The Daily Adventures of Mercat

I really liked it. I was sort of like an action movie, except the villain is invisible to the naked eye. However I thought it was really well-written, from an entertainment and pacing standpoint, and my mother approved as a doctor. She gave my dad and I kind of a running-brief-commentary on events that were accurate or not, and overall she thought it was fairly accurate.

The most inaccurate part, she said, was the bat involvement. I think she meant the fact that it was a bat virus spreading to humans, but possibly she meant the pig/bat crossover. As I'm not an epidemiologist, I don't know. But I do like bats, and ( SPOILER )

She did say she thought they probably used bats just to differentiate it from the bird flus as of late. (I had a bird fall out of the sky, dead, next to me a few years back. DEFINITELY weirds you out. I don't think it was "bird flu" though.)

I saw that Bat Conservation International is going to write an article on that aspect, so I'll probably repost that whenever it comes out. I love my batties :C And we don't need any more public fear of them, jesus. They don't fly into people's hair, they're not actually blind, and although if a bat gets inside you should treat it as rabid, rabies is actually pretty rare. (I wish there were a better way than killing trapped bats to test for rabies, but alas. *tears*)

I figured my mom would like it, when H1N1 hit campus two years ago (she's the head doc in the health center) she was all about getting shots and telling people to buy hand sanitizer and isolating people. It was interesting to hear, after we saw Contagion, about everything she did to prep for H1N1 when it started spreading. She said she wanted at least her department to be prepared if none of the others were, and they ordered a 3-month supply of N95 masks, which was like 5000 of them or something. And in a meeting she mentioned to other departments (her boss? student services? not sure) that if it was as bad as the 1918 Spanish Flu (which people were suggesting originally that it was, or worse, but she said that was the worst-case projection they were using until it stats came in), they would need a morgue for 10% of the student population. (Which seemed high to me, but, I am not a doctor, and she might have meant 10% of the infected population, but I can guarantee with a bunch of college students living in such close proximity that's probably most of campus anyway.)

ANYWAY.

My dad made the comment that he didn't think they successfully showed societal breakdown. People could still get gas and electricity even though garbage wasn't being picked up. ( SPOILER ) And he thought they didn't successfully show the emotional impact of that sort of thing, especially when ( SPOILER )

I told my dad that they probably wanted to avoid that because there's SO MUCH of it in movies like 28 Days Later and Zombieland, and they wanted to avoid that zombie-movie sort of stereotype. I think it's kind of an interesting commentary, though, considering that the US seems to expect riots and violence, but as we witnessed (and someone pointed out to me) when the earthquake hit Japan, they were very calm, helped eachother, et cetera. Is that humanity or local culture? A worthy discussion point, I think.

But anyway. THE SCARIEST THING ABOUT THAT MOVIE (other than I hope people don't start hating bats because of it): Jude Law's snaggletooth. For reals! He has some super-close-ups, and it was a terrifying thing.

When they brought out his character I thought they were going in a different direction with it, and I wonder if the people who wrote/worked on Contagion had any influence from Mira Grant's book Feed. I thought it was interesting that they both brought bloggers into the mix, but good to see they went in different directions. However, I'm not sure Contagion really went all the way with Jude Law's character, especially considering that they had A TON of medical advisors, and they mention both homeopathy and vaccination-autism fears. Two things which have no scientific support, and yet, it seemed to me that whatever the "natural" remedy was supposed to be (whether homeopathic or not), there was one line (I can't remember) that seemed to be evidence that it worked. And not only that, but that ( SPOILERS )

As for Marion Cotillard's character, I think they forgot to wrap up her storyline?! ( SPOILERS )


Anyway, it was entertaining, and it reinforces my desire to create an emergency-preparedness kit (aaaand maybe a bugout bag). I'm glad my mom enjoyed it, especially after she forwarded the CDC's "zombie preparedness" page, which she thought was cute. I got her to see Shaun of the Dead last year, and after talking about Contagion there's a chance I can convince her and dad to see Zombieland or 28 Days Later.

So if you like that kind of movie, I definitely recommend it! It had an all-star cast and I thought the acting was great. And if the science was 95% great, too, that's excellent.

Side note: didn't see Madagascar get red-ed on any of the maps, heh. (joke source...ish)

EDIT: Here's an adorable battie gif. Just because :3

THIS IS A LARGE POST, I AM WARNING YOU.

HOLY SHIT I SUCK AT POSTING. This thing has been sitting on my desktop for a month and a half, christ, shame on me. Anyway. I'm trying to make better habits for myself... Some are getting better (I keep a real schedule on my ipod! I'm under 100 firefox tabs consistently!) and some not (I don't check my calendar, I forget things, I haven't organized many piles of files on my new computer... from a year ago...)

Shia says Indy V will be crazy. idk what to think. I'm excited but hesitant at the same time? Eeengh. Like I said after Indy IV, I mean, at least they can't do that one anymore. (Also, I told you so. Also-also, I am kind of sick of hearing about your stereotypical MacGuffins: the spear of Longinus, Noah's Ark, all that stuff.) GO TO HAWAII, PLEEEEASE

But, uuuuhhh, if Spielberg pitched a script, I'm guessing this is happening. So... yay?

