"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.

Sneeeky

Only arrived home just after midnight, well like a few seconds before midnight but that wasn't enough time to log into the internet. I told Mom we'd be heading home on Wednesday, but we headed home on Tuesday instead, which is now as of a few minutes ago yesterday. This, this counts as Tuesday's post.

The Smiths, The Smiths, and My Mission

I post up a song each year ever since I turned 23, and I'd been toying with the idea of making it "This Year" by The Mountain Goats this year, but then I thought about the birthday stuff in Studio C's The Smiths 2 sketch, and so I looked up The Smiths, which is also a band of course. And it turns out they(The Smiths)'ve got a birthday song? It's apparently on Strangeways, Here We Come, which I checked out of the library once but I don't think I remember this track. (It's probably one of the albums I didn't get to, is why; I checked out like all the The Smiths albums at the same time, and didn't get around to them by the time they were due.)

The song itself is named, Unhappy Birthday. Because The Smiths.

Anyway I've been thinking about my mission lately. Yesterday marked the three-year anniversary of my homecoming, and I only noticed it today. I've almost spent as much time at school here, by now, as I did on my mission. Yoikes.

Elder Susov appeared in my dream last night, and I'm getting flashbacks today of Elder Glenn enthusiastically doing the "hooray!" in the "You've Had a Birthday, Shout Hooray" song. Also, there's some Elder Rose stuff I talk about on A Real Thing instead of writing more NaNoWriMo, for some reason. I had two companions named Elder Smith, but they aren't actually any of the Smiths I thought about today.

So. I wrote extensively in my journal, on my mission, but never quite finished it. There's still the last week, week and a half to write about. I do have notes, and it being three years and all and those memories fading I'd been going to arrange those notes finally, today, but never got around to it and/or forgot to. 

Maybe after NaNoWriMo?

11/19/2017

Well, it's still not my-- and it just turned midnight here, alright. Well then. 

Um, I really don't have much to say. Just finished my post on A Real Thing, it's a good one. The Meridian Idaho temple was dedicated today. I ate like 3/4ths of a pie by myself today; I really mean these to be, for everyone, things, but nobody seems to want-- I mean I suppose I could ask them, but it's one of those things you figure would go without saying. 

Is it like a "conservative people" thing, to be really, uppity about the notion of personal property? I went for a walk today, and I was inadvertently trespassing left and right. And I'm lucky I didn't get shot. I've heard that "conservative people" like going around shooting each other for such infractions. So maybe that's why nobody ate my pie but me? 

I mean, if it were one of my roommates' pies... then I wouldn't even go near that thing, because they're "conservative people," and I have gotten in trouble in the past for, personal property, issues, like using their, pots or whatever. I'm officially forbidden from using anybody's, pots and whatever, so, yeah.

But if my roommates weren't "conservative people," I'd be, at least inquiring, about that pie's relationship status, whether they and their pie are "going steady." 

I don't understand politics, is the moral of the story.

Perfect Timing

I could have gotten more NaNoWriMo in today, but I wrote some setting stuff for Other//half instead, in an attempt to work out what my 4-page comic is going to be (retroactively: was already,) as part of the comic book workshop showcase book. I think I know, there's something I did on my mission or just after it that would fit perfectly in four pages, but the notes for that are at home. Luckily I'll be heading there in a couple of days, eh?

The writing I did do today though, well I did finish off section 14 of my outline TTDECBA-wise, but I meant the writing for the Other//half project: the sheer nature of the technological advancements that would need to have taken place by the time the main plot is set, it's rife with political conflict and interesting story possibilities. That's why I said I wrote some "setting stuff," today, instead of "backstory" or "worldbuilding." It's been over five years since I first mentioned it, but the future world of Other//half really would be a killer setting for an RPG, with so many intriguing campaigns able to take place any number of places along the world's timeline.

As far as NaNoWriMo does go, I'm just about 3,000 words behind from where I need to be average-wordcount-per-day-wise. Thanksgiving is on the way, though, and good thing too, like I said-- within 72 hours of writing this, I'll be in a car, on a long trip home with almost nothing to do. 

