New Years flop.

Almost every New Years, my best friend and I get together to just chill at my house watching movies and playing video games while eating tons of party food. It's a simple thing, mainly because we aren't the most social people. Unfortunately for the last two years, she has been getting worse with her social problems and now hates to stay out too late from her fucking house. I don't exactly blame her, I've known for years she has some fears she needs to conquer, but it feels like she stopped trying, which is what pisses me off more. I try to talk to her about it but I feel like I am being such an asshole for suggesting it since I don't know what she is going through, and probably never will completely understand it. She and I work differently. I have a few social issues, but I can force myself to do something because I'm a stubborn asshole. She is stubborn in the opposite way, where she will stubbornly try to stay in her "content" zone.

I've thought of ideas such as going to her house instead for New Years so she won't have to feel afraid to leave her house or whatever at so late at night. Problem is there would be no real party food (their oven has been broken for awhile, so no mozzarella sticks, onion rings, cocktail weenies and so on), her father is a paranoid, controlling guy that has good and bad days so there's a good chance things would just suck anyway... There's  a good chance she will see this entry, which i am prepared for. As is, I am not exactly ANGRY at her, but more frustrated with how she decides to deal with things. You can't conquer your fears without going outside your comfort zone once and awhile, you will have to eventually face them. She just doesn't seem like she wants to however.

Besides her, I have another "friend" who I was sort of close to for awhile, but lately just hasn't been a friend and more of an online friend despite how close we live nearby. I don't care too much though, because he still has the high school mindframe going for him anyway.

My other best friend (whom also is my cousin) keeps herself so busy I rarely get to see her, and she doesn't have time for me at all really. In fact, it's gotten so bad, I feel like I have to watch what I say around her when we used to be so open about things.

I've been looking into events around my area, but they are so far away. I rather not go driving back home late at night on New Years only because I KNOW drunk drivers and police will be out. My car has an expired inspection sticker still so if a cop pulled me over, I'd be looking at a fine still. Any place that actually is near me is so fucking expensive unfortunately... except one place actually but has police crawling around it.

So yeah, to put it simply/TL;DR: I need new friends, nothing remotely interesting to do for New Years, and...

I mad.

Some of my presents this year.

I felt I would share with you some of the crazy shirts and pants and whatnot that i got for Christmas, perhaps including the "special ed" shirt. Note: It is not Special Ed from "Crank Yankers," but a shirt that reminds me as the clothing of someone in special education would wear.

I should also mention I tend to dress in what I believe is considered the punk style, and if that is incorrect wording, then let's just say not usual clothes. At least when it comes to pants anyways, i wear Tripp, parachute (very little) and UFOs. Just what I prefer. Now prepare for a nice image heavy post!

From "Problem Sleuth," I had to get these shirts!

 

Snow day.

We had quite the blizzard these past two days. Sunday was so bad, it was not worth shoveling. My sister and I tried to shovel as much as we could just so the morning shoveling would not be as bad, but it was a losing battle. Now we live in a 2 family house, which means there are 6 people in our house, but out of these 6 people, the only ones who shovel most often are my sister and I. Dad usually works during snow duty, mom loses her energy too much thank to her MS, and only the guy of the upstairs people SOMETIMES shovels and it is pitiful on how much it is (since the lady who is high functional can't be bothered to do shit).

The next day, thanks to wind shift, plows, and other misfortunes, there was pretty much 2 feet of snow across all of our cars. Fun. We got all bundled up and ready to take on the icy hell when some highschool kids came by asking if we would pay them to shovel us out. That felt like a miracle in itself. Mom said if they would dig out all three of our cars, she'd pay them 50 bucks, which they accepted. Gotta love that, haha. I had almost felt disappointed we would not be shoveling. ALMOST! Too bad things didn't end up so nice later...

They needed use each to move our cars some so they could get under and around it. My sister and I are parked on the street while mom has the driveway (and dad was out working, so no spot for him). I went to start my car, which was a bit of a struggle thanks to it being so old and being awhile since I started it. Finally got it started without any problems though and went to hit the unlock button so I wouldn't have to go through the passenger door all the time. Well... I learned a valuable lesson: Never try to use tiny automatic locks with gloved hands. I accidentally hit the lock button and closed the door locking my keys inside. With the car running. Doesn't sound too awful, just go get the spares, right?

Wrong; dad had the spares on his keyring and was at work. So we tried to call him all day, asking maybe we could meet him halfway, but he never answered for about 2 hours. Mom was getting all upset because he is supposed to have his phone with him all day, to which my sister and I had to calm down. It's not a rare thing for dad to miss a call or forget his cellphones (work and personal).