...I'm depressed that that last sentence has a question mark attached to it. :(

HOLY SHIT YOU KNOW WHAT'S DEPRESSING?! WHY ON EARTH IS THIS A MOVIE. WHO ON EARTH THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA. SHANE VAN DYKE WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU ATTACHED TO THIS, YOU WERE AWESOME ON DIAGNOSIS MURDER AND NOW YOU ARE VERY NOT-AWESOME. AUGH.





Um...yes.

Also--ADORABLE KITTANZ:




While we're doing videos, this time-lapse-experiment-turned-art-video is absolutely fantastic:

ANTS in my scanner > a five years time-lapse! from françois vautier on Vimeo.

I hope this is just some lawyers having fun, and were not actually hired over legitimate offense.

I didn't even know they had finished the script for this, shit. Three months away was apparently a COMPLETE NEWS ISOLATION, much moreso than usual. (Nobody famous died.)

This movie looks awesome! That hat looks awful. (Short crown + extra-wide brim = grossnasty.)

Ghostbusters/AC/DC mashup:




Lady Gaga kidnaps Comissioner Gordon. Guys, I was about to say "I want to live in that world", and then, you know, I remembered that Lady Gaga is a real person and kicks major ass.

A good essay on Iron Man 2, which I am still excited about. The awesome thing about disappearing from the world for three months to memorize a metric assload of numbers until you've lost 15 pounds is that, when you get back, all the movies you just watched in theatres (and loved) are about to come out on dvd. Fuck. Yeah.

Some awesome shots from the filming of Star Wars.

So, "mad science", you say?!



That is the kind of awesome shit I'd like to do with my life. (I must say, though, that the closest I've ever come was destroying an antique rusted oven with a sledgehammer. Also fun, except for the part where the paint chips were popping off the bent metal everywhere...)

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT HOLY CRAPCAKES. NIGHTMARES. NIGHTMARES BEYOND BELIEF.

Jesus, it's about time! They better make these. Not that I'm planning to buy any, but, yeah...

Oh, James Cameron. I thought I couldn't hate Avatar any more, but I was wrong. You think you're God's gift to cinematography when really it sounds like you're just a rich bully. I kind of want to go see Pirahna 3D, even if I hate it, just to fucking spite you. Goddamn.

BUT THE GOOD NEWS? Rick Moranis may come out of retirement for Ghostbusters 3. HELL. FUCKING. YES. As long as this shit is better than the game (a bit repetitive story-wise, in relation to the movies). Also, I thought we were already clear that Oscar is Venkman's? There's some banter toward the beginning of the second one that that is what I took away from it.

OH HEY THERE BLACKBEARD. Why the fuck don't you have cannon fuses in your beard?! Jesus, the man should look MUCH more epic than that. For god's sake his body circled his ship seven times before sinking after he was beheaded! (Fuck yeah pirate lore.)

Chewie: not nearly as adorable as Winnie. But still hilariously adorable.

Here! Have a picture of Viggo the Carpathian.

Okay, now, look. I am all about crazy costumes but I don't even know what's going on here.



So adorable.

If the world is making you feel weary (although I don't see how that's possible after all those adorable kitties), I prescribe this.

Next video: An apparently sanctioned-by-Lucas video about the dumping of Jabba's cargo. With a creepy animation of Han Solo. (BUT I SAW THAT RAIDERS REFERENCE. I SAW IT.)

...Definitely thought it was going to be something like River Tam in the box though, the shape was eerily similar.

Heheheh kitty parkour.

HOLY SHITBALLS this woman has completely missed the point of feminism. Oh my god this article is rage-inducing. OH. MY. GOD.

Good news, videogamers! Playing video games enhances decision-making skills. That is, it enhances your ability to make choices faster.


Oh! An antibiotic-resistant superbug. Awesome. This may be our downfall. However, if you're worried about the apocalypse, I just thought you'd like to know that science seems sometimes straight-up fictional. I know a lot of zombie movies/novels/etc. lately have been leaning on diseases like ebola, mad cow disease, or other things to explain the basis for the disease. So here's a crazy fact: mad cow disease causes cattle's eyes to glow. WTF.

Rechargeable cars are less hurtful to the environment than gas, even if charged using "dirty fuel". And it's crazy, if it could charge using renewable sources--solar, wind, etc.--it's FORTY PERCENT cleaner than a gas-using car. Holy shit. Why is the world so resistant to changing how we use our resources? :(

(Answer: laziness, greed, but it still pisses me the fuck off.)

I read an article the other day about how an old solar panel from the White House was rediscovered, and some students, led by Bill McKibben, took it to the White House to see if they would take it back as a symbol of good faith and an attempt to move conservation forward in the eye of current US politics. Some of the statistics were incredibly impressive--like the fact that seed sales increased by 30% the year Michelle Obama was promoting her White House garden. But the kids were taken into a "war room" and basically told no. The whole thing made me so sad, particularly because I remember McKibben speaking to my freshman class on his book we all read, and because we were stuck in a hot, sweaty gym with a rather heavy book (as in, the material, not the book itself), he kind of got ignored by most people. And trying to sort out the fifty interested students in a room of 1000 or however many it was is not really a simple task. Anyway. The whole thing just makes me depressed for the state of our politics. I don't understand why people want to spend so much money on stuff and on keeping things the way they are instead of helping people who need help, helping the WORLD that needs help. I don't know. Maybe that's my bias of too many years of marianist catholic education speaking. I'm too hopeful, I suppose.


