I'm offering refunds to everyone who paid for a commission they never got. I realize this journal will sound like whining to some folks, and I understand. I've already reached out to the people I owe stuff to, and I've gotten responses from most in return. Two refunds have already gone out.

Basically, what happened was this:

My health took a serious nose-dive, and I'm in pain nearly every day to the point where concentrating on work is nearly impossible. Some nights, I crawl into bed half-way in tears because of it. The list of problems is long, as is the pharmacy of drugs I have to take these days. I laugh whenever I have to fill out yet another fucking form that asks for a detailed listing of the medications I have to take and the amount of space given is too small. Doctor after doctor, specialists and therapists, tests after tests after yet more tests, even physical therapy. I have an appointment for a neurologist tomorrow to see what can be done about the constant migraines, and another with a different specialist to have a probe go up my back door. Just to add icing onto the cake, I'm going through fucking menopause. Well, at least pregnancy will no longer be a worry.

Then, there was the trial of the Step-Monster. The first trip up had me so wound up in knots, I was having daily panic-attacks, nightmares about the Step-Monster, and nearly got an ulcer (the doc said I skated on that one. Yay?), and I even got hives for the first time in my life, ever, on my fucking face. Lovely, dealing with some of the scariest shit in my life and I need to look good for court, and I get to have a disfigurement to add to the already overwhelming anxiety load. The final event came a year ago--the full trial--and it was back to the nightmares, panics, stomach pain and vomiting. Oh? I didn't mention the puking? Yeah, there was that, too. So, I head up to Winnipeg again (why can't I go up there for fun? We have a nice little sci-fi convention that's been around for thirty-five years), preparing for the trial and all the ugly questions I'll have to answer without crisping the defence-lawyer, and land... only to find out the fucking shit managed to die before facing me and what he'd done. Literally the night before his first testimony. The court was trying to get a hold of me that night and the next morning to tell me the trial had to be cancelled, but I was still in flight. FUCK. In fact, the first anniversary of his demise will be coming up in two weeks...

And I got to learn that paralysing guilt is really a thing. I froze--yes, for seven years--I couldn't work, I couldn't make reasonable, rational decisions, I felt sick whenever I thought about it. And I retreated and hid. I know some folks might think, "So just do it! Face your responsibilities, ya lazy dragoness! Fucking get off yer ass and work!" Easy to say, not so easy to do, it turned out. One of the joys of having multiple issues associated with mental illness is that the things in life most people take for granted as shit we do on automatic pilot becomes a struggle: get out of bed, eat, remember what soap is for, have a conversation with your friends and loved ones in something other than a robotic monotone... doing your job...

So, I'm finally starting to accept that the commissions I'd agreed to are never going to get done. The guilt just got harder and harder to face as the time went on and the deadlines and dates I'd promised got further and further into the past. I couldn't go forward, so I just... stopped. It's something I never really believed in, a thing I only ever saw in books or movies, and here I am, thinking, "WTH!?"

The only solution I think is right, is to give everyone who ordered a commission from me a refund, my sincerest apologies, and to take any lumps from my customers they feel I de

 trozok21

 thorfax

 dranslin

 kilroy

 robbob4

If there is anyone I missed, please let me know?

...and I need to explain why.

I've been fighting a possibly losing war with my own mind for years. Decades, actually. It had gotten to the point where I thought feeling miserable the way I did was normal. But I hated it. I wanted it to stop, to go away, even if it meant I had to do something drastic.

I have long bouts of vicious depression that leave me withdrawn and suicidal. I avoid people. I can't have fun. Even my usual distractions can't always keep me from ruminating and endlessly going over and over old tape. I've been going to therapists for the last three years or so (more than a decade, actually--one was for over eight years), and I've been put on a regimen of drugs that actually seem to help. Great. But, they don't help enough. I still feel like shit most of the time. I want to cry over the stupidest crap. I mentally cringe (I don't do that physically much, any more) whenever anyone even raises their voice to me or sounds even mildly annoyed, because in my world, when those signs pop up, it usually meant I'd get bruises later. I've been a hell of buzz-kill to be around, some days, and I feel guilty as fuck that my husband,  kanis has had to see this crap in the woman he loves.

A couple of years ago, I outed my Step-father for his abuse of me when I was a kid. His family pretty much turned their backs on me. I effectively lost a brother over it, and I may lose a second--I don't know yet. Fine. I'm trying not to give a fuck (failing). I'd had enough of feeling like I had to live under a fucking rock, feeling ashamed to be alive. So I came out and said it: their relation is a rapist and a child-beater who thought his wants were the same as "needs" and that my needs were not anywhere near as important as his wants. Soon after, I travelled up to my hometown and reported the scum-sucker to the police.

Three hours later, I was sweaty, wrung out and hungry enough to eat anything that didn't get out of my way fast enough. I was also scared shitless. I'd finally done it! I'd finally given him to the cops and he was finally arrested a few weeks later, after my living in fucking MISERY and a slowly-dying, inward-turning, self-isolation for thirty years.

Absorb that number. 30 fucking years ago, this creep raped an eleven year old girl and continued to rape her routinely for the next five fucking years. I'm not even gonna go into the violent bits--let's just say I have both physical and mental scars.

Fast forward two years to the end of last month, or really, to the couple of months just before: I'm noticing a trend... I'm getting panic-attacks again. Nightmares. I'm gloomy, nervous and worrying. I'm scared. I'm even losing weight--still losing, actually. I've lost nearly thirty pounds in the last year alone and the number on the scale just keeps doing this weirdly-pendulum-like creeping downward: swing one-gain two lbs, swing two, lose three and half, swing back, gain a pound, lose two... wash, rinse, repeat. Not a real problem, I hope, since I need to lose about eighty more pounds anyway, but still, all my earlier efforts to lose weight had failed, and now I find that all it takes is for me to be under constant fucking stress. Joy.

I have trouble with sleep: I can't fall asleep for hours and when I finally do kick-off, I can't stay asleep. I often wake up in the middle of the night, only to have my stupid fucking head blast me with more hours-long ruminations or panic-attacks and I lay there, trying desperately to relax, and my old meditation techniques no longer work. I take melatonin, benedryl and Xanax to knock me out. It really does take that much, and I'm afraid to get addicted to my "sleep-cocktail", but it's the only fucking thing that works, right now, and I NEED to sleep. I've had chronic insomnia for more than twenty years... I'm finally getting the zzz's I've been needing for so long...

But, other shit's been going wrong...

I had a little scare back last Fall: pain blazing through my mid-section like something with knives for claws was ripping it's way out. I couldn't stand. Hell, I could hardly breathe. So, it's off to the emergency-room to find out what's with this and I learn I have something called GERD: "Gastro-Esophogeal Reflux Disease". I'd been having a LOT of acid-stomach, lately, burping foul-tasting and -smelling gas and almost puking, and long, painful coughing-fits that actually did make me barf. Painful, tastes horrible and I was eating antacids like candy... and it wasn't helping. Then this. In other words, I have to be careful with my diet and other habits, now, because I'm that close to possibly developing a fucking ulcer.

WTF? I thought I was going to be RELIEVED at finally getting this bastard in front of a judge. Nope. My health was taking a nose-dive, my sanity along with it. My therapists--fuck, I have TWO, right now, one to prescribe the damned drugs I need to stay away from the knife-drawer, and the other to talk to--are telling me that this whole process, while necessary, is re-activating the damned Complex PTSD. Oh, lovely.

I'm on Depakote, Wellbutrin and fucking Xanax, of all awful things.

I used to joke that "I stopped taking drugs to save my sanity, now I have to take drugs to keep what's left of it." It's not funny anymore.

But, I finally had to travel back up to my "wonderful" hometown (Yay, memories. Fuck) and finally face the judge, the Creep, the Creep's lawyer (another breed of nasty, it turns out) and the Crown Prosecution in something called a preliminary trial. It's a "trial" trial. Oy. *bangs her head on something hard to stop the stupid that causes* Ok, I'm back. It's all good. The judge has my info, the lawyers have theirs after asking me a shitload of questions that literally took all fucking day, I was tired, feeling sick, furious, wiped out, tired and totally empty. Now, it's time to wait... Again.

I'm finally allowed to talk about it, now. I wasn't before, because they were still putting their materials together.

So, I have to wait for the judge to decide whether or not there's enough to bring this thing to a full-on, real trial, and I'll have to go through it all, all over again... Only in more detail, possibly for days.

Aftermath: I'm gloomy. I feel sick most of the time, numb the rest. The nightmares are still there, as are the panic-attacks. I've already gone through one bottle of Xanax for the panics, and I'm onto the second. I can't work--I honestly haven't been able to do shit-fuck-all this last year, and it's because of this: I had a "loving" family that thought beatings and rape were a great way to raise a kid.

I know you guys have waited and waited... and fucking WAITED for your commissions to be done and I've been hedging, retreating, trying not to complain about my life and the things that are going on, but I can't let you guys sit anymore without at least telling you why I've been so terrible an artist that I take so long to finish anything.

This isn't whining, nor is it for butt-pats. NO BUTT-PATS. I MEAN it.

Seriously. I'm letting you folks know why I've been so out of touch and slacking in the work department: I'm sick. Really sick. In the head, not to mention seemingly everywhere else. My body is very reactionary to stress--anything that happens to me that sets me off gets reflected in what my body does, and this puts a halt on EVERYTHING.

Fuck rapists and child-abusers. Fuck the shitheads who screen them from scrutiny (that includes me, BTW). Fuck those who make apologies for them. Fuck a culture that victim-blames and slut-shames any female, kid or male that had the temerity to be raped at all, let alone repeatedly. I was raped the first time when I was six. Then again when I was seven. A few years go by, then the long, five-year stint with the Step-Monster...

No one should ever be raped, should have ever been put through that, and here I was, a bizarre fucking statistic that had me being raped by three different, hell more, people over a course of years, only one of which was actually put in jail...

And the Step-Monster is the only other one I might have a chance at getting justice from.

