The expanses of WolfWings' land
scratched on the wall for all to see

03:44 pm - About FurCon...
...as some know I tend to bend social norms up to the actual limits of the rules, and have and will continue to use the technique of begging forgiveness instead of asking permission when my research says it won't cost anyone anything, but is more likely to let me succeed in what I want to do.

Case in point: I've organized and run the chaotic frenzy of a group of truly extra, extra, stupid-large pizza's that I bring to the dealer's den, just for the dealers to eat at their leisure while they close up shop.

This year I'll likely be adding an order of Ceaser salad on top of it, and trying to get the word out to the dealers ahead of time. Dealers/artists? I can't promise the hotel won't stop me cold, but the pizza'll get ordered and brought to the Fairmont at least. If anyone reading this is an actual pizza-delivery worker and doesn't mind assisting with subterfuge by pulling on your jacket and hat and helping carry the pie's in, I'd appreciate it!

Anyways... main reason for this post: I'll have a room at the Fairmont to check in on the 21st, checking out on the 25th. So four nights. I'll be in the area very early on the 21st, since I'm leaving from SoCal late in the evening on the 20th for an overnight leisure-drive up there.

As I've heard there's no free shuttle to/from the airport for this hotel, please feel free to call or text me if you need/want a lift! I'll have my 2007 Toyota Yaris, which can hold quite a bit of stuff comfortably. This offer is primarily for artists, fursuiters, or others with a bunch-o-cargo they want to be careful with to/from the airport or other major transportation hub in the area.

Only warning: My car lacks a split-folding rear seat, so it's either 3 passengers and a bit of dedicated cargo space, or 1 passenger and a *LOT* of dedicated cargo space.

Contact Information including phone numbers and all that.3 commentsLeave a comment

07:42 am - Minor utility-dump...
...since I'm running a web server without Apache anywhere to be seen, pure NGinx, I didn't have the htpasswd utility available from the Apache distribution.

The htpasswd utility from Apache is quite bloated with extra features and complexity as well, far beyond that is usually needed for simply adding a new BasicAuth entry to a .htpasswd file or similair. So... I read the docs, wrote my own specifically for use with NGinx's BasicAuth module.

htpasswd.tar.bz2

Download, unpack, make, ./htpasswd for usage. It's less than a thousand bytes, punt it around. Hell, it's short enough to be a Data URI, though none of the browsers out there allow downloads from Data URI's that I've tested.2 commentsLeave a comment

09:17 am - Maybe I'm doing something wrong...
...but every, single, god-damn time I try to install Ubuntu under VMWare Server... everything from square one of the installer to the final VM, no matter what I do, runs like ass.

I mean it, it feels like I'm trying to play Quake 3 over a satellite link, navigating the menu's on the Ubuntu install CD, Server or Desktop. Text-mode or not.

And even SSHing into the minimal box, typing has random pauses, pressing tab for auto-complete just flat hangs for ten or more seconds... it just makes no sense. Processes just hang and freeze with no warning, just sitting there spinning their wheels, then the VM decides to do more again...

This is regardless of if VMWare tools, Open-VM-Tools, or no VM tools are installed. Regardless of if it's 32-bit or 64-bit, LSILogic, BusLogic, or IDE hard drives, or anything else. What is Ubuntu doing to the kernel and everything else to make it run this poorly?

And CentOS I've just never been patient enough to sit through their freakin' DVD or full set of CD images just to get the VM installed... seriously, their packaging system is borked when it can't even understand the concept of 'just give me a minimal install CD' as a core concept. Hello? This isn't the Slackware days when we need to sneakernet everything to a friend's house... why do we need to download a couple of gigabytes just to install your OS? What is this, MicroSoft?

Then I compare everything to Gentoo's kernels, where things just scream along, my clock doesn't fall out of sync, the installer is under half a gig for the main install, and there's no cruft from the get-go... it just... baffles me. There's basically no chance Gentoo can ever get into Corp datacenter environments, but gah...

And yes, this is a kinda random rant. Still... gah!12 commentsLeave a comment

05:23 am - Linux thoughts... somewhat stream of consciousness here, forgive me.

( Cut for those that don't care to be able to skip over things. )

1 commentLeave a comment

03:10 am - And the best part, to me?
He's dead on about how fucked up Primer is to trace out.3 commentsLeave a comment

Man... I'm so glad I bought Torchlight instead of Borderlands. Spyro-cutesy rampaging dungeon crawl that works great even under Wine and has no issues is a lot better than the game-resetting, config-killing noise I'm hearing about from those that went the other way with their cash.6 commentsLeave a comment

02:28 pm - And all the rest of my yearly expenses are now sorted...
...car is payed for until the end of the year (though I'll lob one more payment in before FC).

...rent is payed for until the end of the year.

...phone is payed for the month.

...and I finally swung by and went through the process to set up a seperate checking account with my bank that has no links at all to my other accounts. So... yay, paypal account get now too! *joins the 21st century with proper firewalls and protections in place*3 commentsLeave a comment

09:21 pm - Champions Online...
...it's got a LOT of WoWisms, but mostly of the sort I admit are a good idea: Stick to the accepted majority-UI conventions when possible, so people can understand the interface faster. So... ? and ! over people's heads, etc.

But OMG... no more wondering what you want to play, and having to go 'Aw... but I really wanted to do XYZ!' It's... not Ultima Online-esque truly free-form, but damn if it's not close. The level up progression and power-changing mechanic should have a much more intuitive in-game display of what you'll get when, IMHO, but that's spit-and-polish stuff not game-mechanics stuff.

So far I've played about ten toons through the training levels of all sorts, and three or four up to the mid-teen's, and one all the way to 25th where you first get your 'Arch Nemesis' stuff unlocked. I've realized that if you're an alt-a-holic, this is NOT the time to get into the game. While the individual story-lines are much easier to get into as you run through the missions, there simply isn't that much there yet. And since there's almost no way to level up except from the mission-reward experience, you'll end up seeing the same set of missions if you level up multiple characters right now.

