Bloody Bird

The silliest things can trigger a big philosophical discussion inside confused heads like mine. I found a newborn baby bird on my balcony today, it must have fallen out of a nest somewhere and was lying there just breathing. Ugly as fuck, but the whole "it's a baby" instinct was triggered nonetheless and my first thought was to protect it from the cat and dog, and find it something to eat. Well, then I realized I can't bloody well raise a baby bird. Neither do I want to. So I was caught in no-man's-land between instincts, the other instinct being "get this crap off my property". Also, birds abandon their babies if they fall out of the nest, as far as I know. Then my roomie reminded me of something important, when I texted her the issue. It's a bird. A bloody 4AM tweeter. Beneath that innocent ugly exterior beats the evil little heart of a flappy crapper. I have at several occasions expressed that their only good trait is eating insects. There is only one type of bird I don't actively dislike, and that's because my shallowness happens to override my bird-dislike - I find it pretty:

The philosophical discussion was: compassion. Is it a trait of a superior race to express compassion towards  even a race we generally dislike? Are we compassionate towards other races because we can afford to be? If humanity as a race had to fight for survival, then would we show a great deal less compassion for species that could be a threat to us? Compassion is somehow something we take very much for granted. Is it a part of being human? Or a part of being Universally Good? Can we really expect that if we'd encounter extraterrestial beings, that they'd have the same traits as we do? That they'd give a damned? Well... it's when I hit aliens that I decided to leave the discussion.

The turnout was that I, after much battling with myself, reached the conclusion that I can't express disapproval of birds and then not kill a baby bird for the single reason that it's a baby. That'd make me a hypocrite. Was it an adult bird I wouldn't think twice. Also I believe my cat is my partner and not my captive and slave and want him to live according to his feline instincts as far as possible - we should both compromise to coexist. So. I opened the door for the cat, with a sense of satisfaction with my conclusions.

Loki promptly picked up the bird and ran in and put it under my chair. No! That's one compromise I will not make! Out!

Philosophical corner 942

So here's what I figure happens when you die: see, that moment when you're born, I imagine inside the baby's head is going on something of a panic attack screaming "put me back in right this instant you crazy bastards!", and then we get used to being outside. Well, dying must be like being put back in. Coming home. I believe (I have no scientific proof, any logic reasoning, and need neither) that when people die their "life energy", what some would call "soul" although energy is more appropriate I think, returns to the world. So it must be like a sigh of relief, I imagine. Being dissolved from this limiting form and return to the bigger One Whole (the Mothership!). I imagine it would be like a dolphin swimming with its family in free waters rich of fish, gliding through the universe, or like being a stream in the ocean free of thought or feeling.

So, essentially, to me, death will be good. I'm telling you because this belief might influence what I'll say next: I'm really fucking curious of what death is. I really look forward to dying because I'll find out. Whatever it is, I won't be disappointed, I just really really really want to know. So immortality, not for me, unless I somehow find out without dying that death really sucks, like if there's a psychotic version of hell or something.

And on to the next Philosophical Mumbo Jumbo: I asked myself, if I found out that my life would end tomorrow, what would I do? If I had a week or a month, I'd spend all my money and go see a concert, I'd go find my biological parents, I'd save kittens, I'd tell everyone how exactly I felt about them. But one day? The first ting I thought was: I'd do exactly what I do every day. I'd just keep doing what I'm doing, and then I'd die. And that would be fine. So although I bitch and whine (especially to myself), apparently I'm rather satisfied with my life.

Then I asked myself another question: what would I do if I found out that tomorrow my life will begin? Hm? What would you do?

Progress, at last!

I finished a subject! At the third try! T.T I'm so happy I could cry. Scream and cry and roll around on the ground. One down, three to go! School this term has not been at the top of my accomplishments...

