People 2026 Thought I’d mark some notable interactions with people this year for posterity.
Couple weeks ago met up with sabotlours and carol_kitty who were visiting NYC. We met up at the Carnegie Diner, had a wonderful time catching up with both of them… last time I saw them in person was their wedding about a decade ago. Hopefully our next meeting will be after a much shorter hiatus.
Unfortunately next person is under less happy circumstances. Earlier this month I got this… weird feeling about August / octavius_rodens so I checked out his facebook account and sadly found a post from a family member of his reporting that August had passed away in February. He was only 53 :(
Lastly, found out last week someone from my office is leaving the company, this is actually his last week and unfortunately it looks like he won’t be in the office before his exit. I didn’t work that closely with Tom but for a couple years I sat across from him and he was an underwriter for one of the business units I worked with for a few years. As far as I can tell one of his reasons for leaving appears to be for a better work/life balance which wouldn’t surprise me. This company has been pretty poor in that regard from my own experience.
To report something coming up in July, going to be my friend Rick’s 50th birthday - I plan on taking him out for lunch probably next month or closer to his birthday.
Hopefully if I have any more notable news about friends this year it’s on the happy end.
EDIT: Forgot to mention my friend Adam will be traveling to Columbia again for the ayahuasca meditation again. I told him to share the details when he returns and let us know if he sees pope mantis again. One thing I learned, I thought pope mantis was merely tall in his vision but apparently I was wrong… Adam said the creature was enormous. Of course he didn’t get specific but he said the thing was like monster sized. I know it’s probably not smart but it’s got my curiosity and I kinda want to try one of these excursions someday…
Saturday attended PAX. Pretty mellow year, play tested some games, considered buying a few but ended up just buying Oh No, Volcano! because it gave off Fireball Island vibes (a game my gaming group plays once in awhile; this one was a good purchase - brought it to a couple gatherings and has gone over pretty well). Also ended up buying a few posters, two for Spy x Family and one for Dandadan; one of the ones I bought I intend to give as a birthday gift to a friend who is big into anime (a more risqué poster of Yor from Spy x Family, feel like it’s more in line with his tastes - personally with anime posters I gravitate towards either the more family friendly stuff or basically anything that’s got furry type characters in it). He asked if I could find him any artwork from the Trails of Cold Steel game series he loved… sadly could not. Ended up taking a fair number of pictures, not as many elaborate costumes as I would have expected or seen in previous years at this convention though quite a few fursuiters.
The following day on Sunday I travelled down to NYC for MoCCA Fest. I’ve been attending this art festival for years and increasingly it feels like a bust - especially this year. I could not get the interest to buy anything this year. The exhibitors felt almost exactly the same as the previous year - so anything that might interest me I think I had already bought, and nothing new was there that caught my eye. I ended up buying a short anthology comic on robots because I wanted to have something to show for the day but mostly only because I liked the cover art, flipping through it there was only one story that caught my eye. Really unfortunate and felt like a waste of a day… I’ve found so many amazing indie comics and artwork at this festival over the years I’m not sure I’m ready to give up on it but I also think I might have to take a break from it if there’s not going to be much change in who is selling there from one year to the next.
Con-Roster Meme (as of March 2026) There was a gap of updating this list between 2013 and 2016 so... I might be missing some stuff, tried to update it as best as I could remember and am going to try and update this as I attend new conventions/years. Attendance can blur year over year which is why I'm trying to keep at least a somewhat accurate list :P
Glenn In regards to the friend/former coworker I mentioned last year who passed away in September, have a little bit more information that I just wanted to get written down mostly for myself.
A mutual friend Ju-an decided to go to a bar Glenn would regularly frequent and who she often met up with him. The bartender did remember Glenn and shared what he knew… and I’m a little unsure of the timeline but also knowing it’s second hand information it could be due to that.
After Glenn failed to show up for work one day and his boss couldn’t reach him they called his emergency contact who is a family member. That person called a friend of Glenn’s, Yvette (never met her) and she went to his apartment couldn’t get in and called police who told her legally they couldn’t break in until at least the next day (doesn’t sound like anyone had a spare key or knew who might).
Tge following morning they forced their way in and found him on the kitchen floor with a head injury. It’s Ju-an’s understanding that an autopsy showed no other health issues. So we previously thought maybe Glenn’s previous health issues played a part but maybe it didn’t (though if he passed out due to his diabetes maybe that caused him to fall rather than slipping or something else).
