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Avohkah Tamer

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  2. Avohkah Tamer

    Back In Time

    By Avohkah Tamer,

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXN6tgE4g_4
     
    Back in time to my birthday, in fact!
     
    NOW EVERYBODY GIVE ME PRESENTS AGAIN.
     
    So I guess I'm kinda glad I haven't blogged or posted much in the past few months, because I lost pretty much nothing. That's not to say I haven't been up to anything interesting, I'm just lazy.
    My condolences to those of you who weren't lazy, and as a result lost a bunch of posts and stuff. (Honestly though, I'm so sorry :C)
     
    Expect blog entries about some, all, or none of the following topics in the near future:
    Pokemon
    Weird Al Yankovic
    Pumpkin (if it turns out good, I still haven't picked a design)
    Team Fortress 2
    Ponies
    Doctor Who
    Other Things
    Alternatively, if you're too impatient to wait for my blog entries here, you could just stalk me on Twitter like everyone else, because I'm actually pretty active there.
     
    ~ (A VTOAHMKEARH)
  4. Avohkah Tamer
    I haven't outright mentioned it here yet, but I do have Animal Crossing: New Leaf! I figured I'd toss a short entry on here to let you guys know if you didn't already.
     
    I'm the mayor of a nice little town called Everfree (Here's my town flag). Nice villagers, nice building layout. I've got a big ol' orchard of every single fruit up in the corner of my town too.
     
    Mostly been working on collecting everything (furniture, clothing, fish+bugs+fossils), paying off town enhancements (I should have Brewster's Cafe funded by tonight), etc. Not so much actual design or town decoration yet, that comes later.
     
    Unfortunately, due to my firewall, I'm unable to play online multiplayer on AC:NL from my home network at the moment until I figure out the port to unblock, so I'm going to hold off on giving out my friend code for now. Unless of course you guys just want my code regardless, for when I get it working, or for one of my other games which do work over WiFi.
     
    Now, back to bell grinding, and mourning the death of Google Reader tomorrow!
     
    ~ (A VTOAHMKEARH)
  5. Avohkah Tamer
    So... Pretty late question, I know, but anyone here going to be at Brickworld Chicago tomorrow?
     
    I plan to be there (during public hours) as usual, so in the off chance a fellow attendee spots this blog entry, look out for the guy in the dark green BZPower shirt and the backpack, walking around snapping photos of every single MOC with my phone. If you see me, stop me and say hi!
     
    Sadly there are never very many BZP members I've been able to find at the smaller Brickworld convention (I only met one member last year), but that's why I also plan to be at Brickfair VA this August. So many fun shenanigans to be had at the BZPower booth. (Srsly, if you live near the D.C. area or otherwise can afford the travel, GO TO BRICKFAIR. It is so much fun.)
  6. Avohkah Tamer
    This past year has had its ups and downs, good times and bad, as any year would; but overall, it's been one of my most awesome, memorable, and accomplished years of my life. Not only because of things that happened and cool events I attended, but especially in personal growth.
     
    I'm going to admit, I've always been a lurker online. That is to say, I've been content to join forums and websites, browse them almost daily, but rarely (if ever) actually post or contribute anything. I'm especially guilty of this on BZP, but also countless other websites and communities I've been a part of. I've always been too nervous and worried I wouldn't fit in, even on a website dedicated to a common interest (such as BZP). Really, it's a miracle I managed to get such an awesome close circle of BZP best friends, considering my infrequent (read: virtually nonexistent) activity here. This year, I actually started working to change that. You may not have noticed, but this blog has had more entries this year alone than from all entries in 2008-2011 combined.
     
    Why the sudden change? Well, as ridiculous as it sounds, I owe it to the brony community. Although I was initially a lurker there too, the supportive atmosphere slowly convinced me to get more involved this year; to participate in discussions, and eventually even a few collaborative projects. I gained friendships, experience, and most importantly, confidence in my ability to contribute my humor, insight, and skills in any online community (not just among my closest friends).
     
    In 2012, I went from almost no online activity to the point where I'm confident enough to record songs and even voice act for collaborative projects (more on that when it's completed).
     
