Messiah for the animals.

Why, guys? Come on.

protocollie@livejournal.com — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:15:09 GMT

So, if you've been out of the news cycle for a few days, you'd probably not be aware that the D.C. sniper, John Allen Muhammad, was put to death last night after his final appeal for a stay of execution was denied. Can I please interject and point out that this is ridiculous? We're trying to establish a precedent that killing people is the worst thing you can do and deserves the highest possible punishment, but at the same time, we're doing the same thing.

If the punishment fit the crime, we'd take the things that belonged to people who stole, we'd force rapists to have sex against their will and we'd disfigure people who mauled animals for fun. We don't do that because the punishment is cruel, unusual, and irreversible. Life in jail is no different from death - in fact, it could easily be worse, because even if you were the most hardened person on earth before you went in, you have a lot of time to think. I'm sure that some people realize what they did is terrible and have the rest of their lives stuck in squalor to live with that realization. Even if they don't, killing them accomplishes nothing. It doesn't bring back the people they killed, it doesn't undo the hurt the family of their victims feels, it does nothing.

I'm not going to cover my opposition to the death penalty point by point like I want to, but rather just address one of the most important justifications that people face and how last night, once again (like dozens of times before) it's been proven false.

People claim that putting murderers to death brings closure to their families. I've never really seen this. How does killing someone else fix the hurt of the death of a loved one? The body count of the crime's just ticked up. You don't ever hear people saying "I'm so glad that guy shot himself" after a murder-suicide. There's just one quote I'd like to point out from today's news that caught my eye.

"Well, myself, I wish Malvo was right there beside Muhammad," said Moore, whose sister, FBI analyst Linda Franklin, was gunned down in Virginia. "They both committed the same crimes. No, I don't feel any closure. I mean, it's ... it ... nothing changes."

Another man was killed to make this guy feel better, and he feels nothing. He just wants to see more people killed. And even then he realizes that putting someone to death does not fix his problem. Justice is not served, and all we have to show for it is another person killed by other people.

This has been a disjointed post but really, this whole thing just tears me up. The death penalty is an awful punishment that nobody deserves which starts oftentimes enough with a terrible, horrible mistake or mental illness, leads to years of stress and mental torment while forces beyond your control debate whether or not you deserve to live, and ends with the victim of this already awful punishment being laid out on an operating table in a sterile room with nobody nearby to comfort them, just the eyes of dozens of angry people staring him down as he's murdered in front of them.

It's fucking terrible. Nobody deserves to be killed. Not the victims of murders, not the murders themselves. We have to put an end to this shit.

Plate armor. Yeahhh.

protocollie@livejournal.com — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:09:39 GMT

Why is it this badass looking?

Still quest blues and greens. All awesome.

Crisis mode!

protocollie@livejournal.com — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:41:29 GMT

I won two free weeks of advertising on FA for new year's ball.

I need an ad.

Someone, help. Please.

New Year's Furry Ball! It's only two months away!

protocollie@livejournal.com — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:01:38 GMT

Hey, everyone! It's only two months to the annual New Years Furry Ball (2010 edition!) and I just wanted to remind you all that you should sign up on the pre-reg list and reserve your rooms now! I can plan this event all I want but what's made it special year after year has been the great turnout from members of the local furry community and our friends, and we want to make 2010 the best year ever! Last year we had almost 130 people come spend New Years' with us and we're totally hoping to have more this year, because we really like underestimating the badges we need and running out. Seriously - it's like a hobby. Make our night, please!

To get the important question out of the way, ADMISSION IS ONLY $10.

Come celebrate 2010 in style (well, sorta) at the (kinda) luxurious Comfort Inn & Suites in Quakertown PA! The event starts at 6pm on Thursday, January 31st, 2009 and lasts until at least 2am on January 1st. The skinny on the hotel is:

1905 John Fries Highway
Quakertown, PA, 18951

Phone: 215-538-3000

Room rates start as low as $110 for a single and go up from there, with some hot tub suites available for those of you who'd like to wind down in a warm tub with a bottle'a bubbly. Call and tell them you're with the group 'FURBALL' to get our awesome low, low prices!

