The Daily Adventures of Mercat

You guys.

You guys.


I am going to COSI tomorrow.

I am going to COSI: Adventure tomorrow.


TOMORROW.

I don't know the last time I went; it's been a while. A loooooong while. But this is the thing that started it all; the reason I even know that Indiana Jones exists, the reason I want to be an Imagineer. It's been sooooo long and I've wanted to go so badly, but it's only open for special occasions, and I haven't been able to go with Girl Scouts because I was in Hawaii in '08 and I think I was in Wyoming last year.

I am only upset about one thing--I haven't been able to crack the maze code. And I haven't done any research or work on it this year either, WHICH I SHOULD HAVE, because I found a post from July of last summer from a girl who is totally obsessed with it (haha, no, it's not me) and KNEW HOW TO READ THE LANGUAGE. If I had found this earlier I would maybe have made more progress! I joined the forum and have been trying to message her, BUT I HAVE TO HAVE MY ACCOUNT APPROVED BY AN ADMIN GRRR and also she doesn't have an email posted. =(

Anyway, it confirms a few things about this code:
1) It's read right-to-left. Whether that "Cymon" sample was is something else... but I might have cracked it by now if I had found this earlier. Anyway, when I was little (omg, last time I was there, Jesus Christ. Probably 13.) one of the workers saw me trying to copy down the code and told me it was read backwards, but I never really confirmed it at all and found it suspicious.
2) It's based on a tic-tac-toe code, which I FINALLY figured out probably only last year when I moved stuff and found my old "spy code" book, noticed the Cymon journal in Adventure has two tic-tac-toe games, and went ~DUH~.
3) It has phonetic characters. I guess this, sort of, based on the fact that I got more than 26 characters when I tried to write them all down to find a pattern. Now the problem is... determining what those phonetic characters are.

GOD I wish I could find some more clues on this. It's going to break my heart if I can't crack it and I have to wait another year. =/

Anyway, LINKSPAM:

Harrison Ford joins Cowboys and Aliens! Fuck yeah this movie is gonna be awesome.


OH MY GOD, YES. YES YES YES. THIS WOULD BE FUCKING SPECTACULAR AND YOU GODDAMNED KNOW IT. I doubt it will happen but FUCK. YESSSSSS PLEASSSSEEEE.



Hahahaha. This is me and my dad to a T.


Also, this is fabulous:

Tron vs. Saul Bass from Hexagonall on Vimeo.

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.

Yeah, to hell with all this snow. Even if it is melting on the ground... I have no will to go outside, and it kinda sucks because I can't even sleep in, my body is so hammered into the GET UP AT EIIIIIGGGHHHHT schedule. Dammit.

Buh, I haven't even got much done on my computer because I found a 232-page thread of stupid pictures. X| Sooo here are a bunch of links that are the result of that.

I can tell you one thing; Hitler may have had a terrible concept of what was structurally possible (seriously, man, have you heard of foundations), but he did have a fantastic concept of what is epic.

This site is hilarious; the guy depicts different emotions, from normal to incredibly specific and bizarre.

This comic is like the new Perry Bible Fellowship, except I am not exactly sure I understand this newest one so much.

How is this a real story?! It's not even recent enough to be an April Fool's joke.

A hilarious video from a third-year art student, showcasing all the awesome skills he learned in an animations art class. If you actually want a listenable loop of that, you can find one here. It's almost Popcorn.

Vader loves Christmas: a hilarious and clever edit if I do say so myself.

I was talking to one of y'all about 3d modeling or robots or some shit the other day, I know I was. And I couldn't come up with the term "uncanny valley", so there you go.

Holy shit Hawaiian yodeling. I've always wondered how close yodeling is to singing, even if only because I have no problem singing the Goatherd song from Sound of Music.

Voytek the soldier bear, fuck yeah Poland!

Also, a retro graphics archive. Mostly 50's-ish, I'd think, style-wise.

Loooooooong post tonight. I have a million tabs to clean up, haha.

OMG ALFRED MOLINA IS IN THE NEXT PINK PANTHER MOVIE. I am so frigging excited. I got worked up about losing my checkbook (boo) and my Shag art Pink Panther checks (double-boo) and spent the day looking at Shag's stuff and Pink Panther stuff, trying to find those cute versions of his. Unfortunately, they were just for the 40th anniversary in 2004... So it looks like it will take some actual hunting to find them.

So how awesome is Shag? Well, I really want this for my computer.

And this is from an interview of him on Modculture.com: "Are there any celebrity "Shag" fans you are willing to name? Do you get invites to celebrity parties?
"There are celebrity collectors, but almost any fairly established artist in L.A. will have them, as the celebrities are the ones with lots of disposable income! One of my biggest collectors is Whoopi Goldberg. Ben Stiller, Seth Green, Rob Zombie, and Nancy Sinatra also own paintings. I don't feel really comfortable around famous people and usually decline invitations to "hang" with the stars.""

YEAH, THAT'S RIGHT, FUCK YOU BEN STILLER HATERS. AND FUCKIN' SETH GREEN. These guys are infinitely more awesome than before.

Also: things you worry about typing into search engines--"shag" is one of them (also, afraid to type in shag.com directly). See also: "shag pink panther". Trust me, I know the horrors Google can wreak. (Like Cthulhu from the depths of the internet. His screams are your own.)

Next up: check out these remixed movie posters. They're awesomely 60's. (And no, it wasn't just Last Crusade that caught my eye.)


