The Daily Adventures of Mercat

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...

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!

(The title has nothing to do with anything except that I just took a practice GRE and "gremlins" was the first word to pop into my head starting with "gre-".)

Forgive me for just nearly missing the daily-post--deadline by a few minutes, because I just finished a GRE practice test. How sad is it that engineering has made me excited to take a standardized test?! I work well within boundaries and certain expectations, or no boundaries at all, apparently. I don't know how well I am cut out for slightly-open-ended design work. Which is not good, because that is pretty much anything engineering is. I mean, there are the laws of physics, and the laws of the land, but the problem is that the former is very mathematically complicated and the latter is just very convoluted and you only come to know it really through exposure and experience. Neither of which I really have. And not to mention, mayhaps my brain just doesn't work that way, because I never seem to know where to find the equations/set-up I need for engineering projects. Which makes working in groups good for me because then the other people are good at starting the project, and I'm good at checking things and thinking (maybe a little too far) outside the box.

So... menial desk job or very creative in-charge job for me, I guess. Strange. ANYWAY. Onto the prompt.

My favorite meme of the moment... I don't think I currently have one. Being gone all summer I kind of missed Double Rainbow and Hide Ya Kids and I don't really... "get".... either. Although I think I saw Antoine Dodson a while back but never saw the Bed Intruder Song? I don't know.

Does Rally to Restore Sanity/Fear count as a meme? Because it was probably more that than real political activism (or anything) and I kind of liked that (despite people being bitchy for it). However, it's not quite as wild as Anonymous' protests, so idk.

I guess I don't have a favorite meme right now, so I hope something comes along soon. In the meantime, I'm always a sucker for EFG and since the 5th of November was just a few days ago, let's say that. Even though it was nothing to do with anything, legitimately.

MOVING ON. I was thinking about password access, which led me to think about where you keep that kind of information so that it's safe with you but easily found by others in the case that you were to die. Which led me to think about wills, and the fact that while my mom has every once in a while talked about what she wants (donated organs iirc) and my dad has mentioned his wants (a big party), they don't really know my beliefs in terms of my... lack of faiths... (BUT NOT LACK OF MORALS... byuh) ANYWAY. I don't need any kind of fancy burial, I'll be dead. I've kind of always been about pragmatism, and even when I was really young (early gradeschool) I remember considering the pros and cons of cremation. So this is my current set of considerations: (And let's not call me morbid here, because I honestly approach a lot of what most people would consider "morbid" as just purely interesting. Death is the natural extension of life. Morbid for me is a whole other level. Perhaps I disdain that word... I'm more of a naturalist than a goth? And science is nature, so. )

1. If there's any hint of foul play just preserve as much as possible. Not that I expect this to happen but being slightly paranoid from reading too many detective novels and watching too many crime shows, if there was any hint of foul play I hope there's a really good twist! Which probably means exhuming the body at least once. (...Maaaaaaybe that's morbid. BUT SO ARE CRIME SHOWS)

2. If not, donate any usable body parts to organ donor programs and/or to science. Basically get as much practical use out of it as possible.

3. Bury any remains in a manner as natural as possible because it seems pretty pointless to be dumping lockboxes filled with chemicals into the ground just to sit there and be preserved for... ever.

3b. Plus this ensures that I will never be Undead. (Zombie, vampire, etc.)

4. Possibly do something awesome with the remains such as:
a) use the bones for something awesome such as art, Yorrick's skull in a production of Hamlet, a modern reliquary, et cetera,
b) include them in a treasure hunt/puzzle or as a geocache (WITH ONLY AWESOME TREASURE INSIDE. If I am to be a buried treasure, I fully expect it to be a goddamn bitchin' one.)
c)...et cetera. Basically I think skeletons and eyes are pretty cool things from a design aspect and have many interesting and beautiful (if slightly morbid) options. (BUT I'M OKAY WITH THE SLIGHT MORBIDITY HERE. AT THIS POINT THE MORBIDITY BECOMES MORE WUNDERKAMMER-CURIOUS THAN NATURALIST-CURIOUS BUT IT'S STILL AWESOME.)

