Thespis Strip Dated Sunday, December 27, 2009

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TRANSCRIPT:
Collin: Galaxy Quest?
Che
Ankh: You!
Collin: Ankh!
Ankh: I am Anorankh!
Collin: But... You can speak!
Ankh: Yes... and I come bringing a warning!
A warning about... The Creator.
Many years ago, Don Dialga killed his ancestor! He plans to do you off beginning with the start of the New Year!
Collin: But... Don Dialga...
Ankh: You fool! Can you not realize...
His blood now runs through your very veins!
SFX: POOF!
Collin, thinking: oh.
Stupid veins.

24 Season Finales

   For today's post, I've got a rundown for you of my favorite 24 season finales in order (all of them!) and why I feel that way to order them how I do. Let's do this!

1. Day Eight: exactly what it needed to be as a farewell, to cement 24 as one of the greatest. The countdown shutdown at the end. 00:03, 00:02, 00:01, 00:00.
2. Day Three: Going second here for sheer intensity. Still can't top the series finale, of course, but this is a close second.
3. Day One: Sets off events that will echo for "days" to come; to say any more would constitute major major spoilers if you're not already into the show.
4. Day Six: I really like Day Six, hang what other people think- the first 20 hours are one intense thrillride, all revolving around the one goal of stopping the snukes. The last fourish hours, Jack's lady friend Audrey gets kidnapped, and Jack has to face off against his own father and everything, and so here at sunrise of the next day, it's all coming crashing down, and Secretary Heller forbids Jack from seeing his daughter again. Jack goes outside to stare off into the distance as the sky begins to lighten once more, and it's heartbreaking. Positively heartbreaking.
5. Day Seven somewhere?: Prion variant, Kim saves her father's life. Neat stuff, I guess.
6. Day Two: David Palmer gets palmed-- it takes twice for something to become a tradition, and this thus starts 24's tradition of having some kind of insane cliffhanger/twist at the very end of the day (a tradition that is subverted exactly one season later, of course, where the major twist is... Jack Bauer breaking down and crying. Like I said, it was an intense episode, that.)
7. Day Five: Jack kidnapped by angry Chinese agents in retaliation for staging the invasion of their base and all that- pretty nice, pretty nice. I can never really respect this episode as much as it deserves, since the first time I watched it I thought that Netflix didn't have the season five premier so I decided to watch it backwards, which turned out to be stupid and confusing and I was very bored throughout the entire thing. As I've no doubt explained elsewhere as well, but I think it's an entertaining enough story it bears repeating.

   And of course, who could forget the stunning finale to season 4, in which Tony moves to CTU Japan to inspect the new site, only to stumble across employee harassment by Japanese Jack Bauer and a heinously complex plot involving his kidnapped wife Michelle and plastic surgery Michael Jackson. No, seriously:

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

   That's a messed-up song. Pretending the snowman is Parson Brown? Wait, so now see's seeing a priest behind your back? A priest! That's all kinds of wrong. And you seem to be okay with it, that's even worse. Is that, like... a cuckold thing? Or... what, your relationship is platonic with her, and that's why you're letting her see a priest?

   Maybe you're just setting her up with him, yeah, that makes sense. Isn't it kind of forward, though, bringing up the possibility of marriage on the first date? But he did it first. No, but you don't ask "are you married" as an icebreaker. I mean, that means that this isn't even a date. It's just a casual little chat. Now that is forward. "No, man. But you can do the job while you're in town." Saucy. I've never heard of such a thing. Getting hitched to a priest on your first meeting with him. And having the gall to refer to it as a "job," like it'd just be another... oh. Oh!

http://wondermark.com/173/ Click to enlarge.

   Alright, fine. Then how about, uh, Have a Holly Jolly Christmas? Somebody waits for you... Gizzard wants? Gizzard wants for me? I mean, what would even make sense there... kiss her once? Kiss her once... Oh, okay, then. Never mind.

Thespis Strip Dated Sunday, December 20, 2009

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TRANSCRIPTION:
Collin: Jurassic Park? Check.
The Lion King...
Well, the lyrics You say you want diamonds in a ring of gold in U2's "All I Want is You" do kind of prevent it from being appropriate for the end credits of pretty much the only movie with all-animal characters. 
Well, there's Timon. He, being a meerkat, is a somewhat human character.
He even dresses in a lei and hula skirt and plays the ukulele in one scene.
But that still doesn't...
!
Unless, of course, the diamonds symbolize the stars of dead kings in the sky, and the ring of gold clearly indicates the circle of life.
Alright, but that still doesn't explain the Highway with no one on it reference.
...
Speed?
Check.

