And Now for Something Completely Different

OK, I feel like switching it up a wee bit before diving back into blogging about my other obsessions since the start of December. Basically, I went back and read some things I posted on Facebook. One of those posts was one of those "chain posts" where you are supposed to post something like twenty-five things about you that no one knows. OK... so I decided to redo this exercise. It's not much, but it may be amusing to whatever readers I may have, to see a little more into who I am. So welcome to the inner workings of LycoRogue:

• The large majority of cartoons that have ever watched were because I was interested in the romantic aspect of it. Yes, even when I was watching good old Nickelodeon, I would watch because I was waiting for Lead Male and Lead Female to finally confess their love... Here are some examples:
  - Doug Funnie and Patti Mayonnaise (Doug)
  - Helga G. Pataki and Arnold.... (Hey Arnold!) Another blog will soon follow...
  - Sam Manson and Danny Fenton (Danny Phantom)
  - Goliath and Elisa Maza (Gargoyles) Don't get me wrong, this was an AWESOME show... I just started watching because of the attraction between these two.
  - Aang and Katara (Avatar: The Last Airbender) Another awesome show with merit beyond the romance...
  - Eduardo Rivera and Kylie Griffin (Extreme Ghostbusters) I even started writing a fanfic for this couple... perhaps I'll start that up again sometime...
  - Serena and Darien (Sailor Moon) Well... technically I couldn't care less for their relationship, this one I watched because Darien's voice actor sounded hot...
  - Kagome Higurashi and Inu Yasha (Inu Yasha)
  - Miroku and Sango (Inu Yasha)
  - Tenchi Masaki and Ryoko (Tenchi Muyo/Tenchi Universe)
  - Miaka Yuki and Tamahome (Fushigi Yuugi) The first episodes were kinda pathetic, but Remy and I cheering on this couple kept bringing us back until this became one of my favorite animes.
  - Dot Matrix and Bob (ReBoot) Yet another show that holds it's own beyond the romance... Well... you get the idea I think... next confession
• Ever since middle school I could not fall asleep without creating a story in my head. Well, it's actually more like creating a situation. I'd place myself as the main character and come up with some scenario dealing with me and the "male lead" in the story. Typically, these are either fanfics of whatever I'm obsessing at the time, or they're originals based on characters I hope to actually write stories about - such as my D&D character. These stories, depending on how far I move the plot before falling asleep, could last for months. Some story ideas have been:
  - A new Batman character called Black Panther. I was Catwoman's niece and the love interest of either Robin or a new character named Night Hawk, depending on whether or not I had a crush at the time...
  - I'm Sango and I create the long-awaited love confession between her and Miroku. This was before the American airing of the two-part InuYasha episode where Miroku and Sango officially become a couple.
  - There are quite a few more in which I create the "confession of love" scenario for almost every couple listed above. I think I spent a great deal of time with Extreme Ghostbusters, Danny Phantom, and Avatar: The Last Airbender.
  - A huge story where I am my D&D character on this intense race-against-time campaign with four other adventurers. The fighter is in love with me, but I'm cold to emotion and must slowly warm up to him throughout the journey.
  - A few "normal" stories consisting of either apartment neighbors, old lovers who are re-aquainted because of work, and co-workers who fall for each other.
  - The strangest I think consists of me and the love-interest being captives of aliens who are studying "human relationships" and our love grows as we are the only companion the other has...
• I have a not-so-secret crush on Link - yes, as in the main character from the Legend of Zelda game series. There is just something in the concept art of his "adult" form that makes me swoon. I mean, come on! Check these out!
  - Battle Stance for Ocarina of Time
  - My original "love": Link from Link's Adventure (used to have a Link figurine from this game...)
  - Twilight Princess Link close up
  - CGed image of Twilight Princess Link
  - Twilight Princess concept art - this one was a desktop wallpaper of mine for a while...
  - Attacking Link from Twilight Princess
  - Stoic Link from Ocarina of Time
  - Link and Epona from Ocarina of Time
  And none of these are the fanart! Depending on where you look, some of those can get pretty racey... ^_~
• My favorite candy consists of peanut butter and chocolate. Reeses all the way! Remember when they used to advertise them by asking how people ate their Reese's? My method was to use my tongue to push out the peanut butter center, eat that, and then eat the remaining ring of chocolate. ^_^ I also make what is called Peanut Butter Balls at Christmas. They're just like they sound... balls of overly-sugared peanut butter dipped in chocolate. I love peanut butter so much I sometimes eat it straight out of the jar. It's ok, I'm young enough to survive a stroke. ^_^
• I frequently imagine myself as a Neko and can sometimes almost feel my tail wag behind me. And especially now, when we have to keep a sharp ear out for customers coming in while we're away from the front of the store, I can just invision my ears perk up and turn slightly to hear better. In the same respect, my tailbone sticks out more than it’s supposed to and I sometimes envision myself getting a tail attached. It's a shame that I'm not as graceful... in fact, I'm a major clutz.
