Being avid readers, iceheartt and I have a lot of books. we also have books that we're just not going to read again. In particular, I have huge stacks of RPG sourcebooks, and I just don't have the time to tabletop game anymore.

So every few weeks or so, we box up a large rubbermaid container full of books and take it to this used & overstock bookstore called 2nd And Charles (it's actually a chain run by the same company that runs Books-A-Million). Unlike most used bookstores, their big thing is high-volume and high turnover. Because of this, they make really decent offers on the books you bring in, and have a low percentage of books that they turn away (either due to condition or just being overstocked on a title).

Of course, they'd much rather you took them up on store credit than cash, but they so make it worth your while. Last time, we got $90 something in store credit, and this time $70 something. And seeing as they have books, video games, DVDs, comics, comic book shirts, and other cool swag, we can easily burn through all that store credit and still have to fork over a couple of more dollars out of our wallet.

Last visit was especially frutiful because we ended up finding a NES Zapper Gun in the original Shoot-Me-Mister-Policeman Grey, and not the dayglow orange. Even without anything to hook it up to, that's some serious nerd-cred right there. Also found a novel called "On Stranger Tides" which was written years before Disney had ever thought of the Pirates of the Caribbean. Until then, I never knew that the story they'd used for the 4th film had been an unrelated novel first.

So anyway, lots of reading to do, probably going to have to save it for my seven days off.

I don't talk much about my hometown, in order to keep the air of mystery that I've cultivated going strong. I will say this however. It's a very white-bread, bible-belt type of town. Fun and progressive aren't typically words I associate with this area. So I usually keep most of my more out-there type interests under the radar.

Because of this, when I find myself confronted by something that I would usually think is too awesome for what I've come to expect from this town, the shock is often enough to silence me. As Iceheartt and I were going into the grocery store last night, some 20-something guy wearing this shirt was walking out.

Iceheartt was doing his usual claw-machine thing (don't laugh, he gets streaks of amazing luck on those things sometimes.), so he didn't get a chance to see, but I did, and I totally missed my oportunity to do a brohoof or at least give a shout out to the guy. Even had the perfect one, too -- I was wearing this shirt and could have easily said "Hasbro REPRESENT!"

Oh well, the day wasn't a total loss, because some guy with a pink mohawk told Iceheartt his green hair looked cool.

But this also reminds me, I really do need to get around to watching that show. I sometimes end up in fandoms without ever indulging in the core activity. Happened with TF2, and it happened with MLP:FiM. Maybe next weekend when my rotating shift rotates around to my week of seven days off in a row.

I won't rehash details that have already been said here: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1990086/

I am sorry that this has to happen, but she has her reasons, and they're valid ones, so of course I'm going to support her in doing what she needs to do to find happiness. It'll be hard to manage without her.

Goodbye. Sleep now, and dream of pink glitter.

Summary of a recent experience I had with TigerDirect.com

Parts were ordered on Thursday. Received confirmation email, which indicated everything was hunky dory. It wasn't until hours later when we checked the link to the actual invoice (on a whim, nothing in the email indicated that we needed to) that we found that one of the parts was listed as backordered, and directed us to check again in 48 hours. Keep in mind, this is a part listed on their website as "Order Today, Ships Today" and was supposed to go out UPS Next Day Air.

Called the first thing Friday morning. The customer service rep said that it wasn't backordered, and gave me a tracking number (one that didn't work).

Asked him why when their website makes a claim of "Order Today, Ships Today" the part hadn't been shipped. He put a refund in for what he said was the shipping cost of that part of the order, but if it costs $23.16 to ship a 1kg cpu heatsink and a 7g tube of thermal paste, I find it hard to believe that it only costs $9 to ship the 1kg cpu heatsink by itself (I had just come off of a 13 hour nightshift at the time though, so missed asking about it then.)

Asked the rep point blank if the product was going to ship on Friday and arrive Saturday. He assured me yes.

Later Friday we got an email from Tiger Direct with a different UPS tracking number than the one that had been quoted on the phone. This one, at least UPS's website says that they'd received billing information for, but not the package itself. It's not until Friday evening that we finally get emailed a 3rd tracking number for the heatsink, this one actually associated with a package in UPS's possession.

So when Saturday evening rolls around, and UPS tracking says that the package is in Philly, and not here, I call them back to try to get some explanations. While I did get the rest of the shipping refunded, he couldn't answer why the heatsink hadn't shipped Thursday, why it took 3 tries for them to give me a vaild UPS tracking number, why I had only been refunded for only $9 of the shipping initially, or why I didn't get the shipment on Saturday like I was told I would on the previous phonecall.

I expressed my displeasure with the level of incompetence in customer service that I had received and told them I wanted to give them a chance to make it right. He pointed out that they'd fully refunded the shipping costs (like they had a choice on that matter -- if the hadn't at least done that, I would have had my credit card company issue a charge-back for services not rendered) but didn't volunteer anything further.

