40 Year Old Cat Lady In Training

(Via Panels)

I recently stumbled upon a very fun yet low maintenance game: Neko Atsume.

Neko Atsume, the name meaning "Cat Collector" in English, is a Japanese app where you, well, collect cats.  You basically have a backyard, and if you put out items for the felines to play with, they will come and chill in your yard.  From what I can tell, the point of the game is to collect as many regular and rare cats and you can and make your house the most aesthetically pleasing as possible.

There are 49 cats in all, and only 17 rare cats.  On top of that, you can upgrade your house's yard so it has a different theme.  Beyond that, there isn't much to do.

Now I know this sounds like a terribly boring game.  Most people I've talked about it with have dismissed after I described the gameplay. BUT IT IS ACTUALLY ONE OF THE MOST FUN GAMES I HAVE EVER PLAYED IN MY ENTIRE LIFE.  In fact, it's the only game I have on my phone.  It's really hard to describe how enjoyable this game is; people just need to try it out for themselves.  So, I will try to vividly describe how interesting the game is in this post just to prove my point.

One of my favorite rare cats: Guy Furry,
a play on Guy Fieri.
(Via Neko Atsume Wikia)

First of all, the graphics are insanely adorable.  The 2D yard and cats don't seem as impressive as they sound, but they truly are simplistic yet aesthetically pleasing pieces of art.  On top of that, the music is cute.  It gets a little repetitive and annoying after awhile, but if you're only on it for a couple of minutes, it brightens your mood.

Secondly, and my most favorite part, is the search for the rare cats.  As I stated earlier, there were 49 cats total and 17 rare cats.  The rare cats have different personalities, different outfits, and interesting names that are usually plays on real life people's names.  Typically, the rare cats require specific items to come to your yard compared to the regular cats, who will come on a variety of cheap items that you put out.  It can be a struggle to get the rare cats to come, but when they do, the reward is worth it.

Finally, I appreciate how low maintenance it is.  I enjoy playing video games, but I rarely have any time to.  But, you can check Neko Atsume for a couple of minutes a day and you feel satisfied.  On top of that, it takes up a very small portion of space on your phone.  So, if you're someone like me that has absolutely no space, you'll still be able to download it.

Neko Atsume still might sound boring.  Don't knock it 'till you try it.  You'll instantly fall in love with the seemingly pointless game where you collect cats. And I'll be sitting here, still sleep deprived, telling you "I told you so".

Emo Yet Important: Gerard Way Appreciation Post

For a school assignment, I am required to write a post dedicated to someone I admire and someone who would enjoy my blog.  There are a lot of people I admire, but they are nothing like me and would probably not enjoy the content I provide.  And then there are a lot of people who would enjoy my content, but I don't admire them.  It took some of thought, but I finally decided on my person.

Dear Gerard Way:

(Via Dalje)

As odd as it is, I admire and appreciate you in several ways. You created the band that got me into music: My Chemical Romance.  In 7th grade I was an obscure kid who didn't really know their place and didn't have many passions. But because of this band, I found something to enjoy; I found a favorite band and I begun to like music. And from that band, it opened up a whole new world of music to me.  The music My Chemical Romance created not only helped and inspired me, but inspired thousands of other kids who felt the same way. If it weren't for you or My Chemical Romance, I probably wouldn't be the person I am today.

But that's just the start of my appreciation for you.  The more I learned about My Chemical Romance themselves, I began to learn more about you and your other work.  I learned that before you started a band, you wanted to be a visual artist. When that didn't really work out, you became the lead singer of a popular band instead.  What I admire though is that you still pursued your dream of being an artist while being in a band and having a completely different career. You wrote and drew several amazing comic books while in My Chemical Romance, which must have been a difficult task.  But somehow you still managed to simultaneously create both music and art at the same time.  This is very inspirational to me because it shows me that I don't have to have just one solid career.  You show me that I can achieve whatever and as many things as I want with hard work and dedication, even if it doesn't work out at first.

I also believe we have similar minds, which leads me to why I think you'd enjoy my blog.  Based off of your Twitter, you've talked about a lot of random things.

Umbrella Academy Signing
(Via Umbrella Academy Wiki)

Whether it's conspiracies on extraterrestrials, slightly disturbing photos of popular things during the 80's, or your random thoughts you get at 3 am, I feel like they all reflect the basis of my blog.  Honestly, your existence on Twitter itself inspires me.  Your positive tweets always send good vibes that encourage me to do the same.  Your unexplained thoughts and photos remind me to not care what others think about my opinions; they remind me to be bold. Your fanboy moments over other people, specifically David Bowie, remind me that it's okay to be super passionate about things.  You've shown me to be a better person in a bunch of tiny ways, and I appreciate that.

