Living in a bubble

ahblah.

Hikaru0@aol.com — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:50:46 GMT

Kay so...I did the Youmacon thang...really felt like I didn't do enough at the convention this year. I chalk that up to not being in the AA as much this year since I was helping Scott with Live Programming.

eh, meh.

I'm sick right now so I'll maybe post moar later.

Meeeemorieeeees

Hikaru0@aol.com — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 16:44:00 GMT

The clearest and funniest memory I have from the first convention I ever went to(Acen 01), is Kawa corrupting me with the Penis Song.

I still can't get it out of my head at times....

oyah, NSFW.

Aion Open beta pishures + eensy review.

Hikaru0@aol.com — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 13:27:07 GMT

Hokay, eensy review first since the images will require a bit of load on slower connections.

Facts: Beth played until lvl 16 this time.
Beth got to see what more of the community would be like in-game as they added global chat.
Sorcerers and Spiritmasters (Mages and Warlocks for those of you familiar with WoW) are the hands-down best class to solo with.
Beth got to see Eriny in-game finally!

Pros:
1. Game is gorgeous. It tickles my art fancy so much, even now. The graphics can look great (although perhaps not extremely sharp) on lower-end computers.

2. Character creation is the greatest thing ever, soooo customizable (as far as facial features go that is.)You can make characters as beautiful or ugly as you'd like.

3. Leveling is slower than WoW, but still manageable and enjoyable for a casual gamer. Quests are easy to plug out, and have margianlly good rewards in terms of money and exp...how long the money reward will remain good will have to be seen once the retail version opens up and the market kiddies zoom in.

4. Learning the UI is easy, and many of the controls share similarities with those in WoW. You can also customize it to move more similar to that of Lineage 2, or City of Heroes.

5. Storyline is fluid, and surprisingly deep. Some quest stories are surprisingly inspiring.

6. Flying without aid of a mount is a fun, new addition to the MMO genre.

7. The GM team actually seems to be putting in a bit more effort at keeping the community from completely exploding than they do for Lineage 2.

8. Channels. There are several channels in the 1-19 zones so if you find your channel overcrowded, you can switch to another and level in peace.

9. You can have either a private store or use the auction house to sell your items. While this creates congestion in towns, it fits both people's fancies. The game also will auto-insert a recommended price. If this will scale with the game's economy state, it will make selling things tons easier, but I have a feeling it won't.

Cons:
Oh how I wish I didn't have to do this. Unfortunately, combining both the closed betas and open, this is all that has been prevalent throughout.
1. Much of the community is shit. It's filled with bored kiddies that live in Warcraft's trade/barrens chat as well as the angry, always looking for a fight, PvP addicts from Lineage. I can't even count how many times I heard people bash WoW, or tell people with legitimate complaints of the game to "Go back to WoW." I won't go into details cuz it'll just turn this into a rant, but the general chat got so bad that they shut it down the last day of the open beta, and it stayed shut down until about six hours before open beta shut down.

2. The game is incredibly linear. You quest in a certain area around a town or outpost, move down the road to the next one that your final quest at said previous area will lead you to. As a result, you have to compete for everything from mats to gather to monsters to level on with no hope of finding your own little niche and running around in circles ala Lineage 2. A few maps are large enough to compensate for this, but you still get a very 'closed off' feeling, like you're playing inside a tiny little bubble. Some people may like this style of gameplay, but I enjoy my open maps where I can go hide in a corner and play. The linear-ness of the game also creates bottlenecks in lvl 20+ zones, where the opposite faction can sneak in and pick you off one by one as you try desperately to run past them and get to the next quest hub.

3. Rifts. This is a topic of great argument in every single Aion forum from America to Europe and Australia. Rifts open up and allow the opposite faction to enter your grinding zone at lvl 20+ (and they're usually 10+ levels higher than you) and pick you off as there is NO PvP toggle. The plus is, if it's your flavor you can go do the same thing to them when you find a Rift, and you have from lvls 1-19 to level in peace. The negative is, they can stay as long as they want on your side, and kill everything from your quest NPC's to repeatedly griefing you.

4. Killstealing and training. This is also a major complaint on the forums that a solution has not been offered for. The greatest hit gets the kill, and people will train large amounts of monsters into you if they can.

