Rabbitboy's Journal

Mom called tonight to talk about what the specialist said. They were going to do some surgery at first, but they've decided not to, because it would only complicate the chemotherapy. The chemo will seriously kick her immune system's ass, as well as all sorts of other unpleasant side effects. I guess they want to strike it back with the chemo now and back the cancer off before they think about surgery, which is going to put her down and out for a while.

The chemotherapy isn't actually going to cure anything, so the doctor's say. They didn't say anything like, "you have two weeks to live," and Mom was thankful for that. But they made it clear the chemo won't be a cure. At best it'll hold it at bay. They're going to start off on a six month kind of treatment schedule... which I don't really know what that entails and neither did she.

She said they're starting to think about selling the house. I don't frankly care myself, because if it can help pay for the things she needs, so be it. But they've put blood, sweat and tears into that house. Took it from the ramshackle, unlivable, half-assed construction it was, and made it into something really nice. Dad just got done re-doing the entire outside deck the right way, something he's talked about doing for years and years. It's a huge house, and there's still a lot left to do.

Dad just retired, now that I think about it. Can't be more than a year at best now.

I don't know. She asked me how I was doing, and that's what I told her. Because I don't know. Not happy of course. Maybe sad. Not depressed quite yet. Not angry. Not nearly enough optimism though. Just... numb, I guess. Just numb.

My mother has cancer. It's apparently not the kind where you can just cut something out and it will go away. They're saying it's cancer of the lymph nodes, which apparently requires stuff like chemotherapy. Over a long period of time, possibly. I don't really know, because she still has to see a specialist to determine what to do, and until she sees the specialist, there's really nothing that can be done.

I'm not so worried about getting rid of the cancer. I'm sure modern medicine can handle it just fine. I'm more worried about the cost. I've told Dad to tell me if he needs help, and I'm almost certain he will at some point. I just wish I knew more about the cost so I could at least be getting ready to hit that wall when it pops up. Can't even do that right now, because we don't even officially know what the treatment is.

Now I wish I'd bought a 7 month CD instead of a 19 month cd. Hind sight is 20/20 though.

<Insert crude profanity here>

In other news, work kinda sucks, I can't draw, my modeling skills are pretty on-par with my drawing skills, the cost of life has gone up about 40% and I still haven't quit smoking. But on the plus side, I got a raise, I cut my hair short again, my right hand is feeling better than a long time, my Da-Lite table is awesome, and all my medical bills are paid up.

And now, a musical interlude. Songs that make us feel stronger than we're probably supposed to feel, or most certainly deserve to feel.

Another mission
The powers have called me away
Another time to carry the colors again
My motivation
An oath I’ve sworn to defend
To win the honor of coming back home again
No explanation will matter after we begin
Another dark destroyer that’s buried within
My true vocation
And now my unfortunate friend
You will discover a war you’re unable to win

I'll have you know
That I’ve become…

Indestructible
Determination that is incorruptible
From the other side
A terror to behold
Annihilation will be unavoidable
Every broken enemy will know
That their opponent had to be invincible
Take a last look around while you’re alive
I’m an indestructible master of war

I mentioned a while back that I'd gone out and bought some Netgear wireless ethernet equipment, and that I'd tested it out and things were working great.

Well, that was then... and this is now.

For whatever reason, the Windows versions of those cards has a compatibility problem with my computers. It could be that I have AMD processors. It could be the Nvidia graphics card. It could frankly be anything, because Netgear refuses to acknowledge the problem even exists. They claim that their lates driver fixes the problem with the "Blue Screen of Death." It doesn't.

In fact, having that card in my computer not only caused a BSoD every one to two days, but occasionally it would cause a kernel crash that affected the actual hardware of my system. That's what it did today, to the point where my bios would not recognize the fact I had a SATA hard drive attached, leaving me no way to boot my operating system. I pulled out the Netgear card... and all the problems went away.

I really want to believe this is just a driver problem, because in all my searching no one has reported any kind of major OS error while running that hardware in Linux. But on the other hand, I had to physically remove the card in order to get my computer to boot. That points to a hardware fault. It doesn't really matter, because I'm not going to test it further. I have better things to do than waste my time on fickle hardware.

