Tigger

Yes, today is the date that I have chosen as the wedding date for Victor, Alice, and Smiler -- well, mostly Victor and Alice, since so far the only AUs that actually have weddings in them are the Forgotten Vows Verse and the Secundus Verse. XD But the Valicer In The Dark trio are going to have one eventually, and my Sims 4 Chill Valicer Save trio in the icon did get married during Sims summer, so... Still counts! Unfortunately, much like the trio's birthdays this year, the anniversary was not a perfect day -- the weather was absolutely miserable all day (so much rain -- we need it, but still); Dad was grumpy when he came home from the hospital as the steroids they gave him were wearing off, meaning he didn't feel great (didn't eat much supper and had to deal with a stuffed-up nose); and I didn't quite accomplish everything I was hoping to. But I still got a lot done, as the write-up should show:

Tumblr: As usual, there was nothing going on over on Valice Multiverse today, but I actually spent a lot of time over on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) – in fact, I spent most of the day writing out the full version of one of the posts I rough drafted back on June 28th: “Making Valice AUs Valicer: Catch Us If You Can!” As a reminder, this was the post where I wanted to talk about how I would make “Catch Us If You Can” – my Forgotten Vows Verse “Bad End” AU where Alice is seen killing Bumby and has to flee Moorgate Station without Victor; Victor ends up in Rutledge Asylum, where he does regain at least some his memories but also finds his parents are willing to abandon him there for refusing to recant his story about Emily; Alice finds out about his incarceration in there and breaks him out – with the pair ending up killing David and Lum Monroe on their way out when the twins nearly catch them; and the pair becoming serial killers targeting the scum of the East End in the wake of all this – into a Valicer AU, with two variants on the idea:

A) A variant on the Hypothetical Forgotten Vows Verse AU, where Smiler was Victor’s first love but got sent to rural Lithuania by Kelman before the events of Corpse Bride and only returns to England around the time of “Remembering You” – this version would have Smiler return to London a bit later, when the pair were established serial killers, and hire them to kill their awful father – not knowing that Victor was one of the duo (they only ever heard of them referred to as the “Scourge of Whitechapel” or something like that). Cue the gang heading to Sanctuary to kill Kelman, Victor and Smiler rekindling their feelings for each other, and Alice realizing she’s fine with sharing Victor, causing the formation of the polycule. Endgame would have Smiler either providing a safe haven for Victor and Alice as they continue their work, or convincing them to retire at last and make a new start (either elsewhere in England or in an entirely new country – they already know rural Lithuania is pretty nice :P)

B) A version where Smiler is a street peddler who ends up in London after Victor and Alice are established as killers and ends up solicited by one of their targets for their “Joy Serum” – Smiler ends up helping the pair take the guy and his group down after learning they were expected to drug children, and after Victor and Alice learn they have nowhere to stay, comes to live with them at their safehouse in Radcliffe’s old townhouse. Cue Smiler managing to get the two to stop spending all their time being serial killers and take breaks; revealing their backstory to them – including the bit where they met the god Mar-Mal and got blessed with minor mind control powers (which they SWEAR they can only use to make people happy); hypnotizing Victor with his permission when, while fleeing a job, they have to hide in a small dark closet in someone’s house and Victor starts panicking; helping Victor deal with his “wtf I enjoyed that” feelings and helping him regain more memories with their powers (causing ALICE to develop “wtf I enjoyed that” feelings upon watching them); eventually entering into a polycule with them as feelings are admitted –

And then getting kidnapped by Kelman’s minions and taken back to the Sanctuary for brain surgery. Forcing Victor and Alice to storm the place and rescue them. Endgame here is the trio continuing to target the scum of the East End, but with an aim of eventually retiring and starting over somewhere else.

