Stratovania

This evening, bethje, Tavie, and I went to see Kevin McDonald at the People's Improv Theater, where he was recording stuff for an album. It was pretty short, but funny. He did a combination of stand-up, songs, and sketches. I hadn't really thought about it before, but his dancing is kind of like David Byrne's. After the show, we ate at an Indian restaurant. I'm still kind of unsure about Indian food. I mean, I've gotten stuff I liked a few times, but I still haven't figured out what's to my taste. I have to say I did quite like what I got today, which was chicken with mustard. Kevin actually ate at the same restaurant, and while I guess that's not all that weird, it kind of seems like it to me. It's like, "You're marginally famous! You should be eating at a restaurant for marginally famous people!" Also worthy of note is the weird door on the bathroom, and how one of the employees told me it was occupied when it actually wasn't. Were they filming this, by any chance?

On an unrelated note, why do we keep getting stuff in the mail from the New Jersey healthcare marketplace? They don't realize we've moved? I think a lot of those places have poor communication between departments, because I've gotten bills that I called about and was told I didn't actually have to pay them. But then when I DO owe money, it seems like I never get the notice. And does HealthFirst really need to send me paper mail whenever I make any kind of change to the policy? I think they're still a little behind the times, as you can sign up for electronic notifications, but it says even when you do that they're still going to send some things in the mail. Today, Beth got a notice from the Hudson County Board of Elections, when I know she switched her registration to Brooklyn. I did as well, but I still haven't received any acknowledgement of it. I really need to check on that before Election Day rolls around.

Here's a survey I took from slfcllednowhere. I actually filled it out last week, but didn't want to post it by itself, so some of the answers are going to be outdated:
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Today, bethje and I went shopping at the Jersey Gardens outlet mall, where most things aren't really any cheaper than at any other mall. I also got a new pair of sneakers at Kohl's, which is good because I must have had my current pair for a few years now. When I'm going somewhere that isn't work and doesn't require walking, I'll often just wear a pair of slip-on shoes, but the ones I have now are pretty worn out. I might have to get a new pair of those as well.


The latest Futurama episode, "Forty Percent Leadbelly," was based on the actual technology of 3D printing, although it obviously hasn't reached the point that we see in the show. According to the Wikipedia page, a three-dimensional model of an object is created by laying down "successive layers of liquid, powder, paper or sheet material to build the model from a series of cross sections." The material that the Make-O-Matic used in the episode was nano-plastic, an actual term used for plastic reinforced by nanotechnology. There's been some controversy over a successful prototype gun created through 3D printing, which already sounds pretty science-fiction-y to me, even if you can't produce bullets that way. I don't know if a 3D printer could make a functional guitar, but I'm sure live octopuses are still a long way away. The episode was similar to Bender's Game in that Bender was able to create physical objects and even living beings using his imagination, although the explanation made a little more sense this time.


Here's a survey on books and reading that I got from slfcllednowhere:
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And then there's this:



Obviously they didn't ask the right questions for the Dumb/Dork/Awkward category. And if it had been the Odyssey instead of the Iliad, I have a copy on the shelf to my left.

I can't say there's been much going on with me as of late. Aside from applying for jobs, which sucks, I've been spending time on the Internet, reading, and playing games. I'm currently working my way through Bill Willingham's Fables series and enjoying it. The most recent collection I read was Volume 13, The Great Fables Crossover, a funny but weird entry in the series that probably didn't affect the overall plot of the series. I'm not sure if I'll read the Jack of Fables spin-off series yet; I want to finish with the available issues of the primary series first. I understand Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion show up in the Jack books, but the former is a hired killer. I've also seen descriptions indicating that Ozma and the Nome King will play parts in the main series pretty soon (as far as my reading goes, that is). I've also been indulging my love of maps of fantasy lands, something that will probably come up in future installments of my WordPress. Really, if you're not reading that yet, you probably should, as I update it a lot more than I do this journal. On the other hand, it's pretty much all topic-specific stuff that you might not care about if you don't share my interests.

I saw the final two episodes of this season of Futurama, although I missed the first few minutes of "31st Century Fox." I'm sure I'll see them at some point, even if it's not until the DVD release. The episode had some amusing ideas, like the robotic animals. I've pondered before about the idea of mechanical horses, as they're such a weird combination of high and low technology. Also, Bender trying to mask his scent with Newmar's Own Catnip was funny. Overall, though, it was pretty weak, which could be why they chose to show it as part of a two-episode block. The other one, "Naturama," was a what-if sort of thing, re-imagining the characters as animals in a nature documentary. Certainly an inspired idea, although it totally dropped the science fiction theme and just focused on the personalities. The parody of documentary narration was great, and if there was a moral it's that nature is often pointlessly brutal. Some of my favorite appearances were Bender as the elephant seal beachmaster and Brrr and Ndnd as bears. I also have to say that the timing was apt for the tortoise segment, as the Pinta Island Galapogos Tortoise went extinct just two months ago.