Here's a quick FAQ on the event:

Q. What can I, the entertainment consumer, expect from this event?
A. I wrote a long answer to this but I think it can best be summed up with a quick list: video games, booze (if you're over 21,) great friends, live DJs, and plenty of raucous merrymaking. Prices on drinks for the night will be forthcoming but trust me, they'll be completely reasonable. I promise. Even if you're under 21, there's plenty of fun to be had with music, dancing and games.

Q. When do I have to reserve a room by to get it in your block?
A. The cutoff date for reservations is Monday, December 12, 2009. So get those reservations in while you can!

Q. Are there going to be activities the following day?
A. Again, I don't have precise details now but I'm going to plan a few group excursions for the next day to get people out the hotel and back on their feet, hangover or no. More details will be revealed closer to the event. As for the morning, the hotel offers free breakfast, so you can get some coffee and delicious food (really, it's quite good!) to start off your new year right.

Q. Can I help?
A. Absolutely! We're not a con, we don't have con resources, and we rely almost 100% on the generosity of our attendees to make sure the night's awesome. We could use a few game consoles, if people want to bring them by - we keep very close tabs on them and will have someone monitoring the game room at all times. Also, we need some 'staff' to help out with basic functions throughout the night.

Security - Can you spot a wristband-less wrist from a mile away? Have a sixth sense for people who aren't wearing badges? Do you enjoy sitting near a door and greeting everyone walking through it? Security's the job for you - you don't need to do it all night, but we need people to do basic things like ensure people have badges to walk into rooms and ensure that our "no ID, no drinks" rule is properly enforced. Also, you can help with checking people in and registering them!
DJs - Like playing music? We could use one or two more DJs to fill the night with thumpy, bouncy joy. Just toss me an e-mail at protocollie@protocollie.com with a demo mix or something and we'll see what we can do. Sound kit will be provided, just lemme know what you need available.

So that about covers it!

Oh, and one more thing!

Do me a big ol' favor and register your interest if you're planning on coming. It'll only take a minute and help us get an idea of who's coming - you don't need to pay now (in fact, you HAVE to pay at the door! How 'bout them apples?) You can 'register' at http://www.furrynewyear.com/register/. If you want to be on top of updates related to the event, don't forget to visit www.furrynewyear.com, follow us on twitter and join our LJ community! Questions or comments? Please email me at protocollie@protocollie.com.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Birthday wrap-up.

protocollie@livejournal.com — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:43:52 GMT

So, my birthday came and went and was pretty cool. Thanks to everyone who made a point of giving me a nudge to say happy birthday. I'm not super big on celebrating anymore, I mostly like to use it as an excuse to relax and take it a bit easy, so that was pretty cool. The main reason I'm posting is because I wanted to get it out there that I'm pretty lucky that I have a fabulous girlfriend who always knows how to make me smile, and a couple really simple things really made the day.

As a present, she totally hooked me up with like 2000g of her own hard-earned money on WoW which was enough to get my pally dual spec and cold weather flying. This is awesome, because I really want it to be my main and this helps a lot in leveling plus doesn't set me back anything on my quest for EPIC FLIGHT. Yep.
She made me an awesome, delicious and adorable cake that said "Elune be praised!" on it which I think is hilarious, so that's awesome, too.

Birthdays are really cool because the people you care about take a moment or two just to remind you that they care about you, and that made me really happy. Thanks a lot to everyone for making it a good day.

Speaking of my pally, for wearing all Outlands quest greens (and one Northrend quest weapon) she's looking pretty badass at this moment in time.

Seriously. Even compared to my fairly OK-geared druid, she looks way more awesome.

It doesn't hurt that I find draenei way awesome, though.

I wandered into the wrong chat room.

protocollie@livejournal.com — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 14:34:48 GMT

"You're welcome." I murr to Abigail a bit lustfully as I transform into a sexy anthro female squirrel. I was also naked. "Would you like to yiff now Abby?"

