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.

Twenty-three and 1/365

My birthday was yesterday, hence the title of the post. The day itself was rather dull and uneventful; the only thing of real significance was listening to the inauguration on the radio. Only four people even said happy birthday, including my family; even they didn't call until shortly before I went to bed. I was rather scarce yesterday mostly due to work; by the time I got everything sorted out I was too tired to do anything but sleep. More than a little depressing, really; I don't expect to have anyone make a particularly big deal about the day (not much point counting past 21, after all), but feeling generally neglected is particularly upsetting.

I was online much of the day today, with little success on pretty much any front, though I did get one belated happy happy from someone. The real highlight, though, was getting to see a local fur in Charlotte that I'd not heard from in a while. We got a nice dinner, among other things, before he left about fifteen minutes ago. Very much enjoyed the company, for quite a few reasons. Made up for yesterday being rather crappy.

One thing that I've come to think about, though, is that quite a bit has already happened. I've been witness to the dawning of the Internet age, a significant terrorist attack on US soil, and the inauguration of our first black President. Makes me wonder just how many more huge events are going to happen in whatever lifetime I'm fortunate enough to have.

Today's comics

Penny arcade: Witchaloks are hermaphroditic androgynites
2P Start: Do a barrel roll!

And... I'm done hurting myself laughing now.

Welcome to POTUS #44

All hail to President Barack Obama. Seriously, though, I don't see how he could make things much worse, so even if you hate him, at least give it a chance. :p

I listened to most of the coverage of the inauguration on the radio, though I must agree with one thing: the poem reading was, by far, the worst part of the festivities. I thought the prayer by that gay-bashing asshole was bad, but I'd rather listen to the preacher than suffer through another poetry reading like that. Couldn't they come up with something less abstract?

To Pres. Bush

Dear Mr. President Bush,

Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. Please go kill yourself.

Without love,

The United States of America

So much for the Fourth Amendment

A guy who was arrested based on an expired warrant has had his conviction upheld by the US Supreme Court. I really wish I had something clever or witty to say bout this, but I can't express anything but disgust and horror over this. He should never have even been arrested, and yet he's going to jail over an illegal arrest and illegally obtained evidence; if the arrest warrant expired, there almost certainly wasn't a valid search warrant either. Even if he were breaking the law, there are still rules that the police have to follow, to protect people from being falsely charged or arrested.

I think Justice Ginsburg said it well by pointing out that this "leaves Herring, and others like him, with no remedy for violations of their constitutional rights."

Sometimes, radio stations do listen.

This American Life is running their annual drive to fund their podcast. They claim to have 400,000 people a week download the free episode and cite the bandwidth cost as a whopping $150,000. Assuming an average episode is 25 MB, that means they burn through 10 terabytes a week. Since there are better solutions, though, I suggested they try using BitTorrent to take some of that load off their servers. I, for one, would happily seed an awesome public radio show, were such a thing available. I was hardly expecting this response, though:

"Thanks for the feedback! Actually, we're always investigating new options for hosting the podcast, and are currently considering peer-to-peer networks such as BitTorrent. We'll keep you updated!"

So... wow. I feel kinda special right now for having provided an intelligent idea. How often is it that you get one of the largest public radio stations in the country, producing one of the most popular public radio shows, to acknowledge an individual listener's idea and look into it? I know I can't possibly have been the only person to suggest that - I'm not nearly that arrogant or delusional - but I definitely am feeling special right now. :)

A few words about ads

For anyone who is subscribed to the RSS feeds for this or my work blog - and I highly encourage it, since you don't have to actively keep coming back here to see if I've posted something - you might notice ads at the bottom of some of my posts now. Google's finally integrated Feedburner and AdSense so I thought I'd give it a test drive. I'm using a relatively inoffensive combination of rules, though: ads that appear in the feed will be text only and will only appear at the bottom of posts that are longer than "about 100 words." At least, that's what the dashboard says; I presume this means that any entry less than roughly 512 bytes won't have an advertisement attached to it. My work blog uses an even higher threshold. Why? I find it obnoxious when the ad is bigger than the content and, this way, you'll get plenty to read even before you see an ad.

If you don't like it for whatever reason (or don't like the ads I have on the blog page itself), please leave a comment explaining why. Also, if you hate ads and aren't already using AdBlock Plus, I highly recommend installing it and using the EasyList subscription. I'll be pleasantly surprised if I ever actually collect enough revenue from this to get a check, so it's not like I'm relying on this for income and, as such, really don't care if half the people reading this block everything. ;)

One of those days

Right now, I can't even begin to describe my emotional state. I'm somewhere between wanting to beat someone into a coma, wanting to beat myself into a coma, and simply curling up into a ball and crying myself to sleep. In addition to all the crap that happened with work today (which I'm not reposting here), I had plenty of stuff come up on the side, as if the fates themselves decided to see just how much crap I can tolerate before snap.

