The Daily Adventures of Mercat

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.

I'm rather excited that we're tackling splines in my numerical analysis class.

You see, the strange thing is, I didn't have any caffiene yesterday. So all these weird dreams I've been having, which is usually a caffiene thing--this time, it is not the case.

Last night, I had a completely acid trippy dream. It involved a Batman who was Batman but wasn't Bruce Wayne (and not Terry what's his face either, he was honestly this Batman but imagine some random blonde guy under the mask, and think more like the bluish coloration of the cartoon style) and several other superheroes (combo Marvel and DC, in case you cared) and a gang fight (sort of Xmen movie-style) involving some people who thought superheroes were actually Harry-Potter-style witches and wizards.

IT WAS VERY CRACKED OUT.

There's more, but it's so far out there that I overload my brain thinking about it. See, the weird thing with my dreams are, they're not at all "fortune-teller"-y, they're just my brain processing things I experienced during the day, or random neurons firing, I don't know. But I don't usually get a case like this where ALMOST EVERYTHING is something I consciously thought about during that day, particularly, in this case, the hour before I went to bed:

1) A concrete block--I met with Mark and Kay to talk about their brick garden wall design, and we talked about doing a concrete block center with a brick/tiling facade rather than a straight up brick structure.

2) The superheroes--I was upset I had to hang out in the lab until 1 am and that I was missing Robot Chicken. The night before, Robot Chicken was the episode where the construction workers are designing the Chachapoyan temple from Raiders, and then later in the episode there is the Justice League sidekick party-thing.

3) A nutcase teenager Sarah Palin lookalike--I read an article about her (and feminism, interestingly enough) an hour or so before I went to bed.

4) The fact that one area looked like Liz Markus' house--I referred to her in discussion once during the day, but that's about it.

Batman and some of the other stuff are usual enough occurrences that I'm not exactly surprised they showed up, but it was still weird.

The part I can't figure out? The Harry-Potter obsessed gang... I just do not know.

[EDIT] OH AND BATMAN-WHO-WAS-NOT-BRUCE-WAYNE HAD PARENTS. AND A LITTLE SISTER WHO WAS ABOUT EIGHT YEARS OLD. AND SHE WAS WEARING LIT CHRISTMAS LIGHTS, WHICH I SAW ON A HOUSE IN THE GHETTO COMING HOME FROM THE COMPUTER LAB AT 1 AM.

WHAT
THE
FUCK,

BRAIN

In the "things you never thought you'd see texted" department today, we have this gem I sent to my mom: "Is leptospirosis a type of cryptospirosis?"

Yeah. Mom the doc + Hawaii + water treatment class = really fucking bizarre.

Huh. So I've been thinking about mental diseases again, and I decided to look up schizophrenia because I remembered my great uncle (I think? My first cousin once removed [my dad's cousin]?) has it, and hasn't been seen in like ten years or something. (I think he was last spotted in New York living as a bum. I don't know that side of my family so well, for some reason.) Anyway, because I've always overthought things and overanalyzed everything (and I think I've discussed this recently), I've wondered what kind of mental issue I would have, if I did have one. I always see psychosis things and every once in a while they'll strike a chord, but I figure I'm fine because, you know, I'm not getting panic attacks (MINUS THAT ZOMBIE ONE, it was a one-time thing). BUT, I've wondered if I could find something specific enough that I actually could be crazy. Now, I don't want to be crazy. I mean, I call myself crazy, but we all know I like odd things and enjoy hyperbole (rather a lot I've noticed lately; if I die and people analyze all my writing please make sure they know that my personal style was rather dependent on sarcasm and hyperbole.). I don't want to be taking mind-altering meds or locked up or seen as legitimately crazy. So anyway, I'm paging through wikipedia and I realize that social anxiety disorder strikes a lot of chords. See, the thing is; being crazy would be too convenient, and as I see it I seem to be functioning pretty well, so I don't think I'm actually crazy. (And if you're rationally looking at your issues you're less likely to be crazy, right?) So I don't know if this is just a case of, uh, what's that med-student (especially psychologists?) phenomenon where you think you have what you're studying? But yeah, I don't know if it's that or if I hit the nail on the head with social anxiety disorder. The problem is that it could also be a case of over-analysis (like the way-too-many diagnoses of ADD recently) of extreme introversion, and may be annoying but natural; I mean, each of the symptoms seem pretty common. Presentation, self-consciousness, talking to strangers, dating (!), blushing, mind going blank, increased heart rate, avoidance behaviors, and shaking... pretty common (uh, other than dating, but discussion/research has just led me to believe I'm just more on the asexual end of the spectrum and I just shrug it off... wish there were a less harsh term for it though, as it's not quite spot-on), but pretty applicable to me. (And I didn't include ones that I didn't find applicable.) But nonetheless, that's a pretty impressive list, to me. Mind going blank is a BIG thing for me. I can think of a hundred scenarios to try to head it off at the pass by having answers ready, and I still forget them. And a lot of times when I'm giving presentations or talking nervously my mind will go blank over the stupidest questions because I'm thinking too hard about the question or answering it wrong or whatever.

