The Daily Adventures of Mercat

So... my letter turned up at 21 pages. Holy christ.


Also, in rereading my post, I realized my internal monologue is pretty much exactly like a script for Archer. So if you're wondering how to read some of the commentary in my posts, just read it like one of those characters. I guess that's why I have come to love the show so much.

LJ just ate my whole post.

Dammit.


I was already Not Giving enough Fucks to care, so, sorry. I was working on a nice little almost-carefree and certainly fucksgiven-free* not-exactly-a rant about the stereotypical genderized joke commentary and some strange assumptions and possibly dive into a little of the mysterious dark world of omg me and relationships** but I currently don't have the desire to retype it (no fucks given currently), so. I don't even have the energy to let this paragraph trawl off (that's like trail off, right?) in an ellipsis because there is far too much implied subtlety in an ellipsis and I am not implying anything right now. There is not enough depth in my stream of consciousness, I am that much in not-giving-a-fuck-mode. (I'll probably explain tomorrow.) Critical depth has not been reached. (Ha, hydraulics joke.)

Au contraire, the material may still be ripe for publishing tomorrow, as I try to scrape together a traditional Thanksgiving post because I am really not feeling it this year. I am just... out of food references.

Also let it be known that my cat's breath smells like asshole and I can smell it from 3 feet away. This could be an issue.

*Is that like Thanksgiving? New thing: it is. Happy Fucksgiven! I imagine this is because of the similarity to "turducken" as well.

**Accidentally typed relationshops. I don't know what that is but it sounds like something that exists in a hilarious alternate-reality version of Diagon Alley. [EDIT: It also might be like photoshops. Still hilarious.]



Problem: I think I am a better (read: funnier) writer when I am tired/out-of-it. I think this is because I just stream-of-consciousness better. I don't know how to control this letting-go-ness though.

I wonder how much less I post here because I have Twitter? Fleeting or relatively unimportant thoughts tend to go there because I can, as it were, "set it and forget it".

I kind of miss all the posting I used to do here, but it sure is convenient.


For the record, my twitter is mercat as well.

I apologize.

I really want to get back to posting regularly, but at the moment the reason I am not doing so, is:

1) I spent the last week beating Portal 2, and

2) cleaning my room.

Once my room is finished and my computer is all organized, I will be back to posting more, I am sure. Now, if my lappy would stop misbehaving, please...

Also at some point I'm just going to have to because the 30th anniversary of Raiders is coming up in a little less than a month. A MONTH! I don't have time to plan that party...

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

Mom called me yesterday in the middle of the day to tell me that Spats was "not doing well" and she had taken him to the vet. Well not only was he not doing well, they thought he was in the advanced stages of renal failure, was suffering greatly and we should put him down as he would only last days to weeks, but most of it pain-filled. He apparently had lost 3 pounds (about a quarter of his body weight) since his last annual checkup, was dehydrated, lethargic, and had been puking all over the house for the better part of a week. The vet gave him subcutaneous fluids and took a blood sample, and mom took him home to see how he did and wait for the blood test to come back. The vet said if it wasn't renal failure it may be a tumor, but other than that she had no idea. Regardless, Spats was not doing well. (Not to mention, I started worrying about Jack, how he was handling having a sick buddy and how he would deal with being an only cat if we had to put spats down...)

So I was sniffling all through trying to finish up some of my work and sat antsily through my class, decided to skip my evening class, and went home to spend the evening with Spats in the event we would have to put him down Saturday. Anyway I pretty much teared up constantly all evening yesterday and I'm just completely exhausted today, but that's beside the point.

When I went home Spats was still rather lethargic and I let him out on the porch. He wasn't moving very quickly and was only barely nudging his face up on a box he usually would have jumped up on. So I put him up on it and he sat there for a bit, then moved over onto the bench where it was sunnier, and eventually as the sun kept moving he moved back to the box. Finally once the sun was completely gone from the porch he came and sat on my lap, and I couldn't help but notice how light he was and how surprisingly bony he felt. I don't know how long he's been sick or how rapid any of his weight loss or dehydration was, but this seems rather sudden. And we can't really tell how long he has been under-eating because there's a really good chance that Jack has been making up for that.

At any rate. I cuddled with him as much as he would allow but it was very sad. When he would go to clean himself or shake his head or anything, he would get about a half second into it and then stop. It is very odd to see a cat that hasn't cleaned themselves well, you can tell something is wrong. Finally when I was struggling to keep my eyes open but was sitting on the stairs petting him, he walked upstairs all the way to my room and hopped up on my bed. I should mention that it's not uncommon when I go home for him to sleep on my feet. So I followed him upstairs and went to bed and made sure to snuggle up with him, although he wanted to sleep on my feet and eventually made his way down there.

So. Yesterday was a rough day. Although by the end of it he seemed mildly perkier than he was when I first came home, which I think was a result of getting some fluids in him. He wasn't eating much at all though.