So, Netgear cards go in the dumpster. I'm back on wires for now, but I'm looking at trying a D-Link card. Their linux support is the best out there, and I can't find anything but occasional complaints about their functionality, which could be due to overclocking, etc. Not sure how soon I'll jump into that though.



Let's say you have a family, Christin and Kasey, and their three children; Joeseph, Adam, and Sarah. Joseph is the only true biological child, the other two were adopted at a very young age, and will likely never know who their real biological mother and father are. They'll only know their adoption parents, Christin and Kasey.

Question.

Which one is the mother, and which one is the father?

I JUST GOT MY $600 US TREASURY ECONOMIC STIMULUS TAX REFUND

I WILL NOW GO SPEND ALL OF IT ON FRIVOLOUS CONSUMABLE PRODUCTS AND UNNECESSARY LUXURY ITEMS IN A KNEE-JERK REACTION TO BEING GIVEN "FREE" MONEY FROM THE GOVERNMENT

FREE MONEY THAT THEY TOOK FROM ME IN THE FIRST PLACE



oh wait i'm not supposed to think about that part right sorry

I called Kitchenaid to get a replacement for my coffee maker, since I didn't have the original box and I figured Target wouldn't want to take it back without it. Well, Kitchenaid would send me a new coffee pot all right... in four weeks when they came available. But that was for the black one like I have. If I wanted to settle for the white one, I could get it quicker. Two weeks.

 >8E *snarl* 

I called up Target and explained that it was going to take two to four weeks to get a replacement for my two day old, one hundred dollar coffee pot, and they said bring it back without the box. I had a new coffee pot that same day.

In leiu of getting another Kitchenaid, I got one step up. It was actually $120, and in the store I didn't look too hard at it. It had a three year warranty, better than all the others. It uses a thermal "carafe", and says it makes coffee in three minutes. I had my doubts, but I figured what the hell, and paid the difference.

Well, I didn't realize it at the time, but what I got is a Bunn, which is a "flow-through" coffee maker. Basically, it's the same kind of coffee maker they use in commercial applications like convenience stores and those coffee pots you find in businesses all over. The coffee maker itself is really just a glorified hot-water heater with a fancy jet sprayer. You pour cold water in the top, and as the cold water flows into the reservoir inside, steaming hot water comes gushing out through the nozzle and into the coffee funnel bed, then down into the "thermal carafe".

At first I was like, "Aww man, no clock, no timer, and the thing runs 24 hours a day. This sucks." Well... it actually doesn't. It's on 24 hours a day, yes. But the amount of power it uses to keep it's little tank of water hot is miniscule. And no, I can't set it up to have coffee brewed for me in the morning, but the thing is fast. When they said three minutes, they weren't kidding. Within five seconds of closing the lid on top, hot coffee is coming out. For the half pot I brew in the morning, if I set it up the night before and pour the water first thing when I wake up, I have half a pot of fresh coffee before I can finish taking a piss.

And that "thermal carafe" thing that supposedly keeps coffee hot up to two hours? No shit, it really does. The coffee pot has no burner. The carafe just sits on a little platform under the coffee funnel, completely unheated. The carafe is insulated, and sealed... the lid for this thing is two inches thick with a rubber "check valve" in the top to allow the coffee to fall inside. And I tested this thing this weekend. Checked the clock when I brewed it, and when I went for my second cup about an hour and a half later, the coffee was still steaming coming out of this thing. With no heat source keeping it warm.

I can see now why it has a three year warranty. No moving parts, scant electronics, no clocks or timers, one switch that you only operate if you're going to be away from home for more than three days... not even a heater for the coffee pot, because it doesn't need one.

Yeah... I'm pretty happy with it now.



Picture time:



From my entry at FA:

I hadn't planned on posting an actual render quite yet, but this didn't come out half bad for a half-ass attempt at a for-real scene.

