Updated: Image wasn't actually LINKED to the fullsized version. Gods I miss my Semagic. Need to get it reinstalled.

 

A friend sent me the URL to this. I just HAD to screen it and keep it for posterity. Probably one of the best Blue replies I've seen in forever. Someone give this man a cookie, maybe a raise too. You can see the official thread here: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=9336870406

Take my advice, copy and paste the ASCII art into something that has 10pt Arial, looks fucking awesome.

Yea, I haven't posted in forever again, got depressed for awhile  after Dragon*Con so I visited a friend and been busy since. Have a WiiFit now and been making sure to do anywhere from half an hour to a full hour a day, not to mention taking River down to the park to walk for at least 15 mins.

I need to post more, but lack of a good LJ client for the iphone is making me drift away from it more and more. Yes, there are half a dozen blogging clients, but none do things like tagging, mood, location, music, or anything. It's just public posting. Hell, the overall lack of a good text editor really makes me miss my old Treo sometimes.

In other news, my new laptop is working great, except my external HD died. As in, corrupt master table. Quu has tried to fix it to no avail. The sad part is, not only did it have all my music on it (which was just copies from our master collection on the network) but all my stories and documents. All my notes. I had no less than two novel outlines in the works. All of it wasn't backed up elsewhere because I was in the middle of moving it to the new computer. THinking about it makes me depressed so unless I post to say it's fixed, don't expect me to talk about it much.

If you don't have a Wii, trust me when I say it's worth getting one just for the Wii fit. People spend thousands of dollars on excercises equimpment, but this is one that you will actually USE. The only bad part of it is that, according to the current BMI charts, the vast majority of americans are OBEASE. Most of these people are not obease by comparison to others, but the poor WiiFit can't tell the difference. Believe it or not, Quu CAN use it, but getting him to do so will be a chore. Pointing out that sex will be better when we're both in shape doesn't seem to effect him. *sighs*

In any case, I have a dozen errands to run and a puppy to take to the park.

My heart goes out to synamontwist .

Well, christmas is come and gone, still have a handful of cards to still send out.. hopefully before new years. *sighs* But.. got a LOT done.

( Cut for kids stuff. )

( Cake and Soup Adventures! )

( Christmas. )

( Gaming. )

( LJ Icons! )

( Health and Depression. )

( Da House! )

Gah.. that's about all I can think of.

Trying to get back in contact with friends again.. but it's hard. Ya'll know how bad I am at keeping in touch.

Looking forward to ShadowCon though.

Enough for now.. hope ya'll enjoy the LJ cuts.. didn't want to clog up the friends pages and make everyone ignore me. >_>;;;

Laters!

River is home!!

She's doing great. After we talked to the vet, they assured us that her going 'puppy chunks' won't really be a danger. we just have to make sure she doesn't run around and be physically active.

The good:

Last weekend was a blast!! Saturday, Pat, River and I walked to downtown Kennesaw for the "Taste of Kennesaw" going on by the train station. Was small but SOO fun. Lots of other puppies there. River was SOOO well behaved. She got kinda scared when a train went by, but she never barked or anything. Just skittish and shaking. It was a GORGEOUS day too. Sunday we stayed home, but I spent the day making my famous "Meat Buns". Though sadly I can't find my normal bread recipe and had to try a new one. Tried out an Egg Bread recipe that actually turned out really well. The only part that was kinda so so was that we over boiled the gravy and it was STRONG. But the REALLY fun part was that while I was cooking dinner, Pat cleared the table off and we played games while the food was cooking. Home cooked food and games, sooo much fun.

The bad:

River is currently in with the vet. Nothing unexpected, but this is her first round of heartworm treatments. They are keeping her in for 3 days (we dropped her off monday morning). Though the only kinda bad part was that they had done some xrays monday and there was something in her lungs. Probably just a piece of heartworm, but they wanted to call us and let us know, finding out if she's been acting odd (coughing whatever) the past few days. Apparently what the heartworm treatments do is slowly kill off the worms which then break apart and flow into the lungs where they get re-absorbed into the body. So that's probably what showed up on the xray. I really like our vet. Some wouldn't bother telling us this stuff.  Haven't heard anything today so I guess things are all ok. I pick her up tomorrow.. hopefully. Scary part is that even once we get her home we're supposed to keep her calm for a month. You ALL know how spastic she get's when we come out. We've got the name of a specific sedative to ask for if they don't give us something (who knows, they might just give it to us anyway). I think they will get to know exactly what we mean when we show up to pick her up and she freaks out. Anyway, I'll keep ya'll updated. Just really miss her right now.

