DJ_Bonebraker

I'm going to be going this year for sure, even though it means sacrificing participating in my LUG's display at BrickFair VA this year.  Way I see it, BrickFair isn't going anywhere anytime soon, but this is the last BronyCon ever, and I've only been to two other ones, and I'd regret not making it to this final one as well.

Believe it or not, but this thing:

This is an MP3 player I built from a kit (well the circuit board & components were a kit... I made the housing from scratch) almost exactly 10 years ago.  I used to use it as my car music player, at least until I got one that let you play MP3 cds, then it became part of my home Stereo system, where it's plugged into the amp, and I listen to it when doing things around the house.  I just recently did a bit of an overhaul for the first time in almost 10 years, mainly to add the labeling, tighten up some screws, and move the power jack from the bottom to the side of the housing.  Thing is, 10 years after I first soldered the board together, made the housing & turned it on for the first time, it still works just like it was brand new, and I'm going to continue rocking out with it for as long as I can get replacement parts (not that I'll be likely to need them, since even the board & components looked brand-new when I had it out during the power jack shift project).

I also took this thing to BronyCon this year as part of my steampunk Cosplay (along with a suitably steampunkish battery pack & headphones).

Look what I got at BronyCon on Sunday!

Tabitha also signed my Equestria Girls mini of Rarity as well... Definitely one of the highlights of BronyCon this year for me.

We probably won't get any kind of solid info on Generation 5 until sometime next year at the earliest.

I'm definitely going.  I may have joined the fandom late & started going to BronyCon late (last year was my first BronyCon), I'm determined to see this thing through to the end.

Yeah, when I heard the announcement during the closing ceremonies, it just floored me.  I mean next year BronyCon will be the same exact weekend as BrickFair (one of the biggest LEGO fan conventions on the East Coast that I also like to attend), but since it's going to be the last BronyCon ever, and BrickFair has been going on for over 10 years & still going strong, so I've decided that I'll be going to BronyCon instead.

Still, the news just made me so sad.

*raises hand*  I have ADHD, as in fully tested (including being hooked up to a full EEG & MRI) & documented...  This of course is the source of my OTHER mental problems due to the fact that, thanks to the ADHD going undiagnosed until I was 9, on top of which I was born & raised in the middle of Bum-f**k Egypt with no other kids my age to play with (aside from my brother, who is 2-years younger than me) prior to starting elementary school, so I ended up doing stupid shit that made all the other kids hate & bully me constantly from the time I started kindergarten up to the time I graduated.  I still have really shitty social skills thanks to all that, which is why I could easily empathize with Starlight Glimmer in Season 6.

As a result of said bullying, I have anxiety issues & PTSD (which my military service added to, but the service-related PTSD is nowhere near as bad as what was the result of being constantly bullied), as well as fairly regular bouts of depression stemming from them.

Even with weekly counseling sessions with a licensed psychotherapist, some day's it's still a major struggle to get out of bed and do anything at all...

Even so, despite being in the middle of one of my bouts of anxiety & depression, I am determined to get into my car & drive down to Baltimore & go to BronyCon this weekend & not give in to just staying home & doing nothing....

TBH, if they did come out with some kind of Lego-compatible building sets based on MLP, they'd most likely be Kre-O, which is Hasbro's own brand of Lego-compatible bricks.  And I would be totally OK with that, since Kre-O is about the only clone brand that has quality that is close to that of actual Lego bricks.

23 hours ago, Steve Piranha said:

Who wants a high quality and expensive statuette of a cute nerd?

I totally need this!

32 minutes ago, Jeric said:

And this is another concept that probably deserves a good honest debate too. I have friends and family who have been fair minded individuals who have been singled out as racist, sexist, etc online for various, almost reasonable views. I actually would have considered them social moderates or centrists. Over the last five or so years, they have slowly been embittered and poisoned by the rhetoric of some, to the point that now I so see a stronger and unflattering position toward various groups that wasn't present before. I have slowly accepted that the irrational belief that there are monsters in every closet has actually started to create some, like some sort of Newtonian inspired social law. The words that I dismiss so much had something to do with that by trying to manifest guilt where none was earned. As we approach a time where the SCOTUS is poised to swing right, and some of the progress I approve of may be modified, I have to look at the hard-left progressives and wonder aloud, "Is this your doing? Was shaming a chunk of the nation with terms like white privilege worth THIS?" 