I'm pissed off. At the people who hurt me over and over and over again, for fun, for their pleasure, because they were bored, frustrated with their own miserable lives, or because I was odd. At the people who knew something was wrong in my life and never did a Fucking. Thing. About. It. At this rape-culture (yes, it really IS a "thing"). Sexism in movies, TV-shows, magazines and everything else that puts women into the tight-skirts and slutty make-up, telling them that their only role in life, other than to be a baby-momma, is to be "sexy" and appeal to the men who then turn around and blame them when they get raped by some fucking pervert with self-control issues. I'm pissed at myself for not reporting the little fuck earlier, when it might have mattered more. He's sixty-one years-old, for fuck's sakes! What kind of jail-sentence is gonna be put on this guy at that age? I'm also pissed off at the fact that abuse changes things so fundamentally in the brain that it can be tracked on an MRI scanner. The changes are not only physical, they're fucking permanent because it all happened during the formative years when my body, brain and psyche were still plastic.

I'm screwed for what's left of my life, all because we give rapists a free pass, even pat them on the back and call them studs, while women (and kids, and other men) have to suck up the double-standard where we blame the victim and because this sort of thing is so common, it's fucking NORMAL.

I'm sorry. I am. I don't know what to do, but I'm gonna keep on keepin' on, because it's all I know to do. I'm stubborn that way, I guess. That fucking lawyer tried so hard to wind me up and get me to screw up, to trip over my words, to make me out to be the bully, to be a liar, or to just simply be so bat-shit crazy that I either made it all up or I'm just delusional. But he FAILED. HARD. I kept my cool, even though my handler had to take me out of the room several times so I could decompress. Even though the judge himself had to step on the Defense a fuck-ton for being a jerk with the way he phrased his questions, even though His Honour had to chastise me a couple of times for growling, and even asked me to leave once so I could calm down and get myself back together. I did yoga poses, and when that wasn't enough, did pushups until I could do no more.

My youngest brother was there, and I'm certain he was seeing how I was reacting every time I came out of that courtroom (he wasn't allowed in because he's the Step-Monster's kid), and oddly, he was gone shortly afterwards, along with the SM's girlfriend. I had friends and my hubby in the court-room. Step-Monster had nobody. Not a fucking soul, just those two out in the hall, and they never got to hear what I had to say about their loved-one.

In the end, I saw him sitting lonely out in the cold, sipping a coffee, fiddling with his phone, waiting for something, I dunno, and he had no one there for him. I had a nice, warm taxi, with me,  kanis and three of my friends riding with me. He... had nothing.

Just a lonely old man with secrets he'd tried to keep buried in the distant past and who failed at everything in his life. And me? He did everything possible to make me fall, to make me out to be a nut, bad-mouthed me and my mother to our family and his friends and now he has to face what he did in a court of law, and he's got nuthin'. He's got fuck all.

I have everything, you bastard, and you're gonna take your lumps.

Because I'm tired of taking 'em for you and people like you.

{UPDATE: I SAID NO BUTT PATS..


....

LOL

Thanks anyway, everyone. You all rock in immeasurable ways. /UPDATE}

...by the name of Frostgurl69. She's an arctic fox with rainbow markings and she'd come by my table at Califur to discuss my making a tail for her. the email she'd given me doesn't seem to be working. If anyone knows who this might be, would they please comment here? I've already checked Facebook and lookup pages and nuthin'. The email she gave me doesn't come up in any of them. We met at Califur and I think she was local to the area: either Irvine or Anaheim or one of the towns nearby.

Climate Change is a done deal. All that's left now is to see if we can avert the worst effects and/or adapt to what's already here. If you're at all curious where I get this assertion, you can find it here: http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg3/

By the way, the Intercontinental Panel on Climate Change is a peer-reviewed group of scientists who do this research FOR A LIVING (such as it is. Frankly, these are not wealthy folks) and are growing increasingly worried that governments and the general public don't seem to be listening to them and keep their heads in the sand of denial, simple science-ignorance or religion instead.

Pay attention to that term, "Peer reviewed"; it's important. It means that lying on a report gets CAUGHT and then tossed. It means that each researcher's results must be rigourously picked through and analyzed. These aren't opinion-pieces or puff-reports, this is REAL SCIENCE that is understandably hard to get through for folks like me who only has an interested observer's grasp of of the science involved, but it's not lying to you, either, like certain right-wing talking-heads would have you believe.

But, those who STILL think "the science isn't in" might need a more people-friendly nudge in the right direction. So I'll send you to check this out, instead: http://yearsoflivingdangerously.com/

It's not a science-site full of incomprehensible graphs and charts, not pages and pages of mind-numbing data--although those are important, too, and I actually do read them (no, I don't always understand them--see above. LOL)--this is a series where the science is EXPLAINED in concrete terms: how it AFFECTS PEOPLE WORLDWIDE.

You can watch it on Showtime, if you have a subscription to that channel, or alternatively, you can see it on your PCs at home through their web-page. You'll be a bit behind in air-times in that case, since they only put a new episode up once it's aired on television.

By the way, they got in a lot of big-name stars involved in this and that could potentially be a good draw for some folks: James Cameron produced and directed; Arnold Schwarzenegger; produced and was a correspondent, and Harrison Ford, Micheal C. Hall (of Dexter fame), Matt Damon and Jessica Alba all worked as correspondents in the series.

This isn't some namby-pamby hippie waving a sign saying "save the whales" (hey, I resemble that remark. Okay, I'm not actually namby-pamby. Is there such a thing as a Goth Hippie? Heh). This is hungry people, thirsty people, dying people, worried people all saying the same thing "We will die if we do not do something NOW." No signs needed, here; just listen to their stories.

And no, the stories are NOT all from the mighty North America, either. Climate Change is affecting our WORLD, and so, the producers sent their correspondents all over the world to talk to real people and examine the real situations they're experiencing and their local events that are causing damage.

The first episode aired last Sunday, on the 13th, and two more after. All three are available for free at the web-page I link to below. Go give it a look? Thanks.

...which I HATE with a passion: both money and talking about it. But, I also recognize that I'm not currently pulling my weight in regards to funds. Dammit. So I gotta work on the attracting customers thing. Hi! Come on over! I got something to show ya.

{Edits are being added as I think of 'em}

First up, backlog is getting done. I'm just gonna work on 'em one at a time and as I finish 'em, send 'em out. There might be a surprise or two in the packages.

Second: folks on the waiting-list have dibs on what I'm going to do next. >^__^< I have your names and I'll be contacting each of you soon in regards to the pretties you've been wanting made.

Third: no, Ender ain't here, man...
-moving on-

So here's the thing. Like I said, me and the hubby had a little talk about the finances. We're NOT hurting! No, that's not what this is about. It's about giving the poor man some effing free time and financial cushion. That is, he doesn't get any 'cuz he's been supporting me. (sorry, hon).

So we came up with this:

-reduce the number of projects. No more art, no more badges, no more small, fiddly things that take forever and don't make enough change for the time spent. Goggles might still happen, only 'cuz I REALLY like makin' gogs. Any art not commissioned or fursuit-related is getting taken down. Sorry if you've faved any of it. Just want to reduce the amount of stuff in my gallery so folks can find the fursuit-related things I've made in the past to judge whether or not they might like something I've made.

-consider not going to FC, but sending in pieces instead to save on hotel costs. I'll still be putting stuff into the art-shows, but it won't be flat art. Partials, tails, heads, maybe even a full fursuit, if I can swing it. Get some serious practice in and make some fun things to sell at conventions. Partials that are done well ALWAYS sell at auction. Califur is still an option and it may become my home Con for the next little while. We don't have to worry about hotels and stuff because we're close enough for it to be local. If Antheria ever happens again, maybe do that, too.

-concentrate on the costumes and garner more interest in them by getting more of them out there.

And the big deal of this whole thing: I'm opening for commissions. Just TWO, for the moment, and just suits or partials. No, tails don't count. Whoever snags the spots first gets a crazy discount of 35%. That's about $975 for a complicated partial (detailed head, feet, tail, hand-paws, maybe wings if you're a flyer), or a simple full-suit like Reese's Pieces (you choose species, of course). A full-suit from me normally goes around 1300-1500 max (I can raise prices later when and if people think my stuff is worth it).

[EDIT]If anyone is interested, please contact me. Understand that the wait will take a while (four months min to finish current pieces, get started on yours and do one for Califur's Art-show).[/EDIT]

If any of you are familiar with the character I jokingly call Reese's Pieces that I built for  reese, you'll know what I can do. Check through my gallery--it's full of tails, a few pairs of feet, even a cool ears/horns head-piece. I have plenty of fur, but I will make fabric runs if needed for something special to you. I have some wolf-jaw sets, several pairs of taxidermy eyes (currently I have four sets: clear with cat-slit pupils, lion-coloured with round pupils, deep, metallic blue with slit pupils and a purple/black with slit pupils available). If, like  reese you provided materials, costs come down (sorry, you can't stack the first-come first-serve discount with the provide materials one. I'd make no money! LOL) If your character has horns, for example, I have several pairs of horns and antlers I can take moulds of in resin to make your horns if yours is a rawr-suit, or make 'em out of foam and fabric if it's more toony.

To sum up:
-finishing backlog, with many many 'pollylodges for the late-times.
-noting the waiting-list to refresh contacts and let them know I'm still alive and working.
-offer to make suits.
-PROFIT!
-okay, not really, but I am hoping to get off my duff and do something worthwhile. [EDIT] <---Kanis sez this is too negative, so consider my journal ending off with sweetness and rainbows, kthankbye[/EDIT]

Throw some opinions at me! No, no, I said OPINIONS, not ONIONS! *whack-whack-thud* Well, at least I can make soup...

Still thinking on that one. Most folks know me from here, and Weasyl, while awesome, is still building it's membership. So I've been re-reading some of the posts about the thing I'm sure other people are already tired of hearing about, but hey, I have this little problem called ethics that gets in the way of my just sweeping a certain situation under the rug. But, there is still the matter of most folks only knowing me from here, and most of my commission-base is from here. Sooooo--this sucks, but I'm probably staying.

Okay, enough of that. Now on to something a LOT more important. My hubby,  kanis writes little articles that he posts on the front pages of http://www.draconic.com the website he created back in the late nineties for dragons to come and hang out together. Still around and still going strong, but I think he's not getting enough of a readership for his writing, so I cross-post them when I can.

