Doc's Girl: The Insane Backie

Yup, today was the brunch charity event for me and Mom! The whole thing was organized by a friend of one of my coworkers -- she found something called a "disappointment's room" (basically a room in which a disabled or otherwise different child would be hidden in so they would not embarrass the rest of the family) in her house a while back, and after researching the story of the little girl who lived there, was compelled to make something positive of it. So now she's running a charity called "Ruthie's Room" (since the girl was Ruthie) which helps make sensory rooms for kids with special needs. My coworker was selling tickets, and Mom and I bought two. For a good cause, and you got a free meal out of it!

And, in my case, a driving lesson -- back on the highway, though it wasn't anything too new. Though it was WINDY this morning -- I had to keep a close eye on where I was in the lane to make sure I wasn't drifting into anybody else. Made it up there without incident (though Mom and I had to switch when it became clear that finding a parking space was going to be veeeery tricky). Brunch itself was good -- there were a variety of things on offer, from pasta to potatoes to a crunchy french toast (Mom thinks it was rolled in graham cracker crumbs). I had some potatoes and some french toast, and a small cup of tea. Tea tasted mostly like sugar water to me, but the food was good. We sat with some of my coworker's other friends, and chatted for a while. A couple of my other coworkers came over to say hello, and it just pretty nice all around. I even got a chocolate chip cookie and a brownie out of it when they set out the desserts. :P

After that, Mom drove us over to the fabric store (she's got a project that requires felt), we hit the Warwick Newbury's (got the first and second issues of "Biff To The Future!" Which are funny but also pretty dark -- which I guess fits, seeing as it's a miniseries about how 1985A from Part II came to be), and then I drove us home again. Smooth, quiet ride, and we got home around two, which I appreciated muchly. Good day out!

Other things of note today:

-->Wrote another page on "Fixing You" while waiting to head out to the brunch -- Victor and Alice at a Hatter, Hare, and Dormy tea party. Fun stuff, even if it does involve Victor eating a candied snail :P

-->Played some Bloodlines -- got through the Fu Syndicate stuff, with a little help from walthroughs. Harry managed to not be killed by fake sunlight, lasers (the, uh, second time around when I remembered to put on Fortitude ^^;), spinny blades (which I think were supposed to move but didn't?), the Belmont team (again, the second time around), electricity, or fire. Amusingly, after triggering the event that lets the PC escape the deadly testing track and go after The Mandarin, I chose to muck around for a bit instead, looking for goodies --

And when I finished with that, I came back and found The Mandarin waiting for me in front of the door he was SUPPOSED to have fled through. XD I guess he got sick of waiting for me! I drained him dry and completed the quest -- though it took a little extra doing to find the extra goodies I wanted (quest item and some e-mails that I could use to convince another friendly character to skip town before he was killed). Got my next quest lined up, told said friendly character to get out of dodge. . .and then went to Hollywood to pick up an old porno mag for another side quest. XD Hey, I'm trying to get things done here! I'll swing back by Downtown briefly to get that cleared up, and then resume the main quest with a raid on the Giovanni mansion. Fun!

-->Watched Helloween's Chrono Trigger and DS3 sets -- CT remains amusing, cute, and full of fun, while DS3 remains hilariously derpy and silly, especially with Hells and Rufert at the helm. XD They're constantly mocking each other and their characters, it's great. Oh, and belated justice for Rufert, who was regularly messing up quicktime events in their RE5 playthrough -- this time it was Helloween who missed a prompt and got them both killed. XD Of course, Rufert also did the Helloween thing of going the complete wrong way at one point, so. . .

-->Watched Linkara's Fist of the North Star Chapter 1 review, which was pretty short! But good -- it's a manga about a guy who knows how to kill via pressure points, and wanders a post-apocalyptic wasteland defending the innocent (at least, that's how it looks from the first story). Linkara's snark was as usual on point, and it's nice when he gets to recommend something rather than full-on trash it.

-->Did my queue on my main blog and Valice Multiverse -- former runs straight through the beginning of Thursday! Nice to be so ahead. :)

And now I really need to get to bed, as it's a normal workday tomorrow. And I know I've got a lot waiting for me, so. . .night!

