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20 years on FA...
General | Posted 5 days ago'Magine that...
I noticed a few days ago that I was fast approaching my 20th year on FA. Not very often any kind of internet-related somethingoranother gets to mark a 20th anniversary. This gallery is very likely older than a decent chunk of the people watching it :D
Looking Back...
At the time of FA's first iteration, I was posting on VCL, which was during that period the fandom's main art site. Yerf (itself formerly SCFA or Squeaky Clean Furry Archive) was next widely-known site, but largely restricted in membership owing to its policy of vetting new artists according to skill requirements (that slowly escalated over time) and its SFW-only nature. I never tried to get into Yerf, but regularly followed their (Usenet) newsgroup postings and tried to incorporate aspects of their skill requirements (backdrops, anatomy, color, etc) into my own artwork.
VCL late into its existence adopted some minimal quality requirments, which mostly boiled down to proving you could present a clean scan of your work. Since this was before the widespread adoption of digital art, paying attention to the condition of the sheet you're scanning, and knowing how to clean it up before posting makes a real difference in its presentation. I understood how to do this effectively, but it seems a lot of artists were mentally "done" with their drawings as soon as they decided to post them. "Meh" aptly describes what these artists must've thought of their uploads. I'm reminded of this when I see entries here with no descriptions, no tags, and sometimes not even a unique title. These submissions feel a lot like Twitt/X and/or Bluesky posts, where you can simply deposit any random doodle with no further involvement. E621 at least lets the community provide tags even if the poster of the source image couldn't be bothered to.
Late in the game when VCL was starting to show its age (no comments or content rating system) I started looking at the nascent websites starting up with more-or-less full gallery features. DeviantArt and SheezyArt were the top candidates for a time. DA fell to the wayside owing to its SFW (ish) limitation and being a general artsite (i.e. not fandom focused). SA looked better owing to it's allowing NSFW...until it came out that the site owner was (allegedly) underage amidst a sudden ban on adult artwork.
Now, looking through my gallery, you'll wonder why NSFW art was of any importance being that there was so little of it in my gallery. The answer is that once it became clear that the fandom wasn't going to suffer any sort of nuclear first-strike from the mainstream media over its tolerance of sexually explicit material, I warmed up to idea of drawing it myself. Now, this doesn't mean such a disaster can't happen, just that if it does, I now understand having a gallery comprised only of SFW work won't shield you from any fallout. The actual reason I don't have a lot of NSFW in my gallery is simply a preponderance of other material (mostly a subset of wet-and-messy fetiish) occupying my inspiration enough so that straight-up porn simply got back-seated. A look at my favorites should prove that I'm not averse to it.
Late in 2005 I opened my FurAffinity presence, crossposting material from my VCL gallery and making use of the one feature added to it late in its life, the ability to add a "comment" link to the description, presumably to the pic's presence on another site that allowed comments. VCL's switch to read-only mode (or was it when they simply stopped accepting new artists?) cemented my move prior to it's eventual closure, and from there it was FA all the way. A rip of VCL's content still exists at vixencontrolled.net, minus post dates and descriptions.
Looking Forward
In the intervening years, we've seen the rise of a number of external spaces where one could upload art. Most of these are mainstream social media sites not specifically centered around artwork. Some artists here chose to migrate partly or fully to these platforms citing a wider reach into a general-public audience not constrained by the furry fandom. This can have its benefits for those who depend on commission revenue to make ends meet. Fortunately (thank <deity>, throw salt over my shoulder, knock wood and all that) I do not, and I'm quite content to stay in the furry corner of the art hobby. I have little to gain by spreading my reach outside of it.
I tend to value being able to easily access older works, as I do have some reverence for them, hence my "Ancient Art Archive" folder (which has a ready supply of stuff to post being that I never threw out any of my old on-paper art). Mainstream social media is not conducive to this -- you have to endlessly doomscroll to reach older works, and the platforms are geared to only making the most recent entries easily accessible. That's assuming anyone finds you -- one of the most common subjects of art-community videos concern the difficulty of getting noticed by casual browsers, much less "The Almighty Algorithim". We won't even get into politically-motivated blowups that randomly erupt all over these platforms when the wrong person sees the wrong thing in your account.
So no, I don't see myself ever getting mixed up in mainstream social media for art exposure. I hope and wish FA a looooong life for that reason alone. While I do occasionally post low-to-moderate-effort sketches on a couple of relevant Discord servers, all of those works will eventually make their way to FA. Some of them are dependent on continuity I want to establish first to give them context. Unfortunately a constriction in my free time has slowed my output greatly. I'm still working on stuff when I can fit it in, but progress is very much like rush-hour bumper-to-bumper traffic. That's also the main reason I never seriously considered Patreon -- I just can't supply content on a predictable-enough basis to justify letting anyone $ubscribe to my output for even a token amount (also why I didn't enable shinies here on FA). I typed most of this up in the early morning of the 12th, and extensively revised it on my phone once I got to work, leaving me to post this from my phone as close to the 6:45:18pm EST mark of my anniversary as possible since I won't be home to do it from my main PC.
[Edit]: I did manage to nail posting this journal right on the hour/minute/second...buuut it was on daylight savings time, which the account creation date does not take into consideration. So if you mouseover the 'fuzzy' date of this journal, it'll read exactly 1 hour past the time I expected it to say.
So, wrapping this looking-forward thing:
Commissions -- completing some existing ones so I can take more (I know some want to commission me, but I try not to stack up more than 2 or 3 depending on complexity).
Comics -- Still in the queue, 'cause some new OC's still need to be formally introduced to and incorporated into my main roster, and they've had sufficient behind-the-scenes development that the end results should be at least modestly interesting to some portion of my audience.
NSFW -- Still on the table, but will likely need commissions to jumpstart them ahead of leaving it to my own motivation.
I noticed a few days ago that I was fast approaching my 20th year on FA. Not very often any kind of internet-related somethingoranother gets to mark a 20th anniversary. This gallery is very likely older than a decent chunk of the people watching it :D
Looking Back...
At the time of FA's first iteration, I was posting on VCL, which was during that period the fandom's main art site. Yerf (itself formerly SCFA or Squeaky Clean Furry Archive) was next widely-known site, but largely restricted in membership owing to its policy of vetting new artists according to skill requirements (that slowly escalated over time) and its SFW-only nature. I never tried to get into Yerf, but regularly followed their (Usenet) newsgroup postings and tried to incorporate aspects of their skill requirements (backdrops, anatomy, color, etc) into my own artwork.
VCL late into its existence adopted some minimal quality requirments, which mostly boiled down to proving you could present a clean scan of your work. Since this was before the widespread adoption of digital art, paying attention to the condition of the sheet you're scanning, and knowing how to clean it up before posting makes a real difference in its presentation. I understood how to do this effectively, but it seems a lot of artists were mentally "done" with their drawings as soon as they decided to post them. "Meh" aptly describes what these artists must've thought of their uploads. I'm reminded of this when I see entries here with no descriptions, no tags, and sometimes not even a unique title. These submissions feel a lot like Twitt/X and/or Bluesky posts, where you can simply deposit any random doodle with no further involvement. E621 at least lets the community provide tags even if the poster of the source image couldn't be bothered to.
Late in the game when VCL was starting to show its age (no comments or content rating system) I started looking at the nascent websites starting up with more-or-less full gallery features. DeviantArt and SheezyArt were the top candidates for a time. DA fell to the wayside owing to its SFW (ish) limitation and being a general artsite (i.e. not fandom focused). SA looked better owing to it's allowing NSFW...until it came out that the site owner was (allegedly) underage amidst a sudden ban on adult artwork.
Now, looking through my gallery, you'll wonder why NSFW art was of any importance being that there was so little of it in my gallery. The answer is that once it became clear that the fandom wasn't going to suffer any sort of nuclear first-strike from the mainstream media over its tolerance of sexually explicit material, I warmed up to idea of drawing it myself. Now, this doesn't mean such a disaster can't happen, just that if it does, I now understand having a gallery comprised only of SFW work won't shield you from any fallout. The actual reason I don't have a lot of NSFW in my gallery is simply a preponderance of other material (mostly a subset of wet-and-messy fetiish) occupying my inspiration enough so that straight-up porn simply got back-seated. A look at my favorites should prove that I'm not averse to it.
Late in 2005 I opened my FurAffinity presence, crossposting material from my VCL gallery and making use of the one feature added to it late in its life, the ability to add a "comment" link to the description, presumably to the pic's presence on another site that allowed comments. VCL's switch to read-only mode (or was it when they simply stopped accepting new artists?) cemented my move prior to it's eventual closure, and from there it was FA all the way. A rip of VCL's content still exists at vixencontrolled.net, minus post dates and descriptions.
Looking Forward
In the intervening years, we've seen the rise of a number of external spaces where one could upload art. Most of these are mainstream social media sites not specifically centered around artwork. Some artists here chose to migrate partly or fully to these platforms citing a wider reach into a general-public audience not constrained by the furry fandom. This can have its benefits for those who depend on commission revenue to make ends meet. Fortunately (thank <deity>, throw salt over my shoulder, knock wood and all that) I do not, and I'm quite content to stay in the furry corner of the art hobby. I have little to gain by spreading my reach outside of it.
I tend to value being able to easily access older works, as I do have some reverence for them, hence my "Ancient Art Archive" folder (which has a ready supply of stuff to post being that I never threw out any of my old on-paper art). Mainstream social media is not conducive to this -- you have to endlessly doomscroll to reach older works, and the platforms are geared to only making the most recent entries easily accessible. That's assuming anyone finds you -- one of the most common subjects of art-community videos concern the difficulty of getting noticed by casual browsers, much less "The Almighty Algorithim". We won't even get into politically-motivated blowups that randomly erupt all over these platforms when the wrong person sees the wrong thing in your account.
So no, I don't see myself ever getting mixed up in mainstream social media for art exposure. I hope and wish FA a looooong life for that reason alone. While I do occasionally post low-to-moderate-effort sketches on a couple of relevant Discord servers, all of those works will eventually make their way to FA. Some of them are dependent on continuity I want to establish first to give them context. Unfortunately a constriction in my free time has slowed my output greatly. I'm still working on stuff when I can fit it in, but progress is very much like rush-hour bumper-to-bumper traffic. That's also the main reason I never seriously considered Patreon -- I just can't supply content on a predictable-enough basis to justify letting anyone $ubscribe to my output for even a token amount (also why I didn't enable shinies here on FA). I typed most of this up in the early morning of the 12th, and extensively revised it on my phone once I got to work, leaving me to post this from my phone as close to the 6:45:18pm EST mark of my anniversary as possible since I won't be home to do it from my main PC.
[Edit]: I did manage to nail posting this journal right on the hour/minute/second...buuut it was on daylight savings time, which the account creation date does not take into consideration. So if you mouseover the 'fuzzy' date of this journal, it'll read exactly 1 hour past the time I expected it to say.
So, wrapping this looking-forward thing:
Commissions -- completing some existing ones so I can take more (I know some want to commission me, but I try not to stack up more than 2 or 3 depending on complexity).
Comics -- Still in the queue, 'cause some new OC's still need to be formally introduced to and incorporated into my main roster, and they've had sufficient behind-the-scenes development that the end results should be at least modestly interesting to some portion of my audience.
NSFW -- Still on the table, but will likely need commissions to jumpstart them ahead of leaving it to my own motivation.
I need to do more of this...
General | Posted 2 months agohttps://youtu.be/A4KGR_6S700
Long story short: Do minor stuff to break the routine when you get bogged down by time or other commitments when involved in a project.
I am guilty of log-jamming my output while I figure out how to do something within a larger project (usually a commission), seeing as the last two uploads (outside of Anthrocon commissions) were "just proving I'm still alive" pics. I need to 'allow' myself to do and post short-effort sketch stuff to keep in the groove when time constraints keep me from making substantial progress on larger projects, as Celestia gets to in the linked video.
What changed? a 15-minute (by bus) commute tripled at minimum, and on top of the evening tour, the nature of the work while at work changed so that the bulk of physical work takes up enough hours of the day that I can't simply set up my laptop and draw during breaks. So when I get home, I have dinner while watching videos, then...wake up at 2am sometimes. In any case, it's usually too late to get involved in anything contributing to a full-color pic during the week, and the only time I can properly devote to full-fledged pics is on Sunday, where I'm 'recovering' from the workweek. Monday is the second half of my 'weekend' and is reserved for doctors' appointments, housecleaning, backyard maintenance (gawd those vines grow back so fast...), and laundry. Any progress comes when none of those tasks are pressing, And then I got to get the family car re-registered (DMV visits require appointments due to the RealID stampede)
Bleh. At least I passed my most recent stress test with 'flying colors'
Long story short: Do minor stuff to break the routine when you get bogged down by time or other commitments when involved in a project.
I am guilty of log-jamming my output while I figure out how to do something within a larger project (usually a commission), seeing as the last two uploads (outside of Anthrocon commissions) were "just proving I'm still alive" pics. I need to 'allow' myself to do and post short-effort sketch stuff to keep in the groove when time constraints keep me from making substantial progress on larger projects, as Celestia gets to in the linked video.
What changed? a 15-minute (by bus) commute tripled at minimum, and on top of the evening tour, the nature of the work while at work changed so that the bulk of physical work takes up enough hours of the day that I can't simply set up my laptop and draw during breaks. So when I get home, I have dinner while watching videos, then...wake up at 2am sometimes. In any case, it's usually too late to get involved in anything contributing to a full-color pic during the week, and the only time I can properly devote to full-fledged pics is on Sunday, where I'm 'recovering' from the workweek. Monday is the second half of my 'weekend' and is reserved for doctors' appointments, housecleaning, backyard maintenance (gawd those vines grow back so fast...), and laundry. Any progress comes when none of those tasks are pressing, And then I got to get the family car re-registered (DMV visits require appointments due to the RealID stampede)
Bleh. At least I passed my most recent stress test with 'flying colors'
AC 2025: Journey Home
General | Posted 5 months agoAs with the "traveling to" journal, I also produce a "traveling home" journal for much the same reason, to build a reference for scheduling and timepoints, especially since getting home is more important -- there being only one train from Pittsburgh to NYC a day. Today is the farthest I've had to walk to get to the train station (from the Marriott City Center), so previous journals are less than completely useful. One potentially helpful thing is being able to cut through the extension of Frankie Pace Park (diagonally opposite the Doubletree) on a walkway that meets Seventh Avenue where it begins at the foot of a highway offramp). This should save time normally needed to go around Steel Plaza which actually takes one in the opposite direction I need to go for a few minutes. My train departs at 7:30am
--06:58a: Dp. Marriott
--07:12a: Ar. Pittsburgh Amtrak station
Boarding call has already been announced, and there is a full load of passengers lined up down the platform and down through the waiting room (attendants had to control escalator access to keep people from being smashed together at the top)
[AMTRAK:]
--07:23a: Boarded Train 42, coach 25006
--07:29a: Dp. Pittsburgh, PA
--08:08a: Ar. Greensburg, PA
--08:12a: Dp. Greensburg, PA
--08:21a: Ar. Latrobe, PA
--08:22a: Dp. Latrobe, PA
--09:01a: Ar. Johnstown, PA
--09:06a: Dp. Johnstown, PA
--09:59a: Ar. Altoona, PA
--10:02a: Dp. Altoona, PA
--10:20: Ar. Tyrone, PA
--10:22a: Dp. Tyrone, PA (I just now noticed Tyrone now has a concrete platform
--10:52a: Ar. Huntingdon, PA
--10:54a: Dp. Huntingdon, PA (a new concrete platform here too)
--11:29a: We stop just east of Mattawanna, PA for NS maintenance of way forces to clear out of the way. In less time than it took to type out this entry, we are moving again.
--12:05p After about a half-hour of reduced speed while passing through the NS work area, we finally arrive at Lewistown, PA
--12:07p: Dp Lewistown, PA
--01:18p: Ar. Harrisburg, PA
--01:25p: Dp. Harrisburg, PA
--01:39p: Ar. Elizabethtown, PA
--01:40p: Dp. Elizabethtown, PA
--01:54p: Ar. Lancaster, PA
--01:57p: Dp. Lancaster, PA
--02:31p: Ar. Exton, PA
--02:33p: Dp. Exton, PA
--02:41p: Ar. Paoli, PA
--02:42p: Dp. Paoli, PA
--03:06p: Ar. Philadelphia, PA
--03:42p: Dp. Philadelphia, PA
--04:09p: Ar. Trenton, NJ
--04:11p: Dp. Trenton, NJ
--04:42p: Ar. Newark, NJ
--04:43p: Dp. Newark, NJ
--05:00p: Ar. NY Penn Station
[Unloading this train at NYP takes awhile. The long-distance Amfleet II coaches do not have motorized doors like the corridor versions, so the crew can only manually open as many doors as they have crewmembers...and this run appeared to be short-handed crew-wise. Come to think of it, I don't recall even seeing an assistant conductor. Since I'm in the front of the lead car, and the exit door is at the opposite end, I'm basically the last or nearly the last one off the train owing to my two suitcases in the overhead rack, and the need to hitch them together to pull both down the aisle]
--05:16p: Grabbed takeout at the Penn Plaza Chick-fil-A
[NYC TRANSIT:]
--05:25p: Ar. 34th street Penn Station subway station
--05:27p: Boarded northbound #2 subway
--06:28p: Ar. 233 Street subway station
--06:39p: First local bus to show up is one of those accursed 40-footers. With a wheelchair and a guy in a walker waiting to board. Pass.
--06:43p: Next local bus is an articulated, and It's mostly empty. Boarded.
--06:51p: Ar. Local bus stop.
--06:58p: Ar. home, all bags inside.
[Parts of this journal have added context post-trip, as all of the real-time entries were made on my phone as events happened and at times, there was no time to flesh out the details.]
--06:58a: Dp. Marriott
--07:12a: Ar. Pittsburgh Amtrak station
Boarding call has already been announced, and there is a full load of passengers lined up down the platform and down through the waiting room (attendants had to control escalator access to keep people from being smashed together at the top)
[AMTRAK:]
--07:23a: Boarded Train 42, coach 25006
--07:29a: Dp. Pittsburgh, PA
--08:08a: Ar. Greensburg, PA
--08:12a: Dp. Greensburg, PA
--08:21a: Ar. Latrobe, PA
--08:22a: Dp. Latrobe, PA
--09:01a: Ar. Johnstown, PA
--09:06a: Dp. Johnstown, PA
--09:59a: Ar. Altoona, PA
--10:02a: Dp. Altoona, PA
--10:20: Ar. Tyrone, PA
--10:22a: Dp. Tyrone, PA (I just now noticed Tyrone now has a concrete platform
--10:52a: Ar. Huntingdon, PA
--10:54a: Dp. Huntingdon, PA (a new concrete platform here too)
--11:29a: We stop just east of Mattawanna, PA for NS maintenance of way forces to clear out of the way. In less time than it took to type out this entry, we are moving again.
--12:05p After about a half-hour of reduced speed while passing through the NS work area, we finally arrive at Lewistown, PA
--12:07p: Dp Lewistown, PA
--01:18p: Ar. Harrisburg, PA
--01:25p: Dp. Harrisburg, PA
--01:39p: Ar. Elizabethtown, PA
--01:40p: Dp. Elizabethtown, PA
--01:54p: Ar. Lancaster, PA
--01:57p: Dp. Lancaster, PA
--02:31p: Ar. Exton, PA
--02:33p: Dp. Exton, PA
--02:41p: Ar. Paoli, PA
--02:42p: Dp. Paoli, PA
--03:06p: Ar. Philadelphia, PA
--03:42p: Dp. Philadelphia, PA
--04:09p: Ar. Trenton, NJ
--04:11p: Dp. Trenton, NJ
--04:42p: Ar. Newark, NJ
--04:43p: Dp. Newark, NJ
--05:00p: Ar. NY Penn Station
[Unloading this train at NYP takes awhile. The long-distance Amfleet II coaches do not have motorized doors like the corridor versions, so the crew can only manually open as many doors as they have crewmembers...and this run appeared to be short-handed crew-wise. Come to think of it, I don't recall even seeing an assistant conductor. Since I'm in the front of the lead car, and the exit door is at the opposite end, I'm basically the last or nearly the last one off the train owing to my two suitcases in the overhead rack, and the need to hitch them together to pull both down the aisle]
--05:16p: Grabbed takeout at the Penn Plaza Chick-fil-A
[NYC TRANSIT:]
--05:25p: Ar. 34th street Penn Station subway station
--05:27p: Boarded northbound #2 subway
--06:28p: Ar. 233 Street subway station
--06:39p: First local bus to show up is one of those accursed 40-footers. With a wheelchair and a guy in a walker waiting to board. Pass.
