Wut R U Dooing?

[Shy]

It has been too long, OtakuBoards.

 

While I keep in touch with a few of you elsewhere (You can bug me on Twitter @LostHisKeysMan) there are some that have dropped off my radar over the years. In my quiet moments I wonder what happened to everyone. It seems so strange to follow the daily happenings of a large internet community for years and then... stop, you know? OB will always be my online home. I mean, I joined 12 years ago before there was even a term for 'social networking.' Have you ever tried visiting this site on a 56k modem? I sure have.

 

Anyways, people grow up, graduate, get jobs, marry, and maybe even have some children of their own. I guess I'm curious to see where the pieces have fallen. Did any of our talented artists and writers end up pursuing that as a career? Have they found any success? Have our members moved onto Reddit and other online communities, or did they simply get too busy to maintain an active online social life? Is Allamorph still insufferable? Okay, some of these questions I know the answer to...

 

I currently live in Los Angeles/Hollywood where I have a boring day job working in online copyright enforcement. It pays the bills well enough, and afford me free time to play in a dodgeball league and run Dungeons & Dragons games every week. Beyond that, I'm working on writing for comic books. It's been a slow process, but a couple of my short stories are being published this summer and I got to speak about one at a panel in Comic-Con. Right now I'm working on an anthology of comic stories that I'll promote the hell out of once it's released. I'd like to do this full-time, but that seems unrealistic from a financial point of view.

 

Writing/editing comics and working on OB RPGs aren't that much different. It's still a matter of trying to get a bunch of different plates spinning at once, and flattery is much more effective than guilt. These are lessons I learned a long time ago trying to rope players in posting more often in Almagest and whatnot, and I find myself using them constantly. Sometimes I think about starting yet another new RPG, but then I think that creative energy might be spent on something that can reach a wider audience. Still, if the right idea came along I suppose I wouldn't say no.

 

I'm still very much a gay dude as well. I came out to OB before I had come out to most of my friends in real-life, and this community's support/ambivalence about my sexuality helped give me a lot of confidence at a time when I really needed it. Now it seems like such a non-issue, but I suppose that's the way it is with these things. It's amazing how much has changed, yet this silly internet message board soldiers on. So long as the site remains it will always have a faithful (albeit overzealous) moderator in Shy.

 

What about you? How have you been?

 

- Shy

[chibi-master]

I'm currently getting ready to go into basic training for the army and who knows where that'll take me. :)

 

I'm kind of at that point where I'm fresh out of high school and I have no clue what's going on and just the mention of the word 'future' makes me flee and hide under the nearest table in a panic.

Like, I signed up with a bank??? And I have a driver's license??? How do adults function???

 

I kind of miss being the hyper-active, spamming 13 yr. old that signed up here 5 years ago and had no clue about how the world worked. But I think I'll be okay. I survived a lot of stuff this year such as the deaths of 3 people in my graduating class, two of whom were close friends of mine... And homelessness. I was homeless for a little while after my dad tried to hit me and I fled the house. 

 

At least all of that taught me that my ridiculous amount of optimism gives me superhuman resilience. I'm pretty much emotionally indestructible at this point. Now I just have to work on the physical aspect for the army...

[Shy]

Yikes. It sounds like you've been through the wringer a bit, but hopefully you're better off for it.

 

And thank you for your service, chibi-master. (I certainly never expected to say that!)

 

- Shy

[Allamorph]

Is Allamorph still insufferable?

Uhm.

Duh.

[chibi-master]

Yikes. It sounds like you've been through the wringer a bit, but hopefully you're better off for it.

 

And thank you for your service, chibi-master. (I certainly never expected to say that!)

 

- Shy

 

Eh, I'm fine. Everything passes, for the most part, right? :)

 

I think the only service I ever provided here was annoying moderators and bouncing off the walls! XD

[Boo]

Everything is so hard right now. I feel like I might burst. 

