January 2026 Entry:
Crazy to think that a month has already gone by. It did feel slow though.
MISC=========================
- First purchases of the year were essentials (01.01). This has been a yearly tradition of 2-3 years now. Socks, underwear, fridge filters, etc. They started to slowly trickle in. Unfortunately the underwear I ordered was the wrong set of colors. And this happened last year too. I ordered Assorted Blues and simply got Assorted. Since it happened again, I went through the site to see what I can do about replacing it or refunding it. Through the chat AI, they gave me the number for the third party provider. I called them and they gave me Amazon's customer service number. Then the AI customer service tried to throw me back to the third party again and I asked to talk to a human. I was connected with an actual person and told them about the order and being tossed around from one number to another. They ended up filing a complaint for me to the third party and we started to exchange messages. The whole process before the messages took 20 minutes. The messaging took hours...days. It's like they reply and then move on to something else. I did inquire about if Assorted Blues were available and they replied with "Unfortunately, the items remaining in our warehouse might be defective, and we are still conducting a quality check. Rest assured, we will notify you as soon as the product is back in stock." So the solution is I keep what was sent to me and get 50% reimbursed. Yeah...
- Some of the HeXagon crew planned to come by the workplace (01.01). Not everyone could make it unfortunately, but it was good to see those that did. Their booking was at 8:20PM for the holiday room. Originally they were planning to eat at JLB beforehand, but they were closed for the day. They ended up going to Jinya. I asked them to get me some Tokyo Curry Rice since I haven't had curry in a while. BL arrived first and the rest followed soon after. It was unfortunately busy when they arrived so I had to ask them to wait rather than get them started during their actual time. Only 10 minutes later, but still. They bought drinks and paid their balance. Gave my normal intro and let them loose. It was fun to see friends play and not knowing how they would take to it. Only 2 had played an escape room prior (I think NRM was a secret shopper for us at HER). They did very well and escaped with about 17 minutes left. Talked for a bit afterwards before NRM had to leave (was feeling under the weather). The others chilled in the lobby for a bit as I was closing up. We were still doing our duties around 10PM and I suggested that they go out to The Bep and come back as I probably wouldn't be done for another half hour and the boba place closed at 11PM. They agreed.
I made sure it was okay with the ladies (should have asked first, ha), but they were okay with it. They came back about half an hour later (thanks for the Cookie N Cream drink). We ended up going to the party room to talk. Then I brought out the laptop and hooked it up to the large TV to show them what it's like from our POV. One of them asked if they could watch the footage of their game and I didn't even think about that. That's what we ended up doing for the next 40-45 minutes. Never done that with any team before (customer or friend). They enjoyed looking back at things and laughing at themselves. They're definitely excited to do another room in the future. We wrapped up and left a little after midnight. I got home around 12:50AM.
- Watched The Naked Gun (01.02). This was another movie on my watch list for 2025. I forgot to check for it on Prime Video, but it popped up as a recommendation. Immediately scheduled it for early January. It was amazing. I'm a big fan of the original Naked Gun movies and Police Squad (have it on DVD). They did everything so well. The humor was top notch, the timing, the way lines were read, all the visual jokes, etc. I was smiling at everything and laughing a lot.
- Decided to pay a large chunk of my credit card bill at the beginning of the year (01.04). I could just pay it off, but my brain thinks I have less money than I do have and I don't know when that started, ha.
- Toonami Abridged | Sailor Moon (Part 2) (01.04)
- Got another catfish (01.09). This was the first time for me to get it on the nectar app. They liked me first and swiped right on them. They were very pretty. Little bit of back and forth chatting on the app before they asked me to move to another app. This time it was on an app I wasn't familiar with called Signal. I asked if they could use WhatsApp, but they preferred Signal. I downloaded it and we continued talking.
The way they typed was poor. Lots of grammar and spelling mistakes, but it at least made sense. They sent me another photo in exchange for one of mine. I sent one from the previous catfish. The one they sent me made me stop and think. Their photos on nectar weren't familiar, but this one was. I did a reverse image search and it popped up with STPeach. I knew they were familiar. Then I looked at her Instagram and found that image and the ones that were on their nectar profile. I continued with the chat more, but eventually asked about hobbies. They did mention video games to which I asked if they considered streaming. They questioned why, but I brought up the positives of why people stream. Then I suggested they come up with a nickname. Part of me was hoping they'd say something close to STPeach, but they didn't. I asked them to send another photo so I could come up with a nickname based on it. They sent another one of STPeach's photos. I mentioned that they should call themselves Peach or Peachy. They said Peachy is nice. I replied with "perfect" and linked them directly to STPeach's Instagram. And they stopped talking, ha. I took screenshots of everything, reported them on both apps, and deleted the conversation and the app itself. That's rare that I get to figure out the photos a catfish uses so this was a victory.
During that whole exchange, I received a message from my dentist. My insurance decided not to cover the recent deep cleaning I had in October. My dentist tried to appeal it, but was rejected. I asked why. "The cleaning did not meet their specific and narrow guidelines even though it was treatment necessary for the health of your gums." I thanked them for making the appeal and ended up paying $335.20. Not that I couldn't afford it, but it was an unexpected expense. Plus it was the third bad thing that happened within 24 hours so I was pretty much done for the day.
But later at night, TWICE announced online exclusive tour merchandise. I took a look at it and found a couple things I liked. The HeXagon chat group was going back and forth on things they wanted. I put what I wanted in my cart and thought about it for a good half hour. Then I pulled the trigger and bought them. Shame on me for not asking the HeXagon crew if they wanted to join in to save on shipping. In the end, I ordered a varsity jacket and a soccer jersey. Yes, I spent almost as much as the dental insurance hours later, ha. I felt I needed a pick-me-up after the three strikes within the last 24 hours.
- After work, I went to hang out at Rannchan's (01.10). I knew they were planning to do stuff after coming to play an escape room so I texted her before I left. She said they were at home and they were playing board games. While the work day was good and I wasn't exhausted, I wanted to continue hanging out with others instead of going straight home. 40 minutes later, I joined them as they were playing Pokemon Splendor. I didn't join as I wanted to watch and talk. G was streaming at the time and eventually beat the first Sonic game. That's when I thought to be silly and give a live tip of money echoing what Rannchan did during one of G's first streams. I didn't have anything smaller than a $10, but Rannchan had some singles and gave me one. I typed in chat "great job. I'm going to tip you a dollar." Then I walked in mid sentence, put a dollar in their shirt, and said "good job on beating your first Sonic game." This totally caught G off guard and the chat was losing it, ha. Rannchan followed suit, then it was Triple-S' turn, and finally Kai. A real life hype train, ha.
G joined us after stream and they started a game of Pokemon Splendor with them and Rannchan. Kai decided to go home while Triple-S and I stuck around. We had a lot of conversations over various topics such as life, streaming, and the upcoming G-Con to come up with ideas and such. This went on until about 10:30PM before we ended the night. Funny because I originally only wanted to stay around for an hour and leave at 9PM. But it was a good way to end the night.
