thoughtvoid

[thoughtvoid]

#Voted Naruto because I know it's the first I watched with the mindset of 'this is anime' #Because I feel like that's what the omitting of Pokemon implies #But if I didn't treat it like that; then there were so many anime that I just accepted as cartoons on tv #Pokemon; sure; but also Digimon YuGiOh DragonballZ Sailor Moon Hamtaro #Somewhere in the back of my mind also has Shinzo and Cyborg 009 from around that time #Sonic X also counts #My first Japanese studio animated movie that I recall watching... was probably My Neighbor Totoro in daycare #But the one I remember best is Little Nemo. I only learned that movie was made by Tms a relatively short time ago and it threw me for a loop #There was so much anime before I was aware that there was a distinction

[thoughtvoid]

My mom bought a bunch of wooden puzzles off of Temu. Mostly for herself, though the got me a couple of dragon ones. And I took a while to get around to working mine, so she'd done all of hers and showed how pretty much all of them have cute shapes of animals mixed in. (And she's wanted these kinds of puzzles for a while, but the sites she knew of were more expensive and too few pieces for her to spend on prior.)

Now the funny thing is, when I did work mine, I laid out all the pieces for the first puzzle and was sorting them by colour, yada yada, and also picked out the shapes. And the first shape I pulled. Was not an animal. And it took me a while to figure out, because I'm not into any of the sort of shows I knew it was from, and I'm just. 'Not Kamen Rider, I'd recognize him, my friends like him. Pulseman? No, that's not a show, that's a Game Freak game. Hmm... Ultraman? ....Yeah, that's the only other name coming to mind, it's probably Ultraman.' And it was Ultraman, or at least his head, but it's funny. The puzzle also had a Pikachu, amongst the more normal things like a fish, a fox, a dragon, etc. And while my mom would know Pikachu, I know for a fact that she'd have no idea in the slightest what Ultraman is. I barely know him, but I've at least heard of him enough to associate him with the costumed action hero stuff. So of course it was in my puzzle.

(The second puzzle had no franchise icons, just animals, so it's just the one. Out of like. Ten between the two of us. Maybe more, but I think mom gave some of the ones she bought to friends.)

[thoughtvoid]

New dream: I was watching the main cast of the Hazbin Hotel from afar (them in the hotel, me on top of some building), when a giant Vox hologram appears a street or two away. Everyone is ??? while he's trying to do some power flex/Alastor diss.

Eventually, I yell at him like "hey dude, I know you're trying, but the hologram is super glitchy". And he stops and looks around at ground to try and see who's talking, and it's true that the hologram, while stable enough you can see who it is, also has constant patchy twitches going on, not the nicer looking 'this is clearly a hologram' effect, but a 'this was poorly patched together' kind of look. The word 'asshole' can vaguely be seen along the edge of Vox' tv head. "Also I think you're projecting your thoughts in text."

The hologram quickly disappears, and some city lights turn off with it. Which, being left in a slightly darker spot makes me wonder if the guy would try to come attack me or anything, so I opted to fly to some random building. And as I'm walking into a room, I realized that both doors in the room lead back into the same hallway, so I could chill and keep an eye out, since I could leave whichever way if someone entered the opposite. Didn't take long for me to see Vox closer to one of the doors, so as I was about to slip out the other one... I got distracted by a picture.

It was just a picture of the primary Hazbin cast, kinda like a family photo moment where they're all lined up and smiling for the camera.

But it was in a frame right out of Spongebob. Not in terms of a picture frame from the show, but more like if you took all the doodles of flowers from the background and just. Laid them over each other in a line. Whole thing was like it's made of colourful string, it's 2D, and I'm starting to question how it's functioning as a frame at all. Suddenly I notice many pictures in the room all have equally silly frames.

Vox comes up behind me, commenting on how stupid it looked, and why would he (Alastor) pick something like that, and I've completely forgotten that I was trying to be wary of him and just laugh and agree. He reached down to pick up a thick book and squints.

"Never before told Star Wars story? That's a big claim." He starts flipping through and it's clearly a book catalogue of some kind.

I look over and go, "Weird. Maybe it's some random short story in between some pages?" He flips through to the end, and no such luck. "Oh wait, go back a little bit." Starts flipping back. "Bit more... there, go back to that page."

