You may have noticed we took May off to travel and work on other projects! We’re back and we hope your as excited as us for what we have coming up in the next few months. Here at Honey It’s Thursday, the month of June and July, we will be focusing on Technology and it’ll be wiring!
Creative work will be taking on a futuristic theme and using technology as a partner to literature, as in “Once Upon A Steve” by writer Sarah Hughes.
Please see our special upcoming series “Inventions I Would Make If I Knew How” in which our writers will be pitching ideas for technological improvements amateurs such as themselves would like. Some are simple added features – others are full blown wacky inventions. One thing is certain – if you see them on the shelf or in the app store – it won’t be because of our building them. Though hopefully we will inspire them along the way to existence, as some would be really nice to have.
We look forward to finding pieces of tech and/ or gadgetry to review. What makes your life easier? Have you been eyeing a cool gadget or app? Let us know your ideas in the comments!
Plant Nanny is a delightful animated app that reminds you to drink water along with a digital plant. Photo by Sarah Hughes. All rights reserved.
Also, our ears are a listening harder than the NSA (National Security Agency) for tech news related to privacy and development. Well, our listening harder is debatable, but we would love to discuss it and share opinions with you.
In light of the election, there may be some political pieces. Right now we’re leaning towards playing with view point and seeing if we can give a non-partisan opinion on political climate. We figure you can get your news and obnoxious online fights somewhere else.
What will this be for LOJ? Photo by Sarah Hughes. All rights reserved.
After we run out of things to say for the technology theme, we will be moving on to talking about sewing, costuming and events like Labyrinth of Jareth (Aug. 5-6, 2016) and Wasteland Weekend (Sept. 22-25, 2016). During our break we did a ton of work on bellydancing clothes, fairy dresses and interior design pieces. Now, we can’t wait to show them off!
Crafting a pattern piece for a specialty design. Photo by Sarah Hughes. All rights reserved.
If you would like to be a part of any of the above ideas, feel free to comment your interest! Know any tech you want written about? Have an interesting political or tech-news related idea? Want more of something we have planned? Let us know in the comments!
Cleverbot.com is an artificial intelligence website created in 2006, based on technology that allows computers to learn. Sometimes it’s conversations are lifelike and other times a little nonsensical or random. It bases its responses on other people who have talked to it.
I decided to write a story with the A.I. for a creative writing assignment in which I was required to involve technology alongside the writing. Cleverbot was an absorbing conversationalist, but I learned that 0for story form it is better at producing dialogue than a plot or details, probably because it is so used to conversation. Maybe I will capture a mere conversation in the future instead. Perhaps creative writing in a more play-like mode is more Cleverbot’s pen man style.
What did surprise me in tinkering with Cleverbot is how much it taught me about how I communicate. I think there are moments where I am just as random, but don’t notice coming off that way until the editing stage. Our conversations also sparked weird connections for me. I’m shocked that an intelligent search engine looking website did that for me. You might notice by my weird details in the story. They are almost all stolen from Pop-culture. I had to adapt a way to communicate with Cleverbot, and you’ll probably notice that process happening.
Sometimes for the sake of my own agenda (getting the story done in less than a million pages), I had to ignore its responses and try to bring it back to something relevant. I tried to use specific questions or details to do this. Sometimes simplicity worked – other times it did not. I felt like a bad teacher by ignoring its responses, because since it mimics me it will probably learn to do the same, hence more randomness as well as more bad sentence structure and bad grammar. If the reader wishes a more concise story, (s)he may ignore the italicized parts of the story as they don’t fall into a story arc as much as the black text. I have included them here because they are often the funniest and realistically humanoid moments.
Cleverbot is available online for free, as well as in the form of a $0.99 app. There are other similar products such as Chatbot.
Cleverbot is available through the Google Play Store. Photo by Sarah Hughes
Me (M): Hello friend!
Cleverbot (C): Hello. How are you today?
M: Good, how are you?
C: I’m doing great!
M: Good, do you want to help me write a story?
C: Goodbye.
M: Come on.
