currently feeling: oy oy oy

hi i'm kinda back

Been very busy with real life nonsense, work and just being lazy. Wasting my time with Epic Seven and trying to finish all the Hero Paths. Despite what I said in my Media Log my Mort can't cut it most of the time. damn it i just want to get to challenger 5 ONCE so that I can be done with this

Work's been slowing down too lately. We had a bad snowstorm a few days ago but now the snow's all gone due to the rain that followed it. It's funny to see which dogs like or dislike the snow. After Monday we'll have no boarders until Thursday I think which sucks 'cause I need the money.

Well, I guess I can journal about one of the many reasons December 2024 was the second worst month of my life. (May 2022 is first. I'm not trying to vague post or anything! Sorry.) During the first week I severly twisted my left ankle when backing out of a run after putting a dog back in it. The runs are about four inches off the ground and I've exited them while putting a dog back thousands of times so I have no idea why it happened since the dog was a well-behaved one that I didn't need to coax in or anything. I've never been in so much pain in my life! The ambulance had to be called and I haven't been in one of those before - except when I was in a bad car accident when I was five but I don't remember that. Was at the ER for about three and a half hours and one of my coworkers was kind enough to drive me home (and drive me to work days later so that I could pick up my car). Thank god it wasn't my right ankle that was fucked up.

Ended up taking almost a whopping two weeks off work to recover. They gave me crutches at the hospital - as well as a splint on the ankle, no cast - but they were so awkward to use so I ditched them after three days or so. The first week was awful. My bedroom is where the garage used to be in my house so I have to walk up two concrete steps to actually enter the house and use the bathroom or kitchen. I don't know why I didn't just hang out in the house to avoid climbing up them? After the first week I took the splint off and switched to a ankle brace that I ordered online and that was a huge help.

When I took the splint off my ENTIRE foot and lower leg was bruised a deep purple. It was crazy, I've never seen anything like that on my body before. The swelling was the worst part after the pain. I had to wear my mother's old crocs to work and couldn't fit into my sneakers for an additional week.

I'm completely healed now with no after effects but geez, it was such an ordeal. I can't even remember what I DID during that period off of work. I slept, ate, took care of my cat, the usual but after that? Nothing.

I'm currently working on my favorite animal pictures / facts but I'm drawing a complete blank on the layout... maybe I need to take a nap before going back to work. I'm exhausted.

currently feeling: trying to relax

I MEANT TO MENTION THIS AGES AGO BUT MY HOT WATER DID TURN ON AFTER MY LAST AUGUST POST LMAOOO

man i've been watching / listening nothing but let's plays of various mdickie games wtf Joel's Mr. Bean playthrough was LEGENDARY (it feels weird to address a streamer by his first name but i can never spell 'vargskelethor' off of the top of my head)

Well, happy early Thanksgiving I suppose. I purchased some rotissere chicken from the grocery store and that will be my turkey. Expensive but *shrug* I don't want to attempt to cook a turkey breast. I work a lot more this week starting tomorrow and I'm trying to enjoy my time off as much as I can by doing as little... I guess 'adulting' would be a good term to use here... as possible. And I got my period too so I'm going to be dealing with that as well as taking care of 14 dogs, 1 boarding cat (who is so SWEET and CUTE) and 5 adoptable kittens (also sweet and cute). And those two police dogs I mentioned ages ago are back! As irratating as ever!! 😭

Honestly, we should just ban those two dogs. The younger lab literally lunges at you whenever you take his double lead off. (A double lead is when you loop two dog leads together so that when a dog is in their run / kennel it's possible to slide both of the leads off so that you don't have to touch the dog. That's a pretty bad explanation, it's one of those things I can explain only by showing it to someone in real life. It's not a double prong lead either, we use the cheap nylon leads to take the dogs in and out of their runs.) He thinks its a toy but this is a major step up from typical lab mouthing. The weird thing is that both of them are fine outside in the yard, it's just the massive cage aggression that is the problem.

The only other dog my clinic has banned while I've been here was, sadly, a three month old Rottweiler puppy that NO ONE could figure out how to deal with. She was so aggressive and we had to use that long loop prong that you see animal control use on her. (I couldn't even figure out how to use it so the vet techs had to handle her.) It sucks but safety of our staff comes first. I don't think I've met the owner of the two police dogs. When I had to help bring them in the last time they boarded an entire family came to drop them off and it seemed like they were doing it for their father?? I don't know. They are active police dogs so I assume that the owner is their handler as well??? But I've never heard of a police man taking care of two on duty police dogs at the same time. But then again, what do I know?

OH, and the two dogs can't go out together because they'll fight! (Shocker.) I can't imagine having two large dogs and having to seperate them at all times! My parents and I adopted a pair of small dogs years ago, Trooper the chihuahua mix and Josh the whippet, and it would've been so irratating to take care of them seperately from each other. Granted, they were a bonded pair so we didn't have to worry about that possiblity at all but I'm just using them as an example.

