Sad Stuff

   It's really sad and (yet somehow) awesome how there's a pre-pre-Columbian society where people grew 9 feet tall, worshiped a warrior-king with six toes on his right foot and apparently believed in unicorns, and we know more about what Snooki did on vacation last summer than we know about their entire civilization.

Hypercanes!

   Hypercanes! Hyper hurricanes. A real thing. Well, really hypothetical, so, a real hypothetical thing. First off: Why is this not yet a Syfy original disaster movie? Such a scenario of large-scale destruction is right up their alley.

   Second off, some explanation. The largest tropical cyclone ever recorded, Typhoon Tip, only stretched out 1400 miles. A hypercane is a hypothetical hurricane that is the size of a CONTINENT, which I put in caps because it's A HURRICANE THE SIZE OF A STINKING CONTINENT and continents are generally twice the size of Typhoon Tip. (Australia, the smallest of the continents, is about that size northways, but, as anyone who know what Australia's shaped like could tell you, it's wider than it is tall.) Typhoons generate in the Pacific, which is a much larger ocean than the Atlantic, which is where hurricanes come from. Thus the hypercane in question would be heading towards North America or Europe. A larger storm in a smaller ocean means that more of the water gets sucked out to make the storm, which is then dumped on some of our most major cultural centers in the Northern Hemisphere. This massive shift in water volume would also be felt across the world. Even if you don't live in North America or Europe, there's going to be massive backsplash.

   Some gnarly waves to be caught, is my point.

Post THE HUNDREDTH, For Which I Needed a Title Anyway, So Why Not Celebrate with It?

   Waste is my arch-nemesis. (Not counting, of course, Buckminster Fuller, but that's disparate.) My distaste at things going to waste is quite possibly the driving force behind almost all of my psychology. I can think of only two other of these driving forces in my psychology, those being the idea of free will (and, tied to the waste thing, not wanting to waste the near infinite potential that free will brings) and my relationship toward animals (maybe with this too, not wanting to waste their meat and fur? Though that seems kind of weak in comparison. (Though that does explain why I'm a cannibal. (What I mean is, or I would be, if there were any source of human meat that didn't immediately raise eyebrows. If they died of natural causes, it seems kind of disrespectful, and if they die because we killed them, then, dude, we just killed a dude, so...)))

   So, just three things that are tied between the first one- free will- and waste, which weigh majorly on me and my lifestyle in general:

1. People who are a waste of life should all just die. This is why I support the death penalty. I know it's a ridiculously expensive and morally ambiguous thing to do, but people should just die. Just, kill 'em all. Their being criminals is just a good excuse. I don't want to be a waste of life, so I'm insecure about whether other people think I should live.

2. I dislike wasting time. This is different from being impatient, since patience for something that is definitely a go is time well spent. Thus my career path. Being in the creative sector makes the job full-time, since any time could be a time for inspiration to strike.

3. We are endowed with rationality and agency for ourselves. People talk of finding themselves or their true callings, or being comfortable in their own skins, but I think that to define yourself would be to limit yourself. People talk of not wanting to give up part of themselves, but they do not seem to realize that free will means that what "they" are is entirely mutable.

   Maybe something about animals later, but I already pretty much explained that, so maybe not.

Glendale

It’s going to be a long, cold, lonely night 

For a member of the fandom stuck in Glendale, California 

He’s in his bed, in his room, in his house
The convention is starting without him

Half a world away, or more, it seems to him. 

His costume’s on its hook in the closet in the hall. 

Whatever it is you’re thinking, that’s not it at all.

True Heroes

   Don't be a hero.

   So, Dustin Hoffman like saved a guy's life. Awesome. And remember that one time Harrison Ford swooped in from his helicopter to save that Boy Scout who got lost in the woods? It's a real thing. Not all celebrities are of the selfish jerk variety. In fact, such an attitude of jerkitude very rarely gets you far at all. Whenever they talk about the time they did something heroic, heroes always hold that anyone would have done the same thing in their situation. A hero is the kind of person who would think that, wouldn't they? So, heroism is a mindset. It's not something you do, it's something you are. Or something you think.

   We don't envy our heroes. One of the reasons we loathe our villains is because they use their powers for evil instead of good, though we are able to recognize ourselves in them. The best villains show the worst in us. We know that we would probably do the same thing in their position. We look up to our heroes because they're better than we.

Realism!

   If superheroes existed in real life, they'd be sponsored by biotech companies like InGen or Gen-Sys or some third one that's not fictional. This is just the sad(?) fact about what would happen. These guys have superpowers encoded into their DNA, and we're not going to sit on the sidelines when there's potentially billions of dollars to be made from those genes. In real life, biotech companies can patent genes without the owner's permission or even knowledge. In real life, some people have odd quirks in their genes, and while these don't (that I know of?) lead to superpowers other than fighting cancer exceptionally well, you can still freaking fight cancer with those genes. With superheroes, imagine what the biotech companies would do. Go on, just imagine it. Because superheroes aren't real so that's all you can do.

   I'm not writning any story about this or anything because that is what would happen in real life, and a story won't change anything. Anyone who actually thinks about the ramifications of having supermen would just be seen as copying my story idea, even though it's probably not actually mine as there is little doubt that such a story has already been written. I suppose some of the ramifications have been thought out- Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's X-Men, for instance, portrays racism of sorts against mutants, with people discriminating against those with preternatural mutant abilities just because those mutants have the ability to use their powers maliciously. Because it makes sense that the fact that someone has the power to end you at any time is a totally justified reason to treat them poorly. No, wait... Anyway, at least they're trying to treat the idea of superheroes in a realistic way. This trend seems to be continuing in cinema, reconciling over-the-top antics with real life. Which is good.

