Yesterday, my family and I adopted a second dog. Our first dog, Bailey, was energetic and loved other dogs, and so for a while now we've toyed with the fact we should get a second dog. However, we weren't sure how my mom and my grandma would react to such a thing, and I honestly thought that getting a second dog would remain just an idea.


Then on Friday, my dad took me to the local rescue shelter and we looked at the dogs. There, we found two that we really liked--Brenda, a Belgian Malanois, and Annabelle, a terrier mix that looked similar to Bailey. That night we convinced my mother to meet the dogs, and she liked both. By Saturday we had chosen Annabelle and put her on hold. Sunday we took Bailey to meet her, and the two got along wonderfully. So Annabelle came home with us. Now we're trying to balance two dogs while trying to acclimate Annabelle (who we're trying to rename Zoe).


For me, though, the hardest part is trying to juggle the affections of two dogs. I'm sure that it will be easier once they're used to one another, but as it stands now you can't pet one without making the other one angry at you. I'm also not sure how to spread my affection around, and love both dogs equally, rather than one over the other... because right now I'm smitten by Annabelle (and I never expected that I would be). I'm not sure if it's because she's new or what, but she's so unbelievably sweet and affectionate. She'll do damn near anything to make you happy. Bailey will make you happy if it suits her. It's also hard because I have no base for which to judge. I've only been in a one dog household before, and I have no siblings, so this is new to my parents, too. I'm partially grateful that I've gone back to school, because I can try to figure it all out, but at the same time it feels as if I'm running away from the problem instead of confronting it.

schuhoney asked to see my icons. Here are pretty much all the ones I've made over the last... um... two years? I think that's when I first got photoshop. They're after the jump.

( Into the cave of wonders... )

I want to get into icon making communities, but I don't make that many and I forgot where I got half my stuff for to credit. And then I'm not even sure if I'm any good... *sigh* Oh well.

From CNN:

'House of Horror' children never saw daylight

• Story Highlights
• Father says he held daughter prisoner for nearly 24 years, fathered 7 children
  
• Police: Three children imprisoned with the mother had never seen daylight
  
• One of the seven children died and was burned in an oven, suspect told police
  
• The 42-year-old woman had been missing since 1984, when she was 18
  

AMSTETTEN, Austria (CNN) -- Three children freed from a cellar in which their mother had been imprisoned and raped by her own father for 24 years had never seen daylight, police in Austria have confirmed.

Police spokesman Franz Polzer told CNN that 73-year-old Josef Fritzl admitted holding his daughter, Elisabeth Fritzl, 42, hostage in the windowless cell and fathering seven children by her.

"The mother had memories [of the outside world] and got used to the situation," Polzer told a press conference Monday afternoon. "The others knew nothing else."

The main question reverberating from the small Austrian town: how could a man keep his daughter locked in his basement for 24 years, where she gave birth to seven of his children while her mother and three of those children lived upstairs without an inkling of the horrors in the cellar?

Fritzl explained Elisabeth's disappearance by saying she had run away from home, a story backed up by letters he forced Elisabeth to write, including one that begged her parents not to look for her.

Other letters made it seem the missing daughter had left the three children on the parents' doorstep -- when in fact they had been born in captivity in the family's basement.

Elisabeth told police that she and her three children Kerstin, 19; Stefan, 18; and Felix, 5, did not see the light of day during their entire time in captivity underneath the building in Amstetten, a rural town about 150 km (93 miles) west of Vienna.

Elisabeth is described as "very disturbed" and having trouble talking to police about her ordeal, reports CNN correspondent Fred Pleitgen. She went missing in 1984, when she was 18 years old, police have said.

More details also emerged at the news conference about the basement dungeon in which the daughter and her children were kept -- and how her father managed to keep them captive for more than two decades. See inside the cellar prison »

The authorities have revealed that the prison, constructed in the basement of the 1960s building, ran underneath both the building itself and the garden outside.

The entrance was via a small door, hidden behind cupboards in the basement, controlled by an electronic keyless-entry system. Polzer said that the prison was hard to find, even if someone was looking for it, and had been soundproofed.

"Even though they shouted and called they were not in a position to let anyone hear them," Polzer told the press conference.

Polzer said that Fritzl made clear to his wife and other children that the area was out of bounds and they were not to go into the basement. He bought food and took it to his captives in the evening.

