Thursday, December 31, 2015

Condiments: A Stocking Stuffer Review (Plus, Zootopia Watch Zoo Year Celebration)

   Yo Santa, I feel he know me, what put he in my stocking Christmas morn but condiments. Hot and/or spicy condiments, which, well yes, I'm thoroughly enjoying so far. Maybe it's Freudian; I was a sickly child, and my nose was always running (seriously you should see my first grade yearbook photo; tiny little toothbrush mustache of scab there on my upper lip caused by improper Kleenex technique. I'm an arbitrarily high percentage point certain, Puffs had yet to be invented.)

   Where was I. Condiments, that's right. Three varieties. Seen here smothered onto cheese puffs; gets you a real feel for the difference in weight and color and texture. Three varieties. Which I will analyze case-by-case now.


   HEINZ 57 VARIETIES JALAPEÑO TOMATO KETCHUP with actual jalapeño:


   I just realized that Heinz is also Doofenshmirtz's first name. Huh.

   Ketchup is amazing. Anything that goes well with ketchup is amazing. Ketchup actually on those things that go well with ketchup, not necessarily amazing (a lot of regional variations on traditional classic foods are just plain dumb but Chicago with their hot dogs ain't one of those,) but ketchup is still itself super legit. And Heinz is the king of ketchups, which is verified to independent third party ketchup experts and I'm totally not making it up, so I expected much from this.

   And... it's, surprisingly, ketchup. It's amazing. The jalapeño taste in no way smothers the ketchupiness of the ketchup, and, darn it it really looked for a second there like the spell check was accepting that word. The ketchup is still as tangy and creamy as you'd expect from any other Heinz product, and, brilliantly, they've somehow managed to engineer the jalapeño taste only to bloom after the initial ketchup oomf. Wizardry, is what it is.

   As great as ketchup is, and as great as jalapeños are, both of these things are my least favorite of condiments and hot-or-spicy flavors offered in my stocking; it's a real tribute, then, that this isn't my least favorite bottle from my stocking. It's amazing, and I'd recommend it anywhere where, you know, ketchup would go.

   Not cheese puffs, though. Heavens no.

EMERIL'S® KICKED UP HORSERADISH MUSTARD:


   Fun fact according to the copyright info on the back of the bottle: Emeril Lagasse's name is trademarked by Martha Stewart!? or at least Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (NYSE: MSO.)

   Alright, let's get through this one. This is good mustard, truly, pungent and creamy and with a mouthfeel that I can't even describe in front of mixed company it's just that amazing. I say, "let's get through this one," though, because as great of mustard this is, the truth is, it's... not... horseradish-y. Like, at all.

   At all at all.

   Maybe I just got a bad batch, or something? After all, Emeril® is that "Bam!" guy, right? He's got the word Bam literally tattooed on his hand/written there with MagicMarker. Author of 19 cookbooks, chef/proprietor of, I'm counting 12, restaurants? No, no. I trust you, Mr Chef Lagasse, sir. Maybe a bottle of your, like, Really Actually Quite Good But Not At All At All Horseradishy Mustard BAM got mislabeled. I think is what it is.

   Looking at the label here, the ingredients list horseradish powder as the, let's see fifth, out of six ingredients? Which is, nice, staying away from any artificial preservatives or anything, very well done. But I can't help get the feeling that, maybe the bottle isn't mislabeled, maybe the horseradish mustard really isn't all that horseradishy.

   Still an awesome mustard, though. It's great on... also not cheese puffs. Pretzels, try it on pretzels.

KIKKOMAN WASABI SAUCE FOR SANDIWICHES AND DIPPING TRUSTED NAME, GREAT FLAVOR A VERSATILE CONDIMENT WITH A VELVETY ZING featuring a "root blend" of horseradish and actual Wasabi, which is rare stateside:


   By far my favorite of the three, plus it actually goes great with cheese puffs. Taste-wise, as well as appearance. Check out that photo on top one more time; it really glows a nuclear green against that foxy fiery artificial orange, doesn't it?

   Downside to this one, seriously, is it's in the littlest bottle of the three. Stiiinks. It happens, though.

   It's... it's wasabi sauce. I... I don't know what else I can say about this. I've had more pungent stuff, but it's not like this shirks at all at clearing your sinuses once you swallow (it's true; it may seem kind of strange how the bottle describes the "zing" as "velvety," but it's actually very smooth and creamy... providing you keep the stuff in your mouth and not let it hit further back on the palate.)

   Well... that's it, I suppose. I did take all the photographs myself, especially the ones of the bottles though I also did crap out that photo on top with the cheese puffs (there have been, more forgiving, photography subjects, than plates of cheese puffs.) Just thought I'd, say that... Dad came in and was amazed, wanted to know where I got the photos... I took them. Took me an hour or so, but, they was a beaut to work with, that's for sure...

ZOOTOPIA WATCH: HAPPY ZOO YEAR
   Holycrapholycrapholycrapholycrapholycraaaap


   There's a whole post's worth of material to go over from this 2 3/4-minute long snippet alone; even if there is a full 35 seconds of rehashed material (including all that poster at the end.) But, first impressions?

   First of all, obviously, (as far as I can tell) this is the first public release of any-at-all of Shakira's "Try Everything;" I mentioned earlier (in a Zootopia watch for a post that, I actually don't think I've posted up yet, hmm...) how vague a message that that title alone conveys, but now we know where that's coming from, and the message is... actually super beautiful.

   Second of all: entirely new bits of plot information; random animals suddenly going feral...? A city-wide mystery, quite possibly underlying a larger conspiracy...? At first I thought no way, my theory yesterday was cute but there'd been no mention in anything up to this point, any plot bits that could justify some major twist such as the existence of humans... but freak, man. Just freak.

   Third off: man, there's still way more here than I've got any chance of getting to by the new year. I'll think I'll continue running these, up to frame-by-frame analysis where it calls for it, throughout the coming week.

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

BARSK: I Come Not to Praise Rüsul But to Bury Him (Plus Zootopia Watch)

   A good night of fervid sleep has allowed me to get a little more distance on Barsk, and realize how, just, totally trippy everything is. The entire last half of the novel is one, what I refer to as a singularity, after another-- basically a climax, but something undefinable beyond that: everything has been leading up to this moment, and you've got a decision to make, and, what happens the moment after the moment everything's been leading up to? It's impossible to say. These on their own are powerful; one after another, in climaxing succession, I don't have the words for.

   I mentioned in a footnote to yesterday's post the plot, the twistiness, the characterization that fit into that. Barsk certainly has heartbreaking decisions made, sometimes as backstory, sometimes climactically. It's got characters who act decisively, but sometimes wrongly, and either have to deal with consequences or else ignore them. The characterization actually can't be told separately from the setting: the characters are all animals, of course, and no matter how anthropomorphic they're not just aliens but alien.

   Which is another surreal, haunting factor.

   It's on, like, a memetic scale (memes=genes for ideas.) It's memetic. Which is what makes it haunting-- the ideas are infectious for one reason or another, and any time alone with your own thoughts, your mind drifts to dwell on these things. I say memetically infectious for one reason or another-- the scars and sacrifices that people go through, and/or are forced to witness, the ways people can be broken, the plot points that seem significant in the moment but turn out not to matter as much in hindsight.

   There's more of this line of thought below, during the spoiler-marked section; all the thoughts that occurred at the beginning of the night, drifting off in the evening. Meanwhile from the end of the night, waking up in the morning, these thoughts: Back to the Future, 1955 Marty and Doc and 1985 Marty and Doc team up with each other, and get "present" (1985) Marty a really nice comb to tame that mid-80s 'do, and thus tame-haired 2015 Marty now shows up with, 2015 Doc who's not "our" Doc because the future's been changed! That doesn't make sense, but it's not supposed to: it's all a metaphor for how little sense the fictional (possibly time-travel) science in something else entirely makes.

   Anyway.

SPOILERS START HERE
(Or, more accurately, a discussion of the constitution of spoilers, starts here.)