[chibi-master]

Everything is so hard right now. I feel like I might burst. 

.....Is that a serious remark or a play on your new 'username?'

[Korey]

Man, I feel bad sometimes that it'll be like.... 3-4 days and I don't log in. But anyways, since Shy is still here....

I'm still over in Germany for at least another year. Currently I'm in the middle of changing jobs (again) because the place where I was employed closed down (again). I sliced my finger up pretty bad recently:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was opening packages of meat and hacked my finger something nasty. Got a little bit of tendon. Two stitches later, I learned a valuable lesson: knives are sharp. 

My girlfriend and I just celebrated our 1 year anniversary at the end of last month and we have a vacation planned to Edinburgh, Scotland next month. 

I finished up my BA in Journalism and as soon as I get back to the US I'm gonna be looking for employment in my field. I'm not having too many high hopes for it, because I'm primarily interested in printed works and the industry is definitely trending towards digital content. While I'm being a more realistic about my job prospects, I'm not completely losing faith in getting a job in the industry. 

A new hobby I'm trying to pick up is Free-running. For the longest time, I've been completely out of shape and not working due to BS excuses (work). As such I've balooned up quite a bit. But I'm kinda nervous about Free-Running because I'm hilariously  uncoordinated and clumsy. I'm not too flexible and I can't jump too high. But I saw a video of some guys doing free-running in their neighborhood and I felt compelled to at least try. I'm trying to grab a few other crazies to come run with me and hopefully we can all grow together as a free-running group. So wish me luck on that, guys!

But it's good to hear from people. Feel free to add me on zee FB : /KoreyKore as I'm wayyyy more active on there.



 

[Allamorph]

To actually answer the question, I've been ... different.

I didn't start lurking/posting here until I was about halfway through my first year of college. I'm a smart guy, and a good worker, but I suffered from a mild case of general inexperience-based-ignorance and accepting apathy (i.e., 'this kinda sucks but I'll work with it') and thought I could work through something I didn't fully understand and didn't really want. I was diligent at first, but I kinda saw a lot of my peers giving way less effort for the exact same result, and for a while I tried that and then wondered why it didn't work. And then combined with some serious disillusionment and some poor choices regarding work and finances and roommates, I ended up basically retreating from a lot of the world for about a year.

But then I got sick of it. I was going absolutely nowhere, doing nothing to better myself and wasting my money (which I didn't really have), my talents (which I started to let stagnate as well), and all the time in the world. And my parents, who are good people, didn't really know what else to do besides tell their twenty-three year old son to buck up and get with the program, because although they're supportive and understanding, they're not the type of people to sit there and hold your hand through everything. They worked their own way up and had to deal with just as much stuff as I did, so they weren't going to come flying to my rescue just because I felt bad and didn't want to try. And mostly I was tired of sitting on my ass all day doing nothing but sleep and eat and ... process food.

So in April '11 I enlisted with the Navy.

I wasn't actually able to ship out until the end of October, but I moved back home in the interim and almost immediately found work: making biscuits at Hardee's for eight hours a day. Not the most glamorous of jobs, but it was tiring, and it paid, and it kept me from further pushing myself into thoughts of what a miserable sot I was.

Funny how work does that for you. Especially work where you exert yourself. Beating down dough and slinging around biscuit trays and trash bags and scrubbing the food muck off the floor makes you break a sweat. So I did it, and did it well, and when I left everyone was let down because once I got into it I made some damn fine biscuits. (And kept a damn shiny floor.)

I shipped out to Basic Training Camp (or BT Camp, hence "boot") 25OCT11. I know that date by heart; it's kinda like my second birthday, now. And that was two months of essentially group isolation while a set of sailors made us stronger and faster and less collectively stupid. It wasn't fun, but I kinda miss it now.

