The Daily Adventures of Mercat

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.

Crap, forgot to post b/c of GRE studying (and trivia night).

Lady Gaga is awesome. First and foremost, I actually like her music. It's pretty rare I like pop music, but I liked her music before I knew "who" she was. I do like techno and dance music (although I must say with no friends actively giving me any, I don't know much about that scene), so I think it was only natural to like her music. When I saw her Bad Romance video then, later on in the year, I was even more excited because it was very Halloween-y and fantastical. And then I found out she was very into fashion, and not only vogue, but being strange/being yourself/having fun. And since then she's shown up to be a voice for women's issues, sex and gender issues, all sorts of things. It would be crazy-awesome to work with her. But also, if I met her, I would firstly want to thank her for being an icon for our generation, and a responsible one at that. (At least so far.) Someone my own age I can be proud of rather than embarrassed by.

Also I loved her because she took her name from Queen. Um, yes.

Hey, so you know Jason Segel's Muppets movie he's been working on? (astrid087, you're going to want to see this) Jack Black, Paul Rudd, and Lady Gaga may be involved. I WILL BE THERE IN THREE SECONDS PLEASETHANKYOU

Science cheerleaders!

A good comic with a certain movie poster in the background.

Dick van Dyke saved by porpoises, although I have no idea of the date of said incident and I find that... strange.

New Winnie the Pooh movie next year! (Nothing says classic Winnie the Pooh like pop music.) Well I know what I'm doing next summer. Also, Craig Ferguson and John Cleese are in it! OHMYGOD.


Check out this crazy owl:



I find this comic both hilarious and depressing. And fascinating.



OH HEY INDY EXHIBITION. Here's an article on the exhibition. Official website. Post with the tour poster. Unsurprisingly, it's just a conceptual design copy of the classic Temple of Doom poster, however, I am really loving the detail of the walls-covered-in-hieroglyphics. (It reminds me of that damn Egyptian cat mystery puzzle I still haven't finished after... uh... ten years.) (can you tell I'm sick of ripoffs of the ToD poster? I'd honestly love to see the Indy franchise get some other colors besides BROWN TONES. Same problem as steampunk, goddamn. THE JUNGLE EXISTS YOU KNOW. IT'S VERY GREEN. I DO BELIEVE INDY HAS VISITED JUNGLES IN AT LEAST THREE OF THE MOVIES AND IN LC THERE'S STILL A CHASE THROUGH THE GERMAN FOREST-SIDE. [IDK, WHAT IS THE "COUNTRYSIDE" EQUIVALENT OF "FOREST"?]) CAPSRAGE IN CASE YOU COULDN'T TELL I'M A LITTLE BIT OBSESSED. (Also-also, the proportions on that poster are a little...off... those legs/hips look cartoonishly unrealistic. Or the pose does. Or something.)


ANYWAY who wants to road trip to Montreal?!



Prompts time! Initials of my crushes: don't really have any at the moment. But that is also a completely different discussion.

I do not wear glasses. But when my eyes are old enough to need them, I will rock some fashionable ones, that's for sure. Or maybe get LASIK, since I've heard they don't have to cut your cornea anymore. But, sadly, I will probably never be able to wear contacts. My eyes are just too sensitive for me to be putting things in them. I really wanted to get some all-black or all-white or cat/snake-eye contacts for my halloween costume this year, but instead I ended up drawing pupils on my eyelids, which worked okay, but I'm not totally satisfied with how my makeup ended up. It bled A LOT.

Scientists used high-speed video to determine how cats actually drink. I had always been taught (read?) that cats curled their tongues under, which someone had discovered way-back-when with a hi-speed camera. So apparently that was "not quite", though. Rather than curl their tongues under to scoop, they curl them under to "pull" a column of fluid towards their own mouth, which they then catch and swallow.

Science is fascinating!

THIS IS A LARGE POST, I AM WARNING YOU.

HOLY SHIT I SUCK AT POSTING. This thing has been sitting on my desktop for a month and a half, christ, shame on me. Anyway. I'm trying to make better habits for myself... Some are getting better (I keep a real schedule on my ipod! I'm under 100 firefox tabs consistently!) and some not (I don't check my calendar, I forget things, I haven't organized many piles of files on my new computer... from a year ago...)

