The rantings of many.

I got bored and decided to root through the shed for a keyboard with a built-in USB hub that went with an older-model iMac that my grandmother was holding on to for one of my cousins. Well, that cousin was around, so I asked about it.

As a result, I now am the proud owner of a Blueberry iMac 266MHz.

Lo and behold, it's a gem. Jaguar was installed on it and works perfectly, it has half a gig of RAM and a 120GB HDD in the second drive position. I'm going to try to install Tiger on it later.

In keeping with my computer naming scheme, I have christened it "Jirachi".

Well, while I was monitor shopping, I found an old HP Pavilion 6330. Pretty much a doorstop, but they only wanted $10 for it, so I figured, what the hell. At the least, I could strip it for parts.

So, I got home, and I tried to fire it up. Wasn't really surprised when it failed to even boot to BIOS, so I looked at the memory. SDRAM.

A 256MB stick of SDRAM that would fit in deoxys.

So, of course, I stuck it in, and hoped for the best. As a result...

11:23 <+deoxys> Sysinfo: OS: Mac OS X 10.4.9 - CPU: PowerPc 750 @ 399MHz - 
                Video: NEC AccuSync 70 @ 1280x1024 on Rage 128 - Sound: Onboard 
                - Memory: U/T 173MB/640MB - Uptime: 17 mins - HD: deoxys HD 1, 
                U/T: 120GB/128GB - deoxys HD 2, U/T: 70GB/112GB

640MB memory over the 384MB it had before.

Dare I say that I shifted deoxys into Speed Mode? :P

Comics updated:

Replica Saga: Crystalline (just 3 more of those left!)
Decades

News:

Awake Road will begin on 20 May, assuming Claire can get the site up in time.

No wallpaper this month. Soon as a donation redirect is set up, they'll resume. Server costs and other upkeep-related expenses are destroying my finances.

Also, hooray for idiots trying to spam me and such. The forum will go down in a few days for an upgrade and conversion, so hopefully the fly-by-night porn spammers won't be able to get in anymore once that's done, and the place will be safe.

RS:HCO will resume next Tuesday, with more non-mindsafe goodness.

I should be sleeping, but there's three kids in the hhouse today and my maternal instincts are going into a very cruel overdrive. Little help?

Also, my seeding/TV show storage/master comic file drive died a couple of days ago. Luckily, I had backups on deoxys, so none of the comics were lost, meaning one of these days I can redo all of the older comics in the newer style if I ever decide not to be lazy about it or I decide to go to a higher-clarity format. The new drive will be in Monday, but I'm really feeling the hurt until then.

Yes, the horrors of unpacking House episodes one at a time to watch...

Replica Saga: Decades has been updated for 1 April.

(I'll get an RSS feed up soonish if it isn't already...)

Also, I've released April's wallpapers. They're free. Yeah, I know. Some comics use the wallpapers as a way to pull in donations... I'm of the school of thought, however, that if people like what they can get for free, they'll support it more.

Then again, I haven't had a donation since December. Yeah, I think I fail.

Anyway.

As well, I got another monitor today, so deoxys (my Mac) is now back up and running, which is great news. This means that I can use one box for in-general everything while I focus on only a couple of tasks on gardevoir (my Windows machine) - those being seeding torrents with my new 5-meg line as well as working on comics. Yeah, I'd much rather do so on a Mac, but deoxys just doesn't have the power to handle the GIMP. I so need one of the newer Macs...

*dreamily eyes a MacBook Pro and sighs longingly...*

It's also amazing to see just how much my art has progressed. The cover for the current act of Decades was drawn last year, sometime during the middle of the year, even before I drew Decades Prelude #1. In contrast, I recently completed Decades #7, and the improvement is staggering. It's almost insane how much the quality could improve so much in just 8 or 9 months.

By the way... like the new icon? :P

( To save your friendslist view and maybe your sanity. )
First one sounds about right, second one is close. Silver's not quite the power colour for me.

Metalheads are boring.

Even with all the things I hated about the male role, I do miss being able to walk around without a top on. Especially in this humidity.

Also, I've managed to roll out some of the Replica Saga 2.0 updates, mostly banners and such. The rest comes whenever Claire can get around to it.

Well, the Decades relaunch is just 7 days away now, and I've only got two comics left to do for it. That's better than where I was at for the start of the week. Four comics per week will be a challenge, but if I can keep up the same pace in future weeks as I did during this past one, I'll be okay.

