A baby snapping turtle was in a puddle near our driveway. If he stayed there, he would have gotten run over! I took some pics of him but I'm too tired to put them on the comp yet. I'll do that when I wake up.

I picked up the poor little thing and moved it to the pond. It's supposed to be 100f today, so the puddle would be gone tomorrow anyway. The shell was only about 2" long.

Well now I know not to wade in the pond! I didn't know we had snappers in there!

I Just got on SL and I got this PM .. "Werehouse Avatars Event Proposal."

...

And I was like, "okay, maybe someone wants to use the avatars for a fashion show or whatever. Whatever, I figured I'd just see what it's about.

( ... Jesus fucking christ, why do people send me this stuff? )

I got a summons this weekend. Ugn suck. This is the 4th or 5th time I've been summoned for Jury Duty, but so far I haven't had to go yet. I'm guessing this will be the time that I actually have to.

I'm weighing my options if I should seek to be excused if only for two reasons (otherwise I realize how important this is as a citizen). #1. I'm self employed. I can't just take 'time off'. I've heard they're fairly lenient with the self employed (Esp contracted workers). #2. I work nights. I may very well fall asleep during the trial or the waiting between.

I'm wondering if I should bother to seek the excuse or suck it up and go. I guess if I make 'my case' and explain my worries then the judge can decide if I'm okay or not. I just feel that if I'm not going to be awake enough to listen to dilberations, then I will not be doing my duty as a citizen. I have tried many times before and I just cannot adjust my sleeping schedule so easily. And let's face it, Jury Duty is /boring/ and can last several days.

If anything, does anyone (with experience) have any suggestions for what to do while I'm serving?

A 180 day artist character challenge. Think you've got what it takes? Check it out now. artgrind

Today would have been Bobo's 20th birthday.

I've posted a painting Work-in-progress in my art journal, drakkolupen, if anyone would like to see the progression pics for it. I've been working on it 2 hours a night for the past few days.

So I got this IM earlier tonight:

[23:46] The_Swindler: (Saved Wed Apr 29 17:53:14 2009) Hi I bought the The WereHouse Dire Wolf V1 awhile back and i got on my sl account and my inventory was wiped out and i was wondering would it be possiable to get another copy i understand though if i have to buy it agian but there is no harm in asking well i hope to hear from you soon

Usually this isn't a problem. Well, it is a problem, when you lose the stuff you bought. But our stuff is copiable, and so we give out copies to people who lose them. However, they are actually required to /buy the avatar first/.

Jakkal Dingo: I'm afraid I can't find a record of the purchase. When did you buy it, or perhaps was it on a different account?

[0:04] The_Swindler: I think it was back in dec. if i remember right

I wonder if he was thinking about buying it? But then I got to talking to WolfShaman about it...

[0:03] Jakkal Dingo: I had a guy that tried to weasel a free dire wolf from me today
[0:03] Jakkal Dingo: his account 'got wiped', and he wanted another copy. Lo and behold, no record
[0:03] WolfShaman Warrior: surprised people dont think that some people keep track of who what when where and how much.
[0:04] Jakkal Dingo: no kidding
[0:04] Jakkal Dingo: I've had some people think I don't check them cuz I give them the update cards almost immediately
[0:04] Jakkal Dingo: but it doesn't take but two seconds to check
[0:04] Jakkal Dingo: oh now he's telling me it was back in december
[0:05] WolfShaman Warrior: heh, ask him if his Library folder is still there.
[0:07] Jakkal Dingo: eh?
[0:08] WolfShaman Warrior: The Library folder that is basically a Read only folder that's always there no matter what. Cant add/del things from it.
[0:08] WolfShaman Warrior: the SL noob kit


[0:10] Jakkal Dingo: My staff is asking if you still have the Library folder intact.
[0:10] The_Swindler: no everything got wiped

Oh REALLY? I checked for myself on various sites, including SL's info site and it's true. The Library folder or it's contents can't be deleted. Someone is not being truthful! At least he's polite about it.