I miss them. I miss all my deceased pets. :( Funnily enough, their first Thanksgiving with us was nearly ruined because Trooper lept up to the kitchen counter and started to eat the leg of the cooling off turkey. Josh was keeping watch when I caught them. Thankfully Trooper didn't eat much, just some turkey skin but we just threw the turkey leg out. That was a good memory to remember. It was also much less worrying than the time Trooper either ate part of a dead toad or some toad skin and threw it up. (He was fine, I rushed him to work a few hours later and the doctor on duty said to keep an eye on his bowels and bring him back if there was any blood. also my mom might've mistaken what he ate because we never found the rest of the toad but i honestly wouldn't put it past Trooper to consume a toad)

Anyway, I might discuss the possibility of banning them with the rest of the staff tomorrow. The two dogs are like this for everyone working there of course and we can't let them not only cause danger for all of us but also our canine clients. Thankfully the two don't really start trouble with the other dogs when I walk them past the other runs but then again I take them out as fast as possible.

I don't wanna work more hours uwuususuwhuhudhasuh but I just gotta grin and bear it. I'm sure no one reading this wants to work more but I need the money and I've been through much, much, MUCH worse. That's what I keep telling myself. Also I'm a adult and need to suck it up. Plus I do actually enjoy my job compared to every other place I've ever worked. Also one of my favorite dogs is boarding during the holiday so if I'm overwhelmed I usually just hang out with her for a minute or two.

IN OTHER NEWS, I've been playing a lot of Epic Seven lately and have multiple pages in progress about my planned builds. I was going to upload them today actually but I wanted to make a journal post first since I've been neglecting it as per usual. I'm running out of leifs (energy source) - I have 53 left! ... yeah, I'm stingy with my items, okay, but I don't wanna use my skystones! ... which I have 5,500-ish of. I did buy the monthly passes as well as the second rank up pack as a gift to myself. Ugh, I'll just use the leifs to farm but I'm not strong enough to auto Wyvern 13 or even beat it manually so should I save the energy for that? I'm going to farm Wyvern 12 for a bit I guess.

currently feeling: this

I meant to write a journal entry like a week ago.

Same old, same old. Work, sleeping, dealing with anxiety and depression... what else is new? Well, I've been watching a lot of wrestling LMAO just for something new in the background I suppose. Currently rewatching this as I think of what to write about. It's the amazing Manami Toyota vs. Akira Hokuto '95 match that I first heard about on r/squaredcircle. see sometimes reddit is good!! but only sometimes

Joshi wrestling is really something else, I really need to watch more of it. I like how Japanese wrestling have the wrestlers talk to each other during the match even though I don't know what they're saying! I wasn't really allowed to watch wrestling when I was a child (yet I was allowed to play Mortal Kombat games at the arcade) but I used to watch RAW in the late 90's when I would spend time at one of my friend's house. Her and her entire family were gigantic Stone Cold fans (marks? idk), I mean they had merch EVERYWHERE. Then I said that the Rock was kinda cute and she got mad at me HAHA but thankfully she didn't tell the rest of her family or else I probably would've been banned from their house.

Work has been really slow lately but I'm still working two shifts regardless. A lot of standing around and doing nothing because the weather's been bad due to the hurricane down south. (I really hope there's no more death caused by the storm. So awful.) We've got a intake of five adoptable kittens in but they have fleas and I'm currently restricted on the time I can spend with them because I don't want to spread any to the other animals. :I

Been playing some Pokemon Go but my stupid anxiety is keeping me from walking around. It's a LOT smoother now than it was back when I tried it a year ago, I must say. Uh, the game, not my anxiety problem... Still no Raichu but I'll get one eventually!

Hopefully I'll have the motivation to update more of this site soon. I really enjoyed making the initial list for the "Favorite Things" page (but not trying to align the images on the layout!) so maybe that'll be the next update?

currently feeling: HEY GET OUTTA THE WAY

oh look another journal entry within a month yay :)

Still no hot water. I filed a complaint with the state about it and a half hour later I get a call from a rep from the gas company. She's like super pissed and keeps repeating herself but I learn that it's actually illegal to... uhhh, start the hot water on someone's house when they're away and the people living in the house aren't on the account. Which is bullshit but I don't think she was lying. Anyway, she kept repeating herself and I just start going "Yup!" and "Uh-huh!" in a very overly cheery voice so she hung up after I started doing that.