Detectives made the grim discovery about the cellar earlier this month after Kerstin was hospitalized in Amstetten after falling unconscious and taken to a hospital in Amstetten by her grandfather with a SOS note from her mother hidden on her.

A DNA test was later carried out which revealed her grandfather, Josef Fritzl, was also her father, according to ORF, Austria's state-run news agency.

That sparked a police investigation, which revealed that Fritzl fathered at least six children with his daughter, forcing her and three of the surviving children to live in the cellar of his house, according to ORF's Peter Schmitzberger. Watch police describe the captives' jail »

On Sunday, police searched the hidden rooms where Fritzl admitted he kept his daughter and their children, including sleeping quarters, a kitchen and a bathroom, which Fritzl told police he built, Polzer said.

Amstetten police say they were put on Fritzl's trail following an anonymous tip off. They apprehended the pair on Saturday near the hospital and once police assured the daughter that she would never have contact with her father again, "she was able to tell the whole story," Schmitzberger said.

Elisabeth said her father began sexually abusing her at age 11. On August 8, 1984 -- weeks before she was reported missing -- her father enticed her into the basement, where he drugged her, put her in handcuffs and locked her in a room, she told police.

For the next 24 years, she was constantly raped by her father, resulting in the six surviving children, she said, according to the police statement.

She also told police she gave birth to twins in 1996, but one of the babies died a few days later as a result of neglect, and Fritzl removed the infant's body and burned it in an oven.

She told police that only her father supplied her and her children with food and clothing, and that she did not think his wife knew anything about their situation

Fritzl lived upstairs with his wife, Rosemarie, who police said had no idea about her husband's other family living in the cellar. The couple adopted three of the children that Fritzl had with his daughter, according to police. He told his wife that his missing daughter had dropped the unwanted children off at the house because she could not take care of them, police said.

When Kerstin fell ill, Fritzl apparently told his wife and the hospital that his "missing" daughter had dropped off the sick girl on his doorstep.

In an effort to find out about Kerstin's condition, the hospital and police asked the media to put out a bulletin requesting any information about the girl or her missing mother, attorney general Gerhard Sedlacek told NTV.

Sometime later, Fritzl brought Elisabeth out of the cellar, telling his wife that she had returned home with her two children after a 24-year absence, police said.

He took Elisabeth to the hospital to talk with doctors about Kerstin's condition, and at that point, authorities became aware of her situation, Sedlacek said.

CNN's Fred Pleitgen, Ben Brumfield and Nadine Schmidt contributed to this report

schuhoney tagged me, and I was seriously bored in my classes today, so I did it.

"Once you have been tagged, you have to write a blog with 10 random things, facts, goals, or habits about yourself. At the end, choose 10 people to be tagged, listing their names & why you chose them. Don't forget to leave them a comment (you're it!) and to read your blog for instructions. You can't tag a person who has tagged you. Since you can't re-tag me, let me know when you've posted your blog so I can read the answers!"


People I tag:
pacdude
renkinshenjou
Anyone who wants to do it

Dear Professors:

I no longer care about your classes.  Please make classes end now.

No Love,
Red_Confession.

I get bored.  I make icons.  Decided to make some Sweeney Todd icons.  Will post them when I have more than 2.

Pair Bring Corpse To Store To Cash Check

NEW YORK (CBS) ― There are few crimes that manage to surprise police, but this is one of them.

It was like something out of a bad movie. Two men are accused of pretending their dead friend was alive in order to get his money.

To many, $355 may not seem like much, but to two 65-year-old friends it was enough motivation to put their dead friend in a chair and wheel him down to the Pay-O-Matic a New York check-cashing store to cash his social security check.

The incident brings back memories of the 1989 cult comedy hit "Weekend at Bernie's." In that film, two relative losers, played Jonathan Silverman and Andrew McCarthy, cart their dead boss around after he was killed by a hitman and try to pass him off as alive.

Regardless of the two reitrement-age friend's inspiration for doing what they are accused of, witnesses say they could have used some Hollywood help in the makeup department.

"He was sitting in the chair with his head in the back of the chair," witness Victor Rodriguez said. "From where I was looking he appeared to be dead."

Men wheeling around a dead man also caught the attention of a plainclothes police officer who was inside eating lunch next-door.