And if THAT seemed like a long write-up, you should see the actual post. XD To be fair, part of the length is due to the fact that I wrote up a full summary of the “Catch Us” verse to bring people back up to speed on it, as I haven’t talked about it in a good long while...but yeah, getting the full text of that done took me most of the day – and I still haven’t done the tags on it! But that can wait until next weekend. *nods*

Print Gallery of an Artist: Hey, remember that weird platformer game I discovered via tumblr a few weeks ago? The one where the gimmick is all of the levels full of trippy art are spinning or spiraling in some way, and you’re controlling multiple instances of the same bird-cube trying to collect coins as a result? Well, I ended up playing another round of that late this afternoon because I figured, why not? I enjoyed my first go! And I have good news and bad news regarding it –

Good News: I made it past the spiraling level where you had to master the wall jump! That is where I got stuck last time as I was having trouble figuring out how the wall jump worked, but this time around I was able to buckle down and figure it out enough to get all the coins and get out of there!

Bad News: I ended up utterly failing the next level along, which required you to carefully navigate a number of platforms – including many L-shaped ones – while recursive eyeballs chased the recursive bird-block. I just could not keep myself clear of the eyes while also doing the platforming to get all the coins. *shakehead* Guess I shouldn’t be too surprised – the other level I struggled the most with was another one featuring the eyeballs. THAT one had a bit more space for the bird-cube to navigate, though – this one featured a MUCH tighter spiral. *grimace* I suspect it will take a while to master once I try again.

So yeah – made a little forward progress in that game, but not much. But it was still fun, and fortunately I didn’t play long enough for my vision to get too spinny once I exited out. *nods*

Writing: Again, I got to it later than I intended (thanks to spending so much time working on the “Valicer Catch Us” tumblr post and deciding to play that platformer), but I am pleased to say that I did indeed finish editing and post Chapter 7 of “The Van Dort Vacancy” on AO3 today! Though sadly I did not post it in time to put up on tumblr, thanks to the aforementioned getting to it later than intended. But it is up, and you can enjoy the penultimate chapter and the official formation of the Three Pillars if you wish. :) Just gotta get the epilogue done now – though we’ll be spending the rest of this week with Malkavian!Alice, as I do also have to get “Londerland Bloodlines: Hollywood’s Deluded Depths” done too.

Workout: Got back on the bike again this evening as I almost always do, pedaling my way through –

A) The second half of “Rags to Riches continues in Paralives! (Part 4)” by James Turner! The current finale of the adventures of Person “Percy” Pennypile and Semaj Renrut (as James hasn’t yet had the opportunity to record another episode) included –

I. Percy FINALLY finishing off one of the pizzas the boys have had in their inventory for ages while Semaj watched some TV, then visiting the General Store to learn his daily recipes (Hamburger and Hamburg Steak – neither of which James actually needed) – James tried to get him to look up some more online, but it appears that you can only get two recipes per day: one online and one from the General Store book, or two from the General Store book. And you HAVE to do the online one first, otherwise you get both from the General Store book. *shrug* Good to know, I suppose!

II. Percy checking Creme for any new cakes or sandwiches that could be donated to the Community Center (no dice, sadly) while Semaj went to the General Store to learn his daily recipes – only to get stuck inside the lot when it unloaded in response to Percy loading up Creme. XD Fortunately James was able to teleport him out, so we didn’t lose our Short King to the ether!

( Semaj declares his gender identity and finds out cakes are worth a lot of money, while Doc Mitchell kills some ants and a guy )

YouTube: Well, I was hoping to watch some more hefty clips of Victor, Alice, and – well, The Smiler (as in the rollercoaster Smiler is based off of), but time constraints forbid. But I did end up watching a few things today –

A) “Victor Van Dort- corpse bride” by emi, which was a clip of Victor and Victoria’s first meeting – from her startling him at the piano to him knocking over the vase atop the piano and her offering him the flower; this was one of my “reference” videos for finishing up the edits on Chapter 7 above

B) And my “Microdosing on Valicer” playlist, featuring ultra-short clips of Alice, Victor, and The Smiler-related content for when I don’t have a lot of time to spend watching stuff about my OT3. In fact, I ended up watching it twice through – once as “reference” for my Chapter 7 edits, and once as a celebration of Valicer after finding a new micro-clip of Victor to replace one that got deleted a while back (“Victor Van Dort: take your hands off her.” by Sticks the Multifandom girl – literally two seconds of Victor saying the titular line to Barkis when he tries to kidnap Victoria)

So yeah – at least I got a little Valicer content in on the old Tubes!