The UGLY:

My laptop is dying.

Some of you might already know about this from Quu's journal (or maybe I've already posted about this? Hell if I know!), but a couple months ago I started getting these one pixel wide vertical lines going down my screen. The count is now up to 5: 1 cyan, 2 yellow, 2 magenta. The 5th line showed up when I was having a very very shitty day up in Michigan. Anyone who knows Quu knows that one of the primary ways he shows his love and affection is by buying gifts. (No.. not buying your love, but 'spoiling' people.) After I refused to talk to him (or anyone else that day) he never did get to tell me.. but when I got home he kept saying "You've got a surprise coming on the 19th!" My first thought was that I had out of town friends coming up to stay for an extended weekend or something. But no one would spill the beans even though Pat was all but BURSTING at the seams to tell me (god that man can't keep a secret to save his life, but i love him for it!). So eventually we go out with folks, i think to a movie or something, and I come back and find a Dell receipt  displayed on my web browser. Yes.. Pat had already bought me my new laptop. Yes.. it's shiny and new.. and while it was supposed to be here by tomorrow, won't be here till NEXT Friday.

Ugly part is having not only to move over all my files, but having to dig up all my old passwords and clean them off this puter. Ooo.. and my email. ;_; Thankfully I've already got all my MP3s moved over to a file server (which my itunes points to), but damnit I'm gonna lose my ratings on everything. GAAAHHH... anyone know how to share the ratings on songs in itunes form one computer to another? It is the one thing I hate about getting a new computer.. moving all my flies over. Though technically this one still works so I can use both... But i want to clean most my stuff off so I can let pat use this when we go out.

While I might miss my old full keyboard, I think Pat is going to get me a docking station for it so I can hook up my keyboard and mouse to it. Would do better on my back than having to reach up to the laptop (don't have a proper desk chair at the moment)


An now for something totally random:

Tonight: SCA Fighter Practice - 7:30-dark at Bell's Ferry Park

... that i haven't been posting again, let alone keeping up with people's journals. *sighs* sorry about that.

It's been a rough past couple of months.

While my trip up north was fun and productive, it was taxing being away from home for so long. Not to mention frustrating that mom's surgery didn't go through. A week from today is her doctor's appointment and she'll find out if they are gong to go ahead with the surgery on the 10th or not. If yes, i'll be buying my plane tickets and going back up there, but I might just go ahead and cut back as much as I can on how long i'm up there. Four weeks max, not a day longer. That's about all I can do before I start to break down.

For those who don't know, River has heartworms. It's going to be hard when she has the injections because we have to keep her calm. Might have to ask for some sedatives because she get's exceedingly worked up when pat or I come home, even if we're only gone for 5 minutes. Ladye Gray's tests came back, she's doing perfectly fine, as are the rest of the cats. However, I just noticed that Sasha has some real bad matted knots in his fur. Worse than Sebastion EVER had. They are in sensitive spots too.. like under his neck and behind his ear. I find out last night from pat that while I was gone, Sasha got out and was trapped in the POOL for quite a long time (my guess is River chased him there). His fur is so fluffy, all it would take is a single twig or burr and his fur is real bad. I'm trying to cut them out as he'll let me.. but he's more slippery than Sebastion. *sighs*

I'm slowly getting back into the swing of things. Pat's been patient with me. All i've wanted to do was sleep and poke on the puter. Been cleaning on my own again.. not much, but it's slowly coming back.

Ok.. so a couple days ago I find a green hairball on my living room floor... gross, yes, but not as gross as what was in it. The green color I knew was because I had the cat grass out again.. but that didn't account for the insect like exoskeletons the hairball contained. My first thought was: "holy shit those look like god damn huge fleas!" yes.. dime sized fleas..

I freaked.

