A Little Bird Told Me

Writer's Block: What is your name?

2009-04-09T19:06:36Z

If you were to have another name, what would it be?

I'd change my last name to Weaver, because I like craft/creative names - I work in clay...but the name Potter is a bit...well...used at this point. I'm not overly fond of my last name or the family attached to it. I've considered going and getting a name change but after a while I know that I will always be the same person. After seeing my sister go through a name change, it seems a bit of unwanted hassle.

diomedea13 @ 2009-02-18T15:21:00

2009-02-18T23:29:32Z

1. Where is your cell phone? Nowhere
2. Your significant other? None
3. Your hair? - Brown
4. Your mother? loud
5. Your father? forceful
6. Your favorite thing? clay
7. Your dream last night? sky
8. Your favorite drink? coffee
9. Your dream/goal? artist
10. What room you are in? green
11. Your hobby? writing
12. Your fear? sickness
13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? established
14. Where were you last night? home
16. Muffins? lemon
17. Wish list item? roller
18. Where you grew up? california
19. Last thing you did? glaze
20. What are you wearing? dungarees
21. Your TV? on
22. Your pets? alive
23. Friends? away
24. Your life? slacking
25. Your mood? watchful
26. Missing some one? sister
27. Car? honda
28. Something you're not wearing? ring
29. Your favorite store? hardware
30. Your favorite color? blue
33. When is the last time you laughed? - Today
34. Last time you cried? saturday
35. Who will resend this? - Friends
36. One place that I go to over and over? store
37. One person who emails me regularly? spammers
38. My favorite place to eat? home
39. Why you participated in this survey? shrug
40. What are you doing tonight? - Sleeping

Birds in Tubes

2008-12-21T06:14:59Z

Get two of these:

www.amazon.com/Critter-Cave-Chew-9/dp/B000793M8G/ref=sr_1_3 (discard the bedding)

Get some nice organic/natural string of some kind. Hang tubes from top of the cage, taking care that they can be entered by climbing the side of the cage. You get.... Bird Tubes:

Granted, I have to clean out the tubes on a daily basis (I use the end of a wooden perch to scrape), but the tubes create a VERY warm protected place for them to sleep. Kind of birdy hammocks or one-bird tents or something. I've put my hand inside them directly after they've been inside and it is easily 5-10 degrees warmer. They also don't seem to have as many night frights, at least I'm not finding any evidence in the form of blood spatters and so on.

diomedea13 @ 2008-11-28T18:26:00

2008-11-29T02:30:28Z

You're a dog, your life depends on having happy owners.

Your owner has a client coming over to look at art. What do you do?

A. Be a good doggy and go to sleep somewhere
B. Wiggle and be a happy dog
C. Bark a bit, but go away when I tell you to
D. Lay a sloppy 1lb shit right in front of the door

Note that picking D REALLY pisses me off. You know, I let you out a mere 3 hours ago. You haven't been fed since about 1pm, meaning that all those digestive things should have happened a while ago. I'm trying to be a reasonable and kind human being, but picking D was the wrong choice. The house now smells like shit, orange cleanser and coffee. I hope the client is late.

Today's walking trip

2008-10-04T00:06:41Z

I walked arboretum from end to end, and the adjoining islands as well, a round trip of more than three miles. The bonus being that I am not at all sore! I guess all those greenlake walks are having an effect!

Pictures of the trip:

http://s299.photobucket.com/albums/mm298/diomedea13/arboretum/?action=view&current=apeakatseattle.jpg

A dream...

2008-09-17T01:12:51Z

I went to sleep with a foul crampy tummy and my legs hurting as well. I was exhausted and finally slept and had this strange dream.

Apparently, I won tickets to the Paraolympics in Beijing, so I and some other people (unsure who) are in this building watching a gymnast. The place is shoddy, the athlete looks very unhappy, even pissed and it is oppresively hot. There's one fan casting shadows and making lots of whooshing noises a la bad film noir movie. For some reason I start ranting that I am going to blog how awful the event is vs the regular Olympics and everyone ignores me.

