Dreambiscuit

I don't pay much attention to the numbers. having spent too much of my life struggling with radical OCD I don't need to get hung up on odd or even numbers. If I can hear what I want to hear, that's all I need. 

But I do sometimes increase or decrease in sets of two in my weaker moments. 

11 hours ago, ZiggWheelsManning said:

I was angry about a lack of important stuff accomplished.  

I'm also wanting to see the painting Dreamy  

I'll send a pic to your inbox, Zigg. 

I was going to go for a shrimp cocktail, but @ZiggWheelsManning got me thinking about cheesecake. Now I gotta rethink this. 

'Cheesecake' can be such a powerful trigger word! 

Happy and tired. Busy, happy day. 

I had a tiny little piece if leftover New York Strip, I ate it cold, with a cold biscuit (and no, I don't consider biscuit-eating as cannibalism!)  

3 minutes ago, TheRockARooster said:

@Dreambiscuit

Me wanted to see too, Dreamy. 

No worries, I'll be sending you a pic in a PM in just a moment. 

5 hours ago, ZiggWheelsManning said:

Being that there's AI everywhere, I could hire you as an attorney to explain complicated situations to a judge @Dreambiscuit  

I suppose I could offer a lot of double-talk, which is pretty much what attorneys do, right? 

14 hours ago, StoryStorm said:

@Dreambiscuit Where do I start a blog?

Hmm, I don't actually know. I've been here forever and have seen many blogs on others' profiles but I never made one myself. So the best advice I can give you is to ask the staff and they can get you set up. They're super nice and super helpful. 

20 hours ago, Fluttershutter said:

I'd try it. 

We need the Doritos version!

Wow, official Lay's already pre-frosted!! I'm gonna be all over that if I can find some. I guess the Doritos will have to be a homemade fix for now. 

22 hours ago, Captain Salty Scribbles said:

Oh, light in photography can be tricky. Albeit I'm looking forward to see your painting. ^•^

I'll send you the pic in a PM before I log off tonight, if I can. 

Kiki’s Delivery service jumps to mind primarily because it has lots of characters and parts for the Mane 6 to take part in.

What part of the G4 timeline also plays a part in what stories might be used. But assuming we’re not picking up at the end of G4 when all the ponies have established their final stories, this should work somewhere in the late S2/early S3 timeline.

I could easily see Twilight in the lead role of Kiki, possibly new to her wings, learning her flight-based delivery (or magical friendship-based) trade, while the other ponies try to help her, leading to interesting adventures. This could be a mission Celestia sends her on as a means of finding a spreading friendship. Maybe Rainbow (in the role of Tombow) could try to teach her how to improve her flying, but a little too fast, leading to Twi crashing in the woods and meeting Applejack (as Ursula), who helps her to adjust and overcome her personal obstacles. Rarity would be a big help getting Twilight to regain her lost magical powers after Twi loses confidence in flying. Twilight could have an on-and-off friendship with flight-obsessed Rainbow, and her group of friends, which would include Pinkie and Fluttershy. Spike would potentially make a good equivalent to Jiji.

Making a parallel story to the Miyazaki universe, using the G4 ponies can be done but it would almost require a standalone movie that doesn’t involve established G4 storylines or development. Each pony would more or less have to play another character and start from scratch. So with an open mind the possibilities are vast. When Marnie was There would also offer lots of opportunities for exploring friendships for the Mane 6. 

Fish is considered a meatless meal during Lent, so by that standard non-carnivorous ponies might be inclined to slurp down a anchovy or two. 

I came in with season 2, so I guess I must have been about 20.

I think it would be disastrous! Everything they make is among the lowest quality animation, with a horrid style and bad writing. If they got their hooks into MLP it would be a downhill slide that the franchise would never recover from. We were lucky that G4 elevated MLP above its previous generations, but as soon as fans accept anything as cheap and indifferent as the material generated by Frederator (just because many fans will accept anything for their pony fix) then the bar will be lowered and there won’t be any reason to rise above the dregs. MLP would become just another expendable show written down to the lowest audience demographic and as such it will not live. G4 became a huge success because it didn’t settle for making a cheap show just for kids. It cared and the largely adult audience responded accordingly. If Frederator got ahold of it, I would justifiably expect the worst and wouldn’t watch a single episode.

