Movies of the Year

@DanTweetsMovies's premiere event this afternoon, the I Am Not a Serial Killer screening tweet livestream, happening at the same time that Andrew and Heather were off at Moana anyway so that no SeaFall playing was interrupted, has got me thinking about awesome movies again. (I'm playing right now, blogging during lulls, and never mind Andrew just thrashed the everbugging motherlove out of us.) 2016 has somehow been memetically terrible?, but for a cinephile such as I it was a bit of a dream. There are still a small handful of movies that came out this year which I have yet to catch, but out of the movies I wanted to see, for the most part they have been seen by me. And I loved the crap out of even the objectively terrible ones.

Maybe that doesn't make me the greatest film critic... but holy crap, you guize, new consideration: maybe it does.

So, I don't know, I was kind of going to wait a couple of weeks until I've seen La La Land, Sing, Fences and Trolls at Paramount 5 (still in Fallon, and it looks like the Monday ride isn't panning out) but for now, I guess I know what the greatest movies of the year were?

Zootopia turned me into a cinephile on a higher level. My willingness to go see that multiple times is one of the reasons I went to go see so many of the other films I went to go see, in the first place. So, yeah. I guess I just wanted to bring that up again.

Adored the crap out of Storks. KFP3 blew my mind.

Spider-Man 2 remains one of the greatest, most well-crafted films of all time. I know it didn't come out this year, but man is it a good movie. And apparently co-written by Michael Chabon.

Letters from the Front Lines of a Seafall Binge (No Spoilers)

I'm still behind in Seafall campaign-wise, and Alex remains ahead, but it really is all evening out, the campaign rewards are meticulously balanced and the gaps between all players are diminishing more and more. I came this close to winning this afternoon's game, too, but Andrew beat me (Alex came in dead last this time.) I'm not sure if we're playing one more time tonight (we're 9 games through a game with a 15-game campaign average;) I'm pretty tired right now. but Seafall usually can keep me up in spite of that. We'll see?

It looks right now like Ryan and I will be headed back to college on Monday, which leaves us with 3 or 4 days left to get in 6ish more games. We've been aiming for a 2-game-a-day average anyway, and there was just the one today like I said, so maybe there will be another game in tonight; I suppose I could just ask. Thinking about playing again tonight is waking me up a bit. It's 11:15 at night, though, and the sleep schedule is taking its toll. Probably get in a few solid games tomorrow, maybe even three, but either way I guess there'll be time to sleep in the car on Monday?

Thinking back, besides a round of Richard Garfield's Treasure Hunters, Seafall is the only board game I've played all day. Mostly just watched some movies, and went to the dentist, and went out for some tennis. I haven't been playing as many games this break as much as some others in my family, but today is kind of a divot even for me. That's about as much as I have to say, or at least as much as I can say; not being able to talk about the spoilery stuff at the end drives me nuts sometimes. Not as much right now because I'm so worn out, but, like the close game with Ryan tying with me, that came about through some dang crazy circumstances, which thou shalt not get to know. Oh well.

A Couple Christmas Gifts in Action

Played Seafall till actually 1:00 a.m. last night- I did win, ish, kind of tied really but since I had the lowest ranking title it means that I came out on top above Ryan? But Ryan maybe had an extra bonus point he'd been failing to count, so maybe he should have won instead? That's all a maybe, so I took the winner's bonuses, anyway, and really last night's and the night's before that were the only two times I've won... I'm in dead last whole-campaign-wise but the timing of the wins is kind of misleading, how I could, blog about winning, the two times I blog about going through the Seafall campaign. And! We're going to bed earlier tonight; just thought I'd, say. Super tired right now! We're all getting up bright and early tomorrow for another day chock-full of more board gaming!

Still figure I should squeeze in some actual material here, so I thought I'd take 15 minutes out of my nightly insomnia to snap a few quick pictures of this small bust I made (out of Das air-hardening modeling material, which is pretty neat stuff) of everyone's favorite raccoon-with-the-phenotype-of-a-skunk,-or-however-you'd-describe-that, Pretzels! (whose glasses I made just today using half a toothpick and my Christmas 3Doodler 3D Printing Pen (I'm, still getting the hang of it; I'm much more used to traditional sculpting, but am intrigued by the possibilities of its potential for making armatures.)) (I'm not really an insomniac, but I thought that that'd be funny. Wasn't that funny?)...

Same lighting condition, same basic angle and focus and zoom and all, but the first using my super old beat-up Coolpix and the second with my new (refurbished) DSLR. Unretouched (though maybe I could have cropped them,) here they are:

 It probably would have been fairer to the point-and-shoot had I backed up a ways so that the focus could be better, but there's Seafall on that table behind, and major spoilers for later on in the campaign (seriously it is such a great game; no clue why people were so underwhelmed by it when it first came out- they're all crazy?) and anyway you can see clearly the difference in white balance and everything, at least. And this was a quick experiment... Gotta go to bed now... games to play and a dentist appointment to catch, in the morning...

Still Playing Seafall Till Midnight, and It Looks Like I Stand a Good Chance of Winning This Round, Too

When in the course of human events, it becomes self-evident that all men are created of the people, by the people, for the people, the Chinese character for crisis is composed of two characters: Ich bin ein not a crook, with that woman Monica Lewinsky. We go to the moon in this decade, and do the other thing, not because the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, but this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, that I have but one life to lose for my country. Ask not what your country can do for you, but that this date shall live in infamy, and either you're with us or with the terrorists. Read my lips: the hottest parts of hell are for those who maintained their neutrality in a time that tries men's souls. The springtime soldier and the summer patriot and the home of the brave, I have just been shot.

I Finished Seafall* 3 Minutes Before Midnight, So I'm Posting Up Some Random Old Observation

Iron Man 3 is basically Dark Knight and Batman Begins stuck together, as a sequel to Dark Knight Rises. A man with no powers of his own aside from training, an awesome suit, and loads of cash, saved an entire city from nuclear holocaust in the previous film. Still dealing with the consequences of that, he must face a brand new, chaotic and technologically savvy enemy..~ and then his villain actually turns out to be a face for the man behind the man, who's the /real/ (Mandarin/Ra's al-Ghul.) And his mansion exploded, don't forget  that.

*I won by the way.

Christmas Card '16

Christmas this year didn't offer many surprises, but it didn't pull many punches either, on the other (or would it be the same?) hand. Technology seems to be pretty much hating me right now, I mean like my laptop isn't booting up (it's still the fire by the way) and my new FitBit isn't reading my pulse (all it is is telling me the time... incorrectly) and even this Kindle isn't updating the apps it seems stuck updating. And I'm, apparently, no good at playing any of the board games we played today...

Got... gave... well you'll see both, won't you, if the laptop finally finishes being stupid. 5 seconds ago, as I write this, it stopped being the black screen of nothing and "upgraded" to the blue screen of death... I'm watching out out of the corner of my eye, it's booting, it's, alright it's at the start screen now, and more it's loaded the desktop... cool. I'll switch over to it.

Okay, so here I am at the laptop. Tge keyboard is still under black tarp, but it's a lot easier to type since I moved the fake logs from the fitreplace, zo rhat I could get this shot:

I guess this is my Cheristmas card for this year? Usually I draw them, or paint them, but that's just another way of saying that i "art" them, and definitely photography counts as art... My combined Christmas and Birthday gift this year was what I'd asked for, a new camera (if you've been paying attention to the photos I've been posting up, like there's weird smudges around the edges on the lens of my old camera, and it's impossible to remove, and the lens jams all the time and it's weird?) and I gave (my sibling to give to was Alex) a few DIY custom vinyl figures I made...? Maybe I'll tell you how I did them, tomorrow or sometime. I also gave The Boy and the Beast; Alex is a major anime fan but apparently he'd never heard of Mamoru Hosoda. So it's pretty neat I could introduce him to that.

