Final Family Christmas

Given that I'm going to be moving next month, this was the last year I had to spend Christmas with the family. It was... underwhelming for the most part. The gifts I gave went over reasonably well. I received the usual array of miscellanea that made it obvious they had no idea what to get me. Then the grandparents came over and things started going downhill. To summarize: between the offensive things they said in front of me and repulsive things they said loudly while I was in the next room, I'm quite glad this is the last time I'm going to see them.

There are many things that one can discuss at a family dinner. Politics shouldn't be one of them. Even that basic courtesy went out the window though, as within five minutes of the grandparents arrival they and my father were loudly talking about how the country was going to hell, how everything that's happened in Washington since Obama's inauguration has been horrible, and ... well, I'm sure you get the idea. I was trying to ignore it but every time I tried turning the volume up on the TV in the next room, it seemed like their conversation got even louder to match. I eventually gave up, said a brief hello, and locked myself in the guest bedroom with my ear plugs in to tune out everything else.

Then dinner came along and the conversation once again took a distasteful turn. Politics were set aside, but religion came up, as did the topic of unsavory clients at a tax preparation firm. Apparently, at least to my grandparents, someone who is an exotic dancer is automatically a hooker and queers are definitely people to be ashamed to know. I bit my tongue so hard I'm surprised it didn't start bleeding. If I hadn't made a conscious decision to be civil toward everyone and avoid burning bridges I'd probably have gotten up, packed, and left immediately.

Once dinner was over, another round of gifts were exchanged, during which yet another political discussion came up. I just sat around taking pictures of everyone and everything as a distraction; I'll probably delete the damn things after I move. I returned to the bedroom as quickly as I could without appearing like a complete ass and - even with the door closed - could still clearly hear the conversation take an even more vitriolic tone. Had anyone in that conversation said outright that they hoped Obama is assassinated I wouldn't have been surprised, as they said almost everything else under the sun. Conversely, any time I even implied Bush wasn't the best thing to ever happen to America, they swiftly countered that I should support him solely because he's the President. Logic clearly doesn't mean anything to far right Republicans, nor does the concept of being decent toward other people.

The grandparents left around 7:30 and I returned to the bedroom after that. I wish I could say I was sorry to see them go, but after hearing what came out of everyone's mouth, I don't think they could have gone fast enough. If anything, I'm relieved to know that I'm not actually related to any of them. But still, it's a rather jarring reinforcement that I don't really have a family after all. I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad thing right now.

Itinerary for January

Between Further Confusion, moving, and all the other things going on, here's a short rundown of things that I have going on next month.

1st through 16th - Working

17th through 30th - Paid vacation

17th through 20th - Relaxing in Indy, prospecting for real estate

20th - I turn twenty-four years old

21st through 25th - Further Confusion!

26th - In Pensacola, saying goodbyes

27th - Driving to Indy

28th - Unpacking, turning in the U-Haul

29th - More real estate hunting, address changes, etc.

31st through ?? - Unpaid time off, three to five days, for more errands in Indy

I'll post the flight info for FC and more specific information about the move as those dates approach. I just wanted to get something quick up now while I still have the computer up.

Further Confusion and the rest of January

With Further Confusion just a short month away, I want to start planning things out. I've already booked the hotel room and plan on getting pre-reg done sometime this week. However, the plane tickets remain unpurchased as I'm trying to finalize plans, arrange rides, and so on. But while I'm already going to be out on the west coast, is there anyone in that area that would want me to stick around for an extra day? I'm currently planning on taking off Monday afternoon or evening but could easily extend that to Tuesday or even Wednesday given a good reason. ;)

After the con, I'm planning on flying to Pensacola for one last time, to pack things up and make a long overdue move. While the final details are still slightly sketchy, there's a 95% chance I'll have that taken care of and be more or less settled in up there by the end of January. I'll use whatever time is left on my vacation after that to start scouting out houses and the like. I'm still tentatively optimistic about having something worked out in time to qualify for the tax credit expiring at the end of April. If not, then I'm not sure what I'll end up doing, but I'm sure it'll all come out well in the end.

Why do weekends off tend to be exhausting?

Somehow I end up having the last two days off in Pensacola, and yet I don't feel any more rested now than I did when I got into town Saturday morning. I was up late last night with a friend (he left around 1 AM), then tonight I hung out with someone else, but now I'm so tired that I'm not sure I'll even be fully functioning during work tomorrow. I'm hoping I can somehow get one more day off and get to sleep at a reasonable hour for a change, but neither of those are sure things. It was a pretty good weekend overall, though; I saw a couple people that I was surprised to see, spent relatively little time putting up with my parents, and saw The Fantastic Mr. Fox which turned out to be an even better movie than I'd expected. I just wish that I weren't feeling so incredibly tired that I'm going to be struggling to keep up for the rest of the week... @_@

A few thoughts on climate change

After a few arguments with some acquaintances recently, I feel the need to clarify a few things about the science involved here. For one, the people denying that the changes are occurring clearly haven't even done their own research; I've yet to have someone provide even a single reputable source for any claims being made. By reputable, I mean a recent peer-reviewed scientific article, not coverage in the mainstream media by journalists whose coverage isn't worth calling news. At the very least, an article out of an established, reputable scientific magazine would suffice, but the only "facts" I've been presented are articles on Fox that are usually self-contradictory and easily debunked with about thirty seconds of searching on Google. If there were, in fact, a significant controversy over whether or not made-made global warming is a considerable threat to our future, why haven't there been serious studies by independent scientists that have found issues with the current consensus?

Even if you want to discount the data from the UK climate scientist over those hacked e-mails - the contents of which have been taken wildly out of context and overblown - that eliminates just one data set out of thousands out there, all of which point to a significant warming trend in the last few decades. In addition to things merely being taken out of context, there are terms being used that are perfectly understood by the audience (fellow researchers) even though their meanings are very different than would be used by the population at large. The obvious example is the remark about hiding the decline. The "decline" being referred to is a decline in temperatures as reported by the tree ring record, which is contradicted by the actual temperature measurements being taken at the time. Those who are complaining about this are, in effect, arguing that tree records are more reliable than thermometers.

Of those other data sets, NASA's data from weather stations puts the last significant trough at 1966. I've chosen that particular graph to eliminate even the complaint that the models are skewed; the data in that graph are taken from direct measurements, not extrapolations. The land-ocean graph looks roughly the same. The same graph also calls into question the allegations of a natural 30-year cycle, as there is a huge spike between the mid-60s and about 2000, followed by a period of relative stability; if there were a cyclical variation we would be experiencing a corresponding downturn in global temperatures. While the temperatures in the US this year have been exceptionally cool, they've been more than offset by sweltering heat in other parts of the world, particularly in Asia and the Arctic.

So why haven't temperatures risen much in the last decade? A fair question. Perhaps it has something to do with the sun being in one of its longest and deepest solar minima on record. Perhaps it's that the north pole ice is absorbing a lot of that heat energy, as evidenced by the drastic drops in arctic sea ice with the lowest level ever occurring in 2007 and the third-lowest in 2009. Perhaps it really is just a natural variability that's offsetting the human influence on the climate. I've no doubt that there will be plenty of research into it and answers in the coming years.

Tackling the issues facing the world won't be cheap. The plan itself isn't easy to outline and it'll be different in the various parts of the world. But the time to act is now, not in decades to come. The longer we wait, the more difficult it will be to turn things around and the greater the risk of reaching a point of no return.

Murfreesboro, TN - Mileage overload

I'm not sure what's going on lately, but it seems like operations is outright desperate to keep trucks moving at any cost. Including, apparently, the sanity of drivers. I had to start this morning as soon as my break was up to try keep things going, only to lose time in traffic and get to the consignee about half an hour later than expected. This wouldn't have been that big of a problem, except that I'd already been assigned another load to pick up by noon and, though the magic mileage book claimed it was just 35 miles away, it was an over 50 mile trek on state highways. As such I was nearly 15 minutes late, though for the second time in less than a week, my pickup deadline was nothing but a suggestion; nobody seemed to even notice that I was "late" for picking the load up.

I think I set a new record picking that load up. Between the time I arrived with my empty trailer and the time I left with my load, just fifteen minutes passed. They had a yard guy bring the loaded trailer right to me so I just had to drop my empty, do a U-turn to get the load, and drive straight out the gate. After a not-so-brief (20 mile) detour to scale the load out, I started heading toward Atlanta. I hadn't yet even had the chance to trip plan any of this out, as I was moving non-stop to try conserve as much time as possible, but operations just didn't seem to care. I received yet another work assignment less than two hours after picking my current load up. By this point, operations' estimate of what I can do and reality are now four hours apart; they seem to think that I can deliver this load by about 5 AM tomorrow when I'll just be coming off my break at that point and still have 225 miles to go.

As a result of all this time compressing by operations, I have to run as hard as I possibly can over the next two days just to get my load delivered on time. I may be forced to wake up around 1:30 AM Thursday. Though the mileage on this run is pretty good, it's going to leave me in upstate New York with only about seven hours to run on my 70. For once, I have some hours to pick up; I'll be getting nine hours back Friday night and eight hours on Saturday. This, however, is the only thing that gives me even a glimmer of hope that I won't be stuck in New York state for the weekend; I don't have much confidence in operations to keep from leaving me stranded once again. To make matters worse there's essentially no truck parking near where I'm delivering, so if they can't find me something immediately I'll have to scramble to figure something out on my own.