Sometime around then, my sister got ahold of our cousin-in-law who suggested breaking into my car via the wire-hanger method. He came to our house and tried very hard to unlock the door like that. Was pretty close too, got a grip on the handle and everything! Unfortunately, the force required was too much for the hanger and it bent off loose. My sister finally got ahold of my dad via his work phone, but he hung up on her despite her saying it was a bit of an emergency. He eventually called back, and told us he was in the middle of so many disabled vehicles, there was no way either he or we could meet up. His recommendatings were to just let the car run out of gas.

By now, our cousin-in-law gave up, said sorry, and advised us to either call a cop or a towing agency. We can't call a cop cause my car has an out-of-date inspection, so mom paid for a tow guy to get into my car. Cost 125 bucks for 3 minutes of labor.

Yeah. All of this could have been avoided had we shoveled ourselves (or I had not attempted to unlocks the doors with my gloves on). I ended up causing my parents to fight (mom didn't like that he hung up on my sister and basically ignored us for 2 hours), wasted a fair amount of gas, and cost my mother 175 bucks today (or 155, I chipped in 20 bucks). Needless to say, I did not feel spectacular about that.

Merry Christmas, Part 2

So my last entry was about the pains of Christmas, but there are some great joys to be had around the time too. Seeing your family and friends faces when they get a gift they want, the wonderful decorations and lights... ... ...And of course getting things! I don't mean that last part selfishly,  but it certainly is nice.

My mother complains people aren't in the Christmas spirit as much this year... It makes me think, what really is the Christmas spirit? Everyone has their own take on what Christmas means to them. Some find it to be a time to get free stuff, some just wish to make someone's day brighter with a gift, others it is a religious time, and some just see it as another day. There is no one answer to what Christmas is, despite anyone's beliefs. For a history lesson, check this out.

There have been some really nice Christmas times for me as well as more depressing ones too. One that sticks out that makes me laugh when I think about it was when I was really young. I was the typical, "I hate clothes as presents," kid. We were opening presents and I kept getting clothes in a row. I threw a hissy fit, and said I won't open the last one cause it looked like another clothing box. Dad mentioned to mom, "well we do need a gift for them to open in front of my grandparents, we'll just have him open it over there!" My great grandparents (father's side) didn't really buy gifts for us because I believe they were not exactly well off in money. My sister had to re-open a gift she had opened already for in front of them. When I opened the gift I was SO sure to be clothes, it was DOMINO RALLY!

My parents laughed at my shock, and I think that made my great grands thrilled with my reaction, haha! 

On the flipside, there was a Christmas where my "big gift" was something I did not want and my mom really thought I would want so much. It was a deluxe keyboard with a stand and little minibench to sit as you play. When I was a lot younger, I wanted one but as I grew older I stopped caring to have one, and I hadn't asked for this in years. I felt really bad I didn't have any desire for it. I might have played it twice or so but really didn't play it much at all. I much later told mom how sorry I am but I really didn't have my heart on this and that disappointment I saw killed me. It would have been a lot worse had I told her after I just opened it but I let her down over time. In the end, the minibench came in handy as I use it all the time in my room to hold things and such.

This morning, my family and I exchanged gifts. My sister got a purple shirt and some purple pants, and mom said they could go together. My sister told mom if she wore this out to the mall, she would be dubbed the crazy purple lady, which just set us all off in laughter. I got a lot of shirts this year since my style pants seems to always sell out or get discontinued... One shirt my mom got me looked like a special ed child's shirt. I don't think i could wear it ironically either.

I'm happy to have gotten Donkey Kong Country and Goldeneye for wii now! I'll be playing them like mad for awhile, haha. :)

Christmas Time (w/ some Neopets images cause I'm a dork)

In case I am not on for Christmas Eve or Day, Merry Christmas to everyone! If you don't celebrate it, well, happy whatever-the-fuck-holiday-you-celebrate-or-don't-celebrate.

I had been working on ideas to write about Christmas time in general... mainly the things that sicken me, heh. But I started feeling that would not be in true Christmas spirit, and tried to think of something else. Then I just said to hell with it and started typing up shit and hoped it made sense.

During the holiday season, there is a lot of shit you have to put up with. Shopping usually is one of the bigger piss offs since there are so many factors involved with it. First you have to travel to the store, which depending your mode of transport, causes hellfuck problems. If you walk or bike it, you will likely be freezing and also have a hard time bringing some presents home. If you drive, you get the holiday rush of traffic with so many idiots, it takes forever to get to the store of your choice you are already put in a bad mood.

I mad.

Then there's the parking. Oh god, the parking! Finding a spot is almost always a hassle, and then there are jerks who snipe your spot like an auction. Not to mention, if you are leaving and managed to have gotten a somewhat decent parking spot, people will fight over your spot, trapping you.

I getting madder

I usually settle on the first parking spot I see and deal with a long walk if a parking lot looks like a battlezone. I've had assholes box me in because they both wanted my spot as I was leaving, however. Eventually they backed off, and I tried to make it so the car I saw behind me first would get the spot (by blocking the other guy as I got out).