This scene is far from complete. Honeybun herself needs a lot of tweaking, and now that I'm dipping my toes into actually using the doll rather than just creating it, I'm understanding more and more why they say, "Keep the Armature as simple as possible." There are deformity problems everywhere, a lot of which could have been avoided if I'd stopped dicking with the minute details and just stuck to the basics, working on the details later as necessary.

No fur in this one because I really flubbed up. I tried to switch to a more recent SVN build of Blender, and apparently there were some file-type mismatches. My particles and UV layouts, and a number of textures got completely whacked. I went through four or five SVN versions, all of which were buggy and crashed (though I think that was because of the file mismatches). In the end I discovered there's a fourth release candidate for Blender, so I snagged that and took the time to append all the objects out of those old files and create a brand new file. So I'll have to start over on the fur and stuff, but that's not really a big deal.

There are other little details to tweak as well... the tail needs to be fluffy, the pillow top of the stool she's sitting on needs to deform and squish a bit, legs need tweaked, etc, etc. This is with just two spotlights, one behind her and one in front and to the right, and Ambient Occulsion turned on with defaults and set at .5 energy. When I did this the first time around, I got some really interesting, but not really correct patterning all over the place. I couldn't figure it out until I realized the shadow buffer was down at 512. Jerked it up to 2048, no more patterns.

...

I really ought to color those nipples at some point.

I decided to replace my coffee maker this weekend. It's been leaking brown crap from somewhere inside of it for about six months now. It was barely a year old when it started doing this, and it's about the third coffee maker I've had to buy since moving into my apartment in 2002.

I was getting really tierd of having to replace these things. Tierd of spending money on them only to have them crap out in less than two years. So this time I decided to go all out and buy the best quality coffee maker I could find.

So I bought a Kitchenaid "Javastudio" coffee maker for $99.99. That's about double what anyone else would want for one. I even did the warranty registration on the thing considering how much money it cost, though I never thought I'd had to use it.

I got two brews out of it. And then this morning when I turn it on, it gives me an "Err2" led fault code and shuts right back off.

A hundred dollars. Two brews.

Two. Brews.

*foams at mouth*

This right hand of mine is really pissing me off. I can't even watch a handful of flash videos without my fingers going numb. And I didn't even have to use the mouse for them. Just hit the space bar.

Urge to kill... rising.

I just don't understand.

You had every right to your opinion, and every right to have it in your journal. And for what it's worth, I agreed with you. I should have said so then.

Did you mean what you wrote? Do you still feel that way even though it's gone? If so, why take it away? If not... why not say you changed your mind rather than scrub it all away?

People are always going to disagree, and arguments are always going to happen. It's part of what makes us who we are. It's part of what lets us grow, mature, develop. I understand it can be unpleasant, but... exercise can be unpleasant too, and eating vegetables, and getting our cavities filled. It might be unpleasant, but... in the end you're better off for it.

And if it's nonsense, then it's nonsense, right? Shouldn't people see nonsense for what it is? Or at least get the opportunity to see it for what it is?

I don't know. Maybe it's just a difference in opinion, or a difference in personality. But I'd rather stand by what I say or be forced to eat my words than be silenced. I'd rather be proven wrong over and over again, than never get the opportunity to find someone who agrees with me.

Wow. Sometimes the stupidity of the designers out there just amazes me.

You hunt-and-peck type typists out there aren't going to understand what my beef is here right off the bat. But for you semi and fully experienced touch typists out there, what's wrong with this high dollar, supposedly high quality "ergonomic" Microsoft Natural keyboard?



>:E

Edit: CRAAAAAAAAAAP! >8(

It's not the wrong layout, it's a different layout. And apparently it's the new standard, because I've been looking at a bunch of split style keyboards, including the "Freestyle" version I'm planning on buying. And like this Microsoft Natural keyboard, they have the number six on the wrong side.

Great. That's just great. So now I have two split keyboards with two different layouts, and if I intend to use a new keyboard, I have to re-learn touch typing the numbers. Arrrrgh.

When the hell did this happen anyway? Who decided to do this? I can find plenty of touch typing tutorials online right now that very clearly explain that the 4 and 5 keys are typed with the left hand, and the 6 and 7 keys are typed with the right. WHO SAID YOU PEOPLE COULD CHANGE MY KEYBOARD LAYOUT???

