Category: Uncategorized

Growing up with TV

Taylor BurianLeave a comment

What TV shows did you watch as a kid?

I grew up watching a lot of cartoons in the 90’s. Pokémon and Digimon were my primary shows of choice for a bit until the advent of Toonami on Cartoon Network, but I did watch a lot of the older Hanna-Barbera cartoons in that time as well. I’m not going to list them all, but I’ll at least throw out the ones I remember watching the most.

  • Johnny Quest
  • The Jetsons
  • The Flintstones
  • Lots of Scooby-Doo
  • The Smurfs
  • The Snorks
  • The Pirates of Dark Water (this one is probably part of what spurred me on to watch anime)
  • Captain Planet
  • SWAT Kats (another one that probably led me down the anime path)

So, lots of 60’s through 80’s cartoon reruns mixed with all the 90’s stuff (like Dexter’s Laboratory and The Powerpuff Girls) that eventually led into the wonderful era of Toonami.

  • ThunderCats
  • Voltron
  • Dragonball Z
  • Outlaw Star (a personal favorite)
  • Gundam Wing

This is around the time I was in middle school and moving into high school, when the internet started to make it much easier to watch things online, so I stopped watching a lot of tv unless it was with other people or late at night as background noise while gaming (Food Network, anyone?)

I know I skipped over Nickelodeon and Disney, but I really don’t recall much of what shows were on which of those channels/networks. I was Cartoon Network all the way.

Loss of interest in a hobby

Taylor BurianLeave a comment
Daily writing prompt
Are there any activities or hobbies you’ve outgrown or lost interest in over time?
View all responses

Thankfully the prompt is automatically at the top of the post or else I would feel the need to start with “Nobody panic, I’m not losing interest in a CURRENT hobby.”

Now, to be honest, I don’t have an exact answer because I’m sure I’ve forgotten some things, but yes there are definitely activities I’ve grown out of over the years. As a kid, I used to love riding my bike all over the place, playing with LEGOs for hours, probably some other things that kids typically lose interest in as they get older. Moving the clock forward to college, there used to be more alcohol in my life. More parties with friends. Not anymore, though, because I had a great (negative) role model about alcohol and I came to realize that I didn’t like the way it made me feel. All of those things are activities or hobbies I outgrew or lost interest in, although I really should consider getting a bicycle again and just riding the bike trail that loops around my city.

Funny enough, there is one hobby that I “outgrew” that ended up coming back. Pokémon cards. Unfortunately, when you’re a kid you don’t have a disposable income, so I couldn’t feed that cardboard crack addiction of buying booster packs. I didn’t come back to the game until more than 20 years later when my niece and nephews started to get into it. I don’t actively buy packs for that game these days, so I guess I still sort of outgrew it, however I do collect and play Magic: The Gathering instead so I would say I came back to the hobby eventually. Just in a different way.

It’s interesting how life changes like that.

Unofficial blog mascot (in progress)

Taylor BurianLeave a comment

Some years back I had commissioned a friend of mine to design a “brand mascot” for my Twitch channel. Part of the package he gave me is my user icon/profile picture in places. Unfortunately, he didn’t design a 3D model version.

Then a couple years later I stumbled upon a reddit post of someones Forest Dragon they had printed and painted, which led me to the My Mini Factory listing linked here. I eventually purchased the STL files (need to support people appropriately for the amazing work they do!) And earlier this week, after a year or so of dawdling, I finally printed my own.

Base, Head, Torso pieces, and Tail pieces being printed
Freed from the supports, washed, and curing
Test assembly
Wings at 65%
Wings at 88%
Final assembly

This one was just for fun and to see the result. I shared this with some friends and they gave me some great ideas that are leading me to plan out additional prints. One of them might become the Official Unofficial Blog Mascot.

Hopefully I’ll remember to share progress regularly, so look forward to the future creative process posts!

Is Twitch GIVING AWAY Affiliate status?

