More TED

   Unrelated, but moving on, anyway. Great! More TED talks! Truly ideas worth spreading. This one is by Scott McCloud, the man who by volume is responsible for more of the content on this blog than any other individual (as inventor of the 24 hour comic, you see, which related posts account for 16% of the bulk of this blog; almost a full sixth-- in total 158 of the 985 posts up at press time (including this one, which for the record I am counting as not being about 24 hour comics, though still directly dealing with Mr McCloud.)) If you've already read his Understanding Comics trilogy, there aren't many new ideas here, but if you haven't, you'd better buckle down to have your mind blown...

   If you have read those books anyway, I still recommend giving the video a play through nonetheless. You'll see why.

http://www.ted.com/talks/scott_mccloud_on_comics

   Isn't he adorkable? This talk comes from, holy crap, this month, one decade ago (the website just says, filmed Feb 2005; doesn't have the precise date, so... who knows, it really might be from exactly a decade ago today).

   I told you the video was worth watching, anyway, even if you already know the basic material in it. Did you spot it? How could you have missed it? The man is a master of slideshows. Makes sense, actually, considering their affinity with the "comics" format. There's so much potential in the medium, I've always felt (and especially grew to appreciate on the mission for some reason.) It's not just for boring business presentations, the same way that Comics aren't just for pappy kids' stuff. Multimedia, real-time, performance art. It's used the way it is because it is ideal for directly transmitting a message-- it's because of its power that it's stuck in this ghetto of business meetings, but it can be so much more powerful than that, as hopefully we've gotten a taste of here. In short, I believe in slideshows the same way Scott McCloud believes in comics. (I also believe in comics the same way he believes in comics.)

   PowerPoints are ephemeral creatures, "real time" like I said, but comics is a print medium, capable of being visited and revisited at a moment's notice-- maybe I've gotten away from myself a little bit here, but both media's secret power lies in juxtaposition.

Mythology, pt 2: What? How?

   Bravely split off this post into its own entry, to avoid blogstrain/postfatigue on yesterday's post. This is it.

   In a theory that I invented just yesterday, which initially had nothing to do with anything but now realize would be beyond perfect to bring up here (though it may still be a bit rough around the edges), I, um, posit, that religion has two faces, like a coin does: remove one, the other ceases to be, because there's no such thing as a one-sided object. Both sides of the coin must support each other, each side explaining aspects of the other.

   One side of the coin is the mythological aspect of the cosmology: creation, eschatology, history, characters, the mechanisms of the universe. Stuff that can be observed, and therefore proved or disproved. The other face of religion is the part that dwells in the metaphysical, and it is the theology, the doctrine, the what who why how of God. Science, I think what it is, comes in and disproves mythological aspects, and then laughs and says it's disproved all of religion, rather than marred one face of it. Sometimes one or both sides of the coin may be misunderstood, mistrusted or even disliked, and changed, which completely alters the entire cosmology: easy variability. Good religion doesn't need that, and the differences between good and bad Science and good and bad Religion are one and the same.

   Back to "easy variability," then. Remember the Greek mythographers hypothetically B.S.ing their way through the Persephone myth back there? After an explanation like that, they'd probably laugh because their view on how seasons work is obviously the correct one since they've got science and observable reality on  their side, "proving" their story correct (which would be, um, correlation and causation swapped, or sommink.) Sometimes observable reality can be used to bolster false mythology, legitimizing it in one sense while actually making it falser. (An illustration in progress; Gunnerkrigg Court FTW!) It's the same (very, very awesome) process that leads to weird bits of pseudoscience like the Ptolemaic model of the solar system-- "oh, retrograde motion of the planets even though orbits are clearly circular and not at all elliptical? Well, then, it must be that the planets and Sun aren't actually revolving around the Earth but around weird invisible bits of Science that are themselves revolving around the Earth! Haha, genius." (...I wish I had the capability to make this stuff up. You want to know what's truly rad, though? The Tychonic system. Anyway.)

 

Mythology, pt 1: Why? Where?

   I've also been meaning to get up more TED talks...

