Random tales of average, Various How tos

But you’re not a worker bee, you’re a renegade killer bee – Bill from Kill Bill 2 talking to @#$$%

I have seen Kill Bill a lot of times. The only movie I have seen more times is… I don’t think I’ve seen any movie more times. The Dark Knight maybe? (though that’s unlikely) That’s not the point though. The post isn’t even about Kill Bill . I’ve just watched it again, so that’s why the quote’s there. I was thinking that it was an awesome quote.

Note: Name is bleeped because it’s bleeped in the movie

Once again the post is about random crap I found on the internet. Like Wikihow articles.

WikiHow

It’s pretty great. People write articles on everything, it seems. Stuff like how to spin a pencil around your thumb, (I still can’t do it but the article was informative) how to be a lazy college student, (something I didn’t think people would need help doing) and other helpful topics.

Helpful Topic 1

Helpful Topic 2

Helpful Topic 3

Helpful Topic 4

Helpful Topic 1 can be very helpful if you, you know, have a normal life. All the others are sort of random.

I didn’t find many other things of interest on the internet this time around. Except of course, an amusing list of ways to get kicked out of Walmart. 333 to be exact. The first half just about killed me laughing, but it was 3am, and everything’s funny then. It’s a funny time of night/morning.

Actually, disregard that. I have links.

MLIA

My Life Is Average is a fun site. People post really average (or really unusual) things that happen to them and people vote them either meh or average. The good ones get posted. I’ve actually known about this site for a while, but I’ve never blogged about it…for no real reason. I just haven’t thought to. I figured I’d blog about it this time, because I noticed I had it open in a tab, and I didn’t think I should let Wikihow dominate the post. Here are some average tales for sampling.

Sample 1

Sample 2

Sample 3

Sample 4

Sample 5

Sample 6

Actually, only the first three are average. The other three are less so.

Well, I’m done. Short post is short, I guess.

Next Time: Will there finally be something interesting posted? Will the next post end with a question? Will there be cat pictures?

Seinen, Little Brother, and the Importance of Whuffie

Parasyte and Dragon Head

Parasyte and Dragon head are seinen manga I just recently started reading. I getting very into seinen lately for some reason. Probably because it’s more serious than shonen manga. If you don’t know already, seinen is slightly more mature manga. It’s sort of like the M-rated kind of videogame. It can be bloody, and it tends to be full of stuff kids don’t want, or don’t need to see. (not counting those kids that like that kind of thing) Seinen is marketed to an older male crowd. Shonen is marketed towards the younger male crowd. Enough with the manga definitions  for now though. The point is that Parasyte is fun so far. It’s funnier than I expected a  horror manga to be. There are aliens involved, and I’m not very far in, so I don’t know exactly what they want yet, just that they kill things.

I’ve made even less progress in Dragon Head, but it’s interesting so far. It’s a survival seinen manga and it freaked out a friend of mine who reads horror manga for fun. I haven’t read much survival manga, so we’ll see how that goes. So far the situation looks worrisome. Vaguely claustrophobic as well. Gonna finish it though, because I want to know what freaked my friend so badly.

T61 (why I’m still listening to it)

The last post I wrote mentioned thesixtyone and how I ended up listening to it. This section of this post is about why I still do. (Sorta. I don’t rightly know, I’m just guessing)

T61 quests, for one. That might be part of why I go back. I’ve got eight I need to finish right now, and I’m working on one at the moment. The quests are mildly addictive. I don’t much care to leave them undone. They also help me level, and (as I’ve mentioned before) leveling is something I can easily get addicted to. Having the levels and quests kind of makes listening to music into a game.  Games I can do. Especially passive games, like the ones on Facebook, (Click to grow things much?) and listening to T61 is kind of like that in a way. Turn on music, and wait until the quest is complete. Easy. Some of the quests are slightly harder though. By harder, I mean that you actually have to pay attention. The ones I’m talking about are the ones that require a certain amount of plays from more than one playlist that belongs to someone else, and the ones that require a certain amount of listening time on certain moods. One other one requires a certain hearting to plays ratio.  Hearting things is kind of cool too. It also helps me level, but I usually only do it when I like something. One song I hearted was almost completely inconsistent with the type of music I tend to like. It was a song about math. Trigonometry, to be specific. It’s ridiculously catchy and I keep thinking that it will come in handy sometime. Even if I don’t care for Trig.