Being adrift in the middle can be infuriating. So, I suppose my final word on this is, without buzzwords, people would have a harder time taking a short-cut to inducing the social dichotomy that we now live in. Of course, I'm realistic so I know and understand that they are not going anywhere. I suppose I am just as flawed as any Joe Q Public with my own biases and prejudices, but I'll gladly use three sentences to communicate those flawed ideas instead of using the Konami Code to do so. 

Twenty years ago I was seen as conservative. Four years ago I was seen as liberal. Maybe it is the fact that I am in my 40's now, but I'm quite comfortable in my world view. It serves me well enough to suggest no buzzword is going to change my mind. 

I agree 110% with this, Jeric.  I'm kinda the same way, but a bit younger, and at this point, sick of the whole, to quote George Washington's farewell address , "alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension" that BOTH major political parties (and their strong supporters) engage in, that I'm basically saying (to quote Mercutio) "A plague on BOTH your houses!"

And the back & forth between Tumblr white knights (a.k.a. SJW) and self-declared "Deplorables" makes me want to do like Moe in the Three Stooges & bonk both sides' collective skulls against each other until some sense gets knocked into them.

I mean it's just sad & disturbing that I, as a member of the LGBTQIA community, get a lot of flack FROM said community because I call certain "activists" out for doxxing people, inciting the rest of the community (and other far-left types) to harass & heckle them & generally do their best to ruin their lives just because they may have said something homophobic once, 10 years ago or some utter BULLSHIT like that!  I mean I'm like, "You want the Republicans to increase their majority in congress & Trump to get re-elected?  Because that is how you increase the Republican majority in congress & get Trump re-elected!"

I mean I actually agree, in principle, that people shouldn't be using slurs of any kind (racist, ableist, homophobic, etc), but going out of your way to harass someone, ruin their livelihood & in at least one recent case, push them into committing suicide (and then laughing about it as some did on the facebook post I saw sharing the news article about it), makes me not want to be associated with the LGBT community anymore, even though I AM transgender!

Now that, is what I consider to be the kind of behavior exhibited by so-called Social "Justice" Warriors (more like Social Lynch-Mob Warriors if you ask me, going about like that!), and I will not hesitate to call people out for crap like that either, especially since that's the exact same kind of tactics the Klan & other far-right groups use to intimidate people, and I don't care if you're cause is the "right" one, the end NEVER justifies the means.  Hell, more atrocities have been committed through the ages using the excuse that the end justifies the means than any other reason.

I've seen a few amusing ones in both Final Fantasy XIV & Battlefield one.

Some of the more memorable ones in Battlefield 1 were this guy whose user name was "A knife-wielding Ninja".  I got killed several times by A knife-wielding Ninja that round...
Similarly was the guy whose name was "one artillery shell"... Lots of people were killed that match by one artillery shell (that somehow was able to use machineguns).
Of course, I also had to give some mad props to Sgt. Alvin York, since whoever came up with that name did their historical research.

On my server in Final Fantasy XIV there's someone named "Velocirapture Dionosir", and a cat-girl player character named "Mew Tube" and another catgirl pc named "Meowly Cyrus". 
Of course, some of the more amusing ones I've seen in dungeon runs with PuGs consisting of players from other servers on the data center were Lalafells (hobbits) with names like "Falafel Fawaffle" or my personal favorite, a Lalafell Dragoon (melee DPS class) named "Ankle Biter" XD.

Well, if you were to look at my FFXIV character's current look, I think you'd be able to tell which version of Alice I like the most:

That said, I, like Dreambiscuit said, prefer the original book version of Alice, followed closely by Tim Burton's take & then the classic Disney one, and my character's look is inspired by all three versions.  Which makes sense when you realize my character is supposed to be me if I was assigned female at birth, and I created the character as a female version of myself shortly after I came out, as a way to navigate the rabbit hole of finally honestly exploring my gender identity & such....

