Armin Wiebe's The Moonlight Sonata of Beethoven Blatz

I hate to say this, but what a colossally drawn out play. Even before the seminar and reading the works that spawned this play, I could tell that it was a short story with nowhere to go but the depths of hideous playdom. That said, the main points were insightful, the setting was novel, as was the low German. But they struggled to fill in the gaping two hour slot by ramming in the revelation point where Obrum realizes that he subconsciously wanted Beethoven to knock up his wife. If the work had been published as a series of short stories than we would have been able to address this point as you would normally do. Read through the story, then afterward in quiet reflection (not low German screeching) realize that that may have been Obrum's intention, and then scroll back to that line and look for clues in the syntax.

The whole play seemed a bit heavy. I expected a play with Mennonite subject manner to be handled a little more delicately. Of course, the feel was supposed to be a folk play, or at least that's how it was made out in the newspaper article, and that probably would have ruined the tone, but if Wiebe wanted folk play, he should have condensed it to an hour. It lends itself to the theme and he would have been able to cut out the ridiculous redundancies.

It was almost a relief for me to go back and read the original works and recapture the subtlety, but at the same time it was upsettingly clear that if he had condensed it to a single short story or novella, he would have had trouble squeezing in the full poison ivy story. And if it had become a novel, he would have had to generate piles of irrelevant content to fill in the gaps. Even the characters seemed so stupid and simple in the play version in contrast to the short stories, that it was impossible to relate to them. Then again, it 's hard for me to relate to plotlines that revolve solely around women who desire children- so it's possible I'm not the best person to be reviewing this play.

I suppose I have to congratulate Armin Wiebe for doing the best he could with such difficult content. I don't know what I would have done.

Breakfast Television speaks with Armin Wiebe

Owen the O says: Eat Boring O's

So today is the day of reckoning.
For all those who noticed Robert Zirk and I sneaking around the college for the last few weeks with a homemade box of Boring O's- now with one essential nutrient (It's fibre) (featuring Owen the O), this is what it has all come down to.

Thanks Owen.

Paperny Films, the Vancouver production company responsible for such Food Network favorites as Eat St., and Glutton for Punishment launched a competition called So You Think You Can Make TV?
So far our answer is....Maybe!

Our entry, the product of hours of blood, sweat, tears and The Moonlight Sonata of Beethoven Blatz somewhere in there, is a two minute trailer featuring Garrick Kozier and Ashley Wiebe, two friends who became so distraught by bland breakfasts that they were moved to develop high-tech, breakfast-spotting, teleportation watches- The Breakfastimers. Equipped with their new technology, they teleport from Breakfast H.Q. to find fabulous breakfast across Canada.
-Get ready for swooping pans, Garage Band pop and sweet lower thirds.


Our pilot trailer features scenes from The Current at  Inn At the Forks, and Breakfast H.Q.

I will be providing an additional post around May 1st with more details on how and where to make our trailer a smashing success.

List of Paperny Films productions

Top five things that help me sleep

Since the termination of my IPP partnership with Dave synched up so suicidally with the two day pilot shoot and cut for my breakfast collaboration with Robert, I have not slept for an increment longer than 2 hours in the last 3 days, vaulting my disappointment from soul crushing to bone crushing. By the way, those increments, there were three of them.

Anyway, in light of the fact that I can't think of anything other than sleep, I am submitting a list of things that help me sleep for your sleeping enjoyment. (In no particular order)

1. Crackily Talk Radio- even arguments, those pops and cracks are like someone opened up a NyQuil capsule and dumped it into my ears.

2. Crackily Talk Radio when there's a British person on the other end. AMAZING- it takes every ounce of self restraint not to tape wax paper over my ears in Chris Petty's class and enjoy a live hits derby of snoozing.

3. Shopping Channel. Preferably jewelry, the skin product representatives are a little uppity.

4. Chef Michael Smith- He's at home, he's cooking without a recipe, and his voice patterns are so sleep-inducingly predictable that I can't even stay awake to watch him dump his half hour of culinary excellence onto his 4 year old son- darn.

