Have you ever wanted to take a personal piece of art, a badge, a design, or a concept, and get it embroidered on your favorite bag or jacket?

We're talkin about "personal branding" here. Turn yourself and your 'sona into an image that you can really use, and be proud of.

Opaque Fox is a new business run for furries and by furries, and you need to check them out! They're gonna make a big splash on the con circuit this year, doing custom embroidery, image embroiderization, and even print-shop quality photo printing, so they can help you with booth and table advertising, as well!

go to their website at http://www.opaquefox.com/Default.asp

and like them on facebook https://www.facebook.com/pages/Opaq.....22467414562808

GO DO IT!!!!

Soooooo... My gallery mostly sits empty, with not many new submissions, but that's actually because I'm super freakin lazy. It's not because I'm not getting arts. So today I'm art dumping all of the arts that I've collected over the last little while, so that I can have them to look back on <3

A lot of it is sweet emotional stuff... some of it is just bizarrely random. Either way, please enjoy.

Can you guys please suggest some artists that I might commission? Specifically, I'm looking for somebody who has a really cute chibi style. THANKS!

Jazz. Either you love it or you hate it. It's about breaking the mold, taking a scheme or an outline, and pushing it as far as you can. Sometimes Jazz isn't even fun to listen to... Other times, it's the music of the soul. And then it's both at once, and you can't escape it, and jazz is in you and on you and around you whether you want it there or not. It is to simply speak, and speak, and continue speaking until you no longer know what you're saying, but to just keep on going until you've dragged everybody else right along with you. That's Jazz.

http://grooveshark.com/#!/album/Blue/8335715

This is CopyPasta from an article currently floating around Facebook, but I thought it was very thoughtful and important, and I wanted to give it some love by posting here as well.

10 Things you must give up to move forward:

#1) Letting the opinions of others control your life.

-It's not what others think, it's what you think about yourself that counts.
-You have to do exactly what's best for you and your life, not what's best for everyone else.

#2) The shame of past failures

-Your past does not equal your future
-All that matters is what you do right now.

#3) Being indecisive about what you want

-You will never leave where you are until you decide where you would rather be
-Make a decision to figure out what you want, and then pursue it passionately.

#4) Procrastinating on the goals that matter to you

-There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them.
-The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second best time is now.

#5) Choosing to do nothing

-You don't get to choose how you are going to die, or when.
-You can only decide how you are going to live right now.
-Every day is a new chance to choose.

#6) Your need to be right

-Aim for success, but never give up your right to be wrong.
-Because when you do, you will also lose your ability to learn new things and move forward with your life.

#7) Running from problems that should be fixed

-Stop Running!
-Face these issues, fix the problems, communicate, appreciate, forgive and LOVE the people in your life who deserve it.

#8) Making excuses rather than decisions

-Most long-term failures are the outcome of people who make excuses instead of decisions

#9) Overlooking the positive points in your life

-What you see often depends entirely on what you're looking for
-You will have a hard time ever being happy if you aren't thankful for the good things in your life right now.

#10) Not appreciating the present moment

-Too often we try to accomplish something big without realizing that the greatest part of life is made up of the little things.






So there we have it. Some important little reminders that I think we all need from time to time. Sure, some of it is fluff or too common to really be impactful, but nonetheless, I hope this helps somebody who needs it.

I should write more often if I want anybody to give a shit. I never update this silly thing... Probably because I'm not an artist or a contributor. I'm just a watcher who's social life is elsewhere. Still, if you're reading this: Thanks. Please comment so I know who you are.

I'm listening to Verve Pipe today at work. I ended up with one of their CDs on accident, and today it's really striking a chord with me that it hasn't hit in the past. Not because the music is particularly stunning or moving, but because it's moving a very heavy stone against my heart, and stirring up stories that had settled at it's feet. I recently came across a gift once given to me by the person I inherited this CD from: It was a note, written to ease a broken heart, and it was (and still is) the nicest thing anybody has ever done for me.