   Quantum Physicist David Deutsch forces us, in the video below, to reexplain the way we explain things, and explains why we can't just say "a wizard did it." There's a principle he calls "easy variability" especially in regard to mythology, which I'd like to hang on for a bit-- if the Ancient Greeks found out that it's not the entire world that gets chilly in winter but just the Northern Hemisphere, with ours and the Southern Hemisphere's seasons swapped, they could very easily change the Persephone myth to fit the new reality to observed science.

http://www.ted.com/talks/david_deutsch_a_new_way_to_explain_explanation

   Saying "a wizard did it" is (also) called the God of the Gaps fallacy. Where does God operate in a universe that can be explained using science? Is there a place for Him? Some would say, the "gaps" of scientific knowledge, but even that doesn't work and in fact just might make the situation worse somehow. Orson Scott Card said somewhere, and you know that with that I'm totally gunna be paraphrasing but get a free pass to do so, "God" is unscientific; not because God's not real or anything, but because the moment you throw your hands up in the air and say, God must have done it, you stop making inquiries, and it's no longer science because you're no longer trying to figure out the how of anything.

   Where does that leave God or gods, then? (Where is my mythology that this post is ostensibly about?) Gets even more problematic when scientists (who are, after all, still people too) fill in the gaps where God had been hiding, then throw their hands up in the air in the other direction and say there is no God because there's no room in the gaps any more. (I personally find this a bizarre move, claiming no God from a scientific perspective, since that's a decision really left to the philosophers and metaphysicists, but...)

   Is mythology just a way to fill in the gaps? It may start out that way, but can it grow beyond that? Also, how annoying is it to have no other kinds of sentences than inquisitive? How am I going to end this post?

   A WIZARD JUMPS OUT AND WRITES A SATISFYING ENDING TO THIS POST, WITH JUST ENOUGH LOOSE ENDS FOR A SEQUEL HOOK.

   Oh.

   Thank you, wizard.

The Perazzo Project

   Really since I want to seem like I know what I'm doing...

   As part of my time on my mission-- well, actually, I'm not sure how much of this is confidential, but, on the other arm I never did have to sign that confidentiality agreement, but, on the gripping arm I still think it would be in best taste not to divulge too much since there's (probably) a reason for it to be confidential in the first place-- long story short, as I will explain in one of my Hundred Things, I, was assigned, to research a bunch of world mythologies. As part of Family History. Yes.

   Aside from the project, I've never been part of that generation who can just tell you the difference between Iocaste and Hecabe off the top of my head, like so many kids nowadays seem to be able to do. Jocasta and Hecuba, that is-- alternate spellings of character names is at least one of the things hammered into my head. I've seen maybe one Percy Jackson film, listened to the audiobook of maybe a couple others playing in the background without really paying attention; whatever-- that's probably not making me look very good, but, in the name of honesty and full disclosure, actual genuine research is good for you, and that's what I've been doing for the past 1 1/2 years.

   And so here I am, somehow an expert in all of this. My compendium of mythological characters has been dubbed the Perazzo Project, in the FCHHM tradition of naming projects after the people whose mess it is that the grunts get to clean up. I've got at my disposal a list of a handful thousand names or so of characters from various world mythologies, and I was wondering, perhaps you'd like to take a peek...

Screws

   Exactly how it sounds, this post is just a fun little list of things I've felt strongly enough about (in the negative) to justify saying to screw, doing a careful combing of the post archives here using such obscure tools as "find" and ctrl+F. Here we go.

• Billy Owens
• P!nk

   That's it. Could've sworn I also said "screw you" to Texas, possibly over the fact that their chili has no beans, but I can't find it anywhere. Huh. I guess that's a safe thing to remain unsaid-- but that doesn't mean I can't stand by it...

   Honorable mention, though, times I've said to screw "it":

• it: the fact that there's a difference between fish and aquatic mammals

   ...and, that's it.

   Well, it's been fun, but, anyway. Moving on.

Discovery Center

   I chuckled to myself. When I saw the article in last week's LDS Church News: FamilySearch Opens High-Tech Discovery Center in Salt Lake City...

   Didn't get to it earlier for some reason, though it had been staring me in the face (it is after all last week's... still the most recent version, since there's no post on Sundays-- so there...)

   For those of you too lazy (or, whatever) to click that link, let me summarize. The Discovery Center is this amazing high-tech (read: equipped with iPads) center of, um, discovery, all this awesome stuff, located conveniently at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in Salt Lake City, Utah, right off of the FamilySearch Center there (the, you know, location where I worked for the last couple months of my mission.) Exciting stuff...

