Two years ago I impulsively bought tickets to the Mememto Mori World Tour performance, in my home town, on the eve of my birthday. I saw a poster for the show, and as I considered attending I came close to tears when I realized I'd never bought tickets for a rock concert, ever. I'd gone to a few free shows in my youth, and at least one paid show, but always tagging along with other acquaintances to see a band I didn't really love. I had few friends and such a thing was exceedingly rare. Besides, it's not something I want to go to alone. With determination, I snagged the best seats still available anywhere near the stage - I was not going to sit so far away that I couldn't tell the performers apart.

After that expensive fun, I chose to track down all the videos of the show I could find online, and assembled a playlist close to 300 videos long. Several were since deleted or no longer available. Not satisfied with that, I took on the hobby of editing all those videos into a concert film for a personal keepsake - or more accurately, 30 individual videos that sequentially play as a concert film, which I just appended to the beginning of that playlist. The edits are a little boring early on due to a lack of varied sources to compile, but by the 8th video, World In My Eyes, there's enough coverage to assemble entertaining edits.

There is a real concert film being released this month, "M", of their tour show in Mexico City. in the meantime, here's mine. Playlist is linked in the video description. /youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKpEqb7YSY_qnaNutGCu_YcvXkwBM4AmN

I never cared for it before, and even less now. The seldom-used account has been deleted. That was easy, and felt satisfying. I won't patronize the spineless sellout's business. I'm sure I'm not alone either. It could be fun to see the numbers shrink significantly!

Do you know me? I used to draw (and I'm Gen X, which is why I'm invoking a 40 year old American Express Card ad campaign.)

My fan activity level has always been sporadic at best, but I always liked to drop in and play every so often. But that was how I was years ago. Even decades ago, now. I have experienced a few big life change events in the last few years, the biggest of which have been marriage, sharing my life with another, and management responsibilities at the workshop, which means I'm in charge of all aspects of production at a two-employee manufacturing business. My art muse always tended to be lazy. I still draw, but it's usually engineering drawings of a new lighting fixture for fabrication, which requires as much brainpower as any well-made art. Aside from enjoying cosplay a few times a year and dropping in on one or two furry conventions, that's about all the fanac I get in these days. The TARDIS Roadtrip account has been unfinished and neglected for years now. My spare time is given to other things, like relaxing evenings at home with my wife. And I've begun to feel old. Physically healthy, but out of touch with the contemporary popular culture. Very little of it attracts my interest anymore. I have no desire or stake in engaging deeper in social media.

I'm not even inspired to make a Christmastime upload of new FA avatar art this year. It doesn't mean I'm unhappy with the way life is going now, I'm just busy wrapping presents instead. Have my good wishes for the season and the coming year.

Recently a reviewer charitably called the 13th Doctor's past four years of sporadic activity "erratic". That was a kind way to say "more often lousy than not." The writing simply was not up to the quality 21st Century fans had come to enjoy since the new series began and flourished in the time of four Doctors and two showrunners who came before, and Jodie Whittaker rarely evoked the gravitas and emotional depth the show and character had become known and loved for.

So her adieu turned out to be an overstuffed season-ender style special like the show had enjoyed before, with several recurring villains, several returning guest companions both new and old, several returning guest Doctors in cameo roles, and several confusing plot threads all competing for screen time. While my heart was no longer really in it, at least I found the proceedings amusing and nostalgic. Even the Doctor's small final farewell speech felt well-handled. and then...

"...What? ...What? ...WHAT?!"
Introducing DAVID TENNANT as the 14th DOCTOR.

It was already known Russel T. Davies was returning as showrunner for 2023, as well as producer Phil Collinson, stars David Tennant and Catherine Tate, and one would expect the show to feel like its 2008 season with those people back. As far as I can tell it's going to be just 3 specials to air more than a year from now. I'm fine with that, since it's clear this regeneration was atypical, gone awry in some manner, and not destined to last more than one 60th anniversary story before it introduces the 15th Doctor. What's going to be wild is seeing David playing a different Doctor from the 10th.

Good news, everyone!

Silvia was granted Permanent Resident status this past week. Her Green Card arrived in the mail yesterday.

Just because there's a record of Warren Harding using the word normalcy? It never sounds correct. Its an abnornality. (Abnormalcy?)