For one, there's the trouble I've been having with Yiffstar. I have to jump through an ever-increasingly absurd series of flaming hoops just to get a story approved on there, and even then it ends up tagged in such a way that very few people are going to read it. Someone else I know is auto-approved and the stuff he's writes in an afternoon ends up in the weekly most popular listing. Meanwhile, I put a ton of work into my stuff and can't even make the daily top 20 on a day where only 25 stories were posted. A 4.5/5 rating sounds good until you realize that it's from only two votes. I'm trying to post a quickie I wrote one afternoon to the site, though it'll probably take two days before it even gets approved, and since anything involving a herm suddenly has to be tagged as "other" (unless, of course, the reviewers like you), nobody's going to read it.

For another, I've been having a steadily growing list of health concerns. I've actually hurt myself from pawing off too much (I'll spare everyone details). I have a cut on my hand that's refused to heal for more than a month. I feel like I've been fighting a cold since MFF and, on at least three occasions in the last two weeks, I've gotten ten or more hours of sleep to try and fight it off. If I get less than eight hours rest, I feel like complete crap; tonight, I know I can only get about four. The only reason I'm even considering that is the ability to catch up on sleep tomorrow, if needed, and the necessary changes to my sleep pattern to accommodate work.

Third, it seems like I'm having a hard time finding people to do anything with. I did get to meet someone while in Massachusetts the other night, but otherwise I've not seen anyone since coming back out on the road after Christmas. Getting together with the local furs back home isn't much of an option, either: it's practically impossible to get anyone to even respond to the messages I send to our local e-mail group. I've offered free food and transportation, for fuck's sake, and I've actually had people say NO to that because they felt like just sitting in front of the computer as they do every night. More often, though, Yomi's the only one who replies; like me, it seems like he just wants some excuse to go out and do something. I imagine that, when I head home for a break in early February, I'm just going to spend a lot of time lazing around a hotel room.

Finally, on a group I'm in, there are people actually trying to defend a rapist. One person is arguing that, because the two people involved have had consensual sex in the past, it can't possibly be rape. Another - and the one who started the discussion - is someone who really should just be keeping his jaws shut, as he's lucky I didn't press charges for something he did. Not going to name names, as I know he'll know I'm talking about him if he happens across this blog, but yes, you, oh anonymous one, are a rapist yourself.

Need a reminder of what happened that Monday morning? Rolling me over without warning and ramming your dick in without lube, even after I've told you that I can't take you when you're being gentle, is rape. And the sick part is that, as I'm lying there and whimpering in pain, you start fucking someone else as if it doesn't matter that I'm bleeding internally. I didn't press charges because I didn't feel like ruining your life over what I presumed at the time was an isolated incident, but since then, I've found out that you've pulled similar shit with other people in the past and your abusive, carelessly dominant sexual attitude has led to situations that, while not illegal, are completely inexcusable. One of these days, you're going to either get someone pregnant or actually get charged with sexual assault by someone who either knows about your past or doesn't care about your future. When that happens, I'll be glad to testify for the prosecution.

Also, I really don't give a damn about whatever drama posting the above paragraph causes. I needed to get that out there. So flame on; I've got a jumbo size bag of marshmallows handy and a craving for s'mores.

Sleeping in

I knew that I was kinda tired, due to fighting a cold, but I've gotten more than 12 hours of sleep two nights in the last week. Last night, for example, I got a whopping fourteen hours of rest. Tonight, I plan on leaving myself enough time for about ten hours of sleep, but I hope that I'm getting over whatever illness is leaving me so tired. Needing this much sleep is rather worrisome. :(

2008 in Review

You know, I could make a nice, long, thoughtful post about the year. But, really, I have only one thing to say about the year.

NEXT!

Holiday Greets

Herpy Yiffmas, everyone! :)

I hate technology. -_-

Ghandi

Shamelessly plagarized borrowed from reddit, where it was probably borrowed from somewhere else.

Fun facts about Mahatma Gandhi:

• He used to walk barefoot everywhere, to the point that his feet became quite thick and hard.

• He was a very spiritual person; eating only enough to quell hunger, and hence was quite thin and frail.

• Due to this diet, he wound up with very bad breath.

• He was known among linguists as a super-calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.

Fed Funds = 0%?

So,  today, the Federal Reserve slashed the Fed Funds target rate to a range of 0 to 0.25%. The rate was effectively at that level anyway, since they couldn't even maintain their previous target of 1%, but this at least confirms that they're doing everything they can to get the economy moving. Of course, this means that foreign investment in the US is now nearly worthless; treasuries are going to pay incredibly low returns (with the possible exception of the 30-year bonds), so there's no reason at all for people to invest here when they can do so much better overseas. In other words, if this doesn't turn the domestic economy around quick, there's going to be very little foreign money coming in and the situation is just going to get worse.

@$%#*( Illegal Mexicans

Yeah, this is going to be politically incorrect. Don't like it? Go read something else.

So I pulled into a facility here in Laredo, TX, not five miles from the Mexico border. When I got here, there was nobody in the guard shack. There are no signs telling drivers where to go. There's no signs of life at all aside from the two other tractors in the facility and the occasional sound of a honking forklift. I ended up calling the place and only after a minute of conversation did the person on the other end of the line understand that they needed a guard in the guard shack.