--06:43p: Next local bus is an articulated, and It's mostly empty. Boarded.
--06:51p: Ar. Local bus stop.
--06:58p: Ar. home, all bags inside.
[Parts of this journal have added context post-trip, as all of the real-time entries were made on my phone as events happened and at times, there was no time to flesh out the details.]
Anthrocon 2025 Travelogue
General | Posted 5 months agoOnce again I displace a rather pedestrian journal to document my journey to Anthrocon, entirely via public transit. For those watchers who came on board since last AC, I post these travelogues as a reference used in trip planning, since as they involve public transit, have proved useful in preventing stuff like missed connections (especially on my return trip, which will be a separate journal after the con). Admittedly much of it is fluff once I reach the travel mode I'll be spending most of the day on, but occasionally something noteworthy happens that I can look back on and say "yeah, that was a thing". As always, you can check back here (maybe needing to refresh now and then) to see the additional timepoints and events I add as I make my way to Pittsburgh from NYC via a combination of buses, subway and Amtrak. My train leaves Penn Station at 10:50am.
--08:20a: Dp. Home
--08:22a: Ar. Local bus stop
[NYC TRANSIT:]
--08:26a: Dp. Local bus stop This bus route usually has 60-foot articulated buses. Unfortunately the one that arrives is one of the 40-footers. And it's standing-room only. Which ordinarily would be a slight inconvenience, except for my double-trailer luggage that makes me take up four people's worth of space while I'm pulling it.
--08:32a: Ar. Gun Hill Road subway station
--08:42a: Dp. Gun Hill Road subway station. I move to the far end of the platform to catch the first car, figuring it will be less crowded. Relatively speaking, that is--it is a weekday morning in NYC. There is one seat space wide enough for me to park my twin suitcases in front of me and I take it. The first car becomes standing room only six stations from the beginning of its trip. 22 more stops to go :D
--09:38a: Ar. 34th street Penn Station subway station
--09:48a: This time Chick-fil-A is open, so breakfast get
--09:58a: Ar. Moynihan Train Hall
--
[AMTRAK:]
--10:32a: Boarding call for Train 43 announced, track 15
--10:39a: On board train 43, coach number 25069
--10:51a: Dp. Moynihan Station
--11:50 Ar. Trenton, NJ (oops, forgot to record Newark, NJ )
--11:52a: Dp. Trenton, NJ
--12:27p: Ar. Philadelphia, PA
--Midway through our layover, the conductor announces that not only is this train sold-out, but it is actually overbooked.
--12:57p: Dp. Philadelphia, PA
--01:24p: Ar. Paoli, PA
--01:25p: Dp. Paoli, PA
--02:07p: Ar. Lancaster, PA
--02:10p: Dp. Lancaster, PA
--02:25p: Ar. Elizabethtown, PA
--02:27p: Dp. Elizabethtown, PA
--02:43p: Ar. Harrisburg, PA
--02:50p: Dp. Harrisburg, PA
--03:59p: Ar Lewistown, PA
--04:01p: Dp. Lewistown, PA
--Somewhere in thr vicinity of Mcveighton, PA we encounter a round of slow running (like several minutes at 15mph. I suspect freight train
interference. Sure enough, we move over a track and speed up, soon passing a Norfolk Southern double-stack train. A few minutes later, we pass another[i/] long NS freight train. No doubt both of them are just itching for us to get out of [i]their way. At the next crossover, we switch to the track those two freight trains were on, no doubt clearing the way for a bunch of eastbound freights to proceed.
--04:53p: Ar. Huntingdon, PA
--04:55P: Dp. Huntingdon, PA (good thing it was quick, that stop blocks a well-used street in that town)
--05:20p: Ar. Tyrone, PA
--05:22p: Dp. Tyrone, PA
--05:38p: Ar. Altoona, PA
--05:42p: Dp. Altoona, PA
--06:34p: Ar. Johnstown, PA
--06:40p: Dp. Johnstown, PA
--07:19p: Ar. Latrobe, PA
--07:20p: Dp. Latrobe, PA
--07:30p: Ar. Greensburg, PA
--07:32p: Dp. Greensburg, PA
--08:15p: Ar. Pittsburgh, PA
--08:28p: No use going direct to the DLCC, badge pickup closes at 8pm, so now I begin my trek to the Marriott City Center. Uphill
All the way. With double-trailer luggage and loaded backpack.
--09:02: Ar. MCC, checked in and in-room. Yes, I stopped a few times to let the "traction motors cool down" :D
--
--08:20a: Dp. Home
--08:22a: Ar. Local bus stop
[NYC TRANSIT:]
--08:26a: Dp. Local bus stop This bus route usually has 60-foot articulated buses. Unfortunately the one that arrives is one of the 40-footers. And it's standing-room only. Which ordinarily would be a slight inconvenience, except for my double-trailer luggage that makes me take up four people's worth of space while I'm pulling it.
--08:32a: Ar. Gun Hill Road subway station
--08:42a: Dp. Gun Hill Road subway station. I move to the far end of the platform to catch the first car, figuring it will be less crowded. Relatively speaking, that is--it is a weekday morning in NYC. There is one seat space wide enough for me to park my twin suitcases in front of me and I take it. The first car becomes standing room only six stations from the beginning of its trip. 22 more stops to go :D
--09:38a: Ar. 34th street Penn Station subway station
--09:48a: This time Chick-fil-A is open, so breakfast get
--09:58a: Ar. Moynihan Train Hall
--
[AMTRAK:]
--10:32a: Boarding call for Train 43 announced, track 15
--10:39a: On board train 43, coach number 25069
--10:51a: Dp. Moynihan Station
--11:50 Ar. Trenton, NJ (oops, forgot to record Newark, NJ )
--11:52a: Dp. Trenton, NJ
--12:27p: Ar. Philadelphia, PA
--Midway through our layover, the conductor announces that not only is this train sold-out, but it is actually overbooked.
--12:57p: Dp. Philadelphia, PA
--01:24p: Ar. Paoli, PA
--01:25p: Dp. Paoli, PA
--02:07p: Ar. Lancaster, PA
--02:10p: Dp. Lancaster, PA
--02:25p: Ar. Elizabethtown, PA
--02:27p: Dp. Elizabethtown, PA
--02:43p: Ar. Harrisburg, PA
--02:50p: Dp. Harrisburg, PA
--03:59p: Ar Lewistown, PA
--04:01p: Dp. Lewistown, PA
--Somewhere in thr vicinity of Mcveighton, PA we encounter a round of slow running (like several minutes at 15mph. I suspect freight train
interference. Sure enough, we move over a track and speed up, soon passing a Norfolk Southern double-stack train. A few minutes later, we pass another[i/] long NS freight train. No doubt both of them are just itching for us to get out of [i]their way. At the next crossover, we switch to the track those two freight trains were on, no doubt clearing the way for a bunch of eastbound freights to proceed.
--04:53p: Ar. Huntingdon, PA
--04:55P: Dp. Huntingdon, PA (good thing it was quick, that stop blocks a well-used street in that town)
--05:20p: Ar. Tyrone, PA
--05:22p: Dp. Tyrone, PA
--05:38p: Ar. Altoona, PA
--05:42p: Dp. Altoona, PA
--06:34p: Ar. Johnstown, PA
--06:40p: Dp. Johnstown, PA
--07:19p: Ar. Latrobe, PA
--07:20p: Dp. Latrobe, PA
--07:30p: Ar. Greensburg, PA
--07:32p: Dp. Greensburg, PA
--08:15p: Ar. Pittsburgh, PA
--08:28p: No use going direct to the DLCC, badge pickup closes at 8pm, so now I begin my trek to the Marriott City Center. Uphill
All the way. With double-trailer luggage and loaded backpack.
--09:02: Ar. MCC, checked in and in-room. Yes, I stopped a few times to let the "traction motors cool down" :D
--
Clip Studio n00b-ing
General | Posted 8 months agoThe purpose of this journal is two-fold. First it's to collect some hints at infrequently encountered situations so I have an easy to locate reference. The second is to displace that stale New Years' journal :) I also added some (probably) obscure newbie stuff to plump it out a little.
Note that this material references the perpetual-license V1.xx.x version. Subscription versions (V2.x and up) may operate differently. Both are still being sold (I think), but the V1.x does not receive major updates (or at some point it will no longer get them--check their website as they did talk about this when the subscription version debuted)
New install, New user:
-- You don't have to spin up a CLIP STUDIO PAINT account to use the program, but one is needed to download additional materials (free or paid) from the CSP store. It also gives you a limited amount of cloud storage (10 gigs) for your projects should you want to hold WIP stuff there to work on them from more than one machine.
-- You need a network connection to validate your license key on first launch of any new install. Each CSP license allows you to install it on two machines (say a desktop at home, and a laptop on-the-road), and they do keep track of this. Need it on a third machine? Buy another license or it will bug you to deactivate the install on one of the other two. I think that juggling act only works a limited number of times -- I only used it once to deactivate a secondary install on an old Celeron laptop that no longer boots so I could use it on my current away-from-home laptop. I actually do have two licenses for the high-end version CSP EX as I did have a use case for having it on three machines. While this is somewhat pricey, CELSYS does hold CSP discount promotions a couple of times a year and I got my licenses at a substantial discount in 2014 and 2015.
---Try not to lose that key. You'll need it should you ever need to re-install. I made a text file or save-as-PDF of the email you get when purchasing a license key and stored it along with the CSP installer+help file copies I keep on an external-drive archive so I can perform installs/reinstalls of most applications without involving a network connection (a situation my away-from-home laptop is frequently in). This is also useful if you keep older versions (of any software, not just CSP) around as you update, just in case a new version goes haywire on your system, you can revert to the last one that worked.
--CSP doesn't self-update. They place notices in the news section of the store module when new versions appear and you can DL the newest version at your leisure. They'll also email you news of updated versions
--The default desktop icon placed by the installer launches to the CLIP STUDIO news/store module by default. It's kind-of like an in-app browser dedicated to the CSP ecosystem. Meaning if you don't have an internet connection it'll just give you some sort of "site not found" message. You launch the actual paint program by clicking the "PAINT" button in the top left. After you've saved a project in CSP's native file format .CLIP, you can bypass the news/store by double-clicking the file. If you really need to make a shortcut directly to the paint application, the executable is located in C: \Program Files\CELSYS\CLIP STUDIO 1.5\CLIP STUDIO PAINT\CLIPStudioPaint.exe
--- If after this you need to re-launch the news/store app, you can do it from within CSP under the [File] menu. [Open Clip Studio...] is the next-to-last entry
Brushes:
This is the real meat of the journal. I talked about this in a past submission somewhere in my gallery as a reference, but I don't recall which one (and the title doesn't hint at it either). It'll be easier to find it here.
-- As mentioned above, a CLIP STUDIO PAINT account is needed to download additional assets (brushes, textures, 3D models, etc). Some of them are free, others are paid through a credits system that I have not tried since my needs have yet to intersect an asset only available as a paid download.
-- Downloading an asset can fail for no apparent reason. I found this out last night after attempting to DL a free set of tree-bark brushes. After looking through my asset browser in vain, I returned to the brush entry in the store and noted that the "Download" button had changed to "Re-download", indicating that the system had added it to my profile. While mousing over various icons in the store browser I noticed one of the icons along the upper right side (two arrows pointing in opposite directions) said "Data transfers" Clicking it revealed a list of recent downloads and update checks. I noted that the most recent one said the download had failed, so I went back to the brush page, hit "Re-download" and returned to the data-transfers screen to watch. This time, two progress bars appeared (the pack has 36 brushes) and I watched as each brush downloaded, adding to the overall transfer progress. This time it succeeded, and the brush pack now appeared in my local asset browser within CSP.
-- Making new brushes usable: This is the part I had to puzzle over late last night, the part I talked about in one of my long-winded descriptions that I couldn't locate on a whim. How do you get your new brushes into your brush sub-toolbox? Most of mine have slightly more than enough entries to induce a scroll bar, but I didn't want to add a mess of tree-bark brushes to the bottom of any existing categories. The answer here is to create another tab dedicated to that one category of brushes.
---> How to do this? Open your asset browser (it's usually collapsed on the right edge of the image window if you haven't moved it elsewhere, locate your new brush (it'll most likely be in the "Download" subfolder), and drag/drop it into the current brush list (not the tab -- you can't drag it there yet). Once the brush appears there, make room in the tabs if there isn't already a blank space by dragging the boundary of the brush sub-toolbox (or the image window) until space opens up next to the existing tabs, then drag the new brush into that space. It'll create a new tab named after that brush. Right click it to rename the tab, then marvel at your new brush tab. At this point you can drag any other brushes for that tab directly into the list beneath it.
---You can rename brushes. I did this to some rain brushes by a Japanese author, who in turn named the brushes...wait for it...in Japanese :D (Brush/asset names may be translated within the store browser, but if the author gave them a non-English name, the asset will display that name once installed on your system). Right-click the brush, select [Sub Tool Settings] and the dialog box that appears will allow you to rename the brush and set it's default icon (that one only affects the icon appearing in the toolbox while it's selected). In my case I copied the Japanese text from the name, ran it thru Google translate, then copy-pasted the translation in-front of the original (I kept the original Japanese name in case I needed to match it up with the brush file in the download folder)
---Duplicating brushes on another install: I had to do this on my away-from-home laptop. While the CSP store applet supposedly allows you to sync downloaded brushes between different machines, I didn't have the patience to make it work, and besides my away-from-home laptop didn't have a network connection at the time I did this. You can export brushes into an installable form from their sub-tool entries. Right-click on the brush, select "Export Sub-Tool", and you can then save an import-able brush file wherever you desire. In my case it was a thumb drive. At the receiving machine, under the desired sub-tool tab, right-click any brush, select "Import sub-tool", navigate to the desired brush file and load it in. The new brush will appear in the brush list under the selected sub-tool tab. And yes, if this brush transfer needs its own tab in the sub-tool box, you can treat the installed brush just as you would if it came from your asset browser as described above.
Any corrections feel free to add them and I'll update the text. I can't guarantee I'll have answers to questions on other aspects of CSP as I haven't used most of the functions in the program. Beyond initial usability, I usually only discover new functions (like the adding brushes procedure) when I have a specific need for something I haven't done before. If I do discover something neat going forward I'll add it here and update the title with a revision date.
Note that this material references the perpetual-license V1.xx.x version. Subscription versions (V2.x and up) may operate differently. Both are still being sold (I think), but the V1.x does not receive major updates (or at some point it will no longer get them--check their website as they did talk about this when the subscription version debuted)
New install, New user:
-- You don't have to spin up a CLIP STUDIO PAINT account to use the program, but one is needed to download additional materials (free or paid) from the CSP store. It also gives you a limited amount of cloud storage (10 gigs) for your projects should you want to hold WIP stuff there to work on them from more than one machine.
-- You need a network connection to validate your license key on first launch of any new install. Each CSP license allows you to install it on two machines (say a desktop at home, and a laptop on-the-road), and they do keep track of this. Need it on a third machine? Buy another license or it will bug you to deactivate the install on one of the other two. I think that juggling act only works a limited number of times -- I only used it once to deactivate a secondary install on an old Celeron laptop that no longer boots so I could use it on my current away-from-home laptop. I actually do have two licenses for the high-end version CSP EX as I did have a use case for having it on three machines. While this is somewhat pricey, CELSYS does hold CSP discount promotions a couple of times a year and I got my licenses at a substantial discount in 2014 and 2015.
---Try not to lose that key. You'll need it should you ever need to re-install. I made a text file or save-as-PDF of the email you get when purchasing a license key and stored it along with the CSP installer+help file copies I keep on an external-drive archive so I can perform installs/reinstalls of most applications without involving a network connection (a situation my away-from-home laptop is frequently in). This is also useful if you keep older versions (of any software, not just CSP) around as you update, just in case a new version goes haywire on your system, you can revert to the last one that worked.
--CSP doesn't self-update. They place notices in the news section of the store module when new versions appear and you can DL the newest version at your leisure. They'll also email you news of updated versions
--The default desktop icon placed by the installer launches to the CLIP STUDIO news/store module by default. It's kind-of like an in-app browser dedicated to the CSP ecosystem. Meaning if you don't have an internet connection it'll just give you some sort of "site not found" message. You launch the actual paint program by clicking the "PAINT" button in the top left. After you've saved a project in CSP's native file format .CLIP, you can bypass the news/store by double-clicking the file. If you really need to make a shortcut directly to the paint application, the executable is located in C: \Program Files\CELSYS\CLIP STUDIO 1.5\CLIP STUDIO PAINT\CLIPStudioPaint.exe
--- If after this you need to re-launch the news/store app, you can do it from within CSP under the [File] menu. [Open Clip Studio...] is the next-to-last entry
Brushes:
This is the real meat of the journal. I talked about this in a past submission somewhere in my gallery as a reference, but I don't recall which one (and the title doesn't hint at it either). It'll be easier to find it here.
-- As mentioned above, a CLIP STUDIO PAINT account is needed to download additional assets (brushes, textures, 3D models, etc). Some of them are free, others are paid through a credits system that I have not tried since my needs have yet to intersect an asset only available as a paid download.
-- Downloading an asset can fail for no apparent reason. I found this out last night after attempting to DL a free set of tree-bark brushes. After looking through my asset browser in vain, I returned to the brush entry in the store and noted that the "Download" button had changed to "Re-download", indicating that the system had added it to my profile. While mousing over various icons in the store browser I noticed one of the icons along the upper right side (two arrows pointing in opposite directions) said "Data transfers" Clicking it revealed a list of recent downloads and update checks. I noted that the most recent one said the download had failed, so I went back to the brush page, hit "Re-download" and returned to the data-transfers screen to watch. This time, two progress bars appeared (the pack has 36 brushes) and I watched as each brush downloaded, adding to the overall transfer progress. This time it succeeded, and the brush pack now appeared in my local asset browser within CSP.
-- Making new brushes usable: This is the part I had to puzzle over late last night, the part I talked about in one of my long-winded descriptions that I couldn't locate on a whim. How do you get your new brushes into your brush sub-toolbox? Most of mine have slightly more than enough entries to induce a scroll bar, but I didn't want to add a mess of tree-bark brushes to the bottom of any existing categories. The answer here is to create another tab dedicated to that one category of brushes.
---> How to do this? Open your asset browser (it's usually collapsed on the right edge of the image window if you haven't moved it elsewhere, locate your new brush (it'll most likely be in the "Download" subfolder), and drag/drop it into the current brush list (not the tab -- you can't drag it there yet). Once the brush appears there, make room in the tabs if there isn't already a blank space by dragging the boundary of the brush sub-toolbox (or the image window) until space opens up next to the existing tabs, then drag the new brush into that space. It'll create a new tab named after that brush. Right click it to rename the tab, then marvel at your new brush tab. At this point you can drag any other brushes for that tab directly into the list beneath it.
