Post-First Furry Convention Stream of Consciousness Verbiage
Posted 9 years agoAKA My first furry convention as told in more or less 2200 words from the the back seat of a Greyhound bus while half-zonked and half-zoomed somewhere on Highway 5A
Before I dive into anything else, I want to give a shout out to as many people as I can remember from hanging out at Vancoufur 2016. The biggest possible thanks ever for being totally super amazing people go to in no particular order...
March-Dragon
beherit
scruffkerfluff https://twitter.com/haemish_smash https://twitter.com/Reweth https://twitter.com/tachiweasel https://twitter.com/FarPier https://twitter.com/zigstripes https://twitter.com/Accophox https://twitter.com/JesseR92 and at least half a dozen other fantastic folks who I cannot remember the name of because I'm a total jerkface and I'm super tired, but ya'll are amazeballs awesome! ANYWAY!
I write this sitting in the back seat of a Greyhound bus stopped a little ways past the the town of Merritt, BC at around 10 pm on a Sunday night. My ass and back are burning up, I’m simultaneously tired as hell and in the midst of a Nanimo bar-fueled sugar rush, and have a few hours of transit time back to my destination. I’m on the way back from my first furry convention: Vancoufur 2016. In short, I think I feel pretty good about the whole experience.
I came upon this crazy fandom at the tail end of the 7th grade after a chance discovery of Deviant Art via Youtube via Godzilla fan sites. I’m now in the tail end of my 3rd year of university, and I with the passing of this weekend, I feel I’ve run a pretty full gauntlet of my emotions towards the fandom from “I’m not a furry, I just really like all this stuff” to making a fursona to trying to roleplay with someone I met in a free online FPS using the buddy chat system, to ditching that fursona and making my first actual character, to trying to draw anthros, to making MORE characters, to meeting an online buddy while stuck in Seattle for an 11-hour layover, to…Well…Sitting in the back of an express bus after spending several days with some of the nicest, coolest, funniest, friendliest, most excellently fantastic people I’ve ever met. Sharing meals, sharing doodles, sharing stories, just…Connecting. From people I’ve known through the magic of the internet for years, to complete strangers I’d only just met; artists, writers, partiers, drinkers, quiet average Joe’s and Jane’s, people in their teens to diving headfirst into middle age. It was fantastic.
The whole experience, looking back at it now after having a bit of time by myself with a few dozen other people also by themselves, was distinctly surreal and exceptionally weird. One minute there’s just likeminded individuals hanging out talking about whatever, and the next minute someone’s walking down the hall in a 7 foot-tall, brightly-colored animal costume. And it’s all just…”Normal”.
I have to admit. I was very, very unsure of things at first. It had been a long bus ride, late and or delayed transit mooshed plans around and had us all rushing a bit, and the whole while I’m constantly repeating “Don’t make an ass of yourself, don’t make an ass of yourself, don’t make an ass of yourself” in my head until the words have no meaning. I piled into the back of Beherit’s car with Accophox and Marchdragon, introduced myself as best I could and…Laughed nervously a lot. I stayed back a little in conversation circles, drifted a little, let other people talk as much as I could rather than enter salesman mode out of lack of self-assurance. Lunch happened, all was well, and I was thinking it was going to be okay and fun. I met, I chatted, saw people, tried to get used the fact that I was being called one of my many screen names in real life (Which didn’t stop being weird!), and…Everything was fine. Everyone was nice, even though there was a bit of awkwardness associated with any sort of meetup. And then in the hotel lobby, as we were checking in behind two businessmen…Someone in a fluffy canine fursuit walks out of the rain, into the hotel lobby, waves to the concierge, and strolls onward. I freeze. In my mind, I’m not with them. I’m some random bystander here on a weekend trip, nope, not a furry, not even the slightest bit, why would you assume that? Oh fuck oh crap please make the fursuit go awaaaaaaaaaaay!
“Oh hey, is that one of those ah…Oh man, what are they called?” says the businessman on the right.
“Fursuits!” chimes in the one on the left
“Yeah! Fursuits! That’s some pretty impressive costuming on it.” replies the one on the right.
“I’ll say!” finishes the one on the left.
And that was that. They checked in, the world didn’t crumble, nothing went to hell. We checked in. I think at this point I went with MarchDragon to go pick up our badges from registration. We stumbled around lost for a few minutes before a staffer in teal mask that a jaw that articulated when he spoke asked us if this was our first con, then showed us how to get to registration. Fursuits and fursuit parts are still deeply nervous-making at this point. Registration is nothing much to speak of. Signed a piece of paper, got a lanyard, wore lanyard, got educated on the magical practice of laying badges back to back so when they inevitably flop and spin around you always have a named side up. (Thanks Beherit!)
Registered and badges in hand, the group squished back together, and we went to kill time before Zootopia. While I’m no stranger to hanging out with people a fair bit older than myself, most of my mountain biking buddies have a good 6-20 years on me, this all felt…Different. With mountain biking, I always felt younger than everyone else, but never out of place, because we’d all been interested in our shared interest for roughly the same amount of time. Skill levels weren’t too widespread, we all had our strengths and weaknesses as a riding group, and in the areas of bike setup and maintenance and whatnot, I was the “knowledgeable elder” because of my insane habit of reading EVERY manual and piece of info I could get my hands on, and from having had time working in a bike shop. Here…I was meeting people in a similar age bracket to my bike buddies, but who also had been invested in this thing we shared for FAR, FAR, FAR longer than me. I felt out of my depth, I felt like I was going to step on someone’s toes as every turn, and well, I felt like the little kid getting to finally sit at the grown up table at Thanksgiving dinner. And I had no damn reason to feel that way. When I say everyone was welcomed with open arms, I mean it. Literally. Haemish, Reweth, everyone in room 105, and around the convention who I forgot the name of because I’m a terrible person who can remember the torque spec of every bolt on a 2014 Felt Compulsion LT3’s Equilink suspension linkage and what standards go on every mountain bike in the Giant 2016 lineup, but cannot remember a name if my life depended on it…Ya’ll are fantastic people. Awesome badge doodles were received, hugs and handshakes happened, and just as fast as we all said hello, we were off to the movies in the rain.