Another three minutes of waiting, then out comes some guy who looks like he snuck across the border just earlier this afternoon. He doesn't seem to speak English well enough to understand even the most basic concepts of the language and, despite my repeated attempts to communicate with him, he kept trying to talk to me in Spanish. I don't speak Spanish. It ended up decaying into a game of charades in which neither could understand the others guesses.

I ended up parking in the row of trailers, roughly where the guy was pointing, while he presumably got the paperwork sorted out. He didn't even accept all the paperwork that I was trying to hand him; he only took one copy of the sextuplicate stack, when I was only supposed to retain one copy of the paperwork; the other copies are for the other companies that handle the load on the Mexican side of the border. Ultimately, he just said "okay" when I asked if he needed anything else; I left and I didn't care what else happened, since it is no longer my responsibility.

So, to summarize, here's a case where some dick came across the border, doesn't speak enough English, isn't doing his job, and is taking up a job that Americans would be happy to fulfill; I know several people who are looking for work as a security guard right now. And for what? So the company can save on labor by paying less than minimum wage in cash? This is a perfect example of why nobody is going to actually reform immigration law: the fear that morons like this will become even more common and take even more jobs that we have competent Americans for.

Further Confusion is a no-go

I'd been considering going to FC this year, but it was contingent on a
room situation. It turns out that the room that I'd been holding out
hope for is full. Further, though the con had previously announced that
the room block would be re-opened tomorrow, it appears that announcement
was inaccurate as the convention has since retracted the statement.

I'll /definitely /be going to FWA, though. Not sure about the other
conventions this year, though Eurofurence and Anthrocon are definitely
not on my list (can't afford either of them). MFM and MFF are the most
likely ones, though.

I have only one thing to post today:

◕ ◡ ◕

Fun with Checking

I got a "low balance e-mail" from Mint and went to transfer money to my checking account from my savings. I think that I cut it just a bit close this time though...

MFF Post-Con Update

Things are over now. I'm sitting at the Milwaukee airport waiting on my flight; it doesn't leave until nearly 5 PM tonight. After I made my last post, I went to bed. I wanted to play Lupus In Tabula, since the game is always awesome at cons, but I was too tired to even stand up straight. I was able to get one of my sketchbooks back, but I couldn't find Gideon so I'll have to e-mail him later to see about getting it mailed to me. None of the other artists I'd commissioned were able to finish anything, but it'll be well worth the wait: Daronesa, Kami Cheetah, Pegasus 316, Alchera, and Gideon are the artists from whom I will be getting stuff eventually.

I can't think of that much to write here that I haven't said about the convention already, aside from the fact it was awesome. There were a few moments of drama and a few people that I would rather not have seen, but otherwise things were incredible and this was a much-needed break. I plan on coming back next year, if at all possible, though it's too early for me to plan such things just yet.

MFF Sunday Night Update

Whee! I'm running on pretty much nothing but caffeine at this point, so I'm going to keep this short and sweet. I've had a heck of a time here at the con and plan on coming back here in the future. I was able to commission all manner of good stuff; Gideon will have to mail me my sketchbook but I Should be able to pick up my other book before I head to bed tonight. However, that head-to-bed will be happening momentarily; I want to get a full night of sleep tonight before I head home since I've gotten about eight hours of sleep total during the entire con. It's been worth every minute that I've stayed awake though. :)

MFF Update - Saturday Night

This con, so far, has kicked loads of ass. I've commissioned several things I've wanted to for a while and hope to get a few more things tomorrow, depending on who ends up in the artists' alley. I just came back from playing Lupus in Tabula for four hours, in a group that managed to use "I run the Taco Bell" as an excuse to not get lynched, among other forms of insanity. However, I'm also on the verge of passing out from exhaustion, so I'm going to get to bed and get up in time to be in line for the artists' alley in the morning. :)

MFF Saturday Update

I just finished taking pictures from the fursuit parade. Some came out really well, some not so great, but mostly I'm content with how I did. I'm not sure but I think I saw one or two people I recognized and wanted to see, but I couldn't even get up the nerve to say hi for fear of mistaken identity. I'm perched in the Den for now, but as soon as I finish writing this, I'll be wandering back out to the artists' alley and/or dealers' den, possibly heading up to the con suite for a snack or something to drink, and heading to the "You Can Draw" panel at 4 PM. After that, I'm going to get a shower and dinner, then see what happens later tonight. I'll very likely participate in the poker game at 9 PM tonight, since it's the last qualifier for the game Sunday and I haven't had my fill of the card game yet.

Also, my phone is broken. If you want to get in touch with me and meet up at the con, please e-mail me or comment on this post. Please see my previous post for the link to my calendar; that lists all the events I'm likely to go to over the next day and a half. I'll check back here in the den every so often to see what's been posted. For now, though, I scamper. :)

MFF Friday Night Update

I played in the first of the poker qualifiers ... and lost. I ended up fourth at our table, which isn't too bad, but only the winner of each table advances to the final on Sunday. I'll be a dealer for the round tomorrow morning and might try my like at the third and final qualifier tomorrow night, but I've not decided and it depends on what else is going on at the time. For now, I'm thinking of getting a shower and heading to bed; I want to be in line for the dealers' den when it opens in the morning since there's one person I need to pick up a commission from and another couple that I'd like to commission before they fill up for the day. Then, of course, dealing the poker game, then nothing until well after lunch.

