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.
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.
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--
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?):
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Yo Santa, I feel he know me, what put he in my stocking Christmas morn but condiments. Hot and/or spicy condiments, which, well yes, I'm thoroughly enjoying so far. Maybe it's Freudian; I was a sickly child, and my nose was always running (seriously you should see my first grade yearbook photo; tiny little toothbrush mustache of scab there on my upper lip caused by improper Kleenex technique. I'm an arbitrarily high percentage point certain, Puffs had yet to be invented.)
Where was I. Condiments, that's right. Three varieties. Seen here smothered onto cheese puffs; gets you a real feel for the difference in weight and color and texture. Three varieties. Which I will analyze case-by-case now.
HEINZ 57 VARIETIES JALAPEÑO TOMATO KETCHUP with actual jalapeño:
I just realized that Heinz is also Doofenshmirtz's first name. Huh.
Ketchup is amazing. Anything that goes well with ketchup is amazing. Ketchup actually on those things that go well with ketchup, not necessarily amazing (a lot of regional variations on traditional classic foods are just plain dumb but Chicago with their hot dogs ain't one of those,) but ketchup is still itself super legit. And Heinz is the king of ketchups, which is verified to independent third party ketchup experts and I'm totally not making it up, so I expected much from this.
And... it's, surprisingly, ketchup. It's amazing. The jalapeño taste in no way smothers the ketchupiness of the ketchup, and, darn it it really looked for a second there like the spell check was accepting that word. The ketchup is still as tangy and creamy as you'd expect from any other Heinz product, and, brilliantly, they've somehow managed to engineer the jalapeño taste only to bloom after the initial ketchup oomf. Wizardry, is what it is.
As great as ketchup is, and as great as jalapeños are, both of these things are my least favorite of condiments and hot-or-spicy flavors offered in my stocking; it's a real tribute, then, that this isn't my least favorite bottle from my stocking. It's amazing, and I'd recommend it anywhere where, you know, ketchup would go.
Not cheese puffs, though. Heavens no.
EMERIL'S® KICKED UP HORSERADISH MUSTARD:
Fun fact according to the copyright info on the back of the bottle: Emeril Lagasse's name is trademarked by Martha Stewart!? or at least Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (NYSE: MSO.)
Alright, let's get through this one. This is good mustard, truly, pungent and creamy and with a mouthfeel that I can't even describe in front of mixed company it's just that amazing. I say, "let's get through this one," though, because as great of mustard this is, the truth is, it's... not... horseradish-y. Like, at all.
At all at all.
Maybe I just got a bad batch, or something? After all, Emeril® is that "Bam!" guy, right? He's got the word Bam literally tattooed on his hand/written there with MagicMarker. Author of 19 cookbooks, chef/proprietor of, I'm counting 12, restaurants? No, no. I trust you, Mr Chef Lagasse, sir. Maybe a bottle of your, like, Really Actually Quite Good But Not At All At All Horseradishy Mustard BAM got mislabeled. I think is what it is.
Looking at the label here, the ingredients list horseradish powder as the, let's see fifth, out of six ingredients? Which is, nice, staying away from any artificial preservatives or anything, very well done. But I can't help get the feeling that, maybe the bottle isn't mislabeled, maybe the horseradish mustard really isn't all that horseradishy.
Still an awesome mustard, though. It's great on... also not cheese puffs. Pretzels, try it on pretzels.
KIKKOMAN WASABI SAUCE FOR SANDIWICHES AND DIPPING TRUSTED NAME, GREAT FLAVOR A VERSATILE CONDIMENT WITH A VELVETY ZING featuring a "root blend" of horseradish and actual Wasabi, which is rare stateside:
By far my favorite of the three, plus it actually goes great with cheese puffs. Taste-wise, as well as appearance. Check out that photo on top one more time; it really glows a nuclear green against that foxy fiery artificial orange, doesn't it?
Downside to this one, seriously, is it's in the littlest bottle of the three. Stiiinks. It happens, though.