Cats drawn as Marvel characters! Adorable. And hilarious. Particularly Spidey and the Sandman.

OKgo's new video to encourage the adoption of shelter pets. Amazing as usual.

Surprise! Facebook is fucking with you again. And this is why I keep all my info private except to people I know.

NEWSIES IS GOING TO BROADWAY, hilariousyesfantasticyesssss.

If superheros were hipsters. I particularly like PBRman. Also I feel like Spiderman isn't that far from Tobey McGuire Spiderman because DEAR LORD DO I HATE HIM. (Also, LOL at Aquaman--Northwesterners are a silly people. I learned that this summer.)

Mysterious civilization hidden in the Amazon--I think this is the same thing (SPOILER ALERT!) Lost City of Z talks about. BUT NOBODY KNOWS. It's fascinating.

Carnivorous plants dwndling across US; I wonder if this might have anything to do with all the bugkiller sprays we use? (No idea, just a thought.)

Shark attack survivors team up to save sharks.

ATHLETE'S FOOT MEDICATION COULD CURE WHITE NOSE SYNDROME! Finally, a hint of good news on that front.

Bug people are crazy. So are geologists.

Some foreign memes for you. I particularly like Makmende, for some reason. I suppose it's like Chuck Norris, but cooler, because Chuck Norris has kind of turned out to be a douche. (Clint Eastwood = cooler than Chuck Norris.)

A really good article about building the mosque. It sums up my feelings on the subject pretty well.

Where can you find Ned and Chuck, Henry Jones (Sr.), and (old school!) Zaphod Beeblebrox? Cons, of course. (Those PD outfits are fantastic, though, seriously.)

Interesting bit of Raiders trivia.

Oh my god, remember the ad for Iron Man 2 where Pepper smooches Tony's helmet, and it wasn't in the movie, and everybody got upset? I present to you--THE ALTERNATE OPENING:



(Fan. fucking. tastic. Why did they not do this one, now?)

And another fantastic short.


Star Wars yoga, absolutely hilarious. And rather clever.

Obscure Taco Bell trivia! A.k.a. the random shit I will bring up in conversation that may eventually lead to me singing the Gordita Anthem. This, in fact, happened this week despite me finding the article months ago, although it did not lead to Gordita-anthemizing, which is a shame.

Here is a fantastic interview with Patrick Stewart, and within it is a fantastically creepy tidbit of their interpretation of Macbeth, ( which I am cutting for the rare case of spoilers )

Is that not fantastically Halloween-y in the best manner? It absolutely is.

First of all, this article is rather old. Second, I doubt it is more than tongue-in-cheek coincidence, and three, Hex of the Hydra sounds godawful. Like the books series.

OH MY GOD. So I was watching the new Sherlock Holmes (not for the first time), but I also decided to watch the bonus material. Apparently they decided Jude Law was more of the ladies' man than RDJ, so they took to calling him Hotson on set.

omg. Hotson.

I can't even. It's hilarious. Anythus.


Much like Rule 34 of the internets, I surmise there must be a similar rule about blogs and personal interests. If you have thought of it, someone, somewhere, has already posted about it online. There is a cool blog called Strange Maps that posts, well, non-generic maps. This particular post has some interesting material on worldviews. It's rather fascinating, but my main point of this whole thing is that the Bulgarians think Poles are all sexy fembots.

I. Don't. Even. Know.






What I do know is that I need to post things more often because I have AT LEAST this many more links piled up in my Google Reader waiting for me to take action. And FIVE MORE old posts on my desktop from before I left this summer! Luckily those posts actually have some real content, like some book reviews.

So, real stuff now, we went to the Yellow Springs Street Festival today. I got an awesome monster shirt, a necklace for my medusa costume, and a beaverfelt antique collapsible tophat! The sad part is I got home and realized the tophat is too small :( BUT I refuse to get rid of it for the time being. I also walked RIGHT PAST Dave Chappelle without even noticing at first, who was saying that the street fair was "like Yellow Springs normally, but gayer". Which... I don't know what that means? Because it's almost the opposite. All the out-of-town people come to visit for the day, so the percentage of hippies is decreased by at least some...

Also my sister finally found the CORRECT version of the Taco Bell Gordita Anthem (thank you, 1998) and I downloaded it for the sake of posterity. POSTERITY I TELL YOU.



(begins at 1:40ish if it doesn't play correctly.)

[EDIT] If I had been paying attention or had any creative/organizational method of linkspamming (Captain Obvious Hint: I don't) I would have posted the Ghostbusters/Rick Moranis thing followed by the carnivorous plants thing followed by the Newsies thing. Points to you if you know how those three are related.

Alas, I did not, and I also need to post this in the case I missed posting it before:



Also-also, tomorrow is 42 DAY as in, the date is binary for 42 (101010), and it happens only once every hundred years, and tomorrow we are getting together to watch the Hitchhiker's Guide movie, probably have a Vogon poetry reading, and get our brains smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped around a large gold brick. Coincidentally that is the name of my ipod and there will be no citruses anywhere near my electronics, thankyouverymuch. (I've taken to naming my electronic devices after science fiction things, or other related items; this new lappy is HELPeR486.)