Source: Howard Tayler
   I mentioned plot points that seem significant at first but turn out not to matter-- Barsk has so many of these, from misunderstandings of prophecy experienced by characters, to specific actions taken by them, to odd encounters between them, to the entirety of Chapter 31, that actually I think I've said all that I needed to in my own musings of memetically haunting material. I guess all of that's, just part of that.

   What we're talking about mostly is Mild Spoilers- if you've read the blurb or seen the trailers, it's something that gets spoiled for you anyway. Like how Edward being a vampire in Twilight is technically a twist within the book, but one that gets discussed on the back cover. According to the blurb you're going to read already anyway, the characters are all animals, but justified because they're the scientific creations of humans, who are now extinct. Here's where more trippiness kicks in, as I realized last night in that whole thought process about how Barsk is so haunting and surreal: taking all that setting as a given, even though it occurs as something of a major twist in the novel (though I'm still holding back a lot of it,) we've figured all this out and now we must embark on this subplot entirely tangential to the plot of saving Barsk-as-we-know-it, but in the end they decide to keep the secret covered up anyway as part of the deal to hey-lay-off-my-planet. That whole plot, that whole setting, it was all rendered moot in the end, literally moot like they held a council meeting about it and everything.

   On some level, thinking about it now, the decision to reveal this crucial setting detail makes sense, as the whole thing could come off very much fantasy (as per the genre-bend-blend which is tangential to this post so I'm including it as part of an update to yesterday's, things I'd meant to include in my initial review but lacked the time to write if I wanted to get the post up on time.)

So maybe it is justified. I wouldn't mind it so much (as, really, it wouldn't be much of a twist if it weren't treated so profoundly) if this were the first time I've seen this kind of thing, but it's not. Such a twist (to one degree of profundity or another,) that there are these anthropomorphic animals were put here by humans, has been spoiled-on-the-cover a couple of times already in a couple of other different settings (to one degree of spoilage to another.) Like Solatorobo, how box cover art sometimes shows Red as a human boy? Like, thanks, guys, I would have hated for that to have taken me by full dramatic surprise.

Not that spoilers are pure evil or anything of course; some people mind them more than others... If you have to rely solely upon shock value for your story to work, you're doing it wrong, but sometimes of course nothing rivals going entirely naked into an entirely novel world. Both suspense and irony have a part to play, and so I can't say to what degree the blurbists for Barsk were in the right in dropping the origin of these space-faring furries so casually.

I can think of a couple of webcomics, but other than that, yeah. On the mainstream side, there's still a basic need to justify up front why we're looking at a buncha funny animals. It really could be, the ultimate plot twist, if one of these days instead of telling us the human origins of these critters, something that told us straight, flat-out that humans, like I don't know, never happened in this world...


...holy craaaap.

ZOOTOPIA WATCH:
   It says, explicitly, on the world of Zootopia, humans never happened, right? That doesn't mean that humans couldn't have happened off-world. So, Barsk scenario, where RMs have supplanted humanity, gone starfaring, and proceeded to have had their true origins either forgotten or outright covered up? I've long pondered the paw pads on the hands that realistically would never have been used for walking if evolution had happened as the teaser trailer implies; how sociology would have evolved differently as well. This is either on the money or dead wrong, but if this theory is right, this could be the biggest spoiler for the whole film, far beyond whodunnit or not.

Tuesday, December 29, 2015

BARSK

   BARSK: THE ELEPHANTS' GRAVEYARD, by Lawrence M Schoen, came out today, and though I'm decidedly unimportant enough to have received an advanced copy for review, I did preorder it for my Kindle where it insta-downloaded the moment it became available, which was actually yesterday instead of today, so... Maybe that's got to do with timezones or something, but that's advanced copy enough for me. Downside of that is, it's still only one or two hours early, and I still had to read it PDQ in order to get a same-day release-date review. Because it's IMPORTANT goshdarn it.

   And so I've read it already. And... wow. Dang wow.


   The full title, according to the copyright page, is Barsk: the elephants' graveyard: an anthropomorphic novel, which, yes, yes, book in the shape of a man and all that, but... I don't know what it is; I've always preferred my anthropomorphism in visual terms. Novels never really did it for me. Liked this one. Loved this one. Though I didn't survive 80 pages into Watership Down, or get a sixteenth of the way through any Redwalls, or an eighth of the way through... that one book that's like Redwall 'cept written by Avi, which book's name slips my mind though I vaguely recall it may have had something to do with pots and/or pans?* Didn't get through those, but I blasted through this one, and it's not a short book.

   It... I'm not sure how long it is. I mean, I read it in a day, obviously, but it took all day. It felt short, not in the bad way, but in the way like how every scene knows what it's doing and is important to the plot? To me, that's the greatest thing that a plot can be. I'm not sure how much I can say without spoilers, but, guess what, that's also a big turn-on for me in terms of plot.** More spoilery review tomorrow? If they even are those, I mean, it, like, gives away some pretty major humdingers as part of the book description on Amazon...

   Yeah, yeah, I can't talk much right now, as most of what I have to say touches on those themes. Also, freak it's midnight, I gotta get this thing up. For now, though? ... yeah I'll tell you tomorrow.

   UPDATE!There are things I'd meant to get to but didn't have time to, and which don't fit into my spoilery discussion, so I'm fitting them here in the original post; though there's a full post's worth of content here, no wonder I didn't have enough time to write this up.

   We're at kind of a unique place in science fiction right now. Even the hardest of SFs is finding justifications for all the wide-eyed bizarrity that you saw from the formative period in science fiction: why not bat people on the moon; the science at the time certainly still allowed for it. Barsk certainly takes place in a "sufficiently advanced" setting, where we can deftly blend science fiction and fantasy and not even need to handwave anything away anymore.

   Niche markets occasionally sending a lungfish-like bold evolutionary step crossing over into the mainstream, sometimes-- usually especially popular in the original-niche-anyway market, with the mainstream reaction between indifference and dislike. The niche solely pointing to it and saying, "see? we're in the mainstream! our little subculture has been ratified!" Like how every good little Mormon boy and girl enjoyed "Meet the Mormons," with its zero percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes (I may still be the last holdout to actually see the thing in the first place, and I've yet to read any reviews, but I've seen the kind of phenomenon before and all the earmarks are present.)

   That's fandom-looking-outward; things do spring up also in the mainstream, like litfic writers writing what certainly appears to be speculative fiction-- and of course there's never any danger of fresh "furry" content ceasing to pour in from the mainstream, usually from juvenilia but who knows.

Barsk, much like its own bend-blend of science fiction and fantasy, like the bend-blend of beast and man within, straddles and takes place in both mainstream SF and niche "furry" fiction. I... get... the... feeling, that this is one of those products, those certain shining gems that can only be produced at one certain point in human history, products which had exactly one window to get into the world and which managed to squeeze in against all odds. The kind of thing that wins awards, and maybe even spoken of in hushed reverence by fans. The kind of thing that goes on to influence later generations. Whether Barsk actually is going to go on to become all of those things, just, <<shrug>>, but, it's one of those things with that potential.

Monday, December 28, 2015

Square Root of Plus Christmas Plus... Plus, More Pony Card Stuff

   And, oh, right, this may technically count as a New Year's gift (though who gives those, really, other than mooning couples,) but also on my list of belated presents? (which I have not yet received but have also been alerted of?)

   A 2016 At-a-Glance.

   BOOOM, for the win, right there; love the stuffing out of those things. I know I'm not hipster very often, but I'm hipster where it counts.

   And, unrelated, but I also need a cell phone for school? Guess the whole, pager, thing didn't pan out...

   Onto the meat of this post then. I'd meant to write up more about the MLP CCG, but didn't have time to get to, and so, [sucks teeth,] I guess I'm going to do that. (And just to be clear, I did not actually suck my teeth just there; just thought it'd be a dramatically appropriate bit of nonverbal communication.)

