OHAI Everyone! Happy New Year.
On one hand. We're happy that we have our health. We're happy that we're not (back) on the streets again. That there's still food on the plate and a roof all albeit temporarily, over our heads. A lot of our friends and family did suffer through this year. In different ways. Read on if you care. This isn't going to be a tech article or anything like that.
On family.
Generally, we don't discuss our families much. Mostly because the general conversations we've had with family have been fairly mundane, all things considered. Never even had much drama over the furry shit in my life, either. One of the ethos that we promote here about "Thinking for yourselves," however, was something that affected me on a personal level within our family. And some may consider this political, which, honestly, is incredibly hard to avoid in 2025 in part thanks to television.
Coming full circle to the issue. My parents are getting older. One of the things that they tend to watch is Fox News. We didn't think much about it at the time... Fox News is the easiest to mock. We think they're all terrible because they hide behind the banner of news, which is simply incorrect. It's opinion and "entertainment". As to which, when we're stuck in airports forced to watch CNN or MSNBC, it's literally the same shit.
There was a point where our YouTube history was being overrun with late-night comedians that already have a platform of millions watching, but apparently, that isn't enough, and demand YouTube watch them as well, regurgitate whatever slop the AP hands their team of writers. 2025 was also the year when A.I. was used to make a deluge of false news on YouTube that was simply designed to infuriate people. So we expected this shit that major media also gets on the money train too.
Over time, the volume gets louder and louder each week we visit. on a scale to 100, it's perfectly audible at 32.. Then it's up to 45. then 60. then 90. There was one week when we could hear the moaning and bitching of Mark Levin outside on the porch with the windows closed. Holy fuck, parental units. I did ask if they wanted to go in for a hearing test. Perhaps get some gear to help them through the day. They tell me they can hear just fine. Then they started to spout off these statements to Fox News to me. As if they were true. We tried to calmly explain with citations and links that a lot of what is being said is taken out of context or is factually wrong. And eventually, it felt like I had to always defend myself. My opinions and the way we live our lives. That we're not strong enough, we're not working hard enough. That everything is our fault. Statements like
Artists don't really produce anything for society anyways so we should just round them up in a camp and put them to work. - Retired parental unit
Or my favorite!
The republican party has done nothing to the LGBT moment and in fact they are the ones who are criminals. - Retired parental unit.
Needless to say, dinners got incredibly quiet. Didn't say a word about their obsessive Musk worship. Or how JFK Jr. is doing such a great job.
We did ask Father at the end of the night if I could have his glasses and jewelry. The ones he used to wear when he was at Woodstock. We explained to him that if year 20-year-old version got to hear the crap the 70-year-old version is saying today. I'd think there would be MORE than words to be had. But it's okay. We'll put the jewelry to good use since obviously you don't care about anything your younger self cared about. Father.
Every week since then. The TV was at full blast until I turned the lock on his door. Then silence.. We know it's not over. Fox offers them the comfort of fear and hatred. And it hurts on a personal level to see this happen to them. The lesson of this story is that mainstream media controlling the minds of others is a slow process, so slow that often you don't notice it happening. Turn off the TV. Better yet. Smash that fucking TV, as Hollywood sure as fuck isn't going to be offering anything new and unique.
On gatherings.
I'm going to break the silence a little about conventions here.
Soatok (Clearnet-Link) generated a blog article about the scaling of conventions (Clearnet-Link), which actually puts a lot of the experiences we've had about conventions post-COVID in a state of perfect sense. We highly encourage people to go check out his blog and his article about this. Because even though a lot of his reference points are talking about Furry Conventions, it's unfortunately happening at every convention.
COVID was a dark time for a lot of people. Being isolated, being locked up. When the lockdowns were finally lifted, a lot of people decided that they had to go out. Go to these conventions, events, live life as much as possible, for there is always this looming threat that the next disease would lock us away longer, further, deeper. During this transition, there was also a loss of empathy. As people became more isolated, they also stopped caring about others around them. My, myself, and I.
With that attitude mixed with explosive growth, you have convention centers filled with people who do care about what they want to get out of said convention. But nothing beyond that point. A community without empathy. It spits in the face of everything we remembered from the science fiction worlds, and unfortunately. It's not something we could be a part of anymore.
The originally started with Furry Conventions. But it spread to other conventions that have also had explosive Growth. Midwest Gaming Classic, for example. Not only did the Baird convention center deploy airport-level technology to make sure no one can bring any liquids through. Forcing attendees to pay for water starting at $7(USD), or if you were really spendy, an IPA bottle for $16(USD). All in the name of safety, of course.
Top this off with shoulder-to-shoulder people. while all of the volunteered events remain the same. The VIG (Very Important Gamer) pass didn't mean a whole lot. Ultimately, unless we owned a bowling alley or bar, and needed to refresh my stock of Stern Pinball games. Or was a collector who wanted to fill one's house floor to ceiling with old gaming gear. Or was a guy really into card games and roleplaying games (residual from Gen-Con perhaps? I mean, it's cool it's there!) There just wasn't anything for me there. This is one of those experiences where we're going to go from fully supporting an event like that to maybe getting a day pass. Or simply not show up at all.
There was solace in the fact that some of my friends from Michigan did stop by. Stop by their blog , they have great art! (Clearnet-Link). So to that end. Thank you for making the event a little less cold.
The only other thing that we would say that Midwest Gaming did show us is that people are willing to pay stupid levels of money to relive the pain of nostalgia or better times.
And then there's insanity.. Which most would go 'no fucking way!', but near the end of the show, it was almost empty. And to be fair, there were also the dealers that just wanted to get rid of the crap from their garage for $10-20(USD), which is respectable.
So the takeaway from MGC is this: Time to put some old 8-bit consoles on eBay! Clean your house and cash out hard before the 20-30 year old media derezzes itself.
Message to the Baird Center.
It does not matter what you do. Some of us will always remember.
New Year's.
Didn't go out. Stayed inside, logged into Second Life, and teleported around a lot. Didn't have to deal with drunks. Didn't have to deal with cops. Didn't have to deal with people attempting to commit vehicular homicide while drunk. Wisconsin really should change its state flag to a bar stool with the slogan "pull up and have another." Reflecting on this New Year's. Technology kind of turned to shit, not really, thanks to A.I. But thanks to the people behind it for being dicks and tipping the scales of technology only to suit their needs instead of the needs of everyone.
While at the same time. JoAnn fabrics has gone out of business, and the prices of Sewing Machines and Sergers have been dropping like a rock. Clothing design isn't cool in the States, we guess? Or repair? We already have a sewing machine. But with sergers dropping to the mid 200's, I might pick that up as well. It might be the only way we could acquire a respectable jacket that isn't half-completed like those bubble-jacket pieces of shit North Face is selling to everyone.
Internet community.
It's been silent. Sadly.. Some of the people that we used to talk to on the socials went poof. Now, whenever someone ghosts online, we tend to hope for the best. Maybe they found something magical to do in the real, and they're making the dreams legit happen. Good for them!
We miss talking to them, sure. Which is another reason why I pour the absinthe into my glass. Webrings went quiet. And we're back to just shouting into the clouds. To those who are still alive. To those we've neglected to reach out to. Even just 'hello' was good enough to me. Thank you.
May you have a great life. As we push into 2026.
Don't die.
And server protect you.
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