My trip to Atlanta is a success, which I'm very glad given the anxieties of my layoff last year and spending the months leading up to this con working toward it while getting over my new job nerves, not to mention everything else going on with the world. Suffice to say, I refused to get scared out of my hard-earned trip and remain isolated in my nothing of a town. The flight to Atlanta thankfully went very smoothly, despite the weather apps trolling me about potential thunderstorms for that time when it ended up being very nice after all.

The con is mostly what I expected, though the addition of the Hyatt and being where most of the panels are makes for a bit of a walk and threw me off a bit. I end up missing the dragon meet-up because I wanted to see the Team Fastest Furs marathon when they kick off with Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon around the same time in the game room, which is on the other side. One thing I can say about the Hyatt is that their restaurant has much cheaper and just as good brunch (to be fair though, the omelettes in the Hilton are huge for what I was paying).

The Game Room is also just as how I remembered it, though with less Crazy Taxi this time. I did become sort of a Soul Calibur raid boss there, to paraphrase one guy I played against (complimentary), whether it's 1, 2, or 6. Astaroth spin good. Glad there's still always something to play there despite the increase in people this year.

Which brings me to the elephant in the room: The virtual queues. That had the energy of a rushed and unfinished system, and according to a staff member my roommate talked to, that's kind of on the mark. It was announced a few days before the con because the fire marshals told them to implement such a thing the week before when the increase in attendees turned out to be much bigger than expected. This caught pretty much everyone off-guard, which lines up with some folks getting told conflicting info by staff members.

I came up with a strat around this for the Vendors Hall and Artist Alley after seeing the lines stretch all the way to another hotel: Book a time at opening hour. Didn't get much, but I did get my copy of Tony Hawk's Underground signed by Ben Diskin, the voice of of Eric Sparrow (also, he was Haida). As for the Moonlight Festival: Forget it, the lines were an even bigger mess. I only planned to go initially to meet a few mutuals, but that wasn't happening. Fortunately, we met eventually... And that's when I popped my cherry. It's nothing like how it goes in furry art of course, but at least they still enjoyed it.

I got to meet my mutuals again such as   jamejarrs and   froburr , and met a few more folks. That and the game room + the speedrun marathon were my top priorities. Hopefully, they get the convention center next year, which I heard should be right near the hotels anyway. If the Game Room ends up having a virtual queue too somehow, I'm out, but I do plan on registering for next year and see what happens.

The flights back were much less of a disaster compared to last year. One half-hour+ delay on the grounded plane because of extra baggage and strollers, but that was it, thankfully.

Now for AC 2025 next! There should be less pressure on the next trip now that I have one under my belt this year.

I was able to get a hotel room for Anthrocon, which went surprisingly smoothly for me. Was expecting the emails to either not come or the booking site itself to crap out from traffic.

So yeah, I'm about to try out the big one!

It's official! I finally found a fursuit maker who's open and has done a dragon before and after a couple of questions answered, I made the downpayment! I should be getting the suit head of Azure by August!

It'll be from   Darkmustang1

Since my new job starts next week and is in office full-time, I adjusted my weekly schedule. The office is fairly close that I can walk under good weather, fortunately, but just in case:

Wednesday streams have been moved to Sundays at 3PM EST, starting on the 24th this month.

As for Tuesday, I'm taking a break from Tomb Raider games until the IV-VI remasters come out. Still making use of the Tombs-day pun, kind of, with Tomba, having finished the Special Edition and moving on to 2 next week. After that, I may just dedicate Tuesday to more retro stuff in the meantime.

Depending on how my job goes down the line and if I settled into the routine, I may adjust again to have the whole weekend to myself.

Well...

To start with, I was laid off and been unemployed since April but I'm getting a new job starting near the end of the month. Thing is, it's for the same project, but under an IT firm, so all that uncertainty just to loop back to where I was. I was hoping to move on from the industry and maybe even get a public service job, but I was getting next to no responses from my applications elsewhere, and my French studies is still a work in progress that it's unlikely I'll get a gov job before my employment insurance ends, and that's if there would even be a position opening fit for me by then.

Still nervous about the job because of the new people involved and it'll be full-time in office. It's close, but my city's transit will probably find a way to screw me over somehow. It's been quite a while since I worked in general, too.

I was in a disadvantage when it comes to the job search because I graduated for web dev, but I ended up on software testing, leaving me stuck between rusted skills with no real experience in the former (not to mention coding anxiety that I've never shaken off since college) and most other tester positions wanting something like a bachelor's in CS for the latter.

