A couple times lately I've been thinking back on how I got where I am now, fur-wise. For example, I've been a fox for the most part about as far back as I can recall having a fursona, but I can't recall how I ended up with it for sure.

The earliest I can recall relating to foxes was in a Palladium Fantasy campaign back when I was in high school still. Each race had certain classes they were restricted to, and a fox race called the Kankoran had ranger as one of the choices. I wanted to play one partly because I liked walking in natural areas(and partly because of a certain scimitar-wielding drow elf whose books I was reading at the time ), so I went with that race, dual-wielding broadswords(also , since that was really the only thing I copped from the big D in any fashion). It was a higher-powered campaign, and I was also watching Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog at the time, so when I got an upgrade for the swords I ended up doing the "cross them to fire magic bolts" thing that the forest Knight had with his axes. When I hopped on the MUCKs a short while after the campaign ended, I made my description and such based on that character, and it just sort of grew from there.

It makes me wonder though... if I had chosen say a Wolfen character, would I have ended up a wolf? Or was there something earlier that I just can't recall, or something else leading me towards it?

The evolution of me, as such, has been sort of interesting to watch, as I think back on it too. I ended up dropping the ranger schtick mostly early on, as the furry-based MUCKs don't have much of a medieval feel in the main areas. Not much changed really, apart from a short stint as an anthro dragon on SPR, until I hit Second Life.

I ended up adding wings early on, just because if I was going to fly I wanted an obvious way to. I always liked wings on my giant robots and I had a T-shirt with a winged fox on it, and it just seemed sort of natural. Nothing much changed for a while then other than refinement.

I was bored and at one point, had some extra money, and wanted to work on something, so I bought a female snowmew from Lost Furest and made a seperate character for the heck of it. Not really a part of my fursona per se, but it did come back later. I can't say for sure why I picked snowmew, other than I liked them and their uber-fluffy tails. Sonique's art might have some blame there, I think.

I happened to be around one area, I think it was the SL Lost Lake, and someone was showing someone else their taur av. I forget who offhand, and it was before LL added logging to the client.I tagged along out of boredom, and also picked up a foxtaur body out of boredom too while I was there. I don't like leaving stuff stock, so I quickly modded it up with copies of the wings my anthro was currently using, and went around like that for a while. Curiosity about foxtaur and taur stuff after that ended up with me reading more of the chakat stuff.

That got me thinking about what kind of chakat I'd be like If I was one, and I pulled that snowmew av out of the dusty corner of my inventory, thought about names, and made the snowmew-colored Chakat Swiftwind. I liked it a lot at first, and ended up staying that way for about 6 months, even making an alt account with the Swiftwind name, and using my original account barely at all.

After a forced break due to massive work hours(as mentioned in a way earlier journal which seems to be missing o..O) I finally got to get back on SL, and the chakat didn't seem to hold much allure for me anymore, and I'd been not ebing "chakat-ish" as much for a while anymore in the #chakats IRC channel. The next step I took, however, also has it's roots a year before that or something.

At Lost Lake(again) a couple people who hang there had gotten a couple of Daryth's dragons(this was when I was in my foxtaur phase) and I thought they looked neat. I stopped by there a couple times around then, but I wanted to wait for the mech-dragon that was listed as in-progress at the time(and later became the Steam dragon). Well I happened to stop by, had a bunch of L, and figured "screw it, I'll give one a try" and went for the one that looked closest to my personal definition of dragon, an astral wyrmling. I originally was going to make it a brass, as a while back I'd been playing a half-rakshasa half-brass character on a Neverwinter Nights server, but for some reason I can't recall(maybe just spur of the moment?) I decided to try making a blue color scheme too after that. I started hanging around the Isle more in it, including the dancing circle, and that was how I met my most recent ex-girlfriend.

Hanging out with her ended up leading to me wearing fox stuff again as well as the dragon stuff, and while I'd just missed the December hatching with my Wyrmling, I threw in on the Wyvern hatching(planning on going and immediately buying an adult Astral afterwards) and got lucky. Funnily enough, I was more than satisfied with the adult Wyvern, and stuck with that on SL for a while. As she was otherkin, it led to me thinking along the lines I've been writing about here a bit, and wondering which was more fitting, dragon or fox. Before I'd just have said fox, but now I couldn't decide, though it was more of an exercise than anything, since I've always gone along with "I'm me, and that's good enough for me, whatever me is." That led to me pondering what a fox/dragon cross would look like, and led to the creation of the anthro dragonfox I wore for a bit. It was partly also due to "I've always been a bit of fox, I shouldn't dump that completely."