   Kids like pics, yeah. Pics, see, pics get clicks. Don't you find posts much more compelling when there's something to look at besides words? It's like, oooh, a picture, see, they do care. Here's a pic for you.

Random epiphany of the day: I am a full-grown man.
   Didn't have any particular card to be proud of, seeing how I didn't score any foils or anything, but like I said there were two or three foals and, those are basically the same thing, right? Ask Alex, that's what he misread at first. Not even joking. Not even joking...

   So yeah that's what I chose to take my picture with.

   Like how MTG cards have differing colors of their expansion line symbols determining how much you could hock that crap for on eBay, Alex, looking over these cards, asked if there were some kind of symbol or way of determining the "rarity" of any given card. Rarity is a perfectly valid word for rarity, in fact the accepted word, for itself, but it's also the word for Rarity, so that made me hmm. I'm not sure whether it would have been better to actually have gotten a Rarity card in any of the three boosters, whether I'd be able to derive more snark or not from that... I think she's the only one of the Mane Six I didn't snag a card of, Friend card or Mane Character card or otherwise.

   But in answer to the question, turns out there's, I found in the lower right-hand corner, either a C or a U or an R to mark that, as part of the card's collector number (and Enterplay's website is telling me there are also URs and, on top of the Fs and fs and Pfs from each line, in the Equestrian Odysseys and High Magic lines, Super Rares and even "Royal Rares," exactly two in EO and three in HM. (The website, if you didn't click on the link provided yesterday for the pic source, is a wonderful resource, and, look, you're not only allowed but encouraged to print the rulebook out with its sample cards and play a sample game at home. Come and get your love.)

   What else is there, what else is there... I just love the Friend cards in this game. You really get a feel for every pony, even the ones you only see in the background. They've got names. They've got lives. And they'd still be willing to lend you a helping hoof if you just asked. Everything's just so loving and sweet, and everyone tries their very best, and it's okay to have differences in personality and opinion, we're still all friends and there's room for that in a perfect world and that's even part of what makes the world perfect, and, and, I am not kidding absolute sincerity mode I AM TEARING UP A LITTLE RIGHT NOW. 

   I just... I just need to step away from the computer for a bit.

Sunday, December 27, 2015

Plus Christmas Plus

   More gifts received, in a less-official Christmas capacity: there'd been a rolling suitcase for me out in the car, for college, while all the other gifts got opened, a special we-didn't-bother-wrapping-this gift the existence of which I was made aware though the nature of which being kept mum (though I guess only at my insistence... hey! Turns out it's a suitcase? Heck, gift, not under the tree, still out in the car, only alerted of after most-to-all of what few betreed gifts had already been gifted me, maybe it was something nice, like, not a suitcase or something, no, don't tell me what it is, I want to find out the Christmassy way.) (So yeah I guess that worked; it was a surprise... Though it's still a pretty swell suitcase I must say. Rull handsome.)

   (Spell check here: betreed is indeed a word apparently! Shakespeare would be proud. Also accepted: Christmassy, though pretty much everyone knows that that is a real word, and... rull? Which I've always taken to mean, "real," but now realize, it could be like a garden instrument for all I know.)

   Also belated Christmas gift: backstory time, Christmas in the evening we fed the elders and also stuffed their stockings I guess?, and so, last-minute shopping for the, whateverth day in a row (it was some really humorously high number) seeing if there was anything we could stocking stuff, we didn't go through with it because things cost money, but freaking Wal-Mart's got a trading card shelf which is amazing though really inconveniently located right where there are a couple of check-out counters, and they didn't have the big tins or anything like they did last year, just these collections of three packs each, but for a pack each like I said things cost money and it wouldn't be worth it, but: My Little Pony Collectible Card Game trading cards, AND, dang this paragraph has been one long run-on, moving on.

   But, returning to the store yesterday to swap out pants for a pair that wasn't so long in the legs, Ryan... picked me up a pack as a gift, I guess? So, SECOND CHRISTMAS BONUS GIFT, most excellent. The three-pack also comes with an exclusive pin... They chose to give me Applejack, of all pin characters... Singlehoofedly changed my mind about apples, so there's that... (Spell check watch: yep, she's a-balkin'. She's a-balkin' all over. Applejack is a real word though of course.)

   I'm not going to waste my time and however much space it'd take up on the SD card to take a photo, when there's already a reasonably serviceable pic of what I mean on the game manufacturer's website...:

(source: http://www.enter-play.com/)
   There were, in the 3-pack given me, no foil cards; I know that photo makes it look like a foil comes specially packaged but that must be a different run I guess? The packs at the store all have one pack of each of the following expansions: Equestrian Odyssey, Crystal Games, and Canterlot Nights (and, oh, sure, we accept the word "Canterlot" here, but can't show any charity for "whateverth...")

   No foils in any of the packs, anyway. There were, foals, of course... Important not to mix that up; you're just rearing for disappointment now.

Saturday, December 26, 2015

Christmas Card 2015, Plus, Plus More Christmas Stuff (Plus Zootopia Watch)

   The Christmas card coloration is WIP (values, 100% always comes down to values... colorimetrically speaking.) Which I'm surprised at; I guess I didn't think I was honestly going through with it?

   In the spirit of getting something up to show you, though, I figured I'd get some draft art for the card up for you as I did last year. It's far better than it has any right to be going without references for any of it, and I'm hey! kinda proud of this stuff too (though not so proud as to post up the full page of sketches I did for it.)
And here, way G-er rated than I made the concept sound yesterday, she blows.
Though, yeah, actually pretty PG (THINK UPON INNOCENT THINGS.)
   Speaking of reference sketches, I also drew many of those, regarding lagomorph anatomy and Moon... physiognomy?, which I only now, after all this scanning, realize there is also there potentially to look at-- but what the heck, you know what rabbits look like already; it was only important in the process (they're a lot tougher to draw than they look, and it was a  special (and delightful) challenge to conform an at-least-quasi-realistic and plausibly viable bunny anatomy mapped onto the lunar surface. I fudged it with the ears, but you've got to sacrifice something.)

   Meanwhile, a dang review of Christmas! I'm feeling generous I suppose?? 'Cept, these things are always so awkward 'cos you feel like a jerk describing only what you got instead of what you gave... and the only gifts I gave this year went to someone spending their Christmas a state away in Arizona, (which I've only ever set foot into as far as the Hoover Dam, and which reliable HUMINT relays doesn't even celebrate Daylight Savings.)

   Most of my parents' money for me was spent getting me a laptop for college (yes, my parents. If it weren't for the stockings I'd say Santa appears to have skipped our house this year... conspiring with the Easter Bunny on the visitation lists, no doubt.)

   (An obvious joke; Easter Bunny is non-canon.)

   My brother did handle SQUIRREL YOU KNOW IT'S TRUE, and that's, just, more than enough. Do you want to know how enjoyable it is? THIS IS HOW ENJOYABLE IT IS.

The more I look at this photo, the more Asian I think I look.
   Friggin', I had no idea I was being photographed here till I saw it on my mom's blog; that smile is totally unstaged (which is weird, as I'm still only on the first page here which isn't even that great compared with the rest of it.)

ZOOTOPIA WATCH
   Shoehorned in just to get the word "plus" into this post title a third time, because I can. I had to look up to see if there was any news?

   Closest thing I can come up with is from the Zoo Year countdown Tumblr, this post, where... it seems like each species gets their own Vanity Fair equiv? And Vanity Fur is the, trans-species edition? (Trans-species here meaning, across all species, the notion of theria having their own therians can be dealt with later.) And Gazelle is the pop culture star to unite us all? A star we can all gather under? A... Christmas star?

   .Well, alright!

Friday, December 25, 2015

Christmas Card 2015

   Had a hard time coming up with this year's annual Christmas card... I made a bunch of sketches at 2:00, 3:00 in the morning today mostly dealing with this idea, that bunnies are basically elves, right? With the ears and all-- so I had an idea for, a rabbit elf? Who was also a, um, pole dancer? Yep, scraping the bottom of the barrel with that one; it didn't get very far.