That same person, more recently, wrote "Sometimes I miss your friendship..."
Sometimes I miss your friendship too.

It's always the most beautiful, artistic, poetic, and sensitive people who hurt the worst; those blessed/cursed souls feel hurt in a way that lesser-gifted people can't comprehend. I see that in some of the people who are closest to me, and I always wish I could help... or at least understand.

I hope you get through what you're going through, whatever it is. Your art has gotten so much better it's crazy.



Speaking of work, I got a new job that I really love. It pays me well, and soon I'll be working full time, at just the one job, supporting myself and building myself a lifestyle I can live with. Things are really looking up...

Now all I need is a piano at my new place.

Everything that needs to be said has already been said. I'm not here to weigh in. Actually... I just wanted to share the emotional work of my younger brother.

In case you don't know, I grew up right down the street from the theater in question. Over my lifetime, I have patronized that theater easily more than 100 times. Needless to say, the shooting hit very close to home. If you, like me, were directly effected by the shooting, then please give this a listen. If you know somebody who was, please share.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBcuJ9IRHFg

"Heroes" by Don't Write/Don't Call
Written by Sam Columna

Hey guys, I would really love some feedback on my test chambers. If you have Portal 2 on Steam and care to play my original content, please visit my site here, and subscribe to my tests. Thanks!

http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/.....workshopfiles/

Well, so much for a trip to a Fur Con being cheap just because I don't have to pay for the flights! Wallet issues aside, I had a blast at Furry Fiesta this year, and am so glad my buddy Avery Dragon invited me down to the con.

Because I fly standby, I wasn't able to make it until very late Friday night, but that's okay, because I was making friends practically from the moment we arrived at the hotel. In particular, I had a lot of fun getting to know people like Rahne and Bucktown Tiger.

I was absolutely thrilled to meet  nuka-kitty and listen to him talk about the studies he and his team have been conducting on Furry Psychology. This has always been an area of intense interest for me, so to see it is getting the scientifically valid treatment it deserves just gave me goosebumps. :D

Bought some pieces from some really amazing artists, too, including  animecat and Diana Stein. They're both so amazing!

Give me a shout if we met at the con, I wanna make sure I'm watching all of you!

...and i don't know where to look! Please link me to some available artists if you know any. Thanks!

Well, what can I say about life. It never stops, does it? I've been spending the last four weeks or so buried under a pile of homework so deep that I haven't had time to see friends, or eat, or SLEEP!. On top of homework being a total pain in the ass, there's been my a cappella group performance, which I was staying up rehearsing until midnight for, and logging about ten hours a week on. All that on top of starting back up my summer job, finding a New job (phone interview later today, I'm gonna be a teacher!) and...

Well then there's girls.

More like one girl in particular, actually. She's the most intense, in-your-face wild and out-there kind of person I have ever met. She's beautiful from head to toe and has these beautiful blue eyes that, when they look at you, you can't help but fall in love. She's got hoards of men chasing after her; men who claim they can treat her right, make her happy, be what she's missing... Not only has she got that, but she's got people breathing down her neck that she's making a foolish choice, and that she won't be happy.

What choice is she making?

Despite all the advice of people who want her, and all the fawning lovesick stares of men falling at her feet... She's mine, all mine, and we're happy. It's been a struggle, finding personal identity against one another... finding romantic identity together, building trust up slowly over time.

Trust is such a scary thing. It's like sky-diving... You can sit there and think about it as long as you like. Maybe toy with the idea, have some conversations about it, but until you actually leap out that plane 30,000 feet in the air, there's no way you can possibly be prepared for the surge of emotion/sensation that's going to overtake you. It's the most terrifying, exhilarating thing you can imagine. And at the end of the day, you still have no idea if your parachute is going to get you there safely... But you're too far gone to care.