   The time I worked there, the Discovery Center was still in beta-- groups went in, and my companion and I helped them, but it was the other companionship there who actually led the groups in there-- never went in, never got closer than being able to peer into there from outside. And now... well. It's open. Have a reservation to get in though.

   https://familysearch.org/discoverycenter

The Tizz

   Totally found my fresh specs, like 5 minutes ago as I was waiting to get onto the computer to write this post. They were exactly where I'd left them; crazy, eh? (Resting comfortably amidst the pedals of the abandoned electric organ that lives in my room, since I know you must ask.) Things are so... crisp. Almost overwhelmingly so.

   Anyway, the post I'd had in mind, the reason I was waiting for the computer (slash, trying to locate my Kindle so I could maybe get to blogging from that, slash, locating my paper with my notes for the Hundred Things on it...) Continuing on from the ideas from yesterday's post (which I haven't actually written at press time, but I totally know what it was about, so)...

   For those of you reading this from the present instead of the future, let me break down what I was saying, or, will say. My father, especially, is the one who does this; he kind of, doesn't, sugarcoat, the, um, fact that I have autism. I was going on (or, I will be going on yesterday) why that's alright, but, hey.

   Church. Have to get in early for choir practice. Don't mind going in early, but, you know. Choir is bull. (Alright, now you know: choir is bull.) Maybe it's the fact that we're always slightly late that does it, but, choir, right? Never go over parts. Never even sing parts, most of the (few) male voices. Maybe that's what does it. But, never go over parts, so, whatever. Just, do a few runthroughs of the piece we'll be doing. And, I figure, it's not like it's worth it anyway. Because choir is bull. But I practice with them anyway, because, might as well, and, obligations. Obligations such as, might as well. And, nobody else is that great, so, might as well. And, I'm supposed to be alright, so, might as well. But choir is still bull.

   I'm not that great, though. I can sightread enough to know when to go kinda up or kinda down or very up or very down, or stay on the same pitch or transpose an octave, but I don't do sightreading, like, tremendously. Not enough to muddle through it without some sort of accompaniment, usually, at least (someone singing along with me who shares my part and is moderately alright at sightreading will do the job.) I'm good enough to realize how bad I am, though.

   I haven't had a meltdown since Thanksgiving of 2013-- that's a true horror story, that, so I'd like to think that that's never going to happen again.

   I can still get frustrated.

   I mentioned how choir is bull, right? Throw your choir binder down, yeah; that'll make you look cool, calm and collected. My father, aforementioned not to sugarcoat, noticed my "tizz." Oh. Is that why he's so cool with mentioning anything. Because it's not as invisible as you'd like to think sometimes. And thus, not as, forgettable. Well. Thanks for making me feel self-conscious like that. It's not for nothing, I see. It's not just... the things I thought.

  Well.

   Good to know.

   Also.

   I get this post up now, at night, because that's what it's about. It wouldn't work, backdated, to the morning. Have you seen my mom's blogpost today? http://treadingwater-beth.blogspot.com/2015/02/everyones-keeping-busy-and-happy-mardi.html The painting, there... I didn't intend for it to be that much. Just went out a couple Mondays ago, went down the road maybe half a mile, got some practice en plein air. Last week, Presidents' Day, well it was a holiday so spent time with family instead. But, painting, I think I'll do the same thing tomorrow, yeah? Had intended it to be a thing to do on Mondays. Didn't think much of it. In fact, I still don't-- my cattle look more like bison, and all in all the painted scene looks almost nothing like how it did in real life. It was good practice, that's about it.

   And yet...

   The scan on the blog doesn't do the painting much justice. The colors are so much more vibrant in reality-- the painting currently hangs on the fridge (yes!) and I could see it over there from my vantage point reading my book, and... And it was like, looking past the paper, into the painting itself, as though the painting were nothing more than a little window... I think it's more than just the vignette there, where I simply didn't bother filling in the outer edges, causing this effect that pulls you in. Maybe it's how the colors get deeper the further into the landscape you get. Maybe it's the fact that the thick wet paint warped the paper, which is only medium grade, causing it to get mildly three-dimensional... I still don't think it's that great, but I can kind of see it (Mom's thinking of making, like, prints, and stuff. Prints!)

   So, though it may not mean much to me, I think I shall continue. Not with painting, I don't mean-- I told you I'm continuing that anyway already. I mean-- I mean... Continue with, whatever. Art, writing, blogging. Posts about having autism, and how weird that is, and how normal, and how weird it is how normal it is. And really, personal, whatever. More than that, more than anything. Communication. Directly to the brain. Art. Everything. If it means so much...