5. Sudden toss into a classic korean grind. The game will start you off with a constant stream of quests that scale with your level until about lvl 15, when you have to start grinding out on monsters the classic Lineage 2/any Korean game way. Personally, I don't find this to be an incredible issue, as I played lineage 2 mindlessly for years and loved every moment of it, but it is a little annoying to have a great questing pace set up and then suddenly find yourself with quests much too hard for your level range.

6. bots. This is already beginning, people want to get to the top level to do the end-game PvP. I hear this is a major issue in China, and I'm already getting whispers about powerleveling sites.

7. Old grudges. People (mostly those from Lineage 2 I'm noticing) are carrying over old 'clan war' grudges and trying to start feuds in the new game. For instance, I got mob-trained repeatedly by a girl who I haven't spoken to for almost a year, who decided she hated me in Lineage 2 for a retarded reason that's so high school I don't even want to think about it. I left her and her grudge behind in Lineage 2, but now that we're in Aion she's trying to bring it back. While this is human nature, I think it's completely nonsensical to seek out people in a brand new game, or deny them help or inclusion in your groups simply because your clans were at 'war' in Lineage 2. It's a completely different game, you can't even kill your own side so there's no threat of 'betrayal' or 'spying' like there was in Lineage 2.

8. Instances have 8+ hour lockout. This means, once you complete it, it won't reset for 8 or more hours. the PvP monkeys are delighted at this, because they think it will give them more PvP since no one can go 'hide out' in instances. (Instances, for those of you not familiar with the term, are dungeons that are created privately for your group. In WoW you can repeatedly farm instances up to 5 times in an hour. These dungeons usually yeild great xp and armor/weapon rewards. The creativity level in some of them makes me feel like I'm going through an awesome funhouse.)

9. Flying is massively advertised, but very limited. You have a timer on your flight time, and while this can be extended past the 1 minute you start with, with gear and wing upgrades, it really goes against what people were expecting when the game was in it's advertising state. There are only certain maps, and the PvP zone called the Abyss, where you can fly without restriction--zone wise. You still have the time limit in the Abyss, which, IMO, kind of makes the aerial PvP difficult.

That's pretty much it....I know other people have had complaints about Gameguard and computer lag, but I haven't had much of an issue with either of those. My final thoughts: Make sure you know what you're getting into before sinking money into the game. It's not turning out to be everything it was hyped up to be, with one issue or another, but it does help with WoW/other MMO burnout a bit.
But unfortunately, I was already feeling a bit bored by lvl 16. :(

Ok, now the fun part, the screen shots from this beta. I added in some environment shots as well this time, Photobucket has re-sized them and for some odd reason you'd like them as a desktop wallpaper, I will email it to you or something.

http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c207/LizInverse/aion/Aion0046.jpg
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c207/LizInverse/aion/Aion0045.jpg
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c207/LizInverse/aion/Aion0044.jpg
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c207/LizInverse/aion/Aion0034.jpg
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c207/LizInverse/aion/Aion0033-1.jpg
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c207/LizInverse/aion/Aion0020.jpg (Moar Shopuff and an asploded moon)
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c207/LizInverse/aion/Aion0018.jpg (those aren't stars, that's the land of the opposite faction. They're on the top half of the world, which is kind of like an eaten apple. You play on the inside of the world instead of the outside.)
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c207/LizInverse/aion/Aion0016-1.jpg (a shot of the ruined Tower of Eternity that used to connect both realms)
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c207/LizInverse/aion/Aion0015-1.jpg (The Elyos' faction main city)
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c207/LizInverse/aion/Aion0029-1.jpg
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c207/LizInverse/aion/Aion0027-1.jpg (One of the places where the XP grind began)
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c207/LizInverse/aion/Aion0021-1.jpg
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c207/LizInverse/aion/Aion0023-1.jpg (Leyla showing off her wingses and dyed armor :) )
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c207/LizInverse/aion/Aion0024.jpg (Flight example)
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c207/LizInverse/aion/Aion0025-1.jpg (another flight example)
Environment shots

Characters I made for Scott this open beta (he only played one, but I can't resist making a ton X3)

Gatz

Ryonai

Calisan

Ballard

Ga'lent

Erik (the one he actually played)

My characters this open beta (I played two out of them XD)

Leyla (Played her until 16)

Jayleena (played her until 13--assassins are shockingly squishy :( )

Sharmin

Vuylay

Chitien

Annakiya

Aulakiriya, my token Asmodean this time.