It's... it's wasabi sauce. I... I don't know what else I can say about this. I've had more pungent stuff, but it's not like this shirks at all at clearing your sinuses once you swallow (it's true; it may seem kind of strange how the bottle describes the "zing" as "velvety," but it's actually very smooth and creamy... providing you keep the stuff in your mouth and not let it hit further back on the palate.)
Well... that's it, I suppose. I did take all the photographs myself, especially the ones of the bottles though I also did crap out that photo on top with the cheese puffs (there have been, more forgiving, photography subjects, than plates of cheese puffs.) Just thought I'd, say that... Dad came in and was amazed, wanted to know where I got the photos... I took them. Took me an hour or so, but, they was a beaut to work with, that's for sure...
ZOOTOPIA WATCH: HAPPY ZOO YEAR
Holycrapholycrapholycrapholycrapholycraaaap
There's a whole post's worth of material to go over from this 2 3/4-minute long snippet alone; even if there is a full 35 seconds of rehashed material (including all that poster at the end.) But, first impressions?
First of all, obviously, (as far as I can tell) this is the first public release of any-at-all of Shakira's "Try Everything;" I mentioned earlier (in a Zootopia watch for a post that, I actually don't think I've posted up yet, hmm...) how vague a message that that title alone conveys, but now we know where that's coming from, and the message is... actually super beautiful.
Second of all: entirely new bits of plot information; random animals suddenly going feral...? A city-wide mystery, quite possibly underlying a larger conspiracy...? At first I thought no way, my theory yesterday was cute but there'd been no mention in anything up to this point, any plot bits that could justify some major twist such as the existence of humans... but freak, man. Just freak.
Third off: man, there's still way more here than I've got any chance of getting to by the new year. I'll think I'll continue running these, up to frame-by-frame analysis where it calls for it, throughout the coming week.
A good night of fervid sleep has allowed me to get a little more distance on Barsk, and realize how, just, totally trippy everything is. The entire last half of the novel is one, what I refer to as a singularity, after another-- basically a climax, but something undefinable beyond that: everything has been leading up to this moment, and you've got a decision to make, and, what happens the moment after the moment everything's been leading up to? It's impossible to say. These on their own are powerful; one after another, in climaxing succession, I don't have the words for.
I mentioned in a footnote to yesterday's post the plot, the twistiness, the characterization that fit into that. Barsk certainly has heartbreaking decisions made, sometimes as backstory, sometimes climactically. It's got characters who act decisively, but sometimes wrongly, and either have to deal with consequences or else ignore them. The characterization actually can't be told separately from the setting: the characters are all animals, of course, and no matter how anthropomorphic they're not just aliens but alien.
Which is another surreal, haunting factor.
It's on, like, a memetic scale (memes=genes for ideas.) It's memetic. Which is what makes it haunting-- the ideas are infectious for one reason or another, and any time alone with your own thoughts, your mind drifts to dwell on these things. I say memetically infectious for one reason or another-- the scars and sacrifices that people go through, and/or are forced to witness, the ways people can be broken, the plot points that seem significant in the moment but turn out not to matter as much in hindsight.
There's more of this line of thought below, during the spoiler-marked section; all the thoughts that occurred at the beginning of the night, drifting off in the evening. Meanwhile from the end of the night, waking up in the morning, these thoughts: Back to the Future, 1955 Marty and Doc and 1985 Marty and Doc team up with each other, and get "present" (1985) Marty a really nice comb to tame that mid-80s 'do, and thus tame-haired 2015 Marty now shows up with, 2015 Doc who's not "our" Doc because the future's been changed! That doesn't make sense, but it's not supposed to: it's all a metaphor for how little sense the fictional (possibly time-travel) science in something else entirely makes.
Anyway.
SPOILERS START HERE (Or, more accurately, a discussion of the constitution of spoilers, starts here.)