I dunno, what do you guys think? I'd really love to avoid psychology/psychiatry (FUCK, which is it), and I think some outside opinions might be useful here because we know if there's one thing I can do it's overthink it and work myself up about it.

But moving on.

(Almost) useless fact for the day: the plural of "penis" is not "penii" and if I see/hear that one more time I'm going to kill someone. THAT APPLIES TO "US" ENDINGS (AND OF LATIN WORDS!). If you think you're so clever, it's "penes."

Hilarious, however, is the fact that I can't pronounce this without making it sound like "peonies." Take that as you will.

I miss studying Spanish, or, heck any language at all. I need a place to keep my Spansh semi-fluent because otherwise I'm going to lose all skills. I'm already forgetting tenses other than present! (Not that I was ever good at those fucking past tenses anyway. And subjunctive! Oh, how I loathe subjunctive.)

Um, woah, George Orwell got shot in the throat by a sniper. That sounds... deathly. (And if you're wondering how I got to that link, it's in light of beatonna's latest comic, and wondering if I could pull off an Orwell comic. With that, maybe.) Additionally (I'm trying to expand from using "also" all the time), "Orwell" is a pretty freaking cool name for a pseudonym.

Back to my language, uh... what's the phrase. You know, the quirks of a language. Idiosyncracies? No. Dammit. Not idioms, either, though I think that was the word I was trying to come up with a few days ago. Anyway, other than a sudden realization in the past few days that if I pointed out that I enjoy hyperbole (and, uh, it's emotionally instinctual, I don't sit there and go, how can I make this ridiculous...), I would scare fewer people, but, um, I completely forget my original point. OH. Being in Hawaii has made me notice a few things. Pidgin kind of bothers me, so I'm pretty sure that even if I lived here full-time I wouldn't pick it up. I really can't bring myself to say "brah." BUT. I have picked up "howzit" (and "howzithowzit", additionally) from my roommate, because I was already prone to asking people "how's it going?"), and I already used "it's all good" though that phrase gets used out here a lot more too. I'll probably end up using "shaka" a lot, too. Not really aloha (mahalo is more likely than aloha, but not very likely either), that seems to be more of a touristy-slash-celebrationy thing. And it really drives me insane when people use it in a touristy way because they go "ALOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHA!" and the crowd is supposed to go "ALOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHA!" and I want to stab people for being ridiculous.

Some days I swear my trains of thought (train-of-thoughts? I doubt it) are more like fractals. I-have-this-idea-and-now-it's-gone-twelve-different-ways! Oye. (Can you use "oye" just as "oh" or "hey" and not like hey-I'm-trying-to-get-your-attention? Spanish input appreciated!)

Reverse dictionary. From a literary perspective, this looks like a ton of fun.

