Lair of Pathia Soyinka Tawner

So, borderlands

2009-10-28T07:10:29Z

Here's what I've done so far.

1.) Get stuck repeatedly right at the start of the game, because the first NPC you meet was glitched
2.) Have bits and pieces of quests go missing, making them unsolvable.
3.) Invincible boss npcs with infinite hit points
4.) Invisible exp walls, I've hit 10 and it simply doesn't go farther after that, it just stops
5.) Random quests break in multiplayer, desynching me me from those I'm playing with and making me have to drop to single player to try to catch up.
6.) Had all my skill points vanish.
7.) Totally forgot this one, if you customize your win7 at all, your game...WILL NOT SAVE YOUR DATA. GENIUS!

I'm now on my 8th character, six of the ones before that are glitched and broken, unable to progress in the game any further, so I had to stop using them.

Other than THOSE things, it's an awesome game I guess -_-

Anthrocon Report

2009-07-07T20:47:28Z

Thursday
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Probably the one good day of the con, as videogame room obligations had not reared it's head yet. I hung out with many friends, about the only point of the con I got to do heavy socialization. We went and saw transformers 2, which I prepared for by drinking three long islands in about 10minutes before heading out. Unfortunately that didn't lower my IQ enough and I still didn't care entirely much for the movie. It was nice to be out with friends though.

Friday
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Sat in the videogame room for somewhere around 10hours straight, managed to escape to see Kage for the first time in years at anthrocon. I then hit an open mixer at the Cub Hub (Yes, babyfurs). I'm not one, but I checked it out mainly for curiosity sake. Pretty much like any other room party, lots of drunk furries, music, only difference was lots had cub badges. Nothing crazy or 'disturbing' going on. Then I had to slip back to the VG room to help setup for the smash tournament. Started to feel ill, stress most likely, turned in relatively early.

Saturday
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Woke up and was stomach upset, again from stress, threw up a few dozen times, only bile and water though. A shower and some food made me more or less fully recover. Videogame room time, slipped out for a TFP meeting. Sat in the videogame room a bunch again. Slipped out for 2's show. Then back to help setup for the rockband tournament. That took longer than expected and made me unable to hit several parties I had been invited to or wear my PVC outfit I wanted to wear (and was required for at least one party). I did however manage to catch Spazfox's show and the first part of Jibba's, before having to slip back out to assist with the videogame room again. After that, I finally managed to head up to the Cheetah lawn party, didn't start drinking until 12:30am, which I knew was going to be a mistake. Drank way too much, had a lovely drunken conversation with RB. (We need to play l4d!). Stumbled into my room, slept.

Sunday
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Slept through my alarm, missed Furp's memorial due to this *grumble*. I was at his actual funeral, so I don't feel too bad about this. However, I was hung over as hell, only the third hangover in my life. Thankfully, despite all my body woes, I tend to recover fast. My hangover was gone within two hours. Then back to the videogame room. Tried to grab some food with my mate at the diner, but that took almost 2hours. I had to leave early for videogame room stuff. Mate managed to snag charity 2/Kage tickets though, so I sneaked back out for that. Enjoyed that show, slipped back to the videogame room to shut it down. By that time I was so exhausted and since I drank too much the night before, my deaddog activities basically were me stumbling around like a zombie, and just listening to folks, unable to stir the energy to converse.

Monday
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Getup, checkout, hit videogame room stuff one last time. Fly out and home.

I think I totaled over 20hours in the videogame room this year, which would be even more than last year. I've worked more hours at other cons, but those involved other positions. With the VG room, you get stuck in the same place, with a particular segment of the population of the con. In other positions, you get to at least move around, or you're in a more general purpose room and easier for your friends to meet/hang out/say hello. This isn't the case and sitting in the same room, gazing and monitoring the same activities and listening to endlessly screeches of ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE SINGERS, it makes you slowly go absolutely mad. The combination of J-pop from DDR and emo-rock from Rockband made me want to run away screaming, or vomit, or both. But you can't, because you have to make sure none of the thousands of dollars of stuff walks out. It's so hectic and so busy, your average furry isn't gonna notice ifs omeone just randomly pockets a game, or something small like a Wii or a controller.

