Animations to Watch Out For

I'd meant to get some YouTubing in today, that is, being a YouTuber, and did in a sense-- completed the animated logo for video introductions at least. I'd forgotten how slow AfterEffects is to use, especially with my computer being so slow in general with all the video files I'm keeping on it currently. I do have all my video files on a flashdrive somewhere, a really big 'spensive one, but I can't find that right now so I'm not about to delete any of the footage I've taken. Except for the junky stuff; don't know why I saved that.

Speaking of animation, though! A few films coming up I'm pretty excited by. They're making a Teen Titans Go! movie, coming out, 2018 I think?, but for sure in 2018 Smallfoot is coming out. Which I hadn't been excited by really till it turns out that it's being done by WAG, so, 'nuff said on that. WAG are also doing Teen Titans Go! to the Movies, of course... And if they ever make a CG Animaniacs film, they'd probably do that one as well. Because they're the best.*

Ferdinand comes out this Friday from Blue Sky, yay...!

Spamming of WAG though not actually spamming of WAG, anyway, Phil Lord and Chris Miller, (they of the Lego Movie (hence the, WAG thing,) and um not also Solo: A Star Wars Story (which still stars Alden Ehrenreich so, cautious optimism there**)) are doing the animated Spider-Man feature, from Sony Pictures Animation (who may always be a tossup in terms of quality but at least they're a consistent toss-up, and this one's gonna be good of course***. How could it not be.)

Meanwhile, and generally unrelated though I guess still on the topic of awesome writer/directors, Taika Waititi apparently did a TedX back in 2010. Man is quite the creative talent, while still apparently genuinely down-to-earth, and that really shines here.

Doing research on upcoming animated features, though: Blue Sky are doing a Mutts move, and I was talking just yesterday about how much I adore that strip; Blue Sky, having done the Peanuts movie, are just a perfect fit, and, man that's great. As much as I love both Over the Hedge and Dreamworks' Over the Hedge, they're completely different, erm, animals, and I think the Peanuts approach would be best for any Mutts adaptation.

WAG are doing a Bone adaptation; how am I only hearing of this now... A Space Jam sequel is in the pipes... Finally gonna get around to that Hanna Barbera animated cinematic universe... oh, this is interesting, you know those -Ology books, there's plans to adapt one of those...

Also, of course, from my man WDAS, Ralph is going to break the internet. The day after my birthday, next year. Still awhile off, but...

Newspaper Funnies (and Unfunnies)

Looking up cartoon takes on gophers for the, Other//half comic thing, I found a couple of really, interesting, newspaper comics (terrible; the word I'm looking for is, so bad-it's-bad-it's-good.)

Just stare into this thing's soul for five minutes and see if you can figure out what the heck is going on.

https://www.cartoonstock.com/cartoonview.asp?catref=smb090801

This one took a while. Turns out it's, not just a total non-sequitur, two unrelated comics mashed together; it's actually apparently part of a longer story arc about Moby Gopher, and Steve Moore has just never seen a gopher and draws them like bears I guess. This is what I was trying to avoid in looking up reference.

Also, there's this guy, Ambrose Quintanilla, who runs like three strips and none of them have an ounce of, heck it it's Christmas and I don't like saying mean things in the first place, but his comics are

just.

so.

hypnotically.

bad.

that I can't even. And his comics are collectively known as Gopher It I guess which is why that stuff showed up during my search as well.

But it's Sunday and Sunday funnies and so I've been thinking about the topic lately anyway.

For some reason (and I just found the strip in question on both washingtonpost.com and gocomics.com and it's not doing it so it must just be my kindle) today's strip of BC is... nuttily meta. It's like a joke about their repetition of the same type of gag over and over, take the familiar and strip context, anything that makes any individual floating-tablet-correspondence strip unique. It was beautiful. I cried.

Actually no, it's just some, bizarre, maybe they sent out the wrong, incomplete file or something, mistake.

Onto other newspaper comics from today, getting onto ones I enjoy unironically now and believe may be the salvation of the medium and all that.

Darby Conley may be the new Walt Kelly. I always knew that he's very, very good, and that he's got a flare for super super super elaborate puns, possibly even more so than even Stephan Pastis, but today's Get Fuzzy just took my breath away with, let's face it that is exactly the kind of punnage that would show up in Pogo any given weekday.

Mr Conley please don't let us down.

Other newspaper comics I'm quite taken with: Brewster Rockit is consistently alright, everybody knows this, la-dee-dumm... oh, the Lockhorns may be, like, about as bland as any other comic strip created in the 60s, but Bill's widow Bunny and her collaborator John Reiner (whom I'm presuming to do the artwork for the series now, with Bunny primarily on writer's duty, but they collaborate enough I can't really tell if Bunny doesn't also do art) that Reiner guy, and/or Bunny Hoest, really knows how to draw. So, you know. That's good.

