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. :)