A Short Allegory About Octopodes

I was thinking about how terrifyingly smart octopuses are, like seriously I'm pretty sure they're sapient (and I for one am no longer eating octopus because that'd kind of be like eating a rubbery person,) and I was thinking about how the female octopus yet starves herself to death protecting her eggs while they're incubating, and how thus the mothering instinct is stronger than the survival instinct sometimes, even in intelligent species.

And I was coming back from Albertsons comparison shopping that versus Broulims (Broulims wins in every category, this time, but Albertsons has better prices frequently enough that it's worth checking, especially as long as I'm in the neighborhood at Fat Cats (checking if Spider-Man tickets are available for preorder (which they're not yet, because you have to purchase for a specific showing when you're buying tickets, and they won't have that figured out until Monday,))) shopping with a grocery list of nothing but healthy items (fruits, vegetables, and certain Post breakfast cereals (Grape Nuts and Shredded Wheat are the only breakfast cereals of which I know that have no added sugars)) and, on this trip from the selecting of the best prices on the healthiest foods, I stopped by a food truck, to get something overpriced and greasy. I guess supporting local business is my metaphorical maternal instinct, which trumps even my idiomatic instinct of survival.

I'm an Opossum; I Have a Different Kind of Teeth From You! (PretzelsVlog...

It kind of got me a warning, because I was technically trespassing hanging in the Spori basement lab after 11:30 while it finished compiling the last few minutes, but they don't start fining you till your second citation, so... worth it?

Pop Goeth the Firecracker

You know heading into town to the cinema to see if I could purchase Spider-Man tickets yet yesterday, there was the sound of a firecracker and I've mentioned this before, how I'm so unused to firecrackers being legal that my brain automatically goes into "somebody's shooting a gun" mode, and when that happens in town then you know that you're in trouble, and so may I just say that ducking and weaving serpentine is just such great exercise.

It turns out though that it's almost Independence Day!, and so I guess it's a time where people would have firecrackers. No school on Tuesday. It takes me by surprise because I'm more looking forward to next Friday than next Tuesday. 

October 5th, the My Little Pony movie, though. If I get really hyped for that then I won't have to focus as much on an event 9 days away now... or 8 for Thursday preview... or 7 considering how it's after midnight in this timezone.

10 Days Till You-Know-What

Tickets for Homecoming become available Thursday. I asked. They'd said at first that they're available online now, but then they double-checked and that turned out to be wrong, so I'm not sure if the Thursday thing means they become available on location, or just online. Going anywhere online you know there's going to be ads and thus spoilers for it, so I'd much rather prefer purchasing my ticket on location where there's nonesuch of that.

Part of my dream Sunday was about Spider-Man, but thinking on it I think it's a dream I've had before. I can't remember details anyway, but I've got the rest of the dream written down so here goes:

airplane. in a web. way above the willow tree. is he saving it? did he put it there? did he web it to save it? I think he slingshots it. That's about it.

Grandin

Like half the (many) books on autism at the library being written or cowritten by Temple Grandin, Temple Grandin, the 2010 HBO biopic, has been one of two movies I've really been meaning to see again lately. (I'll name the other one here if I can remember it...)

EDIT: By the way I did get a chance to see it again; I just didn't have the time to report on it because I spent so much time trying to remember the name of the other movie (Sneakers? Jumanji? Pretty in Pink?) that I had to shoot the post off early lest it be late. 

There was Star Wars, the original one, playing on a television at the university bookstore once, a couple months back, and the characters were just sitting in the Millennium Falcon talking, I think the scene where it's all "do you think a guy like me could have a chance" with Leia, but the details don't really matter- it was just this simple scene, and even out of context, you could tell just from watching a few seconds that you were looking at something special, just from those few seconds that the entire thing is radiant and that you're in capable storytelling hands. 

And that's how Temple Grandin is. It's a masterpiece.

Pretty fun, also, from reading her lately, and catching some of the quotes. "Nature is cruel, but we don't have to be," "different not less," that kind of thing. Woo.

EDIT 2: Life of Pi, that's the one!

Why Homecoming Matters So Much

Do you mind if I give you just a taste of how excited I am for this incarnation of Spider-Man, coming to theaters in just under two weeks now? How important this is to me?

Peter Parker, since the incident, has occasional extreme sensory overload- senses dialed up to 11, as he himself puts it. The goggles on the costume Tony Stark designed for him dilate when things get too extreme, which filters out excess sensation and help Spider-Man focus, especially in combat. A justified, visual representation of Spider-Sense, and a justified representation of Spider-Sense in general, which plays out the natural consequences of how such a thing would work. That is the coolest greatest thing in the world.

Spider-Man is, from what I can see, the first MCU superhero to wear an actual costume- Cap wears a uniform, Iron Man wears armor, the Vision that's his skin, but Spidey's the first to wear tights. Everyone's got a gimmick, right? But it also makes sense considering where Parker's coming from in terms of physical sensation- dressing in a form-fitting onesie, he's getting a hug from all sides, which should, I don't know, soothe his senses, calm his overstimulation? Just a theory, but one which I think makes a lot of sense, and which is very precious to me.

I was browsing the YA section of the library, yesterday when I checked out all those books- I could not relate to the high school dramas even remotely. Not with teenagers. Especially not with millennial ones. But I see myself in Peter Parker, oh, so much. I didn't realize how important representation is until this. 

(I mean, he's a dumpster diver! You don't see that every day!)

It's nice to be able to connect to Calvin in Calvin and John in I am Not a Serial Killer and Michael in The Hollow City- and I mean, really nice, I cry during those books, freely- but seeing this kind of thing on film, on the big screen, on a big-budget summer spectacle release... it touches me in ways I can't articulate. Even if Peter Parker is technically probably neurotypical, or at least was up till the spider bite and is now who-the-heck-knows. 

Superheroes are something that everyone can connect with intrinsically- power, responsibility, it's something we can intuitively grasp as true and important. But seeing a superhero who represents you, in some way, beyond that, is... I thought that Wonder Woman was a pretty good okay enjoyable solid movie, but women I know were crying as they walked out of it, it touched them that deeply. Friggin' nobody isn't psyched for the Black Panther movie, but I can only imagine how special it must feel if you're actually black.

