I haven't updated in almost three weeks and no wonder. No one commented on my last journal, nada, zero, nothing, totally zip. This makes sad dragon sadder. Does anyone read these things?

Well, in case there are a couple of people that manage to read this, I have a few things to update.

Lets start with my workplace. Finally got that meeting done after getting postpone like 9 times. Had to rush through it in record time, like half of usually time it takes. The window of opportunity to have it was short and it was last minute to get everyone together. Only two people didn't make it but all the usual suspects there. Despite the rush, we did covered a lot. The meeting are typically monthly and it been three months since the last. It was good finally getting that out of the way.

In general, my workload have dropped as the year winding down. I did have a few of those 'need it yesterday' projects but has been minimal... so far. It does break the monotony of work from time to time though I wouldn't want to over do it.

It is deep in the holiday season and one of my favorite things is to take advantage of the sales. This year have been so disappointing as the sales really sucked. Even Black Friday was a dud. Last year was better and even that wasn't all that great. Almost all of the so called deals are not better than the usual sales that been going on for months prior. And those very rare ok deals sold out so fast.

I got in a so-so deal for a 2TB external drive for just over $70US. Not too bad but not super great. I got through the ordering process before it sold out... so I thought. I received an email the next day saying they are out. The fact I wasn't all that pleased understates my mood. A so-so deal and I couldn't even get that.

That 9800GT 1GB DDR5 video card I got on last year's Black Friday still can't be beat. I bagged it at $70US and the closest thing this year is 512MB DDR3 for only $10 cheaper. What a rip. Nothing comes close in this years batch.

I also been hunting for a 8GB micro SD card with at least class 4 speed. I did find an ok sale and was able to jump on that. It came in in a few days so that came through. So far that is the only thing I got this piss poor holiday season. I still have my eyes peeled but not having my hopes up much. Some of the sales are worse than usual I been finding. Something will have to turn around a lot before I jump in again before the season ends.

One sale that was good is on that very same heatsink in mentioned in my uncommened journal previously. When I bought it, it was on sale for $20. A couple of weeks ago, I saw it at the same price but with a $10 rebate. Since I already have it (works great BTW), I didn't pounce on it. Beside, I hate doing rebates these days.

Many many years ago, I'll actually get most of my rebates. But times have changed and I stopped getting the checks in the mail. The rebate reimbursement companies are such a big scam. I just don't bother with them anymore. There need to be an investigation in these companies.

Ok, kiriban time. I have less than 250 views to go to hit 20k on my FA page. Unless I get a huge spike in views, it looks bleak to hit it this year. I hope it would be a nice Christmas present to hit that mark. Oh well, early next year is much more likely.

As stated before in my last update, if I hit that 20k milestone, I'll make my best effort to restart my 3D arts. I'll also do a quick drawing for the winner that captures a screenshot of that mark. I'll also throwing in the 800th watcher kiriban with a drawing to the winner as well. If someone manages to select my 2500th favorite, I'll do the same too. So there are three chances to get a drawing by me. Not the best prize but something at least.

Speaking of watchers, I just gain one today. Slow but there been a general uptake on the numbers of eyes. Now if I can just them out of hiding. Speak to me peoples. Don't make me hunt you all down.

Before I leave this installment, one more topic. I am still trying to promote my various channels on FurNet's IRC server. I have three channels for your chatting pleasure. My channel #the_lair is my oldest on FurNet but seems to be dying. Only a handful of people bother to go there now, which I am not exactly thrilled but it is still plodding along. I used to do quite a few sexy roll plays (RPs) there and had planned my stripshows, which was starting to get popular long ago. No sense doing it when there is no audience.

There used to be quite a few general ruckus and the like in #the_lair, nothing too violent or extreme though. That sort of thing is reserved for my #bellyofthebeast channel. If it is twisted, sick, demented and way out there, chances are it happened in my belly channel. Just about anything allowed in there and really can get on the wild side.

The number of people in there ranges from just under ten to the low 20s. It tends to vary a lot and seems to be most active late at night (US local time). As per usual in my channels, I led most of the RPs but would like to have others initiate their own more often.

Another channel I have is an old one that a few of use are trying to restart. #the_tail_underground been dead for a couple of years being revived. Not much happening of as yet but been a few interesting developments. How far and long it'll go this time remains to be seem.

If anyone want to join in on any (or all) these channels, let me know. I'll help you out connecting there. I use mIRC as my chat client but there are plenty of other software to connect to the IRC networks. In fact, IRC (internet relay chat) is my preferred way to chat as I don't like to use my IMs. IRC predates all the other usually chat clients by a couple of decades and I still like it better than the pretenders.

Oh well, that should be it on this update. If anyone left reading this, let me know. I think no one really read these, well losing people interest before the end anyway. Talk to me. Don't make me beg.

Time for some news. Well, I got in the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus Heatsink for my quadcore computer today. That thing is a beast, more then double the size of the original one. I posted some pics here:

http://imagebin.org/124617 Side by side view of the fans
http://imagebin.org/124618 Old heatsink on the motherboard
http://imagebin.org/124619 Bottom view of the heatpipes
http://imagebin.org/124620 New HS installed with the old one place on top of the video card

These pictures going to vanish in a couple of weeks, hopefully I'll have an update by then. I might submit a picture in my scraps section if there is enough interest.

And the results? Check these numbers out:

Old

CPU 97°F
MB 131°F
NB 171°F
SB 162°F


New - First started

CPU 78°F
MB 117°F
NB 151°F
SB 140°F


New - warmed up

CPU 81°F
MB 124°F
NB 175°F
SB 151°F

Pretty big difference. And the really nice thing is I got it on sale for just under $20US. Damn good deal for something that dropped the temps so much like that.

I read that some people have overclock the same i7 920 CPU from the stock clockrate of 2.66GHz to over 4GHz. I still over mine at 2.93GHz (same as a 940) even with the old heatsink. I haven't played with overclocking it more but may do so once I return to doing 3D rendering, where I really can use ever little extra speed I can. The biggest problem I am going to have is the Northbridge as that only tiny heatsink without any fan. I need to address that if I am going to push the envelope.

Unfortunately, One of the bridges is almost completely under the rather large gtx260 video card. Looks like I am going to some sort of a custom solution to squeeze a bigger heatsink there. Probably something I have to make myself. I might just machine down a Pentium or old class heatsink to it under the card. Or maybe squeeze one of those thin GPU type heatsink. But it will be a while before I'll mess with it.

At least the case in nice and large. As seen in the pictures, I have plenty of room (though barely fit the height of the new heatsink) to add a bunch of fans if need be. There is even an option of adding a second fan on the back of new heatsink, but it would be very close to the rear case fan so I don't think it'll make a huge difference. Perhaps a better idea would be some ductwork to direct the airflow better inside the case itself. We'll see when the times come.

Moving on, I somehow gained 3 FA watchers yesterday. I have no idea why as I haven't added any new submissions in over a month. I also lost one that day but gained another to say. Just weird. Now I am sitting at 727, my highest so far.

From my last journal, I announced that I'll restart my 3D arts when I hit 20k views (less than 400 to go). To prod it along, I'll also restart if I hit 800 watchers too. whatever I hit first. Probably a moot point as I believe the 20k views is going up at a higher rate (and can't go down). Throw in 2500 favs too for good measure though that one even less likely to hit before the views. Might as well cover all my bases.

I have a bit of nice news. I am on vacation for the rest of the week. Not only for T-day but also my birthday, which is the same day this year. We switched to a different paid time off (PTO) plan this year and unlike the previous ones, we have to use up all the accrued PTO days by the end of the year or lose it. So I am going to take every Friday off in addition to the T-day week and X-mas week too.

On to the last topic, my IRC channels on FurNet. Like the mini surge in my watchers, more people have been coming into my #bellyofthebeast channel of late. It gone from the low teens and below to the higher teens and even into the low twenties. Again, not sure why the extra intake but I like it anyway, though the new people (along with most of the idlers) are awfully quiet.

My other channel #the_lair is not so fortunate. Seems the attendance there is dropping to new low levels. Talk about the tale of two channels. To think it was hitting close to ten people in the lair just a few months ago and now almost everyone vanished. If I can figure out why all this is happening, maybe I can do something positive to fix it.

Well, that is the installment this time. Hopefully the next update won't take too long. And it'll be good news too. That'll be awesome... if it happens.

P.S. I forgot to mention about my the fingers I burnt last time. They almost completely healed now. My thumb and index finger both had a blister about a quarter inch in area that I thought would pop but they didn't. Instead the pair went down on their own. Still the spots are deformed slightly but should totally vanish eventually I am sure.

Well, I haven't updated in along time but I'll try to be brief (yeah right, like that ever happen). First I want to say "Yay!, I have less than 500 views to go to hit 20k on my FA page!" *The dragon runs around with his arms flailing in joy, running into a wall and make a nice dragon-shaped hole in it.* Oops, got a bit over excited for a moment there.

Anyway *Dusts himself off* I hoped to hit that mark by my birthday coming up on the 25th (Edit:Fixed) of this month (Hint hint, nudge nudge.) Forty two billion years in existence too and I am starting to feel old. Huh? What? oh... yeah, Forty two billion years in existence too and I am starting to feel old. Huh? What? oh wait, I think I said something about my birthday coming up near the end of the month. Probably won't get anything as usually, not even spankings.

Going back to the race to 20k pageviews, I estimate hitting it early in the upcoming year based on the current rate. I plan to do a kiriban contest when I get closer. And to sweeten the pot some more, I promise to do a concerted effort to restart my 3D arts... finally. Hopefully that would give a boost (Not likely but what the hey, worth a shot).