Also-also-also, I am very afraid for this Pan-galactic Gargleblaster recipe, which is, essentially, take Everclear, cut with liquors:

...er, scratch that. I may be looking at the wrong recipe. Anyway, there's a lot of alcohol, plus a little bit of mixers, add olive, et voila.

If I weren't so convinced I'll be smashed rather quickly, I'd throw in a gin & tonic to boot. Maybe I'll pour one out for my gpa who seemed delighted about the affair but clearly can't make it (and probably shouldn't be consuming high levels of alcohols).

Well, I've got about five pounds of links to post. Yeah, I'm sorry... I've had a month worth of craziness. Tests, then camp, then midterms, then more midterms and projects, and finally when it was supposed to settle down last week? Grandpa had a heart attack Monday. They had to induce a coma by lowering his body temp to minimize brain damage. So we were stressed out all week not knowing how he was doing, how much damage there was... Either brain-wise or system-wise since his muscles are already so weak from his broken back (years ago). Well, he's alert and doing better now, although he seems a bit disoriented sometimes. We're hoping it's just from being in the ICU all week, half under coma, sleeping on-and-off all day long, but who knows, there could be some brain damage. =/ Even more than that, we have to hope some physical therapy can bring back what little strength he had before in his arms and hands, which was practically nothing. He has his sense of humor, though, which is a good sign, but it's a little sad because Grandma, of course, never listens well enough to realize he's joking, and sometimes he's just confused, and it sounds funny to mom and dad and grandma, and it just seems so depressing to me. I don't know... The whole situation is depressing. Even though, at the moment, I'm just damn glad he's still with us.

Anyway, so nothing like that to say WELCOME TO SPRING BREAK, huh? Yeah, plus camp this weekend and I-don't-have-a-fucking-clue with steel and the test coming up and just fffffuuuuuucccckkk. Anyway. Damn.

A real-life American example of what happens when you cut all your taxes. THIS IS THE BEST THING EVER. Why? Because I've read a lot of articles about batshit insane tea-partiers and Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck in the past few weeks. And here is A CITABLE, SOLID EXAMPLE of why these anti-taxers can go fuck themselves. You know, after all that logical argument about roads and signs and parks and water and electricity and government and, you know, all that stuff you come across on a minute-by-minute basis.

GOLD.

I'm also watching Jon Stewart, at the moment, rip Glenn Beck a new one. So you may have heard, Fox came out with a panicked article last week saying DON'T SEND YOUR KIDS TO COLLEGE IT TURNS THEM INTO LIBRULS! And Beck and all those crazies have jumped on the Sarah-Palin-crazy-conservative-anti-intellectual bandwagon, and, no surprise to anyone here, Beck does not have a degree. Anyway, so Beck gave this speech apparently and said "you know where I learned all that [history]? the public library" and JUST OH MY GOD. ARE PEOPLE REALLY THIS DENSE APPARENTLY WHAT THE FUCK.


I really dislike arguing politics but I wouldn't even consider this politics. This is just straight up idiocy. And like other sentiments I've seen echoed, I hope this crazy scheme actually works. I hope they convince all the crazy people to vote for them to get Sarah Palin as Republican candidate for the presidency and everyone suddenly just goes WOAH. WOAHWOAHWOAHWOAHWOAH, WHAT THE FUCK. And then people start thinking. Because that is what is important.

Also, depressing, some kid on FML whose parents saw that Fox story and decided not to pay for his/her college. Poor kid, jesus shit. =/

Hand-carved wooden skateboards! I particularly like the stingray, though I feel like this is a skateboard you must be very, very careful with. However I would totally buy one if I owned a surf bar or something, hang that shit from the ceiling!

NOOOOOOOOOO first confirmed cases of White Nose Syndrome in Tennessee bats. :C I hope they figure this shit out, and fast, all the poor batties!

I love Beatonna, and this is completely true.

Blackbeard in Pirates 4! I can't wait for this shit, NO LIE. Everyone's freaking out because OMG WHY MORE JACK SPARROW WRRYYYYY and really? The answer is simple. Because he's a great character. And they somehow managed to rip a lot of the fun and adventure (and treasure) out of the first one and leave it in the dirt somewhere. And that's why I liked Pirates in the first place, dammit.

Not to mention I can't wait to see all the North Carolinians get their panties in a twist about something. Or even better, they won't, and it will be awesome, because North Carolina is pretty sweet, despite the fact that want to think they own the Wright Brothers. STEP OFF BITCHES, DAYTON FOREVER.

=)

Tree Lobsters is amazing. I love their comic about the Mayan calendar, I want to reference it every time that gets brought up somewhere. (Almost lectured a bunch of my civil classmates about it, but I don't feel like coming off as bitchy to people I never really talk to because I'm way too damn introverted.)

And despite all the craziness and ugliness in the world, things like this happen, and people are pretty okay.

This is very true.

Learn to be lucky. I had a comment but I forgoted it.

Holy crap! Coconut water is a substitute for human plasma, that is, it can be used for intravenous hydration in emergency situations. SCIENCE IS CRAZY. BIOLOGY IS CRAZY. Also I think this could be a good survival skill.

This is so sad, and I think it is a good example of what's so wrong with our government right now. =(

Some part of me has always wanted a chameleon, but I would take this instead of a real one. (I know real chameleons require lots of work and like most amphibians and lizards can spread disease really easily. This little dude is just awesome.)

