mercat | Entries tagged with internet

my tumblr has turned into mostly Avengers posts

and a lot of them are all SCIENCE BROS because Tony + Bruce = Science buddies 4lyfe is the BEST THING EVER

what has become of me

I blame the internet

~~but no, I just really love science~~

I need to stop posting all the silly shit on tumblr and move it back over here.

Hahaha, I'm sorry. I tend to think of this as my "blog home" because it's actually a journal site and I've been posting here since god knows when and reading before that, too. (I was just nostalgia-ing over the old homestar runner LJ comm back when it was popular.) And tumblr you can't really make stuff private, etc. But it's so easy to just reblog stuff right there instead of manually linking to everything...

Yeah, I'm lazy. Haha.

But also, it's interesting how my "sharing things" method has changed as different media/social sites change... I post a lot of stupid picture links on people's facebook walls because I know they specifically would enjoy it (rather than "sharing" it with my whole feed). I tweet spur-of-the-moment stupid thoughts which I did through LJ back in that brief moment of time in 2008 right when Twitter was getting popular but people didn't know what it was and I could actually do that with my phone. (I kinda miss that phone. But that's completely unrelated.) I don't tend to post linkspams or articles much here anymore, I'm slowly reverting back to personal stuff. I guess because websites are so specific now? Fandomish stuff goes on tumblr. Real-life interaction (lol ironically) goes on facebook. Journaling goes on LJ. Portfolio stuff goes on my website (and probably not dA anymore). Fleeting commentary goes on twitter.

Idk... is that strange?

(Who knows, and maybe in another 5 years it will revert back again. I know I originally started posting personal stuff here and then it evolved into link spams and things. So, like earth's magnetic poles just about 2000x faster?)

I'm too good at it.

...Where you win if you can research obscure things? That, or I'm way too fucking stubborn and I insist upon running my results dry time after time.

Other than tracking down sold-out items from over a year ago, I have successfully tracked down a lot of things recently. It has only made me wish that databases were more comprehensive, so instead of searching 50 sites I would only have to search one. This is especially a problem with online shopping, where a small store may have exactly what you want, but it doesn't show up on Google Shopping or Amazon and their site is basically unsearchable or undiscoverable unless someone else points you directly there. BUT I DIGRESS.

Earlier this week our professor challenged us to find a slightly meme-ish image of what looked like the Michael Jackson of zebras. His head was striped, his upper torso was white, his back was striped, and his back legs were white.

First of all, don't google "half white zebra" because you get nothing but pages of "ARE ZEBRAS HALF WHITE WITH BLACK STRIPES OR BLACK WITH WHITE STRIPES LOLOLOL".

Second, in under five minutes I found the image by trying "albino zebra" and then I believe "partially albino zebra" which led me to a page about zorses. And zonies. Which are half zebras, half horse/pony, and are generally bred in Africa (much like other places get donkeys, and they are most often sterile as well) because zebras have some natural biological defenses they can pass on.

Uh and then in class Thursday we were talking about what a temple is, thematically, and for a brief few moments the prof had an image of a buddha on the screen, of course with no source. HOWEVER I realized that under this seated buddha was a script that was too familiar... A script from the old online COSI: Adventure game that was linked from their site (to LiveScience?) a while back. I think the game is still up if you have a direct link.

ANYWAY, the online game was based slightly on the Adventure! exhibit, but without a lot of the originality, probably because of time/money constraints. (I'm not complaining, it was made for 8 year olds, approximately, I'm most likely the only person who ever cared.) However, given my extensive gradeschool examination of Egyptology, I recognized that one of the... uh... sacred items? that they used in the game was a slightly photoshopped version of an Egyptian alabaster papyrus-lotus vase.

Anyway, eventually you have to crack a code, and if there's one thing about me, I LOVE CODES. I was always upset though that you never got a good look at all 26 letters, because you never used them all, and the closest you would get is the "dictionary" you would get, but since it was a very low-quality shockwave file, you couldn't look at it too closely to get a good enough idea, either.

I always assumed they found some random font (which, tbh, they probably did) and just threw it on there. That, or they made it up, which was awesome. And since I never found anything about it, I just kept on assuming it was awesome and went on my merry way. I took the character that kind of looked like a "d" (I don't know what character they used it as) and I think I have it as my random icon on a few different sites-- Twitter I know to be one.

UNTIL THURSDAY.

So I'm sitting there looking at this buddha, which I know absolutely jack shit about except that we're currently discussing stupas in terms of temple design and what they are, and under this buddha are TWO TO THREE LINES OF THIS TEXT WHERE SOME OF THE CHARACTERS LOOK EXACTLY LIKE THIS CODE

AND I'M ALL LIKE "HOLY SHIT OMG I FOUND IT" WHILE SIMULTANEOUSLY "OH FUCK NO IT'S NOT ORIGINAL I AM LE SADFACE"

And then the prof decided to not post the presentation, from which I was hoping to steal the image so I could try to tineye it. False! Hahaha, just kidding.