At least the pageview count can't go down, unlike my watch list. I been hovering around 718 (reached that like 6 times) with it going up and down. Then it settled down a good while before bursting upward again. No idea why but it was nice though I did lost one. It now park itself at 723, my highest so far. It'll probably bounce up and down again as usual.

Back when I was doing 3D art, the number was shooting up quite fast. If I didn't had to stop the 3D stuff, I would be over 3000 at the rate it was climbing back then. But alas I had all that drama and killed what I had going. My 2D and writings had garnered far less interest but that how it is. Animations, especially 3D ones, are more popular. Understandable as I love animations as well.

Let take about Halloween that just passed. I wanted to do a special pic like last year ( http://www.furaffinity.net/view/2982082/ ) but couldn't get in the mood for it. I did a three part gore vore series that I really liked. For those who missed it, here are the links;

Page 1: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4065999/
Page 2: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4576698/
Page 3: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4649635/

I got over 1000 views on the first one. Yay! *Runs around with flailing arms again, making another dragon-shaped hole in a wall next to the other one.* Ow, I did it again. Well, haven't done that many views for a long long, a couple of years methinks.

The other two got less than half that each. I guess I scared the others off... like I tend to do. I am a nice and friendly dragon... that eat people. *shrugs.* Let's move on before I freak out too many more people.

My youngest brother still at the nursing home though he is moving around a bit better. Still needs the walker and wheelchair though. Still smoking too that dolt. Oh well, he lacks the willpower to stop despite it not helping him at all with his numerous medical problems.

Switching gears (hehe, no pun intended) I been working on my car for the last couple of weekends. The Trans Am's power steering pump leaks like a sieve and the steering box has a crack in it, so I went to the salvage yard and picked up both components as well as a replacement for the cracked electric radiator fan holder.

The steering box went in without too much problem though the separating the Pittman arm from the center drag link took some doing but that was expected. The pump, however, was a huge bitch. That drove me crazy... well, crazier. I finally had to end up using an old one I happen to have buried deep in my garage... and it still have a small leak. Oh well, the TA running better than it had been in a long while so it was worth doing anyway. Needs more work and I'll get to it hopefully next weekend.

For those left reading this thing (if there is anyone) I am getting to the last part. My workload have eased up a lot. Business been winding down as it does this time of year though last month was yet another record output. No more double shifts and full timers on the second shift mostly absorbed back into the first one. Still a little hectic but nothing like it was before. We was rushing hard to get product out the down as well as keeping the quality high. It was a battle but it looks like we went through it ok.

Speaking of work, I haven't been taking my days off and with the new system, I have to eat it up by the end of the year or I'll lose all the accumulated vacation time. I plan to take a week off during Thanksgiving and birthday (Hint hint again). Then another block during the week of Christmas. I still have to pick a few days in to finish off the rest, most likely a few Fridays here and there. We'll see.

Oh, I almost forgot. Remember when I said it was the last part, well I lie so there. I want to promote my IRC channel on FurNet again. The attendance been dropping off after the nice peak I had. #my #The_Lair channel hit 13 but oh so briefly but died down to 2 to 4. Such a crushing downfall. The extreme #Bellyofthebeast peaked at 23 but now dips to less than half that... sometime way less. Another shattering letdown. Much like my watchers, I think I scare them off despite my friendliness. Another channel I want to promote again is the restart of #the_tail_underground. A couple of old timers lurking in it but still a far cry from what it once had.

Ok, did anyone read all that? Hello? *taps on the monitor.* Anyone still alive? Any questions? Any answers? Anything at all? Aw.

I must say things are getting a little better around here. Got my daily computer working again. (the one I am typing from). I have the exciting saga in my previous journal
. Also Replaced that bad mass air flow sensor (MAF) in my car and got that running well. I did had some problems with it but I found the connect popped loose after I installed the new unit in the first place. But once I popped it fully on (tight fit), it runs so much better.

The weather getting cooler too. The morning starting to get nippy. While this summer wasn't super hot like last year (like 60 days of plus 100°F days), it was still toasty. Now if the temperature stays around this level, that would be great. Too cold I don't like.

ANd the big thing that lifted off my shoulders is work getting less frantic. I did some major reorganization and cleanup, which helped sort through my workload. No more bins of stuff to work on scattered all over the floor. With my new shelves, I got them off the floor and out of the way. Now I have much more room to work with. The rate of production also slowed somewhat. No more double shifts though the single shift quite crowded. And the shortage of parts becoming a little better too.

It has been so busy all year that it is nice to get a breather. It still be a long time to to totally catch up (if ever). However, I am finally making a dent in the pile. Wither this last or how long remains to be seen. So I want to take advantage of it as much as I can.

I find it interesting that out of my latest two submissions, the adult version has exactly ten times of the views of the tame one (28 compared to 280). Typical though it can go 20:1 or even more.

The adult one is nice and blood. It is part 2 of my planned 3 part series, which I hope to get by Halloween. The first part did really well (for me anyway), getting oh so close to 1000 views. Even though the clean version only grabbed 28 views, I actually got some comments on it. I like that a lot more than views. Even the bloody one garner a good chunk. Despite having like a quarter of the views, the second part got slightly more comments.

Speaking of the views, I am slowly marching closer to 20k of them on my main FA page. I would be happy to get it by my birthday near the end of November, but I don't think I will make it at the rate it is going. Not even sure if it hit that mark by the end of the year. But whatever the case, I'll have one of those kiriban contest. More information on it once I get much closer.

Oh BTW, I thought I was going to lose something like ten watchers due to my latest gory drawing. So far only two bailed out on me. Either people not paying attention to my work anymore or I reached the point where most of my watchers know what to expect from my darker side and stick around despite of it. Maybe a few actually enjoys it. Who knows? I certainly don't. Well, I like them so there. *sticks out his tongue* Nah nah naaaah.

Well, anyone have any questions? Any answers? Random act of comments? Anything? Darn. Nobody wants to talk to the 'friendly' dragon. '.'

Yay! An update though I don't think anyone is reading these except for a precious few. I only got one comment on my last journal (and one comment on my last submission as well). I guess I am too scary or something (or maybe boring). *shrugs* Oh well, here is the latest happenings.

Some of you might be aware (though I doubt it) from my previous journals that I have a nice quadcore computer that I use for gaming and my rare arts. I bought it almost half retail earlier this year. Despite the great deal, it is still my most expensive computer purchase. Since I want to limit the wear and tear on it, I use my other 'lesser' computer for the day-to-day stuff like web surfing and chatting as well as playing mp3 music.

That backup system died a couple of weeks ago. I came home one day and it wouldn't power up pass the BIOS boot screen. It would shut off anf then gives CPU overtemp error message on the next powerup. So I swapped out the 3.0GHz P4 (it's a an old computer all right) for a spare 2.8GHz one and it booted up to the desktop before shutting off.

So I looked at the fan and it seemed fine. However I noticed the capacitors under the fan area had swelled tops. Motherboards of that error often suffers from that dreaded bad cap problem and look like I got hit with it. I grabbed my backup backup computer and started to use that.

That computer was even slower as it only had 1gig of ram as opposed to 2 on the 3.0 system. It only had 2 slots as it is one of those slim type case so I couldn't use the four in the tower of my main computer. This made things painfully slow. I could actually see the text pop up line by line when I switch to the IRC program. It was that slow.

A word about those backup computers I have. Most of them are Dells I get from work when they have a problem with them. A good deal of the computers there are used ones from eBay bought in bulk. When one gives too much of a problem, they just toss it out and grab one from the pile as it is often not worth the time to fix it. Well, being the opportunist, I snag them whenever I can for parts. Sometime it is the harddrive that is bad, or maybe the powersupply, or even the motherboard. Since most of the computers are the same model, I'll mix and match to create 'Frankenstein' system to use as my backups. Granted these are ancient but are free except for some elbow grease and time.

But back to my main computer with the bad caps. I gone ahead and ordered new caps. I found them on http://www.thecapking.com/ website for just 30 cents apiece. I needed just nine of them but got ten just in case. It took a few days to arrived that weekend and I was itching to get that computer going again. I tried to use the soldering iron I have here at home but it barely melted the solder Dell used. I guess it is the RoHS type as those are a bitch to work with. Well, that didn't work and I didn't want to force the issue, so I waited unit I took it to work.

I have a nice $600 soldering station there and even that was a bitch to work with. That solder didn't want to melt but I eventually got it to work enough to get the old bad caps off and the new ones installed. I wasn't sure they were in good enough but got them in there the best I could.

The the dollar question is did I get it to work. Well, in a nutshell, yeah. I got it functioning again... sorta. Right before the caps blew, I bought that 28" LCD monitor as I told in my last monitor. My plan was to move the 25" down to this day-to-day computer. I was finally able to do that once I did the fix and now able to run the computer at a much higher resolution of 1920x1080 (which is very nice by the way). The 28" I run at 1920x1200 which is even nicer.

The higher resolution brought out another problem with the older system. Apparently it runs hotter with the increased graphics. Enough so that the CPU/Case fan comes on at full speed. That think is loud as hell. If I run all the programs as i want, it would come blasting on until I start to shut down some of the programs. I thought all my efforts fixing the caps was going for naught. I tried turning off the hyperthreading in the BIOS (the default setting) and that seemed to do the trick. I been throwing a bunch of programs at it at once and it still haven't blasted the fan as of yet. The speed difference didn't look as much as I thought it would be, just some longer delay in getting things going. The difference in doubling the ram made a much more difference. It felt like a four time boost. I can live without HT for sure.

