http://popufur.com/journal/

A little side project of mine- wanted to see if I could implement Markov chains. Refresh for a new entry! Let me know if you see anything particularly hilarious.

The other day I proposed a contest: design a hat for me to make that could be done with embroidery, and I'd do it for free.
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/2032277/

 seramonster
And here is the winner, Kazoo! I picked this because it had just the right amount of detail for an 'experiment'.

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/5127870/

Here are some more pictures. Don't forget to look at the BACK of the hat too!
http://scrapbook.superwailingbonus.com/?f=25191

I am contemplating taking a couple of these on as commissions. Would anyone be interested?

As you may have noticed (but you probably didn't, since nobody cares about the stuff I post) I incorporated embroidery into my latest custom hat design.

Which got me to thinking... do you think I could embroider all of the facial details onto a hat instead of cutting applique pieces and sewing them down? It would probably look pretty spectacular if I could pull it off. I would like to attempt this, but I lack the motivation/creativity/whatever to design something myself. So lazy.

s can't enter because they can have a free one anyway

HERE'S WHERE YOU COME IN

If you have a really cool and/or complicated design you want to put on a hat, comment here (no email or notes, please!) with a link to the hat design.

Some pro-tips:
- Try to focus on the front/back/rim of the hat, and maybe even the front/back of the ears. I don't want to have to worry about pulling off 6-point antlers, three tails, and a dreadhawk on top of embroidery.
- Eyes, nose, whiskers, whatever, is all fair game. Even lettering
- My hoop is 6x8 inches. I'll probably break down the designs into the left and right halves of the hat anyway.
- Try not to go too overboard with colors. I have to change colors manually. >:(

- I will pick a winner based on whatever seems the coolest.
- There are no guarantees the hat will look good (I could fail miserably), but I'll let you know how it turns out I guess.
- If it turns out great, I'll ship it for freeeeeee too
- Then I'll open up for some kickass commissions.

What do you think?
Get crackin'!

This seemed to work out pretty well last year, so I'm going to try again!

I don't like to think of "New Year's Resolutions" in the traditional sense. What I thought would be neat is to make actual goals for the new year. During this year, I want to accomplish the following things.

Last year my goal was to put together an "album" of my own original music/compositions/garbage. I kinda cheated and threw together old tracks I had lying around, but I thought it counted.

This year I have three goals in mind:
1. Be nicer to Sometimes I get selfish and only think of what will make ME happiest. I should try to factor her happiness in there a little bit better. I think I'm doing okay so far

2. Another album! Maybe something ambient-ish. I've just been fascinated by artists like Brian Eno and Steve Reich. I want to try something like that...

3. A piece of writing. Something in me just wants to write a short story, or a short novel, or something like that. I used to write stories, and even though I'm sure they sucked pretty hard, it was just a lot of fun to imagine and visualize. I have some ideas... but you'll just have to wait and see!

This is in addition to all those other normal goals like love on the dogs, and keep paying off the house, hold down the job a little longer, until I become a millionaire or something.

What are your goals?

(This journal entry was meant to be written on FA, but since they still haven't figured out how to implement private journals, I am posting this to LJ. I am exposing way more than I feel comfortable sharing, so I don't want anyone joe-blow to be able to read this...)

http://users.livejournal.com/taren_/565694.html

Feel free to comment on either entry.

Do you have a partial suit you're looking to turn into a full suit?
Are you building a fursuit but don't want to attempt the body?
Have you tried making body suits before but just want somebody else to do it for you?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, this journal may be for you!


I'm opening up for one body suit commission, to be completed by the end of February 2011!

http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1802676/
Here is a journal with all of the details. However, I'm changing a few things. My base price will start at $400, and I am willing to do digitigrade for a flat $100 extra. My price includes material costs, paypal fees, and shipping to the US. I am willing to ship internationally for a little extra.

And now that I've got my gallery working again, here are some past projects I've done for others:
http://scrapbook.superwailingbonus.com/?f=23235
http://scrapbook.superwailingbonus.com/?f=22170
http://scrapbook.superwailingbonus.com/?f=21556
http://scrapbook.superwailingbonus.com/?f=21451
http://scrapbook.superwailingbonus.com/?f=21018 (digitigrade)
http://scrapbook.superwailingbonus.com/?f=19566
http://scrapbook.superwailingbonus.com/?f=19436
http://scrapbook.superwailingbonus.com/?f=19362
http://scrapbook.superwailingbonus.com/?f=17953
http://scrapbook.superwailingbonus.com/?f=17489

As stated in my other journal, I do not require a duct tape dummy. I have made many form-fitting, tailored suits for customers using only a handful of select body measurements. My most recent commission was a suit for a local fur and when I went to deliver it, he was pleasantly surprised to find the suit fit perfectly on the first try- no touch-ups needed!

If you are interested, feel free to comment or note me here on FA. However, for the fastest response possible, email me at tarennauxen at gmail.com.

Hope to hear from you soon. Thanks!

A while back I mentioned something about taking fursuit body commissions, and ended up making one for a local,  warwulf. He has been super awesome to work with and everything is going smoothly.

This year has been pretty nuts, I think. Moved into the house in January, followed up by FC, then AC, and MFF, and full-time work in between. Since everything is kinda getting settled down, I thought maybe I could take on fursuit-related commissions again. Maybe just one a month or so for now...

Would anyone be interested? I'm just doing body and tail stuff only- no hands/feet/heads. Here's the original post with more details: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1802676/

And even if you're not, leave me some comments for me to read while I'm sluffing it at work. It's been pretty slow lately :)

I currently have some sort of cold or flu or virus or whatever. It seems to be progressing rather quickly, fortunately. Here's generally how it went:
Tuesday: Fabulous, for the most part.
Wednesday: scratchy throat that I chalked up to pollution/allergies/dust
Thursday: full-out sore throat, hurt to swallow. Hot chocolate felt good though. <3
Friday: Coughing, slight temperature, sore throat mostly went away.
Saturday: Runny nose, constant coughing, body aches, extreme sinus pressure, constant headaches
Sunday: Sinuses are beginning to clear, but still burning through a lot of Kleenex. Kinda fatigued and generally 'out of it'.
I should be back to 90-95% by tomorrow or Tuesday.

Didn't help that I kept waking up every couple of hours last night. Ugh that was horrible, I seriously felt like I could have started my day at 02:30 today. Then I got out of bed and felt dizzy. Then I couldn't get back to sleep. Woooo.