Finally, i got hit with inspiration, about the same time I finally picked up that adult Astral(about 3 months later than I originally intended) and I picked up an Anubis wyrmling as well and prototyped a nonanthro foxdragon in Wyrmling size. It looked neat enough that I built one in adult size, and used the flexi-wings from the adult arctic wyvern, since I liked the flappiness. Since then It's been a lot of refinement and rebuilding to get to where I am now. I also made hatchling and wyrmling sizes as well, and just recently I've finally made an anthro version, bringing it full circle.

What prompted the creation of the anthro avatar and these thoughts though, involved the V-day ball at the Isle of Wyrms. It was a "formal attire" even to encourage people to pull those fancy clothes out of the dusty attic of their inventory, and while the jewelry I'd made for my Arctic Wyvern looked neat, I felt it seemed like not enough. I tried my Rock's dragons-based anthro dragon, but since it was all prim I couldn't wear anything over it other than prim jewelry, and I didn't have enough for that to seem right either, so I dug out my old winged fox anthro av.

And oddly, it just didn't feel right. I'd spent over a year mostly as a dragon-type in various shades of blue, and it just seemed like the old winged red fox anthro just didn't fit anymore. I dug out the foxdragon I'd made way back and swapped out the wings as I had something better now, and that helped a bit, but it was a bit jarring and enlightening at the same time. Well, enlightening might not be the best word, but I just can't find the right one to express what it made me feel. It was a couple weeks before I got around to it, but I sat down and finally worked out an anthro form, trying to keep the most recognizable parts from my nonanthro ones. It didn't help that SL crashed on me and I had to redo the last hour of work at one point. >..< In the end though, I ended up with an anthro avatar I was comfortable in again, so to speak, and a couple others remarked that it seemed like a very well-done translation of my larger form.

The whole rearrangement of my thoughts on myself that led to its creation though are the same ones that led to this post, and looking back at how far I've come; from fox, through a 6-month sidetrack as a chakat, to now over a year of draconic-ness. It also makes me wonder if a few years from now I'll still be the same, but I've got a feeling that this time, even if I do change again, the draconic aspects will remain just as the fox has. Whether or not either was a part of me to begin with, they've been so deeply assimilated into my self-image to be rid of easily, if at all. It also helps that I really do have draconic traits... <..< *eyes hoard of Transformers and robot figures, and hoard of anime*

I apologize if I've bored anyone at this point that watched me for av/artwork, but I just felt I needed to write it all out and get my thoughts in order, and this seemed the most appropriate place. And if you've read this far, obviously it wasn't too boring. ^..~

*edit* Aha! So that's where the earliest journal I was referring to went.. apparently FA only keeps the last 15 journals you write... ah well.

Well, it took a little longer that I'd hoped but I've started what looks to be a nice job finally, and I've contributed a few more things to the PRC(which I linked in my last post). I think we're getting close to 3.2 beta and feature freeze though so I'm probably not going to get everything done I want to before we release, but that's what the later versions are for!

To follow up on my last journal Kiva does indeed seem great from the first ep, if a little confusing with the two different stories and time periods at once. I'll have to see if ep 2 keeps it up when I can watch it after work tomorrow. And the op song is made of rock and win. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvF8Jg2a5T4

And just for the hell of it:

1. Are you single or taken?
Single

2. Chocolate or flowers?
Never really gotten the chance to do either, but last year I sent plush with great results. ^..^

3. Will you do anything special for Valentines Day?
Nope, not this year. :/ Might hang around the V-day ball at the Isle of Wyrms on Saturday though, especially since it's a hatching day too.

4.Do you like anyone?
Friends, yeah. Otherwise, I don't really have anyone real special to me at the moment.