I mentioned about my brother in my last journal. He moved out of the hospital and into a nursing/care giver type home. He can get out of the bed now and do some walk on the walker but not much. He is taking physical therapy so hopefully he'll get better. I just ordered an mp3 player for him as it can get quite boring there I imagine. The dunce is still smoking though. He'll never learn like those patients that smoke in their oxygen tents... with the obvious results.

Along with the computer problems, my car was acting up as well. It got worse and worse, so I ran the codes and it turns out the mass air flow sensor (MAF) went out... again. seems like every four years or so the MAF would die. I replaced it and it runs much better now. Speaking of car problems, my mother's van is having issues too. Sometimes it won't start. Seems to be a common problem with Dodges. I worked on it and can't find anything wrong with the wiring or sensors. No computer code so I suspect it is not getting power. I check everything I can and think the computer itself is bad. The rebuilt unit is around $250 and it looks like I have to get one. That sucks but it better fix the damn thing or i am going to be pissed.

At least I have one bit of good news. Thinks at work been calming down this week. Sure, I still have periods of hell but not like it was the weeks pior. I definitely could use the break. I also have lots of vacation time stored up and unlike previously, I have to use it up by the end of the year or lose it. Maybe I'll take some days off in late November around the time of my birthday. I have to see about that though. Still have a little time before I have to use it up.

Just a heads up, I plan to do more on the hardcore hardvore drawing. I have two more drawing to do to make it a trilogy. I have the next installment almost done. Even though these are extreme drawings, it is these kind of themes that get a good number of views, some well over a thousand. My last drawing is non-porn and I didn't even get 50 views much less the 100 I hoped. It is driving me crazy as I do put a lot of effort in them. Well anyway, I hope to complete the series before Halloween.

Ok, here is the last part to this journal. For those who still reading, the ride is almost over. I want to promote the IRC channels on FurNet I run again. I have reopened #the_tail_underground along with Darkstar_Kaaduu. A few people dropped by and we did some role plays. I hope to bring it back up to the old level of a couple of years ago... minus the drama that eventually killed it. Basically the channel is centered around Ian Soulfox's old flash animations which itself is set in an inn with a gay theme.

The other channels I want to promote is #bellyofthebeast and #the_lair also on FurNet. The belly is where I do my most extreme and nasty stuff. I do have some regulars there but the content eventually drives many out. Not everyone can handle it but if you are looking for stuff over the top, that place is suited for that.

The lair channel is a bit tamer. Still a few steamy RPs goes in there but without the extreme fetish nature. This is the first channel I made on FurNet (I ran others on Dalnet and Rizon for years before). I created the belly one to showcase my darker side. Ironically, the belly has more people than the lair. I guess more people are into the kinks.

Oh, I prefer chatting on IRC. I don't use my IMs all that much. Hell, I often forget to even turn it on when I have to reboot.

So, if anyone have any questions, don't be afraid to ask. I don't bite... much. long journal is long. I could write more but I think that is enough punishment for you poor guys still alive... for now.

Finally an update and there is a lot of stuff to cover since my last journal. So here goes.

My brother is back in the hospital again. He had been in and out for a while but it seems he spends more time there of late. He is getting dialysis three times a week and mostly bedridden. He is taking physical therapy so hopefully he can improve but the jury still out for that.

Speaking of hospitals, my aunt is having hip problems and is stuck in one too. Her condition is pretty bad and she can't walk. They want to discharge her soon but her condition not improving much at all.

At least the rest of the family is doing okay health wise. My other brother doing well at his job though working late to get that project done. He is working as a consultant contractor so he is getting paid for all of it, which is a good thing as I am slowly getting paid back for all those loans I lent him when he went on disability and his wife divorced him (and took the all the savings while leaving the debt she was supposed to be paying, what a witch).

As for my mother, she is doing well though her arthritis in her shoulder is bothering her. She has a Dodge van that is having trouble starting. She relies on it a lot and I am still trying to find the source of the problem. Once it starts, it runs well. The starter is fine as it turns over with the key but just won't fire. I researched it and it seems to be a common enough of a problem but the causes can be several things. I eliminated most of the issues and narrow it down to the wiring to the computer or the computer itself. No trouble codes or anything to go by as the computer not powering up or getting power when trying to start. A big pain in the butt. I am going to replace the computer and hope that did the trick.

I came across a good sale on a 28" LCD monitor and pulled the trigger on it. It can do 1920x1200, which I wanted for my game/art machine. The 25" monitor it had can do 1920x1080 and now stepped down to my chat/surfing computer. I don't want to run my monster computer all the time so I put it in standby while using the other computer for day to day stuff. That way I put less wear and tear on the quadcore that I also got on a great deal but still quite a lot of money for me. It was the larger computer purchase I ever made so I want it to last as long as possible.

And it is a good thing I limit the use on my game/art rig as my secondary system died. It starts to boot up shuts off soon after less than a minute. It comes up with a overheat warning message in the POST. I swapped the 3.0GHz P4 processor with a slower 2.8GHz to see if the CPU was bad. It'll boot up to the desktop but shuts off soon after that. That narrows it down to the motherboard or the CPU fan. The fan is one of those weird Dell ones with some sort of speed controller. SO it could either be that or the motherboard circuit. I did notice some of the capacitors with tops slightly swelling up so it could be that bad cap problem that been plaguing systems of that time period. I could replace them and see if I can get it back to life.

I am now using the next system down, a slim design with only 1gig of ram. The secondary system had a tower case 2 gigs in the four slots it has. And being a larger case, it has the 9800GT video card in it that won't fit the slim one. So I am not typing on this slower system and it is dragging quite badly. I could use my monster quadcore and will probably switch to it for more stuff though I'll leave this one on for chatting and playing my mp3s.

I have several of these old systems that I got from work. Whenever there is a problem with one of the Ebay Dells, they just toss them out if the computer needs more than a quick look. They buy in bulk for around $100 a piece so it is cheaper to pull another one out of the stack that spend too much time with it. I was able to snag a few and most of the works fine without too much trouble. For example that 3.0GHz tower wouldn't boot because someone somehow manage to take the harddrive off the boot list. That one was an easy fix and I been using it nearly a year before the heat issue cropped up.

There is a chance to get the tower working again but it is an old P4, faster than the slim systems but by not that much. I am looking out for a good deal on a dual-core CPU and board. I have plenty of cases so that won't be a problem and the dual-core will be more than enough power to do the basic stuff. That would still leave me with the quad to do the heavy lifting when I need it. Plus the new processors uses so much less energy than those old P4 power hogs as well. I am patient so in the meantime I'll be using the slow 2.8 until then.

Ok, now we come to the meat of the journal. I am nearing 20k pageviews here on FA. I'll be running another of those Kiriban contest so the same rules applies: if anyone can do a screen capture of the page when it hits the 20k mark and message me, the first one will win a drawing. I can't do anything too complicated we'll see when the time comes.

I have less than 1000 views to go and might even hit it before the year end though it would be close. I thought it wasn't be close but it looks like it might happen well before I figured it would.

I am also trying to revive a channel on FurNet IRC. Some of you might have heard about the old #the_tail_underground that was based on Ian Soulfox's animations. I had it on my autojoin and was too lazt (lazy dragon is lazy) to removed it after everyone else left last year. I was the only person there for a long time before Darkstar_Kaaduu showed up one day.

We are trying to bring it back to life. I gone ahead and reregister it under my name and made him the successor. Hopefully we can recapture some of its former glory... but without the drama that pretty much drove everyone away and killed it. I don't plan to rule with an iron fist like... well, lets just say things will be saner this time around. At least I hope so.

I am running three channels on FurNet now (and basically a forth as I am an Op there while the founder hasn't been in that channel for like 2 years. I need to get a hold of him to see if he would transfer the ownership). In addition to the recently added #the_tail_underground, I run #the_lair and #bellyofthebeast. The belly channel is where I have my most extreme stuff which can get very nasty indeed. The lair for the tamer fare and now the underground for running the old inn with the gay themed role plays based on Ian's flash animations. Though I like to expand the inn to encompasses more stuff.

So, if anyone needs help to get on IRC, ask away and I see what I can do. Or if you have any question to the above, don't hesitate to ask. I don't bite all that much.

I was feeling a bit emo in my last journal but feel a bit better now. One of idols favored one of my previews and that got me stoked. If he fav the finish version, now I really be ecstatic.

I also less than 1500 views away to reach 20k on my FA homepage. I would probably be another few months before I reach that point going at my rate. I plan to do another kiriban for the 20k mark. I'll make an official announcement when I get near that.

I done one gift pic in the last few weeks and working on a new one. I have three currently in the pipeline and hope to pump them out faster than my slow usual speed. We shall see.

A bit of a positive journal this time. I hope it will last.

Well, that was a whole lot of nothing. Went to my jury summons and got released after waiting an hour or so. All the cases got settled out of court so all the jurors get to leave. I had time to go to work but decided to take the day off. At least I can get some sort of a break from the grind even though I am overloaded. Maybe I get a fresher start on Monday... I hope. I did a bit of grocery shopping instead and took a nap as soon as I got home.

In my last journal, I stated I lost three watchers. Well, I gained three new ones. Still one away from my record but at least I am not dropping. Now if I can any of you to comment, I'll be golden.

Ugh, I just don't get it. I posted a preview drawing and quickly 3 people unwatched me. And it wasn't all that extreme... well compared to my stuff. But still I figured I would have lost the squeamish ones by now. If my blood and gore didn't do it, then a simple deepthroat shouldn't scare people off. I know it is not the best art in the world but it isn't that bad, isn't it? I mean why people watch me in the first place and then run away with reckless abandon.

It is bad enough no one barely comments. I posted that preview to get some feedback like what to do with the background and such and got nada on it. I sorta expected that as per my usual but losing those watchers on top of it just take the cake. It seems no matter what I do, I get dropped.

