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.

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 clue! Dang 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.

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.

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.

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...)