Life. Do not talk to me about life.

Rambling pointless blog posts seem to work for Sasuke, so I'm giving them a shot.

Right now I'm just sitting at my desk, supposed to get up for work in like 3 hours. I really can't sleep. I don't know what it is, whether it's the waking up at 2 in the afternoon lately, or the worries about money. Razhindar doesn't seem to understand that I can't afford this place by myself, and that I'm going to run out of stuff to sell sooner or later. He seems to think that I have a magical money tree in the back yard and I can just will a couple of hundred dollars into existence at any given time.

Case in point, just now I went out to try and talk to him to see if maybe, possibly, maybe he could see about finding a fucking job.

I walk out. He takes his headphones off. "I can't sleep." He puts his headphones back on. "...there was follow-up to that..."

"Huh?" without taking his headphones off was his reply.

"There was follow up to that."

He takes his headphones off again. "I'm worried about money."

"What's there to worry about? The rent's paid."

"Next month's rent, gas, food, those kind of things."

His reply? Putting his headphones back fucking on. THANKS, DRAGON. I LOVE YOU TOO.

I really don't know what to do. He seems content to live a life of charity, and just sleep on my sofa... Oh wait, this is what -I- used to do, back when I was his age. Damn it. And I'm too nice to just chuck him out the front door, like the people I lived with back when I was his age. Double damn it.

I need suggestions on how to motivate a lazy dragon.

Inconvenience with Indrora, redux.

So, Indrora has reappeared on the Internet.

"But iK," I hear you scream. "Why isn't this joyous news? Why aren't you out cavorting and celebrating?"

Simply put, I think his parents got the hell to him, and/or he's decided to show his true colours.

His first post on Twitter upon his return was this:
"Hey kids, @theiKitsune is a jackass. No really. Details to follow but TL;DR: "Google 'DiveFox'""

Well, fuck you then. Several back and forth DMs later, it's revealed that he expected me to go crashing through his front door to rescue him, his knight in shining armor.

WHAT THE FUCK, INDRY?! I'm not a kyke, you know I'm not made of money. Especially after I had to pay an attorney to deal with the idiot attorney your parents sent after me. That cost close to $1500. Wanna see the bills?

As it stands, he -claims- to be dating my ex-pet Norby, but I don't buy it; I believe it to be a facetious claim made to angry up my blood.

Now, briefly, a word about relationships surrounding me. I'm polyamorous, if you don't like it you can suck on a soccer ball. Indrora was a member of my poly family, hereafter referred to as a pack. When he vanished, I basically turned my back on the rest of the pack and concentrated on trying to recover him. Ask @Anwynfox or @Rainmunin on Twitter, they'll tell you I got pretty distant and almost destroyed my life to get out to NM and get him, in fact even making an attempt in January that was thwarted by officers from the Bernalillo County Sheriff's Office. That fucking stupid stunt cost me Anwyn, too, she dumped me like a sack of doorknobs after she found out I blew close to a grand driving out to the middle of the desert, but couldn't even drive 6 hours to see her.

Despite ignoring him in favor of Indrora, Rain surprised me. He's actually called Indrora out on his bullshit publicly, despite knowing that recovering Indrora would mean less time with me.

So, I've come to a decision.

Fuck Indrora.

If he wants to troll me, and rile me up, forget it. I've never felt like I've wasted my time with a mate before, but I guess there's a first time for every-fucking-thing!

As far as I'm concerned right now, my only mate is Rain, and for once I'm happy about that. Additionally, if you folks in the 'murr-munity' expect me to be evil, and there's no way I can redeem myself and prove I'm /not/, then fuck it. I'm going to turn into a vulpine Alex DeLarge. I don't want to have to do that, I just want to be me and left alone with my mate and pets.

Comments on this topic are welcome on my Twitter, @theiKitsune.

-iK(DF) out.

Arch Linux: My impressions.

OK, lately I've been blagging on Twitter, but I decided I needed a proper long-form rant about this fucking shit.

I recently finished repairing one of my projects that had been on hold since roughly the dawn of man. It's a PICMG all in one, with a big ol pretty LCD on the front, that never fucking booted. I was bored and had my solderin' iron out earlier, and decided to see what new capacitors would do to this thing.

Fix it up, throw some RAM on, and apply power...

... ... ... ... *beep!*

I love the sound of an Award BIOS starting POST.