Ok, so you endured the travel and parking, now the fun part: shopping! Maybe you have a list or maybe you still don't know what you want to get someone. Either choice is a handful. The store could have it sold out so making you go to more stores, recycling some other past piss-offs. Or the store could have it but as you are about to get it, someone grabs the last one JUST before you get to it. I've seen worse, though. People will play tug of war with the items, steal from your cart if you look away for one second, assault you outside the store for a particular item, and more.

CUT THIS SHIT OUT!

What's that? You can avoid most of this with just, SHOPPING ONLINE?! Great idea! Just that a lot more people have thought of that, so you can just as easily get sniped, online places could still sell out, or worse, orders could be screwed up delaying or terminating your items, and eventually have to go to the store ANYWAY with the frustration built up from unsuccessful online shopping. But you also might luck out and everything goes for you, and you just relax and sit your fat ass on the couch.

Besides shopping, there also is social things such as an office or friend's party, dealing with your family/families, and so on. There's usually at least that one unpleasant relative you can't stand to be around, if not many family members.

For me, it's mainly the aunts that are a problems. 2 of them aren't really bad, just can be loud mouthed so I can usually deal, but another two are incredibly bad. First there is my "holier-than-thou" aunt who needs to be heard of all the things going on in her life and how things are so GOOD FOR HER! And then she will criticize on you or your family's shortcomings. She also likes to bring up the fact that just because she goes to church SOMETIMES (lol, yes, sometimes) she is much more spiritual and in tune with the lord and whatever. My family isn't religious really... I believe my mother believes in different paths to god and doesn't need to show up in a place or actively be apart of rituals to be apart of a faith, father is probably the same to a lesser degree... And my sister and I are essentially some sort of agnostic-variation that I don't feel like getting into (I've already made a Religion related post in the past and not ready to make another). And on this side of the family, we are the only ones that don't have someone going to church, therefore get criticized for it every now and then.

The other aunt I have less problems with than "Miss Holy" since her daughters (my cousins) are close with me and are good friends, she just likes to pick fights with her siblings, causing general problems. I should really describe my two families in detail sometime, and maybe I shall.

I think this entry is long enough and continue more about christmas tomorrow.

Oops

Terribly sorry, I don't care to leave my blog without an update for so long usually, but the holiday season keeps me a bit busy. Scrambling to get gifts for my family,mainly making personal things that are no cost buy labor and time thanks to lit-tle mon-ey. Also haven't been sleeping well so I'm awake during the nights and sleeping for so long during the day. Also have some family things going on.

On Sunday, we had a "surprise party" for my great(grand?) uncle's 75th birthday. Unfortunately, it wasn't really a surprise since everyone ended up coming late and not bothering to shout surprise, apparently. My sister and I came a little late so we only got to hear about that from my other family members. For the most part, the whole party was really lackluster. I'm not exactly close to my grand-uncle and I don't think he even knows who most of us really are since our interactions are limited at best. Overall, i think he was just happy to have people there though. Too bad his oldest son who threw the party is a pompous douche anyway.

For most of the party, I sat at the table playing Dragon Quest 9 on my DS. The table I was at had my "holier than thou" aunt and drunkard uncle, along with my twin cousins who just talk about football. I idly tried to make conversation, but they made no real attempt to reciprocate, so I stopped trying. I tried to talk to the cousins I was closer to, but they were seated at another table so it was only every now and then. The food there was mostly seafood too, so I went vegetarian and engulfed the steamed vegetables and salad.

After that travesty, all the (1st) cousins were to leave and go to friendly's in honor of my grandfather who died a year ago today (exactly on his birthday). It was a tradition we are trying to uphold since he loved to take the grandchildren out to friendly's all the time when we were younger. That was a lot more fun.

In other news, I have a date on valentines day... with Dragon Quest 6 for DS! :D As some of you (should) know, I am a huge Dragon Quest fan. Thank to my favorite Dragon Quest fansite, I found out the game is coming out on Valentines Day next year. It seems Nintendo is taking the series out of Square Enix's incapable marketing hands!

Dragon Quest may have a fighting chance now. Square-Enix treated the series like Terri Schiavo, wanting to put her down, but because there were vocal people demanding to keep it alive over in NA, they half-heartedly kept it alive when they could be bothered. Dragon Quest 9 was handed off to Nintendo as a larf I believe, and it did extremely well for itself compared to how Square-Enix has done to Dragon Quest 4 and 5 DS, Rocket Slime, Joker, AND Dragon Quest 8. Well, I might be exaggerating slightly but it's pretty close.

I have a post about Christmas in general coming up, just kept putting it off, haha.  Perhaps tomorrow or next day, after I finish the gifts for my family and friends.

