Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!

Have you ever been such good friends with someone that you find yourselves knowingly finishing one another's sentences; since you can accurately predict what it was they were going to say and it's all very surreal and reassuring because it makes you feel loved and understood? This is actually nothing like that.

Google has recently decided to start guessing what I'm going to search for. Its guesses are based on no clear pattern I can identify. It certainly is not using previous search inquiries or things I like, such as octopodes or tulips or robots. With every letter I input it just randomly starts adding letters of its own. Sometimes even whole sentence fragments. Like a terrible game of charades or hang-man or some other game based completely on guessing at random (Wheel of Fortune, I'm looking at you).

This makes even the simplest of searches unnecessarily complicated as I spazz out in a desperate attempt to backspace so that my completely innocent intent to look up, "manatees bumping into things," (you're welcome) doesn't spiral out of control into a search for, "man eats himself one bite at a time." Or something equally unrelated and probably bad.

I know there are settings I can go into to turn this feature off, but here's the problem: it never stays off. It turns itself back on out of the blue all of the time. Not simply if I restart or close the tab or crash my browser. No. All the time. I can turn it off as I'm searching and it will turn back on as soon as I begin to type again. Just to %#@& with me.

This is what happened to me earlier today when Aaron asked me if I would mind if he turned my corpse into a diamond if I died first (the answer was no, I don't mind). Then out of curiosity I wanted to find out how big of a diamond a human body could make. Bigger than a breadbox? I don't god damned know because Google hijacked my search and I looked up this instead:
.

What the hell?

How many women die in childbirth carbon? That doesn't even make sense! What makes even less sense is that two of the returned results are purple, suggesting that I have been to them before. Apparently on the 31st of last month. But I haven't. I'm not even sure how one would come up with the idea of looking up, "how many women die in childbirth carbon" all on their own, had Google not forced it upon them. The only logical conclusion is that Google is an emergent A.I. and we aren't long for this world.

Furthermore, those statistics are kind of frightening. A woman dies in childbirth every minute? FFS, we can clone eachother and walk around on the moon, why are we still dying having babies?

P.S. I do not live in North Highlands, CA. I do not know why Google thinks I do.

P.P.S. Seems like the max size for a human-diamond is 1.5ct.

Friendly Reminder About Being Human

Everyone knows that being the moderator of a website is a thankless job. In fact, it's often the opposite of thankful. Forum denizens are caustic assholes, more often than not, and the fact that you have the audacity to make them adhere to any sort of rules which prevent them from being just that makes them angry. When it's for a gaming website, the potential for nerd rage grows exponentially.

I'd say, compared to my peers, I get relatively few hate mails about my modding. That said, I also don't get many love mails either. My inbox is often filled with random people posturing to try to get on my good side, a few honestly friendly individuals, and the rest are all people confused about something or another.

This is why I rarely bring it up. Everyone knows that the internet is like The Crow; where there are 3 or 4 good guys and everyone else is for some reason a malicious sadist if they aren't completely oblivious. The bad guys are numerous but they aren't actually evil, they're just assholes.

When I post on the forum I moderate, I act like any other user. Despite that I can lock your thread, or have you banned. Why? Well, because even though I can do those things when needed, I am just another member of the community. And since it's my duty to at least have a look into every thread posted, every now and then I encounter someone who could really, truly use my help.

I say that loosely. They could use anyone's help, certainly. But getting sincere help from another human on the internet isn't easy to do. Most people will either jokingly tell you to kill yourself or regurgitate memes until their fingertips are raw. No one likes to acknowledge, for one reason or another, that the people they're talking to online are actual people. People with lives that may or may not be crappier than their own.

This is why no matter how unlikely the case may be when it presents itself, I always, always respond constructively. You know, actually try to help someone in need. Whether it may just be a cry for attention or not. People cry out for attention for a reason afterall. After losing a friend to suicide, I can say with all certainty that they won't always seek help from someone they know face-to-face.

It's to that end I bring you this story. Some time ago, a member of the GT community came to me seeking advice. Their life was in a bad place at the time and they didn't know what to do. I offered them advice, as I would anyone else seeking it, and proceeded to corresponded with them a few times over the next couple of weeks. When things seemed alright, I walked away and almost had forgotten all about it. Even knowing what I know about anonymity and an audience, I didn't consider what I did anything out of the ordinary.

