Because It's Not Sleeping On The Floor That Kills You---It's The Getting Up Part That Does That

Speaking from experience.

I'm feeling rather musical now. My beloved Owl City has a new EP out!
Oooohh...Ahhhhh.. Blessed electronic synth pops! However, those lil' electros are getting rather sparse. Mr. Young seems to be gravitating towards sophisticated rock then his home field of creative basement mania. Which is rather sad. But nice. All in the same milk crate.

Anyway, look forward to an upcoming Owl post (shattered with actual music samples! WHEEEEEEEEE!! :D ), and if Owl City's not your thing: Run for the hills.

But enough of the spoilers.

I have randomness to conduct!

Okay, so first off, you all should know that I often sign as "Kismint wielder of Sword and Lampshade". If this makes you go "Huh??" and scratch your head, then I am proud of myself.

In explanation:
I have a sword. I have a lampshade. Both within ten feet of myself at the current moment. Thus, the name.

Got it?

Anyway, for the first time ever, I give you PICTURES OF MY SIGNATURE ITEMS!!

(...heavily edited, of course ;D )

 No it's is NOT Sting! It's...ummm....another sword.
MY sword.
I did NOT steal it from Bilbo.
Don't listen to the hobbit. He knows not what he speaks of.

And the lamp/lampshade.

(...admittedly, lamps are not as fun to take pictures of in comparison to swords)

But it gets really epic when you put the two together (no---really!).

So, finally---what you've all been waiting for...!

....No, no! Not that!

THIS:

THE SWORD AND LAMPSHADE!

*sigh*. There it is.

Beautiful. Just beautiful.

In another line of postiness, I must exclaim to all the world that I had noting WHATSOEVER to do with the previous post. That is my disclaimer. Believe it.

Now I must dine on my lunch. I have more to say and I'll say it later.

Goodbye.

PS: Don't burn your mouth on the taco soup that your feasting on as you read these words. It hurts.

Blog hacking!
This is Ejai here, author of Diving into Chaos.  Kismint just left me alone in her room, so I thought I'd just make a short little post!  Hopefully she doesn't have a problem with it, I have let her hack my facebook a lot.  So, yeah.  That's it.

NOT...

May Days

I really hate this. ^

Apart from that, I'm doing just fine. Though I'm torn between a few things.

As ya'll know, I'm going to be changing the name of this site to http://www.kismint.blogspot.com/. Yeah, well that's all good and jolly, but I'm thinking of doing a few more DRASTIC things.

...Like (*gasp*)
make it a completely new blog and leave this one entirely!!

In addition to that, I'd make one ginormous collaboration of http://www.thelionsgaze.blogspot.com/, and http://www.saladbug.blogspot.com/ into this one blog---making it (as Adam Young once said) a Literary Sandwich of Epic Proportions.

Yes, faithful readers, I believe I have reached a turning point. A sudden urge to reform what I've made myself as a blogger. A sudden aspiration to reach my writing goals through a web log!!

...*sigh*...It all sounds so beautiful... [enter: dreamy look while I sit thoughtfully in my spinny chair]

So maybe I'll be doing that.

Please tell me if you hate the idea.

I'd be moving out, and finding a new space in cyber world to settle into. I'd have new walls to paint, new roofs to fill, and new places to through mish-mashes of posters, pictures, and fish ponds.

Sounds exciting doesn't it?

I read the local comics outta the newspaper every day. You should know that about me. Mutts is one of my favorites.

Yesterday Get Fuzzy caught my attention.

(click to get to where you can actually read the tiny print)

Somehow, Bucky speaks perfect sense (for once), so I decided to write a short story last night (at like 11:00pm---hey, this sort of thing helps me sleep).

Once upon  a time, there lived a guy named Hammie. Hammie was from Hungary. His family lived on a farm. His sister's name was Ryebrynn.

One day Hammie and Rye were walking to the neighbor's to borrow some mayo. The neighbors were called the Thompsons. The Thompsons had a son and a daughter named Soy Lee and Brice Leonard.

Eventually Hammie decided to go to college. At first he wanted to go to school in Turkey. However, he had a crush on a Swiss girl named Brie---who he had met through their church grapevine---so he decided to go to Switzerland instead.

While Hammie traveled to Switzerland via train, he saw very pretty parts of the country. His favorite point of the journey was when the train passed through Black Forest.

