Still Counts

 This is from the day after the thing from last post, though it's been a couple of weeks. The thing from last post it took me a while to swing around to and post about as well, but I figured everything in order and posted that before this, I guess reckoning I'd be around to posting today's post the day after, or even later on the day of. Didn't happen obviously. Executive dysfunction SUX.

Alright so after the calves are around 8 weeks old we move them from their individual hutches into group pens, 8 at a time (four fit in the wagon so we make two trips.) Those calves in the pens get fed once a day, until we wean them by simply stopping doing that. Pens two and five weren't getting fed on this particular day. And I realized. Two and five.

Alright I've mentioned before https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTlg0cK-UjE wrong link Deep 6 Eyes here!, I prolly (??) have synesthesia associating colors with numbers- 2  and 6 with blue and orange. Two and five, here I realize, fit together: five is yellow somehow, with two being blue.

When I eat M&Ms I eat them in colored pairs, it's this whole thing, and blue and yellow go together. The two pens here not getting fed, the mathematics of it, reminds me of that, and the rest of it snaps into place.

I mentioned being unsure of any of the other numbered colored connotations, but with blue and yellow in place the remainder snaps in place easily. Or, most of them do. 2 is blue, 3 is green, 4 is ??brown?red?? 5 is yellow 6 is orange 7 is purple 8 might be black and 0 feels white. 1 and 9 are also numbers. They feel like colors imperceivable by humans.

Like I pointed out earlier it's not a literal viewing of those numbers as intrinsically colored, it's more of a vague association. But it still counts.

My Favorite Author Wrote Something Just for Me!

(I mean it was in response to a comment I made on a YouTube video he did, about how soothing the fan in the background is, but that's still pretty cool. eh?)

Not always, but it was a very hot day :)

(Dan Wells is a professional GM now and does videos reviewing different roleplaying systems and splatbooks, and his channel is still small enough for him to be able to reply to each comment he gets.)

Legit tho FATE is such a good roleplaying system. 

Which Reminds Me of This Other Hypnotizingly Good Video Essay

So I watched a few more Errant Signal videos, but like not as many as I'd want to, because video game videos but spoilers? Either I'm interested in the games he talks about but there's spoilers in the videos which I don't want, or I'm not and I don't care about spoilers but I don't care about that? Wavering on whether I should watch his mostly-spoiler-free take on Outer Wilds, the first half of a two-part thing of which the second is the spoilery bit. It's the Fortnite one that I keep on coming back to.

Errant Signal's take on why graphics aren't that important is a pretty good one I think, I mean the video itself is good; Jacob Geller comes to a similar conclusion in his video about the same subject, and of the two I prefer the former, so. 

Yeah so Jacob Geller, also doing video essays about video games (for someone who's so hardcore in how casual I am gaming-wise I sure watch a lot of gaming YouTube; I'm fascinated by the formation of genres and subgenres, and also really into analysis of storytelling within an interactive medium.) Of his videos, the one I keep coming back to is, this:

Speaking of spoilers, this one's got unmarked analysis of Kentucky Route Zero, and the whole thing could be seen as a discussion of that game specifically? (via analysis of other media and games, and other real-life stuff.) And it's like HEY THERE, I'm geTTING AROUND TO IT GEEZ. Warn a fella a little next time.

So This is a Great Video Essay that Blew My Mind Repeatedly

Figuring out Blogger's new interface; got most of it licked but it's reminding me I need to post on Wordpress more. (That's what I'm figuring is going to host my next webcomic, aside from the I-need-to-post-on-any-of-my-blogs-more.) 

This year has been pretty bad for my executive functioning; is it the lack of blogging that's leading to lack of structure, vice versa? It's probably the job; even back when I got things done it was just very very slowly, and I accomplished things at all because I had 8-9 more hours in the day I don't have anymore. 

Video coming ever, though! I should probably chop off a smaller project instead of the huge one, but I'm still down one battery charger, so no way to shoot video; at least with the one I've been working on the past six months, all the footage has been shot and I just need to finish the script and edit film clips together. (I'd be working on it now if I weren't blogging, but that just makes my getting-anything-done seem irresponsible.) I've been working on it *to the best of my ability,* I just have a naturally slow work process as I let ideas percolate.