Red and Rover is something you really don't see much anymore; I like it. It's like Mutts, which also remains awesome and also hearkens back to really early comics tradition. Neither are very funny very frequently, but both are consistently lovely and wonderful.

Prince Valiant is awesome. Drawn nowadays by Mark Schultz, the Xenozoic Tales guy. Hope he stays around a while. Think I've talked about this before.

Oh, uh, today's Garfield is actually way funny; it's always nice when that's the case...

That's probably it. Not the only funnies I enjoy, but the ones I've had feelings about specifically today.

Jazzdafunk and Psychphransisco

Can't remember how I heard of Vanessa "Jazzdafunk" Flores. How I hear of any of my favorite furry artists I guess; see something I admire here and be all, that's really awesome, see something I admire there and be all, that's really awesome, and then later on it turns out ohmygush, they're by the same person! Happens all the time. At least, three, four, at least four times. Five, maybe seven? All the time, anyway. All the time.

Don't know why I'm talking about this; I guess it's because in her latest IG post (a "best nine," where you post up a screenshot of your 9 most popular posts of the year; I think it's a thing that artists do, because that's the only place I've seen it, but if non-artists do it too, then, what the heck non-artists, what are you even doing on Instagram in the first place, I just don't understand you) she calls herself a "mediocre nobody artist," which is... like, she has to be awesome in at least two unrelated ways, right, because that's how I discover all my favorites and stuff...

Not really what I'd planned on posting about today. Can't remember what I actually had planned on posting about, but I don't think it was this.

Anyway, Psych the Movie is available to watch online for free at USA network's website. Just clear a couple of hours from your schedule, allow Flash to run, and go! Maybe have some pineapple handy, I don't know. And maybe brush up on your Psych canon beforehand, there's a few familiar faces that return, and the story would be easier to follow if you recognize them. 

http://www.usanetwork.com/psych/videos/psych-the-movie

Something Undone

So I was thinking about doing things that nobody else was doing, and I was thinking about how TTDECBA was/is something that only I could do, and I was thinking about YouTube videos in the context of doing things nobody else does, because there's so much on YouTube that's just noise; vouching for that coming from a man here who's seen just about every reaction video to the teaser to a trailer to a movie... anybody can do a reaction video, and does, and so-- it's the opposite of what I was thinking about, that of course being, doing things nobody else is doing (not even necessarily can do, but is doing at all.) 

Not as many people are doing board game reviews as film reviews, so that's a good start, but... going deeper, there's also a lot of video essays on movies, and a few on books and stuff, which fewer people (but still a lot) are doing; I don't think anybody's doing video essays on board games. 

There might be an, opening in there somewhere. If you want to use it, Andrew you've got a YouTube account that people watch, like, that Scotland yard video has almost 10,000 views, pretty impressive, I'd say for sure above average in terms of views, given how many videos on YouTube don't get watched at all and all that. And you've got, obviously, stuff already about board games, so it fits. So.

I was thinking, specifically, breaking down different applications of mechanics, like worker placement, show Tzolkin next to Caverna, or even Agricola next to Caverna, or whatever, and show how minor variations in the applications of mechanics lead to two different games, and what each difference means for like metagame. There's just a wealth of stuff there, it's possible to mine, and nobody's mining. You're welcome. Now I don't have to get you anything for Christmas.

But seriously, there's just sooo many video essays about movies...

What Are We Made Of?

Roommates are a big issue. Compatibility thereof at least. I've lived with some terrifying roommates before. Figured I'd just have been married by the time it comes to make this sort of decision. Bad at picking up after myself, like, the thought just doesn't occur to me. And I take up a lot of space, like, just leave my stuff out and let it sprawl. I think it'd have to be someone I already know, like my brother now.

Has there ever been an absurdist comedy set in the Cthulhu mythos? SHIFTING GEARS NOW OF COURSE. Just think that it'd be the only real genre that fits there, besides horror I mean. I'd been going to call it Flesh and Bone, but that's already the name of some ballet drama on STARZ? Like, what the heck.

Enough to De-press

One great thing about the Alaska thing, working up at a hotel in Anchorage or something, would be, like, automatic housing, boom, don't even have to look for it. That's one of the way daunting prospects about moving to the Portland area for the Laika opening, geographically closer to me and anywhere I've been in my life, but without living quarters just built into the job perks like that. I'd have to shop around, or, however people find apartments, and then I'd have to pay for said housing, like, what kind of crap is that...? Of course, with a job, I'd be able to afford that; but still, to me right now, having a job is a theoretical while having to pay rent is a reality, so maybe I'm just projecting irrationally. 

