“You know what they call alternative medicine that's been proved to work? Medicine.”
--Tim Minchin

~ ~ ~

Go ahead; ask me anything you'd like. Unless it's a request for personal information, I will do my best to answer. In-character, or out-of-character, both are fair game!
Now, let's get started!

"Fate is just what you call it when you don't know the name of the person screwing you over."
--Lois Wilkerson

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Regarding the people spamming this site and Weasyl, I don't get it. I just don't understand why someone would do this. Not because I don't believe there are people who hate furries; that much is common knowledge. I just don't get why anyone would go to this much effort.
Think about it: To be submitting these, they need to have found Weasyl, made accounts for it, and then started submitting these one after another. Why go to this much trouble just to pointlessly insult people? It would be like me going to a restaurant and deliberately ordering a dish that I know has mushrooms in it, just so that I can complain about how much I hate mushrooms. It accomplishes exactly nothing, and it's a waste of fucking time.
I just don't understand.

"She's a stripper. Life sued her, and she lost."
--Jeff Winger

~ ~ ~

I made a Weasyl account. You can find it here: https://www.weasyl.com/~rolandrai
As I said before, I am not leaving FA; I'm just making an account there as well.

"I've never done anything to make someone hate me... Actually, I've done that a lot."
--Edward Elric

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So all this stuff going on with Zaush and FA and everyone leaving... I have to ask what the hell it even matters. I'm not trying to trivialize anything here, but let me go over this just to be clear on the situation:
Zaush, who was accused of rape years ago, was hired to help code a new version of the site. Now tell me: What the hell does one thing have to do with the other?
I don't know if the accusation is true or not, but to be honest I really don't care. Because that's not what really matters regarding the current events. If the man was hired to write code, then the only thing that should have any shred of importance is his talent at writing code.
Quite frankly, this site is unbelievably broken and desperately needs to be rebuilt from the ground-up. And if Zaush is capable of doing that, then hiring him was the right decision, regardless of anything that happened in his personal life.
I don't want to pardon a possible rapist here, far from it; I think rape is one of the absolute worst things that a human being can ever do. But as I keep saying, that's completely irrelevant right now.
It's like, to use a less extreme example, Orson Scott Card. He's abhorrent enough to make Harlan Ellison look like a reasonable person. But he's an exceptionally-talented writer. When judging his books, would you judge them based on their quality alone, or based on their author? I for one support the idea of separating the creation from the creator, judging each only on their own merits.
To sum up: Zaush may or may not be a rapist, but all that happened is that he was hired to do a job, so the only thing that we should be talking about is whether or not he can do that job right.
Leaving the site entirely because of something like this is unbelievably childish and not something that I can support. I'm planning on making a Weasyl account anyway, because everyone else is and it looks like a far more stable site at the moment. But I am not leaving FurAffinity. If you are, that's your decision; just don't expect me to agree with it.

"Now, Travis... He knew how to fight like a gentleman. Sliced me in half, sure, but he did it with grace."
--New Destroyman

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What made you choose the species of your main fursona?
Despite not playing a non-spinoff Pokemon game in years (until recently) I felt like I wanted a Pokemon. So I just picked my favorite (I almost went with Umbreon, in fact).

Is your fursona just like you, or how you want to be?
Sort of a combination of both. Roland is a lot less awkward than I.

Does your fursona have the same personality that you have?
Pretty much, since he's essentially just an idealized version of myself as a Pokemon.

Does your fursona have the same likes and dislikes that you do?
Indeed.

Does your fursona look like you at all?
To an extent. His hair is shorter (and lighter in color) and he's thinner than I am, but many of the more notable features came from me: I wear glasses, I have that trenchcoat, etc.

Is your fursona the same gender as you? If not, why?
Yes, when he's male anyway.

Do you have more than one main fursona?
Yeah, I have another account with my other one.

Do you have a back-story for your fursona? If so, does it have anything to do with your own history?
Roland is basically me, if I had found a magic collar at a con that turned me into a Raichu.

Is your fursona mated? If so, is it to your real-life significant other?
Nope. Sadly, I'm not dating anyone right now.

If not, are they looking for a mate, or are they a swinger, so to speak?
Looking, but I--and he--am kind of shy when it comes to dating.

Is there something special about your fursona that you think sets them apart from others?
His electricity can transform people.