---You can rename brushes. I did this to some rain brushes by a Japanese author, who in turn named the brushes...wait for it...in Japanese :D (Brush/asset names may be translated within the store browser, but if the author gave them a non-English name, the asset will display that name once installed on your system). Right-click the brush, select [Sub Tool Settings] and the dialog box that appears will allow you to rename the brush and set it's default icon (that one only affects the icon appearing in the toolbox while it's selected). In my case I copied the Japanese text from the name, ran it thru Google translate, then copy-pasted the translation in-front of the original (I kept the original Japanese name in case I needed to match it up with the brush file in the download folder)
---Duplicating brushes on another install: I had to do this on my away-from-home laptop. While the CSP store applet supposedly allows you to sync downloaded brushes between different machines, I didn't have the patience to make it work, and besides my away-from-home laptop didn't have a network connection at the time I did this. You can export brushes into an installable form from their sub-tool entries. Right-click on the brush, select "Export Sub-Tool", and you can then save an import-able brush file wherever you desire. In my case it was a thumb drive. At the receiving machine, under the desired sub-tool tab, right-click any brush, select "Import sub-tool", navigate to the desired brush file and load it in. The new brush will appear in the brush list under the selected sub-tool tab. And yes, if this brush transfer needs its own tab in the sub-tool box, you can treat the installed brush just as you would if it came from your asset browser as described above.
Any corrections feel free to add them and I'll update the text. I can't guarantee I'll have answers to questions on other aspects of CSP as I haven't used most of the functions in the program. Beyond initial usability, I usually only discover new functions (like the adding brushes procedure) when I have a specific need for something I haven't done before. If I do discover something neat going forward I'll add it here and update the title with a revision date.
So another New Year happened...(updated 2/6)
General | Posted 11 months agoAny earthshaking changes in my routine?
Nah. I'm still catching up with the existing routine.
So what's relevant to folks here? Art stuff. (some minor edits in Feb)
Commissions:
--Currently I have two to finish off. One is a five-page image sequence that I'm making decent progress on, and the other is...a bit challenging as to layout and perspective, but I think I'll be able to push ahead with it once the multi-pager is done. As usual, I don't solicit commissions outright since:
(A) I don't depend on them to make ends meet, and
(B) I don't like to stack more than two of them in queue. But I'm at least willing to hear out commission proposals (to think about how I'd do them) till I'm ready to formally take them.
Personal Art:
--I've been allowing myself to do impromptu sketches here and there when inspiration strikes (bear in mind I usually refrain from doing much "me for me" art when commissions are in-progress). One of these sketches became my most recent upload, "Mis Directed". Which became noteworthy for an unexpected reason:
--Wow, that pic has picked up a thousand views in a month. That just doesn't happen on my gallery. Especially a G-rated pic. Nothing of mine has ever accumulated anywhere near that many views in that short of a time. One potential reason was pointed out to me about four days after I uploaded it, was that the pic was reposted to e621, although it has a couple of things working against it getting much of any traffic on that platform, not the least of it being it's not Explicit, and it's a pencil-ish sketch of a niche subject matter. What kind of views its getting there, I don't know since view counts aren't displayed, only favorites (of which this one has13 15 as of this writing),
--While examining this pic on e621, I found there are eight other pics of mine reposted there, the oldest of which is Administrator at Work which has been there for 15 years, old enough to have possibly been sourced from my presence on VCL. While I have toured e621 many a time for "reference material", I've never thought to look up my name there since I'm not known for NSFW art and therefore nobody would bother reposting any of my stuff there (being I have 800+ uploads here and only nine pics have been reposted there seems to confirm this) till I was told about "Mis-Directed" appearing there. Then again, I haven't drawn enough NSFW work to get noticed by anyone who routinely reposts stuff there. Maybe that'll change once my new OC's make their formal debut and establish their personalities.
--Another sketch I've done behind the scenes depicts the event in "Mis-Directed" but about a half-minute later, but I'll wait till the current commission is posted to upload it. Given the success of the first pic, maybe I'll flesh out the entire story as a short-form comic like "Mudlark Mentor".
Tech:
Nothing much to report here. After I found that Micrografx Picture Publisher no longer displays images properly after I upgraded my primary laptop to Win10 from Win7. Since then I found that despite its scrambled display it will export it's native file format (.pp5) files as .PSD with layers intact and readable by Clip Studio. This means I'll have to embark on a project to export .PSD's of all my multi-layer Picture Publisher projects to ensure they remain editable in Clip Studio. Given this encompasses most of my work prior to adopting Krita (and CSP) into my workflow, this is going to be a drawn-out preservation effort updating dozens of project archives duplicated across three backup drives, and the thumb drives various projects lived on while they were WIP.
--Right about now I could find a NAS to be really useful, but they're expen$$ive, and I don't know enough about configuring storage pools and RAIDs on them, much less on-board applications for stuff like media streaming (Jellyfin because it's free), transcoding and such.
--Got me a retro game console (Abernic RG406V), but the Aliexpress vendor left out the game card I ordered with it (I let them know about the omission and they sent one out a couple of days later. A backup copy of it (since the micro SD cards they use typically have short lifespans) now resides in my unit and I've managed to play a few games on it. I have leads for roms and console BIOS files not included on the card (not all possible systems have emulators pre-loaded), but now that I have it, it'll take a bit of time to add more to it.
Nah. I'm still catching up with the existing routine.
So what's relevant to folks here? Art stuff. (some minor edits in Feb)
Commissions:
--Currently I have two to finish off. One is a five-page image sequence that I'm making decent progress on, and the other is...a bit challenging as to layout and perspective, but I think I'll be able to push ahead with it once the multi-pager is done. As usual, I don't solicit commissions outright since:
(A) I don't depend on them to make ends meet, and
(B) I don't like to stack more than two of them in queue. But I'm at least willing to hear out commission proposals (to think about how I'd do them) till I'm ready to formally take them.
Personal Art:
--I've been allowing myself to do impromptu sketches here and there when inspiration strikes (bear in mind I usually refrain from doing much "me for me" art when commissions are in-progress). One of these sketches became my most recent upload, "Mis Directed". Which became noteworthy for an unexpected reason:
--Wow, that pic has picked up a thousand views in a month. That just doesn't happen on my gallery. Especially a G-rated pic. Nothing of mine has ever accumulated anywhere near that many views in that short of a time. One potential reason was pointed out to me about four days after I uploaded it, was that the pic was reposted to e621, although it has a couple of things working against it getting much of any traffic on that platform, not the least of it being it's not Explicit, and it's a pencil-ish sketch of a niche subject matter. What kind of views its getting there, I don't know since view counts aren't displayed, only favorites (of which this one has
--While examining this pic on e621, I found there are eight other pics of mine reposted there, the oldest of which is Administrator at Work which has been there for 15 years, old enough to have possibly been sourced from my presence on VCL. While I have toured e621 many a time for "reference material", I've never thought to look up my name there since I'm not known for NSFW art and therefore nobody would bother reposting any of my stuff there (being I have 800+ uploads here and only nine pics have been reposted there seems to confirm this) till I was told about "Mis-Directed" appearing there. Then again, I haven't drawn enough NSFW work to get noticed by anyone who routinely reposts stuff there. Maybe that'll change once my new OC's make their formal debut and establish their personalities.
--Another sketch I've done behind the scenes depicts the event in "Mis-Directed" but about a half-minute later, but I'll wait till the current commission is posted to upload it. Given the success of the first pic, maybe I'll flesh out the entire story as a short-form comic like "Mudlark Mentor".
Tech:
Nothing much to report here. After I found that Micrografx Picture Publisher no longer displays images properly after I upgraded my primary laptop to Win10 from Win7. Since then I found that despite its scrambled display it will export it's native file format (.pp5) files as .PSD with layers intact and readable by Clip Studio. This means I'll have to embark on a project to export .PSD's of all my multi-layer Picture Publisher projects to ensure they remain editable in Clip Studio. Given this encompasses most of my work prior to adopting Krita (and CSP) into my workflow, this is going to be a drawn-out preservation effort updating dozens of project archives duplicated across three backup drives, and the thumb drives various projects lived on while they were WIP.
--Right about now I could find a NAS to be really useful, but they're expen$$ive, and I don't know enough about configuring storage pools and RAIDs on them, much less on-board applications for stuff like media streaming (Jellyfin because it's free), transcoding and such.
--Got me a retro game console (Abernic RG406V), but the Aliexpress vendor left out the game card I ordered with it (I let them know about the omission and they sent one out a couple of days later. A backup copy of it (since the micro SD cards they use typically have short lifespans) now resides in my unit and I've managed to play a few games on it. I have leads for roms and console BIOS files not included on the card (not all possible systems have emulators pre-loaded), but now that I have it, it'll take a bit of time to add more to it.
[YouTube] [Animation] The Art of Murder (Pilot)
General | Posted a year agoThis crowdfunded indie production hits kinda weirdly given the prominence of original characters in this fandom:
https://youtu.be/wBaNOjORAWs
...but it seems worthy of attention even if furries don't figure into it...so far.
https://youtu.be/wBaNOjORAWs
...but it seems worthy of attention even if furries don't figure into it...so far.
Tech Update: Tablet not Retired (09/30 update added)
General | Posted a year agoLast journal, I detailed the process by which I upgraded my main laptop (a Toshiba Satellite S-70A) from Win7 to Win10, by first restore-disk-ing it to Windows 8 with a new SSD then running the Win10 media creation tool to upgrade that. The fact that I had restore discs should tell you how old this system is :D. Why go the intermediate step? Mostly to get the Toshiba-specific drivers and such in the system before the upgrade. Later on, whatever drivers were updated after the fact can be upgraded as needed.
Anyway, I've been running this system on Win 10 for a little more than two weeks, slowly re-installing applications I use (and kicking out those I don't). One of the earliest was Krita, the digital paint application I was using on my Android tablets, and also in tandem with Clip Studio Paint on Windows. Something had happened to the Win7 install that made Krita unusable, as in you'd draw a line and nothing appears till you moved the image window by zooming in or out, or scrolling in any direction. Now Krita works. But I couldn't do much of anything with it just yet...I had to get my tablet working.
On my home system, my tablet is a Wacom Bamboo Fun Medium (CTE-650) purchased as a refurbished model back in 2009. Wacom no longer supports this tablet with the current set of drivers, and my early attempts to use it resulted in windows treating it like a mouse, which not only meant no pressure sensitivity, but whenever I'm using my second monitor on the side, the tablet would span both monitors, making it nearly impossible to use a drawing app confined to just one. The Wacom settings applet would claim "no tablet detected", so there was no way to set the CTE-650 to only span one display.
A little bit of Google-Fu revealed a classic workaround -- installing an older driver. Now I keep an archive of installers for various hardware and software. More importantly I keep installers for old versions of any application I use (or plan to use). I did have older Wacom drivers, 5.2.5-5a, and a 5.3.5-3. Several attempts were made to install either of these drivers to no avail, and truth be told, the calls for help online revealed mixed success getting this tablet working in Win10...until I remembered what one had to do to change from Wacom to any other company's tablet -- you have to remove all traces of Wacom drivers to install anyone else's. So I went into Settings, and uninstalled the newer 6xxx and older 5.xxx drivers.
One other thing is that there are two schools of thought regarding drivers. One is you install the driver and the accessory just works. The other is that you install the driver to seed Windows with the 'correct' driver to use rather than whatever it was going to pull out of its nether regions, then you connect the accessory, and Windows plug-and-plays the "correct" driver. I followed the latter procedure, then just to be sure, rebooted before plugging in the tablet (a tactic much less painful with an SSD). But before using the tablet, I went looking for the "Wacom Configuration Utility"---and didn't find it. Now what? How do I set the tablet to only work on one monitor?
This time, I went rifling through the Start menu's entries for Windows, and after opening up
[Windows Accessories]
[Windows Administrative Tools]
[Windows Ease of Access]
[Windows Power Shell]
[Windows System]...
and some other dinking around till I found the "Bamboo" folder, within which I found "Bamboo Settings" (okay, I started typing "Wacom" in the search bar and 'Bamboo" showed up at the top of the suggestions, instead of "Wacom Settings"). This is the applet I was looking for, and I was finally able to restrict the tablet to a single monitor.
Micrografx Picture Publisher on the other hand, still will not render its own images and will have to be replaced (installing the latest GeForce Experience utility to refresh the drivers did nothing). I have other W10 laptops that do run this application correctly,and I'll have to use those to load up multi-layer images saved in MPP's native file format .PP5, export out the individual layers, then reassemble them as .PSD (maybe) or one of CSP / Krita's multi-layer file formats. Annoyingly, Picture Publisher only supports single-layer .PSD, Clip Studio Paint doesn't support Open Raster format like Krita does, and the latter two applications' implementation of .PSD is not quite consistent across the two applications. The "good" news is, I'm not one of those artists who generate a bazillion layers on every project. The downside is I did a *lot* of multilayer images in Picture Publisher before switching to CSP and Krita. And yes, I knew the time was going to come that MPP would prove too old to run properly n newer systems (compatibility settings didn't work either). The timeframe to migrate the projects done on it to newer formats basically started when I began this OS upgrade.
09/30/24 update: Turns out Micrografx Picture Publisher can export a multi-layer image as a multi-layer PSD. Comes right up in Clip Studio, layers and all. Boy do I feel like a putz
Lastly there is Libre Office. I had been using this to export some text documents to PDF, mostly shipment tracking data that nobody presents in a format that doesn't break in bizarre fashion when attempting to print -- either as a hard copy or as a PDF. I was copy-pasting the shipping data from the site (in this case Trackingmore.com), pasting it into a LibreOffice document, performing edits on the typeface, font size and formatting, then exporting that to PDF so it could be merged with the PDF invoice from the retailer. Mostly this is for train purchases, as I'm way behind on inventorying my collection, and this is the sort of info I wanted to capture in it. And it would have worked fine if not for the BSODs I started getting (first time on this particular system) while trying to edit the document/s early this morning. I cannot say for sure LibreOffice was responsible for the Video_Scheduler_Internal_Error, but I've gone several hours of BSOD-free operation by not running LibreOffice, which did report a newer version being available before Windows spazzed, so maybe I'll try updating LO before kicking it off my system. Pity...it was completely trouble-free under Win7.
Anyway, I've been running this system on Win 10 for a little more than two weeks, slowly re-installing applications I use (and kicking out those I don't). One of the earliest was Krita, the digital paint application I was using on my Android tablets, and also in tandem with Clip Studio Paint on Windows. Something had happened to the Win7 install that made Krita unusable, as in you'd draw a line and nothing appears till you moved the image window by zooming in or out, or scrolling in any direction. Now Krita works. But I couldn't do much of anything with it just yet...I had to get my tablet working.
On my home system, my tablet is a Wacom Bamboo Fun Medium (CTE-650) purchased as a refurbished model back in 2009. Wacom no longer supports this tablet with the current set of drivers, and my early attempts to use it resulted in windows treating it like a mouse, which not only meant no pressure sensitivity, but whenever I'm using my second monitor on the side, the tablet would span both monitors, making it nearly impossible to use a drawing app confined to just one. The Wacom settings applet would claim "no tablet detected", so there was no way to set the CTE-650 to only span one display.
A little bit of Google-Fu revealed a classic workaround -- installing an older driver. Now I keep an archive of installers for various hardware and software. More importantly I keep installers for old versions of any application I use (or plan to use). I did have older Wacom drivers, 5.2.5-5a, and a 5.3.5-3. Several attempts were made to install either of these drivers to no avail, and truth be told, the calls for help online revealed mixed success getting this tablet working in Win10...until I remembered what one had to do to change from Wacom to any other company's tablet -- you have to remove all traces of Wacom drivers to install anyone else's. So I went into Settings, and uninstalled the newer 6xxx and older 5.xxx drivers.
One other thing is that there are two schools of thought regarding drivers. One is you install the driver and the accessory just works. The other is that you install the driver to seed Windows with the 'correct' driver to use rather than whatever it was going to pull out of its nether regions, then you connect the accessory, and Windows plug-and-plays the "correct" driver. I followed the latter procedure, then just to be sure, rebooted before plugging in the tablet (a tactic much less painful with an SSD). But before using the tablet, I went looking for the "Wacom Configuration Utility"---and didn't find it. Now what? How do I set the tablet to only work on one monitor?
This time, I went rifling through the Start menu's entries for Windows, and after opening up
[Windows Accessories]
[Windows Administrative Tools]
[Windows Ease of Access]
[Windows Power Shell]
[Windows System]...
and some other dinking around till I found the "Bamboo" folder, within which I found "Bamboo Settings" (okay, I started typing "Wacom" in the search bar and 'Bamboo" showed up at the top of the suggestions, instead of "Wacom Settings"). This is the applet I was looking for, and I was finally able to restrict the tablet to a single monitor.
Micrografx Picture Publisher on the other hand, still will not render its own images and will have to be replaced (installing the latest GeForce Experience utility to refresh the drivers did nothing). I have other W10 laptops that do run this application correctly,
09/30/24 update: Turns out Micrografx Picture Publisher can export a multi-layer image as a multi-layer PSD. Comes right up in Clip Studio, layers and all. Boy do I feel like a putz
Lastly there is Libre Office. I had been using this to export some text documents to PDF, mostly shipment tracking data that nobody presents in a format that doesn't break in bizarre fashion when attempting to print -- either as a hard copy or as a PDF. I was copy-pasting the shipping data from the site (in this case Trackingmore.com), pasting it into a LibreOffice document, performing edits on the typeface, font size and formatting, then exporting that to PDF so it could be merged with the PDF invoice from the retailer. Mostly this is for train purchases, as I'm way behind on inventorying my collection, and this is the sort of info I wanted to capture in it. And it would have worked fine if not for the BSODs I started getting (first time on this particular system) while trying to edit the document/s early this morning. I cannot say for sure LibreOffice was responsible for the Video_Scheduler_Internal_Error, but I've gone several hours of BSOD-free operation by not running LibreOffice, which did report a newer version being available before Windows spazzed, so maybe I'll try updating LO before kicking it off my system. Pity...it was completely trouble-free under Win7.
From Seven to Ten, with a Stopover at Eight
General | Posted a year agoI thought this would be a short recap. Instead it became "Story Time" :)
By that title, I mean Windows versions.
My main stay-at-home laptop, where much of my digital art is spawned, is a 17" screen Toshiba Satellite S70-A (Core i5-3230) laptop. Not a barn-burner by any stretch, it was purchased directly from Toshiba America Information Systems' website. I had it configured with Windows 7 at the time because Windows 8 was (and still is) a hot mess, however this option did not extend to the restore media, which was Windows 8. Originally equipped with a 750GB hard drive, I never managed to fill it more than halfway since much of my important data resided on external drives.
This system served me well over the years, and over time received memory upgrades from 8 to 12GB to keep pace with the growing memory footprint of various applications (and the habit of leaving browser tabs open "for later"). Then one day the fire nation attac---no, wait not that. Running Win7, as well-regarded an OS as it was, long beyond it's sell-by date introduced minor annoyances that grew harder to ignore, in the form of applications that started dropping support for it. But the big issue cropped up November 2022 when out of nowhere this system started throwing up dialog boxes stating that "You may be a victim of software counterfeiting" as well as a little notice in the corner of my secondary monitor stating that "this copy of Windows is not genuine". Weird...this system was legit from the factory for more than a decade. But an in-depth investigation showed that where one would normally find their Windows license key turned up...bupkis. I kinda-sorta put up with the three or four times a day pop-ups and the lack of ability to set a wallpaper, but another issue was starting to grate on me...
Normally I leave my system on and simply set it to turn off its LCD after a half-hour or so of idle, and system sleep ensues after a couple of hours of inactivity. I would leave home for work, return in the evening and wake up the system by jiggling the mouse or tapping the space bar. But with the advent of these MS nag-boxes, came a concerning inflation of the time needed to reach a login prompt upon system resume. I clocked it at upwards of eight minutes. Amazingly, I put up with that too for way too long. Poking around the system some more led me to Event Viewer, which showed me that my hard drive was throwing "NTFS Error" literally every day going back to...probably late 2022 when these oddball happenings first started. Still I kept using the system, even after Krita became unusable. I'm talking drawing a line, and nothing showed up till you bumped the screen in any direction or zoomed in or out. This app was perfectly fine before whatever happened to screw it up, and neither reinstalling or updating it helped. I switched to using Clip Studio in the meantime, but the situation with Krita bothered me.