12 hours ago, PathfinderCS said:

Personally, and this is coming from a resident of south-west West Virginia where the flag is held, flown, and used by a LOT of good people, I felt it was necessary. While I also agree that it is a representation of slavery, it also represents a group that tried to fight against and overthrow the voted-in government in a bloody conflict. I don't know, but it never made sense to me. I mean, I could, in theory. understand the argument of "it represents my southern heritage" and such, but what does that really mean? Are we using that as an excuse to gloss over just what happened during the Civil War and why it was fought?

My question is how much history are we forgetting by it being in the public light? For everyone saying that we're forgetting history by removing it from governmental buildings & such; how much history were we learning by it remaining there? I won't advocate for every Confederate flag to be removed from private houses and burned, but I do think it'd be better if these flags are displayed in museums where people can actually learn what it stands for AND why people connect to it. To me; it seems we attach more emotion than reason to symbols without understanding how and why they are important.

Disclaimer: I won't claim to know everything about this subject; just my two cents.

I pretty much agree with what Pathfinder said here, but want to add a few more things to it:

Speaking as someone who had ancestors who fought on both sides of the Civil War, I believe that the only time Confederate flags should be displayed on public property is on an actual Civil War battlefield, as a way to mark where various units were positioned at key points in the battle, much like how it's done at the Gettysburg Battlefield (which is like 20 mi from my house & the ancestor who fought on the Union side was heavily involved in that particular battle). 
Furthermore, the flag that most people think of as the Confederate Flag was never actually used by the confederacy!  It is similar to the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia (Robert E Lee's army), which was the same color & design, but square, as well as the Confederate Naval Ensign (which is the same design & shape, but somewhat different colors), so people waving the current flag aren't even waving a flag that was actually used by the Confederacy!

And one thing that really grinds my gears is some of the local yahoos/edgelords who thing their being cool or edgy by hanging the flag outside their houses... I'm basically like, "You guys DO know that they were the enemy during the Civil War right?  I mean those bastards burned our town to the ground and you're waving their flag around?!  Not cool!" 

I just pre-ordered Battlefield V (and got all the swanky bonus weapons for Battlefield 1 that come with pre-ordering Battlefield V)

On 6/12/2018 at 2:40 AM, CoconutCake said:

Renewed Final Fantasy XIV Online / For PC & PS4

Nice!  What server are you on?  I'm on Faerie.

Most disappointing game I ever played?  Well, let's just say that, at one time, I owned a copy of the infamous E. T. The Extraterrestrial game for the Atari 2600, and after about 20 minutes of trying to play that train-wreck, let's just say that I was not surprised at all to discover that game was a major contributing factor to an event that almost destroyed the ENTIRE video game industry....

In addition to the stuff I posted a while back, I've gotten back into yet another of my hobbies that I'd basically put on hold for the past 7 years, namely building functional steampunk/dieselpunk electronic devices.  I currently have two Raspberry Pi projects in the works, and I got a new metal tape embossing label maker so I can finally start adding labels to some of my old projects, like this one:

Her accent IS fake, for all intents & purposes:  It's known as the "Transatlantic Accent" and was essentially America's answer to Received Pronunciation in Britain, i.e. a learned upper-crust accent usually taught & enforced at high-end boarding schools and/or acting schools, although the Transatlantic accent pretty much fell out of use by the late 1950's, even in Hollywood, but if you were to watch any American film from like 1927 (when sound movies really caught on) until like 1955 or so, you'd hear the same accent being used, and there are even still voice coaches who teach the accent for actors wanting to do period pieces set in the early 1900's up to the end of WWII:

Explanation

Speaking of musical instruments, I managed to get this bad boy for $0.95 at this Goodwill Outlet store when I was out visiting my brother in Pittsburgh yesterday::
 

On 5/7/2018 at 7:29 PM, Totally Lyra said:

No "soda pop" option? 

That's actually what a lot of people around here call it, including me.  Probably because this area more or less falls on the dividing line between the areas where "Soda" is more common & the ones where "pop" is more common.