The odd thing is that I was happy with the comments and views (though favs remain at a low level) that my last two previous submissions. It is not much compared to others but I thought I finally turned the corner and actually a bit excited to draw some more scenes in my head. Turned out to be such a tease.

Well, on to other news, I am still busy at work. More stuff piling up on me and I am getting buried. *.* And then I have that jury summons to go on Fridy that will a workday I need to attempt to make some sort of progress. Just great. I been to several summons before and they are a waste of time. I usually sketch someone in the waiting room but otherwise it is mostly sitting there.

Sorry about all that ranting but I feel like to vent. Not like anyone reads my journals anyway (except one or two people out there).

The Good:

My middle brother just had his first week at the new job that I mentioned in the last journal. It went well as expected. Hi temporary office was right across the hall from my lab but they will move him eventually, no idea where though. Maybe that tiny office behind the elevator that was converted from a storage closet. The person that was there moved to another building across the street so it is empty. But it is sure tiny, something like 5 by 8 feet. Barely have room for a desk, chair and file cabinet. Then again, the stuff my brother is doing is pretty much all computer based.

Nearing 100 views on my latest drawing, which is good number for my non-pr0ns. My adult and extreme stuff can get more that 10 times that but oh well. The favs and comments are high despite the low views, so I am happy about that.

I am also happy with the finished product. It took me three days of on and off work to get it done, far quicker than my usual output. One of the things that helped in the time department is copying the sketch into a new layer, set it to multiply and use the smudge tool to start the shaping. A big time saver for me.

The Bad:

Sad news, the neighbor down the street passed away during his sleep last week. The word I heard is that had a stroke and never woke up. Before that one of the co-worker's mother also died a month back and another with his step dad.

My youngest brother went back to hospital. His potassium levels up again and the doctors finally getting him started on dialysis for his failing kidneys. It seems things are going downhill for him. Of course he is still smoking. >.>

The Ugly:

On top of that, my workload increased tenfold at work. In the last few weeks, I received like 5 months what I normally get. Plus all the little last minute projects I do really to add to it. The production here has really ramped up but the biggest increase is all the new workers not up to speed yet, so I get a lot of their production mistakes to deal with. I hope things will settle down but I been saying that for a long time now. Looks like it will get worse before things get better.

All this is starting to stress me out. It is getting crazy.

The Sublime:

To top it off, I got in the mail a summon for jury duty on July 30. Just great, freaking great. I had jury duty before but this is a different court that I never been before. Must be small as it is not even morked on Google map. Even their homepage linked the location to Google, which showed some lumber yard as the approximate location. They could have provided their own map and a picture of the building. Great, some backwater court that can't even do a proper webpage. Going to be so much fun dealing with Barney Fife and the class of clowns... not.

OK kiddies, time for a long overdue update for those that care (if any).

Did a backyard cookout this 4th of July and grilled a lot of meat and vegetables, the second outdoor grilling I did this year. I didn't cook outside all of last year so it is cool to get some done. Well, not so cool actually as the day was hot. I did rain in the first part of the day but it quickly dried up and just made things even more humid. I was sweating like crazy over the hot grill (with lots of smoke in my eyes) and just about done myself in with all that heat.

I got it done however. Tons of stuff including steak, beef sausages, chicken breasts, zucchini squash, carrots, red onions, roasted garlic cloves, green bell peppers and the like.
They all came out really well though the steaks was a little on the rare side. I wish I marinaded the chicken longer as I had to cook them thoroughly and they could have been juicier. I did slice them butterfly style to get them to cook faster than last time where I left them at full thickness. I think that helped some. All in all, I call it a success. I cooled so much that I still have leftovers even though the family took home a good amount of the leftovers.

Speaking of success, I am doing quite well in playing Counterstrike: Source online on Hellgamers Dust2 server even though I am probably twice the age of most players. I had a really nice gaming session on Sunday, improving my monthly rank to 30th out of 35k players. Not bad at all I must say. And my kill streak been jumping ever higher. Last month it was at 37, a couple of weeks ago at 43 and now sits at a nice 75 from last Sunday. Of course I finally got killed by an autoaim cheater. They are pretty easy to tell.

At least it seems a lot less cheaters plague the game since Valve made that big update. Things was super laggy when they did the change but slowly improving bit by bit though still not like it was before. I do love the less cheating though they scums are adapting. However, I am enjoying the less harassment for now at least. I am kinda used to the lag as it reminds me back in my Quake days on a 2400bps dailup modem playing on a P4 120MHz machine. Oh the memories. Playing with less than 500 ping was a good day for me back then. Nowadays I usually get around 100 or even less and is a dream compared to the old days. Plus my i7 920 quadcore computer really helps me out. If only my internet connection was a tad more responsive but much more livable than my old setup I'll take it any day.

Both of my my brothers came over for that cookout I mentioned earlier. The youngest still in the wheelchair not not as bloated like he used to be. His mobility is slowly getting better though I wish he stops smoking. Took a couple of smoke breaks while he was here. :\ Oh well, he'll never learned.

My other brother might get a job... finally. He is a CPA but been out of the job for years due his depression. His benefits ran out so he is forced to get back into the rat race. Interesting enough, he had an interview at my workplace. He thinks the interviews went well but haven't heard back from them yet. I do hope he gets it as he owes me a huge amount of money that I loaned him and I could certainly love to get paid back... at least start getting payments... finally.

I been insanely busy at work... still. It is not as bad as last month but maddening all the same. Getting rush projects while my main workload piling up. I hoped to be caught up now but slowly slipping further behind. I feel like I am starting to drown. My lab is stacking up with more stuff to work on and I need to get rid of the old stuff, running out of room. And some of the stuff I am getting I never worked on before. So it'll will take more time to get on speed on that though I really don't have the time with all the usually items trickling on in.

More fun stuff, my car died on the way home from work last week. I was lucky as it wasn't far from my home but a still a bummer anyway. The engine would turn over but won't start. I checked the spark and it was a little on the weak side so I took the distributor cap off and found the one of the rotor's screw had come off. The rotor loosen enough so it to be crooked enough to wear away the tip and also the graphite rod that connects to the coil. I replaced both the cap and rotor and got a strong spark but it still doesn't want to start.

So I looked at the fuel system. I had the fuel filter plugged up before and figured that was probably where the problem lies. I got some pressure squirting out of the Schrader valve on the fuel rail (looking back now, it seemed a bit weak also). I then took some throttle body cleaner and sprayed that into the intake. It tried to start when I cranked it over so the spark is ok, just stared for fuel. Replaced the filter and it starts up. I want to replace the screen in the gas tank but that will be a big pain to drop the tank. I suspect the one in it now is torn as I have to replace the fuel filter every few years. The filter not hard to do, just a pain when the engine dies in the middle of nowhere. Maybe I should replace it every couple of years to be sure. I only costs $10US so it'll be cheap insurance. The only problem is forgetting doing it until it is too late.

I got a few things to cover but I'll leave it off to spare the very few who actually reads this journal... if that.

I just got my 700th watcher.  Neyaraxis is the (un)lucky one. Well, he/she is the first to hit that number as my watch list tends to go up and down a lot. So Neyaraxis gets a prize of a drawing by me, that is if the person accepts my offer. We'll see.

On the other fronts, I am still not getting much in the way of comments like usual. Oh well, just my luck. I am getting ever closer to 1000 views on that gory bunny pic I did a few months back. Seems people go for my more extreme works (though the quantity is lacking). I need to get back in my drawing mode. But I lack motivation and the minuscule number of comments are not helping.

I have tons of unfinished works in my gallery (mostly in my scraps section). If anyone finds something in there that they want me to complete, let me know and I'll try to work on it. I have plenty to chose from, that is for sure.

My brother steadily improving from his broken hip. he came over today for my Memorial Day cookout. I have done any grilling in a long long time, over a year at least. He was in a wheel chair still but could get ready to walk with a walker soon if he continues to get better.

As for the food, the meal turned out very nice. I cooked on the grill some marinaded chicken, steak with some dry rub and beef sausages. I also tossed in vegetables like red bell peppers, zucchini squash, onions and roasted garlic cloves. They all tasted quite yummy. I need to cook outside more often.

Well, this is a quick journal. Much shorter than my usual long narrative. Lucky you, hehe. Don't be a stranger and comment. Don't make me come over there.

Well, it certainly been a long time since I made a new journal. I think it is time to finally get this finished even though I started on it many weeks ago.

A few months ago, I was starting to feel rather down on myself. Both my brothers and my mother all have depression and I think I was getting some of it. Nothing huge but a lot of small things stacking up to conspire my usual happy-go-lucky self.

My role playing on FurNet dropped to almost nothing with more than half the people in my channels leaving (whether it was related to my inactivity I don't know but I usually do most of the posts in there). My art output gone way down as well which wasn't all that high to begin with. There been months where I didn't post anything much less weeks of nothing.

It doesn't help when I don't get any comments as well. Some of the rare stuff I did put up didn't even get on response which results my love motivation to be even worse. Plus the car accident brought me down a few notches. Then getting even more busy at work really pushed up the stress levels.

But it is not all doom and gloom. I few weeks back, I got a raise at work. Last year was bad and no one got a raise so it was nice to get one this year. Just under 10%, it not too huge but better than nothing. Every little bit help though I am still busy. Last week was particularly hectic but I am grinding through it. I don't think I am going to get a slowdown in a quite awhile. Our business has been picking up like crazy and we are hiring lots of new people to help with the workload but it is still getting insane.

