I'm too young to be this boring.
My latest attempt at actually doing my undergraduate capstone research correctly so that I can actually graduate sometime has officially stumbled out of the gate, now that I've finally found a supplier again. The place I bought from last year has mysteriously vanished, and many days of Google-fu were expended trying to find anyone who isn't some random person on eBay or a shady Geocities site who I could buy a handful of the same species of adult mantises from. Lo and behold, and now maybe I can get this goddamn experiment over with that I've been losing sleep over for a year and a fucking half. Oh, weird anxiety disorder thing that I have, I could have been done with this six months ago if it weren't for you. :|
Now if I can just find a bittering agent that actually works on inverts without, y'know, poisoning them. Everyone's in a big-ass hurry to kill insects, but I guess there's not a big market for things that taste yucky to them whilst allowing them to go on living on God's earth.
All in all, this is the time of year when I'm sort of casually slouching towards finals, having been burnt out entirely by now on the very idea of bettering myself through higher education. So, while I've been putting off doing things that I need to be doing, here's some blogs I've been reading and an entry from my flist that I must share because it's awesome. Why yes, I am on the Eight Year Plan. I fear success, you see.
John K.'s blog is a substantial read. That sentence scans sort of oddly, but it's the best word choice I can come up with. The vast majority of his entries are dense and well thought-out, usually with frame-by-frame breakdowns and clips of whatever animation concept he's talking about that day. I was too young and easily-squicked while Ren & Stimpy was being aired to really appreciate it (well, before it slumped into the Stimpy Vomits Repeatedly Half-Hour Power Hour), but the man's been around the block a time or two and he knows his stuff. Also, he has strong opinions and a passion for the craft and I just generally like the cut of his jib. Some of the commentors are startling in their utter failure at reading comprehension (one of the most persistent being misunderstanding John's use of the word "conservative," it's not just a political affiliation, you magnificent tards), but there's some interesting discussion that goes on between the folks whose heads aren't up their asses.
Roasted Peanuts (damn, I'm hungry) just recently started, and I only found it this morning. It's aim is to revisit choice Peanuts strips, starting with the very first one. It's gotten as far as early 1951 so far, and it's a fun read. Schulz's early work looks so different, and the feel of the strip was so different from what Peanuts morphed into, but it doesn't really feel dated or primitive. But then, I usually find the old comic strips more artistic and well-wearing than the zombie legacy strips and unfunny, poorly-drawn crap that makes up most of the comics page now. not that i don't still read every damn one of them compulsively, or anything Anyway. John H. has a knack for pointing out cool little details and bits of context in the strips and it is totally neat. Also, early Snoopy is beyond cute, I am not even kidding.
Speaking of comics, did you know that Bil Keane used to make jokes? I know! My mental image of him has now morphed somewhat. After decades of being filed down to a nub by newspaper syndication, he just doesn't even bother anymore. It's kinda tragic. Still doesn't make up for Family Circus, though.
Oh! And did anyone else watch NOVA last night? Fuckin' sweet. Microraptor is officially my new favorite animal, and I love the enormous bitchfight it started between all these scientists trying to figure out what its deal is. There was one camp that thought microraptor was a link between dinosaurs and birds, with back legs that go straight down like a dino's (and birds' and our's, for that matter) is supposed to. The opposing camp decided that microraptors back legs splay out sideways like a crocodile, which would mean it wasn't a dinosaur by definition and the ancestor of birds diverged way earlier than we thought. I'm in the dinosaur-ancestor camp, myself. The other side made some good points, but they're basing their argument on some kind of grouse and a specimen that might not even be a genuine microraptor, so there you go.
So there was this reconstruction artist in the dinosaur-ancestor camp that made a working model of microraptor so they could figure out how it might have used all those wings. My favorite bit was when one of the dudes from the splayed-leg camp bashed on the reconstruction artist for being "subjective" and just building an animal that looked good. "They're probably not even a scientist themselves." INDEED, SIR? And then it cut to the reconstruction artist, and he's all "Well, maybe he should come over here and measure every aspect of every bone down to the hudredth of a millimeter like I did, and then we'll see who calls who subjective. Bitch. >:V" The best part was the scientist just decided microraptor had splayed back legs because that's where it "felt like" the bone should fit in the socket. STONES. GLASS HOUSES. ETC.
