The Daily Adventures of Mercat

Some sort of steampunk or adventurer or mummy-hunter or treasure-hunter or zombie hunter something.



I bought this bitchin' vest at T.J. Maxx (lol Members Only!) that sort of reminds me of River Song's white one, except brown. And OMG it is thick and fuzzy and fabulously comfortable. So I'll be channeling some sort of archaeologesque-pirate-dystopian-thing.

Probably just rummage my closet for whatever I like and be like FUCK IT IDEK WHAT THIS IS




Aaaaaand then hunt down someone who would want to do a photoshoot for my Medusa sometime. Some time when I'm FUCKING FREEZING I guess.


Speaking of which, holy shit we had some apocalypse clouds in Dayton today (and it feels like it should have been an ice storm, it was cold enough-- apparently it did hail somewhere). I was running errands and I walked outside and immediately noticed the clouds (funny how you notice the smallest things when they're "not right") and went HOOOOLLY SHIIIIIIII-- I think I just walked into the end of Ghostbusters.

You know, when the clouds are getting all swirly-artistic-terrifying? Yes.


And then I was about to get in my car and I heard the LOUDEST, SHARPEST thunder of my life. No lightning. No rolling, booming. Just one huge crack that sounded like a massive explosion. I am not the type of person to be afraid of storms, in fact, the very opposite (and most of the people I grew up in Xenia think I'm an asshole for all the jokes I've made). However, this crack was SO TERRIFYING that I ducked and very nearly would have hit the ground.

At least there is some solace (although solace is not the word I want to use there-- damn you, thesaurus) in the fact that I immediately ducked. Survival instincts = intact.

goes to my dad, who said, "You don't want to spend $100 on this, do you?" after basically telling me he didn't think I could handle any kind of power saw.

Because I need to cut the parts for my costume's MAIN PROP (read: only prop) out of MDF, or something. (Luaun board?)


So thanks, dad, for not thinking I have the need or the capability to handle power tools. Let us recall the model cars we had to build in Architecture in which we had access to the woodworking garage, and all the dremeling I did. (Granted, I came extremely close to taking a chunk out of my thigh, but suffice it to say I've learned my lesson.)


Also... $100? HA. That's spare change when it comes to Halloween. I've probably already dropped $200 this year for all my projects, especially because I won't get to do anything big for the NEXT THREE YEARS.

Not to mention... that whole part where my career intention is to become some sort of THEME DESIGNER. Yeah. Details aren't important or anything.

That shebang said, I started decorating the living room today and it looks fabulous.


On the other hand, it sounds like my fucking stage makeup that I ordered almost a week ago-- the order hasn't even been processed yet. I'm sorry, if you make no mention of that kind of delay on your website, what the fuck are you doing running such a large website? You have shipping warehouses all over and yet you can't get me my fucking makeup in two weeks?

So now I don't know what to do about Friday... fuck that noise. I'm furious.

I have "real post material" I'm actually working on, I swear. I'm a bit busy at the moment, despite my joblessness, as I am trying to register for grad school, get a museum job, hang out with peeps, do two halloween costumes, get a whole party together, et cetera.

Oh, and trying to also blog over at my "professional blog", which, I haven't updated in over a week, shame on me. Note to self: haunted houses, city museum, phantom.


The other thing: mom and I went to the movie theater tonight to see the 25th anniversary showing of Phantom. It was pretty damn decent. When Laura and Latta went and said it was LCD-screen sets, I lost a fair amount of interest because I have seen the, what, 15th? anniversary showing of Les Mis, the one with mics and chairs and the only "scene" is the battle one, BUT I am glad I went because it wasn't like that at all.

They do have "digital set paintings", as it were. I am not sure they are LCD screens because 1) there didn't seem to be much backlight coming off them, 2) they were still strong enough to be seen well with bright stage lights on them. But I did get some interesting... diffraction? patterns when the camera was focused at certain lengths.