And that's, just, some of the excitement I feel for the Spider-Man movie. Let's hope it's a good one. Nobody better spoil anything, and I mean like, any of it.

Reading Learning

Checked out many books from the library today, mainly dealing with leveraging autistic skills as a boon in the workplace. (Also checked out some books about other mental disorders, bipolar, OCD, that kinduv thing.) Hoping to magically gain some executive functioning skills from what I learn, or something.* That'd help me do in school.

So reading through the symptoms which is how they always start out these books, I mean a lot of the symptoms sound like me but then a lot of them don't, and looking at the other disorders 'specially ADHD and stuff a lot of that sounds like me but a lot doesn't, though there is supposed to be a lot of comorbidity and of course no one patient fits all the symptoms so we'll give it a pass overall generally-- but one of the symptoms of autism is anxiety, which for sure I get and moreso when deadlines loom near, but the typical source of anxiety I found very interesting (and have my speech patterns been kind of Holden Caulfield-esque in this post, they feel very Holden to me.**) 

The anxiety stems from new situations. Now, I've never really needed the samieness that they say is a hallmark for autism, so I thought, but this new insight is making me think, yes, that's exactly it. Looking at it now it seems so obvious, yet I hadn't put it into words (like the fear of needing 6-2-1 reminders without previously connecting it to graven images) but as far as change goes, I do need things to stay the same, but in the realm of school assignments. It's the constantly getting new projects to work on, finishing up the old ones and moving on, that does it to me. I put doing the assignments off because they're unfamiliar; when I'm ready for them and when I'm comfortable with the rituals surrounding them we're already moved on to the next assignment, and so I'm constantly late and behind with my schoolwork. I have wanted/requested to see the next assignments several weeks in advance; this model really explains why that'd be so good for me.

That's what I'm thinking right now, at least. Maybe there'll be more insights further into these books.

Minor Post

Continuing saga of seeing if I can change my major to illustration or printmaking, or at least get a minor in illustration: I'm not sure there even is a minor in illustration? There is one, or a cluster or something, in 2-D art, which of course also encompasses printmaking, but I really don't know about like anything else... both of my intended paths to potentially switch to, I've taken one class in each already and received a C in both; this is the best of plans!

Each of my posts here for the past, over a week, here, have been pretty big major things, from it being the ten-year anniversary of a major meme to announcing the plans to change my major somehow in the first place to realizing I'm maybe allergic to dogs now to the announcement of a family tragedy and my plans on helping out in the aftermath of that to the best of my place and abilities. But today I don't really have anything like that. Guess Sweeps Week is over?

Thing About Needles

There was a girl coming out of the adjacent apartment complex with a wolf tail sticking off of her bag; looks like that guy who had a tailed bag isn't the only one with one of those, which means that the second one that day may even have been a different guy. (Maybe this bag tail was, probably, the same tail sticking from under the overcoat.) I asked her what's with that, and she said she likes wolves.

And I've got a thing about needles myself. 

(I didn't actually say out loud, but I said to myself.) 

Needles. Guess I've got the hangup over, graven images being one of the Big Ten, that don't sit right with me. It was brought up in one of the classes at church on Sunday, for some reason, maybe it was just mentioned and I took away the epiphany of what my problem's been with the furry fandom, kind of prodded toward in Vulnerability with the 6-2-1 stuff but never actually articulated in such a manner: making "graven images." Worshipping them over God and all, that's the thing we're commanded not to do. 

Till now I've had Romans 1:22-23, Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. I'm not sure what any of that means, but it always felt like a good fit to describe furrydom.

It continues immediately, as well, Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. Also perfect; there's a lot of gay stuff here. GAY STUFF!

(As long as we're discussing that, though, I've got another incredibly hot male actor to add to the list in "Vulnerability"; I've been watching a lot of Bollywood lately, so: Hrithik Roshan. That man is just, too perfect, for words...)

Doing a quick search for the phrases "Christian furry" and "graven images" reveals that I'm basically the only one who has any qualms about this issue, so...

New Testament class. A week ago. Meant to tell you then, but, you know. They saw the story of Zacchaeus, from Luke 19, as him repenting from being rich, giving away half his goods so hey! he's not rich no more, he's a good guy now instead of one of those evil evil rich people (this story comes the chapter after the one about the rich young ruler who went away weeping when he was told he'd need to sell everything he owned in order to get into heaven, leading Jesus to make his remark about camels and needles' eyes.) 

I've always seen the story of Zacchaeus as him continuing to be rich, but the riches meaning nothing to him in themselves; he's using them to glorify God. He continuously offers up half of his goods, recompensing the wrong fourfold and all, each time, is what I'd read into it- which makes his announcing that publicly sound a little boastful, which was always bothersome to me, so maybe they were on to something in saying that he was actually announcing a repentance?

Entrepreneurs see money as a tool rather than a goal, which is how they can get so rich, through investments and such. But the only thing they can think of doing with their money is make more money. Have I told you that I made it a goal a while ago to give 10-15% of my money to charity on top of the 10% I already pay for tithing, because I figured why wait until I'm rich? 

The highest tier at Furry Experience's Patreon page is to offer up $100 a month; most people pay just $1 a month, which to be fair does give you access to some pretty nice exclusive content, but not as much as higher tiers, and especially not the highest. Nobody had snatched up any of the highest tier yet...

Meanwhile there's a recent change in how the plasma center pays you, getting a steady bonus more each time you go in, starting out smaller but adding up larger and larger until it resets each month; the previous system gave a larger bonus for donating twice in a week, the bonus resetting each week. Rather clever of them: they have to pay those who come in infrequently less, ensuring steady patronage (or whatever the word would be) if people really want their money; for me, who already goes in twice a week anyway, it means something like $100 more each month... which I really don't need; I already have more than enough to pay for groceries and anything else that I'd want (not going in once a semester anymore to grab what Zootopia swag would remain at Hastings is certainly helping pocketbook-wise.)

