The Daily Adventures of Mercat

So I was super excited all morning and then I was so burnt out from two straight work days and a four hour architectural drawing clinic (a ten week class shoved into four hours) and I've kind of lost the ability to formulate effective sentences.

But ONE I realized this is only the second time I've seen Raiders in a widescreen cut, THERE IS SO MUCH THAT GETS CUT OUT IN FULL SCREEN

Two oh my god I felt like I could have been right there on set fucking yes I love IMAX everything is beautiful

THREE:

a) they cleaned up the cobra reflection for Indy but not for Marion
2) I never noticed that Toht had a Magic Murder Bag, check my twitter for a hilarious joke regarding that
#) aahahaha so he drinks whiskey the whole time right? WONRG never noticed on the Bantu Wind before they have a bottle of MEYER'S DARK RUM fuck yes all the justification I need t become an alcoholic

Jesus christ lets' just appreciate m fucking lack of ability to type right now

that's how tired I am

righ t so speaing of alcoholics

I had a bit of a "gained perspective" watching this, and I want to call it peculiar, but I don't want to mean that it's negative. In any way.

It's a little odd watching a movie that you know SO WELL that you know the rhythm of the entire thing, every line of dialogue, every musical cue, every behind the scenes moment, almost literally everything. Because even when I don't watch it for over a year, don't go re-reading all the trivia and everything, it's basically a part of me. I can't "forget" it and go back to a time when it was new to me. Not complaining, just saying that I consciously had to sit back and just enjoy the ride without... expectations?! (I CANNOT ARTICULATE THIS I HAVE LOST THE ABILITY TO THINK.)

BUT.

What I realized, in years of idolizing and living and breathing and everythinging Indiana Jones, I somehow accidentally turned myself into Marion (minus a death from liver failure, probably). I DON'T KNOW, IT'S SO POETIC SOMEHOW, BECAUSE SHE IS TOTALLY BOSS AND HILARIOUS AND TAKING-NONE'YA-SHIT AND IT JUST MADE ME REALLY HAPPY TO KNOW THAT I HAVE, ON SOME LEVEL, ACHIEVED BEING A BELLIGERENT FOUL-MOUTHED ACTION HEROINE.

After a week of studying Buddhism and their religious design structures and theory it was like a small moment of self-enlightenment and SHUT UP. I AM AWESOME AND I AM SO BRAIN DEAD THAT I GIVE ZERO FUCKS RIGHT NOW, I JUST SAW MY FAVORITE MOVIE ON THE BIG SCREEN FOR THE FIRST TIME AND I CAN DIE HAPPY.

askjbflakdfjbalkfdbalkjfblakblakdflks GOOD NIGHT

let's talk about the little things I am enjoying seeing crop up in Prometheus discussion:

1) Crystal skull/von Daniken/etc. tie-ins

2) my association of the apparently "ampules" to canopic jars

3) my terming of the Engineers as Titans/Giants

Basically, history and art history and mythology all tied up with science fiction. SO INTERESTING.

2 & 3 particularly because everyone I'm seeing is terming them differently. Interesting associations.

Also, dancecat89 turning to me at the end and saying "I feel like I should have seen the Alien movies before I saw this one". Recorded for eternity.

Also-also, ( spoilers )

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

that that "Ferris Beuller's Day Off" sequel turned out to be just a parody Super Bowl commercial. Because the ad is actually clever and a sequel would have been a FUCKING HOT MESS DISASTER.

What I just posted to fb: "Wow, I wonder how much in licensing fees that MetLife commercial cost. I didn't see any Disney characters though, so probably not as much as all the Roger Rabbit sequels that never happened for that exact reason." I would really love to see another collaboration some day though, that was pretty awesome you have to admit.

Good on budlight for encouraging people to help rescue animals. It's good to see someone at least trying to put all those millions of dollars towards good things and not just pointless-ass commercials.

Says the girl watching it just for the commercials.

(And halftime) (the joys of commercialism)

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.

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

I really liked it. I was sort of like an action movie, except the villain is invisible to the naked eye. However I thought it was really well-written, from an entertainment and pacing standpoint, and my mother approved as a doctor. She gave my dad and I kind of a running-brief-commentary on events that were accurate or not, and overall she thought it was fairly accurate.