For those times when you want something a little different than Taylor Swift. 

I think I’m a good judge of character. A lot can be discerned by body language and facial expression, without the person even saying anything. What they wear and how they carry themselves are also good indicators. There’s an established scientific study behind reading facial expressions and physical attributes and how they equate to certain personality traits, and I’m told it’s very accurate, so there must be something behind it. These little tip-offs are necessary to appraising other humans, and I believe that’s why this unsung science exists. It’s just like finding someone you’re attracted to, or at least have a potential connection to. Certain facial cues are there to help us recognize our ‘types.’ Other things, like shyness, swagger, speech patterns and gestures, all say something that can be detected on the surface, so it’s easy to tell if it’s worth making the effort to learn more and make a deeper connection. This of course refers to face-to-face contact. Online you only have someone’s spoken (or written) words to base things on, without the benefit of reading their physical traits. But behavior filters down into everything and with practice it isn’t that hard to read someone accurately, even online. The ability is part of human DNA.

Fred Rogers is one of my top ten most beloved and admired heroes. He isn’t some phony out to make a cheap and easy kid’s show, but a genuine and truly good man who wanted kids to have a wholesome quality show that taught good values and was thoroughly entertaining.

On 2024-09-06 at 1:07 PM, Starlight Serenade said:

 

One of the most simple and effective speeches I have ever seen.

 

@Starlight Serenade I love this clip, and he made such an impact because he really cared and took a personal interest in the interests of kids everywhere.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001) I love this movie. Being an origin story gives it a lot of extra punch for me, and I remember fondly seeing it in the theater. I was obsessed with the movies and, to a lesser degree, the books. The movies are an excellent example of how to adapt a movie from a book; keeping just the right parts and omitting the fat. All was done very adroitly by Chris Columbus, who clearly cared about the project. The cast is flawless and John Williams’ score really puts everything over the top. 8/10

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) This is my favorite Harry Potter movie. Even though it takes my favorite character (Hermione) out of the action for part of the movie it’s so engrossing and fun that I hardly even notice. Here you can see that the actors and actresses have really become engrained in their roles and the series has found its footing. Not that it was off to a rocky start or anything, but this movie shows confidence across the boards in what they’ve created. 9/10

The Sound of Music (1965) Having already expounded on the virtues of this masterpiece in the past, I’ll forego the lengthy review. Suffice it to say, this is truly one of the greatest movies ever made. 12/10

Singin’ in the Rain (1952) Another major masterpiece. And, like the Sound of Music, has already enjoyed my accolades in the past so I’ll simply let it stand alongside the aforementioned classic as another of the most worthy films ever to grace the world. 10/10

I would never want to omit anything as fundamental as drums from music. Whether you like them or not, they’re a major part of music. I wouldn’t remove brass, woodwinds, strings or any other family of instrument from music; it would serve only to reduce the possibilities of the vast stories music has to tell.

James Earl Jones was so iconic as the voice of Darth Vader, but he was also larger than life in so many ways. As a voice actor or as an onscreen performer he brought gravity to every role he played. He was powerful, and embodied strength of personality and conviction; overcoming debilitating speech disorder to become one of the most recognizable and beloved speakers ever recorded. He commanded respect by his elegance and maturity, bringing something very special to every role he played. He was a great man, on and off the screen, and he will be missed. God bless you, James Earl Jones, and thank you for making my life a happier one. 

I’ve had a few interesting, and sometimes unsettling, animal encounters. When I was very little and living in Virginia, there was a black bear that was raiding the campgrounds at Shenandoah. We watched from the car and left before it got close, but we did see it in person which was pretty cool. I’m surprised I wasn’t afraid of it. But being a little kid I saw things differently back then.

