need to update that antivirus> Sick today. Yesterday I was 102.2°, and today I was 100.6° while medicated. Runny nose, splitting headache, other things. Suffice it to say, life is ugh. I even had to have them destroy my platelet donation from Saturday, which kinda sucks, but fair--I don't want someone immunocompromised getting sicker because my pride or laziness got in the way.

australia> Though one of the things I'm really looking forward to is this trip to Australia coming up next weekend (12/6 to 12/16). I get to go with my girl, I get to stay with a friend (Jo3hn), and I get to swing dance on Friday night Down Under! Plus, this is my first chance to get away since, well, the end of May this year. So, it's been six months. Far too long not to take a vacation day, but I set myself up for it.

insurance> In case you didn't know, I backed into one of the many Berkeley Priuses about two weeks ago, and the woman with whom I've been dealing is impatient, rude, whiny, and unwilling to read the very clear legally-sound emails that I've written to her about these proceedings. (tarah_rosemoon , I feel for you especially a lot right now.) The damage is not much--it may not even exceed $750--but I made the mistake of offering her a private assurance outside my insurance ($60 for gas in lieu of a rental car), which she's taking advantage of even though I was operating generously on bad information I received from the AAA claims rep. I try to be polite and kind to everyone I talk to, but that willingness ran out about 10 minutes ago. I hope it doesn't come back to bite me in the ass. Emails may be posted, locked, here later if she continues to be a thorn in my side.

furevent> Has been talked to death. I won't repeat anything here, but suffice it to say it hasn't fallen off my radar, and I will continue updates to furevent .

enough bitching> Time to feel better, hopefully.

And, for what it's worth, now there's a simple-but-somewhat-effective grid-style calendar!



Check it out at http://www.furevent.com/event/mff2009/schedule .

There are plenty of kinks to be ironed out, of course—the days should be broken up into separate grids, and the colors should be effective, and overlapping events are tricky--but at least there's the calendar everyone knows and loves!

Also, I'm a procrastinator. So there. :)

It was http://www.furevent.com/ .

And if you're going to MFF, it may be useful to you. :)

...I apparently had too much coffee this morning.

Also, I've been having a lot of fun with Django. It's like, it makes web app development FUN again! Gone are my woes of CakePHP. Gone are my nose-crinkles at the weird Ruby syntax. Between Django, Python, and WebFactional, with SVN deployment, this has to be the easiest thing I've ever deployed, bar none.

Oh yeah, and a bunch of stuff happened, like me turning 22 a month ago, and such like that.

The biggest push right now is that I'm working (or making myself available) evenings and weekends, because there's a big push at work. In fact, the webapp is kinda what's keeping me sane, because right now there are a lot of tedious little bugfixes and skinning problems and it's a bit of freedom to be able to develop an entire application, soup to nuts, in a very small line-of-code count.

But now, I've stayed up long enough. I just deployed the aforementioned, hardly-complete-but-still-kinda-usable webapp to some domain name...hmm...it's about conventions...was it furryvent.com? No, that's not it...

This weekend was our weekend at the Northern California Ren Faire, which was all kinds of awesome. I don't have pictures, but Casidhe posted them here: http://casidhe.livejournal.com/201526.html (post protected, but if you don't watch him, you should!)

Then, Monday, I got to go hear a "Geek Reading" from Randall Munroe of XKCD fame. I went with Jo3hn, and also neighbor-down-the-block/dancer/good-friend Mari, who—I found out the day of the event—was Randall's first girlfriend. *jawdrop* It was fun, and he signed my book, too!



Tuesday I attended a hastily-arranged fursuit bowling night, in Santa Clara—no, wait, Fremont. It was a lot of fun, it was a great venue, and I think they want us back! Aaron posted some great pics here: http://picasaweb.google.com/aaron.raccoon/FursuitBowling20090922#

And finally, yesterday was public dancing in Union Square, followed by a fursuit work night. I didn't get an awful lot done at the suitnight, but dancing was pretty awesome--and GroggyFox and Leo even came. (Note to you two: dance more next time!)

Anyway, now is my night in (the first in a long time) so I can do laundry and prepare for this weekend's craziness (Fairyland and Folsom, which seem to compete against each other for surreality).

So there. Life. I like it.

Poll #1452908 Why?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 12

Why?

No, really, why?