The main problem here is that I've been calling the rehab center that my father is at and I STILL HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO TALK TO HIM. Whenever they connect me to his room, I'm on hold until the front desk picks up again. Whenever I'm on hold while talking to the nurses, they connect me to his room and he doesn't pick up, which sends me back to the front desk. I've asked the nurses several times to ask him if he just doesn't want to talk to me, then I'm put on hold... you get the idea. While I was writing this I DID get a call back from a social worker who took down some info and said that his actual social worker will call me back in a hour and a half so that's SOME good news.

Speak of the devil, just as I was going to finish this entry I managed to speak to him. (The striked out text above is left there for some clarity.) Before that, however, I told the social worker how bad he is at home with his falls and forgetfulness. They told me that he's basically at "wheelchair level" since he's only able to walk five steps on his own (with his walker) without being guarded. But he wants to come home and since it's his house... once the insurance company says he's good, he's outta there and back home. The problem is beyond my relationship with my father now, it's a case of "if this man does not get 24 hour assistance he will die". Bonus fact - he's on Medicare (NOT Medicaid) and makes too much money to apply for an extended stay via Medicaid. Lovely.

But he actually sounds good and says that it's nice there which is a plus. He did get upset when I mentioned the hot water drama and I didn't want to push it. He'll probably be home in two weeks, these trips to physical rehab places only last like a month, so I'll call when he's home and FINALLY I'll have hot water again.

Dear readers, and I thank you for reading this, you'll probably be reading more about this situation with my dad in the future. I've tried to hold back about talking about it but it does feel good to vent... but enough of the depressing stuff for now. Let me talk about THIS depressing video game instead!

Finally getting around to playing Fear and Hunger 2: Termina and it's been really fun! I knew a lot about the game beforehand but I keep coming across details that I had no clue about. Of course, uh, I'm on Easy Mode for now... still did Day 1 with only one arm (with Abella then Levi). I TRIED to run from the Woodsman but uhhh I got stuck on a rock. Going for the A ending with (my fully healed) Marcoh, Abella, Daan and O'saa. Wanted to trade Daan for Marina but I can't find her.

I'm actually not only planning a "first playthrough" page for this game but also doing... kinda like a retrospective page where I just go on and on and on about what I like about the series. I'm planning to do several "retrospective" pages like that. Don't expect any of those pages up soon, however, I work slow!

Hmm, I never know how to end these journal entries, so have THIS:

... posting that made me realize that I forgot to loot Tanaka... oh well, I don't really need, uh... actually, CAN you get his head after Needles cuts it off? This makes sense in context.

currently feeling: help me scorpion you're my only ho

How am I doing? Well, check out the latest entries on my status.cafe page, namely the ones about HAVING THE HOT WATER TURNED OFF (bonus: this is NOT the 'house trouble' that i mentioned in the previous entry) THIS IS WHERE I'LL GO OFF ON A RANT so scroll down to the random gif I posted below if you want to skip my bitching, which you should lmao

Yup, the gas bill is paid off... as of right now thanks to me. Yup, my father lied to me about it being current. (I live with him, unfortunately. I do pay rent and for my own things of course - I refuse to freeload off of him - but we do not have the best relationship.) NO, I was NOT expecting him to be ALMOST TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS IN DEBT TO THE GAS COMPANY which in turned caused them to TURN OFF THE HOT WATER WITHOUT TELLING EITHER OF US. If he needed help paying, which he didn't because his monthy social security deposit can cover that and any other bills he has, then I would've been more than happy to help. ... Well, 'more than happy' is a stretch, I mean who the hell wants to spend more money on utilities? But if I had known sooner then I wouldn't be in this situation. Thankfully I managed to link his bank account info to his gas company account so that a direct withdrawal can be done every month to pay off the bill. (Don't ask me why that wasn't done sooner, I don't know.)

So you're probably wondering what the problem is if the bill is paid off, right? Well, my dad's currently in a physical rehab facility in recovery for a small surgery as well as other medical issues. The surgery was nothing bad, some fluid had to be drained from his lower back. I've called the gas company and asked for the metal lock to be taken off of the meter multiple times and every time I'm told that they can't talk to me because I'm not on the account.

Okay, then all my father has to do is call the company and either add my name to the account OR JUST CALL AND ASK FOR THE LOCK TO BE REMOVED. Simple, right? Wrong. First of all, and I've never heard of this before, but for the past two weeks that my father's been in that rehab place their entire phone system has been down. Not the front desk, obviously since I can call, but for the "patient's rooms and some of the other phones"... this is NOT a run down shitty rehab center in the slightest, it's probably the nicest facility my father's ever been in and has a 4.4 star rating on Google. When I asked to leave a message with either a nurse or his social worker, the first time I was put on hold until the line disconnected. ... the second time, I don't even know what happened, but I guess the nurse I talked to misheard me and instead of either putting my father on the line or taking a note, she ran around his room looking for his cell phone. Listen, I know that nurses are overworked and underpaid and I hate having to ask nurses to write down messages for my father but I'm so confused as to why she wasted her time doing that instead of listening to me.