Update on my Health Levels

   And here's the part where I make a cutesy neologism, because I just realized that I'm also going to need to downdate on my health (you know, like, actually post up that post I wrote for the most part half a month back but never actually polished and posted up, so I'm going to need to backdate and post it?)...


   A couple of weeks ago (or however long ago it was, sounds about right...?) in order to wake me up among other things, I decided it would be nice to run right out of bed-- I'd worn shorts and a t-shirt to bed the night before for just such an occasion, so it wasn't so much as a spur-of-the-moment thing as that makes it sound (just biding my time to a day when it wouldn't be, you know, the need to poop or anything, to get me out of bed)-- when I woke up in the morning, I just got out of bed and set out the door and ran. No shoes, no coat, nothing that I hadn't already had on.

   They say-- and, I just realized, no I have no idea who the "they" in this instance is, but I've talked to a person or two (or, one) and this person/these people say that, um, singular or plural they,'ve, done research on the subject, and clearly follow it themself(ves), so I'll take word for it-- they say that "natural running" (you know, running without shoes on) is, like, way healthier for you than the other thing, and, hey, I can believe it-- the same way that diet pop is less healthy for you than full-brew because you subconsciously feel better at ordering the Monster Thickburger because hey my Sprite is diet, the same way that having increased car safety features actually lowers safety because you feel better about driving more dangerously, ergonomic shoes actually are worse for you because of all of those things; plus, I've read Markus Zusak's I am the Messenger, and there's a girl who runs barefoot in that and she's really good at it but she's trying out with shoes anyway and it sucks but there's this scene where the titular Messenger delivers her this shoebox with these supposedly amazing new shoes for her to try and the box turns out to be empty and it's all meaningful and it's such a good book, guys, and, and, that all back there was one sentence; pretty nice.

   But the thing about natural running, running barefoot, when it's early in the morning in the middle of winter, and you're running on a barely paved Podunk road in the middle of rural Nevada, is... oh, you've already guessed it? Uh, moving on, I guess...

   I only ran maybe half a mile, but it took a couple of days for me to be able to put my feet directly on earth again without smarting. Running feels good, and it's great, though, so that was hardly my last time doing it. It's only been a couple of times in between then, actually running instead of just going off on a walk or something (which also happened a couple of times) but running just yesterday (it's always a spur-of-the-moment thing, which explains why it hasn't happened that often) I was barefoot still and everything, but just between those two or three times I've already got callous enough for it to be okay (callous as a noun, there, by the way.)

   Also, sort of exercising other ways-- I kind of lifted weights, last week, and I am pleased to report that I am a pathetic weakling.

   But my weight is down, anyway. It's almost at my old all-time-high. Isn't that great? (Plus a whole lot more of it is muscle mass, this time around, though-- I actually possess the ability to do a full pull up, now, as proof.)

   And, that's it, for now. Hope that wasn't too boring...

A Primer on Tape

   Continuing on the great tape unraveling that I told you about yesterday... or, attempting to continue, at least...

   As part of my disentanglement of the tangle, ment, the knotting of tape which happened as part of my opening of the jammed cassette trying to unjam it-- I wanted to keep the sections of the tape which had already been unkinked separate, so I, kind of, wound those up and kept them cordoned with Scotch tape... Which worked fine, until I realized the need to untape the tape eventually...

 

   Let this be a lesson for future generations: tape and tape do not mix. The tape will just tear the tape. (Assuming, you know, future generations still use tape... Heck, I think the only one of the current generation doing that is just me.)

   Sad thing is, I already knew that, and just said to myself, "I'll just be really careful with it." Yep.

Old Glasses

   You know what's great? Blogs of people who have actual lives. Plenty of thoughts and things that go down in 24 hours, of course, but as for daily material that's worth taking note of, not so much, in my life. If I actually went anywhere or did anything, that would be fascinating, you know?...

   Not that I do nothing ever. Today, for example, I spent like 3 hours trying to wind up a tape cassette that had crapped out. I made it worse; tape tangles very easily apparently and honestly I'd take the Gordian option by now if that wouldn't, like, kill the cassette.

   But anyway. For 90% of our lives, we are creatures of habit. We can debate exact percentages later, and actually that's not a half bad idea (PLOT BUNNY)... Habit, yes. Put down my glasses, take them off for, whatever-- sleep, is usually one reason. Put them down, and occasionally misplace them. Like yesterday.