Stockings 2000

I never can sleep on the night before Christmas... but I'm pretty tired right now, so it shouldn't be too terribly difficult this time. I've been tiredy a lot lately, might be part of it (could be diet? (I gained 25 pounds over the holidays so far, already. I'm not fat, I'm chibi,)) but what it probably is, mostly, too, is that I woke up at 3:30 this morning to put finishing touches on some giftwork Alex is getting from me.

You know what also helps, though, with being all tired and being gonna-go-to sleep-at-a-reasonable-time? Usually it's Santa that fills our stockings up with stuffers, but this time we're getting stuff(ings) for each other... It's always been a tradition in the fam that the stockings get taken down from the fireplace, when filled, and put at the feet of our beds, which has of course always kept me anxious and awake for the Kringly moment when that takes place and I get to see what all I got... but this time I guess it's not so suspenseful, and it looks like they're just going to hang there without moving...

There was one other year, at least, where the stocking normtine was broken from. Christmas Y2K. There's a VHS tape, labeled with a film title and G rating by the hand of a 10-year-old Andrew, Tis' the sesson to be jolly. Apparently, as Mom explains in the video, that year the stockings were out hanging under the lip of the kitchen island because, we'd always been confused in previous years, apparently, washing up rushing out to what was then the living room (before the expansion) completely skipping over our be-bed-footed stockings and always wondering where the heck they were... I guess we switched back again after that year...

Mom looks so much younger in these 16-year-old videos, it is true, but also so much more haggard. And, strangely familiar, as if I'm viewing, not a ghost but the opposite thereof: men want for their wives their own mothers, all the qualities they admire I mean of course, but in my case, (every/the)one I think might be The One, it's absolutely terrifying but that's exactly what Younger Mom looks like.

But, anyway. Christmastime. That's purty exciting. Enough to wear you out in time for a long winter's nap.

Annual Christmas card for you tomorrow.

Star Wars, Zootopia, and Other Teabags

Alright, so my Kindle was left in my bed but under some laundry- I found it getting into bed, a few minutes after finishing my post yesterday. I could've edited the post to tell you I found it, but I didn't!

 I mentioned watching Zootopia yesterday, but another film I also watched yesterday (that I didn't tell you about) was the original Star Wars movie. I've been thinking a lot lately about what makes a movie "good," "great" actually, and between all that thinking, and rewatching those two movies, I think I'm close to cracking it.

People want to watch movies that are strange and unfamiliar! Movies that challenge them, instead of keeping them comfortable. All the most popular films seem to point to this. The two movies that I rewatched yesterday, they're famed for pulling us into an entirely new, unfamiliar world, right?

The undying popularity of sequels, also, contrary to intuition, seems to point to this, that we crave strangeness over familiarity; loved and familiar characters act as guides, I think, flatteners of learning curves, maybe not audience surrogates as such but still people we love to spend time with too, to be sure. I'm not discounting the importance of a really good, awesome character, or group of characters who interact in an awesome way-- they make the movie worth *watching* again, but, it's the strangeness/immersiveness of the cinematic world that makes the movie worth *living in* again. (Sequels can service a tiny part of that, and so we go gaga over 'em.)

There's a lot more to it than that, of course, but I'll put it in a way that makes it seem self-evident, how the "flattest" films or works of art of any medium, the ones that seem cliche-or-whatever, are flat because they don't allow anything to exist by itself, beyond the frame of the canvas. It's, not just important but crucial. Even exceptionally well crafted filmmaking like Jack Reacher 2 (which is still a stinking awesome movie of course, I mean, it is Tom Cruise) doesn't really seem to build up its own world-or-anything, so at best it's going to get a bag full of mixed reviews.

It has to be a teabag. It has to be able to seep into you.

Fureplace Blues UUU: Ziitipia in Betfkux

alrightm, so it appears that I havr misplacrd my Kinhlr, and so I am bavk to typinh inyo yhr fitrplavce. I tiik yhe alarm off too, snd so it won'y evrn ring st 6#30 so that I van finf it when it rings in the morning. Hyum.\

Uts not so hard to type without looking really, but what really makes it difficult is tgu== fureokace si kuje U gave a kig on my gabdm abd if U tgibj tii gard about it apparebtly sonetunes U gie=t ut abd sinetgunes U dibt. the touchtyping is easy, but tge log abd tge plastuc iver ny gabd *habd (hand!) bajes ne ukkegubkr, Argh,..!

byt geym anbdrenw abd geatger arrivrf todayt, for Cgrustmastime@=!

U watchrf Ziitipia in Betfkux tidaym, yunr bynbrt 31. Stirjs us dych a great niuvem, movie I mean, whucg arruved ib DVD ib Tyesdat, U fadbb;t seeb Ziitioia un sych a kibf tunem =mmmmnnnnnnmmmmmm ,,, there we gies, tyere's the ellipses, sorry about the nnn,,,

Si ibe if Gebreu;d favorite songs *I mean gus very favirute akk tune song tgat us) us Try Evertgubg, U gavr;nt geard gin subf ut term byt U fot pretty close I gyessm byt g3 almost sang it I think, I think he started itm byt tgeb U accudebtally trupped gum, Iios!]

am,narrr

Thid id tifivulod.

Fireplace Blues II: I Aqwirch to Mt Kingle

QWERTYUIOP

k. sl kr aw\\

sl]

ca t fj d rbw bXKaxspace let, so I',m just leaving the mistakes in?

It seems to have switched back to qwerty from azerty (and the shift key i keep finding the cobtrol ket instead, si i mean look at this, swirchinf ro iralics when meaning to type capital I, okat rhere;s the shift key, but control plus i italixes.

heck rhis, um aqwirchinf to mt kingle.

Aleifht, so :/ I'm not really sure how much left there is to say. Should I talk about how my laptop became a fireplace in the first place, or should I just move on? Ryan and I, at the behest of Hannah, created new hangers for the stockings. And they just looked so good we figured that we might as well have a new fireplace I guess, t' hang them up at? Ryan painted the hangers; I designed the plaque.

The fireplace itself was me and Hannah. Old Amazon shipping boxes-- by old I mean, those gifts have already been wrapped, so we can do whatever with the cardboard boxes left over, take them together and wrap Dollar Tree black tablecloth around them; skin them, stretch out their hides and cure them in the sun, spray paint them black, pin them to the wall. I donated my laptop to the cause (my idea to do the real fake fire like that in the first place), and it got caged in there, and here we are.

I'm kind of tired right now, but I think this system's really working (and by "the system" I mean, typing this using the Kindle. I'm writing this from bed right now!)

lA[]kepTop it S A FIREPLACE WKA

|||my

j am tyoing th WAKY K GKCRF KY KY YNK ,is ibti yhe fireplace right now, I am glad that I learned tocuh typing a little. when I was in grade school and we were all learbing how to touch type I was so bad at it that I hot exempt from learnong how to do that, I mean they had these cardboard boxes *blue ones) that were sort of shells that were used to cover the keyvoaed wgeb yiy ttypwd so that you couldn'y see the keyboardm si you gad yo learn to use the home row and all thay. I have a ypenred *byurfs000 hubtid b=vyrid excyse me hybrid that;s tge one, byvtud method, that I yse, so I don'y rea;;y return to nome row or abytging, so typunf without looking at tge keyboard stil isb'y the greatest0 byt I can mostly manage.

