A Delightful Disney Afternoon: Snow White

  One of my friends posted this really cool Snow White Remix video last night, which made me want to watch Snow White, so I got a bunch of Disney movies, including: Snow White, Dumbo, Pinocchio, and Peter Pan. It's been about 10 years since I watched any of those, so I thought it was definitely time to watch them again. That being said, I've become quite skeptical of these princess situations, so I thought I would blog about some of the things I find questionable or just odd.

Warning: Childhood may be ruined.

In the very beginning, the second scene opens with Snow White cleaning the steps and dressed in rags. I know the story and understand the point, but one must realize that the kingdom Snow White lives in must be pretty shitty if the queen forces her daughter to clean the castle, rather than being able to afford hired help. Even if she hated Snow White as much as she did, the servants would still feel bad for the princess and help her out a bit. There is no way that the queen has nothing better to do than watch Snow White wash floors and windows all day. Even in Cinderella, where they were just nobles, the step-mother went off and did step-mother things.

Like perfecting weird hairdos and being old.

 Wouldn't the servants keep Snow White hidden away in the kitchen or something where she could just snack and hang out? I can't imagine that the queen herself is in charge of the cleaning duties. I don't know much about castle hierarchy, but I'm pretty sure that the queen didn't walk about the castle making a concise list of all the chores that needed to be done.

But you can't stop me now, I'm having such a good time!

I suppose if the queen got some free time she might be like, "Oh hey mirror, what's Snow White up to? She's not singing with that Prince from one castle over is she?"

"This is what it sounds like when doves cry!"

 Even so, she would just see her in the kitchen eating on her lunch break. She can't be completely heartless because, whatever, Snow White is still in rags and eating in the damn kitchen.

Oh. Right.

Of course, I'm not even going to get into the fact that the queen should just be able to use her magic to change the entire goddamn world. This whole movie could have been a whole lot shorter if the queen had just Magic Missile'd Snow White at the beginning. This would make up for the fact that I'm not even 6 minutes into the movie.

Following this wonderful duet (not sarcasm, I love Disney music), the queen tells her huntsman to take Snow White out to the woods and kill her.

Killing bitches? Ain't no thang.

  Given the previous situation of there being no servants, can't the queen just kill Snow White herself? Even if there are people in the castle, I'm sure there's a spell to make people fall down stairs. She even tells the huntsman, "You know what happens if you fail", so obviously being cruel is not news to the help. "Did you hear? The queen exploded Snow White this morning." "Eugh. Get the intern to clean it up."

But I need something to put in this box! It was on sale!  
And I can't return it.

But again, this movie would be a bajillion times shorter, and I wouldn't be writing this! So, the huntsman takes her into the woods, tells her to run, yada yada yada, and Snow White runs off fearing everything she sees because it looks like it might kill her. Like minecraft.

OhGodsthosearen'tacacti!

Following this, she collapses in a secluded spot and decides to cry. Now, I know that it's got to be pretty traumatic to be told that the queen wants her dead, but is it really a surprise?

Why oh why didn't I recognize the signs of abuse? She told me rags were the new black!

After this, all the animals come out to sing, and they are all happy, and everything goes swell. But this scene really makes it seems like Snow White knows more than her character should know. She keeps leading the animals on, about how she can't fit in the ground (well she could, but the huntsman chickened out), and she couldn't fit in a tree or nest, but surely there must be somewhere in the woods she could stay! Wait, there is?! How wonderfully convenient to my dilemma! Though I suppose Hansel and Gretel were just as successful in their endeavors.

She seems rather jovial for someone being led off to feed the bear. I don't think she can understand us.

Feeding You in 140 Characters or Less

  In my last post I explained why using the interwebs for it's intended purpose is not so bad. I also argued that Twitter isn't the worst place in the world. Now I'm going to put my money where my mouth is. On my face.

Get some.

 The following (Oh gosh. Pun not intended.) people are in no particular order, it's just how they are listed in my profile. For those of you who don't use Twitter, 140 characters is the maximum length a tweet can be, and to make sure these descriptions are the right length, I've typed them out in Twitter and copy and pasted them here. So ha! Anyone with a * next to their name has a comic that can be found at Comics Galore.


@MikeandTomEatSnacks: Michael Ian Black and Tom Cavanagh eat snacks and rate them. This is great for finding out about each new podcast!


@birdlord: Emily Horne of A Softer World gives you the latest update on the comic, as well as interviews, podcasts, links and amusing thoughts. *


@michaelianblack: Michael Ian Black (you must know who he is...) updates with news, his usual brand of humor, and info about any shows he's doing.

@AndyMarsolais: Hilariously inappropriate or just hilarious blurbs about everything. Incredibly quote-worthy. Or "retweeting" as folks call it.

@funnyordie: Yes, that Funny Or Die. This way I get the latest videos and pages when they go up. It's a lot like following Cracked.

@cracked: I link to them all the time. Great for the newest articles, as well as their Late Night Classics. It's a lot like following Funny or Die.

@HowardStern: The King of all media, he over-tweets sometimes, but he did this awesome thing by posting director's commentary for Private Parts.