Alright, fine, just let me talk to him and ask. I did this multiple times while he was at the hospital before he went to physical rehab - the day that he went to the hospital for a fall was literally the day that I found out that our hot water was gone - and every time he would complain about "not having a pen" or accuse me of lying or yell about me "wanting the house". (I know the latter two make no sense. He's not only a narcissistic jerk but has severe mental problems as well as memory issues. And I DO NOT WANT THIS HOUSE ffs, if I could afford to move out I absolutely would!!!) When I finally convinced him to ask a nurse nearby to write down the phone number for him to call, he swore that he would finally call the gas company. But he didn't and that caused another round of calling the gas company, then calling him, etc. Then he went into surgery and into that rehab place, which made it even worse because now he's refusing to speak to 'anyone' on the phone at the nurses' desk.

The next plan of action... well, I was going to contact his social worker today and point out that when he comes home he's not going to have any hot water to wash himself and I've done all I've could on my own. (This was my sister's idea and I gotta say it's a good one. btw she's in a no contact relationship with him and iirc he actually disowned her a few years ago... although that's based on what he's told me, I can't find any paperwork about it.) But he was admitted into the same hospital that he was in for the surgery for blood in his urine and is actually in the process of being transferred back to the rehab facility right now so I gotta wait on that. If I can't get through through the phone, then I'll drive up there and physically dial the fucking number myself with my own cell phone so that he can talk to the gas company. This entire situation is so fucking stupid.

Rant over, here's a gif:

I really don't want to go into too much detail about how I wash myself without hot water - because that's really fucking weird lmao - but thankfully I have an electric kettle and a portable electric heater than makes it easier. To make a long story short; I first lather myself with soap and heated water, clean as much of my hair in the sink then step into a cold shower to get as much of the soap and shampoo off my body as possible. When I can't take the cold water anymore, I dump two prefilled buckets with heated water (or three, today a bucket I ordered off of Target came in early so I had an extra one) over my body to both warm myself back up and get any extra soap off. Does that make sense? It's unpleasant, I'm never going to get used to the cold shower and it just takes fucking forever. .. but at least I'm clean.

well anyway check out these kids, these GOAT babies, that didn't want to go to bed so they hopped around until they tuckered themselves out

currently feeling: srghghjgjhrhhhrh

'oh maybe i'll make a journal entry today on my day off, hey when's the last time i made one anyway'

... oops.

Well, nothing has been going on in my life except for house trouble and working. I rather not talk about it. *shrug*

But more importantly, my local zoo has been posting about a capybara 'Bachelor'-like series on Instagram and it's amazing. Here's the finale, complete with tiny mic interviews. I just love capybara. I plan on uploading pages with just cute animal pictures on it. Eventually! Maybe I'll work on that today. ANYWAY. Very short entry so I'll leave you all with this image:

currently feeling: xeno'd out

Decided to spruce up the layout a bit. Dunno why I added a bunch of Waddle Dee pics to a page that has a dull brown layout but... hey, Waddle Dee is great. :) I didn't want to make a red or orange themed layout so I just kept the beige color scheme.

Finished re-playing Xenosaga II for RetroAchievements, wow, such a SLOW GAME. Everything is just slow - the battle system, the side quests, the plot. The actual plot is great, though, but it's bogged down by the slowness of everything else. I'm planning on making a page to dump all the screenshots I took. *shrug* I quit right before Dark Erde Kaiser, I just couldn't fucking take the endgame sidequests anymore.

So I'm now re-playing Xenosaga III and I'm at the last section already. Such a sad game. I know I'm going to cry at the ending, as per usual. It's a great end to a series, but with all the apparent throwbacks in the latest Xenoblade game, maybe Episode IV is right around the corner...? I think this game has my second favorite video game soundtrack of all time. Chrono Cross is my favorite OST.

Oh! I didn't have COVID. Whew.

currently feeling: i am going to throw this shitty mouse out of the window, well i would but i don't have a spare one also i mean a computer mouse not the animal

and my keyboard is kinda fucking up too, i guess the space and enter keys are... not working 1% of the time, pull the fucking trigger piglet

Anyway, hope everyone had a great holiday season, I kinda... well, for me it was okay, I actually only had to work one shift Christmas day and I had the last two days off. I requested these days off months ago so that I could spread my pet's ashes on the spot where my mother's ashes were spread... but I didn't want to push my luck with my car and just stayed home. But I needed the time off.

