Hatching

   I can't tell you when it started for sure, but I can say, always, and you'll understand.

   I've always been fascinated by three-dimensional form.

   It's always baffled me, however. It's one of those things that I love, but which has never come easily to me, like music or mathematics. I'm terrified of the consistency of math, how 3x8 is the same as 4x6, both being the same as 2x3x2x2 which is the same as both 3x2x2x2 and 2x2x3x2. The same thing with three-dimensional form: staircases blow my mind; the positive and negative space, the dimensionality of floors of a building.

   I'm in love with architecture, but I'd never be able to go into it. There's something there about the relationship of, "objects in space," that I can't grasp (does that seem right to you?). I suppose that's why it haunts me so much.

   It's one of the themes that keeps on cropping up in my art over and over again, I've noticed. I've never thought to put it into words until right this minute, until right before starting this sentence, but when it comes to my independent art, art not part of any comic books or illustrations but art for art's sake, I'm a surrealist, if it wasn't immediately obvious-- it wasn't to me until just now, yet I've been aping Magritte all these years. So when I say, keeps cropping up: foreground treated as background, positive space treated as negative space. One of my first "cartoons" (in the classical sense) from my mission, if not the very first I think, is of Christ with his crown of thorns, only we see the crown as though a vine hanging underneath an arch that is the shape of the top of his head: it's not a crown at all, but a Vine, the True Vine.

   Masks and faces, that's another major theme. Masks, especially, tying into one of the central themes: the idea of Man as Animal.

   I'm not sure what the above painting, completed today, symbolizes: it's less about Man incubating an inner animal, but about how the animal had always been there, and is now showing through. The Man, in this instance, was the Mask; he'd always been hollow, as thin as eggshell, but it's only now that the shell is cracking. None of us is alone, we're always surrounded by other people, and now the inner nature is poking through for all to see: do they see it? Or do they only see what they've always seen? And how many others share the secret, of being eggshell thin? Is he alone? Or is everyone else secretly an animal too?

   I wish I had more for you than that; that's as much as I've figured out for myself.

Holographic Jor-El Kicks Butt! (The Misadventures of Plasma Bleeding)

   Rereading the Ghost Sequence again, first of all parts of it were excellent (heh) and actually pretty fascinating even to me, nothing that couldn't stand a rewrite and even reformatting one day maybe, but... I apologized, like, a lot. How many time there, two, three, did I point out that reading this blog is a voluntary choice, and you don't have to read if I get too, best word I can come up with is, amateurish? Yes. And, uh, man, I can't tell if I should apologize for those apologies, when I should have just done better in the first place and let everything stand for itself...

   Maaan, though, even without apologizing, I think this might get boring, here, because I'm all obligated to tell you this story. Go away, critics, it's not for you (ham!). This story, anyway, is about my trip to the Biomat on Wednesday, and all the wacky adventures I had...

   (If this were A Real Thing, I'd place the jump break there, but this is Disney Villain Death instead, where I only do jump breaks for footnote purposes. So.)

   Every day I have classes, so Monday-Thursday, they start out either 7:45 or 8:00, and I have a break for however long with classes starting at 3:15 again. Wednesday has the longest break before 3:15, so it's the day I've got time to pull stuff like this, but: time to go in for my second plasma donation (they throw away your precious fluids if you don't come back a second time, probably to make sure you're not a bioterrorist or something.) As long as I'm out before 3:15, we're good.

   Easier said than done...

   I told you how I saw the 40% off sign, and so pooched the duck by screwing into the Game Pulse next door fir-- or, wait, what?

   Hold on...

   Yeah, sounds about right.

   Where was I. There's a card they give you on your first time through, to present on a future visit-- I think generally the next, but I haven't used mine yet-- which allows you to cut to the front of the queue, but I figured I didn't need to here; there weren't that many people sitting around waiting to be cleared and admitted onto the donation floor.

   There's a movie playing- they make sure there's always something to look at while you sit there. Is it fantasy? There's this really angry guy, going wild on all these nicer guys, and there's this chick with the angry guy who looks a heck of a lot like the chick who played Faora-Ul in Man of Steel, and there's this royal-looking guy, and is that Russell Crowe? and the insignia on the royal crest is this diamond, and, oh, okay, it's Man of Steel. Not long after the beginning, either-- Clark Kent is still on that oil rig, and I know enough about the film to know that's more or less where it starts off.

   I read the AIDS notice plaquart they give you to read every time before donation. It takes a while for them to call me up after checking in. I don't have all day, should I have used my VIP access pass? But my name is called, eventually, to go into booth 1: to be weighed, and my blood measured, and my temperature taken, and my risk of disease transmission probed.

   There's some kind of accident that's happened on the rig. Everything's on fire. Clark Kent saves everyone, but says something about seeing another guy up there that still needs to be saved? The tower collapses onto him, but he holds it back, the weight pressing him through the floor, until the rescue helicopter leaves and everything explodes.

   In the booth, they make you give your full name and the last four digits of your Social Security number, the way they have you do to prove it's you. I'm also weighed and everything. The girl/lady human female person there, she asks for a finger to extract blood from to test. I offer my left index this time; it'd been the left middle the first time and it doesn't hurt or even throb like I'd remembered, and OW goshdarn it my pointer is so much more sensitive than my middle apparently. She milks the blood into her glass tube, centrifuges it, separates the red from the plasma, begins to do science on it.

   The computer fails. Is it my fault? I think it might be my fault. I'm sent back out until a second booth can hopefully have a computer work for me.

   When Clark was a boy, the Earth's yellow sun gave him powers, and he became overwhelmed by his super senses.

   Booth 2.

   Full name and last four.

   The computer fails here, too.

   It's probably my fault.

   When Clark was a boy, his bus crashed off of a bridge. He saved everyone. Including the bully.

   We transfer immediately to Booth 3. Full name and last four again, even though we weren't apart for two seconds. It's required.

   The computer fails again.

   It's not just ours that's having the problem.

   It's not my fault.

   When Clark was a boy, they talked about him. He was witnessed being a hero. Was it God who made him a freak?

   The problem turns out to have been a, failure to reset the computer after installing the new thermometers, or something, only manifesting itself here because of the science.

   Back into one of the booths. Full name and last four. They need you to state your current address as well.

   Wait, seriously? I needed to know that? I saw my documentation of address back at the apartment and deliberately didn't pick it up.

   Address, address. They allow you to look it up, but they can't tell you themselves. The wifi here's protected. There's a printer wifi, but it proves to be impossible to connect to-- what's the wifi password here? I ask.

   She tells me, but doesn't explain how to spell it because by now it's superfluous-- it's on a little card on the bulletin board on the wall, and once I figure out my address I can take it up at the desk and they'll call me back into another booth. She attaches a sticky note to my file folder, noting that my health stuff is all completed, and I just need to verify the last couple of things.

   There's something mysterious and ancient underneath the ice of the Antarctic. Is it General Zod's ship? Is that how long ago he'd been banished? Was he an ancient dude? What are the odds that he's awakening right when Kal-El is also on-planet?