   Can't really find a good photo of what I look like with my current prescription on. The family Christmas card this year has a good view, but I can't find that right now... Here's a shot from my mom's blog, which you can kind of see...:

http://treadingwater-beth.blogspot.com/2014/12/christmas-photos-2014.html

   Not the best, but workable. My specs, the lenses are sort of, long, with no bottom frame piece so it just, hangs, open, I guess. Man I'm bad at describing this...

   EDIT: Alright, found it.

   Isn't that much better than my lame attempt at description?
   Yesterday, anyway. Searched all over, couldn't find where I'd put them last. Luckily just so happen to be in that state of perpetually trying to clean my room and organize everything, and in the drawers of the desk where I'd kept my music collection up till this point, there are a bunch of super old glasses...

Oh, man, a selfie. Guess that means I'm a sociopath... no, wait, you already knew that.

   Note how much smaller these ones I found are. I'd initially just grabbed them to resolve where my normal specs are, but 1) I still can't find those and 2) these old glasses just so happen to match my current prescription. They were smudged and dirty as all-get-out, though.

   But I like them. I think they make me look rather... tailor-y.

Thespis Strip Dated Sunday, February 15, 2015

Click to embiggen.

   Oh, man. This all seemed true when I wrote it, four years ago.

TRANSCRIPT:

Collin: 3D movies!

Bambi: Wooo!

Collin: 3D films! Films filmed in the third dimension! They're awesome, and with new light polarization technology, they're here to stay this time, folks!

Marvin: Myself, I find them tiresome and gimmicky.

Collin: That's just the tiresome and gimmicky ones; the ones that use the third dimension as a feature rather than a filmmaker's tool. “Tiresome and gimmicky” could literally apply to any filmmaker’s tool in the hands of an inept director. A good filmmaker, on the other hand, can use the third dimension to imply depth, size, surface translucency, texture! A filmmaker can play silly monkeys with the audience with the effect, creating a feeling of unease, as in the tunnel sequence and Other Mother's world in Henry Selick's Coraline.

Marvin: Filmmaker's tool!? Style and substance aren’t mutually exclusive. You can't misuse the tools of how we view everyday life. When they came out with color and sound, they knew how to use those effects. Sound was no gimmick; it opened up new ways of storytelling, like how whistling is used as a plot device in Fritz Lang's M. We don’t conceive our vision of the world in 3D; we conceive it as being flat, so ultimately 3D can be nothing but a gimmick.

Collin: Well, people dreamt in color up until the invention of the television, when people began dreaming in black and white. It wasn’t until they came out with color TVs that people began dreaming in color again! Even then, an entire generation was left dreaming in black and white for the rest of their lives. With new practical 3D technology, people can begin to conceive the world in 3D again.

Marvin: Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should. Just because it’s a visual medium doesn’t mean it also needs sound; it doesn’t even mean it needs color! Just look at comics!

Marvin: What were we arguing about again?

Collin: Whoa, trippy.

Marvin: uh...

...

...

...

I don't know, man. Let's get out of here.

(2/13)

   For added deliciousness. Five years ago today. Still have the ticket; I keep things like that. It's kind of beaten up right now, and 90% of that is my fault... (See those burns? They occurred when I attempted to photograph the thing. DON'T ASK.) But there it is, my ticket to go see James Cameron's, trying to think of a snarky title for it, Cat Smurf Pocahontas the Movie or something. But yeah. In 3D, just like I said. Just letting you know it's not, uh, made up, or anything...

   ...Is 3D still the next big thing? I'm not sure the market for 3D televisions anymore, man I'm going into this post well-researched... but the 3DS is totally radical, but then again now there's the 2DS...

   I seem to recall I once said something like, directing a film in 3D needs to be more like directing a stage production, since without the field of focus you can't control precisely where the audience is going to look...?

   No, wait, that was actually Orson Scott Card, reviewing Thor. I'm always getting myself confused with SF/F legends talking about the MCU.

   Boy am I acting snarky. I guess I do that when I don't really have anything to say... So I'll stop here.

   Seriously, though. I never knew that about myself. You learn something new every day.