5. Were you dating anyone last Valentines?
Yep, but that ended last June.

6. What would be your dream Valentines date?
Cuddling and a good movie or anime/toku marathon? Or maybe some gaming. Maybe some fun afterwards too, if you catch my drift. ^..~

7. Do you make a big deal about Valentines?
If there's someone to make a deal out of it with, yeh, otherwise meh.

8. Have you ever had a secret admirer?
If I have, they never bothered trying to contact me.

9. Would you ever write someone a love letter?
Possibly, but I have a bit of a tendency towards shyness, so it wouldn't come easy, or it'd come after we were already together.

10. Do you believe in Cupid?
Why not?

11. Do your parents give you presents on Valentines?
Don't think so, though I may have gotten something once. Can't recall right now.

12. Do you still send out Valentines cards?
Nope, don't have anyone to send it to(and if I did, I'd probably do something like plush instead), and I don't tend to send stuff like that just randomly.

13. Do you like candy hearts?
They're okay, but I prefer real sweettarts. XP

15. Is Valentines depressing?
A little if you're single, but eh.

16. How do you feel about PDA?
Online I'm fine with it, haven't had much of an opportunity to do it offline(and again shyness would probably inhibit me a bit at first). As far as other people's, again I'm fine with it pretty much.

17. How is your love life?
Slim to none? I don't do bars since I don't drink, and work's keeping me pretty busy during the week, so I don't have much of a chance to meet people.

18. Have you ever been dumped on Valentines?
No, and I think it'd be kinda crass personally. A kind of "rub your face in it" way.

19. How many roses would you want?
Want or give? XP Either way, one would probably make a pretty big impact by the simplicity, or around 12 just for the classic feel of it.

20. Will you have a boyfriend/girlfriend next Valentines?
Maybe, maybe not. To use a poor analogy: the grind goes faster when you're not worrying about the next level, but if you're always looking at that level-up bar it seems like you'll never hit it. If I have one great, but while I might feel lonely occasionally I'm not going to go throwing myself at the feet of every single woman I see or meet.

And to paraphrase Momotaros from Den-O, apparently this meme is so awesome it skipped 14? ^..~

Been a while since I wrote here, and not like anyone cares probably, but since it's been 6 months might as well get the old one off the front page.

I've made a few more revisions to my foxdragon... still undecided on whether to post a pic of the revised head and stuff or not, since apart from making the horns curve back instead of forward it's minor stuff(like ear repositioning), and I'd have to delete one of the previous pics to do it.

I also recently contributed some dragon-based classes and stuff to the latest version of the PRC add-on for Neverwinter Nights: http://www.dladventures.com/forum/v.....ead.php?t=7142

My job contract ended earlier than we were told back at the end of October, so I've been on the jobhunt, with little success. I'm making it to the interview stage, at least this time, but so far haven't gotten an actual offer. I almost had the last one, but the other candidate had a bit more experience, otherwise I would have gotten it, I was told.

The thing with Nairi is long over... I tried to stay in contact at first but she hid under an alt on SL and was constantly away on her IM, so I took it as a sign she didn't want to talk to me any more and didn't bother trying further, though she knows where to find me if she ever wants to talk to me again. Also from what I heard from a mutual acquaintance it was just as well things turned out like they did, and I'll leave it at that.

So yeah, I'm back to where I was a year and a half ago: mateless and jobless, though the latter should change soon, if things go well. As to the former, who knows. I'm no Tom Cruise or whomever the latest fangirl target is, and I'm not going to pretend to be anyone other than who I am, so I'm just going to have to go it alone, I guess. At least until I run into a girl who's available and looking for someone like me, and how likely is that...

And just to end this on a more positive note, Kamen Rider Kiva, the '08 Rider, looks like it's going to rock. Can't say the same of the '08 sentai, but maybe it'll surprise me like Magiranger did.

How time flies when you don't realize it. o.o I'm still working at the same place, and now we're lookign at August completion, maybe... only downside is we're down to 3 days a week, so I'm lucky to even get 30 hours each week. Things are still often SNAFU, but not nearly as bad as it once was, and very few actually new problems crop up now. Most of the people who started this one with me are gone except for one other person, and he's leaving the end of this month. I really should get looking for something, but a) Most IT jobs these days are contract, not longterm(especially with only a year of experiance but at least I've got that much now :D), and b) I'm their strongest troubleshooter, and I really don't want to leave them in the lurch.

