Technology Meets [Insert Witty Juxtaposition Here]!

WARNING: THIS POST WILL TAKE FOREVER TO LOAD. SORRY. YOU'LL LIKE IT, THOUGH.

Ahem, so, I can deny it no more... I am an internet addict.

Which is quite ironic to me, since all I knew how to work on my computer before, say, October of this year (if not later) was... Microsoft Word. But since then I have created SO MANY internet accounts! Let's see... facebook, youtube, blogger, formspring, vimeo, livejournal... to say NOTHING of various filesharing websites, such as fileden, mixpod, filefactory, scribd, screentoaster, and others I'm forgetting at the present moment.

This recent obsession, springing from the insane amount of "free" time I have since I am midway through my gap year(s) before college, has also led me to be rather internet savvy, knowing what the hell html and hex coding is and the basics of how to manipulate it for my own purposes, some fundamental hacking and *cough cough* slightly sketchy downloading skills, familiarity with what websites are more useful than others on the web... in fact just all-around knowing my way around the web. Example of the extremity of this change? This summer I couldn't even have told you what a youtube channel was. I remember I once accidentally clicked on a link to what I now recognize as one, and not only had no idea what it was but in fact was afraid I'd come upon some porn. Sigh. Was I that naive?

Anyhow, here's a brief list of my fundamental and most-used sites to update my readers. More posts pertinent to feminism (as opposed to just feminist me) to come. On a related note, the explanation for the recent/ ever since I started blogging lack of regular entries is BECAUSE I have done so much self-teaching on the internet. Not to mention teaching myself how to use imovie and finalcut express, learning what a screencapture is from kelsique, then having to download ishot (found after SEVERAL others were tried) because normal screencaptures don't work during DVD playback, yada-yada. One of my recent favorites is embedding a website within a website, so you'll have to forgive me if this entry takes a bit to load, cause I had the brilliant idea to excessively use this cute little gadget. If it helps, you can click on the title of this post so the only thing on the page is this entry - hence loading is much quicker.

My most recent Video, entitles "A Silent Video Featuring Silent Collages" or... "Silent Collages... With Sound." The first piece is the most beautiful sound and piece known to man.

The following small type is the video description, optional for reading... but then, this entire entry is optional I suppose. But... um, maybe I shouldn't be saying that. Thanks for reading! Er, now I'm sounding needy...

Oops! My Silent Movie Featuring Silent Collages is... not-so-silent. Well, you shouldn't believe everything you read anyway.

This was originally a silent video was created in an attempt to pare down the obnoxiousness of the youtube channel autoplay. But then through excessively harassing Google I found that if you had a soundtrack not advertised by google (with a direct link to itunes), then the autoplay is disabled - yay!

By the way - I have an awesome feminist blog, http://bemusingjobingo.blogspot.com.

A *cough cough* silent video featuring silent collages. You can find most of these images in the following links:
http://bemusingjobingo.blogspot.com/2...
http://bemusingjobingo.blogspot.com/2...
http://bemusingjobingo.blogspot.com/2...

Music:
1) I Cannot keepe my wyfe at home; Lute played by Paul O'Dette from the Album "Robin Hood"
2) "Dreaming" by Loudon Wainwright III
3) "Grey in LA" by Loudon Wainwright III

Aright, before I get frisky with my list of major Bemusing Jo Bingo websites, I'd like to exhibit my most recent wonderful web wisdom through a recent accomplishment, a complete make-over of my little sister Koe Halifax's blog - it is a google blog, but the template just didn't fit her right and she so liked the look of my formspring account that she asked if I could fix it up a bit.

Of course she had no idea that it was about a hundred times more difficult to rewrite an entire website's makeup than to set a pre-arranged user-friendly button on formspring to "repeat image background," but what the heck, I decided to do it or die (and as an intense perfectionist to the point of unhealthiness, that is closer to a literal statement than I'd care to tell).

It was really hard, and even once I figured out the background repeat there was a LOT of other things to change both for reading's sake (such as a lighter background behind the writing so that you can actually READ her magnificent (damn her) poems) and for professional-isn't-this-pretty's sake. She picked the image however. If she could, she would be a dragon. Sometimes I suspect she is one secretly.