Chuck Lorre rips Glenn Beck a new one, and that atheist is an asshole, just saying. I know a cultural figure of speech when I see one, shit son.

I find this sort of thing very interesting and very encouraging. Why, you may ask? Well, because everyone I know wants to get the fuck out of Dayton, and I've never really understood it. I mean, yes, we are supposedly the fifth most dying city in the U.S., but we're not in the top 20 saddest and I don't think it's horrible. Maybe needs a little bit more diversity or things of interest, but it's kind of my new little dream (and I do mean new, this is an end-of-2009 maybe even just beginning-of-2010 thing) to give Dayton its own big to-do. Ideally it would be some sort of Disney World-esque thing but I don't think that's feasible with Dayton winters. So either a huge cooperative hackerspace-type thing, maybe a sort of open-source college? Which would be awesome, or something just straight up weird, like House on the Rock. Anyway. Dayton is home for me, and yes, even though I want to get out and see the world, I think it will always be what I consider Home home.

Also, I want to go to Cairo just for the sake of American Gods, heh. That book is so good.

This was a big deal last week or the week before, but you know what? Nothing new around here, our lovely local parking nazis (the school, not the local polics, mind you-- campus parking services) have ticketed their own vehicles in our use before. Hooookaaaaay.

Harrison Ford as James Bond:



Yeh, idk, I think Bond is a bit too smarmy-put-together for Ford to play him, maybe not smarmy, but, you know, smart-looking. As in, always in a suit, very British. Ford's more down-to-earth-American-cowboy, if you will.

...Not to mention there's the whole sort of inside joke where Bond is Indiana Jones' father, WHAT KIND OF TEMPORAL RECURSION WOULD WE GET OURSELVES INTO WITH THIS MESS?! The world would go mad, MAD I TELL YOU


In terms of thematic ipod cases, this page has a nice steampunkish one at the top, as well as, if you scroll down, a lovely aluminum one that I would have to use any time I felt like I needed to be onboard an Empire starship or the Enterprise. Fabulous, no? Quite.

An A-to-Z guide for recycling, though it's actually an article so not really searchable--not to mention, I'm sure it's missing lots of odd things as a result.

Alright. So I have always thought that Shakespeare is rather a king of insults, along with Mark Twain. As such I have decided I need to expand my vocabulary of demeaning words, as I am trying to stop using words such as "gay" and "retarded" as well. Needless to say, I will not stop cursing like a sailor and plan to keep on using "fuck" and "shit" as much as I damn well please. =) And I am a big fan of "pretentious ass". At any rate, I need to expand my vocabulary in order to be anywhere near as damning as The Shakesmeister or The Twainz. Today's vocabulary word: "pillock". Good old-timey sound, yes? Excellent.


Interestingly, another take on slurs and curses that I've thought about I took environmental philosophy wherein my professor pointed out that a majority demeaning terms today are feminine in nature
(bitch, slut, whore, cock-sucker, pussy, vag, etc.), so I try to take that into account. However, people use "dick" to mean, basically, the same thing as "asshole", which is gender-neutral, not to mention that for the longest time I didn't know what "douchebag" meant, so, in my brain, "douche" and "douchebag" are both masculine insults on par with "dick". That is, "stop being an ass". However, as much fun the imagery of "ass-hat" is, it is just not fun to say, at all. And most of the fun of cursing is in the saying, I will not lie. Since most of the time I don't mean it sincerely anyhow...



Oddly, my main complaint is not that they confuse cricket with baseball, but rather that they butcher the joke by using "who" once where "whom" should go.

Also I may mention that I slaughtered Uncle Steve the other night in grammatic structure and it was awesome. If there is one thing I am good at in this family, it is, surprisingly, that I could diagram any sentence to you whatsoever, and you will like it, dammit!



Eeeeeeeeeeeeeexcellent.


Well, I'll cut myself off for now, that's a good chunk of links. Not to mention I've probably managed to insult everyone at least once with all the crap I've had sitting around for weeks waiting to get posted, heh.

DARK NIGHT WAS FUCKING AMAZING.

Before the movie even started, something happened to the reel and it wasn't feeding or something. So our movie started at least 45 minutes late, but it wasn't a problem for us because we had no other plans for the day. =D I think the only thing we really missed was the preview for Mummy III. Honestly, though, what was with the Dark Knight preview? Haha.

Anyway, so everyone got a free ticket out of the deal, but the jerks in front of us left, so they didn't really get a free ticket, just a readmittance ticket. HAHAHA to them. But you know what? I am SO glad they left. We were the first ones in the theatre this morning (other than the workers obviously-- but 9:30 showing) and we were just alking normally and being a little goofy like we are. Katy and I were singing Dr. Horrible because we both had it stuck in our heads, which is awesome because she knew about it even though she wasn't there last night when we watched it. =D And these guys kept rolling their eyes and shaking their heads at us as we sang along to the song (I had it on my phone) or talked about stuff (like the Indiana Jones trivia... heh) or the movies coming out or whatever. Clearly these guys had issues, with what, I don't know. It's not like the talk through the movie (I mean, we whisper, and very quietly, but still).

ANYWAY SO. Movie was awesome. I like watching movies with Katy because she notices a lot of weird things like I do and laughs at retarded things like I do, too. So I feel like less of an idiot when we're the only two laughing in the theatre, lol.


