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Give yourself time to mourn your dog. When it's time for grad school, the feelings will be easier to manage.

I just got accepted into graduate school. My dream program. I feel excited, and I also feel guilty for feeling excited because I'm also still mourning. None of this makes sense.

Hello, I have recently completed the third and fourth books in the Hero Factory Secret Mission series, Collision Course and Robot Rampage. Being Greg Farshtey's most notable contribution to Hero Factory, they bring to Hero Factory much of what made his BIONICLE writing so good. The characters feel more real and fleshed-out than they ever do in the TV show or comics, and the concepts and locations the books deal with just feel more mature. At the same time, it feels like Greg had little oversight in writing them. The books only tangentially tie into the main story, and there was only one part (when Furno's sword and shield were mentioned) that I was actually reminded of their toy forms. Aside from basic things like color, Greg doesn't describe the actual characters who exist as sets very deeply. He is more interested in describing the non-set characters or environments, which are described very well. Really, if I were reading them without knowing what the toys looked like, I would image much more human-looking or cyborg entities. It is strange to think that these books took much of the energy from Greg that would have gone to BIONICLE had that series continued. It feels like a last hurray of sorts for Greg's gift for action-adventure. The characters brood much like Vakama Hordika or Sahmad. Greg's writing almost chafes against the more kid-friendly direction HF as a whole went in, and I can find most of the books online for cheap, so it seems like the target demographic did not gobble these up the way that we consumed BIONICLE. It is unfortunate, because they really are interesting and well-written books. I am awaiting the arrival of #5, even though I already know it ends on a cliffhanger and the Galactic Conspiracy storyline goes unresolved. Based on 3 and 4, I would recommend buying these books. Especially now that Greg is no longer with LEGO, they offer a historic glimpse into a time period I would say began in earnest in 2004, when lines like Alpha Team Mission: Deep Freeze and Knights' Kingdom II were introduced alongside BIONICLE as LEGO's color-coded heroes fighting ultimate evil. If you grew up around that time, you will find the Secret Mission stories rewarding to read and nostalgia-inducing for the end of an age.

Could it be, a birthday on BZP? Why yes, there just happens to be one on this day! Happy birthday, @otter! Art gifted on the behalf of Mushy, who is currently feeling a bit under the weather:

I guess I have to just take this one day at a time.