[0:12] WolfShaman Warrior: And that's the proof to the bullshit. Because even when I have the bug where most of my inventory dissapears, the Library folder is always there and always has all the stuff in it.
[0:12] WolfShaman Warrior: Well, Additional proof anyways lol


[0:15] Jakkal Dingo: I'm afraid without a record of the sale, we can't give you the avatar.
[0:16] The_Swindler: its ok i understand sucks but i understand thanks for trying to help though
[0:16] The_Swindler: and i guess when i get the L$ for it ill see you again
[0:16] The_Swindler: :)

So I told WS: [0:17] Jakkal Dingo: I'm tempted towrite, "I look forward to your purchase of an avatar for the first time"

And then WS gave me this chat log of someone he had to deal with earlier:


[2009/04/27 19:08] Sophomoric Customer: (Saved Mon Apr 27 09:06:44 2009) i bought a Dire Wolf yesterday...didn't catch it is so BIG...unusable to me...any way I can exchange it for a regular sized dog?....I love the avatars but need a smaller one
[2009/04/27 19:12] WolfShaman Warrior: Greetings from the WereHouse Helpdesk. Sorry, but due to the nature of the permitions set for the avatar (Copy/no Transfer) we are unable to offer Refunds or exchanges.

There's a bunch of warning signs in the shop telling people to make sure the av they're buying is what they want.

[5:17] Sophomoric Customer: I went ahead and bought the German Shepard anyway - you need to make the size of Dire Wolf more obvious...I like your avatars but I lost 3000L on an unuseable avatar to me and i have a bad taste in my mouth about your business
[5:18] Sophomoric Customer: you could look at sales records to see my purchases
[5:22] WolfShaman Warrior: If you look at the Vendor, and the image displayed there. We have a Dire wolf standing next to a regular wolf for a size comparison. It also states in the description: "Stands 1.5m at the shoulder! On all fours, as tall as most bipedal avatars!"
[5:24] Sophomoric Customer: i saw all that but it didn't register...either with me or my GF...and we have both been on SL a long time...and are intelligent and well educated

You just choose not to be?

[5:24] Sophomoric Customer: you shoul dhave a headlines saying "LARGE AS A HORSE"

For customers DUMB AS BRICK

[5:25] Sophomoric Customer: but never mind....i'll just remember this transaction
[5:29] WolfShaman Warrior: Enjoy your Avatars.


It's like I have to make a sign that says: WARNING: READ THE SIGNS. Obviously, it wouldn't be read. Why are we responsible for people that don't read our info?

Bow built the machine for me in 2003. So 6 years, that's a pretty good run for a machine I'd say (Original equipment and all). It's even got a HDD in it from 2000. But anyway, it's been BSODing a lot lately. When it shuts down, it always thinks it's a 1250Mhz instead of the 2.0Ghz it should be, until I restart it, then it's fine. (I've been told this is possibly a fault with the Bios, but I have no clue.)

Anyway, tonight a window popped up and said it was a message from the NT Authority\system and it would shut down in 60seconds after some error occured. Naturally my first thought is: Virus. But I have Spybot, Teatimer, AVG and even No-Script running on the browser. Granted, I know nothing is fool proof, but still. I'd think it would have warned me at least. So the machine shut itself down and now I'm in the process of scanning it.

But really, it comes down to this. I've been thinking about gutting this machine and replacing the parts for at least a year now. This was kinda the last straw.

So naturally, my loyal legion of nerds, I need your timely, and helpful advice on what parts to get for my machine. I already have a brand new HDD for it. I'm not sure what the stats are on it, but if needed, I can provide them (I know it's a fairly recent WD 500gig drive.) I want to get a new processor (AMD only), Mobo, RAM, and I'll probably need a new power supply and video card. I'll also need whatever fans for the processor that are necessary.