Here's my plan of stuff to do for the con.

MFF Update - Friday evening

Things so far this con have gone quite well. This is my first venture down to the actual con space - we had a lot of people coming up to the room throughout the day - but I'm going to be doing a fair amount more wandering later on. I've already commissioned a badge from Fishyboner and plan on being at the dealers' den or artists' alley when they open tomorrow morning at 10 AM. What happens in the meantime is anyone's guess, but I'll most likely do the charity poker game at 9 and head to Werewolf until I'm ready to go to bed.

I'm Gonna Get Raped

I do believe that, in this case, the subject line says it all. The fursuit in question is Ripner's, if anyone's wondering. And, now, I sleep. Don't expect me to be conscious before noon. :)

At the MFF hotel

I'm staying with Kilroy tonight; we got here about an hour and a half ago. I'll be moving to Crocosaur's room when he arrives tomorrow. In the meantime, I'm going wandering downstairs. I'm wearing one of my badges now; please hug me if you see me!

Landed in Milwaukee

On the ground and the plane is taxiing to the gate.

Getting on an airplane

We're finally boarding. I'll update when the big metal bird lands.

Still trapped in Memphis

I finally overheard why the flight is delayed: there's a dent in the aircraft and the airline has to wait for the manufacturer to tell the mechanics what (if anything) needs to be done to make the plane flight worthy. Apparently they haven't gotten any word from the manufacturer yet, which is why they keep pushing it back; it shouldn't take long to enact repairs once they know what they have to do.

The airline is not doing anything for passengers, though, with regard to accommodating their travel needs. They did give us a $5 meal voucher (which isn't enough for even the cheapest combo on any menu here) but they are not rebooking passengers or otherwise ensuring that people get where they want or need to be at any specific time.

I'm getting increasingly worried that Kilroy won't be able to pick me up since he has other obligations this afternoon and my delay could seriously screw with his plans. I shouldn't be stuck at the airport, though; Crocosaur is going to pick me up unless things get seriously screwed up. However, right now, I have no idea even if I'll be in Chicago today.

*sigh* Why can't things go well when I'm trying to enjoy myself? :(

More flight delays.

They've said we'll leave at 10 AM now but we still haven't started boarding yet, so I find that extremely unlikely. I'm going to see if I can find food after all; I'll ask at the airline's info counter.

Flight delay

Due to some sort of mechanical problem, my flight has been delayed by at least an hour. I'll post with further updates as I have new information.

Airport update from Memphis.

The plane landed about 15 minutes ago, putting me ahead of schedule. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find a fast food place and I really don't want to spend big money on a restaurant at the airport. I'll be ravenously hungry when I get to Milwaukee in about three hours.

On the way to MFF - Pensacola Airport

To describe the TSA agents here as "dicks" is putting it nicely this morning. I ended up going through extra screening, only to realize that I'd left a bottle of lube in my backpack. How that's a threat to national security I don't know; I don't think they have any clue what "security" actually entails, since they seem to believe that harassing passengers is the best way of achieving it. I ended up having to go back down to the airline counter, putting aforementioned bottle in my luggage (which, thankfully, was still down there), taking the bag through the TSA check line again, going back through security ... and getting extra screening once again. There's absolutely nothing that I had in bag that time that could have been a problem, other than lots of shiny electronics that I wouldn't trust to leave in a checked bag.

Next time I fly anywhere, I'll pick a different airport; I've never had this much trouble flying before. But they are boarding the flight now, so I'm going to hit the "send" button and hope this goes through before I take off. Otherwise, it'll be posted from Memphis, back dated.

Medical Stuff '08 - Part Two

The doctor's appointment was remarkably unsatisfying. After a wait of just over an hour, the doctor came in, asked me a few basic questions, listened to me describe one of the several things I had questions about, listened to various parts with his stethoscope, and left to let one of the nurses finish things up. I have to go for some lab work due to that one concern, but the fact I didn't even get the chance to bring up the other things I had questions about seriously bothers me. Is it normal to just have to start talking to a doctor and keep talking until you've said everything you want to say or did I just happen to visit a doctor that was more interested in going home than actually treating patients?

Medical Stuff '08 - Part One

I've been waiting about 35 minutes on the doctor to show up, so here's a quick post on what I know so far:

* I'm negative for STDs; I went to the health department earlier to get the results. That's one less thing to worry about.
* I have a doctor's appointment 25 minutes ago.

I'll make another post this evening with the details for the appointment here if the doctor feels like showing up.

Strange arguments

I've heard a lot of bizarre things, but this has to take the cake for the oddest ... well, at least for the week. How do you respond to something like this, anyway?