Overall, the game is very pretty, and they kept one of CoX's best features: Re-scaled in-game resolution versus UI resolution. So I can run at 1920x1200, but the game is only rendering at 960x600 for the 3D stuff so all the text is crisp, sharp, and clear, but the in-game stuff runs smooth as silk even on my laptop.

So what's my plan? Enjoying the free month, likely going to get this character up into the 30's before I run out of time... but not gonna subscribe. Not yet at least. There's just too many glitches and bugs to content with yet, from the patcher itself crashing and not wanting to load half the time (including throwing really WIERD javascript errors from it's HTML components, since I'm running Windows XP 64-bit) to other issues like the game always crashing when I log out. Yes, every time. So... I'll give it a couple months, if it's still alive I'll poke my head back in then, give it another whirl. For now? Still a CoXr.2 commentsLeave a comment

10:06 pm - Small gripe/note to web developers...
...stop storing the login cookie code in the user record. It prevents folks from logging in from more than one browser at a time. Cell phones are often more than capable now (especially with Opera Mobile) of being able to load your website too. It's annoying to have to constantly re-login whenever I switch from mobile device (phone) to mobile device (laptop) and influences where I spend my money.2 commentsLeave a comment

01:24 am - About that wallpaper meme...
...I could either post a black screen (what I had set up when it went around) or instead I'll post this:



Simulated image of my laptop booting up, though without the Windows login screen popping up centered exactly in that 'dim patch' the image has for a moment.

Yes, I have that as my boot-screen, and login, and desktop wallpaper on my laptop now. <3 the poor wingless gryphon!6 commentsLeave a comment

09:21 pm - Fursuiting at Zona Rosa on Saturday October 24th, noon onwards!
Just sending out a feeler so I know how many are interested and can plan things. Very sorry for totally dropping the ball on September entirely, between MFM and suddenly a boat-load of overtime at work it just entirely slipped my mind!

And yes, I asked if we could be there on the 31st, but that's the one and only day of the month they don't want us there, but they couldn't explain why. As Disney helps sponsor that day for them, I'll chalk it up to the mouse's usual aversion to costumers being worked into the contract somewhere. Or just them being cautious for a first-year, second-event group coming over.1 commentLeave a comment

10:48 pm - Never bought this before... but this year it seems warranted.
Buying a set of winter snow/ice tires for my Yaris for the first time.

First year on brand-new TripleTred's I managed to bend a rim without damaging the tire due to ice on a roundabout, and dodging someone else spinning out on the highway resulted in my astro-turfing a couple hundred feet sideways down slushy median on the local interstate loop that thankfully has no center barrier or cable-netting. So no damage from that.

Second year I managed to end up off-roading a couple times trying to stop... lacking traction, and having to duck into the muck on the side of the road to drag myself to a stand-still in time. Once I clipped a curb in the process, but it was the direction I was facing so the car just climbed up dutifully without damage.

So first year I was surprised by ice on bridges and roundabouts. Second year I just midjudged, though that was with mostly worn out TripleTreds at the time. This year? Extra-skinny extra-high-load/PSI Bridgestone Blizzak's on seperate 14" rims versus the stock 15" rims my car came with. Short of drop-shipping custom tires from Europe these are the best winter-only tires available stateside. Sure, it's gonna ride rough as hell compared to the TripleTreds, but at least it'll stick to the damn roads during winter.

Anyways... off to work.2 commentsLeave a comment

08:07 pm - Call it advertisement, spam, or whatever... but stop paying a fortune for glasses!

Whenever I see multiple friends suddenly bitch at once about this time of year about the price of glasses (why does everyone get glasses just after Labor Day? *shrug*) I realize I've missed telling someone else something: Glasses are a rip-off on the magnitude of thousands of percent. Yes, for every dollar you spend nine or more can end up being profit for the vendor.

How'd you like to be able to afford to get a bi-yearly eye exam, and regularly buy three to five pairs of glasses a year, and still pay less than $200 a year? Sure, won't work for some ultra-extreme cases, but here's how for the majority:

1. Wal-Mart charges $50 for an eye exam at locations so equipped. If you just need a basic exam, they're perfect. That's between $50 and $100/year. Make sure to ask for your "PD Number" which usually isn't filled out on the prescription sheet unless you remind them. It's how far apart your eyeballs are.
2. GlassyEyes is the central blog that links to all major internet eyeware vendors that don't ass-rape you. $8 for a pair of prescription glasses? Ding, look here. There's plenty more up to around $60/pair for hingeless memory-titanium ones w/ ultra-ultra-light lenses and sillyness like that.
3. Order from one of those sub-sites, no wierd voodoo, no insurance claims, just pay about what you would for a couple pizza's, and wait anywhere from a week to a couple months. Yes, months in some cases for some of the on-line vendors. One sub-vendor that comes and goes due to their long shipping delays but incredibly low prices is Zenni Optical. They're the one I've personally bought stuff for others from, and most of my friends have personally ended up using them with great success, but their shipping times vary across the full gammut from 2 weeks to the full 2 months. They DO eventually ship though!

So who can't do this? Those that need a new pair of glasses in the next 24-48 hours. That's pretty much it. If you can be patient, you can order a half-dozen pairs ranging from cheap $8 ones to keep as spares in the glove-boxes and night-stands of your life and for going swimming in (yes, you can get a pair of solid-plastic corrosion-proof prescription eyeglasses w/ tinting just for poolside/beachside use, huzzah, now we're talking civilized living!) and still have one or two pairs of really nice day-use glasses.

13 commentsLeave a comment

06:31 pm - Con Meme
Everyone else is doing it, might as well lob my hat in too! *cackles*

ConFurence - 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003
CaliFur - 2004
Mephit FurMeet - 2001, 2008, 2009
Further Confusion - 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009
Camp Feral - 2001
BayCon - 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006
Rocket City FurMeet - 2007, 2008, 2009
OklaCon - 2007

Con I was Staff at.
Con I was a Lead at.1 commentLeave a comment

09:21 pm - MFM Con Report, Sat/Sun
Saturday:

Oh gods, the chaos! After posting my first third of my con report while waiting for my cell-phone to recharge in the internet lounge, I started scurrying around the con. That covered my morning from breakfast until around 9am, a bit after that found out the fursuit parade would start at 11am so I headed up, got everything together and clomped down to the appropriate place.