Today, after having not logged on in over 3 months (RL gets in the way of moderating sometimes), I had a message in my inbox. The name wasn't immediately familiar. When I opened it, I was shocked. But in a good way. I'd apparently done more than I even knew, and I wasn't even aware of the magnitude of their situation. I was just doing something unheard of on the internet: being nice.

Holy Potatoes! Did You Hear That?

As someone who hears on average, less than 30% of the sounds one normally hears in their day, I am often startled by hearing something I didn't think I'd be able to. Which makes me look like a weirdo to onlookers who either do not know I'm deaf to begin with, or for some reason believe that hearing aids cure deafness. They do in fact not cure deafness. I'm not sure why people seem to think they do, but they do not. Just had to take a moment of time to clear that up for everyone.

My hearing aid improves my environmental awareness, certainly,  and I hear a lot more than I otherwise would without it, but I still do not hear everything. Without my hearing aid I'd say I can faintly hear about 5% of the sounds one normally hears in their day. With it I hear about +25% more sounds, granted some of them are still indecipherable. It more or less gives me a greater sense of where a sound may be coming from. Making it less likely I will get hit by a car... or a train.

So when I am walking along and suddenly an eagle cries out from above me (something you don't hear often to begin with), I may jump -- startled. Not because I have a strange fear of eagles but because I had not anticipated the sound. Even if I see something I know will make a sound should I step on it (crunchy leaf), or bump into it (tall hedges), or even simply pass it by (unruly dog), I'm still startled when it makes a sound and I hear it. Because I am used to the world being a very quiet place.

So this morning, when I bumped a paper bag which had fallen under my desk with my foot and it made a sound, I recoiled in fear. Not because paper bags are terrifying but because first of all, I didn't even know it was down there and second of all I rarely ever hear paper make a sound anymore. Which had to look funny and/or retarded because Aaron was like, "What the hell?" and giving me a weird look. Then I had to explain to him what had happened and why it had happened, even though I'm pretty sure he understands, just to placate my own mind about why I overreacted to a paper bag.

This gave me the idea to just explain it to everyone simultaneously, so that I do not feel obligated to explain it to you when it undoubtedly happens again at some point in your presence. I am not scared of mundane objects. I promise!

Playing Catch Up

So where to begin? The State Fair seems as good a place as any. We had a super fun time at the California State Fair. The first year it was just Aaron and I, which was magical. This year we went with Jon, Josh, Sean, and Sean's lady-friend Amanda and had a great time. I sprained my ankle mysteriously the week prior, so I was a little concerned I may not be able to go at all. Vicodin saw me through it.

The day after we all got together for drinks and a game of Arkham Horror. It being Amanda's first time, she got to choose the Old One that would seal our fate. She blindly chose Cthulu. Oh noes! Much to our surprise, we did actually did really well. The terror track barely rose at all and thanks to Josh's suicide bombings, we wound up winning the game. Against Cthulu. /flex

That paragraph likely only meant anything to about five of you, so for everyone else I apologize.

So about my ankle then...

Several weeks ago my ankle began to hurt. At the time I thought, "My, this is uncomfortable," but didn't think anything of it. Mostly because I could not recall having done anything to injure it. The next day the entire exterior part of my foot was bruised. The day after that, my ankle was so swollen that the bone looked like my kneecap. I called my doctor to set up an appointment, but they were not able to get me in until the following week, so instead Aaron took me to the emergency room.

At the emergency room they took an X-ray and determined that the bone was not broken. They diagnosed me with a major sprain, gave me an ACE bandage and some crutches, then sent me on my way. I went to my doctor later on for a follow-up, as directed, and she confirmed the diagnosis. Since the swelling and bruising were still present (albeit way better than it had been) she gave me prescription strength Naproxen and told me to take it easy fro an additional two weeks.

Four weeks to heal a sprain, wtf did I do?

My doctor suspects that recovery is slowed by my neuropathy. Since I cannot feel my feet, I forget the extent of my injury and do things a person in my situation would normally find too painful to do -- ultimately refreshing the damage. If it isn't better by the next appointment, I'll have to go to physical therapy. Meh.

Speaking of my neuropathy, I called Blue Cross to schedule a hearing  and they said they would be sending me something in the mail within 2 weeks. Well, 2 weeks passed and I had not received anything, so Monday I called to inquire as to why. The person over the phone could not figure out why my appointment had been declined and needed to make some calls in regards to find out more information. Once she had done this, she said, she'd call me back in a day or so. Tuesday night no one had made any attempt to contact me at all, so this morning (Wednesday) I called again.

