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Caution: Bitchin' about lady parts. Feel free to skip.

So for the past 6 months, on and off, I've been trying different types of birth control pill. The idea was that it would mellow out my PMS -- tone down the moodiness, tone down the nausea, make it less "What are we going to land on on the Wheel of Terrible this month?" and more "The Wheel of Terrible is stuck, here is the one thing that's going to happen every month." The Pills served no other purpose than to help with PMS, since birth control is covered by the fact that I am sterile.

I think I went over this in a previous post or on Twitter, but THEY ALL FAILED. If anything, they made things worse. The latest two (which were basically Lite versions of the regular pill, according to my doctor) made my periods SUPER HEAVY, and if I missed one pill -- which I totally did -- it meant my period came IMMEDIATELY. Meaning I got two periods a week after one another last month, which was awesome.

That was sarcasm. It was not awesome.

I'm now off pills completely again (and back on Prozac, and was prescribed an anti-nausea pill for the days when I'm feeling off), and according to my calendar, a week late. Which is lovely.

I'm not pregnant -- I'm paranoid enough that I keep a stash of tests around -- so it's probably my body going "You totally fucked up last month, you're gonna get NO WARNING on the opening of the elevator doors this time," and I am now in a state of permanent PMS until whenever the damn thing rolls around. Meaning I feel a bit like I've been run over by a truck, with mild cramping and slight nausea that pops up occasionally. Apparently this is a pretty common side effect of coming off of the pill.

Being a girl suuuuucks.

Edited on 2/26 to Add: And the elevator doors have opened, of course the day after I got super paranoid about everything. Huzzah.

Or is it Presidents' Day weekend? I guess it's both, really.

spotweld and I did our traditional Valentine's Day dinner on Friday night, cooking up porterhouse steaks, potatoes, and brussels sprouts, with a side of red wine (Apothic's Crush, if anyone's curious; Apothic makes amazingly tasty wine blends and I highly recommend them). Then we shagged good & proper.

Saturday we headed down to NYC for PonyCon. I've never done a brony convention before, and I wanted to meet a friend from Twitter (a friend who is part of the team responsible for Twilight Sparkle's Secret Ship Fic Folder, which is the kind of game I wish we had in the furry fandom -- why are all our card games porn? Luckily they're working on a new game that isn't pony-specific [I may get to help with the art, woo!]).

It was neat seeing a convention that I'm not a dealer for, which I haven't done in literally years. We picked up lots of swag, supported the Traveling Pony Museum (Dear furry fandom, This is a great idea! Steal it!), and totally missed out on any panels because we wanted to eat at a local British pub and also wanted to catch Munchkin World NYC before they closed for the night.

Munchkin World NYC was a pop-up store, located in NYC because everyone was already there for the New York Toy Fair, and devoted to Steve Jackson Game's Munchkin series. We learned about it on Twitter as we were traveling to PonyCon, and considering SpotWeld is a board/card game geek and I have absorbed a fair chunk of this geekiness by marrying him (my geekiness is like a sponge), we both wanted to go. Munchkin is a great game if you've never played it, and it's simple enough that I actually know how to play (I prefer board & card games that don't require much brainspace, as I often am also cooking/cleaning/playing host during gaming meets -- and please don't think I mind because I very much like being the host! :) ), and the guys at Steve Jackson games are all pretty awesome. Spot takes advantage of their Men in Black during ~~FurFright~~ Furpocalypse, and they're always great guys. I suspect Spot would be amongst them if he wasn't playing minion to me at most conventions!

So we got some of the limited edition cards, looked through the new art for the cards coming out in Star Munchkin 3 (Time Lard!), saw the new box artwork for Steampunk Munchkin -- which, besides being steampunk, has art by Phil Foglio (who is definitely one of the Gods of Steampunk), so I imagine Spot will be purchasing it the moment it comes out (sometime in July this year), -- learned about Munchkin Loot Letter (which is Love Letter, but with Munchkin; it's very cute and doesn't require the amount of girls hitting on girls that Love Letter did last time we played...not that there's anything wrong with that ;) ), and oh yeah, Spot won Munchkin Quest! Signed by Steve Jackson, John Kovalic, and Andrew Hackard! Meaning, admittedly, that game will never leave our house (it will NOT be coming to any conventions with us, sorry, guys), but hey, how cool is that?