I figured it would be hypocritical of me to offer selling t-shirts without also being a patron.


Yeah, I know. $100 a month is a lot of money. More than $1,000 a year, all told. Counterargument though: she's a widow. A WIDOW.

Since I've taken the screenshot it looks like someone's upgraded their FE tier; Ellen Natalie is now making $961 a month from 95 patrons.

Between my two Patreon beneficiaries (who don't count toward my charity quota) and my subscription to the Adobe Suite, that's $138 a month, just under 1/3rd of monthly plasma income. Subtract the other 1/5th from tithes and misc. offerings, that leaves about half of my discretionary accounts available for foodstuffs and sundry (actually, hold on, what's the Adobe Suite doing in the discretionary category anyway, it's totally covered by tuition.) Put rent on top of that, and that's... well my rent's all paid for the semester, but summer rent here's $250 for the whole shebang, and that's already been paid for.

We'll hash out the details of what my printing FE shirts would mean, once things have settled down over at Chez Natalie.

Plans for Changing Degrees: The Department Head Meetings

So the whole business where I'm thinking of changing degrees, because from the beginning I've wanted to go into the BFA program but my portfolio in graphic design has never been, um, good, so I never applied but my hand would be a lot steadier at trying to get into some other BFA track:

I had my talks with the department heads of illustration and printmaking, and their respective advice was surprisingly compatible. Carla Jimison talked about what it's like to have printmaking as a career; Wade Huntsman talked about classes, and suggested a course to get into illustration to see if I like the waters. (That'd be three classes: head drawing, media experimentation, and introduction to illustration which apparently has media experimentation as a prerequisite. That'd be a problem, for reasons I'm about to explain, but I've taken a class the same semester I've taken its prerequisite before, so.)

Here's the problem with getting into classes, or changing my degree at all. There's 120 credit hours needed to graduate, and I've got 118. Point five. 118.5. And I'm not sure if that doesn't count the credits I'm taking this semester...

The BFA is designed, Bro Huntsman says, to get you into it at around no later that 90ish credits, which would allow you some semesters to build up to your final BFA project. He said (even not knowing the true number of credit hours I've under my belt so far) that it would be better to have my major stay the same, or switch it to printmaking or whatever, but instead of going for a BFA go for the BA but with a minor in illustration. That'd give me so much more experience.

Is it too late to shoot for even a minor though? Am I too far into it?

The only reason I took Fall semester last year was to get a prerequisite to let me take a graphic design class, advanced typography, in the Winter semester. Only that class wasn't offered Winter semester, so the point- was -less in the first place. Advanced type WAS offered this semester, but I couldn't sign up in time because there was a special hold on my account- a hold brought about because of how close I was to having enough credits to graduate, the same problem that I'm running into now. Of course. 

So instead of getting into advanced typography class this semester, I got into the monotype/monoprint class which I otherwise wouldn't have signed up for, which is only spurring my interest in getting a printmaking degree. Alongside the already being in printmaking, of course, which was itself brought about of course because people kept saying that my graphic design looked like printmaking; who knows, maybe I could have taken the hint earlier. (Monotype/monoprint, by the by, is only a creditable emphasis course for the printmaking BFA, BFA 2-D, not the normal printmaking BA.)

Carla says that it'd be possible to just graduate, get a nice portfolio, and submit it somewhere and go get a Master's. Which does sound nice, but...

I want to stick around. I hate that I took fall semester. Not only does it further entrench me in a path I'm no longer a fan of, but it advanced me further toward a graduation earlier than I want...

Screw it, I'm addressing the elephant, the primary reason I've wanted to stay in school. I'm waiting around for McKenna. Left on her mission after Spring semester a year ago; I don't know how long she's been out or when she's going to get back, but it'd be, nice, to be around once she does. I'm not one for smalltalk, though I can engage in conversations fluently; I've only cared about dating girls I thought would be the one. Courting, in other words. And McKenna and I, we've dated.

I'd just grab the last course needed for my degree over the summer, and be done with school now instead of waiting half a year till Winter 2018 semester to take my last few classes, if it weren't for that.

One Decade of Dramatic Chipmunks

The YouTube video "Dramatic Chipmunk" was uploaded ten years ago today. First saw the dramatic chipmunk in this video, I think it was; I had no idea what it was talking about and figured it must have been some new viral thing. (EDIT: alright the video's not there anymore but it was this YouTube Kids thing. A stylized Dramatic Chipmunk graphic popping out and Dramatic Chipmunk-ing, in a presumably kidsafe environment.)




Marky Mark and Gate cemented the idea, both independently referencing it, out of all the YouTube vids, as though it were the latest freshest meme. 
(EDIT: and this video was an advertisement, Mark Wahlberg redefining TV away from "that thing on the wall over there." Dramatic Chipmunk is one of the things you can take with you.)




But a couple of weeks ago in information design class the professor showed us the original video as though it were a classic. Which it, is? It was... older than I thought, apparently. (He followed it up by showing us the sbemail "Dragon," which introduced the world to Trogdor the Burninator. Classics, see?)

Lookit the chipmunk!



It's practically from Ye Olde YouTube times, when things like that could be things like that. I wrote this post on Saturday (the 17th) to post it up, until I realized that the video is so old, it would turn 10 in a couple of days (today, the 19th.) So.

(Incidentally, 10 days before Saturday was the day that the Keyboard Cat video turned 10, having been uploaded on June 7th 2007. See, what'd I say, things like that could be things like that.)

(THIRD EDIT: Doing further research, Dramatic Chipmunk started out as a meme on YTMND, You're the Man Now Dog, a website very influential in the early viral days.)

Spider-Man, He's Ignored, Spider-Man, is His Reward

I totally forgot to tell you yesterday how I got fiberglass splinters embedded into my palm, running my hand against an (apparently splintery) fiberglass pole on the top of a fire hydrant. Seems like the universe really has it in for my shell. My ghost is harder to reach, but there's been like a heck of a lot of Spider-Man stuff around lately, which... may serve as a symbolic reminder of how our environment can influence us for ill or for good.

