Wherefore

Okay, this is a stupid rant coming up.  I know it's dumb.  It's petty, it's nitpicky, it's meaningless in the grand scheme of things.  It does not matter to anybody.  But I have to get it out -- the word wherefore.

It means why.  It does!  It does not mean where.  I can get why people just looking at the word might think it means where since, you know, where is right there in the word.  It does not mean where though.  It means why.  This was made very clear way back in high school, when everybody had to study Romeo and Juliet -- some unlucky people more than once!  And most uses of it seem to pretty obviously mean "why" instead of "where."  Why would Juliet be asking where Romeo is?  That speech is really obviously about why he is who he is, not where he is at that particular moment.  So why does everybody get it wrong?  It annoys me so much!  And I can't do anything about it, because it's just such a stupid thing to be annoyed by.  Nobody even uses wherefore any more, so why should it matter that people don't know what it means?  Even though they should?  Because it's really not that complicated at all and if you don't get it then I can never respect you as a person?

I tried to read Kilala Princess yesterday.

It's pretty bad.  Kilala Princess is a Tokyopop manga licensed by Disney about a girl named Kilala who is weirdly into Disney.  And this is coming from a Disney fan.  She's almost obnoxiously obsessed with it.  She has a Mickey Mouse patch sewn into her uniform, and when the teacher calls her on it the idiot acts like she doesn't realize the teacher is mad, because omg Mickey is so cool!  She sees a dude asleep and goes "I should kiss him, maybe he is a prince!"  She has a weird cartoon sidekick that the manga tries to pretend is a pet mouse, but seriously, that's not what mice look like.  You're not fooling me.  I've seen Mickey Mouse.

It doesn't even have gloves!

Also, her school has some weird princess fetish.  Part of the plot is how the school has a Princess Contest where one student gets to wear the super special school tiara, because what school doesn't have that?  And Kilala's best friend Erica is the favourite to win the Princess Contest and become the school princess, and I really don't think whoever wrote this knows how princesses work.  Like, at all.  Princesses are not just ladies who wear tiaras and pretty dresses, and princesses aren't chosen by elections and contests.  Unless the prize for a contest is to marry a prince, in which case, yeah, okay, maybe that would work.  But that's not how it's set up in the manga, so fuck all of you that's not how princesses happen.

The series was described as "Kingdom Hearts for girls," because apparently girls hated Kingdom Hearts.  It's about Kilala running around meeting Disney Princesses and hanging out with some dude who's looking for the "seventh princess" who is clearly Kilala but I guess we're not supposed to realize it even though she can make the magic "tiara" (which is not a tiara, it is a ridiculous tiny crown, and it looks almost as stupid as Twilight Sparkle's Element of Harmony tiara) do magic stuff in the very first chapter. The author clearly does not think much of the cognitive capabilities of the readers.

So I think what happens, is the plot is a half-hearted Kingdom Hearts ripoff where the main character has to go hang out with Disney characters because of reasons.  I'm saying I think, because I could not actually bring myself to read much past the first part, with Snow White.  It was just that irritating.  Apparently it was after the events of the movie, except Snow White was still hanging out in the dwarf cottage cleaning and cooking because...nostalgia, I guess?  And the evil Queen comes back to life, because magic!  And then she turns into her ugly form because...because she did that in the movie!  Who cares if she did it for a specific reason in the movie, in the manga she becomes an old hag in between panels just so she can be an ugly villain.  And she makes another poison apple to threaten Kilala with!  Except, it's not actually poison, it won't make her sleep or die or anything, oh no.  Instead, it will make her.....UGLY!  That's right, the evil Queen who tried to hire a woodsman to cut out her daugher's heart and then poison her, only wants to make the main character ugly here.  Except not "only" ugly, she described her ugly-making apple as so much worse than her sleeping-death apple, and then agrees to trade the magic tiara of magic in order to get Snow White to eat the apple.  Because being ugly is worse than death.  I know that Disney's always leaned on that mindset, but it's so jarring that they'd outright say it like that.  It's around here where I gave up on trying to read this.  It's just a really shitty story that relies on the popularity of Disney characters to make up for its lack of...well, lack of pretty much everything that makes a good story.  Kilala has no characterization other than her obsession with Disney, for example.  And the plot, from what I can tell, seems to be a bland shallow thing that only exists in order to throw Kilala into the worlds of random Disney Princesses, because they're the only reason anyone would read this crap.

