The Daily Adventures of Mercat

Guys, it is apparently Crazy Week. It turns out Crazy Girl went to Beaverditch, any surprise? Not really.

I've also been having trippy dreams this week, you know, those kind that fuck with you ALL DAY LONG. They're also juuuust weird enough that, despite the fact that I put no stock in the literalism of my dreams, I'm a little concerned my subconscious is trying to tell me something. Something horrifying.

Man, and ONTDp and wtf_sexism have had a HUGE dose of Crazy People Articles this week. You know, the rage-inducing ones. Like a LOT of articles by people who think feminists = feminazis. AUUGGGHHH.

I don't know what to do with this week. I also found out we have games for the next three weekends in a row, plus other performances. I AM NOT HAPPY ABOUT THAT.


today is so awkward i don't even know

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.

OH MY GOD I GOT A ONE ON MY PLAYING AUDITION! :D I don't know how that happened. But I am really excited. So January 2-4 I am headed off to Wyoming, where I still have to do a marching audition, but which I am not at all worried about. Marching, I love. Marching, I can do. (Their vis staff was not able to get to the camp, so we were done early and everything. It was lovely.)

Oh my god, I miss drum corps so much. I can't wait for next summer. Just need to do more pre-conditioning this time around, and I'll be good. Arm strength, ability to run... Especially since everydays in June will be a mile high and cold. Breathing block will be miserable. And it sounds like Troopers is big on running laps.

But I'm glas I made the choice I did... It was interesting to hear the guys at the camp talk about how vets would go off to the "good" corps for a year or so and then age out back where they had family. Basically, the impression I got from my audition at Phantom was right... They are mostly interested in winning, not in who you are. Apparently one of their friends was the center snare for Phantom--center snare--and the staff didn't know his name until several days into everydays. That's ridiculous. And not to say every winning corps is there, but it just makes me feel better about not going to Crown. I think it's insulting to get money out of camps for so long and waste my time, not to mention... that. So much a different type of family, it's not even funny.

As for my computer, UDit is completely useless. Every time I email them about a message I am getting (no matter how minor) their general response is a lame question about retrieving data I already gave them, and "if that doesn't help then bring it in". So once again, they proved completely useless and with several hours of programs that didn't work, I finally found the solution through Google (I ran the fake program name as well as the "trojan" name). Oh, I don't know if I got that far in explaining before--it turned out to be an adware file that only looks like a windows security message telling you that you have a trojan (mine was Trojan.Zlob.G, but the file itself was merman.exe) and recommends you download a removal program (Program Defender 2009). This is fake safety software that "runs" a diagnostic to find the issue and fails partway through, prompting you to upgrade. So then the hackers get your money. And the multitude of anti-spyware programs I now have downloaded got rid of the fake security program, but to get rid of the adware (the fake windows messages) you have to start your computer in safe mode, go to Applications, find the "Google" folder and delete the two fake files in it. (I was worried at first, but there's nothing else there--it's not actually a Google folder.) So, once again, UDit is a failure and I fixed my own computer simply with Google-fu.

And now, lots and lots of linkspam because I've been a terrible, terrible tab user lately. And no lj-cut because I am CRUEL.

I rather love this Neil Gaiman poster. And speaking of zombies, I just watched 28 Days Later, which is a pretty good movie but feels... incomplete, somehow. But it did remind me of watching Sean of the Dead, which I somehow connected to that from the fact that I finally got my Phi Rho paddle, and I thought it looked like a cricket bat, and Christine and I somehow determined we are going to play cricket with my paddle and bouncyballs. Yesss. I miss Nookball a lot, haha.

This may be the saddest PostSecret ever. Not the most depressing, but one I could never understand... That's a sort of compromise I could never make, and it must be terrible to be in fear of something that other people think is so great about life. Wow, that was a really concise version of what I think and probably doesn't make a whole lot of sense... Maybe I'll expand upon it more later. I don't know.

Harrison Ford doing J. J. Adams Comedy? I'd be up for that. He's really entertaining with dry humor.

Daniel Craig wants Moneypenny and Q in the next Bond movie. EXCELLENT. Craig should be my new best friend. I want Q back and I think they should keep John Cleese. He can do srsface just fine.

The interesting source of phrases such as "in the limelight". Cool beans.

FSM nativity, pirates included. I love it. (The displays of FSM lights are awesome, too.)

I am totally doing this in my room. Now just to find tables...