To whoever it was that brought a couple fans in while we waited to get organized: Thank you! The more I suit again, the more I realize how much modern (as in, in the last five years or so) improvements have things orders of magnitude more comfortable/tolerable. Anyways, stomped along with that, ended up marching in front of NeoPanTyger for a good chunk of it so I had some music to jam to. Moshing along through live became a bit of a theme for Lumi most of the con, actually. =^.^=

After the parade, I stole the chance to be short and lay down during the photo's, and I managed to get a pretty good pose for as randomly as I dove to the carpet. So yeah, on most of the photo's of the fursuit-parade-pile at the end, I'm the one in the lower-left sprawled out. Ran into SoLion in the headless lounge afterwards, just sucked in some cold air before de-suiting for a bit, as I needed to hit up the dealer's den, and wanted to stop by the gaming room on Saturday. After my brief trip through the dealer's den buying art Hung out at the gaming room on Saturday. Had a relatively fixed budget for spending on commissions, stuck to it neatly.

Picked up some art from Unclean on FA, who made a really positive-idea/ideal picture a'while back that I love but I didn't recognize it was them when I saw the nifty fluffy-avian art I picked up. The pictures don't appear to be on their FA, so I can't link to them sadly, but they're nifty! Also bought a commission from them, of WolfWings of course. =^.^=

After that and relaxing in the gaming room for a few hours out of, and in suit throughout the day, including learning I can finger-spin a staff fairly well in my paws, I heard some very nice beats... and went to investigate, as they were not coming from the main ballroom venue.

I'll admit, I've learned lately I'm rather particular, SL-03 I appreciate on a more technical and performance basis, but it's almost never music I can just get down and jam to. It's not even that I need high speed, the original Caramelldansen is perfectly good for me. They were playing music with a beat, stuff I knew the words to and had burned into my skull over the years, dancing in my car and walking around at work just humming it. Stuff I can jam to.

*scurry*run*partial*run*DANCE*

Then I found out it was a request-only format. So I tromped my ass out to my car in fursuit, grabbed my mini-CD-R's, scurried to my laptop in the LAN room, and dumped things like DJ Hixxy's remix of Set You Free chopped roughly to where I linked there, and Rhythm Nation by Janet Jackson. At that point, I just lost myself into the beat, and apparently gave my newly-repaired feet a world-class stress-test, keeping up with 170bpm music at full tempo, crosslegging it in some wierd mish-mash of cross-leg tapdancing, tribal, and old-fashioned 'move your feet!' type dancing I'm prone to.

Another song or two of that, yes, I was wasted, but I just kept moshing along as best I could, right up until they had to finally shut down. It was packed in there. They're not kidding, small conference room that can seat maybe 40-50 if you truly sardine them in, had easilly 30 suiters dancing in there.

Sunday:

This day I knew would be abbreviated for me, as I was heading over to tisket_wolf's place since she couldn't make it to MFM this year due to work scheduling. One thing of note was I chatted with the gals that make these sock-based feet and found out A) they're affordable as all snot, B) just socks, and C) everyone else has been all, "Can I paypal you after the con/after my next paycheck/etc?" so she hadn't actually had anyone pay her for a set yet. Well... there goes the last of my commission money! *FWUMP* Traded basic contact info, mostly just pointed the pair of them at WolfWings.us

Hopefully they'll track me down? I'm patient, either way they seemed jazzed planning out how to do the feet. WolfWings feet, just something to romp around in at cons and what-not in lieu of Lumi's uber-feet, since obviously these held up really well since she was running around all con in them.

So... Closing Ceremonies. Big spooky announcement, rah, yeah, that's that. Was literally waiting for that, started packing, and driving... short drive (for me) later, I was at Tisket's place around 2am her time. Me, her, and her roomie chatted a bit, then all fwumped out, me stealing couch and shovin' Tisket back at her own bed she'd generously offered to give up for me to sleep on. She needed the proper rest far more, after the day at work she'd had on her last shift.0 commentsLeave a comment

09:23 am - Mid-MFM Con Report... Thurs/Friday.
No pictures, sadly, just now found new AA batteries for my camera so I can take pictures today (Saturday) while I run around like a loon.

Thursday:

Got here around 9am after stopping at Cracker Barrel, took a nap until around 2pm, walked around for a'while. Ended up pulling on Lumi as a partial to run around for a couple hours, test-driving my new feet. They worked awfully well, I could scurry and scamper pretty easilly with how solidly they seemed to be locked in place. The angle-cut I put on the soles to let them 'skip' over obstacles made a world of difference from the 'planed wood block' style sole they had before, any little lip and they'd snag and catch before. Now I could scurry fast enough up or down the spiral staircase I have to lean into the turn, and feel safe doing so.

Desuited, hung out a'while in the gaming room that day since little else was open, spotted Jace briefly.

Friday:

Mmm... many people complain about the breakfast the in-hotel restraunt serves, I find it utterly delicious. It's heavy without being dripping in grease, which is exactly what I need in the mornings.

After that, brushed out the suit, clambered in around 11:30 to get my fursuit badge for Lumi. Nearly ended up de-heading in public because I got caught in the hallway right outside of Reg while on my way to get a fursuit badge.

The problem was that I got caught in the crowd of people when they did "Last Call" rights for Furp over the con radios, about 2 feet from one of said con radios; I barely made it to the headless lounge and ended up having to yank one of the napkins out from under one of the water coolers as a handkerchief until the tears stopped.

My scurrying at high tilt to the headless lounge started to tear one of the shoes free in my feet apparently, as while I was walking up the spiral staircase suddenly I nearly faceplanted. Felt like I tripped, and took a'while to figure out... oh, my shoe pulled free. Okay... 'Eff that. Ended up tromping down to the dealers den and poking any and all folks that had any clue who might be able to repair the feet.

