Alien Lisa

Mostly because I slept like SHIT last night -- less because of my cold and more because I was HOOOT. It can get pretty damn warm in this room, and my fan didn't help much until I stopped it moving around and just had it blow on me. Miserable, honestly... I don't mind the summery weather so much until it's time to sleep, and then I wish it would freaking cool down. Of course, you all know I'm not a winter person either... Can we just have the happy spring/fall medium of warm days and cool nights? Those are the best.

Anyway, rather quiet day at work -- two coworkers out, so it was just me and one other person. We had plenty to do, so the day went by, but it was just weird to have so few people around. *shrug* Another day, another dollar. I also wrote more on "Fixing You," trying to wrap up this chapter -- even with me cutting vast swathes of content out of it, it's still super-long. Might divide it in two if I can find a good split point, might not. We'll see how I feel later. At any rate, they're out of the tea and almost to Victor's room -- after that brief detour, it's finally down to the Land of the Dead! Good times~

Not much else to report -- got my VictorLuvsAlice queue done through the first part of Thursday, which is good. Did a review on a fanfic I liked, which is also good. About to do my nightly reblog burst, answer two more comments, then get myself to bed. Need my sleep to fight off this cold. Took some Dayquil before supper, so I assume it's still working now... I'll check the directions to be on the safe side, but I think I'm good. Or, as good as I can be with a stuffy nose... Night all!

Despite the weather improving back to summer levels, I can't say this was a particularly nice Saturday. Mainly because of three things:

-->This weird "I guess it's NOT a cold?" slight sore throat thing I've got going on (I woke up a bit stuffy, but then that went away, so...)

-->My period making me generally tired and blah (as it does, grrr)

-->Oh yeah, the brakes went out on the car while I was driving it to get shoes.

Okay, before anyone panics about that last one, NOTHING HAPPENED. Nobody's hurt, and it happened less than a mile from the house, so we were able to get it back home safely. This is what happened: I needed new more wintery shoes, so Mom and I had a plan to go to TJ Maxx over in Smithfield. We left the house, I went around the corner and up the hill, heading toward the main road --

And as I went to stop for the stop sign, the brake suddenly went down farther than it should, basically hitting the floor.

I'm more than a little startled, but manage to stop in time by hitting the brake hard. Mom, who didn't understand why it took me so long to stop, asks what happened, and I blurt out something about the brake going, then going again. It takes a minute, but she finally realizes what happened and has me switch places with her. She tries the pedal and confirms that the brakes have gone. Fortunately, we're still on a side street -- UNFORTUNATELY, we're facing the wrong way, and there's a car coming. Mom's able to carefully reverse us into the nearby parking lot of the local grocery, then steer us back home. Dad took a look and confirmed that the brake line is shot and leaking by the right front tire. So now the car's out of commission until they can get it to a garage and get it fixed. Freaking scary moment, but like I said, we're all okay. Thank GOD it went before I hit the main drag! We now live near one of the busiest streets in the state, and losing your brakes on it -- not a good thing.

On the plus side, I still managed to get my shoes -- Mom took me up in Dad's truck instead. Nothing at TJ Maxx, but we found a Famous Footwear nearby and got a pair that'll work. Nice and cushy, and they should go with most of my winter outfits. *nods* So that's something, I suppose.

Other things of a less-terrifying nature:

-->Cleared out my watch later queue, including the last episode of The Sim Supply's Parenthood LP! Which proved that Sims 4 Sims are incredibly resistant to fire, as it took FOREVER for him to kill off Max's family, in particular his two siblings. (In case you were wondering, it was his way of "clearing the slate" so it would look like this Max was the one in his Super Sim LP.) They all died in the end, though, and he got all the negative traits he wanted, so mission accomplished! Looking forward to whatever he pulls out for the next pack -- which should be Cats & Dogs! Looking forward to that one -- my Sims need some fuzzy friends.

-->Speaking of which, played Sims 4 myself. Dr. Wheatley had an okay day at work, though his Sim self demonstrated some annoying (but probably appropriate) stupidity by trying to put new patients in ALREADY OCCUPIED beds. Made it darn impossible to do some of his work goals in a timely manner. I ended up curing a bunch of people just to free up space. Ah well, he's gotta get his promotion eventually. And he and Chell are still being cute, so that's something.

-->Did another Valice Multiverse queue because, after the three main points above, RP mood was definitely not happening (at least, not with active threads), and I saw one of my partners was going to the movies anyway, sooo...

-->Didn't mention I fit in some BioShock yesterday! Sander Cohen remains a creepy bastard. He's got me taking pictures for a creepy art installation piece, as you do. Part of me is tempted to fire my grenade launcher at it just to see what happens. (Probably you can't because plot, but still.) I will give a more detailed report tomorrow!

Okay -- time to upload another chapter of Secundus and get my queue settled for a couple of days, then maybe I'll spent the rest of the night watching Helloween's latest Link To The Past set (hour and a half! And I've got three Darkwood sets to watch too! Seems like while Dad's watching the Pats game tomorrow, I'll be binging Helloween). Night all, sleep tight! Join me in hoping tomorrow's better!

