Luka's Adventures in Laundry and Dog Torture

Poor doggy. It's shocky-collar retraining time, and that is not a good time to be a Captain.

The last time I made him wear the collar was in the fall because I noticed him starting to dare the borders of the kitchen and found a few scattered wrappers around the trash can after leaving him alone. After that, the UFO unit that sends the signal to beep the collar stopped working properly.

He's been getting more and more bold regarding the no-fly zone for about a month, and today he got into the kitchen and cleaned out the cat food twice. That was that--I took the UFO apart with a screwdriver and messed with the connections until I got it to work again. He heard the faint test-beeps from out in the hallway, and I could hear him bolting for the stairs. So much for the element of surprise.

Unfortunately, dogs are fairly skilled at pattern recognition, so he has figured out that the collar is involved with the terrible torment that befalls him when he trespasses. It takes a while to de-condition himself, but I don't want him to figure out that taking the collar off means party time. Two ways around this: make sure there is a beep of punishment when he's not wearing the collar at certain points, and leave the collar on but turn off the power so that it doesn't warn him. Either way he'll stop associating the beep with the collar, resulting in a win condition for me.

The prongs shouldn't be in constant contact with his skin because it could cause pressure sores, so to take the latter approach I'll need to wrap the collar with something soft and comfortable. The former approach will require me to catch him in the act while I'm holding the collar (or a tape player with the collar noise recorded onto it).

In the end, it's worth it. The kitchen border keeps Maya-cat safe in her basement domain (she is bitterly racist against all Captain-dogs) and the Captain can't choke on anything he scavenges from the counters or the trash with his ever-so-industrious nose for mischief.

It's a work in progress, this cohabitation with other life forms. At least he's being really nice to Molly-cat. She has no fear of him whatsoever. I've seen her taunt the poor fellow into a barking frenzy from her comfy perch just over the blue do-not-cross line. Today I was petting her with one hand and feeding the Captain snacks with the other, and she was actually purring in between those tiny little grunts that mean Molly is being shown affection. Strange girl, that one.

In non-dog news, the dryer was not working the other day, so I had three loads of wet laundry to deal with. I found a roll of twine and made a quickie clothesline all over the basement by crisscrossing all the support beams. The towels ended up really stiff and still had pet hair on them, but my clothes are plenty soft enough to wear and hanging it all up wasn't all that difficult. I decided to try and make a habit of it.

So I bought 60 feet of clothesline for $2 at Walgreens, cut it into several lengths, and did the thing properly. On laundry day it's going to be like hiking through the jungle down there, only instead of bats and biter-snakes, you'll get attacked by soggy skivvies. The basement is so arid that things dry fast. I'll still need to tumble the towels a bit to remove the pet hair and soften them up a bit, but that's no problem.

(Blame Netflix for sending me An Inconvenient Truth when I was feeling particularly hippy-minded. I couldn't even finish it so I just swore to be less wasteful and sent the DVD back.)

Last thing I'll need to do is make sure I strung the lines high enough to avoid beheading anyone in the dark. Seebs is the tallest one here so I'll test it out on him first.

Chore Wars

Fuck yeah, my Chore Wars ranger hit Level 2.

This website is the absolute best thing ever. I had planned to make up something like this, an RPG-style planner website where you frame your to-do list as a series of quests, and gain exp for doing chores. Turns out somebody else has done it already, and way better than I would have managed.

Rah, Jesse and I formed a party yesterday and created about 20 different custom adventures. They cover everything from changing the litter box to updating Kagerou. We also plugged in a ton of zany shit as items you can win for clearing the adventure. I got a puppy, an empty condom box and 225 gold pieces for two days' worth of work. Rich beyond the dreams of avarice!

I used the empty condom box already, but it didn't give me any stat bonuses :(

I am particularly pleased with the way this system logs your cleared quests. Now I can keep track of how often I do the laundry. Also, it is insanely fun to compete with the other roomies to see who can get the most done. I caught myself doing another load of dishes before bed last night just to claim the 10 XP and bragging rights. Inking my comic gave me 40 points and put me in the lead.