Little Brother

I stumbled across mentions of Little Brother after reading an article about a school using webcams to spy on their students. The mentions I ran into were in the comments, which I read all of for some reason. Should have felt like it was a waste of time to do that, but it was actually just interesting. Little Brother is a book written by Cory Doctorow. It’s really…well… It’s hard (for me) to sum it up in a word. I went and read the whole thing two thirds of the way through the comments.  I’ll probably read it again sometime, or just buy it so I can read it again in hard copy. One of the great things about Little Brother is that it can be read online, for free. Craphound (Cory’s Blog) is down at the moment or I’d add a link. Edit: Link added further down in the post. It’s basically about a computer savvy kid and what can happen when surveillance gets out of control.  It made my usual paranoia (though mild) seem justified, and ARGs are suddenly something I’m curious about. Harajuku Fun Madness, anyone? (Yes, I know it’s not real, but daydreaming is fun.)

Down and Out In the Magic Kingdom

Twitter led me to Down and out in the Magic Kingdom. Twitter via Mashable. Did I mention I how much I like Mashable? I really like it. It links me to cool stuff, and tells me cool things. Mashable didn’t link me to Down and out in the Magic Kingdom though. This is what happened. A Mashable blogger made a list of people who one could learn from on Twitter. This blogger mentioned that one of these tweeple (Yes, I do the silly Twitter lingo now) taught her the meaning of Whuffie. Well, I googled Whuffie because I’d never heard of it. Turns out that Whuffie is a fictional currency from Cory Doctorow’s book: Down and out in the Magic Kingdom. Cory Doctorow’s books are available online for free, so I ran off to read it. I gotta say, it was pretty cool.  Whuffie is  a currency based on merit. If people are pleased with you and your ideas, you will get more Whuffie. This way, no one gets Whuffie who isn’t in good standing with others. The book takes place in the future, so there’s other cool stuff too. Stuff like a cure for death. Plus, the narrator practically lives in Disney Land. Plus, computers that fit in your ear. Craphound  is still down (at time of writing) so here’s a link to it on Project Gutenberg. While I’m at it, here’s a link to Little Brother as well. Ain’t the internet great?

I originally read both books on craphound, which is why I keep wanting to link to it. I linked to where the actual story starts, because the first few pages are testimonials and the Creative Commons License.  Back to Whuffie though. I thought it was a pretty cool idea for a currency, but I’m not sure I would actually want to have to use it. It’s more because I’m not too sure about the idea of having to be in high regard in order to make money. I keep thinking people would try too hard to please each other in order to get it. They would be nice, but they would be fake. I’m not sure how it would affect the brutally honest, or people who aren’t good with people, or with ideas. (Maybe they could get put on some sort of Whuffie disability?) Then again, it might not really be so bad. People in general might switch between those personality types that they hold in high regard from time to so that maybe… um…

Never mind. I didn’t think this through as much as I thought I did. The point (part of it) is that Down and out in the Magic Kingdom is a pretty cool book, and Cory Doctorow is awesome for putting it, and his other books, on the internet. I don’t remember the rest of the my point… something about seinen I think. Ah yes… aliens that kill things, and vaguely claustrophobic survival manga.

So…bye.

Next Time: Will the blogger who doesn’t do blogs think their thought’s through? Will manga be the starting topic of yet another post? Reply hazy. Try again.

Bonus link for no reason! This.

Watchmen, amongst other things.

I read Watchmen recently. The whole thing. (insert annoying, but amusing internet meme reference here) I suppose I could say that I found it to be life-changing or that I think it’s the most awesome thing ever, and everybody should read it, but none of those things are true. I don’t think it’s the most awesome thing ever, and maybe I should, but I just don’t. (picture me shrugging here) I thought it was good, and thought provoking, despite the fact that I compared the villain/hero to Light Yagami after reading the ending.  That  little tidbit probably says more about me than it does about the graphic novel though.

