Lolcats

Since I am incapable of making a blog post that is profound and thought-inducing (most of the time), I would like to bring to your attention the wonder of the lolcat. The lolcat cannot be explained in any way. You must behold the mighty beings themselves.

www.icanhascheezburger.com

Okay, maybe they're not for everyone. If that's the case, there's also loldogs.

www.ihasahotdog.com

And, if that's still not funny (really, you must have a singularly long stick up your butt), there are lolpoliticians.

www.punditkitchen.com

The added benefit is that if you think lolcats are amusing, both the other sites will make you laugh like a delighted lemur for hours on end. (or for thirty seconds, but good enough, am I right?)

Um...

I didn't quite understand Jenn's wording of the RR assignment, so I'm not certain whether I should be writing about the Gladwell book or not...If not...um...Then...


Anyway...

I will say that I think it (the book, not the lolcat) was really a waste of time and energy, and I really did not get much of anything out of it. If his other book is anything like that, I may have to hang myself from a piano wire. (Okay, really--I have no doubt I'd get through it, but the chances of it being enjoyable are low...) And this is coming from someone who reads books on abnormal psychology and the DSM-IV-TR for giggles, along with just about anything else. Not very constructive criticism, but whatever...

OC

Jenn said that Linworth teachers were expressing concern over people using school computers for personal things.

Guilty as charged, sure, but honestly? Those old Macs are so crappy and outdated that it's almost impossible to use them for much of anything. You have to wait ten minutes for a page to load, for God's sake. And forget about getting pictures to load.

I honestly have no problem with people bringing their personal laptops to school. It frees up the crappy old computers for people who have to use them for schoolwork, and odds are that the laptop is way better for everything. I'd love to have a laptop of my own to bring to school, for that matter. I could put Photoshop on it, too. That way, I wouldn't have to waste the time I have every other day when none of my customary comrades are free waiting for Fark or DA to load on one of the Macs in the Powder room. Blargh. And I could get work done on art. That would be great.

Of course, the odds of me getting a laptop any time soon are about as high the odds of our dear President saying something profound, thought-inducing, and true about the Iraq war, soooo...

Strange

This isn't a post for class. I figured that since I have a blog, I might as well use it.

It's really strange to look at someone's art and characters and realize that you've somehow influenced them so much that 1 out of any 3 of their characters strongly resemble one of yours (the same one, repeatedly). So much so, in fact, that it borders on plagiarism, whether intentionally or not. And when you look at something they just posted that has a background that looks very much like a multiplied version of something you drew a very long time ago, you really begin to wonder.

I don't quite understand how this kind of thing happens to me. I don't consider myself the kind of person anyone would look up to. I don't consider myself someone anyone should look up to, necessarily. Really, why? I'm not very nice. I'm not exactly the peak of talent. I'm not confident at all. I'm really a rather rude, perverse, cynical person. I'm not putting myself down in any way. I'm fairly happy with my smug, perverted, rude, sarcastic self, but that is, without question, what I am.

And why would somebody want to be like that if they could be different, or even better? What's the point of having a bunch characters that look almost exactly like one character who isn't even yours to begin with? Especially when the person you're plagiarizing the idea from intends to publish, and you would never be able to use them? Why copy old art that's really substandard? I don't understand. Some people seem to have a need to deify other people, and for some reason think it's just dandy to use the other person's style and ideas. Doing that just makes people think you're too unimaginative to come up with your own ideas. Or am I wrong somehow? I must be, because all the people who do this, and fanart, are sure as hell a lot more popular than I am.

This person I'm talking about...I'm not really mad at her. I'm just befuddled. I can't do anything. For one thing, no one would believe me, or even care. For another, I really do like her. She's a genuinely nice person, and a talented artist, but she uses other people's ideas, copies their styles, their characters. You can't trust someone who does that. The character of mine she's copied, time and time again, has changed a lot since she last heard, but she seems stuck on the idea. In here gallery are at least three characters who look suspiciously similar to his older design, the foul, cliche, outdated one. One's just a female version. The two others are male with slight variations and given dumb, wapanese names, and equally irritating pet-things with MEGIK PWRZ.

Honestly?

Get your own mind, and get off my rude, cynical lawn.

OC

As I sat here in front of my computer this afternoon, making lame fake CD covers for lame fake bands on Photoshop and contemplating my piece-of-crap Wacom tablet, it occurred to me that days like this are altogether too nice, and prevent one from thinking about anything much at all.

After that, nothing else occurred to me for a while, thus proving my theory.

I then went out and walked my three eighty-pound greyhounds, then came back, and finished my lame fake CD cover.

Then I got on here and tried to think of something creative and original to write about, but failed, upon realizing that I have already complained about forwards, boring books, crappy art, furries, delusional fangirls, loud car commercials, and stupid people. And that the niceness of the day outside really was preventing the thinking process, because for some reason, it just makes it hard to care. And, shockingly, I could think of nothing else to complain about. So I decided instead that I must discuss something that would be deeply interesting and intellectually involved.