- My TWICE online exclusive merchandise arrived (01.16). Less than a week after ordering (ordered them at night and they arrived a week later, but in the daytime). That surprised me. I got the varsity jacket and the soccer jersey. The varsity jacket was neatly rolled up and sealed up with the soccer jersey rolled within it neatly. Both are of quality material. The soccer jersey feels nice and light. The jacket is heavier than what I would have expected, but it'll definitely be great when it is cold. My ultimate idea for the jacket (in a perfect world) is to have all the members sign the opposite sleeve parallel to their name.
- I decided to participate in the 2016 trend (01.16). I looked through my harddrives and the main folder that had photos of me was the trip to Marfa back then. There were some on Facebook, but I didn't want to go through the trouble of editing any photos to hide the faces of others. Then I made sure to post them at 8:16PM (20:16PM).
- Watched season 3 of Invincible (01.09-01.17). This was my least favorite season so far. Not that it was bad, but I was definitely reaching for my phone and looking at stuff on my PC rather than sitting down and devoting all my attention to it like I had in the past. Although episodes 7 and 8 had my full attention. The emotional stuff and the hyper violence is still there. The lead in for next season just brought up more questions. I really want to see where they're going to go from here.
- Eventful Tuesday (01.20). First was binge watching all of WWE: Unreal season 2. It was just as enjoyable as the first season. I liked that there was continuity with where they left off on the calendar. And I really appreciate that the one thing I wanted to happen did; focus on other wrestlers. Can't wait for season 3.
During my watch of Unreal, I also looked up the GameStop locations that closed down recently. Unfortunately the one I worked at was one of them. Not only that, but adjacent ones I was sent to were closed as well. I texted MIM about it and let her know I was going to stop by the store to make sure. That ended up being later that day before work. I took the route I normally took including the back entrance. I didn't park in my normal spot, but I did see that the GameStop sign was gone and the shutters were down on the windows. That was a sad sight to see. I took a couple of photos, sent them to MIM, and later posted them on social media. While my time there wasn't perfect (regional manager, general bad customer interactions, etc), the positives outweigh the negatives. The biggest thing was meeting MIM.
The last stop before work was going to Nothing Bundt Cakes. Got their new limited flavor; new-fashioned marble with chocolate frosting. I saved it for Friday (01.23) and it was great. Simple in flavors, but the flavors were good. If it ever comes back, I recommend trying it.
- Watched The Fantastic Four: First Steps (01.24). Another movie I wanted to see when it came out, but never did. Then I had this scheduled for April because...four. But It was at such a cheap price to rent and I had an extra $1 off promo for Prime Video that I figured this was a good time since I was called off from work. It was a good movie. I was never big on the Fantastic Four. Knew who they were in general. I did see the movie that had Jessica Alba in it, but that's about it in terms of the media I've consumed. This movie did a good job in putting their personalities to the forefront. It not being a pure origin story was probably for the better. My only gripe was that it was baby-centric. Maybe it wouldn't have worked if it was just some other mcguffin for Galactus to go after, but it was very surprising to see the baby be such a focal point. But I'm now more invested in them and can't wait to see how they'll be integrated into Doomsday.
- Got to watch Saturday Night's Main Event (01.24). Excellent card with all the matches getting a lot of time. The match I was looking forward to the most was Styles VS Nakamura. It was so good. Great callbacks and a great match overall. Got teary eyed with the post-match gratitude.
- [DRAGON BALL] 40th Anniversary Special Video (01.24)
- During the freeze, we had issues with our heater. It worked, but not on auto. If it was on, it would stay on and now the issue is all the rooms being stuffy. The option at the time was to turn it on for about an hour or until it got too warm and then turn it off and repeat. Couldn't do much about it while we slept though. So I spent time researching portable heaters online (01.26). Turns out I was the only one in the house without one, ha. But I did get suggestions from multiple friends as I was checking up on them. I found a couple with one being 50% off. The other one was one my dad had and one that DC had suggested since he and his wife each had one. In the end, I'll give the one that's half off to my mom as she has a larger room and the current portable heater she uses is possibly over a decade old and has a short reach. I'll take that one as a spare and use the one the one DC suggested. I almost thought to get two of the one that's 50% off, but that's better suited for a larger room.
The heaters arrived a few days later (01.29) and I didn't get to try them until the next day. The Vornado one that's similar to my dad's and the one that DC and his family uses is very simple and convenient. The other one that's 50% off gets hot very fast and I get why it's supposed to heat a whole room. That's being tested for a while in my mom's room. If she doesn't like it, it'll go downstairs, she'll take mine, and I'll take her old one (or I might be another Vornado).
- NXT announced they were coming back to town (01.28). I received an email that night and then saw a commercial while watching NXT live as I was contacting friends. Tickets were all the same price as last time so that was good. My limit was $150, which is what I paid for floor seats with NE last time. But I said I'd match whoever was going. If there were 4 of us, we would have gone for a table, but there were only 3 (myself, ducky, and Rannchan) out of the 5 of us. Waited for replies to get the confirmation the following morning before ordering 3 tickets. Section 301, Row L, Seats 3-5 (almost accidentally bought 1-2 which were $17 more). Yay for future NXT fun.
- I watched Love and Leashes (01.28). This movie was brought up when HeXagon had our White Elephant at Sushi Haya. I was planning to watch this around Valentine's Day, but considering what's being played at the beginning of next month, I would have probably sacrificed this. So since I had some extra downtime at the end of January, I figured not to waste it that time. But I'll post my thoughts about it that day. For the few that read this, I'm breaking the fourth wall, ha. Just know that I enjoyed it.
- I made it into one of Simon Miller's videos (01.30). The video was predicting surprise entrants for this year's Royal Rumble. While he mentioned making predictions that were plausible, I went for a joke answer. It's not the first time I've replied to his tweets about using answers for a future video, but this was the first time he used one of my answers. Cheers for him mentioning my Agent name, ha.
GAMES=========================
- Games in Review 2025. It's always nice to go back on all of the games I've played. Spreadsheets help a lot to get the information easily. I usually make a few swaps here and there, but the bulk was set in place.
- A note about how I'm scheduling games now. Normally I start the month with a digital game, which usually is short while ending the month with a physical game that's usually longer. That has now been flipped (with a few exceptions of working through collections one game at a time). This way there is more time afforded to longer games. Still doing one free-to-play game a month and two Nintendo Classics systems (a third if time affords). Those are staying relatively where they normally are (after the first game).
- Demo Showcase Shorts continues. Played 17 this month, which might be the most in a while. But that number definitely got a bump due to 9 demos being released on the 15th. Not only that, the number of demos has cracked through 1100, rad. Out of the ones I played, I really enjoyed Burger Bistro Story (the first of 3 Kairosoft demos in a row) and Neon Inferno (missed out on ordering a physical copy, but wishlisted it digitally).
There was an issue at the beginning of the month where I couldn't add to the thread in Threads. This was thankfully during the time there were no extra demos to try. I tried multiple times (copy and pasted and they didn't work) and I tried regular posts (worked) for days. Finally figured out that it was the fact that I was using @ for the company. Once I removed that, posts were fine. Even though that company had been attached to an @ before and all other companies seemed fine (and I know using @ is different in Threads), I'll at least know to try that first if the issue ever happens again (same company or different).
- My Christmas gift to myself was A Must Book of Bust A Move guide (01.06). I wasn't thinking about it, but I had time to look at watchlists. This was a decent price, but I was just waiting for any other possible sellers to lower their prices. But that completes the guides for the first game. The second game's guides...those are pricey...and there are three of them.