Things with Nairi have gone well and not-so-well at the same time. Still not sure what exactly was the cause or if it was anything I could have changed but we're not mates anymore... just good friends. Soemtiems it's confusing though, trying to figure out what's okay to do of what I used to do to show affection. <.<

Kamen Rider Den-O and Jyuken Sentai Gekiranger are both fun romps, I do say. I've been wtaching them as the subs come and this is definitely a good season from both, even if it's not the usual serious dark Kamen Rider stuff. It has been getting mroe serious lately though as the plot gets rolling, but it's not forgetting the lightheartedness. There's supposedly a sequel to the Kamen Rider The First movie in the works too.. I hope it gets brought over like the last one did. *pats DVD* Also, Koutetsushin Jeeg is made of hotblood and win.

Hmm.. what else... oh, I'm still tinkering with the foxdragon av, and so far I've done a rebuild on the wings, and I'm playing with the horns still. I'll probably put up an updated pic once I finish these next set of tweaks.

IN other game news, I went back to RO for a while out of nostalgia, still fun, but still doesn't last without the right people playing with you. Gunslinger is enjoyable though, and I found I liked steal rogues too. I also need to get back to SRWOG2 and finish the Earth Route so I can see the awesomeness of The Sword That Cleaves Evil cleaving the Earth Cradle.

Been a long while since I posted... work has really slowed way down since the new year started, way too much. As in an average of 1 day per week. >.< Thankfully that looks to be coming to an end now, if they can just get people scheduled for their upgrades.

Looks like I didn't post about it, but I finished SRWOG2 before the new year(including getting the bonus stage), and I'm on stage 32 or 33 right now I think, through my second playthrough. I decided to do Ex-hard, but the only reason I'm not any farther is because I've had other things taking my time. Mostly, Second Life and my gf. And the SL time is in large part because of her. :)

I had started SL again out of bored randomness or something while I was off work, and got myself the dragon av in my current icon. Then I stuck around some because I really liked the way it looked. I had intended to just be around until work started up again and then go on hiatus, but then I met Nairi right around New Year's, and that ended up blowing those plans out of the water.

I wasn't even looking for anyone either at the time, and hadn't been for months, and poof, God, fate, whatever you attribute it to drops her in my lap. ^.^ So to speak. ^.~ We're a pretty good match, I think. We have plenty in common, some similar interests, and have fun together.

If you believe in Astrology, both Western and Eastern astrology also agree with my opinion. Not to mention I had a tarot reading several years ago that fits her, from what I can remember of it, though it made no sense to me at the time, and I didn't make the connection until after we were already together.

She's also a real big fangirl of Final Fantasy VII in specific, and the Final Fantasy series in general. As of late, she pulled me into a FFVII RP on Second Life, so I've been playing FFVII on the PC to get some background, and that eats up more of my time as well, though I haven't gotten very far yet.

Finally to continue the thread from my last journal entry... while I haven't seen Gekiranger yet, Kamen Rider Den-O is nothing like I had expected. While it doesn't have the same Kamen Rider "feel" the previous several series had(except Hibiki, which I didn't watch so can't comment on), it's damn entertaining and funny, and I think I'll like it as long as I treat it like Sazer-X and Ryukendo and don't try taking it seriously at all.

And now for something more fur-related than my recent postings, probably... The 2007 Sentai previews are out, and it'll have a wildcat theme this year. It'll start off with GekiCheetah, GekiTiger, and GekiJaguar (yellow, red, and blue respectively), each having the approriate cat-mech, and taught in some sort of cat-kung-fu by an anthro cat mentor(much as the Dekarangers were led by a blue anthro canine). GekiTiger will be using nunchakus, and GekiJaguar has tonfas(yay tonfas!) but I'm still not sure what it was that GekiCheetah was using in the preview pic. Hopefully the show'll grab me better than Boukenger did... though I'm already more interested in it than I was at this time last year with Boukenger.

I've got today off too, so I may finally be able to get around to getting that clean pic... if I can find time between the errands I need to run, playing more OG2(I'm on 35 or 36, in the middle of a route split), and watching my G Gundam DVDs. Oh, and Friday's episode of Battlestar Galactica. So much to do and so little time to do it in....

*edit* And stupid "Bad Gateway" errors now keep popping up every time I try and post this. >.< Hopefully if I do manage to get the image, this onw't be happening this much when I try and get it up...

