Got bored, and decided to see if I could put together a Belle avatar without buying anything. Did pretty well, IMHO.
( Cut for ginormous pictures )

Gonna reinstall Second Life.

Miss my Robot Ninja Catboy.

i'm thankful for...

-The internet. It may not be perfect, or even sane, but I've grown a lot thanks to its amazing, insane, often perverted denizens. Love all of you, guys.

-Gaia Online. I may have outgrown it mostly, but without them I wouldn't have many of my dearest friends.

-Kevin. You've always got my back when I need opinions/feedback/someone to debate the merits of heavy ordinance with.

-Rowan. Gods, you've turned me onto parts of my brain I didn't know I had. Thanks a bunch for the Doctor.

-Dayna. You are just so damn profane sometimes, I fucking love it. <3

-Rene. You out the sexy and darkness in sexy!darkness, and made rot hot. You're also teh uberl33t h4x with a wacom tablet.

-Gendou. You're always willing to give technical advice to less learned people such as I. Also, you play a priest and I love heals.

-Tessa. For being so damn adorable. Seriously, it's like a panda cub and a kitten did a fusion dance or something.

-Cleo. For your snarky wit, Your witty snark, and for adding "I think I saw a porno like this once" to my personal vocabulary. And for The littlest Edward.

-Anime. You show me worlds that don't exist but damn well should. Row Row, fight the power.

-My family. It may not be perfect, but they love me, which is more than enough.

-And all the other people/things/ideas i can't think of right now because I am sleeeeepy. Every last one of you rock face so hard.

So, time for a DnD update!

last Sunday I got my ranger to level 2, which means I got to take my combat style. Archery is pretty boss since it gives me free Rapid Shot (+1 attack per full attack at your full bonus -2 per shot), which frees up choices in the long run. I've decided that Caiphas is a member of the Night Watch, a group of hunters based in his hometown determined to rid the world of lycanthropes and all other terrors of the night. With his share of the profits for the first game he bought some silver arrows since we've already encountered a were-rat and who knows how far the infection has spread? In fact, our paladin got a little too eager and get bitten, and is already showing signs of turning. Our group made a deal with the local dwarven king to cure her, but we haven't gotten that far yet. Given the oaths my character has made, He's honor-bound to either help cure a bite victim, or to see them dead if they turn.

I'm expecting dragons to start popping up soon since the GM has been dropping lots of hints that a war between Black and Gold dragonflights is imminent if it hasn't already started.

So far my personal swag is about 450-ish gold pieces, a +1 Lycan-bane longbow I've named Straight Silver, and ten silver arrows I'm really wanting to use on something.

Anyone know if there is a "Monster Hunter" prestige class, or something along those lines?

Guys, I think Belle is dying on me.

I've just about come to terms with it, I think. She's had a good run, but sometimes you can't fix something for love nor money, and I think this is one of those times.

Starting to look into Laptop options now. Hopefully I can keep her going until I find a nice shiny new body for her ghost.

((Yeah, I have some emotional issues with electronics. At least my neuroses are harmless, I guess?))

I pretty much hate everyone and everything in the world right now.

Got a letter from SSA today. So after jumping through every hoop, getting every scrap of info I possibly can, what came of it? A letter saying that I can't get a SSN until I provide more information proving I'm not some terrorist.

Honestly, I just don't even care anymore. What's the damn point of trying to be a honest citizen if the government can't even do one little thing for me when I need it? I've tried going through everything they've asked of me, but obviously it isn't good enough.

So tired of this.

Sometimes, I just wanna go to sleep and not wake up for a year.

Trying to figure out ways to keep my computer alive until I can scrounge and save enough to get a decent replacement. I don't think I can, in good conscience, ask my relatives for financial help getting one right now. I had originally planned to go in with my mother and grandmother on one, but my grandmother is worried about losing all her money, and my mom just doesn't have a lot to spare for something like that. I'd feel bad asking for help buying something that expensive that I don't have a urgent life-or-death need for.

I feel like I should know how to solve all my computer problems, but at the end of the day I just don't. If my computer just decides to finally die, then I don't really have any options beside go without one for however long it take to get a new one. And considering how little I actually get a month, that'll take a long time.

Of course, this would all be moot if I could get a regular job. Thanks again for that whole SSN thing mom. I'm closer to fixing it, but that still doesn't help me in the here and now. And, on top of the this, I get very rude messages from the various collections companies that I owe money for getting sick. Would it kill these fuckers to just be nice instead of "OMG YOU GOT SICK AND AREN'T RICH ENOUGH TO PAY YOU HORRIBLE PERSON". And may whatever ineffectual gods you worship help you if you miss a payment oh noes. Really wish Obama would take this bastards down a peg or forty.

So basically, life sucks and all human endeavor is meaningless because the earth is gonna be reduced to a cider when the sun explodes, if the Old Gods don't eat everyone first.

(I probably need to stop reading Lovecraft and white wolf books when I'm already feeling blue.)

ETA: Just corrected my spelling of "eldritch" in the title. Because sleep deprivation and depression are no excuse for poor spelling, kids.