   (Also as an idea: bearded lady Santa, with the beard doubling as clothing? Not a bad idea, but continuing to steer clear of implied nudity...)

   The bunny thing still had potential, and it wasn't until just a couple of hours ago, spotting the moon and realizing, oh yeah, first full-moon Christmas since '77, that everything clicked. There is a rabbit in the moon, and it's not every year that you get this opportunity to do a full-moon-themed Christmas card. (and in fact I'm not sure I caught when the next time this is happening, is...)


   There you go. It's black and white, kind of bland; I'm still proud of it, but I also figure I could do a paint job for that later on. Good for now.

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Today marks the 15th anniversary of the first use of the word "meeple." The more you know.

Saturday, October 31, 2015

Popular Culture

   Here it is, the Halloween short story for 2015. It's a bit long, actually, so I decided to put it on its own page, instead of in the post body like I usually do...

http://dielikeadisneyvillain.blogspot.com/p/popularculture-themachine-of-death-can.html

   Enjoy!

Friday, October 30, 2015

Spooky Story 2015

   Tomorrow's story, the annual spooky short story, will be my original story submitted (and rejected!) from Machine of Death volume 2. Makes me happy.

   It's called POPULAR CULTURE, and it takes place in the near future. It's about, well, it's a Machine of Death story, and so it's about what any other one of those is... a machine that lets you know, with 100% accuracy, how you will die. Yep, yep, just like the blog header.

   It's not as overtly spooky as last year's story was, but wasn't intended to be... It's still a MoD story...

   I'm not sure how good it is. The twist ending isn't much of a twist, but then again it's neither much of an ending. I'm alright with it; what it did well I'm very proud of. I suppose I'll let it speak for itself, so, shutting up now.


Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Rejection

   The application for BYU Provo (main campus) finally came back. The... application? The acceptance letter. Or rejection letter. Whichever. The announcement. And, which whichever it was, well... They were awfully kind, and I was actually... relieved? 

   Provo actually has a graphic design major-- Rexburg turns out has the arts major with graphic design focus, either as a BA or a BFA. If I wanted (and I'm considering it?) I could change my focus even within my proclaimed major, take whatever class I want, but... my point here-- the focus of this post-- why I'm even bringing this up, all has to do with that: Provo, rejection letter, relieved actually, it's like some kind of world of possibilities being in a smaller pond. 

   Malcolm Gladwell writes in David and Goliath how sometimes it's better to be a big fish in a small pond than a small fish in a big one-- how it can be better to go to a less-prestigious university. Would I still make this choice, to attend BYU-I, even if I were accepted to Provo? It'd be nice to be accepted to Harvard and blow them off, but this is BYU, anyway. At least the animation department is prestigious there, but that's not my intended major anyway, and any animation education to potentially suit my needs fits just as well in Idaho.

   Rejection feels nice. I've been rejected formally a few times, not nearly enough. Mostly in writing, those stories shipped off and slapped down. 

   But it feels awesome to be rejected. I just realize this now-- I need to be rejected more often. But to be rejected means to ship around, and to ship around means to have a manuscript, and to have a manuscript means to have a manuscript written. And writing is not my favorite hobby. It is the one I feel most satisfied by. But it is not my favorite.

   How satisfactory would it be to be rejected? That's the process, the whole process, the system, how everything works: write crap, mail it around, get rejected. Repeat. Success is an accidental part of the program. Though we'd be lost without it.

Sunday, October 11, 2015

Laser Pointers

   I've never actually played laser pointer with the cat till now. It was quite... undramatic. It did notice the laser pointer dot eventually, tracked it with its eyes but I don't think ever attempted pouncing on it. And sniffed the pointer itself later on. But it did work. Not that well, but it did.

   Don't they notice how the dot disappears when they're blocking the line? How does it work? We amuse ourselves by watching them chase after the dot, oblivious to the lack of physicality (indeed, lack of physicality is one reason the chase succeeds so well- there's no physical feedback of having "caught" anything, so huntmode continues indefinitely.)

   We're amused by their oblivion-- oblivi-? obliviousness, at least-- but what if we're the oblivious ones? Think about it- exactly like the laser points, flicking in and out, cats glide through past the edges of our sensation, coming into view randomly. Like the laser points, we follow them, mindlessly, amused. When we've caught them, they slip away like water.

   So I'm thinking, what if cats themselves are laser pointer dots to us, cast by fourth- or fifth-dimensional beings for their amusement as we foolishly chase the illusory?

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Talk Like Ben Stein Day '15!

   On this Ben Stein day, I wanted to do something somehow related to winning Ben Stein's money? Ride of the Valkyries played during the end theme to that show, so I figure that today, we're going to get our Ben Stein on...

   obliquely.


   Hmm... maybe one of these days...

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

(

   Hobby Lobby is a magical land. This actually has nothing to do with this post, but I couldn't let the post go by without bringing that up at least once.

   Went to Five Guys Burgers and Fries yesterday. Anyway. It was everything I'd ever heard of it: endless complimentary peanuts, and bottom buns that fall apart as you try to eat. Are basically the only two things I've ever heard about the place.

   ...

   The reason the bottom buns fall apart is a topic of serious debate in certain circles. You know... probably. Are you ordering too many toppings? Does it have to do with the tinfoil they wrap the burgers in? Is the bread just shoddily made? Or is it because the burgers are just that juicy; and if so, is "juicy" just a euphemism for "incredibly greasy?"

   Here is not the forum to moot such a topic of so great a portent. All of this is actually tangential to my topic as well. Though it does bring me to it.

   What nobody ever told me about Five Guys, is their great taste in background music over the speakers. (C'mon, I mean, as we arrived, they were playing early '80s U2!) The thing is, though...

   At one point, "Layla" by Eric Clapton's Derek and the Dominoes started playing. Started playing, and... I don't know. There was the sing-y part,  which ended and went into the piano part, but I'm not sure if that part ever ended. It's like, the outro bit never happened. It must have moved on to other songs, but, that's not how it seemed. It seemed like all that followed, and continues to follow, is still an extension of that song. Exactly like a giant, open parenthesis, that has yet to resolve...

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Mythology Wednesday: Arcas

   Callisto was a nymph, daughter of Lycaon, king of what is now Arcadia. She bore a son, Arcas, to Zeus (because, who else is going to be anybody's father?)

   More crazy transformation stuff here- she gets turned into a bear in one of those wacky sitcom-style spats that Greek mythographers just loved to write about. Arcas's father prevents Hera from doing the same to Arcas, and puts him in the Greek Mythological equivalent of the witness protection program/adoption system (which Zeus himself, incidentally, was part of when he was a boy, I recall from a wholly unrelated myth.) King Lycaon gives Arcas up as a human sacrifice, and that's where things get REALLY interesting...

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Sunday, June 28, 2015

On Accounts

   I finally ended the "will they or won't they" with TV Tropes yesterday, and made the relationship official by getting an account. I'm a troper now, officially, which give me mixed feelings but "never miss the opportunity to do something you'll regret later...!" If Randall Munroe, who's generally accepted to be awesome (though depending on whom you ask there's also that sense of smug superiority, which I'll let slide) can admit that he's addicted to TV Tropes and Cracked, then, yes, I will say it too. I am proud to say, however, that for the past 3-4ish months, I've been almost entirely Cracked-free! The withdrawls aren't as bad as you'd expect.

   You know the way I got this blogger account on the same day as I got my Facebook, because, hey I've got a cyberpresence now anyway? Emboldened by this move, and fearing my wicked-sweet handle may get snapped up elsewhere, I also came within, somehow literal inches of getting a Twitter account as well. Turns out you need a cell phone to finalize getting your account for some reason, though, and still I'm quite happy not to have one of those, thank you very much. Even for emergencies.

   I mean, Kitty Genovese made it out just fine without those, didn't she?

   If anything, all I need is a pager. I think they meant cell phone, but all they put was "phone..." Does a pager count in such instances?