So we go outside for no reason. For equally no reason there are zombies wandering the street. Now, they weren't ravening, more like puppies or dogs trying to sniff you, only decaying and disgusting. I batted them away with a pamphlet and politely told them to go away. Then I saw Sulu from Star Trek in his uniform. He's come to save us and we go to the Enterprise.

The dream cuts away to vintage footage of Star Trek, complete with graininess and sound effects from the old series. Here's Captian Kirk and McCoy on the bridge. Captain Kirk has what looks like my copy of the Better Homes and Garden Cookbook, complete with checker board cover and handy tabs for finding cookie recipes. Though, I guess it is the protocol manual or something...Kirk looks frustrated.

"I cannot find anything on Zombies!" Says Kirk in a peeved voice, mopping at his unkept hair dramatically.

"Dammit Kirk! We must do something!" McCoy says with equal drama, his hand striking the open cook book

"There is nothing we can do!" Kirk says wretchedly.

Whereupon, perhaps thankfully, I woke up. I woke up laughing. Absolutely the funniest most entertaining dream in forever.

Pixie in Guild Wars!

2008-09-16T09:15:34Z

Now my survivor character cannot escape because he tamed a mountain eagle. Check out the chilling resemblance between pixie, right and the mountain eagle on the left.

The 11 o'clock news!

2008-09-15T05:30:22Z

Bird Brings Horror to Gaming Time

A gamer in Seatte, Washington reports that she has been terrorized by a bird, authorities say. The innocent gamer was enjoying a round of solo play in the Tihark Orchard Mission, when she alleges that her pet cockatiel destroyed her gaming enjoyment. The gamer's sister, a witness to the bizarre ornithological interference, claims that the gamer made several crude anatomical references in addition to the common intercourse and female dog vulgarities after the bird apparently alighted on the keyboard. Despite these crude, unladylike comments, the cockatiel continued to run across the keyboard, at one point crapping on the gleaming black surface. However, the gamer was unconcerned about the keyboard, for the purpose of her evening's entertainment, a survivor character, had been slain by relatively unchallenging mobs due to the deft wasd keyboard strikes of the randomly frolicing bird.

Though the gamer was very angry, she says she will allow the bird to remain in her household. Authorities have widely suggested keeping small pets away from keyboards, but sometimes even sensible people allow them to roam at large, causing generalized destruction in fantasy worlds. We have no reports as to what the gamer's character thought about this event. Though many have guessed that his final words were something like "AAAAARRRGGGGGHHHHH, it's as if my player's brain shrank to 1/100th normal size!!!!!".

Pixie the cockatiel would not return any calls and her cagemate Moon was not available for comment. It is suspected Pixie will not get her morning millet spray treat due to lingering antipathy from the gamer.

The response to said book

2008-08-31T19:01:15Z

I gave the book directly to Jeff Grub (story director and writer for GW) who LOVED it! I was really really running over with shyness and shaking and stuff, but after I scuttled away to catch my breath, I realised that his laugh and smile was genuine and he was really flattered. Furthermore, when I went to the third year panel Jeff showed off the book to 350 other GW fans and I got to stand up and feel totally embarassed but happy and stuff. Anyhow, it was a totally cool fangirly squeeee type of day.

My Pax photo album

http://s299.photobucket.com/albums/mm298/diomedea13/Guild%20wars/PAX08/?action=view&current=PAX_enforcer.jpg

The Book of Swine

2008-08-30T07:30:17Z

To understand this entry, you need to see:

http://www.wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Librarian_Kahlidahri

This is an NPC that Anet put in the game because a couple years ago I made a bestiary of mundane critters in the Lore forum of Guild Wars Online. Last night I was pondering PAX, and the fact that I've always wanted to properly say thank you. I've really enjoyed having a namesake in a game like this. Thus, I created a book. I wrote, painted, aged, sewed and bound a book with red vinyl, entirely concerned with the pig crazy world of Guild wars.

http://s299.photobucket.com/albums/mm298/diomedea13/Guild%20wars/book%20of%20swine/?action=view&current=bookofswine1.jpg

Just scroll to the right...and you'll view the book in order.