I asked to speak to the supervisor, to give them one last chance to keep me as a customer or at least explain themselves. Her explanations were rather lacking:

* She tried to tell me all their reps are aware that UPS Next Day Air only counts business days (I pointed out that claim could not be reconciled with the answer I was given Friday morning)

* She tried to explain that they don't even know which of their two warehouses their product is in until it's ordered (if their inventory control is that bad I want to be a customer of theirs even less)

* And finally she explained that their "Order Today, Ships Today" claim has a disclaimer that says they can only meet that standard 95% of the time (took me a while to find it, but the disclaimer is there, but not on their help page or their terms and conditions page, it's only visible if you hover your cursor over the words themselves on the product page -- not even goggleable.)

Like the rep before her, she made no offer (other than the bare minimum that they were obligated to) to try to keep me as a customer. So I've made my last purchase with them, and will tell anyone who asks, to avoid them like the plague.

So,  AtomicStoney has up some art that ties in one of Tim Curry's recent voice roles to his character on the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Of course, plenty of fans of that movie weighed in, but I had to toss in my own unique perspective as a one time theater employee:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/464...../#cid:34611931

(Eventually, I got out of show biz. Couldn't keep up with the parties.)

So, back at the begining of the year, our neighbors asked us if we could take one of their dogs off their hands. Little black cocker spaniel. Their other dogs were fighting with her, and they were looking for a new home for her. We took her in and took care of her for several months, but these last two months or so, after she'd gotten of a treatment regimen for heartworms, she's been a real handful. Wanting out when she was inside, demanding constant attention whether she was inside or out, howling at all hours of the day and night.

Then, she started getting out of the fenced back yard. Now, admittedly, the fence isn't in the best repair, but we patched up the hole she was using to get out. Well, yesterday, she makes herself a new hole and goes back to the neighbors house. The message was pretty clear. She didn't want us as a family, she missed her old people (And she must have made up with the other dog who she was fighting with, I suspect because at the time the fights were happening, she was about to go into heat, but has since been spayed).

So rather than risk her getting hurt by forcing her way through the fence again and again, we asked the neighbors if they wanted to take her back. I think they realized as much as we did that she'd never given up on her old family, so they did.

Even so, the rejection stings pretty hard.

So, it seems I'm no good on keeping this journal current. I'd wanted to use it more frequently than just for big events like this. My uncle passed over the weekend. It wasn't unexpected, he'd been in and out of the hospital a lot recently.

While we weren't what I'd call close, he certainly was a major influence on my life. He was big on computer games going as far back as the early 80s (maybe earlier even), especially the RPG and Adventure genres. He was the one who introduced me and my dad to some of the early classics like The Bard's Tale series, SSI's AD&D Gold Box series, the Ultima series, all the old Infocom games, and the Sierra graphical adventures. He was also an avid fantasy reader, which I'm sure influenced my own reading habits. And of course, there was his massive set of dragon figurines, and his yearly fantasy art calendars featuring Boris Vallejo, or the Brothers Hildebrant, or Larry Elmore, or other big name artists of that type.

In short, he was a role model of Gygaxian vintage that showed me it was ok for a grown man to show an interest in sword & sorcery and things too fantastical for our mundane world. Without the things he taught me just by being himself, I'm sure I wouldn't be where I am today.

Only a few more days and we get our new ISP. Old one's always been on the slow side, but after 4 customer service calls, two visits from the field tech, and the best they can tell us is that it should clear up in a few days, I'm at my wits end.

So,  hyasinth passed me a big list of artists to go browse so I could have some favorites from outside my immediate household. However wasn't feeling too hot at the time (Damn you Sonic Chilli Cheese Tatertots with Onions -- why do you have to be so tasty and evil at the same time?) and I forgot to put anyone on my watchlist. That's a problem that'll fix itself though in time, so I'm not worried.

So, yes, I did just go through just two users' galleries to pile up several dozen favorites in the space of a few minutes. They've been posting for a while, so I had a lot of catching up to do.

Alright. Despite having been a regular internet user since the September of '94, I've never once taken a stab at the online journal thing, so all y'all will have to bear with me while I figure things out.

With this first post, I figure it's a good place to lay out the one firm ground rule. While I may use this space to talk about my hobbies, my passions, my personal life, and the things I love, I am not going to talk about what I do to earn a paycheck. As a matter of personal preference, I like to keep my life at work seperate from my general relaxation time and internet life.

Don't get me wrong, it's a dream job that's challenging, fulfilling, and gives me a sense of having done something to make the world a better place in addition to giving me the means to pay my bills. But I also give them twelve and a half hour shifts for fourteen days out of every twenty eight. When that shift is over I leave my work-self there and come home.

And now that that's out of the way, you'll not hear me mention the subject again.