But damn... That was a great movie.

Probably spoilers in the comments, so watch yo'selves.

Oh, man, one of only two things that bothered me-- What are your opinions on the city itself? I think the last one was more like New York, darker and buildings closer together and dirtier, and obviously in this one it was supposed to be like Chi-town. (Wasn't it even filmed there, partly? Which, by the way, Katy and I DIED when they had part of a chase through the mall-- You can guess why.) But the buildings were super-clean and I felt like the town itself wasn't so... scary? Maybe that was supposed to be a reflection on the DA's (you know who I mean) part in things. I dunno.

( okay, this is getting long; spoiler cut )




Oh man, Bond trailer = YES.

Ahh 19 days! THAT IS FEWER THAN 20, PEOPLE. This is getting crazy! Okay I'm jumping straight into the trivia. I don't know where I missed this one before but I don't remember reading it earlier. Anyway so one of the cut scenes from Temple of Doom, the scene where Willie pours perfume on the elephant and he throws her off, was supposed to be longer. Instead of just pouring perfume she would start singing and Indy and Shorty picked up to drown her out, and then the elephant to threw her off. And I have to say, this is quite possibly one of the best photos ever.

We went blacklight puttputting tonight, and it was HILARIOUS. Somehow I managed to get four hole-in-ones! I haven't played a game that well in a freaking long time. And then I came back and watched The Little Mermaid which was a ton of fun.

Oh, man, this makes me so sad; there's a disease spreading throughout bat colonies in the Northeast that has a 95% mortality rate. D= I have a soft spot for bats, so I am really hoping they find out what the problem is and they figure out a solution. Bats are so adorable! Anyway, here is the article and the website: http://www.batcon.org/news/news_item.asp?NewsID=354

Man, it already feels like Spring Break. That is awesome. The only thing I really, really need to do right now is figure out registration stuff and write up one assignment and I will be good. a lot of people have said they feel like it's a Friday today, plus like half of the people don't show up for classes and a lot of the teachers have cancelled because they have some convention or something to go to this week. The library is closed, so there's no one but staff hanging out there.

Ceramics is coming along pretty good, my "plate" made it through with only one small crack, easily fixed with glaze, and even if it breaks in the kiln it will be fixable. I kind of wish I could finish the bird bath right now, though. Grr. Anyway, one effect I was going for didn't really work so I think I'll have to play with it a little, and I'm hoping it will turn out good. And then the raku piece won't be fired until after break, so all in all I have a grand total of zero pieces finished for this grading, haha.

Oh, I almost completely forgot about that petal cup... I wonder if it made it through?

Today I think I am just going to roll up in a ball and die. I am crampy despite attempts to up my iron and potassium levels, exhausted and muscle-sore from surfing (I would like to not use my shoulders all day thankyouverymuch), and the back of my legs hurts a lot from the sunburn from Saturday still. Also my face is kind of red and I think I may have burnt my lips? They don't hurt at all but they look kind of swollen and red at the edges, as if I had been licking them and they got chapped. It's weird. Plus I had a headache since last night (a very heavy and squinty one), so I drank some caffiene (which is supposed to aggravate cramps), but hey, I am a little more awake and my headache is gone. Unfortunately they didn't have plain tea so diet coke with lime is okay but lots of empty calories and I'm not really a coke person so boo. (Run-on much?)

Otherwise, I wrote up a list of the books I got from the free section of the library:
--The Madonna in Art, 1897; really neat cover with stamped lilies and gilt, neat illustrations.
--Legends of the Madonna, 1872; the most amazing cover with gilt stamping and gilt edges on the paper, unfortunately falling apart in my hands. =(
--Christ in the Ancient World, 1933; very small and cute, notes on the inside from 1935.
--Representative Short Stories, 1924; stamped cover w/ floral pattern, notes from 1927, illustrated.
--Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints, 1923; stamped and printed cover illustration, illustrated, original copyright 1878.
--The Serpent and the Satellite, 1953; interesting book about symbols in religious history.
--Levitation, 1928; stamped gilt cover, sounds like it would be a somewhat historically funny read.
--The Syrian Christ, 1924; stamped gilt cover, orig. copyright 1916
--St. Augustine, 1933
--Journal of Tyerman and Bennet, Vols. 1 & 2, 1832; illustrated publication of original journals from 1821 to 1829 (that's three years difference... wow)
--Gilbert and Sullivan Songbook, not terribly old, my guess 60's-80's? Two-tone ink. Just picked it up for kicks.
--Fairy Tales, Brothers Grimm, 1966
--Magic House of Numbers, 1957; math tricks for learning/teaching/fun
--Digging for History: Archeology discoveries throughout the world, 1945 to 1959, 1960
--Bermudiana, 1936

Oh hells yes. I dunno, I really appreciate being able to hold something and just sort of feel the gaping history or importance of it, especially if it's something small. And I know, these books are probably not worth much to collectors or anything, but I don't care, it's all about the history for me. Being able to hold something in my hands, in the case of the oldest books, that is one hundred and seventy-five years old. And back then it was three-years-old information, so "brand new". Utterly...wow.

