I don't know what to say right now. I feel numb.

But in light of that, I feel it is necessary to mention that I have alternative presence on other furry sites, which I admittedly need to blow the dust off of at this point which means an even bigger backlog that I have to upload to each one:
* SoFurry: dragon-architect
* Weasyl: dragon-architect
* Cohost: dragon-architect and KinkyCalyo
* Furry Network: dragonarchitect
* Inkbunny: dragonarchitect (yes, I know about the site's reputation; I have an account there to reserve the name)

I also have a primary social presence on the fediverse (Mastodon) as dragonarchitect at rubber.social

Let's face it. Most of you who follow me here also use Twitter, and we all know how that's going right now (as of this journal's publish date). So in the event that things completely implode under the completely inept sycophantic mismanagement of the apartheid brat, I've established alternative presences on a few other social platforms (no, not Facebook):

I am on Cohost as dragon-architect. Cohost appears to have more of a Tumblr-like bloggy feel to it, from what I've observed, but I can't get into the weeds of it yet while my account waits for activation. Expect additional links here once my account gets its turn in the activation waitlist and I can make pages for NSFW, in-character, and story update stuffs. Oh, yes. That's a KILLER FEATURE for Cohost to have: I can maintain separate content feeds with one singular account and log-in! :D

I am on Pillowfort as dragon-architect. It's got a Tumblr-like bloggy feel to it, with no post length limit and the ability to reblog.

And I am on Mastodon as @dragonarchitect@rubber.social.
My main OC Calyo also has an in-character Masto as @theimperialtoy@rubber.social.
Mastodon is more of a microbloggy/social platform much more similar in form and function to Twitter, but with a MUCH higher character limit (500 vs. 280!!!) that leaves you plenty of room to express a nuanced thought and have a conversation, and better (not perfect, but better) content filtration features than Twitter.

If you are new to Mastodon and the Fediverse, this website can help you to get started. There is WAY MORE to the fediverse than just Mastodon. Mastodon is merely the dominant microblogging service that operates on the Fediverse. But the TL;DR of it is: You do not need an account on rubber.social to be able to follow me. If there is another Mastodon instance out there that appeals to you more, by all means, create your account there, then follow me from there. Try it! It works seamlessly! ^_^

So I guess in case y'all haven't already noticed yet, I've uploaded some more art finally! I'm unclogging a years-long backlog of commissions, gifts, and requests that I have received over the years because the Executive Dysfunction Dam has finally broken and failed, and now y'all get to enjoy a deluge of long-overdue-for-sharing art of Calyo! \o/

Enjoy~

This is gonna be a long one, so buckle up, everybody. 2022 has been a fucking year for me, and it's time for a single all-in-one-place update so I don't have to keep telling people bits and pieces of it all over and over and over again when I don't have the spoons to keep repeating it over and over and over again. I'm keeping places mostly generic.

The timeline of this whole clusterfuck goes back to May 2021 when I moved from Arkansas to Connecticut. Things were fine, or so I thought, and then I got told that I had a hard date to be moved out by, regardless of whether or not I'd found a place I could afford up there. So that's a bridge burned forever. Whee.

Fast forward to May 2022. I couldn't find a place I could afford up there. Multiple doors that were previously opened to me had closed for various (but understandable) reasons. When I asked my employer at the time for a raise so I could afford the cost of living up there, all I got was silence; tacitly told to pound sand.

A complete lack of communication from multiple parties did me dirty. I'm bitter about it, but I've already shrugged it off for reasons I'll soon describe. I wanted to settle down up in New England, where I could have accessibility to train travel all up and down the coast, but holy shit is it expensive up there.

Thus, I was forced to make plans for a move and transfer back westward again, much against my own wishes and desires. I initially committed to plans to move to the Abilene, Texas, area, and to move in with my boyfriend's mom there. The PLAN, initially, was for me to get settled in, and for the boyfriend to also move in once he'd saved up enough money. His mom was a safe haven, at the least, but as move-time drew ever nearer the politics in Texas became ever more brazenly LGBT-phobic, and the more I genuinely feared for my long-term well-being. But I was committed.

I spent a couple of months couch surfing with a friend in New Haven, and commuted 40 minutes and 20 miles each way (gods, that sucked) to build up just a little bit more money before Move Day. That was a very pleasant couple of months, though! I got to go up to Virginia Vermont to attend a gay-enby wedding between two other very close friends! :D

Move Day came at the end of June 2021.

Along the way, I pit stopped with another friend in the Ashburn, Virginia, area. While I was there, I got cold-called out of the blue by my cousin. That was a lot of catching-up! But I also started asking questions about my friend's job. Seemed interesting...

I get to Texas and the scene I am met with is one that left me utterly speechless. Through absolutely no fault of her own, my boyfriend's mom's living situation was an absolute nightmare, and one which I could not sustain. As it turns out, I'd moved into a situation that was already falling apart, and it just took a domino (that wasn't mine) to send it all crashing down. Don't ask for details; I'm not willing to give them. Another friend came in clutch for me on the third (or was it fourth...?) night and spotted me a hotel for a few nights just so I could have a bed I could actually stay asleep in, and I made plans to abort Texas. (Yes, the word play is intentional.)

My butler Theta (it's a D/s thing; not a bougie mc bougieface thing) offered up space in its apartment for me to stay in for as long as I needed to, which would be a back-track to around Jackson, Tennessee. So, that's exactly what I did. I had planned on merely going there to visit for roughly a week, then come back to Texas again to settle, but... ehe... plans changed unexpectedly.

Soon after I'd settled in Tennessee halfway into July, did I start exchanging some emails with a department lead at the Virginia-friend's employer; Virginia-friend had passed on my name and contact info to help me get my foot in the door. Before I knew it, an online meeting was scheduled.

Whoops, did I say an online meeting?

Haha... I meant an interview. o_o;;

And in the course of that interview, I heard a magical set of words I had never before heard from anybody repping a professional company that would normally expect skills: "I like to take a chance on people sometimes."

a...

Yeah, that interview turned into an offer turned into a holy shit I just got a job paying me WAY more than national median income for the first time in my life! And it's (just) more than enough to afford the cost of living there!

... Holy shit I just got a job paying me WAY more than I'd ever made before in my working life and now I have to show up and prove I've got the skills to pay the bills (mainly just competency).

So now I'm set to move AGAIN... for the fourth time in as many months, coming up at the end of August. First from where I'd initially settled in Connecticut to New Haven for a couch surf. Then to Abilene, Texas, for a planned settle-down and reuniting with the metaldurgen. Which turned into a desperate abort button to Tennessee that has completely drained me financially. Which is has become one final up & go (with some money help from my butler), for hopefully the next LONG while, to around Ashburn, Virginia.

I'm still going to have access to train travel all up the East Coast... kinda. I'll have to chill on the DC Metro for an hour first, but hey. It beats wasting away in traffic on a fucking toll road.

I'm still not done moving yet, because once I get settled there I will have to begin the process to find an apartment that can accommodate myself and the Sildrae and still be hospitable to guests, and it may not be a "long term" situation, but I'm confident that this is going to work out for the long term (and a little bit terrified of having to prove my competency!)

I'm excited, though! There's a decent-looking makerspace in Leesburg I can do some woodworking at, I've got lots of friends in the area there already, and I'll be making more than enough to afford some nice things for myself and my Sil on top of rent and bills and some badly needed doctor's visits!

A...!

  jungian-shadow

Okay so.

Some folks already know about this account.

Most of you don't.

A couple months back I'd started to really have some eh... Thoughts? Qualms? IDK the right word to use for it, but basically I'd wanted to explore some nascent kinks that were starting to develop for me. Kinks that are pretty dark, or otherwise not desired by many (and that's putting it nicely).

I'd had a friend or two indulge me with some spur-of-the-moment RP, but I wanted to actually create stuff that could explore these darker realms of my erotic psyche.

But in the same breath (pun not intended...), I also did not want to subject all of you, my watchers, readers, followers, worshippers, to thumbnails listing extreme kinks that may be anxiety or PTSD triggers for any of you.

SO.