Blaaaarg I say, BLAAAAAARG.

Grandmother had a nasty shock seeing her in-home medical bill today. She thought that her insurance covered it, but didn't account for the co-pay. Right now she's looking at about a $1,200 bill, which is the accumulation of about three years worth of rental fees. She can cover the bill, but that means that money is gonna be tight for a while.

Basically, any help I was gonna get from her toward paying for a new computer is gone. I'd feel terrible asking for money when she's already convinced* she's running out of money. And since my mom and I can't swing a new PC alone, I'm gonna have to keep this one running for the foreseeable future. It also means I'm gonna have to use the old "well wishes and happy thoughts" method of gift giving this year.

2009 can kindly go die in a fire naow.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I swear, I think our neighbors are fucking with us via our dog. About two weeks ago, our dog lost his collar. This isn't terribly new since he's squirmed out of it before when we tie him up at night for him to do his business. Only this time the collar was totally gone.

Well, I just kind of shrugged it off. Dogs can do some pretty bizzare things and I'd not put it past jack to lose his collar. So i head to walmart, buy a new collar, and promptly forget about it until tonight. Sometime while out running around today our dog not only lost the new collar, but got the old one back, minus his tags.

I cannot parse this situation AT ALL. it defies any logic**. Someone not only took my dogs' collar, but took his NEW collar, gave him the OLD one back, then took his tags and kept the new one. What kind of rational person does something like that?

So here's my plan: I'm gonna tuck a note around his collar tomorrow and see what happens. And I swear, if someone calls me I'm gonna give them the flaming of the decade. It'll be glorious.

*She's not, but damned if she'll listen to me.
**Granted, I live in rural virginia. Logic and reason have no bearing on this place.

So, this is the PC I'm looking at. From the research I've done, this looks like quite a nice bargain. The only thing that's really lousy is the integrated graphics, and that can be easily overcome with the 8600GT card I bought a while back (assuming a 450w power supply is big enough to handle it). The one terabyte HDD especially calls out to me.

Here's the specs, right from the website:

* Intel Core 2 quad-core Q8200 processor features 2.33GHz speed
* Integrated Intel graphics media accelerator X4500
* 4GB of DDR2-800 system memory that can be expanded to 8GB (both slots occupied)
* 1TB serial ATA II hard drive
* 22x dual-layer DVD±RW drive
* Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit edition. To learn more about the features of Windows 7, Click here.
* 10/100/1000Mbps gigabit Ethernet connection
* 12-in-1 memory card reader
* Realtek high-definition, 8-channel audio
* Grid game
* Multimedia USB keyboard
* USB mouse
* 450-watt power supply
* DVI port
* HDMI port
* Six USB 2.0 ports
* PCI-Express x16 slot
* Three PCI slots

So, what I'd like to ask you techie people whom I love is this: Am I missing anything here? Has anyone heard anything about ibuypower before? Alternatives are also welcome, but I'm trying to keep this under 800 bucks.

Went back to my old memory card graphics card* and updated a lot of drivers + Vista. Seems to be stable now.

Cautiously optimistic.

*Edited for clarity, sense-making.

So my computer keeps crashing and I can;t do anything about it and I can;t afford a new computer and I can;t even keep it on long enough to backup my music and I'm kinda close to having a total wig-out and a
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Alright guys, tell me if I'm missing something. I've been getting odd hangs on my PC for a couple months now, but I thought that uninstalling my old antivirus and putting on AVG had solved it. Now they are back and are really getting on my nerves.

I've done all the standard stuff that fixes 95% of problems such as:

Scandisk - Came back clear
Ran my antivirus and registry cleaner, both are fine
Did a defrag
Ran a memory test - came back clear.

I'm pretty sure it isn't heat related, so that leaves me with two real culprits: my graphics card, or my hard drive. The crashes only started after installing the new graphics card, so that's where I'm leaning right this moment. If it's a hard drive problem then I'm just totally fucked and will have to save what I can and save up for a new PC.

That's a creepy movie trailer, sure enough.

Doesn't change the fact that a .30-06 round will blow its head off (assuming a humanoid shape, of course).

If it's bigger, you might need to look into a shotgun with deer slugs, or maybe some other heavy ordinance. For a really nasty beast I'd suggest hollow points or white phosphorus ammunition. Hell, it's not a person, so go nuts right?

If it doesn't have a physical form, then that's tricky both from a practical and an theoretical standpoint. If it's a mental thing then maybe extensive training and post-hypnotic suggestion could help. If it's not then you might as well hash the room with whatever EM frequencies you can and see if any of them hurt it.

Currently, twitter is down. I actually had to stop myself from trying to tweet about that.

EDIT: And Google is down, too. WTF, Internet, did you forget to pay a bill or something?