Talked to pat, and was on the phone with the vet in less than 10 mins. Scheduled an appt to bring in all the animals because i was terrified that if one had digestive parasites then probably they all did. Besides.. River needed her heartworm checkup and the cats were vastly overdue for their shots.

By the time pat got home that night, he mentioned the near infestation of crickets we have in our basement and that Sebastion had been down there for a while the other day. My freaking out lessoned, but i'm still not 100% sure it's crickets.

--
fast forward to today
--

Appt is set for 2pm. At 1:40pm we pull out the cat carrier and the dog crate. Pat grabs Sebastion and I pick up Sasha. Two attempts to get them in the crate and they are NOT happy.. we have to let them out because the two boys started to fight. Oops. We resign ourselves to the fact we're gonna have to come back to get The Tasmanian Devil (aka Ladye Gray) after we drop the boys and River off. The boys are mewing in protest the whole drive, but River is happy as a clam. We get to the vet and they go ahead and put us in the exam room, let Pat borrow one of their cat carriers to go get Ladye Gray (spouting all the while that I'm going to have to buy him dinner to repay him for his trouble >_>).

First up is River (who's shaking like a leaf) and Sasha, taking both in the back for the general stuff they do. I'm sitting on the floor petting Sebastion through the door on the crate (nice hole I can squeese my hand through) to calm him down when I hear the yipping and barking from River. She's such a cry baby. They eventually bring them back and River is more than pleased to be back with Mommy. She parks on my lap, loops around my chair, and sometimes hides under my chair. Almost 10 mins have passed and still not Pat and Ladye Gray. I'm slightly worried. Vet comes in with the nurse who's got Sebastion and his crate. He gives Sebastion his physical and his shots and they get him back in the crate fine... though he was obviously NOT happy about getting the shots.

Next is Sasha... and comedy ensues. The Vet is writing notes on the charts while the nurse tries to get Sasha out of the carrier. He's got his head to the back, and it's a pretty tight fit (not too tight, but quite comfy) plus the carrier is on the floor so she's having trouble. She brings it up to the table and tries to maneuver the carrier while drag him backwards all at the same time. Cat is NOT budging. Sasha, as most of you probably know.. is a slippery cat. His fluffy fur only adds to his ability to slip through your fingers. I'm starting to laugh at the poor girl's trouble, and offer to help even though River is on my lap. By this time the Vet was done making notes and reaches over to take the carrier from the nurse. He then proceeds to upend the thing and try to shake him loose while the nurse reaches up inside to try and pull Sasha out. Picture this: Ever seen those cartoons where someone is about to be dumped in a pot of boiling water or some such? They brace their feet on the rim and refuse to budge? Now picture this cat doing the exact same, only he's inside and refusing to come out. The towel comes out fine, but Sasha just is NOT leaving that damn carrier. By this point I'm laughing so hard I'm crying. Eventually the nurse manages to get ahold of him, I think he eventually turned around, and plops him on the table. We're all laughing by this point. The vet looks him over and gives him his shots (though he nearly got away once).

Ok.. by this point.. Pat STILL isn't back with Ghetto Girl and i'm about to call him when the door opens and there he stands... looking like he just ran a marathon.. or been through a warzone... take your pick. Pat sets the carrier down and proceeds to tell us the story while the vet finishes up with Sasha. Apparently as soon as Pat walked in the door and LG saw the carrier.. she tore off like a flash. He tried picking her up off the couch.. and she took the cushions off with her.. all three of them somehow. He tried getting her in the carrier four times.. she 'shot out like a chinese cannon' each time. At one point he had her and she managed to scratch his belly (not too bad).. but then her back claws dug into his jean shorts and literally tore them to shreds. I will admit.. I thought he was over exaggerating at this point. Mostly cause he kept saying 'You're very lucky she didn't cut the skin or i'd be a eunuch'.

Well by this point the vet was done with Sasha and he went back into his carrier fine. River was up next and she was a good puppy. He looked at her tail, and it looks like there are probably some fleas in the backyard that are biting her. She just does NOT react well. She's also got a few other allergic reactions and said we could give her a normal dose of benidryl to help with the allergies until the flea medication prevented the fleas from bothering her.

