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http://andrewbarnick.tumblr.com/post/87440485002/pixelkitties-askasanebrony-retake-the I was happy to see this on my twitter and tumblr. There's still not much I can do on my own to make bronies and non-bronies alike reconsider what the fandom really means—but hopefully by sharing this I can add my voice to the choir.

Essays, Not Rants! 115: Merited Futility I like playing video games, I really do. I write about them a lot too. Gaming is great: it’s a great form of catharsis, sometimes carries unique stories, and it’s just plain fun. Which then makes it odd when I say I have trouble justifying gaming. See, it sometimes feels like a waste of time. After all, outside of the magic circle in which gaming takes place, it has no effect on, well, anything. That’s what a game is, isn’t it? This applies more so to digital games. Physical games, such as sports, have the benefit/excuse of being exercise. At least the guy playing soccer all day is getting a workout. Digital games don't have that. You've seen the gamer stereotype: overweight, friendless, hasn’t seen daylight in a while. Unless you're a championship DoTA/StarCraft player there's not much real world application to gaming. Or is there? Digital gaming is all about problem solving, whether the problem being solved is how to take out that squad of Elites or what's the best way to use those portals to make that friendly cube land on a red button. It could be argued that these skills could be given real world applications. Everything I know about rocket science I learnt from Kerbal Space Program, for example. Studies have also been done that show that people who play a lot of FPS's are better at taking in lots of information at once and thus are better drivers, soldiers, and surgeons. Cool. But this is all minutiae. Rocket science is hardly a useful everyday skill unless you’re a rocket scientist (compared to the running skills built by playing soccer). So where then is the merit of games? Graeme Kirkpatrick thinks that games are aesthetically pleasing. He figured that the movements of the player's hands translated onto the screen are a sort of dance. The way, for example, an adept player can make Pac-Man spin in place reflects skill and ability. It’s like what a ballerina does, only less feet and balance and more hands and reflex. I like this argument. It makes gaming sound like it's, y'know, worthwhile. By this logic video games are like dancing. I can begin to justify spending all day playing a game like FTL because the way I decide how to utilize my ship’s power while ordering my crew about is a dance in and of itself. There’s value there, if only on an aesthetic level. I’m not wasting my time. But what about a game like The Sims or Kerbal Space Program? There’s not much dancing going on there. Sims just has you clicking about and Kerbal is a lot of mathing than it is epic mid-flight space maneuvers. They lack the need for agility and reflexts that characterize Kirkpatrirck’s dancing. They aren’t dancing, so where’s there value? Kerbal gets the “it’s science!” justification (sometimes, anyway), but what about The Sims? Where’s the value in playing The Sims? While discussing Kirkpatrick’s idea with a friend, he dismissed my rationale for liking it by point out that he didn’t need an excuse to play games. Games — video games — are their own activity and have their own merits. Sure, you’re usually indoors and most of the time you’re alone, but where’s the harm? They’re fun. Like derping around on the internet or watching TV, they’re just another way of fun. Not only that, but beating a game is a valid accomplishment. Spending a couple weekends collecting all the trophies in Uncharted 2 is something. It’s not fair to just write it off; to do it required not only skill but a great deal of patience. And if nothing else, the perseverance to do that is commendable. So I’ve decided to play games for their own sake. I’m not ‘wasting my time,’ this is what I do. Sure, maybe I’m learning skills in tenacity, problem solving, or rocket science, but importantly it’s fun. I play games because they’re fun. And that’s enough.

So I met up with Sumiki and his dad at a local food place and had a very late dinner. Various conversations were had and references passed back and forth. (hey smikki here's the Stupidstrike:) All in all it was a fun time and another BZPer to add to the "met in real life" list, and even before BFVA too! 10/10 would Sumiki again. (On related note, bought my BrickFair plane tickets today. Yeah!)