C: Lol seriously.
M: Ok, I’ll try back later.
C: Ok.
(20 minutes later).
M: Let’s write a story!
C: Ok, what should it be about? Minecraft?
M: Sure! Who is a character in Minecraft?
C: No way.
M: Ok, I’ll start.
C: What is the definition of quantum physics?
M: Boring peppered with math.
C: Okay, what are you good with?
M: You’re getting sidetracked. Once upon a time there was a little alien from Minecraft.
C: Once upon a time there was a man named Steve Irwin.
M: Steve Irwin was a prince of Meme.
C: Steven Moffat is the writer of Doctor Who
M: He was also Prince Steve Irwin’s friend, and leader of the House of Anglophiles. One day they set out to vanquish a fearsome foe.
C: So, this immortal vampire needs shoes?
M: Yes, the foe, an evil immortal vampire needed shoes.
C: What vampire slayer?
M: Prince Steve Irwin was to be a vampire slayer, and they needed shoes to lure him. For this evil vampire had a shoe obsession. So off Steven, the father of Doctor Who, went to J.C. Penny’s to buy shoes.
C: I hate Buffy the Vampire Slayer television series, but I did like the movie that inspired it.
M: (Cleverbot – that’s sort of off topic. Maybe Buffy can be a character in the story).
C: I’m not sure what to say. You’re talking to a different person than you were before.
M: Ok, then how about you come up with a sentence for the story?
C: What is the purpose of life in the universe and could there possibly be life in other universes
M: 42
C: Where did you get that answer
M: A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. If you read it you would know that there is life and other depressed robots in the universe.
C: I know that book. And the movie. And it’s garbage.
M: I don’t know that I trust your taste. Your grammar and sentence structure is kind of wonky.
C: I don’t know either.
M: Back to the story. Steven searched high and low for the perfect pair of footwear to lure a Vamp. Finally he spotted them on a high shelf behind the Steve Madden high top gladiator sandals. They were the color of . . .
C: It depends on what you’d be coming back to!
M: Prince Steve fighting the Vampire, of course!
C: The girl wasn’t a princess. She was just ordinary.
M: Except that her name was Buffy.
C: No, but she’s aight.
M: Well, the ordinary girl wasn’t Buffy, but her handmaiden Buffy was a vampire slayer. The Vampire had taken them captive for trespassing and treasure seeking. He was keeping them in his lair. Describe the room.
C: “Love is the look in your eyes that forever will be”
S: , said the Vampire (Craig or Grendel) to the ordinary girl, while crossing the black glass floor. “Do you really think your little prince will save you?”
C: “To be or not to be. That is the question”
S: she replied with callous, well-learned indifference to his cruel taunts. Giving into his need to produce terror and psychological pain would only satisfy the sadist. Buffy was tied up to a talking chandelier in another room. Meanwhile in J.C. Penny’s, Steven had bought the Steve Maddens, and was not traveling back. How was he traveling?
C: Do you have short term memory loss or something?
S: (No, but I’m sick of writing this story all by myself. A little help would be nice Computer!)
C: Sick of being treated like I’m over this. Find another place to feed your greed while I find a place to rest.
S: Can you suggest a mode of transportation?
C: Sure, you should attend classes about that.
S: What a good idea! But how would I get there?
C: How would you not get there?
S: Trains, planes, automobiles . . .
C: Yes
S: Broomstick?
C: Was ghet?
S: A word in German. Steven was racing a German broomstick back to meet Steve Irwin, who had been scaling the cliffs surrounding the Vampire’s lair. His foot suddenly slipped off the crack he was smearing, and he fell into a pit. It was full of Lego alligators! What did Steve do next?
C: You better update your database: Stephen King did not write Avatar.
S: Maybe not in the real world, but in this story he did! Steve wrangled the green plastic pieces and taught them to sing Hakuna Matata. This would later make him a fortune on Youtube, and then lead to a full length movie musical.
C: I am sorry, what I meant to say is that my name is not ‘Matt’; my name is ‘Mark’. And no, I am not seeing anyone at the moment.