Well, TA-DAAAA, here it is! Go ahead and click the image if you don't care for the "website within a website" format, or want to bookmark the blog because it is ingenious. - P.S., my favorite poem of hers and of all time is Tribute to Helen Keller, who by the way is one of my three favorite famous figures/ heros: Roald Dahl, Helen Keller, and George Washington Carver.

Okay, now to me me me MY stuff!

NUMBER ONE. Bemusing Jo Bingo! This! What you are reading right now! Isn't it surreal/Outer Limits/Twilight Zone that you can read it within itself since I embedded it? I mean that means for this entry, since I am embedding within, it is... a website within a website within a website within a website within a website.... doesn't that just blow your mind? Like those double mirrors that freaked the hell out of you as a kid. ...Wow, this blog will end up killing my computer, poor thing.

You can click this image for an enlargement to set as your desktop picture.

And of course, by extension, my picasaweb album ... which is all of the images I have ever posted to this blog, quite a number, and a very pretty array if I do say so myself, which I just did. In writing. Not out loud.

Feel free to click this image out of pure curiosity at its detail.

NUMBER TWO. This was actually my first personalized website - blogger was chronologically second, even though it, and not my youtube account, became the main attraction. (You can tell that this is an ego trip entry, can't you...)

NUMBER THREE. Facebook Page for Bemusing Jo Bingo! Gotta love selling out. Just kidding. This was really for convenience - most of my regular readers don't have blogger accounts so they don't receive any email/ other cyber updates when I post, though they do check facebook, so I thought this an easy solution. Plus, as google so cutely puts it, "Welcome to the official Facebook Page of Bemusing Jo Bingo. Get exclusive content and interact with Bemusing Jo Bingo right from Facebook."

And I figured I'd include my cutesy facebook sidebar:

NUMBER FOUR. Formspring. Usually used as a pure outlet for the ego, but in this case... well, it still is, but I'm trying to take each question about my blog and me SERIOUSLY as you will no doubt see if you look (again, click the image for the link if you so choose).

By the way, the donkeyhead woman image is from an Andrew Lang Fairy Tale that is hilarious, "THE STORY OF DSCHEMIL AND DSCHEMILA."

NUMBER FIVE. Vimeo - an account created when youtube threatened after a second (in my opinion, unfair) copyright infringement that the third strike would result in the deletion of my account. So, vimeo will be used for clip compilation videos, which youtube was too squirmy to keep, even though it has PLENTY of them that have remained there for years. Hmph.

And Lastly, a Livejournal account, which will actually be mostly personal and unseen, as I will be practicing with free-writing and a new novel idea that I'd like to keep hush-hush for now - however, I do mean to have the occasional public entry, just for kicks! - So sorry for the completelty blank body embroidered by such a pretty title and sidebar (not the right sidebar - it is a free account so there have to be advertisements, yuck. At least it has the pretty key on top. That's why I'm so in love with google blogger - well, one of many reasons - no advertisements!).

Oh yeah, and all of these websites are on the left sidebar of my wonderful blog that I am SOOO enjoying making, even if no one read it (though please do, readers are welcome) - (and I'll have you know, I created the vimeo and youtube badges on the side myself.)

Okay, to close. My most recent youtube video, not a Bemusingjobingo original (forgive the ego talk. Will resume humility in next post, somewhat) - but a clip of my FAVORITE Frasier moment, and that's saying something, because I own all eleven seasons and it is my favorite show, the Simpsons being second. And they have a LOT of good moments... good premise + good writing + good actors = absolute bliss.

(P.S. A combination of those two loves is in the Simpsons episode "A Brother From Another Series," Season 8, episode 16 - I highly recommend it. The same guys who do the voices for the two brothers in Frasier do the voices of side-show Bob (a recurring character in The Simpsons, who always wants to kill Bart, voiced by my beloved Kelsey Grammer) and Cecil (voiced by the adorable and unfortunate for me, gay, David Hyde Pierce). Here is a link to a decent quality megavideo - um, video of the episode. Catch it before it gets deleted, haha.)