    Prior to this year, my actual social life also suffered. I had next to no real-life friends, and I was too introverted and shy to attempt to meet people. Thanks to a good friend convincing me, I got over that and started attending my local brony meetups (which are not as much about pony as they are about hanging out, playing video games, doing general fun stuff together) and got to meet people my age, with similar interests to my own. I'm still far from being a socialite, and I still get pretty nervous and uncomfortable in social situations, but I now have real-life friends who like me for who I am, and I'm not quite so terrified of meeting new people anymore. It sounds sort of pathetic, but I feel it's a huge step forward for me and I couldn't be happier.
     
    In 2012, I went from almost no real-life friends, to about two dozen friends I hang out with on a fairly regular basis.
     
    How does BZP tie into all this? Well, if it weren't for my newfound confidence in myself both online and in real life, I probably would never have attended BrickFair VA and finally met some of my longtime best friends (and all you other awesome bros). Seriously, if Brickfair took place just six months earlier, I probably wouldn't have had the guts to go at all. Also, it would have been February and cold and miserable, so there's that too.
     
    All in all, 2012 was a great year of growth, self-improvement, and friendships. I hope 2013 is even better!
     
     
    Here's a recap of some cool 2012 things!
    POBZPC at last!
    My one-year brony anniversary
    My first brony meetup
    Brickworld
    BrickFair (Yeah I'm going next year)
    Meeting John De Lancie
    Midwestria (Followup)
    I VOTED

  8. Avohkah Tamer
    Lately, I've seen a good number of BZPower members complaining about some members' recent banners, and some disabling all signatures or even leaving BZP temporarily because they don't want to see them. There's no need! Since I didn't see any existing guides already, here's my tutorial on how to use Adblock Plus to block online ads and other images!
     
    You've probably seen some members mention the Adblock Plus browser extension before, but you may not know what it is or how it works. This add-on (available for Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome) makes blocking online advertisements dead simple, and has the added bonus of being able to block any additional images you tell it to!
     
    First-off, I should make it clear that this extension is not available for Internet Explorer, Safari, Opera, or other browsers. There may be similar solutions for them, but this guide only covers Firefox and Chrome, which are both excellent browsers you should consider trying out if you have not already done so. Assuming you've got one of those browsers, let's move on.
     
     
    Step 1: Installing Adblock Plus
    "Where do I get this wonderful thing?", you may ask. Well, unfortunately, pretty much every web page you can install it from has a link to a forum or an unmoderated comment section, which makes it against the rules for me to link to. Instead, I'll put some direct links to the downloads right here! (Note: for best results, click one of the following links in its respective browser so it will start the installation automatically.)
     
    Install Adblock Plus for Firefox (DIRECT DOWNLOAD LINK)
    Install Adblock Plus for Google Chrome (DIRECT DOWNLOAD LINK)
    When the installation is done, your browser may need to be restarted (depending on which one you're using).
     
    Step 2: Blocking Ads!
    Once it's done, it will ask you for a "Filter Subscription". This is basically an automatically updated list of common ads it will block. Assuming you're in an English-speaking country, I would recommend you choose the "Easylist (English)". Add that subscription, and that's it! 99% of ads you'd normally run into online are now blocked! Easy, huh?
     
    Step 3: Blocking Images
    Now that your browsing is virtually ad-free, you can get to blocking any other images you'd like to hide. This could be an advertisement the Easylist missed, or a BZPower banner you would rather not see.
     
    Right click the image you'd like to block. In Firefox, click "Adblock Plus: Block Image..."
     
    Now here's the tricky part. In Firefox, the window that pops up will look really complicated and intimidating with all the options. By default, it will select the second option, which is to block all the images from the folder it's in. That would be a good choice for ads, but if you did that on a banner, it would block all of the user's images on majhost in that folder. Instead, you'll want to select the top option, which should be the full deeplinked URL.
    Here's an example:

     
    Google Chrome's is a lot easier. In Chrome, right click the image and click "Block Element". Simply make sure the URL in the box is the direct deeplink to the image, and hit Add.
    Here's an example:

     
    Quick note: if you block a Premier Member's uploaded avatar as well, it will stay blocked even when they change it because the URL remains the same.
    And that's it! If you've got any questions, don't hesitate to ask.
     
    ~ (A VTOAHMKEARH)
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