So I googled combinations like "seated buddha sculpture ancient stone hand raised" for about thirty minutes, pretty much ever permutation of ideas ever and then decided to try a library image database. I tried to be a bit more general and tried things like "seated buddha" and "buddha sculpture" and eventually I stumbled upon one that was SIMILAR but not exactly the same sculpture (and was much plainer, had no text, etc.). So I took one of the title words from that, not knowing what it meant and tried Googling it, nothing. Took that back to the art database, found an even closer-looking image! Took a different word from the title/description, tried Googling that, SUCCESS! So then I tried googling/wikipedia-ing that, etc. to try to find more, plus "city name of sculpture + text" and FINALLY came across a wikipedia page that had some ancient script information.

It was very close, but not quite in the ballpark enough yet. So I clicked through to several different pages, and a few more from there, and I have a few pieces here, and a few pieces there, and at this point I think I'm pretty darn close and I need an expert or to sit down side-by-side with the "code" and pick out each one individually.

So... I have completion problems, I guess. Or research fascinates me too much, I don't know. Or I'm too stubborn. OR I'M TOO GOOD AT THE INTERNET.

Anyway.

On a completely unrelated note, I've noticed I've gotten more in shape this week. I call it "skinnyface" from tour but it's usually about three weeks into alldays for me when I realize that I'm exercising and eating well and I have lost weight. I don't know if I can chalk it up to bloating or something? Because it always seems to be something I notice overnight, one day and not any day before, which doesn't seem possible. But at any rate, I've also been very tired and physically worn out again this week, though not feeling sickly-tired like I did two weeks ago. So I don't know? Maybe this trying-to-eat-healthy thing is too much undereating? What I've found is that I am much better about controlling what I eat (that is, not eating too many junk foods) when I control the shopping. I'm still probably not working enough fruits and veggies into my daily diet as opposed to grains and dairy and delicious, delicious pizzas (I'm serious [Red Baron 4-Cheese]), but I'm trying to slowly edge myself into a healthful diet that I enjoy. I could eat a veggie diet that I bet would be supremely healthful but I would probably get sick of it very quickly. Not to mention hooooow fucking expeeensiiiive fruits and veggies are. Well, everything in Hawaii.

So anyway, that's what five-miles-a-day-bicycling-on-all-hills and dropping 75% of the junk food will do.

Last week I tried to make it my mission to, instead of buying lots of frozen things and eating them one day at a time, to buy some bulk food items and make enough for a long time (ignoring the fact that I still have pasta sauce in the fridge and my mom just mailed me two cans of skyline! AUGH OM NOM THE TEMPTATION). I bought shrimp and rice and all the supplies for garlic shrimp, it was STUPIDLY EXPENSIVE. Partly because I now have enough garlic shrimp-making flavorings for, uh, the rest of the year, but whatever. On day three I was already sick of garlic shrimp. What the fuck? I hate my food-moods. I've eaten almost nothing but pizza for about three weeks, this is some crap. I like pizza but I AM TRYING TO GET SOME HEALTHFUL VARIETY UP IN THIS BITCH MIX. I'm mostly pissed because it seems like a waste of money if I'm not going to eat it, WHICH I NEED TO BEFORE IT GOES BAD, and especially if I keep in this pizza-and-italian-food rut for the rest of the semester. Fuck.

So, uh... I'm kinda learning to cook? Not that I can't, given an adequate recipe, it just takes up SO MUCH FUCKING TIME and I HATE IT.

I think next up might be coco loco chicken!!!!!11! though, because ON NOM DELICIOUS but also omg chicken?! With lime curry sauce you bet your ass

It is delicious.

...Aaaaand I didn't do my pushups for this week (again), I am a failure. As much as I would like to be able to do and gain all the benefit from pushups, I JUST HATE IT and I've totally let it slip my mind this week.

Which I'll say is forgiveable since I now have to spend the entire fucking weekend in the stupid studio AGAIN. Free time on a weekend?! What the fuck is that?! I would like to fucking GET OUT ON A BIKE RIDE THANKYOUVERYMUCH

Luckily next weekend is a long weekend with no homework over it aaaaaand the student architecture club is having a sand castle building contest. FOR REALZ, Y'ALL

with LJ, Facebook, and tumblr posting right now.

I think that says a lot about how not-so-great the commercials are this year.

...Local ads have some seriously great production value though, I keep thinking they are national ads. Muuuuuch better than Dayton ads.

However, it has taken me three viewings of this cellphone-seafood-poke-allergy commercial for me to understand what was going on in it. Also, the one girl has an AWESOME dress that I VERY MUCH WANT. Like the other hand, I thought it was a national ad at first and was confused by the fact that 99% of the US probably doesn't have a clue what poke is.

Poke is what has been sitting out on the counter all week making me want to puke 1) because it's spoiling and 2) because it's poke anyway.

I went past the poke counter at Foodland today (it's a huge counter on its own, like the size of a normal meat or seafood counter, but ALL POKES) and wanted to retch. And I like seafood

Troy Aikman, really? That's an oooold reference.