I mean... it's not a huge deal, because normally if I'm entering a lot of numbers, I use the numberpad. Here's the thing though. If you are using a mouse bridge and don't have access to the numberpad, now it screws us "old school" typists up. I just today got something that seems to work for a mouse bridge (I'll show that off later), which is how I found this "new" layout... because I didn't have the numberpad to do the numbers with, so I was doing them touch-type method.

Hrm. Maybe I should take the time to learn DVORAK, since I'll have to do some keyboard retraining anyway.

When I installed my new wireless mouse and keyboard, I noticed something. The wireless transmitter/receiver system I was using to get the sound from my computer to my entertainment system was interfering with the mouse and keyboard.

For whatever reason, I thought back to a year or two ago when I wanted to take my network wireless. I remember it being a bitter, hair-pulling experience because I couldn't get anything to work. Nothing. Everything failed miserably.

But after noticing the interference with my mouse and keyboard, I remembered back and... I'm almost certain I was using that wireless sound transmitter when I was trying to use the wireless internet. Not only that, but I think I still had my old cordless phone as well. Not a cell phone... a cordless phone, which has long been retired since I got rid of my landline entirely.

On a hunch, I bought an assortment of Netgear wireless networking items this weekend. I picked Netgear because it seemed to have the most reliable Linux support. I got the stuff home, and instead of using one of my Windows computers to test things out, I decided to use my Slackware 12.0 laptop to test.

It took a little time because I had to download the drivers, but to my surprise, the drivers were available in a pre-built Slackware 12.0 package already. With a few tweaks to the config files, the wireless CardBus card found the router and my internet was up and running without a hitch.

Of course, that was with the laptop and the router a mere six feet away from each other, with the router up high on a cabinet shelf (though when I was doing that testing a year or two ago, even at three foot I couldn't get stable signals). So I took my freshly configured laptop into the farthest part of my apartment away from where the router was, and set it directly on the floor, next to a metal baseboard heater and an outlet I was plugged into.

Lit up and connected. Worked like a champ.

I'm not sure what all I was doing wrong back when I initially tried this game, but obviously I was doing something wrong. I still need to do the PCI cards in the desktop units, so I can't say for sure, but it looks like I'll be able to go completely wireless here within a week.

Funny how things come back around sometimes.

Apparently Livejournal apologized for basically shoving the nuking of the Basic Account down everyone's throats, but didn't make any move to reverse the decision. They made some half-hearted stab at saying existing Basic Account holders should be able to create more "somehow", or some gibberish like that. In the end, no matter how they dress it up, the message is still the same. Livejournal is tired of you good-for-nothing freeloaders and they're not going to create anymore of you. And they didn't bother to consult with anyone because they're SUP, and fuck you if you don't like what they're doing.

And speaking of a "fuck you" message, a lot of people are getting spun up over an interview with a russian named "Anton Nossik". Before you jump any guns, this guy is only an advisor to SUP. He's not the CEO, he's not part of management, he's just another Livejournal user with a big mouth and a keyboard who's been around with Livejournal for a long time. Yes, he's a condescending asshole... and he has every right to be one. He's also wrong on a lot of his points, which he also has every right to be. But what he says shouldn't be taken as literally the official opinion of SUP. Though from the way SUP is conducting itself, it's a pretty safe bet this is what they'd say if they thought nobody would see.

---

I've decided I'm definitely going to get the Da-Lite table, and now I'm just trying to decide from where. I emailed a question to the folks at AVsuperstore.com, who had the best price without being a total scam site (unlike Cambridgeworld.com, who absolutely look like a scam site). Unfortunately, they said I'd get a reply email "very soon", and it's been 24 hours without a message. Rather unimpressed.

There are a few other places with cheap prices, but the amount they want for the freight is insane. An absolute 100% ripoff. There are also a number of "stores" that are all under a company called CSN, which has had bad reviews at Complaints.com. Basically all the places I'm finding so far seem either kinda shady or kinda user unfriendly.

I wish Amazon could get them or something. Keep hunting, I guess. >:/

Mouse. Bridge.



