Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Martes' LiveJournal:

[ << Previous 20 ]

Saturday, May 18th, 2013
11:52 am	Computer Down My main computer is not working currently.  Posting this from one of the secondary computers.  My internet access will be extremel;y limited today, and until the problem is fixed.  I will try to check email once or twice today, but I can't do a whole lot else.  More details as they become available. Current Mood: aggravated (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 14th, 2013
2:40 pm	FC follow-up, selling mo' stuff After a number of ignored emails, I finally went to an acquaintance who knew members of the FC staff, and was able to get the info on my art show check.  It turns out I got it back in late January, which is probably why I didn't remember getting it.  So that's a double-whammy of not having the extra funds coming in, and the realization my mind is going a lot quicker than I'd realized. In any event, that still leaves me with the problem of chronic shortage of funds.  In addition to some stuff that I'm going to put on EBay shortly, I also have a full run of the fanzine Yarf! I'm going to try and sell (full run from #0 up to the last issue, which is #60-something.)  I don't want to put that on EBay partly because it would be a pain to list all those books, and partly because I need the money immediately.  I would be hoping to get somewhere around $3-400 for them (that's about 7 bucks a book.)  I'll be posting this on FA later today as well.  email or note me through LJ if interested. It's been hot hot hot here.  Stuck inside with no car and too hot to walk anywhere.  At least I'm making progress on some commissions. Current Mood: hot (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, May 13th, 2013
10:08 am	As the Lizard Turns Gandalf brought in a large alligator lizard this morning, which promptly ran under the couch and vanished.  All three of the boys tried to squeeze under it, but only Gandalf was skinny enough to do it.  I tried lifting the couch for them, but the lizard was gone.  Hopefully it will reemerge later, and we won't need to try and track down a dried out lizard carcass by smell. I'm guessing alligator lizards taste bad, because Gandalf never kills or eats them.  However, he does love chasing them around. Current Mood: worried (Comment on this)
Saturday, May 11th, 2013
11:47 am	Dumbest STNG episode? I was discussing with a friend which episode of Star Trek: Next Generation was the stupidest.  Granted, some episodes of the show were killer classics, and I watched it religiously when it was on.  However, like every long-running show there were a few turkeys in it's history. So the 3 episodes which come to my mind were: (forgive me for not providing the show titles and season it aired.  I'm too lazy to research it that much.) The episode where they encounter an androgynous species, and discover that some like to take male or female roles, and Riker manages to score!  This is an obvious metaphor for gays in our society, which is fine, but for me the major problem is they got both male and female actors to play the androgynous species, and even through makeup it's pretty easy to tell which was wich.  It would've been much more effective to have had all female or all male actors. in those roles.  In the show it comes off like bad cross-dressers. The episode where the crew gets hooked on some video game where it looks like they have an orgasm every time they score a point, and Wesley saves the day. Where Geordi gets kidnapped by space retards (what's the current PC term for retarded?  Intellectually challenged or handicapped?)  who try to blackmail the Enterprise into giving them technology. So just curious about which episodes stand out to other people as being particularly dumb. Current Mood: curious (12 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, May 9th, 2013
10:43 am	Muse dreams While I'm aware that most people find other people's dreams boring, I sometimes like to write them down for my own edification. So anyways... I was in a big convention/ hotel space, not unlike being at FC or AC.  I'm pretty sure the band Muse had already played, and it was later in the evening.  I was taking fancy magazines from one of those newspaper stands like they have in airports, and reading them in a nearby cubicle, because i couldn't afford to buy them.  Then I noticed lead singer Matt Bellamy wandering around the convention space by himself.  I was going to take the fancy magazine I was reading for him to sign, but then I thought it would be better to get the program guide from the show, so I ran off to get that.  In the meantime, one of my old bosses from Phillips (a nasty, abrasive woman that nobody liked) reached him first, and was trying to prove what a good fan she was by loudly singing one of their songs and trying to force him to sing along with her.  I was completely mortified by this, figuring that by the time he managed to ditch her he wouldn't want anything to do with another middle-aged female fan.  I did manage to find my copy of the concert program guide, but it was wrapped up in clear wrap like a deli sandwich, and it took me a long time to get it out of the wrapper.  At this point Matt Bellamy had managed to get rid of my old boss and was eating with a couple friends.  I didn't want to interrupt, but I was so scared I wouldn't get another chance I did anyways.  He was very polite and willing to hear me out, but when I actually tried to say something I was so overcome with emotion I started crying and couldn't even say what I wanted to say. Yeah, even in my dreams I can't get my shit together enough to do what I want to do. Current Mood: tired (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 7th, 2013
