Transatlanticism

If you were wondering where I've been, here's a post to remind you of my existence. This picture I took last night when some of the kids in the apartment block were bursting firecrackers. You have to love pseudo-Diwali, and red sparklers.

A little more reminiscing, because I don't think I covered it all in the last post. Besides, I really really miss this stuff.
Here's the stuff I remember watching on Nickelodeon. I refuse to call it "Nick". We never called it Nick. I don't know Nick. I never did know Nick. It's NICK-ELL-OH-DEE-YUN!


Hey! Arnold. I used to watch this in Class Three, and I used to pine because Arnold was a year older. And then when I came to Class Five, I used to laugh my ass off because I was now older than Arnold. Do you remember Helga's shrine for Arnold? Of course you do.


Clarissa. Like I said, I grew up wishing I had a friend like Sam who would enter my room by climbing up to my window instead of walking in through the door like regular best friends. Ah Sam. Ah Clarissa. Ah Love.

Legends of the Hidden Temple. I always rooted for the Blue Barracudas because they had a kick-ass name, but then again, the highlight of the show was ALWAYS The Shrine of the Silver Monkey. And EVERYONE mucked up in there. It was wonderful. Although Tolmec was a little disturbing.

The Rugrats. If there was a show that ever made anyone want to regressively metamorphose in
to infants again, then it would be the Rugrats. You had to love their childish antics and the crazy imagination. You just HAD to hate Angelica, and you HAD to love Susie, and you HAD to admire Tommy. And you just HAD to melt each time Dil said "Mine!" or called Tommie "Bobo."

Don't know if everyone caught "As Told By Ginger", which came a little later. It was around the time Nickelodeon was phasing out of the Good Ol' Days, but Ginger sort of kept it afloat. It was typically teeny-bopper, but we were typically teeny-bopper too, and Ginger lived all of our klutzy and confused pre-teen/teenage lives.

I could go on forever, but I should stop, yes? But if you're looking to the past, spare a thought for the present. Nickelodeon has changed to Nick, and the shows are still pretty much the same, some of them. Nick's greatest asset till now remains the Spongebob Squarepants Show. While I do love Spongebob, he was never my favourite. I didn't even complain when they overhauled the cast of All That Show, removing Lori Beth (who always made me feel good about being tubby back then) and adding Jamie Lynn Spears to the cast. Drake and Josh is laugh-a-minute, but it's also forget-in-a-minute. To top it all off, they've translated the whole signal to Hindi. (Aah!) And you don't even have Blue's Clues anymore. (Yes, I used to watch it sometimes. I loved figuring out Blue's Clues, and I knew the end credits song perfectly.)
GIVE ME MY TV BACK, "NICK!"

Remember Captain Planet?
He used to look SO much better on TV.

I used to LOVE old-school Cartoon Network. Little(r) people these days have absolute rubbish to watch on TV. Does anyone else remember when Toonami used to be just a one-hour slot at 5:00 and everyone used to rabidly collect Pikachu tazos or whatever?
I grew up with Cartoon Network being aired from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., and then TNT used to take over, and I used to believe it was 'big people TV'. And in any case, I used to be too sleepy to even try and protest in order to watch it.
And then TNT got shifted to 10:00 p.m. and then it just went away. Just around the time I was old enough to stay up to watch it. Bummer.
And look at "CN" now. There's no Powerpuff Girls, or Dexter's Laboratory ("OOH! WHAT DOES THIS BUTTON DO?!"), or even that annoying show called Ed, Edd and Eddie. Hell, even Dragonball Z has gone off air. And Tom and Jerry is aired as fillers. All the little(r) people watch is Digimon, Pokemon, some other Beyblade thing, and pseudo-anime crap.
Old-school Nickelodeon was so much more brilliant. There used to be the old version of 'All That', (the one with Lori Beth, not Jamie Lynn Spears), and the Kenan and Kel Show, and Hey! Arnold, and the Rugrats (before Dil was born, but even after Dil and Chuckie's half-sister Kimmie, the show was pretty fun). And then there was Legends of the Hidden Temple. Nickelodeon even had that cool "Nick-ell-oh-dee-yun!" theme tune, and they used to air Clarissa, which was so majorly cool. (Who else wishes they had a friend like Sam who would climb up to your window using a ladder instead of the door? \m/, I say.)

Now everything is translated to Hindi, and even if it's not, Drake and Josh is about the only normal thing that 'Nick' airs anymore.
I miss being a kid. And I miss old-school cartoons. And even though I used to laugh my ass off at that dweeb Ma-ti who had "Heart!" as a power on Captain Planet, I would give anything to catch a real re-run and have one day of the cartoons as I knew it.

Just a post to keep my conscience satisfied that I have blog-posted. I can't drum up the strength, courage or inspiration to do some artwork, or even some writing, which makes me feel very awful because I have all these ideas but I can't seem to get them just the way I want them on paper, which is frustrating, not to mention highly frustrating. :P
Umm, anyway, yeah, I'm online after a whole day of Internet Abstinence. Which making me pretty sprightly. Is sprightly the right word? But it's a nice word, I wonder why we don't use it that often.
So, now, here is a nice video by Pearl Jam.