Taylor Burian

There’s a tweet going around from Monstercat that has the social media sphere in a tizzy. Tweet Here

Basically, they’re trying to make it easier for people to reach Affiliate status by paying for a subscription to the Monstercat Gold service, and this is pissing people off (specifically those that are already Affiliates) because they feel like it’s lowering the bar EVEN FURTHER.

But I have to ask….Does this even matter?

Personally, I don’t think it does. Big picture, it just makes it easier for streamers to have access to ads, bits, and subs. If you’re an Affiliate you can monetize your stream. That’s great! But again, does lowering the bar matter? If just ANYONE can suddenly become Affiliate, does that ACTUALLY impact you as an existing Affiliate?

No, it does not. Why do I believe that? Because having that Affiliate tag doesn’t mean anything. It’s not magical. It never was, nor will it ever, make you a better streamer or give you immediate success. It literally was designed as a jumping off point. A way to get your feet wet and see if you wanted to work towards something greater.

Having the Affiliate tag? Again, it alone does nothing. You and your content. That’s what’s important. How you present yourself, your brand, your everything, is how you fail or succeed.

So, is Twitch giving away Affiliate? Sure, maybe they are, but it doesn’t matter. If you really want to succeed as a content creator then get over it, and get back to creating. Good luck out there!

A blogger who is sucked into the web and must use his blog posts to communicate with the outside world.

Taylor Burian

This post is a 50-word writing challenge that was requested of me from my stream as a Channel Point Reward redemption, courtesy of Twitch user ManicProfessor.

No idea how many days have passed since I got sucked into my computer.

All I know is nobody seems to have really noticed.

The only way I’ve found to reach the outside is writing on my blog.

They keep liking my posts but nobody is coming to my aid.

Pirates who like root beer floats Part Two

Taylor Burian

This post is a 50-word writing challenge that was requested of me from my stream as a Channel Point Reward redemption, courtesy of Twitch user darthzelduh.

As the captain and first mate crossed the gang plank to parley all was silent except the waves.

Well, that and the clatter of glasses and spoons on the tray.

They had brought their ‘weapons’.

The pirate captain watched with a smile before yelling.

“Root beer floats! Thank you Mom!”

Dreaming in a different universe

Taylor Burian

I had won some sort of trip to hang out with Annemunition and Lil_Lexi for my birthday. We were supposed to go see the premiere of the final Avengers movie, Avengers: War Path. In the back of my mind I knew it existed in place of Avengers: End Game, but wasn’t sure how I knew that. Along the way, we had taken a break at a truck stop (which becomes important later) and shortly after we made it to the theatre.

The movie was interesting. Thanos had succeeded in The Snap, but the results seen in this movie were different. Of The Avengers, only Tony Stark and one other hero I don’t recall had survived. This had caused Tony to go on a rampage throughout the universe, looking for a way to fix everything but it turned into a revenge tour at some point. He had changed himself so drastically. The nano machine swarm he used for his suit had grown. His mind had melded to the swarm in such a weird way that he had become like Dormamu from the Doctor Strange movie, a massive, green glowing cloud of nanotech. Cut to a scene where a bunch of parallel universe/alternate reality versions of the Avengers were gathered and being prepped to embark on a mission to go and stop the nano cloud of Tony. After they leave, we’re left in the briefing room with some aliens that were pretending to be human, and we learn what’s really going on. The aliens of this parallel universe are more like janitors. They have a massive multiversal operation that contains parallel universe anomalies and they set them right by sending people from one universe to another to replace individuals who die or go missing. The mechanics aren’t fully explained, but these replacements both are and are NOT clones? Anyways, these new Avengers get sent off, we have the revelation of these aliens, and then the camera pans out through a window into space while still looking at this weird space station. And it keeps getting bigger. The space station is made of tons of connecting rings and shapes that collectively make the operation bigger than a galaxy.