Here's what the machine is used for: Email, Browsing the web, and IRC. I'd like to use it as my general office machine, so I want to put MS Office 2003 on it, and run excel at least. I would also like to run SL on it. It will not be used for gaming or anything fancy. So a low-end, cost effective machine is just fine with me (as long as it all works okay).

Of course, I say all this and find this on Newegg: AMD Phenom II X4 940 Deneb 3.0GHz

Cheaper than the dual core I have in my work machine. Anyway, let's say I were to get this processor (Assuming you guys think it's a good deal), what would I need for the other stuff?

My old monitor died. I had to get a new one:



Hee hee.

My old one had been giving me problems for a few months, which gave me time to save up for this one. It's *nice*. Additional workspace is *awesome* for photoshop.

I find the following to be one of THE most OBNOXIOUS things someone can do to a vendor on SL. This is born of pure ignorance, and hostility is the result. If these people would take the time to ask, be nice, be honest, or be reasonable, their issues can be solved without problems.

Unfortunately I tend to attract problems. That's why this post has made the Don't Do This list.

Started out with this email:

"Not sure how it works (only my 3rd day in SL).
Bought & paid for Avatar, how do I get it?"

Yes, that is literally all the information I got. But he posted it early in the day, and by the time I got to it, I realized he IMed me in SL already with:

*ImpatientNewb* has offered to become your friend in Second Life.

Contact me, I have problems buying your avatar

Log in to accept or decline the offer.


First let me point out one thing. If you really want to piss me off, friend me to see when I come online. That makes me want to ignore you and your problems. Why does this piss me off? First, it's a violation of my privacy. Yeah, here's people 'lol' about 'privacy on SL'. Then try the second reason: As soon as people find out you're online, they start flooding the shit out of you with all kinds of verbal diarrheia, forcing you to ignore all your patient and kind customers to deal with a hosebeast. So, I just let that little dropdown sit there until I'm done with other PMs or I log out.

So moving on, he actually sends me a real PM too:


[12:38] *ImpatientNewb*: I bought (& paid(Paypal)) a Snow Leopard Avaatar and I did not get it

Okay there's a key word here that's triggering my alarms. PAYPAL. We don't take paypal for our avatars. The only way he could have used paypal for our avs is through XStreetSL (Formerly the Slexchange.) So I check my XStreet records, nope, nothing. So I reply with the following:

I can't find any records of you buying the avatar. Since you paid in Paypal, I can only assume you tried to buy it on XStreetSL (As that's the only place we sell avatars that uses Paypal). I'd suggest checking your balance with them or contacting their support staff.



[7:32] *ImpatientNewb*: Paypal debited me & my bank account too. I will not contact Paypal as they did their jobs in taking the money from me & giving it to SL. That's what they do. You don't want to give me the product I paid for? Fine.

[7:32] *ImpatientNewb*: U there?

See this? This is the shit that really gets to me. Guy admits he's a newb. I tell him to check his stuff. He gets pissed AT ME because HE IS WRONG and there is NOTHING I CAN DO FOR HIM. I didn't ask you to check Paypal, you moron, check XStreetSL to see what it did. Check Paypal to see where your money went. Why am I telling you this?

BECAUSE IT'S OBVIOUS TO ANYONE READING THIS, YOU BOUGHT LINDEN DOLLARS, NOT AN AVATAR!

So I replied to him:

... We don't take paypal.  I don't know how I can be more clear. It sounds like you bought Linden dollars on XStreet, but you have yet to actually purchase the avatar. Check your records on XStreetSL or SL's LIndex.  Check Paypal to see who your money actually went to.  We did /not/ take your money.



That was a couple of days ago. I haven't heard back from him since. Clearly he's decided we're evil incarnate because we can't fix idiocy.