After Munchkin World, we ended up walking through Times Square, which is as bright as day even at 9pm. A quick detour into their giant Disney Store earned my Figment hat (thank you again,

world_dancer, it's definitely my favorite hat!) a lot of compliments, and then we wandered our way back to the subway station, trying our best to ignore the heaving masses of tourists and people in badly assembled costumes (fursuits: they spoil you). A quick ride over to Grand Central, and then we were on our way back home.

Sunday we spent mostly lounging around the house, though I did randomly get the urge to go buy frames for my new pony art and some art I got in Disney...which was oddly fortunate, because Micheal's is having a big President's Day sale, so it cost a lot less than it would have if I went later this week. We also hit Target for random necessities like shampoo, and I ended up grabbing some jars because I plan on making bumbleberry jam or jelly sometime this week with all the berries we have sitting in the downstairs freezer.

Which means I will be putting up a "WHO WANTS SOME JELLY" post sometime whenever I finish that.

I also ordered a few things for working on convention stuff, since ReGeneration Who is a mere month-and-a-half away and I need to get started on prep for that. I'm planning on making a new cocktail book of Doctor Who-related drinks, which means I'm gonna be playing the "power through that art" game before the month is over.

All in all, a great Valentine's Day weekend :) And now, to work on some commissions!

PLEASE NOTE: All these trip-related posts are also being posted on my forum, http://notacon.freeforums.net

At some point I will probably email them, too, but in all honesty the forum is WAY easier to keep track of.

( Big ol' giant post that has tables because I am anal-retentive and uberorganized. )

Because I'm still living in the 1990s, and because the internet has amazingly not come up with a more convenient method for group discussion (outside of randomly shouting at the world on Twitter), I started a forum for the Disney trip:

http://notacon.freeforums.net
I will continue to post information here (behind a cut, so I'm not plowing everyone over with boring technical info and me geeking about Walt Disney World), and via email, but if people actually started posting feedback over on the forums it'd be kinda nice.

Doing a quick "What if not everyone wants to share the same hotel room, even if it's the size of a small house" calculation -- a wise addition to any trip involving a bunch of folks who may not be exactly overly intimate with one another -- and I have figured out that, even if everyone gets a studio (closer to a hotel room than a house; no full kitchen, no washer/dryer), the numbers ALMOST don't change.

The only exception to this is if you are not sharing the room with someone. If you are in a studio on your own, the costs go up $300 - $500, depending on the hotel. And that's for the whole trip, not just one night.

More will get figured out as the planning continues, but I figured I oughta put that out there :)

I sent an email to interested folks with this, but I'm also posting it here for the sake of me remembering the information for later. Thank you, LJ tags!

More details (which hotels I'm talking about, specifics on the dining plan, etc.) will be provided as time progresses. It's still a good 20 months away, and I need some more definites (specifically "Yes, we can come" and "Yes, we can afford to pay for it") before I can seriously start poking travel agents about it.

( More info behind the cut! )

The trip was completely amazing, and I will have photos and stories coming soon. I am still in vacation recovery mode, especially after our clusterfuck of a day on Friday (delay after delay and then cancelled flight; getting up at 4am and not getting home till 2am, even with the time change, is a bitch).

Our days in Disneyland DID remind me: Who is still interested in a big group trip to Disney World? I have a big list of folks from when I suggested this a few years ago, but the time is coming up on having to actually get serious about it (reservations for the Disney Vacation club resorts are generally 9 - 12 months ahead of the vacation time). I'd like to get an email group together, or a forum, or something, to truly start planning in a manner that isn't just me looking up numbers & costs (though that's a huge part of planning a trip like this).

We'll see!

In the meantime, though, back to vegging out because tired.

Driven through the canyons I was
Dazzled by the mountains and we didn't go very far
Close enough to heaven if you
Climb up on a mansion you too can swing like a star

In ONE WEEK,

spotweld and I will be on a plane somewhere over the middle of the country on our way to San Jose. I'm just a little excited, in that I have brought back lyrics to describe myself, which I have not done in quite some time.

The unneeded excuse for going, of course, is Further Confusion. I haven't done a BIG furry convention in years, so this con is going to be a big deciding factor in a lot of things…mostly: Are big furry conventions still worth going to? Is the time/money/travel stress worth it? Or is staying close to home and focusing on my online commission work the way to go?

As you all know, I've been overly critical of big furry cons because the money I made didn't make up for the time/money/travel stress that went into one a few years ago. I was completely underwhelmed by the traffic, though I can fully admit: it may have been the economy and it wasn't just me (though I've heard similar things from other, much bigger name, artists). Further Confusion seems to have taken the dealer:attendee ratio into account for their dealers room, which as a dealer I agree with wholeheartedly. I've heard nothing but good things about it from artists who've gone previously (as in: you barely have time to eat, you get so many commissions), so I'm hoping it'll change my views on bigger cons.