I like I said I am typung this into the fireplace, *i mean seriously I type tge m key with my left gand half tge tune( becayse my laptop us I guess rgw durefkace fir tge rest if grustmas qwwestion mark 

x r   rcns k deRz zs  tk v d zsjc ddx δdear,Iseem to have  x|my keyboard xvdfghjkl,xcvbnm,杰杰杰 resyukg gti co,mf ondibyr ldnhtjse some obscure Input metoď. ASDF ldd am wrltIng this rght now vsing the  insert special characters fature. t|ďya |t,ďi be useful. B\

Thinking by the Seat of Your Pants

My last post on A Real Thing was written 6 months ago today, which is nuts; I'd been planning on at least getting one post in, in today, but once again I'm so tired I barely want to finish this post here. Maybe on the 3rd of next month, seeing as how I wrote on July 2 that I'd be posting a new A Real Thing post the next day but didn't get to that either, and so maybe I could do 6 months from that instead?

I don't know why I make it so hard for myself; I am most certainly though not a pantser, not that I haven't gotten interesting places from that...

This post itself is an interesting example of the writing process; I've been sitting here for the past few hours knowing the logical progression past the first paragraph, with only writing out that progression just now because I knew I had to probably have more than one paragraph, and I did have more to write... the one truly universal human experience is being annoyed at people trying to justify why they aren't getting around to write their book yet, so I tried to forbear, but there you go: "I am most certainly not a pantser."

I'm really not? Not with fiction (maybe I should try it out more often); but apparently paths present themselves and it's up to us (using the first-person inclusive plural, and though I'm far from suggesting that all creativity process structures are the same, this seems universal enough) to follow them, along their natural progression, as far along as they go (and I'm also not suggesting that we should go for the obvious solution, just the natural one; reaching for some fruit that hangs higher than the lowest ones are also part of the natural progression, but we need to be just as brave in reaching for it as we were continuing down the path that we set out on in the first place... I could have settled at one paragraph here, forborn the conflict against the "universal human experience," and that would have been fine...)

Like Vulnerability, the post of exactly two weeks ago, where I could have just let it sit a jumbled whatever, before staying up hours past midnight to forge the thoughts together into a cohesive soulbaring. I feel myself winding down; I don't think I'll need to backdate this post to be posted while it's still today, but that winding-down feeling itself seems to suggest that there is a natural path to an observation, the natural capture, into a linear chain of thought, of an initial stroke of insight.

It's an old improv trick- step up and say "here's what I think," if your well is dry, and there'll be something there for you to latch onto. You just can't filter yourself, otherwise you'll still be stuck.

Christmas Code ~ written by Alex

Eric was tired and wanted to go to bed, so he did. He asked me to write even though I'm the one with school tomorrow. It's cool though. Always wanted to write a post for this blog. Guess you could consider it an honor?
He gave me a topic but didn't tell me how long it should be, so I'm just writing until I stop, I guess.
Also, no real edits since I have to go to bed. Just writing it and then posting it.
Anyways, each year we have a different code to crack about who has which presents. Last year, for example, each different wrapping paper was a different person. Ex. Ryan would have the Santa wrapping paper, that means all the gifts with that wrapping paper is his present.
Another year that I've been told about (I don't remember it happening (guess I was too young)) was when they put different numbers on each present. All the kids tried to figure out what each number meant. Are Hannah's the ones divisible by 3? Are Andrew's even? etc. But in the end it happened to be based on the wrapping, like the time I mentioned above. The numbers were just a Red Herring.
This year is a similar system it seems. There are different numbers on each of the boxes with us looking at each one trying to figure it all out. We (Ryan, Eric and I) got it figured out, but we won't reveal it's secrets since Andrew may be reading. He'll have to figure it out himself.
Oh, and Eric mentioned how I should mention that one scene (well, I don't think it's really a scene, but more like an event that happened) in A Christmas Story. I haven't watched it recently, so I'm basing it off what Eric said. Basically on Christmas Eve there were no presents under the tree and suddenly on Christmas day they all appeared (allegedly because Santa brought them). Eric and I agree that the system we do is far superior. It gets you thinking, it gets you pumped, it cures your boredom etc.
Yep, I think that's basically everything.
Time to go to bed.
Euge! Sum pulcherrimus! ~ Ryan

Home for Christmas (This Blog Post is Not About Games)

Maybe I've been thinking about space a lot lately. Like how the earth would be way too wobbly, without the moon there to stabilize it. Like how the dark side of the moon isn't really dark, and when it's a full moon on earth it's a new moon on the far side, and vice versa, and vice versa. Like how the sun is a star, just floating up there like it's no big deal. Like how most of everything is a vacuum, but we need oxygen to burn. In short, space is terrifying. If we were tidally locked, would the world's mythologies be replete with heroes who voyaged to the edge of the land where the light shines, and discover stars, and come back struggling to describe what they saw in the dark skies beyond the edge?

Maybe I've been in a car all day, or maybe it's not all day because the ride started later than we expected because the cold froze the engine, so I had time to go around getting stuff done at the last minute, or maybe I got nothing done in that time that I couldn't have done earlier or anything I did do at all (and by that I mean, maybe there was that which was lost which is still not found, but at least we learned where it's not, so I guess it wasn't totally pointless.) Maybe I napped a lot in the car. Maybe all those car naps wore me out? But I'm pretty tired right now either way. It's an hour earlier than it would be, here, which means that I'm an hour later than the current time zone, body-clock-wise.

So maybe I have something to point out, while I still have you.

It was a week ago today that the Killers released their new album, a compilation of every Christmas song they've done so far. Every year, the Killers come out with a new Christmas song as a single, and all proceeds from sales of that go to charity. It's so rad, and it's one of the reasons that I was too busy looking forward to December back in November that I forgot my own birthday.)

This year, anyway, the song that debuted on their new album- I'll Be Home for Christmas.

Woo.

Okay, Seriously, Last Day of School, for Real This Time, I Promise

To reward you for being such a good boy, I'm writing this post in Verdana. Left justified Verdana.

I saw a self-published book today set in a left-aligned sans-serif and it was weird. 

Do self-publishers even care about at least appearing professional? Not that I'm in any position to throw stones, or, shade (wait am I the glass house itself or am I the one living in it?) but seriously the next time you pick up a self-published book, notice how weird the paper is. Too heavyweight. Too bright. The paper on the cover, too, usually. Way too thick. And sometimes it's textured funny, like, way too matte or whatever? Not to mention the fact that 9 times out of 10, the cover design itself is an assault on decency.

All of this communicates before you even start reading. 

Everything communicates.

I really don't want to have to write anything right now. Did enough of that getting my religion homework, and all the extra credit that was also due, in on time. A lot of extra credit. Hopefully it'll affect my grade. Bump me up a bunch. Maybe I'll even get a B. 

Really though I have no idea what my grades'll be like this semester. Wasn't my best, I know that much.

With that last bit of stuff turned in (and it wasn't as close a call as with my graphic design final but it was far more pulse-pounding,) now I'm done for the semester. And, hopefully, forever? 'Cause, you know, maybe none of my classes from here on out will have homework...

BLT Eggy A: We Are All On Drugs

Went shopping for lit threads today. Grandma and Grandpa supplied money, like they do every year, so that we can get ourselves our own clothes instead of being gifted them all boring-like Christmas morn day-of. The Thursday Clothing Outlet, where I got the flyest of the duds last time I went clothing shopping, disappointed this time, but the D.I. didn't. Alright, it was kind of disappointing that not every shirt that looked good, looked good on me (mediums tend to be too big and smalls tend to be too little, what can I say...) but as for finding, like, anything that looked good and fit well and was reasonably priced, or anything, it did not do the disappointment.

Really though the reason I'm mentioning this, is because there was a second-hand DVD of Baby Looney Tunes' Egg-straordinary Adventure, one of the very films whose packaging I reviewed in Gallos Humor, and I knew I just had to get it, and watch it, an Easter movie at Christmastime. So that is what I did.

I know what it's like to be stoned now.

