The Daily Adventures of Mercat

No school today. This is... amazing. I still have a lot to work on, but I least get a tiny break. It especially helps because last night I was freaking out because I couldn't get to any computer to finish my homework; I'd spent four hours in the lab and came home for dinner. Candice's computer died too (just last night), and Sarah was sick and already asleep and Brittany was using hers. So. I kind of had a meltdown about homework last night. (Just because it was one more thing on the pile, you know?)

Yeah, so. I've been in the lab for about three hours now, but that's okay, I'm getting things done and it's quiet. It's a bit odd in the sense that I'm pretty sure I'm the only person in the building currently... But I like it that way.

It's very bright outside with all the snow, and I definitely was kind of blinded when I walked inside. BUT this is the kind of snow to have, I'm telling you. A foot or so of it, very kickable, and still pretty warm outside, enough that it would be very nice to be outside. Now if only I didn't have so much to do, correct? Yes.

BUT, a bunch of linkspam that has piled up a bit with my computer woes. (Ah, poo. I am no longer the only one in here. Someone else just walked in.)

The immortal jellyfish... Quite cool, really. I'm not very afraid of them being our next overlords because I'm pretty sure it's going to be some octopodian thing and I will ~freak the fuck out~

An adorable Barney and Robin background. I am very sad I don't have my laptop right now because it would most definitely be the desktop...

The Henchman's Helper? I'm not exactly sure what's going on here but I am intrigued.

"Milky Way over Mauna Kea" which should be more accurately titled "Milky Way over Haleakala". Haleakala is the volcano in the foreground. (Still active, though it hasn't erupted in such a long time they thought it was dead. Or is dormant the right word? I think dormant means it's active but not currently erupting...) Anyway, you can see Mauna Kea (part of the Big Island) poking through in the backgroud. It's cool to think I've been at this view, roughly... Damn I miss Hawaii. Holy crap though, look at all that light pollution... That makes me so sad, really.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I would say that this would be the only way I'd read the book, but I suspect that as much as I dislike it, it's noewhere near as bad as Wuthering Heights. So. I will only say that you just have to be aware of where zombies are coming at you from... (Now there's a lovely ending-a-sentence-with-a-preposition, as dislegal as it is.)

Green grafitti. Very cool stuff.

Business currently hiring; I would work for Google...

Well, you have to face it, regardless: the Mayans were very skilled with figuring out their calendar. And regardless of the outcome, I will be having a party. By the way, anyone know when the LHC is supposed to come back on?

Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum. I want to go there. Mechanics such as these mystify me... Sorry for that unintentional alliteration. (Worse than punning, methinks...)

Ah, so, back to work for me... And back to that tiki blog I found. Good stuff, that.


By the way, is anyone else excited for the Pink Panther movie, or am I the only one? (Tee-eye-double-guh-er.)

Environmental ethics has brought up some interesting things to talk about, but it is much less applicable than I thought it was going to be. Well, that sounds wrong. It is completely applicable to every aspect of life, which is why I like philosophy; but it is not at all like my Engineering Ethics class, where we are asked to look at ethical dilemmas faced by professional engineers.

But I digress; today I came upon a thought that can better articulate something I've been feeling lately, that nameless thing.

Regardless, I really don't want to talk about that right now. Last week was a long and exhausting week and this week is not much better. I had a nice panicked moment when I thought I had part of my final project due for economics, but it was the grad part of the class that did. *breathe*

Oh, it's supposed to snow heavily tomorrow. Hurrah! Maybe Girl Scouts will be canceled and I can regain some sanity time.

I've had some pretty bold-imageried dreams lately... I don't know if that's because of all the crap I've been eating and drinking, or the fact I'm not sleeping well, or what.

Everyone seems kind of on-edge, too... Not sure why, but it's rather worrisome.

Anyway, I have like seven emails to myself of links I've accumulated that I need to disperse. So, without further ado:

Cool military deceptions. I've always been intrigued by deception... The number of detective and spy books I read when I was in gradeschool was rather ridiculous, I'm sure.

Any UKers out there? I'm like 90% sure no, but just in case I am passing that on. It doesn't sound good.

The floating islands of Titicaca. So effin' sweet. I'm such an engineering dork.

I'm confused about what's going on here...? But both the Disney-capitalist and agnostic parts of me rather love it. Capitalism is crazy sometimes...