Waking up early has gotten me this far which is pretty sweet; I read somewhere that executive function for people with executive dysfunction works best at non-daylight hours for some reason. Guess I'll keep doing this then.

even if I were to start taking meds where would I even start with them? It's something I've never done before, so, just spinning blindly in space...

So you watch that essay yet? It's 40 minutes long but probably only 20 minutes if you put it on 2x speed. Watch it again if you want. I've heard of Errant Signal I guess but never really even meant to get around to watching his stuff, even though he's one of the channels subscribed to by Dan Olsen (my favorite YouTuber) but Dan Olsen is mentioned in the video, and linked to it on Twitter, and here we are (and though of course I'd seen Manufactured Discontent and Fortnite several times and knew about the stuff they're (both) talking about here, it still just blows my mind.)

So I've been playing this video game The Outer Wilds, where you're an alien astronaut caught in a time loop as you explore your little solar system and solve mysteries, though it's far more common that you die and restart well before the sun explodes-- and how crazy would it be if there were a Battle Royale just, set in there at the same time as the exploration stuff...

it's time to get good at darts

Give Me a Call (A Song for Mom)

The Very Worst Version of Me

Comic Things, Comnc Thiigs

Darths and Droids has finally, finally begun their Force Awakens story arc. A week ago, but I only checked in today, and hey-hey! https://darthsanddroids.net/ (Darths and Droids is a webcomic in like this, [exhales] so there's this genre that like reinvents the plots of movies and TV shows as being actually D&D-style RPG stories behind the scenes?; this particular one wasn't the first but it is arguably the most influential, and they've been going since 2007 and they're only now getting to the sequel trilogy because they were waiting to see how the whole thing would shake out and the time is finally here, woo.)

Non Sequitur introduced a new character today; that glasses kid has a younger brother with autism. Fingers are crossed??? but we'll see how this turns out??? https://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2020/03/29

Third comic thing to recommend, third comic thing to recommend... there's a "I'm married to Betty Boop" thing making its rounds on Twitter or whatever? It's, something. Dare I say, something that exists.

kay bye again for now.

Dog That Speaks German!?!

(first I was reading about the history of tiki culture and there was this seminal restaurant Don the Beachcomber and trying to track down more information about that ran into Don the Dog instead. Also at Smithsonian.)
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/when-don-talking-dog-took-nation-storm-180968867/
Meanwhile speaking of those guys did you hear about the 2.8 million images they released into the public domain for anybody to do whatever with? (it includes 3D models+stuff too.)

⟾https://www.si.edu/openaccess⟽

Aayyy

Wow I'm actually at a computer in the evening finally at all this year. Been meaning to blog but every time I think about it it's all, not gonna get out of bed for that. 

But being into a new decade (it's an arbitrary dividing line but I love it) each thing feels like, oh first of the decade, gotta record this, ye know? First movie watched this decade, Casablanca. First Killers song I sang this decade, Believe Me Natalie, actually? First U2 song, City of Blinding Lights; first twenty one pilots song, Migraine; first Beach Boys song, Good Vibrations. First song from Cats, it's impossible to say. 

I saw two rainbows so far this decade. I'm not going to let this hellworld strip my joy from me.

Shocky Powers pt I

So I had two dentist appointments, one last week one this week, and let me tell you about them? Like the one yesterday, they drained my wet wet mouth with a hoselike thing when it got too moisty in there, but with last week's they stuck cotton swabs in there right against my teeth and gums and me no likey- and then on top of that I had to fend off laughing while my teeth are being worked on because all I can think about is the tweet by the person claiming to be Zuckerberg's hairstylist claiming his ceasar haircut is from saying zucky no likey whenever it's time to get his hair done and swiveling his head in a circle exorcist-style. 

Because that's a very funny image.

And it's the worst to imagine when you need to not move your mouth.

