The State of My Life [Or: Another mid-October Update]

I am busy.

As in, really busy.

As in, so-busy-pretty-much-everything-not-school-related-is-on-hold busy.

(But I had the time for this blog update. So that's good, right?)

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I am currently working on two main projects: Quiet Storm, as per the usual, and Dragon Star, which is new (but so far, going great). 

Although, 'working' may be a necessary but inaccurate figure of speech. Like I said--most things are on hold until the weekend/the point where my schoolwork load starts to cool down. 

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On the upside, I have basketball. I like basketball. It's fun. 

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It recently occurred to me that Avengers: Age of Ultron is probably the closest thing to an Avengers/X-Men crossover movie that we're going to get anytime soon. Even though it's more about the Avengers, with a couple of mutants (Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver) mixed in.

Not that I'm complaining. I'm sure A:AU will be AWESOME and I can't wait.

But I still think it's dumb that the studios all can't just get along and give the fans a crossover.

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I'm going to be ____ _____ _____ for Halloween. Expect pictures.

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And that more or less concludes this short update about my life. 

Until next time!

How to Tell if Your Dog was Raised by Cats

This is my dog, Joe. Now, to the untutored eye of the ignorant layman (Calvin and Hobbes reference, yay!) Joe may look like an ordinary chocolate lab. But I'm here to let you in on the secret: he isn't. 

For one thing, Joe is the biggest wuss of a dog this side of the Mississipi, but that's (mostly) irrelevant. The BIG secret is that Joe was raised by cats. 

At least, that's my theory. It may sound crazy, but there's proof. Here's a handy questionaire/psuedo-advice-column to explain the proof and help you determine if YOUR dog was also raised by cats. 

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Question #1: Help, my dog is purring!

Don't worry! This is a perfectly normal, if unorthodox, function of your dog's vocal chords. To most, this sound will appear to be a low growl. Your dog will probably make this sound over and over as he receives attention if he truly intends to purr. 

Clearly, this sound is/was meant as an imitation of a cat's purr, which is what your dog would have grown up hearing if he really was raised by cats. 

Question #2: My dog is afraid of cats and other dogs! Why?

If you've ever studied the behavior of a cat, you've seen that they tend to be aloof around other cats, and wary if not outright afraid of dogs. If your dog was raised by cats, he would naturally have picked up some of these behaviors. This is completely normal. 

Question #3: My dog keeps licking himself, all over his body. Why does he do this?

This, of course, is a behavior your dog would have learned from his foster mother, a cat. Cats are well-known for their ability to clean themselves; any dog raised as a cat would attempt to replicate this behavior. Unfortunately, most dogs don't really have the ability to clean themselves this way; but since most dogs also don't have the mental capacity to realize this fact, it's kind of a moot point. 

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Of course, these are just a few of the many odd behaviors a dog raised by cats would express. These are the three cat-like traits that my dog Joe tends to exhibit; of course, your dog may be totally different. The point is, if your dog was an orphan raised by cats, you'll find out one way or the other. 

So what do your think? Was your dog raised by cats? Was your cat raised by dogs? Was your fish raised by hamsters? How can you tell? Any quirky pet stories are fine by me!

Until next time—ciao!

It's That Time of Year Again...

...And believe me, I wish I was talking about election season.

Well, you know how it is. School has started up again. I'm in the thick of Logic, Latin, Algebra (urgh), Science History... you know, all the fun stuff.

In all seriousness, I'm not really complaing. (Well, not too much, anyway.) I like school. (Sort of.) But it is taking up a lot of my time. Most of my morning, really, and two or three hours of my afternoon. In addition, I have a rather horrendous-looking backlog of Things I Need to Write, and an even worse backlog of Things I Need to Read (That Aren't School-Related So I Can't Do It Then).

So, yeah, blogging will probably be a bit scarce through the rest of September, and maybe October. (I'm not sure yet, though.) I will, if it's any consolation, try to get out a post around Halloween (because why not?), but that's the only promise I'm making for now. So, yes.

(Wish me luck on algebra. Bleh.)

Interview with Dr. Ben Carson (Everyone Should Watch This)

Dr. Ben Carson

Dr. Carson might just be one of the only people I've ever seriously fangirled about. I LOVE him and his opinions.

This recent interview, which I just watched, is amazing. I seriously think that Dr. Carson should run for president. He would be a candidate I could really get behind. And even if he doesn't run, his ideas are amazing and we should be thinking about these issues seriously and logically.