(13:43:21) Me: But that's something that doesn't even exist.
(13:47:27) Them: at one point they said the same thing about donuts

Meh

From Garfield Minus Garfield

MFF upcoming

I'll be arriving Thursday and staying until Monday afternoon. Who else is going? Would love to see plenty of people at the con. :)

Randomly randomified

Hermaphrodites can't have children! The kids would need Google Maps just to get out!

Random thought

Self-motile street orgy.

Fantasies Shared

Since there were a few people *cough*Kilroy*cough* who really wanted to see me write everything out, I decided to combine pretty much all of the formats by writing an outline with lots of juicy, sexy details. Honestly, the "juicy" parts could probably get posted on Yiffstar without any further editing, though I do plan on actually writing a story to this effect sometime in near future. Not necessarily before MFF, though I'll try to get it done as soon as I have the chance to do so.

Anyway, here's the document of kinky-fantasy-stuff. It's completely not safe for work; please don't say I didn't warn you.

Some assembly required

I was trying to use a new microphone on Skype tonight. It's a small one that clips onto either the headphone cable or (ideally) a shirt collar. However, the clip snapped and I can't figure out how to put these pieces back together. Anyone have any suggestions?

Edit: Another half hour of tinkering and I fixed the thing. Whee. :)

My biological clock broke

I went to bed at 2 PM after being awake 28 hours. I set an alarm for 9 PM. I woke up at 8 PM on the dot without any prompting. I'm considering going back to sleep for another couple hours, just because I can. @_@

4:04 - Sleep not found

Title says it all.

Being slutty

I made a post a couple weeks back asking if anyone would object to me writing about my various real-life sexual fantasies. Nobody objected. So, I'm now asking another question, this time complete with a poll over on the right sidebar. When I do elaborate on my various perversities, how should I do so?

• Short, descriptive bullet points
• Essay form
• Detailed paragraphs detailing specific events separately
• A story, possibly not so short, mixing it all together.

I might start this thing as early as tomorrow evening, so please respond quickly. I'm hoping to have something finished before MFF in two weeks.

Addiction

I was supposed to leave here at about noon today, perhaps a little earlier. Instead, it's now 7:15 PM and I'm still sitting in Carlisle, PA. I've blown off work for a day, putting me in a position where I have to drive all night (with a two hour nap, or less) to make a delivery. And for what? I hesitate to describe it as merely being addicted to the Internet, though it's possible that's all the problem is, but I have a different hypothesis.

I'm addicted to people.

Even before I took this job, in which my level of human contact is nearly nothing, I spent very little time with people. It proved to be impossible to get a group of furs together in Pensacola to go out and do anything or even to just come over and hang out. Online, I keep trying to find people to talk with, though since I have so little experience actually interacting with others I constantly worry about screwing something up, pissing someone off, and not even knowing what I've done wrong to make someone ignore me. Even if I'm not on a messenger (like now), I end up regularly browsing various social news and other similar sites, mostly for the various comments sections.

I only wish I could figure out some sort of productive course of action. Obviously, not getting online would be the simplest answer, but then I wouldn't have any interaction with people at all, since I have to use the web to set up even my few offline meetings with people. I'd just have my phone and the three or four people that call me once in a while. I ended up taking down the "call me" button because, out of the months it was up here, just one person used it and it was someone who'd gotten a new phone and couldn't find my old number. Another obvious solution is just spending less time online, but self-control and moderation are two things that I'm severely lacking in. I know that these are all things I should probably talk to a psychologist about - and I'll probably show one this post if I ever do see one - since I truly have no idea how to handle it.

Were it not so late, I'd probably write something a bit more eloquent, but I've taken half an hour just to type up this much. I need to get a nap in before I go driving tonight.

Music Badge

In the right column on my blog pages (linked for those on the RSS feed), I swapped out some elements to make room for a radio badge from thesixtyone. If you want to listen to some good music that you've likely never heard before, give it a try; I get extra points on the website if enough people start listening to my radio. Of course, if you want to sign up, you can go hunting for music on your own, since I'm sure my tastes aren't necessarily going to match yours; just please give Pixelpaws credit for the referral. :)

We're open 24 hours, but not between 2 and 4 AM...

If a fast-food place is open 24 hours a day, you would think that they'd keep their signature items available even if they're running a reduced menu in the late-night hours. Not Wendy's, apparently. I took the car out, attempted to order a double, and was told they didn't have any burgers because they were cleaning the grill. Considering that I wasn't about to pay $4 for an hour-old (or more) chicken sandwich, I just left. I'll just eat a slightly larger breakfast (lunch?) when I wake up to make up for it.

GOBAMA

Maybe this country has some hope after all.

It's the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November

If you're in the United States, I have only one thing to say to you today:

VOTE, GODDAMMIT

You've been hearing about this election for nearly two years now. If you haven't made up your mind about a candidate by now - whether it's Obama, McCain, or a third-party person - then spend a few minutes reading any newspaper from the last 12 months and make your choice. I'm not going to tell you who to vote for, since you're perfectly capable of making up your own mind (if you're not, please check into your local center for the mentally retarded), but I am going to insist you get off your ass and vote. Seriously, get away from your computer or stop staring at text messages on your phone, go to your polling place, and cast a ballot. It's the one useful thing you can do for this country.

