When The Walrus Walks At Midnight…

Yeech, I haven't updated all week! Well, I haven't had much to say in the past week. School was okay, but not great. I didn't do much other than that, other than watch movies and do homework. On Friday I went to a rally for a bunch of schools, including mine. Honestly, the parts that stand out the most was the pizza and singing Never Gonna Give You Up with Caroline on the bus ride there.

So now it's Sunday again, and I said last week that I was going to compare the Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang book to the movie. Not for any particular reason, though, and it's definitely not that I'm obsessed with something new this month and hopefully it'll last longer than the last thing aheheheheh. However, I can't find my copy of the book. However, I can get ahold of The Princess And The Frog and the book it was kinda-sorta-not really based on with minimum effort, so that is what I will do today. Because I am bored and the Internet connection is kind of &#^%ing me at the mo.

Ah, yes, The Princess And The Frog. It's not exactly common knowledge, but the recent Disney movie was actually based on a book by E.D. Baker. And by "based on," I mean that the idea is the same, but it, in truth, has next to nothing to do with the book.

I own a copy of the book, as well as the first two sequels, and they're pretty good. It's about a defiant princess named Emma who kisses a prince-turned-frog while wearing a magic-reversal bracelet from her aunt Grassina and subsequently gets turned into a frog. She and the prince, Eadric, have to find the witch who cast the spell in the first place and then get her to undo it if they ever want to be human again. A really average story, but it had great humor and, not to toot my own horn or anything, the sophisticated vocabulary and storytelling techniques really excited little me. I always was rather pretentious.

The movie holds the same basic idea, but deposits the characters in 1920s New Orleans, rather than the fantasy world of Greater Greensward (and, trust me, it's very green). And before you ask, no, I'm not going to tackle the politics around the film, because I'm more concerned with the story.

First off, Tiana and Emma are as different as windows and doors which is an expression that I just made up and rather like. Emma perfectly fits the tried-and-true "clumsy, rebellious princess" role so common to those types of stories, while Tiana is more like Mulan. By which I mean, she has a specific goal in mind and won't give up on it—no exceptions! (Before the character development fairy flies in and dusts the movie with her patented Character Development Fairydust.)

There were also several exceptions from the Disney tropes taken with the movie. Sure, Tiana only has one parent, but it's her dad that's missing, and we are given an explanation for that. (Charlotte is a different story.) Also, Dr. Facilier doesn't fall to his death like many, many Disney villains. Also, (spoilers hidden; highlight to see) Ray's death. Good Lord, Ray's death (Oh, the cries!). Perhaps they're building up to that Snow White and the Seven Warriors movie I've heard mentioned. It's also focused on the "work hard to make your dreams come true" Aesop, compared to other Disney princess films.

In fact, a lot of the movie deviates from set stereotypes. From the Aesop the rich, blonde Charlotte actually being a good person, instead of the antagonistic "Libby" we're so used to. Oh, but there's still a LOT of shout-outs to the classics, as Disney seems to be wisely trying to go back to their roots. Not that there's not more than a few shout-outs in any recent Disney or Pixar movie. I could spend half an hour reading through a complete list of 'em.

In conclusion (because my cat is demanding attention NAO and I'd rather like to wrap this up), the book and the movie are both great in different ways. I'd encourage avid fantasy fans to seek out The Frog Princess, but if you're not a fan of the Disney princesses, The Princess and the Frog isn't for you.

Avidly shipping Dr. Facilier with Mother Gothel,

Omnia <3

(DISCLAIMER: I am not an actual movie critic, I'm just a bored teenage blogger. Any resemblance to actual critics, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and stop looking at me like that!)

Me and my books

Dream Dream

Had another dream this morning. I just woke up from it and I do not remember any sort of logical progression in it at all. It was basically me walking around for a while with my laptop, watching nonsensical AT4W videos and bemoaning the fact that my mom got a giant bowl of candy and the only thing I could eat were these tiny mauve triangles that tasted like crap. My cousins put in an appearance, but the only interaction I had with them was grabbing one of the boys and pushing him in front of me while I shouted "WHAT THE HECK IS THAT?" and pointed at a tiny, ratty, yappy dog that was sniffing around next to my pool that I don't actually have. For some reason, my house was host to a lotta tiny, yappy dogs. Also they put makeup on my cat and my mom's nonexistent-in-reality boss was sleeping in my bed.