Again, I was nervous. More people were going to be showing up, I was sneaking snacks into a theater for the first time since middle school, and oh shit just relax dammit. Everything was fine, the movie was darn good, it was still weird being called “Spykr”, and holy FUCK Nanimo bars are next level good when they don’t come from the campus cafeteria. Back to the con. No time for dinner, just grab a quick snack, then stand in the lobby of the con hotel “people” watching and trying to chat.
There are a lot of fursuits there. Okay, maybe 6-8 pass through with the rest either being elsewhere or in the dance next to us through half-closed doors, but other than Ms. So and So down the street renting an Easter Bunny costume for the day for the neighborhood Easter Egg hunt or character costumes at theme parks, this is my first time seeing anything like this. A guy in a digimon hoodie (half of a kigu/partial suit in progress I later learned), friends with Acco, walks up, starts chatting, and I just listen. Arts and crafts and sewing and maker-ing talk goes all over, fascinating stuff. A sabertoothed, highlighter yellow-green fursuit hugs Scruff Kerfluff next to me. I take a few steps back and relax as much as I can. Talk shifts back to the movie and stacking things on Scruff’s head.
I’m starting to get it. I’m starting to feel comfortable and relax, like this is all just a bunch of buds I’ve known forever hanging out and shooting the shit. And then March and Beherit drop this on me. As simple as them saying they dig my characters and that I portray them in a way that makes them feel like, er, well, characters. An smile and a thank you. It took a while for that to set in. It’s not like I’ve been living in a bubble of self-loathing or anything, but to hear, face to face, out in the open that something I’ve made, some little bit of me is in some way significant, cool, up there as a thing…Holy shit guys, I can’t possibly explain how amazing that feels now. It took a while to set in and for me to realize just how amazing that was; probably somewhere between Langley and Coquitlam.
I’m not saying the rest of the convention wasn’t significant or full of amazing, freaky, surreal, or crazy experiences; but I’m already over 1500 words into this thing and considering I want to actually post this as a journal, I should probably stop rambling and get to the point. The con itself was fun, I mostly just hung out in Haemish and Reweth and co’s room or the Art Jam room, and then ate food with people. Didn’t go to any panels or dances, and walked quickly by the very end of the fursuit parade. (They’re certainly cool, but…It’s gonna take a while for me to get used to them.) Anyway, let me try and wrap this up…
Maybe not for the first time, but absolutely more so than any other time in my life…I feel like a part of something. Not just that I fit in, or that I matter as part of a group, but that I was part of something, part of something with so many amazing, outstanding, crazy awesome people as, at least in a few people’s eyes…Somewhere close to having made something and contributed to stuff amazing, outstanding, and possibly even crazy awesome. I’ve never been heavily invested in the fandom. I’ve really liked it, I’ve really enjoyed all my amazing friends online and sharing experiences and characters and art and the good and the crappy times…But I’d never felt connected to the whole furry thing. That’s very different now because of the amazing people I’ve met, shared time, meals, art, and a few short days with. I want to do it again. It was a helluva thing, and I would like to go to a furry convention again.
All of that said, all of the awesome stuff put in, all the nerves overcome, the worries washed away by strokes of ink, sips of tea, and handfuls of candied fennel seeds (and Nanimo bars)…I can see how the rush and excitement of conventions could be addicting. I can see how people turn this whole crazy, amazing furry thing from a hobby into a “lifestyle”. I understand it completely, I absolutely get the draw, and because of that, I feel I need to be very conscious of how I engage with it beyond the screen in the future. I’ll try to go to more furry meetups either in Kelowna or back home in the greater LA area, and I’ll absolutely try to get to more conventions; definitely VF next year, possibly something in between then and now. But I need to be well aware, even more so than I already was, that all of this has to be pushed into the background, or at least away from my most public face, as soon as I leave the hotel, the pub, the restaurant, and head back home. I loved almost all of this past weekend, but I cannot ever get to a point where escapism becomes my salvation, and my life revolves around the furry fandom above all else. Vancoufur was an amazing experience, but it has made me ever more acutely aware that if I want to be a part of this thing, and if I want to be able to enjoy all the fandom has to offer and really cherish what makes it special to me, I need to keep it separated most of the time, and put in more and more and more effort into assuring I stay afloat, focused, and primed to push forward with a regular life that's as stable and pragmatic as it can be. The thrill of escapism and what made these times so special is the rarity of it. But I don’t want to end on a more bitter note. I don’t want to end this thinking about how I have to keep all of this amazing, awesome, fantastic community at half an arm’s length away at all times lest I lose myself in it.
This past weekend was one of the best times in my life as I look back even just a few hours and think about what it, and everyone involved means; right up there with finishing my first marathon, right up there with lying on top of the summit of Mt. Pinos staring off into the star-filled abyss of space on a moonless night for several hours and contemplating how the vastness of the universe far more than I should have, right up there with staring at a mass of lines and squiggles on a piece of paper and realizing “holy fuck you can draw!”…It’s gonna be something I’ll remember forever, and I can’t wait to wait through a year full of regular, ordinary, everyday life so that next Vancoufur 2017 is almost as special as this one was. My bus is nearly in the station, I’m tired as all hell, and I’ve gotta dash off to snag another bus back to campus or I’m wrangling a taxi or walking 7k. G’nite everybody.
(I got a taxi)
Before I dive into anything else, I want to give a shout out to as many people as I can remember from hanging out at Vancoufur 2016. The biggest possible thanks ever for being totally super amazing people go to in no particular order...



I write this sitting in the back seat of a Greyhound bus stopped a little ways past the the town of Merritt, BC at around 10 pm on a Sunday night. My ass and back are burning up, I’m simultaneously tired as hell and in the midst of a Nanimo bar-fueled sugar rush, and have a few hours of transit time back to my destination. I’m on the way back from my first furry convention: Vancoufur 2016. In short, I think I feel pretty good about the whole experience.
