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Monday, August 18, 2014

ahm a zoombeh nao (I'm a zombie now)

You know what sucks? Being sick.
You know what sucks even worse? Being so sick that you wake up at five-thirty in the morning, unable to move due to a combination of dog at your feet and being sick, not caring about the fact that 1. you are drooling all over your pillow, 2. you really REALLY need to pee, and 3. your nose is dripping all kinds of snot.
*sigh*
Does anybody like getting a cold? I thought not.
I don't even know why viruses exist. Not even like like I wonder why mosquitoes exist, though. They simply... shouldn't exist.
That has a double meaning. The first is "OH MY GOSH WHY ARE YOU HERE I HATE YOU," and the second is "How did this even happen? It's not even living. It doesn't even have a base instinct to survive, like microbes do!"
It's just... so... weird.
So, let's see about this. A virus is a string of genetic code in a sack of protein, right? So... what?
I guess I need to get my questions for this sorted out now. Here we go:
#1. How did viruses come into being? Did they "evolve" after or before true life was created?
#2. How do they respond to their environment? It's the one trait they share with living organisms. But how do they do it? They have no sensory organs, or organelles as they are called in the microscopic world.
#3. Why is it that they have to reproduce? They have no instincts at all! THEY DON'T LIVE!
*sigh*
I don't even know. Maybe I'll go do some research and come back with...

*****

...this stuff.
#1. Viruses are the most abundant type of biological entity?!? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
#2. Not even Wikipedia is sure how viruses happened. See above link.
#3. Viruses apparently help evolution go along using HGT (horizontal gene transfer)... wat
#4. They can evolve through natural selection, 'cause ya know, those things die SO OFTEN! I hate 'em.
...
so...
You're thinking I have the answer to whole thing right now, don't I? Dang it, I wish!
I don't know. I can't seem to get anything the information. Except maybe the second half of question #1 was answered... Wikipedia says that some may have evolved from plasmids and some may have evolved from bacteria. I, honestly, have no idea.
My theory is that viruses are actually alien space-robots, sent here by a most malicious alien race when the Earth was still young, and have since changed into strange horrible zombie-cells. Wanting to share their pain with the world, they infect everything to make them feel like zombies.
Yes! I've done it! It's a completely solid, sound theory! It's totally airtight! NOTHING CAN PROVE ME WRONG NOW! My discoveries will be spread across the globe, and I will be renowned as the most intelligent person to have ever existed! YES! MUAHAHAHA, MY PLAN FOR WORLD DOMINATION IS FINALLY COMING INTO REALITY! And, we will defeat the viruses, once and for all -- WITH SYMPATHY!
Now, to figure out what those mosquitoes are all about...

Thursday, August 14, 2014

Big Ball of Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey Stuff

Whiya, third post incoming!
Like the title reference? I do too. That right there is a good show, Doctor Who is.
Unfortunately, we’re not here to discuss Doctor Who, or even real time travel. Instead, I would like to discuss something more like time... travel. Without the traveling bit.
To rephrase: rewriting history.
I don’t know why I wonder about these sorts of things, but I do. Have some background information. Well, information information. Stuff. Just read.
So you have the present, a moment in time where stuff happens. The stuff happens in the present and then becomes the past, and the stuff that waits to be the present is the future. What happens in the past determines the present, and what happens in the present determines the future.
What I was wondering is this: if you could change one tiny thing in the present or past, how much would it change the future?
Say we have two situations: Present #1 and Present #2. There is only one difference between the two Presents: a breath of air has changed its course by, maybe, 5 degrees to the west. What happens then?
It may seem like an extremely minute, unimportant change, but if I’m correct, then this could be huge. Maybe that one speck of pollen that was destined to land on that flower in Present #1 didn’t in Present #2, and the flower died without ever reproducing, causing the entire species to die out, spreading famine throughout the globe, changing evolution forever. Maybe the wind was at just the right angle to push the baseball into the batter’s swing zone in Present #1, allowing the undefeated team to win again, but in Present #2 the batter swung wildly and the defending team won, altering sports history. Or maybe the wind blew on that worksheet just enough in Present #1 and it flew away, never to be seen again, while in Present #2 the owner of the paper kept his work and presented his findings to the world, suddenly revered as a genius.
Maybe in Present #1 someone slurred one of their words, making the other person in the conversation mishear and do something completely different from what the first person told them to do, causing that super-criminal to get away and live to commit new crimes, and in Present #2 the second person heard loud and clear and apprehended the dangerous man, putting a stop to his rampaging.
Maybe... well, I don’t feel like making up any more examples. I’m sure you get what I mean, though.
Maybe I'm just not smart, though, and this has been recognized by... everyone ever.
Did you think it was interesting? I hope so...