Shia says Indy V will be crazy. idk what to think. I'm excited but hesitant at the same time? Eeengh. Like I said after Indy IV, I mean, at least they can't do that one anymore. (Also, I told you so. Also-also, I am kind of sick of hearing about your stereotypical MacGuffins: the spear of Longinus, Noah's Ark, all that stuff.) GO TO HAWAII, PLEEEEASE

But, uuuuhhh, if Spielberg pitched a script, I'm guessing this is happening. So... yay?

...I'm depressed that that last sentence has a question mark attached to it. :(

HOLY SHIT YOU KNOW WHAT'S DEPRESSING?! WHY ON EARTH IS THIS A MOVIE. WHO ON EARTH THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA. SHANE VAN DYKE WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU ATTACHED TO THIS, YOU WERE AWESOME ON DIAGNOSIS MURDER AND NOW YOU ARE VERY NOT-AWESOME. AUGH.





Um...yes.

Also--ADORABLE KITTANZ:




While we're doing videos, this time-lapse-experiment-turned-art-video is absolutely fantastic:

ANTS in my scanner > a five years time-lapse! from françois vautier on Vimeo.

I hope this is just some lawyers having fun, and were not actually hired over legitimate offense.

I didn't even know they had finished the script for this, shit. Three months away was apparently a COMPLETE NEWS ISOLATION, much moreso than usual. (Nobody famous died.)

This movie looks awesome! That hat looks awful. (Short crown + extra-wide brim = grossnasty.)

Ghostbusters/AC/DC mashup:




Lady Gaga kidnaps Comissioner Gordon. Guys, I was about to say "I want to live in that world", and then, you know, I remembered that Lady Gaga is a real person and kicks major ass.

A good essay on Iron Man 2, which I am still excited about. The awesome thing about disappearing from the world for three months to memorize a metric assload of numbers until you've lost 15 pounds is that, when you get back, all the movies you just watched in theatres (and loved) are about to come out on dvd. Fuck. Yeah.

Some awesome shots from the filming of Star Wars.

So, "mad science", you say?!



That is the kind of awesome shit I'd like to do with my life. (I must say, though, that the closest I've ever come was destroying an antique rusted oven with a sledgehammer. Also fun, except for the part where the paint chips were popping off the bent metal everywhere...)

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT HOLY CRAPCAKES. NIGHTMARES. NIGHTMARES BEYOND BELIEF.

Jesus, it's about time! They better make these. Not that I'm planning to buy any, but, yeah...

Oh, James Cameron. I thought I couldn't hate Avatar any more, but I was wrong. You think you're God's gift to cinematography when really it sounds like you're just a rich bully. I kind of want to go see Pirahna 3D, even if I hate it, just to fucking spite you. Goddamn.

BUT THE GOOD NEWS? Rick Moranis may come out of retirement for Ghostbusters 3. HELL. FUCKING. YES. As long as this shit is better than the game (a bit repetitive story-wise, in relation to the movies). Also, I thought we were already clear that Oscar is Venkman's? There's some banter toward the beginning of the second one that that is what I took away from it.

OH HEY THERE BLACKBEARD. Why the fuck don't you have cannon fuses in your beard?! Jesus, the man should look MUCH more epic than that. For god's sake his body circled his ship seven times before sinking after he was beheaded! (Fuck yeah pirate lore.)

Chewie: not nearly as adorable as Winnie. But still hilariously adorable.

Here! Have a picture of Viggo the Carpathian.

Okay, now, look. I am all about crazy costumes but I don't even know what's going on here.



So adorable.

If the world is making you feel weary (although I don't see how that's possible after all those adorable kitties), I prescribe this.

Next video: An apparently sanctioned-by-Lucas video about the dumping of Jabba's cargo. With a creepy animation of Han Solo. (BUT I SAW THAT RAIDERS REFERENCE. I SAW IT.)

...Definitely thought it was going to be something like River Tam in the box though, the shape was eerily similar.

Heheheh kitty parkour.

HOLY SHITBALLS this woman has completely missed the point of feminism. Oh my god this article is rage-inducing. OH. MY. GOD.

Good news, videogamers! Playing video games enhances decision-making skills. That is, it enhances your ability to make choices faster.


Oh! An antibiotic-resistant superbug. Awesome. This may be our downfall. However, if you're worried about the apocalypse, I just thought you'd like to know that science seems sometimes straight-up fictional. I know a lot of zombie movies/novels/etc. lately have been leaning on diseases like ebola, mad cow disease, or other things to explain the basis for the disease. So here's a crazy fact: mad cow disease causes cattle's eyes to glow. WTF.