For those few who read my last few journals know about the quad-core computer I got earlier this year. While I haven't restarted my 3D stuff, I have been getting more active playing first person shooters online. I mainly play Counter Strike: Source and doing well enough. On the Dust2 map on one of Hellsgamers servers, I rank a good 58 out of 14,000 players or so (the number of players is a bit high since the usual stat reset didn't go all the way through but still). Not bad for this old dwaggie. I bet I am more than twice the age than most of the players there. My reaction time is pretty good and I do very well when I am not laggy and there is not many cheaters (one shot kill over and over plus can take a huge amount of shot and don't die) on at the time.

The top players tend to focus on a handful of guns while I just let the game choose my weapons at random. I couldn't get to guns menu to work for me so I just let it select for me. At least I won't be tempted on using the best weapons all the time. I know I would be ranked even higher if I stick to the sniper rifles and other urber guns. Though it is frustrating when I get the crappy guns over and over. And there is a glitch on that server where I end up with just a handgun and no machine gun, especially annoying when it does it over and over. Very hard to kill with the weak guns but sometimes I manage to surprise myself.

I sometimes go wild and headshot (usually instant kill) in a group of enemy. Fun when it happens though rare. Much easier to do that with a machine gun. A few times I used a submachine gun and aim high to kill 3 or 4 people in a small room after rushing it. But I must say my most kills comes from the sniper rifles. When I am lucky to get one upon spawning after a death, them I usually seek out a good spot and watch over a choke point like doorways and wait for the enemy to rush. I can often fire first with my reaction time and get a kill, sometime over and over if I get really going. My highest kill streak is 25 kills before I die.

On FurNet, my RPs been picking up though will never be as high as when I had tons of free time. Still nice and people have been seeping back in my channels. My #bellyofthebeast channel even got up to 21 people in it. It has been a long time since it even got close to that number. In fact, I don't recall it got near it all of this year so that was a nice bonus.

All this have stare off my depressed feelings though I still not getting much comments if any. I probably should get used to it as I never got all that many in the past but one do hope. If anyone read this (and still left), let me know. I have no idea if anybody reads my scribbles and rants. It feels so lonely when I don't get any replies.

Oh BTW, I am getting real close to 700 watchers. Just 2 more to go. However the number been going up and down, teasing me to no end. Even though this is the closest to 700, I have been hovering less than 10 for many months, so tantalizing close. If it wasn't for those dropping out of my list, I would have made it pass that late last year. *.* I figure it'll go up and down a few times before finally hitting that mark.

It's been a long time since my last update. I'll be brief though so that I won't torture my very few readers. Hopefully this journal won't be a long massive block of text.

I'll start with some not so great news. Several weeks ago I got into a car accident with my 1985 Trans AM. It was just a fender bender and everyone was ok except my brother who had some neck and back pain. He went back to the hospital (the same one he came out of 3 days prior) and released a few hours later due to the x-ray and CAT scan being negative.

As for my car, the front of the passenger door and fender got mangled plus the rear quarter panel dented inward. My front strut bent some also, which threw off the alignment. A few other stuff but that was the bulk of it. I had a spare fender that someone gave me many years ago so I slapped that on that weekend and got it on the road again.

On the morning of same day of the car accident, I gave my first training session at work. Two of them in fact. The first went smoother than the second methinks but was ok overall. I talked to a few people afterward and they said I did good. Plus people did learn stuff so I am satisfied with it. I recently conducted a third session a few days ago and it turned out well enough. I am glad I don't have to do that many of these. The groups wasn't all that large, around twenty people each time. But still not something I want to do often.

Now back to my brother, last week he fell down again. He uses a walker but didn't' do it that one time and tripped. This time is was pretty bad. He broke his hip and had some rods inserted in there. He called up today and said he is feeling a bit better. He is back at the nursing home and slowly recovering. The doctor told him he'll be there for two months. He thinks he can get out faster but we shall see.

Well, here comes the part where I try to promote my IRC channels on FurNet. I do most of my chatting and role Playing (RP) there. I generally roam my two channels, #the_lair and #bellyofthebeast. For those that don't know, my lair channel is for general chat with a few (rare now) RPs. Things have been known to get hot and sexy in there but been dead of late.

My belly channel, however, has sparks of activity. A bit ironic as I made that one to feature my dark side and not to scare away people from the lair. Seems it gets more chats and RPs than in the lair. More people visiting too. The belly features very extreme stuff, often going way over the edge. I love it as I tend to get nasty and gross in there.

I do wish more people would try my lair channel. I been running it for a couple of years and have a hard time getting people to come on by much less staying. Well, if anyone happens to be interested (yeah, the two of you still reading) and wants to connect there, shoot me a comment or message and I'll still the information on how to get there.

I could go on but I think I'll spare you.

I haven't updated in a while, not like I have much readers to keep at the edge of the seat with my boring life. Well, maybe both of you will find this entry interesting somehow.

First off, my brother is doing the same... which means he went back to the hospital after falling down again. He gone outside to take a smoke (damn cancer sticks) and trip over his cane. The next day, his hip started to hurt and I had to take him to the hospital after work (he couldn't get hold of my other brother). After speading five hours there, the results from the blood test (which took 5-10 min) showed his potassium levels was too high and required an overnight stay. So I dragged myself home.

He was in the hospital three weeks prior to get his fluid build drained again (he has bad kidneys that make him retain so much water that he loks pregnant). They took out eighteen liters that time. He had bloated up again and I am assuming he is getting another fluid drain. I told him they need to install a spigot on his belly. Oh well, I haven't heard the results of the x-ray and CAT scan he got that night as of yet.

The thing is that my brother was walking better. He moved to a cane fro the walker, moving around around more. Then he started to gain fluid and thus extra weight, making it harder but going out at night for that damn smoke that he 'had' to do just makes it worse. Well, enough of that news.

Work is busy as hell for me, bunch of projects. I have to make a presentation that is going to be interesting. Aside from reports at meeting, this is my first training type session. Hopefully it'll go well. Ihave a bunch of other small projects as well that will keep me busy for a while yet.

All work and no play makes Monty a dull dragon (more than usual). I been getting back into online gaming as those few that read my last few journals. I been playing Counter Strike: Source (CS:S). I usually play the Dust2 map on Hellsgamers server and doing pretty good... if none of the cheaters are on while I am playing. I started the month off well, ranked at 41 to 44 out of almost 3000 players with a 2:1 kill to death ratio. The next day I dropped like a rock (damn cheaters, so easy to tell) and my ratio of the day went negative (almost caught back up by the end of the night but still got died more time than I killed). A few nights later, I recovered most of it but my rank dropped to something like 140 out of 5000+. Still quite good but I was so much happier with the quick start I did at the beginning of the month (stats get reset then). Not too bad for someone that don't play all that often.

Other than the occasional gaming, I been quite lazy at home. I have a bunch of projects I want to get done but hardly did any of them. My latest drawing sitting almost finished for months, just the fur on the arms and paws to do. Ironically, I started the drawing so I can practice (and hopefully refine) my fur technique. I did just about everything else but the fur that I intended in the first place.

By the way, my latest submission about to go over 700 views. Just 3 more to go to hit that make at this writing. I haven't hit that number of views in just over two years. I think that is wild as I didn't think I would even hit 200 on that drawing especially considering the gory subject matter. I even though I would lose more watchers than I gained. Surprised me that I got the opposite effect. The drawing I am (sorta) working on is vorish though quite tame. I might make a blood version if I ever get done with the current one. I am hoping to get it done this weekend. Getting over 700 views on my recent drawing would help motivate me. What would be even better if I get some comments. Despite the (nice amount of) views, I don't get much feedback. That include my journals, which get even less comments (impossible as it seems).

Well, the final news tibit I have is a happy one. For those not familiar with the Woot.com site, Woot is a website that sells one item at a day at a special price (one of those deal-of-a-day sites. I think they are one of the earliest too). Sometimes they have great deals though lately it has been so-so. They also put on an event called a Woot-off every few months. Use to be rarer but it seems they have been doing more of them.

They also have an (in)famous item called Bag of Crap. They are very hard to get and usually full of, well, crap. But they are often funny stuff that makes you go "what? who thought of this?" The amount of item they see are typically 1200-1500 pieces and sells out in like a minute. The rush to buy one is so great that their servers get swamped and times out. I was able to score it twice five years ago where the delays was even worse. But at least I was able to get it. I been trying many time since and had no luck (even got to the last confirmation page a few times).

My luck changed during the last Woot-off (where most of the BOCs are offered now). A co-worker also got lucky this time. We was both happy to finally got in among the golden chosen ones. He got his shipment in first. He got two some sort of Disney alarm clocks (the mechanical style with the two bells on top. He also got a picnic basket that unfolds to a blanket. Kinda nifty but kinda sucky at the same time. The final item he got of the package is a pair of musical Winnie the Pooh toothbrushes. The stuff mostly good for gag gifts and cost a total of $8US ($3 for the items + $5 shipping). Worth the laugh and possible targets for the company Christmas party. It is more about the thrill of the hunt than the actual items themselves. When Woot says it was a bag of crap, they usually means it.

I got my box a day later (got it shipped to my other brother house). I opened it up earlier today and scored big. I got three of the clocks and that picnic basket plus a toilet handle that lights up with a built-in LED light (yeah, that was a weird item). No musical toothbrushes (aw) but got something better, three better items in fact. I been wanting another wireless mouse for a computer at my home and actually got one in the BOC. It is a laser notebook wireless that retails from $20 (on sale) to $40 or so. Blows away the $8 I paid indeed.