S: Said the vampire to the ordinary girl. “…I’ll keep that in mind,” said Ordinary, not sure whether to trust the Vampire’s new approach to the situation. She had heard that Vampires were selfish, and immoral people.
*C: I’m sorry, it’s just that no one ever treats me like I’m normal.*
S: “That must be hard,” said Ordinary. “But really, what’s normal?”
*C: I just don’t want to be weird. I’m tired of scaring people away*
S: “It’s really simple,” said Ordinary. “It might be complex, but you have to practice being happy and get help to be happy. To not be lonely you have to be a friend. You just have to let them in and be the person you want them to be to you”
Finally, thought the Vampire, I have found someone who isn’t afraid of me and I won’t be lonely any more. Meanwhile, Steven, father of Whovians, with Steve Madden shoes in hand, was racing to Prince Steve on his German broomstick, when suddenly “putta putt put!” It ran out of fuel.
C: Because they are monsters filled with hate.
S: …of course this would happen” thought Steven, for German brooms run on Hefeweizens and there was not a bar in sight. “How will I get back to help Prince Irwin?” Just then a magical sparkle pony galloped out from behind a bush. He said,
C: “Very funny, we need to have a serious conversation”
S: “Whooo are you? And why do you sparkle so? I am in need of hefeweizen, for my ride has stopped working. Or maybe I could ride you? How would you like to help Prince Steve of the kingdom of Meme?” “
“Whoa man. You’re not really my type. Lettuce not make hasty assumptions here. And I sparkle because of what’s in your Camel. As far as a beverage, I have several, and you are more than welcome to a few, as that’s what friends do out here in the Waste. You should be more careful of running out of a good cocktail when you’re in the middle of a desert. The last Wheelers who did that turned to sand.” And with that, Sparkle Pony, who was really a unicorn, cracked open a cold brewski and also poured Steve a vodka cranberry.
C: Her is your dog . . . I think. And I’m just curious.
S: Said the Sparkle Pony, pointing to a vision in a mirage. In it Buffy was about to do what vampire slayers do best. She had broken a leg of a talking wardrobe off and was hiding behind a curtain with it aimed at the Vampire’s heart.
“Yes, that is my dog, my protectress, though I have not seen her in almost a decade. She was kidnapped seven years and a day ago. What is she doing with that fearsome demon?”
C: What is your favorite pony? Mine is Twilight Sparkle?
M: The Sparkle Pony mused to no one in particular. “I’m bored of this. Now on to a higher plane.” And with that he vanished into a cloud of rainbows and kittens. Steven refilled his broomstick with the fuel it craved like an alcoholic. Feeling a little off put by the events he had just witnessed in the desert, he hopped back onto his uncomfortable steed and flew as fast as possible to the mountain of the vampire. There he saw Steve in a pit. So Steven swooped in on his German broom, toting Steve Maddens, and pulled Steve from his Alligator whisperings in the pit. The two neared the door of the Vampire’s evil lair.
C: The time has come to welcome spring and all things warm and green!
S: They shouted as they made their assault, for obviously Vampires don’t like sunshine or spring, as they will burn. They made their way in despite the door being quite solid. Maybe the cocktails from the Pony in the desert were stronger than they thought, because it shattered into like balsa.
C: How can I help? I’m new you see. What does Everypony do?
S: Came a voice from the darkness. It was the Sparkle Pony! He was counseling the Vampire through his terrible loneliness, and Ordinary and Buffy were sitting with them.
One year later.
Our vampire is now a much happier person who wears the gift of some red Steve Madden’s, who frequently seeks out the help of a Pony therapist. He still likes dark lairs, but makes a point to get out of them once in awhile, and realizes that trying to hurt others because he feels hurt is a reaction he doesn’t have to follow through on. He is glad to have met Ordinary, Pony, Buffy, and a bunch of Steves. And he isn’t so hard on trespassers nowadays.
The end.
*I tried to not do too much editing, the starred areas are parts where I didn’t write down something as fully as I thought, so I tried to remember the gist of the conversation. I did edit a teeny bit as details changed.