The Eight Weirdest Ways We'll Generate Energy in the Future. As an engineer who's been hearing about green design for a while now, most of those are not that "weird". Personally, the weirdest one is... tornadoes? I think I need a diagram to grasp the idea of this one.

Seven Phenomenal Wonders of the Natural World. I think I've linked this before, but I don't remember the sailing stones, and that's pretty amazing shit right there.

There are a lot of days I wish I could just be an explorer-naturalist. How badass of a job would that be?

Oh dude, and Neil Gaiman got a Newberry award! Congrats to him! Very deserved.

Wow, you know what show I just realized I really miss? Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego. That show is a classic. Add that to my list of detective influences, too. Fuck I love that show. It really went south when they did the time thing... Whatevs. You know, I honestly don't remember much of it other than the map game at the end where you had to put the flags on the correct states as they were called out. But I was just watching it on youtube, and really... That show was so much fun. =/

HOLY CRAP QUANTUM OF SOLACE WAS AWESOME. HOLY CRAP HOLY CRAP HOLY CRAP.

I'm kind of pissed that we got there late and missed the first twenty minutes, but I don't think we missed much (the movie is practically a non-stop action chase and it's pretty clear we just missed a few minutes of cars driving around at some dig/construction site), and we didn't miss the song, so no skin off my nose.

It takes a bit to get into the story of *this* movie (as opposed to the continuum from Casino Royale), but we may have missed something in the beginning (which may tie up the few questions I had about the "bad guys" in this film and the connection to Vesper, and one of M's comments). There's a *lot* of action and Melissa and I both noted that they really needed a steadycam. I mean, yes, I can tell you're going for gritty or whatever, and trying to be confusing, but HOLY CRAP it's a bit much to tell quite what's going on in all the fights.

But YAY lots of action and YAY badassness and HOLY CRAP I totally called the main plot twist ( spoiler ) and HOLY CRAP AWESOME REFERENCE TO CLASSIC BOND ( spoiler ) AND OMG THEY CAME UP WITH A BAD GUY SOCIETY THAT DOES NOT SOUND 60'S RIDICULOUS I LOVE IT. ( spoiler )

So... yeaaaaaaah. I forgot how awesome some of the Bond films are. :D Some movie channel has had a marathon playing, but I seem to always catch the Pierce Brosnan films and tbh, I'm not that fond of him. BUT I think I've been Indy-obsessed for so long now that I really wanted to go back and reread the Hardy Boys novels (look, don't ask, I've just realized that detective novels were a big part of my childhood and I haven't read any in a damn long while) and HOLY CRAP WATCHING THIS MOVIE WAS SO MUCH FUN.


I love spy stuff. <3

So YAY Halloween shopping today! Definitely needed to get some capitalism out of my system, haha. I found a cute bat at Pier One and I got some fun stuff at the Halloween store. I got a knife for my costume and a pair of metal handcuffs for the pimps and 'ho's party (and a suitcase at the thrift store, yay!) and then also I couldn't pass up an "Arabian dagger" and an actually semi-quality metal snake band for an Egyptian costume (which I intend to use when I finally get my shit together and go as a Gorgon).

At the thrift store I finally found a green vest and also a sort of Mandarin vest that I plan to use for a steampunk outfit. I am dangerous when I go costume shopping--sure I have one outfit I need stuff for, but then I see a million other things that I want to do *eventually*... And this is why I have soooo many boxes full of costumes and props around the house, hehe.

I also got the chain (for my swiss army knife!) and the paint (for the suspenders), so basically all I really need is the purple gloves and the makeup latex, I think. No wait, I need to buy the socks from Sock Dreams, but that's it. I went to Hot Topic to see if they had the hexagon shirts in stock... But I didn't see anything at all. I don't think they had room for it, all the costume area was trashy girl outfits and bizarre raver stuff (I mean, more bizarre than their usual fare).

So tomorrow it's off to the Dayton Mall to check the other Hot Topic, and also any other Halloween stores down there; I know there's a Spirit store (I think I went to Halloween USA today), and hopefully at least one other. I was kind of upset that the Halloween store today didn't have Joker accessories (just full outfits), and they didn't have anything Indiana Jones at all (I need the fake whip). And Walmart and Target haven't either... Frustrating. Plus I want to find some of the fake dust that the Halloween Store had the past couple of years, I'm hoping that will dirt up my outfit sufficiently. Maybe I will have to take sandpaper and paint to it too, I don't know.

