So I play this silly Dragon Cave game online, where you collect and breed dragons. And in the forum for the site, people come up with all kinds of topics to discuss. The latest one, that really blew my mind, was about whether or not it bothers you to inbreed your dragons, and whether you’ll keep a dragon that someone else bred if it’s inbred. What stunned me was how many people were completely and militantly against it.

There isn’t any kind of “genetic coding” in the game, for crying out loud. The only coding of any kind in the breeding is that the offspring will always be the color of one of its parents, and “rare” types won’t breed together. Everything else (gender, for instance) is totally random, except in the 2 colors of dragons that are always female (pink & purple, in case anyone wondered).

And these are imaginary pixel pets! Not real animals. Not people. Just drawings, for crying out loud. But more than one person in that forum thread seemed offended and disgusted that people would even dream of inbreeding their dragons. One person went so far as to say that morals have to be absolute, and that you should never do anything online or in a game that you wouldn’t do in real life, and that if they had their way it would be impossible to inbreed the dragons on that site. WTF?!

The whole POINT of imagination, near as I can tell, is to try out things you would never do in real life, and to enjoy a bit of escapism. I mean, I’ve killed about a bazillion things in Diablo II and other computer games, but in real life I’ve never deliberately killed anything higher on the food chain than a hamster (which was dying from poison, so I put it out of its misery as fast & humanely as possible).

The kind of people who would ban inbreeding imaginary dragons are the kind of people who creep me out. Because they’re the kind of people who would legislate thought as well as action, and that’s Just Not Okay.

The World’s Best Ex (and next-door neighbor!) sent me a comic strip that made me smile broadly and remember why I love him. How much does that rock, that an EX took the time & effort to make me smile?!

On my way home from work, I saw a new VW Beetle with a vanity plate that read: 1701-G. Okay, fanboy, thanks for clueing me in that you’re a raging Trek geek. And I thought *I* was bad, back in the day, when I went to Trek conventions (never you mind how many) and owned ridiculous amounts of books & memorabilia and even had a PHONE in the shape of the original 1701 that sounded the red alert klaxon instead of ringing. (And that was damned funny, when people were at my house who hadn’t heard it before, watching them jump in alarm when the phone rang! Wish I’d kept that phone…sure, they sell them on eBay for $20 and up, but it would only have been cool to have it now if I’d kept the one I had back then.)

Also on my way home, I had a few thoughts about people who apparently believe that “pro-choice” means that any choice they make is okay. I have a few bits of advice:

1. If your enviro-destructo SUV is too wide to drive up the narrow lanes of SE Division or Hawthorne, DON’T DRIVE ON THOSE STREETS.
2. If your person-powered vehicle cannot even average HALF of the traffic speed (which is a bit UNDER the posted speed limit of 25mph), DON’T DRIVE ON THAT STREET.
3. NEVER TURN LEFT ON SE DIVISION. If you do, you’re not only an asshole but endangering everyone else in your vehicle and on the road, and probably criminally insane.
4. Parking with 2 wheels on the sidewalk, in a no-parking zone, and then sprinting your fat saggy-panted self across the busy street between moving cars is not only illegal but PHENOMENALLY STUPID. And should be punishable by at least a few stinging slaps to the face, if not actual whippings.

I know there was more I wanted to add, but just now I’m too tired to think of it. Basically what it all boils down to is: there are WAY too many choices toward attitudes of entitlement in this society. I mean that people feel entitled to drive their car halfway into the lane already (safely & legally) occupied by another vehicle because of their choice to drive a gigantic SUV down a street with narrow lanes, and they feel entitled to hold up traffic for several blocks because of their choice to ride a much-slower bicycle in automobile traffic, and they feel entitled to break “little” laws because of their choice to make their life more convenient at the expense of others’ convenience or even safety.

I’m going to keep on doing my best to make choices that are responsible, considerate, and SANE. One of those choices, at some point very soon after the demonspawn graduates high school, will include moving out of the city, to a place where others’ choices have much less of a daily negative impact on my life. Until then, I suspect my cuss-word vocabulary will become quite extensive.

Taking a quick break from raising dragons to blog. I caught the last 15 minutes of the POTUS debate (it’s going to air again out here on the West Coast in a bit, so I may watch the earlier part), and one thing I simply cannot understand: if Obama supporters believe so passionately and with such certainty that he’s going to win, why do they get so darn worked up over McCain? And anyway, the overall feeling I’ve gotten about the elections is that most of us who make well under $35K a year (who aren’t in the military, or trying to find a job with a liberal arts degree, anyway) don’t believe for a New York minute that whoever wins the election will really affect us anyway.