Since the new policy limits the number of Second Life shots of even your own creations, I just went through and culled out most of the older pics, if by some strange and obscure chance anyone wonders where they went. Though now I don't have a "clean" shot of my current version chakat build, so I'll probably be putting a new one up sometime when I have the time.

Life's just been too busy... last week I worked Mon-Sat for a total of 90 hours. x.o Had to spend a night in a hotel Thursday night too, because the ice storm that went through the midwest had made the roads to slick for an hour+ drive home after a 14+ hour day. On the upside, I did find Classics Jetfire in a Wal-Mart near the hotel, so now I need to track down Mirage, Grimlock, and the Minicons which just came out.

I got SRWOG2 when it came out a few weeks ago now, but I haven't been able to play much for the very same reason listed above... right now I just finished stage 28 out of 43. What annoyed me slightly this stage is Soulgain kicked my tail between my ears the last two times I fought him in previous stages; this time I get prepared and I'm whaling away... then he retreats, right when I'm about to tear his mustached mech a new one. >.< I don't know if I'm going to be able to get the true last stage or not but I'm still going to make an effort at it. I'm still undecided if I'm going to do a second normal playthrough afterwards, or go onto Ex-Hard and try and unlock Special mode.

I'd also like to say there's too damn many good mechs I want to use in these missions! >.<

Well, I finally beat Ryusei's route on SRWOG, and...


[SPOILER ATTACK, GO~]




...it turns yout you need around 32 Masteries minimum to get to the true final stage. I barely squeeked by myself.

The first boss, Judecca, went down a lot faster than I was expecting from a boss. Got all my units in position, and Levi went down in one turn. <3 EN draining missles and Grungusts.

The true final boss fit my expectations more. After cutting through his cannon fodder to boost my troops' Will, we started wearing him down.. and as soon as we got him seriously damaged for the first time he brought in a squadron of battleships! That sapped a couple turns, then when I turned my attention to him again finally after another turn or two of beating he brought in another bunch of reinforcements, which took a few more turns to wipe out before I could get back to whacking on him, and even after all that it still took several more turns to wipe him out. Now THAT'S what a boss battle should be like.



[HISSATSU! SPOILER END~]


Now I'm starting on Kyosuke's route from the after-final-mission save. The early masteries are a bit harder than Ryusei's were, and I've only gotten 1 from the first 3 or so missions. I also heard that we were supposed to be able to carry over some money and Pilot Points(for buying skills and raising stats) but so far I haven't seen any sign of anything extra. :/ The FAQs on GameFAQs don't say anything about it though, or what it actually gives, or if just beating the game is enough.

GGG Vol 1 also got pushed back to Sept 26 now... hopefully it won't be delayed any farther than that.

*edit* You apparently have to beat both routes off the same game file to get the New Game+, so once I beat Kyosuke's route, I'll get it, from what I've been told.

If you can't tell by the title, I've got SRX finally and I'm almost through Ryusei's route. Ryusei wins. Period. I'm gonna miss him when I start the ATX route, but at least I'll have Excellen and Tasuku. And maybe Sanger Zonvolt The Sword That Smites Evil for a bit. Yes, his name might as well be that for how often he says it.

On the downside it seems GGG Volume 1 got pushed back to Sept 12. Boooo. T.T

The other thing I've been playing when not binging on SRW lately is Trickster Online. It's a MMO that seems to sue a similar engine to Ragnarok Online, which is part of the reason I started it. It's better though in some respects, since besides whacking stuff, you can also drill for items. For some quests this is the only way to get the stuff, and it's how some of the best equipment is found. Besides retrieval quests there's also "kill x monsters in y minutes" quests. And there's a ton of both.

It's got a touch of furry in it too, which is how I heard about it in the first place. (And dragged several people I share an IRC channel with into it.) Instead of starting as a Novice like in RO, you start as one of 8 archetypes, picking a gender and field of specialization between magic, attacking, defense, or.. well, it's hard to explain Sense but it's the digging and ranged field I guess. Depending on the combination you get a set of ears and tail your character wears, though you can take it off at level 20. Each field has it's own set of skills ot start with, but when 2nd jobs hit, each gender gets it's own specialized skills within the field. The far future third jobs will allow you to either specialize further, or go hybrid and get access to the skills of both genders within your field.