So, the reason for the digital sets: well, one, I think ALW is getting into that kind of thing. Haven't really been following Broadway lately but (number two) in my recent knowledge I know there's been a shift towards special scenery. Like Woman In White iirc was entirely on a stage that rotated around for different scenes. I think? Never saw it. We were supposed to, senior year, and it got the kibosh so we saw Lion King instead. (In terms of props I consider the trade highly worth it, as my interest in puppetry might owe a fair amount to whoever designed those headpieces, unf.) (Yeah, I just "unf"ed over set design. This is me. Shoulda seen me earlier today, I freaked out over the facebook Indiana Jones game because I was in that kind of mood. You know, despite the fact that I've been playing it for weeks? Also, Ghostbusters showing Thursday. And I --actually, because of seeing Phantom tonight-- caught the Doctor Who episode where he does the WHO YA GONNA CALL thing, and then I found out he did some hilarious Christmas special where he also danced to the theme song, and that both made me very happy especially after I was watching Doctor Who Confidential today mostly just so I could hear David Tennant talk with his Scottish accent which by the way is glorious. So yes, set design.)

Anyway.

I absolutely adored the way the space was laid out, strategically. The front of the stage was the sort of "lower stage"-- which, I'm sure, based on the size of that massive hall was plenty big for probably a full normal-sized show-- where all the acting took place. Then there was the "digital backdrop" which rather looked like paneling on a french screen, very well done. And two staircases on the sides. Above the immediate backdrop was the entire orchestra-- not a pit orchestra, I'm like 99% sure they reorchestrated for a fuller group (possibly for the movie? no idea)-- and behind and above them was the extention of the giant screen. They also used that "above" space for all the "rafters" and "the roof", etc. (Although the scene where the Phantom shows up on the roof and the... roof of the tomb?, I think those were lower, as in, he was riiiight in front of the conductor.

What I did like about the screen was that they did a lot of animation with it, opening and closing stage curtains, the falling scenery, etc. And they didn't rely on it entirely, either, they had props like dead bodies and such. (I really hope I'm not spoiling anyone, I'm trying to keep it not too specific.)

Because the theatre there was SO INCREDIBLY VASTLY MASSIVE, the one good thing about the screen was that it made the whole production a lot more accessible to the whole audience. (Not to mention the cast that was probably four times the size of the normal cast.) When Christine goes to her mirror, they used the screen instead of the mirror prop and made her larger so more people could see her.

My favorite part of it was when she does the aria and finishes, then bows to the audience, then turns around and is "still facing the audience" and the curtain closes so she is "backstage", they had what I'm pretty sure was a live feed of the actual audience that night. And I think they had a feed for the "mirror" as well, as it seemed to be only a slight delay of what she was doing.

ON THE OTHER HAND, the technology sort of took away from it as well. In the mirror scene, they just had Christine and then up in the corner, the face of the Phantom talking to her. What? Why the fuck is that there? (And then they open it and the screen-mirror is also a door, and he's behind it, but that face wat.)

So you don't get the reveal of the two-way mirror. And also the creepy bride doll was not present, though I can't determine if that's yay or boo. Yay no creepy fetish doll! Boo no foreshadowing.

On the other hand, when the Phantom's letters are being voiced over, they also showed, on the larger "above" screen behind the orchestra, a video of the Phantom writing this letter. Which I thought was a very nice sort of movie-montage moment. So it's almost like this was a mix between the stage and movie versions, a stage play with movie effects-- which also relates to my next point.

The greatest thing I saw lacking was the stage effects. And I'm not talking about props or costumes or dancing or direction or the fact that they had an absurdly massive chorus (despite the fact that I found the voices rather drowning eachother out, and therefore also, the countermelodies). The. Fucking. Special. Stage. Effects. As in, when the musical first was made, they hired a stage magician-- an sfx-for-stage-shows-guy-- to do fabulous stuff. WHICH HE DID. And which were not in the show.