It wasn't terrible or anything, but it was Baby Looney Tunes' Egg-straordinary Adventure. So basically exactly the quality you'd expect (and I just now realized typing this that there's a difference between Baby Looney Tunes and the Muppet Babies) but even trippier. (Do the Muppet Babies wear diapers? Because the baby Looney Tunes go around nekkers, which was really "concerning" in the case of Lola "Invented-for-Space-Jam-Just-to-Sex-Things-Up" Bunny. Who is apparently a canonical Muppet Baby, I mean, Baby Looney Tune.)

I have, no hyperbole, zero clue what is or is not appropriate for children. Well, I mean, I do have clue, but, only that. Which is pretty fun; watching children's programming, figuring that nothing is kosher for kids to see, everything seems subversive. Everything. I'm really too tired to go into specifics, on, what was so trippy or what was so subversive-seeming, so I'll just say, everything.

So, fun fact! Rob Paulsen (yes! that Rob Paulsen!) was apparently one of the performers, on the three original songs that are in the movie? so that's pretty great, but I recognized none of the other attached names in the credits; they could be Looney Tunes regulars, I don't know.

Out of the more-than-one things I've got to complete by 10:00 tomorrow for religion class, anyway, I've completed already, a thing. Yay. There's white-glove clean checks tomorrow, so I'll also need to do that, but tomorrow is no longer the day we'll be heading home, apparently, so. I don't have to worry about doing the rest of my assignments in the car and hoping we'll make it home in time for wi-fi to be able to send it off. (Did the math though- 8 hour 40-something minute drive, round that up to 9 hours, add an extra hour for pit stops and everything, to be on the safe side; were we to leave tomorrow like the plan had been, we'd need to leave by noon, or else book it, in order to arrive by 9:00-pacific-time, 10:00 mountain-daylight and thus submit my files on time.)

Guess I'm Pretty Much Done

So once I finish off my religion class stuff I'll be done with the semester? Finishing off the Outlet reflection module was kind of insane; I turned in the file on time apparently, 2:00 due time (which usually means it ends at 2:00 so have it in by then) and 1:59 is the time it reported I sent in the file, but... this file was, 123 pages I think, it took a looong time to export the InDesign document to a PDF, and a good little bit of time there to upload the PDF... the file was still compiling, by the timepiece I had, when 2:00 came and went, but I don't know, I guess it must be fast, or the internet clock slow, or a combination of both? So it was a knuckle-biter there, but, I did get it submitted on time! Somehow...

I don't think I've officially lost my cool since Thanksgiving of three years ago, now, but big files taking a while to compile, when I'm under last-minute deadline, that's kind of... exciting. Emotionally. I noticed this, that I was getting frustrated, the last time I tried to upload a huge file last-minute (which would be, the Graphic Design project before this, the PSA poster one) and so now I'm much chiller at these last-moment compile-and-uploads (I did not, in fact, submit the PSA poster project "on time,") because really freaking out helps nothing at all, and impresses nobody, while keeping a cool head in the face of an eleventh-hour deadline scrabble impresses pants right off of legs.

How the heck has David Yates directed two things this year? Fantastic Beasts and Legend of Tarzan, both. I'm not really interested in the former, or the new Star Wars thing or anything (these are inevitable to be seen anyway, so why rush?) (the remaining films this year that I want to see are: Fences, Sing, La La Land, and that's it.) But Legend of Tarzan! Saw that today. It takes place in 1889, I think, but in the books that's the year Tarzan was born? Weird.

Last Day of Classes, Outlet Award Ceremony

2:00 tomorrow and the processbook is due; 10:00 Friday and the panoply of religion class stuff (ranging from finals to extra credit) is all due.

Outlet award ceremony today! It was pretty chill; there were a lot of extra Outlets ordered (they're for free, since they'd be too expensive if they were to be sold (logical!)) so afterward I helped bring down one of the extra boxes, down to the English department. There were also extra refreshments, but instead of taking them for myself when I took them, I took them down to the students forming a new-release-of-the-latest-iPhone line outside of the testing center, handing out cookies to whichever testing students waiting wanted them. And apparently I wasn't the only one with the idea, because there was a familiar face (nobody you'd know though) coming through handing cookies to the queued students coming the other way, Chips Ahoy these ones.

I don't have any finals in the testing center of course. My finals could barely be described as that, as they are; just, regular assignments, that happen to come last, kind of deal.

So I'm done with classes now. Still need to turn stuff in, but yeah.

The Last Few Assignments and Pell Grant Stuff

Finished with printmaking class. There were 5 final prints due, and I managed to crank out 3 of them before running out of paper?

Final grade there looks to be a, I don't know, B-minus-ish. C+ is my current religion class grade, hence the extra credit I'm fixing to do. I don't know what my graphic design grade is, but I'm pretty sure it's also around B-.

C average (3.0 GPA) is needed for a Pell grant, I'm pretty sure, but it looks like from school to school there are sometimes more stringent requirements. I saw the specific BYU-I requirements somewhere once, but couldn't find them looking for them today, or just now for that matter. But that sounds about right. (C- or better is the requirement for classes as prerequisite for other classes.) I read somewhere as well, I think the same .edu where I read the grade requirements, that even if your grade does slip below that there's some kind of grace period warning semester where they still pay you but you better get your act together quick? I'm certainly not going to need one of those, though this semester has apparently been far from straight A's (my grades this semester are news to me; I haven't been checking really, all right?) but I'm still kind of concerned about when the heck my grant money's gonna come in, because tuition for next semester is due the end of this month, and it hasn't come in yet...

Tomorrow is a two-page paper due for Art Readings class, but the class itself is just going to be a party (not even in the normal room, because that's just a big lecture hall where you're not really allowed to eat- it's going to be in the ceramics studio, because Brother Keller also teaches that (he also was the speaker for the final art seminar last Thursday, I neglected to mention.)) So I just need to finish writing that paper, then I'm done there.

The Outlet project processbook, turns out really is due on Wednesday instead of having been due today. There was a mistake in ILearn, which was fixed in time. I didn't get much of a chance to work on the module before the ersatz due period, this morning, because I was so busy printing stuff; I did work on it for hours this afternoon. And there will be time on Wednesday as well, (not to mention tomorrow, but there's other stuff tomorrow too,) because like I said we're done with print class.

Finals Week Overview, Fall '16 Edition

Should be getting to bed, planning on waking up early. Tomorrow things due: all the prints, and the process book for the Outlet apparently, or at least that's what it says on iLearn though I thought that it was supposed to be due on Wednesday...? That's probz a mistake then. (Meant to type "probably," but hit the z and space accidentally and the spell check's accepting it; how embarrassing...)

There's a two-page paper due on Tuesday for readings. Tuesday also features the Outlet awards ceremony for those who helped create it and everyone who got their work featured. And one final religion class.

Art/chem has already been covered, and there's no final for the seminar class, which means that after the last religion class right after the Outlet awards ceremony on Tuesday, and maybe the Outlet process book's due date being moved to Wednesday, I'm done with the semester. Which of course hardly seems believable. Snuck up on me like Christmas seems to do every year... and, oh, yeah, Christmas is two weeks from now, almost forgot...

Religion class is the only class I really have "finals" in. They're due on Friday, and I'm taking all the extra credit assignments I can take in that class. They're just online things, so the last thing that I really need to be on-campus for is that last class there, for that, the one after the Outlet thing. Which I'm pretty sure is going to be a real class, unlike any of my others, which are just, show up, turn in some stuff, clean up and/or party. The graphic design computer lab classroom is supposed to be open though Bro Dorman won't be there, which lends credence to my idea that the Tuesday due date for the Outlet thing is wrong.

So all told, um yeah.