I mentioned plot points that seem significant at first but turn out not to matter-- Barsk has so many of these, from misunderstandings of prophecy experienced by characters, to specific actions taken by them, to odd encounters between them, to the entirety of Chapter 31, that actually I think I've said all that I needed to in my own musings of memetically haunting material. I guess all of that's, just part of that.
What we're talking about mostly is Mild Spoilers- if you've read the blurb or seen the trailers, it's something that gets spoiled for you anyway. Like how Edward being a vampire in Twilight is technically a twist within the book, but one that gets discussed on the back cover. According to the blurb you're going to read already anyway, the characters are all animals, but justified because they're the scientific creations of humans, who are now extinct. Here's where more trippiness kicks in, as I realized last night in that whole thought process about how Barsk is so haunting and surreal: taking all that setting as a given, even though it occurs as something of a major twist in the novel (though I'm still holding back a lot of it,) we've figured all this out and now we must embark on this subplot entirely tangential to the plot of saving Barsk-as-we-know-it, but in the end they decide to keep the secret covered up anyway as part of the deal to hey-lay-off-my-planet. That whole plot, that whole setting, it was all rendered moot in the end, literally moot like they held a council meeting about it and everything.
On some level, thinking about it now, the decision to reveal this crucial setting detail makes sense, as the whole thing could come off very much fantasy (as per the genre-bend-blend which is tangential to this post so I'm including it as part of an update to yesterday's, things I'd meant to include in my initial review but lacked the time to write if I wanted to get the post up on time.)
So maybe it is justified. I wouldn't mind it so much (as, really, it wouldn't be much of a twist if it weren't treated so profoundly) if this were the first time I've seen this kind of thing, but it's not. Such a twist (to one degree of profundity or another,) that there are these anthropomorphic animals were put here by humans, has been spoiled-on-the-cover a couple of times already in a couple of other different settings (to one degree of spoilage to another.) Like Solatorobo, how box cover art sometimes shows Red as a human boy? Like, thanks, guys, I would have hated for that to have taken me by full dramatic surprise.
Not that spoilers are pure evil or anything of course; some people mind them more than others... If you have to rely solely upon shock value for your story to work, you're doing it wrong, but sometimes of course nothing rivals going entirely naked into an entirely novel world. Both suspense and irony have a part to play, and so I can't say to what degree the blurbists for Barsk were in the right in dropping the origin of these space-faring furries so casually.
I can think of a couple of webcomics, but other than that, yeah. On the mainstream side, there's still a basic need to justify up front why we're looking at a buncha funny animals. It really could be, the ultimate plot twist, if one of these days instead of telling us the human origins of these critters, something that told us straight, flat-out that humans, like I don't know, never happened in this world...
...holy craaaap.
ZOOTOPIA WATCH: It says, explicitly, on the world of Zootopia, humans never happened, right? That doesn't mean that humans couldn't have happened off-world. So, Barsk scenario, where RMs have supplanted humanity, gone starfaring, and proceeded to have had their true origins either forgotten or outright covered up? I've long pondered the paw pads on the hands that realistically would never have been used for walking if evolution had happened as the teaser trailer implies; how sociology would have evolved differently as well. This is either on the money or dead wrong, but if this theory is right, this could be the biggest spoiler for the whole film, far beyond whodunnit or not.
BARSK: THE ELEPHANTS' GRAVEYARD, by Lawrence M Schoen, came out today, and though I'm decidedly unimportant enough to have received an advanced copy for review, I did preorder it for my Kindle where it insta-downloaded the moment it became available, which was actually yesterday instead of today, so... Maybe that's got to do with timezones or something, but that's advanced copy enough for me. Downside of that is, it's still only one or two hours early, and I still had to read it PDQ in order to get a same-day release-date review. Because it's IMPORTANT goshdarn it.
And so I've read it already. And... wow. Dang wow.
