So, I listen to several podcasts and one of them is Escape Pod. It is a podcast of a series of short science fiction stories read aloud by(for the most part) some rather talented voice actors.

Recently, I heard an awesome story called Eugene. It's a rather amusing short story told from the perspective of an anthropomorphic police dog, and I thought I'd share it because it was, to me, very enjoyable.

http://traffic.libsyn.com/escapepod.....253_Eugene.mp3

Anyways, give it a listen. I think you might like it...

So. Everything old is new again.

Long ago, when I was first getting on this here internetz thing, I used to download mp3s by pulling up whichever search engine was hot at the time and searching for mp3s. The selection was crap. The song quality was crap, and you had to search for hours, and then spend further hours downloading these files over a 2400 baud modem. Then Metallicops and the RIAA put a stop to all that. Things went underground. Peer to peer file sharing started up, and the war was on. You could no longer just search for and download your favorite mp3 through a web browser, but needed a special, dedicated network that was "RIAA proof" to get good music free. As the "man" cracked down more and more, things went further underground. Darknets and torrenting. Encrypted file sharing networks that refused unencrypted connections. All sorts of dodges to keep them from shutting you down, while they spent more and more time and money on cracking these new pirate networks. And now? They have spent so much time and effort on these things, they no longer worry about the small to middling web pages that just up and host the files anymore.

Next time you need a song, Google it. Just put in the song title and mp3 and chances are, within a few top returns, you'll find a link where you can download the file.

I love the internet...

So, yesterday I went in to the doc to get a follow up on my diabetes thing and hopefully get off these meds. I'm only dietary diabetic and have been told if I lose enough weight, I can go back to eating normal. New Doctor 'cuz my old one fled the country. Seriously, she left on some sort of doctor's missionary work or doctors with out borders or something and didn't even tell us she was leaving. The new doc tells me that because I am diabetic, I have a weak immune system and offers me some immunizations. Hepatitis A, this year's flue, tetanus and I think Whooping cough. Sure, why not, let's avoid those diseases. So I have them stick four needles in me. Now my shoulders are sore and bruised feeling. Even worse, something they stuck me with is kicking me ass horribly! I'm listless, feel sick, get hot and cold flashes, feel nauseous, and weak as a kitten. On the way home from grocery shopping today, I panic thinking I'm having a sugar crash. Two tests with two different glucose monitors assure me that I'm fine. Immunization shots are not supposed to actually get you sick! Why do I feel like I'm dying? Bleh. Okay, enough whining...

So, joerandel did a fun journal thing where he posted what games he was playing and asked everyone who read the journal to do the same. Of course, being as he has 3K+ watchers, and I only have slightly more then 100, I doubt I'll get the returns he did, but I thought it might be fun to find out what all y'all are playing. Or at least, find out how many of you read my journals and are willing to reply to them.

So I'm playing:

Dragons Lair 1 (on the Daphne emulator)
Etrian Odyssey
Disgaea DS
and once in a long while, Pokemon Platinum

How about you?

So, I had my MP3 of Aerosmith's "Sweet Emotion" glitch. Now it plays at 1/4th speed and is full of horrible demonic growlings, odd mechanical bangings and grindings, and some weird stomping noise. It sounds like the background ambiance in some gothic horror survival game boss fight scene.

[EDIT]

So I was informed it was playing correctly on some media players. So I ran it through an audio editing program, bumped up the volume and re-encoded it so that, in theory, it plays wrong for everyone. Or right for everyone. Whatever. Re-encoding it also dramatically reduced the file size. Because of time dilation, the 196 Kbps over 4 minutes original sample was 32 Kbps over 17 minutes. I re-encoded it at 32 kbps and it massively dropped the file size.

Get it here:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=G8112O70

You know, it occurs to me I forgot to let all my watchers know what's going on with the D&D game! I'm sure many of you figured this out for yourself, but for those who did not, I have put the game on hold for a bit while I finish a commission. I will return to the game just as soon as I am done. So there you go, a bit of information for y'all.

Okay, so a friend shared this with me(you KNOW who you are!) and I just had to share it with all of you. I may even have to do some sort of drawing based on this. Watch the video. If you know me at all, you'll know the part I'm talking about...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLs9ozsGFi0

Hey, just out of curiosity, my fine, wonderful watchers, why are you watching me? Some of you I know from real life and some of you are participating in my D&D game, but the rest of you, for what reason do you watch?" Just curious. Also it may affect what I post in the future, so as an additional question, what would you like to see from me in the future?

