Yee-haw!

Sling your guns and pony up your engines.

There's a new market for Space Westerns.

And they mention Firefly...*tear*

UnBearable

"The zoo must kill the bear."
--Frank Albrecht, nitwit and waste of carbon


A few thoughts:

If we murdered people because their parents didn't approve of them, the population of the planet, across all species, would instantly be 0.

The it's all natural argument...oh how I hate thee.

Rape, murder, starvation, disease, extinction--all natural. Hell, you can argue everything is natural, so long as it exists. Barbie, Buckminsterfullerene, and a sausage wrapped in a pancake served on a stick...Yep, all natural, baby.

You know what else is natural? Arsenic. Doesn't mean you should go out and snork some. Okay, maybe some people should.

Offspring abandoned or abused because their parents never wanted to be parents. That's everywhere. So I suppose you could call that natural.

But you know what else is in the wild?

Adoption.

Is it good for a polar cub that his biological mother was a heinous bitch, his twin brother was left to die, people want him dead, and his species is melting away with the ice? No.

But he can have a good life anyway.

Wanting that, fighting for it, that's natural too.

Fever Broke

So ill.

Of the level of ill where I know you all heard me throwing up. Sorry, but I tried to keep it down. I did.

I also had to keep squeezing my forehead because my brain was trying to burst out the front of my skull.

I woke up with that, and the vomiting.

Not unusual.

But it ignored ginger, gravol, and Imitrex. Also, of course, pleas for death.

Then came the shaking. My bones ached with cold, but I was blistering hot.

I'll spare you more gory details, and skip ahead a few days.

Today, I can star in a zombie feature. Without make up or any special effects. The fever popped most of the capillaries in my face and neck. It's truly gruesome. At best, in dim light, it looks like I was savaged down to the bone by a rogue cheese grater.

My condition has been upgraded to terrible. Still, if I could stagger more than a few feet without falling down--and then deciding it's better to just lie there, because I need to rest for few hours to have the minimum strength to get up anyway--I would totally go out.

Just to watch people recoil.

The Pen is Mightier Than...No Wait, It's Really Not

I'm pretty sure a sword doesn't tear.

Except other things.

My Wacom pen, on the other hand, has ripped its grip. This is bad, because that pen is my interface with the computer, so this is a wound only just slightly better than losing a hand or an eye.

Questing Google reveals that they won't let you replace just the grip, and a replacement pen costs almost as much as a whole new tablet. Of course. It's a disposable world. Except the world. And most people are in denial on that one too.

So I have attempted improvised repairs. That took hours, and the first few jerry-rigs failed. I finally fell back to electrical tape. Should have just went for it first, except I fear it won't hold up.

But, it must.

Sweet sweet tape. Don't tear me down...

The Road is Out

Tracbuco Road is down, with a 'This Account Has Been Suspended' message.

That can't be good.

Update (03/17/07):

And it's back.

With confirmation that 'account suspended' is isp-speak here for 'No, really, pay us.'

Sometimes, of course, it's isp-speak for 'Someone whined about your content so we nuked it', which is a fun game that no one wants to play.

Publication: 'Bard's Bones'

Bard's Bones is now live at Fusion Fragment.

Milking It

These are the most magnificent reviews ever.

(Thanks to Dave Barry)

Mythteries of Science?

Is it sweet or scary that I recognise a few of these from a vetting on Mythbusters?

Original Photography: 'Don't Moo'

Original Photography: 'Lupin'

Cringe

Cosmetic Surgery's New Frontier

This is not where *anyone* should boldy go. Ever. Yoo-hoos and lasers should never be in the same sentence. Or paragraph. Or short story.

Warning: Not to be read by anyone with secondary sexual characteristics. Or brains. Or the ability to go green and tear away their shirt when they get angry. Just don't read it. I didn't.

'Bard's Bones' Update

Payment is in, bio is sent, and the story will be appearing March 12th at Fusion Fragment.

Mark your calendar, and bait your breath.

Worms optional.

Lost Speed Paintings

These are so very cool.

It's like time lapse photography. You can watch hours of meticulous sketching unfold in a brisk couple of minutes.

Locke


Sawyer

Although, the pasted in backgrounds are such utter crap, and so are the clothes. Distracting. Getting photo-real faces is clearly where the good times were for the artist, but the work would be much stronger if s/he developed everything with the same obsessive detail, so it would all 'fit'.

Blood, Stress, and Tears

The vet has declared Pheen regulated at three, so the glucose curves are over. He won't need to go back to the vet, except for his regular checkups, and to get his vaccines, which were put off for all this. The vet wants to give him some time to calm down, so he suggested next month for his needles.

Unfortunately, just like there was no way to tell Pheen why this started, there's no way to tell him it's over. And his stress, instead of going away, is increasing. In addition to all the other horrid mess, he's crying. No, not wailing. Crying. With tears.

A constant stream of tears.

So, we're both a soppy mess.

I pretty much have the vet on speed dial now, and I had to call him again for this. I was thinking eye infection. His eyes had been streaming a little off and on during this whole thing. It's just last night it was the waterworks. He could barely see. Boo was leaving a puddle, not just on his chest, but everywhere he went. Miserable. But he could catch anything being at the vets all day once a week. Hell, I dose myself in purell after all my doctor appointments. The second I leave the doctor's office, baby. That's where sick lives.