Finally, here's a survey I found on Tumblr:

List 10 random musical artists you like in no specific order. Warning: Do not read the questions below before listing your favorite artists.

1. Weird Al
2. Young Fresh Fellows
3. Frank Black
4. They Might Be Giants
5. Carolyn Mark
6. April March
7. XTC
8. Neko Case
9. Fastbacks
10. Belle and Sebastian

What’s the first song you ever heard by #6?
I think it might have been "Garden of April."

What’s your favorite song by #8?
I think I might say "Deep Red Bells."

What are your favorite lyrics by #5?
"I set my watch three hours ahead just like the pilot said. So I'm ahead of my time, which would explain the wine I drink when I get out of bed."

What song by #3 makes you the happiest?
I'm not saying it's necessarily a happy song, but I think "Old Black Dawning" sounds kind of cheerful.

When did you first get into #2?
During college, due to the TMBG connection.

How did you get into #3?
Again, due to the TMBG connection. The science fiction themes in his work didn't hurt, either.

What is your favorite song by #4?
Tough choice, but I'm going to say "It's Not My Birthday."

Have you seen #9 live? How many times?
No, I got into them too late for that.

Favorite album by #7?
Skylarking

What’s your favorite song by #1?
"Dog Eat Dog," perhaps?

How did you become a fan of #10?
I can't recall for sure. I think it was because bethje liked some of their music, so I checked them out as well.

How long have you known #9?
About eleven years, which isn't all that long, relatively speaking.

Top 5 by #5.
5. Bigger Bed
4. Catscan
3. The Way Back
2. Don't Come Over Baby
1. Fuzzy Slippers

Have you ever seen #10 live?
Yes, twice.

Have you ever met #4?
Yeah, briefly.

What’s your favorite album by #1?
In 3-D

Favorite lyric by #7?
One that comes to mind is "This is your life and you'll see what you want to be, just don't hurt nobody, 'less of course they ask you."

What’s #2’s best song?
When the Girls Get Here

How many times have you seen #2 live?
Zero, but I've seen the Minus 5 twice.

Which one of these have you known the longest?
Weird Al

Favorite song by #9?
In the Winter

If there's one thing I can't complain about these days, it's not having enough to do. It's just that work and other obligations are always getting in the way, and when I'm at home all I generally want to do is sleep and write blog posts. I guess that's something, though. I just wish I received more feedback. It's not like I pour my heart and soul into every post (more like my black bile and skin flakes), but I do write about things I think are interesting, and wish more people would share my interest. I guess that's what happens when you have oddly specialized interests. Anyway, things I probably should do in the near future include:

• Work on editing my Oz stuff, and hopefully get some of it published. It seems easier to do that now, what with print-on-demand and all that, but I'm still not sure exactly how to accomplish it. I have three basically-finished longer manuscripts, and I'm more or less satisfied with one of them, which is actually the one I churned out rather quickly. The one that took me years to complete still needs some changes, but I'm not sure whether the most recent changes I've been contemplating are for the better or not, since they add complications to the plot.
  
• Clean this room, at least as much as I'm able. That's something I should probably do in stages, which is how I often do things I don't find all that pleasant, and even sometimes things I enjoy. I'm never really sure where good stopping points are, though, and leaving it too long often means I generate more mess.
  
• Apply for jobs. (Yuck.)
  
• Check out some of the DVDs and video games that I've had sitting around for a while. I wouldn't say that's exactly productive, but it makes me feel bad that there's stuff I specifically asked for some time ago and I still haven't gotten around to even opening it.
  

Anyway, here's a survey I got from poisonyoulove:
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I've been largely steering away from surveys these days, since they get a bit tedious after a while. I enjoy talking about stuff that bothers me, though, so I decided to take this one from Calvin's Canadian Cave of Coolness.


Foods which disgust the crap out of me - Potato salad. I don't much care for potatoes or mayonnaise, so mixing them is just a culinary experiment from Hell. (I'm aware that not all potato salads include mayo, but I don't want to eat them anyway.)

