Spongebob Nightmares

Lady Melisandre doesn’t give a crap about your ruined childhood.

The world is dark and full of terrors. And no one likes teaching children that more than the cartoons they mindlessly consume. I was reminded of that a few when my fiance put on Spongebob for background noise while he went to sleep. An episode from Episode 7, “Squidward in Clarinetland,” may have negatively affected my sleep for the night. All poor Squidward wants is a locker where he can keep his clarinet.

Mr. Krabs needs to rethink his idea of “pranks”

What he gets is a Timelord’s nightmare Tardis. What he gets is a bizarre trip into complete and utter madness. He’s following a “White Rabbit” through a fucked up version of Wonderland but it’s worse; instead of a White Rabbit, it’s Squidward’s clarinet-napping nemesis being more insane than ever. Squidward is actually ridiculously happy in the beginning of the episode. For once, he’s happy to be at work all because he has a clarinet audition later that day. Most of the time, Squidward just tries to live a peaceful, quiet, cultured life, that is constantly interrupted by his neighbor and coworker. This episode seems to represent the moment that his brain finally snaps. Giant Patrick even tries to explain that “It must be all the pressure” in the middle of the nightmare-fest.

Giant Patrick understands a thing or two about pressure.

There are so many moments of dark horror in this episode, I’m not sure how to even rank them. I bet a decent psychologist could analyze this way better than I can, but, in my opinion, this episode exists to show children that having hopes and dreams will drive you mad as a hatter, at least if you’re surrounded by insanity day in and day out (let’s not forget that his boss is responsible for at least one murder and there’s that time that Spongebob and Mr. Krabs try to bury a “body”). It also serves as a reminder that nothing good ever happens when a character is finally happy. In that way, it’s just like Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead. Never get attached to a character who is finally happy. They will either die, be tortured, or lose everything they’ve ever loved. Isn’t television cheerful?

There’s hundreds of dark and disturbing moments in “children’s” shows. In no way is this a definitive list (there’s plenty of those out there); this is just my list of some of the ones that I’ve actually seen, in no particular order.

Poor Chuckie. The kid’s too smart for his own good sometimes. He definitely overthinks things. Two-year-olds are not supposed to go all existential about the nature of reality. When they do, dogs start talking and their best friend becomes a terrifying big-nose-clown-type monster. Possibly the most disturbing part is that his father suffers the same nightmares. Will this be an image that will haunt Chuckie the rest of his life? Probably.

Poor Pinkie Pie. Nobody can make it to her party. So she does what lots of little girls do and sets up a fake party with stuffed animals…and plants and stacked rocks. That’s not too weird. Fairly standard, nothing to be concerned about. But then she starts making the things talk to her and each other. They each start developing their own personalities and giving her bad advice. You can watch her mental stability deteriorate as her twitches become more frequent and violent. Do kids really need to see a sped-up version of a descent into madness?

Poor Arnold. I remember him getting the worst of Professor Song’s…I mean, Ms. Frizzle’s field trips on a number of occasions. But this, the first episode, is probably the worst. He’s just trying to persuade a particularly annoying annoying and idiotic Janet to come back to the bus and back to earth without her collection of space rocks. To prove that she’ll die if she stays on the moon, he pulls off his helmet. His head instantly freezes. Thankfully, this one didn’t stay dark. I guess since it’s a “magic” school bus, it healed him or something? Or maybe Frizzle/River Song used some regeneration power on him. But still, the first episode of a semi-educational show had one of the students die horribly. Nature spares no one.

Coffee is a magical drug that must not be denied to the adults in kids’ lives, NO MATTER WHAT!!!! If, as a child, you didn’t already understand that your parents probably needed coffee or other caffeine to survive each day, you learned after this episode. You also learned that coffee is extremely gross until you get old enough to enjoy it out of necessity. It’s highly addictive and mood-altering (I’m kind of surprised it’s never been outlawed, but the people who make the laws are all addicted, too). Dexter and Deedee see it as a luxury allowing them to stay awake all night. Mom and Dad, however, turn into monsters if they can’t have their morning doses. Seriously, the dad here almost gets physically violent with his over-curious children. This is not a cheerful outlook for children if they realize that they, too, will eventually be coffee-addicts. Also there’s a creepy, racist depiction of a coffee farmer and his donkey in the cabinet. I’m pretty sure that deserves a post all its own.

This list doesn’t include shows like Are You Afraid of the Dark? or Goosebumps or Courage the Cowardly Dog or any of a number of anime shows that are intentionally creepy and/or not really meant to be a kid’s show. Nor does it include a lot of the stuff from the 80’s that had a tendency to be a bit brutal (check out this episode of Captain Planet where a character actually dies from a drug overdose. On a children’s show).

What are some of the creepiest cartoons you’ve ever watched? Sound off in the comments.

Alphabet Soup

Google is plotting world domination. *Ahem* Sorry. Alphabet is plotting world domination.