Rechargeable cars are less hurtful to the environment than gas, even if charged using "dirty fuel". And it's crazy, if it could charge using renewable sources--solar, wind, etc.--it's FORTY PERCENT cleaner than a gas-using car. Holy shit. Why is the world so resistant to changing how we use our resources? :(

(Answer: laziness, greed, but it still pisses me the fuck off.)

I read an article the other day about how an old solar panel from the White House was rediscovered, and some students, led by Bill McKibben, took it to the White House to see if they would take it back as a symbol of good faith and an attempt to move conservation forward in the eye of current US politics. Some of the statistics were incredibly impressive--like the fact that seed sales increased by 30% the year Michelle Obama was promoting her White House garden. But the kids were taken into a "war room" and basically told no. The whole thing made me so sad, particularly because I remember McKibben speaking to my freshman class on his book we all read, and because we were stuck in a hot, sweaty gym with a rather heavy book (as in, the material, not the book itself), he kind of got ignored by most people. And trying to sort out the fifty interested students in a room of 1000 or however many it was is not really a simple task. Anyway. The whole thing just makes me depressed for the state of our politics. I don't understand why people want to spend so much money on stuff and on keeping things the way they are instead of helping people who need help, helping the WORLD that needs help. I don't know. Maybe that's my bias of too many years of marianist catholic education speaking. I'm too hopeful, I suppose.


Cats drawn as Marvel characters! Adorable. And hilarious. Particularly Spidey and the Sandman.

OKgo's new video to encourage the adoption of shelter pets. Amazing as usual.

Surprise! Facebook is fucking with you again. And this is why I keep all my info private except to people I know.

NEWSIES IS GOING TO BROADWAY, hilariousyesfantasticyesssss.

If superheros were hipsters. I particularly like PBRman. Also I feel like Spiderman isn't that far from Tobey McGuire Spiderman because DEAR LORD DO I HATE HIM. (Also, LOL at Aquaman--Northwesterners are a silly people. I learned that this summer.)

Mysterious civilization hidden in the Amazon--I think this is the same thing (SPOILER ALERT!) Lost City of Z talks about. BUT NOBODY KNOWS. It's fascinating.

Carnivorous plants dwndling across US; I wonder if this might have anything to do with all the bugkiller sprays we use? (No idea, just a thought.)

Shark attack survivors team up to save sharks.

ATHLETE'S FOOT MEDICATION COULD CURE WHITE NOSE SYNDROME! Finally, a hint of good news on that front.

Bug people are crazy. So are geologists.

Some foreign memes for you. I particularly like Makmende, for some reason. I suppose it's like Chuck Norris, but cooler, because Chuck Norris has kind of turned out to be a douche. (Clint Eastwood = cooler than Chuck Norris.)

A really good article about building the mosque. It sums up my feelings on the subject pretty well.

Where can you find Ned and Chuck, Henry Jones (Sr.), and (old school!) Zaphod Beeblebrox? Cons, of course. (Those PD outfits are fantastic, though, seriously.)

Interesting bit of Raiders trivia.

Oh my god, remember the ad for Iron Man 2 where Pepper smooches Tony's helmet, and it wasn't in the movie, and everybody got upset? I present to you--THE ALTERNATE OPENING:



(Fan. fucking. tastic. Why did they not do this one, now?)

And another fantastic short.


Star Wars yoga, absolutely hilarious. And rather clever.

Obscure Taco Bell trivia! A.k.a. the random shit I will bring up in conversation that may eventually lead to me singing the Gordita Anthem. This, in fact, happened this week despite me finding the article months ago, although it did not lead to Gordita-anthemizing, which is a shame.

Here is a fantastic interview with Patrick Stewart, and within it is a fantastically creepy tidbit of their interpretation of Macbeth, ( which I am cutting for the rare case of spoilers )

Is that not fantastically Halloween-y in the best manner? It absolutely is.

First of all, this article is rather old. Second, I doubt it is more than tongue-in-cheek coincidence, and three, Hex of the Hydra sounds godawful. Like the books series.

OH MY GOD. So I was watching the new Sherlock Holmes (not for the first time), but I also decided to watch the bonus material. Apparently they decided Jude Law was more of the ladies' man than RDJ, so they took to calling him Hotson on set.

omg. Hotson.

I can't even. It's hilarious. Anythus.


Much like Rule 34 of the internets, I surmise there must be a similar rule about blogs and personal interests. If you have thought of it, someone, somewhere, has already posted about it online. There is a cool blog called Strange Maps that posts, well, non-generic maps. This particular post has some interesting material on worldviews. It's rather fascinating, but my main point of this whole thing is that the Bulgarians think Poles are all sexy fembots.