Lionel ended up converting Lumi's feet from shoes inside to sandals since neither of us could figure out any adhesive which had a lumikelluke's chance in hell of sticking to the gum-arabic soles of the Vans shoes they were made around without taking days to cure, and I was lucky enough to have brought three pairs of sandals (Wal-MArt had a sale, $3/pair for their $7 sandals I find comfy anyways) so... wacky-conversion later, the feet are about 200-300 grams in weight now.

Compared to my original feet, these are light as a feather. So... a remembrance for Furp and bit of chaos for me turned into a side-ways upgrade for Lumi's feet. They survived musical-chairs in the fursuit games including being wrestled about when I ran in and stole the last chair like a loon, and dancing for a'while as well and just running around for a few hours.

After that, ran around and got into the fursuit games, bumped in Kaiya at some point during this and finally had a chance to actually say 'hello' and chat for five or ten minutes, apparently she spotted my car and recognized the name on the license plate. Yay for having a distinctive and easily identifiable car? =^.^=

After suiting back up, thinking I had another 45 minutes before Isfacat's show, I went to rejoin the fursuit games since it looked like they were setting up beach-ball volleyball. Happened to walk down the stairs and through the elevator lobby area to there, and heard Isfa's voice... turned... ack! Show was already going on. So... ended up sitting through a chunk of his show in fullsuit, which was honestly a fun show for the part I caught. But sadly, poor air circulation meant I'd need to switch to partial-mode, so I scurried out to go do that, dressing up in my business-coat over the partial since the Meet-the-GoH was soon by then.

Ended up going to the GoH-meet in partial, gray sports-coat with a gryphon over one chest side, white slacks, beige RCFM shirt, worked pretty well honestly. Wasn't hot at all, was able to snag some bits of cheese on skewers through the head and relax and enjoy the company before I headed back and de-suited to give the head and hands and feet a chance to air out as well, came back to the Meet-the-GoH party with the same outfit but no fursuit bits, enjoyed the non-alcoholic punch then and actually talking.

Meandered around the hotel for several more hours, spotting people, Duncan is officlally the marathon-suiter of this year, and at some point I expect Duncan to float away with all the balloons they have tied on and around their fursuit. Giving Duncan a hug is half hug, half squeezing through the forest of balloons to get close enough to do so. =^.^=

Anyways... need to go grab breakfast now, and enjoy Saturday. Seeya later, folks!10 commentsLeave a comment

01:04 pm - 100 Truths!
( Meme forest ahead! )1 commentLeave a comment

05:04 pm - Attention Furry Artists and Dealers! Question as a con-staff for a growing outdoor con:

This is an official query to any and all dealers as a staff member of an outdoor convention, Wild Nights, akin to Camp Feral or Oklacon. Especially if you've been to any of the above listed events in the past.

We're considering having an official dealers den and/or artist's alley, and wanted to know your thoughts as a dealer; I'm asking since I know quite a few dealers on my friends list. :-) Several of these may sound stupid, but they were asked by other staffers so I'm forwarding the questions, even though that I'm quite sure will have 100% a specific type of answer. Bear in mind this is in mid-to-late April in Oklahoma near Tulsa, weather is very temperate and mild historically, edging on the cooler side still.

1. Would any of you want a dealers den/artist's alley at all at a primarilly outdoor con?
2. Would it be acceptable to do this in a semi-permanent open-side tent?
3. Would it be acceptable to do this in a permanent but still open-sided structure?
4. Would it be acceptable to do this in a fully enclosed, but not climate-controlled building?
5. Would you rather it be dedicated event space for the entire weekend, or a one-shot event of 2-3 hours, with around an hour or setup before-hand and after-wards?

If it's a dedicated one-shot event:

6. Would you mind if we had other events going on during the dealers den event? I.E. Pred/Prey, or something like that?
7. Would you mind if we had other events going on during the setup OR teardown time, but not both?
8. Would you mind if we had other events going on during BOTH setup AND teardown?
9. Would you rather setup, or teardown butt up against a meal period? (Wild Nights includes fresh-cooked food for all meals.)

5 commentsLeave a comment

12:36 pm - XM/Sirius, your days are numbered.
Just got Pandora working in my car, via a $15 adapter-cable (hoo-ee 2.5mm to 3.5mm stuff is hard to find!) from Best Buy.

It's like satellite radio, except I can say 'Fuck that!' and just skip a song, instead of having to change the whole station. And no ads, ever. =^.^=4 commentsLeave a comment

08:33 am - Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange...

I've been working on building an SSH client, focussing on only supporting SSH 2.0, and ignoring all unneeded features and backwards-compatability options so this will fundamentally be a Java ME MIDP 2.0/CIDP 1.1 SSH 2.0-only client; no port forwarding, no X11 forwarding, no strange keyboard or terminal mappings just multiple shells on Linux servers running recent distro's.

Anyways, I've gotten to the Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange part, and I hunted for hours to find a good implementation of the math that didn't gobble up scads of memory and run way too slow for use in Java on my BlackBerry. It was a deep-recursive function, that buried itself as many layers deep as the numbers it was working with were wide.

But... there was a saving grace here, I unwound the function-calls, and verified that it was actually a linear test. It just had to start at the MSB of one operand, and run down the line to the LSB performing a core loop with one optional branch. Huzzah, bit-wise operands can convert this to a loop!

Well... I built and tested the recursive function against this new version, woo, it worked. Then I realized this may be a bit of code that others would find useful. So... posting it here for now in case anyone else needs/wants it. It's fully C99-compliant, and I'll update this post when I make a Java version, since the built-in function for this isn't available in Java ME as far as I can find.

( C99 code inside, math-heavy. )3 commentsLeave a comment

01:52 pm - So THAT'S why my feet failed...
...note to self. When replacing feet-soles and one person strips while another re-glues, make sure to tell the first one how much and where the original adhesive was if you were happy with how everything held up, or even if not.