It seems like you can't avoid it, even without seeking it out. Thank goodness it's something innocuous and I'm just referring to Spider-Man, but what if it weren't that? What if it were drugs or porn or something? That's really how the world is in places, I mean, no matter where you'd turn your head, even if you're keeping it down. It requires hecka vigilance. Hecka vigilance.

But seriously object lesson or whatever aside, I really just want to talk about Spider-Man; the spoiler vice really is tightening like some kind of spoilery spidery web of some sort: 

• There were posters for sale at WalMart, at the poster place. At least one of them was Homecoming related, maybe they all were. Mostly of Spider-Man Spider-Manning around, but one of them had him with... Ant Man it looked like, I averted my eyes? If he's the villain nobody tell me. The style of the posters looked like they were of the cartoon, though, so it could have been just that one poster that was explicitly of the movie, of the movie.
• I saw in the trash a box of Fruit Roll-Ups branded with Spider-Man: Homecoming, but that's all I saw before I looked away. Our Fruit Roll-Ups (may) have spoilers on now. Better watch yourself in the store.
• Soon I may temporarily have to give up my daily Marvel Puzzle Quest (it helps me wake up in the mornings, and it's where I get in my scriptures for the day, listening to them on audio while my mind zones out puzzle solving.) They do themed cover artwork and loading screens and even app icons depending on whatever latest Marvel movie is out or is coming out. (There was a new promo a couple of days ago where it looked like Sandman's now a character you can play, but Ryan would know who that is, and such new characters come out all the time unrelated to movies, and Sandman seems like an odd choice for a debut Spider-Man solo film anyway, especially one set in the MCU where things like y'know Sandman would be tougher to wave off. (I can see Sandman being in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. or something, but...))
• There's a giant cardboard Spider-Man in Paramount 5. It's just of the poster, totally spoiler-free but very evocative, so thank you to Sony and Columbia and Marvel Studios and whoever, and whoever designed the poster and everything, for not spoiling anything other than that Spider-Man's in a Spider-Man movie. There's also one of those at FatCats 6, but I've steered clear of it because I didn't know it was spoiler-free, I just saw from a distance that it was Spider-Man and I averted my eyes. CAN YOU IMAGINE THOUGH, if the poster did have spoilers on it? Maybe they'll be coming out with one of those, I don't know! It's dangerous out there!
• There was a Dell catalogue with Spider-Man on the cover doing non-spoilery Spider-Man activities. Inside there was a gaming computer which claimed to be featured in the movie. That could mean anything, so I'm not concerned with that one as much.
• I read, researching the Incredible Hulk movie, that one of the actors from that also plays a teacher in Homecoming. So. (There's going to be teachers in it. Which means school. Presumably there's a Homecoming as well. Maybe the plot's about that? But there's Spider-Man in it too, otherwise the film would be called just Peter Parker: Homecoming. Which maybe would be interesting in its own right (oh man, those are the movies Marc Webb should have directed!) but I don't know.)

Things You're Doing When You're Interrupted by Other Things You're Doing

Got a little bit of homework done today I guess. Thank groodness that the only thing due on Monday this time is brainstorming for the subject of our final projects, in Interaction Design, and that it isn't something heavier like it usually is. There were a lot of, business concerns, to take care of. All of this stuff is really happening.

And right now I'm tired. And nauseous.

But speaking of really happening, briefly- I'm no longer gunning for a photography emphasis considering it alongside illustration, but I am considering a printmaking. Right from the outset it's jobbable, which Mom told me to consider when considering degree: I mean, especially with today all the things that happened, I am a printy-type jobby-type person, already. A degree in that thus... should help me still be what I am already? 

I mean, as opposed to the other thing, illustration not photography, where shoot I don't know what kind of job I'd aim at after getting an illustration major; webcomics are fun but it's tough to pay the bills with them, even if you're huge (in which case, the actual income itself wouldn't come from the webcomic itself but merch relating thereto;) I can at least think of, career legitimacy or whatever term you'd use for it. Do I need that? Or should I use my degree to widen my skillset? Thus the question of whether to illustrationize or printmakificate.

That's what I was doing, when my eyes got all puffy and my face all blotchy, yesterday; I was comparing printouts of various degree audits in the library. It had been on the way to (the I-Card office on the way to) the library where I'd stopped to pet the allergenic doggies, and well you know the story from there...

Magical New Allergies

So I'm allergic to dogs now apparently? This morning there were a couple of dogs in the back of a car that was parked there by the curb by the apartment (with the owner sitting in it and the windows down, lest you think any funny business was going down) which I pet, and ere long I became red and puffy and itchy in blotches on the face and eyes. It looked like I was squinting when I wasn't, it was just puffy bags under the eyes. 

I'm not sure if this is just a one-off, or what, or even if it was the dogs that scooby done did that to me, but either way, for the longest time today I was H R Puffyscratch.

Took a nap for like two or three hours- my fitbit's telling me it was two and a half, from 5:38-8:24- and now I feel better, though my eyeballs still feel a little firm and I haven't looked at myself in a mirror lately.

What Was Meant by Tragedy

I'm fine but not everyone is. It involves people I've never met before, or am barely acquainted with, but I feel connected as well somehow, personally.

I only found out about it after I made my post so early yesterday, but yesterday afternoon Ellen Natalie (of the webcomic Furry Experience) made the announcement of this family tragedy she'd announced last week, what that meant: that her husband had killed himself. (Full post here.) 

From my interviews with her I've learned that it was her husband who introduced her into the furry fandom in the first place, very near to their marriage, which directly led to her creating her webcomic which she's always signed as a Natalie- so in a very real sense, without her husband there never would have been a comic, and she and I never would have met nor been in communication- so the news hits me surprisingly deeply. I don't know.

And I'd had plans to collaborate with her on making a t-shirt design, but now that she's cut down to her single stream of income I can't see any way to approach her about it or anything with expectation of payment for it like you'd see in a typical similar business model; even if 100% of proceeds from those go to her how do I even bring up the idea without sounding, I don't know, wrongheaded? Saying how currently 100% of proceeds are already going to "charity" is a good lead, but I can't think of any way to broach the subject at this point in the game: if it's a genuine effort to help, I'm not making much revenue as it is on the business currently, so what would make me think that I'd be able to help in any real way? Sounds presumptuous, doesn't it? 