Here's his latest (if you go to the Draconic front page, you'll be able to access the links if they don't work here, and for those on Daily Kos, you can find him there under the name of GoldenDragon):

Tonight, California's U.S. senator Barbara Boxer will join 27 other senators, including Coons, Franken, Heinrich, Markey, Murray, Schatz, Udall, Whitehouse, and Wyden to talk all night, for at least 14 hours, about the urgency of taking meaningful action to fight climate change.

Thinkprogress gives a great overview of 28 reasons why these 28 senators have finally sounded the wake up call. From one of the worst droughts in California's recorded history to $621 million in taxpayer dollars spent cleaning up record flooding in Colorado, you and I are literally paying to clean up the damage being done by an oil industry that continues to make record profits. And where do those profits go while we pay for cleanup? To buy elections and create vast disinformation campaigns to convince people the science isn't settled. Campaigns run by the exact same people that tried to convince us that smoking wasn't dangerous and tobacco wasn't addictive.

It's well past time to wake up and smell the lies. Things have finally gotten bad enough that all the disinformation in the world is no longer convincing most people not to believe their own eyes. In response, our elected officials are finally making some noise. Join them.

Why is it so easy for some people to believe the lies? I think for some, the truth is too terrible to face and so they look for any vague opinion piece written by oil-industry shills that will just tell them that everything is actually fine. Telling them that all those thousands of scientists frantically trying to warn us are actually the liars, alarmists, part of some vast conspiracy to get government research grants, or whatever other crackpot distortion they can come up with.

To anyone afraid to face the terrible truth because they see no solution to the problem, I say there are already solutions. Cleantechnica discusses solutions every day. In the last five years, 30% of new energy generation in the US has come from new wind farms. 91 Illinois communities are already 100% powered by green electricity. That's a renewable transition on a scale not seen anywhere else in the USA, and it was all done by individual communities voting for where they wanted to get their electricity from. MASSIVE CHANGE DRIVEN QUIETLY BY 1.7 MILLION LOCAL RESIDENTS.

In Germany, RWE has lost €2.8 billion - it's first loss in 60 years - because it kept pushing fossil fuel energy plans over renewable ones. As with most revolutions, from PCs to smart phones, truly-good ideas spread exponentially faster than any industry analyst ever predicts they will.

So we don't need fossil fuels. Clean tech is already here. Climate change solutions are already here. Even all the gas-guzzlers that currently dominate the roads and the skies can be run on biofuel created with technologies that are already here and within a few years of commercial implementation if only they can be adopted against the wishes of our fossil-fuel overlords.

Solar has gone down in price so fast in the last few years that it jumped from 10% of new electricity in 2012 to 29% in 2013, almost a 300% increase IN A SINGLE YEAR. If you live in a house, right now, you can get FREE solar panels on your roof, installed for FREE, and only pay a monthly bill that's LESS THAN WHAT YOU ALREADY PAY TO THE ELECTRIC COMPANY. That's through SolarCity, a company founded by cousins of Elon Musk, the guy who created Tesla motors. That's here now. That's revolutionary.

The only thing slowing down the revolution... THE ONLY THING... is oil companies and their disinformation campaigns. And the only thing that will stop them... THE ONLY THING... is us.

* Join 350.org's campaign to pull investment dollars away from these greedy, lying oil companies that force us to pay for their product and pay to clean up their mess.

* Join 28 senators to demand our government take meaningful action.

* Put solar on your roof for free and pay a lower monthly bill. Or coax your parents to do it.

Wake up. The catastrophic effects of climate change are already here, and so are the solutions.

Okay, enough of that.

I'm considering moving. I will stay here for a good while longer to take the time needed to decide whether I'm gonna make a permanent break or if it's just going to be an additional page for people to find me at. It will take a couple of months at least to move over my gallery and to let everyone know where I went so they can come bug me. Not gonna disappear on folks--that shit ain't cool.

And yes, it's because of certain people's gross lack of ethics. *sigh*

Anyway, here's me Weasyl. Be nice to her: https://www.weasyl.com/~murrahnithahniia

PET MY WEASYL! *giggles*

Yes, you can sing the John Coulton song. I'd love that. It's a cool song. *giggles madly*

Been working on FC stuffs, writing, a comic that didn't make it in time for this year's Dragon Hoard issue (dammit), laughing at how my step-father is trying to lie his way out of jail-time and skipping out on his court-dates (Ha!) and fighting off various bugs that want to see me die. But hey, the last one helped me lose five pounds! LOL

Anyway, I'm maintaining an insane schedule that I'm somehow able to keep up, so far, and I'm hoping that, once FC is done with, I'll be able to move on to finishing stuff I should have finished loooong ago. *is shamed*

So, come bug me, I deserve a bit of ire from folks for slacking on their commissions. I love you all, and thank you so much for your incredible patience!

Because I need an excuse to kick myself in the butt and WORK, dammit.


The commissions and waiting list queue (if I've forgotten anyone, let me know?

Ok, here's the queue as it stands (and the waiting-list):


 kilroy eight-foot plush of a pal of his

 robbob4 repairs and modification to Big Red.

 dranslin four foot plush of his friend  darkvyce

 thorphax two feet of cuteness.

 trozok21 tail and feets


Waiting-list for plushes, goggles and suit-partials:

 kilroy a firelizard plush.

 scarlitt a pretty striped tail of her dragon.

 reese a large tiger plush.

 dustythemare wants a pair of hooves

 anyadserval suit partial of her pretty Turkish Van Cat (handpaws, feet and head)

 rheiga "his and hers" custom goggles.

 demonlordookami wants a pair of wolf plushes.

 mehlahphuse ( emien ?) can't recall what you wanted, hon. I'll dig it out of old journals.

 doubled a plush of his fursona

 seht a certain piece of art.

 aurorawolf is trying to get her new costume-making page going (  aurorawolfcostumes ), and she's offering a free tail draw! Go here to check it out, follow her instructions and get your name added to the draw: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4985127/ Good luck!

I realize this has been going for some time, these various proposals to screw with the ability of people of colour to register to vote, but still, it pisses me off.

You, my minions, all know of my insistence upon fairness and equality for all, so, please, check this out, and maybe help to put a stop to it. All should have equal chance to cast their ballot, and these states, mostly Southern (gee, what a surprise), have been making it their personal project to make it harder for folks of colour to make a difference at the ballot-box. This sucks, and should go the frak away. I'm with Justice Ginsberg on this one (she's quoted on the image), and the repugnance of these proposed bills makes my fangs hurt. Please, rise up and make some noise: make it a Constitutional Amendment that all have equal rights to vote! Click on the image and check out the causes of colorofchange.org

Thank you: http://www.freetovote.org/ftv-info?.....20130710_infog

I want to apologize to everyone for falling off the planet the last couple of months. A couple of things sucked me in, one work-related, one fun, one... not so fun.

The work-related one was filled with a bit of angst, but mostly just sweating. It seems I've gotten the writing bug, and there are several short-stories, one novella and--argh--seven novels (two different series, set in the same universe) that have been burning their way through my brain, my keyboard and onto my hard-drive. O___0

If anyone has actually read any of the little bits I've posted on here in the past (go back about four years), you might be familiar with some of the characters, or at least the world I've been building. There have been a LOT of changes- most notably the direction the stories are taking and aesthetic things like how the names and language are presented to make them less esoteric for people. In other words, I tried to make shit easier to pronounce. ;-p

It's become a serious writing-effort that will hopefully begin making the rounds of the publishers, soon. A writer no less than Robert J. Sawyer said my writing was good enough to pursue as a serious thing. *faints* Now, I understand that he's a super nice guy- he definitely has that rep- but when you hear that from a fellow who has earned Hugo, Nebula and Campbell awards, the ears perk up and start LISTENING.

There's also the blog, but I only have a few entries in it, right now. If anyone is interested in the carpings of an obnoxious atheist, let me know, I'll post the link.

So, I've been chained to the writing-desk...

The fun one also involve a surprising-amount of angst, mostly me, fighting off my insecurities at having to face a bunch of 1% at a wedding-reception. It seems that family I married into is more that a little wealthy, and I, being what could gently term "Native Trailer Trash" REALLY did not feel like I was gonna fit in.

I'm short, podgy, funny-lookin', have dredz down to my ass, and 'delicate' has never been part of my personal skill-set. So I had to fake it. Heh.

So, me and  kanis went to Goodwill to find some snazzy duds. He relied on my eye for good clothes (here's hoping he wasn't mistaken in doing this) and we managed to find a sweet Italian-wool, hand-tailored, no less, suit-jacket of gorgeousness. Black, pinstriped, and fits him wonderfully.

Finding something for me was a lot harder. When you're only 5' 3" and weigh 220 lbs, finding a dress that fits becomes a nightmare, let alone one that actually looks good on me... *sighs* I have these evil monstrosities of the rubber-industry called 'body-shapers', the Fajete kind from Colombia, and I'll tell you, if you don't mind the ten-minute workout it takes (and the bruises, later) to get the bastard on, you won't regret it. Four inches off the waist, everything nipped in and smooth and I'm curvy again! Yay.

I did find a dress, that wasn't too bad- not quite as swank as I'd hoped, but it would have to do. I ended up not even wearing it and wore my pretty Gothic Lolita thing instead. LOL Everyone loved it. I did make some small concession to the 'norms' and bound up my funky dredz into a snood that I made out of black silk burnout fabric that looks pretty sweet, put on some simple jewellery, painted my claws, even painted my face. Dang Tribal customs, Jeesh.

So we go to this massive, multi-million dollar 'home' (I'm sorry, that wasn't a place to live in, it was a place to show off how much money you have!) to schmooze with the extended family and friends of my new cousin who was the groom.

The happy couple had just come back from their honeymoon- an African photo safari (wow) and so the theme of the party was... African Safari, complete with an African drum troupe to lead us to dinner, flower arrangements made up of African species (mostly- there were few that weren't) with feather-accents from Lady Amherst Pheasants (pretty birds, go look 'em up), and I got to get a smooch from a very friendly giraffe named Stanley. I unfortunately cannot remember the name of the young zebra who was there, but he was a sweetie, too. They were animals the party-organizers had rented from a couple of wild-animal training companies. It seems the pair were movie stars. LOL

I didn't do too much talking- I wanted to avoid putting my foot in it- but I oddly had a fairly good time, despite being nervous and more than a little weirded out by the whole 'wild exploitation' feel of the event and learning that my new family are part of the class I've grown to hate with a passion...

