Random thinking

I like opening my laptop all the way, and closing it slowly, so as to see what my background image looks like from every angle. (That's not as weird as it sounds to those who've never done that with a laptop screen.) At about 150 degrees (the angle, not the temperature), it looks really dark, and you can't make the colors out. It's kind of like a photo negative, but it's not. (If you've had a cell phone camera since the age of eight, ask your parents what a photo negative is.) As the angle lessens, different things and different colors come into view, and different things stand out more. At about 110 degrees, the picture looks lighter than normal. At about 90 degrees, the picture looks normal; the picture gets briefly lighter again, but as the angle approaches 0 degrees, it gets darker and darker again, like it was at 150 degrees, only with different things in the picture standing out. Finally, the picture goes off completely as I shut the laptop, and it goes to sleep.

The picture on my background is a cartoon character: the title character of the Miyazaki movie Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. In the background (of my background... heh), there are unrealistically huge, flying insects that resemble centipedes with the jaws of a stag beetle and the wings of a dragonfly. Nausicaa, meanwhile, is sitting in the foreground, looking calm and contemplative. As I think about it, the reason I like this cartoon character so much goes a lot deeper than simply that I like the movie she's in. (It's probably more that I like the movie so much because it has such a wonderful character in it, though there are other things to like about it as well.) She's indomitably brave and steady in the face of danger, and very intelligent and wise, even though she's young. She has a really cool rocket-assisted glider that she can fly like a hawk (or like an eagle, if you're a Steve Miller fan) - she intuitively knows the wind and flies gracefully, not forcefully. But, she also has a gun, a sword, and some flash grenades. (Hoo hah!) Best of all, Nausicaa is extraordinarily kind, and she works to make peace between warring peoples, even those who did horrible things to her and her people, and those who are about to. But in the end, she can't make peace with evil people (no one can), so she kicks butt. Okay, not really, but that's how I would have written it. I suppose it's probably better that it was written by Miyazaki instead.

I want a woman who's brave, intelligent, kind, talented, forgiving, strong, and well-armed (oh, and beautiful). But I guess I should cut back on my Miyazaki intake, and start focusing more on the real world, where such women don't exist. . . or do they?

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