Sunday, 15' October 2023
3 to 5 pm Eastern time
Room 101

The Center
208 W 13th Street
New York, 10011

We will be live streaming it via Zoom

Webinar Link:

https://nyu.zoom.us/j/98368596812

Webinar Session ID:
983 6859 6812


Thank you in advance to all who attend, in person or virtually.

Sunday, October 15, 2023
3 to 5 PM
Room 101

The Center
208 West 13thb Street
New York, NY 10011

We would be honored by anyone choosing to attend.

Hi. I haven't posted in a long time because we didn't have any new art or Nugget stories to post.

The Nugget stories were inspired by my mate,  ChocolateMuscle, anthropomorpizing my view of some parts of his personality - a bit derpy, a bit silly, a bit curious, a bit mischievous, a bit destructive, a bit brilliant...and a whole lot of fun. Bryn was Nugget, and Nugget was Bryn - they were simply 2 parts of the same person.

My mate of 19 years,  ChocolateMuscle, died in his sleep on the evening of September 3. He was 39 years old.

Thank you for showing your love of Nugget, and therefore your love of my husband Bryan, through the years. It is greatly appreciated.

Does anyone know what happened to him or what other site he frequents now?

Thx in advance!

At least the journal's title rhymes.

We just rented Frozen 2 on Amazon. Yes, we can be slow that way - I want to wait until we can see movies together, he's usually traveling or seeing movies with other people, so I don't get to watch many.

That's OK, as I pretty much gave up enjoying most fiction a long time ago; after reading over 100 novels one summer, I now can identify which of the 9 story types are being used and, worse, what trope will be pulled out of the writer's hat next. Fiction is almost always predictable to me now.

Anyway, Frozen 2.

A wonderfully sung, beautifully CGI rendered, Hot Mess.

Seriously. The water effects are gorgeous, someone really wanted a lot of love to show in those water effects. Just beautiful.

The singing, the voices, are excellent.

The movie holding them all together, however... -_-

Yeah. Did I mention "predictable" with the Disney full-town sing along opening? The "what the hell is going on?" Act 1? The leaps of logic one, or both, of the sisters come to when they figure out the frequent "plot twists"? The dam, which when they discover it still standing you KNOW that won't be for long from the carefully timed static image that they show you of it? The songs which sometimes don't fit the pathos of the scene in terms of rhythm or time?

I could go on but you get the point. I would have wanted to see it myself before hubby suggested it, so he's now feeling guilty for me not being thrilled by it when that's completely not his fault.

But, Ugh.

2.75 out of 5 stars (+0.25 stars given for some improvement after Act 1)

As I was resting in bed Tony's (Dogbomb) face just came back to me. I guess it reminds me of how life seems so quick, and the unfairness of it all. The United States currently seems to be writing in a pain of, partially, its own creation, "a prefect storm" has been used several times this week, and it can be hard to remain optimistic.

Everything seems to be a mess. Yesterday my boss MMS'd me a video of the business district where we work and it was a field of plywood - every major building has been boarded up out of fear of violence. Add that to the virus and...ooh, boy

I'm not sure what to say, really. Our "leader", Bozo the Cheeto Jesus, isn't helping but a bit IMHO. 39% of the electorate seems to (consistently) disagree with me but I can't do anything about that.

If you want to make a difference, vote in November, I guess. That's assuming November ever makes it here :/

Ugh, it feels like it takes FOREVER to post photos here, one at a time with 15-second minimum between each one. But they're up and THANK YOU for looking and THANK YOU for your wonderful comments! I'll be catching up with replies as best I can :hugs:

And welcome to all the new watchers!! I hope I can provide semi-frequent content; we have several comics that {sigh} still aren't colored. Maybe we should just post the line art - Cinderella is a masterpiece that we're really proud of, but somehow the coloring never really gets done. Too picky, it seems, from Choco - he wants perfection!

Hopefully he'll just allow me to post SOMETHING, I really want to share it!

Love you all!

I will take me several days to upload all the photos I have from this year's Anthrocon. So keep checking back as I get them up, I wish there was a batch upload feature!

We're going to AC! Sadly the weather does not look like it will allow us to ride down, which for my hubby would be his first ride on his new Spyder (!), so we'll have to take the car.

Hope to see you there! I hope to fursuit so look for me if you can! (I'll be casual, kilt and shirt)

I just found out after being away for way too long. To say I'm stunned is an understatement. He was a bit younger than me IRL (edit: 2 years older,), and from what I can gather he deteriorated rapidly.



