Maybe It DOES Make A Difference?

Today, a woman sent me a message on facebook, about this dog.
She basically asked me if I could keep sharing the pic, because she's trying to save him.

This had an effect on me, because I had actually given up sharing dogs on my main profile and have been using a dummy one for the majority.  I have been doing this because of some snarky comments from some of my personal friends, and a lack of the animals I post (I post all kinds, not just dogs) being shared by my facebook friends in general.
So rather than be ridiculed by my real friends...some friends, huh?  I've been posting animals to my fake account with a name I made up that has over a thousand friends, and I have no idea how that happened so don't ask.

So when this woman messaged me and ended her message with "thanks for all you do" I was really heart-warmed.  I didn't think anyone noticed I did anything.

It may not be much, what I do, spamming my friends newsfeeds with homeless animals and tagging every rescue I know in the posts...but it's all I can do, for now, and it's better than nothing.  I don't know that any animal has been saved as a direct result of my efforts...but when an animal I have networked does get taken up by a rescue or gets adopted by someone, it's a really good feeling.

You Got Your Dog's Ears Cropped...Really? You're A Big, Giant Asshole

So one day I'm walking with my dog, Ophelia, and I see a man taking what appears to be a small black mouth cur and mastiff mix puppy outside to tinkle.  The puppy seems very sweet and friendly, wanting nothing more than to give me and my dog lots of kisses.  I was struck immediately by the cone around his neck, though, and I asked what happened without looking the pup over carefully, he was cute, I was just looking into his big eyes!  The man says he'd had his ears cropped that day.  -_-

As the rage boiled up inside me I weighed my options...

1. I could tell the man he's a big, giant asshole and list all the reasons why ear cropping is ridiculous and stupid in the loudest and rudest way possible. (This was the one I WANTED to do.)
2. I could calmly tell the man why ear cropping is useless, and mean, and that he should NEVER do that to a poor innocent dog again.
3. Or not say anything except "oh" and go blow up on facebook about it later.

I went with option 3.  Because I could tell by the man's unfriendly demeanor and impatience that telling him he's a big, giant asshole would mean I didn't get to pet the puppy anymore, but more importantly, it wouldn't mean a damn thing to him, and he'd just tell me to mind my own business.  Sometimes you have to pick your fights, and when you can tell the person just isn't going to listen, there's really no point, and you'd be wasting your breath.
So when I got home I made a rant on facebook and my friends agree...that guy IS, a big, giant asshole.  :-)

Haven't Been Around For A While...

Sorry about that.  The holidays came about, I was finishing up my work contract, then I started another month-long contract that had an hour commute, both ways.  Phew!
I had wanted to make a post about Star Wars: The Old Republic since I purchased the game and played it regularly for a while.  But it seems the game is losing steam...the guild I'm in isn't even running raids anymore and that's sad, so it's back to WoW for me! Hehe

Well At Least I Got My Money Back

After the episode of receiving the wrong purse, I tried many, many times to contact the "seller" of the purse, and they did not answer.  They didn't even TRY to answer!  So I ended up contacting the payment company, the middle man in this situation, who took my money.  They gave me a vague "contact us again if you don't hear from them in 2 days" answer, and when 2 days passed (I actually waited 3 thank-you-very-much) THEY did not answer me either.

Well, I would be very, VERY angry if it had been like, $200 or something like that, but it was $80, so I was annoyed, but I was managing it OK I think.....

I reported the company to Coach.com for selling counterfeit items. *insert evil maniacal laugh here*

The Coach people said "wtf" and they are "investigating" the matter.  So I'm hoping to see that site go down...but other known sellers of counterfeits, like "coachoutlet.com" or whatever, are still up, so I don't have a ton of hope about bringing them down completely, but if I can annoy them (like they've annoyed me) then that's enough to make me feel better. :-)

Then I reported the matter to my bank, who asked me some questions, got the link to the website from me, etc.  They gave me my money back and now I'm happy!  I still have the ugly purse, and they told me to "keep it ready" in case they actually do get a response from the counterfeiters and I am able to send the purse back. My understanding is that this is unlikely.

In an interesting turn of events, after typing out the previous parts of this post, I just tried to go to http://www.louis-outlet-sale.com and the "website has been moved to a different server" apparently.  Annoyed them?  I think I have! :-)

Update On The Toothless Dog...

Remember that toothless dog I posted about a while back?

Well good news!  She's been saved! 

OK so I guess she wasn't really toothless but she doesn't have much to work with is my understanding.  I'm personally VERY happy that a rescue organization stepped in and took her out, they've raised WAY more money then asked for (there are good people in the world....who knew?!) and now she gets to be taken care of and shown some much needed love.

I will forever feel a certain amount of shame for having to share the title of "Human Being" with people who hurt animals....particularly to the extend that this poor dog has suffered.  But I am glad to share that same title with the people who are taking care of Annie now at the Ark Animal Rescue, and the people who donated money for her care.

