We're building up a structure for the raffle system. Basically there's going to be a form that everyone present puts their name and email into and I'm using a randomizer to pick someone from. The form will be cleared hourly so you will manually have to enter the raffle every hour, and with names and emails I can confirm that you donated and aren't just there for a free shiny. It's a slightly kludgy system, but it enables us to verify who is who and also allows someone to opt out of a prize, like if we're giving away a PC only game and you're a Mac user, or you already own the game up for raffle.

The Viscera slots are also open for auction and you can bid on one of them here: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/14720249/

As the description states, the auction will end 12:AM on Saturday unless there's a bid war, then I'll wait until that's ended. Also, you will need to own a copy of the game to join in, which you can purchase on Steam here: http://store.steampowered.com/app/246900/ Winning does not mean you'll get a free copy. I know it's a silly thing that needs stating, but after last year when someone got upset that we wouldn't provide a $20 game because of their $5 donation, I want to make it clear now.

As I type this, we are a mere $290 from being forced to drink from the pink unicorn chalice all weekend. If we make another $1000 on top of that before streamtime, we all have to swill Ron Jeremy Rum. If we make 5K BEFORE the stream, you get TWO custom Amnesia stories and not just Late Night Drink.

All info is available here: http://little-tales.com/kitties/ And thank you everyone for your amazing support so far.

Here's how October is going to go down...

I will be dual-streaming with Vinci every Wednesday (1st, 8th, 16th, 22nd) this month, and also on the 10th. I will be dual streaming with Fox and Merri on the 4th and the 18th.

October will be extremely busy for me in that I am prepping for Gaming for Kitties. I am still accepting raffle prizes. My goal is to have fifty items so I can raffle something off every hour. You guys ARE going to keep me going to fifty hours, right?

The Viscera Cleanup Detail auction will happen here on October 5th. The way it will happen is that I will put ten slots up for auction for two different games. The winner then donates their auctioned amount to the kitties site. Bidding will close on the 12th. And you are more than welcome to gift your winning slot to someone if you feel so inclined.

Since this was a point of consternation last year let me make it clear, you will need to own the game if you want to bid on a slot. Winning does not include a free copy of it. Last year we had someone pitch a fit that they didn't get a free copy of the game we were playing. So I'm clarifying that now. You can purchase it on steam right here: http://store.steampowered.com/app/246900/

For more information and a list of games I'm planning to play and raffle prices (as well as a link to the donation site) go here: http://little-tales.com/kitties/

I will be dual streaming with Vinci tonight at the usual time. You can catch it here: http://saucepls.info/stream/

Tomorrow (thursday) Vinci will be streaming with Foxena, and then with me again on Friday, same site and all that fun stuff.

Catch you there!

P.S. Prelim web page for kitties is up at http://little-tales.com/kitties/

The next dual stream with Foxena will be on September 13th, and since I have plans on the 27th we're going to go ahead and probably do a make up one either the week before (Sept 20th) or the week after (October 4th). Unless someone buys me for the night or needs a special side stream there should be no other interruptions until Kitties on October 25-26th.

Those of you who don't know my stream schedule, I usually stream at 8PM EST on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday over at http://littletales.tigerdile.com If you show up 15-30 minutes early you'll catch my preshow, which are fun videos I share for folks waiting for the art stream to start.

If you would like more info on Kitties, check out these FA journal posts: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/5992625/ and http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6062368/

I'll have a web page up regarding it soon.

As an aside and on a slightly more quiet note, I ask that folks pardon me if I seem a little quiet or withdrawn or just not all there this month. September is a month where a lot of bad things have happened to me (family deaths, pets, other tragic news and events) and so I usually spend the month feeling like I have a sword dangling over me. This is a polite way of me requesting that you not bring anymore drama to my table if you possibly can. I'm not a wreck, but I am particularly tender until the month is over. Thank you for your understanding.

I'm going to be reminding you guys of this a lot, but plans for Gaming for Kitties this October continue!