The next bonus item I got is a noise canceling ear buds. This one also retail around $20 to $40. Not a bad score. Plus I was in a lookout for a good deal on a set as a backup to my current ones, which I figure I was going to break one day. I am going to compare the two pairs and use the better sounding one as my primary and use the other as the backup. It is one of the kinds that goes into the ear canal and got a few good reviews, especially for the price. Certainly a hell lot better that the stock ones. Those are pieces of crap indeed. One I tried the better ones, it made the kind that comes with the MP3 sound so thin and scratchy like putting up a tin can to your ear. Truly this is a big improvement.

The third and final item I got is a bluetooth in the ear headset. Ironically I was on the lookout for a set of these as well. This model claims to be the worlds smallest unit and is quite tiny. They seems to go for around $25 on up on the web. And got a few good reviews too.

So I made out like a bandit. Got at least $65 worth of electronic stuff for $8 is a great deal. I say those other items got to be around $20 at least. That would make it a cool $85 worth of goodies. Not bad at all. ^.^ Just getting the BOC itself is good in itself, but actually getting non-crap stuff that I was interested to get just made my day... week... month.

This is on top of the good deal I got for my quadcore computer. I explained it in my last journals (for those few that read it) so I won't go into details here. Beside, I am already writing a novel. 0.0 I did want to mention my IRC channel #bellyofthebeast and #the_lair on FurNet IRC but I leave the detail out unless someone ask me in the comments. I'll give more information on it in the replies. In fact, in the off chance that someone want more details are even unrelated questions, I'll give a reply to that as well. But as usual, I propably get a couple of comments... that is if I am lucky. Maybe I should run a contest of something for the commenters. Hmmmmm.

Well, I predicted that I would lose six watchers after posting that bloody bunny drawing of mine and while it took a few days, I was right on the money. No surprise there. I also figured to gain at most two watchers but just got my sixth, evening things out (Now seven, wow. Such madness. Oops, just gain another two. I am starting to like this). That is the odd part. I guess there are more fans of the messy gory stuff than I realized.

Another big shocker is that I got over 500 views on that drawing (now overt 600. I haven't gather that many eyes in a long time, since back in September 2007 in fact). The last time I gone over that was four months ago and nothing else going back a year or so. A pleasant surprise. I wish I get more of that.

Speaking of wishing, I would love to get more comments. Seems that I do get the views here and there but hardly anyone comments. Hell, my last journal got zero, none, zilch, nada, nothing. a big fat goose egg. I should be used to such lack of response but I don't think I ever will be.

My new computer I wrote about in my journal (where I got zero comments) is doing well. My so-called artwork is going much smoother especially the brush and smudge tools. Too bad my talent doesn't match. And online gaming much nicer also. I started playing multiplayer again and getting better. The Sunday before last, I done my best on Counter Strike: Source ever. I got 34 kills with one death at the beginning of that session. Unfortunately, a few of those 'one shot killer magic aimers' started to come in and my kill ratio dropped. But I still ended up with a positive ratio by the time I finished playing for the day.

I don't think GIMP makes full use of the multiprocessors as it still flakey in some stuff. But overall much better than the P4 of my previous art machine. Weather that increases my arty output remains to be seen.

About my little brother, he went to the hospital again falling down and broke a rib. He is out now but the it took a while for the doctors to diagnose the broken bone. They took a CAT scan the first day but only did the x-ray a couple of days later.

Oh, one more thing. I just had a bit of drama in my #bellyofthebeast channel on FurNet. I had a few minor ones but this time it blew up. I knew it would eventually as I see such things before but I been lucky. Basically a few people hated this one guy and wanted me to ban him. I am not the type to take sides as it just makes a bigger mess (been there, done that). Besides, I am not their babysitter. IF they can't get along, then they can leave. One person got in a huff and did leave, probably for good. Too bad as I enjoyed role playing with the guy. Oh well, the old saying goes something like this, 'if you can stand the heat, get out of the kitchen'.

And like I knew it would, it died down like all the others. No need to fan the flames by jumping into the mess. I could flare up again but at least they would know not to come crying to me, demanding to solve their personal petty fight. This dragon don't play that. I do ban though rare and it has to be for a real reason. If someone don't like a guy, then it is their problem and not mine. Leave me out of the senseless scrabbles please. I have real drama in real life to deal with and don't have time to mess with made up online crap. I could go on and on but I'll stop my ranting.

Anyway, it took me a while to get this journal out. Been a busy (and lazy) one as per my usual. I have more to report but I am sure I already bored any of you that even manage to read this far. I wonder if anyone read these things. Like I said before, I got zero commends on my last one. >.<

My new (well, refurbish but still) computer came in a couple of days ago. It is a beast! I ran some 3D benchmarks on it and it scores 7-10 times more than my P4 with a Nivida 9800GT video card in it.

For those that didn't see my previous journal, the new beast is an Asus computer system with an i7 920 2.66GHz CPU, 9GB DDR3 of RAM and a GTX260 video card. It also came with a 1TB drive and a huge (ugly as sin) case. I can live with the uglies due to the massive improvement of performance I got with this system. Besides, it is not as bad close up than the pictures on the net.

The only big negative is that it comes with Vista (boooo! hisss!). I am trying to see if I can get the free Win 7 upgrade. Otherwise I'll have to live with the horror. I'll have to turn off all the crap that it does. I already shut off the stupidass slow fading of the various windows and dialog boxes. One of the dumbest ideas ever. Like I want to send a lot on a fast system only to have it purposely slow down. So freaking annoying but at least there is a way to turn off that annoyance. Funny though that the constant warning popups don't don't really bother me all that much. Weird that.

Anyway, I am happy with the jump I made to modern times though I had to do some ad-hoc repair myself. There had been many reports of the video card popping out of the PCI-ex slot during shipment. So I was expecting it and sure enough, it was not fully inserted into the slot. The GTX260 is a huge card and no wonder it came loose. This could explain why so many of these system are on the refurb market. If I was designing the system, I would have placed some sort of brace to hold the back of the card steady. Such a huge and heavy card as this had no chance of holding on.

The heatsink is also large and heavy. For some reason, someone thought four tiny plastic clips is all it needs for the big chunk of metal to stay on in shipment. Oh how very wrong that idea turned out to be. I found the heatsink totally broken free of the CPU. Luckily it didn't damage anything further and I was able to slap the thing back onto the CPU. It hold but I want to replace the way too fragile plastic with metal screws. Probably when I slap a bigger fan on it. The current fan is a big too small for my liking. Speaking of fans, the 120mm case fan was disconnected. Seems that happened to others as well. A simple fix however. There is a spot to install another 120mm case fan in the front, something I intend to do also in the future.

Being a refurb, I saved many hundreds of dollars that if I bought all the parts separately. The total buying that way would easily go over $1000US. I still spent more than I originally wanted but I waited over two years to upgrade from a single core and this was such a great deal that I jumped on it. This new system should last me for years to come I hope.

The main reason I got this beasty monster is to restart my 3D works. It seems that is all what my watchers care about. Oh well, they going to get their wish... eventually. Restarting is going to take time but I sure hope the results are worth it.

What about my unloved 2D works? Well, I'll still do them here and there, for a while at least. I have a few project to finish. Anything after that is up for grabs. Now my writing, I have a good chunk of material to go into but I am not a writer so that is hard for me. I'll restart those as well sometime this year but don't hold your breath.

Away from happy news we come to the matter with my brother. As some of you know, he has been sick and in a nursing home. His Medicaid ran out and he had to move to a different place. He also been having chest pains lately and been in and out of the hospital with high blood pressure. He is retaining fluid again as well. He was slowly improving before that though. He is back out of the hospital currently and the doctors still don't know what is causing the chest pains aside from the high blood pressure.

This new computer is preforming very well, nice and fast. It is well above what I am used to previously. I think I am going to get spoiled with it. Plus it has great overclocking potential that should keep me busy in the future. I'll set up one of my older computers for my brother so he can have something to use at his assisted living place. They don't have cable yet and I can imagine him getting rather bored. I know I would go out of my mind (more than I am) with I was in that situation for sure.

Well, that should pretty much covers it for this installment.

Well, I survived three years here on Fur affinity... relatively intact. A lot of stuff happened during that time. Some good, some bad but I had a good time overall. I do wish I had more feedback though. More on that later.

I made mention of my IRC channel on FurNet a few times and something must have happened since my last journal. One of my channels named #bellyofthebeast gone through a mini-explosion of new people. Well over a dozen faces showed up here and there since that last journal. I don't know if it had anything to do with it, but it is an unusual spike. A few of them actual came back too. I have a tendency of scaring off people so anyone staying is welcome news. Now if I can figure out how to prevent the others from escaping, I'll be all set.

I did gain two people in my tamer channel #The_Lair and a return of an old timer. Made the sting of losing the two old timers previously a little better. Still a small channel with little activity though. Not exactly a beehive of activity I originally wanted.

Well, at least on of them doing well enough though there have been a few spats of drama. I guess it is growing pains in a way. They have settled down... for now. I'm sure there will be more in the future. I'll just weather out the storm when they happen.

Onto my FA page. I finally busted through the barrier of 680 watchers. Every time it gets close to that number, people would drop out. It been going up and like that for a couple of months. Then a few weeks ago, I punch past that number. Of course it been bouncing up and down as usual since then but now at a higher number.

Ok, now for the big news I am sure most of (the few) of you want to hear. I ordered my Quadcore computer. That's right, I am on my way of restarting my 3D stuff after the long drought. My 2D art has been such a dismal failure and my writting barely made a blip. My lack of feedback on my current works have been disappointing so going back to 3D should improves things... well I hope.

The reason my 3D works got cuts short is several fold. The computer I did the renderings was quite old even by standards three years ago. As I tend to go overboard, the modeling took forever. The short thirty seconds test clips even took twenty-four hours just to render. Frustrating but I had some freetime by then to plow through it.

