That's right, everybody, today starts the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge! This is my second year participating in the challenge and I am very excited! I even have a real theme this year. You'll figure it out pretty quickly. Let's get started, shall we? A is for Aye-Aye! And no, I'm not talking about a pirate. I'm talking about a primate! The aye-aye (Daubentonia madagascariensis) is a unique primate from Madagascar. And yeah, they're pretty strange looking, but they're also really cool critters.
Although they don't look like it, they are related to monkeys, apes, and humans. The aye-aye is nocturnal, explaining it's large eyes. They spend their days in the trees in a sphere-like nest placed in the fork of a tree.
Some of you may think that I don't ever leave my room. And that would be an incorrect statement. I don't, however, like being out in the cold all that much so the pictures of outside locations will be limited as we head into winter. So instead I'm spending a lot of my time in my room with my roommate, Kayla. Today we watched S.W.A.T. for no good reason. The results:
"Oh no, he's a loose cannon cop who doesn't play by the rules"
Hey, you just got here, and this is crazy, but here's my blog, so subscribe to me maybe?
That's right folks, this post is about the entertaining and utterly catchy song 'Call Me Maybe' by Carly Rae Jepson. Now, before you turn away, this isn't about how much I love this song or how amazing it is. It is, instead about just how many other recreations it has spawned.
I don't believe that the lyrics are the best ever written, but the tune itself is outrageously catchy and the song is just fun. Not to mention the cute video that goes along with it.
The song was originally released in Canada in September 2011. It's major popularity began when fellow Canadian star, Justin Bieber, uploaded a video of himself and a few other celebs dubbing the song.
Soon after this was when the mayhem began. Parodies appeared everywhere, videos of fans dubbing the song began appearing at an alarming rate! It was madness!
And then came the memes. For those of you who don't know what a meme is, according to Urban Dictionary, a meme is "A pervasive idea within a given culture. The idea may be spread through
all channels of communication (word of mouth, photography, ad campaigns,
television, &c.). The goal of the meme is to change the thought
patterns of the populace." The ones I usually find most amusing are in picture form. Take the following examples:
And even after all that awesomeness, I still like this video the best...
Now that you have had an obscene dosage of Call Me Maybe, it is time for you to go forth into the world and sing it ALL DAY LONG!! Have fun!
P.S. If some of you out there have never seen Labyrinth with David Bowie, it is officially time to do so.
Recently I received a comment telling me I was "awarded the Kreativ Blogger award." I'm not exactly sure what that is to be honest, so out of pure curiosity I duly followed the link of said comment to SheilaScribbles blog. Apparently this is an honor in the blogging world, so thank you Sheila for discovering my blog and finding me good enough to receive this award!
As a part of this award I actually have to do something (*sigh* so demanding!). And as a part of this award I wanted to find the originating page, which was actually more difficult than I was expecting. After simply tying Kreativ Blogger into Google all the pages I got were receiving pages, but nothing about the origination. So I had to get a little more 'kreativ' about my search words. Anyways, as it turns out, the 'award' originated in 2008, but it really wasn't an award. More of an acknowledgement. And now it has turned into somewhat of a chain letter. From what I got from Sheila, accepting the award comes with the following:
"1. Thanking
the blogger who nominated me to receive the award and providing a link back to
their blog
2. Sharing 10 things about yourself that bloggers might find interesting!
3. Nominate
6 other bloggers to receive the award and inform them."
For all of you out there who may not realize what this is from (you fools), it is from the timeless classic book/movie, The Princess Bride. The book was originally published in 1973 by William Goldman and the movie was produced by Rob Reiner in 1987. The Princess Bride is one of my favorite movies simply because of the vast subject areas that it covers. It has romance, comedy, adventure, and fantasy. And it has it all in spades! And then, at the climax of the movie, there comes a priest; The Impressive Clergyman. And he makes such a beautiful speech... it just brings a tear to my eye every time. That tear might just be a tear of laughter, but it's a tear every time. Sadly it is Buttercup's marriage to Humperdink, not Westley, that brings about this wonderful scene in the movie. But that's still okay with me as they find twue wuv togevah at the end of the movie.
So thank you, Impressive Clergyman, for your contribution to one of the best movies of all time.
Who will suck your blood! Muahahahahaha!!! But seriously now. There has been a major raise in vampires in the main stream culture pretty recently. Vampires and other mythological creatures used to be considered dark, and only the strange, nerdy, or goth people were really into them. But now everything has changed. I think that it really started with Twilight. I mean, after the first movie came out there was just an explosion of vampires everywhere! At least three new shows started on TV and more movies with vampires and werewolves and such were coming out, it was crazy.
Every little girl's dream! Wait... that's not right.
That's more like it. Every little girl's dream! A magical creature combining a horse with a narwhal! Clearly the best genetic combination ever (though closely tied with the Pegasus, a horse with wings). I really don't know what else to say about the topic. It's a unicorn. What else is there to say? I suppose I could go into the history behind this majestic being, but I'd rather show you some pictures...
So clearly there has been a lot of hype about the series lately, with the release of the first (of three, hopefully) movie. If you don't already know here is a quick rundown of the first book/ movie taken directly from the Hunger Games website;
Set in a dark vision of the near future, a terrifying reality TV show is
taking place. Twelve boys and twelve girls are forced to appear in a
live event called The Hunger Games. There is only one rule: kill or be
killed. When sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdee steps forward to take her
younger sister's place in the games, she sees it as a death sentence.
But Katniss has been close to death before. For her, survival is second
nature.
So yeah, not exactly your common young adult novel. I'm hard pressed to even think of other stories like it, except for Lord of the Flies by William Golding and The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell. Due to the violent nature of the book, there is some controversy involved. Murder stories are most typically reserved for an older audience. But the whole thing with this series is that the contestants are children, aged 12-18. So who better to read the books? I personally read The Most Dangerous Game (which, if you didn't know is about hunting humans for sport) when I was 14. I don't think I've been overly harmed by it. You know, except for those three ghouls I killed on Halloween last year... I kid, I kid. But seriously, if people are worried about exposing their children to violence then they should lock them in a padded room with puzzles of kittens or something because violence abounds in this world today.
So I realized today that I used to do some pretty fun, entertaining blogs about random topics I come across in life. I also realized I don't do that anymore! The reason is probably along the lines of me always chronicling my day or some adventure I've had. And let's face it, it's just not as fun. Even I don't like reading about my own life that much. So in honor of myself and in the spirit of the upcoming A to Z challenge, I will be attempting to do more blogs about topics rather than experiences. That's not to say that I won't do any experiential blogs, because I certainly will, only that they won't rule the Hootenenny any more.
So, to embark in this new endeavor I will begin with the topic of lucid dreaming! So let's start with a definition. A lucid dream is a dream in which you know you are dreaming. Ever had one of those? In all of my outrageous dreams (you can view some here) I never really came across this situation. That is until about a month ago.
I happened to be dreaming about drum corps, as you do, and as with most of my other drum corps dreams, I was on the field performing a show, with no idea what the work or the drill was. And so I figured I would follow the form, there wasn't much work to spin anyways. The only thing was, the rest of my drill form didn't remember the end of the show! So we marched straight off the end of the field while the rest of the corps was performing. And then the visual caption head came running over to us demanding to know what was wrong, and why weren't we on the field finishing the show?! The only thing I could say was I don't know. It was then that I knew I was dreaming. And I almost told him in the dream, except I didn't want to sound crazy. But really, what other reason would I forget all of the work for a show. It only ever happens in my dreams!