My Redd Panda drove nearly 1000 miles straight to get back to Colorado from a roadtrip, just so she could see me perform, because she knew how important the performance was to me. She willingly put herself in harms way to take care of me when I was sick. She made me a birthday card from scratch.

I love my Redd Panda.

We've lived through some really intense changes with each other already, and every day, I see that things are only getting better, not worse... I love you Redd and I don't care who knows it.

Hey everybody!

I just wanted to give a shout-out for one of my oldest and dearest friends. He's a fantastic artist and he's new to FA, and he's opening up for commissions, so please look him up, take a peek, maybe even say hello!

http://www.furaffinity.net/user/azukimeshi/

He's worked for Disney in the past, and he totally deserves your watch and/or favs. Go enjoy!

Heck, why not. Holidays are all about the spirit of things, right?

I've moved into a new home with two of the most amazing people in the world, they give my life balance and I love them to death... But out new house doesn't have internet. So I'm allowed to be late to the happy thanksgiving train.

I'm thankful for my new house. My new housemates and our awesome collection of animals.
I'm thankful for a family that supports me and gives me the freedom to truly revel in the human being that I am/am becoming.
I'm thankful for all of the amazing people in my life.
I'm thankful for good memories.

Happy Thanksgiving. It's a pretty awesome holiday

Realization is Eureka. It's surprise and revelation. What took you so long?

Anyway here you are and it's inspiration, so hello, won't you come in? I'm just moving my books around - clearing off my desk as it were - so I hope you'll pardon the mess, I found my memories in here and I sat and thought a while.

Piles and piles of Pushed aside tomorrows and half-ignored todays. All making me feel lonely to remember that

She really was that pretty, and

What's wrong with hoping, and

I hate the cold, my fingers go numb and my mind follows, and

Hey, I won't be here tomorrow, but I think you're coming with me. Eureka, stay a while?

I want a place to write all of the things that I need to get out of my head, where secretly they will find their way to the people they belong to. These thoughts that don't belong to anybody.



Where I can say what I need to say. Where it will not fall on deaf ears. But sometimes deaf ears is all one can hope for.



I am so sorry. All I wanted was to do something nice. I loved you

I really do realize I wouldn't be happy without you. I love you

How do I show you I care the way I want to? I love you

I'm afraid you're drifting away... That would leave me with nobody. I love you

You've ruined me and there is no letting go. I loved you

YOU REMIND ME OF A ME I ONCE KNEW. I want to love you, but that would be foolish.

You're one of the only constant bright spots in my life. I love you.

I am so, so sorry. I will never love you.

You make me smile. Will I love you?

You've given me more than I could ever ask for. Thank you. I love you

I love you.



I am weighed down by these things that have no outlet.

Hey all, take a look through my RMFC photos, if ya see any suits that you know, let the owners know that they're here... I really like some of the ones that I took this year.

It's amazing the ways that things can change in the blink of an eye, from good to bad to back again, and in the end you're none the wiser.

Wow, where to start. After months of intensive practice, I played my recital to a very responsive hall full of friends and family. Despite having been performing in student recitals for nearly ten years, it was my first ever solo recital... I was really nervous. I'm glad to have gotten the first big one out of the way, but it really didn't go super well. Some recordings should be on the way, if I ever get around to it.

Simon and I have been living and growing in our relationship long-distance now for nearly six months... Wow, that is HARD to believe. It's already been that long? Not only were we forced by my own awful decisions to rebuild our relationship from the ground up after two amazing years, but we've had no choice but to do the rebuilding over a 900 mile distance. I do not deserve this amazing woman, who has done so much to show me love when I clearly deserved none. <3

Well, despite all odds, trust came back into our relationship in a big way... Stronger, possibly, than before.

Thanks so much to all the Boise furries, who helped us to realize that a big part of what was wrong was loneliness: With the growth of a social life came the growth of so much happiness, and communication... And new, exciting developments in my relationship with that lovable cat. I fall deeper in love every single day.