No luck on my purse run, either. I went all over the mall just looking for a khaki-ish military-ish messenger bag, because this one's kind of dying and for some reason it gets black all over EVERYTHING I put in it. I don't really know where I can find one... But I really need a new purse. Blaaaaaaugh. It was kind of funny how I just marched right in every store to the back to find their purses, looked over the wall for a second and then marched back out. Definitely on a mission. Sometimes the staff didn't even ask me anything, lol. TOO BAD FOR YOU =P

Whaaaaat eeeeeeeelse. Oh, I made a Best Buy run to see how early they open Tuesday, and I'm guessing the skull with dvd is going to run me about $50... Totally worth it. It will make a sweeeeeet Halloween decoration (jk... sort of). But I did find a FIVE WAY mp3 splitter, and the sound jacks are also input jacks, so that you can hook up a couple mp3 systems like a mixer. Which, I don't know how useful that will be, but a five-way splitter? Most definitely.

So yesterday. I'm forgetting something at the moment, but let's start with Capture the Flag. It is a fun game. But let's face it, it's a war game and everybody knows it; when you play it, everyone tries to cheat the rules to their advantage-- I have never met anyone that did not try to exploit the loopholes. As soon as our team left the game meeting to set up camps, I realizes this game was going to create a little drama, as one of the first things we did was create a fake flag. Loooovely. Anyway, we had a half hour to hide our flag, let the other team know where jail was and get ready. It's actually a pretty good set-up, all of campus and all the surrounding housing areas are out of bounds, as are the insides of buildings. The pathway from the campus entrance all the way down behind Stuart served as the boundary, and it was fairly even. We knew the instinctual place to put a flag was Serenity Pines, so we set up the decoy flag there with Candice and two of the other mello girls. Our jail was practically all the way across campus in front of KU in that amphitheatre area, which turned out to be a very bad idea for us. I think with about five or ten more people on each time it may have been viable; it at least kept the other team busy and away from the flag. Apparently the fake flag kept them going, too, the only problem was that there were a lot of people keeping busy at the jail, and then the rest of the team was at the decoy; leaving just me and Brooke to watch the flag. The basic idea was that Brooke would hide in the bushes around the corner from the flag; it was sort of in a corner next to VWK so the other team would pretty much have to pass her to get to it and she could walk out behind them and tag them and scare the shit out of them. My best part in capture the flag is hiding in a dark shadowy place as a lookout and scaring the shit out of anyone who comes by.

I was actually surprised by how many people wear black... When Katy took some art class I remember her telling me that black actually stands out in nature because of its complete lack of color, so I pulled out my green pants and actually my purple sweater worked really well, too, even though the inside of the hood is white. The secret to not being noticed I think is more in being completely still, which I lot of people can't handle. I don't know.

So anyway they really didn't send many people up our way towards the top of Stuart, I think because they didn't want to have to climb the hill that was on their side. I saw Tony come around behind Stuart Hall, up the back road. I jumped the gun and called for Brooke and went around her way and didn't see where he went, so at first I was afraid he was hiding in the bushes. But I went back to my tree lookout (I just leaned up against a tree for most of the hour... I could see the road behind Stuart as well as the hill in front and road in front of VWK, so I could basically see any direction the blue team would come for the flag unless they came through the bushes behind VWK, which turned out to be that they didn't even know the flag was there until laaaaaaaate). Anyway, so no one was really up our way but I was very afraid people would be because although as a team we'd agreed there would be more from our side up there backing us up, but no one was, they'd all left to be where the action was, I suppose. Standing there on lookout for long enough made me realize some of the failures of our plan, lol. I'm way too much of a strategist. Like the fact that I should have stayed hidden more than I did, because I think all that did was attract everyone to the fact that our flag was up there. Although Doug was scouting around too and I think he was the first one to figure out our flag was up there, because he then came around the front. It was rather funny, I watched him walk away down the street by VWK and then double back and creep up in the shadows.