The solution really was simple. I created an entirely separate FurAffinity account specifically for dark kink content, that those who want to see such content could opt-in. I chose the name jungian-shadow courtesy of a close friend of mine, who described Lyxaco—Calyo's total polar opposite—as such. I liked the phrase, and it seemed apt as the name for a FurAffinity account that focuses on really dark or twisted kink content.

And now that I have a first story posted up there, I'm announcing it to my broader audience.

If you want a no-holds-barred experience, go watch jungian-shadow . I don't know how often I'll post content there. But when I've got something that's way too extreme for my main FA, it's going up there.

So.

I made posts about this on my (new) Sponsus and on Patreon.

I tweeted about this across my multiple twitter accounts.

I even updated the landing page to my website as part of this process. (Links are all over there btw.)

I plugged it in the few Discord servers in which I actually exist.

I did all of this like... last month when I actually put all of this together. Practically at the beginning of last month. So I've had a whole month and a half so far to work on all of this and to remember to announce this everywhere.

But I dropped the ball.

Can you guess where I dropped that ball?

Go on. Take a guess.

Guess.

TAKE A FREAKING GUESS ALREADY!!!

Yeah, that's right, I forgot to announce it here.

Derp. XD

So yeah. I've created a new campaign over on the up-and-coming Patreon-competitor Sponsus, and I am blowing the dust off of my currently existing campaign on Patreon. I had intended to also switch my Patreon from a per-story model to a per-month model at the start of this month.

haven't doen that yet either lol yay go me :)

So here is the (severely belated) OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT that my (new) Sponsus and (rebooted) Patreon campaigns are currently in an EARLY ADOPTER phase whilst I get some new stories edited and audiobooked. I've already got four stories that are literally just needing edits and recording to begin publishing. Once the first of those is published, the Early Adopter phase is over, and I will (attempt) to begin publishing stories on a monthly basis again! As per the usual, $1/month nets you 1 month early access, with more perks as it goes up from there!

As an EARLY ADOPTER, you get a PERMANENT special mention at the start of all ebooks and audiobooks, REGARDLESS of your sponsorship/pledge tier. So if you want your name listed at the beginning, get that pledge in now! You can always upgrade later if you want more perks. :)

I DON'T DO PAYWALLS, so if you can't afford it, don't worry! You'll still get to see all of my stories for free with a bit of patience! Multi-chapter novellas may take a long while to be fully released, as I will only release them chapter-wise for free in between other stories, but they will be fully released for free nonetheless!

I've also set up a new Itch.io store where y'all can:
1. Buy my stories individually if you don't want to sponsor/pledge to me but you still want to support me by buying my works. You'll get them in ALL the formats that Sponsors/Patrons do, including mobi, kindle, MultiMarkDown, and HTML!
2. Buy my multi-chapter works that will be released in-whole exclusively through itch.io. If you don't want to wait months for them to be released chapter-wise for free, and you've got bucks to toss my way, you can buy them here!
3. Buy audiobook versions of all of my stories, including multi-chapter works as a single multi-track album!

---

And so, to wrap this whole thing up with a neat little bow, here's a TL;DR list of all-too-important links:

1. SPONSUS (Preferred)
2. PATREON (Alt. if Sponsus won't work; may end up getting suspended because of my content tho)
3. KO-FI (Tipjar!)
4. ITCH.IO (Novellas and audiobooks sold here! An excellent place to show your support if you can't sponsor/pledge!)
5. TWITTER @\CreativeCalyo

Hey y'all, it's been a bit since I last posted a journal. I've been slowly, but surely, making my way through my commissions queue, and I've reached the point where I definitely want to do something a bit different than all of the latex Pokémon TFs that I've been doing. XD

Don't get me wrong, I'm still open for those as well, but with a caveat: please let me take a break from all the Join the Collection TFs. XD

If you've already ordered one and your commission is in the queue already or I've accepted it via email and just haven't been un-lazy enough to put it in the queue yet, it will be done. But I'd like to take a break from that theme because it proved way more popular than I anticipated, so I'm just a wee tad bit burnt out on it. I won't say no if you really, really want one and your idea for it is interesting enough that I might be able to enjoy writing it, but I can't make any promises.

---

So with that said...

I'm open for general commissions of any tier and just about any theme, now!

Please check this link for information about my prices and how to go about requesting a commission! I don't use notes on FA because I can't reliably archive or access information. I use emails so I can archive things.

I'm still working on a good list of kink/fetish content that I am or am not willing to write about so that y'all can go through and take a peek at the kinks/fetishes you'd like me to try to include and see whether or not I can incorporate them, but if you're not 100% sure about something... just ask. Worst I can do is say I can't do it. :P

---

Price changes:

As y'all may have well noticed, my prices are just a wee bit different now. The Tier 1 price has gone up a bit, Tier 0 switched to a flat rate, and Tiers 3 and 4 have gone down slightly. The prices now correspond to the midpoints of each tier's word count range.

To explain why:

In all of the Tier 1 stories I've written thus far, the final word counts have been around 3000-4000 words of lascivious literature (gods I love saying those words together~), and PayPal takes a little cut off the top to cover their operating expenses (nothing is free in this world). So the slight price increase for Tier 1 means that what I end up getting at the end of it all is a bit more in my pocket to use for buying food and paying for my own web hosting and all that fun jazz.

It's not a huge price increase for the quality of finished work that y'all get in return, but it's just enough to make things a bit easier on me on a month to month basis here.

CURRENT WAITING COMMISSIONS:

I've already stated this on my Commission Info page, but this bears repeating: This price change is not ex postfacto and it is not retroactive. If I have already accepted your commission request at my old prices and it's waiting in the queue for me to complete, then I will honor the old prices unless you specifically request that I charge at the newer rates.

---

Conclusions:

So that's that. :3 I'm open for more general stuff now--not just Pokémon-themed stuff--and my prices have been tweaked a bit.

So I just encountered an interesting problem with the first Latex Pokémon TF story I just submitted: Rubber Glove Salandit.

One of my followers reported they couldn't view the PDF. Got a file not found error. So I started investigating why along with my mate teradyne. She was unable to reproduce the problem on her Android phone. I was very easily able to reproduce the problem on not only iPhone, but also on Safari on my MacBook as well. And I was able to reproduce the problem even with different user agent strings on the suspicion that FA might've been doing any UA sniffing (some websites do that as a lazy cop-out to detect browser feature support).

So we looked into it further. The file name of the original file that I uploaded was: RGD-Latex-Pokémon-TF-T1.pdf

Notice that accented e in there? That's a Unicode character. I tried replacing it with an unaccented e in the file name and reuploaded the file to the same submission. No dice. That é got preserved in the file name when it was uploaded to FurAffinity's database and filesystem.

Now before anybody starts thinking that I'm about to do a public ripping into FA over this, think again. This is actually not a problem on FA's side, nor is it their fault.

Whose fault is it, then?

Well, let's look back at the one browser that's experiencing the issue: Safari.

See, most web browsers today transparently and gracefully handle Unicode characters in URLs. That's because they've all been updated to use RFC 3987, which was published in 2005 and defines the new Internationalized Resource Identifier (IRI) standard for, well, URLs, and essentially allows for Unicode characters to exist directly in the IRI without being URL-encoded according to RFC 1738 which was published way back in freaking 1994 and defined only the ASCII character set as the allowable character set to be used for URLs.

Apple hasn't yet updated Safari to use RFC 3987. More than ten fucking years after the RFC was published as a standard. It still uses RFC 1738 and adheres to it strictly, which means if you try to feed an IRI to Safari, and that IRI hasn't been URL-encoded to be RFC 1738 compliant, Safari balks at it.

What does this mean for my latest story? People using Safari on macOS or on iOS couldn't read it. At all.

Yay. =_=

So I just deleted the old story and reuploaded it with the file named thus: RGD-Latex-Pokemon-TF-T1.pdf

Then tested it on my own iPhone, and wouldn't you know it?

It fucking worked.

So yeah. If you're one of the 5 people to've already faved the old story that I just had to delete, go back and re-fave it please? I'd love it if you did. <3

P.S.: If any of the FA mods are reading this now, especially Dragoneer, this is totally not your fault, nor is it FA's fault.