Speaking of these new developments. It's been easy to find myself scared and focusing on all the negative... thoughts that come from nowhere but my own head, despite the myriads of reassurance that my thoughts had no justification. I had lost sight of our long term goals... Which have never changed, and which should speak more encouragement and confidence in our relationship than any amount of self-doubt can contradict. I'm sorry I did that.

Simon: I really am thrilled that you're happy! I figure I've kinda run out of excuses to say the same old thing for the millionth time to you, so I'm using this journal as a way to say a little without further grating on your nerves... I like you best when you actually like me.

EDIT: I learned of the existence of a word today. I think it's a word more people should be aware of. Compersion is said to be a non-sexual state of empathetic happiness and joy experienced when an individual's romantic partner experiences happiness and joy through an outside source, including, but not limited to, another romantic interest.

I think I am experiencing compersion.

No more mixed signals. I mean that. I trust you so completely it scares me.

And I love you.

Fan of Nine Inch Nails? If so... you've probably already heard. If you haven't heard, let me be the first to tell you.

Reznor is part of a new project called 'How To Destroy Angels' which is a collaboration with his wife. Earlier today they released their first song.

If you're a fan of Reznor or NIN, post your thoughts!

http://howtodestroyangels.com/home.html.

EDIT: The HTDA website has been updated, but the preview track can still be found here. http://pitchfork.com/news/38686-how.....ls-a-drowning/

http://www.formspring.me/runeimagiro

Ask me any question at all.. I know I'm sooo far behind the trend. Whatever. I'm bored.

ASK ME QUESTIONS! <3

If you loved everything about Bioshock, you're bound to love everything about Bioshock 2. When I started playing, I was worried that it was going to be "more of the same" and nothing new or creative was going to be able to pull me back in the same way the first game did.

While it is more of the same... It feels new. Namely, the ability to use weapons and plasmids at the same time (effectively), and the fact that you play as one of the original big daddies. The use of the drill, and the sound of your big heavy footsteps do wonders to make you feel truly powerful, and to good effect! While the game is still delightfully difficult - single Splicers feel more like a nuisance than a real threat - there are still baddies out there to be very very scared of ;)

I think the thing that has me most excited about this game is the truly compelling way that they've built in dual endings. Depending on how you play (save the little sisters, or harvest them for ADAM), the entire ending - about 2 hours of gameplay - has the potential to be drastically different.

I love bioshock 2. It's at least as good as the first.

NO SPOILERS: PLEASE READ!

have been a great fan of the Silent Hill series ever since I began playing the games about 6 years ago (wow has it been that long already?!) That puts me about mid-life on the franchise as a whole, but firmly before the Hot Topic popularity picked up, so I take no shame in saying that I am not a Johnny-come-lately fan.

In videogames as with movies, I am a thinker and a critic, and I have told myself for years that I should write reviews if only as a means to exercise my writing... But this is officially the first. Here we go.

Yesterday morning Silent Hill: Shattered Memories hit shelves, and I was first in line to pick up my copy. Shattered Memories is commonly referred to as a 'remake' of Silent Hill, but it is more accurately viewed as a re-imagining. The skeleton of the story is the same, Harry Mason crashes in the town of Silent Hill, and when he wakes up his daughter Cheryl is missing. In his search, he meets many familiar characters including Sybil the policewoman, Lisa the nurse, and Dahlia. Fans of the original will even recognize the significant locations: School, Mall, Hospital, Sewers, Amusement Park, Lighthouse.

That is where the similarities end, however. While the theme of the locations is the same, the layout and look is completely different. The characters have been given makeovers (in some cases more than one makeover), and the "fighting" system has been given a -complete- overhaul.

Shattered Memories was developed by Climax Studios (NOT the studio responsible for the first Silent Hill games), and appropriately has a fresh outlook on what was fast becoming a tired and cliche franchise but they have done so while remaining remarkably faithful to the fans of the series. I imagine the formula goes something like this: Survival Horror is one part psychology, one part anticipation, one part panic, and three parts unexpected. Throw in some cleverly veiled referenced to the Silent Hill universe and that should make an ok Silent Hill game.... Well in this case, Climax Studios got the formula EXACTLY RIGHT.