As promised, a good chunk of my day was spent watching Helloween's LP of Nier: Automata! It's been a good run so far -- the story concerns an android fighting force trying to take back earth from an invasion of alien machines while the humans wait on the moon. Except that these "machines" are looking less like enemies and more like people now. . . Also there's a bit where a bunch of them are simulating an orgy, then attack the heroes, then form a sort of womb and "give birth" to another android -- and another android climbs out of HIM when the heroes manage to kill the first.

It's THAT sort of game, much like the original Nier. I'm enjoying it, and I'm looking forward to just how much weirder and depressing it's going to get (because the studio that does these games rarely does happy -- I was honestly shocked when a sidequest ended with someone safely being returned to their sibling). Glory To Mankind! (Also, thanks to a comment referencing the "Android Hell" bit from Portal, I'm already fighting off AU thoughts with Chell and Wheatley. My brain, seriously. . .)

Things I have managed to do aside from the N:A marathon:

-->Write some more on "Fixing You" -- Victor got jumped by a Slithering Ruin; Alice killed it and then felt bad because she promised him he wouldn't get hurt. He assured her it was okay, and the Vorpal Fork was reintroduced. :) Next up, montage sequence! I already know all the places I want to hit. :)

-->Play Sims 4 -- Eric Embers finally had a day on the job again! Wasn't TOO exciting, but he got some fingerprinting and evidence analysis done, and took Victor's crime report about somebody playing with matches near a playground. The real draw of the day was the romance festival coming into town -- once Eric was out of work, I had Nikal take advantage of it to have a sort-of-date with Emmett. Went well, mostly -- for some reason, Nikal got jealous just as I was getting their romantic relationship up to a decent level! I didn't SEE Emmett flirt with anyone else. . . But I made her get over it enough for them to have their first kiss. And she got a new t-shirt out of the deal too, which ended up in a whole new outfit. So yeah, that's cool.

-->Watched an April Fool's video from Helloween -- he more or less recreated one of his early F.E.A.R. sets, right down to the crappy video and audio quality. I thought he'd sneakily reuploaded one of his older videos until I read the comments. XD (Though I did start to wonder when he made a comment about the enemies moving when you kicked or punched them after death on higher physics levels, a clear reference to the famous "party bodies" of his reLP. . .)

-->Watched another Sims 1 set from The Sim Supply -- he finally repaired his shower, and got his adult sims into the crafting business -- his "father" makes paintings, his "mother" makes gnomes and gargoyles. He seems to finally be getting the hang of the game again. We'll see how long he lasts!

And I'm currently finishing up catching up on tumblr and doing some things there. . .will have to go to bed soon, though. I have to get up early thanks to the Sunday brunch thing with my coworkers I'm attending with Mom. Over in West Warwick, 10 to 1 -- and then Mom wants to stop at the fabric store and maybe pass by a house on the way back. Hoping we can also stop at a Newbury's so I can see if I can catch up on my Biff To The Futures. . . At any rate, it should be a decent day out. I just kinda miss not getting to stay up late and then sleep in. Ah well, get the chance next weekend. . .and then I have an extra-long one after that thanks to Easter, yay :)

But that's for the future. For now, I should do my final few messages and then hit the sack. Night all!

Yeah, that's how I first woke up today -- with my leg suddenly screaming in pain because a muscle in it had cramped up. Somehow I managed to get back to sleep once the worst of it had abated. . .only to be woken up at 6 because I'd forgot to turn my main alarm off. -.- And then I went back to sleep again only to briefly wake up at 7:30. My brain, ladies and gentlemen. And my body too, come to think of it. (The back of my leg STILL aches a bit, and I've got a bit of a knot in the side of my neck. Bleh.)

Despite all that, and the generally gloomy weather today, I still made it to the mall! Report of my time there:

-->Newbury's has rearranged itself yet again -- at least it means there's always something new to look at. My trip to the comics section yielded the last two comics of the "Who Is Marty McFly?" arc I wanted, but only the second issue of "Biff To The Future," the new miniseries. Since I still need issue 1 of that, I left that one behind and just got the end of "Who Is Marty McFly?"
( Did I Discuss This Arc Before?Collapse )

-->Went to go have lunch -- and found they'd taken out the Subway! O.o I have no idea why, since I haven't been there in months. I ended up going to Charley's Philly Cheesesteaks instead, which was next to it. Had a pretty damn tasty chicken "cheesesteak" sandwich with fries and a strawberry lemonade (with bits of real strawberry in it!) Might make them my new regular for these visits.