Mm, and more on the topic of languages. I really do miss Spanish, and since I want to go back to Barcelona (guh, at LEAST!) one day, I feel bad forgetting it. I also just feel more knowlegable when I remember miniscule inanities about the English language or enjoy language relationships, so, language always has been and will continue to be important to me. ANYWAY. I've been told when you go to college you (in this case me) should take Italian because it's pretty close to Spanish and then you'll know another language. But, I really have no interest in Italian other than it's another language and languages are cool. Plus I don't know if they teach it at UD. I was hoping to learn Hawaiian here, but that fell through, so I'm hoping maybe I can do it at UH if I come here for grad school. ANYWAY. I've been considering with the five-year deal, picking up a language again (even though I know it will be a lot of work). And, so, this is what I'm wondering. More Spanish, to master it, or Mandarin, or Arabic? Spanish seems most practical, but I don't know if I want to go to that level for now. Mandarin, pretty much purely a "heh they spoke Mandarin in ToD" but it would be cool to travel to Asia (though so many cool places to go scare the shit out of me because I don't speak the language) but Arabic seems to be perhaps the most useful at some point. Except that I can't imagine myself traveling to Araby the Middle East much until things die down (maybe a little?). (I do want to learn Polish but I don't think they offer that at UD either.)

Star Wars: this is kind of true. It's also what I will be saying about Indy IV if there are aliens involved. (Swear-to-fucking-god.)

And on that note (this is a lecture or a commentary [commentary rather], so don't leave me any obsessive comments about this), I am at an in-between level. I hate the cartoon on the premise that I hate the prequels. Love the originals, yes, even the ewoks because I like cute animals. Christmas Special I am not touching, ever. BUT. I do not like to argue the details of the originals, that annoys me. Kind of like all the people showing up at COW arguing over Indy stuff. Some guy posted pics of an original fedora and there were too many "I'm calling bullshit"s and not enough "THE HOLY GRAIL OF HATS"'s (don't ask me about that punctuation). Point is, I'm starting to hate fandom because all the discussion has turned into whining and bitching, and I don't want to hear it. If you're going to be an obsessive and/or whiny bitch please do it where it's appreciated (generally on your own time).

That being said, I try to make my obsession fun for you guys, but I'm not forcing you to read it. I try to mock myself enough to keep a level head. I think I do well enough.

(PS--REMINDER--THIS POST IS NOT HERE TO TALK ABOUT STAR WARS, I'M NOT IN THE MOOD.)

Hey, this sounds like a great idea! Let's move a highly contagious lviestock disease to a place where we're more likely to spread it. I am not sure these people have heard of Murphy's Law. It's kind of like "if you build it, he will come" in this case. If they build it, it is only a matter of time until we realize NOTHING IS 100%. (Except possibly death, but even then there is conservation of matter. Oh god let's not get into this either. This is topic #2 barred for comments.)

Hey uh, so, who thinks the Olympics aren't going to happen? This puppy right here does. That is to say, I do "not think the Olympics are going to happen." Which, really, it's just a shame China's not getting its act together.

Reminiscent of one of my many trains of thought on social phobias and my place within that sector. (I just spelled that "secter" corrected myself mentall to "sectre" which is totally my word now and then realized I meant "sector".) I do feel lonelier but I can't decide if that's engineering crushing my soul or not doing enough socializing or what, but on the other hand, I generally uphold better conversation online than I do in person. Uh, that's me trying to combine, like, the past two years of self-reflection into one sentence, so, youd' understand if I say that we're just skimming on the surface of that issue. Can I bar topic #3? Lol. Sorry to be such a hassle, I just think I'm setting myself up for a commentstorm I'm too tired to care about right now. =P

So, look. I found out what steampunk was just a few months ahead of the curve, apparently, and I really enjoyed it. However, the influx of newb idiocy (DO PEOPLE READ EVEN THREE POSTS BACK, AT ALL?) and lack of ingenuity being shown just seems to reaffirm my dislike for popular fashion. Popular fashion kills everything. I enjoy steampunk but if I see one more person spraypaint that fucking multibarrel nerf gun I'm going to strangle them. (PLEASE. INGENUITY. WHY DO PEOPLE FIND THIS SO DIFFICULT.) /rant

On that note, these would be much cooler if I weren't currently hating on the general steampunk populace, and if they weren't so close to those drawings that showed up last year. (Unless it's the same guy, which I doubt, but then that's totally fair.)

40 days! whatthefuck That's crazy. New Shia photos. When I saw them I was like "hmm, something's wrong about theseOH Steve Martin" and now that's unbelievably hilarious and I don't think I can unconnect (similar to unseeing) it. If there is a shot, front-on, of him riding it down the street trying to look like a badass SANS Marlon Brando (I always want to type "Marlin", but that's a fish. It is Marlon, right?) hat, I will be laughing my ass off, and I will probably be the only one. But I cannot. get. the image. out. of. my head.