Definitely Defined

What do I love? I asked out loud. So one of my fellow printing students lists off things apparently she knows I love- donuts, filmmaking, wearing awesome clothes of some description, I think was in there... yeah, that was it, wearing the glasses with the pencil arm. But, no- Castles of Burgundy, that was the name. That's what I love. Still... It's fascinating seeing what others think of you- not just think "of" you, but think what you think of yourself, or however "what do I love" is defined.

Why is there so much about myself that I'm still discovering? I guess that's a good thing, under certain facets of my own ideas regarding personality v. human free will, showing that there's a lot of me undiscovered or unexplored or entirely mutable- but by the same token seems to be predicated on the idea that personality is something existent and finite and defining of who you are. Which of course it does... but I'm more comfortable with the notion of predilection instead of "personality."

When I was a kid I rejected the idea of defining myself- but only recently have come to realize that that wasn't without motive rooted in defining myself. I didn't want to limit myself because I valued freedom to learn and be creative and everything- so clearly I did define myself that way.

I need to realize that maybe I'm wrong. That maybe other people's experiences differ from my own- not in a theory of mind sense, but the general notion that, just because I don't identify as an introvert or an extrovert, that those binary notions are foreign to me, doesn't mean that they don't exist; that maybe there really are different learning modes, maybe some people are auditory learners or kinesthetic learners or whatever instead of, learning just being learning.

Early Christmas Gifts

We've had a few early Christmas giftgivings, apparently, over at the next apartment complex over. 

I'm about to head off to see Magnificent Seven finally, so I'm just posting something pretty quickly on this now. The gifts, anyway. Got this awesome t-shirt today, and the Twilight Sparkle bronybank; the pickle is from yesterday. And the hat I just have on in this photo; seriously it was so hot (put my t-shirt on immediately when I got it, which meant it went straight on over my coat and my jacket.) I've been buying random animal hats all year; not counting my three Zootopia ones I've got... this husky, the cow, the raccoon, the white tiger... four I think? Might be missing one or two, but I think that's right...

THE ASPERGER'S HAS TRIPLED.
Also, apparently when I make this face I can see souls through computer monitors?
I shall be making this face in all my photos from now on... sleep well tonight.

I'm going to be spending tomorrow printmaking a bunch- the last class of that is on Monday, and I need to get my finals in. But today was the last class of art/chemistry, not even a lab this time but just showing up to fill out a survey of how it went (it was the first time this class has been held, of course, so we were something of Guinea pigs,) so definitely the semester's coming to an end. Still have, a few things due.

The Sock Puppet Affair, Edward Scissorhands, and the Raiding Party

Okay! So it's been exactly one month since election Tuesday. That's pretty weird. Feels... longer? Shorter? I've got, feelings on this, but...

I've kind of been calling the sock puppet, the sock puppet, sort of as this political thing; never wanted to use his name really because there was this thing and we just kept feeding it. Every time he fell off the radar, he said something outrageous and put the spotlight back on him*, and, he's a sock puppet, I don't know. Just a sock puppet. Deserved to be in the spotlight as much as anything else, I guess, but the exclusivity was kind of strange.

If I ever have a political talk radio show, it'd be kind of satirical I guess, as it wouldn't reflect real-world politics at all. But we'd treat it completely seriously, as if there really were racial tensions between the robots and the waffle people, or that the Sturgeon Generally (a very high and important position obviously, I mean the name of it's the Sturgeon Generally) really is two elfs in a trenchcoat, and what a massive political scandal that would turn out to be (especially seeing as how we're at war with the elfs, like what the heck); in our real-time coverage of foreign affairs, we'd jump ahead decades or even thousands of years, in real time; we'd keep on using the word "entreaty" in more and more elaborately incorrect ways, but be totally wide-eyed about it. Have no basis in reality or anything, just be absolutely bizarre but straight-faced, and if anybody scans through the radio and comes across our program, they'd be probably hopefully very confused by what the heck is apparently going on in the world, and maybe even have to pull over to the side of the road or something.**

And that's how I feel talking about this stuff, right now, this whole sock puppet affair, but this actually really is real politics, whatever that even means.

I felt that the whole Slumber party and everything they did was in reaction to the sock puppet, and then the m&ms*** kept reporting on him and reporting on him, every twitch he made, and even if it was all to belittle him or whatever the heck their reasoning was, it only enabled him, it only succeeded in doing the opposite of the m&m's apparent goal, by giving him legitimacy. And if I refused to name anyone's name while talking about them, maybe I could avoid that, contributions to the trending-ness of any given campaign in that admittedly brilliant strategy for always staying in the public consciousness.

But now that the sock puppet has been elected, I'm really not sure if I should keep calling him that...

So. The new trailer(s?) for Spider-Man: Homecoming are out! I've mentioned this several times already, but I'm trying to avoid any foreknowledge of anything that goes on in that movie because I'm definitely going to go see it anyway and thus don't need it advertised at me- but the new trailer(s?) mean(s?) that I officially have to be more careful screening stuff from now on. Posters might be coming out! Posters with, plot details, on! So far: I've seen two screenshots from the film by now (that's why I'm not sure if they're two different trailers or not,) and, turns out Spider-Man's gonna be in it? I... I guess that's not a spoiler...

Silent Night

The power went out, apparently all over Idaho somewhat south of the panhandle. Though I have no inkling in the slightest, how you could know that. Cell phones probably? That's a way to find that out.  The power went out sometime around, 9:45ish MST? No wifi, no blogging, so I just went to bed. I woke up right before midnight Pacific time, and if the power had come on then I'd have been able to fire off a quick blogpost, but that hadn't happened. I'm backlogging this post, obviously.

December 7th. 4 years ago to the day, from the first day on my mission. Which means two years from two years. Is it weird to have been back now for longer than I'd been gone? I'm not sure. Maybe. I delivered contact cards to everyone, as is mission tradition, contact cards to all the remaining young elders there, as I left. And this generation of elders, this month marks the last group that would have those from me. The FCHHM is composed all of strangers now; I'd say that's the weird thing.

Moana. Saw that on Tuesday. The first WDAS film since Zootopia; seems they and Illumination (with both SLoP and Sing) and Dreamworks (with both Kung Fu Panda 3 and Trolls) all came out with two films each this year (Dreamworks is still Fox instead of Universal so I guess I'm okay with that?)

Moana doesn't really take off until Moana meets Maui, and then it gets cooking. But what's the deal with the stuff before that, showing her island life as a Disney not-Princess and all that? You could cut that all from the film and almost nothing would be lost. As assiduously as I've been avoiding spoilers, I've got no idea what's up with that, whether there was some tumultuous production and a lot of rewrites, or what, but looking just at the final product: okay, so her dad's afraid of the open ocean beyond the reef because that's how his best friend died, and it's nice to learn a lesson about someone's mysterious past, and it's nice to learn a lesson about not judging others, but, Chief Tui, he's such a minor character that it doesn't seem to matter. Not that it isn't great that there's finally a Disney Princess with an intact nuclear family, or anything...

“–” (Weird Robot Emoticon)

I’m on a Mac right now, and I know how to achieve apostrophes instead of foot marks here. Option-[ (left bracket) for an “open up the quote” mark; option-shift-left bracket for a “close the quote” mark. Do the same things with the right bracket to get apostrophes/single quotes. There’s supposed to be a similar way on Windows, with the alt button (which is all that the option button really is, basically,) but I tried that yesterday writing out yesterday’s post but couldn’t find it. Having to go to the option and the shift and very carefully the right bracket button instead of the left one, to do apostrophes, instead of just having my finger fly to the “ ' ” button without even thinking, does take a fair bigger bit of work, but I’m getting-ish used to it. It’s kind of weird and tricky though how both double-quotations are the left side and both single-quotations are the right side, instead of just having the left for open-quotes and the right for close-quotes, the shift for doubling and sans-shift for singling, but, like I said, I’m getting-ish used to it.

