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.