Work today was bad and good. And now for something completely TMI…

Can you solve this puzzle?

You are riding on a beautiful white horse.
On your left side is a drop off.
On your right side are several ostriches being chased by a lion.
In front of you are four large gazelles that won’t get out of your way and you can’t seem to overtake them.
Behind you is a stampede of horses.
What must you do to get out of this highly dangerous situation?!

To see the answer, click:
And now for something completely TMI…

My “baby” turns 16 today. She’s not having the best week, but hopefully the presents and love from her family and friends will brighten her day a bit.

And now for something completely TMI…

Geoffrey is enjoying his stay in Costa Rica tremendously! He discovered the hotel they (he and his mom) are staying at has complimentary Internet access, so he’s written me 2 emails since he arrived there late Friday. Some of the excerpts from Sunday’s email:

I am on the Caribbean coast right now. I´ve seen more wildlife than you could shake a stick at, and a good chunk of them are lizards. The house geckos here are so terribly cute, I wish we had them in our house. And just to set your mind at rest, no, I have not yet managed to track down the poisonous snakes. Tomorrow, I will be getting up at about four thirty am (3:30 your time) to hopefully see baby green turtles make their run to the ocean. It sounds pretty brutal, but the howler monkeys do their thing at about that time anyway, so waking at that ungodly hour is not as difficult as you would expect back home.

All I can say is: howler monkeys. Howler fraking monkeys.

The email he sent about his adventures today was pretty neat, too. Here’s some of it:

I am currently up in the cloud forest which means lots of fog and relatively cooler temperature. It’s almost like I’m used to in the Pacific Northwest since we have our own type of rainforest, however, Costa Rica was quick to show me how tropical it truly is here. The drive up we disturbed a fairly large spiny-tailed iguana who was basking on the roadway. And then as we were getting settled into our room, I spotted a small family of white face monkeys and flock of mealy parrots. I am totally getting my biology geek groove on…I will treasure the memory of sitting at the bar looking out over the darkening river and having an American crocodile slowly swimming by about three yards away from where I was sitting.

Crocodiles! And howler fraking monkeys, I say! *twitch, twitch*

…boarded another boat for the ride to the Baro Colorado airstrip about twenty kilometers away, give or take a few due to the twisty nature of the river. We did get to see a variety of toucan we hadn’t gotten to yet on the way. The airstrip was about what you might expect, a single stretch of pavement cut out of the vegetation with a few houses and buildings nearby. We watched another plane leave and I harassed a small little lizard for a few minutes while we waited for our plane to arrive. It was even smaller than the one we saw leave ahead of us. I’ll have to show you the picture when I get home. My mother rode in the rear section, but I was given the opportunity to sit in the co-pilot seat. Like hell was I going to miss out on that. So not only did I get to wear a four-point restraint, but I had a flight stick and pedals right in front of me. The flight was awesome! Take-off is totally wild when you’re only a couple feet off the ground and can see the trees rapidly approaching through the windscreen and prop.

At that, I had to stop and throttle down my over-active imagination, because that sort of description usually ends in my mind’s eye with fiery crashes and a smear of red on the rainforest floor. *shudder*

Friday night can’t come soon enough for me, so I can have my beloved back in my arms. Minus howler monkeys.

I made the mistake of reading the news today. Since Governor Palin announced that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant, it seems that everyone wants to use that news to promote their own agenda. The only non-hypocritical views I’ve seen have been from conservative commentators. LawDog had some terrific words of wisdom to offer (and some really interesting info, to boot), and I agree with his view on this topic.

As for what people are saying about Governor Palin choosing to run for high office while also having the responsibilities of being the mother of 5 (including an infant with Down’s Syndrome), or about her daughter’s pregnancy, IT IS NONE OF THEIR BUSINESS. And everyone should SHUT THE HELL UP.

Those who call themselves “pro-choice” need to keep in mind that choice doesn’t end when a pregnancy does (whether through abortion or birth). The non-abusive choices involved in parenting a child — whether the parent involved is Sarah Palin, or Bristol Palin, or me, or anybody else — are NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.