So I get it all fixed up, and after about half an hour of trying to reconfigure the LCD (which I finally got working, at long-ass last!), I'm ready to install an OS.

"But iKitsune!", you cry. "What OS are you going to install?!"

Since my (still MIA) mate Indrora and my friend Miff both use Arch, I wanted to give it a shot. I didn't even get as far as downloading the fucking ISO.

I decided to look at the Arch wiki before downloading, starting with the section "Arch Linux - Beginner's Guide". I figured that I've installed Debian 700,000,000 times over the years, Arch's installer should be a snap, but I'd take a look at an overview of the installation process.

Apparently the installer just installs the bare, core minimum of the OS and then dumps you into a script that kindasorta lets you bumble through installing everything. They say it's "The Arch Way".

FUCK THAT.

I'm reading on about -why- they inflict this braindeadery upon you, and they say it "makes you feel more in control of your system".

AGAIN, FUCK THAT.

Arch also says this in their comparison to Debian on their wiki:

"Debian has a more vehement stance on free software. Arch is more lenient when it comes to 'non-free' packages as defined by GNU."

Heh.

Personally, I like debian-installer. Yes, it's still not finished after development was started in 66 million BC by Barney Rubble on a computer that had a bird with a chisel in it, but that's part of its charm. Additionally, d-i lets you have just as much control over your install as Arch, but doesn't just drop you off in the middle of a cornfield and tell you to walk to town unless you tell it to.

I'm still going to give Arch a shot, but /damn/. TBH, I'm probably going to end up with Debian sid on this computer.

The Inconvenience with Indrora.

Good afternoon.

Usually my blog posts take a light-hearted turn, but this is no joking or fun matter to me. If you cannot handle Serious iKitsune, please do not read this post.

My mate, Indrora, is in what amounts to serious danger.

He had planned to fly out to be with me on January 1st, as a symbolic start of a new 2011, and our new life together. He's 19, and resides with his parents in New Mexico. In early December, I purchased a round-trip ticket on American Airlines for him, departing 1 January and returning 14 January, in case he decided he did not like it here. I told him to inform his parents as early as possible, and as gently as possible so that they could talk things out. From what I understood, his family life had been rocky, at best.

Things fell the hell apart the week of Christmas. Apparently a discussion was raised during their "family togetherness time" (forgive me, I forget the exact words his mother used on the telephone) to thank him for not leaving to pursue his hedonistic ways. He told them, in his words, "Cool story, bro, but I'm still out of here." At this point I overnighted him an extra cell phone in case his parents took the one they had provided him away.

His parents tried to scare him, first by digging up an abandoned MySpace profile of someone who has a similar RL name to me, and then by digging up drama related to my furry past which he was already privy to.

A word about my furry drama. Say exactly all you like, many furries tend to be butthurt crowdsurfing whiners. I may have made some mistakes in my past, yes, but that does not define me, and is not who I am. I, for the most part, try to make the right decisions, but sometimes those may not be the best ones in the given situation.

On December 26, I called and spoke to Indrora's mother. She is a very xenophobic individual, who claims to be an ex-Marine skilled in Ju-jitsu. I seriously wish I had recorded this telephone call. She claimed that Indrora is mentally handicapped, and can't survive without his family and caretakers. "He doesn't even take the dishes off his desk for 3 or 4 days, how would you stand having that in your house?" I responded that it sounds normal for a 19 year old with an interest in programming to be a bit of a bum. "MORGAN ISN'T NORMAL!" she shrieked. "HE IS A DISABLED CHILD, AND YOU ARE TRYING TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF HIM!" Thankfully, she hung up at this point.

My last actual contact with Indrora was on December 28th, via a SMS from the phone I had sent him. It read: "Im calling 911". No context was provided, nor was I able to get ahold of him after this.

Roughly two days later, I received a telephone call from an attorney representing Indrora's family. She was sent to bully me into not contacting Indrora any more. Her line was "You and I both know that Morgan is incapable of taking care of himself in the real world, and needs the support structure of his family, possibly for the rest of his life." I told her I would have to speak to counsel before I entered into any agreements, but she pressed the issue. I terminated the call, and she proceeded to email me, stating we had come to an agreement that I be reimbursed for the plane ticket and my cell phone, and I would never contact Indrora again. My ass!

