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.

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.

High School Incarnate

The following paragraphs are quoted verbatim from an assignment I did for...one of my classes in my senior year in high school (can't remember which one, it's been seven and a half years as of this post). I was asked to write a satire; this is what they got. Sit back and enjoy.

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There aren't many things that strike me as unusual in high school anymore, especially when I'm considering the type of life the neighborhood leads. This type of thing may lead people of other societies to be puzzled, but this behavior doesn't bother me anymore. I understand you may not know what I'm talking about, so I'll elaborate.

The time schedule at my high school is like this: there are six hours, each of them 55 minutes long. There are three lunch periods, each of them 35 minutes long, and a 30-minute break period before that. I have a variety of classes, each with its own group of strange and outlandish individuals.

Let me tell you about how my school life usually goes. During my first-hour class, a number of people who stay out late bring pillows with them so that they can doze an extra 50 minutes. At the end of the week, we usually take some time to carefully construct a dessert or meal. This is rather hard to do when one is asleep, especially if you're assigned to actually cook anything. The reason I say this is because it's difficult to sleep with a pillow in your hand and bake cookies at the same time.

My second hour usually passes by without incident, but my next class was nearly deserted when I first joined. The administration had trouble finding replacements, so they bought a group of monkeys from some nearby zoos, gave them names and a pencil, and drew up a seating arrangement. I don't even see the point in giving them lunch money, since they don't even know what that is; it usually winds up on the floor somewhere. Lastly, since they're unaware that they're constantly being watched, they take whatever chance they get to go bananas about whatever they don't understand.

The break period that takes place before lunch is quite uneventful 3 days out of the week, with the exception of this one annoying chimp that shows up whenever I walk in. I don't even bother to talk to him anymore; he just looks at me as if I'm an idiot and screeches something I can't comprehend.

After lunch is my fifth-hour class. In that class, we do our best to print a bunch of lines and pictures that have some kind of relation to whatever is going on in school. Not much of a downside there, except our spell-checker is broken. This leaves all the corrections that need to be made to Prince Gray M. Mar, the spelling king, and his superior, Lord Angle Lishe.

My sixth and seventh hour classes are my most dangerous ones. There is a sign hanging above the sixth-hour door that says, "Abandon all hope ye who enter here", and the sign that resides over my seventh-hour class reads, "Here be dragons." The comparison between the two classes is quite amazing. For instance, 6th hour has relatives of the 3rd hour monkeys, known as gorillas. They have the ability to comprehend and even mimic human speech, with their favorite word being "moose." On average, they say this about 69 times a day, torturing all those with good hearts. In 7th hour, the head dragon will roar something about politics, provoking a series of smaller roars from all the little dragons in the room. When the tone sounds, I leave, thankful that my hearing aid has been turned off.

Whenever I walk the hallways, there is always a constant commotion and something flying through the air. There were several food trays being kicked around the floor for a while when someone stated: "You are what you eat." I would explain more about my life in school, but I have to go to my next class. I can hear the monkeys calling me.

Overflooding the Stream of Consciousness

The last blog or two at least made sense. But today, I decided to just ramble on and see what happens.

A question is often raised, do clowns juggle? And if they do, where do they sell their act? I am not here to answer those questions. I'm just here to talk. Talk, talk, talk. That's all I want to do right now, and this is the best outlet for me to make it known. Do I look like a circus to you? Well, do I? ...Wait, don't answer that question.

In the past, I didn't make much sense. Now that I'm at least making some money, I'm making plenty of sense. Do cowboys dream of electric sheep, and do computers ponder the meaning of time, life, highlights, and Ranger Rick? Odds are 45 to 1 that I don't care about issues like those, and I would double those odds regarding the talent, or lack thereof, of people who jump off the diving board without a life jacket.

Anytime I listen to the Beach Boys and the Beatles, I think to myself, "how far has music fallen"? To answer that question, let's drive out to a really tall building. From there you can watch people bungee jump, skydive, or smoke cigarettes and wonder why people who have their lives ahead of them are experimenting with various ways to commit suicide. These are the same types of people who, I might point out, are responsible for the shape that the world is in. Rectangular. So rectangular, in fact, that you can fit Jupiter and the Crab Nebula into the same box and still have enough room to spare for a box of doughnuts. The suicide rates are rather high in those areas.

