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Hey guys, a good friend of mine recently started a series of video game-themed artwork meant to make comment on various controversial aspects of the gaming industry and she asked me to stick this here in case some of you may be interested.
The first of four pieces(? or at least I know she's done four already, not sure if there are more planned) has been released, and is available to view on her new tumblr page, while 8x10 prints are available on her Etsy page for $10, while the original one-of-a-kind piece is also available for $3,999 (I doubt anyone here would want to buy it for that much, but I figured I'd include it too, lol).

Hey guys, I need to vent, and I need advice. Sorry this is gonna be a bit long, but I'd really appreciate it if you stick with me here and let me know your thoughts.
I'm sure some of you have already heard my crap in my other threads or in PMs, so I'll try to make the first bit of this leading up to the Greyhound incident as short as I can.
Actually, I'll spoiler most of it so you can skip it if you want.

Fast forward a few months to November. I've had a difficult time making ends meet, but I've managed. I'm taking a full load of classes and volunteering at a locally-owned bookstore. They can't pay me because they're barely making enough money to keep their doors open, but through them I've managed to get a few jobs here and there repairing people's computers/cellphones/game consoles and teaching older people how to use the internet. Now my friend Evan comes in. I've known him for a few years. He's a big fan of Nintendo stuff, he's dabbled in modding a bit, he loves the custom systems I've put together in the past, and he's always been incredibly supportive.
He sent me a message on Facebook a couple weeks before Winter break and asked if I'd be interested in visiting him in VA for about two weeks over break and heavily concentrating on modding and selling as many systems as we could, and to work out a possible business plan to the point that I may not have to worry about finding a different job. I've talked to local gamestore owners in the past and kicked around the idea of having them sell my stuff in their stores, but nothing ever came of it. Evan was serious about this, though.
He generously offered to buy me a bus ticket, and in addition to the combined DMGs, Pockets, and NESes we already had, he bought a few more systems and new tools (My old soldering iron wasn't exactly in top shape, hahah). We ended up talking with two game stores local to the Warrenton VA area, and we also talked with a guy who owns a few Game Haven stores. We showed them our work and pitched them our ideas, they loved it, and we agreed to put together some custom systems for each of them, which they'd buy from us and sell in their stores. The Game Haven guy even gave us a couple NESes for free and asked if we could do something TMNT-themed with them. We came back to him with two ideas and mockups and he offered us upwards of $350 for each of them. For the rest of the time I was in VA, we focused on cranking out a bunch of simpler DMG mods (greyboys with backlight/prosound/new buttons and screen cover) that we could sell until we'd gotten together all of the parts we needed for the TMNT NESes and other more-complicated mods we had planned.
By the end of my time in VA, we'd sold quite a bit of stuff, and gathered just about everything we needed for the more complicated stuff we'd been planning. We agreed that I'd take most of the stuff with me back to Tennessee and keep working.
I got on the bus with my messenger bag, containing my laptop, cellphone, and 3DS. My duffel bag was loaded into the bottom of the bus. It contained all of my clothes, my good pair of shoes, Christmas presents for my family, toiletries, a bunch of Wii U stuff, two NESes, a DS lite, a GBA, two SPs, three modded DMGs I was going to be shipping out the next day, two modded DMGs and one modded pocket I was going to be delivering in person the next day, 8 or so more DMGs worth of parts and all of my tools.
I arrived in Nashville TN and waited patiently for my bag to be taken out of the bus, but it never was.
Everyone else got their luggage, but mine wasn't there.
As far as I could tell nobody else took it, and I'd kept an eye out at previous stops along the way to make sure nobody would take it, accidentally or otherwise. It was just gone.
My girlfriend arrived in her car to pick me up and take me to Murfreesboro, and she let me know that her mom and stepdad, who I'd previously let borrow my car before I left for VA (entirely different story, but we've always gotten along well, they've needed to borrow it before and I totally trust them with it), were having issues with my car. They didn't want me to know and were planning on getting it sorted out before I came back, but it took longer than they expected.
So there I was, a couple days before Christmas, with basically nothing but the contents of my messenger bag, and the clothes on my back. My girlfriend was leaving to spend Christmas with relatives, and was stuck in Murfreesboro with her mom and stepdad until I could get my car fixed or find another way to get back to my apartment in Cookeville. I stayed in Murfreesboro until just before the semester started, never found the issue with my car (the mechanic it was finally taken to suggested that I have him replace a bunch of stuff that I've already dealt with before and know for a fact wasn't the issue, and asked for $600+ for it. I only paid $800 for it to begin with. I said no) I got a ride back to Cookeville with my girlfriend and I've been struggling to have anything done by Greyhound's customer service to find my bag, and struggling to pay my bills.
I complained about Greyhound on Twitter, and they followed me the next day, but didn't respond. I called them out on it, and then they asked me to DM them and give them the details of what's been going on. I did and a couple days later they had a man from corporate in Dallas TX call me and let me know he was going to "do his best" to find my bag. I suggested checking security cameras at our stops, since we know the exact times and locations of each stop, and my bag was fairly easy enough to spot from the rest of them. He let me know he had (I doubt it), and that he saw the bag get loaded in but that was the last he saw of it. He supposedly sent out a message to all of the stations we'd stopped at and didn't get a response from half of them. I ended up personally calling each of them, along with each of the stops of a different bus that we'd come into contact with, and I even contacted gamestores and pawn shops around each of the areas we'd stopped at, in case my bag had been stolen and someone tried to resell it. So far nobody's found anything. The Greyhound corporate guy said he'd keep in touch with me to let me know anything new he'd found out, but he never called me back so I've been keeping in touch, calling once a week or so to check in (and it took him a good month or so just to get in touch with the stations we'd stopped at, which I'd already done within two days of my bag going missing), but I'm losing hope and running out of ideas.
I'm considering possibly taking Greyhound to small claims court, but I haven't done this before and I'm not 100% sure where to start. But there was over $3000 worth of stuff in that bag, a lot of which is going to be tough for me to get back, even if I wasn't incredibly poor right now. ASM PCB-mount prosound jacks, a few rare-ish games, an awesome assortment of socks from Target that they no longer sell (no, I'm not joking. They made awesome socks and I had a ton. It got to the point that I was known in some circles as "the guy with the badass socks") custom-painted one of a kind systems including the repro pink heart DMG I did a while back. I'm actually pretty worried that sometime down the road someone will try to resell the heart DMG and pass it off as the real thing.. I'm hoping if any of the customs show up online I'll be able to catch them, though.
Oh, and inside a pocket of one of the cases I was keeping my tools in, there were a ton of old handwritten letters from my girlfriend.
I've managed to get a couple of commission orders recently, but not nearly enough to feed myself and pay my rent. Between these and trying to find a better job I've been selling the bit of games I still have around left to sell, and come Thursday, as much as I hate it, there's a guy coming to buy my digital piano from me so I'll be able to pay my rent for the upcoming month.
I had more to say but I don't remember what it was now. I've got a cold and feel like crap right now so I'm gonna go to sleep in a few minutes. Maybe I'll edit this later.
Do you guys have any suggestions as to how to deal with Greyhound or how to go about finding a better job and/or coming up with more cash faster?