5. A really cool headstone. Some classic-and-slightly-creepy design, with a totally clever and awesome epitaph. Like the headstones at the Haunted Mansion, with their Victorian-Gothic-slightly-disquieting style and the totally awesome epitaphs (at least out front--I've never studied the epitaphs inside the ride).

OKAY TOTALLY DONE WITH MY MORBID MOMENT NOW, for those of you who may not like that sort of thing... er... sorry for the lack of warning... =/

At any rate. I have a rant but I don't really want to rant about it right now. Let's just say, between people going back on my Halloween party invite, and being whiny about the party, and my friend failing to do the one thing I asked him to do for the senior show (i.e. leave an appropriate mid-movement moment for the dead-bug), which I told him a month ahead of time when we were planning it as a group, but do people just blow me off when I make comments a few months in advance? BECAUSE I HAVE ACTUALLY THOUGHT THESE THINGS THROUGH, and I mean them. If I change my thoughts, I WILL ALSO BRING THAT TO YOUR ATTENTION.

Do I just... scream "IGNORE ME" or something? (Heh.)

Yeah. Anyway.




...Also I went to trivia tonight for the first time in a good while and I wore by awesome retro-rainbow Star Wars shirt that I bought from Target's boy section last year. The usual awesome trivia guy wasn't there, and the girl taking his place was not as fun. Plus, a lot of the questions were wrong tonight. "A one-note instrument made popular at the world soccer games this summer"? Vuvuzela, except that like all other objects with a natural frequency, if you halve, double, or otherwise multiply that frequency you will get other notes. Octaves, for simplicity, or perhaps... partials... if the instrument is more complicated. Say, like a trumpet. Speaking of trumpets, "a cornet most resembles this musical instrument". Maybe a cornet? It's actually a legit instrument.

And then Pat, being his normal uppity Classics-major self, called out the trivia girl on the question "what famous temple site on the Acropolis?" by screaming "Which temple do you want?! There are at least nine different ones!"

However I also learned that the F22 Raptor can go supersonic without having to use its afterburners which is called "supercruising". Also, the evil wizard on Smurfs is Gargamel and the cat is Azrale. (NO IDEA if I spelled those right, also don't care much.) And the compact disk was invented in 1965 (we guessed floppy disk).

Also-also I cleaned my room today. Go me!

OH MY GOD, I am such an open source science nerd. I mean, science is so expensive and in some instances there is just so much data to be processed (or unavailable due to number of researchers) that stuff like SETI and folding@home and that Mars or moon game or whatever it was that NASA came out with that I totally forget right now just makes me happy inside. Anyway. Jellywatch, a "social networking" open source method for collecting jellyfish data. (Well, any "unusual marine life".)

ISN'T THAT FUCKING AWESOME, you bet your damn ass it is.

Oh god, Viacom, wtf. I don't even know.

Updated Milgram's torture experiment used on French television. Just actually learned about this in Psych, it kinda makes me feel justified in not trusting people. Kind of. Anyway, the data is disturbing as shit, not to mention the effect to which peer pressure plays an effect. I mean, we already know (sadly, this is also in the news) that peer pressure drives people to horrible options like drugs and suicide and all sorts of other bad decisions (fashion standards vary reader by reader), but the fact that people are willing to torture other people to the possible point of death is just crazy. You know you'd like to think you'd be different but how do you know? The best I can offer is that I'd be more particular about the questions I'd ask and the objectives of the testing, but I have the advantage of a pretty decent higher science education and I think way too much so with studies I'm always trying to figure out what they're after. One because I'm curious and two so I can more accurately answer the questions in the method I think is accurate. Anyway. Roles can be intimidating (official, peers, et cetera) and this test, if nothing else, is sure as hell proof. Questioning authority can be a good thing.

I'm sorry, but all those pictures of "trees" and "dust particles" and things on Mars creep me the fuck out because they look like horrible skin diseases. Can't you just imagine parasites under that skin with some necrotic tissue (the gray areas)? Yeah... fukken GROSS.

Hard to believe at one point I wanted to be a veterinarian, jesus christ.