I really need a break. I bare no ill will towards any of the programming staff, everything that happened appears to be legitimate human errors. I also made the mistake of waiting waaaay too long before noticing that it was really strange I wasn't getting anything but the emails from the chairman. Either way, I really really really really need a break, at the very least. I just can't take this stress anymore. Not when it involves sinking over a thousand dollars into traveling expenses, lost work and money (My job has furlough, so for both Thursday and Monday I had off for the cons, I don't get paid for it, period). Next year will have more furlough, so likely the con will involve time off without pay yet again. I just can't do this anymore, I'm sorry. I'm more than willing to advise/warn/help the new videogame room lead, but I really don't want anything to do with the room anymore.

So, the moments of the con I experienced were good, but the problem is they numbered less than 6hours total, for the entire con, I think. I just can't handle that kind of work load, not on what is supposed to be a convention. I don't mind working at a con, but I want to get SOME socialization and enjoyment out of it in my downtime, but as the VG room is right now, you just can't juggle that, it's completely impossible. While I did get time off in the evenings, by that time I was so mentally exhausted from having to be 'on' so long monitoring for theft and misbehavior, I was destroyed to the point of being a shambling nonsocial zombie who couldn't even really be perked up by liquor, which is a new experience for me. I've never been this mentally and physically destroyed by working the room. Maybe I'm just getting old?

I don't know. Either way, it's got to change and I've been struggling to get the videogame room into a better shape for 3years now, maybe 4. Nothing I do seems to work and it just keeps getting worse and a heavier burden on my time and sanity. It may be time for a fresh set of people in general, to try some new stuff and see if they can't run it without going nutter.

Videogame Room: Equipment Needed!

2009-06-19T22:06:04Z

RED DRAGON NEEDS EQUIPMENT BADLY!

We operate on a donation based system only! We need equipment donations for the room. I live out in Seattle now, not the east coast, so it's not exactly easy to haul everything out and into a suitcase and/or ship it over.

So we need your help!

Any system at all is fine. Retrogaming? All for it! Bring it whatever you like and think others would enjoy. Multiplayer gaming is the only sort we want though. We also will need equipment for DDR, Rock Band and Smash Brothers. We have tournaments for them, so we definitely will need extra equipment for them.

Important Disclaimer: Anthrocon has no liability for your equipment, you give it to us of your own free will. We will do are darndest not to let it get stolen, or damaged. We'll have someone posted at all times to keep an eye on the room, but if anything is damaged, we can't pay for it. We also have an inventory system to keep it from walking out with the wrong person.

So please, don't bring in your collectors items that are irreplaceable!

(Bodies are useful toooooo!)

Random pondering and queries

2009-04-15T15:15:00Z

I'm going to speak in broad terms and generalizations and I don't mean offense, but I'll likely cause some.

Seriously, this boggles my mind. Especially since I was once in their number a few years ago. A conservative fiscally, socially, yet I would go home and jack off to gender fucked porn. Then turn around and rail against 'special rights' for the very thing I was attracted to at times. Exactly how does this work? It didn't work for me and eventually my mind had a segfault and I reformatted my politics. How exactly does the logic stream work I wonder?

Conservatism fiscally with this is easy, no problem, money is money. However, the social conservatism seems to be such a paradox I can't really figure it out. The way I explained it when I was in this group was to not explain it, or get pissed off and storm off. I mean, even Clarence Fucking Thomas is OK hate crimes laws.

Incidentally, my personal view is that hate crimes should be a separate charge, something akin to a terrorist act. If you assault/kill someone because you hate a particular class of people, you are not just attacking a random person, you are attacking a particular segment of the population in an effort to incite terror and express your qualification of that segment as nonhuman. Particularly as they tend to be violent. There, to me, is a difference between a random stabbing that leaves someone dead and a random stabbing that involves gutting the victim, cutting off their genitals and stuffing them in the victim's mouth (Seems to be a trend in some trans-killings, that)

Yet these people are completely against all these protections, and God forbid they be in favor of job discrimination protection. The only job any non-normal gendered person is adapted to is sex-work after all, gotta get out those inner desires somehow I guess by forcing their fantasy on others by making sure all opportunities in life are complete stifled.

How do they reconcile their view, with the fact that I've been denied employment, insurance, medical aid, abused by people, physically, sexually, then had the cops LAUGH at me over the incident then threaten to arrest *ME* for prostitution to get me to shut the fuck up.

Seriously, how the hell do you reconcile a lack of protections for minorities when these very real examples happen, every day with impunity and no recourse?

The Madness of Furp

2009-03-02T00:44:00Z

There are several accountings on how to make slurm. I have observed the following so far.

If you consume this, do so responsibly.