Then the real life drama hit. What a nightmare that roller coaster ride was. Well, that sordid story should be well behind me now. Still took a toil on me. It also evaporated all that freetime since the fun days.

It is on its way and is estimated to arrive in a couple of days. I been saving for it and jumped when I found a great deal. It is a refurb but I am saving hundreds of dollars that way. It come in an hideously ugly case but I don't mind. What got me hooked was the specs for the price, an i7 with 9GB of ram and a GTZ260 video card. Not too bad I must say. This is the first time ever that I have a system this remotely modern. I have always made do with computers several generations back. My current computers are old hand-me-downs P4s. Got them dirt cheap or even free but it is fine time I treat myself to something presentable.

Sure, I'll be getting back into gaming. Done a little of that with that big upgrade of putting that Black Friday Nivida 9800 video card in my 3.0GHz P4 tower. That made it a little more tolerable to play with but still way behind the times. This new system will be the biggest leapfrog I done ever as well.

I think that pretty much covers it. Knowing me I probably forgot something as my norm. I'm sure those few reading this knows that all too well.

Oh dear, the last gasp of the year I fear is near, shedding a tear. (Sorry about that, I couldn't resist).

Looks like this will be my last journal entry of 2009. What a crazy year indeed. First some latest updates with my brother. They finally drained all that fluid from him. I heard it was 23 liters worth (over 6 gallons). That is a lot of fluids. I knew he was bloated but that is a bit insane.

He is feeling a bit better and can use his walker again instead of the wheelchair though he is retaining fluids again. I hope the doctors will drain it sooner than waiting a few months like last time. I have no idea why they waited so long.

He is taking physical therapy and it seems to help. It still be a while before he can get out of the nursing home. At least he not smoking or taking drugs there. I hope he'll stay off of them when he gets out.

Well, some of you notice I did a Christmas special picture. Much like Halloween special, it been largely ignored. Oh well, I like how it turned out anyway. However the background was slapped together at the last movement due to running out of time. Most of it my fault as I was being laze and waited too long to finish it. But I do like how the rest of it turned out though the text work could be better.

I'm sure you few reading this is tired of me saying this, I am still frustrated with my watcher count. It continues to bounce up and down. As soon as it nears around 680, it would drop back down. I swear it must have hit 680 at least a dozen times. I was hoping to hit 700 by the end of the year but that is just about impossible now. It is frustrating to see it falter like that. I would have his three times that easily on the pace I was getting back when I did my 3D arts. I do hoe to get that restarted early next year but I had that plan before. We'll see.

I also hope to restart those dragon maw mini-meme animations soon as well. I still have quite a few people on my list to get to. Plus restarting my stories. They don't get much attention on FA but did get some interest on Yiffstar though that site is going through some revamping. Again we'll see how that turns out.

Oh, I did finally pass 16k views on my FA page. At least that won't go down. Took me nearly three years to get there. Speaking of which, my three year anniversary on FA is going up on January 7th, 2010. I don't know if I can get a celebration drawing down like I did last year though. I have too much on my plate plus my laziness combating me.

Another thing that his fighting for my time is me slowly getting back to online FPS gaming. I got Counterstrike: Source recently to go with my much better video card I wrote about in a previous journal. I starts pretty bad as I am rusty of not playing anything in a long time. But mainly not used to the different weapons and spray pattern wil moving. I could rant about how it makes the game more unrealistic as the gun in real life don't care if you are moving or not. It hits the same spread at the spot you aimed it now matter if you are moving or not, the difficultly is already built in. But I not going into it as it would fill pages.

Anyway, I am getting a little used to it. I still get killed more often than not in most games but mainly because I tend to rush into firefights due to from my Doom and Quake days. I get too bored staying put and picking people off despite me getting a high kill rate. I do get a good number of headshots and even done some dominations and rampages. I love going into tight spaces like tunnels and get headshot after headshot. I am less successful in open areas as I keep getting snipped out of nowhere. But that depends on the map. On some of them, I can snipe like mad. I haven't played all that much so I should improve even more next year. I hope to catch up with those that been playing it for years as CS:S been out for a long time. I only recently got into it myself.

One more think I want to touch on before I close out the year. A scant few of you know about my channels on FurNet IRC network. The #bellyofthebeast one is doing well enough. I usually have around 10 to 15 people in there but is varies a bit. I was hoping to get a steady 20 about now but happy with what I have now. My tamer channel #the_lair is not doing so well. It i slowly dying and I lost 2 old timers. It barely manage 4 or 5 now and much less active. Ironic since I created the belly channel after the lair one because I was afraid of losing people due to some of the extreme stuff I do. So I moved it to the newer channel and it thrives better.

If anyone somehow want to visit one of both channels, I can provide information on how to get there. The lair is pretty much my general channel while the belly I do my fetishes role playing and things can get very intense in there. So if you have the stomach for it, join in and have some fun.

I wonder how many people actually read these things. Raise your hand so I can count... well, except for cricket chirps.

Oh my god! oh my god! Oh my god! At the risk of sounding like a fanboy, an event occurred that made my day. An awesome artist  jace , whose work I been admiring for a long long time, watched me. Made the sting of losing two watchers yesterday vanish (one watched me just previously and then unwatched a few days later).

This is in addition of :ianrsoulfox: favoring one of my drawing that I mentioned in my last journal. Seems I am getting noticed by a couple of the heavy hitters lately. I hope it is a tend that continues though that is unlikely as lightning striking the same place twice. But who knows.

Ok, enough gushing. I have a few items to go through. Those few that reads my journals knows about my brother going to the hospital. They finally drained all that fluid that made him bloated. He is still at the nursing home but no longer has a huge, pregnant looking gut. He has his on and off days, bored no doubt stuck there. At least he can't smoke or doing drugs there so I feel he is better off there. He might get out before Christmas though.

Well, I surged on a few computer goodies for myself. Last month I bought a 25 inch LCD monitor for a great deal. But the on-board Intel video on my old P4 3.0GHz not where near cutting it displaying full resolution. So I waited for Black Friday and ordered myself a modern graphics card. Again I got a great deal (I love sales) and snatched a PNY 9800GT EE 1GB DDR3 card for $80US. I grabbed a 500 watt power supply too since this Dell mid-tower one is not up the the task. Had to cut the sheet metal in the back but otherwise the standard ATX supply fits.

The result? Let's say lots. I ran a old 3D benchmark program (newer ones refuse to run on the Intel crap) and got an average of 5 FPS. With the new card, I was getting 15 to 20 times that. Even those the system on the whole still slow by today's level, it is still a huge improvement. At least it makes it a little more bearable before I finally invest myself in a new computer early (hopefully) next year. All in all, I indulged myself lately much more than I did in years. But I think it is worth it as I can squeeze my old stuff a bit more. Plus I can play those 3D FPS games like I used to do.

Lots of things happening at work. I am not going to bored you with it. A bunch of remodeling and shifting is gist og it. And business is picking up in the fourth quarter and next year looking to be much better. We are even getting a Christmas bonus but going to be about half of last year. Still getting it unlike most companies. We didn't make any money as a whole but at least we are not going bankrupt.

I think I pretty much covered everything. I most likely missed something but everyone (yeah, both of them) probably fell asleep by now.

Not much new to report on my brother. He is still at the hospital. The doctors still running tests and whatnot. Looks like he won't be home for T-day, which happens to be also his birthday (Those few reading my journals know my own birthday is this Wednesday on the 25th). he is talking about moving in to an extra room the next door neighbor had built a few years ago.

The neighbor's husband was suffering from a long term illness and returning to her home. To accommodate him, a specially equip addition was constructed. It has features like extra wide door and handrails in the bathroom. He only lived there a few months before passing away. So it sat vacant. Well, my brother talked to her and if he can make it back, made arrangements to stay there for a decent monthly rent.

A concern of mine is if my brother can resists the temptation of smoking and drugs once he gets out of the hospital. At least at the hospital, the access to those ills limited. However, I better not see any dopeheads or dealers hanging around here or there going to be hell to pay. I not going to have any of that nonsense.
Moving on, lets go to my latest submissions. A select few of you might have noticed I am posting some porn again. I'm not getting a big splash as I hoped but someone interesting did fav on of them.  ianrsoulfox is a long time idol of mine and pleasantly surprised me with a fav on my plump rump http://www.furaffinity.net/view/3068953 submission. He is a big inspiration of my animations I attempted back in the back. I wonder how many of those I idolize noticing me.

What is weird is that I really rushed that particular drawing. I spent far more time on my previous penis picture. Maybe a hit some sore of cord with it considering the unusually high number (for me) of favorites I somehow netted on it. Kinda makes me want to go back and fix some of the glaring flaws. The holidays are coming up so I may have some time to do just that. Maybe even get back to my open maw mini-meme.

Speaking of looking up to people, I wonder how many out there doing the same to me. I am curious to know. If any of you find my works inspirational, shoot me a reply. Would be interesting to see if anyone does.

Got some more news on my brother's condition. Seems he suffered a minor heart-attack on that day he fell and couldn't get back up. The medics didn't know as his vital signs read fine so it was a good thing he wanted to ge to the hospital. The doctors also said he has Cirrhosis of the liver, which makes him retain water and so bloated that he can hardly walk. In fact, he needs a walker to get around.

He is still quite young to have all these problems. Going to be thirty seven coming up on the 26th of this month. By the way, my own birthday falls on the 25th and marching to forty one here (feel free to shower me with gifts. I never get any). I believe he'll make it this year but the next is very questionable, especially if he doesn't take care of himself.

As for myself, I been very busy lately both at work and home. I just came back from a road trip to take a training seminar class, around seven hours of driving (around 350 miles). But the class was interesting enough and I'll have to write a report when I get back to work. I took a day off to recover. But tomorrow is back to the grind. Looks like I am going to be busy for a while yet.

