SAVE THE WHALES
IN THE EIGHTIES

holy shit what the fuck that movie was fantabulously recockulous.

i guess the moral was don't ever cause a species to go extinct because a thousand years in the future their space faring bretheren may show up and boil your oceans naively?

CAPTAIN! THAR BE WHALES HERE!

it was...interesting.

originally i had handed my mother a guest list of about ten people. in those ten people were folks like  spacefag and  supertrainstationh. a few days before the reception i called to make sure those people had actually been invited. somehow in the process of handing the list to my family we went from 10 people to 40+. and neither of us knew most of them.

fortunately maniac, sluggy, stsh and ruck all did come. zar was there too, and so they kept us marginally sane. we played a few rounds of clue (stsh and mani had never played before!) and traded pokemon and did entralink missions and stuff. i didn't get a lot of time to hang out with them because i was under pressure to walk around and be the center of attention which i am loathe to do.

it was mostly awkward. a lot of people i didn't know, and alf doesn't know, and yet they somehow knew me. some of them didn't know me. my stepbrother and his uninvited girlfriend showed up. this is now the second event she's crashed (she invited herself to stay at my sister's apartment last thanksgiving - without asking) and the third she's attempted to crash (she tried to invite herself to our wedding, you may recall). i've taken it into my mind that the next time we have any event, she will receive a specific note in the mail that she is NOT INVITED. since she doesn't seem to catch the drift when she's told verbally.

anyway, when we got to spend time with friends it was a pretty good time. i got an updated glasses prescription which was much needed and someone used the bathroom on the third floor which resulted in a stopped up sink pouring water all over the floor (about an inch) and water pouring out of lighting fixtures on the first and second floor. possibly the best thing about this is i was the only one to notice it, and when i tried to get everyone's attention it was initially dismissed out of hand as "normal." it wasn't until i dragged people to the scene of the pouring lights that they realized it wasn't normal at all. that was our cue to leave.

we tried to caravan back towards NYC with STSH, but he took a wrong exit and then we wound up accidentally in newark and so the caravan lasted all of five minutes. we tried, though.

i'm opening up 4 slots for nikitak sculpti-plushes. reserve yours here!

since i timed it, they take me about 4 hours of solid work if all goes well. i think i'll go with 10$ an hour for my time, so...40$ per takplush. i will request payment up-front.

to order yours, please send me a note with the specifics (see below). once i respond to your note, please send payment to cial[at]deathsticks.org via paypal :>

1) sokki torka - pianted eyes, shaggy body, jester cap add-on
2)
3)
4)


please specify if you want:
all-shaggy (like this guy)
only tummy-shaggy (like this guy)
AND
painted eyes (like this)
non painted eyes (like this)

if you want a custom one...
custom means different coloured fur, or extreme differences. if you want one like this, please contact me. depending on the complexity i may have to charge up to 20$ extra, since i would have to buy the fabrics.

if you want custom outfits...
aka, a jester's cap, goggles, sandles, etc. i will charge up to 10$ for these outfits, depending on the materials needed. but feel free to ask for them!

any questions? let me know!

we're FINALLY CLOSING on the house. after weeks of the mortgage broker dicking around, the seller finally got their lawyer involved in the mix.

and their lawyer, being a lawyer, sent an e-mail to the mortgage broker saying something to the tune of "no more extensions, close this week or lose the deal." which is a bluff. but THANK YOU LAWYER.

so we're finally going to do it. it's finally going to happen. WE WILL FINALLY HAVE THE HOUSE. on friday.
which is the day zar flies in from cali at midnight
and the next day we're all driving to NJ for the wedding reception
and then driving back up on sunday right after the reception

...this is going to be a busy weekend.

oh yes it is! WOOT!
[[dig it right here broseph]]

there's stickers (5$ for a pack, and they're plastic coated on the front so they last longer) and pin buttons (5$ for 6, but you can buy individual ones for 1$ too) and nikitak t-shirts (13$) and artist trading cards (8$).

for the trading cards, i've left a little comments field. so if you wanted a card that had, say, a nikitak theme to it? just write 'nikitak' in the comment field. or if you wanted dinosaurs, you'd write dinosaurs. whatever y'know :O kind of like 8$ thematic mini-commissions.

