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.

Indiana Jones ref in Fallout New Vegas. (Coincidentally, all three movie refs he listed have Harrison Ford in them.)

Adventure in the news.

Disney tiki movie, which I'm not sure how I feel about that.

But, uhhh... this is a little horrifying.
On the Twitter front: NASA gets a coolant leak.

Creepy time-lapse videos of Japanese plants! There are few things that strike instant horror into my heart, but one of them is plants that move. I realize, yes, that plants are alive, but they don't "move" (I don't know a better way to put that) and they aren't sentient. BUT THEY WERE THE SCARIEST PART OF JUMANJI. (Although Audrey II doesn't creep me out at all... I guess because Little Shop is so campy. If it were at all serious, I'd probably freak.)

Also on my list of horrifying things, mutated/evil rabbits. The Holy Grail rabbit and Bunnicula don't count, though. And neither do jackalopes, oddly, although rodents with huge nose warts/growths probably would, as I remember being a little creeped out by my best friend's rabbit's inch-and-a-half-long nose-wart in gradeschool.

...I have strange fears.

Anyway, tonight's episode of Big Bang was INDIANA JONES THEMED! I kind of supposed it would be from the ads this week, but they didn't say anything explicit in the ads so I wasn't sure. The nerdiest thing they mentioned was Deborah Nadoolman, the costumer, but... I'm kinda iffy on her. I've read a lot of confusing accounts on her on COW, so I'm not sure how I feel about her. Anyway, it's a complicated issue and the one person maybe reading this who cares probably already knows more about it than I do (or doesn't care because he's a pretty relaxed guy, seems like).

...Buuuut I digress (which is just another way of saying "anyway" without starting YET ANOTHER point with that remark). I hope they continue from where they left off rather than just wrapping it up explanatorially. (Although I doubt they will--they do a good job of keeping a solidly flowing roughly-relative-to-weekly storyline, and on twitter one of the writers said that the Raiders March was not an uncostly deal.) BUT. They supposedly went to see a showing of Raiders (I'm jealous, I've missed big-screen showings of it TWICE this year, both coincidentally local to me!) with 21 seconds of yet-unseen footage... I wish. Lucasfilm hasn't released anything yet-unseen in ages. :(

Prompt time!

Top three favorite bands... Man, I don't know. My favorite songs at the moment are Tchaikovsky's 1812 (my permanent favorite), Cee Lo's Fuck You (which I also discovered his band is all rockin' girls! yeeeeaw), and Billy Joel's Ballad of Billy the Kid. Let's just leave it there and call it good.

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

Have you seen those ads for the Haunting in Connecticut movie? They really bother me. Why, you ask? Because that poem is COMEDIC. It's supposed to be weird. And it rather bothers me when horror movie writers butcher something like that just to scare people. =/ Here's the whole thing in case you were curious:

One bright day in the middle of the night,
two dead boys went out to fight.
Back to back they faced each other,
drew their swords and shot eachother.
Two deaf policemen heard the noise
and went to kill the two dead boys.
If you don't believe this lie is true,
go ask the blind man, he saw it too.

I learned this from my friend Jon in like eighth grade. I think eighth because I'm pretty sure I remember learning it in Mrs. Moeggenberg's classroom.




I remember some really random shit sometimes.

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

Blaaaaaaaaargh. Wow, it's been a busy week. To sum up how mentally exhausted I've been: I had a super-stressful test this morning and it didn't go too badly, so I just told myself since I've been so busy with Hopewalk that I just needed to forget about it, since I had nothing to do in my other two classes for the rest of the day (had tests in those Wednesday)... To the extent that I did. I saw one of my friends at lunch and I was like "Hey! So how'd that test go yesterday?" and she just looked at me. "Diane... That was this morning."

OMG IT WAS. Damn... Next week's only going to be WORSE, too! Ugh, yay.

And you know how busy I've been not getting my fill of (important) news? I missed the fact that EOIN COLFER IS WRITING A NEW HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE BOOK.

NO.

I don't care if Adams' widow asked him to write it (which, by the way, I and everyone I've talked about Artemis Fowl [for the record, I love those books] with thought Colfer was a girl. SO YEAH, ABOUT THAT). Hitchhiker's Guide is pretty much all about Adams' completely bizarre sense of humor. I don't care if it's a decent book! THAT IS NOT THE POINT, I'm sure it's not going to be horrendous. (Well, it could be.) I can't decide what's worse, a decent book that a good amount of people would buy, or a terrible one that no one wants but is still kind of a black mark on Adams' collection. I don't know, I just hate sequels written by the not-original authors/writers.

And yes, come bitch to me about how Adams was rewriting his last book anyway! I KNOW. (P.S., Salmon of Doubt was already the next book even though Dirk Gently was in it.)


Just UUUUUUUGH. Hitchhiker's Guide is one of those things where it's just very very awesome and the fandom is by far NOT CRAZY. And I feel like this is just all around baaaaaad neeeews. Godfuckingdamnit.