I came upon this crazy fandom at the tail end of the 7th grade after a chance discovery of Deviant Art via Youtube via Godzilla fan sites. I’m now in the tail end of my 3rd year of university, and I with the passing of this weekend, I feel I’ve run a pretty full gauntlet of my emotions towards the fandom from “I’m not a furry, I just really like all this stuff” to making a fursona to trying to roleplay with someone I met in a free online FPS using the buddy chat system, to ditching that fursona and making my first actual character, to trying to draw anthros, to making MORE characters, to meeting an online buddy while stuck in Seattle for an 11-hour layover, to…Well…Sitting in the back of an express bus after spending several days with some of the nicest, coolest, funniest, friendliest, most excellently fantastic people I’ve ever met. Sharing meals, sharing doodles, sharing stories, just…Connecting. From people I’ve known through the magic of the internet for years, to complete strangers I’d only just met; artists, writers, partiers, drinkers, quiet average Joe’s and Jane’s, people in their teens to diving headfirst into middle age. It was fantastic.
The whole experience, looking back at it now after having a bit of time by myself with a few dozen other people also by themselves, was distinctly surreal and exceptionally weird. One minute there’s just likeminded individuals hanging out talking about whatever, and the next minute someone’s walking down the hall in a 7 foot-tall, brightly-colored animal costume. And it’s all just…”Normal”.
I have to admit. I was very, very unsure of things at first. It had been a long bus ride, late and or delayed transit mooshed plans around and had us all rushing a bit, and the whole while I’m constantly repeating “Don’t make an ass of yourself, don’t make an ass of yourself, don’t make an ass of yourself” in my head until the words have no meaning. I piled into the back of Beherit’s car with Accophox and Marchdragon, introduced myself as best I could and…Laughed nervously a lot. I stayed back a little in conversation circles, drifted a little, let other people talk as much as I could rather than enter salesman mode out of lack of self-assurance. Lunch happened, all was well, and I was thinking it was going to be okay and fun. I met, I chatted, saw people, tried to get used the fact that I was being called one of my many screen names in real life (Which didn’t stop being weird!), and…Everything was fine. Everyone was nice, even though there was a bit of awkwardness associated with any sort of meetup. And then in the hotel lobby, as we were checking in behind two businessmen…Someone in a fluffy canine fursuit walks out of the rain, into the hotel lobby, waves to the concierge, and strolls onward. I freeze. In my mind, I’m not with them. I’m some random bystander here on a weekend trip, nope, not a furry, not even the slightest bit, why would you assume that? Oh fuck oh crap please make the fursuit go awaaaaaaaaaaay!
“Oh hey, is that one of those ah…Oh man, what are they called?” says the businessman on the right.
“Fursuits!” chimes in the one on the left
“Yeah! Fursuits! That’s some pretty impressive costuming on it.” replies the one on the right.
“I’ll say!” finishes the one on the left.
And that was that. They checked in, the world didn’t crumble, nothing went to hell. We checked in. I think at this point I went with MarchDragon to go pick up our badges from registration. We stumbled around lost for a few minutes before a staffer in teal mask that a jaw that articulated when he spoke asked us if this was our first con, then showed us how to get to registration. Fursuits and fursuit parts are still deeply nervous-making at this point. Registration is nothing much to speak of. Signed a piece of paper, got a lanyard, wore lanyard, got educated on the magical practice of laying badges back to back so when they inevitably flop and spin around you always have a named side up. (Thanks Beherit!)
Registered and badges in hand, the group squished back together, and we went to kill time before Zootopia. While I’m no stranger to hanging out with people a fair bit older than myself, most of my mountain biking buddies have a good 6-20 years on me, this all felt…Different. With mountain biking, I always felt younger than everyone else, but never out of place, because we’d all been interested in our shared interest for roughly the same amount of time. Skill levels weren’t too widespread, we all had our strengths and weaknesses as a riding group, and in the areas of bike setup and maintenance and whatnot, I was the “knowledgeable elder” because of my insane habit of reading EVERY manual and piece of info I could get my hands on, and from having had time working in a bike shop. Here…I was meeting people in a similar age bracket to my bike buddies, but who also had been invested in this thing we shared for FAR, FAR, FAR longer than me. I felt out of my depth, I felt like I was going to step on someone’s toes as every turn, and well, I felt like the little kid getting to finally sit at the grown up table at Thanksgiving dinner. And I had no damn reason to feel that way. When I say everyone was welcomed with open arms, I mean it. Literally. Haemish, Reweth, everyone in room 105, and around the convention who I forgot the name of because I’m a terrible person who can remember the torque spec of every bolt on a 2014 Felt Compulsion LT3’s Equilink suspension linkage and what standards go on every mountain bike in the Giant 2016 lineup, but cannot remember a name if my life depended on it…Ya’ll are fantastic people. Awesome badge doodles were received, hugs and handshakes happened, and just as fast as we all said hello, we were off to the movies in the rain.
Again, I was nervous. More people were going to be showing up, I was sneaking snacks into a theater for the first time since middle school, and oh shit just relax dammit. Everything was fine, the movie was darn good, it was still weird being called “Spykr”, and holy FUCK Nanimo bars are next level good when they don’t come from the campus cafeteria. Back to the con. No time for dinner, just grab a quick snack, then stand in the lobby of the con hotel “people” watching and trying to chat.
There are a lot of fursuits there. Okay, maybe 6-8 pass through with the rest either being elsewhere or in the dance next to us through half-closed doors, but other than Ms. So and So down the street renting an Easter Bunny costume for the day for the neighborhood Easter Egg hunt or character costumes at theme parks, this is my first time seeing anything like this. A guy in a digimon hoodie (half of a kigu/partial suit in progress I later learned), friends with Acco, walks up, starts chatting, and I just listen. Arts and crafts and sewing and maker-ing talk goes all over, fascinating stuff. A sabertoothed, highlighter yellow-green fursuit hugs Scruff Kerfluff next to me. I take a few steps back and relax as much as I can. Talk shifts back to the movie and stacking things on Scruff’s head.