But I feel like I need to do something. This is too close to home for me.

Spider-Man Christmastime and "Strange Major Changes"

Just 22 days till Thursday preview showing of Spider-Man: Homecoming. Pretty sure that I can say, without an ounce of hyperbole, that I don't think I've ever been as excited for anything in my life. Not even Christmas as a kid. Not even Zootopia. Think of it this way: Christmas you're so excited to know what you're going to get that you do everything in your power to guess the gift, including feel the gift and hoist it and maybe even take a peek. And once that's happened the magic's all ruined (learned this firsthand from Zootopia. But gosh what a great film.) 

Spider-Man: Homecoming, on the other hand, is like Christmas, only instead of trying to figure out what your gift is early, you're trying to avoid knowing what you're getting while meanwhile everything in the universe is conspiring against you to tell you exactly what's underneath that wrapping paper. It is a thrillride.

Wrote a piece today at Pretzelize Me, Cap'n!, which you should read all 2,498 words of, otherwise what I'm going to say next isn't going to make any sense to you (don't worry, there is a picture which takes up 1,000 of those words.) I've spoken to both Mica Webb and Kevin Orme since posting that up, both of whom are frequent classmates of mine, both graphic design students (though Kevin's taken a shine to an animation emphasis as of last semester,) and who were both at the Biomat at the same time as I was today (my, blood protein level is back up from the last blood sample taken; every time they take a sample my total protein's just half a tich too low and so I have to come back in and get another one done until it turns out well. Fun.) 

Mica, doing a watercolor of Amy(?) from Sonic the Hedgehog into their little notebook, says that they thought that I already was a photography major, and that an illustration major isn't anything you can't teach yourself, and that most illustration majors just wind up doing graphic design anyway. Kevin, working on a timeline for when the characters in the animation project he's doing, says he thinks, from previous classes where he's seen my stuff, that I'm a pretty good photographer, but agrees with the fact that illustration is a closer degree to graphic design and would be easier/make more sense to get into. Me, I still totally want to do some of that character reference sheet stuff, and if I were to go for photography, I'd have to chose which kind, whether product or event or portrait or whatever, and making such decisions about how to cripple my art (into one genre) is not anywhere remotely near my wheelhouse.

There's still the Task party tonight, starts in about 15. Let's see if Brothers Huntsman or Adkinson are there...

Hard Drive Troubles are Hard

Feel like going to bed early tonight because I've got a big project I'm a week behind in, which was due on Monday. None of our projects have been graded so far because the teacher's house was burgled last week by heroin addicts- he says he's going to get on grading them tomorrow so I've got time, though I'm not sure how honest it would be to get it in this late. 

Getting mild panic attacks as I progress through it so I have to take frequent breaks; I've come to the conclusion that every night needs to be spent as busy as the nights where things are due in order to make sufficient progress to have them done in time, if we're going to account for that. At the same time, I wouldn't be getting the panics if I were on time with projects; I don't know how to reconcile.

I got a new cord today for the external hard drive, the 500 GB one- I need to put the data somewhere, which is taking up a lot of space, of photos and video I'm making and taking. It still didn't work, so I went back into where I got the cable)-- the same place that fixed as much as they could when I dropped my laptop (I'm sitting in the same location where that happened now, come to think of it)-- and the tech happened to be in at the time, so she could take a fancy look at it. It's basically dead. Even when hooked up to a fancy cable, her computer isn't registering its presence. The $5 cord I got only served to break up the $20 bill I had. Anybody need a mini USB cable?

The whole problem with the hard drive started when Dad asked me to plug it into the Windows 95 or 98 or whatever to see if we could get the files from there. The hard drive had never complained before, and afterward only managed to work long enough for me to extract everything off of it before it died again. Thanks Dad. I'm assuming the troubles stem from that; maybe I dropped this one also, and its core broke into glitter as well. I've disassembled it to the best of my ability/willingness, though; seems okay.

Spoilers I Know So Far

25 days till Homecoming, and what do I know, after a year or more of carefully avoiding spoilers? There has been some stuff that's trickled down, let's see:

• something about an airplane?
• Iron Man's going to be in it, of course. And so is Happy Hogan. Iron Man's going to, I'm thinking team up with, Spider-Man, and Happy Hogan's going to be adorable and awesome and played by Jon Favreau yay.
• Peter Parker's parents are going to have been in SHIELD- you know, probably. That's what they were in the comics, and now that he's in a cinematic universe that's actually got SHIELD in it... it's an educated guess more than anything. Presumably they died during the Battle of New York. That would tie some narrative threads together nicely.
• This is at the beginning of the theatrical trailer I have to walk out of whenever it comes before a movie, but it looks to be at the beginning of the film so I think we're okay, but: Spider-Man prevents a bank robbery put on by robbers masked as the Avengers and carrying like a laser gun thing to cut open the vault. Very comic-book. I suppose that there's Stark tech, and the world has lived through at least one alien invasion by this point, but the MCU's getting further and further away from the relative reality base of the first Iron Man, which is interesting.
• I asked Ryan if we knew who the villain is going to be- he said he didn't know his name. Male villain, so that leaves Black Cat out... But out of the villains Spidey hasn't fought in a film in recent memory...? I hope hope hope it's going to be Kraven, please please please, but I don't know. Ryan knows who Mysterio is (he broke a chandelier bulb once pretending to do Mysterio's "throwing his own head" trick), so it's not that... I'm pretty sure the Vulture and the Rhino are recognizable enough, and they'd probably go for someone relatively well-known, so, out of the Sinister 6, it's looking like, but an obscure one somehow...? oh boy I hope it's Kraven.
• Mary Jane's in it. Being played by, Zoe Saldana I've heard but she already plays Gamora so ???
• I don't think it's going to be an origin story, since we've already seen Spider-Man in action?

So yeah, not a lot of definites, which I'm rather proud of. Once again, if I'm right or wrong, and even if it really is Kraven, please DON'T TELL ME.

