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Avohkah Tamer

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  1. Avohkah Tamer
    Oh yeah! I was supposed to blog about Saturday and Sunday, wasn't I?
     
    Saturday (9/15) was most definitely the high point of the con.
     
    I started out in the artists/vendors room, bought a bunch of buttons and a Vinyl Scratch hat. Ran into a friend of mine from my local meetups who was selling some of his own handmade plushies, and bought a Twilight and Fluttershy.
     
    I headed over to the game room, where we had about 35 people gathered for a massive game of "Are You A Changeling" (Ponified version of Mafia / Werewolf). BASELESS ACCUSATIONS AND SUSPICION is always fun!
     
    I also attended several panels and discussions. Some were boring, some were really interesting. The Writer's Panels were great, and videos should be popping up online as soon as Everfree Radio gets a chance to edit them.
     
    I went to the electronic artists' concert (with Eurobeat Brony, Chain Algorithm, Taps, F3nning, Seventh Element, and EHT), but technical difficulties forced them to delay the performance until later in the evening, so I headed off to karaoke!
     
    Oh, karaoke. Friday was my first time ever visiting a karaoke, but Saturday was the first time I actually went up to sing. M.A. Larson and Amy Keating Rogers weren't there yet, so I held off on MLP songs, but I still went up a couple times to sing "Hakuna Matata" (Big mistake, I didn't know that song nearly as well as I thought) followed by "Mr. Blue Sky" (<3).
     
    When M.A. and Amy showed up, me and my friend Shim rushed over to sign up on the queue for a couple MLP songs. As promised, we sang "At the Gala" for Amy (who wrote the lyrics for the song).
     
    Her response?
     
    She hugged me.
     
    KDSJFKASDJAKDFJAKDSFJJKSAFDJKFJAKJD
     
    A few songs later, we also got to sing "The Flim Flam Brothers" for M.A.,who wrote it, and completely NAILED IT. The audience even joined in! A couple of girls in cosplay ran up and did all the Mane Six speaking lines for us (including swooning Rarity), and everyone chanted "CIDER CIDER CIDER" and sang along to the chorus! (And yes, I did Granny Smith's part too. =P)
     
    I got standing applause and what must have been a dozen brohoofs after that, including from M.A., who called it an "extremely impressive" performance. I later discovered that he Tweeted a photo of me and Shim on stage during the song, and Daniel Ingram retweeted it.
     
    ADSKFJASKDFJSDAKFJAKSDFJKJDFJKASDKJFKDSAJFKJDKDJDFKSDJFKSJDFKJSDJFSKDJF
     
    After that, we mostly just hung around watching the other performances, but I did join in a rendition of the "Bad Horse Chorus" from Dr. Horrible and of course the inevitable "Bohemian Rhapsody" before heading off to the concert.
     
    Since the concert was delayed so late, they just decided to merge the concert and late-night rave, which just made everything better. Seeing Eurobeat Brony perform live was amazing, especially with LASERS AND GLOWSTICKS AND RAVE DANCING. Oh, also they gave everyone free foam pony ear headband things! I got blue ones.
     
    Sunday (9/16) was a lot more mellow, probably because everyone was tired from all the awesomeness the day before.
     
    There wasn't a whole lot to do in terms of actual con activities on the last day, but I did attend the musicians' panel and got to ask a couple questions. After that, most of my time was spent hanging out with my brony friends, roaming the con looking for things to throw our money at (I bought a second hat! A knit Twilight Sparkle cap~), and playing several more rounds of Are You A Changeling.
     
    Unfortunately, here's where the first and only bad thing happened: Some lowlife decided to steal my Fluttershy plushie out from under my chair while I had my eyes closed during the game. It really sucks, but the guy who made it offered to commission me a new one at a discount price. Oh, well. At least I still have my Twilight plushie, and I didn't spend too much on the Fluttershy to begin with.
     
    And at last, the con was over, and everyone had to head home. :C
     
    Speaking with the con staff afterwards, it sounds like everything was a huge success, and they can't wait to start putting together plans for Midwestria 2013!
     