5. Caffeinated beverages- perhaps I am so apt to defiance that each of my cells react the complete opposite way out of principle.

Happy sleeping fellow miserables!

Disney and Psychology: Pepper Ann and Little Hans

Here's something I meant to write down before I forgot these two shows existed. 

(BEWARE! REFERENCE TO SEXUALITY)

Disney produced both Pepper Ann and The Weekenders, two shows about zany twelve year olds that were viciously popular and are sorely missed. One thing that struck me years ago was that Disney represented both sides of the psychology fear development war at different times. The Little Hans study and the Little Albert study have been at war since people starting asking how things make you feel.

I know what you're thinking... Disney and impartiality? Impossible. Perhaps not.

For all those who haven't taken Intro to Psych and only showed up for the exam:

The little Albert experiment, showing evidence of fear as a product of classical conditioning was conducted by John B Watson, and his genius bimbo/mistress Rosalie Rayner. 

The study involved a little boy named Albert being tortured with relentless noise as he played with a rat, causing him to be afraid of rats and other ratlike things until the experiment was reversed with positive conditioning, it was named "Little Albert to poke fun at the Little Hans case which despite having very little empirical value is fascinating nonetheless.

Anyway, it's crazy but in an episode, everyone discovers Tino's terrible fear of clowns when a clown convention comes to Bahia Bay, and through a series of flashbacks, it's determined that he developed the fear by being viciously kissed by his clown-resembling aunt in his childhood. Shazam, one for behavioral psychology.

One poor quality screenshot of The Weekenders coming up

On to Little Hans, the famous Freud case, where a young boy develops a chronic fear of horses shortly after being told that he wasn't allowed to masturbate. HA. Anyway, it turns out that the horse is a representation of his father who he truly fears because both the horse and his father have large penises, and Hans wouldn't be able to impregnate his mother, whom he secretly loved (infantile sexuality) until his penis was larger. NOW THAT IS SCIENCE! Anyway, there were a lot of factors at play but basically Freud was able to dispel the fear by helping him verbalize what his true fear was, and by telling him where babies come from. hahahahhaa

Damn the internet for not becoming popular until after Pepper Ann was cancelled. There are hardly enough pictures to go around.

Can you believe Disney supports this theory? All of the sudden I love Disney.

Anyway, Pepper Ann uses the Freudian theory of fear development when Nikki (I know this show is really old so I'll specify that she was the blonde one) reveals that she is uber-afraid of swans. It turns out that her fear of the swan was transfered from her fear of her mega-perfect sister.

Awesome.

So in the spirit of science I'll make my final deduction.

Pepper Ann > Weekenders, therefore Little Hans > Little Albert.

Thoughts?

A little taste of Little Hans

If anyone wants to borrow my Little Hans/The Rat Man case study I'm always happy to creep people out with infantile sexuality.

The Cricut Expression. The expression is sleep

Mornings are hard enough without being bombared by mega-relaxing shopping channel features with the Deluxe Cricut.

Ok, for those who don't know me, infomercials and the shopping channel account for at least 25% of all my TV viewing, This is for two reasons. The first reason being, that I am too busy to ever actually watch TV, when I am "watching TV" I am actually working my fingers around in one of the many pies I have my fingers in.  (Side note, don't put a paper cut finger in a lemon pie). (Side side note, due to the high volume of assignments, CreComm has pretty much tripled my paper cut injuries sustained in the line of duty.

The second reason is that I actually like sleeping much better than I like TV, and any form of TV that is closer to sleeping than TV is bound to be a favorite.

Take the Cricut for example, how am I supposed to take a shower with all that decal choosing/title adjusting/ card printing relaxation going on.

Pause to explain what the hell I'm talking about: The Cricut is the ultimate crafting wizard. Are you constantly getting a slew of immaculate homemade cards from a crazy old lady friend or a meticulously organized friend? Do you walk into elementary school classrooms to find your mind boggled by ridiculously unnecessary personalized calenders, name tags and days of the week charts? This is where they're coming from.

Basically its like making your aunt a birthday card but with a graphic designer sitting on your knee- AND IT EVEN CUTS THOSE DAMNABLE BLEEDS FOR YOU! 