In other, almost related news, I finally have some confirmation of a few policies that my DBL had been leaving ambiguous. Most importantly, I finally had someone confirm that I can combine my normal (unpaid) time at home with my (paid) vacation weeks, giving me a few extra days to take care of things. I'll probably be using all that time in the second half of January.

Why can't I enjoy a day off?

The subject really just says it all here. It seems like every time I get a day off, or even during the week or so I had off at home, I end up spending most of my time completely miserable. Both today and last weekend, my entire time off was spent sitting at the computer, wishing I had something to do and, ideally, someone to do it with. I'm completely uninspired when it comes to try writing things. I'm really not even enjoying looking at porn, something that I usually can at least use to get my mind off things for a little while. And during the time I'm working, it seems like I'm completely isolated, as I don't end up having time to do anything for myself at all, which just makes me even more depressed when I have those rare occasions to do something and things just fall apart.

As I posted on Twitter earlier, I rather wish I could just beat myself unconscious for a significant period of time. I'm not suicidal - that goes too far - but I see little point in continuing the daily grind like I am now since it just never leads to anything satisfactory. The brief moments of happiness I have are almost always swept away either by work, by things going awry, or some other unforeseeable calamity that leaves me feeling even more hopeless about my prospects of ever actually getting more than a transient moment of happiness that's immediately swept away in another wave of depression.

Frankly I'm not even sure why I'm writing this. I doubt anyone's going to read it anyway, especially not anyone who could actually make me happy. That is, of course, if there really is someone who could cheer me up.

Sprint's sales department fails too

I had wanted to get the HTC Hero today. The reviews seemed generally favorable and, given that my current opinion is that a Windows Mobile phone is slightly less reliable than tin cans with a really long string, I figured that having a day off seemed like a good opportunity to snap one up. The nearest store to our operating center here wouldn't even be open until noon, so I waited to try call until that time. That's pretty much where things started going south.

Upon calling the store, I was greeted with the usual lengthy menu of options, complete with the paradox of being told "For Spanish, press two" in perfect, crisp English. After navigating that mess, I was briefly given hold music before an automated message interrupted to say that all associates were busy helping in-store customers. I re-entered my selection, only to have the same thing happen again: after fewer than twenty seconds I was kicked out of the hold queue, this time with a message telling me I should make an appointment if I want to talk to someone. That really isn't an option, considering that it's a ten mile drive each way and I'm not about to waste that kind of time going up there only to find out that I can't get what I want.

Having exhausted my options locally, I decided to try making a call to Sprint's main 800 number. It took several attempts of random button mashing just to get to a human being, but I tried. The first suggestion was that I try Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and/or Radio Shack if I want to find inventory that's nearer or information that's more useful than a Sprint store. I appreciated that information, then started to ask about the phone specifically and the plan I wanted. At that point, I was told I couldn't keep the 15% employee discount I currently have with the plan I would be required to switch to. Nowhere, on any of the information I'd ever been given about the discount, was there a restriction on what sort of plans it could apply to. I called them out on that and was told that no discounts of any kind were applicable. Never mind that I was already asking about a plan that would have increased my monthly bill by at least $30 even if I got to keep the discount, nor that I'd been a customer (albeit a very unhappy one) for two years. At that point, I didn't really see any point in holding back; I just said that Sprint had mastered the art of screwing prospective customers out of as much money as possible, thanked her for warning me that I would be getting screwed out of even more money if I decided to stay with them, and hung up the phone.

At this point, I'm seriously unsure what I want out of a cell phone company at all. The biggest problem, of course, is that all the major carriers suck. There is no national carrier that doesn't screw its customers six ways from Sunday and, given that I drive all over the place, a regional carrier isn't a viable option. There's also the fact I need an aircard or a device that allows tethering, services that I've never seen advertised by anything other than AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-mobile. I don't know what it would take to fix the cellular industry right now, but to me it seems like it is fundamentally broken in its current incarnation. It seems like they want to make it as difficult as possible to do anything, even giving them money, due to their bureaucracy and general incompetence. How can they possibly be this screwed up?

Time for a house?

So, after a few months of deliberations, poking around online, looking on various websites, and reading how-tos on how to buy a house, I think I may be ready to take the plunge. I've a mediocre credit score, but enough cash to make a substantial down-payment on a place. I'm still planning on looking near Indianapolis, IN; even given some of the recent issues I've had with furs in the area, moving up there would put me far closer to a lot of other people I'd want to visit; I'd be within half a day's drive of numerous major cities.

The first major hurdle to overcome, of course, is convincing work to let me take the time off. Somehow, at this point, that seems like the hardest thing to do. Once I have some time (hopefully a week), I just need to make the pilgrimage and start digging around. It's going to be a whirlwind trip, to be sure: I'll be talking to banks, real estate agents, homeowners, and probably more. It's going to be under some serious time pressure as well, as I may only get one shot to get this taken care of before that first-time homeowner tax credit expires. If it comes down to the wire I may make a few other negotiations with work, but I'm really hoping it doesn't end up as something like that.

If anyone in the midwest has some advice, or wants to see me while I'm in that part of the country, feel free to comment here.

I WAS a happy ING Direct customer

Up until now, I've been an exceptionally happy customer of ING Direct. Good interest rates and practically no fees for anything are two rather large selling points after all. But an e-mail I received earlier this evening made me seriously reconsider my relationship with them.

White dragons are healers

Blackwing, Timoran, and I were playing Wii Sports Resort bowling earlier this evening. Blackwing, in a fantastic show of overenergeticness and ADHD, managed to swing so wildly that his arm went straight up into a low-hanging ceiling light, shattering the glass fixture and narrowly missing the fluorescent light within. I don't recall him screaming, but he was whimpering and bleeding pretty badly from the index finger of his right hand.

At first we didn't think it was that bad, but then we realized that the blood wasn't slowing down and Blackwing was getting increasingly agitated from the injury. Timoran tried to handle it at first, but it just wasn't working out so well. Blackie was nearly screaming any time we even tried to run warm water over the wound to clean it out; in hindsight we really should have tried using soap despite his protests, or at least washed our own hands to ensure they were reasonably clean. At this point, some sort of weird instinct kicked in, as did memories of the first aid panel from MFM earlier this month.

While Timoran briefly handled the situation, I got Blackwing a glass of ice water as he was complaining about being quite hot and didn't look so good. I then  asked for a first aid kit, and Timoran was pretty quick to get out of the way after Blackwing said he felt like he was going to puke. I grabbed the gauze pads out of there and used just one first, but the blood soaked through in a matter of moments, requiring a second pad. That too didn't last long, but the blood was just going through a small portion of the gauze. I took a third pad, folded it into quarters, and firmly held it into place. It didn't soak through after a minute so I felt confident enough that it was going to hold. I got the medical tape, firmly taped it into place, then Blackwing promptly lost his dinner after I had it secured. He later said it didn't really hurt that badly when I did it, but I'm wondering if it's because those nerves were just overloaded and not able to register the sensation.

Things calmed down after he was able to get his head out of the toilet. Timoran was trying to clean the glass off the basement floor, while I took care of cleaning up the bathroom and ensuring that Blackwing's condition was stable. The aftermath resulted in Blackie being relatively silent for the first time all weekend. We finished cleaning it up, gave the injured dragon some mouthwash for the taste in his maw, and things have since gone back mostly to normal.

Overall, the incident has made me wonder if I really do have a knack for things like this. It's not the first time that I've responded pretty quickly when someone needed some medical attention. I have stayed fairly calm during it. At the very least, I'd like to take a proper first aid class so I can make sure that I get things right next time. While I still doubt I'd make it into a full on career, I do enjoy helping people like that a lot. It's just something to think about. At the moment I'm just glad Blackwing's okay and I feel like I owe it to the first aid panel from MFM.

When it rains it pours

Tonight was a mostly decent night until a few things happened in relatively short order. One person made a hopelessly tasteless joke at my expense. Another more or less confirmed that there's zero chance of me ever meeting him in person due to his mate/owner being part of a package deal and my aversion to wanting to live with (even temporarily) another couple due to the awkwardness that inevitably brings. That same person is someone that I'd have wanted as a roommate if not for him saying - after dancing around the subject for an irritating length of time - that there's no chance of him coming without his partner regardless of anything I say. This compounded with earlier frustrations, including work-related crap that cost me an hour, the inability to get a ride to see friends if I made it near Chicago, the near-total unresponsiveness of almost everyone I wanted to talk to, and simple exhaustion from being on such a weird sleep schedule so many days in a row.

As a result of all this, I - in a nutshell - feel like shit. I know it's irrational to think that nobody wants to see me given that two people explicitly said they do earlier today, but it's rather hard to take any consolation in that when they're people that lack the means to actually go and see you. Not that it matters anyway, considering I'm nowhere near anyone I know at the moment. Even if I end up getting a house, it's pretty obvious at this point that I'll be living alone and probably couldn't bribe people to come over, much like I've always run into. I don't know what the hell I'm doing wrong but it seems like nobody actually wants to be around me most of the time no matter how I try and act.