   I know, I could have just used someone else's phone number to be sure, and, I don't know, disabled the feature that automatically sends tweets to your phone, but before I did that I realized, why do I need a Twitter in the first place, and what the lanta would I tweet? The only reason I' keep my Facebook is (aside from the fact that I'm not the one who got it for myself but was given it by friends who wanted to "friend" me in VR as well as meatspace) so I have a place to store all the things I like in real life, and remember that I like them in cyberspace. (aah, yes, Dave Devries, the Monster Engine himself, yes... The Museum of Bad Art, quite good, quite good...)

   Meanwhile, is it even the best time to get onto Twitter? If Penny Arcade is to be believed, Joss Whedon-- the Joss Whedon, the one whose name is a measurement for how many people "follow" you-- has quit Twitter, because (according to PA) he was getting zergswarmed with hatetweets about Avengers 2. I'm not sure how accurate this is, as from what I've seen everyone on Twitter loved Age of Ultron, while it was on Tumblr that people caused controversy about some of the choices he made. Now, I'm not entirely sure I understand the mechanisms of TUMBLng-- it blogs and generates memes?-- but, I don't think it's connected to Twitter, is it? So, I don't know. I am regularly fascinated by the mechanics that operate a toaster, though, so I don't think I'm quite the man to comment on, anything, vaguely, technological.

   There's a tingle at the edge of anything you do in public, especially online. A fear. Quasianonymous forums can do that-- what if I do something noobish, and they can tell I'm a noob, and decide I'm not worthy of life, and track down my IP address and identity on the internet, and come to my house and murder me in the middle of the night? It sounds kind of ridiculous when put that way, but would seriously make a good horror movie if done right: kind of far-fetched, but based off a common enough experience so as to be seriously "it could happen" freaky. Beyond the idea of being murdered bysstrangers in your sleep (which plays into common human vulnerabilities) it taps into deeper vulnerabilities and fears as well: what if I'm inadequate, what if they don't accept me. What if I mess up and I'm the only one who doesn't realize it, and everybody mocks me.

   Frightening stuff, no?

   Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to dally with the toaster.

Saturday, June 27, 2015

Bat Logic (plus Zootopia Watch)

   Today I've been researching (and, like, totally not randomly slacking, but doing genuine research, gosh!) reading a lot about the Riddler in general and especially in the old Adam West Batman show, how silly it always gets whenever the Riddler is involved. Boy oh boy. Deduction of the riddle of the week always involved suspension of all known laws of logic in the string of associations it took to stop the guy... As from the 1966 movie:


   We've discovered a string of puns that tenuously could lead to either Riddler, Joker, Catwoman, or the Penguin. Well, clearly, it's all of them then, and they're all working together! Clearly.

   This theory turns out to be 100% correct. 

   Sure, it would have been nice to have some additional clues, like a little sticky note attached to that exploding shark that said, "also, guess what, the location of this attack stands for the name of someone behind this," but it looks like the detective skills The Batfamily are so great, they didn't need it. Maybe there was a note but they never said in the film, I don't know...

   There's a two-parter episode in season 2 where there's a newer bigger badder Riddler-type villain, The Puzzler, who's basically the Riddler up to an 11? Apparently there was a contract dispute with actor Frank Gorshin during season 2, so they immigrated this minor Superman villain over for Bats to fight as a Riddler clone, but they took it and ran with it, so, up to an 11. How bad? His whole clue is just the word, "puzzles." Euh. "This'll really make them put on their thinking caps," he cackles. Not an exact quote I don't think, but it's got to be true, because the Puzzler's clue somehow leads to a balloon factory or some biz, and the Caped Crusader and the Boy Wonder manage to figure it out. When, I repeat, the whole clue is just the word "puzzles." Which is, well it made my brain hurt how even the '60s Caped Crusader could figure that one out.

   Later, AND THIS IS AN ABSOLUTELY TRUE STORY, I was washing my hands and found myself casually trying to figure out what Puzzler did mean by "Puzzles." Puzzles... puzzles... jigsaw puzzles? puzzle pieces... piece together... piece together what? and I realized it was just random arbitrary word association from then out, once I'd made it that far and even before then, and once again it would really be helpful to have some kind of guidelines (like the above mentioned sticky note) to let me know if I was on the right track. At least provide me with the number of layers deep the word association should go, Puzzler! Wait a minute... Layers deep... Inception! Tom Hardy... No, no, no. That's not even part of the original clueDang it, Puzzler, now you've got me doing it. Doing it... babymaking... storks... Vlassic pickles! Oh, crap. And at that moment, I realized that I couldn't stop. Can't stop... can't stop... once you pop you just can't stop... Pringles! And Pringles stack... layers deep... nooo! 

ZOOTOPIA WATCH:
   According to the trailer, Zootopia is "from the makers of" Big Hero Six and Frozen, and I'm not sure if that means just Disney or not. All three directors were "creative leadership" on Big Hero Six, and codirector Byron Howard codirected Tangled, which is set in the same universe as Frozen, but...? Let's just assume that somewhere Frozen does fit into this, and not just Tangled, beyond just being the flavor of the decade. (Wreck It Ralph. They passed up on the opportunity to point out that Rich Moore directed Wreck It Ralph...!) It's kind of odd, though, and seeing Tangled conflated (?) with Frozen reminds me of Disney's trend recently to give their animated pictures names that can be interpreted both literally and symbolically.
"Rapunzel has severe mommy issues and feels tied down to her old life? Combine that with the hair motif and call it Tangled. The Ice Queen is emotionally stunted and needs to learn how to break free? Combine it with the snow motif and call it Frozen." -Dan Wells
   It's a pretty big trend (click on that link for the full post, and be sure to check out the comments.) If Brave, Frozen, Tangled et al. all have symbolic titles, why not Zootopia?

   ...To be sure, I'm kind of puzzled as to what that word could be symbolic to mean, but still... it'll probably all become clear once the movie comes out.

Thursday, June 11, 2015

Reconciliations Are Made

   Since my mission, serving "the Happiest Zone on Earth" and attending all the numerous appropriately themed parties, I'd kind of had it to the gills with Disney-- even occasionally regretting naming my blog and theming it as I did (TOTALLY FAIR USE, THOUGH, PLEASE DO NOT SUE.) 

   Can't say what it was for certain: the experience of watching fully grown adults devolve into children before my eyes, the beyond-11 levels of awesome approaching some kind of hard-to-describe inanity-of-fun in a family-friendly toxic sugar rush of partying, the fact that I very rarely won any scavenger hunts...? Whatever it was, it just, turned me off, sometimes. Turned me off from Disney. It happens; I once read of a girl who can't stand Cat Stevens anymore after boarding with hippies one time (I think she made a comic one-shot of it on DeviantArt, so totally not making it up.)

   And, funny thing, all this time I haven't been sure if I've gotten over that. 

   But...


   Wha-? Wel--... Mm.. my goodness.

   You know what I said earlier, about getting sued? I take it back.

   Have all my money, Disney.

   Have all my money right now.

Tuesday, June 9, 2015

TV

 Grandparents anyway. I told you that we're back from there, but I hardly told you about what happened in Oregon. Well, then. I've got three words to say on that subject, regarding my maternal grandparents.

   They've got DirecTV.

   Holy crud was it an eventful week in television. I was there to see American Pharoah make horse racing history (by so many lengths it was anticlimactic.) I was there for the epic climax of a long Adventure Time arc (and I'm still trying to process how lumpin' epic it was. The callback at the end with the fish saying how it would "croak" out there- I sat in stunned silence for, like, fifteen minutes.) I was there for... shoot, the season premiere of Next Food Network Star?

   Why not!

   There were also a bunch of other shows premiering as well, of course, which on one hand does dissuade me from the theory that maybe we hit TV at sweeps week, but on the other hand I don't care much about. Remember Summer of 2012 when I burned myself out trying to keep up with all the new network shows coming out? I realized  a lot of shows don't make it past one season, and television follows Sturgeon's Revelation just like everything else, I stopped paying attention to those (except for when Hannibal came out) (and Blacklist.) You can almost never tell the eventual success or quality of a show from such early efforts as the first season. Even trying to avoid the self-fulfilling Firefly effect... well, anyway. Food Network Star is an established program, so, yeah all right.

