The Daily Adventures of Mercat

Well I was just about to post a very excited and happy entry for today but the Dorm Assisstant/security just came down and Silkie's mom had called because she's missing, sort of. I don't know to what extent but her mom is worried enough to call campus security, and none of us (her roommates) have seen her since Friday and we thought it was odd she left without her stuff and especially without her computer. So.

But, uh, back to what I was going to post.

Otherwise, today's been a good day.

OH HEY my roommate just got back. Talk about timing. Well that's good. I hope everything was okay. I guess she's downstairs checking in with the RD (the official term for dorm security as Genny informs me) and the police, so... yeah. Hm.


OKAY, SO. Today was a very fun day, in an extremely geeky manner, though I just sort of realized it. This morning my dad called me to wish Max and Kyle a happy birthday, though Kyle is in Argentina now. So after wishing Max happy birthday what they did was put me on speakerphone (in Yellow Springs) so I could wish Kyle happy birthday over videophone to Argentina. Ha. A quarter of a world away... craziness. Technology really is somethin'.

AAAAANYWAY. So I had plans to go see Iron Man (and the new Indiana Jones trailer!) with the xkcd kid yesterday but he never called me back, and I just wasn't in the mood to do much of anything today so I slept in (finally) and ate lunch and ended up going to see Iron Man by myself this evening. It was totally worth it, I needed some time to just chill, and let me tell you, Iron Man is badass.

I mean, I was totally geeking out the whole time. I felt like such an engineer, it was ridiculous. I was just like "ooh electromagnets!" and I'm such a gadety person, just... really. His computer setup was my favorite part. Just, can I have that drafting table yes please. Not even the 3D aspect! I just want a digital drafting table, and I was thinking about that article I read that Windows is working on a new prototype of computer that's basically a coffee table with everything transmitted with I dunno infrared or bluetooth or something, but I mean seriously. Would that not be the most badass drafting table EVER?!

Plus I just really enjoyed the movie. Lol Stan Lee. Also I think I enjoy movies like this and Batman because they way they wrote them, they're not too much of a stretch from real technology. I mean like that drafting table, the first thing I thought of was that Windows prototype and if I could use that to my advantage in the future in making a drafting table. (Except his computer was totally a Mac, and yeah, I geeked over that, too.) Obviously suits like that aren't very feasible, but they took the time to make it pseudoscience and a plot that hits close to home. (Mmm terrorism.) I don't mean on a personal level, just, current-events wise, I think that adds to making it feel more plausible (...for a superhero movie).

Also can you say Air Force?! Hell yeah. I think hometown pride is getting a little bit of a hold on me. (Hm and yes I did not really understand the "stabilizers" pseudoscience, so someone's going to have to explain that to me before I pass judgement, but I don't think it's very plausible. But not bad enough to detract from the plot either! YAY WRITERS) Anyway the "thanks to the USAF" list went by too quickly and I wonder if WPAFB was involved at all (probably not) or ( SPOILERS )

And the casting with Robert Downey Jr. and Gweneth Paltrow was good, neither of them have annoying quirks that detract from the movie. I am extremely enthused with the plot. It was fun, like a superhero movie should be, with some predictable jokes, but nothing too campy. (Same thing like the Batman thing; Superman is just too far out there for me to really appreciate it, I think. Oooooor they just need to get a good enough plot line.) ALSO, NO SERIOUS ROMANTIC SUBPLOT. Dear writers, I cannot thank you enough. If I have to see one more movie where they detracted from the story to add in a romance, I think I would kill myself. This was PERFECT just with the hint that it might come in a sequel or whatever and them flirting. SO much more realistic (omg people flirt and don't fall right in love?! what?! it can't be) that it just totally meshed. ( SPOILER )

Lol so yes I'm going to be buying this one on dvd. Kind of like Batman did, you just walk out of the theatre going "BADASS! fuck yeah" which is always a great feeling.

AND CAN YOU SAY NEW INDIANA JONES TRAILER? SEVENTEEN DAYS FOLKS and yes I missed yesterday. =/ I got distracted watching a heist movie. (Entrapment, pretty good. Definitely entertaining enough, though I'm not sure what the purpose of the whole-laser dance thing was, and it was just a tad predictable, though not in any bad way. I am just really in the mood for a movie that catches me up so I'm not thinking about what's going to happen next or something that totally throws me for a loop, like The Prestige did, especially like Prestige did. I called part of it and it STILL had a plot twist. YES.) Anyway, YAY NEW TRAILER! I'm sure you can find it with Google. As soon as it came on I was just like "ark music what?" and they actually show they crystal skull in the trailer (along with lots of other things, hm) which makes me wonder what exactly is going to happen. Still hoping it's not aliens, buuut we'll see I guess. And even if it is, like I said before, I'm still going to love it. Just sitting there watching the trailer I was smirking like crazy and trying not to jump up and scream "YESSS!" or do a dance or anything. Pure excitement. I love it. I love it I love it I love it and now I definitely can't wait to go home oh my god.