Minor spoilers, but looking at the outline, the scene I'm going to be on by then will be an auction scene and the lead-up to a heist, the execution of which takes up much of part 6 (I just finished part 4.) So we'll see how I handle that.

Also, I'm turning 26 tomorrow. It being past midnight in this timezone as I finish this post. I just realized this. Which means hopefully I'll get some birthday money, I'm not sure if I'm too old for that, but seriously I tried logging in/signing up for the online bank card thing with the new plasma debit card, and I can't get past the ReCaptcha. Maybe I could, attach the number to my PayPal, and send the money to myself? Anyway, if I am getting money tomorrow, then it truly is a time for thanksgiving, because, look at all this fortunate timing.

Chili Jr

I guess I still haven't told you the story of last chili cook-off. It's not the only thing I promised to tell you about but haven't got around to, so we'll just put a dog-ear in that for now. What matters for today's post is, there was another one. Another chili cook-off, this afternoon.

I got third place. Made the same chili, basically, as I'd made last time, so I knew it would place, or at least suspected it would (it tying for first last time.) It being third just meant it was called first, which means the suspense was least, so I'm thrilled. My prize, $50 off of rent for next semester, nets me a $25 value after spending about $25 on ingredients. Hold on, I've got my receipt right here... $19.32, spent on ingredients, not counting tax, also providing me with a good meal or two's worth of leftovers.

I'd said I wasn't going to be buying anything else this month, but I technically have $45 more this month after paying tithing, if I'm able to donate plasma both Monday and Thursday of the week after Thanksgiving. I tapped into that fact to pay for ingredients: $45 is more than the $41.71/$41.62 of the budget I'd had, which means that I still was able to use the old card to pay for groceries, knowing I'd just cover the difference in the due balance using the new card. 

Which would be cleaner, anyway, also, since I'd only have to figure out how to transfer money from my new card to pay for everything (both grocery cost of this Monday, and the tithing cost of the Monday after next,) instead of figuring out how to transfer money from the new one and the old one, and pooling from both (the old card to cover the price of last groceries and the new card to pay tithing due.) Now, I just have to pool the new card into my bank account, and cover the grocery cost AND the tithing money in the same transaction. Linking the old card up, only to need to use it for one transaction, that's not very efficient. This idea is way better. If it works.

And if it doesn't... birthday money will probably be in the mail on Monday?

Eritrea, Caesurae, & um Ordet again I guess

Doing some thinking, the slash marks do represent path parts in URLs. The double slash is restricted solely as a separator between scheme and authority parts, though, so there wouldn't be able to be an http://oth.er//half, just an http://oth.er/half, which just isn't the same. And though there is a .er, it belongs to a tiny African nation so small I've never seen it on any map before, located on the horn between Ethiopia and Somalia, which doesn't use its own top-level domain anyway and actually allegedly has an even worse media freedom track record than North Dang Korea. So that's a double-shot shut-down.

There are a lot of cool ways to pronounce "/" though, so maybe I'd be able to name the website after that instead. Virgula, Shilling, Solidus, the list goeth onward and onward. Caesura, kind of, if you want to indicated both slashes at the same time. That'd be dope.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slash_(punctuation)#Alternative_names
That hash mark in the above URL is also a great example of the introduction of a fragment identifier, as long as we're talking about punctuation allowed in URLs. Anyway.

Taylor, who runs comic book workshop, really likes the New 52, and the Man of Steel movie, and has been told he's somehow not a true comic book fan for doing so, even though he's like the biggest comic book nerd most of us will have the pleasure of knowing. He had a big "rant" about this at the beginning of the workshop yesterday evening, which I walked in late for (getting in right after it wrapped up) but which I picked up the details of later (I was a few minutes late because I was working on my novel and also waiting around for baby news, but, realizing it would have been my O/h launch date if not for the first thing, I set off for workshop in spite of the second thing. I've got my email on my phone anyway so I didn't really miss anything in that department.) 

