Nyan nyan nyan? Nyan! Nyan nyan. Plus other nyans I nyan (videos I like).

Do you know about Nyan Cat? DO YOU?! Well if not, before even reading that previous link, go to -->THIS LINK<-- and be enthralled and amazed. And/or really annoyed. Lol.

I like Nyan Cat because not only do I enjoy kitties and weird stuff and pointless dumb internet junk, I also have a long history with nyan. You see, nyan is the Japanese onomatopoeia for "meow." And when I was little and dumb, I would call cats nyan-nyans even if I was otherwise speaking in English. It did not even occur to me that someone might not know what a "nyan-nyan" is. Because what kind of idiot doesn't know what a nyan-nyan is?! I also called dogs wan-wans because, you guessed it, wan is "woof" in Japanese. So, basically, I have nyaned for nearly 22 years, which is waaaaaay more than the other nyaning high-scores people have gotten, seeing as Nyan Cat has only existed for like a month.

If you enjoyed Nyan Cat, which I KNOW you did not at all totally did, you should go here and play Nyan Cat Fly, a game where you control Nyan Cat to get him to omnom tasty yummies and avoid omnomming yucky veggies. My favorite thing about it is that you can customize your own Nyan Cat, that's right, CUSTOMIZE your OWN NYAN CAT to play with. Bomb! Above you can see my personalized nyan. White-furred chocolate nyan with pink frosting and rainbow sprinkles! :D Another nyantastic nyan-finding is this video of a dude playing the nyan song on the piano. Check it out!

And please notice that the video description contains a link to a tutorial for how to play the nyan song. Nyaice! If I was better at playing the piano and not confused by that style of piano tutorial, I would totally learn how to play it. But enyaough about nyan! Since I am pleased with my discovery of Blogger's easy-to-imbed YouTube video tool, I will now share a couple non-nyan videos which I currently find very entertaining.

This commercial makes me laugh a lot. I love how the older girl says "happy," and the face the younger girl makes when the grandpa rolls over, ahaha. I read that they told the actresses playing the daughters that the cream actually does work and they believed it, so they are probably being totez srs when they are putting it on the old dude actor, LOL.

I looooove corgis, omg!! The best kind of dog. This one is particularly awesome. Why is he doing that? Why is he so crazy?? He's just all flipping out and smacking the ground with his front paws, hahaha. So great.

Okay I lied, this is nyan-related. But not Nyan Cat-related! I sometimes (oftentimes) watch videos of cats meowing because....well, I'm a crazy cat lady? I have no legitimate reason. Anyway, this video confirmed the fact that I - quite idiosyncratically - enjoy old cats a lot more than kittens. That noisy gray kitty when he is in grown-up stage with his big fluffy tail? SOOOOOO AMAZEBALLS.

And that is it for now because long post is gettin' looooooong.

Excellent sci-fi short stories.

Do you like sci-fi? If so, read on! Because I do. Of course I do. *makes a nerd face*

I also really like short stories because a) I have a short attention span, and b) I do not have to commit to allotting a certain, extended reading time-period to them. For instance, my extracurricular reading time for the last, oh, almost two years has been dedicated to the re-reading and continued-reading of the Wheel of Time series, which I had read up to the latest release back in middle school (and which is probably my favorite book series ever). Before that was a couple-month time period dedicated to reading H.P. Lovecraft stories. And so forth.

So anyways, you should probably read these really great short sci-fi stories!

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

The first one is called The Last Question, written by Isaac Asimov. (If you do not know who he is then you were clearly lying earlier when you said that you like sci-fi.) I discovered this story when a friend posted a status about it on the Facebook, and I agree with his accompanying assertion that it is very brilliant. Asimov apparently considers it his best short story, which must mean it is fantastic! (It is.) Read it online here. (If you are going to read any of these stories, read this one. The ending is pretty much mind-blowing.)