It had to happen someday. Google had its fingers in too many projects. Only the tiniest part of Google actually had anything to do with searching the internet now. It had to happen and now it finally has.

Say hello to the future of everything : Alphabet

Google did not divide. Such a thing would be sacrilege. It has simply given birth to a much larger entity – an entity that will give us self-driving-cars. An entity that will give us delivery drones. An entity that will continue to put the world at our fingertips through intuitive searching. An entity that will enable us to communicate ever easier and cheaper. An entity that will heal us and make us, as a species, stronger!

Okay, that might be going too far, but Alphabet really does have ready-made, future-tech businesses touching nearly every part of our lives.

This is a good move for Google. It will be much easier for them to research and develop new technologies in specialized fields if each business under the Alphabet umbrella can focus solely on its own work, while still having access to the vast resources amassed by Google already.

I’m sure some people will see this new umbrella company as a bad thing. They’ll say that the company has too much power, that no company should affect an individual’s life in so many ways.

But I say,  “Let the Alphabet have its under-companies. Let the company-formerly-known-as-Google research and produce a shiny new future.” After all…what’s the worst that could happen? As long as they don’t build Skynet or anything…

Raven Mail (or Why can’t our postal service be that exact?)

And so Ned keeps his head.

I found this on a list of Harry Potter mashups. Now, I know that they exist in different times and, sadly, different worlds (Westeros can’t be part of our earth. Those seasons would obliterate this planet), but it got me thinking, what would have happened if Ned never received that message?

First of all, were the ravens not somehow absolutely accurate in their mail-delivering capabilities (seriously, we have computers and actual addresses and stuff gets lost), Ned would never have begun to suspect the true parentage of Cersei’s children. There’s a possibility that someone like Stannis may have still tried to plant the thought, but Ned wouldn’t have been heading to King’s Landing with that sticking point in his brain. Also, no one really liked Stannis so maybe Ned would have ignored him.

That doesn’t eliminate all the bad blood though. Bran would still have been pushed from a window after seeing the royal twins doing it doggy-style, but, as long as Catelyn kept her cool in the slightest possible way (which she’s not likely to have done), the incident would not have escalated into full-fledged war.

Cersei would still have murdered the king and tried to bully Ned into leaving King’s Landing, but there’s a distinct possibility that, if he didn’t believe Stannis to be the rightful king, he would have respected the new king’s wishes and went back home with Sansa and Arya.

If Ned went home, then Robb would never have to leave Winterfell practically undefended. Theon would never have reconnected with his dear old dad and his sexy-violent sister. He would have remained a complete man and stayed at Robb’s side, probably forever. The Greyjoys would never attack Winterfell, Bran and Rickon would never have to flee, and the psycho Boltons would keep their bloody hands off of Jeyne Poole or Sansa (depending on whether we’re talking books or show).

Jon would still be off at the Wall and most of the events, other than his desertion attempt, would play out the same as they already do. The Starks, however, understand the needs of the Watch and the dangers north of the Wall. They would have sent more men and supplies to assist the Watch in times of danger, especially if Jon personally told Ned about the White Walkers.

Daenerys’ story would play out much the same. Other than little rumors reaching her ears, I can’t think of how her story would change much. She’d still be an amazing badass Khaleesi and Mhysa.

So, in review, if the raven had simply failed at his job, or if someone got hungry and shot it out of the sky to feed his family, Ned would still be alive and still be Warden of the North. Catelyn would still be alive and would try to baby Bran the rest of her life. Robb would be the heir to Winterfell and be married to some northern lord’s daughter. Their children would grow up playing with Grey Wind. Jon would still be on the Wall and would probably still be elected Lord Commander, but he might not have been betrayed because of the increase in Stark men and supplies. Sansa and Arya would be safe. Sansa would have quickly gotten over her disappointment in not marrying Joffrey. She would have made some young lord a wonderful wife. Arya would have fought that as her fate and would take up a sword and armor like Brienne did. Maybe eventually she would marry, but it would be an unconventional one for the culture; she would be in charge. Bran and Rickon would have grown up. Bran could possibly journey to Old Town and become a Maester, specializing in the old stories, especially the scary ones.

TL;DR – Everyone lives happily ever after.

And so, next time you see “Dark wings carrying dark words,” do us all a favor and shoot it down with a bow and arrow. I hear raven stew is delicious.

Pixels (or “This is what happens when we elect Kevin James as President”

For the record, I haven’t been to a movie theater for over a year. The last movie I remember seeing in the theater was Robocop, which my fiance and I saw on our first Valentine’s Day together. Somehow, there just didn’t seem to be any better options at the time, but whatever. Don’t judge me.

Then, about a month ago or so, we were watching TV (I believe I was freaking out about a distinct lack of Game of Thrones for another year) when who should appear on the screen but Peter Dinklage! Peter Dinklage is amazing. There’s even a song about him. I’m really not sure if it was Peter Dinklage that caught my eye first or the giant freaking Tetris pieces flattening buildings. We recently dressed as Tetris pieces and ran around a convention for a weekend with the theme music playing, so Tetris holds a special place in my heart.