Like what you like, basically the moral of the rant boiled down to. I'm not sure if what comes next is a caveat to that, or a separate point entirely.

If there is anything virtuous, lovely, of good report, or praiseworthy, we seek after these things, Joseph Smith said, speaking for the values of the whole church. The workshop part of the workshop wrapped up ten minutes early so Taylor could give a lesson on that- there are two sliding scales, one of morality and one of quality, and ideally the media we consume should be on the high end of both those scales, not just one or the other. 

It's part of what makes Ordet such a great movie, is how it's high-quality but also really boldly Christian, though I use the word with some reservations. Most Christian entertainment is, well, Christian entertainment, you see-- but Ordet is, more like, an excellent movie about Christians, that also happens to have one or two major miracles brought on from simple childlike faith.

Um yeah, just a couple follow-ups from yesterday's post, and I guess nothing really happened today. It rained all day. I don't know.

Nanowrimo, Mamihlapinatapai, & Ordet

Today's the day that Other//half would have gone up had I not decided to go into NaNoWriMo this year instead (no TTDECBA post up yesterday, sorry about that I was tired and didn't know where to go with the story, but it's all good now; I've put in some connective tissue. Which makes me, two days behind, again, after catching up and everything, but there's going to be a long car ride home for Thanksgiving so it's not like I'll have anything else to do.) Also, URLs don't allow the "/" symbol in them, just letters numbers and the minus/dash sign, so I'm not sure how I would have done/will do that.

I decided at least to go to Comic Book Workshop this evening. Make some token advancement toward O/h, and it would give me something better to do than wait as my incredibly pregnant sister-in-law burst. The Workshop is doing a thing, like a comic book showcase that participants in the workshop can submit to, four pages max of comic, per person; I know how to use InDesign so I volunteered to be the one to assemble the digital file for print. Submissions are due on the 30th, so it looks like I've got half a month to get something Other//half-related done after all. Maybe I won't have it done by Friday, but the deadline is after then, so I may as well have submitted my comic by the time Justice League rolls out, and I'm the only one who would know any different since I'd be submitting to myself anyway.

I'm the only one, that is, besides all of you, whom I've just told.

Umm, shoot, I may have to kill you all now.

Naw, just kidding. Anyway, after Comic Book Workshop, whom should I run into as I step out of the room at the end but Nick and, um Mrs Nick, from Art Night. Hm, I should know her name, she was the one I designed the cat-astronaut tattoo for in that tattoo debacle. Weahhll I'll think of it. Anyway, they were checking out the Wayne Kimball exhibit, and I invited them to art night. Apparently they weren't sure if it was happening that day, so they went to Carla's house and didn't see anyone over so they decided to check to Wayne Kimball exhibit out instead. I told them it was indeed going on that week, just not last week, and so we, after spending a bit more time checking out the Wayne Kimball exhibit until it closed because oh muh gursh he is such a good artist, set out to art night together.

I showed them the shortcut I use to get there, and talked about um myself, I guess, since that was the subject of conversation.

Upon arriving at Carla's house, the lights were on but nobody seemed to be in the dining room, which you can see through the window. There were three of us, and I don't think even Yaghan has a word for three people exchanging looks when all three of them want something done but nobody wants to do it, so I rang the doorbell. Even if there hadn't been going to be art night that night, three people had just shown up, and that would instigate art night in just a de facto sense.

It turns out that there had been going to be art night that night, just nobody showed up, so they decided to eat dinner instead. In the kitchen instead of the dining room, and lit by candles instead of electricity because it's fun, so it hadn't looked like anyone was in there when in fact there was.

We ate Oreos in the candlelight, and instead of doing art we decided to watch a foreign film instead, that an art night friend whom I had not met before, also named Nick, wanted to show everyone. It's called Ordet, which probably means "The Word" in Danish, you know, most likely.