I've been eating those Reese's bars with peanut butter inside, and it's doing wonders for my acne. So wonderful, in fact, that I have to put medication on my face just to break even. Nothing odd about that, except the numbers on all my dice are missing. So, no. I will not drink aspartame, I will not listen to The Police with the volume all the way up, and I will have nothing to do with the little monkeys that are hopping around my brain.

I've been playing video games quite a bit in recent years. No big surprise there, except that the computers have developed a penchant for cheating. When they run out of ink, they simply use a new penchant and use it to rewrite the coding. I've highly suspected Mario to be responsible for this; the little red-uniformed man goes around saying "It's a-me, Mario", jumping around like a loon, and basically keeping an ace of spades inside his hat. I just can't respect people like that. The last time I did, I got flattened by Donkey Kong's go-kart. That really puts a crimp in my day.

And so the stream of consciousness bubbles on like an overly-carbonated soda pop...

Adios, Cartoon Network

No, it's not gone yet. But it will be. Now that the introduction's out of the way, here's the beef I have with them. I'm sure it sounds familiar by now.

If you've paid attention to Cartoon Network's advertising and/or programming, then you've probably already taken note of the "reality" programming it's been airing recently. That by itself is a sign of failure on Cartoon Network's part; they probably think that by airing "reality" programming, they'll draw in cartoon viewers. BAH. Pure and simple. People watch cartoons to ESCAPE from reality. "CN Real"? "More than just cartoons"? The network's doomed. It's really that simple. If I wanted reality, I'd head to McDonalds and read a newspaper (and, judging from what I've heard about the ratings, some of the viewers are of similar thoughts, albeit without the cheeseburgers). I realize that some of the people there are concerned about this, so don't worry; my animosity isn't targeted at them (it's more towards the network in general).

I've been watching Cartoon Network, with the exception of a few periods where we didn't have cable, ever since it was introduced in the early 90s. I've been following it quite closely ever since, and I'm starting to become more and more disappointed. It used to be that I could watch it most of the day (and, if I could get away with it, well into the night) without being disappointed. Those days are long gone. Nowadays, the only programs I watch on it are Pokemon and the occasional episode of Courage the Cowardly Dog (other stuff, like Ben 10 Alien Force, I've gotten tired of; that's more my fault than the network's). The Looney Tunes marathon that they aired back on New Years Day was like a breath of fresh air on a smoggy morning, and needless to say I taped what I could catch. One has to wonder if it isn't their last gasp at glory.

I know I don't understand the decisions being made over there. I can't claim to understand what they were thinking. Maybe the person in charge over there takes delight in feeding off the misery of others ("Hey, let's cancel this program. Right out of the blue." "Dude, wouldn't that get people mad at us?" "That's the idea. I'm evil."). Whatever the explanation is, it's not worthy of us.

Back in the middle part of the decade, I used to watch HiHi Puffy Amiyumi (at first because I liked Grey Delisle's voice acting, and then I got hooked on some of the music as well). During Cartoon Network's 2006 promotional campaign for upcoming summer programming, that was one of the programs slated to have new episodes. There were one, maybe two episodes aired...AND THEN THE SHOW WAS GONE. With at least four or five episodes to go. With no prior explanation (if there was one, I didn't catch it). From what I understand they've done the same thing with One Piece, despite the fact that Funimation (the dubbers that took over where 4Kids left off) had managed to rescue it from the scrap heap.

Now, as you know, they've shunted some programs aside to make way for the live-action stuff, like the aforementioned reality shows and various movies (some of which have nothing to do with animation). I don't know about you, but I don't like having my escape routes blocked off. The time is going to come when there will be a station airing nothing but those programs, targeted primarily at kids 10-15...and they will have the nerve to call themselves "Cartoon Network", if that name change that rumors have mentioned is not accepted. Don't believe me? Just watch. The time will come.

Wish I could think of a suitable epitaph.

By-Products of an Overactive Imagination #1

Turning back the clock until the minute hand breaks lands us in 1990. 1st Grade. I lived in a house with at least three cats, one of whom we called "Daniel Stri-ped Tiger", or just plain Daniel for short. So it makes sense that as part of an in-class assignment, I wrote a little story about a brown-striped tabby kitten named Teasy.

...Actually, this is where it's supposed to quit making sense.

