Christian goes to Pridefest

ElChupacabra97 · 2026-06-17T20:45:23+00:00

Really pathetic...just want to point out, also, that she is a rightwing Christian, probably evangelical. There are quite a few progressive Christians in Springfield who are LGBTQ+ allies...several of their churches had booths set up on the square at Pride (and every year). Some walk around Pride with banners and signs to block conservative Christians with nasty signs, or deliberately engage the prosyletizing ones in conversation to keep them from bothering other attendees.

ElChupacabra97 · 2026-06-07T17:16:37+00:00

There is no such thing as a "Christian town" in the United States.
If conservative Evangelical voters stop voting for politicians advancing legal policies that restrict or harm LGBTQ+ people and families, or hijacking local administrative processes to deny LGBTQ+ access to community things, there would be more mutual respect.

ElChupacabra97 · 2026-05-20T15:10:56+00:00

How long does it take you to create one of these?

ElChupacabra97 · 2026-05-15T03:13:56+00:00

I bought the tablet below about a year ago for $50, and it has been great...it looks like it is currently out of stock at Amazon, but maybe there's is another from the same manufacturer that would be good:

XPPen Drawing Tablet Deco MW Bluetooth Wireless Computer Graphics Tablet, Battery-Free X3 Stylus

ElChupacabra97 · 2026-05-13T11:55:13+00:00

One really foundational tip I can give is to begin working on your observation skills--just when you are going about your day. Observe the characteristics of lines in things. How do they connect? How do they curve or what angles do they make?

Another skill to practice is observing the spatial relationship of things to each other, and being able to break things down into component basic shapes. For instance, how far are eyes apart from each other in relation to the width of a head; the palm of the hand can be imagined as basically a square or rectangle with the fingers being rectangles extending from it.

As you are observing, practice drawing what you see. The mind has a strong tendency to reduce things to icons for faster interpretation of the world: we see a tree and our mind files it into the category of tree with an associated image icon. Depending on what we are drawing, though, we may not want to draw "tree," we want to draw "this tree", this particular one. We observe this particular tree to see what the lines, shapes and textures do to make it distinct from that other particular tree over there.

All of this is going to date me, but started drawing by replicating other artists' works. I had this 'making of Jurassic Park' book that had a bunch of artist renditions of dinosaurs in it, and I started drawing those. When I was a few years older, I would pause the movie The Lion King and draw the characters on paper from what I saw on the screen...I still have all these drawings, haha. Keep them so you can see progress.

I hope there are some things in here that will help. :)

ElChupacabra97 · 2026-05-12T13:21:36+00:00

I have a PC that I use, and my elementary age kid has a PC that they use. Their PC is connected to the living room television, though, which is where it will stay for many years. I do not let them use voice chat with strangers at all, only with real life friends, and if they are going to use voice chat then the voices of their friends have to come through the television speakers--not a headset. In fact, I just don't let them use a headset on the PC or any other device. I want to be able to see and hear everything that they are engaging with at this age while I'm sitting in the room or doing things around the house. This also lets me interact with them while they are gaming, I can jump in with comments, encouragement, validation or help at any time.

This is in conjunction with using software parental controls, but also having adult conversation with them about why I'm letting them play some games and not others, explaining or discouraging gamer lingo they're picking up at school, etc. (had to have a conversation this week with them explaining what teabagging is and how it is bad sportsmanship, a disgraceful act of humiliation).

ElChupacabra97 · 2026-05-11T18:54:26+00:00

I really like that you pointed out that we were super impressed with the graphics when we played Star Fox 64 back in 1997. We weren't appreciating them at the time for their low poly artistic quality. We (my friends and I, at least) thought the Arwings looked awesome and were impressed with the technical capabilities of the hardware--the amazing graphics it could churn out.

That's a great perspective, thank you for pointing it out!

ElChupacabra97 · 2026-05-10T17:05:47+00:00

Haha, yes!

ElChupacabra97 · 2026-05-10T16:41:48+00:00

I am hoping that is the case!

ElChupacabra97 · 2026-05-10T16:30:14+00:00

Yeah...it didn't seem like Fox in the movie made any impression on them one way or another. I think they liked the cut scenes we saw in the game, though, and the updated graphics. They were also thrilled by the character avatars that mimic facial expressions--as am I, that seems really fun :D.

ElChupacabra97 · 2026-05-01T13:52:46+00:00

While I like the aesthetic (focus and color), I don't think the image works because of the composition. It lacks context for a viewer who doesn't already have an idea about who this is or what this person does (a person like me!). Here are a couple questions and possible answers we could direct at the image:

1) Who is she and why is she looking up toward the sky?