   It's the Fortress of Solitude! Of course.

   I find the wifi information and look up the address.

   Clark and Lois are both investigating the place at the same time, although the last time I'd seen Clark, he was hitchhiking across the country, not beating up rude dudes but doing plenty of damage to their logging trucks. There's probably loads of insurance on that kind of thing, though.

   I'm called into a booth eventually. Full name, last four. Address, I got it. But...

   They also expect you to know the ZIP code.

   I take a stab at it. Nope, the dude (it's a dude this time) says.

   I already have a connection to the wifi, of course, so it's not that tough to look up the code for Rexburg: 83440. I'm verified.

   Now I get to wait in the blue chairs. Zod is messing with Supe's head, drowning him in ESP skulls and everything.

   They have you show your arms for bruises-- they refuse to stick needles into bruises. Last time, my first time here, the anticoagulant didn't take, or something, and so the blood clotted inside of the needle. I'd had them stick my left arm, and so they had to restick me, in my right. My left arm is covered in bruises from that, and so they have to use my right arm this time for sure. There might be a tiny little bruise on that vein, but it's alright. If something goes wrong with this one, they won't be able to transfer the needle to my other arm, and that's just always the risk.

   Zod's got his gravitic technology and is attempting to implode the earth. You know whom this looks like a job for.

   I finally get in onto the floor, for them to bleed me. It's a couple of hours later than if I'd have been prepared, and, hey the same movie that was playing when I got in is still going on.

   Man of Steel is a looooong movie, man. Holographic Jor-El was awesome, closing doors with the power of his AI fist clenching. The alien signal hacking first contact scene with all the different languages being broadcast, that was genuinely pretty chilling, and I can see the effects that that would have on the world which the trailers to Dawn of Justice hint at to be more fully explored in that movie. The fight scene at the end wasn't just one solid hour of Supes and Zod flying each other into buildings irresponsibly like the critics made it seem.

   That movie ends, Amazing (Incredible?) Spider-Man 2 begins, Electro is so cool, and the way he gets his powers is just awesome, in a no-kill-like-overkill kind of way.

   I take a Poweraid, sit around till they allow me to leave. It was a long process. I've still got enough time before classes that I'd probably be able to watch through Spider-Man as well if I really wanted, but it was still a long process. Oh! And I didn't tell you throughout the entire thing:

   They make you drink plenty of fluids before donation, of course. And there's a urine test your first go-through... though apparently not the second? Which I did not know. So I made sure to drink plenty of fluids, and not relieve myself of anything or anything, beforehand...

Leo: Realizing the Gravity of the Situation (Plus Zootopia Watch)

source: y2d-shows.com/leo

   I'm kind of paranoid that nothing is real, today, because I received a robocall or at least I'm pretty goshdarn sure it was a robocall but it was actually seriously literally a robocall, with some kind of AI on the other end. I... I think? But there's no way to be sure-- I've accused callers of being robots before (alright, it was one time) but that turned out to be wrong... but of course you could program a robot also to deny that it's a robot... I didn't even try this time, just, hanging on the line, eating up my minutes, hoping they'd be the one to disconnect like a human would do, or responding to my "no" when asked if I was still there...

   Turing threshold... not quite passed, except maybe it was, I just don't know.

   Anyway... that's not the only way I was forced to rethink my concept of reality today. With that awesome segue, let me introduce you to LEO.

source: y2d-shows.com/leo

      Let me set the stage: on stage left, a room, bare save for a lightbulb descending from the ceiling; next to it, on stage right, a screen. The room is sideways: the lightbulb is not descending at all, but is sticking out horizontally. The room being filmed, however, with a sideways camera so as to correct the image, which film is projected onto the screen. The audience can choose which version of reality to view at any one time: the reality of the performance, wherein the wall is "down," or the reality of the achievement of the performance, wherein the wall is only playing "down."

   In the room is a man. Leo. Not that there's anyone else around to address him as such. No, the man is alone, save for the lightbulb and his suitcase.

   On the screen, the man is leaning against the wall. On the stage, the man is lying on the ground. He appears to be waiting for someone, or something. He appears to wait a long time.

   Until he realizes that not everything is how it initially seems...

   Really fun, mind-bending stuff, great for all ages (though actually pretty scary sometimes.) There's lighting effects and music and more than just the physical reality featured on the screen, but nearer to the end animation and multi-layered exposure effects, which you can catch a bit of in the above video.

   And absolutely no wires throughout the entire thing.

   There are three tours going on right now; this one features Berlin native acrobat Julian Schulz in the title role. After tomorrow's performance they're heading down to BYU Provo for a week, doing performances but also workshops, which makes me really disappointed when I realize that I'm pretty sure Utah Theater Association conference is at the U of U this year instead.

ZOOTOPIA WATCH
   Hey, four new items at the Zootopia store were added today! Also, hey, I'm apparently keeping track of the number of items at the Zootopia store!

   Judy hits Duke Weaselton with her Meter Maid cart! Nick drives a convertible with parking meter included (which the packaging seems inordinately excited by)! Judy Hopps chills with May Bellwether! We learn of the existence of a new character, Safety Squirrel!

    I noticed almost immediately after posting my original Disney Store post, but just from the playsets, the fact that the Nick and Finnick action (?) figures are packaged together, and, yeah, described as being buddies and scamming and suckering together, they're... flimflam fellas, together-- shoot, I literally just realized this, but they're both foxes.

   By "just" I mean immediately before you read that, of course. This blog is live. Anyway, um... Weird, eh? They might even be cousins! How...ever biology works, in the Zootopia world...

   And don't you find it suspicious that the little dude's name is Fin-nick? There's no way that that... yeah, alright, it's totally a coincidence.

10 Views Per Post... Woot?

   I noticed tangentially my pagestats on my Blogger this morning that DVD now has more than 10 views per post on average (tangential, like, way tangential-- signing into Google on a public computer so that I could have a search I was making saved, using Blogger to sign in because there was no obvious sign-in to Google on the web browser I was using, and the search turned out for nothing anyway.) That was the stat this morning; it's at 13,978 now, which is... still, more than a 10-view-per-average post rate.

   I think that's supposed to be good; I don't know... looking at the statistics from that other time I posted up blog stats (not the 666 one, but the one where I thought Thomas "Ohnitsch" Novotny was stalking me) it's, arrggh I can't be bothered to do the math.

   There's a whole tab thing dedicated to traffic monitoring like that, which paints a much clearer picture, showing that last month had the most hits of any month, with this month being third highest and not halfway over yet... So, yes, traffic is up? But delving deeper into the stats on where the links are actually coming from, only one or two appear to be, actual, websites... And actual pageviews don't seem to correspond to posting at all; a full 93% of those pageviews from last month were from before I started posting regularly again (Dec 25th-31st pageviews number 40, out of the 619 total hits from last month, and oh sure now I can be bothered to do math.)