   I'd forgotten how nice it is to have satellite broadcasting, and though we hardly hit any yard sales (that's a different post entirely) I'd count last week as a success on the amount of TV we got in alone (and the sugar, but, also a different post.)

   Yes, I highly doubt that all weeks on television are as eventful as last week was, though this week is shaping up to be pretty tanjin' eventful as well, with this Saturday hosting not only Phineas and Ferb's series grand finale but also Friendship is Magic hitting its (very important) 100 episode milestone. And probably some other stuff as well, but c'mon, you know none as great as the stuff I just mentioned.

Monday, June 8, 2015

Back from Vacationland (100/100 Split)

   There is, as of this post, exactly an even hundred/hundred split between backlogs, the Hundred Things during my mission and the hundred posts not put up because I've just been lazy and went without posting after it. Without posting. Not without writing. It's really more of a dearth of, editing the post ideas I do have, than having them in the first place.

   Although even that still left a lot of planned posts unwritten.

   We got back today from Oregon, which I haven't told you about till now because hey guys we're all out of the house for the next week, come right on by and steal whatever you want, but, we're back, and the cat's still alive, and we're all good, and we can tell you about it now.

   You know the AlphaSmart, though? I'm a mad gambit-planning genius. There's a, however dang long, car ride up there (hours and hours,) which I realized could be spent on more than just getting deeper into whatever books I'd picked up from the library (and had to renew over telephone being out of town by the time they were due.) Writing in the car could be accomplished with just a pen and a pad of paper, but that writing would have to be transcribed later (and I know, from my mission, what a pain transcription can be (though that's not one of my Hundred Things.))

   So I masterfully set up a major plot (read: swung by on errands I was doing anyway) arranged to grab Cailin's old AlphaSmart in town, so that I'd be able to write in electronic form during the car ride there and back. Between TTDRCBA and here, I managed to crank out, maybe, 1 1/2 AlphaSmart max-sized files... I plan on getting this batch of hundred up by the end of the month. It's still going to require a lot of fact-checking and editing, but... (man, I don't care if nobody reads this anymore; I've got standards! and at least it allows me to get a bit more experimental with my posts, since nobody's going to call me out on anything...)

Saturday, May 30, 2015

On Talking Bunnies

   Caught some Sophia the First a couple of days ago to finally see what all the hype is all about (this probably tells you a lot more about me than you'd care to know, but apparently I define "hype" by the number of coloring books are about something.) From coloring books, it appears that it's traditional hand-drawn, but it's not even that; it's CG. And I'd always thought from the tie-in junior novelizations that there's a guest Disney princess who stops by at the end of every episode who delivers some platitude, but from what I've seen they don't even have that, so I don't know where that comes from.

   What they do have is Tim Gunn. Tim. Gunn.

   And Wayne Brady, so hold on.

   I was watching, like, this show's not all that great, thinking of maybe not even getting through a whole episode, when Sophia's bunny spoke up and it was the most majestic beautiful sound I've heard in my life. "Oh my gosh, bunny," I found myself saying. "Say something again." I saw during the end credits Tim Gunn plays Bailiwick, and Wayne Brady did... something, maybe at least miscellaneous voice acting, which is common for bigger-named voice actors to do from time to time so I didn't think that much of it. Aside from, of course, Wayne Brady how awesome is that. I had to stick around for a few more episodes until someone called the majestically voiced bunny by name (Clover, apparently) so that I knew what name to look for when the end credits came around again.

   And the credits came around again.

   Wayne Brady. You glorious man. (He's on my shortlist, alongside Craig Ferguson and maybe one or two more people, of voice actors/comedians who are not only smart but also very probably geniuses.) I'm not saying that between him and Tim Gunn they make the rest of it worth sitting through, but... man, I'm even considering watching Food Fight --Food Fight!-- just because he voiced the chocolate squirrel thing that's on the cover, of all of the, coloring books...

Thursday, May 28, 2015

5% of the Day

   Though 80% of my waking productive life yesterday was spent watching television and 15% was spent goofing off online, for some reason that last 5% was super satisfying and the day felt like a total win. What's 5% of 24 hours? That's, 1,440 minutes a day, so, 5% of that should be, 72, minutes... and I'm sure the stuff I'm thinking about took less time than that, by maybe just a little bit, so, less than five percent. But that five percent, man. Breaking it down, in case you want to, timestalk me, or something... that's, stalking THROUGH TIME, somehow; if you ever need to assassinate me in the past, well, here's my schedule:

   Woke up around 6:30. Got bunted from bathroom to bathroom until I could finally take a shower.
7:30-12:00: Watch Burn Notice and Leverage; good shows, so I wouldn't call this time a waste. WINNING. Probably eat something in here as well; I don't know. That's half of the entire day so far, and about a third of my time awake. My time spent on the internet, from here to 3:30 is generally aimless but also not a bust-- finished up the last of the YouTube creative writing class playlist first mentioned here, for one. And here's the good stuff.

   Cailin has an old Alphasmart, or, did have an old Alphasmart (or, CamelCaps? so, AlphaSmart?); she didn't need it anymore since she got a newer model, so she put up an open invitation for me if I needed it. Alphasmarts is how she does all of her fiction writing-- straight-up word processor, no distractions, so it's pretty nice, she says. We'll see. She writes when she's not doing, other things, I guess, like, her real job. I've been collaborating lately with her a bit on Persistence of Memory 5.0 but she's also got one or two other writing projects going on for when she needs a break from that, kind of thing.

   Planning to spend a bit of time on a road trip coming up, I decided yesterday to take him up on that. Ran into town to pick that up from him right before his 3:00-4:00 lunch break ended; we didn't have much time to chat, but. First face-to-face in a quarter-decade.

   And then I got Grandma and Grandpa's check for graduating deposited. And got stuff back into my savings account, so that it's not empty for the first time in two years almost to the day (don't. ask.)

   And then back home, more internets (or, um, moar, internets, because, yes, I spent my time here on that side of the web (being the side that spells like that.)) After that, I suppose I did take that long walk, so perhaps my period of "solid win" does extend to 5% of my day or more.

   And then I made popcorn chicken and watched a bunch of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.. Which was plenty better than I expected, with all the talk I hear about it about how it doesn't really have a direction of its own to head in and thus needs to be thrown into the wind to be tugged by the currents of whichever MCU film came out the most recently... It's even got a few moments that make you say, "holy crap this is a good show." Not as many as has, say, The Blacklist, where such a moment happens about every five minutes on average (with all the intrigue, not to mention James Spader, flyin' around,) but, Agents does have its share of moments. That being said, it can be kind of a mixed bag sometimes, but there's probably a website or some other tool out there that tells you whether any given episode is worth taking the time to watch or not...

   In case you're wondering: my three daily activities I listed a couple Tuesdays ago: television watching of course, but, also got in piano practice in between shows, and got in scripture study in the car running those errands. Solid. 80% of the day spent on those three daily things, 15% spent surfing the web, and those 72 minutes spent walking, banking and Alphasmarting, and that made that day even more solid.

   Put that way, with so much time goofing off, the day shouldn't have been that solid, right? But out of 24 hours, I've got it figured out, man. If just 5% of a day can make that day having been worth living, imagine what it would be like if you spent more than that amount of time spent pursuing a worthwhile goal...

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Mythology Wednesday: Polyphonte

   Polyphonte was the daughter of Hipponous and Thrassa. Thrassa's father was Ares, god of war, and that's going to be important. Remember that now. Alright.

   Polyphonte was a total devotee of Artemis, and Aphrodite didn't like that very much. Being goddess of love, she figured she could totally mess with Polyphonte, though. If there is one thing that Artemis likes, it's wild animals, and if there are two things Artemis likes, it's wild animals and virginity, so Aphrodite totally realized, dude, I could make Polyphonte fall in love with, crap I don't know, a bear, and she and the bear would totally get freaky, and it'd be a twofer to break up the Artemis/Polyphonte sismance (which is like a bromance, but with girls?)...