This man was far more helpful. While he also could not find ANYTHING on file as to why my appointment with a Neurologist had been declined, he kept me on the line while he made a bunch of phone calls trying to figure it out for me. What it came down to was one of two reasons, neither of which are related to my health whatsoever.

The first: the loopy receptionist who left us waiting in the neurologist's office last month? Well she also works at my Primary Care Physician's office and when she filled out the paperwork for the insurance company to approve -- she spelled the neurologist's name wrong. Completely wrong. So when the insurance company ran a check to make certain this guy was part of their plan, they could not find him on record. So they thought my doctor had tried to schedule me an appointment with a doctor outside of my group and declined the appointment.

The second: my doctor's name is Irina. The office she works for is Greenberg. Greenberg is not her name. The insurance company did not recognize my primary care physician as being the referral doctor because they mistakenly thought my P.C.P. was Greenberg. Therefor when the request came through it was denied because they assumed the referral was made by an outside doctor.

In other words: herp derp.

In either case no reason was ever filed by the insurance company, so there was no way to know which of these was the case and in turn, who was really at fault. Furthermore because there was essentially no record of the appointment, let alone it having been declined, the man suggested I simply go back to my doctor and have her submit the paperwork over again. Though he also filed a grievance on my behalf, just in case. So at least there is a record about my complaint in case I encounter an issue like this again.

Unrelated, many of you have probably noticed many of my updates on bookface recently have to do with Neelix. Essentially he injured himself and compulsively licks and scratches at the wound making it worse. A cone around his neck would fix the problem, if the place where he had injured himself were not his gd neck! So instead he requires constant supervision. This means Aaron and I have to take turns staying up all night caring for him.

He gets Vetricyn 3-4 times per day as well as the area thoroughly (but gently) washed and at night he gets a gauze pad put in place, secured by a bandage made from the cuff of a sock I hemmed to suit the purpose. We tried using bandages but he would just get his tongue or nails stuck in the knit and ruin it. The cotton is much better to that end.

He will undoubtedly get better, the wound was never so bad to actually endanger his health, it just needs to be taken care of so he doesn't make it worse. The fur is growing back and it's no longer raw from being licked, so that's good. I'll definitely be buying more Vetricyn in the future though. It fights bacteria, viruses, fungi and increases oxygenation of wounds to speed healing. To anyone with a pet, you should definitely keep some of this handy. No matter what the problem (allergies, laceration, puncture wound, insect sting, etc.) it really does help.

In the meanwhile we're stressed and seriously sleep deprived. We consider it practice for the future, when we have babies. Only we don't have the comfort of knowing he'll grow out of this. Who'd have thought a pet could be more work than an actual child?

On the subject of cats...

Last week Aaron brought me some beautiful orange lilies, just because. In a fit of jealous rage (because the cat likes to fancy herself cat-wife) Intruder knocked the vase over onto my desk splashing water onto my laptop. It wasn't very much water, and it didn't appear to have gotten beyond the keyboard, so there was no reason to assume the worst. Not until the keyboard randomly began inputting whatever the hell it wanted with no actual contact. I powered it down and waited 36 hours before turning it back on to let it dry out. Normally that's all it really takes when electronics get a bit wet.

Sadly, even after it was all dried out the problem persisted. I was hoping to get at least another year out of this laptop before needing a new computer, but looks like I no longer have that luxury. I had my mother ship my old laptop out to me from Ohio, so that I at least had something reliable to use. Though that one has maybe half the gaming capacity the other one had, so it doesn't bode well there.

In other news, school starts soon. I don't know if I'll actually be attending though. Much to my dismay all of the classes I actually want/need to take were completely filled up -- to the point of there not even being an available wait list. I can try crashing classes and just begging to be let in, but given how full they apparently are, I get the feeling I just may wind up having to wait until next semester.

Not a HUGE deal, but I was really looking forward to taking Sign Language with Aaron, and also not being home alone while he is at class. No sense letting it get to me though, I've had quite enough stress lately to deal with.

On that note, I anticipate wedding planning kicking into official capacity this fall, once I get a better feel about which month precisely will work best for an outdoor Autumn wedding. Any advice to that end is sincerely encouraged. Having never been married before, I obviously do not possess much know-how here. Tips, tricks and even things you may think of as mundane, I'd be happy to hear-out.

