Yay, Boueibu Season 2 Has Started.

Oh for fuck’s sake....

Why is every sci-fi game I play always end with having to sacrifice yourself, or everything was pointless and humanity as whole gets fucked over or be forced to watch as the main character fucks over humanity because they’re being duped or just because they can’t think rationally for 1 minute and realise they’re being total idiots.

Okay, as technology improves, things get easier- but why is it that the biggest morons always end up in space, deciding the fate of all life on Earth?!

Reposting so I can find this easier (for, uh.... research ;p ) Well honestly, I started off with view that a well-formed pair of buttocks are pleasant enough to gaze upon, but the absolute fervor so many have was just confusing- and then I come across something like this and I’m “Oh, I kind of get it now”. Not just a well-formed ass, it’s a well-formed ass that allows me a glimpse into the world-view of other human beings. Ladies and gentlemen: Katono Taiko- ass ambassador.

Chase + Tight Pants

I’m kidding myself that anyone looks at my tumblr, but hey, reblogging anyway because this is a gorgeous young pup who deserves someone who loves her.

About a week ago, I was driving down my street and as I approached my house this dog was walking across my drive way. Then into the neighbors.. And into the street.

I parked, almost lost a shoe, and ran into the street after her.

I had to chase her a couple houses down, and then I just sat down. I bowed my head and licked my lips. She slowly walked over and let me pet her. Then, she let out the saddest howl I’ve ever heard in my life.

My dog.. My dog is spoiled. She wants for nothing. She barks AT MY FACE because we are not moving out the door fast enough. Emma has never made a pain sound in the four years I’ve had her, and I work TIRELESSLY to make sure she stays that way. But, this dog.. This dog had been on the streets for a couple days as noted my not so concerned neighbors. Who were nice enough to lend me some rope, so I could walk her back home.

We got into the house. I gave her water, a treat and she declined. But she did want pets. And slowly she started to fall asleep on my hand. Maybe she just needed rest and comfort…

What happened next was that I had to call a shelter to come get her. If you know Emma, then you know she’s very bossy and very territorial about her things. (Pudge knows. She tried to take off his face once. Okay, several times.) and so I helped coax her out of my house and into an animal control van….

It breaks my heart, guys. 7 days and no one has claimed her. I have messaged rescues and only one has responded to me. They said they only take dogs who have a dedicated foster already. In the corgi community, we all jump at rescues and dogs in need - because we all have a passion for our breed. But, what I’m finding with pitty/staffy mixes is they are just “another dog”…

So, what I’m asking (and thank you if you got this far) - this dog is in Carrollton, Texas. She deserves a home. She deserves people. Please share, please help me find her a place where she belongs.

- Nicole

Kougami Foundation Internal Research Report: Long-term metaphysical human side-effects due to long-term bodily possession by a sentient avian-based alchemical construct. Or, How Izumi Shingo became a Disney Princess.

The first clue Ankh's possession had Changed Things was something anybody would miss. The balcony and windows of the Izumi apartment, Shingo’s car, favourite spot to eat lunch, etc. Japan was a clean place and bird droppings are only something you notice when they’re present.

The second clue was odd, but a bird attacking the robber Shingo had been chasing through the park- well it was close to nesting season- the conclusion anyone would come to is that the robber came too close to the bird’s nest. Between the adrenaline of the chase, cuffing the man, and the planning of the paperwork ahead, well, no-one ever thought to wonder why Shingo was exempt form the bird’s attack.

The third clue however, couldn’t be ignored or explained away.

It had been a long day, the latest in a sequence of long days, and it would be a long night as well. Shingo had not only missed lunch, but dinner as well, and wouldn’t be getting a break anytime soon to let him rectify the problem. A situation he lamented about out loud.

He found out that he had been overheard by more than his coworkers when not long after he spoke, a Tokyo raven- those eerily clever, oversized urban corvids- dropped off a bag of senbei, sold by a vending machine only few blocks away.

What if Ankh's title "King of the Birds" actually had some weight to it? With the King dead, the guy the King ended up posessing for a year seems as fitting a candidate for Regent until the King's ressurection right?

Honestly, even for a throw-away one-shot, I'm not that happy with this. Really needs a beta or co-author to punch it up I think.

My feelings on the Fallout 4 trailer.

Okay coming late to the party here, but then, that sums up my relationship with games for the most part.

Promo: It's Fallout 4!

Me: Ooh neat, I've been having a lot of fun with Fallout 3, what's this one about?

Promo: It's Fallout 4!

Me: Yeah, but what is it abou.. Promo: Fallout 4! Look! Dog!

Me: Hey, great looking animation on the dog. I never used the dog, I can't stand dogs getting hurt, even in video games, I took the Animal Friend perk just so wouldn't have to hurt the wild dogs. So anyway, what's the game about?