To head off anyone who would jump to conclusions: I'm not suicidal. I'd very much like to die right about now, just to be out of my misery, but I lack the energy to even take a shower tonight, much less to actually take any action to end my existence. If I don't wake up in the morning, though, I wouldn't mind.

CNN's Rick Sanchez calls out Fox Noise as liars

I'm far too tired to write up another intelligent post and plan on being awake in less than five hours; see my work blog if you want to know the details of my last couple days. So, instead, I leave you with this video from CNN's Rick Sanchez, in which he says on national TV what I - and a lot of other bloggers - have been saying about Fox News for a very long time.

Taking the Penguin Plunge - I installed Linux Mint

Having grown tired of waiting forever for Vista to respond to anything I want to do, I decided to give Linux Mint 7 a try, something I'd been meaning to do for a while now. It proved to be as fast running from the CD as Vista is running from my hard drive and every piece of hardware I have works with it smoothly, from the entire assortment of hotkeys to  the wi-fi and mobile broadband.

Amusingly, the most annoying/difficult part of the installation was trying to get Vista to shrink its partition to make space for the Linux ones. Ultimately I had to boot into safe mode to get around the cryptic access denied errors Microsoft so helpfully provides. Pretty much everything else was automatic; Mint's setup created my user account (and could have imported my one from Windows, if I were so inclined), had most of the software I needed right from the get-go, and provided a welcome screen to explain anything I might have needed help with.


I've been using the OS all weekend now and I'm still extremely happy with it. Everything is significantly more responsive, sometimes almost too much so; I keep having to disable the touchpad since it is a little too sensitive now. :)  As I migrate things over to Linux I may end up dropping the Vista partitions entirely and just going for broke with Mint, but that's something I won't decide on for a couple months, just in case something suddenly goes awry.

Potomac River "training exercise" nonsense

I was posting about this on Twitter, but I think I can come up with more than 140 characters worth of stuff about this. :p

Shortly after the President finished his speech at the Pentagon this morning, there were reports of a suspicious vessel in the river, just upstream from the Pentagon. The initial reports said that Coast Guard ships were closing in quickly and various officials/officers came into the Pentagon to take care of the situation. It escalated to reports that ten shots had been fired, though no reports said whether they were warning shots or the vessel was actually being fired upon. Once the situation was under control, the Coast Guard issued a press release saying that it had been a training exercise and that there's nothing to be worried about.

Now, let's review this for a moment. They only told the media it was a training exercise after it was widely reported on. They apparently were using live rounds, as various eyewitnesses have reported. This all took place less than a mile from the President and on a day where anyone would have known that people would be on edge. Seriously, would it kill someone for the government to admit that this wasn't planned and whatever idiot piloted the suspicious ship into the river has been detained or shot dead? I'd rather they just say there was a minor breach and that it was taken care of than attempt to spin it into such an implausible story.

Also, if you actually believe the official story, even for a moment, I have some oceanfront in Nebraska for you.

MFM 2009 - Sunday Night Update

Another day, another post! You might think this is going to become a habit! Not a whole lot happened today, though, since I managed to sleep until almost noon and didn't actually get out into con space until about 1 PM. I was able to place the order for the custom staff I won in the tournament, but other than that almost the entire day was once again spent hanging out and having fun in the gaming room. I played a couple rounds of Go with Startide before the closing ceremonies started, during which time they closed everything down to convince everyone to attend. They had been saying there was going to be an important announcement, and they made it: This will be the last MFM.

... at this hotel. Yes, they played it up just like that, too, complete with Tyger Cowboy in tears and the dramatic buildup to a video where they revealed that little detail. Turns out the con is going to move to a private, conference-only hotel in Olive Branch, MS next year, about ten miles southeast of here. This means we'll have more space and it'll all be just for us furries. :)  As such, I'm quite eagerly looking forward to next year's con, as that's a luxury that no other furry convention in the US has had: totally private space.

After the ceremonies Startide and I returned to the room briefly before going out to dinner at Qdoba, then went back to the hotel for a few more games. I played two rounds of Super Scrabble, one with him and once with Redcard; I won both games convincingly. Rock Band followed that, with me taking vocals for a few rounds. Time flew by quite quickly while I was playing that; I still had the mic in hand when they started to shut things down at 1:30 AM.

The plan for tomorrow is pretty simple: sleep 'til about 10 o'clock, pack as quickly as possible, return Startide to his truck, then start heading back to Pensacola. I might be back in time for a later dinner. Tuesday will bring about a hastily arranged furmeet in town - quite possibly the last one before I attempt a move up to the midwest - then Wednesday will likely see me returning to work and spending a month behind the wheel of the pumpkin. For now, though, good night Internet.

MFM 2009 - Saturday Night Update

I spent pretty much the entire day today in the gaming room for various events. First up was the Smash Bros. tournament, which got bumped back to noon. I lucked out and had a bye for the first round, then won a quarterfinal match, leaving me in one of the final four spots before I was eliminated in the first semifinal game. Considering I've not played the game in quite some time I was thrilled with the result.

Beyond that, I'm actually not sure where most of my afternoon went. I did get to play poker a bit before that tournament started, but that's about it. Once the tourney started, though, I got off to a really good start, even busting out Isfacat in the early going and picking up a $20 bounty plus a free custom-made staff from one of the dealers; personally, I think it was a better prize package than most of the ones for the final table. There were all manner of shenanigans throughout the tournament, including two instances where I called multiple cards in succession, though I only lasted a little under two hours. Still, I had a blast. :)

Once the tournament was settled Startide came in and we somehow got a game of Red Dragon Inn started. One of the guys in the first game was an asshole, so we all ganged up to eliminate him as quickly as possible. ;)  I lost both times, but the game is a hoot; I may have to look into picking that up once I have a group of people to do games with regularly. Once the second game was finished, everyone playing agreed that it was time for bed. Startide's lying down and ready for sleep; I'll be joining him soon as this post publishes.

MFM 2009 - Friday night update

I arrived at the convention Thursday night, but nothing was going on so there's nothing to report there. This morning I wandered to the con suite for a light snack before joining the registration line. At 9:30, the reg line was fewer than 25 people long; at 10 o'clock it stretched down most of the first floor. Once that was settled, I joined a panel in progress about first aid and learned a few interesting things. I briefly wandered the dealer's den once it opened at noon, collecting a badge for Timanth from BushyCat and purchasing a dragon plush that bears at least a passing resemblance to my beloved bronze. Then it was off to get lunch, fetch Startide from the terminal, and laze in the room for a little while.

I'm actually not sure where most of the afternoon went, but we hung out in the con suite for a little while, got dinner, then I went to a "panel" that was a crazed, explicit game of Pictionary. Somehow I got up the nerve to play and did fairly well, but I had one clue that left me stumped. How the hell do you draw Goatse when that's your clue, anyway? A sheep with horns (goat) and an eye (see) perhaps? We ended up losing the game as the other team put on a fantastic run in their last attempt, but oh well, still amusing. Beyond that I wandered to the game room, played a few rounds of various things, including two games of Werewolf in which I was lynched in the second round. Having gotten my fill of that and finding it progressively harder to even remain upright due to tiredness, I wandered back to the room to type this up and sleep. Tomorrow I'll be rolling out of bed around 8:30 to get breakfast and head to the gaming room for a day of amusements there.

Mephit Furmeet - T-minus ten days

Barring any other issues coming up with work (like getting home three days late for the con last year), I will be at MFM and splitting a room with Startide the orca. As for what happens at the con... well, that stays at the con. And on my camera, if anyone lets me take pictures of the happenings. ;)  So is anyone reading this going to be there and, if so, does anyone have suggestions for things to do? Also, anyone have ideas for images I can commission during the con?

Quote of the day from Ahastar - August 18

oh it is much more than that. If sexual arousal is a hot, brief shower
to get things over this, this raptor getting dreamy is more like a
long bubble beath with a damn good book and chocolates at the side.

California Dreaming

While I may have hinted at it before, I wanted to make a short post just addressing one thing: I'll be in California with Timanth this weekend. We're not entirely certain what we're going to do or how all that's going to go, but if anyone's in the general area of Los Angeles and wants to see two dragons for the price of one, here's your chance! :)

Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated...

I've been neglecting this blog for a while now, but I've been finding I have fewer and fewer things to talk about that I can't just say in 140 characters or less on Twitter. I'll try to remedy some of that here, but there's not too much that's been going on that hasn't been related to work. I've spent three of the last four weekends in Gary, IN; one weekend to myself; one with Timoran, Shale, and Atokada; and one with Storm Gryph. Last weekend was in Denver; I got to see Ivan and Kahuki for the first time in months.

Aside from that, I've taken up the game Go and apparently am almost good at the game for a newbie. Which is to say that I'm really not that good at all, but 16 kyu is not bad for someone who has played the game for about a month. Hopefully I can improve my ranking a bit, over time, but that's kinda the whole point of a ranking isn't it?