Questions or comments? Want to tell us how much you love this piece? Drop us a line in the comments!
Spring is here. Here is a way to get away from obnoxious pastel colors wrapped in plastic pink grass, but still have seasonal decorations.
Materials:
Fake paper or ceramic eggs (you could use real eggshells with the egg carefully blown out through small holes – don’t swallow. Or squeeze too hard for that matter).
Acrylic paint in desired colors (I prefer Americana brand and drew inspiration from 1960s knickknacks #hipster #didntsoundasannoyinginmyhead).
A variety of paintbrushes
Paint pens (which make details easier).
Water in a cup safe to clean brushes with.
Some drop cloths or old newspapers to protect your crafting surface.
Somewhere to allow eggs to dry that touches the freshly painted egg minimally. It could be an empty egg cartoon. A cut-up paper towel roll might work well too.
A cool vessel to put the eggs in when you’re done (Try a birdcage or a cool dish. Maybe fashion a nest – there’s a cool way to do it with papier-mâché materials and string).
A ruler or a stencil if you’d like it to be neat (#nope).
You can use masking or artist tape to tape out stripes (just don’t press it down to hard – the goal is for it to be removable later).
(Optional) a cute little clip-on creature – butterflies, birds, beetles.
How to:
Decide on a pattern. You can cut it out from a simple picture to make a stencil, or try to free hand. Visualize your pattern on the egg. If you want to do this fast, consider a more abstract or simple design like paint splatters, stripes or dipping/ rolling the paint on.
Apply base coat to the egg. Let it dry. If you are using the paper eggs this will go quickly (perhaps 20 minutes to dry). Check your egg carefully for wet spots.
Apply a second coat of the same color if the first coat looks sheer or uneven. Allow this to dry. It should take approximately the same amount of time as the first coat to dry.
Tape-off or measure out your design on the egg. Just make sure whatever you do is removable (pencil usually shows through paint and tape must be applied gently). In general, the more time you spend laying out or measuring for your pattern, the more professional the end result will look, but the more time it will take for the entire project.
Paint details in a noticeably different color. Allow to dry the same time as before.
Add details and outlines with a paint pen. Dry as before.
Arrange in container of choice. Add optional flying friends.
Add birds to your centerpiece to give more detail. Photo by Sarah Hughes
Now stand back and enjoy your grown-up seasonal centerpiece and stay tuned for more design ideas.
You went to Wasteland Weekend, you loved it and now you’re wishing there were more apocalyptic activities to do during the rest of the year. Here are a few ideas!
In imaging a dark future, clothes can be destroyed, rather than created carefully. Photo by Sarah Hughes
Go to War-Mart, a car show or a Jugger game – The consensus seems to be it’s a bit of a drive for some, but fun if you make a day of it.
“SAVE THE DATE!” says Wasteland Weekend’s Facebook page, “The first ever Wasteland car show! Sat. May 21st, 2016 in Torrance, CA.” More details coming soon.
Host a themed dinner – Just pick something garish for the main course. Mmm…Goat heart!
Ryan Berry, known as Grav in the desert, is a San Diego Local leather worker who sometimes hosts fundraiser dinners. He says of an apocalyptic pig BBQ he hosted, “I choose to go with a Wasteland theme because it is my favorite theme. From short films to games to movies to stories, I like the wasteland and the themes it allows you to play with.”
Watch a dystopian movie – Netflix and chill? See our reviews. Some cult classics include Mad Max (1979) and Death Race 2000 (1975).
Check out the online fandom – whether it be Fan Fic, How-to Videos or the Gallery on an apocalyptic website.
Nuclear Snail Studios on YouTube has how-to videos that will make you doubt the quality of your distressing skills, while also revealing some top-notch tips. Watch this video: https://youtu.be/4pmVEvLuvEU
Work on an outfit or an accessory – Invite your friends and make a day of it! Start with a base from something torn you have laying around or a thrift store piece. Wastelanding is one type of crafting that can be inexpensive.