This freedom-of-religion article showed up on my friendslist somewhere. I've had that sitting around but today I randomly stumbled upon an article discussing it (and atheist messages) which I think is really interesting. Another article about atheism where I think the more interesting topics are unrelated--digital ghosts and older people's mentalities. My dad said he read an article about the testing of older folks, and that it's not the idea that "old people are grumpy" but rather, they lose the ability to censor themselves, so to speak. Which is interesting in contrast to the idea that they are like children.)

A really interesting article about the "anti-wedding" which I may have posted when I was talking about feminism. It has a lot of good points. Sorry about the awkward formatting, the link to the actual article was really messy.

Thylacines can open their jaws up to 120 degrees... That's so, so disturbing.

The octodress. Is it not amazing? As creepy and fucking disturbing as ocotpi are, they are really cool as a deocrative element. (However, when they decide to take over the planet, we are doomed.)

This is some pretty cool art with lamps and such in nature. Awesome.

I forgot about this Pushing Daisies soundtrack that was coming out! SO MANY SONGS, I LOVE IT

Pretty cool article about major movie studio logos. I forget what the original reason was that this was so fascinating... Some tidbit I can't remember at the moment.

Pretty cool old "music video" from 1928.

I like these alternative Christmas Tree ideas.

Someone commented on Betty Page's death calling her "spectacularly singular"... I don't know why, I really like that phrase. And it's true.

So tonight I went out to dinner with my parents and grandparents and my aunt and uncle, and we got to talking about Facebook and the fact that my dad has one to keep in touch with people, and then of course my grandparents being my grandparents we started arguing about the morality of employers checking the Facebook profiles of potential employees. Of course I just gave them my solution--lock your damn facebook. But it's interesting what some people might think about what's on your profile, and different points of view on that. And talking to some people, it's weird to have parents on facebook. I was just looking back at an older post from when dad joined, and I said "WHAT" like it's weird but I think moreso it was just unexpected. Laura apparently didn't friend him, but she, who knows, might have something to hide. (Partying, probably.) I don't necessarily want dad to see my excessive cursing or the fact that I'm no longer Catholic (not that he'd necessarily see "pastafarian" and "church of heathus christ of ledger-day saints" not as humor only), but you know what? Laura's cursed in front of him, he knows we watch shit-for-tv or movies sometimes, I don't care so much. I don't curse in front of him or my grandparents, that's good enough for me. But other people talked about having family finding out about photos on facebook that they didn't want their parents or others to see, and you know what? I don't really get it. If you're worried, make it private, friends-only. If you're concerned about your little brothers and sisters showing your parents... Here's a grand idea: don't do anything in your life you wouldn't be proud of. If you make mistakes, admit they were mistakes and move on, but if something is a concern to your image, don't do it! I don't understand why that's so hard for people... I mean, from peers to politicians, what's so difficult about making good decisions? About thinking things through... Honestly.

Oh my god there is a hilarious skit on Robot Chicken about the construction of the Raiders temple. IT IS AMAZING. Hopefully it will be up on youtube superfast.

OH MY GOD. THEY CAN TAKE IMAGES OUT OF YOUR BRAIN NOW. You have no idea how long I have been waiting for this sort of technology to get started... I want to record dreams like crazy.

Whew, I think that's everything for now.

Back from Carroll's band camp! It was AMAZING. Funny how my drum corps brain kicked in so quickly, by the second day I was remembering musical things to point out that I don't think I would have come up with normally. So yay! But now I really really miss corps, or hell even marching something that's not UD's stuff. I mean, UD has tons of great people in band and it's a lot of fun. But the marching itself is really crappy and I swear everything we play slows down to 100 bpm because the drum majors can't keep a consistent tempo. ARRRGH.

Dammit I miss marching =(


In other news, not entirely surprisingly, talk of Indiana Jones V. I'm not surprised because people think that they were going to go for two trilogies sort of, or pass it off onto Mutt. I'm not so sure that's going to happen if LaBeouf keeps having substance issues, but, that's not really anything I have a say in. I'm just going to point out two things: 1) George Lucas actually did pick a better script than the one everyone thought he originally sinned by turning down, and 2) like I said when I came home from the movie... at least he can't use that storyline again.

Plus isn't five usually considered a reboot somewhat? Not that you can really reboot this series. But maybe that means a more quality storyline.


I'm just rambling... I feel like I'm half asleep, but I think it's just my brain trying to process about a billion things. *sigh* Oh, drum corps...