The little girl was begging me with her eyes and her screams. I felt nothing but guilt as I stood idly by, as they tortured her some more. To be used for nothing more than torture at such a young age... it was a heartbreaking sight, as much so as the feeling of helplessness washing over me. Even though it was me within that cage, I could not lift a finger to assist.

Then I awoke. The little girl would have to remain inside of her cage for another day as I tried to avoid the wrath of the parental unit. I do not think of him as my father, even though I share genetic material with him. No father would treat his daughter this way, but he doesn't see that. He was blind in his desire for a son - so much so, that he would sacrifice me to feed his male ego. Some fathers desire a son more because they have more to offer to one. My father almost needed to have another son, since his first was taken away by his ex when they broke up.

The dream first occurred when I was 6 years of age, and continues even today, even as I am free from his influence and am able to shape myself in the way I choose to. The damage has been done, and was severe. My personality was irrevocably altered through those hard years. My body is damaged as well. The scars will fade, but will never go away. My physical development will always be behind that of other women. My self-esteem is practically nonexistant. Despite no longer having to fear his wrath each day, I instead have society's to fear. I am not understood. I am not tolerated. I am different. I am threatened, simply for being me.

Even as I move on, I am still the little girl in the cage, and I have to hear her anguished screams every night. And after all this time, I still cannot help her. I still cannot help myself.

My creative motivation is pretty much dead at the moment. I can't even get an idea to form in my mind, to start with.

My shoulder is also hurting nearly nonstop. I've reconfigured my workstation, but it hasn't helped.

Meh...

I've been waffling on a specific date to restart Decades, but now I've decided.

It will resume on 31 March 2007.

The first update will be the cover art for the first arc of the story. Every day after that for a week, there will be daily updates. After that, it'll slip into its normal Saturday update cycle. $deity willing.

Well, today's another month.

I went and bought some badly needed food and a TV table. The table, hopefully that will give me a semi-stable surface to draw on, for when I resume the webcomic.

I'm still baffled by the car, but at least I found a reason for the water leak - a bad radiator cap. I'm wondering if it could be throwing coolant into the carbeurator somehow. Maybe that's what's causing it to stall after shifting into third gear. I really need it running - aside from childmode, it's one of the few stress breaks I have.

Got to get my taxes taken care of this month - donations have been nonexistent, so that refund will really help matters. Who knows, I might actually have money for food all month, instead of only for the first two weeks.

I've got to order my meds as well. I can't keep putting it off. I think I'll get that done tonight. I have to get the cable and phone paid tomorrow... meh. I hate being poor.

Aside from Net postings, I've gone the last 27.5 hours consecutive (aside from a shower and dinner) in childmode.

I've noticed a few fundamental differences.

* I seem to be a lot more affectionate in this state.
* I seemed to wake up better rested than usual.
* I smoke a ton less due to having other options for the oral fixation aspect.
* I eat less.
* I'm a lot more relaxed than usual.

There's a drawback or too, though.

* I'm non-verbal at all times.
* I'm more prone to feel heightened fear.
* I'm more easily upset.

If I can figure out how to incorporate the positives into normal life, I might have something.

Anyway, time to stop thinking with the logical brain. I'm trying to relax here...

Complete and utter bliss. That's what I'm feeling right now. I'm seeing with a child's eyes again. I almost feel like a different person right now.

It's about time I felt better. I'm owed that, after all.

Self-discovery can be an agonizing process, but sometimes, there's some interesting surprises as well. Take my fear of telephones. For some reason, it seems to evaporate when I'm... well... when I'm being little.

If I could speak while I was doing so, I'd probably have it made. I guess that'd be too easy... :P

...I realize now that while I might have grown older, grown wiser, grown slightly more mature, that I never actually got the chance to properly grow up.

...Maybe this is the reason why I'm more comfortable on a day-to-day basis in such a young mindset. I dunno. What I know is that I can't play the role of the mature adult for much longer without emotionally crippling myself beyond any hope for recovery.

...I have to hurry.

Well... one day so far. The wounds are beginning to heal.

As the slow process of exploration continues, I'm finding out some more about myself that I'm not sure I want to know, but I have to.

(the rest will be in a later post on the "kink" filter...)

I'm not going to be able to quit, am I? I just cut again, less times, but deeper than last night. It didn't even hurt, there was no pain. Am I still alive if I can't even feel physical pain? I've been contemplating ending it all night. I can't sleep. I've gone through a whole pack of cigs in the last 12 hours.

What do I do? I've fucked up... I can't go inpatient down here, but what kind of options are left? I'm so scared...