Uh, the "stairs"? No. The trapdoor-running-couple that gives yet another mysterious montage effect? No. Fireballs straight from the Phantom's staff to the ground? NO. Just stage explosions or fire bursts or something.

Oh my god and the chandelier wasn't rigged to crash, either, it just sort of shorted out with bonus fireworks effect.

(Also? I did not notice until tonight that the chandelier, which I think is supposed to look like candlelight flickering, looks like a fucking flying saucer taking off. YOU SEE THOSE CHASE LIGHTS? DAMMIT PUT A BETTER FLICKER MECHANISM IN THERE, YOU CAN AFFORD THEM. Christ.)

At any rate. So the set-dressing-and-props side of me really loves the "real" stage version better, but this was still SUPERBLY done. And I forgot how long it's been since I've listened to it, and how much I hate all the re-lyricking they've done since the original, and how much Lara and I used to know about it thanks to A.P. English and Lit/Drama/Song and the New York trip. Although I was thinking it was 1989 when it came out and then I was like herp derp nope I guess it's '86? Which, shit, that's Little Shop too and I totally misremembered. So I guess Little Mermaid was '89, and I was sitting there thinking "well maybe I'm remembering some corps did Phantom in '89, except I think Phantom did Phantom (Phantom Regiment, that is, the former), and I'm like 99% sure they did the 1812 in '89." So I checked later, and, sure enough, Vanguard did Phantom in '88 and '89. (I remembered from a video, the chair prop, and I seem to recall a lot of ridiculous '80's dance-style ballet-ish-ness.)

So back to this "we used to know so much" thing. We pretty much knew the stage recordings backwards-to-forwards and the movie as well, and I remember having enough criteria that after we saw the Broadway version (oh, ALSO, no surround-sound effects in the movie theater, I mean COME ON) we had some critiques of the Phantom and Carlotta although I think I liked Daae? I don't remember now, though.

BUT ANYWAY, the vocalists were positively fabulous. The Phantom did his own thing while still sort of being Michael-Crawford-lite (my favorite Phantom) (I hate Gerard Butler's Phantom GOTDAMN), and Christine was wonderful and I didn't want to Sarah-Brightman-stab-her (the Phaaantom oooof the Oooooperer), and Carlotta was not the tiny-whiny-diva like Minnie Driver and all the others but was a rather large lady but absolutely owned the role. I love her. She seemed much more like the character should be, an opera diva spoiled and famous. Maybe it's that whole viking-lady shtick-stereotype but DAMN, get it, gurl.

But, oh.

my.

god.

Raoul.


Allow me to explain. I detest Raoul. I have never liked him. I have never liked the actors/vocalists who I've seen/heard play him, I never liked his character, and even reading the book the only benefit I could see was that he and Christine were childhood friends and the Phantom is obviously KINDA FUCKIN' CREEPYTOWNS all up in there and Christine's character needs to not end up with his.

Whoops, spoilers, shit. Although I guess if you've made it this far, I mean, the musical's been out for 25 years so... T.S. Eliot, but I'm sorry. (And the book... ah... probably about a century now, rite? Just passed, I think? 1904?) (...ohshit 1910. So we're like right thurr.)

At any rate.

I FUCKING HATE RAOUL. Even though Patrick-Whatshisface and Emmy Rossum and pretty much the entire cast of the movie besides Gerard Butler were PERFECTLY cast, and I love that actor in everything else I've seen him in, I have hated Raoul. I think part of it was that ridiculous Fabio hair. Long, blond, and a ponytail. Or that was just the icing on the whatthefuck cake, I don't know. ANYWAY.

Holy shit the guy playing him in this version needs to just fly over the US and marry me because JESUS CHRIST HE WAS FABULOUS. Amazing voice. Actually wanted to cheer for him instead of the Phantom, actually cried for him and Christine when you're supposed to, all that fabbishness. Juxtapositionally made the Phantom feel a lot more creeper as well.