Then again, the last big convention had the whole "terrorist attack" issue so who knows. I'm hoping for the best but expecting the worst, which is my normal state of being (yeah, I'm that kind of person).

At least I fully don't expect to pay for our transportation with convention earnings. Sadly, cross-country plane tickets are a WEE BIT too expensive to expect something like that. Though…that would be a HELL of a convention.

I was just a passenger a
Rider on the tremors that were shaking all our beds at night
A visitor a stranger thought I
Might pass for a regular if I just kept out of the lights

Besides Further Confusion, which again is the unneeded excuse to get out to California (I can write those plane tickets off as at least a partial business expense), I've got a dorky, happy excitement going on for staying with

tugrik. It's a feeling very similar to meeting a crush for the first time, which it pretty much is (we've probably crossed paths before, but I spend most conventions braindead and in "work mode" — if you've ever worked retail you hopefully know what I mean…I've re-introduced myself to people I've met before at the same convention a few years in a row because of this. On the other hand, I get to meet folks for the first time several times!). And yes, Spot knows fully about my crush and is okay with it, as far as he's let me know.

Can I mention how glad I am that I married Spot? Let me mention that again here: damn, I'm a lucky girl.

After Further Confusion, all three of us will be driving down the beautiful California coast — assuming no major storms show up, anyway, as I know that makes the Pacific Coast Highway kind of a bitch to drive — to Anaheim. Despite being a huge Disney fan, Spot's never been to Disneyland, the place that started it all. Sadly since it's off-season a lot of it is closed or under construction, but hey, it won't be crowded!

I really wish we had more time on the trip. Part of me thinks "Damn, I wish the convention wasn't that weekend" even though that's part of the reason we're going. But I think no matter how much time we had, we wouldn't be able to see it all. Tiki bars, jade hunting on the coast, the Missions, weird tourist attractions, San Francisco & Los Angeles/Hollywood/etc. in general…and we won't even be going further down the coast, which is sad because the San Diego Zoo is amazing but we just don't have the time.

Of note: the International Tiki Marketplace at Don the Beachcomber's will be taking place THE DAY AFTER WE LEAVE. Aaaaaaaaaaaugh. Though two cons one right after the other might be nuts. We should plan to do that some year, though.

I wonder if people who actually live in California feel like there's no way they can possibly do everything. It's been forever since I lived there (or near there, considering my years in the desert of Arizona) but I can't help but think it's more normal than anything (similar to what I imagine living in NYC is like…"Oh, yeah, Empire State Building? Walk by that every day."), despite that it takes 6 or more hours of driving to get anywhere.

Well, I can't be pissy about it: we're gonna have a lot of fun and I'm gonna eat a ridiculous amount of In & Out Burger.

(That is not the only thing I'm excited about but damn I'm looking forward to it.)

Tore my heart out from my chest
Mixed it up in my mind with the best freshest pieces of my soul
Chose the ones I loved the most
Drove 'em all down to the coast
Threw 'em in a big black hole

Now, back to convention preparations. I've gotten most things done, but I still need to work on my Sketch of the Day book (if it doesn't get done I won't be TOO depressed about it), pick up some more new markers, and make some more badge examples.

And if you're also gonna be at Further Confusion: Lemme know and/or come say hi! Space 25 in the dealers' room, I'll be there most of the convention selling my wares and drawing all the things. I also take badge & commission orders in advance, if anyone wants to throw money at me now ;)

So this past weekend we had a Decemberween party, filled with festivity and gaming and a dinner featuring turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, dressing, veggies, etc. It was a LOT of food, enough that me and Spot are still working through it…though I'm pretty sure all the turkey got eaten.

Edit: I was wrong, we're finishing the last bits of the turkey for dinner tonight.

The rotisserie attachment for our grill was an extremely wise investment. Every time we've used it for turkey, it's turned out amazing. Of course, we also brine the turkey the night before. Between smoking it, rotisserie-ing (is that a word?) it, and brining it, I'm not sure WHICH method makes for a tastier turkey, but in all honesty they're all easy steps so why skip one?