WAIT!! I forgot I learned how to embed megavideo, too! Will my talents never cease! (Thanks for tolerating the ego-trip, if you've made it this far that is.)

Okay, so the megavideo - er, video was deleted, which bites. (The major downside to having a blog - links sometimes DIE! Makes me angry...) Here's another embedding which hopefully WON'T expire:

FreeVideoCoding.com

Ta-ta ,

(notice the similarity to "ta-da" - I just did),

-Just Call me Jo

P.S. Cough cough, to close FOR REAL... a video I saw a while back - a classic, a gem - and pertinent to feminism. I love it so much, the more because I have what is called a "thing" for asian guys (not kidding or exaggerating here), and I am a caucasian.

P.P.S. So much for short posts. Haha... Ha.

This is the First of MANY Short Posts!!!!

H-E-L-L-O and How do you do!

I need to post more often and in much shorter entries. I can do this! Whoo whoo!

Meet Jessica Rabbit, the lucky girl married to...

Roger Rabbit.

I LOVE her character; watch this movie!

Embedding has been disabled for part one, so click this link - PART ONE - the movie will make a LOT more sense, trust me.

The next entry - I mean SERIES of entries will be devoted to Disney fan videos. Right now the draft is so big that you'd have to have an entire afternoon to watch them all!

Jessica Rabbit = A Woman Toon that's caricatured body (cough cough the first things you see are her legs and boobs coming from behind the curtain) does NOT bother me - why? Because of how they wrote her character!

Ultra-Famous Line: "I'm not bad. I'm just drawn that way."

I had always thought what she said was "I'm not bad. I'm just strong that way." I think that statement is true about her too!

I'll write more about that later - but I promised myself I would make this entry insanely short.

Close with a revealing quote from Jessica:

"Roger, I want you to know that I love you. I've loved you more than any woman's ever loved a rabbit."

Sincerely,

-Just Call Me Jo

Comeback

I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!

Did you miss me?

I'm sure you did.

I hope so anyway.

(Google's version of the story of Thumbelina! So Cool!)

Happy 205th Birthday, Hans Christian Andersen!

(... and thank you Google for reminding me, so I could look like a hard core fan to my friends and family for remembering.)

And What better way to celebrate his birth and works through the classic, and my favorite, "The Little Mermaid?"

This is my favorite mermaid picture ever... I think:

Some (a small taste of my collection of literally thousands) Specific Little Mermaid - Hans Christian Anderson Little Mermaid - Favorite Images of Mine - in the order of the story:

The other girl...

... very dramatic Disney version of the translation - whereas Hans-Christian Andersen just had the sea-witch give the little mermaid a phial to drink once she reached the surface. HOWEVER in the Hans Christian-Anderson version her feet were supposed to feel as if she were being stabbed or jabbed or something - violent pain anyway - whenever she moved them, which is NOT in the Disney version, so I guess they had to make that up with more drama in the transformation. ;)

See? The witch just hands her a little bottle XD

So close! The prince says that he will marry her, since she reminds him of the girl who saved him...

But then the girl who he THINKS saved him becomes available and he ditches the little mermaid for what he thinks is the real thing.

Her sisters cut and trade their hair to the sea-witch for a dagger which, if plunged into the prince, would allow her to remain alive and not turn into sea foam. But the little mermaid sees that the couple is so happy and she loves the prince so much she does not murder the well-meaning idiot but rather plunges herself into the sea...

And though she feels herself turning into sea foam she still has a sense of self, and it turns out that in her self-sacrifice and unselfish life she has earned the privilege of becoming a "Daughter of the Air," which essentially means she is in line to become an angel and have a soul and membership in heaven and such.

The couple think that the beautiful mute girl has committed suicide from a broken heart, and mourn for her - because of course they don't realize that their very wedding was going to disintegrate her being into sea foam.

...Needless to say, I am OBSESSED with the story. THANK YOU HANS-CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN!!!!!

To read Hans-Christian Andersen's classic tale in words instead of pictures, click here. I know it is hard to believe, but his words are just as, if not MORE, beautiful than these pictures!