Also, Go Daddy, go fuck yourself. Your commercials aren't ~clever~ anymore (were they ever?) and we've already found out at least twice this year that you are a total scumbag of an existence.

BATTLESHIP

WHY IS THIS A MOVIE

WHY IS LIAM NEESON INVOLVED

WHAT THE FUCK

I'm ready for some Battleshots though. The entire premise of Battleshots is better than every single idea that went into the Battleship movie. What. Even.

Apparently we are keeping up with this shitty ad scheme.

...Yeah, Budweiser, I'm pretty sure "the end of Prohibition" didn't bring forth bottle openers covered in dust.

I am liking this recent trend of classical music pieces in ads, though. It brings my entertainment level up a significant notch.

Disney, what the fuck is John Carter? That just looks like a whole pile of Avatar-ripoff fail. Which, if I may remind you, is a whole pile of appropriative, racist, ableist fail already.

aaaaaand I am already sick of reality show ads.

The quality of this year's superbowl is appallingly low.

I'm looking for some old posts of mine because I can't remember exactly when some things happened. This is what it's like getting old, apparently. (Fuuuuuuuck)

1) My oldest post tagged "religion" is about drum corps auditions (which I honestly didn't remember being for the 2007 season? but I guess so...) and "I think I'm through questioning faith". LOL OH WELL. Interesting to see how much my tone has changed in just a few years though, even my posts from 2008 can get kinda judgmental.

For that I apologize.

2) I have been working on a letter to my Mormon friend trying to explain my philosophical situation. I intended it to be just a letter... three hours later, it's 13 pages long and I'm not finished. Whoops. As a result and because I am the world's laziest chef, I am eating half a can of olives that are at least a week old and hopefully not spoiled by anything else in the fridge. BECAUSE THIS IS COLLEGE

By the way, Douche Flatmate has a now three-day dinner mess on the counter, it smells fucking awful. Unfortunately I now have to play the "confrontation and talk about it" game.

3) I forgot that LJ tags were a "new" thing only a few years ago. WHICH IS MAKING IT EVEN HARDER TO FIND MY OLD POSTS FROM HIGH SCHOOL NOOOOOOOOOOOO

4) I wish I journaled more but I'm also glad to see that I have so much written already. And that I've been LJing for how many years now? 7? 8? Jesus fuck. It seems like only a few years ago. I can, however, attribute much of my writing voice to journaling (in the form of blogging). Addressing an audience like you are friends, but like there is absolutely no one in the seats in the whole auditorium. Just an interesting note.

And now back to my search for personal journal entries from the pre-tagging days, so I can get back to this ages-long letter.

P.S. It's pretty obvious these days, I think, that I'm an atheist. So hopefully no one who is looking for a way to get me in trouble finds this. LUCKILY I think I've done an okay job of scrubbing this out of the main google search pages for me, and I need to go back and probably lock some old posts, and I probably should edit my friends list considering friends from 6 years ago can access my locked posts and absolutely zero of them post anymore (that certain group, I mean).

[EDIT] Holy shit I went and checked, it's so weird to see how little I posted the first couple of years. THERE IS SO MUCH INFORMATION I AM MISSING THAT I WANT TO KNOW. And that is why I journal. What was I thinking?! I don't know because I didn't write jack shit. And boy was my tone terrible, which, it's funny, I knew at the time, not that it was bad but that I hoped I could look back eventually and not hate myself and not want to hide or delete posts (which I'm not planning to, at least not for that reason), but geez, how things change. What's even worse? I know how much I changed from grade school to high school, and I don't really have a journal that covers that, either.

As the poster at my old hairdresser's used to say, "you've come a long way, kid."

Well, Paypal's been in the news a bit today, and I, for one, am a sucker for internet battles. Especially when people are coming off pretty scummy. Regardless of one's opinions on Regretsy, SomethingAwful, or Wikileaks-- and actually, someone just linked me to an older-yet-related incident regarding George R. R. Martin-- the fact that PayPal has been less than clear on its policies and seems to repeatedly have pretty poor treatment of their users, the whole thing just rubs me the wrong way. So I am trying to collect a list of alternatives to PayPal. (Deleting facebook comments is actually one of my pet peeves as well. I do not take kindly to censoring.)

I do not personally endorse any of these and all commentary on them is what I can tell from reading their site and others' comments on their services. I am simply trying to collect suggestions into one location.

Here is one large list of alternatives with more information than I have been able to find, although a lot of what folks seemed to be suggesting as alternatives were not listed.