Also, once I'm graduated I'll have to have my own health insurance? Some stuff came in the mail today regarding my recent switch to the school's student health plan, and Mom I guess we'll talk later about it.

But videos. I've been, well I haven't been thinking about making them this week so much as, this week the idea of making them has been shoving its way down my throat. The way that relates is, maybe I might get a temporary job for a semester, up here, through it? But filling in the application form it's asking me what communications classes I've taken (nunovem,) and asking my GPA, like, hey that's a low blow, and... (I just dislike my declared degree so much, and, heck maybe I should have gone into communications instead of art, they're basically the same thing just with a world of difference, like, same building and faculty and stuff so I would have had much the same opportunity, but this time with, stuff I'm actually good at; maybe it would have been good to have been as cynical as everyone else for a change, and go to school not to learn and improve at something you're not very good at, but to have a bright shiny medal that opens actual practical doors for you...)

But videos. And how they've been shoving themselves down my throat, anyway. Last week in comic book workshop, there was a dude what come in, what come in and advertise him own workshop on Tuesdays. Which I went to this week, and it's, YouTube production workshop, like a workshop entirely on how to YouTube? And I learned a couple of things, actually, mostly on sourcing creative commons media for use in your own videos. Then, watching YouTube today, the ad was for some guy advertising the same idea as the workshop, teaching how to make YouTube videos and make money off of them and all. And this afternoon, wandering around the Spori building a couple of hours before Comic Book Workshop started, I looked in the room where we have that workshop and saw, my brother's ex-girlfriend? And apparently she leads this visual communications workshop, and she showed this video about being creative and making videos, and then everybody in the workshop showed videos they'd made, and there was a competition for whose was the best? And the guy who'd win, before the workshop, asked what programs I use to edit, and he told me about the job opportunity that I told you about last paragraph, since I know how to use After Effects. 

I had to wade through a lot of crappy video essays and conspiracy videos in order to find this "Kubrick," so now I hope you're happy even as I'm depressed.

Laika or Alaska?

Can't think of what to say, so, be honest, being honest works. 

If I don't graduate before fall of next year, there'll be this class thing I'll need to take, which I've mentioned before when discussing what to take and when to graduate and whether I have the ability to change my major (EDIT: "Portfolio Capstone.") So I'm thinking of, I guess, well I'm thinking of it, not going to Alaska next summer, but to Oregon instead, where Laika is, to get that Laika job, and maybe somehow it would count as a graphic design internship or something? Which would mean taking an internship credit instead of an art history tour credit, to graduate; which ain't bad, because those things cost money while internships don't, and I think actually it's illegal not to pay interns anymore? 

But looking on the Laika website where the Laika jobs are listed, it's just, the kinds of openings and jobs you'd expect to be at Laika.

Alaska would make money, but graduate me later, maybe in time still before I'd need to take that extra credit but still later than I'd otherwise graduate, which means maybe seeing McKenna again but that's a bad thing because we've pretty much moved on and there'd be no way of interacting anyway. Meanwhile, Laika would grant me an entry position at my third-favorite animation company, above even Pixar. 

Alaska would be a good experience but for more hypothetical reasons, my wanting to set a TV show there if they ever let me make a TV show, while Laika is... well, probably not a graphic design thing, and so wouldn't really let me graduate. Maybe have a graphic design internship on the side, while at Laika, and be able to graduate that way, before (I think it's) October? I guess that would make sense, but if there's such a thing available, I'd need to start planning regarding it soonerish rather than laterish.

I realized today that, just because autists usually prefer solid daily routines while I abhor those, I guess I've been letting that fact distract me from, change still is hard, and planning for these hypotheticals is hard, and it's not routine I enjoy so much as, man whatever this not having to worry about having my life in order, is. And I really should get on this stuff, but...

Brother Keller's going to be at... well I don't know that, but, Brother Keller shows up at art night sometimes, especially the first and last days of the semester, to do like 5-year-plans and artist's statements with us, so he's, it being near the end of the semester now, possibly going to be at art night tomorrow, and maybe I can talk about some of this stuff with him if he is. Because I for sure need to talk to him sometime, about it. (Reminder, he's the one with the connections to the movie studios in the first place; he's our "in.")

Twilfth Night or whatyouwill

okay i rmemember what i'd been going to post about in this blog yesterday; it's about Twilfth Night. My favorite Shakespeare play actually. it's not coincidental that I brought it up eariler in a post dealing with Other//half/, after all it is the one with the gender role expolrations via disguises, and the doppelgancership via identical-ish twins. 