For someone that doesn't Scrap book, and whose idea of crafting is making platypus's out of stuffed balloons and felt (shout out to first-year Fine Art), I'm basically willing to invest the $500 for the printer, the jillion cartridges of pilfered art, and stacks of sticky paper, to throw it all away and watch the instructional DVD until my heart's content.

 Forget that wide eyed Cricut as a logo, they should just put a picture of me sleeping.

This is just about the most stark contrast humanly possible to my ultimate favorite Shopping Channel segment: Joan Rivers Tries to Sell Stuff!

During the last holiday themed segment I saw, A cackling Joan Rivers flashed her brown painted nails to an international audience while nearly breaking a faberge egg, a piece of jewelry and an entire display of Russian ornaments.

Oh Joan. :)

Anyway here's a little clip of what to expect once you purchase your $500 Cricut (Expression addition)

Who could craft with so much relaxation going on. It's like a cloud of morphine and spa music.

Kitchen Nightmares and Blogging Daydreams

I was watching Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares again as I often do, and I find that the more bad Gordon Ramsay shows that float to the surface of the Food Network stock pot, the more fresh this show seems. After watching him chase his kids around for an hour on The F Word, I'm more than delighted to listen to his rants.

However, almost every time I sit down to watch Kitchen Nightmares some faceless drone wanders onto the scene and feels the need to tell me that he's just a hyperbolic asshole tailoring himself for ratings, to which they undoubtably suspected I would answer: "I like screaming", "mayhem is mayhem no matter how fabricated", or perhaps even "NO...NO HE'S NOT...CHEF RAMSAY IS REAAAAALL!!!".

Here's what I really think: cooking is Chef Ramsay's life's work, and he has gone to incredible lengths to be called the best at what he does. When people serve rotted microwave food and expect legions of fans, it's a personal insult. It's like saying that what he does is easy and he has wasted his life.

Is he actually able to renew this passion to swear at each and every haggard restauranteur? Who knows, that's the mystery of Kitchen Nightmares and it is only this and the chronicling of forehead wrinkle magnitude for scientific purposes that keeps people watching. Better yet, I don't really care. I watch informercials for fun so that should be a pretty fair indicator of what I consider to be passable non-animated TV. (Cartoons should know better than to be crappy, they've had to fight years of oppression).

Check out those crazy wrinkles, even without a filter.
Image extracted from: http://www.remotepatrolled.com/2010/04/reality-bites-2/

For all those who aren't quite so invested in the Food Network as I am: The F in The F Word stands for Food. :(

But the story isn't over imaginary readers. Ramsay isn't just back, he's back with a fUtUrIsTiC TwIsT. (For all those who don't know how I speak, every lowercase letter is pronounced on a low tone and every capitalized letter on a high tone for maximum indication of whimsy).

This last episode, Ramsay spies a group of nerdy bloggers at a table that had been waiting about 40 minutes for service. GASP. He darted over and looked at the main offender's phone, and hightailed it back to the manager to say. "She just blogged. "I'm Hungry". (Cue the desperation music)

I think its later discovered that she's a semi well known food blogger, but still.
I've decided that this blog is about 50% Animation 40% Food Network and 10% school assignments, therefore I am the successful writer of a part time Food Blog.
If you see me on the street, please remind me to proceed with the following plan:
Step 1: show up at my next dining experience with my laptop, forget the whole iPod crap. I want there to be no question about what I'm there for.
Step 2: completely ignore everyone at my table in favor of typing random crap into Twitter and angling my laptop screen awkwardly to take pictures of all the food with my built in webcam.
Step 3: Marvel as Chef Ramsay materializes out of the ether to bring me incredible food and dazzling service.

Here's a clip from one of my favorite episodes where he actually shuts down a Mexican restaurant due to health concerns. He straight up walks into the dining room and sends home everyone who are unknowingly eating rotten food.



But wait, there's more, you lucky people.  I'm even going to post a link to the exact episode I was watching the other day. (in full)
I would cross out a payment too instead of just doubling the offer, but unfortunately nobody is paying me.