During the long ride, Hammie was able to finally finish The Ingredients Cycle, by Christopher Pannini. He also met a nice old man named Mr. Pumper who was going to Switzerland to catch a flight to his club in California. Mr. Pumper insisted on Hammie calling him "Pumper" without the Mr. He said he didn't like formality.  

When Hammie finally got to Switzerland, he unloaded his luggage from the train. Unfortunately, Hammie had forgotten to bring enough change for bus fare. He was one nickle short. While he was standing alone at the train station, Pumper came along. Pumper asked Hammie why he was standing alone. Hammie explained that he needed five cents. Luckily, Pumper was kind enough gave Hammie a nickle. Pocketing Pumper's nickle, Hammie headed off to college.

At Havarti University, Hammie met his new girlfriend Brie, and enjoyed his culinary classes. He liked his teacher, Mrs. Ella Mozzar. After graduating from cooking class, Hammie decided to marry Brie and open up a bakery. They hired an employee named Garbanzo, who became a good family friend. They also adopted a Hamster and named him Munster. 

And since then, they lived happily ever after, making sandwiches and serving baked goods. 

The End

Hehehe...funny what you can come up with while you are half asleep.

(...You do realize that all of that junk above is NOT the normal writing quality of Me, Myself, and I right??)

I found brilliance in blog form.

Apparently the owner of this blog goes around sticking random sticky notes on the world.

Is this sheer awesomeness or what??

So make sure you check it out at http://www.thingsweforget.blogspot.com/.

Now, before you even started reading this post, you should have already known that it was going to be rambley (if that's not a word, I'm gonna have a fit on the inside). So to add more randomness, I present to you...

...MY FIRST EVER SUCCESSFUL ANIME DRAWING!!

This is Charley (Yes, E-Jai/THC, this is what I meant by anime and hedgehog look ;D ). She will be staring in the newest story that me and E-Jai have cooked up, along with two others: Leanne and Dekker (I'm now hoping it is okay to release this top-secret info to the public).

Please notice the bandanna atop her head.

As you know I am prone to doing, I tinkered around with this sketch on Picasa. Pencil and paper doodles have LOTS of colorful potential.

LOTS isn't an overstatement, is it?

Anyway, the cool ones are these.

And these.



I'm thinking about converting my profile picture to one of these (---not that it looks like me, mind you), but I like my puppo dog as my pic. too...

...At times like these, I wonder (once again), why I am wasting your time with such blab.

By golly, I'm wasting my own time!

Do you realize that I've been writing this post for hours??

Should I be saying 'yikes'?

Or should I just be worried?

Maybe I'll be both.

But the May Days will just keep comin' (until the 31st that is...and then...). I'mma ready for summer to swing by.

There is always so much that I mean to tell you, but always something to keep me from doing it.

And on that note I exit stage right.

We Will Return You To Kismint Plink-a-Dink's Normally Scheduled Posts After These Messages...

I call him "MIKE"

(Regollin, I couldn't help myself ;D )

(Yes TeeDee, I stole it ^_^ )

*nods head*

Later.

*waves while sailing up in a hot air balloon*

I Like Cream Cheese

Y'know when you start hearing voices in your head, and they start writing a story for you? And then you realize that it's not a voice, it's your voice? And then you're head just starts rattling off strange phrases and random ideas, and you have to paddle your arms off just to keep your head above the rush and waves of words?

Seems to happen a lot.

My mind is so filled with ideas, so bursting with figments of blog posts, poems, riddles, and pointless phrases that somehow have a point.

And if you think that is weird, listen to what happened a few minutes ago.

Okay, so I'm doing math, right? And I look at my blog (I'm telling you, my hand just slipped to the mouse---those fingers have minds of their own), then close the window and star back at my scribbles. I start to here clicking---like the kind of clicking you hear when you mouse onto a link or something. I ignor it.

More clicking.

Finally, I look up, and I see my blog window on the screen (yes, I'm quite sure I obliverated the page).

Seriously creepy.
My computer is tempting me, and it knows I'm stuggling to avoid it's wretched clutches.

Yup. I'm paranoid.
So paranoid that I literally have the little voice in my head go into full detail about what I'm going to write for my next blog entry.