I will have an entry - well, let's be honest, several entries - based entirely on The Little Mermaid, so I really should stop myself - before I get COUGH COUGH carried away - so that I can move on to the supposed semi-topic of THIS entry. (I love how I at first intended to have five, ten pictures tops... I get so over-enthusiastic... to the point of never getting anything done... yay.)

Wait! One more nod to Hans-Christain Andersen - with a twist. Someone had the insanely brilliant idea to take the tune of Sally's Song in "The Nightmare Before Christmas" (the first video) and make lyrics about the story of "The Little Mermaid" (the second video). Such a cool idea and it is obviously all the work of one person, including the voice.

Yes, yes, I haven't posted in a month - in fact not once in the entire month of March. However, I'm back and better than ever with several more almost-finished drafts saved in addition to the several I already had. So more is to come. Much more. More than you can handle. Buckle up. It is going to be awesome!

I have not been doing nothing this month. I have been quite the busy bee. More details will be given in the next few entries, but for now, just to give you an idea, here are the Books I've been reading since I last wrote - there will be blog entries VERY soon concerning them:

"A Room of One's Own,"

"Who Stole Feminism? How Women Betrayed Women,"

"A History of Their Own: Women in Europe from Prehistory to Present,"

"Feminism Without Illusions: a Critique of Individualism,"

"Seduction and the Secret Power of Women: The Lure of Sirens and Mermaids,"

"Legends: Women who have Changed the World through the eyes of Great Women Writers,"

"Dangerous Women: The Perils of Muses and Femmes Fatales."

Okay, so I decided today's entry would consist mainly of items that are NOT feminist, or at least I don't think they are, BUT that CAN I suppose sometimes be analyzed in terms of feminism, but that's not the same thing, or at least I'm saying it is not the same thing.

THINGS THAT ARE NOT FEMINIST (I think):

...Another ingenious person who took this hilarious clip from the 1985 "Clue" and made it very ironically dramatic. Again, like the original I embedded at the beginning of this entry, NOT feminist.

Frasier being wonderful... but it is not feminist. Just ingenious.

Mrs. Peacock was a Man

Yay Granny O'Grimm - mostly an age thing. Not feminist. (But, as I said before, it can be analyzed with a feminist eye but that is a different matter.)

Reminds me of this moment in Frasier... poor Roz...

This fan music video I found very interesting because though Mulan's dude is a bit rough on her in the beginning, it is not because of a failed romance; and of course Mulan herself is a very strong woman, who would not put up with ill-treatment in a relationship. The juxtaposition is nice; I include it here of course because the song is NOT feminist and though it may seem to fit with the video, if you view it literally I think it incorrect - it is only feminist if you view the juxtaposition with an ironical eye, in which case, you might be an analyzing feminist which doesn't make it feminist bla bla bla where did this sentence go wrong? Well, hopefully you see what I'm getting at.

FUNNNNNNNNYYYYYY. However, I would not describe the character of Bebe as a feminist... per se....

Devin and Cornwall CONTRAST.

Just listen to the to lines of theirs at the point at which I have this video start; you can stop it once they start running away from the scary dragons. This has been my favorite line in this insanely goofy movie for years. NOT feminist; but it is candy FOR a feminist.

Similarly... a different kind of contrast - a contrast in lifestyle and lyrics! If you know these characters, you know how very UNLIKE the characterization in their song they really are. Hilarious. Watch Frasier, your life will be made as complete as humanly possible. I own all eleven seasons.

On a side note, here are some fun things in case you liked that two-headed dragon:

Devin and Cronwall "If I Didn't Have You." - Not feminist.

The Movie... in case you are enjoying them so much you'd like to try the whole thing! I grew up with it. It is the definition of goofy. But in a sort of good way; plus Cary Elwes is the voice of the male lead.

Okay, moving away from cartoons, here is a depiction of chick flick cliches. Neither the cliches, the depictions, or the point of the video, are feminist. Neither is it offensive. It's just plain hilarious. Bookmarked this LONG ago.

Back to Cartoons. This Fat squirrel is not feminist.