Tweet haters, enjoy! Tweetlejuice! Tweetlejuice! Tweetlejuice!

So! Super Jayhawk's party was a lot of fun. Met a lot of nice furs, had good food, and such.

Also: Finally set up my private wiki. Even did furry art for the logo. It's called Magic Blue, because in high school I used to organize my important stuff in my "Magic Blue Folder" (magic because otherwise my homework and other important papers would vanish in a puff of smoke) and then that became the name of my Backpackit account. Now that I have a server, I can shovel more data into there, and not pay $7/mo for Backpackit's premium features.

A little sick right now, but hopefully getting better. Gonna try to hit fursuit night tomorrow, after Lindy on Union Square. Yay for more dancing!

Looking forward to fun things in September... Not much scheduled Labor Day weekend, but the weekend after that is the San Francisco Lindy Exchange (whee dancing!), then

Finally: my non-furry roommate Tom moved in this afternoon. He's a chemistry major, an exceedingly nice guy, and has a mind like mine for tinkerings and other projects. It'll be good to have a friend/housemate around, and he's just all around awesome. Let's hope the year together is nice to us and our friendship.

For one of the first times in my life, I think I actually feel social. Like, I'm succeeding at keeping friendships up, and meeting new people, and stuff. The one hazard to the way I live is that I have lots of friends, but I'm not sure if I have REAL friends...someone who'd go out of their way if I were having a really bad day, or if I were between a rock and a hard place, or such.

Or maybe I do, because there are a lot of people I'd do that for, and I'm kinda taking them for granted.

Anyway, Berkeley meet last week was AWESOME (30+ people!) And the suit night at my place went well, too.

Tonight I'll probably post about my Sheevaplug fun, but for now, I'll leave you with some Australian portraiture.



Oh, and I'll take this opportunity to reiterate: These were fun. If you want portraits taken for free, let me know.

Busy, social weekend is busy and social. John's party, Tugrik's party, pancakes, then Mari's party.

Life is good, I think.

http://www.razooma.net/projects/milk/

*ducks random objects thrown from Ichi's direction*

Play with fire?



( Flash slideshow behind cut )

31 photos in the best-of set
147 photos in the full set

So yes. It was fun.

First and foremost, happy birthday to my lovely girlfriend Ari (Ichi, or ichi_black), Nace (bigkittywolf), and Jo3hn (illudiumphosdex). Somehow I'm blessed to know three awesome people who happen to be born July 19th.

Second, I has car!



It's a 2008 Hyundai Sonata, with 34k miles. I'm proud of myself, I negotiated 10% off the cost of the car--I may have been able to do better, but without a 'backup car' I didn't want to walk away. I could tell you more, but it's boring...so let's just say I'm excited to be able to get myself to more suit gigs and social events and all those shenanigans.

So anyway. Yes. Crazy good stuff in the works.

We had a portrait day. Go ahead, take a look.



On a side note, I had a lot of fun taking the shots, so if you ever want portraits taken (including fursuit portraits) let me know.

So, with thanks to tsuyoto for his tweet, I found this priceless collection of reviews. The item in question is an SIFS (a Standard-Issue Furry Shirt), which we've all seen, and which I've avoided just because you can't walk two steps without bumping into one at FC (or Chicken, usually).

Anyway, I found some other items with priceless review material, so read these if you're bored. I tried to put the funnier ones higher up.

Wolf Shirt: http://www.amazon.com/Three-Official-T-Shirt-Cotton-Sleeve/dp/B000NZW3IY

Uranium Ore: http://www.amazon.com/Uranium-Ore/dp/B000796XXM/ref=pd_sbs_a_4

Tuscan Whole Milk: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00032G1S0/ref=nosim/0sil8

The Story about Ping: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0670672238/ref=nosim/0sil8

Zubaz Pants: http://www.amazon.com/Zubaz-Pants/dp/B000WVXM0W/ref=pd_sbs_a_3

Sea Cows Shirt: http://www.amazon.com/The-Mountain-Sea-Cows-T-Shirt/dp/B000OG4ENO/ref=pd_sbs_a_1

Joe the Plumber: http://www.amazon.com/Joe-Plumber-Fighting-American-Dream/dp/0976974037/ref=pd_sbs_a_7

So, I've finally been doing some crazy stuff, despite work being really annoying this week. It helps that my mom had/has generously offered me the use of her car from June 15 through July 4, so I can get to things I wouldn't otherwise get to. By the way, she's healing well, so that's good news.