Promo: It's Fallout 4!

Me: Ah, that's all pre-rendered stuff, I'm with Yahtzee on this one, that doesn't count. Nice looking locations, but what's the gameplay like?

Promo: It's Fallout 4! Vault 111!

Me: So is this still in the Washigton area? Does the story tie in with the events of Fallout 3? Is it set sometime after? Before? During, but in another place? Are you going to give me anything?

Promo: It's Fallout 4!

Me: Yeah, but what's the storyline? What's the starting goal of the game? Hell, what's the gameplay like? I’m not going to drop my cash on a name and some pre-rendered graphics that tell me nothing about the product.

Promo: It's Fallout 4!

Me: Oh fuck this.

Promo: It’s Fallout 4! Pre-order now!

Inspired by this awesome post.

Because commenting on the site doesn’t feel right.

Because what I want to say feels too much like making things all about me.

http://archiveofourown.org/works/6919726 Yep, back on a bit of a Red Dwarf kick.

The more I think on it, the more I have mixed feelings about this one. Although, maybe I’m slightly emotionally burned-out right now and am having trouble connecting. Or it’s just because the OCD portrayed doesn’t fully fit with my experiences. But that’s the problem with OCD, it’s different for everyone. Heck, as a teenager, for a while I was seeing a psychiatric nurse that specialzed in kids with OCD, and some of what I told her about my problems at the time kinda threw her for a loop.

Honestly, I’m wondering why this fic doesn’t reasonate with me more- the number of times in my teenage years, being locked into ritual behaviours that were part of my pre-bedtime routine. The times I’d mess up a step and have to start it over before I could proceed to the next one, or worse, have to go back to an earlier step and start from there, in tears because I had to start over, and all I wanted to do was go to bed and sleep.

Maybe it's the "voices" part. It's never been voices for me, heck, it's not even really words as the intrusive thoughts, it's never been that structured. For me, it was feelings. It was all coming from my own brain, just a part I couldn't control. And as it turns out, couldn't defy. ...Not without repercussions.

For years I was trapped in the glass maze, running the same paths over and over. "Normal" was outside the maze, I could see what it was like, but I couldn't experience it. Pounding against the glass only hurt myself.

My psychiatrist got me out of the maze when he gave me something else. The Dragon The Dragon has rules, if I obey the dragon, I stay safe under it's belly. But if I challenge it, I get stomped.

Different psychologists, all sorts of therapies. All to appease my mother. But that, it was all challenging the dragon. And I got stomped. And afterwards, for daring to challenge the dragon? It's rules got more strict.

Still, I kept following my mother's battle cry. Every different therapy a futile attack, every new therapist or psychologist a new lance. And all the while, me getting stomped, because even though I'd learned about it's punishment, I was still trying to appease my mother first.

So now, I'm effectively housebound. For a while I was bound to my bed, but even my parents had learned not to fight the dragon, and instead of a lance, gave me something better- my own cozy resting place under the dragon's belly. -A granny flat in the backyard.

I'm still living at home, but I have my own place. I pay rent, but it's covered by my pension, and I gain so much more than I could lose. The dragon's punishment is heavy- I can't touch anyone with bare skin, but I can afford the gloves that let me pat our dogs.

And best of all? My psychiatrist is not a lance, not a challenge to the dragon. More a Sage, from whom I purchase tributes for the dragon. ....I'm getting too into the metaphor thing, aren't I? - I'm medication only. The dragon's fine with medication. It's not an attack, it makes the dragon happy enough to rescind a few rules.

Translation being, behavioural therapy only made things worse, but meds and finding ways to work within the boundaries set by my OCD is not only fine, but has seen some small improvements for me.

So yeah, what was going to be a short post in place of a comment didn't work out, I put out a standard wall-of-text attack instead. -But I was right, it was all about me. Which is why I just left kudos instead.

Have I said too much? Probably. Luckily, no-one will ever read this. ;)

Hey, it's a legitimate reason for not getting off the couch in my family. "Can't move- catted."

I always imagine this happening to Wash and either Carolina or Maine just walk over like “get up” and he just points to the cat like “i cANT now shush it’s sleeping”

Circumstances.

So, back in…. May. The 17th or 18th thereof. The laptop I was using hit the loading screen singularity. It booted to an error message. I could restart, and get the same error message, or I could try to run recovery, watch it fail, then restart.

So geared up in my informal hazmat-lite disposable attire, I stepped out of the front door of my little Fortress of Crazitude, and went inside the house, where the functional human beings live, to use a laptop there.

Searching for something I liked was going to take a while. In that strange Before Time, when people went outside without being masked, Dad zipped out and kindly got for me the cheapest laptop he could find.

