My Eyelashes are Exceedingly Long
That is all.
What the HELL, Moscow?
Possible (likely) quadruple homicide? That’s…terrifying.
(Yes, I know the actual murders happened like a week ago; things are finally starting to filter through the news enough that I feel like we can trust what’s being said about the situation.)
Creepy stuff. Please stay safe, Moscow friends.
To Bean or Not To Bean (Don’t Bean)
Ugh, Pixar, please don’t do the “bean mouth” thing. Please.
I’m not for hating on the CalArts style because it’s apparently cool to do so. That style works in some cases (see: Steven Universe), even if it is overdone.
But with Pixar’s ridiculous animation quality and realism? To suddenly see a freaking BEAN MOUTH in the middle of it?
It’s distracting. I don’t like it.
End rant.
The Demented Cartoon Movie!
I’m pretty sure I’ve posted about this somewhere way back in the blog archives, but it randomly showed up in my “for you” on YouTube and it brought back SO MANY memories from junior high/high school. I used to watch this all the time and longed to have the skills/patience in Flash to make anything even half as long.
That “hmmmmmmmmmm” sound still goes through my head to this day.
O LAWDY, WE CODIN’
This was one of my favorite topics we covered in that Algorithms class I took in my final semester at U of I:
This is such a great explanation of it too. I love the graph.
Book Review: Emma (Austen)
Have I read this before: Nope.
Review: Matchmaking + jealousy = nothing working out until everything does. I feel like I’d appreciate this story more if I hadn’t been inundated with similar stories on this list. At least Austin’s writing style is tolerable, but man I’m sick of the “I’m English and I want love but I’m also slightly manipulative and good at getting into situations where communication would solve everything but I refuse to communicate.”
Favorite Part: I don’t really know if I have one. Again, it’s probably influenced by what I’ve been reading as of late, but this felt almost…generic.
Rating: 5/10
More Books. MORE!
I’m burning through my “250 Books” list due to bad weather + treadmill, so I need to add some more! Let’s put it at 300 for now, assuming I can find another 50 legit classics. The updated list will be linked in the new “300 Books” button above…at some point.
WOO!
DankPods
I found this guy a while back and he’s great. This is one of his best ones.
Calling the manual “Manuel” and screaming about that giant AirPod speaker were fantastic.
Blah.
Today I was feeling XTREME MELANCHOLY and didn’t know why until I realized the date: November 14.
Leibniz died on November 14.
And because I’m sure I am made of more Leibniz molecules than your average earthling, I’m feeling it today.
Oof.
Antarctica
One of the best presents I received as a kid was National Geographic’s three VHS set of “Antarctica: Life in the Freezer,” narrated by David Attenborough. As you know if you’ve read this blog, I used to be OBSESSED with Antarctica (and still kind of am), so I watched the hell out of those tapes again and again and again.
I have a DVD of it now, but I just stumbled upon a YouTube playlist of a few clips from the show, so here they are for your enjoyment.
Yeah, I have this basically memorized still, haha.
/_\
I’m sorry, I just saw this picture and I can’t stop laughing.
Maybe that’s because it’s like 4:30 AM, but still.
“Brocicle, I’M your family, now!”
[random-ass American Dad quote]
Anyway.
This game must have originated on Newgrounds or something, because I distinctly remember playing it more than a decade ago.
It’s like Sims Lite.
Flight
Y’all, this was one of my favorite movies when I was a kid. It’s kind of got E.T. vibes, but is vastly superior because E.T. was horrifying and terrible. This is engaging and fun.
Anyone else remember this one?
Book Review: A Doll’s House (Ibsen)
Have I read this before: I remember reading this at some point, yes, but I don’t remember when.
Review: I love all the tension in this play. All the secrets, all the sneaking around, all the covert conversations…a lot of plays that I’ve read on this list have some or all of these elements, but I think Ibsen does it best in this one. Completely unrelated, but did you know that Ibsen is the second-most frequently performed dramatist in the world (after Shakespeare)?
Favorite Part: Nora’s choice at the end. It would have been so easy to make her do the opposite of what she did and for there to be a “happy ending” of the traditional sort, but she was written to make, in my opinion, the right choice.
Rating: 5/10
Book review: The Call of the Wild (London)
Have I read this before: I don’t think I’ve ever read this, but I did listen to an audiobook version of it back when I was working at Pima in 2012. I had to tag PDFs for read-aloud accessibility software – super mundane – and I listened to a good number of audiobooks while doing that.