Also, it looked really weird, with one character being your average shojo girl with generic anime characteristics, and the other being fucking Snow White.  Even considering that the anime-style shit was inspired by old Disney cartoons, it looks really odd juxtaposed like that in the story.  The Disney Princesses are all done in a fairly similar style to one another -- if you want to make a comic about a girl who meets them all, why can't you draw her in the style that would fit?  But I guess that would take more effort than just drawing another Shojo Magical Girl who looks the same as every other Shojo Magical Girl ever created, with a slightly different hairstyle.  Not different as in, it's unique and visually distinctive or anything, oh god no.  Just different as in, you can tell at a glance that she isn't Sailor Moon, and that's all you need.  I'm honestly not usually annoyed by anime and manga characters all following the same style, particularly when I realize that what I'm reading or watching is pretty deep into the established genres -- like Kilala's huge shiny eyes and disproportionately big head (which is part of why the ridiculously tiny crown-not-tiara looks so fucking stupid, it's a dinky little spike-circle perched on top of a giant balloon with eyes) are your average shojo-style.  I've seen character designs more original and not so fused to the genre styles, but I've also seen ones that are much worse.  Kilala is strictly average.  And the art's pretty good, actually.  I mean, it doesn't stand out as really amazing or anything, but compared to, say, the Labyrinth manga, it's fine.  But when it's right next to Disney's Princess styles.....eh.  It doesn't look right.

Anyway.  This is getting long, so I should wrap it up: Kilala Princess is kind of shit, and you should not waste your time reading it unless you enjoy making fun of things that are kind of shit.  Which I actually enjoy a lot, but I still probably won't try to read this again unless I'm really, really bored.  So you should probably not waste your time with it.  Unless of course you're so obsessed with Disney Princesses that you'll mindlessly devour whatever cheaply made, overpriced merchandise Disney slaps a tiara on, in which case you are exactly the demographic this manga is aimed at.  So...good for you, I guess?  You can read it here and save your money for another Rapunzel colouring book or something.  Have fun.

Things I Hate On Facebook

You know what the worst part of Facebook is?  It isn't the constantly-changing layouts or the sketchy privacy settings or the aggravating app and game invites.  It's the people.  What is it about Facebook that turns pleasant, reasonable people into self-righteous, judgmental, pointlessly manipulative douchebags?  They seemed like perfectly fine people when I met them and said "Hey, you seem cool, you should add me to Facebook."

But nope.  Every day I look at my Facebook feed and find another half-dozen bullshit photo or status memes to hate.  Just look at this shit.

"Vapid pseudo-inspirational bullshit with poor grammar!  You're beautiful!  And skinny!  You'd better be skinny, because that's what I meant when I said you're beautiful.  Don't you dare be overweight when you step on that scale.  Or be happy with your fat.  EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE SKINNY!  You're reading this on a phone, right?  Haha, of course you are."

"It's wrong to call her a slut, because she's actually a virgin! Shame on you for mistaking one of the Pure and Untainted for someone who has sex.  The problem was clearly where you thought she was not Virginal, rather than the idea that slut-shaming anyone regardless of their sexual activity is inherently wrong.  Like the pregnant girl walking down the street!  She was raped!  She doesn't deserve to be bullied for her pregnancy, unlike another pregnant girl who got pregnant from consensual sex.  She has it coming, so I'm not going to even try to defend her.  You don't know ANYBODY!  Not really!  Isn't that mind blowing?  People have lives completely unrelated to you!  If you don't re-post this then you endorse bullying and I bet 99% of you are terrible, terrible people who want kids to be bullied until they kill themselves, because that's what it means if you don't re-post this.  Love!"