Zeitl Malosses and Pals

Woke up at 10:45 this morning. Church is at 9:30. Oops. Guess I should go to bed earlier. Which means guess I should make this quick.

Spent the last few hours (!) trying to open up obscure file types and scouring the corners of my documents to find all the names that that came to me in dreams (not like of ancestors or anything- names like Thiefmo Satchmo, Sabertooth Tigerbangon, that kind of deal, just crazy dream character names which I woke up to write down, written down then written up into a digital format,) or which I otherwise came up with, so that I could finally consolidate them into one secure file. File types and storage systems obsolesce frighteningly quickly; even when we think our data are secure and permanently accessible that's not the case.

There is one name that I'll never be able to recover; it was taken on the notes system of the cellphone most recently lost. I saw it frequently enough to have the gist of it impress in my memory- it was something like Ixmal Ilyan, along the lines of that. But other than that, I've collected most of them, into one place together at last.

Also: scraps for potential posts, also found those among my writings. Here's a complete thought, written after having viewed the ending of the Doctor Strange movie, which I thought to put here to beef this post up a paragraph's worth: 

MCU are incorporating the format into the storytelling itself- the film Doctor Strange feels somehow incomplete looking just at the body, but incorporate (add to the body) the post-credits stinger, and all promises are fulfilled. Likewise, the film stands on its own but has incorporated as well the sense of incompleteness, that it can't be viewed on its own legs but as part of a serial. DOCTOR STRANGE WILL RETURN is no empty threat, and we all know that by now.

Was Told There'd be Drama

Doing more research on Synchro-Vox and related technologies last night, I came across the stop-motion-animated short film Madame Tutli-Putli, which uses composited-in eyes of all things, instead of mouths. If you're into incredibly creepy and confusing things, and have 20ish minutes to spare, it's worth a check-out.

Took some brief time out of my day to see if I could recreate such an effect. Turns out yes?

'Parently There was a Reason Synchro-Vox was Discredited as an Animation Technique, GO FIGURE

Painted my mouth green today to experiment with keying tools in After Effects. I was thinking something cheap and easy to produce, like Clutch Cargo, but more convincing than that because this is the future and we've got the technology for it! I ultimately just had to use masking to get what I wanted, but even what I wanted, wasn't what I'd had in mind. It um yeah.

"As far as you know..."

I think it'd rather make for a good style for, I'm thinking something slightly more surreal and/or creepy, think "Baman and Piderman" or "Salad Fingers," type of deal. And well I'd rather watch the Boss Baby than an episode of Annoying Orange, and I'd rather stick a needle into my eyeball than watch the Boss Baby, so I can't say for that, but Steve Oedekerk does some good work in this, what would you call it, genre, medium. Maybe there's a reason they leave the skin of the mouth around, but that was the exact sort of thing I was trying to avoid.

Cartoon mouths remain ideal. We can always experiment with mocap...

Fandomonium tomorrow. It's gonna cost money again, and I'm not that into it this semester if anything I'd just want to see what kind of cosplay they've got going on this semester, so I'm not sure if I'll do much more than, or even go so far as, just chilling outside of the door there.

I Just Want Your Mummy Love

I didn't realize it until this year, with Monster Trucks and Kong: Skull Island coming out, and I didn't realize it until today, with the Mummy coming out (alright, technically tomorrow, but Thursday previews meant I could catch it today yay) but I love monster movies. lovelovelovelovelove. With The Mummy out now there's only one or two films left this year I'm anticipating. There's a whole ritual built around Spider-Man, so there's strong hype for that, from me, but... this is really the film that I didn't know I'd been looking forward to, this year.

I love Tom Cruise. I love the Mummy movies. I went in wanting to love it. Didn't walk out disappointed. I'll admit that I'm probably not the most objective critic when it comes to this.

It does a few really awesome pretty interesting this that I hope other movies start following, though I can't articulate what I mean by that. I don't know, like how people weren't making Rear Window movies until Rear Window came out, that kind of thing...? There were a few, iconic-style things, and I hope this film does well enough that they become iconic, savvy?

That, and also, alongside the, my loving monster movies, thing, how dope an interconnected canon of those would be, in this day and age, is another reason I'd love for this film to do well. Dark Universe is already apparently its own like subsidy of Universal, which means that there's a lot of weight being thrown behind this, and I mean they're going ahead with it no matter what since they've already got their own Green Lantern in the form of Dracula Untold (which I didn't even realize was a mainstream picture until I read that today; it's okay I guess a little weird but it just had the feel of one of those Euro indie movies, like Troll Hunters and everything,) but like the King Arthur movie was supposed to be the first in a franchise of five or six other movies, and with that film doing so poorly... hopefully Guy Ritchie gets around to making the third Holmes movie? Also, oooh more the Man from Uncle movies please.

Anyway.

It's implied at one point- and see, see how awesome this movie is- it's implied that, though this is the first film in a new cinematic universe, the Brendan Fraser Mummy movies take place in this same chronology. Even probably the third one, which nobody seemed to enjoy except for me. I'm not sure whether the implication was meant to be subtle or not, because I'm not sure how recognizable/iconic the Book of the Dead is, but I recognized it instantly. I hope they weren't just trying to be cute...

Wait, that would mean that all of those Scorpion King movies also take place in this movie's timeline, hmm... I've only seen, like, three of those...

Trolley Trolley Trolley Get Your Quandaries Here

The philosophical quandaries, still, in my construction of morality/view of God. Is it consistent that morality is external to God but that God is omnipotent? Even if He commands us to do something previously outside the realm of morality, His commanding us to do it makes it immoral to disobey. If God's omnipotent, His commanding of us to do something inherently immoral makes that obedience moral?

Maybe. Sure. God is a conqueror, a warrior. A killer. The Lord can command Abraham to lie about his wife, he can command Peter to deny knowing him. The logic of the morality is perfectly consistent. Doesn't make my conception of God true or anything, of course, but...