Its 1 gallons worth of Gatorade powder, 1 gallons worth of tang, sour apple puckers, sour apple vodka, sour apple schnapps , fill with a decent amount of water (We used ice). For adding alcoholic taste, use a vodka with an everclear type percentage (Or both vodka and everclear, thanks DI!)

This is me stumbling into #furry on anthrochat, while our gathering after the party wound down. I don't know what recipe we ended up using, but there was tang, Gatorade, some vodka. Then the DI thought that we needed a pick me up, and dropped a liberal amount of everclear into at as well. You couldn't taste the alcohol very much, this is VERY dangerous stuff if you don't know your limit. So drink with friends and drink slowly unless you're a seasoned consumer.

The following took place at our after gathering-gathering, where we recreated some of this volitile tasty stuff. I logged on #furry on anthrochat (One of Furp's online hangout's) and rambled the following.

[Pathia] i am drunk and have bene for hourss I have no idea waaaaa
[Pathia] i has aieplane thingi in 4hours
[Pathia] well at thee adter apaartny ^ had 3 long iskand then bavk a hotel we had slurm with wverclear

Before you ask.

1.) I remember the evening
2.) I did not have much of a hangover, probably because of below
3.) Yes, I drank lots of liquids

Three is very important. If you think chewing aspirin is bad (We passed some around, we did do so in his memory last night) I shudder to think of the mischief he could cook up and trigger from where he is now. Be warned!

Tonight

2009-02-21T00:20:23Z

I am going to be playing TF2. I will be a medic. I will be drinking scotch. Tonight I declare there cannot be too many medics.

You can find me on steam by searching for riowens@vt.edu. I am old school steam before userids existed. I will probably be on the TFP/FA servers.

Meh

2009-01-10T09:30:24Z

I feel like I'm crawling up slow moving land slide. I may feel like I'm moving upwards from all the struggling, but then to realize I've only slowed the descent.

Here's a more detailed explanation of how my moods generally work.

My mood is swinging up and down fairly regularly, but so very rapidly (I think?). At work, for almost all hours of the day I am incredibly energetic, happy, excited, hyper, then it slows down towards the end of the day, so I start to get sluggish. Then by the time I get home through the traffic slog I'm depressed as hell.

...

2009-01-07T01:54:29Z

Well, I've been trying to schedule an appointment with my doctors for a month and a half now. It keeps being said 'they're not on the schedule' (They're professors at a local university as well, they do work at the clinic as charity or something). Well, they're still not on the schedule, not even for this month...even though it's this month now. I'm out of ALL of my prescriptions, I've repeated asked them to renew, they haven't. I really don't know what to do at this point, I haven't found a replacement doctor yet.

Medical Issues==Depression?

2009-01-04T10:42:18Z

This is TMI and it involves trans stuff, so I'm putting it behind a cut.

I really, REALLY *REALLY* hate blaming things on hormones. It seems like such a cheap out, but let me give you the details here.

Well...lets give a run down of what's going on with my endocrine system lately.

There's much debate on what the ideal testosterone level is for a male. However, the test results I got the last time were supposed to be 175-781 ng/dL. What were the last two ones I pinged on tests?

First one was 812 ng/dl, the second one? 1532 ng/dl. This would be considered an incredibly dangerously high level for a male in the middle of puberty, it's dangerously high. See that 781 above? That's for being in the middle of puberty, I'm DOUBLE that. Keep in mind also, I'm supposed to be in the FEMALE range now! This is 14-76ng/dl. This means I am 20 to 100 TIMES too high.

It's like I'm doing 'roids or something. Despite this, my doctors won't up any of my medicines. They continue to actually dose me about the same as a post menopausal woman would take, if she needed HRT for hot flashes etc. What they do instead is keep trying different sorts of estrogens (I am on patches now instead of pills for example). However, the actual dose in this patch is even LOWER than the pil I had before.

Does this make ANY sense to any of you with some medical knowledge? My hair is starting to thin more, I'm losing it every day in the shower, my acne has returned, I'm having body and facial hair grow in where I never even had it before. I've had a cat scan and an MRI, there was nothing abnormal that would be making my body do that there. (Pituitary gland would do it).

What's particularly frightening is that GLBT is apparently their 'specialty'. I'm afraid my current doctors are just...clueless, they mean well or maybe I just have a really fucking weird body, which I totally admit could be true. Who do you go to, when there doesn't seem to be a name for what's going on?