The most inaccurate part, she said, was the bat involvement. I think she meant the fact that it was a bat virus spreading to humans, but possibly she meant the pig/bat crossover. As I'm not an epidemiologist, I don't know. But I do like bats, and ( SPOILER )

She did say she thought they probably used bats just to differentiate it from the bird flus as of late. (I had a bird fall out of the sky, dead, next to me a few years back. DEFINITELY weirds you out. I don't think it was "bird flu" though.)

I saw that Bat Conservation International is going to write an article on that aspect, so I'll probably repost that whenever it comes out. I love my batties :C And we don't need any more public fear of them, jesus. They don't fly into people's hair, they're not actually blind, and although if a bat gets inside you should treat it as rabid, rabies is actually pretty rare. (I wish there were a better way than killing trapped bats to test for rabies, but alas. *tears*)

I figured my mom would like it, when H1N1 hit campus two years ago (she's the head doc in the health center) she was all about getting shots and telling people to buy hand sanitizer and isolating people. It was interesting to hear, after we saw Contagion, about everything she did to prep for H1N1 when it started spreading. She said she wanted at least her department to be prepared if none of the others were, and they ordered a 3-month supply of N95 masks, which was like 5000 of them or something. And in a meeting she mentioned to other departments (her boss? student services? not sure) that if it was as bad as the 1918 Spanish Flu (which people were suggesting originally that it was, or worse, but she said that was the worst-case projection they were using until it stats came in), they would need a morgue for 10% of the student population. (Which seemed high to me, but, I am not a doctor, and she might have meant 10% of the infected population, but I can guarantee with a bunch of college students living in such close proximity that's probably most of campus anyway.)

ANYWAY.

My dad made the comment that he didn't think they successfully showed societal breakdown. People could still get gas and electricity even though garbage wasn't being picked up. ( SPOILER ) And he thought they didn't successfully show the emotional impact of that sort of thing, especially when ( SPOILER )

I told my dad that they probably wanted to avoid that because there's SO MUCH of it in movies like 28 Days Later and Zombieland, and they wanted to avoid that zombie-movie sort of stereotype. I think it's kind of an interesting commentary, though, considering that the US seems to expect riots and violence, but as we witnessed (and someone pointed out to me) when the earthquake hit Japan, they were very calm, helped eachother, et cetera. Is that humanity or local culture? A worthy discussion point, I think.

But anyway. THE SCARIEST THING ABOUT THAT MOVIE (other than I hope people don't start hating bats because of it): Jude Law's snaggletooth. For reals! He has some super-close-ups, and it was a terrifying thing.

When they brought out his character I thought they were going in a different direction with it, and I wonder if the people who wrote/worked on Contagion had any influence from Mira Grant's book Feed. I thought it was interesting that they both brought bloggers into the mix, but good to see they went in different directions. However, I'm not sure Contagion really went all the way with Jude Law's character, especially considering that they had A TON of medical advisors, and they mention both homeopathy and vaccination-autism fears. Two things which have no scientific support, and yet, it seemed to me that whatever the "natural" remedy was supposed to be (whether homeopathic or not), there was one line (I can't remember) that seemed to be evidence that it worked. And not only that, but that ( SPOILERS )

As for Marion Cotillard's character, I think they forgot to wrap up her storyline?! ( SPOILERS )


Anyway, it was entertaining, and it reinforces my desire to create an emergency-preparedness kit (aaaand maybe a bugout bag). I'm glad my mom enjoyed it, especially after she forwarded the CDC's "zombie preparedness" page, which she thought was cute. I got her to see Shaun of the Dead last year, and after talking about Contagion there's a chance I can convince her and dad to see Zombieland or 28 Days Later.

So if you like that kind of movie, I definitely recommend it! It had an all-star cast and I thought the acting was great. And if the science was 95% great, too, that's excellent.

Side note: didn't see Madagascar get red-ed on any of the maps, heh. (joke source...ish)

EDIT: Here's an adorable battie gif. Just because :3

LET ME SHOW YOU THEM.

First off, where have I been? Alas, busy. Trying to get a job/internship, and drum corps. That's pretty much all of it. Trying to catch up on my huuuuuge list of to-dos so I can get back to sitting around and actually posting.

Anyway.

