So AC is done and over. I've definitely noticed most of the old group of friends I went to the con with don't go anymore except for only a few. However, I've luckily still got a few to hang out with. Spent a good 95% of the con with  artica minus the fursuit parade since my suit was damaged at the time.

All in all, a sub-par Anthrocon. Too much downtime for my liking, but the bigger issue came with my physical condition. I've been fairly inactive of late, and as such I'm put on weight again and I'm out of shape. This has to change because I felt like such a buzzkill needing to rest so much. The good news, no drama! First AC I've gone to without any personal drama incidents occurring.

Now a few of you know that I'm moving soon. Moving to Ohio in a little over a month and a half. Going to be moving in with  artica and  suntattoowolf and steal their cats. Hopefully there will be a better job market available to me rather than middle of no where NH. Definitely gotta start reaching out to meet some more furs over in that part of the country! This also means my yearly cons will change up. AC should still be on the table given a few variables, but it's only a 4 hour drive from where I'm moving to. FWA and MFF will be much more possible as well, so we'll see!

I think that's it. Been rather antisocial of late so not particularly active around here right now.

I am now beginning the tip to AC. Stopping in NY tonight and see anyone that is going there Thursday!

Well my desktop finally died. Got almost 5 years of heavy use out of it. Not sure what exactly died, but I think it may have been the power supply. I wanted to upgrade anyway, so I'm just gonna look into a new computer rather than try and replace parts.

...Now if only I had the money. This was a bit sudden and hadn't really set the money aside yet since I'm trying to get everything paid off before moving to Ohio.

Oh, yeah, by the way. I'm moving in August haha. I'll post a separate journal with details on that later.

The amount of alcohol purchased for FC... my poor liver. I'm not going to remember half of this con. Well, I wanted to see how Californian's partied!

Heading out tomorrow to spend 2 weeks hanging with  artica out there in California. While out there, attending my first FC! I have absolutely no idea who goes to that, so I'll mostly be hanging around him until I get to know some people out there. If you're going to FC, say hi! I need to make some friends out there!

Got a new phone today (finally), so I need everyone who has my number and wants to stay in touch to text me. It's still the same number, I just don't have anyone's info.

Hotel:
The Westin

Sharing a room with:
 Artica  sylus-foxdragon

Can I visit your room?
Only if invited please. I'm more than happy to share drinks with friends but I want to get to know you first.

Who do you hang out with:
Anyone! Depends who is free and at what time/where I'm invited to be.

Where will you be most of the time during the day/s?
Uhh. Probably outside here and there to enjoy one of my cloves.

What/where will you be eating?
Everything everywhere.

Gender:
I'mma dude.

How old are you:
23.

Can I take your picture?
In suit, yes, out of suit... depends on the reason. I haven't really had many photos of myself taken in the last 3 years so I could definitely use some haha.

Can I give you stuff?
Yes. Unless it's dirty or used.

Are you an Artist?:
Negative.

Do you do free art?
See previous.

Do you do trades?
See previous.

Do you take commissions?
What part of see previous did you miss?

Are you a Fursuiter?:
Yep! Though the suit still needs maintenance so hopefully my friend can help me out.

Attending parties?:
Please invite me! I love parties but I don't invite myself.

Do you dance?
If you mean flailing with style, yes.

Can I buy you a drink:
Yes. Give me all the booze.

How can I find you?
Twitter will probably be my go-to contact if you don't have my number. Kalkaph

Are you nice?
I like to think I am.

If I see you, how should I get your attention?
Say hello! I'm approachable!

Are you attending any panels?:
Probably not but you never know.

Stage or public performance?:
Nope.

How do I identify myself to you?:
If I've met you before, and we've been out of touch, apologies in advance because I'm bad with names. Otherwise, just introduce yourself! Or make sure a badge is visible so I can figure out your name >.>

Rules of engagement?:
Depends how well we hit it off. For the most part though, just a hello unless I'm in suit, then hugs are welcome. If I know you though, hugs anytime.

Personality Type:
I like intelligent, comfortable people. So if you come up and say some kind of creepy comment to introduce yourself, I'm probably going to be blunt and ask you to go away. I don't sugar coat anything. SHY AND CREEPY ARE TWO DIFFERENT THINGS.

Anything to add:
I'm on bit of a tighter budget than usual this year, so, don't expect me to be able to afford outlandish expenses.