The full title, according to the copyright page, is Barsk: the elephants' graveyard: an anthropomorphic novel, which, yes, yes, book in the shape of a man and all that, but... I don't know what it is; I've always preferred my anthropomorphism in visual terms. Novels never really did it for me. Liked this one. Loved this one. Though I didn't survive 80 pages into Watership Down, or get a sixteenth of the way through any Redwalls, or an eighth of the way through... that one book that's like Redwall 'cept written by Avi, which book's name slips my mind though I vaguely recall it may have had something to do with pots and/or pans?* Didn't get through those, but I blasted through this one, and it's not a short book.
It... I'm not sure how long it is. I mean, I read it in a day, obviously, but it took all day. It felt short, not in the bad way, but in the way like how every scene knows what it's doing and is important to the plot? To me, that's the greatest thing that a plot can be. I'm not sure how much I can say without spoilers, but, guess what, that's also a big turn-on for me in terms of plot.** More spoilery review tomorrow? If they even are those, I mean, it, like, gives away some pretty major humdingers as part of the book description on Amazon...
Yeah, yeah, I can't talk much right now, as most of what I have to say touches on those themes. Also, freak it's midnight, I gotta get this thing up. For now, though? ... yeah I'll tell you tomorrow.
UPDATE!: There are things I'd meant to get to but didn't have time to, and which don't fit into my spoilery discussion, so I'm fitting them here in the original post; though there's a full post's worth of content here, no wonder I didn't have enough time to write this up.
We're at kind of a unique place in science fiction right now. Even the hardest of SFs is finding justifications for all the wide-eyed bizarrity that you saw from the formative period in science fiction: why not bat people on the moon; the science at the time certainly still allowed for it. Barsk certainly takes place in a "sufficiently advanced" setting, where we can deftly blend science fiction and fantasy and not even need to handwave anything away anymore.
Niche markets occasionally sending a lungfish-like bold evolutionary step crossing over into the mainstream, sometimes-- usually especially popular in the original-niche-anyway market, with the mainstream reaction between indifference and dislike. The niche solely pointing to it and saying, "see? we're in the mainstream! our little subculture has been ratified!" Like how every good little Mormon boy and girl enjoyed "Meet the Mormons," with its zero percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes (I may still be the last holdout to actually see the thing in the first place, and I've yet to read any reviews, but I've seen the kind of phenomenon before and all the earmarks are present.)
That's fandom-looking-outward; things do spring up also in the mainstream, like litfic writers writing what certainly appears to be speculative fiction-- and of course there's never any danger of fresh "furry" content ceasing to pour in from the mainstream, usually from juvenilia but who knows.
Barsk, much like its own bend-blend of science fiction and fantasy, like the bend-blend of beast and man within, straddles and takes place in both mainstream SF and niche "furry" fiction. I... get... the... feeling, that this is one of those products, those certain shining gems that can only be produced at one certain point in human history, products which had exactly one window to get into the world and which managed to squeeze in against all odds. The kind of thing that wins awards, and maybe even spoken of in hushed reverence by fans. The kind of thing that goes on to influence later generations. Whether Barsk actually is going to go on to become all of those things, just, <<shrug>>, but, it's one of those things with that potential.
And, oh, right, this may technically count as a New Year's gift (though who gives those, really, other than mooning couples,) but also on my list of belated presents? (which I have not yet received but have also been alerted of?)
A 2016 At-a-Glance.
BOOOM, for the win, right there; love the stuffing out of those things. I know I'm not hipster very often, but I'm hipster where it counts.
And, unrelated, but I also need a cell phone for school? Guess the whole, pager, thing didn't pan out...
Onto the meat of this post then. I'd meant to write up more about the MLP CCG, but didn't have time to get to, and so, [sucks teeth,] I guess I'm going to do that. (And just to be clear, I did not actually suck my teeth just there; just thought it'd be a dramatically appropriate bit of nonverbal communication.)
Kids like pics, yeah. Pics, see, pics get clicks. Don't you find posts much more compelling when there's something to look at besides words? It's like, oooh, a picture, see, they do care. Here's a pic for
you.
Random epiphany of the day: I am a full-grown man.