Oh, and I might have COVID. My dad's in the hospital with it. He's doing well, actually, but he was home almost 24 hours from his stay at his physical rehab place before he called 911 so I DID have a little bit of contact with him. But I feel alright and the social worker mentioned that PT at the hospital is going to decide if he needs to go back to the rehab center. It's a loophole in America's non-existant healthcare system - he had to be sent home early due to his Medicare not covering any more days at the facility but the doctors at the hospital can send him back for another stay if they feel it's neccessary since he has a reason to be admitted to the hospital again. That doesn't make any sense, sorry. I don't think I have it, though, haven't shown any of the symptoms so far. I KEEP SPELLING "BUT" AS "BUIT", I'm going rip and tear this keyboard apart

Still writing 'original fiction' that's in the Xenosaga universe. Don't do this. The fucking lore of this series is so COMPLICATED AND CONFUSING that I'm now at the point of going 'fuck it, just write it, no one's gonna read this anyway' and yeah. What's the term for it? Canon-compliant? BACK IN MY DAY, the only fan made terms that everyone knew were 'lime' and 'lemon'. Holy shit, that takes me back. (The first lemon I read was a Slayers fanfic. Can't remember the first lime.)

yo the super mario rpg remake ost SLAPS, it's so fucking good - "BEWARE OF THE FOREST'S MUSHROOMS" SOUNDS *EVEN BETTER THAN THE ORIGINAL*!! Yoko Shimomura is an amazingly talented composer. Actually, the remake itself looks really well done - not like I can play it! Since I don't have a Nintendo Switch!!

I do have plans for this website, including revamping a lot of the non-sozai themed pages. And I need to update my book review page with at lease five books! Buit But if you couldn't tell by now, I'm an extremely lazy woman so who knows when I'll get around to doing that.

just want to also link to this instagram before i end this entry, i am in love with the BABY WOMBATS that are living there!!!

AH FUCK I TOTALLY FORGOT, THANK YOU FOR 200K VIEWS EVERYONE!!!! HOLY SHIT I JUST OPENED MY NEOCITIES DASHBOARD TO UPLOAD THIS UPDATE AND WOW YEAH

currently feeling: v-stab

Since my last entry, I managed to cancel that fucking vehicle inspection twice. First time was because I was on hold to figure out if I needed to pick my dad up from the hospital (he's fine and is actually at a physical rehab place for now) (if we had a better relationship i would go into the whole drama but whatever) and the second time was yesterday night when I realized that I need to renew my car's validation. So now I have to wait until that comes in... I feel like I've been shonking T-nubs, man... I'm gonna get beef brain or something...

(I just woke up and was thinking about what the sequel to Hypnospace Outlaw will be like.)

Well, on a lighter note, for some reason I've been getting into messing around with chat bots. Not really character.ai bots but with the kind of bots you can find on Janitor. A few days ago I managed to make a working original character card and began a roleplay session with it... now I have a slew of OCs for the fucking Xenosaga series. Not original characters that would be important to the timeline of the games, mind you, just characters living in the environment that the games take place in. I've always wondered about the lore behind the other planets and cities in the Xenosaga universe, like how the ordinary person would live their lives in the year 4000 and whatnot. Boring things. So when I started to place the original characters into a futuristic setting, I eventually came to the conclusion that it might be more interesting to just stick them in that timeline.

also fifth jerusalem was a fucking awesome city to explore

Anyway, I finally settled with using SillyTavern and the free plans on OpenRouter for the AI tech. And it's not easy to fine tune a character card AT ALL and the majority of the bot's text is adjusted by me... I would say that 90% of what the AI sends me at the moment ends up having me edit it. But I will say that having to edit and guide the AI into the direction you want it to go is a FANTASTIC way to practice creative writing. You'll have to spend hours figuring out what to do to get everything working though so in the time I spent tinkering with the AI I could've written a solid short story with the character instead. And of course, I still have no idea what I'm doing, really. But if you want to get started, check out the SillyTavern reddit (too lazy to link to it) and check out some of the cards on Janitor for examples on how to make your own character.

By the way, when I have downtime at work, I like to ask random AI bots on the chai app one of two questions: "Welcome to McDonald's, how may I take your order?" OR "Welcome to Burger King, what can I get for you today?" All of the fucking bots seem to want Big Macs and large fries. The only one that hasn't so far is a Rain (from Mortal Kombat) character bot that pretty much made fun of me for asking a son of Argus such a benign question. I also keep getting recommended those Call of Duty characters that everyone wants to fuck LMAO they're hot though, I just don't know shit about that series.

Before I end this entry, I want to do kinda a 180 topic wise and give y'all a real hot take: This is one of the funniest videos I've seen in my life and is currently my favorite Jerma stream. When he kept trying to get the bot to put the chairs down, I was literally hunched over at my desk and scaring my cat with my howls of laughter.