I graduated from there in early December, and since then I've been in bar-none the longest training pipeline in the military. (Even longer now because of delays due to equipment failures and staff integrity issues.) I'm still not even a real sailor; I have yet to lay eyes on an actual steaming ship, much less be allowed inside one. But it's necessary for us. My rate (or job, for you civilian types) is a nuclear-qualified mechanic. I, along with two other rates, maintain, work on, troubleshoot, operate, and fix nuclear propulsion plants, which are installed on every one of our submarines and aircraft carriers. Nuclear propulsion is basically a keystone to our fleet strength; without it, our carriers can't travel around the world without needing to be so-close to a friendly port for refueling, and our ballistic/guided missile and fast-attack submarines wouldn't be able to stay underwater for extended periods of time without running out of food or killing their crews by diesel/gas fumes.

But nuclear power is also a touchy subject to the general public. We can't afford to have nuclear disasters. Otherwise we'd lose access to basically all our allied ports (and what few neutral ones allow us in), and our strongest vessels would remain tied to port on one of our coastlines. So they train us for a minimum of a year and three months, although I'll hit my two-year mark in the Navy in just over two more months.

I mean, think about it. If I were to come to San Diego and say, "Hey, I want to build a nuclear power plant to power your city, but I want to put it right about the middle, right where all the people live," I'd get shot down immediately. If I said, "Also, yeah, I wanna put wheels on it and drive it around the city," I'd be laughed out of the state. But at any given point in the year right now, there could be over half a dozen (maybe over a dozen) of those exact platforms sitting right there. And the city lets us.

Heck, we even have a nuclear carrier parked in Japan's backyard. Think about that. Think about the history of that country and this country and that word.

So they train the ever-loving crap out of us so when we go and operate a no-shit live plant for realsies, we don't botch it.

But I'm almost done. And I just got orders this week, so provided everything goes well, I'll be moving to Seattle in October. In the meantime (with, like, the two free hours a day we're given while in this pipeline), I still read and write sometimes, goof around on game systems, have been going to the gym much more often, and have recently gotten really into Airsoft and snowboarding.

I hope all the rest of you are well.

[Boo]

.....Is that a serious remark or a play on your new 'username?'

Derp.

 

But okay, I'll work with you. I am currently OK. Got my toe in a few different projects, which is a complete waste of my energy, as I should be going at them one-by-one instead of this big mishmash. Need to finish my study finally. Got a few dozen songs on the shelf that I should finally get around to finishing. Am involved in a new children's books thing that's still looking for more illustrators and authors. On the other hand I was working with Shy on a comic, but our artist kind of eh... well, is basically non-existent right now. Got some other songs for a different music project I need to finish. Got some soundtrack music for a fictitious video game that I wanted to finish. I have not, unlike most of us in this thread, been in any way involved with an army force (though I considered the Foreign Legion just for fun) so I basically lack discipline and a purpose. On the other hand I play a mean bit of folk guitar and bass guitar, and have a girlfriend whom I love very much. 

 

In a few days the new Franz Ferdinand album will come out, which I'm looking forward to. They used to always be my #1 band because of their epic positive energy on stage and in the studio. Have been neglecting them lately though, as most of my iPod playtime has been hogged by Silversun Pickups and Glen Hansard / The Frames / The Swell Season for the last few years. My roomie listens to a lot of metal and prog. rock, and he introduced me to a lot of shit which I don't care for, but also Karnivool, which is a pretty great band. Will see them live sometime this October.