I'm currently in between jobs at the moment and in need of a little bit of lunch money! At this time, my mates and I are living rent-free with Tera's relatives, but they haven't a whole lot of money and I've been trying to avoid making myself an unnecessary extra expense on their behalf.

Therefore, I've decided to take a few commissions so I can have some lunch money to spend over the next couple of weeks. I'm not quiiiite ready to open up for general commissions, so if you want something different, just be patient. I may open for more general commissions soon enough!

================================

So here's the deal:

I'm opening up for Tier 1 latex Pokémon TF themed stories.

Because it is October, and because I've been on a Pokémon kick lately, I'm opening up for flat-rate latex Pokémon TF short stories running until the end of this year! There will be a few basic themes to pick from, and the end result will be a short story of around 2k-4k words (depending largely upon chosen theme and rating) at a flat rate of $25.00 for a story.

---

Here are the available choices for these Tier 1 latex Pokémon TF stories:

================================

Pick Your Theme:

1. The Shopkeeper. Some form of TF product from Calyo's shop of exotic rubber toys, including costumes, TF eggs, a TF Pokéball, or other cursed/enchanted rubber item. The TF can happen either in-shop or elsewhere. You can choose the TF product or I can choose it for you!

2. Gotta catch 'em all! You caught by a TF Pokéball thrown by a Trainer Calyo seeking to expand her collection of Pokémon TF victims!

3. Join the collection. Wherein your character is progressively suited up by a Charizard!VCXE-225963 from Playtime With TOY-225963 to become a permanent rubber Pokétoy just like VCXE-225963. The story rating MUST be Explicit if you choose this theme. Charizard!VCXE-225963 is NOT Clean or Suggestive by any stretch of the imagination and I won't make the subject toy Clean or Suggestive, either. Content WILL be sexually explicit and include multiple kinks.

================================

Pick Your Pokémon:

1. Author's favorites. Wherein the author (that is, me) chooses one of their own favorite species to be the endpoint of the TF. I have a lot of favorite species throughout the various generations, and I will be picking from the list of favorites that I have here on my blog.

2. Random Pokémon. I use a pseudo random number generator to generate a number from 1 to 721, the last Pokémon of Generation VI in the National Pokédex. I will be using the National Pokédex numbering on Bulbapedia. Sorry all you Gen VII fans, but right now there are holes in the numbers for Gen VII, so random generation won't work if it picks a number not even listed for Gen VII. If Sun and Moon are released before the end of the year, once all of the Gen VII Pokémon are known and numbered, I will extend the upper limit of the random number generator to the last Pokémon of Gen VII as well.

3. Commissioner's pick. You pick your species. You can pick any known species from any generation, and I will write a story that TFs you into that species.

================================

Pick Your Rating:

1. Clean. Just a plain TF with some focus on the squeakier end result.

2. Suggestive. Any nudity will merely be mentioned--not described in lurid detail. Arousal will stay nicely tucked away as nothing more than an obvious bulge in one's pants or in costume, a hot blush, and needy squirming about and whimpering. There may be some applied fetish content, but it will remain tasteful.

3. Explicit. No holds barred, the gloves are off. There will be dicks. There will be boobs. There may even be some sex involved. There will very likely be at least one orgasm if not multiple. Or none at all with some sort of obviously kinky reason why. This option MUST be chosen if the chosen theme is Join the collection. Charizard!VCXE-225963 is NOT Clean or Suggestive by any stretch of the imagination and I won't make the subject toy Clean or Suggestive, either. Content WILL be sexually explicit and include multiple kinks.

---

If you want one of these stories, just follow these instructions:

1. Be sure to read my Commission Info on my website here and pay close attention to the Terms and Conditions.

2. Send an email to commission[at]calyodelphi[dot]com to request a latex Pokémon TF story. Do not send me a note on FA! Do not contact me on Twitter or by Discord or any other means to make the request; I will just redirect you to send me an email. Send an email to commission[at]calyodelphi[dot]com so that I can have an email paper trail.

3. In the email, be sure to pick your theme, Pokémon, and rating amongst the choices above. Be sure to provide links to references or a description of your own character or whomever you wish to be the subject of the story. If there are any particular things you would like for me to focus on (or for Explicit stories, any particular kinks/fetishes you would like for me to focus on), be sure to include this information as well!

4. If I accept your commission request, I will send you an email to confirm the acceptance and add it to my Art Queue on Trello where you can track its progress. When the story is moved to the In Progress stage, I will send you an email to alert you of this, as well as an invoice for the commission with a minimum $25.00 deposit via PayPal. Story writing will not commence until the deposit is paid. Per my Terms and Conditions, this deposit will be partially refunded if the story I write is under 2000 words long or fully refunded if I cannot complete the story at all.

Okay, so after much encouragement and reasoning yesterday from my long-time friend marjask, I created a Patreon tipjar to try and make a little bit of income off of my most easily exploitable skill: writing! Since I still have my full-time job, and writing is currently a primary form of stress relief, I'll really only be writing what I feel like writing and when I feel like writing. So some months you'll see no stories, some months only one story, and some months two. Pretty much the same rigamaroll as it's been since I got back into writing a couple years ago, except for the odd commission here and there that I felt like taking.

TL;DR linky linky: https://www.patreon.com/dragonarchitect

IF YOUR MOUSE IS ALREADY HOVERING OVER THE UNWATCH LINK, HESITATE FOR A MOMENT AND KEEP READING PLEASE!

Here's how this works: for now I just have a single reward starting at USD$1.00/story. You can pledge more than that if you want, but that's the only reward tier for now. What this gives you is the following:

1) Guest Star Access!

A chance to be selected as a guest-star in any of my stories that are not written in second-person POV (basically, addressing the reader as one of the story's characters, using pronouns such as 'you' and 'your'; this is one of my favorite POVs to use for my short stories, since it actively engages the reader to put themselves right into the scenario) or any of my much more involved stories with pre-set character casts (such as my untitled Pokémon story, as well as my as-yet-unposted Allomera story, set in one of teradyne's universes).

TL;DR: If I decide to write a story that's going to be in third-person POV, and I need guest stars and don't already know who I want, I'll pick from my patrons first! If none of them volunteer, or if I can't find someone who I think would fit well into the role, then I'll most likely ask for volunteers on my Twitter accounts:

dragonarchitect: https://twitter.com/dragonarchitect (SFW; lots of cussin' but no explicit lewdness)
CalyoNSFW: https://twitter.com/CalyoNSFW (NC-17; I DO reject follow requests from identifiably under-age because I have IRL pics here and don't want to run afoul of United States federal law regarding sexual interactions with minors below the age of 18; I value my rights and don't want a felony charge of sexual harassment of a minor and PERMANENT registration on the sex offenders list depriving me of them!)

2) Early Access!

FIRST AND FOREMOST!! I hate pay walls. I hate having to pay money just to be able to access anything at all. This is because I'm not paid very much at my current job, and cost of living where I live is so damn high that I have virtually nothing left over at the end of the month to spend on myself. SO. You will NEVER see me use Patreon as a pay wall. Pay Walls should be like the Fourth Wall: a crumbled mess of rubble! But what I WILL use Patreon for is an early access system. Basically, any stories that I write that I decide to post through Patreon first will be posted only to Patreon for the first month before I publish them here publicly for free access to everyone. In other words, non-patrons get a 1 month delay.

I know I have quite a few followers who probably can't, or won't, pledge anything to this tipjar. I don't want to suddenly cut all of y'all off like that just because I want a little bit of extra money to spend on important things like rent, bills, food, etc. It just doesn't sit right with my own morals. So to make this fair to everyone, those who pledge to the tipjar will get early access, but everyone will eventually get access no matter what. Simple as that.

Goals

I have just one simple little goal for now: To make $80.00 per story. Currently I'm paid $9.00/hour at my job (NDAs regarding pay can suck my black rubber dick; United States federal worker's rights law trumps all~), so I make an average of $72.00/day before taxes are factored into the equation and $360.00/week. To make $80.00 per story means that I can effectively match or beat my current income by a whole dollar per hour, which means that at the very least, I could be able to drop down to working only 4 days a week, get an extra day off to be able to rest and write, and possibly come out a little bit ahead if I can start pushing a new short story every week!