Well, crud, NOW what do I do?

The not-so-fun thing is the one that has had me swinging back and forth between 'I don't wanna know' to 'WTH? When are they gonna DO something?'

We drove up to my hometown of Winnipeg to do some 'visiting'- one of the visits being to the local police. Three hours later, I'm wiped, half-panicky, hungry enough to eat a human and I was OUT of there so fast, I left a trail of flames in my wake.

I finally pressed charges against my step-father, the guy who'd raped me for the better part of five years nearly every weekend.

So, I haven't always been in the best of head-spaces. Art certainly took a dive. Other than writing, I haven't had squat for inspiration, urge to draw, make anything or even just goof around. I've been taking care of my little mini-'farm' out on our deck where I have various vegetables hopefully surviving long enough to produce noms.

Anyway, back to the important thing; art. I will finish things, and I have kept to the promise of not taking on any more commissions until I do, so no one gets pushed aside for another commission.

Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of control over the life stuff, so it sometimes gets in the way. *sigh*

So, I'm finding myself avoiding my work-room again, and that's not a good a sign... It's a huge mess- like usual- but slowly getting organized after the tornado of work that went through it for FC. Yeah, it takes me that long to get moving. I try not to say I suck any more, but this time, I think this is all on me. I've been lazy. I've been avoiding responsibilities. I've been scared of the sheer scale of the mess I have to clear out and am overwhelmed to the point where I don't even know where to start. I feel like I've been selfish and unfair to the people who have commissioned me.

No butt pats. None. I don't deserve 'em, so don't do it.

Despite the books' hold on me, I'm going to put them aside for a while, so I can focus on the work-room and get something done down there, and hopefully, clear out some of the pieces I should have finished AGES ago by the end of the summer.

I don't know when I'll be taking commissions again, if ever, but I hope to be back on track, soon.

Assuming that isn't just wishful thinking and I end up making more stupid excuses for why I can't get something done...

So, there you are, a very slim synopsis of what I've been doing the last three months. Doesn't seem like a lot, but every day has been busy, so I must be doing something, right? Right? Dammit.

Also, if anyone has heard anything about a fellow named  jonnyboy8 please let me know? He's been having a hard time of late, including a nasty little encounter with a train where he lost a leg. He's sometimes called Squeekwolf and might be known amongst the Utah Furry crowd. He's disabled his page, here and isn't receiving notes, and I have no other way to contact him. He's been bordering on suicidal the last several months and I've been sporadically talking to him. So any news, or any way to contact him would be appreciated. I want to find out if he's okay.



The commissions and waiting list queue (if I've forgotten anyone, let me know? I know Emien is in there, but I can't recall her/his new icon...

Ok, here's the queue as it stands (and the waiting-list):

 kilroy eight-foot plush of a pal of his

 robbob4 repairs and modification to Big Red.

 dranslin four foot plush of his friend  darkvyce

 thorphax two feet of cuteness.

 trozok21 tail and feets


Waiting-list for plushes, goggles and suit-partials:


 kilroy a firelizard plush.

 scarlitt a pretty striped tail of her dragon.

 reese a large tiger plush.

 dustythemare wants a pair of hooves

 anyadserval suit partial of her pretty Turkish Van Cat (handpaws, feet and head)

 rheiga "his and hers" custom goggles.

 demonlordookami wants a pair of wolf plushes.

 emien can't recall what you wanted, hon. I'll dig it out of old journals.

A friend of  cyberhorn_the_dragon wants a pair of custom goggles.

Possibly Africanized ones, we don't know, and they're less than thirty feet from our porch in one of the trees on our property.

[UPDATE] It seems it may have been a false alarm, thankfully. That big blob of what I'd thought was wax and honey (bummer) turned out to be solid bees all the way in. It seems- and I'm just guessing, here- that a queen was either moving her colony to a new site and her hive followed her, or she was a new queen just off of her mating-flight and taking a portion of the old colony with her to establish a new hive. I'm not sure, but I think that's what bees do. Either way- NO BEES. I went back out to keep tabs on the "hive" and the blob was gone. The entire thing, disappeared as if it had never been there. If it hadn't been for the fact that  kanis had seen them, too, I'd think I was dreaming. LOL [/UPDATE]

Scared the pants of of me when I heard the buzzing... I wouldn't even have known about them if I hadn't been releasing a wasp that had gotten caught inside the house and something had disturbed the hive around the same time. Big, fat blob of wax and honey just sitting out of reach, dammit! I estimate the hive to be about a foot tall and six inches thick (it's shaped in a thick sort of backwards-facing 'j' and attached to the fork of a branch)- it might hold around a thousand bees?

In other news, Kani and me are coming up to Winnipeg for Keycon, our local science-fiction convention, so any furs who know me and want to meet up, lemme know! We should be arriving around May 15th and we're staying until the next Monday or Tuesday. So, yes, it's on May long.

Cheers!

No doubt, many of you have already heard about this monster of a construction-project slated to bring Canadian Tar-Sands oil from Alberta through a number of U.S states through to the Gulf refineries, then later to be sold on the world market. I hear lackwit arguments about how it "will reduce our dependence on foreign oil", "The State Department sez it won't affect the Climate or be dangerous", "Climate Change is bullshit, anyway," "It will provide jobs", "make gas cheaper" and other such nonsense.

Um, no. this thing is a piece of crap- the whole thing, from the corporations urging people to buy into their lies, to the actual construction of the fucking pipes themselves. That pipeline, in it's first year of operation (portions of it have already been built and are in use along Canada's border and into North Dakota) popped leaks TWELVE TIMES already. New pipe, new leaks. WTF?

Jobs? Bullshit. Nothing long-term, unless you think roughly fifty long-term, permanent jobs is a good enough return for a price of possibly ruining your water-table and poisoning your land.

Reducing our dependence on foreign oil? So, when did Canada become a part of the U.S? And the even more laughable thing is that none of that oil is actually slated to remain in North America, but will be sold to worldwide markets, NOT here.

The State Department report is a bought-and-paid-for treatise on how to lie to the public about the safety of this project.

I'm not even gonna bother with the many-times-failed "argument" that Climate Change isn't real. The Arctic fucking MELTED THIS SUMMER, YOU ASSHOLES, while the U.S was almost ALL in a state of fucking DROUGHT. HELLO- is anyone LISTENING?

As for "making gas cheaper"- if it isn't being sold here, we aren't getting cheaper prices at the pumps. Duh. Like that even fucking matters in comparison to a major wetlands called the Sand Hills being put at risk in Nebraska. *sigh*

Some links that show some unpleasant images of what our backyards could look like if we keep ignoring this fucking thing:

http://leaksource.wordpress.com/201.....-new-oil-lake/

350.org's "10-day comment sprint" actually started five days ago, but this link should still work: http://act.350.org/letter/kxl-sprint-day-1/

You can donate to flood the DC Metro lines with posters of the spill in Mayflower, Arkansas: https://action.sumofus.org/a/exxon-spill-kxl-ads/

Or how about petitions? Here's a good one: http://campaigns.dailykos.com/p/dia.....action_KEY=362

An article about the Mayflower spill: http://thinkprogress.org/climate/20.....n-exxon-spill/

One from Bill McKibben: http://thinkprogress.org/climate/20.....ental-problem/

Another article about this thing and why it should NOT happen (it says many of the same things I do, but links people to the data sources): http://thinkprogress.org/climate/20.....rth-of-carbon/

So, please, get on your Congressman's butt and urge them to vote no on the pipeline. Urge Obama to vote no on the pipeline. Heck, demand that he executive order the fucking thing into the graveyard.

Why? Because of things like the CO2-emissions from gas,oil and coal-burning, we caused THIS- (Humanity, that is): http://thinkprogress.org/climate/20.....ses-the-issue/