   I don't like talking about this anyway. It's like on FurAffinity when people freak out about having 300 views to their page, or something... I actually don't know what's up with that; whether they feel famous for it or if that's actually a milestone and they get boosted in, rankings, or something. Is that the case? And is that still the case, with the IMVU thing now or whatever? I suppose I could look it up...

   ...not that it's anything new but man there is just so much about FurAffinity that I don't understand...

   Anyway, I suppose now I can post the solution to last week's Sudoku, now that this week's one is due tomorrow (I did not win the contest, thank you very much for asking...)

EDIT: This throws the stat off, but I just realized that it's more like thirteen views per post, seeing as how this is the 1052nd post up and the number given on the dashboard is a signifier of all posts, not just the ones published. Sorry. 

My Nerdery Compels Me to Try New Things

   There's a hobby game store right next to the Biomat, right... It's called Game Pulse. I've always been curious about it, ever since first walking by last Wednesday-- so, alright, I've always been curious about it, and by always I mean for a week. I've been curious about it for a week. Passing by this morning heading in to give my plasma, I saw this table with a, 40% off, paper plaquart on it, and I just had to duck in... So, no, technically, I did not "pass by."

   The place was totally dead in there. Just, the lady, sitting by that table, and nobody else. Apparently it's just because they're experimenting with new hours, for the month, and, like, nobody knows that they're open this early? So I got lucky that they happened to be open in the first place.

   It was a pretty neat place. Dragon head on the far end of the wall; big ol' boxes of nothing but MTG mana cards; Killer Bunnies expansions nobody's ever heard of. Pretty sparse place as well-- just one big open space, with a few shelves around. Reminds me of that one store from that one Far Side strip, with the high shelves...you know what I'm talking about;.If you don't... well, I'd link to it, or something, but Gary Larson doesn't tend to authorize images of his work put up onto the internet. Sparse store, anyway, but I've peeked in before during MTG tourneys and things and that exact design looks ideal for Friday Night Magic.

   Game Pulse, anyway. I wish them success, even if I couldn't patronize them at that time. (Whatever happened to Next Dimension comics back in Fallon? It just... died, one day? I'm so paranoid about that kind of thing happening to those kinds of places, now...)

   All the crazy crud that went down donating my plasma was a-mah-zing, so I'll just skip to this evening, coming out of computer art class, wondering if they've got the weekly apartment inspection this evening handled without me. (They did; we got a smiley face score on apartment cleanliness.) And, I see a collection of comic books on a table in the classroom to my right, and I notice on the door a slip of paper in comic book art style, advertising the BYU-I Comics Workshop, and I notice after that that there's people in there as well, all sitting at the desks and working on drawings of themselves designed as introductions, and...

   And I'm co-writing a comic book, now.

   It's part of the, thing, the extracurricular, curriculum, to team up with one other person, depending on whether you're more into writing or drawing... My teammate, my original teammate, can't make it to the workshops, though, so another duo graciously took me in... My co-author and I have no idea what it's going to be about, yet. Our artist is pretty incredible, though, and generically versatile (versatile in, genre, that is?), so it can go in some interesting places if we let it...

   Aside from that, there's a lot of talent throughout the group in general... There's a show-and-brag after, if anyone wants to show and brag, and so here we've got some really neat stuff you should check out.

   For this week's brag-and-tell, we had Madeleine Fisher, the artist of  Brainstorm (written by her older brother, who is it appears on his mission right now so is on a bit of hiatus) preview some of her work for this week's Precious Metal, which is ongoing, and which she is both the writer and artist of.

Brainstorm.

   Brainstorm, having only 13 issues so far due to the aforementioned hiatus, is a quick read, obviously, and very Scott Pilgrim-esque. It's about a boring guy with interesting powers, namely, to manifest his imagination into reality.

Precious Metal

   Precious Metal meanwhile is getting a Patreon sometime hopefully soon, and is by this point quite a bit larger than Brainstorm, though it probably wouldn't take over an hour to read the whole thing. It's about a thief, and his "sister" he rescued (and continues to rescue) who has magical powers and eats... well, you know. It's right there in the comic's title. It is the comic's title.

   It's reminiscent of Cucumber Quest and Paranatural in the best possible ways (and, indeed, both sites are linked to in the webcomics' obligatory link-to-fellow-webcomics collection.) It's also probably reminiscent of Nimona and Rice-Boy Universe, since those comics are also linked to, but I haven't read either of those? Though I probably should... just as you should read these!

   And that's what I've got for you.

My Second Day of Classes (Plus Zootopia Watch)

   Since I've got all the exact same classes on Tuesdays as I do Thursdays, now would be a good time to tell you about it, I suppose.

   Tuesdays and Thursdays I've got nothing but art classes. Mondays I've got nothing but religion, but I've got that extra art class on Wednesdays, so though my classes go Monday-Wednesday Tuesday-Thursday, that computer art course on Wednesday throws off the prospect of having my entire week composed of "themed" days.

   Another difference between days is, my graphic design course switches between instruction and lab days-- they're the same class and everything, but doing completely different things on completely different floors, depending on which day of the week it is. Today was an instruction day, upstairs, on the third floor.

   Yeah though, that's actually a pretty intensive class. I've got three or four things I need to do tomorrow for it even though I don't have that class that day. Most of them involving paying for things. With money. Which I'm alright with, I guess. It's nice being able to have a needle stuck up in your arm, now, bleeding but getting it back and getting paid for it to boot.

   They say I'm saving lives, too. Which hey is also alright. Though from the looks of it most of the plasma goes to medical research instead of directly pumping into other people? Medical research saves lives too, of course, and hey did you hear we've figured out the cure for like five different forms of cancer, go science, but, man, if these guys are actually some kind of evil corporation deliberately withholding cancer cures from dying patients, or something... Well, what you gonna do.

   I'm writing this pretty late at night, in case you couldn't tell.

   Not, 2:30, 2:45 late, of course. I was... up that late already, finishing up on that once-during-the-semester Book of Mormon paper...

   A fun thing about my other two art classes, the ones in the morning, anyway, is that not only are they both super fun and exciting, but they're back-to-back in the same classroom. And neither as intense as my other art class(es.) Just, such good stuff.

ZOOTOPIA WATCH
   And that's in Times, just to show you what I see when I look at it. Isn't that so much better than Arial for that subheading? I think so.

   The Official Zootopia Disney Store is now up. I read (part of) this article in Fast Company magazine today, from around 2011 when Disney was getting a new, CEO or something?, and so, fun fact! a thing that Disney always do when reviewing a film prospect is, like, branding opportunities, or something? Or something. GAAH I don't seem very sure, or intelligent, right there, but of course I must be intelligent! I just invoked reading Fast Company.

   ...frrrreaak it's so late at night...

   So, yeah, the moment we've all been waiting for; official merch! Yaay merch.