The extra day off to spend doing things I enjoy (such as writing, making music (I have a clarinet and wanna make music recordings and get more woodwind instruments so I can make even better recordings!), practicing art (and eventually making it for money!), coding for fun, electronics, crafting with latex, et cetera; basically things that let me recharge and recover spoons!) rather than wasting that time and energy at a dead-end service industry job would mean more awesome stories for you as well! Win-win!

Valediction

So there you have it. If you like what I write enough and you've got a dollar or two (or five!) to spare that you'd like to toss my way for the stories I write, I encourage you to go and make a pledge and tip one of your favorite writers! :D But if not, don't worry! You'll still get the same kinky stories published here to access free as often as you like!

Okay, so... This is a question I'd been pondering since I published my last story up here to FA. I had to use PDF format because FA doesn't support UTF-8 character encoding in plaintext story uploads (as far as I'm aware; that may've changed recently).

So here's the question: Should I start publishing all of my stories in PDF format instead of plaintext/html/bbcode? The various furry sites have different formatting requirements for the native format that they'll display, usually some form of plaintext that combines either html or bbcode. But beyond that, I'd really like to use something that's a bit more universally supported and can be formatted for easy viewing on most displays (especially mobile). I can do that with PDF since PDF is pretty much universally supported across operating systems and mobile/desktop devices, PDF can preserve formatting (even though it does introduce page breaks) such as bold, italic, font size, paragraph breaks (especially handy), and so on.

The only downside is, for example, here on FA where it would require an extra click on a link to actually view the story. But the upside to that is that the story is already encapsulated in a lovely formatted file that you can download straight from the browser's built-in PDF viewer for future viewing at your pleasures~!

What do y'all think? I'm an operational amplifier! I need feedback plz! :3

I need help! My pokemon story so far has had no working title at all, and I've only been referring to it as "my Pokemon story". I need help figuring out a good title for it! D:

So far, the only 'working' title I've got is "Now or Never", but I don't think it entirely fits with the theme of the story or with the direction I wanna take it in. If anybody's got any ideas, I'd love to hear them! :D

<EDIT>After thinking on it and looking at the prices of some other writers, it seems that I'll need to drop my price a bit to be more competitive. So, to start off I'm cutting the rate in half to $1.00 per 100 words.</EDIT>

There's no real easy way to say this. I've just had a very sudden change in employment status. So that means I'm gonna be pressed for cash very, VERY soon if I can't find another stable source of income. As such, I'm gonna need to bring in some supplemental income from just about any source that I can tap into until I can find stable employment again. The job hunt takes priority over this, of course, but I'll need to fill in the dead time with busy work for income.

That said, I suppose now is as good a time as any for me to capitalize on my ability to write. So, I'm opening up for story commissions for the first time ever, at a rate of $1.00 per 100 words, rounded to the nearest hundred words. Which means a 5000 word story will run around $50.00, for those doing the math. I don't know if this is expensive or just right, but right now this is the price I need to charge in order to have any chance of being able to make ends meet if the job hunt takes more than two weeks. I gotta keep a roof over mine & my partners' heads, and food in our stores for if our food stamps card runs out. I'd like to try and average 5k words per story for about 10 stories (if I can pump out that many within two weeks).

TL;DR: COMMISSION RATE: $1.00 per 100 words, rounded to nearest 100 words



WHAT I WILL AND WILL NOT DO:
1) Clean stories are A-OK. Dirty stories are dependent upon my own personal limits and preferences.
2) Until I can get a proper listing sorted out, I'm gonna toss up this link to illustrate what I will/won't do as far as fetish/kink content goes: http://dragarch.com/kinks/
2,A) Anything that's on the red list is a no-no for various reasons.
2,B) Anything on the blue list I can definitely do.
2,C) If you want a story that includes stuff on the yellow list, please be patient as there may be a mild delay while I try to figure out good ways to work it into the story.



TERMS AND CONDITIONS:
1) I will require an initial deposit of $20 (for 1000 words) that I will hold on the side until the story is complete. If I am unable to complete the story, this deposit will be refunded, no questions asked. If the story is less than 1000 words (such as a short story), then the difference will be refunded. Until I can find a better way to motivate myself to actually work on and finish stories, this solution will have to suffice.
2) Upon completion of the story, final payment of the quoted amount (minus the $20 deposit) will be required prior to shipping
3) You may specify a -preferred- word count, and I will make a best effort to fit the story within that word count. However, I am prone to getting on a roll and writing a lot more words than intended in some cases. Just to warn ahead of time, upper length limits were the bane of my existence in school. >_>;
4) You may request your story commission to be private (that is, not posted publicly by me). However, if you wish to post the story publicly yourself, then the commission WILL NOT be eligible for a request to be private.
5) I will do my best to regularly communicate the intended plot and scenes in the story so that you can point me in the direction that you want your commission to go. If I am unsure about what your character should/would do in a particular situation, I will ask for clarification.
6) Please be respectful in your communication with me. This does not mean that I won't tolerate cussing or HR-unfriendly jokes because I do a lot of that myself. I have a very low tolerance for abusive or harassing conduct towards me, and I will not put up with such behaviour. (I got enough of that from customers in my now-previous job.) I WILL request a cease and desist of the abusive behaviour. If I am forced to terminate a commission due to excessively abusive or harassing conduct after repeat requests to cease and desist, I WILL NOT refund the deposit.
7) I RESERVE THE RIGHT TO DECLINE BUSINESS TO ANY PERSON FOR ANY REASON!



COPYRIGHT STUFF:
1) The stories that I write are stories that -you-, the commissioner, paid for. Thus, copyright on shipped stories shall be divided 50/50. It shall be this way for the reasons stated in #3 and #4 below.
2) You may post the story anywhere that you desire. Since it is -your- story that -you- paid for, -you- have every right to post it up and brag about it.
3) PLEASE credit me as the author of the story. A link back to the original is highly preferred, but just give credit where credit is due. That is all that I ask for.
4) You may make edits to the shipped story as desired, but PLEASE at least credit me as the original author and indicate that your edited versions are edits and link back to the original that I produced. Otherwise, it's your story to tweak and modify to your tastes.



HOW TO ORDER:
1) PLEASE DO NOT COMMENT ON THIS JOURNAL TO REQUEST A SLOT! I WILL HAVE A VERY HARD TIME KEEPING TRACK OF THINGS! IF YOU WISH TO REQUEST A SLOT, SEND AN EMAIL TO: calyo[at]dragarch[dot]com
2) PLEASE INCLUDE THE PHRASE "COMMISSION REQUEST" IN THE SUBJECT SO THAT MY EMAIL FILTERS WILL SORT IT PROPERLY! (Or at least include the words "commission" and "request" in the subject! My filter uses a regular expression, so it's not picky. :> )
3) Please be patient while I review the order and determine whether or not I am able to accept it. I cannot guarantee that I will be able to accept the request, but I will do my best to accommodate.
4) I WILL NOT request the deposit until I am ready to start on your commission, and I WILL NOT request final pay until the story is ready to be shipped. Currently, I can accept only PayPal as a payment method. Send payment as a "Goods & Services" payment to dragon[dot]architect[at]gmail[dot]com



AVAILABLE SLOTS:
1.  chaz-fox Glue trap & teasing [COMPLETE]
2.  digitalpotato Bondage tape torment, Velsadin vs. Doulstrasz [COMPLETE...finally XD]
3.  marjask Continuation of "Birth of a Goddess"
4.  marjask Toy handles playtime for Marjask and Calyo

EDIT
I've completely forgotten about this journal, but since I got a new job a whole lot faster than I thought I would, and I've had to devote more time & energy to that and other Adult Responsibilities™, I just don't have sufficient time to take on a larger queue than what I have now. So I'm gonna keep the current queue as it is and work on that when I can. In the future, I may open for one or two slots at a time as I see fit.
TIDE

So those of you who watch me here and also follow me on Twitter already know that I'm extremely active on a daily basis. I'm just utterly rubbish at curating my static profiles such as here on FA. >_> I finally got around to cleaning things out here. Probably gonna start working on uploading past commissions, gift arts, and requests as well. There's some stuff that really needs to be uploaded. Like, baaaaadly.

