The Daily Adventures of Mercat

I got one, maybe two hours of sleep

I punched myself in the nose because of a damn poorly-designed conditioner bottle, and now I have a scratch across my nose and upper lip

I haven't been spelling things right all day

My cousin Kyle doesn't understand thermodynamics and shattered a glass bowl with boiling simple syrup everywhere pushing back dinner two hours

Dinner was delicious, bee tee dubs

Nobody cried for missing gramps (that I saw) (I think we're all tired of grandma's bullshit let's be honest) (we're all going to lose it Saturday)

Our cousin Chris showed up (the family "drunk" as it were-- he parties hard with no shame) and we all ended up making a post-dinner trek to Kroger for beer and cider and cups and pong balls

Kroger locked us out because they were closing in five minutes, I went back to the car and my sister and cousins snuck in the exit and beat a fair number of people through the line

I forgot to mention that my cousin was playing the CDs his Hitting-On-Him-Gay-Boss made for him but they cranked them up until I was deaf and they are all terrible dancers

Kyle owes me a game of Beer Hunter for driving them

I missed the James Bond marathon on SyFy and it occurred to me I've never seen a Timothy Dalton or George Lazenby one

But we found out Cato (Pink Panther) was in Goldfinger and that the character is also apparently in Inspector Gadget What I Can't Even

So we played beer pong on the porch and I think they got a fair number of the adults involved, apparently my sister got my grandma to swear to play a game next summer

Meanwhile I passed out in the basement for at least two hours and I still don't know what




So that was today

(I think this is the third time this year I've punched myself in the face)

So we flew out to Denver. We rented the car. We're on our way to WalMart to buy a black towel for rehearsal when we get the call... Camp has been cancelled due to weather. They can't get the truck down from Casper because the roads to Wyoming are closed. Soooo we're stuck in Denver.

Dad tried to switch the flights to come home tomorrow, but we'd be losing a lot of money. So, still not getting home until midnight Sunday. =/ It's wet and miserable here, and I'm currently missing: all my Southwind friends who will be at WGI in Dayton, Guster at UD, senior sendoff weekend, relay for life, and about five other things. I am SO PISSED.

Can't go skiing here because 1) I don't have any gear (all shorts for practice) and 2) I don't need to risk fucking up my knee.

So... today we ate at Waffle House for breakfast, sludged to WalMart, went window shopping in Fort Collins, and played about two hours of Euchre, if not not three. Maybe tomorrow we'll see a movie, I dunno, I'm totally fucking bored. Well, not so much bored as pissed I didn't bring my own computer (this is my cousin Max's because he's here, and he's on spring break so we are hanging out with him) and there's nothing much to do and I AM MISSING LIKE 20 THINGS IN DAYTON THAT I DIDN'T HAVE TO. GOOOODDDDAAAAAMNNNIIIIIT.

Also, the whole epic is kind of on Twitter if you're curious to see it in semi real-time reactions.

Since we went to Waffle House this morning, I think this is my end of the curse, and I would say it's definitely the worst. GODDAMNIT WHY DOES THE WEATHER HERE HAVE TO BE SO BAD BUT SO NICE IN DAYTON. GODDAMNIT

Um, yeah. This blows.


However, I did see the most attractive Taco Bell I've ever seen, built into some old building.


Anyone know shit to do in Fort Collins? Cuuuuuz we really aren't getting anywhere out of here.

[Error: unknown template qotd]Well, uh, it was the summer and not the holidays, but we hit the airport flying out of Alaska (Gustavus?). Yes, we hit the airport. It was a tiny little two-strip runway with one main building (Delta and Alaska Airlines, or something like that--anyway, probably smaller than your average post office building) and a few shacks from small plane owners who flew for hunting trips and tours and that sort of thing. So anyway, we're on this medium-sized plane, backing out to fly out. (Oh, it was small enough you still got on the plane from a set of stairs on the runway... That was cool.) And I guess the pilot just wasn't paying attention, because the guy on the left wing was waving like mad, a lot of people on the plane were yelling (except mom and dad because they figured the pilot couldn't hear us through the door). Grandma and Grandpa were flipping the fuck out, let me tell you. Max and Kyle and Laura and I were just kind of bemused.

So anyway, the guy keeps going and clips a beam of the building with the tip of the wing. He broke probably a foot off the end of the wing and broke a good four or six foot section off the beam of the building. And it was one of those big, square beams, too, probably 1'x1' or 2'x2' or something like that. I don't remember exactly.

Anyway, so then we all had to unload, and we would have had to wait forever for them to get another plane in there, and Uncle Steve was desperate to get back because we had 50 pounds of frigging halibut in our luggage that was going to go bad. So we all marched our stuff over to one of the tiny shacks to see if the guy could fly us out to a larger airport, and we were going to have to leave some of the luggage behind because you only have so much weight per passenger (and we would be taking two small planes for the ten of us as it was), and I was incredibly pissed off because mom and dad and Uncle Steve were going to make me leave my bag here and take their fish for my weight instead. (And by this time, two weeks in Alaska, I was absolutely disgusted with halibut. And I haven't really eaten any since, either.) But eventually they got a plane that had been slightly larger than the one we crashed to some to that airport rather than going straight back to the continental US, (it was slightly out of the way, maybe flying out of Juneau or something? I can't remember) and we were all able to get on there and end up in Chicago or something, I don't remember exactly.