It may not seem like you inspire me, but you truly do.  Before writing this, I didn't realize how much I admire you.  But now that I'm finished, I appreciate you more than I did before. And for that, I want to thank you.

Marketing Ploy or Not: Conspiracies on Brendon Urie

(Via Wikipedia)

Contrary to my last post, there is one thing that will get me through this week. Friday is technically the release date of Panic! At The Disco's new album, Death of a Bachelor.  I've been eagerly anticipating this album for several months now. I mean, I've been looking forward to hearing at least half of the album.  The other half has already been released as singles or they've been leaked, which leads me to the basis of this post.

When Panic! At The Disco released the song and music video for one of their singles "Emperor's New Clothes", the album title, song titles, and official release date was also announced.  Because of this big announcement, Brendon Urie, the lead singer of the band, did a live stream on Periscope.  He was answering the usual questions from buzzing fans about the album and the songs, and at one point he even said if it was up to him he would release the album against his management's will.  And perhaps, over the next couple of months, that's exactly what he did.

After the album announcement in October, everything else had gone relatively normal.  There were a couple new music videos made and another single was released.  But around December, that's when things started to get shady.

First, one night on Tumblr, my friend found a peculiar audio clip and sent it to me.  It was the high quality and full length version of one of the songs "Don't Threaten Me With A Good Time".  There was no hint to this being released early at all on any of Panic! At The Disco's social media, so I was curious as to where it came from.  At first I was weary to listen to it because I didn't want to be a bad person and potentially listen to pirated music.  But hey, why not; Brendon Urie would be proud considering how many times he's told his fans to rip his songs off of Youtube.  So I listened to it once and let it be, and about an hour later, all of the audio clips of the song were taken down.


The second shady thing that has happened recently was during a football game. I didn't personally watch it, but according to the internet, a clip of one of the songs called "Golden Days" was playing during a football game before a commercial break like many songs do.  Yet again, they didn't hint this song was going to come out any time soon either.  So why would a sports station have a Panic! At The Disco song that wasn't supposed to be heard until January 15th?

And finally, the most bizarre thing that has happened thus far occurred this week.  A couple of days ago several fans went to Target and came across physical copies of Death of a Bachelor out in the CD section; a little less than a week before the actual release date.  For instance, this is just one of the fans who found a copy and posted it on Twitter.

(Via Ruhquel on Twitter)

Some Target employees have realized that the CDs aren't supposed to be out yet and they've prevented fans from purchasing it, other stores have let the fans get away with it.  This wasn't just one store though, this was several across the nation.  So if that's the case, why would a large corporation like Target mess up the release date of an item in several of their stores across the country?

You've seen the evidence.  Now comes the question.  Is this all an unsaid marketing ploy by Panic! At The Disco?  Or, are all of the leaked songs and miscommunications on the release date of the album a simple coincidence?  In my view, there's no way a sports channel would take unreleased songs without Panic! At The Disco giving it to them first.  I also don't think this many Target stores would mess up on the release date of an item.  Maybe it was Brendon Urie himself who somehow flew to all of the stores and put them there (just kidding).  Basically, it wouldn't surprise me if Brendon Urie was just trying to screw with us.

Blogger Has A Lot Of Problems (Like Me)

A visual representation of sarcasm.

Blogger has a lot of flaws.

Over the course of a couple days, I had been working hard on a blog post about a different rant.  I read and reread it several times, making sure it was perfect and ready to post. I found one solid high quality photo to go with it as well. Everything was sorted out flawlessly and I was proud I had completed another blog assignment.  Wow, it looked as if my life was finally coming together.

Haha, I guess not.

When I knew the post was good to go, I clicked the publish button.  No results. So me, being an impatient teenager, started to click the publish button dozens of times in the span of just a couple of seconds.  And yet again, the post would still not publish.  So after spamming the save button just to be sure it saved, I clicked the refresh button so maybe I could submit it the next time around.

bUT BOY WAS I WRONG.

By refreshing the page, I lost all of my work.  Every single sentence I worked hard on was gone.  Every period, comma, and semi colon I placed systematically had vanished.  I was so frustrated.  I should have known better too, this happened to me with another old blog post except last time it only deleted half of the post.  But I suppose my naïvety got the better of me.