    This was one of the best weekends ever~
     
    ~ (A VTOAHMKEARH)
  3. Avohkah Tamer
    So I turned 20 today.
     
    I still have no idea how I got to be so old. I'm like... OLD old.
     
    I feel compelled to tell people younger than me how back in my day, I had to walk to school barefoot, in the snow, uphill both ways; except I was homeschooled so it's not really true.
     
    My birthday was largely uneventful, no party, no friends over; but I got a couple Hero Factory sets as gifts (Duncan Bulk, Xplode, Furno's Bike). Oh, and one of these, which my brother found in-package at a garage sale a few weeks ago. It's LOUD, too, which is pretty cool.
     
    But you didn't click my blog entry to hear about my gifts, did you? You clicked it to see my cake.
     
    BEHOLD!
     
    It's not really a Black Forest cake (the kind the Portal Cake was modeled after), just a pretty simple cheap version my mom made for me. Boxed chocolate cake mix, crushed Oreo wafers, a can of chocolate frosting, white decorating frosting in a compressed can, and maraschino cherries.
     
    And it tasted so good.
     
    Oh yeah, and check out what I did with the Oreo frosting I scraped off the cookies!
     

     
    ~ (A VTOAHMKEARH)
  8. Avohkah Tamer
    As I've mentioned elsewhere in posts and comments, I'm hoping to attend both BrickFair and Bronycon this year due to their relatively close proximity to each other and being on consecutive weekends.
     
    (For reference, BrickFair is July 29 - August 2, Bronycon is August 7-9).
     
    Here's the problem. Should I fly home after BrickFair and then fly back for Bronycon, or do I try to stay somewhere in the DC/Baltimore area all week until the end of Bronycon, and then fly back home?
     
    If I stay the whole 2 weeks, I don't know what to do or where I should stay in the days between BrickFair and Bronycon. Should I reserve extra days at the Holiday Inn post-BrickFair and just chill at a hotel the whole time, or should I get to the Baltimore Hilton early and stay for a few days prior to Bronycon?
     
    Or, heck, is there anyone who lives in the area who's attending both cons who I might be able to stay with for a couple days and then hitch a ride to the Baltimore Hilton? That would save me so much hassle (and money o_o).
     
    As of right now I haven't actually purchased any reservations or plane tickets because I'm not sure how this will all pan out, but reservations for both cons are running out and plane ticket prices are going up, so I need to figure this out pretty dang quick. If I have to make a decision to only attend one, I'll pick BrickFair.
     
    Sorry for the rambling. Any help or advice would be immensely appreciated.
     
    Edit: I should also mention, regarding BrickFair: Please PM me if anyone's looking to save some money and either has space available or would like to share a 2-bed hotel room at the con. I should have space available.
  9. Avohkah Tamer
    I've got something I hate to admit, but I'm at my wit's end and need help, so here goes...
     
    I will be at BrickFair VA this year, as several of you already probably know/assumed, and I've already got travel and hotel arrangements taken care of, but there's one thing that I haven't done yet.
     
    I, uh... I haven't actually registered for the con yet.
     
    YES I KNOW, I need to register/pay by the 14th, and I will, but I've been stuck on one minor detail: deciding what to put on my Brickbadge bricks.
     
    For the past couple years, I put my real name on one brick, and my username on another. This was dumb, because now I have two completely identical badges aside from the year number. This time around, I want to put custom text (not my name) on both bricks.
     
    Since I've been drawing a blank for the past month straight, anyone have any brick text suggestions? (max. 24 chars/brick)
     
    I'd be eternally grateful for any help. :C
     
    Update: Thanks for all the suggestions so far! I've got one brick figured out, but I'm thinking I want a Bionicle-specific reference on my other one. I could do something like "UNITY ▪ DUTY ▪ DESTINY", but that seems like it might be too simple/obvious. Anyone have any better ideas (Or think I should go with UDD)?
     