Thanksgiving

2008-11-28T04:22:38Z

Was hollow. Everyone was depressed, quiet, not much laughter, everything tasted bland. I miss Mom, we all missed Mom. It's never going to be the same anymore. We sat down, tried to pray, but we all cried even my uncle who's a Methodist minister just burst into tears in the middle of his prepared prayer. No one spoke for a long while after that, I really don't know how it's going to be later, it's only going to get worse as the holidays progress. Mom was the center of all of our holiday events, she organized it all, she was the glue. We all love and care for each other, but the strongest link has passed on.

More thoughts:

Part of what makes it worse, is that it is so awkward. I've spoken of my personal reasons in a prior post, but mom...mom made a lot of choices in the end, and the family split. My brothers and I supported our father, because we saw mom slowly get crazier, we believed her to be dillusional...the rest of the family? They believed mom, or at least, believed that they should believe mom so she could be happy.

It's this big hidden untalked about bomb sitting in the middle of every gathering, and no one's opinions have really changed. I've asked probing questions, to see if anything could be fixed, or brought together, but I'm pretty sure all that would happen would be a metric ton of hurt feelings, shouting and perhaps even more fracturing.

Marryin Jaqls :D

2008-11-11T05:28:45Z

Something I've been on pins and needles about for ages! We can't legally get married, but I felt the need to do SOMETHING. An actual ceremony would be ever so much trouble and...awkward, so...instead...ARTZ!

Art was by Kacey Miyagami if you didn't recognize the style. It is impossible to describe how pleased I am with the way this came out, she got everyone perfectly :D

Some notes, Tersi (She's the one on the left) is a space navy officer, something totally made up, so the rank intentionally doesn't make sense or match up with anything in the US military :) Darkso, our mutual friend, is in the back doing the ceremony. Rheoryn is of course on the right there.

My luck roll for this month is now officially a 1

2008-07-16T05:21:35Z

So right now my checking account reads as somewhere around negative *insert five digit figure* here. Why? Well, I made a large deposit, and in the way things work with very large checks, they're supposed to credit your account, then put that amount on hold.

They only did that second part.

So, until they fix it, their system is going to continue bitchslapping me with gigantic fees until they manage to figure out who flipped the wrong switch and/or pushed the wrong button.

I am going to get a new bank, probably a credit union, as soon as fucking possible. This is absolutely retarded.

I can dispute, and win, all these charges. Conveniently however I can only call during business hours to get the department that does such things. Conveniently the hold time will be ridiculous, and keep me from getting any work done.

pathia @ 2008-02-04T17:53:00

2008-02-05T01:54:58Z

Cindy Lou Torres-Owens
12/16/1957-02/04/2008

Rest in peace mom...

Family

2007-06-28T12:36:10Z

It continues to crumble in horrible wails of agony.

Apparently my dad tried to rally just about everyone to petition a local mental health group to take mom in, in some sort of intervention.

It...didn't go well. See, she's not suicidal, so really they couldn't do anything, but mom found out he was planning this. So now all of her protests of 'everyone out to get her' are more or less true, which means she's shoving everyone away even faster.

She's also hellbent on wedging her new guy into my life too, despite me being 3000 miles away. Apparently she's told him 'everything' about me, and he's perfectly fine with my lifestyle and that it would be wonderful if I would visit them or talk to him on the phone. Seriously...what...the...fuck. Is it normal for your fifty year old mom to want you talk to her three-week boyfriend as if he was some sort of new father figure?

Ontop of this her CA125 counts are through the roof. She maintains that she's feeling great and alive but cancer is starting to spread out through her body at a scary rate.

My youngest brother, who was always closest to mom, is so shocked and stunned by this his grades have been falling apart. So, he's thought about joining the military and dropping out of college.

Oh yea, ontop of all this? That interview is in a few hours...lovely...just wonderful. I'm a fucking mental carwreck and I have that on my shoulders to deal with in the middle of it. Wonderful

Shambles: The state of my family

2007-06-22T01:54:48Z

So much crazyness I can't even really get a grip on it enough to actually express an emotion of the situation.