   Using superDNA to eliminate cancer could be nothing but good for the company's bottom line, after all. No, wait- they'd stop making money if they actually discovered the cure for anything. So, are they corrupt business executives, holding the technological innovations for themselves? Making them the supervillains. So, the superheroes are sponsored by the supervillains.

   Nope, still not gonna write this story. Because, that's just how it'd be in real life.

Post THE NINETY-SIXTH, In Which Sheer Paranoia Coerces Me to Make an Announcement

   I am honestly afraid that I am turning into a squirrel. Rationally, I know that this might be ridiculous. In fact, it probably is ridiculous. Yes, yes it's definitely ridiculous. But yesterday I looked in the mirror and I noticed that I looked particularly squirrelly. More squirrelly than I've ever looked in my life. It might be because I got a new haircut, but that doesn't explain the rest of my face. Like my nose. My nose was very squirrelly.

   While transforming into a squirrel may seem ridiculous to you, as it indeed seems to me, remember that it only takes one paradigm shift to turn the bizarre into the commonplace. I think there's a chance that I might remain human, but I'm not ruling the alternative out.

   I just had to go back into that last sentence to turn all of the lowercase "I"s capital. Originally, I had it written: i think there's a chance that i might remain human, but i'm not ruling the alternative out. Maybe I'm just typing on the "shift" key weakly, or maybe I'm forgetting to use it at all. I think the squirrellification is becoming stronger, to forget a thing like that. I caught each of them in turn right after I had written it, so there's no point when the sentence actually looked like that, but I just tried using the shift key in this sentence because I remembered to capitalize my "I," but it failed. So, at least that time, I just didn't press down on the shift key strong enough. So, it's not my mind, it's my fingers. I can feel my fingers becoming more and more squirrelly.

   So, I'll tell you what: in case I really am turning into a squirrel, I'll just schedule a bunch of future posts right now in case my fingers or even my mind becomes even more lost. Squirrels don't blog, so that makes sense. I'll blog a bunch while I'm human and schedule the posts for the future, so I won't miss a day if I forget to blog as a squirrel. I'm not sure whether being a squirrel will be temporary or permanent, so I'm not sure how deep into the future I should schedule my posts. Let's say, for now, a week, and if my symptoms alleviate I'll join you again, and if they worsen I'll schedule even more posts.

   So, to recap, you'll see me every day here, but I won't see you, because it'll be past me making those posts from the past. Till then, I guess.

Now On the Last Day of Awake

   Kyle Killen is just really unlucky, isn't he? But, I'm willing to admit, I was one of the only people to have seen Lone Star when it first premiered, putting me in just 14.15% of the population according to viewership ratings data divided by U.S. census data. It was intriguing in a way that was vaguely intriguing, but the premise of the show set up an unresolvable conflict: how are they going to build an entire show around two women not knowing of the others' existence? This is why I think that that excellent Day Break show wasn't very popular. How would the show end? There's not much possibility in show direction, since it's all leading to one final point. Thus, people just sort of... avoid it.

   Well, our friend Mr. Killen also wrote the screenplay for the 2011 Summit Entertainment Mel Gibson/Jodie Foster/ratty old beaver puppet film The Beaver, which pulled off the nigh-impossible task of making people sort of respect Mel Gibson again... for about two months. (Well, I still respect Mel Gibson. In fact, I'm writing a part in The Artefact with him in mind. I hope he hasn't gotten himself killed by then. If he has... Hugh Jackman maybe?)

   Anyway, maybe Kyle Killen is just destined to be one of those geniuses not recognized in his own time. I hope not. I just hope one of his projects "sticks" next time. There are some people who deserve success.

What Shall I Cry?

   Bibliomancy is the practice of fortunetelling by flipping open a book (especially the Bible) and reading the first thing that you see as if it were a fortune. Using the Bible to do this is considered blasphemy amongst certain congregations, so I do not necessarily condone it, for fear of your excommunication. Nevertheless.

   Today, I opened up the Bible to search for some good quotes (I'm not sure what exactly I'm doing with this collection of scriptures, but I know it's got something to do with Other//half) and I think I found a good one first try. Isaiah 40:6. Yeah, the "all flesh is grass" one.

   I'm glad I got a good scripture to deploy (as episode titles, maybe?). I'm also glad I wasn't bibliomancing when I did so.

Post THE NINETY-THIRD, In Which Being a Luddite Opens Up a Day Full of Productivity

   Most of my day today was deliberately spent as far away from the computer as possible, as, with nothing really specific to do on it, that would have been a real time waster. I probably would have just putted around on one of the "chan"s or something similar. Which is weird, because if I ever did that, I only ever did that once. So I guess I would have gotten started on it. As far as I can tell, that's like taking up smoking or something. I guess it's a good thing I stayed away. I don't know.

   Anyway, I'm glad I didn't really do much on the internet today. I see kids these days with their addiction to technology and pointless memes, and it makes me want to write an expletive-laden song about how kids actually did things in my day. "It's called 'productivity,' you little [unpleasant person], learn it." That kind of thing.