Imagine being chased by packs of howling, screeching, violent, abstract men who run stooped like werewolves. You can't kill them... You can only run. This is the scenario behind action sequences in Shattered Memories. Harry cannot do anything except run and try to find his way out of the hellish nightmare reality, and with the addition of gameplay mechanics such as "hiding" and looking over your shoulder, the result is an absolutely terrifying experience. I found myself dreading having to wander anywhere that I knew I would have to run.

Perhaps the most important aspect of this game is going to be the very aspect that makes it famous. A tongue-in-cheek "psychology warning" at the beginning of the game warns the player that "this game plays you as much as you play it." An ingenious in game system catalogs your play style and the choices you make, occasionally throwing in a test in the form of a therapy exercise (the games chapters are punctuated with therapy sessions in which the player much nod or shake the wiimote to converse with a psychoanalyst) all in the name of profiling you, the player. Yes, this game truly makes an effort at understanding what makes the player tick, and modifies the events within the game depending on how you play.

Fans of Silent Hill: YOU MUST PLAY THIS GAME.
Fans of Survival Horror looking for something new: YOU MUST PLAY THIS GAME

Everyone else: Even if you aren't a Silent Hill fan, or haven't played all the games you can still get the full experience out of this game. If you enjoy Survival Horror games even just a little, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories is sure to go down in history as one of the greatest games in the Silent Hill Franchise. Perhaps even one of the greatest games in the genre at large.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories gets an 8/10 for being everything I love about Silent Hill, nothing I hate about it, and a faithful re-imagining of one of the best Survival Horror games of all time.

The downsides: Far too short. Predictable enemy encounters. Not enough scares. Monotonous gameplay.

The upsides: Unique focus on running rather than fighting. Professional believable voice acting. Unique psychological profiling. Faithful non-disruptive re-imagining of the Silent Hill Mythos great for fans and newcomers alike.

This is the story of a road-trip-gone-wrong-gone-wrong-er. It is a story about people, and about the love that truly makes the world go ‘round; the kind of love we can only feel from God.

Monday before Thanksgiving, 2009, Sara and I hit the road for a 900 mile road trip from Denver to Boise. Unlike the precisely similar road trips we had already been taking for the last two years, this one was not joyous or exciting. Instead, it was stressful, and bitter: At the end of the week, I would be going home to Denver but Sara would not. Naturally, since she was moving, she was bringing her life with her, which needed more cargo space than a 1994 2-door Honda Celica.

At first the thought was to rent a moving truck big enough to tow her car on a dolly, which was a fairly expensive thing to try to do, so after a bit of trusty internet research, the thought was to bump the cost down to a smaller trailer, fit everything inside that, and tow the trailer with the Celica.

Between the 5’ x 8’ U-haul and the cargo space of the car, everything fit. Barely. Now up to this point, Sara had been in a fit of nerves about the trip, and I had been wearing my strong-face to try to raise her spirits, so already we had red-flag #1 on our list of reasons why this trip wasn’t going to be easy: Intuition. Red Flag #2 was more of a big celestial tap on the shoulder: Ice. Upon leaving for our soon-to-be-infamous road trip, it took about five minutes just to get on the road, as the car/trailer combo had been parked ontop of a giant sheet of slick ice, and every attempt at traction was met the sound of spinning wheels.

What a stressful way to start a trip. So with blood-pressure already spiking, we were on our way, and finally things seemed to be going okay! We put on our newest audio book and drove north out of Colorado without a problem at all. Four or five miles before the Wyoming border, the freeway starts climbing upwards; shallow hill after shallow hill, never downhill but the occasional straightaway gave us time to catch our breath for the next uphill. By this point, we had discovered Red Flag #3: HILLS!