1.) Mom's dating someone she met on match.com, they started sleeping together on the first date.
2.) His name is Rick, just like my dad's
3.) He even looks sort of like a heavier version of my father apparently.
4.) At every point and turn she tries to get this guy into the family, including introducing him to my 2.5year old niece as her 'new big big daddy'
5.) They've only been dating two weeks.
6.) My brother has told her he doesn't want the guy around his daughter.
7.) Mom keeps 'forgetting' this and blames it on the chemotherapy and has the guy 'accidentally' meet my niece over and over.
8.) Grandparents then decided they had enough and told mom she can't have this guy over at their place. (Mom is living with her parents during all this)
9.) So mom gets an apartment and uses dad's charge cards to get a place she can sleep with this guy.
10.) She continues to spend 2000-3000 a month over the internet on various unnecessary things.
11.) She's spent roughly 80% of my father's retirement at this point.
12.) She filed for divorce requesting the typical 50/50 split, which means in the end mom will have gotten 90% of my dad's money over the last four years.

I don't know whether to laugh at the absurdity or cry for the loss of my mother. She's gone. I don't know where she went.

Pyrex sucks now

2007-04-30T12:45:44Z

Apparently at some point, without really telling consumers, Pyrex changed over to regular soda-lime glass. This is the stuff that really really cheap glass products are made of, it used to be made of labratory grade Borosilicate glass. This allowed it to be heated to high temperatures by bunsen burners, it eventually migrated into the kitchen.

Yet what does their website say, despite it being made out of really cheap ass glass?

"PYREX® glassware products can go directly from refrigerator or freezer to a microwave, convection, or preheated conventional oven."

Why am I babbling about this at 5:34am PST? Well, tyrc was doing a cookie round like before and was melting some butter. She had the pyrex piece filled with butter looking and talking to me over the sink. It did not touch anything and suddenly simply exploded, shattering into many many pieces. Multiple large chunks, but what was in her hand was nearly sandlike. It happened so fast and so surreal like it felt like a jumpcut from a really low budget movie. One second pyrex, another second a hand full of glass grits.

Apparently this is a common phenomenon now and it seems relatively luck that the kitchen itself and she herself were undamaged due to the insane forces of these explosions. I am pretty sure had there not been borders around the glass would have been thrown well over ten to fifteen feet in either direction if not more. Pyrex USED to be able to be heated on a burner, however they changed the glass type and have not really educated the consumer that the 'Pyrex' they buy now functions NOTHING like the 'Pyrex' from decades ago.

Linkies
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Mom is home

2007-03-23T00:44:20Z

But that's about the extent of the good news.

She's riddled with tiny tumors. The chemo is not working, they're going to have to biopsy and try to find another regimine.

So...

2007-03-16T01:27:30Z

Do any of you live in the region of this route?

Mom is too sick and in the midst of chemotherapy, so she will not be joining me on the trek. I will go utterly bat shit insane if I do not meet some of you on the way!

**Note. With this far of a drive, 3-5hours 'out of the way' is not really 'out of the way' because as long as I go westish, I am going the right way**

LT3M Fundraising Marathon

2007-02-24T13:41:14Z

Pretty much everyone is DJ'ing today in a 24hour long marathon. That means pretty much EVERYTHING is covered. Tune in! Dragons demand it! Unless you're working all day like me, there's no excuse not to tune in at least for a bit!

Cell phone for FC

2007-01-16T13:18:14Z

If you want to trade phone numbers, reply to this. It's screened, so I'll reply with my number in private.

Voice Post:

2007-01-16T01:49:04Z

Day six and counting.

2007-01-15T05:55:18Z

Pretty much been doing 12-16hour days nonstop before the con. Will continue to do so up until my flight, gotta make up for the time off after all.

Sorry if I haven't been around much folks.

Voice Post

2006-12-05T04:49:01Z

Work...

2006-11-26T02:21:30Z

My manager is an awesome guy. He helped me deal with the crazy annoying people that bugged me at work. He's been supportive and understanding and more than willing to listen to me rant about any number of things.

This manager is being transfered. The new manager is my age, in fact he went to highschool with me. Those normally would be pluses.

Unconfirmed, but he's already said disparaging remarks about me or rather 'people like me'.

Given that he attends a very small nondenominational sect church that meets in rotating family member's basements it is not hard to discern what he means by 'people like me'.

This may not go well.

Quest for a Wii

2006-11-24T12:23:17Z

No dice. Every store within 50miles got almost nothing. I was in line at a EB Games, about 20th of 50. They only got four units and didn't expect any for another two weeks. The local gamestop is preordered until somewhere around december 15th.

My guess is why it's so fucking hard for me to snag one compared to some of the rest is...I live in the suburbs of DC. Every single gamestop/eb games/walmart gets a line by close the evening before the next shipment. There must be some sort of information network I'm not aware of going on. However, I actually have a life so I refuse to stand in line for more than 30minutes heh.