Swine Flu Map

http://www.idemc.org/

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

So, to everyone, good luck.

Weekend at home

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

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

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

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

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

Time Management Skills, or the lack thereof

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

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

So... help?

Silence

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

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

An expensive meal

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

Getting healthier

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

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

Kink Spectrum Analysis

Warning: TMI may follow!

Your result for The Kink Spectrum Analysis Test...

Green (530 nm)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You scored 18% dominance and 40% submission.

You scored 50% voyeurism and 36% exhibitionism.

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

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

Take The Kink Spectrum Analysis Test at HelloQuizzy

Sleepless in Orlando

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

---

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

---

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

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

Iowa just did what?

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

Unhealthy

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

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

Chuch's Chicken FAIL

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

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

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

Non-FWA Post

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

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

FWA Con Report - Post-con

Slightly belated, but better late than never:

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

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

A few overall impressions of the con

Good things

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

Bad things

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

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

FWA Con Report - Saturday

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

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

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

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

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

Google, Interest-based advertising, and You

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

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

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

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

Night with a dragon

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

Dinner with Zoria

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

Brainlessness

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

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

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

A productive day

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

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

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

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