@thecheckoutgirl: She's an awesome comedian with a dirty sense of humor. I don't know who she is otherwise, but she's done some stand up on the east coast.

@birbigs: Mike Birbiglia is a wonderful comedian. He clogs up the feed a bit with plugs for his shows, but when he tweets otherwise, it's worth it.

@realtalkcat: Someone tweeting from the perspective of a cat. It's extremely humorous, especially if you've ever had a cat.

@simonpegg: He also tends to clog up twitter with stuff about his new movie, Paul, but I love his daily, Brian's Shirt of the Day photos, and he's funny

@Soren_Ltd: Soren's a writer for Cracked, and he's absolutely hilarious, especially since he usually just tweets to be funny, not for Cracked plugs.

@BobWeide: He's a director and comedy writer. He tweets humor, and only tweets every couple of days, so he's not all over the place.

@Humblebrag: Humblebrag is awesome because he/she retweets famous people's tweets who are so nonchalant about their famous day-to-day lives.

@lartist: Artist for LICD and LFG, he posts sketches and amazing pieces of art here, as well as letting you know about his friday Ustreams. *

@drmistercody: Another writer of Cracked, he tweets silly comments and links, and mentions articles and videos he does.

@moby_dickhead: Adam Ellis, author/artist for Book of Adam, this is the best way to get updates about his work, and he's entertaining. *

@TimCAD: Tim Buckley, author/artist for Ctrl-Alt-Del, puts up sketches of his comics before they're done, and he's a great source for gaming links.

@d20monkey: Brian Patterson, author/artist of D20 Monkey, posts a few comic links, funny comments, comic updates, and some of the D&D maps he makes. *

@feliciaday: She posts updates for games and her internet show, The Guild, and general gamer information.

@buttersafe: A mix of Alex and Ray, they tweet funny stuff sometimes and they let you know when they're next comic is up. *

@MsShuffleupagus: She's a lot like The Check Out Girl. The people who are similar have been recommended by ProSexTips or Schindizzle.

@KarlKerschl: He's done a lot of Superman work and now does Abominable Charles Christopher. He's a great artist and posts little extra pieces and articles *

@OurValuedComics: He's posted a few articles here and there, but for the most part he tweets whenever he updates, which is useful if you check too early.  *


@bugcomic: He also posts when he updates so that's good for the same reason as Mr Tim, but he also tweets similar to the stuff I do. Less videos though  *


@JIDoubleMYPopGo: Lead singer of The Bloodhound Gang, he tweets inappropriate statements & sometimes interesting pictures/links. Not constantly, which is nice


@sohmer: Writer for 3 of my favorite comics, he posts really interesting articles about the comic world, as well as updates for The Gutters.  *


@MrDonaldGlover: Community star, Childish Gambino, and stand up comedian; he's a great guy and is really funny (obviously). Look for his #cangetit trends.


@Schindizzle: He works for Funny Or Die and is a lot like ProSexTips, so you know he's awesome.

@smbctheater: The Monday video troupe, they let you know about contests and new videos.

@SWAIM_CORP: One of the best authors of Cracked, he updates with new videos and articles as well as really funny idea every so often.


@amazingsoup: They tweet their comic updates, but they also tweet photos and great jokes. It's not often, but it's awesome when they do.  *


@tinyghosts_boo: Like Mr. Tim, he only tweets his comic updates on mondays, so not very exciting, but if you don't like comic folders, this is good for you. *


@joeycomeau: The writer of A Softer World, he posts comic updates and really interesting blogs that are always worth checking out. *

@notch: Creator of Minecraft, he tweets about updates, cool games and videos, as well as articles from PC Gamer and other reviewers. 


@AllieBrosh: Author of Hyperbole and A Half, she doesn't tweet often, except for the time she got stuck in the airport, and when she can't sleep. *


@RyanMakesComics: Cartoonist for Accursed Dragon, he tweets his other comic I don't read and updates for AD. He occasionally links videos and whatnot. *


@beatonna: Because her updates are sporadic, she posts them here. She also posts comics, sketches, photos, and links that you don't get from her site. *


@ZachWeiner: He posts some of the coolest links, from games to science to his blog about everything. He also links his comic updates the night before. *


@danteshepherd: Dante posts cool science articles and lets you know when he's doing Ustream for his comic, and like SMBC, updates the night before. *


@skidmorebluffs: He only updates about his comic, which is infrequent, so it's convenient, but otherwise he mostly chats with Dante, but that doesn't show up *


@ProSexTips: The best I can say is that he's a terrible person and I love it. He's worse than Schindizzle and his tagline says it all.


@DOB_INC: One of the head writers at Cracked, he updates with his articles stuff from his Tumblr. Sometimes he tweets outside tidbits though.


@Thunt_Goblins: Thunt tweets silly stuff, and updates for the comic, as well as when he's on Ustream. He's one of the more interesting people to follow. *


So that's my follow list! Whether I've bored you or gotten you on twitter, these are the people I follow. I know for a fact I didn't do these guys (and girls!) justice, but check them out yourself and see what I missed!
Amusingly enough, through this writeup, I got rid of three people, so even if no one reads this, at least it was good for me!