And then on top of that now everyone's giving me a hard time because apparently resembles the dragon from the new Narnia movie. Like, a LOT. I was mesmerized by the drgn's shiny shiny scales. *squeal* Now everyone (actually a couple of people) are referring to me as [dragon's name (spoiler)]... I just like the attention :D

My new phone came on Thursday, a Droid X. Now before anyone goes all derka-derka-muhammad-jihad on me, listen up: I'm on Verizon, and I plan (hopefully) on doing my own app development, so as far as usability, this is probably my best choice. I spent most of yesterday setting it up, and so far I'm pretty stoked. There are a couple of nitpicky things I'm currently trying to work around, but overall it's such a HUGE step up from my BB Storm, holy shit.

What made the BB Storm such a hassle? It seemed so powerful when I first got it. I don't know whether it was the OS, the six (count 'em: SIX) apps I installed that maxed out the internal memory, other poor memory management, a slow CPU, or what. I was up to at least one battery pull per day, easily. Some days required two or three, especially if I visited a lot of sites with *gasp* javascript.

I've had a total of five cell phones so far:
1. Some old thing that was shaped like a bar of Dove soap 2001?-2005: didn't know how to use Contacts (did it even have any?) so I just memorized numbers. I didn't even know how to answer a call, because I never had the phone on. My parents gave it to me for emergencies only. I think I charged it maybe twice, ever. (What's the beeping noise? Fuck!)
2. LG flip phone thing: Pretty snazzy; was forced to upgrade because my soap-phone didn't have E911 GPS capability. Damn!
3. LG VX8300: Upgraded in June-ish 2007 when I wanted a phone with custom MP3 ringtones. I am pretty ace with Acid Pro, so I cut/mixed my own. (To date, I've never purchased any media- why would I?). Still very reliable to this day.
4. Blackberry Storm1: Upgraded in May 2009 when I wanted a phone with interwebs and such.
5. Droid X: Upgraded in Dec 2010 after getting fed up with the Storm.

Well, either way, this comic applies to phones as well, in my experience. At least for my Blackberry. http://theoatmeal.com/comics/computer_phases

In other news, I've been writing a standalone image gallery to replace all the stuff I've used on my site in the past. Passion0.6 was great while it lasted, but some PHP/MySQL upgrade broke it. I switched over to Gallery2, which seemed like a good idea, until I accidentally nuked a folder containing 4000 images when I tried to remove password protection from the folder. If you want it done right, do it yourself. I'm slowly learning the kung-fu of magically resizing pictures and manipulating files in PHP. I'll probably only be using it for myself, but if anyone's interested in no-bullshit image gallery software, give me a holler. Apparently there's a real lack of bare-bones gallery stuff, I hear? Eh, that's what happens when you have software written by non-Hackers.
http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/introduction.html

The other day, Sema and I went on a ~date~ and wound up walking off the calories from Ruby Tuesday's at Barnes and Noble. I was looking for books on AS, and after sifting through a lot of books aimed at parents of aspie kids, and found this neato gem: The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome.

Before I get into that, though, there was one book that I gleaned an interesting tidbit of information from, that I'd like to share. It was a red book that had lots of drawing by kids. The thing that caught my eye was a drawing of a schoolyard fight, in which two boys with peacock tails were about to duke it out. Of course I'm gonna stop and look at something like that- I want to know what the heck is going on there!

It was a scene written from the perspective of an aspie of how fights start between two insecure, macho boys. He described that being considered 'hard' and 'tough' was of utmost importance in growing up, and escalating confrontation was the only way to prove that to your peers. As an 'outsider' the author noted how bizarre the whole process seemed.

The reason I mentioned this is because this is exactly how I feel about certain social rituals and norms, and I suppose is part/most of the reason why I feel 'transgendered'. I just want to reiterate that my gender identity aligns closest with 'neither'. Because of my innate aloofness to subtle social cues about how I 'should' act (as well as many deliberate acts of defiance) I have mostly picked out my behaviors, interests, and hobbies for myself, rather than let others pick them for me because of my cash and prizes. As a result, I never formed the same gender-binary world-view that most people see. Kind of like students that are home-schooled never get imprinted mentally with a rigid social caste system based on grade-level. Does that even make sense? Being a macho jock is retarded; being a skanky psycho bitch is also retarded. So what I did was just take bits and pieces from everywhere and put them in a glass bowl. Stoicism and analytical-ness, amiability and visual thinking, something like that. Why shit so crazy.

Good lord I didn't intend to write that much on that topic.

A topic that comes up again and again in AS books is bullying. I don't doubt I got my fair share of bullying. It wasn't really that bad for me, though, for two specific reasons: I always had somebody worse than me, and I didn't give kids that many reasons to hassle me. Long story short, I was in my school district's "gifted" program (i.e. send the smart, white kids to the trashy gang-banger schools across town to boost test scores). The neighborhood kids at the schools mostly fought amongst themselves (Latin Kings and Gang Disciples), and I mostly flew under the radar. Fortunately for me, there was a kid named Kevin that was very loud and very obnoxious, and really attracted a lot of the heat.

Then there were the physical and mental aspects. I was always tall and skinny, usually one of the top 3 tallest in my class. I'm currently a petite 6' 1.5" (187cm) without shoes. Despite the fact that the AS books always seem to peg aspies on being clumsy, I consider myself to have incredible dexterity and coordination. (Insert shameless plug for my youtube account here tarennauxen, where you can see me rock out at Beatmania.) That didn't give people a lot to work with! As I moved into high school, I earned some respect by being 'that guy that writes all the cheat programs for the calculator'. Still, that didn't stop me from getting flak for always being a little eccentric and frequently hanging out with 'uncool' people.

Speaking of eccentric, I wanted to discuss the real reason for me writing this: the books all talk about 'special interests', things of intense fascination and obsession. Upon learning about the ancient four-element system (air, fire, earth, water- that stuff) I always identified with fire. Not only was summertime kickass (fuck February, subzero temps can bite me, as they frequently do) but fire also represents intensity, passion, and consumption. Whenever I found a 'source of ignition', my blaze would burn hot, spread quickly, and engulf everything in sight.

Now that I look back on it, I wanted to enumerate some of the things in the past that have captivated my attention. I've always felt- and still do- that if something is worth my effort, I'm going to give it 170% or more... or none at all. This leads to some interesting dilemmas when special interests take priority over interpersonal relationships. But anyway, here are some neat 'blasts from the past'.