• I fancied myself a future music video director at one point. I blame this partially on Disney's Fantasia. This coupled with my image-driven mind results in me having an image in my head whenever I hear a song. Usually it is either the official music video, or it is a fan-made video. However, if I haven't seen a video put to music yet, I tend to come up with my own images. These are, more often than not, usually the start of my own AMVs. I actually have a collection of songs I have on "stand by" for when I have the time/video to make AMVs out of. Prior to being introduced to anime, and AMVs, I used to choreograph the songs. I have a whole little dance for "She's Like the Wind" by Patrick Swayze from the Dirty Dancing soundtrack, as well as Christina Aguilera's "Genie in a Bottle". In fact... I think I could recreate them right now if someone asked. *blush* I also have an epic movie designed for Enya's CD Watermark. It is sort of like the movie Interstella 5555 for the Daft Punk CD Discovery.
• Onions don't make me cry. I'm actually the only person I know who doesn't at least tear up when slicing onions (at least the only one at work). Sure, my nose still burns from the smell. It's kind of like when you get water in your nose, that kind of burning. But the weirdest thing is that, instead of crying, I TASTE the onion. It's like I picked it up and just bit right into it like an apple. In fact, I have strong compulsions (which I overcome, thankfully since I can't stand the taste of onions) to actually pick up an onion and bite in to it. The worst part is that the taste stays in my mouth for at least an hour after I'm done slicing the onion. Doesn't matter what I eat or drink. The taste just lingers. Does anyone else have this problem?
• Biggest pet peeve? People not knowing how to use the word literally! Seriously, people? Literally... We'll go real simple here and give you the definition off of TheFreeDictionary.com. Literally: In a literal manner; word for word; In a literal or strict sense. Heck, TheFreeDictionary.com actually spells out for us what annoys me about people's use of the word literally:
  --- Usage Problem
  a. Really; actually: "There are people in the world who literally do not know how to
  boil water" (Craig Claiborne).
  b. Used as an intensive before a figurative expression.
  Usage Note: For more than a hundred years, critics have remarked on the incoherency of using literally in a way that suggests the exact opposite of its primary sense of "in a manner that accords with the literal sense of the words." In 1926, for example, H.W. Fowler cited the example "The 300,000 Unionists ... will be literally thrown to the wolves." The practice does not stem from a change in the meaning of literally itself, if it did, the word would long since have come to mean "virtually" or "figuratively"but from a natural tendency to use the word as a general intensive, as in They had literally no help from the government on the project, where no contrast with the figurative sense of the words is intended.
  Ok, so now that it's spelled out. Here's my two cents. No, silly advertiser, my money is NOT literally going out the door unless I'm seeing the actual bills sliding under the door frame. No, you did NOT literally have a heart attack when that person surprised you unless you were driven to the hospital for such a condition. Unless it ACTUALLY happens, you are using literally as in "virtually" or "figuratively" which is incorrect, and it annoys me. LEARN TO USE THE WORD CORRECTLY! Side Note: for some reason, if a person slaps on the word "almost" before literally, I'm ok with them using the phrase to create a hyperbole: "I almost literally killed someone today." I'm not sure why...
  Oh, one last thing about this. Apparently I'm not the only one annoyed by this. Here is a blog dedicated to the misuse of Literally.
• I am well known for my hatred towards Country music. There is something about it that grates on me. However, I do have to admit that there are maybe 4 country songs that are secretly my guilty pleasures. You will never know which ones they are because I will still proclaim a hatred towards all Country songs, but get me alone in a room somewhere and I will belt them out on the top of my lungs.