All conversation stopped. “We’re seeing that. In the Imax theater. Opening weekend,” I announced.

We didn’t quite make it for opening weekend. A variety of factors (mostly a combination of work schedules and laziness) forced us to go Monday instead.

We almost had the entire theater to ourselves. Granted, this was 4:00 in the afternoon on a Monday on a non-holiday weekend. Normal people don’t go to movies at that time, so that’s probably why it was so empty. I had also read a couple reviews that didn’t exactly speak highly of Pixels. Most of them were trying to take this movie waaaaay too seriously.

President James, they’re waiting for you in the situation room.

Pixels is a movie about classic arcade games coming to life. It is not a serious, mind-blowing type of movie. I really liked it for what it was. It was light-hearted, goofy, over-the-top and all the other things we’ve come to know and love about most Adam Sandler and Kevin James movies. Anyone who thought it was going to be serious in any way, shape, or form should have realized their error when it’s revealed that Kevin James was somehow elected President of the United States. That was all it took to give me permission to really just relax and not judge the movie for any non-believable parts (because there are plenty of those).

I think it was the absolute perfect movie to have in 3D. The cubes (looking very familiar to Whovians) were right in front of my face. I haven’t seen any 3D movies in theaters since I was a kid. I wear glasses and the old 3D paper glasses just didn’t work well for me. Since it’s been a while, I expected there to be a bunch of gag moments where things just shot out at the audience for the heck of it. There was none of that. The 3D was done just right. The video-game-alien-energy things looked real but not real at the same time, if that makes sense. Visually, it was a good movie. Not the best thing ever, but it was  really good.

Some people were upset at the treatment of women in the movie. Those people had some good points. There’s pitifully few female characters and no female gamers. Most of the women in the movie are only there to help a man’s character arc. So this is not a gender equal movie, but, sadly, most movies aren’t. And I really can’t think of a way this movie would have worked if they had changed some of the roles. The main characters absolutely had to be ones that were at a 1982 arcade championship. Most early arcade champions were male. It’s only been within the past 15 to 20 years that girl gamers have been more than just the outsiders. That’s kind of like being mad at Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings for not letting the women take on leadership roles on their own merit; that’s just not historically accurate for the time period being portrayed. But I think the women that get caught up in the battle to save the planet could have been strong characters apart from the men. Did they really need to make the “sexiest Prime Minister” joke?

Is that you, Ned?

Overall, I really enjoyed Pixels. It wasn’t genre-redefining, but it wasn’t supposed to be. It’s a fun way to spend a couple of hours, especially if you can see it in theaters. It was well-worth the money. Peter Dinklage as a mulleted cyber-criminal was amazing. And Sean Bean played a hard-ass military man who SPOILER ALERT doesn’t die.

Hello world!

There are around a zillion blogs, vlogs (does anyone really say that anymore…or ever?), podcasts and websites out there that deal with nerd/geek culture. Should a noob really bother making it a zillion and one? I say “Yes!” As Carl Sagan said, “Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious…. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.” Therefore, I might be one of thousands in the nerd takeover of the planet, but I have a perspective that is uniquely mine. And you have one that is uniquely yours. So this blog (and hopefully soon a podcast with my partner) will showcase the things about nerdom that I find interesting and think you will, too. There will be the occasional rant, freak-outs over deaths in Walking Dead and Game of Thrones (I promise to put giant SPOILER WARNINGS with those), news, reviews, and link storms (inspired by the Afternoon Roundups on Tor.com).

So now that I’ve outlined the very basics of what this blog will cover, I guess I should tell you a little about myself. I’m in my mid-20’s and have two older siblings, which means I have a healthy respect and love for many ‘80s movies and shows. I grew up on Disney movies, Star Wars and Xena: Warrior Princess and developed a deep love for Harrison Ford as one of my first real celebrity crushes. Needless to say, I was devastated when someone (I think it was my older brother) showed me a picture of him being older than my father. So I placed that crush on the shelf – only for it to be renewed every time I saw him as Han Solo or Indiana Jones – in favor of Orlando Bloom and Viggo Mortensen in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Not gonna lie, I still love them both.

The Lord of the Rings obsession has endured, as has the Star Wars one. I have huge rants I could unleash about the film treatments of both, but I’ll save that for a rainy day. Those two opened up fandom doors in every direction. From Harry Potter to Firefly to Doctor Who to Game of Thrones to the Walking Dead and loads of things in between, I’m into too many things to name. And now my fiance has introduced me to anime, a world into which I’ve still barely stepped. I’m currently watching Clannad, but I can only watch a few episodes at a time before I burst into tears and lose all ability to follow the rest of the story. I don’t know why I’m most attracted to shows that cause me the most feels, but I’m a sucker for a good sob story.

Well, that’s me in a nutshell. I’ll be back later with a real post.

May the Force be with you, always.

Missa