Apparently, good people still exist!  They seem to be a rare breed but I guess they're out there.

And Now To Completely Geek Out

Today is Blizzcon!
For anyone who doesn't know, this is a two day event in Anaheim, California, that is specifically run by one gaming company, Blizzard.  Blizzard makes video games, and their current games are World of Warcraft, Starcraft and Starcraft 2, and Diablo 3.

They have many games they've made in the past as well, and I've been a fan of Blizzard for a long time.  Last year, my boyfriend and two of his friends and I, went to Blizzcon!  It was amazing, but there was about a quarter of a million people there and I felt guilty for leaving our dog with boyfriend's parents, so this year we didn't go, so I opted for a "virtual ticket" which means I get to stream the whole event and watch it all on my computer!

This means I get to be antisocial AND lazy!  Yay!  Plus my dog doesn't have to suffer from separation anxiety, and while she isn't destructive, I love her and don't want her to be sad, so that's a plus too. :-)

World of Warcraft is the main Blizzard game I play, I've played it since the original release was still in beta, and while I've taken breaks here and there, I've basically been playing the game pretty steadily for six years.  We're getting towards the end of the third expansion, Cataclysm, which brought a TON of changes to the game and basically turned the game into an almost entirely different game.  It's been out since last December, and I'm starting to feel a bit fatigued.  I'm working on getting my fourth character to level 85, which is usually what I do when I've done most everything on my "main" characters and have run out of excuses to avoid leveling it.  So hearing about a NEW expansion is very exciting!

So now we've just been informed the new expansion will be called Mists of Pandaria!  Which is introducing a new race...Pandaren!  Now, unlike all the other races that have come before, the Pandaren are a neutral race, meaning that they are friendly to everyone, until level 10, where you pick which faction you are going to be, Horde or Alliance.
They are also adding a new class, the Monk!  This class looks really awesome, it's a leather armor wearing, martial arts based class.  They can be a tank (which is called Brewmaster, ftw!) a healer or a dps.  Most races can be a monk!  Just goblins and worgen can't be monks.  Now I'm STILL upset that as a horde, I can't be a Worgen.  Why oh WHY?! couldn't the worgen have been a neutral race?!  They are SO cool!  It's so not fair.  I like the Goblins, but come ON!  Werewolves?!  Seriously it's just not fair!
Ah well, spilt milk I guess.

Another thing I'm very excited about with this expansion is the Pet Battle System.  As an avid pet collector in WoW, this is going to provide me with endless hours of entertainment long after I'm tired of leveling, pvping, questing, doing dailies, running heroics....etc etc etc.  It's like Pokemon!  Gotta catch em all!  Hahaha!

So yeah, I'm pretty excited about all this new stuff.

And of COURSE I signed up for the annual pass that will allow me to not only play Diablo 3 for free, although I'm not sure how it'll work if I want the collector's... It will let me get into the Mists of Pandaria beta!
YAY!

So yeah, this year's Blizzcon became chock-full of AWESOME within the first hour.

Good job Blizzard!

Who Wants a Pit Bull!?

If you want a big dog because you don't want to have a sissy dog like a chihuahua or a pomeranian (looking at the men here) BUT you are aware that a big dog can maul your face off... which will require the help of leeches to reattach...apparently. Then BOY do I have the dog for you!


She has no teeth!


This is of course, incredibly horrible.  This a result of horrible abuse...her teeth were filed down, she's incredibly fearful, it's pretty much certain that she was a bait dog, and horribly abused by people as well as being attacked by fighting dogs.

BUT!  This can be turned into a GREAT pet!

It would take some work, of course.  You'd have to do quite a bit of rehabilitation, and she'd be on soft food for the rest of her life, but come on!  She doesn't have teeth!  That means she can't A. eat your cat B. eat your child and C. eat your face.  Now, I personally love pit bulls and do not think any particular pit bull is more likely to maul your face off than say, your friendly golden retriever.
OTHER people, however, do think that a pit bull would do that and well, it's cruel and horrible to file a dog's teeth down or pull them out so it's less dangerous.  But our poor doggie here really needs to be cared for, and I am trying to take a bad thing, the dog has no teeth.... and make it a good thing!  She doesn't have teeth!  You could spoon feed her baby food and put her in a baby pink bib!  It would be the CUTEST THING EVER!

Just look at that face!
She's so sad!
She wants to be spoon fed baby food!

Note: Other information on the story about the golden retriever is that he got pissed off at a 24 year old in the house and attacked him, the other people tried to pull the dog off, he turned and attacked them as well.  It ended up taking FOUR people to get the dog contained in the garden.  That's one pissed of goldie.  I have tried and tried to find out, but do not know what ended up happening to that dog.

Edit: I believe the golden retriever dog is doing ok and has been given a second chance. :-)