I'd read on several "ergonomics" pages about a platform you could set on top of the right side of your keyboard in order to put the mouse where it "should" be... right where the damn numeric pad is. But my Google-fu wasn't up to the task and I couldn't fine anything about it. That's because I didn't know what it was actually called. A Mouse Bridge. Cute, eh?

It's a clever enough idea, and I think I'll get myself one eventually, but... What I'd like to know is why haven't keyboard manufacturers made some keyboards without that damn numeric pad? How many people actually use the thing outside the occasional hunt and peck when doing your finances? Which gets used more, the cursors/numerics, or the mouse? And which is better suited to be as close to the body as possible?

Speaking of which, I'm still hunting for a better keyboard. I cannot believe none of the big name keyboard manufacturers make a split-style keyboard without the numeric pad. Not one of them. The only thing that comes close is a Microsoft media keyboard, except it's not split... it's curved. Why they thought that'd be better, I don't know. The best option I've seen so far is this:



Full split, 10 degree tenting, no numeric pad. $140 a pop plus shipping. And you have to get a numeric pad seperate, $25-$60. Not cheap, but not the most expensive keyboard I've seen. It's also not wireless, but I could deal with that.

I'm still hunting for that basic drafting type table to use as a computer desk. A basic, adjustable table. Well, I think I found the Cadillac of adjustable tables... or maybe the Crown Victoria of adjustable tables.



Double pedastal, casters, 39"x31" with a 14" monitor platform, adjustable from 23" to 34". A little above $200, when you add in shipping.

I think I'm gonna sleep on this stuff for a day or two this time. I jumped in head first last time and spent a lot of money on stuff that I'm not so happy with now. Think I'll take it a little slower this time.

G'night.

It doesn't upset me that people want to keep using LJ because that's where their friends are, it honestly doesn't.

What upsets me is to watch Livejournal turn into something that is in no way, shape or form up-front and honest about anything at all. To watch it become demonstrably intrusive, censoring, and actively hostile to it's userbase. To watch everything I admired about Livejournal back in 2001 get flushed down the shitter in favor of corporate profits and appeasement of narrow-minded bigots...

And then watch people excuse it, because it would be inconvenient to do otherwise.

But I'm not here to start an argument. I'm just stating my opinion.

From Furaffinity user moussart;



Now if you like traditional mediums and clean (save for a very, very occasional nipple) art, give this gal a try. She's got a unique style that some would say imitates older japanese styles. Really cute stuff, though I wish she had half as much affinity for bunnies as she does for cats.

Check it out.

---

I had a pretty nice surprise the other night.

When I first got my W-2 forms back, I did some quick math in my head using the standard deductible and looked up the result in the federal tax chart. And it came up... that I owed about two grand. Oh gawd. ;.; I'd actually been expecting this at some point, since I claim 2 on my W-4 (when most claim 0). So I put off doing the taxes until I got my profit sharing bonus.

Well, silly me... I subtracted the standard deduction, but forgot about over three grand worth of exemptions you get "by default". I'm ending up with a refund! ^.^

I did owe money to the state of Colorado though. One dollar. Yeah... one measly dollar. And I had to write a check for it. >:/

I guess I can safely say that claiming 2 on your W-4 isn't exactly riding the financial edge that I thought it would be. Heh.

---

I went to physical therapy on Thursday, and the outcome was interesting. She did a lot more tests on my arm (both arms actually) to determine the extent of the CTS. And... she couldn't get anything to hurt. There was only a couple of times where she could elicit the spikey, tingly feeling (it reminds me a lot of taking a hit of 120V AC on the palm of my right hand). She even had me lay down and was whipping my forearm back and forth to see what happened. The only thing I felt was a little tingle right at the end of the "whip". And when I told her that, she said that's what I was supposed to feel normally.