So, the con is only a little over a month away now. So, lets start figuring out who is going this year! I'll be rooming with  artica this year (I swear if you to cancel again I'm going to beat you. You're 1 for 3!). Looking forward to all the usual AC shenanigans, but here's hoping this year isn't as boring as last year was. Holy crap last year was BORING. I need to meet new people this year! Lets get the partying on!

So who is going? Any of the new watchers going?

This game, holy shit. If you haven't heard of it, well, fair warning, it's not for anyone under 18. It's an RPG hentai-themed monster girl game. However, the hentai only kept me interested for about an hour, after that, the story hooked my attention. It's no short story either.

The game took me 4 days to finally beat. It's basically a graphic novel, but every single battle requires strategy or you lose. If you don't use the right skills at the right time, you can easily be beaten with a one hit kill ability. Then of course you get raped. It contains all kinds of kinky ways too seeing as monsters have plenty of variety. Including vore for those of you into that, but that one can be disabled for those not into it. It made sense to have vore since some of the monsters would seem to be more naturally carnivorous, such as large beasts, certain insects, and so on.

But man, the story. Starts off simple, but it really won me over by mid game. There were parts I actually found myself get emotional over, and plenty of moments that sent chills down my spine, and the game had a TON of major controversial and philosophical topics it tried to tackle as the hero that really make you think a bit. I did NOT expect this when I downloaded the game. I was just curious about all the porn it had, but the game itself kept me going. Hell one night I stayed up all night thinking I was about to beat it, and to my surprise I was only at the end of part 2. The game has 3 parts to it, all fully translated now. It's a Japanese only game, so the translation was done by an individual. I would love to throw money at that guy for this work. This is a game that'll stay with my memories of excellent games for a while.

The music too, is high quality. I know a lot of it is probably just modded music from other places, but it's definitely got unique twists that make it original and fit the scenes. For example, here's the generic boss theme:

That said, has anyone else played it before? If not, I -highly- recommend it, not for the porn and sexual theme, but the game itself. If you HAVE played it, I'd love to talk about it! I always like discussing games with people.

The answer is yes. Yes I am. However, I am still looking for people to carpool with. I like to get this stuff planned early, but it is only 4 months away already. I have room for 2 in my car, and I am willing to pick up anywhere between NH and the con. I only charge an even split from the point I pick you up at. However, if both people are fursuiters it might be more difficult, as 3 fursuits in a car gets a bit.... cramped. Details can be discussed, just throwing it out there for anyone interested.

As for the con itself, I'll be in the Westin again, Thur-Sun leaving Mon. LETS MAKE THIS YEAR NOT AS BORING AS LAST. I WANT TO GET DRUNKER THAN DRUNK WITH FRIENDS.

Geez. It seems to get worse and worse every day. My friend  artica gets impersonated on a regular basis due to how widely known his character is, and is thus recognized all over the place. Yet people still steal it and claim to be him? This last one takes the cake though. Not only did he/she claim to BE Artica, they're claiming to be a BETTER Artica and that it's just as much their character even though they own absolutely nothing of that character. They changed for a few hours, but this morning went right back to pretending to be Artica. To top it off, they're even friends with someone who stole Artica's Artik character. WHY ARE PEOPLE SO DUMB?

For those who want to see this train wreck. Impersonator of Artica on twitter is @Furry_Artica, and impersonator of Artik is Frosty_Artic

They just don't learn -.-

So, part of my new attitude is a want to be more socially active within the local community. However, I just discovered my ex is back in NH and already active within the local area as well as her new partner who absolutely hated me even though we've never met. This is a pretty big deterrent for me wanting to be local primarily with the NH furs. Should I attempt to contact my ex and see if things are civil between us, or just leave it alone?

Definitely things like this from my past coming to haunt me that I wanna fix, but this is something not quite so fixable. Just continues to encourage me to start looking at moving a significant distance away and starting fresh.

Just turned 23. Man, I couldn't wait to turn 18, now time is flying. Nooooooo

But it gives me an excuse to get as much coffee as I want today |3

It finally happened. I think I hit rock bottom again, and this time even my subconscious if fucking sick of it. It's time I get my act together. First, I'm going to lose weight and get in shape. Then, I'm going to fix my social life. No more of this lack of confidence shit. I KNOW what I can do, it's time I recognize it and use it as an advantage rather than worry about it. This time I can feel that I'm really convinced to it. I don't have that voice in my head trying to talk me out of it.

I hope things work out between a certain someone and myself, but I'm not going to let it ruin me if they don't. I hit rock bottom, and I meant what I said when I apologized. I'm going to learn from this, with or without them by my side and I'm gonna get my act together. Of course, I'd rather have them by my side through it.

