[Current Mood | blah ]

[Listening To | muzak ]

Good morning, bitches. We’re up. There’s sunshine and open doors and fresh air. We were allowed to sleep past 4am this morning; I’ll give Podrick extra loves as thanks. The cats have each taken a window to watch over their own little versions of TinyTown Nature Preserve.

We survived Friday. The weather was warm, and I was feeling clammy by the time I had the bedroom set up. I needed to be out of the bedroom to handle a delivery, and didn’t log in at the normal time as a result. I stuck it out for about 90 minutes of streaming before deciding I was getting nothing. Nothing. The majority of people dropping into chat were followers, almost no one found me via searches.

I logged out and made dinner for the three of us, then played with my coasters. I pulled down the one everyone was terrified of and rebuilt a pussy-fied version of it. Everyone loves it, and I pretty much doubled the number of park guests as soon as it opened. I also put in a pool with a water slide, because why the fuck not?

Let me just say one thing: FUCK WATER SLIDES. Getting that fucking thing opened was an absolute bitch. Ride “must be connected to a pool complex”? It’s RIGHT THERE. But no, the real issue is that the spiral staircase needs to attach to the side of the platform, not the end. There were about 100 peeps in my pool when I opened the slide, and they positively swarmed that staircase like ants to a picnic lunch.

Shawshank‘s working tonight, and I’m going to log in. I’m going to set up and stream, and see what sort of bullshit I can get into tonight.

[Current Mood | brain fog ]

[Listening To | birds, fans, and bullshit ]

Oh joy, it’s FRIDAY. I’ve been up, unwillingly, dealing with the bullshit that comes with wanting to have luxuries like window screens. I’m on the couch, Shawshank is in bed, and Podrick is laying down, just pondering what he’ll do next to get me to stage-whisper-scream at him. I initially got out of bed because I heard him knock something off a shelf he shouldn’t be on. Pippin was sick immediately. I had to deal with cleaning up the mobile vomit dispenser, plus Pod wanting to check out both Pippin and the puke.

It’s been a morning already.

A morning which followed a slow, shitty shift, where I did nothing more than chat with a dude about video games and “Doctor Who“. I told him what games I’ve enjoyed, and we talked about whether or not Skyrim is a game you ever actually finish. We also had a fun little debate about whether or not “Blink” is a good episode to show a first time Who-viewer.

I was happy to check my ratings and see a new thumbs up 👍 from someone who’s been in twice now. He’s about 30 years older than me – putting him about 50+ years older than the majority of my fans. He apologized for his age the other day. Don’t worry about it, you’re fine, I told him. One guy’s cougar is another guy’s kitten.

I logged out and made myself a tuna sandwich, with a sidecar of croutons. I spent a couple of hours building a coaster that no one will ride. I can’t imagine why.

Today’s Friday. I’ve been out to feed the crows, and fill the bird feeder. We have two more shifts, then a day off. I’m setting up for a stream, and keeping my optimism up about getting online for a couple of hours. It’s sunny as hell, and if the wind stays down, I’ll go out for some spin time later.

[Current Mood | drained ]

[Listening To | big machinery beeping and the flames of a world on fire ]

Good morning, world. It looks like we had some rain overnight, the roads and grass are wet. My crow army is in the area; Shawshank says there are about 8 chilling across the street, I can hear them cawwing. Podrick was better today, and let us sleep past 4am.

Work was ok last night. The new rig gives me a streaming feature that I couldn’t easily do on my phone: the remote control option. I was a little surprised when an alert popped up for the first time saying someone wanted to try it, but I bravely clicked the “ACCEPT” button. In that second, I figured if it didn’t work the way it should, I’d just flash him. But it worked, and by the time my stream started to go wonky, I had some money in my pocket. Huzzah.

I made a dinner of buffalo chicken wontons and sweet potato fries, smoked, and worked on my amusement park. Almost all of my attractions are on 2 sides of the park – sort of a ┓shape – with a nice path that runs between everything. The park’s visitors can take the train from Station #1 next to the entrance to Station #2 at the opposite side of the park. This all sounds good, until I explain that the station near the entrance is the only thing on that part of the park, and isn’t actually on the main ┓path. All my peeps go down the path to the station, queue up, and fuck around in the dead end. I put a smallish, premade coaster ride near Station #1 last night, just to give visitors something to do over there while I add to things. I spent the rest of the night working on my first custom coaster, which will take up some hillside space that’s not really suitable for other rides.

Today’s going to be pretty much the same, just warmer, and a different dinner.

[Current Mood | cranky ]

[Listening To | fans blowing ]

Good morning, world. We are not happy this morning. Pod started early and had us both up. At 3:34am, after an hour of him fucking around and knocking things about, I walked into the kitchen, grabbed a handful of cat food out of its canister, and dropped it in the bowl. With the hope that the kibble would distract him long enough for us to go back to sleep, I reset my soothing sounds and rolled over. He still came back to try the window, but not as often, and not as aggressively. A couple of hours later, I was finally able to doze.

Our Tuesday was nice. We played with our coasters all day, taking turns with the Switch controller. I think I’m on something like my fifth park at this point, but it’s the first where I’ve really played with the terrain tools. After a lot of googling and struggling, I finally managed to create a waterfall.

I started the prior parks by putting down paths (the Sim City method) and filling the spaces, modifying some shit here and there as needed. This time around, I fucked with terrain first, then attractions, adding a train running around the perimeter of the park, up into some low mountains.

This is my second train, and since I wanted it to function as a shuttle from one part of the park to another, I put it down first, before anything else. I really wanted this train to go through a tunnel, but couldn’t do it. I’m definitely doing a lot more landscaping in this one, and I’m having a shitload of fun with it.

We went out in the afternoon, driving up to TinyTown‘s secondhand shop. We’d pretty much decided there was nothing interesting, but made a second trip into the book room to look at the old yearbooks someone had donated. Shawshank pointed out the V. C. Andrews book set we’d seen two weeks ago was still there. I took it as a sign it was meant to be mine, and Shawshank paid the $2.

With two days off behind us, we’re back to work today. It looks like the day’s going to be sunny and nice. The holiday weekend is over, sportsball is winding down, maybe my traffic will be better.

[Current Mood | drained ]

If it ever hits the news that a hermit in the middle of nowhere went apeshit started screaming so much she was heard outside her bubble of nowhere, you’ll know it was me, and I finally lost it due to lack of sleep. Once again, Podrick started obsessively trying to get to the bedroom window screen around pre-5am, as soon as the barest glimmer of sunrise hit the house, then the crow army dropped in for a squawking. Every time I’d kick Podrick off the bed – sometimes literally – he’d go away for a few minutes, only to return and make a bee line right for the fucking window again. I feel like literally the only thing that would stop him would be sealing up the window with plywood like we’re prepping for a hurricane. I finally left the bed around 6am, started the coffee pot, and played “Roller Coaster Tycoon 3” on the couch.

And this fucking cat hasn’t stopped terrorizing the household yet.

We had a nice Monday where we did pretty much nothing but build amusement parks for the whole day. Shawshank put a load of clothes in the washer and made brunch. We tossed snacks outside for the crows. I felt like laying down after brunch, so I did the old person thing and laid down on the bed and tried to catnap. We capped off the night with medical dramas and WWE, and a bedtime discussion about whereabouts in TinyTown we would take a shit, if we had to make THE PHANTOM SHITTER the biggest news in town.

Today is shaping up to be very similar. Podrick has finally stopped being an asshole, for the time being at least. We’re going to check out the secondhand shop later this afternoon, and have burgers for dinner.