Thespis Strip Dated Sunday, December 13, 2009

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TRANSCRIPT:
Collin: So, All I Want is You by U2, from their '88 album Rattle and Hum: excellent song.
It's got a haunting tune, brilliant riffs, amazing imagery and perfectly gorgeous vocals.
U2 at their absolute best.
I mean it. Go out and download it.
Better yet, buy the album.
And, better still, the imagery in the lyrics is so vague, and the mood of the song so mellow, it could really be played during the end credits of any movie, no matter the plot, setting, or tone.
No, I mean it. For example: WALL•E?
Check.
The Bourne Identity? Check.
A Knight's Tale?
Check.

Mrs. Munger's Class

   Wow. Well this brings back memories.

Nerd Hang Gliding

   Even as a nerd, some things are too hardcore for me. Like tabletop gaming. It's still cool. Like hang gliding is still cool. It's rad, but it's a bit too hardcore for me.

   I don't think I'd be able to keep up a tabletop game campaign myself. I wish I could, you know. It's not like nerds looking down their noses at other nerds because whatever they're into is just too nerdy. I'm looking up to these guys, and admitting I could never do that myself. there's always going to be something just a little more extreme, and you've got to realize that.

   Or else you'll go insane.

   No, not really. But it sounded good.

Video Games as Art?

   For all those (probably zero) of you who wanted to hear my own view on Roger Ebert's controversial opinion that video games cannot be art (which enraged many a nerd with not much better to do), I guess it's time to weigh in. Of course video games aren't aren't. Video games are games, and games aren't art. No one argued that video game art isn't art, but it's the games themselves.

   Ebert gives the example of a particularly brilliant game of chess. Is that game, no matter how well played, art? Of course not. So, he was right entirely, aside from his dig at Braid (it is kind of ugly, in an ugly cute kind of way, and besides he was basing his opinions on it chiefly from the trailer and he admitted as such.)

Dawning

   I just seemed so immature, but I was terribly impressed with myself. Especially in Sophomore year high school. I'm able to regard myself better now, self-reflect. I know the sound of my own voice, how it sounds. Not as part of "identity" or anything. My literal voice. I caught myself on recording once, and I wasn't pretty. Old photographs of me, I was fat and ugly, but I didn't realize it. But I'm getting better. So I think I've got a pretty good idea that what I'm saying is worth it.

   But maybe the relative immaturity reflects a good thing. Throughout all of this, you should see me evolve (which I hopefully will do,) and I intend to keep this blog well into my fame or whatever it is that's coming to me. It's not like I don't have anything to prove.

   What's this blog really about? I don't know. But there are some people you just wish would talk more. Remember, you reading this is entirely up to you. Unless you're chained in a basement being forced to read this. (There's worse things to be forced to do in those kinds of situations.)

   People then can look back in the archives (why they would want to, I don't know, but there's some pretty clever stuff back there.) I'm thinking of getting some kind of "random post" button or something- did I tell you this already?- but lack the technical savvy to do so.

Foolishness?

   Not that I wasn't capable of greatness or anything. Obviously there's some fairly clever stuff from that period. I still view myself as a fool, and I was a pretentious little punk in the tenth and eleventh grades, but at least I got over my pretentious period so early. Does such an admission, that I don't think I'll be as pretentious again, change the course from then to now to then? I guess presast only makes perfect as long as it's set on the course, and you don't decide to change it and continue on in whatever behavior or style or flavor. Not exactly learning from your mistakes, although that can be it, but catching and recognizing your own method of doing things.

   Another thing about how I'll be evolved: my own style. Do I, right now, consider myself to be very good? Worth sharing, obviously. We all need to say, Ten Thirteen-like, "I made this." But how much pride are you allowed? If we were alone, or all the same person, if there were only one existent entity, would it need pride? Would it accomplish something and say, "I am proud?" Philosophically useless argument, I know (well, not useless...) I think we need the affirmation of other entities to be proud. In all senses of the word.

   Yeah, it's kind of late at night as I write this and I didn't get much sleep last night so man am I loopy. I'm practically kind of stoned right now, so, forgive me. Don't do drugs, kids. They'll make you use sentences like "we need affirmation from other entities to be proud."

   Which is why I let myself be judged by others. "Can't even see myself straight on. Only reflections. Only ever reflections." Yeah, yeah. It's all right here. All the way back in my fifteenth ever post. Foolishness of our past selves? No, no, I had foresight enough for that.

One Year Out

   That's the thing. Or that's a thing. When I get back, I'll be 23. I don't know how I'll be like then. Whether I've changed or improved or had ideas. I don't even know what I'll be like when I'm 22. Or 34. Or anything. Christ was 34 when he was killed, right? (36?) Something like that. Either way it's older than I can even imagine being. I don't know where I'll be. Whether I'll have gone far or just stayed where I am. That's still pretty young, especially considering how significantly he had changed the world at that age.