i plan on adding some things to the shop later including
-plushes
-con badges/general commissions
-possibly stuff you can purchase for sabrous

you can also pay with paypal now, which you couldn't for a while there. so go go gadget shop!

free of the horrible job.
free to search franticly for a new job.
and in the meantime, free to do commissions.

gotta clear the backlog before i open again, though.

so i talked with patchtogether (well, e-mailed with them) about the nikitak plush, since i feel bad constantly telling people "maybe! maybe! maybe!" about if it's going to be made.

they wrote back telling me plushes are THE most difficult thing to get made, because their minimum order is 300 units. good job us, shooting for the hardest goal D:

what it now needs is a minimum of 300 votes...we're currently 130 shy of that. i think PT will feel much better with more than 300 votes, just in case some people do not buy. maybe like 350? 400? i don't know.

so here's where we sit. either a lot of people vote on the nikitak plush (aka, pimp it wildly, draw nikitaks, and just spam folks until everyone knows the glory of nikitaks) OR i create a new design of a resin Nikitak figure.

so what do you guys think?
A) stick with the plush, and pimp it out (i'll need your help here)
or
B) change to a resin figure design and restart the voting process

kind of a bummer but yeah :<

i set up a comic mirror on smackjeeves.com for inhuman. it should update daily if i've done everything correct, though it doesn't have a fancy layout yet.

either way, if you're
A) a smackjeeves user or
B) interested in reading the archives one a day for kicks

then this is for you!
the mirror is over yonder

i also put my short comic "12 hours" which is about zombies up on smackjeeves, and am considering uploading my other short inhuman-themed comics there. i'll decide that later this weekend or week i am sure.

i was out sick from work today, so i did some no-brainer work in sprucing up my site.

i just in general tried to organize things better. art has been split into fanart and my art, same with writing, and the downloads have been cleaned up too. the links have been re-organized and some new ones were added, aaaaand i also broke the archives up into the main archives and the side archives.

i'm also setting up a smackjeeves mirror of the comic that'll update daily for the next...uh...two years? year and a half? but it's not ready yet. but yeah, you could reread the archives one a day on smackjeeves eventually if you wanna :B

holy shit guys chill out it's just a banner

[Principal] and [Superintendant],

It is with regret that I must turn in my two-week's notice of leaving [my school]. The special needs program has become unsafe, and I am unwilling to continue due to concerns of physical health for both staff and students. We have too few staff members to properly train staff on all the students, and this results in a lack of familiarity with student behavior plans. I myself have been placed with students who are much larger than myself and who sometimes need physical restraint. One of the cardinal rules of our [restraint] training is that you should not attempt to restrain someone larger than yourself. I have already injured my wrist, though thankfully it was not serious. I have been assigned to work with these students due to a lack of staffing.

The classroom in which I am placed has several students who react poorly to seeing or hearing another student enter into an episode. Some of them react poorly to seeing specific students grow aggravated in response to seeing a third student having a hard time. There is a sense that at any moment, the room could "go off." I do not enjoy working in a powder keg where other staff members have conceded there is the feeling that at times the room is unsafe. Some of our staff who are working with students who have a history of aggression are not even [restraint] trained. One such member ([other staff]) was injured this week by an aggressive student. Again, thankfully it was not serious, but the ambivalence the administration has responded to these injury reports with is utterly shocking. Until there is another staff member present to cover, [other staff] can not be properly [restraint] trained. This is dangerous.

There is also an issue of trust at [our school]. This year I have had the distinct feeling that the [1-to-1s] are not welcome, nor treated equally. I have been told that we are no longer trusted with keys to enter the building, in spite of the fact that we are some of the first staff to arrive. Our time sheets have become subject to extreme scrutiny- even though our appointed [weekly] meeting time was already approved before the school year began, the reaction to seeing it on our time sheets was that of scandal. Some of us arrive early to await the buses, which were historically arriving between 7:10 and 7:15 last year. Again, our bus duty time was subject to questioning. I understand the school must be careful with its finances in this economy, but I do not feel that taking money from those of us who work 1-to-1 with special needs students is an appropriate way to show that concern.

As I am already in the process of moving to [another town], I was considering this resignation before this year even began. Having seen the direction [our school] is taking special education this year, I have expedited my plans. I feel it is morally wrong to insist that we work with a skeleton crew - there is no time for our lead teacher to actually teach, and so our students are not receiving the best education possible at [our school]. One more staff member in our room could have fixed this, but it was made clear that we would receive no such person.