I couldn't have been asleep for too long, because when I fell asleep my alarm was still purring and it's now seven thirty, while my alarm clock goes off at seven fifteen. I'm also typing this blearily while trying to keep my eyes open for more than a few seconds at a  time, having just woken up. My apologies. Now I must go and… *thunk*

A Brief Dissertation on the Subject of My Unfinished Article and the Feline Form

At the moment, I'm working on a sort of longish post entitled 3 is a Magic Number. Whether or not it's worth is entirely up to the reader, but I'm just poking my head in for a moment to say that I'm working on something else really big right now, which you will be able to see sometime in the near future—probably.

As an excuse for content, here's a picture of my darling cat, Sally.

Also, part of my head and shirt.

Ireland, pt 2: Sleep Much Want

Sorry to leave you hanging like that, but I was really tired and stressed after being awake for 20 hours straight. Now I'm not as tired and stressing over only having about five thousand words done for Camp NaNoWriMo. Eep.

What's more fun than going through airport security? What's fun to pretend to crush while looking out an airplane window? What would I rather do than have jet lag?

The answer to all three is "anything and everything." It also pretty much sums up that whole thing that was happening that very annoying and stressful Tuesday.

Well, I left the plane minus one cell phone carrying pictures of the Epic Emily. (Which, I have recently found out, never actually made it on the plane. It's still in the States somewhere, and Friends are looking for it, after finding and losing it again. I love them.)

I waited and waited and waited at three different airports, a car rental place, and at the cottages for some reason I can't remember I was sleep deprived stop looking at me like that!

Anyway, cottages. Five of 'em. With a sheep/goat/cow pen adjacent. I just can't enjoy farm animals anymore, after having cleaned up after them for… Wait, was that only two years? Wow. Seemed like longer.

Not very much like that at all.

But that's a story for another day.

There's also the peacock, which makes this ungodly noise like my cat crying to be let into my room while I'm trying to write because I'm so behind on my word count *sob*, and a lot of other birds.

Pretty bird.

After pretty much passing out in my bed, I was dragged, feebly kicking and screaming, for a hike. Well, hike doesn't really do it justice. It was more wandering around with my parents and the lone other under-18-year-old of our giant group, trying to find a ruined castle.

Guess what. There wasn't a castle.

(Actually, my dad and I found the castle later, but that's another day. And it wasn't a castle, it was a church.)

So we walked back to the cottages and had soup and cheese and bread with the rest of our group. Then I kind of passed out in my bed again. The End.

Next time on Newfallen Mystery, Omnia climbs out the living room window and runs around the farm barefoot. 

Platypodes and Anime Vampires

Yeah, that's basically what I dreamed about last night. At the beginning I was at some sort of jungle-themed summer camp, and for some reason I brought my fat, fluffy, orange pet platypus. But—oh noes!—pet platypus was injured in some way that was never really clear to me! Maybe it was her foot or something…?

So I took her home (which didn't, in any way, resemble my actual house) and put her in my room, and then I went and sat on the stairs while my younger sister (???) was watching TV. Apparently, she was watching an anime about weird vampire romance. At first I thought it took place in some sort of dystopian future world, but no, the vampires lived in Missouri. Lovely.

And then my mom woke me up and my cat jumped onto my bed. Good morning.

Have I Mentioned That I Have A Cat Today?

Yeah, she's still here. I haven't accidently killed her, gone insane and murdered her, lost her, or sold her for iTunes cards.

"Good Lord."

Okay, that sounded really, really bad. Dark humor, people, I'll be here all week! Or until the Internet dies, whichever comes first!

I'm just going to try this again.

My cat is being a lovely little mollycoddle ("That word makes no sense in context, Omnia."), which here means "the silliest cat I have ever owned. For serious."