This is pretty shocking news.

I'm glad that I got to meet him. My greatest condolences to his family and to all that were special to him.

I'm trying to go to AC this year, my first in a long time, and Choco will (finally) be riding his first "motorcycle" (actually a Spyder F3) if we get there. Paying respects at  Runtt's concert will certainly be on the to-do list.

(adds) I am actually finding myself getting angry about Dogbomb's passing. Only 2 years older than me and this so-called fantastic health care system couldn't do anything for him, couldn't save him?? We, Choco and I, have a friend succumbing to Parkinson's, he just went into forced retirement and disability 2 months ago, he is about 5 short years my senior. While they are doing their best for him, he has had body control and medication issues. He is a sweet, sweet man and I'd even take him and his husband, who just this past week got into a serious car accident because of an undiagnosed heart problem and he passed out behind the wheel, into our home to help care for [them] if need be.

It's all very, very upsetting. Maybe I'm just getting too much at one time, my own comparatively minor issues of respiratory and renal, and now friend's and acquaintances Parkinson's and death. It seems a constant assault. Dogbomb has just pushed me over an edge.

Last 2 year's have been incredibly complex, including some serious health problems. All this kept me away from furry for too long, I need to try to catch up on things. As a greymuzzle it's always a bit harder to fit in, but it's still one of the only communities that feels like home.

Thanks for being here. And for being you.

...

The world has stalled. So have I, I guess.

So, I ride. Cogito ergo zoom, and all that. I have Nugget and a bike, and maybe that's about all my life has become.

Maybe one day.

Maybe, get to a con again.

Maybe, get out of this hellhole.

Maybe. Have a pulse.

I've loved this song for years but a few days ago it came on my playlist and it hit me: this is what I want to say to America now, the America of today, especially after this past election season.

https://youtu.be/tlVbCg7cLxY

For those who don't want to listen to this incredible song:

Well it's a lonely road that you have chosen,
Morning comes and you don't want to know me anymore,
And it's a long time since your heart was frozen,
Morning comes and you don't want to know me anymore

For a moment your eyes open and you know,
All the things I ever wanted you to know,
I don't know you and I don't want to,
Till the moment your eyes open and you know

That it's a lonely place that you have run to,
Morning comes and you don't want to know me anymore,
And it's a lonely end that you will come to,
Morning comes and you don't want to know me anymore

For a moment your eyes open and you know,
All the things I ever wanted you to know,
I don't know you and I don't want to,
Till the moment your eyes open and you know

- Keane, Your Eyes Open

Things happening and we had to cancel. I hope to catch more furries sometime soon.

I wish all of you the best weekend of fun.

Found out we lost a friend last night. Gerald was a wonderful person and a great artist, he leaves behind his husband of many years.

G&D DAMN IT!!!!!!! DAMN IT ALL TO HELL

I'm tired of loss. I'm tired of burying anybody I get to know.

I won't be attending Furpocolypse next week.

Had a great time meeting the NYC Furries at Barcade this past Friday night! Hi guys!! :waves:

Great place for a fur meetup, a video arcade and bar combo! Some of the games were great but, in a perfect world, I could wish for a few more old-school games. No Tempest, Qix or Burger Time, I could also dream for Star Trek, being a Trekker, but I never seem to get one. They did have Joust, Dig Dug, Donkey Kong, Frogger, Q*bert, Dragon's Lair (super popular with the guys) and several others, though.

Loved meeting other furries for the first time in years, hope to do it again real soon!

Had to leave to go to a gay biker's meetup at Ty's, but I ended up only staying there for less than 30 minutes so as to go pick up my own bike from my garage (also, felt out of place after being with the furs I love). Didn't ride today, wasn't in the mood to deal with the 50's-degree weather, I'll ride tomorrow.

*****************************************************

Stuff like this just makes it even more apparent to me that I'm only really comfortable around furries. Everyone else is too...bland Even most fellow [gay] bikers. But they usually can't keep up with me when riding, I want to do 300+ miles and 8 to 12 hours a day and they want to do closer rides and stop for drinks, smokes and stuff. More importantly, even gay bikers hold back how they feel or what they want to express in public - many furries just don't do that, they are super friendly and have more fun with less to prove, I think. The fur meet was the first time in way too long that I've been out with people who didn't make me feel "I'd rather be riding than here".

So, loves to everyone. Good to be back.