Your move, dickfaces.

Anyway. Bedtime for me since it's past midnight and I'm being good for my therapist and obeying the clock.

Try that site out though, seriously, it's rad.

Whirlwind of Sanity, Take II

I've been feeling some discomfort and agitation on the Ritalin, so I cut my morning pill in half. Magically, the symptoms decreased to a reasonable level, and I proceeded to complete almost all of my tasks. I could still feel it kicking in, but my "work mode" gear was noticeably smoother. My accomplishments for the past 10 hours are as follows:

1. Cooked breakfast.
2. Cleaned the kitchen, including scrubbing the stove and counters and de-cluttering the window bench that's been covered in jackets and grocery bags for the better part of a year.
3. Washed and unloaded the dishes.
4. Cleaned and swept my bedroom and office.
5. Processed Etsy orders, stuffed envelopes, wrote thank-you notes and double-checked to make sure everything was accounted for.
6. Gathered addresses for commissions.
7. Finished 1 icon, animated it for funsies, and started another immediately afterwards.
8. Washed two loads of laundry.
9. Read about a zillion chapters of One Piece while eating lunch.
10. Dog-proofed my garbage can.
11. Took a shower.
12. Brushed the Captain's teeth, chased him down, continued to scrub, dragged him back off the floor from his passive-resistance swoon, and brushed them some more.
13. Waited until business hours, then called my social worker, completed the follow-up papers needed for my MinnCare application, and stuck it in my outbox.
14. Called lawyer to check on paperwork and find out what I need to send in.
15. Swept and dusted the stairwell, including steps and landing.
16. Swept the living room at the bottom of the stairwell.
17. Suffered karoshi and was rewarded with an eternity of bliss at the right hand of Xenu himself.

Most of the domestic chores listed are part of my house-elf duties, which I took on in exchange for room and board. I am very happy to be doing a better job of it so that my roomies do not drown in a vat of dirty frying pans and moldy towels.

All of this was accomplished with a lazy ease that I very seldom feel. It's a bit like having those rare moments, every few weeks or months, where the clouds part and I feel like I can power through any task set before me, available on demand.

So yeah, it's safe to say that I had a lot of processing power locked up in day-to-day functioning and now I am making it work for me. Just like motherfucking Rock Lee when he takes off the ankle weights, except not as sexy.

Chores and Art, Art and Chores

I spent the week doing real-world things that I've been putting off for ages. For example, I obtained a 100% rating on One Piece: Unlimited Adventure. Wait, that doesn't count. Let me start over with my grown-up words.

First I called and quit my Audible account. I got tired of not having the money, then having it only to have their automatic billing monkey take the money one day before the month ends so that I never get my books before my credits reset. Believe it or not, the final straw for me came when I noticed they now brag to potential new customers that the monthly credits do not expire. I could have been happy about this, or exasperated. I chose the latter.

Audible makes it so you can't cancel the account online, but they don't mention the procedure anywhere on the site. I finally found the number on somebody's "quit Audible" rant/tutorial from like a year ago. When I finally got to a human being, all he wanted was my username and my email address, and it took maybe ten seconds total.

No wonder they keep the quit procedure so hidden. Angry ninjas could have called and canceled my account at any time, and I would have been powerless against their attack. Thanks, Audible, for being so concerned with my account security!

But it's done. $21 bucks a month saved by depriving myself of the joy of reading, woo!

Next I got busy wrestling with my Anytime Fitness account since the great outdoors has become my gym of late, but it turns out the contract won't let me out until September. Which is right around the time I was planning to sign up again for the winter, so that sucks.

And then I mailed off all the buttons and raffle prizes I've been sitting on like a big fat dumbass, and then the week was over and I hadn't done anything on the comic. It never rains but it pours, boys and girls.

Anyway! I have a lot of work to do today, so we now return to my regularly scheduled comicking-like-a-mofo.

So much for Sundays off D:

Oh yeah, and I finished the new sketchbook last night. The second montage from the book is now posted on DA, so go see go see!