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Joysweeper's LiveJournal:
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| Friday, May 16th, 2008 | | 5:09 pm |
 The Paper grew up.  This one isn't going to get bigger, since it's been frozen.  This guy hatched, and I got two new eggs.  Split.  Yellow Dino. Note to self: Say "Boss" more often. It's old slang. Cap used it in one retelling of his origin story, and that makes it cool. I drew this Imperial officer.  Current Mood:  blank | | Sunday, May 11th, 2008 | | 12:18 pm |
"Little Brother" turned out to be really, really interesting. I feel that the end was too pat and it rushed the resolution, but hey. My Dragon Cave account is here. I'm definitely abandoning this one. Not just yet, but very soon. The paper - it's got less than half a day left. I'm going to try to force it, if it comes to that. Obviously it's not going to hatch on its own in time. And the third egg still has a few days before I really start worrying. Seven sins, seven virtues, seven wonders, five senses , two hands. Keep your shirt on, damned if you do damned if you don't, old habits die hard, where there's smoke there's fire. Soar/sore. Brave new world, into thin air, all that glitters isn't gold, truth will out. ...I'm thinking about it, okay? | | Friday, May 9th, 2008 | | 10:12 am |
Dino egg , paper egg, and here's another dino egg.  This one is blue. So, yeah. There's a free(!) e-book called "Little Brother" that I'm reading right now. It's actually very interesting. I really like one of the quotes from other authors about it. A rousing tale of techno-geek rebellion, as necessary and dangerous as file sharing, free speech, and bottled water on a plane. - Scott Westerfeld, author of UGLIES and EXTRAS | | Wednesday, May 7th, 2008 | | 2:30 pm |
Dino egg and a paper one. I have to say that the series finale preview for Avatar: The Last Airbender looks very cool. I dug around, too, and saw something that showed up at a convention, a snippet of an episode that won't air until (sigh) July. So very hilarious. "And I'm not a woman!" Viacom keeps taking them down, people keep putting them back up... | | Tuesday, May 6th, 2008 | | 11:17 pm |
| | Monday, May 5th, 2008 | | 10:28 am |
| | Sunday, May 4th, 2008 | | 9:53 pm |
Well, it's almost over, so I might as well. Happy fourth of May - May the Fourth Be With You. Yes, I am a Star Wars geek. How'd you know? Oh, and I got new eggs. A Dino egg and a paper one. Current Music: Lemon Demon - "Geeks in Love" | | Saturday, May 3rd, 2008 | | 12:01 pm |
A music video called "Word Dissassociation"(I spelled it wrong). Interesting.
BlahblahFish. It's fun. It's like the Babelfish game, simplified. The Babelfish game - you type something, translate it, copy it, and translate it back. This makes it so you just have to type it, and it translates and retranslates for you. Amusing. Some end up worse than others. The ones at the top of the list sometimes rendered the last word as "sound" or did odd things to pronouns, but they weren't dissimilar. I put some of the more amusing ones here.