On the page, in the bottom right corner, there's a book titled 'The Untold Story of Leia'. ...With some kinda faded pink clouds on the cover that has Leia looking wistfully at the corner of the book, and Han Solo in the background, just from the waist up, hands on his waist (instead of on hips), slightly faded.

Both of us know that it's 1000% some trashy romance novel and just start laughing, but that's also the point when I woke up. And then immediately started questioning why my dream would be so Vox focused when he's not even in my top 5. Well, maybe if it's strictly just Hazbin, he might squeak into 5th, the top 4 are solid even if their exact placement is not, but the 5th spot is undetermined.

#My top 4 (in no real order because they flip around between them) #Are Alastor; Husk; Lucifer; and Emily #Alastor I thought from the pilot was going to be fun to watch; and he's stuck to that first impression #Husk and Luce grew on me when they got a major focus; I had no real opinion on them prior #And Emily is adorable and her being a supportive angel for the hotel project intrigues me #But really this dream came so outta nowhere that I question my subconscious #I like the show fine; but I haven't thought about it at all in at least a few weeks #It feels eerily like the time I had a dream that was 'suddenly Digimon and also your partner is VenomMyotismon' #'Yes you know a lot more Digimon; and you have faves; but your dream assignment is big vampire dude' #My designated Hazbin friend for apparently just roasting whatever we see is Vox

[thoughtvoid]

Had a dream where there was some sort of cult that would prey on people who have attainable dreams they want to accomplish and (technically) help them accomplish them. But while it seemed nice, and they did have a decent amount of people who joined them voluntarily, not everyone there was there willingly.

They'd implant some sort of shard in every member, and the color of the shard was different depending on if they were willing to join. White meant fully voluntary, purple was resistant, there was a red that wasn't explained. Everyone with a shard got to experience what happens if someone manages to accomplish the dream they'd decided on, with the success being announced with everyone gathered together. (The ones not entirely voluntary seemed to be tied up during this time.)

When someone succeeded at their decided goal, a golden energy surrounded them when it was announced to everyone, and they experience pure euphoria. The others with shards could feel a little of it as well, and there were some indications that this energy was slowly absorbed into some structure at the front of the room.

That was the extent of my dream scene, but there was some implied knowledge going on. My POV was someone commenting on what was happening, and taking note of the colors people had. I had some idea that the person speaking was investigating the cult, and wasn't a member in any way, nor a captive. So it's possible that people who are interested in the 'helping achieve dreams' aspect are shown what happens before they 'decide' to join. The person who had a goal reached was 1) white shard, voluntary cult member and 2) Had a goal that could be achieved multiple times. (Acting in the first act of a play, or something. Implied that from the outside it was sad that he couldn't get better roles despite having talent, but he was ecstatic at being able to have euphoria, implied to have done it more than once and possibly addicted.)

Past that, if I were to just expand on the idea, I'd probably make it so the shards change colour, so that those who were resistant maybe experience enough from other people that they start wanting to actually try to feel euphoria themselves. In a way, it is helpful, because it gives people drive to try and achieve something. For example, someone who maybe was depressed or generally unmotivated suddenly actively studying and working to get through college. I'm not completely sure what would happen with people who have goals only attainable once, though.

[thoughtvoid]

I really miss the Pokepark games. After playing the second Detective Pikachu, where you occasionally just control Pikachu and go around talking directly to Pokemon to figure stuff out, it just. Made me yearn for the full game that was basically that plus minigames. Play, battle, talk to Pokemon and make sure everyone was happy. Good times.

[thoughtvoid]

I know Aliexpress is bad for a variety of reasons. (Though the One that I can remember is that it's one of the foreign markets that will steal art/craft/designs from small artists.)

But. After many impulse buys, I do need to say. That when it comes to buying various 'official' merchandise, there's obviously going to be knockoffs, but. Idk, for buying a bunch of frivolous Pokemon and anime stuff, I haven't been disappointed.

Had one expensive order, and it was super nice quality, well packaged, shipped pretty fast, and looking at is, was probably from the official Chinese company that distributes that merch.

Of the cheaper orders, only one was 'bad'. All of the advertising on the listing is straight BS, and they were tripling down on it being the official product and a certain high quality. And it was okay, but definitely not what they were trying to hype up. I went in expecting a bad quality, so I didn't care, but it really was just 'looks similar and is still good, I like it, but it's not five star, it's probably a three star. Just be honest about it, geez'. It's a 'you get what you pay for' thing, and it wouldn't normally bother me. But. The one thing that bothers me is lying, and lying so desperately.

