again, this sex and/or baking game is going places I did not expect” about it XD) – and dreams of opening a big old animal shelter for all the homeless animals in Paris (which was admittedly sweet and made Jon decide she and Wesley could be friends)
G) Returning home from his first day of work to be told by Madame Chicken that she might need him to order things online for her (introducing the “ordering plot important items/gifts for your paramours” mechanic), that she fully intended to continue stinking up the place to fumigate her ghosts, and that if he got scared, her room was just down the hall…
H) Indeed getting scared by some strange noises in the night, grabbing a telescope to use as a weapon (Jon was like “that’s a delicate piece of equipment, don’t use it as a club! Also it’s not going to work because GHOSTS”), and following the noises to Chicken’s room...where poor Jon was forced to break out the Censor Hedgehogs to cover an apparently-mandatory sex scene with the landlord; Jon personally was much more interested in how freaking huge the moon was through the window
I) Arriving at work the following morning, only for Meredith to come in and declare loudly she wanted to try more of his “experimental cakes,” which might have gotten him in trouble with his boss (Jon didn’t actually show that bit) – then, upon realizing that might not have been the best thing to say under the circumstances, asking if Wesley would like to go on a walk with her later (Jon was interested, but only because she might bring her dogs and he might get to pet them. Except the face-eating one)
J) Having his cute moment with Meredith interrupted by the arrival of a very punk-rock-looking woman with tattoos and such; listening to Meredith immediately judge her by her appearances (calling her a “bandit” of all things) and claim she obviously grew up on the streets and is in trouble with the law and such (Jon was like “walking date is off, lady”); then catching her by the counter and becoming convinced she took something (Jon was like “I TOLD you not to leave the counter!”), which eventually led to him trying to do a citizen’s arrest on her...only to get distracted by her offering to show him her boobs, which led to her slapping him and escaping (Jon declared Wesley totally deserved that, then got distracted by the jammy dodgers in the background XD)
K) Getting some texts from Meredith about how she loves presents (and has “three ponytails” at home, which – what???) and promptly buying her a set of brass knuckles because it felt like the most inappropriate gift – Jon was actually let down by how politely she accepted them
L) Going on the walk with Meredith after his shift, which led them to a park with a pond right underneath the Eiffel Tower (Jon found this VERY amusing, as that is not true to life at ALL) and a cute little picnic where she had him close his eyes as she fed him things before stealing a kiss...only for the moment to be interrupted by a surprise dog; cue Meredith forcing Wesley to adopt the dog, and Wesley to go along with this for some reason and let Madame Chicken blame the noises the dog makes on the apartment ghosts
M) Going to work on his third day to find his boss yelling at a random guy named Rudolf (who apparently is either her ex-husband or her ex-business partner, and is trying to take the delicatessen out from under Beaumont via legal action) – then, after Rudolf left, discovering a reporter and her cameraman harassing the customers and claiming that the shop had sanitary issues and used cheap ingredients and whatnot; cue Wesley getting involved, punching the cameraman (or possibly straight-up the camera), and then wowing the reporter, Fifi, with one of his “secret pastry chef father” recipes – which made her less antagonistic, but did not make her back down on the whole “there are all sorts of bad rumors about this pastry chain” thing
N) Getting kidnapped after the end of his shift by the tattooed woman from before and taken to a secret location, where she beat him up with a baseball bat while trying to determine if he had any connection to a detective trying to catch her (though she did at least introduce herself – Alex); being released by said woman after she determined he genuinely knew nothing...and insisting on sticking around and trying to prove to her that he was cool, which led her into tricking him into torching the detective’s car to prove it; and then sticking around some more to try and psychoanalyze her, which ended in him being beat up (Jon was like “why” throughout all of this XD)
O) Coming back to his room, telling his new dog all about his terrible day, and being distracted from taking the dog for a walk/naming him (options included “Barney” and “Eclair”) by Meredith texting him for another date – cue Jon forcing him to buy her more brass knuckles XD
P) And arriving at the delicatessen the next day (where apparently he IS still employed, and lucky him) to learn that the shop was participating in a big old baking contest, with the mysterious “Angela” arriving any day now to decide if they got to go on to the next stage – and then learning that the competition was a show hosted by Gaston More...aka, his (now with a differently-spelled last name) father O.O
So yeah, it’s been – a ride. XD Though I haven’t yet seen what makes this the worst game Jon’s every played – like, it’s definitely a BAD game, the art style is ridiculous and the writing equally stupid, but it’s certainly not the worst thing I’ve ever seen. We’ll see what the last fourteen-odd minutes of the video bring tomorrow, I suppose!