Well, many days late to Ada Lovelace Day, but here is a lovely article about Cindy Cohn, a woman involved with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. I admire people who can argue technical knowledge to people with nontechnical education, mostly because my engineering professors are not those people. And let's face it, I have more of an artistic mind than an analytical one (though I'm thankful I can handle the analysis at all, if I were graduating as a straight-up architect right now I'd be SO FUCKED in the job market).

Oh god, Ottowa, really? It's time like these I'm thankful for the bill of rights which encouraged such lovely things as freedom of the press and the like. Because, you know, photography is dangerous.

This is completely fascinating but it makes me wonder if some people have greater sensitivity to mid-scale pitches than others. When I listen to songs (pop, musicals, doesn't matter, anything really) I could swear I hear semi-glisses and mid-tones that other people don't bother singing when they're humming a tune or doing karaoke or something. And I'm talking about people who were in the musicals or are in band. (Although not always, sometimes it's just a matter of people simplifying sheet music too much so that it follows the composition and not the recording most people are familiar with, ohmygod I am looking at you crazy lady that wanted us to sing our graduation tune LITERALLY. So oversimplified, fuuuccckkkk)

Internet censorship harms schools! Is it really any surprise that any type of censorship is harmful anymore? People NEED to be educated (and if the situation necessitates it, punished for willfully breaking rules). That is the only way that people will grow. Well, experientially, not biologically, obviously.

Isn't this the plot for that Julia Roberts movie? Honestly I think this just shows the creativity of the writers (in their willingness to present it, I mean, not necessarily "originality", as it clearly is an existant problem) as well as kind of not ceasing to prove that we need more basic technology education. Most of what I know I've picked up from the internet and I read a shit-ton more (read: spend more time on the internet) than most people I know. And I am apparently "very good with computers". (Which actually means I know how to Google For Diagnoses. [Diagnosises?]) Which is bullshit, I really don't know much about their operation. Anyway. My point is, if you have sensitive information, don't trust technology. At this point criminals should realize that "older" technology is probably almost safer at this point because some of the technology or applied knowledge to trace certain things like that is rather obscure in most people's minds these days or is just completely without people's realm of experience. Crazy, huh? (And before you wonder why I think of things like this, it's definitely because I read too many detective novels as a kid. You have to think like a thief to catch a thief.)

Oh man, number seven makes me laugh. I remember reading about that (though the social implications were probably beyond my understanding at that point) and at the moment it makes me glad that people were willing to write in and tell the other folks they're full of crap (ignoring the fact that it was a prank, of course).

Did I mention that I bought awesome spectator shoes yesterday? Because I totally did.

We also went on a bike ride, and the extreme wind (due to onsetting rain) fantastically fucked up my knee again. It seems to be healing faster, though, so... here's to hoping? I'd like to actually ride all of TOSRV this year and fuck youuuu Laura for wanting to sag part of it because I DON'T WANT TO SAG AT ALL.


TESLA DRUNK HISTORY, fuck yes. Looking at Drunk History's youtube channel it appears that there are other videos with Zooey Deschanel and such that were supposed to show up on HBO in February? And I haven't heard anything about them since which makes me sad. =(

Also, totally loling over Crispin Glover as Edison. Hahaha, fucking slick-ass bastard.

Speaking of slick bastards, check out Copenhagen over here. Sweet, no? Hell yeah.

This video is hypnotic and creepy at the same time. I'll just leave that there.

Well, I've got about five pounds of links to post. Yeah, I'm sorry... I've had a month worth of craziness. Tests, then camp, then midterms, then more midterms and projects, and finally when it was supposed to settle down last week? Grandpa had a heart attack Monday. They had to induce a coma by lowering his body temp to minimize brain damage. So we were stressed out all week not knowing how he was doing, how much damage there was... Either brain-wise or system-wise since his muscles are already so weak from his broken back (years ago). Well, he's alert and doing better now, although he seems a bit disoriented sometimes. We're hoping it's just from being in the ICU all week, half under coma, sleeping on-and-off all day long, but who knows, there could be some brain damage. =/ Even more than that, we have to hope some physical therapy can bring back what little strength he had before in his arms and hands, which was practically nothing. He has his sense of humor, though, which is a good sign, but it's a little sad because Grandma, of course, never listens well enough to realize he's joking, and sometimes he's just confused, and it sounds funny to mom and dad and grandma, and it just seems so depressing to me. I don't know... The whole situation is depressing. Even though, at the moment, I'm just damn glad he's still with us.