Look we know SL is sometimes frustrating and hard to figure out. We try to help people when these situations come up. But if you want us to help you, don't accuse us of shit we didn't do. Don't be a fucking moron and give us your attitude. We don't take Attitude for payment, sorry.

It's like they all come out of the woodworks at once! Some gems from last week on SL:

[3:37] ALLCAPSNAMEUSER: HI
[3:37] ALLCAPSNAMEUSER: IM A WOLF
[3:37] ALLCAPSNAMEUSER: I WANT A SKIN OF WOLF
[3:38] ALLCAPSNAMEUSER: YOU ARE BUILDER?

...

[16:36] Lookitafreeloader: Hey, i wanted to buy one of your Avatars (the CrittersV3Huskygray) but i came short by 1500$L, so im wondering if you'll be kind enough to just give me this one, maybe, please?

Note the avatars cost $1500L. He's short the whole amount. That's about $4USD by the way. I decided to let my employees handle this one, and Burtan did a good job of it! Here's what he did:

To Lookitafreeloader:
Burtan: Hello 'Freeloader', thank you for your interest in the Werehouse Avatars. Because you are so close to the total you need for the avatar we have decided to make up the difference and deliver the avatar. Enjoy!
Lookitafreeloader: yay thank you, all my friends said i was nuts to ask
Burtan: I sent him a replica of the box with a notecard inside pointing to a freebie shop xP
[7:53] Lookitafreeloader: Very funny joke -.-, you sent me an empty box


Burtan: It was not empty, it had a notecard inside that had a landmark linked ^_^ Joke's on him anyway for being a smart ass lol

Nice job! I love the way he has the nerve to complain about it. Next time have the notecard say "You get what you pay for."

[17:54] Sex Ed: hello, i have a question , i bought the direwolf avi to please my Miss and now i have a problem. i cant have sex with this avi, can you help me out with that maybe? suggestions or so? i would hate to leave this avi

Look we just build avatars. What people do with them... that's their business. I don't want to know.

[10:17] Horse Nut: Hello Jakkal, I'm looking for a quadruped horse avatar. It should look realistic like a big stallion, and it should be able to wear a penis. Do you sell something like that or do you perhaps know where to get one? Thanks for your answer.


...I feel bad for Hoof It avatars, you know he's going to attack them next.

I've been really busy lately. Go fig. I haven't watched TV in /years/ but I've recently been introduced to two shows that I love -> Hell's Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares. I don't normally like reality shows, but there's just something about these two that I love (Especially Kitchen Nightmares). Ramsay's style of yelling at people is like my own :P It seems personal but he's trying to make you better for it.

Also I've been playing Vanguard again. I finally got my Blacksmith to level 50 (The highest level in the game currently). Crafting is interactive, it's not mindless button clicking. And it takes about 3 days of casual grinding to go up a level. So that was pretty ... uhm... well most people find it boring. But I kind of like it. It's like a minigame almost. They've also added fishing which is also a minigame. They remind me of some of the minigames in the Zelda series. So it's fun.

Lately I've... actually be musing trying to make my own MMO. I have no idea where I'd start, though I've found some online companies that let you make your own MMO, they host it and handle the subscription fees, I think. We have some pretty cool ideas of how to handle classes, training, and spheres.


Anyway, that is all.

First of all, I hope everyone has had a Happy Whatever-You-Celebrate.

Every year, my store in SL gives away a gift card to the people in the group for the store notices. It's our way of saying thanks to the people that put up with us through the bad times (like broken avs) and buy stuff from us when we're good. In essence, if you stick with the group through all the spam it brings, you get a gift. This means that open enrollment is turned off. No one can join the group without an invite.

So what does this mean to everyone else? If you're not in the group, you don't get the free gift. Suddenly, people want in the group (go figure). Every year I get very few "Thank You" PMs. But I get plenty of people that either complain they can't get the gift, or try to find sneaky ways to get in the group.