Star Wars, as told by someone who hasn't seen it. HILARIOUS. May I also note this is on my "sinning by not having watched it" list, but only as a sci-fi and pop culture classic. There are a lot of others just as equivalent, say maybe Pink Panther? And I do mean the classics. This is nowhere near the magnitude of not watching Indiana Jones, I daresay. E];D

A Public Service Announcement for College-Aged Guys. Yeah, I went more specific than her, whatever, I think it's hilarious. AND EXTREMELY ACCURATE. However, I will admit that cleanliness > organizedness. I look like the messiest person ever because it is somehow all organized in my head. However, dirty is gross. THAT BEING SAID, if you're trying to impress someone, and you have advance notice, go a little out of your way to make an improvement... I don't leave my shit around in the living room when we have Phi Rho meetings, do I? No, I don't. (And my room is a mess because it's not really a living space, just a storage/sleeping space, and I'm not taking anyone in there anyway so who am I trying to impress? That's right, nobody.)

The best story I've ever read about Hades and Persephone. The writer has an amzingly clever way with words.

Obamicon yourself! I feel like this is already overdone, but, hey, I'm sure it will come in handy in a few months...

How to rape your brain without dropping acid. Honestly, I'm gonna try that first one. Similar things happen to me when I'm very tired, very quiet (pretty standard for me) and trying to fall asleep but just staring at the back of my eyelids. However, some of the other ones seem like they would just hurt... Like the fake-arm-hammer thing. Uh, thanks, my brain still hurts thinking about the Boonshoft's Laser Rollercoaster Show. (Ow.)

Still going through some other links. I'm a lazy-ass.

Frig I love tikis.

Ummmph. I'm tired. History test was pretty easy today, though the other class got cancelled. So instead I spent four and a half hours finishing my final project for ceramics because I need to make a backup on Friday because wetwork has to be done then. And I still need a decent idea, I haven't really had any compelling ones in a bit.

My mom sent a package about a week ago that was supposed to arrive in about three days, and I gave them the benefit of the doubt over the weekend, but it's still not here. Which is an issue because it has food and tax forms, both of which have expiration dates.

I went to the bookstore the other day (Monday?) and picked up Empire magazine and Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman. I've been reading the book since dinner, it's pretty good. Just a collection of short stories and things. However, I kind of just realized that Gaiman writes very matter-of-factly and that that's kind of how I'm reading off this entry in my mind. Literature with good tone usually does that to me.

What else, what else? Nothing special. I might give blood tomorrow if I can sign up, I couldn't do it today because I was slaving over a project that looks crappy anyhow. Eh.

For as long as I was feeling homesick and generally despondent, I'm now just despondent and homesick for here. I can't only have a month left. I really don't want to go home, at the moment, and I don't even know why.

Umm I got this story through another blog I read, and I had a humorous image in my head. I think if 90% of the women in the world watched this Depp/Bale film and then watched the McGregor/Jackman one that's coming out soon, the world would spontaneously combust or something. Just a funny thought.

This makes me really sad. Fucking idiot. I wish I would have been there to punch his lights out.

Hmm, I promised I'd make up for yesterday and I'm sure I'm still missing a day or so from spring break so I'll just toss out what I have at risk of having nothing new to post tomorrow. 42 days! How is it that close? Everything feels kind of surreal right now. Anyway, here's what I have.

Fantasically atomic REAL wallpaper. However, click on the image to see a bigger one and save it. That's some gorgeous shit right there, my friends. (I'm including this under the 1957 qualification, and if you don't like that I'm putting it under the tikis/flamingos/Jimmy Buffet/go fuck yourselves section.) (Wow, what is with me tonight? I'm like half asleep and totally mouthy, but in the way that I sort of mean it, not for humorous hyperbole like usual. Maybe it's that British humor where you feel everything you say but you rarely mean it. That would make sense.)

Preview of the Indiana Jones handbook... which is already in some stores so I'm angry I couldn't find it at Barnes and Nobles the other day. Although I guess I should really be saving my money right now for those "limited edition" books and save the other stuff for my birthday or something.

CustomCon Indiana Jones figures. Not too bad, but the faces are kind of wonky. That idol setup is to DIE for, though. Damn.

[EDIT] I think it says something that I got through the entire post without trying to reference 42. I am very tired.

If I wrote Dear Diary style, this is what it would kind of be like: "Dear Diary, today was awesome. The end."

Seriously, I just sat around and did nothing but I had fun doing it. And I had fun wearing all green, haha.

Demyla and I went out and saw Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day... ADORABLE! Kind of creepy to walk into a theatre full of old people, though. (But it definitely explains why I haven't seen any ads for it anywhere.) I definitely recommend it. But it probably didn't help that I sat there the whole movie going AAAAAAH I LOVE THAT DRESS and YAY FORTIES and OMG "ANYTHING GOES!" YAY MUSIC and GUH I WANT THAT APARTMENT *stare*

Seriously. Fucking. Awesome.

And then Barnes and Noble finally had the copy of Empire I was looking for! So our apartment now has an Indiana Jones poster and everything is good in life. (Except that I have to get up at 6 tomorrow... and we'll have a 6 hour difference to Ohio...yuck.)

74 days to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull! Today's trivia: Quote from the Empire article: "Having such a Jones for Jones, has Koepp peppered the script with knowing nods and winks? 'A little, obeying the characters as they're laid out. But inside series jokes? I don't like that kind of stuff. Any self-referential stuff we tried to avoid. I don't think that people remember everything that was said 25 years ago, so referring to somethin you said 25 years ago seems kind of stupid to me. So, no, not a lot of that. But, you know, sometimes for fun.'"

SO YAY no stupid references (which I think is what ruined Pirates 2 and 3), at least, not too terribly many or anything.