In other news, what does one wear to a baptism? I constantly find myself out of "fancy clothes" that properly fit into the conservative world of old traditional ceremonies. Probably because I think regular or random clothes are so much more fun and awesome and pretty than fancy clothes. Fancy clothes, to reach any level of awesomeness, require a ton of accessories and fancying up hair and stuff. And who cba buying and fixing all that for an awkward ceremony that you go to a handful of times in your life and that you don't believe in? Bleh. Fancy clothes make me feel like a Christian ajumma (Korean middle-aged-to-old woman) who emigrated to the conservative part of the US and never hangs out with anything other than other ajummas in small wooden churches to complain about their modern children. And they feel like I'm wrapped in saran wrap (= gladpack), figuratively speaking. I'd need a very particular kind of fancy clothes, that work with both my own style and my unwillingness to wear fancy clothes, and with the demands of my peers and circumstances (read: family and their friends). Fat chance of ever finding that.

I need a suit. A simple, mildly feminine, light but not peach suit, maybe white. Pants, not skirt. Yeah. Where to find those? Gah, they probably cost a ton...

Kittyproof!

Most of my friends don't have pets, but those who have might recognize the situation of returning to your computer to find your darling cat have posted "+666" on facebook, or watching a VLC movie when cat pushes a few keyboard commands and speeds the sound up by 200%. Easy enough fixes, but also annoying, and windows has no built-in keyboard lock. So, I found a tiny program to do it for me, it's called Kid-Key-Lock. Workes very well with Launchy, and it's free. With a alt+space, k and enter my keyboard and mouse are locked, and with a password sequence of keys that you can choose - in this case the perpetrator's name (that's the cat) - it is unlocked. You can choose to let it display the password while locked if you're just trying to block small children and pets, or if you have extremely bad short term memory.

There is also a shareware version called Pro-Key-Lock where you can customize exactly which keys and combinations of both keyboard and mouse to lock. Probably useful for someone.

Carved into my heart

I have two fangirl modes: 1) DBSK / JYJ / really it's Jaejoong but the other guys are ok. 2) Deadpool. Lately it's been Deadpool mode. Thus this.

I want a Deadpool tattoo! I've been thinking about it for years, but I can't design tattoos, I suck at that. Symbols and patterns, I'm terrible at it. And I really want tattoos that are made to be on a body, not just take a picture and slap it on my arm. It has to look good where it is. Love those types of tattoos where it looks like you've branded something in, or folded back skin to show bone, or stuff like that.

The round Deadpool symbol is my best bet.

 

As if it's freshly cut into my skin perhaps? This one kinda needs to be in color, even if I'm against color tattoos in general. Or maybe like a stamp with "approved Deadpool fangirl" around it or something xD Maybe I wouldn't mind a real picture in this case...

but pictures, just plain pictures, should be on flat surfaces like the back, and I wanna save that for something extraordinarily special, if I'd find the perfect tattoo one day. I kinda want this under the collar bone, either left or right.

Aside from that, tattoos I want someday are the Iceye symbol:

kinda like this, or just the stylized one, maybe inside of my wrist,

and something to symbolize the other things carved into my heart, like the White, maybe just his name on my ankle or something... Jaejoong has a while to go before I'm that certain of myself. Another year and a half, if my feelings haven't changed, I think he's tattoo worthy.

And finally, what gave this blog its name, the Lifestream, as a symbol of a philosophical idea that shaped so much of me. Maybe curling up my side or my left arm. If I ever get round to that, it's rather extensive.

On that note, since growing up with superheroes have certainly shaped my way of thinking, I should have the Marvel brand on my left shoulder or high on my back, like a tag.

Hmm.

Nitpicks will notice I'm leaving out family and friends here. If it ever will happen, it won't happen 'til you're dead, peops.

Static Electricity Cat meets Harley the Circling Dog

And so there was dog. Cat and dog seems to get along rather well. Cat is immensely, painfully, undeniably curious. If there wasn't for that pesky instinct that says that living creatures six times your own size should be held at sensible distance, cat would be prodding dog's stomach by now, sitting on top of it. But there is that instinct, and so there's a lot of bipolar hissing-followed-by-sneaking-closer going on. Dog is fascinating, but also clearly a latent psychopath, acting nice but possibly waiting to chomp cat's head off. Dog, meanwhile, is mostly confused. Dog tries to stay out of cat's way because obviously the hissing, clawed thing has mental issues, but doesn't have all that much space to maneuver. Bone is a lot better, dog thinks. Bones are simple. Chew.