And it’s so easy to get em dashes here, it’s just option-shift-hyphen button. Check it out—it works like this—isn’t that so easy? And option-hyphen button without the shift can produce dashes as long as you want; it just strings them together ––––––––– wheeeeeee as long as you want them to go, all technically separate glyphs just jutting up together, compare this — with this –– by highlighting them.

Word processors tend just to automatically fix that for you, auto double-en-dash into an em-dash, auto inch marks into quotation marks. But Blogger doesn’t do that. I also know my way around in Wordpress but now that I think of it I’m actually not that familiar with their word processing, and I can’t think off the top of my head if they do that either...

It’s weird, though. I’m command-f’ing the “ ' ” character and the “ " ” character, in the body of this post, and it’s showing up results for both “ " ” and “ “ ” or “ ” ,” for both “ ' ” and “ ’ ” or “ ‘ .” (And if you think that was confusing to read, it was nothing compared with how confusing that was to type.) I have this post open as a preview in another tab, and that tab’s name is “Disney Villain Death: Preview "“–” (Weird Robot Emoticon)".” With the “"”s instead of the quotation marks. With the “"”s instead of the quotation marks. AS IF NOBODY WOULD NOTICE.

Being a designer will ruin your life, man.

And now I just ruined your life a bit, too. You're welcome (hehehe.)

Vulnerability

Going through a lot of the old posts here again, and I notice I few things:

1. Man am I the greatest or what? I'm so good at writing, in turns witty and profound. Really have a control on my ideas, taking them into interesting places, and articulating them wonderfully well. People should just like give me money or whatever. Or at least give my old posts more hits, because, there are some gems.
2. I allow myself to get super vulnerable, on here, sometimes.

My mom laughs from the other room, at the computer, reading my latest blog post, last Christmastime. This post, where I talk about the awesome new My Little Pony Friendship is Magic Collectible Card Game cards I got.

Just now, I hear roommate Jonathan talking from his bedroom (probably to someone over VOIP, but he argues politics with himself in the bathroom all the time, so...?) I transcribe everything he says word-for-word, which means that I miss half of what he says because keyboarding makes a noise, and so I'm really hoist by my own petard here. "I think the fact that weeaboos and bronies, as well as furries, are [illegible] alt-right (?) is [illegible.] [Illegible.] It's not terrible. No wait it is terrible."

My mom laughs from the other room, anyway, again, a year ago, as I'm, probably on the floor, in the master bedroom. It's over the caption to the photo where I'm posing excitedly with my Scootaloo card. ("Epiphany of the day," the caption reads. "I am a full grown man.") "Why is that your epiphany of the day?" she asks through the wall. And I feel so accepted. Here I am, a 24-at-the-time year old, getting excited over a cartoon filly pony pegasus, and my mother doesn't find anything un-full-grown-manly about it.

And may I just take a moment as a graphic designer to say that right now I am being driven bonkers by these inch and foot marks, instead of quotation marks. They're, all, straight. No curves or angling to them- they're not real apostrophes! They have no business here marking out my quotes possessives and contractions! Hold on, one of the old posts I went through was the one where I experiment with Verdana. Let me see if it's--argghm, it sure "the heck" still looks like just inch and foot marks to me. And the em dashes just refuse to form either way, and no matter how many double-en-dashes I try it just won't be the same.

Oh well. Anyway.

So I let myself be vulnerable. (The random tangent there wasn't an attempt to avoid a potentially awkward subject, it's, argh, it is, just something that I've, um I have, noticed, and which we talked about in graphic design class today in dealing with last-minute pre-publication adjustments to the Outlet before it hits the presses (which it did, this afternoon!) and now cannot forgive as easily as I used to.) I do, let myself be vulnerable, discuss vulnerable things. But it's just... I'm just... accepted. I had no trouble making friends in Kindergarten, first grade, any grade, anywhere, even up till the present. Because maybe I didn't know I was supposed to be bad at making friends? Because I was never afraid of being myself? Because even now I don't know how it's possible not to be true to yourself, but it's something that people say is not only possible but freakishly common, so I have no choice but to take their word for it? Autistic Mormon Hipster Furry Brony Manchild, blah blah blah, whatever... is, all just, whatever...! Maybe it's because of letting myself be vulnerable like that. 

Holy bleepamole, that's probably it. Maybe it's because of letting myself be vulnerable like that. People refuse to let themselves be vulnerable, and thus refuse to truly be "themselves." Someone genuine comes along, and no matter how true or false you yourself are, you can't help but like them.

...This isn't the direction I'd expected this post to take, honestly. Originally it was going to be, more vulnerable admissions on top of the vulnerabilities of previous posts, like, I can't stand lesbians because seriously who the heck isn't attracted to dudes even just a little bit?, that kind of thing. (Because seriously have you seen Colin Farrell man, that dude's got the most pouty lips and you just want to boop him right on them...) Though I suppose I could still swing it back that way into intimate-detail-subject-matter territory, and still cover all the bases I'd meant to, while still making everything I've said so far make sense... I do see an option for that. But it involves vulnerabilities that I wasn't counting on sharing. The path is there if I do choose to take it... And I'm taking it.

There are still other vulnerabilities I could share, like this: sometimes my guard slips, sometimes temptation overpowers me, and I look at porn. I'm not sure why I'm using the present-tense there, since it's been a while, but I don't think anybody can speak for their future actions. I hope I'm done with it; I've got prayer, to guard against temptation, of course, but really...

Put a rat in a cage alone, and then give him the option to take drugs (or engage in any sort of addictive behavior,) and he'll do that. This has been tested and proven. But they repeat the experiment when the rats have social company, and the rats don't need the drugs or want them. It's the exact same neurochemical path in the brain, drugs and society. Both just, endorphins, in the opioid system. Society isn't a drug; drugs replace society. That's why junkies withdraw, because they don't need human interaction as long as they've got drugs. A rat who has its friends doesn't need the endorphins from the druggy water, and so drinks from the normal tap almost without fail.

I'd forgotten about Mom laughing at the blogpost till I was going back through the archives and reread that post; I'd forgotten about the effects that that had until just now writing about the importance of having genuine loving interaction with others. But, Mom reading that post, laughing at it and wondering why it'd be such an epiphany like there's nothing unmanly about liking the littler of the little ponies, that called me back from a dark place. I was watching porn like crazy, last Christmas, but after Mom just accepted me as a person, over there from the next room over, I no longer felt the desire to engage in any kind of addictive behavior like that, anymore. Wasn't even tempted to.

And so another thing, some deep dark whatever like the lesbian thing above, which no longer seems so deep and dark when compared with what I've just admitted. Sometimes I feel guilty about being a furry. Not from any whatever-the-heck people view it as, any kind of deviancy or anything, sexual or otherwise, but because it's just such a major thing. A major thing. 6-2-1 rule and all that, it's so easy to let that become a preoccupation, that I sometimes feel like I'm worshipping that over God, though I try not to. That's another vulnerability that I had been going to admit.

But as long as we're down this road--and it's 11:58 right now Pacific time, whatever just let this post go on past midnight and backdate the timestamp; I'm on a roll-- maybe I could bring up the other things, the how-people-view-that things. The sexy things. The kneejerk "when I think the word 'furries'" stereotypy.

Whatever the heck Jonathan was probably talking about an hour ago; what Izaak et al down in the computer lab were talking about last Saturday when discussing the weird crap on Second Life. Heck, June 26th, Zootopia viewing #26 (DVD viewing #3) where one of the women I'm watching with has to clarify "not that kind of furry" when she's talking during the movie about furry friends of hers and gets an "eew," over just this husband-and-wife team who like to go fursuiting in the park and brightening up kids' days (it is unclear whether she herself was a furry; at least for sure she rivaled me in number of claimed Zootopia viewings and ability to quote the movie backwards and forwards.)