Switching from an entirely clown-shoe-long Vans shoe covered in something milky-clear and then stuck down onto exercise mat tends to result in a much more durable link than a big dollop near the ball and another big dollop near the heel. Especially with the feet themselves are big floofy ones with big hunks of foam underneath that stick way out over the clown-shoe in the first place so they have gobs of leverage. *laughs*

Anyways... let's see if the silicon-based Liquid Nails type 207 sticks between the shoe sole and exercise mat, Vans have remarkable chemical-resistant soles on them. Low and medium-temp and even high-temp hot glue just rolls off them like water on a duck's back, hoping this does the trick. If it doesn't, well... at least I have a nice pair of Vans. *snickers*

At least that's sorted now, once I let the stuff cure for the day and test tonight. On a different note... finally saw Terminator Salvation in theatres (yay, $2 theatres!) and I was honestly fairly pleased. It wasn't (and nothing will likely ever be) T1 or T2 quality, but it was a good popcorn muncher.4 commentsLeave a comment

01:53 pm - District 9... =O.o=
Seriously... I can't think of any better way to describe it.

Just... whoa. Star Trek and Dark Knight just got their asses handed to them in so many ways... I just... yowza. This was what Peter Jackson was working on, and it conclusively proves the Tolkien Trilogy was no fluke, and this wasn't even in the same genre as that. Yes, I'm gibbering a bit. Just... whoa.

Go. See it! If it can pack 30 butts into an 11am showing at a no-name local theatre I only found due to Google, that's in a dead strip mall and not doing well generally, seriously, go. Half a dozen of those butts were seniors for crisakes, though two of them left after the first action scene because it was rather graphic about gunfire injuries. Not in-your-face, but it didn't hold back. It earned it's rating, but nothing was gratuitous I felt.1 commentLeave a comment

03:00 pm - Well that'll teach me to implement the spec instead of building test-cases first...
Okay, I have a BlackBerry. 320x240 screen, works pretty good for SSH and all that with an LCD-aware bitmap 4x7 font. MidpSSH, works on any phone that can run Java, blah, blah. Problem with that? It's designed to work on any phone from my last 96x64 screen Nokia up to 640x480 smartphones. So it's universal, which means it doesn't take advantage of any newer abilities really.

So I'm stuck paging through menus, and can't use the trackball like arrow keys, or the volume buttons like page up/down like I'd immediately think I should. And whenever I connect somewhere, I have to actively go into a menu and pick 'type' before I can start actually typing commands, despite having a full QWERTY keyboard on my phone.

And... well, it's emulating a vt320 terminal, rather extensively in fact, so it's slow from all the useless cruft it's trying to emulate that... well, I can't even find anything to test the vt320 capabilities. I just want a cell-phone OpenSSH client, in effect. Thankfully, it's open source. Unfortunately, it's Java. I think I've gotten the BlackBerry SDK working, just trying to import the MidpSSH project from the source-files on the developer's website.

But... that ends up in a detour. The largest problem with the vt320 emulation is that it's this truly massive hodge-podge of vector and text abilities, and this poor Java applet is trying it's best to emulate all this crap. So... I start from scratch, making steps from the get-go to minimize memory read/writes, and pull up the ANSI escape code spec-sheet. Huh... this isn't too complicated, implement most of it... have to deal with various issues since I implemented the screen as a rotating ring-buffer of lines, nothing very complicated here.

Then I start testing it against the output of various Linux applications. Nano, lynx, links, they all work near as I can tell. As do various ANSI animations, aside from the color-system not being implemented yet. So then I start building test-cases for the color-codes, to vet them against my intended target: The Linux console. One typo later in a test-case, and I end up on a side-road finding out something: The Linux console doesn't implement most of the ANSI escape codes dealing with scrolling, only screen-clearing.

Suddenly the code that was the most complicated to even get working in my implementation just goes out the window. *laughs* But, scrolling the screen one line at a time now only takes one increment, one compare, one possible subtract, one multiple, and two writes. So... I'll live. Now to wire that test code up to the MidpSSH...2 commentsLeave a comment

07:37 pm - Snake Back The Web!


By Miles-DF. Just passing along the CafePress link since I think it's awesome and want to see folks with this on a shirt. =^.^=6 commentsLeave a comment

10:56 pm - Take Back The Beep!
This is something I can definitely get on board with. Stop with the stupid 'If you want to X... press... 1... If you want to Y... press... 2... Se Hable Espanol... press... numero LQDGFEWQRQE!@#!@' crap, cell-phone companies.

Play my recording, beep, record what's said. Nothing more, that's all I want you to do. Don't add preface noises, don't read extra crap off, your job is to say only what I tell you to, and beep, like any other good answering machine. And if I'm calling for my voicemail? Start playing it.

Though the last bit... may go away. Need to start pushing more folks to my Google Voice account number, the voice-mail there is so much more convenient. =-.-=2 commentsLeave a comment

09:07 pm - Don't know if I'll get this by MFM or not...

...but I'd love to if I can. If nothing else, posting this to back-reference later for running down the list of links.

• RAM-VB-179 2007+ Toyota Yaris Mount
• RAM-FOOT2 Stabilization Foot
• RAM-VB-REM1 Remove-a-Pole Quick Release
• RAM-VP-SW1-89 9-17" Mounting Pole w/ Double Swingarm
• RAM-234-3FL Laptop Tough Tray w/ Flat Side Clips
• RAM-234R1-4U Front/Rear Retainer Arms
• RAM-234-S2U Anti-wobble Screen Support
• RAM-234-5U Power Caddy

Total price for the entire set of kit will be about $350 including shipping and all that jazz... would dearly love it for the drive down just to have my laptop right where I can use it, will have to see how my paycheck on the 7th of August looks. And yes, I have about $75 there of optional gee-haw's, though the majority I think anyone that's ridden with me on a mountain road will understand why I added them since there's a nice set of twisties on the way to/from MFM. =^.^=

3 commentsLeave a comment

06:55 pm - Oh... and speaking of fursuit stuff...
...the first monthly Fursuiting gather at Zona Rosa went off excellently!