I told her that my hand had been feeling better, but that my shoulder continued to bother me. She did some more examination on my forearm (and found a spot that hurt when she pushed on it), but said she couldn't do anything with my shoulder until she talked to the doc. She gave me a new brace (said my old one was bent and was doing more harm than good) and told me it had to be snug and tight (which the nurse didn't... she said keep it just tight enough to stay wrapped). She gave me stretches to do on regular intervals, and told me I need to get some regular exercise (Like every other doc has said, I'm miserably out of shape, I know. >.< ), and also gave me a worksheet on how to make my "workstation" more ergonomic and comfortable.

I've been wearing the brace tight since then, and... it's helped enormously. I very rarely get the tingling when I'm dressing or showering, where before I'd get it almost every time I had the brace off. I'm kinda anxious to have her fool around with my shoulder, because at this point... I'm thinking that it's been more my problem the whole time.

---

I used the doc's worksheet to figure out what kind of desk and chair I need. It had to get my butt up 21" (so my feet are flat on the floor), have padded, adjustable arms, and a good "lumbar support" back. My current chairs pretty much fail all the way around. One can get to 21", but the arms aren't padded and don't really adjust very well anymore. The other one is... erm, fail all around. I also needed a desk that put both the keyboard and the mouse at the 28" level or less, directly in front of me. Ideally the mouse should be right where the number pad is. And it had to allow the chair, keyboard, and monitor to line up in a straight line.

Four office stores I went to. Four of them. With forty chairs in each store and at least a dozen desks, and you think I could find anything? >:(

At the very last store I finally found a chair that was great, and didn't cost a small fortune. But I still had to find a desk.

I finally picked this one, mostly out of desperation.



Don't be fooled by the picture, the thing is frigging enormous. It stands five feet high and nearly four feet wide. I really, really thought about it before I bought this thing. But the keyboard shelf is 30" across... the only one I had found out of four stores that had one bigger than 26". Room enough for the mouse and keyboard, and the board is at the right height... 27-1/2" high. I could not find even one single desk that had the actual "flat" of the desk at less than 30". Not a single one. Everything lines up straight as far as keyboard/monitor/chair goes, and... it's a nice enough looking desk. So I finally broke down and got it.

Well, I wish I'd waited now. The desk doesn't really solve all of my problems. It does let me get a mouse and the keyboard on the same level and close to my body (which has been my big problem... mouse too far away), and the keyboard's at the perfect typing level, but... I still don't have a spot to use the tablet without covering the keyboard. And I'm not sure I can put the scanner anywhere either. Plus it is gigantic and heavy, and... I really wanted something a little more lightweight and easier to handle.

You know what I really wanted? I wanted my drafting table. A nice, big, flat plane, with lots of room for my legs, and plenty of space to slide the keyboard, tablet, and mice around as I needed them. I tried it with my current drafting table, but it couldn't get down below 30" inches.

I wish I'd waited, because I found this on my first Google:



Adjustable from 21" to 29", 30"x48" worth of flat, smooth space, sturdy, easy to break down and put together, just what I was looking for... and less money to boot.

Baaawwwwwwwwww. ;.;

I know it looks like a cheesy public middle-school kind of table, but... well, it kinda is. But it's really what I wanted. So I guess all I can do now is use this monster tower in the living room with my "work" computer and get the table for my "graphics/play" computer. I knew I'd have to replace this desk anyway, but still... can't help thinking I should have been more patient.

Lesson learned kids; Trust Your Gut. >:(

---

I have way, way, way too many bunnies. I really do. I should give some of them away to needy kids or something.

Anyway, gotta go. Past bedtime.

I started trying to use Blender again tonight, and I just can't. The voice command software is just too chaotic. Just having a fan running in the room causes it to perform spurious and seemingly random operations. The scripts I created so I could use a mouse to simulate keystrokes is dodgy at best, causing a lot of spurious stuck keys and stuck mouse events. And while using the tablet is easier than the mouse, I still haven't found a comfortable spot where I can use it for a prolonged period of time.

Tomorrow I'm going to measure my desk height at work, then tomorrow night I'm going to take apart my computer desk. The desk at work seems to be at a really good height for whatever reason, so I'm going to take a chop saw to the bottom part of my desk and shorten it down, so I can use the much larger area as my keyboard/mouse area, instead of this dinky, crappy little keyboard platform. If it works, I'll have to do some furniture rearranging to put the scanner somewhere useful and figure out where to put other things, but that will be the least of my worries. If it doesn't, it doesn't really matter. I can't use the computer the way it is now, nothing to lose by hacking away at it.