RootsTech/FGS Con

   Well, aside from the fact that I totally missed the Innovator Summit yesterday, meanwhile back in Utah RootsTech 2015 began today. From the RootsTech website FAQs:

RootsTech is a global family history event, where people of all ages learn to discover, share and celebrate their family connections across generations through technology. At RootsTech, there is something for everyone, no matter your experience in family history or your skill level in technology.

   A pretty exciting thing, in other words. As if that weren't exciting enough, though, this year, in what is perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime, thing, RootsTech is sharing venue keynotes and Expo Hall space with the annual national conference of the Federation of Genealogical Societies. It's, huge.

   After spending two years as a missionary on Temple Square, and being there around RootsTech season for both of those years (though never actually, you know, attending or anything (I told you about the Xbox Kinnect incident that had happened, right?)) I can tell you: man, this year it really is going to be bigger than ever, and if you happen to be in the Salt Lake City area this weekend, I strongly recommend you at least get a one-day starter pass, and check it out.

   But the best part of it? All the free leftover pizza that the young elders of the FCHH Mission are going to get. FHL has an annual "grab a slice of pizza and find an ancestor" promotion, and they overpurchase every year.

Name of Post... Rabbits, I Guess? Rabbits are Cute...

   The post today sort of polyped off of yesterday's post, which happens too often for me to sit and complain about how I never have seeds for posts...

   I do believe we were discussing the point of having this blog be daily (besides the fact that of course I'm constrained to it since the death of (cousin) Adam and my posting two times in one day that day and working to make up for that...) I go over previous posts I've put up, just checking in, the way I do, and I see-- a lot of potential, to be sure, and maybe a few clever ideas, but because what I'm looking at is mostly stuff I scheduled in a rush before my mission, maybe I didn't dedicate as much craft as I should have ideally, and so a lot of it is not... great. Tough sometimes to admit that about your own work, but I do that here with gusto. Really funny stuff getting tossed out the window; paragraphs I spent hours of research on landing with dull thuds and none of the (>>probably>>) meticulously researched information getting through.

   For example, you seen "One Face... No... Two-Face! No... Five-Face?"? It took like 3 or 4 hours to compile all the information, possibly longer still to composite it, not to mention a whole lot of time on top of that just slacking over at (totally awesome website you should totally check out) Comics Should be Good! (my primary resource)--- and me writing that post all up, thinking boy oh boy this is gonna be a good one, and the post itself is just like, meh. The information all coming at you feels way rushed, so much jammed up in there with no room to breathe... Plus there wasn't much there that wasn't at CSBG! already, and hey guys it's such a good website check it out. (http://www.comicbookresources.com/)

   I suppose in the end it comes down to craft, then. And strike out that "I suppose." I've got it; that's it-- everything was rushed, all the posts of that time period. Maybe not "all," of course, but... I'd thought that the posts were fine at the time, and that was certainly the case given the "I'm-going-to-be-leaving-for-two-years-in-a-couple-of-weeks" circumstances, but, man, I don't know. Style versus substance again!, I could still have spent a lot more effort in the final product itself, the surface instead of just the underlying ideas.

   And that's my official excuse for why you haven't seen a single one of my Hundred Things so far, although I've been working on them since before I got off my mission.

Arbitrary Post Title (Ideas, and More Blog Talk)

   Well, I'm back to blog-a-daying, getting back to doing it at 8:30 in the morning notwithstanding-- and that's my next step.

   Do I have anything to say, now that I'm here, though? I always have something to say, actually, and if it doesn't seem like it sometimes...

   Alright, yeah. The having a blog post in every day is, seemingly, arbitrary. I do always have something to say, but all the whacking around the bush and not posting up even when I have solid ideas (there are three or four posts I've been churning around that by now could easily have enough content to have been a score or so of posts; I'd refer you to my post of January the 27th for a discussion of what my problem is, iffen, you know, that post were actually posted--) I've come to realize, within the past five minutes actually, that ofttimes I lack boldness to do say things, even that I do have to say. Or, euhh. Well, no, it's not that, actually, in so many words. It's just-- time nor place for them, and many of my ideas are little ideas I have very specific contexts in mind for. But what the context could be, in reality, is beyond me.

   Example, example. Alright, pulled this one out of a file on my harddrive copied to the laptop desktop:

    [The man is in custody. The lady cop enters the interrogation room. The man sits there.] He closes his eyes, and describes everything about her in vivid detail. How are you doing that, she asks, when you can't see me?  I know all of this, because I can see you. I know all of this because you are a figment of my imagination. And she disappears. He rubs his now-uncuffed wrists, and looks up, darkly.
   Chilling? Yes. Neat? Certainly. But in what the hay kind of context would that make sense? Perhaps a brief tangent to some other tale; I don't know.