I’m starting to get it. I’m starting to feel comfortable and relax, like this is all just a bunch of buds I’ve known forever hanging out and shooting the shit. And then March and Beherit drop this on me. As simple as them saying they dig my characters and that I portray them in a way that makes them feel like, er, well, characters. An smile and a thank you. It took a while for that to set in. It’s not like I’ve been living in a bubble of self-loathing or anything, but to hear, face to face, out in the open that something I’ve made, some little bit of me is in some way significant, cool, up there as a thing…Holy shit guys, I can’t possibly explain how amazing that feels now. It took a while to set in and for me to realize just how amazing that was; probably somewhere between Langley and Coquitlam.
I’m not saying the rest of the convention wasn’t significant or full of amazing, freaky, surreal, or crazy experiences; but I’m already over 1500 words into this thing and considering I want to actually post this as a journal, I should probably stop rambling and get to the point. The con itself was fun, I mostly just hung out in Haemish and Reweth and co’s room or the Art Jam room, and then ate food with people. Didn’t go to any panels or dances, and walked quickly by the very end of the fursuit parade. (They’re certainly cool, but…It’s gonna take a while for me to get used to them.) Anyway, let me try and wrap this up…
Maybe not for the first time, but absolutely more so than any other time in my life…I feel like a part of something. Not just that I fit in, or that I matter as part of a group, but that I was part of something, part of something with so many amazing, outstanding, crazy awesome people as, at least in a few people’s eyes…Somewhere close to having made something and contributed to stuff amazing, outstanding, and possibly even crazy awesome. I’ve never been heavily invested in the fandom. I’ve really liked it, I’ve really enjoyed all my amazing friends online and sharing experiences and characters and art and the good and the crappy times…But I’d never felt connected to the whole furry thing. That’s very different now because of the amazing people I’ve met, shared time, meals, art, and a few short days with. I want to do it again. It was a helluva thing, and I would like to go to a furry convention again.
All of that said, all of the awesome stuff put in, all the nerves overcome, the worries washed away by strokes of ink, sips of tea, and handfuls of candied fennel seeds (and Nanimo bars)…I can see how the rush and excitement of conventions could be addicting. I can see how people turn this whole crazy, amazing furry thing from a hobby into a “lifestyle”. I understand it completely, I absolutely get the draw, and because of that, I feel I need to be very conscious of how I engage with it beyond the screen in the future. I’ll try to go to more furry meetups either in Kelowna or back home in the greater LA area, and I’ll absolutely try to get to more conventions; definitely VF next year, possibly something in between then and now. But I need to be well aware, even more so than I already was, that all of this has to be pushed into the background, or at least away from my most public face, as soon as I leave the hotel, the pub, the restaurant, and head back home. I loved almost all of this past weekend, but I cannot ever get to a point where escapism becomes my salvation, and my life revolves around the furry fandom above all else. Vancoufur was an amazing experience, but it has made me ever more acutely aware that if I want to be a part of this thing, and if I want to be able to enjoy all the fandom has to offer and really cherish what makes it special to me, I need to keep it separated most of the time, and put in more and more and more effort into assuring I stay afloat, focused, and primed to push forward with a regular life that's as stable and pragmatic as it can be. The thrill of escapism and what made these times so special is the rarity of it. But I don’t want to end on a more bitter note. I don’t want to end this thinking about how I have to keep all of this amazing, awesome, fantastic community at half an arm’s length away at all times lest I lose myself in it.
This past weekend was one of the best times in my life as I look back even just a few hours and think about what it, and everyone involved means; right up there with finishing my first marathon, right up there with lying on top of the summit of Mt. Pinos staring off into the star-filled abyss of space on a moonless night for several hours and contemplating how the vastness of the universe far more than I should have, right up there with staring at a mass of lines and squiggles on a piece of paper and realizing “holy fuck you can draw!”…It’s gonna be something I’ll remember forever, and I can’t wait to wait through a year full of regular, ordinary, everyday life so that next Vancoufur 2017 is almost as special as this one was. My bus is nearly in the station, I’m tired as all hell, and I’ve gotta dash off to snag another bus back to campus or I’m wrangling a taxi or walking 7k. G’nite everybody.
(I got a taxi)
Vancoufur!
Posted 9 years agoWell, in just over a week's time I'll be doing something I never imagined I'd ever do: go to a furry convention! I'm excited, I'm nervous, and I've only got the faintest idea of what to expect! Not only will it be my first furry convention, but also my first time visiting Vancouver beyond the airport. So that's two things to look forward to!
Moving!
Posted 10 years agoWell not totally, but all Remmyzilla art is being moved to its own account here:
Remmyzilla

Summer summer summer
Posted 10 years agoSo yeah, good news and bad news for the summer. Good news is I've got a full-time job at above minimum wage at a place I like being with coworkers who are cool people. Bad news is that means working 6 days a week on schedule that's not really a 9-5, so being able to chat with all the cool folks I know from across the globe is pretty difficult. I'd rather not lose touch with friends, but prioritizing future finances and adulting may possibly have to be my main priority right now. Just gotta keep on truckin' for now and see where things lead and how stuff goes.
Convention?
Posted 10 years agoSo, 2015 may be the year I move past my fear of fursuits, get up, and go to a furry convention. Califur 2015 is just a few months away and is an easy hour-ish drive (or 2 hours because it's LA and traffic exists. Fuck the 405.) and tickets (or whatever they're called) are relatively inexpensive. Thing is though, there's no way I'd attend if I wasn't going to know anybody there. the main reason I do want to get to a convention type thing is, well, I've met a lot of really cool people in this zany sphere of the web called Furry and I wanna met up with a lot of them, doodle, complain about traffic together, hang out...Anyway, long story short...Anybody heading or thinking of heading to Califur 2015?
New Year, New hard drive, new semester, new new new new new
Posted 10 years agoSO yeah. uuuhhh...'Nother year's happening! Cool beans! Not really big on the yearly resolutions thing, but I do have a few personal goals for coming few months.
First is to pass calculus. I failed my calculus class last semester. First time I failed a class too: not a fun feeling by any means. Last semester's failure shouldn't present a problem down the road, apart from a GPA hit, as I have prerequisites for the next class done but...bleh, crappy feeling that was! Still, I think this can turn into a good thing for me. Been having a habit of...sorta coasting through things and not studying a ton in most of my classes...yeah, that worked in high school, ain't gonna be working beyond my first year of uni last year. Time to kick my butt in gear and bury my nose in some textbooks.