We also have ANOTHER turkey which we will be cooking for Christmas. And we won't have to cook anything till next year because 15 pounds of turkey will feed two people for quite a while. AND we still have leftovers from Saturday, meaning I will not need to make dressing or mashed potatoes again, though we did get some more veggies for roasting, AND I'm gonna make gravy tomorrow (I didn't on Saturday) and a cranberry sauce since my mom sent me a recipe that is full of booze and sounds amazing, so it's currently chilling in the fridge and we'll see how it tastes tomorrow.

We've also got turkey stock going in the crock pot, I've got gingerbread cinnamon buns rising in the fridge, and the bread machine has a brioche recipe that is 100% an experiment because who the hell knows how a bread machine will handle such a rich eggy bread. But we figured something for sandwiches would be a good idea, and at worst we can make a different loaf.

There are still cookies left from the cookie exchange, as well as cheesecake & fruitcake. There is so much food in this house right now. Thank goodness we have a second fridge AND a chest freezer, otherwise I'd have no idea what we'd do with it all. Also this means we don't have to spend much more time cooking (outside of tomorrow, and even then it'll be really just the turkey…and the grill does all the work there), meaning I can focus on working on art stuff and convention preparation in the coming week that Spot has off and can help me :)

I wish you all a very merry Christmas Eve, and will have lovely art and a recipe for you tomorrow! If I remember. I might put it up later tonight after church.

I just mailed out the last of the contributors' copies of the Bawdy Bartender book! Huzzah! Now to come up with something else to do.

Lessons I Learned With This Project:

1.) Charge more for the art. I charged WAY too little for the pin-ups; it ended up amounting to about a third of what I normally charge. But, it let me experiment with the whole "book making" thing, which was the whole point, so I can't complain TOO much.

2.) Flat rate shipping is your friend. Mailing stuff first class with insurance and mailing stuff flat-rate priority mail (which includes insurance free) has about a twenty cent difference, and those twenty more cents are on the first class. I don't quite understand why not using your own envelope costs less (you'd think it'd be more), but I'm not gonna question it.

3.) Self-imposed deadlines work quite well. My deadline was to release the book on Halloween, and I did; it successfully premiered at Furpocalypse. I didn't get everything shipped until today, of course, but still.

4.) Printing, laminating, punching & binding your own book is a bitch. But, I priced doing it in the quantity I did (very small run) and doing it myself may have used a lot of my time, but it saved me a fair amount of cash. Doing it at Staples — the only place I can find that will do small runs of laminated, bound books — would have eaten the entirety of the money I made drawing the art, and then some. I would have actually lost money, making buying the book even more expensive for possible customers.

Thoughts In General:

Next time you do this, less laminating. The biggest bitch was laminating the pages, cutting them out, and then running them through the laminator again. It took, by far, the most time of all the steps in the book making, and I bought both a second laminator and 2 new rotary cutters (so

spotweld could help).

Lamination is also the most expensive aspect of getting books done through printing companies, and I can totally understand why. It wasn't expensive to do it myself, it was just extremely time consuming.

My binding machine is little, but powerful. It's designed for binding scrapbooks and such, but the little sucker did 30+ 19-laminated-page books without giving me an issue. Best Christmas gift I've gotten recently.

Future Book Ideas:

• Cheesecake Cookbook - This describes itself. Cheesecake pinups with cheesecake recipes
• Beefcake Cookbook - Muscle dudes with meatloaf recipes?
• Sketch of the Day book - Compilation book of Sketch of the Day that's been running over on Patreon since May or June (and technically has been in existence since…good lord, 2006?). Home binding is extremely convenient for printing this since I could do VERY small runs of the book.
• Compilation of any of the comics and/or portfolios I've done over the past decade
• New, very small run comics
• Porn

The weather has decided that "wintry mix" was a good plan for one of the busiest travel days of the year. Looking at Google Maps, most of our route is covered in accidents.

Awesome.

You know, I've lived all over the country, and I think Connecticut is the only place I've lived where we get a true wintry mix. It's not "snow in the morning, rain in the afternoon" or "sleet turning to snow sometime when it gets colder as the day goes on"...it is very literally snow and rain and sleet/ice/freezing rain (sometimes all three) all at the same time.

So everything's a slushy mess, and it sounds like it's raining right now, but it looks like the plows and salt trucks are out. We've got a bunch of sci-fi audiobooks, a batch of chocolate chip cookies, and a full tank of gas, so I'm not TOO worried about being stuck in traffic.

I also filled my iPod with Christmas music (next to the John Scalzi and Neal Stephenson), so I'm ready for the drive back. I refuse to play Christmas music or watch Christmas specials until Santa appears in the Thanksgiving Day parade.

The trip hasn't even started and I'm already tired. I blame the weather.