Another trip down memory lane

Thanks to a lack of progress on a few other entries I have been working on, I figured I would share with my followers time in the past when I was little.This story gets in my head and infuriates me to no end very often. Just thinking about it now is already getting my blood boiling, which might be a good thing since it is freaking cold in this room right now.

I was in the first grade with quite the bitch of a teacher. She might not have been the worst, but extremely close to it. She could be nice and I recall a few instances where she actually was to me specifically, but it doesn't excuse her for what she had did this time. She bullied and humiliated me in front of class.

In the classroom, we had a closet/coat rack where everyone kept their backpacks, lunch, and coats. When we were allowed to go to the closet, it would be quite the scramble to get to your stuff, since the closet was quite confined. Often, we would have to wait to get to our things, and sometimes in the scramble, people's things would be knocked down, or even sometimes knocked off the hooks but wouldn't fall down until later because of how compact everything was. Thus, started a problem.

People's coats would be stepped on, becoming dirty or sometimes ripped. My parents were getting upset how my big-ass coat would be so dirty and worn for being rather new so they complained to the school. The teacher then decided to take this up with me during the middle of class.

"All right, Tal, so who stepped on your coat?" She asked out of nowhere, out loud to everyone. We were learning fire saftey at the moment I think, and it must have triggered her memory on this matter or something. there was no specific persons that step on one's coat, it just accidentally happened at times. I tried to convey this notion to her, but being 6... maybe 7 at the time, I was quite short on words.
"Um... pretty much everyone...?"
She then decided to go to each student and asked them if they stepped on my coat. OF COURSE no one would admit it, so she prosecuted me further. "None of them said they did it, are you lying?"
"No!"
"But they said they didn't! Maybe you stepped on your own coat!"
"No! Maybe they are lying?"
She then asked if they were lying... cause that will work. When everyone denied it, she kept badgering me to make me say I stepped on my own coat, and though I have always been quite the stubborn person, at that age being in trouble scared me more, so I finally gave in. She then went on how I should not lie and scolded me for lying and basically made me feel like absolute crap.

When I went home, my father told me the teacher called him and said I stepped on my own coat. I broke down and cried, telling him how I really didn't, but no one would say they did, so she blamed me. He believed me, and said they'd get me a new coat (I really didn't care to have a new one but whatever), and told me to keep a watch on my coat from now on. If someone stepped on it, just tell on them right away. Yeah, that would never work, but I didn't have this problem later since that scene in the classroom made my classmates a "little" more careful with the closet.

That same teacher became a principal at a middle school later, and wanted to enforce a dress code that parents must pay for. I feel bad for that school tremendously. She was even a teacher in my middle school, but luckily i didn't have her. The interactions I had with her were very short and I wouldn't converse with her. I still want to make her pay somehow, even just to convey a message because she made my 1st grade really miserable, which led to miserable school years till high school. I can't blame her for everything, but she sure as hell didn't make everything wonderful.

Weird dream

Some nights ago, I had yet another odd dream. It could bring up a story scenario I suppose, but not as elaborate a one like my Mr. Autodelete story.

I was at an arcade with an ex-friend of mine. She and I used to go to the arcades together till a falling out, so I guess that's how this dream formed. The arcade itself looked like someone's attic with one ddr machine and a few fighting games in the background. Some people from my old ddr days were around but not really interacting. My ex-friend mentioned something about the ddr machine not having a line on it so we should hurry over to it. i got on the stage, and then woke up.

However... I did not truly wake up. Instead, it was like a dream within a dream, and I had woken up into my main dream. I was even in my bed with everything in the right place except not a single light was on. Normally, i have my computer playing a show or movie on the whole time so it provides a light source, but it was nearly pitch black in my room. I had just heard my creaky ass door open and close, which I assume "woke" me up. it was a girl that I auto-assumed to be my older sister's friend. She jumped as I made some noise.

"Oh sorry, i didn't realize someone was in here!" I tried to communicate, but it was like I was out of breath for some reason. I managed to struggle a whisper, asking who was she and told her I can't talk too well for some reason. She said her name was Deanna, I think... Some sort of name with a D mixed with another girl name. I remember it sounding slightly odd. I choked out another whisper that I think my right side was still asleep, cause i could not feel anything. She scrambled over and rubbed my side, trying to help. After a short while, I started to regain normalcy, and could talk and get myself up.

I asked what she was doing here as we left my room, and I noticed in the living room, both my mother and sister had fallen asleep in the living room. it was late night/early morning, so this was quite odd to happen. My father was in his room, still asleep. She said she had come over and saw them like this, and then gave some sort of reason for why she was frightened. At first, I thought a gas leak or something had happened, but they made little noises to indicate they were okay. My dad suddenly woke up and asked who the hell was this person, and why did she just leave my room (Lol he thought I had a girl stay overnight; I'd never hear the end of it if I actually did). She apologized first and I kept trying to ask why the hell she was coming over so late at night in the first place, but something in the dream would always interrupt my train of thought, as if I was not supposed to know.