I. I can't... words. Please, no.

Sigh.

protocollie@livejournal.com — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:01:33 GMT

Commerce sucks out loud since it became TD Bank. How come I can't view who's authorizing purchases on my debit card until after the payment is cleared?

That's ridiculous. Plus their phone wait time has increased exponentially.

TD Bank: Fuck you.

Oh god in case you don't have twitter.

protocollie@livejournal.com — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 10:58:54 GMT

You might just want to feast your ears on this shit.

It's more minimal so bear that in mind, and if you really want to cut to the good part... just jump to around 5:00, and listen to that goddamn build'n'drop. Awhfuck. This track chugs like a motherfucker. <3

Quick things.

protocollie@livejournal.com — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:25:24 GMT

Tanya drew me up the srs for shizzy most adorable reference to send along to Scribblefox for my suit, which I did.

The suit's name is going to be Costello. He's this crazy hybrid thing. Here you go!

alkjsdla GOD DAMN.

protocollie@livejournal.com — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 18:24:10 GMT

I commissioned my suit. Money has been paid, i'm in the queue, aghghghfuffuckckckekekecuckckkkggkhghgjefufffuck.

It's going to be awesome.

Scribblefox (at onefurall) is building it and I've liked every suit I've seen him make (he's made two of my favourites, in fact. Unika and Oryx.)

I'm really, really, really excited. I cannot wait. The second I have concept arts I'm going to scream them at everyone so hard.

Ohmigod I'm gonna run circles outside for a while.

Best. Failbog. Ever.

protocollie@livejournal.com — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:54:54 GMT

Some music geekery.

protocollie@livejournal.com — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 16:13:28 GMT

There are definitely singles that are absolutely 100% made listenable by the mixing engineers who mixed them down. I totally want to point out one song as being a huge victim of this. I don't think most people know this track (I'm always mentioning it and nobody knows it, but god, it's EVERYWHERE.) I, personally, think this is one of the best pop rock singles in recent history and it's totally because it is a -wall of sound-. Listen to it in high quality - it's like the song is smacking you across the face and you're rushing through it, it's really intense, impeccably mixed and mastered. Seriously.

I mean, this engineer attacked the shit out of this song. This is a massively, massively engineered track. Those drums are quantized to hell and back, as are the lead guitar and the rhythm guitar. The singer's auto-tuned, and there is NO DYNAMIC RANGE. This song is always completely in fucking overdrive. There is no quiet, there is no relaxed, there is no anything other than a solid wall of sound with every crack filled with noise or reverberation. Even during the break, the audio spectrum's pretty much peaked across the board. This is a massively, epically engineered track and it's SO good because of it. Listening to it on big speakers it literally engulfs you.

The downside, of course, is that there's no way the band can ever live up to it. And part of the song's appeal is its overengineering.

They just can't do it. They can't live up to the track because the mixing engineer was the guy showing off. Now, they're doing an admirable job, considering, but I see a 1 in 10 chance for them not breaking one hit wonder status simply because this song sounds SO FUCKING PRISTINE that they'll never be able to get past it. I think this sound engineer deserves a grammy. Especially the final repeat of the chorus and coda where there's like fifteen synth lines, ten vocals, three guitars and tons of effects layered adklasjd fuck.

Best. Headline. Ever.

protocollie@livejournal.com — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 15:15:15 GMT

Acorn Sting Pimp Is a Rutgers Alum Who Hates Lucky Charms

So, Chewfox, in summary.

protocollie@livejournal.com — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 04:59:36 GMT

A fun drama event for the furry fandom that built up and burnt out faster than anything I've ever seen.

Within the period of six hours it went from nothing to HORRIBLE SEETHING RAGE to dramasplosion to downing FA AND the forums to multiple banhammers to a quick tapering down and now quiet.

Really, this was utterly ridiculous.

Chrome 3 Love.

protocollie@livejournal.com — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 13:42:44 GMT

Holy shit Chrome 3 <3

Words cannot describe...

protocollie@livejournal.com — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 02:41:37 GMT

...the cute I just witnessed.