SO ANY SPOILERS?
   ...Can I... do that? Create a second subheading? I'm not even, formatting them as headings, so how'd you be able to tell that this is a subsubheading... Well, I did do that first one in Times... But, yeah! Juicy little tidbits, there's apparently a "bat eyewitness," Nick's catchphrase is apparently "I'm good," and, THIS IS ACTUALLY SERIOUSLY A SPOILER RIGHT HERE, that cute little midget elephant chile, with the big mysterious popsicle? They call him, "Ele-Finnick," which means... which means that that elephant child was, the whole time, neither an elephant nor a child.

   Mind equals equals blown.

   ...What... what is Finnick's role in the story? I'd always assumed him to be just another member of the ensemble cast, but if that really is he in the stroller Nick's pushing there at the beginning, and being all, elephantine, right there chilling with Nick later on... It means...

   It means something, I guess.

New Look

   In case you couldn't tell, I've made a few updates to the site...  The URL is the same, but the blog's official name is Disney Villain Death, which I've been using to refer to it for a while now anyway, and so I updated the title to reflect that.

   The longer DLaDV title was included in the blog description of, I'd say about a little more than a year, from about the time I got back from my mission:

"Die Like a Disney Villain" is an eclectic daily weblog whose subjects range anywhere from the crappy art I doodled on the math homework I didn't do in junior high, to technology's holistic effects on how we view reality and identity, to how weirdfunky my hair can get in the mornings. Stick around. There's a very good possibility there could be puppies.

   That description never really did much for me, so I removed that section of it just now. Hey hey.

   The biggest change is in the post layouts, of course. Well, the layouts themselves haven't changed. Just hopefully the posts are a little more readable. Still trying to maintain the Disney Villain-esque feel to the theme, but realizing that light text against a dark background isn't much fun to read, I switched to dark text on light background, and then realized how close in appearance that was to the stark cardstock of a slip from the Machine of Death, as in the blog's logo.

   Took me tinkering until 2:30 this morning, figuring out the exact line of HTML that edits the post border radius, to curve it down to replicate the edges of a card from the Machine of Death; even when I did find it it took me a bit to remember the code wouldn't take unless it had a / after the value="20px". Now the overall appearance is a bit more cohesive, and I hope a bit more conducive to  the weblog of a graphic arts major.

   I may or may not be finished making edits. I'm not sure I like the background color I've had, but I can't find any I prefer, for one. I'm also waffling between the Times New Roman and the Arial as the text body for posts... Times New Roman is what the editor uses as the default display, but the default font for the posts is Arial. Arial matches the sans serif look of a Machine of Death slip, and it looks nice enough, but the ZOOTOPIA WATCH announcements just don't look the same in Arial as they do from my edits' POV as Times New Roman, which I think I prefer for...

   Shoot, I should probably have screenshotted the old look so we could do a before-and-after. Huh.

EDIT: Wayback Machine comes to the rescue...

https://web.archive.org/web/20141224030231/http://dielikeadisneyvillain.blogspot.com/

https://web.archive.org/web/20160127122520/http://dielikeadisneyvillain.blogspot.com/

I Wasn't Around in the 1970s, But I'd Imagine It's a Very Similar Filmgoing Experience, Going Out to See Star Wars and Superman Multiple Times...

   Last week marks the first in which I did not see The Force Awakens in theaters since it came out on the 18th of last month. I'd thought I'd feel bad about missing a week, but... Yesterday was beautiful, and I'll never forget it, and I'll never regret it. And at least I flipped through a couple of Star Wars magazines at the rack at the store, and even read an interview or two, so I'd still say that counts?, though I didn't patronize anyone, which makes it the first week since Dec 6th-12th they didn't get any revenue from me (though the Fox Peak Cinema viewing, with the Dolby ATMOS, was free for me, it came out of the Cinema's pockets and still counted as a ticket? Or... or I thought, but I just realized don't know for sure. So maybe this wasn't the first week... but I'm still pretty sure.)

   The showtimes for the 3D showing of Star Wars are ridiculous. 10:40 at night? I could have gone 2D once more, I suppose, but, like I said, no regrets. Yesterday was an adventure, full of delicious Korean food and fascinating textbooks and excellent music, and I tear up a little even thinking about the lyrics to Try Everything. Almost broke down right there in the Biomat.

   Thank you, Sia. Thank you, Shakira. Thank you, Stargate. Thank you, J J Abrams. Thanks Mom and Dad and God while we're at it, but it's getting away from me here...

 TFA is, in its fourth week, *only* the third highest-grossing film of all time still, not accounting for inflation... or, TFA was, at least, in its fourth week.

   Well, welcome to week five, Star Wars.

   (I would still like to see you in 3D, in theaters...)

Eric Perazzo is On Top of Everything

   Including your waffles.

"Made it, Ma...!"

   ...

   (I don't have Photoshop yet, but I need it for Art 130... it comes in little subscription packets now...)

   But yes, for real, I'm feeling... on top, of everything.

   Maybe I bit off a lot needing that 2-page 200-point-worth paper (or at least my report on insights gained from writing it) due on Monday, but I've already read everything I need to, and it's a religion paper and tomorrow's Sunday, so I can tackle it. Today was relaxed, much more so than yesterday, though today marks one day closer to everything. I'm feeling out the flow of the days here, and though some of the courses I'm taking are rigorous, well, we'll see.

   I don't have classes on Friday, and neither did any of the girls in my Art 130 class group, so we'd met for an assignment at noon. I'd set up an appointment for 11:10, 50 minutes before the group date, to see about how to steer my path toward a BFA, which meeting was short enough to allow me time afterward to compare the additional needs of the degree against my current proposed one (it's still too early to think about applying for the BFA, and it is and application, but I know what needs to be done now.) I went down to the Biomat today to sell off some of my plasma, having set up an appointment early Thursday morning. All of these incoming futures I fielded, and in most cases instigated in the first place. Where is that coming from?

   I mentioned recently that my focus lately may be because of my failures (referencing a post that I'd written but not actually polished and posted up, though it's up now,) my failures giving me permission to try, loosening my inhibitions and allowing me to join the cycle I discuss in the post linked. And, this isn't even Zootopia watch, right now, but the official "Try Everything" single was released yesterday, and...

   ...and I'd forgotten how warm tears are.

ALRIGHT BUT THIS IS ZOOTOPIA WATCH

   Oh hey the official lyrics, posted on Disney's website, are here!

http://blogs.disney.com/oh-my-disney/music/2015/01/06/try-everything-lyrics-shakiras-song-from-zootopia/

   Though apparently posted a year ago, and my memory is pretty hazy but I'm pretty sure that was before Shakira was even officially announced as being attached to the project, and all we really knew about it was that concept art with Nick being taller than all those bunnies at the train station?

   The Oh My Disney blog tags anything Zootopia related as being under Zootopia (2015), so it might be the same anomaly?, but seems codified enough that I don't think anyone's going to fix it. Seriously, follow that link ASAP though, in case someone actually does catch that and the link I gave you breaks.