The officer was the one who called police just as David Dalaia and James O'Hare were about to wheel in the deceased, Virgilio Cintron, inside. They had to bring the man inside because without seeing him, the cashier was not going to cash the check.

Neighbors of the deceased Cintron and his roommate O'Hare say the two men were on the eccentric side and kept to themselves.

"It wouldn't surprise me that much," one neighbor said.

Added Marta Reman: "One said hi, the other really kept to himself. It seemed like he really didn't, well, he looked physically ill or something."

Cintron was taken to a nearby hospital and declared dead, most likely from natural causes. His two friends, O'Hare and Dalaia, are now in police custody. 

(© MMVIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

So...  I've come to realize that I've made a bunch of mistakes socially since entering college.  It feels like middle school all over again.  The walls back up and stronger than ever.  I'm bitchy and cynical towards everyone around me that I don't consider a friend.  And that circle is so goddamned small I don't know what I was thinking when I decided they were all I needed.  But I guess I'm paying the price for it now.  I'm lonely.  If my few friends are busy, or if I don't feel like hanging out with them, I'm out of luck.  And I'm beginning to think that it's evolving into depression.  It's like....  there isn't anything I want to do anymore.  I don't want to see people, I don't want to do things I liked to do, I can't concentrate...  I just want to sleep.  And then, at the same time, I want desperately to do all of those things.

Maybe some of it has to do with the fact I've lost contact with people I hung out with in high school.  To me those were the golden days.  I mean I can message them on Facebook, I guess, but it's not the same as seeing them face-to-face, which is what I really want to do.  But I also know that I can't do that either --we're all spread throughout the country.

I guess I could try to expand my circle of friends, but there isn't anyone in my classes that I like.  I mean there's this one kid in my Japanese class that seems interesting, but I also can't see myself hanging out with him outside of class.  My mom thinks I should try to hang out with one of my other friends' friends, but I don't know them either.  Just because they're my friend's friend doesn't mean they'll like me.  I need to find my own friends.  But I don't know where to look.

And so, for now, I'm alone.

Tagged by Shatter

4 movies you can always watch:
- Princess Bride
- The Waterboy
- The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
- RENT

4 towns you lived in:
- NYC
- Long Island
- Philly
-

4 shows you like to watch:
- CSI
- House
- Heroes
- NCIS

4 websites you visit daily:
- Gaia Online
- Live Journal
- King.com (for games to kill time)
- Various Online TCG sites

4 favorite foods:
- Chocolate
- Ice Cream
- Dunakroos
- Fruit by the Foot

4 places you'd like to be now:
- Japan
- Ireland
- Upstate
- New York City

4 friends/victims you want to take this survey:
- Cory
- Aniki
-
-

List ten things that make you happy.
1. Reading
2. Watching TV
3. Writing
4. Puppies (especially mine)
5. Candy
6. Manga
7. Board Games
8. Video Games
9. Hanging with Friends
10. Shopping for random things

Cops: NYC Murder-Castration May Have Been Revenge

Suspect Has Not Been Arrested Or Charged

(CBS News) NEW YORK Police were investigating whether a mentally disturbed woman lured her Liberian stepfather to her home and then gagged, handcuffed and castrated him to avenge a history of sexual abuse.

Investigators believe the suspect, Brigitte Harris, "did it," a law enforcement official said on Monday. "We are trying to determine why."

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because Harris had not been arrested or charged, said police were checking reports that Eric Goodridge, 55, may have abused Harris as a child. Detectives were hoping to question the 26-year-old suspect at a hospital mental ward where she was admitted after the slaying, the law enforcement official said.

Police also were seeking a search warrant to comb the suspect's computer files for clues about a motive. On her MySpace.com home page, she referred to herself as The Original Dark Angel and listed her mood as "depressed."

Her attorney, Arthur Aidala, after viewing the MySpace page, said, "You could tell that she's someone who's calling out for help."

He said his client's stepfather was "a monster."

"And living with a monster from the age of 3 is something that you just don't recover from without professional help," he said.

Harris left chilling notes in her Rockaways apartment accusing Goodridge of abuse and justifying her crime, the New York Daily News reports.

"He wrecked my life," read one note found near her stepfather's body Saturday, according to the Daily News. "At first, I blamed myself. Now I know it's not my fault," another said.

Police said Harris sent e-mails to Goodridge to lure him to her apartment, the Daily News reports. Then she handcuffed him to a chair, gagged him with duct tape and throttled him until he died, authorities said.