At least I'll have reliable income again, so I can have more commissions and con trips. I was getting sick of unemployment before I got approached by said recruiting firm. On that note, I got myself a room and registration for FWA, and AC is a possibility depending on how the hotel booking would go. I registered for the latter already because of the con's new registration cap. Furrydelphia is likely again mainly because my friend there wants to take me to a Phillies game and they'll be playing at home that weekend.

I may have beaten every game in the Tomb Raider remasters with all secrets found, but Tombs-days are not over yet. I'll be starting again from the 1st game in New Game +, which is actually expert mode.

Enemies have more health and deal more damage, obstacles are near-lethal if not outright, little to no medipacks with ammo pickups replacing most of them, uses the PS1 version's save system for 1 and (oh god) 3, ally NPCs attack Lara from the start.

And I'll be going through the 3 main entries in this mode. Dreading 3 the most for obvious reasons. The PS1 version of that game, for some reason, adopted collectible save crystals for limited saving ala RE ink ribbons, in a game that's already a stupid difficulty spike compared to TR2, where you can save anywhere as much as you want regardless of platform. TR3 PS1 also had a cheat that lets you max out at 99 crystals, so it's not like there's a technical reason for the save limits while the PC version has no such thing.

FWA was great. The gaming room, food choices, and mutuals there alone made it for me.

The days leading up to the trip were anxious because of the storms and I did not want to get trapped in the airport and lose a valuable day. My flight made it on time as it was clearing up in Atlanta by the time of departure, but it was so busy at the airport from the delays caused by said storm I couldn't take the tram. Walked all the way from the farthest concourse to the front entrance, wondering if I was going in circles for how samey they are. When I told the cab driver about it, he was surprised at how much I walked lol. The check-in line at the Hilton was just as hectic. By the time I got registered (with a much faster line) and met   Herr-Wozzeck at the food court, I was beat. I still took the stairs up to the 19th floor with my baggage because I was even more tired of crowds and lines.

Friday was the best, the gaming room had so much good stuff with consoles/emulators and arcade machines. Among others, I played Crazy Taxi on arcade for first time after playing it so much on console and I could not get crazy dashes to work consistently. Might just be the wear and tear on the machine. I really had to stomp the gas pedal. That night, I was in the audience of Team Fastest Furs marathon during the Spyro block. Got my donation read and a shoutout by a friend's when I told him where I was.

Saturday, I saw Brossentia's run of the Xena PS1 game and met more online friends and wiped the floor a bit in Soul Calibur II. Went to the scalie meet-up, but it got too crowded to get involved in a convo there. Continued to game hard at one of the carnival games in the Moonlight Festival, throwing a lewd beanbag at furry targets (I even got a headshot on my first try), and got a hot print as the large prize after hitting 3 of them.

Sunday, I saw the Trio Menagerie performance, with one of the songs being impressive for what must've been a marathon for the performers, along with the last few glances at the vendors and gaming room.

Getting home the next day sucked, with my flight pushed back by several hours. My connecting flight got automatically rebooked to the one an hour later, but that one got held up on the ground for another hour after boarding. Shortage of mechanics for a check-up. Of course, that's when a baby nearby wouldn't stop crying until the plane finally had a (rocky) takeoff, of all times.

I missed a few people I wanted to meet there, but I've met more than missed, so I'm content with that. My next con is most likely Furrydelphia, maybe Canfurence the week before that because it's right near me, but it's also a lot smaller.

Here: https://bsky.app/profile/expodragon.bsky.social

Currently, my weekly streams are Tombs-days, Wednesdays for older titles, and Fridays tackle my backlog.

Tombs-days are of course dedicated to Tomb Raider on Tuesdays and the remasters came out right as I've gone through the mainline + Lara Croft entries. This time, I've been going for every secret in every game and completed the 1st game + its Unfinished Business expansion, heading into TR2 this coming Tuesday. Secrets should be easier for me there since I've played that one the most and there are consistently 3 in every level. TR3 is going to be a problem not just because of its difficulty spike _{(and having to suffer through Lud's Gate again...)}, but there's also currently a bug where the bonus All Hallows level doesn't unlock even with all secrets found. Hopefully, the upcoming title update addresses this.

Wednesdays going forward will be a Year of the Dragon special, going through the mainline Spyro series starting with the OG PS1 games. Fitting not just because of my dragon sona, but also because the games have been my main childhood series, and why I went with a dragon OC to begin with.

