Prepare yourself furries, I'm coming.

It is time.... 8|

I'll be leaving Wednesday night to spend the night at James's house so we can leave first thing in the morning (8 AM). We should get there sometime after noon. Things to do before then:

-Make a few pizzas for everyone.(DONE)
-Finish my conbadge and print it out. (DONE)
-Get some MREs. (DONE)
-Withdraw enough cash for hotel, registration and a few spending bucks.(DONE)
-Pack. (DONE)

People who are in my AC group, or people who want to meet up with me, please email me your phone number at cypherwulfATyahooDOTcom if you haven't already.

( Some angry rambling, and a bit of otherkin stuff. Cut for emo. )

Alright so last night I was lying in bed and thinking excitedly about July. I got to thinking about all the fun adventures I'd get into in that dead zone between conventions, but then I hit a wall. Hmm...there must be cool stuff to do, why can I not think of anything? A few minutes later it hit me...Pittsburgh, aka "No fun city". WHAT THE HELL IS A HOMELESS PERSON GOING TO DO IN NO FUN CITY FOR TWO WEEKS?!!

8(

Yes, this is the FIRST TIME, since I came up with the idea over a month ago, that I have thought about what I was going to do while bumming around Pissburgh. In case you haven't noticed, I sort of come up with random ideas, and go with them without thinking and hope they work for the best. :D

So...change of plans...

Arocoun, if this is alright with you, here is what we can do instead:

-I will go up to AC with James and have fun as usual with TEAM EATS PEOPLE!.
-Arocoun, if you still choose to tag along for this part of the adventure, you are welcome to come back to MD with James and I after AC and sleep in our dining room for two weeks as my guest.
-Then when CI comes around, we can take a greyhound up there. I think it's only 20 bucks if you buy tickets in advance. I'm sure even you can make that money, you smelly homeless bum.
-If you decide to just stay in Illinois and not come to AC, then I will see you at CI!

If you read any of these articles, make it this one. Arocoun linked me to it from my post about elephants, and it really supports my hypothesis that there is a shift occurring in the way animals interact with us. It also provides some facinating evidence for animal empathy, something that people long considered the sole realm of humanity. I hope that as science admits more and more to the mental capabilities of animals, humans will stop exploiting them and begin to see them as equals. It is plain to see that the real "beasts" on this planet are not the non-human animals, who have been incredibly lenient and patient with us until now.

This is silly, but the idea might have some merit if done right. I at least appreciate that architects are thinking about animals. What I would PREFER to see is people choosing a plant-based diet so we don't encroach on animal habitat as much with our eating habits, and for people to live consolidated in efficient green cities.

This article brings up some questions, and I would like input from more informed people out there. For starters, didn't a fair amount of prehistoric animals become extinct because we competed with them or overhunted them? I wonder if this article is understating our hunter-gatherer roots. I can definitely see us being herbivores pre-tool use though, absolutely. Though, not to say we wouldn't consume small amounts of meat, for even deer are known to kill and eat small ground birds and mice during the winter in times of scarcity. (Yes, it's probably weird that an abolitionist vegan is debating against the idea of herbivorous humans, but I'd rather be accurate in my cause than simply have more arguments. I have more than enough solid arguments in my favor, they just tend not to win out against "Mmmm steak" :P)

In human news, I'm keeping up with what's going on in Iran right now. It's encouraging to watch them take a stand and fight back. I only wish I could help the Iranian people in some way :/.


I've been listening to the Crono Cross soundtrack a lot. It makes me feel sort of melancholy, like a lot of RPGs do, like I'm not living up to my potential. I wish I had the power to change the world with a team of passionate, strong friends. I want to wander around the globe, saving people and animals, having adventures, fighting bad guys. Too bad I'd probably end up in prison or something, and I'd have to enact the prison break scene near the beginning of Crono Trigger :P

Scientists claim fish "learn like humans"

I was reading about elephants last night, particularly human oppression and murder of their kind, and I found this interesting:

Despite its popularity in zoos, and cuddly portrayal as gentle giants in fiction, elephants are among the world's most potentially dangerous animals. They can crush and kill any other land animal, even the rhinoceros. They can experience unexpected bouts of rage, and can be vindictive.[69] In Africa, groups of young teenage elephants attack human villages in what is thought to be revenge for the destruction of their society by massive cullings done in the 1970s and 80s.[70][71] In India, male elephants attack villages at night, destroying homes and killing people regularly. In the Indian state of Jharkhand, 300 people were killed by elephants between 2000 and 2004, and in Assam, 239 people have been killed by elephants since 2001.[69] In India, elephants kill up to 200 humans every year, and in Sri Lanka around 50 per year.

What was surprising wasn't their ability to be vindictive; even animals that we consider "lesser", like cows, are capable of bearing grudges. Nor was it a surprise to read about rogue teenage elephants forming violent gangs in Africa; we can observe similar behavior in human teenagers that grow up in broken homes without strong parental guidance. What did surprise me is the scale and even the coordination of these attacks. It is not just one elephant demographic lashing out at humans for the destruction of their culture and history; all wild elephants have a very real sense that humans are not a mere threat to them individually, as lions are, but that humans are a danger to all elephant-kind, and that in their own calculated, elephant way, they are at war with us.

[69] http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/animal-behaviour-rogue-elephants-419678.html
[70] http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/08/magazine/08elephant.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print
[71] http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2006/02/16/1140064206413.html

"Best Worst Movie" is premiering Friday night in Silver Spring. The Friday showing will be followed by a screening of "Troll 2". Text alone can't properly express how FUCKING EXCITED I AM ABOUT THIS. *hyperventilates* 8( Eeeehhh.....gurgle...

So...any bad movie fans want to join me? Tickets are 10 bucks each.

EDIT: Sold out already. Damn :(