Like. Between the truest, perfect definition of a knockoff (poor quality of something that's normally expensive/sought after), and the perfect order, I had the. Well, another knockoff, but one that the seller specifies with the description/specification. Arceus adventure pack bag by Hori: Originally $30, currently ~$45+ buying from other countries or $80 from Amazon. Total for a copycat (listing said Miniso, though the bag itself has no labels anywhere): $17. Does it look as good as the real thing? No, it's all screenprint and doesn't pop like the Hori bag looks like it does. (Based on a YT unboxing vid.) Is it as good quality? I doubt it, Hori makes some real nice accessories, and this bag mostly feels like the free hip pouch Target gave out if you bought Zelda:TOTK in store. But does it function the same, have decent padding, and look similar enough to get the point across? Absolutely. And I'm usually a function over form, so I don't need it to be the perfect branded item. I just happened to see one of the adventure packs during holiday season (not on sale), thought 'oh, it holds both Switches? I could use something like that', thought the Arceus looked best, but shrugged when it wasn't really available at a reasonable price. And then when I saw it a month and a half later as a 'too cheap to be the real thing, and it's not' listing, I was just. 'I'm okay with that, let's go'.

Aliexpress has been mostly hits, tbh, and even the one miss was only a miss because the seller is adamant about trying to make you think you're getting something good for. Like 12 bucks. But it was still good overall. At this point, I'm just waiting on two orders that had sellers who waited until the last minute to make labels for things they weren't actually ready to shop out. Which. Feels sus enough that I'll record the unboxing, I guess, but my gut says they're fine. Ali just set what I feel was an unrealistic deadline for when to ship things at the tail end of holiday season. I wouldn't begrudge sellers if they make labels to get the system to not flag them as not sending anything when they just need more time. (Working retail is different from an online store, I know, but I will never be able to act like the customers who expect everything faster than is reasonable. When you put up with people coming in thirty minutes after placing an order, asking where it is, when I can be filling anywhere between 5-20 pick-up orders constantly throughout the day on top of 60+ orders to ship out, and haven't even seen theirs come in? I imagine anyone selling stuff during that time to be backed up.)

#idk I was just pleased that most of the stuff is pretty nice; even the ones officially unofficial #But then rambled to all heck #Bottom line: I like Aliexpress. It's like ebay; but with less obscene prices and more stuff I actually want #(Because I am a weeb and weeb stuff is luxury in the US but much more accessible through Asian market) #(And the one Japanese store I know that isn't Amazon is a bit more specific) #(But would also rec for Pokemon stuff; Meccha Japan is ver ver nice) #(More normal prices; not Ali cheap or Ebay scalp; just. Perfectly reasonable with a nice selection) #(They were my PokeJewelry shop and I was so excited when it came in; so good; would rec)

[thoughtvoid]

I spent so much money during the holiday season (half on myself, half on family), but. While I am slightly ashamed (being unemployed most of the year, and spending pretty much everything I was getting while working holiday immediately), my satisfaction with what I've been getting feels pretty good.

Like. I had a small bit of reasoning in that I was only guaranteed to be working holiday, so I wanted to heavily use my worker's discount (retail) while also taking advantage of good holiday sales. Got a healthy mix of 'things I will need in the future/improve my quality of life immediately' and 'I don't need this but I like it so now it's mine'. I will probably lose most of my shame of spending money in a month or so, when cards are paid off and I start actually accumulating money again, since I was kept on after holiday. I'd like to be able to stop looking at my balance and worrying about maintaining a certain amount and just vibe again.

#I've had bouts of spending in the past #But it was just. A Lot. This past year #Like more than double compared to the last few years #It was a dangerous mix of my store discount and sales I'm constantly aware of by being at work #And thinking that I only really have a few months to take full advantage before I might be let go #(And then making a few discoveries of websites I could buy fun things. Merch I'd never considered could be available) #(...I got so much Pokemon stuff. And jewelry. And Pokemon jewelry that was cheap/affordable) #(My willpower on things I know are limited time/stock is nonexistant) #Though my willpower against jewelry in general should be stronger in the future #I was mostly building up a variety of the various accessories in select styles #And since I still have a job; and I know jewelry comes and goes all the time and tends to repeat styles through the seasons #I'm okay with missing out on things instead of feeling a 'got to buy it now or never' #The jewelry only hit real hard because I realized I could. Actually wear it #Which sounds silly but I worked so much and never had time for anything/never could really wear anything #But after finding clip on adapters for earrings and some cute bracelets #I realized '...I can wear this to work'. Just not necklaces (which was really all I had on hand) because there's too much on my neck #And I had zero rings so. I clearly needed to get some of those; too #Opened a whole new world (of sparkly stuff to spend money on)