Do you have much art of your main fursona(s)?
Just the reference sheet for now, but I have a female reference sheet lined up, and I want to get more...

If you 'suit, do you have a suit of your main fursona?
No and no.

Have you ever roleplayed with your main fursona, or do you prefer not to?
Most of the time, when I'm chatting with folks online, I'm "in-character" so to speak. Not too notable, since Roland is essentially myself.

Do you consider your main fursona to be a part of you in any way?
Very much so, though I think my previous answers made this pretty clear already.

"You must have misheard me. I said I had a melody, not a malady!"
--Vyvyan Ayrs

~ ~ ~

So I'm staying with my parents and the most convenient thing happened to me this morning.
I was reading, and my mom came into the room with an envelope. She brought up the old savings account that I had had in a bank when I was living with them, and that we closed when I moved out. She kept the money in an envelope and we both completely forgot about it. But she had just found the envelope and handed it to me, saying she had no idea how much was in there. I opened it, and inside was just over $400.
Tomorrow we're going to go to the mall so I can get the 3DS XL that I've been wanting to replace my screwed-up 3DS. And then we're going to get me a new cell phone since I'm due for an upgrade.
This was certainly an auspicious morning!

"When in Rome, stop killing the other Romans."
--John Mitchell

~ ~ ~

Got back from the cruise today. Still staying with the family until after New Year's, but I've got internet access again now.
The trip was a ton of fun:
Flew down to Miami on Monday and got on the ship.
Tuesday the ship docked at Nassau. My dad, kid brother, and I went to the Atlantis water park. It was huge, and we had a great time. While we did that, Mom and the rest of the family (we went on this trip along with my aunt, grandmother, grandfather, and other grandfather) wandered around the island for a bit.
Wednesday we were supposed to stop at an island owned by the cruise company. We even rented a cabana and were going to have a private little place on the beach for the day. But there were strong winds making huge waves, so it was impossible for the ship to dock safely and the stop was canceled. So we spent the day on the ship, and I got to read most of Cloud Atlas sitting by the pool. I'm a little disappointed that we didn't get to go to the island, but it was a relaxing day.
Thursday the ship made a stop at Key West. We took a tour bus around the island and stopped to visit the lighthouse. From the top we got a beautiful view of the whole island. After that we went to see the house that Ernest Hemingway lived in; it's a really nice old house. The descendants of his cat are still living there!
This morning the ship dropped us off back in Miami and we took a plane back home. All-in-all, a great few days. I got sunburned, but it was so worth it.

"I don't want to say economic collapse... 'implosion' sounds nicer."
--Jim Sterling

~ ~ ~

I'm going away on vacation with my family tomorrow. We'll be on a ship for a couple of days, so I won't have internet access.
Just wanted to put this out there in case anyone cares.

"She said: 'If it weren't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college.' I'll repeat that because that's the kind of sentence that when you hear it, your brain comes to a screeching halt."
--Lewis Black

~ ~ ~

This happened while FA was down, so here's a sort of retroactive update:
So, update on the 3DS thing, because there's more to the story. Turns out that when I was putting it back together, I snapped the piece that connects the wireless antenna to the wireless card, so I couldn't get a wi-fi signal on it anymore. Got a new wireless antenna off of eBay and put it in, and it works. But now the sound doesn't work.
Fuck it, I'm just going to take this excuse to get a 3DS XL. The longer battery life will be nice.
Put some things on eBay and they sold for around $130 total. And the local GameStop said they'd take my old 3DS despite the sound issue (they'll refurbish it, apparently) and when I asked if I could do the system transfer to the new XL in the store, they said that would be okay. So yeah, after I get back from vacation with the family (we're leaving this Saturday), that's the plan.

"I don't need you to remind me of my age; I have a bladder to do that for me."
--Stephen Fry

~ ~ ~

So I got a piece of database software to keep track of which video games I own. It took a couple of hours, but I just finished putting them all in. Unfortunately, a few games weren't actually in the software's online database (like "Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies") so they're missing from the list. Minor issue really, since despite that, it brought a startling fact to light:
I own over 800 games.
I've only finished around 100 of them.

I think I have a problem...