• I'm what I like to call a "closet Goth." I'm not that depressing, suicidal stereotype of goth (prior to the emo-split-off), but instead I'm the happy, cheerful, and delightfully morbid "NCIS-Abby-like" goth. ^_^ I am in to vampires, werewolves, witches/wicca, supernatural, ghosts, etc. The fact that I'm about as pale as a porcelain doll probably doesn't hurt much either. ^_^
• I miss not getting personalize emails (and in the same vein, any snail mail) anymore. Everything is a mass-email. No one really calls me just to chat, either. I miss human interactions! TT_TT
• Aside from a healthy fear of the "unsafe," I technically don't have any fears - such as a fear of heights, bugs, spiders, flight, dark, death, thunder, etc.
• Along those same lines, as far as I know, I am not allergic to anything (aside from a small allergy to poison ivy - just enough to catch it when I touch it).
• If I could have any super power, I think I'd be like Jean Grey from the X-Men and be telepathic/telekinetic. If your power is great enough, you can create at least an imitation of just about any other super power that way. Want to fly? Telekineticly move yourself through the air. Invincibility? Telekinetically prevent things from hitting you. Shape shifting? Telepathically manipulate how you look to people. (This wouldn't be as much fun as ACTUALLY morphing, but whatever). Super strength? Back to telekinetics to help you lift/bend/break items. See through walls? Telepathically look through the eyes of someone on the other side of said wall. Etc.
• I'm not ticklish

Alright, done, even though this is only 15 and not 25 items. It has kept me a WHILE to even come up with this list. **Dang it's hard to find information that the general public doesn't already know about me... I'm such an open book. :-P **

I hope you enjoyed both this little segment, and my return to posting (after friggen 7 months! Slacker!)

Welcome to the Year 3000!

Ok, so first: HAPPY NEW YEAR! Yay! ^_^ Second: Sorry I didn't post nearly as soon as I would have liked. Last week was CRAZY with the whole "Christmas" thing. ^_^ First, well, Christmas... got some AWESOME stuff that I'll have to obsess over ^_^ Anyway, the 26th was spent at my dad's side of the family. The 27th I had a full day of work. The 28th I had off... what was I lazy about that day??? Gah! I honestly can't recall what the heck I was doing... but apparently it wasn't posting here... The 29th and 30th I worked again. New Year's Eve I worked and then went bowling with Mom, her ex, and his 10-year-old daughter Hilary. Blast of a time. Laser bowling or whatever it's called when all the lights are out and the lane is lit up with black lights and the bowling balls glow... whatever, you get the point.
New Years Day I went to my Mom's side of the family, where we all sang Christmas carols and played Rock Band. What was really funny is that the only cousins that came were all children of my one uncle. He has an-almost-five-year-old and a set of three-year-old triplets. Anyway, the older one LOVED Rock Band, even if he couldn't actually play the drums, or the guitar, or knew any of the songs enough to sing... We all picked "Eye of the Tiger" for him, thinking it was one of the easiest songs that were currently unlocked. Well, we had to play it enough for him to know the song, and then we played the song some more because it was the only one he knew. 9_9
Anyway, now for the actual obsession. If you couldn't guess from the post title, I rediscovered the awesome brilliance of Futurama. I discovered the DVD set of the first season for like $15 at a local FYE. Watching just one episode suckered me back in right away and I soon watched the entire first season in one sitting. Going back to FYE to pick up one last Christmas gift, I caved in and bought the second season. I was tempted to also purchase the movies, which were on a double sale: discounted to about $20 AND available for buy one, get one free. I could own all four for about $40! I decided against the purchase because I wasn't sure if anyone had purchased any of the movies for me for Christmas. I should have stuck with my guts and just bought them then, however. I just went back to FYE yesterday, and not only was the BOGO over, but the movies were back to their usual $30 pricing. Curses... So now I'm back to watching just the first two seasons on DVD, and the rest either online, or on Comedy Central.
However, in getting re-addicted to the show, I discovered a whole slew of cool information about it. First, Futurama actually wasn't cancelled because of bad ratings. In fact, even with Fox messing with it's time slot, Futurama still had higher ratings than Family Guy and King of the Hill. One of the main factors of the show's cancellation was actually due to Fox and the show's creator Matt Groening not really seeing eye-to-eye about the show. In fact, if Groening's other show The Simpsons wasn't such a cash cow for the network, it probably would have been cut too. Anyway, the show disappeared for a little bit before Cartoon Network picked it up. It got so popular on the network that fans started calling for the story to be continued. As soon as Cartoon Network's syndication contract was up, Comedy Central dove head-first into acquiring the rights to air the revived show. Getting the syndication rights for Futurama is actually Comedy Central's largest and most expensive acquisition to date. Upon airing on Comedy Central, Fox received an order for a continuation of Futurama. Thus, four direct-to-DVD movies were made: Bender's Big Score, The Beast with a Billion Backs, Bender's Game, and Into the Wild Green Yonder. And finally, it was announced over the summer of 2009, Comedy Central ordered a full season of Futurama! Therefore, the new season of the show is scheduled to premiere mid-2010.