   I suppose such aversion to technology makes me a Luddite of sorts. Though really the main reason I am that way is because of sci-fi writers. Not because sci-fi writers instill in you the idea that technology could turn on us what with their robots becoming self aware and murderous, but because I am one myself. A sci-fi writer. But you already knew that. We look at the world and say, "Hey! Slow down!" Advancing technology only makes our jobs harder.

   So, what did I do today if not for netting? Well, what I do any other day. Really, these questions are insulting. But, what did I do today with my time of deliberately being productive because I deliberately did not net?

   Well, first off, this, which was accomplished before getting out of bed, even:

I took a piece of paper

and wrote a thousand questionmarks on it

Each one for a specific question,

Each one: why did I do that?

Why did I give so much away?

Do I need to tell you what I stand for?  

   Mostly, though, I arted. I arted a lot of arts. Out of all the activities I did today, I arted more than I did any single other activity. It was mostly just character design stuff, so I don't think that you'll see it here, but I did manage to get practice on my line work in, amongst other things.

   I also worked out some nice chord progressions for GUNSEL (the "please tell me that I'm not a quitter" one.) It's a really rich and harmonious sound, with some definite possibilities for some honky-tonk flair, which is a bridge we'll cross when we come to it, I guess. With my voice warmed up alongside it, I sound just like Elton John (to my own ears,) so...

   I also did a lot of life-enriching but nonetheless unproductive stuff, like letting my hand be licked by cattle and watching trailers for Noah Baumbach films. But you don't need to know that.

Disco is Dead, Long Live Disco

   Robin Gibb died of colon cancer yesterday. Which made Moriarty's taste in music on PBS's Masterpiece's showing of Sherlock that same night somewhat... unsettling.

"Staying alive. It's so boring, isn't it? It's just... staying."

   Yeah, in hindsight, that was either really distasteful, or really apt. Probably both.

Hhhhh Ft-ft-ft-ft... Alright.

   Mehhh, I don't feel like doing a post today because when the phone was for me, I was expecting a follow-up update on the filming schedule or something but it turned out to be an Indian gentlemen polling about my political opinions on the presidential candidates, only I thought it was just like one of my friends putting on a fake accent to mess with me so there was much confusion and "you suck, man!" when he didn't drop the accent, even though it turned out that was his real accent. So I feel like a jerk or worse even though pollsters probably get that a lot, though he did seem like a genuinely cool guy and I told him as much when the poll got over. I hope that made up for it.

   To prevent future mishaps like this: Indian accents are among the coolest accents in the world, but it's really not nice to put them on humorously over the phone because such a thing leads to exactly these kinds of misunderstandings.

A Behind the Scenes Sneak Peek (No, Really, Sneak Peek; I'm Not Sure If I'm Allowed to Give This Much Away)

   So, I spent my day today shooting for the upcoming director's cut extended edition remake of On Our Own, the indie post-apocalyptic on-the-road drama about two brothers trying to make it and reunite with their father and uncle in a near-future America where hyperinflation has led to chaotic anarchy after the dollar becomes worthless and everyone quits their jobs. Yeah. That's the one. Since I had literally any experience with cinematography, I was personally tapped by the director to consult, best boy, boom and grip on the film. Basically, I'm about half of the entire crew. Maybe a third or a fourth, counting editing and other post-production stuff, but anyway. The full length remake is going to be far superior to the 45-minute original version, with such new features as better acting, more character development, and not looking like it was shot with the camera that's built into your standard cell phone. I've heard estimates saying it's going to be up to an impressive ten times better than the original. Since I don't know whether or not that's going to be true, I didn't usually like talking about how I'm on this project, but from the quality of film-making I've seen today from behind the scenes, meh, why not. If the movie fails, it won't be my fault. It's still an impressive thing to have on your résumé for when you're considering the career paths I am.

   We really got to shoot in some of the most devastatingly remote and beautiful locations, and it was a real pleasure to set up some of the shots, trying to capture the majesty of nature. Every view was an absolute postcard, as they say, as compositionally unbalanced as some of the postcards may be. The desert is truly its own character in the film. It's just a pity that the film's not in 3D, because the absolute grandeur, how mindbogglingly large the locations are compared to the characters, is hard to capture without the aid of depth perception. I think we pulled it off, though. The angle of the sun surely helped, what with the shadow-making.

   Our first location for today was the exterior shot for a trading post-type deal, an old shack that had been around since at least 1890, which is the date that the earliest "... was here" graffiti I could find on the building had. The building was right next to this cliff, right where the fields turned into mountains. Very scenic. The interior scenes were shot on an entirely different historic location, but I think the continuity should match very well, seeing as how other people seemed to have the exact same idea to sign and date the engravings on their wall carvings there as well. Huh. I think the bricks are made of limestone or something. Something soft like that. Anyway.