"Your idea is better than it sounds"
Portuguese: " Its idea is better of the one than it sounds." Russian: " Your idea more best than it zvuchayet." Korean: " The sound is born and compared to your idea which recovers." (WTF?) Chinese: " Your idea compares it to sound." Japanese: " Your thought rather than sounding, is good." Croatian: " Yours the idea of had ultra than what IT voice." Czetch: " Yours invention is better than yon sounds." Danish: " Yours sense is worse luck than themselves sound." Norwegian: " Din conceived am better than it beeps." Serbian: " Your idea 3. wis with IT BE from present better than it sound." Slovenian: " yours idea there is sooner yound this voice." Welsh: " ' dogs idea he is being improve I do I plumb." Turkish: " thine thought bkz. hi better dan he sound." and finally, almost sensibly, Latin: " Your concept is better how this sound." The top rated/most recent things are all random profanity and lame bragging about sex. :/ I don't get the fascination, but then again I'm not a twelve-year-old boy. (Oooh, burn!) It's fun, though. Saw it linked here. "Vorlagendoppelwielder." Heh. "Point and laugh, kid, because he is about to do something stupid. Point and laugh." And smiles, child, because he will make the stupid matter. And smiles. Point and grin , babe , because he is round to get something limited. Point and grin. shower and merriment , without rime or reason , wherefore whenas he is thereby to practice white elephant woodenheaded. shower and merriment. <-The hell?! I point I go he laughs , he wishes , because he is being about to do something stupid. I point I go he laughs. Spear and to laugh at kid , since he is over, upon to do anyone stupid. Spear and to laugh at. Okay! Let's try something that doesn't make much sense in English, either! "I am He as You are He and We are now together." Bottom to top. I to be This when You are This and We are now in one. I am he as you are he and we are at present together. it's me him undivulged you are him and we're we are today together. I'm He as You're He and We're now comparison. I is He as though You art He and Accustom art today gather. I am He that is to say You are He and Vi is actually between them. I being now to have us who are he together am he. With we now together you because of the convenience me, it is that. I will be it in proportion to you will be it and we now together. I am him because you are him and we are now together. I am this since you are this and are now joint. Fun. Seven sins, seven virtues, seven wonders, five senses, two hands. Keep your shirt on, damned if you do damned if you don't, old habits die hard, where there's smoke there's fire. Soar/sore. Brave new world, into thin air, all that glitters isn't gold, truth will out. | | Wednesday, April 30th, 2008 | | 9:27 pm |
The Nearness of You. Sixteen full-sized scans. It is possibly the best comic-format story ever written. Poignant and bittersweet. You don't need to know anything about Astro City or superhero comics in general; you don't even have to have any interest in them. Love and loss. I feel certain enough to say that anyone who reads it through and is not moved lacks a soul. It is sad. And it is excellent. And I have something in my eyes. It won't come out. Who am I kidding? I reread it and cried like a slapped infant. I need to start looking up Astro City. Current Mood:  sad | | Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 | | 10:25 pm |
One. Two. On hope in fiction. I'm glad I could find these again. Hmm! "In 1957, Nevil Schute wrote a best seller that was entirely typical of how almost everybody but Heinlein was writing about Cold War politics: On the Beach. In On the Beach, as with almost all mainstream fiction and science fiction from when I started reading it in the 1960s and 1970s, it was just simply taken for granted that sooner or later there would be a global thermonuclear war, that nothing anybody could do would stop it, and that all that the heroes of any novel at such a time could hope for was to find a peaceful place to lie down and die. In 1948, Heinlein wrote a short story for American Legionnaire magazine called " The Long Watch." In it, one ordinary guy in the right place at the right time decided that global thermonuclear war was something he was not morally OK with, was willing to pay any price to stop, and he stopped it.I gave it as an example of something I like to see in my fiction, namely hope, specifically the hope that any ordinary person in the right place at the right time can reasonably hope to do the right thing when it really matters. Maybe you think that's unrealistic of me, but I think that's backwards. I can't stand the fiction of despair because, frankly, that's not how the world really works." On a lighter note, these photoshopped Atari game covers are hilarious. I really like these two, which I'll stick here.  and  Seriously, it's very funny. Twizzlers. Anyway, I've decided that when the time comes to vote, Obama looks like the best candidate. Nothing's set in stone, but it seems logical. And for the moment, that's all I have to say on that. Seven sins, seven virtues, seven wonders, five senses , two hands. Keep your shirt on, damned if you do damned if you don't, old habits die hard, where there's smoke there's fire. Soar/sore. Brave new world, into thin air, all that glitters isn't gold, truth will out. | | Saturday, April 26th, 2008 | | 6:24 pm |