TV show I loathe - Well, bethje forced me to watch a little of Jersey Shore yesterday (it was the first time watching it for either of us), and even without paying full attention, it annoyed the crap out of me. I think the whole point of the show is to increase prejudice against Italian-Americans, and do we really need that in this day and age?

Movies I loathe - Just about anything with Meg Ryan in it. Seriously, how many anti-feminist movies can one actress be in? Is she a self-loathing female, like Phyllis Schalfly?

Music genres I loathe - I try not to dismiss any genre out of hand, but I have yet to come across any of the nu-metal/angry white boy semi-rap stuff that I like. I'm not a fan of reggae either, although I do like Tori Amos' "Ireland," which has a reggae beat.

Magazine which annoys me - Cosmopolitan (anyone who needs an ARTICLE to figure out how to turn on a man is pretty pathetic; getting us horny is like shooting fish in a barrel), Us (celebrity gossip by five-year-olds, for four-year-olds), and Maxim (not because of the smutty pictures, as I have nothing against other magazines that show a lot more female skin, but because of its frat-boy vibe). I'd probably hate more if I'd had more exposure to them.

Makes me cranky at restaurant - When the wait staff totally ignores us

Makes me cranky in public - Waiting in lines

Makes me cranky in general - Having to get out of bed. (On the other hand, I don't have a lot of trouble getting out of bed when I realize I have the option of going back to sleep if the waking world doesn't please me.)

Pisses me off at home - That we have only one bathroom for four people

Pisses me off at work - Being watched too closely

Pisses me off in general - Lack of stability

Celebrity I hate - Charlie Sheen

Music artist I hate - I'd say Dave Matthews, but I think that's more a case of "it's not the band I hate; it's their fans." I mean, I MIGHT hate him, but I don't know enough about him personally. I just think his music is dull. I think I might have to go with Cal, and say Nickelback, since I'm well aware they have bad attitudes as well as bad music.

I could care less about - Do you mean "COULDN'T care less about," by any chance? If so...I don't know, the Halo games.

Annoys the crap out of me weekdays - Feeling that I have to go to bed early (even though I often don't)

Blogger's habit that annoys you - Going months without updating

Feature on your blog you hate - That LiveJournal is constantly trying to sell its users on paid accounts

Movie star you despise - Mel Gibson

Beverage You Hate - Coffee. Yeah, I know I'm weird.

poisonyoulove made a survey out of VH1's The Great Debate. While I didn't watch the show, I will do the survey.

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Okay, first of all, you can check this out:



It's a review by the same guy who does the Angry Video Game Nerd videos. It seems like, even though this movie didn't do well at the theaters, it's quite well-loved by nerds who grew up in the eighties. It IS pretty disturbing in parts, like with that shock treatment storyline that certainly wasn't in any of the books. Even putting the scariness aside, though, why does it copy MGM in taking a lot of time in Kansas before getting to Oz? As far as I can recall, the original books rarely took more than a chapter to get American visitors into a fairyland of some sort. But then, I've seen some adaptations of Alice in Wonderland that did basically the same thing, even though the book has the White Rabbit show up in the second sentence. By the way, getting back to Return, are there any features on the DVD that weren't on the more recent VHS versions?

Second, you've probably heard by now that Bettie Page died. I understand that she became a violent, reclusive fundamentalist in her later years, but how can I help but like a model who bore a striking resemblance to Robin Goldwasser?

( Blow my mind, your royal flyness, I dig your bangs. )

Next, we have a video game survey, which I took from unclemilo:
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Here's another post about stuff I wrote as a kid, and it ties in with my first three cats. Interestingly enough, my galaxy project coincided with my getting pets for the first time. My parents split up when I was about ten, and I'd never had a pet before that. I was afraid of dogs, but interested in getting a cat, but I was never allowed. Soon after the break-up, though, my dad adopted a stray cat who had been locked in an abandoned house for a week. I think the experience of going that long without food made him never want to go hungry again, because he ate a lot of cat food. His name was Arthur, and he was a gray tabby, and not really a lap cat. Usually, he'd just sit near people, instead of actually making contact with them. When my dad moved to New Mexico, he took Arthur with him, and I only saw him once after that. He was only ten years old or so when he died of feline leukemia, and I'm not sure how he got that, since I thought the vet gave shots for it.