I'm sorry to everyone who has to hear me fawn over my kittens like children. I think I'm feeling overprotective/attentive at the moment after all that craziness. Anyway, Pierre decided he was gonna fly onto the bed like he'd done a hundred times previously. See, Pierre knows that if he jumps up onto the bed and lands on my keyboard, he gets instant attention. And he did it a hundred times. But the last time... he missed. And he plowed, face-first, into the side of the laptop's screen. He stopped on the side of the bed, blinked a few times, rubbed at his nose with his paw, sneezed, and then hid under the bed.

Adorable.

Also, Pierre's very photogenic. Louis hides.

www.omegle.com

protocollie@livejournal.com — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 16:52:52 GMT

Connecting to server...

You're now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!

Omegle is not a dating site. Please try to have interesting conversations here!

You: hello.

Stranger: heyy pet

Stranger: asl.??

You: 4/housecat/under the bed

Stranger: ooh lovely

You: do you like housecats?

You: right now i'm licking my paw

Stranger: yeppp love them

You: my tongue is all covered in fur

You: oh baby

You: i'm hacking now

You: get a towel... a hairball's coming.

You: HACK

Stranger: that is yummy

You: HHHHHAACKK

Stranger: youu crep

You: oh god i spit it all over your new dress pants from louis vitton

Stranger: rotten piece of shit

You: they were like a thousand dollars

You: oh god

You: i'm tearing up the leather couch

You: RIPPP

You: RIPPPPP

You: i'm a bad cat

You: tell me i'm a bad cat

Your conversational partner has disconnected.

In case you were curious.

protocollie@livejournal.com — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 19:16:08 GMT

Before I fall asleep from sheer exhaustion after having to come home early from work, I wanted to share my new li'l cats with everyone.

Meet Pierre:

And Louis (our tiger!)

Tada!

P.S. Louis just totally prowled all the way across the room, hiding behind the fan, and my soda bottle, and the laundry basket on the way to jump on Pierre. At the last second, when he popped up from behind my shoes to pounce, Pierre looked, batted his paw at the air, and Louis stood up and wandered away acting like he wasn't doing anything. Then they both went to go talk to the ferret.

Really, they're totally adorable together.

Huh.

protocollie@livejournal.com — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 13:03:54 GMT

This has been way, way harder than I thought it would be.

Light years.

Luckily I have someone I can rely on more than anything with me.

Seriously, you wouldn't think losing a cat you had for a month and a half would be this damn rough. I don't think I've slept more than a few minutes at a clip since we put him down and there's just still that image of watching it happen that's like... godDAMN I can't get it out of my head. I'd really hoped it would be like he'd just get sleepy and drowsy and sorta drift off, but he like yelped and then went completely tense and wide-eyed and stared at the wall smacking his lips for like five minutes completely unresponsive to anything before sorta settling down slightly with his eyes -wide- open. I don't even know, all I could do was pet him but it was so fucking hard to watch. That was only the sedative part, we couldn't stay for the second shot, and I'm glad. Everything I read about that makes it seem like that would be a thousand times harder to watch.

And then yesterday we thought we couldn't go through that again with Fez, Tanya's ferret we had to put down, and we didn't... and Tanya's been talking about it as well as me... I dunno the way he looked at us as the doctor took him away... I can't forget that either. I kind of wish I'd gone in with him. We wound up like, going to taco bell after and crying instead of eating much at all.

This has been the shittiest few days ever. It's been really nice that I've had someone to go through it with me and sorta cry on when I've been sad, but really it's been awful. The new cats are doing their best to cheer us up though, and they're really nice. Pierre is so curious and happy to investigate everything in the house. He also is really cute when he runs around on the bed and once he ran too close to the wall and slipped between the wall and the bed and it was really cute to watch his paws fly everywhere. He's also taking care of his brother Louis and helping him get used to the house. You can see he keeps trying to get Louis to play, and he'll get him a little further out from under the bed each time before Louis shoots back under it.