Aaand I have officially stayed up later than I should have, so I'd better get to bed. Especially since I have to stick a link to Chapter 7 into my VLA(NS) queue tomorrow morning, as I just didn't have time tonight. *shakehead* One day I shall learn time management -- night all!

Yes, today I didn't go out because it was too hot -- in fact, it barely hit 70F outside -- but because it was too rainy! It was at least drizzling most of the day, and we're currently under a flood watch because it's supposed to start raining heavier overnight into tomorrow. And then we might get one nice day on Wednesday before it ends up hot and humid again on Thursday. *sigh* New England weather, people! Though despite the coolness of the day, I ended up having to turn my AC on tonight because it was a little too warm and a little too humid in my room earlier. Probably retaining heat from the heat wave... *shrug* What can you do? Well, the following, for a start --

Tumblr: As today was Monday, I only had to worry about keeping up on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) today tumblr-wise (though, really, given how little activity Valice Multiverse gets, I only have to worry about VLA(NS) most days) – ended up accomplishing two things of note over there –

A) First, since I got a late start this morning (slept in until almost 10 AM), I decided the best thing to do before lunch was to go through my tracked tags and find if there was anything I wanted to reblog! Ended up sticking the following into my drafts –

I. A piece of VTMB fanart by sionskaia showing the wrecked basement of the abandoned hospital, Pisha advancing on one of the unfortunate crew members while an abandoned camcorder in the corner showed her face looming in the preview screen (very well done, and I loved Pisha’s face on the abandoned camcorder...along with the little notification saying something was “FINE” at the top XD No it isn’t, camcorder!)

II. A piece of Blades In The Dark OC art by overdeaths of his character Shrike, “a bastard with perhapsss a little demon problem” as per his own description, wielding a strange and terrifying blade with SOMETHING ethereal with lots of eyes coming out of him (it was made for “Artfight,” a fun little event where artists “attack” each other by drawing their OCs, and it was really cool – I hope he gets some fun attacks :D)

III. Another piece of BITD OC art by ouliarts of their character Canori – a woman with bright green feathers around her red eyes, marking her as from Tycheros – in a portrait with her late husband and kid (who inherited some of the feathers) (another nice piece that was quite well drawn – made me sad that Canori had lost her family as per the tags)

IV. A piece of The Smiler OC art by phoenixthefurb of their updated design for their Smiler/Marmaliser character, which is basically a somewhat humanoid torso sporting the iconic Smiler face and pointy antenna “ears” atop the big old legs from the ride’s Marmaliser (which were rendered very well – I found it fascinating and thus had to save for later)

V. Another piece of The Smiler OC art by novafloattv of fellow Smiler lover protohay’s Smiler OC for artfight, featuring a rather cute lady with the iconic Smiler face, a fun black-and-yellow-striped hat and a jacket that I think looks a little straitjacket-esque with the belts on the arms and across the front (I just thought it was cute! As did protohay, fortunately :) )

VI. And an A:MR gifset by xcybervampx of Alice getting into the teapot cable car at the end of the crockery and heading off to Hatter’s Domain (very smooth and pretty gifs, and I do like that moment as I like the teapot cable car in general – it’s just a good design!)