My LiveJournal Trick-or-Treat Haul
skybreak_seeker goes trick-or-treating, dressed up as Tallahassee from Zombieland.
alliancesjr gives you 18 blue apple-flavoured gummy worms.
cleolinda gives you 11 green cherry-flavoured gumdrops.
evilweevil04 gives you 9 mauve tropical-flavoured pieces of chewing gum.
fallenkalina gives you 6 mauve coconut-flavoured gummy worms.
gendou tricks you! You get a clothespin.
maryn_neondream gives you 19 green strawberry-flavoured gumdrops.
nefariousgrey tricks you! You lose 11 pieces of candy!
rowandoll gives you 4 mottled green strawberry-flavoured wafers.
sonozakitwins gives you 17 orange spearmint-flavoured wafers.
sweetdragon tricks you! You lose 28 pieces of candy!
skybreak_seeker ends up with 45 pieces of candy, and a clothespin.
Go trick-or-treating! Username:
Another fun meme brought to you by rfreebern.

Gendou, why do you give me a clothspin every freakin' year?

My plot for amassing absurd amounts of gold through time travel: Go back to the dark ages with about 5 tons each of pepper, chocolate, and lawry's season salt and gouge the HELL out of medieval Europe. I might use the profits to hire Leonardo Da Vinchi to build me a giant steam powered robot because if anyone can it's him, right?

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Okay seriously, I get it, Dollhouse is the shit, I don't need 500+ tweets saying "OMG DOLLHOUSE IS TEH AWESOME" every friday in order to get the picture.

It just doesn't do anything for me.

I know people keep saying, "You have to wait until episode five for it to get really good", but that's the problem, isn't it? Making someone wait five episodes for things to pick up isn't how good TV should work. Buffy didn't take five episodes to get good, it was good from day one. Hell, Firefly was gripping from the first shot. Wading through four episodes of not-awesome to get to the awesome parts just doesn't appeal to me. And yeah, I did try to watch them, but I just couldn't get into it at all.

Even the premise of the show turns me off. The idea that someone can erase someones brain and rewire it however they like is, not to mince words, pants-wettingly terrifying to me. Everyone has that one thing that just freaks them out regardless of rationality, and that's mine. I can't handle the thought of someone rewriting my brain to conform to what they need me to be.

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Been playing with a couple new toys I found on the internet through the Atomic Robo blog. They're called MapTools and TokenTools, and together they make a kind of virtual tabletop for playing pen and paper games. I'm still trying to work out the best way of utilizing them, but hopefully they will streamline the MoF DnD game. I'll post more as I learn how to use the software.

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Deadpool: Suicide Kings is the best Deadpool series I've ever read.

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Every time I do a mic test in Skype, I end up doing Simon's speech from Episode eleven of Gurren Lagann.

Don't judge me.

Apparently Yoko is Gainax's new go-to character for pimping merchandise to my fellow anime geeks. What kills me is, they didn't go for the obvious Asuka cosplay.

That's just shoddy workmanship.

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I want to love this game.

I really, REALLY do. A superhero MMO with near total customization? I'd buy that for substantially more than a dollar. The thing is, that as the game stands now, I wouldn't buy it at launch.

Let's start with the positives:
1.) Character customization. Oh sweet merciful GODS, this makes the CoH editor look like a a KISS doll drawn by a two year old. I have literally spent -hours- tweaking costumes. You can change everything in this thing, from the material the costume is made from, to the texture on the piece, to which side of the freaking body it is on.

Want one huge shoulderpad and one tiny one? You can have that.

Wanna make a space marine? 40K or Starcraft?

And with the various extra costume slots you unlock, you can have a wide variety of different outfits. For an RPer like me, this is a freaking dream come true.

2.) That powers are diverse and each framework has a distinct feel. Add to this the mix-and-match leveling system, and you get a such a wide selection of choices that you need never have two identical characters. From the Might set, where beating something to death with a police car is a legitimate tactic, to the gadgeteering set where you can bring an entire posse of attack toys into battle, the sets really capture the feel of the comics the game is based on.

3.) The zones are freaking gorgeous. These are some of the best maps I have ever seen in a game, regardless of genre.

4.) The writing is quite good, with enough shout-outs and references to give WoW a run for its money. One area of Millennium City feels like a Bruce Lee movie edited into Big Trouble In Little China. one of the quest givers in the area is called Burt Jackson. I defy you to say that isn't awesome.

No, to the negatives and believe me, there are a few:

1.) The stat system is unintuitive, clunky, and frankly overwhelming. You have your basic Strength, Dexterity and Constitution, but you also have things like Ego, Endurance, Presence, and Intellect. While the frameworks give two that are supposedly ideal for it, I've found that information misleading and in a couple of cases downright wrong. I don't know how much of that is just beta, and how much of it is shoddy design work.

2.) Itemization is also clunky and at times staggeringly confusing. Many times, I'd complete a quest and get stuck on trying to find a reward that I could use.

The way the equipment system works is, you have three types of slots: Offensive, Defensive and Utility. You have a Primary slot and three secondary slots for each type. Why they can't just use a paper doll-like system like every other RPG ever is beyond me. The whole thing seems poorly thought out, like they needed a original idea and ran with it, without thinking about why the paper doll interface is so widely used in the first place.