Firstly, I have put the money forward and purchased a huge batch of wristbands. You know the bands I give out to folks at Megaplex like these: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/13952447/ Everyone who donates at least $10 (and gives me an address) will get one. They're tiger orange with the words 'Gaming for Kitties 2014' on one side and 'I Didn't Let Gen Sleep' on the other. I bought two hundred of them and would love it if I ran out. Can you folks make sure I run out?

Folks are already donating raffle prizes.  arisuvixen has donated a copy of FFVII for the PS1 (Correct me if I'm wrong, Arisu!) and  shupshe is donating a beautiful light table.

I also currently have an unopened copy of Farcry 3 for the PS3, Final Fantasy XIII for the PS3, an adorable tin Tigger lunchbox that looks like this: http://bit.ly/1rzubhZ , A plush tiger that growls when you squeeze it, and a plush scabbers.

If you would like to donate raffle items let me know. What I plan to do is give the mailing address of the raffle prize dinner to the person with the item so they can mail it to them instead of to me just to save on postage.

I plan to offer the raffle items every few hours during the stream to people present plus some offstream offerings for people who can't make it. And as a reminder, EVERYBODY who donates at least $10 will get a wristband.

As an extra added bonus,  foxenawolf is confirmed to be here during the event. I'll try to get her in on some Viscera Cleanup Detail action for fun and if we make my $2000 goal BEFORE the stream starts, SHE will be in a Kigurumi too!

Gaming for Kitties begins October 25th at 12:01AM and will continue until I either fear for my personal health or until donations stop. Donations open and start on October 1st do you have plenty of time to get me to that 2K goal.

This is shaping up to be the biggest and most spectacular Gaming for Kitties yet. We made almost $6000 last year and I want to make $10,000 this year. Think you guys can help me do that?

Also the current tenative gamelist for it is:

Viscera Cleanup Detail - Two games, ten slots total auctioned off for multiplayer.
Octodad: Dadliest Catch
The Last Door
Typing of the Dead: Overkill - One slot for multiplayer auction
Among the Sleep
Shelter
Wolf Among Us
Little Inferno

I may add or subtract games. The main focus are games that will be entertaining to watch me play. You can 'vote' for games through donations.

Regarding kitties, I am tentatively scheduling Gaming for Kitties 2014 for October 25-26th. Our Tier one goal will be $2,000 this year and if we make that goal BEFORE the stream I will do the entire thing in a Kigurumi. This year I'll be a red panda, and I may put my helpers in Panda Kigus as well. As always, for every $100 we go over goal I will play for an extra hour.

Instead of Left 4 Dead 2 I will be multplaying Viscera Cleanup Detail with five people in two different games. That's ten slots total that I will auction off for folks.

Razoo, the site I use for donations, now accepts Paypal. And all your donations are TAX DEDUCTIBLE. This year I will be contacting BCR and seeing if I can arrange for a third party to match our donations as well. Last year we made almost $6000, and if we can get someone to match that, it means $12,000 for the kitties!

This year for donation incentives I will have an exclusive set of wristbands made up, like the ones I gave away at Megaplex, for anyone who donates over $10. I plan to offer artwork, games, and many other fun prizes as well. If you would like to contribute to the gift pool, let me know!

More details as we get closer to October, but I wanted to get the word out so you gave plenty of time to save up and try to break me ;)

As a reminder, whenever FA is down you can be notified of streams multiple ways.

You can subscribe to my twitter feed: https://twitter.com/littletales

You can subscribe to my Steam group (you get a popup at stream time): http://steamcommunity.com/groups/Little-Tales

You can subscribe to my stream at Tigerdile and get an email near Streamtime (scroll to the bottom of the page and click the 'subscribe' button. You'll need to be logged in!): https://www.tigerdile.com/stream/littletales/

And I'll be dual streaming with Merri and Fox on Saturday from 5PM EST to midnight. Hope to see you there!

Before anything I'd like to thank all the people who came down. It was a pleasure meeting you all. I apologize for the lack of a room this year for the LT gathering but I think we did okay for what we had. Everyone who made it, it was great seeing you.

I'm sorry I wasn't able to do a lot of the things I'd wanted to do with folks, but we had a few con related fires to put out and some minor issues that needed some scrambling to manage. Thankfully it was nothing horrifying but it had me busy and distracted for most of Friday and part of Saturday.