So yay, now I have a bunch of new stuff I can toss into future queues. :)

B) And second, this evening, I abruptly remembered “Oh yeah, Valicer Anniversary tomorrow!” and tossed the completed VITD Wedding post into the queue so I didn’t have to worry about posting it manually. *nods* So THAT’S all sorted for tomorrow, hooray~

Paralives: Played a little over an hour of everyone’s favorite Early Access life sim today, working some more on my randomized Para Lilliana’s alleyway house today – and despite a few hiccups, I both had fun and made progress! :) Not a hell of a LOT of progress, mind, a decent portion of my playsession today focused around recoloring items, but still. XD Let me tell you about it –

A) After the long opening loading screen (I suppose this is the price we pay for having a fully-open-world game), I picked up outside Lilliana’s little three-story abode tucked in between the pharmacy and – er, whoever lives next door, I don’t actually know who that is. XD I thus attempted to rotate the camera so I could get a better look at her front hallway and figure out what I wanted to do with it once I hopped into Build/Buy Mode –

Only to suddenly find myself IN Build/Buy Mode. I had a moment of “???” – then realized that, instead of hitting [Q] to spin the camera, I’d hit [TAB] instead. And apparently that’s the shortcut key between Build/Buy and Live Mode! Okay, glad I made that mistake, honestly – that’s a handy shortcut to know! (And before you say anything about “didn’t you look at the key bindings the last time you played?” – said last time I played was June 8th, which was nearly a month ago, so cut me some slack. :P)

B) Having established how to quickly swap between Build/Buy and Live Mode, and changed the time of day in B/B to 12 PM so I could better see what I was doing (as it was the middle of the night in Live Mode), I set about examining the front hall. The last time I played, I made the paint in there a really bright, almost Day-Glo green to help set off the dark green front door...but the more I looked at it, the more I was like “Mmmm – do I really want the front hall to be that color? Maybe something darker would be better...and then I could lighten the door instead?” I thus redid the hallway in a darker green swatch of the same paint, then – after grabbing a new version of the door because I’d forgotten you could just click on the existing item to change the color swatch (haven’t played in a month!) – changed the wood frame of the door to match the color of the baseboards and the door itself to a nice bright (but not too bright) green…

Then looked it again and was like “No, I don’t think I like that either.” The brighter greens just didn’t seem to suit the build, or the character I was building for – Lilliana was dressed in much darker greens and browns, after all. So I decided to go all dark greens and just made the door dark enough that I was satisfied it would still stand out against the hallway instead of blending in. After that, all I had to do was write down the hex codes for the frame and door colors, and apply them to the window frames and shutters respectively, and voila – perfectly matching windows and doors! Guys, I think I may be sold on having a color wheel. :p (I also did experiment a little with changing the wood textures on both the door and the window shutters, but nothing looked good, so I kept the basic default stuff. Something we can play with later!)

( I extend a hallway, figure out stairs, help Lilliana enter her own house, and build a bathroom )

Writing: Well, I got to it a bit later than I was hoping due to various factors (the Paralives write-up above taking longer than anticipated; supper being a bit later than usual thanks to Mom having to come home from the hospital first and cook some sausage to go with yesterday’s leftovers; Dad FaceTiming us right after supper (he’s doing fine, don’t worry); me getting a little distracted by rereading bits of the Blades In The Dark source book while double-checking a certain step in creating a crew for chapter title purposes – see item B below; and FF.net absolutely REFUSING to accept the Chapter 7 .odt doc for AGES – I don’t know what it’s problem is, but eventually I forced the upload through), but I did start final edits on Chapter 7 of “The Van Dort Vacancy” tonight! Which involved –

A) Watching my “reference videos” – the first three and a half minutes of “Percy, Rum, Balloons and Mooning - The OX Crew Play BITD” by CaitlinRC, with some best bits from the Barnaby and Kasimir balloon race score (including Kasimir attempting to be passive-aggressive when Barnaby asked him to get get him a drink, as he didn’t want to stand up, and Barnaby completely missing it), and the first minute and a half of “Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride | Remains of the Day | Movie Clip | Warner Bros. Entertainment” by Warner Bros. Entertainment, which showed Victor waking up in the Ball & Socket post Emily-kiss, being spooked by the residents, and finally trying to grab the sword out of Bonesaparte to fend them off with – only to grab the whole guy (left off right before the song, which I’m sure most Corpse Bride fans would call blasphemy, but I didn’t need to listen to “Remains Of The Day, I just needed a Victor clip!)