At the dentist yesterday them sticking in a couple of things, a suction thing I think and a, more pokey thing maybe, I felt this jolt in my mouth like electricity. And the suction thing is just plastic and the pokey thing is non-electric so it couldn't have been either or both, and maybe it was the tiny hole in my mouth where the numbing agent had been injected or something? And I'm like what was that and yes it turns out it doesn't make sense that that happened.

So I at least hoped that I was coming down with superpowers? Like, my mouth could spontaneously generate electrical shocks, and maybe I could train and harness that?

And I guess I would have forgotten about this if not for the strange coincidence of today...

to be continued I guess

The Pros and Cons of Catching an Opening Night Star War

So guess what bub but I've got conflicting feelings on Rise of Skywalker coming out in a week. Like, should I see it or not, and what does its existence mean, and am I even excited for it?? I have assembled a list of reasons, both contra and pro, in the hopes that it would help iron some of the issues out in my poor little heart, and, well, it's definitely helped with something...

• Pro: heckin' Star Wars man; after TLJ, I came on record as officially excited for how Abrams continues/concludes the saga from the ending, what with TLJ both overturning the tea table and ending on a stirringly conclusive note
• con against pro: it doesn't really matter
• pro con con: of course it does
• Con: Dec 20th was the deadline i'd set for myself to get my webcomic up
• con con: i'm not getting my webcomic up by December 20
• con con con: i mean there's still time but
• con con pro: none of the other woodbadge goals i'd set are getting accomplished
• con con pro: 20th is a Friday. webcomic updates on Sunday. TELL ME HOW THAT MAKES SENSE.
• Pro: avoiding spoilers like the plague so like the sooner I get on this the better
• pro con: they slip through anyway because of course they do
• pro con pro: and I'd already seen the teaser trailer to begin with
• pro pro: but other than that I'm doing a decent job
• Con: seeing Cats instead
• con pro: unironically excited for Cats guys
• con pro pro: new Taylor Swift song in collaboration with sir Andrew Lloyd Webber
• con pro pro con: Oscar bait songs are weird and often boring
• con pro pro con con: um not always, and
• con pro pro con con: they can grow on you
• con pro pro pro: it's going to be called Beautiful Ghosts, and, like, I am just the biggest sucker for songs about ghosts, like legitimately there's never been a song about ghosts that's not a total bop
• con pro pro pro pro: Ghostbusters theme, Danny Phantom theme, Grim Grinning Ghosts by Thurl Ravenscroft et al, Ghost Party by Watsky, Kicking the Ghost by Malcolm Rollick, The Ghost by Trevor Something, Dear Sons and Daughters of Hungry Ghosts by Wolf Parade, Ghost Pressure by Wolf Parade, Same Ghost Every Night by Wolf Parade, heck Wolf Parade sings about ghosts a lot and I just love 'em for it, Coldplay's entire Ghost Stories album...
• con pro pro pro con: um the Casper the Friendly Ghost theme song I guess?
• con pro pro pro con con: I mean it's alright
• Pro: I need to update my Facebook profile pic probably, and the one I've currently got is from catching Force Awakens in theaters so like it would be the perfect photo op
• pro pro: i've got a beard now whereas I did not before
• pro con: I can't replicate the photo exactly because 
1. I was sneaking popcorn from the bucket of my cousin who is on his mission currently so I can't do that, and
2. it was at the Fallon Theatre, which I can't match because they don't get first run Disney movies anymore-- which speAKING OF,
• Con: I don't want to give Disney any of my money at all
• con con: but they don't need it
• con con pro: The New Star Wars Movie, it's guaranteed profit for them anyway
• con con pro: and people more politically active than I am against this sort of thing are like whatever, let's go see a Disney movie
• con con: besides already saw Ford V Ferrari and Ad Astra, both Fox films which makes them Disney films, and also would totally have caught Jojo Rabbit, were it playing anywhere near?
• con con: what the hexk i guess i'll go see Frazen 2 now why not?
• con con pro: HACK YEAHS Frazen 2 instead of Satyr Warts
• Pro: still soliciting local business
• pro con: they don't need it with all the others coming in
• pro con con: but yeah they do

so umm

~~Christmas day sounds like a bombad time to catch a Star Wars movie...!~~

~~And also Cats like three more times...!~~

avoiding spoilers for five days, eh I can manage.