Reiteration

So, I know I've said this before, but here are the newest, and probably best, examples of the common era. All of these are copy and pasted as I got them.

How to ask for help over email:

1. Hello everyone,
 All week i have been sick and was not able to attend and get the end of ch. 7 and the beginning of ch. 8. Please if anyone can send the notes i will really appreciate it. And will return the favor at any time. Thank You

2. Hey guys, I was unable to make it to class yesterday due to the flu, could any one be so kind and send me the chapter 8 powerpoint. it would be so nice of you. thank you.

How not to ask for help over email:

COULD NEONE SEND ME CH 8 NOTES?
  THX U :3

Every time I reread that one, I actually laugh out loud, because it's just so hilariously shitty.

Sharing is Caring

  Facebook and Twitter are the best know social networking sites out there, not counting Myspace. But what is their function? Facebook boasts that they help people get back together after years of disconnection, whether it be by joining the military, going off to college, or that time you shot their brother and then used the body as a puppet so that no one would know the difference.

You can barely even see the wires on that beardy guy in the middle.

  Twitter is... What the hell is Twitter for? Before I started using it, I always said that it was for people who wanted have a Facebook where all you could do is update your status every 5 minutes. Yes, there are some people who use it for that, but I got an account a while back because of a follower contest for Goblins. Since then, I've realized a thing or two about these social networking websites.

  Some of my friends make fun of me because I'm always posting links to videos and Cracked articles on Facebook, specifically to my girlfriend's wall for the most part. But the thing is, it all shows up to mini-feed. If you like that sort of thing, that's awesome, because that means you're getting all types of cool articles and information. From there, maybe you send the link along yourself, or maybe it gets you into a new website you've never heard of before. If you don't like it, hide me, whatever. There is so much information and knowledge out that there you may never see, and I like to think I'm helping you experience at least some of it.

  Twitter on the other hand, really is Facebook without all the bells and whistles. And you know what? I love it. I have found so many new webcomics, music, videos, games, awesome tee shirt sites, and articles, from science to deaths in the comic industry. Now, you do get a ton of people who are like, "LOL ate a sandwich", and "Just saw Justin Beiber live, why don't I have any friends?" but I don't follow those people. In my next post, titled Feeding You in 140 Characters or Less (link coming in about an hour), I will explain who these fabulous non-annoying people are.
 
  Between these two websites you have to realize something, iff'n you like, and that is these aren't just for catching up with that buddy you haven't seen in three years. They're for networking. Creating networks of information that are sent all over the world in barely a second. I'm sharing knowledge with you, whether it's a baby monkey on the back of a pig or the history of Pixar by movie.

Holy cow, isn't that what the internet was made for?!

Facebook Official

  You probably have a facebook since at this point almost everyone has a facebook, and if they don't, there's a "Like" page about them. What ever happened to groups? Ah, those were the days.

Aaah! You know I use facebook!

  Anyway, I was thinking about the "relationship" status thing on facebook, since I just had my one year anniversary and I remember taking a nap out of sickness  last year and waking up to a thousand notifications for every "Like" and comment about the new relationship.

  The trouble with it is the breakup. Now to all of you who know me, no, I'm not plotting anything, I just got to thinking about the awkwardness. Normally (see: pre-facebook) when you break up or get dumped, you call all your close friends, and you either get plastered, pity fucked, ice cream filled, hella sad, or all however many I listed. Nowadays if you get dumped, the other person changes his or her relationship status to single, and you're left with it awkwardly saying that you're "in a relationship" in grey, like it was your birthday (there's some sort of reference here, but I don't know what. In any case, it's a technical pun). And that's fucking sad. Not only is it sad, it's like when you're an adult and they've moved out and you still have a cardboard box with that hardhat they gave you that time you had sex at the abandoned factory and got tetanus.

if that doesn't scream "fuck me" then it explains Valentine's Day a lot.

  It's the last remaining thread of the relationship. You can't leave it there, because then it seems like you're desperate or have false hopes about getting back together. And even if you get rid of it right away, it still brings all of the "pity comments" to both parties. All those friends you share will want to know what happened on both walls and all of that will show up in your feed. You don't even get 100% "sorrys" or "what happened?"'s. You get a bunch of awkward immature people who think that you'll know they care if they post a frowny face.

I know you're experiencing an emotional loss, but I thought a colon, dash, and open parenthesis would fill that void in your chest.

  If you're reeeally lucky, they might just throw in an apostrophe for your troubles.

For the person who feels like they have nothing right now, I summarized "I Will Fight No More Forever" with symbols for you. Cheer the goddamn fuck up.

Gylfaginning Pt. I

  Get your giggles out now please. Yes, that is pronounced gil-fag-inn-ing.
I'm not quite sure what the ing is, since Norse doesn't use the "ing" for verbs, but it breaks down into "The Beguiling of Gylfi", Gil from Gylfi, fag (and possibling ing, faging mea- I'm not going to officially say "faging" means to beguile. Even if it's not english, I feel dirty just thinking that) being part of beguiling, and inn being an article for "the". There you go. Now you know some Norse. In case you're wondering why I'm doing this, check it out here, here, or here.