But Shapesar's so great because ther'es also a human drama in that, all that, and it's fascinating because this production design gave the characters Elizabethan dress but each design was iconic enough you could tell who a character was just looking at them; they didn't all look the same. So I could glean stuff I'd never been able to before about how each character fits in the story.

(And each character had multiple outfits and it still made sense.)

What's fascinating about Twelgth Night (or whatyouwill) is how a lot of it revolves around stuff Shalespeare covers elsewhere: letters and letter writing in Much Ado About Nothing, crossdressing in um a lot of 'em, Comedy of Errors also with the doppelganger stuff. But it's only in the fifth act in Tevlet Night that the doppelganger stuff comes in, to extract the characters from a sticky plot.

Orsino sends Viola to Priscilla Mullins Olivia, or John Alden I suppose would be the proper proper noun verb, but just as with Myles Standish Olivia falls for Viola, though meanwhile Viola's fallen for Orsino. How they going to get out of this one? Olivia mistakenly marries Viola's twin brother instead, because he entered the picture, and that leaves Viola and Orsino free to hook up.

How convenient that Sebastian should be a thing, right? But it's been established since the second scene of the first act that Viola has a twin brother, and they both were in the same shipwreck. And so Shakespeare Chekhov's guns Chekhov's guns a quarter of a millennium before Chekhov is a thing (though guns are totally a thing by this time already, of course; they're mentioned in this play so there.)

But what I find most fascinating is the way Shakespeare cast herds: another thing he does, like in A Midsummer Night's Dream and As You Like It (watching someone come in from a different part of the play and just like pass by is what prompts Jaques to launch into his "All the Wor'ds A AStage" soliilogua.y.) Toby Belch is chilling with Anred Aguecheek is chilling with Malvolio and, that other guy I don't kbow what he does I guess just fills out things numvbers-wise with that group, and Feste, while meanwhile ther's um that lady, chilling there, and the other guys, and also there's Sebastian and that ex-pirate war criminal- 

and serosly, he didn't have to be an ex-pirate war criminal, but that's what he was made, and so that's another thing, like, each character basically has their own plot and arc and everything. And not all gets resolved by the end(pirate dude, Malvolio, in this production they let pirate dude go chase Malvolio after he stomps off the stage and out of the play, but I'd have to check the script to see if that's discussed in dialogue because sharkspear dpesn't have stage directions besides entrance and exit, and exit pursied bu a bat.)

And, like the cast herd stuff at least, and each arc interacting creating plot, that's the one, like the idea lonk where I tried to just create a plot and smashed some dramatic situations together, act one act two act three, what should have been done, what I should do instead, is have three groups, and each group has the plat, and the groups inreract forming a greater plit.

but all my favorite bands seem to be coming out with albums this year and I ordered Songs of Experience but looks like I'm having it shipped to the wrong address oops.

And oh my heavensi t's Crhistmas!

Cookie Baked in My Brain

I'm, well I can't seem to load the other blog at the moment, my writing blog, and that's okay; I didn't really do writing today anyway, and if I'd post there today it would be to talk about writing-type activities. Which I can always do over here on this blog, and also I didn't really have a topic today anyway. Also I actually want to get to bed at, sometime tonight, so.

I'm pretty proud of the anachronominion, even as it stands rough-hewn and unpolished. Maybe polishing it would actually take away some of this, I don't know, maybe it'd even add to it: but it definitely feels like something that only I could write. I would elaborate, but I think that statement stands on its own.

O/h meanwhile, sure let's also say that it's that way. Cool.

Character Design with Other//half

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXR0EuuzObRKQR2hjzBe9JM3W7E9HT2awQI_jG6ov_vQ8aPLtgyGHKWODBjNE1mObqW5DQgOUCxq6YWTydf8pfEQlz9Zgb_0xoQocQjOFrCrlJ7xyfZpJ6a36_gwmuD7pSvq5ATjN3xRli/s1600/ohchar-01.jpg

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRUadWYcGmXaaVRCLtHHYQ3CEArwTIBGS-AAJjjZyE1mbSVnf9k4o6ZCZI4mCbsjJYG9WIfrCk0VYXJILKuZakApDHhLeK-3YTIJiAbNpkptscyDKw-4gd2a19JomWqpvSftvBH4zjrgHC/s1600/ohchar-02.jpg

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB1WXsZV_6qy5HdQQHkjDJLPTqwBuPoae-Ab5tLix6fEmTb4InCpFSycFhVzT-cL0F88oNsB8ifC1oV3EbyheYaSNKHKxSS3QkY-HbJlerumvRQiNsmHvdKFM6InPLNsdRA56i282lQJlw/s1600/ohchar-03.jpg

The setting of Other//half is not wont to fit easily into four pages. Four written pages, maybe, would be enough to convey much information about the world and possibly tell a story within it, but that's not what we're talking about. Four comic book pages. Or fewer. That's what we had to work with, for the workshop showcase compilation.