Now I could begin my search in earnest.

Starting with the gaming rigs. Hideous, hideous, awkard design (that was hideous). The closest to what I was looking for was an Alienware model… that was hideous, and came with something called Tobii eye-tracking. I don’t want my computer staring at me. Plus, this was a gimmick, I don’t play the kind of intense shooters where every picosecond counts.

I kept looking.

I found a laptop marketed as a ‘desktop replacement’. Just the sort of thing I wanted. Something with the power of a desktop, but without needing me to do a major cleaning job to find space for it, and/or rig up something to hold a monitor where I wanted it? Perfect.

So I looked around, a place in the US, it had them in stock, and they would even customize it. Great, a bigger hard-drive! Okay the thing needed two power-bricks to work, which would be a hassle, but I could live with that.

In the meantime, the budget laptop could just about run an older version of Minecraft… as long it was on the server my bff’s hurricane child had dragged me onto, I could make do.

I made my order. ……….

3 weeks passed. I heard nothing from them. Okay, the world is in chaos, I expected some delays. Still, I wanted at least some idea for how much longer I would be making ersatz icepacks to keep my new little laptop from overheating from the overworking I was currently giving it, even as I did my best to cut down on my usual habits to lessen strain on it’s CPU.

I sent in a request for an update. “Oh yeah, turns out we didn’t actually have one in stock”. So how long till they could get one? “Oh they’re discontinued. How about one of these?”

All the ‘these’ were ones I’d looked at and already discounted. Wait, here’s one on eBay, how I about I send it to you, and you upgrade that one? I’ll pay the extra shipping fees.

“Oh no, we wouldn’t be able to honor a warranty on that.”

My domain is the black hole of electronics. Once it’s in here, it won’t leave again. My OCD means I cant have something sent out to be repaired and have it sent back. Once it’s here, it’s here. I tried to explain this, and said I would waive any rights to a warranty. It would be the most expensive idiot tax I’d ever paid, but I was willing to pay it.

June passed and I heard nothing.

Time to look again. I had toyed with the idea of a custom rig from another place in the US, but, oh, the price tag. And the wait time. …Mainly the price tag. Okay, major purchase for me, and I was going to crack open my savings. But still, I’m on a pension.

Okay, another look, see if I can find anywhere in Australia. More cash could be spent on the laptop itself and not the insane international shipping tool.

I found a place. Custom configurations, in a shell that isn’t painful to look at.

Could it be?

I checked some reviews. Chunky…. I like a bit of heft to a device. Besides, it wasn’t going to be doing a lot of moving anyway. 1-2 metres on average at best. Fans can get loud…. that means they’re working. I can get a headset if I need it.

Ooh, and they have a sale on too. I consult with in-house tech support. I’m told I can get the hard-drives cheaper elsewhere, and another M2 memory stick, then put them in myself.

Sweet, more cash to spend on the graphics card and CPU. Not quite top-tier, but heck, I hadn’t been running any of my games on the old laptop at full graphics settings anyway. No dvd drive though, but every other maker seems to have dispensed with those as well. Oh well, it’s not like I used those much anyway, and I can always get an external one.

And it only needs the one power brick.!

Better specs than the discontinued model, I can max out on hard-drive space and have a second M2 drive just for my games, with plenty of room!

Before the end of June, I make my order.

I find a big hard-drive, a good sized M2 stick, and even an external usb enclosure for the hard drive I pulled out of the blue-screened purgatory.

July, that place in the US actually mails me back. Since I was willing to waive a warranty, they might be able to source a model off eBay. Ship has sailed, I’ve found me something nicer, and I’ve picked out the extra drives for it.

A few days later, the new place emails me. They’re having delays, but we have a new range out which will be coming in sooner, here are the stats, we can switch you over to one of those?

I forward the stats to tech support. Nope, the hard drive you got in anticipation won’t fit. New place “hmm, that’s true, we’ll do our best to keep you updated”.

They do, and and my order’s been put in priority for assemblage.

As August gets into gear, my new workhorse arrives, and the poor beleaguered budget laptop can retire to light browsing duty.

Only the big hard drive I got? Turns out it’s fat ass can’t fit in the drive bay. Oops. But with the help of tech support, I found an external enclosure that will fit it, so I have a roomy and easy to use backup device.

And then I stripped the head on the screw holding in the M2 memory. And the other slot, that requires a lot more work to get to. But I’m already wiped from the ordeal, the files on the now external drives run fine, and I still have plenty of room on the drive. I can wait for the sales, and pick up some (carefully dimension-checked) drives then. (This beast will hold 2 standard hard drives!) and get around to putting in the second M2 stick.

And that concludes this chapter of Crazy Shut-in Searches for Their Dream Laptop.