[thoughtvoid]

61 F (16 C) when starting sleep to 32 F (0 C) a few hours before I'd be waking up.

Just. How tf am I supposed to prepare myself for that? I'm warm enough to want the ceiling fan on low, but I'd freeze if I left it on. I could use the heavy blanket or dress warmer, but I'll be burning for a while. I mean, I guess I'll be using the heavier blanket with none of my limbs under it and hope I'll naturally curl up when it gets colder, but gd. That's an insane temp drop over 8 hours. Just stay cold and let us stay bundled. The constant back and forth of 20-30 degrees over the day/night is maddening.

#I know we're stereotypically seen as a desert #And we do usually have bi-polar weather patterns #But that's usually more of a 'need three layers one day; need a tank top the next' #Not just between morning and afternoon #I am more annoyed by it simply because I'm hot natured and really longing for consistent cold #And I'd like to actually wear like. Sleeves. Maybe a hoodie. Or at least keep my plush wrap on all day #I genuinely never get to be cozy unless it's 42 max all day and a chill can get settled in the air #So this up and down makes it extremely hard to adjust my own temp #Which sucks; because if I get dressed for cold and it warms up too much? Heat makes me sick #And anything above 50 makes me bake if I wear sleeves. I radiate too much and warm myself up to sick-temp #My body does not know how to chill so I really would appreciate if the weather chill instead pls

[thoughtvoid]

I got a Big Eevee plush on clearance after the holidays, and I gotta say. I knew it'd be cute decor for me (because I like plushies to death but never really play or cuddle them or anything), but. My cat seems to lowkey love it.

Like. She doesn't rub on it or sit against it or anything. But every single day since I got the plush and put it on my bed (meant to be temporary until I figured out where to put it), my cat has forgone her bed (right next to me, where she stayed 99% of the time I'm awake) to sleep on my blanket next to Eevee. Every day. Usually until dinner time, where she then decides to give me some attention and return to her bed.

I know it's not the blanket. I've set the blanket out many times before, and while she'd sometimes lay on it, she hadn't done that for at least two months. I did get a new blanket (sherpa) when it got colder at night, but have since switched back to the previous blanket, and she hasn't stopped chilling with the plush every day. I think it makes her feel more secure (?). At least because it's a friend her size who doesn't bully her. (The other cat is definitely more of a fellow roommate than a friend, and gets... passive aggressive if someone else is eating 'her' food. In a 'I won't push you out or hit you or anything, but I will come and hover over your shoulder until you leave'.)

...Anyway, having an Eevee friend is cute and all, but it doesn't help when I want her to try a new fuzzy bed for winter to see if she prefers it or her old, non fuzzy bed for night time. She's been by Eevee for six hours. She has sat up twice to then circle and plop back down. Baby, please.

#I really have to debate using treats to move her #Half because I just need to use this big bag of treats up at some point (they were free via friend whose pet didn't like them) #Half because the bed just arrived and it happens to be the day she spends the most time chilling with Vee #Like she knows she's being a butt by just laying there for at least two hours longer than usual

[thoughtvoid]

Consistent coincidence #2: Every time my dad tests his sound system with a particular album (that he claims has 20+ songs), the same song will always be playing when I come down during his listening session. I told him I hear the song every time like. A month ago, and today I walk in the front door and he goes 'oh come on, I've been listening for 30 minutes, how'. Because. It had just started playing right before I came in.

I'm not sure how to think of it, because I noticed that particular song I just hear and think of Hollow Knight. (Dad listens to Christian bands.)

[thoughtvoid]

At least schedule more than one person the day after major sales and not just the day of (if that), you stupid sadists. Or, y'know. More than just two people for the entire day, trying to fill the pit you're providing excavators for.