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Thursday, May 21, 2015

Mensiversary

   So much was spent the day before yesterday focused on how I'm graduated and everything, and how this blog reached the 1,000 post milestone, that I totally overlooked another milestone. I'm not entirely certain that it's a "milestone," actually, but it's an anniversary, or, half of one... It's just a couple of days off now, this post, but I'd totally spaced how the 19th also marked the advent of being home off of my mission for half a year. The 20th was the first full day, but yesterday 6-months-after-that was a Wednesday, which means myths, and though I could have posted about this six month mark yesterday I figure myths are appropriate enough, coming from my mission anyway, and all.

   Mensiversary? Like anniversary, from the Latin, but with months instead of years? My spel czech isn't red-flagging it, so, hey! Mensiversary works.

   Here'd be traditionally the part where I talk about being home for half a year, and how it feels, and how home life differs from my mission life... and how one quarter of the people back on the mission have never met me, by now...

   And here's the part where I either shrug that off with some lame excuse, or follow through with that promise. Hoo boy.

   It comes down to expectations, of course. Expectations of now, from then. If it were only that, though, you figure I'd be a lot less hesitant to tackle the subject, with which I am quite comfortable, thank you very much, so either I just lied to you there or it must be something else. What I think it is, it's not really anything that I haven't covered at least briefly elsewhere... and if I wanted to go deeper, I'd have to go, a lot deeper. Like, not likely to be covered in a single post, deeper.

   Who's ready to get angsty?

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Open Field

   Let me start out with what has to be the quote of the day. Not that today hasn't been filled with some excellent quotations, but I've got this one within easy copy/paste reach, and it's applicable to the topic at hand (being how, it's been quite a bit longer than two years, but, I received my two-year degree yesterday and am now I suppose a graduate of more than just compulsory education.) Here, plucked from the heart of correspondence with old companions still on the mission, it is for you now:

   The open expanse of life sits before you with no limits or bounds, and opportunity around every turn, except I already called it an open expanse didn't I? Not too many turns in a flat field... well, opportunities all over the place then. You'll just have to build something to turn by for them to be around. That way life will be more interesting than a field. 

   It kind of reads like the back of a Dominion box, doesn't it? My goodness. It would probably be more powerful imagery just keeping the first... two, sentences, but the remainder is pretty crucial too, and, anyway! Yes. That gem is from Elder Rose there. I've tried to respect the identities of people on the mission, refraining from naming names except in specific cases like all the blogs I linked to where it's a matter of public record anyway.* Mentioning Elder Rose by name is unavoidable, however, considering, reasons. Expect more from (and with!) him in the future...
 
   It was almost a month ago, but still just a couple of posts at press time, that I was explaining how now that I had 1,000 posts and wasn't holding myself back internally from posting, I could get on more blogging of things I'm thinking about anyway, being barred only by external, um, entities. Quite a few of those lately with finals and all, but that's all over. I just kept thinking Sunday evening how there were no online discussions that I needed to respond to on selected assigned readings...

   There are still a few things I'd really rather like to get done before cranking out polished backlog hardcore... What is on this list? In no particular order:

  1. Ward membership clerk duties.
  2. Application for further educational pursuit.
  3. Journal backlog (non-blog.)
   Those are larger, more major goals. Clerk duties are most important to the present; college application is most important to my future; journaling is most important to my past. All of them need to be done. Probably set aside a day to work on them, or find a few hours in a day to make some major chipping away at them. Big obstacle: procrastination. If these things can be done at basically any time, why not just keep them on one's chest indefinitely? On top of those, there are the things I try (and generally succeed) to make time for everyday anyway:
  1. Scripture study.
  2. Piano practice.
  3. Copious amounts of television watching.
   Why am I so successful at these things and not the longer-term stuff? I can see how I manage to fit watching cartoons into my day, even if it is for hours at a time, but, the other two? I think it's because those can be in chunks as large or small as I want, and so they don't require much apparent commitment to do them. Which isn't how I view blogging, or journaling, or clerking, to my detriment.

   It's been a pretty big post so far, so I think I'll wrap it up here, right before recapitulating the main theme in a satisfying way and/or getting to the meat of the issue, as I am maddeningly wont to do...


Tuesday, May 12, 2015

To Forge a Realm (POWER GRID Problems)

   The "To Forge a Realm" game expansion for "Kingsburg," by Stratelibri and Fantasy Flight Games, arrived today. Five new modules are added to the base game, including not only new rows of buildings to build along the technology tree, but additional rows that you can choose to replace preexisting rows, variable player powers, special conditions, and an all-new system of determining reinforcements at the end of the year when the kingdom is besieged by dangerous threats. So much variability is added to the game.

Behold. (Via Fantasy Flight Games.)
   Kingsburg is a great game, but, I wouldn't be making a post just on it if there weren't a "but." Kingsburg is a great game, but there's really not much in the base set to prevent it from getting stale. The same stuff happens each game, each season... you influence the king's advisers, you collect your resources, you build your buildings, and you fight your monsters. The only thing that changes from game to game is which monsters come at the end of the year, and there's only so much variability in those. You can choose to build your buildings in a different order, sometimes you roll poorly, and sometimes people influence advisers that you'd like to have been the one to influence for the season (which requires you to modify your strategy,) but other than that each game plays out the same.

   That's what Alex says baffles him about the popularity of the game "Power Grid": once you've played one game of it, you may as well quit, because there's not really much replayability. Different maps you can choose to play with, sure, and different orders of opportunity with which the power plants present themselves, sure, but the game remains basically exactly the same, with replay value next to nil. He'd be happy to play if someone else owned the game, but he'd never consider buying a copy for himself. As light-and-casual yet strategic Kingsburg is, it suffered from the same problems as Power Grid: the underlying strategy is always going to remain static from game to game, with little thought needed how to achieve victory.

   With Kingsburg: To Forge a Realm, though, after one game (and not even all of the modules!) it was clear that Kingsburg was jumping up back to its previous high position on Alex's list of his top tabletop and cardgames (it had slipped lower and lower as he became aware of the replayability issue.) It's even getting higher now than it previously had been.

   So yeah.

Friday, May 8, 2015

On: The Kind of Stuff We Mormons Watch

   When I first got home from my mission, the first thing I watched (besides, like, Scott Sterling getting his face caved in, which had come out only a day or two before I'd come home) was, well, you could probably guess what I would have wanted to watch first.

   It was Ender's Game.

   The first movie I actually watched, though, was Catching Fire, because there's a trailer for it on the Ender's Game DVD-- and I saw that it was on Netflix, and I wanted to catch it before it disappeared like Netflix movies do sometimes (for those of you counting, though, yep, it's still there.)

   (The other YouTube videos I watched beforehand were the Hunger Games parody music videos, from the same dudes who brought you Scott Sterling, being BYUTV's "Studio C." So.)

   The first movie my brother who just got back wanted to watch-- well, it was The Saratov Approach, actually. The one about the missionaries who get kidnapped and held for ransom? (Which is... well, I suppose it's a decent enough choice for when you're off your mission...)

   And then we forced him to watch the LEGO Movie, because it's so awesome.

   And then he watched Ender's Game. Got around to it last night. So.

Saturday, May 2, 2015

Eldritch Horror Organization

   Fans of tabletop boardgaming can agree: Eldritch Horror is a pretty flippin' sweet game. Also, it's got like a grazillion pieces that you need to fit back inside the box somehow. Everyone's got their own system of storage. Usually it's fitting them all into their bags; I'm not sure how many people remove the standees from the standee bottoms, but that takes up a bit of valuable box room.