MMORPG's

From time to time I look back fondly on all the MMO's I've played. Even the ones that took an unforeseen turn for the worse -- I focus on the enjoyable experiences prior to whatever patch or bug destroyed the game and/or community. It's not quite nostalgia, because I do not long to return to any of the games I've stopped playing. I stopped playing them for a reason afterall. I just like to think back to the days of old, when each MMO actually had something that set it apart from whatever other game was on the market at the time. Not things that made it necessarily better, just things that set them apart. That's difficult to find now.

Most MMO's bank all of their effort toward repeating whatever worked for whichever game came before it based on popularity of said game. This ultimately fails because it provides gamers with absolutely no reason to switch from the game they're already playing to the new game. Why start over with no gear, friends, or money in a game that's basically exactly what you're playing anyway?

A lot of people incorrectly label this the WoW Effect. Since World of Warcraft was for many people their first MMO experience, every game which followed afterward that had similar features was dubbed a WOW clone. With even just the slightest amount of actual research however, you will realize that most of the features in WOW were actually completely ripped off from other MMOs before it. That's right, Warcraft was not innovative at all. For instance the beloved PVP battlegrounds everyone thinks are token WoW material were actually alive and well in DAoC long beforehand. Talent trees, classes specialties, and even PVE instancing were all present in games predating WoW by years.

I find it incredibly interesting that while I liked WoW the least, it was one of the longest games I ever played. The learning curve was nonexistent. You could effectively do most tasks by rolling your face back and forth across your keyboard and get by just fine. The expansions were always just more of the same, to the point where even the models and other art were simply copy pastas of previous content. World PVP did not exist once BGs were introduced which reduced all player v. player conflicts to mundane, preplanned events. The only thing WoW had was the people.

Don't misunderstand. The majority of the Warcraft community is akin to some sort of special gaming Olympics. Millions of invalids who can do nothing but regurgitate old memes at one another with the overall combined charisma of a rancid turnip. Every once in a great while though, you'd stumble upon a genuinely intelligent, reliable human being. And if you were really lucky, they will have already sought out other such individuals and combined themselves into a small tightly knit guild, making the game worth playing where otherwise it would not be.

It's amazing how one or two great people can keep you around when all else can't. Especially when you manage to find them in what is essentially the Mos Eisley of gaming communities. Looking at the other games I've played, the reasons I had for sticking around post-apocalypse were much simpler. They were fun. Dark Age of Camelot had amazing PVP in its youth. Anarchy Online had a truly imaginative PvE instancing system, catering your 'dungeon' to your specific desires. To this day I am unaware of any true MMO that allows that. Starwars Galaxies had astounding role-play. Matrix Online had a truly immersing environment, add in enjoyable combat and interactive locking emotes and you had the recipe for role-player bliss. Everquest 2 was just amusing to play, the mechanics were simple but efficient. Age of Conan had a seriously innovative combat system and an impressively loyal community. Warhammer Online was an entertaining foray into the living, breathing Warhammer universe.

Ironically their short-comings were somehow related to why they had been worth playing in the first place.

DAoC tried to out-do their own PVP experience and basically ruined what had kept people playing in the first place. Seeing the error of their ways they reintroduced 'classic' servers. Sadly it was too little too late for the game to make a complete recovery, resulting in the combining of servers to combat the ghost towns they had become.

AO didn't change. Which is both good and bad. The good is that the gameplay remained entertaining and unique. They never tried to over-do it. This is also bad though because it made the game stagnate. The graphics are more or less the same as they had been when the game came out ages ago, despite all of the vast advancements in computer capabilities. Funcom has had a graphical overhaul planned since 2007, but there has been no change and no set date as to when this change could be expected.

This means your playerbase is composed entirely of the especially die-hard fans of the game and no one else. New players won't join because they dislike the subpar graphics and many old players leave because they've grown bored. If a new player does get over how out-dated the entire game is, they feel lost and hopelessly too far behind as soon as they login and realize almost everyone they meet is 200 levels higher than they are.

You can play it for free, however, so there is no reason not to play it every once in a while.

SWG's role-play came to a grinding halt once they took a game with over 20 classes, that you could hybridize to endless possibility -- to a game with fewer than 10 starting professions that could not stray from the set path in any capacity whatsoever. One completely game-altering 'upgrade' was enough. The second effectively killed the game and it's now shutting down forever come December. Despite the communities outrage and disappointment, SOE decided not to heed them and refused to roll-back to how the game had been, or even provide a 'classic' server where people could get away from the NGE. This was such an enormous marketing disaster that a member of the staff who pushed the NGE forward actually killed himself.

