New Vlog Woo

https://youtu.be/t1eSvkUdGug

New (Sun)Day Coming Up

It feels like I'm missing something important before I go to bed but I think I'm just being paranoid. But what if I'm not? Analysing my feelings I think it's just anxiety over having to go to church early tomorrow. Pretty sure I have everything I need done. DuoLingo, scripture study.

I got tomorrow's vlog in early, shot and edited it and it's uploading to YouTube now and scheduled to go live in 24 hours. I'm working tomorrow; my schedule is all kinds (alright, one or two kinds) of jacked up. The days I have off each week don't seem to be consistent. And also my hours overrun play rehearsal. 

Since it's something I enjoy, and something that helps, I see my work as a Good thing, and it's lawful to do Good on the sabbath. It's still counting as work, I'm still getting paid; I was thinking and praying (and heck tomorrow's Fast Sunday I could do that too though I already feel good about this) that if I ever have to work on the Sabbath, like, all my paycheck for that day I'll donate as Fast Offering or something.

Anyway, as midnight draws nearer the better I feel that I didn't miss anything. I kind of have to.

kisskillya

apparently the tv show Detention is on iTunes- it's been almost impossible to find up till this point, very little support or information available online, but all thirteen episodes are there. still unsure if this is a show i remember from my childhood- the design of the school hallways matches for sure, as does the vague timeframe (it aired between 1999 and 2000.) And though episode synopses and the like from my scant internet resources had seemed in opposition to more fantastical plots, the iTunes previews of the episodes reveal that the show seems to have a lot of imagine spots, which makes sense.

Cartoon show, Science Court-era, takes place at a school and follows this group of friends. I hope it’s not Detention, because that show is impossible to find, but it might be. The floor is literally made of lava in one episode, perhaps due to virtual reality? And so they have to walk along the tops of the lockers, or along this ledge along the lockers, and encounter Indiana Jones-style booby traps. Something about an evil wheelchair-bound kid living in the boiler room in the basement, who turns out to be just misunderstood? And perhaps he’s got a big henchperson to do his bidding for him, I don’t know.

One Month minus a coupla days since I'm just learning about this now

April 26th is going to be exciting because you know what happens? mountain goats are coming out with a new album. Already have a couple of songs out - so good!- their best stuff since, the last stuff they came out with, really.

Cell Phone Saga Dwindling to an End

Finally coming into contact with the last house this afternoon, no phone turning up there, I guess that makes it official that my cell phone is officially not misplaced but lost. Though actually hol' up, is there a list of all the people who showed up to the Christmas pageant meeting? Doesn't even have to be an official one, just an informal one will do, like asking, "hey do you remember who all was there?" I'm not sure if my new job would ever need to communicate to me via text or not; nobody calls me as it is so I haven't been terribly put out over it, and I'm out of service probably by now anyway so even if I had my phone it would cost money I don't have if I wanted any service. (I'd still be able to Pinterest and stuff but I can and do do that from my laptop.)

I guess I'm just proud. Or maybe I don't replace my phone because I can't afford it; yeah that might be it.

Questions on Forgettable Media

So I had job orientation today and got there a little late though I tried to get there early, but it really didn't matter so I don't even need to go into it. What I want to talk about instead is forgotten (and even remembered) films and video releases from the olden times of, like, thirty years ago. Who's going to remember them? Do we have the obligation to remember them? I also think about crappy shoestring independent movies a lot as well- why do they love child actors so much? Is that the one experience these writer/directors all have, just childhood? Children's movies too, low-budget ones. The music is actually kind of catchy, but still recognizably bad- how so, and what makes music so recognizable as such?

Streak Losses

urgh and I lost my 23-day streak due to the uploading of the video; that's how I lost my 120 day streak at the start of the month...

Not as big a disappointment as that one of course, but more needless still; I knew I had to get my duo done but refrained in case it took up too much bandwidth or something and slowed down the video upload?

Seem to be on a streak actually uploading videos now though; that's two and next Sunday I still have this month's vlog to do. Wonder what that'll be about...

Strokes for Everyone!: Wonder Park, the Coma of the Author and the Future of Animation

Is the title a bit grandiose? Probs. Does it make you want to click it? Absolutes.

Half a Power Outage?

So I'd meant to get a bunch of work in today on the computer but the power shut off while I was out and away, parts of the house's power selectively and leaving the other parts untouched. Like, kitchen? Lights are working, outlets are working. Computer room? Lights are working but the outlets aren't. No electricity in my bedroom at all. 

I just had to drag an extension cord to plug into an outlet in the other room, in order to get the computer on so that I could continue my project. It's going on pretty well.

Dreams (Literal) and Changes (Figurative)

My dreams have been particularly vivid these last couple of nights. It's funny; that's all it seems to take to make my life feel significant enough to keep pressing through it. The only thing that's necessary is to make a day feel important, and string those together.

It's taken a week but it looks like my background check has finally gone through and I'm hireable. It's probably going to be just like any other thing. Never sure if anything is going to change/change me, but I've lived with change long enough by now to hopefully be able to tell how things are going to go along.