What's REALLY annoying is that it looked like it was getting nicer for a short while in the afternoon. . .and then it promptly clouded right back up again. *grumps* The regular mega-gusts knocking open the office windows (my coworkers like to keep them cracked in warmer weather for fresh air) didn't help. But then again, better this than anything like Maria. Cripes, poor Puerto Rico... Very glad she's apparently moving out to sea instead of threatening the US mainland. Florida and Texas were hit hard enough -- the rest of the country needs to be in one piece to help everywhere else. (Don't even get me started on the Mexico quake...)

Some other notes on today:

-->Had a couple instances of things falling on the bookshelves -- my Hallmark Victor ornament took a dive from the very top of the structure (and SURVIVED -- he's now firmly stuck up there with that poster putty Locktite stuff), and my big BTTF Illustrated Visual Guide book tipped over at one point (fortunately NOT destroying the LEGO DeLorean near it -- Mom lent me a bookend and now all is well).

-->Kinda did everything EXCEPT the roster maintenance which is supposed to be our main project at work -- this is what happens when you're a Development Assistant with a lot of little projects. Still, got all of them done and got back on the maintenance before the end of day, so yay me.

-->Paid off my credit card bill, organized my financial papers (mainly paystubs), and booked my road test this afternoon! I've been meaning to do the latter all week, but kept forgetting I needed my permit from the glove compartment (needed the # on it). Test is on 10/23 at 10:45 AM. So I still have a month to practice my skills. I feel decently confident on the road these days, at least. Just hope that holds up during the test itself...

-->All that took up a good chunk of time, so I went with writing on "The Technicolor Phase" instead of "Fixing You." Did the bit where Lizzie gets her first color (yellow) from her newborn sister. Had a number of false starts, but I eventually got the words done how they should go. I actually quite like this little verse now -- I'm looking forward to finishing all the shorts I have in mind and posting them. Hopefully other people will like it too.

-->On that note, finally posted the "Nightmare" Mallow Hallow Snippet to AO3! It is creepy and if you don't like forced undressing by Ruin tentacles and implied past rape, I'd skip it and wait until I do the much nicer wrap-up chapter next week. (Reasons I didn't want to end this thing on THAT chapter...)

-->Having some trouble concentrating and my throat is kind of sore. This could either be PMS woes or the start of a cold, and neither is welcome. -.-

Okay, I really need to get to bed now -- sleep tight all!

From spending longer than I wanted doing pledge billing this morning (and worrying it's going to be a mild clusterfuck again this month), to getting stressed out over CAP stuff, to having to fiddle like crazy with a roster that apparently CANNOT be sent in the right format, so I'm going to have to try and make do with what we've got, to the traffic getting WRETCHED the minute I pulled out of work (thanks to a cop having pulled over a tractor trailer and everyone needing to gawk, holding up the line) -- it's just not been a great day. *sigh* Even the weather was pretty dull and icky. At least Jose has fallen apart enough that we shouldn't be getting anything too horrible. Not much rain, and only a little wind. I'll take it.

On the positive side, managed to get another chunk done on "Fixing You" -- this tea party with Nell and William is going in a completely different direction than before. Probably for the best, though -- it's cutting out a lot of unnecessary bits. Edit edit edit~ I also added onto my main tumblr queue, and got the one for Valice Multiverse done. So I've got that going for me. Just gotta post responses to two DW comments and I'm set for the night. Even found the time to watch a few WhatCulture videos, which is always amusing. :)

Right now, though, I'm running out of time to get a decent amount of sleep, so time to wrap things up online. Night all!

Sorry for the lack of a post yesterday -- I spent pretty much my entire Saturday finishing up my room and shelves, and when I finally got to the website to update you all, I kept getting 504 Gateway timeout errors. Finally just gave up and kept watching OutsideXBox videos. As you do.

But yeah, Saturday turned into "Let's Finish This Room Day!" I wasn't expecting it to take so long, but -- well, I have a lot of stuff. Mostly a LOT of Minimates. Mom and I are pretty sure I own every BTTF one they ever made. And we ran into some delays too, such as:

-->Me trying to figure out where the heck to put all the old packaging (finally remembered "Oh hey I have drawers under my bed!" and stuffed them all in there -- SO MUCH FLOOR SPACE now, it's amazing)

-->My small Maudeline Everglot toy statue breaking when we moved it (her head's always been wobbly and falling out, but this time the head broke off the little neck stump you insert into the body! Cue Mom fiddling around with bits of pins and nail glue to force her head to go back on. Succeeded in the end, but what a bitch to pull off!)

-->Fixing my curtain rod (it was taped together because the dowel Mom picked was just a TINY bit too short to reach all the way -- we ended up cutting another rod and making a sort of sleeve to go over the short end and get it stabilized)

-->Running to Wal-Mart to pick up some poster putty for the Minimates (and a new window shade to replace a broken one in my room). If you're unfamiliar with poster putty, it's a putty, kind of feels like chewing gum, that you can roll into shapes and use to stick up posters to walls. Mom googled it and found people recommending it to hold Minimates in place. I can attest to its strength -- I have a ghost Minimates from one of my Ghostbuster sets hanging from a shelf CEILING.