B) Coming up with a chapter title for Chapter 7 – “Two Coin Would Have Gotten Them Plus One Status, But Oh Well” – this is a reference to how, when you first make your crew in Blades In the Dark, you inevitably find yourself intruding on someone else’s turf when it comes to where you do your jobs and have to figure out how to deal with them. You can pay the other crew one Coin to mollify them and prove you respect their claim, as Alice did when Nessa and the Gray Cloaks showed up to ask the trio what their deal was, or you can pay them two Coin and make them actually friendly to you. Or you can ignore them and make them mildly hostile, if you’re willing to take a risk. :p If you’re wondering, I only had Alice give Nessa one Coin because the gang needed the rest for their own personal expenses – namely, those expensive presents Victor will be giving his partners-in-crime in the epilogue. :p They may become more friendly with the Gray Cloaks by other means later!

C) And, you know, actually editing the chapter. XD I got through about half the chapter today, from Barnaby complaining about his ruined smoky coat to the trio preparing to head back to Elder Gutknecht’s place and talk to him about staying for good. Probably could have done the whole thing in one go if I’d had the time (it’s only slightly longer than Chapter 6), but alas, it was not to be. We’ll finish it up tomorrow instead – and maybe celebrate the Valicer Anniversary with a new chapter of one of my Valicer stories going up on AO3. :p

Workout: Hopped back on the stationary bike for another ride this evening – and, because I played Paralives today, I decided to watch the first half of “Rags to Riches continues in Paralives! (Part 4)” by James Turner with it! This chunk of the adventures of Person Pennypile and Semaj Renrut included –

A) James having Semaj call over Bianca for another try at that first kiss, and attempting to send Percy to paint – only to discover they didn’t have enough money for him to pay for the canvas (it seems to cost more to start painting the more skilled you become); Percy thus got sent on one of the duo’s patented Collecting Sprees to gather items that could be sold or donated for cash while Semaj waited for Bianca to show up –

Before realizing that, instead of going to what James thought of as the front door on the first floor of the build, she’d gone to what the Paras seemed to consider the front door at the top of the build – the one that connects to the sitting area above the train tracks. Fortunately, Semaj was able to run over and engage her in conversation before she got tired of waiting to be greeted and left. XD One Together Card later, Semaj bit the bullet and decided to suggest being in an official romantic relationship – Bianca agreed, making them officially Lovers (much like Semaj and Percy – James was a little surprised that he could just be in multiple relationships, but this IS a game that has the option to make your Sims polyamorous right off the bat) –

And opening up the option for them to kiss passionately! :D FINALLY fulfilling Semaj’s want to have a first kiss with Bianca! Granted, we didn’t get a great view of said first kiss as James’s camera kept bouncing all over the place (he wasn’t sure if it was the game or his “Sims 3-style camera” mod), and when he tried to make it happen in Photo Mode it didn’t come out looking quite right, but it happened! w00t!

( The Boys donate paintings for money, try to slice up some cakes, FINALLY get a bathroom sink, and complete some more quests )

*nods* Not too shabby, I suppose! It was fun to finally get to start properly designing and decorating the house in Paralives -- and I'm very glad that I'm so close to uploading another chapter of "The Van Dort Vacancy." Means I can start the next story in the series, "They Would Have Done It For An Ottoman," that much sooner... :p But now I should really get to bed, as it is pretty late and I'd kind of like to wake up in time to say bye to Mom before she goes to spend some more time with Dad in the hospital (he won't be coming home until later in the afternoon). Tomorrow is the Valicer Anniversary, as I have said -- plans include working on my Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) drafts and updating the Master Anniversary Post; finishing edits on Chapter 7 of "The Van Dort Vacancy" and getting it up on AO3; and getting in a workout. I MAY also play some more Paralives, as per my write-up above, or I may skip gaming altogether in favor of just watching some videos pertaining to the three members of my OT3. We'll see. *shrug* Night all!

