I. Old Flash Cartoons

Got some really strange content for todays blog. Was scouring old haunts for material, specifically an old DeviantArt account from high school.

Back in 2005 or 2006 I started animating flash cartoons with my friend Evan. We both enjoyed Legendary Frog's VG parody cartoons and so I'd make similar little models of us in flash for quick easy productions. We could voice act the cartoons on Friday afternoon and have animations finished for school projects by Monday. Eventually I made my own style inspired by the animations of Vinnie Veritas, those toons are in my catalog (2006-2007). I never uploaded the first style of cartoons featuring my friends because I didn't feel like they were good enough to survive the Flash Portal. Plus Newgrounds was blocked on high school computers which made sharing them a little difficult (pre external flash drives). I couldn't care less about portal scores anymore and decided to upload an oldie, check out Pildoras for a quick stupid laugh:

(EDIT: this cartoon has trouble playing on mobile devices and tablets. View via desktop)

The last stupid cartoon I ever published was posted on YouTube for my University which was hosting a film contest called "Why I Love Alfred University." As a freshman I didn't have a lot of reasons to love Alfred yet and even though I never won the contest, I'm still very proud of this stupid little cartoon:

My dad took minor offense to the Absolute Isopropyl poster in the cartoon, never noticing the fact that the sock puppet poster on the opposite wall featured a lady puppet being fisted. In his words "I don't drink vodka." Worth mentioning, Isopropyl isn't vodka but he defensively claimed that he didn't drink that either. To give him the final credit he deserves I never brought home good grades from school, that A was a lie. This cartoon was a total joke, my dad is awesome.

II. Pre NGP Alesis E-Drum Demo

I made another Alesis E-Drum demo in part to boost interest in the Newgrounds Podcast episode which I'll get to in a minute:

Uploaded this to a couple of Discord channels the night before the Podcast hoping someone might tune in because of it. The performance is improvisational, it's another short practice session but I'm playing with a new patch I've been calling "melody rims." The initial funk kit is a preset I've made some minor edits to but I love jamming on it. I still have massive endurance issues but my excuses are top notch:

Elevation of our house is 8,600 feet above sea level which means oxygen levels are very low. I spent my 20s smoking marijuana basically everyday several times a day but have managed to cut it almost completely out of my diet. For a little while I switched to legal Colorado edibles but now that I'm engaged to Tom I'm doing my best to live healthier for the both of us. Alcohol is almost never a part of my schedule, I've always had some trouble controlling my intake. I'll have one beer with dinner every so often but even one beer gives me a headache now which might be related to the altitude. My final excuse for sucking at drums is that I transitioned in my early 20s, low testosterone levels makes kinesthetic exercise noticeably different. Started HRT when I was 23 and almost immediately noticed a loss of strength and endurance which sucked because I always banked on my natural athleticism. I'm working really hard to practice daily so that I can again physically play the rhythms that are in my head.

III. lmao, Old Parkour Video

On that note about natural athleticism, here's a fun but ancient high school video of my friends and I doing parkour in Sag Harbor. I don't like to show this old stuff off because of gender dysphoria and a small "peaking-in-high-school" phobia but I'm mature enough to admit that I miss my late cousin. He's the guy with the dreads in this video. Andrew passed away when he was 23 from a drug overdose. For those curious, I was the idiot that wore pants while doing flips:

IV. Newgrounds Podcast Guest Appearance

I feel like this was a nice event and was very happy to have a chance to sit down with this crew and chat. I will update this post with the actual episode when they finish editing it but for now, there's the image they made for the frontpage. It will remain in my digital files as a small trophy and will be a reminder that I do all of this content generation for new friends and experiences.

Was a little taken off guard, VoicesByCorey filled in at the last second to make up for a few absentees but Droid did manage to appear late in the episode. I'm eternally grateful to Droid for hosting the Jamuary song a day challenge which allowed me to write some of my best material in a long time (Don't Give Up Until It's Over EP). I've had some minor interactions with VoicesByCorey in the past so it was lovely to have him grace the episode. I never know what type of feelings I'm sowing when I sample people but I named an EP after a Salad Fingers impression he did, Almost Orgasmic. He could have told me to eff-off and remove the sample but he's always been super cool about it so I'm in his debt, even though he thinks he's in my debt:

Shout out to PopTaffy whom I wasn't familiar with beforehand but that's just the way of Newgrounds. This website has always been many microcosms of talent so it's easy to be unaware of people that are making waves. I'll keep an eye out for you in the future and one final massive shout out to Shal for organizing the episode, the channel, and making it all happen!

Oops, yet another shoutout to Bleak-Creep for joining us during trivia. She's currently working on a game with Peti, Pam, and Levc. I might contribute some sounds as well but I've been absent from my computer a lot lately. I've been letting contacts slip away from me by not responding to messages. The notifications pile up and I start to get anxiety. I'm easily overwhelmed by very simple messages and interactions, screen time is a claustrophobic experience. I might have talked about that a little bit in the podcast. Perhaps it has something to do with my upbringing? My mother used to kick me off screens as a kid, forcing me to "play outside." As a kid I would walk around the neighborhood and trespass onto construction sites of new houses and use the tools left behind overnight to make my own rooms. I didn't know anything about construction, was mostly nailing two-by-fours to the floor and spray painting profanities onto brick chimneys BUT AT LEAST I WAS PLAYING OUTSIDE, RIGHT MOM?

That about wraps up the news worth talking about. Check out my latest song We Are Not Alone if you haven't already. Live long and prosper my lovely readers and extended Newgrounds family!