Fred

I realized once as a kid watching Mr Roger's Neighborhood that Mr Rogers was mortal and that one day there would be no "next time." (That's how he ended every episode, "see you next time.") And I was right. And I went to go see It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood today because I felt like I needed a good cry, but not even I suspected that I'd be bawling my eyes out before the opening logos had even finished. It was the music; that little glockenspiel or whatever, that really took me back, and, just, heck. Heck.

So yeah Andy Levy is a film twitter guy now.

So the decade is ending in... a month. That's something.

And it's like, WELL WHAT WERE THE BEST FILMS OF THE 2010S? And it's like, shoot just this year was a decade unto itself, and like, you expect me to be able to answer that? (I know I've said that about the year 2000 before, but I'm speaking relatively here and not literally. The year 2000 culturally took up a decade's worth of cultural capital; each year 2016ish to date has taken up a decade's worth of cultural adjustment.)

So anyway I'm not sure I have to compile a list of my own because someone with my apparent exact same taste has already done so; I've never felt so known. Alright that's not true, but... yep. (The most known I think I've ever felt was the Peirce Quincuncial projection analysis from this XKCD comic, speaking of xkcd.)

https://twitter.com/andylevy/status/1199494525292630018

And apparently that's... the same, Andy Levy? who was the ombudsman on Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld?, so long ago, back when Greg Gutfeld still hosted Red Eye, and also wasn't you-know-what? So uh yeah GONNA TAKE A HARD POLITICAL TURN NOW (I don't want to outright call Greg Gutfeld faschie just for being a host on Fox News, and I'd have to look into his current politics more (I remember catching the first episode of his solo show, where he made fun of Tr*mp a whole bunch, and that was the tea,) but, I've seen a clip from The Five where he says that Quid Pro Quo is, okay?? because that's kinda what 100% of human interaction is, is give-and-take??? and it was pretty contrarian and tongue-in-cheek which is on brand I guess but mostly it was like, oh Greg what happened to you. His Twitter is right there off of Levy's in the suggested similar people thing, but I can't bring myself to actually click there; Gutfeld meant so much to me as a teenager and I don't want to have to go through the pain of formalizing the knowledge that we've drifted so far apart politically.) 

Also S.E. Cupp is on Twitter and she appears to be, like, genuinely liberal now? Which is... I mean she was on Fox, she was one of those, fake-libbies, an atheist who argued that religion is necessary for morality somehow, as if that were an inherently self-coherent position at all, and... Seeing her argue actual leftist positions is, strange, to me, but there you go I guess.

So yeah Andy Levy is a film twitter guy now.

I wonder what's become of Bill Schultz....

A Few Articles from Around

• This combines a few of my favorite things in an interesting way. Like that whole Corrupted Blood thing on WoW, everything being virtual and thus being able to scrub back through the history of this and track developments as they cascade? https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2019/11/18/planet-zoo-is-temporarily-a-game-about-mass-producing-knackered-warthogs/ Wish they'd gone into more detail/that there were more journalism on the topic in the first place (it's the idea of the thing more than this specific article, though the article itself is fun and breezy for what it is,) but, heck, I also wish there were more journalism on that Black Cauldron-themed restaurant they had at Disneyland back in the early 90s, so, like... 
• speaking of... http://destdisney.blogspot.com/2009/10/gurgis-munchies-and-crunchies-1990.html It was called Gurgi's Munchies and Crunchies, and this blogpost is about the most comprehensive reportage of it as exists in the world, which is sad, because if there were this, like, Power Broker-length book on nothing but that restaurant I would still totally read that book because I love the idea of that resto so much.
• So this is happening, and it's concerning as someone who's a fan of movies, and of going to the movies, and who works at a movie theater that shows old movies sometimes, including yes Rocky Horror at least once a year. https://www.vulture.com/2019/10/disney-is-quietly-placing-classic-fox-movies-into-its-vault.html Louder for those in the back, I firmly believe that Disney ri'now have all too much power and someone needs to stay their sinful hand. But anyway.
• Alexander Pushkin was mixed race apparently? And is a black icon? And his grea'grea'grandaddy was a spy? And it's like, sheesh, right when you think somebody can't be any cooler, they totally can be. https://www.calvertjournal.com/features/show/5334/red-africa-gannibal-race-russia-pushkin The Calvert Journal is this journal of culture and photography focusing on the New East (Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Russia, Central Asia) and it's pretty fascinating because these geo issues aren't things you see in the West much but they're our cousins so it's like, hey wow. 
• Man there's still so much neat stuff in the world.
• MAN OH MAN.