My original concept of what to do for this project, at the beginning of the month or whatever, was a remake of a comic I completed sometime late-mission; it was a sociological exploration of the interaction between mind and body and soul, and even headier than that makes it sound. And still pretty awesome I think. In other words, it dealt more with themes than setting, and so would make sense divorced even from any knowledge of this world; I thought it to be the only decent four-page comic that a neophyte could walk into the setting with and still comprehend.

But then there's this.

The whole thing, or at least the last page which was enough to extrapolate the rest from, came to me wholecloth in a dream on Wednesday morning, as I explained probably somewhere in that day's ramblish post. Well, not wholecloth wholecloth- I didn't invent the phrase Chester the Molester. But the rest of that concept is mine. Or my subconsciousness's. 

A vole is a kind of mouse, I'd been toying with, and maybe in the dream it was also this way, somebody going "maybe Chester the Vole??" but that just didn't go with any flow and it wouldn't make sense anyway and I just now remembered that it was a thing.

But I'm extremely satisfied with this. More pairs of eyes on it would help me know if it needs revision, if it's not as funny as it could be, all that, but the concept of it, as a three-page comic related to Other//half but completely understandable adjacent to its world or characters, is just a homerun. Two Chesters there at the end, even- someone who reads this and then reads the comic wouldn't be confused why there's doppelgangers of people running around; they'd get the wrong idea why but at least they wouldn't be confused.

So I went to go see Twelfth Night last night, its final performance was the first time I had schedule open to see it, and even then the schedule wasn't totally open and I had to miss International Cinema.

If anybody's seen the British silent film The Lodger, better let me know.

comic desperation

Went to the library this morning, to see if the thumbdrive was there, or, something-- the only other person at the desperation thing last night says she saw that the thumbdrive was still attached when I packed up my laptop into my bag, so it must have fallen off later.

It's probably out there in the snow or something right now, I don't know.

Just went and rescanned the art, and am compiling it together, and I guess I've got time, like, I'd thought the original due date was the 2nd. I'm fortunate that I looked at the time when I did, because I almost missed the post deadline.

I guess I'll put up a jpg of the finished comic up tomorrow.

"Quiet Desperation"

Exactly what this blog would have been depended on the time of day today I thought about blogging. Like early this morning I thought about making it about clarifying how I do find some human cartoon women attractive but not many, and early this evening it would have been about why poking people is wrong and how my novel has been keeping me from murdering my roommates. But all day today, there was a channel on Amazon Music, one day only, called U2 Experience, 24 hours of nonstop U2 music and interviews in preparation for Songs of Experience which comes out tomorrow but I've already heard a few songs off from U2 Experience.

Also speaking of Experience, today's strip of Furry Experience just really reminds me why I fell in love with the thing in the first place.

Comic book workshop compilation book due tomorrow, today actually but Taylor's only checking with me tomorrow. Three people have submitted their stuff. That's, 10 pages. My own is, um so there was to be an Evening of Quiet Creativity at the muni library this evening followed by an Evening of Writing Desperation, but with some librarian sick or something that was rolled into just the first one, and renamed Evening of Quiet Desperation. It only lasted two hours but I got some good stuff in, but I may have left my thumbdrive there, that has the art on it for the comic I'd been going to do for the compilation book. May have. Maybe I lost it on the way home; I knew I shouldn't have just shoved my laptop in my bag with the thumbdrive just sticking out.

Maybe I'll find it tomorrow, maybe I won't. All that was on that drive was that art, nothing else because it had been empty so that Ryan could borrow it to do Linux stuff. And I can rescan the art, even if I don't find it, no biggie. But... Well I don't know. I'm probably not going to have the comic in time for the, whenever Taylor emails me for the final compiled PDF. Should I just throw up a few pages of old 24 hour comic? But to give up on this particular Other//half strip means that I really did miss that deadline I'd set for myself.

Though losing the thumbdrive with the art on it is a decent excuse I guess. "Oh, I did have it in by the deadline, I just, lost it, is all." Quality.

Finished with NaNoWriMo! Final wordcount: 50,923 words. Plan from here, I'll explain on the writing blog tomorrow.

And it looks like it's snowing apparently, "a good blanket" says my roommate's voice from the other room, so let us certainly hope that the thumbdrive was indeed lost inside the library instead of outside of it.