I will be posting them here as I get them:

We're less than an hour into it before we get this sneaky bit of LJ fodder:

[16:14] GroupHopper: Hello sorry to both you I think I joined the wrong group for Av updates I hear there is a v3 for critters? Is the group Im looking for called Realmscapes? Oh and Merry Christmas^^

Very sneaky, that. S/he was in the store with other people that got the gift (Infact s/he teleported into the store directly, which means a friend gave them a teleport offer). In other words, s/he found out about the free gift and the requirements from a friend, and then wanted the gift too.

[16:15] Jakkal Dingo: You don't need to be in the group for updates, that's just for notices. Just follow the instructions on the note and the avatars will be sent to you :)

Unfortunately for them, you don't need to be in the group to get updates.

[16:18] GroupHopper: Oh I would like to get notices as well it would be nice to know what is happing :3 I like my avs x3

You should have given up from the start. This just makes it obvious you're gold digging.

[16:19] Jakkal Dingo: You'll be able to join it in a day or so, just check back in a couple of days.
[16:20] GroupHopper: Oh alrighty thank you^^ Have a great day :3
[16:21] Jakkal Dingo: you too and merry xmas

At least s/he was nice about it.

Our laptop has picked up a virus from somewhere (A drive by download I think). Bow's the only one that really uses it, so all this info is second hand. He might have to describe it further.

The virus scanner that we had on it detected the virus but apparently couldn't stop it. It might have partially stopped it, we're not sure.

A popup comes up every now and then that mimics the Windows Firewall blocking warning thing. All it does is send you to a website that wants you to pay for the anti-virus software to get rid of it. Yeah it's one of those schemes. The program it wants you to get is called 'Perfect Defender 2009'. If you google that you get a bunch of sites that tell you how you can remove it and stuff, but these are sites I don't really trust.

So if anyone could give me some help on how to get rid of this thing, I would really appreciate it.

I haven't said much on the surgery mostly because I didn't really see it as being a big deal. I didn't want people to worry. And I didn't want a bunch of concern tossed my way. This was supposed to be the 4th one, but it turns out they needed more samples for testing. So I didn't have to go under the knife again.

I don't want to go into all the gorey details, but I can say that it has so far successfully cleared up my sinus problems. They found, through Xrays, that I had a bone perforating my sinus lining, and that's probably what led to all the infections I kept getting. They had go in and saw this bone off. I know, fun right? I get a bone graft next time. That was supposed to be today but they didn't get to it. I guess that'll be next week or so.

The good news is, I haven't had any sinus problems since they did the initial work! I can drink Dr Pepper again without it hurting me!

I got the coffee! And the cute pic. It looks like you want to play with a stick of dynamite. And I'm like, "uh...no."

This'll come in handy so I stay awake for my surgery tomorrow.

Don't have much info on this but supposedly the horses were found. The note left on the net posse site states: " RECOVERED AFTER ALERT WENT OUT TO THOUSANDS! THANK YOU SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH!!!!

Details are not all in right now but it appears that someone took the horses in the night to "rescue" them? The horse were dropped off somewhere else. More details later!!! "

"Rescue" eh? I doubt that. But it's good to know they were found!

A couple of months ago, our neighbors brought in some horses. It was really neat to see them! I've always loved horses, but being from the city, I've never had the chance to do much of anything with them. When I was growing up, a friend had them and we occassionally went out to ride them. But that was about all the experience I got. So anyway the neighbors get some horses! And I loved watching them the few times I could see them.

Well some jackass stole them :( I didn't even know about it until I saw it on the news. I dunno if it would help anything, but if you guys know any horse dealers or whatever maybe you could keep a look out for these two. http://www.netposse.com/stolenmissing/PercheronsNCdec08.htm

Thursday was the day that Americans (most of them anyway) set aside everything to eat a ton of food and give thanks.

And so, I thought I would list what I'm Thankful for:

Everything.


I think that just about sums it up.