   What was really exciting was the shooting we did in the afternoon. It detailed a confrontation with bandits (who wanted the stuff from the trading post) that takes place in what amounts to be a canyon (I say "amounts to be" because desert trails between the mountains are crazy; needless to say, another gorgeous location.) This shoot lasted from around four or five until sunset, but the continuity on this should be alright as well because the canyon was bathed in shadow as it is, the non-cell-phone-looking camera we're using has this built-in light adjustment technology, and we can always color correct in post if the difference becomes too noticeable (the discovery that we have color correction technology on hand is really what makes me willing to divulge that I'm on this film in the first place; too many similar-budget films have colors that are all muddy which really mars the entire film-going experience because you're constantly being reminded that you're watching a no-budget film, especially knowing that good post production or indeed any post production at all can make the project look far more professional (I tried making the 2003 Alex Kendrick film Flywheel look like notcrap just yesterday and it took me literally five seconds on Photoshop to do so.)) Anyway, in this scene, the bullets are flying (or at least the bullets will fly, with (once again) a little post-production) and there is much corn-syrup-and-cocoa-powder-with-red-food-dye blood. It was exciting for everyone, I think. It will definitely be exciting for the audience (yay  take-off-your-shirt-to-use-it-as-an-impromptu-bandage scenes.) We had to do that shot in one take, understandably (the shirt was all fake-bloody after that.) Other than that, we had to do a lot of reshoots. (Our poor lead actor just doesn't know how to do a good serious face, for one. But I digress.)

   The film still needs a soundtrack it would actually be legal to use. The fact that the director apparently has Moby's "Porcelain" on his playlist (to which we listened on the long car rides there and back, and man does he have a much better taste in music than the music in the original On Our Own would have you believe) reminded me that Moby leases his songs free to independent non-profit filmmakers, but I don't think that the full-length version of the film is going to be non-commercial. So we still need a composer for this movie. I suppose that as the frontman of my own band, I could do it, but it's a tad more ambitious than anything I've before attempted. In my capacity as that, all I've got is a few chords, the truth, a set of better-than-average pipes, and a keen ear for songwriting, with "song" meaning of course "that which is sung." I don't think I'm up for doing a full-length film score quite yet. Maybe after we're actually on iTunes or something. I don't know. Comment below- What do you guys think? And, barring me, do you know anyone else who could compose a film score?

   Either way, a very good, productive day today.

Thomas Novotny is a PC, Apparently

   So, I was just checking the stats on who reads my blog, and what referring site should I see (traffic source, on what sites the people who visit my site come from (in case you didn't know what "referring site" means))? None other than ohnitsch.net, which I told you about earlier. Apparently Thomas Novotny (of whom, if you'll remember, I am extremely jealous) does the same thing with his traffic sources, and he saw that I referred you to him with the referring sites on his stats. It's deeply humbling that such a thing would happen, that he would visit me like that. I wonder what he thought of me...

   No matter. Here, you can see the evidence that led me to figure out what had happened, screencaps of my blog stats:

A hit from Ohnitsch WordPress admin, under "traffic sources."

A couple of hits to that post.

Traffic sources again. Twice from Ohnitsch.

All PCs.

   Lookee there, see, four visits from Austria. Which I guess means he's back from Japan.

   To top that off, I am finished with school for the summer, I got to watch the explosive (unfortunately literally) Prison Break  finale, and a UPS dude waved at me while I was walking down the road. I am making so many connections here, some of them global, it's like a stinking episode of Touch or something (though without all the numbers and stuff.)

   So, all in all, it's been a good day, and there's really nothing I can think of that can rain on my parade.

Though I suppose there's this. R.I.P. Michael Scofield.

Don't Tell Me I'm the Only One Who Can Do This

   You ever imagine a bright flash, so bright that it actually leaves an afterimage on your retinas? Seeking these out is a great way to fall asleep at night. It gives you something solid to visualize, settle your thoughts so the images become dreams.

   That is, if you're a visual thinker. I'm not sure how that works for other people. The concept of daydream never really meant that much to me. Is it, like, a dream during the day? If so, are you awake for it? If so, how is that different from normal imagination? You don't normally... imagine in words, do you? Or has no one else really put that much thought into it either, so it's just as meaningless as I think it is?

   Anyway, if you think in pictures, imagining bright flashes allows you to sleep better.

But Maybe I Came Across as Being Harsh to LiveJournal

   Far from it, I think LiveJournal is one of the greatest things to happen to the internet. In fact, if I were in charge of designing the perfect social networking site, I don't think I could do much better than LiveJournal. It has all of the austerity of twitter, all of the Usenettiness of Usenet, all of the intimacy of MySpace. It's like WordPress, but more social. It's like a chat forum, only friendlier. It's like Pinterest, because a vast majority of the people on it are female. Nope, I don't think I could come up with a better social network if they paid me.

   If I were in charge of inventing a social networking site, though, it'd be like twitter, only more so. Instead of being limited to 140 characters, you'd be limited to a single word. That word would be the role in society you'd be playing at that moment. For example, I'd put, blogger, because right now I am a blogger. If I were crossing the street, I'd put, pedestrian. If I were drawing, I'd put artist. Et cetera. It'd be called, jaques, or something. "One man in his time plays many parts." As You Like It, Act II, scene 7. That makes sense, right? So, you could scroll down all the things that someone's jaques'd, and see the statistical breakdown of all the people who have ever been, say, boom mike operators (I think there could be a separate slot where you could put adjectives is how that works.)

You Know Who You Are

   Alright, surely you do more thinking than that. I haven't been able to say much lately as (1) I've been studying a lot for finals, (2)  I'm also spending a lot of time trying to troubleshoot my external drive, and (3) most of the ideas I've been having lately are more suited to be incorporated into my fiction and other projects than just blogging about them as their outlet into the world. Only even those ideas I have to keep in my head so far instead of getting them down somewhere, because of the whole my-external-driver's-been-crapping-out-on-me-lately thing. I did get it to work twice today, on one computer then another, by attaching the cord then the driver, but revisiting the first computer I got it to work again on, it didn't work again. So I think the problem might be with the port or something.