There was an amusing glitch with one armor set during the beta, where the female design of the armor was displaying on the male characters. This led to much amusement, but poor Erik, if he were real and had the personality I always wrote him with, would be traumatized into a fetal state by it. Behold! MANBEWBIES!

This is an example of the frightening things one can do with the game's customization.

Last but not least-

O.o Popo?

BOILED GOOSE

Hikaru0@aol.com — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 21:52:27 GMT

this is probably only funny to me since I play warcraft, but I think it well represents the song :)

cats, cats everywhere.

Hikaru0@aol.com — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 14:36:55 GMT

:( Anyone interested in a kittun? Two have had their shots and have been tested for leukemia, the third just came into the house today. I'll post pictures if anyone's interested. ;_;

They're all super tame and cuddly, and they use their litter boxes properly. They will play or bathe your feet. T_T purese to be giving a homeless kittun a home, none of the no-kill shelters will take them.

/ end public service announcement.

Seriously...I'm done with stray cats and kittens after this. It looks like the Mama Cat (who still comes around occasionally) is pregnant again. Gonna stop putting food out and hope someone else takes pity on her. My heart can't handle it anymore, and my landlord is super angry that I've been messing with these three (even though he previously gave me permission to...>.>)

Edit: and if people are actually interested but don't live near WV or MI, I promise I'd work with you to find a way to get it. D:

Sorry for the desperate begging mode.

Aion Photofun part 3

Hikaru0@aol.com — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 16:23:13 GMT

Beta weekend's over again. Next and last one is later this month. Character Creation display under the cut. If anyone is actually curious about how this game plays I'll tell ya...just ask...but it's not phenomenal or groundbreaking so I don't really feel like typing up a whole review just after playing a few levels through the beta preview. Might have a more solid review once they actually have us playing on the same patch update as Asia with the glitch fixes and content additions.

I didn't really create as many characters as Scott did, I was too eager to try and level someone past the noob zone. He liked the character creation screen waaaaaaaaay too much >.>

Terebel, Narlafayn and Kalline 2.0. :( I think I made Terebel too beefy. Narla's face looks alot better. :) And Scott made Kalline again.

This is Sion and Tallith, the two characters Scott and I played the most other than Anastasja and Etzyon. I like how Tallith is all ":O" at Sion and he's all "save me!" It was purely coincidence that it turned out that way, thus I am amused. Will be using a different base face template if I remake Tallith once the beta's wiped...not too fond of that one.

Komugi and Hara, of Scott's creation. >.> He's got a definate red/pink haired fetish...

Tandy, whom I created. Not too fond of how she turned out, she needs some tweaking to look closer to what I visualized, but it's a good start.

And Lindvior, who scott had me make for him. I was proud of myself until this morning when Scott looked over my shoulder and said "Omg, he's a sparkly vampire."
T_T

I DID NOT MAKE HIM LOOK LIKE THAT ON PURPOSE. I swear, it's a coincidence. I might have to delete Lindy now and start over T_T

and in closing

SHOOPUFF OF THE NORTH!!!

Also: is it bad when the fictional characters you like the most are fast becoming the ones you make up?
D: Either I'm getting an ego or many characters in stories these days (books, movies, TV shows and Anime included) are just really, really bland. :(

Aion photofun part 2.

Hikaru0@aol.com — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 20:00:29 GMT

aka: What I've been doing since last night.

First of all, a comparison to show how naiss Aion graphics are, and how effing amazing the character creation system is.
Here we have Etzyon and Anastasja, a Druid and Death Knight from World of Warcraft:

(Scott plays Etzyon, I play Anastasja)

And here we have the "same" characters, in Aion form:

*_* I would so do Etzyon now...

Other fun things:

Fitz, a Lineage 2 story character Scott made me make to match...

his scout Amaia. (Also a Lineage 2 story character.)

I also decided to try out the Scout class and I made...

Hina'ea. (Also a Lineage 2 story character, sue me >.> She was a Kamael there, so the whole winged person thing Aion has going on, fits.) Because I made Fitz to match Amaia, Scott made Lindvior to go with Hina'ea, but I don't have a picture of him yet. Will have to snap one of those next time we log in.

last but not least:

Raide Ze Shopuff?

hooray for the kind of man that you would find in the gay way

Hikaru0@aol.com — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 11:49:21 GMT

Pan's Labyrinth- a rant

Hikaru0@aol.com — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 05:13:02 GMT

Ok so...I watched this movie when it came out in the theaters last year. The ending made me bawl uncontrollably. I hated it. There, I said it.
The reason why I bring it up again, is because it was on TV and I tried watching it a 2nd time, to see the movie keeping in mind the collective opinion of everyone else who watched the movie, I even skipped past the parts of horrid bloodshed and warfare so I could only focus on the fantasy parts----I still bawled, and I still hated it.

