The '000

https://xkcd.com/1849/, shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License

So I've been thinking, and the year 2000 was just such a specific weird time for culture and everything that I think the whole year should just be classified as its own decade, as well.

A Couple of Bollywood Numbers

India doesn't really have a music industry in the same way we conceive of it in the west; all music is basically tied to their musicals, which goes very far to explain a lot about Bollywood. Here are a couple of numbers I just can't get out of my head.

Chhoo Le Nah from Roadside Romeo, which is a real, honest-to-Bob Disney movie (Disney does have something of a Bollywood branch, and their latest, Jagga Jasoos, came out a couple of weeks ago; not only does it look amazing and heartwarming, but is currently the #1 most-trending Hindi movie on IMDb.)

I was literally just reading the YouTube comments to "Let Me be Good to You" from The Great Mouse Detective, and they were saying how Disney hasn't the guts to attempt pulling off something like that again... hoo boy.



You'll never, ever, ever be able to get it out of your head now that this is a thing that exists. You're very very welcome.

Secondly, I've told you about Om Shanti Om before; this is probably my favorite song from it. It's called Dhoom Taana.

Cabin at the Lake

Okay, so last night we spent at a cabin up in California? Because we could. It's not very often we go holidaying because we can- picking up Andrew we visited some states swinging by on out-of-the-way routes there and back, just to say we visited there. And Mom said something in the car ride about visiting Arizona while she was pregnant with me. This trip was... well, the cabin had been rented for some other thing, which fell through, and while it was rented and nobody was going to take it we took up the, being there, part.

So it did serve some purpose. Insuring the rentance was not in vain.

Wrong Creative

Guess creativity is something I'm always thinking about, and I've concluded a few things. All value judgement of a creative work boils down to alien versus familiar (I must also concede construction/ craft plays an aspect of course). 

Creative work is also being judged within cultural context.

There's no such thing as being "wrong" creative, there's only more creative, which is something that anything can always be- no matter how creative [thing] is already, it always has the capacity for more creativity.

Spider-Man III (In a Sense)

Spider-Man for the third time reveals that Vulture had indeed been at his business for eight years. It's said that Iron Man, released in 2008, takes place 2010, just a few months before Iron Man II, but what if Iron Man II, rather, takes place a few months after Iron Man I instead? Avengers takes place 2010 now, and... meh, whatever.

2008 was when I was 16. Alex's age. Just... a thought.

Miss Atomic Bomb

I've told you how good this album is, right? It's as an album supposed to be pretty hit-or-miss, but, the Killers, man.



Three music videos for (probably?) the most underrated track from it (so you took your place, but the fall from grace was the hardest part...)!










It's been five years (!!!) but they're finally coming out with a new album, releasing later this year.

The Dark "Web"

Thinking about how the Spider-Man poster thing isn't actually delving into any dark underbelly. There's hosts and hosts of the truly b- and c- grade in this world, and criticizing on the surface, hovering at the mainstream, is dealing with strict missteps rather than anything hopelessly flawed, the product of lack of knowledge-of-what-you're-doing so vast it depresses our faith in the human spirit. We like to hover at this level (the mainstream I mean); it's really very comforting. But there is, like, this whole internet place, metaphorically, our engines don't even delve to...

A Couple Spider-Tidbits

There's a lot I don't want to say about Spider-Man: Homecoming yet because my brothers still haven't seen it. Tom Holland is the greatest. Everything about his Spider-Man is the greatest. Don't want to belittle the awesome efforts of Maguire or Garfield, but Holland, Halland is the President Workman.

Maybe the "8 years later" is actually a flash-forward to 4 years after the end of the movie, showing that Toomes is back to his operation and that "business is good." Because business didn't look good during the plot itself, what with them having to sell to Donald Glover to move merch.

The Blame for the Saccharides

I'm not sure but I don't think the family is doing the sugar challenge right now anymore and it's probably basically all my fault, or my sugaring during finals is/was contributory. Ryan still seems to be participating. But man is there really this much sugar in a normal person's everyday? It's a lot.

Anyway it kills me how Bagi survived her own death at the end, there's just no way, "monster of mighty nature" or no...

Short Sentences About School Stopping for Summer

Finished off the, everything, or if not everything something very close to it. Enough to be considered done with the semester. Even if there were a choice in the matter, which temporality does not present. So yeah that's done. Hope I did well.

Home for the first few weeks of the summer, now. Home.

There's Netflix. I've already completed the first book of A Series of Unfortunate Events. Maybe I'll get time sometime for Stranger Things. Buddy Thunderstruck also looks PDG, if you've heard of that? There's a rabbit hole here obviously, but circling the drain is better than being flushed down it, and isn't as tough as it sounds.

I'm just now finishing up with school, and funny thing I've already been seeing Back to School advertisements in places, shopping-type venues. Maybe haha funny. Whichever.

What to do with the summer? Well, I'm here with my family, and that's enough for now. After that... we'll see. Hopefully some epic thing.

Reginaphobia?

Don't know what to talk about so I'll talk about this.

