TheKid965

After scouring the Web for interesting, if not funny, April Fool's content, I feel I can safely declare this most ludicrous of holidays "dead" as far as the WWW is concerned.

Every year, it seems the jokes get less and less memorable.  Yes, ThinkGeek still offers its usual passel of gag items for sale (my favorite this year: either the iPad-powered BMO or the "Death Star trench" beanbag game), but they're nowhere near the inspired lunacy of past years.  Google's annual tradition of announcing a revolutionary new technology has churned out one of its lamer efforts with this year's Google Nose.  Long gone are the days when webcomics and similar daily-content sites would abuse HTML, Flash, or whatever other technology was hot at the time to produce bizarre effects.  That bastion of anarchy on the Internet, 4chan, has become decidedly subdued and even (dare I say it) mature over the past few years, and has stopped doing organized AFD gags at all.  Heck, even dA's own "deviantHEART" gag is but a half-hearted reminder of how much fun this stuff used to be, even for those who (like me) have outgrown the sophomoric thrills of a day where it's socially acceptable to pull pranks and spread lies.  That stuff seems to have fully migrated to Facebook/Tumblr trolling and similar pursuits of dubious distinction.

I'd wonder at what happened, but if the truth be known I think I can take a guess:  The Internet, by which I specifically mean the Web, has grown up.  No longer is it the "wild West" up in here, the anything-goes mentality having been exchanged for a much more "corporate," staid personality since the heady days of the late '90s and early '00s.  I'm not saying that's a bad thing, at all, but it does tend to create a much more... I hesitate to use this word, given its current connotations (which I don't intend at all)... a much more conservative attitude towards these things than in the past.  But then, consider the situation:  Most of the "Internet pioneers," who were in high school and college at around the time of the fabled "Dot Com Bubble" that they rode to what passes for stardom in this new medium, are now in their thirties, with families and kids of their own.  And as people tend to do in all walks of life when that happens, they settle down and become a bit more "responsible" in their attitudes than in the past.

There's also a sense of "been there, done that" with most of the Web.  When jokes become predictable, they cease being funny and are good for, at best, only a nostalgic smirk or two.  And while it's certainly true that there's always someone out there who's seeing it for the first time, there are only so many ways you can tell the same joke without the whole endeavor coming off like a tired retread.  Google and ThinkGeek fall into this category. for me.

In short, while I'm sure we'll continue to see AFD gags on the Internet for many years to come, and we'll probably chuckle at the best of them and roll our eyes at the rest, the bloom is most certainly off the rose.  The thrill is gone, and all that's left is just a team of lab mice that only know how to run one maze.

Wow.  I managed to keep this "Best wishes for 2012" post accurate for a full calendar year!

And the post that replaces it?  All it's going to say is "Best wishes for 2013," I fear.  XD  I quite forgot I had this journal, it must be said.

I plan on adding to my photography portfolio in 2013; I got a new camera for Christmas that's quite a bit more intricate and "professional," as it were, so as I master it I should have more pictures to add to my account, at least.  

I should also make an effort to update this blog more often than once a year.  XD

Best wishes to all my followers for a safe and prosperous 2012 (Mayans willing, of course)!

I promise I'll try to provide more content in the coming year, too...

On a lark, and a few recommendations from friends, I decided to check out Puella Magi Madoka Magica, a relatively recent anime series that just concluded a brief 12-episode run in Japan this spring.  Surprisingly, I managed to get through the entire run of the series in just one marathon session, one episode right after the other, with me becoming more and more desperate to know where this story was going.

About four or so hours, twelve episodes, and numerous emotional gutpunches later... I think I can safely say that the "all at once" route is NOT the way to go with this series, especially if you're seeing it (mostly) unawares as I was.

I mean, I'd heard some reports that Madoka was a grade-A mindscrew, and I'd seen lots of artwork for it turn up on Danbooru under the "Soul-Crushingly Depressing" tag, which should have tipped me off.  But amazingly, I figured "It's only twelve episodes, and the Intarwebz have a habit of exaggerating things like this... and hey, it's magical girls!  How bad could it be?"

Oh, to be so young and naïve again.  It's already about four hours after I finished the last episode and I'm still feeling shellshocked by what I just watched.

Don't get me wrong.  This is a good series.  In fact, this is a very good series, especially for its short length.  Indeed, it's so good that I'm going to avoid giving too much away about it, since part of the appeal can only be found in seeing this thing as spoiler-free as possible, so you can fully appreciate the way Madoka takes all your expectations and prejudices about the magical-girl genre, then proceeds to turn them all inside-out.  Then kick you in the crotch.  Repeatedly.  With metal cleats.  I think you're getting the picture.

Emotionally speaking, this is a tough row to hoe, as they say.  It's not, thankfully, Grave of the Fireflies or Saikano, one of those really soul-crushing things whose sole reason to exist is to reduce the viewer to a hollow shell of a human being, gasping for air because they have no tears left in their bodies to cry with.  But you will be put through an emotional wringer for sure.  Let me put it this way, while trying to give away as little as possible about the plot:  By the end of the third episode, you've seen something happen that almost NEVER happens in this genre, at least not THIS early in a storyline.  By the end of the sixth, you'll never look at any magical girl from any series in quite the same way again.  And by the time episode ten rolls around, you might feel as if you don't have any heartstrings left to pluck... so episode ten decides to grab a chainsaw and go after the frame instead.  And when you consider there's still the final two-parter to go after that, you begin to understand why there are things such as Prozac in this world.

Yeah.  It's that kind of series.

None of this is meant to sound like I'm discouraging you from checking it out should it cross your path, however.  I just want you to understand exactly what it is you're getting into first (and if you do watch the series, that sentence will sound eerily prescient).  It's not something I would recommend if you're prone to depression, or are going through a bad time in your life.  (Indeed, had I known the extent to which this show would push my emotions, I might have waited until I was in a little better place mentally before I sat down with the series.)  And I definitely don't recommend watching it all in one sitting; there is so much heavy stuff coming at you from so many directions that information overload becomes a factor on top of everything else.

In sum: Madoka is a great series, but you ABSOLUTELY need to be in the right frame of mind before you check it out.  But check it out you definitely should, especially if you are (or were at one time in your life) a fan of magical girls.

More to come later.  Right now, I need to curl up in bed for a while.