Picture Gallery

Still need to finish tagging up the sevreal hundred images in there... merf.5 commentsLeave a comment

10:16 am - Finally named the husky fursuit...
Lumikelluke. Don't know where the name popped into my head from, but it's Estonian for snowdrop, which is fitting and cute at least. =^.^=

And for those trying to pronounce it, Lu-mi-ke-lu-ke is how I break it down.10 commentsLeave a comment

05:59 pm - Holy fuck... someone's making a modern AMC Eagle SX/4!
Local Motor's is calling it the Rally Fighter!

Seriously, compare:





It even has approximately the specs I was aiming for with the AMC Eagle build I'd been working on... 3.0l Straight-6 diesel! *purrpurrpurr*5 commentsLeave a comment

02:38 pm - And my bank-account is officially going "OwOwOwOw!" now...
...so... productive day so far.

Stopped back by Zona Rosa, near-final re-confirm of everything, we're still golden. Asked due to the number of folks showing up (3 groups of 4 at least when you include handlers) if we could use a bathroom or something inside to change, they actually said (tentatively) yes, though I need to go back tommorow to get the final say-so just to be sure. (Need a day to confirm, etc, etc, blah, blah.)

But... got that taken care of.

rosequoll, DTD is en route via USPS International Priority Mail, should get there in about a week! E-mail later tonight with WU info.

batnwolf, your BlackBerry 8820 is en route, should be there in a day or two!

And... payed for something to help with the fursuiting stuff, four white mesh baseball caps with a super-bright-red panel on the front that I'm getting embroidered with "HANDLER" in black block print right now, so it'll be easy for security or paramedics or LEO or anyone else to immediately know who to approach if they have questions, to handle whatever suiters want to stay silent as much as possible.

Next... shopping run later tonight to go pick up a flat of bottled water, a crate of sacrificial giant-sized pixie sticks to use as straws, and a six-pack of bottled water with a bright-coloured lid to put the rehydration fluid (Pedialyte/Gatorade blend) in, since it's meant for emergency usage just in case. Yes, I'm hoping all of this money being spent in preperation goes to complete waste. If it does, then things went well. But I'm very much a belt-and-suspenders-and-sleeves kind of guy.

I'm figuring about 20-24oz (1x20oz or 2z12oz, whatever's more convenient to carry for each handler) of water per fursuiter, plus one extra set, plus one set of the emergency-stuff. So yeah, handlers have a bit to carry, but it shouldn't be too bad overall. =^.^=3 commentsLeave a comment

02:56 pm - Woot... Google Voice Get! *ding*
Heads up, if you signed up to request a number back when it was still Grand Central, check your e-mail box! I did, and just got my phone number offer.

(785)WLF-WNGS1 commentLeave a comment

03:55 am - Fursuiting at Zona Rosa in Kansas City, Missouri, USA on July 18th! Who's going?
So who's going? I'm planning the event as an all-day thing. Bottles of water and WHO-recipe rehydration fluid will be on hand and plentiful with straws, transportation to/from a staging area will be arranged. Space to change on-site is being looked into and discussed with Zona Rosa staff next week once I have a near-final headcount of suiters and handlers. Thus, this post to get that headcount! Pass the word around too!

pistolpup has offered to host a bit of a cookout/BBQ at their place that evening and help provide crash space for out-of-towners so folks can drive home on Sunday.

Rough schedule:

• 08:00 HANDLERS Meet at staging area for pre-event meeting, get water bottles, etc.
• 09:00 SUITERS Meet at staging area near Zona Rosa.
• 10:00 Start suiting at Zona Rosa until it gets too hot.
• 12:00 Lunch break! Just wander Zona Rosa and avoid the heat. LOTS to do.
• 16:00 TENTATIVE Second round of suiting as it cools off.
• 18:00 Head to pistolpup's for the evening.

Here's to hoping this becomes a regular thing! =^.^=

EDIT: Staging area confirmed thanks to happy coincidence. And it's nearby! Map from staging area to parking garage at Zona Rosa.12 commentsLeave a comment

03:01 pm - This is officially the month of upgrades for me...
...upgrading from living in a crummy (albeit spacious now that I'm the last one here) apartment.
...upgrading my laptop to 8GB of RAM.
...upgrading my phone to a BlackBerry 8820.
...upgrading to owning two fursuits, one still in the 'finishing concept art' stage but both mostly payed for.
...upgraded the local furry community to have a very successful brunch event I hope to keep monthly or better.
...getting the local fursuiting community together for more regular events I also hope to keep monthly+

A lot of it was just really good timing, I'll admit, like some fursuiters about to move out of the area in a couple months and some that just moved IN this month will make the first 'semi-official' fursuiting event fairly large (9-12 suiters + 4-6 handlers confirmed so far), and the brunch was just dumb luck of me knowing about a restraunt that specialized in delivery, but that has a good amount of table-seating inside that sits mostly unused. NewEgg had a sale on the RAM. Upgrade cycle came up on the phone plans. Etc. Even the second fursuit was based on lucky timing heavilly, but I'm not complaining in the slightest.

I just hope the next three months are half as good as this month's been, leading up to MFM. =^.^=2 commentsLeave a comment

11:43 am - And wow... 8GB is an odd upgrade for memory on a laptop.
It's... less that software can run faster that I've seen, and more that suddenly... the hard drive just Stays Off even when I'm intensively gaming. Played TF2 for 2 hours, the hard drive never spun up until I exited the game and loaded Chrome which can easilly top a gig of RAM usage in very short order. That's... kinda freaky, but also shows an SSD isn't that needed just yet for laptops, at least for those that can just shove so much RAM at a problem as to make it go away. In this case... MONDO disk cache and keeping all your gaming settings stored on an on-line server instead of on the local machine, which the Steam Cloud allows for.

So... yeah, TF2 at 960x600 w/ 16:4x MSAA for more than 2 hours on battery without any power alerts or anything is kinda nice. Left 4 Dead I can cheat: Cat all the resource files before I load the game, level loads are FAST. =O.o= Like... CPU-limited fast on single-player mode.