Here's why. And why I really freaking hate discussing this movie with people. If you haven't seen the movie you'll want to skip this because I'm openly discussing the ending.

It's a gurella war movie. Yes, there's fantasy elements. Yes, there's enough to make it a 'fairy tale for adults', but at it's core it is a WORLD OF HALLUCINATION brought on by a stressed little girl unhappy with her life. She wants to be the princess in the fairy tale her mother read to her.

Every time I try to discuss this movie and how it made me feel, and how I perceived it I am CONSTANTLY (and this is so bizarre, because it happens every time...and I've seen it happen to others who share my opinion...) berated for not understanding the movie because it's not a 'fluffy' fantasy. The people I've talked to about this movie actually get ANGRY at me for not seeing it as a fantasy tale with a darkly bittersweet happy ending. Uh...wtf? Did people get infected with some subliminal messaging that I didn't?

I mean...I appreciate dark fantasy. In fact, I thrive in dark fantasy. I love writing dark fantasy stories to the point where Scott has to constantly remind me to put some happiness in them or only a minority of people will enjoy them. I seriously doubt there's something wrong with my imagination that I don't see the 'fairy tale' in this movie.

"So Beth, how do you explain how she got through the Labyrinth at the end? How do you explain her trials with the Mandragora and going through walls?"

Well..I can't. It was obviously intended to be that way to focus on the fantasy element of it. We're seeing her imagination, we're seeing life as she's seeing it. So yes, there are your fantastical elements. Maybe her journey through the room to get the dagger for Pan was really her venturing into the kitchen and getting a cleaver knife, but we're seeing it as she did...or imagined it.

The ending, the way it is presented, is not her finally crossing into the 'fantasy world' that she was the princess of. She's fucking hallucinating on her way to death. This is where people argue me the hardest. It has been claimed multiple times "Pan never said her human body was going to cross over"

Well....there you have it, she's dying and going to heaven. She's not a princess. Even if Pan himself was real, he was just tricking her to her death. (Given the nature of Fauns in classical mythology, this is as believable as the little girl hallucinating.) You look at it one way (the hallucination) and it becomes a show tricking you into thinking you're in the real world crossed with fantasy. Looking at it the other way (Pan tricking her) you've got more of a fantasy.

However, I still can not see her being the lost princess of the shadow kingdom. That part of the movie is beyond me, no matter how I look at it. If you simply leave it as a movie that was to get you guessing, and to be open to interpertation, then I'm 100% ok with that...I just get sick of people getting pissed off at me because I didn't see it as the fantasy they did. I just don't get it...why this universal reaction of anger???

I mean...I've disagreed with plots of stories before with people but it's never led to instant anger....

Anyway. I think I've gotten it out of my system for now.

tl:dr--Pan's Labyrinth is not a fairy tale in the end...not even a dark one. It's a statement about the cruelty of war and what it does to the innocents involved.

Interesting day.

Hikaru0@aol.com — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 05:30:36 GMT

First of all, I got a Beta Key for the new MMORPG Aion from Erin and her man Justin, who got it from a friend? (I think? I OWE THEM EVERYTHING I AM FOR GETTING ME A KEY ANYWAYZ) I dinked around a bit in the game, and it's certainly very diverse with character creations. It's got lots of quests, and a very pretty environment. Not sure how the end game will pan out at this time though, cuz I didn't get past lvl 11 before the beta server went down.

Anyway, under the cut you will find my screenshots from the game (not resized, sorry. I was being lazy) and my second interesting story of the day.

My character, Narlafayn of course. It's so refreshing to be able to make her how I want her to look. :D

Narlafayn's hubbyhubhunkahunka burnin love Terebel. Made him for Scott to play, but he decided he wanted to play a mage instead.

and the mage, Kalline, that scott made.

ok so my second story of the day.

Since fall of last year I've been feeding this adorable stray cat outside. After awhile she was starting to get braver and more social towards me, she'd actually stick around and hold a meowing conversation with me. Unfortunately, we left the house for a month for a brief summer vacation before scott's school started up again, and so the cat wasn't getting fed and became more feral while we were gone.

