The Daily Adventures of Mercat

Despite my general feeling of melancholy lately-- and, oh, how I hate that word-- melancholy, ugh-- (and I do mean, literally, the word itself, not how it is defined or used or anything, I just have this bizarre intense dislike for the spelling and sheer existence of its sound) I also feel rather victorious the past few days.

I don't know which one of these to post last, because I am a save-the-best-for-last person, because three out of four of these just make me stupid-smiley-happy.

...I may have also been spending too much time on Tumblr being all internet-y and fandom-y so my brain is kind of running in that mode lately, too. So... sorry. (Also, damn, there is a lot of problematic posts on tumblr. But you know what? I deal with enough shit everywhere else, I can't turn that epic little corner of crossover jokes into another space where I get mad at people. I just can't deal with that, bleh.)

(Also, there was an adorable episode of the Simpsons with a Pixar parody and a Wallace and Gromit parody and they were SO well done and cute.)

(Umm, and Taco Bell has an ad with Pagliacci and I feel like with all the Phantom of the Opera I've been seeing and possibly going to see the limited showing of Les Mis that I should go see some real opera again? I think the last one I saw was Aida, and I always liked Carmen, and I just HAVE NOT SEEM MUCH THEATER LATELY I would even go for some Shakespeare. As long as it's not Much Ado About Nothing or As You Like It? I can't remember which, but one of them is terrible. But mostly I just feel like I should see a real version of Pagliacci because everything I know about Pagliacci is from Spike Jones. And possibly Merry Melodies/Looney Tunes.)

I aced my interview for Pier 1 today, so I am now seasonally employed. And it sounds like it's not many hours, which is good for me. You can't see my face right now, but I'm giving a sort of evil smirk, because sometimes I am a little conniving and I hate myself for it, but the little kid who read the entire Hardy Boys series is so proud of any time I am successfully involved in subterfuge.

Uhhhhh and I found out that when you put your dvd codes into Disney's Movie Reward program you also get a "digital library" hosted on their site which is PERFECT for while I'll be in Hawaii because I'll be taking maybe like two dvds with me. (Buuuut a lot of books. Like too many.) [EDIT: Actually, possibly, it might be only a discount to a streaming version. Which is a little skeezy IMO.]

Yesterday I found out that a few of my friends told some epic tales of me to the rookies this summer, and that just made my month. I miss the Troop so much. <3 WHY ARE ALL MY FRIENDS OUT WESSSST

Uh, also, I forgot how good horizontal stripes look on me and can I just say this sweater looks fucking great? And it's Hufflepuff colors. (And so are my socks.)

HUFFLEPUUUUUUFF

Okay and then I made a ridiculous joke yesterday on facebook, it was so great, and it just made me feel really awesome because my seat partner from last year was being a smartass about it and I feel the joke's quality is on par with the stuff the rest of my family (read: mostly my dad and uncle) crank out. It's a bit... audience specific, BUT! Here it is:

The set-up: a drum corps' tuba section has to break into their friend's dreams on a long overnight drive states away in order to save him from making a terrible tour-goggles-induced mistake. The title? C O N T R A - C E P T I O N


Oh my god my brain is in meme mode I'm so sorry.






:D

OH MY GOD, I am such an open source science nerd. I mean, science is so expensive and in some instances there is just so much data to be processed (or unavailable due to number of researchers) that stuff like SETI and folding@home and that Mars or moon game or whatever it was that NASA came out with that I totally forget right now just makes me happy inside. Anyway. Jellywatch, a "social networking" open source method for collecting jellyfish data. (Well, any "unusual marine life".)

ISN'T THAT FUCKING AWESOME, you bet your damn ass it is.

Oh god, Viacom, wtf. I don't even know.

Updated Milgram's torture experiment used on French television. Just actually learned about this in Psych, it kinda makes me feel justified in not trusting people. Kind of. Anyway, the data is disturbing as shit, not to mention the effect to which peer pressure plays an effect. I mean, we already know (sadly, this is also in the news) that peer pressure drives people to horrible options like drugs and suicide and all sorts of other bad decisions (fashion standards vary reader by reader), but the fact that people are willing to torture other people to the possible point of death is just crazy. You know you'd like to think you'd be different but how do you know? The best I can offer is that I'd be more particular about the questions I'd ask and the objectives of the testing, but I have the advantage of a pretty decent higher science education and I think way too much so with studies I'm always trying to figure out what they're after. One because I'm curious and two so I can more accurately answer the questions in the method I think is accurate. Anyway. Roles can be intimidating (official, peers, et cetera) and this test, if nothing else, is sure as hell proof. Questioning authority can be a good thing.