Thus arriving at comic books.
Or rather, one author thereof in particular. Mike Mignola. Author and artist of the Hellboy books, and originator of the B.P.R.D. series. And the art is wonderful. Beautifully dark and two-dimensional while somehow retaining motion. And the content is so well-suited to the dark style that it makes the entire thing stick together in one large conglomeration of awesome. You'd have to see it to understand. Really.
A movie based on the Hellboy books came out a couple of years ago. I own it, but I can't be bothered to go upstairs and locate it. The director is Guillermo Del Toro, who also did Pan's Labyrinth and The Orphanage, unless I am mistaken. He did a fairly good job of replicating the exaggerated shadows and dark atmosphere of the books, but it would be impossible to completely reproduce it. The movie is nearly as good as the books, complete with Nazis, Rasputin, clockwork assassins, slimy four-eyed self-resurrecting monsters, underground mausoleum-labyrinths full of said monsters, and giant, unidentifiable, tentacled, mollusk-frilled world-destroying monsters called the Ogdru Jahad.
Of course, you have to read the Hellboy books as well to get the full impact, but it was pretty well-done, considering. I hear there's a second movie coming out. I saw the trailer. It had a winged mass covered in eyes and twisted monsters.
I have high hopes for this movie. Loves me some dark twisted scariness.

This is normal. Really. I'm not being a nerd.

Other People's Posts

http://zzmig.blogspot.com/2008/04/reading-reflection-and-response.html

I decided to write about Zach's blog because of a comment he left me on my previous post. It seems we share literary tastes. In this entry, he describes a book called The Raw Shark Texts. Looks like it's science fiction, with all sorts of bizarre characters who behave strangely, and weird conceptual creatures. It also looks like it might involve some psychology. Honestly, can a book get any more perfect?

Zach does a great job of describing the book in detail without giving away any key plot points, which has to be either a talent or great self-restraint. He also makes it sound really interesting, and leaves you wondering what drugs this author was on, because you want to find some. Even if the book didn't sound so interesting in and of itself, Zach's a pretty good writer, so I have no doubt that he would have made it sound pretty great.
Short story shorter, I ended up reserving it at the library right after reading about it.

And then there was much rejoicing, as I realized that I could now stop rereading Ptolemy's Gate for the sixth time.

Bush's War

I guess that's what they're calling it, now.

I really don't keep abreast of recent news, other than giggling at stupid comments on Fark every day or so. I don't really have an opinion on what should be happening right now over there. It seems like the war is a huge waste of money. It seems like the Iraqis don't want us there. Should we pull out now? Would that cause more chaos? I do know that the money being spent there right now is a completely ridiculous amount that could be going into other things. Maybe we should pull out most of the way and see how things develop.

In debate class a couple of days ago, there was a debate on this topic. Somebody said something along the lines of "We can't pull out now. They've already proven themselves completely incapable of creating a civilized government for themselves, so we have to do it for them."

I believe my opinion on that comment could be accurately portrayed in quite a rude way, but I'll go the more polite route...What that comment immediately brought to my mind was two things. One was my grandparents. The other was "The White Man's Burden". My grandparents because they're conservative Republican Catholic Bush-loving global-warming-deniers. And just about all the rest that comes with the territory. The White Man's Burden because I'm a loser geek who loves my AP U.S. History class--I mean, because of its definition. It was mostly practiced by Great Britain, a policy of Imperialism and expansion, and to "civilize and bring Christianity to all savages".
That's what it sounds like.
Britain's huge empire collapsed because they couldn't defend all the territories and annex new ones all at once, along with nosing into places they didn't really need to be and staying for far too long.

Need I say more?

Final thoughts

After reading "The Tipping Point", I have to say I really didn't enjoy it. At all. The writing style was just completely off-putting. It was like reading a particularly boring textbook. It could have been so much easier to read, even enjoyable, if you didn't have to work so hard to care. Blech. There were couple of parts that were interesting, but most of it seemed to be overstating the obvious again and again...And now it's over, and I'm happy.

I'm currently reading a few books, but what stands out most is one that I'm re-reading, actually. For the third time, if that gives any idea of how good it is. The Anubis Gates. It's about crazy time travel, mind-bending poetry coming from nowhere, weird Egyptian cults, demons, Anubis-werejackals, 17th-century London, and murder most foul. Oh, and an insane clown on stilts who "modifies" people in his creepy hideout near Rotherhithe sewage works so that they can join his screwed-up beggar court. The author is Tim Powers, and he's done a lot of other really great ones, too. Along with the stories being really weird and interesting, he's just a great writer. One book's got Thomas Edison, horrible mutilations, and people who snort ghosts like crack cocaine. Another one has talking zombie heads made of fungus growing on the island of the fountain of youth. It's got pirates, too. Dead ones.
I dearly love talking fungus heads. No joke.