SON BE A DE-ENTIST...

Yay nice day today! Tried to sleep in again but that damn rooster woke me up again. We went to a super sweet zipline which was fun for the first few rides, but later it was just sort of a nice view and now my inner thighs are sore because of that freaking harness and the whole thing not really being set up for short people. Grr. And I don't know if I just ran out of adrenaline or if I was disappointed we weren't at Kipu falls and the ropeswing or if listening to Laura and Savannah have a general disregard for societal politeness drove me kind of crazy, anyway, I got bored about halfway through. I dunno, I think if you're already going to put up a zipline, why not put up a hard-core superfast one? I mean, these were nice and all, but they started off high, fast, and long and got lower, slower, and shorter. You would think you'd finish it off with a good one down the hill face or something...

Anyway it was really beautiful where we were, though, and interesting to learn a little about the area. The land it's all on is beautifully pristine, and privately owned. It used to be a sugar plantation but like all the others in Hawaii, it closed in debt. (Last one to, I believe? Basically, when Hawaii became a state, labor laws kicked in and the cost of sugar skyrocketed to pay for wages, effectively killing this market.) So along comes this guy, Steve Chase, who just buys it up. And of course all the locals are worried because if you have that kind of money you're probably going to want to develop it for businesses and stuff, but. So everyone was kind of surprised when he not only kept it development-free, he paid off the debt, paid retirement for the workers, and leases the land out to local farmers for $15/acre per year. Apparently the guy who created AOL (and subsequently made his billions selling it to Time Warner) is from Kauai, and nobody knew it until he bought the land. So this zipline/tubing business is the only one allowed back on the land. Though, last summer they were filming a movie there, the one that's coming out soon with Jack Black and Robert Downey Jr. and Ben Stiller. It actually seems pretty interesting, I just read an article about it; it's about an actor in a Vietnam war film, but it's Robert Downey Jr. who decides to take on the role and in order to do so has to become a black guy. Craziness. But, Ben Stiller directing and acting so it can't be that bad, right? (Not as bad as I Am Legend, by far, which was sold out at the grocery store for $20.99. Wut?)

So then we came back and lazed around and mom and dad took a walk on the beach (and mom picked up a cowrie that we found out a few hours later was still alive, so I had to walk down to the tidal pool and throw it back in, lol), and then we drove into town to look around and pick up some more necessities and stuff. I got a cheapo lavalava (which, it really pisses me off that they're all sold as "sarongs" here) that's yellow with blue flowers (utterly fantastically tropical and tacky), and we also found the best thing ever at Safeway. A dinosaur sandwich cutter. What it does is decrust (who cares) a sandwich so it is diagonally cut (essentially) in the shape of two brontasauri. (Brontasauruses? Apatosauri? oh fuck me, I really don't care.)

Probably the most awesome thing to ever happen to a sandwich.

In other news my mind's been totally in the gutter the past few days. I mean, no big surprise, that's pretty much how band kids are all the time, right on? Well, yes, but at the same time it's quietly in the gutter when in mixed company (ie with not band kids). But Laura and Sav have been on a "that's what she said" kick, and they are the kind of people who say whatever they want, whenever they want, as loudly as they want, without caring whether what they said was impolite to be overheard by everyone around them. (Which was kind of a problem earlier today as they have no problem gossiping or mocking or dropping the f-bomb, and we were ziplining with a family with a slightly retarded son. Not the best sitch.) Anyway, what with Melissa and I training eachother last semester into "whatever whatever" "you whateverwhatever" "your mom whateverwhatever" "your face whateverwhatever"
"your mom's face whateverwhatever", it has all resulted in some interesting things coming out of my mouth and a lot of laughing.

And there are a lot of things that halfway through saying them I'm just like "oh damn, I set myself up again." It's getting rather annoying, tbqh. Not even the joke, just the mind-in-the-gutter-ness. Eh, it'll pass.