Like, it was still kind of humid outside, so we once again spent our day in the air conditioning; Dad was struggling with a lack of appetite most of the day (though he did manage to eat his entire piece of birthday cake), which was concerning; and I had some issues during my gaming session which really annoyed me -- but overall, the day wasn't bad. Just -- not as good as it could have been. *shrug* Really, that's the case for most days around here these days... Anyway, here's what I accomplished this July 5th --

Tumblr: As usual, there was nothing going on over on Valice Multiverse, but I did get three things done on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) today –

A) I finished off the final draft of my VITD Wedding Post for the Valicer Anniversary on the 7th! :D I ran through it one more time before lunch – cleaning up the wording a bit in spots and adding in explanatory links when necessary – then topped it all off with a bunch of tags to explain where all the various wedding ideas had come from! :) So that is all ready to go for Tuesday, w000~

B) I cross-posted the latest “Smiler In Secundus” story to my blog just after lunch! Because I like writing Secundus!Smiler and want to share them with my tumblr peeps as well. :)

C) And, this evening, I reblogged fellow Backie fan knickynoo’s story for the Day 4 prompt of McFly July, “Ice Cream Truck,” which saw poor Marty having to share a tent with Jules and Verne on a camping trip and listen to argue as Verne complained about having to go into the middle of nowhere to time travel and suggested new ideas for time machines, including a motorcycle and – naturally – an ice cream truck. Both because it was a cute and fun story –

And because I saw a post from her on my dash later asking if anyone had caught the Easter Egg in the story, calling it “Something you might know if you're familiar with more obscure behind the scenes and making of the movie details.” The replies on the post indicated that nobody had yet –

But I had. Because the moment I saw Verne suggest as one of the options for a new time machine a convertible Mustang, I immediately thought “Doc Brown doesn’t drive a fucking Mustang!” XD Which, if you don’t know, is a reference to something Bob Gale said when the Universal execs tried to get them to change the car from a DeLorean, and made its way onto a shirt at one point (I have a vivid memory of seeing a picture with Bob and some of the other cast/crew holding up shirts saying that). So I reblogged the story and quoted the famous line in the tags before letting her know I’d seen the “did you catch my Easter Egg” post and wanted her to see I had. XD It’s nice to be in on the reference for once – usually the just fly over my head!

Fallout: New Vegas: Unfortunately, today’s trip to the Mojave was not quite as pleasant as yesterday’s trip to Faerûn, thanks to poor Victor really struggling to take down some of the convicts bumming around town and me pressing the wrong button on my controller and sort of kicking myself out of the game at one point. :( But Victor did eventually succeed in clearing out those convicts, and managed to both get a couple of leads on where he could find a new sheriff for Primm AND learn where he needed to go next to continue tracking down the asshole who shot him in the head. *nods* Let me tell you all about it –

A) I picked up right where I left off last time – with Victor by the wall on the right side of Primm, standing (well, crouching) over the body of the convict he’d just killed and looted his new “goggles helmet” off of. Because Victor wears it better than that guy ever did. :p Now, back when I ended the last playsession, my original plan was that Victor would immediately head into the Vikki & Vance to meet up with Deputy Beagle and get the skinny on how to bring the law back to Primm and what Beagle knows about the guy who shot him –