- First game of the year was No Sleep For Kaname Date - From AI: THE SOMNIUM FILES (01.02-01.08). It was basically like other AI: THE SOMNIUM FILES game, but shorter and with escape room segments. Oddly the escape room segments weren't timed (until the end). Although I get it because the psyncs are already timed. I did a lot without a guide, but made sure to collect some of the little things along the way. More towards the latter half I followed the guide to not waste too much time. Once I got to the epilogue, I used the guide/s to collect everything possible before making credits roll. Then it was the extra stuff after the credits rolled. I really like that the actual alternate endings had actual endings to read (each were 5-30 minutes long) or watch (got 3 alternate endings the first day, then 2, then, 1, then 3, and then the rest). 100% completed, 100% satisfied with the game. I do stick by the fact that it's recommended for fans of the series as it references and has characters from both games. It felt canonical, but I'm not sure if it actually is or not.
One tiny negative was that the timer still counts if you are in your save file and you pause, go to the Switch menu, or if you're on sleep mode. So my timer should technically be about 3-4 hours less.
Game of the year so far, ha.
- Our free-to-play game of the month was Hamster Playground (01.09). Choose a hamster, click where you want it to go (eat, shower, do an activity, etc). Wash, rinse, repeat. Unlock stuff with in-game currency or spend real money. It's not for me, but I can see how this can keep a younger audience occupied.
- Game & Watch Gallery 3 was our Gameboy NC game of the month (01.09). Good collection of Game & Watch games. Although the age of the Classic games is still there. So if you never liked them back then, you wouldn't like them now. However the Modern versions of the games are pretty well done. They're faster and more refined. Rewinds definitely help in attaining unlocks.
- Mr. Driller 2 was our GBA NC game of the month (01.11). It has the challenge of any Mr. Driller game. I would not have been able to finish the Mission Driller modes without the extra lives code, which doesn't record your stats if you use the code. So I technically beat it and got all the endings, but have no scores. The only thing left to do was the Time Attack Mode. I attempted the first one and realized even with rewinds I wouldn't be able to beat them all. If you like Mr. Driller games, you'll like this one. If you don't, you can pass on it.
- Completed NEScape! (01.12). This was originally going to be the first game of the year until I decided to change things around with the gaming schedule. I've had this on my wish list for a long time and finally got it for half off March of 2025. I had even seen Rannchan play it on stream before so I was definitely familiar with it. While stuff was familiar, I didn't remember any of the puzzle paths. I did have guides ready just in case as there are no hint systems to implement.
There were two things I wasn't big on. One was the audio clues. Because of the NES aesthetic, the same went for the audio so it wasn't easy to decipher what was being said. The other thing was the morse code puzzle. You had to know morse code ahead of time in order to do it as there is nothing in-game that teaches it to you. So if you didn't know morse code, you'd have to look it up. Other than that, the game is short and sweet. Once you beat it, you know what to do and can only try to improve your time. My first game was finished with about 14 minutes left and my second run was done with around 47 minutes left. Definitely get it on sale and enjoy it.
- 2025 Nintendo Year In Review (01.13). Always interesting to see the stats. I find it crazy how many hours were put in every year. 55 was the least in August and 187 was the most in April. 97 hours was the largest time sync for games totaling 97. A cool thing is that you can look back on all your stats going back to 2017. April seems to be the month I get the most hours in and I don't know why. It was somewhat similar when I streamed too. There is only one year that was messed up because it was dominated by Crush Crush and where there were 400+ hours as I left my Switch on Sleep Mode while the game was on to get the hours and money, ha.
2025 Did feel like a good year looking back on it as there were a variety of games where many hours were put into. GBA NSO/NC (40), Suikoden (38), Donkey Kong Bananza (45), Ace Attorney Investigations (two consecutive months 17 and 25), Final Fantasy Tactics (46), Hyrule Warriors (37), and Metroid Prime 4 (30). Good times with good games.
- EA SPORTS Madden NFL 26 was the first Game Trial of the year (01.16). Excellent game. It plays well and looks great. I'm just not great at modern sports games. My goal was to score one touchdown and I did.
- Started playing the Capcom Fighting Collection 2. Much like the Marvel VS Capcom collection, I'll work through one game a month. We started off with Capcom vs. SNK: Millennium Fight 2000 Pro (01.16-01.18). I remember playing this a lot back in the day. The ratio system was interesting, but it was limiting. I didn't recall who exactly was part of the roster, but it made sense and felt familiar. I was never the best with the SNK characters since I didn't play those games as much as Capcom, but it was still fun to work through beating it with everyone. I would always have at least one Capcom and one SNK represented in the team minus the ratio 4 fighters. I bounced back and forth with two ratio 2 pair ups and then one ratio 3 plus one ratio 1 pair. Once all ratio 3 characters were done, it was down to one ratio 2 and two ratio 1 teams. Ended with the ratio 4 characters. Good stuff, but I know I played the sequel way more.
- Picked up my copy of FINAL FANTASY VII REMAKE INTERGRADE after work (01.22). While there, I asked if the new Super Mario Bros Wonder amiibo were available for pre-order and they were. I decided to cancel my pre-order of Marvel Cosmic Invasion to put towards those three amiibo instead. The pack of Magic The Gathering Final Fantasy cards were cool. Didn't know that some were double sided. Remake to be played very soon.
- Bright Side: Quiz was a game I got on sale for $1 (01.19-01.23). Originally it was $10. The reason I had this on my radar outside of the sale was because of playing Bright Side: Riddles & Puzzles back in December of 2024. After getting it on sale, it was a matter of when to play it.
This wasn't bad. There were 3 difficulty levels of questions plus an overall quiz per each category (various regions of the world and more). Questions varied from where things were located, how old/young things were, how long/short or short/tall things were, etc. And each of those were about animals, cities, monuments, people, etc. There was a lot to learn as the game would feed you information about everything they ask about or you could refer to the glossary at any time. Fairly extensive.
I did fairly well with a few areas, but I obviously knew more about some than others. But I was still making progress so I continued...until I finally didn't unlock the next difficulty level. If you get anything less than 40% of the questions correct, you technically fail. Once that happened, I started to look things up online, which pretty much doubled my playtime. However, not everything was accurate. This was the most apparent when trying to put things in a certain order. Google might say something else is older/longer/faster, but then the answers were wrong in the game. That part was frustrating. Considering the game is no longer on the eShop, I doubt any updates would be added to correct anything.
Other than the quizzes, there were play and watch portions that were more about the planets and the solar system. Those were similar to how the Riddles & Puzzles were. Watch the video then answer a set of six questions. If you miss 2+ questions, you'll get a message saying "try again" or "better luck next time" while getting 5 or 6, you'll receive a positive message. For these I went for at least 5. The best part of that is that you can redo the quiz right away and skip the video and the questions never changed. Once I wrapped those up, I called it a game at 62%. No way was I going for 100% as Googling wasn't accurate as I mentioned earlier.
- Played an extra GBA NC game this month with F-ZERO CLIMAX (01.25). I kind of had a feeling there would be room for another so this was always on deck. Plus it was supposed to be part of all the GBA F-Zero games played last year so I figured getting it done closer than farther apart would be better.