But it's actually good stuff I promise.

Figured out how to not freak out during finals, by sort of ignoring that there was a deadline but that I still had something that, hey, I should get on. So instead of going nuts on it and doing nothing but projects, I interspersed doing projects with watching internet videos and reading the latest Dan Wells novel (Ones and Zeros, it's called; the latest in his new YA series Mirador, which I absolutely LOVE.) 

And I didn't die. So there's something to be said for the strategy.

But the YouTube I watched was mostly songs from animated Disney films. And I guess, smoothest segue in the world (only the very smoothest even invoke the fact that you're making a segue), that WHAT THE HECK EVEN IS THE RENAISSANCE AGE OF ANIMATION. The first movie in the Disney Renaissance age is the Little Mermaid, of all things. What's up with that? Oliver and Company comes right before, and... and it's a much better movie, just judging off of my memory of it and the songs whose videos I can't even now stop watching. Little Mermaid is... meh. And that's how I feel about most of Disney's animated films from the Renaissance. 

Princesses, I guess. I'm analyzing how strongly I feel about each film of the Disney animated oeuvre of that era, and: the perceived quality of the film, though ostensibly having nothing to do with princess content, is inversely proportional to how much princess there is in any film. Movies starring princesses I dislike the most; movies featuring princesses but focusing on the male leads I find meh; movies that have non-princess female love interests I enjoy the most. I'm not sure if that's just a coincidence, though it'd be a pretty spooky one if it were. (Megara and Nala may be technical royalty but they're not within the Disney Princess canon; they rock, but do they do so coincidentally? I think so, but I'm not disinterested enough to say for sure my own motivations.)

Going backwards outside the 90s, as well, the pattern seems to hold up: can't remember Black Cauldron, whatever, but- Robin Hood, love that film natch, but Maid Marian also not within the Princess canon. 

From Tuesday to Wednesday

Why, WHY did I not accomplish a single thing yesterday? I mean, I think I remember I posted about, I did do some thing, that's right I remember it now, the one thing I did all day. That was productive instead of either neutral or active regression. Today was grueling, and it's still not over yet, though maybe it would be if I hadn't spent Tuesday doing SERIOUSLY I CAN'T REMEMBER.

Wait- yeah I can. The first halfish at least. There is much haze there, moreso of than answers.

Didn't get as much as I'd thought I would, done today- I thought that I'd be finished with everything by now, but nope guess not. Luckily this day after the end of the semester wasn't the actual final day where things are finally due; there's still till Friday at 11:59 pm when-- yes pm okay good- when the final PDF is due, all the process books of the semester combined into one massive file. I'd totally be good for that, if the productivity of tomorrow weren't in question. As it is, I am only probably good for that.

It's the Semi-Final Countdown

I'd been going to say something about being that day gnawed on by a dog and then watching the emergency service vehicles turn around the corner and stop and sit, watching the streetlight come on as the police peeled away leaving only the ambulance in limbo; maybe something about giving a talk in church Sunday making it up mostly on the fly, but with a little preparation, and being told by someone I'd make a good writer. Not sure which anymore; probably the latter, so that I could report on the later-occurring event later. I probably would have gone into some detail about either subject. I'm tired.

I think the semester's officially over, but that doesn't stop me from still having things due Wednesday... I hope. Today I generally spent generally "out of it;" tomorrow needs to be busy. I'm actually well into having the final project done (I mean it's not like I accomplished nothing today); I estimate maybe 5 or 6 more hours tops. It's the multitudinous other things that also need to be done tomorrow that mean that I need to work, perhaps not "hard" but "much." If we weren't leaving the day after, that wouldn't necessarily be the case, but before then I've got errands plentiful. 

You Can't Break Me Down?

Some of the time my posts are just short because there's too much to say so I have no choice but to retreat back to the basics (and especially when I've got too much to say, and I'm busy.) Other times genuinely nothing's happened that day, of course not the case lately.

Sometimes I mean to write much, but am prevented from doing so by the computer crashing on me the way it always does when I watch the music video for The Killers' The Man, for some reason...

Other Things for Other Blogs; You Know Who You Are

The semester technically ends Tuesday but stuff in Interaction Design is due Mondays and Wednesdays with this week being no exception... so I'm not sure if my stuff needs to be in by Monday at midnight or actually Wednesday at midnight.

Anyway THINGS:

• StoryForge is a non-game with Hero's Journey elements, like cards representing, among other things, actual specific Hero's Journey plot points. Found out about it here: torforgeblog.com/2017/07/10/5-gaming-tools-to-help-your-writing/ Of the 6 games mentioned, I've played or seen played all but that and 99 Chances, neither of which I'd heard of until that article. Not a game though, so!
• Half Alive are pretty darn good, but too 'millenial' for my taste (and no I can't define that either.)
• The primary scariness against Lion Kinging every day would be, it'd take so long, with 90% of that being who's going to edit that together? I don't mind watching movies every day, 'course, but if I were going to do (I'm thinking vlog format for it now) I'd have to like hire someone willing to edit together a video once a day for a year, 'cause, I ain't doing that.