  So the story starts out when a beggar lady shows up to King Gylfi of Sweden and is all like,
Yo, ho, dosey do, yo ho dolity doh!
 So King Gylfi is all like, "You're pretty amusing, have some land!" So he gives her "as much as four oxen might turn up in a day and a night." I have no idea how much that is, but if he's a king, it's probably a lot.

  Well it turns out, surprise surprise, that the beggar chick was one of the Æsir(1) . Her name was Gefjun(2), which is cool I guess. So she goes home, and travels to goddamn Jötunheimr(3) to get four Jötunn(4) oxen. Well, Jötunn oxen are fucking huge, so of course they come tramping in like they own the place, and tear the land a new asshole.

Probably for the best.

  The area that the oxen plowed is now called Lake Mälaren, which is a lake in Sweden (even ancient Norse mythology has a "humble beginning" story).

  Well Gylfi gets all bent out of shape, because honestly, would you want a goddess living on your land? She's the goddess associated with virginity, so it's not even like she's your hot neighbor or anything cool like that. Gylfi, in his anger, disguises himself and decides he's going to go to Ásgard(5). Gylfi is arbitrarily a wise man and knew magic(6), so he disguises himself as an old man, because the Norse pantheon is totally weak to two things, kryptonite and young men in an old-men cloaks. Just kidding, Odin can see the future from his throne in Ásgard's citadel, so he was able to see Gylfi coming before he even left his house, so Odin & Co. set up a fake hall (hut, tavern...thing. Just google meadhall), which seems rather immature, fighting fire with fire.

  For no reason other than plot device as only the Norse can do, Gylfi, in all of his wisdom and knowledge, goes "into the town", which is the most generic, "let's get this shit going already" transition. So to get shit going already, Gylfi walks into this hall, which was described as "a hall so high that he could not easily make out the top of it: its thatching was laid with golden shields after the fashion of a shingled roof." I suppose if I saw that I'd think more of it than just a regular hall, but it seems odd that if he's looking for gods the first place he would go would be town but whatever!!!

GET ON WITH IT!

Right, so Gylfi walks in and sees this guy juggling anlaces, "having seven in the air at one time". Don't bother google imaging anlaces, the world doesn't seem to think they exist. Dictionary.com defines them as "a medieval short dagger with a broad tapering blade". That just seems dangerous. The guy, I assume without stopping, is like, "Hey there 'old man', who are you to come into this hall?"

See? I can talk fancy too.

Well you don't give your real name to the first guy who asks when you're a secret agent in a magic hall of the gods, so he tells him that his name is Gangleri (Technically, Ek heiti Gangleri. Bam), and asks if he could he stay at this sweet-ass hall for the night. Then he asks who owns the hall, to which the guy with the daggers replies that their king owns it. I assume at this point Gangleri has to stop himself from saying, "Aw snap, I'm a king too! Best friends forever!" The ladies love me for my Paintbrush skills.

  Then the juggler tells Gangleri that he would go talk to the king and that he should come with to talk on his own behalf and they would see what was what. The two of them leave the room and as soon as they're in the next room, "straightway the door closed itself on his heels."

And with that we're going to end this blog, because it's getting really long and I'd rather not have a super-duper long post. Also, I like parts. Whiiich sounds a lot more serial killer-esque than I'd like.

-Skald out!

p.s.
I promise that this gets a lot more interesting. This is just the set up for a bunch of stories told in response to a series of challenges to the new king's wisdom.

1. The main pantheon of gods. The other one is the Vanir, which will come later.

2. Gef-yuhn
3. Literally "home of the giants".  I'm hoping to get somewhere in New York renamed. Pronounced Yo-ton-heimr, but in english the "r" wouldn't be there. We speak goddamn Norse here.
4. Also means Frost Giants in the right context.
5. As-guard, but if you want to sound like a gigantic cock, technically pronounced Ahz-guard.
6. You will see a lot of this throughout the mythology. Just wait til I get to Sigurd/Sigmund...

Oh What A World!

  Every couple of weeks I return to Kongregate, which is a mass conglomeration of just about every browser game out there. Developers from Crazy Monkey Games, New Grounds, Armor Games, and countless independents (individual people as well as growing businesses) upload their games to Kongregate, thus the name. Recently I've been seeing a few games uploaded that require Unity. Unity, from what I can tell, is the new java/flash, at least when it comes to browser games. Generally the term is "flash game", but with this new program, it looks like we're about to see a whole new wave of browser games, and let me tell you, it's a development I can get behind. These new games aren't the most intense, but the potential is definitely there. But enough introductions, let me show you what "there" really means.

Important Note: These games require Unity, but you should be giving a link to download it. Don't worry, as far as I know, it's not anything scary. It's like a java update.

Drillboid

  What the hell is a "Drillboid"? This is a Drillboid. The game puts you in the body of a rolly-polly robot, adorable, who has a drill on one hand, and a phaser on the other. On top of that, you can turn into a ball, though I don't really use it that often. You can hop, jump, and even fly a bit. What's cool is that it's not a hot jolting mess, you can pretty much control all of that while doing all the other things. A lot of games of this style usually only let you do one of these things, or if you can do more than one, it's limited to flying and an arm function. Not this game! If you want to fly, drill, and have a phaser ball going all at the same time, who is this game to stop you? 