Sometimes that little voice is a whisper, sometimes it's a shout. I wonder if it's my conscious. But my conscious seems to be more of a feeling then a voice.

This doesn't make any sense, does it?
Eh, oh well. I'm just killing time before I haffta hit the books again. I think I've hit them so much I'm beginning to get Shell Shock.

I'mma in a daze.
As the daze go by...

Don't mind me, I'm just lulled out on the floor with a rank of history books attacking from every direction as I think: "This can't be what afternoons are meant for..."

Thanks for reading.

Plink-a-Dink's Pep Talk

So, as I stalk the endless blogs that all hang out in little lounges of cyberspace, I'm rather...embarrassed.

No, not embarrassed. Just humbled. I have been blogging for four years. Indeed, they have seemed rather longish. In all that time, can't I at least find it in me to write something GOOD?!

Grrr.

I read other people's blogs. They blow me away. It's like they know what they're doin' and where they're goin'. I just ramble. I just waste time. My head gets turned to jello because I spend so much time simply sitting an typing up a bunch of silly silliness.

My mission: To make a blog that sustains your interest, that draws more people in (hoping it's still what you know and not who you know), that keeps people entertained, and that's ACTUALLY WORTH YOUR TIME.

I think I'm having a four-year blogging crisis. I feel stuck.

But I wanna be a writer, don't I?

AND WRITERS PREVAIL! Let's see what I got, hmm? Let's see about a few posts that are worthwhile---that make you smile instead of snore.

So maybe I should stop whining and get on with it.

Right?

(^ I'm with the guy and his notepad)

They Are NOT Blue People!!

Alrighty guys. The time has come. So sit back, and swim through my Avatar movie review.

*Goes to Wikipedia to get facts straight*

...by the way, I stink at reviewing things because
(A) I'm really cryptic.
(B) I change my mind about everything. One minute, I can stand something. The next minute, I'm in love with it.

So last night, as the moon shone about 15 times it's normal brightness, I watched the work of James Cameron, which has become known as "The Movie with the Blue People".

All in all, this is a good---granted, trite---way of describing Avatar.
But before I go into all the details, I haffta tell you:
PLEASE DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE ---Unless you have obtained the "Family Soundtrack". This version of the movies aborts all nasty language (of which there is a generous amount). Your ears will be scalded by the time the movie is over otherwise.

So where do I start?

Digi animation? Script? Characters? Story line?

Yeah. Story line (I'll do my best to avoid any major spoilers, but seeing as how this movie is extremely predictable, I don't know if it matters much).

The time is the future. The place is outer space. This story takes place on another planet. Another planet---actually, it's supposed to be a habitable moon---called Pandora (by us earthlings). Greedy-eyed scientists from earth have found vast deposits of the extremely valuable "Unobtainium" (okay, so here you roll your eyes) on Pandora, and have built a pleasant little space station and headquarters above and on the surface of this alien planet (Okay, so I'm calling it a planet. Deal with it.).

They want that Unobtainium.

And by golly, they're gonna get it.

Enter: Dr. Grace Augustine. She specializes in research of the Na'vi---the native humanoids to Pandora (yes, the blue people). She's the head of the Avatar Program. And she has a deep admiration for this new found planet. Dr. Augustine---or "Grace"---and her fellow science buddies create "Avatars" to explore Pandora (the atmosphere is deadly to the human respiratory system). These avatars are spawned by mixing the genes of a human being to one of the native Na'vi. Ultimately, producing a Na'vi body that can be controlled by a linked human brain.

Now lets meet main character, "Jake Sully" (man, I just love how Mo'at says it when he meets her, don't you?? It's like: JHAKE SOULLEE!!).
This guy is an ex-marine. And he's wheel-chair ridden. The only reason why he is shipped into space to join the avatar-ers ars (arr-arr-arr-arr-arr-arr-arrs) is because of the death of his twin bro (we don't get a name, but he's a twin nonetheless). Twin bro was a scientist too, who studied the Na'vi for years an' years. But then he was SHOT and KILLED for MONEY.

...By the way, the beginning of the movie covers all of this, and after reflecting on it, I think the beginning is the best part. I liked the whole Jake narration. Sam Worthington ain't bad.

So we have the science lady and the wheelchair guy. All the rest are just along for the ride. Except the Colonel.

He's mean.

But he's an important aspect.