For those of you who insist that your vote doesn't matter, keep in mind that Florida's official vote count in 2000 separated Bush and Gore by just 537 votes. That works out to an average of less than one vote at every precinct or just eight votes in each of the state's 67 counties. Think about that for a moment: if you went with seven friends to the poll and - in every county - someone else did the same, the election would have been a dead heat. If you don't care who becomes President because you think they're both useless, keep in mind there are other things on the ballot, such as state Constitutional Amendments like the ones to ban gay marriage (California and Florida, to name two), local political races (in which your single vote is much more valuable), and other ballot initiatives that could affect your life even more than the person who will take the White House on January 20.

And just one final point: If you don't vote, I'm holding you personally responsible for every single thing that goes wrong with the government for the next four years regardless of who is in power. If you can't even be bothered to spend a couple hours at a polling station once every four years to ensure our government doesn't suck, then you're at fault when it sucks so hard it's a violation of your human rights.

Toilet trouble

You know something's not right when you're sitting on the commode long enough for both legs to fall asleep at the thigh. Ow.

For those of you considering Christmas Cheer

Sometimes, Google's Headlines aren't the best...

Anxiety

One thing that I really, really dislike doing is interacting in real-life with people I don't know. Why? Because even in the simplest of situations, I can't seem to figure out how to not piss people off. Take, for example, checking in at the warehouse here. This place requires drivers to check in on the CB radio. I hate using the radio. It took me five minutes just to get up the nerve to try paging the guard once, then I never got a response. Several other drivers checked in after that without a problem. I tried again, didn't get a response, then repeated myself as other drivers had, only to get a snappy "Hold on a minute" instead of the polite responses that the other drivers had received when they did the same thing. At this point, I was shaking in the seat; I really, really do not handle that sort of thing well.

I'm checked in now, but I'm still twitching as I type this, ten minutes later. -_-

Lunchtime posts

Just a few random things I thought of while eating:

* Mozilla Minefield kicks ass. That's the code name for Firefox 3 and beta 2 is available for download. Make sure you read the disclaimer before you install, especially the part about your computer catching fire.

* I have Sunday off and might get to see Matthais again. We went to Gettysburg last time I was in town; I'll upload some of those pictures eventually. If we meet up tomorrow we'll likely find somewhere to watch football. Not much else to do on a Sunday.

* I seem to find it impossible to sleep before midnight. Not good when you need to be up by 6 AM.

Anyway, I have a couple posts typed on my laptop that will auto-post when I hop online this evening. See everyone in about eight hours.

Friendships, relationships, etc.

I was having a conversation with someone earlier this evening when he had to go to dinner. I said "see you later, hon" and it turned into a ten minute conversation about the oddity of me saying such a thing. Two comments by this other person stood out:

• why do you use that, though? It's usually something a wife reserves for a husband or vice versa.
• just wondering why someone so against mateship would say things like that :)

So I figured I'd take a few moments to type up an answer since, for reasons that I don't think even the gods could explain, it's 12:30 AM and I'm still not tired enough to get to sleep.

Why do I use such terms of endearment? Well, the individual in question is one of my closer friends and someone I've known for a rather long time. I don't see any chance of a "relationship" working out between us, though I definitely am hopeful we can remain good friends for a rather long time. But he, as well as a few of my other friends, are very close to me, much as one might regard their boyfriend/mate/husband/whatever. There are several people that I feel extremely close to (though, admittedly, not as many as I have in the past) and, while I can't say there's anyone that has expressed an interest in being anything more than friends lately, I certainly am content with having those few good friends. And, far as I can tell, they seem to be similarly happy with the situation as well.

As for the second statement, it's not so much that I'm against mateship as that I'm against the way most people act when they have a significant other of some form. It ends up, probably 95% of the time, changing the person's personality significantly for the worse. The majority of relationships people get into outside the fandom are unhealthy enough, and when you account for the decidedly high instance of mental illness among furs (e.g. I have mild depression, while others have such severe emotional dysfunction they get social security for it), it just seems the the odds of any given relationship being healthy are so low as to be practically negligible. I can name perhaps two or three relationships that I'd describe as healthy out of the two or three hundred that I've encountered. Yes, I would go so far as to say that 99% of mateships in the fandom are unhealthy for at least one of the parties involved, if not both, or all three (or four, or seven, or twelve...) if you want to start allowing for love polygons. :p

I definitely don't like the idea of a constrictive relationship, that is, one in which the partners simply tell one another "Don't do this, that, or those" instead of trying to compromise and trust one another's judgment. As simple as that statement is, compromise and trust seem to be two things that are sorely lacking in almost all of those relationships that I'm complaining about. It seems like the worst offenders are the ones who constantly cling to one another instead of simply allowing one another to go off and enjoy the company of others, whether it be for "naughty things" or even something as simple as a card game. The couples that insist on constantly being in the closest possible contact with one another are the most obnoxious. If you don't want to let go of your partner for any longer than it takes to come up for air and can't finish a sentence without telling everyone how wonderful your lover is, why do you even bother coming out of your bedroom?