When I worked as a cave guide in the Midwest, I saw the biggest black snake I’ve ever seen oozing its way across the grounds above the cave. The grounds had a collection of old buildings to re-create an 1890s village, and the snake eventually made its way under one of the buildings, never to be seen again. Its head was the same size as the head of my black Lab dog and it scared me to death. I’m glad it was slow moving. I’ll leave the guesstimation of its overall length to you.

In the same area skunks were extremely common but I never had the misfortune of dealing with the business end of one.

That area of the Midwest had a lot of very strange animal encounters, including another bear sighting in the back yard of the adjoining neighbor's house, and an aggressive dark shape we would soon come to believe was a Puma, also behind the house. We didn't see it well enough to confirm it, but my neighbor did and thought he was done-for. Luckily the Puma didn't attack, but just disappeared back into the woods.

While living in Oregon, I was in a moving truck in the eastern part of the state when a GIGANTIC bird flew up from the rocks. We looked it up when we got home and, believe it or not, it was a California Condor, in the wild.  

The most startling was a raccoon in the restroom at a state park in Arizona. I opened a cubicle door and there it was. I’m not sure who startled the other more, but neither of us remained there for long.

Finally, and this one I think I mentioned on the forums once before, but I was stopping for gas on 101 north of Los Angeles and I saw two little (not full grown) cats meandering around the pumps. One of the cats had a sloping midsection which made me think it wasn’t a typical house cat so I had to look it up later and I believe it was something decidedly ‘wild’ (in the sense of SoCal’s infamous natural residents). But these two cats seemed very comfortable with each other and the funniest part is that they exchanged an honest-to-goodness fist bump. It was so surreal to see this in this quiet place just after sundown, and it was like a cool dream just for me. So cute.

I don’t fear what robots can do. That’s just silly dark ages thinking. Those who have posted paranoid comments back in the day were likely joking or just plain ignorant. Any technology that can improve human existence is welcome as far as I’m concerned. And I like innovation and true advancement just for the sake of it, whether it’s truly needed or not. If man can do it, it must be done, just to expand the horizons of life as we know it.

And in truth Artificial Intelligence isn’t an accurate term, and is erroneously overused these days. There is no true AI, only machines programmed to look and act intelligent. But in the end, it’s all pre-programmed responses fed into the machines by humans. And limitations can be just as easily programmed to appease the paranoid.

Considering that robots wouldn’t be subject to many of the limitations humans have, it would be great to have them picking up some of the workload and making life a little easier on the rest of us walking meat suits.

Whether it works or not isn’t the main question here. Getting the powers-that-be off their brains and willing to take humanity a huge step forward is the main obstacle. And let’s face it, if technicians and politicians can stall until it becomes another generation’s problem, they will. We should have been on Mars by the mid 1970s, but by then the space race was winding down and we didn’t have the motivation to really kick ass in space.

If the technology works it would be the greatest thing in history. I personally love anything that kicks physics in the butt. There is no such thing as constant laws of science; we don’t have any idea the variables that exist beyond the scope of our own existence, and there’s always a fix for those who can think outside the box.

I’m all for anything innovative and this sounds like it could be a good thing if perfected. The main problem is that whenever something like this comes along and promises to bring greater convenience and cost-effective travel, it’s usually the opposite. People love to smother everything in red tape; either to protect their own interests (but not the customers) and instead of making it cost effective it usually costs more than existing modes of transport. Look at wind farms and solar power as examples. Both are supposed to rely on nature to create free energy and reduce costs to consumers. But instead the costs are so high to install these systems that it defeats the purpose of having them to begin with. If greed is going to cancel the benefits of innovation there’s no point in wasting the time and resources.

On the other hand, if costs could be kept to a realistic limit, it would be a cool way to relieve traffic congestion and make travel more efficient. And yes, accidents and problems are a fact of life in every aspect of existence, especially with new inventions, but you can’t stop innovating because of what ‘might’ happen. The world is stagnant enough without obsessing over the ‘what if’s. If red tape doesn’t smother the project before fruition I’d be willing to try it.

Stargazing, creating art and subsequently destroying it, driving at night with the top down on my little convertible, watching dvd movies in the altogether with a glass of wine, and drawing blueprints.

Not all of these are exactly unusual, but maybe to some people they are.