We also recieved a note from our landlord reccomending that we don't start feeding the cat again because the neighbor ladies were complaining about 'wildlife'. (This could've meant the groundhog that lived in the hill our house was on, they seemed offended by it's presence, so who knows.) So dutifully (cuz our landlord is the nicest guy ever) I stopped putting food out.

Fast forward to last Thursday. Scott wakes me up around 8am-ish to tell me to come look out the back door. We see the cat we'd been feeding, waiting patiently for food....along with three kittens.

...she brought PERSUASION.

So I started puttng food out again and began freaking out because now we have a definate cat problem that will get worse as they grow up (not to mention the amounts of other kittens the momma cat can churn out in the meantime). I made a plan to go rent some safe-trap cages from the Humane Society and trapping mommy and babies and at the very least getting them spayed/neutered and re-releasing them into the great outdoors. We haven't done that yet unfortunately, as the 4th of July holiday shut practically every business down.

So anyway...I'm feeding the cat and her kittens and I notice one calico isn't quite as feral as her siblings. She hangs around really close to the house and doesn't take off nearly as quickly as the others when I open the door. A couple of times I got close to catching her by hand (Scott even touched her once before she bolted) but alas she was too quick and would get away. I had been worried that she was sick due to her inactivity in comparison to her siblings, and because she was so much smaller than they were.

Then today, our landlord comes to mow the lawn, and of course I tell him the situation with the cats. About an hour later, Scott rushes into the house and tells me that our landlord caught one O_O Lo and behold, it's the calico.

So I take her inside, and set her up in Philo's cat carrier since it's like a nice little kitty condo for something her size. She let me pick her up a few times but she was absolutely terrified and managed to let out a few hisses when I was just looking in on her.

So now here's the dillemma I'm facing. In all practicallity we're probably going to have to take her to a shelter and hope she gets adopted. I'm not sure if our landlord would let us have two cats, despite the fact that he said we could keep her here for a few weeks to socialize her and get her friendly towards humans. Unfortunately, after taking her to the vet and naming her (the vet wanted a name for her records and so I threw out "Bagel". T_T) I'm getting pretty attached to her >.>

Hopefully our landlord, after going over some fine details and maybe getting Bagel declawed among other things, will let us keep her. She's so tiny, and her momma is tiny so she won't be a very big cat. Probably smaller than Philo, and he's already pretty small..

I dunno....anyone want a cat? If I can't keep her I'd at least like to know she's going to a good home.

Oh and...we still plan on catching Mommacat and Bagel's two siblings. Not sure if I'll have the heart to socialize three more cats that I just have to give up, but I'll try. They're just too cute to leave to the elements and wild animals and rabies.

Oh yeah and...feral kittens tame up reallllllly fast. O_O At least, Bagel did. She's still a little jumpy with sudden movements, but she was cuddling against my neck while I held her and falling asleep in my hands by the fifth time I'd picked her up.

(ΘεΘ;)

Hikaru0@aol.com — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:16:26 GMT

so a couple of weeks ago I talked with my mom and asked her about my dad and my ancestry n stuff...since I didn't know anything about it.

Apparently my dad's side of the family is...Dutch. 100% dutch.
......

FRIGGEN DUTCH.

WTF AAAH.

and then there's the standard mostly british and irish from my mom's side of the family.

I am so fricken white I blind the world. :(

-waves goodbye to the slivers of chinese and native american heritage that held any hope of making her less white-

kbye.

repoast repoast

Hikaru0@aol.com — Sat, 30 May 2009 03:45:56 GMT

fsking....wtf????

Hikaru0@aol.com — Tue, 26 May 2009 02:55:46 GMT

so wait...the whole point of the quest for this portion of the game is ONLY to..
...............

I almost went out and BOUGHT this game because the soundtrack was good...

.....maybe I'll just go try to locate the soundtrack on the intrawebs instead....

BRAIIIINZZZZ

Hikaru0@aol.com — Sat, 23 May 2009 18:39:24 GMT

http://www.asylum.com/2009/05/20/fly-turns-fire-ants-into-real-life-zombies/?icid=main|main|dl4|link5|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.asylum.com%2F2009%2F05%2F20%2Ffly-turns-fire-ants-into-real-life-zombies%2F

also: wtf, where are people finding these things and why am I being sent them????

OH I DUNNO, YOUR FIST IS IN MY CUNT SO IT QUITE POSSIBLY COULD FEEL LIKE A CUNT PUNCH.