Brings to mind that scene from Avatar: "They killed their mother." We're doing that, right now.
~~~~~~~~


Here, I'll cut-and-paste this directly from an environmental page regarding this beast:
It comes from here: http://www.tarsandsblockade.org/abo.....hy-oppose-kxl/ There are links within the body of their article, but I don't know how to make them work here, so go to their original page and travel around from their links. I'll bold-face them all in this copy, but they won't actually go anywhere- use the original article's highlighted links.

WHY OPPOSE KXL?

There are a myriad of reasons to oppose the expansion of the already-existing Keystone system.

Tar sands, tar sands pipelines and related issues are vast and complex with literally thousands of reports and articles on the subjects. We’ve tried to distill this information in a digestible form by coming up with a simple list of the ten reasons why you should oppose this pipeline project–and join our action to stop it.

1. CLIMATE CHANGE – NASA’s leading climate scientist, Dr. James Hansen has called the Keystone XL pipeline “a fuse to the largest carbon bomb on the planet.” Hansen has said that if all the carbon stored in the Canadian tar sands is released into the earth’s atmosphere it would mean “game over” for the planet.

2. SPILLS – All pipelines spill. According to TransCanada the Keystone 1 pipeline was predicted to spill once every seven years. It spilled 12 times in its first year and it has spilled more than 30 times over its lifetime. The Keystone XL pipeline is built to spill, and when it does it will have a devastating effect upon employment and the economy, according to Cornell University.

The oil firm Enbridge ignored warning signs for more than five years along its 6B Line, and when it spilled in July of 2010 in Michigan’s Kalamazoo River it caused the most damaging onshore oil spill in US history.

3. EMINENT DOMAIN ABUSE – TransCanada has intimidated landowners along the pipeline route into signing contractual agreements for their land. TransCanada fraudulently steals land from private citizens through eminent domain.

A recent Texas Supreme Court case ruled that the application process for common carrier status, the status that allows private companies to seize property, does not not conclusively establish eminent-domain power.

TransCanada has indicated that up to 700,000 gallons of tar sands crude could leak out of the Keystone XL pipeline without triggering its real time leak-detection system.

4. WATER CONTAMINATION – The Keystone XL pipeline threatens Texas’ Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer which supplies drinking water to more than 12 million people living across 60 counties in drought-stricken East Texas.

The pipeline’s cross-border section also threatens the Ogallala Aquifer, the largest aquifer in the western North American region, upon which millions of people and agricultural businesses depend for drinking water, irrigation and livestock watering.

5. THE JOBS MYTH: KEYSTONE XL WILL DESTROY MORE JOBS THAN IT CREATES – According the Cornell University’s Global Labor Institute, the pipeline project will actually destroy more jobs than it creates.

While proponents of the Keystone XL keep repeating the mantra of job creation in the media, it has become clear that the numbers they continue to project are patently false.

Far more jobs could be created by the development of a clean energy economy and infrastructure.

6. GAS PRICES – The Keystone XL pipeline will drive up gas prices, not lower them, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.

7. TAR SANDS FOR EXPORT – TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline will not reduce American dependence on foreign oil. The pipeline will carry tar sands from Alberta, Canada to refineries in Port Arthur, Tex. to be sold on the global market to the highest bidder. This is a for-profit for export pipeline.

8. THE PIPELINE VIOLATES TRIBAL SOVEREIGNTY – The Indigenous Environmental Network has drafted the Mother Earth Accord with traditional treaty councils to oppose the Keystone XL pipeline and preserve the integrity of First Nations and tribal lands across Canada and the Untied States.

9. UNDISCLOSED TAR SANDS DILUTANTS – TransCanada refuses to disclose a comprehensive analysis of its mixture of chemical dilutants used to transport the otherwise viscous tar sands oil through the pipe, as well as human health and environmental risks associated with this secret mixture.

The Pipeline Hazardous Material Safety Administration told Congress that pipeline regulations were not designed for raw tar sands crude, that regulators had not yet evaluated what measures would be necessary to ensure that raw tar sands pipelines could be built and operated safely, and that PHMSA had not been involved in the environmental review.

10. FRAUDULENT ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW – The Environmental Impact Statement done of the Keystone XL pipeline was conducted by the State Department, not the EPA. Controversy erupted last fall over Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s ties to one of TransCanada’s top lobbyists, Paul Elliot. Elliot was one of Clinton’s top campaign officials during her 2008 presidential bid. The EIS found that the pipeline would have minimal impact on the environment, failing to properly analyze direct, indirect and cumulative impacts of the pipeline project.

The “Gulf Coast Project” or southern portion of the Keystone XL does not have its own environmental review despite the fact that many issues unique to Texas and Oklahoma, such as wild fires and drought conditions, have yet to be analyzed.

Read more key facts on Keystone XL.

~~~~~~~

Remember, the bolded text only indicates where their links are- they do NOT work from this page. Please, go to theirs and check them out there.

[EDIT/RANT] This was a tragedy, not an act of war. The kids who did this had problems. Their religious beliefs and their race have NOTHING to do with what they did. It may have been a justification and a way of connecting their possible delusions together in their minds, but the fact they were Muslim is not, and should never be, a factor in assessing this crime. Homeland Security can kiss my ass on that one, thanks.

Any more bullshit racism, anti-Islamist trash-talk is gonna get a few choice words from yours truly. Keep it up, and get blocked. I will NOT have people making comments like "kill them" or "they should be strung up", etc, but the ones that have been already made will remain.

These boys had issues, some of which they may have used their religion as a justification for what they did, but they were troubled FIRST, and religious a far distant second. Concentrate on the families of all who were hurt in this, not on revenge-fantasies. And I mean the families of the Tsarnaevs, too.

Remember, even murderers once had a family who might have loved them.[/EDIT/RANT]



What the flying HELL?! Seriously? Bombing a freaking race?

I have no words other than I offer my condolences to the families of those killed and injured.







*sighs* Humanity? Can we fucking get a grip already? Just askin'. It ain't much in the grand scheme of things, but can we DO something about untreated mental-illness, 'cuz just watch, they'll find the guy and he'll- almost guaranteed- turn out to be some poor mook under stress and with a long history of delusional issues and illness. No one treated him- almost guaranteed to be male, too; sorry if that seems sexist, but that's the usual pattern- or the treatments he could afford didn't work, or he couldn't afford to be treated at all, even if he wanted to. MENTAL-ILLNESS, people. MENTAL-ILLNESS. If there is anything that should be a priority, anything that takes away from people's productivity, their happiness and adds to the suicide rolls, it's. That. One. Thing.

Wake up, please, you greedy, lying bastards of the medical-insurance 'industry'. Who the fuck considers health a fucking industry? Really? That just seems wrong to me as a humanitarian, but I understand that it's all about how to monetize anything and everything, so please, don't bother to explain it- I know why, I just find it disgusting.

Again, my sympathies go out to the families of the dead and the injured.

Bombs. Un-fucking-believable.

I am re-posting this from my mate's site, Draconic.com, since I'm not certain how many people will see it there. I figure I can get a few more eyeballs on this. I'll cross-post to my FB page as well for the same reason (a different circle of friends, most non-Furry, but you can add me if you have a FB page. ) In any case, "Greedy, Lying Bastards" is an important film, and I hope folks will go and see it. Hell, I'm asking you to go see it- please. See who it is that's behind this "Climate hoax" bullshittery, because I am sick and fucking TIRED of the lies from FOX, Rupert Murdoch, Rush Limbaugh, Hannety, the Koch brothers, etc. Fight back against the fossil-fuel industry! Fight back against greed! Fight back, period, damn your eyes! They're getting desperate, and we are winning.

From :

We went to see a preview showing of Greedy Lying Bastards last night. This is a low budget but professionally-made documentary film that has done something that rarely happens - it's managed to get a theatrical release in 30 cities because it's well done and incredibly important.

Before the movie, executive producer Daryl Hannah spoke live on stage and mentioned that even the World Bank, one of the planet's largest financial institutions and a big-time lender to fossil-fuel projects, recently released "Turn Down The Heat", a report on the effects of climate change she said was truly frightening. It turns out that under a new President Jim Yong Kim, the World Bank is actually getting pretty aggressive with their climate change warnings.

Greedy Lying Bastards basically exposes and attacks the people and organizations that have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to lie to us and create a false "debate" that pits a handful of people, mostly non-scientists, against the other 97% of actual Climatology scientists telling us that climate change is real, caused by humans, and must be addressed. It details why and how the bastards have managed to stop the U.S. and most of the world from taking any significant action to get us off the path to disaster that we're on.

In the end, the film urges us to visit exposethebastards.com where they have set up a number of things we can do to fight these bastards. You can also help by simply seeing the film on opening weekend, starting this Fri, March 8th. The more people see it, the more theaters it will spread to.

The film also shows us many of the climate-related disasters we've already experienced and touches on the devastating effects of the Citizens United decision and how it has bought more "politicians" to office who shill for the interests of these greedy, lying bastards. When I went to watch the trailer, at 1:49, I was stunned to see a closeup of a neon-yellow sign I made that says "Corporations are NOT people too". So, my right paw is now in a movie. Freaky. (Murrah note: we were at the big anti-Koch rally last year in Rancho Mirage, where the infamous brothers were having a big billionaires business meeting. They showed up on the roof to watch us, and I'll you, what I saw of their faces through my telephoto lens chilled me; both clueless and sneering. These creeps think they are above us, not just on top of building.)

My only criticism of the movie is that it focused a bit too much on just one climate-related disaster, a fire in Colorado, and it didn't mention it was the most destructive and expensive fire in Colorado State history. They also did not throw in much to show the scope of the problem. Like, during the three decades from 1980 to 2011, the number of violent storms, floods, droughts, heat waves, wildfires, as tabulated by the reinsurance company Munich Re, has increased more than three-fold. They also estimate financial losses that have grown from $40 billion to $170 billion dollars per year. Most of those losses were not insured, and the country suffering the largest losses by far is the United States (from a blurb in this page).

Greedy Lying Bastards fits with the latest 350.org strategy of attacking the fossil-fuel companies directly. I hope this will continue to be a theme as it has become clear the greedy, lying bastards have bought too much political influence to be confronted solely with appeals to our politicians.

Of course, appeals to politicians are still needed. 350.org recently organized "Forward On Climate", the largest climate rally in history. Despite that, last Friday, the State Department released a new environmental impact statement claiming the Keystone XL pipeline was "unlikely to have a substantial impact" on the tar sands or the climate. Obviously, these greedy, lying bastards have influenced that statement.

Bill McKibben writes:
<ul>
That, in a word, is nonsense -- some of our most important climate scientists in the U.S. have written the State Department to explain exactly how dangerous Keystone is.

But I'm reminded that the last time the State Department issued an environmental impact statement about the pipeline, we were just beginning this fight. That day in 2011, 50 people were arrested at the White House during the very first wave of protests against the pipeline.

This time around we're tens of thousands of people stronger, and once again, I think we are just beginning to fight.

In these next months we need to send a signal to the White House that we're not standing down. There are two things I think we should begin working on immediately.

First -- since it's clear that the polite but firm warnings of our top climate scientists aren't being heard -- anytime that the President or Secretary of State Kerry appears in public, it's crucial that we let them know that we won't accept this pipeline or the damage it will do to our climate. We need a team of rapid responders coast-to-coast who can turn around with 24 hours notice and raise a ruckus at these events when we find out about them.

If you can be on call to respond quickly when they visit near you, let us know by adding your name here: act.350.org/signup/kxl-rapid-response/

Second, we need to raise the heat this spring and summer. Significantly. To get a jump on the season, 350.org and our allies will be hosting a massive day of action and training at venues across the country in May. It will be the first muster for the grassroots army we hope will fan out across the nation this summer, and a unified statement of our intention to fight this pipeline.

If you're keen to get involved, click here to add your name as well and we'll get in touch about how to make it happen: act.350.org/signup/may-day-of-action/

Even as we stick it to the pipeline, we're going on offense as well, with a student-led divestment campaign that grows by the day (and increasingly moves off campus to city governments and faith communities too), and a Global Power Shift gathering this June in Turkey to gather young leaders across the globe.

I don't know how this will all go down -- only that it won't go down easily. After watching Arctic sea ice practically disappear last summer, and Superstorm Sandy hit New York, I can also tell you that this is a key moment for our planet, and your role in it will be remembered for a long, long time -- as will the President's.