   But, even now, I have the time to blog more than a single sentence.

   For you, it might be some kind of hassle, yet you go through with it. You have an entire day's wealth of material from which to draw, blogging daily, and most of your lifetime's worth of experience outside of that. You don't think you could expand your thoughts, clarify them? Doing a daily blog, then saying just one thing each day. You might as well be doing a LiveJournal instead.

   Okay, maybe not LiveJournal.

   Yeah, LiveJournal.

   For that is a better fit for such pointillism of words. If you're going to say one thing about how you feel, you might as well also tell us what's on your playlist as well right now as well. If you don't want to go through with this, you don't have to.

   Sometimes even I wish I didn't have to go through with a new post every day, but, keeping up this promise I made to myself to blog daily, it's made me a more productive person. Maybe "productive" isn't the right word. It's not like I work more all that much. But, it's given me structure. And writing a little bit every day has made me more prolific than I've ever been before, because writing comes more easily now. I'm doing better in school. Actually studying now, I mean (see point 1.)

   You have something to say. I want to see that.

   And also maybe art.

A Highly Specific, Highly Prolific, Highly Entertaining Yet Highly Unsuccessful Genre

   So, NBC has decided to cancel Awake, quite possibly the most promising show of the year, after only one season, confirming not only that nothing hemorrhages quite like the National Broadcasting Corporation hemorrhages lineups (The Cape, anyone?), but also that I can't think of a single gripping, emotionally complex time-travel mystery police detective post-Lost American drama show that has lasted longer than one season. (I am counting Awake as a time-travel show here because, even though there is no actual time travel in it, it is about the timeline being split.) I don't see why they perform so poorly; it's a uniformly excellent genre. Want proof? You don't have to take my word for it. Try these on for size.

  In rough order of recommendation, or how strongly I recommend the following shows, I strongly recommend each every and all of the following shows:

• Day Break~
(ABC, 2006, 13 episodes)
• Awake*+
(NBC, 2012, 13 episodes)
• Life on Mars †
(ABC, 2008-2009, 17 episodes)
• Alcatraz ‡
(FOX, 2012, 13 episodes)
• FlashForward*+ ‡
(ABC, 2009-2010, 22 episodes)
• Terra Nova †
(FOX, 2011, 11 episodes)

   Since each of these shows lasted only one season, most of them should be totally watchable in a single marathon of nonstop good television. Or, if you want to break it up into more manageable chunks, it shouldn't take you that long either.
   

~ Has Adam Baldwin AND Moon Bloodgood AND Taye Diggs and I mean it this is a really good show and there's a reason I put it at the number one recommendation slot. Not that the others aren't good, of course; just, this is the best and you've probably never heard of it.

* Time travel themes present with no actual time travel, with timeline split (Awake) or visions of the future (FlashForward.)

+ Main character played by English actor putting on American accent (Jason Isaacs and Joseph Fiennes.)

† Main character played by Irish actor putting on American accent (Jason O'Mara.)

‡ Major character played by Lost actor (Jorge Garcia and Dominic Monaghan.)

Professional Thinker

   I received a quarter rather than just the usual penny for a thought I had today. I guess my grandfather had just misheard about my "penny for your thoughts" project, but, it was my grandfather, so, what was I supposed to do about it?

   Anyway, the thought itself wasn't really that special. I was just mulling over whether or not to have some Mother's Day sweet potatoes. They say the more variety of foods available to you the more you eat, which makes sense. There wasn't really that much variety this mealtime around, but there was still like turkey and salad and all of the other MD family reunion mealtime stuff. I had even gotten some Jell-O, which I usually do not do, and you probably don't care. So, anyway, I had eaten much, but the sweet potatoes looked interesting, since they came with brown sugar, and I had never eaten sweet potatoes like that before.

   So, that was my $.25 thought, and I just shared it with you for free.

   I guess getting paid for my thought originally means that I'm a professional thinker. All of my hopes and dreams are achieved, I guess. Though not really. But I bet you're not a professional thinker. And I am. So, I'm a leg up on you. Probably.

Beware Macduff

Be bloody, bold,

And resolute: laugh to scorn the power of man,

For none of woman born shall harm Macbeth. 

   But, of course, "Macduff was from his mother's womb/ Untimely ripp'd." Bizarrely specific loopholes in prophecies are a common trope (with this particular example as this trope's trope namer), and some of these are really good.

   But, that's not my point.

   What if it's not, "no man of woman born can kill you," but, "no man of woman born will kill you?" It's the same thing, since you can only get killed once, so if you won't get killed by something, that is the exact same thing as not being able to be killed by something. If it will kill you, it will kill you, which means that it can kill you, but if it won't kill you it won't, which means it can't. If that makes any sense. I mean, it still can kill you, but since it won't (because it won't) that means it actually can't kill you because that's not how you'll die.

   You may let your mind be blown... now.

Things From My Dream: Nonlinear Heists and Domesticated Carnivores!