Ordet is probably my favorite Danish film now. It shares a director with The Passion of Joan of Arc, and an actress with Babette's Feast, the two other Danish films I can name off the top of my head and have seen. There's a childbirth gone wrong as a central plot point, which is pretty harrowing even on days when your sister-in-law isn't going into labor. As a film it's allegedly slow-paced, but I watch a lot of movies like that so I really didn't notice. But it's an amazing film, and I know I say that about almost every movie I see, but I try to learn at least 5 things from every movie (since when? since now) and I learned nothing but good things from this one. Not just as a film, but as a work of art that has a lot to say about Christianity and morality and mortality and the nature of faith.

Oh also I made S with Rumble this morning. Not even S- or anything. I'm really not sure if I deserve it, since I died precisely one more time this time than I did the last time I made "just" S-, with my kill/death/assist score being otherwise the same, but~~.

MvM

Settling up my tithing debts, making sure the math is all squared away; there's a temple dedication this sunday you need to be a worthy temple recommend holder, and thus a full tithe payer, to watch. It would be nice to have money right now, but my patriarchal blessing specifically mentions how rad it is to pay tithing, so.

But man if I had money, I just found something fantastic to blow it on.

It's a cooperative board game called Mechs vs Minions, and I'd heard of it, seriously ranked 21 on Boardgamegeek, but it's also, um, like, super pricey. Like, up there with Gloomhaven, pricey. I'm only talking about it here instead of immediately adding it to my wishlist, it's so pricey. I could get 6 of those t-shirts I linked to yesterday, for the price of one of these games.

But it turns out that it's a League of Legends board game. And not just any League of Legends board game, but one more-or-less based around the champion I main as.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/209010/mechs-vs-minions

But I, like, it blows my mind; the whole scenario behind the game is that it's academy training gone wrong, put on by my main man Rumble, training his fellow yordles how to fight in mech suits against minions the way he do. He doesn't come as a playable character, like no miniature of him as far as I know, but there's a campaign, and stuff to unlock, so I don't know. But the game does come with painted miniatures, of Ziggs, and Heimerdinger, and Tristana, and Corki, and you won't know those characters if you don't know your League, but I know those characters, and I love playing those characters (as bad as I am at some of them,) and I hate playing against those characters, and this is super exciting to know that this is a thing.

Also it's a programming game and that's one of my favorite game mechanics.

...

Uuum so actually never mind, good news, it's actually just super expensive on Amazon for some reason, must be a Wave 1 thing, and Wave 2 is available on the official Riot Games store for half of Amazon's price, here. BONUS. Still not going on my Amazon wishlist, but, you know. The link's right there if anybody's interested.

Allocated Monies, Allocated Problems

This morning I worked out exactly how much money I can spend between now and the end of the month, and still have enough money to pay my tithing- $41.71. The tithing thing is important; I haven't paid it in a solid year and a half and there's a tithing settlement party thing at church tomorrow, and so I really want to get on it, though I'd have a lot more money if I ignored it that doesn't seem like a good idea. So, $41.71.

The plasma center recently changed the way they pay, or not changed the way they pay they still load money onto a debit card they provide you, but they changed the service provider, which means that we got new cards, and the old cards can still be used until they run out of money, but they aren't having any new money loaded onto them. $41.71 is what I have on my old card. And that's the most it will ever have again. The new card, meanwhile, should have enough money on it to cover all the tithing I haven't paid, including the money I'm making on said new card itself, next Tuesday.

I went grocery shopping today, planning on just for the week but seeing enough bulk sale to make it instead for the whole rest of the month-- $41.62. Which sounds like I could afford it, with 9 cents to spare, but it's more complicated than that.

There's a 50 cent fee for using your card for grocery shopping, for some reason. Just groceries. Not at restaurants or whatever. So it may seem like I had 9 cents to spare, but I was actually 41 cents over, and had to... well, the 50 cent fee gets charged after the fact so it's not like it would have declined, and I've had a negative card balance before just that always gets resolved by the time I check it next, because in between shopping and when the fee was applied I'd gone and donated plasma again, so. I really don't know what would happen if it got stuck like that, so I had to fall back on my bank card which doesn't have a grocery fee.