After that awkward moment with my father, for some reason we started walking outside and suddenly walked to "my old house." Except it really wasn't, but apparently in the dream world, it was.We had some meaningless conversation, and suddenly it was morning. I ended up waking up around here, wondering if I was still sleeping.

The inability to speak and move was probably me actually speaking out loud and laying on my side. I've woken myself up before trying to force myself to talk in a dream... usually when trying to get someone's attention or telling someone off that I apparently am not supposed to. Also woken myself up because a body part had fallen asleep. Just felt weird to have such a realistic re-dream...

Demo of my mapping

As mentioned here, I plan to scan a few maps i made for some obscure games on BYOND (namely: Dragon Warrior: Shadows of Erdrick) in an attempt to make another guide like my Archipelago Remastered Recipe Guide. I recreated one of them in paint (one of the simpler ones) to give an idea of how I map. I wanted some feedback from my followers to see if it is understandable. I don't care it's not the most descriptive, but it should serve as a guide to what a player needs/wants from the area.

This dungeon in particular consisted mainly of tunnels, so the directions were all that were needed. Some areas ended up being rooms with no direction to indicate so i would just box them up and lead the path in. On another map, there were rooms with directional input so I would do a box AND the directions to show the choices to be made.

I haven't done any other paint maps, which means I haven't done the other floors of this dungeon. As it is, the game this map belongs to has been offline for a very long time, and I doubt will be used in a guide, but it seemed like a suitable demo that wouldn't be overcomplicated for me to draw. The rest of the maps are probably just going to be scanned in because of how complicated some get. Trying to recreate a map and keep the locations correct is absolutely maddening for me. I am no artist.

The only other solution would be to keep screen-capping as I play which... I am not doing. That's infuriatingly annoying. Filming won't work either since random battles would get in the way. Plus, I imagine video capturing programs would be likely to resource heavy for my old desktop and overheat my laptop.

The weekly general update.

Time for another update involving what's been currently going on.

I FINALLY beat Classic mode with every character on Intense without continues on Super Smash Brothers Brawl as well as Boss Battles. All that is left is 2 fucking stickers I can't seem to get to complete the sticker collection and All Star Mode... which I'm not trying as hard to get through. Ideally I want to get through All-Star Mode with no continues, but I get stuck towards the end after the Star Fox crew. Furthest I got was the pokemon team playing as Zelda. It's kind of funny that she is about the easiest to do this without needing to heal too often since she can keep her distance the most. next best I found was Peach since she can heal herself each time she gets the smash ball. But I likely will drop trying to beat All Star mode without continues when i finally get those damn 2 stickers.

Funny enough, Rob was the last one to beat Boss battles on Intense (Wario for Classic)

I been getting some mad high scores on Neopets lately. All luck based games of course, but I never did get trophies like this before. My luck on there is going pretty nice, and it feeds my gambling needs since I have l i t t l e m o n e y for real-money gamblin'.

My mother's christmas present caused some frustration because it involved getting my laptop NOT to overheat, and all the other computers in the house couldn't read the files cause no one likes to update (and my personal desktop was to old to handle them). Sister ended up giving me an x-mas present early, so I now have a better laptop cooler. She actually got me two different ones; a newer version of my old colling unit and one that uses no power source since it uses crystals to self cool. I don't recommend it for laptops like mine that overheat and shut down. For the record, it's called, "HeatShift."

Resetting the router fixed the wireless internet problems. If we try that too early, it won't help at all which is why we didn't do it in the first place.

On blogtv, two of my favorite cartoon streams were banned because fox complained about copyright issues. More popped up, but aren't as organized or high in quality. Still, at least I have them to fall asleep to... I need something to listen to as i fall asleep because silence tends to make me think so much I can't get to sleep. And I'm too bashful to call up Comcast to fix the cable box in my room... :X I hate talking to operators!

Got a splinter for the first time in so many years a few days ago. Annoying thing. I got it while reaching through the wooden desk near my router to get a wire. Couldn't get the damn thing out of my skin so letting my body take care of it, which means I get to feel something like a paper cut for several days. Bah!

Been trying to get back into working out, but I haven't been able to get to sleep at a reasonable time. As it is for today, I been up since 5:30am and had originally fallen asleep at 2am. Trying to get my sleep schedule back so I can exercise and feel better about myself. BTW, EA Sports: More Workouts for the wii has the nice ab work out that just kicks my ass (or abs in this case) the right way. Can't wait to move on to the more difficult versions.

Submitted a few more applications, namely one for a convenience store. Ugh... I'm not looking forward to possibly working there; never worked at one. I likely would be given a night which makes me nervous of robbers. I hear about people holding up convenience stores all the time... not very motivating. But I shouldn't be left alone there overnight, so I at least would have company... But still...