Hi guys and gals! I haven't been to a fur con in several years and haven't been to Cromwell since FurFright came to a close. FurFright was "our" con: Chocolate and I got together there for the first time 13 years ago and pretty much haven't been apart since. It was our anniversary, I proposed to him on the FurFright stage and it hurt when it was shut down.

We've made preliminary plans to go to Furpocolypse this year, our first time back since then. If you see us PLEASE come up and say hello, I miss other furries so much!! The last several years have been lousy and I hope to be back around one of the only groups of people that I feel comfortable with in this world.

Love you guys

Mostly riding, haven't spoken to anyone in a long time. I miss the fur community and hope to get to a con soon; ChocolateMuscle is not keen on cons much anymore but I miss the community - it's where I belong. Besides bikers anyway, but gay bikers are thin on the ground.

I'm mostly keeping to myself because NYC really, REALLY sucks. Sucks hard. And no happy ending, either. I went to the Eagle several weeks ago during their Rock n' Roll music night and asked to leave the roof deck because I was carrying my helmet. At a leather bar. During the Rock n' Roll night.

They can kiss my ass.

People here just suck. I'm out of connection with the furs here so I no longer bother talking to anyone, all they do is flake out every time I made a plan to hook up with them.

So I ride my motorcycle, stupid-level distances (11 to 12 hours a day, 400+ miles) and then come home and stay there.

The Cinderella inkwork is done, has been done for quite a while, but poor ChocolateMuscle is doing the coloring himself and he is really backed up, with too many projects on the table. Maybe I'll post the first page as a teaser (it looks awesome!)

Love you guys, miss you terribly, furry rocks!

Hi everyone! After a long (long) wait, our artists have finished their work and we are coloring now, "Cinderella" and "Hamsters in Space"!

Go to  ChocolateMuscle to cheer him on with his coloring. YAY!!

---

In other news, my riding season is, very quickly, coming to an end :booo!; It got cold, QUICK! SNAP! Last week was OK, this weekend was FRIGID. Next weekend I might be able to get out but it might be my last time; I have a new bike this year and I haven't mounting up a set of heated grips yet.

New bike maybe means "New self portrait with new bike", I'll have to think about that one. Vince Suzukawa would probably hate me it I commissioned him again, the new bike is probably even harder to draw than the old one!

I miss FurFright - yeah, yeah, they have a new, replacement con at the same time and in the same location but it isn't FA. FA was special to us and a replacement isn't the same.

I don't believe in it, but is it possible that a new bike may be cursed? Nothing has gone right since I got it but I'm hoping anyway.

Need ideas of new cons to go to. The comedy / tragedy that was Rainfurrest (based upon the stories now being told) tells me that I should find out where to go before I go there. Maybe it's time to go to AC again but it depends upon if  Flatrat,  Roochak,  Toro,  DobieShep and many others will be there (otherwise I'll be bored to tears ). I wish I could be a dealer again. I miss the excitement, I miss the connection to others as they come around and talk, I miss being part of the creation of the magic. For me, being just an attendee isn't the same.

Sorry that postings seem quite spaced out, but I've been down in the dumps. I've been told, for quite a long time now. So sorry about delays and stuff, I'll get back to all of you soon.

Thanks to all who commented, favorited, shared, shouted and followed any and all that you liked here

Again, I've started up the photosteam. As I noted in the first post, I'm not all too happy with many of the photographs, the con's locations is not really photogenic, not really at all. The hotel lobby is nice but very small, the convention center is large but as plain as a concrete sidewalk.

Needs to move back to the Fairmont!

But I'm posting them anyway in case people are interested.

Hugs and loves to y'all.

If so, how was it?

Spock was Spock because Nimoy took his personal interpretation of what this person should and could be from his own inner character. Spock was very influential for many people...me, included. Very influential.

I guess it had to happen one day, it seems just so sudden, with little notice that he was having health problems.

Goodbye. We'll miss you

As I mentioned before, life [here] gave me a pile o' crap and I was away for a while. OK, more than a "while" - I have 12 thousand submissions to filter through

But I have pictures from FC; while the hotel is not the greatest, photogenically-speaking (that's an understatement!), I have shots that I think (hope?) some people would like to see.

We also are working on more "Adventure of Nugget" comics! We have added some new artists and one of our major ones,  reccawolf is working on a great project for us! It'll be a while so we hope to have short stories posted in the meantime.

See you soon!! :hugs:

Shitty, self-absorbed people, bad food, stupid prices, BAD FOOD, boring...

Did I mention the (generally) bad food?

Don't let the brainwashing media commercial campaign fool you: New York sucks.