So yeah. Anyone know anyone in the San Diego area who needs a 21 inch CRT monitor? I hate to just give it to Good Will or send it to the local computer parts recycling center. It gave me good service until I replaced it with my brand new matching widescreen LCD monitors. I had two - one is going to the wife, the other needs a good home...

My cat is so weird. We've been having issues with ants lately - they get into the cats' food and then the cats won't eat it, although they cry for us to feed them. So to keep the ants out, I put their food dish in a shallow plastic marinading dish and fill the marinading dish with water. Now the cats can eat safely. Our picky felines also get filtered water, because Patches, our brindle female won't drink tap water(guess she hates the taste of city water as much as I do?), but cries until we give her water from our charcoal water filtering pitcher. My cat? Ashes? Yeah. That crazy blue-gray bastard is drinking from the ant-moat and completely ignoring the bowl of filtered water right next to him...

So. I don't often get a chance to add the English language, but today I came up with an awesome new word that I feel needs to become common use, especially here in the furry fandom.

---

Dramamonger: drah-muh-muhng-ger - noun

One who creates and/or spreads drama, wah or controversy.

---

Go, spread the word! Fly my pretties! Fly! *evil cackling*

So, I pride myself on my cooking. I've been told it is epic. I've had violence threatened when I forgot my home-made BBQ sauce. Seriously, violence. A lynching even. I have a tuna salad recipe I do that is gormet, and last night, it failed horribly.

I thought I had done something wrong, but I could not figure out what it was. I did everything right - I used real tuna steaks, grilled in a sauce made of lemon juice, paprika, dill, garlic salt and pepper. I mixed that tuna with paper-thin slices of celery, two chopped boiled eggs, chopped green onions, mayo, a touch of mustard, salt and a bit of lemon juice. Usually I add some chopped granny smith apple, but I forgot to get some last night. I put it on lightly toasted bread with nice loose leaf lettuce and thin sliced raw zucchini.

It. Was. Horrible.

This morning, I attempted a PBJ on the same lightly toasted bread and could hardly choke it down. Then I had a closer look at the bread in question. If you can't make a good PBJ, there's something wrong with the bread.

I thought I had purchased a nice multi-grain brown bread.

I had bought a no-grain flax-soy bread.

NEVER AGAIN. EVER.

It should be illegal to sell cardboard in the shape of a loaf of bread, as bread. Seriously, this stuff tastes like cardboard boxes smell.

Often while I work, I let my mind wander. Sure it's a dangerous thing to do, but on occasion it catches something tasty, and like any good pet, it brings me back the head and tail and leaves them on my pillow in the form of some macabre gift. These gleanings result in interesting arts and ideas. Occasionally though, the depths of my psyche bring forth horrors, and I find these squirming abominations, sodden and decomposing in a little puddle of brine. Like the hive-mind demon, Legion, I cannot excise these images from my mind once they have lodged there without giving them a place to go, and as the largest repository of lurking horror in this world, the Internet gives these...things a haven AND an audience. And so, once again I vomit this chum upon the shores of teh internets. I give you...squidloaf, the tentacled luncheon meat. Hentai fans rejoice...and enjoy your sandwiches.

So, I just finished watching Burn After Reading.

Colossal waste of my time. It had a few amusing moments, but mostly it was a movie about how paranoia and greed and lust killed and/or ruined the lives of 7 people who otherwise might have lived fairly mundane lives. With the exception of one of them, nobody in the movie really deserved what happened to them. So unless you enjoy that sort of thing...don't watch this movie.

So, yeah. Watching True Blood with Sulis(my mate) when someone spouts the line "Nothing nice about being tied up and bitten..."

we both look at each other and then simultaneously break out in gigglefits.

I was having this weird and vivid dream about going to the movies to see a documentary on Egypt, when I woke up this morning to the sound of the alarm clock program on my computer ringing. It's a very annoying repeating bell noise, never fails to wake me up. So I turned on my monitor, waited until it was bright enough to see my mouse pointer through sleep bleary eyes and closed the alarm window popup - something that usually turns off the alarm. It kept ringing. I sat there for a moment and then groggily I opened the alarm program and opened up today's alarm and hit the stop button. It kept ringing. Disconcerted, I tried again. Still ringing. Finally, out of frustration I shut down the entire alarm program. It still kept ringing. Then I woke up and the alarm program on my computer was ringing.

I have weird and vivid dreams sometimes...

Okay, I'm not a big fan of the DMCA but damn if it does not come in handy sometimes!