I. Don't. Even. Know.






What I do know is that I need to post things more often because I have AT LEAST this many more links piled up in my Google Reader waiting for me to take action. And FIVE MORE old posts on my desktop from before I left this summer! Luckily those posts actually have some real content, like some book reviews.

So, real stuff now, we went to the Yellow Springs Street Festival today. I got an awesome monster shirt, a necklace for my medusa costume, and a beaverfelt antique collapsible tophat! The sad part is I got home and realized the tophat is too small :( BUT I refuse to get rid of it for the time being. I also walked RIGHT PAST Dave Chappelle without even noticing at first, who was saying that the street fair was "like Yellow Springs normally, but gayer". Which... I don't know what that means? Because it's almost the opposite. All the out-of-town people come to visit for the day, so the percentage of hippies is decreased by at least some...

Also my sister finally found the CORRECT version of the Taco Bell Gordita Anthem (thank you, 1998) and I downloaded it for the sake of posterity. POSTERITY I TELL YOU.



(begins at 1:40ish if it doesn't play correctly.)

[EDIT] If I had been paying attention or had any creative/organizational method of linkspamming (Captain Obvious Hint: I don't) I would have posted the Ghostbusters/Rick Moranis thing followed by the carnivorous plants thing followed by the Newsies thing. Points to you if you know how those three are related.

Alas, I did not, and I also need to post this in the case I missed posting it before:



Also-also, tomorrow is 42 DAY as in, the date is binary for 42 (101010), and it happens only once every hundred years, and tomorrow we are getting together to watch the Hitchhiker's Guide movie, probably have a Vogon poetry reading, and get our brains smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped around a large gold brick. Coincidentally that is the name of my ipod and there will be no citruses anywhere near my electronics, thankyouverymuch. (I've taken to naming my electronic devices after science fiction things, or other related items; this new lappy is HELPeR486.)

Also-also-also, I am very afraid for this Pan-galactic Gargleblaster recipe, which is, essentially, take Everclear, cut with liquors:

...er, scratch that. I may be looking at the wrong recipe. Anyway, there's a lot of alcohol, plus a little bit of mixers, add olive, et voila.

If I weren't so convinced I'll be smashed rather quickly, I'd throw in a gin & tonic to boot. Maybe I'll pour one out for my gpa who seemed delighted about the affair but clearly can't make it (and probably shouldn't be consuming high levels of alcohols).

It could thusly be argued that Indiana Jones fought "aliens" in Raiders of the Lost Ark. It is also a sad thing that the freaking Lego Flying Wing costs like $70. I think I have the Micro Machine version, though, SWEET ACTION.

New favorite slang: qu'est-ce que fuck?

Inherited from my dad, I am sure, I will take any opportunity to butcher French for the greater humorous good.


GOOD FUCK THIS IS HORRIFYING. It reminds me of the Splicer episode from Batman Beyond. Fffffuuuuuccccckkkkkkkk~

Hahaha "Mathsputin". Looooove iiiiit.

You know, while I appreciate the characterizations, that logo is just... incredibly detestable. I am so sick of steampunk being OMFGGEARS! (heh heh heh, I would go for a good Disney "g-ears" pun, though.) Seriously, yo, technology, in general, has to do something. And this is more the aestheticist than the engineer in me saying this. Just... bleh. Anyway, I think this means it's Old Hat if Disney did it and is no longer Scene and maybe it will lose some of its steam no pun intended. (Okay, totally intended afterthefact.) The sooner you can boot scenesters from any scene, the better. Please move to the Next Big Thing and mind the gap as you disembark, I'd like my functioning technology in relative peace, please and thankyou.

Also, Daisy is a fucking badass, check that shit out yo, she is AMELIA FUCKING EARHART-ing it up in that shit!


So I found out that Crystal Skull has a Star Trek tribute, of all things. During the rocket-sled fight scene there is a wall dubbed "numbersnumbers-GNDNnumbers" which apparently is reference to Goes Nowhere, Does Nothing. I also started reading the imdb trivia page for the movie and discovered this gem:

Harrison Ford was adamant that he got to wield Indiana's famous whip. Paramount executives wanted the weapon to be computer generated because of new film safety rules, but the actor branded the rule "ridiculous".

Dear Harrison Ford, you are my hero, thank you for being awesome. Dear George Lucas, you're still crazy as fuck, but at least this time you had Spielberg and Ford willing to tell you sometimes that you're a little bit off your rocker.

