Q: How're you doing?
A: Rough day yesterday. Our elderly horse Snowdancer (who my wife had named with her normal screenname way back when, so there's a thing), passed away. My wife says she was 28, but I swear she's being saying that for five years. In any case, for a Belgian draft horse that's pretty old.
Snowdancer had originally been a logging horse. Basically the intent was that she would be brought to areas where they were harvesting trees that the terrain was too rough for heavy
I haven't done much with this blog for awhile, as I haven't been asked any questions that I felt made sense to put here. However there was one I can do...
Q: How's it going? A: Eh. It's going weird, actually. My day job is being a serious pain. Microsoft is a strange place many days, especially in areas I work in. I'm a database guy in IT attached to an internal business group, so I don't deal with outside customers. There's this bizarre attitude coming down from upper management that 'Every
I was asked about how BABSCon went by a couple of people, so I’m going to do a full review from my point of view here. It seems to be a valid place. It's going to include more than just the Con itself, because in my opinion the Con was one part of a bigger picture.
I’m an experienced con-goer. I’ve been doing it for decades all over this continent. But I had burned out on cons many years ago. They seemed to have the same vendors, the same panels, the same events over and over and over aga
Q: Do you have any MLP Merchandise?
A: Actually, I just got something. Normally I avoid getting stuff like that simply because I get an irrational need to complete sets, and I can't really afford to be a 'collector'. More about affording the space to store the stuff than anything. However, just yesterday I picked up this:
Mainly because the manestyle it came with threw me for a loop. For some reason this particular Twilight had this odd messy, curly manestyle. Different from the others
Q: I never actually asked a moderator a stupid question but: best pony? - @@Cannon and rarity
First off, Best Pony is never a stupid question.
Second, I'm not a mod really. I'm a sectional staffer and I only have limited access to tools, and only in the RP areas because that's where I'm assigned. My boss is a mod (@@Love), not me.
Finally, Luna is best pony! Mostly because of the potential she has as a character. Celestia is also pretty high up there for the same reasoning. I hones
I've been asked a couple of questions recently that all can be blending into one answer, but the answer gets a bit ranty and sob-storyish, be warned.
To paraphrase the questions: What's up? You always seem to be so busy, and recently you seem more stressed than normal.
Answer:
Yeah, it never seems to let up for the last few years, and just recently things have ramped up. In a month or so I'm in a costume contest with my wife and some of our friends as a group entry. I'm still only pa
More of an addendum to a previous question. I've been forwarded some pictures of my little part in the Aeterno Elementum fantasy rock opera production I've been busy with these last couple of weeks. I'm billed as one of the 'Demoness' Army' and start out as a lone Viking warrior who gets beaten down by hordes of undead (well, okay four. On that size stage, that's about as horde-like as you can get.) and then immediately gets raised by one of the Elemental Generals as another undead... I'm not su
Q: Do you play video games? If so, which ones? -@
Not very often, to be honest. I just don't seem to have a lot of time.
In general I don't like MMOs very much, and that's what a lot of games are pushed as now. I much prefer playing single-player games, or LAN games with a small group of friends, than a large number of unknown people. But they don't make many LAN-type games anymore, at least ones that aren't FPS'ers which my friends and I don't deal with much. I truly suck at PvP, so I m
Q: You've done some acting? Have you been in anything I've seen?
Highly unlikely.
The only video-like stuff I've been in that actually got released... you only see the back of my head at best for a fraction of a second. I was a patron in the bar in Professional Courtesy, and you see the back of me charging someone at about 4:15 in this music video:
I've also been in a lot of films that never got past the editing stage. You'd be surprised at how many movies never get finished. In
Why do I get the feeling you're the only one reading these, @?
Q: What kind of books do you read? Any favorites in particular?
I read a lot. Mostly sci-fi and fantasy, though I do read a lot of non-fiction books on history, culture, architecture, crafting, etc.
When I was young it was mostly Heinlein, Asimov, Tolkien, Poe, and Lovecraft. My more current lists lean more to Terry Prachett (Discworld, though I recommend the newer ones over the first few. In my opinion it took a bit for
Q: Do you remember Rocky and Bulwinkle? from @
Why yes, I do. Though to be honest, when I watched them they usually were put as bookend shorts on either side of other features I remember better. Dudley Do-Right, Mr. Peabody, Underdog, etc.