Next is to get my foot in the door of the cycling industry. Almost finished redoing my resume, and once I do that, I'm gonna start emailing one of the sales reps from a certain bike company to try and get working with them come summer. Ideally, that'll pan out well and I'll either be working full time assembling their demo fleet of super high-end bikes, or riding around the country in a van full of crazy-expensive bikes helping hold demo days.
Third is to draw more. Just seriously. Do it more. And make more fractals. Those are fun. And now I have a shiny, new, SSD installed so that's nice!
First is to pass calculus. I failed my calculus class last semester. First time I failed a class too: not a fun feeling by any means. Last semester's failure shouldn't present a problem down the road, apart from a GPA hit, as I have prerequisites for the next class done but...bleh, crappy feeling that was! Still, I think this can turn into a good thing for me. Been having a habit of...sorta coasting through things and not studying a ton in most of my classes...yeah, that worked in high school, ain't gonna be working beyond my first year of uni last year. Time to kick my butt in gear and bury my nose in some textbooks.
Next is to get my foot in the door of the cycling industry. Almost finished redoing my resume, and once I do that, I'm gonna start emailing one of the sales reps from a certain bike company to try and get working with them come summer. Ideally, that'll pan out well and I'll either be working full time assembling their demo fleet of super high-end bikes, or riding around the country in a van full of crazy-expensive bikes helping hold demo days.
Third is to draw more. Just seriously. Do it more. And make more fractals. Those are fun. And now I have a shiny, new, SSD installed so that's nice!
Fun times with technology!
Posted 11 years agoWelp, after 2 and a half years of...somewhat...reliable service, my laptop's HDD is finally showing signs of dying. As in it's making a horrible, intermittent, clanking/scraping/clunking noise and performance all around has suddenly tanked. At least it waited until holiday sales to do so! ...No excuse not to switch to an SSD or try out Ubuntu now I guess!
Other things
Posted 11 years agoIt's not my birthday anymore, so I'm just going to fill this space with puerile jokes.
puerile jokes
puerile jokes
puerile jokes
puerile jokes
puerile jokes
puerile jokes
puerile jokes
puerile jokes
puerile jokes
puerile jokes
puerile jokes
puerile jokes
puerile jokes
puerile jokes
puerile jokes
puerile jokes
puerile jokes
puerile jokes
puerile jokes
puerile jokes
puerile jokes
puerile jokes
puerile jokes
puerile jokes
puerile jokes
puerile jokes
Two Decades now
Posted 11 years agoWell...I'm 20 years old now. When the hell did that happen?
I originally had a long journal planned, full of philosophical musings about aging and where I am in my life and where I think I want to go and yadda yadda yadda...But I've already done plenty of brooding and worrying about the flow of time and being swept up and lost. No. Instead, today I will forget all that, and focus on myself and my friends and my family to celebrate another year of living on this world and the many more years that will come not worrying today if they are full of joy, sadness, apathy, or accomplishment. And eat cake. Let's not forget that last, most important part. Nom nom nom.
I originally had a long journal planned, full of philosophical musings about aging and where I am in my life and where I think I want to go and yadda yadda yadda...But I've already done plenty of brooding and worrying about the flow of time and being swept up and lost. No. Instead, today I will forget all that, and focus on myself and my friends and my family to celebrate another year of living on this world and the many more years that will come not worrying today if they are full of joy, sadness, apathy, or accomplishment. And eat cake. Let's not forget that last, most important part. Nom nom nom.
Today is a good day
Posted 11 years agoNot for any specific reason, but today is and will be a good day and damn whatever tries to get in the way of that. Gonna fix things, gonna be awesome to people, and I'm going to enjoy myself and be productive and feel good because FUCK YOU negativity and bullshit. I'm going to suplex that shit off a skyscraper and because I don't have time for that. Life's short, I only got one of 'em, and even though I might not mean shit in the grand scheme of things, I got my own life to live and dammit, I'm gonna live it!
And now I'm gonna go run errands! Woooo!
And now I'm gonna go run errands! Woooo!
Home again, home again jiggity jog
Posted 11 years agoAnd holy crap I have a lot of stuff to catch up on!
I'll -probably- post a longer journal tomorrow after I get home from work. Got a sketch page to upload too!
I'll -probably- post a longer journal tomorrow after I get home from work. Got a sketch page to upload too!
Outa town!
Posted 11 years agoNot that it really amounts to much due to how little I've been posting lately, but I'm going to be out of town for a week! Laters!
Godzilla!!!
Posted 11 years agoFirst off, before I go into movie review mode, I'd like to extend a big, big thank you from the very bottom of my heart to each and every person who left a comment on my previous journal. I feel very touched, and extremely glad to hear your support, advice, and encouragement. Thank you.
As far as Godzilla goes...Okay I'm not gonna beat around the bush. If you want a fun, exciting, kick-ass monster movie with slick, modern special effects...Go watch Pacific Rim or Gamera 2: Attack of the Legion. Or Godzilla Final Wars. Godzilla 2014 is...Well honestly it's kinda irritating. It's so close, SO close to being movie worthy of joyous memory and monstrously good times...But it just isn't. I'm gonna say it right now, and a lot of folks are gonna hate me for it, but...the 1998 Matthew Brodrick "Godzilla" is more enjoyable, more memorable, and damnit; it's a better monster movie. Yeah, that one is goofy, corny, cheezy, dumb, asstarded, and bad...but it's all of those in the perfect storm of bad to achieve the "So bad it's good" sticker, and for that, I really, really enjoy it.
This new film is just...Frustrating. It looks fantastic (apart from a fetish for grayish brown), the effects are fan-freaking-tastic, the sound design is tremendous, but everything else ranges from bleh to just pretty good. And that's the biggest problem with the film...It's just overall...Kinda good I guess. It's not great, it's not solid, it's not bad, it's not BADBADBADNOPEBAD, and it's definitely not so bad it's good. It's passable, pretty good, okay...and forgettable. And that makes me sad.