( Read more... )

So, a random recap of socialness:

THURSDAY I went to Chicken with guests Meph (gibbet) and Mal (Maldavius), who came back and spent the night at my apartment.

SATURDAY Ari and I went to the Egyptian Museum, and also stopped off at Weirdstuff Warehouse (lost my Weirdstuff virginity) and HSC (my first time at the Sunnyvale one). Then we went and hung out with Skant, Jace, and jaelyn, and played a lot of Pain, which I suck at. Ooch!

SUNDAY Ari and I went to a party with some friends from dancing, and we all watched Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Very entertaining company and movie, and it was good being with Ari. Let's just hope that next time we don't sit RIGHT next to the screen...

TUESDAY I went to Fremont Naughm after work, because work is halfway there anyway. Saw aatheus, foofers, and a bunch of other folks. Saw some new faces too, like Krominof.

WEDNESDAY I headed over to Leo's for a fursuit construction night. The next one might end up being at my place, which would be awesome.

FRIDAY I finally met up with Kriti, a friend who I "met" five years ago when she was fangirling my webcomic (her words). We've been talking online ever since, but since she was in India, it was rather hard to meet. Then she moved to Oberlin (where she almost took a class by my aforementioned ex-girlfriend and her fiancee that bears ridiculous resemblance to me).

SATURDAY I headed back from Santa Cruz (via Weirdstuff and HSC again) to Leo's barbecue, where I spent a lot of time in the pool, saw a lot of great people, met a lot of great people, and then headed afterwards to drink with them at the afterparty. Wasn't driving home at night, so I finally exposed myself to one of Zero's drinks (Tsukaza)...damn that was good.

TODAY I'm just recovering from the weekend, then off to my manager's engagement reception in Sausalito. It would be easy to get to, except I was going to meet up with my co-worker Julie at Union Square around 4, and then yesterday I suddenly remembered that the pride parade is Sunday afternoon. Eep!

I still have a bunch of photos to post, but right now I've got to "finish" that stupid project...and by "finish" I mean "hit the deadline I was supposed to hit on Friday". Le sigh.

So last night, in a caffeinated frenzy, I challenged illudiumphosdex to a short story writing contest, with a catch. Here's mine:

( 685 words )

It's the first thing I've written in a very long time. What do you think? And can you spot the "catch"?

So, ichi_black rides horses. So I took some photos of her Open Barn last weekend, and just got around to uploading them.



For all 424 photos, go here.

For all 684 photos, stalk me.

Soon to be on to vacation recap.

Maker Faire was pretty awesome. Ran into a lot of people I know--many furries, one friend from high school, my ex-girlfriend Rachel and her boyfriend (the doppelganger I mentioned a few posts back)--and met a few more too.

I have a ton of pictures/video to post, but while that all gets processed and such, I'll just share with you one of my favorite pics.

( A fox taking a knot )

At Chicken on a dying battery, after an awesome vacation. Short writeup here; pics to follow.

So.

Friday: Went to Fanime from 8am to 11am. Drove back to Berkeley, and sat in my cap and gown at the University-wide convocation with guest speaker, Mr.-Pursuit-of-Happyness himself, Chris Gardner. Then headed back down to Fanime.

Saturday: Spent the whole day at Fanime. Saw the stand-up comedy in the evening, then watched a friend embarrass himself at Yaoi Bingo. Not that he was bad-looking, or did anything wrong; we'll just enjoy the footage in a decade or two. Took video of the skit with Groggy's new head, and the the epic Pokémon dance of epicness.



Sunday: Left Fanime in the morning to go and graduate. Graduated. Traveled back home.

Monday: Farted around with nothing to do, for the first day in a long long time.

Tuesday: Headed out to Berkeley, then to Monterey, for the first vacation in a long time (conventions excluded). Stayed at the Spindrift Inn, which is a bit expensive, but worth it for a nice big room right on the beach.

Wednesday: Took a fuckton of pictures at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, then walked around Monterey for a bit and had my first four-course meal in a long time (if ever).

Thursday: Checked out, went to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk, then headed to Chicken...which brings us to right now.

Lots of pictures to process/search, from both Fanime and Monterey, but I'll post later. Because I'm sure you'd *love* to see pictures of my vacation. (sarcasm)