Also, I had a really awesome dream last night. I need to write it down asap.

Well, I am a happy camper, for sure. Generally I have just been in a good mood (I think because of hanging out with people and also seeing Indy IV again, and then Serenity, and then trivia night tonight), but I am sure part of it has to do with the 3 3/4" Indiana Jones Hasbro figures. Those things are freakin' addictive! ...I think I have twelve now. I definitely did not anticipate that, and there are more I want to get. Yaaaaay! (Weirdness, though?: the ark does not open, at least as far as I can figure...)

Other news: the thing I was trying to come up with the other night about Indy IV; it was Marion's shoes. The first time I saw the movie I was all "is she wearing Aldens?! Oh hell yeah" but then upon this last viewing, I realized if you look at her ( major spoiler ) shoes... they are no doubt familiar? Cuteness abounds. (Or geekness. We're not sure yet. The data is inconclusive.)

What else what else what else.

Oh, so I have a comm, mercat_inc, that I set up initially as an art journal. If you have it friended, you might want to unfriend it, because I decided that if I do end up getting my webcomic up and running, I think I'm going to have a separate comm, and also I finally have a FANTASTIC use for mercat_inc. Unfortunately it's just to annotate my collection of ideas and projects and resources, and keep them organized and systemized... So something no one else would be interested (and anyway, I'd rather keep my "ideas" sort of private for now). [EDIT: Ignore all this, nobody had the community friended anyway, lol.]

OH MAN, weird dream last night. I don't remember the whole thing, only the end, where my parents drove up next to the garage (which was double-doored and built into a hill, a.k.a. not really our house) in the light-bluish-periwinkleish Honda Civic I saw yesterday. Only it had giant matching antlers on the back. And then, as I looked at it, I realized the antlers also looked like wings, and the front and back were extended and sculpted (and painted to match) and to the sides of the front driver/passenger area was a matching statue of liberty and masthead. CRAZY. So I asked my parents if they'd bought it for me, and they said yes, and I named it the Jackalope, because of the antlers. It was very Foys-ish, but weirder and awesomer. So now I really want a blue car, especially if it's that color. Still debating whether to keep it the parrotheadmobile, or make it more Indy-themed, or buy a small set of mounted antlers for the dash and name it the jackalope. This is, of course, after I even get a new car. So yeah, awesome car dream (oh, and then in the dream we pulled the statues and antler-wings off to make it more driveable).

Things I found out today: Walmart now has two (that I've seen) Indiana Jones birthday cards, no longer the Father's Day card. They're "limited time only" so I'm debating whether that means be a dork and just buy them, or wait and see if they don't disappear before my birthday... and hope I get them. Oh geez! What is a geek to do...? I have the feeling I'll just buy them, because I'm definitely going back to that Walmart by the mall, it has the 3 3/4" scale vehicles which I haven't seen at the other Walmart! Oh geez. Our house room is going to be soooo dorky next year... =)

Ooh, ooh, tonight was trivia night again! SO FUN. Amazingly, though we usually fail on sports questions and I am the least sports-oriented of all on our team, I was still able to answer the first two for us: Don King (which I knew from the Simpsons where Homer becomes a boxer) and polo (the only sport where you are forced to play right-handed, for safety's sake). (I remember reading that on some trivia challenge, and that people also submitted then [and now] cricket and jai-alai. No real idea, but I'd think you could play cricket [Krikkit...?] left-handed, and I honestly have no clue whatsoever about jai-alai.)

Also, the final question was a song/artist: "My Ding-a-ling" which I knew as soon as I heard the crowd cheer (yep... I'm a dork.) and then proceeded to guess "I swear it's some artist like Chuck Berry", so Lara wrote down Chuck Berry and we got the points. XD This sort of stuff is why trivia night is the bomb! (Also, Dudley Do-Right was a TV show theme tonight, and Raider's March was a movie theme, though I think everyone got Raider's March. [who knows, I may have been the only person to get it in the first second, though, lol.])

Finally: there is going to be a fandom-based fundraiser which is being run over at livelongnmarry in support of equal marriage rights. I think it's really cool. I'm wondering if I should offer up an ambigram commission? I mean, it's something I enjoy doing, and though I'm no professional, I've had two friends say they want tattoos of the work. (One of them is newer, though, and not posted. I haven't posted a lot of the newer stuff, which I think is a bit cleaner.) The only thing that makes me worry is that tattoo art gets ripped off a lot, it seems, and I think any other uses of the work might end up in some sort of crediting-copyrights-something fiasco? I dunno. Maybe I'm too paranoid. But I really do love the challenge of ambigrams, and I think it's a viable skill for me to offer up for this. Something simple that I will actually get done. I'd really appreciate any thoughts on this.

