Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Pet Peeves (and what not)

Pretty much what the topic implies today.

First off, we have: People Who Turn At Intersections While Pedestrians Are Still Crossing The Street. I realize that they have to get to wherever they need to go, but I still don't feel comfortable walking across the road and having them be only 3 or 4 feet away from me.

Hand in hand with the first one is: People Who Cross The Street At Red Lights. Come on, people: red lights. RED...LIGHTS. They are not there to look pretty; they are there to make sure that your relatives do not have to pay for funeral costs. You never know, especially in the busier cities, when a car or truck's going to come roaring around the corner straight at you; and who's to say that the person who you think might stop for you might actually be drunk?

Next: Stray Cats. I like cats as much as the next person does, but I'm not a big fan of letting them run loose. That just leads to more cats running around the streets if the critters' kids survive kittenhood (I know of one cat who used to have four kittens, but only one of them was still alive by the time we were able to take them in). Cats may be able to take care of themselves, but unless they are spayed or neutered they'll end up taking care of more than just themselves, if you get my drift. And really, cats belong indoors anyway; feral ones just aren't good stress relievers.

Finally: Cleaning Out The Litter Box. This one's obvious. :)

Monday, May 17, 2010

Figments of an Overactive Imagination #2

Creating my characters and bringing to life my mental (in more ways than one, now that I think about it) creations wasn't all fun and games. For a while, someone I knew from school and I were on bad terms with each other. This person, who I will refer to as "Shan" (no relation to Khan) for the sake of identity protection, started going at it with me during 4th and (especially) 5th grade.

Where I drew talking cats and dogs, he drew dragons, dinosaurs, and large sabre-toothed tiger-like beasts. He would draw them attacking my own creations; unwilling to let that slide, I'd draw them getting either beaten down or tricked by any one of my various characters. Occasionally we'd draw pictures and pass them to each other, only to give them back with sarcastic comments written in any blank space that was left.

I had started to read the different Star Wars Expanded Universe novels that were available, so I embellished these conflicts a little by giving Shan Admiral Daala's Super Star Destroyer (from the novel "Darksaber") and a bunch of the Empire's ships to use against Teasy and the gang. To match, I came up with a starship of my own creation and started using X-wings and the like. Bizarre, twisted, and somehow everyone (both real and imagined) came out alive. Mostly, anyway. At any rate, Shan and I put a stop to these shenanigans in the midst of junior high, and we stopped bothering each other from then on.

Around the time all that was beginning, a new friend of mine in 4th grade liked the idea of having superpowered cats and decided that he wanted to create some of his own; 'course, I didn't do anything to discourage this. Some of them were copies of mine, while others were copies of popular superheroes such as Superman and Batman (minus the angst). A handful of them were original creations (one in particular that comes to mind was named "Cheetah Cat") that broke the laws of physics with their descriptions alone. Recall a few posts ago that some of the characters I created after Teasy were inspired by Sonic the Hedgehog? The total miles-per-hour number was written out with enough zeroes to take up the upper part of the page. The implications were staggering.

Coupled with these developments was the purchase of a Compudyne computer in 1994, loaded with Windows 3.1 (of which I am still convinced should've been the last of Microsoft's operating systems). Solitaire and entertaining screensavers aside, once I was allowed to use the computer more often, my stories started to take an unusual turn. I will go into the wonders of the Compudyne in a future post, so, until then.

Monday, May 10, 2010

The Complainer Is Always Wrong... Or Is He?

Sort of ironic, when you think about it; I'm complaining about stuff that I see in my day-to-day life, and whether I'm wrong or not in your eyes is really a matter of opinion. Oh, well.

Firstly, the ridiculous number of divorces out there. I was reading in one of my college textbooks a few weeks ago (A People And A Nation, if I'm remembering the title correctly) that once upon a time in the United States, divorcing one's wife was frowned upon. Fast forward a few centuries: I'm at the local courthouse, doing some research for an equally local title company, and I see what have to be anywhere from three dozen to a hundred cases "regarding the marriage of so-and-so to so-and-so" (and that's just on the shelves they have in that one room alone). What do you think a large chunk of them are? Yep; divorces.

It's as if marriage was served out on a trial basis, kinda like America Online; if you didn't like it, you deleted it (Homer Simpson: "UNDO! UNDO!"). Here to demonstrate are two of my own characters, Zapana and Eunice. Take a bow, you two. ... ... Thank you. Now, then, suppose that these two had been dating for quite some time (just for the sake of argument).

Zapana: Eunice, I love you and I wish we could get married so that we could always have dinner together.

Eunice: Why not? I love you, too. Will you marry me?

Zapana: Oh, yes; absolutely.

(Fast forward a full year. They've been married for four months by this point.)

Zapana: You snore a lot.

Eunice: Do not.

Zapana: And you leave behind a ton of dishes in the sink, too.

Eunice: All a figment of your imagination.

Zapana: That's it; I hate you! I'm leaving, and I'm taking the television with me! I'll see you in court!

Eunice: No! Not the television! How will I get my basketball fix now?!

Discounting the fact that both Zapana and Eunice are humanoid dogs and that this conversation never really happened, is that basically how some of those cases go? I can understand some of these people believing that "things aren't just working out", but really, how do they really know for sure unless they stick with it for the rest of their lives? If they recited the vows at their marriage ceremony (assuming they had one; quick confirmations are just as common as quick divorces), and then do something to violate those vows, doesn't that just show that they're incapable of keeping promises? And wouldn't that, in turn, lead to the bane of society: paperwork? C'mon, people, we hate paperwork!

Secondly, people who complain about stuff online (again, note the irony here) and then get mad when someone disagrees with them. Talking about stuff you don't like is normal; so is being mildly perturbed when another person posts a contradicting response. However, stuff like the conversation seen below kind of makes me wonder how people manage to live past their teen years. Imagine that Zapana and Eunice are both fans of the Pokémon (which, for the record, is not pronounced with a long 'e' sound in the middle) series of games and anime:

Zapana: I lik Ash and Misty. I think they should start travling together again at som point.

Eunice: Ugh, I don't. The guy wouldn't know what love is even if Foreigner was playing on the radio.

Zapana: Are u kidding me? They clearly belong together look at this! (posts link to video file) She says that he's not her boyfriend when she really means that he is!

Eunice: That by itself proves nothing. If she says that he's not her boyfriend, who am I to argue with that?

Zapana: What?! @%&%$ anti-shipper! ASHxMISTY 4EVR, NOOB!!!!!

Eunice: Two words: English lessons.

Again, is that pretty much how some of those conversations go? I'm relying mostly on second-hand knowledge here, but c'mon; you can't expect everyone to agree with your viewpoint on something. There's always going to be someone with a different perspective and a different way of handling things. If you don't like something, that's fine, but that's no reason to blast someone else over it; that's just a waste of both breath and bytes, and ultimately they (the arguments over fiction) matter zilch in the long run anyway.

Okay, I'm finished complaining and being hypocritical. I'll get back to the good stuff next time, trust me.