Nacho 09/11/2005 - 01/17/2024 The best dog in the world

Welp, time to reflect publicly on BZP. I always like doing that. This year, I'll be trying something a little different and I'll actually be typing this up while reading my private thoughts from my journal I wrote throughout the year. Starting with something that was a theme throughout the whole year: In December of 2022, as part of a musical Secret Santa exchange, I received the song Where Are You Now by Danny L. Harle. From there, I listened to the rest of the Harlecore album, and then discovered the whole musical world revolving around the PC Music label/collective. I realized I already recognized a lot of the names from the 100 gecs remix album. This really is my kind of music. I found so many songs I loved, but one artist stood out from among the rest: GFOTY. She's quickly become one of my all time favorites and over the course of the year, I've listened to her entire discography. Unfortunately, PC Music announced that they're ending new releases on the label with the end of the year, so I'm listening to some of their stuff on the last day, even as I write this. It was a great ride, even if I only caught the tail end of it. Oh, and going back to the gecs, seeing them live was the other big musical moment for me this year. Their new album was great too. As I mentioned in my last entry, I finished college, moved out on my own, and got a job. I feel a lot more independent now. With that, I've been doing a lot more cleaning and organizing this year for a variety of reasons. I've also had more time for my hobbies though, getting a lot more lego building done and integrating myself into a local lug. I got dental implants put in at the beginning of the year. Something I had forgotten about was that this prevented me from eating my favorite food for a month. I'm actually just now getting scheduled to have the crowns put on the implants. I'm honestly tired of all this stuff going on with my teeth. I'm so ready to be done with it. Something I'm noticing is I was able to become much more social and confident over the course of the year. I even went out on a few dates! Nothing that led anywhere serious, but I'm very proud myself for handling it in a way that felt very natural. Ironically, I'm also much more comfortable being alone now than when I was in college. I think there's something about being surrounded by people that actually makes you feel more lonely sometimes. I've started playing more seriously in @Voltex's BZPGOT games this year. I've only recently started getting caught up on all the previous story there, but before I started that, I decided to read/reread all canon Bionicle story material. This, combined, with another event I'll mention later, means I did a lot more reading than has become normal for me this year. Next year I'm hoping to get caught up on the BZPGOT write ups, maybe read some other Bionicle fanfic ( @Pahrak Model ZX?) , but especially start reading some non-bionicle books aimed at adults haha. Brickfair was great as I also mentioned in the last entry! There was one thing about Brickfair I didn't mention though. At one point during the con, I got a call from my father. He met up with my cousin. I hadn't seen her in 7 years, and we hadn't been able to spend quality time with each other in even longer. He wouldn't tell me what was going on until I got back and spoke with him in person. It wasn't instantaneous for us to reconnect, but we did it. Both of us were worried the other might have somehow become a completely different person in the interim, but we get along so well. We were able to have phone calls, texts, and finally meet up in person for Thanksgiving. This has made me happier than anything else really, and I think it's been so good for both of us to have the other back in our life. I've always looked up to her, we have a lot of fond memories together, and now we're making new ones. She's someone I feel like I can talk to like no one else, and she always has such interesting things to say. So that's obviously not everything, but that's the biggest stuff. Thank you to each of you who have had even some small part in making my year so good! And a happy new year to you all! I know I already have some good things planned for it.