I did see the last Harry Potter movie last night, which was great up until the epilogue, even though I knew it was coming. Because really, their makeup was Not So Hot and I really still dislike Ginny. Despite Chamber of Secrets being my favorite book (BECAUSE BASILISKS), I feel like she really is just an accessory or leftover character after her role in Chamber, and she was Harry's consolation prize because Ron would get the shaft if Hermione ended up with Harry.

P.-the-fuck-S., their kiss was straight-up pandering I-hate-fangirls-and-this-audience-rolling-my-eyes grade ugh. I mean, please.

On the other hand, I thought 7.2 developed very nicely and flowed very smoothly. I was a bit bummed to see Neville didn't get played up more, but then I found out I misremembered THE ENTIRE ENDING OF THE LAST BOOK?! Which was because I read it on tour in '07 (the week it came out! Lucky WalMart stop on that bit) and I stayed up until three or so in the morning, ON THE BUS, reading it. Man oh man. Here's what I thought. Harry gets "killed" and carried back, we see the final little showdown happen and Neville whips the sword of Gryffindor out of nowhere and finishes of Voldy, making him the TWIST ENDING UNSUSPECTED FULFILLMENT OF THE PROPHECY.

So... I pulled that out of my ass or dreamed it or misremembered everything or just straight up my brain blocked the real ending out?! I DON'T KNOW. Because I am a little pissed that it wasn't Neville, and it kinda seemed like More Glory Harry Didn't Need Because He's Kind of Spoiled and Whiny Like James. Yes. Anyway.

CGI on the brooms = STILL FUCKING BOTHERSOME. IT HAS BEEN A DECADE-PLUS OF MOVIEMAKING, PEOPLE, MILLIONS OF DOLLARS, AND YOU ARE TELLING ME THAT PEOPLE STILL FALL FASTER THAN GRAVITY AND MOVE THROUGH AIR FASTER THAN DRAG WILL ALLOW?! WILL YOU FUCKING CUT THAT SHIT OUT ALREADY. Okay then, pet peeve, obviously. (Third one was still the best in that regard despite everyone's boo-fucking-hoos about "uhhhh waaaaah omg the weeeerewoooolf". Shut up. It looked pretty damn realistic. You know why? BECAUSE WEREWOLVES ARE NOT REAL)

Aaaaaand it definitely felt like the end of an era to watch it. And I was a little disappointed I didn't dress up, but I don't have the whole outfit and it would have cost a pretty penny to get a Hufflepuff outfit together, and Huber is a terrible place to hang out (seriously, the crowd was awful-- all fangirly teenagers who cheered when a fucking Taylor Lautner movie ad came on, PLEASE, and no one dressed up well [seriously ghetto central] and there was a girl behind us with a shirt that said "I'M SLEAZY FOR WEASLEY" [classy] and STOP CLAPPING AUDIENCE, WHO ARE YOU CLAPPING FOR.) and et cetera.

But. I miss reading the books already and I want to make a big fort and set myself up with a cooler and a bunch of premade snacks and just read straight through the whole series again. It really is a quality series, despite how much I pick on the movies.

And I do wonder, when will they decide that it is time to remake the movies more true to the books? I seriously fucking miss all the house ghosts and Peeves and all that. And you know they pretty much hired every actor in Britain anyway so it's either going to be American actors (please for the love of god NO) or B-list actors in which case either 1) more production money for sets and CGI or 2) made-for-TV-becomes-a-years-long-television-show. A "miniseries" as it were, but, more actually, a "mega-miniseries".

At any rate. I want to go to Universal Orlando now and GET A FREAKIN' HUFFLEPUFF PIN. I got a Gryffindor one for Christmas from my great aunt, but, alas, I am not a Gryffindor.

True story, when the books first came out my cousins got a little magic-8-ball-style sorting-hat keychain and we sorted the whole family. I still have the list somewhere. Out of something like a dozen people, I was the ONLY ONE to end up in Hufflepuff. Poor Hufflepuff!

Also, in relation to Greek mythology, I suspect that Hufflepuff's "black" color is perhaps iron? Like, wrought iron is black, as is cast iron, and all the other houses have their respective metals: gold, silver, bronze. According to the Greek mythological ages there were the three failed ages, gold, silver, and bronze, and the iron age which resulted in Humans As We Know Them Today. (That is, not Titans, etc.)