How can one tell anymore what is fact and what is fiction? We must be able to distinguish fantasity from realcy.

In the landmark Graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns an aging Bruce Wayne dons an armored Bat-suit to engage Superman in a final one-on-one fight. In an internal monologue he admonishes Clark Kent with a hard-learned lesson, stating "The world only makes sense when you force it to."

I cringed at the fascistic philosophy Batman was espousing with that line. The writer and artist Frank Miller was expressing his politically conservative views through having Batman act like Dirty Harry. All of Batman's opponents in the tale other than his arch-supervillains are weak liberal strawmen incapable of quelling an inner-city youth gang/army of mutants. Batman alone defeats the gang's leader, and a faction of the former gang re-brand themselves as "Sons of the Batman", enacting brutal vigilante justice on the streets of Gotham City.

A background story of international brinksmanship comes to the fore when a nuclear detonation knocks Gotham and a wide surrounding region into a blackout from the electromagnetic pulse. Panicked by news of the attack, even the well-to-do urban liberals of Gotham City drop their veneer of civilization within minutes and lose their heads in an every-man-for-himself food riot - until Batman shows up with the Sons of the Batman in tow, following his directives of non-lethal tactics to restore order where the authoritative peacekeepers of Gotham were helpless to do so.

If the natural inclination of humanity is to be chaotic, society will act orderly only when forced to.

I approve of peaceful protest and demonstration. I remember a lot of anti-war and disarmament rallies but I don't believe any of them effected the change they aimed for. The wars continued for years and other factors in time brought them to a close. Disarmament happened only because diplomats on both sides found incentives to scale back the stockpiles. Asking nicely, even demanding angrily, en masse, doesn't get the job done.

The current protest calls are in the name of justice, but peaceful protests alone won't bring about a more just society. Violent protests (also described as riots and looting) literally light a fire under society's ass as an incentive to effect the desired change sooner rather than in years long yet to come. I can't approve of violent protest en masse but it's far more likely to get the job done.

But then most ordinary citizens of Gotham City didn't approve of the Batman, but had to acknowledge he was getting the job done.

If the natural inclination of humanity is to be unjust, society will act justly only when you force it to.

He has no desire or interest in resolving the divisions in American culture. He instead intends and seeks to exploit those divisions at every opportunity. This is markedly anti-American behavior.

Do you call bullshit to power or do you continue to defend this?
Why do you hate Americans?

Silvia and I married one another today! No joke!
How about that!

doesn't strike-through text parsing work in journal titles?

I've got a nice Intuous 3 Wacom tablet and pen, 6.5"x8" interface, some years old. I've never been able to make a decent freehand drawing on it. It's like trying to draw by remote-control when the drawing appears someplace other than on the surface I'm working. Almost as crippling as trying to draw with an etch-a-sketch, a toy guaranteed to provide hours of frustration. There is no finessing the line when I try to attempt a light 'pencil' sketch. All the digital art tools have been useful for is coloring art that I drew on paper and scanned. (I use Photoshop CS3 and don't know the advantages or drawbacks of other software.)

Having learned drawing traditionally, is it even worth the effort or money to upgrade to more intuitive digital interfaces? I tried looking for similar gripes from traditional artists who find digital tools counter-intuitive and found nothing that would steer me towards appropriate tools for someone like me.

Latest media attention is about par for the course, given the last 20 years:
http://nypost.com/2017/10/14/inside.....-furry-fetish/

Added up over the course of four months and it's not done yet. I don't have a lot of money in the bank, about $17,000 plus/minus a few hundred. I get paid about $17/hour with no benefits at age 51 so it's not like I'm doing fantastic.

I AM NOT AT THIS TIME OR IN THE FUTURE GOING TO BEG, PANHANDLE, SELL USELESS SHIT ON EBAY OR START A GOFUNDME PAGE TO COVER MY EXPENSES. I take a dim view of such pity-party crutches.

I take care of my responsibilities because they're exactly that, my responsibilities. Pets are in fact a luxury. The cranky old man in me does not have time to listen to others' tales of woe because they can't afford to pay their pet's medical expenses.

Sorry if I sound callous but I never ask for help that way and I'm tired of seeing so many people ask for help that way.