Didn't have any particular card to be proud of, seeing how I didn't score any foils or anything, but like I said there were two or three foals and, those are basically the same thing, right? Ask Alex, that's what he misread at first. Not even joking. Not even joking...
So yeah that's what I chose to take my picture with.
Like how MTG cards have differing colors of their expansion line symbols determining how much you could hock that crap for on eBay, Alex, looking over these cards, asked if there were some kind of symbol or way of determining the "rarity" of any given card. Rarity is a perfectly valid word for rarity, in fact the accepted word, for itself, but it's also the word for Rarity, so that made me hmm. I'm not sure whether it would have been better to actually have gotten a Rarity card in any of the three boosters, whether I'd be able to derive more snark or not from that... I think she's the only one of the Mane Six I didn't snag a card of, Friend card or Mane Character card or otherwise.
But in answer to the question, turns out there's, I found in the lower right-hand corner, either a C or a U or an R to mark that, as part of the card's collector number (and Enterplay's website is telling me there are also URs and, on top of the Fs and fs and Pfs from each line, in the Equestrian Odysseys and High Magic lines, Super Rares and even "Royal Rares," exactly two in EO and three in HM. (The website, if you didn't click on the link provided yesterday for the pic source, is a wonderful resource, and, look, you're not only allowed but encouraged to print the rulebook out with its sample cards and play a sample game at home. Come and get your love.)
What else is there, what else is there... I just love the Friend cards in this game. You really get a feel for every pony, even the ones you only see in the background. They've got names. They've got lives. And they'd still be willing to lend you a helping hoof if you just asked. Everything's just so loving and sweet, and everyone tries their very best, and it's okay to have differences in personality and opinion, we're still all friends and there's room for that in a perfect world and that's even part of what makes the world perfect, and, and, I am not kiddingabsolute sincerity mode I AM TEARING UP A LITTLE RIGHT NOW.
I just... I just need to step away from the computer for a bit.
More gifts received, in a less-official Christmas capacity: there'd been a rolling suitcase for me out in the car, for college, while all the other gifts got opened, a special we-didn't-bother-wrapping-this gift the existence of which I was made aware though the nature of which being kept mum (though I guess only at my insistence... hey! Turns out it's a suitcase? Heck, gift, not under the tree, still out in the car, only alerted of after most-to-all of what few betreed gifts had already been gifted me, maybe it was something nice, like, not a suitcase or something, no, don't tell me what it is, I want to find out the Christmassy way.) (So yeah I guess that worked; it was a surprise... Though it's still a pretty swell suitcase I must say. Rull handsome.)
(Spell check here: betreed is indeed a word apparently! Shakespeare would be proud. Also accepted: Christmassy, though pretty much everyone knows that that is a real word, and... rull? Which I've always taken to mean, "real," but now realize, it could be like a garden instrument for all I know.)
Also belated Christmas gift: backstory time, Christmas in the evening we fed the elders and also stuffed their stockings I guess?, and so, last-minute shopping for the, whateverth day in a row (it was some really humorously high number) seeing if there was anything we could stocking stuff, we didn't go through with it because things cost money, but freaking Wal-Mart's got a trading card shelf which is amazing though really inconveniently located right where there are a couple of check-out counters, and they didn't have the big tins or anything like they did last year, just these collections of three packs each, but for a pack each like I said things cost money and it wouldn't be worth it, but: My Little Pony Collectible Card Game trading cards, AND, dang this paragraph has been one long run-on, moving on.
But, returning to the store yesterday to swap out pants for a pair that wasn't so long in the legs, Ryan... picked me up a pack as a gift, I guess? So, SECOND CHRISTMAS BONUS GIFT, most excellent. The three-pack also comes with an exclusive pin... They chose to give me Applejack, of all pin characters... Singlehoofedly changed my mind about apples, so there's that... (Spell check watch: yep, she's a-balkin'. She's a-balkin' all over. Applejack is a real word though of course.)