As the months went by I wrote more about him and drew pictures of him, either on paper or on my family's Tandy 1000; I made him capable of talking like a human, giving them two-legged appearances. Over time I expanded on his family, providing the names of his parents (Aby-Dubious and Pumkin, which were the names of the other two cats we had at the time) and siblings, both older and younger. There was Bernard, a motorcycle-loving cat that was later killed by a drunk driver; Alice, an outgoing Siamese; Chico, rarely seen without Teasy; Daniel, the runt of the family; Runner, a color-shifter; and Silky (later Sylvia), a beautiful white Persian.

Around this time, two sources of entertainment started influencing how I wrote about my creations. One was a cartoon called "The Adventures of T-Rex", dealing with a team of vaudeville-performing dinosaurs who could transform into crimefighting superheroes. My childish mind liked the concept, so I turned Teasy, Chico, Daniel, and Runner into a similar team; this was closely followed by a team of villains, as well.

The other source was Sonic the Hedgehog, which one of my brother's friends occasionally left at the house for me to play. I liked the fast-paced flow of the game and the idea of animals running really quick. Put two and two together, people, and I hope you didn't come up with five.

In the meantime I continued coming up with designs for new characters, making up stories about them and giving them weird abilities; one cat carried a scorepad (as opposed to a scorecard) with him that would change what superpower he had depending on the score that was listed. A new world started settling into place without me being aware of it, one where these characters lived their daily lives before spilling onto Earth. It wasn't until much later that I gave the world a name, but at that point the world of Kittenoa was firmly entrenched in my brain.

And to think that it all started with a childish infatuation with cats. Go figure.

In Part #2 of this series, to be posted at an undetermined date, I continue rambling more about the characters' evolutionary processes and talk about how my friends at elementary school contributed to this.

Oh, Give Me A Home...

Up until a few years ago and discounting my first few months of existence, I'd lived in Michigan all my life. I grew up thinking that Dearborn Heights, having roughly 60,000 people or so, was small (especially compared to the nearby city of Detroit, which still has hundreds of thousands of people despite all those who choose crime or auto-making as a career).

Then my dad loses his job, and after 5-6 months of job-seeking, we wind up here in south-central Kansas.

Kansas. The geographic center of the continental United States. Home of wind farms, farmland, tornadoes, Jayhawks, Wildcats, and that lovely smell that cows give off when they're driven through town. The same smell that makes you wonder if Pepe le Pew decided to take an overseas vacation.

It's different here, and I'm not just talking about the weather. There's around 6,500 people here in town at last check, and at times you start to feel like everyone here knows everyone here. You have people waving at you from their cars, greeting you as you walk past them on the sidewalks, inquiring as to how you're doing, and generally being right friendly. Even to complete strangers. If you tried that in the more populated areas of the country, the reaction you're likely to get is: "Um...yeah. Great. Could you leave me alone now?", or worse, you'd get a recommendation to the police department.

I'm of mixed opinions regarding my current home. On the one hand, I was able to get a job here and work on getting rid of the student loans that I've accumulated. I can easily walk to work (and to almost everywhere else I need to go, such as Pizza Hut ^_^ ), and learning how to drive has become much less of a priority. My work doesn't pay much compared to others, but then I'd never know what to do with a $2K paycheck anyway. We don't get much snow here, which means a lot less shoveling (although that ice storm a few years ago was pretty nasty).

On the other hand, I miss everyone I knew back home. Religious associates, friends, former classmates (note that the last two weren't lumped together, for the most part), family (especially my grandma, who is in her late 90s and doesn't get out of the house much nowadays). I miss being able to play Star Wars Miniatures against my older brother (and subsequently losing). And, as those who know me can testify, I'm leery of anything in springtime weather that resembles a funnel (but we won't go into that right now).

But I'm here, for better or for worse, until death do I part, for as long as I live, to honor, cherish, and deeply respect...whoops, wrong terminology. Excuse me a second.

...

...Okay, here I go. I'm here, in Kansas, in a city surrounded by farmland where the buffalo once roamed, and where deer and antelope play, breed, and jump headlong into highway traffic. I may as well make the most of it until I can get my loans paid off and until my obligations to my parents are complete, at the very least.

...So, I guess it's only fair that I play the part of a typical Kansas resident, someone who really knows what they're doing and doesn't mind it at all.

Mooooo.