"He is only a dog", but he is human enough to be a great comfort. As I type, my best and oldest friend lies in my lap, drifting in and out of consciousness. He has not eaten in more than a day, nor has he drank anything in that period except a small amount of water administered by syringe. He can barely move, though he keeps trying. It has been eighteen years since he entered my life and I am not ready for him to leave it. He's one of the few remnants of my childhood, which is perhaps why I felt the urge to write this here, on this site I used to haunt in my elementary-school days. Perhaps I will clean this up, post it somewhere else, somewhere other than the ruins of Web 2.0, somewhere where it might get more attention, but this version, typed in the BZP blog submission box at five-thirty in the morning, is the original. I joined BZPower in 2005; I adopted Nacho later the same year. But only barely the same year. He was a belated Christmas present; we picked him up on New Years' Eve. Actually, there was another dog there too, and we had our choice of which to take. The other puppy was let out first; he was small and so very sweet. He walked up to nine-year-old me ever so calmly and politely, introduced himself in the most dignified way a four-month-old Shih Tzu could. Then the-dog-who-would-become-Nacho was released. He immediately charged my six-year-old brother, leapt into the air, slammed into him with all the power his seven-pound body could muster. My brother was actually knocked backwards. We could tell he didn't mean any harm by it. To the contrary, he loved being there, loved to meet new people, loved to be alive. He wanted to share that with us, even if he didn't know any way to do it beyond throwing himself full-force into the nearest kindergartner. --- I "made" a spritesheet for him, back in those days when the Comics board (I believe it was called Artwork III back then, having been split off from Artwork I because the people who actually knew how to draw were tired of being overshadowed by Dark709) was the hottest place on the site. Of course by "made" I mean I took a preexisting sprite sheet (actually, it might have been by Dark709, though I no longer recall), recolored the spot on the dog's back, and was off to the races. The entire process probably took me about sixty seconds, which was the limits of my patience at the time. He only ever made one appearance in a comic I was a co-author for; why someone would let me, with my complete lack of artistic or comedic talent, touch their strip, I can only wonder. I'm glad that Brickshelf has archived my achievement in the field of bad BZPower sprite comics. Man, I was such a kid. --- I wanted to name him "Wicket," after the Ewok from Star Wars. My younger brother wanted Nacho. He was inspired by a cute MOC he had recently seen, here on BZP, that had the same name; that build is probably lost to time now. I was a little sore about losing out, but in retrospect, he definitely chose the right name. It's funny how much of that dog comes back to this website. --- I haven't done much of anything today besides sit and worry. Every now and then I try to see if a miracle has happened, if his appetite has returned, if his body has decided not to shut itself off after all, and every now and then I am disappointed. I have my laptop, but I don't want to play or watch anything, nor do I want to read the book I have left sitting on the coffee table. I have marked my life through fiction, and I know that anything I read or watch or play now will be the thing I was reading/watching/playing when Nacho died, indelibly linked to him in my mind. I don't want to ruin a perfectly good anime series that way. Nor do I want him to be permanently associated with a bad one. Instead, I mostly scroll Twitter. The one other bit of entertainment I afford myself is playing randomly-generated Picross puzzles. Actually, it's kind of boring, but it appeals to me. The canvas is a rigid grid, its solution locked away in the numbers, and all I have to do is put things in their place. Either I get one that's easily solvable, or else I get one where there are at least two valid solutions and it comes down to chance which one the computer thinks is right. I think I have a winning record at guessing, though. I suppose writing is now the third interesting thing I've done. --- My brother and mother (yes, I still live with my parents at twenty-seven) have gone about their days in as ordinary a fashion as possible (given the severe winter weather we're now experiencing). How can they act like the world isn't ending? --- In a way, the Nacho I met all those years ago has already gone. It's been many years since he could run and jump and force his joie de vivre on the most proximate elementary-schooler. Then, when he went blind a couple years back, whatever energy he still had vanished. These last few months he's had difficulty walking, and sometimes even difficulty standing. Two days ago, I was already never going to take him on another walk again. But even two days ago, he wasn't skin and bones like he is right now. Where did the mass go? As long as he's alive, there was--is--always that irrational hope beyond hope that he would somehow get better, that his eyes would regain their form and function, that his energy would come back, that his telomeres would re-lengthen. When he dies that will be it. He will stop being is and become was. --- I remember how he would greet me when I returned home from school. He was always so excited, like it was the first time we'd seen each other in years. I remember how much he used to love broccoli; I've never really heard of a dog who liked broccoli, but he always went crazy for the stuff. Whenever we had it with dinner we'd save some for him. I remember how he used to love to play with plastic water bottles, more than any actual dog toy. I remember how excited he got at so much as a glimpse of the leash. I want to keep those moments frozen, forever, as if in amber. It's not even that I didn't/don't want to grow up; I just always wished, wish, for the ability to grow down, to return to these comforting events in a format more perfect and real than memory, to reclaim my innocence, to revive the mosquito in the amber of the past. My best friend is dying. My life can never be the same.

A (mostly) Bionicle G1 demake of an older build of mine. Pretty rushed but happy with some bits of it. More on Instagram

Fallout: New Vegas A collection of items and characters from the Post Nucleat Role Playing Game. Victor For the Securitron, Victor, I used a pair of trans-black pneumatic tubes from te Life on Mars sets. The "skeleton" inside the tubes is made of CCBS arms, Victor's arms are posable. Welcome to New Vegas The iconic Las Vegas sign that you can find in the game, for the E I used two sand green Minifigures Revolver, this piece is used in the LEGO Ideas set "Insect Collection" to create the feet of the mantis. Mr. House For Mr. House I wanted to create both of his version: the classic Monitor and the real Mr. House. Of course the Courier has a golf club in his hands for... you know why. Platinum Chip The thing that started all our adventures in the Mojave Desert. 22/12/2023

3/6 of the Toa Motu, previous members being Poraru and Kyrehx. Halfway there! The rest will be coming early next year.

Oh man, I didn't realize otter was still around. I remember playing mafia back in the day. Great art from Mushy too!