{EDIT}
Btw, I tend to do most of my journal posts over at http://blog.dragon-architect.com . It's easier for me to organize my long-form thoughts there than here. :P
{EDIT}

Anyways, cheers!

So it seems that the raffle journal by this CreatureFeatureFurbrications person was deleted. Makes me think it was nothing more than a publicity ploy. Well, two can play that game. As you can see, no longer pimping the journal. :P

This is why I don't usually go for these sorts of things. If I want something badly enough, I will save up my own goddamn money and commission it outright. It feels more -earned- in that respect anyways.

Now, back to my regularly scheduled inhuman silence on FA while school saps the last of my energy for the next few months.

This is something that I've randomly thought about in the past, but today I just randomly got the itch to post a whole journal about how I drive. It seems insane to some (even my dad says I drive recklessly), but it's really calculated and careful and definitely not reckless. So without further ado, this is how I drive. All of the rules that I devised on my own based on personal experience as well as others' personal experiences, and follow as strictly as presence of mind allows.

IMPORTANT SAFETY RULES FIRST
1) NEVER EVER stray outside your own lane unless you can see with utmost certainty (and far enough ahead of yourself) that you can afford to utilize the extra space on the other half of the road. This is EXTREMELY important around blind curves and when you're just about to mount a hill. I have almost been victim to head-on collisions due to OTHER drivers not heeding this one intelligent piece of advice.
2) ALWAYS know where your wheels are relative to YOUR position in the car. On long drives when you're bored and the road you're on has rumble strips in the shoulder, idly drift into the shoulder until you feel the "BUZZZZZZ" of your wheels hitting the rumble strip, and pay attention to where that strip is relative to your point of view. This is an extremely handy piece of knowledge when you're driving a narrow road with no shoulders.
3) DO NOT use the center line as your line of reference for driving unless you are in the far left hand lane of a multi lane highway. If you do, you will inevitably become one of those drivers that drifts over that line and poses a collision risk to others. ALWAYS use the shoulder line to your left. Find out a comfortable notch to nest that line into along the bottom of your windshield where it meets the bonnet and dash, and hold it there.
4) ALWAYS buckle up (this can save your life in the event of other drivers being total idiots!). NEVER look at your cell phone for extended periods of time (even quick glances have sometimes resulted in near-misses for me). When the road gets curvy, keep BOTH hands on the steering wheel, unless you have to shift gears (this exception applies to manual transmissions), and ALWAYS keep your eyes solidly planted on the road as far ahead as your visual acuity and terrain allows.
5) If you are getting sleepy, for god's sake and for your own safety as well as that of everyone around you, pull off the road and take a quick catnap. Seriously, no one is going to think you are stupid or foolish for pulling off the road and catching some Z's if it means being able to keep your eyes open for the rest of the drive. I've done this many a time when driving home from Atlanta/Chattanooga. Highway 111 from Chattanooga to home is one of the most boring roads Tennessee has to offer. It's not fun to drive late in the evening after spending a whole day driving around. And that urge to just get home is a powerful one, but it should never supersede the importance of being alert and aware of your surroundings.
6) If you have had even ONE drink of alcohol, you are unfit to drive. Even a light buzz inhibits one's alertness and presence of mind. Driving demands a LOT of attention and awareness, that is sometimes difficult to pull off even when completely sober and wide awake. Attempting to drive while even slightly inebriated can pose a risk to yourself and others. Just sit around wherever you are for a couple hours and wait for the buzz to pass, or call a cab and pick your car up the next morning, or if you're too far away from home or with a friend, just spend the night on a sofa.
7) NEVER EVER EVER try to pass on a blind curve or hill. This is DANGEROUS. ALWAYS wait until you have a section with high enough long distance visibility (it doesn't even have to be straight--it can be a flat but slightly curvy section of road) and NO oncoming traffic. Then, make your move according to Technique Rule #3.
8) If you are behind a driver who is swerving a lot, or is driving over the center line a lot, give them LOTS of space. Those kinds of drivers are DANGEROUS, and if you try to tailgate them, you are setting yourself up for being a third party in a collision if one should happen. Give them space, and when the first opportunity comes along, pass them and put them behind you.
9) LEAVE DRAFTING TO THE EXPERTS!!! And by experts, I'm talking professional stunt and racing drivers. Drafting can give you and the other driver one way tickets to an ER if the car in front of you suddenly brakes and you hit them in the rear. And how close you have to drive in order to gain the fuel efficiency benefits from drafting is unbelievably close, even for tailgating standards. Seriously, just don't fucking do it, alright?
10) MOTORCYCLES: They do exist. They are very hard to spot. They are very tiny. And they are VERY much unprotected. Give them plenty of room. Riders of motorcycles are looking to have fun, but they can't have fun when drivers act as if motorcycles are like other cars. MOTORCYCLES ARE NOT CARS! Give them some fucking space.

SPEED
1) I never drive more than 5mph over the marked limit on roads I have never been on before, unless it is a very straight section of road--it's complete idiocy to try and drive crazy fast when approaching an unfamiliar curve.
2) On familiar roads, the speed limit is just a suggestion. But that also doesn't mean that driving ANY speed is a good idea. If you know the road well enough to know what speed is a smartly safe maximum, don't go any faster than that. And of course, keep your eyes out for cops. This rule is NOT applicable for roads that are frequently watched by police and highway patrol; stay within 5mph of the marked limit in this case, even if other drivers around you are tailgating your ass. After all, you don't want a ticket, but if they want one they can have it! :V My general rule of thumb is 15mph over the marked limit is a safe maximum for most roads, with lower speeds being exceptions for particularly hazardous segments like tight curves and blind hills with busy intersections immediately afterward, and higher speeds being exceptions for extremely straight sections with VERY high and long distance visibility.
3) When you're on a long distance drive, cruise control is your bestest, most awesome friend in the whole wide world. Find a comfy speed within 5-10mph of the marked limit that isn't too much faster than the rest of traffic around you, and lock it in. It saves fuel when you're not constantly feathering the accelerator, and if your selected speed is somewhat within the general flow of traffic, it also saves a TON of hassle dealing with stupidly slow drivers. You can usually just drift around them as you move along, and still be able to stay out of the ways of the stupidly fast drivers that're asking for speeding tickets.

TECHNIQUE
1) If you can shift gears on your car, use the stick/paddles regularly. It's there for a reason. Plus, it gives you the fun feeling that you're driving a racing car. Play an active role in how the car behaves and how much power and torque meets the pavement! You can gain a lot of performance benefit from actively partaking in your car's power output.
2) Tight curves: Brake to a safe speed BEFORE the curve, and shift down to a gear that'll put engine RPM within 3K-4K just as you pull into the curve, and accelerate through. This sounds counter-intuitive to most, but this is a racing technique that is WELL UNDERSTOOD for a good reason: acceleration puts additional weight on the rear wheels of your car. Your car's rear suspension is designed to offer a slight bit of counter-steer to reduce understeer as the suspension travels upward due to compression. The more weight you can put on the rear going through a curve with acceleration G-forces, the more counter-steer the rear wheels generate, which helps you hold a tighter, more stable line. Plus, BRAKING through the curve takes weight OFF the rear wheels, reducing their ability to grip the road and increasing understeer by a considerable amount. I've almost lost control because stupid me braked through a curve instead of accelerated. The car feels like it's riding a rail when you accelerate through, but when you brake you feel like you're about to spin out of control.
3) When passing, shift your car down into the gear you need BEFORE you start the pass, not as you're initiating it. Why? The added torque and power offered by the lower gear helps you to accelerate to a faster speed as you're shifting into the other lane and moving to pass the other car. Plus, if you're passing a douchebag that likes to try and speed up to head you off at the pass, being able to blast past them before they can realize you're making a move on them is very handy.