Just went to a local Ham(radio)fest today & picked up, among other random misc electronic parts & cables:  A vintage "Lollypop" microphone, an aluminum automotive Mini-ITX case, an old Franklin ACE 1200 Apple II clone computer from 1983 & a padded aluminum case:

...And on the way back home, I stopped at Books A Million & bought the rest of the Harry Potter series (Books 3-7) in hardcover.

Let's see, where to start.....

Among many other things, I have a collection of fashion dolls, mainly Disney Store Disney Princess dolls (had to re-build the collection due to She Who Mustn't Be Named taking them all when she left) & Ever After High, and of course all my MLP stuff, but that's fairly tame.

I basically started decorating my house when I moved in shortly after marrying You Know Who like it belonged to a wizard from Harry Potter, including a wooden Hogwarts plaque, a wooden framed "A Magical Welcome to New York" from Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find them, a framed replica of the cover of The Quibbler from Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince that I picked up from the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in 2012, among other Harry Potter paraphanelia, including a set of replica Gringott's Bank coins (Galleon, Sickle & Knut), full Hogwarts Uniform (Hufflepuff) and rubber stamp & wax seal sets for both Hogwarts & the Ministry of Magic.

In addition to the above, I also have various retro/steampunk appliances, including a kit-built MP3 player with a 2-gang Bakelite electrical box with custom-made brass cover plate & aluminum angle plate framework as its housing (and it also has an analog volume control knob as well as LEDs mounted in old lamp housings for its power/play indicators), a modified Western Electric Model 317 wall phone (the kind with the crank & separate ear & mouthpiece) that was made between 1914 & 1938, but I updated the internal circuitry to work on modern phone lines & even added a bakelite box with aluminum cover with a touch-tone dialer circuit & keypad (payphone type) so you can make calls from that phone as well as take them.  I also have a 1978 vintage Stromberg-Carlson multi-line office phone on my computer desk (You can see it in this picture sitting behind my Novation ReMote MIDI controller), as well as a retro-style phone made to look like a 1930's airport field phone that I purchased at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum in 2013 in the master bedroom.

In addition, I have various unusual flags hanging in various places around the house, including 3 different pirate flags (Calico Jack Rackham flag with crossed cutlasses under the skull above my workbench in the garage, a giant Jack Sparrow flag I got at the Renaissance Fair hanging above & behind my TV in the living room, and a "Pirates for Hire" jolly roger hanging on the wall behind my computer desk for the lulz), as well as a Japanese Naval Ensign that I bought at the souvenir shop for the museum battleship Mikasa in Yokosuka Japan, a banner/sign for the Katsumi restaurant in Miura, Japan that was given to me by the owner because he was impressed with how well I could speak Japanese & as a way to thank me for answering all his questions about life in America, and finally, a flag for the Kurdish YPG (people's protection units) hanging on the wall above my computer desk as well:

So yeah, I guess you can say that anyone can tell that no mere muggle lives at my place.

So, I recently started re-reading the Harry Potter series, and I'm on the Chamber of Secrets, so I had an idea to do a crossover thing with Sunset Shimmer, but it looks like someone else already beat me to it:

(Looks like Sunset got the wrong diary, lol)

I'm rather complicated:  I'm about 90% attracted to women, which is fairly straightforward, but on top of that, I'm bi-gender, which means that half the time I'm a guy who is mostly straight, while the other half I'm a mostly lesbian woman.  Needless to say this rather limits my dating options.....

If I ever own a smart phone, it will be some kind of Raspberry Pi or similar DIY project like the one I linked above, but put into the housing of one of the old "Brick" cell phones from the 1980's that look like this:


 

but with the keypad replaced by a touch-screen.

Occasionally.  I mean I think I made history by serving my entire 6 years in the navy without getting drunk once.  I tend to prefer sweet wines, mead & other drinks that taste good to me, which oddly enough, includes straight Jack Daniels & Jägermeister.  Still, moderation is the word with me:  I bought a bottle of Jäger the day after the election in 2016 & didn't finish it until the middle of last year, which shows how infrequently I drink.