The official site is at http://www.tricksteronline.com/ if anyone feels like checking it out. It's also free, but once it hits official release it sounds like it'll be like what I've heard of Maple Story; free to play but with special elite items you can only buy with real cash.

GaoGaiGar Vol 1's street date is tomorrow... I've got mine already ordered but don't know when it'll come in. Everyone who's tired of the angst and wants some hotblooded super robot action should check it out! I'd change my av to a GGG one for a bit but I don't have a good one right now.

In terms of SRWOG I'm about halfway through the Ryuusei route. I fell off my pace a bit, and I've only got 18 Masteries out of 26... means I'm gonna miss out on a bit of the unlockable content but I can always play through again later.. I've got to finish this first, and on top of that I still have Kyousuke's route to play.

Some of the stuff is making me want to go back and watch the OVA for OG again... some of the connections are starting to make sense and I'm finally getting familiar with some of the characters. I still need to find a copy of ep 3 somewhere too... been waiting for T-N's but it's been months and while they will do it eventually probably, it may take forever and a day like Timeranger has, if the staff's busy with life or other things, or just doesn't want to work on it.

Haven't gotten much further in SRWOG since work's been monopolizing my time, and I've been trying to play some Trickster too. Right now I'm stuck on ep 8(The Hagane), and really wishing I hadn't landed that last Battle Mastery to bump the difficulty up to hard. <.<

And now since I've been seeing some people I'm watching pop up with this, time to join the fray.


[A is for age]
25 right now

[B is for booze of choice]
Something that actually tastes good... very little out there that I can drink just because I can taste the alcohol and don't like that taste.

[C is for career of choice]
Fixing problems and not having people get on my back about it.

[D is for your drug of choice]
Gaming and Super Robots

[E is for one essential item you use everyday]
Air(yoinked from Lord Falcone since I can't think of anything better)

[F is for favorite song at the moment]
Madan Senki Ryukendo by Psychic Lover

[G is for favorite game]
NWN, TES games, Brave Saga 1 and 2. PSOBB.

[H is for Hometown]
South Haven

[I is for instruments you play]
Cello

[J is for favorite juice]
Orange

[K is for kids]
None right now.

[L is for last hug]
Not sure offhand...

[M is for marriage?]
Not anytime soon the way things are going

[N is for nickname]
Swifty, Fox on most non-furry IRC, Llew sometimes.

[O is for number of overnight hospital stays]
None, thank goodness

[P is for phobias]
Let's jsut say I ahve a bit of an overactive imagination, so like when I'm cruising alongside a concrete divider at 80 sometiems I can't help imagining what it'd be like to ram into it at that speed... x.o

[Q is for quote]
"Courage can turn 1% into 100%!" - Shishioh Guy, GaoGaiGar

[R is for biggest regret]
Right now I'd say not seriously looking for work while I was in college. x.o

[S is for singing]
Only if it's a hotblooded Super Robot(or toku) song, and/or I'm cruising down the road with some good music

[T is for time you woke up]
5-6am lately, even when I've tried to sleep in x.x

[U is for underwear]
Briefs. :P

[V is for vegetable you love]
None really. Meat all the way. Though I will do tomatoes rarely on things like tacos and pizza. And I do like Black-eye Peas.

[W is for worst habit]
Procrastination(also yoinked from Falcone, because it fits and I can't think of anything else at the moment)

[X is for number of x-rays you've got]
Enough.

[Y is for yummy food you make]
Macaroni and Cheese with Tuna. <.<

[Z is for zodiac sign]
Cancer, both Sunsign and Moonsign, with Leo rising.

Finally found Super Robot Taisen Original Generation earlier today. It's my first "real" SRW game. I never got to play any of the original ones, but I have played both Brave Saga games which used a similar system, just with a different pool of units.

I'm taking the SRX route first, since it's the closest thing to a "Super Robot" route there is in OG, it looks to me. I'm up to Episode 7 now, and got a feeling I'm really gonna like Ryuusei. Latooni reminds me a lot of Max Jenius from Macross. I'm mostly sitting on my money waiting for the R-units to show up before I do any upgrades. Also managed to get Battle Mastery on 4 of the 6 scenarios I've done so far.. would have been 5 but I didn't check it until I was too far in that first scenario to go for it and I didn't want to restart.