    Update 2: Bricks chosen and registration complete! Thanks, everyone!
  10. Avohkah Tamer
    Obtained games, in order of purchase date:
    June 20, 2014 - Octodad: Dadliest Catch
    June 21, 2014 - Bioshock Infinite Season Pass (already own base game)
    June 21, 2014 - Payday: The Heist - Four Pack
    June 21, 2014 - Payday 2
    June 23, 2014 - The LEGO Movie Videogame
    June 23, 2014 - LEGO The Hobbit
    June 29, 2014 - The Wolf Among Us (Gifted by my supremely generous friend Jedi Master J.!)
    June 30, 2014 - Pajama Sam Complete Pack
    June 30, 2014 - Spy Fox Complete Pack

    Total spent: $62.67
    Total saved: $174.24
     
    And for those of you following the Summer Adventure competition, I was on Red team, crafted 2 Summer Adventure badges and one TF2 badge, netting my team 21 points and earning the following rewards:
    Team Fortress 2 - Summer Starter Kit
    Warframe: Rubedo Played Galatine Skin

     
    All in all, an excellent sale. I was able to round out my LEGO game collection (I now own all of them except LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean, which isn't available on Steam), along with several other games I've been meaning to buy. Now I just need to find time to actually play all of these before the next sale...
     
    ~ (A VTOAHMKEARH)
  11. Avohkah Tamer
    I went to Brickworld for pretty much the entire day, and had a BLAST. I got TONS of BrickArms custom Lego guns, and took photos of almost everything there! It would have been EVERYTHING, but my camera's battery died after the 400 12MP photos I took... Gallery as soon as I can figure out how to batch resize 400 photos without killing my computer, and upload 400 photos at once without killing Brickshelf.
     
    UPDATE: Here's my picture of my BrickArms collection, tagged so you know what's what! =D
     
    Also, I halved the size of all my photos, bringing the filesize down to 33% of what it was. Hopefully Brickshelf won't mind 300 MB of file transfer in a zip...
     
     
    ~
  12. Avohkah Tamer

    Pumpkins!

    By Avohkah Tamer,

    Why, oh why do I never blog? I mean, it's not like I'm not on BZP much, 'cause I visit every day. I really have no good reason for not blogging.
     
    Anyways, today's Halloween! My family doesn't really celebrate it that much, besides some pumpkin carving and dressing up in a costume for fun if I want to, though we don't Trick-or-Treat.
     
    Now, I'm no expert in pumpkin carving. I've never done the shave-part-of-the-surface-off-instead-of-cutting thing due to my only light source being those dim tea light candles. I don't do super-complex patterns or enter contests. Heck, I don't even carve the generic spooky faces! I carve video game designs! In fact, last year I carved a pretty darn cool Half-Life 2 design on my pumpkin.
     
    This year I spent hours trying to think of how I could top that awesomely geeky HL2 Jack o' Lantern. Staying with my VALVe theme, I finally came up with an idea and got it carved-- JUST before the Trick-or-Treaters started showing up! That's right, a Portal 2 pumpkin!
     
    And here it is lit up!
     
    And here's the template, if you'd like to print it out and carve your own! (Made from a vector image of the Aperture Science logo, and a portion of the Portal 2 logo)
     
    So what do you think?
     
    ~ (A VTOAHMKEARH)
  13. Avohkah Tamer
    For obvious reasons, I haven't blogged in a while. Hence, I'll have to write up another one of those huuuuuge what-I've-been-up-to blog entries to make up for it. In the meantime, though, quick list of stuff I got for my birthday (so far, but I'm not sure I'm gonna get any more):
    $50 from my grandmother Like 10 mini Reese's cups (my favorite candy EVAR, by the way) Sandish-green T-shirt with oooold classic Mountain Dew logo Blue T-shirt with a whole lot of reasons why being a guy is awesome (Example: being able to shower and get ready to go somewhere within 10 minutes) White T-shirt with Mario Kart Wii logo Yellow T-shirt with a Super Mario World design and Japanese text So yeah, I'll try to get pics eventually, except of the money. =P
  16. Avohkah Tamer
    As some of you may be aware, I had 4 consecutive weekend vacations this summer, due to BrickFair VA and Bronycon being a weekend apart, and my family planning two camping trips for before and after my convention trips. I'm on my way home from the final camping trip now, so I figure this gives me a good chance to recap.
     