Long story short, Ju-an worried that maybe if Yvette was able to get into the apartment the day earlier that maybe Glenn could have been saved.
Apparently Glenn’s family took care of the arrangements quickly, most of them live in California, but they understand he has a lot of friends in New York so they may do a memorial gathering on the anniversary of his death… this Sep. I’ve started reaching out to people to tell them this may take place later this year.
Show status Television shows - Last Season Watched ??? = Either reminder of show I'm interested in seeing or don't have a season completed yet This is more of a note to myself, mostly shows I've been purchasing or borrowing from the library.
People Status As an aside, this original post was made I think sometime in 2016... so some of the stuff below may have timing issues, the important thing is the list at the bottom. I keep revising the post date so it doesn't get lost in the jumble of other posts... as few as those seem to come these days.
A post on Twitter caught my attention and I thought I'd mark it down here - and maybe some input in the comments section could help also. It's in regards to people that were known but seemingly dropped off into limbo - either in terms of intentional or unintentional disappearance.
Just curious what happened to folks, especially people I interacted with at some point over the years and... I don't know where they've gone to. Friendships can end or drift apart and that's depressing enough, I think it may be more depressing to remember someone and have close to zero idea whatever happened to them. It's weird how online social networks can open up new worlds in terms of meeting people but it can also make you more vulnerable if a lot of your communication proceeded over those sorts of channels - in some cases I don't even know the person's RL name, just whatever alias they used.
I know it's nice to have known people and that they've had some sort of impact on your life (whether you really know it or not) but... I don't like not knowing, I'm odd like that :P
Starting with a quick list, anybody know what happened to these folks?
Missing * alias_pup (Only met the guy once, can't remember if he was a friend of Grizz or just joined out of the blue but he helped out at the MS Walk with taking photos. Seemed like an interesting guy but he quickly dropped off the grid, I think he moved out of the area a long while back (California?). LJ account hasn't been updated in years.) (status as of 4/27/16) * bennetfox (Don't even remember last time I saw him, at a con years ago?) (status as of 4/27/16) * internetjello (This one is a longshot, I only knew them briefly through my version_zero community and their _eek_thecat_ community; deleted their account a long while back. I liked their contributions on both sites, was sad to see them vanish) (status as of 4/27/16) * killen / shepherdbear (Knew him from... I think people I had met in Connecticut. I think the last interaction I had with him was about 2005, though there could have been some after under his other lj account which apparently was deleted while his original was just forgotten. It looks like he moved overseas sometime 2005 or 2006 but that's about as current an information that I have on him) (status as of 12/19/16) * lecarick (Did not know him that well, knew he had some heavy substance issues... really just curious what happened to this guy) (status as of 10/14/16) * Plas Tiger / Green Fuzz Tiger (lost touch with him during the pandemic, recently found out he went off the grid in late 2023. contact info is either obsolete or has been deactivated.) (status as of 05/06/24) * suicidehelmet / Death Panda(?) (I think that was a furry name he used at like the only time I met him, which I think was MFF maybe? Remember so little about this guy, mostly just had interactions on livejournal back in the day :/ ) (status as of 12/29/16) * Totems (Comic artist on FurAffinity, really enjoyed his stuff. There’s been no activity on his account in years) (status as of 5/11/2021)
Found * boixboi / Benjie(First met him I think at MFM 2003, he was one of the people that joined pandaguy's group for the zoo trip. Remember seeing him at other cons, definitely some of the FC cons when it was still at the DoubleTree.) Appears to use the Twitter account RedBenjie, although since it is not public cannot tell if there has been active since 2019. (status as of 1/31/23) * canj(NYC for awhile then I think he moved?) Appears to have moved to Ohio, on twitter under bitwiseyotecoyotegrins/ (updated status as of 3/31/20) * cnipur / Luchy / Chano / chanobear(Dropped off facebook, far as I can tell, at least a couple years ago... not to mention the other sites listed on his wikifur entry. I know he was originally located in Canada but got the impression he was thinking of relocating to the United States after he finished with school.) Found on LinkedIn, depending on how recent it has been updated... appears he's working and doing well in Canada. Friended on Facebook, he's currently married and looks happy. (updated status as of 10/12/19) * cyberwolf80 / WhiteWolf Darkpaw (Last saw him at MidWest FurFest sometime around 2010, last conversation on LJ found out he moved to California in 