2. Continue final edits on Chapter 6 of “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland”: Check – got a decent-sized chunk of edits done today, getting all the way to the bottom of page 41 in my LibreOffice doc and covering –
A) Alice exploring the other side of the T-junction in the vent, and discovering it goes over the security room she was just in...and then nearly falling into said security room when the grate over the desk suddenly gave way. She managed to catch herself in time, but she was extremely glad that she’d gone the other way first and thus avoided nearly tumbling straight onto the guard that was in this room before!
B) Alice going to the far end of the vent and spying on the camera guard and his friend Caroline, who were having a good giggle over the joke the camera guard told – Caroline then started sharing the latest gossip about Harry and Sally, a pair of toxic lovebirds, and Alice realized that she was probably not getting in this room anytime soon
C) Alice returning to the bathroom – and nearly getting caught by a guard coming in for a pee; fortunately she was able to duck into a stall before he saw her, and fake being just another employee having a late-night whazz (plus she was able to wash her hands after all that crawling around in the ductwork
D) Alice successfully exiting the bathroom, then making her way to the other side of the room looking for the office that Stanley’s key opened; cue her making her way inside and discovering another dirty hallway, making her gripe that they needed better janitoral services in this museum. And then wonder if maybe she should go for a job like that once she was freed from LaCroix’s service, as she had experience with cleaning up after the kids in Houndsditch; the Queen of Hearts complained that she thought Alice was going to be a bounty hunter, but Alice said it was only smart to have another job she could do while getting her license, and in-between hunts
E) Alice entering the cube farm that was the office, and discovering calendars with pictures of mountains, some drawings decorating the walls of a proud parent, and someone’s medication left out beside their keyboard – the Queen tried to get her to steal that last, but Alice refused because far be it for her to deprive someone of their necessary meds, and instead stashed it in their desk for them
F) Alice locating the door to the basement (and confirming that it was the door she needed with a check of Victor’s map – cue her commenting that LaCroix would probably kill for a ghoul as useful as him, and Cheshire and Caterpillar being like “Yup, he would, so make sure he never learns about him”), heading downstairs, and then hiding behind said stairs to check the map again and see what was what...and noting with concern just how many security cameras were about; fortunately for her, Cheshire was able to confirm that, with the help of Victor’s blood and her own diligent training of Obfuscate (plus a touch of natural talent), she would be able to fool the mechanical eyes as well as the biological ones tonight
G) Alice thus activating her Obfuscate (feeling it wrap around her gossamer-light this night, thanks to Victor’s loving blood) and starting her creep through the halls of the basement – Cheshire briefly tempted her to try and get into the CCTV office to claim a skill book in there, but Alice decided to pass because there was a camera pointed right at the door, and her Obfuscate still isn’t QUITE good enough to let her open doors without breaking invisibility. Shame, but she doesn’t really need the skill it confers!
*nods* Yeah, that’s not too shabby at all. We’ll see how much I can get through tomorrow – hoping to at least get within sniffing distance of page 50!