Anyway, that's the story of how we crashed a plane into an airport.

Wow, so today we went snorkeling at Hanauma Bay.

If you ever go to Hawaii, DO IT. It's AMAZING. You see those movies of reefs with all the anemones and stuff, so you're kind of shocked that everything is so bleached when you first get in the water. But once you make it past the barrier, the water is colder and deeper, and a lot fewer people snorkel out there because the pull is stronger. But the coral starts to get color, and the fish are more numerous, and it's absolutely fucking nuts. It's gorgeous. I'm going to try my best to talk my mom and dad into going, because my mom hardly ever goes swimming anymore but it's not difficult. But she rides bikes, so as long as it we took it slow I think her back and her knee would be fine, I mean you get flippers. (My toes cramped a little, and my ankles hurt after a few hours, but it was TOTALLY worth it. If we go again I will invest in an underwater camera DEFINITELY.) I saw a good number of fish, stuff I remembered from that lagoon on the Big Island (which sucked because it was a manmade lagoon and was too shallow, so there was lots of sand that got stirred up and not many fish because there was no where to feed and it was too warm, but the turtles were cool except that you lost them if you weren't three feet away) like parrot fish and the humuhumukunukunupuapua'a (state fish of Hawaii!) and angelfish and just freaking EVERYTHING. It was amazing. The coral kind of looks all the same, until you look closer. It's amazing. And all these different types of urchins hiding in the rocks, too. I think I somehow scraped my knees on some rocks/coral without knowing?! Meh, it doesn't hurt. God, I can't get over how beautiful it is, it really is like going to a completely different world. I'm going to get some pictures up, but none of them are underwater. =(

Also, speaking of having a totally cracked out day, after we left Hanauma Bay and had our cookout on Ala Moana beach, we were laying out (napping yaaaay) while the people who went back with the van (we had to turn it in at three) came back on the bus. And guess what. They fucking ran into David Beckham. LOL. I wonder what I would have done if that were me. First of all, I hate soccer. Second of all, my roommates and I mercilessly make fun of that stupid underwear ad (Calvin Klein or something?) because there is a WALL-SIZED version of it at the Ala Moana mall, and it's so ridiculous. Third, for some reason I have it in my mind that he's a douche? But I don't know if that's actually something I read somewhere or I only thought that because I was half-asleep on the beach.

I have a feeling I would have given it a totally sarcastic face, especially because I am one of those people who believes in not freaking out when you meet celebrities, but treating them like normal human beings. (I have yet to put this into application, because the only celebrities I ever met were Maynard Ferguson [who was kind of being a douche] and Winnie the Pooh at Disneyworld, and I think I am perfectly justified in smiling like a dork at hugging Winnie the Pooh.) Also, I totally can't get this hilarious image out of my mind of him going to the Ala Moana mall and just laughing at that damn ad. I mean SERIOUSLY.

I'm kind of inclined to not believe them until they post pictures, so if they do I will swipe them and repost them for proof for you guys. (Haha, I am such a paranoia freak.)

Oh damn, my third thought after all that was that I kind of wish I had met him so I could send back photos to my sister and two cousins who all adore soccer. I am such an evil bastard sometimes.

Guess what, guys! 88 days until Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull! 88 days! Yaaaaaay! Sorry, I get kind of excited because 88 is my lucky number, and always has been. (When I was little I used to think 88 was inifnity... I'm not really sure why. I mean, I could count to a hundred easily. I also quickly realized that I was born in 1988 and a piano has 88 keys and I thought that thinking it was inifnity was cute in a silly kind of way, so it became "my" number.) In celebration the image you see as my icon is also now my facebook photo. =D Today's trivia: I'm going to guess you all knew that the mine car chase from Temple of Doom was originally an idea for Raiders, and I already told you about the infamous swordsman fight scene. So how about another removed scene? When Indy escapes from the Bantu Wind onto the Nazi sub in order to follow the ark they have reclaimed, they obviously don't show him sneaking into the sub, as it would be a rather difficult thing to do. In a removed (I believe never filmed?) scene (shown in the comic books, however), Indy used his whip to tie himself to the sub (I think the periscope) and ride through the seas that way. Rather tiring, though, wouldn't you think? However, in actuality, most subs in that time (including the Nazi submarines) only traveled underwater when being sneaky. The rest of the time they traveled at the surface, so the scene was unnecessary as Indy probably wouldn't have had to worry about it. Also, the submarine used in Raiders is the same one used for the movie Das Boot, which was being filmed around the same time and saved the movie lots of money by not having to build their own model.

Also, we saw a sub today out at the Ala Moana beach. Crazy.