I am utterly bushed. All day today was make this book, make this book...sew, cut, print, stain...

There were 18 pages and I dyed and dried each one in the microwave for 1:30. Each page is glued back to back and then sewn into fray proof ribbon to prevent the pages from being ripped or falling out of the binding. If I'd had nore time I would have gotten more nuetral colored ribbon...but all I had was rip stop black...it looks kinda eww...but in a way it gives some of the 'old rugged book' image. The tip of my index finger is sore from pushing a needle through ribbon and paper. Ah, and the book fastener has one of my porcelain pendants and some wirework holding the leather thong in place.

The third glaze firing

2008-08-26T05:18:03Z

LOTS of stuff came out of the kiln! Here are pictures of the highlights! Just hit the next button on the right hand side.

http://s299.photobucket.com/albums/mm298/diomedea13/Ceramics/third_glaze_run/?action=view&current=allskyinside.jpg

Karen Goes to the Ballard Locks and Fish Ladder

2008-08-12T22:03:09Z

A beautiful day for it. The chinook and sockeye salmon are running, along with a few steelhead. My photo tour of the locks and the garden surrounding it:

http://s299.photobucket.com/albums/mm298/diomedea13/?action=view&current=araliablossom.jpg

Just hit 'next' on the button...you've reached the end when you start moving into pictures of dahlias and my dogs...

More information about the locks:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiram_M._Chittenden_Locks

Daily Accountability post

2008-06-20T21:00:33Z

1 egg                                          92 cal          7g fat                                             Nutritionist Grade: B-
1/2 cup blueberris                 40 cal                        5% fiber                   Nutritionist Grade: A
2 whole wheat toaster waffles 180 cal      6g fat        12%fiber                    Nutritionist Grade: A
1 cups of coffee with nonfat milk 20 cal                                                          Nutritionist Grade: B

Snack
1 biscotti                       240cal   5g fat                                                         Nutritionist grade D

Lunch
chili                       500 cal    10g fat 35% fiber                                          Nutritionist grade B-
orange                    81 cal                   17% fiber                                         Nutritionist grade A

...I forgot to put my pedometer on...I am gonna go get it now. I suspect I am right around 7k since it has been a relatively busy morning with the kiln set up and laundry.

The studio is complete

2008-06-04T03:21:19Z

The ceramics studio is open! I did my first work in the studio today...or rather I used my tools and enjoyed some sculpting. I did my actual sculpting upstairs in front of the tv...the clay on a tray and a bucket of tools on the floor where I could easily see their tips and choose the best for the job.

I got my potter's wheel over the weekend and took delivery of my kiln today. The guy who installed it was super cool and I was formally invited to call them when I do my first firing.

So, for opening day, I made the following - it's my take of a velociraptor skull. I still have a little bit of work to do on the lower jaw (teeth are wrong). However, the clay needs to rest a little after three hours of me attacking it. So, tomorrow morning I'll be cleaning it up a little. If I really like how it turns out, I may make a latex casting so that I can have some copies and experiment with glazes. This type of work is referred to as subtractive relief sculpture. I made a slab of clay about 3/4 inch thick and rough drew the shap on the surface, then carved out the shape. I want the end product to look like a fossil carved from a matrix of rock. My reference was from a velociraptor skull excavated in China last year - it is a 3d model and not in matrix...so I had to kind of pretend and 'squash' my skull a little.

Writer's Block: Hell Hath No Fury

2008-05-02T16:19:09Z

Who was the last person who really made you mad?