And apparently she likes it so much that she showers him in an inhuman amount of wee-wee.

Cuz y'know...in Japan...if she pees...she likes it.

1000000000 internets won for repoast

Hikaru0@aol.com — Sat, 23 May 2009 17:05:00 GMT

In case of emergency, hug mass.

I REFUSE TO BELEIVE IT'S A SHOOP. DON'T HASH IN ON MY MASS OF KITTEN MELLOW MAAAAN

FFFFFFFF SELF ESTEEM

Hikaru0@aol.com — Fri, 22 May 2009 02:15:03 GMT

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

any beauty I have is now categorized by numbers!
YAYE JAPAN

http://anaface.com/

and my serial adder LJ friend is baleeted T_T RIP spam pyramid scheme LJ nonfriend

edit: one photo I loaded up put me as a 7.something and the 2nd put me at a 6.something. It says my face is too wide, and my ears too long for my nose. THUS I AM GEOMETRICALLY UGLY.

Life am normal :O

Hikaru0@aol.com — Sat, 02 May 2009 00:04:15 GMT

nothing interesting to report here.

Found this test and I'm pleased to announce that despite several claims that a few of my characters are "Mary Sues" this test claims they are not, although still reflect some part of my life that I wish were real. In fact, the Lineage 2 character I've written about for the longest time seems to be a well-developed character with zero Mary Sueism and that makes me a happy chippy.

http://www.katfeete.net/writing/marysue.html

Hikaru0@aol.com — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 11:10:03 GMT

hey y'know....

.....I really can't handle relationships after all. With people..
I always get hurt. My intentions are always misunderstood, and by the time I explain myself, people don't want to listen.

I don't understand....why am I still stuck in the crapshoot of the world? I thought that was over when I left the years of teenagehood.

Epics.

Hikaru0@aol.com — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 23:28:09 GMT

EPICS.

:(

Hikaru0@aol.com — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 19:53:19 GMT

I woke up with splinters in my fingers and I have absolutely no idea how they got there.

Oh yeah, I suck at April Fool's D:

Writer's Block: AKA

Hikaru0@aol.com — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 01:44:27 GMT

What's the story behind your username?

View 503 Answers

Back during my zomg obsessed with Angel Sanctuary days, I created this journal to roleplay with. Alexiel was taken, thus I became Organic Alexiel as Alexiel is the Organic Angel. XD

my more common username, Hikaru0, was created because I had a girl-crush on Hikaru from Magic Knight Rayearth. The 0 was because I'd previously had the username "Hikaru1" but couldn't get it back again after we cancelled AOL and then reinstalled it.
it became an in-joke however, and I called myself "Hikaru unit 0" after watching Evangelion.

The rest is history, as over time, I became known as variations of this username such as Hika, Hik and even the notorius pokemon Hikachu who occasionally evolves into Hikapoo.

I'm a geek. :)

MEOW.

Hikaru0@aol.com — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 01:36:12 GMT

To everyone sad today because of various slugs in the stomach from life:

have a Philo to comfort your pain away:

d'awwwwwwwwww

lol

Hikaru0@aol.com — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 13:59:48 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GBn-BpkNsA

if you can spot House (from the TV show House) you'll win 20,000 dollars in funnymunny.

A happy ending

Hikaru0@aol.com — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 03:18:13 GMT

So the cat drama has finally ended. Nope, didn't end with that last post unfortunately.
Scott and I finally went back to the petstore on a day when the FERAL lady was supposed to be there, and we waited an hour while she purposefully pretended to be busy with 'paperwork'. It was very apparent, after Scott introduced himself, that she was avoiding us. She wouldn't make eye contact, and when she spoke, she talked in a distracted tone of voice. She attempted to say that she couldn't give us the phone inteview because of her long distance, but Scott cut her off and said "Oh yeah, Petsmart said that you could use their phones to conduct your business and they can call us fine." she didn't say anything else after that and just walked away.