"Boneless chicken? How did it walk?"
--Oscar Madison

~ ~ ~

So I've been playing Etrian Odyssey Untold: The Millennium Girl for a while now, and for most of the game I was ready to declare it my likely personal game of the year. Interesting dungeon, good variety of classes, lots of neat enemies, tons of sidequests, intense boss fights, and an amazing soundtrack... Then I reached the sixth and final stratum, the Claret Hollows. "All that lives shall succumb," indeed, because the difficulty spike when you get there is beyond ludicrous. It has every single one of the most annoying/frustrating things in RPGs ever. Let's count them, shall we?
1. Bullshit teleporter mazes
2. Pitfalls everywhere
3. Darkness, with lights to turn on scattered around
4. Said lights attract monsters
5. Large sections of the floor that damage you when you step on them
6. Enemies with stupid amounts of HP
7. Enemies that can one-shot multiple party members at once
8. Enemies that can inflict poison that saps 90% of your health at once
9. Enemies that can petrify
10. Enemies that can dish out insane damage to every party member combined with stat decreases and/or status ailments
11. Enemies immune to damage from everything except one specific elemental spell
12. Enemies that can summon more enemies, repeatedly

It was when I was exploring floor 28 and got chased by Depth Dancers (They're birds with stupid amounts of health, no elemental weakness, that can take out 1/2 the HP of every party member at once with a high chance to cause blindness, and can repeatedly summon other enemies that have a chance of causing instant-death. They're FOEs--an iconic feature of Etrian Odyssey, look it up--so you can see them on the map rather than find them in random encounters, but they chase after you and can move three squares in one turn while you can only move one. Oh, and every time you kill one, another spawns in the room immediately.) that I realized the game didn't want me to have fun with it anymore. Instead of making sure I had a good time, now it just wants to break me over its knee like a stick. I've finally gotten to floor 29, and it doesn't seem like I have to deal with those goddamn Depth Dancers anymore, but I can only imagine what's waiting for me now, which is probably even worse.
Fuck off, Atlus. I usually love your games, but way to ruin a great one with this idiotic final-act difficulty spike. I seriously haven't been this frustrated by a game since Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne. Oh, what do you know, that was also an Atlus game...

"I laugh in the face of danger! Then I hide until it goes away."
--Xander Harris

~ ~ ~

So my laptop has been declared dead, though my boss said he'll examine it for any usable parts and pay me for them, so that's something. And the roommate said I can continue using his old one for as long as it takes for me to save what I need to build my next computer, which is also something. Though with the parts I'm looking at it'll take me months (like, 6+ months) to save what I need, and I won't be able to commission much in that time, which is frustrating because I'm only just starting to get stuff for this account.
On the bright side, I was able to get my 3DS open and clean beneath and around the buttons and I got the B button usable again, albeit not perfect, which is a huge relief on its own.
So that's the status on stuff for me right now.

"This isn't life in the fast lane, it's life in the oncoming traffic."
--Terry Pratchett

~ ~ ~

And almost immediately after my laptop goes kaput I start having problems with my 3DS too. The B button has become rather unresponsive; I have to push it in really hard to get it to register. It's not unplayably bad, but it does make it really tempting to use this as an excuse to bite the bullet and upgrade to an XL (especially since my warranty has long since expired months ago).
Called Nintendo's support line and they suggested cleaning around the button with a toothbrush to dislodge any detritus. I tried that and while it improved it a little, it didn't fix it completely. I also looked online for a guide to take my 3DS apart so I could try to clean it from the inside, but I can't get the little screws on the back of it to turn. Like, at all.
Sending it to Nintendo for them to repair it would cost me $95, which is almost a full half of the cost of just getting a brand new 3DS XL ($200) or more than half of the cost of a brand new regular 3DS ($170)--on Amazon, anyway. So yeah, not really worth paying to fix this thing.
It's especially aggravating because my 3DS is my second-most-used gaming platform right behind my computer.

"Arnold Schwarzeneggar can act in the same way that octopi can figure skate."
--Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw

~ ~ ~

Laptop's busted, and based on my tests it's probably the motherboard. I might be able to fix it but I won't know until Monday, but thankfully my roommate lent me his old laptop to use in the meantime. At least I was able to stick my hard drive in this machine so I have access to all of my stuff.

"I'm the Doctor; I'm worse than everybody's aunt! ...And that is not how I'm introducing myself."
--The Doctor

~ ~ ~

Finally went down my watchlist and browsed through the full galleries of every artist I'm following. Filled up my favorites. So much cool stuff!