2013. As of 2022 found on FurAffinity account ww_darkpaw; an entry as of 2021 on there mentions being trans/character will be female going forward) (status as of 5/29/22) * mightyomnivore / Boomer Skunk / Guillermo(He purged his lj account years ago; last saw him at MOCCANY a few years back, I heard he was still in NYC but people I know who saw him occasionally haven't heard from him in a long while; he hasn't answered emails, one person stopped by his apartment last year but there was no response so not sure if he's even still living there or not). Found on Facebook under real name, seems to be doing well. Ran into at NYCC 2019 and caught up for a bit. (updated status as of 10/12/19) * morganbatness(I know he moved down to Florida at one point...) Since moved to California, on twitter as moonlitwingsx (updated status as of 4/27/16) * plushielove / Galliga (He was an upstate NY fur but moved out to California around 2008. Apparently changed his fursona to Bearhardt Honeybone. changed his name to Pepper (username pepperpawbs) around 2020? He has a recently abandoned FurAffinity account under that name, looks like his Twitter and instagram accounts are maybe a little more recently maintained) (status as of 10/24/18) He’s on twitter and Bluedky (Status as of 4/28/2026) * StickDevil(Artist who drew the icon I'm using for this post, I know he left the furry fandom some years back and deleted (as far as I know) all his online accounts and put a block on his Wikifur bio). While doing asearch on DA someone provided a link, looks like he changed his profile to Ducky / DuckDraw. Drawing style has changed, but appears to be same person. (updated status as of 4/27/16) * tigerfoxx(Another who I used to keep in touch with but haven't heard from in at least a couple years, briefly ran into him during FAU when it was in NJ) He's shown life again on livejournal, so at very least reviewing lj or twitter. Later ran into him at a CT Diner meet in 2018. (updated status as of 09/12/18) * vindonnus previously known as dragoon3428
And per TJ's post, although I didn't know Santa Fox personally I had seen him at a number of the earlier conventions I went to and really thought he a great fursuit performer - apparently he had left the fandom years ago (sometime prior to 2016 it appears).
I'm sure there are more, I'll update as the list gets expanded. Anybody know anything about these people or want me to add to the list?
Final note, a little bit more morbid than with the above, just wanted to note the existence of the furs_remembered community. Unfortunately it seems like I'm the only one still posting there, whoever created it used a sock account that not long after was deleted. Sadly because of that no new members can be added. I'm only updating that community with people I knew personally, even if it was only slightly - so thankfully it doesn't get updated often. Still... there are people listed there who should be remembered.
“The worst Asian in the world!” No it’s not my quote, and the actual quote might’ve been “The worst Asian I’ve ever known,” but it’s been so long I can’t say for sure what it was.
It was something my friend/former coworker Glenn mentioned to me that his ex wrote about him after their breakup. I vaguely remember meeting her once then some years later hearing some wild stories about their time together after it was over.
Like how she came home early in the morning after partying all night missing her shoes and needing her taxi fare paid for. How she was in part responsible for Glenn draining years of savings out of his retirement account. Or how during their breakup she got Glenn to spend a night in jail over some allegation that he was threatening her or trespassing. The next day he found his apartment empty except for maybe the mattress, she threw everything out the window.
They would later patch things up and remain friends, she’d show up in some his photos when he was at a bar trivia night or something. I remember asking him why he’d remain friends with her, I think he said there was too much shared history and for whatever else her faults she got him - and relationships like that are hard to completely abandon.
I bring this all up because this is the same Glenn I mentioned in my previous post who passed away this last September. Ju-an, a mutual friend of ours told me today during lunch she had had a very vivid dream of having dinner with Glenn and in the dream thinking “but you’re dead!” Reading his obituary last month I saw mentioned his ex was described as finding his “soul mate.” I… get they were close, and I didn’t really know much about her, but I just found it sorta funny and odd that you can go through all those yes good but also insanely bad moments with someone… and they can still be seen by others as being your “soul mate.”
I think of people I’ve known over the years, some still in contact with some not and I wonder how they currently think of me, if they do, or how others on the outside might see the relationship. Are there any people I’ve known that aren’t family who would get a mention in my obituary?
I suppose also there’s something to be said for the hope of reconciliation also. Perhaps even hopelessly damaged relationships can still be repaired… or at least appear to be.