I'm going to need a bit to recover and try to get my energy back and may take next week off of streams. I *WILL* be streaming this Saturday with Merrihop and Foxena though for our usual dual comic streams.

Next year Megaplex will be July 31-Aug 2nd. The guests or honor are  fablefire (whom you probably know from her amazing shirts on Woot) and  fizzotter who does amazing things with lasers. The theme is Cops and Robbers. I hope you guys can make it!

For those of you who are going to be there, please check out the  megaplex FA account for info. In particular please read this journal entry: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/5955957/ (Someone suggested to them that personal humiliation is a great way to get money for charity. Show them that they're right and there might be more!)

Secondly, as a reminder there will be no more streams from me until August. I will also effectively be AFK until July 30th, so emails or other things will be difficult for me to manage as I will be away from my computer most of that time. If you need to talk to me, please wait until August 1st.

If you are going to be at Megaplex, stop by my table if you want to pick up things like preordered badges or cards I'm holding for you. If you are a regular in my channel or a friend of the Little Tales crew I am happy to offer you a wristband.

We don't have a room for the gathering this year but a gathering *IS* planned at 7PM on SUNDAY. I'll share details of where during the convention.

Quick note on my schedule for July...

I will stream July 7th, 9th, 11th, and 12th. And then no more streams until August. I need to get owed work finished before the con and the badges made up. You can still preorder badges until July 16th, and then your best bet is to pick something up at the con.

You may preorder a Megaplex badge here: http://littletales.storenvy.com/pro.....lsize-preorder

July 9th will be a dual stream with Jonas, July 12th will be a dual stream with Fox and Merri.

If you want more info om Megaplex, visit the website at http://www.megaplexcon.org/

I have ordered this year's wristbands and would like to thank the people who donated on Saturday to help me cover the sudden expediting fee I needed to pay to make sure the bands made it by the convention. This year's batch of bands are a golden orange/yellow with black text. They glow in the dark.


And now, I present you with the Megaplex Meme, slightly altered for my convenience.

Arrival and Departure:
Arriving Thursday evening, leaving Monday morning.

Staying at:
The Marriott

How are you getting there?
Driving. I live in Florida.

Room Share:
Sharing with Foxena and Merrihop. No room for more, sorry.

Major Plans at the Con:
Run the dealer's den, draw my face off. Little Tales meetup Sunday evening.

Who Will I be with?
Merrihop, Foxena, and the Little Tales Crew

Where are you most likely to be found?
I run the Dealer's Den at Megaplex, so if you want to find me just look in there.

Drink:
Water, Coca-Cola, Absinthe. I don't like rootbeer (Every con someone gives me rootbeer, and I feel bad as I always turn it down. Did someone start a rumor that I liked it or something?)

Also, I don't drink alcohol in public.

Hugs:
Please ask first. I'll probably say yes.

Art:
That's what I'm there for.

Do you do trades?
Not during conventions.

Can I buy you lots of drinks?
Non alcoholic. See preferences above.

Can I give you lots of money?
You can buy things from me, yes.

Can I hug or snuggle with you?
Didn't I answer this? Ask for hugs, and Uriel has exclusive snuggle rights.

How tall are you?
I'm not. (5'2”)

Are you nice?
Lawful good, not lawful nice. Basically, I try to be nice but I'm not a doormat. If you say/do something rude I'll call you on it.

I also have a general standing offer for folks, if you're nervous about meeting me and talking to me, just tell me, I am extremely good at breaking the ice.

Are you cliquey?
Who wrote these, a middle school student? Actually, don't answer that...
People who throw the worse 'clique' around to indicate folks who don't include them are often the folks who make themselves unwanted. The only 'clique' I'm part of are the Little Tales folks, and we're a darn inclusive bunch. If you're nice and respectful to me, I will be nice and respectful to you. If you play passive-aggressive games or whine or act entitled, then I will respectfully show you the fastest route away from me.

Shorter version... You nice = Me nice You bad = Me bad

If I see you, how should I get your attention?
I answer to 'Gen', just come up and say, “Hey Gen!” and introduce yourself. Also, if you are nervous about meeting me just say so. I'm very good at helping people to feel comfortable around me.

