Moved to Tumblr?

I’m pretty late to join everything. Before about a week ago, I wasn’t totally sure what Tumblr was. Then, I met someone who spends lots of time here and she told me that it was cool, but also could be a pain in the ass. Maybe I’d welcome such a thing right now because I’m bored, bored and probably more irritated with Google than ever. That’s why I might be moving to Tumblr now. It’s probably true that nothing I have to say is deserving of a blog, but I’ve had one for a long time and it’s not hurting anybody, so whatever.


http://mocolocoavatard.tumblr.com/


That's not the best url ever, so I may change my username in the future, but the blog itself will always be Arthropoda.

Fresh Meat

This week's show is Fresh Meat! I vaguely heard about this show before I left America, maybe on MTV but I'm really not sure since I was a big channel surfer. The first couple episodes were a little depressing to me since I really miss being in school and having buddies, but it's a great show. Pretty much every character reminds me of someone I've known in the past. In no time, I got over my envy of their cool house and nice interpersonal relationships and was able to enjoy it uninhibited. There's even a non stuffy-conflict-avoiding British character for me, Vod, who's as goofy as the Americans she wanted to throw pigs blood on.

Free Contraception in the UK

I just wanted to say that free contraception in the UK is rad. I'm so sorry America probably won't have this for another 50-60 years, if ever. Oh well, at least we (American "we") are legalizing weed, though that probably won't happen in Louisiana until free contraception, so probably never. Still, it's always nice when things that were once taboo to discuss become untaboo. My mom wanted to give me the pill when I was pretty young. Generally, I was indifferent to whether it happened or not. She told my friends' moms that she was doing that, and they all initially had at least some level of moral objection, but shortly after I got it, my friends got it too, and they were a good deal more appreciative than I was.

As for weed, that was something I never discussed with my mom unless we were talking about my dad's repeated involvement with it. For all I knew, she didn't like it because it made my dad a worse person, or something. Personally, I think it was just another easy detail to add to a long list, just something to make that list seem more substantial. Since I moved to the UK, however, she's smoked weed a few times. Figures.

Cogs

Cogs is a cool little puzzle game that showed me I have no real idea of how I solve problems. I slowly progress through every level of the game with at least a day between each level. That's because, for whatever reason, I have a hard time solving two puzzles in one day. The first few times this happened, I thought I was just getting stumped, but I've completed most of the game now and the secret was just to stop playing for a while. That's not a very good secret, and I wish I was more aware of what my own logical thoughts are, but what can I do? It seems like analyzing how I solve puzzles just makes me worse at doing it. That problem itself is kind of like a puzzle, a puzzle in my own brain. Maybe I'll figure it out sometime, but rushing just leads to frustration.

Wilfred

I conceived the idea of Arthropoda long before I started this blog, but it was such a backburner idea that it was never mentioned here. This blog was for weird little projects, aspirations, and mostly TV and movie reviews. I guess that's a good theme to stick with considering the only Arthropoda work I'm doing currently is redrawing the logo. I recently rewatched Wilfred, both Australian and American versions. I think they're both excellent, though I can see why they're not a huge hit with a big demographic.

The character Wilfred has a pretty different role in the remake, but in both cases, weird is an understatement.

In the original show, the character Adam inexplicably begins to see dogs as people in fursuits, and occasionally other species are depicted in this way as well.

But Ryan perceives Wilfred as being different from other animals. A recurring theme throughout the show is Ryan trying to figure out who Wilfred is, where he came from, and why only he sees Wilfred as a man in a dog suit. Ryan never forgets that he might just be insane, but he still searches for another explanation because, what good would it do to accept that you're crazy if you're still managing to hold a decent life together? In addition to the male lead himself being different, the role of the male lead is divergent starting from the first episode. Adam meets Wilfred through Sarah, the girl he's recently started dating. Ryan has Wilfred thrust upon him by his new female neighbor, Jenna, when she needs to do some errands, and this continues for much of the first season. Ryan quickly develops a crush on Jenna, but by mid second season, it's unlikely they will get together.

With mental illness as such a big theme in Wilfred, I guess it's not an incredibly appealing show to most people.

Get A Job

I've been trying to get a job since I came to the UK in August, but it hasn't been good. A/V media jobs are totally scarce, and that industry is full of nepotism, so good luck to me. I probably could have some sort of crappy job right now if I was willing to work really strange hours and weekends, so I suppose I shouldn't complain. I want a day job because my husband has a regular hours job like that, and I want to still be able to hang out even if I'm working. I guess that's a first world problem if I've ever heard one, but I'm seriously not being picky about what my job is, just when it is.

For now, I'm just being a freelancer of some kind, though I haven't found a way to get paid yet. This is an unfinished logo I'm doing for a band.

Facebook

I am on Facebook, as are most average people. I have 188 friends. They are not all my actual friends, which is also a pretty average statement. They are people I've been in contact with at one time in a less superficial way and now at least feel neutral towards, and I welcome the possibility that we will be in better contact again at some point. Some people feel they need to blame Facebook for their own social issues, or the social issues of "normal" people. They say Facebook is detrimental to personal communication between real friends. I know that if Facebook didn't exist, there are so many people I wouldn't know how to contact now, so I'm just grateful for it.

Nothing is really happening right now with Arthropoda because I have no money. I like to think my culinary skills are improving at least, and that does benefit the cookbook.

The Dark Knight Trilogy

This past weekend, I saw The Dark Knight trilogy again, all three in two days, and it unexpectedly changed the way I feel about them. I only ever saw them years apart before, and I'm no huge Batman fan, so I now don't think I fully understood the story. Unexpectedly, my favorite movie in the trilogy is The Dark Knight The Dark Knight Rises, but not necessarily because it's a great movie. Batman Begins was weak if only because the character of Batman is only really formed by the second half of the movie. Also, the vaporizing machine is strange. The Dark Knight is the one everyone loves because of Heath Ledger, and the praise is well deserved, but other aspects of the movie are goofy, like Harvey Dent's post explosion face. The Dark Knight Rises wins because nothing in it seemed goofy to me, which I suppose is a pretty shallow victory.

AvatarMeet

For the last three summers, I've gone to this Avatar themed gathering called AvatarMeet. I was actually still writing on this blog when I went to the first one, and I don't know why I never mentioned it then. AvatarMeet, loosely defined, is an event where a group of people watch Avatar, have na'vi lessons, paint themselves blue, and engage in nature and science related activities. It takes place in urban and rural settings, roughly half being in a hotel and half camping. This will be the first year that I'm probably not going, because I'm literally entirely broke.

Boo. But, not going this year means I get to do other nice things. I get to visit my New Orleans friends, take my dog back to the UK, and then many months later, have a killer New Year's Eve party. If you're going to do something, do it right. The next time I go to the meetup, I want to cosplay. Not paint myself and call it "cosplay" because I like the word, actually dress up and have a character, and do it well.

And it will be better than this.