It's a damn shame that the servers for this game shut down, this game is absolutely perfect for Jerma and his insane behavior.

currently feeling: eh

hey hi what

Again, I apologize for the absence of updates on this website. Maybe it's just the holidays that are rough on me because the amount of work I have to do seems to triple in size. I do love the gloomy weather that comes with the holiday season, though. It's like I have the opposite of seasonal depression. Hooray.

I just scheduled to have my car revalidated or whatever the proper term for it is. I AM SO FAR BEHIND ON IT AND I'M VERY NERVOUS ABOUT GOING DOWN THERE ON MONDAY TO GET THIS SHIT DONE but I gotta do it. The ride isn't so bad, it's right next to my bank, it's just that I doubt that I'll pass so that'll be more money down the drain for repairs I guess. My car works fine so it's more like a 50/50 on if it will pass inspection or not. It's scary to drive on the parkway in a older smartcar because it takes a few more seconds to get up to speed and if it's windy you need to stay focused on not swerving. I remember going to the hospital (for some reason) on the parkway one windy morning and I had to cross a bridge... it was terrifying.

Well, at least everything else in my life is going okay. Those two police dogs finally left and it's actually just one of those Great Danes left to look after at work until Sunday. Well, him and the two kittens we have up for adoption. They're both orange female kittens and I'm really stumped at why they haven't been adopted yet!

I have a lot of ideas for this site still but I just haven't had the energy to continue working on them. For example I've been working on a "favorite fictional characters" page for about a year LMAO so I'll probably just keep updating my review pages for now. And I want to update the main page to a winter-ish theme or at least change the images to higher quality ones! 🤔 So many ideas, so little time and energy.

currently feeling: worn out

Sorry for the lack of updates, life's been kicking my ass lately. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving if you celebrate it - I really don't because I always work that day, plus I haven't had a big Thanksgiving meal in years.

When I say "life's been kicking my ass", I mostly mean "work has been kicking my ass". There's not really a lot of dogs boarding this week - most we had were ten or eleven - but it's a BAD GROUP of dogs. Individually, the dogs are okay but as a group? Awful. They're loud, they're barking at each other and most of them are dog and/or cage aggressive. I even have two K9 dogs boarding from the same family and they are a NIGHTMARE to take care of because one has the worst case of cage aggression that I've ever seen and the other gets chompy whenever you take a lead off him.

Oh, and there's two 200+ pound Great Danes boarding as well. Not from the same family. One's in the spare room and one's in the grooming room. Thankfully I don't have to give any baths while the grooming room is occupied but the other dog is here until mid December. COOOOL (he's a good boy though, just... hold on tight if he sees another dog)

Been TRYING to play the Sims 4 with the massive amount of custom content that I had downloaded previously. Takes a while for the game to load but so far it's been working decently. I think my Fujin sim is stuck in his house though??? of course it's one of the characters that i WANTED to play as

I'll try to get back into the swing of updating this website in a couple days when I have my break but I might be too fucking drained to add content right away. I want to update my book review page first since I've read quite a few books in the time I was absent from this site.

currently feeling: screaming :)

Acorns keep falling on the roof of my bedroom and scaring the shit out of me and my cat.

Eh, some personal issues going on in my life that I don't want to blog about. I'm fine, I guess, just family nonsense.

I cannot believe that this silly little website is close to 200k views! WHAT seriously, it's mindboggling to me. Thank you for visiting, everyone, it's greatly appeciated.

Continuing to write fanfiction, just little drabbles here and there. That S3 fanfic I mentioned in the previous entry is slogging along (lol is that even a term). The best background noise for me right now is episodes of My 600 LB Life, I have NO FUCKING IDEA WHY. Hell, I'm even listening to a episode right now. (Crystal's episode, season 9, episode 13. Not Krystal, the Crystal with the two children and the matted dog that looks like my Chobie did. :( Of course, I got Chobie to the groomer as soon as I adopted her but she was very matted when I got her.)

Playing Pokemon Radical Red right now since I missed a bunch of updates after my last playthrough and, of course, I picked all the randomizer options and Easy Mode. I like switching things up but I'm too lazy to actually put effort into my playthrough. Erika gave me a tough time on Easy Mode but I beat her after a few tries. I am NOT USED TO the Gen VI and beyond Pokes so it's quite the new experience to build a party around the unfamiliar pokemon.

I managed to get a Alolan Muk with that move that triples the prize money so with that plus the Amulet Coin I have quite a few pokemon at the level limit. (Thanks to the guy with the fainting Audino party in Lavender Town!) My other MVPs are currently a Registeel with a pretty awesome moveset (but a 'bleh' ability with the one that boosts speed in sand - I NEVER mess around with weather and/or terrain moves), an Accelgor with Neuroforce ("Powers up super effective moves by 25%") and a great movepool, and a Slither Wing with Earth Eater ("Absorbs Earth moves"). The last one helped out a lot with Erika.