Hm, I guess I owe you for yesterday, too. Okay, another Temple scene that was cut. There was supposed to be a scene where a guard got hit by some lava from the caves and it broke him from the Black Sleep of Kali, and Short Round sees it, which would make the scene toward the end where he wakes up Indy come less out of nowhere. I never had a problem understanding it (I just presumed that fire woke you up, I mean really that's all there was to it) but it really would have made more sense to leave it in, especially since it was a shorter movie. Meh, whatevs.

Oh! Another thing about Iron Man. ( SPOILER )

Ha, so, I think that's mostly everything. It really was a great day, and tomorrow I have lots of fun plans, too. =) I really need to get those history take-home tests done, but... eh, it'll happen, no worries.

Oh hey, is anyone out there comic book fans? I've never been a comic book person, though with the influx of superhero movies I've really enjoyed them mostly (blech sans Spiderman) and in the middle of thinking "oh yay for a plotline with a non-totally-dependent female and no unnecessary romance" it hit me, are there really any badass women superheros out there? (Superheroes? Dammit I hate pluralizing that word, it never looks right.) I mean, there's obviously whatsherface from Fantastic Four but honestly that movie wasn't any good, and there's always Wonder Woman but let's be honest she's flying around in a corsetish thing and underwear. That's not really badass and she's some moon princess or something which is obviously not my kind of superhero as I've already covered. I guess there's sort of Storm and Jean Grey from X-Men, but, eh... not really. They don't really scream "badass" to me. =/ (Lol, Batman? Definitely.) And let's be honest, I think Wolverine has pretty much been the most well-known character from that series anyway (and not just the movies). Most all the other ones I can think of are sidekicks in a fashion, but I know that's because I don't know very many female superheros. Ultraviolet? Elektra? I don't know anything about those. From the ads they looked like they were sort of antiheroes in that revenge sense, but I mean I could be completely wrong. (Also, I don't think the movies were a terribly big hit.)

Okay, Catwoman comes to mind as a badass, but she's not exactly a hero. I dunno what to call her anti-hero? She's not really a bad guy, so she's kind of a badass with all the crap she does to tease Batman and whatever, but she's not a superhero either. Plus, let's be honest, the movie was not by any means great, and I'm like the one person who walked out of the theatre who enjoyed it. (YES I LIKE CATS A LOT OKAY lol)

So. For anyone out there with a bit (so pretty much any) more experience in comics than I, are there any badass female superheros out there? My drawing hand is itching.

perhaps I have been reading too much feminist stuff lately, I'm not usually one to jump to arms about something like that, especially since it was not an offensive trigger or anything

Maybe just not marching corps this year really has me missing all the BAness... =P

Happy New Year! And happy eighth day of Christmas, and happy year of Indiana Jones! This is the year of the Rat (ish... it doesn't technically start until February 7th), and many "International Year of"s including potato. So, there you go. Also, it is a leap year, there will be summer olympics, and I will actually have to pay attention to politics (blech) so I can vote for president. (woo!)

So today for New Year's we had a much smaller-than-usual family get together, which was good because it is a lot of stress on Grandma. But, it's sort of her own undoing because she insists on cooking EVERYTHING. But since it's us and my grandparents and my cousins we also exchange Christmas gifts. Laura and I now have a PS2, two guitar controllers, Guitar Hero III, and DDR SuperNOVA2 with one pad. (The DDR music sucks. I am sad. But it's still fun! =D Yay) Also grandma got me a bunch of stuff from my wishlist... except she got it from my Amazon wishlist, and not my christmas list. So all the stuff I wanted so I could have it in Hawaii to listen to and read? ...Yeah. I didn't get any of it. And I was so excited for it, too! Bah. Well, this means I must run to the bookstore and the like. Also we have to buy a memory card for the Playstation *sigh* and I have to see if I can find a used copy of GH II, because it has a better music selection. And Trogdor.

Max and Kyle really like their travel bags, which was good. Good for both college and traveling. I can't believe Kyle's going to Argentina for a year! That's nuts.

At dinner Grandma had Petit Fours that said "PEACE/JOY/HAPPINESS" so we rearragned the letters to say weird things like "CHEAP/JOSE/PA PINEYS" and "CHEAP/JOSE/PAY PENIS". Yeah. =P We're weird. I still feel so bummed for Grandpa, though. He's just so slow... and Grandma talks so much that Grandpa can't respond fast enough. Part of that is that he's always been quieter and she talks for him. But... I still get sad. At least he's working out more now, which is good. But I don't know if he'll get his mental agility back. Mom got him a sudoku book, so maybe that would help. *sigh*

I watched Mr. & Mrs. Smith last night as well as The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. The former is good, the latter is undestandably a failure. Awesome Nautilus, awesome costumes, good actors... very bad plotline and storytelling. Just do not waste your time, unless you need some steampunk inspiration. That's about all it's good for.