Finally in November 2023, having missed the deadline to secure a free upgrade to Win10, I finally got off my duff and did something. By that I mean researching places to buy Windows 10 license keys. An increasing number of dead-ends (M$ was really pushing Win11 by then) finally led me to Play-Asia, where I was able to buy a key for about $15...after dilly-dallying with their website for a couple of days. I had an account there before, but I had forgotten my password long ago (I was basically using them to buy aftermarket Dreamcast games) and had to spark up a new account when their password recovery function failed repeatedly to email me a reset link. What their site didn't tell me (and they acknowledged it as a problem) was that new accounts had to be verified by clicking a link in an email. Pretty standard stuff...but the issue was that Play-Asia's site didn't tell you about that step...while allowing you to make purchases before you're verified. So my license key didn't show in my purchase history until I found the email and clicked the verify link, after which the license key appeared.
Then I sat on my purchase for almost another year while I slowly collected a terabyte SSD (Crucial), USB-SATA cable, system restore disks, an additional 4GB of RAM for a total of 16GB and my Win10 installer on a thumb drive...which turned out to be the Win8 recovery media I made for my venerable Surface Pro 2 (which died from a video-card malfunction), so I had to clear files off another 8GB thumb drive so I could make the installer. Owing to the condition of my existing HDD, I didn't want to clone it to the new SSD, so I installed it in the system (along with a new watch battery for the CMOS) and restored the Win8 system image to it, insuring that the full complement of Toshiba drivers was installed to the system before running the Win10 installer. Restoring the win8 image took the better part of two hours installing from four DVD's, after which I was presented with the Win 8 desktop (ew). Surprisingly enough, the Win10 upgrade on top of 8 took only about 20 minutes. One benefit of starting with Win8 -- it doesn't try to strong-arm you to create/use a Microsoft account, and as such the local account created in 8 carried over into 10 without the 'modern' insistence to use a M$ account.
I made some observations as I reinstalled the apps I used most often on the Win7 iteration of this computer. Maybe I'll talk about them in a future journal after I've re-imposed some computing normalcy. (as in, "why is Micrografx Picture Publisher displaying scrambled images?--I have too many projects done on that app to retire it now)
By that title, I mean Windows versions.
My main stay-at-home laptop, where much of my digital art is spawned, is a 17" screen Toshiba Satellite S70-A (Core i5-3230) laptop. Not a barn-burner by any stretch, it was purchased directly from Toshiba America Information Systems' website. I had it configured with Windows 7 at the time because Windows 8 was (and still is) a hot mess, however this option did not extend to the restore media, which was Windows 8. Originally equipped with a 750GB hard drive, I never managed to fill it more than halfway since much of my important data resided on external drives.
This system served me well over the years, and over time received memory upgrades from 8 to 12GB to keep pace with the growing memory footprint of various applications (and the habit of leaving browser tabs open "for later"). Then one day the fire nation attac---no, wait not that. Running Win7, as well-regarded an OS as it was, long beyond it's sell-by date introduced minor annoyances that grew harder to ignore, in the form of applications that started dropping support for it. But the big issue cropped up November 2022 when out of nowhere this system started throwing up dialog boxes stating that "You may be a victim of software counterfeiting" as well as a little notice in the corner of my secondary monitor stating that "this copy of Windows is not genuine". Weird...this system was legit from the factory for more than a decade. But an in-depth investigation showed that where one would normally find their Windows license key turned up...bupkis. I kinda-sorta put up with the three or four times a day pop-ups and the lack of ability to set a wallpaper, but another issue was starting to grate on me...
Normally I leave my system on and simply set it to turn off its LCD after a half-hour or so of idle, and system sleep ensues after a couple of hours of inactivity. I would leave home for work, return in the evening and wake up the system by jiggling the mouse or tapping the space bar. But with the advent of these MS nag-boxes, came a concerning inflation of the time needed to reach a login prompt upon system resume. I clocked it at upwards of eight minutes. Amazingly, I put up with that too for way too long. Poking around the system some more led me to Event Viewer, which showed me that my hard drive was throwing "NTFS Error" literally every day going back to...probably late 2022 when these oddball happenings first started. Still I kept using the system, even after Krita became unusable. I'm talking drawing a line, and nothing showed up till you bumped the screen in any direction or zoomed in or out. This app was perfectly fine before whatever happened to screw it up, and neither reinstalling or updating it helped. I switched to using Clip Studio in the meantime, but the situation with Krita bothered me.
Finally in November 2023, having missed the deadline to secure a free upgrade to Win10, I finally got off my duff and did something. By that I mean researching places to buy Windows 10 license keys. An increasing number of dead-ends (M$ was really pushing Win11 by then) finally led me to Play-Asia, where I was able to buy a key for about $15...after dilly-dallying with their website for a couple of days. I had an account there before, but I had forgotten my password long ago (I was basically using them to buy aftermarket Dreamcast games) and had to spark up a new account when their password recovery function failed repeatedly to email me a reset link. What their site didn't tell me (and they acknowledged it as a problem) was that new accounts had to be verified by clicking a link in an email. Pretty standard stuff...but the issue was that Play-Asia's site didn't tell you about that step...while allowing you to make purchases before you're verified. So my license key didn't show in my purchase history until I found the email and clicked the verify link, after which the license key appeared.
Then I sat on my purchase for almost another year while I slowly collected a terabyte SSD (Crucial), USB-SATA cable, system restore disks, an additional 4GB of RAM for a total of 16GB and my Win10 installer on a thumb drive...which turned out to be the Win8 recovery media I made for my venerable Surface Pro 2 (which died from a video-card malfunction), so I had to clear files off another 8GB thumb drive so I could make the installer. Owing to the condition of my existing HDD, I didn't want to clone it to the new SSD, so I installed it in the system (along with a new watch battery for the CMOS) and restored the Win8 system image to it, insuring that the full complement of Toshiba drivers was installed to the system before running the Win10 installer. Restoring the win8 image took the better part of two hours installing from four DVD's, after which I was presented with the Win 8 desktop (ew). Surprisingly enough, the Win10 upgrade on top of 8 took only about 20 minutes. One benefit of starting with Win8 -- it doesn't try to strong-arm you to create/use a Microsoft account, and as such the local account created in 8 carried over into 10 without the 'modern' insistence to use a M$ account.
I made some observations as I reinstalled the apps I used most often on the Win7 iteration of this computer. Maybe I'll talk about them in a future journal after I've re-imposed some computing normalcy. (as in, "why is Micrografx Picture Publisher displaying scrambled images?--I have too many projects done on that app to retire it now)
XBox360 Deathwatch 2024 (7/30 Postmortem)
General | Posted a year agoOn the eve of the Xbox360's store demise, I decided to get in on the action early...er. Or at least be better prepared than I was with my Nintendo 3DS-XL. It helps that a bunch of stuff on the store has been severely discounted.
But another thing occurred to me...Updates. A lot of my 360 games haven't been played in a long time. With the demise of the store, updates to those games might disappear too. So if you have a functioning 360, you might want to fire it up and go through your library bootiing up your games to see if they need updates. Otherwise check in here every so often as I chronicle, con travelogue-style the trip throgh my library and check for updates and discounted DLC before hitting up the store for one last round of booty. Hopefully I won't fill up my hard drive before I'm done...
I will continue adding entries here till I've exhausted all my choices, or the store closes down on me, so if you're interested, refresh this every so often to see what i found. Unlike the 3DS situation, I do have an Xbox One, so any leftover money won't go to waste My Nintendo account had 55 cents left when the 3DS store shut down, so that didn't bother me). Note that a fair portion of the entries below were freebies with Live GOLD, so they may not be the best of the bunch. I may be even less discerning if I have money to burn after running through my list of suggestions.
--A Kingdom for Keflings (demo): No update. Unlocking the full game is $10. Maybe tomorrow, depending on my account balance
--A World of Keflings : Update downloaded
--Assassins Creed 2 : Update downloaded
--Bastion : Update downloaded. Stranger's Dream DLC was $1, so bought it
--BattleBlock Theater : Update downloaded
--Bejeweled 2 (demo) : Full version is $5. I'll think about it
--Bejeweled Blitz Live : DLC consists of cosmetics for your avatar. Nah :)
--BurgerTime World Tour (demo) : Unlocking the full game...doesn't seem to be available. The option exists on the in-game menu, but the purchase page doesn't list any entries. Odd.
--Burnout Paradise : The game claims to check for updates from within, but "The Burnout Paradise server is not available at this time" Dunno if this was due to the impending store closure, or EA killed it awhile ago. At least the licensed music is still in-game :D. Also, all the stuff in the Burnout store is "Not Available for Purchase"
--Capcom Arcade Cabinet : It appears I have all the featured games. There is a scrolling banner advertising an "All-in-One" pack, but no means of selecting it. I have no idea if I did buy the whole shebang :D Oh, and wow those original-resolution graphics are...eye-bending on a 47" screen.
--Castlevania Symphony of the Night : No updates. Didn't even recall getting this one :D
--Comic Jumper: The Adventures of Captain Smiley : No updates, and the DLC consists of picture packs.
--Crazy Taxi : No updates. Also, I have this on Dreamcast, so it must've been a GOLD freebie or really cheap.
--Defense Grid: The Awakening : Update downloaded. DLC consists of four map packs ($1 ea) and a story expansion ("You Monster") starring Portal's GLaDOS ($5). I'll put those on the "get it later" list
--Defiance : This is a free-to-play MMO title. I'd be surprised if it functions. It tried to DL a bunch of patch notes and version files, and ended with an error message on both the North America and Europe servers. Without these, the game cannot start. Oh well, I expected that.
--DiRT 3 : No updates, but a VIP pass DLC was available for free. So I snagged it. The rest of the add-ons are just developer Q&A videos. Some track and car packs are supposedly available on the LIVE marketplace, so I'll look for those later.
--Dungeon Defenders : No updates, and DLC consists of expansions Mistymire Forest (3.99), and a three-part "Quest fot the Lost Eternia Shards" (3.99 each). I'll put this on the "later" list (as in, buy another scratch-off card to add $ to my account and go for them tomorrow)
--Earth Defense Force 2017 : No updates, no DLC
--Forza Horizon 2: Fast and the Furious edition : I believe this is an Xbox 360 exclusive digital title. No updates at start, and I spent too much time farting around the map.
--Full Auto (demo) : No updates, and no option to purchase from in-game. Will check the store
--Game Room : Update downloaded. but the DLC server is unavailable
--GTA5 : I selected "Online" from the load screen (I don't usually do this), and after a couple of minutes, the game reported a new DLC pack has been downloaded and installed. No idea what it is, though returning to story mode got me a bank robbery sequence in North Yanktown which somehow caused the game to quit to the dashboard in the middle of the heist. On relaunch, I allowed the game to continue straight to story mode as I usually do, and it picked up where I last left off. Upon finding the "Online" menu item, I was informed that "The Rockstar cloud servers are unavailable right now". Probably has been that way for years by now,,
--GRID 2 : No updates.
--GTA: San Andreas : Update downloaded.
--Gunstar Heroes : No updates.
--Happy Wars : Update downloaded. However the main menu asks that an update is required, and when the user selects "Download", you get a LIVE error "the item is no longer available". The game cannot be started without said update. Whatever update was downloaded before I got to the main menu, that wasn't "it", as far as I know.
--Hard Corps: Uprising : Update downloaded. A couple of characters (Sayuri, Harley and Leviathan) at $2.50 each available as DLC. Probably going to get those for the sake of completeness
--Hexic HD : Update downloaded.
--Hydro Thunder : No update. There is aDLC called the Tempest pack ($4.99)
--Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet (demo) : Update downloaded. Full version available for $15
--Joy Ride Turbo : No updates.
--Little Racers Street (demo) (indie) : Full version purchase option does not work in-game
--Mercenaries : Update downloaded.
--Mercury HG (demo) : No updates. In-game option to purchase full version presents a blank screen
--Metal Slug 3 : No updates.
--Midway Arcade Origins : No Updates.
--Minecraft : No updates.
--Ms.Splosion Man : No updates. DLC is just a trailer.
--Pac-Man CE-DX : Update downloaded. Previous version savedata is incompatible and will be overwritten. Okay, it's been so long since I played this, it's doubtful I'll miss the old save. DLC consists of additional courses (Mountain, Big Eater, and Championship 3 + Highway 2) at $2 each, some skins (which I wasn't interested in) and two background music tracks at $1 eaah. Bought the added courses and BGM.
--Peggle : No updates. DLC consists of avatar accessories
--Pinball FX (demo) : Update downloaded. In-game option to buy full version presents a blank screen.
--Pinball FX 2 : Update dowloaded. An array of tables are available at varying prices ($4-5-ish) according to the number of included tables. Buying the whole collection (69 tables) might run more than $100 based on a cursory glance at the prices of some sample packs. I might get a few. Definitely not the whole collection.
Update: added the following tables:
---Star Wars Pinball: Balance of the Force
---Plants vs Zombies
---Portal
---Deadpool
---Ms Splosion Man
--Radiant Silvergun : No updates. Also I have a sealed copy of the Saturn version :D
--Ridge Racer Unbounded : No updates. Some sort of "Ridge Racer Service" is unavailable, but the game is playable
--Saints Row 4 : No updates. Bought the Season Pass DLC.
--ScreamRide (demo) : No updates
--Sine Mora : No updates
--Space Invaders Infinity Gene : No updates. Additional stages are available as DLC directly from the 360 store
--Split/Second : No updates. Additional tracks are available as DLC on the 360 store
--Stuntman: Ignition : No updates.
--Super Meat Boy : Update downloaded
--Sega Vintage Collection: Monster World : No update.
--Terraria : No update.
Well, that takes care of my digital games. Now to look after the disc-based ones :D
7/30 Post-Mortem: In the end, this process took till 11pm on the 28th and I was falling asleep before getting to looking in the 360 store for any games I might've been interested in that I had heard of from various videos. I might've bought a bigger scratch-off card than just the $25 one I bought a few days prior (I way underestimated what the price on a lot of this stuff was going to be after hearing about all the discounts). Had I bought a $50 or bigger scratch-off card, I could have impulse-bought all the DLC I encountered on the 28th instead of putting them off for the next day thinking the store would close at midnight Monday the 29th (giving me time to put more money in the account). In reality it probably closed 12:01am 7/29, or midnight of the 28th, so all the DLC I said I'd get later was missed.
Rats. And I still had 130GB free on my 360's 250GB drive. Maybe some of what I missed I can get on my XBone.(I was angling to fill up the 360 drive first so I didn't clutter up my XB1 drive with 360 titles)
But another thing occurred to me...Updates. A lot of my 360 games haven't been played in a long time. With the demise of the store, updates to those games might disappear too. So if you have a functioning 360, you might want to fire it up and go through your library bootiing up your games to see if they need updates. Otherwise check in here every so often as I chronicle, con travelogue-style the trip throgh my library and check for updates and discounted DLC before hitting up the store for one last round of booty. Hopefully I won't fill up my hard drive before I'm done...
I will continue adding entries here till I've exhausted all my choices, or the store closes down on me, so if you're interested, refresh this every so often to see what i found. Unlike the 3DS situation, I do have an Xbox One, so any leftover money won't go to waste My Nintendo account had 55 cents left when the 3DS store shut down, so that didn't bother me). Note that a fair portion of the entries below were freebies with Live GOLD, so they may not be the best of the bunch. I may be even less discerning if I have money to burn after running through my list of suggestions.
--A Kingdom for Keflings (demo): No update. Unlocking the full game is $10. Maybe tomorrow, depending on my account balance
--A World of Keflings : Update downloaded
--Assassins Creed 2 : Update downloaded
--Bastion : Update downloaded. Stranger's Dream DLC was $1, so bought it
--BattleBlock Theater : Update downloaded
--Bejeweled 2 (demo) : Full version is $5. I'll think about it
--Bejeweled Blitz Live : DLC consists of cosmetics for your avatar. Nah :)
--BurgerTime World Tour (demo) : Unlocking the full game...doesn't seem to be available. The option exists on the in-game menu, but the purchase page doesn't list any entries. Odd.
--Burnout Paradise : The game claims to check for updates from within, but "The Burnout Paradise server is not available at this time" Dunno if this was due to the impending store closure, or EA killed it awhile ago. At least the licensed music is still in-game :D. Also, all the stuff in the Burnout store is "Not Available for Purchase"
--Capcom Arcade Cabinet : It appears I have all the featured games. There is a scrolling banner advertising an "All-in-One" pack, but no means of selecting it. I have no idea if I did buy the whole shebang :D Oh, and wow those original-resolution graphics are...eye-bending on a 47" screen.
--Castlevania Symphony of the Night : No updates. Didn't even recall getting this one :D
--Comic Jumper: The Adventures of Captain Smiley : No updates, and the DLC consists of picture packs.
--Crazy Taxi : No updates. Also, I have this on Dreamcast, so it must've been a GOLD freebie or really cheap.
--Defense Grid: The Awakening : Update downloaded. DLC consists of four map packs ($1 ea) and a story expansion ("You Monster") starring Portal's GLaDOS ($5). I'll put those on the "get it later" list
--Defiance : This is a free-to-play MMO title. I'd be surprised if it functions. It tried to DL a bunch of patch notes and version files, and ended with an error message on both the North America and Europe servers. Without these, the game cannot start. Oh well, I expected that.
--DiRT 3 : No updates, but a VIP pass DLC was available for free. So I snagged it. The rest of the add-ons are just developer Q&A videos. Some track and car packs are supposedly available on the LIVE marketplace, so I'll look for those later.
--Dungeon Defenders : No updates, and DLC consists of expansions Mistymire Forest (3.99), and a three-part "Quest fot the Lost Eternia Shards" (3.99 each). I'll put this on the "later" list (as in, buy another scratch-off card to add $ to my account and go for them tomorrow)
--Earth Defense Force 2017 : No updates, no DLC
--Forza Horizon 2: Fast and the Furious edition : I believe this is an Xbox 360 exclusive digital title. No updates at start, and I spent too much time farting around the map.
--Full Auto (demo) : No updates, and no option to purchase from in-game. Will check the store
--Game Room : Update downloaded. but the DLC server is unavailable
--GTA5 : I selected "Online" from the load screen (I don't usually do this), and after a couple of minutes, the game reported a new DLC pack has been downloaded and installed. No idea what it is, though returning to story mode got me a bank robbery sequence in North Yanktown which somehow caused the game to quit to the dashboard in the middle of the heist. On relaunch, I allowed the game to continue straight to story mode as I usually do, and it picked up where I last left off. Upon finding the "Online" menu item, I was informed that "The Rockstar cloud servers are unavailable right now". Probably has been that way for years by now,,
--GRID 2 : No updates.
--GTA: San Andreas : Update downloaded.
--Gunstar Heroes : No updates.
--Happy Wars : Update downloaded. However the main menu asks that an update is required, and when the user selects "Download", you get a LIVE error "the item is no longer available". The game cannot be started without said update. Whatever update was downloaded before I got to the main menu, that wasn't "it", as far as I know.
--Hard Corps: Uprising : Update downloaded. A couple of characters (Sayuri, Harley and Leviathan) at $2.50 each available as DLC. Probably going to get those for the sake of completeness
--Hexic HD : Update downloaded.
--Hydro Thunder : No update. There is aDLC called the Tempest pack ($4.99)
--Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet (demo) : Update downloaded. Full version available for $15
--Joy Ride Turbo : No updates.
--Little Racers Street (demo) (indie) : Full version purchase option does not work in-game
--Mercenaries : Update downloaded.
--Mercury HG (demo) : No updates. In-game option to purchase full version presents a blank screen
--Metal Slug 3 : No updates.
--Midway Arcade Origins : No Updates.
--Minecraft : No updates.
--Ms.Splosion Man : No updates. DLC is just a trailer.
--Pac-Man CE-DX : Update downloaded. Previous version savedata is incompatible and will be overwritten. Okay, it's been so long since I played this, it's doubtful I'll miss the old save. DLC consists of additional courses (Mountain, Big Eater, and Championship 3 + Highway 2) at $2 each, some skins (which I wasn't interested in) and two background music tracks at $1 eaah. Bought the added courses and BGM.
--Peggle : No updates. DLC consists of avatar accessories
--Pinball FX (demo) : Update downloaded. In-game option to buy full version presents a blank screen.