Okay okay, I've been pretty downer on the whole film, and it may have the impression that it was all bad and I didn't enjoy it. That's not true! Yes the movie has some serious, serious flaws, but it wasn't a bad time in the theater by any means. (besides their A/C not really working all that well. Holy crap it was stuffy in there!) The monster battles and destruction scenes, what there was of it, was genuinely fantastic, extremely atmospheric, and a feast for the senses. They really, really did those parts oh so very right. However, I would argue that those parts are too few, too far in-between for it to really be worth it for me. I'm not talking about there being too many scenes with just people; there's been Godzilla movies that are really heavy with people talking about stuff that have done so very well (i.e. the 1984 Godzilla. The tension built up in that movie is so thick you could cut it with a knife. Cold War and all that.), but in this one, the lack of interesting, hilariously dumb, or even just plain weird human characters just makes it that much more frustrating to wait for the monsters to start beating the crap out of each other and tearing up cities. Hell, one of the coolest fight scenes between monsters is relegated to a brief segment where it's being watched on a grainy tv next to some product placement. It's just...Frustrating. Really, really frustrating.
There was a really good monster movie (or just plain really good movie!) hidden in there. Hidden beneath the generic love story, hidden beneath the nuclear family dynamics (no pun intended), hidden beneath the Michael Bay-esqu revelry for military hardware (Godzilla swims in formation with a group of battleships. Sounds cool...but there's no good reason for Him NOT to be smashing those up!) , and as much as this is going to make me sound like a hipster and a japanophile at the same time...The movie was too American and too mainstream Hollywood. Godzilla felt almost like a secondary (or even tertiary) character, and the only humans who had anything really going for them character-wise (Japanese scientist and Cranston), either died (Spoilers, Cranston's character dies pretty early on and doesn't play much of a role in the film.) or just weren't given enough screen time. Also they didn't have the classic Godzilla Overture in there anywhere. Sadface.
Ending was done just about perfectly though! And the atomic breath looked excellent too; just a bit too gray! Maybe in the sequel things will turn up!
As far as Godzilla goes...Okay I'm not gonna beat around the bush. If you want a fun, exciting, kick-ass monster movie with slick, modern special effects...Go watch Pacific Rim or Gamera 2: Attack of the Legion. Or Godzilla Final Wars. Godzilla 2014 is...Well honestly it's kinda irritating. It's so close, SO close to being movie worthy of joyous memory and monstrously good times...But it just isn't. I'm gonna say it right now, and a lot of folks are gonna hate me for it, but...the 1998 Matthew Brodrick "Godzilla" is more enjoyable, more memorable, and damnit; it's a better monster movie. Yeah, that one is goofy, corny, cheezy, dumb, asstarded, and bad...but it's all of those in the perfect storm of bad to achieve the "So bad it's good" sticker, and for that, I really, really enjoy it.
This new film is just...Frustrating. It looks fantastic (apart from a fetish for grayish brown), the effects are fan-freaking-tastic, the sound design is tremendous, but everything else ranges from bleh to just pretty good. And that's the biggest problem with the film...It's just overall...Kinda good I guess. It's not great, it's not solid, it's not bad, it's not BADBADBADNOPEBAD, and it's definitely not so bad it's good. It's passable, pretty good, okay...and forgettable. And that makes me sad.
Okay okay, I've been pretty downer on the whole film, and it may have the impression that it was all bad and I didn't enjoy it. That's not true! Yes the movie has some serious, serious flaws, but it wasn't a bad time in the theater by any means. (besides their A/C not really working all that well. Holy crap it was stuffy in there!) The monster battles and destruction scenes, what there was of it, was genuinely fantastic, extremely atmospheric, and a feast for the senses. They really, really did those parts oh so very right. However, I would argue that those parts are too few, too far in-between for it to really be worth it for me. I'm not talking about there being too many scenes with just people; there's been Godzilla movies that are really heavy with people talking about stuff that have done so very well (i.e. the 1984 Godzilla. The tension built up in that movie is so thick you could cut it with a knife. Cold War and all that.), but in this one, the lack of interesting, hilariously dumb, or even just plain weird human characters just makes it that much more frustrating to wait for the monsters to start beating the crap out of each other and tearing up cities. Hell, one of the coolest fight scenes between monsters is relegated to a brief segment where it's being watched on a grainy tv next to some product placement. It's just...Frustrating. Really, really frustrating.
There was a really good monster movie (or just plain really good movie!) hidden in there. Hidden beneath the generic love story, hidden beneath the nuclear family dynamics (no pun intended), hidden beneath the Michael Bay-esqu revelry for military hardware (Godzilla swims in formation with a group of battleships. Sounds cool...but there's no good reason for Him NOT to be smashing those up!) , and as much as this is going to make me sound like a hipster and a japanophile at the same time...The movie was too American and too mainstream Hollywood. Godzilla felt almost like a secondary (or even tertiary) character, and the only humans who had anything really going for them character-wise (Japanese scientist and Cranston), either died (Spoilers, Cranston's character dies pretty early on and doesn't play much of a role in the film.) or just weren't given enough screen time. Also they didn't have the classic Godzilla Overture in there anywhere. Sadface.
Ending was done just about perfectly though! And the atomic breath looked excellent too; just a bit too gray! Maybe in the sequel things will turn up!
Words About Things
Posted 11 years ago So for the past few weeks (maybe month or two, screw proper timekeeping!) I've been going back and forth with myself over one particular topic: art. It's pretty easy to see that over the past school year, my creative output...kinda flew out the window; about 1 thing per month if that. Part of it was time, but a lot of it was motivation. Over the past year or so I got introduced to, talked with, and was around quite a few ridiculously talented artists, including a few whom are to be considered not only major players but the fandom's "founding fathers" if you will. For the most part it's been inspiring and really awesome, but I've also had thoughts kicking up in my head that more or less amount to I don't think I have what it takes to put myself into gear to ever produce something that'll be at a level greater than "look what I did mom, pin it on the fridge please!" Yeah I know, that's kinda ridiculous, but being in the same room (or chatroom) as someone who has a good few decades on me really A) is humbling, and B) makes me feel like a child!