    Four vacations in a row sounds really nice and relaxing on paper, but to be perfectly honest, I'd say they make things more stressful than if they were spaced out. Imagine the stress of planning and packing for a trip, times four. And the whiplash of going back to work for several days between the vacations (and having to make up for the missed work each time) just served to make things even more hectic. Even still, the trips were fun.
     
    Vacation 1: Camping with family (July 24 - 26)
    My family typically has made plans to go camping once or twice a year for the last 10 years we've had our pop-out camper. Nowhere too remote, the farthest we've camped is in the Smoky Mountains (that was a really fun trip), but usually we just go somewhere more nearby, like Wisconsin. Plenty of campground areas there. Anyways, camping trip went fine, weather was excellent, swam in the lake and did typical camp things, nothing really stands out as worth mentioning. Oh yeah, and I got an awful sunburn while out on the lake. Like really awful. Even though I used sunscreen. And re-applied it hourly. Why.
     
    Vacation 2: BrickFair VA (July 29 - August 3)
    So I'm not gonna lie, this year's BrickFair was not quite as great as past years, for various reasons others have already touched on in their recap entries. Still great overall, just not... as great. Personally-speaking, though, the first few days were somewhat ruined for me by a really bad mood and a lot on my mind stemming from stress from home (so for those of you who may have noticed I wasn't quite myself for a lot of the con, that's why). Thankfully though, the good outweighed the bad, and I still had a whole lot of fun. It's always great hanging out at the BZP table each year, whether I'm participating in shenanigans with Team Farm Animals, hanging with the BZP staff, getting to chat with old friends, or meeting new people. BrickFair is easily the highlight of my year every year, and I'm really glad to call all of you my friends. All in all, I didn't get to do as much as I'd have liked to do this year (those 6 days went by way too fast), but you can be sure I'll be back next year.
     
    Vacation 3: BronyCon 2015 (August 7-9)
    Going into this convention, I had no idea what to expect. The largest event I've really been to is BrickFair, and that's a completely different sort of con that has a much smaller number of attendees outside of public hours. As soon as I stepped off the light rail from the airport, seeing dozens and dozens of fans and cosplayers walking the streets of Baltimore was really surreal and made me start to realize the scope of this event. The convention center itself was absolutely massive too, with the vendor hall alone being roughly the same size as BrickFair's expo hall. I eventually met up with Aanchir and Lyichir to hang out and get my stuff into the room, worked out a schedule for the panels I wanted to see, and just enjoyed the con. Overall, the atmosphere was just so incredibly positive and friendly, and the panels and music performances at Bronypalooza I got to see were phenomenal. I'm told the convention ran without a hitch, and hit a new record with over 10,000 attendees this year! If at all possible, I'm planning to go back next year (since it doesn't conflict with BrickFair again!).
     
    Vacation 4: Camping with family (August 14-16)
    For whatever reason, my family picked the exact same campground as the last trip. I mean, it's a decent one, so it's not all bad. Anyways, not a whole lot to say here that hasn't already been said above since it's largely the same experience. I did manage to avoid a sunburn this time, so that's a plus.
     
    So that's how I spent my vacation days this year. It's been quite a ride, but I don't think I'm gonna plan consecutive vacations again if I can help it. It's just too much! D:
  18. Avohkah Tamer
    Oh hey, it's my 3-year anniversary of when I first started watching MLP!
     
    Since you guys probably know the drill by now, I'm gonna cut to the chase.
     
    As you may have expected, I've recorded another cover. I was looking for a song with a male vocalist from this season to sing, but my only choices were either one of "Weird Al" Yankovic's many songs in Pinkie Pride, or John de Lancie's fantastic "Glass of Water" song as Discord. And honestly, I'm not worthy of even attempting to cover those.
     
    So I continued looking for a different song to butcher cover, when I remembered having done these:
    Evil Blog Master
    Evil Fishmonger
    Evil Valentine Master

    "Hm, that idea couldn't possibly be applicable to an MLP song cover--
    >Filli Vanilli
    >The Ponytones
    >Flutterguy song
     
    ...Oh yeah. I can make this work."
     
    So, without further ado, here's my (pitch-shifted) Flutterguy cover of "Find The Music In You"!
     