 

Last year I went to see Paul Simon live for the somethingth time, but this time was extra special because it was his Graceland Anniversary Tour and also a few days after my dad's (a great fan) 50th - the entire (great!) show took around three hours or more. The day after he was in Amsterdam to present his documentary about the album, and afterwards when mr Simon came out back, I just quickly told him in passing (he had to run without being able to say hi's) that my father had just turned fifty, to which he 0turned around, walked over to my dad, gave him a hand, looked him straight in the eye, and said "Oh! Congratulations!" before taking his leave. It was a tiny something, but my dad completely blanked, and it was great to witness this moment of my dad meeting his musical hero after decades of playing his records. Afterwards, when Paul left, we spent over half an hour talking with the (Graceland) guitarist Ray Phiri, who was a really great person to meet, and he told us about South Africa and how the situation there has changed, and some of the youngsters refuse to believe how horrible apartheid was. He said something when we spoke about his time touring as part of a backing band for Paul Simon (he's a pretty big deal in South Africa himself), "The world is sick, and right there on that stage is the only cure," which he said with such intensity that it will probably stick with me forever. 

 

Also, I mentioned Glen Hansard. If you ever see he's to perform near you, take that chance. Go there. I'm not saying this as a fanboy, but as a favour to anyone who has not had the pleasure of seeing him perform live. Kind of like Bruce, he puts a 200% in each performance; a chunk of pure raw energy every single time I go to one of his shows.

 

Also, I've started playing Counter-Strike again in the form of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and contrary to my skill-level in the original CS, I am now pretty OK at it after watching some WarOwl videos. Lately I've also started working out again, as my Herculean muscles have been getting overshadowed by fat, and I've been feeling unfit lately. And stuff. 

 

Hit me up if you want to either play a videogame, write/record a song/album/discography/podcast, illustrate/write a (children's) novel/comic, have deep and epic discussions, or have something cool to do. I'm game, and I'm cool. 

[chibi-master]

Allamorph: Whoa. That's the most information I've ever seen you share about yourself! O_O

 

Boo: You sound incredibly busy!

[Allamorph]

Heh.

Oh, right. I've also taken the opportunity to meet and hang out with various TheO/OB members. I've met Raiha twice, once in Chicago and once in Norfolk, VA. Right before I left my duty station in Charleston I made time to catch up with somegirl, one of TheO's more prolific graphic designers in years past, and she was so nervous about meeting me that she brought along one of her best friends for backup and supportâ??and was then amazed when I had her supposedly taciturn friend chattering away by the end of the night. Sweet girls, both of them. And then a couple of months ago I convinced Kimmeh (also from TheO; I think here she called herself KimmehWolfwood and only posted in Graphic Worm stuff) to fly up to NYC and hang out with me there for three days, and in the process we got treated to fantastic Chinese food by Adam and pizza by MewMew and her boyfriend.

Mew was very put out that I have a thing against pictures. Edited August 21, 2013 by Allamorph

[chibi-master]

Ah, but the question is: Do you still have a thing against telling people your birthday? I've wanted to send you birthday PMs! :T

[Allamorph]

Yep. Close friends only.

Sorry, love. =P

[chibi-master]

Yep. Close friends only.

Sorry, love. =P

 

Bah. Foiled again. *scurries back into the shadows*

[SaiyanPrincessX]

My life really isn't too exciting, I don't even know the last time I posted here! I don't know where to start though.

I've moved four times in the last few years. I've been engaged since last August. My fiancée is Vietnamese, was born and raised in the US, but likes to threaten people that he's going to eat they're cat. We're thinking of a destination wedding, a cruise to the Mediterranean next spring/early summer. Neither one of us care to have a traditional wedding.

I am still doing martial arts, been doing it for a long time. I don't draw as much as I used too, I don't have time. Work, working out, and martial arts has been what I've been doing with my adult life, lol. I've had the same job since I was nineteen, and I finally quit two days ago. I've been talking about going back to school for a while now but time and money was always a problem(also procrastination and no idea what I want). My fiancée has a good paying job right now and I have an opportunity to go back so that's my plan. I'm hoping to go into law enforcement. Some cities require a two to four year degree, in anything. I would like to do SWAT, a US Marshall, detective, but NOT a desk job!