Family & Friends Two furs passed away this year who I’d known for years: enteirah and bradhound. Enteirah I’d only known online, but pretty much since I created my livejournal. The fur who got me an LJ code to create my account (when those were still a thing) was loganberrybunny who was friends with Ent and who introduced us to each other. I can’t say I interacted with him much in recent years, and some time back he made the jump to DreamWidth. I have to say I was shocked to read on wikifur that he’d passed away from cancer, he’s roughly a decade younger than me. BradHound is someone I’d met in person years ago but again, most of my interactions with him for quite awhile were online only. I vaguely remember Sabot introducing me to him at maybe Further Confusion or Midwest FurFest. Guy was extremely nice and always saw the best in the fandom.
And sadly that’s not the only death I saw this year, a friend and former co-worker Glenn had passed away a week after I and another coworker of ours had dinner with him for San Gennaro in September, only found out in December. He’d been laid off from our company in 2018 but those of us who worked whim kept in touch and met up where we could, which for me was almost exclusively for our tradition of eating in Little Italy during the Feast of San Gennaro in mid-September. I’d known Glenn since end of 2005 when I joined that company, he was a good colleague and was the one who got me into taking photos at pretty much every group event I do these days. Glenn was big into documenting our outings together, and his Facebook showed he had a wide group of friends. That’s what tipped me off, I suddenly realized that even though I don’t go on FB much these days I couldn’t remember the last time I saw something of his on my timeline - and that’s how I got the tragic news. And apparently not many other people had known either, vast majority of the people I reached out to to let them know were hearing it for the first time. It’s crazy, right? How news like this can happen and you have no idea for literally months. I sometimes wonder how I’d find out about people who may be even less active on social media and who I don’t see in person anymore… will I just assume they’re off the grid when really they’re off our plane of reality? Glenn had only just turned 63 earlier that month, he’d had a few health problems that I believe were work stress related.
On better news my sister and her family moved out of their apartment and bought a house. They also added a dog to their family, a Labrador puppy my nephew named Sparky.
Oh and I’ll add that I attended Soron and Parker’s FOXmas party (and this may have been the first time I found out that stood for Frozen Oasis Christmas Party lol), first time in years since I last attended one of them. Was hoping to attend his birthday party back in July but works gets weird during the quarter close, never know how much of the weekend I’ll end up working. Happypup and Kaelan were kind enough to share their hotel room with me after we called it a night. Drive back home was exhausting, got hit with a snowstorm some areas were slow going, spotted a few accidents along the way. BTW congratulations again to Soron and Parker announcing that they got married :)
Other Stuff Had a bad car accident in April which required replacing my car of almost two decades, hydroplaned though fortunately it was just me on the road at the time - pretty scary experience. Unfortunately between the age and damage to my car it just didn’t make sense to go through the repairs though I seriously considered it. I went back to the location of the accident a week later to locate my front license plate which had been knocked off, at least that part of my car carried on with my replacement. Wouldn’t have been able to reuse the plates unless I had both of them.
Finances / Self Hit a milestone with my brokerage account, still working on building it up as another income stream of dividends. I don’t think I’ll be able to get to where it can replace my paycheck completely but I’m still hoping it gets me to a part-time job level of income and allow some sort of early retirement even if that means working a lower paying job until I get full access to my retirement accounts.
General traditions remain, attended yearly wine festival with my sister, spent a weekend up in Lake George with some friends, attended PAX East and MoCCA Fest (first time attending both of those since the start of the pandemic), had a great meal at the Feast of San Gennaro with a couple friends from work… which if nothing else I’m also thankful I pushed to make that happen even though a couple other people who were supposed to attend had to cancel as it allowed me to see my friend Glenn one last time.
I hit my 20-year milestone at my job. I’m kinda surprised, I mean I complain about the place enough I really didn’t think I’d still be here. But I hate interviewing and the thought of having to reacquaint myself with a new job, people, and procedures makes me a little nauseous. Which is why as mentioned below… I really would like to figure a way to retire early ;)
Attended my 25 year college reunion. These things have become a bit more low key, they don’t seem to be doing the campus race or the wine tasting events anymore. It was a pretty special year for my school as a ceramic anniversary… though I went for a business degree so most of the names I only vaguely remembered. I saw several people who I remembered from my time there, I think four of them from my freshman year that I kept in touch with a little during my four years there. My old boss Steve at the library unfortunately wasn’t around, he would always lead in singing the school song at our reunion dinners - found out his health wasn’t doing so well these days. As far as I can tell though he’s still around at this point.