     
    Be sure to let me know what you think!
     
    ~ (A VTOAHMKEARH)
     
     
  20. Avohkah Tamer
    Hee hee, gotta love it.
     
    ---
     
    On another note, I was GOING to change my blog theme recently, but someone took the idea totally exactly as I had it (name, blog image, first post intro), minus the long entry I had typed up in a Word file. They literally put up theirs within a couple hours of my plans to... >_>
     
    Also, I've been procrastinating on thinking of a blog theme in the meantime until they change it to something else. Any ideas?
     
    Oh yeah, I should probably get around to changing my BZP info. Oh, and my interests. And my avatar. And my sig. And clear out my PM box. And get a life. ;.;
     
    Procrastination + Indecision = EEEEVIIIIL
     
    ~
  21. Avohkah Tamer
    Many of you already knew I wasn't gonna let BrickFair VA 2013 pass me by, I just wanted to drop by and let you guys know that as of THIS MINUTE, the last details of my trip have been finalized and paid for!
    If you're anywhere remotely near the DC area and are free on August 3rd or 4th, BE THERE (early) OR BE SQUARE.
     
    Oh, and on an unrelated note, I just noticed the other day that my 10th anniversary here on BZPower was this past July 7th! I was planning to wax poetic about how much this site has affected me in positive ways and given me such an awesome group of lifelong friends, but I kinda did that already on my 2012 retrospective.
     
    At least I have a Tohu spinny and you don't, neener neener.
     
    ~ (A VTOAHMKEARH)
  22. Avohkah Tamer
    (Or if you're Pinkie Pie, my 24th Monthiversary)
     
     
    On the night of March 29th, 2011, I started watching MLP:FiM at the behest of Takuma Nuva, and I was pretty much immediately hooked. Two years worth of regular brony meetups, brony voice acting projects, and one brony convention later, it's interesting to see how simply being a part of the brony community for these two years has impacted my life in significant (and largely positive) ways.
     
    You guys might remember my 1st Brony Anniversary entry here last year, where I posted a vocal cover of Season 2's "The Flim Flam Brothers" song. Not to disappoint (I hope), I've recorded another cover for this year!
     
    "Which song?", you may ask. Well, sadly, the half-length Season 3 didn't really have any decent lengthy songs worth a cover version like last year. But then, while browsing around, I happened upon an interesting track.
     
    A 7-minute fanmade mashup/medley of virtually every MLP song from Seasons 1-3. Yeah, that'll do the trick.
     
    So here you have it, my complete vocal cover of KPAT Music's MLP:FiM Season 1-3 Medley. Enjoy, and let me know what you think!
     
     




    https://dl.dropbox.com/u/27614263/Majhost Broke/MLPS1-3Medley.mp3

  23. Avohkah Tamer

    Uggggggh...

    By Avohkah Tamer,

    ...My head...
     
    Yeah, so, I didn't get enough sleep last night. I've got a job, though, that requires me to be out the door by 9 AM. (I run errands for my dad's business, like collecting mail from the P.O. Box and depositing checks at the bank later) Well, as it was, I was asleep at 8:55 AM, and pretty deeply asleep. My mom was walking upstairs, and called to me as she was walking past that I was late and needed to get up. Well, I did. In about a half a second. For -no reason at all-, I almost literally jumped out of bed (not out of fear at all, just me wanting to get up), and started rushing to get ready. It was only when I made it downstairs that I had the time to realize I had a pounding headache from waking up and jumping out of my bed in about a second. ><
     
    Well, long story short, I got excused from going out the door by 9 sharp (which I could have done, but I'd have been half-asleep and that's not safe for driving on icy roads), so I used that time to wake myself up completely. Still have the headache, though.
     
    ---
     
    Sorry I've not been blogging since I got my lifetime premier, I really haven't had much inspiration. LM, Turakii, and Takuma should be able to pound an idea in my head eventually, though. =)
     
    ~
  24. Avohkah Tamer

    Up

    By Avohkah Tamer,

    As Dr. Seuss so well put it in one of his books, "It's a Great Day for Up!"