Look out for a new and improved me. My goal is to be free of 50 lbs by Anthrocon (or at least converted to muscle).

I had bit of a bad panic attack yesterday and not only may I have ruined one friendship, but looks like multiple. I can't do anything about it though. All I can do is keep apologizing for what's wrong with me. I try so hard to keep myself together and prevent myself from collapsing like that, but I'm not perfect. Sometimes my depression and anxiety win out despite telling myself otherwise.

To everyone who has ever had to put up with me, if you're still here with me, thank you, and I'm sorry. I'm immensely sorry for everything I've done and everything that's wrong with me. I wish I had a way to fix these problems and apologize properly. I just don't want this to go on any more. I'm tired of scaring away everyone. Be it friend or a relationship. I've done everything I know how to do. I'm sorry. Just... please have patience with me. I'm trying, I really am.

I just needed to vent something here out loud.

So, what is it with furries and the immense sensitivity to certain topics? Our fandom is heavily based on the internet, and you see worse things here in art form and all over the web than most topics, yet furries still shy away from any kind of controversial topic. Why? These philosophical conversations are the kind I thrive on and are where I actually pitch into public conversations, but as soon as I raise a point that isn't going with the flow of the conversation, everyone backs off.

Example, furries and bestiality. Is it right or wrong? Everyone has their opinion on it. Yet when the topic comes up, most furries I know back away from it immediately. There's nothing wrong with a little conversation regardless of your opinion. Yeah sure. I get it when people are afraid to admit it because in most states it's illegal, but that's not what the conversation is usually about.

I took a ton of logic, philosophy, and ethics classes during my time in college because I love debates. I don't actually care about your opinion. I care about you defending your opinion. I want to talk and be made to think. Critical thinking is fun, but when people run from a conversation, it tells me one of two things. Either you're far too sensitive about topics, or you don't even have a solid opinion and you can't back it up.

I want to emphasize it's when people run from the conversation saying things like "I'm not comfortable talking about this". We all have moods when we just don't feel like getting into debates, but don't make yourself look afraid to talk about it. If you're not in the mood to talk, that's fine, but please stop running from topics. The average intelligence of furries is already in question half the time. Engage in these conversations! It's good for you.

So, I discovered as I went to bed last night I actually got a beta key. Installing it now. Anyone else I know get one?

Boss decided against the time off request for it due to Thanksgiving. Man, nothing is working out for my birthday.

So, I have an opportunity to make MFF this year, but right now I need a room still before I can make any plans final. Looking for Thursday to Sunday I believe. (At least I think that's the days my ride will be arriving/leaving). Anyone know anyone looking for a roommate? Also who is even gonna be there?

Also if I can make it, lets make it great, it's the week before/of my birthday!

Forgot to mention I'm off on vacation right now. In California visiting  artica until Monday. So if I'm hard to get a hold of, that's why. Got my laptop though so I'm still accessible on most ways (AIM, Skype, Steam). Also got my phone.

So yeah, nothing dramatic, just a head's up as to why I may be more quiet than usual the next week haha.

Work was unable to work anything around, so I am forced to give up that weekend vacation. I will not be at FurFright. Granted I don't even know who was going to be there and wanted to see me, so really it's not a big loss. This, however, means that I can attend AC 2014 if I remain with this company until then. While last AC might have been a flop overall, it's still my preferred convention, so I'm happy with this trade off. However, I'm not doing only one convention for the entire year. So, any suggestions between now and Anthrocon?

Work just informed me that, since I'm now tied to my manager's vacations, that I may not be able to have FurFright off since both the Manager and Assistant Manager are off that weekend. However, if we can't figure something out and I can't go, my boss did tell me she'd work to try and let me have the week in July off for Anthrocon next year. So, I'll know in the coming week what's the plan. If I can't make FF I'll try to fit a different con in next year.

Yep. Fuckin peer pressure man. So, here you go, give me a reason to use it.

https://twitter.com/Kalkaph

...job hunting. I'm trying so hard to get out of retail but there's nothing out there that I'm even remotely qualified for other than retail. It's so discouraging but most of my depression/stress issues stem from retail and I NEED to get out of it. I really am starting to seriously consider a military career at this rate :/

It's basically a Neopets set up with a Pokemon twist. Entirely free to play. Kinda fun really, to the point my day disappeared today. So, yeah, if looking for something that has a bit of a nostalgia feel to it, check it out! Currently it seems to be a furry dominated game too. Make sure to use my referral though to help me out if you try it out! :3

http://www.paladore.com/?ref=Kalkaph