I think I'm going to have to not buy it, even if it's not bad. It's a matter of Adams' perspective versus other peoples', and I swear to god if this book even gets some lovey-dovey crappy ending with some real moral or something then NO. Adams wrote a bit happier ending for the movie to make up for the ending of the last book (by which I mean the fifth complete one, not Salmon of Doubt), but it was not moralistic or any crap like that. Which honestly really would be the worst worst thing that would happen I think.

But even so, my original thoughts stand and it's good to see other people agree with me and had the same inital thought; if anyone should do it, it should be Neil Gaiman (did you read American Gods yet? seriously), and he's both too busy and too respectful and maybe a little too dark for the part. WHICH I RESPECT AND ADMIRE HIM FOR.

PLEASE NO, EOIN COLFER


Arrrrgh.





So in other news! Southwind's not fielding next year and I now have really *no idea* where to go. Here's my thoughts, and the problem is they're all about balanced in terms of pros and cons. Auuurrrrgghhh.

Troopers: Pros- fun, not stuck up, have a good rep; Cons- flying out to Wyoming once a month, might have an immature group like Southwind was and they were as well.

Crown: Pros- love their music, they're doing really well, and they're really entertaining; Cons- hate their visuals, they might be a stuck-up crowd like PR was.

Glassmen: Pros- local, enjoyable shows; Cons- Carl marched there and might again if he doesn't make Cavvies, Sou taught there for like a month and Sheski made 2nd (and Westy auditioned and didn't make it), I'm not sold on their visuals.

Bluecoats: Pros- good visuals, good music, badass unis; Cons- rep for rowdy behavior, ugly helmets, potential for voice-over.

Vanguard: Pros- good music, good visuals; Cons- flying out to Cali once a month, Sou was a wannabe fanboy for them, and I probably wouldn't even make their junior corps.

Blue Stars: Pros- ...They're from Indianapolis?; Cons- Caleb is a douche, their visuals suck, and so do their uniforms (despite new shoes/pants, oops!).


Yeah, so... literally no idea what I want to do. It's just frustrating all around, blech. And I need to decide *soon*. The ideal thing would be that Madison Scouts would decide to do another Carmen-like show and need a girl to play brass and I would be RIGHT THERE. (Although as long as they let me do the whole show, I didn't really like that they had Carmen only do the middle part. I mean, I know, story-wise, she shows up late for dramatic effect and then dies, but I could not just spend 2/3 of my time not working at a show.) But PFFT like that would fucking happen.

Also, what happens if I decide I like it where I am and Southwind comes back the year after? Yeah. FUCK ALL OF THIS. Why couldn't people appreciate SW for what it was more? I fucking hate all the bandos who are like "OMG I EFFING LOVE CAVVIES" no you don't. Fuck off.

God, I have like a million things I need to post about because I've been so damn busy. BUT tomorrow is the "WTF are you wearing?!" party and I am SO FUCKING PSYCHED because it means I get to whip out THE GAUNTLETS. Oh yes.

And my bowler. I AM SO PSYCHED! (I would let Candice wear my bowler because I trust her with it, and then me wear my fed, but I do not trust anybody at that party to not mess up my fed EVEN IF I'M WEARING IT. Sorry, not doing that to my super-most-prized possession.)


...I need to go find uke tabs for 1000 Miles because it would be fuuuuun. I think I might start keeping track of my uke tabs for songs I know on here just for my own reference and in case the site I use (mostly Ukulele Boogaloo) goes down, as it hasn't been updated in over a year.

[EDIT] According to Yahoo's article, Colfer has been writing this in his head for a while and then got Adams' widow's blessing to do it. SO I'M JUST GOING TO SAY ALL-OUT NO, MM-KAY?

( the article because Yahoo likes to delete them )

[EDIT2] OMG THE NEW JAMES BOND THEME. PRETTY FUCKIN' BADASS

(Listen to it here around 55 minutes in; hard to believe this is the first duet in all these themes.)

A little weirder than I like, but it's got its awesome bits, namely the piano lick and the brass bits. :D Still think I like You Know My Name much better though. So it's... average. Not great, not awful, not gonna stick in my head though...

[EDIT3] I've been way too fucking busy this week/month to make much of an effort for Talk Like a Pirate Day, but I did go to Skyline. Happy Friday! (Also, I'm kind of a Heathen... which won't make sense to anyone on m f-list I don't think... It's a rather large and complicated inside joke.) But my dad did text me "Yarr!" this morning right after seven. Oh dad, I love you, you are so silly. He and I have very similar senses of humor and I love it.

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.

Well, I am a happy camper, for sure. Generally I have just been in a good mood (I think because of hanging out with people and also seeing Indy IV again, and then Serenity, and then trivia night tonight), but I am sure part of it has to do with the 3 3/4" Indiana Jones Hasbro figures. Those things are freakin' addictive! ...I think I have twelve now. I definitely did not anticipate that, and there are more I want to get. Yaaaaay! (Weirdness, though?: the ark does not open, at least as far as I can figure...)

Other news: the thing I was trying to come up with the other night about Indy IV; it was Marion's shoes. The first time I saw the movie I was all "is she wearing Aldens?! Oh hell yeah" but then upon this last viewing, I realized if you look at her ( major spoiler ) shoes... they are no doubt familiar? Cuteness abounds. (Or geekness. We're not sure yet. The data is inconclusive.)