I realized in the bath yesterday, well, the day before yesterday, now, that it's a lot like the political crap that went on earlier this year, was it, with the Confederate flag? Ryan served a mission in Louisiana, and he knows what it means. And it's not what it seems from the outside. Racism, the Civil War, slavery, that may be a part of it, but if anything that's just a facet. Home. Community. Pride. It's not just rhetoric (maybe, to be sure, it is rhetoric, but it's not just rhetoric,) that the American Civil War was the War of Northern Aggression, that the Civil War was fought over "states' rights" instead of slavery. Because all those things are pretty darn accurate. In the South they don't see the Confederate Flag as standing for racism or whatever; it stands for the South. And maybe racism is part of that. Maybe of course racism is part of that. So maybe of course sex is part of the furry fandom. But it's not as big as it seems by half, from the inside. It's not what it's, "about."

Though maybe it can be about that to some people. And maybe it can deal with that, to me. Because, you know, the reasons above, acceptance leading to mental physical emotional independence, away from slavery bondage addiction. Even when I'm feeling accepted, I can get, physically tempted, sexually. So I disappear into furries, deeper and deeper, and look around the real world, and people still accept me, and so I don't feel the need to act on temptation or engage or indulge in addiction.

I said I feel guilty sometimes about my own furriness? That's what I fasted about yesterday, now the day before yesterday, Fast Sunday. Some people, most people, would probably fast over finals approaching or whatever, but I don't really have those, in basically any of my classes. So I fasted instead over, well the issue's been pressing again anyway, whether it's okay to do this or be this or whatever, however I'm going to choose to define or not define my very self, when it's so easy to let the whole thing become a preoccupation. I'd say "get addicted to" it, use that over "let it become a preoccupation," but it's the thing I use instead of addiction, like I said; but hey, sublimation of impulses is still a use of those impulses, and it still feels good, so, heck maybe it is just "porn" even when and even though it isn't (I mean seriously, it IS all about their bodies....) It's an interesting conundrum. So that's my fast and prayer, whether that's "okay," whether it's "okay" to be a "furry."

The Church happens to have a website, https://mormonandgay.lds.org/, dealing with same-sex attraction issues geared toward members, how they can/should live with this, what the standards should be. Hey, you figure, that's close enough; not too distant actually, and plus, I mean like I said with the "can't stand lesbians" thing, I do like dudes a bit (seriously! Josh Holloway without a shirt on!) so it is somewhat à propos already generally.

Or, well, maybe. I read through the "Understanding" pages during opportune moments during Sunday School. There's just, a bunch of stuff about moral transgressions, jeopardizing eternal happiness through disobedient acts. It's no sin to be tempted... Christ himself was, that... committing adultery already in your heart pertains to, you know, actually committing adultery already in your heart. (It's nice having the gospel, an eternal perspective on stuff. Sometimes I just want to convert people, just to show them, "see THIS is why, see, SEE," instead of just coming across as anti-LGBT bigoted jerks; I think the Supreme Court thing last year was actually a good thing, because up until then whenever anyone expressed their support of same-sex marriage it just felt personal, like "ooh, right in the Prop 8...," whereas now they're just good citizens upholding the law...)

Oh wait, well there was something, in the last section there. "Sexuality is an important part of being human and is also a source of passions that need to be bridled. Despite these intense feelings, there are Latter-day Saints who faithfully adhere to the Lord’s moral law over many years. These individuals have made a determined commitment to live a chaste life and avoid anything that will reduce inhibitions." Well, what's this? Inhibitions reduced, can be a bad thing? "Passions that need to be bridled," as in "bridle all your passions, that ye may be filled with love" from Alma 38:12, gee thanks I never would have thought of that (heh, "bridle" and "gee,") but there's a start at least. It's like any other passion. Bridle, just like, all of them.

I mentioned the 6-2-1 rule above; that's something they always remind you of at cons. At least 6 hours of sleep, at least 2 meals a day, at least 1 bath/shower. Having so much fun CAN be a preoccupation, not an addiction. Passions unbridled, you just, forget to do basic functions; it's not, I can quit whenever I want, it's, shoot yeah there is such a thing as quitting isn't there, I should probably grab a bite to eat. Preoccupation. Like gremlins-- it's said that if they have to choose between eating and/or sleeping, and mischief, they'll choose mischief every time, and so there's a pretty high burnout/mortality rate. It's not that they're addicted to it; there's just not always mischief to be done, and they're fine with that when that's the case. But when there is mischief to be done... there ain't no gremlin 6-2-1.

Bridle your gnats. Great. We've answered the very question I already had an answer to. It's a passion alright. Could've guessed that one for myself. But it doesn't answer the deeper questions.

My particular mechanism that it (the furry urge) sometimes comes about because of, mentioned above... engaging in harmless but socially misunderstood-thus-frowned-upon behavior, being accepted in spite of it, and getting a social endorphin "fix" because of said acceptance (regardless of societal views on behavior, but feeling like I can be myself)... well, that may be just a particular keen understanding of neurochemistry and psychology, some kind of thing that most others would engage in without really knowing why. Like how people act on impulse then justify their actions later putting them into their alleged system of morality (and everyone does that,) only mine partially comes about because I'm so aware and self-aware of the very process.

I'm not quite Temple Grandin level, being able to track every level of my conscious thought patterns, but I can at least track most of them, and fathom out the deeper levels; that ability apparently takes me to some interesting places behaviorally. (Why am I vivisecting myself so thoroughly? Is it to gain pity? To reveal my secrets masochistically before, not just the world but more painfully my family and friends, and thus "punish" myself for every perceived wrong? Or is it to have all these bare, but still be accepted for who I am whoever or whatever that is, and get a rush to my opioid system pull-the-lever get-the-fish-biscuit I-am-my-own-Skinner-box?)

I don't know. It takes a lot of guts to spill a lot of guts... I had that phrased better in my head... It's 3:17 in the morning, Mountain Daylight Time (2:17 Pacific) and Ryan's awake. I should- 3:18 now- I should wrap up. Sheesh, I think that's everything I meant to get to. Lesbians, guilt complex, deep psychosocial issues underlying that- 3:19- yeah, I think that about covers it. 3:20. It's a good thing I got all the readings done for class this morning already, because I don't think I'll be doing any of that when I wake up in 3 hours 10- make that 3 hours 9, now- minutes...

Or, following the 6-2-1 thing, 6 hours. Yeah, I like the sound of that a lot better...

The Origin of the Rigatoni Sandwich, and Other Adventures in Space

I write down every name that comes to me in my dreams, and notate, if I can, the story of the person so attached. Some names make sense as names. Some names must be the names of aliens or something, I don't know. It's not just names, of course, but weird alien concepts, and cultural things, and works of art, and fiddly bits. 

Throughout high school, every single one of these dream concepts got poured into The Artefact, that sci-fi TV show project that I came up with in junior high and it kind of shows, but which still has some pretty neat ideas so maybe I'll do something with it though obviously not as a TV show. And since I was back at home for Thanksgiving a couple weeks ago, and could access the files on the computers back at home to put them onto 2.0 again after the crash, I totally have access to the files where I dumped the dream ideas I had. Figured I'd share a few of my very very favorite with you.

There are mathematical and sociological concepts ranging from "Coeler’s quality" -- the principle of what separates animals from humans from machines, or how sentience is created when logic is added to emotion-- to, "Dundeloth"-- the mathematical probability of how many children any given person is going to molest in their lifetime. Some concepts are just plain cool, like that of Puncinational- the ‘fog of war’-like effect between technologies of different cultures. Others just make me giggle, like the story of James H. Knox, the first American musketeer. (He was horrified to see that his French counterparts ate live hamster sandwiches. He got some crackers and Rigatoni and thus the first of what we know today as the Rigatoni sandwich was created.)