Ok, Ok... now, for a bit of a recap of the show for those who a) forgot and b) didn't go to the handy Wikipedia page that I was so kind to link to...
The show centers around Philip J. Fry, who was a loser with no future back in 1999. As the ball was dropping on the new millennia, Fry ends up delivering pizza to a cryogenics's lab, thanks to a prank call. Through an accident, Fry gets frozen for 1000 years, awaking on New Years Eve in the year 2999. Aliens are now fully assimilated citizens and space travel is for any average joe. Fry is soon met by his "career assignment officer" Leela - a gorgeous woman that Fry is instantly attracted to, even though she's a cyclops. Fry then finds out that his only surviving relative is a great-great-great-great-... Oh forget it! It's a thousand years! That's a LOT of greats... Anyway, his nephew. Said nephew is 160-year-old Professor Farnsworth. While exploring the sites of New New York, Fry meets up with a former girder-bending unit named, appropriately enough, Bender. Fry, Bender, and Leela become the professor's new crew for his interplanetary delivery service "The Planet Express". Rounding out the cast are the company's intern Amy, the company's overly zealous, bureaucratic, accountant Hermes, the company's completely pathetic, broke, and incompetent doctor Zoidberg, and finally, Leela's pet alien Nibbler.
Throughout the course of the show the inevitable chaos does indeed ensue, but there is a lot of depth also involved in the series. As mentioned above, we find out in the fifth season of the show, that Fry getting frozen that New Year's Eve in 1999 was in fact NOT just a crazy accident. What's even better is that if - after knowing the truth - you went back to the first episode, you actually see the shadow of the responsible party! That's right! They knew from the beginning that Fry was frozen on purpose, knew WHO froze him, and actually drew a clue in the first episode that just about EVERYONE missed the first time through!
This happened again in the first episode of the second season. When we are introduced to Leela, she tells us that she is an alien who was left on Earth as a baby. She doesn't know what planet she's from and she has never met another cyclops. However, we do find out who Leela's parents are in season four. The trick though, is that her parents make an appearance in that second season episode.
The depth of the show doesn't only come from how far ahead the writers think when creating a story. More depth comes from how amazingly they are able to parody the science fiction genre. There are far too many examples to start listing them, but the audio commentary off of the DVDs just points out how deeply they thought about the science of their little world. It is actually greatly amusing. You would have one of the voice actors commenting about an upcoming joke and then the show's co-executive producer and head writer David X. Cohen would chime in with something scientific that just occurred on the show. For instance, one of the episodes has the cast being dragged under the ocean. Cohen then spends about five minutes explaining how scientifically accurate the episode is. That is, until Bender's voice actor John DiMaggio, makes a comment about the mermaids that show up a moment later...
I must admit though, that the main reason I watched the show - which is the same reason I watch the majority of the cartoons I watch - is because of the romantic build-up between Fry and Leela. Watching Fry go from just being attracted to Leela to actually having romantic feelings for her, and watching Leela slowly start seeing Fry as the sweet mush that he is, and therefore start falling for him too. At the end of the series we see Fry trying one last time to win over Leela. He learns how to play an instrument that - along with gorgeous music - also projects a hologram of what images the music is supposed to portray to the audience. I don't want to give away the plot of the episode, so I'll just say that at first Fry is able to do amazingly thanks to a deal with the Robot Devil. However, the Robot Devil goes back on their agreement and Fry has to finish his opera without the Robot Devil's help. The episode ends with Leela being the only one left in the audience. Defeated, Fry stops playing before he finishes. Leela tells him to not stop, she wants to see how it ends. And thus the show closes with Fry playing the last few notes, portraying a mangled image of Leela and Fry kissing and walking off into the sunset. A bitter sweet ending to the show, since it was vague enough to give the fans closure, thinking that Leela and Fry will indeed get together in the end. However, the fans don't get to actually SEE the couple finally come together.