Full Episode of Kitchen Nightmares- DownCity

Celebrities for Children- Gross

As I am blogging, iCarly is playing in the background, and I can't help but thinking how said it is that this show is successful. No I am not going to bore and confuse people with terrible references to the show, because that would be a waste of everyones time, and would involve me looking in the direction of the screen.

What I am going to talk about is Family Channel and Disney's purposeful cultivation of a celebrity culture for children. Would children any interest in reading about these actors in their Tiger Beat and BOP magazines if the seed hadn't been planted, overwatered and stamped into the ground with steel-toed boots by Disney? No way. When I was a kid, I had no interest in meeting the people who played the Power Rangers.
Not to mention that the marketing doesn't even add up. You can create perfectly sellable merchandise without creating cults around 12 year olds. And marketing them as role models. No 12 year old is a role model, they're only half baked peoplet. If you've already screwed your life beyond repair at twelve- watching iCarly sure as hell isn't going to get you back on your feet.

Then, the child who has been thrust into fame gets to be 16, does one thing that everyone else in the world did, like flipped off the paparazzi or smoked salvia, and suddenly it's like the world caved in. People would have never known what they were up to before but because they're forced to be in the public eye, Disney has to drop them from the label else tarnish their image and the young hopeful falls backward into an abyss of hasbeen-ery and drug abuse. They're losing success stories faster than they can make them.

Superman, Hope, Parody, Archetypes, Wolverine- this post has it all. Disclaimer: This post is sure to disappoint

Ok disclaimer time: Be advised comic book likers: Calm down, I'm on your side. I'm just writing down some of my loose interpretations from a subject I know little about. I'm sure there's a lot I'm leaving out and if you think there is anything critical I have excluded from my poorly contrived argument, please post it in a comment.

Ok, it's cringe time.

Superman has really never interested me. He's indestructable to the point of boredom- every episode has to involve some insanely elaborate situation that renders his powers useless- reminiscent of how in Pokemon, Ash insisted on using Pikachu as the sole choice in each and every gym regardless of the type. Once he fails, which he inevitably does each and every time to his great and inexplicable confusion he formulates a plan. Instead of using the tried and true method of catching new pokemon and training them evenly, he finds some hideously unnatural way to jack up Pikachu.

For instance I saw this one episode of the classic live action TV show, where a guy marches up to Superman wearing a lead mask and threatening that he reveal his identity or something of the like. He's like: Superman, your powers don't work on me as long as I wear this lead mask, and he's like, uh why don't I just take the mask off? to which he promptly responded: YOU CAN'T! IT'S LOCKED ON! And that was the end of that discussion. Did Superman challenge his authority? No, they just went on with the episode.

Anyway the point is, I wouldn't say that culture has been influenced by Superman. Yes Superman's reach is immense and the cultural references are many. But from what I can see, there is one major theme at play, and it doesn't mirror humanity. Superman is so effective because it is above humanity.
Ask people what they like about Superman and they'll say its about transforming themselves into something Superhuman. And if that helps people draw strength and purpose to their lives than thats great. That's why the symbol is so effective, because it's directly equivalent to hope and power.

Ok, I'm going to backtrack for a minute, and say that I find the inverse of this theme VERY impressive.
The best part about the Kill Bill series, aside from eyeball squishing, scalping and confusing people with anime was the Superman reference at the very end. Bill likens Uma Thurman to Superman in the sense that she is not mild mannered Clark Kent transforming himself into Superman, but Superman disguising himself as the whole of humanity. Weird idea, Clark Kent is a parody, The skewed representation of how a godly figure would perceive humans.
Seriously though, this blew my mind *cranial wind*

Now this is messed up. Globally, the Superman symbol is directly equivalent to hope and power, therefore, Superman is a godly parody- yes Tim- the Jesus archetype (much to everyone's dissatisfaction). Yet Clark Kent is a humanly parody. Woah- no happy medium. Nobody is being real here. I feel like I have to take the averages and do math to find something that I can relate to.