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Movie Review: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a title that I could've just said as "Ninja Turtles"

I really wish I could find normal-sized posters.
I saw this with my dad and my sister Friday the 8th, and it was better than I expected. I must say, though, that I no hope for it.
From the first time I saw the trailer, I had this sort of "nah" feeling about it. Mostly it was because of two reasons: the first was the animation of the turtles, which was weird at first. The real-life sorta style felt very strange to me, I can't quite put my finger on why, but it just threw me off.
The second was Michael Bay appearing... somewhere. I don't remember how the other Transformers movies were, but I saw the fourth one (which was my first post) and went BLEGHLEEEHHHH. So I became very, really, incredibly, tremendously, horribly, terribly, insanely scared.
However! It was quite good. I can't quite judge it as a continuation of the rest of the TMNT stuff, since there isn't a whole lot of it that I've watched, but it was pretty good. 4 out of 5 stars, I guess, since there were still some mistakes.

SPOILAH MOAD ACTEEVATEHD

Spoilah moad acteevatehd. U haf bean ward.
There wasn't a whole lot that stuck out as being gecky, but one thing (and another to a lesser extent) is irksome.
When the three turtles (- Raphael) are stuck in the mountain base laboratory, they lose a ton of blood to the pumpy things. April, Raphael, and "that old guy," as Michelangelo calls him, go to rescue them. April just sort of... pumps some adrenaline into them. She doesn't even give them any blood back, some of which is still in the pumpytubes. And then they completely tear apart the cells that they were unable to break before.
Wat? Ppplllbbblblblblpppp.
The second thing is when Shredder (whose robot redesign is frickin' amazing, but slightly unnecessary) power-steps on Raphael's shell and it cracks, he's still able to fight well with no problem. Wat2? Ppplllbbblblblblpppp2.

Overall, though, it was very excellent, with nice humor and action and stuff. And the thing at the end where Michelangelo blows up "that old guy's" (no, I can't remember his name) car was priceless. PRESLIIIIIISCE

Monday, August 11, 2014

Stuff 'n' updates 'n' stuff stuff

So...
I said last week that there would be another post up.
That didn't really happen, did it?
I'm really sorry about that, guys. I had the post ready to go, all perfect and stuff... and then I just... forgot.
But! I promise to (try) to never forget again. You can call me silly, disrespectful names if I do.
There WILL be another post Thursday. And another one sometime else.
Moving on...
Have you ever even seen the dorky potential of a middle-school (now high-school (just say teenage)) boy? I have. Something strange happened to me last Thursday, almost at the end of a mission...
I was playing Spore, which I finally bought, and I got into a little predicament... man, I don't even know where the record button is for that game. I was button-mashing so hard.
That brings me to another subject of this post!
When I did my post on Spore a little while ago, I suggested that I could do a little play-through thingamobob once I bought it.
Well, as you can see, I bought it.
So I would like to know if anybody would actually enjoy that sort of thing if I did... if I don't get any feedback, it's happening, 'cause I know that I would enjoy it. Heck, I might even just ignore all your requests and do it anyway.
Heh. That is, if there are any requests to ignore. I don't think it's very efficient to take a poll on a new blog.
To more things!
I got a gold-plated dragonfly box yesterday. Hee hee hee. I don't know why you need to know that, but I think it's cool. However, I think the rest of that story is for another post... (creepy foreshadowing DUN DUN DUN)
Gahck, I really don't have anything else to talk about. The main point was about the missing post, and there'll be some more fleshy posts going out the rest of the week, so I've gotcha covered.
<cheese> Me, signing out! </cheese>
(And sorry for the weird formatting up at the video. If I put the next line of text down, it deletes the video. Ehck.)

