Final Family Christmas

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

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

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

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

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

Itinerary for January

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

1st through 16th - Working

17th through 30th - Paid vacation

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

20th - I turn twenty-four years old

21st through 25th - Further Confusion!

26th - In Pensacola, saying goodbyes

27th - Driving to Indy

28th - Unpacking, turning in the U-Haul

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

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

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

Further Confusion and the rest of January

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

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

Why do weekends off tend to be exhausting?

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

A few thoughts on climate change

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

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

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

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

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

Murfreesboro, TN - Mileage overload

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

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

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

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

Why can't I enjoy a day off?

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

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

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

Sprint's sales department fails too

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

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

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

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

Time for a house?

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

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

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

I WAS a happy ING Direct customer

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

White dragons are healers

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

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

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

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

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

When it rains it pours

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

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

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

CNN's Rick Sanchez calls out Fox Noise as liars

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

Taking the Penguin Plunge - I installed Linux Mint

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

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


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

Potomac River "training exercise" nonsense

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

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

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

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

MFM 2009 - Sunday Night Update

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

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

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

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

MFM 2009 - Saturday Night Update

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

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

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

MFM 2009 - Friday night update

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

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

Mephit Furmeet - T-minus ten days

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

Quote of the day from Ahastar - August 18

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