3. Watch something on YouTube: Check! Actually got in a trio of YouTube Shorts tonight after doing my editing – specifically –
A) “Project Hail Mary's alien wasn't CGI” by IGN! A Short that – well, okay, was less about the fact that Rocky the alien was a practical puppet, not a CGI creation, and more about how Rocky’s voice came to be. Basically, as per an interview with Ryan Gosling (the actor who plays the lead human character, Dr. Ryland Grace), he and Rocky’s lead puppeteer, James Ortiz, started riffing off each other during the long hours getting the puppet to work, and Ryan quickly discovered that James was so connected to his puppet that he immediately knew what Rocky would say or do in response to whatever Ryan threw at him. Basically, they found Rocky’s voice through James at the same time that Rocky was finding his voice in the actual movie – leading to James becoming Rocky’s official voice! :) So that’s very cool. I always think it’s great when something like this happens – like, famous voices are great and all, but you can’t beat the enthusiasm of a storyboard artist who just somehow became one of the characters or something like that. :D
B) “Permanent Power Up for Warlocks and Eldritch Knights in #bg3 #baldursgate3 #baldursgate” by Toyhouze! A Short that showed off a fun little trick that Warlocks with the Hexblade subclass or Pact Of The Blade pact boon or Fighters with the Eldritch Knight subclass could do with the Charge-Bound Warhammer. Basically, the Charge-Bound Warhammer is a big fuck-off hammer that has a special ability Galvanic Currents, that allows it to deal 1 to 6 points of lightning damage along with its normal bludgeoning damage if and only if it is bound to an Eldritch Knight or a Hexblade/Pact Of The Blade Warlock using their “Bind Weapon” features. HOWEVER, once the hammer is bound, it STAYS bound, meaning even if the Eldritch Knight or Hexblade/Pact Of The Blade Warlock binds a DIFFERENT weapon as their new favorite, the bonus damage says on the hammer. Meaning all an Eldritch Knight or Hexblade/Pact Of The Blade Warlock has to do is bind the Charge-Bound Warhammer, toss it aside, bind a new weapon, then give the permanently-powered-up warhammer to a friend to wreck fools with! Just a nice little exploit to get yourself a more powerful weapon there – though I have no idea how long ago this short was made, so it’s possible this was patched out. Perhaps I can test it out myself once I find this warhammer – Wyll’s a Pact Of The Blade Warlock, after all, and Karlach would probably appreciate a big fuck-off warhammer…
C) And “Aliens at Hoover Dam in Fallout New Vegas” by CosmicOctober! A Short talking about, not aliens appearing at Hoover Dam like I originally thought, but a couple of references to the film Aliens you can hear if you take the Wild Wasteland trait during character creation, then tune into the NCR Emergency Radio signal during the final fight at Hoover Dam. Specifically, you can hear the lines “They’re coming out of the walls, man, they’re coming out of the damn walls!” and “Game over, man, game over!” which are both quotes from the film. It’s a cute little Easter Egg that you’re likely to miss if you don’t have the trait or don’t have your radio on during the final fight! (And you do actually get an alien encounter if you have Wild Wasteland on – I just don’t know where or when. Looking forward to it regardless!)
So that was nice, at least. :)
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – there was nothing happening on Valice Multiverse again, but I got a couple of things queued up over on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) for the next two days –
A) A gifset by claudiawolf of the Ocean House Hotel from Vampire: the Masquerade – Bloodlines (featuring various ghostly happenings) for Wednesday
B) And a photoset by gamerism of Chinatown from VTMB (featuring all the important buildings and some gorgeous coloring) for Thursday!
Yeah, given I’m working very hard on getting Chapter 6 of LB:DQ up as soon as possible, it felt right to do some VTMB stuff this week. :) Don’t know what I’m gonna do for Friday or Saturday yet, but we’ll figure that out tomorrow!
Honestly quite productive, I must admit! :) But now it is time for me to head to bed and hopefully get some decent sleep -- we'll see, as it IS rather warm in here. Fingers crossed, folks! Night all!
As for my actual day, that went decently well:
Work – Twas mostly a day of catching up on things this Tuesday at the office:
A) I went through the Easter Collection report that we got yesterday afternoon and posted each parish’s amount to its record; I also finally figured out where the envelope containing the actual cards the parishes send back with their checks went (turns out it was still in the Fiscal office – never actually made it into internal mail like the processor down there said)
B) I finished off some obituaries that have been sitting on my desk since February (I always had something else more pressing to do! Most of the people turned out not to be in our system anyway)
C) I checked out some potential duplicate records I was made aware of last week and cleaned those up (turns out a guy was marked deceased in error because he happened to share a name with someone else who lived on the same road who had died some years ago – and I don’t think they were even related, shockingly enough. Usually this shit is the result of a father dying and the same-name son being mistaken for him!)