Monday, August 4, 2014

Movie Review: Guardians of the Galaxy


Second movie review post! I'll be doing this sometimes, in case you haven't noticed.
So on Friday I went with my dad to see
Ick, it's kinda small. Anyway, I went with my dad to see Guardians of the Galaxy this most recent Friday. It was... how should I put this?
If you took all the awesome implicated in the song "Everything is Awesome" from the Lego Movie and compared it to the awesome in this movie, the movie would still have more awesome. Just think about that for a second. All of the awesome from every awesome thing in universe, which is everything, all condensed into one great pile of awesome, and Guardians of the Galaxy still has a greater pile of awesome.
Oh my gosh, I loved it.
I do want to say, however, that I had no previous experience with the Guardians, so my dad (which I think did, but I'm not sure, but it's Marvel, so I think he did, but I'm not sure) probably has a better review of it. I can't judge it accurately at all on how good of an adaptation it was, but it sure was an excellent, excellent movie.
I don't know what there is to say. The humor was awesome; the action was awesome; the characters were awesome; heck, even the stupid was awesome. Even the awesome that those things were made of was awesome.
No one is ever going to want to say the word "awesome" ever again after they read this post. No matter... on with more awesome!
And you know what? Screw all the rules of existence, this movie was perfect. Five and a half stars out of five. That's right. I went there.

Sorry for the short post today. There's not really much else I can say about the movie, other than that it's awesome. There should be another post up on... someday this week. The specific day remains to be seen.

Saturday, August 2, 2014

Big News, Movies, and Whatever Else is On My Mind

Well here we are again. As the title says, I have some big news. That big news is this: I have a new baby brother! I'm technically an adult and all that, so it's a little strange for me. It bears mentioning that Baby Santiago is not also Phillip's brother. Phillip is my half-brother and Santi is also my half-brother, each on different sides. So while I may occasionally introduce a nugget of babyhood into my post every once in a while, Phillip will not. Because they don't live together. At any rate, that's a huge deal.

As far as movies go, Guardians of the Galaxy premiered last night, and while I didn't see it, my brother did. So I'm sure he'll be talking about that in the days to come.

However, I would like to bring up one movie that came out recently that I did see and that I think can relate a tiny bit to my situation (That of having brothers. Common, I know, but still). I recently watched Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and it being the second film in the franchise that I have actually seen, I thought it was fantastic. Or... Really good. I thought it was really good. I absolutely hated the music. The score was terrible and the music matched the scenes it went along with poorly at best. That kind of killed it for me. I recognize that that's immensely weird, but it's how I operate. As a contrast I'll offer up The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which had an absolutely fantastic soundtrack which pleased me to no end. Anyway, music aside, I saw this film and I was like "Cool! It would be awesome if I had read Julius Caesar in high school like I wanted to rather than The Taming of the Shrew so I could actually draw some parallels and put together an argument which fully explains my reasoning as to why this is awesome!" But I had no such luck. I read about Kate. It's a fine play, don't get me wrong. I just would have liked to read a drama rather than a comedy. And then there's that monologue at the end of Taming which I really just don't understand or like particularly much. By the way, I don't claim to be an expert on Shakespeare by any means. I've studied him and his work in general a little, and I've studied a few works in particular. What I've studied well and performed I know pretty well, but apart from that I'm mostly clueless. I may know a little more than some people, but it doesn't really matter. What I'm saying is that my opinions are just my opinions and I won't be offended if you disagree. Just don't be offended if I then argue with you. ANYWAY. Back to the Apes. What I was going to say initially, before all the Shakespeare stuff, was that what the movie seemed to be about at its base was power and the relationships between fathers and sons and brothers. There weren't a lot of female roles in the cast. The film didn't even come remotely close to passing the Bechdel Test. However, the relationships between brothers and the relationships between fathers and their sons were very clear. There were a few father/son duos and a few sets of brothers (Be they by blood or otherwise) which struck me as particularly clear and well-presented. I have no idea if I'll remember them all at the moment, but I hope I'll be able to make my point clear. Of course I guess that means I'll have to figure out my point.