Here is another good post on a few alternate suggestions: 8 Ways To Not Paypal

If anyone would like to leave personal reviews, etc. in the comments (if you have used the services of any of these listed, or know of others), I will be happy to update as I can.

www.dwolla.com - This was the site I saw most recommended in comments of other posts. It links directly to your bank account (with many security measures in place) rather than a credit card. You can use it on your phone, and transactions less than $10 are free. (All other transactions have a flat fee of 25 cents.) You can also hook up your account to social networks such as facebook and twitter in order to split bills between friends, etc. They also mention privacy and transparency in their main explanatory pages (here), which I personally find worth noting.

www.wepay.com - Second most recommended in comments. Seems to be 3.5% fee, 50 cent minimum. Also mentions security measures and transparency, and has an 800 number as well as other methods of communication listed on every page. They don't mind trolling PayPal, either.

www.obopay.com - Not as much information presented (to be fair, I'm not pushing around too far or registering for accounts on any of these sites), but it seems very interested in using mobile devices to easily transfer money.

www.alertpay.com - Seems to have many options for sending/recieving money, and has two contact addresses posted on their About Us page.

www.v.me - Upcoming Visa method for transferring money. Mobile support appears to be an option.

www.serve.com - From American Express, use your bank account, credit/debit card, or cash. Can be used online, from a mobile device, or with their American Express-based card.

squareup.com - A credit-card reader for vendors that plugs into your mobile device. One commenter said that you are charged $10 for the reader if you buy it in a store, but it is free directly through the website.

stripe.com - An online method for vendors to take credit cards. Seems to be very suppoert-friendly in terms of setting it up on a website.

nochex.com - UK-based online payment system, both business and personal supported.

checkout.google.com - Online payment system for setting up your own shop website through Google. Monthly sales totals less than $3000 have a per-transaction fee of 2.9% plus 30 cents. Uses credit cards for buyers to pay.

payments.amazon.com - Allows you to set up a checkout system on your own website. Can also create a personal account to send or receive money. Some commenters who used this said it has been buggy, however, not alerting sellers to purchases, etc.

That's all I have for now, feel free to leave more information in the comments! If anyone has any comments on whether these are accepted only in the U.S./worldwide, etc., leave a comment and I will update.

And to lighten the mood a bit... :D

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

So much to do, so little time. But a few important things, the good news and the bad news.

The good news: Someone finally created an LED lightbulb with incandescent tone! (Color? idk. I'm no lighting engineer.) It's only been, um, AGES since we've been talking about this in my engineering classes (aka why hadn't anyone done it yet).

The bad news: Instructables was bought by Autodesk. I have nothing against Autodesk, but Instructables is a great site that is fed SIGNIFICANTLY by the hackersphere. That just seems like conflict of interest to me (Autodesk getting sued for publishing hacking how-tos, maybe forcing use of their products as a requirement for publication), not to mention I just see it going down like LJ's slow death via SixApart and the Russian company. "Of course we listen to the users, we fuck up majorly several times a year and yet we never fucking learn!"

Then again, maybe it's a viable business model, Facebook doesn't seem to be suffering much from terrible fucking ideas

Have I been busy. Moving things. Cleaning rooms. Trying to get rid of ant infestations.

Learned a new word: formication, which is the feeling you have ants crawling all over you.

Trying to get everything arranged for Outer Banks and Savannah. Trying to get everything arranged for Raiders 30th. Visiting Gramps in the hospital, hoping they will get him out. I hope he can get his heart a little stronger and last more than a few months. I keep thinking about him reading The Walrus and the Carpenter to my fourth grade class, and "faire to Midland", and I want him to get out of the hospital so I can show him my senior presentation. And I keep thinking about ragtime and Hitchhiker's Guide and Ernie Kovacs... Oh, Gramps. Get better, please.

Anyway. Awesomesauce on a stick:

Carrots are orange because of politics!

Like any Cracked article, six "insane coincidences". Sadly, #6 and #5 are the best, because they really are odd coincidences. #1, a little bit, but also data manipulating; there are 365 days each year (except for leap years), and TONS OF SHIT HAPPENS EVERY DAY. Not to mention since our country's founding there have been 234 4th's of July. (Not 4ths of July... they were still 24 hours long, har har) I been I could find you ~even more! strange and unusual~ coincidences out of those 234 days. Shit, son.

Um, and also. #3 bothers me a lot. Why, you may ask? Because it is NOT COINCIDENCE. IT IS CAUSATION. This is the first time I've had to paraphrase this phrase to say "correlation =/= coincidence". The Wright brothers... who lived and worked in Dayton... invented heavier-than-air, powered flight. And they kept doing research here. So when the Air Force got created in 1947, we eventually ended up with *le gasp* an Air Force Base in Dayton. Which encouraged more flight technology and research in the city and the state! And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you end up with a state that has produced SO MANY ASTRONAUTS. We fucking invented flight, now gtfo.

P.S. I do find that article fascinating, my engineer brain just jumped at this annoyance and also I've noticed my writer's voice, a.k.a. my blogging tone, a.k.a. my making comments on the internet voice, has gotten more and more hyperbolic as I have. I don't have a problem with that except where I still do it when talking serious business and since it's text, I'm afraid people will take me literally.

Here's the truth, I am pretty damn shy "IRL". I just enjoy being ridiculous and over the top (...sometimes).

HEY, DID YOU SEE WHERE THEY FUCKING FOUND TANIS?! A little on the technology behind that.