At our most recent meeting, it was discussed that the administration feels we (the [1-to-1s]) have no right to complain about our situation, because we knew about it before the year began. We learned about our room literally the day before school opened to students - on our meeting day. That is hardly enough time to log our concerns with the setup of the room, and certainly not enough time to consider being due notice.

In short, I feel there is a clear and present resentment towards the special needs program at [our school] and I can not in good faith continue my work within such an atmosphere. There is a lack of concern for safety and general pervading sense that we are not a real part of the school. After [superintendant] speech at the start of the last school year highlighting our efforts to update and modernize the special needs program, I had high hopes. Now, it appears we are beginning a slide backwards.

Please consider this my notice of two weeks before I leave the program. Someone must be found to take my place ASAP so that they can be trained in both restraint and to work with the students in our room.

Regards,

[me]

[this has been edited to remove identities and locations and stuff. but yup. i quit.]

...or rather, my URL was.
don't believe me? look!  rainbowcemetery got a screenshot!

if you know much about special ed, you probably know what a sensory room is already. but i'll explain it, for those who don't have any idea.

a sensory room is basicly a play room filled with gear and devices that various studies have shown increase coordination, motor function, cognative function etc. things like hula hoops, trampolines, mats to roll on, balls to bounce/bounce on, a big swing to swing in, giant toy bowling pins, etc. kids are supposed to ideally go into the sensory room and just have some wild crazy supervised playtime. they have baseball bases and nerf balls & bats, etc.

this room is right next to the sp. ed classrooms, because that way you can quickly turn to a kid who's doing a good job and go "you're doing great, cash in and let's go to the sensory room!" this works really well on students who are ADHD or just not used to sitting doing work for long periods of time.

well, yesterday we received the news that the sensory room is no longer to be used for ball games. you can't kick balls, can't hit balls, can't throw balls. so no soccer, no baseball, no catch. it came as a bit of a blow since most of our students really like playing those specific games in the SR, but we all kind of were able to roll with the logic. sometimes the lighting fixtures get bumped, sometimes balls hit the heating vent, sometimes a nerf baseball will get stuck on the lighting fixtures, etc. but whatever, we still have the sensory room right?

incorrect. after the day ended, i was told that now the sensory room is not to have running games of any kind. essentially, if a student uses the SR, it's to lie on the floor or in a beanbag. THAT ISNT REALLY A SENSORY ROOM. the lead teacher knows it, isn't happy with it, but there's nothing she can do. the school's solution is to tell us to take the students to the gym to play. there's a few issues with this.

1- the gym is on the other side of the school, and some of these kids are slow walkers. ie, a 5 minute cash in for good work turns into a 10 or 15 minute cash in to walk to the gym, play, and come back.
2- some of the students have a hard time transitioning from the gym. aka, even if you could get them there and playing within the time limit, getting them to LEAVE could escelate into them fleeing or fighting or generally being non-compliant to the point of it eventually ending in a restraint or escort.
3- during tests, the library is used as a testing facility. not relevent you say? the gym is right under the library, and the ducts carry EVERY SOUND straight into the library. we were told NUMEROUS times last year NOT to use the gym for play, because it disturbed students working in the library.
4- the gym is not always available. sometimes it's locked. sometimes it's in use. sometimes it's got gear in there that isn't safe for the kids to be around as they invariably get curious and want to touch it. but we won't know the state of the gym until we walk them all the way down there. walking down there only to say "guess we can't use hte gym!" is REALLY asking for trouble.

i haven't been bitten by my student yet, but it's only a matter of time, really. i have had to clean feces up. looking for a new job, not finding much of anything. honestly i'm debating unemployment, because this is getting ludicrious.

so we had three people quit by day 1 in our classroom alone.

one person, i don't know why they quit.
the second stayed for 20 minutes of restraint training (the day before school opens) and then once she learned what restraint training meant, she quit on the spot.
the third managed to come in the first day, and worked with a low functioning but very compliant (never violent, never resistant) student for a few hours before she approached the principal and said "i can't work with these students." the principal told her then she didn't have a job at the school. so she quit, in tears.

