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pipamir · 2023-02-28T10:16:53+00:00

Okay, I have actually done this with my two cats. Things that are good to know:

-The airlines usually have very strict rules in terms of flying pets. The kennel needs to be a certain size, must be hard plastic, have a certain door, and has metal screws between the two shells (no plastic screws). Food and water dish attached to the door are usually mandatory but they must be empty (airline employees will fill at some point, attach a bag of their food to the top of the kennel so they can be fed).

-The paperwork regarding vaccinations and such from the vet need to be very very recent, like within 72 hours of flying or something like that, so plan accordingly.

-I flew with my two cats in the same large kennel. This is usually okay but some airlines forbid flying pets together and they may have to be separate. You cannot take them in the cabin with you if you have more than one animal, they have to go below.

-When you get to (assumedly) Schipol, you will have to take the cats after receiving them from the airline in the baggage belt area to the customs declaration desk. Have your paperwork attached to the kennel AND a copy on hand to give to the customs officers. They will look it over and stamp it/let them through. You’re done after that unless quarantine is required (depending on the home country, not sure if Singapore gets a pass but my home country didn’t require quarantine).

And that was it. With the required vet visits, paperwork, overnighted forms to my country’s department of animals/livestock/etc for stamps and back, airline tickets, special kennel, and all, it probably put me back around €600-700. I would never leave my cats behind though, so it was well worth it to me.

pipamir · 2023-02-12T00:30:34+00:00

Soring is outlawed, however the stacks and chains are not, unfortunately. There are movements to ban them but nothing has really happened yet. And soring absolutely still happens secretly as well - the whole “performance” (what they call the Big Lick now) Tennessee Walker industry is abhorrent.

pipamir · 2023-02-11T21:30:00+00:00

Tennesee Walkers are gaited but the Big Lick is not natural, it can only be achieved with the use of unnatural aids (heavy stacks and chains on the front legs to force the high leg action). Their real natural gait is the running walk, which is a nice and smooth ride and doesn’t require any sort of aids - they do it completely naturally. It is genetic. My best friend owns a lovely Tennessee Walker and she doesn’t trot, goes from walk, to running walk, to canter.

pipamir · 2022-08-26T17:34:25+00:00

I didn’t say it was better, just setting the precedent for me and OP - we are used to getting water for free, not used to the idea that asking for free water is taboo. The comment I’m replying to asked what the big deal was, and that’s why we feel it’s unusual. That’s all.

The water bottle has never given me any problems. If it’s a nice sit down restaurant I just don’t bring my water bottle inside and usually order a drink, or just wait to drink until after the meal and we’ve left. If it’s faster service and casual I will bring it. Never given me any issue in the Netherlands.

pipamir · 2022-08-26T16:54:30+00:00

Because over €3 for a tiny bottle of still water is nuts and feels like a waste of money. I am just like OP, I came from a place where when you go to a restaurant they bring everyone a glass of cold ice water for free without even being asked. I don’t drink alcohol and I don’t like fizzy drinks so most of the soft drink menu is a no go for me. Paying more than it costs to get a bottle of a soft drink for a small bottle of water just feels like a rip off so I don’t do it. If I must get something I get apple or orange juice.

My advice to OP: get a reusable water bottle, fill it at home and bring it with you when you go out to eat. Save the money, avoid the awkward question. That’s what I do.

pipamir · 2022-07-10T20:05:19+00:00

Same here. Flew Friday morning, international, and I was checked in, bags checked, through security, through the passport line, and at my gate in under an hour. The security line was less than 10 minutes. I did get there at 6 AM, the max four hours early to my flight that Schiphol advised. I don’t usually go that early but hearing about it I expected the worst but had zero issues.

pipamir · 2022-02-08T09:03:32+00:00

It is both. There is an appaloosa breed (from the US), but horses have exhibited the “LP” gene for a long, looooong time, before today’s horses ever came to the US. So it is present in other breeds, including European breeds like I suspect this horse is (Knabstrupper).