Maybe it'll rekindle my love for the series after everything that's gone on with Activision and how they were essentially rewarded for widespread workplace abuse with golden parachutes via Microsoft's monopolistic buyout, and the layoffs that followed. Glad Toys for Bob broke free and went indie recently.

Which brings me to my hot take right upfront: I'm perfectly fine with there not being a Spyro 4 because I still refuse to support the publisher and the latest Crash games have been disappointments: Nitro-Fuelled is a live service grindy bait-and-switch of a "remake" (my biggest disappointing game of the 2010s, beating out Saints Row The Third by a mile), It's About Time's awful padding + difficulty balance, and then the unnecessary mobile and MOBA titles.

It’s been 10 years since the harassment + stalking campaign against a teen to defend a one-note rape joke MLP comic that was C&D'd and was decided that she's the scapegoat for criticizing it one time, with many of its key participants going on to be a part of gamergate months later.

That fucks me up to this day. Made me learn that the brony fad was all bullshit and the show should never have grown past the 1st episode. Ironically, I hopped on that bandwagon to get away from how bad the gaming community was getting in 2012.

Seeing the more prominent harassers still being around there like it’s nothing, especially along with the incident where the current Tumblr CEO carries on the tradition of fascist harassment campaigns after being called out for their double standard modding practices settles it. I only ever came back in response to Musk buying Twitter, only to find that nothing's improved.

FFS, there’s a long, gish-galloping post defending pedophilic art using tired "muh freeze peach" crank talking points, to the point of defending works that caused real long-term harm like the original Birth of the Nation, coated in pseudo-progressive language, yet it’s transition progress pics and pro-Palestinian posts that get the axe.

My 2023 can be defined by fur cons and job turbulence.

Furnal Equinox, my 1st real fur con, was such a blast and I finally got to go to a Raptors game that same weekend after being denied from going to one by the pandemic.

But then I learned that my work contract won’t be renewed because of a competing bid. It was half a year of job searching and doubting if I’ll still have a job, or if I can even function in a new one after getting impostor syndrome on my then-current one, which I've taken for granted but the skills involved were different from what I learned in college, making the job search more difficult. The company was able to find a new spot for me after all (and still allows work from home). Took some adjusting, but I’m starting to get comfortable in it and they start to understand my strengths. Hopefully, it’s not such a temporary position.

FE, job stresses, and FOMO with FWA got me itching to go to another con, giving me the courage to try travelling to the states for the 1st time with Furrydelphia. That turned out great as well, and got to meet a mutual + some new people there. However, the one guy I met there, who has reached out to me to get in touch since, is in the hospital for a crucial surgery a few weeks ago and I haven't heard from him since, and at a time where I can't seem to hang on to mutuals, with some of my most trusted ones pulling a total 180° on their principles.

On the streaming side, I've started the year with Tombs-days in late January, where I play the Tomb Raider series and I've just beaten the main story of Shadow of the Tomb Raider, leaving the DLC missions + some clean-up to go. I have one more game after this, then a level editor pack in mind before the 1-3 remasters come out. Wednesdays I decided would be for retro stuff while Fridays are dedicated to the more recent games on my backlog.

At first, I registered for FE and they changed their hotel booking this year to have early bookings based on registration tiers (which can be argued is pay to win). I've paid extra to go up one tier with Sponsor so that I can avoid the free-for-all web traffic strain from last year and better guarantee a room, only for there to be delays for Sponsor and General, with rooms getting sold out oddly fast for the highest-paying tiers. It didn't help that said hotel is still doing some construction, further limiting available rooms.

Anxious about likely not getting a room and having a long-anticipated vacation go up in smoke despite paying a little extra, it was a big weight off my shoulders that I was able to get a room in Atlanta's overflow hotel for FWA as a back-up plan initially, but over time, I found that one to be more appealing (that and I've already been to FE now). The Toronto con just announced the new date for booking portal access, but I've already made up my mind and put in a refund request for FE after signing up for FWA.

Shortly after registering for FWA, they announced on Twitter that a few more rooms for the Hilton (which is connected to the con itself) opened and was able to get a room there, then cancelled the registration at the overflow hotel.

Seeing what they got in the Atlanta con earlier this year while job stresses got me really wanting to go to another one like FE was what motivated me to try going to the states for the first time with Furrydelphia.