Other fun things I've been meaning to post about! Yesterday surfing, we had trouble starting a fire because it was so windy, and out of all of us I was the only scout there and I got to show off my skills (sort of--I just gave some advice because they guys were having too much fun "being guys" and being in charge of the fire/coals/grilling). BUT, I did regret leaving my purse in the car (because of my wallet and phone); my pocket knife was in there, too. Could have shown off my engineering skills... A guy came down the beach asking if anyone had paper or anything to burn with. I was only half paying attention but I did finally listen enough to catch on that he was asking if anyone had a bong or anything, which was hilarious since a lot of the people there actually do smoke fairly regularly, but didn't have anything with them. He decided we would all try to MacGuyver something (esp. involving an aluminum can if he could find one). I think it goes to show...something... that my first thoughts were: "I wish I knew how a bong worked" and "Damn, I left my pocketknife up in the car." So, yeah. Then he came back and asked the four of us sleeping on the beach if "we burned" and I said no, so he had me give him a handshake-sort-of-thing and was all "good for you, good for you". (I dunno, what do you call it when you grab their hand but your hand is facing upward rather than down... like... a bro-handshake or something?) Anyway it was hilarious and I can honestly say that's the first tome I've ever had someone ask me if I did drugs slash wanted to. Hehe. (You think it would have happened previously in Yellow Springs somehow...lol)

I've been seeing more mongoose (mongeese? mongoosen?) on campus. They are hilariously adorable when they run.

I read a sad article the other day that bats are disappearing, and it could relate to bees disappearance; it could be all the cell signals and stuff are messing them up. That makes me soooo sad. I freaking love bats. I am especially sad that it's Little Brown Bats disappearing in New York, and possibly spreading, because that's the main bats you see at Mammoth Cave. POOR BATTIES

Bailey made an interesting point in Pacific Hist today about air raid sirens, but this is kind of anecdotal in relation to what we actually talked about. When you hear an air raid siren, he pointed out, the first thing you think is "it must be the first Monday" or whatever, not "we're having a Tsunami/natural disaster" or "we're getting nuked". My first thought is always: "TORNADO SIREN?", demonstrating, once again, that Xenia is a panicked little town of failure in that regard. (Carroll made me hate all the Xenians paranoid of tornadoes--THEY ARE NOT THAT COMMON, PEOPLE! A thunderstorm does not 100% a tornado make, so please STFU thankyouverymuch. I always want to say, "stop crying, it's just some FREAKING RAIN". Argh. I really can't express my frustration with Xenians in this regard.)

So, I'm learning that technical classes are uninteresting because they are boring. I really enjoy reading articles in science magazines and stuff because they actually relate the science to application to make it interesting. Case in point? Ceramics today. We were talking about all the chemicals that go into ceramics and glazes and firing (silica, alumina, feldspar, copper, iron, magnesium, calcium [a lot of which are oxides]) and he was trying to explain how iron, which is common in most stoneware, can have so many colors. It's all different ratios, but for example, copper red-green will give you green if you use it alone, but if you base white under it, the reaction will give you red; if you need an explanation: Statue of Liberty is copper, was red, is now green. Yes? Moving on. He was trying to express how iron is so varied, because you can have reds, yellows, and browns. The example he used is blood, and that it is red, but will turn brown, and if you repeatedly wash out a stain will leave yellow behind. We also discussed how it is blue when unoxidized, and he didn't have an example, but we told him about how blood is blue if it is not carrying oxygen (aka has already passed to your lungs and is carrying out CO₂, which I think I learned in like third grade... yay "health class" rather than "science class"). And the coolest thing? Why shrimp, lobsters, mussels, and other related things have blue blood: their blood uses copper to oxidize rather than iron. HOW COOL IS THAT. (It also made me wonder if this accounts for pink flamingos' color, since they get it from eating shrimps, and whether the same sort of thing applies to "scarlet" ibises [versus regular old white ibises].) See? This kind of thing makes me go yaaaaay chemistry! whereas last semester it was definitely I cannot fucking wait to be done with this class.

( Oh, damn, this got kind of long, lol )

Yes, that was rather long winded, but it's a lot of thoughts flying through my brain, and pretty consistently, too.

Bailey mentioned there's a movie or something coming out about... Queen Liliuokalani? that people are getting upset about because the title is "The Barbarian Princess". The creators are saying, hey, we know it's one of her nicknames, and we like her, hence the movie showing in her in good light, but the critics are saying, yes, but it's an ironic nickname to point out that though she was Hawaiian she wasn't barbaric. Which, to be fair, I think they have a point; there are a lot of idiots/ignorants in the world (hey, I used to be one of them, no thanks to you St. Brigid), but at the same time, there has to be something said for the use of irony and poeticism and things in art. (Otherwise, what's left? Surprisingly, this is coming out of the mouth of such a literalist. I hate analyzing stories for symbolism and all that shit it's "supposed" to mean; I'll draw my own conclusions. And yes, I used to be a rather literal reader. [Thanks again, St. Brigid!]) Plus, I now have such a ridiculously sarcastic/cynical tone (thanks to Mr. Soucek and Laura, interestingly enogh), that since a blog is my preferred manner of keeping track of everything, it's going to be difficult in the future to tell my tone. (Hence why I am an advocate of emoticons on the internet--we have no face or voice, so it's like a little face to express a little hint of the intended emotion. And then the only problem is something else I like to think about--learned context. I sometimes think that certain word patterns have certain effects on what I'm reading/writing because of the context I learned them in or the way I heard them, and I doubt these apply for other people. Which makes communication all the more difficult, now, doesn't it?)