'Tis over. The semester, I mean. Wow, that was quick. One quarter of the way through. Huh. Kind of scary, really. Time used to go slowly. Now it slips past - oops, it's summer again. I feel like nothing has changed. Well anyway, there's this thing I found about writing prompts. I thought I'd try it out. Seven sins, seven virtues, seven wonders, five senses , two hands. Keep your shirt on, damned if you do damned if you don't, old habits die hard, where there's smoke there's fire. Soar/sore. Brave new world, into thin air, all that glitters isn't gold, truth will out. Worth a shot. | | Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008 | | 7:44 pm |
Dragon's Cave updated all the sprites. These are all mine. In order: Basalt, Derbatlap, Erninet, Haexquel(pretty!), Zeekayfije, Fourrivemik, Prayc, Jaquesy, Onenku, Watherine, Heztanzce(for some reason I keep needing to rename those two), Panaque, Miquaeth, Herembel, Yhraize, and Aeightralhr.                  | | Thursday, April 17th, 2008 | | 9:52 pm |
First off, I saw a new commercial on the Discovery Channel. About how the world is just awesome. Indeed! It makes me happy inside. I love the whole world, and all its sights and sounds... and all its craziness... I love the whole world, it's such a brilliant place... Impossibly idealistic? Yes. Yes it is. Sweet despite - or perhaps because of - that? Uh-huh. I wonder if this is a real song? So anyway, on Wednesday I ran a mile for independent fitness. Clocked in at nine minutes thirty seven seconds. Huh. Well, that's not bad. I still felt like I was going to die, though. Breathing. Breathing is the worst thing, and my lungs ache for hours afterwards. I run a mile three times a week on a treadmill, but that's at a slower pace, and my main complaint there is my ankles. I wasn't last - I was well before the fat guy - and I made a better time than the last time I tried it - nine minutes fifty eight seconds. Still slow, though. Still scoring low on the VO2 Max chart. Sigh. | | Sunday, April 13th, 2008 | | 10:56 pm |
| | Tuesday, April 8th, 2008 | | 11:06 pm |
So. The hoax IGN did, about the Legend of Zelda trailer. It was cool. There is a "making-of" video, too. I like how they mention how long it takes to get the ears on - twenty-five minutes. Huh. There's a video here about alien planets, part of a documentary. I thought it was interesting. It's incredibly hard to find the things... recently, too recently to be here, one was discovered with methane, an organic molecule. I like to think we're not alone. I like that thought. Also: Keladry of Mindelan is the best. Tamora Pierce is an excellent writer, you know? Excellent. She writes fantasy, and something close to High Fantasy, and it's marketed towards the young-ish set, but it's also really good. Compared to a lot of the books on the same shelves, there is a lot of sex, and death, and gritty reality-type things. But none of it looks gratuitous or forced or there only to attract the "Ooh, this stuff is forbidden!" people. It fits. It works. It's not over-the-top at all; the amount that there is is pretty much exactly as much as I'd expect. I love her heroes. That should go without saying. How many female heroes(I'm not saying 'heroines'; I know that that's "proper", but it always seems a little insulting to me) are there who can really, truly hold their own, matching and surpassing their male counterparts without being Mary-Sue power fantasies, without being sexually objectified, without having that trite goal of looking for a big strong Man? Not many. Not many, and that is a crime and a shame. Tamora Pierce's heroes are heroes first, there isn't the qualifier "girl" in front of it. They don't cringe around, they pursue romance without being dependent on it, they are flawed but overcome these flaws. My favorite is Keladry. Kel. Alanna, the first one, does look a lot like a Mary-Sue, although she's written better than ninety-seven percent of them. She is a purple-eyed twin, a mage, the first girl in two hundred years to reach for knighthood, she belongs to an old noble lineage, she is Goddess-touched and accompanied by a purple-eyed cat who turns out to be either a god or a constellation or both, her Goddess gave her an emberstone that lets her see magic, she has a magic sword, she's really good at fighting, offensive magic, and healing, I could go on. Don't get me wrong, I love Alanna. But she's not my favorite. She's driven by "I can and will! I'll prove myself again and again and again. And I like my King." which is good, but only goes so far. After Alanna we have Daine. Veralidaine Sarrasi. I like her, too, but she too is special. She's a commoner and a bastard, but her father is a minor god, and she has a lot to do with other gods. She's an expert with the bow. She has extremely powerful Wild Magic - she can talk to animals and Immortals and understand their replies, she can heal them, she can go into their minds, she can turn into them, a badger god gave her a silver claw that she wears