It's a far cry from what I wanted to do growing up. Most of my childhood was all about art, drawing was my life! Into high school I had this amazing dream that I was going to move to Japan and be a manga artist! Lol! Life happens, and things change. I was going to go into the Air Force but that didn't happen either. After I graduated high school I went to school part time and worked, then stopped going to school.

So now I'm going to pick up where I left off. My credits are still valid, even after seven years, lol! School starts Monday! I'm almost twenty-seven too, ha.

We are renting a three bedroom house, which we will be completely remodeling! And I can't wait, this Mauve carpet is horrible, we are going to put in bamboo flooring. It will be exciting and time consuming.

I think that's too much info.

[Boo]

Boo: You sound incredibly busy!

Don't worry. It's all an illusion.

 

Becky, though, is kicking ass by going back to school, even though she's like way old and shit. Great choice. We're all behind you, old-timer! Also, the Mediterranean is pretty great, and with the crisis and all, all those fellows would welcome some cash. Also, it's in my part of the world, which is pretty cool on its own. 

[SaiyanPrincessX]

Don't worry. It's all an illusion.

 

Becky, though, is kicking ass by going back to school, even though she's like way old and ****. Great choice. We're all behind you, old-timer!

XD I had to introduce myself in one of my classes and most students were between eighteen to twenty-one, aside from a few who were in their forties going back. Even my teacher said I was old, lol. I saw one boy who I remember training in TKD when he was nine(he still does on occasion), but still, its weird. Now he's eighteen. And another girl who I remember from TKD a long time ago, who was a higher belt than me, but only eleven at the time. Then her and her brother quit. Now she's nineteen.

 

Wish I had finished back then, hah.

[Allamorph]

I know that feel. Most of my peers right now are seven or eight years younger than I am, and about half of my instructors and superiors as well.

[Boo]

Yeah, you can't believe it when you're eighteen yourself, but that age gap is humongous when you're older. But, the study I'm doing now is mostly populated by housewives so all of a sudden I am the youngster again. 

[Fall]

3 kids, married, own a house... Was going alright. Sort of come to a halt at the moment though.
 

Did work underground on $125,000 a year, for almost 8 years... but that job went out the window with 299 other blokes' jobs when they shut the site down and forced redundancy. I'm back in the Retail industry now, back where I started all those years ago, lol.

Everyone has had the ups and down over the years, though I feel I've done alright... the only problem we face now is the massive income drop. It's sad how we get so used to an amount of money we earn every week and take it for granted, and once we lose it, all our happiness is lost with it. Pretty sad, but it's an unfortunate fact.

 

Aside from that, I've acquired a massive interest in the modified automotive scene since I was last pretty active on OtakuBoards... it's like a damn disease, I cant get rid of the obsession, haha.

I remember when I used to sit in front of my old desktop running Windows 95, at my desk with a "super-fast" 56k dial-up modem, and post on here when I was 14... arguing with my brother because he wanted to use the phone, haha.

Funny, now I'm in the office on my lunch-break, on my laptop with wireless.

 

How times change. :rolleyes: 
 

Edited September 26, 2013 by Fall

[Japan]

Not much has happened with me. I got my AA back in 2010. Since then I've been working part time/full time at McDonalds. (It fluctuated but now I am only getting 28 hours at most a week because McDonalds can't afford the health insurance mandate that Obamacare has enforced.) I still volunteer a lot of time at my church. This summer I joined my city's running club and managed to run a mile in 9:28! Besides that I've been traveling some and even getting into League of Legends again.

 

I visited SomeGuy in June for a week up in Canada. That was a lot of fun. This weekend I just met Allamorph. I intend to go to Sakura con and Canada again as well as adding PAX to my plate this coming year. The chapter of staffing at Sakura con has come to a close too. I went to see Journey and Pat Benatar in concert two summers ago. And this year with my mom homeschooling the eldest nephew, I sort of got dumped on the task of babysitting a lot more while helping teach my nephews their classes. (Youngest is only in preschool for three days a week so I am either giving supplemental lessons or babysitting him, while also helping my mom constantly with doing stuff on her computer.)

