The Daily Adventures of Mercat

Some sort of steampunk or adventurer or mummy-hunter or treasure-hunter or zombie hunter something.



I bought this bitchin' vest at T.J. Maxx (lol Members Only!) that sort of reminds me of River Song's white one, except brown. And OMG it is thick and fuzzy and fabulously comfortable. So I'll be channeling some sort of archaeologesque-pirate-dystopian-thing.

Probably just rummage my closet for whatever I like and be like FUCK IT IDEK WHAT THIS IS




Aaaaaand then hunt down someone who would want to do a photoshoot for my Medusa sometime. Some time when I'm FUCKING FREEZING I guess.


Speaking of which, holy shit we had some apocalypse clouds in Dayton today (and it feels like it should have been an ice storm, it was cold enough-- apparently it did hail somewhere). I was running errands and I walked outside and immediately noticed the clouds (funny how you notice the smallest things when they're "not right") and went HOOOOLLY SHIIIIIIII-- I think I just walked into the end of Ghostbusters.

You know, when the clouds are getting all swirly-artistic-terrifying? Yes.


And then I was about to get in my car and I heard the LOUDEST, SHARPEST thunder of my life. No lightning. No rolling, booming. Just one huge crack that sounded like a massive explosion. I am not the type of person to be afraid of storms, in fact, the very opposite (and most of the people I grew up in Xenia think I'm an asshole for all the jokes I've made). However, this crack was SO TERRIFYING that I ducked and very nearly would have hit the ground.

At least there is some solace (although solace is not the word I want to use there-- damn you, thesaurus) in the fact that I immediately ducked. Survival instincts = intact.

WOW, late fall weather out of NOWHERE. I did not expect that for another week and a half or two. You know, because in Ohio, you don't get that slow transition into seasons, you get that awkward in-between week whereit's getting progressively colder but still alternating hot-as-hell days, until after a week or so of that it's consistently cooler. BUT NO, repeat CHILLY days out of fucking nowhere. I mean, I understand the concept of cold front, but damn it is chilly. I'm excited because I love fall and I will be able to break out my Troop jacket early, but I don't really own enough pants to make it work.

Ugh, also, so much to do this week. Still bombing hydraulics, I hate it. I'm going to get a C or D in that class. GROSS. Fuck that.

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.

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.

Eff this weather, who decided today would be the best day to go caroling?

OR MOVING. MOM, WHAT THE HELL. IT'S SO COLD.

(At least dad agrees with me, he didn't think we'd be leaving this house for about two more years.)

Ffffffffffffffuck. Off to finish emptying out my room... so weird.

Oh, preview for Letterman tonight... Alec Baldwin (AREC BARDWIN!!!) just called Palin "Bible Spice". That is scarily and hilariously accurate



NO HALLOWEEN DO NOT WARM UP I DO NOT WANT TO PASS OUT IN MY FOUR-LAYER HALLOWEEN COSTUME ARGH

OH GOD THE WEATHER IS AMAZING

I was in a Halloween mood for the past few weeks and now I'm in a CHRISTMAS MOOD just WTF and YAY and OMG STRESS and I have a billion things to blog but I'm soooo busy this week with PoD and Hopewalk and homework and uuuuugh.

BUT. Friday night I'm reserving blog time for myself. And I'm going to watch Shawn of the Dead. This of course all after I go grocery shopping and go home to get clothes for the WTF Are You Wearing Party for SATURDAY omg yay. Can you say tacky Christmas tights + striped socks + swimsuit + nerd scarf + shiny gauntlets + bowler? Oh I think you can. I just need to decide which shoes would be appropriate ;D

IN THE MEANTIME! I am leaving you with this. And now I will commit ritual seppuku with Wastewater homework.



Also, The Beeftrain Incident also made a full-on Mr./Dr. Jones parody (FINALLY, after that short version on College Humor was up forever, but was only like two verses, though I liked the fact it was from Shorty's POV), which makes me excited because I actually have six songs on my non-Williams Indy CD. Actually, non-movie CD, because I don't have stuff like "Wake Up Little Susie" or "Hound Dog" or "Shake, Rattle and Roll" on there either. But I need to.

Also I swear there's other songs that reference Indy that I don't have... and I can't for the life of me recall who the artist was that did Jazz Raiders. Feh...

BUT OMG THE WEATHER, IT'S AMAZING. I loved living in Hawaii but I always completely forget how the fall makes me feel. I can't explain it, it's like I feel like a totally different person, really.

Oh, is anyone else watching Fringe? I don't need to get addicted to another show but it's so awesome and the Dr's combination for his garage lock was 3-1-4-1-5-9 and I LOVE YOU NERD WRITERS, YOU ARE SO AWESOME, SERIOUSLY. :D

EPIC DAY TODAY.

So everyone's sitting at home doing homework and stuff, waiting for chapter to roll around. The wind was ridiculous and definitely keeping us entertained. I had to go get the pool off the fence for Baujan Field, and Brittany noticed all our neighbors across the street pointing and realized we had siding coming off. From Adela's room you could see St. Joe's losing shingles off the roof. At one point the gusts were so strong I thought they were going to blow the window-mounted AC right into the house. D:

So security is coming around telling everyone to stay inside (of course EVERYONE across the street from us is outside on their porches for hours; wtf?!), and sending out warnings through the system (so the house got five calls, one for each of us) and chapter gets cancelled. So we all go back to watching TV and gettin' shit done, and of course we're all busy and sort of worried about our workload etc. etc. Well, then the internet goes down and everyone goes fuck, well, what am I supposed to do now? So we all kind of do chores until the internet comes back.