Entertainment I did manage to watch Zootopia 2, at the AMC on 34Th street (where I watched the original Zootopia my second viewing). Went there because I wanted a picture with the promotional movie bus cutout they had… though like the first movie, this theater had it but in far from perfect condition. Still nice to get a picture with it again though.
As for the coming year… who knows. I’m not really focused on much these days other than working on my retirement accounts so I can actually get out of this rat race. As has been mentioned here and in previous posts, I’m also trying to build up a passive income through dividend income. Doubt it’d ever replace a salary but it’d be great if it could make moving to part time viable… it’s nice to dream.
Movies 2025 1. Sex and the City 2 (2010) 2. Karate Kid: Legends (2025) 3. Mission Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023) 4. Mission Impossible - The Final Reckoning (2025) 5. Nobody 2 (2025) 6. The Bad Guys 2 (2025) 7. Weapons (2025) 8. Zootopia 2 (2025) 9. Minions: The Rise of Gru 10. Ne Zha 2 (2025)
Reunion 2025 Meant to post this recap earlier since this took place early in June but better late than never.
Attended my 25th college reunion, last one I attended was in 2021 (which was the “20 year anniversary” that got pushed back due to COVID). As usual I stayed in my old dorm The Brick again, it’s on campus and relatively close to the majority of events that take place… or used to be, far fewer events taking place in the Powell Campus Center now that they have that big extension/replacement to the gym. Long story short, it feeds into my nostalgia so I’m fine continuing the tradition.
Felt like more people attended this year than what I’ve normally experienced. Might be in part because of 125th anniversary of it being a ceramic school so they had a few other events related to that. A lot of people celebrating their 50th anniversary. The events I had loved participating in in previous years still haven’t come back (sometime before Covid they stopped doing the 5k run and the wine tasting). But it was nice to walk around campus, I went into Herrick Library, worked there my full four years at that school, love the smell of old books. Stopped by Olin, the school of business building… and I guess not a lot else.
At the class lunch I discovered there were people I remembered who attended this year (honestly pretty rare based on the half dozen or so times I’ve come to these reunions). All three I had mostly known my freshman year - Melissa and Terry were in a different freshman building but we had overlap with business classes, and Jason was in my freshman building. Terry and Jason had gotten together a few years after graduation, Melissa had married someone from the class of 199 - both couples had kids. Some other people from our class attended who I couldn’t remember (they showed up for the dinner only). Was fun chatting with them all. Oh, also found out that two longstanding staff members had apparently left the school. Kinda a shock to find out Trish and Dan no longer there.
I am disappointed the school apparently wasn’t doing class pictures anymore, figures that the year with the largest turnout for my year’s alumni.
I should also mention during lunch the school performed the usual announcements and other little things. One of those is singing the school Alma Mater, for literally years this was headed by the head librarian Steve Crandall (he’d been retired for awhile but he would still volunteer for this task). The woman heading it this year told us Steve couldn’t perform it this year, his health is actually doing poorly but he was here in spirit. I… can’t say enough how much I hope he gets better. I knew Steve my four years working at the library and he’s an incredibly nice guy. I’d always make it a point to chat with him a bit at previous reunions… I hope that the previous one I attended isn’t going to be the last time I saw him :(
Ayahuasca Attended my friend Dave’s birthday yesterday, he’d invited our game group who primarily comprised of people he’d met at work along with Derek our friend from High School. The plan for the party was to play loads of Mario Kart World that he’d gotten during its debut - did play quite a bit of that and had a great deal of fun.
But here I wanted to share a story from one of the people who attended, Adam, about his recent trip to Colombia to attend a spiritual quest. Ten plus years earlier he mentioned hearing about the drug ayahuasca and people’s experience doing it and he decided he wanted to do it around his thirtieth birthday. He was approaching his 40th birthday, which took place about a week ago, when he decided he really didn’t want to put it off any longer.
He’d found out about one retreat which offered what he was looking for so signed up for the two week trip with a group of about forty people (sounded like majority were other Americans though other nationalities also attended) and took the flight to Colombia and from there a trip to the location, I forget the city name. Very high elevation so made a lot things more difficult.