So da Jake dood gets his bro's avatar (and he's secretly thinking: SWEETNESS!), and he gets to Pandora, and he meets the blue pe---Na'vi.

And then its Pocahontas all the way home.

And that's where [one of] the problems are.
WHY IS THIS THE MOST BOX-OFFICE SUCCESSFUL MOVIE IN HISTORY SINCE IT DOESN'T EVEN HAVE AN ORIGINAL PLOT?!!

And why am I using caps so much?

( ^ Two questions I seriously don't know the answer to.)

Moving on.
As for the characters...hmmm. As previously stated, Sam Worthington did nice enough as JHAKE SOULLEE (...heheh...fun to say.), and I really don't have a problem with any of the other actor's ability to deliver lines. The characters were well-portrayed, and the script not bad. This makes for pleasing dialogue. Which ultimately gives a film a "worth watching sticker".
...Basically...

However, (I can't discus this topic without getting to this, can I?) the Na'vi people supposedly "live in harmony with nature" and "worship a mother goddess called 'Eywa'". In addition to that, life is really "energy that flows in between things. Energy is only borrowed, and it must be given back (what they say when someone/something dies)".

 *frown*

Uh...Whaaa?

So some things in Pandora are little overdone.
...Or maybe a lot overdone.
Either way, you have a few questionable things encouraged throughout the film. It almost makes one side with the snooty I'ze-wanna-be-rich guy who says something like: "You can throw a stick and anywhere it lands, you hit some "sacred fern"..."

It almost seems as if some of the ideas are cool, and quite elaborate---maybe even beautiful. But when you pull in a few blue-skinned tree huggers worshipers, give them bows and arrows, and create a sci-fi love story, something starts to crumble.

But the technical point was, to be honest, impressive.

Just not outstanding.

Oh yes, I was impressed, but only because it made me toy with the idea of better animation, better graphics, and something that DOESN'T look like two steps beyond video game avatars (I'm talking 'bout real avatars), but makes Avatar look five or six steps ahead.

But time does not permit. Even if you have the budget (which is pretty unlikely), it'll take a loOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOng time to simply make a blue per---Na'vi smile, or even twitch it's ears.

Speaking of:

THEIR EARS ARE SO TOTALLY AWESOME!!

Dude, I really want ears like that.

Even though it wasn't believable, the visual effects process is really something.

Cameras were inserted to the booms to pick up the facial expressions of the actors.

Ahhh...as a movie lover, I'm deeply interested by this stuff.

(Yeah, you're probably about to fall asleep in your spaghetti on account of boredom. Eh. Whatever.)

To finish this little critique, I haffta end with one...no, two things.

(1) The final scene of this movie was terribly, sickeningly, horribly cliched. If you know me at all, you will realize that I absolutely abhor of cliched endings.

(2) I loved the last second, where the eyes open and... "AVATAR"!!! This gave me a stash of ideas. See, normally, a movie has the title shown at the beginning. Well, I can't recall if this film had a beginning title, but it sure had one at the end.

...very dramatic, and fit with good flourish.

I guess that's nearly all that I planned to share.

In conclusion though, (and in my dad's words), movies that have neat effects, good scripts, and all that---they're usually forgotten. Yes, this is cold hard reality, I know, but it's pretty true.

The movies that are remembered, and the movies that worm their way into history are the ones with the greatest stories, the most brilliant plots, and the amount of actor talent.

After all, a movie is a story, and it's director the author.

So did I like it? You bet.

Am I adding it to 'favorite movies' on my blogger profile? ...Mmmh...Nah. There are just too many things, and too many small details that turn into big details that I just can't---and won't---accept.

I believe that it's silly, stupid, and downright dumb to worship the tree and not the Creator (I apologize for how harsh these words may sound, but I feel the need to come across firm in my faith).

Eventually it seemed almost as if this movie was trying to pull me towards those ideas. The idea that everything is ruled by earth, and the links between all living things.

'The End'

Signing off,

Plink-a-Dink\

...(Two minutes later, after reading more details about Avatar on Wikipedia)

"...Wait...did that say...??" *squints* "No, it couldn't be...it couldn't..." *reads huge imposing text:*

'...In 2006, Cameron stated that if Avatar was successful, he hoped to make two sequels to the film. In 2010, he said the film's widespread success confirmed that he will...'

"Oh great."

*face palm*