I don’t think everybody should read it because it just doesn’t seem like it’s for everybody. It doesn’t really read like other comic or graphic novel I’ve ever gotten my hands on, and not everybody is likable, or even cool, even though most of the characters are supposed to be heroes. Take Rorschach’s character, for example. Hell, take any of the Watchmen characters. They’re all kinda messed up, and not in that cool, they’re so misunderstood with their dark and mysterious pasts kinda way. They’re just the regular kind of messed up. Like the kind of messed up people you meet in real life. Rorschach is the worst in this respect. Not that he’s a bad character (he’s my personal favorite) he’s just really really messed up. Also, I found the ending to be a bit horrifying. The very end soothed me a little, but I found the first part of the ending to be a bit horrifying. I think that was part of the point, though. If you’ve read Watchmen, you know. If you haven’t, maybe you should. The ending is important in more than few ways. It makes you think.

Facebook

Wasting time being random. EDIT: I last edited this draft in December 09 so all the stuff about Watchmen is hella old now. For me, any way. Facebook stuff is new.

Facebook is…the same. I’m not stuck on any games at the moment. Losing the internet or a hiccup in the schedule does that, I find, but I’m thinking about becoming re-stuck on some. Only a few though, and only a little bit. Don’t need a Facebook addiction at the moment. Not a serious one, anyway. I’m mostly focused on playing catch up with some games (friends scores have seriously spiked, to the point of concern) and…other wise I don’t know. I notice that I’m rarely on my Facebook if I’m not checking a game…I don’t use it for much. I’m considering actually using it to… (cue dramatic music)…connect with people. Yeah. That’s a novel thing to do for me. I never did get Facebook, and  I have said that before.

Twitter. Yes again.

Twitter is still odd. Following more people; trying to figure out what to do with it. That’s all it is, I guess. I’m tweeting, at least when I remember to tweet. Much like here, when I blog when remember that I have a blog and that I should blog in it. I’m behind on a ton of blog reading here now that I think about it….

Anyway, I don’t know what to use Twitter for anymore than I know what to use my little-read blog for. I’m considering linking my accounts up. I already linked on other account to this one. It’s on my about page. Maybe I’ll link twitter up to the account I’ve got linked here…or not. I may link my twitter to this, provided that I ever tweet anything of interest. For now though, I just have it. It’s just there. And I tweet on occasion.

The internet. All of it.

The internet is the biggest time suck I’ve ever come across. The whole thing. It’s just vast… and the links are so many…I never get bored with it. That’s my problem. I don’t ever get bored with it. I’ve got this blog…thing… accounts for other things all over the damn place, twitter included. I wandered around stumbleupon recently and found some interesting stuff. I couldn’t stop clicking that “stumble” button though. That messes me up for hours, I notice. Facebook does not help. Blogsites prompt archive binges, (search tvtropes for that one) all browsers support tabs now, which really does not help, Youtube is filled with interesting weird people, and Tv shows now, apparently…

Most times, I have two Firefox windows upon, with an untold number of tabs in each. I count thirteen in this window alone. If  I open another browser all bets are off. This might simply be a reflection on my lack of ability to close tabs, so really it’s not the internet’s fault. The internet can be useful and might be able to help me with some other things though. Some things that are productive, for a change. Like typing properly. I currently type….wrongly. I think the internet may help me fix this. I may also want to learn a language. I hear the internet can help with that too. It’s nice to know that it’s not just good for wasting of time. Nice to remember, more like it. I did know that before, but back then I used it to waste time too, which I suppose means that old habits die hard. I am tempted to use an emoticon here. Goodness knows I can. It is my blog. I won’t though. I mustn’t…

Next time: Will my struggle against my use of emoticons prevail? Will the next post have more structure? Stay tuned.

Or don’t.
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