I'm sorry, but all those pictures of "trees" and "dust particles" and things on Mars creep me the fuck out because they look like horrible skin diseases. Can't you just imagine parasites under that skin with some necrotic tissue (the gray areas)? Yeah... fukken GROSS.

Hard to believe at one point I wanted to be a veterinarian, jesus christ.

Well, many days late to Ada Lovelace Day, but here is a lovely article about Cindy Cohn, a woman involved with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. I admire people who can argue technical knowledge to people with nontechnical education, mostly because my engineering professors are not those people. And let's face it, I have more of an artistic mind than an analytical one (though I'm thankful I can handle the analysis at all, if I were graduating as a straight-up architect right now I'd be SO FUCKED in the job market).

Oh god, Ottowa, really? It's time like these I'm thankful for the bill of rights which encouraged such lovely things as freedom of the press and the like. Because, you know, photography is dangerous.

This is completely fascinating but it makes me wonder if some people have greater sensitivity to mid-scale pitches than others. When I listen to songs (pop, musicals, doesn't matter, anything really) I could swear I hear semi-glisses and mid-tones that other people don't bother singing when they're humming a tune or doing karaoke or something. And I'm talking about people who were in the musicals or are in band. (Although not always, sometimes it's just a matter of people simplifying sheet music too much so that it follows the composition and not the recording most people are familiar with, ohmygod I am looking at you crazy lady that wanted us to sing our graduation tune LITERALLY. So oversimplified, fuuuccckkkk)

Internet censorship harms schools! Is it really any surprise that any type of censorship is harmful anymore? People NEED to be educated (and if the situation necessitates it, punished for willfully breaking rules). That is the only way that people will grow. Well, experientially, not biologically, obviously.

Isn't this the plot for that Julia Roberts movie? Honestly I think this just shows the creativity of the writers (in their willingness to present it, I mean, not necessarily "originality", as it clearly is an existant problem) as well as kind of not ceasing to prove that we need more basic technology education. Most of what I know I've picked up from the internet and I read a shit-ton more (read: spend more time on the internet) than most people I know. And I am apparently "very good with computers". (Which actually means I know how to Google For Diagnoses. [Diagnosises?]) Which is bullshit, I really don't know much about their operation. Anyway. My point is, if you have sensitive information, don't trust technology. At this point criminals should realize that "older" technology is probably almost safer at this point because some of the technology or applied knowledge to trace certain things like that is rather obscure in most people's minds these days or is just completely without people's realm of experience. Crazy, huh? (And before you wonder why I think of things like this, it's definitely because I read too many detective novels as a kid. You have to think like a thief to catch a thief.)

Oh man, number seven makes me laugh. I remember reading about that (though the social implications were probably beyond my understanding at that point) and at the moment it makes me glad that people were willing to write in and tell the other folks they're full of crap (ignoring the fact that it was a prank, of course).

Did I mention that I bought awesome spectator shoes yesterday? Because I totally did.

We also went on a bike ride, and the extreme wind (due to onsetting rain) fantastically fucked up my knee again. It seems to be healing faster, though, so... here's to hoping? I'd like to actually ride all of TOSRV this year and fuck youuuu Laura for wanting to sag part of it because I DON'T WANT TO SAG AT ALL.


TESLA DRUNK HISTORY, fuck yes. Looking at Drunk History's youtube channel it appears that there are other videos with Zooey Deschanel and such that were supposed to show up on HBO in February? And I haven't heard anything about them since which makes me sad. =(

Also, totally loling over Crispin Glover as Edison. Hahaha, fucking slick-ass bastard.

Speaking of slick bastards, check out Copenhagen over here. Sweet, no? Hell yeah.

This video is hypnotic and creepy at the same time. I'll just leave that there.

It should probably be noted that although I let 2009 go very readily, I did learn (for the most part) to juggle. In April in Denver, practically snowed in with little to do. Excellence.

I am close to calling 2010 the year of the detective or something because I was already ready to start a Hardy Boys re-read kick for the whole series, why not add Holmes? Yet I have to read Lost Continent of Z and my two unread Indy books and my two new Indy games, so maybe that is just a bit specific. But then 2010 feels good because maybe I am just working it liek woah.

Also, URGENT, read this and sign the petition to try to allow for press access to a Prop 8 trial in California. This shit just never ends, does it. =/

So I was going to write about Sherlock Holmes. BUT ALLOW ME TO FEMINIST!RAGE FOR A SECOND FIRST.