He was already dead when she cut off his penis, officials said, noting there would have been much more blood if he had been alive when it was severed.

When officers were summoned there at about 1 p.m. Saturday, they discovered his mutilated body; Harris was missing.

The victim had been bound with duct tape, handcuffed and strangled before having his penis sliced off, police said. The medical examiner determined he died from "homicidal violence," including gagging and neck compression.

Police immediately began searching for Harris and learned she had checked into a hospital for psychological treatment.

Goodridge lived in Staten Island when he was married to Harris' mother. He later married another woman, who died five years ago, according to the Daily News. That woman's mother defended Goodridge as a decent dad to his other children, who are now orphaned.

She acknowledged to the Daily News that she had heard rumors that Goodridge had abused Harris, but said she didn't think they was true.

"I would die if I could believe that," his former mother-in-law told the Daily News. "He wouldn't pay child support, but I wouldn't believe that."

But a former brother-in-law told the Daily News he had also heard of the sex abuse claims long before Goodridge's shocking death.

"It stands to reason if someone pulls a Lorena Bobbitt, there's a good reason," he told the Daily News.

Woman accused of bilking $2M in NYC adoption scam, abusing kids

By BRIAN SKOLOFF

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- A Florida woman accused of using aliases to adopt 11 New York children received up to $2 million in child welfare payments even as she starved, bound and abused them, police said Tuesday.

Investigators initially believed Judith Leekin, 62, had adopted nine children but authorities in New York said Tuesday that Leekin adopted 11 children in all from New York City's foster care system between 1993 and 1996.

Authorities believe Leekin held the adopted children like prisoners in her Port St. Lucie home, often handcuffing them together and forcing them to soil themselves because they weren't allowed to use the bathroom.

"It's abhorrent to everyone at Children's Services and the larger child welfare community who work so hard to identify strong, loving adoptive families to think that someone would adopt children and then mistreat them," said John B. Mattingly, commissioner of the New York City Administration for Children's Services.

Leekin remained jailed on $4.5 million bail on 11 charges, including counts of aggravated child abuse, false identification and witness tampering, as well as four counts of aggravated abuse of a disabled adult. Leekin's lawyer said his client denies the allegations.

"She indicated that she loved these children, that she took care of them," Mario Garcia said. "She nurtured them and fed them."

According to ACS, Leekin used multiple aliases to fraudulently adopt the children and had been receiving welfare payments at different addresses and bank accounts until her arrest.

Florida authorities said they had located a 19-year-old man Monday who was among the 11 adopted by Leekin but had left the home two years ago. Police say Leekin was still collecting payments from the New York agency for his care.

"He had similar stories, similar scars and marks on his body from his wrists to his ankles where he alleges he was also handcuffed and tied to other people," Port St. Lucie Police spokesman Robert Vega said Tuesday.

Vega said they were still trying to locate an 18-year-old whom Leekin adopted from New York.

He said police believe Leekin received up to $2 million over the years from the New York child welfare agency.

Parents who adopt special needs children in New York City can get as much as $55 a day until the child turns 21.

"We are working with law enforcement to provide them with all available records to aid in the investigation," Mattingly said. "We are also doing everything possible to see how this individual was apparently able to adopt children using multiple false identities."

ACS noted that it had begun fingerprinting adults who adopted children out of foster care in 1999 _ after Leekin's adoptions were processed. Mattingly said the agency was searching its records from all adoption agencies to root out any other fraudulent adoption cases.

The case came to light on July 4 when an 18-year-old woman was found wandering in a grocery store some 200 miles away in St. Petersburg. The woman told police Leekin had adopted her 13 years ago and abandoned her at the store earlier that day.

Investigators found eight other children and handicapped adults, ranging in age from 15 to 27, in Leekin's home. All had scars on their wrists and some had burns. None appeared to have more than a fourth-grade education, not even the adults in their 20s. They told authorities they had never seen a doctor or a dentist and all were near starvation, police said.

I'll be on vacation from Friday July 20th to Saturday July 28th.  Have fun muchachos.  Love you all.

This is the mood theme I made out of boredom. Click the pretty LJ Cut to see! (Warning: You don't like seeing guys kissing, you suck don't look).

Dear people I love,

I wish you much love and happiness in all you do in the future. Just don't leave me behind.