One of the art night group, Lauren, made it down to BLFC last week. She's big into Kaiju apparently and that was the theme this year, so good for that. It was her first time going to a con without her parents, I believe. (Art night is on Wednesdays now to prevent scheduling conflict with the art seminars. Lauren (who is not the Greekish one) was of course not there last week, all bein' down in Reno and all, but she did get the memo in time of the changing of the schedule and thus did make it this week on the correct day.)

It fascinates me to no end how apparently reconcilable Mormonism is with the furry fandom. I've been over it before a bit, but- Lauren apparently sees no contradiction; Ellen Natalie, from my correspondence with her, sees no contradiction. Maybe I want there to be one. I myself see contradiction there. But I see contradiction in the doctrine itself, tying religion to spirituality somehow.

More moral quandaries, meanwhile: (let's say everything is the trolley problem, thus, this is the trolley problem.) Class today. The big project in Information Design class begins, and we are to have a project. I chose, well at first, Mormon perspectives and attitudes about transgender issues. But that's a problematic topic. If mishandled, it could result in people, questioning their faith or anything, when the topic's too narrow, and not balanced enough. Do I divert the trolley onto the path of a presentation about neckbeards? Or do I keep the trolley on the track, with much greater ethical rewards (educating people and making them evaluate their own attitudes) but also more bodies tied to the tracks there?

TASK Party in a week, anyway, in the Kirkham building instead of at JimJam's house, because the place was just so packed last semester's TASK party.

RCPC (Rather Cleverish Political Crud)

Sometimes I feel too clever for my own good. Can't think of any specific examples right now- alright I can think of two, but not the third one (which would actually be the second one) which I really wanted to share. Dratsville? The first and third are like political-ish though so ???, which would probably explain why I can't think of putting them anywhere like in TTDECBA or anything, plus they're political so you know ~~~ [funny warbly "so-so/I don't know" sound effect] and I'm not sure if they'd make sense to anyone else but me. 

Like the stuff with Bill Maher recently, calling himself a "house [african american type person]" which was genuinely like whoa WTH, and the stuff before that his previous controversies, like getting chummy with Milo Yanninapolis (dang I thought the spellcheck would catch me on that and tell me the correct spelling, but all it's got is "Anapolis" which I already know how to spell, thanks Google) which was apparently controversial, I just keep on flashing back to that SNL sketch from, 2004 I think, with Christopher Walken as a guest, playing a high school drama teacher whose students are putting on Grease- but he keeps on having to step in with a "whoa, whoa, whoa!" and censoring the lyrics in increasingly bizarre ways, hubba-hubba-hubba flocks! flocks! flocks! like that. So it'd go something like this:

"Go Bill Maher, he's burnin' up the quarter mile..."
"Whoa whoa whoa! Milo? Milo? Milo Yiannopoulos? do you know who that is?? Yeah? come on over here and whisper it in my ear..."

and (something along the lines of)

"you know that he ain't bigger/he's a real house nig--"
"--whoa whoa whoa! a house what?! a house what??We can't use that! That's offensive! To just about everyone!"

Something along those lines. He's keeping his job though, so the analogy (in which Christopher Walken replaces the phrase "Greased Lightning" itself for being "absolutely filthy" "in certain circles") doesn't translate all the way. 

And then there's the scene in Wonder Woman where the title character storms No Man's Land, I keep picturing her as Kylie Jenner just strutting over there and handing out Pepsi to the Germans and converting Ares with the power of soft drink and single-handedly ending WWI. So yeah there's that too.

As for the second clever thing in between those two things...

Ah, that was it. Not just clever things, but awesome things I've found around the, y'know, world or web or whatever, which are worth your time. Found a few of those. That was the second thing. Guess I could share that. Guess I could share that yesterday, which apparently didn't get a post (failed to post in Pretzelize Me, Cap'n! either. Huh.)

Pretty Good Links

A rather humorous maybe kind of sacreligious I don't know essay from Percy Bysshe Shelley. Not sure I agree with very many of his points, but it is a gem.

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Prose_Works_of_Percy_Bysshe_Shelley/On_the_Devil,_and_Devils

If that didn't turn you into an atheist (or even if it did) try your hand at one (or more) of these quizzes, which test you on the internal validity of your own system of morality. Once again, I'm not sure if I believe everything they tell you when they point out exactly how logically inconsistent your ethical system is, like seriously I could go on for a whole thing why their whole premise why my logic is flawed, is flawed, but people tend to be resistant when you tell them to their face that they're totally wrong, and yeah I'm human... but it's totally on them though, it's been previously agreed that nobody's morally culpable for something out of their control, so even if Boris didn't have a choice in the assassination, he didn't have a choice not to have a choice, and he chose to kill regardless of whether his choice would have been made for him or not- pretty sure the ball's in their court on this one.

http://www.philosophyexperiments.com/

Alright here's what I'd been meaning to share anyway.

http://www.nickyee.com/index-archive.html

There's some interesting reads and plays there, including an essay on the history of the western concept of homosexuality and one on how biased so-called "personality tests" are, but what I'd like to point your attention to is the Predictive Psychology flash widget, which is actually a magic trick disguised as a different magic trick, using psychology to distract you from the psychology. It's... Just eat what we tell you to and don't question it.

Why does Ryan always seem to see through these things when I don't...

As long as I'm linking you to that Flash widget, have this page, which I've been sitting on for the better part of a decade now. It's the games page of the website of legendary Dutch screen actor Rutger Hauer. Yeah, he's got one of those.

http://www.rutgerhauer.org/games/games.php

You can play the memory match game with the objects-to-memorize-the-position-of being tiny little photographs of Rutger Hauer's face. It is as surreal as it is delightful.

On Above-Average Design

Actually might be able to make this. I mean of course I will. Design-wise, I'm doing my darndest but it's still going to come out subpar and it would even if I had the full length of the project to work on this; they say to compare your own work against professionals' instead of fellow students', but for me, I can't tell the difference, it all looks so... beyond me. 

Maybe I was a bit glib in the latest vlog (which analytics is telling me nobody actually watched, so I'm free to claim anything about it as much as I want and nobody'd be able to contradict me,) saying how relatively easy it is to get above-average design. For shirts and other pedestrian screenpress uses, perhaps. But actual design design... there's a reason it's the least stretching of all the standards, just being "above average," in the 50th percentile, instead of having to surpass any standard deviations.

