With friends like these...

This needs to be everywhere.

PayPal is currently in a financial fight with the owner of Regretsy, April Winchell, over funds raised on Regretsy (an internationally famous blogging site) to help less fortunate children have toys for Chrismas. PayPal has not only made a profit off of these donations, but is requesting the donations be refunded (which they will also make a profit off of), and has now frozen the Regretsy account completely. Please go to the Regretsy website (http://www.regretsy.com/2011/12/05/cats-1-kids-0/) for more information about the complete story, and the out-rage from not only April but all of the charitable people who feel PayPal has now stolen from them.

From the website:

As you know, we have been trying to buy Christmas presents for kids in the Regretsy community.

We took many applications, vetted them carefully and set about creating a giant gift exchange program, where you could buy a gift for the over 200 children we’re helping.

We raised so much money that we found ourselves in a position of not just being able to send toys, but to send a monetary gift to the families as well. We hoped it might help them make their holiday dinners more special, or maybe pay a pressing bill.

PAYPAL SHUT IT DOWN

Apparently we made the mistake of using the “Donate” button, which Paypal is now claiming is only for nonprofit organizations to use. They froze the account, which also includes Zazzle money that we use to make emergency gifts. That money isn’t in issue, but what the hell! Might as well keep everything!

So last night, I decided to go about this a different way. Since these toys are already purchased, I decided to offer them up for sale on this site, just like any other retailer would. You could buy them according to what you wanted to spend, and we would send them on to the recipient of your gift, just like any other retailer.

PAYPAL SHUT IT DOWN

After a very long and jaw-dropping conversation with an incredibly condescending representative, they have decided that I must refund all the donations and purchases that have not been processed. If you don’t get a refund, it’s because we got your money before they got smart and kept us from helping children at Christmas, which is really the best move any corporation can make.

I went a little quiet on you all for a while there didn't I? Well I think I deserved a break after that month-long ficathon. Jeez. I really outdid myself there, even if the LJ outage seemed determined to stop me from posting the last one how I wanted it. Ah well.

I suppose I've been taking a break, thanks to my muses being tired out, and the weather being bloody awful. A little sunshine is all well and good but when it goes on for days and bumps the temperature in your bedroom up to 27+ degrees (C) for over a week, even at night, it really does begin to wear on you. Thankfully, it's a lot cooler now, and has been raining a lot. Back to the traditional English weather. I missed it.

It seems that Fate doesn't really want me to have pets. One of my fish died, which granted was partly my fault because I should have seen it before I did, but now the goldfish is developing black marks on his fins and the base of his tail. I've looked it up, and apparently it's the marks of healing from ammonia burns. And it was my fault. I'll not go into details because it was a rather daft thing I did, but it was my fault. Luckily, and I'm not overly concerned because of this, his personality hasn't changed. When he had finrot he was very withdrawn and hid all the time, but with these black marks he's as active and curious as ever. I'll be keeping an eye on him over the next week and making sure he's getting better because damn it I refuse to lose another fish.

Speaking of pets. The dog had his booster jabs today. And a bath. He's asleep now but he'll be sulking later.

I've been keeping an eye on the world news lately, since the current economic crisis is something which interests me. Something is going to have to change, and it's going to need to be something big, and something very soon, and it's going to have to come from one of the larger countries or Europe, because there's no way that any country is going to be able to deal with this alone. We're all too tightly knit together now for anything like that. I didn't think I'd see global collapse in my lifetime but it looks like I might, I just hope that the governments don't turn to squeezing the 'middle classes' even harder while the top 2% wealthiest continue to get their taxes cut. We're already being squeezed hard enough, thank you very much. I'll be lucky if I move out of this house before I'm thirty.

In more personal news, left this late on because really, if you care, you will have read this far, my sister is now seeing a counsellor. She's still not got over being broken up with (it's now been six months) and from where I can see she's stuck in stage four of the bereavement process. It's... irritating. Yes, I am sympathetic, but when mother tells me that Amy's told her that she's feeling upset and 'betrayed' that I will go to her ex's house (one of my exes, who I am still friends with, lives with him and two other people), I can't really do anything but roll my eyes. She's bothered that I will see him and go to his house when she won't and can't, since she no longer knows where he lives. This counsellor business is going to go one of two ways. Either it's going to help her through things, or this woman, however nice she is, is just going to be someone else that she talks to and it never goes anywhere. Ahh I don't know. Maybe it'll help and maybe it won't. We'll see.

I spent three (or was it four?) days playing Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age: Awakening and Dragon Age II all one after the other. Then, after some conferring with my friends Frames and Kayla, and my boyfriend, I decided to take the plunge and buy Oblivion. I've played it before, but I could never get the hang of the combat, which really, is rather borked as far as.. everything goes. I'm not very good at FPS because I can't aim very well, which was why Fallout 3 was always perfect for me. VATS saved my arse more than once. However I noticed when I was playing that I was using it a lot less, and my aim was a lot better, so I thought I'd actually be able to play Oblivion. Thankfully, I was right, and I am very much enjoying it. With 28 hours clocked and at level 4, I'm a Silencer for the Black Hand, an Apprentice of the Fighters Guild, a Bandit in the Thieves Guild, an Evoker in the Mages' Guild, an honorary member of the Order of the Virtuous Blood. and a Knight of the White Stallion. I also have a cute house on the waterfront in the Imperial City. Yes it's just a shack but it's nice and cosy and I rather like it. I wouldn't say no to a bit of a fancier place, though.

To my surprise I've encountered very little trouble. And I haven't been accidentally turned into a vampire yet despite clearing out a vampire den. Yay me~ I might try out vampirism eventually, just to see how it works out for me.

Derp.

Sony network attacked again.

A hacker group has claimed it has attacked the Sony network and stolen more than one million passwords, email addresses and other information.

Lulz Security said it broke into servers which run SonyPictures.com.

It said it had hacked into a database that included unencrypted passwords as well as names, addresses and dates of birth of Sony customers.

In April, hackers broke into Sony's PlayStation Network and stole data from more than 77 million accounts.

Hope none of you guys have PS3s. Or if you do, I hope you've not been affected by this. o-e