the school refuses to replace all of those people lost, because an outside agency which assists us (we use their behaviorist and a few other staff) "count" as support in the classroom, even though the district isn't paying for them and their contracts do NOT say they have to work at our school. they're only doing it essentially out of pity and kindness, because without them our room would fall apart in a heartbeat.

oh, and our hours have been cut (by 2 per week) and we've lost a break (so now it's 45 minutes of unpaid break time a day, and that's all).

i'm obviously still seeking a better job, but there's nothing much out there. if anyone knows of one that can be done from home, for the love of god hook me up. if you know any in western mass, send them my way. the ship is sinking and this prudent rat wants to gtfo before it goes completely underwater.

at least my home life is satisfying D: and in 11 days we'll close on the house, and we can start moving out of here.

the school year has started again, so it's back to work with me. i had really hoped to find another job this summer. i'll have to redouble my efforts during the school year, i suppose.

already, the year doesn't look good. one classroom has no teacher. they WOULD, except the school refuses to pay one of the staff a teacher's salery to do a teacher's job (the regular teacher had emergency surgery, and the sub quit). so now that room has 11 students all with behavioral problems and only four staff, and no teacher.

there's other stuff too...but yeah.

work generally means less art from me, but i'll do my best to get the remaining commissions done in a semi-timely manner.

i hope.

the ceremony went off without a hitch. only four people showed due to the immenant hurricane, but weather cooperated and it was warm and perfect. we had lunch at the japanese place in amherst and ice cream from bart's afterwards. stitch (the pitbull) didn't want an ice cream cone. but he at least wore a bow-tie.

and now irene is on its way. while portions of new york opted to go for a ban on liquor sales pre-hurricane, up here the liquor stores have signs out reading 'stock up for irene!' so maybe there'll be a sharp culling of the moron population today out here, if things turn ugly.

there's a torando watch issued (also tropical storm warnings and flood watch/warnings) and therefore i really have to say if you deny climate change, you're either drunk or huffing paint. that's been every major storm this year. these aren't freak tornados touching down in massachusetts, this is how our weather is going to be from now onwards. major storms now= torandos.

the governer has issued a statement saying that everyone in the state should avoid going outside today at all costs. so, we're newly married and trapped indoors.

time to play l4d until the power goes out wooo :O

it seems really quite nice. the tagging of your pieces reminds me a little of pixiv, only ...in english. check it out. i'm on there as NotFun

also if you like listening to silly horrible bad fanfics/forum posts/etc you should be listening to the the F Plus. no joke.

wedding takes place tomorrow, outdoors, rain or shine. already had my sister cancel due to concerns about making it back to her job with the inclimate hurricane. fun times.

i built it for him.
he wants to be able to sell woodworking projects online. so if you have a house or would like a fancy little keepsake or stash or whateverbox, keep my dad in mind okay

he'll ship smaller projects, and i'm pretty sure he'd ship internationally. for larger projects (like dressers or furniture) you probably want to be in the alabama-ish area.

http://jrdwoodworking.com

i promised him i'd do what i could to bring him some business so :B there ya go. he's a bit new to the concept of doing business off a website, and for some reason expected instantly to receive 30 emails for projects the minute it went live. i've explained to him people usually just bookmark a website and hang onto it for when they want something made but well. he's nearly 60. it's a lot of abstract concepts to swallow at once.

so yeah DAD'S WEBSITE
HE MAKES PRETTY THINGS OUT OF TREES
GO SEE

sup will :o it has come to my attention you are a reader of my comic. i'm glad you like it!

it's also come to my attention that you went to summer camp this summer, and told your friends some fibs. you told them you were me, and you made my comic. i'm not mad about those fibs, i know it's tough to make new friends at camp!

but now your friends are trying to find you again to talk to you and say hi. unfortunately, the only person they've found is me and i'm not you. they don't seem upset to learn that you didn't make my comic, and they don't seem mad at you or anything at all. they just want to talk to their friend. but i don't know how to find you, or help them find you.

so if you're reading this, will from camp friendship, i have two requests!