Okay, I'll stop raving now. Really all I have to say is: watch the interview. Please. Even if you don't agree with anything said, it will make you think. And that's not something that can be said about everything on the Internet, or even on television.

Good day.

My Sister Disapproves of the New Activia Packaging

OLD Activia yogurt packaging

NEW Activia yogurt packaging

As you may or may not be able to tell from the above pictures, Activia has apparently changed the font on its packaging label. I, personally, can only just barely tell the difference between the old font and the new font. My sister, on the other hand, is incensed that Activia has dared to alter THEIR packaging with a font that is almost literally no different from the previous font. 

As you almost may or may not be able to tell, I could not possibly care less that this has happened. I don't even eat Activia yogurt. Usually. 

I partly think it's funny that my sister cares so much about the font on a yogurt package. But I also think it's something of a comment on American society. I mean, a lot of people to day feel validated, or try to feel validated, by the purchases they make. And, a lot of people today are perfectly comfortable with starting fights over inconsequential things, or so it would seem. My question is, when there are plenty of serious, life-or-death issues to talk about, why do we start discussions about yogurt packaging (being facetious here, but not that facetious). 

This is called a report button, boys and girls.
This is generally the thing you try to avoid
when navigating the internet. 

It's true that I've had really only a cursory experience of the Internet, but even that has shown me that people are perfectly capable of starting trivial and/or nasty discussions here. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that if a discussion on the Internet isn't trivial, it's almost always disproportionately nasty. There are exceptions, of course, but I don't think there are actually that many. 

(And then there are the rarer, but still existant, Internet discussions that are trivial AND nasty. There are certain forum threads I could link to to prove this, but I will restrain myself.)

So, all this having been said, what do YOU think? Is the new font on the Activia package good? Bad? Horrendously offensive? Does the Internet encourage nasty and/or trivial discussions, or are those just side effects? And finally, did I or did I not use way too many all-caps words in this post? 

(Please, do try to keep these discussions from turning nasty.) 

Thank you and goodbye!

My First YouTube Video is Out

Well, actually, technically speaking, it's been out for a while. But anyway.

I've been dabbling in stop-action for a while, making (or attempting to make, anyway) short films with Legos. This is the only project that I've actually finished that isn't a music video. It has officially been posted on YouTube, so now, anyone can see it.

You can find it here.

Ciao!

There Was a Shooting in Anchorage Today

I don't know all the details, but I do know that just outside the Mountain View Boys & Girls Club four or five shots were fired and one person was non-critically injured.

The reason I'm reporting this incident specifically here is that I was volunteering for a Vacation Bible School run by my church, and that VBS was taking place at the Boys & Girls Club.

No one was hurt. I thank God for that. There were about twenty-odd kids outside, myself and my sister included, and we were fifty to a hundred yards from where it happened. But no one was hurt. Thanks to the adults who were with us, everyone got into the Club building, we went into lockdown, and everyone was safe. Everyone was scared, granted. I was scared out of my mind. But we were okay. I'm okay, and even more thankfully, my sister is okay. And my younger brother's seemingly-selfish decision not to attend VBS is a decision I've never been more thankful for.

Thank you, God, for protecting us.

Anchorage Daily News article.

KTUU video and article.

A Layover-PSA-Update Type of Thing. [Or: Fireheart is really starting to annoy me.]

Alright, well, I finished re-reading Forest of Secrets (book 3 in the original Warriors series). And it was pretty good. Not my favorite, but it was pretty good. Did I mention that I like the OS because of its simplicity and tendency not to overexplain? The later Warriors books were good, don't get me wrong, but they explained way, way too much about StarClan. (And the Dark Forest, and the medicine cats...) Blah.

Okay, mini-rant over. Now that that's out of the way...

I've finished Forest of Secrets (and posted the first in a review series for Warriors); I think I already said that. I'd like to do the next part of that review series, focusing on The New Prophecy arc, but I think I should reread a couple books from that arc before I do. So that review probably won't be out until, say, next week. Maybe a little later. There'll probably be post between this one and the next Warriors one; they'll just be about different things.

Not that anyone will mind, I think.

Anyway. Yeah. That's what I wanted to say.

Also, Fireheart is getting kinda annoying, because all he can think about is Tigerclaw being EVIL, but nobody else knows, and I really want more ambiguity with Tigerclaw, and Fireheart, I wanna! And the other book I'm reading right now isn't helping!

Okay, now I'm done.