Nostalgia for the Weirder Days

The internet speed right now is very good, not in that it's fast but in that it's so excruciatingly slow it's giving me fond memories of the 1990s.

That is all.

Two Finals(?) Down

All I've eaten all day is: like some scrapings of what was once a taco probably, several handfuls of Shredded Wheat: Wheat and Bran, and a doughnut. It continues to be nobody's burthday, but it also continues to be finals.

Spent all day more or less finishing up my "Mentalities" final project for Information Design. It's over. It's all over. (Though actually at press time I've yet to upload the final images after receiving feedback on them. They are in my process book though so the teacher does have them- just not organized in any coherent way is all, the individual graphics minus the copy. The copy I will also be uploading.)

https://pretzelizemecapn.wordpress.com/2017/07/15/mentalities/

Meanwhile I also had my final portfolio review for figure drawing. As an illustration major, my work would have been about a C; as a graphic design major, which I still am so he's going lenient on me, he gave me a B-. Or B+. Whichever. Can't recall. The advice given is more important than the grade itself.

He did tell me that I have promise. And that it's the best illustrators, the toppity notch ones, whose work is grounded by not just illustration skill but design skill. He could tell that I was searching for form and not just shape, like a lot of graphic designers do, focusing just on the 2D layout. I had the design pretty well, but what I lacked was application- personal application that is. He could tell that I never sat down with a, "okay, we're going to be really working on figuring out specifically how to do core shadow well." It's true, and it's typical of me. Application. Gotta learn to buckle down on, like, anything.

So yeah now all's left is the interaction design stuff. Nice. Due Monday midnight... but there's a lot to do.

Final(s) Hours Remaining

It's like a week ago, counting down the hours until Homecoming, only now I'm counting down the hours until my last finals are due.

Seven and a half hours until the final portfolio review for figure drawing. I've got which drawings I want in the portfolio figured out, but the lab computers refusing to load, the way they do, I couldn't print out any of the reference photos tonight. Which are optional to have, as part of the portfolio, but still important. Maybe I'll get that done in the morning.

23 hours until the Info Design final is due. I'm estimating 12 hours' worth of work there, to get everything finished and spitpolished: 3 hours to block out the basics, the rest to fill in the details. Might take less time; hope it doesn't take more.

After that it's just the interaction design stuff I'm catching up on and chipping away at. 71.5 hours to complete that, with an estimated completion time of three question marks.

LIME TIME (Look, I aM Extremely Tired, I Mean anyway that's the best post title I can come up with on such short noticE.)

I had four slices of lime meringue pie today, even though I already used my sugar day this week. It was art night, the final one of the semester. It was the only thing they had to eat there this time... It's finals? Which was my excuse last time, stress eating or whatever, but that time I was exonerated by the fact that it was also technically Ryan's birthday the whole time which we had forgotten about. Maybe this one was for Andrew's birthday??

I got a third Jean Grey (Phoenix) cover in MPQ today. The system wigged out when I tried to level her up using my well-saved ISO-8... froze up the first couple of times, when I tried to do it all at once, and then the third time trying to do it level by level, it ate the 2,000 ISO-8 but didn't level her up any. So I had to complete another level even though I'd totally been able to afford leveling the whole thing up.

But now she's level 300. It worked the, fifth time or whatever that was.

Meanwhile in homework stuff, I sent in my last assignment for New Testament class. Guess I'm... done? Man that was anticlimactic. Probably going to spend the hour tomorrow that isn't class, doing, important, other class, stuff. Yeah.

Finals Week Progress Woo

I found the thumbnails for the screens of the app project I'm working on in interaction design, and can proceed at last with this final project. Other classes, sure let's make a bullet list:

• New Testament: There's one last assignment, but no more classes. Assignments take about an hour, depending how invested I am in the readings.
• Information Design: Friday at 11:30 pm is when everything is due. There's class tomorrow I think, but it'd just be a workday. Great opportunity to keep chugging along on creating the final processbook and/or refining designs after receiving feedback from the R&CW Conference.
• Monotype/Monoprint: Final portfolios due Thursday. I've got fresh improved prints of most of the processes we're supposed to have. Maybe all of them. I'll have to double-check.
• Figure Drawing- there's a 15-minute long final portfolio review which I've got scheduled for Friday morning. There is class tomorrow, but just to keep working on things we've already started, from reference photographs. No live models tomorrow I shouldn't think.
• Interaction Design. Everything due Monday evening. I'm a couple of weeks behind on the current app project, and there's still one or two things I need to do in the previous website design assignment just to cinch that done.

I had some cookie dough yesterday afternoon, and apparently the sugar grace period is for 24 hours and not a calendar day and so I also had one doughnut in monotype/monoprint class. The cookie dough was okay I guess but the doughnut was delightful, plain glazed though it may have been. With these sweet consumptions I am prevented myself from wanting to go to the cinemas this week, which means that I can spend time doing finals stuff as would be best for me.