Comic Opinions: Deadpool #13-22

Deadpool: X marks the spot and Deadpool: Monkey Business collects Deadpool #13-22, and are the first steps of my "let's be a serious comic geek and not a leech and start buying good shit" campaign. For safety I will not divulge how I got to read #1-12. It's a personal campaign, of course, worry not, I'm not going to go righteous bitch on you.

I loved the earlier Deadpool series by Priest and Simone, especially the one that connected with the Agent X series, and I was at first unconvinced by the new writer mr. Daniel Way and the "inner voices" (Deadpool has two more or less consistent "extra selves" that he has conversations with). Although I found Deadpool's role in Secret Invasion (a big, global "Event" in Marvel Universe) to be brilliant and in a way properly introducing him into the big boy game by throwing him in with Norman Osborn, anyone can shoot a pony once, and the inner voices deal was still bothering me.

I've always felt that the difficulty in writing Deadpool has been to balance his good-vs-evil. Insanity implies randomness, and randomness doesn't know good or evil; it hardly knows consequence. How to get a coherent character with interesting storylines with that in mind? It's a deadly balance act.

I'd say that Way has now proven his pony-shooting abilities to me with these two collections. X Marks The Spot has Deadpool out to become a pirate, and through a series of events has him helping rather than hurting the islands he set out to rob. What follows next is what impressed me most; a sort of looking-glass peek into a darker part of Deadpool that no one else seems to have paid any attention; namely, immortality itself could serve to drive a man insane, so what will a man do with it who is already insane? This philosophical bout with himself brings him to the fever-dazed conclusion that he'd rather be a hero, and he makes an attempt at becoming an X-Man. The story from there is a lot more complex than one first realizes, and the balance act can be summed up with one of the lines from the book: "He may be insane, but I'm starting to think he may not be crazy".

Monkey Business picks the story right up as Deadpool continues on to New York to try and soak up some hero-moves from Spider-Man, and suddenly finds himself on the best seat of the house as Spider-Man has to protect him from a mercenary-hunting monkey hitman. Again, Deadpool proves himself as much a hallucinating lunatic as a man with a plan, turning Spider-Man's life upside down in the process. The writing impressed me still, in this case because it is skillfully focused on Deadpool. What Spider-Man thinks about the whole thing can most often only be read from what he says and does, so as a reader I get the feeling of watching the frustrated hero rub his forehead through a camera stuck on Deadpool's suit, that bounces a little as Deadpool chuckles to himself.

The art is good in the two "main" stories here, the X-Men and Spider-Man stories. As for the pirate story as well as a short extra as Deadpool leaves New York, they have more looney cartooney or caricature style drawings. I can appreciate different styles of drawing, I think, but especially in the case of Deadpool I'm for a more "realistic" style because although he himself is like an mad bugs bunny, he is real in the Marvel Universe, he is in fact brutally real as many who have tasted his bullets have had to realize. A conversation with him should perhaps never be taken literally, but he as a force, an immortal man with amazing weapon skills, should always be taken very, very seriously, and that is the tragedy and the comedy. A cartooney style marginalizes the violence he does upon others, but that is a part of what makes the character complex and fascinating. Reading Deadpool should always bring along a tint of disgust, a wince where you go "what the HELL man" as he cracks a joke and a skull at the same time; just seeing him as a funny guy does not embrace all that the character is.

I always feel like I walk away from reading Deadpool having learned something subtle and difficult to pinpoint, which is also part of the charm. As when Deadpool spared Killbrew's life in the earlier series, I now await Way's followup with hesitant enthusiasm. Deadpool's chase for heroism allows a bit of creative ballet on the delicate balance of good and evil, now I can only cross my fingers and hope Way doesn't overstep and break a toe.

Spider-Man goes, as usual, for the anvil-to-the-head kind of life lessons: "It's always easy being what you are... what's hard is being what you want to be."

I'm Batman!

Suggestions for caption for this picture?

 

 (I stole it from a video here.)