In History of Furniture the other day, Walter (oh, Takeda... he's such a grumpy old character, like a sort of rude version of Mr. Hemmert who likes to talk a bit more) decided he would teach us the most necessary French phrase: "Talk to my arse, I have a headache." Which because I didn't take French I didn't quite catch all the words, spellings, but as far as I got down was "Parle a mon cule, ma tete (which has an accent grave on the first "e", right?) --somethingImissed--". Haha. If one of you Francophiles would kindly correct me, I am always up for linguistics...

Honestly I'm sort of jealous of my cousin. He's doing an yearlong exchange program in Argentina, so we found out he not only gets to be fluent in Argentinian Spanish, but he's learning French, too. And here I am in Hawaii, deprived of being allowed to learn Hawaiian, when classes here are such a joke I could have soooo easily caught up... *tears* (Note to self, you need to email/chat with the professor to see if there are courses online or something!)

By the way, are any of you out there lingust...i...philes? (Linguists? Er... how do you say "lover of languages"?) I have been thinking I should start trying to write a paragraph a day in Spanish to practice (ack, I am so out of it! Haven't studied for over a year) and throwing in other stuff every once in a while, maybe Polish or Hawaiian or whatever. And does anyone know if there are places online where you can learn a language and actually learn it, not memorize phrases? Danke...

See? I picked up lots of little turns of phrase in other languages from my parents. Like "c'est la gruyiere" from my dad, who speaks Franglais with my uncle [they both took French at Carroll], and so I know lots of butchered French like that. But I mean, I throw "bitte" and "danke" around all the time, which I picked up from my mom, and there's always "gesundheit" and "nastrovia" [sp?] and "garagekey!" [butchered intentionally by my family, but then I do not know the real spelling, either] and many many other things. Plus lots of little linguistic jokes from high school, like the elephant poem the French kids have to learn Freshman year. So probably the most French I can put together is not terribly impressive: "L'elefante se douche, douche, douche, l'elefante se mouche, mouche, mouche" and I don't even know the spelling, that's my best gues. (And "merde!" [thank you Franzie]) Although it was fun to learn about trompe l'oeil (pretend that o/e is mushed together, I'm lazy yanno?) in history of furniture when it was the name of the CD by Malajube (French Canadian band so I can only guess at like 40% of their lyrics... Oh! "Autobus!" That must mean bus! nurr nurr) that I got for Christmas.

Um, yeah. I am soooo just rambling. I need to grab dinner before the cafe (pretend there's an accent, I always spell it with one, just like I write facade with that curly under the c, I just don't know the keystrokes) so I'm posting this and I'll be back to edit it in like... um... a half an hour.

bee ar bee, el oh el

(By the by, when I'm reading things like that I hear "brb" and "lol" phonetically by letter, but "rofl" is phonetically by word and "wtf" and "omg" come out as the phrases "whatthefuck" and "oh my god", respectively. Anyone else want to throw in their two cents on literary quirks?)

( [EDIT] kk back--oh shit, I wrote a lot, so I'm cutting the rest )

[EDIT2] Just kidding, wanted to throw this out there, too. I think the island on the banner of this blog is an east-facing view of Chinaman's hat. If not, it's really fucking close to being it.

Another thing why I was an unrecognizably strange kid... I loved bats. Not really obsessed with them, I just honestly loved them in a sciency way.

Little Brown Bats are cute, honestly!

And speaking of bats: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/842577656

Bet you didn't know that vampire bats can walk AND EVEN RUN.

http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/March05/Riskin.bats.snd.html

I love bats... they're so cute.

So I just got back from seeing Batman Begins. I highly, highly recommend it.

It gave me a lot to think about on the way home, which was one of the most pleasant and best drives I've ever had; past midnight, no one on the roads, pure silence, only feeling the car, and going the speed limit feels fast enough. Those are rare times. (It's also a rare time when you're so focused you can make a metaphor of a cockroach to love, but we won't get into that. You already know I'm a private person mostly, but please don't take me for dumb. My thoughts are my thoughts and I share them as I do. They are very, ridiculously complicated, and fairly hard to reproduce.)

It also reminded me about how much I used to love bats. I could never understand why no one likes them. Just the other night when I was waiting for Chris and Domer to come and TP my house, I had my dad's high beam out with me, and I was watching the bats eating the bugs that were around. A bat came about 6 inches away from my face, and I have to say it was the coolest thing ever. They have sonar, they're not going to run into you. (Also, the one thing that bothered me in the movie: the bat hordes breaking through the glass. Uh, so much for plausibility.)

A few days ago, as those of you who read my journal know, my world took a blow. After only one day, however, even though there was a huge void, I couldn't feel it anymore. So I am going to have to rebuild something, and I don't know what it is, but I'm working on it. I know the void is there, and there is a mysteriousness that is only aided by me seeing Batman Begins, but I can't feel the void... No, that's wrong. I know there is a void, because I can't feel what I did before... the triggers don't work, there aren't any more reactions... and I don't even know what killed it, exactly.

Also, Jonathan Crane looks like Michael Jackson. Roffle.

The last thing I will share with you tonight is that the movie renewed my interest in a book I've been writing, which takes place in a city much like Gotham...