The activity included two days of being dosed (with twelve hours devoted to it each day), two days of recovery, then two more days of being dosed. Adam kinda offhandedly mentioned that he went in as an atheist but he saw things that made him question things and mentioned some being attaching itself to him on the first day. I asked him if it was anything like the “DMT elves” that Joe Rogan has talked about and Adam mentions he’s done DMT and Acid before and it’s a far more intense experience than either of those (he also mentioned he never experienced DMT elves).
So I had to know more so I asked him if he could share more. He said it started by him seeing what was like a mural of floating eyes and teeth that sorts rotated (I mentioned that sounded almost like some of the biblically correct descriptions of angels). But the creature that showed up and “tormented” him (how he described it, looked like a giant mantis wearing a pope outfit and carrying a golden scepter.
Adam then described to us that when he’s taken DMT it started off by feeling like a usb is plugged into your neck and, I can’t remember which way he described it, but either something is uploaded or downloaded from you and the feeling starts from your top until it gets to your feet which is when the real experience begins. Except here he said the mantis showed him a that was connected to his mid section and plugged into something, the mantis then severed that wire with an ax but there was a second wire which is how Adam felt they communicated. I don’t know what the communication was like because Adam said he would ask questions and if they were wrong questions he’d feel like he was being shocked. It was like the mantis was trying to steer him towards questions… but I don’t remember if Adam mentioned getting any answers. So apparently this went on for some time.
Also Adam felt like he had to keep his eyes open, whenever he closed them he saw blinding light that was almost painful. Later he mentioned talking to others, many of whom had done these spiritual quests before, and some had seen the mantis before.
I don’t know if he had visions on the other days but he described the experience like getting ten years of therapy in a week.
Some other noteworthy excerpts from his story, everyone pukes and shits themselves during the experience - it’s encouraged actually because it’s seen as removing the toxins from your body and no one is shamed, in fact everyone experiences it. People didn’t tap out but a couple almost did - it’s extremely difficult experience and many people scream during it. Two people had to be tied up and placed in a shed at different points because their experience was so intense, he was told to protect others from being hurt if they completely lost it. There was during one session where two people were having a bad time and internally Adam was asking for good spiritual energy be sent to help them. The next day one of the healers mentioned he felt good energy being sent from Adam to help others.
Honestly his story got my curiosity. I don’t know if I’d ever try it, but it’s got my curiosity. I have tried a sensory deprivation tank a couple times but never experienced any visions but it has been something that I’ve wanted to experience for a long time. Hearing someone who has actually experienced it… I am going to add it to my bucket list at very least.
Oh funny thing last to say, Adam has kinda gone off grid from our message chats and he often doesn’t attend our monthly gaming get togethers - sometimes because of work but sometimes because he’s just depressed. So we didn’t think much about it when he wasn’t responding to the invite, but apparently he accepted it last minute, but part of that reason also could be because none of us knew he was in Colombia recently lol. Kinda reminds me of when one coworker of mine did his usual two week vacations each year but came back wearing a wedding ring.
I want to end by saying whatever he went through definitely seemed to have a positive effect on Adam… he seemed much happier and positive than I normally saw him at gatherings.
Karate Kid Legends Last night I joined a co-worker to see an early screening of Karate Kid Legends, movie officially comes out tomorrow; got free tickets popcorn and a soda through company’s Asian ERG group.
Movie is a lot of fun, some homage to the original Karate Kid 1 & 2, ending had some Cobra Kai show fun. It’s definitely a sequel rather than a reboot or anything like that. I wouldn’t place the movie in the same league as the previous movies, a little over the top with the fighting and some of the animation that’s added in some points is a bit kiddy. The first fight in the film felt very Jackie Chan… who is in this movie along with Ralph Macchio.
Watched it at the AMC in 42nd street which… I can’t remember the last time I saw a movie there. Got me a little nostalgic for when I was living in the city. And with the sequel coming out this year got me remembering when I saw Zootopia at AMC and got a picture with that movie subway cutout they had in some theaters (though that was at the AMC on 34th street if I remember correctly). Damn how time flies…
Long story short, I did enjoy watching Karate Kid Legends and… you can’t beat the price when it’s free :)
PAX East 2025 Attended PAX East yesterday for the first time since 2020… still a fun convention. I will say it felt far less attended than last time but it may be due to timing, I don’t think this is the usual time of year it takes place.
Got some nifty pics, played the Dead Cells board game, played my first VR game - Tunneler, and a few other odds and ends games though mostly wandered (should’ve brought my 3DS in the off chance I could get some street passes). Bought a couple posters I think might make good gifts but held off on buying anything more… simply do not have the space these days and it’s iffy how much use I’d get out of one more board game.