( Spoilers, because I can't review it without spoiling it. )

( Spoilers, sweetie... )

I said I'd finish it by Halloween, and I finished it by Halloween. Admittedly, I need to print and finish like 10 more of them before Friday, but I didn't need to sleep tonight anyway, right?

28 pinups & recipes, several pages of extras (syrups to add to drinks, a guide to bar tools), and random amusing commentary from yours truly (I tried to keep that to a minimum, actually). All printed, laminated, and hand-bound by yours truly.

10 copies of this will be available at Furpocalypse this weekend. I'll have them for sale online after, but I need to finish assembling copies for the folks who are actually pictured in the book first, so they're currently convention-exclusive :)

This is copy-pasted from

spotweld's journal, though I'm pretty sure everyone who follows me also follows him =p

Hello everyone!
The Connecticut Furry Convention, FurPocalypse is coming up fast.
8 days and counting.

The main website is here: https://furpocalypse.org/

But a bunch of other useful information has also been uploaded.
Here's the direct links. If you'll be there be sure to look things over ahead of time and also check out the gaming rooms!

Dealer List and Dealer's Room Layout: https://furpocalypse.org/docs/dealers.pdf
Events Schedule: https://furpocalypse.org/docs/events.pdf
Panels Schedule: https://furpocalypse.org/docs/panels.pdf
Gaming Schedule: https://furpocalypse.org/docs/gaming.pdf
Movie Schedule: https://furpocalypse.org/docs/movies.pdf

Let me know if anyone out there is looking for more information, I'll see what I can do!

Also, volunteers are always welcome. Anyone working the graveyard shift will have those hours count double towards reward swag. Details here: https://furpocalypse.org/volunteer.html

~*~
Not included in Spot's post: I will have a table in the Dealer's Room, smack in the center of the damn thing. I am hoping to be premiere my Bawdy Bartender portfolio there, as well as my usual buttons and comics and prints, along with bottle openers. I will also have plush Tigerdiles if neither Caribou or Tanabi show up.

If you want a custom button (1.25" or 2.25") or bottle opener, please poke me now! I can happily make badge buttons featuring your character, since I'm not sure how I'll pull that off in a non-digital fashion (I might experiment with doing it with markers this weekend, because being able to do that on-site would be neat). I am also taking pre-con badge commissions. Don't worry,

dalesql and

fenris_lorsrai, your badges will be done by then :) I've just been in the middle of a "OH MY GOD THE CON'S NEXT WEEK" thing. Though the portfolio is nearly done, and I've already started printing, laminating, and punching pages :)

We've reached the new season of television and most of the shows I'm interested in (except Constantine) have had their season premieres, so let's do a review of them. Most if not all of these shows are available on the network's websites. We'll start with the worst first…

Selfie - Starring Karen Gillan (also known as Amy Pond from Doctor Who and Nova from Guardians of the Galaxy) and John Cho (Harold from Harold & Kumar, Sulu from the new Star Trek movies, the token Asian guy in most TV shows these days), this is apparently some weird backwards version of My Fair Lady — instead of a girl learning the proper ways to be a lady, it's an self-/internet-ratings obsessed girl learning to work with the normal world. The main characters even have basically the same names.

The pilot episode sucked. I could not tell if it was a stupid show trying to be clever or a clever show that came off as stupid (on purpose? I'd assume on purpose). Covering your main character in her own vomit in the first five minutes of your series premiere is awful, especially since we haven't developed any love or hate for this character — we don't know how to feel about her because the show just started. It just comes off as gross and sad, and left me feeling uncomfortable and skeevy. The rest of the episode, while less gross, did basically nothing for the character development. The whole show left me feeling absolutely nothing for any of the characters, and again, just generally uncomfortable. Apparently this is a theme with the creator of this show, Emily Kapnek, but I've never seen her other work (Suburgatory) and in all honesty I don't watch TV to feel uncomfortable.

Rating: Would read reviews to see if it improves; no interest in watching it again even though I like both of the main actors (NOT their characters in this, though).

/ scorpion - Take every trope you can find about geeks, blend it with every trope from police procedural shows, mix in a little possible-romance (or is that one of those tropes?) and you have this show. The characters are vaguely interesting — it's basically The Big Bang Theory except they have to save the world every show — but the science was awful…awful enough that I didn't find the need to watch the second episode. It's a weekly popcorn action flick, only it really bends the rules of science/technology and assumes the audience will be none the wiser, and I hate shows that do that.