Don’t like abortion? Fine, don’t have one. Don’t like someone’s parenting choices? Fine, make different ones with your own kids. But before you make a proclamation of right or wrong on another’s parental decisions, you’d better have a pretty impressive set of credentials to base that upon. And last time I checked, nobody was a perfect parent.

Just finished the first non-solitary ritual I’ve done in over a year — well, except for hand-fastings, the first non-solitary ritual I’ve done in a lot of years — and the very first time I’ve done a hand-parting. It was powerful; I think it went stunningly well. Dark-moon ritual likes me entirely too much.

Now thoroughly awake when I should be exhausted, especially after the criminally-busy day I had at work (which included somehow managing to pull a few muscles in my shoulder / upper arm, which hurt atrociously all day but felt tons better as soon as I cast Circle…which is weird even for me).

Time to center & ground, and hopefully sleep like a rock.

It’s been quite a while since I’ve blogged about something other than being sick. It must be update time.

(I am still sick. Still coughing. It still sucks. Yadda yadda.)

Geoffrey bought himself a new toy (the black model, of course). He’s considerably more bouncy & cheerful than he’s been in ages. On the one hand, I’m thrilled for him — it makes me all melty when he’s giddy. On the other hand, my bike is not running right now (the kick-start fell off somewhere on my way home from work one day, and then the battery charger stopped working, so I can’t turn the blasted thing on until I get those items replaced), so I’m irked that I can’t ride mine.

And now for something completely TMI…

I’m not over my illness yet, although this morning I woke up and felt noticeably better than yesterday. And by “noticeably better” I mean that I no longer have to take my codeine cough syrup during the day in order to avoid those coughing fits that take over my whole body like some kind of hellish demon possession. It’s a good thing, too, because I only have about 2 doses left of the stuff.

I am, however, still taking Robitussin around the clock, and sucking on Ricola cough drops nearly every waking moment. Good thing they come 24 to a bag and are only about $1.25 a bag, since I’ve spent about $10 on them this past week. I don’t even want to think about how much I’ve spent on the rest of my non-prescription medications.

I do think there’s been a pattern to my slow-but-sure recovery. Besides the joys of medication, here are the key ingredients that I believe have helped significantly:

• Taco Bell — when I’m sick and nothing tastes good, I will lose my appetite entirely and basically forget to eat. And not eating is bad when you’re sick and your poor overworked immune system has no fuel to kick the crap out of what’s making you sick. Only 2 things have tasted good to me at ALL recently, which is why I’ve had Taco Bell for dinner the last 4 nights running. (Hey, tacos have veggies! That’s healthy, right?)
• Ice cream — that would be the only other thing that’s tasted good to me lately. Specifically, the original Moose Tracks kind. I’ve had most of a half-gallon in the last 4 days (lots of calcium!). And still managed to lose weight, because the only other thing I’ve been eating is those Lean Cuisine microwave meals (for my lunches). They aren’t exactly tasty, but I choke them down because it would have been stupid to drive to Taco Bell more than once a day.
• Emergen-C — it tastes like crap, but it still tastes WAY better than that Airborne garbage. And I do think it works better (which is to say that I’ve never noticed Airborne working at all). In any case, I’ve felt better when I had 2 or 3 glasses a day of Emergen-C.
• Neti pot — I have no idea if it’s helped the actual sickness, but it sure is nice to be able to breathe more easily for at least for the hour or so after I use it (twice a day).
• Steamy showers — I have to be careful with these, since for some weird reason, if I breathe too much hot & humid air, I tend to get dizzy to the point of passing out (whether I’m sick or not). But I can manage about 15-20 minutes, which does tend to help the congestion.
• Sympathy — while not actually a physical help to my sickness, having Geoffrey make sympathetic noises about how sick I am (such as admonishing me not to die during my horrific coughing fits), means that my misery is noticed, and THAT accomplishes two important things: a) I feel better emotionally in that I may be alone in my physical discomfort but he’s doing everything he can to help me feel better, and b) I whine a lot less about how sick I am, which reduces the aggravation of those around me.
• Reading — again, not a physical help to sickness, but if you get involved enough in what you’re reading, you can at least forget about your physical miseries for a while. I’ve gone through the entire 7-book Incarnations of Immortality by Piers Anthony in the last 5 days. I highly recommend reading the Author’s Notes, which are sometimes a smidgen more interesting than the actual stories.

This week may suck extra-much, despite being halfway to recovered (I’m still coughing & sniffling, mind you!), because I have to go up to Pill Hill for work this week. Grrrr.