But! This morning I woke up to a call from mom that the vet had called and it wasn't renal failure. So. We don't know what it is or if it will be treatable, but I am hopeful and I think if we can clear out whatever the system problem is and get food and fluids back in him... Whew. I drove him to the vet this morning and when we were close he crawled out of his carrier to sit on my lap and look out the window. It was rather adorable (and unexpected--when I first moved the cats to the house they would not stop crying) and I told him if he gets himself well at the vet I will start taking him for drives, if he would like that. Like he can talk, right? Anyway.

He is at the vet and I am still rather worried, while I'm not breaking into tears like I was yesterday, I'm still finding it hard to focus. I hope he's not too lonely in there :C And I hope whatever it is, it's treatable. He's only 6, so... yeah. Anyway.

Yeah so I go from no posting to overload! Woo. I'm gonna pass out now.

(On the other side of things, have you ever seen the Idiot Box episode of Spongebob? It is the episode where Squidward gets a new tv and gives Spongebob and Patrick the box... I realized that the look they give him when he opens the box on them is the same look you get from Jack most of the time when you find him crunched up into a box. I got new tap shoes and that is of course immediately what he did.)

On the just-plain-odd side of things, I found out that when things get depressing I apparently switch straight to Robert Frost quoting.

I don't know when to say to expect a "real" post from me. I have a lot to post and... not lots of time. This is a crazy semester =/

[EDIT] Update as of (later) this morning: Mom called, the vet's got Spats on lots of fluids, and he's up and purring and seemingly back to normal. So she thinks it's nothing fatal. C=

I'm alive! I'm posting! I know!

My lappy's hard drive took a dive the day before the semester started and I just got it back a few days ago. I have a lot of stuff to catch up on, but in the meantime enjoy this paper I wrote the other night about the book Cradle to Cradle (and the Biomimicry Institute) for my LEED class while I nearly pulled an all-nighter. It got a little bit ridiculous.

( In Which I Did Not Write a Technical Paper )



I can't even believe I wrote that. Apparently when I stay up late (and then only get 1.5 hours of sleep) my brain transfers function from "ability to form coherent sentences and thought patterns" to "creative but wildly ridiculous thought patterns".

IDEK

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.

NORMAL POST

LEGIT EXCUSE: I TOOK THE GRE TODAY THEN PARTYFAILED. MOM WAS ALL "HEY WANT TO GO TO SKYLINE AFTERWARDS?" AND I SAID PROBABLY AND I CAME HOME TO COLD PIZZA AND A REQUEST TO CLEAN THE BATHROOMS. SO I DID THAT AND LEFT. AND THEN NOBODY ACTUALLY WANTED TO "GO OUT" LIKE WE PLANNED, EVEN TO DRUNK KARAOKE, SO I WAS KINDA IN A BAD MOOD AND THIS DAY WAS KIND OF A WASTE OF MY LIFE TO BE HONEST

SO I'M UP LATE CATCHING UP ON IMPORTANT THINGS (LIKE LIVEJOURNALLING) AND NOT GIVING A SHIT BECAUSE I'M GOING TO SLEEP IN BUT WATCH THE DAMN PARADE TOMORROW ANYWAY

AND THEN AS SOON AS GRANDMA GETS DEPRESSED AND ASKS ME WHY I'M NOT DATING ETC ETC AND MOM STARTS TALKING AT ME ABOUT GRAD STUFF AGAIN I'M JUST GONNA GTFO AND GO SEE DUE DATE AND THEN GO TO WAFFLE HOUSE BECAUSE I HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR PEOPLE TO GO FOR THREE WEEKS AND NOBODY WANTS TO FUCKING GO AND YOU KNOW WHAT? FINE. I'LL GO BY MYSELF. THIS IS WHY I HATE PEOPLE SOMETIMES. BECAUSE LITERALLY NO ONE IN TOWN WANTS TO GO TO THE MOVIES WITH ME.

Some fucking friends sometimes, I swear to god. There is more to life than alcohol.

BUT I DIGRESS.

/capsrage!off

(Note, that is not capsrage "yelling" but rather "comically over-loud voice".)

Now onto your regularly scheduled programming.

OH, HOW APPROPRIATE, yesterday's prompt was the last movie I saw in theatres. INCEPTION. WHEN I GOT BACK THIS SUMMER, AND I FUCKING HAD TO DRAG MY SISTER TO GO SEE IT WITH ME. And before that?! Iron Man 2! My moviegoing track this year is a shame! WHY DOES NO ONE WANT TO GO OUT TO MOVIES THIS YEAR?! Fucking idek.

Last book I read... Well, last book I finished was probably Lost City of Z which I read for fun over the summer and was amazing despite its ending. I mean, the ending is still amazing from a historical point of view but (without giving much away) the whole thing is this buildup and then--AUGH. You have to read it, if you are in the slightest a history or Indiana Jones or adventuring fan, oh boy.