So anyway we came back and watched V for Vendetta, which I forgot how much I loved. I had only seen it the day around when it came out (a Wednesday) late night senior year with Rob and Lara. Somehow we all decided that we'd go see it and convinced our parents that I needed to see it for my senior thesis for Hemmert, which involved masks. That wasn't the real reason but I did end up using it in the paper. (But that paper was a piece of shit, I rambled on for ten pages without ever making a point.) Anyway I pretty much fell in love when they started it with the 1812 Overture, which has been my favorite piece of music since as long as I can remember (thank you Ernie Kovacks and Grandpa.). But there are so many good things about it that I enjoy; a lot of the message is good, there's art and music appreciation, literature references, costumes and a good futuristic manipulated-government storyline. (What's the word I'm looking for here? Like the opposite of anarchy...?) Anyway, and the whole time I just kept thinking "haha, it really does fit so well with Anonymous" even though I think they wear the mask originally because of Epic Fail Guy. I could be wrong, it's all rather complicated, especially when lulz are involved. But, the "a revolution without dancing is a revolution not worth having" pretty much hooked the "we did it for the lulz" connection for me.

Who wants to go blow up cannons (or something) for the 1812 with meh?

[[sorry but I'm about to collapse so tomorrow I'll edit in my Indy fact (I forget what I was going to say anyway...) and some tags for this sucker.]]

[EDIT] Well it's been a few days so I'm not going to add much, just that LJ ate the txt-to-post that I had sent previous to posting this. I don't know where it went and I can't check my phone because it's disappeared from the sent folder. Oh well, I don't think it said anything particularly important anyway, just that I wasn't getting good internet and yay 59 (?) days.

Okay, so, did everyone in Ohio decide it would be a good night to get roaring drunk or something? I mean, I don't really have a huge problem with it (other than a certain scenario which I'm not really free to discuss, but I'm sure if you contact any student you know at a certain high school I attended you'll be able to find out), but... I dunno, is there something in the water? Lol. (Yeah, alcohol... Hey, you all know the polish word for water is about one letter away from "vodka" anyhow, right? Yay being Polish!)

Anyway, today Lauren and I took a historical tour of Chinatown. It was AMAZING. Chinatown in Honolulu is nothing like Chinatown in SF, and from what the guide said, nothing like the Chinatown in NY either. Chinatown here is basically where non-whites came together and lived.

Oh, by the way, our tour guide is a major native Hawaiian historian (he was of... Chinese descent, I think?), and also Don Ho's cousin. EFFING AWESOME.

So... yeah. American history was never my thing, right? Fuck it, history wasn't my thing. I'm not good on "what are the implications of xxx on yyy in regard to zzz?" because to I never know exactly what they mean. I can extrapolate pretty much any answer from questions like that, so I am a failure. =( BUT! Hawaiian history amazes me. I don't know, maybe it's because I started paying attention to years for costuming and my Indiana Jones obsession, or maybe for Art History. But I'll tell you one thing; Hawaiian History is fucking amazing. It's like watching the whole history of the world get wrapped up in about 150 years. It's fucking nuts, and I love it. You don't realize it until you study it, because there's very few signs and things, but the whole world was focused on the Pacific, and Hawaii was so important to that, and everything leading up to WWI and WWII is absolutely amazing in relation to Hawaii. I love it. It's such a thrill. If you come to Honolulu, go to Chinatown and take the tour. Crazy.

I think the reason I never did well in American history is that they never really give you a base understanding to go from... they just kind of jump right in with the details and assume you can extrapolate the consequences. Not so. With Hawaiian history you're getting the base understanding of the world in order to understand Hawaii, and that in turn actually helps you understand what was going on in Europe and the rest of the world. I mean it, Hawaiian history is amazing.

At the same time, most people to study Hawaii aren't natives; so Hawaiian history seems particularly misunderstood as far as I've seen. Both my Hawaiian and Pacific Globalization history classes are taught by Bailey, who is a riot and one of the first native Hawaiians to get a certain level of degree (doctorate... maybe?) from UH. And the guy today is Hawaiian, too, although big Chinese background, so we got yet another cultural perspective.