So Jon and I are sitting in psychology, and we're talking about physiological factors. In this case, we are talking about how someone's brain, in extreme cases, can have physical effects. In the example we are talking about how sexually repressed the Victorian society was and Freud's beliefs on that, particularly women in Victorian society. How guys can enjoy sex but women have sex to have babies, and then they take care of the house, et cetera. We're also talking about how very strict societies can cause mental stress when one feels things that seem okay but society claims as morally and socially wrong. Our modern-day example (since this was the overview class, not a deep examination yet) was homosexuals in conservative cultures. ANYWAY, so in this Victorian-times example, a woman comes to the doctor/psychologist/diagnostician/idk with her hand paralyzed. And our professor (who is a hilarious guy, btw) asks, what do you think she was doing that caused her brain to paralyze her hand? What was she dealing with?

And, you know, class that's 90% freshmen, no one wants to say anything, haha, and the teacher knows, so he kind of smiles and says "Does anyone want to say it?" and of course, no one does, but one talkative up at the front says "Can we use euphemisms?" And the professor says, no, I want someone to say it. So we're all kind of waiting and this guy a few seats in front of me raises his hand and the professor calls on him and the guy says "Because she was pleasuring her man?"

LET ME TELL YOU I WAS SEETHING. Thanks, dude, for showing the world that you--at least subconsciously--support those very ideas we were discussing. That men get pleasure and women do the work.

FUCK. YOU.

Argh.


Anyway, Sherlock Holmes. I enjoyed it. I think the complexity of Holmesian stories maybe made it a bit too convoluted, but it's still pretty damn good. And the dialogue is fantastic, not to mention the action and slapstick humor. And Jude Law and RDJ are hilarious together, although I completely forgot Rachel McAdams was in it, and she was awesome, too.

My only problem with it is that they don't really show you the clues so you're puzzling over the mystery; I mean, you're certainly engaged in the story. But I just enjoy plot twists and murders and detective stories more when the evidence has been staring you in the face, yet you missed it. =/ Idk. But it wasn't bad, that's for sure.

Also, Blackwood's snaggletooth bothered the hell out of me. GODDAMN.

Anyway, the way they presented the mystery was great though. The final twist, as it were. And I did like that Holmes was not presented with his deerstalker, though he did almost always have his pipe. And I loved RDJ's portrayal of him as kind of an egotistical intellectual. Especially with all his snarky comments, GOOD TIMES.

And playing the violin like a uke. OMG. Hilariously awesome.

Oh, and the soundtrack was really good, I think because it was so unique. Very odds-and-ends feeling, but in a good way. I don't think I've ever been so conscious of a soundtrack when watching a movie (disregarding musicals, let's say).

So, yes. Definitely recommending it. And definitely spending my $25 Barnes and Noble christmas gift card rectifying the absurdity that I have NEVER READ HOLMES.

And Carroll's Hound of the Baskervilles (or Wishbone's for that matter)... I don't really remember it. It was kind of crazy, I know that. And I wore the murderer's Crazy Dress my senior year and let me tell you that was my favorite dress. It was super-flowy and awesome. Lol. Important things.

So I think I also forgot to mention yesterday that one professor is making us write an essay on ourselves. So yes... definitely feel like i'm back in fourth grade. Drove down to UC to see Anna. The medicine didn't work so they don't know what they're going to try next. She's in good spirits but very tired and sore bc she's not allowed to move and her clot is causing severe headaches & neck pain. Damn, though, her mom is a wreck. =/ Also saw Sherlock Holmes tonight. It was good but I'll write more tomorrow when I have a real keyboard. I realized it is a dreadful oversight that though I've seen both Wishbone's and carroll's Hound of the Baskervilles, I HAVE NEVER READ HOLMES. Considering my propensity for detective stories, I'm appalled. This must be rectified. Also I like the word "gambit". This keyboard needs more pointer control, too, editing is a bitch. Anyway I'm glad "swagger" is coming back into use because it reminds me of "swashbuckler". Also I need to make a Stan Wars gif bc that word still confuses me, yet it would be hilarious.

No school today. This is... amazing. I still have a lot to work on, but I least get a tiny break. It especially helps because last night I was freaking out because I couldn't get to any computer to finish my homework; I'd spent four hours in the lab and came home for dinner. Candice's computer died too (just last night), and Sarah was sick and already asleep and Brittany was using hers. So. I kind of had a meltdown about homework last night. (Just because it was one more thing on the pile, you know?)