I'm not going to waste my time and however much space it'd take up on the SD card to take a photo, when there's already a reasonably serviceable pic of what I mean on the game manufacturer's website...:
There were, in the 3-pack given me, no foil cards; I know that photo makes it look like a foil comes specially packaged but that must be a different run I guess? The packs at the store all have one pack of each of the following expansions: Equestrian Odyssey, Crystal Games, and Canterlot Nights (and, oh, sure, we accept the word "Canterlot" here, but can't show any charity for "whateverth...")
No foils in any of the packs, anyway. There were, foals, of course... Important not to mix that up; you're just rearing for disappointment now.
The Christmas card coloration is WIP (values, 100% always comes down to values... colorimetrically speaking.) Which I'm surprised at; I guess I didn't think I was honestly going through with it?
In the spirit of getting something up to show you, though, I figured I'd get some draft art for the card up for you as I did last year. It's far better than it has any right to be going without references for any of it, and I'm hey! kinda proud of this stuff too (though not so proud as to post up the full page of sketches I did for it.) And here, way G-er rated than I made the concept sound yesterday, she blows.
Though, yeah, actually pretty PG (THINK UPON INNOCENT THINGS.)
Speaking of reference sketches, I also drew many of those, regarding lagomorph anatomy and Moon... physiognomy?, which I only now, after all this scanning, realize there is also there potentially to look at-- but what the heck, you know what rabbits look like already; it was only important in the process (they're a lot tougher to draw than they look, and it was a special (and delightful) challenge to conform an at-least-quasi-realistic and plausibly viable bunny anatomy mapped onto the lunar surface. I fudged it with the ears, but you've got to sacrifice something.)
Meanwhile, a dang review of Christmas! I'm feeling generous I suppose?? 'Cept, these things are always so awkward 'cos you feel like a jerk describing only what you got instead of what you gave... and the only gifts I gave this year went to someone spending their Christmas a state away in Arizona, (which I've only ever set foot into as far as the Hoover Dam, and which reliable HUMINT relays doesn't even celebrate Daylight Savings.)
Most of my parents' money for me was spent getting me a laptop for college (yes, my parents. If it weren't for the stockings I'd say Santa appears to have skipped our house this year... conspiring with the Easter Bunny on the visitation lists, no doubt.)
(An obvious joke; Easter Bunny is non-canon.)
My brother did handle SQUIRREL YOU KNOW IT'S TRUE, and that's, just, more than enough. Do you want to know how enjoyable it is? THIS IS HOW ENJOYABLE IT IS.
The more I look at this photo, the more Asian I think I look.
Friggin', I had no idea I was being photographed here till I saw it on my mom's blog; that smile is totally unstaged (which is weird, as I'm still only on the first page here which isn't even that great compared with the rest of it.)
ZOOTOPIA WATCH
Shoehorned in just to get the word "plus" into this post title a third time, because I can. I had to look up to see if there was any news?
Closest thing I can come up with is from the Zoo Year countdown Tumblr, this post, where... it seems like each species gets their own Vanity Fair equiv? And Vanity Fur is the, trans-species edition? (Trans-species here meaning, across all species, the notion of theria having their own therians can be dealt with later.) And Gazelle is the pop culture star to unite us all? A star we can all gather under? A... Christmas star?
Had a hard time coming up with this year's annual Christmas card... I made a bunch of sketches at 2:00, 3:00 in the morning today mostly dealing with this idea, that bunnies are basically elves, right? With the ears and all-- so I had an idea for, a rabbit elf? Who was also a, um, pole dancer? Yep, scraping the bottom of the barrel with that one; it didn't get very far.
(Also as an idea: bearded lady Santa, with the beard doubling as clothing? Not a bad idea, but continuing to steer clear of implied nudity...)
The bunny thing still had potential, and it wasn't until just a couple of hours ago, spotting the moon and realizing, oh yeah, first full-moon Christmas since '77, that everything clicked. There is a rabbit in the moon, and it's not every year that you get this opportunity to do a full-moon-themed Christmas card. (and in fact I'm not sure I caught when the next time this is happening, is...)