Who's my deadly multitasking robot? It's you! Yes it is! Yes it is!

But seriously, look at that shit. Is that not awesome looking, if only in a single picture? 

The plot is a bit iffy, if only because I didn't really pay attention. From what I gathered, you're a mining robot who has to retrieve a power core from a station in a cave, collecting gems along the way. Honestly, it's like they took Minecraft, Pacman (I...don't really have a link for that. Get it yourself), and Megaman and shoved it into one very circular tin can. Between the graphics, the simple yet slightly difficult game play, and a third thing, it's a wonderful little game. 

Arbitrary Star Rating: * * * * * * * * * (9/?)

Best feature: You are obviously stealing this power core, yet you go clank clank clank as you run around on the metal floors. "Guuuuys, I think someone's here... Guuuuys?"

Bullseye

  I would say that this is the next wave of games, and that's not just because I lost my mind and shot all of the hostages. Bullseye is a piece of a large game called Interstellar Marines. IM is an upcoming game that, to me, is trying a bit too hard to jump on the next big thing, but I'm behind them almost every step of the way. It must be a Netherlands thing, because this independent company, AAA Indie, hails from Denmark, much like Sweden's Mojang (see: Minecraft). I'm sure all of you hardcore gamers are shouting about that other tiny company no one has heard of, but please be quiet because your parents are trying to sleep, and I can't hear you. I'm beginning to wonder if independent games will start the next hipster fad. "I totally played that game before it was even released as a full game." 

  Anyway, when I said almost every step of the way, it's because the game costs 25 dollars and I don't think I want to shell that out for a game that's not released yet. It has a ton of potential, and not to put Minecraft on a pedestal, but Minecraft won't cost 30 dollars until it's finished and released in full, while IM is asking for 25 dollars upfront. They are boasting a nice solid team of eight, so I understand their financial needs, but come on. You're running an independent business for gods sakes.

That's not to discourage you from buying it, I just don't think I want to get into it. I'm doing my part by telling you readers about it. The other issue I have with it is that I finished Bullseye on Kongregate and am now trying out Running Man, another piece of their free test run. Why is that bad? I'm almost done with this portion of the blog and it's still loading. It could be my internet, as I'm on the school's server, or the game is just huge, in which case their new wave isn't so much a rip tide as a strong ripple.

  The game itself is a first person shooter, and like I said, has a shit ton (metric for being in Europe. I think.) of potential. It puts you in space, obviously, and I suppose it's a bit cliche, I can't tell, but I think you're trying to stop genetic experimentation. The reason I don't know is because it's mostly been training, and no plot exploration, except for what you can see in the video linked below. Overall I'd say it's a wonderful game. The weapons and unlockables look pretty neat, and I'm mostly interested to see how well it does out in the real world. It's definitely getting a lot of traffic through Kongregate, so it's using word-of-mouth (all of my projects failed because I tried implementing word-of-foot) nicely. 

Arbitrary Star Rating * * * * * * * § (7/? and whatever that thing is)

Best Feature: In the video promo, during the push for how independent they are, the incredibly unsubtle Minecraft icon. 

  Much like Comics Galore, this list will be ongoing, because I'm sure we're going to see more of these. Don't get discouraged just because there are only two games here. I jumped into writing this so I haven't tried past the first couple of levels on Drillboid, so I can promise at least 5 minutes of gameplay.

Decisions Bobicians Foficians

  More like fauxcisons, amiright?
Poor puns aside, at noon I started the coin flipping. I would have started this morning, but I was so damn tired I couldn't even bring myself to give up deciding things. Lazily going along with habits (or going along with the destiny, hmmmmm?!) is so much easier than trying to remember what you decided Heads meant.

2/14/11
12:00=> Heads eat, tails work => Heads => Heads pizza, tails pasta => Heads
Only problem with this is that is there are only two slices of pizza left, so inevitably I'll be eating the pasta, so I suppose all I've done is delay things a bit.

12:05 => Heads movie, tails surf web => caught coin, flipped it onto hand, fell off onto bed, tails (curses.)

12:57 => heads research, tails eat more => completely missed catching the coin, fell on bed, tails.

1:22 => heads movie, tails keep surfing => caught the coin, flipped it on my hand, heads. Huzzah!
So day one is pretty much done. It stops after 1:22 because I watched a 2 hour movie, surfed the web for an hour, and then fell asleep. Now I've eaten and have to get on to homework, which all must be done, free will to fight it or not.

2/15/11
My life is reeeeally dull.
1:15 => heads chicken sandwich, tails cheese sandwich => tails.
So then I got downstairs and they were serving regular chicken, so I was like, aaaw snap, I will be eating chicken anyway! But then it was jerked chicken, which is really spicy so I avoided it like tonight's homework.
I don't think I've made any other flips today because I've just been in my room for most of the afternoon.