Mm, I forgot to say yesterday, the dream, by "boat scene" I meant with Panama Hat, not the Venice chase. (Important stuff, I know.)

Mm, last night I watched Terminator (for the first time) and Enchanted (interesting combination, I know). It took me all the way through Enchanted to realize it, but you know exactly what Terminator reminds me of? The evil dog from the original Wallace & Gromit shorts. Lol. I love those shorts. I have been really tempted to dress up as the "Have you seen this chicken?" for Halloween. Acually I really need to get my act together and just pick something for Halloween this year to work on. It's FINALLY on a weekend, so I want to do something good. Problem is, a lot of the cool stuff would require lots of time and money that I don't have, so I'm leaning heavily toward pirate again. I haven't used my pirate costume for Halloween yet, so it's all good. Huh, or I could do flapper, but that's kind of lame for me for a Halloween costume. On the list is Ghostbusters, but MAN, the props for that are $$$. Anyway. It's April.

MAN, today is another best day ever, even though the evening kind of sucked. That's how good it's been. I sent a text-post this morning, but it didn't come through for some reason.

ANYWAY. It started out normally, well, mostly, just going to ceramics. There was a pot sale today, so it was cool to see all the other stuff that was there. After that Takeda's class was cancelled, so we went straight to Hawaiian history, and I geeked out that Bailey had an Indy diet Dr. Pepper can. Class got cancelled, no big deal, though I couldn't go to lunch yet and I didn't really have anywhere to go because it was close to the library opening time. Well I just happened to check my phone and MY HAT CAME!!!!!!! So I decided to walk down to 7-11 and check if they had the latest copy of Entertainment Weekly (which they didn't), and get a Mountain Dew to celebrate. I called my mom and it's definitely my hat and not something else, so YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY. I was completely surprised because I was told back when I ordered it would probably be three months, so I thought maybe I'd get it in time for Indy IV, but then for some reason the receipt from paypal didn't come for about three more weeks, so I had pretty much given up on getting it on time and I had already resigned myself to wearing my DP. So for about two hours today you couldn't get the stupid look off my face, I was just grinning like an idiot. =D

And after that was the opening ceremonies for the new library. They managed to get all the landscaping done, which looks AMAZing, though I don't think they finished some things like the elevator. Anyway, it was pretty cool. Everyone was going around with their leis and all the profs had to wear their fancy caps and gowns, it was just so nice. And they had a brass quintet, which, uh, was a little out of place, and all the profs entered to Pomp and Circumstance, which just sounded empty, and then they added this little jazzy-poppy comPLETEly out of place section, and... yeah. It was just kind of bad. BUT ANYWAY! There were some speeches, none too bad, and then the dancing! Irish dancing (lol) because one of the funders was all the way from Ireland. So that was pretty cool. The Samoan Club and Hawaiian Club also performed, which were both really cool. =D I LOVE Samoan traditional song and dance. It's gorgeous.

It's also really interesting, initially when they were taking all of us exchange students around the first few days getting us acquainted, they said just to take into mind that Chaminade has a much more diverse student body and a much more accepting environment, that there were a lot of evening and older students, and that Hawaii had a stronger gay culture and stuff. I didn't really notice it at all (but then again I guess I have never been prone to noticing that kind of thing) until I saw the Samoan Club perform. I guess, especially in Samoa, and the older Hawaii culture and stuff, people just were as they were so it doesn't bother anyone to be gay or bi or anything. At least that's the impression I get from my history classes, where we learned that Hawaiians used to be pretty promiscuous, but, in that everyone generally had several/many different partners and of both genders, and no big deal. ANYWAY, back the point. Because Samoa never had a culture that brought in outsiders (no "trade value") they still speak mainly Samoan and everything, I mean their societ is still largely intact, but anyway there are these two guys in Samoan Club who I guess are transvestites? I mean, I'm not sure on the definition but they just cross-dress and act very feminine all the time. They are wonderful guys though. =)