   These things need time to ruminate. Germinate. I can't force them; dark secret and I think it's true of all creators, really, I'm a terribly unoriginal creator, because none of my ideas are my own-- the ideas, they come to me. Saying daily "hey I have an idea" is just kind of, premature. But it does serve a helpful purpose, beyond the sort of making sure the ideas are artificially incubated, brooded over every day. The skills in expressing the ideas, the skills in how to communicate, get honed in the process... and we all need as much practice as we can get.

SPORTS

   Went on a bit of a tangent yesterday which thankfully I cut out of the final post (and which I'm of course subjecting you to here! yay.) I was talking about the Superbowl, and how like cut off I feel when it's basically the only common ground in America but I'm not in on it? But, I now realize, I'm not sure if I would have it any other way or not... Like I'm fond of saying (or at least fond of thinking a lot; you're going to have to verb the subtext, man;) it's just, a thing; neither positive nor negative but totally neutral (of course, as with all things, save for contexts-- which there seem to be about a fifty-fifty split of, so, yeah.)

   Sports, as I had been going to explain yesterday, never really appealed to be; I don't know. Went to a girls' (varsity?) basketball game this evening; home team was already whupping by the time we arrived 5 minutes late, and the status quo never got more interesting from there. Spent much of the time napping; that hour passed quickly. That's with basketball. And basketball is my favorite sport (basketball is my favorite sport!/I like the way they dribble up and down the court!...) Alright, maybe not my favorite-- insert obligatory curling reference here, and as for the rest I've always kind of been interested in horsey polo... not that I know much of it beyond its existence, and everything, but: it's a cross between like all of my favorite things; horses, golf, and, like, croquet... it has to be awesome!

   What was I talking about? Oh, yeah, how much I dislike sports (and how much I am not a hypocrite, I believe was somewhere in the water...)

   The goal is arbitrary, watching the baseball card statistics play themselves out just smacks of a major waste of time... Real-world politics influencing what happens down there in the arena, sure, makes sense, that's interesting that's the kind of thing they make the movies out of-- but that isn't the sports itself, is it? It's never totally about the game; we act like the stadium is its own entity, and actions down there are isolated in vacuums and everything, but that's not really the case, is it...? It's never the case. When does the arena give off and the... real world... begin... We have opened up a metaphysical pool too deep for this current lighthearted discussion, my friend; I suggest we move on...

   Being so knowledgeable about how factors influence each other that you're able to have a relatively accurate March Madness bracket prediction, or, whatever-- that's actually pretty cool, but... well...

   Alright, I'm done here.

Probably Not a Strict Necessity

   Continuing on from yesterday-- I realized that I didn't say nearly as much as I'd meant to... So, yeah, I'd been talking about how I don't get out much, and how it's probably not very healthy...

   For the past week, when I do get out of the house (I do have, classes, geez) there are people discussing still Superbowl 49 (or "exlix," as apparently it is not pronounced,) and I'm completely lost. Popular culture grows increasingly disconnected, this far cry from the "only four networks" days, and in the Superbowl we manage to retain a touchstone through all that-- but, nope, I'm the one clueless here. Pop me in a room with anything else, and...

   Could it really have been only a week ago? I find that hard to believe, actually, as the past only-a-week has been filled with enough shark references to leave Discovery Channel behind in the dust. So at least I'm not the only one...

   What was I talking about--? Shut-in, right. I am pleased to announce my neck's total lack of beard, though, and the fact that we don't even have a basement. My fingers are cheetle-stain free; I am fluent in both breathing through my nose and through my mouth. What else is there... Sure, yeah.

   No, though. I was talking about my life. Humble one as it is. I'm the ward membership clerk, I'm sure I must have told you, and on Wednesday I did some demonstration on cousinfinding in front of a few members of the stake presidency (Rootstech 2015 is coming up on Friday; aren't you so excited!?) I'm on my way.

    ...

   Why do I blog? Is it personal, to get something off of my chest; or is it for my audience, meager though it may be? Yeah, I'm pretty sure nobody's out there reading-- I could say whatever I want; nobody cares. So maybe... Or, or instead, is it some third thing-- the need for creation, be it perhaps about my chest, or be it something more... Practice, getting myself in shape for grander works of creation? That's gotta be it, seeing as how though my blogging's slowed down and ofttimes sputtered to a complete stop lately, I am still actively working on other projects-- which, hopefully will be unleashed one day, and so I'll have had an excuse for all this here.