Here's how Time put it yesterday: "There are many climate problems a President can't solve, but Keystone XL isn't one of them. It's a choice between Big Oil and a more sustainable planet." As with those historic moments at Stonewall or Selma, "The right answer isn't always somewhere in the middle."
</ul>

So go see Greedy Lying Bastards on opening weekend, tell your friends and family, expose the bastards, and sign up to be a 350.org rapid responder and join their day of action.

Remember, there is no Planet B.

I have a few of the same reservations about the showing of various Climate-related disasters, but I understand why they did it; many deniers know very little about the rest of the world, so appeals to their empathy and rationality fail because it doesn't address their immediate concerns- how to protect their families. They're not evil, they aren't necessarily assholes or even stupid. They're just regular folks who've been steeped in programming that taught them they have no power, have little say, and that they live in the "best country in the world" where nothing really bad happens. When something does, it's "an act of God" or an anomaly. These "acts of God" are becoming too common, but we can't "see" things that happen over decades very well; collective memory is short, so it falls below their radar... Until it hits them personally.

For me, my small beefs with the film had mainly to do with demographics and doing that "ignoring" the rest of the world thing- but then, that's some of what the movie actually addresses, doesn't it? We ignore the rest of the world. The film tried to use that as a way to bring it home, as it were, that Climate Change affects us all, not just the brown kids with swollen bellies and flies on their faces in some near-desert, overheated-already misery of a war-torn nation few can even point out on a fucking map. So the U.S. is the main country the film concentrates on, because we have the highest number of deniers and the most money going into the lies about Climate Change.

As an Aboriginal, one mention I was cheered to see, if you could use that phrase for something so sad, is that the Indigenous Peoples of the north got their say as well. Native leaders and tribes-people in Alaska basically told the viewer: "this is real, we SEE it every day, believe us, not the oil-companies." One elderly man pointed roughly a hundred feet out to sea, telling us where the shoreline used to be; the sea covered the old beach, the new shoreline chopping off the island's land-area to a fraction of it's original size. Imagine a 100 feet of land-mass being "removed" slowly, over a period of one man's lifetime, forcing the villagers to higher ground or to live with the island flooding half the year. The island he is living on is shrinking. Or I should say had been living on. The old man appeared to be close to tears because he and all of the villagers on the island now have to move.

An entire town had become one of the first refugees of Climate Change. Here, in the United States of "we're the greatest nation on the planet"-fucking-America.

So I ask my watchers who care about this, who can put themselves in these people's shoes, that can see beyond their own needs: see this film. Climate Change and natural disasters don't just happen to those brown people "over there"- they happen here, too. It's a world-wide thing, not just localized weather. Humanity is the cause, and greed is at the bottom of the whole thing.

If we can't get them with petitions or the politicians we elect 'cuz they're in the pockets of the super-rich fossil-fuel magnates, then ATTACK THE MAGNATES where it counts- in their wallets. What does the Koch brothers company own? NEVER buy those products- ask your friends and families to do the same. If you can afford it, switch to a hybrid or even electric car. Many utilities companies let you switch to solar and wind-generated power- ask for it. The more who are on the alternate-energy grid, the less coal and oil we burn. Again, if you can afford it, and you have a house, or live with people who own their house, get solar panels. There are government grants you can get to ease the cost of the transition. We're going to do, and we're barely above the poverty line.

I know few of us have the money to do this. But, there IS one thing you can do: bitch. Bitch a LOT. But, bitch to the right people. Go to folks you know who have money- ask them to pull their stock, if they own any, out of oil and coal. Go to your universities and colleges- ask them to pull their stock out of Fossil Fuels (many schools have stock portfolios to help fund their programs), and get them to invest in green alternatives instead. Your employer's company likely has stock they can divest, too- get your co-workers in on it. Boycott any company or business that refuses to disassociate from oil and coal $$. Students did it to force South Africa to stop Apartheid- we can do the same with these assholes. Go to the politicians who've shown a track record of giving a shit about something other than their perks. Politicians like Al Franken, Barbara Boxer, Elizabeth Warren, and Al Waxman are just a few who have that kind of track-record. I'm sure there some in your communities who're like these people- bring your concerns to them. Google their names in relation to alternative energy, fighting to keep the EPA, fighting for constituents' rights, like access to affordable healthcare, to keep funding for schools, that fight racism/sexism/homophobia, and show a willingness to go to the line for the people that put them into office.

We can bitch and whine about how we can't do anything, that we have no power. Go ahead, you're completely free to do so. But, I'm gonna tell you, it isn't true. You DO have power. More power than you realize- but it doesn't show until you do it in groups. A big enough group can make anything happen. When you feel isolated and like you're the only one so you do nothing, you give the fossil-fuel industry what they want; apathy and lack of opposition. When you feel like no one around you gives a fuck, give them a reason to care; show them the very real consequences of humanity's actions and how it can affect their lives- point to Alaska, to Florida where much of the land-mass is so close to sea-level a rise could drown them, point to the Midwest farmlands. People tend to think of their own concerns first- go after that. Bring it close to home- make them SEE it.

For those who still feel alone, or are stuck in rural areas w/heavy Conservative/religious mindset, go Online to find groups who plan how to counteract the changes that are happening, who intend to disrupt the plans of Big Money. Go there and learn you're NOT alone- there are hundreds of thousands, even millions, of us out there, and our voices WILL BE HEARD if we realize we have power when we share it with others.

If there's a rally near you, attend it with those who have the balls to come out and risk ridicule, verbal abuse, even arrest for daring to say that humans and greed are the cause of Climate Change. Know that for every person who attends, there's a thousand more who either couldn't come 'cuz of work or infirmity, were afraid to come, or are the "voiceless"- the countless poor of your own nation who are ignored- the very people this hurts the most. What we see on the surface isn't all there is, so when you hear some derisive jerk laugh at you for showing up with your sign and 50 other people and sneers at how few your numbers are, remind yourself of the many who feel the same as you do.

We are being lied to, many of us know it, and some of us are fucking fed up about it- fight back. Break the connection between the corporations and the politicians. Break their monopoly on energy, too. Fight the Citizen's United ruling made by a shady judge who was the swing vote for the decision: Clarence Thomas, I'm talking to you, you lying, $$-grabbing little fucktard of a partisan shit who allowed himself to be bought to influence decisions in favour of the Big $$$. You shouldn't be a judge, period.

You can make a difference, every one of you, because there are so MANY of you.

Okay, I'm off the soap-box, now.

I bought a Nekomimi headset at FC, as I mentioned in my last journal, and I plan to modify it for use in my Murrah and Grayver heads. Now, I could possibly get a tail! It's designed by the same guy who did some of the prototype work for the Nekomimi (supposedly) and it looks adorable: http://www.indiegogo.com/tailly Watch the vid (without the sound- the music is awful)- I grinned the whole time.

No, I didn't get Con Crud, thankfully. I just usually have to recharge after being around that many people. So I did pretty good, considering I felt a little less prepared this year (despite having a list, I forgot a few items, like my watercolours and brushes, dammit). A lot of interest in the Nom-Skullz hats, but sold only one. Sold almost all of my tails, though, and most of them on the first day! That's rare- usually furs keep their coin until after the art-auction, at least, that's how things went the last four Cons I went to. No worries. People like my work, it seems.

So, it seems I lucked out hugely in the table-placement area of the Dealer's Den. All I'd asked in terms of "special requests" is that I not have my back to a door (old nervous habits). So they put me in the first row! People were milling around my pretties pretty much constantly. Awesome! It do attribute a lot of my sales to that, but wow, I had so many folks coming by!

One fellow came to my table who had bought a tail from me last year. He'd worn his lion tail so much, it had pilled and a seam had popped, so he brought it in for repairs. I sewed her up a treat, gave the fleece and tip a good brushing, and handed it back to him, looking nearly new.

A second repeat-customer came by, saw that I had a lovely dragon tail that more closely-matched his character (black iridescent scales, with purple fur and a spade-tip), bought it and a second, red and black dragon tail with spikes for another character. He just really liked the black flocking scaled pattern on the fabric. <3

Another fellow had bought a Nekomimi head-set and wanted fox ears modded to fit, so I got that job, too. I think they turned out sweet, but, like a twit, I didn't get a photo. But I had them on my table, with the finished one all trimmed and brushed and the still-in-progress one in my hands as I was working on it.

Anyway, I had a lot of fun, even though I spent nearly all of my time at my table.

Met some sweet folks, and shared a room with  trystentangled and  creoste Hey, Cree- "MOO!" We were so odd, doing that all Con. LOL Cows "arguing". *giggles*
Got to meet  draco18s finally. Grabbing some nosh at a Subway and I saw his badge- we shared a nice, squooshy hug.

That awesome Rooster that was wandering the Con- I dunno his name, but he was fun to swap caws with.

I didn't know it, but I'd encountered  helvetica in his cool demon costume: he had this sweet mask with eyes and mouth made of LEDs synched to his voice (the eyes were apparently random, but it worked as an effect, anyway), coupled with a voice-changer to give him a buzzy, odd voice that I rather liked. His wings were this open-work "outline" made of EL wire and he had on a simple black bodysuit with scales painted on in a nice range of orange, red, yellow and white. Jerk didn't tell me who he was! LOL That guy makes THE coolest shit, I swear. I suggested he hit the art-show and bid on the black, red and gold scale-tail done up in a coral-snake pattern, but he didn't get it, pity (his words when I described the tail, "No shit? that's awesome!").  yaochi got it, instead. He showed it off to me, later. Hear that,  helvetica? You can go mug the rainbow dragon for it! Or, maybe if you ask nicely, he'll let you borrow it. *giggle* Better yet, go here;  yuuryuu He's the fellow who makes them. Kani got one of his gold-scale bracelets form the Art-Show.

Met  aazhie, who is adorable, as is  questionable (if you haven't seen his art, go to his page- he's got some fun and ODD things in his gallery).  necrodrone13 loved the Master's couch in my Adult Dragon Panel submission. *giggles* It would make a cool piece of classy furniture, wouldn't it? And to think I made that monster up. Poor  dreamous got mobbed when everyone heard that Dragon's Hoard was looking for stories and art. I admit I was one of them.  skadjer is adorable, as always. And I HATE him- his art is too frakkin' GOOD. Gah, so many cool people and costumes, I can't name 'em all!