What else what else what else.

Oh, so I have a comm, mercat_inc, that I set up initially as an art journal. If you have it friended, you might want to unfriend it, because I decided that if I do end up getting my webcomic up and running, I think I'm going to have a separate comm, and also I finally have a FANTASTIC use for mercat_inc. Unfortunately it's just to annotate my collection of ideas and projects and resources, and keep them organized and systemized... So something no one else would be interested (and anyway, I'd rather keep my "ideas" sort of private for now). [EDIT: Ignore all this, nobody had the community friended anyway, lol.]

OH MAN, weird dream last night. I don't remember the whole thing, only the end, where my parents drove up next to the garage (which was double-doored and built into a hill, a.k.a. not really our house) in the light-bluish-periwinkleish Honda Civic I saw yesterday. Only it had giant matching antlers on the back. And then, as I looked at it, I realized the antlers also looked like wings, and the front and back were extended and sculpted (and painted to match) and to the sides of the front driver/passenger area was a matching statue of liberty and masthead. CRAZY. So I asked my parents if they'd bought it for me, and they said yes, and I named it the Jackalope, because of the antlers. It was very Foys-ish, but weirder and awesomer. So now I really want a blue car, especially if it's that color. Still debating whether to keep it the parrotheadmobile, or make it more Indy-themed, or buy a small set of mounted antlers for the dash and name it the jackalope. This is, of course, after I even get a new car. So yeah, awesome car dream (oh, and then in the dream we pulled the statues and antler-wings off to make it more driveable).

Things I found out today: Walmart now has two (that I've seen) Indiana Jones birthday cards, no longer the Father's Day card. They're "limited time only" so I'm debating whether that means be a dork and just buy them, or wait and see if they don't disappear before my birthday... and hope I get them. Oh geez! What is a geek to do...? I have the feeling I'll just buy them, because I'm definitely going back to that Walmart by the mall, it has the 3 3/4" scale vehicles which I haven't seen at the other Walmart! Oh geez. Our house room is going to be soooo dorky next year... =)

Ooh, ooh, tonight was trivia night again! SO FUN. Amazingly, though we usually fail on sports questions and I am the least sports-oriented of all on our team, I was still able to answer the first two for us: Don King (which I knew from the Simpsons where Homer becomes a boxer) and polo (the only sport where you are forced to play right-handed, for safety's sake). (I remember reading that on some trivia challenge, and that people also submitted then [and now] cricket and jai-alai. No real idea, but I'd think you could play cricket [Krikkit...?] left-handed, and I honestly have no clue whatsoever about jai-alai.)

Also, the final question was a song/artist: "My Ding-a-ling" which I knew as soon as I heard the crowd cheer (yep... I'm a dork.) and then proceeded to guess "I swear it's some artist like Chuck Berry", so Lara wrote down Chuck Berry and we got the points. XD This sort of stuff is why trivia night is the bomb! (Also, Dudley Do-Right was a TV show theme tonight, and Raider's March was a movie theme, though I think everyone got Raider's March. [who knows, I may have been the only person to get it in the first second, though, lol.])

Finally: there is going to be a fandom-based fundraiser which is being run over at livelongnmarry in support of equal marriage rights. I think it's really cool. I'm wondering if I should offer up an ambigram commission? I mean, it's something I enjoy doing, and though I'm no professional, I've had two friends say they want tattoos of the work. (One of them is newer, though, and not posted. I haven't posted a lot of the newer stuff, which I think is a bit cleaner.) The only thing that makes me worry is that tattoo art gets ripped off a lot, it seems, and I think any other uses of the work might end up in some sort of crediting-copyrights-something fiasco? I dunno. Maybe I'm too paranoid. But I really do love the challenge of ambigrams, and I think it's a viable skill for me to offer up for this. Something simple that I will actually get done. I'd really appreciate any thoughts on this.

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...

^If you get it, well, that's why I've been a terrible procrastinator lately.

Honestly I have lots of stuff to post about last week and adventures and whatnot, buuuut today was weird. Well, fuck it, these past few days have been weird. Completely intangible emotional rollercoaster and today I'm veeeeery tired. But I got a lot of good stuff done; picked out my classes (thank god it mostly all fell together with little effort... now I just have to be awake at 2 am Thursday to register), got Phi Rho stuff done (fees, planning, whatnot), got the phone numbers to call (TOMORROW YOU FUCKING PROCRASTINATOR) about the PEP presentations, looked at plane tickets to Maui (which are much more accessible than I thought they'd be--probably because Aloha airlines went down the tubes as of today?!), all sorts of responsible things for two hours.

Yeeeeah, and since then I've been dicking around on the internet, just like I did ALL weekend. (Literally.)

However I'm going to save the emotional crap for a friendslocked post and also for tomorrow. ( Instead here's my 51 (!!!!) day backlog )



( Shit, guys, somebody stole my idea. )


Side note: The Fall got rescheduled for a May release? Anyone else hear anything? DO WANT (to see)

[EDIT] Watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat. Again? Presto! Let's see how many times I can edit this for errors because I'm half asleep.