#Black Friday? Three people per shift all day; actually wasn't a problem; so little work people did filler jobs #Cyber Monday? Like 150 fluctuating orders and manageable with the two people per shift #Literally the day /after/ Cyber Monday? When people are known to be ordering up until midnight? #One person in the morning shift; one person closing #With a 'surprise coupon that we don't even tell our storefronts about beforehand because f you' #We ran out of shipping boxes this past week. Our supply orders are delayed. Triple digit orders all day #Can barely dent it before the number goes up. Fucking UPS has just. Not picked up packages a few times. #One was after a weekend; when they don't pick up anyway; so an extra no show was just. Us drowning in packages #Why is it that the stress test I'm prepared for (Black Cyber) isn't what makes me want to commit arson #I told myself I wouldn't volunteer for the Hours ever again after last year but I have weak conviction and bad memory #Usually I go for it because it means I do overnights but we didn't even /get/ overnights this year #Instead I was bounced between openings and closings and having to work with /customers/ roaming around #Overnights have fucked up my family time and probably my mental state before #But not as badly as me having constant mental shutdowns because /there are people everywhere/ #/And I hate getting stopped 10+ times per shift when I'm trying to focus on an already overwhelming task/ #Price check? That's fine; I just scan something and leave. Bare minimum helpfulness #But 'do you have this product'; 'can you help me find my size'; 'when do you get [product] in' #Sometimes I wanna be honest instead of helpful #I wanna say 'I just know where to look for stuff; I don't actually know anything about this department or what we have' #'Do I work here; in the shoe area? No. I work at the store and search for very specific products' #'I can't even browse and shop for myself because I am laser focused on what I'm looking for for other people' #'I know we have nobody on the floor and I'm the only one wandering around for you to see' #'But I'm not wearing a nametag for two reasons and one is to dissuade people from flagging me down' #(I am not mean and do help people; but then there's also 'I want to help but I can't because you don't even know what you want') #('Or because what you want doesn't exist and I don't know how else I can say 'we don't even seem to have it online; sorry'') #(Which is also demoralizing on top of my social interaction tolerance already being drained) #(Please stop making online orders; people; you already missed the famously good sales; I don't even know why you bother) #/I/ feel like there should be a lull; we don't even have anything good right now #The next big sale is Soon; and really no one should feel like buying right this second #Please stop making me deal with hundreds of orders on my own for no discernible reason

[thoughtvoid]

It's unfortunate that my dreams of a canopy bed are directly at odds with the fact that my body sucks at hitting the cool down switch. If I were to surround my bed with a curtain, and not have the open space for a fan to stir up the air, I'd feel like I'm in a low heat oven.

Ignoring the facts that many canopy beds are actually open from above. And the fact that my current room couldn't fit a canopy bed to begin with. But it's my current slow burn want (of about. idk, a decade) that I was reminded of at random.

#Could I afford one? Sure; I guess #They're somewhat expensive and I wouldn't spring for that when I have a tiny room with vaulted ceilings #But as far as just. Having the amount of money that would buy the bed; sure #So it's not an impossible dream; just. Not a convenient one atm

[thoughtvoid]

I found a Lion plush (from SU) at the used bookstore today and. Look, I'm not a huge SU fan by any means, but I did like the show, and when I see someone start blindly reacting to it, I always check in to see those videos. And Lion is cute. And it's a nice plush.

So. I'm not sure if 50 dollars was the cheapest I could find it, from what I could search, it was a decent 'right here and now' price. Something about comic con exclusive and collectible. -shrugs- I figured it was worth just because pretty good plush from an older show, and it wasn't something I'd just stumble on at like. My annual anime convention.

Anyway, he's going next to Amaterasu and my comfy Shinx.

[thoughtvoid]

Okay, so. I had a dream.

I was playing a card game featuring DC (Detective Comics) heroes and villains. There were different versions of the villains/heroes (era or arcs with different personalities) and there were henchmen cards.

It was pretty simple: You'd put a card in front of you to defend yourself, and the card put on the discard attacked. (In my dream, each person took their first turn separately, so I guess the first round was set up? Or just didn't account for mechanics. It also felt like you could only pick one defense, because no one ever played a second one even on a new turn.) All cards only had one number, which tended to be higher for heroes and some villains. So there was a risk/reward for whether to use the higher cards to be excellent defenders, or deal a lot of damage. (Due to the nature of the dream, I don't know if each person had a life point system where damage that got through the defender counted against them. It felt like a 'if you're out of cards, you lose' game sometimes, so maybe making people run through defenses was to take out more cards.)