Madam mim provides lots of material FOR a feminist... but I don't think she would call herself a feminist and neither do I.

suspect Disney is making fun of itself here.

"Nameless, Faceless Gators" - like the "nameless faceless women" of history haha PARODY yay!

MAD SIMILARITY IN ANIMATION FOR LOUIS AND MAD MADAM MIM:

The similarity is not feminist. Just ingenious of ME to have seen it.

And now, some NOT feminist Louis clips. He is my favorite character in "The Princess and the Frog." - "I'm so cold!"

...And now, some girly Frasier. Not feminist. Just funny. (Have I repeated my point enough for you? I'm starting to annoy me...)

For this one you'll have to turn up the volume on your computer full blast. It is too quiet otherwise, and you don't want to miss this collasal line.

"I'm begging you please take me home!"

And now, some feminist stuff.

(this is a feminist blog, after all.)

Really awesome pictures of women I found:

Strong women in Frasier! <3> (I guess that's a double-sided heart...)

My Favorite Daphne moment EVER.

Roz as Wonder Woman (not to mention Daphne as Sir Elton John)! From Season 9 Episode 6 "Room Full of Heroes" - Takes place in Halloween. You only have to watch 44 seconds of the second one - I over-recorded a bit. <3> Screentoaster (I'm liking my new accidental double-sided heart!). Their new "beta" recording system is a MILLION times better than the original.

Here's a link to a youtube fan music video of Roz as Wonder Woman! Very cool. Unfortunately the video embedding was disabled. I read somewhere that disabled embedding is the online equivalent to the middle finger. I am inclined to agree. Click here to be redirected to the video!

This image is actually really good quality. Click on it and you'll see. I don't know why it looks fuzzy here because the resolution is near perfect.

Found this video on Roz - clips to the song "Imperfection" - fits her perfectly (haw haw). Didn't know about this song 'till I saw this video but I liked it immediately - universally appealing much! "Don't mess with imperfection!" XD Embedding disabled AGAIN so please please please click the next image to be redirected to the video!

Lyrics to the song - I like them - even though the lyrics combined to the tune comes out QUITE teenage-angst-ie:

My hair's a wreck
Mascara runs
My feet get dirty
And my skin burns in the sun.
My lips they bleed
But I still sing my songs.
Takes me a minute
To admit it when I'm wrong.

Pretty is as pretty does,
But pretty's not my thing.

This is what you get.
This is who I am.
Take me now or leave me
Any way you can.
Sometimes I trip and fall
But I know where I stand.
And if you're thinking about changing my direction,
Don't mess with imperfection.

My back is weak,
But my will is true.
Got good intentions
But I never follow through.
I say too much,
And don't know when to leave.
In case you're looking,
That's my heart there on my sleeve.

Ego trips and stupid slip ups,
I'm a mess but

This is what you get.
This is who I am.
Take me now or leave me
Any way you can.
Sometimes I trip and fall
But I know where I stand.
And if you're thinking about changing my direction,
Don't mess with imperfection.

Scratched and bruised,
A little used,
But baby I work fine.
You might call me
Damaged goods,
But I'm one of a kind.

My hair's a wreck,
No I'm not perfect
But I'm not the only one.

This is what you get.
This is who I am.
Take me now or leave me
Any way you can.
Sometimes I trip and fall
But I know where I stand.
And if you're thinking about changing my direction,
Don't mess with imperfection.
This is who I am.
After if you're thinking about changing my direction,
Don't mess with imperfection.

Thank you, Saving Jane - which apparently is the name of the group.

Though this is only pictures and music, it is REALLY well done:

okay, so this next one is a bit of a stereotype. But Roz pulls it off... with such style XD

Kind of like me with coffee or diet coke. The house has been out of Diet Coke for at least a week now. I think I'm going through a physical withdrawal... and I'm not joking.

...And to finish things off, a video I found a long time ago which really moves me... even though I know nothing about and have never seen anything with Kate Mulgrew.

Sincerely,

JJJJOOOOO BBBIIINNNGOOOO

P.S. I DO think that Hans Christian-Anderson (and also Disney) "Little Mermaid" is feminist, believe it or not.