2/16/11
  So I got into an interesting discussion after class with my philosophy teacher. I brought up the whole "predetermined" idea behind a coin flip. I asked her why there isn't a whole group of determinists out there who live by the flip of a coin or the roll of a die. Her answer was basically that it was already predetermined that I would flip the coin in the first place. If I was going to leave a coin flip to fate, I should technically flip a coin to see if fate thought I should flip the next coin and so on and so on until my brain shorts out. It lasted two days, and was actually kind of tedious. It was a bit fun to see my decisions made for me, but at times it was annoying because I had to surf the web for an hour before I could watch my movie, which while it doesn't sound terrible, it was just a bit boring.

Live by the Coin, Die by the Coin

  Because of my post about free will, I will be living this week by the toss of a coin. Obviously I'm not going to be stupid. "Sir, do you think you need an ambulance? You might have brain trauma!" *Pliiing* "Naw. Heads I don't need one."

NOOOOOOO!

 What I wear, eat, where I go after events, stuff like that, will be decided by a coin. Let's say I want to read a book but the coin says no, I have to wait half an hour until I can try again, and I can't try for the same event more than 3 times in one day. So every half hour I try to read this book and three times I get the wrong result, I can't read that book for the day. I'll be using a quarter in case anyone really cares. This probably won't effect much, but for the most part it will decide things like playing minecraft versus another game or because I have a paper, how long I can put it off for. I'll be keeping a record of the events on the blog, so if you're interested, check back every couple of hours. Anyway, it's 3 am and I have a class at 9. Nathan out!
Edit: The best way to put this would be that I'll be flipping a coin for wants and/or choices.

Free Will, Funny Hats

  Some of you may have read my story about disproving free will the other night. Some of you might have been disappointed by the ending, some of you may have not been. Unfortunately the survey size is under 100 so none of your opinions matter (that's Stats 101). Now, interestingly enough, we've moved into Free Will and Determinism in my philosophy class. I thought I might expand on my view on free will so that it doesn't seem like I just don't believe in free will.

  Imagine we have free will. Easy, right? You made the conscious decision to waste your time reading this blog when you have plenty of more interesting things to do with all that will.

Watch porn in a suit, for instance. Like the rest of us.

 Now imagine that you don't have free will. Easy too, right? All of a sudden you realize that there's a higher power out there pushing the incentive into your mind to read this blog. That doesn't really have any consequences except for missing out on all that sweet partying going on right now at 12:45 am on a Sunday.

 Where it starts to get a bit more confusing, though less important, is the ability to fight destiny, or against controlled will, what have you. I consider the two the same, will and fate. Let's say you're about to kill someone. If you know it's your destiny, but you cast the gun aside, you fought it. Well the way I see it is, what if that is your destiny? It's not that you fought your destiny, but your destiny was to challenge your belief in fate and so you didn't shoot the person. So you say to yourself, "Fine, I will fight my destiny by thinking about it and then shoot the guy! Ah ha!" But then again, what if that is your destiny? What if the whole thing is a back and forth of, "I know you know I know that you know that I know" over and over again until your brain explodes out desire for you to shut the fuck up?

What if your brain were made by ACME?

Of course then that would be your destiny too.

  As I tried to get across in the short story, even if we prove that no one has free will, it would just mean that all the bad choices in the past were meant to happen, whether to teach us a lesson, or get us to the point we're at today. It would also mean all of the "just" decisions were supposd to happen as well. If people had a problem with the death penalty, we could just prove that whoever is in control wanted them dead. There are some theories out there that say a higher up made the world and sat back, which if I'm not mistaken is Intelligent Design.

Does that look like someone who is ever wrong?

  That's not necessarily what I'm considering, but I thought it was important to cover a few of the major ideas. I feel that history would be a lot different if we didn't have free will. If things were supposed to get done, they would have gotten done. Things that didn't, weren't supposed to. I had a choice of two photos for that last one. I went back and forth thinking about which I liked better, but did I have a choice? For all any of you know, I changed the picture already and you never saw the first one. In fact, I did. Was that fate? Maybe. Maybe I was supposed to go with the first and then fought off my destiny by choosing this one. If it wasn't fate, then maybe I just liked this picture better. The point is, no one knows, and does it matter? Even I don't have the free will to choose what picture I wanted, I can't change it, so why should I worry about it? I'm going to go on doing what I do, either because it's my fate, or because that's what I want to do. Is there really any difference? If I throw a plate at the wall to prove I can, great. Now I have one less plate (existential discussion about if I really lost that plate, or now just have pieces of a plate aside please...). What does that get me? A mess to clean up, and someone probably mad at me for a broken plate. And I suppose that it does get into the blame issue, as to who do we blame for breaking the plate? Would it really matter? Do you really thing that who ever decides what you do is going to replace your plate? It might, in some strange way like a present, but if you did it of your own volition, you'd be getting that new plate anyway. I guess it gets more complicated with the death penalty and stuff like that, but shouldn't you then just leave it up to your decision maker up there and say that whatever you decide is what it wants, and that's good enough for the rest of us? If we disprove free will, that technically would a perfectly just way to deal with issues.

Yes, I am advocating this as the judge, jury, but not really the executioner. Unless you swallow it. In which case you kinda deserve it. No, I won't get into the discussion of children and free will. Don't swallow stupid things. And watch your damn kid.