Rating: Saw one episode and already have predictions on how the rest of the season will go (who's going to double-cross who). Will read reviews, probably will not continue to watch.

The rest of the shows that have just started aren't nearly as awful:

A to Z - This is apparently NBC's version of How I Met Your Mother, a show I've been a fan of for years (that in my opinion would have been way better if it had ended around Season 5…one of those "Stop renewing it, dammit, you're rewriting the characters in a way that contrasts the original plot! WE HAVE NETFLIX NOW, we can see you ret-conning the characters!"). Narrated by Katey Sagal (Leela from Futurama), it explores the relationship of Zelda (Cristin Milioti, the mother from HIMYM) and Andrew (Ben Feldman, an actor I'm not familiar with), which apparently lasts exactly the length of a television season. That's not a spoiler, that's literally how they open the show.

The show is set up pretty spot-on to how How I Met Your Mother was: flashbacks, quirky side characters, pop culture references. The "Meet Cute" of this first episode seems a LITTLE pushed to me, but perhaps it'll be explored more as the season develops and we learn more about the characters. Andrew's roommate is extremely annoying and I hope his jokes get less stupid as the series goes on, because they really are not funny (basically he's Seth Rogen's part in every Judd Apatow movie). But, pilot episode, will give it time.

Rating: Cute, with a definite timeline to follow, which is an interesting concept for a sitcom. Will continue to watch.

Manhattan Love Story - Another romance sitcom (sitromcom?) following a small-town girl named Dana who moves to New York City and is set up by her friends with Peter, an NYC native. Definitely another meet-cute kind of situation here, but I felt for the characters right off — because any girl whose Facebook password is "muggles" is going to pique my interest (because yes, I am that girl. And no, that's not my Facebook password). The interesting aspect of this show is that you can hear both the main character's thoughts — which is one step away from a Woody Allen movie where they break the fourth wall and talk to the audience — and I don't think I've personally seen that used in a sitcom that's not a "this is me telling the story of my life" show before.

The side characters are less annoying then in A to Z — Dana's roommates and Peter's sister and brother (who is one of Dana's roommates and married to her sorority sister, who is her other roommate). They seem much more like the typical New Yorkers you see in every other sitcom, which isn't a bad thing. Some of the jokes are a little dumb (sorority sisters + appletinis = lesbian makeouts, which I suspect will be a running gag if no one stops it), but not too bad for a pilot episode.

Rating: Cute, made me giggle, will continue to watch.

Shows that are not new:

Marvel's Agents of SHIELD - Season 2: two shows in, and we're off with a bang. Most people seem to want this show to be more than what it is, which is a comic book that happens to be a television show. Enjoyable, but probably plays a LOT better when you can watch the whole season in one go…peppering in the Marvel movies, since they are all part of the same universe. THAT is an aspect of the show that I love, the fact that they've turned it into an overarching story. They've done the transition from comic to TV/movie very well, and I enjoy it. Also they seem to be cloning Patton Oswalt, which I'm totally cool with.

I mentioned in my /scorpion review that I'm not fond of shows that bend the rules of science and technology. Marvel, of course, doesn't just bend the rules: they basically make up new ones. I do not feel talked down to by this show, which I think might be the difference?

Rating: It's Marvel. It's comics in TV form. I'll keep watching, picking up the characters and bits from the old comics, and enjoying :)

The Big Bang Theory - Season 8: There will be, at this point, at least 10 years of this show with the current contracts…and it's more of the same. Stereotypical geeks dealing with life, making pop culture references that are obviously written to appeal to those who know a LITTLE bit about geekdom, and to appease us geeks who are amused we've gotten into pop culture enough for a show like this to happen. Leonard and Penny are now engaged, working through their romantic issues; Sheldon is of course overly awkward and basically there to be a punchline; Raj is…actually he isn't seen too much so far, though I think he has a girlfriend now?; and Howard is dealing with Stuart (the former comic book store owner, who is another character that was written to be a punchline, only more downtrodden than Sheldon) in a weird, almost-romantic (but not quite…I think?) relationship with Howard's mother.

As I said: it's more of the same. If you've watched ANY of the show in the past 7 years, you can expect more of that.

Rating: Currently my Old Reliable, since How I Met Your Mother went off the air earlier this year. You know the characters, you can expect the jokes, it's not surprising but that's not a bad thing. *shrug*

Doctor Who - I think is already halfway through its current season and it's got one of those running storyline things that Moffat swore he wasn't going to do anymore of, so finding out the ending to that will probably change my opinion on the whole season. I like Peter Capaldi as the new Doctor a lot (he was instantly "The Doctor" and didn't take getting used to the way Matt Smith did), and I'm interested but mildly annoyed by the running plotline. Further review may occur when that plotline ends.

