I've got to say, I don't know how people manage to keep active blogs and do projects at the same time. I do realize this has fallen by the wayside in a pretty significant way, but other things had to take a higher priority.
Such as the Emo Kid movies! The first is up on Youtube already (search for "Dashboard Conservational: 1000 Black Hoodies"), and the Facebook group currently has 12 members. The video has 35 views so far, and two more are on their way. It's been so much fun filming and assembling these videos, technical troubles notwithstanding. I'm excited to talk about it in class.
So no World Domination news tonight, but satisfaction nonetheless.
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Monday, November 22, 2010
And Another Thing
I am reminded, as I round the corner to ten days of work without a day off, that we need to address work load in the new regime. I cannot remember whether we talked about this before, although I suspect I've mentioned it, but it is worth repeating:
People, or at least the people I know, typically work too much.
That is, hours are definitely longer than they have to be. I am admittedly new to the workforce, but I am already getting a sense of how long people in my office seem to be able to push on without a break, and what the work atmosphere is like. From flyers on college study tips, which I took by the stack during my academic career, I know that it often makes sense to take a ten to twenty-minute break every two hours or so. There's a bunch of literature out there on the power of naps, which are not for me per se, because I am too proud to nap, but the point remains that breaks are nice, and usually helpful. I don't understand why they have to be so furtive. I don't get why Internet needs to be restricted to the point where my 5-minute brain-clearing break means checking my bank account or doing Google image searches for "contemporary living room." (Yep--my bank site and Google--but not the results themselves--are the only things I can apparently type in without being blocked by the massive security monster at work.)
I think short breaks should be okay, in an explicit way, and I think there should be some system so that if you get all your work done early you should get to go home and still get paid, cause you did all your work, instead of hanging around twiddling your thumbs and proving you are in the office. I haven't worked out the details yet, but when I take over the world, there's got to be a better system than the blanket 40 hours a week.
People, or at least the people I know, typically work too much.
That is, hours are definitely longer than they have to be. I am admittedly new to the workforce, but I am already getting a sense of how long people in my office seem to be able to push on without a break, and what the work atmosphere is like. From flyers on college study tips, which I took by the stack during my academic career, I know that it often makes sense to take a ten to twenty-minute break every two hours or so. There's a bunch of literature out there on the power of naps, which are not for me per se, because I am too proud to nap, but the point remains that breaks are nice, and usually helpful. I don't understand why they have to be so furtive. I don't get why Internet needs to be restricted to the point where my 5-minute brain-clearing break means checking my bank account or doing Google image searches for "contemporary living room." (Yep--my bank site and Google--but not the results themselves--are the only things I can apparently type in without being blocked by the massive security monster at work.)
I think short breaks should be okay, in an explicit way, and I think there should be some system so that if you get all your work done early you should get to go home and still get paid, cause you did all your work, instead of hanging around twiddling your thumbs and proving you are in the office. I haven't worked out the details yet, but when I take over the world, there's got to be a better system than the blanket 40 hours a week.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
A Modest Proposal
Hokay. So Project Save the Emo Kids is progressing, mostly smoothly. I love the footage I have, I just wish I would have found time to take more of it. That is one of those things that happens when many people are busy, I suppose.
Actually, in a very roundabout way, that reminds me of Thanksgiving. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the holiday, to be honest with you. When I am Ruler of the world I will have to give serious thought to what to do about it. Here are the things that are awesome about it:
1. Having the time off to actually see family and friends. When I was little, I thought Thanksgiving was basically all about the pie, but now that I am beginning to understand the whole being-an-adult-and-having-a-busy-schedule thing, I can definitely get behind a few federally sanctioned free days. Especially after we switch off Daylight Savings, so you get the Seasonal Affective Disorder kicking in. You need family time.
2. Pie.
There are, however, some key drawbacks as well:
1. I don't entirely understand why turkey. Turkey is not necessarily inherently delicious. There is a reason a common compliment to chefs on Thanksgiving turkeys is "it's not dry." We expect it to be dry. Don't get me wrong--I will eat as much turkey as the next person, and as happily. I can understand that for some people, preparing a juicy turkey is a way of proving that they are awesome cooks. I just wonder why the days after Thanksgiving are supposed to be filled with turkey casserole and reheated potatoes. Wouldn't it make more sense to forgo the unwieldy stuff and keep the good things, like the pie?
2. It makes me sad that one person needs to spend all day cooking, rather than enjoying the quality people time I mentioned in point one.
3. The historical connection to the Pilgrims has long been tainted by the fact that white people pretty much wiped out the Native Americans they were thanking in subsequent years.
When I rule the world, I would like to keep some form of November celebration, but maybe without the compulsion to eat too much, and with a more global theme. Considering that NaNoWriMo covers dozens of countries at this point, and is in November, and that your Fearless Leader has a soft spot for novelists, what would you say to a meal of something yummy, pie, and congratulations to the hardworking writers in your life?