But I need money, so if I get that job, I'm doing it. Hopefully one of the places give me a call back for an interview at least; that way I can have some humorous interview stories, or devastatingly terrible ones. Win-win for readers, haha!

Some kudos!

Special thanks to David for introducing me to this web-comic: http://www.mspaintadventures.com/

Absolutely the best reads/watches I have had since I used to watch Bonus Stage/Highscore. The writing style is perfect, though sometimes a bit nonsensical (but that's what makes it great!). The many perspectives taken, the wording, adventure and references just wrap up an absolutely brilliant web series.

The first i was directed to (and so thoroughly enjoyed, I have some T-Shirts of it coming to me) was Problem Sleuth, a hard boiled detective that starts off wanting to be the best detective, but can't get out of his office, to such an adventure of a huge cast of characters with video game and scientific references that get so inanely complicated it just works. And for parts that didn't make sense, a recap would be given to explain what the fuck just happened.

The newer and current series is currently what causes me to stare at my computer screen for long periods of time this past week is Homestuck. It brings retains the same (il)logical type humor and large cast, as well as complete moments of absurdity but also is packing more drama, more FUCKING AWESOME animations, and of course many scientific theories being broken. Revolves around a game and real life... and if I said more i would spoil it. :X The main characters feel very much alive though, which I commend the author. There are times where you are allowed to do the interactions as well, which spices things up (though sometimes unnecessary).

I will admit, however, that because I liked the main characters so much, I get a bit annoyed when the perspective changes radically, almost to the point of losing interest, but as soon as the scope pans back to the heroes, the side venue is usually explained and shoved up your ass without a condom for why it was so important to know. That's the thing about the author's style: almost everything connects and is important. That reference made in the beginning will come back again in a smarter way.

Also concerning Homestuck, there was a key moment where I didn't like how the story was done (paradoxes are fine sometimes, but this certain one made me go, "Aww really? Come on!"). If you stick around to read into it more, you should enjoy it. A gamer should especially like it. A science person might enjoy it too, or find it so improbably impossible, it becomes frustrating.

In any case, I highly recommend checking both Problem Sleuth (finished) and Homestuck (in progress) if you are looking for a web comic series to keep you occupied. They are essentially graphic novels with some interaction. I know I would absolutely love it if Homestuck became an actual video game (not fan game, but the whole story picked up by a decent company).Too bad it's as likely to happen it is for the author to have a comic that does not contain the word, "abscond."

Law and Order

First want to mention I am still working on my "obscure gaming" tips and guides, but probably will sit in my drafts for awhile. I attempted to recreate my drawn maps in paint, and said, "fuck it" after awhile. Besides the fact my drawn maps are not to scale and just are directional, it takes FOREVER to recreate it by hand. I'll likely just scan the maps themselves. To give you guys an idea of how they are done, I'll post up a simpler map recreated in paint (one that won't make me want to kill babies) in a future post.

Anyway, the point i really wanted to talk about was of the testing facilities I am apart of. When I was younger, my parents had me join a testing place where they wanted kids imput and I would get paid money for my time. Unfortunately, i was not a typical kid, so I suppose they lost interest in me. I remember they were trying to make a new cartoon series and were asking us of our opinion on the characters. Most the boys hated this robot character but liked this guy with an eyepatch. At the time, i found the robot to be fucking awesome and the eyepatch guy to be a bit creepy cause he lost his eye. That's all I can remember about it now, but there was more to it. I remember some years later the cartoon was on TV at an obscure time too, but it was so crappily done. I do not remember the name, btw, but it was similar to an oldschool anime made in USA with a little hint of Hannah Barbara cartoons.

Getting off track of what I wanted to talk of...

Fastforward many years later, my friends tell me of testing places looking for people and helped me get signed up. I signed up to this one place by their recommendations and I found another nearby thanks to one of the forums I frequent mentioning them. I had some cool offers that I unfortunately was not eligible for thanks to my odd interests, but I have been eligible to do some surveys (which gives you points to exchange for amazon giftcards; a small but okay award). I had a recent one I was qualified for and found so interesting, I wished to share it. I am kicking myself for not saving the story as you can't go back to it after completing.

It was of a court case malpractice thing. A woman had been having trouble conceiving with her husband but finally managed to! Unfortunately some weeks later she miscarried, so went to her doctor to find out ways to improve their chances. The doctor found a problem in her vaginal area and went in to take care of it. While in there, they had made a small incision somewhere by accident or otherwise unintended. In bold print, this survey mentioned both parties agreed this was not negligent as it was one of those things bound to happen in this sort of surgery.