There is a way to transfer money electronically from plasma debit card to bank balance, but I'm not sure if there's a fee for that. Still I think it'd be the best option to drain the bottom of that particular money smoothie. 

All that math neglects the minor fact anyway that the end of the month, still, there's a total of $4.50 additional that I need in my bank account, that I have to scrounge up somehow.

So for my birthday, a good gift would be $55ish (not counting the tithing I'd need to pay on top of that.) Or this shirt. Whichever. (Do grandma and grandpa still give money for birthdays? Man, maybe I didn't need to be so stingy. What a godsend.)

Regretty Over Spaghetti, Would Hit with a Machete Until It's Deady

I think I remember that regret. Finally. It's been, a sixth of a year. (Here.)

I get flashbacks sometimes, such as today when there was a choir at stake conference, to my mission, being in the choir, but playing hooky every time the Tab Choir was putting on a concert scheduled at the same time we were scheduled to go on. Regret!

In church they pretty much tell you that the world is crappy, which I never believed, but maybe it's true? Because there's a lot of messed-up folks in the world, or that is, people's lives are messed up. Nothing ever goes wrong in my family, and, well, to a worm in horseradish, the world is delicious delicious horseradish, so it's little wonder why I think life is good and people are good and dramaticies are aberrant. How the heck is my family so awesome, talented, good-looking and well-adjusted? Luck? Genes? Nurture? Nature? I don't know, but apparently living a suck-free life is an anomaly. 

I've a roommate venting over the phone to his mom right now about how poorly he's doing in classes and how his teachers are bad and how he doesn't have any money and how his computer's all messed up and, well I guess we all have different problems. Is the fact that I frequently feel urges to stab people to death, and that all my problems are apparently internal, less than his problems? A lot of the questions that plague me actually have to do with how much church tells me life sucks or whatever, and, well, I guess I don't have to mistrust the Church on the matter anymore, so. Yeah I guess his problems really do make mine any less.

I'm still skint broke though.

I think I need to sell some stuff. I've got like too much of it. Too much stuff. Also, not enough money, which is the real motivator. But my apartment is way cluttered, and like 80% of it is mine. For a while back there I was paranoid that I'm covetous, but the reason I buy things is because, maybe partly as the owner of a small business that hasn't really gone anywhere, I love patronizing business I think need it. I shop locally wherever I can, eat at local restaurants instead of chains, never pirate any copyrighted content, donate more than I can afford to chaos, that kind of thing. Charities, I mean. Not chaos. I don't want money for myself, which is good because it fulfills its own goals, makes it so that I have no money for myself (what am I going to do, save?, yeah like that contributes to the economy,) but that's bad because there are still expenses coming up. And the fact that I don't want money for myself doesn't mean that I don't want money. I just need, what, $500, for next semester's tuition...?

I do have $603.47 worth of Zootopia merchandise that I don't technically need... 

...which merely holds a candle to the $3,400 worth of printing equipment that I can't do anything with, which cost doesn't cover all the t-shirts I bought to print on, and the plastic bins I bought to store some of the equipment and shirts in besides. 

By this point, three quarters of a year later, I feel like the 100 Floors of Frights going all in on David Pumpkins. Somehow. By which I mean, it would surely have-- heck, I've explained my motivations already. 

I could cut back on that without giving up on this section of my life I've already poured a lot of time and consideration into. Somehow. It's kinda tough to admit when you've been overzealous, though.

Understanding God

I've got all these thoughts, I guess. It's, stake conference, I guess it hadn't been a month ago, during that time I had to stay home sick from church. Something about music? Music must be important for worship, but it's always baffled me why we sing hymns in church. Music doesn't seem a churchy thing.

They tell us not to be duplicitous, they tell us to be happy and friendly and kind and loving toward others, and all that, but they also expect us to be reverent in church. I don't understand that. I don't understand the religion I believe.

I guess every religion has some aspect you're not supposed to understand- most say that it's God, is the part that you're supposed to be mystified by, but God's a fairly straightforward guy, and I've never found him particularly mysterious. The part of my religion I don't understand isn't God, but His church itself.