My next trip home won't have me around the house much. I'm actually going out to see Timanth in California in ... a little over a week now. It's amazing how quickly time flies. I'll be leaving early on August 7 and returning August 11, using up all my time at home for the trip. If anyone down there wants to see us, let me know and we'll try to make plans. It would be nice to get to meet some of the people that I've previously only had the pleasure of seeing as text on a screen. :)

There aren't terribly many reasons for me to be at home - or any one place in particular - so it's not like I'm really missing much by not taking the time back in Pensacola. I'll be there for about half a day on the sixth, which should be adequate time for me to get done what needs to get done in town and still have time left over to enjoy sushi. I'll only be briefly bouncing through home before MFM as well, and for the same reason; I'm just not seeing much reason to stick around town. I might take some time at home and actually spend it at home in October, but I won't even have the days available to do so before that time.

As for living arrangements, I'm starting to have second thoughts about getting a house in the near future. The tax incentives to do so this year are certainly attractive but various things have come up, including drama that has made me reconsider every single city I've thought about moving to, further oddities in the housing market, discovering my credit wasn't as good as I'd hoped, and being concerned about needing to replace my car in the near future. It's still an outside shot, perhaps, but having a home of my own by the end of the year is not nearly the priority it once was for me.

So, really, that's about all I can think of to write here. I'm getting tired and cranky and probably should take this rare opportunity to get more than eight hours of sleep while I can.

Health Insurance goes "SPLORT"

Over the weekend I received a health statement from my insurance company, just updating the amounts that I had used and what I had left in terms of health benefits for the year. Everything seemed alright, except a line item saying I would owe the clinic I visited in April $1,375.32, with a footnote saying to pay the provider when billed. I was ... uh ... more than a bit perturbed by that, as I'd been assured that the services had been paid for in full already. Further, while I do have that kind of money set aside, a medical bill like that definitely is not in my budget; something like that would make me have to cancel attending MFM and seriously reconsider going to FC.

Since nobody actually works the phones at United HealthCare over the weekend, I just called in this morning while waiting on a trailer unload. After navigating their obnoxious voice menu, I got a hold of a representative who took a look at it. The very first thing she said about it? The statement is completely wrong. The second? That she has no idea why that amount would have shown up at all as that's greater than what the clinic billed the insurance company for in the first place. She assured me that the claim had been paid in full and that I would not owe anyone anything for the treatment I already received. Further, they're going to look into it to see why that showed up at all and post a new explanation of benefits and health statement on the website to clear that up.

So, in short, I don't owe anyone anything and someone at UHC is obviously on narcotics.

Silence is not golden; it's rusted

So I started playing a game with a couple of friends earlier today. Names will be deliberately omitted though if any of them are reading this, I'm sure they'll figure out what I'm referring to. In any case, one of them said something that struck me as very unusual. I asked about it, then he got extremely defensive and wouldn't tell me, then got quite irritated with me for being upset over his unwillingness to discuss. I have no reason to believe it would be particularly embarrassing and, regardless, I have the decency to keep my snout shut if someone tells me something they would prefer not to be public knowledge.

But, rather than just explaining what was going on after I pointed out why I was so upset, he just got angry with me and threatened to quit the game if I didn't cheer up immediately. Instead I just told him that I didn't appreciate the way he was handling the situation and that, rather than allowing the situation to progress even further, I was signing off before either of us said or did something that we both would end up regretting later. I'm still extremely upset over the situation but I know that it would have likely gone nuclear if I hadn't simply left when I did.

So, rather than getting to enjoy a day off down here, I'm instead swamped by drama and just want to go cry myself to sleep now.

Edit: While writing this post the person who precipitated this whole situation sent me an e-mail and a direct message on twitter asking me to sign back on. I'm still debating whether or not to do so. While I have my doubts it will make me feel significantly better it's not like I could feel a whole lot worse than I do right now.

Moderating Madness

A few years back I created a Google Group for the local community because the Yahoo group we had at the time was kinda... well, not working out so well. Over time, the Google group became the de-facto official list and now has more than two dozen members, nearly half of whom are actually active. Given that it's just a local, community list, we didn't really have any explicit rules in effect; it was just generally understood that it was a clean list and that people should conduct themselves like adults.

Of course, given that the furry fandom is exactly 49.41% drama (and 102% of statistics are invented), it was only a matter of time before shit happened. Specifically, one person posted an old 4chan meme, prefaced with two or three sentences of written child pornography. While I realize that written stuff like that is in a legal grey area (as opposed to outright illegal) I also recognized that it's the kind of thing that could easily get someone in trouble because, though it might not be explicitly illegal, it could attract the unwanted attention of an employer's e-mail filter or - even worse - an overzealous parent.

I just posted by saying it was tasteless, inappropriate, and completely irrelevant to the list. Then several other people chimed in saying they thought it was funny (only one person posted with a "WTF" instead of registering approval). The first guy then said it was my problem since nobody else took issue with it, clearly failing to understand the potential ramifications of what he posted. I posted again, this time explaining why, exactly, it was inappropriate.

Then he and one other person both told me to chill out, continued to insist it wasn't a problem, and so on. Given that I'd already given him previous warnings off-list for spam and being rude, I'd had quite enough with his attitude. I posted telling him to knock it off immediately, laid down rules explicitly detailing the things that are common sense even to most furries, and told him that if he did something again I was going to moderate his posting until further notice. This led to him e-mailing me and mocking me off list, quite literally daring me to ban him; rather than giving him what he wanted, I simply set his posts to be automatically rejected and told him to never, ever e-mail me again.

I would have hoped that would have been the end of it, but no sooner do I forward the off-list stuff to one of the only other sane furs in town do I get a phone call where he attempts to verbally take my head off over the way I handled the situation. He insisted that, just because we hadn't explicitly stated that posting porn to the list was unacceptable, there was no excuse for me even threatening to take an administrative action against the guy who posted the content in question. After repeating my opinion several times and him becoming increasingly agitated due to my unwillingness to immediately apologize for "not doing things like an admin" and simply do things exactly as he wanted, I asked one simple question: "Did you expect anything positive to come from this phone call or did you simply want to vent in my ear until I hang up?" That seemed to get him to cool down considerably and, even though I didn't change what I was saying in any significant way, he went from insisting that I was the only person even remotely in the wrong to acknowledging that, while the situation could have been handled more tastefully, I at least was acting in a logically consistent fashion and not out of any sort of off-handed malice or similarly unfounded insanity.

End result? Aside from having a slightly longer block list for my Gmail and AIM accounts, we now have drafted a full-blown set of rules to try prevent this kind of bullshit from happening again. I'm willing to bet that it's only a matter of time before the guy who started this mess does something stupid and that his "apology" was simply because the person I spoke with on the phone told him to make one, but I'll deal with that when it happens. End result of all this is that I spent almost three extra hours awake than I originally wanted and lost any sex drive I had for the night. So now instead of getting eight good hours of sleep after pawing off, I'll get barely five hours and will be even more frustratingly pent up in the morning.

Someone, please, remind me why I'm in the fandom again?

Why do I bother at all?

After about six days at home, I have to go back to work this morning, soon as I can get everything together. Since I'm writing a blog post instead of actually packing things up and heading back to the truck, that's probably indication enough that I really would rather not be going back to work today. My time at home here has been little more than a waste of time. I needed the break from work, but this was about as much a break as it was solitary confinement for most of the week, leaving me even more depressed and emotionally screwed up than I was before getting here. When I got home I was actually looking forward to having the week off due to various plans that had been made, people I wanted to see, and things I wanted to do. Having had most of those plans scrapped, most people ignore me, and most things left undone, I want my week back, or at least another couple of days.

The beach party - the one signature event this weekend - was okay. Not great, as I'm sure everyone else would say, but okay. Stephie was a lovely host, so this is certainly nothing against her. I just, once again, found myself surrounded by so-called friends and getting ignored by most of them. On at least one occasion, I found that everyone else had clustered into two or three for conversation and nobody would even respond when I tried adding something, no matter what I said or who I said it to. The person I'd given a ride to - after two days of trying to convince him to come over earlier - was one of the worst culprits; I could barely get a response out of him at all on Saturday and he was even less polite about ignoring me Sunday, as he seemed quite irritated any time I tried getting his attention. Needless to say, I won't even waste my breath giving him the time of day in the future.

Outside of that big event, there really was very little to mention. I managed to make a trip to the eye doctor on Tuesday or Wednesday, but that was the only thing I actually accomplished all week. I didn't tend to any other medical or mental needs. I didn't even get out of the house just to go and do something out there for sake of being more active. No exercise, no wandering the mall, no going to a casino, not a damn thing. I had tried to get someone - anyone - to come over to watch TV and hang out, but not a single person responded in the affirmative. On Friday I spent an hour talking with someone on the phone and brought up the possibility, ending the conversation with the understanding we'd be in touch in an hour. When I called when a little over an hour had passed, he ignored his phone twice. Nobody else had even given me that much, though. A couple people didn't even respond to an instant message when I tried to get hold of them, while others gave various reasons they couldn't or didn't want to, some more plausible than others. One all but said he wanted to get into my pants and then got offended when I suggested I'd have a similar interest.

As a result of all this, plus more things that I would prefer not to write about here, I went from being in a pretty decent mood when I got home a week ago to feeling like complete and utter shit right now. I don't want to go back to work. I really don't want to even breathe any longer because I'm little more than a waste of this planet's precious resources. It's become painfully obvious that I'm not wanted around here, but due to my circumstances, I don't have anywhere else to go. I've an ever decreasing number of reasons not to simply drive off a bridge somewhere and disappear from this planet.