Some time after the surgery when she was let home, she started experiencing some really bad pains. She called the doctor, who said to take some more motrin, as this pain was normal. Hour later the pain was still there, she called again. He kept telling her there was no need to come in, what she was experiencing was normal, and just to take more painkillers. The next day she was in excruciating pain and had some other bad symptoms showing up (can't remember them all), so she went right to the emergency room and they found that the small unintentional incision from the previous surgery had cause the problem and one area was leaking out into other areas and other such messes. They operated and were able to have her recover, but because of all that, she was told that she would not be able to conceive in the normal fashion, and other pregnancy methods would have to be used to just give her a CHANCE at having kids. (Summation: No sex for babies, unlikely chance other methods will work, but they might) It mentioned the couple had planned to have 4 kids.

The survey then went on to say that both parties agreed this qualified for negligence lawsuit, not because of the incision thing, but because the doctor would not take her in to look at her (or so I surmised). The questions they wanted me to ask was based only on this information, how much compensation should this woman get for this, excluding economical reasons (which I took as medical bills excluded), so the value would be based on pain and suffering, mental anguish and so forth. They gave choices with the lowest option at 5-25k and highest option being over a million dollars.

I chose a middleground of 200-500k, with in mind of it being a LOW 200k range (like 210 or so). I gathered that first comes the physical pain she had to go through which was already 100k in my book, then mental anguish of the possibility of not being able to give birth to a child which lopped another 50k or so based on 4 kids planned plus the general idea of not able to have kids. Then thought of the whole doctor not taking her in when she called a second time, on principle, and figured in around 60k. There might have been a few other factors I can't remember but those were my thoughts. I generally keep a middle road because I know sometimes people ask for way too much or companies try to lowball them with way too little.

After that question, it asked if I had found out they managed to conceive one child thanks to invitro, would I change my amount awarded to her? I said yes but very little, and chose the minus 5-25k option, with intent of making the amount 190k-201k range. They planned for more kids, which they might not be able to get they way they intended. At least they have adoption if they choose to, which i think the doctor should have to pay at least partially for (though something tells me they rather have their "own" kids. Selfish somewhat, but better then giving an orphan an unwelcome home to live in again I suppose... maybe...).

Survey then asked if people are to litigous in today's society (I agreed), and then asked if I was for this law trying to be passed to restrict or limit people's ability to sew others, which I said no. A law like that just would cause as many problems as there is now. If it just was a law to limit but not restrict, I might partially agree... but there are bad doctors and businesses out there, they need to have something to fear. Maybe restriction based on how much the company makes in profits and salaries?

Feel free to share your opinions on this and how I responded. I am curious of what others think. My sister, for instance, said she should get 250k and all medical bills related to this issue paid (she didn't believe economical reasons meant what I thought it meant. If it didn't mean excluding bills, then i agree with her on that part).

A new month means internet problems.

Every first of the month, our router starts to give us internet trouble. It is pretty much an accepted thing; we know it is coming and there is nothing we can do to fix it. I believe it is because it has trouble comprehending the IP renewal or something, but fuck I don't know much about computers. The more obvious thing is the router is old and we probably should get a new one.

We won't get a new one because it still works the rest of the month. Besides, it's mainly the wireless connection that has problems. What this means is my sister and I will have a hard time connecting to the internet since we use our laptops (mostly; she only has her laptop, i still have my old desktop computer). Sometimes this problem effects the desktops, but to a much lesser degree than the laptops have. Usually one simple restart and the desktops are fine. So as such, I have been making a few entries in advanced in case I am unable to update on the fly.

If the wire reached about a foot more, I would probably opt to have that plugged into my laptop instead of my desktop. As of right now, I have a rather comical situation with my computers: My desktop is old, so its computer operations are slow. However, because of it being a wired connection to the internet, its download/upload speed is fast, perhaps too fast for itself. My laptop is more up to date and is mostly fast with its computer applications. However, wireless connections suck (I've ALWAYS hated them, but settled when I got a laptop) and get interrupted signals at times causing lesser speeds of downloads. Even worse, my laptop is extremely likely to overheat if too many resource-heavy applications are on, so movies, clips, and such have to be quickly done.

I once actually pitted my laptop against my desktop in a download race with the same clip on youtube. I laughed when my desktop, despite its slow computer handling, downloaded the whole clip while the laptop was only halfway done. Kind of a shame too, but I suppose it's a fair price for portability. It sucks that I can't play as many games on my laptop either thanks to it overheating and shutting down so much. I blame my crappy laptop cooling unit thing and the brand of laptop.

Replace "ice" with "Acer"

If you ever go laptop shopping, avoid the Acer products. I am glad I have my laptop and all, but it definitely was not a great one. I even googled up the series of my laptop, and many complaint of the upperleft corner of it overheats too often. One of my fans must have broke because of it so it autoshuts down now when it gets to hot. I literally have to feel the corner every now and then to make sure it won't overheat when I play a few games on neopets or watch a clip on youtube. I have designated my desktop as the primary video/sound viewer now, but try to play games on my laptop when I can; desktop is utterly slow and laggy with them.