An Elephant Never Forgets

   I'd preordered the book, and confirmed my preorder with the author's website, gaining me a complimentary bookplate for my patronage-- but giving the address for delivery as my home I hadn't realized I'd no longer be living at for the time period when it would arrive. I hadn't asked for or expected the letter be forwarded me when my parents alerted me that something came, though distinctly I wished for it.

   And by some small fate...

   "Barsk," I read breathlessly, realizing not-quite-immediately afterward that the letters weren't even remotely close to our legible alphabet, and that logically I shouldn't have been able to "read" them at all. I'd been confused, in that infinite half-second, how my parents hadn't known the return address. Clarity and confusion followed by confusion and clarity, it immediately made sense how they wouldn't have been able to read it.

   And from understanding something I'd never learned, then, to a profound feeling, right now, of deja vu...

   I'm not sure what I'd been expecting on the inside.

   I find myself unable to read these new letters...

Sudoku Whupping (Plus Zootropolis Watch)

   Shoveled snow for, about an hour? And then went to a birthday party at a different apartment complex entirely from mine, probably the nicest around BYU-I. Played, that one app that's like Charades but you hold it up to your forehead and try to guess? Until a couple of minutes ago, when it turned out it was almost midnight and we needed to hurry back (curfew is midnight, but I'm not sure if that's the rule that you need to be in bed by that time or just in your apartment-- I'm up right now, so...)

   I don't have classes tomorrow, which is today here (though not in Pacific Standard Time which is when this blog goes up, so ha! I'm not late) but I still have things to do, and want to get to bed, so I'll make this quick, and not elaborate on my second day of classes at all (great stuff, though!) I do have enough energy to explain Sudoku to you, though.

   The school paper, The Scroll, apparently runs this Sudoku puzzle at the back of the newspaper, and if you complete it and turn it in on time, they'll randomly select one person who did (and presumably got it right) and that person receives... a prize. Of some sort. I hope it's monetary or at least valuable in nature, because I spent a crapton of investment on that Sudoku puzzle, which just may have been not only the hardest one I've done in my life, but also the hardest puzzle of any sort I've ever done, and heck maybe it's even the hardest single thing I've ever done. Three or four times, I thought to myself that maybe they'd made a mistake, or maybe it was deliberate to see who'd catch on and that was the real puzzle, or maybe they just like trolling people or what.

   But I solved it. And so, no, I guess not, it's not impossible. Though it took me digitizing the puzzle and working it out in a more editable form to do it.

   I wish in retrospect that I'd saved the numerous failures, making notes directly on a Snip of the photo of the puzzle I'd managed to complete before deciding to go higher-tech, but whenever I failed I tore it down and started over, or even just tore it down all the way and needing to take a new Snip when I decided to have a second (or fourth, or fifth) go at it. It would be so nice if I had saved images of those attempts, not only so I could show them to you here but also more pragmatically so that I'd be able to know what I'd already tried. Because, seriously, having to redo that work that I'd already figured out was wrong, that was annoying.

   At some point perhaps 2/3rds of the way through, I figured that the penciled-in notes from the photo I was working off of were too distracting and possibly outdated, and my reliance on them may have been a factor in my constant failure, going from bad assumptions (I did draw fresh number dots as part of my Snips, but I mostly based those off of the dots on the sheet below (some of which had been erased which wasn't as clear from the photo as it was in real life.)) I thus plopped the numbers into an Excel sheet and worked from that.

   This image is from when I realized that I should have been saving my Snips the whole time; it's not actually one of my work Snips but I still find it worth sharing because it's pretty interesting. It delineates the relationships between numbers that would only be able to go in either of two slots, with the remainder of slots proving to be impossibilities for one reason or another:

   The yellow highlights around the edges indicate that I've checked all numbers in that row/box/column, to find any strays that could only have fit one place. The different color inks also mean specific things, with red being experiments and blacks being definitively locked-in numbers. The red scribbles on the left side are "administrative," that is, they deal with me experimenting with my pen tool (the Cisco-like bars are me experimenting with pressure, and that circle gave me a place to rest my cursor so that I'd be able to find that tiny thing again easily.)

   I'd post up my solution images as well, but the contest only closes to applicants Friday at 5:00...

ZOOTROPOLIS WATCH

   So, I know I'm not telling you about my second day of classes yet because I don't have time to get into detail, but I seriously needed to get to how my Art 130 Introduction to Graphic Design professor showed us the sloth trailer of all things. (!)(?)(!). Not as part of the class or anything, just, something about, slow reaction times or something? Only it was the British version of the trailer, exactly the same except "Sorcerer's" Stone-esquely called Zootropolis instead of Zootopia. And my Art 202 History of Art Renaissance-Present professor showed us the London New Year's fireworks, so I guess it's... shoot, actually, it could be a major holiday today in the UK and I wouldn't know it.

Well Hey What Else but the First Day of Classes (Plus Zootopia Watch Trailer Review)

   Aargh this Sudoku puzzle is mopping the floor with me. That observation's going to make sense, hopefully, tomorrow, when I've got time to write more about that... and hopefully have the puzzle completed...

   So! First day of classes. Forget about that previous post titled day 1; that just meant my first day ever in Idaho? This, today, was the actual first day of classes. One intro to graphic design class (which looks fun, if only as a rehash of Photoshop-and-Illustrator-and-InDesign (which I've already taken a couple classes on but the credits only transferred as electives,)) and, two religion classes-- having signed up for the second one only this morning; the online signup had blocked me from signing up for a second religion course, which I need to take if I want to have all my foundations courses completed at a good time (because of the transferred credits thing)-- I tracked down how to sign up, if it was doing that to me, and it turns out that all classes became available for signup this morning because it's the first day of classes.

   The art class-- it's a basic requirement, prerequisite for I-could-really-do-the-actual-math-but-am-just-going-to-say-90% of the more advanced classes I'm looking to take. I was kind of panicking last night over it, not over the class intrinsically but because he has us buy a Wacom tablet instead of a textbook, which would be about the same price... and, I already have a similar pressure-sensitive drawing tablet (which I actually am using to try to tackle this Sudoku puzzle digitally,) not a Wacom, and if I were to get a Wacom-brand tablet it would be a Cintiq instead of an Intuos, actually upgrading to one of those super-nice ones with the display on-tablet, but those are super expensive and who knows my financial situation may actually have deteriorated somehow since my report yesterday of being dirtpoor, and my credit card application was denied because my employment at the dairy was somehow unverifiable so I don't have any credit, though isn't PayPal doing a credit thing now I wander if that's worth looking into, but even then how am I gonna pay anything off even if I do sell my blood plasma because I still have to pay rent and buy groceries when my sandwiches and canned foods run out, oh dear oh dear oh dear, but... from what it sounds like, all that matters is the pressure sensitivity, so the one I've got would do anyway, and also we won't be needing any of that for seven more weeks.