Rating: Assume if you like Doctor Who, you will probably like what they are currently doing with it =p

On our way, huzzah!

VICE published a really interesting article on the concept of the 4-hour workday. Basically, you get paid the same but your hours get cut in half, thus doubling the nation's workforce and increasing the amount of money and (almost more importantly [I say almost because our middle class has been decimated so having more money right now would be an excellent thing]) time people have to spend on stuff, thus benefitting the economy. It'd take a couple years for everything to equalize, but I think it's a pretty great plan.

The Official 4-Hour Work Day website is here, though I suspect chunks of the explanation text have been swiped from when we switched over to an 8-hour workday because some of the concepts (like women in the workforce) are a WEE bit outdated. I am pondering writing in and volunteering to help spread the word (possibly make buttons) but I'll see how I feel about it after discussing it with folks and getting more opinions on it.

~*~
The guy running for governor of Connecticut (well, technically running against someone in the primaries TO run for governor...I think) I got a push-poll call about a few weeks ago, Mark Foley, is in fact a douchebag. His comments on the Newtown tragedy are atrocious. I'm not surprised, unfortunately, because this mindset is basically that of the party he is running with ("Let's de-regulate everything and let ~~those on top~~ ~~those with money~~ God sort it out! WHO IS JOHN GALT, LIBERAL SCUM!"), but...damn. Guessing he's never had a job that paid minimum wage.

~*~
We saw a bumpersticker yesterday that said "ANNOY A LIBERAL: Work hard and be happy" and I'm not really sure how that annoys anyone. I'm a liberal and if you're happy with working hard, good for you! You're awesome!

I'm guessing people who are working 3 jobs and just barely being able to scrape by and they never see their kids because of the whole 3 jobs thing probably aren't too happy though. I'm just saying.

~*~
Disney is adding an extra month onto their Frozen Summer Funfest. I realize this is TOTALLY 100% a First World Problem, but damn I wish they'd announce these events sooner. You put in your reservations for restaurants 6 months in advance, and your hotel room even earlier, and FastPass+ (the "shorter wait time" thing they do) is 60 days in advance now...but they don't announce major events that change your day-to-day schedule until less than a month before your trip? C'mon, Disney. You're better than that.

~*~
The new series of Doctor Who kicked off its premiere tour today in Cardiff. You have to realize: Peter Capaldi was one of those fans, the SuperFan who wrote letters to the BBC staff of the show CONSTANTLY when he was a kid/teenager, complained vehemently about not being elected president of the official fan club, and generally drove the producers and other fans of the show completely crazy.

And now he is the Doctor.

To quote AppleJack: "I didn't learn anything! I was right all along."

(David Tennant, also known as the Tenth Doctor, was also a SuperFan, but probably not as hardcore as Peter Capaldi [from reports I've read anyway]. Though Tennant DID marry his favorite Doctor's daughter.)

~*~
Coolest Blog I've Found in a While: Gurney Journey, James Gurney's guide to art and being an artist, with new posts daily.

James Gurney is the guy who did Dinotopia.

You're welcome.

(I'm really surprised and kind of ashamed I didn't find this blog sooner, but that just means more for me to read NOW.)

~*~
I am currently reading Abigail Barnette's The Boss series, a book series written entirely to contrast the horrible badness (both writing-wise and about the BDSM lifestyle) of 50 Shades of Grey. I'm not into BDSM, myself, and I'm learning how much I'm not by reading the series (some things in the second & third books: not things I ever want to do). I'm vanilla and boring, apparently =p

I'm about halfway through the third book. The first book is decent and sexy, with lighter explorations of BDSM that are pretty hot in my opinion, and ends on a cliffhanger. The second book is ( Spoilers. )

Anyhoo, if you are interested in what is very much a GOOD version of 50 Shades of Grey, this is the series to get. Well, so far, hopefully the last half of the third book won't change my opinion on that.

~*~
( Speaking of birth control... )

~*~
Your Cuteness for the Day: CORGI PICNIC! Awwwwww! Thanks to

was1 for sharing that link :)

Current Mood: mellow

I've started something dubbed by Luno as "The Bawdy Bartender's Book," and it is going to be my main project this month (outside of running around in circles excited about going back to Disney World)! Poke on over to my FA journal to get the full scoop. I still have a few spots open, though if no one takes them, I will throw my own characters into the portfolio :)

~*~
Less than a month till our Disney trip and we are uberpsyched. I am reading WAY too many blogs and forums that I have already read a bunch of times, and following far too many Disney-related accounts on Twitter. I already know a ridiculous amount of everything about it, but I'm still doing it. Because EXCITED.