3:17 pm	Fluffy Butt Poor Fluffy got an impacted anal gland that ruptured over the weekend, so we had to schlep him over the the vet this morning. He got his butt shaved, and in order to clean the area the vet dosed him up with some good painkillers. So now I have this completely stoned cat in my room. He's so f-ed up he can't figure out how to get through the cat door, which is good because the vet said we could try to keep him inside today.  We have a number of days of pills, creams and cleaning his butt twice a day.  The joys of pet ownership. In other nooz, we had a very rare rainstorm Sunday night into Monday morning.  It hardly ever rains this late in the season, but God knows we need it. Got the latest Majipoor book from Robert Silverberg.  Usually I don't get books of short stories or novellas, but I enjoy the Majipoor setting so much I'm willing to do so with this one. I went to an Orchard hardware store to get a couple things, and they kept trying to get me to sign up for one of those stupid discount clubs they have (which involves giving them your phone number and email.)  When I balked at doing that the cashier got really rude.  I only go there maybe once or twice a year-- whatever they're offering, it's not worth getting more spam and telemarketer calls. Other than that, still relentlessly grinding through the inks on Ice #8. Current Mood: busy (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, May 4th, 2013
3:15 pm	Ignored, again I've sent 3 separate emails to two different people asking about my FC art show check.  No one has bothered to reply, even a simple "I'll look into it."  Now it's quite possible i did get the check and simply forgot about it-- my memory is going to shit for a lot of things-- but it should be a simple matter to check their records and see if my check was issued and cashed.  At which point I'd apologize for being a flake and be done with it.  I remember getting my sales summary through email, and if remembered that, there's a good chance I'm correct in recalling I never got a check.  And it's not like it's for thousands of dollars-- it's for less than a hundred, but at this point every cent is needed.  See if I put anything in that art show again. Current Mood: angry (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, May 3rd, 2013
1:34 pm	100 degrees of cold Even though I just got over a cold a couple months ago, I'm having some pretty nasty sinus issues again (mostly pain and pressure.)  I got little sleep last night due to the pain on the right side of my face, so I may actually break down and take an antihistamine tonight.  It's been so hot, and the winds have been blowing really bad and kicking up tons of dust, who knows what the hell I've inhaled. Current Mood: uncomfortable (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, May 2nd, 2013
11:34 am	Spider Exodus We finally cleared out most of the dead, overgrown grass in the back yard.  Partly because it just looked bad, partly because all the foxtails kept getting stuck in the cat's fur, and partly because of the fire hazard of dried grass.  But while the mowing was going on, there was this massive exodus of spiders from the grass, like refugees from a napalm drop.  They were literally swarming over the back patio to get away from the mower.  Luckily I'm not particularly scared of spiders, but it still kind of creeped even me out. The cats were a little put off that most of their grass jungle was gone, but they probably will appreciate less foxtails to brush out. Very very hot and windy the past couple of days.  Perfect brush fire weather. Current Mood: surprised (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, April 28th, 2013
11:23 am	Have Money to Make Money Apparently there's going to be a 'real' furry art gallery show to coincide with CaliFur this year.  I inquired about showing some art in it (publicity can't hurt, I suppose.) but the terms were not realistic for me.  A $40 fee just for putting work up.  Everything had to be famed with 'gallery acceptable' framing, and they take a 25% cut of any sales.  I already tried this shit before-- at the gallery show they had at FC a couple years ago.  I didn't sell anything and I was out around $100 for framing and fees.  Even if I could afford the entrance fee here, there's no way in hell I can afford to get anything framed. (This is not a hidden plea for money for the gallery show.  I have about 50 other critical things that take financial precedence over that.) I guess the old adage that you need to have money to make money is proven true again. Current Mood: irritated (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, April 26th, 2013
6:03 pm	Books Author E. L. Koningsburg died.  She wrote one of my favorite (kids) books, Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth, (one of the few books I really enjoyed as a kid that didn't involve animals in some way.)  For whatever reason the only other book of hers I read was From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, (which was also very good.), but I figured I'd make a note of her passing because i did enjoy that first book so much. In more contemporary book nooz, after finishing the new age dolphin book, I went on to read the thriller about the decommissioned WWII Japanese vivisection torture island, which was this mash-up of Jurassic Park, Island of Dr. Moreau and Aliens.  The plot was completely improbable, the "science" was beyond dubious, and I couldn't put the damn thing down, and read it in two days.  In contrast, it took me a week to make it through the dolphin book because it was so boring.  What does all that mean?  I guess it means if there's ever a sequel I'll read it. Current Mood: blank (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, April 25th, 2013