Louis is getting more friendly by the moment, too. You have to approach him very slowly, and no matter what he runs to the bed, but if you approach him -near- it, he'll sneak underneath it and then slowly come out to be pet. They both play together often, and purr so loud and so frantically it's adorable. I mean you can hear them from really far away and it's constant. Pierre likes to pretend he's a tiger (even though Louis looks SO much more like one) and growls and bites things playfully. If you scratch his back, he rolls onto it and puts his feet in the air, hugs around your arm and then licks at your fingers (though his claws are fairly sharp so it hurts a little.) They're really good cats and I'm really quickly growing very, very fond of them so I think that they'll be really good at making sure the house doesn't feel so lonely anymore with Sven gone.

I miss him a lot. He used to come into the shower with us every morning and sit on the sink to keep us company. Plus when the alarm went off, he knew it was time to hop on the bed and prance on our faces meowing loudly to wake us up, which was always really cute (even when it was annoying.) He was a really good cat. We still need to bake the little clay pawprint of his that they gave us. Tanya wants to take his few things and put them in a little box to remember him by - we have a little bit of his fur, the pawprint, his catnip mouse (which he never took an interest in unless we showed it to him, which I guess he did to make us happy) and his collar.

Okay enough rambling about the cats. Hopefully things get better soon.

So.

protocollie@livejournal.com — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 01:10:16 GMT

I adopted two new cats today. They're beautiful tabbies, one complete, one splotchy-white. Both are sweet, both have wonderful purrs.

Their names are Pierre and Louis.

This morning.

protocollie@livejournal.com — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 12:32:53 GMT

This morning, I woke up and the door to the room was cracked open even though I made a point of closing it all the way last night.

Every morning Sven would punch the door open just a little to come in and say hello when our alarm went off. He hopped onto the bed and meowed, and would wander around until eventually he'd settle like half-way to the foot of the bed and wait for us to get up so he could come sit in the bathroom with us while we showered.

It was really disappointing when I remembered what happened.

Our cat.

protocollie@livejournal.com — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 22:18:37 GMT

Oh, Sven. The minute my eyes got used to having you around and stopped tearing up you had to find another way to make me cry ;_;

Sven had to be put down rather suddenly, today. He had an issue with his kidneys, and they weren't working right, and long story short it was the only thing we could do.

So, uh. Well then. I just feel like saying this. I don't really have much else to say. It's been a pretty shit day. So, yeah. Thanks, Sven, for showing up for a month and some change and making every day a little happier. You were very easy to love.

Austin, TX

protocollie@livejournal.com — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 20:24:05 GMT

Well, well, well. I'm in the airport after a long weekend in Austin, Texas. For those of you who don't know, I was out in Austin this weekend to hang out with my awesome cousin Ryan and also to play at a party, sorta a twofer (I just this second found out that this is an actual dictionary word!)

There's a few things I've learned - one, Texas is nothing like people make it out to be on the east coast. At all. Two, I've always imagined Texas a dustbowl ghost-town sorta place, but it's actually one of the most beautiful states I've ever been in - really, it's unreal how gorgeous it is once you get out of urban areas, even in a terrible drought. Let me show you:

Like, okay. I know it looks drought-tastic, but honestly, that's just beautiful. This is the lake we had the boat party on, by the way. The place is just unreally nice, perfectly warm and sunny and really wonderful to be in.

So, uh, my first day in Austin I showed up around 4pm and proceeded to be overloaded by how badass the place really is. We grabbed some dinner at a mexican restaurant which was AMAZING and then went home and spun for like two hours. Good night. I wound up passing out from sheer exhaustion between records. Ryan has this cat which is completely out of control. Like explosive cat, like at night it turns into a rocketship with laser vision and blasts around the house screaming with its claws out. At night, I hated the cat. So much. During the day, though...

Awwwhhh. That's him sleeping all over my luggage. <3 Anyway, the next day was a blur, mainly because Ryan forced me to start drinking at like 12:30 PM (that asshole.) First, we got breakfast tacos. They are, undoubtedly, the best food ever. Period. We started out with a brewery tour which was pretty neat. I met a lot of cool people there, tried some good beers, and also we played catchphrase, except you had to describe every catch phrase within the context of watching porn. Being in furry, I kicked ass and got many high fives as my knowledge of porn is unfortunately encyclopedic.