One of my first major interests was math. My parents bought me all sorts of toys and gadgets to encourage it. My kindergarten I was able to do simple equations with all four operators. I whizzed past the other kindergarteners when it came to math time. On the other hand, I wasn't so hot about learning to read (I was fairly middle-of-the-pack). Each student had a colored folder of lessons to master. First it was the basic alphabet. When you figured out all of those letters, you moved on to diphthongs and special sounds (ch, th, sh, etc.) and eventually the elusive purple folder- consonant clusters. Even more hilarious, I was the last in my class to learn how to tie a shoe. Velcro was working for me, and numbers were far more interesting- fuck that shit, man. I bet the only reason I learned was because there was a Chuck E Cheese trip involved as a reward for learning it!

Being tall at a young age allowed me to see over the top of pinball tables. One day my aunt took me to the Game Factory (small arcade chain near Rockford) and corrupted me for life. Around age 8-9 I began playing pinball constantly, primarily at the bowling alley after league on Saturday mornings, and at Chuck E. Cheese, or whenever I could convince my parents to take me to Game Factory. I began building my own tables out of wooden blocks and a ping-pong table, or whatever I could find. I started designing tables shortly thereafter. By fourth or fifth grade I had drawn extremely detailed machine blueprints called the "Funhouse" series (despite the existing trademark). My company was called Double-Check and the logo was almost identical to the VW symbol. The series ended somewhere around "Funhouse 80".

Did I mention bowling? I started around age 7, with bumpers. The Saturday morning leagues were always ranked by tier: juniors and seniors (HS/college) were at the low end, followed by preps, bantams, and bumpers. It slowly turned into a special interest as I got older, and I wanted to play it all the time. I'd set up elaborate makeshift lanes, with pins and a ball. I'd entertain myself for hours. First it was 2-liter bottles and a soccerball, then in middle school, I made the Beanie Bowl. It was a 6-foot pine board with a particle-board base (for gutters) and some cardboard blocks as a backstop. The curtain in the back was an exercise mat. For pins, I alternated between Crayola markers for the "regular circuit" and 5/8" dia. dowel rods for the "pro circuit". The dowel rod pins made an interesting noise when they were struck, especially because most of them had pennies and dimes hot-glued to the base for support. The ball was usually a tennis ball, but at one point I upgraded to a batting cage ball. It was freaking amazing.

Yeah, you heard right- Beanie Bowl. Gee I wonder where I came up with that name? Right. This was about 1997, and by then I had managed to learn all of the names of the then-current set, their birthdates, their retirement status, and their market values. When I went to Canada that one time, you better believe I flipped my shit when I found the rare Bears with double (canadian) tush-tags. I spent the rest of the trip translating metric for my parents. (How hot is 15?)

A few years later, I did the same thing with golf courses. My dad had encouraged me to try golf (which I played casually until I went to college), and I had picked up a computer simulator called Jack Nicklaus 5. It included a course designer. Since it was the family machine (read: mine, when my mom wasn't doing grades or checking email) I put my personal files in there, too. That's why up until this current computer, almost all of my personal data was stored in a directory called "C:\Golf Courses". First you figure out your plot of land, then where the natural landscapes already exist, like creeks and hills, and then you lay down a skeleton of the tee boxes and pins. Holes 1-9-10-18 all touch the clubhouse. Each par 3 needs and par 5. Draw the greens, bunkers, cart paths, fairways, rough, and foliage. I was such a nut about good course design and balance that in 8th grade, a teacher in school tried to humiliate me for doodling them in class instead of paying rapt attention to the lecture.

I had my share of bizarre collections around then too. It was kind of like compulsive hoarding, but only for specific items. At one point, Coke was doing some NFL-related promo, where all of the 12oz cans had red tops with numbers printed on the pack. I made a necklace out of the numbers ordered sequentially, although I didn't quite get all 99. Lots and lots of duplicates, though. I also went though a phase of collecting 20oz plastic bottle tops. This probably started when all those companies were doing giveaways under the label. You know, back before everyone was able to freely give their personal information away over the internet? Fruitopia was freaking amazing. A shame it's pretty much gone except for that one McDonald's in DeKalb. I amassed something like 700 caps before I just said 'fuck it'. I did the same thing with spent AA batteries and small compressed CO2 canisters. Still not sure why. I sort of did it for a while with fabric, but now that I have everything, there's no need to!

Everything else kinda went on hold when I found Draconic/AltFanDragons. That's a story for another day... My only other interest at that point was bowling. By then, I was to the point where it had turned into a very specific ritual. If there was league or scholastic practice/meets, I was picky about attire (no long sleeves and no long pants/slacks, I don't care if it's 20 below and snowing that's what leg hair is for) and my equipment, and getting there early. Missing even one minute of warm-up was distressing, and jumping in late would have ruined my world. It's okay if you don't "get it"- that means you're normal. Junior Gold and High School tournaments forced me to overcome the attire deal, and college/fun bowling broke me of the warm-up/practice ritual. I'm still adamant about bringing my own equipment and being fiercely focused and competitive. Sorry, that's what 11 years of competitive league play and a 200+ average does to you. I play to win, or I don't play at all.

The pinball interest came back when I discovered Visual Pinball on the net. I started designing my own tables... again. This time, I could play them! And since I was getting into C++ programming at the time, picking up VBScript for controlling the mechanisms and lights was a snap.

On one of my bowling trips to St. Louis in February 2002, I was introduced to DDR. It became an instant interest. I played that shit nonstop that summer, going from "What's Konamix?" to "I fucking cleared Dead End SSR *dies*" in 3 months. (I also dropped 10% of my body weight that summer, from 150 to 135. I didn't break 150 again until 2008.) Now that I had a car and a part-time job, I could travel the Greater Rockford area and get my fix. Rev'd Up, CherryVale Mall Cyberstation, and Huskies Den at NIU ftw. Janesville and Norridge trips only when Jay-D drove, and Naperville when GTC drove, because my clunker couldn't survive the interstates.