"No! It! Doesn't! It means to treat someone very indulgently or protectively, or, as a noun, an effeminate man or boy! Sometimes I think you say things just to spite me!"

Yup. Way to rawr, Claud.

Now that Claudia has curled up in the corner, sobbing over my word choice, I can go on with my post:

Salisbury--that's one of my nicknames for her. Salisbury. 'Cause, you know, her name's Sally. Other nicknames include Puddin', Cat-Cat, Sal, and Holy-Crap-How-Did-You-Do-That-?!

So, Sal's been--

You know what, I never actually planned any content for this post, so…

*end*

(Also, I cannot find my library card. This frightens and upsets me.)

(Also, here is something awesome. It's, like, funny. And stuff.

Towel Day

Towel Day was yesterday, and in all the kitty excitement, I just plum forgot to write a post about it! I feel like such a bad Hitchhiker. I mean, I carried a towel around with me all day and everything, but still.

What's that, you say? Explain what Towel Day is? Well, if you insist.

Now there's a frood who really knows where her towel is.

It's a tribute to Douglas Adams! Who wrote The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy! Everybody carries around towels all day! See quote from the book:

A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapors; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost". What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

Hence a phrase that has passed into hitchhiking slang, as in "Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There's a frood who really knows where his towel is." (Sass: know, be aware of, meet, have sex with; hoopy: really together guy; frood: really amazingly together guy.)

See? (Yeah, I kinda copy+pasted that from Wikipedia. That's why the font's all messed up.)

Well…yeah. Maybe next year I'll dig out a beach towel, instead of just grabbing one from the bathroom.

Kitty Pictures!

Do you know how incredibly hard it is to get a kitten to stay still for longer than a few seconds?

Even if you don't, I have great news:

I got a cat! Guys, meet Sally:

God, she's adorable. She's kind of hiding under my bathroom sink at the moment. I'm about to go check on her again, but I just wanted to post some adorable kitty pictures.

Ciao!

EFIT: "She'll love exploring all the nooks and crannies in your room," says my mom.

"She'll love leading me around and around in circles, no matter how many times I try to find her," says me. "This is supposed to be MY little empire! She's just the Archduchess!"

Now she's hiding under my desk and mewling. Here, kitty, kitty…

(Um, is it obvious I'm chasing her around my room or not?)

Missing Elevators and Freezer Ladders

Okay, I had a very weird dream last night. I was walking around this park-like place carrying a bunch of stuff--two cats, a couple of books, and a jumble of objects wrapped up in a jacket. But then I had to leave, and the only way to get out was up a ladder that was inside one of those freezers, like the ones at grocery stores that hold milk and frozen pizza. I told my mom that I couldn't go up the ladder with the two cats and jacket package, so she told me where to find an elevator.

While I was waiting for the elevator, I happened to see two guys I knew, and we started talking (I don't remember what about). After a pretty long time, I decided that the elevator was never going to come, so I went back to the ladder.

For some reason everything I had been holding except the books and the jacket had disappeared, so I wrapped the books in the jacket and tied it around my waist. Then I climbed up the ladder and found myself back home. It wasn't my real life house, but apparently dream-me lives in some sort of messed-up treehouse.

I can't remember exactly what happened after that, but I know it helped along my theory that dream-me is a lot smarter and more sane than awake-me. Maybe tomorrow I'll tell you about the dream that I had that led to this theory. Believe me, it's pretty cool.

Cat. Cat? Cat.

This might be a long winded post, so I'll cut to the chase (that's a funny phrase, cut to the chase. I wonder where it--*):

I'm getting a cat!

A kitten actually. And it's definitely going to be a girl, because my mom has already had two guy cats and she wants a girl cat now.

I already have a litter box and cat food and some catnip-filled mice, so now I just need to figure out a name. Freya? Artemis? Some other name that has nothing to do with ancient mythology at all? No. That would be just silly.

Okay, I think I smell like cat food… Oh well, that's just one of the steps to becoming an evil overlord/crazy cat lady. Yes, I've decided on a career.

*"Don't ponder it, just write it and be done!"†

† Sorry, Claudia. Jeeze.