Okay, so I'm starting to kind ramble and get off course from the point I'm trying to make here. *Ahem* Basically...Yes. I want to do what I can to produce what I can however I can. I want to be creative, I want to be someone who can twirl a pencil over a piece of paper and a few hours later have something that makes people say "Wowee! That sure is neat!" I want to be able to write stories that people enjoy reading, I want to...Well I want to make stuff.
However, one thing is still not certain in my head. Although I want to, I don't think I have what it takes to contribute artistically to this fandom. It's not that I don't believe that if I keep working at it I'll be able to produce at least decent-quality anthro art, but I just don't think I have the capacity to be a content-producer within this fandom. It's always seemed to me that folks who create stuff focused here (not just FA, but...you know what I mean!) have a level of responsibility. I'm not sure exactly what that responsibility entails, but I know from my two brief stints of having any sort of spotlight directed my way that I don't have that ability in my system. Maybe it's because I'm young, maybe it's because neither time has been a gradual build, more a sudden 15 minutes of fame, (BAM! This thing is front page and you have 10,000 people looking at it! BOOM! Your character is known across the realm of macro/micro! Run in fear like a headless chicken and make an ass of yourself!) or maybe it's you having some sort of ridiculous anxiety an irrational fear based on various things that I can't put to words right now because I'm tired and lazy.
I think I'd better cut this journal off and shut this thing down before I end up spilling my entire brain out on here and end up with a novel's worth of stream-of-consciousness worries and musings. Summary: I need to use my time to make more arts, but stick with abstract funtimes for now because REASONS.
Have a hippity-happity-super-magnificent-tastic day. Or evening. Timezones.
P.S. Someone remind me to ramble about how most ideas of how I view the world around me I got from mountain biking some time. I need to write that down.
Okay, so I'm starting to kind ramble and get off course from the point I'm trying to make here. *Ahem* Basically...Yes. I want to do what I can to produce what I can however I can. I want to be creative, I want to be someone who can twirl a pencil over a piece of paper and a few hours later have something that makes people say "Wowee! That sure is neat!" I want to be able to write stories that people enjoy reading, I want to...Well I want to make stuff.
However, one thing is still not certain in my head. Although I want to, I don't think I have what it takes to contribute artistically to this fandom. It's not that I don't believe that if I keep working at it I'll be able to produce at least decent-quality anthro art, but I just don't think I have the capacity to be a content-producer within this fandom. It's always seemed to me that folks who create stuff focused here (not just FA, but...you know what I mean!) have a level of responsibility. I'm not sure exactly what that responsibility entails, but I know from my two brief stints of having any sort of spotlight directed my way that I don't have that ability in my system. Maybe it's because I'm young, maybe it's because neither time has been a gradual build, more a sudden 15 minutes of fame, (BAM! This thing is front page and you have 10,000 people looking at it! BOOM! Your character is known across the realm of macro/micro! Run in fear like a headless chicken and make an ass of yourself!) or maybe it's you having some sort of ridiculous anxiety an irrational fear based on various things that I can't put to words right now because I'm tired and lazy.
I think I'd better cut this journal off and shut this thing down before I end up spilling my entire brain out on here and end up with a novel's worth of stream-of-consciousness worries and musings. Summary: I need to use my time to make more arts, but stick with abstract funtimes for now because REASONS.
Have a hippity-happity-super-magnificent-tastic day. Or evening. Timezones.
P.S. Someone remind me to ramble about how most ideas of how I view the world around me I got from mountain biking some time. I need to write that down.
First year of University/College/Whatever
Posted 11 years agoI'd put something reflective, intelligent, and contemplative here...But really it just felt like school with less classes per day, more cooking, and colder weather because Canada. Yup! Done now for the summer. Wee!
Aaallll niiiiight loonnnng
Posted 11 years ago4 mugs of tea
2 cans of cola
3 choco-dipped granola bars
1/2 pound of baby carrots
1 Paper analyzing immigration/emigration patterns between the United States and Canada during the latter half of the 20th Century.
I really need to, like, NOT procrastinate. Edit mode engage. MOAR CAFFIENE I'M AN IDIOT AAAAAAAHHHHH
2 cans of cola
3 choco-dipped granola bars
1/2 pound of baby carrots
1 Paper analyzing immigration/emigration patterns between the United States and Canada during the latter half of the 20th Century.
I really need to, like, NOT procrastinate. Edit mode engage. MOAR CAFFIENE I'M AN IDIOT AAAAAAAHHHHH
For the Remmyzilla Fans out there...
Posted 11 years agoSince many of you watch me for my character Remmyzilla, I thought I'd share two places where you can keep up with her cheerful, rampage-filled antics, and get your daily dose of coyju, seeing as I've no linked them from my page here
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Remmyzilla
"Her" twitter account, updated nearly everyday, sometimes multiple times a day, full of short little bites of monstery "wisdom", and little bits on the day-to-day life of a fluffy, city-smashing coyju!
http://remmyzilla.tumblr.com/
A tumblr ask blog/page for Remmyzilla. Longer answers to questions asked by you folks! Only been up 2 days, so I haven't figured out an update schedule for it yet, but I suppose it'll depend on how many good questions are received, so ask away! Not all questions will be answered, Remmyzilla is a busy monster after all, and as her creator, I will have to exercise discretion now and again!
Have a fantastic day!
~Spykr
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Remmyzilla
"Her" twitter account, updated nearly everyday, sometimes multiple times a day, full of short little bites of monstery "wisdom", and little bits on the day-to-day life of a fluffy, city-smashing coyju!
http://remmyzilla.tumblr.com/
A tumblr ask blog/page for Remmyzilla. Longer answers to questions asked by you folks! Only been up 2 days, so I haven't figured out an update schedule for it yet, but I suppose it'll depend on how many good questions are received, so ask away! Not all questions will be answered, Remmyzilla is a busy monster after all, and as her creator, I will have to exercise discretion now and again!
Have a fantastic day!
~Spykr
obligatory
Posted 11 years agoIt's a year and it's new and it's gotta 4 in it and that's pretty crazy yeah!