...Not gonna lie though, despite being in a general good mood, handling school okay, work is going fine, working out, et cetera, I am a bit emotionally unstable at the moment. I can tell because the slightest little comments are making me upset enough to almost nearly ruin my evenings. I really can't handle people brushing me off much more to go to parties/drink but "oh I don't have enough money to go to a movie". Because alcohol comes out of the faucet for free, I see. Well alrightythen. I'm hoping Laura's not going to be bitchy tomorrow because I think I'm going to need to run away from the rest of the family with her, particularly since the cuzs (cuzns? cuzzes? idek. "cuzs" looks like it should be Polish.) are on the other side of the goddamned country.


...*sigh*. I miss my drum corps family =(

Things I also failed to bitch about earlier this week: The DJ on Saturday, who took requests up to a few days in advance because he couldn't/didn't do on-the-spot mixing (HA, mixing, if you could call it that--what with jumps and awfully apparent tempo changes), in the three hours we were at the dance, played TWO, count 'em, TWO songs that were 1) older than 2000, 2) not a dance/pop/hip-hop song. Seriously, the guy was awful. About 30 minutes in to the dance he played "Wannabe" (Spice Girls--ngl had to look up the title of that song) and with about 20 minutes left he played "You Shook Me All Night Long". The only other song he played that wasn't some currently-top-40-but-actually-shitty-dance-tune-excuse-to-party-hard song was Pokerface. So out of the songs I requested (Fuck You, anything by Gaga, anything by Queen, and anything by Billy Joel), I got one song. Needless to say, I was PISSED THE FUCK OFF. I spent probably half to two-thirds of the dance glaring at the DJ from my chair. I mean, this could be the fault of the coordinators who hired a friend-of-a-friend and maybe forgot to forward our requests, but what kind of shitty DJ plays pretty much ONE TYPE OF SONG all night?! And not even varying between dance tunes and slow songs? WE HAD NO SLOW SONGS ALL NIGHT.

Basically I'm pissed at everyone and everything right now and I'm about to snap. Not angry-snap but just break-down-snap and no one seems to really give a shit, because that's just how things go. Ugh. I'm kinda tired of this crap, really.

Also I do not recommend trying to follow a conversation about a boyfriend's roommate's cousin who is that person's ex and their crazy parents at a party after taking the GRE, because the actual GRE's paragraph and word problems turned out to be much more difficult and brain-power-consuming than I expected them to be and I was (and am) rather brain dead on the this-idea-requires-a-complex-sentence-of-at-least-four-phrases front.

But onto the linkspam:

So, uh, this happened.

MY LIFE MAY OR MAY NOT BE COMPLETE NOW. <3

A really interesting article about Florence Nightingale's influential graph and a common mathematical fallacy of graph creation/interpretation. Fascinating because I encounter a lot of misunderstood data on a fairly regular basis (thank you, journalism majors), and also because these are the type of subtleties you may have to discern between on the GRE. (I did pretty well on the quantitative section, but the reading/vocab was much more difficult than I anticipated and I nearly ran out of time, having to guess haphazardly at a few questions.) Anyway. Data is pretty, and presentation is valuable. I wish I knew more about the historical context of these charts because it might be an interesting topic for Ada Lovelace Day, although perhaps something that focuses on the graphical fallacy is not the best topic. (Nightingale was particularly observant in clinical matters though, wasn't she? Wasn't she the one who told people to wash their hands, basically, kill less people with infection? Or am I thinking of someone else entirely? FIFTH GRADE HISTORY IS FAILING ME.)

An interesting article about Native American culture, race, and steampunk, with significantly more win than all the shenanigans last year. Although I must admit, I don't think I ever heard the story of "the first Thanksgiving" in school. At least, not as a history lesson, but as more of a holiday folklore type thing, minus maybe the "learning how to plant corn" part. ALTHOUGH ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THAT we never approached it from the accuracy point-of-view either. So.

For the record I still don't like "ray guns" as a steampunk thing. I have never come into acceptance of them. Then again I've also become more standoffish about pop culture's reaction to steampunk as a whole anyhow, so, some part of me just also doesn't give a shit (that my entire POV on steampunk is decidedly different, because the generic running-with-steampunk scene is not my cup of tea).

DAMN I AM RANTY TONIGHT. Sorry about that folks. I'm a bit tweaky, it seems.

(I do like that EL wire on the gun, though, despite my active distaste for mods of that nerf gun... Hm. Considerations, considerations.)


Holy crap this test fried my brain a lot more than I expected it to. First I was moody, now I'm just too tired to parse any article with more than one sentence and a funny picture. Basically my brain is running like MemeGenerator at the moment.

So yeah, I didn't post yesterday because I stayed up until 5 working on a project. YAY ENGINEERING SOMETIMES.

My favorite Disney Princess movie... is probably The Little Mermaid, if you go by numbers. But I do enjoy the new Frog Princess. I've always thought being a singing mermaid would be pretty badass, though. Secret treasure fort?! FUCK YEAH!

Uggs: short for ugly.




Possibly coming up later: locked discussion post wherein I start with a joke and end up taking a horrible turn for the srs bzns. =/ I may or may not be taking things too seriously, BUT I CAN'T TELL. A personal crisis!