Either way, this was cool. Ryan's friends rock and everyone in Texas is so damn friendly. Seriously. Dozens of people neither I nor Ryan knew sat down to chat with us while we played and shoot the shit. And the rest of Texas is like this. I'm shocked. Either way the rest of that day consisted of watching the VT football game with Ryan's friends (he's a VT alumni) at a bar and then another party - this was the night of the disco party, I believe. I met some people, ran across some girl who's apparently like a really well respected music something or other (I wasn't quite clear on what she did but everyone kept saying 'she's a big deal' and she seems like one of those people who used to write for a major music magazine/site of some sort.) She was more interested in yelling at me about what she knows about disco, which was cool because I can talk disco. So that's what we did. I passed out the second we got home.

The next morning, I woke up wishing I was dead. So we ran out and got more breakfast tacos, and I felt better. Ryan got a chocolate waffle which was really cool. We ran out and bought a polarizing filter for taking scenic shots on the boat, then we did some shopping, headed to a housewarming (where I met some more awesome people) and then shot off to the alamo to watch a movie and marvel at a movie theater with no commercials. They served you food in your seat, and before the movie they showed clips of related films for your enjoyment (we were seeing Inglorious Basterds so they showed stuff like the episode of the three stooges where they were nazis.) Another day well spent, and I was asleep almost instantly.

So the next day was boat party(!) time. We showed up at the boat early and met a cute sheep dog and also got time to take in the scenery. Which was beautiful. Like above. We got on the boat and set up, and we had the fanciest DJ stand of all the DJ stands made of plywood that were on a boat. Check it out:

And yes, that is a sexy A&H XONE:92 mixer there, and oh dear lord I never knew how hot its LP/BP/HP filtering was. They're buttery as hell and total bliss.

I don't know what else to say about the boat other than it lived up to everything i'd hoped it'd be. I met awesome people, I had good drinks, I ate good food and I swam in nice water. I played music, I met some awesome, friendly DJs (some of whom are really serious, RJ, the guy who closed out the night, knows Chris Liebing, one of my personal musical idols) and I think also made some friends. I really, really enjoyed it. There's no point trying to use words to describe it, so.

So, yeah. These pictures don't do it justice, but I have an explanation for each one of them. (Left to right, top to bottom.)

1. The party boat captain. Looked sleazy and acted it, too - even though he was awesome. I think he plays it up a bit to make things more fun. He's obsessed with peeing in the lake, and begged everyone to do it. I imagine there was a periscope under the boat or something.
2. The deck at sunset! Okay, that's it.
3. That's vodka, not orange juice. If it was at least part-way orange juice, it would be a screwdriver. Pff. These folks were awesome.
4. Ryan, making his bass face.

I think there's one good picture to sum up the night:

Everyone was cool and having a great time, and I loved it.

Today I bought some salsa (called Austin Slow Burn) and some mexican tortilla chips. Also, I'm totally smuggling back some cane sugar coke and genuine dr. pepper for my enjoyment in a shady looking cooler wrapped up in duct tape and packed with newspaper. I've already had two huge problems because of it, lol.

That's it. I'm glad I went. I'm going back for sure.

P.S. The guy next to me is bragging that he's a 'melon collector,' whatever that means.

This man disgusts me.

protocollie@livejournal.com — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 23:36:37 GMT

Which man, you ask? Watch and find out.

Dear Southwest Airlines

protocollie@livejournal.com — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 15:51:54 GMT

Dear Southwest:

I used to love arguing with big companies. It was like a hobby. Once I beat Apple, though, I kinda got tired of it. I don't want to do it anymore. I simply want to pay for things and have them work/arrive as scheduled with no problem.

This is why you're pissing me off, Southwest Air. You're pissing me off, good.

I went to your website to try and purchase some tickets. Let me say right away that your site's quite cute and I find the fact that you pretend to really love me endearing. I love you, too, Southwest. You and your rapping flight attendants, luggage carriers who are tattooed with your logo and airplane mailbox having blue-juice pumpers. Seriously.