I attempted to create a DDR simulator in Visual Pinball, which was not only hilarious as shit, but successful. I was quickly introduced to Dance With Intensity (written by furries oh snap DJ Drafthorse and SimWolf) and Stepmania. Started writing my own charts for songs (I'm up to something like 150 different songs), as well as spending an ungodly amount of time learning every little nuance of the game. Song appearances, hidden codes, trivia, reverse engineering the scoring systems, advising developers on the different game options. Crazy stuff like that. When the lull hit in 2003-4, I moved on to IIDX. I still play, but after being plateaued for years, it's more of a casual hobby. I can't really improve any more, so it's slowly being relegated to only when I'm bored or stressed out.

Well, that was fun to write. I enjoy writing about this kind of stuff, especially when I know people take interest in it. I doubt many people can relate to my experiences, but hopefully it's fun to take a look at how wacky my childhood was compared to everyone else's. Maybe? I don't know.

I also have a tendency to talk about myself too much. I just want somebody to listen!

Have you or anyone you know shown signs of special-interest behaviors like this? Feel free to share your stories in the comments, I love seeing my comment counter go up, especially when I'm bored at work.

Anyway, I'm currently very interested in learning about AS, and how others have dealt with this 'gift'. I luffs my  semjay very much and know that sometimes my eccentricity puts stress on the relationship. Fortunately, we are super awesome together and still going strong!


CLINK!!!!

 shadow-da-wolf http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4881514
 ashadan http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4881525
 ryunwoofie http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4881543
 tojo-the-thief http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4881579
 rika http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4881592

Here's my 'secret media' project from last week! I was asking for head/bust shots because I was turning them into stitched patterns. I'm using a program called Embroidery Magic 2. It's kind of hard to work with, but it's got all the features I really need (for now) and it was really easy to pick up. I actually had all of these done in one day, but just spent a week getting around to posting them.

How do they look? I'm pretty happy overall with how they turned out, but I notice that some of the detail gets lost at such a small scale. The stitches get lost in the fabric- it's especially bad for eyes. The fabric likes to adjust itself mid-project, too, which leads to weird gaps around edges and stuff.

I'm not sure where to go from here. As of right now, these finished designs are just sitting on the fabric, not even cut out yet. I don't think I have the capability to make that cool looking finished edge though. I was kinda thinking about cutting them out and sticking them in badge holders or something. Maybe lamination.

I'd like to open up for commissions/orders at some point, since custom embroidery is pretty much an untapped market around here. What kinda stuff would you be interested in?

Any advice would be appreciated!

These 30 posts brought to you by NaBloPoMo

I did it! 30 posts in (roughly) 30 days. I cheated a few times with my made-up "extended clock" rule, posting past 24:00 (i.e. it's not technically tomorrow until you pass out or the sun comes up) but in my book that totally counts. When you live by the programmer's schedule, it's all just numbers on a clock.

ADD moment: I actually prefer analog clocks to digital, believe it or not. I feel that analog clocks make time tangible in the form of wedges and shapes. When I was in school (pre-college) all of the rooms had analog clocks, so I got used to identifying times by angles. Seriously, I didn't even bother translating it into "X past Y o'clock", it was just up, down, right-angle, over there...

Today was not a good day physically. My work is doing roof/ceiling repairs or something, so all of the cold air that's trapped in the false 2nd-floor is dropping to the main floor, yuck. Fortunately my room is pretty much isolated, but it sucks early on before all the warm bodies get there. It's like 71 in that room when I get there.

I was having issues with one of the work machines, yet again. The program I needed to run would literally vanish from the screen, mid-execution. Very consistently, at roughly the same point. Here's the twist: as soon as I tracked down where it was failing, it started working perfectly. I was making sure that it wasn't a bug in the code, to be honest. I explained to my coworker (superior) what I did, and he began to criticize me for not spending that time trying to configure "machine #8" to run the same software instead of dinking around with the piece o' shit "machine #2" still. Hello- the reason I'm even BOTHERING with machine #2 is because tech support fucked up the accounts/permissions on machine #8 when they set it up, and I had been waiting for it to get fixed up. Heaven forbid I delegate work to somebody else.

I let him go on his little chest-pounding tirade for a while even though he's not my boss, after which he took it upon himself to get the accounts fixed. This is the same guy that got pissed off because he only got a "Meets Expectations" on his performance review instead of "Exceptional". The same guy that criticized me to my boss that I never "stayed late" even though there was rarely a driving need to. And the same guy that my boss told me not to worry about because he's super ultra uptight about work :)

Normally I take criticism super-hard, and I beat myself up over dumb shit, but I just wanted to roll my eyes so hard at him. But if there's one important lesson I've learned over time, it's "smile and nod". Trust me, I know what I'm doing.

On to something nicer! A look back at 2010 in music. Since mid-2003, I've kept a 'music journal' of songs and pieces that remind me of certain points in time. It's like audio milestones. Usually what happens is a song will get stuck in my head accidentally, and then every time I hear it after that, it reminds me of that time. I used to split this up by semester, but since I'm out of school, I lumped this entire year together. So here it is!

---"The 2010 O.S.T."---

01. DOMINION / L.E.D. / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dp6tFlERFyE
I honestly don't remember why this is here. I think it was because I was so excited about moving into the new house. Just full of energy and motivation and such.

02. Eighties (Ozgur Can Remix) / Yilmaz Altanhan / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ar2K73KSn1E
03. Larry Mountains 54 / David West feat. Andreas Hermansson / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCHUx-OyxHU
I kept hearing these on Pandora, especially when driving in the car to/from work. Thought they were especially moving. I'm a sucker for cheesy trance. What's hilarious is that these tracks are one-two on the album "Anjunabeats 3". (Northern Lights is another good track from that disc)

04. So Fabulous!! -Only One Remix- / SUPER STAR 満-MITSURU- / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sK-b-8oGlXc
Speaking of cheesy... Another high-energy track that I listen to when I need a pick-me-up. If you play IIDX, you probably know about the original version of this song, with the ambiguously gay Asian dude dancing around in a sea of bubbles... haha, oh god.

05. Night Train / Appaloosa / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4X_sPLruniU
I have been listening to this song for a long time (Points In Time 004), but it never really 'caught' until it came up like a million times in a row on my D&B station on Pandora. And always while I was driving home in the dark in January.

06. roppongi EVOLVED ver.C / TAG underground / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvSlmTJXeOg
This should probably be track 5, honestly. I remember playing this at Billyjr's house on the DDR machine in his garage during my trip to FC 2010. I'm still not convinced that Tag and Mitsuru are different people...

07. Station to Station / Omni Trio + Deep Blue / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFSSd0H_RgE
Another "holy fuck Pandora you need to learn how to randomize" song. I associate this with driving (surprise surprise)... around Mesa, especially down University. To the dentist... yeah.