"Hey everybody, let's play a game that tests who is paying attention to me so you all think about me and tell me a meaningless fact relating to how you know me because I need to feel like the center of attention and bask in how my four hundred Facebook friends talk about how they met me!  And I can do the same for you, but you'd better not pay attention to me when I'm making this desperate bid for attention without re-posting this idiotic game on your own wall, because I don't care about you if you don't play petty attention-seeking games like me."

"Everybody except for me is shallow and self-centred for only thinking about themselves and what they want, because if they ever express any desire for themselves then they have been permanently disqualified from ever being able to think about other people.  If you want anything for yourself, anything at all, then you are a terrible human being.  I am the most thoughtful, caring, gracious person who has ever existed. Let's see how many people re-post this, I bet it will be hardly anyone because I am just so inconceivably good when everybody else is so unbelievably shallow!"

Just....fuck you.  Fuck all of you dick-biting shit chutes.  I'm going to bed.

St John's Blizzard

We just got power back.  This is some blizzard, apparently power's going out all over the island.  Not just the city or something, the ENTIRE ISLAND.  Which I guess means I should have named this post Newfoundland Blizzard, but hey, too late now.  I'm seeing photos on Facebook of people who are snowed in -- literally snowed in, there's a four-foot snowdrift against their front door.  Our doors are pretty protected from the wind, so we don't have to worry about that too much.  I've been making an attempt to keep our front door open-able though, by going down every hour or two and pushing it as far open as I can.

Check out my front yard.  I'm not leaving my doorstep to get decent blizzard photos, because fuck getting out of my pajamas today, but you can see enough to make a point.  See that picnic table?

It's a big table, and it's buried up to the seats in snow.  But usually when it snows the top of the table is covered too, and I use the snow on top to measure how much snow fell that day.  Today?  Fuck that, the wind clears off any snow as soon as it lands on it.  And that other flat thing to the left?  That's another table, it's been buried completely.  Forget seeing the street, I can barely see to the end of the driveway.  My house is shaking and creaking in the wind, and my bedroom window is buzzing like an angry beehive.

Everything is shut down today.  My mother tried to call the radio to announce that her work is closed, and they told her that they weren't taking closure announcements any more because everything was closing.  Mom had to use my cell to call them too, because our landlines are down.  I've been listening to CBC's extended coverage of the storm on the big Dewalt worksite radio in the living room and a little hand-crank radio in the kitchen and there's some pretty cool stories people are telling there.  This storm is kind of badass.

I love my glasses!

I hear it all over the place, from people who have to wear prescription glasses -- they suck.  They're awkward, they're ugly, they're annoying, I want contacts, I want Lasik.  Nobody likes glasses.  Glasses are like plastic herpes you caught from the optometrist.

Herpes framex

Fuck that!  I love my glasses!

<3

My eyesight is shit.  Super-shit, actually, I can see maybe five or six inches away from my face and then it gets blurry.  I know one person with eyesight worse than mine, and she's on her way to being legally blind. Well okay maybe two people with eyesight worse than mine, but the other one is my grandmother who actually is blind so that doesn't count.  

So I love my glasses because when I wear them I can see shit!!!!  Do you not get how amazing this is?  The gift of sight is a wonderful thing, my friends.

But I also love my glasses because my glasses are adorable.  I like how I look in glasses.  And maybe it's just because I've worn them all my life, but when I take off my glasses I feel like my face is missing something.  Granted, I'm still adorable, but that's just because I'm just irresistible in general.

Mabel is the only one who gets me.

I have two pairs of glasses -- they're new!  Ish!  I got them a few months ago.  In retrospect, I should have gone for the one-normal-pair-and-one-sunglasses-pair because I really do need prescription sunglasses.  But I just couldn't decide between these two frames, they're both pretty rad.  So I got both of them, because apparently I am completely incapable of making decisions and planning for my future needs!  Yay!