Also something about how I said how relatively easy it is to be dedicated past the first standard deviation- it's true that many people probably aren't dedicated, and I don't consider myself among them, but then watching something like Jiro Dreams of Sushi, or The Social Network, true stories about people with autistic single-mindedness for greatness (Mark Zuckerberg is portrayed as a bit of a jerk, but listening to Jesse Eisenberg's interpretation of the character is enlightening)... Well, that doesn't discount the non-devotees, I s'pose.

Doughnut Phoenix

I’m probably going to need to get good at typographic hierarchy by Monday if the doughnut thing is going to be a success at all. Project 1, now completed save for its processbook, had no writing out of necessity of the assignment. This project with the doughnuts, this one has a lot of type. I had to explain my mathematical reasoning regarding how many doughnuts you can fry using only the kilocaloric energy of 100 doughnuts...

(128. In other words, frying doughnuts using doughnut power is entirely self-sustainable.)

EDIT: I redid the math, and the number of doughnuts that you can fry is closer to, 160. 160 dozen, that is. My calculations had been going off of the assumption that the oil was to be heated from a temperature of zero degrees, which is of course inaccurate. 

Here’s my logic (and you see what I mean when I say this project has a load of typography):

There is a simple mathematical formula to determine how many kilowatt hours it takes to heat any given body of oil to any given temperature in any given time. It goes: 

Gallons × Temperature Rise (°F)

/

860 × Heat-up time (hrs.)

Oil tends to have a 15 minute reheat time, to the temperature of 375° F at which doughnuts are ideally cooked. Let’s say we’ve got a 50-pound capacity fryer- 6 gallons. Heating up to 375° from a room temperature of 70° F takes 1830/215 =~8.512 kilowatt hours to heat that much oil in 15 minutes and cook the first batch of doughnuts. Doughnuts absorb up to 30% of the oil you cook them in (so 15 grams per doughnut; in 6 gallons of oil that’s 2.5 grams per gallon, which is .7th of a percent oil per batch that gets absorbed assuming a batch size of 64 doughnuts (see below.)) The readdition of room-temp oil over subsequent batches is negligible but the addition of one part room temperature doughnut to 6 parts oil is going to bring down the batch of oil 1/7th (or 14%) of the way from 375° to 70°, or 43.57°, which we’ll round up to 44° assuming the addition of that .7% oil lost due to absorption each batch. 6 gallons multiplied by a temperature rise of 44°, and a 15 minute (.25 hour) reheat time, means that it’s going to take 1.228 kwh to reheat the oil to proper re-doughnut-cooking temperatures.

A batch of 100 doughnuts has, according to Google’s estimate of a typical doughnut (going based off the low end of the scale*) and converting from kilocalories to kilowatt hours, 22.315 kilowatt hours in it- turning the fryer on with a 15 minute heatup time to get to 375° (which is about right, though some commercial fryers can get it done in two thirds of the time,) followed by reheating it subsequently over succeeding batches, means you can get a little over 12 batches of doughnuts from the kwh of the kilocaloric energy of 100 doughnuts, from room temperature. If you started off with the fryer already on at 375° f,  22.315 / 1.228 means that you can get 18 batches out of it. And that’s at the low end of the doughnut calorie estimation scale!

How much is 12-18 doughnut batches?

8 twin-sized fry baskets can fit into a 50-pound fryer- 3 each on the side fry pots, 2 in the middle; each fry basket (17 1/2" x 9 1/8" x 6") can hold 8 doughnuts, so each batch contains 64 doughnuts.**

768 doughnuts are in 12 batches, 1,152 doughnuts are in 18 batches- between the two batches are 160 dozen doughnuts. 150 dozen doughnuts a day is about average bakery output, so with 120 doughnuts left over there’s enough to take home twenty for yourself, and use the remaining hundred to power the fryer for the next day’s bake. 

I've got illustrations and a list of sources for my claims in the project itself, which should be going up to you overmorrow, over at Pretzelize Me, Cap'n!.

More Midterms Projects: Plugging and Chugging

Finished off the how-to project design today. Among the to-dos of tomorrow are getting that printed and mounted, pasting the old drafts into the process book, and meanwhile continuing the research for the visualization project: head down to Paradise Doughnuts to interview regarding the kilowatt hours required to fry doughnuts, how many doughnuts can be cooked at once, and how much oil it takes to do so; the answers I'm getting online to those questions have been kind of mealy-mouthed. (The idea is to figure out how many doughnuts can be fried using the kilocalories converted into kilowatt hours of 100 doughnuts.)

I am aware that today is national doughnut day. I'd been really hoping that there'd be some fascinating and useful doughnut facts posted up on newssites and in papers, which I'd be able to use for this project, but no dice?

(Two projects so far in information design class, create a strictly visual how-to poster (and also app,) and design an infographic detailing facts and metrics regarding anywhere from 50-100 of any chosen item, in my case doughnuts. The card tower how-to from last semester I repeated, but with completely different tack this time; I chose doughnuts instead of shoes for the 100 things project because of this Wondermark; we're not doing the LEGO visualizations  app project this semester which is a darn shame because I really liked the conceit I had last semester regarding it.)

At this rate I just may pass the class (depends on how mercifully the month-late how-to project will be graded, and also whether I do well on the other thing); whether that'll be enough to get a C average or better has yet to be seen.

Carvin' Into It

Expect Pretzelize Me Cap'n! to be getting a couple of new posts around Monday; the blog started out to show my progress in information design last semester so it's only fitting that it should do the same this semester, though (this semester's class being on-campus) it's not necessary. I would have already posted there had I, you know, completed the first assignment when it was due.

Work recidivism rate (and yes I'm making up a new definition I guess, but it fits the usage perfectly?): such-and-such a time is spent working, not all. I'd go nuts if I only worked. Nonetheless... it's looking like that's what I need to do, considering I've got two month-long projects to complete over the weekend. As long as I'm taking a break from work I should be equally productive on other non-movie things... I've got a few things in mind...