   I don't know where I'll be, but I imagine looking at 34 and seeing where I am and where I was and where I will have been and I know that in at least some way I'll have evolved. I don't know how evolved, and I think I won't be able to know how evolved because of my youth or because of any other reason. To admit that you're young, that's either in celebration or in angst. I guess here it's both. The youth is wasted on the young, but, angst angst angst. If that were true, old people should be angsty. When young folks are angsty they call it just being youthful, but when middle aged people are angsty they call it a crisis.

   But I don't know. In fourteen years, will I see myself as as big a fool as I myself see my past self of comparable age ratio to present self? From experience I know I will think myself foolish nonetheless, but exactly how foolish? Is it exponential? Do you view yourself as exponentially foolish? At least when I was younger I kept my foolishness to myself. No, no. My foolishness came about from thinking that I was so very wise. No I'm not so hot on myself, and we're going to drop that topic before we get into whether realizing that you're foolish makes you wise makes you foolish.

Thespis Strip Dated Sunday, December 6, 2009

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Transcript: 
Collin: Back in the '50s, Kellogg's Frosted Flakes had a contest as to who would be their spokesanimal.
The spokesanimal who won, Tony the Tiger, had to run against the likes of Newt the Gnu, Elmo the Elephant, Katy the Kangaroo, and Lucky the Lioness. 
Katy the Kangaroo and Lucky the Lioness even got to grace the cover of their own cereal boxes, before Tony became official. 
But I have a question.
Lucky the Lioness?
Seriously? What is it about cereal companies and their need to call mascots Lucky!? Lucky the Lioness, Lucky the Leprechaun, and guess what the Trix Rabbit's name was revealed to be in "General Mills Comix" issue 817?
Lucky Rabbit.
It's a conspiracy.
Editor's Note: Not really.


NOTES:
   This one was meticulously researched. Also, about half of it was made up. But, the research was still important, so that I could know which half to make up. No, I'm not going to tell you which half is which, because I'm petty and mean and besides it's fun research that you'd be glad you went out and did yourself.

In Case I Don't Make It to the Computer

Note: The following post was originally scheduled to go up on December 8th, 2014, two years and one day to the day that I left for my two-year mission. Turns out though that lengths of service aren't necessarily exactly two years, leaving this post obsolete. But still fun, so I'm rescheduling it for here. See this post and this post for a couple more words of explanation.

   This is one of those posts that I've scheduled beforehand that I told you about, you to ensure that a post rolls on out today even if I don't for some reason make it to the computer for new blog stuff. I don't know. Even if I do make it back, I'm probably going to let it roll on out anyway, because I wouldn't want to waste the two or three minutes I spent writing this post in the first place. A post for place-holding for whatever reason, reduced now to a post because maybe I kind of like this post, or maybe I'm too lazy right after coming back to-- no, wait, I don't think that's going to happen. Oh, well. Expect not to see this post, then.

Two Years Ago Today

Note: The following post was originally scheduled to go up on December 7th, 2014, two years to the day that I left for my two-year mission. Turns out though that lengths of service aren't necessarily exactly two years, leaving this post obsolete. But still fun, so I'm rescheduling it for here. See this post and this post for a couple more words of explanation.

   It's another two years ago today day! Two years ago today I started out on my mission. Since computer stuff for non-mission purposes there is verboten (except for, while we were touring the mission the first time, the missionaries could use the computers to look up political stuff to make a decision on how they would vote (remember, it was around election season, and civic duty is important,)) all of my posts for the last two years had been scheduled to update daily before I left. Gasp, right? Two years' worth of daily posts is a lot of posts to schedule beforehand. I've probably been over this before.


   Anyway, though, now I'm back! This might not be the last post scheduled beforehand, as I don't know when the next time I'll be back is or if I'll have immediate computer access afterwards, so you might see a few more of these scheduled posts. But I should be back. Barring if I died or something. Maybe there was a terrorist attack when I first got there, like there was some weird 2012 Doomsday cult. Maybe I'm dead. That'd be weird for you, wouldn't it be? Weird and haunting. I'm not sure what kind of experience you'd be going through reading this then. After my death, but with new word from me still coming out. Knowing that now that my scheduled posts are coming to an end, this will be the winding down of the last you hear of me. Oh, dear, I hope that's not the case. Hopefully, if I survived those two years, then this will be a funny post.

   How awesome would if be if it was a nuclear explosion, though? Like, how I died. They had nuked all of Salt Lake City. But they've got top-secret bomb bunkers there that I've just told you about, so there's a good chance I survived. (If there was enough electromagnetic radiation from that blast and all the electricity went out, then maybe these posts anyway will be moot.)

   But, if I'm alright, I'll be coming out with brand brand new posts soon. Ooh, I'm so excited. I wonder what new and exciting things I'll have to say. It's exciting. And how exactly I'll say them. Will the interface have changed by then? Will we have holographic screens? Will everything be in the cloud?