The Daily Adventures of Mercat

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

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


For the record, my twitter is mercat as well.

OMG color e-ink is coming. By the time I can afford this stuff, these systems will (hopefully) have settled a little more and be COMPLETELY AWESOME. (As if they aren't already.)

I still think it would be awesome if there were an open-source pdf textbook service that would 1) put shitty textbook companies (read: bad writers, those under the effect of legal shit like Texas' removal of non-christian religions and the downplaying of Jefferson because he was "an atheist", ripoff artists who release new editions every few years just to make money while wasting both people's money and the materials used to print them) out of business, 2) reduce the weight load of students, which would, in effect, 1) save students money, 2) [theoretically] allow for more honest writing (think about the accuracy of wikipedia here, sort of), 3) save students from weight injuries (I did my eighth-grade science fair on this, remember?), 4) save physical materials. Look, if you could buy a pdf-reader for your kindergartener and it lasted them all the way through college with the net result of no physical textbooks, wouldn't that be amazing?! It could even be a laptop or a netbook and not e-ink, if that was what you needed.

SO! EXCITING NEWS. A random lady (and by lady I just mean, a female who I would consider in an older age group than me-- she has a daughter who is old enough to have been to COSI, but she's not, say, whole generation older than me, probably in her early 30's or late 20's?) messaged me on facebook through my posts on the "I miss COSI's Adventure!" group. We are going to start a fan page for Adventure and PROBABLY end up breaking the code as a team (unless I somehow manage to stumble into the solution beforehand, which is doubtful). BUT! I am so excited.

Also, I really want to win that spend-the-night-in-Adventure contest. WOOOOO.

A geek pronunciation guide, which I actually found helpful and corrected me on a few things. (Although to be honest when I see "WYSIWYG" I just say "what you see is what you get" which is definitely easier than saying "doublyew-wy-ess-eye-doublyew-wy-gee". Don't ask me why I chose those spellings, I just did. There have to be a ton of ways to "spell" letters, and it probably changes every time I have to sit down and write-spell something.)

WOAH. You're going to want to read this.. It's an internet security issue. ANYONE can hack your social media as long as you are both signed into the same UNSECURED WI-FI. Which is most wireless. BRB trying to secure things.

So I've seen the world's largest gummy worm floating around the internet for a few weeks, and for the life of me, something about it bothered me in the back of my mind and I couldn't figure out what. But I just got it: look familiar? (Side note: I've seen those World's Biggest Gummybears in person, they look disgusting based sheerly on mass. I'm pretty sure the worm would be the same way, although it would make for a GREAT halloween food item.)

Also. I am not in a great mood, currently, with technology. My OneNote files decided to get corrupted, and it's looking like I probably won't be able to rescue them (FUCKKKKKKKK). Additionally, I just discovered today that all the quotes I've kept in my facebook application --ALL 150+ OF THEM-- are no longer accessible because the app just DISAPPEARED without warning anyone. GODDAMNIT. As much as I love OneNote I think from here on out I'm going to try to just keep everything in Evernote. UGH.

Some guy on twitter made a bot to argue anti-global-warming crap with people, originally just for the people that responded to him, but now it actively searches and starts discussion. Trolling for arguments with a chatbot might be the best method of this, because you present the same evidence without wasting your own time, which you know you're going to if you spend your own time doing this. Really. I want to give this guy a hero badge or something, shit.

The Kahiki's fireplace is for sale! If I had a real job, and I lived here, and I were actually opening the tiki restaurant I dream of opening, I would buy it. (Last time I checked it was at $1.25... I COULD AFFORD THAT.)

PROMPT TIME! I used to play softball. However, my "sport" is marching band. Specifically, drum corps. <3

A cute video:



So, more information on the 200 student cheating incident I posted yesterday. Granted, I only read the article the other day and did not watch the professor's video; I think I'm too empathetic and I didn't want to feel angry or guilty or shamed watching a video that had nothing to do with me. I get that enough in regular life, thanks. (I can't stand to see people embarassed... I, unfortunately, am readily affected by second hand embarassment, which SUCKS.) ANYWAY. It turns out the students were just studying from the publisher's testbank. Maybe it's a generational thing, but I don't see a problem with this. I study from people's notes, from answer manuals, etc. IN FACT, the books we've generally used HAVE THE ANSWERS IN THE BACK SO YOU CAN CHECK YOUR WORK. Granted, this is a test. But I do think the professor should expect students to be studying from the materials they can attain legally, and if he uses the same problems, I don't think that's the students' fault. I use solutions manuals to check my work regularly, when I can, because THIS SHIT IS HARD. I need any advantage I can get to pass these classes, and I don't consider it cheating to check my work, or, in this case, anticipate problems and study.