-->Dave and Buster's next -- recharged my card and hit all my usual games. Just the same good fun that I usually have there. :)

-->And I ended with a stop at Dairy Queen for a mini Ultimate Chocolate Brownie blizzard -- chocolate ice cream, chocolate chips, brownie bits, and a squirt of fudge. Om nom nom.

So yeah, that was fun. :) I needed a day like that, I think. Just something where I could sit back and relax for change.

Things I accomplished after my trip:

-->Another bit of "Fixing You" -- Victor and Alice have gone down the slide and are now splashing around together in one of the pools. Unfortunately a Slithering Ruin is about to chomp on Victor, so Alice will be needing the Vorpal Blade shortly. After that -- montage!

-->Got through the last of the "Tangled Web" quest in Bloodlines -- Harry successfully raided Kamikaze Zen and set up the network hub without being noticed. I actually managed to sneak around the legs of a guard without setting him off! Also grabbed a special name plate from the vault for an extra experience point and got Mitnick to let me out through the air vent. Back to the main quest next time, entering the obvious "Fu Syndicate" trap!

-->Watched the next of Helloween's RE7 sets -- more glop monsters, more futzing around, no big deal. One minor jumpscare that Hells knew was coming and thus was unaffected by. Seriously, the difference between this section and everything that came before is night and day. You could see some campiness sneaking in with Lucas's stuff, but that remained fairly tense for the most part. This is just standard Resident Evil goofy. Not that I mind that much -- makes it easier to watch.

-->Watched The Sim Supply build a bowling alley, because he builds neat stuff. :) While he likes the pack (less for the actual bowling and more for the furniture and wallpapers and such), he and LGR seem to agree that more aracadey stuff (like the games you'd see at Dave & Busters, actually) should have been included. I'm in full agreement -- I miss the old pinball machines and such. Hoping those will come back in some future update!

-->Got my queue set up for The Valice Multiverse -- it's not much of a muse day for me, RPing-wise (going to the mall tends to send my mind in non-RP directions), but I had enough to at least get some stuff prepped. And I did get a nice piece of fanart to put up: Queen Wins Victor is not having a good day :)

*claps hands* All right -- need to catch up on my main tumblr and answer a couple of messages. Tomorrow, weather is supposed to remain shitty, so my main plan is to do a Helloween Nier: Automata marathon (he has three sets plus a side mission video up now, and they're all pretty long). May fit in either his DS3 co-op LP with Rufert or Linkara's latest review depending on time. We'll see. I also have a lot of WhatCulture gaming videos I'd like to watch too -- probably should get those out of the way tonight. *nods* So yeah, let me get on that. Night all!

While it isn't supposed to be pretty tomorrow, it seems the worst of this upcoming storm is headed above Rhode Island -- we're just supposed to be mainly slush. It's also supposed to be worst in the later afternoon/evening hours. So I'm risking it and heading out tomorrow for my mall day. (Helps that my parents have offered to bring me up -- although I'm not sure if that's just to the bus stop, or to the mall itself. Will get clarification tomorrow.) I just -- I really want this day out. I haven't had a fun trip like this in ages.

Work today was all right -- I had plenty to occupy my time between a big import with maintenance, doing the GL, and finishing up a big duplicate merge project (which got complicated near the end thanks to there being duplicates of the duplicates). Made the day go by, at least. This evening was pretty busy too -- I had a LOOT of tumblr to catch up on. Plus more "Fixing You" to write, with Victor making friends with Cheshire via head scratches. XD Also he and Alice are gonna go down one of the big Wonderland slides, because I think it's cute. And, as Alice mentions, I did put the first Victor memory at the top of the one in the Vale of Tears, so appropriate too! And I did my queue for The Valice Multiverse, which was pretty hefty. Getting a lot of anon questions, which is fun, but requires a lot of careful tag copy-paste. So yeah. At least I found the time to watch LGR's review of the bowling stuff pack for Sims 4. (Yes, really. He's as baffled as anyone else.)

Okay -- can't stay up all night if I'm planning a trip tomorrow, so I'd better finish up my final few messages. Then I can probably sneak in one more YouTube video. Or possibly two; we'll see. :p Night all, and wish me luck tomorrow!

