Lords of Kobol, hear my prayer...

For those who celebrate, I hope the holidays treated you well. ❤

Like all the previous years, ours was rather laidback and quiet. Though more quiet than normal since we didn't invite our blended family over, which is neither here nor there for me personally but it did make things a little less Christmas-y then I would've liked, at least the way things are planned out. Nevertheless, for what we had it was still pretty good though.

And it's been raining, so I'm very happy. :)

(On a sidenote, I'm kind of bummed that Tumblr didn't do anything special for Christmas, since I think last year they did the holiday bells on your dash where you could ring them and create music. Perhaps they were too put out after doing the cat paw boops twice this year. Oh well. Hopefully next year.)

++ It has finally happened. Of all our three years of looking after them, just within the last week we have received at least three dead mice from our neighborhood stray cats that we care for. One of the mice was without its head. I know what this means in cat language so I'm honored. We've also been getting random items brought to our backyard, like washcloths and a variety of toy balls from who knows where. Our backyard (and front yard) seems to also be a home base for cats to bring their kittens to sleep, eat and play around in.

++ I kinda sorta got sucked into Slow Horses. My mom and stepfather have been watching it over the last several nights and I ended up catching the last two episodes of series three. From what I've seen so far it definitely seems like the kind of series I would get into on my own time. I like a good spy thriller and the way the show is paced and how things are revealed it certainly captured my curiosity.

++ Xiao Zhan has released his first solo album, WM, with music videos for the tracks "Wild" and "Life of Us". Not only do the songs sound really good, but the visual storytelling is amazing in both videos. I know that he's done music before, with soundtracks and being on music shows, but never his own album, so I'm really excited for him to be releasing this.

++ It's honestly so annoying and frustrating how "AI" (really, artificially generated) has taken over practically everything now, you cannot escape the push and shilling of it, from commercials/ads to YouTube and even online fandom spaces where even fanfiction and fanart are being used in this way, which is upsetting enough. We have people in the entertainment industry still raising concerns over the use of this with scripts and using their likeness without their knowledge or consent, something I thought was covered during the strikes last year but apparently it's way more complicated than that. YouTube is the worst since it's all controlled via algorithm so if I'm searching for something I'm immediately bombarded with these uncanny valley "AI"-generated thumbnails, people praising or shilling for AI in their videos (ex: claiming something was AI when it most likely was just VFX or just really good art done by an actual talented human being), or those fake fan trailers using "AI". Obviously the answer is clickbait, but it becomes so frustrating that I'll get recommended these and it doesn't matter if I click "not interested" or "don't show me this again" it'll still come back. And while some are more easily to spot than others, I hate it all the same and just wish it would disappear entirely.

++ I've been not feeling very well lately, which has kind of thwarted some plans I had, making me lose motivation a bit, in real life and also for online. It's most likely just a minor cold plus allergies and other things in the air, but still, having sneezing and coughing fits so frequent that it causes me to have a sore throat and nearly no voice is not a great feeling. :(

++ Some good news though: Dogma is finally getting an official re-release. The film had previously been unavailable (out of print, no streaming rights, nothing) due to being held hostage by Weinstein Company for years, and another company has recently bought the rights from Weinstein and has contacted Kevin Smith for a celebration tour of its re-release. I'm happy about this. Dogma is such a good movie, and while I know some know the scene of Jay and Silent Bob talking about women's rights and being pro-abortion, the film in itself is quite a classic and deserves to be seen in all its glory. It has quite a fantastic cast with amazing performances, including Alanis Morissette as God.

I'm someone who hated required reading in school, and I hate to admit that it did put me off reading for pleasure for a brief period of time, particularly as adolescent/preteen. With having said that, though, I didn't have any hate over any book in particular, it was just being forced to read for a grade that was the issue. That's all. However, despite this, there were some assigned reading that I actually did end up liking, even loving, throughout my time in school.

Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell
Matilda by Roald Dahl
The Giver by Lois Lowry
Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Proof by David Auburn (self-selected)

The first two, Island of the Blue Dolphins and Matilda, were read in elementary school, and I remember distinctly renting the 1964 film adaptation of Island of the Blue Dolphins either after or during reading the book, and I of course saw Matilda when that movie came out. The Giver and Walk Two Moons were middle school assigned reading, and I remember liking both, especially The Giver which made quite an impression on me, and was probably my first taste of the dystopian genre. And of course with To Kill A Mockingbird and Lord of the Flies in high school, those were the only two books that I was so enraptured by that I actually read ahead of the assigned chapters. I remember we watched the courtroom scene of To Kill A Mockingbird (1962) which furthered my adoration of the story itself, and why I consider it to be among my favorite books. Proof is a play that I picked out myself to read for theater class because I was going to be absent for a week of school and my homework was to write a paper on a play, and I actually liked it a whole lot.

Beyond that I don't remember a whole lot that I was assigned to read, if there was a compiled list I might be able to recognize them, but I probably wouldn't remember anything about them. Also, I wouldn't be opposed to reading them again now as an adult, because that would be more of a personal choice and curiosity than mandatory for a grade in class.

There's been a lot going on, both in my personal life and just what's been happening in current news, that has been draining me mentally. I'm not going to get into it since it's a combination of these things and I don't want to add more unnecessary stress on my brain as it is (in short: everything is stupid and I'm just tired, mentally and emotionally), but I just wanted to let people know that's why I've been kind of quiet lately. I try not to be, even if I don't post I often try to at least comment on others if I'm able to, but somehow I've been lagging even in that department so I do apologize, especially since I've added newer friends recently.

Things will get back up and running again momentarily, since I definitely have things I want to write and talk about.

(In the meantime, I'm currently going through a Guardian/Shen Wei/Zhu Yilong rabbit hole as a distraction from everything, so, at least there's that.)