Now I Almost Actually Understand How People Who Hate the Last Jedi Feel Almost

Watching Incredibles 1 and 2 back-to-back is a terrible idea and I don't recommend it unless you want to get mad. Positives though:

• You can pretend (and heck maybe it was deliberate) that it's some kind of commentary on comic book time, stories that happen over days or weeks taking months to complete while always being set in the "present" (you know what comic book time is.) People reminiscing over events that took place only a few days ago, as though they happened 14 years ago? Sure, deliberate! Because comic book time!
• The advancement in technology means that the sequel can be subtle where the original went super stylized. The two don't always mesh, but there are good things that can come out of it. The lighting values in 2 are exquisite. There's some pretty good lighting in the first one but 2 just blows it out of the water in that regard.
• Now I kinda get what TLJ haters are getting at, like something's totally ignoring everything that's coming before? I don't feel that way about the Star Wars movie of course, but I'd be mad too if they actually did that.

New Video!

HOW GOOD IS PIE LIKE SERIOUSLY

Mmmmight as well.

Apparently it's Pie day today. Had some seriously amazingly good pie today.

The fact of the Pushing Daisies marathon also today is complete coincidence; it's something I've been watching lately anyway.

2019 Disillusions

Is it weird that it's 2019? It's weird that it's 2019. Year seems so... temporally displaced. Like, 2016 was an eternity ago, 2020 is this weird future thing that's never going to arrive, 2019 feeling like it shouldn't have arrived. And it's just so weird.

And it's March already. ...?!

And I'm thinking about jobs (and I don't have any yet) but with the snags with the Walmart stuff it's got me thinking whether I really want to work there, thinking whether I even want a job at all, and why would I want I job, so that I can buy things? I don't want to buy things. Capitalism seems kind of pointless to me now, me being so far outside of it.

And everything else it feels like I'm outside of that all too. I want to want things, but I just can't bring myself to. Nothing seems real to me. Maybe that's not a bad thing.

Spider-Man Saves the Evening

I wanted to go to bed a couple of hours ago but I wanted to get a blog post done first, but I didn't want to write anything because the only thing I would be able to write about is how it feels like I've hit a low point, but I didn't really want to talk about it. I would have gone to bed miserable, had I gone to bed when I'd wanted to.

Now I'm feeling a little better. No small part thanks to Spider-Man. Thank you, Spider-Man.

Actually now that I think about it, I wouldn't have slept straight from that, but would have written some non-blog related stuff, get my life off my chest. Still seems like a good idea.

This Happened

https://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/prophet-meets-pope-francis-vatican

Feel the Burn

Exercising with Alex every-ish day for almost a week now, and it still s*cks but it gets easier marginally. And it's called exercise. And in a shortly long story, like, it works because you continue doing it after you'd normally give up, spurring you beyond how you'd do you. You grow because it stretches your comfort zone.

And it's not true 100% of the time, but it is a much more effective method of growth. Maybe. Like, just because it's getting easier doesn't mean I'm really seeing any results yet of course. But, as a general principle, it might be true I suspect? It gets you to places quicker, at least, maybe.

Realizing I don't know for sure is undercutting a lot of my initial point, not to mention the counterexamples I can think of. I'm a pretty good visual artist, but I don't remember ever "arting" past the point where it hurts, things just accumulated gradually, maybe continuing because believing in myself, being told I had skill when in fact I did not? 

Piano, though, exercising there; and writing of course, though I still feel I could use many drills in both. That's the kind of thing I was going to liken to exercise.

Tees Maar Fox

So I was researching Neil Simon, as one does, and it turns out that 

1. he didn't write his first play till he was like 40, which means that I don't have to feel bad about not having anything significant accomplished in life yet (though he did work for years in television writing as practice leading up to it), and
2. the first film he wrote the script for, the Italian heist After the Fox, was given an Indian remake in 2010, Tees Maar Khan.
3. (Incidentally, how do you spell "40" out? Forty? Fourty? They both look right yet somehow off...)

Looking into that, Tees Maar Khan, it turns out that it was written and directed by my favorite Bollywood director, Farah Khan!, and somehow I had never heard of it!

So I checked whether it was on Netflix, and it was, and I watched it- and I can tell you, well there's probably a reason why I'd never heard of it. in that it's not very good; though it's got a few interesting ideas and stuff not in the original film. And some pretty funny references for the more advanced student of Bollywood, and some digs at Slumdog Millionaire and M Night Shyamalan. Those were great.

Still, it's nice when these things that you'd somehow never come across before, present themselves to you.

This News

Alex Trebek is, just, an international treasure. Best of luck to 'im.

Sword Artifact Idea

Cursed sword that strikes down the righteous and innocent- finally destroyed in a forge, the blood of all its victims seeping out- the iron from that blood reforged into a blessed sword that strikes down the wicked and guilty. Maybe a bit too "high" fantasy to fit into TTDECBA, but still a neat idea that I've had for a while and realized I wasn't doing anything with so might as well use it as a post for the day.