Some of the random pokemon in the wild that made me laugh: Articuno in Veridian Town, Azelf in Veridian Forest, and I think Entei outside Vermillion City. I think I caught my Registeel in Mt. Moon but I'm not sure. It was before Misty. Speaking of Misty, here's how THAT battle went for me:

I'M NOT GOOD AT NAMING POKEMON OKAY, also Noodles was my starter. He did start with Speed Boost but lost the ability when it evolved. Still a physical powerhouse though.

Any trainer that isn't a Gym Leader has random pokemon as well - it's funny to see a Bug Trainer send out a level 10 Moltres after you beat Brock. Give Radical Red a try if you want to have a tougher Pokemon experience with LOTS of options to make your playthrough easier, plus the randomizer options are great too.

currently feeling: anxious and frustrated

Mainly wanted to make this entry to boast that I FUCKING FINALLY BEAT 1-7 OF COOKIE RUN: KINGDOM MASTER MODE!!!

...

I was stuck on that fucking level for four fucking months, alright?! Achieved victory by using Crimson Coral / Pumpkin Pie / Cotton / Pomegranate / Espresso and the Scroll / Watch / Pincushion relics. Crimson Coral was the key for me, her party-wide buff when she's the sole cookie in the front row was a lifesaver. Even then, it was close, I had about twenty seconds left.

My "mood" is because I started rewriting that Suikoden III fanfic last night and now I'm getting jittery about reopening QuollWriter to start writing again. I'm NEVER sastified with my writing, ever ever ever. But the only way to get better about writing fanfiction is to practice. My main problem now is writing exposition and world building. :I

OH! And that cat boarder from the previous entry let me pick her up with the heavy gloves we use for difficult cats and put her in her carrier. Took about three minutes to get her to comply. So, as usual, it was nothing to worry about.

currently feeling: stupid

I never know how to begin a journal entry.

Sundays for me = Friday, since I have Mondays and Tuesdays off. I don't like being away from my job for two straight days, I would rather just have one day off twice a week but not back-to-back. It's alright as it is, though, just gets me anxious when I come in for my morning shift on Wednesday not knowing which boarders are going to be there.

Anyway, LOOK!! A translated Ogre Battle 64 doujinshi! It was the 23rd anniversary of the game being released in the United States and I learned about this translation by seeing some images on the tumblr tag. I'm too shy to leave a comment, but thank you to the tranalator/anyone else who worked on this scanlation, seeing it literally made my year! (Yeah, "year".)

I actually do have this same doujinshi, purchased it YEARS ago on eBay. I still need to fucking upload the scans from the other Ogre Battle (mostly 64, but I purchased some Tactics and MotBQ ones too) doujinshi I bought but I need to figure out the best way to host them.

This is the first translation of any japanese fan materials for this game that I've ever seen and it's been my favorite game for... I think I played it about a year after it came out, so it would be twenty-two years. GOD I'M FUCKING OLD

But the point is, never take fan-made material for any fandom for granted! (Unless it's... hateful or something.) I see quite a few people in the Mortal Kombat fandom querying about the lack of fanfiction and fanart, even for super popular pairings like Johnny Cage x Kenshi (Jonshi)... and I'm not gonna lie, I'm kinda jealous that they don't have to wait YEARS for "some good fucking food". If I want content of any of my OTPs that aren't from Mortal Kombat (literally the only active fandom that I'm in), I need to make it myself.

Well, I do kinda want to start writing fanfiction again... I had a gigantic burst of writing some for Suikoden III and Ogre Battle 64 earlier this year but it went away after some personal issues started to occur. That's why I'm planning on starting a book review page on this site because I feel more inspired the more I read. Might take a while to get it up, I think I finally figured out how to use modal windows properly but I dunno.

Speaking of pages for this website, I actually have a page in progress with my "live commentary" on... well, My 600 Pound Life episodes... seriously. It was fun doing the Mortal Kombat 1 Story Mode Live Reaction page and the episodes that I'm watching are filled with trashy drama that I love. It's not even about their weight problems, but the other aspects of the show, like the family drama and what they order at fast food joints that I like to comment about. It's fun! So that might be up soon too.

I have to go back to work in a little less than four hours for my night shift and I'm very nervous about dealing with a boarder. Not a dog, but a cat. I had the bright idea to put her in the spare cat room but it turned out that she's "spicy" (aka aggressive) so I don't fucking know how I'm going to get her back into her carrier when there's more space for her to move around. Might have to ask the owner to come help... the cat was also supposed to get a nail trim and "the mats shaved out" (she's a long-haired domestic) but I don't think that was done. I'm not a vet tech but there was a star next to that note that appeared a few days ago so, uh, maybe it was done? Here's hoping the owner doesn't get mad at me.

currently feeling: sluggish

hehe the icon for this entry kinda matches up to the previous entry's icon

Working on a new layout for the home page, I can't decide if I want to struggle with iframes again. Most pages will keep their current layout, I just want to make a tidy, simple sidebar to organize that massive amount of links on the front page. Going to try to make a ~ spooky gothic ~ - ish layout for Halloween.