And for those curious, my laptop is this: Acer Aspire4730Z

Mr. Autodelete, Part 2. It gets sciency

Part 1

Everyone kept chattering on about how silly this was, while Kathleen and I kept telling them to pipe down. When the time came, there was no voice, and some of our friends and family started asking us where was he? Then the voice came, which freaked out my friend Tara. "Hello, once again," came the elegant voice filled with pity. "I see I have an audience today. Well, so be it, ask your questions!"

The first "question" came from my father, who thought this was some elaborate trick, and unplugged the computer. Others in the group yelled at him for "ruining the show," but Mr. Autodelete spoke again, saying something about how he hoped that this answered his question. Tara whimpered and excused herself from the room, for this was a bit too much for her. Kathleen and I pleaded with the rest of our friends and family to please calm down. Even though we both were scared, we knew we should take this time to ask questions instead of panicking.

"How are you speaking to us?" Kathleen's mother Caroline asked. Mr. Autodelete sighed, muttering how silly a question it was considering what would happen. He told her all he needed was an electronic device with speakers attached, and he could inhabit the hardware with a power source strong enough to keep it going.

My sister spoke next, asking why he wished to kill us, but I answered for him instead. "He told us already before, he doesn't want to he simply has to." To which Mr. Autodelete confirmed, along with an apology. Quite angered, my father yelled how can he say 'sorry,' for something so horrible, to which Mr. Autodelete sighed once more.

"Would you rather I simply say, 'tough luck,' and not speak to you again, leaving you and your family in wonder to when the end should be coming?" Dad didn't take that too nicely, but my mother calmed him down. Kathleen and I apologized to him, hoping he didn't take offense, and that we just wished he could now elaborate on why he must do this, and so he began.

"My planet is so much like yours, with birds, animals, flowers and so on. So much alike, we even have the same people as you, with the same quirks and personality and lives. So much alike, it seems to break a law of physics; the same matter cannot occupy the same space. For example we have the sunflower just like yours. Upon some observance, we found out they have the same exact life rate as yours. Not so much that they have the same life span, but at the exact moment a sunflower in Wyoming died on your planet, the same happened on ours in the same place..."

"Wait, so you have a United States in your world, too?" butted in Kathleen's friend Tracy.
"My dear, we have a Europe, Africa, North America and South... everything you have we have... almost."
"Almost?" Spoke another cousin of mine, Ginny.
"Yes, for you see, some life on our planet has gone extinct while on your planet it has not. The animals you call dogs and cats bred differently so they have ceased to exist. However, I'm afraid the same cannot be said for humans. On our planet, there is another Ginny, who talks, speaks, looks and thinks just like you. She lives in the same state, has the same grades, and likes the same books as you."

Ginny looked quite frightened (reasonably so since he somehow knew her name) which is when Jamie, her older sister had butted in. "So let me get this straight... Because a law of physics has been betrayed, you believe you HAVE to eliminate all of that life form's species?"

Mr. Autodelete chuckled softly, not in humor but with even more pity. "I am afraid it goes beyond belief as more of a certainty. While our worlds are so very the same, there are small differences. The difference may continue to exist, which is why your dogs and cats are allowed to stay. One of our differences is we have a better grasp on technology than you. We have developed things so complex you wouldn't begin to understand what they were. Thanks to our development we have discovered an anomaly with the universe, and with some research, we found that the universe would cease to exist at a shorter period of time than it was originally given."

"How is that possible?" I asked. This just seemed impossible; how could anyone have the knowledge of knowing all this. Our polite villain simply replied it would not be something we would understand. He then excuse himself, for he had a schedule to keep, and that he would visit us one last time tomorrow to inform us of some pertinent details, perhaps take final questions, and then he would cease interrupting our final moments.

Bad Advertising = Good advertising?

An article shared with me from a friend. It's a bit long, but enough to be outraged about. You only need to read to about page 2 or 3, after that it's just background info.

A TL;DR version is a woman wanted to buy a particular brand of glasses/contacts and googled that brand. Up came this website. They caused some seriously wrong problems with her, and no one would really ACTIVELY help her till this reporter did something. The company that did that didn't even care and admitted that being an asshole with everyone writing about his site gave him great advertisement on google since everyone linked to it, so it became his sale mantra.

Another type of scum in the world. This is why I tell my family and friends (and now you my followers, probably more as a reminder) to ALWAYS get more info about a website before ordering from it. When you google a site, you often will have reviews of it pop in the search as well. When I was internet-stupid, I made the mistake of releasing personal information on a random website, and almost got taken away with it. Luckily my credit card company was reasonable and cut off the transaction and the thing was never heard from again.

If anyone has their own stories similar to this, I'd be interested in hearing them! But please take care with online spending. Warn your loved and liked ones.