Anyway, so nothing like that to say WELCOME TO SPRING BREAK, huh? Yeah, plus camp this weekend and I-don't-have-a-fucking-clue with steel and the test coming up and just fffffuuuuuucccckkk. Anyway. Damn.

A real-life American example of what happens when you cut all your taxes. THIS IS THE BEST THING EVER. Why? Because I've read a lot of articles about batshit insane tea-partiers and Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck in the past few weeks. And here is A CITABLE, SOLID EXAMPLE of why these anti-taxers can go fuck themselves. You know, after all that logical argument about roads and signs and parks and water and electricity and government and, you know, all that stuff you come across on a minute-by-minute basis.

GOLD.

I'm also watching Jon Stewart, at the moment, rip Glenn Beck a new one. So you may have heard, Fox came out with a panicked article last week saying DON'T SEND YOUR KIDS TO COLLEGE IT TURNS THEM INTO LIBRULS! And Beck and all those crazies have jumped on the Sarah-Palin-crazy-conservative-anti-intellectual bandwagon, and, no surprise to anyone here, Beck does not have a degree. Anyway, so Beck gave this speech apparently and said "you know where I learned all that [history]? the public library" and JUST OH MY GOD. ARE PEOPLE REALLY THIS DENSE APPARENTLY WHAT THE FUCK.


I really dislike arguing politics but I wouldn't even consider this politics. This is just straight up idiocy. And like other sentiments I've seen echoed, I hope this crazy scheme actually works. I hope they convince all the crazy people to vote for them to get Sarah Palin as Republican candidate for the presidency and everyone suddenly just goes WOAH. WOAHWOAHWOAHWOAHWOAH, WHAT THE FUCK. And then people start thinking. Because that is what is important.

Also, depressing, some kid on FML whose parents saw that Fox story and decided not to pay for his/her college. Poor kid, jesus shit. =/

Hand-carved wooden skateboards! I particularly like the stingray, though I feel like this is a skateboard you must be very, very careful with. However I would totally buy one if I owned a surf bar or something, hang that shit from the ceiling!

NOOOOOOOOOO first confirmed cases of White Nose Syndrome in Tennessee bats. :C I hope they figure this shit out, and fast, all the poor batties!

I love Beatonna, and this is completely true.

Blackbeard in Pirates 4! I can't wait for this shit, NO LIE. Everyone's freaking out because OMG WHY MORE JACK SPARROW WRRYYYYY and really? The answer is simple. Because he's a great character. And they somehow managed to rip a lot of the fun and adventure (and treasure) out of the first one and leave it in the dirt somewhere. And that's why I liked Pirates in the first place, dammit.

Not to mention I can't wait to see all the North Carolinians get their panties in a twist about something. Or even better, they won't, and it will be awesome, because North Carolina is pretty sweet, despite the fact that want to think they own the Wright Brothers. STEP OFF BITCHES, DAYTON FOREVER.

=)

Tree Lobsters is amazing. I love their comic about the Mayan calendar, I want to reference it every time that gets brought up somewhere. (Almost lectured a bunch of my civil classmates about it, but I don't feel like coming off as bitchy to people I never really talk to because I'm way too damn introverted.)

And despite all the craziness and ugliness in the world, things like this happen, and people are pretty okay.

This is very true.

Learn to be lucky. I had a comment but I forgoted it.

Holy crap! Coconut water is a substitute for human plasma, that is, it can be used for intravenous hydration in emergency situations. SCIENCE IS CRAZY. BIOLOGY IS CRAZY. Also I think this could be a good survival skill.

This is so sad, and I think it is a good example of what's so wrong with our government right now. =(

Some part of me has always wanted a chameleon, but I would take this instead of a real one. (I know real chameleons require lots of work and like most amphibians and lizards can spread disease really easily. This little dude is just awesome.)