Something of a frustrating morning -- there was a check thing I was hoping to clear up but couldn't, one of my coworkers went home not feeling well (which, you know, worries me), I had another big import to do, and to top it all off I was still feeling sour about the weather situation this upcoming weekend. *grumble*

Fortunately things improved as the day went on -- another coworker brought in some delicious homemade barbecue chicken pizza, so I had that for lunch; I got all caught up on the current maintenance for my imports; my supervisor found a better way of merging in a huge stack of duplicates we found; and I was able to get a first draft of the verse post for one of my exclusive verses done on my lunch break. So yeah, all in all a productive day, I suppose.

This evening's been pretty good too. Had nice pasta and sausage for dinner; watched some classic Whose Line? (the Salute To American Television episode); wrote more on "Fixing You" (have dropped Victor and Alice into Wonderland!); and got my tumblr queue for VictorLuvsAlice done up to the first Sunday post. :) Which included posting another shortfic from my past -- anyone remember the game Journey? Well, this fic's based on the last level: A Dream Journey Fluffy sweetness for all!

Not much else to say about the day, beyond we finally saw the sun today. Amazing, huh? Supposed to be out tomorrow too. . .and then go back in again Friday. -.- Mall trip is a bit up in the air, though the parents have offered to give me a ride if they end up going in that direction themselves looking at houses. We'll see what happens, I suppose. Right now, I have a couple last things to answer, then a bed to get in. Night all!

Another miserable, rainy day today. This morning was more just foggy (hella foggy, in fact), but the rain moved in this afternoon and has been on and off ever since. It's coming down pretty heavily right now. Tomorrow's supposed to clear up and be reasonably nice, same for Thursday --

And then Friday they're calling for rain and possible wet snow.

Did I mention that I took Friday off SPECIFICALLY SO I COULD GO OUT AND DO SOMETHING FUN?

*headdesk* And it's supposed to rain Saturday too! Sunday's the only decent day of the three, and I already HAVE something happening that day! *grumble* It's not like I haven't taken mall trips in less-than-decent weather before, but wet snow sounds like a bit much to wade through. Mom's telling me they might change the forecast -- cross your fingers, I guess!

On the plus side, it was a pretty productive day today -- we got the weekly reports out pretty smoothly, which is good. And I managed to get a ton done on my lunch break -- namely, writing up real summaries for my Forgotten Vows and Secundus explanatory posts on the Valice Multiverse. So those have been edited, and the Queen Wins verse post queued up. Holy crap, I can see the finish line for getting my Verses page done over there. . .

I also started a new chapter in "Fixing You" -- Victor and Alice are off to Wonderland! The beginning's a bit rough, and I'm feeling like I there should be more of a buffer between the Land of the Dead bit and Wonderland, but I can fix that later. For now, I'm gonna concentrate on the fun times that are coming up. And the more angsty times, since this brings up the plot point that Victor's not quite over what Bumby did to him. . . But first funtimes with Wonderland costumes. :D

And I did some more queuing on my main tumblr -- got another snippet of Londerland Bloodlines up. It's a darker one than some of the others, but I hope people will enjoy it nonetheless. And for those that won't, I did try to tag the hell out of it.

So yeah, even with the lousy weather making me grumpy, I suppose this was a good day. Hopefully tomorrow will also be decent. Better get to bed and see -- night all!

Though fortunately not to the level of full on "oh God why" busy -- just a lot to do and less time that I thought to do it in. But I made it through (mostly -- spreadsheet I have to complete tomorrow morning), and that's another day in the bag. And another day closer to the weekend --

Which I have decided, in my infinite wisdom, to make one day longer! Yeah, I went ahead and took Friday off -- mostly because I want to go to the mall. I haven't been in months, and it's been a while since I took a trip just for the fun of it. (Rather than, you know, driving all around Cranston looking at houses while hungry.) Of course, the current forecast for Friday isn't looking so friendly, but -- eeh. Sometimes you just gotta suck it up. (Or possibly move the trip to Saturday. I really just want a day to sleep in since I'm also doing something with my coworkers on Sunday -- brunch get-together -- and that'll necessitate getting up earlier than I usually do.)