I called the attorney back later that day to express that I did not agree with the mail she had sent me, and she replied "It's not going to be that big a deal anyhow, Morgan is being evaluated by a psychiatrist, and once we get that, I've already got a judge willing to sign an injunction to prevent a dangerous internet predator from contacting Morgan." She terminated the call at this point. I am still attempting to locate an attorney with experience in New Mexico family law, as my usual attorney is not familiar with NM law.

Over the last couple weeks, people have been signing into Indrora's email, as evidenced by the Single Female Lawyer sending me a threatening email over contacting Morgan as "LantherZero", who is in fact another user of #linuxfurs on Anthrochat, and a friend of Indrora. She sent a very oddly worded email. I'm excerpting it below.

In my investigation of this case, I have run into many people who seem
to believe that, because Morgan is 19, state and federal law
automatically validate his "consent" to a sexual relationship. This is
simply not true. Morgan has a mental condition which prevents him from
understanding the consequences of many sexual acts. He is explicitly
protected by 1978 NMSA 30-9-10(A)(4). Of course, the family is
powerless to initiate criminal charges and has no intention asking
that William Shaw be charged with attempted criminal sexual
penetration. However, there are civil injunctive remedies available to
help my clients fulfill their legal responsibility to protect Morgan.

She's blowing bullshit, but at this point I think I might need to go to court to actually guarantee Indrora's freedom. I hope someone with any advice reads this, I'm at a loss.

I love you, Indrora, and I will never give up, unless you tell me to yourself.

AT&T possible resolution

I was contacted by AT&T executive customer relations.

The representative has actually done something - gotten me a non-HTC device to see if it's a problem caused by "a known issue with HTC radios".

SOB, with the Microcell off, I actually get a couple of bars in the kitchen. I could walk around and make a telephone call.

With the Microcell on it's perfect.

Now all I need is to get the other line upgraded to a non-HTC device. I've got a Sony Ericsson device now, I'm considering a Samsung for the second phone.

And to Karen at AT&T Executive customer relations: thank you.

Guess I blew off my updates!

My AT&T saga gets deeper.

A coworker, who lives upstairs from me, got a free microcell letter like everyone's been talking about. He was honestly surprised to have gotten it, as apparently being a floor up makes a difference between night and day here for AT&T reception.

I was preparing to call AT&T to ask, politely, what the hell was up with that, when Tiffany called me back.

Long story short, she just restated everything she'd told me last time we talked.

After being polite for about ten minutes, I asked to speak to her supervisor.

This is when shit got weird.

I asked him about the letters. He said he was aware they were being sent out.

I asked him why my co-worker, as well as my supervisor, had both gotten the letters, which state that they're "VIP" AT&T customers, despite neither of them having been with AT&T for more than 6 months, and I've been with them for many years, and stuck with them despite 4 months of signal problems.

"Well, AT&T... I wouldn't say randomly selects people to offer the Microcell to for free, but they do select customers based on predicted need for it, as well as value as a customer."

I asked him why my supervisor is more valuable a customer than I am.

"I can't go into detail on why they were selected over you," was his answer.

I asked him why my coworker was selected, since he has never had a signal problem period.

"I can't go into detail on why he was selected over you," was his reply again.

I asked him if AT&T valued my business.

"Well, I wouldn't say that... but... we'd hate to lose you as a customer."

I informed him that when my contract was up, I intended not to renew, and that I wasn't going to be able to recommend AT&T to my friends, customers, or co-workers any more.

All he replied with was "I'm sorry to hear that."

I asked him how we could fix this situation, so that I went away and kept paying my $160-ish a month bill.

"I can't think of anything that I can offer you."

"I've been quoted an upgrade price of $149 for a handset to replace the one I have on my account that can't talk to the 3G Microcell. Can we arrange even a partial credit toward that, since it's the same price as the Microcell, and Tiffany informed me that no one is able to make deals on the Microcell."

"I'm not prepared to do that."

Am I being unreasonable? Am I being selfish? All I want is for service I pay for to work, and to not have to pay $150 for the Microcell, $150 for a new phone that I don't really want, or $400-ish for a decent handset?

T-Mobile is certainly sounding like a great option right now.

Blown off by AT&T - again

So OK, when the retentions lady I talked to on Saturday said she'd arranged a callback for today, I believed her.

Stupid me.

And the Microcell doesn't work quite right.

Updates again tomorrow.