I was very surprised with this one. I had not heard much about it because it was an import. But this was really good. Other than the tight controls, I think these were the shortest courses of the whole series. Most were finished within 90 seconds or less. That might have made it easier for me to take in as even if I didn't do well, it was over fast enough to retry. It has the classic F-Zero difficulty so doing everything was never the goal. I double checked to make sure what made credits roll and settled on that being the goal. I couldn't do it Master as it felt impossible while Expert felt doable (even if I didn't get first on every race). There were extra modes too, but I didn't dip my toes into those. And as I've stated in all my social media posts, this is my favorite F-Zero game on the GBA now.
- I got a comment on my YouTube channel on my Earthworm Jim VOD. While I was there, it made me wonder what was my most viewed stream VOD (01.25). I do check that from time to time, but it has been a while. To my surprise, it was the first Trine game. For a while it was a free-to-play game and the majority of those top stream VOD spots are still that. I really don't know what made Trine get 5000+ views.
- The Virtual Boy - Nintendo Classics - Overview Trailer dropped (01.27). 6 to be released on launch date, 9 more coming throughout 2026 (2 never been released), and Change Screen Color feature coming later in the year. I thought this would be the slowest drip-feed as there are less than 25 Virtual Boy games total. The majority are being released this year alone, that's nuts. I have already started to rearrange the game schedule by adding Virtual Boy games officially to the list. Those were lined up to be played along with GameCube Nintendo Classics. I'll try to keep them as thematic as possible if I can. But I might do 2 a month as a few games are really short as a good chunk have 1 hour play times. Maybe 3 if one of them is the extra Nintendo Classic game of the month.
- Decided to squeeze in another free-to-play game this month with Eggy Party (01.28). After the tutorial, I realized it was a Fall Guys clone. I did enjoy Fall Guys the few times I've played it. The first thing I worried about was when the tutorial's spoken language went from English to Mandarin (I think). At least the text was still in English so I could understand it. I was able to get first place in my first playthrough, yay. But then there were issues with the user interface. Menu windows wouldn't disappear and you could hear and tell I was clicking around on things, but nothing was activating. Closed the game and opened it back up. Then I was stuck in the lobby area with the same issue. Closed the game and opened it back up. Was able to get into another game and then I was unable to move even though I qualified for the next round. Closed the game and opened it back up again. I was able to play a full set of rounds to get first place again...all while the screen was tinted. Couldn't figure out how to fix that, but the game returned it back to normal once it got to the final winner screen. Closed the game and opened it back up. Then I checked to see if things were working properly, which they were, but ended up closing the game and was done. That was all about 30-35 minutes. It would have been fine if there weren't any technical issues, but there were too many to recommend trying this.
WORK=========================
- First work day of the new year (01.01). We usually are closed on the first so this was a first in itself. It was busy, but it wasn't smooth. To start, IB had texted me the day before about not being able to come into their shift. I mentioned that he needed to find coverage. He never replied until I texted him back. He asked CS to cover their shift...but they were already scheduled that day. Literally only 30 minutes later. I reminded him that next time he needed to ask someone that wasn't already scheduled because we were now down a person. Not only that, but RL didn't know they were scheduled to work. He was able to come in two hours after they were supposed to be there. At the end of my shift, I sent out a message to the team that they needed to check their schedule every week even if they put that they weren't available. Plus that they are responsible for finding coverage if they can't come in. KH put out a message for anyone else to come in for the day, but no one replied. Thank goodness RL was able to come in otherwise we would have been in a rough spot.
I mentioned earlier in this entry that HeXagon visited and played a room. When they left to get drinks from The Bep, CS and RL and I finished our closing duties. I told them they could leave as I was going to fix the drooping light cables in the holiday room, which I did. But it was also an easy way to have them leave without telling them I was chilling with friends after. I officially clocked out at 10:30PM as I waited for the crew to return. Thank you to the ladies for letting us use the space after hours.
- Opened for the first Saturday of the year (01.03). First time seeing Agent Ocean since the holiday season. We tried catching up, but it was already busy. It's good having back though. It definitely wasn't as busy as the last two weeks as there were pockets of time where there were only 1-2 teams playing and 5 employees. We did start taking down the Christmas decorations in the lobby (thought it would be up until the holiday room was done).
I did two particular things during my shift. One was coming up with a system to know which location ordered what via Amazon. My solution was to duplicate the address, but to have initials for the locations so that would be visible on the shipping label to tell where it's supposed to go. It's up to the person making the order to choose the correct one. The other thing I did was replace our microwave with a new one. It's not like the microwave didn't work, but the glass plate broke maybe a year ago and was never replaced...and the staff never cleaned it. I gave it some shine as it was dirty on the outside too. Put the new one in, made sure it worked, asked if anyone wanted the old one (no one did and talked bad about it...even though they didn't maintain it...), and took the microwave home (dad had a friend that needed one). Ended up leaving very early at 4PM because I would have been in overtime by 5 hours if I stayed the whole time.
Didn't go straight home. I had a couple of boba places saved that I wanted to try, but never was able to since they closed earlier than most. Boh are relatively close to each other too, but I went to one that had options I had not had in a while. It was farther than I thought as I would have actually gone home faster if I went straight there home. I was also wrong on my assumption of where it was, but I was at least a tiny bit familiar with the area. It was a small shop owned by a family (saw the kids coming in and out to get their toys). I ordered a green apple + passion fruit slush. It was good and came out in a good amount of time considering I was the only person there. As I left, the kids said bye to me, which was super cute. It might not be a place I'd go out of my way for though. If I'm in the area, maybe, but there was nothing special about it that I couldn't get at another boba shop.
- First Monday of the year was busy (01.05). There weren't a lot of bookings at first, but we ended up with 15. It was myself, HL, and HW. I started by fixing a loose magnet on a treasure chest as well as tightening some screws on pillars of the same room. When it wasn't busy, we started to clean, which we had not been able to do regularly during the holiday season. We didn't get to do everything we planned as it got busier. Answered phone calls and emails. A laminated prop was missing so I laminated a new one towards the end of the night. I did have issues with the candles for our new room as the remote used for them wouldn't turn them off (the next day KH and I figured out there were two different remotes and made sure to separate them).
Throughout the day, I was texting friends to help set up their bookings in the near future. We also had one customer that said something very interesting. As I finished my normal speech when introing a team, she mentioned that we had a lot of reviews and that my name in particular pops up a lot. I joked saying that if they had a good time that she can add to it. She did, but didn't leave my name, oh well. Had one final team after them that booked very late. This was also HW's last day for the season as he goes back to college. He thankfully stayed a little extra to reset a few rooms before leaving. He's a good soldier. I left around 10:45PM.
- Slow Tuesday (01.06). It's now back to what weekdays normally are with sprinkles of bookings. The ladies were there for a little bit before me and shortly left after I arrived. PH came in for their shift, but then asked if they could go to team practice that was rescheduled. I asked how long it would be and when he'd return, I said next time to ask ahead of time instead of showing up for half an hour and leaving, and I let him go. Originally he was going to come back around 6PM. He texted that he was on his way...then later asked if he had to come back. At that time there was one game in progress and one later on (the last one). I said he didn't have to come back. All he would have done was clean. KH and SC also asked to leave early around 5PM so it was me by myself for the rest of the day. Been a while since that has happened.