   Probably explains some stuff.

The Thespis Contingency

   Yesterday's Thespis marks the end of the original batch of strips I did. I do have access to all of my scripts and notes for it, pulled off of the hard drive-- but there's sort of a, problem, still with restarting the strip, picking it back up so that its continuance here will be uninterrupted. A problem such as, it's been four dang years from there to here, and even though I do have the notes and outline and wherewithal to pick it back up, how would I do so? And by how, I mean, what, do I pretend that it's still 2011 and just fly through continuing on the story arch like nothing's happened? Or do I explicitly address the issue?

   Well, it is Thespis... Meaning, if there's any place where such blatant lampshade hanging would be appropriate, it would be here... But I really can't think of any way to go about saying "hey, it's four years later but we're picking up exactly where we left off" without it coming across as kind of cutesy.

   I definitely do intend on continuing with the strip and the storyline and everything, picking up more or less where we left off yesterday*.  Come Sunday next, I'll have whatever it is that's coming, because I am continuing this, spite the fact that the rest of my blogging lately has been sporadic and all that. I like Thespis, and I'd like to continue it. And, planning on having Other//half actually exist one of these days,** I need a lot more practice at the medium under my belt...

Thespis Strip Dated Sunday, February 6, 2011

Click to embiggen.

TRANSCRIPT:
Collin: L'esprit de l'escalier: staircase wit. Fridge Logic applied to comebacks. It happens to us all. Someone insults us, and we have no choice but to take it because we can't think of anything.
If it's such a pervasive problem, that means there's a whole industry there waiting to be tapped.
Just think of it, Marvin: an entire corporation that does nothing but sell comebacks. We could have them monopolized!
Best of all, just think of how cheap our legal department would be!
Marvin: That makes no sense.
Collin: That's what you think.
Marvin: Somebody sues you for selling a defective product, and your entire defense consists of said defective product?
Collin: That's what you think. 
Marvin: But-
Collin: That's what you think. 

Blog is Blog (My Biggest Problem)

   Let's examine life. My life-- specifically. I think it's kind of, nice, when I do posts like this, so why not (my hand! got licked! by a cow! isn't that darling?)... I may as well embrace the fact that blogging is a form of narcissism, so, as much as I try to avoid it sometimes, hey look at me, aren't I handsome and clever and, occasionally funny, and, way too wistful for my own dang good sometimes... people are always so much more entertaining to read when they make you laugh... so I should try to be more funny I guess but there's more to life than that...

   My life, yeah. A blog is a blog is a blog. If you're reading this, well, first of all you're a masochist who yet has excellent taste, so congratulations, but-- if you're reading this anyway, you wouldn't mind. If anything's annoying it's my constant protests about this very thing, always going on about why I'm telling you about myself, as if I need an excuse... But people's lives are fun. And the specifics are fascinating. And what the hay. It is nice when I talk about my life. It's also really fun and mindblowing when specifically I talk about Asperger's syndrome and how I've been diagnosed with it and how trippy that is-- yeah, there's something; kind of fun an unusual and let's talk about that.

  That one time I spent 13 posts in a row doing just that is pretty popular, after all... but dang it was a research intensive process, getting that puppy up. I'd say about, three, four hours went into each of those posts, on average. And I'm not sure how much there is left to be said on that topic, besides... There might be. The 13 posts, another thing about it is that it's all pretty personal as well, and a surprisingly large chunk of it has nothing to do with autism or anything like that at all. It's a good starting place, to be sure, but (especially with a subject so, ehem, high-functioning (ladies)) it's hard to tell how things would turn out in any other circumstance, or where anything lets off and anything else begins.

   But dang I am a total shut-in.

   I think that's my biggest problem. Like, I never interact with nobody. Miles away from anyone who is both interesting and not related to me-- no license to drive, so I'm basically cut off from that. It would be nice to one day go on a date with a girl (and, a date for real, at that-- I did promenade at prom time, Senior year, but beyond that... uh...) Maybe when my credits all transfer, and I go off to some shiny college elsewhere, and live in an apartment and everything, I'll be able to get practice(d), but for now...

   Hello, internet.