There's a whole grab bag here of more, skimmed from the top of a lot of different categories:

• 51 Ruminations of ____ (I do have a massive list of names, of course, but I don't like tossing them around and assigning them arbitrarily.) In a certain sect of Christianity, it is held that the hosts of angels not of the Lord’s chosen people must wait 51 thousand years before receiving their angelic names. The 51 Ruminations is a book of 51 poems based around the idea that the ancient poet ___ was one such angel, and he wrote one poem every thousand years till he got his name. Each poem is basically a minor variation of the last, changing as he gains more and more angelic knowledge about the afterlife, with the last poem being completely different from the first one. The first poem is itself a variation of one of the poet’s real poems, in which he famously described the afterlife as “Love Riches Sex Pleasure.”
• Dica- Also called duckman, a species of waterfowl whose chicks look like small dinosaurs.
• Vas Vas- Insectoid Earthlings with human faces.
• Sister, Sister, What is This?- a film based off a four-word poem.
• Ocean’s 11- the eleven people Ocean sold out to keep the Gestapo away from him. The Gestapo came after him anyway and tortured him to death. His daughter escaped and found someone familiar looking, with the same dusty skin color as hers and her father’s.
• A'bl, a game not unlike Go, in which there are four basic move strategies: s'sa, s'saa, a'aa, and some fourth one.
• Dade and Deadead- the equivalent of duke and duchess respectively, with the honorific of “doctor.”
• Gregory tail- clockwork woman hides in back of skirt of larger clockwork woman, etc.

I've got more, but that's good (for now?)... I should have gone to bed a long time ago, anyway.

Kandinsky Prince Part 2, Part 2

The past seems to be catching up to me. Or whatever. Particularly at least with this post, Kandinsky Prince Part 2, the entry which in my opinion is better but which seems to be getting fewer hits based on the analytics. But that's the one I'm talking about, and that's the one that mentions Andy Warhol, and so thus drew the attention of Artsy.net, which is super exciting!

Artsy is a website with the mission to make the world's art accessible to anyone with an internet connection, and so Alonzo from over there, I guess, Googled Warhol to see if he could find people with a similar mission to Artsy's, saw my post, and was all, hey if this guy's blog's readers appreciate that one Warhol Mona Lisa, then... Thirty are Better than One? That's not what he thought to himself, most likely, but, Artsy totally has that, I mean, the Warhol Mona Lisa print with thirty Mona Lisas, called Thirty Are Better than One, Artsy has that.

https://www.artsy.net/artwork/andy-warhol-thirty-are-better-than-one-1

And so I could post that up to part one of Kandinsky Prince, today, like I'd considered doing but had no real reason to change it till now. So what he thought really was, if you appreciated the Warhol talk and art from Warhol, the Fox, and the Dream of Cages, then you'll flip over the selection of Warhol material that Artsy's got.

Here's their page on Andy Warhol, but they've got thousands of other artists too if that's not your cup of tea, both contemporary and ancient and everywhere in the middle, and you can go to specific galleries, and specific art shows, and you can find similar artists, and it's just an incredible resource. I've already discovered one or two new favorites, and definitely some awesome galleries. There's even art auctions, or you can buy art directly, or it links you to contacting the gallery that features any given work of art, so that you can ask them about it. It's just nuts how much great stuff is there.

Meanwhile from Kandinsky Prince part 2, though (I'm not saying that that post is catching up with me for only one reason, now am I,) my final print I'm working on for printmaking class is a printed version of Hatching, which I featured in talking about my dream of the cages (I also tried to do a print of that but it came out terribly, and so I'm not showing you.) Hatching looks better as a print, actually. It's this guy, if you'll recall:

but as a print that's swapped left-to-right of course, because that's what prints do:

I happened to scan my progress so far into the computer, in order to work out where to go from here, work which values to darken where, and everything, before I touch my plate again to make changes. So there's the latest print from that.

And also meanwhile, speaking of The Little Prince, it's on Netflix, and I'm totally catching it now finally.

Printmaking and Breadbaking

The more a print sells from an edition (batch,) the more valuable and expensive the prints get. With the knowledge that the prints can sell as well as they do, all prints of that edition become that valuable; they rise together in value. The more bread sells from a batch, though, the cheaper the bread gets; as time goes on they keep putting it on steeper discount and just throw it away in the end. Strange.

Alright so it was the final lab of art/chem class today. We made emulsiony-type paper using chemically-type things, and exposed yon paper to UV light. The parts of the paper which were blocked out, the silver nitrate did not stain upon exposure to light, and remained lighter. The parts of the paper which were not blocked out, darkeren'd. You can block the light from the paper just by placing objects on them- rayograms, were what we were doing, basically, though you could make an actual photoprint with this process by placing a negative on the paper. Pretty basic. Right? But I was all, what if I actually use masking tape for its apparent original intention, that is, masking?

[put scan of art here once you get around to it, you overworked bum!]
[alright here you go]:

The Lesser Bandage-eyed Mammalofsomedescription, all gussied up for his portrait.
Note the lighter areas where the mask of tape overlapped. That's pretty neat?

A rare, bona fide photograph of the Greater Bandage-eyed Mammalofsomedescription,
seen in the midst of its Technicolor Yawn.

The masking tape is transparent enough that some light gets through. Which can really be explored with. And it didn't pull off the image when I pulled off the tape!

Worked down there in the photolab for hours, got some interesting enough results, but there's way more ways I feel I could explore this. It feels like discovering printmaking all over again- and in a sense that IS what I'm doing, only with light instead of ink, and plates made out of masking tape. The chemicals involved aren't too hard to come by, and people set up darkrooms in their lavs all the time. But for now, really, if I'm doing any DIY printing, I'm going to be first experimenting with making my own silkscreen screenprint printscreen.

Objects Celestial, Terrestrial, and Up There Either Way

I sat down outside a couple nights ago, decided just to take a little break from all the bustling with the Outlet project due in the morning, sitting on the stairsteps outside the Spori out in the chill air and looking up at the night sky. It was a snowy night, but the stars were very clearly out, because I could see one, well more than one obviously but this certain one I remember, I wasn't sure if it wasn't just a particularly still helicopter or airplane hanging up there, or a satellite in geosynchronous orbit around not-the-equator somehow, or whatever else, and not truly a star. And I thought it was interesting.

There are stars, and nearer bodies. From our position it's so easy to get them mixed, them being yet so different: any starrish object, though smaller and dimmer than a real star, is virtually indistinguishable from a real star due to its proximal nearness.

Maybe this can be taken to represent how we can be fooled by false miracles, taken in due only to our position and the assumption that where we're standing is the only place to be, while in reality it's only the best place to get duped. Maybe this can be taken to represent how petty things can seem so significant because we let them. Maybe this can be taken to represent the properties of the inverse-square law. None of that is what I took it to mean, though.

I took it to mean: you be the star. Act like a star, be unafraid to stand in a high place and offer what light that you do have, and there ain't ain't-them-bodies-saints who can tell you that you aren't a star.

And then I realized the other symbolism too, and was all, that's not as cheerful. The second and third ones, though, aren't they really just the same thing? Yes. On a symbolic level, yes they are.

Okay so meanwhile one of the suggested similar movies on the Google Play page for Fursonas is a documentary about underground extreme tickling rings, what's apparently a shadowy multi-million dollar industry. And I can't stop saying the word "what" over and over again. The thing that gets me is not that that's a thing, but that it's a thing that, judging by the comments in reviews ("I have seen tickle videos on YouTube and elsewhere and always wondered about the economics behind these strange, professional looking videos..."), everyone already seems to have heard of, except me...