Review: It’s so refreshing to read a book that’s not yet another exploration of class struggles in 18th- or 19th- or 20th-century England. I mean, I guess I just finished Breakfast of Champions, which was a great departure from what has been a typical theme/setting on this book list, but still. This one is from a dog’s perspective. About as different as you can get. And honestly, it was easier to empathize with Buck than it has been for a number of the English characters I’ve read about over the past few years, despite the fact that I am assuredly not a sled dog (at least in this lifetime).
Favorite Part: I like how this book almost reads as a fable. There’s something fantastical and legendary about Buck and his trials and eventual response to the “call of the wild” could easily be argued as teaching a moral lesson.
Rating: 6/10
Book Review: Breakfast of Champions (Vonnegut)
Have I read this before: Nope.
Review: Vonnegut is great, guys. I really like the absurdity of his stories and style because it doesn’t detract from what he’s trying to say (which I think is easy to do with an absurdity angle) but instead heightens it. This is also one of his stories that contains his own illustrations/drawings as well. If you want to be able to say “I read the Vonnegut book where he drew a vagina,” this is your choice. And if you want a very engaging and sometimes humorous examination of mental illness, this is your choice as well.
Favorite Part: Some quotes:
“The words in the book, incidentally, were about life on a dying planet named Lingo-Three, whose inhabitants resembled American automobiles. They had wheels. They were powered by internal combustion engines. They ate fossil fuels. They weren’t manufactured, though. They reproduced. They laid eggs containing baby automobiles, and the babies matured in pools of oil drained from adult crankcases.”
“Zog landed at night in Connecticut. He had no sooner touched down than he saw a house on fire. He rushed into the house, farting and tap dancing, warning the people about the terrible danger they were in. The head of the house brained Zog with a golfclub.”
“I had to think fast about who was on the other end of the telephone. I put the first most decorated veteran in Midland City on the other end. He had a penis eight hundred miles long and two hundred and ten miles in diameter, but practically all of it was in the fourth dimension.”
Rating: 7/10
Golden Books
Did any of you have Little Golden Books when you were a kid?
I had a TON of these at my dad’s condo. Like everything else he ever bought, he liked to collect them.
And I loved to read them.
I remember I used to pick six or seven of them at night, bring them up to my bed (I slept on the top of a bunk bed…not sure why I had a bunk bed because I was an ONLY CHILD but whatevs), and would read them while a Classic Disney CD would play gently over my CD player.
Childhood, yo.
Pro-to-the-Crastinate
I’m in a procrastinatin’ mood, so here are some appropriate questions.
The Procrastination Tool Questions
1. What is your favorite sit-down restaurant?
It’s been SO LONG since I went into a restaurant, oh my god. Freaking COVID, bro. Probably Red Lobster. Like, you can sit in Mongolian BBQ, but takeout is just as easy there. So Red Lobster.
2. What food could you eat for 2 weeks straight and not get sick of it?
Spaghetti, probably.
3. Have you ever had anything removed from your body?
My appendix. Various bits of glass/metal/prickles from my feet. A piece of wicker chair from my eye. My soul.
4. What is the last heavy item you lifted?
Probably groceries.
5. Have you ever been knocked unconscious?
I…don’t think so?
6. If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die?
Absolutely.
7. If you could change your name, what would you change it to?
I’m cool with my name I think. I used to hate it, but I don’t mind it now.
8. What’s your goal for the year?
THE MILES!
9. Last person you hugged?
Husband.
10. First place you went this morning?
The kitchen to put Pepper’s bowls in the sink.
11. Do you always answer your phone?
No. Go away.
12. It’s four in the morning and you get a text message, who is it?
Probably my mom.
13. If you could change your eye color what would it be?
I love blue eyes, but they’d look weird on me. So green.
14. What’s on your wish list for your birthday?
Blugh.
15. Does the future make you more nervous or excited?
Nervous. Climate change is here and we’re screwed.
16. Do you have any saved texts?
I haven’t had to delete any texts on my new phone yet.
17. Ever been in a car wreck?
Just a minor one.
18. Do you have an accent?
Yes, to some.
19. What was the last song to make you cry?
Coldplay’s “Fix You” was playing at Safeway and I started crying in the store, haha.
20. What did you do last night?
Usual nonsense.
21. Have you ever felt like you hit rock bottom?
Bitch, I AM rock bottom.
22. Current hate right now?
Myself.
23. Met someone who changed your life?
Yes.
24. How did you bring in the New Year?
I cried, probably. I’m also not doing this survey at the right time of the year, haha.
Book review: The Adventures of Augie March (Bellow)
Have I read this before: No. And I wish that was still true.