SPOILER SPACE







Other than having a little trouble keeping track of the alphabet soup of the organization names, the story seems to be going pretty good so far, and seems seperate from the other SRWs completely. (SRX was in SRW@ at least, and the units aren't even complete yet, or at least aren't in the hands of the SRX team yet.) I had Psybuster/Cybuster pop up once, but it didn't stick around yet. :/ That's one unit I'm looking forward to joining after seeing it in action in the OVA. From what I remember hearing the OVA takes place after OG2, which isn't out yet, so I'll probably re-watch after getting and playing through OG2.

Welp things can never seem to run quite perfect.

Toe's pretty much healed now, apart from some sort of callus or toenailstuff on top fo where that raised area was, but on the other hand It's Wednesday night and I still haven't gotten in to work this week, because management still hasn't decided whose computers we're going to work on next. Hopefully we'll finally get called in Thursday, but at this rate it's looking like I'll be lucky to get in at all thsi week. >.< I need the money too. :/

Because of someone else who reminded me about it, I finally got Pokemon Leaf Green and a SP a couple weeks ago. Blast from the past, but with some new stuff to boot. (I only ever played the original Blue.) Beat the Elite 4 several days ago, and the past few I've basically instituted an Eevee eugenics program. MWahahahaha.. er.. *cough* Anyways... beofore I go back for part 2 I'm breeding and training a team I specifically put together, rather than the ad hoc one I developed through the first part of the game, There's so much stuff now to think about it compared to the old days it makes my head hurt a little. x.x

Oh, and less than a month to GaoGaiGar Vol 1 on DVD in the US o/ *does the happy chakat dance* Everyone who likes giant robots and good old-fashioned hotblooded action must watch! *nod*

Warning: icky stuff below.


I know the inanimate seems to be perverse, but now it seems even my own body doesn't like me lately.

Tuseday or so I found a toenail that was slightly ingrown had decided to get infected... and I just started a job where so far we've been doing 10 hour days on average, and I'm up and down moving computers. After a hour-15 drive either way(not to mention my brakes seem to be acting up a bit >.<).

I've been doing stuff to it the entire rest of the week(mostly cleaning it with peroxide, then slapping Neosporin and a Baind-aid on it), and so far while the swelling has mostly gone away, apart from a weird raised area along the side, it's still a bruised color along almost the entire area along the side of the nail, and part of the front of the toe. (I did accidently cut myself along the side a bit cleaning it a couple days back and the bleeding seemed to help it a bit, oddly.) The last couple days I started doing alcohol on it too, which stung like hell, but helped I think.. but tomorrow I go back to more 12-13 hour days(with driving) on that foot. Wearing socks and dress-ish shoes.

On top of that I don't have health insurance currently(as it's a contract job and doesn't provide benefits), and my paycheck isn't until the end of the week so I don't have the money to go see a doctor about it either yet. >.<

Sometimes, I really hate my body....

Well, after one last long session, I've finally finished the Heroes of Might and Magic 3 campaign.

Ironically, despite the time I put into it (mostly character-building since I could carry the same heroes on) on the last couple scenarios, the final scenario was a bit anti-climactic. Frankly that whole final section of the campaign was a bit anti-climactic difficulty-wise compared to a couple of the previous ones.

You start out on a medium-size map, with three partially-built cities to their two. I had most of the rest of the structures finished by the end of Week 1.(Though they were about as far along too.)

Two of my three "main" heroes from the previous two scenarios were what really clinched it in a way. One of them had a specialty that made him move very fast overworld, and the other had a spell that with his skills allowed him to teleport between any of my cities.

On the third week the computer was starting to poke its nose into my territory, at the same time I decided to take my Rampart(think elves and forest critters) ramrod and shove it up their cities. Blew through the token garrison, and took the city the next day.

I've got no clue where the rest of the computer's forces were, because after a day to consolidate, and one more day where I ran out of movement just short, I had its remaining city as well, and it never counterattacked either of them. I only ever saw two heroes on the surface during that time, when I know there were at least three or four.

In the end, all I saw within the week, before it lost due to lack of cities, was a single attack against one of my original cities. That ended up soundly defeated thanks to a warped-in battle force by my secondary hero. It was kind of disappointing since I know there was a stronger force out there somewhere.

