release the original cut of Inspector Gadget (1999) cowards

i actually wanted to make this post yesterday but i ended up being busier than i expected and i just fucking passed out at like 5 pm

anyways. MAN. i'm dang tired of mostly keeping to myself until all my work is done. it's not sustainable, and i keep getting surprised by it all just not being over.

one form of deep embarassment and annoyance (misclicked and permanently deleted some important files. i'll live but MAN that moment of panicked realization)

one form of actual emotional drain (not gonna elaborate because that's personal but dw i'll be fine, it wasn't even that bad, it just made me a bit gloomy)

was thinking about Carmen Sandiego because i was watching the DefunctTV on it

remembered the Where On Earth Is Carmen Sandiego animated series (because it came up). as you might glean from this blog's title, i'm a big fan of the 1999 Inspector Gadget movie. and because i loved that movie so much, i got interested in the original show. i specifically got a DVD of the show's finale- Inspector Gadget Saves Christmas. it came with a bunch of commercials for other shows by DIC, including Where On Earth Is Carmen Sandiego. it intrigued me, so i also ended up getting a DVD of a special from that series, Into The Maelstrom.

at some point in Into the Maelstrom, the weird disembodied head character makes a joke about Meatloaf (like, the rock star). i remember this very vividly because it was like the second time i'd ever heard of Meatloaf. the first was... well, that takes some backstory.

if you don't remember, in the late 90s and early 2000s, there was this weird thing called MTV Unplugged. it was basically just famous musicians recording acoustically in front of a small crowd. it wasn't very good but it was super hyped up at the time.

i mostly remember this phenomenon because as a kid, we had this one CD. a Muppets parody of MTV Unplugged called Kermit Unpigged. it was basically an audio drama interspersed with a few songs.

and the main joke i remember from it is a bit where someone gets excited because there was a door in the studio that said "MEATLOAF" on it and they're like "oh boy meatloaf is DELICIOUS, i can't wait!"

and then when they come back, Kermit's like "so how was the meatloaf?" and they just dejectedly go "Eh, there was just some big guy in there. I think he ate it all."

so for years, people have been talking about how much people misuse the word "gaslighting"

but when they do, they always say "people just use it as a fancy way to say 'lying'"

and i've never felt like that was accurate. yes, people are misusing it, but that's not quite right

and i recently realized- finally- what the ACTUAL problem is

people don't use gaslighting as a fancy word for lying

CAMERA DL:

credits, personal journal, and cool lil behind-the-scenes workflow comparison thing below the cut:

there should be more authors like Louis Sachar out there

like. when i was in elementary school, i was ALL about his kid-focused Wayside School series

and then when i was in middle school, i got into his more mature stuff like Holes

and there was this really nifty feeling of "oh man, i'm growing up, and now i can read the more advanced works of this author i already like"