I did take care of a few more bookings for friends while I was doing some minor cleaning (stuff that didn't take too long). But there was one customer that emailed us and I couldn't find the booking they referenced to reschedule a year ago. I called up DQ as I had a couple things to ask with that reschedule one being the meat of it. We tried looking on both ends, different names (she had multiple she went by and there were family members), etc. We came up with a plan for her to call her up while I would text SP since she originally handled it last year. She thankfully remembered a few things (the reason for rescheduling, when it might have been moved to, etc). That helped with things. At one point the customer called me and mentioned that they were looking around for the booking reference for us. She eventually emailed a screenshot that had it and I was able to find it. Over hours of waiting and going back and forth, we got it rescheduled.
During the last session, I kept an eye on them on an iPad while I was mopping the lobby. I really wanted to get that done as I couldn't do it the previous night. It dried up after the team was done thankfully. I reset their room (all the other rooms were already taken care of beforehand) and mopped the hallways and bathrooms. Let those dry overnight as I closed up and left at 10PM.
- First time opening for the year (01.07). It was myself and SC. Each room got booked at least once for the day. While I was preparing rooms, answering phone calls and emails, and making more holiday bags, she was taking care of the remainder of the cleaning on our lists. When PH came by, we started doing inventory on merchandise and wrist bands. It was a slow day and there were too many of us there so I decided to finish up a few small things (set the time on the microwave, make an IG story post, etc) before leaving at 4PM...four hours early. I would have left early regardless, but there really was not much to do and I didn't want to sit around doing nothing. Plus I was tired in general.
- Slow Thursday (01.08). I was tasked before my shift to come up with a possible Valentine's drink package. I mistakenly thought they wanted a Valentine's themed room so the whole car ride to work I thought about how to make that happen. But I spent time throughout the day coming up with a possible package and asking DQ for opinions on pricing. It's not finished yet as I want to research more links for better prices.
At the beginning of my shift, the ladies were there. Lights were being installed outside along the top of the building. Turned out well as even our neighbors across from us complimented us about it. It was only myself and HL for the shift as others were called off. She even asked to leave early, but ended up staying the whole time to help with Game Mastering and other projects. There were seven games total throughout the day with the last few happening towards the end of the night. One of them was APW and her sister. It wasn't their best performance, but they had a great time and already plan to come back for more rooms. The rest of the night after HL left was fine. I was able to take care of the final two teams while wrapping up closing duties. I left at 10PM.
The biggest downside of the day was learning that our holiday party event got cancelled. I had suggested we have it at Round1 after going there with G and Triple-S. The ladies liked the idea, we got a headcount of who could make it or not, and the ladies booked it before the holidays for January 11th at 7PM. And then on this day, 3 days before the event, we were told that they cancelled our booking. One of the ladies was sending voice messages in our group chat about the situation and it was rather confusing. We could still come in and play the games, but we wouldn't be able to get the party room which was the main part as we'd have a short meeting, a place to eat together, and a central hub to leave our stuff or reconvene. There was a lot of back and forth between us and them and it was a lost cause. Thankfully they refunded us, but it absolutely soured my desire to ever go back. Plus it didn't help that we were still getting notifications and calls about our "upcoming party." We came up with other possible ideas to pivot to for the party. The final 3 options were Beat The Bomb, Game Show Battle Rooms (but we'd play the other room we didn't play last year), and Top Golf. There were very few votes from both teams and the majority was still Top Golf. I chose Game Show Battle Rooms. I've been to Top Golf a few times. It's fine, but it's not a place I'd recommend going out to. I was really bummed out that the original plan didn't happen as I knew it would have been something the whole team would have enjoyed.
- Came in early Saturday (01.10). Reason being was a venue buyout for a school orchestra team. Helped Agent Ocean set things up as the students started trickling in. There were 24-25 of them with 3-4 players per room. So we each took in 3 teams and watched the ones we brought in. It wasn't that bad as they were decent teams. AH came in for her shift around noon and took one team off each of our plates. And when teams were escaping, she and Agent Ocean took the majority out while I'd watch the remaining. Then it was time to eat. The two teachers were helpful as Agent Ocean and I took care of drinks and brought up new pizza boxes as they handed out the slices. Made the whole process smooth. AH was resetting at that time and Agent Ocean and I joined after all the students were served. They ordered 12 pizzas, but only ate half. They gave us the rest, which the team ate throughout the day.
Then it was a normal/slower than usual Saturday. Rannchan, Kai, and Triple-S came in to play in the holiday room. It started to be even slower so I actually joined them during the last 20 minutes to be their in-room facilitator. It was nice to have them around to talk to after before we had another round of business. And to end the day, the throuple arrived. Had not seen them in a while as the last Saturday I worked at the sister location was when they were sick and I haven't worked there on a Saturday since then. Used their "credit" from that booking to book it for the new room. It was great seeing them and catching up with them. I ended up taking over the GM portion about 15 minutes in as it was slower again. Odd thing, I did that in the back room. That PC doesn't have audio so I was just going by what I saw on screen and from the bits I could hear since they were close by. They did very well. They were my last team of the day as I was about 10-15 over my clock-out time. Left around 7:15PM.
- Company holiday party at Topgolf (01.11). I was first there a little after 7PM. I checked in and found out where our bays were. Before going to them, I saw the Sonic collaboration merchandise and sent a video to G in case they wanted something. Then I went to the bays and sat down to message the team about where we were to be playing. Met with our server Imani who was wonderful the entire time. I made sure the timer wouldn't start until the actual time of our event.
Everyone started to trickle in. Until the ladies arrived, I made sure no one ordered food and drinks in case there was already something prepared, which there was. They had ordered food (appetizer plates, 3 flatbreads, and 3 wing plates) and as the staff came in, I made sure they ordered their drinks. We had 3 bays to play on and 2 got filled up. I joined AH and CS at theirs and got a lot of play in. CG and SP joined us at one point as they weren't getting any turns in since there were a lot of people at the other bays. It took me a while to get into the swing of things. Most of the time, my drives were out with no height. Eventually I got some with good height, but no distance. Maybe less than 10 times the combination of distance and height happened and those felt good. I definitely whiffed a few times or even had my ball bounce around inside the bay, ha.
At some point we took a group photo and awards were given out. I was part of the 5 that received bonuses for working Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve, and New Year's Day. Some thought I was going to receive the award for most shout outs in reviews, but it ended up being TR. I get a lot of reviews, but not all have my name on it. After a few more words from the ladies, they opened up the floor for anyone to give shout outs. There was a good chunk of people that did. I was the last person to give one and I gave it to a customer who everyone knew that solo played all our rooms at both locations. Everyone laughed.
We played a bit more and also had a few talks here and there before having to wrap up around 9:30PM (total of 2 hours). A few of the staff had left throughout while the rest of us left at the same time. Some of us chilled in the parking lot to talk a bit more before ending the night at 10PM.