Chuck Lorre rips Glenn Beck a new one, and that atheist is an asshole, just saying. I know a cultural figure of speech when I see one, shit son.

I find this sort of thing very interesting and very encouraging. Why, you may ask? Well, because everyone I know wants to get the fuck out of Dayton, and I've never really understood it. I mean, yes, we are supposedly the fifth most dying city in the U.S., but we're not in the top 20 saddest and I don't think it's horrible. Maybe needs a little bit more diversity or things of interest, but it's kind of my new little dream (and I do mean new, this is an end-of-2009 maybe even just beginning-of-2010 thing) to give Dayton its own big to-do. Ideally it would be some sort of Disney World-esque thing but I don't think that's feasible with Dayton winters. So either a huge cooperative hackerspace-type thing, maybe a sort of open-source college? Which would be awesome, or something just straight up weird, like House on the Rock. Anyway. Dayton is home for me, and yes, even though I want to get out and see the world, I think it will always be what I consider Home home.

Also, I want to go to Cairo just for the sake of American Gods, heh. That book is so good.

This was a big deal last week or the week before, but you know what? Nothing new around here, our lovely local parking nazis (the school, not the local polics, mind you-- campus parking services) have ticketed their own vehicles in our use before. Hooookaaaaay.

Harrison Ford as James Bond:



Yeh, idk, I think Bond is a bit too smarmy-put-together for Ford to play him, maybe not smarmy, but, you know, smart-looking. As in, always in a suit, very British. Ford's more down-to-earth-American-cowboy, if you will.

...Not to mention there's the whole sort of inside joke where Bond is Indiana Jones' father, WHAT KIND OF TEMPORAL RECURSION WOULD WE GET OURSELVES INTO WITH THIS MESS?! The world would go mad, MAD I TELL YOU


In terms of thematic ipod cases, this page has a nice steampunkish one at the top, as well as, if you scroll down, a lovely aluminum one that I would have to use any time I felt like I needed to be onboard an Empire starship or the Enterprise. Fabulous, no? Quite.

An A-to-Z guide for recycling, though it's actually an article so not really searchable--not to mention, I'm sure it's missing lots of odd things as a result.

Alright. So I have always thought that Shakespeare is rather a king of insults, along with Mark Twain. As such I have decided I need to expand my vocabulary of demeaning words, as I am trying to stop using words such as "gay" and "retarded" as well. Needless to say, I will not stop cursing like a sailor and plan to keep on using "fuck" and "shit" as much as I damn well please. =) And I am a big fan of "pretentious ass". At any rate, I need to expand my vocabulary in order to be anywhere near as damning as The Shakesmeister or The Twainz. Today's vocabulary word: "pillock". Good old-timey sound, yes? Excellent.


Interestingly, another take on slurs and curses that I've thought about I took environmental philosophy wherein my professor pointed out that a majority demeaning terms today are feminine in nature
(bitch, slut, whore, cock-sucker, pussy, vag, etc.), so I try to take that into account. However, people use "dick" to mean, basically, the same thing as "asshole", which is gender-neutral, not to mention that for the longest time I didn't know what "douchebag" meant, so, in my brain, "douche" and "douchebag" are both masculine insults on par with "dick". That is, "stop being an ass". However, as much fun the imagery of "ass-hat" is, it is just not fun to say, at all. And most of the fun of cursing is in the saying, I will not lie. Since most of the time I don't mean it sincerely anyhow...



Oddly, my main complaint is not that they confuse cricket with baseball, but rather that they butcher the joke by using "who" once where "whom" should go.

Also I may mention that I slaughtered Uncle Steve the other night in grammatic structure and it was awesome. If there is one thing I am good at in this family, it is, surprisingly, that I could diagram any sentence to you whatsoever, and you will like it, dammit!



Eeeeeeeeeeeeeexcellent.


Well, I'll cut myself off for now, that's a good chunk of links. Not to mention I've probably managed to insult everyone at least once with all the crap I've had sitting around for weeks waiting to get posted, heh.