As an aside, is this not one of the coolest plushes you've ever seen? I think it's tops. The artist seems to be filling in a whole wall of these cool embroidery hoop portal critters.
Yeah, that's all I've got.
Now if I can just find a bittering agent that actually works on inverts without, y'know, poisoning them. Everyone's in a big-ass hurry to kill insects, but I guess there's not a big market for things that taste yucky to them whilst allowing them to go on living on God's earth.
All in all, this is the time of year when I'm sort of casually slouching towards finals, having been burnt out entirely by now on the very idea of bettering myself through higher education. So, while I've been putting off doing things that I need to be doing, here's some blogs I've been reading and an entry from my flist that I must share because it's awesome. Why yes, I am on the Eight Year Plan. I fear success, you see.
John K.'s blog is a substantial read. That sentence scans sort of oddly, but it's the best word choice I can come up with. The vast majority of his entries are dense and well thought-out, usually with frame-by-frame breakdowns and clips of whatever animation concept he's talking about that day. I was too young and easily-squicked while Ren & Stimpy was being aired to really appreciate it (well, before it slumped into the Stimpy Vomits Repeatedly Half-Hour Power Hour), but the man's been around the block a time or two and he knows his stuff. Also, he has strong opinions and a passion for the craft and I just generally like the cut of his jib. Some of the commentors are startling in their utter failure at reading comprehension (one of the most persistent being misunderstanding John's use of the word "conservative," it's not just a political affiliation, you magnificent tards), but there's some interesting discussion that goes on between the folks whose heads aren't up their asses.
Roasted Peanuts (damn, I'm hungry) just recently started, and I only found it this morning. It's aim is to revisit choice Peanuts strips, starting with the very first one. It's gotten as far as early 1951 so far, and it's a fun read. Schulz's early work looks so different, and the feel of the strip was so different from what Peanuts morphed into, but it doesn't really feel dated or primitive. But then, I usually find the old comic strips more artistic and well-wearing than the zombie legacy strips and unfunny, poorly-drawn crap that makes up most of the comics page now. not that i don't still read every damn one of them compulsively, or anything Anyway. John H. has a knack for pointing out cool little details and bits of context in the strips and it is totally neat. Also, early Snoopy is beyond cute, I am not even kidding.
Speaking of comics, did you know that Bil Keane used to make jokes? I know! My mental image of him has now morphed somewhat. After decades of being filed down to a nub by newspaper syndication, he just doesn't even bother anymore. It's kinda tragic. Still doesn't make up for Family Circus, though.
Oh! And did anyone else watch NOVA last night? Fuckin' sweet. Microraptor is officially my new favorite animal, and I love the enormous bitchfight it started between all these scientists trying to figure out what its deal is. There was one camp that thought microraptor was a link between dinosaurs and birds, with back legs that go straight down like a dino's (and birds' and our's, for that matter) is supposed to. The opposing camp decided that microraptors back legs splay out sideways like a crocodile, which would mean it wasn't a dinosaur by definition and the ancestor of birds diverged way earlier than we thought. I'm in the dinosaur-ancestor camp, myself. The other side made some good points, but they're basing their argument on some kind of grouse and a specimen that might not even be a genuine microraptor, so there you go.
So there was this reconstruction artist in the dinosaur-ancestor camp that made a working model of microraptor so they could figure out how it might have used all those wings. My favorite bit was when one of the dudes from the splayed-leg camp bashed on the reconstruction artist for being "subjective" and just building an animal that looked good. "They're probably not even a scientist themselves." INDEED, SIR? And then it cut to the reconstruction artist, and he's all "Well, maybe he should come over here and measure every aspect of every bone down to the hudredth of a millimeter like I did, and then we'll see who calls who subjective. Bitch. >:V" The best part was the scientist just decided microraptor had splayed back legs because that's where it "felt like" the bone should fit in the socket. STONES. GLASS HOUSES. ETC.
As an aside, is this not one of the coolest plushes you've ever seen? I think it's tops. The artist seems to be filling in a whole wall of these cool embroidery hoop portal critters.
Yeah, that's all I've got.