 

I guess to some it all up...

 

I am getting kind of crappy hours at work now. I can't find another job. I am running away any possible bouts of depression that may spring up and traveling as much as I can. I am still alive and trying to make the best of it. 

[Magus]

Wow, seems like most of you've been having quite the adventure. I haven't done much of anything but work and trying to keep myself from going crazy because of my job and the crap that goes on at my home Full house, too. Me, my brother and his wife and their newborn child (Oh, goodie, I'm an uncle >_>) and my parents. The good news is I finally made it out of Detroit. The bad news is everyone else came with me. It's not so bad, but considering this new house (3 bed, 2.5 bath townhouse. Roughly 1600 sq. feet) is under my name and I'm paying majority of the rent, plus student loans and a $200 phone bill, I haven't really been able to spend my money the way I want to as of late.

 

Like I said, my job's been stupid as well. Outside of last week (I go back to work Thursday) I haven't had any days off (outside of Sundays) and majority of those days were 9-11.5 hours. I was suckered into using up my time before transferring to the department I'm in now (We were told to use our vacation time or lose it because at the time we went bankrupt and didn't know if our jobs were safe or not). The stupidity I deal with at work and the garbage I come home to, I'm surprised I haven't went off yet. I really need to look into buying a punching bag or something because games don't cut, and even then when I come home I'm usually way too tired to even attempt to play any games. Not to mention I've been going to a podiatrist for about a year now. I'm 29 (I feel so old) and having problems with my feet and ankles.

 

2013 haven't really been that great for me in terms of doing anything that I wanted to do, however, I guess the only savings grace is that I've been able to brush most of this garbage off my shoulders.

 

As far as anime and stuff, yeah, I've pretty much given up on anime. I still play games (mainly fighting games, that hasn't really changed) here and there when I'm not too sore or sleepy. Speaking of sleep, I gotta get myself a new workout schedule. Over the past 2 years I've been on so many shifts and haven't been able to fully recover from any of it. Developed a nice little gut due to eating late and sleeping on it. Hopefully when I get back to work I'll be able to figure one out since we should be back on our regular 8hr shifts (My boss told us that our workload should get easier so I'm holding her to that). So I should be able to get home by 4:30-5ish to still squeeze in some form of a workout.

 

As for how to catch up with me, that's pretty tough since I haven't updated with the times (I'm not a fan of social media). I guess you can try and email me (BigBoss4477@gmail.com) but I'll try to check in once in a while.

 

Happy Holidays

Edited December 31, 2013 by Magus

[James]

It's been a while, OB.  My life seems to have become busier and busier in the last couple of years.

 

I'm just over two years into a new relationship (with someone who is a much better fit for me, I must say).  I moved into a new house a year ago (although it's just a rental, I'm saving to buy within a couple of years).  And I got a new car and new job about a year ago, which has been good.  Climbing the corporate ladder definitely takes long hours!  But now I'm in a senior management role for a big organisation here, which is a good place to be.

 

And... I'll be 31 this year.  Eek.  How time flies!  Slightly more grey hair now than a few years ago, that's for sure.

 

Aside from that, it's just been about enjoying life.  Some travel here and there, lots of new challenges, and all kinds of interesting projects.

 

It's good to see that there are still some OBers around. :)

[chibi-master]

Well everything was on track for my joining the army until around Thanksgiving when I received a work-related injury that would set me back a couple months. (A tower of boxes came crashing down on me in one of our industrial freezers.The results were not pleasant.) I was really upset about the whole situation until I got an interesting phone call from one of my best friends who I had grown up with in Texas.

 

At this point I have decided to move back to Texas in the spring (hopefully the Dallas or Austin area) and I'm going to get my RN license before I join the army. I'll make four times as much and I'll be joining as an officer as opposed to an enlisted man.