BUT! The best part of all the presentations was the last one, a Chinese Lion dance! They had four guys as two dragons, one blue and silver/white for Chaminade and one green and orange (and some other accents, like yellow/red/white) for Ireland, and it was just SO COOL! It struck me that I've never actually seen one before, And they did these really cool dances up to the front, where Mrs. Sullivan was standing with a money envelope (which is good luck in China, if I recall correctly) on a fishing line sort of thing. I couldn't tell what was going on because the seating was terrible, but you could still see the dragons sancing because they did this cool jumping sort of dance with the head part. (Unfortunately my camera ran out of video space, so I don't have anything.) But on the way out people were giving them money which they "ate". I don't know if it was good luck or tradition or how you tip them that grew out of tradition or what, but it was JUST PLAIN AWESOME.

Carly and I went on a bike ride around Diamond Head, later, which was gorgeous. There was a combination of factors that killed me though; I'm not in shape, the vog was pretty heavy, it was hot, I couldn't shift and was stuck in the smallest gear (and couldn't get any momentum), the brakes suck, and something was wrong with the pedals, me not drinking enough lately, the seat was too low so my knees died... so I was just slow as all getout. But it was still such a nice ride. =)

And then after I got back and was getting ready to go to the cookout at Ala Moana beach with Islander Exchange Club, it just LET LOOSE and poured. But only for about ten minutes, and then it totally cleared up and we were on our way by then! It was a nice cookout, but the sunset totally sucked (clouds or vog or I dunno, but you couln't see it), and we stayed out a bit too long on the beach so my legs are kinda crampy. But it was still nice, I mean, waterside Hawaii right?! So it was a good day.

Hmm, I just realized that "Duke's On Sunday" by Jimmy Buffett is about HERE. (Duke's... southside...on the beach at Waikiki. nurr) Good ending for the evening though. =)

26 days!

omg my hat came
omg my hat came
omg my hat came
omg my hat came
omg my hat came
omg my hat came
omg my hat came
omg my hat came
omg my hat came

Okay, I don't know what my plans are this evening so I'm going to post this before I forget to.

TWENTY-SEVEN DAYS! Man, I am just so. incredibly. excited. =D Though I did have a bad dream last night that my family all went to the premiere at some weird theatre (after shopping with Laura and Savannah at the dollar store for candy and drinks, and seeing the new Entertainment issue, except it wasn't...all I remember is the cover was badly done with no logo and had Usher as the Joker?! but regardless). ANYWAY. So we went to the midnight premiere and they showed this scene that was about ten minutes long that was pretty much the boat scene from LC. (Except in the dream everyone was saying it was 30 minutes long.) At first people were ticked off because they thought that was supposed to be the movie, but eventually we somehow decided it was an extra thing they added on, and there was going to be a ten minute "intermission" before the movie started. So I decided to go out to the lobby to get a Mountain Dew (by the way, the running time is going to be over two hours, which, YAY! but also, I'm going to have to pee SO BAD when it's over, just like pirates), and I couldn't even get out to the lobby because there was such a big group of people trying to get out. So I gave up and decided not to get anything, but then somehow it ended up that I did get a Mountain Dew and missed the whole movie. D= I woke up like "OH NO! I would want to kill myself if that happened" so yeah. Bad dreams.

ANYWAY so like I said. Gotta make up for the past three days. So here's the deal; I'm cutting myself off from spoilers as of today. I realized that, even though I wouldn't consider the things in regular news sources spoilers, that I have already guessed large parts of the movie, and I don't want to a) be able to guess more or b) have something major ruined. I was thinking about it, and I went into all the earlier ones not knowing anything, and loved them. I mean, I hadn't even seen the trailers and based on what I remember my parents telling me about Raiders, which I probably incorrectly remember because it's SO WRONG, I really did watch it knowing basically nothing, and loved it. SO. Nothing more for me. Which means I will probably have to get very creative to come up with stuff for the rest of these 27 (!!!!!) days.

So, for today and the last two, three deleted scenes from Last Crusade:
--When Indy socks the butler at the castle, the butler's line was originally "If you are a Scottish lord, then I am Jesse Owens!" but it got changed to "Mickey Mouse" because Lucas and Spielberg didn't think anyone would get it. But that was obviously changed after filming.
--There was supposed to be more to the dogchase scene, with a WWI vet drunkenly going after them, with Pat Roach in assistance. (The only part left with Roach is him following Vogel as they run up to get on the zeppelin.)
--There was supposed to be more cat-and-mouse being played while Indy and Henry are trying to get out of Germany. Initially they were supposed to be buying tickets and have every line guarded except the zeppelin line, but they cut that part and explained it with "the earliest way out".