   Ocean's 12 is often said to be the weakest in the series (it is generally agreed to go like this: 13, 11, with the original Sinatra 11 somewhere here, then 12), with most of the criticism being laid upon the twist, how the entire time they had already stolen the egg and were proceeding to pull the heist anyway because they knew they were under surveillance. The only reason the film was made was so the cast could hang around at George Clooney's lakeside chateau, featured in the film. Or maybe it was Brad Pitt's. But Brad Pitt doesn't really strike you as the "chateau" kind of guy. Huh. Whatever; I'll have to look it up.

   Well, my dream was, in the first part, about Ocean's 12 actually having a good (if somewhat arbitrary) twist: instead of the entire thing being a charade, in this version it looks like the only way out is getting caught and jailed forever, losing their freedoms but more importantly their reputations in the process. The question posed to the audience: then why are they going ahead with the plan? The twist comes in the final third of the film, when it turns out that what was going on wasn't what the audience thought. What the audience was seeing was actually two heists being planned and carried out, one right after the other so they share thematic similarities, interspersed together not to be pretentious, the way most arbitrarily nonlinear narratives are (take it, Quentin!) but to show the similarities and differences in the uses of the same tools to pull off different heists and how inventiveness is a major part of the trade. The Twelve were thus never in any real danger, because Cherry Jones is just Matt Damon's mom (this part was in the film, which is why this hypothetical heist film is a replacement for Twelve instead of any of the others.)

   On that front, the same dream also inspired me as to what cats may symbolize in Dark Knight Rises, as speculated in this post. Cats are domesticated carnivores, (domesticated in, scholars speculate, Ancient Egypt and/or surrounding locales, where they would control the pest population of local granaries. I think. (I'm digressing a bit here, but remembering that might have been part of the dream.)) Cats are domesticated carnivores who, though domesticated, sometimes still bear their claws and teeth, because they're CARNIVORES. Cats are CARNIVORES! DOMESTICATED CARNIVORES! If we had not domesticated them, they would be a major hazard and threat to the human species, (much like the situation with them in Australia is.) They are nature's perfect predator. It's... scary. Really scary.

   (Seals are also carnivores, but we feel less threatened by them because awww. And because the only threat they pose is to fish. But remember that the next time you find yourself thinking about poor little cute little baby fur seals. They're meat-eaters. Not so innocent.)

   The symbolism in Dark Knight Rises would (hopefully) thus be this: as all adorable and furry and stuff cats may be on the outside, underneath is a face-eating serial killer. We may have domesticated them, but their core, their essence is the killing machine. That's what the symbolism will be: how adorable kittens are all around us, their true natures unnoticed and forgotten, predators as pets. There's a façade there to make them acceptable, but their fuzziness belies stealth and their taut rippling bodies reveal the muscle tone of a killer.

   Cats are the most popular pet in America, outnumbering dogs something like three to one. When the catpocalypse comes, now you'll know what we're up against. I'm not going to be the one who's first up against the wall.

   Are you?

Three Weeks Ago, Inspired by a Terrific Up-and-Comer

  Three weeks ago, inspired by terrific up-and-coming (well, she doesn't have any novels out yet, which is why I say "up-and-comer," but maybe I shouldn't because she's quite prolific at writing a lot of short fiction, (but that's important in the sci-fi market) but with all those short stories the volume of material is kind of the point of this post so anyway) science fiction writer Nancy Fulda, (nominated for this year's Hugo and Nebula awards for her short story "Movement," which is about autism IN THE FUTURE and which you can read here for free but you should totally support by downloading it) and the fact that she wrote stuff at all, I made a vow to myself to crank out a short story by the end of the week. The end result was something I had percolating in my head for a while, basically T.S. Eliot's "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" only with the plot of Casablanca and set in a parallel universe's version of the 2006 Israel/Lebanon conflict, detailing a conversation at a Lebanese cabaret had between Bono, who in this universe is a war correspondent, and Ann Coulter, who in this universe is a showgirl.

   Yeah.

   I will not share it here. Or, at least, not today; it's one of those, "maybe later" things. It's imaginably got a lot of foreign politics, which I am fairly certain I might have gotten wrong, so, not sharing it quite yet gives me the opportunity to do more research if I feel like it. It's not published yet, so I can do with it what I want. Which would mean that I actually DIDN'T complete the story that week, for if I change it now it would not have been completed then. Huh.

   Maybe the politics of it are already alright, though, to justify me not changing it? If I was wrong on anything factually, I suppose I could chalk it up to "weird parallel universe stuff."

   Or not.

  Maybe neither of them know what they're talking about? Although I suppose that wouldn't make any sense, considering both of their roles in this universe. (Regardless of how you feel about them as political figures, how you feel about what they think, they'd know what they were talking about politically. (I just love politics, how it's basically the only realm where you can use a person's beliefs as a smear. You say, "I disagree with you," only you use it as an insult. (Politics is driven almost entirely by misunderstanding (the other part being driven by rhetoric, I guess.) What I mean is, any "issue" to anybody is actually a complete non-issue to them. They're fighting so other people can see things their way. Which is why they feel so heart-strongly about it. (That's a thing, right, heart-strong-ness? heart-strength?)) That's so juicy. I love it.))

   I know what you may be asking yourself, or may have been asking yourself four paragraphs ago: the reason I bring it up here even though I'm not sharing it with you today is just to have an excuse to post a thought here which I had a few mornings ago. It's on the subject of Casablanca, which just made me think of all of the other stuff. I couldn't post this thought by itself, since one observation does not an essay make, so I added all of the other Casablanca-related stuff.