(rant)

A wonderful amalgam of purified-for-your-protection "wholesome" - read mundane and boring - "entertainment" where you are expected to either

a) sit still and be passive to get "entertained “, or
b) be part of the "in" crowd, be invited somewhere, stay inside your clique & never talk to anyone else while Twittering how fabulous you are.

Doing a Google on “boring New York" will come up with a forum discussion that carries the line "You are judged by your money and your career. Deal with it." And that's true, all too often New Yorkers are indeed the shallowest group on American soil: in the 3 years I have lived in this cesspool I have been asked "What do you do for a living" more than the past 15 years of my life combined. People here want to know more about your financial situation than they do about you as a person.

The people, mostly women (about in a ratio of 3 to 1) are some of the most oblivious people on the planet - in their own little world, where they are the absolute center, they expect you to pay attention to them whilst they pay you almost no attention at all. The subway announcements, "Please step aside and let the customers off the train first", are very often completely unheeded as they (almost always women) push past you as quickly as they can get away with, so as to rush into the first open seat that they can spot. "Hey, I'm walking here!" wasn't a (somewhat insulting) joke created out of thin air, regretfully.

The interesting places of New York are dying, or are already dead, as the city works with developers to put up ever more expensive, ever taller luxury condo skyscrapers to fight for foreign investor's money. NYC Eagle gay leather bar been in their address for 12 years, but new condos go up around it during the past 4 years and they complain that the EAGLE should move? Welcome to New York. Christopher Street is dead, the bars that are left mostly quiet and low key, and most of Greenwich Village is now boring as small establishments close down as the landlords go for the jugular and raise rents through the roof. Heaven forbid you have an establishment that doesn't cater to the daytime female or general tourist shopper - heaven forbid that, as a New Yorker, you aren't shopping.

See lines of people waiting outside stores for days on end, waiting for the new iPhone or Xbox? Ever say to yourselves, "Don't all those people have lives??" Well, no they don't, actually - life here is so dull that they seek out anything that will spark their interest, even for a little while, which is why conspicuous consumption is so virulent here, it makes their boring lives have some purpose.

The food. Did I mention crappy food? Crappy EXPENSIVE food? $5.30/pound for chicken breast (my local supermarkets), $13 a pound for salads (the Eli's on the corner) and NINE DOLLARS PER POUND...for raisins (yes, raisins). I ended up buying raisins at the CVS for 1/2 the price of the supermarket and small corner grocers. You heard that right: the drugstore was 1/2 the price of the supermarket! Want a $5 breakfast egg sandwich? Come to my neighborhood. How about a 3 egg vegetable omelet, rye toast and 3 banana pancakes (NOTHING else, no potatoes, coffee, tea or juice)? Price with tip: $30.00

And New York specializes in BLAND food, prefect for tourist tastes.

New York had given me the pleasure of being the ONLY place I have ever traveled to, to give me the following discussion, TWICE:

[Chinese restaurant]
Me: "Do you have tofu?"
Waiter: "Yes, sir!"
Me: "Do you make kung po chicken?"
Waiter: "Yes, sir, we do!"
Me: "Can you [then] make me kung po tofu?"
Waiter: "....No sir"

Twice. Three times if you count the actual Szechuan restaurant where the waiter started a debate about what a kung po should actually be versus what he was willing to make...

Let's also talk about the debate I had with a waiter at one of my favorite Thai places. I learned from experience that you order with a (female) waitress you get one thing (in terms of spice), order with a (male) waiter and you get something else (I eat a LOT of Thai, and had genuine Thai cook for me, so when I ask for "authentic Thai spicy" I know what I should get and male waiters seem to always overspice). I got a male waiter so I asked

"How do you rate your spiciness, 1-to-3 or 1-to-5?"

After a heated 2 minute debate I finally had to (actually) yell,

"Look, this isn't rocket science! 1 to 3 or 1 to 5!!!?"

He got flustered. "1 to 5, then".

"4. Thank you", as I handed him back the menu.

After you go to the same museums 3 to 6 times, overpay for just about everything (4 appetizers and 1 entree to share? $80. A bowl of soup, 1 entree, 1 desert and 1 glass of wine (that's 1 full meal), shared between 2 people, in a jazz club, tax and tip? $125. Leave the city? $13 toll, minimum, not including those New Jersey tolls, figure about $35 in tolls when you head westbound and back) and a lovely sterilized for your safety "social" events calendar...and you can have New York back.

Please!

(/rant)