I swear, if I have to look at ANY other version of the dummy copy, I will kill myself.
No, seriously.

What?
I mean it.

Today, has been, pretty odd.
I went to the gym and have pulled every voluntary muscle that I possess.
I saw two dogs humping on the street. (Yes, again.)
I corrected the omnipresent typos in the dummy copy.
I ate out and still stayed vegetarian.
I slurped a swirlie after a very long time.
I discovered that (oh, joy!) Class XII Physics is easier than Class XI.
I had a very Southie Dinner.
I am blogging dumbass posts again.

It's time I got down to actually composing something, I miss it, but I lack the inspi-ray-shun.
On the bright side, my Hello Tune is now 'I Want To Break Free' by Queen.

And this post sucks.

The laptop is dying, slowly dying.
S...l...o...w...l...y.
D...y...i...n...g.




I am an idiot to have left my power cord at Mohor's house this afternoon.
I am a greater idiot to be wasting battery writing dumbass posts.


What the hell am I still doing here?

Screw.

Artwork that I made after I finished my Bio practicals, because the council feels I need 2 and a half hours to cut a bit of a root.
Anyway.
I like to believe that the drawing was inspired by Pearl Jam's song 'Release' from the album Ten. An excerpt from it anyway.

Oh, (dear dad), can you see me now?
I am myself, like you somehow.
I'll wait up in the dark for you to speak to me,
I'll open up...Release me...

Yes.

Forty Six and Two by Tool, from the album Aenima.

My shadow's
Shedding skin and
I've been picking
Scabs again
I'm down
Digging through
My old muscles
Looking for a clue

I've been crawling on my belly
Clearing out what could've been
I've been wallowing in my own confused
And insecure delusions
For a piece to cross me over
Or a word to guide me in
I wanna feel the changes coming down
I wanna know what I've been hiding in

My shadow
Change is coming through my shadow
My shadow's shedding skin
I've been picking
My scabs again

I've been crawling on my belly
Clearing out what could've been
I've been wallowing in my own chaotic
And insecure delusions

I wanna feel the change consume me,
Feel the outside turning in
I wanna feel the metamorphosis and
Cleansing I've endured within

My shadow
Change is coming
Now is my time
Listen to my muscle memory
Contemplate what I've been clinging to
Forty six and two ahead of me

I choose to live and to
Grow, take and give and to
Move, learn and love and to
Cry, kill and die and to
Be paranoid and to
Lie, hate and fear and to
Do what it takes to move through

I choose to live and to
Lie, kill and give and to
Die, learn and love and to
Do what it takes to step through

See my shadow changing,
Stretching up and over me
Soften this old armor
Hoping I can clear the way
By stepping through my shadow,
Coming out the other side
Step into the shadow
Forty six and two are just ahead of me
This song is about growing, changing, and moving towards the next level of human evolution and consciousness. It's deeply rooted in Jungian theory.

Basically, it's believed that there are three levels of human evolution and each has it's form of consciousness. There's the 1st level with 44 chromosomes. These are primitive people's like the aborigines in Australia who do not perceive anything outside of themselves. They only see one large consciousness with no distinguishment between organisms. Then there's the second level with 46 chromosomes. That is us. We are a chaotic disharmonic conciousness that is basically used as a stepping stone between the first and third levels. The third level is 48 chromosones. (Or 46 & 2, with 2 being the sex chromosones x & y). This is the higher level of consciousness. Our destination. But this is where the Jungian theory comes in. It is believed that you can not reach this third level of evolution without first delving into yourself and basically cleansing your consciousness for the next jump. That's where the Shadow comes in. The shadow is basically everything about that is unseen that you are uncomfortable with or hate. This is also known as the Anima (hence the name of the CD).

Since my mother has been a little busy of late, we've taken to talking to each other through notes on the refrigerator stuck with magnets. Now, I have an obsession with my hair-dryer, and this happens to be a MAJOR bone of contention between us both.
This one weekend Sahana's Mother decided to take matters into her own hands by hiding my most wonderful hair-dryer, and pretending she didn't know anything about it. Two days later, I found it where she hides the rest of the stuff she takes away from me and says she knows nothing about. (Note to self: Never buy any more Mars Bars.)
Anyway, being the polite note-talking soul that I am, I sent her the following missive, stuck on the fridge under the Luck of the Irish Magnet.

And I was even polite, and said I'd do quite a bit for it. As you can see.
And this is the ransom note I get back, under the Glow in the Dark Magnet that always creeps me out.

Just making me blog pretty, that's all.

You Are Artemis!

Brave, and a natural born leader. You're willing to fight for what you believe in... And willing to make tough decisions. Don't forget - the people around you have ideas too!