Even an expert driver like Sara can’t make an old manual transmission enjoy towing an entire apartments worth of stuff up thousands of feet worth of hilly, windy Wyoming freeway, and about a mile over the border, things took a nose-dive for road trip hell. First, the car wouldn’t go any faster than 50, then after a brief moment pulled to the side of the road, the car wouldn’t go faster than 10! Almost immediately we smelled burning rubber, and the meters told Sara that her car was overheating.

Just like that, the road-trip came to an end just two hours after we had started. Pulling over to the side of the road, thus began the phone calls to AAA, and the real adventure.
Our tow-truck driver’s name was Steve, a very round, very friendly fellow who recognized that we had absolutely no idea about what to do or where to go. He wanted to save us some money on overage, so instead of taking us to the nearest AAA certified car shop, he made a few calls to his personal mechanics’ personal phones. The first was closing shop for the day, but the second was happy to take a look. Onward in Steve’s truck towing Sara’s car towing Sara’s stuff, we drove for about fifteen minutes, then headed down a little dirt road, and up the dirt driveway to a shop/garage/barnyard/house. This tucked-away establishment belonged to a self-employed mechanic named Rick Patches, who just might be the nicest man in all of Wyoming.

I should probably mention that by this point, we had been told two or three times already that it was the coldest day of the month, and the bone-chilling relentless winds did not disagree.

Standing in the cold with our hands in our pockets looking more out of place than the crooked-necked goat who wandered up to us, Sara and I watched Steve drive off just in time to get the news: The car wasn’t going anywhere. The flywheel had been stripped, and the clutch was burnt out. Hello $800 mechanics bill. Hello stranded, hopeless feeling!
Rick Patches is a gruff looking fellow with fingers as thick as lug-nuts and skin dyed red with 35 years of motor-oil. His voice sounds a bit like rubbing two bags of gravel together, but no matter what he said to Sara and I in those first uncomfortable minutes, it sounded something like “Oh I’ve been there, don’t you worry.” He invited us into his home, about a ten second walk away from his shop, where we had the opportunity to warm up, drink coffee, admire the outlandish log-cabin feel of the home of this sportsman, and brainstorm ideas.

By brainstorm ideas, I mean to imply that Sara and I sat in stupefied silence as Rick suggested what to do next. The obvious choice was to rent a bigger U-haul and a dolly big enough to tow Sara’s car, transfer all of the belongings, and drive on. When it became a likely scenario that a dolly was nowhere nearby, the second option was to leave the car at a shop until the repairs could be finished, then come back to Cheyenne to get it.
Fingering through his phone-book trying to get a hold of his friend at U-haul, Rick came up with an even easier idea. One that would save time and money: put the Celica in the back of a really big U-haul, and drive it all at once without even needing to rent a dolly.
Uneasy, nervous agreement from Sara and I. No mister Patches that doesn’t sound impossible at all… We lift cars four feet off the ground every day! We went to U-haul, got the massive 23’ truck, and ultimately followed Rick (in our massive truck) to a nearby motel, where we briefly discussed our plans for the morning, and parted ways.

We hadn’t eaten since ten that morning, and now it was 7 at night. Putting the minimal necessities into our room, we turned on the heat, and went back to the office to take the motel clerk up on her offer to drive us to the Shari’s across the street. After a very tasty and very satisfying meal we walked back to our room, and discovered that the heater was more of a noise-maker than a heater. Did I mention it was the coldest day of the month?
One miserable night’s sleep and eight hours later, it was time to wake up. Freezing, depressed, more than a little ill with stress, we checked out of our room, and headed back to Uncle Rick’s shop. Backing a 23’ cargo truck two property-lengths down a dirty road does wonders to add to the fantasy that you are a trucker, if only for a day.