Yeah, so. I've been in the lab for about three hours now, but that's okay, I'm getting things done and it's quiet. It's a bit odd in the sense that I'm pretty sure I'm the only person in the building currently... But I like it that way.

It's very bright outside with all the snow, and I definitely was kind of blinded when I walked inside. BUT this is the kind of snow to have, I'm telling you. A foot or so of it, very kickable, and still pretty warm outside, enough that it would be very nice to be outside. Now if only I didn't have so much to do, correct? Yes.

BUT, a bunch of linkspam that has piled up a bit with my computer woes. (Ah, poo. I am no longer the only one in here. Someone else just walked in.)

The immortal jellyfish... Quite cool, really. I'm not very afraid of them being our next overlords because I'm pretty sure it's going to be some octopodian thing and I will ~freak the fuck out~

An adorable Barney and Robin background. I am very sad I don't have my laptop right now because it would most definitely be the desktop...

The Henchman's Helper? I'm not exactly sure what's going on here but I am intrigued.

"Milky Way over Mauna Kea" which should be more accurately titled "Milky Way over Haleakala". Haleakala is the volcano in the foreground. (Still active, though it hasn't erupted in such a long time they thought it was dead. Or is dormant the right word? I think dormant means it's active but not currently erupting...) Anyway, you can see Mauna Kea (part of the Big Island) poking through in the backgroud. It's cool to think I've been at this view, roughly... Damn I miss Hawaii. Holy crap though, look at all that light pollution... That makes me so sad, really.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I would say that this would be the only way I'd read the book, but I suspect that as much as I dislike it, it's noewhere near as bad as Wuthering Heights. So. I will only say that you just have to be aware of where zombies are coming at you from... (Now there's a lovely ending-a-sentence-with-a-preposition, as dislegal as it is.)

Green grafitti. Very cool stuff.

Business currently hiring; I would work for Google...

Well, you have to face it, regardless: the Mayans were very skilled with figuring out their calendar. And regardless of the outcome, I will be having a party. By the way, anyone know when the LHC is supposed to come back on?

Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum. I want to go there. Mechanics such as these mystify me... Sorry for that unintentional alliteration. (Worse than punning, methinks...)

Ah, so, back to work for me... And back to that tiki blog I found. Good stuff, that.


By the way, is anyone else excited for the Pink Panther movie, or am I the only one? (Tee-eye-double-guh-er.)

Environmental ethics has brought up some interesting things to talk about, but it is much less applicable than I thought it was going to be. Well, that sounds wrong. It is completely applicable to every aspect of life, which is why I like philosophy; but it is not at all like my Engineering Ethics class, where we are asked to look at ethical dilemmas faced by professional engineers.

But I digress; today I came upon a thought that can better articulate something I've been feeling lately, that nameless thing.

Regardless, I really don't want to talk about that right now. Last week was a long and exhausting week and this week is not much better. I had a nice panicked moment when I thought I had part of my final project due for economics, but it was the grad part of the class that did. *breathe*

Oh, it's supposed to snow heavily tomorrow. Hurrah! Maybe Girl Scouts will be canceled and I can regain some sanity time.

I've had some pretty bold-imageried dreams lately... I don't know if that's because of all the crap I've been eating and drinking, or the fact I'm not sleeping well, or what.

Everyone seems kind of on-edge, too... Not sure why, but it's rather worrisome.

Anyway, I have like seven emails to myself of links I've accumulated that I need to disperse. So, without further ado:

Cool military deceptions. I've always been intrigued by deception... The number of detective and spy books I read when I was in gradeschool was rather ridiculous, I'm sure.

Any UKers out there? I'm like 90% sure no, but just in case I am passing that on. It doesn't sound good.

The floating islands of Titicaca. So effin' sweet. I'm such an engineering dork.

I'm confused about what's going on here...? But both the Disney-capitalist and agnostic parts of me rather love it. Capitalism is crazy sometimes...

The Eight Weirdest Ways We'll Generate Energy in the Future. As an engineer who's been hearing about green design for a while now, most of those are not that "weird". Personally, the weirdest one is... tornadoes? I think I need a diagram to grasp the idea of this one.

Seven Phenomenal Wonders of the Natural World. I think I've linked this before, but I don't remember the sailing stones, and that's pretty amazing shit right there.

There are a lot of days I wish I could just be an explorer-naturalist. How badass of a job would that be?

Oh dude, and Neil Gaiman got a Newberry award! Congrats to him! Very deserved.