And you know what? I think Hawaiian history is ridiculously overlooked. I think that studying Hawaiian and Pacific history would really help people understand the globalization of the rest of the world, I mean by a ridiculous amount. And did you know that's it's still under contention, even today, whether Hawaii was taken rightfully by the US government and whether it should still be a kingdom? Crazy. Maybe I'll talk about Hawaiian history more later, it's just... God. Beautiful. Amazing. Ridiculous. I don't know. It's like the whole world came together and exploded. To go from the stone age to modern practically overnight, and to see your culture destroyed in the process. God. It's really unfortunate that history isn't more advertised everywhere, that it's such a toursity place, because DAMN it's beautiful.

So! The actual tour itself. He started out with a background of Hawaiian history and Chinatown, and did you know that the father of Communism in China was Christian? LAUGH RIOT. tangent: the word "laugh" looks really weird atm. Anyway he was raised here and brought the idea to China, so, yeah. Other highlights of the tour:

--seeing all the different food types in the open market, showing how Chinatown really isn't a normal Chinatown: Malaysian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Philipino and about a million other different types of food. Also, one of my comfort-boundary stretchers for the day. I dunno, there's something about being one of only a few non-natives being led around (though not terribly obviously) by a tour guide that just makes it so easy for me to get paranoid that I'm being hated as a tourist. I think this is different in mainland US and Europe than it is in Hawaii; for example, learning about different history classes, I don't think native Hawaiians who haven't been to the mainland understand how there's still a difference between the southern and the northern US that you have to look out for sometimes. Being in Spain I was completely scared that we, as tourists, were going to get picked on and stuff (I mean it was totally obvious we were wearing gym shoes, righto?), but nothing really happened (other than a little trouble with gypsies and pickpockets on different occasions) but I obviously stopped being nervous enough to yell "HEY, GRUPO" in a really bad American accent (not even "¡Oye, grupo!") across the street in... Granada, was it? Anyway. I sufficiently put myself outside my comfort zone today. (BUT! Did find a really authentic place to get sushi, should ai figure out how to eat it without looking like a fool. SOMEBODY FILLZ ME IN, PLZ)
--the fruit vendors... DAMN. What a lovely smell. I realized that I have not yet had a virgin piña colada yet since I got here. I must rectify this!
--Hotel Street: where all the GIs came for entertainment. Clubs, burlesques, "hotels". I LOVE IT. The only thing left is "Club Hubba Hubba" (everything else is stores), but from the looks of it, the only thing left is the neon on the sign. =/ Even the paint behind the sign is chipping and rusting, and the building is overgrown and boarded up. But... that could just be that it's a club, so they need it dark inside and inside it's clean and neet. (Anyway, lol burlesque.)
--Fish market! Wow. FISH SMELL OVERLOAD. Guh. Apparently Chinese/Japanese consider it somewhat of a sin to cook tuna, as they eat it raw. Their big appetizers are sushi, sashimi, and dum sim. And... I can't remember the term, but it's raw fish and seaweed and herbs all mixed together to eat. It kind of looks like salsa. (Wikipedia... why is there an ENTIRE CHUNK IN SPANISH in the middle of the English article on Japanese cuisine? I mean, I can read it, but... wut?) OH, it's called poke and it's actually a Hawaiian dish, but it's obviously got a lot of Japanese influence. (It's raw fish, c'mon.) My brain totally went "LOLPOKÉMON" when he pointed it out.
--more fish market! Kona crabs. Never heard of them before, but they're kind of weird looking. Also? Could have bought fish heads. LAWL. (Will admit: had the fish head song running through my head.)
--Fernandez Marín! Yay Spainiards. Kind of owned the Hawaiian harbor and dictated non-natives on the island while he was alive. Pretty cool shit. (Chinatown: utterly international. told you)
--SECRET BURIAL GROUNDS: After the US government burned down Chinatown (PLAGUE PANIC!) and it was rebuilt and they had to dig up the earth for concrete footwork, they found lots of bodies of plague victims. They buried all the bones together in a few secret green areas in Chinatown, but the gov't doesn't treat them that well. (Seriously. One's next to a dumpster in a locked alley.) Marín's remains were dug up when they built Marín tower, and the government gave them to his family in a gunnysack. Oh America, why do we have to be so insensitive? Anyway, they convinced the government that they wanted his remains here because he was happy here, and they put his bones in one of the burial grounds (if you can call it that) right on the edge of Chinatown right on the waterfront. (Seriously... it looks like one of those hotel building planters. That's the "greenspace" where Marín is buried. And there's no kind of historical markers or anything... The more I learn about Hawaiian history the more I think the US is trying to hide the fact they kind of took over illegally. LOL.
--Philipinos didn't get malaria during WWII while Chinese and Hawaiians and Japanese and Americans did! Guess why? Bitter melon! High in quinine. So, if you ever are afraid of getting malaria? BITTER MELON.
--First Catholic Church in Hawaii! Funded by Marín. Damn cool.
--more comfort zone stretching: "bubble tea" smoothie. What it is is this kind of big tapioca balls in a smoothie... they're interesting. I think in the right thing they'd be good, but kiwi was disgusting, and since I had a not-enough-sleep type of sore throat, the bubbles felt kind of phlegmy. I mean, I know they're tapioca or taro or whatever and they're kind of doughy, but... ew. Kiwi+phlegm=nasteh.
--watermelon used to be a huge import. Did you know they used to make watermelon alcohol? I'm not really surprised, I mean people kind of make it out of anything that will ferment. Just LOL. (My dad wondered last time we were here if they ever made taro alcohol? I don't know, I've never heard anything about it. I think taro might be too expensive.)