I'm still not watching that video, I'd probably make myself sick.

Honestly, what's with all the "Cowboys & Aliens: Ford's Comeback" crap? WAS HE EVER GONE? I say no. Choosing to do a different genre doesn't mean you've slacked off, it means you got offered different things.

SURE, just like Disney's switching 100% from 2d animation. Okay. Look, you can be creative and come up with more general-children's-films ideas, but at some point you're going to want to make "a princess movie" again. Also, WHAT THE HELL DO YOU CONSIDER ALADDIN TO BE?! If that's a princess movie, I CAN'T EVEN.

In other rage-inducing media news, there's a Mean Girls 2 coming out?! Ugh. Please.

On a positive note, I'm catching up on episodes of Chuck and they just made a Fievel Goes West reference. UH, YESSSS.

Hey all! I've been meaning to post the HUGE post I have sitting on my desktop with a month's worth of book reviews, articles, youtube videos, all that shtuff... Unfortunately I just haven't had time this week.

Anyway, I'm off to march with Troopers for the summer! You can follow me on twitter (mercat) for random thoughts and sometimes scores.

H.L.D. and have a great summer!

I had to re-edit my last post several times for html and spelling. In the course of re-reading it, I realized... sometimes I don't provide the best context for the links. I just kind of... throw them out there. I don't know. It's how my internal monologue goes (and I don't exactly self-edit much), but it doesn't do much for getting people interested, necessarily, does it?

Anyway, we'll see how that goes. I'll probably be a little more self-aware as I write, at least for a little while or until I settle into a slightly better style. Anyway. Well, you have to change with time, might as well improve, right?

Also, an interesting exchange on Twitter:

I make a EEEEEEE-ful post about two baby bunnies playing chase with eachother behind KFC.

That warrants said reaction, no?! Baby bunnies are fucking ADORBS. Cue this random response:

CapsCop @mercat You know someone was fired for typing in all caps

Oh... 'kay...

Unfortunately I reacted a bit too quickly with:

LOOKS LIKE I DON'T GIVE A FUCK. THIS ONE'S JUST FOR YOU :]

However, snarkily;

1) Yes, I did know.
2) What the fuck does that have to do with anything? Does this look like a professional's sensitive tweet-stream? Hell no!
3) (I'm pretty sure it's a bot anyway.)

and then I realized... 4) No punctuation.

I really hope they respond again so I can call them on that. The fundamental law of grammar errors on the internet: if you call someone out, you are doomed to make a mistake as well.

Haha, suck on that, person who has no life other than to harass people for using all caps!



Seriously though, this is the internet, when the hell did capslock become a crime?

Well, guys, I am officially headed out to march for Troopers Drum and Bugle Corps for the summer. You can find our schedule on DCI.org if you want to come see a show =)

I suspect there might be some people who might come by the journal looking for me... If you see any comments to that effect, please just let them know I'll be back in mid-August.

I think I'll be using the daily-mass-twitter updates importer, so that way you get daily tweets in reading order. And hopefully twitter stops effing up my punchlines. =P


See you in August! [EDIT] Just kidding. Of course, LoudTwitter does not want to work, so we are going with that box thing from the other entry. And if that doesn't work, well, you'll just have to follow me on my actual twitter page. Just a note: If you make an "@" reply, because of the path I use to get it texted to me I can only see an additional 48 characters. So keep it short or send multiples, I don't mind. =) Or just straight-up text me. Have a good summer!

Testing a twitter "widget"-y thing before I leave for the summer. =)

twitstamp (an image that updates every 15 minutes or so):



Twitter's HTML stamp (any idea how I can use CSS to make this look pretty?):






Twitterbox widget:




Which version do you like best? I'm leaning towards the second one but it's kind of boring. =/

[EDIT] Except that the second one appears to not have any content...

Aha! I have procured a method to recieve "@" replies only.

The intructions, should that site disappear:

1) Head over to this Yahoo Pipe (http://pipes.yahoo.com/geekygirldawn/ea0f9c9d6e951617143d4def230d4d3b)
2) Enter your Twitter username in the field and click the "Run Pipe" button
3) After the pipe is done running, click the "Get as RSS" button
4) A new window will be loaded with your RSS feed. Copy the RSS link from the navigation bar
5) Head over to notify.me and register for a new account
6) Configure each notification method that you would like to use: SMS, Email, and IM
7) Click the "Sources" tab
8) Paste your Yahoo Pipe RSS feed from step 4 into feed box and click the "Add Feed" button
9) The field will appear in the blue box below the "Add Feed" section. Click on the buttons for the type of notifications you would like to receive. In my case, I only have SMS selected.