Ran into Fox-Tails-Ninja (I don't know if she has an FA) and she yelled at me from down the hallway "I've been MURRAHNATED!" *giggle* That silliness dates from my wedding to  kanis -she was there and had a great time. Saw some gorgeous suits, drooled over more artwork than I have wall-space for, sold some art (yay!) and bought a Nekomimi set. I'm gonna mod it for Murrah's head. Don't worry, I'm not going to risk destroying it by taking it apart. I'm just gonna make new ears for it. And I gotta figure out how to make the ear-clip less tight- that thing starts to hurt, after a while.

I came within a mere $10 of breaking a $1000- never got that close before. Woot! Tails did so well, I'm gonna make a whack-ton of 'em for next year, and some more of the complicated types, too- those were a definite hit.

One of my tails showed up in somebody's photo (not on purpose- he was just passing by when this adorable dogpile was going on. LOL): http://www.furaffinity.net/view/9750225/

All in all, a good time, some good foodz (we went to The House of Siam- AMAZING food, if you don't mind the wait).

So, I'm rested up, finishing up the badges I got on the drawing-board and then it's get my ass back to finishing some other overdue things.

Cheers!

In my morning perusal of some of the activist sites I watch, I came across a breaking news story of the sadness that happened in Newtown Connecticut this morning, literally within a mere few hours of it happening. Reports are still coming in, but there is an estimated 27 dead or injured, many of them children. Supposedly, the shooter has been shot, but there are rumours of a second killer. If anything changes, I'll post an update.

Whatever the final toll is, however many shooters there were, or if there was only one, doesn't matter. What does is how sad this whole thing is, and so close to the holidays, too.

My condolences to the families of all involved, including the one who did this- this person obviously needed help, and no one knew enough or seemed to care enough to notice they needed it and so this person ended up doing something so tragic.

Will our society grab a clue, already, and learn the signs of severe mental illness, and see that the person gets the medical attention they need? The stigma needs to go the frak away, so does the fear of it. Avoiding the person only makes things worse, whether our avoidance came about because we'd been rebuffed by the ill person, or because we're afraid of them, or are just made so uncomfortable by their pain- however much we might sympathize- that we are left foundering as to what to say or do. Mental-illness is scary. No bones about it. It's confusing, it's disturbing, it makes us uncomfortable to think that our minds can be so fragile. But it can be treated. If we learn to pay attention to something other than our own narrow concerns, learn to care about our health- all of us, even the "outcasts", then maybe things like this would happen less often.

Mental and emotional pain is a community problem; it affects all of us when someone needs help, whether we like it or not. Perhaps the effect diminishes with distance, but the effect is still there. Butterfly creating a hurricane...

Anyway, enough of my soapbox ramblings; my heart goes out to the families and the first-responders who had to suffer this (none of them were hurt, I believe, but seeing this kind of thing is still traumatic), and perhaps as something to do for the holidays, hug the nearest and dearest close to you, and hug those of us who are mentally-ill, too; sometimes, just reminding us we matter to someone will keep us more solidly in reality and maybe keep us away from the guns.

[UPDATE] I found this brilliant blog article this morning (Sunday, December 16), and it says exactly what I was trying to get at, only so much better than I could: http://gawker.com/5968818/i-am-adam-lanzas-mother

Seriously, fuck gun-control, let's do something about our collective mental health!

In other news; I learned not to trust the CNN news-feed. It was so full of misinformation and contradictory bullshit, it was difficult to find out what actually happened. It was fucking laughable how many times those idiots had to retract and update their errors. Oy.

Go to the Huffington post, if you have a fast net-connection (their site has great articles but is so full of cookies and bad script, it crawls like a freakin' slug for me) for good stuff.

Anyway, final death-toll so far is sitting at 28: that's 20 children (poor mites), six teachers (including the principle of the school), the shooter, and his mother. There was no second gunman. Adam was alone. His brother, Ryan, was brought in for questioning, and the silly-season the news feeds was having with erroneous info had him variously as the original shooter, not Adam, had him dead, had their father dead, had the mother at the school (dead), that she was a teacher there (I don't think she was) and all kinds of lunacy.

Here's the data: Adam Lanza, age 20, long history of mental-troubles, a highly-intelligent kid who was possibly on the Autism Spectrum (Asperger's), forced his way into Sandy Hook Elementary carrying two weapons, which he then used to destroy the lives of twenty seven people. There was a third weapon, a rifle, but he'd apparently left it in his mother's car (her car being his transport was probably what had people thinking his mother was at the school).

Other info; so, yeah, it seems that I was right and Adam Lanza had a long history of mental illness and a troubled mind. I don't know what his mother went through, having to handle his issues, or what she did to try and help him, but read the "I am Adam Lanza's Mother" article- the person who wrote isn't actually his mom, but she has an extremely bright, mentally-ill son who is violent, and very disturbed to the point of claiming he'll commit suicide if he doesn't get what he wants, and has even attacked her, variously with fists and at least once with a knife. She makes a strong case for bringing our health-care system into a more enlightened era, especially in the matter of mental-illnesses like her son's. She knows that he is a definite candidate for going for a nice stroll through a school with an automatic rifle, and it terrifies her. Further, to make the whole thing even more tragic for the poor woman, the doctors have yet to figure out what the fuck is wrong with her kid. READ IT.[/UPDATE]

A new shit-nugget has come upon the scene... *Snarls* Anyone using Google + yet? Anyone getting stupid little "your account will be suspended or canceled unless you use your real name" messages? I got 'em, a few times, now, and I'm PISSED. These guys, who's motto is "don't be evil", are forcing Google + users to put their legal names out there. Now, that isn't a problem for many who don't give a fuck- they'll just shrug and make the changes. But me, I'm about choice. I'm about OPTIONS, and when you start taking those choices and options away, you begin to infringe on what I consider my freedom of choice.

There is also the matter of net-safety. Is it wise, for example, to put a user's name online who might be underage? You know why. What if someone has a stalker, and they don't want to be found? Or worse, an abused person, needing friends, goes online to associate with people who don't beat them up or rape them. How easy would it be for their abuser to find them? Assuming, of course the creep isn't already monitoring their online activities. But, if they ever get the chance to get outside of the home, to a real-life friend, say, and they have a profile online with a pseudonym...

Fuck off, Google, this shit is bogus.

AND THAT IS NOT COOL.

Now, I've made the changes they "required", but I get a message back saying their review team doesn't think the name I gave 'em is my real one. I left a spiky little "screw you" protest in my public profile info and then told them to go to my Facebook page. Anyone curious about that, can go here: https://www.facebook.com/T.W.Dragon Yes, there it is; Terrakian Dragon. That is my REAL fucking name, you jacktards in the Google offices, or in India, or wherever the flying fuck you are on this rock.

What if someone wants to use an old-fashioned Net-handle? A nickname, a pseudonym? Oh, they give an "option" for using a nickname? Look at it again. That "option" is fucking BOGUS; the nickname shows in two ways, in quotes sandwiched in your real name, or in brackets at the end... of your REAL NAME. Seriously? WTF?

NOT COOL, GOOGLE, NOT COOL.

I hope the blogoshpere, and the whole internet-full of cyber denizens go and give them the bitch-slap they deserve. No trolls, just real, heartfelt protest, because this shit is snotty, and I don't like it.


*growls*

This is just awesome. I don't normally give much credence to Al Gore (the guy who famously claimed to have "invented the Internet"), but his tours around the world trying to get people to face the reality of Climate Change that he's talking about in this vid- that is worth listening to. So is the song that Melodysheep created with Autotune from selected bits from the lectures. Too cool.

http://front.moveon.org/al-gore-use.....-on-the-brink/

We DO have to face reality: we can't continue to be the largest carbon-emissions source (China is fast gaining and may even have outstripped us in that regard). Our laziness and our greed for the so-called "perfect way of life" is making the rest of the world pay in coin they cannot afford: their lives, their crops, their environments, and, in the case of nations like the Marshall Islands, possibly their entire countries.

Time to wake up, people, and wean ourselves off the Big Oil teat. Here some facts that I pretty much pulled off the top of my encyclopedic brain (though I provide links to relevant material to back 'em up):

-A 30% rise in ocean acidity is killing reefs worldwide- a 30% rise in ANYTHING is SIGNIFICANT, and that is just one example. http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/co2/story/.....idification%3F

-Nearly half of the Arctic ice-cap melted this summer- This vid is short, and possibly a bit too alarmist, but it puts this data into fast perspective: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_gi0tOVNn4
Real data: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

-Glaciers all over the world, many used as principle sources of water, are melting-

This whole site is just good stuff, but here's some specific bits on glaciers: http://www.skepticalscience.com/him.....termediate.htm

-Greenland is melting- ALL of Greenland's surface ice had seen melting this year. Notice I italicized the word "surface". I know Greenland has glaciers nearly two miles thick in places, but as that surface melts, any collected dust and soil deposited by wind and weather-action over decades, hundreds, or even thousands of years is concentrated, making the ice effectively "darker" at that exposed surface, possibly accelerating melt. Look "Albedo Effect"- but here's a quick definition: albedo is reflection of light, less albedo, less light being reflected. Greenland's albedo is lower, reflecting less light (and heat) back. When the area is absorbing light (and heat), temperatures rise... Those massive glaciers aren't gone, but their top 97% IS, spread out all across the glacier dome. I'm not sure what depth of melting this actually is, but it's significant and it's disturbing some scientists...

From NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/fe.....land-melt.html Note that later in the article it mentions that this is a type of event that does occur naturally roughly every 150 years- at least, so the ice-cores taken at a place called Summit indicate. But the researcher also commented that if this occurs several times over the next short span of years, it will indicate something "worrisome".

-I live on a mountain with multiple micro-climates that seem to be rapidly becoming the near-desert Mediterranean-type main climate of Southern California. We almost didn't get winter up here last year- we'll see how this year goes. But I've spoken to many locals who have lived up here for decades, and they've almost universally said that the winters have been shorter, with less snow and higher temperatures on the average. They've all mentioned less rain over the year, too. I saw so many slopes with dead or dying foliage because we got rain maybe three times over the entire spring and summer and fall combined. When it finally did rain, it was steady downpour that last nearly 24 hours... I could go back and data-mine some weather reports and see if this really is a trend, but I'm inclined to believe the observations of that many people over that long a span of time.