   I think that just about covers it. Feel free to comment, I always feel like I'm on a soapbox when people don't respond.
Also, have a comic, totally Safe for Work.

Prose Edda: Introductions

  Hello there! Yes, you, sitting in front of your computer reading this! Do you know anything about Thor? Forget about what you know about the comic book character, because the Thor that Thor is based on is even cooler. It's like... Well it's like a movie being based on a book. Obviously the original Thor and the comic book Thor are technically both "book" Thors, but I'm talking about an older book. It's called the Prose Edda, which is a manuscript written by one Snorri Sturlson, who also happens to the be author of the Poetic Edda (yes, that Poetic Edda, I was excited too!). There's a lot of speculation as to who the hell Snorri was (can I call him Snorri? It's a bit informal, but do I really have to call someone 800 years dead "sir"?). Some say that he was an adventuring priest who got shit done. The other version is that he was a priest, but also the son of a politician. It's also been speculated that through some shady dealings, Snorri's father was assassinated, and Snorri was behind it. Now, personally, I can't condemn a man named Snorri, which is probably why they don't ask me back for jury duty. I like to go with the badass priest story. I'm sure he was a politician (well Wikipedia says it at least, and that's a reliable source), but I'm hoping he was one of those cool guys who decided to travel around because he was the son of a very powerful man and could do that sort of thing over spring break while everyone else is in Florida.

  Snorri was alive during the Christianization of Iceland and the other Scandinavian countries, which sucks, but what can you do about it? I guess at some point he decided that he wanted the dying mythology to be recorded, and because of that, I present to you, The Prose Edda; Interpreted by Me. Man, that really needs a picture drawn in crayon...

Not crayon, but aaaaw yeeeeaaah.

  Anyway, like everything else I do, I don't have much of a "true" background, meaning a degree or formal study, but for about a year I studied the Norse language and spent half a year reading the entire Prose Edda and about 75% of the Poetic Edda. At the beginning of this school year, I reread most of the Gylfaginning, the first, and best known, part of the Prose. So my senior year of high school I used to regale my friends with tales from the Eddas. But of course I'm not going to be able to memorize Norse poetry, that's ridiculous. Here's a sample from the actual poems:

1. "Sawest thou Sigrlin, | Svafnir's daughter,
The fairest maid | in her home-land found?
Though Hjorvath's wives | by men are held
Goodly to see | in Glasir's wood."


So for their sake and mine, I paraphrased. They seemed to enjoy it, and I think you will too. So without further ado, to you and you and you, The Gylfaginning.

All texts here and following are taken from Sacred Texts and is considered Public Domain. For the Prose to see what the hell I'm talking about, click here. For the crazy/wordy Poetic Edda coming much later, click here!

End of the World as We Know, I Feel Fine

  Maurice sat down at his desk very slowly, knees sore from age, or experience as his wife used to called it. Selecting his favorite fountain pen and a fresh sheet of paper, he began to write. Nothing profound, but he had had a slow day and felt that writing might liven things up. Besides, his grandson, Henry, always enjoyed the stories he sent home with him after an afternoon visit.

Just as he was about to start writing, the doorbell rang.

  “I’ll get it!” Margo, the housekeeper, called. Outside his office, Maurice could hear a frantic discussion and a thlunk as the umbrella stand was knocked over. The guest was obviously in too much of a hurry to see him. But who would be rushing around this time of night? The old house did not see that much excitement except for when Henry was here, and it was far past his bedtime by now.

  “Maurice! Thank God you’re here!” the figure exclaimed, stepping quickly into the room.

“Where else would I be Laurence?” Maurice looked quizzically at his friend of many years.

“Have you not heard the news? It’s on every radio and television station in the world!”
“Oh, no. To be honest, I haven’t tuned in for quite some time now, I don’t enjoy most of the new music, and the oldies are a reminder of days long gone.”
“But-Maurice! They’ve finally disproved free will! The people are rioting! Every storefront downtown has been smashed and looted! I don’t even want to think about what it’s like in the bigger cities!”
“Oh, probably much, much worse.”

“How can you be calm at a moment like this? This is life changing! The very fabric of society has been torn asunder by this announcement! Nothing matters anymore; consequences are meaningless! I could kill you where you sit right now and no court would even think to hold me responsible!”
“Then why haven’t you?” Maurice looked up at Laurence through his thick-framed glasses. He needed new lenses, his eyes had gotten worse in the past year. Maurice hoped that no one was trying to loot the office; he had an appointment on Tuesday.

“I…I don’t know. I suppose I’m not meant to kill you."
"Mm. That is probably true."

"I-buh-uh...What are you doing anyway?"
"Oh, just writing a story for Henry. It's not late enough to go to bed, but not early enough to do much of anything else."
"And you have no desire to go out and do anything you want?"

"Well technically it wouldn't be what I wanted, would it? It would be this manipulating force that they've just discovered. Did they say what it was? Some sort of god or something?"