08. Above Words / Blu Mar Ten / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUHWIYuoOIs
Okay, finally, some songs I've associated with the new house. I was searching for some background music to listen to, and found this little gem. It reminds me of my routine, of relaxing in the evening, then getting a shower, hitting the hay...

09. Keep Feeling Fascination / The Human League / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqqBs6kkzHE
I don't know why Pandora picked this one to play, but all it took was one play to get caught in my ear. Just try not to tap along to the beat. More background music fodder for work, I guess.

10. D / Eagle / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtZfMk0S1IQ
I think at this point I was beginning to learn about the "Parallel Rotation" system in IIDX 17 Laser Dogs, and found it wildly amusing that they were making spin-offs of old boss songs as the new ones. Yeah, this is pretty much all I ever listen to, and the only place I listen to shit is in the car, because I'm in it all the time. This song reminds me of driving home in April or May, when it's sunnier out but not scorching hot. Note the gradual tempo change...

11. Cinnamon Road / Tangerine Dream / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxu3WmD6irE
Again, another song that I've had for years, just never really listened to much. Now the weather is getting nicer, and it's fun to go and do stuff in the evenings, and such.

12. Elisha / DJ Yoshitaka / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0xNnhHWCgo
13. mosaic / Auridy / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Anvvswu_SPU
14. GALGALIM / L.E.D. / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYnibeZCg0s
15. Red. by Full Metal Jacket / DJ Mass MAD Izm / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Or1BdQLwvwU
Anthrocon 2010! Can you tell what I took with me to listen to while I worked on hats?

Eh, this is taking too long, so here are the rest:
16. Departure / Synkro / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbTYzZy04Hg
17. Speed of Light / Zircon / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKqb040RRtw
18. Saviour / Klute / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsvxF30-Gz0

19. Another Winter / Anamanaguchi / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Frl898gVW1o
Went to see Scott Pilgrim, wound up playing the game at the dragons' house aftwards!

20. Ami Nu Ku Tuu from 'The One' / Shinichi Osawa / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qT_DBq6HIY
21. Moments In Love / Art of Noise / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ux3u31SAeEM
22. Aurora Boreal / Danny C / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0qzHkXbO4A
23. Sounds Rushing / Dominic Plaza / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuKY78zzrOw

24. Stratosphere / Junkie XL / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7R5WAbUfdow
This guy kinda looks like Streak. It's probably just the hat... and the fact that he looks emaciated.

25. 1983 / Paolo Mojo / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-1zld8A7i8
26. Melody of Aqua (Sailing to the World) / Yasunori Mitsuda / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9VhdKtaT5Y
Pretty much all of this is catchy stuff I've picked up on Pandora (except #19). Yeeeeahhh I listen to music all day at work.

27. ANTHEM LANDING (long) / DJ ムラサメ / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn1toXu_7aY
More like landing in Chicago for MFF 2010! So for this con, I took IIDX 18 (Resort Anthem?!) to listen to. Whee.
28. passionate fate / Ryu☆ / http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFCnRPXiEWw

Enjoy! There'll be more interesting stuff to type about tomorrow I guess.

Safe journey, space fans... wherever you are.

I feel much better now that Monday is over. I have been really bad about Mondays for several months now, but then the rest of the week is smooth sailin'. You know what, I wonder how much of it has to do with those 8am meetings.

Seriously. That shit ain't right. You know, the meetings where you're just a warm body in a seat? They address me MAYBE once a month. I've just resorted to taking paper and doodling because I know I'm not needed there.

Speaking of not being needed, Sema suggested that I try to get a telecommuting agreement from work. I really did try earlier on, but because there's no "critical need" for me to be out of the office, they'd prefer everyone work on-location. Now that I think about it, it would actually piss me off more to work from home because I've heard that trying to access the network through VPN is nightmarishly slow, on top of the already crippled machines. Oh, corporate short-sighted stubbornness. You're the reason Symantec still exists.

I was expected to spend all day catching up on my emails and such, but I was done in 20 minutes. No kidding. Out of the 45 emails I had received since the 17th, only two were of any importance to me. Normally I get more, but since I wasn't actively 'stirring the pot', there wasn't much traffic. It's just insane the amount of useless email that goes around my work, yikes. And it's not junk like chain letters, either- it's all business-related! Just directed at all the wrong people. It puts a sinister twist on Dilbert comics when you actually begin to experience the subjects they ridicule.

And I know my boo  semjay thinks I hate her, but that is several not trues. I just luff in different ways. I purchased all of my Christmas presents for her today (protip: don't look in the mail for the next week, seriously). Actually one of the presents is really 13 smaller presents.

I am a terrible person to shop for because there's nothing I ever want. It's either "I have no immediate use for this" or "I can jerry-rig one myself". Oh! Speaking of jerry-rigging... I was taking some test videos for fun, and was having trouble positioning one of the cameras. I ended up cutting a hole in a Kleenex box to use as a camera holder. You really don't want to know. But anyway, it reminded me of a really cool camera tripod thing, Gorilla-something-or-other. Has anyone heard of/used it before? It's like a tripod but it's got posable legs... Oh, and I like money :carlsjr: (<- this needs to be a usable icon, hint hint)

Well...
I've kept up with the NBPM posting all month. What should I write about tomorrow? I was thinking something awesome. Is there anything you've always wanted to know about me? It can be like Formspring minus the Twitter spam! You can ask two, four, or even six questions, but never three.

(Never three...)

Time for bed I guess

Not looking forward to another 9 hours of overpaid daydreaming. That is all. I thought I was over this anxiety bullshit.

One of the things my boo  semjay does is figure out medical conditions for me and such. For example, she spot-on called my low-T problem. Another thing she's saying (that I've suspected/known for a while) was that I fit the criteria almost exactly for Asperger's.

This got brought up on the way home from seeing Tangled, which was a fantastic movie. You should go see it. Maximus the horse is SO much like Qoppa-dope.

I mentioned how my maternal grandma died when I was about five, and the one really strong memory of her was once when my family left me with her for some reason. She was watching me, and I felt really shy and uncomfortable, so I hid behind the chair and asked her to stop looking at me, in a cute way of course.

