I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: “WEIRD AL” YANKOVIC-“Inactive” (2014).

As I mentioned, there  are only four songs from Al’s new album that he didn’t make videos for.  The biggest surprise to me is that one of the songs is this parody of Imagine Dragons’ “Radioactive” (a song that, I’m not supposed to like but which I do).  Al’s parody is fantastic, but, given that it’s about being inactive (and is kind of gross) it would probably make for a very disturbing video.

The song begins sounding just like the original (of course) and we soon learn that the protagonist is, well, really inactive, (it makes me laugh that this song about inactivity is so upbeat and anthemic, although I think their “Woah oh ohs” are a bit more lethargic than the original.  I love how he spoofed the breathing-in section by saying he’s using his inhaler.

And then as with many of Al’s couch potato songs, this one gets into some funny details–he hates the show he’s watching but can’t reach the remote control, he’s growing cobwebs on his feet, etc.

The song ends “really inactive, not so attractive.”  It’s actually quite a depressing song, but strangely funny.  It’s also one of my favorite songs on a disc filled with favorites.

[READ: July 27, 2014] kimmie66

This book was written and drawn by Aaron Alexovich.  Alexovich drew the other Minx title Confessions of a Blabbermouth.  And his drawing style is much the same here–a little wild, a little crazy and, his virtual world is also convincingly different (much like the situation in Blabbermouth).

I wasn’t too keen on the story when it first opened.  It is set in the future (23rd century, we find out later) and is all about how most people spend their time in the virtual world, in specially created lairs that meet their desires.  This is a fairly old trope, although given that this book is 7 years old, it may not have been all that old at the time, so I’ll cut him some slack.  But anyhow, it starts off with all this jargon and such about 23rd century VR and whatnot.  And I was a little, well, uncompelled.  But then Alexovich brings in a human element and the story quickly grows very interesting.

So kimmie66 is not the main character exactly.  The main character is Telly, a young girl who spends most of her time in the virtual lair “Elysium” a kind of goth hangout (Alexovich’s style can most easily be labelled goth, even if that is a very simplified description).  Telly is pretty much herself in her virtual world–she looks pretty much exactly like her real life appearance.  This is uncommon, of course, since most people make their idealized selves online.  Like her friend nakokat (she amusingly points out, nako means cat, so her name is cat cat).  She loves nakokat, but doesn’t know anything about her in real life.  And then there’s her friend kimmie66 who has just sent Telly a suicide note.

Kimmie66 is the daughter of the founder of the TenSys, a company that makes “Minisoft” look puny.  And Telly doesn’t know if kimmie66 has really killed herself or not, but it seems that kimmie66 or someone like her is appearing in all of the different virtual lairs–something that is forbidden.  And she seems rather ghostly in all of them.  What is going on?

She calls in the help of Coil, a guy who hangs out in her brother’s lair (a scary place where half the people’s avatars are creepy ghosts)  A word on the lairs–although they were kind of simplistic in terms of content, i really liked them, especially this clown one.  It was weird and funny.  Coil thinks that kimmie66 is just playing–a poor rich girl–until he realizes that something bigger is going on.  Something that could threaten all of the lairs.

It is only when Telly meets kimmie66’s real life mom, the founder of Tensys, that she learns exactly what is going on, and it’s pretty intense.

This story proved to be far more interesting and thoughtful than I imagined from the beginning, and I really enjoyed the end did not reject technology but it did suggest that there was more to life than VR.  And again, tha drawing style complimented it perfectly (and was pretty cool looking).