D) And, after lunch, I pulled some scans of pledge cards and such and did a bunch of reversals to correct some errors I found last Friday (gifts posted to the wrong record because they got the wrong sticker put on them, or payment being applied to late-arriving pledges – and in one case, both)
Throw in a handful of credit card calls from people making payments or one-time gifts, and you have my day! *shrug* Nothing too strenuous, happily. Though I still have plenty of catching up to do tomorrow...especially since we got another bunch of returns from our processing company this afternoon. *shakehead* It never ends...
To-Do List –
1. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike again tonight, this time to watch a video from Jon of Many A True Nerd that I saw back in February but never had time for: “Bonjour, Cream Inside - Valentine's Day Special - The Worst Game I Have Ever Played!” As you might guess from the title, Bonjour, Cream Inside is a, ahem, naughty game – not straight-up porn, but there is sex, and it is depicted in such a way that Jon has had to break out the Censor Hedgehogs a couple of times (I’m not 100% sure why he uses hedgehogs to censor sex, but I suspect it may have something to do with a certain “hedgehog song” from the works of Sir Terry Pratchett :P). The nominal plot of the game is that you are Wesley Green, a talented young baker who, after winning a contest, moves to Paris, takes a room in the apartment of an old friend of his mom’s, and gets a job at a famous delicatessen making baked goods while simultaneously finding himself surrounded by various hot women, many of which run around with their boobs mostly exposed or in Gothic Lolita outfits – and the reason Jon decided to give it a go is because the game’s Steam page claimed that you could focus either on Wesley’s baking or on bedding as many of these women as possible, so he decided to see what happened when you focused on the baking. XD So far, Wesley’s adventures have included –
A) Arriving in an Extremely English Paris (Jon spotted a red double-decker bus of the kind you might find in London, and grabbed his French Girlfriend Claire to confirm that no, those things do NOT appear in her home country) and misidentifying his contact “Madame Tarfel” as “Madame Truffle,” causing both Jon and, apparently, his own mother to call him an idiot XD
B) Meeting Madame Tarfel, aka Polet (or “Pollet,” depending on if you believed the name written above the dialogue box or in it – Jon ended up just calling her “Madame Chicken” because he couldn’t stop wanting to call her “pullet” XD), revealing that his father was a famous pastry chef, Moret, during their conversation (Jon immediately decided Wesley was genetically superior at making cakes as a result), and then – after asking what the fuck she was burning, his head was spinning – learning that Chicken thought her apartment was haunted because of all the stuff that kept breaking and thus she was burning incense (Jon was like “...gonna be honest, didn’t expect to deal with a haunted apartment in the sex and/or baking game”)
C) Paying off his rent for his room for a month by – hanging up some pictures that had recently fallen down, as represented by Jon completing a mini-game where he tightened four screws (Jon was pleased by the mini-game, but also surprised because that is not the kind of screwing he expected to do in this game XD)
D) Going to the delicatessen and learning that the woman in charge, Madame Beaumont (it is unclear if her first name is Anna, as per the name of the shop, or Sofie), had no idea why he was in her shop or any memory of signing up to take on the winner of the contest he won – fortunately, she was willing to let him work for her for at least three days (since she needed the help anyway) and write him a glowing letter of recommendation if he did a good job, which Jon thought was probably the best way this situation could have worked out
E) Completing a cupcake-baking mini-game to prove his chops...then, the minute Madame Beaumont left for a while, meeting a pretty girl his own age, Meredith, and being immediately challenged to make something “experimental” by her because she wanted something different and his boss wasn’t there; he ended up making her cupcakes following his father’s secret recipe rather than the delicatessen-approved one, which Jon didn’t approve of (nor did he approve of Wesley coming out from behind the counter to sit with Meredith, because what if someone tried to steal from the till?) but which won Meredith over
F) Learning more about Meredith, who has a cat named Baguette and three dogs, Button, Pita, and Rosemary – the first of which lived with an alcoholic who didn’t care for him, leading to Button eating the man’s face when he died (yes, Meredith just volunteered this information out of nowhere, and yes, Jon was like “again, this sex and/or baking game is going places I did not expect” about it XD) – and dreams of opening a big old animal shelter for all the homeless animals in Paris (which was admittedly sweet and made Jon decide she and Wesley could be friends)