You may argue, what about Lois Lane- well by that point I had already lost interest.
Plus, I'm a little disturbed at the idea of Superman as a love interest.
Frankly his classic good looks and kiss curl disgust me.

This is why I like X-Men, plus even in a hideous yellow abomination of a suit, Wolverine is way hotter.

Ladies, would you rather have this

Dang, is that arm hair or shadowing? Who cares!

Or this

I feel a little less fortune after reading this.

Image extracted from: http://www.the-isb.com/?m=200712&paged=2

Redisclaimer: If you're still pissed off, maybe you didn't read the whole article. Go back and look for the part where I said Superman was awesome.

Twitter: What Alfred Hitchcock really meant

I admit that I'm a little afraid to use Twitter.
On Facebook, I'll post anything from song lyrics, to angry rants, to hitting up my friends for extra forged documents for mafia exploits.
But every time I go to post something on Twitter. I with my mouse poised on the button with my meager piece of news and I hear Steve Vogelsang whispering in my ear "Why are you telling me this now?" I'm a pushover when it comes to the Vogelsang's in my head- and I fold to the idea that there's probably somebody better informed and more qualified to tweet my tweet, and probably in less characters, and probably with a more legible homepage and a more attractive profile picture.

Being in Creative Communications has given me a haunting awareness that the Internet (especially Twitter) as my presence of the world's stage. For a student like me who isn't physically published, it's really the only way I exist in my chosen field.
As someone with little resources it's the cheapest way I can promote myself, and every lofty lamentation seems like a strike against my professionalism.

Who's on my Twitter right now? Aside from my chief Twitter joy in life: following Cobra Commander, the first day I got it, I added only CreComm students, Comedians and every Food Network Chef (That's almost a Facebook profile in itself).
After adding my Food Network heros I was promptly followed by local foodies chefs and restaurant owners galore, thinking. "Damn, this girl must really know her stuff. We better keep our eye on this culinary bombshell." And now I feel like I'm disappointing them with tweets signaling my blog posts.Al

I feel a little better using Facebook, where I know if somebody has added me, they inexplicably want to creep through pictures of me as a South Park character and which disney princess I'm most similar to- Belle by the way-  at least I know I'm not disappointing them.

Self Publishing- A Hypothetical Tale of Despair

I realize that when it comes to my writing, I can not be trusted alone with my own opinion.

In my earlier years as a "writer" aka (a little girl writing cards for family and short stories about "kids her age" because thats what people really want to read about....) it was just the classic first-draft puppy love.
By now, Creative Communications has shot me down so many times that it has evolved to the point where I can no longer tell which of my assignments are truly crap, and which only contain elements of crappiness.

If I worked on a book for two years, and it was shot down by even one person, my fist reaction would be to immediately distrust myself, scrap the book and quit writing forever.
However, my don't-ever-waste-even-one-second-of-your-life-no-matter-how-miserable-you-become sense will inevitably be activated and I will be forced to self-publish.

At that point, I wouldn't have the heart to rework the concept because I had already dismissed it as unreadable, so I would begin the painful process of self publishing a book I didn't believe in.

Now this is where the magic happens:
During the wondrous process of self publishing, I will likely delude myself into thinking that my book was often after all, and publishers are just generating chick-lit and other junk for the masses, and my book is somehow the only true form of art in the world and blah blah blah.
Then I emerge back into the world with my newly believed in self-published book and shameless promotion strategy.

 My emergence is met with great scorn by anyone that knows a good book from a bad one, my book is shunned from the world, and I retreat back to the internet.
Second thought, let's skip this whole mess and just stick with the internet. Everything on there seems grossly unofficial, but its the only thing people want to read anyway.

Wish I Could Fugget About It

Yes it's almost been too long, but it's time for me to issue my statement on Fugget About It- The Teletoon pilot projects new...hit (You may not know this yet, but it's about a mob family- so that sarcastic ellipses also counts as a pun indicator) -

Anyway, as an Italian- I'm going to put it on the record and say that we love it when you make fun of us- being the weird uncle of ethnicities is our thing. But this is SO played out and in SUCH poor taste- that I was actually offended by a cartoon. I don't think this has ever happened to me before- but I was offended more by the idea that they thought this was a fresh and hip idea.