Love,
redconfession

I feel like he's drifting away from me...

Taken from leonovitch who took it from zeffy_amethyst.

You're Crawford! Cool and calculating, you have a problem with authority - that is, any authority that isn't yours. There's a sense of humour in there, though it can be somewhat nasty, and one hell of a strong personality. Whatever you do, you mean to reach the top, and you'll take the shortest route to get there. You keep your friends close and your enemies in body bags.

Which member of Schwarz are you? (the extremely random quiz)

My dog has gotten so old in the last year.  It saddens me.  It's like she can't do any of the stuff she used to do.  I mean, I don't blame her for it, it's a natural process and all, but...  It saddens me.  I miss her being a vivacious, spunky, loud little puppy.

I think what bothers me the most about it is that when I left she was an able bodied dog, and when I came back from college she was old.

Sooooo I came home yesterday and the first thing I did today was drive my father halfway across the Island to go pick up his car. Not his regular car. His nice new (well old) car. It's a greenish-blue Oldsmobile 442. I'm sure there's some more fancier correct name for it but I don't know it. Sorry. But anyway, so I drive him to the repair shop and he picked up his car, and the two of us drive back together, playfully racing each other home. Surprisingly I won, but I think it was only because he didn't want us going too fast (we went no faster than 65).

Then later he takes me for a ride in it. We were going to go visit my one cousin and her husband, but she wasn't there so we went up the road and saw my other cousin and his wife instead. This is the part of the family we've been having problems with, but that was a while ago and technically didn't affect my immediate family. Well anyway, while my dad and cousin talk cars, I get stuck talking to the wife, who was the source of the problem. Now normally I'd love to talk to this woman, because she used to be my favorite cousin-in-law, but now... It was like talking to a rock. She'd ask the default questions like "So how was school?" and "So... Any guys?" But everything felt so forced it was awkward. Our conversations never lasted very long. It sucked because we used to never shut up. I mean I'm an only child and I kind of viewed her like a pseudo-sister before this whole thing happened.

...There goes my dad. I'm nowhere near the window but his car is so damn loud I heard it leave the driveway. After all, my room is above the garage, so the driveway's right in front of me.


That's besides the point. My point is (other than the fact that my cousin changed a lot) I like my dad's car. It's a convertible and he had the top down, so it was really nice. I loved the feel of the air rushing around me, and I got a thrill when my dad went fast. It was unlike anything I really experienced. I can definitely see why my dad loves it.

He said I could drive it once he does a bit more work on it, but I don't know. I'm used to driving my Shirogane, my little two door Cobalt. This thing, although beautiful, is a freakin' boat. I can barely drive my mom's Trailblazer or my dad's other car which are only slightly bigger. So I probably won't. But at least I know that I can ride in it whenever I want.

Hello all!  I have finally returned home from the wonderful land of college.  Okay, so we're driving back and I was told a wonderfully amusing story by my parents.  It was of a guest that they had earlier in the week.  Well, not a guest so much as someone who knocked on their door.  And no, not a Jehovah's Witness (amazing isn't it?).  I think it's actually something a bit better.

So my mother tells me that they were planning a beautiful trip to Wal-Mart (classy I know), when someone rang the doorbell.  So my mom answers it and this woman is there, telling her she was a single mother selling magazines door to door to make a living.  And that would be okay, but then the woman started asking personal questions about her life--like what she did for a living and how she got into the job.  She then basically all but asked who's in the house all day, if anyone.  Both parents get suspicious of her motives and let the dog loose.  Now anyone who knows my beautiful baby Casey knows that she is utterly harmless, even if she does have a vicious bark.  So she immediately freaked out the woman, who left when my mom gave her $10 as a "donation" then told her to leave her alone.

Now, originally I was just going to tell this story, but then, as I'm typing this, the doorbell rings again.  It was a different woman this time, similar to the first.  Unfortunately, my mother gets to the door before I do and so she starts telling this woman off, basically slamming the door in her face before I can have any fun with her (i.e. messing with her mentally).

So here's my theory.  I live in a fairly nice middle class suburban neighborhood, and I have a hunch that a band of thieves (and not that good ones I might add) is scoping it out.  Seriously, it would be easier to just drive by the neighborhood in the middle of the day...

Oh well, this should prove to be an interesting summer.  And it's also given me a small story idea.  I don't know if I'll expand on it or not though.