FOUL WEATHER
1) There is only one rule for foul weather driving: DON'T DRIVE LIKE THESE RULES DIRECT!! keep your speed at or just barely above the marked limit. Slow down to conservative speeds on curves. Give drivers TONS of room. And pay careful attention to the road, even on straight sections. Rain or snow can EASILY conceal road lines even in the middle of the day. If things get so shitty that you have to pull off for a few minutes, it's a lot smarter to do that than to try and forge onward.

And finally, some parting words: Learn your car's limitations. Learn the response time of the engine and steering. Learn how loose the steering and suspension feel. Understand your car's blind spots, and never forget about them. Learn where your wheels are located, and where your front and rear bumpers are. And last but not least, learn when to back off and drive safely.

Remember: YOU are in control of YOUR car, not the other way around. But YOUR car has its breaking point. DO NOT push it past the breaking point. And last but not least: have fun. Driving is not supposed to be stressful. Driving is about the experience of freedom, and of moving, and getting places really fast, and being in complete control of where you go and how fast you get there.

Those of you who follow me on Twitter have heard bits and pieces of the damage in my small part of the southeast from the storms, but you haven't heard the whole story. Well, here it goes...

The storm struck Baxter around 6:30 AM. At first it sounded just like any other really bad windy storm... until I heard the winds escalate. I rolled over in my bed and looked out the window (which is really easy to do since my bed is a loft that I built myself, so I can just reach out and crack the end of the blinds), and I saw the bushes in the front yard being blown SO HARD that I honestly thought shit was goin' down. I was out of bed, dressed, with my jackets and loaded backpack on my back in under a minute and I left my room to join dad in the kitchen, where he was keeping a very close eye on things.

The wind was COMPLETELY insane (dad later got word from his boss when he called to say he was gonna be late to work that winds maxed out at 65mph). I kept telling dad we were in a tornado, but he kept insisting we weren't for two reasons: apparently the sky changes to a freakish green-grey right before a tornado hits, and you can hear a very loud and low rumbling. Still, I was freaked out because I'd never been in (or close-called by) a tornado.

Anyways, as we watched the storm raging like hell, we suddenly saw some trees fall to the wind. Yeah. I actually got to see trees fall. It's not as exciting when you're half-frightened by the worst thunderstorm you've ever experienced. >.<

Anyways, the squall came and went in under an hour, and that left us with some moderate rains to go out into and survey the damage...

The first tree of ours to fall to the wind was one of the four Bradford pear trees in our back hard. Half of it just split away from the whole tree (trunk included) and fell to the side and narrowly missed the corner of our porch roof. The other four Bradfords also fell later in the storm. One of them was ripped up FROM its roots all the way down to the ball. The roots are still in the ground but the rest of the tree was knocked over to the side (into the first tree that fell, which took out the rest of that tree). The other two Bradfords are both half ripped apart as well.

Basically, all four trees are a total loss. Which is a good thing to dad and I, because we both hate Bradfords used as landscaping trees for this very reason. They can't hold up to winds because of the way they grow.

We also lost part of another tree. A big tree that stood at the corner of our yard lost the top 1/3 of its canopy, which flopped down into our driveway, keeping dad and I from going to work and class respectively for a good couple of hours until he could drag it out of the way with his truck.

Fortunately, the tulip poplar in our front yard is still standing strong. God I love hardwood trees. They can take so much punishment and keep standing. <3

That's not the worst of it, though. One of our neighbors lost a weeping willow in their front yard, another neighbor across the road had lost a whole oak tree (fully grown!!), and still another neighbor lost two trees next to the main road, which both fell onto power lines that gave most of Baxter its juice. And someone else further down the road had a HUMONGOUS oak tree in their yard (one of those really thick trunk trees) that was split down the trunk into three huge sections. All of this done by the wind alone.

So right now our yard is a total mess with four half-destroyed bradford pear trees that dad is slowly cutting up with the chainsaw. The house and garage and all four of our vehicles were completely unscathed. As were our neighbors' houses. Well... except for one neighbor who lost part of a fence to a falling tree that came from one of their neighbors' yards. XD But fortunately that was the only property damage in the immediate viscinity of our home. The only significant loss was that weeping willow. The owners of that property are sad that they have to cut that beautiful tree down now.

Yeah, that describes me. Been too lazy to get anything done on the computer 'cause I've been scrambling all over the place trying to keep up with RL. It's not hectic, mind you. It's just that school keeps throwing bloody curve balls at me. x___X

Last semester, due to a death in the family (I've been quiet about it all this time because, well, honestly, I've ended up focusing more on doing other things) I had to take incompletes in all of my courses. So I've been working to complete the final exams for those courses. I've busted one final out of the way and made a B in that course! :D Getting close to shoving another one behind me after I take the first exam of the semester for the follow-up class to that one.

And that leaves me with one more final exam from last semester, several two-page papers from last semester, a whole website to build by April, a résumé and an online interview to do, on top of a weekly assignment for one class, online quizzes and labs for another class, and a looming EMC2 Corporation certification exam for yet another class. x___X

IN THE MEANTIME!!
I have not forgotten about FurAffinity, or all of you who watch my account here. It's just not a very high priority at this point in time, considering I have to pull myself out of Academic Probation by the end of this semester... or get suspended from university for a semester. Yeah. Not Fun™. x___X

But there may or may not be some new things to come along. I've decided to start rewriting the Dragonsuit stories (they can be found at deviantART) to make them flow a little better and seem less contrived. My prose skills have improved massively since then. And I'm also in the slow and steady process of writing a novel that... admittedly hasn't had much progress in the past couple months, but it's coming along. I've mostly been trying to figure out how best to distribute it since I don't wanna have to go through big-name publishers that want a disparately oversized cut of the profits.

I have seen ASCAP, MPAA, and RIAA do some legal gymnastics that have left me severely disillusioned about the illegality and immorality of piracy as well as the questionable means in which the mentioned organizations represent artists. I have seen some artists, mostly independents, pull some extremely clever publicity stunts as well as some other interesting exploits to value the content they produce in such a way that it encourages people to buy legally, and they manage to do far better (albeit with less publicized fame) than artists that have signed with big-name content publishers.

I have also been in the process of planning websites for myself and for my dad--the latter will be my production website for my webdesign class this semester since my own personal website may contain subject material not suitable for a classroom environment.

Now
On to the death in the family I mentioned earlier. Back in mid-december, my mother died of mysterious health complications due to an ongoing and deteriorating condition that none of her doctors could fully determine. She pretty much deteriorated to the point that when we finally had to take her to the ER, she slipped into a comatose state and the ICU physicians said that she was going to die eventually because her condition just kept worsening. So we did the more humane thing and let her go and... it was one of the hardest things I've ever had to endure, but it's alright. Since her side of the family has always had a fairly pragmatic view of death, and since I was the only one that she had ever told her post-death wishes to, she's been cremated and her ashes sit inside a rather simple urn that dad made.

I bounced back after a week and I've mostly just been... going through the arduous and draining task of helping dad clean up her house. I've managed to rescue a few family keepsakes from her house. She passed on in the week right before finals last semester, hence all the incompletes that I have to finish by the end of this semester. But now that I no longer have her ailing health as a weight upon my shoulders, I can worry about my own problems instead of worrying about myself and mother, and that has helped me. So I guess... in a way... her death is helping me get through this hectic time in university. But at the same time all this stress with university is keeping me from fixating too much upon her death and is helping me to move on. It also helps that I have my own pragmatic view of life and death--it just happens and there's no way to stop it. All that one can do is realize that the loved-one is gone and move on.

TL;DR
I have a lot of stuff that I am working on at the same time, so progress is very slow, and certain education-related tasks have utmost priority. But Big Things™ are afoot, and results will be seen soon.

Especially When Things Get Better

I now have a new mattress for my bed. It's not a Jamison, but it's a Corsicana instead. Doesn't feel as amazing as a Jamison does, but the springs aren't ultra stiff, nor are they ultra squishy. The mattress has just enough give to feel soft. :)

On top of that, I have two new expansion cards for my desktop. A PCIe-to-SATA/eSATA card and a second PCI-to-USB card. I've already used all four motherboard ports AND three out of four external ports on the existing card. So... yes. Twelve USB ports. I have a bunch of USB gadgets. ^^; And I found out that moving a device from one PCI slot to another apparently confuses the drivers. :paranoid: Learned that the hard way when I moved my sound card up a slot so the new USB card could be right next to the older one and had to reinstall the sound drivers.