1- please don't lie to your friends and take credit for my hard work. you've probably got lots of unique talents all your own to make friends with, and lying is not one of them :B

2- send a note to ethan h, he's trying to get back in contact with you!

that's all!

regards,
not-fun

...without asking.
ENJOY THE ENTIRE SAGA FULL OF SWEARING

side note: the nikitak plush is at 127/200+ votes required, so if you haven't voted yet now would be an A+ good time if you actually wanna help it get made :o

impromptu, both me and my SO have decided that if we can find the suits, we're going to dress in 1920s semi-fashion for the wedding ceremony.

on a tangently related side note, i find it offensive and somewhat sexist that people assume they know what my gender is based solely on the fact i'm getting married. i don't post my gender many places online at all, but i DO live in a state where same sex marriage is legal. to say that you 'know' someone's gender based on the sex of their spouse is no less sexist than saying "oh well you MUST be a woman, because you work as a nurse/teacher/secretary."

rawr :<

he says it's working again, he's fiddled with it to make sure it's not a fluke and it seems okay. HORRAY!

if he needs a replacement to get it fixed, i can cover for that period of time. but woo!

he's posted a thank you video and visual of what the damage is over at his tumblr.

now i need coffee

anyone have a spare laptop/netbook? STSH's just broke when a table collapsed underneith it, and now he can't work on his novel (it's actually nearly ready to publish, and he can't finish by the deadline without a machine) or prepare for college in the fall, or even compose applications. i'd post this to twitter but twitter isn't working for me right now.

alternately, if anyone feels really sporting about returning a fried netbook to life, i'll donate mine if you think you can refurbish it for STSH.

sorry for the silence and lack of uploads. i've been having a rough couple of days. it seems like just your standard bout of depression. like most people, i get them now and again with little warning or consideration for convienence.

anyway, it seems to be on its way out. the weekend was spent in battle against it, going to the museum and visiting the house and getting snails and a new betta for my fish tanks.

some people were asking i they can do anything to help, and really the best you can do is just ignore it and wait for it to go away and me to get back on track. real depression (as opposed to teenybopper depression) just needs to run its course and work through the negative chemicals that are causing it. i don't know why my brain sets out random bouts of bad chemicals, but it runs in the family so.

a few people have asked questions about the nikitak plush, too. let me see if i can answer them.

when will the plush actually be made?
i don't know, because this is ENTIRELY up to how many votes it gets. i think the average amount of votes a plush needs to be manufactured is around 200 or 250. i BELIEVE that after it gets that many votes, they make a run of 50 plushes. so really the math works out that not everyone who votes need buy a plush, but there ought to be enough for the people who do want to buy one *IF* it gets made.

currently its votes are at about 92 / 200+ which means we have a ways to go. if you haven't voted, vote now. encourage your buddies to vote, too. even if you don't plan on buying the plush, you'll make someone's day who really does want that plush.

how much will the plush cost?
again, don't start saving your pennies until we get enough votes, but their average plushes go for between 30-40$. considering their size (fairly large) and complexity, that sounds fair enough to me. again, i'm not sure at all what it'll cost until the nikitak actually reaches the production stage which depends entirely upon how many votes it gets. if possible, i'll try to keep the price on the lower-end. it might not be up to me, though, i really don't know.

can i get a custom colour/designed nikitak plush?
not from PT, it doesn't look like. however, depending on the mods you want done, i'll be happy to do them myself if the plush actually gets produced. dying and sewing little outfits is no big thing to me.

i think that's all people have been wondering. but yeah, plush needs more votes, please vote if you haven't, etc.

Click here to vote now!

you need to create a login with PT, but voting and the login are free and PT does not send you oodles of spam.

Please vote positive! Please vote often! Please tell your friends and followers and watchers to vote! The more votes it gets and the more positive they are, the better chance it has of being made. GO GO GO!

fjkalfadf okay so the crackhead is back. TURNS OUT she fled the scene because the landlord sent her a letter saying she was coming yesterday. he pulled up around 3 (hours after she was gone) and was banging on her door, getting no response.

he had to drive like an hour out here too so he was pretty pissed off.

anyway early thismorning (round 6) the crackhead was spotted coming out of her house and getting into a cab, with one of her friends smuggling a puppy inside the building. the landlord was called and informed.

since yesterday we discovered she had a 5 foot tall pile of trash leaning against the side of the building rotting smellily, the department of sanitation was also called and has agreed to take steps to force the landlord to deal with that situation. so DRAT.

i will be v. glad when we move out of here, let me tell you what.