--Pinball FX 2 : Update dowloaded. An array of tables are available at varying prices ($4-5-ish) according to the number of included tables. Buying the whole collection (69 tables) might run more than $100 based on a cursory glance at the prices of some sample packs. I might get a few. Definitely not the whole collection.
Update: added the following tables:
---Star Wars Pinball: Balance of the Force
---Plants vs Zombies
---Portal
---Deadpool
---Ms Splosion Man
--Radiant Silvergun : No updates. Also I have a sealed copy of the Saturn version :D
--Ridge Racer Unbounded : No updates. Some sort of "Ridge Racer Service" is unavailable, but the game is playable
--Saints Row 4 : No updates. Bought the Season Pass DLC.
--ScreamRide (demo) : No updates
--Sine Mora : No updates
--Space Invaders Infinity Gene : No updates. Additional stages are available as DLC directly from the 360 store
--Split/Second : No updates. Additional tracks are available as DLC on the 360 store
--Stuntman: Ignition : No updates.
--Super Meat Boy : Update downloaded
--Sega Vintage Collection: Monster World : No update.
--Terraria : No update.
Well, that takes care of my digital games. Now to look after the disc-based ones :D
7/30 Post-Mortem: In the end, this process took till 11pm on the 28th and I was falling asleep before getting to looking in the 360 store for any games I might've been interested in that I had heard of from various videos. I might've bought a bigger scratch-off card than just the $25 one I bought a few days prior (I way underestimated what the price on a lot of this stuff was going to be after hearing about all the discounts). Had I bought a $50 or bigger scratch-off card, I could have impulse-bought all the DLC I encountered on the 28th instead of putting them off for the next day thinking the store would close at midnight Monday the 29th (giving me time to put more money in the account). In reality it probably closed 12:01am 7/29, or midnight of the 28th, so all the DLC I said I'd get later was missed.
Rats. And I still had 130GB free on my 360's 250GB drive. Maybe some of what I missed I can get on my XBone.(I was angling to fill up the 360 drive first so I didn't clutter up my XB1 drive with 360 titles)
Recent Viewcount Milestones
General | Posted a year agoMore interesting than a travelogue for a past con.
(Also, dropped the thingy about commission pricing -- I'm just going to play it by ear)
--Recent Viewcount milestones, courtesy of FA's stats feature:
--Patrol Leader Training: 6000 views [06/16]
-- Mudlark Mentor: 1: 5000 views [07/15]
--Tight 'N Shiny 5: All the Way In: 4000 views [07/03]
--A Curiously Filthy Story: 3000 views
--Page 1: [07/05]
-- Page 18: [07/05]
-- Page 9: [07/16]
Also, thanks to the folks +faving my recent submissions :) I'm unaccustomed to seeing 20-30 faves accumulate in my Inbox a week after an upload :D
(Also, dropped the thingy about commission pricing -- I'm just going to play it by ear)
--Recent Viewcount milestones, courtesy of FA's stats feature:
--Patrol Leader Training: 6000 views [06/16]
-- Mudlark Mentor: 1: 5000 views [07/15]
--Tight 'N Shiny 5: All the Way In: 4000 views [07/03]
--A Curiously Filthy Story: 3000 views
--Page 1: [07/05]
-- Page 18: [07/05]
-- Page 9: [07/16]
Also, thanks to the folks +faving my recent submissions :) I'm unaccustomed to seeing 20-30 faves accumulate in my Inbox a week after an upload :D
AC 2024: Journey Home
General | Posted a year agoMy usual travelogue for con trips, used for future trip planning.
If you're curious, come back here every hour or so to see my progress from Pittsburgh back to NYC.
First challenge, making it to the train station, where my train leaves at 07:30am.
--07:06a: Dp. Kimpton Monaco hotel
--07:15a: Ar. Pittsburgh Amtrak station and proceed directly to the platform as the boarding call has already been called.
AMTRAK
--07:32a: Boarded coach #25039. Train is announced as being sold out before I even get on. My main suitcase sits opposite me in the overhead rack, and the "art trailer" is riding a few rows behind me.
--07:29a: Dp. Pittsburgh Station (with a lurch)
--08:09a: Ar. Greensburg, PA
--08:13a: Dp. Greensburg, PA
--08:23a: Ar. Latrobe, PA
--08:24a: Dp. Latrobe, PA
--09:12a: Ar. Johnstown, PA
--09:19a: Dp. Johnstown, PA
--10:13a: Ar. Altoona, PA
--10:18a: Dp. Altoona, PA
--10:34a: Ar. Tyrone, PA
--10:35a: Dp. Tyrone, PA
--11:01a: Ar. Huntingdon, PA
--11:03a: Dp. Huntingdon, PA
--11:40a: Ar. Lewistown, PA
--11:42a: Dp. Lewistown, PA
--12:58p: Ar. Harrisburg, PA
--01:05p: Dp. Harrisburg, PA
--01:20p: Ar. Elizabethtown,PA
--01:24p: Dp. Elizabethtown, PA
--01:38p: Ar. Lancaster,PA
--01:45p: Dp. Lancaster, PA
--02:22p: Ar. Exton, PA
--02:24p: Dp. Exton, PA
--02:30p: Ar. Paoli, PA
--02:34p: Dp. Paoli, PA
--02:50-ish: on approach to Philadelphia, we come to an unscheduled stop, in the hinterlands opposite I-276 on the approach to downtown.
--03:02p: A faint noise of an emergency brake application almost escapes my notice, followed a minute later by a lurch forward and an almost immediate stop, as if the locomotive started to pull, and one of the coaches went "Nope!".
--03:06p: Our train starts moving again, cautiously toward 30th street station (or "William H Gray 30th street" as they call it now)
--03:09p: Ar. Philadelphia, PA
--03:42p: Dp. Philadelphia, PA
--04:01p: slow going alongside congested I-95, for some reason...
--04:06p: We return to normal Northeast Corridor speed
--04:22p: Ar. Trenton, NJ
--04:24p: Dp. Trenton, NJ
--05:00p: Ar. Newark, NJ
--05:02p: Dp. Newark, NJ
--05:15p: We pause in the tunnel to Penn Station for unspecified reasons..
--05:22p: Forward motion resumes..
--05:27p: Ar. NY Penn Station (in the thick of a Manhattan rush hour. Yay.)
--05:37p: Side trip to the Chick-fil-A opposite Penn Station (yes, the very same one that foiled my breakfast plans on the outbound trip)
NYC TRANSIT
--05:50p: Ar 34th street Penn Station subway station. A (2) train is pulling in as I reach my preferred car in the 10-car train.
--05:50p: Dp 34th street Penn Station subway station
--06:52: Ar. 233 street station (2) for local bus (again, because elevator for heavy double-trailer luggage)
--07:08p: Boarded local bus
--07:16p: Arrived local bus stop
--07:26p: Ar. home
Huh...about 12H from train departure to stepping in the door at home. Could have cut some corners here and there after arriving back in the Big Apple, but was pretty sure I didn't have anything to eat once arriving home. And it being 90F, I did not want to deal with humping those suitcases down four flights of stairs (the subway is elevated where I am) with rush-hour quantities of people all around me, so I went past my home station so I could take a bus in the non-peak direction.
Now...I was thinking about FurFright...travel there is a no-brainer, Stamford, CT is less than a couple of hours from home via local bus and commuter train. Buuut it's a single-hotel con, their hotel sold out the first day, and there are no other hotels nearby that could serve as overflows.
If you're curious, come back here every hour or so to see my progress from Pittsburgh back to NYC.
First challenge, making it to the train station, where my train leaves at 07:30am.
--07:06a: Dp. Kimpton Monaco hotel
--07:15a: Ar. Pittsburgh Amtrak station and proceed directly to the platform as the boarding call has already been called.
AMTRAK
--07:32a: Boarded coach #25039. Train is announced as being sold out before I even get on. My main suitcase sits opposite me in the overhead rack, and the "art trailer" is riding a few rows behind me.
--07:29a: Dp. Pittsburgh Station (with a lurch)
--08:09a: Ar. Greensburg, PA
--08:13a: Dp. Greensburg, PA
--08:23a: Ar. Latrobe, PA
--08:24a: Dp. Latrobe, PA
--09:12a: Ar. Johnstown, PA
--09:19a: Dp. Johnstown, PA
--10:13a: Ar. Altoona, PA
--10:18a: Dp. Altoona, PA
--10:34a: Ar. Tyrone, PA
--10:35a: Dp. Tyrone, PA
--11:01a: Ar. Huntingdon, PA
--11:03a: Dp. Huntingdon, PA
--11:40a: Ar. Lewistown, PA
--11:42a: Dp. Lewistown, PA
--12:58p: Ar. Harrisburg, PA
--01:05p: Dp. Harrisburg, PA
--01:20p: Ar. Elizabethtown,PA
--01:24p: Dp. Elizabethtown, PA
--01:38p: Ar. Lancaster,PA
--01:45p: Dp. Lancaster, PA
--02:22p: Ar. Exton, PA
--02:24p: Dp. Exton, PA
--02:30p: Ar. Paoli, PA
--02:34p: Dp. Paoli, PA
--02:50-ish: on approach to Philadelphia, we come to an unscheduled stop, in the hinterlands opposite I-276 on the approach to downtown.
--03:02p: A faint noise of an emergency brake application almost escapes my notice, followed a minute later by a lurch forward and an almost immediate stop, as if the locomotive started to pull, and one of the coaches went "Nope!".
--03:06p: Our train starts moving again, cautiously toward 30th street station (or "William H Gray 30th street" as they call it now)
--03:09p: Ar. Philadelphia, PA
--03:42p: Dp. Philadelphia, PA
--04:01p: slow going alongside congested I-95, for some reason...
--04:06p: We return to normal Northeast Corridor speed
--04:22p: Ar. Trenton, NJ
--04:24p: Dp. Trenton, NJ
--05:00p: Ar. Newark, NJ
--05:02p: Dp. Newark, NJ
--05:15p: We pause in the tunnel to Penn Station for unspecified reasons..
--05:22p: Forward motion resumes..
--05:27p: Ar. NY Penn Station (in the thick of a Manhattan rush hour. Yay.)
--05:37p: Side trip to the Chick-fil-A opposite Penn Station (yes, the very same one that foiled my breakfast plans on the outbound trip)
NYC TRANSIT
--05:50p: Ar 34th street Penn Station subway station. A (2) train is pulling in as I reach my preferred car in the 10-car train.
--05:50p: Dp 34th street Penn Station subway station
--06:52: Ar. 233 street station (2) for local bus (again, because elevator for heavy double-trailer luggage)
--07:08p: Boarded local bus
--07:16p: Arrived local bus stop
--07:26p: Ar. home
Huh...about 12H from train departure to stepping in the door at home. Could have cut some corners here and there after arriving back in the Big Apple, but was pretty sure I didn't have anything to eat once arriving home. And it being 90F, I did not want to deal with humping those suitcases down four flights of stairs (the subway is elevated where I am) with rush-hour quantities of people all around me, so I went past my home station so I could take a bus in the non-peak direction.
Now...I was thinking about FurFright...travel there is a no-brainer, Stamford, CT is less than a couple of hours from home via local bus and commuter train. Buuut it's a single-hotel con, their hotel sold out the first day, and there are no other hotels nearby that could serve as overflows.
AC 2024 Trip recorder
General | Posted a year agoMy usual AC journey log. Check back for updates as I and my 90-ish pounds of luggage journey towards Pittsburgh entirely via public transit.
--08:28a Dp. home
NYC TRANSIT:
--08:30a: Ar. local bus stop. A bus sails past just as I reach the corner. With no one at the bus stop, it keeps going.
--08:45a: Dp. local bus stop
--08:49a: Ar. Gun Hill Road subway station
--08:52a: Ar. Gun Hill Road subway station platform
--08:55a: Dp. Gun Hill Road
--09:41a: Ar. 34th street Penn Station subway station
Mindful of my near-disastrous attempt at getting a Jersey Mike's sandwich during the Philadelphia layover this time last year, I thought I'd grab a sandwich at the Chick-fil-A across from Penn Station, only to be foiled by their special July 4th hours, adjusted opening from 6:30am to 10:30am. Well, at least I'm at the station with time to spare.
AMTRAK:
--9:56a: Ar. Moynihan Train Hall
--10:38a: Boarding call for Train 43 announced
--10:43a: Boarded train 43, coach #25016
--10:52a: Dp. Moynihan Train Hall
--11:06a: Ar. Newark, NJ
--11:38a: Ar. Trenton, NJ
--11:44a: Dp. Trenton, NJ
--12:??p: Ar. Philadelphia, PA (whatever it was, it was on-time)
--12:42p: Dp. Philadelphia, PA Conducor announces the train is sold out.
--01:09p: Ar. Paoli, PA
--01:12p: Dp. Paoli, PA
--01:54p: Ar. Lancaster, PA
--01:57p: Dp. Lancaster, PA
--02:12p: Ar. Elizabethtown, PA
--02:13p: Dp. Elizabethtown, PA
--02:30p: Ar. Harrisburg, PA
--02:38p: Dp. Harrisburg,
--03:17: Stopped (Newport, PA) owing to an unspecified mechanical issue in our diesel. Engineer is checking it out.
--03:56p: Conductor reports that engineer may have resolved the problem, but will have to wait about 10 minutes while NS (the freight railroad) clears the signals ahead of us. One eastbound ethanol tanker train rumbled past while we were stopped, other freight may be backed up due to us.
--04:08: On the move. During our stop I found a railroad radio stream for this area, and from conversations heard on the NS Harrisburg dispatcher, we may have a low coolant condition in our locomotive, so we may be making an unscheduled stop at a NS service facility to top off our coolant. (edit: it didn't happen, at least on this trip)
--04:42p: Ar. Lewistown, PA
--04:45p: Dp. Lewistown, PA
--05:21p: Ar. Huntingdon, PA
--05:22p: Dp. Huntingdon, PA
--05:48p: Ar. Tyrone, PA
--05:48p: Dp. Tyrone, PA
--06:04p: Ar. Altoona, PA
--06:07p: Dp. Altoona, PA
--06:58p: Ar. Johnstown, PA
--07:01p: Dp. Johnstown, PA
--07:39p: Ar. Latrobe, PA
--07:41p: Dp. Latrobe, PA
--07:54p: Ar. Greensburg, PA
--07:57p: Dp. Greensburg, PA
--08:35p: Ar. Pittsburgh, PA
--08:39p: Detrained to platform
--08:55p: Ar. Kimpton Monaco
--09:06p: Checked in and arrived at room
--09:28p: Finally set.out for the convention center to get my badge...after waiting out a banger of a thunderstorm that arrived while I was.going up to my room :D
--09:36: Arrived DLCC only to find registration closed early. Re-opens 9am tomorrow. On one hand I'm not drenched. On the other hand I got no steenkin badge tonight.
--FRIDAY:
Adding this here 'cause registration choked on itself last night. I heard it had actually closed before my train arrived, so I would still have been screwed had I went straight to the DLCC.
[8:30A]: Arrived at the DLCC expecting to find a line and I was not disappointed. Then, pre-registered people were led inside...and well...the same "Line of Death" as last year presented itself. Judging from the number of people now sitting on the floor, they've been here a long time. Opening is supposed to start at 9am.
[08:50a]: A staffer starts calling for any dealers to form a dealer registration line. He says he'll try to get an answer for Artist's Alley people. I brought my "art trailer" anticipating the line wait to spill over into dealer's hours.
[9:00a] Nothing happens. But the line has roughly increased by about a third.
[9:11a] A loud cheer erupts from the start of the line. Maybe registration opened, I dunno...I'm in the fourth layer of standees.
[09:14a] Just as I finish typing this, the first layer starts moving.
[09:21a] I've now advanced to the "inner sanctum", but now confront the "Endless Zigzag
[09:44a] In an amazing display of efficiency, I've ripped thru the zigs and acquired my badge. There appear to be at least twelve stations dedicated to pre-registered attendees.
--08:28a Dp. home
NYC TRANSIT:
--08:30a: Ar. local bus stop. A bus sails past just as I reach the corner. With no one at the bus stop, it keeps going.
--08:45a: Dp. local bus stop
--08:49a: Ar. Gun Hill Road subway station
--08:52a: Ar. Gun Hill Road subway station platform
--08:55a: Dp. Gun Hill Road
--09:41a: Ar. 34th street Penn Station subway station
Mindful of my near-disastrous attempt at getting a Jersey Mike's sandwich during the Philadelphia layover this time last year, I thought I'd grab a sandwich at the Chick-fil-A across from Penn Station, only to be foiled by their special July 4th hours, adjusted opening from 6:30am to 10:30am. Well, at least I'm at the station with time to spare.
AMTRAK:
--9:56a: Ar. Moynihan Train Hall
--10:38a: Boarding call for Train 43 announced
--10:43a: Boarded train 43, coach #25016
--10:52a: Dp. Moynihan Train Hall
--11:06a: Ar. Newark, NJ
--11:38a: Ar. Trenton, NJ
--11:44a: Dp. Trenton, NJ
--12:??p: Ar. Philadelphia, PA (whatever it was, it was on-time)
--12:42p: Dp. Philadelphia, PA Conducor announces the train is sold out.
--01:09p: Ar. Paoli, PA
--01:12p: Dp. Paoli, PA
--01:54p: Ar. Lancaster, PA
--01:57p: Dp. Lancaster, PA
--02:12p: Ar. Elizabethtown, PA
--02:13p: Dp. Elizabethtown, PA
--02:30p: Ar. Harrisburg, PA
--02:38p: Dp. Harrisburg,
--03:17: Stopped (Newport, PA) owing to an unspecified mechanical issue in our diesel. Engineer is checking it out.
--03:56p: Conductor reports that engineer may have resolved the problem, but will have to wait about 10 minutes while NS (the freight railroad) clears the signals ahead of us. One eastbound ethanol tanker train rumbled past while we were stopped, other freight may be backed up due to us.
--04:08: On the move. During our stop I found a railroad radio stream for this area, and from conversations heard on the NS Harrisburg dispatcher, we may have a low coolant condition in our locomotive, so we may be making an unscheduled stop at a NS service facility to top off our coolant. (edit: it didn't happen, at least on this trip)
--04:42p: Ar. Lewistown, PA
--04:45p: Dp. Lewistown, PA
--05:21p: Ar. Huntingdon, PA
--05:22p: Dp. Huntingdon, PA
--05:48p: Ar. Tyrone, PA
--05:48p: Dp. Tyrone, PA
--06:04p: Ar. Altoona, PA
--06:07p: Dp. Altoona, PA
--06:58p: Ar. Johnstown, PA
--07:01p: Dp. Johnstown, PA
--07:39p: Ar. Latrobe, PA
--07:41p: Dp. Latrobe, PA
--07:54p: Ar. Greensburg, PA
--07:57p: Dp. Greensburg, PA
--08:35p: Ar. Pittsburgh, PA
--08:39p: Detrained to platform
--08:55p: Ar. Kimpton Monaco
--09:06p: Checked in and arrived at room
--09:28p: Finally set.out for the convention center to get my badge...after waiting out a banger of a thunderstorm that arrived while I was.going up to my room :D
--09:36: Arrived DLCC only to find registration closed early. Re-opens 9am tomorrow. On one hand I'm not drenched. On the other hand I got no steenkin badge tonight.
--FRIDAY:
Adding this here 'cause registration choked on itself last night. I heard it had actually closed before my train arrived, so I would still have been screwed had I went straight to the DLCC.
[8:30A]: Arrived at the DLCC expecting to find a line and I was not disappointed. Then, pre-registered people were led inside...and well...the same "Line of Death" as last year presented itself. Judging from the number of people now sitting on the floor, they've been here a long time. Opening is supposed to start at 9am.
[08:50a]: A staffer starts calling for any dealers to form a dealer registration line. He says he'll try to get an answer for Artist's Alley people. I brought my "art trailer" anticipating the line wait to spill over into dealer's hours.
[9:00a] Nothing happens. But the line has roughly increased by about a third.