On the way into Boston the traffic was horrendous so I pulled over to the first parking garage available. Thankfully the shuttle service to the convention stopped there.
My new used car passed its first test, drove well. I’ll probably mention more about this when I do my year end recap but long story short… had to replace my civic which is owned almost two decades.
In regards to attending this convention again it’s weird how many things had been put into limbo once Covid started. A lot of things I enjoyed may never return, certainly moving out of the city means i may never be running the NYRR races again… I guess at least so far this year I attended both MoCCA Fest and PAX east again, maybe I can return to a few other forgotten pleasures.
MoCCA Fest 2025 On a whim a couple days ago I look up when the next MoCCA arts festival takes place, in my head I’m thinking it’s in April… oh, it’s taking place this weekend.
So today marks my first time back to this festival since before the COVID lockdown, way back in 2019.
No surprise it moved again to a new location, very easy to get to this time - literally half a block from the 1 train. Pretty spacious but everything was on one floor… and honestly felt like a lot fewer vendors than in previous years; also felt like I guess fewer students selling indie stuff? I should also mention I didn’t see any food vendors or places to just sit down like in some of the previous years.
Really disappointed this year with selection, I simply did not see any comics that interested me… well scratch that, there were maybe a couple I could have convinced myself to add to my collection, but the prices were outrageous. I’m not spending fifteen bucks for what’s essentially a five page flip book.
Lots of posters for sale, and I did buy a few of those - a couple of which I may give as gifts. Annoyed I bought the large version of the Dandadan poster, going to be a pain getting a frame for it and I was thinking of giving it to my friend Dave for his birthday in June but it’s probably going to be too large for him to hang with the limited wall space he has available. Ah well, it’s the thought that counts right?
Really disappointed I didn’t find any comics worth buying, that arts festival over the years has allowed me to add some really interesting indie comics I’ve never seen anywhere else. The only vendor I recognized from previous years are the guys who make the Ohio is for Sale comic… eh, it didn’t really catch my eye, though I have a few of their books from previous years. I can’t remember if I’m blending NYComicCon with this but I was hoping to see some other creators I’ve bought from before and hoping they’d have more stuff - the guy who created The mighty skullboy army is one comic I’d love to see more issues made for. I wonder if it’ll be like this next year? I see from my last post I’d mentioned each year there’s been less that grabs my attention… but zero comics? Felt like a wasted day :(
Passive Income: Dividend Investing Back around 2019/2020 I decided to start building up a brokerage account. I had bought some stocks about a decade earlier and then practically abandoned my account afterwards to focus on spending money elsewhere. But late 2019 I dusted it off a bit and started buying a bit.
No real focus to what I’d add, but at the start of the pandemic I bought what I hoped were stocks that would bounce back after appearing to dip. Some did, such as Exxon and Tesla, some didn’t like Kodak and Boeing. But I never bought any particular stock in abundance, maybe twenty shares was the most I’d buy before turning my eye to some other company.
I’d say sometime in 2023 was when I decided to focus on high yield dividend stocks, YouTube channels such as Dividend Bull and Chris Invests caught my interest and exposed this opportunity to create an income stream. Up until this point I was basically socking all my extra cash into my 401k and only really starting to add a Roth IRA to my retirement savings.
Long story short, I’ve been selling off all my stocks that don’t provide much dividend income and moving that money into stuff that does pay. Last year I started adding $500 a month into my account to buy more shares plus reinvesting all dividends I take in. It’s been a pretty big bump, earned about $1k in dividends in 2023, $3k in 2024, and my account estimates I’ll get about $6,500 this year. I mean a lot of that is due to recently selling off stuff that paid little to nothing in dividends into stuff that has dividend yields of 5% to 12% yields… so I expect the growth to level off after this year. But it’s really cool to expect something like $500 a month in dividends off what I currently own.
I don’t see this as ever fully replacing a paycheck, but it is something I’m hoping can provide a bit of a buffer in case I ever take a break from working. I see it as creating my own pension… would love if it allowed me to retire early or take a sabbatical between jobs.