As a civil engineer and a mythology aficionado, I APPROVE HEARTILY. (Not the shiniest but we are the strongest? I can deal with that. ;P)

Anyway, um, I think that's all of it. As for other books being made into movies, American Gods is, and I kind of want to refuse to see it, based on the same reasons I refused to see Chronicles of Narnia (it ruins the version in my head). BUT, at the same time, American Gods is REAL PLACES, some of which I have already been to and were in fact the entire reason I got the book in the first place (House on the Rock). So... I am conflicted. We shall see.

Oh, also, I watched the original Planet of the Apes yesterday. It's a shame I already knew the ending, but still, the storyline is sadly relevant to a lot of today's politics and still extremely well done. Well, except for the part where the space crew is two white guys, a black guy, and a white woman, and [SPOILER ALERT] the woman dies in the first ten minutes, and the black guy dies in the first maybe thirty minutes, and the savior of humanity ends up resting on the shoulders of one stuck-up asshole white man who apparently is willing to attack his cagers for their paper instead of signaling with, you know, HAND MOTIONS, the motion of writing or handing him the paper or something. For reals? Sadly. Aaaaaaanyway.

Aside from that, I also couldn't get over how VENTURE BROTHEEEEEERS the whole thing felt, sorry Charlton Heston. Your voice-acting is just tooooo much. (But also, that was the times. I get it. But it's almost a parody of itself, so many years later.)

At any rate! I recommend it nonetheless.

Oh! Trailers attached to HP. Batman was a huge letdown. Sherlock 2 was AWESOME but I can't wait until Christmas, PLEEAAASSEEEE (and where was Stephen Fry?!). Cowboys and Aliens is going to BLOW MY FUCKING MIND. Taylor Lautner makes terrible career choices and sometimes Alfred Molina Satipo does too. The Borat guy, on the other hand, is some kind of mad genius (he's in Hugo, which looks good but odd).

Oh, and Ciaran Hinds was Aberforth, who for a split second I thought was Stephen Fry and was SO CONFUSED, and I remembered how awesome Ciaran Hinds is (Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, the second Tomb Raider), and then I remembered I hadn't come up with Alfred Molina's name yet and we were halfway through the movie (DAMNIT SATIPO) and I also remembered that I hate Daniel Craig's American accent (Tomb Raider, the first one). So. Yes. Also I still have not seen the new X-Men, but I did see Horrible Bosses last week and it was okay but really slow to start and not great but maybe rent it if you're bored and looking for a comedy. Why is Kevin Spacey so good at being evil? (LOL Lex Luthor.) Also I still have no goddamn desire to see Captain America. It just looks so lame and STOP RECASTING DC CHARACTER ACTORS AS MARVEL ONES, CAN WE PLEASE. Fantastic Four was awful. I hate Captain America's costume. FOR SERIOUS.




...HUFFLEPUFF PRIDE! NO SHAME. GO BADGERS. (AMIRITE, WISCONSIN?)

It was much better than I anticipated. I remember seeing a preview last year and thinking "man, those costumes look like shit." So I had low expectations. And the costumes did bother me, a little, not not to the extent they did last time I saw them, which must have been pre- postproduction. (...Production?)

Anyway, I spent way too long thinking, "Who is that actor, is that Mac?" and finally I had to whip out imdb and I realized no, omg, it's fucking Bootstrap Bill. Skarrrrrrsgarrrrrrrd

Fabulous.

Although the writing on that felt kind of weird to me, like they just kind of jammed his character and the younger girl (intern? family? wtf?) in there to provide comic relief and insight to the mythology. They didn't really do great justice to Natalie Portman's role, either, I feel... I mean, yes, this is a movie about Thor. But these are the Earthlings (feels weird to say that) and they were kind of... too much relegated to side-story? Idk.

The costumes still bother me, btw. The "Vikings" at least. (Viking gods? I really don't know what to call them.)

Although I do like how they dealt with them being "gods", because, let's face it, that really bothered me and admittedly I have never read the comics, but I could just not wrap my head around why the fuck a god was hanging out with mutated and superpowered humans.

Liked the nod to Stark, I laughed my ass off. And the note to Banner, nice touch. Felt odd to me they left out Captain America, though-- although maybe I just missed it.