Asian Pirates and the Border Patrol

This has to be the most bizarre dream I've heard anyone writing about, though it's uncommon enough for me to remember anything I'm dreaming about in the first place. Since I'm typing in a hurry to try remember details this is probably going to make even less sense than it did.

I ended up on the beach as planned this weekend, but we somehow ended up finding a border patrol station. I was chatting with the other furs when they left, but I stuck around at the station for some reason. I heard something from inside, peered in, and three people had come in a door on the other side of the building - facing the beach - that looked like they didn't belong. I heard a struggle and then snuck out to call 911, slowly making my way around the side of the building to try escape detection. It didn't entirely work; one of the three came out onto the beach again and found me, though as he tried to grab me I grabbed his neck and choked him into submission. When the police arrived they recovered ID on the criminals and I was paid a bounty for the one they captured.

And then I woke up, wondering what the heck I possibly could have had or done yesterday to induce such a messed up dream.

A day of unproductivity

Originally I'd planned to get going to the truck around 10 AM, get some shopping done at Wal-Mart, and be back at the room here in time for a slightly late lunch. Instead, I didn't even get out of bed until 10, didn't leave until 2:30, and didn't make it back until about twenty minutes ago. Things at the truck went reasonably well; despite the fact my phone lost the list I'd written up, I remembered all the things I wanted to grab: the fruit, some extra clothing, and an extra bottle of conditioner. That's about where the good day ended.

I should have known things would be rather chaotic at Wal-Mart, given that the parking lot was almost completely full and I had at least one near-miss accident just trying to get into the place. I went in there for just three things: markers, running shoes, and sandals. The markers took a few minutes to find, but the shoes... didn't happen. I tried a size eight and found them to be uncomfortably tight against the ball of my foot. Someone had suggested I might need a wide, since my work shoes (also normal width) have caused quite a bit of damage along the outside of the ball and big toe. Since Wal-Mart's selection of wide shoes was pretty much nonexistent, I gave up on trying to find anything decent there and decided to try my luck with Shoe Carnival.

For a full-blown shoe store, though, I found the selection of athletic shoes to be very lacking. First, most of the styles they had weren't available in anything except normal width. Second, the ones they did have in wides were usually extra wide (4E). Third, they had almost nothing below a size nine and I have to have an eight; 7 1/2 is too small and 8 1/2 is too big. I'd found two styles I liked but couldn't even try on; one was a pair of Nikes that was cut so low that my foot was too thick to fit in the shoe and the other was a pair of Reeboks that had a huge security tag that made it impossible to try on at all. After wasting about half an hour and failing to even see anything that really caught my eye, I just gave up and decided to start heading back to the room.

While I was driving back to the room, I decided to try at least get something done; I called Sprint to try get my HTC Mogul exchanged for a Touch Pro. I know three other people who had theirs exchanged at a Sprint store without issue and all three have asked why I'm still tolerating the piece of crap device that I'm currently using. The first person I talked to just kept repeating the script with minor variations while completely ignoring anything I had to say. The second went off script to pretty much call me a liar; he claimed I couldn't possibly know the details of how three other people got their phones upgraded for free and that I was mistaken in saying how that happened. Both were told that I was exceptionally unhappy with my service, my phone, and their customer service and that I have no intention of renewing my contract when it's up at Thanksgiving; neither actually responded to any of my complaints in any substantive way.

So now I'm back at the room and I'm moderately hungry, despite having eaten lunch only four hours ago. I might just have a light dinner and go to bed early (read: before 2 AM) because there's really nothing else productive I can get done today. I haven't been able to get a hold of anyone who wants to get together, save for one person who is a 90 minute drive away; I may drive for a living, but that doesn't mean I want to spend my time at home doing even more driving. The less time I spend behind the wheel the better.

There's still the beach party on Saturday, which I'm hoping will go well. Apparently we're expecting fourteen people so far, though I'm pretty sure one isn't going to be able to get a ride and would be surprised if the others all showed up. Even so, ten would still be the largest turnout we've had for a furry gathering in Pensacola. The plan has morphed a few times, but I just plan on going over there for lunch and dinner Saturday, even though there are things being considered late into the night and on Sunday; I may consider staying (or driving back) for that if Saturday proves to be a pleasant experience.

I just hope that someone actually comes over and hangs out while I'm here in town. I don't want to be stuck more or less alone up here until I head back to work Monday morning.

Overwhelming boredom

I'm supposed to be home in a week to enjoy a nice couple of days off. I can hardly wait because I'm fairly sure being out here with no leisure activities is steadily driving me insane. Few people chat with me when I'm online from my phone (not that many do when I'm on a laptop) and most of the websites I frequent don't work properly on a mobile device so I'm left feeling mostly isolated.

I may not necessarily be on my computer to chat all the time once I get it anyway. I may just disappear into a game or something since it at least distracts me for a whle.

Exercise - the old fashioned way

As a few of you may already know, I'm trying to get into the habit of exercising again. There's little hope of me improving my diet so I need to balance out my intake with a much greater output. This week, between running errands while stuck waiting on a load and running on a treadnill while waiting on my laundry, I burned nearly 1,900 calories and over a hundred grams of fat. Granted, an estimate by a heart-rate monitoring wrist watch probably is not the most authoritative source for such numbers - it seemed to be considerably higher in its estimates than the treadmill - but it does at least keep me from hurting myself by going way too hard.

For this upcoming week, my goal is 3500 calories burned. That's traditionally considered to be equal to a pound of body weight and I certainly could stand to lose a pound or thirty. I'll be trying for 600 calories a day, every day, but I know I'll probably miss one day and be too tired to reach 600 on another. I'll likely do more than that tomorrow, for want of activity and to help offset some of the extra food I had for dinner.

Maybe, just maybe, it won't be painful to wear these jeans by the time fall rolls around. >_>

RNC Chairman Steele is a fucking moron

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090516/ap_on_bi_ge/us_steele_republicans/print

I fail to see a rational argument in there at all. Half of what he says is utter nonsense and the other half applies equally to heterosexual couples. What's bad for small business is discrimination; telling a significant portion of potential employees or customers they are unwanted is an extremely bad business model. I seriously can't wait for some of these mentally backwards old farts to die off so we can stop doing what's "moral" - a word which only means what the majority want it to - and start doing what's right.

No more computer

I just broke my laptop charger trying to get the thing working. As such, I have less than half an hour of charge left in this thing then I'll probably be condemned to use nothing but my phone for the next month. If anyone wants to get a hold of me, look me up on AIM, Yahoo, or Twitter; I now go by shinyminidrake on all three services. Alternatively, leave me an e-mail, call me, or anything like that.

If I can somehow get this thing repaired, I might be back online sooner; otherwise, I'm ordering a replacement soon as this post goes through and likely will not be on a PC again until at least June 3.

Mentally stalled

I know I keep saying that I'm going to write more things here, but generally I just haven't been able to motivate myself lately. I can feel something changing to try get the gears turning again, even though I can't put my finger on it, so perhaps I'll at least begin posting here more regularly if not actually start writing new fiction. Perhaps it's just that being forced into a vaguely nocturnal schedule by work again has changed my perception of things. In any case, I just hope I actually do something with this likely brief wave of creative energy before it slides back out to sea.

Swine Flu Map

http://www.idemc.org/

I wish my 200th post here was on something less scary than this, but ... well, this is rather important. Infections are all over the world it seems, and I seriously am wondering how many unconfirmed cases aren't even reported by that map, given that most diseases are under reported.

So, to everyone, good luck.

Weekend at home

So due to an unusually timed work assignment, I ended up taking a weekend off at home. Things went ... okay, I suppose. I kinda feel bad writing anything bad about the people down here, especially given how rarely I see them, but I can't say I enjoyed my time back here at home. The best part of the weekend was the dinner on Friday night; we had five of us at first, but three more joined a bit later, giving us the largest crowd I think we've had in years. Conversations went all over the place as well. That was followed by a trip to Marble Slab for ice cream, which is probably where things started to go ... downhill.

After that, we ended up going over to another fur's house. I felt pretty much ignored once over there, aside from getting a brief stint doing vocals for Rock Band. Everyone else was chatting about one thing or another, or getting involved in a massive snuggle pile on the bed, yet I couldn't even get an acknowledgement out of anyone. It's particularly frustrating given that I've known one of the people for years and yet he was acting completely obvlious to me the whole time nor even seemed to realize that something was wrong. It's even more frustrating when there's plenty of innuendo (and even less subtle things) going around and yet nobody even suggests they'd touch you with a ten foot pole.

Once I left there, I went to bed shortly thereafter. Saturday consisted mostly of sleeping in a bit, then going out to fetch RedMoogleXIII for an afternoon. It was nice having him over, though given that he was only going to be over here a day, we didn't get to do a whole lot, other than generic playing around on the computer. Yomi came over for a bit to join in and we got a quick bite to eat from Whataburger, then sleep.

Today was even less exciting: I took Red home early in the afternoon, moved some things into the storage unit, picked up some summer clothes, and took the car back to my parents. I should have had enough time to do laundry, but somewhere along the way I lost several hours. I also picked up a USB-powered CD/DVD drive, which should get put to good use, given that I have a couple art CDs to save to my external hard drive and - even more importantly - needed a DVD drive to reinstall Windows from, since the computer is starting to run painfully slowly.