It is to my knowledge one of the most devastating changes made to an MMO in history.

MxO had everything going for it, except that it was run by SOE. They couldn't leave well-enough alone and made change after change until the original player base had basically evaporated. It remained alive for a little while, attracting the occasional Matrix fan, but ultimately met a swift, timely end. The rate at which SOE is handed liscences to games that should have 0 chance of failure, that fail, is boggling.

EQ had a very easy-to-play gaming experience. Quests were easy to follow, combat was simply executed, and they offered an optional graphical upgrade to those who wished it. Meaning if you had a crappy computer, you could still play, but if you had a good computer you could play and not look like you were molded out of Playdoh. While a simple game is a nice get away from games that require some form of degree to play right, it also gives you little reason to stick around. By level 20, you really had nothing to do but continue leveling up. Money was easy to come by. Leveling was a breeze. PVP only existed on certain servers. The most fun I had after level 20 in EQ2 was decorating my character's apartment.

AoC had one of the most innovative combat experiences I've ever had the joy of playing with. Incidentally it also had the smoothest launch of any MMO I've played -- and I've suffered through a lot of game launches. Patch after patch however created bug after bug and Funcom was rather disinterested in fixing them in any timely manner. This created issues that completely broke the game. The fantastic combat system was now a method by which you could charge up and behead someone at 10 yards; before you'd normally even be in range to swing at them.

This bug also only effected melee characters, so before long all of the healers and mages disappeared and the world was filled with warriors running around trying to chop off eachother's heads. Combine that with Funcom going back on their no graveyard camping policy, this meant that if you beheaded someone and ran to the resurrection pad fast enough -- you could murder them repeatedly all day.

This obviously had several damaging effects on the game. Since all of the healers and mages rerolled as melee... you could no longer efficiently get any PVE done. Which meant your entire gameplay experience rested on the enjoyment of PVP. Which you also couldn't do because any time you logged on, someone would chop off your head from 10 yards away before you even loaded.

Now, before you think, "You're just upset because people were chopping off your head!" you should know that I was usually the one doing the head-chopping. I'm just not so much of an ass I can't admit that it was broken.

Warhammer Online was the purist disappointment when it came to games I had been looking forward to. It was developed by Mythic, who did magical things with DAoC back in the day, so I was expecting more of that. It was also set in the richly story driven Warhammer world. How could they go wrong? Well, basically they pushed the game out much too fast, meaning that while all of the races were present, only two of their cities had been included in the game. They also apparently forgot that at the essence of Warhammer is role-play... because there were absolutely no tools implemented within the game to make this possible. You could not walk, or sit, or write custom emotes; you could barely even customize your character (which is forgivable provided you can do all of those other things).

They decided to make the focus PVE and PVP, which is fine as a Mythic game. That's basically what DAoC had been, but as a Warhammer game this was unacceptable. You had this vast, rich world full of life... and no way to interact with it. It was surprisingly disappointing. World PVP was also kind of broken, which left you to do nothing but run BGs. In which case, you may as well have been playing any other MMO already out, like I mentioned above, and avoided starting over. Which is exactly what happened after the first month live.

I realize this turned into more of a rant than I had originally intended starting out. I could gripe about the cons until the cows come home, or alternatively fawn over the pros until I convinced you to play them, but I think I'll spare you this time.

In short, what I was getting at was this: why can't developers create something fun anymore? Something that takes what's right about the other games and combines it all together, leaving out the bad. I mean, that is what made WOW successful. To copy Warcraft's success you do not need to make a clone of WOW. You need to do as they did and steal every good idea from every other MMO currently on the market.

Then, while it would not be a completely unique idea, it would at least be worth switching to from whatever you're playing now. I don't want mind blowing innovation. In my experience that's always bad (Tabula Rasa, Mortal Online, DDO, GW, etc.). Also, why is it the new trend in MMO's that to be innovative you have to switch to first-person perspective? That's not innovative, especially when nothing else is any different mechanically. I swear if one more up-and-coming MMO decides to  broaden it's audience by being first-person, I'll punch them with a dolphin.

I like toast and butter. I do not like toast crumbs in my butter. In that light: I like first-person shooter games and I like role-playing games. I do not however enjoy FPS games in my RPG games. If I wanted to play an FPS, that's what I would've bought. ffs.