Also, this has always goddamn bothered me:

The Akator throne room designed by Guy Dyas keeps up an Indiana Jones tradition by having C-3PO and R2-D2 etched into one of the yellow titles, and E.T. into another. According to the book "The Complete Making of Indiana Jones", the characters can be found somewhere in all four Indiana Jones pictures.

They're easy to find in Raiders but WHERE THE DAMN HELL ARE THEY IN ToD and LC?

Also, I just ~can't wait~ until the original Star Wars trilogy gets re-released and re-remastered on BluRay and George Lucas decides to digitally add these Other Dimensioners to the celebration scene at the end. I mean, ET's already there, it's bound to happen at some point.

Originally Henry Jones, Sr., Short Round, Sallah and Willie Scott were to make an appearance at Indiana's wedding.

WHY DID THIS NOT HAPPEN FFFFFFFUUUUUU~

In the "making of" on the Back to the Future (1985) DVD, one of the original ideas of the time machine was as a refrigerator that Marty would climb into. Furthermore, the way Marty was to come back from 1955 was via the power of a nuclear bomb at a test site in the desert. Back to the Future was produced by Steven Spielberg. The idea was scrapped because filmmakers were afraid children would shut themselves inside of their home refrigerators to imitate the movie.

Pure. Excellence. I DON'T REGRET THAT SCENE FOR A MOMENT.


...Anyway. Speaking of GNDN, I kind of need these in my future house, somewhere. In my super-futuristic Tony-Starkish tech lab.

(Seriously though I still want his drafting table. Rich motherfucker.)


Heh heh heh, stormtroopers.

( OLD LINKSPAMS AND STUFF THAT MAKE ME A HORRIBLE BLOGGER RIGHT NOW )

So that's what I've been up to for the past MONTH or so. Also did I mention I downloaded the Force Unleashed Lightsaber App for my iPod touch? I totally did and it's PURPLE ALL THE WAY, baby. Now I need someone to duke it out with.

...You know, the sooner Nerf makes Nerf Lightsabers, THE BETTER.

[EDIT] ALSO-ALSO, anyone play Spore or Sims 3 online? I got a code from Taco Bell and I play neither.

I am rather horrified Lady Gaga is going to bring back shoulderpads.


I hope not. They are horrible for everyday fashion, just like hers is not really functional. Now for characterization... that's a whole other story. Shoulderpads do wonders in drum corps unis. :)

I would love to see her collab with Billy Joel though. They are both piano talents... It would be INSANE IN THE AWESOMEST WAY, I'm sure.

I just saw The Princess and the Frog. OH MY GOD, SO GOOD. I am so glad Disney decided to keep on making 2D animated films. It was sooooo awesome. They reference all the other princesses, and the villain is SO RIDICULOUSLY AWESOME, and the music is pretty freaking good even though it wasn't Alan Menken like I thought it was. (It's some score composer plus Randy Newman. WHAT. WHY, RANDY NEWMAN, WHY DO YOU HAVE TO RUIN EVERYTHING.)

No, but seriously, it was awesome. The stylized parts were SUPER awesome, and the music was good, and it kind of reminded me a little of the Swan Princess which is also adorable. Heeee.

So now I am SUPER excited for the New Orleans trip. :D



Oh and then I went out and bought the soundtrack and a Lady Gaga album. Yessssss.


(Also, I don't know if I mentioned this, but Lady Gaga has always been rather awesome just for being named after a Queen song.)

New layout. Christmasy. Have been wanting to use these retroish ones for awhile, but they're all Christmasy, so I figured now is the time. =)

I am in a mood. I have been listening to my iTunes for the first time in months, especially since I lost my ipod. I have it turned up to drown out my brain, it's working pretty well, if I do say so myself.

I am also now officially a fan of Lady Gaga. I've liked Poker Face and Bad Romance since I heard them (Just Dance and Love Game are not so great though) and I love that her style is totally out there. I made a wacky-clothes comm once and never updated because, let me tell you, fashion like that is hard to find, especially when you're nowhere near being a part of the fashion industry. (Not buying Vogue ever rather makes it difficult.) Although if you're interested you should look up the blog Haute Macabre, it does a decent job. Who knows, maybe I will actually start posting things in my old comm.

Anyway, she seems to kick ass as a person, not to mention I rather like her music and her style, so, yeah, I am a fan.


Plus she kicks ass, and today, that's about all there is to it.