I made a lot of Raiders references the day that was all over. I don't think many people got it, BUT, perfect timing for the 30th, non?! I can't wait to see what happens with the digs. Although I'm sure it will be quiiiiite a while coming.

In case you are still having a terrible day (as I did), here is a MacGuyver intro a guy did of his cat, Steve McQueen. It's beyond awesome.

So you all have seen Hipster Spongebob and the Hipster Disney Princesses, right? They are awesome. And then, yesterday, I found this:

Hosted by imgur.com

First off, it bothers me that they spelled artifact wrong. Second thought? INDY ALREADY WEARS GLASSES. (Also, hdu, Indy would never be a hipster. IT BELONGS IN A MUSEUMMMMM)

And thus:

Hosted by imgur.com

( And all the variations... )

And, as an added bonus, one that's less specific so it can be used more widely:

Hosted by imgur.com

(Yeah, I'm using the "emos" tag. From nowhence, "emo" is shorthand for "I fucking hate scenesters".)

again, for not being around lately. I'm way busy with senior design and applying to grad schools, and if you need me you will find me over in

ontd_political's most recent live-post on the Mid. East/N. Africa/world revolution happenings.

I may suck at politics but I am very good at collecting information, it seems.

If you find yourself wondering what in the world we can do while ruling bodies seemingly do nothing (a complicated issue, I know), I am collecting links in a typewithme document called "How Can I Help?" (http://typewith.me/howcanihelp)

Thanks, and next week we should return to your more regularly scheduled programming...

And now, your moment of world-politics zen (found on Twitter) amidst all the violence and disinterest:

"My name is Freedom; born in Tunisia, raised in Egypt, studied in Yemen, fought in Libya and I'll grow up in all the Arab world."

:3

Let's start things off right; I watched a bunch of Chuck episodes to catch up this week, how about the CIA World Factbook article on Turkey? This could potentially be hilarious if that read "The CIA World Facebook". Change one letter, CHANGE THE WORLD

The menu for 2010:
Potatoes
Peas
Stuffing
Broccoli
Rolls
Gravy
Rutabaga
Squash

(Guys, that is what the internet should be like. One great big Monty Python sketch. I want to add more foods to the menu but I CANNOT TOP THAT SITE.)

For dessert, a pecan piecosahedron! Puns are delicious.

Big holiday wishes? Big holiday wishbone. Plus, dinos. So that's more than good luck, it's... Awesome Luck? (Unrelated to Pot Luck.) (THANKSGIVING JOKES DERP)

And last but not least, the timeless yams.

Old Thanksgiving posts:
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009

Holy crap seven Thanksgiving posts?! I've been around longer than I thought

Happy Thanksgiving, all! Despite my abundant blog-love for this holiday and its OBVIOUS underappreciation by internet society as a whole, I truly appreciate all you as my friends, conversation sharers, fan buddies, and (un)willing audience.

(DON'T BE THE BLITZ)

[EDIT] Found this picture, and since I didn't have any funny pictures like I normally do, I thought I'd come back and add it.

OMG color e-ink is coming. By the time I can afford this stuff, these systems will (hopefully) have settled a little more and be COMPLETELY AWESOME. (As if they aren't already.)

I still think it would be awesome if there were an open-source pdf textbook service that would 1) put shitty textbook companies (read: bad writers, those under the effect of legal shit like Texas' removal of non-christian religions and the downplaying of Jefferson because he was "an atheist", ripoff artists who release new editions every few years just to make money while wasting both people's money and the materials used to print them) out of business, 2) reduce the weight load of students, which would, in effect, 1) save students money, 2) [theoretically] allow for more honest writing (think about the accuracy of wikipedia here, sort of), 3) save students from weight injuries (I did my eighth-grade science fair on this, remember?), 4) save physical materials. Look, if you could buy a pdf-reader for your kindergartener and it lasted them all the way through college with the net result of no physical textbooks, wouldn't that be amazing?! It could even be a laptop or a netbook and not e-ink, if that was what you needed.

SO! EXCITING NEWS. A random lady (and by lady I just mean, a female who I would consider in an older age group than me-- she has a daughter who is old enough to have been to COSI, but she's not, say, whole generation older than me, probably in her early 30's or late 20's?) messaged me on facebook through my posts on the "I miss COSI's Adventure!" group. We are going to start a fan page for Adventure and PROBABLY end up breaking the code as a team (unless I somehow manage to stumble into the solution beforehand, which is doubtful). BUT! I am so excited.

Also, I really want to win that spend-the-night-in-Adventure contest. WOOOOO.

A geek pronunciation guide, which I actually found helpful and corrected me on a few things. (Although to be honest when I see "WYSIWYG" I just say "what you see is what you get" which is definitely easier than saying "doublyew-wy-ess-eye-doublyew-wy-gee". Don't ask me why I chose those spellings, I just did. There have to be a ton of ways to "spell" letters, and it probably changes every time I have to sit down and write-spell something.)