So after the fact settled in that I'd have to redo my assignment and I lost at least three days worth of work, I pretty much lied on the floor while listening to music and stared at the ceiling for a solid twenty minutes.  At that point, I was just done with everything.  It is finals week and the last week of the semester after all, so losing all of my hard work only brought me more stress (check out this post to see me elaborate on this more).  Maybe if I were a better student and I got all of these assignments done earlier, I wouldn't be as stressed or reckless.  But I don't see that happening any time soon, unfortunately.  So instead of using the time I took to rant about a rant blog post that backfired, I could have been doing some other homework.  Also, I could of spent three hours doing more homework if I didn't decide to draw.  I drew a person with three eyes.  Three of them.  My life truly is a wreck right now.

Basically, Blogger has as many problems as I do.

That Second Time I Fought A Thirty Five Year Old Man On The Internet (The Shane Morris Saga Part Two)

It's been a couple months since my first part of the Shane Morris Saga, so I figured it was time to write about my passion of screwing with people on the internet once again.

Gerard Way 2015
(Via Entertainment Rocks)

First off, I'll recap what happened in part one.  Basically, Shane Morris used to be Ryan Ross of Panic! At The Disco's music manager when Ryan left the band. Occasionally, he uses a live stream app called Periscope to just rant or to talk about whatever he wants.  One time I decided to join his stream and I ended up fighting with him over an album called Soul Punk.  Because he was criticizing the artist's clothing choices of that era, I decided to criticize Shane Morris' fashion choices. He then proceeded to tell me about his sunglasses and how it was a metaphor for his life's success, and then he ended his live stream because I guess I agitated him too much.

Ever since that stream, I was eager to mess around with the Shane Morris again.  Of course around that time, school was ending and it was summer so I had a fair amount of free time.  During the time after the Periscope I angered him in, he streamed frequently.  Occasionally I'd check in and just listen while I was eating lunch or something. Some of the more chill (chill meaning he didn't start ranting on them) topics he'd talk about were plastic surgery, the Civil War, misogyny, and his bands that he was currently managing.  But when Shane Morris ranted, he basically ranted about celebrities; more specifically celebrities who were emo and popular in 2005.  I'm basically talking about Pete Wentz from Fall Out Boy and Gerard Way from My Chemical Romance.

Pete Wentz 2015
(Via Youth Health)

One night, Shane Morris decided to Periscope and I decided to join.  That night, he was frustrated at Pete Wentz and Fall Out Boy for how they acted at some party he was at a long time ago.  I don't entirely remember what the specific details were, all I remember is he was infuriated with Pete Wentz at the moment.  Maybe he was particularly angry because he was slightly drunk -- but hey, that's none of my business.  So while Shane was on the topic of Pete Wentz, he started ranting about him in general.  Eventually, he got on the subject of Pete's children, who's names are Saint and Bronx.  Of course, they're a little obscure, but he's earned it. Shane started to talk about how he felt bad for the kids because they were given awful names and they'd have to live the rest of their lives with them. Then, he thought of another emo celebrity who had a child with a unique name: Gerard Way.  He got even harsher with Gerard's daughter, who's name is Bandit.  It's also an interesting name, but he's definitely earned the right to do it.  Shane Morris began to spout out how Bandit was a terrible name for a human, let alone a girl. At that point, I decided I had to intervene again.

Shane was ignoring all of the other viewer's comments.  But for some reason, he read mine.  I basically said something like "What kind of a name is Shane Morris?"  And of course, this thirty five year old music manager from Tennessee flipped out yet again.  He squinted at my comment and made a sour face.  This is what he replied exactly:

"Kiragamil?  Did your parents give you a shit name too?"

Right after that, I was kicked out of the live stream.  Shane Morris had blocked me from his Periscope account.  I had never felt more victorious. My Periscope username was actually Kiragamii, and I guess he assumed that it was my actual birth name.  So while I was psyched because I pissed off Shane yet again, I decided to take this to Twitter.  This is my exact tweet:

And without another reply, he blocked me on his Twitter account as well.  Two victories in one night; it was an amazing feeling.

So because I was blocked on both Twitter and Periscope, I haven't been able to contact Shane Morris any further. It's slightly unfortunate, but at the same time it's comforting to know that I agitated this man enough for him to make sure I couldn't bother him again.  So with that, I end the Shane Morris Saga... for now.

Why Won't Bands Just Let Me Live

(Via Panic! At The Disco)

Last week on Friday, Panic! At The Disco released a new music video for one of their most recent singles, Victorious.  I had been anticipating the video for a week, just because Victorious is one of my favorite singles for Panic's new album.  So of course, Friday morning, I log onto my computer and go onto their website.  And voila, at 9:30 in the morning, the music video was up in all of it's glory.  A cover frame with Brendon Urie as a wrestler soaked in champagne tempted my click.  So I took the bait, and of course, it was too good to be true. Youtube was blocked on my computer, so I couldn't watch the music video.  I was internally screaming for the rest of the period, but what's new.