My 1st trip to the states was a success with Furrydelphia! 10 years ago, this would be unheard of as I had awful luck travelling at the time wrt anxiety making me sick and ruin the trip, but as I matured and slowly build up travel experience in the years after, I've gotten more confident, especially after Toronto FanExpo 2019. I haven't even flown in over a decade, but got through the flights just fine. I've had some luck on my flights to Philly as the layover in Montreal looked to be not enough time to go through customs, only for that flight to be delayed another 20 minutes in my favour. Airports have a lot of good dining options these days, at least the ones I've been to.

Which brings me to one of the highlights of my trip: The food. Tried out a Philly Cheesesteak through the hotel's restaurant on the first night which was satisfying, and it even has several other options to come back to. Its brunch buffet was nice, but tried out the nearby Sabrina's Cafe one day, a diner with a great brunch menu which I'm a sucker for, and a Pizzeria Vetri with the shrooms pizza. Disappointed that the Slurpee machine at the nearby 7/11 was out of order though. Could've picked a better day to eat out at nearby places than a scorcher of a Saturday, but I took that opportunity to get some pics of JFK Plaza and the LOVE statue anyway. I'm aware that the statue is not unique to Philly, but maybe it should say 'THPS' instead. There wasn't even the secret tape on a wire above the fountain smh.

As for the con itself, I got some great stuff at the Dealers Den, such as a Dragons NFC wristband by F-Class which goes to my LinkTree when tapped by phone, a digital commission coming up by whingesart, and a digital name tag that I've recently got the Spyro 2 dialog font to work on via BMPBadge. I've been to the dragons/scalies meet-up and pro wrestling furries panels, the former led by the same guy as the one in FE and the latter of which got me to meet 2 new mutuals, ThrasherDaBully (who ran the panel) and themadyokai. On the gaming area, I tried out the demo for the upcoming Toxic Crusaders beat-em-up which felt pretty solid enough even in post-Streets of Rage 4. I was also able to meet one of my mutuals there, and cross that out of my con checklist, in ThraxDerg.

However, now that I've gotten home, I got my job to worry about. Specifically, wondering where I'll end up once the contract's over soon, given my skillset there differs from what I learned in college years ago now. Looking forward to that con the last few months made for a good distraction, but now I'll have to deal with this before thinking about future cons. I'm most likely going to FE again and next year's FD would be early August, which is great for me as I wouldn't have to miss my town's pride events that goes on at the end of that month again. Depending on what happens, I may just aim higher and try for the big one in AC, but that's tentative atm.

I've already registered and got a hotel room weeks ago, but now that I finally booked the flights for Philly after waiting to get my passport renewed, that makes it fully official!

After such a great time at FE, between coming home to stressful job news that I'll likely be working elsewhere by the end of the year and having FOMO from seeing what FWA had to offer, I wanted to try travelling outside Canada on my own for the first time to go to another fur con. Picked Furrydelphia because I heard that it's not so big as to be overwhelming compared to MFF or AC.

There's something calming about planning trips in terms of location and what places to eat there. I used to hate travelling after some bad experiences where my stomach would turn on me with anxiety a decade ago, but have gained confidence after I matured and had a great Toronto trip solo for FanExpo 2019.

It's also a chance to show off my custom Expos jersey with my sona's name on it too.

Last weekend was a blast! Not only did I go to my 1st real fur con in Furnal Equinox, but I was able to go to a Raptors game that Saturday night!

It was almost exactly 3 years ago that I got screwed out of seeing my 1st Raps game because it was originally scheduled about a week after lockdown would start. It wasn't just any game either, that was against the Grizzlies and both teams would wear their 90s throwbacks (with Memphis even using the original Vancouver branding) for both franchises' 25th anniversary, with the court design to match. The game I saw was a fun one, against Minnesota, though the 3rd quarter was a slog with constant bad fouls.

As for the con itself, it got to a rough start on Friday what with checking in, finding my way around, and being introduced to elevator con. Saturday though was very productive. The hotel brunch was great and not chaotic like I thought it would be, I commissioned not 1 but 2 con badge commissions (the 1st being the one I just posted here and the other one is in progress and would revolve around my Twitch channel), and tried out the scalie meet-up event, all before the Raptors game that night. Sunday was buying some extra trinkets, played CAH at the gaming lounge, then going to the closing ceremonies. A bit unlucky that TFF was going on as well and that's where most of my mutuals went though.