Of course, after our Disney trip (with a slight bounce in October for our local convention), I will be playing the "excited as all hell about going to California" game. Apparently the secret to keeping me happy is to know I will be traveling in the near future.

~*~
I was gonna say some other stuff but I have, in all honesty, completely forgotten. I'm gonna go back to spazzing about Disney and working on sketches :)

Or, How Normal People Operate on the Internet.

There is a post circling Tumblr right now called "The Furry Problem." I was going to bitch about it on Tumblr but in all honesty there's enough to bitch about that I'm moving my bitching here. Go give the post a read (or at least a quick skim), I can wait :)

Done? Alright, it's opinion time!

This post really, REALLY rubs me the wrong way. And I say that as someone who has been a member of the furry fandom for half my life now, and drawing furry art for nearly 30 years (I drew it long before I discovered the fandom). Also please keep in mind I have never read this fellow's comic or any other post he's made, so the post I linked is all I know about him.

First off, he's just not correct:
"As I grew older and began seriously getting into cartooning, I noticed something odd going on around me: the cartoon animal was quickly becoming an endangered species. The animal designs of the 80’s and 90’s TV cartoons were being seen less and less in modern times within the industries that they helped create.

How could this happen? Are people just no longer interested in funny talking animals?"

Uh. Funny talking animals are still pretty popular. Yes, the styles have changed, but they're still there. He seems really focused on the idea of style here; characters like those seen in Adventure Time, Regular Show, and even My Little Pony apparently don't count? Heck, when you get down to it, Spongebob Squarepants and all his undersea buddies are talking animals.

So, instead of thinking: "Hey, maybe I should work on my artistic skills! Drawing humans or in a style other than the one I draw in could be beneficial to my career!", he blames the furry fandom for his not being able to make a decent career out of drawing cartoon animals.

Beyond that, this statement:
"To everyone else, it roughly translates to a fandom entirely focused on sexual deviancy, homosexuality, and sexual activities that incorporate elaborate animal costumes."

...is extremely offensive. Homosexuality being equated with sexual deviancy is pretty fucking awful. Homosexuality is not a choice. Sexual deviancy and fucking in fursuits is. Beyond that, sexual deviancy and fursuit sex aren't hurting anyone AND they aren't any of your business; if you judge someone based on what they do in the bedroom you're basically an asshole (and a voyeur. Seriously, why do you care?). This entire statement sounds like someone trying to justify being against gay marriage (because, you know, those gays make you uncomfortable), and it just reeks of entitlement.

Actually, entitlement is a good word for the whole post, because the entire thing is just sitting there gleaming with it. Oh no, I can't get published because I draw furry art! Uh, so...if you want to get published by the company that rejected you specifically for the cartoon animals, draw something else. You've literally drawn yourself into a corner, and instead of opening your talents and drawing other things, you are blaming the fandom you have boxed yourself into.

To quote my friend Venter: "Remember kids: If you treat the fandom as a stigma, strangers will too."

Another bit from the article, reflecting on what I just said:
"You could argue that it was silly of me to not bend to the pressure and just make Peter & Company an all-human cast, but that is precisely the problem. There shouldn’t be anything WRONG with cartoon animal characters, nor should there have to be a plot-specific reason why these animals can walk and talk."

So far, outside of that one letter saying they weren't accepting comics with cartoon animals at the moment, I really doubt this a problem that's been encountered too much...well, unless this guy is listening to the assholes on the internet, which he probably is. Again, limiting yourself to one genre/fandom/style and then bitching about that genre/fandom/style being the reason you're not popular/can't get published/whatever he's bitching about is quite possibly the most moronic thing I have ever heard.

TLDR: Tabbie's opinion on the "Furry Problems" post is basically her making masturbatory gestures and rolling her eyes.

ANYWAY, I think I've run out of steam on this whole thing, but I just felt like bitching about it, and that's what LJ is for. Everyone is free to chime in your opinions on both the original post and my opinions on it...which is also what LJ is for!

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American Girl

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A Great Valentine's Day weekend

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Back from California! And possible Florida Non-Convention?

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Making your own book from scratch: Lessons Learned

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Drawing Yourself into a Corner and then Bitching About It