Review: Jesus FUCK
So a title like “The Adventures of Augie March” implies that the book is likely an exciting, romping tale of the trials and tribulations of the interesting titular character, right?
WRONG-O!
Oh my GOD this was boring.
Oh my GOD Augie was a passive, easy-to-manipulate bag of farts (I know this was half the point, but a line has to be drawn somewhere)
Oh my GOD I grappled with “do I actually have to read this or can I skip it?” more than I have with any other book in recent memory.
At no point did I care what happened to this guy. There was nothing about him that gripped me as a character and none of his “adventures” (apart from maybe the eagle training thing) were exciting. And the eagle training thing was only exciting because the eagle was the only being that exuded any sort of personality in this entire book.
Augie’s brother was ANNOYING. Every woman Augie encountered was ANNOYING. Augie himself didn’t have enough of a personality to be annoying, which itself was ANNOYING.
Like, there were attempts to give him an ounce of snark every 100 pages or so, but those attempts failed and just made him sound like an inconsistent character (and not on purpose).
Also, I had no motivation to care about Augie. He just wasn’t interesting to me at all. John Irving does the “regular character but interesting” thing really well; Bellow does not. I mean, it’s like:
Irving: here’s a character. You should be invested in him.
Me: why?
Irving: here are reasons.
Me: oh, okay.
Bellow: here’s a character. You should be invested in him.
Me: why?
Bellow: fuck you. Here are 17 pages about a button.
Seriously, this and The Optimist’s Daughter are going to be duking it out for my “worst book of 2022” title. At least The Optimist’s Daughter was relatively short.
Favorite Part: Seeing the “100%” in the corner of my Kindle so I could close this book and never have to look at it again.
Rating: 2/10
Creepy-Ass Night Monks
Read the title.
Don’t these look like giant monks?
Aren’t they CREEPY AS HELL?
Oh my god, if I didn’t know what they actually were (wrapped pillars for a building going up) I’d be 100% freaked out by them.
God I love the internet
Never thought I’d see bread tag taxonomy, but here it is and it’s glorious.
Sorry, sorry…occlupanids. Occlupanid taxonomy. Gotta get it right, because this is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. Seriously.
I am 100% going to start classifying any occlupanids I stumble across. And keep an eye out for the occlupanopsida as well.
Also, I think this one has the best description and name.
Stress Mode ACTIVATED
That means I want to buy stuff.
That’s dangerous.
Bikin’
This is REALLY interesting, yo.
Unless I’m missing it, it’d be nice if they reported the actual correlations visualized on page 5. What is a “good correlation”?
WAKA WAKA WAH EH EH WAKA WAKA AYE AY
I’m in a weird-ass mood, so it’s time to nonsensically answer a survey.
As one does on occasion.
1. What was the last clothing item that you bought?
FORTY UMBRELLAS
2. If you could stay one age forever, what age would you choose?
The Bronze Age (I’m 99.9% sure I’ve used this joke before)
3. When you say “lol”, are you really laughing?
I am CRYING BITTERLY and plotting revenge on Al Gore, the inventor of the Tubes.
4. What is the most interesting thing you’ve done in the past year?
I bought an island in the sun.
Hip, hip.
5. If you started a business, what would it be?
It would be NONE OF YOURS, that’s for sure!
6. Do your friends/family/coworkers know about your blog?
Everyone knows Eigenblogger. EVERYONE.
7. How long does it take you to write an average blog post?
Exactly 4.55 minutes.
8. How do you keep up with the blogs you follow?
I follow no one. I am a leader, I am!
9. What is your bedtime?
I just asked my bed. He doesn’t know. I don’t know either. Now we’re having dual existential crises that will continue for an unspecified amount of time. THANKS, SURVEY.
10. Introvert or extrovert?
Sievert.
11. What is your biggest wish?
THE MOOOOOOOOOOOOON
12. What is the best job you ever had?
Granting sentience to paperclips.
14. If you had $1,000 to spend any way you wanted, what would you do with it?
I’d buy $1,000 worth of paperclips, grant half of them sentience, and then see what the sentient ones do with the non-sentient ones. Would they see them as gods? Insubordinates? Equals? Would they use them as paperclips?
15. How do you dress your toast?
With an appropriately-sized ascot.
16. How do you feel about snow?
It’s too warm.
17. What was the worst job you ever had?
Being an atomic bomb.
18. What song can you not stop listening to?
“You Can’t Stop Listening to This” by The Literal Titles
19. Love your name or hate it?
I’d take it on a date, but that’s about as far as we’d go.
20. How did you choose your blog/twitter handle?
I didn’t choose Eigenblogger. Eigenblogger chose me.
Eigenblogger 