On the upside, the ending movie had a very nice twist to it. Very ironic, but fun.

... and strangely I never noticed how Erathia is a play on the word Earth before now. o.o

For some reason I was feeling a bit nostalgic for Heroes of Might and Magic 3(the only one I've ever played) and dug it out. Last time I only finished the good-aligned initial campaign, and got stuck on the last mission of the evil one due to the time limit. My save games were long gone, so I started anew.

Let me say this.. don't bother playing it unless you've got a -lot- of time on your hands. I think it's taken me at least 60 hours to finish just the three initial campaigns. The last mission of the neutral campaign was at least 12 hours in itself.

Of course now it's unlocked 2 more of what looks to be 3 campaigns left and I don't know which one to do... The necro one intrigues me but it has a time limit... I HATE time limits. x.o

Also due to some internal mess that needs cleaning, the next job I was going to work on got pushed back... Downside: it'll be longer until I can make more money. Upside: I won't have to work on my birthday, which is in a bit over a week, and I have the time to try these new HoMM3 campaigns.

On the toy front, got the Revoltech Getter-1 figure. It's nice for it's price, but the plastic around the holes(for the stand and the hand-swapping) feels a bit soft, and one of the Getter Wing attachments doesn't like to stay on, since it's jsut a couple bumps that go into a couple holes that holds it on.. and not even tightly.

Wal-Mart also needs to get its act together on the Titantium Battlestar Galactica figures. It's the only place I've been able to find any, it's always very few, and always mixed in with the Star Wars instead of on their own rack. Of course that also means they don't get restocked much (since the Star Wars ones aren't selling and clogging the shelf) so I can't find a single Viper figure. >.< At least I managed to find a Galactica...

Title's in referance to a certain comic strip(http://www.adultimum.net/rw/185.htm).

Well that job's over, now it's time to find the next one I guess. It went decent enough, in the end. Just wish it'd paid better, but can't expect too much for that kind of job. The previous rant was probably the worst of the days.. and/or I'd gotten a bit more used to the longer hours by now.

There's another slight variant of my SL av in the works... once it's done I'll probably put up a couple pics for comparision, if I can find a good spot. The rear legs work right, but at the cost of not being as compatible with any given animation or pose as the other, so I'm not gonna ditch my original just yet. ;3

While I'm on the topic of SL, let me say being popular isn't all it's cracked up to be. For a bit after I first became a chakat, it seemed like eveywhere I went I was drawing everyone's attention, like it or not. It felt a bit smothering in some respects, and a bit uncomfortable at times. I still get that a bit, but less so now, at least, and usually not enough to bug me. On a side note, I do sometimes wish that when people address me as "Chakat" rather than by name that I knew whether they were doing it because that's what I am, or they were confused and thinking that's my first name.

And in passing, let me say that it's ironic how one can have quite a few friends, yet still feel lonely at times.

I guess I might as well break this in, since I need to bitch a bit somewhere.

I finally landed my first real job/contract(that lasted longer than a day) yesterday, as part of a computer migration team. Yesterday went pretty smooth, almost too smooth... well, not today.

First on my way to the site, I almost get in an accident. I was turning right, guy coming the other way was trying to turn left onto the same side of the road. All I can say is thank goodness I had good brakes and good reflexes, since I got away(barely) without a scratch.

Finally I get there, and find that where we should have had 6 people to do 30 computers(we had 4 for 17 yesterday) we had 3. The lead jumped in at least to help us get it done.

Then working on my 7, one of them decides to be ornery and not see the network shares. We eventually got the imaging to work an hour after the other 6 I was doing were done.

THEN when I'm working on setting up the new system for the same person, and go to log into Active Directory for the first time, we find out the person changed their password without notifying anyone, and all the people who could do something about it were gone, so I had to take down the new system and put the old one back up again.

Finally, when I left 2 hours after we were supposed to be done for the day, one guy had 2 computers left(one of which was almsot done at least), another had only 3 of his 7 or so done, and I don't know how many our lead had left. I helped clean up most of the junk though and cart the old systems down to storage before I left.

My feet ache, my back already aches a little, and I know it's going to bug me way worse after I get up. Ah, the joys of IT. Maybe I should have gone into programming like my prof suggested way back when...

At least it's money in the bank. (Once I get the paperwork they sent late filled out anyways >.< )