Well, I'm back from Uruguay and my very pleasant visit with Silnat, which turned out to be a wonderful time. I sampled new and unusual (to me) things and shared visits to beautiful places. Of course, it would have hardly been any fun to do alone and Silnat made all the difference. Best part of it was growing closer to her. Pictures are coming to Scraps gallery soon.

I have been in a long-distance relationship with  silnat ever since returning from the TARDIS transcontinental road trip a year and a half ago. She expressed a desire to travel at the time and made preparations but has yet been unable to afford passage to North America. I've been working steadily in that time and again found I had the means and time to afford a trip to visit her in Montevideo instead, so here I am! I have done little preparation in advance of the journey beyond the obvious, so what I find will be a welcome surprise.

Because it's the 50th anniversary of the series' first broadcast on network television. Raise a glass of Tranya or Saurion brandy or Romulan ale, or Aldebaran whisky. "It's green."

There are several of these, but here's one: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.p.....OriginalSeries

I found a room share for the first few days of the con, but I kept my own booking in the Omni William Penn for one night only, Sunday July 3 with room for another guest. Anyone need to stay that night?

Booked into the Omni William Penn Thursday night through Monday morning. I have the room to myself, no roommates as of yet.
Well, this could run into money...

Nothing gets me enthused to see it. None of the stills or clips. None of the designs I've seen. Sadly, nothing makes me want to see it. I used to live for animation and animal characters, and what little I've seen of this fails to hold my interest. Maybe it's a failure of the marketing, but every animated feature of recent years is like this for me. A tremendous variety of sameness.

Whatever originality the conceptual artists brought to the characters dissolved into what's become the generic look of every computer animated feature since Toy Story. There are too many animated features now and they all look alike, in the same way that all Japanese animation looks alike, or all Hollywood comedy short cartoons from 1940-1960. I've seen enough mediocre ones by now to stop getting excited for the next one. I know there are exceptions, or ones that look refreshingly different (9) but I've stopped feeling like I'm missing something special or important.

First, thanks to all for the kind birthday wishes!

I'm looking for a little help applying Halloween makeup at the convention in Connecticut Saturday night, including a latex prosthetic. I'll do something good in return.

It's my 50th birthday.

Truth is I've been thinking of myself as 50 all year already, ever since I was planning my road trip in the spring. Something else should mark this turning.

I figured one day I'd do something like what Richard Dreyfuss did, which was look youthful up until middle age and then seem to age 10 years overnight, with short grey hair and mustache. I'm not putting color into my hair after my next haircut. Change up the wardrobe some, too.

Good news is, Doctor Who seems to have gotten good again, in my opinion. My enthusiasm for it rather cooled over the last bunch of years on account of the overall tone the show took when the new producer took over. Some of the heart came back, the kind I'd missed, and my enthusiasm returned. Expect some more cosplay from me.

If you watched American television in the 1970s and 80s you probably do.

I did a little research on the 1970s Mary Tyler Moore show recently, since I uploaded a photo of her TV Land statue in Minneapolis. I was too young to care to watch the show when it was on, but I knew it was popular. Somehow I never tuned into the syndicated reruns later on, but I became an ardent follower of MTM's Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere. I was always amused to see the MTM studio mascot close out every episode of every show from that studio.

A cute parody of MGM's Leo the lion, an orange kitten would appear within a circular frame of ribbon and utter a single loud meow as the MTM logotype formed. (I have always suspected that this was inspired in part by the Tom and Jerry cartoons Chuck Jones produced for MGM in the 1960s where Tom meows fiercely in Leo's place.) Years ago I had already read in a book that the crew assigned to film the famous meow spent a day with a litter of homegrown kittens belonging to one of their families and barely got any usable footage. An editor smartly found a shot of a kitten yawning, ran it backwards and slowed down, and dubbed in the sound fX. The image first aired in 1970.

The thought struck me that that kitten probably lived until the mid or late eighties. Further research told me that the kitten was born in 1968 and the mascot's name was Mimsie or Mimsy, but couldn't say if that was the cat's real name. It did corroborate the notion that the cat lived its life in the household of an MTM staffer in California (some accounts claim Mimsie was Mary Tyler Moore's own pet) and passed away in 1988.