   The religion courses-- I kind of signed up for doing some kind of, well you need to write a two-page paper in my first class, and report in front of the class on your experience and what you learned writing it, and so I figured I'd get it out of the way, because hey, my Fridays are open, so I can get all that done by Monday. SINCE WHEN HAVE I HAD SUCH EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONING SKILLS, between being proactive with that, and tracking down the necessary information about how to sign up for my second religion class, and being able to schedule everything, and handle all my finances, and keep my blog up-to-date, and tracking down details about a BFA degree, and a myriad of other things? It had to have started sometime after signing up for classes in the first place, since Mom had to get me prepared (in a major way) for that (day before my class signup opens, and I didn't even have a list of the courses I needed to take my first semester as prerequisites for later classes...)

   Have I posted that post I wrote, yet, about how it's so awesome to be a failure? If not: that observation makes sense in context. I think that might have a lot to do with it. I prayed about it, but I forget the answer... that might have been it?

   It's 11:00 here, and I've got class in the morning, though not as early tomorrow as they were this morning (7:45, did I tell you that? I don't just need my observations for my Book of Mormon course prepped by Monday, it's by Monday at 7:45 in the morning.) So I won't go into as much detail as I'd thought I was going to (I can do that tomorrow I guess?) I'll just inform you, my cellphone and my At-a-Glance got here today. Huzzahhuzzahhuzzah.

ZOOTOPIA WATCH TRAILER REVIEW pt 4

   Still on my AlphaSmart, so, another coming soon. Man, though, typing in the dark like that, when it got into the evening time... It's also going to need a bit of cleanup first. My typing style is kind of weird? Sort of a hybrid between touch typing and hunt-and-peck. Usually that's not much of a problem, because at least I'm no longer full-on hunt-and-peck like I was during all my typing courses in Elementary school, but here you could feel it, and, I'm rambling again; I'm going to bed. Good night.

   Got it. Here's the chunk of text, fully decoded from mistyping in the dark!:

   "We may be evolved, but deep down we are still animals," says, sounds like, Mr Big?

   What's that, did someone express my favorite theme of all time? Fantastic Mr Fox explored this to some extent, Mr Fox figuring out how to balance his responsibilities, how strengths can be weaknesses as embraces when he uses the animals' talents ranging from both natural to anthropomorphic (demolitions expert!) but it's very measured; I love to see someone dig into the meat of the issue and come out and express the theme, which expression may be on some levels less profound but is oh so satisfying.

   Animals living in harmony bit going savage in some Hitchcock-esque twist seems the perfect venue to do just that, showing vs telling-- both tools have their place in the quiver; the best balance is to show the underlying theme, through telling of subthemes or superthemes connected by this; even if we have to work 4 out for ourselves, the film still tells us 2 and 2.

   ... Also, I've got more for you, from parking it for the night Sunday night-Monday morning, fresh stuff!

   All these camels running with a train in the background... I don't know, but for some reason it feels like I've seen this bef--

oh.

On Starving Artists, Pragmatic Superpowers, and Miscellaneous Technological Issues (Plus Zootopia Watch Trailer Review)

   I am a college student. On top of that, I am an art student. So not only am I poor, I am dirt so. True.

   I've had this gift, though, ever since I was a youth. Maybe it's supernatural; maybe it's just crazy random, um, happenstance, but... food has always found a way to find, me. And I've always been able to smuggle this food, one way or another, on my mission.

   There's a photo from my mission-- I don't have it but Elder Broadhead does-- from where I managed to fit, something like, 27 apples all on my person, from a group meal where, I guess a bunch of apples were left over... I'd grabbed as many as I could and shoved them all into my pockets and even under my tie... mmm apples.

   My being a dirtpoor art student, of course I jump at any opportunity of not having to buy things. There was a new-student social last night with free cookies; there was a lunch today with free lunch for anyone with a new-student wristband. And both times, at the end they said, we have leftover food, come get extra, as much as you want.

   Well. You may have to tell other students twice...

   So my combined total loot from last night:

• 36 cookies in my pocket(s).

   And my total of leftover lunch taken home today:

• 10 bags of chips
• 11 packets of mustard
• 8 packets of light mayonnaise
• 8 Subway meat-lettuce-tomato-and-cheese-and-olive-and-pickle sandwiches, one of which is marked to be provolone
• 11 Rice Krispies Treats, though I ate one before getting home
• 8 bottles of water, though I drank one before getting home.

all crammed into my sweatshirt used as some sort of a bag.

   Here's all the loot. (The picture doesn't show one of the sandwiches, bags of chips, or packets of mayonnaise either, because I owed my brother lunch after he made up for the extra money needed to eke out to the last dollars of textbook rental.)

And remember, all of this was, at one point or another, on my person. Or, well, the plate's new.

   So um yeah. I'm good without, shopping, for the next little while...

   Also, I tried tinkering with the timezone settings, but changing the settings there retroactively changes the timestamps on all previous posts, which really messes up the dates on all those times I got the posts up after 11:00 pm, or before 1:00 as well if that's ever happened, so it's all one big mess... I'm leaving that alone for now, but if I ever figure out how to change the timezone only on the new posts, that's what I'm going to do...

   And I guess I'm beginning to trust the unsecured wi-fi networks the apartments have a bit more. But I still switch airplane mode on whenever I'm not at the laptop actively needing the internet. It assuages my fears a bit, also, I'm pretty sure keeping the wi-fi on murders the battery, because that's the way it works on my Kindle. It may just be the apps that eat the battery like that, constantly updating in the background because I allow them to, but, yeah, the, security, thing...

ZOOTOPIA WATCH TRAILER REVIEW pt 3

   I wrote a bunch of observations from the trailer in the car, on my AlphaSmart, but I don't have the printer cable currently, in order to load all that juicy wordcount onto the computer. So I'm just gonna give you a, coming soon, on that. Here we are.

   Anyway, something I've noticed: Every time a clock is shown in the trailer, it's somewhere within the 8:00-9:00 range. Is this real time? Is at least some part of the film in real time? 48 hours contains within it 4 8:00s ...

   This isn't anything new, but going frame-by-frame ultra slo-mo really makes you notice new details, especially in the sloth scenes since those are, even at a normal frame rate, ultra slo-mo. We've seen before the details on character's shirts, such as the skull insignia on the shirt of the dude in the background also appearing as urban art stuck onto the pole of the original poster. What is new, however, is the kitty (?) on the sow's shirt here (is "sow" PC?):

   Speaking of the DMV scene, Andrew Millstein talks about changing the DMV scene around in an interview on the filmmaking process and how Zootopia fits into the WDAS legacy.
http://blogs.disney.com/insider/2015/12/31/how-zootopia-fits-into-the-disney-legacy-according-to-the-animation-studio-president/

Day 1: College Stuffs? (Plus Zootopia Watch of course)

   I need to update the clock for Mountain time; yesterday's post went up not at 10:54 but 11:54, which maybe I shouldn't be admitting to... we went to bed around 1:30 last night; 1:22 at the earliest since I've got a file saved dating from that time... It's 11:35 as I write this... Classes don't start until Wednesday; we had a sort of, what, orientation, today, new students did, and, BYU-I's art program looks genuinely exciting. (The animation department here is virtually nonexistent, though Provo's is one of the most prestigious in the country-- most likely it's because they (the Church?) only needs one top-tier animation program, which makes sense?) Classes here are smaller than at Provo, which is supposed to make it a better learning environment to the point that BYU-I has one of the best art departments in the country to learn at. Makes sense?