My portfolio highlights, and obviously do your own research if any of these interest you: SCHD is my highest holdings even though it only has about a 3% dividend yield and pays quarterly. But I decided to buy into the hype because practically every channel I listen to pushes it and talks about its dividend growth potential… plus it pays qualified dividends which have some tax benefits. Second my recent reaching second highest holding is SPYI, pays about 12% dividend yield and monthly at that which helps with the dividend reinvesting. The rest of my holdings come out to be represent about 5% or lower of my portfolio. I decided to try and not let any on stock or ETF get too much focus, so I am currently adding shares to one one month then shares of another the next. I own about 30 different names in my portfolio, don’t want it to get any larger because then you’ll never really be able to focus enough to have an impact.
I’ll post follow ups if much changes, I feel like I’m talking into the void since few still use LJ these days, but it’s nice still as notes to myself.
As an fyi, my ROTH IRA which I’ve only been contributing to the past few years I decided to use to invest into different stocks from my taxable brokerage account. There is overlap with both including SCHD, but stuff in my IRA but not brokerage account includes JEPQ, QQQM, and VOO. Two of those three don’t pay much in dividends but have good value and growth potential… just trying different strategies for my different accounts.
Cross-posting this onto my Dreamwidth account, that account needs some more love these days :)
Tagging users Looks like the simple lj user= code ain’t working like it used to, tried to tag someone in a post and came up weird. Looked at some previous times I’ve tagged people and it’s completely different, and looking a lot more complicated. Must’ve retroactively changed tge old tagging to new coding… whatever I guess, I’m not on here enough to get worried about it.
Also not seeing ability to use a different avatar pic when posting, maybe if I wasn’t posting through my phone id have more options?
In any case, I added a new furs_remembered post for enteirah, saw he had passed away this past weekend from cancer. Did not know him well but I do remember having good interactions with him online during my early furry days. So sorry to see he’s no longer with us :(
Family/Friends: Older generation started to leave us, Jack the brother-in-law to my Uncle John passed away in February; another relative to my Uncle John, his sister Maria fell down some stairs and broke several ribs. Earlier in December my uncle Denny had some heart trouble and had some surgery done.
After a couple years finally saw my cousins Dave and James again, both live overseas… though James is moving back to the States full time.
I mainly knew them through online interactions but both Porsupah and Dragoneer/Preyfar passed away this year.
Entertainment: Finally got all trophies on Cult of the Lamb, main game and both DLC’s. Made me happy because now I can set that game aside and start focusing on other games have on backlog. They came out with another DLC in August and even though I worked through some of the new quests they didn’t come with new trophies. Games I really like I’m striving to get all trophies for… unless I have pretty much zero chance of accomplishing it lol
Attended the new NJ furry convention Garden State Fur the Weekend, first furry convention since lockdown. Chatted with shy_matsi and tjcoyote, two people I haven’t seen since before Covid.
Movies 2024 1. The Toll of the Sea (1922) 2. The Venture Bros: Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart (2023) 3. Deadpool 3 (2024) 4. As Good as It Gets (1997) 5. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024) 6. Sex and the City (2008)
Names - drifted, lost, forgotten Touching up my year in review post, can't believe the year is over in like a day from now, and decided to look back on some old posts. It gives me a weird feeling to see names of people I have a vague recollection of or worse no recollection at all of... it feels like reading someone else's life sometimes looking at these older posts.
There was a meme for this sort of thing, if I find it I'll post it - essentially saying cheers and wishing you the best to people you knew online who had an impact but have since passed into the cyberspace limbo with no way of knowing what happened to them or even if they're still around.
A list of things I'd like to do someday, sorta sorted by priority/category.
Completed: * Run a Marathon (as of 2016, I ran the 2013, 2015, & 2016 NYC Marathons as well as the 2014 Walt Disney Marathon… I’d really like to add some more locations to this and maybe do another Disney marathon) * Be in a music video (While in fursuit, back in 2009)
Unfinished: High Priority: * Lose weight, Get fit - target of 200 lbs (update wardrobe) * Skydiving * Cross-country road trip (partial completion, I drove from New York to Naples, Florida in December 2017; someday want to go from coast-to-coast) * Write short stories (I have a backlog of ideas I need to turn into full stories) * Write/draw a comic * Picture a day video (created a preliminary video earlier in 2021, just having issues getting a background song to go with it)
Mid-Priority: * Scuba-diving (related, shark cage and alligator cage) * Hang-gliding (preferably someplace amazing like Rio) * Explore the Pine Barrens * Visit Machu Picchu * Year long cruise trip