The next one is also by Asimov, yay! (I have not yet read any full-length sci-fi works by him, but his short stories are great, let me tell you.) I found out about Nightfall when I was looking up info about The Last Question (via Wikipedia, obv.) Anyway, the wiki page mentioned Nightfall as one of his other most well-known and acclaimed short stories so I was like SHIT I BETTER READ THAT RIGHT NOW. And I did. And it was bomb. Also, it was apparently later adapted into a full-length novel.....so it must be awesome, right? Right. And you can read it online right here.

The next story is called The Sentinel, written by Arthur C. Clarke, and it apparently formed the basis for the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. It's kind of creepy, lol! And it makes me want to watch that movie...I will have to put it on my movies-to-watch list. A link to a pdf of the story can be found near the bottom of this page. (P.S. If you want to find more cool sci-fi stories, you should browse around this site - that's how I found this one!)

Exhalation, by Ted Chiang, is a really creative and rather profound story. It may or may not have made me sit around for a while just staring off into space and being like "WHOAAAA." This story is included in a sci-fi anthology called Eclipse Two, which I will probably have to order and read now. Anywhoo, this story was brought to my attention through an acquaintances blog, which you should probably go check out because he is a super cool dude who likes super interesting stuff and is also super hilarious. Super super! As for the story, the direct link for you to go read it is here.

Okay, one more, just one more! This one, entitled Starborn and written by Juhana Leinonen, is really interesting because it is a cross between a story and a game. Also found on that sweet blog from the previous paragraph, he (the guy who writes the blog) describes it as a short interactive story and he enjoyed + recommended it so it was sure to be way cool. And it was! Just follow the instructions and type in any of the capitalized words to move to a new scene. When I played it, I was very meticulous about making sure I typed in every single command so I wouldn't miss ANYTHING. Lol. It was really interesting how at first I was just going around reading about all this neat stuff but not having any idea what the heck I was doing or what I should enter next, but then things started to fall together and then it clicked and I knew what I needed to do next. It only took me about 5-10 minutes and was really fun and unique. Check it out here!

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

Hmmm that ended up being more story recommendations than I had originally intended to do. Oh well, the more nerdy stories, the merrier! Right?! Right.

Forever 21...

...currently has tons of floral rose-patterned, bow-festooned, pink-and-cream color-scheme clothing and accessories. Which are some of my biggest retail weaknesses. Meaning I was suckered into buying tons and tons of stuff. Damn you and your ridiculously low prices, F21!!

I bought all of this stuff. ALL OF IT.

We will see how many of the things I recklessly bought actually look decent on me and how many I will have to return. Also, how much of that jewelry I will actually wear, since I don't really wear jewelry besides the watch, silver bracelet, and silver heart necklace that I always wear...

I am going to be flowery and girly all over the place.

How fast can you type, homies?

Go here to find out! --> http://www.typeonline.co.uk/typingspeed.php

It actually has you type quotes from books, therefore forcing you to use all kinds of punctuation and capitalize words and do terrible, time-consuming things like that. Aka, things you have to use when you actually type things in real life. Lol.

I average around 75-80 wpm, increasing to over 80 wpm when I happen to get a passage that is mostly straight simple sentences without weird punctuations, proper nouns, etc. So, in other words, I am pretty much a badass.

What's your typing speed? :)




EDIT: Awwww yeahhhh, what now, sucka T?!

I AM THE LORD OF TYPING.

Needs more kitties.

You know, it has been a long time since I have made a blog post about cats. Far too long. Thus: cats. Huzzah! Here are some cat photos that made me cackle/squeal for extended periods of time. Enjoy.

It's sitting SO WEIRD, LOL.

HAHAHA ROFL FOREVER AHAHAHA!
This photo is so hilarious for so many reasons.
I especially like its mouth. Also, its crack-eyes.
(I remain ever grateful to Emily Pinney for showing this to me.)

So true! I love me some sassypants. :3 And some *boop*.
(My cat does not love *boop*.)