Okay, so this part is the best part of the night. I am watching him sneak up towards the flag, but he doesn't know Brooke is right around the corner. I am trying not to give too much away, because I'd realized we'd been abandoned at our post and with only two people we actually can't afford to tag anyone and have to escort them down the hill to at least the other players, let alone back to the jail. So I am just waiting for Brooke to have to get him, hoping we can get it to all go quietly. At that point I see three blues come around behind Stuart and I'm just praying they don't see me in the shadows. I should have just let them go quietly and assumed they didn't see the flag, but by then I was too scared they were going to just walk up and take it, so I took the risk to scare them off, which incidentally I think did more harm than good because they realized I turned back. (I couldn't just leave one person guarding the flag... though I doubted anyone came with Doug, he was being too sneaky, like I was.) Instead I waited until I was out of their line of sight and they had passed the bushes, and then risking Doug knowing where I was I ran across behind the bushes and that was when I chased them a little and turned back. I realized that they noticed I had turned back, buuuut I had to, even though I really didn't want to. =/ Anyway, so I come back and I'm assuming Doug is as stubborn as I am, that he's still waiting in the bushes. I see some guys come out for a smoke and Brooke scared them where she had been hiding, and I heard the guy say he was going to pee there. Well I found out later that he had already had his pants down, and then when Brooke scared him he went over to where I assumed Doug was, and I hoped he didn't get peed on. Well later I found out (when he and Brooke told me about it) that he was still there (which we found out when we got stormed right at the end at eleven... that was a disaster letmetellyouwhat) and that he didn't get hit (at least I don't think so) but he didn't let the guy know he was there, he just was silent and hoped nothing happened. (Which, I knew he was that kind of intense about the game like I was-- I mean, he wore camo-- so I was happy to see that my guesses were right on that front.)

Yeah, anyway. Ten minutes left in the game we started getting company, they ran off knowing the flag was there and I think had gotten chased off by maybe Josh (the red captain), but as Andy ran down the hill he told the rest of the blues to get up to the top and get the flag. And there were like six of them, and then we were fucked. I knew our only hope was to try to delay it past eleven, which we think we succeeded in but they never rang the bell so it didn't end until they got the flag over to their side (which was 11:03, by the by). Although we were pissed off because they totally swarmed us when we had to replant the flag, which technically we were supposed to get ten minutes to re-hide, and they were supposed to go back to their side. And I was screaming "RED FLAG" at the top of my lungs which was the signal to get reds up the hill for backup, which GOD KNOWS WHY everyone was just CHILLING AT THE PINES when clearly the rest of the blue team not in jail was up the hill. Blargh.

And as for all's fair in love and war, they crossed Baujan field to hide their flag or some shit (which was not only against the rules but illegal for all students), and hid it in a place with one point of access (the rules said two, but they counted "up" as a direction), and then they didn't admit to who was on their team when they swarmed us, which was the entire point of the makeup (lol, pep band facepaint) even though people were showing up late just to watch the game, intentionally. So I was pissed about that because Josh (trumpet Josh) and Peter both lied to me about Josh being an observer, so I dismissed him from my strategy and ended up having to kind of fight him off. (Though I laughed when he tried to tackle me out of Peter's way and I spun around and he slipped on the leaves and fell... karma)

ANYWAY. So afterward we all bitched and then we all got together for a party at Peter's house and a bunch of played Peabone (also Mao also Jackass) which is the game where you know the card structure but you have to determine the rules as you go. It's fun as long as the rules people make as they go are fun, but they made me rather uncomfortable and I tried to be a good sport but eventually just gave up and took my deck and left. =/

So that was yesterday and today... yep. =)

I'm starting to think I want to upgrade to a paid account... So I can have a few more icons, but also maybe better layout and management stuff... I don't know, I keep thinking about it but I never register. And I keep telling myself the next time they offer permanent accounts I'll get one... So I don't know. Meh.

Yep, I've had these articles open awhile, so in order to get them out of the way I'll post them here! =) I promise, later there will be a post of actual sustenance.


( tasmanian devils )


( siberian tigers )


( bees )


( turtles and hippos )


( octopis! )


( ...underland ocean? )


( TREASURRRRE )


( The Napkin Fiction Project )


( Tampontification... actually, it's a very nice story )


( A 'Get Smart' Movie?! )


( aaaand... I may have posted this 20 times already but it's that important, and that awesome. )