There you go. It's black and white, kind of bland; I'm still proud of it, but I also figure I could do a paint job for that later on. Good for now.
Wednesday, November 25, 2015
Today marks the 15th anniversary of the first use of the word "meeple." The more you know.
Here it is, the Halloween short story for 2015. It's a bit long, actually, so I decided to put it on its own page, instead of in the post body like I usually do...
Tomorrow's story, the annual spooky short story, will be my original story submitted (and rejected!) from Machine of Death volume 2. Makes me happy.
It's called POPULAR CULTURE, and it takes place in the near future. It's about, well, it's a Machine of Death story, and so it's about what any other one of those is... a machine that lets you know, with 100% accuracy, how you will die. Yep, yep, just like the blog header.
It's not as overtly spooky as last year's story was, but wasn't intended to be... It's still a MoD story...
I'm not sure how good it is. The twist ending isn't much of a twist, but then again it's neither much of an ending. I'm alright with it; what it did well I'm very proud of. I suppose I'll let it speak for itself, so, shutting up now.
The application for BYU Provo (main campus) finally came back. The... application? The acceptance letter. Or rejection letter. Whichever. The announcement. And, which whichever it was, well... They were awfully kind, and I was actually... relieved? Provo actually has a graphic design major-- Rexburg turns out has the arts major with graphic design focus, either as a BA or a BFA. If I wanted (and I'm considering it?) I could change my focus even within my proclaimed major, take whatever class I want, but... my point here-- the focus of this post-- why I'm even bringing this up, all has to do with that: Provo, rejection letter, relieved actually, it's like some kind of world of possibilities being in a smaller pond. Malcolm Gladwell writes in David and Goliath how sometimes it's better to be a big fish in a small pond than a small fish in a big one-- how it can be better to go to a less-prestigious university. Would I still make this choice, to attend BYU-I, even if I were accepted to Provo? It'd be nice to be accepted to Harvard and blow them off, but this is BYU, anyway. At least the animation department is prestigious there, but that's not my intended major anyway, and any animation education to potentially suit my needs fits just as well in Idaho. Rejection feels nice. I've been rejected formally a few times, not nearly enough. Mostly in writing, those stories shipped off and slapped down. But it feels awesome to be rejected. I just realize this now-- I need to be rejected more often. But to be rejected means to ship around, and to ship around means to have a manuscript, and to have a manuscript means to have a manuscript written. And writing is not my favorite hobby. It is the one I feel most satisfied by. But it is not my favorite. How satisfactory would it be to be rejected? That's the process, the whole process, the system, how everything works: write crap, mail it around, get rejected. Repeat. Success is an accidental part of the program. Though we'd be lost without it.
I've never actually played laser pointer with the cat till now. It was quite... undramatic. It did notice the laser pointer dot eventually, tracked it with its eyes but I don't think ever attempted pouncing on it. And sniffed the pointer itself later on. But it did work. Not that well, but it did.
Don't they notice how the dot disappears when they're blocking the line? How does it work? We amuse ourselves by watching them chase after the dot, oblivious to the lack of physicality (indeed, lack of physicality is one reason the chase succeeds so well- there's no physical feedback of having "caught" anything, so huntmode continues indefinitely.)
We're amused by their oblivion-- oblivi-? obliviousness, at least-- but what if we're the oblivious ones? Think about it- exactly like the laser points, flicking in and out, cats glide through past the edges of our sensation, coming into view randomly. Like the laser points, we follow them, mindlessly, amused. When we've caught them, they slip away like water.
So I'm thinking, what if cats themselves are laser pointer dots to us, cast by fourth- or fifth-dimensional beings for their amusement as we foolishly chase the illusory?
On this Ben Stein day, I wanted to do something somehow related to winning Ben Stein's money? Ride of the Valkyries played during the end theme to that show, so I figure that today, we're going to get our Ben Stein on...