Anyway so the whole time I'm like YAY I DON'T HATE RAOUL but he looks familiar? so I looked him up when I got home and he was on a fucking episode of Doctor Who.



<3


Aaaaand it just so happened to be on the dvds the lovely astrid087 has let me borrow, and, sadly, he's in like two scenes and has maybe one line before he gets Cybermann'd. NOOOOOOOOO

So other than that I'm fan-stalking him now but--this might be the only time I've ever said this about a dude, and possibly because guys don't mess with their hair much? but-- he looks a lot better as a blond. (Also worth noting, his Raoul did not have a ponytail, thankthefuckinglord.)



Uh, and then I found out Instructables' Halloween contests, since being bought by Autodesk, now have grand prizes such as A FUCKING DESK LASER-CUTTER.

Yeah, I could do work on that, fuck.

I hope this year is my year, then. Gotta get that Medusa instructable up, and then Portal, and GET ME SOME VOTES!




So, today, in summation: David Tennant, Phantom of the Opera, Ghostbusters, Indiana Jones, Raoul, Doctor Who, awesome engineering.



Oh and I spent like WAY too much on all the things I have been needing to buy for Halloween, but I feel more caught up so I can work on things when they finally get here in the mail. Beakers and Erlenmeyer flasks for drinks? Check. Kinda want to heat one up on the burners and make tea in one just because. (I probably will.) Also I got some adorbs shoes, and light packs and mushroom switches and all sorts of lovelies.


So... yay!


...Oh and ALSO, Michael Crawford didn't sing! What! Sarah Brightman did, along with four guys who I'm assuming played the Phantom who I don't know (although possibly one of them was the guy we saw on Broadway who I'm thinking had played that character longer than anyone else ever) and the guy from the Twenty-Fifth show. But ohmygodMichaelCrawfordIloveyou whyyyyyyy!?


Also-also I maaaaaaay have made a really bad Dalek pun today on facebook. Totally worth it. And I will still probably call them day-leks in conversation, it just seems right...

(rabble rabble stupid americans rabble rabble England was the one who changed their accent so HA)

It was much better than I anticipated. I remember seeing a preview last year and thinking "man, those costumes look like shit." So I had low expectations. And the costumes did bother me, a little, not not to the extent they did last time I saw them, which must have been pre- postproduction. (...Production?)

Anyway, I spent way too long thinking, "Who is that actor, is that Mac?" and finally I had to whip out imdb and I realized no, omg, it's fucking Bootstrap Bill. Skarrrrrrsgarrrrrrrd

Fabulous.

Although the writing on that felt kind of weird to me, like they just kind of jammed his character and the younger girl (intern? family? wtf?) in there to provide comic relief and insight to the mythology. They didn't really do great justice to Natalie Portman's role, either, I feel... I mean, yes, this is a movie about Thor. But these are the Earthlings (feels weird to say that) and they were kind of... too much relegated to side-story? Idk.

The costumes still bother me, btw. The "Vikings" at least. (Viking gods? I really don't know what to call them.)

Although I do like how they dealt with them being "gods", because, let's face it, that really bothered me and admittedly I have never read the comics, but I could just not wrap my head around why the fuck a god was hanging out with mutated and superpowered humans.

Liked the nod to Stark, I laughed my ass off. And the note to Banner, nice touch. Felt odd to me they left out Captain America, though-- although maybe I just missed it.

Mad props to Chris Helmsworth, who gave much more depth to a character than I expected, and made him look noble in the process (Thor, that is). Loved the whole "vikings clearly not in the right time period and not knowing how to deal with modern society" issues (the cup bit, the horse bit, no pun intended).

Did not really like how they treated Loki. He is a trickster god, is he not? Chaos for the sake of chaos and trickery for fun? His jealousy was 1) not ragey enough, 2) not rationed well (blame the writers? idk), and 3) just out of place at any rate. That bothered me.