But as for April 22, Happy Earth Day!



I'll just be over here, depressed that in my lifetime we will probably run the earth out of resources. Awesome.

Well, not technically today, considering I've survived for half an hour past DOOMSDAY, or what shall henceforth be known as The Most Debaucherous Easter Ever. But before we get to the story, I have news items! YOU WILL READ THEM FIRST and like it

#amazonfail. Basically, Amazon started taking LGBT/feminist/general sexuality books off of their rankings because they were being labeled as "adult material". Despite the fact that anti-homosexual books were still being ranked (therefore not labeled as "adult" because of Amazon's ranking system), as are hardcore porn and "normal" sex-related stuff.

Hiding a book about gays and the military, but not American Psycho? I'm pretty sure that's fucking adult material.

BULLLLLLLLLLLLLLSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIITTTT Also, now, Amazon Rank. I particularly like that last sentence.

Here are some more links including the twitter to-do and a semi-complete listing of books that were taken off the listing.

You know, the fact that they censored Stephen Fry's biography (autobio? I dunno) reminds me of that whole scene from V for Vendetta so perfectly, it's disgusting. Goddamnit censorship pisses me off. I am SO GLAD I live in the US. That crap that Britain's been pulling recently with all the anti-terrorism-become-paranoid-and-turn-in-your-neighbors shit? Godfuckingdamnit.


On a less serious note, I had to look up "LGBTQQI" to see what it meant, and I found out there are a lot of letters you could be adding on the end there. Also cool that LGBT is considered more feminist-friendly. ALSO, GLBT is just really like a gay BLT.

Some Amazon alternatives:

www.powells.com
www.chapters.indigo.ca
www.booksamillion.com
www.foyles.co.uk
www.bookdepository.co.uk
www.waterstones.com
www.play.com

Also, SIGN THE PETITION against Amazon's new "adult policy".



An interesting "other side" article about the pirates.

Rainbow finches are in a bad sitch. This makes me really sad.

Uh, so, that story is going to have to wait because I'm exhausted. Sorry. =(

Heeeeey, look! Trivia from the Wizard of Oz movie. Did you know that the "hanged munchkin" story is just an urban legend, but that the coat used for the Wizard (well, the Kansas-wizard, Professor Marvel) once belonged to Baum? That's pretty cool. Also, I don't understand how anyone ever thought that bird was a hanged person... It just looks like a frigging bird stretching its wings. A large bird, yes, but nothing an emu couldn't handle. Also I forgot that the Witch was burned with her trap door escape... Sounds familiar? Maybe witches are vulnerable to trap doors?

Also, I totally watched about a quarter of the Dark Side of the Moon/Wizard of Oz sync-up and it is indeed creepy.

WOAH I just went upstairs to talk to Candice about Conficker and my head is totally pounding. How did I carry a heavy box up a steep hill after giving blood and yet simply going upstairs four hours after giving blood today is enough to do that? Weird. *Hoo.*

Um, someone buy me one of these?


OHHH GOOOOD STAR TREK AD I can't wait to take my little. She is so awesome =)

Oh man, someone said that the Indy game release date got pushed back to June 2. That blows. Now I definitely have to wait until I get back to play it.

Um, someone buy me this too? Mucho coolo.

Dramatic readings about atheism directly from fundamentalist message boards. Funniest thing I saw all day.

Global hacker ring exposed. This is... very scary. I find it incredibly disturbing that cameras can be turned on remotely like that.

Okay, that's probably good for now. I have a shit-ton of stuff to post buuuuut I don't care right now.

Back to cleaning up links because I have way too many tabs open, and that doesn't even include all the interesting stuff I have sitting in my Google reader.

Fighting litter one kid at a time. Good idea, hopefully it actually teaches some good lessons. =)

Derringer Cycles; someone needs to buy me one of these. Or all of them.

New explosion creates new island in the Pacific, near Tonga. That is a sweetass picture.

So bandicoots are fucking adorable.

Poor hedgehog with no spines. :C

First Lady starts garden at the White House, can I just say I am extremely excited about this? I hope it helps support another branch of a sustainable living trend.