   Anyway, here's the thought I had, which I'm shoehorning in now:


   Let's face it: even if Humphrey Bogart did say "Play it again, Sam" in Casablanca, (which, as everyone knows (or at least should know,) he didn't,) it would be one of the worst quotes in the history of cinema, not one of the best.

I Know You Know You Want To

   New news today, and it's kind of exciting news at that: there is an open call for questions out on endersgameblog.tumblr.com, Roberto Orci's official blog on the making of the upcoming Ender's Game movie. Have a question on the film and/or the production thereof (not involving Demosthenes and Locke, how PG-13 it's going to get or whether or not Bean's "O Absalom" line from Ender's Shadow is going to make it into the film intact, as these questions already seem to be pretty popular there)? You can ask it there, and if he likes your question, Roberto Orci himself may answer it on the blog, which seems to update on every Thursday now (after updating on Wednesdays for the first couple of weeks.)

   The question I want answered is: what kind of music is going to be in the film? Releasing a film tie-in album featuring some of the most popular up-and-comers seems to be a popular thing right now, so are we heading that route? And, what about for the score itself? There's a lot of different precedents for science fiction, all of them intriguing. Daft Punk? John Williams? Yoko Kanno? 

   So, uh, seriously. Head on over there and get asking.

Homemade EMP Device?

   Hmm, I've already posted about how these things scare the holy heckies out of me, and now I'm posting about hypothetically making one. Well, then. I guess I wouldn't share it if I thought that such a homemade device would actually work, so I guess I'll share it here.

   I've got a great idea on how to make an electromagnet, right at home. Perhaps something of this sort will be used in my ongoing Artificial Winter project, but that would kind of not work if it turns out that this doesn't work. It'd be unrealistic. But, we're talking about if it would work, so no more self-doubt.

   Alright, so, if it would be to work, it would work like this: simulate an electromagnetic wire using magnetic dust, as from, say, an Etch-a-Sketch. Spin this dust around really fast to simulate an electromagnetic coil, using, say, a vacuum cleaner. The Etch-a-Sketch dust whirls around in the center air chamber of the vacuum, which has been modified by removing the filter and stuff (of course) and with a core of soft iron or what have you installed in the center part. The coil whirls around the core, creating a magnetic field. The movement acts as a turbine, generating electricity, so the field is electromagnetic. Maybe the magnetic field could be built up gradually, by putting all of the Etch-a-Sketch filling on the ground and having the vacuum cleaner vacuum it all up, particle by particle. The dust gets sucked up, swirls around, builds up a magnetic field which disrupts any and all nearby (unprotected) electronics systems. The vacuum survives the magnetic field because science, that's why.

   Also, in research for this post, I stumbled across the hypothetical monopole, a particle that would have only one pole instead of both north and south. I already have an idea on how to make some kind of magneto-gravitational superlaser out of one...

No? Alright, How's This?

   Alright, so I posted a couple of days ago about something I noticed about the Poster for The Dark Knight Rises, something that apparently I wasn't the only one to notice, according to the comments section, and which I'm just too gosh darn lazy to look up, so I will just take your word for it. But, I'll bet I'm the only one to notice this: see the bit of falling rubble on the other side of the batsignia? See how it looks like some kind of face in shadow?

   Well, the mask from the other poster

just so happens to match up in perfect proportion to the face of that bit of rubble:

Also, kind of looks like Theodore Roosevelt. Just saying.

   So, we see the Superman insignia on the insignia's right side (assuming that the bat is facing toward us)

and the Batmask on the batsignia's left hand side:

In case you forgot what it looks like

   I really needn't explain the symbolism of having Superman on the right side and Batman on the left, need I? To all you people out there who thought it was coincidental: hahaha. I win.

And Now, I Will Tell You About My Day Today

   Highlights of my day: looking fly in my Sunday Best, sunglasses, and cap; watching a robin sit on her eggs and watch me back; figuring out new techniques on drawing hands on the fly (since your models are unaware they're being drawn, you have to make it quick, so, on the fly) which maybe I'll share with you if I'm feeling generous one day; getting a couple of sweet new pairs of Air Jordans and looking the most "street" I've ever looked in my life, combined with my Sunday Best a sunglasses and hat to make me look like some kind of a street artist, like the kind you'd see on Wall Street or something; making a sweet François Hollande/Hollandaise sauce pun; eating some not-bad ice cream and then later a not-bad ice cream/yogurt smoothie; learning more about the ramifications of the Tet Offensive; realizing, during a pretty good hand of Pinochle, that I might want to be something of an amateur puppeteer since puppets rock (and sock puppets rock socks, do-ho-ho-ho-hoh); using my new kicks to not get hit by a car because I can run fast now.

   And now, finally, looking up more about puppets on the Muppet Wiki, which is easily in the top ten or even five percent of the most addicting wikis. Did you know that Jim Henson did a few Faygo advertisements back in the '50s? Freaking Faygo, man.

   Also, this exists:

Even if you don't speak French, I'm betting there's at least two words (besides the name of the newsmagazine, of course) that you recognize here. And let me tell you, man, I never expected I'd see them together like that. Even though I always sort of suspected that about Miss Piggy, but, never mind, that's crude. And also libel.