[9:11a] A loud cheer erupts from the start of the line. Maybe registration opened, I dunno...I'm in the fourth layer of standees.
[09:14a] Just as I finish typing this, the first layer starts moving.
[09:21a] I've now advanced to the "inner sanctum", but now confront the "Endless Zigzag
[09:44a] In an amazing display of efficiency, I've ripped thru the zigs and acquired my badge. There appear to be at least twelve stations dedicated to pre-registered attendees.
2023 Convention Event Recorder
General | Posted 2 years agoI make these posts every year to keep track of timelines of my convention planning. In 2023 I only attended Anthrocon.
--FWA: Did not attend owing to Amtrak scheduling for the return trip. It used to depart Atlanta at around 8pm, which made it easy to check out Sunday, do "con stuff" the rest of the day (artist alley), leave the hotel when closing ceremonies finished at 6pm, and be at the train station in plenty of time. Currently the schedule has been changed so this train arrives in Atlanta (from New Orleans) around 11pm. That's a looooong time to hang around with no room waiting for your ride back after the con.
[02/02/2023]: Registered for and reserved hotel room for Anthrocon 2023 (Doubletree, 'cause everything else closer sold out in a blink...even the Omni which is a huge hotel). Sunday's room night is wait-listed
[05/09/2023]: Received notification via email from 'AC2023 Housing 'that my hotel reservation has been updated to add the Sunday accommodation that was previously wait-listed when I made the reservation on Feb 2nd (whew!). FYI in this email they tell you (in the fine print) not to bother the hotel for confirmation till at least 6/20
[05/15/2023]: Signed up for Anthrocon Artist's Alley
[05/30/2023]: Purchased train tickets for Anthrocon (mental note: return fare is $102 instead of $66 this close to departure)
[06/01/2023]: Received confirmation of accommodations direct from the hotel
[06/05/2023]: Recieved notification of Artist Alley table for Friday and Sunday only
Some notes for 2023 (copied from the 2022 edition that was.posted just before AC'23)
The hotels sold out quick upon opening 2/2/23. My typical stay is check-in Thursday, check-out Monday.
--I took my time entering my details for the Omni (Drury was "just nope" right out of the gate, and AC hotel behind the Westin was expensive), and before I could confirm my selections, two days sold out right out from under me, and the site kicked me back to the start page when I attempted to send the filled-out form.
--Second time around, Doubletree accepted my day selections, but Sunday was wait-listed. This was a real nail-biter, and after weeks of peeking at AC's Twitter I wanted to contact the hotel, but knowing the number of people involved, I sat tight for as long as I could. Right about when I was feeling I needed to call them up (May 9th), I got an email from AC2023 Housing that my reservation was updated to include the wait-listed Sunday accommodation. Co-incidentally, this email included the following in the fine-print at the bottom:
A kind note about calling the hotel "just to be sure":
Please do not call your hotel "to be sure" until after Jun 20, 2023. Please understand that processing your reservations from the Housing Bureau into the Hotel system will take a few days. Rest assured that if you have received a confirmation number already from the Housing Bureau, the hotel will honor your booking. Thank you for your consideration.
AC coulda said that in their social media right after the initial bum-rush, it would probably have alleviated much of the need for that notice.
--A little less than a month prior to the con (i.e. June 1), the hotel itself emailed me their confirmation of my full reservation.
--Four nights' hotel stay is going to run you about $800, taxes included. My hotel is probably in the middle of the range of room rates ( they're not uniform across the con's room blocks), so take that into consideration for 2024.
--FWA: Did not attend owing to Amtrak scheduling for the return trip. It used to depart Atlanta at around 8pm, which made it easy to check out Sunday, do "con stuff" the rest of the day (artist alley), leave the hotel when closing ceremonies finished at 6pm, and be at the train station in plenty of time. Currently the schedule has been changed so this train arrives in Atlanta (from New Orleans) around 11pm. That's a looooong time to hang around with no room waiting for your ride back after the con.
[02/02/2023]: Registered for and reserved hotel room for Anthrocon 2023 (Doubletree, 'cause everything else closer sold out in a blink...even the Omni which is a huge hotel). Sunday's room night is wait-listed
[05/09/2023]: Received notification via email from 'AC2023 Housing 'that my hotel reservation has been updated to add the Sunday accommodation that was previously wait-listed when I made the reservation on Feb 2nd (whew!). FYI in this email they tell you (in the fine print) not to bother the hotel for confirmation till at least 6/20
[05/15/2023]: Signed up for Anthrocon Artist's Alley
[05/30/2023]: Purchased train tickets for Anthrocon (mental note: return fare is $102 instead of $66 this close to departure)
[06/01/2023]: Received confirmation of accommodations direct from the hotel
[06/05/2023]: Recieved notification of Artist Alley table for Friday and Sunday only
Some notes for 2023 (copied from the 2022 edition that was.posted just before AC'23)
The hotels sold out quick upon opening 2/2/23. My typical stay is check-in Thursday, check-out Monday.
--I took my time entering my details for the Omni (Drury was "just nope" right out of the gate, and AC hotel behind the Westin was expensive), and before I could confirm my selections, two days sold out right out from under me, and the site kicked me back to the start page when I attempted to send the filled-out form.
--Second time around, Doubletree accepted my day selections, but Sunday was wait-listed. This was a real nail-biter, and after weeks of peeking at AC's Twitter I wanted to contact the hotel, but knowing the number of people involved, I sat tight for as long as I could. Right about when I was feeling I needed to call them up (May 9th), I got an email from AC2023 Housing that my reservation was updated to include the wait-listed Sunday accommodation. Co-incidentally, this email included the following in the fine-print at the bottom:
A kind note about calling the hotel "just to be sure":
Please do not call your hotel "to be sure" until after Jun 20, 2023. Please understand that processing your reservations from the Housing Bureau into the Hotel system will take a few days. Rest assured that if you have received a confirmation number already from the Housing Bureau, the hotel will honor your booking. Thank you for your consideration.
AC coulda said that in their social media right after the initial bum-rush, it would probably have alleviated much of the need for that notice.
--A little less than a month prior to the con (i.e. June 1), the hotel itself emailed me their confirmation of my full reservation.
--Four nights' hotel stay is going to run you about $800, taxes included. My hotel is probably in the middle of the range of room rates ( they're not uniform across the con's room blocks), so take that into consideration for 2024.
AC 2023: Journey Home
General | Posted 2 years agoMy usual travelogue for con trips, used for future trip planning.
If you're curious, come back here every hour or so to see my progress from Pittsburgh back to NYC.
First challenge, making it to the train station, where my train leaves at 07:30am.
What challenge, you say? I do these trips entirely by public transit.
--07:03a: Dp. Doubletree
--0713a: Ar. Pittsburgh Station
[AMTRAK]
( Boarding has already been announced, but there is a bottleneck in the station as it appears coach passengers are being boarded through a single car )
--07:24a: Boarded train 42, coach #25054. It's a full house
--07:32a: Dp. Pittsburgh Station. Conductor announces that the train is sold out.
--08:10a: Ar. Greensburg, PA
--08:12a: Dp. Greensburg, PA
--08:21a: Ar. Latrobe, PA
--08:22a: Dp. Latrobe, PA
--09:01a: Ar. Johnstown, PA
--09:06a: Dp. Johnstown, PA
--09:59a: Ar. Altoona, PA
--10:01a: Dp. Altoona, PA
--10:15a: Ar. Tyrone, PA
--10:17a: Dp. Tyrone, PA
--10:42a: Ar. Huntingdon, PA
--10:44a: Dp. Huntingdon, PA
--11:20a. Ar. Lewistown, PA
--11:23a: Dp. Lewistown, PA
--12:33p: Ar. Harrisburg, PA
--01:00p: Dp. Harrisburg, PA
--01:18p: Ar. Elizabethtown, PA
--01:19p: Dp. Elizabethtown, PA
--01:36p: Ar. Lancaster, PA
--01:40p: Dp. Lancaster, PA
--02:16p: Ar. Exton, PA
--02:18p: Dp. Exton, PA
--02:26p: Ar. Paoli, PA
--02:31p: Dp. Paoli, PA
--02:54p: Ar. Philadelphia, PA
--03:25p: Dp. Philadelphia, PA
--03:59p: Ar. Trenton, NJ
--04:03p: Dp. Trenton, NJ
--04:22p: An unscheduled pause at New Brunswick while trains are manually passed through an area affected by a signal malfunction.
--5:15p: Still waiting at New Brunswick. Seems like the signal malfunction is such that the Northeast Corridor is single-tracking past whatever is going on. That's a four-track railroad reduced to one. For both directions. At rush hour.
--05:54p: We are given permission to move up to Iselin, NJ. Trains are still being passed through one at a time.
--06:14p: waiting at Edison, NJ
--06:47p: moved up to Metropark, NJ
--07:14p: we've inched up, at speeds of around 7-13mph, to a point just south of Rahway, NJ
--07:31p: slowly advancing to a point just south of Elizabeth, Nj
--08:00p: After much stop-and-go 20mph slow-running, right about opposite Newark Airport, we must have cleared the signal issues because we suddenly accelerated to track speed and roll into ...
--08:04p: Ar. Newark, NJ
--08:06p: Dp. Newark, NJ
--08:20p: Ar. NY Penn Station
[NYC TRANSIT]
--08:29p: Ar. 34th street Penn Station subway station (boy is it roasting hot in here)
--08:34p: Dp 34th street Penn Station subway station, #2 line. At least me and my double-trailer luggage don't have to deal with rush hour traffic
--09:20p: Ar. Gun Hill Road subway station
(There are stations closer to home, but they don't have elevators, and.this luggage is heavy ). Next local bus is some ways away, so I remain on the platform and watch its approach on the MTA's bus-tracker. Two buses are coming, so at least one of them will accommodate my payload. I'll take the elevator down when they're two stops away..
--09:41p: Ar. Local bus stop @ Gun Hill Road
--09:43p: Dp. Local bus stop @ Gun Hill Road
--09:48p: Ar. Local bus stop nearest home
--09:55p: Ar. home
Well, that was a trip wasn't it? Time on the Pennsylvanian equaled the time to go from NYC to Toronto by train
If you're curious, come back here every hour or so to see my progress from Pittsburgh back to NYC.
First challenge, making it to the train station, where my train leaves at 07:30am.
What challenge, you say? I do these trips entirely by public transit.
--07:03a: Dp. Doubletree
--0713a: Ar. Pittsburgh Station
[AMTRAK]
( Boarding has already been announced, but there is a bottleneck in the station as it appears coach passengers are being boarded through a single car )
--07:24a: Boarded train 42, coach #25054. It's a full house
--07:32a: Dp. Pittsburgh Station. Conductor announces that the train is sold out.
--08:10a: Ar. Greensburg, PA
--08:12a: Dp. Greensburg, PA
--08:21a: Ar. Latrobe, PA
--08:22a: Dp. Latrobe, PA
--09:01a: Ar. Johnstown, PA
--09:06a: Dp. Johnstown, PA
--09:59a: Ar. Altoona, PA
--10:01a: Dp. Altoona, PA
--10:15a: Ar. Tyrone, PA
--10:17a: Dp. Tyrone, PA
--10:42a: Ar. Huntingdon, PA
--10:44a: Dp. Huntingdon, PA
--11:20a. Ar. Lewistown, PA
--11:23a: Dp. Lewistown, PA
--12:33p: Ar. Harrisburg, PA
--01:00p: Dp. Harrisburg, PA
--01:18p: Ar. Elizabethtown, PA
--01:19p: Dp. Elizabethtown, PA
--01:36p: Ar. Lancaster, PA
--01:40p: Dp. Lancaster, PA
--02:16p: Ar. Exton, PA
--02:18p: Dp. Exton, PA
--02:26p: Ar. Paoli, PA
--02:31p: Dp. Paoli, PA
--02:54p: Ar. Philadelphia, PA
--03:25p: Dp. Philadelphia, PA
--03:59p: Ar. Trenton, NJ
--04:03p: Dp. Trenton, NJ
--04:22p: An unscheduled pause at New Brunswick while trains are manually passed through an area affected by a signal malfunction.
--5:15p: Still waiting at New Brunswick. Seems like the signal malfunction is such that the Northeast Corridor is single-tracking past whatever is going on. That's a four-track railroad reduced to one. For both directions. At rush hour.
--05:54p: We are given permission to move up to Iselin, NJ. Trains are still being passed through one at a time.
--06:14p: waiting at Edison, NJ
--06:47p: moved up to Metropark, NJ
--07:14p: we've inched up, at speeds of around 7-13mph, to a point just south of Rahway, NJ
--07:31p: slowly advancing to a point just south of Elizabeth, Nj
--08:00p: After much stop-and-go 20mph slow-running, right about opposite Newark Airport, we must have cleared the signal issues because we suddenly accelerated to track speed and roll into ...
--08:04p: Ar. Newark, NJ
--08:06p: Dp. Newark, NJ
--08:20p: Ar. NY Penn Station
[NYC TRANSIT]
--08:29p: Ar. 34th street Penn Station subway station (boy is it roasting hot in here)
--08:34p: Dp 34th street Penn Station subway station, #2 line. At least me and my double-trailer luggage don't have to deal with rush hour traffic
--09:20p: Ar. Gun Hill Road subway station
(There are stations closer to home, but they don't have elevators, and.this luggage is heavy ). Next local bus is some ways away, so I remain on the platform and watch its approach on the MTA's bus-tracker. Two buses are coming, so at least one of them will accommodate my payload. I'll take the elevator down when they're two stops away..
--09:41p: Ar. Local bus stop @ Gun Hill Road
--09:43p: Dp. Local bus stop @ Gun Hill Road
--09:48p: Ar. Local bus stop nearest home
--09:55p: Ar. home
Well, that was a trip wasn't it? Time on the Pennsylvanian equaled the time to go from NYC to Toronto by train
AC 2023: The Trip Out
General | Posted 2 years agoMy usual travelogue for con trips, used for future trip planning.
If you're curious, come back here every hour or so to see my progress from NYC to Pittsburgh.
First challenge, making it to NY Penn Station, where my train leaves at 10:50am.
What challenge, you say? I do these trips entirely by public transit.
This time, I made sure I got everything that I uh, er, forgot last time :D
--08:24a: Dp. Home
--08:28a: Ar. Local bus stop
[NYC TRANSIT]
--08:31a: Dp. Local bus stop
--08:37a: Ar. Gun Hill Road subway station (because elevator, double-trailer luggage ftw)
--08:42a: Ar. Gun Hill Road downtown platform
--08:44a: Dp. Gun Hill Road
(Doing much better than last year, only one train passed me between arriving at the bus stop and reaching the subway station)
--09:32a: Ar. 34th street Penn Station subway station
--09:40a: Ar. Moynihan Train Hall (i.e. NY Penn Sta.)
--
[AMTRAK]
--10:34a: Boarding call for Train 43 (Pennsylvanian)
--10:40a: Seated in coach #25025
--10:52a: Dp. NY Penn Station
--12:15p: Ar. Philadelphia, PA
--12:42p: Dp. Philadelphia, PA
(Protip: Jersey Mike's in 30th St. takes more time to make a cheese steak than most people waiting out the Pennsylvanian's layover have. I had to abandon my purchase to avoid the train leaving without me. I won't say I just missed disaster, but by the time I made it back to the platform, walked thru two cars and took my seat, the train was moving. Won't be doing that again)
--01:06p Ar. Paoli, PA
--01:11p Dp. Paoli, PA
--01:53p Ar. Lancaster, PA
--01:57p: Dp. Lancaster, PA
--02:12p: Ar. Elizabethtown, PA
--02:13p: Dp. Elizabethtown, PA
--02:30p (est) Ar. Harrisburg, PA
--02:38p Dp. Harrisburg, PA
--03:47p: Ar. Lewistown, PA
--03:48p: Dp. Lewistown, PA
--04:26p: Ar. Huntingdon, PA
--04:27p: Dp. Huntingdon, PA
--04:55p: Ar. Tyrone, PA
--04:56p: Dp. Tyrone, PA
--05:12p: Ar. Altoona, PA
--05:14p: Dp. Altoona, PA
--06:07p: Ar. Johnstown, PA
--06:10p: Dp. Johnstown PA
--06:50p: Ar. Latrobe, PA
--06:52p: Dp. Latrobe, PA
--07:02p: Ar. Greensburg, PA
--07:06p: Dp. Greensburg, PA
--07:45p: Ar. Pittsburgh, PA
--07:54p: Completed detraining from Train 43
[ANTHROCON]
--08:11p: Ar. Convention center registration line
(Whooooaa...there is a THREE-LAYER LINE running THE ENTIRE WIDTH OF THE ZOO for Registration...after 8pm on a Thursday. DAAAÀG..
It wasn't like this here last year. I think AC is trying to out-draw MFF...OVER NINE THOUSAAÀAND!! and then some)
--08:47p: Made it past the partition wall. It didn't get any better. Instead of a very long line reaching all the way across the zoo, you now confront what must be 15 or more tightly-wound rows of 30-ish feet of pre-regs... and all this is ONE LINE.
--09:17p: Badge Get!
--09:26p: Boarded Blue shuttle. Had to put my "trailers" in seats since like last year's, the aisle is too narrow for rolling suitcases. And it's six steps up from curb level :p
--09:40p: Ar. Doubletree
--09:47p: Ar. Hotel room
Whooooof!
If you're curious, come back here every hour or so to see my progress from NYC to Pittsburgh.
First challenge, making it to NY Penn Station, where my train leaves at 10:50am.
What challenge, you say? I do these trips entirely by public transit.
This time, I made sure I got everything that I uh, er, forgot last time :D
--08:24a: Dp. Home
--08:28a: Ar. Local bus stop
[NYC TRANSIT]
--08:31a: Dp. Local bus stop
--08:37a: Ar. Gun Hill Road subway station (because elevator, double-trailer luggage ftw)
--08:42a: Ar. Gun Hill Road downtown platform
--08:44a: Dp. Gun Hill Road
(Doing much better than last year, only one train passed me between arriving at the bus stop and reaching the subway station)
--09:32a: Ar. 34th street Penn Station subway station
--09:40a: Ar. Moynihan Train Hall (i.e. NY Penn Sta.)
--
[AMTRAK]
--10:34a: Boarding call for Train 43 (Pennsylvanian)
--10:40a: Seated in coach #25025
--10:52a: Dp. NY Penn Station
--12:15p: Ar. Philadelphia, PA
--12:42p: Dp. Philadelphia, PA
(Protip: Jersey Mike's in 30th St. takes more time to make a cheese steak than most people waiting out the Pennsylvanian's layover have. I had to abandon my purchase to avoid the train leaving without me. I won't say I just missed disaster, but by the time I made it back to the platform, walked thru two cars and took my seat, the train was moving. Won't be doing that again)
--01:06p Ar. Paoli, PA
--01:11p Dp. Paoli, PA
--01:53p Ar. Lancaster, PA
--01:57p: Dp. Lancaster, PA
--02:12p: Ar. Elizabethtown, PA
--02:13p: Dp. Elizabethtown, PA
--02:30p (est) Ar. Harrisburg, PA
--02:38p Dp. Harrisburg, PA
--03:47p: Ar. Lewistown, PA
--03:48p: Dp. Lewistown, PA
--04:26p: Ar. Huntingdon, PA
--04:27p: Dp. Huntingdon, PA
--04:55p: Ar. Tyrone, PA
--04:56p: Dp. Tyrone, PA
--05:12p: Ar. Altoona, PA
--05:14p: Dp. Altoona, PA
--06:07p: Ar. Johnstown, PA
--06:10p: Dp. Johnstown PA
--06:50p: Ar. Latrobe, PA
--06:52p: Dp. Latrobe, PA
--07:02p: Ar. Greensburg, PA
--07:06p: Dp. Greensburg, PA
--07:45p: Ar. Pittsburgh, PA
--07:54p: Completed detraining from Train 43
[ANTHROCON]
--08:11p: Ar. Convention center registration line
(Whooooaa...there is a THREE-LAYER LINE running THE ENTIRE WIDTH OF THE ZOO for Registration...after 8pm on a Thursday. DAAAÀG..