But that was before I learned via watching Jon of Many A True Nerd’s old playthrough of the “Dust” mod that there was a whole section of Primm that I didn’t even know existed before – namely, the little neighborhood of various houses to the far right of the town, just past the wall Victor was currently crouched beside! I thus had him head up and around the edge of the wall, toward the little collection of houses on the other side (where I presume many of the citizens live when they’re not trapped in the Vikki & Vance). The neighborhood looked quiet when Victor first approached – there were a few red ticks on his compass, but they were off to the side, up on the little slope of road leading into town off the highway off-ramp, and I couldn’t actually SEE any enemies up there, so I presumed they couldn’t see Victor in turn –

But as he ventured a little further in, checking the big blue mailbox at the end of the road for goodies (just an ashtray and a cherry bomb, nothing worth picking up), a VATS scan revealed there was an escaped convict way down at the end of the little path leading between the houses, by the back wall. Well then. Having learned from Jon’s various videos on the subject that VATS is not good at range in this game, I had Victor swap over to his Varmint Rifle, then carefully lined up a shot on the guy with the gun’s iron sights –

And with a single bang, the convict went down to a sneak attack critical! :D Unfortunately, I only had like two seconds to enjoy making that shot before the kill cam revealed that there was a second convict down there – one who was sure to see his friend’s dead body and get, ah, shirty about it in short order. I had Victor adjust position to get a better look at the guy as he noticed his dead buddy, then tried to line up another shot to take him out –

And missed, because my manual aiming skills are not great even under perfect conditions (seriously, I am stunned I made that sneak attack crit), and worse when I’m nervous. The convict thus noticed Victor and started running at him as he desperately took shot after shot and missed –

And then, as he got near, the guy pulled out a stick of dynamite, lit it, and lobbed it straight at our unfortunate courier. D: I did my best to get Victor out of the way, but it wasn’t good enough – the stick exploded near enough to him to not only knock a good amount off his health, but also smash up his left arm and right leg. *grimace* I just got those repaired, damn it! Desperate to keep him alive, I had Victor continue trying to shoot the angry convict manually as the man ran up to him and started beating him about the head with a tire iron –

Then realized “what the fuck am I doing, he’s close range!” and switched to VATS. A couple of shots in that mode later, the convict finally went down, allowing Victor a moment to breathe –

But, well, I was not keen on Victor having to use a doctor’s bag or risk a dose of addictive Hydra to fix up his busted limbs ALREADY, and I was quite certain that I could do this fight a LOT better if I approached it with the knowledge that I was fighting two guys, not one. So yeah – reload time!

( Victor EVENTUALLY kills some convicts and then checks in on the people – and robots – of Primm )

Workout: Well, here’s something a little bizarre – you know how sometimes on Sundays I have to watch a random video at the start of my workout because Jon’s a little late uploading the latest episode of whatever Fallout series he’s got going at the time? Well, today Jon uploaded the latest episode of “The Worst Wanderer” just in time for me to watch it on the bike (seriously, I went to his channel and he’d uploaded it a minute after I started pedaling)...but the episode proved short enough (30 minutes) that I ended up having to watch a random video after it to fill in the last few minutes of my workout. O.o I dunno, it just struck me as a little weird. *shrug* So yeah, we have two videos to put into the “Workout” section of the write-up today –

A) “Fallout 3: The Worst Wanderer - Part 8 - Head Hunting!” The continuing adventures of Useless Steve, Fallout 3 edition! Who today –

I. Traveled to Minefield as his jumping-off point for exploring the northeast corner of the map for important goodies, and decided to see if, now that his Lockpick skill was up to 12, he could boost that with some of the various drugs and clothing items he’s picked up to actually pick open one or two of the houses around town –

Only to find that he now mysteriously had a key for all of them. Turns out that when he robbed Arkansas after enslaving him, he got a key that not only opened up Ridgefield Gate (which is the gate in front of Arkansas’s home), but also every house in town. ...well, that was convenient! Steve thus happily went and looted all of the houses that he couldn’t get into before, getting a few Pre-War books to sell later and a handful of skill books to read – a “D.C. Journal Of Internal Medicine” for +1 Medicine, a “Grognak The Barbarian” for +1 Melee Weapons (after, appropriately, killing a bunch of radroaches by slicing them up with the Ripper), and a “Pugilism Illustrated” for +1 Unarmed! Yeah, +1 to a skill may not seem like much, but for Steve, it’s a huge freaking deal.