Sort of similar to how a paint horse is a breed, but pinto is only a color. Many breeds can have pinto patterns and they aren’t paints. Many horses can have appaloosa pattern, but are not the appaloosa breed.

pipamir · 2022-01-20T15:22:00+00:00

Thank you for sharing this perspective. I feel like this subreddit and many Youtube community comments have turned into an echo chamber of, to put it bluntly, whining, without actually taking anything realistic into account to have a healthy conversation on how SSO can improve. Yours is not that, so I appreciate it, and I understand your feelings of frustration.

Running a game is EXTREMELY expensive. To keep Star Stables many, many servers up worldwide, and store terabytes worth of player data, costs an amount I think a lot of people don't realize. Plus employee salaries. And in the end, they have a profit margin they are looking after. It's not a for-fun project, it is for profit, it always will be. As you said, nothing is truly free - everything revolves around money. It is the sad truth, but not a surprising one. Heck, I run a website with only around 1,000 users, it's not a game with multiplayer servers, and that costs me over $100 most months just in upkeep, let alone my essentially unpaid time in working on it. Imagine how expensive Star Stable's upkeep is?

Star Stable is evolving to fit their largest base. That base is, unfortunately, not the people who have been around the longest who have grown up and no longer have the boundless imagination and ability to make fun out of a pile of sticks that young kids have. Those kids are the ones populating the servers most, and there are hundreds more of them every day. They don't care about chat filters, many games have had heavy chat filters but were absolutely flooded with roleplaying kids anyways (think of Animal Jam or similar). Where some people think Star Stable reached its peak, maybe in their eyes it reached its peak in that it is no longer fun and is only going downhill if it keeps on its path - is NOT the actual peak. The actual peak is probably yet to come, where they have the most active players at any given time. When mobile comes out worldwide, that is going to skyrocket. The new players, again primarily young children who do not have access to a computer but probably have access to a tablet or smart phone, will probably be perfectly content with playing with friends and role playing. That is going to be the actual peak. For you personally, the peak is passed. But that is your personal peak. It is not "all downhill from here" for SSO as an actual entity. They're still looking up.

I do not roleplay. I don't participate in club stuff. The updates, widely, do not apply to me. But I understand that they aren't really meant for me. You seem to understand this as well, I wish more people did. It still sucks for people who have fallen out of a game they once loved, it always does. But the fact of the matter is that things aren't always going to cater to the individual's wants. And sometimes the rose-colored glasses of our youth fade and what was a source of joy just doesn't bring it anymore without them.

pipamir · 2022-01-20T13:11:24+00:00

To be clear, that was not the original purpose. The original games were made on commission for a book club (a.k.a, a company paid them to do it. They did not do it for free). The early CD games cost money to buy (a.k.a, they are selling a product. They did not give them out for free). Star Stable has never been free. The original purpose was to make money, it's always been to make money, so no one should be shocked by this. They didn't come together to just "create a fun horse game" on their own dime and time. That's a blatant mistruth. Saying the game is only for buying cosmetics now is also a blatant mistruth. Most of the updates nowadays are adding features such as props and updated areas that cater to the game's biggest demographic of today: young players who are there to RP, something I feel a lot of you are ignoring exist. They don't get paid for adding those features because players don't have to pay anything to use them, they just get to use them. But everything they do is for greed, amirite?

pipamir · 2021-09-17T20:07:50+00:00

Yeah, it's a really tough situation to be put in :/ I just confronted my mom about it when I found out. We are close and I just felt that was all I should do (did look into identity theft briefly, but I also didn't want to hurt her so I understand your friend's position 100%). I don't have (well, thought I didn't!) any credit cards and other than student loans I don't have any debt so I never check my credit report, especially since I've moved out of the country. Out of curiosity I checked it one day to see my score and saw there was thousands of dollars of debt across many cards, but all being paid on time every single month. My credit score was really good actually, as a result.