View 500 Answers

My ex boss on a contract job. When I left the work site I turned in all the paper work and told him all he had to do was sign and forward my time slip to accounts payable. A month later,no check. I contacted him and he was extremely defensive, asking if I had turned in the time slip to AP. I'm like no, I gave it to you to sign." and he says "but you needed to give it to AP". So I contacted a friend in AP and lo and behold they told me "did you submit it to your boss so he could send it to us?" So I forwarded that email to my ex boss along with a copy of my time slip. He said "ok you should have check in two weeks". Two weeks pass. No check. I contact him and again he is angry...ends up he did not sign and forward. This happened two more times and I only got paid when my friend in AP basically strongarmed the document off him.

Writer's Block: Smashed

2008-05-01T19:09:31Z

If you had a crowbar and could smash anything in your home or office, what would it be? Why?

View 500 Answers

It would have to be the ikea shelfing unit in my basement. The doors are coming unglued, it does not match anything so I cannot move it. Basically "ugh, me smash!"

Horror, a true story

2008-05-01T18:25:32Z

I grew up in a magic world. My world had rattlesnakes, black widow spiders, dozens of frogs and hand-sized toad that lived in the drainpipe. In my own patch of forest were coyotes, silver backed foxes and a noble stag. In the springtime there were rebellious teenages in my forest smoking pot, and there were mazes of dried streambed that had yard high banks, perfect for a six year old spy. There was a wicked oldest sister who promised all sorts of things in exchange for me doing something, but just as if she were an evil djinn, the rewards became something I did not want. She told me a rock painted gold was really gold and that a rock painted blue was precious, I never trusted her much after that, because I was a rockhound already at the age of seven or eight...and I knew a good rock from a fake one. She threatened me with locking me in the crawl space of the house, and forever after, crawling under a house has been something I don't want to do.

The rattlesnakes were things rich in stories. At elementary school, the janitor would show us their beheaded corpses when they wandered into the cool of the bathroom near the play yards. Legends whispered about these creatures said that their heads could still bite even though detached from the body, that wasps and bees that dined on their corpses could become deadly and venomous, also baby rattlers were more poisonous than grown up ones, because naturally the babies had not yet tasted delicious six year old flesh. We played games about those snakes, pinching each other and claiming to be the most deadly baby rattler. The bitten person was obliged to fall over and announce that they were swollen up like a watermelon.

Where do I start with cats? All through childhood we had a parade of cats. This was an age before responsible pet ownership, if our cats had kittens, both moms and kittens tended to vanish. Rumors of reservoirs and black garbage bags filled the void between the various cats that floated into my life. Kids at school told nightmare stories about the time Folsom Lake dried up and the whole bottom was layered in the corpses of discarded puppies and kittens. So, naturally, I thought of that lake as haunted and the few times we visited, I was afraid to look down into the water for fear of seeing kitten and puppy ghosts. There was the time when I was in my oldest sister's covetted '68 mustang with her, a ride late at night..I think she was showing off to me, her clueless little sister; all I cared about was that the car was a wonderful brilliant orange, not how fast it was. Something white crossed the road and she said:

"See that?"

"Uh huh."

"That's the ghost of a cat. Looking for the driver that ran it over so it can cause an accident and kill them."

In my little child's brain, despite the fact that my sister had given me a gold painted rock and had even thrown poo at me once, I believed her. For years afterwards, I would see any whitish creature dash in darkness across a road and think of it as a ghost and hope that my parents had NEVER hit a cat, because the tone of my sister's voice had such deep horror when she mentioned how the cat would cause an accident. Nevermind how a ghost cat, presumably consisting of less material than a living cat, could cause an accident. This is not logic, it is the realm of magic and being a child.