9:20 am	Undercover A parked car makes a damn good birdwatching blind.  I went to the park yesterday, and for a half hour I sat in the car finish a book, and while I was there in the car birds were everywhere.  A white-breasted nuthatch on the tree I parked in front of.  Bluebirds in the tree and on the trash can next to the car.  Bushtits and wrens.  A raven methodically ripping apart a dead ground squirrel and flying back and forth (to and from it's nest, I assume) with a beak full of meat.  Too bad birdwatching opportunities where you can see things from a parked car are not common. Current Mood: surprised (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, April 22nd, 2013
10:28 pm	OC Pet Expo OK, my semi-anticipated report. I was hitching a ride with Furtech, who was going there to help out at the Border Collie Rescue booth, so I'd already been told I'd be there most of the day.  I packed accordingly--lunch, my Kindle, soda, ect. (for those keeping track-- after finishing the Kindle dolphin new-age-y book, I am now reading a thriller about a WWII Japanese torture island that was never decommissioned after the war, and the hapless modern-day researchers who get stranded there.) The fairground food prices are obscene.  But I forgot to bring water, and it was hot.  So the little money I had went partially to bottled water. The sun wasn't too bad, since a lot of the expo was in the various buildings that made up the fairgrounds.  They also had lots of dog agility and training demos, but I didn't feel like sitting out in the sun so i didn't watch any of those.  About 75% of the groups there were either breed groups or breed rescues.  For the 'generic' dog adoptions, unless you wanted a pit bull or a Chihuahua, you were SOL.  Virtually all the non-breed dogs up for adoption there seemed to be pit bulls or Chihuahuas.  Lots, and lots and lots of Chihuahuas. Did I mention I don't like Chihuahuas? It was kind of cool looking at the different breed booths.  I saw the Tosa dog booth, and the "silken windhounds." (I'm sorry, that is the gayest name for a dog breed on the planet.) The cat adoptions were in a different area, but I didn't spend a lot of time there because I always feel sorry for the cats.  The cat breed area was very small, and I find people who show purebred cats are usually really rude and won't talk to you.  There was a woman who had a Savannah cat who was a liitle more talkative.  The savannah was an F2 or 3, with tabby-cat coloring but serval size and markings. They had another building set aside as a herp show and sales area.  If I had any money I might've come home with another snake.  Also lots of tarantulas and other bugs, and frogs and lizards. The aquarium area was lame (very barren) and I only went there once.  The general sales booths were overall not horribly interesting-- mostly dog stuff, cat litter and things like that.  Curiously, there were a couple of booths selling pillows.  Not pet pillows (they had those in other booths) but pillows for humans.  The only thing I coveted there were some really complex cat trees, multi-story jobs with hollow trunks and neat shit like that.  But those ran in the $3-400 range, so my guys will have to deal with their 20 and 15 year old cat trees for the time being. As I mentioned previously, I'd been having a sciatica flare-up, which usually translates into bad pain in my left hip joint.  Standing and walking for long periods makes it a lot worse, so by the end of my time there I was in quite a bit of pain.  Sitting down for periods helped take the edge off, but by mid afternoon there were about a billion people there, and no place in the shade left to sit, unless I wanted to go to the doggy shit areas.  But the farm/petting zoo was remarkably uncrowded, and they had benches in the shade!  Score. I'll say the farm animal petting zoo was the cleanest, best-smelling and fly-free place like that I've ever seen.  Usually any place with farm animals stinks to high heaven and has a jillion flies.  Here all the pens had fresh bedding, there weren't piles of shit around, and they apparently sprayed for flies daily.  So I sat and then wandered around.  They had a small flock of 3 sheep that would set themselves off 'baaa'-ing periodically. On the fairgrounds you do see an unpleasant slice of humanity.  Lots of tattoos, screaming kids, obese women in inappropriate clothing, people so fat they needed go-carts or wheelchairs.  This thing did not seem to attract the Beverly Hill beautiful people crowd, let's put it that way.  I also saw a woman with possibly the worse case of psoriasis that I've seen outside of a textbook.  While mine could probably be classified as 'moderate,' this woman was 'way beyond 'severe.'  I've stayed away from the systematic treatments myself because of possible nasty side effects, but if anyone was a candidate for them, this woman was.  It was painful just to look at her. I met up with Megan and Matt at the fair, and we spent a lot of time in the reptile area.  We left the Expo about 4 and went to some sushi place that played loud rap music.  Until the rapper started cursing, then they switched to a gentle ambiance mix..  Since I won't eat sushi, afterwards we stopped at a Pizza Hut so I could get one of the little 5 buck pizzas.  I asked to stop at a park so we could hang out and I could eat in the picnic area, but instead Megan took us to a cemetery.  I don't really mind cemeteries; I enjoy looking at the memorials and reading the inscriptions, but there was no place shady to eat.  Megan suggested the mausoleum because that had benches, but I really didn't want to be stuffing my face if some grieving relatives happened wander by.  Occasionally I'll have some vague sense of propriety.  I ended up eating in the car, then we went to her place and fed mealyworms to the birds and lizards in the back yard until Furtech came to pick me up later that evening. Thus endeth my trip to the Pet Expo. Current Mood: tired (9 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, April 21st, 2013