Lauren and I might bike around the island, it wouldn't be too long of a ride. A good, slow, day ride to get some miles on my butt for TOSRV.

Okay, I think that's everything for now.

81 days until Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull! Today's trivia: I am convinced that Adventure Express at PKI was supposed to be an Indiana Jones ride before that was a Paramount park. (Was it?) I don't know, totally a guess, but they did play the music there the last time I was there. There was a rumor about four or five years back that they were going to put in an actual Indiana Jones ride. I AM SO SAD THAT PKI IS CEDAR POINT NOW. D= I hope they renew the Paramount licenses...? I mean, the Tomb Raider ride will kind of be dumb now, and I love that ride. =( Bets on whether Congo Falls goes back to being called Amazon Falls? AND WHO'S EXCTIED FOR FIREHAWK hell yeah. (You all probably rode it last summer while I was gone, I know. But I never got to ride King Cobra before it got taken out [I WAS TOO SHORT DAMMIT], and I really want to ride a standup coaster.)

...Lol. Crappy fact today. I don't care, I think the fact that I actually posted lots of realiztic historical information makes up for that. Fine, here's a TWOFOR! Hawaii + Indiana Jones: Indy IV filmed some on the coast of the Big Island. I think close to Kona maybe...?

HOW CAN IT BE MARCH ALREADY, DAMN.

Oh, I remembered another one of my "weird word" uses. I like to say "awesome possum" and "neato burrito" a lot. Haha.

( I also wiki'd Mad Anthony Wayne a little for you! )

SUMMARY: Wayne negotiated the Greenville Treaty that put the Ohio into the union. rock on

Ooh, also fell asleep watching Kiss Me, Kate today. (I didn't get enough sleep last night.) Pretty good musical, yay Cole Porter! And yay Shakespeare. But FUCK a play within a play within a play. AAAAAH gotdamn.

woooooo

[EDIT] I WANT A CHANTILLY CAT

And I totally stole this from somebody, it's hilarious:

Wow, so today we went snorkeling at Hanauma Bay.

If you ever go to Hawaii, DO IT. It's AMAZING. You see those movies of reefs with all the anemones and stuff, so you're kind of shocked that everything is so bleached when you first get in the water. But once you make it past the barrier, the water is colder and deeper, and a lot fewer people snorkel out there because the pull is stronger. But the coral starts to get color, and the fish are more numerous, and it's absolutely fucking nuts. It's gorgeous. I'm going to try my best to talk my mom and dad into going, because my mom hardly ever goes swimming anymore but it's not difficult. But she rides bikes, so as long as it we took it slow I think her back and her knee would be fine, I mean you get flippers. (My toes cramped a little, and my ankles hurt after a few hours, but it was TOTALLY worth it. If we go again I will invest in an underwater camera DEFINITELY.) I saw a good number of fish, stuff I remembered from that lagoon on the Big Island (which sucked because it was a manmade lagoon and was too shallow, so there was lots of sand that got stirred up and not many fish because there was no where to feed and it was too warm, but the turtles were cool except that you lost them if you weren't three feet away) like parrot fish and the humuhumukunukunupuapua'a (state fish of Hawaii!) and angelfish and just freaking EVERYTHING. It was amazing. The coral kind of looks all the same, until you look closer. It's amazing. And all these different types of urchins hiding in the rocks, too. I think I somehow scraped my knees on some rocks/coral without knowing?! Meh, it doesn't hurt. God, I can't get over how beautiful it is, it really is like going to a completely different world. I'm going to get some pictures up, but none of them are underwater. =(