   The layout of the box, I should mention. This is how the box comes. It's such that there's a raised cardboard shape for the board to go, and a narrow valley down the middle that the pieces all must go in, underneath that, with cardboard slats from the bottom that can be used to give the game's card decks their own space at the ends with the baggies of chits and everything dumped in the middle.You'd better make sure that the baggies have the air squeezed out, to fit, and even then (if you're ingenuous and/or ingenious) you may want to shove some of the baggies in underneath the storage box standout.

   As such, it's not very surprising that some people opt to go for storage like this, this or even this or this, but, personally I find this unfair to the original box designers (unless... they'd intended us to come up with such solutions...)

   Is there no way to achieve both? Well, actually...


The myriad pieces required at various points in the game, once dumped into various baggies that only separated them fundamentally, could now be separated almost entirely uniquely (tickets, for example, we still just put into the same cubbie, and the miscellaneous bits like the omen track markers can go together as well.) The standees get put under the custom Fantasy Flight storage tray cardboard.

   The plastic container had been used to house dice for as far back as I can remember having dice that needed storing. The container is divided up into 6 bins, which is nice but we weren't really divvying the dice into categories at all and they didn't need to be separate in the first place. We dumped those into a ceramic handmade bowl.

Bonus points to those who can name the source of some of these dice? I guess
   Thanks be the fact that we're on a no-sweet program right now, there used to be sweets in the bowl but we put the dice in there since Mom emptied the bowl Tuesday-ish.

   The standees, those we put in the empty space underneath the cardboard box fold.

Thursday, April 30, 2015

1,000 Things!

   Argh I've got like 1,000 things I need to share today! It's so exciting, but, uh, I'll try to organize my thoughts as cohesively as possible.
   RYAN IS HOME TODAY, for one. It's been two years since he set out on his mission, and today's the day he returns. Ho boy, mixed feelings! Though not really. I know exactly how trippy it's gonna be for him. It wasn't so long ago that I was the Elder Perazzo returning home from his mission. Almost half a year ago, you say? Gosh.

   But, yeah. Pretty major stuff! But my even talking about it raises a few questions-- namely: the last post I did was a couple of weeks ago, about my nephew being born, yeah (oh, congratulations; why thank you.) So, what, is this blog now only for major things anymore, like the births of nephews and the return of brothers, though my blogging used to be quite daily? Is it only a, serious event, what's-going-on-in-your-life type deal now, or what? That'd be fine if it were, but, actually that question brings me to a second point.
   THIS IS THE 1,000th POST PUBLISHED ON THIS BLOG, in case you weren't counting. Though, you know, not the thousandth day it's been around or anything, of course. This is the thousandth post ever posted, but with backdating posts and getting all the in-between stuff I don't have posts for, (the, missed a few days, thing.) I haven't been posting up my backlog which I've totally got like I should have, though I do have a bunch of posts written but not posted. They await only minor copyedits and the actual "go" signal, but, no, I haven't posted them. I could've let the quadruple digit mark happen sometime during backposts, but I've actually refrained from posting a lot of the material that I do have because, post 1,000, that should come in its own little package now, shouldn't it? I tend to dump these in chunks, and I totally might have missed it had I not been careful.
   I've been going through a lot of the old stuff, of course. The "new" Thespis strips, from a couple of years ago but only posted up now, that kind of thing. Old stories I've written, too. The story I submitted to Machine of Death 2. And... I can see now why I got the rejection letter. And, all the drawings I did, for Thespis and even, like, all of them I posted up on the blog, or most of them, and, they're terrible. Should I be pleased that I've evolved that much? Should I be ashamed that I once thought that that stuff might have been good? What's past is passed, and part of the reason I posted all that is to be able to see this evolution, so, I'll let myself suck. This is one of my points, so, I'LL LET MYSELF SUCK.

   We don't want success. We're afraid of success.  For, precisely the reason that, we're not ready. I'm glad I got rejected. It's a good thing.

   But, anyway, uh... Yeah, I think that's good.

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

A Cautionary Tale pt 2: Amazon

   Dang, thinking about what YouTube thinks of me, I've also got to wonder if Amazon thinks the same thing- I would have brought this up yesterday but there was no room for it, so I guess I can get into it here. That I would really want to...

   I was... on my mission when I signed up for my Amazon account... euh...

   Yeah, actually, no I don't think I'm comfortable with sharing that all with you at the moment. Suffice it to say (and you really should,) for a year there, all Amazon knew to advertise at me was pranks. Not like video of people getting pranked, like the YouTube stuff, but actual implements of practical jokes. Like fake plastic poops and crap.

   The fact that those YouTube videos also happen to be about pranks is a complete coincidence, of course. Honestly, the internet shopping thing wasn't even my idea to begin with...

Monday, April 27, 2015

YouTube: A Cautionary Tale

   YouTube keeps advertising videos at me. Which is alright, gotta keep up with the one channel I'm subscribed to, but there's always the videos it suggests that it thinks you might be interested in. Sometimes, it's brony stuff. Mostly...

   A few months ago, February 3rd according to the internet history which I'm going to trust as it matches up to having occurred on a Tuesday, looking up tutorials on how to fix washers, but apparently autoplay was on and the videos just kept on going, from the washer one to a second one and from there randomly jumping to prank compilations.

   This continued on for 5 1/2 more videos.

   And every week, when YouTube its scratching that artificially intelligent brain of its, trying to figure out what kind of videos it thinks I would be into, keeps on going back to the 45 minutes straight where funny prank video compilations were playing. The screen was off and the sound was down and we were having dinner, but YouTube has no way of knowing that. So when it wants desperately to please me, it proffers things like SEXY WOMEN FUNNY NAUGHTY PRANKS, or whatever. Because, that's the only thing I seem to have shown continued interest in.

   I know how easy it is just to delete that history from YouTube's databanks, but I'm leery of rewriting history just to make the present slightly less annoying.

Sunday, April 12, 2015

Thespian Acquiescence, But More Importantly...

   A note on Sundays: seriously, new strips of Sunday strip Thespis are coming out, and I've got 5 or 6 already totally completed from a couple of years ago, leading up to the new storyline coming up. They're... somewhere, on the computer. And they totally exist! At press time, of course, we have none. No new strips of Thespis, posted up, right now, like I promised I would do on Sundays. They are coming, and hopefully the seemingly overly obvious explanation that they are not up right now will be necessary in the future, but for now, uh...

   The strips, these new old ones, are, turns out, on a file format that our PC no longer supports, so I need to find some way to transport the files to the laptop so that I can convert them there to JPEG. (OH, if there were only some means of doing so, like if they invented a portable drive of some sort...!)

   Last week being Spring Break at the local school district, however, even if we did have all those things that I promised you we still wouldn't have one today (such it is when you start a comic strip for high school distribution.) So we're free to have today's blog post deal with other issues. And all that explanation seems rather petty now, seeing the issue we'll be dealing with...

   It's weird, like it feels like this should be affecting me more than it is, but, 11:51 Utah time, weighing in at 9 lbs. 5 oz., I... well... I'm an uncle now. See me mother's blog for more stuff on that; this is a way bigger deal for her than it is for me (becoming a grandparent versus becoming an uncle, hmm, let's see...) but it's still, you know, okay, I guess...

   On my mission, one of the people I worked under, Rachel, her name is (or maybe it's Rachael, I always was spelling her name wrong in my journal...) she asked me one time if I had any niece's or nephews. She said that I've got a sort of certain, amiability, about me, and I suppose assumed it was avuncular? I had to answer no to her question of course, but, you know...

   Not that we've met yet or anything.

Sunday, April 5, 2015

Thespis Strip Dated Sunday, April 5, 2015

Click to embiggen.
TRANSCRIPT
Collin: What are you doing?!
Just look at yourself.
Look at the gifts you’ve been given.
Look at who’s given them to you.
Were you worth it?
Well, you were, but are you worth it now?
You can’t only be nice when it suits your purposes.
Trying to make you a better person through bribery? We knew it would never work, not really.
But there’s already this time and energy given to give you what you want.
All the labor costs, the multimillion dollar industry. Looking forward to the future. But you always go back to naughtiness.
Santa invests so much in you.
And you let him down each time.