So yay cut scenes. =) I think so far I've only hit the submarine ride and the whip fight from Raiders in terms of cut scenes, yeah? Leaves me some good ones from Temple (which honestly they should have left in).


I also realized that I go through music phases that I think have turned out to be soundtracks, and rock. Right now I am in major soundtrack mood, but in a few weeks I'll probably be back around to rock mode. (Today I have listened to Pirates and Indiana Jones... I am in major pirate mode today, and I love it.)

I almost forgot to do my update today, guys! I've been catching up on webcomics. (Yeah, I know.) They are awesome (especially when they have Indiana Jones references--I love nerds).

Yes, yes, I know, I have no life. But I'm going snorkeling at Hanauma Bay tomorrow, so that's pretty exciting. =D

I'm still working on that epic post, I promise, I'm just trying to get over the moodiness and crying because I miss my Nana every so often. I think for the first (maybe second, if you count this summer) time in my life, I might actually be experiencing homesickness. I don't know though, it seems like everyone I know who got homesick just didn't want to be where they were and wanted to go home for pretty much no reason at all. I really love it here, and yeah I'm trying to work up the guts to do something by myself (like ride the effing bus without getting lost), but I just miss everyone back home a little (I miss laughing a lot), and that lead to this whole thing about missing high school, and oh my god that just pulled me deeper and deeper into "hate college life" zone.

But!

Becky and Megan and Aaby sent me a silly card that made my day. It's just so silly that I laughed out loud in the middle of a parking lot. Heh. Yay for having friends who can make you laugh.

Also, believe it or not, reading webcomics (specifically Shortpacked! this time around) is getting me less worried about Indy IV. The comic is about how comics fans are way too obsessive about stuff and end up not being able to enjoy stuff like they did when they were younger and first discovered stuff. Believe it or not it's relaxed me a lot.

Also, if you're looking for webcomics I would recommend xkcd, Questionable Content, and Starslip Crisis. (There are a lot of other good ones, though, too.) I think in order to combat my boredom (because all my craft supplies are at home, and in order to procrastinate about working out some more) I may actually get back on working on the webcomic Johnny and I started. =)

Anyway, for spending all this time moping, I am in a good mood, though I am about to fall asleep at the computer due to roommate issues (rant forthcoming).

Tangent--You know, it's really interesting to see what little things you pick up as you go through life. Generally mine are speech pattern things, and it's just interesting to see where they came from because I don't very often see how I worked them into my own style, exactly. For example, I now say "also" a lot and then go off on some seemingly tangential thing (though in reality my brain isn't very tangential--there's a path in there that I can see, just it's often so "6 steps of Kevin Bacon" type that I don't bother explaining), which I'm pretty sure I picked up from Dinosaur Comics, because T-Rex seems to do that a lot at the end of comics. He gets to his point and then says "Also, (some weird comment)." I don't know how I picked that up though, I never consciously did that. I know I kind of picked up Austin Powers (especially Dr. Evil) quotes because my sister and I used to quote them all the time, but yeah. I'll keep track of any more I notice.

I've noticed that when I try to make my brain come up with random words, it usually jumps to "hippopotamus" or "cupcakes." I don't know why. I think cupcakes are inherently cute-random because of cat macros or something, though. (By the way, the cake is a lie. Does anyone know how to say that in Latin? Also, I found out that one of my band friends from high school INVENTED PORTAL. That is unbelievably cool, because that game is amazing.)

Also, this morning, I got up and it went something like this:

My Brain: Von Danaken! (Yes, my brain misspells things when I'm tired.)
Me: Von Daniken? wtf? Why is the first thing I thought about this morning von Daniken?

FYI, Von Daniken is the guy who thinks that anything remotely beyond one human's power was done by aliens; the pyramids, the South American pyramids, the Great Wall of China, and the settling of the Pacific islands. Yeah, so.

I don't know where it came from, either, because my dream last night definitely did not have anything to with von Daniken. Or aliens, or anything. (I believe it had to do with ninja-sneaking into some sort of concert or something so that we could perform. Or to watch some movie in a secret above-stage den, or something. Some kind of party that involved sneaking into, and it was above this very large room. All I can picture is the room, so, sorry about that.)