Finally he's done with River and it's time for the Tasmanian Devil. After a good discussion.. we decide to have her put under anthisia so the doc can give her a full check up. I'm quite worried about her because she looks like she's lost a lot of weight. Anyway.. that gives us about a half hour to wait so Pat takes the boys back home. Pat get's back just after LG finally starts to wake up, so we had to take her home in the borrowed carrier. I did spend an extra 5 bucks and got River a pink ribbon neck-kerchif. Less for the kerchif and more for the donation to the Komen foundation. But anyway.. got everything all paid up, meds bought, then took River and LG home.

Needless to say, LG bolted as soon as the door to the carrier was opened and we had a hard time even finding her before we left to return the carrier and get some lunch.

Oh.. btw.. pat was NOT exaggerating when he was talking about his shorts. I HAVE to take pictures of these so you all can see them. I think we're going to hold onto them as a deathly reminder.

Been an interesting day to say the least ^_^

Just took this pic outside of River. You can find the full version in my DA gallery.

I just found all my old LJ user icons over in my yahoo briefcase...

my yahoo bookmarks are still there too.

As for my 'house cleaning' of the journal.. when I got to the post when we got river I had come full circle and now I think all my entries are tagged (cept for a few I left untagged as they were personal notes to people on my friends list and nothing important).

I have to snuggle with river now... reading that post brings back all those memories of that tiny puppy. She's gonna be THREE.. can you believe it's been that long?

internetbrain: Dog and Cat Food Recall:

Menu Foods has issued a recall of over one hundred pet foods for both dogs and cats–largely cutlets in gravy type food. Animals are suffering from organ failure and even dying from the contaminated food. Dozens of brands like Iams and Eukanuba are included. If you have a pet, check the recall website to make sure that you’re not poisoning him or her.

Luckily we don't use any of that for the cats or river.

Our heater is broke. The big one. For some odd reason, even though the thermostat is saying the heater needs to be on, it's not kicking in. My fear is that the mouse/rat we have living in the walls has eaten the cables going from the thermostat to the heater. It already ate the Ethernet cable going to the wireless antenna. We've got traps and poison now. My fear with the poison is that it will die where the cats can get it and they'll eat it (Sasha apparently caught one and ate it earlier). I'm hoping the traps will work first. *sighs*

Woke up late, but had a wonderful morning/afternoon. Hopped on the puter and joined rhast in some Diablo2.

Couldn't find my LoD disk so broke down and bought a new one. Forgot just how awesome this game is. Could have sworn I played this at 1024x768, but all it goes up to is800x600. Guess my swiss cheese memory is wrong yet again. Playing on Battle.net East Realm if anyone out there still plays D2. My Assisan is up to lvl 20, and with rhast's help she's got some nifty good gear.

Ate my leftover curry from Fuji Hana's (the masaman, a type of sweet yellow curry), which was excellent. quu had some swedish meatballs and was happy. Then came the fun! Dug out River's leash and jumped in the car and went down to PetSmart. Was SOO much fun. River had a blast seeing all the other dogs, there was even a real beagle puppy. Main reason for going was that I wanted to get River a sweater or coat. Yes.. clothing my dog. But there is a reason! She goes out in this cold weather and all but freezes! So got her a little cloak/coat thing. Micro-suede, mocca brown. It's a "Large" but is still just a tad small for her. Tried it out on her tonight while we went for dinner and the only thing really cold on her was her ears. We priced dog houses because that's our future solution to her freezing outside.. a dog house out the back porch with a heated pad. Anyway...

Went to Outback for dinner.. was ok. Just not really blow away by their food anymore. Course I didn't get the grilled shrimp.

Talked to my Sister. She's flying into town tomorrow afternoon for a convention. Going to meet her at the airport and then go to dinner with her and her high school best friend who apparently lives down here now.

Talked to my Mom. She's driving now! Really happy about that. She's going to try to try and go to church tomorrow (a half an hour drive for her), so keep your fingers crossed if ya don't mind. Her progress is doing great. She's down to just using one crutch out and about, while doing short walks around the house.

ottom, quu said you want to get together tomorrow.. is it ok if we do lunch-early afternoon rather than dinner stuff?

BTW, reminder to look at THIS POST about my Secret Santa idea

Grrr..