Now to go tinker with VMWare more... can finally start working on building out a good set of front/back-end VM's w/ HA support from the load balancer back and including MemCacheD support across the board as well for a side-project I want to work on.0 commentsLeave a comment

07:38 am - Yay... amazing what two minutes with a butter knife and some packing tape can do...
Let me fix a little box-fan for one, the C-clip holding the fan-blade tight against the motor's drive-shaft had worn loose, letting the fan-blade mount polish the drive-shaft to a mirror shine. So... no grip, no fan-blade-spin, no air.

About 90 seconds ravaging that mirror finish with a butter knife, two inches of double-sided packing tape wrapped around it, and wedging the fan-blade assembly back on... I have a working fan again. Quietly drying out my fursuit head, I couldn't resist romping around my apartment for 5-10 minutes just because, one of those, "Pinch me so I believe it's real!" type of things... I really did buy a fursuit just to have something to suit in for the next couple of dozen months until my own gets made. =^.^=

And squee... makes me even more excited about adjusting it to really fit me well. Need to do a couple minute things, re-glue down the flaps of fabric holding the digitigrade padding in place, that's honestly about it. And shorter the legs up by hemming them internally, no major issue there either.

Anyways... gonna go zonk out soon. So... g'night, everyone!5 commentsLeave a comment

10:02 pm - If anyone out there can't connect to Yahoo Instant Messenger:
Yahoo is upgrading their login servers piecemeal to force use of a Captcha to log in on their web-interface, and changing their IM login protocol entirely at the same time. The new protocol is already understood, but nothing out there currently supports it except Yahoo's official client still.

This page explains the situation in a bit more detail, though the list of IP's seems out of date. Only the very last one at the end worked for me.

Oh... and on a side-note, I need name suggestions! The husky I was romping around RCFM as is officially becoming mine, but the poor fellow lacks a name! It can't be WolfWings, since that's being made already and is distinctly NOT a husky... so... name suggestions? I suck at naming things. =-.-=7 commentsLeave a comment

10:56 pm - Patch Together seems kinda awesome...
...and I want this toy design to get made so I can buy one!


Adorable blue bunny bunyip by rosequoll0 commentsLeave a comment

09:22 pm - Man... so close, but the glue gun doesn't get hot enough. =-.-=
Had to re-sole the feet I was using after the last run, they got thrashed soles after Wild Nights, and at RCFM one nearly failed and I had to band-aid it with hot glue. Stomping around Zona Rosa blew the other one out, and both heels detached... yeah, time for new soles on those feet.

So, MUCH pulling and grumbling later, Pistol got the foam-rubber exercise-mat soles out, and I peeled all off the glue from the sole of the mind-condition Vans inside. Cut out new soles... stick the first one in, glueglueglue... wait, why is the shoe flopping around still?

Yup... low-temp glue and high-temp soles = no stick. So... off to pick up some high-temp glue and a high-temp glue gun tommorow, we'll sort things out then. =^.^=

But yeah, definately looking into getting a pair of Vans now after wearing the maround and marvelling at how comfy they are. =O.o=6 commentsLeave a comment

12:40 pm - Fursuiting at Zona Rosa on July 18th!

Set up a Google Calendar Event for the next fursuiting excursion. By default will send an e-mail reminder 1 day, and 8 hours prior to the event, feel free to add yourself or invite others to it:

0 commentsLeave a comment

09:31 pm - Okay... found one place that's AWESOME for suiting!
As long as they're made aware you are NOT promoting anything, and are just there to show off your costumes and have fun, Zona Rosa open-air mall is perfectly alright with groups of suiters + handlers wandering around and taking pictures for a couple hours at a stretch.

I'm going to approach them and some stores that reacted positively about setting up a spot to change in/out and keep an ice-chest in over the next month, I think Abercrombie might say yes, of all things. =^.^=

Pictures to come later, just had to get up briefly to hit the can, then more sleep... then work. Zzz...1 commentLeave a comment

11:12 pm - So yeah... I'm heading over to Zona Rosa tommorow morning-ish.
Borrowed pistolpup's suit again, or at least parts of it. Going partial-suiting at Zona Rosa (outdoor mall), walk around a'while until I'm too hot/tired to keep going, then head home. Partialing first to feel out the place for fullsuiting later, see how some of the stores react, and also since I lack a proper spotter I'd rather have something I can don/doff inside my car or a bathroom instead of needing a full changing room, Just In Case.

Does anyone local out there want to tag along? I'd still only partial, but it'd be more fun as a group excursion and to have someone else to take photo's/video's. I even have the camera you can use! =^.^=

Anyways... laundry now, then bed before I head out.3 commentsLeave a comment

04:18 pm - Today, I actually had to rush to drive somewhere.
Those that know me, know what that means. I had to rush documents to the middle of BFE with physical signatures on them, because the asset-management company won't take electronic anything for offers for property.

So... yeah, they have a custom offer package for the exact amount we offered on the loan-approval certification, forms signed in triplicate, etc, etc. I even sealed and edge-matched the envelope off-canter and pinned it shut, and got a delivery-reciept dressed up more as a courier than myself... THEN revealed I was the actual one making the offer as I scurried out the door.

So, yeah. Poke a gryphon and try to say they didn't do things the way you want them? *applies letter of requirements like a blunt instrument to spirit of requirements*

I was nice, and polite, I just planned the delivery to leave their head spinning a little. =^.^=

Now... Zzz... *THUD*2 commentsLeave a comment

08:53 am - Okay... THIS is the type of news I like to wake up to in my e-mail box...
( WolfWings, changes have occurred in your automated realty searches. )

Um... I'm a ninja? =^.^=

Now... off to furry breakfast!

10 commentsLeave a comment

03:36 pm - Well... Plants vs Zombies is certainly pretty.
But I've realized why I love Defense Grid so much more. You can experiment as you go, it's not "OMG, I made a mistake at 2 hours and 58 minutes in a 3-hour level, I have to slog through the whole thing AGAIN!" but much more like Prince of Persia: Sands of Time: No, wait, that's not how it goes. *back up, try again*

Still challenging, but lets you focus on the challenging parts, not the long slog TO the challenging parts.

