Wednesday, January 21st - rising Bench doubles, working on control, speed, stability and technique

 21.01.2026

There's one thing I like about FO4 is how many jumpscares and chaos it can generate. I got a few mods that make it more hardcore, such as the one that gives perks to enemies thus literally going above survival, paid "Bedlam" mod - it's a fun little framework that creates chaos, it can summon enemies on top of enemies, as if it was reinforcements or it lets you come across some cool little conflicts. The other day, before yesterday, I wasted an hour of gameplay - and I don't regret it, cause of how it was - going from County Crossing to the Salem museum so I can do two quests, one for Lee Enfield rifle and another for the general "check out this place". Also came across Longneck Lukovski cannery, one of my favorite places and there was Trader Rylee and I couldn't recruit her cause I haven't built a big enough shop in one of the settlements by that point. In a typical Survival fashion, assisted by Bedlam, I got killed a few times, respawing at the cannery. First I got killed by a raider that got spawned to assist the "Redcoat" guy who comes up when you get the british rifle, and he killed me cause I mistook him for MacReady! That's one of them paid mods that's sort of semi-worth it. I just had leftover credits/atoms what have you from back in the day. Then I kept exploring that real horrible scary place, the Salem museum and I had a humongously funny moment, also possibly caused by that Bedlam mod - me and MacReady were sneaking away from an albino deathclaw that was shambling around, he discovered us, I shot him a few times with the shotgun, he charged me but I couldn't fight him (cause he's one of the few enemies that aren't quite folded in melee combat, they keep grabbing you), ran around the corner and there was another deathclaw who picked me up in that wrestle-animation cut me with his claws and slammed me against the floor like a darn basketball and the physics engine freaked out really hard, and the other deathclaw came up from the back but I was already done for. That was honestly just hilarious how difficult I ended up making the game. Then I decided to approach it more methodically and just grab the rifle and run back, and I did so, but a random spawned deathclaw killed Trader Rylee and I discovered that only after me and MacReady shot him, so I just decided to stop playing and reload the save at County Crossing. That was, simply put, fun. Yesterday I did that again, but this time did not go into the cannery so I can pick up Trader Rylee later. Got the Enfield but was a little disappointed that it was as weak as the default "hunting rifle" in the game. That's why some mod authors include damage boosts or nerfs tunable in the game. Then I did the second quest added by that ridiculous Lee Enfield quest mod and got ambushed and killed in the Museum of Freedom by a pretty weird looking thing (spoiler: a kitty cat model stretched into a shape of a deathclaw - it killed me once, but then I reloaded and unloaded on it with the Auto-5 I picked up near County Crossing before). I try to change my ingame loadouts; the sniper rifles make some things a little too easy, so I put away the M1903 Springfield I had and just ran around with a custom S&W39 and a 1911 (God's caliber, .45ACP, won at least two world wars 😎) and a shotgun. There's this really fun mod that adds a special break-action single shot shotgun with that weird magazine-loading thingy, so it's basically an external magazine. I saw a Forgotten Weapons video on that one, let me see... That's right, it's Alofs https://youtu.be/0kd_hwY0w90

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Enjoying writing. The most trivial stuff. Pages upon pages describing minutes of characters' life in my story. Well, I simply do like it this way, and that's how I do it! I need to see it, feel it, write it all down. See it from memory. Strange, isn't it?

Workout

Warmup - just some wall pushups, all the joints and tissues feel pretty nice today

ALSO I'm gonna put additional sure onto unracking it as low as possible as well DROP my habit of breathing out just a little bit of air on unrack. Old silly habit I had! Gotta keep it stiff, completely under control. The warmup will be tripes up two sets with 140, and then more work. Doubles in place of triples - should be good.

Bench press

20 - 50 - 100

Fiddling way too much with the darn rack. A small thing, the car's parked too deep. I used to rage about it and force some fixing, but I reckon I've grown older and wiser and I don't always need to pull the damn blanket onto myself. It is a little bothersome of course. Otherwise, after some wiggling and scraping, I positioned the rack really well.

120 for 5

130 for 3

140 - 2 sets of 2 - feels nice. I need MAXIMUM CONTROL. The "not exhaling" thing is working. May wanna wear a hat, cause I think I'm getting the back of my head irritated when I lay it on the toolcase.

150 for 2 nice

150 for 2 not bad but uneven - not sure why

160 for 2 same

160 for 2 fixed some of the unevenness, but it keeps coming

165 for 2 really hard, second one was a messy grinder (on the lockout). I think I need more lighter weight work, polish out all the quirks. But guess what? I gotta get myself together and focus what I have and do a good one now, a final one, to keep up the doubles.

165 for 2 - Thank God, that was the best one given the weight 😀 Both really smooth and fast, well controlled, not uneven; the second one was visibly segmented cause I've been forgetting my own advice regarding locking out first and only then racking but otherwise really nice and powerful 😀

That's about it. I wanna squat, maybe. Just some BW and Goblet squats, could be nice. I think it does a great thing to my ankle.

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Did some minimal stretching and BW squats. It's a little too late. Glad to have done something! I'll do some more, nothing serious.

RPotD - 319 W Elm St., "The Court" Building, Sycamore, Illinois. Sycamore Historic District, National Register of Historic Places.