Spooky Short Story 2019

The las man in the world sat alone in his room.

HE'S STANDING RIGHT BEHIND YOU RIGHT NOW.

I Dream of NBC

Good Place final season season premiere tonight at 9:00.  I caught it though we do not have TV, though I've dreamt of having satellite a couple of times the past week, specifically in regards to being able to catch The Good Place.

1. Grandpa J comes over to live with us for a week. For some reason. He brings his satellite TV subscription, which makes me happy because I can catch The Good Place on NBC, Thursday night at 9:00 8:00 central.
2. I explain the premise to Mom who sounds intrigued. We watch it and (someone else? and) I explain some exposition so she knows what's going on. Events occur in real life and not on TV, and have nothing to do with The Good Place. There's a treehouse, and an amnesiac cannibal woman who eats raw human livers but hallucinates they're something else.
3. Real life now. This evening. I head over to Grandpa P's, and we watch Thursday Night football, Green Bay Packers vs Philadelphia Eagles. It's on both FOX and the NFL channel. Packers are 3 and 0, Eagles are 1-2 I think. Packers get an early lead but it's pretty close throughout. At halftime J-Lo and Shakira talk about how they're going to be doing the Superbowl halftime show, which I'd already read about on Twitter, but I don't know for some reason I'm pretty excited for this. The game continues. There's some new rule that allows teams to dispute refs' calls which is pretty interesting. One minute left in the game, Packers are 7 points behind but can still tie it up and go into overtime- they had one minute right before halftime, and made a touchdown then field goal, putting them behind by only one point. The scrimmage line or whatever it's called, the snap point, is like right there in the end zone, so it's looking very possible that the Packers might pull this off. The Packer guy catches it and is stopped by an Eagle guy, and also a second Eagle guy who runs into the first Eagle guy, ramming into his own teammate's head at an angle that practically snaps said teammate's neck. I'm not sure if he's gonna be okay, but he survived long enough to be carried off the field on a gurney. When the game resumes for those last 50 seconds, the Eagles intercept the Packers' throw, taking control of the ball, and let the timer run out for the last 20 seconds. 
1. The Good Place was pretty rad. I get to explain to Grandpa the basics of what's going on, while managing to keep things as spoiler-free as possible. Not as tricky as it sounds.

hrrrgh + (+ meaning in a + way)

so furter corresponence with izzy reveals (??) that 500 words makes up about a full page, and writings are expected to run 1-2 pages. good news- writing doesn't have to be in-depth woo.

https://youtu.be/yKDvw53Y2w4
today i managed to do a vid AND not neglect my duolingo! stonks

Gravity Wells

There's a scene in Ad Astra where Brad Pitt's character is crying in zero-G, and it rolls down his cheek somehow, and I genuinely thought it was symbolic somehow (you can get away with loads of arthouse stuff in an astronaut movie and still be able to market it to mainstream audiences, and boy howdy does Ad Astra exploit that fact.) 

 But no it just turns out that they did realize the mistake but Brad Pitt's acting was so powerful in that scene they decided to use that take. Favoring emotion over continuity is just good editing.

pots!>pot?

I'd be writing a whole thing a day if it weren't for this job (or, well, maybe; subjunctives aren't my strong suit) and choosing the best, or getting better and making the best, like with that thing, total coincidence that my mom blogs about it last night because it's what I'd been thinking about. But now I'm tired good night

EDIT: gosh that was hard to read, looking back over it, so I think I'll translate now: the idea that it's better to make multiple pots, and learn from each one, rather than try to present a perfect pot. I'm trying to write something, but am now afraid I don't have the time to make one pot per day. That's what that all means.