But despite all this, and the fact we kept having to move shit to fit in more shit, we finally got it all put up! Here's my tumblr post with pictures! (It's easier to link you to that rather than deal with a hosting website.) I'm very proud of it all. :D Long Saturday, but good Saturday.

Of course, that means I had to spend today catching up on videos and such. Fortunately, I didn't have too much, but Helloween did post a couple of very long sets of Zelda and Secret of Mana. Good stuff, but hard to fit in! Darkwood also remains terrifying (Helloween died for the first time thanks to a savage man with a shadowy friend -- fortunately death isn't permanent in this game). . .

But not as terrifying as Twilight Fields in the Medical Pavilion in BioShock! D: I finally got a chance to go back and melt the ice there and pick up some of the goodies I missed (after finally properly holding off the horde in Langford's office -- died once, but there's a Vitachamber right inside, so. . .) -- but I wasn't expecting it to be so CREEPY! Especially in one bit where you can see a Dr. Grossman Splicer's shadow mutilating a corpse around a corner, so you head over with gun at the ready to get him -- and then it goes PITCH BLACK just as you reach the stairs at the corner, so you back off, and then the lights come back on, but they're flickering -- and the doctor's GONE. Nowhere to be found near that corpse. Fortunately, I was expecting an ambush, so when he showed up again out of a cold storage locker, I was prepared to kill him, but DAMN. That's the spookiest the game has ever been! Fort Frolic isn't much better -- just a few minutes into this "artiste's" domain, and already I'm on-edge. Bastard is creepy as hell, and knowing that I should expect some of his "statues" to still be alive doesn't help the fear factor. Yikes.

Well, on that lovely note, I really have to go to bed -- regular work week this week, bleh. Hope you guys had a good weekend! Night all, sleep tight!

Yup, they're finally officially up! Bolted to the wall and everything! It actually all looks pretty cool. Mom and I started unpacking all the boxes in my room and putting stuff up this evening -- I took a whack at it myself before supper, but ended up needing the help just thanks to there being SO MUCH stuff to put away. (We haven't even started on the vast collection of Minimates yet.) It's not fully done yet, but hopefully by tomorrow everything will be in place. Would be nice to finally be able to have everything OUT and get all these damn boxes out of my room.

Unfortunately, this does mean that I didn't have any time to write today. :( However, as if in anticipation, my tumblr dashboard was REALLY quiet -- so quiet, in fact, I went ahead and got my Friday queue ready. So I didn't have to worry about that. And the Valice Multiverse queue was almost entirely stuff I'd prewritten replies to at work, so -- yeah, that all worked out at least. Small steps, small steps.

Right now, though, I need to wrap up what I'm doing and get to bed. Friday's another work day, and I've got a semi-busy weekend ahead. (Touching up my room's paint, and Mom's going on about throw pillows now. . .) At least I'm ahead on most videos -- though it looks like the end of The Sim Supply's Parenthood series might be up soon. Need to block out some time to watch that. :) As it stands, good night!

But then, that's what happens when you wake up and discover your mother with the "oh damn they've been fighting again" face. Over my bookcases no less -- apparently Dad didn't realize the plan called for some special middle shelves. It all got hashed out, but it resulted in more boards needing to be cut and stained, a process that takes a while (especially for drying), so no bookcases, and no going up to the fabric place to pick out fabric for the headboard.

Ah well -- it was still a pretty good Tuesday despite that. Very low-key compared to yesterday, but I got pretty much everything on my to-do list done:

-->Wrote some more on "Fixing You" -- Victor vs the Burtonsville mob (they're, ah, not happy to see him in the village). Got a chance to use some more Victorian slang, which is always a plus. Now he, Alice, and Fixxler just have to survive tea with his parents. Fun.

-->Caught up on my remaining videos -- Linkara (the first two issues of "Ultimate Iron Man," which -- don't feel like Iron Man comics AT ALL (Tony's not even in the first one! It's all about his father and mother, and stupid gene experiments), and even in-universe were eventually retconned as a stupid TV show); Outside XBox (fun gaming stuff, as usual); and Helloween (more Darkwood -- he has ventured briefly into the Silent Forest and survived another night of monsters! Not without a lot of anxious whimpering, though XD).

-->Played BioShock -- I've gotten my Insect Swarm plasmid (still looks creepy, but fortunately it's not too bad in-game), made the Lazarus Vector, just barely survived a robot assault on my person by the fucker that is Andrew Ryan, and am parked in the lab about to spray the vector all over the dying trees. I've actually played past that point, but what happens is Splicers all coming out of nowhere, Atlas yelling at me to block some door, and me upsetting a local Big Daddy and getting myself killed. It's all very frustrating. >( At least I'll have a couple of days to ponder it and refine my strategy. And figure out how to block the door I'm supposed to block.

-->Made my muffins -- breakfast is the most important meal of the day, after all.

-->Caught up on both tumblrs and did my queues.

And I was able to fit in the time to get a frozen hot chocolate from the local Dunkin. :) So all in all, pretty good day.

And I've got work tomorrow, so I'd better wrap it up here. Night all, sleep tight!