At this point in the dream movie, one of the audience members makes a huge fucking commotion and disrupts the movie. We try to calm him down, but he won’t be stopped, so we leave and try to get refunds. It’s at this point that I lose Anne and Lexi and somehow make it back to that truck stop from the beginning of the dream. I’m trying to call/message them so they can pick me up but for some reason I don’t have a proper signal or something.

Eventually, I think I get through to them, and I’m just sitting there waiting. I end up hanging out with some group that’s playing with RC planes or something? (Looking back I remember watching a video on youtube of an RC plane with a turbine motor)

It turns out, this is where I was supposed to be, as the dream somehow shifts into a weird birthday party scene and I’m being greeted by a large group of people, some I recognize and some I don’t. For some reason, it starts to click that I was actually from a parallel universe  and was sent to replace another version of me, and that’s what the movie was trying to prepare me for. It felt really fucking weird.

A dream about an ostrich

Taylor Burian

Finally slept through the night for a change and had a bunch of strange dreams but only one stands out now that I’m awake. It involved an ostrich.

Not just any ordinary ostrich, though. This one was some sort or chimera hybrid ostrich that was mixed with an alpaca or llama. You could see the blend of the animals in the head/face and it was honestly not that disturbing (at least not in my head, anyways.) To make it more strange, this creature was wearing a tshirt for a fictional band named Ammando Commando which was stylized in a two word stack so that both words used the same MM’s.

Then, my brain decided to take things to an even more bizarre level and somehow my dad was there with me and he was also wearing a shirt for Ammando Commando. So, of course, he gets excited because this fucking alpac-ostrich was a fan of a band he liked! What does he do next? He wants a damn picture with it….then all hell broke loose and it like tackled/charged him knocking him into me. I had to catch him and make sure he got away from the things ass end because I saw it start raising a foot like it was getting ready to back kick into us.

And that’s where the dream ended! Wonder what I did to have THAT dream in the mix? Oh well, I think Ammando Commando is my new alt-rock band name.

Addendum to 2020 goals expanded

Taylor Burian

Not long after I posted that entry this morning, I realized I missed something. I mentioned that to help accomplish my writing goals I needed to read. What I neglected to mention were the things I could do to accomplish that particular reading goal OUTSIDE of the scheduled self-education reading time slots. That’s probably because I finished writing the post late last night (actually sometime around 12:30 this morning) and I may have been rather drained by the end.

So here’s an addendum! To help me accomplish my reading goal (and thus support my writing related goals) I decided I needed to get back to reading books regularly. I’ll also be trying to read more non-fiction, such as news, reviews, and other blogs that I come across that catch my eye. I haven’t decided on the actual number of things I’ll read, but just knowing I need to read and have the opportunity to do so at any time (and not totally structured is in itself a relief.)

Good thing I have a backlog of books to read to get me started. Here’s to reading more in 2020!

Cookies for Breakfast

Taylor Burian

This isn’t a cooking blog, so don’t expect some awesome recipr formatting or anything. I’m just taking a moment to talk about a flavor combination I made.

Okay so it may not be the healthiest thing you can eat for breakfast but it’s better than crack, and so are these cookies I made for a work potluck today.

Coincidentally it is also National Maple Syrup Day, and these cookies taste like a waffle that has been slathered in butter and maple syrup.

The secret? Maple flavored buttercream frosting on a pudding sugar cookie.

The recipes aren’t secret because you can find versions of them all over the internet. So I’ll keep it simple here.

For the cookie:

Take your favorite cookie recipe. Doesn’t matter what kind from what I can tell. Add a box of instant pudding mix to the dry ingredients and an extra egg to the wet ingredients. Need to keep the dry and wet ingredients in balance.

For the frosting:

Find a simple buttercream frosting recipe you like and add Maple flavoring extract. About 1 1/2 teaspoons per 1/2 cup of butter. Maybe more.

And that’s it. Apart they aren’t anything special, but when eaten together is when the magic happens.

Simple.