- Slow Monday (01.12). It was myself and HL on deck. We each had one session during our shifts, but the majority of our time was spent moving the props out of the holiday room and converting it back to the original. The biggest downside was removing the Christmas lights from the first room because they were stuck on by tape...and the tape removed the paint. No matter how careful I was, it was rare for the tape to take off the paint. HL did a lot of the cleaning, which was great because that room got dirty. After she left and after the last team was done, I moved the remaining props from next door to the room. So it was multiple trips back and forth in the cold. It didn't take as long as before as everything was neatly organized by me months ago during the original move. The only thing that took the most energy was the fireplace as it was heavy. I did my previous method of putting it on a rug and dragging it out. I put all the props where they needed to be, but didn't install anything. Just wanted to make sure we had everything and that they were close by for whoever was going to work on it the next morning. The only thing we lost was a remote control. No spares were found so I had to order some.
Other than that, I was given a Valentine's project to work on. I started on it, did some research, but didn't complete it that day. I left at 9:30PM.
- Rare Tuesday with Agent Ocean (01.13). I joined him and the ladies in the former holiday room and they said that they were literally talking about me. The reason being was that one part of the throuple left a review for me. Nice way to start the day. The ladies left shortly after, Agent Ocean continued doing work in the room (putting together a new desk), and I took time to sweep and mop the hallways and bathrooms since we had a venue buyout at the end of the night. They were the only teams of the day. All the rooms were set up and we were ready for them.
They started trickling in around 6:30PM. We did have a late start as we waited for a few more to show up. In the end only 26 out of 35 appeared. The person in charge (not the main person that set it up and paid for it) had teams select their wristbands for the rooms from a bowl. Then she had them all introduce themselves as while they work for the same company, they were in different departments. The teams were uneven, but she was okay with that. Agent Ocean and I took each team back one at a time. That's when the Carabba's delivery came in. I helped her bring all the food in as she set it up in the party room. I made sure to label the vegetarian platter and then went back to join Agent Ocean as we Game Mastered our respective teams. The only bump in the road was when the last three teams escaped around the same time.
As teams won, they got their food. Agent Ocean started to reset the rooms. I would go back and forth from resetting and serving drinks. I also wrote down all their times and how many hints they used and gave it to the boss lady as they were all competitive. We missed her announcement, but that was close to them winding down. They all left close to 9PM. They left so much food. It definitely was more than the 9 people that didn't show up. I made a small plate to eat as we threw out all the trash. Then Agent Ocean and I took the time to pack everything up to put in the fridge (2 pans of bread, 2 pans of salad, 1 pan of pasta, and 1 pan of pasta) and we put the big cookies with the snacks in the control room. I insisted that Agent Ocean take the extra pan of lasagna that wasn't touched as he was there all day. He definitely did not object. We left the venue around 9:30PM.
- Opened with Agent Ocean (01.14). We had one early booking and it was a couple that are escape room enthusiasts. They arrived early so we talked about many different escape businesses we've all been to. Talked about awesome ones and horrible ones. Great talk before they went in to play the new room. Then they did a reply to knock out another room they had not played yet. After that, they have now played all rooms our company (not our locations) have to offer except one. That happened to be the one the holiday room took up and we were not done setting it back up. So they'll be back.
The majority of the day was myself and Agent Ocean setting up the returning room. We removed old desks and started to build another. The ladies joined us and we restarted rewiring the old monitors and PC in the final room. Things were placed well. Then we went to turn on the PC...and it wouldn't. After trying a few things, they decided to order a new one. The previous one was old and was on its last legs anyways. A few other revisions were done to make the room look better (good stuff) and there are additional plans to alter a few things for the better.
At some point, our latest wine order came in. I put that aside as we were preparing the room. But I did make sure that storing the wine would be one of the last things I did before leaving early at 6:30PM.
- 10 hour day (01.15). I didn't realize that since the day before the ladies mentioned HL will be in to do stuff with reinstalling the room, so I thought she'd be the closer. She wasn't even on the schedule. It was just me until IB showed up at 5PM. During the time before then, I cleaned. There were no bookings until later in the day so I made sure to vacuum, sweep, and mop our lobby. The other thing I prioritized was the Valentine's project. I double checked my email, edited a few things, and then finally sent it off around 12:30PM.
Took care of glass cleaning in the lobby, handled phone calls (parties, etc), and then I had a spot of rest around 2PM. I texted Agent Ocean if there was anything I could do to help with the room set up. He mentioned not much as the main thing we were waiting on was the new PC. But I could start sanding the spots along the ceiling that were going to get repainted. The holiday lights were put up with electrical tape and staples. Taking them off also took off paint on every spot they were used. I tried, but it was almost impossible to prevent it. Before painting, those spots needed to be sanded. I took an iPad with me to monitor the lobby and brought in a ladder to reach those spots. It took longer than I thought to go around the perimeter of the room. A good 90 minutes. I took small breaks at points, but then sat down for a good 15-20 minutes after finishing. Then I got up to wipe down those spots and that was way faster. Yay for videos showing what to properly do, ha.
IB showed up around 5PM. We caught up and waited for the first of two teams to arrive. The plan was for him to be the Game Master while I hosted. During that time, I also swept the escape rooms that weren't in play. The third team showed up (previous team just finished so they had to wait a bit) and they were cool. They wanted to tip us beforehand with cash, which was different. I joked "what if we provide bad service," ha. After they were brought in and the other team was done, we had a walk-in that we set up for. After those two teams were in, I finally got to make a bowl of the Carabba's leftovers to eat. I needed it. IB set up his own bowl later on. The second to last team were kind enough to leave reviews. I gave them some $25 gift cards that were part of the Christmas deal, but were set to expire in about a month. Once the final team was left, I hosted them out, IB took care of the trash and lights, and I reset the room. We were out around 9:15PM. Very close to 10 hours. My original scheduled time was 11:30AM-10PM. I was definitely okay to leave early that day.
- Busy Saturday (01.17). Started with myself and Agent Ocean opening. There were only 3 bookings at the start of the day to worry about, but then we got walk-ins and phone calls and rooms still needed to be prepared and birthday parties. At one point, he was watching over 4 games while I was going back and forth with lobby duties etc. AH came in at the right time at noon to make things a little smoother. She did have a few mishaps here and there and I tried to direct her, but I think my tone might have made her upset. I made sure to tell her at the end of my shift that she did a great job.
IB came in after the first party was done and got to work right away with cleaning. At this time, Agent Ocean went to buy some AAA batteries as we were out. It wasn't busy when he left, but it picked up with similar instances when he and I opened up, but it was me and AH. It was the first time in a long time that we had 3 birthday parties back-to-back-to-back on the same day. There were a few times that teams started late and that's when everyone was in for their shift.
It didn't help that all the random things happened on a busy day. For example, there were 2 separate companies that came in asking for auction gifts/prizes. I happened to greet both of them and gave them the same answers (email us). There was also the one couple that walked in asking to use the restroom and didn't have a booking and didn't talk to me after they were done (even customers in the lobby were questioning what was up with that). A few customers said they weren't tended to and I addressed the staff about it and got conflicting stories. My Chuy's order for soup didn't come with a spoon (thanks to Agent Ocean for finding me one that wasn't in the occupied party room). The solace I can take from the day was that the interactions I had with the majority were fun.
And this was IB's last day of work before heading off to college. I made sure to thank him and tell him to have fun and eat some good food and use their wellness center. He wasn't a perfect employee, but I always enjoyed it when we had time to talk about whatever (food, women, etc). See you when I see you, IB.