-Plant and animal life are all moving/migrating away from the equator- creatures normally living at specific levels- such as the Pika- a mountain-dwelling rodent that normally lives around 7900 feet, now comfortable at over 9000 feet- have moved upward or Northward (in the Northern hemisphere) or Southward (in the Southern hemisphere) to meet their climactic needs. In all cases, these species are drifting away from the equator. Soon there will be no more mountain or northern/southern lands for them to move up onto. This is happening all over the world.

Article from 2011 commenting on flora and fauna movements to follow their changing climates: http://www.syracuse.com/news/index......ay_from_g.html

Another article from around the same period: http://science.time.com/2011/08/19/.....into-refugees/

-"Climate refugees"- It isn't just the plants and non-human animals: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_migrant

-Over three-thousand temperature-records were BROKEN in the U.S ALONE this year-

(not an authoritative source, but the photo of the dock sitting in a dry-lake-bed amused me): http://www.climatepatrol.com/forum/...../pg1/index.php

Something a little more serious (if you can ignore the stupid ads): http://www.livescience.com/21952-re.....ures-heat.html

-The methane-packed peat-bogs of Siberia are on the verge of melting, too, and when that happens, WE ARE FUCKED- If you think carbon is bad for the Greenhouse effect, methane tops it, even though it doesn't stay in the atmosphere as long (shorter half-life). I suggest looking up the term "Climactic Tipping Point".

Older article from 2004, but still relevant: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/.....anpeatbog.html
A more recent article on the peat-bog heating problem: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/ea.....ing-point.html

-So many Climate Change myths, so little time to disprove 'em all- Here's a nice bit of myth-debunking (some of the comments are amusing, too- I'd check out the links even the Deniers post- good for counter-views and perspectives. If you have any critical-thinking ability at all, it shouldn't be hard to slap their cherry-picking into the dirt. Enjoy!): http://www.livescience.com/19466-cl.....hs-busted.html

-Remember this number: 350 parts per million of carbon to oxygen- This is the number that Climate Scientists have stated for years that is the allowable cap for maintaining life on Earth as we know it. We are currently between 392 and 395 parts per million, and if the changes researchers and even the "people on the ground" (most Indigenous Peoples, for example- like the Inuit- and who pays attention to THEM, huh? Well, I think we SHOULD be paying attention to them: they know their environment, and they've been saying it's CHANGING) are seeing are the result of that, can we afford to sit on our hands and say fatuous bullshit like "it's not a proven theory?"

This explains that very specific number quite well: http://www.350.org/en/node/48

Really, it's been said before; "the cost of doing nothing on the off-chance that it's 'just a theory' and having it proven true, outweigh the costs of changing our habits NOW even if it isn't." That makes too much sense. Personally, I'd rather pay now to do what we can to fix our pollution of this world- the only one we HAVE- than pay later with a planet we cannot live on at all. It doesn't matter if Climate Change is an "unproven theory"- how is asking people to stop being so wasteful a bad thing?

A few useful links to Climate Change science for the layman, the interested and those who want to do something about it (plus some science-type blogs I particularly enjoy):

Activism: 350.org

He's just fun to read: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/

News: http://thinkprogress.org/climate/issue/?mobile=nc

From the scientists themselves: http://www.realclimate.org/

Some companies are on the ball, here. PPlus, there's news, too: http://ecogeek.org/

Activism and environmental issues: http://www.healthebay.org/

Not strictly related to Climate change, but we will be seeing changing ecologies. Invasive species are already messing with current ecologies, and Climate Change is only going to make it worse. So do your part to keep invasives from gaining a foothold: http://www.invasive.org/

There is just neat stuff, here: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/

Activism and news: http://www.worldwatch.org/


Think about it.

*climbs down from soapbox and gets back to work*

Before some prick like Romney gets into office.

Seriously, apathy is our downfall- VOTE! PLEASE! Don't let the propaganda of FOX news and all the other obvious liars, Big Money-bought politicians, economy-raping (Bain Capital, I'm pointing my claws at YOU, you blood-sucking vulture), "legitimate rape"? WTF?, "Obama is a Muslim Communist/socialist/Nazi" (Seriously? Can't be a member of three parties at once, especially ones pretty much opposed to each other and so misunderstood as to have become little more than boogeymen under the bed. To put a point on it, Nazis suck, and would never have a black man as a member, Communists fail as a philosophy because of simple human greed and socialism sometimes actually works- I'm from Canada- we have so-called "socialist" policies, like MEDICAL-CARE PAID FOR BY OUR TAXES) Don't listen to these lying, greedy, money-worshiping, power-at-all-costs destroyers who want to put us under a theocracy discourage you.



Oh, man, I'm crossing my digits. Nerves, I tells ya, nerves. Great, wriggling, snaking, trembling snarls of them... Oh wait, those are my tentacles.


VOTE, PLEASE TO ALL THE NON-EXISTENT DEITIES THAT YOU MIGHT CONSIDER PRAYING TO (sorry, I'm an atheist ) KEEP THAT LYING SACK OF SHIT NAMED ROMNEY OUT OF THE FUCKING WHITE HOUSE.

Ok. Froth is done with.




























please vote

*sighs* I usually don't have a problem with Costco's Kirkland products, but it seems that their version of Frontline flea prevention is lousy stuff. It not only doesn't work, apparently, it can also make your cat ill, even KILL them. Well fuck. I don't buy their flea stuff, but I do buy their knock-off brand human foods when we shop at places like Food4less or Superior. It makes me wonder; if they don't give a flying fuck about whether or not their product is killing people's beloved companions, do they have the same cynicism in regards to the things they make for human consumption? Honestly, where does it end?

I found out about this from  vinci_nicolaides and a journal she linked to... That journal is here: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3924091/ Further, some reviews on Amazon.com regarding this stuff: http://www.amazon.com/Kirkland-Sign.....vglnk-c2201-20 Some of the reviews from unhappy and worried people are heart-rending...

Spread the word, my minions! Companies that have such a disregard for life, human or otherwise, need to be held accountable for their actions!

Also, read through the comments on the journal I linked to- look for  montrosity's comments. He has some cogent things to say about how cost-cutting measures can be hazardous and why they affect us all when we keep buying their shoddy product all in the name of saving a buck. The manufacturing company wanting to "save a buck" trickles down to a store being able to sell the item for cheap, and then to you wanting to buy the cheap product, followed by the miseries that could happen when that product turns out to be bad for you or your pets. That's the only "trickle-down" theory that actually "works", and it's not to anyone's benefit but the company making the money off of you. Saving a buck can really turn into expensive medical bills that will potentially bankrupt you. Go for quality every time, if you can...

I know Paypal has been doing some updating on their site- I see a lot of format and appearance changes- but apparently, there are some other changes that are less obvious. To anyone who has a Paypal account, I suggest reading over their updated Agreement material, because it seems that there is a nasty little clause in there about 'if you agree to the changes, you are now exempt from being able to participate in class-action suits against Paypal, and can only sue them on an individual basis'. WTF?

Ok, that is NOT fucking cool. Who the hell has the money or power to sue a massive company like Paypal (which also owns Ebay, by the way)? Seriously? Class-action suits are not just ambulance-chaser fodder. Sometimes, it's the only way someone with a grievance can get any justice against a corporate fucktard that's screwing them over: get involved with other people who have been dealt the same shit and take the buggers to court. i guess too many corporate slimeballs are losing in the courts, so they're doing their sneaky best to prevent this from happening anymore. I'm pretty sure it's mostly common-knowledge that more and more companies are pulling this one their customers. At least one country that I know of has made this kind of shenanigans illegal: Germany. Hopefully, more will follow suit in protecting consumers over the corporations who only really care about making more gold than Midas. *eyeroll*

Well, while this is a new low for the jerks at Paypal (and, yes, I still use them for lack of anything better.  kanis has suggested that I consider Google-Wallet, though), there is one small hope: you can opt out of the agreement. It involves writing a letter to that effect, specifically detailing what it is you are opting out of, and it's one of those things you just aren't told about until you COMPLAIN and PESTER these jackasses a lot... See this blog-entry for what I mean (and the author gives pretty specific instructions on how to go about the process, too): https://magneticcrow.wordpress.com/.....policy-update/

Paypal, you should be effing ashamed for your shady practices. Is it any wonder more and more people are leaving your service? Stop fucking over your customers, and you might get to KEEP them! SO not impressed, right now.

Look around, folks, for a better Net-based money service that doesn't pull this shit on you. I know I will. And I thought Paypal locking down one person's funds around Christmas last year because she was holding a donation-drive for needy kids on her blog was in poor taste, but this is just sneaky, slimy and so very, very wrong...

We have a fuck-ton of stuff that the previous owners left behind at our new house that we don't want or need, so we're holding a big, honkin' dragon-hoard sale! Anyone interested, come on down (or up, since we're in the mountains), August 4th to 5th from 9 A.M to whenever we get tired of cooking in the sun. LOL

We got bears- oh, so MANY bears (the old lady collected 'em- she took the ones that meant the most to her- these are just the ones she left behind. Imagine how MANY she must have had!), some clothes, kitchenware, a microwave, toaster-oven, books, jewelery, wall tapestries, throws and pillows, fake plants and other greenery, furniture like lamps and a table, some craft stuff and various items of garden-decor in the form of... you guessed it, more bears, plus raccoons and moose.

Prices will range from middling to cheap, but all are negotiable: we want this stuff GONE.

The address: 423 Wylerhorn drive, Crestline. Take highway 18 to get up here, turn onto Lake Gregory Drive, follow that until it ends downtown, hang left on Zurich, blah, blah, blah- get directions from  kanis or your GPS, 'cuz I suck at that part. LOL

I'm gonna make a LOT of tea, we'll have soda, too. Dunno if we'll do food, but we might- depends on what Kani wants to do. It might be simpler if we didn't, and that's probably his view.

Anyway, if anyone is interested and/or they live near the area, come on up!