Here's the premise: A New York crime boss and his family, the Falcones, refuse to whack their "uncle cheech" who was leaking secrets, thus ending up in the witness protection program. But here's the big Canadian Twist: They're living in Saskatchewan- I'm up to my neck in relevance.- wheee

Better Yet: Originally I thought the family's name was going to be something that justified the title like Fuggitino or maybe they were living in the mysterious Saskatchewanian town of Fugget. I don't know.- But it turns out, it's just meant to be a joke in itself.

And I can't help but have the sickening feeling that every single episode will end with a large exclamation of FUGGET ABOUT IT! by every character on screen.

I will say this though- whoever does the voice-work for the son is a genius. It's kind of raspy yet high, - perfect for an environmental nerd son of an Italian stereotype.- the only remotely creative thing about the show.

P.S- I make a small cameo in this show- try to figure out which one I am jk.

My rating: FUGGET ABOUT IT!!! *ting*

P.S: I tried to get a YouTube clip for this but it didn't work, so I guess you'll actually have to watch this terrible show. (Totally worth it to comprehend my blog post)

Pearls Before Swine- I mean Swan

If anyone other than me has been watching Bridalplasty- the reality/game show where brides compete for plastic surgery and they're dream wedding- we need to all collectively stand up and admit that what we really want to be watching is The Swan- the TV show where they take a bunch of woman, break them into puddles, rebuild them from scratch with intensive surgery and put the "results" in a beauty pageant against other "girls" who have faced the same process.

I watched the weak premised, semi-self reflexive, self esteem-based finale of Bridalplasty last night and honestly I wasn't impressed. They still reinforce the idea of perfection, but somehow tie it to a brides desire to have the perfect wedding- somehow more acceptable? Then they add a more social aspect where a bunch of pathetic celebrity-worshipping idiots try to persuade each other that they have personalities. P.S: the host of the show is some quasi-celebrity that I've never heard of, and the girls were way too impressed to see her.
Double P.S: The show also featured "Alexandra"- some girl who got voted first off The Biggest Loser- and whose boyfriend proposed to her "ON TV!"- clearly she is addicted to reality game shows.

The former picture features Bridalplasty and the latter The Swan.
Does Bridalplasty really look any less gross?

Yes, The Swan was a horribly messaged, fragile self esteem destroying eye-bruiser. But that's why we watched it. Just because we don't televise it, doesn't mean this mess doesn't exist, and the people's motivations to do this aren't real.

Why is it TV and the fashion industry's jobs are now to cater to our self esteem? If we're buying into their unrealistic bodies and damaging plot lines then obviously something about it resonates with us.
Today I even saw a disclaimer on The Shopping Bags's new show Anna and Kristina's Beauty Call- a show where Anna and Kristina attempt to dress a random girl for a challenge and are rated on their success to flatter her color palette and body type- and usually fail miserably.
The disclaimer read something like: These are our opinions (read: Sorry if you're old and we dissed a piece of outdated clothing that's hanging in your closet) and It's the beauty on the inside that counts (read: incase you only watch the fashion network to search for lawsuits-we've just outsmarted you).

If you know me, you probably know that I despise Dove's campaign for real beauty. Firstly, they're a health product company :deodorants, soaps and moisturizers, they have no business showing people with glowing skin and pitting themselves against people that sell beauty products. They're selling health, and while health is beautiful, it's easy for them to display the effects of their product without adhering to the conventions of our society.
Secondly, my self-esteem doesn't depend on what people who are trying to sell me soap tell me.

I feel that given the opportunity, people will respond to what's real. If at any point models start to look malnourished- people won't respond to the advertisements- they won't be able to relate to them. We don't need body fat percentage regulations on the fashion industry because it's really self moderating.
Furthermore, I expect the people modeling my clothes to have unattainable bodies. It's their job whether it's healthy or not. I doubt being a lawyer is very healthy at all, what with the little sleep ridiculous amount of stress and disturbing scenarios but if it's what they want- I expect them to do a stellar job of it. Besides, everybody knows that these people are have had surgery and are heavily photoshopped, hell, we in CreComm study the photoshop methods it takes to make them look that way- why would we ever let it get to us?