As an adult you tend to forget about these things, or laugh at your naive self. You forget how much a part of you it was. A week ago I was given the duty to scatter the ashes of our two cats in the garden. This being a timely thing since Temi died in 2002 and Isabelle died in 2006. It was time to let go of the cats and let them grow flowers or float in the wind. So yesterday I finally opened up the boxes and on a very fine and mild spring day, scattered the ashes in all the places both cats had loved to lie in the sun, or had ambushed me or had simply left little gifts to be found with a gardening spade later. I talked to them as I did this, apologising for any past wrongs I may have done them, and telling them to move on. Yeah, sure I was probably talking to myself, but memories are very real, and I remember that Temi tried my patience many times to the point of shouting. Isabelle I think suffered too long with her cancer. There's a little guilt there. You talk, even if it is to yourself.

Satisfied, I went back into the house and cleaned up some more. I showed my handiwork to Mish when she got home in the evening. Soon enough I went to bed and dreamed of the beautiful hike along Iron Peak ridge in the North Cascades. My hike came to a waterfall in the dream, whereupon (of course) I woke up and had to go to the bathroom. It was the time of morning before sunrise, the sky gunmetal blue with a single robin singing. The kind of light that is playful and full of trickery. So I puttered downstairs and noticed the dogs were restless, so when I finished I lead them to the back door. I froze.

There on the top step was a white face with two dark eyes frozen in a stare. A small animal was staring into my house. Staring at me.

My child's mind leapt to the ghost cat, the stories, the old old horror. My guts felt like eels in my belly and my heart did not speed up, but slowed down as if it did not want to be heard by the spirit world.

After fifteen seconds I realised that it was the stuffed animal we gave the dogs to play with a couple days ago.

Writer's Block: Outta My Way!

2008-04-18T19:45:09Z

Have you ever experienced road rage?

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I might get irritated but I don't rage in most cases. I sputter a bit...especially regarding the brainless drones that seem to want to cross a four lane highway on foot in the mistaken belief that they are immortal or can move faster than a car. It is not worth getting vein-popping angry over something I have no control over. If I did that, I'd be angry all the time...lots of things I have no control over really.

I have been raged at once for daring to be in an outer lane where you could go both left and right. I was going left so I could turn immediately into a parking lot. Guy behind me wanted to go right and was pissed that I was making him wait for the left turn light. He opened his window to cuss at me and then proceeded to show his anger and stupidity by trying to drive his car over the sidewalk so he could go right...he got stuck. I've never laughed so hard as 40 seconds later I went left, leaving him to block traffic and get cussed at himself.

Writer's Block: Dream Job

2008-04-14T18:20:33Z

What's keeping you from your dream job?

View 501 Answers

Confusion, lack of vision? I thought that I had the dream job twice. The first one revealed to me that wildlife biology is more about what your superiors want you to say and less about the environment, and a lot about what the public wants to shoot. Though perhaps I did improve some habitat and fight on behalf of places that need help, I did not feel it was near enough and the job ended up being by turns depressing and bureaucratic. My second 'dream job' was during my 'hell with good deeds, I want stuff for me' phase. I worked at a start up during the dotcom boom and initially it was lots of fun, fast paced, intelligent. After about nine years it had become corporate, pager duty and high stress.

So what stops me now? I'm afraid I will become disillusioned with everything else I encounter. I guess I am worried there is no place like the home I feel I want in my heart. I want to do art for a living, I do have some talent and I have always been creative...but what if my creativity bites back like my careers in biology and IT have?

It could be Penny the Dove

2007-10-11T20:54:42Z

I got a response to my lost bird posting. One hitch though. The person is in Port Townsend, which is across puget sound from seattle AND against common prevailing winds. However, the description of the bird just landing in the yard and walking around, weak and easily captured does kind of sound like how I caught Penny back last year.

I asked her for pictures and we'll see if the bird looks anything like Penny.

How funny though if it is him...that's a pretty big journey for a bird who has been in my front room for a long time.

Bring your pumpkin to work day

2007-10-04T17:18:25Z

Well, it is rapidly nearing the end of the growing season in Washington. There's news of an early cold snap in the mountains, the sun is being elusive and to be honest the whole summer this year just felt like a weak willed prelude to autumn.