One is a purple plastic pair with a butterfly on the arm joint, and they suit my face really well.  They're just so cute, I can't get over it.

And my other pair is a really neat Geordi La Forge sort of wrap-around thing, and they just looked too neat to pass up.  I spent like an hour agonizing over which pair to pick before I went, fuck it, I'll get 'em both!  It's important to be satisfied with the glasses you're going to be wearing every day for the foreseeable future.

Glasses are awesome. They are so pretty!  And they come in so many styles!  If the pair you're wearing doesn't suit you, then next time get a different set of frames that go with your face.  It's not that glasses are bad, you're just not wearing the right pair.  I'll never understand people who go "I don't like my glasses."  What the hell is there not to like?  I get the "My glasses are inconvenient sometimes" angle, or the "My glasses aren't the right prescription any more so I don't like them" or whatever, but glasses are rad!  If I ever get Lasik or something, I'd keep wearing my glasses just for fashion, even if I didn't need them.  Again, I've worn them all my life so my face just looks right with glasses, but I like the look of glasses on pretty much anybody.  I think everybody should wear glasses, prescription or not, just for fashion.  There's a frame for everyone!  And the more people who wear glasses, the more pressure movie theatres will be under to make 3D glasses that go on comfortably over normal glasses.  It's win-win!

Alan Turing's Gay Pardon

I read yesterday that a bunch of famous people, like Steven Hawking and Other Leading Scientists Who Didn't Write A Brief History Of Time, are petitioning to have Alan Turing posthumously pardoned for being gay.

In case you didn't know, Alan Turing was a totally rad dude who worked for the government in the Department of Awesomeness where he Invented The Future while winning all of the wars or something.  Except he was gay, and back then it was a crime to be gay, so he was arrested and chemically castrated and fired because he might have been a KGB spy to tempt Amurka's government with gayness, and then he killed himself because his life was royally fucked.  That's the short, no-research history I gave you right there.  I can probably give you a better description of who he is, why he's such an important figure, and what happened to him when it's not...holy shit, six forty-five in the morning, I should go to bed.  Whatever, I'll finish this first.  Don't let my terrible late-night-explaining skills fool you into thinking he wasn't actually a huge deal, because he was super-important and what happened to him was a vile tragedy.

Anyway, some people want Alan Turing posthumously pardoned, because it's wrong to ruin someone's career and life just because of their sexuality, duh.  Apparently there's some sort of rule saying that a person can't be pardoned if the thing they want to be pardoned for was actually a crime when they were convicted of it, despite it being a terrible, stupid, disgusting law that pretty much everybody now agrees was so awful and inappropriate that it should never have existed.

I don't have a real problem with people who want to posthumously pardon the guy.  I see where they're coming from.  Alan Turing was a hero, and the way he was treated was despicable, and now we want to try and make things a little bit right, even if we are fifty years too late.

I do have a problem with how this pardoning petition comes across, though.  Why just Turing?  Why not everybody who was convicted of having teh gayz?  Wasn't it was a terrible law in the first place?  It was wrong to convict people for being gay and ruin their life, whether they were a war hero or just your average guy who liked to suck dick.  Or do people not actually care that lots of people were damaged and opressed by that law and only war heroes should get specially nominated to be officially forgiven for liking cocks because hey, he made up for it by winning World War 2 and all.  Pardoning just one or two people for this makes it seem like anybody who doesn't get posthumously pardoned is still guilty of being gay and deserved their consequences.  Even the phrase "pardoned" irks me.  Hey, you guy, we're going to bestow upon you this great awesome favour of being forgiven of your gayness!  Haha, isn't that big of us?  We're so cool now!

Also....shit.  I had at least two points I wanted to make, and another half-a-point in the back, but I can't remember what they are now.  Fuck.  Oh well, it's like seven thirty now, and rather than have this be yet another draft wallowing miserably in my posts to be edited and fussed over for eternity, I'll just post it and make another post later if I remember what those points were gonna be.  I should probably get some sleep for now.