around her neck. She also cares for an infant dragon, straddling the line between a pet and a child. I love Daine, too, but her drive looks like "I love animals and must care for them - and the realm, too, I guess." Kel. Keladry has no magic and no godly connections, unless you count the Chamber of the Ordeal. She's a good fighter, best with the glaive, lived for a time in a rough analogue of Japan, where she learned to keep emotions from her face. She is a commander. A leader. Animals seem to like her, but so do a number of people. She's normal, sort of, in a lot of ways. What I like about her is that she is the Protector of the Small, as the series title says. It - I can't articulate it that well. But she is responsible- not that either of the other two aren't, but for Keladry it's essential. If I can condense Kel's drive at all, it's "I will protect the weak from the strong; this comes before everything else." And I like that. I like it a lot. Kel, you are my favorite. I like you best. After Kel we get Ali, Alanna's spawn. I never liked Ali, and I can't seem to puzzle out why. I hate shrinking heroines who never know what to do and always point that out at every opportunity, which doesn't show up much in Pierce's work - but I seem to hate that heroine's diametric opposite just as much. I just can't emphasize with Ali. I don't connect with her at all - I don't like her, and I can't seem to latch on to any of the others in her books either. Not like the supporting cast for the other three(Corram, Jonathan, George, Liam, Thayet; Numair, Buri, Onua, Cloud, Skysong, Brokefang, Rikash; Kel's mother, Neal, Owen, Lord Wyldon, Peachblossom, Raoul). Most recently we have Rebekah Cooper, ancestor to George Cooper, husband of Alanna. I'm still waiting. I like her, I like that she has some responsibility. But only one book has come out so far. I'm holding off my opinion for a while. | | Tuesday, April 1st, 2008 | | 9:03 pm |
So. April First. Let me tell you what the girls in my dorm did today.
When I woke this morning at eight, I found that all the doorknobs in the dorm had been tied together. They swing _in_ to our rooms. I had to bodyslam the door to open it.
The RA's door was sealed shut by an almost-solid sheet of duct tape. I don't know why.
Later, I found that there was this weird prank with switching the doors, unscrewing them at the hinges. It was the two girls from one room and one from another, playing it on the roommate of the other girl. They replaced all the papers, too, so the only evidence was the fact that the key didn't work. It also resulted in this great exchange:
"It was me. I was screwing the door!" "We were screwing the door together!"
You'd think that would be plenty, but no. The pranked girl was in the shower when her friends(probably ex-friends now) went in and stole her mattress, and all of her clothes, and hid them away. She just got more and more furious... it was actually kind of funny.
People are just weird. | | Sunday, March 30th, 2008 | | 7:17 pm |
Showing off a new icon. I think it's funny. "A bunny with a pancake on its head makes more sense than you." I'm dumping some random stuff in here, so if I want to find it again I can. Another Halo song. Huh. It's supposedly a prayer for death, though less awesome than "Deus Meus" (Oh benedicus deus meus...) There are some good artists out there. Wish I could get some of these on my iPod. A couple videos I found while browsing ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) baxil's flist. This is a demo of something or other. Awesome blippy music starts at about one minute in. I like! An incredibly trippy song about love. Using lollipops. This is good too. So. Yesterday morning my brother left to take the bus with the rest of the marching band. I think they're in Florida by now, but I don't know. I was taken back to college yesterday evening, and this morning my parents, my sister, and my adoptive sister got on the plane. Disneyworld... *sigh* Anyway, I spent about five hours today on a ceramics project. Last week, I threw the cylinders for the body and the neck, and I threw the bowl for the base. Today, I did everything else. Connecting, making a head, the rolled-flat membrane for the wings, the arms and fingers of the wings, the wing-thumbs, eyes and ears and horns for the head, as well as lips and nostrils. Arms, with palms, with fingers, a tail, the vent, digigrade legs with toes. Makes it sound simple, hey? It(she) lies on her back with one wing folded casually over her body, head oriented upwards at an angle, pointing with one hand, one leg crossed over the other. She had better not break. I will cry. Worked on it from just after lunch until dinner - so yeah, five hours or therabouts. Worked on it till my fingers were rubbed sore and wrinkly. Now my neck aches, and my right shoulder. The batteries in my mouse died. I'm going to bed. | | Wednesday, March 26th, 2008 | | 9:49 pm |
Guardian bless. I'm turning into a fangirl. Seems like every time I post here, it's to squeal with delight at something new and shiny that's caught my eye. This time? It is Captain America. Used to be, my favorite superhero was Spiderman. And he's still cool. But I think my allegiance has changed.