I really wish that I had better things to write here, but frankly, this weekend was pretty much a bust for me. I ended up not doing half the things I wanted to do while not enjoying the things I did do. I'm supposed to be back out on the road at 8 AM tomorrow, but that leaves me less than six hours to sleep and I'm really not feeling so well, both physically and psychologically. I don't want to get back out on the road, but I really don't want to stay where I'm at right now either. If nothing else, I wish I could at least figure out what I can say to the local furs here to try and figure out if there's something that I'm doing that is pushing people away, or if this is just proving that I really should just get out of Florida as soon as possible.

Time Management Skills, or the lack thereof

More and more often, I find myself wondering where the heck time goes. Tonight, for instance, I shut the truck down at 5:45, but really have no idea what I've done with the intervening three and a half hours. I had dinner, chatted on the phone a bit, used the bathroom, then hopped online...and, somehow, most of the evening disappeared in the time it took for me to look back at the clock. Now, not only am I going to get a mere six hours sleep (which is still more than last night), but I once again won't have time to take a shower. I could just tell work that I don't want to get going at 4 AM, but that's a bad thing for my paycheck.

To cut the rambling short, for sake of both readability and preserving what little time is left this evening, can anyone suggest ways of trying to fit more into a day? Given my incredibly odd and full work schedule - sometimes more than 11 hours a day of work and up to 70 a week - and my inability to function on limited amounts of sleep, I find myself wishing that I could use the very limited time I have more effectively. I don't exercise at all any more, save for short walks to and from the truck; I haven't written anything but blog posts in weeks and my entries here are becoming increasingly sporadic; and I never feel like I've accomplished anything anymore.

So... help?

Silence

I really feel like I should be posting more often in this blog, but I'm also finding it increasingly difficult to come up with things worth posting at length about. I've gotten to see some friends lately, such as Tal Rex, Delphi, and Galadon, not to mention the rest of the Indianapolis furs. Mostly I've just been feeling quite tired, between the effects of the various medications, but I do seem to be getting better. That or the cough syrup is doing a fantastic job of completely masking my symptoms. Also ordered myself some things from the Internet, some of which I should probably not be writing about in a PG-rated blog like this, but that I'm sure would interest plenty of you.

However, as I'm drawing a complete blank and am tired enough that I'm making lots of silly typing errors, I think I'm going to get to bed. My brain is completely gone right now.

An expensive meal

I've never quite seen a receipt like that before..

Getting healthier

My truck recently was down for repair in Atlanta. Given that I am still suffering from the bug that I caught at MFF and the current recurrence has persisted since February, I insisted on seeing a doctor. To make a long story short, his diagnosis was bronchitis and I've been given a week's supply of antibiotics, told to take Robitussin, drink lots of water, and get plenty of rest. So far, it's working pretty well; today is about the best I've felt in months, aside from being rather tired, which I'll blame the medication for.

Hopefully, in another six days, I'll finally be able to breathe freely.

Kink Spectrum Analysis

Warning: TMI may follow!

Your result for The Kink Spectrum Analysis Test...

Green (530 nm)

You scored 58% self-confidence and 48% bandwidth!

Not bad! You're probably not willing to try everything, but you have quite a few kinks. Or you strongly prefer one side of the fence. Look for another Green, or a Blue if you feel adventurous. Reds may be okay as well if they share one or two of your likings (see below). But stay away from Ultraviolets unless you want to radically spice up your sex life. You've been warned.

But I promised you a more detailed analysis, so here it is. Note that most scales are twofold: There are separate values for giving (active) and receiving (passive). If you scored high on one of them, you should look for a partner who scored high on the other. If you scored high on both of them, go for someone who is similar (or for multiple partners if you're into that). If you scored low on both, this probably is not your kind of kink.

You scored 72% giving and 23% receiving on oral.

You scored 67% giving and 90% receiving on anal.

You scored 8% giving and 29% receiving on bondage.

You scored 33% giving and 57% receiving on humiliation.

You scored 6% giving and 25% receiving on pain.

You scored 18% dominance and 40% submission.

You scored 50% voyeurism and 36% exhibitionism.

Besides that, you're 50% into fetishism and 80% polysexual (i.e. interested in sex with multiple partners, whether at the same time or not). You'll probably want a partner who is similar, whether you scored high or low in these categories.

Finally, you scored 35% on autoerotic - a scale that measures your ability and/or willingness to have kinky fun without a partner. It's not exactly a matching criterion, but it's good for you if your score is high. Keep it up!

Take The Kink Spectrum Analysis Test at HelloQuizzy

Sleepless in Orlando

Well, technically, Polk City, FL. But that just doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

Yes, with apologies to the people I was previously talking with online, I'm still awake. Why? One, an addiction to porn. Yeah, I said it. I don't think I really need to go into details about that, since everyone reading this probably already knows exactly as much about my porn habits as they'd like to. If you don't know anything at all, just trust me: you're happy in your blissful ignorance. If you do know something, then please, don't spoil it for the innocent ones. :)

It's not just that, though. I did finally get a hold of someone in accounting at the Wal-Mart store that screwed me over, as mentioned in my previous post. Why did I call? Well, the transaction that was voided apparently wasn't taken care of properly, since the charge just showed as "cleared" on my bank statement today. So I called and verified that yes, the transaction was actually voided, though about half an hour after the sale (and thus, approval) went through. Given that it was on a Saturday, that already throws timing into limbo. Ultimately, though, I was assured that Wal-Mart shouldn't be getting any mony for that transaction and that, if it had gone through, I should be seeing a refund/return/void/etc show up within the next couple business days. At least I have enough money in my account these days that it doesn't matter so much, but two years ago this would have probably left us unable to pay rent or otherwise completely screwed us over. Supposedly I'll be getting a call back after the store's account calls the home office to find out what exactly is going on with my card.

Aside from that, I'm really not sure what else to write here. I've been having this nagging urge to write, but keep managing to distract myself. Part of it is that I don't know what I want to write about. I have a story that's nearly finished, that has been sitting untouched for months now, but I just can't motivate myself to do anything with it. I could say much the same thing for the various other ideas I've had come up, some of which are nearly 1,500 words of writing, some of which are just single paragraphs, while a few are just thoughts lingering in the back of my mind that I've yet to do anything with and may never actually commit to text just out of my general apathy as of late.

My health is one thing thing that has been keeping me concerned. I'm not sure what exactly it is, but I've been sick on and off since around MFF, and it's been more on than off as of late. My best guess at this point is that it's bronchitis or some other nagging respiratory infection that's apparently not going to go away on its own. The good news is that - if my self-diagnosis is correct - it means I'm not contagious, so I don't have to worry about passing it on to anyone whose company I've been able to enjoy. The bad news is that I'll almost certainly need to see a doctor and get treatment, likely in the form of antibotics that will have me bedridden for a while. I can't exactly afford to take any more time off work, since I drew down my savings by about $1,200 last month (I'd probably have broken even if I didn't attend FWA), but I may have to. Even that assumes I can get to see a doctor, though, and most doctors these days have either extremely long waits for appointments or are urgent care facilities that charge at least triple the normal rate. I just worry that, if I don't get something done soon, this could well develop into something that will require a trip to the hospital and a bill far greater than even an urgent clinic appointment's.

I certainly seem to be good at rambling on here while I'm relatively undistracted. Even while opening a couple other tabs and waiting for things to load, I've typed the above in about ten minutes. Certainly shows that I'm at least capable of writing. Why I can't funnel that into something more productive - whether it be new porn or something truly useful, like a letter to Congress - is beyond me.

In any event, there is one thing that I most certainly need: sleep. I haven't been sleeping well the last couple of days, probably in part to the various non-work related stresses that have been coming up. That's not to say work has been going swimmingly either - I've had to get up at 10 PM the last few nights - but the issues outside of work pertaining to my finances and complaints about my credit card are definitely not helping either. My boyfriend's been going through a rough time as well at college, and it's relatively early in the term; I only can hope things start looking up for him, since there's exactly nothing I can do from here to try and make things better. We don't even catch each other online much lately, particularly since work has had me on such a fucked up schedule. I hope that changes sometime soon.

There's really not much else I can think of to write about, and I'm getting quite tired now that I've simply thrown this much out there. I don't know how many of you are going to take the time to read all this, since it's probably the longest post I've done in a while, but if you do, then thank you.

Don't shop at Wal-Mart #70 in West Memphis, AR

Rather than writing anything more, I'm simply going to copy and paste my complaint to Wal-Mart corporate; I've merely removed the manager's name. I've also reported this issue to MasterCard. If you're in West Memphis, avoid the store near the I-40/55 split, since that's where this malarkey took place.