Bands choose the absolute worst ways and times to release music.  This example might make it sound like it's my school's fault, but in reality it's not; it's Panic! At The Disco's.  I mean, they should know that the majority of their fans are teenagers.  So, most of them are at school at 9:30 am, or if they're lucky, they're taking that chance to sleep in.  Of course, there are some extreme diehard fans who would try to find a way to watch the video during school, but I'm not that extreme.  My point is, the times bands release new music or music videos are really problematic.

Usually, they don't release music on Fridays at 9:30 in the morning.  It's usually 10:30 at night, on an obscure day like a Monday.  Panic! At The Disco and Fall Out Boy both do this, unfortunately.  Which is slightly inconsiderate of the band's fans because like I've said, most of them are teenagers.  Obviously, if they release music that late at night, I'm gonna stay up and listen to it for a few hours.  It seems like a good idea at the time, but I always end up regretting it in the morning when I only get around five hours of sleep.

And it's not just the date and time they release their new stuff, it's also just their marketing strategies.  For instance, when Fall Out Boy were releasing their new album this year, American Beauty/American Psycho, they made the whole entire album available on Youtube a whole week before the actual release date. Of course, this is partially because someone already leaked it on the internet prior to the early Youtube release by the actual band.  It doesn't sound like a big deal, but when I'm studying for a test in January and an album I had been anticipating for four months is released early, I'm going to drop everything and listen to that instead.  But at least Fall Out Boy actually had a reason to release their album early.  On the contrary, when Twenty One Pilots were releasing their newest album, Blurryface, they actually leaked their own album early on purpose.  It was probably because their record label couldn't control their creativity, or some fake deep stuff like that.  There are plenty of other examples of this, but I think I'll save them for a future blog post.

Basically, bands just won't let me live.  On top of sports and school, bands almost act like an extra homework assignment.  I mean, new music should immediately make me happy rather than stressed out.  But hey, I haven't stopped listening to them yet, right?

The Meme Is Dead; Long Live The Meme

I never thought I'd say it.  It's been around four months now since the two great memes began and thrived.  But unfortunately, all good memes have to come to an end.

The John Cena and the Shia LaBeouf Just Do It memes are dead now.  It truly pains me to say so.  If you know me just a little bit, you've probably had me cut you off in a sentence by screaming "JOHN CENA!!!" right before you were about to say something. (If this has happened to you, I'm sorry.  (I saw the chance and I had to take it; I don't regret anything.))  Or you've heard me whistling the John Cena theme in class and it probably made you want to punch me in the face -- I don't blame you.  Or possibly you've heard me screech "JUST DO IT!!!" in the halls or in class when someone was having to make a decision.  I know it was annoying, but I was in the heat of the moment.  And plus, at the time, you gotta admit those memes were golden.

(Via Wrestling Forum)

If you haven't already figured it out, a meme is a funny or interesting video, photo, or piece of text that's spread rapidly on the internet.  For awhile, the John Cena and Shia LaBeouf memes were the one of the biggest.  They were on every social media website.  In these meme's cases, people took the original video and incorporated it into another one. For instance, I'll describe my first and favorite experience with the meme. My first encounter with the John Cena meme was a great one.  I was on Tumblr and I came across this video that appeared to be the I Write Sins Not Tragedies music video by Panic! At The Disco.  So of course, as the video goes, it shows Brendon Urie pacing the pews in a church corridor.  But after about thirty-three seconds or so, when he goes "what a shame the poor grooms bride is--" the video cuts and changes to John Cena's theme song. (Here's a link to the video if you want to see what I mean.)

(Via Yahoo)

I can't entirely remember my first encounter with the Shia LaBeouf meme. Honestly I think I watched the video before it became mainstream.  I still was a big fan of Shia LaBeouf ever since the Actual Cannibal Shia LaBeouf theatrical video.  So when I first saw screenshots to the Just Do It video, I thought it was excellent and inspiring. So with that, I sent it to a couple of my friends and I also made a bunch of references to it for around a week. After awhile, the remixes took off and the meme became mainstream.  I can't pinpoint my favorite Shia LaBeouf meme, but the Just Do It one was a pretty good one in general.

So I enjoyed these memes for months; it was a good time.  Unfortunately, like they all do, these memes had to die.  Eventually memes get to a point where they're too mainstream and overused it's not funny or ironic anymore.  But, just because they're dead doesn't mean I'm gonna throw away the John Cena birthday card I ironically bought for myself. (It came with a poster, don't judge.) They had a good run, and I guarantee there'll be a bunch of good memes in the future. After all, we're in midst of a meme renaissance right now.  Who knows what else could happen?