My role plays took a hit all month and then some. I used to be so active but with all the busy work pretty much stopped it. I only did a handful of RPs during this time. I don't think I'll even be as actives as I used to be, but I should slowly get back into it eventually.

Restarting my mini-meme though after finishing my Halloween special. I actually got two of them done last weekend. Here is the list of people on my list.


01:*  shiniori319
02:*  van-weasel
03:*  brutis02
04:*  Lucca_manadragon
05:*  zerotheliger
06:*  jade-scale
07:*  doruvon
08:*  dragga
09:*  ranek
10:  bontjes
11:*  cloverwolf68
12:  kero957
13:  anailaigh
14:  mobiustrap
15:  Crash

* completed request

As you can see, I have five to go on my list currently. No idea how long I can finish it all but I am pretty sure by the end of the month. Sooner if I can really get going on them.

My last journal got good response compared to my usual ones. Too bad it took some bad news for it but I guess I'll have to live with that. I rather have good news to report. Maybe next time.

Well, I guess I start off with some not so happy news. My brother gone back in the hospital again. He has a litany of problems including diabetes, high blood pressure and now kidney failure. Yet he still smokes and does who knows what (we suspect he got back into drugs despite making him sicker). His kids was over here on Halloween too to celebrate his son's birthday party. But he keep on his path of self destruction with not only with the cigarettes but his mysterious friends (dope dealers most likely).

And the guy can barely walk. He fell in the backyard and couldn't get up. He also made a mess since he can't control his bowel movement all that well. Called 911 this time (yes, he both can't get up as well as shat on himself before). He denied smoking back there but the empty packs and strewn lighters says otherwise. He is talking about going to a nursing home setting. Hopefully it will prevent him from smoking and all that crap. Also getting him to take his meds like he is supposed to. We'll see if he turns around but I don't count on it. He is the one making it worse. I wish he thought about his kids before going on this destructive behavior.

Oh well, I don't want to dwell on it. On to some better news. For one thing I finally bought some new computer gear. Not a new system I wanted for a long time but a few items to make life easier for me. I bought a 1.5TB drive on sale for $99US. Not a bad deal. It is one of those green drives and does run a lot cooler than my smaller drives. Not the fastest thing out there (nor is my old and slow computer) but plenty of storage to play with.

It is kind of embarrassing to say, but I fried the drive. Long story though. Basically the SATA PCI card won't recognize such a large drive on boot (it hangs), so I had to use the hot swapping feature to get it up and going. Not a big deal usually as I rarely reboot as I can go months without doing it. Well, had a short blackout that rebooted everything. I disconnected the drive and plugged it back in once booted. I had to reboot a few times due to a different issue but on the final reboot, I plugged the Molex style power adapter. It is keyed to prevent it from being inserted backwards. Unfortunately, the terminals still makes contact even though not fully connected. This action applied 12 volts to the 5 volt line, burning a few components.

Being an electrical engineer, I knew what happened. Sure enough, when I pulled the circuit board out, I found the TVS diode blown as well as an inductor on that power line. TVS diodes are there to help dissipate nasty voltage spikes like those cheap powersupplies like to give out. They short the transient voltage to ground. Anything over the breakdown voltage of 6 get shunted to ground. That 12 volts I gave it lasted a lot longer than it was designed for and failed by shorting out completely. This overpowered that poor tiny inductor and it blew like a fuse, though with a lot more mess and smoke. It got so hot that part of the solder pads burned and lifted off the circuit board.

Luckily I had a suitable replacement parts at work. The original diode was a 400 watt part and I had it in 600 watts. A little larger but the pads fit (I suspect that was in the original design as the 12 volt line had the larger diode since it has the same size pads). So no problem there going with the larger part. The inductor I had no clue on its value. I figure it is designed to help filter out noise from the powersupply. I slapped in one that we had in the lab and it should do fine. I brought it home and reinstalled it. Working good so far. I'm going to use this drive only for backups though.

While I was fixing my drive, I decided to get another one just in case as it was still on sale. Just got it delivered yesterday. Also a 25" LCD monitor came in too. I ordered it since I needed to size up my monitor on my 'art' computer. The sale price so good (at $180US) that I finally pulled the trigger on that purchase. That was my largest expenditure for electronic gear I done all year. Hell, in the last couple of years at least.

The 3.0GHz P4 I have it on can't fully use the resolution the monitor is capable of with the crappy onboard Intel video. Plus the aspect ratio is all wonky (stretched horizontally). I want a new card for it anyway and have been on a lookout for a good sale. I love sales if you can't tell. Anyway, I haven't seen anything really lately on the video card front except the really low end or on the very top. I would like to get something in the $50 range but no more than $100.

I would love to get a Nivida 9800 GTX for this system but it is a bit overkill and I have to upgrade the powersupply. I think a 9600 would be more suitable. Not seeing any good sale on one right now. However, the holiday seasons is about to blossom into full swing and hopefully I'll snag a great deal. I'm patient so I can wait for one.

I mainly wanted the bigger monitor for my so called arts and eventually when I get back into computer games. Speaking of arts, you may notice I been getting back into them after a long dry spell. I recently completed my Halloween special drawing, my first attempt at it. I combined it with my celebratory 666 watchers and 15,000 pageview kiriban. Funny how those two milestones came nearly at the same time. Not the first time that happened to me either.

While I didn't get everything done on that picture as I planned, I think I did well enough. It is one of if not the most complex drawing I ever done before. Five characters including myself and some random human in a cauldron featured in it. I wish I did more details but my slowness and lack of freetime forced me to rush it, especially toward the end to make my self imposed deadline of October 31. I did make though so I am happy with that. But as usual, I got far less views on it than as hoped. I figured as much since there isn't any porn in it. Still, I was hoping since I put so much work into it. I labored on it on and off for like two weeks.

I also got an itch to draw a pumpkin guy on Halloween day. I only had a few hours to get it done by midnight so I quickly (for me anyway) drew it up and got it loaded. I only missed the deadline by 20-30 minutes and I think he came out cute. Of course I barely got any views on it, not much higher than 30 total. I should be used to such dismal results but once again still hoped for more. I guess I am a glutton for such disappointments.

I restarted doing those open maw mini-meme once more. I just completed doing the eighth person last night. I hope to churn these out faster as I have six more people on my list. I have a few more ideas to explore for them so I should be ok. I'll do more if there are more interests. Not sure as people are losing interest in them like usual with my projects.

Since I been so busy with all these projects (and at work too), my role playing (RP) have took a nosedive. I still do a few but my moods, as you can imagine, not up to the usual standards. And it seems I am not the only one as all the IRC channels I am in experienced a dramatic drop also. If any of you are somehow interested in doing some RPs (or even just chatting), I run two channels on FurNet IRC. The first one is named #the_lair where some rather naughty stuff goes on on occasion. the second is #bellyofthebeast where more extreme (very very extreme) RPs pop up. Contact me if you have trouble finding your way there.

Ok, I think I covered most of it. For those small number of people actually reading my journal, let me know what you think. The last journal got zero comment so I don't know if anyone looking at them. I feel so lonely looking at the big fat zero. It saddens me so. This has largely been a problem with any of my submissions and it haunts me. I hate to beg but I am getting desperate here.

15k kiriban and the aftermath.


As some of you are aware, I reached that magical mark of 15,000 pageviews (and beyond). The winner of the kiriban contest is good ol'  MobiusTrap . I think he burnt out his <F5> button with the way he was pounding on it. I told him that a person's visit only counts once a day on FA. But somehow I can still picture him tapping that key. Oh well, he manage to get the view and the required screenshot.

Some of you also know that I recently hit 666 watchers. Someone unwatched me (boo, hiss) before I saw who got to that number of the beast first, so I have two winners of that contest too. Both the 15k thing and 666 watchers came within days apart. Weird how that works. It is not the first time something like that happened too.

Now I have three winners to do something with as a prize. Since Halloween is coming up fast, I decided to combine all of them into a common theme. I am working on a Halloween special involving all the characters in a single scene. My idea is basically calls for a nice sacrfical offering to me.

I have the work in progress (WIPs) n my scraps galley if you want a peek. A warning though, it is a bit gory and bloody. It is slowly getting there but I am worrying if I can make it on time by my deadline of the 31st. It is going to be close. I think I have enough to make a passable submission but I have more ideas to explore on this. Animating some of the objects looks to be right out. Too bad as I think it would have been cool. Oh well, a static picture is better than nothing.

I have other news like real life drama flaring up again. However,I am not in the mood to get into it. I'll survive but it sucks getting returning problems that should have been done and over with. Just sad and stupid really. Hopefully I have better news to report in the next update.

Yay! I finally got to 666 watches. I was one away but I got two new watchers while I was at work, which mean someone unwatched me. This left me with a bit of a dilemma as I planned to do something special with the one to hit that number first. Since I don't know when I got the unwatched, I can't tell who got to it first. The winner is either  redley or  kevaskous . Since what I had planned is very extreme, I'm going to divulge my idesa to both of them. Hopefully one or the other or even both accepts the proposal.

Now I won't go into much details here (besides, I am still forming them), I can say it will involve Halloween themes and the number of the beast. If both decline, I'll have to find a substitute sacrifice.

On a related note, my 15k pageview kiriban contest is still on. Right now it is sitting at 25 more views to go. I say in the next couple of days should do it. Grab a screenshot on give me a link to the post. I suggest using a image site like imagebin.org as FA Admins don't like those screenshots even though they have a screenshot category. Anyway, good luck with it. The winner will be eaten... I mean get some sort of a prize to be determined later.