There were special effect cards, though my dream only had one: A surprise visit from Batman - Discard two low level cards (1-3) and choose a character card, and all of the chosen character cards take 2 damage. Implied to be the defenders, so it worked best if your opponents were using the same type of card as their damage sponge, and in my dream three-person game, my two opponents were using two different Jokers, so I got rid of two henchmen to hurt their Jokers. One only had 3 points, and had already taken damage and was removed, the other had about 5 and got to keep theirs out. I had a Superman defender, who seemed to have the most points, at 19. If there was some unseen (because dream) attack vs defense system, then it'd be about number placement. Cards we were discarding I only saw a number in the top right. My Superman's number was in the bottom left, and defending cards were tucked into a board. (That we didn't really seem to need, since it was purely a card game, and the only thing on the board was the discard.)

(There is also a very high chance that there was more going on, because I don't know if important people who wouldn't be too strong would be effects or boosts or what. My dream was very Batman card focused, outside of my slightly op Superman. If nothing else, there would have to be item cards, for balancing. Weapons for number boosting, gadgets for effects, general weaknesses, just something to level the field even when dealt low number cards. Maybe heroes can't make use of support cards as well as villains and weaker characters.)

I don't know if there was a draw pile, I don't know how the cards were dealt. I remember having 9-ish cards while playing, but I don't know when we started, because there was already cards discarded face-up. For all I know, all the cards get divvied up to begin with, and you play with a certain number in your hand and replenish from your stack. It'd make sense, with how few cards we were holding vs the pretty-much-deck-sized discard pile.

None of the cards were complicated at all, just a title (differentiating adjectives given to characters that had multiple versions of themselves), full card detail art for the given character, and the numbers in small squares with rounded edges. The only cards with descriptions (the one I ever saw) had two small boxes side-by-side that weren't solid, but lighter over the background art (which for my card look like comic book bat signal on the clouds), the first box being the cost (getting rid of two small cards) and the second being effect (doing two universal damage to a character of choice). It had the most difficult to read thin black text with super thick yellow outline, but the reading difficulty may have been more because. I can't read in dreams. So it just took longer to rationalize seeing something.

...It seemed really chill and fun, so I really felt like I needed to write it down while I could still remember the gist of the game. It'd need tweaking, but the vibe was really simple and easy to understand, with only mild strategy.

#I'm not actually a big comic book/superhero person #They're cool and all; I've looked up things on like. Wikis #And seen (mostly Marvel) films #So it's a little odd for that to be a dream event but -shrugs- #It has made me wish the actual card games that exist with characters were. Not complex #I know that's the appeal of a lot of that type of game but #A new type of simple card game that's more art appreciation than much else

[thoughtvoid]

Me, coming downstairs for a glass of milk before bed: The AC smells.

Dad: What?

Me, taking a sip before walking back up: idk why, but the AC smells.

I have a surprisingly high rate of noticing something is wrong with household utilities at complete and utter random.

When I was staying with my grandparents (while attending college), I walked into their closet to try and help look for something and. I first need to mention that both my grandparents wore shoes around the house, for their own reasons, and I don’t even wear socks unless I’d been somewhere I needed to wear shoes earlier. So I’m walking through the back of their walk-in closet and just. Feel all kinds of wet. Not sopping, no puddles, but definitely fresh kind of damp. So I mention to them that their closet floor is squishing, and, oh man, turns out they had a pipe burst in their bathroom sinks (directly next to that section of closet) and had to get that repaired. (Good thing I was only there on the weekends that particular year, so I wasn’t using up any extra emergency water while things were turned off and being repaired.)

Sitting in the room upstairs at home and then suddenly realize: 1) It’s hot. Which isn’t odd since it gets hot as all heck in summer, and even indoor temps aren’t too comfortable to me since I prefer things 10 degrees colder than the average person in the area. But 2) I hadn’t noticed the air conditioning come on in a while. Which I do usually notice because the only time I feel chilled is when the air is actively blowing. So I checked the thermostat and surprise! It’s a little hotter than what the system is set to start running, and welp, the AC unit needed to get replaced. Good thing it was just upstairs (my bedroom, bathroom, and hang out room) and we have separate AC units for the upstairs and downstairs, so I could sleep/hangout in the downstairs guest room until my space was livable again.