All of that being said, if someone I've known for a while approached me and expressed an interest in being mates, I can't say I'd immediately reject the idea. I would at least consider it after having a nice, long chat. There probably are only a couple of such eligible bachelors out there - and I daren't even approach them on the subject for fear of screwing up some of my closest friendships - but I would at least be willing to talk to them about it if they brought it up.

Just to put one more thing out there to stop this problem in advance. If I haven't talked to you in the last month, you're definitely not one of those people, so don't even ask; I've had more than enough drama from people insisting that they'd be perfect for me when, in reality, they just think my genitals are a perfect fit for theirs. I'm also pretty sure that half to most of this is going to be incoherent, but at least it's out here now. Whee. *thud, snore*

Obvious news is obvious

Who are the 15 percent who say U.S. is on right track? I think that's a good question, but the article in linked to the left certainly provides the answer most of us expected: old, stupid, bible-thumping republican conservatives who have had way too much of John McCain's Kool-Aid.

"Of those in the poll taking an optimistic view, 52 percent are age 50 and up; 51 percent have no more than a high school diploma; and 43 percent attend religious services once or more each week. ... Six in 10 right-track people are Republican and slightly more than that are conservatives, both far exceeding the national average. Likely voters in the poll saying the country is moving the right way prefer McCain over Democrat Barack Obama by 73 percent to 25 percent."

A perverse question

Since I've no idea who actually is reading this these days (though that lovely little counter on the right says there are at least ten of you), I figured I'd ask opinion before just posting and getting responses along the lines of "Eww, gross." So, here goes. *ahem*

If I were to make a rather lengthy, detailed post about things I would like, both sexual and otherwise, would anyone want to read it?

Anthrocon puts the "con" back in convention.

I was linked to Anthrocon's policy on hotel reservations. Apparently, this year, you can't cancel your reservation without losing your deposit regardless of how much notice you give, you can't transfer your reservation for any reason, the hotel will not give out extra keys for any reason, and you are required to let housekeeping staff into your room for a daily inspection whether or not you want service. So, basically, even if you have a medical emergency or simply have to change your plans, you're still out at least $150; some people have complained they were being billed for more than just the first night and, as such, are out quite a bit more.

While I can kind of understand the "no refunds" policy, as it keeps people from taking up rooms they can't fill, preventing people from transferring the rooms is patently absurd. It's just another way the con has found to completely screw over the people who want to attend. If something happens, people should at least be able to transfer the room to someone else who can make the event. The "no spare keys" policy is also ridiculous; while issuing a dozen keys for a "one-person" room is definitely suspect, there are times when having a spare key is valuable. Also, if I don't want housekeeping in my room, I don't want housekeeping in my room. I don't care what corporate says: "do not disturb" is a very, very simple request. And while I've been fortunate enough to never have anything stolen, I know plenty of people who have had expensive electronics and the like simply disappear from their rooms. One person, who had the only key to his room and no roommates who could have gone through his stuff, had a $900 camera "vanish" after the room was made.

I'm just waiting for people to finally realize that Anthrocon is the most overrated event in the entire fandom, run by a bunch of elitist pricks who don't give a rat's ass about anything except their inflate egos.The only reason at all to attend are the people, all of whom have been duped into spending vast sums of money for an event that isn't even worth the cost of a plane ticket. Seriously, if you're even thinking about going, don't. Find a smaller convention or just visit your friends directly. It'll be cheaper and you'll enjoy it far more. If enough people decide not to go to Anthrcon, maybe we'll be lucky enough to have the con implode and either change its policies completely or - even better - simply cease to exist.

Stop... that... damn... song

There is a crane game behind me with the most annoying "happy" music, running on a twenty second loop. There's nowhere to sit here that isn't within earshot of that infernal machine. As much as I dislike country music, I'd much prefer listening to that instead of the loop coming from that thing. If I weren't waiting on a shower I'd just leave. >_<

Eagleheart

This song has been stuck in my head for a rather long time now. I'm not going to pull the usual "paste the whole song's lyrics" but I am going to at least put the chorus down here. Go watch the video (so you can listen to the song) if you've not heard it before.

Heart of an eagle
He flies through the rainbow
Into a new world and finds the sun
Spreading his wings above all the sorrows
The glory of Eagleheart

Happy Meme thing

Stolen from various people over on LameJournal: Post 10 things that are going right in your life right now. I don’t care how small. You’re happy with your cup of coffee. You saw a flock of geese flying over. ANYTHING. Things that make you happy. Things that make you smile.

1. I got to go to the best pizza place in Pensacola last night with two of the local furs.
2. I have a work assignment that, for once, actually leaves me a reasonable amount of time to deliver. Added bonus: it's just short enough that I get a bonus for it being a crappy run.
3. I finally broke another big milestone in my savings account.
4. There's a nearly full moon tonight and, with the clouds positioned as they are, it looks simply haunting in the sky. I only wish I could get a decent photo of it to share.
5. For the first time in ... I can't remember how long, I actually get to sleep in as long as I want tomorrow. As such, I'm fully expecting to get at least 12 hours of unconsciousness in. :)
6. Pandora radio. Particularly this station that I've been training.
7. The simple fact that, in less than one hundred days, Bush will be something you find in a garden and not the White House.
8. Sex. ... Do I really need to explain that one to anybody?
9. MFF is coming up in a little over a month. I have a room arranged, plane tickets bought, and registration paid for.
10. I have no debt. None.