We explored our Mount Washington hotel thoroughly. We saw the Gold Room, where the setting up of and signing of the International Monetary Fund took place, and a few old fuses - well, I thought they were old. It turns out that the fuses, part of the original wiring put in by Thomas Edison, were actually still partially in use. Honestly it sounds like a fire hazard, but I'm not an electrician. We decided to skip the treacherous Mount Washington Auto Road due to the fact that it's a private road that doesn't have guardrails, and doing so in a car that has well over 100,000 miles on it and has just come off of its fifth road-trip repair in three years is just kind of asking for trouble, especially when the road is notorious for burning out transmissions and brakes. It was just as well, since that was well out of our route. We worked our way through sleepy towns in rural New Hampshire as we wormed our way back down amidst the towering granite faces of the mountains. As we kept on the route to Portland - towards the stadium of the Portland Sea Dogs (or, as my dad called them, the "Portland Dog Drips") - the towns increased in size and had signs that designated earlier and earlier dates of incorporation. The roads leveled out as we neared the Maine border, but we could still look back and see mountains - some still with traces of snow near their peaks. Conway was one of the towns we passed through, and its quirks included a motel with different "themes" for each room like storefronts in the Old West as well as bizarrely funny shop names. Around 12:30 we entered Maine, and got some literature at the welcome center from a guy who was born in North Carolina but moved to Maine when he was young. He'd long since lost any southern accent he might have once had, replacing it with a thick northeastern accent that turned "Bar Harbor" into "Bah Hahbah" and "Bangor" into "Bangah." I didn't hear anything close to that in Boston, where I thought I would. The potholes got really bad as soon as we crossed the Maine border. Only a few were absolutely unavoidable - the fault lines - but these were eased over as best we could. We slalomed through the rest, only hitting one - which was pretty good considering that there were as many potholes in one mile as there are living humans on Earth. It didn't slow us down considerably, so we stopped by the Sea Dogs and got our customary pennant, then set off for the Portland Head Light. Before doing so, we ate pizza at a local place called Otto's, which converts old gas stations into "filling stations" - for your stomach. The crust was flaky and buttery - one of the few crusts I actually liked. Onions, sausage, and marinara sauce gave it a little bit of kick. It was a filling and delicious late lunch. We then got to the Portland Head Light, which was absolutely gorgeous. The Head Light was built at the directive of George Washington and is now part of a municipal park complex encompassing both it and an abandoned fort. Rolling green grass saw much use from local citizens, but our main objective was to see the Head Light. We saw so much more than that. The Head Light itself was interesting - especially since it's still in use! - and the high-intensity fog signal that blasted out was close to deafening if you got too close to the lighthouse. We spent most of our time down on the rocks below, climbing and clamoring over the jagged rocks that claimed so many ships, even after the Head Light was fully operational. Seaweed and assorted flotsam would get tossed up into the rocks. Most of it would just run off back to the ocean, but in a few places, it would pool up in large rocks. An algae that looked like grass flourished in these tiny ponds, anchoring themselves onto the rock bottom of their little world. We were out on the rocks for the better part of an hour, enjoying the challenge of navigation, investigating interesting details in the rocks, and getting as far out on the rocks as was safe before heading back, taking care to avoid the slippery bits. After this rather extensive exploration, we headed back to the car, over a curved drawbridge, and back onto I-295, which eventually merged quite unexpectedly with I-95. Our destination was Bangor, just a short drive away from Bfahome. (He says that it's pronounced "B-F-A-Home," but I pronounced/sneezed it a little more as it's spelled.) My dad and I met him at a bar & grill in Orono. By the end of the day, we wanted to keep him around to be our new GPS, found out that he owns every university from here to Kingston, Ontario, recited bits from old BIONICLE games and the asdfmovie series, discussed the fun and hats of BrickFair, and generally had a blast. 10/10, would Bfahome again. Tomorrow: Acadia National Park.