Does anyone else have dreams that ocurr in the same places as dreams you had years ago, but not the same thing happens? I've never had a recurring dream, only dream places. (That or a ridiculous sense of deja vu.) The other night I had a dream that I was in this neighborhood built around our actual house, and I know I've had dreams there before. (I was being chased by some kind of alien nazis, or something, and they were forcing me to look for something. And I tried to run home or something, and I ran out on the porch and these giant bees came through the screen. I remember they were super fuzzy like bumblebees and were called buffalo bees or something not only because of their size, but when they squished through the holes in the screen their heads looked like bison heads. And anyway they were some sort of message harbinger or something and they all had these white earthenware mask-trinkets that were a symbol for me to go back to the nazis and show them what I had found years before in the previous dream. [That almost always happens when I have a recurring dream place--I know I've been there before, and usually why, though the why isn't always true.] Anyway so I went back outside and proved to them that I had already done what they'd asked by years before digging up our front lawn [which was stll very dug up] looking for a crystal skull which I'd found and yes believe it or not this is the first time that I can recall I've had an Indiana Jones reference in one of my dreams. Usually my dreams are just so weird that they relate to nothing or little in real life. I don't recall having a single "corps dream" this summer though they are apparently common occurrence. ANYWAY.)

89 days until Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull! Today's trivia: Much of the mine car chase in Temple of Doom was filmed with miniatures on a track, and a camera on a track behind/in front of them. The cave walls were made with painted aluminum tinfoil. I think that's so cool. I'm wondering though, when/if they put these out for BluRay, are they going to digitally clean those scenes up or something? Because you can already tell they're superfake. Meh. The only reason I care about BluRay details is so I can obsess over details, so yeah, it's not that important.

Also, I had a request for a little information about Tom Selleck, so here goes. He was originally supposed to play Indiana Jones, but eventually had to back out because of his contract for Magnum P.I. I have the "Raiders of the Lost Ark" old board game and from the sketch (which was a character sketch) you can tell he was what they were originally looking for (ah, here it is), but it would have been a totally different character (more like James Bond), because Ford added a lot to it. I saw his screen test a while back, but I don't remember where it was or I would totally link it for you. (I don't think Marion was Karen Allen for that test, but I could be wrong.) (Nope, imdb is telling me it was Sean Young.)

Ok, yay trivia! =D Tomorrow is exciting... lucky 88 days.

[EDIT] Link to board game was forbidden (curse you, Google images), so I linked another one. Let me know if it doesn't work.

What's this "V-day" crap? ;D (Isn't V for Victory? I THINK SO. THIS IS RELEVANT TO MY INTERESTS.)

97 days to go until Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull! Today's trivia: The trailer is up online a indianajones.com! Also yahoo.com. I will see if I can find one later to embed here for you guys.

Also to commemorate this fact I had the weirdest dream ever... I didn't know I could hate my parents. =( I hate dreams that do that. It's going to be a weird day.

Also I should TOTALLY start posting funny cat macros. Maybe another time.

So, I forgot to post two days ago, and then yesterday the internet crapped out on me for some reason. =/ So I've missed two days of Christmas posting! I think it was eight and nine? Let me go check.

Anyway, I had a hilarious dream last night. I'm just going to tell you part of it, but anyway, I was in a pool-area like the recplex at UD, for some reason dressed up very nicely like I had an interview or something. And for some reason Stephen Colbert was there, filming his show around the edge of this pool! (Which was rather narrow, for some reason--the edge, I mean.) And I was there because I worked at the pool, but he asked me to help him with something and I was nervous because it meant I would be on TV and I didn't want to do something embarassing. But when I got around his crew to help him, he had turned into Steve Carrell, but more like his character from the Office, and asked me to lead his staff in a conga line. Haha. So I did, and these old ladies jumped in front of me and really had no idea how to do it.

Anyway, I just thought it was weird and rather funny, so I wanted to share that with you all.

Oooon the eleventh day of Christmas (!), the LJ gave to me--a cute music video,



a funny movie parody,



a Bit of Fry and Laurie,



Aqua/Indy techno,
bearded singing nuns,
tiny kittens miaowing,
CHRISTMASYYYY MIIICHAEEEEL CRAWFOOOOOORD
Chicago and some children,
Straight No Chaser singing,
God Rest Ye lights a-blinking,
and a "happy holidays" so merry!

Yay! Probably will post later, as I plan to go sledding! That is if I can find some freaking boots. =/