Other things which happened today:

-->Finished up Chapter 4 of "Fixing You" (which is likely to become at least two chapters in the editing stage -- I think it ran long). Ended on the gang starting on cute childhood stories in the bar. Downstairs Houndsditch stuff is currently looking like it'll be part of the last chapter, as the gang were talking about having a post-wedding reception down there (yes, the fic ends with Victor and Alice getting married -- I had to!). Next up is back to the living world for a bit, before tumbling down the rabbit hole into Wonderland! Booyah~

-->Caught up on main tumblr and did some queuing -- Sims posts and a really cute OTP piece that sums up how I feel about Valice. :)

-->On my lunch break, I basically finished the Queen Wins universe post for The Valice Multiverse, so that's good! Another one in the can. :) Though I'm thinking I'm going to have to edit my two primary posts (Forgotten Vows & Secundus), as they don't really have proper plot summaries for the newbies at the moment. . .do that this weekend, perhaps.

-->Watched a short Hells made comparing Mass Effect: Andromeda to Vampire: The Masquerade -- Bloodlines in terms of facial animation. The older game is actually better! I've heard the reason for this is because the ME:A team is a bunch of newbies that were basically left in the cold by the experienced folk. . .but I would like further explanation regarding who the heck thought "my face is tired" was acceptable as a hardboiled NPC's line. O.o (Or was it a random comment that just made it into the game? Either way...)

And that's pretty much it -- time to wrap up things and hit the sack. Still got three days of work to go! Night!

Mostly because I had somewhat less free time than expected today -- went out for a drive with Mom that started out with a trip up to Shaw's (we had to pick up some groceries, and some Monopoly tickets (they're doing a "collect this stuff and win prizes!" thing), plus a free donut we won through the Monopoly tickets), then proceeded to the beach parking lot to practice backing up. Sloooowly getting better at that -- it's a matter of keeping track of just what's behind me and on either side of me. Still have a tendency to end up crooked, but I made some progress on that today. But between over an hour of that, and other little things eating away at my time. . .yeah, not everything I wanted to get done got done. In particular, I have not started Helloween's Nier: Automata LP. I'd planned to, but -- the first set is 40 minutes long, and the second, released today, is an hour. What with needing two hours to watch his OTHER videos, plus wanting to do other stuff, I decided it was best to wait on those. Maybe I'll just have a marathon sometime this weekend...

Things I DID get done today:

-->Writing more on "Fixing You" -- and coming up with more stuff for them to do Downstairs, such as visit the Downstairs version of Houndsditch. Of course, that necessitates them getting back to Houndsditch, but it might be nice as an extra chapter? It would allow me to introduce Bonejangles and June as well, and show off something that I might not get to in this current scene -- namely, that the Ukrainian Haunting Spell doesn't work quite right on Victor anymore. We'll see!

-->Playing a little Bloodlines -- Harry has confronted and killed Johnny, leader of the Chinatown Tong, and been contacted by the Mandarin in regards to getting back Nosferatu spy Barnabus. He's also killed an entire club full of Tong, and had his Humanity unfairly lowered by a guy he was fighting shooting and killing the DJ behind him. Harry didn't kill the guy, so why should Harry be penalized? *grumble* Next task -- finish off the Schrecknet "Tangled Web" sidequest before advancing the main quest at the Fu Syndicate. Want my experience points!

-->Watching Helloween and Rufert's DS3 sets -- more faffing about (including Helloween getting them briefly lost), more party bodies (some very enthusiastic torsos in space!), more trying to ignore the actual plot in favor of calling each other "ustless." XD Also a side mission that could have been cool in showing how markers screw with people's heads if it had lasted more than ten minutes. This game. . .at least Rufert and Helloween are having fun being silly with each other. :P

-->Watching Helloween's next Chrono Trigger set -- there was some going around killing things in the future with a robot, a trip to the End of Time, and learning how to use magic! Good stuff. Game continues to be a cute and intelligent RPG that is fun to watch, especially with Hells's commentary. :) Fun change of pace from stuff like RE7.

-->Catching up on tumblr and doing my Valice queue. I really have to do a better job of the former on weekends -- I'm just so easily distracted the moment I have any free time. . .

And now I've stayed up rather too late for a work night, so I'd better get to bed pronto. Night all!