5 Facts About Nutrition Off the Top of My Head

Tryptophan. Turkey doesn't contain that much tryptophan; it's some weird chemical reaction in your body between the tryptophan and the shocking amount of carbs you also consume at Thanksgiving that makes you so sleepy. Like, something to do with insulin levels or something? I tried making sense of that section of the wikipedia article and it was INTRICATE.

Phenylalanine is an essential amino acid- your body doesn't make it but it needs it in its diet in order for you not to die. Like lysine. I could go on this whole tangent about how much sense the lysine contingency in Jurassic Park doesn't make. Phenylketonurics (and I spelled that right first try somehow) are somehow allergic to phenylalanine, this essential protein thing; and so like I don't know how they don't die, maybe they just eat much less of it?, but there's a lot of phenylalanine in aspartame which is why soda warns phenylketonurics away from it.

Bromelain isn't acidic per se; it just breaks down proteins. The only known medical use for it is in removing dead cells from wounds. Pineapple is stinking delicious. 

Citric Acid. Vitamin C. Scurvy is bad news. I want to go on a tangent about the history of biscuits and hardtack. I want to go on a tangent about the freezing temperature of brine. In the book Treasure Island, when Jim is hiding in the apple barrel listening to the pirates, Long John Silver doesn't reach in there without looking, though that is a cool scene still and IIRC he still feels like eating an apple, he just never gets around to it? And now I want to go on a tangent about the provenience of many of the pirate "traditions" Stevenson made up for Treasure Island. And now I want to go on a tangent about pirates named Red Beard. How do I know so much about pirates. Cooking food removes much of its vitamin C content. I'm not sure how much vitamin C raw meat has, but it probably has any. Long John Silver doesn't have a peg for his missing leg, he goes around on crutches.

Monosodium Glutamate tastes terrible in Jello, at least when you mix it with unsweetened cocoa powder. The European classification number for MSG is E621. Niiiiiiice.

Newspaper Word Puzzle from My Dream

Pretend that the webcam didn't flip the image horizontally. 

The gist of it is, fill in the alphabet, snaking it around so that it's connected orthogonally, asterisks indicate warping points where one letter can jump to the other like there's a little tunnel there or something?, helpful for figuring out duplicate letters in the word??, and figure out the secret word of the day (in this case, PASSENGERS) by snaking letters into the circled squares. And bullets indicate inpenetrable walls you have to snake around.

Nightmarish In-Name-Only Treasure Island

Day 2 of never letting an opportunity pass me by: napping. A lot of napping. Also putting potato crisps into my tomato sandwich.

Continuing to track down films from my childhood for no real reason other than because I can (not letting any opportunities pass me by, yes.) I wrote down the details I could remember yesterday, after blogging for the day. 

I’ve got bizarrely specific memories of this- I could have sworn it was named Treasure Island, but it’s not listed among the list of adaptations. I think it was an anime, and an older one. Sort of like Tom Sawyer 2000, world of funny animals, but Treasure Island, but in name only. It’s not the legends of treasure island, but very similar. It’s not animal treasure island either; no human characters at all. Jim Hawkins is a cat, I think. He gets the map, but it doesn’t show where in the ocean the island even is, so Squire Trelawney says, “then we shall let the gods decide!” and throws a dart at a map of the world and they sail to that place and happen to get it right, the island happens to be right where the dart landed. At one point on the island they’re on a lake or river and there’s an “undertow” (not sure if that’s what they call it in the film or if it’s just my childhood understanding of the events) but it’s a living creature and Jim dives/gets pulled underwater by it, and gets to see the entire thing, which turns out to be some nightmarish anemone-like tentacle monster on the bottom of the lakebed. At the end of the movie, they never find the treasure and the island sinks into the sea and it’s incredibly depressing.

Found it! here: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0188249

Turns out it was The Legends of Treasure Island, but only kind of- in 1997 someone stuck the first three episodes together with the last episode of the first season, for some reason, and released that as a complete movie! It's called, just, Treasure Island, of course, just as I remember it, and... not everything's exactly as I remember it, the dart thing is slightly less ridiculous in context (but still pretty nonsensical and doesn't even matter in the end anyway.)

I remember the "have your guts for mincemeat" line, the "as the crow flies to the crossed palms" thing with the dead man's spyglass, and the stuff I listed, but the whole deal with the myst that takes away your memory I don't, heh, remember; maybe it was cut out of the film version (though going off of run time, it looks like the four 22-minute episodes just straight up got smashed together sans editing.)

Corndog Science Hour

Day 1 of never letting a single opportunity pass me by.

1. Watching the sun rise AND soaking in the hot tub
2. Writing down my dream
3. Painting some
4. Calling Personnel offices again at Walmart
5. Ripping a VHS tape
6. Wash the car
7. Seeing if anybody is home yet at the address where my phone was?
8. Cooking each corn dog a different way because there were four left and four methods of cooking instructed
9. Ripping a second VHS
10. Napping just now when I couldn't go to bed because I was waiting on the VHS tape
11. Blog about opportunities I didn't miss today
12. get the photos into here