WOAH. You're going to want to read this.. It's an internet security issue. ANYONE can hack your social media as long as you are both signed into the same UNSECURED WI-FI. Which is most wireless. BRB trying to secure things.

So I've seen the world's largest gummy worm floating around the internet for a few weeks, and for the life of me, something about it bothered me in the back of my mind and I couldn't figure out what. But I just got it: look familiar? (Side note: I've seen those World's Biggest Gummybears in person, they look disgusting based sheerly on mass. I'm pretty sure the worm would be the same way, although it would make for a GREAT halloween food item.)

Also. I am not in a great mood, currently, with technology. My OneNote files decided to get corrupted, and it's looking like I probably won't be able to rescue them (FUCKKKKKKKK). Additionally, I just discovered today that all the quotes I've kept in my facebook application --ALL 150+ OF THEM-- are no longer accessible because the app just DISAPPEARED without warning anyone. GODDAMNIT. As much as I love OneNote I think from here on out I'm going to try to just keep everything in Evernote. UGH.

Some guy on twitter made a bot to argue anti-global-warming crap with people, originally just for the people that responded to him, but now it actively searches and starts discussion. Trolling for arguments with a chatbot might be the best method of this, because you present the same evidence without wasting your own time, which you know you're going to if you spend your own time doing this. Really. I want to give this guy a hero badge or something, shit.

The Kahiki's fireplace is for sale! If I had a real job, and I lived here, and I were actually opening the tiki restaurant I dream of opening, I would buy it. (Last time I checked it was at $1.25... I COULD AFFORD THAT.)

PROMPT TIME! I used to play softball. However, my "sport" is marching band. Specifically, drum corps. <3

A cute video:

So, more information on the 200 student cheating incident I posted yesterday. Granted, I only read the article the other day and did not watch the professor's video; I think I'm too empathetic and I didn't want to feel angry or guilty or shamed watching a video that had nothing to do with me. I get that enough in regular life, thanks. (I can't stand to see people embarassed... I, unfortunately, am readily affected by second hand embarassment, which SUCKS.) ANYWAY. It turns out the students were just studying from the publisher's testbank. Maybe it's a generational thing, but I don't see a problem with this. I study from people's notes, from answer manuals, etc. IN FACT, the books we've generally used HAVE THE ANSWERS IN THE BACK SO YOU CAN CHECK YOUR WORK. Granted, this is a test. But I do think the professor should expect students to be studying from the materials they can attain legally, and if he uses the same problems, I don't think that's the students' fault. I use solutions manuals to check my work regularly, when I can, because THIS SHIT IS HARD. I need any advantage I can get to pass these classes, and I don't consider it cheating to check my work, or, in this case, anticipate problems and study.

I'm still not watching that video, I'd probably make myself sick.

Honestly, what's with all the "Cowboys & Aliens: Ford's Comeback" crap? WAS HE EVER GONE? I say no. Choosing to do a different genre doesn't mean you've slacked off, it means you got offered different things.

SURE, just like Disney's switching 100% from 2d animation. Okay. Look, you can be creative and come up with more general-children's-films ideas, but at some point you're going to want to make "a princess movie" again. Also, WHAT THE HELL DO YOU CONSIDER ALADDIN TO BE?! If that's a princess movie, I CAN'T EVEN.

In other rage-inducing media news, there's a Mean Girls 2 coming out?! Ugh. Please.

On a positive note, I'm catching up on episodes of Chuck and they just made a Fievel Goes West reference. UH, YESSSS.

Guys I believe this may be my new favorite picture. I put it in my desktop rotation.

Yeah, as for not doing my daily post yesterday, I had QUITE A DAY. Allow me to tell you about it. So besides being the last football game of the season, which means doing the senior show (yay Queen!) and planning the dead-bug (which our new director seemed to appreciate), and running errands (woo... GRE study guide... so completely exciting), my roommates, in the course of hosting a birthday party, managed to turn on the air conditioning.

Let me preface this by saying, I don't really fault them. With the drunken shenanigans that occur weekly on this campus, someone bumping up against a wall is perfectly understandable. That being said, I FROZE MY ASS OFF THE OTHER NIGHT. I slept huddled up in a ball under three blankets! I couldn't even stretch out my legs because my feet were too cold. I couldn't put my arms under my pillow because bringing them outside the warmth of my huddled body mass meant certain death. Anyway.

Let's get to the post though, shall we?

My favorite season is probably fall. Although we don't get much of it here in Ohio, which is sad. Not "real fall", when it's slightly cooler, but dry, before it's absolutely necessary to wear a jacket and long pants but still comfortable to do so. I've gotten a lot more appreciation for summer now that it's not just something forgotten between school years, but very needed vacations, and drum corps. (And an extension of drum corps, more time with less clothing on, haha.)

Okay. Forget tumblr, say Livejournal. I either found Livejournal through my friend Katy (who no longer posts here) or through the homestarrunner comm, which back in its heyday was HUGE. It was awesome. And there was the ABP'd list (Already Been Posted), to which I aspire to create such a thing of management and dedication. But SHIT, that thing was huge. (And then the main mod disappeared, and then awhile later the Bros Chaps took a year off without telling anyone, and effectively killed their own hype machine, for the most part.)