Anyways... ( ABC Meme, ganked from Tisket )4 commentsLeave a comment

01:01 pm - Anyone have any plans this weekend?
This gryph is BORED.

I want an excuse to get out of the house. Anyone out there in the Kansas City area (or maybe 200 miles radius of there) want some company? Or want to meet up and just hang out or something?

I'm serious here. I just want to get out of the apartment if I can this weekend, and do instead of sit and think. Anyone need their brake pads replaced? Gutters cleaned? Some non-tedius physical task would be great. I'd say let's go suiting... but then I keep remembering, wait, no suit of my own yet. *laughs* Happy to be a handler if someone wants to go suiting out in public or something.

Hrm... there's always the Macy's mall, that place is so many leap-years beyond dead seems ideal for something to go on there... *ponderponder*

Yeah... lazy-bird had the lazy trimmed off of him, wants to be active-bird now between the experiences at RCFM and it turning into summer finally. =^.^=12 commentsLeave a comment

04:41 pm - OMG... I may own a house soon.
First visit to the place was... well, kinda awesome. It's a 3-bedroom, 1-bath that was doubled in size by adding a very large 'front room' with another bedroom and bathroom using super-modern materials. Looks like they retrofit the whole place with new electrical, all the systems look very good.

Even has a 2-car garage with a big load of shelving inside, set up to still use for parking but store stuff too. It's... kinda awesome.

But, it's UGLY as sin on the outside to most folks. Commercial metal-structure on the new portion, old-school (we're talking 50+ year old-school) siding-over-wood-over-frame, with what looks like someone lopped a metal-panel diner from the 50's into pieces and turned it into walls for the other side. All the panels are new manufacture, but it's that type of 'rigid 3x3ft square panel' design with pre-fab limitations on sizes, windows and attic vents on that side are all that style... even the roof on that section is metal shingle. =O.o=

They even closed off the original 'entrance nook' into a closet on the old 'living room' which I might open back up. Would make it TRIVIAL to rent the other 3 bedrooms out, they'd have their own bathroom even. And the water heater and HVAC system is by that bathroom, very hard to describe but incredibly easy to perform maintenance on those components there.

Very much an 'unsellable because it's so kooky' type of place... I'm gonna drag some friends by later this week to look it over, pics to be posted later... I'll probably offer $68-70k, see if the asset-holding company nibbles. And the best part? It's outside of the 'metro' of Kansas City, so it qualifies for USDA loans which are INSANELY good, even compared to the fixed 5% loan w/ 5% down I qualify for in the first place. But it's still less than a 10-minute drive to/from the airport.

Hrm... pilot flop-house for the secondary bedrooms, maybe? *ponderponderponder*11 commentsLeave a comment

01:20 am - *fretfretfret*
Gotta head in to work soonish... finally coming down off the con-high I've been riding for the last... gah, damn near half a week now. It's hard to have PCD when you're still floating, but it was definately there.

And now trying to decide... $1k to get into suiting Right Now or not... mostly at a toss-up because I'm not sure if I want something on the cute-side like Beef Jerky or not.

Thoughts?4 commentsLeave a comment

03:44 am - So... now for a proper RCFM con report.
Edit: Pictures!

I have to say this first. Before RCFM this year, much like Corsi Mouse, I've never had any form of Post-Con Depression. I go back from a con feeling good, purified from focused effort without having to concentrate on maintaining a societal mask of propriety.

I was, for the first time in my life truly able to understand the term ( tears of joy. )

And now... ( ...the actual con-report itself. )

So... yeah, depending on how FC goes this year at it's new hotel, I may be focusing on RCFM more myself now. *laughs* At the very least... suiting! Yay! OmNomNom! Must do that more, and soon! And thank you so much, pistolpup, it really made RCFM an utter blast instead of me likely just sitting in the LAN room all con if I hadn't had that suit along!

I can honestly say I haven't felt this energized in months. Yes, I'm exhausted, but I'm... full of strength I didn't have before this con. Even at work I've noticed it, I'm more assertive now, more comfortable in my own skin, after getting a chance to really unwind in another skin... the ritual of switching skins like that really let me unburden myself in a way I don't think I have since the last time I could fullsuit.25 commentsLeave a comment

07:23 pm - Back from RCFM...

...will fill in FAR more details later.

• Didn't suit anywhere near as much as I wanted to.
• But did suit FAR too much. Thanks, pistolpup, for the loan of the suit!
• Got bit by the bug so much I actually went back upstairs, unpacked enough of the suit to partial, hand-washed and dried the undersuit, and romped back downstairs for 4 extra hours instead of sleeping those 4 hours. =^.^=
• Got to see likeshine and painteddog briefly at least, which was good. But nowhere near enough.
• Pizza Feed went well, helped out a bit there too.
• Missed the Furp Toast on actual Memorial Day since I hadn't heard about it. =-.-=
• Abused my CB far too much on the lightning-fast drive home to get here in enough time to sleep at all before work, to avoid calling off from work.

5 commentsLeave a comment

08:49 pm - Okay... City of X? You're being a pain in the ass now.
Previously, I had all the visual bells and whistles working just fine under CoX. Suddenly... that broke. Looked into it... they appear to have re-worked their video-card abilities detection routine, and this time it's far more dependant on a lot of registry results instead of just OpenGL capabilities strings.

Side effect? It breaks under all forms of Linux WINE out there. So you're stuck using the low-quality graphics framework that disables most features, if not the 'emergency fallback' framework that disables ALL features in the game.

Still appears to work flawlessly under Cider, the commercial closes-source WINE-based suite though. It appears they added some secret sauce that's been pre-coded into Cider but specifically breaks all the documented work-arounds for Linux. In fact, ALL of those workarounds now force you to the 'emergency fallback' graphics framework, while resetting all video-card options in WINE at least returns you to the low-quality framework. So... yeah, malicious coding at it's finest, it appears.0 commentsLeave a comment