   There's also, on top of academic scholarships, in the art department a portfolio-based scholarship... I'm only eligible for it once I actually have one of those, so it won't be until my third semester at the earliest that I'll be able to apply, but, ohh, so good.

   I'm afraid of having my wi-fi on for too long at a time here-- I'm not sure I trust it; this must be one of the only apartment complexes around here with unsecured wi-fi. I really don't know as much about computers as they say I do, maybe I'm coming across like one of the little old ladies/gentlemen I've had so much experience setting straight about computers and network stuff, but, it gives me the willies and I want to finish this post ASAP.

   It's been an eventful first 24 hours here... and, crap, the timestamp's gonna say 10:59, but here it's almost midnight. Sayanara or however you spell that.

ZOOTOPIA WATCH
   I don't have enough time to dissect any trailer today, but let me still say that Fandango apparently conducted a survey about the most anticipated films of the year, and... well, the movies people are excited for are just a bunch of action films and crap. And I'm stopping there before I start badmouthing Dawn of Justice, because Suicide Squad still genuinely looks like it's going to be good.

Trip Update, Ombudsmanship, and the Noo Year Revyoo (Plus Zootopia Watch Trailer Review)

PART 1

   Check-in day to our apartment is tomorrow, it's been a long trip yadda yadda but we've arrived at our not-our-apartment, and so wi-fi configuration yadda yadda, and I'm just here, on a borrowed machine, to check in... I could be up for a full post right now if I really wanted, but without my own computer I don't have the screenshots for today's Zootopia trailer dissection...

   This is, my first time ever in Idaho; the open stretches here are just as big as the ones in Nevada-- bigger on the inside by a lot, long stretches of nothing. A lot more moisture here though.

   Hey! Mom linked to my blog and said good things. Here. I'm seriously super going to miss, like the worst part of this is she won't be able to ombuds me anymore. Like the stuff about the existence of scholarships? Yep.

   Also, after I mentioned the relatively smaller size of the wasabi bottle, I was gifted an extra one for the road.

   I guess I'll have more stuff soon! I could easily just like leave this post here and call that good for the whole thing, but Zootopia Watch like I said, and also I really need to get on my new year's thing I'm pretty sure I told you I'd get to... For now, hey have some webcomic:

http://nedroid.com/2009/08/nobody-knows-the-troubles-ive-seen-except-beartato-since-i-just-told-him/

PART 2

THE NOO YEAR REVYOO

   I was just about to do this anyway, but realized it was the New Year, so may as well theme a post out of it... How are all my little pet projects doing?

A Real Thing:

XYxFF

   Status: Have I even... have I even posted up any posts about this side, side project? I don't think so. I've got a bunch written, though? I guess I could tell you what it even is, for one: it's basically a hodgepodge of ideas, deconstructing the magic in My Little Pony as though they were a Brandon Sanderson cosmere-esque magic system, in a cosmic horror setting. It's fun, but I'm not too serious on it. But it is fun. Keeping it on the backburner.

Things That Don't Even Come Back Around

   Status: NaNoWriMo crashed and burned; the characters definitely needed more time to percolate. I do occasionally actively work on doing that; Orson Scott Card's "Characters and Viewpoint" equals, and in some ways surpasses, his "How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy" as a writer's resource.

Persistence of Memory:

   Status: In Cailin's hands? I've mentioned how this thing has gone through so many revisions since the bits about it I posted up, and, well, Cailin's always been the real author. But she's got a job now, and a kid, and a crippling addiction to huffing toothpaste (kidding!), so, well, it's always been out of my hands.

Disney Villain Death:

   Status: redaily apparently

   Alright so how's the status on all that backlog then?: phew, man, don't bother me wit' that till it's a habit even getting my things up daily.

Cap'n Patches!:

   Status: I plan to work a lot more in this universe as part of school, pieces of my portfolio, art project things, just whatever.

Secret Indie Film Project I've Been Working On All Year But Hadn't Bothered Telling You About Till Friday:

   Status: I had planned on beginning principle shooting as soon as this semester ends, but since the first you heard of it was in the context of not being able to do that, well...

   There are a lot of ideas flying around on how to generate revenue for the Fallon Theatre (big screen Smash Bros Tourney, anyone?) Here's mine: a project to create indie films with exclusive distribution to the Fallon Theatre, and also maybe YouTube.

   It's actually a pretty ambitious project, this one; I've got loads of ideas for it but have always seen it as a short film, so the challenge is distilling every idea to its essence to be able to jam all the, symbolism and characterization and stuff, into a small frame. It's also ambitious because, oh, did I mention it's got animated sequences? Yeah...

   I have been a filmmaker before, and it's always my dream to continue being one, so in a sense I'm glad that I've got extra time to plan this out.

Well, that's about it.

   Here, have more webcomic:

http://nedroid.com/2009/12/well-well-do-that-next-year/

ZOOTOPIA WATCH TRAILER REVIEW pt 2

   Nick being attacked by the panther with the "key witness" over it connects Nick-and-Judy with the overarching mystery/conspiracy, though the panther attack is clearly from later on in the film, the action sequence in, that jungly place; whatever its name is... I think that if going savage is part of why Nick is a witness, it's from the scene later on in the trailer, when he's attacked by the tiger through the glass. That's the same glass from the SWAT team shot, you can tell because of the punch pad. That same tiger may be the same who got racism'd against on the bus, but if so NICE JOB BREAKING IT DISNEY.

   Whether the tiger is one of Gazelle's hunky dancers (dang it Disney you found-- and pushed for all it's worth-- my gay button, tigers in boy shorts) remains to be seen; probably not but that's just such a funny idea.

   Mr Otterton's disappearance is possibly connected to his going savage himself, though not necessarily-- the instance the trailer provides of an animal going savage is footage of Mr Otterton going nuts in the back of a taxi; is that why he goes missing, or is he being otternapped by the taxidriver? Trailers lying the way the do sometimes, that could easily be him faking going savage to evade his kidnappers, or else happening to be genuinely going savage during same, or... well, there's really not enough information. Pooh.

Packing Day (Plus Zootopia Watch Trailer Review)

   Turns out there are these things called "scholarships," which come to good little boys and girls who do well in school, so I won't like need that job if my grades are good enough, because school won't be as expensive? It's some great magical mystery. And good news.

   I spent my day packing... shopping for new clothes (including boots for the snowier days)... finishing up transferring all my computer files onto my new laptop. We're heading out in the morning... Here, have a photo, my entire life's story crammed into a few cardboard boxes, a plastic bin, a suitcase and a shoulder bag. Which isn't as depressing as it sounds, when my dad's the one doing the cramming into boxes (he remains the world champion of real-life Tetris.)