It's Not Easy Being Cheesy

Dear Cheese Grater,

You are obtuse and awkward to use. There simply has got to be a better way. When I want freshly grated Parm for my pasta, I should not have to exert so much effort and time. I burn all of the calories I am about to consume by spending ten minutes mindlessly dragging cheese, back and forth, over you. This practically voids the entire eating process that is to follow. Can we somehow work this out?

Sincerely,
Inari

I Told You So

See? My effort to make entries more frequently hasn't gone well, though I did warn ahead of time that that would probably be the case. So you can't say I didn't tell you so.

My appointment with the neurologist was canceled. My insurance didn't approve it in time for the appointment. No big deal, right? Well no one informed me. So we drove out to the doctor, signed in, and waited about an hour in the waiting room. A long wait is understandable, so nothing seemed out of the ordinary until the woman who came in after me with an appointment time set after mine (discovered through her obsessive complaining about having to wait), got called back first.

So we're both confused and a little miffed. Was the loud whiny lady being called before me just so she'd stfu? The original receptionist who signed me in earlier and even highlighted my name to make sure the doctor knew I was around, had left, so there was a new woman behind the desk. When asked why the bitchy lady with an appointment scheduled after mine was called back by the same doctor I'm scheduled to see first, the woman checks her records and says I'm not scheduled to see the doctor at all.

Whut.

Supposedly someone had called and left me a message to inform me of this the day prior. Not so. The only message on my voice mail was from my grandfather a week earlier, and I had no recent missed calls. So she has me double check the number they've got on file. It's 100% correct. So more than likely whoever meant to call me misdialed -- or worse never called at all. Rather than tell me when I got there, the first receptionist just let us sit around and waste our afternoon. The current receptionist can do nothing but half assedly apologize on behalf of the first not doing her job, but that didn't make the situation any better.

When asked why my appointment had been canceled, the woman tells us that my primary care physician never authorized it. Uhm, my primary care physician was the doctor who sent me there. To not have authorized it would be retarded. So we trek across the street to my primary physician's office to see what's up.

The receptionist there says my insurance never approved the appointment and that it may just take a while for them to do so. Once they do, she claims, they will call me to set up a new appointment. This however never happens. Instead out of the blue I get a piece of mail from my insurance. Inside is nothing but a pamphlet about how I can file for a trial to argue my case for having a procedure or appointment denied; there is no actual notice that anything has been officially denied.

Whut.

My only guess for the appointment to have been denied in the first place is because I had a handful of neurology exams back East and the new insurance thinks those results are, "good enough." Even though I barely even saw a neurologist back there, and I was scheduled for more exams to figure out the underlying cause of my neuropathies. So... that's what I would've assumed would be happening here. They don't need to rerun the same tests (even though the quality of care here is better and they may find something overlooked by the past doctor) they need to run new tests.

If the damage isn't technically in my hands or feet, even though those are the areas affected, that means it's probably either in my spine or brains. Something that should probably be looked into, you'd imagine. I'll probably wind up having to call my insurance, sit on hold for a week, and then talk to someone who has no idea how to do their job, because in my experience people who answer phones for a living seldom do.

In other, related, news the new medication has been far more kind to me than the last. No radical mood swings or amnesia, though I'm thirsty constantly. Feels like my mouth is full of dust sometimes, it is so dry. No amazing improvements, though at times I can actually feel the pinky on my left hand. I'm not sure if that is related to the drug or not, but it's pretty cool (despite the fact that it feels like pins and needles, like it had fallen asleep and is trying to wake up for hours).

In unrelated news we spent a week in L.A. and had the Montero serviced. Wound up partying more in three days than we normally do in three months. Just because. Came home and the cats had exploded into poo. You can imagine my delight. Exactly what I wanted to do after an eight hour drive, scrub poo off of various surfaces.

Neelix manifested ear mites, so I'm treating him for that. He's pretty tolerant of having ear drops put in, though you can tell he's not a fan of the process.

More recently we had a miniBBQ for the fourth of July, and then went on a successful fireworks hunt. The only thing better than fireworks is fireworks with the one you love. This weekend we may or may not have company over, next weekend we may or may not go to the State Fair with Sean and his possibly-girlfriend, Jon and maybe Emily + Liz, that should be fantastical. I do believe we'll definitely be heading to San Jose though. We shall see.