A really good video on the Ex-Gay movement. I think the best thing is that after 30 years of creating and participating in the Exodus ex-gay movement, the creators had no successes and APOLOGIZED PUBLICLY for it. GO THEM. True scientists who did not bend the facts to their will.

The most beautiful wave shots ever. Truly beautiful. I'm pretty sure #4 is Waimeia Bay on Oahu. (I remember that tower.)

A very fascinating photo-journal of North Korea. I may have already posted this, but no matter, it is really cool.

New rainbow jellyfish! Cool beans.

Mountain Dew and Pepsi will have a throwback (with omg sugar). Hooray! I am interested to try it.

WOAH HOLY SHIT HARRISON FORD JUST SHOWED UP MY TV IN A WILDLIFE TRAFFICKING AD. That was unexpected, lol. It was like "oh cool some random dude is talking about extinction, going back to blogging nowWAITAMINUTE I KNOW THAT VOICE"

I weird myself out sometimes.

Selling Girl Scout cookies online: I'm actually against it. The troops get money from each box sold and if you're taking over some other troop's market by making it available online, that is rather unfair. Especially if you're one of those obsessive sellers who sells hundreds (or thousands) of cookies. I could never understand those girls. Do they have issues or something? Anyway.

Whew, atheists make up roughly 15% of the US population. That's nothing to scoff at. I'm just compeltely surprised by how high that number is, and I'm sure reading the article gives you an idea as to why that is.

How to survive falling through ice. I probably love survival guides too much.

Rolcats! That is, Russian lolcats.

This guy wants to retool government media, and he seems to have his shit together. We need people who know what the fuck is going on in the world of technology.

Mac OS 7 on an iPhone! I miss MacPaint :C

Retooled youtube mashups: fucking amazing.

I love visual tricks; I'm still trying to figure out what optical illusion was used here.

Irrational Geographic, a photojourney through Mardis Gras.

I love this shirt more than I should. Threadless really does have so very clever tees every so often.

Zec Efron as Prince Philip: the fuck? Sorry but that shot is just... weird. And I really hate Vanessa Hudgens. The only reason I don't hate Zefron is because he actually showed some talent outside shitty Kenny Ortega HSM crap with Hairspray and stuff. Although apparently he's not doing Footloose because he doesn't want to get typecast? Which is too bad, I guess, but hopefully they find someone else that can make musicals popular to Hollywood again. (As for the audience, particularly if you look at Disney fans, I think you'll see musicals never went out of style.)

Nite Owl I saves the Waynes? Can I just say I fucking loved that movie? Mostly for little detail reasons like this.

Okay, that's like 40 tabs, I think that's enough for now. Even though I still have 79 open to clean up...

I have a good pile of links, I've been trying to clean up my googlereader. Blech. The bad thing is that when I sit down and read through Gizmodo and Make... I get all psyched up about electronics. Bleeeeh.

This is pretty cool, and be sure to look at the photos. This guy was able to urge bees to build in nonstandard patterns... It's pretty wicked art/architecture/sciene. I don't know what to call it. It's just fascinating.

Did you know there's a Mars simulation station in the desert? They have people live there as if they were on Mars and then study them. Pretty effin' cool.

They are planning to reboot the Tomb Raider series. I actually had no problems with Jolie, but then again, I have never even played a Toomb Raider game. I just enjoy them as the modernizing-Indiana-Jones-popularity thematic things that they are. So... anything with a good set and maybe some good artifacts, I'm in.

So I don't have a particular link for this, but apparently in the past few months passports have started to been distributed with RFID tags included, for easier data reading. However, it's been shown that someone driving by up to thirty feet away with an RFID reader can steal your data; so make sure if you get a new passport (and probably, some ID's already have RFID tags) that you get an RFID-blocking wallet/passport case for it. They usually just have a layer of aluminum foil added, as that's enough to block it. So yeah, it'd be relatively easy to make your own, too; there's some good how-tos on Instructables.

So this is only a design concept, but it actually looks like a very good design to me.

Finally, looking for a good insult? At your fingertips...