However, Homestar is currently celebrating a slight rebirth in the discovery that a lot of my friends aren't so clueless of Homestar as I might have expected. (Not that I don't suspect them as internet-savvy, I just still tend to think of the internet's memes as sticking to certain age-groups, which, obviously, they don't. The internet is amazing at leveling the playing field in that regard.)

I'm having a hard time believing this wikipedia article even exists.

HOLY CRAP, SO I'm reading my friends page, scrollscrollscroll, all of a sudden I see my toxic waste container from last year and I'm like WOAH BACKUP I DIDN'T POST THAT ANYWHERE SINCE LAST NOVEMBER did somebody try to jack my work? Wait, this is a bunch of Halloween ideas, where is this posted? scrollscrollscroll OMG I GOT POSTED ON NEATORAMA.

...I feel slightly internet-famous. Heeeeee.

Yes, I realize nobody really seems to care about the instructable, and it's just one part of a post on Neatorama, but MY DESIGN WORK got posted on a (relatively) popular site and I wasn't the one who put it there. :D

(Can I put that on my resume? j/k.)

Anyway, it's here.

:D

:D

:D

(Halloween update: Medusa costume going well, hopefully I can finish quickly tomorrow...)

ME: Oh! Star Wars Episode II is on Spike. Well, nothing else is on, that sounds like my best bet (despite its faults).

one hour later

ME: Dude, that arena creature has fur! I didn't notice that before. I wonder what it's called... I'll go look on Wookieepedia.

WOOKIEEPEDIA:

...There were other breeds of nexus on Cholganna's other continents, but only the forest nexu had an additional set of eyes able to view in infrared wavelength, which aided in their hunting of bark rats and tree-climbing octopi.

ME: That sounds like a horrible planet.

WOOKIEEPEDIA:

...In 43 ABY, Allana Solo was given a nexu cub as a pet after asking for one for years, after Leia Organa Solo killed the baby nexu's mother to save an Ithorian, who was under attack from the creature, at the Coruscant Livestock Exchange and Exhibition. She named the baby cub Anji.

ME: ...Goddamnit, Star Wars.

DEVIANTART: Nexu are bitchin'!

ME: goddamnit, internet

...she said, posting with a Star Wars/Winnie the Pooh icon. Anyway, yeah, real content to this journal coming soon, I swear to god.

I had to re-edit my last post several times for html and spelling. In the course of re-reading it, I realized... sometimes I don't provide the best context for the links. I just kind of... throw them out there. I don't know. It's how my internal monologue goes (and I don't exactly self-edit much), but it doesn't do much for getting people interested, necessarily, does it?

Anyway, we'll see how that goes. I'll probably be a little more self-aware as I write, at least for a little while or until I settle into a slightly better style. Anyway. Well, you have to change with time, might as well improve, right?

Also, an interesting exchange on Twitter:

I make a EEEEEEE-ful post about two baby bunnies playing chase with eachother behind KFC.

That warrants said reaction, no?! Baby bunnies are fucking ADORBS. Cue this random response:

CapsCop @mercat You know someone was fired for typing in all caps

Oh... 'kay...

Unfortunately I reacted a bit too quickly with:

LOOKS LIKE I DON'T GIVE A FUCK. THIS ONE'S JUST FOR YOU :]

However, snarkily;

1) Yes, I did know.
2) What the fuck does that have to do with anything? Does this look like a professional's sensitive tweet-stream? Hell no!
3) (I'm pretty sure it's a bot anyway.)

and then I realized... 4) No punctuation.

I really hope they respond again so I can call them on that. The fundamental law of grammar errors on the internet: if you call someone out, you are doomed to make a mistake as well.

Haha, suck on that, person who has no life other than to harass people for using all caps!

Seriously though, this is the internet, when the hell did capslock become a crime?

Sometimes I agree.

Oh god, it IS horrifying.

When Superman invaded the KKK. Life is awesome sometimes.

hehehehe, space.

This whole thing pisses me off. Yeah, maybe it's a little low-cut for a movie premiere, but it's the preimiere for Kick-Ass, and if you haven't noticed, I'm going to take a stab with the whole hot-pink hair thing and say she probably doesn't give a whit what you think of her. Not to mention, half the headlines talk about her husband (and call her "Mrs. Wossy") despite the fact that she's the fucking screenwriter. And somehow, they pointed this all out and still managed to completely miss the point?! I don't know. I really don't.

Oh, Liam Neeson. I still don't get this movie.

NOOOOO MOUNTAIN DEW THROWBACK TASTES HORRIBLE :C

ICHC is a Mensa favorite site. I don't know if that means they have a sense of humor or they're no better than the rest of us. Oh, humanity. You and your ego.

Old hat, but these George Takei ads creep me out a little. I mean, he's awesome, but his voice is just... weird.

