DJ_Bonebraker

Unfortunately, I saw this coming for some time now: While Toys R Us always had great selection, they would mark up the prices on all their stuff like 15% or so, then every so often have "sales" that gave you 15% off, so you'd be paying what you'd pay at other retailers. I was wondering when that kind of shady business practice would bite them in the ass, and it looks like it finally happened.

Well, non-pony hobbies of mine include, but are not limited to: Collecting Disney Princess dolls Collecting Ever After High dolls (Raven x Apple = otp) Collecting Strawberry Shortcake dolls Collecting & building Lego stuff (I'm a member of the local Lego User's Group or LUG, which are officially recognized Lego clubs) Making music (which will be getting a significant boost, now that I'm finally taking classes on music theory) Drawing Writing (which I'm planning on getting back into since my one friend who is a professional author told me she thought I had what it takes to make it as a professional author, but I want to take some creative writing classes at the local colleges first) Playing various video games & posting videos for some of them on my YouTube channel

I actually still have a copy of Arcanum floating around Anyways, there's this old, DOS game from 1992 that practically nobody's ever heard of called Executioners that was a Double-Dragon type beat 'em up, but with rather bad graphics & animation, however what makes this game stick in my mind is the entire warped storyline & combat was a black comedy gold mine:

My favorite games in the series are VII VIII & IX, but my absolute favorite, by far, currently is XIV, partially because you can create your own custom character in the game (it's an MMORPG), and partially because the online friends I made in-game have helped me get through some really rough parts of my life, and I even met my very best friend in RL through the game (it turns out she lives about half an hour from me). Here's a quick pic of my character as a level 69 Astrologian (I have all mage classes except Astrologian at the current level cap of 70 right now):

Despite being able to speak fairly fluent Japanese & familiar with Japanese culture & customs, I've been given the old "Chotto gaijin sama dame" (Sorry, but 'honorable' foreigners aren't allowed) line at least once when I was stationed in Japan for 3 years. I tried asking why (in Japanese), but the hostess just kept repeating the same line over & over, so I just said, "Ii-yo! Koko ni bachi atare!" (Fine then! May divine judgment fall upon this place!), and left, but not before seeing her eyes widen when I basically invoked the wrath of God on her establishment, but I figure if you're going to be a bigot, you deserve it.

When I was stationed in Japan, I pretty much only ate Japanese food whenever I could get off the base (which was usually in the afternoons, after about 5PM on weekdays when I didn't have duty). Since most Japanese food is either vegetables or fish/seafood & rice along with eggs, I guess you could say I was a pescetarian by default the three years I was in Japan, and I'd probably go back to it if Japanese food was easier/cheaper to come by around here. As it is now, while I'm not any kind of vegetarian or even a pescetarian, I do try to eat less meat in general, and red meat in particular for both health & environmental reasons (that and I don't particularly like beef, because I'm weird like that). The meat that I do eat is mostly chicken (free-range if I can get it), some seafoods & other poultry, which I usually cook in soups & stews with lots of veggies (just finished up the last of a big batch of stewed turkey saussage, cabbage & potatoes that I made Sunday, and I guarantee that the Cabbage & Potatoes, along with two whole onions were the majority of the dish)... Heck, I'm thinking about getting a block of Tofu next time I go to Voldemart for groceries so I can try and make a batch of Oden from this recipe I got in this one Japanese cookbook my parents got me for Christmas a while back (best part is, aside from eggs & the dashi (fish stock), you can make Oden pretty much 100% vegetarian, and I even have a completely vegetarian (but not vegan, since it calls for butter & sour cream) borscht recipe that I make from time to time that's really good (plus one batch is enough for about 3-4 meals for me & it keeps in the fridge for at least 2 weeks, thanks to having vinegar & dill in it).... I personally don't have any issues with vegans or vegetarians as long as they don't get all self-righteous about it.

First of all, is is bad that this was the first thing I thought of when I saw the thread title? But to answer the question, yes, I am a mmmmmm... beyetch who likes mmmmmm bananas. They've always been one of my favorite fruits, and I even have 4 banana trees of unusually hardy varieties planted outside my house in central PA (although they're currently dormant for the winter).

That's what I like about the whole setting/premise of Ever After High, and why I like it better than Monster High: Monster High is mostly your typical teen drama fluff, but with Universal/Hammer Horror monsters' kids, whereas Ever After High takes on some deep stuff. Also, I found this fanart a while back & I could totally see Raven's mom doing something like this: http://fav.me/d9rvzpx (Yes, while I'm not usually into shipping, I ship Raven x Apple like I was FedEx).

I've been rotating between Final Fantasy XIV, Minecraft & Battlefield 1 currently.

OOoooooooh! I LOVE Ever After High! As a matter of fact, it was the first "girly" thing that I openly admitted to liking (not all that long after I came out as transgender, in fact), even before I finally gave MLP a chance. What got me interested is that I like Fractured Fairy Tale type stories (like EAH & RWBY), and the whole concept of the daughter of the Evil Queen from Snow White leading a revolt against tradition really spoke to me, since I'd spent pretty much my whole life up to that point being told I was a guy & was only allowed to like guy things. While I agree with the fact that some of the jokes were pretty corny, I like corny jokes, and the show was getting better right up to the Dragon Games (I'll be spoilering what I really like about the Dragon games, but it actually made me reconsider Apple White's whole character and actually start to like her), but then, it seems that lackluster sales on the EAH dolls, coupled with the Monster High reboot caused them to basically half-ass Epic Winter (although even that had some good moments). Anyways, I will say that the books are definitely where it's at for the series, particularly the ones by Shannon Hale, and I have almost all of them.

I must say, watching a play-through of Space Marine made me re-think my opinion of the Ultra-smurfs as well. It even inspired me to make Captain Titus as a Create A Soul character in Soul Calibur V (I gave him Siegfried's move-set and this one sword that looks like an Astartes power sword)... Then again, I also created a Blood Raven (whom I just named Spess Mehreen) and Angry Marine as well.....