I found a neat little 150-question quiz on Ass-burgers, so I tried it out. Here's my result:
http://www.rdos.net/pdf/99257419946.....14732/quiz.pdf
"You are very likely an Aspie". Yeah, no shit. But the best part is you can see all of my responses to questions and how they line up extremely well with somebody with the disorder.

I'm still convinced the term is just a clinicalization (is that a word?) of unusual personality traits. Ok, so I'm just a little crazy and eccentric. Whatever. I'll roll with it. But I don't like using the term at all because of all the dipshit furries/nerds/losers that use it as a golden ticket to act like a fucktard. "Oops, I pissed on your house, I have Assburgers, so it's ok." It's been abused to death and I don't want to be associated with that, you know?

Still, I do find that it applies to me to a ridiculous extent. Sema's not afflicted with this, so it does cause quite a bit of friction in the relationship. I have routines and aversion to change and very (VERY!) narrow interests, and it drives her bonkers. Like today, I wanted to do some coding for fun, and I eventually got into 'the zone', a.k.a. that hyper-focus super-power that only autism-spectrum disorder and/or radioactive spiders can give you. I was having a blast, then Sema needed help with something. I got all bent out of shape about being interrupted, she got upset with me, and I wasted the next couple of hours mulling over the whole situation (and playing with the dogs). My self-esteem might come back in a week or two. Take my picture and slap it on a Wheaties box, 'cause I just set the record for fulfilling pretty much every Aspie criteria in the book.

I guess what I'm looking for is advice. What should I do about it/What have others done? Do I need to talk to a psychiatrist? Is there a support website to help the poor souls that have to live with schmucks like me?

Tah-dah, yet another astonishing relevation about me. First the low-T, then TG, now ASD. I have a feeling that they're all loosely related. Isn't NBPM fun?

What an interesting day. Last night a local fur got in touch with us, saying that he had found a stray dog in his neighborhood. Since he lives in an apartment with a pretty strict pet policy, he had to move the dog fast.

http://plixi.com/p/59457975
We called him Turkey since it was Thanksgiving.

We swung by and took him home for the night. He was very timid but warmed up pretty quick. A very good car rider. He wasn't so good overnight, though- cried a lot and broke the plastic tray in his cage. It was already damaged anyway, so no big loss. Ended up taking him to the shelter, just because our house couldn't sustain a fifth dog while we waited to find an owner that might not exist. Fortunately, our friend found the owner just now, so this should turn out well. Happy face!

So yeah, black friday, yada yada consumerism materialism, whatever. I was actually considering going out to sell shit to people camping out in front of stores. I'd make a killing, but the logistics weren't working out so well. I'd sell coffee if my car's electric converter would support it. That'd be hot. Then I realized it was gonna be cold! Fuuuuck that. (It only got down to 38! Brrr. Forecast said 28.)

There's nothing I was really interested in buying- ever. Whenever I buy something, it's usually out of necessity. The lines people were waiting in were ridiculous, and nothing seemed to be on sale. Poo.

I totally wanted to go "shopping", however, to get Ronny more experience with unruly crowds as part of his training. He did very excellent at Joann and Best Buy. Totally focused.

On the way home I got to go to Higley Dogs for some smokin' hot Vienna Beef hot dogs. Delicious!
http://plixi.com/p/59344790

And then I spent the rest of the evening coding Java while Sema set up the Ecksmas (a.k.a. Christmas, for all you Futurama haters) tree. Man, that language has to make everything so freaking hard. I can't tell you how often I had to google for answers for problems I've never even considered before. Basic SSL authentication? Rotated text? Base-64 encoding? Shiiiiit.

Well whatever, tomorrow's dragon day (yay) so it's party time all the time

Eating turkey with Sema's family was pretty fun, especially when they started making fun of Uncle Paul's driving habits. The cranberries were delicious too. Black olive and pickles mmmmm. Cheesecake and pumpkin pies! Could have gone for some ice cream. Good news! I have "Death by Chocolate" at home in the freezer...

I really didn't eat a whole lot since I had been munching for a long time. Chips 'n salsa. Sema makes a kickass pico salsa. Just sayin'. I'm kind of a grazer. I like to eat slowly over a long span of time, preferrably while doing something else. And no, that doesn't include watching football.

As far as gratitude, I thought about it for a while, and a certain word popped into my mind: "poder". It's a Spanish verb that often translates to "to be able" or "can", but I was thinking of its use as a noun, which means "power, might, ability".

I am grateful to be able to do all of the things I have done this last year. I have travelled across the country to three conventions, seen the Pacific Ocean for the first time, bought a newly built house even though I have zero credit history. I have zero debt (besides a mortgage), a Master's Degree in Computer Science, a pretty darn good relationship with Sema, a mostly healthy body (it's getting better), and ambition to spare. Yo tengo el poder hacer casi todo si quiero, y estoy agradecido por eso. I can do just about anything I put my mind to, and I'm grateful for that.

I'm not trying to gloat, but I am counting some of my blessings. I'm by no means perfect, and lord-knows I have my own share of issues. Others might excel where I fail, and they should be grateful for that. But I'm glad that I have what I have, and I can do what I can do.

Oh, and football is overrated.

Not a lot to report today. I've had a slight headache all day. Not sure if it's allergies, or from being hungry, or stress, or whatever.

I spent pretty much all day doing the guinea pig tests from my previous journal. I'd say it was pretty much a success. Learned some new tricks, like now I know that the pre-wound bobbin spools should only be used for my sewing machine! Very interesting. I got through the first five responders to that journal before my patience ran out and I gave up.

Grocery shopping this evening was interesting. I always go down the street to the local Fry's Foods (Kroger), which is always super crowded and super busy. They never have enough cashiers on hand, and it's the only grocery store (Walmart doesn't count) for a rapidly developing suburb. I'd say today's crowd was only slightly worse than normal. The biggest issue with the store is that there's way too much crap obstructing the walkways. I literally stood in a cart traffic jam because people were gridlocked between a freezer case, endcap, and freestanding display. Thankfully, I know where everything is, so I sorted my shopping list by location. Hooray!

Gonna be hanging out with Sema's family (who else?) tomorrow for delicious undercharged organic turkey (long story!). Sema made pico salsa and then fell asleep watching poker (read: the show that was on before it), so the whole house smells like onions and all I hear coming from downstairs is that annoying, incessant rattling of poker chips. Poker players: that should tell you something about your "sport" if you spend more time fiddling with your equipment than playing the game!

I'm looking for a couple of people that would be willing to let me use them as guinea pigs for a "media" experiment.