Oh, that explains why things get done so slowly around here. squishy i am disappoint you're not allowed get new pets without telling me that puppy has made my last two month's worth of surveillance information useless and now i have to go and recalibrate the instruments

I don't put too much personal stake in fandoms myself. Even here my activity is pretty low, generally. The reason I liked the show wasn't because of the fandom or the reaction of other people by any means. I genuinely just liked the show, like The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Powerpuff girls (have you seen their Beatles episode? SO MANY PUUUUUNS), or any other show for that matter. And sure, some fans come out with some really cool stuff, like fun parodies or neat fanart, but I honestly don't keep up with the fanbase that much, or with any fanbase for any show I like, really. I gotta say, it kinda bums me out that this fanbase is getting so much attention. I mean, to each their own and all, and I'm glad the show is successful. That's cool. But I think people are obsessing over the wrong thing. With any other show I like, if it's not your thing it's just not your thing. But this one? Simply because of the audience interested in it, somehow that makes it something significant towards other people. It really shouldn't be. Personally I think the obsession over the fanbase is overrated. And don't get me wrong here; if you like a show, that's cool and all, but blowing it out of proportion to the point where you label yourself just for liking a show seems kinda silly to me. It would be like calling myself a Tutu for liking Princess Tutu or being a Bionic for liking Bionicle. It's kinda strange, even for a fanbase in my opinion. Also, with all of the debate that stems from discussion of the show's fans (not even the show itself, mind you), it feels more like people are just using the show as a cheap way to get into an argument. And that's kinda low in my opinion. (I'm not saying that everyone does this or anything, but it's something I've noticed and it kinda bugs me)