MTM rarely played with their mascot and logotype in their early years. One time Mary appeared in Mimsie's place to utter "Th-th-th-that's all, folks!" a la Porky Pig, and in a blooper reel they swapped out Mary's voice with the kitten's meow, followed by Mimsie uttering, "Bye!" in Mary's voice. Later on they started to have fun with it: a different cat dribbling an animated basketball at the close of The White Shadow, Mimsie wearing a policeman's cap on Hill Street Blues and O.R. scrubs and mask on St. Elsewhere. Mimsie meowed in Bob Newhart's voice at the end of Newhart. (Sorry, never watched that one either.) There were a few more amusing variants over the years, most notoriously on St. Elsewhere's final episode credits: in place of their usual still image of the O.R., an adult Mimsie is seen asleep within her circular frame, connected to intensive care equipment outside the frame, a heart monitor beeping away steadily. When the logotype appears the heart monitor flatlines with the accompanying sound effect. Mimsie "dies" and the series is over. (Click on "Goodnight, Mimsie :(" if it appears in the suggestions.) Mimsie in fact died sometime that year, and MTM itself was none too healthy by then anymore.



Through the 1990s, MTM Enterprises was bought and sold between various distributors until its library ended up property of FOX. FOX has since plastered its own logo over Mimsie in some places, obliterating the cute kitten. Knowing that, and realizing how many years it's been since I last saw Mimsie somehow deeply saddened me. Chuckles the clown wouldn't have liked that.

Created to document the TARDIS Transcontinental Road Trip May 28 through July 3 2015.

http://www.furaffinity.net/user/tardisroadtrip/

So hey, it'd be cool if you'd watch me there!

The road trip is done! It lasted 37 days for and I.

It's kind of fantastic to travel across a continent overland, to see it's all real, and comfortable to come home too.

Traveling with only an android phone, I haven't bothered updating here via it's tiny stress-inducing interface. I have notes and documents, soon to be properly filed and presented.

Day 1 is exactly six weeks from today. Day 19 is the last in San Francisco.

Day 20 Tuesday June 16
Pacific Coast Highway south through Santa Cruz and Big Sur, California. Overnight at Montaña de Oro State Park, Islay Creek Campground.

Day 21 Wednesday June 17
PCH to Santa Barbara, and east to visit Vasquez Rocks. Visit friends. Overnight motel in Sylmar CA.

Day 22 Thursday June 18
Another break from driving all day. Visit Malibu Creek State Park and play at the M*A*S*H location. Afterward, beach camping at Point Mugu State Park CA.

Day 23 Friday June 19
Santa Monica, Venice, Lunch at Not A Burger Stand in Burbank. Meet another TARDIS at Clockwork Couture. Griffith Observatory, downtown LA, Long Beach. Visit friends. Overnight motel in Corona CA.

Day 24 Saturday June 20
Route 74 east to Palm Desert and Salton Sea Beach ghost town. Overnight motel in Yuma Arizona.

Day 25 Sunday June 21
East to Tucson. Overnight with friends in Tucson AZ.

Day 26 Monday June 22
Break from driving all day. Spend day in Tucson, visit friends, TARDIS service and prep for rest of trip east.

Day 27 Tuesday June 23
Northeast to Gila National Forest, New Mexico. Overnight at free campground in vicinity of Glenwood NM.

Day 28 Wednesday June 24
Side trip to Mogollon ghost town, through Datil NM to the Very Large Array. Overnight at motel in Socorro NM.

Day 29 Thursday June 25
East across Valley of Fires lava flow to Roswell NM. Overnight at Bottomless Lakes campground.

Day 30 Friday June 26
We leave the West behind and pick up the daily pace. Northeast to pick up I-40/Historic Hwy 66 east through Amarillo, Texas to free camping at Elk City Lake Park, Oklahoma.

Day 31 Saturday June 27
I-40/Historic Hwy 66 east through Tulsa OK; continue east to Springdale, Akansas. Overnight stay with friends.

Day 32 Sunday June 28
This would be a good time to take a break from the past 5 days driving and stay in Springdale for one more day before resuming the trip home.

Day 33 Monday June 29
East through Paducah Kentucky to camp in the Land Between the Lakes.

Day 34 Tuesday June 30
East through Lexington KY to motel in the vicinity of Charleston, West Virginia.

Day 35 Wednesday July 1
East across Virgina into Washington, D.C. and stay overnight with friends.

Day 36 Thursday July 2
North to New York!