And yes, I am aware of the 1992 Boris and Natasha film, and the 2000's 'The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle' thing... dear lord, they should leave well enough alone. Those old cartoons were very much a thing of their times, and they do *not* transla
I just remembered being asked this one awhile back. Figured might as well put a detailed answer here.
Q: You're married right? Is your wife in the fandom as well?
Not... really. She's fully aware of the fandom, and that I'm part of it. She's watched clips of the show, and knows enough about it to be able to proofread/proofview what creative output I have and have a reasonably educated opinion. But that's all. In her own words, "I'm already into too many things right now."
She's a fa
Q: Do you remember cartoons like Beany and Cecil? - from @
I do remember The New Adventures of Beany and Cecil from the late 80's, when I was in high school. But that memory was very vague and I had to look it up to refresh it. During which I found out there was a previous cartoon back in 1960 or so, which was in turn based on a live-action puppet show from the 50's. I don't remember those things though, as they predate even me.
The 80's version wasn't very popular as I remember, and di
Q: How did you get to be a Mod on MLPF?
First, I’m not actually what most of you think of when you say ‘mod’. I’m a sectional staffer, which means I’m responsible for a specific slice of the forum, and dealing with a specific slice of the rules. In my case the ‘RolePlay World’ section which has a few special rules that the rest of the forum wouldn't care about, and to be fair I’m really concentrated on the regular roleplay area. The ‘Equestrian Empire’ canon section has other sectionals look
Q: Okay, so if you were too old for MLP when it first came out, what kind of stuff did you watch when you were in MLP’s target demographic?
Oh dear. When I was that age… well, I was in Ontario, Canada, which had a very strange mix of British and American imports at the time, with a smattering of stuff that was uniquely Canadian. The import stuff was often several years behind, due to the way importing TV worked then, and syndication and reruns were… confusingly organized. The end result was
Q: Somebody mentioned you’re a farmer?
Sort of? My wife and I live out in the sticks, and we do have four sheep to look after.
(I don't have a good picture of the fourth, as she's new) My wife spins the wool into thread for use in weaving, knitting, and the like, and we sell that at craft and renfaires in various places in the region. We also have two horses, but we don’t currently have enough property to house them here, so we board them at a different place not that far away. (Yep, that
Q: In your previous answer, you said ‘what American’s would call’? Are you not American?
This answer changed recently. I was born in Canada, and my parents are both British, but I’ve been working in the USA for quite a number of years now, and I’ve been married an American citizen for over ten years.
I just finished the rather strange process of ‘Naturalization’ as they like to call it. So yes, I’m now an American. However, I’m still Canadian and thanks to my parents my accent has a tend
Q: Your profile mentions a lot of stuff you’ve done. Are you actually qualified for all that?
Nope. Most of that was from before you needed qualifications to do everything.
I have a Bachelor degree in Chemical Engineering (which shows up as BASc.) and I have what Americans would call Associate degrees in Environmental Science, Architecture, Computer Science, Process Engineering, and History. And I think I’ve got an MBA somewhere, because those things sometimes get handed out like prizes
Continuing the 'Ask Fhaolan' with what is possibly the most common question I get:
Q: Are you really that old?
Yeah, my age in my profile is accurate. While the majority of bronies are teen/early 20’s, you’d be surprised how old some of us are.
I’m not the oldest member of this site, by a long shot, but I’m currently the oldest staffer by a month or so. There’s a whole slew of us ‘older bronies/pegasisters’ on this site, and a lot of us have masked ages so you’d never know.
Yes,
I was resistant to doing an ‘Ask Fhaolan’ blog, as I honestly don’t think I get enough questions to justify such a thing. On the other hand, as a current staffer for MLPF there’s a chance people might be curious about the questions I *do* get. And filling up my ‘profile’ with this stuff will just get clunky and unwieldy, so here we are.
Let’s get started with a few of the questions I’ve gotten over the time I’ve been on MLPF. If you’ve got any other questions, feel free to ask. I’ve got a lo