Also, interesting to see, despite the fact that magic alien Vikings had asians (Japanese?) and blacks, women are still relegated to a lesser class . Ironic that these are then "gods". MODERN ANALYSIS, I HAS IT. (In fact, going by numbers alone it seems the visible women might have been better off on Earth than in Asgard-- here we had two [I'm guessing] astrophysicists, and Asgard had one woman fighter and Odin's wife, and then a bunch of pretty women fawning over the victors at the end. Although I also did just realize I don't think there was a single visible female agent in all of SHIELD's shenanigans, either.)

Also, LOVED Stan Lee's bit in this one. So awesome.

Rainbow Bridge, fucking high-tension foot thick labradorite shit? FUCKING LOVED THAT. Can I have that as a real life design material? PLEASE?! And the Futurist buildings on Asgard were neat for the most part. Stiiiiiill super hate their fashion sense, though. (Seriously though, what was that labradorite stuff? I hope they had some mad set for the close-ups and it wasn't all CGI, because it was BITCHIN'.)

Um, and, yeah, at least one scene with a fucking eight-legged horse goddamn fuck yes Viking mythology! No ravens though, I was sad.



AND OH MY GOD I SAW THE FIRST FULL-LENGTH TRAILER FOR COWBOYS VS. ALIENS FUUUCCCKKK YEESSSSSSS I AM SO EXCITED NOW. IT LOOKS AMAZING. I KEEP FORGETTING HOW MANY AMAZING PEOPLE ARE IN IT. DANIEL CRAIG AND HARRISON FORD OBVIOUSLY BUT ALSO OLIVIA WILDE AND SAM ROCKWELL AND DIRECTED BY JON FAVREAU AND OMG. CAN'T. WAIT.

(Also, I know even though Favreau is done with Iron Man stuff-- sadface-- the fact that Kenneth Branagh did Thor-- love him, ever since I saw his Hamlet-- and Joss Fucking Whedon is doing the Avengers, and I finally saw the newer Hulk and it was not bad by any means, and Thor surpassed my expectations so I have a little higher hopes for Captain America, and I kind of want Wolverine to be in the Avengers even though I don't think that's happening, oh my god, I kind of love the whole Avengers thing now. Can you imagine sitting down for a marathon of Hulk and Iron Man and Iron Man 2 and maybe Wolverine and Thor and Captain America and FUCK YES. Damn.)

Also-also it was really nice to just get out of the house after all the earlier shit and hang out with Johnny. And do some Waffle House philosophizing also, always good. (Not to mention always being our own MST3K...) Trading shockingly relevatory gossip back and forth (on both ends! he hadn't heard Downie was married and I... got other stories I cannot pass on, sorry... I'm not even supposed to know, and admittedly I'm a little sad my other friend didn't think he could come to me? oh well, I'm over it, I'm more happy for him than upset at all). BUT YES. Also found out he's been a redditor for a while and I am admittedly slipping into its grip. For about the past month or so... Don't even know how I ended up there initially. But. Time marches on.

Sort of... there are a lot.

I love this Portal shirt but the fact that momentum is retained through portals means that the slinky would not work on those stairs. It's falling farther.

Space Core is Nyan Cat.

I like that this personification of GlaDOS reminds me of Spalko. It's appropriate, in a cold, calculating way.

A pink kitten! Poor little kitten. :C SO ADORABLE THOUGH, SO TINY.

Ohmygod, this is a photograph.

It's Pushing Daisies in real life! Science is cool. Related! Fungus packaging.

I MISSED THIS BY A DAY (a month ago, but still). Would have been awesome. So many things I love involved!

Some really beautiful math and science behind Tron: Legacy.

More later as I keep cleaning...

Spoilers ahoy! My unfiltered thoughts on Pirates IV.