Well, then the fans received the movies. I have yet to watch Bender's Big Score, but I have watched the other three. In The Beast with a Billion Backs, Leela is still rejecting Fry's affection, and so Fry turns to a woman who ends up being a polygomous. Not being able to handle sharing his girlfriend with mulitple other men, and thinking there is no love for him on Earth, Fry is willing to go on a suicide mission through a rift that opened in the fabric of space. On the other side he meets up with - and gets possessed by - a planet-sized creature who is also only looking to be loved. The monster attaches it's billions of tenticles on the necks of all living creatures in our universe as a means to try to grow close. Bender and the rejected robots are the only ones left for a rescue, but Bender's preoccupied with being in a robot brotherhood which claims to hate all humans.
Bender's Game, the one I wanted to watch the most, has the cast parodying both Dungeons & Dragons as well as Lord of the Rings. This fantasy parody, as well as the title being a pun on the Sci-Fi book Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, is the reason I wanted to watch this movie the most. The plot is that Herme's son Dwight and Professor Farnsworth's clone Cubert are playing D&D and Bender tries to join them. Forcing himself to imagine, Bender goes insane and can't remove himself from the D&D personna he created. Meanwhile, there is a shortage of Dark Matter - which is used for rocket fuel. Professor Farnsworth tells his crew that he and the coorporate superpower known as Mom each have an "anti-backwards" crystal and if they were to come together it would cause Dark Matter to become useless. However, the crystals - once close enough to each other - teleport the cast to the fictitional world that Bender had created. A Lord-of-the-Rings-like quest ensues, in which Frydo must destroy the Die of Power before Momon could get her hands on it.
The most anticipated movie however, was Into the Wild Green Yonder, since this was the last movie and was supposed to be the conclusion to the show. In this movie Amy's parents are tearing down the old Vegas-type casino-city on Mars, and expanding it. This would cause the extinction of some of the Mars animals. A feminist environmental group tries to stop the Wongs, but to no avail. However, when Leela finds out that Amy's father is trying to inplode a beautiful violet dwarf star in order to create a "ball return hole" for his galaxy-sized mini-golf course. The destruction of such a beautiful star is upsetting enough for Leela, but when she finds out that the star's demolition will destroy a planet thriving with life, the animal-lover snaps and joins the environmentalist group that protested earlier. Now taking leadership, Leela turns the environmentalists into eco-terrorists as they attempt to sabotage Mr. Wong's attempts to complete construction of his golf course. Meanwhile, during the Eco-feminist's first protest, the leader's necklace charm gets unknowingly lodged into Fry's head and ends up giving him telepathy. The group "Legion of Mad Fellows" kidnaps Fry after discovering two key things about him: 1) his new-found telepathic powers, and 2) Fry's lack of delta waves make him immune to psionic powers. He is told of a story of two ancient waring creatures, one good - Encyclopods - with the ability to obsorb DNA in order to preserve all living creatures - making it impossible for any creature to truly become exstinct, and one bad - the Dark One - whose goal is to destroy all other life. Fry was charged with finding and destroying the Dark One, as well as preventing the destruction of the violet darf star - which was the last known egg of the Encyclopods. In order to try to prevent the destruction of the star, Fry decides to stay as close to Leo Wong as possible, becoming a trusted lackey, but also being an inside-man to prevent Wong's destruction of the star. Leela only seeing Fry cozy up to "the enemy" has a hard time trying to trust her friend, especially since Fry must never speak of his true goal as a preventative of having the Dark One discover the plan. In the end, all ends well, except that the Planet Express crew is now deamed eco-terrorists and are chased by the dimwitted authority of Zapp Brannigan and his reluctant lieutenant and personal assistant Kif Kroker. The Planet Express ship heads towards a wormhole that would take them trillions of light years away and who knows if and when they would ever return. And this is the part which made it the best farewell to the show. After a quick vote, Leela decides to go ahead and enter the wormhole, just before informing Fry that she loves him back. The movie ends with the crew entering the wormhole and a flash of light as the same slate as the opening titles comes up. The end. No more. Fantastic ending to the show!
However, now there is the new season coming out and apparently Matt Groening and David X. Cohen are debating if they will keep the ending of Into the Wild Green Yonder in-cannon. All I know is that shots used to promote the new season has Hermes as a Head in a Jar. So I'm not so sure where they're going with this, but I'm counting down regardless!

Ok... so this post actually kept me DAYS to complete... so I'm now moving on with my life. ^_^ I'll catch you later with my next installment. *insert catchy closing line that I still need to think of*