The best cat face ever. It looks so pissed, haha!

And I will finish up with this lolcat, which - although it is not nearly as ridonkulous or clearly-hilarious as many other lolcats - for some reason never fails to make me quite literally lol. Forever.

ALL THE LOLZ.

Thank you for joining me during this long-overdue (??) cat post. Please join me next time for more cat post. Cat cat cat post.

Photo credits to I do not even know they are from random places oh gosh I am bad at blogging responsibly.

Huron Ontario Michigan Erie Superior

I never really realized how freaking-ass humongous the Great Lakes are until, in the midst of a flight from Boston to Seattle, I looked out the window and was like "WHAT WHY IS THERE THE OCEAN we are supposed to be flying AWAY from that IS THE PILOT LOST what even is happening."

Just kidding, those are lakes. LAKES.

Foooooood (blogs).

I like to read food review blogs. Food product review blogs, to be more precise - especially about candy/snacks. Is that weird? Maybe. But it is also totally awesome. Here are a couple that I particularly enjoy.

Candy Blog is full of reviews of, predictably, candy. Metric shit tons of candy. This blogger sure loves her candy! She also has very impressive specific/nuanced taste discerning abilities. Like, she'll do an entry on, say, Skittles and be talking about the bitter citrus oil tastes and floral berry tastes and all this crazy stuff and I'm like "whaaat is happening" but I am nevertheless super into it, lol. It's also pretty useful because she reviews tons of domestic candies, so you can figure out which treats to avoid or to search for when you go to the store. :) She also does some foreign candy reviews, which I find the most intriguing just because they're out of the ordinary (often very much so).

Japanese Snack Reviews also has a very straightforward name, as the author does reviews of Japanese snack foods of all kinds: chips, candies, beverages, pre-packaged foods, cookies, other baked goods, ice cream, yogurt, and so forth. I find this blog particularly interesting for many reasons, including a) I freaking heart Japanese snacks and I like to imagine how delicious (or...gross) they must be, b) I enjoy seeing what kinds of awesome/nasty/weird-ass snacks there are in Japan these days and c) the author is a good writer whose review posts often have humor, cultural observations, interesting anecdotes, etc. thrown in.

Jen Ken's Kit Kat Blog does not randomly have the word "Kit Kat" in it just for funsies; the inclusion of that word is SRS BSNS. And by that I mean she does, indeed, review Kit Kats. Only Kit Kats. "How is that possible?" you might say. If so, you do not know of the crazy wonder that is Japanese Kit Kats. In Japan, Kit Kats are quite popular and are released in tons of flavors each year. There are regional flavors, seasonal flavors, store-exclusive flavors, holiday flavors, you name it! And lots of them are hella weird. Examples include corn, wasabi, soy sauce, and rose. It's really interesting seeing all the flavors of Kit Kat that exist and how widely they vary in their...deliciousness level (?). Sooooo many Kit Kats~~~!

I check these blogs regularly. As in...pretty much every day. You probably should, too. If you are a weirdo like me who likes reading reviews of snack foods, that is.

Photo credits for all banners go to the respective blogs. :)

What a BAMF.

Seriously. Ridiculous.

(...holy crap I could watch this for hours on end wtf.)

I want to go to there.

Machu Picchu, Peru

Erice, Sicily, Italy

Castello Pepoli

Bali, Indonesia

Four Seasons Resort

Santorini, Greece

Iguazu Falls, Argentina/Brazil

Western Germany

Burg Eltz

Bora Bora, French Polynesia

Yosemite National Park, California

Lost Arrow Spire

Manarola, Italy

Great Wall, China

Bavaria, Germany

Neuschwanstein Castle

 
Seychelles

 ....Germany's got all the cool castles, dayum.

via I have no idea because these are just random photos I had saved on my computer...

RAINY HIPSTERS

(click to enlarge)

I especially like Mexico-ish and yes sir & yes ma'am. And old peeps, lol.

via this tumblr.