G) Returning home from his first day of work to be told by Madame Chicken that she might need him to order things online for her (introducing the “ordering plot important items/gifts for your paramours” mechanic), that she fully intended to continue stinking up the place to fumigate her ghosts, and that if he got scared, her room was just down the hall…
H) Indeed getting scared by some strange noises in the night, grabbing a telescope to use as a weapon (Jon was like “that’s a delicate piece of equipment, don’t use it as a club! Also it’s not going to work because GHOSTS”), and following the noises to Chicken’s room...where poor Jon was forced to break out the Censor Hedgehogs to cover an apparently-mandatory sex scene with the landlord; Jon personally was much more interested in how freaking huge the moon was through the window
I) Arriving at work the following morning, only for Meredith to come in and declare loudly she wanted to try more of his “experimental cakes,” which might have gotten him in trouble with his boss (Jon didn’t actually show that bit) – then, upon realizing that might not have been the best thing to say under the circumstances, asking if Wesley would like to go on a walk with her later (Jon was interested, but only because she might bring her dogs and he might get to pet them. Except the face-eating one)
J) Having his cute moment with Meredith interrupted by the arrival of a very punk-rock-looking woman with tattoos and such; listening to Meredith immediately judge her by her appearances (calling her a “bandit” of all things) and claim she obviously grew up on the streets and is in trouble with the law and such (Jon was like “walking date is off, lady”); then catching her by the counter and becoming convinced she took something (Jon was like “I TOLD you not to leave the counter!”), which eventually led to him trying to do a citizen’s arrest on her...only to get distracted by her offering to show him her boobs, which led to her slapping him and escaping (Jon declared Wesley totally deserved that, then got distracted by the jammy dodgers in the background XD)
K) Getting some texts from Meredith about how she loves presents (and has “three ponytails” at home, which – what???) and promptly buying her a set of brass knuckles because it felt like the most inappropriate gift – Jon was actually let down by how politely she accepted them
L) Going on the walk with Meredith after his shift, which led them to a park with a pond right underneath the Eiffel Tower (Jon found this VERY amusing, as that is not true to life at ALL) and a cute little picnic where she had him close his eyes as she fed him things before stealing a kiss...only for the moment to be interrupted by a surprise dog; cue Meredith forcing Wesley to adopt the dog, and Wesley to go along with this for some reason and let Madame Chicken blame the noises the dog makes on the apartment ghosts
M) Going to work on his third day to find his boss yelling at a random guy named Rudolf (who apparently is either her ex-husband or her ex-business partner, and is trying to take the delicatessen out from under Beaumont via legal action) – then, after Rudolf left, discovering a reporter and her cameraman harassing the customers and claiming that the shop had sanitary issues and used cheap ingredients and whatnot; cue Wesley getting involved, punching the cameraman (or possibly straight-up the camera), and then wowing the reporter, Fifi, with one of his “secret pastry chef father” recipes – which made her less antagonistic, but did not make her back down on the whole “there are all sorts of bad rumors about this pastry chain” thing
N) Getting kidnapped after the end of his shift by the tattooed woman from before and taken to a secret location, where she beat him up with a baseball bat while trying to determine if he had any connection to a detective trying to catch her (though she did at least introduce herself – Alex); being released by said woman after she determined he genuinely knew nothing...and insisting on sticking around and trying to prove to her that he was cool, which led her into tricking him into torching the detective’s car to prove it; and then sticking around some more to try and psychoanalyze her, which ended in him being beat up (Jon was like “why” throughout all of this XD)
O) Coming back to his room, telling his new dog all about his terrible day, and being distracted from taking the dog for a walk/naming him (options included “Barney” and “Eclair”) by Meredith texting him for another date – cue Jon forcing him to buy her more brass knuckles XD
P) And arriving at the delicatessen the next day (where apparently he IS still employed, and lucky him) to learn that the shop was participating in a big old baking contest, with the mysterious “Angela” arriving any day now to decide if they got to go on to the next stage – and then learning that the competition was a show hosted by Gaston More...aka, his (now with a differently-spelled last name) father O.O
So yeah, it’s been – a ride. XD Though I haven’t yet seen what makes this the worst game Jon’s every played – like, it’s definitely a BAD game, the art style is ridiculous and the writing equally stupid, but it’s certainly not the worst thing I’ve ever seen. We’ll see what the last fourteen-odd minutes of the video bring tomorrow, I suppose!