What I'll need from you:
- Art of your character, preferrably a head/bust shot, and preferrably in color. Although a B&W picture would be okay too. I'd also suggest avoiding refsheets- give me something with personality.
- Zero dollars
- Love (optional)
- That's it

What you'll get:
- Something very similar based on that picture. I kind of want this to be a surprise! So shhhhh

Comment here with a link to the ONE picture you'd like me to use. (Multiple refs won't be necessary)

I'll update the list here when I've picked...

Yeah, I'm gonna cheat for today and just caption a bunch of pictures

MAIN GALLERY -->

http://www.gallery.superwailingbonu.....2_itemId=57234
Another dog got loose in our neighborhood and came up to me right as I was packing to leave for the airport. We struggled to find anyone to leave the dog with, so we ended up taking him to a nearby vet. Unfortunately this set us back an hour. In a strange twist, it turns out our flight had been cancelled and our flight had been bumped an hour earlier. CheapTickets failed to inform us, and hilarity ensued. Kamo, Streak, Dari, and Sarmy all got on the 9am flight, and we got stuck on the dead-last row on a 12:47 flight. It all went pretty smoothly, all things considered.

http://www.gallery.superwailingbonu.....2_itemId=57465
Cool shot of downtown Phoenix as an airplane lands over the city. We had to wait on the runway for this guy to land. Neat!

http://www.gallery.superwailingbonu.....2_itemId=57636
You know you're in Chicago when... See also: superfans.

http://www.gallery.superwailingbonu.....2_itemId=57417
I swung by the "old-old" MFF hotel since I was literally right next door at RAM. "wher all da furrys at?"

http://www.gallery.superwailingbonu.....2_itemId=57432
http://www.gallery.superwailingbonu.....2_itemId=57261
http://www.gallery.superwailingbonu.....2_itemId=57354
http://www.gallery.superwailingbonu.....2_itemId=57606
http://www.gallery.superwailingbonu.....2_itemId=57576
I went exploring and took some artsy shots of the hotel. Do you remember seeing all these places? :)

http://www.gallery.superwailingbonu.....2_itemId=57429
The "hall of fertility". If you look closely, you can see penises and pregnancy tests... also known as the ramp to the parking garage. We joked that some artist should design a carpet for a hotel that looks normal from the ground but becomes something unbelievably dirty when viewed from the highest floor!

http://www.gallery.superwailingbonu.....2_itemId=57399
Ask for ketchup on your hot dog here and see what happens...
Delicious delicious Vienna Beef.

http://www.gallery.superwailingbonu.....2_itemId=57690
 semjay preparing for the "Alphabet" game during the Whose Lion panel
Alternative caption: "Sema prepares for the Illinois state high school exit exam"

http://www.gallery.superwailingbonu.....2_itemId=57624
My (successful) technique for moving product on Sunday. MAKE IT GO AWAY

http://www.gallery.superwailingbonu.....2_itemId=57375
Sema's parents' house is directly over a landing route for ORD. The planes are extremely low over the house. The pictures don't even describe how weird it is to see a ginormous plane flying at an ANGLE because of the winds.

http://www.gallery.superwailingbonu.....2_itemId=57321
This was the most important stop during the con. Two #10's = 20 burgers, four boxes of fries, and four drinks.

http://www.gallery.superwailingbonu.....2_itemId=57420
I bribed the ticketing agent with a burger but we still didn't get first class.

http://www.gallery.superwailingbonu.....2_itemId=57516
You better believe I brought those burgers through security!

http://www.gallery.superwailingbonu.....2_itemId=57510
Something radioactive went under the plane on our return trip. Scary! However, Xzibit was pimping out our plane and loading the luggage so it was ok. (yo dawg i herd u liek radios to here's some uranium)

http://www.gallery.superwailingbonu.....2_itemId=57612
And finally, eating cold but real White Castles in Phoenix. The nearest store is 1429 miles away by car. (Eureka, MO)

Today is officially WHITE CASTLE DAY. Holy eff.

If you've been following my super awesome twitter (which you should) you would see maybe about a dozen posts today about getting White Castle. In fact, I'm pretty sure I had their burgers for three out of my four meals today. Also, bitching about the weather. But that's not as important.

I passed out around 2 or 3, after waiting and waiting for Alkali to get off work so we could raid WC. But it never happened because his work hates him so much. I was so exhausted I just went to sleep with all my clothes on. Not that my pajamas are much different...

The MFF hotel ran so smoothly I almost wonder if there wasn't even a con there after all. I never had to wait for an elevator, or wait at the front desk- ever! I was in the Executive Suite, so maybe that helped. But seriously... did anyone even SEE an elevator line? What the heck, how did this happen?

The hotel checkout process was pretty simple, and we were off to Sema's parents' house in nearby Itasca. It's a really comfy house, and her mom makes the BEST COOKIES EVER. I attempted the recipe once and failed. I had to drop off all my fabric and our suits to be shipped home.

I sort of miss living in IL, since I grew up there, but after this visit, I'm really glad I don't live there anymore. That was about as much damp cold and overcast as I can take anymore. Plus everything just feels old and outdated, especially the roads. I love being able to cite roads by route number, like 19, 53, 72, 58, 20 (bonus points if you know where those are) but the road system is a giant clusterfuck compared to the grid system out here. Thankfully everyone knows how to drive there.

However, the red-light cameras there literally scare me. This is kind of a political rant, so I'll keep it short- out here if you get flashed for whatever, they take your picture from the front AND back, so they can prove it's you. In Illinois, they only take a picture of your plate, so there's no way for you to fight it. Suppose you loaned your car to me, and I blew a red light. Who is responsible? If a cop pulled me over, I would be. But now, it's the registrant of the car. It would baffle me, but that state is a political nightmare in general. It scares me so because it begs the question, what will they put up with next?

Thursday felt like November, when I went to visit my parents. I only brought my Furry University hoodie, and it was about 32F, so I began convulsing in the cold within five minutes. Today was in the upper 60's and felt more like September or early October. If I lived there long enough again, I'm sure I'd get used to it, but the thing that irritates me about the climate is that it's like that everywhere- insides of buildings are cold, and heaters blow cold, and showers are painful because the bathrooms are cold... gah! I can literally feel my energy get sapped away by the cold. That, and the lack of sunlight made me feel groggy a lot. I think for me it's safe to say that near-freezing weather is about as uncomfortable as 110+ degree heat.