Actually, in a very roundabout way, that reminds me of Thanksgiving. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the holiday, to be honest with you. When I am Ruler of the world I will have to give serious thought to what to do about it. Here are the things that are awesome about it:
1. Having the time off to actually see family and friends. When I was little, I thought Thanksgiving was basically all about the pie, but now that I am beginning to understand the whole being-an-adult-and-having-a-busy-schedule thing, I can definitely get behind a few federally sanctioned free days. Especially after we switch off Daylight Savings, so you get the Seasonal Affective Disorder kicking in. You need family time.
2. Pie.
There are, however, some key drawbacks as well:
1. I don't entirely understand why turkey. Turkey is not necessarily inherently delicious. There is a reason a common compliment to chefs on Thanksgiving turkeys is "it's not dry." We expect it to be dry. Don't get me wrong--I will eat as much turkey as the next person, and as happily. I can understand that for some people, preparing a juicy turkey is a way of proving that they are awesome cooks. I just wonder why the days after Thanksgiving are supposed to be filled with turkey casserole and reheated potatoes. Wouldn't it make more sense to forgo the unwieldy stuff and keep the good things, like the pie?
2. It makes me sad that one person needs to spend all day cooking, rather than enjoying the quality people time I mentioned in point one.
3. The historical connection to the Pilgrims has long been tainted by the fact that white people pretty much wiped out the Native Americans they were thanking in subsequent years.
When I rule the world, I would like to keep some form of November celebration, but maybe without the compulsion to eat too much, and with a more global theme. Considering that NaNoWriMo covers dozens of countries at this point, and is in November, and that your Fearless Leader has a soft spot for novelists, what would you say to a meal of something yummy, pie, and congratulations to the hardworking writers in your life?
Monday, November 15, 2010
Phase Two, Day 25: Apologies and a Little Talk of the Afterlife
Apologies for sucking at blogging, I mean. Goodness. I was doing so well at the beginning of the semester, and now look at this. It's partly a matter of working on other projects, and partly a matter of having fewer plans left than I imagined I would to tell you here. I don't like doing filler entries.
There was this one time when a classmate was quizzing me about the afterlife. I'd been taking a class on aging, and was annoyed because the teacher seemed to expect me to be much more afraid of death than I am, and actually got a little snotty with me when I said, "No, I have given it thought, and know how I want to be buried, and while I don't want it to happen anytime soon, I'm not convinced I'm immortal, and I don't see it as something that scary."
Anyway. So this guy was like, "Why not?" And I said Heaven seems pretty awesome, so I think things will turn out okay. And he said, "What if there's no Heaven?" and I said in that case I don't have a consciousness anymore, so it seems pointless to worry about it. He narrowed it down to me being conscious as a ghost, but for whatever reason ghosts can't see or hear or otherwise sense each other, so I couldn't spend my time tracking down family members or Shakespeare or Jesus to talk about what in the world is going on. He said, "What if it's just you, wandering the earth, unable to interact with anyone, forever?" It was clear he thought he had me. And then I had one of those moments that reminds me why my friends tell me I'm a little odd sometimes, because without hesitation, I said, "I would ride leopards."
He needed a little explanation there, but the more I explained the more confident I became. If it was me all by my lonely ghost self, what could be better than to drift to the rainforest, find a leopard, swing my ghostly legs up over it when it woke up in the morning, and drift along following it through its day? I have not yet found the upper limit to how long I can contentedly watch leopards pacing in a zoo, so riding one all day in the wild is about as close to Heaven as I could get at that point. It would be peaceful, it would be exciting. I could do that every morning for a hundred years before I'd need a weekend off.
"And then," I continued, as a new thought struck me, "I could go down to the ocean and find one of those glowy Finding Nemo fish!" I made snaggly shapes with my fingers in front of my mouth so he would know what fish I meant.
"Lantern fish?" he said.
"Sure." I still don't know for sure what they are called. "Glowy Finding Nemo fish" tends to get the right picture in people's heads.
"You realize there's about one of those every square mile in pitch darkness, right? The chances of you finding one are astronomically small."
"I'm dead," I said. "I've got time." Besides, how amazing would it be, after a month of darkness, to see that little light? These are the moments religions are made from.
I have since thought of other ways to pass sections of eternity: if I'm one of those chilly-ectoplasm ghosts, I can squat in poor people's refrigerators when they lose power, so their food will not go bad. (I would have to be careful riding leopards, though, so I don't give them hypothermia). I could read over people's shoulders in a library. I can go inside a pregnant elephant's belly and check out that elephant baby. I could see what people look like to the campfire. I could ride an emu, since that is as close to riding a velociraptor as we've had since back in the day. I'm not too worried about filling my time. (And I do realize this is only filling time until the heat death of the sun, but I'm pretty sure I'll find fun things to do at that point, as well.)
So -- sorry for lack of posts, and for this post not being about taking over the world. I hope this is satisfactory in the meantime!