---

I attempted to purchase about $140 of merchandise from Wal-Mart store #0070 on April 4. A prompt on the register asked the cashier to compare the signature on my credit card with that on the slip. I showed my signed MasterCard, but then the cashier asked for ID. Asking for ID is expressly forbidden under the merchant agreement and I refused to comply with that request. This led to a supervisor of some sort - who was wearing no Wal-Mart identification of any kind - radioing for a manger. The store co-manager, [redacted], repeated the same request and refused to provide any assistance whatsoever. He refused to call either MasterCard's approval hotline with me witnessing the call, nor refused to allow me to witness any of his alleged attempted to verify that an ID was somehow mandatory for my transaction. During this time, I received an e-mail from my bank confirming that the transaction had been approved; there was clearly no need for this alleged requirement.
I was threatened with store security and not allowed to leave the store with my merchandise. I was not allowed to pay for my merchandise with the card, even when I offered to run it as a debit card, bypassing the signature issues entirely. Ultimately, after nearly an hour of arguing about this, I paid for my merchandise with cash, leaving me without any other funds for the weekend. The manager - and the entire store's staff - need the be reeducated on credit card policies and adhere to them strictly; this entire mess would have been avoided if MasterCard's procedures had been followed from the beginning.

---

Also, here's the relevant text, copied directly from the October 2008 revision of Mastercard's Rules. The first sentence is the important part: merchants can't refuse to process a transaction just because a cardholder won't show ID.

5.6.3 Additional Cardholder Identification: A Merchant must not refuse to complete a Transaction solely because a Cardholder who has complied with the conditions for presentment of a Card at the POI refuses to provide additional identification information, except as specifically permitted or required by the Standards. A Merchant may require additional identification from the Cardholder if the information is required to complete the Transaction, such as for shipping purposes. A Merchant in a country or region that supports use of the MasterCard Address Verification Service (AVS) may require the Cardholder’s ZIP or postal code to complete a Cardholder-Activated Terminal (CAT) Transaction, or the Cardholder’s address and ZIP or postal code to complete a mail order, phone order, or e-commerce Transaction.

Iowa just did what?

In a ruling that I'm still trying to wrap my mind around, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that the state's ban on gay marriage violates homosexual's equal protection under the law. Seriously, Iowa is a more progressive state than California? While I'd be surprised if the fundies didn't try to work a constitutional amendment overturning the court's decision, I'm very, very glad to see that even a state like Iowa can realize that equal protection applies even to groups that may be unpopular.

Unhealthy

I had developed a cough of some sort a while ago. It had started to fade while I was out in California, and had practically stopped during Furry Weekend Atlanta, but now it's come back again. The lack of sleep I've gotten out on the road here probably doesn't help, since its resurgence seems to be rather closely-linked to me getting back to work.

I'm coughing a lot (particularly when I first wake up or when I'm tired at night), feel somewhat weaker than usual, have chest pain only when I take a deep breath (which actually preceeded my cough, but the doctor I saw before MFF didn't let me say anything), and find it very difficult to cough up the mucus that is stuck at the top of my throat. My sinuses are draining and I'd swear I feel something in my lungs. Given that most of these are signs of pneumonia or some other serious illness, I've asked work if we can arrange a doctor's appointment up here on short notice, since I'm starting to worry about this being something I won't be able to shake without treatment. I also worry about treatment being both overly expensive and ineffective, given my last several encounters with modern medicine, but it's really all I can go on right now. Wish me luck.

Chuch's Chicken FAIL

I attempted to order from there, but ... well, to describe the "owner's" attitude as unprofessional would be putting it extremely politely. The problem stemmed from the store's policy of a $5 minimum order for credit cards, which is a big no-no; merchants are not allowed to have minimums. This led to enough of an incident that other customers left the store instead of actually ordering food as the manager started mocking me over the situation. I ended up reporting it to MasterCard and Church's Corporate, but as an aside, if you ever are in Memphis don't go to that franchise.

Just for the record, this is the text of what I sent to corporate.

I attempted to order a three-piece special and a drink, totaling $4.79. I intended to pay with a credit card, but the woman insisted that the store had a $5 minimum for credit card purchases. When I pointed out that this is a violation of MasterCard's merchant agreement, she started to throw a temper tantrum. She yelled at me, accused me of trying to steal food, threatened to call the police, and acted completely unprofessional. She claimed to be the store owner - despite not even wearing a name tag nor anything else to differentiate her from the rest of the employees - and refused to provide any contact information for someone to address a complaint to. 

Non-FWA Post

While I'm sitting here with the post editor open, I may as well post a few other things that are relevant.

• Happy hatchieday Kraken. You're 23 now. You're still two months younger than I am. You've still never posted about my birthday despite me doing so at least four of the last five years now. :p
• I still don't get along with dad. I've been stuck staying with my parents for most of the last week now and, well, suffice to say that my welcome has pretty much been worn out. He's rather eager for me to leave. I'm eager to shove a brick down this throat.
• Formula One racing starts this weekend. It'll be interesting to see how all the new rule changes play out. Go Lewis Hamilton! :)
• I'm not single now. I've actually found someone who's intelligent, gorgeous, and very fun to be around. Oh, and who also isn't the stereotypical furry mate and actually realizes that spending every waking moment going on about one's significant other is obnoxious. :p  It really doesn't change much between us, as we've known one another for years and have been getting ever-closer during that time. I'll go into details only if anyone wants since, well, I don't want to spend a lengthy paragraph going on about it either. :)
• Breakfast is ready. So I need to hit post and eat this before it gets cold.
  

FWA Con Report - Post-con

Slightly belated, but better late than never:

Sunday: The last day of the con and I'm really not sure where the time went. Woke up, got breakfast, played in the board game room for a while, then participated in the Mario Kart Wii tournament, taking second. There's really little else I can recall from the day, aside from spending a little time with someone, but after dinner I found a couple people downstairs playing board games and joined in for about two hours. Things disbanded with remarkable speed after the con closed; there were only a couple dozen people downstairs after closing ceremonies and all the con rooms had been broken down less than an hour thereafter. I did, however, finally manage to get a cookie and some fudge from Starallon before I went up to bed.

Monday:Woke up, got food, checked out. 'nuff said. :p

A few overall impressions of the con

Good things

• Gaming. I kicked tail at any of the tournaments I was in, taking third or better in any 'official' games I played. Apparently I do better with an audience.
• Cheap art. I got several pieces for $5 or less, including a free lobster-style sketch from the Ringtail Cafe and two "invisible" badges for $2 each.
• Staff. Though there were plenty of hiccups along the way, the staff remained very friendly throughout the con and always tried to be as helpful as possible. Other large furry conventions (e.g. Anthrocon) could definitely learn a few things from the way they all treated the attendees.
  

Bad things

• Parking. The parking garage for the hotel was full on Thursday and, though a few people say they found spaces later in the weekend, it's obvious they don't have the capacity they need.
• Food. Specifically, the lack thereof. There aren't any major fast-food chains within walking distance except for a Subway in the mall, and the mall's hours are so limited that it's only an option for lunch. The only things within a mile's walk that were open at night were pubs. Pizza delivery was popular but, for whatever reason, all the places refused to deliver to the rooms and required we come down to the lobby.
• Size. Lots of things I could say about that. Right now, it feels like the hotel is too big for us, though I'm sure FWA will grow in to it. The con is, however, starting to suffer the same problem as AC: it's impossible to find anyone. Which brings me to my next point...
• People: I spent most of the weekend wandering around alone, without anyone to hang out with, and never was able to get a hold of anyone. It seemed like everyone else was able to make dinner plans but nobody wanted to invite me along or had any interest in the times I offered to order delivery. Though I did get to spend some time with a couple people - and I greatly appreciated and enjoyed it - most of it was a very frustrating and mildly depressing experience.
  
• Art. Perhaps it's simply that I have too many things on my web-gallery already, but I found very few artists at the convention that caught my eye. Also, when I did find something I wanted, the artist either wouldn't even listen long enough for me to tell them about the commission or had a bad attitude that turned me off to doing business with them. Whereas I had ten things from MFF, the only artist I commissioned for something that wasn't finished at the con is BushyCat. All I have to show for the con is three badges, one sketch, and the pending stuff from her. I've gotten more than that from conventions where I had a budget of $100.
• Price. Everything in downtown Atlanta is expensive. The hotel was $127 a night with the con discount, which makes it nearly as expensive as Anthrocon. They also tacked on a $50/night hold for "anticipated incidentals" which was not disclosed until after they'd already run the credit card. I could afford it, but a lot of others at the con could not, which led to numerous complaints. The food at the hotel was expensive, but things weren't that cheap even at the mall: I spent $8 on lunch for a small Philly Cheesesteak sandwich, some mediocre fries, and watered-down soda. I don't know if FWA can try and work out deals for food but it would be a great idea for next year.

Overall, I really didn't have that great an impression of the convention. My experience with Furry Weekend Atlanta this year has certainly cemented my preference for smaller conventions. Were it not for the free membership I won from the poker tournament, I probably wouldn't even be thinking about going next year. As it is, I won't make that decision until after Further Confusion and my financial situation after that con. Whether the experience I had is simply growing pains for the con, evidence that the convention has permanently become too large for its own good, or simply proof that I would rather avoid events with a four-figure attendance remains to be seen.

FWA Con Report - Saturday

Just a short post from the con, since I know that the longer I wait, the more things I'm likely to forget.

Thursday: Really not much to say. I arrived about 4 PM, checked in, and paid the extra to upgrade to the executive floor. As such, I have a heck of a view, free breakfast, free snacks (practically dinner) in the evening, an extra-comfy bed, an extra-large TV, and extra housekeeping services. Not too bad, considering this might be my only con for the year. There really wasn't much else that happened; I spent a bit of time checking out the artists' alley when it opened, but nothing caught my eye. I did, however, stay up far later than I should have waiting for Carenath and Sjach to arrive from Pensacola, since they needed crash space for the night. We weren't in bed until nearly 4:30 AM, which made waking up awfully difficult.