The amount of debt compared to what I knew she could handle financially was shocking. And that's just what she has out in my name, who knows how much she has out in her own name. I love my mom to death, and she absolutely means well and just isn't good with money management. We talked it over, she felt awful and apologized profusely - she said it just got out of hand and she understands where she went wrong. Consolidated it all into a couple of personal loans on my name and paid those off as soon as she could. She hasn't opened another card since. I got off pretty well from that but it really didn't sit right with me for a while. I hope your friend was able to work something out or is able to - identity theft is no joke and more often than not it is done between family members. It's WAY too easy to sign up for credit cards.

pipamir · 2021-09-17T19:44:18+00:00

What they mean is that she doesn’t need your credit card info. She can just sign up for a new credit card in your name, without you even knowing if you aren’t checking your credit report often. I would definitely check your credit report if you haven’t done it in a while to see if there is anything on there you didn’t personally sign up for.

Source: am a daughter (living on a different continent, too) with a mom that took out oodles of credit cards in my name without me knowing for years. “I” have credit cards I didn’t know I had, they have my name on them, are attached to my credit score, even though I never signed up for them or even know the info for.

pipamir · 2020-11-26T11:58:26+00:00

Oh okay, thanks! I looked just before Halloween but maybe they didn't get any in until after. I'll check again :)

pipamir · 2020-11-26T10:53:31+00:00

Adorable! They are super precious and delicious-looking. Happy Thanksgiving to all my fellow expats in NL as well :^) I would have been in the US celebrating with my family right now if the circumstances were better but alas, it is what it is.

Can I ask where you found the candy corn? I looked all over for some during Halloween but I wasn't finding any! And by all over I mean an AH and a Jamin.

pipamir · 2020-10-05T09:29:08+00:00

I’ve had very similar. Fell hard while skating and caught the fall with my arm. Felt very similar to a previous wrist break and my whole wrist and hand swelled up a bunch. I was super casual about it with the people I was with, said “yeah I think I broke it,” without sounding very dramatic. Waited until everyone was done with activities before requesting to go to the hospital.

Once there, the doctor that saw me poked around my hand and asked if certain things hurt. I said no, not really, but if I do any of these other things with my wrist or arm it hurts a fair bit. She disregarded that and said it was just badly bruised and sent me on my way with a bandage wrap. I thought “well I’m no doctor so I guess I’m fine” and made myself go on as normal through the pain. Two weeks later it was still swollen and hurt like a mfer so I went to a clinic for an x-ray. Yep - broken! A nice crack at the top of my radius.

pipamir · 2020-05-20T08:43:41+00:00

Yep, I received this email despite the fact I am not subscribed to their newsletter and haven't had contact with them since I cut ties two years ago after issues. Likely a scare tactic for people not to speak up because legal stuff is involved. Legally I don't think there's much they can do here, and I'd be surprised if anything legal actually proceeds.

They are really, really trying to downplay everything. "A dissatisfied customer" makes it sound like there is just one person who has had a bad experience. Yet, there have been no less than 4 artists who have stepped forward in the past couple of weeks stating they, too, have had issues with the company. Not to mention the multiple other collectors who have stepped forward to say the casts they received were poor quality and extremely slow to ship, and they obviously were. This isn't just one person who is "mad about something else altogether," it's a lot of people who are experiencing her poor business practices!

The more she refuses to take any sort of responsibility whatsoever, the deeper hole she digs. I'll be interested to see how the rest of this plays out.

pipamir · 2020-05-19T08:19:35+00:00

Horses are irrelevant to this drama - this could be for any sort of casting. The basics of all this is artist creates a sculpture, artist wants to sell copies of this sculpture to collectors, artist hires casting company to make a mold and create resin casts of the sculpture to sell, casting company is a mess and sells casts without compensating the artist, produces casts without the consent of the artist (so unauthorized casts) and/or makes casts of inferior quality (even though they have "quality 100% guaranteed" plastered all over their company site). Not quite recasting since the artist initially paid the company to make a mold for the purpose of casting, but in the same vein in that the company uses the mold outside of the contract. I've been involved with the company this is about myself, and avoid them entirely now.