I said this is my first real one because the last one I went to was CanFURence 2016 but it was fairly small and cramped with little to do and I was also not in the right frame of mind at the time. Now though, I'm definitely going this year and at the very least make more use of my badges. Maybe it grew in size since then as 2016 was that con's inaugural year apparently. Maybe I'll try a more major con in the US down the line, but I rather plan and coordinate with a group I know are going for that. I've never vacationed outside of Canada before.

Now I got this whole week off since I had plenty of spare vacation hours and I'd like to relax then just in case of con crud or if it didn't go well.

After nearly 3 weeks, the store called and found no issues with the laptop. It only seemed to drain the battery while plugged in with Miles Morales and couldn't replicate the issue with stress test apps like Furmark. When I played it again though, the battery meter stayed put after setting the max fps to 60, graphics setting to low, and maybe more importantly, cleaned the dust off the laptop's underside. I was getting worried I'll have to spend my vacation, for FE and the week after that, without it.

Got plenty of stuff I want to do with it. Streams are resuming next Tuesday, Got some more Steam games from good deals in the meantime, and I want to get veadotube mini going before I go ahead and commission the talking and blinking variations of the image I currently use. Made some progress on that front, but the concern was hitting the balance of image quality. One time, it got too blurry and now the outline pixels become noticeable. The image itself remains crisp even after saving a copy down to around 800px and putting it on veadotube, so the problem is how it looks through OBS. I've messed around with some filters and only minimized the problem so far.

Last weekend, I've sent in my laptop for check-up when its battery was draining even when plugged in and playing a more demanding game like Miles Morales. Pretty sure I've mitigated it somewhat by lowering some graphics settings and the FPS cap, but I was told this wasn't supposed to happen regardless and the store says they'll do some tests on it. Hopefully I just get a battery or power supply unit replaced and not have to start over with a new PC somehow, even if it's all under warranty. I've only had this gaming laptop for 6 months and just gotten things going in Steam after finally getting around to making an account there.

Got a bit of separation anxiety ngl. Last time I sent a laptop in elsewhere, they decided to wipe and reset Windows when all I wanted was for the fans to be checked and cleaned, days before I start a new semester in college. I was assured that they won't do that after I told them about it though.

With the OG God of War playthroughs finished after GoW3 last night, the next game for Wednesday's streams will be Soul Calibur II's Weapon Master mode.

There will also be a 3rd streaming day added to the week. Tuesdays, I'll be replaying the Tomb Raider series (or as I like to call it: Tombs-days). I've played those as I was just getting started streaming 2 years ago and I feel like going through them again and with an actual gaming laptop and updated mods for the originals so that it runs better on modern Windows among other enhancements + fixes.

Batman Arkham playthroughs resume on Fridays. Found some good mods for some of those games the past few weeks, including one for Asylum that hopefully shows up in full for the middle of the game.

I'll be taking a break from streaming until the week after, mostly because I'll be watching ADGQ while getting back into the work routine after the end of the holidays.

Wednesday the 18th, I'll hopefully finish off God of War III, and by extension the OG GoW playthroughs. Not doing Ascension because:

a) I'm not sure even my new laptop could handle PS3 emulation
b) Ascension was such a forgettable prequel that felt more like a GoW clone when I first played it at release. The only thing I remembered about it was how parries were changed in a way it doesn't make sense (it was lumped in with some elemental items iirc) and the game barely tells you about said change

With Sleeping Dogs and its DLC campaigns finished, Friday’s streams will be playthroughs of the Batman Arkham series. Got those games on sale for a steal at GoG and felt like replaying those.

I’m also planning to add a 3rd stream day to the week’s schedule later down the line, most likely Tuesday.

Wednesdays at 6pm EST: OG God of War playthroughs (currently at Chains of Olympus for PSP)

Fridays at 6pm EST: Sleeping Dogs Definitive Edition

With the recent registration as well as getting a room reserved a while back, despite issues with the site's booking traffic and my internet at that time, I'm officially going to my 1st real fur con in March (been to CANfurence in 2016, but it was so small with very little to do and I wasn't in a right headspace at the time). Having taken trips to Toronto plenty of times over the years, from Jays games to FanExpo to an AEW show recently, I'm pretty familiar with that downtown area where that con would take place.

Thinking about getting one of those badge commissions and there's a few in mind I saw in the past that piqued my interest, but don't remember who did, or even still does, those. There's one who does vintage baseball card style badges which would go with my sona's theme, as well as one for PS1 game covers. Maybe someone could point me in the right direction.