( SPOILERS, ye be warned )



By-the-by, came with a preview for the next Muppet movie, coming out Thanksgiving with Jason Segel. And Amy Adams, which I didn't know about so OMG SO EXCITED. :D

Also: boots were a success. A little pinchy in the toes after five hours, sadly, but we shall see. Pissed I still haven't heard anything about my hat coming in, FUCKING SERIOUSLY. I WANT MY FUCKING PIRATE HAT.

Because I'm on break, dammit. You can find it here.

Day 1: Ten Things You Wanted/Want to Be When You're Older

1. Indiana Jones
2. Indiana Jones
3. Indiana Jones
4. Indiana Jones
5. Indiana Jones
6. Indiana Jones
7. Indiana Jones
8. Indiana Jones
9. Indiana Jones
10. Indiana Jones


...Wait. I don't think that counts as a real list. (It should, though.)

1. When I was younger I used to say I would be a different thing every day of the week. This involved ballet, figure skating, possibly being a fireman (can't quite remember), and definitely "historical bridge repainter". Because covered bridges get defaced a lot =/

2. An architect... sort of. I've always designed strange places in my mind, like a Radio Flyer fort (my sense of scale was horrible when I was little), a tree fort, several more tree forts, etc. And now that I'm older it's lots of strange things like zombie defenses and hidden rooms and things like that. Not to mention I legitimately am interested in sustainable design but I also really, really want to design things like theme parks or movie sets. IMAGINEERING FUCK YEAH.

3. A detective/spy. Always liked that piecing clues together, don't think I'll ever give that up.

4. A Total Badass

No, seriously, there's a reason I like action movies.

5. A pirate. Part of this involves dressing up (textural layers, lots of jewelry, awesome boots and fantastical hats), part of this involves me loving the island life. And Jimmy Buffett songs.

6. A bartender. Or possibly, a restaurant owner. How sweet would it be to own a tiki bar restaurant?! The answer: very. Because it would be like a theme park but also food and drinks. And tiki mugs. And I could serve delicious Hawaiian foods. om nom imu pork

7. A musician. I already miss playing my trumpet and we already know I miss drum corps. Who knows where this will go, I like my uke, maybe I'll get better at piano again, maybe I'll find some new instruments. I'd take up accordion. Maybe I'll just get more involved in dance, if I enjoy this tap class next semester. (Not really "musician", but still musical performance, so idgaf.)

8. The Proud Owner of a Personal Library. No seriously, I love books. I'm going to have a fucking fabulous library some day. FABULOUS.

9. A cat owner :3

10. Indiana Jones. This is a perfectly legitimate response.

Oh... my god.

I just got back from seeing Tron: Legacy in IMAX 3D. (We also watched Tron beforehand.)

IT BLEW MY GODDAMNED MIND.

You see, I hate 3D movies on principle. I do not want to go see a gimmick, to break the--I don't know, 3rd wall?--and tear me out of the immersion of the story. That's not to say I've never seen one, just that I do not like them.

Tron, however, was GLORIOUS. They used it incredibly sparsely and they used it well.

Also, the sets were amazing.

Also, the costumes were amazing.

Also, the scoring was amazing.



BASICALLY EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS MOVIE WAS AMAZING AND IT WAS TOTALLY WORTH $17. (Except for a little bit of Uncanny Valley effect, ugh, but I am SUPER picky about that shit.)

(Also, Daft Punk was kind of perfect.)


Also, R.I.P. Mr. Edwards, your Pink Panther movies are a beautiful thing.

I finally got my Engineer shirt (aka an awesome dirtyish undershirt sort of thing) from Clockwork Couture. Pulled some thematic accessories out of my closet and tried it on... I look like a tea-stained version of the dude from Clockwork Orange.

Fuck.

Back to the drawing board on that one, I guess.

Idk why but I've been tab-hoarding for weeks. As a result, running roughly 220 tabs was causing firefox to crash constantly. So, here is several days worth of tab writeups, which might mean whatever I wrote sounds a few days old. That would be because it is, but it's probably not too important.

( LOTS of articles )

( a second set, many more articles )

...I read a lot.