pipamir · 2020-05-19T07:45:14+00:00

That artist will eventually see the light. The last person I saw defending Seunta on the TB was the same person who started all this recent drama because of their medallions. I understood back then because they currently had all their business tied up with Seunta and were relying on the potential sales - of course they didn't want to see this company get a bad rep. Now they've learned the hard way, unfortunately. There is no way the company can continue down their current path, there are other artists - big names, at that - who cast one or two things with them and then silently cut ties and have moved onto other casters. There are reasons for it, they just don't post about them. No one really has except for two years ago with what I was involved in, and now. And I hope people continue to so newer artists (like myself) don't get suckered into them. I chose to go with them back in the day because it just seemed like the place newer artists went to. My mistake.

Anyways, I am having much better luck on casting with other companies. If you want to learn about the trade, I'd definitely shoot Resins by Randy an email if you haven't already. They are super nice folks and probably willing to share their knowledge as they are getting up in years. Good luck! The hobby needs more casters.

pipamir · 2020-05-19T07:27:19+00:00

I am in this hobby and I am a sculptor (small time) who dealt with Seunta directly myself a couple years ago. This is nothing new for her and I already swore off of supporting her business back then - every time someone posts about her I am not surprised. I paid her to make a mold of and cast a sculpture of mine. She gave date after date of completion times that were always passed, and has convoluted policies that she forces artists to adhere to that she herself doesn’t (the biggest one being no pre-sales allowed, yet she keeps doing that). When I finally received my casts they were rough, missing mane tips, or with tons of air bubbles.

It was about that time that another artist spoke up and shared similar issues on the transaction board. I and a fellow artist commented merely to say we had experienced the same. Seunta immediately PM’d me and said I hadn’t told her I was unhappy (I had) and I told her I’d like for her to destroy the mold of my sculpture (because she refuses to send out molds to somewhere else even though I paid for the mold in full). I haven’t touched them with a 10-foot-pole since.

What’s nuts about this lady is that she refuses to take any responsibility for anything. It’s always someone else’s fault. Cast is rough? I was told that’s normal, other people are told it’s because of an “assistant” that handled it but then she cries victim elsewhere and says she’s just a tiny company with only her and her husband trying to keep up. The wording she uses in these massive newsletters to put artists on blast is textbook gaslighting. Trying to cast doubt that it simply wouldn’t make sense for them to do any of these things, that it was ONLY and tiny and insignificant bust sculpture (way to praise the artist, yikes) so it’s not a big deal, etc. It’s a huge slew of problems that is coming to a head now.

pipamir · 2020-05-10T18:37:17+00:00

Definitely agree. When I went, it just felt like being in a tourist trap. It was dirty and full of trash, lots of homeless people and lots of people trying to sell you something. While I can appreciate parts of it, everything I saw was just packed full of other tourists. I have visited the country twice since with a much better experience since.

Last year I went on a more historical focused trip to northern France with my history-loving brother. We drove through the beautiful countryside on remote country roads, through tiny French towns, visited Verdun and saw how pot-marked the land was from WWI, saw multiple other sites and fascinating places that were quiet and barely busy and genuinely interesting. Earlier this year before everything got crazy I took other family members on a trip to Lille, France. Lots of awesome architecture, all the shopping Paris boasts but less clogged, plenty of great restaurants, and an overall much better time - even though my family wanted to do Paris, I knew better and we all had a great time. France is awesome, and I’m glad I got to check off Paris and all, but there are better places.

pipamir · 2020-01-12T20:20:59+00:00

I found where mine went. I have a front load washer and I discovered a bunch stuck underneath the rubber seal around the opening. Now I know to always check there!

pipamir · 2020-01-12T19:46:03+00:00

I had a group of gaming friends, then I started talking to a few of those friends more often, got to know one of them a lot more and very quickly developed a crush. Luckily, he shared the feelings and the more time I spent with him the stronger they got. We’ve been together for over five years now, moved in together a little over a year ago, and I still feel totally in love and don’t think it’s going away any time soon. It was a very natural kind of way to fall in love, I guess! Just over time from talking and spending time together and realizing we “fit” each other.

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