It wasn't like this here last year. I think AC is trying to out-draw MFF...OVER NINE THOUSAAÀAND!! and then some)
--08:47p: Made it past the partition wall. It didn't get any better. Instead of a very long line reaching all the way across the zoo, you now confront what must be 15 or more tightly-wound rows of 30-ish feet of pre-regs... and all this is ONE LINE.
--09:17p: Badge Get!
--09:26p: Boarded Blue shuttle. Had to put my "trailers" in seats since like last year's, the aisle is too narrow for rolling suitcases. And it's six steps up from curb level :p
--09:40p: Ar. Doubletree
--09:47p: Ar. Hotel room
Whooooof!
2023 Convention Event Recorder
General | Posted 2 years agoI make these posts every year to keep track of timelines of my convention planning. In 2023 I only attended Anthrocon.
[03/14/2022]: Reserved hotel room for Anthrocon 2022 (Doubletree)
[03/14/2022]: Pre registered for Anthrocon 2022
[03/14/2022]: Registered for Anthrocon 2022 Artist's Alley lottery
[05/06/2022]: Purchased Amtrak tickets to Pittsburgh
[06/16/2022]: Received notification of Artist Alley seating (Fri-Sat-Sun)
Some notes for 2023 since this is being posted just shy of a month before AC2023:
The hotels sold out quick upon opening 2/2/23. My typical stay is check-in Thursday, check-out Monday.
--I took my time entering my details for the Omni (Drury was "just nope" right out of the gate, and AC hotel behind the Westin was expensive), and before I could confirm my selections, two days sold out right out from under me, and the site kicked me back to the start page when I attempted to send the filled-out form.
--Second time around, Doubletree accepted my day selections, but Sunday was wait-listed. This was a real nail-biter, and after weeks of peeking at AC's Twitter I wanted to contact the hotel, but knowing the number of people involved, I sat tight for as long as I could. Right about when I was feeling I needed to call them up (May 9th), I got an email from AC2023 Housing that my reservation was updated to include the wait-listed Sunday accommodation. Co-incidentally, this email included the following in the fine-print at the bottom:
A kind note about calling the hotel "just to be sure":
Please do not call your hotel "to be sure" until after Jun 20, 2023. Please understand that processing your reservations from the Housing Bureau into the Hotel system will take a few days. Rest assured that if you have received a confirmation number already from the Housing Bureau, the hotel will honor your booking. Thank you for your consideration.
AC coulda said that in their social media right after the initial bum-rush, it would probably have alleviated much of the need for that notice.
--A little less than a month prior to the con (i.e. June 1), the hotel itself emailed me their confirmation of my full reservation.
--Four nights' hotel stay is going to run you about $800, taxes included. My hotel is probably in the middle of the range of room rates ( they're not uniform across the con's room blocks), so take that into consideration for 2024.
[03/14/2022]: Reserved hotel room for Anthrocon 2022 (Doubletree)
[03/14/2022]: Pre registered for Anthrocon 2022
[03/14/2022]: Registered for Anthrocon 2022 Artist's Alley lottery
[05/06/2022]: Purchased Amtrak tickets to Pittsburgh
[06/16/2022]: Received notification of Artist Alley seating (Fri-Sat-Sun)
Some notes for 2023 since this is being posted just shy of a month before AC2023:
The hotels sold out quick upon opening 2/2/23. My typical stay is check-in Thursday, check-out Monday.
--I took my time entering my details for the Omni (Drury was "just nope" right out of the gate, and AC hotel behind the Westin was expensive), and before I could confirm my selections, two days sold out right out from under me, and the site kicked me back to the start page when I attempted to send the filled-out form.
--Second time around, Doubletree accepted my day selections, but Sunday was wait-listed. This was a real nail-biter, and after weeks of peeking at AC's Twitter I wanted to contact the hotel, but knowing the number of people involved, I sat tight for as long as I could. Right about when I was feeling I needed to call them up (May 9th), I got an email from AC2023 Housing that my reservation was updated to include the wait-listed Sunday accommodation. Co-incidentally, this email included the following in the fine-print at the bottom:
A kind note about calling the hotel "just to be sure":
Please do not call your hotel "to be sure" until after Jun 20, 2023. Please understand that processing your reservations from the Housing Bureau into the Hotel system will take a few days. Rest assured that if you have received a confirmation number already from the Housing Bureau, the hotel will honor your booking. Thank you for your consideration.
AC coulda said that in their social media right after the initial bum-rush, it would probably have alleviated much of the need for that notice.
--A little less than a month prior to the con (i.e. June 1), the hotel itself emailed me their confirmation of my full reservation.
--Four nights' hotel stay is going to run you about $800, taxes included. My hotel is probably in the middle of the range of room rates ( they're not uniform across the con's room blocks), so take that into consideration for 2024.
3DS/WiiU eShop: Time of death, 03/27/23 09:00pm-ish?
General | Posted 2 years agoLike many johnny-come latelies and procrastinators, I literally waited till the last minute to raid the eShop.
Well, the last day anyway.
Late last night I took a good hard look at the requirements for buying 3DS games in the post eShop card era (the way I had funded all my 3DS eShop purchases up to today), and finally sparked up a MyNintendo account and muddled my way through the menu tutorials teaching you how to earn and claim a sample set of redeemable coins. I then linked my Nintendo Network ID (NNID) by entering my username/password and merged the six-ish dollars I had in the account to make it accessible to both electronic marketplaces. While I was there, I picked up the free demo for Bravely Second and RPG Maker Player.
When you link a NNID and MyNintendo account and merge the funds together, the money transfer is a one-way affair. You can unlink the accounts later, but the money won't flow back to the old system
The following morning of the 27th, I went to pull up my user menu and go from there to the "shop menu". I added $20 to the account with a debit card (on a secondary account in a different bank than my primary) and went back to my 3DS to see if this 'token' amount passed through properly (it did). It's a moot point now, but if you were already in the eShop on your 3DS (and presumably WiiU), the displayed balance doesn't update. At least I never saw it do that. You have to close the eShop app and re-launch it to see the money you added. Also, Nintendo only allows you to add money in $10,$20,$50 or $100 increments (meaning if you only wanted to add $30, you would have to make two separate transactions), I made a few more trips back to the add-funds page over the course of the day, adding another $50 later that morning, then another $50 late in the afternoon from a credit card. I had a hastily-assembled list of games to pursue, and while I went with gusto for some titles I had in the back of my mind to get "someday", others that initially looked enticing lost their luster after I eyeballed some YouTube reviews on them.
I spent quite a bit of time looking over those reviews, and sometime after nightfall, I figured I had about $100 worth of games left to pursue. Figuring that making two back-to-back $50 transactions would look sus to my bank, I attempted a $100 buy, which MyNintendo rejected with a "This card cannot be used" message. A $50 purchase did go through, so I figured maybe Nintendo tightened funding restrictions on the last day of the eShop. That $50 went quickly on two not-really-discounted games, and when I found that both the debit and credit cards were getting rejected (they both still had pending purchases from Nintendo from earlier in the day), I decided to link my PayPal account to get those last couple of fund chunks. Well, that went through slicker than grease on an oil spill, but before adding more money (this was about 9:15pm EST), I thought "maybe I ought to look at the eShop one more time just to make sure it's still good" and I was presented with a big picture of Mario above the following scrolling message:
"It is no longer possible to make purchases in Nintendo eShop for the Nintendo 3DS family of system. It is also no longer possible to download free content, including game demos"
(Yeah, the grammar errors are a direct quote)
Well, that sucks. Would have sucked more had I added the funds first since I don't own a Switch to spend that money on. The grand total of money I had in the account upon the Great Closing? 55 cents
So, what games did I manage to get on the last day of the 3DS eShop?
--3/27: 3D Gunstar Heroes -- 5.99
--3/27: Adventure Labyrinth -- 5.00
--3/27: Bonds of the Skies -- 4.99
--3/27: Blaster Master Zero -- 9.99
--3/26: Bravely 2nd demo -- free
--3/27: Infinite Dunamis -- 4.99
--3/27: Journey to Kreisia -- 4.99
--3/27: KORG M01D -- 17.00
--3/27: Machine Knight -- 4.99
--3/27: Mega Man Legacy -- 2.99
--3/27: Metroid Samus Returns -- 39.99
--3/27: Mighty Switch Force 2 -- 2.99
--3/26: RPG Maker player -- free
--3/26: RPG Maker FES -- 2.99
--3/26: SteamWorld Dig -- 1.99
--3/27: Steamworld Dig 2 -- 3.99
--3/27: Steamworld Heist -- 2.99
What did I miss out on had I few more hours?
3D After Burner II, Butterfly Inchworm Animation 2, and a few others that are actually still available as physical gamecards (albeit more expensive). The disappointing part is that the shop dies early -- some titles that were on sale stated the price was good till 3/27/23 23:59, which I took to mean the shop drops dead at midnight. Obviously it didn't.
Now, I'm no ravenous game connoisseur. I don't even try to ram my way through to completing them, instead playing a game long enough to get a handle on the play mechanics, then wandering away for days, weeks, sometimes months before I revisit it. Two thirds of my Dreamcast collection is still in shrinkwrap. I even have unplayed games on my Saturn and Atari Jaguar. According to my 3DS's Activity Log, the last time I used my 3DS to play an actual game was in December 2021 (O_o). Considering the number of JRPG's in the above list, I won't be finishing today's purchases for a good long time. My best hope is to learn to fiddle with KORG M01D, a 3DS synthesizer/mini DAW that can apparently put out some competent-sounding tunes.
...So maybe one day, I can resume putting train videos on YouTube, embellished with a dinky animation at the beginning, and "credits" with some outro music janky enough to not get flagged by ContentID at the end :D
(oh yeah, haven't forgotten about art. Much stuff I want to get to still)
Well, the last day anyway.
Late last night I took a good hard look at the requirements for buying 3DS games in the post eShop card era (the way I had funded all my 3DS eShop purchases up to today), and finally sparked up a MyNintendo account and muddled my way through the menu tutorials teaching you how to earn and claim a sample set of redeemable coins. I then linked my Nintendo Network ID (NNID) by entering my username/password and merged the six-ish dollars I had in the account to make it accessible to both electronic marketplaces. While I was there, I picked up the free demo for Bravely Second and RPG Maker Player.
When you link a NNID and MyNintendo account and merge the funds together, the money transfer is a one-way affair. You can unlink the accounts later, but the money won't flow back to the old system
The following morning of the 27th, I went to pull up my user menu and go from there to the "shop menu". I added $20 to the account with a debit card (on a secondary account in a different bank than my primary) and went back to my 3DS to see if this 'token' amount passed through properly (it did). It's a moot point now, but if you were already in the eShop on your 3DS (and presumably WiiU), the displayed balance doesn't update. At least I never saw it do that. You have to close the eShop app and re-launch it to see the money you added. Also, Nintendo only allows you to add money in $10,$20,$50 or $100 increments (meaning if you only wanted to add $30, you would have to make two separate transactions), I made a few more trips back to the add-funds page over the course of the day, adding another $50 later that morning, then another $50 late in the afternoon from a credit card. I had a hastily-assembled list of games to pursue, and while I went with gusto for some titles I had in the back of my mind to get "someday", others that initially looked enticing lost their luster after I eyeballed some YouTube reviews on them.
I spent quite a bit of time looking over those reviews, and sometime after nightfall, I figured I had about $100 worth of games left to pursue. Figuring that making two back-to-back $50 transactions would look sus to my bank, I attempted a $100 buy, which MyNintendo rejected with a "This card cannot be used" message. A $50 purchase did go through, so I figured maybe Nintendo tightened funding restrictions on the last day of the eShop. That $50 went quickly on two not-really-discounted games, and when I found that both the debit and credit cards were getting rejected (they both still had pending purchases from Nintendo from earlier in the day), I decided to link my PayPal account to get those last couple of fund chunks. Well, that went through slicker than grease on an oil spill, but before adding more money (this was about 9:15pm EST), I thought "maybe I ought to look at the eShop one more time just to make sure it's still good" and I was presented with a big picture of Mario above the following scrolling message:
"It is no longer possible to make purchases in Nintendo eShop for the Nintendo 3DS family of system. It is also no longer possible to download free content, including game demos"
(Yeah, the grammar errors are a direct quote)
Well, that sucks. Would have sucked more had I added the funds first since I don't own a Switch to spend that money on. The grand total of money I had in the account upon the Great Closing? 55 cents
So, what games did I manage to get on the last day of the 3DS eShop?
--3/27: 3D Gunstar Heroes -- 5.99
--3/27: Adventure Labyrinth -- 5.00
--3/27: Bonds of the Skies -- 4.99
--3/27: Blaster Master Zero -- 9.99
--3/26: Bravely 2nd demo -- free
--3/27: Infinite Dunamis -- 4.99
--3/27: Journey to Kreisia -- 4.99
--3/27: KORG M01D -- 17.00
--3/27: Machine Knight -- 4.99
--3/27: Mega Man Legacy -- 2.99
--3/27: Metroid Samus Returns -- 39.99
--3/27: Mighty Switch Force 2 -- 2.99
--3/26: RPG Maker player -- free
--3/26: RPG Maker FES -- 2.99
--3/26: SteamWorld Dig -- 1.99
--3/27: Steamworld Dig 2 -- 3.99
--3/27: Steamworld Heist -- 2.99
What did I miss out on had I few more hours?
3D After Burner II, Butterfly Inchworm Animation 2, and a few others that are actually still available as physical gamecards (albeit more expensive). The disappointing part is that the shop dies early -- some titles that were on sale stated the price was good till 3/27/23 23:59, which I took to mean the shop drops dead at midnight. Obviously it didn't.
Now, I'm no ravenous game connoisseur. I don't even try to ram my way through to completing them, instead playing a game long enough to get a handle on the play mechanics, then wandering away for days, weeks, sometimes months before I revisit it. Two thirds of my Dreamcast collection is still in shrinkwrap. I even have unplayed games on my Saturn and Atari Jaguar. According to my 3DS's Activity Log, the last time I used my 3DS to play an actual game was in December 2021 (O_o). Considering the number of JRPG's in the above list, I won't be finishing today's purchases for a good long time. My best hope is to learn to fiddle with KORG M01D, a 3DS synthesizer/mini DAW that can apparently put out some competent-sounding tunes.
...So maybe one day, I can resume putting train videos on YouTube, embellished with a dinky animation at the beginning, and "credits" with some outro music janky enough to not get flagged by ContentID at the end :D
(oh yeah, haven't forgotten about art. Much stuff I want to get to still)
First 5000-view pic ^^
General | Posted 3 years ago'Bout time I said something here since coming home from Anthrocon
So today, maybe late yesterday (it's around half-past 1am EST as I write this), one of my pics has reached five thousand pageviews. That pic would be Patrol Leader Training, where my Tina and
preppymarshmousee's Penny as Mud Scout leaders, find themselves shoulder-deep in the slop as they explore some boggy wetlands for a future hike for their 'recruits'. They didn't intend to place themselves in such an extreme predicament, but thanks to their trusty manual, they're able to nonchalantly discuss the methods by which they'll extract themselves.
I do periodically eyeball the pageviews of my "top performers" so I knew this was coming around 50 pageviews ago. I even had an idea to make up a commemorative depicting the duo as they extract themselves from the mire, thoroughly coated from the shoulders down. But alas, the constraints on my time after work, and the presence of a leftover commission from AC that is proving to be much tougher than I'd expected, well above the degree of work that its price would seem to dictate (and my stance of not releasing personal artwork while a pre-paid commission is still outstanding) has led to an interruption of my usual monthly release "schedule" (I don't actually adhere to a schedule, my limited free time plus the compulsion to release mostly fully-rendered color pics just makes new projects reach completion roughly every 30 days).
Still, this is a noteworthy plateau to reach, as it's relatively uncommon for G-rated images to accumulate this many views (even though it took five years so do so), since as we all know, NSFW pics from some very in-demand artists can garner that many hits in a couple of days. I should add that it should be no secret that I also aspire to produce NSFW artwork someday, though I don't have any expectation of ever pulling anywhere near those kinds of numbers with them -- I know well that the makeup of my existing audience doesn't support that level of activity. The new OC's I have yet to formally introduce are fully compatible with X-rated action (three of them are adaptations of characters I found in hentai manga), even though if history is any guide their capabilities will be "all talk" until they induce someone to actually commission me to depict them doing the nasty with whomever.
But in the meanwhile, I do take breaks from the aforementioned commission, doing sketches of the new OC's to keep in practice, as well as tweaking aspects of their design in advance of their formal introduction. Having a stylus-equippped Samsung Tab S6 Lite tablet (and it's larger S7 FE cousin) along with the android version of Krita (which looks and works exactly like its Windows counterpart) has allowed me to do impromptu sketches of them even as I'm lying in bed (as my new Steam Deck looks on wondering when it's getting some attention), especially since discovering the full-screen button that hides the usual Android Back/Home/Switch buttons so they don't get triggered by the heel of my drawing hand. Most of these sketches probably won't see release anytime soon, but the ease of moving them to a desktop instance of Krita means that the best of the lot may one day see completion to a post-able state.
But in the meantime, I remain a participant here on FA, and lurk the few Discord servers I'm a part of, surfacing when I can offer something relevant (same for Picarto), and making some small steps toward eventually resuming making material for my dormant YouTube channel (i.e. running trains around the living room). And still saying nope to the notion of even thinking of establishing a presence on that nuclear dumpster fire Elon "Space Daddy" Musk just bought.
So today, maybe late yesterday (it's around half-past 1am EST as I write this), one of my pics has reached five thousand pageviews. That pic would be Patrol Leader Training, where my Tina and
preppymarshmousee's Penny as Mud Scout leaders, find themselves shoulder-deep in the slop as they explore some boggy wetlands for a future hike for their 'recruits'. They didn't intend to place themselves in such an extreme predicament, but thanks to their trusty manual, they're able to nonchalantly discuss the methods by which they'll extract themselves.I do periodically eyeball the pageviews of my "top performers" so I knew this was coming around 50 pageviews ago. I even had an idea to make up a commemorative depicting the duo as they extract themselves from the mire, thoroughly coated from the shoulders down. But alas, the constraints on my time after work, and the presence of a leftover commission from AC that is proving to be much tougher than I'd expected, well above the degree of work that its price would seem to dictate (and my stance of not releasing personal artwork while a pre-paid commission is still outstanding) has led to an interruption of my usual monthly release "schedule" (I don't actually adhere to a schedule, my limited free time plus the compulsion to release mostly fully-rendered color pics just makes new projects reach completion roughly every 30 days).
Still, this is a noteworthy plateau to reach, as it's relatively uncommon for G-rated images to accumulate this many views (even though it took five years so do so), since as we all know, NSFW pics from some very in-demand artists can garner that many hits in a couple of days. I should add that it should be no secret that I also aspire to produce NSFW artwork someday, though I don't have any expectation of ever pulling anywhere near those kinds of numbers with them -- I know well that the makeup of my existing audience doesn't support that level of activity. The new OC's I have yet to formally introduce are fully compatible with X-rated action (three of them are adaptations of characters I found in hentai manga), even though if history is any guide their capabilities will be "all talk" until they induce someone to actually commission me to depict them doing the nasty with whomever.
But in the meanwhile, I do take breaks from the aforementioned commission, doing sketches of the new OC's to keep in practice, as well as tweaking aspects of their design in advance of their formal introduction. Having a stylus-equippped Samsung Tab S6 Lite tablet (and it's larger S7 FE cousin) along with the android version of Krita (which looks and works exactly like its Windows counterpart) has allowed me to do impromptu sketches of them even as I'm lying in bed (as my new Steam Deck looks on wondering when it's getting some attention), especially since discovering the full-screen button that hides the usual Android Back/Home/Switch buttons so they don't get triggered by the heel of my drawing hand. Most of these sketches probably won't see release anytime soon, but the ease of moving them to a desktop instance of Krita means that the best of the lot may one day see completion to a post-able state.