   Which of course you can't appreciate from a photo like this, and especially not one like this which is more about the volume of things also not in boxes? plus their arrangement in the living room next to the still-up Vegetable Tree (no, our Christmas trees are not yet down. No, they will not be taken down within the foreseeable future. Yes, the number of trees populating our house has actually gone up since Christmas.)

   I... guess that's actually enough material for a post. I was about to bemoan just how much wad I shot posting 2 math videos, my Christmas card, a Zootopia piece and a Radiohead song up yesterday, thinking maybe I could have saved some for today (not much time to blog with all this, preparation, going on) but, hey that's pretty good. 'Specially with the Zootopia trailer watch piece below.

ZOOTOPIA WATCH TRAILER REVIEW pt 1
   So, it turns out that, like I suspected, there was a bit more original to the new trailer than I'd stated. By, like, a full 2 seconds, during the DMV scene. Which, though it isn't much, is a lot. First off, you've got a nice overhead shot at 1:01, which you didn't get to see in the original trailer-- it's great if you're a sane and rational human being who just can't get enough of those extras, man; those okapi strollin' around in the background of the sloth trailer were one of the best parts of it.

   Also, like, with the stamping sloth, they show the end of the stamping, pulling up with the stamp instead of stamping down with it? Basically picking up where the first trailer left off. These two things-- as well as the altered dialog I guess ("on" and "it" when the mouths are clearly awkwardly instead saying "doing" and "fine;" I've scoured the original trailer for where they pull the "break" mouth movements from and, ???) show that there's at least some material in the film they left out of the trailer. (Reviewing the original sloth trailer this is clearly the case-- notice the slight jump 32.5ish seconds into it, switching between camera angles without giving Judy quite enough time to have her paws up on the counter like that? It starts to drive you nuts once you notice it, and I genuinely hope that the case in the final film is that they're leaving a tiny portion out of the trailer.)

   But yeah the stampy sloth. It's precisely because of that end-stamping action that's shown that you realize-- or, I realized, at least-- the image here is, for some reason, mirrored from how it is in the original trailer (and presumably the film itself.)

   PAID is backward here, and the sloth, teller or whatever, is on the left side to the customer or patron or whatever.

   That, as compared to:

   Totally wouldn't have noticed; what's up with that? Probably has something to do with the fact that the clips are also shown staple-photo-stamp instead of photo-stamp-staple? It's, Sloth-facing-right, sloth-facing-left, sloth-facing-right, instead of the old SFL, SFL, SFR. Though... that actually raised MORE questions. I, just don't know, man.

   Though I do still love the strained patience of the animals' body language. Never gonna get over that.

Dozenal Centuries, Advanced Time Tables, Christmas Cards and the Zoo Year

   Running a daily blog is easier than it seems. Every day you take in 24 hours' worth of experience-- but it's hard in some aspects, because that's actually, like, more than plenty for a day's post. So it's also tough? Sheesh, I don't know. I've got, like, a hundred things that I want to get to, and it'd be so easy to cheat and split the ideas up all into their own posts, blam a week's worth of material right there, it's not like I'm going to be stuck for ideas on any other day of the week... And I know with those several hundred posts yet to be backlogged, it'd be easy to fill, somehow I draw the "temporal cheating" line at posting up ideas I had not yet had (phrasing them in my present-day vernacular is totally fine, though.)

   Which leaves me with the conundrum, which of my ideas are worth developing? With this post, at least, I'm aiming for, relevant, time-sensitive, stuff that can't wait or shouldn't have to. The post today was initially going to be an inventory of all of my pet projects for the New Year, but even that can wait, compared for what I've got for you.

   First of all: happy new year! Happy new century, even, rather. Under certain reckonings. This video is primarily aimed at the dozenally uninitiated, but it's still rather timely.

   Myself, I already knew about the base 12 movement, so I had no choice but to jump at the opportunity to share that video. Here's more from the same guy, James "the Singing Banana" Grime, breaking it down to Numberphile if you would like to learn some more, including what we now call our DEC"tens" in this system...

   Math!

   ...should be enough for that, I think...

   And the thing is, I could leave the post right there, call that good. I probably should, in fact. I'm heading off to college on Sunday morning, which is far sooner than I'd anticipated, and turns out I'm not coming back home once the semester is over, but rather sticking around for another semester, and perhaps a semester after that. The timetable is way advanced, here-- I knew I was leaving next week, but at the beginning of it like that, and then have a break after the semester where I'd be able to return home and work on my personal project that I can't do in Idaho.

   I'm totally blindsided right now, I really... I can afford to pay for one semester's tuition and housing, but beyond that, yeesh, I need a job. It's... it's certainly one of the things on my list to do at college, but I figured that even if I couldn't find one, I'd be able to skirt by. Now, if I want to be able to pay that second semester's tuition, it looks like I'm going to need some kind of income, not necessarily regular as long as I've enough to prepay and forget it.

   So, yeah, with all that on my mind, all the ways I'll be busy come tomorrow and next week, I should definitely probably end this post right here.

   But hey!, I've punched in some better value control on my Christmas card:

   Adequate! It's still black and white; it's kind of hard enough as it is to realize it's a moon if you're not expecting to be looking at that, so I'm not sure if I should color it, and if so should it be digitally, or what.

   And I promised more updates on what I could glean from the new trailer in my ZOOTOPIA WATCH, and believe me I went through that sucker frame-by-frame several times over this morning, piecing everything together, and I think I've got it figured out (Nick's shiny little ZPD badge sticker on his shirt was a real help in figuring out the continuity of the scenes in there, and the clarity of the Zootopia maps in the background is unprecedented so far, so I've got a solid handle on geography as well. Also: the menu on the smoothie stand is hilarious; "rootin' tootin' gluten" indeed.) But, man have you been on YouTube today, with the main page banner ad right there? It's specifically Zoo Year's themed, probably a one-day deal, so I need to get on that before anything.

   There were only really 3 unique elements to the promo that we haven't seen before. Counting down? The third is the copyright notice in the corner, (c) 2016, which is, friiiig.

   The second is the mysterious clip art of balloons that float up when the countdown reaches zero. So mysterious. What's with you, balloons!?

   The first is the countdown itself: they got some, like, interns or whatever, to count down from five out loud, and then of course "happy zoo year!" when it reaches zero. Which you would have, known, had you actually bothered to click the sound on (it defaults to mute, which is very thoughtful of them.)

   Also they got an elephant to trumpet for them as well somehow?

Strange, glitch, or something, when you unmute the ad--
it flashes this image, a zoomed-in view of later on in the clip, for about half a second.

   As for the clip itself, it's been darkened but, it's the original countdown to Zoo Year announcement video, which... did they... were they planning that the whole time? IS that what they'd been going to do with that, this whole time? That's like... whoa. We'd been looking at a jigsaw puzzle this whole time, and didn't even recognize it.