Bring back The Swan! - you all know you watched it.
Watching the second link, the girl was by no means unattractive- it was however obvious that she was tired, and she hadn't showered. I'm sure this poor self esteem comes from within and not from her appearance and pressure from outward sources, because it looks like she didn't even value herself enough to keep herself clean when she's appearing on TV.

Season 2 Swan Finale- Listen for the spin that the host puts on it- gross.






This one features the complete transformation of a sad girl.

More Cartoon Feminism: The Snow White Queen- better than pedophilia

I'm sure by now, many of you are wondering if this is a cartoon feminism blog- WELL ITS NOT! 

But this particular sexism dissertation is one that once it got into my head I couldn't get it out.

Please keep in mind that I'm not going to start changing words like mailman to mailperson or hedonism to she-donism.

So here it is, why I side with the Queen from Snow White.

Let's start all this off from her perspective. The queen is a beautiful woman, with immense leadership qualities and on top of all that she is the most accomplished sorceress in the area. 

Then, her husband, the legitimate king, dies leaving her claim to the throne in serious jeopardy, since she is a woman who had no blood claim. 

At the same time, yet she is responsible for her late husbands child to whom she has no blood tie. She was likely a member of the court, who thanks to the direction of her mother and other ladies in her life, probably spent most of her studies learning how to attract a rich mate, which she clearly did because she married the late king.

With no skills other than coquettish sorcery, and who knows to what extent her powers reach, her only hope to secure a financial future and not die, is to remarry, however she is getting increasingly old and it becomes more difficult by the day to get a man. (especially with a brat to take care of)

She is confronted every day by her imminent expiration, guarding the throne with an iron fist.

Then, what do you know, her stepdaughter turns...likely TWELVE, judging by the dimensions of her body, and suddenly the entire world of men has her attention.

They prize the undeveloped preteen for her frivolous skills valued in women at the time such as her abilities to sing,  clean and piss off animals, while they fear the queen rather than respect her. 

Why fear? Is it because of her sorcery? Are we sure that the members of the court and surrounding villagers have heard anything but rumors about her involvement with sorcery? Or is it because she is a woman in a position of power in a time where this is unheard of?

Do they fee like the future of the kingdom is in jeopardy is it because their country is in the hands of a woman and how far would they go to take her down? Perhaps its actually because she is a hard-ass- a very undesirable quality in a woman, and a trait she likely developed as a defense mechanism to convince her subjects that the kingdom was in capable, masculine hands.

Then comes the climactic moment where it all goes south. The queen enters the bedroom that her and her deceased husband once shared, wonders if she'll ever marry again- and in the more adult version of the story- strips naked and stands in front of her magic mirror - probably a piece that she expertly enchanted herself.

Do I still have it? she wonders, I will never be valued for my sorcery and my efforts to run the kingdom, no matter how effective, will always be scowled at and made light of by the men in the court.

In addition, my involvement in the government of my kingdom puts it completely off the map for neighboring kingdoms, we'll always be an afterthought when it comes to trade, military or anything else. I am hurting the country I love, but if I leave the throne, my only means of providing for myself and my stepdaughter will be extinguished.

But am I still beautiful? If I can't have the respect I deserve, can I at least be valued as a woman is valued?

No- woman come with an expiry date and the farther away you are from that day the more attractive you are.

Snow White, the frivolous twelve year old is the fairest. The girl she raised from such a young age like her own child,- do you really think her father, who is both the king and a man in the middle ages, had any part whatsoever in raising Snow White? 

Brea, you may say. Snow White doesn't look that young. Well, it seems that for the Disney Princess toy collection, the artists stealthily revisited her and magically granted her some curves.

So here's old-timey snow white in all her pedophiliac glory.

And here's new Snow White- ever so slightly retouched.

As it turns out, in the original German fairy tale adapted by the Brothers Grimm, Snow White is only seven years olBut that's just fine, after all, Ariel from The Little Mermaid, is only 16.