I think I will let my resolutions wait until tomorrow again. Though DDR means it will be easier for me to get exercise! Now just to find not-shitty DDR songs. =/ (Seriously, there are like three techno songs on there. The rest are slightly-changed pop songs, and they SUCK. A LOT.) You know what, though? The pad is non-slip. Yay! Which means no ductaping. Hooraaaaay!

Anyway... yeah. =/ Life is interesting.

On the eighth day of Christmas, the LJ gave to me--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!

=D So, I came across that song the other day reading a forum post about "songs related to Indiana Jones." It sort of is, and though I hate Barbie Girl, I'm a sucker for techno. =)

Crap. I know I'll have more to post tomorrow. My brain's not working, I don't think... =/

I'm in Lebanon testing txtLj! Golden Lamb was delicious. Dinner had fallopian tubes and "prey on the weakened." Edit to explain later =)

[THE EDIT] So, here's what happened. My family traditionally goes to The Golden Lamb Inn every year for Christmas dinner. We couldn't go at the date we had before because my sister had to work, so we went tonight. They got rid of the relish plate for some reason--but thank god! Pickle relish, nor corn relish, nor pickled watermelon rind have any sort of claim on my appetite. Yeuch. Well, we got there and they had "sea bass" on the menu, and all of a sudden I could hear a voice in my brain say "sea bass." Very monotone, a general guy's voice, no funny accents or anything. I new there was a visual that went with it but I couldn't think what, and the fact that I couldn't place any sort of accent on the 'sound bite' (as it were) were really throwing me off. I asked dad if it was involved in some Monty Python sketch I was forgetting, but that wasn't it. About halfway through our salads I FINALLY remembered it was from Austin Powers, when Number Two is telling Dr. Evil they couldn't get sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads. =D I love those movies more than I probably should. (So right now I'm sort of doing a marathon, heeeee.) Well, I was right with the no accent part--Number Two is very monotone and whatnot. I also could only think of "agitated" and "angry" (the latter of which was in the title pre-edit) as the descriptors, but the movie puts them as "ill-tempered mutated sea bass." Well, I just like "ill-tempered" so that's what it shall be.

Then we were talking biology and fun stuff like balance and stuff, and Laura accidentally said "fallopian tubes" instead of "eustacian tubes." It was a good laugh. Later in the evening we were back to talking about Laura and school and college and stuff, and Grandma was kind of upset to hear about all the partying and stuff (we were joking about beer bongs, with dad, and directed at Grandma I believe... Laura was saying something sarcastic about getting her a bong to finish her coffee so we could leave, I think) and said, well, that's why you should go to UD. And mom and dad and Laura and I kind of laughed because, yeah, we all know. UD is a party school, face it. Even if it's a good Catholic Marianist college that will give you a good education. People still get drunk three nights a week. =/ Anyway, Laura responded sarcastically (as is her standard), "right, so I can pray on the weekends." And I'm not exactly sure how dad got there? We always make fun of Laura about being flirtatious with boys and stuff but he just commented on it as "prey on the weakened" and I had a good laugh.

And we found out James (Butler, her boyfriend) appreciates dad's humor, though Max and Kyle do not. So, he gets cool points in my book. =P (Man, when was the last time I mentioned cool points?!)

I'm kind of sad you can only do 160 characters with txtLJ--but at least it works! Now I know that I can pull off my resolution to post every day, if I decide to do that, and I would happen to not be able to post from a computer for a day. Whee!

Can you believe it's the 29th of December?! Where has '007 gone?!

So for the fifth day of Christmas I will post a FANTASTIC video I happened across by chance today. Someone gave Miss Shoup (my gradeschool music teacher, for anyone who doesn't know, which I think is most of you) a video of TSO's music that they had made. (Um, meaning, the one TSO had made.) Well, it looked dumb at first but then it involved TWO ADORABLE LITTLE KITTENS. AWWW <3 My dad and I were both just doing stuff at our computer and he said, "hey, that sounds like the guy that did Phantom." And I was thinking, what? A guy sang in Phantom Regiment? I had no idea what he was talking about and was thoroughly confused. AND THEN I LOOKED UP AND SAW MICHAEL CRAWFORD AND IT MADE MY DAY.

On the fifth day of Christmas, the LJ gave to me--CHRISTMASYYY MIIICHAEEEL CRAWFOOOOOORD!



(Or that could be "TSO Michael Crawford," too.)

Chicago and some children,
Straight No Chaser singing,
God Rest Ye lights a-blinking,
and a "happy holidays" so merry.

and then I found out Harrison Ford did or does pot occasionally and it made me very sad