"Erm... I suppose not. But you feel no push to run out and join the riot or anything like that? And no, I don't recall what they said it was..."
"Well, considering that this 'force' has not pushed me to do anything like that before, even when I was physically capable of doing such things, no. No, Laurence, I think I'm going to sit here and finish my story, get a cup of hot cocoa, start a book, and fall asleep with the light on, like I do almost every night."
"What about all those people running around? Aren't you afraid?"

Maurice looked out the window above his desk. He could see people running around with flashlights and improvised clubs, and even heard the occasional gunshot. He pursed his lips and furrowed his brow, considering the implications of fear.

"Margo just let you in without question?"

"Yes... She knows who I am," Laurence said slowly.

"Irrelevant," Maurice said, waving the idea away with his hand. "And you say you are not here to kill me?"
"Of course not! Are we not friends?"
"Again, irrelevant," Maurice said, standing up. "No, Laurence, I don't think I shall be afraid tonight. If this 'manipulator of fate' wanted me dead, you would have done it long before, and if not then, now, before even alerting me of your presence," Maurice mused, clapping Laurence on the shoulder. "But if you feel afraid, you are perfectly welcome to wait the riots out here, Margo will make up the guest room."
"Um... No, thank you old friend. I suppose I shall be going..." Laurence fixed his coat and hat and turned to leave. Maurice walked Laurence to the door, who glanced around furtively before running to his car. 

"What a dull discovery." Maurice walked back to his office, sat down, and finished his story.

You just keep on trying till you run out of cake

  This post has nothing to do with what you think it does, i guarantee it. A few months ago when I was starting the Comicstory (you can yell at me for my inconsistency later...), I lost everything. Blogspot has this terrible glitch that if you past something and then do control/command Z, the whole page wipes, and you can't get it back. I tried everything, it was all gone. What's amazing is how overlooked this problem is. I googled it, and humorously enough (because blogspot is owned/created by google), there were tons and tons of results. I went to the forums and there are literally pages and pages of people complaining about their lost work. But that's not what this is about; I'm not here to complain about a free service, because as Mint Condition always says, if it's free, don't complain, just deal with it.
  I don't know about how caching works. I know that the computer tracks most of what you do and it sits there as a weird little file that can't be opened except in Text Edit/Notepad and is actually longer than the amount of complaints about blogspot. Again, just pages and pages of code.

What I assume Google does with hatemail to make the place even cooler.

  So in an venture that is only taken by the ill-informed (there was no swamp hag to point me in the right direction unfortunately), I plunged into the files, opening things that looked interesting.

Doesn't she just scream "swamp hag"?

 To explain to those of you who knows how caching works (see, I don't even know how to use those terms or if the computer even does that), I was hoping to find my blogspot entry written out in a file from the interwebs. I know it does this because I found some of the URLs I visited, as well as some of the text from pages of those sites themselves. Well, to no avail, I gave up, but kept looking at the coding because it was really interesting to see. So at one point I'm looking through the folders and there was one that was weirdly named. It was through the Paintbrush program (the ghetto Paint...), but unfortunately I cannot find the folder again to reference. I did, however, copy this because I was so weirded out. Those of you who I was talking to about the misfortune might remember this:

That is unedited except for the obvious fact that it's short.

I did try to transcribe it all for you. Yes, you.

  There's nothing truly profound here, but isn't that weird? Really consider that in all of the pages I could have found and all of the coding, I'd find that one little spec. I even ran a search on the entire file, and it never occurs again. Just one of those things I suppose. Again, nothing profound, but I thought you might be interested in the things I find.

Graph Jokes

  So last night I was up for about 20 hours straight. Around 5:30 am, I decided to make some graphs. They're not very good, but I kinda like them, and I don't have enough shame to not put them up.

Also, check out ilovecharts.tumblr.com, they are most humorous.

Quantum Nathan

  Ignoring my obvious lack of physics education beyond the basics of what "quantum" means, I've started a blog. I'm not going to get into the specifics, I just wrote a whole thing explaining what the goal is. Check it out here! That was more fun that it should have been... Your ol' pal here at Mimir's Well is taking his fountain of knowledge and putting it to good use. I'm here to help by being there for you. I'm in both freaking places at once, and it's awesome. I know that it's over at Tumblr, the anti-Blogspot, but I thought It might be a good idea to spread myself to both because I've had some troubles with Blogspot and I've heard good things about Tumblr. Mimir's Well will stay up and active, because if you read the first post you'll see that it's by email only, so it's not like all of my thoughts will move there. Nathan out!

http://dominic-deegan.com/

Go Ahead and Kill Me, but Don't Hurt the Language

Hi ppl
i missed 2weeks of class and today (tuesday)'s lecturewill neone b willing to share chapter 2 lecture and chapter 5?????ill really appreciate t _T
THX!!!!!

Do you know what that is? I wish I didn't. That was an email from a girl in my psych lecture that was sent out to everyone in my class. This is absolutely embarrassing. I am actually embarrassed to be part of this generation. Now, obviously this isn't a good sample of every single person out there, but I've gotten a few terrible emails in the past few weeks similar to this one. This one definitely tops them all though... This wasn't a very extensive post, but I thought that I should at least share it with you all. Have a comic to lighten things up.

http://fancyadventures.com/