Oh, FUCK YOU, Gizmodo. The dude did not "sneak a peek". HE TOOK A FUCKING PICTURE. (Oh, and remember, these are impossible to misuse, remember? At least it didn't take long. Maybe they'll realize what a dumbass idea these are.)

NOOOOOOOO why do they release all these lovely bright colors after I just got a new lappy?! AUGH. Turquoise or hot pink or lime green or sunset orange would have been SO SUPERIOR to dark blue.

Didn't know there was an Indiana Jones timeline. However, this guy seems thoroughly unamused? I really hate when people get interviewed and respond with stuff like that. At the least, make your answers interesting if you have nothing to add.

FUCK YES TREASURE ISLAND A LA THE NEW SHERLOCK HOLMES. AND APPARENTLY TWO STUDIOS ARE DOING THREE MUSKETEERS.

MOTHA'
FUCKIN'
HELLS YEAH

I really love the English's sense of humor. Or humour, as it were. Anyway, St. George is also the patron saint of... Barcelona? No, Valencia? I think it was Valencia. I remember seeing little Winnie-the-Poohs dressed up as St. George in the Disney Store in Valencia. I really wish I had bought one now, that would just be too awesome.

Heheheheheh.

Alot is cute. Actually, a lot of today's post is going to be cute.

An adorable painting otter!

Indiana Bones and the Temple of Groom! Adorable.

WW3 reimagined propaganda posters. Love them.

DUDE SOME GUY BUILT A JARVIS. AND HE'S OPEN-SOURCING IT. I'MMA GONNA GIT ME ONE BRB

Oh-ho, Six Hugh Jackman period films that can be watched as Wolverine prequels. YES. Except don't go get that version of Oklahoma, it's horrible. Aunt Eller is the only one who doesn't have a horrible American accent. It's painful.

So this is kind of crazy. It's kind of awesome, because it's like HEY LOOK ALIENS TAUGHT US EVERYTHING WAIT I TOTALLY GOT YOU DIDN'T I? It's called a coincidence. A CRAZY coincidence, and an awesome one.

Well, this is... interesting... (

astrid087 that one's for you... sort of.)

Beard trustworthiness scale, although they're forgetting a lot of important ones, like the fact that Charlie Chaplin isn't evil and Groucho has a rather famous 'stache, too.

7500 online shoppers unwittingly sold their souls! AWESOME. :D

Everybody's got a baby kangaroo! Right?

Well, you know... I want one now... :3

Looking at this image and watching Ghostbusters at the same time is creepy. If you imagine that cloud is an ever-growing cloud of Gozerian power and escaped ghosties, it's a little unsettling. Then again, as awesome as Ghostbusters is, since I've been playing the game it's become legitimately creepy. D: In a good way, though, it just makes the movie even more awesome. And I really hope they do make a third one now and that it's superb. Also, I never really noticed how amazing the soundtrack is before playing the game.

Speaking of soundtracks, Rocky & Bullwinkle has a great soundtrack but as a story suffers from being a product of the late 90's. Or early 00's. Anyway, it's more than a little bad, not to mention the animation of the cartoon... painful. Egh. However, it kind of serves to remind me how awesome the George of the Jungle movie is, that one is truly great.

The internet/home computer, as imagined in 1969:

Awesomesauce.

Can you imagine how you would feel if you were that officer? Shit.

Oh shit it's the 15th anniversary of the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland! Sometimes it's so completely surreal that this ride is so young. Sadly, I don't think they'll bring out any really awesome new souvenirs until next year (which will be the 30th anniversary of Raiders).

Actually, just yesterday my mom and I were talking about how shocking it is to think that the "anti-vaccine" thing has only been around TEN YEARS. You'd think it's the kind of anti-intellectual argument that was maybe around pre-internet, say, from the 80's, but no, it's from like 2000. That's just crazy to me. (Thankfully, that douche got unpublished and there was only ONE paper ever published in the first place. I think they maybe even revoked his license to practice? Or tried to? Anyway, yeah, douchery.)

And finally, a literary crossover containing two of the most famous and renowned authors who ever penned the written word-- I present to you, "Green Eggs and Hamlet".

Profile

mercat

November 2015

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
29	30

Syndicate

Page Summary

Style Credit

Base style: Abstractia by chiming
Theme: Dark Carnival by chiming

Page generated Sep. 26th, 2017 10:58 am

The Daily Adventures of Mercat

when life gives you lemons, make shark attacks (kitschy plastic sharks included)

Entries tagged with internet

oh god

Well this just looks depressing.

Google's a game, right?

I'm actually keeping up

Wow

Diatribes

Like the Grinch and Scrooge had a baby: PayPal alternatives

well, hell

Too busy lately.

Hoo, boy.

This is what I am reduced to.

I apologize,

Holiday Spectacular

mas o menos

bzeh.

HOLY CRAP

How Things Go:

on tweets and posts:

I should be doing homework right now

This, I will, and do it well; something here doth really smell.

Profile

November 2015

Syndicate

Page Summary

Style Credit