And theeeen I found out that the SATA card (which has two internal SATA and two external SATA ports) installed just fine after digging through the driver disc and downloading drivers that had no SETUP.EXE file with them... and that it doesn't support SATA hot-swap like my motherboard does. So I still have to use the eSATA adapter that came with my external hard drive months ago--an adapter that just screws into a rear slot and connects directly to a SATA port. x____X

Well if anything, I has new mattress now. Tonight should be a pleasant night's rest. n_n

Today started off on the right foot. I got plenty of sleep. I had planned to mow the lawn while it was dry out. I had empty bottles and soda cans to take to the recycling (which I did).

Got home from city errands, talked to mom on the phone a little bit, was in a good mood, went out to try starting the lawn mower. It wouldn't start. I expected that, figured that I'd just use my car to jump start. The lawnmower battery is a bit old and sometimes needs three or four back-to-back jumps to get it to crank hard and fast enough to breathe some life into the mower.

Got to work on the second jump start, when I looked in my wing mirror to see... blue smoke. Fucking perfect. Today started off great until I saw that friggin' blue smoke. A piston ring is failing inside my car. Awesome. Grand. Yayhappyday. That's an expensive repair the parents aren't gonna be too happy to hear about. Might as well ask the mechanic to replace the crankshaft and timing belt while he's at it since both of those parts are also a little bit on the damaged side.

Last summer, a small shard of metal stress-sheared off the end of the crankshaft, causing the woodruff key that held the main belt pulley (and harmonic balancer) in place and caused it to unbolt itself from the end of the crankshaft. In repairing that little mishap, dad unintentionally (and unavoidably) singed a little bit of the timing belt since the lower timing cog is, like, right behind the main pulley. And that singe makes me worried the belt could break at any time (Honda engines are "interference" engines, meaning if the belt breaks, pistons are gonna meet valves head-on).

But now my car has a dying piston ring. Repairing that requires one to take the whole engine apart. And dad will go on this long worst-case-scenario spiel about "if you take the engine apart, you might as well rebuild the head, which is gonna cost more money, and while you're doing that you might as well hone the cylinders again and..."

Y'know, I'm kinda tempted to street-tune my car as-is. Keep the little D15B1 engine and see what I can do with a single-cam four-banger instead of splurging a ton of dough on a slightly bigger and newer dual-cam engine that would need rebuilding anyways. I don't see a lot of Honda tuners working with D-engines anyways. And a lot of tuners work with aged engines from junked cars.

And even through all of this... the bloody lawn mower wouldn't start up still. So I had to go plug the thing up to the slow battery charger and I'm waiting for the evening to roll around after the charger's had time to charge the battery up so I can mow while it's still light out.

The only positive thing in all of this now is the new Mythbusters episode tonight and the fact that even though my mother's been a bit ill these past couple of weeks and has been tested for various things by the doctors, she's getting observably better and stronger and healthier each day and the doctors told her that a test for Lupus came up negative.

Dr. House: "Those idiots. Don't they know it's never Lupus?"

So apparently today is Draw Muhammed Day. An unofficial holiday that was sparked up by some people who got pissed off at the censorship of South Park episodes "200" and "201". Now, I'm pissed that those episodes were censored, too, but there's a bit of decency that has to be exercised, and this has crossed the line in my opinion.

This was probably meant to be more of a joke, but I personally don't see it as one. I see it as a direct insult to Islam based on the actions of a few extremists. I can only see bad things coming out of this. If any of you can laugh at this and live with yourself, then go ahead and laugh. I'm not laughing, because I don't find this funny at all.

the occasional depiction of Muhammed can be shrugged off by most Muslims even if it might be a bit insulting, but when there is an entire day devoted to encouraging people to make depictions of Muhammed, that's going to piss off a lot of people that do not deserve this level of disrespect.

I'm aware that a lot of people are angered at the censorship of South Park. I was as well; a scan through my previous journal is evidence of such. But directly attacking all of Islam based on the actions of a few severely out of touch with reality wackos just isn't going to help the situation.

There are far more civilized ways of fighting back against the extremists, but a day of mass illustrations of their most revered prophet isn't a joke. It's flat out insulting. I myself had a few choice words to say in my previous journals, but I directed them towards the hyper-conservative extremists; not towards Muslims in general.

Thankfully, I can't draw worth a crap, so I can't participate. But even if I could, I'd still refuse out of respect for another religion. This crosses a line of decency and respect towards other people. And I'm gonna put my foot down and say right here, right now, that this is not right. And if anyone reading this journal has a shred of respect for your fellow humans (and furries), you'll refuse to participate in "Draw Muhammed Day" as well. There are far more Muslims in this world that are perfectly normal average people that don't deserve this kind of treatment.

I am extremely up in arms about this, and so are Matt & Trey and countless other South Park fans. And this journal is an extremely long and foul-languaged rant that touches on sensitive topics. If you're offended by it all, then just click the back button--that's why it exists.

South Park's 200th episode constantly threatened to depict Muhammed throughout the episode as they went on a roller coaster ride referencing tens of older episodes, with some references dating all the way back to the first season.

Up until now, South Park has released 200 episodes, some innocent and just plain funny, some outright offensive and bordering on absolutely tactless, and most kinda toeing that line and representing just what freedoms the First Amendment guarantees. South Park gave mercy to no one. They've made racist episodes, sexist episodes, anti-religious (and also pro-religious) episodes, and they've even released episodes ripping on people with various health issues. And every episode was accompanied with some sort of message, typically spoken by Kyle but occasionally uttered by Stan or Cartman or the show's random "special guest" (normally a badly impersonated celebrity) that explained what was wrong, why it was wrong, and what could be done to better society.

But then for episode 201, something unimaginable happened. Comedy Central censored South Park. Majorly. Every single mentioning of Muhammed's name, every single instance of his appearance, and even Kyle's speech at the end (which doesn't even mention Muhammed at all) got bleeped out or black boxed. And it was all because some radical Islamic website threatened violence if Muhammed was not censored in #201.

South Park has released episodes far more vulgar, far more offensive, far more tactless, and just down right nasty compared to "200" and "201", and yet "201" is the only episode that has ever been so extensively censored. Episodes like "It Hits the Fan", where the word "shit" is spoken UNCENSORED over a hundred times in just a half an hour; "The Tale of Scroty McBoogerballs" is full of nothing but puking; "Pee" has a lot of... well... pee in it; "The Passion of the Jew" features Cartman becoming a miniature Hitler.

South Park has also ripped on every single major religion in the world: Catholocism, Protestantism, Mormonism, Judaism, Scientology (at the expense of losing Chef's voice actor, no less), but this is the first time they've ever ripped on Islam to any significant degree with the exception of "Cartoon Wars" parts I and II. And even in THOSE episodes, Muhammed got censored by Comedy Central!

The problem I have with this is that Islamic radicals hold the entire world to a double standard, and they do so at the threat of violence. This gives the rest of Islam a very bad image. But the sickening part is that this coercive power WORKS! Why is it that South Park is allowed to rip on every other religion and get away with it, as offensive as those rips are, and yet they get censored when they rip on Islam just because a few network executives are fucking pussies and afraid of a few pissed off people? These radicals just can't GROW THE FUCK UP!!

And this leads me onto the issue of censorship in general! In fact, "Cartoon Wars" tried to highlight this issue by showing Muhammed, but guess what? COMEDY CENTRAL WUSSED OUT AND CENSORED THE SHOW ANYWAYS! Kyle explained it well when he said that censoring one episode just because it offends one person means that other people can then get more "offensive" episodes censored until the show is canceled entirely. I have seen all kinds of offensive programming out of Comedy Central, and yet they STILL censor things whenever it comes to the subject of Islam. Get a fucking clue people! Muslim radicals can't hold the entire world at knife point forever!