Do you do free art?
I don't have time to, sorry.

Will you take commissions?
Hoooooooyeah.

What is your age?
I'll be hitting the big 40 fairly soon after the con.

What is your gender?
I'm a woman.

Can I share or make conversations with you?
Of course, although remember that I am convention staff and will be working, so mind monopolizing my time. If you want an extended convo during dealer's hours I may ask you to step aside so you don't block my table.

Are you taken? Are you looking for a 'mate'?
I'm coming up on two decades of marriage to Uriel, and we're monogamous. So.... taken, not looking. Also, having gone through two months of prenup classes and coughing up fifty bucks for a marriage license, I prefer that you refer to Uriel as my husband as opposed to my 'mate'. (A minor thing about fandom habits that annoy me. I also dislike words like 'PopuFur' and such)

What other cons are you going to?
For the foreseeable future, Megaplex is it.

Can I take pictures with you?
Ask first.

Streams resume tonight! No dual stream as Jonas is taking some time off.

Preshow starts at 7:35 EST, art starts at 8PM EST.

https://www.tigerdile.com/stream/littletales/

I'm taking tonight off as well. I'm at 80% right now, but that means that I could easily knock myself down to less if I push things too hard, so I've decided to add one more day off to this week's schedule.

So I will stream on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. There will be no dual stream with Jonas on Wednesday, but I will be dual streaming with Fox on Saturday.

Sorry it's taking me so long to recover, folks. This cold is just wringing me out.

Tonight starting at 5PM EST we will be dual streaming and potentially triple streaming with Fox and Jonas. She does overlord comics for donations, and we will draw commissions.

Next week I will NOT be streaming with the exception of Friday. I need to get Year Six to the printers by Friday and I'm devoting the week to getting the layouts and such done. Year six along with some other goodies will be available at Megaplex!

Just a warning. I appear to have come down with a nasty strain of cold/flu/plague and as I have no desire to get the copious amounts of mucus I'm currently coughing up all over your nice artwork, I may hold back on streams until I get better.

Bless husbands who get ice cream and bless NyQuil.

What the subject says. I'm back. Thank you all for not breaking anything.

I will be streaming tonight although may be a little slow and out of it. I've spent several rushed days in a car and on crowded planes and uncomfortable hotel rooms. I'll give the story during the stream.

Give me some time to catch up on majorly backed up emails and a bit of rest and recovery time and I'll try to get back with everyone.

But most importantly, Congrats to our dearest Merrihop for her nuptuals. She's off on her honeymoon but the wedding was beautiful and I'm sure she will have a bajillion photos to share when she gets back.

You totally missed out on some awesome cupcakes though. OMGNOM.

As a reminder to folks, I will be out of town until Monday, June 9th. I will have internet access via phone and tablet but I am going to be extremely busy and can't really deal with most things until I get back. If you have something you need to talk to me about, please wait until Monday to do so. I'll be watching the various streams and media and such in case someone thinks that they can cause trouble while my back is turned, but I'd really like to have a peaceful vacation if at all possible.

No stream Friday. See you on Monday!

Firstly, thank you all so much for your support during yesterday's marathon. Double thanks to those who donated. I apologize for flagging, but as folks probably were able to tell, I'm not at peak health at the moment. Fighting the infection from the bite and living in a boiling house taxed me and I'm only now recovering.

Secondly, I will only be streaming on Monday this week as I am going to be traveling out of town later in the week. Fox will be handling the dual streaming with Jonas this week, so if you want to see the chibi stream, go hit him up. We're tossing around lots of ideas for themes and I hope that Wednesday is a fun one for you folks.

This also means no stream on Friday, but if someone wants to pick up the slack, feel free.

I will have limited internet access via my phone but nothing huge, so if there's an issue you need to contact me regarding while I'm away, you'll need to wait until I return.

Streaming will resume on Monday, the 9th.

TL;DR: Streaming Monday June 2nd, No more streams until the 9th. Also will be out of town from the 5th to the 8th.

Dealing with the injury and infection in my hand, plus the tetanus shot, plus my house being 90+ degrees for almost three days has drained me, so I'm going to rest tonight and take the night off of streaming.