    As most of you (should) know, Disney/Pixar's latest movie Up came out just today. Has anyone here seen it yet? Even though I've already entirely made up my mind and I'm GOING to see it and I WILL like it, anyone wanna tell me how it was (spoiler-free, of course)?

    ~
  25. Avohkah Tamer

    Updates

    By Avohkah Tamer,

    Yeah, I'd blog way more if I had more ideas... So I guess I'll just give you some random updates of me!
     
    ---
    TV shows I've been watching:
     
    For the last several weeks, I've been borrowing the DVD box sets for MacGyver from a family I know who has every single season. It's awesome watching a classic old show for the first time. I'm almost done with season 4! Richard Dean Anderson is awesome as MacGyver and as Colonel Jack O'Neill from Stargate: SG-1. Y'know, that show really makes me want a Swiss Army Knife...
     
    The Unit is a slightly less family-friendly show, unfortunately, but I enjoy a lot of aspects of it. My dad bought seasons 1-3 on DVD, and I already finished them. It's a show depicting this elite special forces group who thwarts terrorists and rescues people and such. Thing is, they're totally top secret, and therefore can't get any credit for any things they do. They're basically supposed to be the best of the best picked out of the U.S. Army. This show probably wouldn't be as interesting to me if I hadn't been playing the free first-person shooter game Combat Arms. I can pick a lot of comparisons on how they operate with how I just normally play my game. Since I'm best as a sniper on Combat Arms, you can probably guess that episodes involving snipers on The Unit are my favorite ones.
     
    Lately, I've been watching Doctor Who episodes with Turakii #1 Lavasurfer and Laughin'Man in an interesting way. You see, I like downloading episodes of TV shows I like, and I happen to have every episode of the current Doctor Who series (all 4 seasons and the Christmas Specials) on my computer here. So, I file transfer the episodes to Turakii and LM, and we start watching them in sync, giving our comments as we watch. Turakii and I already have seen all these episodes, we're watching them for LM's sake, so he gets to see all the episodes like us! =D We just finished all of season 1 the other night, but he's seen various other episodes throughout the other seasons.
     
    ---
    Video Games:
     
    I haven't been playing as much of my games on Wii or DS as I'd like to, these past few weeks, but I do have a couple updates regarding my gaming. First off, a couple weeks ago, I hacked my Wii to play homebrew applications (fanmade programs designed to install on your Wii if it's been hacked to be able to do so)! The hacking was actually way easier than it sounds, don't think of me as some "über-hacker" for being able to do this. I literally followed instructions online, and I used a glitch in the game Twilight Princess (which I borrowed from a friend for this) to install the Homebrew Channel application. Now all I have to do is load apps onto the SD card and run them! I've got a mapping app, a port of Doom, a port of Quake, and -tons- more.
     
    Next off, last week I bought myself Pokémon Platinum, which I am very much enjoying! I'm still trying to get Laughin'Man to get it too, and he says he'll probably get it near the beginning of April when he's got money. NOT SOON ENOUGH, I SAY! >8(
    If anyone familiar with Diamond or Pearl (or even Platinum) is wondering how far I am, I'm at Pastoria City training for the gym. I've beat 4 gyms so far.
     
    As I mentioned before, I've been playing this Combat Arms PC game for a while now, and I've gotten pretty good. It's awesome that I get to play alongside Takuma Nuva and Torhuki. Anyone who reads Takuma's blog should know that he recently posted his latest caption contest image, which depicts him so kindly about to headshoot me. I'll have you know that I made a screenshot at the same instant! Check it out!
     
    ---
    Real life:
     
    Very strangely, though it was warm for a long time beforehand, it snowed yesterday morning! We got a couple inches, enough to cover the grass completely. By mid-afternoon, though, it was gone! Vanished into thin air! Poor Mr. Snowman left home yesterday to go on a business trip, but when he returned home, everything was gone! Poor Mr. Snowman, all alone in the world...
     
    I BLAME THOSE WHO DISLIKE WINTER FOR THIS MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE. D8<
     
    ---
     
    Well, that's all, I hope I didn't kill you with this remarkably long blog entry. Hopefully I'll think of more (short entry) ideas to blog about soon.
     
    ~
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