HereComesTom

I sure hope I get some feedback on this base-project soon; I've been working on this project for a while, and I just got done with my first draft of Celestia's tail-animation!

I've been posting here and there that I've had anxiety attacks since seeing the MLP Movie.  I'd been thinking for a long time that the anxiety had nothing to do with the MLP Movie, and were more a result of my Seasonal Affective Disorder.  I'm still pretty sure my SAD had a lot to do with it, but in the last day or two, I've realized something:

I love Equestria, and the way the movie drilled home how its existence is so fragile...scared the crap out of me.  I know the TV has shown Equestria in deep trouble before, but not like how the movie did!

Still, I want to enjoy the movie, and my anxiety's gotten better over the last few weeks.  I hope I get to enjoy it with friends in the next week or so.

I've been working for a few years now on a fangame, Weather Factory Meltdown---still at it, though I'm taking a break to work on an art request.

But having worked on it for several years at this point (since 2012!), I've thought of a lot of things that Hasbro wouldn't let me do if the game were an official piece.  Like, a LOT of things.  Like when I'm sitting in my cubicle at work, Skippy's List-like things pop into my head, and I write them down.

I've accumulated a LOT of rules over the years, and I think I should start sharing them.  Here's one of the first:

1)  When naming OCs for the Canterlot Royal Guard, the following names are off-limits:  Cannon Fodder, Red Shirt, Brown Pants.

Know what's getting under my skin these days?  It's the talk about racism---and not what I'm hearing, but what I'm NOT hearing.

See, different cities can have very different race relations:  in one city, racism can be a huge problem, while in another city, racism isn't an issue at all and people are generally treated equally.

That means that you can't make blanket statements about racism...but people are making blanket statements about it, anyway!

Well, I watched the MLP Movie again with some friends, and this time, I didn't feel like it was triggering me.  I noticed that my heart was pounding at several points in the film, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't an anxiety trigger.

Watching it again...well, it gave me a different perspective on the characters, but I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it...!

...Aaaaaand today is my birthday!

...And tomorrow is when my Ms. Pacman arcade1up machine arrives :/

...How did I just manage to get awarded all these gemstones all at once?!

I mean, it's kind of appropriate, since my fangame uses gem golems as enemies, but still...!

/sigh

The Whinny City pony convention isn't going to take place, after all!  I'd spent a ton of money getting 800 physical buttons made to promote my fangame, too---and now I can't do squat with them this year!

/sigh...

So far, my FangameFactory hasn't gotten much exposure at all at this online convention...I need to pick the right times to be in the hotdog-stand and pizza-joint chatrooms...!

According the the banner, I'm lively!

Aaaaaand iTunes doesn't have the finale yet---it looks like it won't be available until tomorrow; it's Sundays that I get notifications that a new episode is available :/

After weeks of waiting for my Capcom Legacy Arcade1up cabinet to arrive, and about two super-sweaty hours assembling it, I discover a sad truth:  I suck at the games that're on it :/

...At least it looks pretty good in my man-cave!

Another one from the List of Things Hasbro Won't Let a Brony Do in a Fangame:

3)  Pinkie-Swears aren't the kind of things I should need to bleep over.

Bought a whole bunch of candy.  Spent half an hour putting it into little ziplock bags, so it'd be easy to give it to kids with little risk of the virus getting anywhere.

...Not a single trick-or-treater showed up.  :/

Dang...hard to believe the series is over...and my fangame is probably still a couple of years away from being done!  All because I just HAD to have a level editor for it...

I don't quite consider it a failure; the level editor makes it versatile to the point where it can be used for other, non-MLP related stuff.  And even if it's after the series finale of G-4, that doesn't prevent other bronies from making fangames or other fan content---with or without my game.  Still, when I started, some part of me wanted to present it to Hasbro and get it approved...though I knew that'd be a long shot then, I know it's not even that now.

What's really got me cut up, though, is the sheer finality of this finale.  I kind of wish I had some IRL friends who're into FiM, as then I'd have someone to talk with about it.

Debate Symposium closed?  I haven't been in there for years, but from the sound of things, that's a good thing...!

You know...I never knew that religious or political things aren't supposed to be in status updates until I rad Jeric's post.  I need to keep up to date on the forum's rules!

Facebook got so political for me that, months ago, I decided to stop going to Facebook.

And today is the one day I decide to log in and see if there's anything worth seeing---and it's down!  How can one of the biggest social media platforms in existence be down?!

Found this on youtube (by someone who insists he's not a brony), and my first thought was "Isn't Twilight's tail getting soaked?"

...Then things went from bad to worse...

Gate's open!  68LT0

Happy new year!  I'd not planned on being awake at midnight, but...that's how it happened; I'd wanted to get some work done since I was inadvertently and unexpectedly behind, and then I saw that midnight was close, so...I just stayed up!

Has anyone else seen 4everfreebony's latest piece?  It was gorgeous!

I don't know if you're still keeping an eye on the forum, but I hope you are---we're looking forward to the new series coming out soon!

I have to say that I had a very strange and slightly disturbing experience, but at least I got to be the hero of the story this time!

Here's what happened:  my brother got a request out of the blue from someone on Facebook, a girl with a pretty and nerdy photo, asking to start a relationship with him.  No one he'd ever met or heard of before, but he is more or less in the market for a girlfriend, so he was interested.

If this sounds suspicious to you, I'll spoil the ending and say you're spot-on.  The ending isn't really the interesting part of the story, anyway:  how I got there is the interesting part!

My brother told me about all this over dinner (it was just this afternoon that he was first contacted), so I got out my phone and looked up "hangouts app" on google, and about the third or fourth suggestion was "hangouts app scam". 

Huh.  Why am I not surprised?

So I tapped "hangouts app scam" on Google and, lo and behold: THE very first page that Google listed was a Federal Trade Commission web page, warning people about scams where someone starts a relationship, keeps it going for a while, and then asks for money.  The FTC's page also suggested I do a "reverse image search" on the person's image to see if they just downloaded a photo of a pretty girl off the internet and then used that photo to pretend to be her.

Well, my brother was busy after dinner (not with anything having to do with her, either, thank goodness), so I took it upon myself to learn about this would-be suitor.  It'll come as no surprise to you that the photo came from Twitter from someone with a completely different name...advertising the kinds of images that I wouldn't talk about on THIS site.

Again:  why am I not surprised by any of this?

It gets more interesting:  I had a school friend on facebook who I noticed was also friends with her.  I decided to warn him about her and let him know what happened to my brother---and it turns out she had talked with my school friend, earlier this very afternoon, with the exact same request:  start a relationship---just out of the blue, start a relationship!

So...she's either a two-timing lowlife, or a scam artist.  ...Or conceivably both:  it's not like those are mutually exclusive categories!

...It's just a little disturbing that things like this can happen to those who're close to me.  But there is a lesson to be learned from it all:  vigilance, using your head, and reading relevant government notices about scams can save your bacon, as well as the bacon of your kith and kin!

I just got my hands on a new laptop!  It's an HP Pavilion 15, and I upgraded the ram from 8GB to 16GB before switching it on for the first time!

Now to see how long it takes to install World of Warcraft and League of Legends on this rig...