Good news, they were able to fix the A/C unit as opposed to needing to replace the whole thing (which would have run me a grand at minimum) But it did end up costing more than I was quite able to afford so tomorrow at around noon EST I will do a mini gaming marathon to help me recover expenses.

Saying that, I know we're all broke these days, so if you just want to join in and have fun, that's just fine. I need a day of just goofing off to try and recover from the week I just had, regardless. So why not share it online with you folks?

We can try another round of Viscera, and I'd like to give Artemis another go if folks are amicable. I also have a few other games in mind and I'm open to suggestions.

Probably going to run from noon until midnight. (EST... for those of you who don't grok timezones, go here and do the work yourself. I'm in the same time zone as New York: http://www.timezoneconverter.com/cgi-bin/tzc.tzc )

If you want to toss something into the tip jar, go here: http://bit.ly/genbooze

And I will swig the green stuff while gaming if you really want me to.

(I hate making whiny posts like this, but this is one of those cases where I think I need to bite the bullet.)

I think I made the mistake of chanting the words "Well, it could always be worse...."

Besides the cat bite (which is healing) and the minor medical bills involved with that, I woke up yesterday to find my air conditioner had stopped working. I live in Florida and the current daily highs are in the nineties. Consequently, this is not an issue I can put off if I want to not die of heatstroke. The tiny amount of sleep I got last night was horrible, so if I want to have any hope of being functional, I need to handle this.

The workmen are coming by hopefully today. From the symptoms, it could be something as minor as needing the refrigerant topped off and a leak patched to needing a whole new condenser. The former shouldn't be so bad, the latter could run a bit higher.

If the replacement turns out to be expensive, would folks be amicable to the idea of a video game marathon this weekend? I'm not asking for folks to cover every penny of my situation, but my savings are still a bit strained after the computer repairs last month. I'll be happy to do some multiplayer and other fun things.

This is all potential right now, but I thought I'd get word out now.

Also, there is a good chance I won't be streaming tomorrow. My health has been very negatively impacted by two days in a 90+ degree house (That's 30+ for you celsius folks) and I may need to take a break to try and recover.

The repairmen will be by soon, and I'll see about updating folks then.

Mugsy chomped my hand last night (I'd caught him digging through the trash, and in the process of soaking his head he bit me) and about twelve hours after I noticed that it was feeling stiff and sore. I'd washed the wound out thoroughly and applied antibiotic ointment to it, but cat bites are one of those iffy things you need to be careful about so I opted to go to the walk-in clinic today juuuust in case. I got a tetanus shot and a round of antibiotics so I'm good. But my hand is sore which is why I didn't stream Watchdogs tonight.

I'll still be streaming with Jonas tomorrow night, but I may need to take it slow depending on how stiff my hand still feels.

For the people attending Megaplex, we are in need of volunteers, especially in security. If you think you can handle sitting down for an hour and making sure that the people who walk past you are all wearing badges, then you can handle security.

As an added bonus, you get credit and can get a discounted or free membership for Megaplex next year, plus it's a really good way to get to know the con staff.

If you would like to apply, please go here: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/5796268/

No major changes, fear not.

This is a reminder that on Saturday, May 24th, I will be dual streaming with Fox. I'll probably be doing some Megaplex badges which you can preorder here: http://littletales.storenvy.com/pro.....lsize-preorder

I'll probably be taking tips for swigs of absinthe again, since it went over so well last time.

Jonas is going to continue Chibi night on May 28th, and you can vote on the theme of the next one. Do we continue movie night or do a 1980's themed night? Vote here: http://strawpoll.me/1736721

I don't know if I'll be available to stream on June 4th as I need to be up very early for an appointment the next day, and I will not be streaming on the 6th as I'll be out of town. But other than that I should be in the clear.

I WILL need to take some days off in June to finish the layouts to Year Six. I am also working on some extra special book volumes that will debut at Megaplex. But for now, they shall be a secret.

See you next stream!

(I haven't written a helpful post like this in awhile, and we had a minor incident over the weekend so I thought I'd take the opportunity to write this up while it was fresh in my mind.)