Lessee... the first time I heard/saw anything about Cap was in an episode of the Xmen: Evolution cartoon. I think Wolverine was a member of SHIELD, and they had Cap in suspended animation or whatever. It's been a long time - Wolverine and Cap were apparently in WWII together, and I only saw Cap at the end. I remember thinking that it would be very sad, to have a friend frozen because he would die otherwise. Other than that, I didn't give it much thought.
I used to love that show, actually. I wonder what I'd think of it now? Maybe I should try tracking it down. In the later episodes it got very interested in cross-referencing other bits of Marvel continuity. Not always in big ways, but here and there. I think there was an image of Spiderman on a newspaper. There was Cap-in-a-tube, obviously, and at least a little SHIELD. Hmm.
After that, though, I don't think I heard anything about him for a good while. I think I knew he was a WWII super-soldier who got frozen and displaced through time, but I'm not sure. Never gave him much thought.
I'm a bit surprised that I find the character so interesting, actually. Supersoldiers, admittedly, are more interesting to me than normal people, including regular soldiers, but it's not enough by itself. Spartans are interesting because of just how "super"- meaning "special" - they are. But Cap? He got some injections and was hit by "vita-rays"; he was another piece of wartime propaganda. Boomerang indestructible shield, a costume that, while not ridiculous like some, isn't without its silly points. Admittedly my interest is a bit piqued by the displaced-through-time thing. It's... intriguing. I'd like to see a movie/read a book about someone from WWII skipping to present-day. I mean, a lot has changed. A lot has changed.
Imagine explaining the Internet to someone from early last century. Near-instant communication to and from almost anywhere in the world. A vast library at your fingertips. That's pretty big. Some other things that are huge and kind of ignored/taken for granted: we are in space. We have sent humans to the fricking moon. Want to be flown anywhere on the globe? Seventeen hours or less on a commercial airliner will get you there(I may be off with that estimate). Technology has changed a lot. There exist bombs that could sterilize the Earth completely and kill off all its inhabitants - we're no longer close to that edge, but imagine being told about nukes having never concieved of a world-killer before. Have people changed? We're in a war right now, but does that impact most civilians from day to day? No. It doesn't. We're so apathetic and cynical. Look at what people focus on now. How might someone from the nineteen forties react to the modern world?
Anyway, the comics don't really focus on that. I guess I like Cap for part of the same reason I like Spiderman. Good Guys for the Win. I like well-done villains who are complex characters with interesting motivations, characters who take advantage of how awesome evil can seem. But I always want the good guys to win. All girls want bad boys? Not necessarily. No matter how attractive a villain can be, if they don't at least have good intentions I lose all interest. I like my heroes heroic, for that matter.
But not like Superman. When I was younger, my first favorite superhero was Superman. (My dad's was Batman, FYI.) I'm pretty sure it was because he's something of a minor god. Incredibly powerful, can do anything, big protector. I've always loved protectors. But Supes doesn't really interest me that much. Yes, there are bad guys just as if not more powerful than he is, and he gets depowered all the time. He just can't hold my attention. He's a minor god. Yeah, I can admire him now and again, I can laugh at some of what he does, but I'm just not that interested. What's his summary? "Superman is the indestructible Kryptonian hero who saves the day time and time again, likes Lois Lane, has the alter ego Clark Kent, reporter." All of his inherent conflicts could be interesting, but somehow they're not. I wish I could articulate this.