( It’s Useless Steve! Bobbling across the other side of the wasteland to collect more bobbleheads! )

B) And “How did ancient civilizations make ice cream? - Vivian Jiang” by TED-Ed! Because it seemed a fun sort of video to watch after coming out of the massive heat wave we’ve been in for the past few days. The five minute video quickly covered such things like –

I. The CIA’s failed attempt to assassinate Fidel Castro by slipping a poison pill into a chocolate milkshake (apparently Castro was an ice cream fiend while was alive and would devour tons of the stuff after lunch every day) – apparently the pill froze to the bottom of the freezer it was stored in and broke, rendering it useless

II. How the first accounts we have of cold desserts and iced drinks, the precursors to ice cream, date back all the way to the 1st Century AD and civilizations like Ancient Rome, the Mughals of India, and Tang Dynasty China, where the treats were mainly enjoyed by the royal elites, and how those desserts were actually made in the first place – from Mediterranean nobles forcing laborers to trek into mountains and gather snow and ice from glaciers, to the Persians using “sky cooling” to freeze shallow insulated pools of water into ice in the desert overnight (with the water radiating enough heat into the night sky to dip below the freezing point)

IV. How ice cream itself was developed from “sharbat,” an icy drink believed to originate from Persia – the drink was brought back to Europe by travelers who began making their own variations on it (with flavors such as chocolate, eggplant, and pinecone), and in 1692, Neapolitan chef Antonio Latini wrote down his recipe for a milk-based version, which at least some historians consider the first ice cream

V. How ice cream remained a treat for the elite as it crossed the Atlantic into the new world due to how hard it was to make it and how much all the ingredients cost – apparently George Washington spent the equivalent of $6,600 modern dollars on ice cream during one summer in Colonial America! Sheesh...you can see why regular people couldn’t buy it!

VI. How ice cream slowly became more available to the masses thanks to the innovations of people like Nancy Johnson, who in 1843 invented and sold the first ice cream churn that home cooks could use, and Frederick Tudor, who in the 1830s improved the ice trade so blocks of ice could be shipped all over the globe to help people keep food cold – and, weirdly enough, thanks to political turmoil in Italy, which sent immigrants to cities like London and New York, where they took up jobs as traveling ice cream salespeople, selling “licks” of the stuff for roughly a penny each

VII. How the soda fountain was invented (basically, American druggists realizing that ice cream and soda went really well together), and how, when Prohibition started, a lot of saloons quickly reinvented themselves as soda fountains (though most probably did still have a secret booze menu) and breweries turned themselves into ice cream factories

VIII. And how improvements in refrigeration finally led to home freezers that could store up to a quart of ice cream (incredible!) by the end of WWII, and eventually led to refrigerated trucks that could haul ice cream from place to place

Interesting stuff! I knew a bit of this already from reading various “fascinating facts” books, but not about sky-cooling, or the Italian immigrants selling “licks,” or sharbat. Always fun to learn something new about a favorite treat!

*nods* Not bad for a Sunday. But now I really have to hit the sheets, as it's getting pretty late. Tomorrow is going to be an interesting day, as Dad is going in for another round of immunotherapy and will have to stay the night in the hospital again to be monitored, so I'm going to be on my own for most of the day while Mom stays with him. Not entirely sure what I'm going to do with my time yet -- I'll probably spend the morning working some more on my Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler) drafts, and I'll probably play some Paralives or Portal 2 in the afternoon. Definitely want to start final edits on Chapter 7 of "The Van Dort Vacancy" so I can get that up this week, though. *nods* We'll see what happens -- night all!