Sir Mix-a-Lot and the Furry Fandom (a Ramble)

Alright, so art night tonight (I write this from there actually) and Lauren is here and she's like the most talented furry artist I've ever met, not quite the most talented one I've ever seen like online or anything and not the only furry artist I've ever met but still she's way good, and I've got those ice cream furries on the back of my laptop but I did them like a year, year and a half ago and I'm not as proud of them as I used to be, (EDIT: and the reason that's important is because I've got all this stuff to do on my laptop like Nanowrimo and comic book workshop stuff but I don't exactly want to whip my laptop out even though yes I did write this from there, on my laptop, but I just sort of kept it low) and she's also like way open about being a furry like she's wearing a BLFC shirt right now and everything, and she flipped through her sketchbook where she designs a character a day and she's only got two pages left, and she just, flipped through it, and I'd never be able to do that like I draw some pretty messed-up furry art sometimes, and also I'm not that good, although I'm doing some of that Other//half stuff (and I totally changed what my comic is, it's now this hilarious fourth-wall-breaking thing that came to me in a dream this morning) and I'm pretty proud of that, but I still don't think that's that good and screw it she's leaving I'm showing her the back of my laptop and asking her if I'm any good.

Back at the apartment now, and I'd been tired before, but now I feel I could write for a whole hour. Maybe not my novel, but this blog at least, because she and Izzy-Carla's-daughter-who-might-be-a-furry-too-I-think both really liked my stickers back there, like seriously Lauren liked my stuff, my style and everything, and she liked my characters' personalities and everything, like seriously that woman (or girl? I think she might be out of high school, but am not sure) she's a master of giving her characters personality. So it's like... wow.

The moon is upside-down tonight. I thought it freakish, that time I saw it, and it was one of the other things that happened on the day of the chili cook-off, the first one, the same day Cry Cry Cry came out, whose lyrics coincidentally I quoted in my piece for art night tonight. Flies on the Sun, which the first time or couple times through that album I thought to be pretty weak, until I realized/interpreted it more as a doo-wop song, by an indie band, and so is one of my, not-least-favorite, songs on the album now.

Some time after Halloween, here we go, I found a latex horse mask in the trash can of the high-end apartment complex next to ours, in which garbage can you can find some marvelous stuff sometimes (although it is also the same garbage can used by the maintenance-type people there, so there's also just like plywood scraps and everything sometimes, which is just junk and takes up a lot of space and is true garbage) and I haven't put on that mask because I don't know where it's been, why would they throw it away like that maybe it's covered in weird germs, but I tried it on just now, before writing this section now that I'm back at the apartment, and I felt something. Maybe um they threw it away because those things are kind of, not for you if you're even a little bit claustrophobic in the tiniest degree, but let me stress how otherwise perfectly good this latex mask is. But this one's pretty big. I think they just wanted rid of it. And I felt something, anyway. I try on woman's dresses sometimes, to see if I feel something, like seriously that should make you feel something, but I never do. It's just, more, different clothes. But I do feel things, dressed as an animal. Feel feelings.

And Lauren's just so openly a furry, and... 

I was thinking about Sir Mix-a-Lot today, Baby Got Back, and... 

(and my roommates are arguing in the living room, and one of my roommates thinks it's "from the butt," isn't aware that women have urethrae, speaking of bottoms. Neither does the other, apparently, just thinking it's from the vagina (and it is NOT from their, well he just said "the general area," so he knows I guess, and also I guess my other roommate, the first one, knows it's not the anus, but also the general area) and usually people trash-talking trannies really pisses me off, but the word they used is trannies and that's just so funny to me that I guess I don't mind it right now; they're talking military, transgender ban, and both of them agree with the sock puppet man. And they're still talking about the urethra thing, just brought it up again I mean (writing is not an instantaneous process, so their still going on about it is news.) Like, looking it up I guess? Just a barrel full of chuckles. Speaking of bottoms anyway.)

But Baby Got Back, anyway. "I like big butts and I cannot lie." There's something profound in that.* I like big butts, and I cannot lie. What degree of acceptability is acceptable?** What is self, like, be true to yourself? And we can't know what it's like to be other people. So I guess yourself is all you can be.