But in the meantime, I remain a participant here on FA, and lurk the few Discord servers I'm a part of, surfacing when I can offer something relevant (same for Picarto), and making some small steps toward eventually resuming making material for my dormant YouTube channel (i.e. running trains around the living room). And still saying nope to the notion of even thinking of establishing a presence on that nuclear dumpster fire Elon "Space Daddy" Musk just bought.
AC2022: Journey Home
General | Posted 3 years agoOnce again, logging my progress home for informational purposes. Entries to be added during the day, and a separate write-up of my convention experience will follow.
--06:54a: Dp. Doubletree
--07:11a: Ar. Pittsburgh Amtrak station. Boarding has already begun
AMTRAK:
--07:14a: Seated aboard Train 42, coach #25100
--07:28a: The Capitol Limited pulls in alongside us. I was wondering why there were still people seated in the waiting room during our boarding call. Usually train #30 has long gone by the time we're boarding. Amtrak's train-tracking site shows it was 2 and a half hours late upon its arrival in Pittsburgh.
--07:37a: Dp. Pittsburgh station
--08:17a: Ar. Greensburg, PA
--08:18a: Dp. Greensburg, PA
--08:28a: Ar. Latrobe, PA
--08:30a: Dp. Latrobe, PA
--09:10a: Ar. Johnstown, PA, between two NS manifest freights, an eastbound moving, and another not.
--09:14a: Dp. Johnstown, PA
--10:07a: Ar. Altoona, PA
--10:10a: Dp. Altoona, PA
--10:33a: Ar. Tyrone, PA ("Ya Better call Ty-roo-oooone..." -- Erykah Badu)
--10:35a: Dp. Tyrone, PA
--11:01a: Ar. Huntingdon, PA
--11:01a. Dp. Huntingdon, PA
--11:38a: Ar. Lewistown, PA
--11:41a: Dp. Lewistown, PA
--12:58p: Ar. Harrisburg, PA
--01:05p: Dp. Harrisburg, PA
From this point we switch from Norfolk Southern freight tracks to electrified Amtrak-owned ones, with high-level platforms and higher speed limits (up to 110mph or 177km/h) We're still hauled by a diesel till Philadelphia, so our speed will max out at around 100mph (160 km/h)
--01:20p: Ar. Elizabethtown, PA
--01:21p: Dp. Elizabethtown, PA
--01:35p: Ar. Lancaster, PA
--01:40p: Dp. Lancaster, PA
--02:18p: Ar. Exton, PA
--02:20p: Dp. Exton, PA
--02:27p: Ar. Paoli, PA
--02:28p: Dp. Paoli, PA
--02:52p: Ar. Philadelphia, PA
--03:25p: Dp. Philadelphia, PA
Now we transition to an electric locomotive for the trip up the Northeast Corridor, at speeds up to 125MPH (200 km/h)
--03:52p: Ar. Trenton, NJ
--03:56p: Dp. Trenton, NJ
--04:23p: Ar. Newark, NJ
--04:25p: Dp. Newark, NJ
--04:40p: Ar. NY Penn Station
NYC TRANSIT:
--04:49p: Ar. 34th Street Penn Station subway station. By the time I reach my usual spot on the platform, my train is arriving
--04:50p: Dp. 34th Street Penn Station subway station, #2 subway
--05:38p: Ar. Gun Hill Road subway station. This isn't my home station, but it has an elevator, making it much easier to reach street level with 90+ pounds of luggage. and board a local bus paralleling the subway route.
--05:41p: Ar. Local bus platform
--05:44p: Boarded local bus
--05:50p: Ar. local home stop
--05:54p: Ar. home
So...11 hours, door-to-door
--06:54a: Dp. Doubletree
--07:11a: Ar. Pittsburgh Amtrak station. Boarding has already begun
AMTRAK:
--07:14a: Seated aboard Train 42, coach #25100
--07:28a: The Capitol Limited pulls in alongside us. I was wondering why there were still people seated in the waiting room during our boarding call. Usually train #30 has long gone by the time we're boarding. Amtrak's train-tracking site shows it was 2 and a half hours late upon its arrival in Pittsburgh.
--07:37a: Dp. Pittsburgh station
--08:17a: Ar. Greensburg, PA
--08:18a: Dp. Greensburg, PA
--08:28a: Ar. Latrobe, PA
--08:30a: Dp. Latrobe, PA
--09:10a: Ar. Johnstown, PA, between two NS manifest freights, an eastbound moving, and another not.
--09:14a: Dp. Johnstown, PA
--10:07a: Ar. Altoona, PA
--10:10a: Dp. Altoona, PA
--10:33a: Ar. Tyrone, PA ("Ya Better call Ty-roo-oooone..." -- Erykah Badu)
--10:35a: Dp. Tyrone, PA
--11:01a: Ar. Huntingdon, PA
--11:01a. Dp. Huntingdon, PA
--11:38a: Ar. Lewistown, PA
--11:41a: Dp. Lewistown, PA
--12:58p: Ar. Harrisburg, PA
--01:05p: Dp. Harrisburg, PA
From this point we switch from Norfolk Southern freight tracks to electrified Amtrak-owned ones, with high-level platforms and higher speed limits (up to 110mph or 177km/h) We're still hauled by a diesel till Philadelphia, so our speed will max out at around 100mph (160 km/h)
--01:20p: Ar. Elizabethtown, PA
--01:21p: Dp. Elizabethtown, PA
--01:35p: Ar. Lancaster, PA
--01:40p: Dp. Lancaster, PA
--02:18p: Ar. Exton, PA
--02:20p: Dp. Exton, PA
--02:27p: Ar. Paoli, PA
--02:28p: Dp. Paoli, PA
--02:52p: Ar. Philadelphia, PA
--03:25p: Dp. Philadelphia, PA
Now we transition to an electric locomotive for the trip up the Northeast Corridor, at speeds up to 125MPH (200 km/h)
--03:52p: Ar. Trenton, NJ
--03:56p: Dp. Trenton, NJ
--04:23p: Ar. Newark, NJ
--04:25p: Dp. Newark, NJ
--04:40p: Ar. NY Penn Station
NYC TRANSIT:
--04:49p: Ar. 34th Street Penn Station subway station. By the time I reach my usual spot on the platform, my train is arriving
--04:50p: Dp. 34th Street Penn Station subway station, #2 subway
--05:38p: Ar. Gun Hill Road subway station. This isn't my home station, but it has an elevator, making it much easier to reach street level with 90+ pounds of luggage. and board a local bus paralleling the subway route.
--05:41p: Ar. Local bus platform
--05:44p: Boarded local bus
--05:50p: Ar. local home stop
--05:54p: Ar. home
So...11 hours, door-to-door
Anthrocon 2022 Travelogue (Reset edition)
General | Posted 3 years agoFirst con of the year, and another travel log documenting my progress to Anthrocon. I'll be adding entries here as I advance from NYC to Pittsburgh :
[06/30/2022]
09:36a: On the subway, I discover to my horror that I have failed to carry my COVID proof-of-vaccination card. Without that, I cannnot recieve my con badge, and with only an hour before my train's departure from Penn Station there's no way I can retrieve it and still arrive in-time so my outbound trip is over before it started. I've modified my
Amtrak and hotel reservations to travel/arrive on Friday, so I will be a no-show on Friday's Artist Alley.
[07/01/2022]
Reset and try again. This time I am carrying the stuff that I discovered was missing on the first leg of my trip, along with a few extras that I'd overlooked, like printing a new batch of business cards :) Entries to begin below upon my arrival at my local bus stop.
My train to Pittsburgh, Amtrak train 43 the Pennsylvanian, departs at 10:52a.
--08:30a: Dp home
--08:33a: Ar local bus stop, right after a bus has left. It would be 20 minutes before the next one arrives. Meanwhile four buses pass in the opposite direction.
[NYC Transit:]
--08:55a: Dp local bus stop
--09:04a: Ar Gun Hill Road subway station. Fat lot of good it did me to take the bus to the nearest subway station with an elevator. The one on the Manhattan bound side is out-of-service. (It was working yesterday). Also, four trains passed during the 20-minute wait for the local bus, a fifth one pulled in and out while riding the escalator to the three flights of stairs to the platform, and once I reach the platform, the next one is 10 minutes away.
--09:13a: Dp Gun Hill Road subway station
--10:02a: Ar 34th Street Penn Station subway station
--10:10a: Ar Moynihan Train Hall
--10:34a: Boarding call for Train 43
--10:38a: Boarded Train 43, coach #25047
--10:52a: Dp. Moynihan Station
--11:07a: Ar. Newark, NJ
--11:11a: Dp. Newark, NJ
--11:44a: Ar. Trenton, NJ
--11:45a: Dp. Trenton, NJ
--12:17p: Ar. Philadelphia, PA (there is a 30-minute layover to switch from electric to diesel locomotives)
--12:42p: Dp. Philadelphia, PA
--01:17p: Ar. Paoli, PA
--01:29p: Dp. Paoli, PA
--02:04p: Ar. Lancaster, PA
--02:05p: Dp. Lancaster, PA
--02:19p Ar. Elizabethtown, PA
--02:22p: Dp. Elizabethtown, PA
--02:37p: Ar. Harrisburg, PA
--02:42p: Dp. Harrisburg, PA
--03:57p: Ar. Lewistown, PA
--04:01p: Dp. Lewistown, PA
--05:03p: Ar. Tyrone, PA
--05:04P: Dp. Tyrone, PA
--05:20p: Ar. Altoona, PA
--05:23p: Dp. Altoona, PA
--06:16p: Ar. Johnstown, PA
--06:21p: Dp. Johnstown, PA
--07:00p: Ar. Latrobe, PA
--07:02p: Dp. Latrobe, PA
--07:12p: Ar. Greensburg, PA
--07:14p: Dp. Greensburg, PA
--07:54p: Ar. Pittsburgh, PA
--08:19p: Badge picked up
--08:35p: Boarded shuttle bus to my hotel
--
[06/30/2022]
09:36a: On the subway, I discover to my horror that I have failed to carry my COVID proof-of-vaccination card. Without that, I cannnot recieve my con badge, and with only an hour before my train's departure from Penn Station there's no way I can retrieve it and still arrive in-time so my outbound trip is over before it started. I've modified my
Amtrak and hotel reservations to travel/arrive on Friday, so I will be a no-show on Friday's Artist Alley.
[07/01/2022]
Reset and try again. This time I am carrying the stuff that I discovered was missing on the first leg of my trip, along with a few extras that I'd overlooked, like printing a new batch of business cards :) Entries to begin below upon my arrival at my local bus stop.
My train to Pittsburgh, Amtrak train 43 the Pennsylvanian, departs at 10:52a.
--08:30a: Dp home
--08:33a: Ar local bus stop, right after a bus has left. It would be 20 minutes before the next one arrives. Meanwhile four buses pass in the opposite direction.
[NYC Transit:]
--08:55a: Dp local bus stop
--09:04a: Ar Gun Hill Road subway station. Fat lot of good it did me to take the bus to the nearest subway station with an elevator. The one on the Manhattan bound side is out-of-service. (It was working yesterday). Also, four trains passed during the 20-minute wait for the local bus, a fifth one pulled in and out while riding the escalator to the three flights of stairs to the platform, and once I reach the platform, the next one is 10 minutes away.
--09:13a: Dp Gun Hill Road subway station
--10:02a: Ar 34th Street Penn Station subway station
--10:10a: Ar Moynihan Train Hall
--10:34a: Boarding call for Train 43
--10:38a: Boarded Train 43, coach #25047
--10:52a: Dp. Moynihan Station
--11:07a: Ar. Newark, NJ
--11:11a: Dp. Newark, NJ
--11:44a: Ar. Trenton, NJ
--11:45a: Dp. Trenton, NJ
--12:17p: Ar. Philadelphia, PA (there is a 30-minute layover to switch from electric to diesel locomotives)
--12:42p: Dp. Philadelphia, PA
--01:17p: Ar. Paoli, PA
--01:29p: Dp. Paoli, PA
--02:04p: Ar. Lancaster, PA
--02:05p: Dp. Lancaster, PA
--02:19p Ar. Elizabethtown, PA
--02:22p: Dp. Elizabethtown, PA
--02:37p: Ar. Harrisburg, PA
--02:42p: Dp. Harrisburg, PA
--03:57p: Ar. Lewistown, PA
--04:01p: Dp. Lewistown, PA
--05:03p: Ar. Tyrone, PA
--05:04P: Dp. Tyrone, PA
--05:20p: Ar. Altoona, PA
--05:23p: Dp. Altoona, PA
--06:16p: Ar. Johnstown, PA
--06:21p: Dp. Johnstown, PA
--07:00p: Ar. Latrobe, PA
--07:02p: Dp. Latrobe, PA
--07:12p: Ar. Greensburg, PA
--07:14p: Dp. Greensburg, PA
--07:54p: Ar. Pittsburgh, PA
--08:19p: Badge picked up
--08:35p: Boarded shuttle bus to my hotel
--
Don't Come a-Knockin' While That TRAM's a-Rockin'
General | Posted 3 years agoThis has been on YouTube since 2019.
I have no idea how it has managed to stick around this long
Shoo the kiddos out the room for this one...
https://youtu.be/C7u4af_qnbU
I have no idea how it has managed to stick around this long
Shoo the kiddos out the room for this one...
https://youtu.be/C7u4af_qnbU
Toying with adding more color to (some of) my OC's
General | Posted 3 years agoAs I inch toward adding some new OC's to my roster, I've been touring a variety of other folks' galleries and over time, something occurred to me.
Including the new characters, about half of my OC roster pre-dates FurAffinity, some going back to the late 1980's, about a deacde before I first got Internet access and ran across the furry fandom. That means some of them have existed in recognizable form longer than some of you looking at this have been alive :D
So, what do all those other characters have to do with this? I'm looking at the demarcation between my OC designs prior to and during my involvement with this fandom, and I noticed something. My oldest OC's from "before fandom" are all monochromatic, having only a single body color. The ones designed after that have actual fur markings or color variations at the face, chest/belly, tails and extremities.
Now, I've already defined some across-the-board physical changes to my OC roster, among those being a switch to five-fingered hands, less-detailed ear fluff and four-toed feet with pawpads (although that last one won't be terribly obvious since I can draw shoes ), but now I'm starting to think about adding colors to my monochromatic OC's to make them a better visual fit with the newer characters as well as any guest OCs that may cameo in What, me Furry or might appear in unspecified one-off pics with my characters that I'll be able to resume doing once everyone is settled in.
I haven't done any test pics yet, but what I'm considering are lighter tones on the neck/chest/belly, variations on tail-tips, hands and feet (or fingers/toes). Nothing elaborate really, as I still have to draw + color all this. The characters themselves being self-aware, would likely comment on this in the course of the comic. And while there is a distinct possibility that nothing actually comes of this, I thought I'd throw this out there for viewers to add their own thoughts. Doesn't cost ya anything :D
Oh yeah, I'm also attending Anthrocon this year :)
Including the new characters, about half of my OC roster pre-dates FurAffinity, some going back to the late 1980's, about a deacde before I first got Internet access and ran across the furry fandom. That means some of them have existed in recognizable form longer than some of you looking at this have been alive :D
So, what do all those other characters have to do with this? I'm looking at the demarcation between my OC designs prior to and during my involvement with this fandom, and I noticed something. My oldest OC's from "before fandom" are all monochromatic, having only a single body color. The ones designed after that have actual fur markings or color variations at the face, chest/belly, tails and extremities.
Now, I've already defined some across-the-board physical changes to my OC roster, among those being a switch to five-fingered hands, less-detailed ear fluff and four-toed feet with pawpads (although that last one won't be terribly obvious since I can draw shoes ), but now I'm starting to think about adding colors to my monochromatic OC's to make them a better visual fit with the newer characters as well as any guest OCs that may cameo in What, me Furry or might appear in unspecified one-off pics with my characters that I'll be able to resume doing once everyone is settled in.
I haven't done any test pics yet, but what I'm considering are lighter tones on the neck/chest/belly, variations on tail-tips, hands and feet (or fingers/toes). Nothing elaborate really, as I still have to draw + color all this. The characters themselves being self-aware, would likely comment on this in the course of the comic. And while there is a distinct possibility that nothing actually comes of this, I thought I'd throw this out there for viewers to add their own thoughts. Doesn't cost ya anything :D
Oh yeah, I'm also attending Anthrocon this year :)
Some Dribs and drabs of content...
General | Posted 3 years ago...are about to make their way onto my gallery. I've finally completed the next addition to What, me Furry?, and somewhere in this batch is the 100th page of this project that was never supposed to be a regular webcomic, but somehow acquired a pagecount that puts it pretty close to one. Featuring prominently in this installment is my selection for the cashier part, which went to 'Abby Randal', an OC of 
backlash. I only wish I had the presence of mind to announce this earlier.
I'd like to thank the respondents to my initial call for their time and proposals, and I'd like to add that, for those who did not make the cut, they're elgible to appear as background characters in future installments, however currently unknown as to what form they'll take or when I'll be able to advance the events in the comic to the point where I can actually have background OC's provided by other creators, but when that time does come around, the characters presented for this role will get first shots at background cameos.
In the meanwhile, I'll be diving back into crafting the next installment. I estimate that two more will be needed before I can formally introduce my new OC's to the existing roster. What I don't know is how long it'll take. I have two more weeks of vacation time scheduled to be taken prior to Anthrocon, my first con since "the coof" wrecked everyone's plans two years ago. Ideally, I'd have a page done a week, but that's what I thought for this installment (64), and it's been eight months since Installment 63 went up. So, yeah...
backlash. I only wish I had the presence of mind to announce this earlier. I'd like to thank the respondents to my initial call for their time and proposals, and I'd like to add that, for those who did not make the cut, they're elgible to appear as background characters in future installments, however currently unknown as to what form they'll take or when I'll be able to advance the events in the comic to the point where I can actually have background OC's provided by other creators, but when that time does come around, the characters presented for this role will get first shots at background cameos.
In the meanwhile, I'll be diving back into crafting the next installment. I estimate that two more will be needed before I can formally introduce my new OC's to the existing roster. What I don't know is how long it'll take. I have two more weeks of vacation time scheduled to be taken prior to Anthrocon, my first con since "the coof" wrecked everyone's plans two years ago. Ideally, I'd have a page done a week, but that's what I thought for this installment (64), and it's been eight months since Installment 63 went up. So, yeah...
2020 Convention Event Recorder
General | Posted 4 years agoWe all know how that year went. I'm just copying the info I left on my homepage for future planning purposes compared with 2019 efforts. Also with my registering for Anthrocon 2022 as of a few minutes prior to posting this journal, I'm replacing the historical entries with this year's efforts, to aid in future convention planning.
[08/14/2019]: Reserved hotel room for Furnal Equinox 2020
[01/28/2020]: Pre registered for Furnal Equinox
[01/31/2020]: Reserved hotel room for Anthrocon (Omni)
[02/09/2020]: Submitted sign-up for Furnal Equinox Artist's Alley
[02/26/2020]: Received FE Artist Alley results (Fri only)\
[02/29/2020]: Purchased train tickets to Furnal Equinox
[03/14/2020] Amtrak cancels my train, found hours later that FE is canceled too
[03/17/2020]: Contacted my FE hotel to cancel reservation, found that reservations were auto-canceled when FE pulled the plug. Also found FWA had been canceled
[04/27/2020] Received news that Anthrocon is canceled
[08/14/2019]: Reserved hotel room for Furnal Equinox 2020
[01/28/2020]: Pre registered for Furnal Equinox
[01/31/2020]: Reserved hotel room for Anthrocon (Omni)
[02/09/2020]: Submitted sign-up for Furnal Equinox Artist's Alley
[02/26/2020]: Received FE Artist Alley results (Fri only)\
[02/29/2020]: Purchased train tickets to Furnal Equinox
[03/14/2020] Amtrak cancels my train, found hours later that FE is canceled too
[03/17/2020]: Contacted my FE hotel to cancel reservation, found that reservations were auto-canceled when FE pulled the plug. Also found FWA had been canceled
[04/27/2020] Received news that Anthrocon is canceled