2. Continue final edits on Chapter 6 of “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland”: Check – got a decent-sized chunk of edits done today, getting all the way to the bottom of page 41 in my LibreOffice doc and covering –
A) Alice exploring the other side of the T-junction in the vent, and discovering it goes over the security room she was just in...and then nearly falling into said security room when the grate over the desk suddenly gave way. She managed to catch herself in time, but she was extremely glad that she’d gone the other way first and thus avoided nearly tumbling straight onto the guard that was in this room before!
B) Alice going to the far end of the vent and spying on the camera guard and his friend Caroline, who were having a good giggle over the joke the camera guard told – Caroline then started sharing the latest gossip about Harry and Sally, a pair of toxic lovebirds, and Alice realized that she was probably not getting in this room anytime soon
C) Alice returning to the bathroom – and nearly getting caught by a guard coming in for a pee; fortunately she was able to duck into a stall before he saw her, and fake being just another employee having a late-night whazz (plus she was able to wash her hands after all that crawling around in the ductwork
D) Alice successfully exiting the bathroom, then making her way to the other side of the room looking for the office that Stanley’s key opened; cue her making her way inside and discovering another dirty hallway, making her gripe that they needed better janitoral services in this museum. And then wonder if maybe she should go for a job like that once she was freed from LaCroix’s service, as she had experience with cleaning up after the kids in Houndsditch; the Queen of Hearts complained that she thought Alice was going to be a bounty hunter, but Alice said it was only smart to have another job she could do while getting her license, and in-between hunts
E) Alice entering the cube farm that was the office, and discovering calendars with pictures of mountains, some drawings decorating the walls of a proud parent, and someone’s medication left out beside their keyboard – the Queen tried to get her to steal that last, but Alice refused because far be it for her to deprive someone of their necessary meds, and instead stashed it in their desk for them
F) Alice locating the door to the basement (and confirming that it was the door she needed with a check of Victor’s map – cue her commenting that LaCroix would probably kill for a ghoul as useful as him, and Cheshire and Caterpillar being like “Yup, he would, so make sure he never learns about him”), heading downstairs, and then hiding behind said stairs to check the map again and see what was what...and noting with concern just how many security cameras were about; fortunately for her, Cheshire was able to confirm that, with the help of Victor’s blood and her own diligent training of Obfuscate (plus a touch of natural talent), she would be able to fool the mechanical eyes as well as the biological ones tonight
G) Alice thus activating her Obfuscate (feeling it wrap around her gossamer-light this night, thanks to Victor’s loving blood) and starting her creep through the halls of the basement – Cheshire briefly tempted her to try and get into the CCTV office to claim a skill book in there, but Alice decided to pass because there was a camera pointed right at the door, and her Obfuscate still isn’t QUITE good enough to let her open doors without breaking invisibility. Shame, but she doesn’t really need the skill it confers!
*nods* Yeah, that’s not too shabby at all. We’ll see how much I can get through tomorrow – hoping to at least get within sniffing distance of page 50!