Now, the current situation is. I’m about to prepare for bed. Heading for the restroom when my ADHD brain takes a different habit path and I find myself with a toothbrush with toothpaste on it before I can process that I wasn’t planning on brushing my teeth for another half hour (after I took a melatonin gummy b/c gummy teeth). Shrug and decide I might as well, the toothpaste is already prepped and everything. And then I try to turn on the water and just get a sad gurgling sound without any liquid. Brain pauses, because that’s not right, and tries to ‘reset’ by turning the handle back off, then on. Still gurgles. So I go downstairs and inform my parents that the water isn’t working.

‘What do you mean not working, do you have a leak somewhere?’ ‘I mean there’s just noise without the water and not that I can see.‘ -Dad gets up- ‘Did the city turn our water off or something…’ Mom in the background of this news saying to try another sink before investigating upstairs. -Dad turns sink handle and gets gurgles- ‘Yeah, either it’s a city problem, or it’s an us problem.‘ -Dad heads out the front door at 10pm, takes a couple of minutes, comes back in- ‘It’s an us problem. Everyone remember to save your flushes for a little while.‘

I mean, I know it’s because I’m a creature of habit and when anything’s not working like it should, my internal reaction is just ‘nope, that’s not how that works’. But give me at least a couple of nickels for the luck factor going off to catch things before anything got really bad.

#He checked and apparently the compressor runs constantly even when the AC isn't on #So that's his guess for something weird happening #Some guys came to do something maintenance related 3ish weeks ago #And after that; but fairly recently; 1) My cat got eye irritation gunk 2) I've been more congested at night #And now the 3) of 'There is a smell coming from the AC air that is definitely not normal' #There may be a 4th weird thing; but that's only if it's caused by this whole thing and it'd also technically be the 1st #Because after the ac guys came and went I immediately noticed that the AC felt colder while it was running #Like a difference of a cool breeze turning into something arctic #But even though I mentioned it; it's hard to figure if ac being cold is supposed to be concerning or not #We'll see if it's a bigger issue tomorrow when he calls someone to check #In the meantime; I hoping the smell is just from compressor weirdness and not like. Mold/mildew in the ducts #Because I don't know how to describe smells that I don't associate with something else; and all I know is it might be wetness

[thoughtvoid]

I watched all of Owl House by keeping up with the series after Hollow Mind. I've seen many a reaction channel react to the entire show. A couple of them more than once.

Why is it only now, after seeing Grom about. A solid 20 times that I've now had the thought that the instruments playing onstage are some strange reference to Mother 3. Like. Eerily similar to whatever boss fight happens because old instruments in the attic were jealous the band got newer ones or something. I literally never noticed (because of. More important things going on during Grom) but now it's bugging me, I can't unsee it. I've never even played Mother 3.

[thoughtvoid]

Like many fans, I will probably be annoyed about the Pokemon and Van Gogh collab for a while. Two horribly handled launches, a completely useless and insincere PR apology, the only vague hope from the museum store is still soured because not every product will be available from there.

But I really have to wonder if TPCi has ever fucked up quite this badly before. I don't normally sit and try to buy anything the day it launches, I don't know if this is a repeated offense. But with this being a collab, I can only imagine both failures will reflect poorly enough on TPC that future collabs may just not happen. TPC may not care about anything if their products sell on their website, but a physical location like the museum was completely unprepared for the chaos that limited products would bring. I work retail, I can only imagine how hellish of a day that must have been.

And even with the website today, I'd like to know how often Pokemon Center listings get entirely scrubbed after getting immediately sold out and being live for like. 7 hours at most. Because it used to be under new releases, and everything is just gone. I could check the Snorlax Bedroom puzzle with the other Pokemon Center puzzles and see it, and now it's like it never existed. Van Gogh who? Like, the sold out listings are still on the site, you can get to them through search engines and probably other ways, but they're going far out of the way to make it seem like they never had any of the collab items to begin with. How bad is the fuck up if they don't even want to let people see things sold out? Have they ever done that before? Most of the time I shop, it's just for plushies or specific mon, and I know they leave listings that they're never gonna restock to just haunt the website, so seeing nothing for this fun little collab that literally just started and was supposed to continue for months is... It just feels like something went more wrong than usual and like they're immediately trying to bury the entire thing.