The one depressing thing? It took me nearly three hours to come up with even the above ten. -_-

Pricing Problem

1 GB SD card - $14 (clearance price)
2 GB SD card - $11.88
Confusing Wal-mart employees - priceless

Nervous, no wreck

I'm stressed to the point that all I can do is whimper and shake uncontrollably. Even standing up is hard. I really don't know how much more I can do...

Taking a break

Been spending too much time online lately and been enjoying too little of it. I'm not going to get on any messenger services for a while. If you need to get a hold of me, e-mail or call me.

More odd business names

While riding back to the operating center, I saw a sign for "Club Gastronomico." With a name like that, it's not hard to come up with vorish possibilities.

Gas prices go boom

When I drove into Texas Friday evening, it was $2.99 a gallon. When I parked that night, unleaded was $2.89. Saturday afternoon, I passed a few stations at $2.79. However, I didn't expect that trend to continue and $2.39 to hit by Monday. I passed the sign above just a few minutes ago down here in Laredo. They were $2.75 Saturday night; apparently pricews crashed another 36 cents in as many hours.

Link between emotional dysfunction and creativity

Well, this certainly explains furries, who are both generally creative and generally fucked in the head. :p

"There have been more than 20 studies that suggest an increased rate of bipolar and depressive illnesses in highly creative people . . ."

Vending Machine Fail

One thing I can't do in the truck...

100 mph. 'nuff said.

Today's shocker

My parents disclosed something today that I'd suspected for a rather long time: I'm adopted. Can't say it makes any difference in how I feel about them. I still like mom and... Uh... Tolerate dad. I'm never going to know my biological parents so it's not like this makes a bit of difference. *shrug*

STD Testing

I figured that, as a sexually active gay male, it would probably be a good idea to get myself tested. I doubt I have anything but "doubt" isn't a very good antibiotic or treatment plan if I do. So I called the insurance company to find out if it's covered (it is, but only under the general medical services part) and find out who to talk to. They suggested a primary care physician. I called a couple of such physicians and they all referred me to the health department; none of them do such screenings in their office (and none of them had any openings for two weeks anyway). The health department said it would take three to four weeks to get results and - and here is the one huge problem - I would have to come back to the office in person to get the test results.

Why is coming back a problem? Quite simply, there's no guarantee that I'll be able to come back to get the results at all. I'm only going to be getting home Wednesday evening before MFF and have to leave for work Tuesday morning; unless they get me home exceptionally early on Wednesday or let me have an extra day off, there's no time at all for me to even go in and get my results. The next time I come home wouldn't be until around Christmas and their offices will probably be closed for the holiday, if I'm home on a weekday at all. This means I couldn't get any results for more than three months, at which point the information is damn near useless; I could have just as easily gotten something at MFF or (worse) have something already and simply have no way of knowing it because nobody will give me my test results.

Apparently it's a legal requirement that information about HIV/AIDS status never be given over the phone: both clinics and the insurance company said that after I spent more than half an hour on the phone trying to find out what I can do. So what can I do? Absolutely nothing, it seems. The Santa Rosa County health department requires appointments and didn't have any openings today, while the Escambia County health department does walk-in appointments but only takes 12 people each morning and each afternoon; the afternoon session started at 12:30 and they probably have too many people in line by now anyway since they fill up rather quickly. No other organization or doctor in the area provides testing services to the general public; I looked.

I just wish I knew what to do now.

Hey, America1 Register to vote! NOW!

I'm not going to harp about politics here, since I've pretty much made up my mind about the election and I imagine that most of the people reading this have as well. However, I would like to take a moment to remind you to register to vote if you have not done so already. If you have registered in the past, verify that you are still registered. Both take just a couple minutes and could make the difference in November. The deadlines in most states are approaching quickly - in some states today is the deadline - and if you miss out, you have nobody to blame but yourself. Don't spend the next four years wishing you'd voted.

F1 Predictions

Since Ferrari have sucked wonderfully in the last two rounds, scoring nothing in Singapore and just three points in Italy, Merecdes-McLaren have the lead in the constructors' championship. I made a couple predictions a month ago on this and both have proven to be quite profitable. Though I will concede that I don't actually think BMW Sauber have a chance of winning the title, a 2,300% return on that wager is awfully nice and it's quite tempting to just cash it in now.

qmwztlxb3

Which Team will win the 2008 Grand Prix Constructors Championship

I predicted Mclaren   on 11th Sep 08

what is this?

The World's News Forecaster

qmwztlxb3

Which Team will win the 2008 Grand Prix Constructors Championship

I predicted BMW Sauber   on 11th Sep 08

what is this?

The World's News Forecaster