After a delicious breakfast in Bangor, we headed down on Route 1A towards Acadia National Park. Route 1A gave way to Route 3 in Ellsworth, and we got to the entrance of Acadia around 1:00. Post-Visitor Center, the first few pullouts were beautiful vistas of the shore, the ocean, and distant islands, but they were marred by the trees that got in the way. We eventually kept going after getting close to a few fearless seagulls, likely fearless because they equated humanity with free food distribution. Before 2:00 we experienced our first big excursion: the Schooner Head overlook. I spotted what looked at first to be an old trail, as the pavement that once had smoothed it out fell victim to the vicious Maine frost heaves that have taken such a heavy toll on their roads. We wound our way on this trail until I spotted a cut-through to some rocks. At first, I thought it'd just be a clear shot of the gorgeous, rocky shoreline that gave Acadia its fame, but it ended up being so much more than that. There was no sign of any human activity on these rocks. Looking down on the Atlantic crashing against the granite below, we climbed around and ogled at the scenery for quite a while before eventually, sadly, having to meander our way back to the trail. In the meantime, we examined the bits of wildlife - plants, algae, and lichen - that have made the barren rocks their home, and looked out to the shore below and seascape beyond. Our next stop didn't come too much later - this time at Monument Cove. We parked and asked a bearded park ranger how to best see the Monument - which isn't actually a man-made monument, but rather an erosion that ended up creating a cracked brown monolith of stone. It was in its own area, impossibly difficult to reach due to the large but smooth stones that lay beneath it. Instead of the more traveled rocks to the left, we took the path to the right and worked our way down the rocks right up to the Atlantic itself, sitting on one end of a long rock as waves splashed up against the other, throwing spray out where it was visible in its entirety but not near enough to hit me in any way. I was sad when we had to go back, but go back we did. Soon enough we pulled off again at Otter Point, and again we clamored out on the rocks. These rocks were much different, however - layers of granite were crushed up, creating a labyrinth of large jagged stones down to the ocean. Here, we investigated a layer of incredibly jagged quartz, incredibly smooth rock (which we also saw at the first rock-carousing excursion), and incredibly still pond-puddles - some surprisingly deep. Indentions in the rocks created places for water to run into during storms - it was higher than even high tide could reach - and algae would thrive in it. White and fuzzy-looking on the bottom, it grew in green strands upwards to the top, where they'd float. One thing we didn't see while exploring Otter Point was an actual otter, but I saw something that looked quite like an otter scurrying across the road at a very fast clip. We were too far away to see if it was an otter or a beaver - in fact, I was the only one who even caught a glimpse of it - but either way, I know I've seen a new animal. The last big rock adventure of the day came at a stone beach, on a very narrow trail that hugged the edge of a sheer rock face. Once on the other side, it opened up to a much larger expanse of rock, one that was easier to climb around, as the rocks in general were much larger. My mom spotted the biggest algae-filled pond-puddle of the day, which we looked around before heading back again. We stopped at the Jordan Pond House for a quick bite to eat to tide us over until dinnertime. For a drink, I sampled a locally made blueberry soda, bottled in what looked at first glance to be a beer bottle. I loved it, but it's one of those things that you either love or you hate. It's quite possibly my new favorite drink, which is a shame since it's not sold anywhere outside of the Portland-Bar Harbor area. After an attempt to hike a trail to the Bubbles (strangely enough, they're mountains) we turned back due to the bugs that ate us like they were at the top of the food chain. We didn't get out again until we were most of the way up the road on Cadillac Mountain. (Side note: Cadillac Mountain, the highest point on the Atlantic coast, is less than 1600 feet tall, but seems much higher because it basically rises from sea level. It was named after Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, who was granted rights to the land after he requested it from the governor of New France. The same absurdly-named fellow would go on to found the city of Detroit, hence the Cadillac brand of cars. I wouldn't bother mentioning this except for the fact that, despite not having a Cadillac car, we do have a sexy Cadillac engine.) The views from the road up and the summit of Cadillac Mountain are stunning. Mountains - which would be considered rolling hills were they not so close to the water, thus amplifying their height - lay beneath us, and the rocky shoreline ran in and out every which way, etching out an intricate design as it met the Atlantic. Inland, lakes dotted the landscape, and if one tried, one could make out the very road we'd traversed earlier when we were between rock-clamoring excursions. It honestly felt like we were walking around inside a postcard; everything was just that gorgeous. We took our time walking around on the summit (home of the earliest sunrise in America) and then began making our way back. We would have stayed longer, soaking in the details of the landscape and seascape, but our stomachs won out, so we rolled into Bar Harbor to see what we could find. The thing about Acadia - and, in fact, most places this time of year in this corner of the continent - is that the season hasn't exactly opened. The restaurant at the Jordan Pond House in Acadia is due to open tomorrow, on the 1st, and many other places won't open until school gets out a little later this month. Nevertheless, since the locals have to have somewhere to eat, we drove through the streets of Bar Harbor, noting all of the lobster places. We'd all been craving some Maine lobster - specifically, my dad - so we went into a place that wasn't crowded. It turns out that it'd just opened earlier in the day, so we were one of the few customers they'd had all day. I hate saying this, but lobster places are lobster places - i.e. functionally interchangeable. Our bet paid off - they brought out whole (cooked!) lobsters, which we cracked opened and sucked the morsels out of, all while looking supremely idiotic in our restaurant-supplied bibs. The lobster, along with our sides, our fries, our dinner rolls, our desserts, and our pre-meal soups, made for a very big meal - but we ate nearly all of it, having spent so much energy climbing around on the rocks earlier in the afternoon. Around 7:00 we left Bar Harbor, doubling back to Ellsworth along a highway that somehow has worse potholes going than coming. Tomorrow: we hit the road to Moncton, New Brunswick. With very little between here and the other side of New Brunswick, we'll make a day of it across what is thankfully one of Canada's smaller provinces.