While we waited for the lady, another FERAL Volunteer spoke with us, prodding us to see how good we were with cats, I think now that I recall the nature of his questions. This rich-looking, middle-aged man had the audacity to reprimand us for letting the strays around our house just run wild and not invest in a 500 cage specifically for catching stray cats, and then taking them in to be spayed/neutered on our dime.

wtf. Yeah, I understand the reason to spay and neuter strays, but the vet would sooner put the cats to sleep than spay or neuter them, they were feral for pete's sake. They usually give up on socializing feral cats. (This is feral in the sense that they run from human contact the minute they hear a footstep, not the 'I live outside but i let you pet me' kind of feral)

Also while we were there, another couple came up and was interested in adopting a gray cat that was housed above McMurphy. They interviewed them on the spot, and asked really dumb questions that weren't neccicary to cat adoption other than their elitist old lady minds. Questions like "How much does your job pay?" to the guy, and "Are you and your boyfriend planning to get married anytime soon?".

......

Anyway, so the lady finally got tired of Scott and I waiting around, so she told us, in a snobby voice, that she had another lady that she had to call about McMurphy and that she would 'get back to us.'

........

Well that was the end of that, we knew. So we went to talk to the Manager before leaving Roanoke, to introduce ourselves and thank him for the help that he'd offered. He asked us if we'd talked to the FERAL lady, and we relayed how the meeting went. I then asked if there were any other shelters that were still open late on a Saturday, just out of curiousity, and he led us over to the SPCA group that was visiting the store for the day trying to get dogs adopted. They were very nice, and very understanding. They seemed to be sympathetic when the manager mentioned that we were having trouble with the FERAL group, and gave us directions right out to the SPCA shelter. (It's beginning to seem that there's been a LOT of trouble with FERAL...)

So we drove about ten minutes, I had the intention of looking, but not neccicarily picking out a cat to come home with us. Window shopping, if you want to call it that.

The SPCA had quite a few cats, some downright adorable (there was a white kitten that was sooo playful, but she'd been adopted already. There was this huge long-haired cat there too named King Arizona, and he definately had the look of "I'm so superior to you, I'm merely allowing you to gaze upon my beauty" XD ) In the cat playroom however, was one white cat that really stuck out to us. We went into the playroom several times to visit with the cats sleeping in there, and this one white cat just started clinging to Scott like a fungus. Wherever Scott would move in the room, this cat would follow. When we went to leave the room, he dashed to the door to put his paws up on it like he was saying "Ok, I'm ready, where are we going?"

So...we decided he had to come home with us XD

The SPCA normally has a big background check that they want you to do, with personal references and all (like what Emily mentioned), but they were so sympathetic of our trouble with FERAL, and could tell we were 'good people', that they let us take the cat home without any checks or questions.

So on the day poor grey kitties named Dusty were being abused in the interwebs (;_;) Scott and I became hooman parents of a deaf, completely castrated (poor little guy had bladder stones as a kitten and they had to remove all of his junk), fungus of a loving cat. The SPCA had named him Kris Kringle, but we re-named him as Philo. He's so cuddly. He doesn't do much in the way of play, but if Scott or I leave his zone of safety for a second, he's off after us, trying to find us.

So sometimes things do turn out ok in the end...
http://www.rvspca.org/success_stories/#2807 (as of this posting, my cat is the 2nd one on this page, underneath Sport :D )

update on petsmart and feral

Hikaru0@aol.com — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 04:23:02 GMT

So I got a phone call not long after I made my last journal entry, from the manager of Petsmart. Apparently corporate got to him really freaking fast, and told him of my complaint. (I guess I was just talking to a floor manager before, not the store manager.) He was very nice and tried to be as helpful as he could, but as predicted, he couldn't do anything about the organization in particular, but he could tell them to conduct their business better or they'd be giving their cages to a different NON PROFIT organization who has better people skills.

He also said that I wasn't the only one whom has had problems with FERAL, and he doesn't understand why she would say I couldn't adopt a cat because of distance, because FERAL is more than welcome to use the store phones to conduct their business, since they ARE bringing in a minor profit to the store. (with the sales of cat supplies and food I suppose.)

Iiiinteresting. -finger steeple-

He invited me to come visit their store this weekend and meet him in person so he could apologize again, and said that a different, bigger organization comes in on Sunday with kittens, and usually bring more than what gets adopted. Sadly, Scott and I are only in Roanoke until tomorrow afternoon. He did say that the SPCA will be in the store tomorrow but they usually bring dogs, occasionally brings cats, so I could check in. So he was very polite and professional. I have faith that he will say something to the FERAL chick, especially if he told me that this isn't the first complaint.

I feel somewhat accomplished, but in an evil, bitchy way. I'm thinking, as Masutah suggested, going to check the Lewisburg adoption places...they're more expensive, however, if that is their prices that they list on their websites x.x