But no, the vet said if it's clear it's not an infection. Nearly all cats have a virus. It's usually dormant, but in times of severe stress, they'll cry.

I didn't know a cat could cry.

I'd rather never known.

Original Photography: 'Lily Kitty Nose'

I am not a Geek

Okay, that is a rather big lie.

What it really means is I am not *enough* of a geek. I couldn't get Ubuntu to work. I couldn't even get it to *install*. What I got was black screen. That's it.

At least the ol' Blue Screen of Death had some colour. Also, it appeared after you had done stuff. Never when you had *finished* doing stuff, but still you had a chance to actually get in there and muck a little with something or other. Before things exploded.

I tried linux and never even got to the frickin desktop. And this is the 'easy' linux! This is the linux the other users make fun of! Easy my ass!

I went to try to google for companionship, you know, other lost mooing members of the herd in black screen or worse. Those poor poor people. They politely posted on forums for help and the nix geeks FLAYED them. The few times the nix geeks said anything that wasn't, essentially, asking them if their inbred mothers had to help them put on their pants, which they immediately soiled, it was to say to quit to command line and then, well, they utterly lost me in nix speak. But the gist was to type about as much text as War and Peace, and that probably wouldn't help, but you had to do it anyway.

I firmly believe we evolved past command line for a reason. I don't care how much shine you have in your gleeing fanboy eyes, DOS is flippin inefficient. And an accessibility nightmare, thank you.

So, I may not really like microsoft, but--and this is so weird--I got a fresh appreciation for how its OS works.

Yes, still not well. But better than anything else.

Sigh.

Oh, if only Mozilla would make an OS...

Random Trivia: Betty Boop

Betty Boop started out as a dog. Specifically, a french poodle.

Really. Her golden earrings evolved from her dangling ears.

Original Photography: 'Heart'

Random Thought: Idol Modesty

I've seen some moments on idol that made my head hurt. Also, my ears. There's a reality choke every few episodes, something that you just can't accept actually happened. Of course, I haven't believed since Season 2 that votes are actually counted by anyone, unless you include the careful accounting by the billing departments at AT&T and friends. But I am speaking beyond that, to bare basics of observation and reason.

This season was already ode to crap, and I was having some serious trouble with gagging on the judges irrational fawning, but Wednesday hit the brain break.

The judges were bruising themselves throwing flesh at the feet of Doolittle, and it was appalling. Not her singing, which was just boring. I think. I glazed over. I drifted so far, I was actually thinking this song was good when Constantine did it. Sorry if I frightened you. Anyway, it's certainly just me, but continuing to tonguebathe tonguebathe tonguebathe someone for their modesty, their humility, their down to earth folksy hominess, and on and on, is really effing ridiculous when you JUST HEARD THEM brag about flying their professional *stylist* with them out to Hollywood, complete with printed up cue dressing cards and co, and even worse, just after said oh-so-Bashful gleefully admits to calling their 'stylist and vocal coach' "The Gayles", and goes on to crow, 'as in I'm Oprah, and they're the Gayles!'

So revolting.

And she was one of the likeable ones! ARGH.

That, that was the final stake in the sad seeping vamp of this season for me.

And now, pardon me, I must go cleanse myself with Michael Bublé's 'Feeling Good'...

Update: I did not mean to imply that Bublé is modest, or not, only that the dual idol covers of 'Feeling Good' were only about 1/10000 as good as his. Give or take.

Update II: Much like the week before made me want to go hunt up some Wham! And the season before, with its Queen week, had me weeping in my milk over the loss of Freddie Mercury.

All Possible Worlds Art

My artwork, in the form of three story illustrations, is appearing now in the March issue of All Possible Worlds.

You could order an issue, or you could lie and say you did. But, lo, be warned. If, by seemingly happenstance, I idly quiz you with 'what were the pictures of?' and you say 'um, bunnies?', I will whip you with a twizzler.

Cherry.

Down

A mini-update...

Things continue to be highly unpleasant and stressed for everyone here at the Dragon Lair.

Although, Phoenix will have you know that the sympathy pain and agony of family don't mean *shit* when it's your ass being shaved. Also needles. And blood. And icky stuff shot down your throat. And--

Basically, every day is fresh toasted hell with endless humiliation thank you, and his good will is *gone*.

Actually, it's not. He gets (rightfully) pissed, but he has an *amazing* capacity to forgive. Forget? Not at all. He keeps having panic attacks.

I can't sleep. Even if I could, he needs the comfort of company. He wails. Sometimes he freaks out and hides. I'm not sure how much it helps, but staying close and Dory-crooning 'it's alright, it's okay' is definitely my job.

They've had to give him glucose the past three weeks at the vets. Each time, he came home looking worse, his fur all stiff and spiked in thwarted rage, much like he had rolled in hair gel, trying to recreate the unfortunate spiky mess trend that was bed head. Oh yes, he put up a hell of fight indeed, but the turkey baster of sugar water and a team of vets won the war. *insert hiss here*

They had had his dose up at six, then five, then four, and still he crashed from too much insulin. As of Monday, his dose is back down to 3, the original dose his treatment started with. It's so frustrating, and prolonging, and I'm hoping he doesn't yo-yo, but the vets have no answer. Not that I have polite questions. No. The best of them all start with something like WTF...?

The SU smarted that Pheen is making himself better, that he is so dang stubborn, he is out-stubborning diabetes.

Well, you know, if anyone could do it, my Boo-Boo can.