Have some Holiday Science Cheer
Posted 11 years agoOr else.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYNaEM2O5pU
So, who's down to help with the goat sacrifice? All I have hanging around is a mule and two sheep.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYNaEM2O5pU
So, who's down to help with the goat sacrifice? All I have hanging around is a mule and two sheep.
Successful Hugeness and Render Realizations
Posted 12 years agoFirst off: my experiments with rendering at 4k resolution were successful and the results look totally awesome. I also learned some new, interesting things...
Mostly that I'd been rendering badly for years. The "oversample" value apophysis is something I normally jack all the way up because I thought "Oh! This uses more RAM as I increase it, that must mean a higher quality render is occurring!" Weeelllll...turns out that's true for small renders, and with large renders, I should be turning down the OS rate from...a lot (usually I crank it to the max: 16), to much lower: 2-4. This means I don't need the bajillions of gigs of RAM that I thought I did...so larger than 4k resolution renders may be a possibility. More experimentation is necessary.
This also means I can very likely start rendering more print-ready images, and hopefully print-ready images for formats larger than 8x10. If I can find a place that'll do high-quality prints for reasonable prices, this means I might start selling fractal prints.
Mostly that I'd been rendering badly for years. The "oversample" value apophysis is something I normally jack all the way up because I thought "Oh! This uses more RAM as I increase it, that must mean a higher quality render is occurring!" Weeelllll...turns out that's true for small renders, and with large renders, I should be turning down the OS rate from...a lot (usually I crank it to the max: 16), to much lower: 2-4. This means I don't need the bajillions of gigs of RAM that I thought I did...so larger than 4k resolution renders may be a possibility. More experimentation is necessary.
This also means I can very likely start rendering more print-ready images, and hopefully print-ready images for formats larger than 8x10. If I can find a place that'll do high-quality prints for reasonable prices, this means I might start selling fractal prints.
Big McLargeHuge Renders
Posted 12 years agoContemplating doing some -very- large renders: 4k and above. This is at least a thousand pixels wider and taller than what I rendered for 8x10 prints. Some quick examinations and tests are going to sit me at about...18 hours for 4k renders @ 50,000% density with an oversample rate of 5. Compared to a normal 1280x768 or 1280x960 render at 7500-10,000% density and an oversample of 13-16 which takes less than an hour. I can try lowering the density to a bit above my normal (large image means I need a higher quality density no matter what) to see if I can drop the render time to around 10 hours, but no matter what I've got an unusable computer for a long time. I'm not going to try 8k resolution, I just don't have the time, or computer (laptop with "only" 12 gigs of ram and a quad-core 2.5 ghz processor) to tackle something like that. Might be able to get access to a server (4 racks, each with 32 gigs of ram and I don't how how much (but a lot!) of processing power) to try a maHOOOOOSIVE scale render on, but that's still an if as I need to 1) sit down and get set up with access to it, and 2) figure out limitations of running Apophysis on Linux via WINE. Of course, due to FA's image size restrictions, they wouldn't show up on here, and possibly not on dA or Weasyl if the image files turn out to be too large...which they very well might as the 8"x10" scaled renders hit up to 17.6 megabytes. (dA having a limit of 30mb and Weasyl having a limit of 16mb I think) Worst-case scenario stuff ends up in a dropbox link in the description
So yeah, just some stuff that's going on!
So yeah, just some stuff that's going on!
Fractal Desktop "Commissions"
Posted 12 years agoOkay so not technically commissions, but starting pretty much exactly now, I will be open to re-render any fractal in my gallery (provided I have the parameters!) to the exact resolution of your computer monitor(s)! Renders will be the highest quality I can produce with my computer. Prices will range from $1-5 CAD depending on size (Larger renders can take anywhere from an extra hour, to an extra 5 hours. During which time my computer can be used for nothing else except rendering) This info is presented in a more concise fashion under the commission tabs page on FA!
I will not, and likely never will open up for more formal commissions with Apophysis. As I've said before, I just don't have control over the program required to where I would feel comfortable charging people for my work.
Have a nice day!
I will not, and likely never will open up for more formal commissions with Apophysis. As I've said before, I just don't have control over the program required to where I would feel comfortable charging people for my work.
Have a nice day!
Happy Birthday To Me
Posted 12 years agoHappy Birthday to me
It's time to study
I have a math midterm
And mow I'm 19!
It's time to study
I have a math midterm
And mow I'm 19!
Jumping ship! D:
Posted 12 years agoI was recently persuaded to check out Weasyl, and...as you can probably guess by the title, I was very impressed with the site, and am starting to migrate over there! Not leaving FA , but there will be higher-quality versions of my fractals especially popping up there, as they have much less...restrictive...filesize restrictions and don't have to deal with fitting stuff in 1280x1280 sizes anymore, which works greatly in my, and your viewing pleasure. In terms of usability, it's miles ahead of FA for me. Tag blocking (THANK YOU PROGRAMMERS YOU MAKE ME SO HAPPY!), gallery folders, critique notices, a more aesthetically pleasing look (to me at least), and the way the titles pop up over thumbnails is a source of great amusement. Only things I don't like are the lack of a "scraps" gallery section so not everything submitted ends up on the front page or for friends only, and I only really miss the scraps section. It's a much smaller community currently, which I think is working in its favor, the quality of art uploaded is seemingly at a fair bit higher caliber than what's usually on a browse in FA, but again, that's likely mostly due to it being a smaller community that's a bit more art focused than watching focused.
Basicaly...
Weasyl and dA will have larger-size, higher-quality fractal images (going up over 2000px soon) on there than FA starting...pretty much now.
I am not leaving FA, don't freak out
https://www.weasyl.com/profile/spykr
Basicaly...
Weasyl and dA will have larger-size, higher-quality fractal images (going up over 2000px soon) on there than FA starting...pretty much now.
I am not leaving FA, don't freak out
https://www.weasyl.com/profile/spykr
INSERT TITLE HERE
Posted 12 years agoSo yeah, college is going and stuff is happening! Just some placeholder journal! Nothing's really on my mind other than schoolwork and occasional bits of arting that I'll post...eventually!