Hardly persecution or discrimination. I'm not oppressed by any means, and I wouldn't compare the hate I might see directed at bronies with racism or misogyny or homophobia or other forms of hatred based on intrinsic, unchanging parts of people (that in turn are used to justify crimes or abuse). At worst bronies are stereotyped or held up as an example of problems with society. But even that affects me emotionally, especially when it comes from people whom I generally agree with and consider friends. And while I'm sure they mostly consider me an exception, that's not good enough—I would hardly have been exposed to the fandom if not from genuinely positive people in the community. The fact is that I can keep tabs on the fan community through reasonably well-moderated channels and never have to deal with the kind of perversion or misogyny that is apparently endemic to it—and if that's the case, then does that stereotype really reflect a representative portion of the community, or just its disorganized underbelly? Last time I made an entry like this, I was generally told that my efforts would be better spent improving the community itself, rather than trying to improve outside perceptions of it. That's something I just couldn't do, since I have no standing or leadership position in the fandom. As a point of reference, my tumblr has fourteen followers, most of them from here on BZP. My twitter has about twice that, but BZPower still makes up the majority. I have no voice in the brony community, but I felt like I did on BZP, so I thought that maybe if I tried to point out that bronies aren't all scum to some of the folks here, they might take my words to heart. We all saw how that went—apparently my voice here doesn't matter as much as I had thought. In any case—this is what I kept being told to do, but couldn't start myself. A push from within the fandom to promote the best parts of the community, and disavow the worst. So I thought by sharing it here, and on all my social media (limited though that may be) I'd finally be doing my part.

So, I haven't had wifi access at work for like a month now, so that's put a big dent into my activity, considering it's not only cutting me off from BZP but other websites, so I have to catch up on those first and make content for those so I end up not having very much time for BZP, and then I'm so worn out and beaten down that I don't really have the motivation to sit down and contribute here. Blah. I'm gonna be gone for a solid month, visiting my girlfriend on the opposite coast, so that's gonna be fun and I'll prolly not get on BZP much in that time either. But when I get back in July, I am def gonna make some Bionicle arts 'cause I have been dying to get some done I promise I'm not gonna disappear for half a year again

So last weekend I found a new NSMB/Luigi deluxe set Wii U on eBay for $250 – a good deal, and since I was planning on picking one up eventually for Smash 4, Mario Kart 8, Zelda, and 3D Mario (among other games, of course), I ordered it. It arrived Thurdsay, I set it up yesterday, and I decided today to bore you all with my thoughts on it. One of the first things I noticed pulling the system out of the box was the console's length – it's longer than I'd expected, which seems kind of a weird thing to notice now that I'm writing it down. Hm. I set the console up vertically using the provided stands. They're much sturdier than the Wii's, which is a plus. I also appreciated the inclusion of an HDMI cable – the only other HD console I own, the PS3, didn't come with one. Setup was fairly simple until I got to the part where you have to make a user account for the system. Transferring my Mii from my 3DS took several attempts since I apparently didn't have the correct share settings selected for that particular Mii. Then it asked me if I wanted to link the account to a Nintendo Network ID. I said yes. It asked if I wanted to create a new Nintendo Network ID. I said yes. It said I couldn't because I had to install an update first. I briefly postponed the installation of said update to sync one of my Wii Remotes to the Wii U. This process is much, much easier than it was with the Wii – whereas with the Wii you had to hold down the button on both the console and the remote simultaneously, with the Wii U you press the button on the console and then press the button on the remote. It may not seem like that would make a major difference, but it does. I proceeded to scour the settings menu for the system update button. I found it and was told that the download would take 01:26. (At least that's what I think it was. Close enough.) At first I thought that this meant one minute twenty-six seconds, as that's how I've always seen downloads measured in the past. I soon realized, however, that this was one hour and twenty-six minutes. Not only is this somewhat counterintuitive (shouldn't it be 01:26:00?) but it's also pretty frustrating to have to wait over an hour for the console to update before you can actually use it. Fortunately (unfortunately?) I didn't have something awesome like Mario Kart or Smash that I was anxious to play. I lost interest in NSMB after NSMB Wii – the only reason I bought the NSMB bundle was because at $250 it was $80 cheaper than the $330 Mario Kart 8 bundle, which means I could still buy MK and come out $20 and one game ahead. (The MK bundle also includes a Wii Wheel – haha no thanks). Anyway, I of course tried out NSMBU with my dad and my sister. Like all NSMB games, it's fun enough, but nothing special. Basically the same game with some new level designs and a fresh coat of admittedly crisp-looking high-definition paint. One thing that bothered me though was the control options. You can play the game with the gamepad, the Wii remote held sideways, or the pro controller. What's not on that list is the control scheme I – and everyone else in my family – used for NSMB Wii: the remote + nunchuck. I realize that I'm probably in the minority in my appreciation for that particular control scheme but I don't really see any reason why it shouldn't have been included. I expect I would prefer the pro controller – but at fifty bucks a pop I don't see myself getting one anytime soon. So I decided I'd try out the gamepad – only to learn that, in multiplayer, you can't use the gamepad to actually play the game but only to assist the players in what the game refers to as “boost mode.” I really don't understand why you can't choose to do either. I poked around Miiverse a bit, looking in particular at the Smash and Mario Kart boards. There's nothing wrong with it, but it's not something I see myself spending much time on. Today I tried out offscreen play and found that my room is about a meter beyond the connection range between the console and the gamepad, which is quite disappointing. Kind of limits the potential there. One thing I haven't done – and don't plan to do anytime soon – is transfer my Wii save data to the Wii U. The whole “your save data gets deleted from the Wii YOU CAN NEVER GET IT BACK THIS PROCESS CANNOT BE UNDONE seems a bit sketchy to me I dunno. Plus I still have a year to go before I can use homebrew on Wii U without having to worry about voiding my warranty so if I want to play Brawl Minus or something I'll have to use my Wii anyway so So yeah owning a Wii U has been a bit of an underwhelming experience so far. I'll probably get MK8 sooner rather than later and look into picking up something like Nintendo Land to play casually with my family, both of which I expect will make the console more exciting.