Now, the night before, Rick had told us that he was going to bring some friends from Doug’s Tow company (of which Steve-the-jolly was an employee), who had the machines capable of putting a car into a truck. When we arrived on Tuesday morning, we discovered that Rick had come up with yet another money-saving trick. I call this chapter

Two friends, two rusty ramps, a dolly with flat tires, and a bobcat.

Rick’s idea was this: Place two long ramps at the back-end of the U-haul, and push the dead car up the ramps and into the truck, but he quickly found out that the cargo bay was too high off the ground for his old rusty ramps, as they just weren’t long enough. Step 1 to getting a cargo bay closer to the ground involved backing the front wheels up reinforced ramps, and parking with those wheels a good 16” off the ground.

Not even the trusty front-wheels-on-ramps trick got the cargo bay low enough, so step two was not to lower the cargo bay any further, but was logically to raise the car closer to the destination. The intermediate step was to push Sara’s car up the rusty ramps onto an old dolly with flat tires which Rick pulled around by hitching it to the shovel of his bobcat bulldozer. So it took three strong men, but the car went up the ramps and onto the dolly just fine. Now, car and all, Rick pushed the dolly up to the cargo bay, and the ramps were laid suspended between the gap like two devilish, unreliable bridges.

They needed somebody to straighten the wheels and work the breaks… So before the car was to make the impossibly dangerous trek across the grand canyon of all low-tech car transfers, they asked me to get into the driver’s seat. The ramps were set, the wheels were turned, and my life flashed before my eyes as I imagined the whole car toppling sideways off the ramp. No such luck, the car (and me) survived the transfer just fine, and suddenly I was inside the cargo bay of the truck, just like Rick had imagined.

At this point, Sara and I had known Rick for about 20 hours, and had been with him for about 12. Not once had this gruff looking santa clause mentioned payment for his advice, his time, his gas, his coffee, or anything else. On the trip to return the smaller U-haul to the rental agency, we brought it up with him, and that conversation went a little something like this.

Me: So Rick, I know we haven’t talked about money at all, but we feel we need to pay you for all you’ve done for us.

Rick: Um.. okay. How about $2,500?

Silence. We had been prepared to truly compensate him for the massive amount of time he had spent with us, but we hadn’t expected anything that high. Still… 2,500 felt fair.

Rick: No. That’s what the big guys would charge. I want to be fair. How about I charge you for 3 hours of labor. That’ll be $150.

More silence. Oh Rick Patches tease not these frail hearts just tell us what you want! ...Apparently he was serious. $150 was enough to offset the gas he had burnt, and to put dinner on the table for a few days… That was all he wanted. We paid him $200.

He gave us his number, and asked us to call him when we reached Boise, adding that we should feel free to call him if we felt that we were being taken advantage of by corporate mechanics.

The rest of the trip went by without a problem at all.

“I don’t care what ya believe or not, I believe in the man upstairs and when I’m done here that’s where I’m headed. I sure as hell better get there, because I’ve got lots of people to see.”-
-Rick Patches

We’ll put in a good word for ya Uncle Rick. We all will.

It's been almost a year since I've written a journal to FA, Probably because when I write here, I secretly wish there was an audience that cared... Otherwise, when I want to write and don't need an audience, I use my respectable blog.

Hi internet audience. Hello world. I have this terrible lump in my throat... but it feels more like a gigantic stone has been placed in my gut and nothing will make the uncomfortable chill go away. The circumstances are beyond anybody's control, but my kitty is leaving. She's going back to where her parents are so that she can go to school and get a degree and have a future. I won't call it going home though... Because her home, and her future, should be here with me.

I wanna go with you Kitty. I don't wanna be apart.

It's going to be hard, but I know we can do it. I love you.

So for Christmas, a buddy of mine helped me build a gaming rig... a NICE one...
1 TB HD
Core2Quad Q6600 processor... you get the idea ;)

So I haven't been much of a PC gamer in the past... Here is what I need from you all:

What games should I get?

Much love!

...And if you hit me with the A.L.L.Y then you'd see why,

The hall is here for y'all.