Captain America is similar in some ways. Quintessential Good Guy, down to the stereotype of being blue-eyed and blonde-haired, wearing flag colors. Beloved by the people, looked up to by other heroes. Except that where Superman is a minor god, Cap is... well, he's human. More than normal human, yeah; he's something like the peak of human potential or therabouts. He can be cut with a knife that isn't kryptonite. He can be upstaged or turn out to be wrong. What are his internal conflicts? He's from a different era and the majority of the people he knew are dead or very different. He's trying to stay a leader. He's trying to save the world from threats that are orders of magnitude larger than he is. More than that, I'm sure.
...Damn it, this all sounded better in my head. At any rate, I like Cap because he's easier to relate to. He faces a lot of big problems and goes through some bad times, but he stays a good guy. He embodies the ideal, not just the country. I suspect that I would hate him if he was still just Patriotic Symbol Man, but he's not. He's an idealist in a world where idealism doesn't always work, and sometimes he's right. I like some of his speeches to that effect.
I'm going to try joining some livejournal communities. I like Captain America. Still waiting for him to un-die.
Current Music: Deus Meus | | Wednesday, March 19th, 2008 | | 7:44 pm |
" Deus Meus" is a pretty, pretty song. Battle hymn, don'tcha know. Fanmade for "Halo". "Halo" is a lot of fun, and I'm always interested in the Covenant and the Spartans, but I've come to realize that I really don't like that reality. It revolves completely around death and long, bloody, grueling wars. And I don't like that. I like interesting alien societies, the interaction between different elements therin. I like the thought of how supersoldiers abducted at seven years old and trained, then extensively modified, would be different from normal humans. I especially like thinking about the non-war interaction between Covenant, Spartans, and normal humans. Not to mention AIs. Those are intriguing too. But, well, "Halo" is war. That's really the most it can be. Which is sad. I mean, I see hints of it here and there. Between shootouts in "Contact Harvest" there are subplots with AIs and Covenant. But it's all secondary to the battle scenes, and in none of the other media is this anywhere near as prevalent. Frankly, the fighting gets boring. Ah well... the song is still pretty. So. I'm writing about a Red Guard. Kir Kanos is a Red Guard. I don't like him - too few "good" qualities, not sympathetic in my eyes at all - but this is a good picture of the armor beneath the robes. Heh... the boots...  Current Music: "Deus Meus: The Spartan Battle Prayer" | | Thursday, March 13th, 2008 | | 10:50 pm |
Opabinia! *thumps fist on desk* YEAH! You click the link? You see what it looks like? You see the shape of its body, its five eyes, its single appendage? If not, fine, I'll put those pictures here.    See?! See?! That last one in particular. Aliens should remind me of this! Forget humans with odd skin or prosthetic foreheads, forget green cats with antennae, forget tentacled blobs, this is what aliens should be like! Well-formed, but not like us with a couple odd bits stuck on! Opabinia For The Win! I saw one of these in a "Dinotopia" book once. Oh, man, early life on Earth! Early life! Why am I so excited! I feel - I feel weirdly inspired, but I have no idea what I want to do with this. AGH. Here, I scribbled an alien. The mouth-tentacles are appendages, it covers its mouth opening because that's a taboo to show, the two big eyes watch for predators while the three little ones focus on details like what the tentacles are doing. The tentacle tips with their little fingers taste and smell the medium, which is not water or nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere, and they have ear-ish membranes on the undersides of the "wings".  Looks like crap. Oh well, it was a Random Fit of Inspiration. Man! Opabinia! Awesome! Here's something completely different.  Twentyone Twentyeight in a different Femtrooper's body mocks my attempt to draw her. I think I'll go to bed now, before I get weird. Weirder. Whoo! Opabinia! Awesome! Current Mood:  excited |
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