My eldest cub and her boyfriend were being trolled on one of those "Troll the furfags" sites and the rather lengthy troll included multiple pictures of him, some of his art, and photographs of her as well. Since she has the copyright on the pictures of her, I instructed her on how to send a DMCA takedown notice to the website, and she instructed him on how to do the same. The website not only took down the pictures, they took down the troll posting and blocked the account...

Hey, so, a lot of the really good TV shows I've been torrenting and watching are over. Seasons ended and stuff. Does anyone know of any good Fantasy or Science fiction TV shows? Nothing much is on right now and all the shows I know of are not going to be coming back on the air for a little bit, with the exceptions of:

Doctor Who
Burn Notice
True Blood(starting soon)

--EDIT--

It occurs to me I should list the shows I /do/ know about already, both for those who might be looking for something good themselves, and so nobody tries to tell me about shows I already know of...

Burn Notice (not really Sci-Fi/Fantasy, but still good)
Ghost Whisperer (A little soap-ey, but not unwatchable)
Doctor Who (currently airing, so VERY VERY good)
True Blood (back on the air June 20th)
Leverage (Not Sci-fi/Fantasy but well worth watching - june 20th)
Eureka (back on the air July 9th)
Warehouse 13 (back on the air July 13th)
Weeds (Not Sci-Fi, but VERY good and funny - back on the air August 16th)
Heroes (waiting for Season 5, sometime in Sepetember)
Fringe (Season 3 starts sometime this Fall)
Cabin in the woods (Supposedly starts January 2011)
A game of Thrones (2011 sometime?)
Star Wars live action TV series (2011 sometime?)

Not sure when the next seasons of these shows come out:

Human Target (Not sci-fi/fantasy, but a bit James Bond-ey)
Torchwood
Primeval
Merlin
Being Human
Spartacus: Blood and Sand
Supernatural
Chuck (Not sci-fi/fantasy, but so worth watching)
V
Vampire Diaries

These have already been canceled:

Legend of the Seeker
The Sarah Conner Chronicles
Dresden Files
New Amsterdam
Robin Hood(BBC tv series)
Reaper

Sulis(my mate) to me: "You know, spooning leads to forking..."
Shadarack: "Well! In that case..." *spoons*
Sulis: "But not tonight, all the forks are dirty, and I don't feel like washing any."
Shadarack: "..."
Shadarack: "That's okay, I like a nice dirty fork now and then!"

So. I've been listening to Pirate Party radio and it seems that many anti-piracy groups are trying to take ISPs to court for criminal actions because of actions perpetrated by the ISP's customers.

Does this mean it's going to be okay to take movie and music producers to court because of violent actions perpetrated by their customers again?

Just a thought I had...

Just remember kids, if you piss your parents off too much, they have power of attorney until you turn 18 and can legally change your name. I know /I/ wouldn't want my name to be Farty McStinkyPants for the rest of my scholastic career...

I've not even seen Avatar yet...but I found this quite amusing, and thought you might as well...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0D8I.....eature=related

So. I was bored today and had nothing to draw since I'm waiting for someone to post to the game before I can draw for that again.

*eyes Marissa*

Anyways. On the off chance that this should happen again, I'm going to start taking requests in a way I've not seen done here before. Here's how it goes. I post something(like this journal - or in the future, the request picture) and anyone who wants something drawn can post a request as a reply to the post. When I need to draw something, the idea I like the most gets drawn and the suggester gets credit for the suggestion. Anyways. Yeah.

So anyone who's actually bothering to pay attention to my journals obviously gets first crack at this, so if you've ever wanted to see me draw something, post your suggestions!

Incidentally, unless it's ALL that I get in the way of suggestions, I will probably NOT be drawing anyone's fursona. Unless I really like the idea or something.

So...I know I can't be the only one with a scanner, and I'm pretty sure I can't be the only one who has issues with art that's too big for the scanner. I have a problem with paper bending on the lip around the edge of the scanner. This inevitably produces a portion of scanned material that has an odd shading defect on it, making it very difficult to scan oversized pieces in sections, then put them together. Does anyone know an easy fix for this, or perhaps a scanner with a scanner bed that is flush(or at least very close to flush!) with the lip? Photographs just do not do real media paintings justice and I plan to do some oversized acrylic paintings in the future. How do I convert those to digital for display here on FA? Any advice anyone? Perhaps do you know someone who posts pictures of oversized art here on FA I can ask?

So, I don't usually share stuff like this on my journal, but...

http://www.snafu-comics.com/ posted a link to this and I just had to share because it is made of win. Not the music or animation so much as the combination thereof and the bizarre disjointed story one can glean from watching the animation and trying to make some sort of sense and story from it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ9Y.....layer_embedded