- MLK day (01.19). Only myself and HL were scheduled and I wasn't in until 4PM. Her morning was busy so Agent Ocean had to remote in. When I came in, I immediately started to reset rooms, I unclogged a toilet really fast (that smell was horrible when I walked into the venue), exited teams, and repeat (minus the toilet). It did slow down, but HL stuck around half an hour extra as there was one final string of four teams. After she left, there were only a few teams spread apart that I could easily handle. When the final team was in, I reset four rooms and took out the trash while watching their game on an iPad. In the end, we had 17 teams. Next year, there needs to be at least one more person scheduled in the venue.
- We were supposed to be closed on Tuesday (01.20). The reason was that the rugs were going to be professionally deep cleaned. But a week prior, we got a call that specifically asked for me (I answered their email) about setting up a simple team building event (booking two rooms for 12 total players). The ladies said it should be okay to book them as the carpets would be mostly dry by then and that they can schedule just me to be at the venue since everything else will remain blocked.
The day of, I was there at 4PM. I checked on the rugs and they were still wet. After I set up the rooms, I proceeded to contact applicants for interviews (only one replied and was scheduled). I swept certain areas as I waited for the teams to eventually showed up. Most arrived on time with a few stragglers (latest showing up 10 minutes after everyone). They all bought drinks (yay for the tips), they all used the restroom, and it was game time. I explained the locks to everyone at once and then brought each team in one after the other. Then I watched them until they were done. Both teams were really good as their teamwork was excellent. They needed nudges here and there, but they understood most of what was going on despite it being the first time for the majority. Shout out to the coordinator as she made sure everyone got their waivers done, arrive when they needed to, and to treat me kindly (none stepped out of line, but she made sure to make it a point that I was the one taking care of them). She even jokingly yelled at some of her team for stepping on the wet carpet, ha. It was honestly an easy set of sessions. Sucks that they didn't leave reviews since they had to leave ASAP for dinner reservations. The coordinator told them to, but we shall see.
After resetting those rooms, I finished up a few cleaning tasks of sweeping and mopping. Boo for the mop bucket spilling over right at the very end, ha. I was able to wrap all that up by 9PM like I had planned to. If I could have finished the mopping by 8:30PM, I would have left by then because I was tired and sore.
- Opened on Wednesday (01.21). Agent Ocean ended up having the day off since he remoted in and stayed late the last couple of days, but came in for an interview. I was prepping just in case I had to run it solo. The applicant was easy to talk to and had some good credentials on their resume. They asked some good questions too. Afterwards, Agent Ocean left and we discussed over texts about whether we were going to onboard them. It's 50/50. I see the potential so maybe this will sway more in their favor. On the same note, I finally set up the other interview we were trying to get to happen the day before. Hopefully one of these will work out.
I finally was able to call our alcohol distributor as I couldn't the last couple weeks due to when my shift started. But they never picked up. I even left a call back number twice hoping they would while I was there or even after. They never did. That sucked because I was asked to get that done within a week and most of it had already passed.
Other than that, there were 3 bookings (one scheduled, one walk-in, and one later booked). No problems with the first one as they were really good and barely needed assistance. I was actually watching them mostly during the interview. The second was a group of women that had been there before, but were in the area so decided at the last minute to play. They needed help, but thought they were doing horribly. They had fun and had some scares. The third team was a couple...and the guy was...interesting. He had lots of "jokes" for everything, he kept touching his girlfriend (grabbing her butt, punching her boobs, etc), and wasn't very effective in the room. She had to tell him what to do all the time. They had a good time, but it wasn't fun to watch. I left early around 5:30PM.
- Opened the next day (01.22). I set up for the one room that was booked (I think by the end of the day there were only two). After that, I immediately called our alcohol distributor and someone answered. I asked them to connect me to our contact and mentioned how I tried calling yesterday. She said that they moved to a new phone system so they missed a lot of calls unfortunately. But I was glad to have someone to talk to as this was the last day of the week I'd be able to get information on the Valentine's project (I wasn't scheduled for Friday and they're closed on the weekends). She did mention how I could look at stuff online, but I mentioned how we were told to always call. So we worked on setting up our online account. She found our customer number, I set up an email address and password, and we were set. She never did that before so she gained an extra skill. She gave recommendations for their best selling champagne and then found a few more options when I asked if there were any cool/unique bottles. But she also pointed out that she was mainly in customer service and not our actual contact, which was interesting because we had her name written down and she had helped us so many times. So she mentioned the contact's name and we did have her written down as well, but never really spoke with her in the past. I left a voicemail for her and she called back after lunch. I asked if she would be able to send a list of the previous recommendations and more that she would recommend so it would be easier to access and view (otherwise you'd have to sign in to see anything). She was able to provide that an hour later, I sent that information and more to the ladies, and I finished my extra part of the Valentine's project. This whole process was about two hours, but thankfully it got done.
During all that, the management team was getting texts from the ladies about plans for closing because of the weather. I was asked to post a graphic on our social media about closing early Saturday (originally was 5PM, but changed to 8PM) and closing all day Sunday. I tasked that to KH as she wasn't doing anything else when she clocked in. I then spent time making sure to properly post them on our social media posting outlet. I messed up and had one sent for the sister location pop up on the main venue. For some reason the option to delete posts wasn't available so I asked one of the ladies to look in on that. After my shift, she texted me that she did that, but accidentally deleted the real post off the sister location and tried to walk KH and HL on how to do it, but couldn't. I sent a simple text back on how to do it, but don't think they actually did it.
After the social media post, I finally worked on something I set aside during the holidays. I was tasked with putting a clasp and latch on a box to use in one of our rooms. I mistakenly forget to put the latch on and put it in the room for play. Funny enough, teams didn't realize it and still played with it as if it was locked. It only took one day later for one of the owners to realize it as they were helping reset the room, ha. I brought the previous box in and put the new one in the back room to work on later. Later became 2-3 months later. Testing the latch, I realized that the lock wouldn't fit. I compared it to the previous lock, it was because of the screws. The heads of them were round instead of flat. I replaced the screws, but they were unfortunately longer so now I needed a way to cover them like the previous box. Same thing for the screws I put on the latch. The screws were easy. Covering them so they don't injure customers was simple, but just took time. The previous answer was hot glue to give them soft edges. I couldn't find anything else that would be suitable. But instead of having them individually stick out, I made large blocks/globs of hot glue so it was more stable and pokeable. It was a mess, ha. The only other thing was that the lock was snug when fitting it through the loop. It worked, but I can see the staff complaining about having to put a little extra effort into it even though they wanted a newer/cleaner box.
Once that was done, I spent a few minutes replying to some reviews before leaving an hour early at 4PM.
- The management team received a text from Agent Ocean copying and pasting a text from the ladies about slimming down the staff for the day due to few bookings, the earlier closing time, and the weather. Myself and CS were texted about half an hour later to not come in. I was questioning going in to begin with so I wasn't upset for being called off.
- Got switched to on-call with our first day back from the bad weather (01.26). Both locations operated with one person and one on-call. I didn't check the sister location's bookings, but we actually did have a lot of bookings at the main venue. But HL didn't call for assistance so I'm sure she handled it well.
- Opening on a slow Tuesday (01.27). Yeah...we're definitely back to a possible zero customers days. There was only one while I was there and I took care of that while HL was doing some of her projects and cleaning. Once the team was done, I got a reply about what drinks to order for the Valentine's package. I urged them to figure what to buy soon as the next deliver day was the following day with the next one being in two weeks as per the cycle.