So this year I grew pumpkins and tomatoes. Both thrived on the warm wet weather we had this year, as far as vegetative. The tomatoes rapidly out grew the trellis I made for them and drooped over. The pumpkin vines ended up growing about 15 ft. The yeild was less than spectacular. All that warmth and wet made mildew grow on the pumpkins, and it caused the tomatoes to rot before they even became red. Worse yet, my dogs discovered they really like tomatoes, ripe or not and I soon started to see dog poops full of tomato seeds.

Anyhow by the end of september I ended up with four pumpkins (three really..the fourth is a ridiculous little shrimp) and two tomatoes that are really only suitable for sauce. A bit disappointing.

This morning I brought a 15 pound pumpkin to work as a surprize for a coworker's daughter. Martha was really thrilled with my gift, far more than I think my pumpkin warrented! Though, the one I gave her was a lovely uniform orange and a nice shape. Oi, but it was a test of strength hauling that booger around the metro bus tunnel!

The rest of my garden is still in bloom. Sunflowers are still going at it, my red and yellow dahlias that I found with the label "free" near the sidewalk are continuing to prove hardy some 5 years after I planted them. The costa riccan blue sage is still giving cobalt blue flowers while the russian sage is sky blue and nearly six feet tall. My favorite perrenial fuchia with its delicate pale pink flowers is also in bloom...every year I think it won't come back and each year it proves me wrong.

Penny the Dove

2007-09-28T17:39:58Z

Well, I left the cage door open...I fed them and apparently forgot about it.

I had the backdoor of the house open to let the dogs out.

You don't trim doves' wings, they cannot climb bars like parrots so they rely on flight for movement.. Anyhow, yes he flew out the backdoor. They are fast strong fliers and he's not even in sight of the house now. I feel awful and just hope he either lands where someone can catch him or the local raptors end it quickly. I put him up on a couple lost pet boards but I really don't have much hope.

The verdict is - No Way

2007-09-27T08:20:26Z

Poor Lord of the Rings Online.

You know, it took me three hours to install...which is a horrendous mark against it. I had to hand edit its user file to get it to work on my machine.

So I finally got in at midnight and rolled a male elf named Talathas.

Well...he's hideously ugly. He doesn't look elven to me. I tried my hardest to give him a good body and a nice face, but it all looked blocky no matter what I did.

Then I had to get used to controls. It is all WASD keyboard. Fine with that...standard...no clicking to get to anyone like NPCs, which was aggravating. You couldn't defend or attack unless you turned to face the enemy..so no click and go. Combat was boring as heck. There's a warning about blood and gore but so far more bland than GW.

I can tell that the creators of the game tried to do their research and keep the flavor of lotr. I appreciate that, but it is so ...graceless. Surely lotr is worthy of graphics as beautiful as guild wars'. I cannot believe anyone gave lotro 9/10 ...it simply isn't there...the tutorial was unengaging, I could not read the text on monsters and allies, and I kept dying from falling. The tutorial didn't cover that at all. I didn't know I COULD fall...so um...tell me about that next time. Also, the quests kept telling me to go this or that direction and there is NO compass on the ui..though there is a compass rose...just no directions. This was frustrating. I later found a tiny non contrasting arrow that vaguely pointed at quests (and led me to the wrong location where I died falling off another narrow bridge).

So ok, I prove I am crap at keyboard motion, but come on...I wanted beautiful and got ...average for circa 2002 worlds...everquest looked about this good.

Anyhow, tomorrow night I may try my 10 day free trial of warcraft for kicks.

Oh for frick's sake!

2007-09-27T05:28:44Z

So I have a 7 day free trial for lord of the rings online since sims has...bored me to tears.