ALSO, POTENTIAL SPOILERS
If you hate spoilers, you may not want to continue. I have no idea what's going to be in this section, but it may very well ruin the movie for you.

First we have Caesar and Blue Eyes. That's fairly obvious. The main king and his son. The king attempts to teach his son how to be a good and correct ruler, but the son fails to learn the lessons he is being taught, and instead "turns to the dark side", or seeks and easier way to accomplish his goals. We see this in his trust of Koba because he sees Koba as strong and loyal. In this is displayed youthful naivete. In addition to this, Caesar has another male child at the very beginning of the movie. Beyond that we have Rocket and his son Ash, who can be seen as Blue Eyes' brother in arms if not in blood. Rocket and Ash are both wholly loyal to Caesar, and as a result Ash is killed by Koba. This can be related back to the tendency of apes and other animals to kill the offspring of the previously alpha male. It ensures their place on the totem pole as the one and only leader. Malcolm and Alexander are another obvious example of a father/son relationship. However, theirs failed to actually engage me emotionally or surprise me in anyway, and so I failed to notice anything especially spectacular about it. That's all for the fathers and sons for now. I'm sure I've missed some, but that's all for now.
Now for the brothers! As I said before, Ash and Blue Eyes are a prime example of brothers. They hunt together, joke together, make fun of each other, fight a little, and are ultimately best friends. Koba ends that by throwing Ash off of a balcony to assert his dominance.
The other sets of brothers are a little trickier: The other main "brother" is Caesar. Caesar engages in something typically called "Retail Politics". Ever heard of Lyndon Johnson? He was a pretty big deal in the sixties. You should check him out sometime. Anyway, LBJ was a master of these "Retail Politics", and I'll give you a quick rundown of what they are:
Retail politics is the art of selling an idea or commitment by being one-on-one and up-close and personal in your conversations. By being aggressive and making the other party uncomfortable, you remove their ability to properly defend from your onslaught of decisions and opinions. It works best in person, but it can work on the phone too. It only has to be one-on-one.
Caesar demonstrated this in the first film by besting Rocket (The dominant male in the facility they were being kept in) in a way that clearly displayed his superiority. It was an "I could kill you, but it suits me better not to" kind of moment. Not exactly retail politics, but by usurping Rocket and then allowing him to continue on as second-in-command he showed that he was different from other apes and was, in fact, worthy of the respect of the apes who had previously followed Rocket. What he gained was a lifelong friend and loyalist. A brother, you could say.
Koba, on the other hand, was simply freed from a lab. He was given power out of nothing rather than given limitations out of power. In the philosophies of Machiavelli, it is better to be feared than loved. The apes Caesar defeated and the apes intelligent enough to understand his power (Maurice, for example) feared Caesar. Those to whom Caesar granted power and freedom after they had had nothing loved Caesar, but that was not enough to keep their fear of Koba from overriding their loyalty. The brothers Rocket and Caesar were not brothers by blood, but more by circumstance and grace.
Caesar attempted to foster a brotherly relationship between himself and Koba, but his efforts were futile and ultimately his attempts failed.
All of these relationships harken back to Caesar's not having a father. Caesar's mother died in the first film, but there was no mention of his father. Caesar questions Will about who his father was in the first movie, but everyone involved knows that Caesar is essentially fatherless.
Again, I'm sure I've missed some, and if you have a few you'd like to let me know of you can leave them in the comments.
These relationships seem to be a focal point of the film because the first film is about the construction of relationships. Growing into them, building them, etc. This one is more about maintenance than construction.
If you've found my ramblings interesting, please let me know. I have no idea if this makes sense or is just total garbledeygook. I would recommend the film, though. I really liked it. Just... Bring your own music.
Avante!