So you know how 60's in November is unusual? It's no surprise what happened next. When it gets warm like that in the midwest, it's a perfect setup for a cold front to cause a sudden temperature drop and severe weather. Sema and I were on the same flight as the Bad Dragon crew (Kamo, Streak, Dari, and Sarmy) so it was good times. Our 3:15pm flight was boarded on time, fantastic. I powered through a couple more White Castle burgers (which I had brought with me THROUGH SECURITY!) and brought everything on the plane. The plane left the gate around 3:37, and then got grounded on the tarmac for OVER TWO HOURS. We got to watch most of Despicable Me without leaving the airport! The takeoff was really rough but after the initial 10-15 minutes it was pretty smooth. Landed in Phoenix around 8:20, where I CONTINUED to eat White Castle burgers that had been sitting on the plane for six hours. They are amazing. Now Athus thinks there's a restaurant around here, haha. I'm pretty sure I've had about eight of them today :)

Pictures will be posted soon. I'm certainly gonna spam the shit out of FA with my hats I made.

Overall for my con experience, I'd say... somewhere around "meh"/"pretty ok".

Hotel: The hotel is amazing. However, as a dealer, I think the Dealers' room could have been in a better spot. Maybe next year, MFF can reserve that wing opposite the front desk? It just felt like DD was off in the corner normally reserved for red-headed stepchildren.

Programming: Once again, the only "panel" I went to was

Dealer Sales: Absolutely terrible; my Anthrocon sales were TRIPLE this, back in June. My hats sold great at AC, so they couldn't have gone out of style that quickly. MFF attendees are equally as spend-happy, judging by Bad Dragon's sales, so a money shortage isn't the problem. I'm thinking that competition was to blame. There were three other dealers selling hats at this con. Mine was the only one of the four facing away from the room entrance, and probably the least flashy in terms of setup. People probably saw those first and just wanted a quick, cheap, generic hat rather than a unique, customized one. Oh well. I'm kinda tired of selling hats at cons, because I don't like how much labor is involved.

Atmosphere: A little different. MFF seemed to be double-booked with other meetings the entire weekend, so I frequently spooked a lot of "gentiles" in the lobby when suiting or wandering around with my silly hat. I did enjoy getting to see all my friends, though. Would have liked to hang out with them a little more than the occasional meet-and-greet at my table.

Well, I am off to bed in my lurvely house. See you tomorrow!

Well, that's it! Overall, this con was pretty good. I would say "okay" but I got to see all my old buddies.

Sales were dismal once again but at least I managed to offload my entire stock of premade hats. Hooray! Cutting the price helped a lot. I'm grateful that I have no take-home commissions. Gonna relax all week!

I'm convinced that the sun doesn't shine here. I've driven to Woodfield twice and Gene and Jude's once and it's always dark! And somehow it's after midnight yet it's warmer now (upper 50's) than it was all day. Haha

Waiting for my buddy Alkali to get off work so we can raid White Castle at assearly-o-clock.

Had supper at Sema's parents' house tonight, beef stew! I had three bowls.

I got a chance to suit again last night too. My favorite part was when I was leaving the lower level, a group coming from the hallway shouted as I was going up the escalator, "we just saw a movie about you!" I pointed to myself. They said, "Yeah! How to train you!" Then I proceeded to run up the stairs. When I got up to the top I went off to the side and pointed down. Somebody got it- "he's got his eye on you!"

I wandered up by the bar and the glass elevators, and saw the same chick getting into the lift. I started pointing again, and fortunately her friends noticed me. She looked down, saw me, and proceeded to double over laughing while the elevator went up. Worth it! :)

Happy 20, November day!

Well, somehow day 2 was even worse for sales than day 1. My revenue today was about a third of yesterday's. I think the hats market is finally flooded. Time to move on to greener pastures. I'll probably spend Thanksgiving week perfecting my next big thing and taking orders for testers after that. </capitalistpig>

I am kind of disappointed about not being able to pay for the con with my dealer table, and confused why it's so bad, but on the other hand I am glad I'll be able to enjoy my evening. I'll actually get to suit this con. And sleep! Yay sleep.

So far my con experience has been great! I love how as a dealer, everyone comes to you. I hated having to chase people down or hope for random encounters. I just like keeping busy too. Running into all my old friends and online pals is a blast.

Tonight's culinary adventure will probably be Gene and Jude's :O~~~

I still need my White Castle fix before returning...

Selling went okay today. I didn't get a lot of bites, but the ones I got were awesome. One has a cupcake on it and another has a pepperoncini. I'm wondering if crowds at Bad Dragon's tables are scaring away potential customers. What I hope is that people were just holding out for Saturday. Not having a lot of remade hats will definitely hurt sales, but it won't really matter when there are 3 other dealers peddling hats. Three! And two of them were last-minute additions pulled from the waiting list! But nobody else makes hats with food on them! Trendsetterrrrrrr

I think it may be time to take my game TO THE NEXT LEVEL.

Time for Whose Lion!

Had a nice time with my parents at Ram in Schaumburg. Plane ride was awesome! PHX to ORD in under three hours!! At MFF now. Come see me at the dealers room. See you there!

I spent the whole day
cleaning the house and packing.
But mostly cleaning.

I'm looking forward
to a fun and successful
con happening.

Not looking forward
to a four-hour long plane ride-
cooped up in a bind.

Nor to be fondled
by cheap airport rent-a-cops,
all for "peace of mind".

Probably going to
miss the dogs just a little:
Qoppa and Annee.

Ferris went to stay
at the Pet Shotel, where he
will get to say "Whee!"

Meeting my parents
for dinner in Schaumburg-town,
I hope they're paying!

Packing is stressful.
Always afraid I'll forget
an important thing.

This time, though, I won't
oversell myself, and spend
all the night sewing.

It took me until
the end of July, last time,
how things were going.

Did I even have
a hotel room at AC
back in June this year?!

I hear this hotel
is pretty sweet. A new place!
You think they're in fear?

Although I do miss
the old Hyatt on Golf Road.
Many fond memories.

Don't forget to
"Whose Lion" on Friday.
Or else... SURGERIES.

It is hosted by
the fun-tabulous SemJay
...and Alkali too.

I'll be at the con
sometime Thursday ev-en-ing.
Just watch out, all you.

When Dealer's opens,
I expect a deluge of
customers for me!

That way I will be
able to come once again,
just about for free!