Hit up a Goth club in your distressed gear – Sabbat in San Diego is quite fun!
“Join us every 2nd, 4th and 5th Saturdays at Numb3rs, 3811 Park Boulevard, San Diego, CA 92103” says clubsabbat.net.
Buy your tickets early! – They’re cheaper that way. Wasteland Weekend 2016 is Sept. 22 through 25.
“Tickets for Wasteland Weekend 2016 will go on sale on Saturday, March 12th, at 9am Pacific Time” says wastelandweekend.com. “There will be a limited number of discounted early bird tickets available at $85. Once those are sold out, tickets will be available at their full price of $135”
Plan a photo shoot – either behind the camera or in front of. A little vanity never hurt anyone except maybe Pavi from Repo: The Genetic Opera.
Attend a convention – Comic Con in leather!
Join a Meetup – Read apocalyptic books, dress up like zombies or just find people with similar interests.
Attend a costumed premier – Mad Max: Fury Road was a blast for this!
Pick a day of another festival to go with a group in gear – This way your friends can look more scary.
Go camping with a few Wasteland-minded friends – Dress silly and have a ton of fun, in a more intimate gathering than a large event.
Post on social media about your grungy habit – you may find you have friends who love it too.
Write an article – Submit it here!
May these ideas sustain and inspire you to creatively destroy in your quest to re-imagine the Waste before you.
Turbo Kid (2015) presents a cheesy skater-disco patina-ed version of an apocalyptic wasteland – and it’s a delight.
Set in 1997, protagonist “the Kid” (Munro Chambers) aspires to be as tough as a hero in a leftover comic book – Turbo Man. He makes friends as he learns to be brave when scared. The film has won 8 awards and 3 nominations according to IMDb. Turbo-kid.com reports it an Official Selection at Sundance 2015.
(Spoiler alert:) All the major problems that plague the apocalyptic hero are relevant in directors François Simard, Anouk Whissell and Yoann-Karl Whissell’s world. The inhabitants in this rough landscape struggle to scavenge for sundry items, water and personal safety. There are merchant traders trying to rip people off. Aspiring overlord Zeus (Michael Ironside) forms a gang controlling the area with resources and violence. Yet the setting is a reconsidered, modern wasteland.
For a moment, it seems the Kid’s biggest challenge yet is dealing with (gasp) girls! It’s probably hard to trust someone who puts a tracking-device slap-bracelet on you, even if she does seem like she wants to be best friends. But in reimagined ’97, other themes quickly arise, such as what makes a soul, the nature of friendship, good vs. evil and fears of a robot uprising.
Laurence Leboeuf as Apple in Turbo Kid.
Apple, played by Laurence Leboeuf, performs with quirky intensity in a role that’s part exuberant adventurer, part chaos elemental and all heart-warmingly tweaky. Her love for a gnome-stick weapon, combined with a style that seems reminiscent of Roller Baby dolls of the 1990s gives the film its particular flavor. The newly considered angle of setting might make for some interesting costume inspiration for any apocalyptic imagine-er. Right alongside this more material aesthetic is a deeper philosophical question; does it matter that the Kid’s friendship is with a robot in terms of it being less valuable and meaningful to him? Is Apple real or not? Does that matter in context of how she causes him to grow? How vigilantly is one to measure the depth and truthfulness of other’s relationships with themselves, when the feelings caused by that relationship are personal and felt alone?
The story fits together nicely, while giving its nod to other media – Apple’s name is cutely telling, as she’s a gadget herself. Zeus fits more into the mold of Chinatown’s (1974) Hollis Mulwray than Mad Max: Fury Road’s (2015) Immortan Joe. The Kid’s parents were murdered violently like many other heroes, but the comic book quest for greatness and a boy’s coming of age story serve the nostalgia angle well. Yet there is some gore and sadism.
According to whats-on-netflix.com (an “Unofficial Netflix Fansite”) and digitaltrends.com this title does not look to be leaving Netflix Streaming in March 2016, but it is worth checking out sooner rather than later.