Monday, November 8, 2010
Phase Two, Day 18: Back on the Horse
Do I get a horse, when I rule the world? I never made it past a trot in summer camp, and that was years ago. Also, I wouldn't want a black horse. I like strawberry roans, cause they are pretty and also sound like some kind of English pastry. Would I still be impressive if I trotted into position on a strawberry roan who did not rear dramatically? Maybe this is another one that depends on the shape of things in people's heads. I will wear special fans strapped to my shirt so I can make my cloak billow in a theatrical fashion, and people will assume I must have galloped.
A note about my cape/cloak, for everyone who has seen the montage in The Incredibles: no, I am not stupid. Any cloak I wear will have about the loosest neck fastening ever, so that if anything tugs on it, the cloak will come off. This will make day-to-day wear annoying at times, I realize, but I will not get sucked up by jet engines or revolving doors or extremely powerful bathtub drains (yes, I wear my cloak to the tub. So what?). Think of it, actually, as like a newt's tail. If any enemy grabs me by the cloak, it'll come off in their hands and confuse them while I get away.
Why will it confuse them? I'm glad you asked.
When I rule the world, I will have the bad-assingest cloak that ever there was. Darth Vader himself will ask if he can please come try it on. It'll be wired inside with a fine net of copper mesh, which will both be usable to heat on chilly days when straight-up cotton/acrylic blend is not going to keep me toasty, and will protect me if I ever become a cyborg and people try to fire weird computer signals at me to mess up my circuitry (see "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" for more details). It will also be rubber-insulated, so I don't get electrocuted when it rains, but in fact stay snug in my Ultimate Raincoat. There'll be a hood with an awesome cowl, just for style, and there will be special animatronics that I or the minions can control to make the coat writhe in the enemy's hands, causing the aforementioned confusion. Finally, the inside will be marked with all kinds of notes and codes and things that will make it look like I have been wearing my World Domination plans on my back the whole time, when actually they will all be complete gibberish, except maybe I will embroider a list of groceries I tend to need on the inside left flap, so in case I need to stop by the store on my way back from Doing Justice I will not need to bring a Post-It list.
The computer programmer minions are welcome to think of awesome additional features. We can update the cloak whenever! Cloak 3.0! As long as no one sends me annoying pop-ups to update my cloak, because that would just be silly.
A note about my cape/cloak, for everyone who has seen the montage in The Incredibles: no, I am not stupid. Any cloak I wear will have about the loosest neck fastening ever, so that if anything tugs on it, the cloak will come off. This will make day-to-day wear annoying at times, I realize, but I will not get sucked up by jet engines or revolving doors or extremely powerful bathtub drains (yes, I wear my cloak to the tub. So what?). Think of it, actually, as like a newt's tail. If any enemy grabs me by the cloak, it'll come off in their hands and confuse them while I get away.
Why will it confuse them? I'm glad you asked.
When I rule the world, I will have the bad-assingest cloak that ever there was. Darth Vader himself will ask if he can please come try it on. It'll be wired inside with a fine net of copper mesh, which will both be usable to heat on chilly days when straight-up cotton/acrylic blend is not going to keep me toasty, and will protect me if I ever become a cyborg and people try to fire weird computer signals at me to mess up my circuitry (see "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" for more details). It will also be rubber-insulated, so I don't get electrocuted when it rains, but in fact stay snug in my Ultimate Raincoat. There'll be a hood with an awesome cowl, just for style, and there will be special animatronics that I or the minions can control to make the coat writhe in the enemy's hands, causing the aforementioned confusion. Finally, the inside will be marked with all kinds of notes and codes and things that will make it look like I have been wearing my World Domination plans on my back the whole time, when actually they will all be complete gibberish, except maybe I will embroider a list of groceries I tend to need on the inside left flap, so in case I need to stop by the store on my way back from Doing Justice I will not need to bring a Post-It list.
The computer programmer minions are welcome to think of awesome additional features. We can update the cloak whenever! Cloak 3.0! As long as no one sends me annoying pop-ups to update my cloak, because that would just be silly.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Phase Two: The Frustration of Slow Weeks
I'm afraid it is a slow news week for me in terms of...most things. Younger Sister is doing NaNo again this year, as is the Empath, and while I am well aware of why I'm not trying to write 50,000 words this month, part of me is still sad not to be doing lots of writing. I've hit that stretch of the semester when inspiration is faltering, which is a crippling blow for anyone, and especially someone who's used to having plans on a rather large scale. I think tomorrow, maybe during my lunch break, I need a small adventure, just to shake off the mid-semester blah.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Filming!
A quick break from our regularly scheduled world domination: I went to a fantastic wine and cheese party last night where I had the chance to interview several people for my final project, plus film an emo kid tagging sequence and a feeding frenzy! I've got some really fun footage to work with, and I'm starting to get excited about seeing this go up on the Interwebs for real. It's always a thrill for me when ideas start to come together. Planning is wonderful, but when I see the things in my head actually happening in real life, that's my happy place.
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