3. Watch something on YouTube: Check! Actually got in a trio of YouTube Shorts tonight after doing my editing – specifically –
A) “Project Hail Mary's alien wasn't CGI” by IGN! A Short that – well, okay, was less about the fact that Rocky the alien was a practical puppet, not a CGI creation, and more about how Rocky’s voice came to be. Basically, as per an interview with Ryan Gosling (the actor who plays the lead human character, Dr. Ryland Grace), he and Rocky’s lead puppeteer, James Ortiz, started riffing off each other during the long hours getting the puppet to work, and Ryan quickly discovered that James was so connected to his puppet that he immediately knew what Rocky would say or do in response to whatever Ryan threw at him. Basically, they found Rocky’s voice through James at the same time that Rocky was finding his voice in the actual movie – leading to James becoming Rocky’s official voice! :) So that’s very cool. I always think it’s great when something like this happens – like, famous voices are great and all, but you can’t beat the enthusiasm of a storyboard artist who just somehow became one of the characters or something like that. :D
B) “Permanent Power Up for Warlocks and Eldritch Knights in #bg3 #baldursgate3 #baldursgate” by Toyhouze! A Short that showed off a fun little trick that Warlocks with the Hexblade subclass or Pact Of The Blade pact boon or Fighters with the Eldritch Knight subclass could do with the Charge-Bound Warhammer. Basically, the Charge-Bound Warhammer is a big fuck-off hammer that has a special ability Galvanic Currents, that allows it to deal 1 to 6 points of lightning damage along with its normal bludgeoning damage if and only if it is bound to an Eldritch Knight or a Hexblade/Pact Of The Blade Warlock using their “Bind Weapon” features. HOWEVER, once the hammer is bound, it STAYS bound, meaning even if the Eldritch Knight or Hexblade/Pact Of The Blade Warlock binds a DIFFERENT weapon as their new favorite, the bonus damage says on the hammer. Meaning all an Eldritch Knight or Hexblade/Pact Of The Blade Warlock has to do is bind the Charge-Bound Warhammer, toss it aside, bind a new weapon, then give the permanently-powered-up warhammer to a friend to wreck fools with! Just a nice little exploit to get yourself a more powerful weapon there – though I have no idea how long ago this short was made, so it’s possible this was patched out. Perhaps I can test it out myself once I find this warhammer – Wyll’s a Pact Of The Blade Warlock, after all, and Karlach would probably appreciate a big fuck-off warhammer…
C) And “Aliens at Hoover Dam in Fallout New Vegas” by CosmicOctober! A Short talking about, not aliens appearing at Hoover Dam like I originally thought, but a couple of references to the film Aliens you can hear if you take the Wild Wasteland trait during character creation, then tune into the NCR Emergency Radio signal during the final fight at Hoover Dam. Specifically, you can hear the lines “They’re coming out of the walls, man, they’re coming out of the damn walls!” and “Game over, man, game over!” which are both quotes from the film. It’s a cute little Easter Egg that you’re likely to miss if you don’t have the trait or don’t have your radio on during the final fight! (And you do actually get an alien encounter if you have Wild Wasteland on – I just don’t know where or when. Looking forward to it regardless!)
So that was nice, at least. :)
4. Get my tumblr queues sorted: Check – there was nothing happening on Valice Multiverse again, but I got a couple of things queued up over on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) for the next two days –
A) A gifset by claudiawolf of the Ocean House Hotel from Vampire: the Masquerade – Bloodlines (featuring various ghostly happenings) for Wednesday
B) And a photoset by gamerism of Chinatown from VTMB (featuring all the important buildings and some gorgeous coloring) for Thursday!
Yeah, given I’m working very hard on getting Chapter 6 of LB:DQ up as soon as possible, it felt right to do some VTMB stuff this week. :) Don’t know what I’m gonna do for Friday or Saturday yet, but we’ll figure that out tomorrow!
Honestly quite productive, I must admit! :) But now it is time for me to head to bed and hopefully get some decent sleep -- we'll see, as it IS rather warm in here. Fingers crossed, folks! Night all!
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Date: 2026-04-16 02:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-04-16 03:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-04-16 01:08 pm (UTC)By the by, when I was typing the comment last night my kid comes down and says, "What’s what website?" Me: DreamWidth. Her: "It looks old."
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Date: 2026-04-17 03:43 am (UTC)And LOL, damn, thanks kid. I suppose it DOES look old compared to a lot of modern social media websites, but that's why we like it, damn it.