   Aren't you glad that I didn't actually say that out loud, though? It's not illegal if it's only implied libel. Totally first-amendment protected. It's right there in the constitution. At least metaphorically. Though I suppose how strongly you imply it matters. I only implied French cognates. It's not like I actually connected which two non-Paris Match words on the cover I suspected about Miss Piggy. I could have been saying I suspect her to be an Israeli sketch, for all you know. 

   Even though I totally wasn't. 

   You know what I mean.

   

   Well, I guess it's getting away from me now, so I think I'll end it he

Am I the Only One Who Noticed This?

   I noticed something... odd about the teaser poster for The Dark Knight Rises:

   See that falling bit of rubble there at the left-hand corner of the batsignia? Look familiar?

   How about now?

   That really... can't be a coincidence. Can it?

It's One Day Later and I'm Back from the Third Season of Prison Break (Plus, Zebras in Advancing Stages of Anthropomorphization)

   It's one day later, and I'm back from the third season of Prison Break, which was watchable in a day because it only has thirteen episodes in it. Huh. Well, of my predictions, some were way, way off and some were more right than I could have hoped for. There aren't really going to be any spoilers in this one, as I think that the season can stand for itself. Breaking out of prison, again. You know.

   I mean, I've got nothing really specific to say, other than, maybe, the end of it there, with the Spanish rendition of Crying? I suppose it's a good place to end a season, but still. Least suspenseful Prison Break season finale ever. And I can say that, even though I haven't seen the fourth season yet, because I'm pretty sure that I might have once caught part of the fourth season series finale, which itself has got another prison break in it, where they're breaking Sara out of prison. Which I guess means she survived her decapitation. Shoot. I guess there are spoilers in this review after all. END SPOILER. There. I hope that worked.



   So, uh, who doesn't like zebras?

Nobody, that's who. 

Oh, and speaking of "Who"...

That's a The Who t-shirt. 

   I just drew these in my, I think it was that geology class. Again, I had a lot of free time in that class.

Post THE SEVENTY-FOURTH, In Which We Get a Second Break (of the Prison Variety)

   Here I am looking forward to the third season of Prison Break, an apparently extremely popular show that ran from 2005 to 2009 that I'm just now getting into and have already watched the first two seasons of. I really wrote this (1) to advertise a pretty okay show, (2) because the first season left off into the second season in a pretty obvious place (the actual prison break) and where they would end season two to go into season three came as a surprise, and (3) it's something to write about, I guess. If you still have yet to catch up on an excellent show, be warned that there are spoilers from the second season ahead, though if you haven't seen any of it then probably none of this will mean anything to you. Good luck in your confusion.

   So, the third season of Prison Break is upon us, and it looks like the show's getting back to its roots: actually breaking out of prison. Last we saw Michael he was getting dropped off at Sona, a federal prison that not even the guards seem to want to approach. So, probably, a for inmates by inmates type deal, a veritable death sentence for those who are sent there. Whoever's in charge probably would want to keep a pretty tight ship, if such a system is to work at all, so watch out for him.

   It looks like this time Lincoln is going to have to be the one to break Michael out this time, an interesting reversal of the first season. With each season the show redefines itself, somewhat out of necessity, but it's all tied together by the overarching conspiracy. Now that Kellerman testified against the Company and Lincoln's been exonerated, though, maybe that will be less prominent. One thing we do know about the Company now, though: they want Michael to break out of Sona, and when he does, they'll be waiting for him.

   For they (and we) know that Michael will break out, along with maybe Mahone and Bellick, who are also there, and T-Bag's got to have been put somewhere, so, why not Sona? All that T-Bag has to go on now is his oily charm, now that the $5,000,000 is at the bottom a a river somewhere in the jungle. And, speaking of Benjamins, last time we saw C-Note, he's gone into WitPro for testifying against Mahone, so we know that he's (probably?) safe. Sucre, however, is another story: collapsed in Panama after losing a lot of blood after being shivved by T-Bag, with seemingly nobody going to assist him, and with Bellick not revealing where he left Maricruz. I think that about sums it up for where season two left all of the major characters (where's Sara in all of this? She's free, right?) Only time will tell where that leads us.

   A major flaw of the second season was that Michael's plan to run was much less well-defined than his plan to escape in the first place, which is what gave the first season a narrative push. Now that he's back in, though, there's a clear objective. Looks like it's back to smooth sailing and tight pacing once again.

   Yeah, it's a totally worthy usage of my time. All of this prison breaking has given me at least like three episode ideas for Artificial Winter, and one really solid one for The Artefact. Like I said. Pop culture is good for inspiration.

The Rarest Thing

The Mars corporation trashes millions of M&Ms a year. If the tiny little "m" on the candy isn't perfect, then into the garbage it goes. So I bet that something like this here peanut M&M I got today would be worth at least, what, a dollar? A dollar for such a small candy. That's supply and demand for you, I suppose. I know that the following photograph may be something of a shock, but keep in mind, this photo is completely un-retouched (does cropping count as retouching?)

Robert Ludlum's The Change Blindness

   In a study by D. T. Simons and D. J. Levin, the phenomenon of change blindness was demonstrated when a person asking directions was suddenly replaced by a different person during the middle of a subject's giving of them (directions.) A large number of people did not notice that the person to whom they were giving directions was suddenly a different person when their field of vision was interrupted. 

   A fascinating bit about how not all of us notice all of our surroundings. We can't all be Jason Bourne, I guess...

   !

   So, I drew this comic, to show what Jason Bourne would do in such a situation. Enjoy.