There's this terrifying children's book I met yesterday, The Little White Rabbit with Red Wings, something like that, like why do the wings have to be red we wouldn't even notice how demonic the whole thing is if the wings weren't this cardinal, red, this demon red, but it's about a rabbit who's young and covetous I guess liking features of other animals he sees in the woods, until he's told, you know there's a wishing well just on the other side of the forest, you can wish for those neat body parts, and so he does, but going home, just because he's got a bird's red wings now the mother doesn't recognize him?*** like wth his own mother doesn't recognize him just because he's got these terrifying demon wings? but I think maybe she's just trying to teach him a lesson, actually, now that I think about it, which means that she was lying to her offspring which I guess is half a parent's job, but he goes back to the wishing well and wishes himself back to normal, and his mother recognizes him and the moral is spelled out for you (seriously I think they do that in children's books because you'd totally walk away with the wrong moral if they didn't, these things are so ambiguous,) don't try to be anyone other than yourself. Like, even though there's just a wishing well that allows you to change what that means, at any time, I DON'T KNOW, and the other moral that might have been extracted had they not spelled it out for you would be, don't ever change, don't ever improve, ever. Otherwise your mom won't recognize you (and wth he's a rabbit, could he really be an only child, maybe that's why she didn't recognize him, because there were so many to keep track of that the book just never brings up.)

So what's the line there? They never talk about that, what any of it means. Sir Mix-a-Lot may be honest, but which side of the line does the big butts thing fall on? Honestly, it's a toss-up.

But anyway yeah Lauren digs my stuff apparently? (And the shirt, I asked her about it and it's from an artist she met at BLFC, so I was half-right.) Social interaction and affirmation (af-fur-mation!) is really good for my, endorphin, levels, not only am I fully awake I'm not, randy, right now? Um so yeah. Halfway sexy dream a couple of nights ago. Haven't given into any temptation for, well a couple of weeks before I became temple-worthy again, so, however long that was? For a while. And being able to visit the temple again is a good motivator to keep my "nose" clean-- but my biological clock still ticks at me from time to time. Like yesterday. Yesterday I was crazy randy.

You didn't need to know any of that!

You know who's smoking hot? Minerva Mink. Way hotter than Hello Nurse. (I always was more of a sucker for Lola Bunny the bunny than Jessica Rabbit the human, whom I don't consider hot at all.) But you know which animaniac I had the biggest crush on as a kid? What's-her-name, the geriatric squirrel. Slappy, that's the one.

You didn't want to know any of that!

Has it been an hour yet? I feel it must have been about an hour now.

Mwa! Goodnight, everybody!

Google Docs and Goldilocks

I guess I'm finishing off part 7 tomorrow, and doing all of part 8, the climax and denouement, on the 30th? There are sections to my outline but there are also like supersections; I don't know what the deal with that is, though I guess I could look through the Google Docs history to see the inception of that. Because it's just, weird.

I still need to do my comic, also due on the 30th, as well; at least start it and finish it maybe I don't need to include it in the collection, take a look at the other inclusions and see if they're at the Goldilocks zone of quality that I'd feel comfortable including my work as a part of. Uum nobody's emailed their submissions to me yet, still, so... yeah I don't know. But tomorrow afternoon is Comic Book Workshop, so I can check in there and say "what the heck guys?"

Those aren't the only issues going on in my life, but they are the only ones that will get resolved within 48 hours.

Last Few Days of November

Three days left, and just about 6,000 words needed. We're going to be good on wordcount for sure, even if fitting the remaining five sections of outline in in three days might be a heftier task. There's an "evening of writing desperation" at the municipal library on the 30th, lasting for four or five hours, and I plan on squeezing that lemon dry.

Getting in the last shoots we need for Tony Boi this week as well, though thank goodness on Friday and Saturday, which are next month when I no longer have to be caring about NaNoWriMo.

Something I do need to worry about while it's still NaNoWriMo though. Every comic submission is due to me by the 30th, so that I can compile it all in InDesign. So far I haven't received, any submissions. You think I may have given the wrong email address or something, during the contact info stuff?

Regarding that as well, searching through the drawers under the bed as a last-ditch effort to find the notes I need here, I didn't find them but I did find more notes that connect with the other notes I'd thought these notes would be with.

I think the notes for the comic were possibly in my loose-leaf bristol-board sketchbook I kept on my mission. Don't have a clue where those sheets went, as they weren't in the containers you'd figure they'd possibly be in.

I've figured out another four-page thing to do for the comic, though. But I've only got two days to do it all.

Plot Magic

Headed (past tense) back up to Idaho today. Wrote a lot in the car. A whole section's worth of writing, pounded out all in one technical sitting.

I didn't think I had enough material for section 20, but I was wrong turns out. Or I was right, but I managed to make it work anyway. The outline is mostly, well section 20 is the heist itself, and I already explained a lot of what would happen during the planning section, so the outline of section 20 is mostly stuff I talk about in section 19 of the book. Which didn't leave that much left. There was the modification of the plans now that they'd merged with Gef's team, that I still needed to get to, but that would hardly be enough for the 1,222 word minimum each section has now. 

And so I did the smart thing to do when faced with a wall.