Sometime yestreday, River came in from outside and brought her "glove" with her. Its a leather yardowork glove that used to be mine but she claimed it as one of her toys. I think one of the pair is already in the trash, this one made it's way outside and is hard and used from being outside though all sorts of inclament weather. Well anyway...

When we finally went to bed last night, she decided to bring it into bed with us to play (before sleep is her "playtime", wither we want to or not). So Quu goes and plays tug-a-war with her and the glove. I'm laying there, trying not to be the monkey in the middle, and feel something hit my neck and chest... it's pieces of the glove. I call a halt to the fun and games and make Quu put the glove away, to be later thrown away. No wanting pieces of ruined leather in my bed, thank-you-very-much. So we all settle down for sleep, lights off, but River still wants to play. Sometime between then and when Quu fell asleep, I felt something hit my eye. I blink several times and try to get it out, but it feels like it's gone under my eyelid.

I drag my booty outta bed and go examine my eye in the mirror... I can't find anything but my eye is REALLY starting to itch and be a pain.

Damn thing keeps me up all fucking night.

So just before we go in to El Rodeo for lunch, I get Quu to take a look at my eye and see if there is anythign there, or if my worse suspesion is true and I have a bump on my eyelid/eyeball. Ugg... it's always the worst. He sees a big nasty bump on my eyelid and I run over to CVS whie he get's us seats. After much debate, I chose some "Visine-A" an antihistamine and redness reliever. Last time I had something like this it was an allergic reaction (I think to dust that had gotten in my eye, back when i had contacts). Stuff stinks like a mo-fo but it's helping... problem is I don't know if it's helping enough.

When we got home I went to get some sleep, woke up with it feeling like i have mount rushmore under my eyelid scraping my eyeball. It freaking HURTS.

Put in a drop and it stings but feels better, but then about 5 mins later It's hurting again so I have to put in more. This sounds like a very bad sign. I hope it get's better by tomorrow, cause I don't want to have to go into the doctor.. might mean i have an eye infection. *sigh*

Phrase almost guarenteed to make me laugh:


"Meow Meow Meow, MutherFucker..."

A little explanition about the "Puppy chuncks"....

no.. it doesn't refer to River throwing up (though she did do that late last night). It actually refers to just how freaking excided she get's when one or both of us comes home. She barks, howles, yipps, jumps, runs, cowers, jumps, barks, etc... to the point where you'd sware she was going to EXPLODE....


hence... Puppy Chuncks.

two words


puppy chuncks

looks like I got home just in time to be sick. nasty cold. sore throat, post nasel drip, cough, and that general icky feeling.

we got river some new dog food and she likes it. over two days she is looking healther. maybe she just wasn't eating caused she mistsed me.

having fun with my treo. got a graffity program, but not sure how it will turn out.

I think i'll go turn back into bed now.

Arrived home fine. Had a present waiting for me. Bill th Cat gave me his Treo. I love it. The only thing I don't like is that graffiti doesn't work. I need to look if I can find something to replace it. I love the keyboard, but want things. Also have my books ready
I'm concerned for River. She seems really under weight. Her ribs are starting to show. Its been wonderful having her around again.

I love being home with Quu. I'm laying here snuggling while he sleeps. :-)

Just checking up on a few things before sawing some Zzz's...

Getting ready to close down my computer and I take a good look at my new desktop of river:


I'm noticing the oddest things... Like her coloring seems to have changed since she was a puppy. Most of the black on her face seems to be all brown now.. with it only showing black from certain angles. Also, I think her ears are mostly brown now too. How odd.

Anyway.. here are the cute pics that android18sl sent me of my little baby girl:
( Click here to see puppy cutiness )

Anyway.. now it's time for bed. Night everyone!

River is so like me it's not funny. In the mornings she's excited to go outside and use the potty, but then it's right back in bed and back to sleep. She LOVES to curl under the blankets and sleep all snuggly and warm. Earlier I was laying in bed and she was under the featherbed with me. She wiggled up so just her head was sticking out... laying just like mommy.

 I finally cleaned off my SD card from my camera and found some OLD pictures on there that are great. Some from ACen, but also some from when we first got River. SOO CUTE! She's TINY!! Eventually we'll have the gallery back up and I'll post those pics for everyone to see.

I'm really giong to miss her when I'm gone. *cries*