Not long after this, my mom adopted a two-year-old cat named Cat (her earlier owners must have been really creative :P) from the SPCA. She was a calico, but wasn't as splotchy-looking as calicoes generally are. She was mostly white, and had rather neat brown and black patches. bethje observed that she was colored like a hot fudge sundae. When we got her, she was sick and refused to eat, but she got well again after about a month. She lived pretty long (about sixteen years, I think), but since she had a problem with peeing on things, we kept her in the basement for a lot of the time. I feel bad that we did that, but I'm not sure what else we could have done.

The third cat that I had at the time of the galaxy project was Star. She was a black and white cat with a black nose, who was part of a litter of four kittens born in my mom's friend's house. My dad adopted her, and while Arthur initially hated her encroaching on his territory, it didn't take them too long to become friends. She was kind of neurotic, and was the only cat I've ever known to have been prescribed Valium by a vet. Unfortunately, she didn't live very long, as she was hit by a car during Thanksgiving break when she was only two years old. Poor Star. :(

I was in the fifth grade when we first got all three of these cats, and I was pretty excited about it. I ended up working them into a few things that I wrote, including the aforementioned galaxy project. The Great Galaxy included a cat planet, ruled over by Arthur (hey, he WAS named after a legendary king), and mostly covered in an ocean that contained sections made of cat food. The only continent there was called Meowica, and the four moons were named after Star and her three siblings (although I doubt whoever adopted the other three kept those names).

Please let me know whether you've been enjoying these posts about old writings. I know a lot of you voted that I should make them, but since I haven't gotten any comments, I'm worried that they might not be of interest to anyone else. But then, in fairness, I probably wouldn't be able to think of any way in which to reply to such posts either.

Anyway, in the meantime, here's a survey that I got from slfcllednowhere:
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First of all, here's a survey, which I took from annamatic:

1. Post the most interesting exclamation you can think of. "May thy ears become cabbages and thy tongue a sausage!"
2. If you were going to be a super villain, describe your minion. I think I might just stick with robots. They tend to be more reliable.
3. Give a short pep talk to a fish with self esteem problems. "Hey, your life is going along swimmingly!"
4. What is the most disconcerting thing you have ever stepped in/on in your bare feet? Dog piss, I think.
5. Tell us who should be rubbed out, and how should it be done. I don't know that I'd rub anyone out, but if I did I'd use the Rub spell from the first Final Fantasy game.
6. What was the most confusing stage production you have ever sat through? The version of Faust that I saw in college, which had Nazis in it.
7. What would the best drug of all time do for you? Cure every ailment, and let me fly besides. That's probably a little greedy, though, isn't it?
8. What would be the thing that you could mix with chocolate to make it lose its allure? Coffee. But I know a lot of people would disagree.
9. Who never surprises you? I think everyone surprises me at some point. I occasionally even surprise myself.
10. In the movie of your life who would play your mother? Eh, I'm never good at this sort of question. I don't really know of any actresses who remind me of my mom. Now, if it were my dad, that would be easier.


And I have a few more Captain N reviews:

( Mr. & Mrs. Mother Brain )
( Nightmare on Mother Brain's Street )

I was considering reviewing a third episode in this post, but I think it's too long already, so "Simon the Ape-Man" will have to wait. I don't think that one will be anywhere near as long as these two, though.

I finished reading Inkheart a few days ago. I think it was sort of like The Neverending Story in reverse, in that, instead of someone from our world getting sucked into that of a book, it has people from books being called into our world (although there is some of the other as well). They ARE both German books, and The Neverending Story is actually quoted in Inkheart, so I doubt the connection was entirely accidental. I liked the part where it mentioned that Meggie and Mortimer would read anywhere, and sometimes ended up being late for things because of it, because I could identify with it. The distaste for dog-eared pages is another thing I agreed with. I'll admit that I'm not always the most careful book-handler--I'm prone to some accidental smudging, and a lot of my older paperbacks ended up hopelessly crumpled due to spending so much time in my book bag--but I don't INTENTIONALLY damage books, and dog-earing seems to me to be doing just that.

The Inkheart movie is supposed to be coming out next year, and I guess I'll see it, although I have no idea whether it'll be any good. It's been some time since I last went to the movies. I think the only time this year was when bethje and I saw Prince Caspian. I do want to see The Dark Knight, but I don't know when I'll have the chance. And is that animated Clone Wars supposed to be any good?

Anyway, speaking of Batman, here's a quiz result:
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And continuing the theme of movies based on books, here's a survey that I got from bec_87rb:

Copy the list below. Mark in bold the movie titles for which you read the book. Italicize the ones that you've watched. Tag 5 people to perpetuate the meme. Or don't. I didn't.
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