Twitch Plays Pokemon sure is strange, but it's still interesting in its own way. So...that got me thinking about how I wanted to mythologize my own Pokemon experience, and...this happened. Also here's a Luxray I drew five years ago. Gotta catch em all.

I like trains.

This is true. Also, obligatory yakka foob mog. Grug pubbawup zink wattoom gazork. Chumble spuzz. ~B~

Source: Amazing Deal on RPG Maker

You are my favourite BZP author okay.

I wouldn't recommend actually printing it (it's long ), but yes. I haven't actually tested the comments in PDF format, but I will release one, as well as a word processing version (Word format, though I'm writing it in Open Office Writer, a freeware version).

Curiously will you release a printable PDF file on completion?

Welcome to the back of the blog. Those delicious quotes that used to be on the bottom of the blog ... sort of kept getting longer and longer. I sought a way to shorten what always loaded at the bottom, and what always stretched the page ... and this is the answer. As an added bonus, if you have a funny quote, you can comment here with it. Of course it would be impossible: you'd die and be transported back in time into another dimension. It'd ruin your whole day.

In the interest of conserving space and general cleanliness of this blog, I've stuck all of the quote blocks into entries. I - II - III - IV - V - VI

*Steals wallet while your confuzzeled* giv me bak my walet u porridge :angry: :angry: :angry: i r not an porridge, u pandfa pudding. ur both porideage ... No. no but my cat does well tell ur cat i luv it too WIN. This one. Practicality is irrelevant if your sword looks cool.

Yeah, it really should. If nobody minds, I'll do the honors and mail over in a flat rate box. Now that's shipping made simple. Unless you are allergic to smoke, are vegan, and have strict parents. Thankfully, I am neither. Eh, when you've survived numerous apocalypses like this, you grow used to them. I just looked outside briefly, thought "oh dear another apocalypse" and returned to calmly sipping my tea while people died horrifically.

So I herd u liek Dlakii. the plot is so stupid its genius I have a headache now. If there's anything I've learned over the years, it's that AFOLs are rarely in their right minds. Given the base proportions in which a majority of the 09' sets provided, I honestly wouldn't doubt this. YES NO GOOD ENOUGH