But what the fuck's the deal with the airline food? No, just kidding. Actually, I'm more concerned about my experience with your website. See, I wanted to do something complex, unreasonable and unprecedented. I wanted to buy tickets to Austin. I understand, Southwest, that you're trying to spare me the pain of being in Texas. I get it, and it's kind, but I actually DO kinda want to get there on the dates I requested as I have a social obligation there. I'm playing a show there, you see.

Anyway, I tried to order tickets through Paypal. Somehow, things went sour. Even though paypal took my money and says they gave it to me, you say you don't have it. I sigh very, very loudly. Belabored would actually be the word to describe it and after listening to approximately ten (10) minutes of 'if you're happy and you know it' while you're on hold (p.s. the singing airplane part of the song was cute, too. Good work!) I finally got a person who said that they couldn't refund my money and FURTHERMORE they couldn't offer me the same rates that I'd just paid for and not received a boarding pass for in regards to a SECOND pair of tickets.

Okay, I say. Let's have a supervisor. Ten (10) minutes of 'if you're happy and you know it!' (I was not) later I find the supervisor who says oh, yes. I can book the flight for the price we told you you could have. At this point, stupidly, I was staring at the page. I was facing either giving all my information to your person on the phone again, or clicking 'purchase' on the website after having filled out YOUR credit card box rather than paypal's. I say okay. Whatever. Sounds good, I'll use the site. CLICK. 404 error!

What? A 404 ERROR? Are you hosted on geocities? Seriously? Okay, whatever. So far, $500 billed to my card and no tickets to be seen. That's cool, though. I still want my tickets. Now I go through it on the phone with your rep. "Stay on the line," I say with some trepidation. "I want to make sure I get my confirmation e-mail. I can track down refunds after, you sly dogs." Beep bop boop. "Reservation confirmed, have a day! *click.*"

Neat.

I wait a little while for my emails and do not get them, so I call back. Turns out the e-mail address was messed up (you'd replaced an 'f' with an 's' which I can understand) and so I receive my e-mail and hang up again. Wait. Shit. It's a CANCELLATION NOTICE.

I call back. "Dearest Southwest Airlines," I say, mildly perturbed. "I thought we had finally resolved our personal differences and were ready to take the next step in our relationship, where you carry me aboard one of your fancy and adorable planes to Austin, Texas! What is this? Did you go back on your word? I thought I could trust you! Alas, my reservations have been cancelled!"

"They weren't."

What? "No, my dearest Southwest Representative. I assure you this e-mail says my reservations were cancelled."

"They weren't. They're active."

"I'm going to have to, uh, go ahead and disagree with you on this one."

"Would you like to know how to check?"

"Why, yes!"

I follow the steps by going to flight tools, clicking on that 'look up a reservation' whatsit and typing in my confirmation number and name, only to be greeted with:

"Oops! Your reservation has been cancelled! (SW301001) "

Oops indeed, Southwest! Oops indeed!

The representative puts me on hold for about twenty minutes, and thanks to my previous experience at this point I know just when to say 'ding' while singing along with 'if you're happy and you know it' for the next ten (10) minutes - by the way, I held in silence for the first ten or so. At this point, the representative says she'll call me back. Of course, this was over two hours ago, and I've not heard anything. My reservation is still cancelled, and you still have my money, dearest Southwest Airlines!

I must say, for an airline which claims to 'luv' me, you're doing a bad job of showing it. (I originally typed 'airlime' which was quite funny to me. Could you imagine loading people onto a lime with wings to fly them to austin? You could serve corona and mojitos along the way! I would like a mojito. At the very least, you could serve me a free mojito on the flight, assuming I ever get on it.)

In conclusion, Southwest, please resolve this. And if you could put me on the same flight as your rapping flight attendant, one of those dudes with a Southwest tattoo and a free mojito, I'd be most happy.

Dearest thanks,

Protocollie.

(P.S. I really like the hearts you have all over your twitter page, they're really cute.)