I then finally worked on the proofreading images project I had a long time ago before the holidays and after the clue proofreading. This wasn't a project until I noticed the incorrect grammar (missing commas, misspelled words, etc) on images, which aren't easily as fixable. While I had finished one room prior, it didn't take too long to do the rest with it taking a couple of hours. I made sure to download and attach the images to use as reference. The ladies said they sent it to the proper image creator teams to work on and suggested I try doing some of the smaller ones if possible.
The rest of my time until I left early at 6PM (1.5 hours early) was sweeping and mopping. When I got home, HL was texing the manager chat about a group that came in with drinks. Specicially with red solo cups. She mentioned how they were late, wouldn't listen to her (kept trying to take photos and videos while in the room), wanted to bring drinks into the rooms, they broke a couple of props (one was screwed back in, the other was replaced), and that they left trash out in the parking lot. Had I stayed the whole time, I would have witnessed this in person. I probably would have straight up kicked them out at one point, but HL just had them "play" and walked them through it with clues. Either way, not a fun team to end the day with.
- Originally was supposed to open, but KH asked to switch shifts (01.29). Other than changing from opener to closer, the time frame wasn't much different as I came in at 1PM instead of 11:30AM. But I had a suspicion that she would ask to leave once I arrived and she did. Before she left, I made sure to remind her about filling out her daily report before leaving as the ladies asked me to remind her because she forgot to the night before (maybe other times prior). But yeah, she worked for 1.5 hours.
My time was spent making gift cards for auction requests, mopping all the escape rooms, and calling customers. One phone call about a birthday party lead me to check stuff on our venue's website and the sister location's website. The customer mentioned how things were packaged differently and I actually didn't know that. I then took time to compare the pages on both websites and understood why customers could be confused and why some of our recent bookings were odd. While I had texted DQ about another party, she called and I talked to her about this issue. She said she would try and call me around 6PM once she was home so we could go over things and try to make things make more sense. But I spent a good hour comparing things and making notes. In the end, DQ couldn't make the call so I emailed her my notes and we scheduled to talk about it the next day (that unfortunately did not happen).
There was only one booking made and it was for 8:10PM. That was the only one until about 6:30PM when another was made for 7PM. They were unfortunately late so I blocked the possible next booking just in case. The other team arrived on time. Both teams were okay. The first needed more help, but enjoyed their time. Got two reviews from them. The second team did very well and only needed minimal help. I figured I could get one more review by giving my usual speech, but none of them were going for it. One woman who bought a Diet Coke earlier asked for another. After she paid for that, I said "I'm going to be a shill right now...we're one review away from reaching 1500." She nodded and then told the rest of her team that. No one budged. So she did it herself. I thanked her for that.
I did my normal closing duties and was done around 9:30PM, but stuck around to make a last minute pizza order. The original reason I texted DQ was because she left notes on a party. That party didn't respond to calls and emails so she said to cancel the booking (they had not paid anyways). But they called her around 8:50PM. So during my final session, DQ was texting me the situation. "Sweet lady, super apologetic." Basically she was embarrased for missing all the calls and emails and wanted to make sure to secure the party. Hopefully we can get a review in the end for the last minute rebooking. Left around 9:40PM.
- I got called off to work remotely (01.30). That turned into more drama than I thought it would. Thank you to Agent Ocean for always having my back. To quote what I texted him, " I honestly didn't have much of an issue with this until they responded the way they did." Basically two of the staff members said things that were wrong citing fairness, checking the schedule, "usual" shifts, etc. There's proof of their reason for the decision in case this ever becomes a thing again. I still did what I told the ladies I would do by letting them know that they are part of the Valentine's project now. Just that I did it via email instead of in person like I was planning to do.
In the end, that situation sucked for many reasons. It would be the second time I was called off to be remote in one week. Add that to the Saturday I was called off because of the weather issues and I now have lost three days of work in the span of one week.
- Arrived for midshift at 2PM on a Saturday (01.31). They were already behind on teams and that was pretty much the flow all day. We're short staffed with only four employees. We're able to manage, but it does suck when multiple teams wait 5-15 minutes after their scheduled time. Plus things will fall through the cracks as there aren't 1-2 more staff members to help maintain. By the end of the day, we had 35 teams, which isn't our busiest, but it's the busiest since the holiday season. And the staff left when they needed with Agent Ocean leaving a little after 9PM, HL, leaving a little after 10PM, and KH leaving around 11PM. That left me with three teams that were spread far apart to not worry about too much. When there was only one team left, I did take an iPad and reset as many of the rooms that were left (KH did 2 of them and 1 for the last team of the night before leaving). The last team left after midnight. While there wasn't a much left to reset, I still needed to do the tip tracker, take out trash, restock the fridge, and send my closing report. I left work at 1AM and got home at 1:40AM. That hasn't happened in a long time and I was spent. Once the last team left, my body gradually slowed down and had more and more pain. Not the best final day of the month, but not the worst. Crazy that the first day of the month and the last day of the month had me leaving around 1AM, but the energy of those around me and no one around me were the opposite ends of the spectrum.
Shout out to the ladies for getting us Tiff's Treats cookies for reaching 1500 reviews.
ETC=========================
- Stardust through the Window
- Apink - Sunshine (01.09)
I was never too into Apink. I knew who they were, knew a few of their songs, enjoyed them on variety shows, etc. But seeing them perform together after so long felt very heartwarming.
- Jessica Jung (01.11)
Hearing and seeing Jessica perform SNSD songs after so many years...wow.
- MISAMO - Confetti (MV)
Great music video and a fun song. So many costumes. The cosplay potential for fans is abundant. Can't wait to hear the rest of the songs on this album.
- Girl's Day - Hyell's Club
I recently got back into watching videos from Girl's Day. The main catalyst was Yura's channel where the newest episode at that time was reuniting with her We Got Married partner. SInce then, I slowly worked through watching all the videos on her channel. Then it lead to a suggestion of when Girl's Day was on Hyeri's channel about half a year ago. I had no idea that happened so I watched that (01.25). I got into Girl's Day during their Something promotions and got into some of their older songs while following them until they were done. I didn't keep up with any of them until now. Watching them together after many years on Hyeri's channel brought back some good memories. It was great seeing them doing well too. Then it was a rabbit hole of older appearances on variety shows. If they ever performed on stage again, I would welcome it. My initial bias was Minah, but switched back and forth between her and Yura especially because of seeing her on We Got Married.
- BoA's contract ended with SM (01.12). She was started in 2000 and she was the person I hitched my wagon onto the whole time. While I was into a few Kpop songs before her, she was the real reason I started liking Kpop. She was also the only artist I was still buying albums for. I have all her Korean albums and all her Japanese albums and her English album. I also have all her concerts on DVD and blu-ray. 25 years is a long time. Would I have wanted her to continue? Not if her heart wasn't in it anymore. I want her to be happy with whatever she ends up doing. If it's more music elsewhere, great. If it's taking an extended break, you deserve it. No matter what you end up doing, I'll continue to support you. Thank you, BoA.
That's a wrap on January 2026. Thank you for your support. Be cool and be kind.
"Reprise the theme song and roll the credits."