I am currently testing this out to see how effective it is. Woo!

[EDIT] It takes about a half an hour to get a message, which is quite steep. Hopefully Twitter will set up something directly. In the meantime, I am wondering if I can hack this to get rid of the "from yahoo" and "Mercat (mercat):" parts of the message to only see who it's directly from ("Mercat") so I'm not wasting characters. Because not being able to read the whole message kind of defeats the point.

Can't remember if I posted this before, but today I felt like a walking Sprite can. Green coat, yellow bag, navy and white shoes. I fit the profile, trust me.

Things I did over the weekend instead of rehearsal, #thingsIforgotbefore: figured out how to juggle. Now all I need to do is practice enough so I'm not throwing stuff forward when I do it, and that way I will be able to stand still and juggle, and everything will be cool with the world.

For all you Twitter users out there: is there a way to only recieve "@" texts to your phone? I can read other stuff online, but it might be nice to get "@" messages when I'm just sitting in the airport texting or whatever.

Did I mention how excited I am over my Timbuk2 Metro bag? It's perfect. It's designed to fit composition-notebook sized things, which is hard to find in a medium-sized purse, and I don't want a full-on messenger bag size. Also, it's designed to last nigh on forever for people who are bike travelers, so the external material is weather-resistant to boot. (To the point most people call it waterproof.) And then the liner is vinyl, and it has a million awesome pockets, and a key loop, and a water bottle mesh, and it fits ALL my purse contents AND my netbook WITH ROOM TO SPARE. Fuck, I love this thing. I really really do. Plus all the pockets are covered and there is not only super-strong velcro but buckles on the flap that would definitely prevent this from being easily pick-pocketed. I AM SUCH A HAPPY CAMPER RIGHT NOW :D

Also, I went to Subway tonight for the "support Chuck" campaign or whatever, and I forgot how much I miss walking down Chaminade's campus to get a turkey sub at Subway and a Mountain Dew slushie down the street at the gas station and then walking back upstairs to my room and just surfing the net or watching a movie or whatever but just enjoying my slice of Hawaii. I miss it so freaking much.

Oh, I'm trying to figure out if I can attach one of my fake hibiscuses to my new bag (since it's all atrociously yellow) without poking a hole in the material that would let water in. Or I'm thinking I can paint some purple or green or blue stuff on there, but I don't know what. ~decisions~

So we flew out to Denver. We rented the car. We're on our way to WalMart to buy a black towel for rehearsal when we get the call... Camp has been cancelled due to weather. They can't get the truck down from Casper because the roads to Wyoming are closed. Soooo we're stuck in Denver.

Dad tried to switch the flights to come home tomorrow, but we'd be losing a lot of money. So, still not getting home until midnight Sunday. =/ It's wet and miserable here, and I'm currently missing: all my Southwind friends who will be at WGI in Dayton, Guster at UD, senior sendoff weekend, relay for life, and about five other things. I am SO PISSED.

Can't go skiing here because 1) I don't have any gear (all shorts for practice) and 2) I don't need to risk fucking up my knee.

So... today we ate at Waffle House for breakfast, sludged to WalMart, went window shopping in Fort Collins, and played about two hours of Euchre, if not not three. Maybe tomorrow we'll see a movie, I dunno, I'm totally fucking bored. Well, not so much bored as pissed I didn't bring my own computer (this is my cousin Max's because he's here, and he's on spring break so we are hanging out with him) and there's nothing much to do and I AM MISSING LIKE 20 THINGS IN DAYTON THAT I DIDN'T HAVE TO. GOOOODDDDAAAAAMNNNIIIIIT.

Also, the whole epic is kind of on Twitter if you're curious to see it in semi real-time reactions.

Since we went to Waffle House this morning, I think this is my end of the curse, and I would say it's definitely the worst. GODDAMNIT WHY DOES THE WEATHER HERE HAVE TO BE SO BAD BUT SO NICE IN DAYTON. GODDAMNIT

Um, yeah. This blows.


However, I did see the most attractive Taco Bell I've ever seen, built into some old building.


Anyone know shit to do in Fort Collins? Cuuuuuz we really aren't getting anywhere out of here.

So I'm being followed by StephanieMingie on Twitter... Which is not Mrs. Minge. I'm wondering if this is just a straaaaaange, straaaaange coincidence, or what.