Friday: Despite my plans to wake up at 9 AM and get breakfast, we didn't actually get moving until nearly 10:30. The morning started off slow, but I kept busy, mostly by wandering back and forth between the alley and the dealers' den trying to decide what I wanted to get, since I brought plenty of money for commissions. Due to a miscommuncation, Gideon didn't have my sketchbook, so I'll have to give him a mailing address later. I played in the first poker qualifier in the afternoon and, out of about twenty-five people, I survived long enough to be one of the last eight and qualify for the semis. I ended up all in at the final table once with Jack nine off suit, but tripled up when I caught a straight on the flop, which kept me afloat long enough to make it to the next round. After getting some snacks for dinner, I went back to the room to hang out with a few people, went down to the artists' alley once more, then went to bed.

Saturday: Today was... something, alright. The busiest day of the con, but it just didn't feel like that to me, probably because there just weren't that many events I was interested in and the ones I wanted to attend all conflicted with one another. I managed to wake up in time for breakfast today, then went downstairs, wandered around a bit, bought Gideon's newest CD, had lunch with a couple other furs from Pensacola, took photos of the fursuit parade, commissioned BushyCat, got a shower, then played in the poker semi-finals. Despite that lengthy list, it really didn't feel that busy; I just kinda was wandering around aimlessly most of the time. The semis proved to be somewhat more competitive than the preliminary round, but I ended up with significantly more chips than I had the first time around. Ultimately, Bucktown Tiger was eliminated ninth, on a hand screwed up enough to nearly warrant a post on its own: he was all in with the small blind after he'd been auto-folded repeatedly due to being away from the table, ArdenFetz was all in after huge bets from Stevie and Horse's Ghost, and the latter two still kept making big bets. Stevie won the hand, but it was irrelevant at that point: we had established the final eight players and, interestingly enough, I found myself in sixth place when the round was over.

After dinner and a completely failed room party (don't ask), I went down to play in the finals. On the second hand, I busted out RebelCat with a set of queens, then held on to ultimately, take third place, losing to Horse's Ghost and the Dude. I still can't quite believe that I made it that far into the tournament, much less that I managed to finish in third out of more than forty who attempted to make it in. Nobody's quite sure what prize I'm going to receive, aside from the FWA-branded deck of cards all the semi-finalists received, but I heard a rumor that third prize was an attending membership to next year, which would be completely awesome. I'd be thriled with nearly anything extra, though. Once the game was over, I took one last look through the artists' alley, signed up for tomorrow's Mario Kart tournament, and came up here to write this post. Soon as I send this off I'm going to bed since I really, really need to get some extra sleep. More posting to come sometime tomorrow!

Google, Interest-based advertising, and You

Google's recently announced that they're going to start using information about user's interests and preferences to display more relevant ads. In other words, your serach history (and web history, if you enabled that) is now compiled and also figured in when ads are being considered for display on sites that use AdSense.

I, for one, don't like this. Yes, the information is analyzed by computers and never linked publicly to a name, but it's still (to me) rather creepy. There's already a rather large erosion of privacy already and this just furthers it. So, to that end, I have only three points to make.

• I've opted out of this for the ads on my blog, the RSS feeds, and the custom search pages. I don't want to make the Internet seem even more creepy than it's becoming these days.
  
• To opt out across the entire AdSense network, go to Google's ad preferences page and choose to opt out there; interest-based ads won't be displayed anywhere and Google will not use your information in this program.
• If you're sick of seeing ads at all, then either use AdBlock Plus for Firefox or set up a hosts file to block them at the OS level.

Alternatively, if you're not that opposed to relevant ads, keep in mind that site owners only get paid per click. ;)

Night with a dragon

There has been one good thing to come from the work-related drama and the ensuing downtime: I've gotten to spend a lot of time with a person very dear to me, Timanth. I spent Wednesday night at his dorm, which was a lovely experience. Even though he had a lot of homework to be done, we thoroughly enjoyed the time we were able to spend with each other. He was too tied up with class yesterday to do anything, but he's currently on his way over here to spend the night, possible two nights. When he gets here, we'll order a pizza, then curl up together to watch a movie. I really can't wait for him to get here. :)

Dinner with Zoria

The subject says it all, really: Zoria picked me up and we shared a lovely dinner at Carino's. Hadn't seen hir in years, so it was nice for both of us. I'd type more, but food coma is starting to set in so I better get to sleep.

Brainlessness

So, a friend of mine (and I'm using the term friend very loosely here) is getting depressed and threatening to leave the Internet just because other people aren't acknowledging his particular way of ... expanding on another artist's work. Specifically, he took a species created by someone else, made them into a gooey, vore-obsessed versiont hat never reaches a mental maturity above the age of 13, but now he's upset because he's not well-known for that (despite it being a completely unoriginal concept) and that other people have done far better artwork of the same species inspired by the original artist's work.

As a result of this, he's both threatening to leave the Internet and wished he had a gun for, well, rather obvious reasons. Given that he's been talking about both of these things for over a year, though, I've told him to go see a psychologist and print out this chat log. He refuses to do so. I translated that as "I refuse to do anything that would allow someone to help me" and he went off on a rant about how he thinks he's right, how he doesn't want to disclose anything he deos online, and how he doesn't feel like he belongs in reality. I've ended the conversation by telling him that, if he truly feels that way, then he should just go kill himself right now. And that I'd see him tomorrow because we both know damn well that he's not going to follow through with any of these threats.

Any suggestions on dealing with this in a constructive way, or should I just tell him to fuck off and block him? If not for the fact he's kinda cute, I'd probably have given up a long time ago. Jsut for the record, no, this isn't someone I'm interested in as more than a friend.

A productive day

It's my last day of time at home before I go back out on the road again, barring any unforeseen trouble getting a work assignment or similar issue. I've managed to get quite a lot done today, too:

1. Packed up everything in the hotel room
2. Sorted out what I'm taking with me on the road, what I'm keeping in the car so I have it for FWA, and what I'm putting in storage.
3. Deposited $20 worth of change at the credit union.
4. Put stuff into the storage unit.
5. Mailed off a box to a friend.
6. Went to my parents' to do laundry (yeah, I know, I'm mean)
7. Converted old treasury bonds into digital form and mailed them in.
8. Set up Google contact sync to work with my cell phone and updated relevant contacts.
   
9. Typed up this blog post. :)

As for the rest of the night, when the laundry is done I'm going to head back to the hotel. If anyone wants to come over for dinner, I have a family sized chicken alfredo microwave thing to share. If not, I'll probably eat the whole thing myself. I plan on doing my taxes, if possible, though I'll have to look up a fair amount of information and I doubt I have it all with me. Tempted to just estimate and do it anyway, since I've a pretty good handle on the numbers in question (most importantly, that I worked about 310 days last year).

I definitely need to be in bed earlier tonight than I have been, though; I need to wake up around 7 AM, call and make sure that I have a useful work assignment, and be ready to head back to the truck. I think that I've been up 'til at least 1 AM every night I've been down here, usually later, but haven't been able to sleep past 9 AM. As such, I plan on crashing by 10 PM and getting nine good hours of rest before I have to return to work tomorrow. It'll be a shorter day of work, I know that much; I always ask to work no later than 6 PM on the first day I resume driving. But, reallym this is all speculation until I find out what's going on. :)

Sinking

When it rains, it pours, it seems. In my case, though, it seems like it's not simply what is happening at the moment, but the accumulation of things over time. A whole lot of little things, each individually something that might otherwise be blown off, can add up until each one just makes me want to curl up. This morning, for example, I missed a turn. I only needed to go around the block to get back on track, but even that was enough to leave me whimpering and wishing I were somewhere else.

I know I should probably see a psychologist about all this, but trying to set up something like that is nearly impossible.

I need a hug again. :(

In addition to all the work-related stuff that happened today, I had one person decide to message me out of the blue, after several months of no contact, just to ask me if I'm still a miserable person. On top of that, due to losing so much time trying to find parking, I wasn't able to spend much time at all chatting or otherwise interacting with a few people with whom I really, really wanted to. One in particular I'm feeling close to, but don't want to say anything because, among a lot of other reasons, I know he can do a whole lot better.

All this has me very, very shaken, to say the least. I'm trying not to cry right now. I'm not physically shaking, like I was perhaps an hour ago, but I'm finding it extremely difficult to maintain the energy to even type this. The only thing I have going for me at the moment is that I can get eight hours of sleep tonight if I fall asleep immediately after posting this.

I am now a twit

Since I had absolutely nothing constructive to do yesterday, I ended up signing up for twitter. You can follow my twitter page here, if you want. I'm not going to use that in lieu of this blog, though; instead, I'm going to use it to either keep in touch with people when I'm bored and don't have a computer handy, for short things that aren't worth actually writing a full blog post about, and as a notepad for random thoughts and ideas. I'll probably set up a widget on here as well, so there's one place that people can look at everything, but I'm not going to simply copy and paste my tweets over here, since I prefer to be much more verbose when composing blog posts.