I took a nap.

It's happened a couple of times now, where I've been faced with a problem of what to write, or even if I hadn't been faced with a problem but still perhaps needed more wordcount for the day or something. I nodded off with the story problems in the back of my mind, and some idea or another came to me.

For example, section 16, of three days ago, originally there hadn't been the thing where the Tooth Fairy gives the team the gift of speed for whatever reason, but I nodded off and the idea came to me that I should do that for some reason, and I wrote that in as a lark and that actually became a plot point solving how the money laundering magic would work.

And so I napped, in the car (not the only time it happened this trip either) and there it was, the question of money given by the tooth fairy if our money has a theoretical gold standard and supernatural money has an astrological standard, what's the reconciliation between that. And there was also some Cinderella thing which I wrote down but is unrelated. So I wrote a stream-of-conscious working out of the ramifications, and edited it later into smaller paragraphs with connective tissues.

I am tired, and am getting up early in the morning, but I still need 737 words to reach this section's 1,222-word wordcount. I'm almost halfway there, at least.

Also, being back in the apartment now, I checked where I thought my notes would be, and I was right that that's where the other stuff was, but the particular notes I was looking for weren't there. So I don't know.

Wordcount Buckler

There's only about 11,000 words I need to write in order to achieve the 50,000 word minimum NaNoWriMo novel length. 2,200 words a day for five days, still 533 words a day more than the minimum average, but not tough to achieve at all. I wrote 3,434 words today, a little over twice the minimum.

But it's not the precise wordcount that's worrying me. It's being able to get through the remaining sections of outline. There are 28 sections, and I've completed 19 of them. 9 more sections to write, in five days. Try to divide that, it doesn't go so evenly. Not that every section needs to be a minimum of 1,667 words; if it were 1,222 words I'd be able to get it. I got a pretty hefty spate of anxiety today, thinking about needing to do about two sections a day, and how I had only barely started today's writing. The anxiety went away when I buckled down and got a solid chunk of wordcount it.

But... I'm not sure, but I think tough sections might be coming up again.

Today was a tough section. Well, they were two easy sections, but I'd put off writing a certain reveal, not placing it where it's placed in the outline for plotting reasons. Finally deciding today where to put it, that was pretty tough. I'm boring myself just writing this, but it was pretty important. There was some pretty fatty writer's block until I buckled down and got in any words at all, a metafictional message to myself in the form of character dialogue, which made no sense in context but that's a good thing because there was context, not just empty page, once I plowed through it. And I deleted that part, sad to say.

Anyway, part of why I came down here, or wanted to come down here, for Thanksgiving was for the notes to the comic due on the 30th, which I thought might have been here. Searching in the garage through my old stuff from that time period, though, I realize that the notes for it actually are back at the apartment in Rexburg. Really. Pretty sure. Because I know the context and, that is where they would be.

Weird Kids' Videos and Gaming the Algorithm

'Tubing is apparently one of my all-time most popular posts?; in it I embed a video about really weird and disturbing YouTube kids' videos, and why they're weird and disturbing. Another YouTuber I subscribe to and would totally do a crossover with if my own channel gets big enough for that*, Dan Olson of Folding Ideas, put out a fresh video on the same subject two days ago, getting more in-depth about how these videos exploit the system and rake in views and ad revenue. I would have posted about it yesterday, but that's when my own video went up, and these things need their own posts**.




Is the knowledge that such things exist in the world, books that are designed to sell copies but not actually be read, videos designed to get views but not actually say anything, games designed 100% to be addictive 0% to be fun, is that depressing for those of us who write books to be read, create films and video to be consumed and enjoyed and to say things, design games to be played and to be good? 

There's a lot of noise in the world, and non-noise doesn't rise to the top by itself. It requires the help of good people, with reliable taste.

So anyway I've felt totally kind of naked all day because my Fitbit battery is low and the charger is in the car or something and I keep on asking Ryan for the keys but never loud enough or something, so I've just been going around without my Fitbit all day.

I Used to Steal Birds, But Now I'm a Newspaper Man (PretzelsVlog no 9)

NaNoWriGoals

Not really getting in the writing that I'd thought I would. This marks the second day in a row where- I mean, third day in a row I suppose- where I'm not really getting in the NaNoWriMo wordcount I'd thought I would, or that I really should. Heh. And I wasn't 100% caught up before that. Eh, that's alright. Just, like... I'm not giving up on it. I did get in writing today and the last couple of days. Apparently working on the story in order is best- I've got up to where I should be, outlined and sectioned off, but I have for those sections, not many ideas at all. Writing it in order, even though I do have outline, is, working, and trying to rush it or skip ahead even a little, isn't.