Temperatures were decent, though, which is nice. I thought it was going to be a lot worse. No driving though, as my parents first went to see a house in Smithfield (verdict from outside -- looks okay, on a hill but isn't steep on both sides, seeing the inside on Monday), and then went grocery shopping as we basically had almost no food. We'll see what tomorrow brings, since I believe it's supposed to be icky-awful.

Rest of the day has been pretty good:

-->Reunited Victor and Scraps in "Fixing You," and brought Elder Gutknecht into the bar so I didn't have to bug him in his tower. I think Chapter 4 is close to wrapping up now -- Chapter 5 will focus on Wonderland stuff, mainly Victor and Alice exploring some of the domains (including the intro of Victor's Wonderland outfits). And then we'll move onto getting into Victor's head. . . So far it doesn't look like there's going to be a lot of chapters, but I'm fully expecting a lot of rejiggering and possible additions of extra adventures (one half-formed idea -- introducing June and Bonejangles somehow) once the first draft is done. We'll see how it goes!

-->Watched Helloween's RE7 sets of the week. Which included a giant gloppy boss monster with obvious glowing weak points.

IT'S A RESIDENT EVIL GAME AFTER ALL! :D No, seriously, the game has suddenly taken rather a hard swing, at least in Hells' and my eyes, from pants-wetting to kinda campy, and I am totally on board. Suddenly I feel like I'm actually watching a Resident Evil game. Hooray, I don't have to worry so much about this series giving me nightmares! (It hasn't, actually, but the early stages, PARTICULARLY the mother's bug-themed area, are not stuff I'd watch without Helloween's commentary. Yick.)

-->Played some Sims 4 -- well, after getting the game to patch itself after the update got stuck "in queue." Just another day on the job with Emmett -- he's upgraded his Sim Ray to make people change clothes (though I haven't actually tried that out yet), and created a satellite dish to contact aliens! And mind control the neighborhood, though since I chose the "just be happy" option there, I didn't see much effect. Ah well. I also took a moment to place a Maxis-made nightclub, Club Slate, in Forgotten Hollow to give Sims a reason to visit beyond dropping in on someone's house (which -- I have not actually done yet since you couldn't in Sims 2 and I'm not used to having the option). I made it a Vampire Nexus to encourage the bloodsuckers to patronize it -- now any of my Sims who visit can make vampire friends! :) Though I don't think Marty will be wanting to go down there anytime soon. . .

-->Watched Linkara's latest review -- "Reagan's Raiders," a goofy-in-concept-but-kinda-bland-in-execution "parody" comic that makes Reagan a superhero going up against rather incompetent terrorists. Linkara was not particularly impressed. XD There was also storyline, yay! . . .Not particularly pleasant storyline, as Linkara is getting pissy beyond all belief about events in his life, but still.

-->And I've been spending a good chunk of time on TV Tropes, because -- well, you know me. I have free time, I have to fill it with tropes. :P

So yeah, typical Saturday I suppose. Nice to just have a quiet day to enjoy with games and videos. :) And now I'm off to Valice Multiverse to answer a few things. Night all!

Work was busy, but in a not-too-stressful way -- just me cleaning up my big import, handling some questions, doing a little maintenance, and then helping out with a spreadsheet for a project one of the guys who handles big gifts is doing. Stuff that makes the time pass but doesn't drive me up the wall. I appreciate it.

Better yet, I had time on my lunch break, so I got my Valice Multiverse replies done, AND completed the information post for the Catch Us Verse, AND drafted my Secundus Sunday post! So my Valice Multiverse queue is done, and my Victor Luvs Alice queue good through next Tuesday. :) Plus I got another page done on "Fixing You" (Victor feeling kinda down because he thinks he's being a burden thanks to him still struggling with what happened to him under Bumby -- fortunately this is the part where I bring in Scraps again), caught up on my websites, and answered all current comments.

So, in more classic Friday tradition, I'll be spending the rest of the night watching YouTube videos. XD To be fair, I have a good chunk of stuff in my "Watch Later" list, including more WhatCulture and Outside Xbox gaming stuff, and new episodes from The Sim Supply's Vampire and Sims 1 LPs! And I should get it watched, because I've got plenty of Helloween to catch up on, including the start of his new Nier: Automata LP...plus Linkara's latest episode. So much to watch, so little time...

So yeah, better start now. :P Night all, sleep tight!