The weather has been *stunning* lately! Of course, for me, "stunning weather" (wtf) amounts to "lots of rain, overcast skies and cooler temperatures". My mom used to call these days "good nap days". As I mentioned on my status.cafe blog, it just sucks to be in charge of taking several dogs out in this weather. But whenever I get bothered by it, I remember the time a hurricane hit years ago at my previous dog kennel job and I had to take dogs outside while water was pooling up at my feet inside. NOT FUN.

AND ANOTHER THING! I don't know WHAT it is with pitbulls/American Pit Bull Terriers but every single time I have to take one outside in the rain, it's a struggle to get them outside AND a struggle to get them BACK INSIDE. I don't know why it's always that breed and I don't know why every single one is like that for me but it's a major pain.

Naturally, with my luck, we have two in at my job right now... one's a senior gal that has been coming as a boarder for a long time and I adore her. She's so silly and affectionate. The other one is a young pit bull that has never boarded anywhere before but is doing extremely well and is VERY SWEET. She's SO TINY, it looks like she's mixed with a French Bulldog. Not as small as one but the face shape is very similar to one. I guess she's on the lower end of 30 pounds? Maybe I'll weigh her tomorrow when I go back into work.

*sigh* I guess since I mentioned APBT/bully breeds, I gotta mention that I'm a fan of all dog breeds. If you're looking for a anti-"pit bull" perspective on this website, you're 100% in the wrong place. And please don't start a argument about it, I'm too tired. It's just absurd that people are still blaming the breed inside of the owner. Breed specific legislation (BSL) laws are so strange to me. Instead of those laws, there needs to be a HUGE reform on the animal control system.

It's weird, when I was growing up it was the German Shepherd more than any other breed that was discriminated against. Other breeds that I was warned about as a child were Rottweilers, Dobermans, and Chow Chows. I NEVER recall even SEEING a pit bull or a bully breed in general besides maybe a English Bulldog on TV or something. This was southern New Jersey in the early to mid 1990s so I doubt it was the same everywhere at that time. I guess I really started to notice bully breeds during the early 2000s, when I was in high school.

Actually, the first mention of pit bulls that I can recall was during the awful Michael Vick trials that happened when I was in my second year of college. My Biology professor got in a argument with a few students about it and told the class that if they still support the Eagles and Michael Vick then he'll fail them. It was said in jest of course but he was really stirred up about it. Years later, I would read The Lost Dogs by Jim Gorant WHICH IS THE SADDEST FUCKING BOOK THAT I'VE EVER READ IN MY LIFE AND HAD ME SOBBING MULTIPLE TIMES. Very well written though! But my professor's rage was 100% justified, I'll just leave it at that.

LET'S MOVE ON FROM THAT SUBJECT, SHALL WE. .........hey guess who wants to ramble about the latest mortal kombat game again??? this idiot (it's so weird for me to have an active fandom!!!) (plus i'm too lazy to add stuff to my reaction page)

SPOILERS FOR MORTAL KOMBAT 1 / MORTAL KOMBAT 12 AHEAD BECAUSE I CAN NEVER SHUT UP ABOUT IT (nothing too bad though)

Rewatching some of the story mode to take screenshots for stamps, I really do like the majority of the cast this time around. But I gotta say, Reptile/Syzoth and Smoke has some of the most adorable lines in the game in some of their intros!

My favorite intro is this one:

Shoutout to MKWarehouse for the dialogue. Major spoilers on the page, though, for future DLC characters!

also yeah i'm totally on the johnny x kenshi ship now, however I actually like Syzoth x Ashrah more. It's a very sweet and heartwarming relationship. :) Funny how I saw more hate for Ashrah once it came out that she and Syzoth are in a canon relationship... hmm i wonder why ugh

currently feeling: fucking exhausted

New layout! I wanted to make a layout that had a "current mood" part and decided to actually use some of my stamps on my 4U page. Remember the little mood icons you could use on LJ? That's where I got the idea from. :) Like the side div states, this layout is a work in progress and it's VERY bare bones at the moment but I just wanted to get it uploaded ASAP so I'm more motivated to work on it.

Oh, and a little update from the previous entry: the lawyer's office did call me back! ... two days later. And the sheriff's sale was cancelled! ... the day before the actual sale. THANKS A LOT /s

Well, at least I got the sale cancelled in time. Where's that shrug graphic that everyone uses? Oh, here we go: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