The move to Tigerdile has been amazing, on Livestream we had some deliberate trolls who would pop in just to taunt the furries. Since Tigerdile is a furry service it's a little more obscure and there have not been even a fraction of those problems. Saying that, there HAVE been a couple of troublemakers and it's made me want to write about something I think a lot of geeks forget.

Whenever I talk with someone about managing someone in stream, more often than not they're hesitant to bring the hammer down. The line I hear the most is “Well, they aren't EXACTLY breaking any rules....”

One of the most common ways someone trolls these days is to skirt the rules. They will say little passive-aggressive and snide remarks that, if they get called out on, they will very quickly say they were 'just teasing' or 'just being friendly'. A common tactic of the troublemaker is to rapidly play the card that they were trying to do good, and you just happened to take it the wrong way and now they feel terrible about it and it's all your fault. I am honestly amazed at how often I see this tactic played, really. It's like watching a child deliberately smash something valuable, and when you yell at them they scream about how you hurt their feelings for raising your voice at them.

Intent is a pretty obvious thing. I can tell with pretty good accuracy when someone is there to cause trouble by the first couple of things they say when they show up. Sometimes I can tell by their username (If you have a name like 'IamATroll' then you should not be shocked if someone instantly bans you, just saying). So when someone strolls in with a plain enough intent to be annoying, then you shouldn't have to have a specific rule about it. You should just deal with them.

What I advise people is to treat their channel like their house. If you allow someone into your house and they make the gathering you're having disruptive for everyone then you have the right to kick them out. You let people into your house by your good graces, but nobody but the house owner has the RIGHT to be there, and if a guest in your house purposely starts smashing things they shouldn't have the right to invoke a “Well, nobody told me I COULDN'T smash things!” defense.

I tell people not to be afraid to put their foot down. Don't be a tyrant about it, but mind the intent. Everyone makes mistakes, but you can tell pretty easily when someone is knocking over things on purpose. And letting them get away with it just lets other folks know they can knock stuff over too.

Please note, these are for PICKUP ONLY. I have the store set to not charge shipping, so if you can't make the con, don't choose this option.

Saying that, if you want a badge for Megaplex, clicketh here: http://littletales.storenvy.com/pro.....lsize-preorder

Firstly and most importantly, all computer issues have been resolved. I will be streaming normally once more and will be resuming dual streams with Fox and Wednesday Streams with Jonas. We *might* do an additional stream this Sunday for the holiday, but that depends on our respective availabilities.

Computer is settled in with minimal headaches. I'm having to do some minor tweaking and customizing but for the most part everything is green lights. Mostly I was getting some glitches here and there and needed to tweak the graphical settings until things were the way I wanted them to be.

I won't go into specific system specs because usually whenever I mention specific computer parts someone invariably tells me I bought the wrong parts, but I will say that the new bits are sleek and pretty. Uriel also got my hand-me-down graphics cards (I'm fond of SLI so I use two) and he's had a performance improvement on his system as well. What this means is that future charity streams will be sleek and pretty.

I want to thank everyone yet again for being patient with me. In the grand scheme of things I was probably better off being offline for part of April as that marked a year that I lost Liana and I spent a few of those days feeling rather down. I'm still trying to find my center again as April was a frazzling month, but I appreciate that all of you were understanding and didn't add anything to that burden.

As a final note, Little Tales is going to update Monday through Friday for this week and perhaps the next. It's my way of saying thank you.

I picked it up from Tigerdirect yesterday and after a few snags setting it back up (I have a tricky setup with three monitors, one of which is a tablet, multiple headphones as well as two webcams). I had to re-verify my copy of Windows because of the hardware changes, but this is all basically polish. The big stuff like switching out the new motherboard and getting the hardware in and working has been handled.

There's a few things I want to tweak about the system still, but those are things I can handle. Mostly I'd like to get a couple more fans in the case to help with heat regulation as I lost the old motherboard to overheating, but nothing is in the red zone yet.

My machine is now nice and powerful. And although I can make no promises for future bugs, the major ones have been dealt with and we're functional again with no future downtime in sight.

What all of this means is that I'm back. Thank you all for being patient.