I started installing an hour ago. It is still loading. Not only that, the account thingy was really persnickety and kept having me reimput crap, while having the website reset and empy my passwords each time. Crappy thing being that it would not tell me what was WRONG with my entries, so I kept changing the password. By the time the bloody site accepted the passwords I had gone through a few passwords. When I finished I had a moment of panic as I pondered which password had worked...was it a b or c..or b and c....or a and c? Eh. Hopefully I will be able to get in when the accursed thing finishes loading. I just want to have some mindless fun, roll an elf or something and go play. I already know I don't like the art in lotro...and I am way too familiar with the books of Tolkien to actually find it surprizing in any way. In fact I am almost certain it will be so far from how I picture the world and characters in my head that I will be irritated part of the time. I liked the lotr movies but I was always mentally calibrating the actors vs how I pictured them when I read the books. I found some of the landscapes in New Zealand too harsh or just not convincing enough for some of the places I grew to love in the book....

Ok, I am just too bookish to probably enjoy an online world based on something I love to death and have read about 10 times. However, I will try to have fun for a few days. If I really enjoy it maybe I'll subscribe and ignore gw for a couple months until halloween rolls around or something.

*looks at file downloads...only halfway done*

Yeah, and I feel bad about my writing. I don't think anyone has read it since I posted it six hours ago. No one is on and no one cares any more. It is kinda pointless posting anything right now. I cannot compete against the end of content in gw, halo 3, my friends all in sims and gods what have you. Well, at least it is a nice exit door. I'd romantically pictured being done with my stories before GWEN and then quietly fading from the scene, but now I am left with an unfinished story and a huge feeling of regret that I am probably not going to finish. I need an audience to be a storyteller, otherwise I am just talking to myself. Typing out the last chapter today I could feel the emptyness of it, the writing was badly paced and poor. A bad feeling like I was only putting in 60% effort. I really think it is time to give up.

Then, there is the whole "scorched earth" feeling to GW2. Everything I loved about GW is no longer there. They aren't ruling out removing classes. I don't really like any of the non human races...I am kinda meh on it. As far as I am concerned GW2 is a new game and they are going to have to sell it to me like a new game. My beloved gothy messed up Kurzicks are gone, along with any possibility of a Tengu character of my own to play. I'm suspicious that the assassin is going to be gone or so modified that it might as well be a dumbed down warrior. I am also suspicious that the mesmer won't be the same and that the ranger will be something not as versitile. I'm just plain suspicious...so basically I see it as a new game. Sell it to me.

Most of all I am just hurt. I wanted to keep writing stories and enjoying new things in gw as it is/was. However, GW died with the last expansion...that was the end, wasn't it? I'm not going to get a Goska like my old Goska only with better graphics. My descendants cannot be canthans...great. I'm really sad about it, on the other hand I am relieved since I spend way too much time online. Maybe I can just get annoyed enough to just drop all internet games and get on with my life.

ok...lotro has been loading for 90 minutes now...only slightly over halfway done. I already hate the game and I have not even been able to play it.

Grooming dogs

2007-08-06T18:53:48Z

I spent most of my saturday brushing, shaving and cleaning up my three fuzzy dogs. To be exact, I shaved off most of Stella's fur. Her fur has become increasingly hard to comb and was matting badly enough that she was yelping from pulling her own hair when she walked. She's also becoming a bit arthritic and delicate at the age of 12, but under the lush carpet of her downy double coat, it is really hard to feel the contours of her bones and figure out if she's got a joint problem or just strains from rough housing.

Anyhow, Stella without fur is ridiculous. She looks like a giant chihuahua (its the big ears) since her body is built along very delicate lines - she has the body of a whippet or a greyhound under there. I will have to snap a picture of her current fur depleted state. Oh and I left a tuft on the tip of her tail - when she gets all wiggly it flutters around. After a couple weeks her fur wil grow in a little and she'll look like a graceful porcelain dog...currently she does look like a mad woman hacked off her hair with a shaver (yep).

The other two dogs got away with just a shave clean up around their ears and rumps. The ears a dog cannot groom themselves, so they tend to be places where knots form. The rump...well it should be obvious why I want that as neat as possible. Saves me on baby wipes!