Wow, you know what show I just realized I really miss? Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego. That show is a classic. Add that to my list of detective influences, too. Fuck I love that show. It really went south when they did the time thing... Whatevs. You know, I honestly don't remember much of it other than the map game at the end where you had to put the flags on the correct states as they were called out. But I was just watching it on youtube, and really... That show was so much fun. =/

HOLY CRAP QUANTUM OF SOLACE WAS AWESOME. HOLY CRAP HOLY CRAP HOLY CRAP.

I'm kind of pissed that we got there late and missed the first twenty minutes, but I don't think we missed much (the movie is practically a non-stop action chase and it's pretty clear we just missed a few minutes of cars driving around at some dig/construction site), and we didn't miss the song, so no skin off my nose.

It takes a bit to get into the story of *this* movie (as opposed to the continuum from Casino Royale), but we may have missed something in the beginning (which may tie up the few questions I had about the "bad guys" in this film and the connection to Vesper, and one of M's comments). There's a *lot* of action and Melissa and I both noted that they really needed a steadycam. I mean, yes, I can tell you're going for gritty or whatever, and trying to be confusing, but HOLY CRAP it's a bit much to tell quite what's going on in all the fights.

But YAY lots of action and YAY badassness and HOLY CRAP I totally called the main plot twist ( spoiler ) and HOLY CRAP AWESOME REFERENCE TO CLASSIC BOND ( spoiler ) AND OMG THEY CAME UP WITH A BAD GUY SOCIETY THAT DOES NOT SOUND 60'S RIDICULOUS I LOVE IT. ( spoiler )

So... yeaaaaaaah. I forgot how awesome some of the Bond films are. :D Some movie channel has had a marathon playing, but I seem to always catch the Pierce Brosnan films and tbh, I'm not that fond of him. BUT I think I've been Indy-obsessed for so long now that I really wanted to go back and reread the Hardy Boys novels (look, don't ask, I've just realized that detective novels were a big part of my childhood and I haven't read any in a damn long while) and HOLY CRAP WATCHING THIS MOVIE WAS SO MUCH FUN.


I love spy stuff. <3

Sometimes, I get some really bizarre thoughts. You know, the kind that would turn your life into a really good fiction? Basically, plot bunnies, but they're usually just something based on my life, so they don't really work well with the "plot" part. More like "Diane is crazy" bunnies. Possibly they are Plot Jackalopes.

Long story short: A lot of personal realizations this week that I haven't got down on paper on LJ yet. (Because I'm lazy, lol.) But I was thinking about all the things that change, and this year, how weird it's been just this summer to 1) realize some of my best friends might be engaged, 2) realize some of my best friends probably will be engaged soon, and that I really need to get over some personal issues there that have nothing to do with them as a couple, and 3) that mom and dad want to move. A lot. Meaning, they are both pretty damn ready to get the hell out of Dodge. But anyway, I was thinking about those things, how your life changes, and how it affects your friends, and where am I going to end up living (what if I get a job with Disney? JPI? COST? None of those are in Ohio as far as I know) eventually, and where will Laura be, and Max, and Kyle? And my friends? And then I started thinking about grade school friends who I haven't seen in a really fucking long time. Like, I haven't seen Zack since graduation, I'm sure, becuse he didn't come to Jacob's funeral, I don't think. Which it then kind of hit me again, wow, someone my age, someone I grew up with, is dead. And, guilty as this may be, I don't remember much about him. I remember him making me laugh in first grade and I snorted chocolate milk out my nose and onto his shirt. (I didn't drink chocolate milk for a long time after that, but I always said I didn't like it. I think it comes in phases, because I liked it for a little while at Carroll but I'm not so big on it again.) And getting in trouble for laughing in like fourth AND fifth and probably all the other grades. Oh, and him spelling "sex" instead of "six" in second grade, and everyone laughed, and I honestly don't know how many of us knew what we were really laughing at. But other than him just being kind of a dumb goofball... I don't remember much. =/ He wasn't one of the guys that I hung out with, and even so, the stuff I remember from gradeschool is really random and generally... scholastic.

BUT ANYWAY, so that was all thoughts I had while mowing today, and then the bike ride comes around, and I do a lot of good thinking on bike rides. And this isn't a thought, really, it's a plot jackalope, which I like to encourage because they're pretty rare, but I just realized, what if he's really not dead? What if he's some super spy and it's all an FBI coverup? Cruel but cool.

Yeah, see? That's the way my brain works. I know I'm crazy.

also, I totally blame it all on the Hardy Boys novels, and I've been jiving to be read them all again.