BUT, the power goes out across campus. For us it flicks back on in I'd say less than half a second, and we continue to do homework and stuff. Word slowly travels across the ghetto and the rest of campus that the north side of Stonemill (us) is the only part of the Ghetto (and actually the Dark Side, too, but I don't know about the houses by Frericks) with power. The dorms don't have power, and the upper floors (like five and above in Marycrest) don't have water, either, because of pressure.

Eventually a whole bunch of girls (some Phi Rho, some pledging, some just engineers) come over to take showers and do homework, and as it's nearing ten or so Brittany comes downstairs super-excited and puts a Britney Spears song on the CD player, puts the speaker up to the window and BLASTS it. She decided she was going to wreak revenge upon our neighbors across the street for all their Thursday/Friday/Saturday late-night music, and eventually we find some good music and I burn a mix CD and stuff.

So then Candice gets word that the PMA house (in the middle of the Ghetto, mind you, sans power) is having a greenlight. (They have an old stoplight upstairs; when it's green, it's party time.) So of course we have to go over there, and the guys are there , and as we leave our house we notice the UD Police pull up right behind us. Well, we get over to the PMA house and they're actually partying and drinking and stuff. There are a few glowbracelets and the greenlight is actually the team lights from a green-team Nerf gun, and they are powering their music off the battery for the pep band bass guitar. So of course it is awesome and at this point everyone is getting sort of slap-happy and more people are getting word and actually coming to the greenlight. Candice and I figure since we have homework and worry that Brittany might have freaked out from the police that we should go back to our house. (After all, we were having a party, too!)

So as we get back to Stonemill we can tell we're no longer blasting music, but the house down the street has Christmas lights up. One porch and one tree with colored lights, and then the tree also has a blinking giant white star. We realize Danny and Mike and some of the other guys from that house are the ones who put some of it up, so we go down there and talk to them for a bit and then steal some of their lights for our house. Well, we get back to our house and Brittany and Christine were already having thoughts of Christmas lights and pull out the house's lights. Which is an entire shopping bag full of stuff. So we put the music back on and shove an extension cord through the window AC's opening and proceed to spend the next hour or so hanging up lights, taking photos, waving to passing cars, and talking to people on the street. A few guys (5th year MBAs, don't know their names) from our side of Stonemill come down to see what's going on after we're taking out bizillionth photo with my tripod. They had heard that since we are on the grid with the campus, which is all on a generator (or, I'm guessing, several) that all these houses with the lights were trying to suck power to get classes cancelled. I can't speak for the other houses but we tell them that we're just trying to give the Ghetto some light and make people smile. And seriously, by this time, the lights are ridiculous. We have colored lights up one pole and around the top; white lights on the bushes in front; colored light tubes down the railing and around the front of the bushes; and pulsing white and blue icicles hanging from the other handrails. At this point we had a few people drive by and call us assholes :C I think because they were jealous we had power. But some people are staying the night (of course after we'd spent half a retaliation-induced-dance party and Christmas-lights time doing homework) sleeping on our couches and stuff, and some guys were supposed to come sleep over on the couches in the basement (they haven't showed up yet), but who knows. Tomorrow is another day, we'll see how that goes, too.

Oh, and the cops didn't even come up to the house and yell at us, Brittany turned the music down as soon as they pulled up apparently. =P

And after all the fun, I walk inside to see Brittany had taken a whiteboard marker and written on the wall tiles in the kitchen "Diane's Schedule" with a hole and arrows (because getting my schedule up is low on my priorities list right now) and I fix it to read "Diane's Schedule: Hopewalk and/or PoD" and Brittany and I decide (well, first of all, that we need to wash the tiles because when I got a wet paper towel to wipe away her schedule hole, there was a distinct white area and dirt line) that we are going to memorialize Phi Rho House Fun on the walls with the whiteboard markers. So she writes up "cops called" and "no power" and "christmas lights" with "9/14" on there and I add "AAHHH SPRINKLES" from Candice and this year is going to be awesome.




I'm kind of sad, though, the winds knocked over an old tree at home. =C It seems like all the older trees are having to go for one reason or another... Falling down, having to get cut down so they don't fall on the house, having to get cut down so they don't uproot the foundation, rotting, getting struck by lightning... =/ Or in this case blown WAAAAY over. It's just weird because when you come home after the old trees come down, it feels like there is a big hole in the sky. And of course, you can't just quickly grow a tree to fill it in... Yeah, this kind of thing breaks my heart, same kind of thing as having to move...

The rain, rain, rain came down, down, down
In rushing, rising riv'lets,
'til the river crept out of it's bed
And crept right into Piglet's.
Poor Piglet, he was frightened,
With quite a rightful fright.
And so, in desperation
A message he did write.

Help! P-p-piglet! Me!

He placed it in a bottle
And it floated out of sight.

And the rain, rain, rain came down, down, down
So Piglet started bailing.
He was unaware, atop his chair,
While bailing he was sailing.

And the rain, rain, rain came down, down, down
And the flood rose up, up, upper.
Pooh, too, was caught and so he thought,
"I must rescue my supper!"
Ten honey pots he rescued,
Enough to see him through,
But as he sopped up his supper,
The river sopped up Pooh.
And the water twirled and tumbled him
In a honey pot canoe...


Yeah so yesterday when I hoped it would rain I didn't mean this much. The weather's getting really freaky, like last night I swear it stayed light (and creepily light, too) for too long. (Like nine? The sky was greenish which made me nervous for sure.)

So no tornadoes would be nice, but yeah, look where I live.