Also, speaking of having a totally cracked out day, after we left Hanauma Bay and had our cookout on Ala Moana beach, we were laying out (napping yaaaay) while the people who went back with the van (we had to turn it in at three) came back on the bus. And guess what. They fucking ran into David Beckham. LOL. I wonder what I would have done if that were me. First of all, I hate soccer. Second of all, my roommates and I mercilessly make fun of that stupid underwear ad (Calvin Klein or something?) because there is a WALL-SIZED version of it at the Ala Moana mall, and it's so ridiculous. Third, for some reason I have it in my mind that he's a douche? But I don't know if that's actually something I read somewhere or I only thought that because I was half-asleep on the beach.

I have a feeling I would have given it a totally sarcastic face, especially because I am one of those people who believes in not freaking out when you meet celebrities, but treating them like normal human beings. (I have yet to put this into application, because the only celebrities I ever met were Maynard Ferguson [who was kind of being a douche] and Winnie the Pooh at Disneyworld, and I think I am perfectly justified in smiling like a dork at hugging Winnie the Pooh.) Also, I totally can't get this hilarious image out of my mind of him going to the Ala Moana mall and just laughing at that damn ad. I mean SERIOUSLY.

I'm kind of inclined to not believe them until they post pictures, so if they do I will swipe them and repost them for proof for you guys. (Haha, I am such a paranoia freak.)

Oh damn, my third thought after all that was that I kind of wish I had met him so I could send back photos to my sister and two cousins who all adore soccer. I am such an evil bastard sometimes.

Guess what, guys! 88 days until Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull! 88 days! Yaaaaaay! Sorry, I get kind of excited because 88 is my lucky number, and always has been. (When I was little I used to think 88 was inifnity... I'm not really sure why. I mean, I could count to a hundred easily. I also quickly realized that I was born in 1988 and a piano has 88 keys and I thought that thinking it was inifnity was cute in a silly kind of way, so it became "my" number.) In celebration the image you see as my icon is also now my facebook photo. =D Today's trivia: I'm going to guess you all knew that the mine car chase from Temple of Doom was originally an idea for Raiders, and I already told you about the infamous swordsman fight scene. So how about another removed scene? When Indy escapes from the Bantu Wind onto the Nazi sub in order to follow the ark they have reclaimed, they obviously don't show him sneaking into the sub, as it would be a rather difficult thing to do. In a removed (I believe never filmed?) scene (shown in the comic books, however), Indy used his whip to tie himself to the sub (I think the periscope) and ride through the seas that way. Rather tiring, though, wouldn't you think? However, in actuality, most subs in that time (including the Nazi submarines) only traveled underwater when being sneaky. The rest of the time they traveled at the surface, so the scene was unnecessary as Indy probably wouldn't have had to worry about it. Also, the submarine used in Raiders is the same one used for the movie Das Boot, which was being filmed around the same time and saved the movie lots of money by not having to build their own model.

Also, we saw a sub today out at the Ala Moana beach. Crazy.

What's this "V-day" crap? ;D (Isn't V for Victory? I THINK SO. THIS IS RELEVANT TO MY INTERESTS.)

97 days to go until Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull! Today's trivia: The trailer is up online a indianajones.com! Also yahoo.com. I will see if I can find one later to embed here for you guys.

Also to commemorate this fact I had the weirdest dream ever... I didn't know I could hate my parents. =( I hate dreams that do that. It's going to be a weird day.

Also I should TOTALLY start posting funny cat macros. Maybe another time.

I JUST LEARNED HOW TO BURP NOT-LAMELY ALMOST ON-DEMAND

=D

Life is awesome.