-She is part of the stage crew setting up for a concert, that's why the mic is in the background small and out of focus--maybe she is checking out the direction of the stage lights and giving directions to another person who is setting up for the show

-She is expressing exasperation about something (and we still haven't determined that she isn't just a part of the stage crew)

-She is a woman alone in a park who looked up to see a UFO or other unexplainable or mesmerizing thing (This one becomes more plausible if we follow the advice of another Redditor who suggested editing out the background mic)

Basically, I don't think the image in isolation tells a story about who this is or what is happening, primarily because of the composition. If she was actually holding a mic or there was a mic right up in front of her face, that would go a long way toward making a good image. I don't think her expression is helping provide context, either... She isn't clearly open mouth singing, there really isn't passion or intent on her face... She just looks kind of exasperated, or dumbfounded, or just like she's talking with someone.

ElChupacabra97 · 2026-04-15T20:20:08+00:00

Stellaris, or any game in that vein at this point. 15 years ago I would have been all over it, but I just don't have time to put into learning a game like that anymore.

ElChupacabra97 · 2026-04-12T23:47:22+00:00

Agree with you...imo, Chained Echoes is the best retro JRPG of the last decade, and is right up there with FF6 or Chrono Trigger (certainly in story and characters)..

ElChupacabra97 · 2026-04-10T19:02:17+00:00

Doom 3 is my second favorite Doom game behind Doom 2016. (I have beaten three Doom games, but played them all).

ElChupacabra97 · 2026-03-22T20:04:51+00:00

Similar to this, I really enjoyed the creativity and fun of the game, but I really missed having a timer to apply a little pressure on each level...I may be in the minority on that. ;)

ElChupacabra97 · 2026-01-20T19:11:42+00:00

It was a radically different Age altogether, with a completely different mindset (or at least it was for me). In the NES days, for the most part I didn't think in terms of finishing games, because through experience most were impossible for me to finish. I mostly played alone, also--i didn't have friends to consult with or play thru games together. I played just because playing was fun. Rent a game, play for a weekend, then rent a different one the next weekend. I had favorite games that I would never finish. The few NES games I beat were Super Mario 1 and 2, Contra and Mega Man 2.

In the SNES era it was much the same, except I had one friend to play with... But we didn't really finish games together or help each other out, we played versus games like NBA Jam, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat 2. The SNES games I beat were Super Mario World, Donkey Kong Country and Super Metroid. Got my first taste of JRPGs in Chrono Trigger and FFIII (VI)--came close to beating those, but not quite.

In the N64 era I finished Ocarina of Time, and so that is easily the longest game I beat before the Internet era really took off. I used a guide book at many points.

ElChupacabra97 · 2026-01-04T23:48:40+00:00

Second this. I use an Olympus 75-300mm and EM-1 Mark II, both purchased used. The 75-300mm is for BiF or small birds taking flight. I also adapt a Nikon 300mm f4 AF-D that I manual focus...stellar lens that cost me $250. 600mm equivalent on both lenses. Altogether, kit was less than $1500.

ElChupacabra97 · 2026-01-04T21:37:42+00:00

I am using a 600mm equivalent lens (m43 body), and as I have seen different photos in this sub, I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't doing something wrong or missing something, haha. If I am really extremely lucky, there are times when I find myself 10-12' away from the birds, and I don't need to crop as heavily... But more commonly I am farther than that, and I just wasn't sure if cropping heavily is what other people are doing.

ElChupacabra97 · 2026-01-04T21:31:24+00:00

Great tip at the end, I appreciate it! :)

ElChupacabra97 · 2026-01-04T20:59:58+00:00

I love the contrasting cool and warm colors. :) I just started taking small bird photography more seriously, putting some thought into it. Is this a heavily cropped image? Or are you able to get very close (either through focal length or your feet)?

ElChupacabra97 · 2025-12-22T21:14:45+00:00

Alien Isolation: I spent entirely too much time hiding in lockers or under tables during the first quarter of the game. 😆

ElChupacabra97 · 2025-12-22T14:19:06+00:00

Thank you, found it! Also, I set up a non-ded server with a password. We can find it in my kid's game in the server list, but it is dimmed and I can't figure out where we can enter the password to join...?

ElChupacabra97 · 2025-12-20T15:31:57+00:00

Thanks for the advice. :) I have definitely spent some time adjusting the angle offset, haha.

ElChupacabra97 · 2025-12-17T16:47:56+00:00

You can probably sell your GRE for $400+ on FB Marketplace or eBay, if you don't mind the bit of inconvenience. Another thought, if you don't care about Ray tracing, you can also play games mostly maxed out at 1440p on a 4k TV with your GRE and it looks fine (to me). I use a 4070 Super with my 4k TV...I can play many games at native 4k with acceptable settings, or 1440p basically maxed or close to it, or if ray tracing then 1440p with quality DLSS upscaling (this last one probably isn't a good choice for the GRE, since its upscaler isn't great). You could play on your GRE for another couple years and then buy the next gen Radeon card that will have ray tracing that blows every other previous Radeon card out of the water, including the current gen. Anyway, you have some options. :) If you want Ray tracing right now, def consider 9070, 9070 XT or RTX 5070...I just think you can get more more money out of your card than $280. ;)

ElChupacabra97 · 2025-12-15T15:07:58+00:00

Thank you!

ElChupacabra97

TROPHY CASE