Think I'll play some video games tonight. I can still use the controller so far.

I'm still playing around, trying to make my computer more comfortable to use.

After trying to work with Blender in various ways (and finally giving up for the night), I was playing around with some new ideas, and decided to give the trackball a shot with my left hand completely. Buttons and all. As it has been when I do that, it's slow and kinda clumsy, but it works.

And after a while, I noticed a tingling in my middle and third fingers, and along my palm. On my left hand.

...

Fuck me. Now what? =:|

I changed around my computer desk this weekend. Trying to use the tablet either as a full-time or part-time mouse was just not working out. Now, believe it or not, I've actually got three mice connected to the computer. The first one is the trackball that I just purchased, the second is the PS2 mouse I originally had connected to the computer, and the third is a USB mouse I was using for my laptop when I was doing things with it. I'm using a program called "AutoHotkey" which lets me remap the mouse and keyboard controls. It took a little bit of doing, but I finally figured out how to customize the buttons on each control. Now my trackball just moves the mouse cursor; none of the buttons do anything. The PS2 mouse is the one I use for clicking and scrolling, and the third mouse, I use to press modifier keys.

When I'm just using the computer normally I only use the trackball and the first mouse. In theory, I can use the trackball without twisting or turning my right hand, which should prevent pain. Then the left-hand can be the one that does all the clicking. The third mouse is really just for when I'm using the tablet with Blender. I've reconfigured the buttons on that mouse so that they'll press modifier keys (control, alt, shift) when I hold them down. That way, I can have my tablet on my desk covering my keyboard, and still be able to do all of the movement and zooming functions that I need to do in Blender. I'm still working the bugs out of the voice recognition system, so it's going to take some more time before I'm really comfortable with it.

Speaking of which, I really shouldn't have badmouthed Dragon NaturallySpeaking like I did a little while back. Yes, it's not as customizable as I want, but as far as voice recognition and dictation, it's a hell of a program. My right hand is killing me from having been tweaking and typing and scripting and programming all weekend in order to get all three mice to be doing different things, so it's nice to be able to write a full journal entry without having to use a keyboard.

Stupid daylight savings time. Even more stupid because I didn't know about it until about two hours ago, when my computer and radio synchronized clock suddenly jumped ahead one hour. If I'd known that, I would have turned the clocks ahead yesterday.

That's enough of that. Time for bed. Goodnight.

CNN: Video appears to show Marine abusing puppy;
---

"The military is investigating a "shocking and deplorable" YouTube video that seems to show a Marine throwing a puppy off a rocky cliff.

The black-and-white puppy makes a yelping sound as it flies through the air. [...]"

http://tosspuppy.com/

Un.

Fucking.

Believable.

I got pissed off at my Citibank Mastercard, because the only reason I ever had it and the only reason I used it was for it's "Virtual Account Number" service.

Well, here recently the fuckers changed the scripting/programming for the Virtual Number service so it only works on some proprietary Microsoft bullshit, and not in Opera. So after yet again having to switch over to Internet Explorer (boo hiss) to use it, I finally said, "Screw this", and used the Citibank website to email them a terse message asking them how to close my account; whether I can do it online or if I have to call. I anticipated a lengthy phone call where I would have to sit and listen to them throw endless bribes and crap at me before having them finally and reluctantly close the account.

This morning I logged into the account to look for a response message, and found an administrative notice saying that "This account has been closed at your request. If you have any questions, please contact customer support."

...

Which is quite strange. I've never been able to simply close a credit card account. I mean... never. There's always been flaming hoops to jump through and beach balls to balance on my nose.

Which means either thatCitibank has unusually (read: unheard of in the civilized world) helpful customer service, or they didn't want me as a card holder anyway.

Huh.



In other news. I bought a Logitech Marble Mouse (trackball) for $20.00. And I really like it. But I seriously miss my middle mouse button and scroll wheel. Srsly.