Mad props to Chris Helmsworth, who gave much more depth to a character than I expected, and made him look noble in the process (Thor, that is). Loved the whole "vikings clearly not in the right time period and not knowing how to deal with modern society" issues (the cup bit, the horse bit, no pun intended).

Did not really like how they treated Loki. He is a trickster god, is he not? Chaos for the sake of chaos and trickery for fun? His jealousy was 1) not ragey enough, 2) not rationed well (blame the writers? idk), and 3) just out of place at any rate. That bothered me.

Also, interesting to see, despite the fact that magic alien Vikings had asians (Japanese?) and blacks, women are still relegated to a lesser class . Ironic that these are then "gods". MODERN ANALYSIS, I HAS IT. (In fact, going by numbers alone it seems the visible women might have been better off on Earth than in Asgard-- here we had two [I'm guessing] astrophysicists, and Asgard had one woman fighter and Odin's wife, and then a bunch of pretty women fawning over the victors at the end. Although I also did just realize I don't think there was a single visible female agent in all of SHIELD's shenanigans, either.)

Also, LOVED Stan Lee's bit in this one. So awesome.

Rainbow Bridge, fucking high-tension foot thick labradorite shit? FUCKING LOVED THAT. Can I have that as a real life design material? PLEASE?! And the Futurist buildings on Asgard were neat for the most part. Stiiiiiill super hate their fashion sense, though. (Seriously though, what was that labradorite stuff? I hope they had some mad set for the close-ups and it wasn't all CGI, because it was BITCHIN'.)

Um, and, yeah, at least one scene with a fucking eight-legged horse goddamn fuck yes Viking mythology! No ravens though, I was sad.



AND OH MY GOD I SAW THE FIRST FULL-LENGTH TRAILER FOR COWBOYS VS. ALIENS FUUUCCCKKK YEESSSSSSS I AM SO EXCITED NOW. IT LOOKS AMAZING. I KEEP FORGETTING HOW MANY AMAZING PEOPLE ARE IN IT. DANIEL CRAIG AND HARRISON FORD OBVIOUSLY BUT ALSO OLIVIA WILDE AND SAM ROCKWELL AND DIRECTED BY JON FAVREAU AND OMG. CAN'T. WAIT.

(Also, I know even though Favreau is done with Iron Man stuff-- sadface-- the fact that Kenneth Branagh did Thor-- love him, ever since I saw his Hamlet-- and Joss Fucking Whedon is doing the Avengers, and I finally saw the newer Hulk and it was not bad by any means, and Thor surpassed my expectations so I have a little higher hopes for Captain America, and I kind of want Wolverine to be in the Avengers even though I don't think that's happening, oh my god, I kind of love the whole Avengers thing now. Can you imagine sitting down for a marathon of Hulk and Iron Man and Iron Man 2 and maybe Wolverine and Thor and Captain America and FUCK YES. Damn.)

Also-also it was really nice to just get out of the house after all the earlier shit and hang out with Johnny. And do some Waffle House philosophizing also, always good. (Not to mention always being our own MST3K...) Trading shockingly relevatory gossip back and forth (on both ends! he hadn't heard Downie was married and I... got other stories I cannot pass on, sorry... I'm not even supposed to know, and admittedly I'm a little sad my other friend didn't think he could come to me? oh well, I'm over it, I'm more happy for him than upset at all). BUT YES. Also found out he's been a redditor for a while and I am admittedly slipping into its grip. For about the past month or so... Don't even know how I ended up there initially. But. Time marches on.

Sort of... there are a lot.

I love this Portal shirt but the fact that momentum is retained through portals means that the slinky would not work on those stairs. It's falling farther.

Space Core is Nyan Cat.

I like that this personification of GlaDOS reminds me of Spalko. It's appropriate, in a cold, calculating way.

A pink kitten! Poor little kitten. :C SO ADORABLE THOUGH, SO TINY.

Ohmygod, this is a photograph.

It's Pushing Daisies in real life! Science is cool. Related! Fungus packaging.

I MISSED THIS BY A DAY (a month ago, but still). Would have been awesome. So many things I love involved!

Some really beautiful math and science behind Tron: Legacy.

More later as I keep cleaning...