At this point, who could blame the Queen for going nuts.

Wikipedia's Snow White

Sorry to anyone who waited for the post- I didn't realize that it didn't post and was stuck suspended in drafts.

Please Roll the Die or Use the Secret Passage- YOU KNOW IT!

Have any MTS cable users other than me notice that the highly coveted Nickelodeon channel has magically materialized onto your randomly numbered and squint-inducing channel scroll?

Wow! I thought, finally. All the Hey Arnold! and Danny Phantom that I could ever hope to play in the background while I do mounds of homework.

NO DICE.

The majority of the slotting seems to be filled with Rocko's Modern Life. A cartoon that despite its indisputable entertainment value, I find to be physically and emotionally jarring. I don't know what it is but watching even five minutes breaks me into a cold sweat. Screaming pastels juxtaposed with a soft spoken kangaroo? I need to watch The Walking Dead to get to sleep after that chilling display. And the gaping smile on that circular cow? Holy crap.

                                        Even looking at these pictures puts me on edge.

Not to mention that a minimum of 20% of the screen has to be taken up by eyes at any given time.

If this show paralyzes you with fear. Please contact me and try to articulate what it is. 

I can only console myself with happier 90s times.

For instance, does anyone remember those sample computer games that came in cereal boxes back when we had the patience to boot up our Windows 98s for minutes of minimal entertainment. The best one was definitely Clue. I'd labour through a box of Honey Nut Cherrios any day for a piece of that murderous action. 

You could always count on my dad to keep a continuous supply of Honey Nut Cheerios in the back of the cupboard, and every time we complained we were out of cereal, he'd say "Are You Kidding?" and gesture to the ever-stale Cheerios. So we'd truck through the box so he could justify buying more cereal, like Reese Peanut Butter Pops all of the other 90s cereal abominations. Finally, on that glorious day, when wej finally finished the box he'd come home with a miniature breakfast staple like Cap'n Crunch and another massive double box of those devilish Cheerios. Makes you wish they weren't so good for your heart- I would have gladly died from a heart attack. 

Anyway, back to Clue.

 Aside from Colonel Mustard being an endless source of joy in my life, the real treat was that every time you made a suggestion the magic of clue would graphically reenact the murder situation that you conceived. Forget playing the game! Let's see Professor Plum club the the maid with the lead pipe again...ok now lets see it in the library. And was I always Miss Scarlett? You bet I was, its like the Monopoly tophat. Take that Mrs Peacock, you B-list hussy. Why can't Harry Potter Mystery at Hogwarts Clue be this captivating. Who cares if Harry cast petrificus totalus in potions class...well maybe a little bit.

Pope-lic Relations

On Wednesday, Pope Benedict XVI appeared to bless the new children's ward specializing in spina bifida of the Gemelli hospital in Rome. Pope Benedict brought gifts to each child effected by the spinal birth defect in honor of Epiphany, the time when Catholics believe the three kings gave gifts to Jesus.

Interesting fact, this is the same institution where Pope John Paul II was treated.

Is this Pope PR? or is this just the Pope's job? Wait, what's the Pope's job again? I was born a Roman Catholic and after a million years of catechism, you think they would have gotten past the talking animal and teen choices discussion stories where every answer is "Jesus" and explained the giant hat to us.

By the way, according to Wikipedia, the pope-hat is called a mitre- and other than the three tiered tiara, and the mitre's relationship with Bishops, the significance is really limited to the colours. Also it seems that Western, Oriental and Eastern christianity all have different types of hats.

Verdict:
Almost every time the Pope looks out the window it's a pseudo event.
As In: Breaking News- Pope looks at pigeons outside window, pigeons fly into the sky, carrying his prayerful gaze into heaven.

Aside from making important religious decisions, the Pope's job is to be an event, and call attention to Christianity. Actually-even when he makes important religious decisions it's an event.
I couldn't imagine having so much gravity in my every action.
At the same time, who could call PR shenanigans on any of the good deeds the Pope does? Goodwill is goodwill.

Keep on truckin' Pope Benedict!

Winnipeg Free Press Article
Mitre Madness on Wikipedia