Since I am using a different journal these days, I am closing this journal due to non-use.  The main reason I changed journals is because I had grown to dislike the underscore/dash in my username.  If you are still interested in reading my infrequent tirades and comments, go on over to dv8nekomimi and friend me.  This account becomes a "basic" unpaid for accound in 5 days and I will probably delete it in about a month.

Happy Chinese New Year! Enter the year of the Rat.

We were called at 2pm today that Angel's remains were back. I went down and picked them up. Now the container sits on the Fireplace mantle next to Slinky's container.

Sometime this morning between 2:50am and 5:30am, my little female ferret named Angel passed away from what we believe to be lymphoma. Now she has crossed over the Rainbow Bridge to be able to play with Slinky. I am sure they will have much fun there while they wait for me. I delivered her body to the vet for cremation at lunch.

I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year!

I hope that everyone had a very pleasant holiday. Now to make it through to Christmas.

I was called yesterday by the animal hospital, who told me that they had gotten Slinky's remains back. So, after work I went by and picked them up. The box we bought for it is VERY nice, and even Darling is happy with it. Right now it is on our fake fireplace until we find a better location for it.

After much deliberating, I have decided to go to Nekocon X. It helps that a friend of mine will be driving down to go with me. We are only going to attend on Saturday, but hopefully get to be at the Dance and see some fun.

I am finally able to try to post something about this.

Yesterday afternoon one of my ferrets passed away. He was a very sweet little cream colored guy we called "Slinky". His disposition was the best you could hope for in a ferret or pretty much any other animal. Curious, friendly, playful, yet relaxed enough that he would let you hold him and pet him.

We found him Friday night lying at the bottom of his cage. At first I though he had caught a cold or was having an adverse reaction to us switching them from pine bedding to kitty litter. I had not played with him in a few days as he was primarily my oldest daughters pet, so I was quite surprised to find he has lost more than half his body weight. We spent all weekend trying to nurse him with cups of water and a mash made from the ferret food and warm water. He improved a little bit, but not enough, so Monday afternoon I took him to the vet to be checked. After an exam and x-rays, the vet told me that Slinky had a large tumor in his stomach area. Even if we had opted for surgery, the vet was not optimistic on his quality of life or survival. We decided to have him put to sleep and scheduled it to happen on Wednesday (today) so that we could say our goodbyes and the kids could see him. Monday night, he drank a lot of water and slurped up a lot of broth from the mash, so I felt confident. But Tuesday morning he would not drink or eat at all. I was worried then, but when I got home at noon for lunch, I knew it was pretty much over. He was moving around in his cage trying to get comfortable, he didn't seem to be able to see. I took him out and cleaned the poop off of him, and laid him on a towel to rest on the floor. Darling (my significant other) was doing some stuff around the house so I left to get my oldest daughter from school. I dropped her off to watch over him and I headed back to work to arrange to take the rest of the day off so I could take Slinky back to the vet. As I was pulling into the parking lot at work, I got a call from my daughter that Slinky has passed away. I returned home immediately and gathered up the family so we could take Slinky down to the vet. We said our last good-byes, and gave him to them to send off to be cremated, his ashes to be returned to us. We will get them in 7 to 10 days.

The tears have started again. I have the same heartache from losing this little guy that I had when my father passed away. I didn't realize until too late how attached to him I was. He is at peace now and out playing at the Rainbow Bridge, waiting until it is my time to join him. I look forward to that day.

For those who may not realize it, the Linux kernel turns 16 tomorrow. Sixteen years ago on August 25th, 1991, Linus Torvolds announced to the world that he would be releasing a free operating system that would later become the Linux kernel.

Thank you Richie, for friending me. I have also added you as a friend as well.

Here is something I was not aware of. It seems that the Windows Vista CD/DVD burning tool uses a "special" Microsoft file format as indicated in this article:
Burning Issues With Vista

This tells me that it is definitely better to use the burning software that came with your CD or DVD burner. Though how long those will remain pure is yet to be seen. Granted, PJ's lack of current Windows experience is the cause of some of the problems she has in the article, yet the intent of the article is adequately displayed.

As an aside, I loved her comment:
"An OS and user interface should behave like the perfect butler: make your life as easy as possible while remaining as unobtrusive as possible. Vista behaves more like a very stupid servant in a flashy outfit."

While I agree with her point, I think that I am more inclined to want my OS to be like a smart and energetic young girl in a pretty french maid outfit. Cute as hell to look at, yet is efficient and quick to get her job done. But that is just me. ^_^

I have been playing a lot of Japanese Visual Novels lately. Not the Eroge kind though I have played those before, but rather some of the free non-adult doushin kind listed on http://shii.org/translate/. So far I have played through the following novels:

Red Shift
At Summer's End
Wanders in the Sky
Flood of Tears
Summer, Cicadas, and the Girl

Most of these can be played on either Windows or Linux, though some are Windows only and needs your environment set to Japanese.

I sat down and watched 5 episodes of this series last night. Now I know why Ruri is a favorite character. She's cute and a loli, so all the lolicons are in love with her. Plus she seems to be the only INTELLIGENT character in the entire show. In fact, I would say that she is the ONLY redeeming thing this show has going for it.

The story premise is great. The delivery, horrible. Something much more like Kiddy Grade would have been better in my opinion. But then, I dislike shows where the majority of the characters are excessively silly. I will probably sit through a few more episodes (scroll advance wheel ready), to see if it improves any. Comments from people who have watched the entire series are appreciated.

This morning I discovered that one of my favorite image sites, Danbooru, had closed its doors to the public. Oh if you are part of a special group you can get it. Two different reasons for the closure were offered up, and while either (or even both) are usually valid reasons for such actions, the site owner's attitude and handling of the situation leaves a lot to be desired. Here is my take on things:

Reason 1 - Loss of a 75GB/day server: Valid concern. So why didn't he either ask for donations or move to a subscription plan. Perusing the forms revealed that there were a lot who would gladly join some form of subscription system.

Reason 2 - Unwanted images were being uploaded: Image boards and forums do not moderate themselves. To believe otherwise is to live in a fantasy land. Yet that is exactly what Danbooru's owner expected to happen.

Running an image board/database or a forum takes two things, work and money. If you are not willing to accept that, you shouldn't bother with a site on the Internet in the first place. Probably Danbooru's worst failure in my opinion is that you get no warning of what is going on when you visit the site. You are told that you now have to log in to access functions that previously didn't require such, and then you find out that signups are disabled. Also, many people who had logins are finding them not working now. If you want to know why you have to do some serious looking around to get an answer.

I am not saying that Danbooru's owner doesn't have the right to do what he did. But I think that his attitude is a bit much about it. Fortunately, there are other image boards out there. And I don't mind showing my support financially for a good one or two.

I want to wish anyone who reads this journel a Happy Valentine's Day!