I respect the Muslim faith, but South Park is offensive on purpose and for a very good reason: they use that shock factor to try and teach people lessons about the flaws in the world and in society. If they can't do that, then South Park just isn't South Park anymore. And Matt and Trey upheld this philosophy when Isaac Hayes took offense to South Park's rips on Scientology. Matt and Trey refused to apologize for any of their rips, because they don't like the double standards that religions hold people to. That, I think, is highly salutable.

Censorship exists because daytime TV when children are up and about is no place for explicit and adult-oriented programming. But in cases where episodes become censored just because of their offensive content is when censorship is being abused. A perfectly reasonable system for keeping underage viewers from being exposed to content that is not suitable for their age is being exploited to impinge upon the First Amendment rights of the directors behind television shows across America.

This is yet another example of small groups and organizations trampling all over the rights of the majority, and not only is it morally unacceptable, it's also destructive to society. And I, for one, do not stand for this at all. Say what you will, but as far as censorship is concerned, I think it has gotten to the point where it is nothing but BULL FUCKING SHIT!

As for those Islamic radicals that rule over everyone with their threats and violence, FUCK YOU! None of the other religions get up in arms when someone rips on them, SO GROW THE FUCK UP! I like the Muslims that I've met at university loads more; they're nice and respectful people, and they have more manners than any random stranger I've ever met. It's high time radicals get a fucking clue and get in touch with reality, because reality doesn't want you on this fucking planet! Everyone just wants to get along, but you fucking Islamic radicals with your terrorism and IEDs and all that shit just won't let ANYONE to have a nice day! Get the fuck off our planet, and get the fuck out of history! You've killed enough innocent people for a perverted "higher cause." Leave this planet to the REAL Muslims and the REAL Christans and the REAL Jews and the REAL other not-as-religious people that are far better people than you worthless scumbags!

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Furry Weekend was probably the most fun I've ever had in a long, long ass time. A combination of being with over a thousand people with one thing in common and not being around annoy-a-tron relatives made for a weekend that no other vacation in the past could ever parallel.

But even as I rode the awesome wave of comradery, and it pushed me faster, faster, faster still... it eventually had to crash upon the shoreline and wipe me out on the beach.

My life has returned to its normal isolated mundane-ness. Wake up, get dressed, go to school all day, come home, chat with friends and do homework, go to bed, rinse, wash, repeat.

Even the roads up here in Tennessee feel sluggish and slow compared to Georgia. The 10 mile commute to school took bloody forever, and I drove 55 the whole way there. The next week or two are going to take forever as I recover from the emotional high that was Furry Weekend Atlanta.

But I didn't walk away from the con with absolutely nothing. Sure, I got some great art from artists that I totally admire, but I also got to meet those artists as well. Hibbary and Lizardbeth both are more awesome in person than I'd ever imagined. And I got to see Beerhorse, Gideon, Blotch, and Kamicheetah as well.

And even better, I got to meet Uncle Kage and 2 Gryphon in person (those two are HILARIOUS when they're together), and I met THE Dragoneer and hung out with him and his friends Twile, Baka Saka, Doral, Dior, Coopertom... I met so many people I can't remember all the names. But Dragoneer is such an awesome dude to chill around. ^^ He doesn't deserve any of the crap that comes his way.

And most importantly, I came home with a bolstered confidence in my own furriness. Having met REAL people IN PERSON that are also furries helped me to realize that I really am not alone here.

But enough of that. It's time to get back into the grind of daily existence. I am definitely going to FWA next year, and the year after, and the year after that. And I am definitely going to try to book a hotel room each time, too. And I know for sure that I want to go to other conventions as money permits. But until then... *pays attention to webdesign class*

...when GoogleMaps exists for completely free? XD

I've just spend the past three or so days scrutinizing downtown Atlanta in preparation for FWA. And I will likely spend the next couple of weeks doing the same; studying where landmarks are, which ways roads go, what roads are where, and so on. I've filled up two pages of a yellow note pad with turn-by-turn directions so that I can drive by the hotel on Thursday without getting lost due to a wrong turn.

I've planned three different routes from I-85 south up three different access ramps, and I have three different route plans for getting back ONTO I-85 south, and I made sure to include one HOV lane access ramp in each set of three. The only thing I could do better than this is to somehow print off a high-detail map from GoogleMaps with all the roads labeled and all my intended routes marked.

Not only that, but I've also planned out how I'm going to get to and from the two MARTA stations that I'll be using. Since I'll be lodging with an aunt that lives a little southwest of Atlanta, I get to ride the yellow/green line from College Park all the way up to Peachtree Center and back every day. :D No, the aunt does not live in College Park. No, I will not say where she lives exactly. However, I did Gmap the directions to her new place just to scope out the territory and prep myself for what I should expect to see as I'm approaching her address.

GPS exists for people who don't like asking for directions if they get lost. GPS exists for people who want to toss their money away. GPS exists for people who have a tendency to not plan ahead.

GoogleMaps exists for people who DO like asking for directions and do not mind getting lost (after all, you're trying to memorize a roadmap--a wrong turn will happen somewhere in there). Gmaps exists for people who want to save their money. Gmaps exists for people who like to plan ahead.

And by golly, if I could, I'd post a map with all of my planned routes drawn on it just to show you guys how OCD I am about planning things down to the last detail, and then making alternative plans just in case things go awry. It's a habit that I learned from my high school band director, along with his mantra: "If you're early, you're on time, but you're late if you're on time." (In other words: "SHOW UP EARLY!! Don't wait until the clock strikes Zero Hour!")

For those of you who don't know me that well, it's really hard to get me to spaz out when things don't go to plan. I just stop and think, "There's a Plan B in here. Let's work it up first before we forge onward." Well this time, I have Plan A, and I also have a Plan B and a Plan C for the first half of my Thursday trek through downtown Atlanta (yes, I could take the I-285 bypass from I-75 to I-85, but then I'll completely miss the Hilton entirely by several miles). Then I also have a Plan A, Plan B, and Plan C for the second half (getting back onto I-85).

The last time I was in a city that I wasn't familiar with, I spent a half hour the night before studying the major roads on Gmaps so I could figure out approximately where I was in the city while driving through it. I got lost once, but once I hit another major road, I was right back on track again. :D

GPS, you can just kiss mah fat feathered butt! Gmaps is my roadside travel aid for Furry Weekend Atlanta! :D

It's been bloody forever since I last posted a journal. ^^; I'm really horrible about keeping things up to date. You should see my deviantART inbox. I've been tempted several times to nuke the damn thing and just get it all out of my way. And I barely keep up with my e-mail inboxes (both university and gmail). Anyways, just to let you guys know I'm still alive and still kicking... and still grinding away at University... and don't think any comments you've left on my three submissions here and two journals have gone unread. I've read them; I just haven't replied... yet.

Classes last semester were harsh to the point I got a 1.08 GPA for that semester. UGH! The CSC department kinda messed me up in making me take two classes I had no business taking at the same time. So my graduation plans got delayed for another year. (This means student loans for two years of university instead of one once my scholarships run out.)

Aaaaaaaaanyways, in other news, FWA is looming and stress about it is mounting. I just tried getting my conbadge made and Office Max fucked up the lamination (then again, 10mil laminate is kinda thick to put around two layers of photo paper, but I want a nearly indestructible first conbadge), so I have to start from scratch and get both sides reprinted, then I gotta cut both sides out AGAIN (ugh hobby knives leave your fingers RAW!). And then I gotta go to Staples... unless my dad decides to do the lamination work for me since he does work at a photo studio.

But anyways, I'm hyper excited about FWA since it's just a four hour drive and I have family in the area and have already secured living arrangements with an aunt that I haven't visited in a year or two. She moved into a new house, so I'm also excited to see that as well! And with the MARTA system having a station only two blocks from the convention center, that's an even bigger plus, because she lives a few miles south of the end of the line that passes right through that station! ^^

And on top of that my parents won't stop prodding me about the furcon. I keep telling them it's some random fan convention, but they keep asking me what it is. >.< This is awkwarrrrrrrrrrrd!!