10:26 am	Well, that sucks Artist Quinton Hoover died. I loved his work in Centaur's Gatherum, MTG and Rage.  He was one of the handful of people who made a successful jump from fannish art and activities into the professional arena.  The world is a poorer place without his work. (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, April 20th, 2013
11:35 pm	Pet Expo Went to the Pet Expo down in orange county.  All day today.  I didn't see as much as I would've liked because i forgot to take aspirin before going and my sciatica was acting up horribly, so towards the afternoon I was in so much pain I couldn't walk around for very long. Despite that, I did still manage to see some cool stuff there, which I will write in full about tomorrow.  Too tired to do so right now. Current Mood: exhausted (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, April 18th, 2013
12:43 pm	Watch what you read I managed to find two things on Facebook this morning that infuriated me, and had to (successfully) use Iron Will not to comment on them.  I thought about reposting and discussing it here, but I figured that would just get me more aggravated, as well as open up the door to divisive comments. I did, however, write a letter to the editor of the LA Times a few days ago, rebutting a (IMO) dumb-ass editorial.  I'm not going to discuss the editorial, because it's also about a divisive subject, but every once in a while you come across something so moronic you have to speak out. Current Mood: annoyed (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 17th, 2013
5:53 pm	Of interest As readers of this LJ know, one of my side interests is missing people.  One story I'd discussed and posted about were 4 German tourists in Death Valley who vanished in 1996.  Their rental vehicle was found far off the beaten path, stuck in a dry wash.  Because of the remoteness of the area, foul play was not strongly suspected.  It was assumed they tried to walk out and died, but they were never found. Fast forward to 2009.  Through some creative suppositions, and a lot of hiking, a private citizen is able to deduce the route the stranded Germans took and eventually finds their remains. His account of that is here.  It's quite a long read, and i skimmed parts of it, but it's interesting in that the maps and photos show how utterly barren and remote this area is.  For people from densely populated Europe, it was probably hard to grasp how empty much of the American west is.  A miscalculation that was fatal in this case. Current Mood: contemplative (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, April 15th, 2013
11:44 pm	Giving the neighbors a special treat Somehow (again) Gandalf used his mad skillz and managed to climb past the baffles and the metal sheeting to make it up onto the roof. Even though I was sound asleep, the sound of him climbing up the pole penetrated my addled brain and woke me up.  Usually when he makes it to the top of the pole he pauses to catch his breath and get his bearings, so I had no time to waste.  That meant no time to bother getting dressed or even put to on shoes.  So I run out into the back yard wearing nothing but a nightgown, drag the lawn chair over to the pole supporting the back patio roof, get on the lawn chair without falling off, and somehow manage to grab Gandalf by the scruff and drag him off the roof. God only knows if the neighbors witnessed this.  The fact I was yelling "No!!" and "Bad Gandalf!!" might've attracted their attention.  I'm not sure how titillating the sight of someone my age and body shape in a nightgown would be, but I'm sure it was an unexpected sight.  Thank God I always wear a nightgown or night shirt to bed, or the neighbors really would've gotten a shock. Current Mood: embarrassed (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, April 13th, 2013
3:46 pm	Book I'm reading this incredibly twee Kindle novel about dolphins.  I think after this I'm going to have to read some nasty horror book or thriller to even out the universe. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, April 11th, 2013
8:39 pm	Moths Recently, in the late afternoon and evening,  Gandalf has been sitting by the fence right next to the red flowers that the hummingbirds like.  I thought any attempt to catch a hummingbird was doomed to failure while he's sitting in plain sight.  Indeed, I'd seen hummers scolding him while he's been sitting there. But it turns out the hummingbirds were not his main quarry.  I've been wondering how he's managed to catch so many sphinx moths in the past week or so-- it turns out they visit the flowers too, so he's actually been waiting for the moths.  And since moths don't seem to care that there's a very conspicuous black and white cat sitting right next to the flowers, he's able to pick them off when they fly over.  Then, of course, he gets to bring them inside and chase them all over the house. Current Mood: surprised (1 Comment |Comment on this)