Might not do it

I said that I was going to do Nanowrimo, and was making pretty good progress, until I came upon a story about a participant wearing a costume while writing in a store window. And then I wondered why I was doing it.

I have my own story that I have to finish editing. It's painful to go through it and work out all the problems and write new scenes and try to make it good. I don't want to be grown up about writing, I just want to have fun. But finishing rewriting a book will be more satisfying than writing thousands of words that aren't going anywhere.

I wish I hadn't read the interview with the costume-wearer, but it made me prioritize. I've been trying to figure out for the past several hours how to successfully digitize some vinyl I have, and am now tinkering with my third audio editing software. I'd rather successfully complete a podcast of digitized records than spend that time doing Nanowrimo, so I guess for now I'm not going to do it. I still have time to go back and resume that project, if I feel like I have to take a break from maturity.

Fiction is lying

I'm sure I'm not the first one to say this, and I don't have time to look it up right now, but sometimes writing fiction feels like lying. For instance, I started on this month's 50k-word project, and I wanted to start with a "what if" based on stuff I'd experienced, but realized if I continue along that path, then it wouldn't be fiction, so I started "lying." I know there are authors out there who've gotten big-time recognition for fiction that was just thinly veiled non-fiction, probably because they wanted to communicate a theme that was based on their seemingly interesting reality. Or it could be that they were too lazy to create fiction with the things they'd learned from their bizarre experiences. There's one local author who's of the more intellectual group, and when I read his stuff, I thought that there was nothing fictional about it--it was just a bunch of essays, posing as short stories and eventually as a loosely-constructed novel. But an agent saw his work in a literary fiction publication and was impressed, and they've milked the guy's background enough to make him into a name on the lit fic scene. It's one of those things that falls under the L.I.F. category (Life Isn't Fair).

They need a proofreader

Nanowrimo

I just re-registered at Nanowrimo, and I'm still trying to figure out why. I've done it a few times and have succeeded at writing 50 thousand words, and after I "won" last year, I thought that was it: time to move on and grow up. But tomorrow is November, and I guess I've gotten into the habit of doing it.

It's fun--no need to worry about plot or anything constructive. You just thoughtlessly write and write until you hit the 50k mark. And after a while, you realize that putting out all those words is not a big deal. The big deal is finishing something that the industry wants. That's a real feat.

Phonics

Someone asked me if I know about any resources that explain the sounds of English, and I found Phonics on the Web that has good explanations of the different types of sounds. It really breaks down individual sounds more than gives a lot of rules, but helps clear up some issues, such as C and G and R-controlled vowels (never heard it put that way before).

lego Stargate

Here's something delightfully nerdy: a Stargate made totally from Legos. It rotates, "spins the inner ring randomly for x seconds, then reverses direction, seven times" and its chevrons light up!

Check out all the features. It takes real talent to create this type of thing. Incredibly nifty!

Tsushima-ben

Here's a blogger I actually know offline--Austin, who's in my Japanese class. He is a very smart, interesting guy. We've started going out after class with another guy (usually) to talk about Japan, traveling, history, culture, repatriation, being weird, etc. He wants to be a professor, but I don't meet a lot of people like him (who are either aspiring academics or already there) who are intellectual but open. The ones I usually meet exhibit the typical academic cul-de-sac thinking, which not only is predictable but lacking critical thinking.

Unfortunately, his blogging isn't as frequent now because it was really more of a journal of his life on Tsushima, an island in Japan. However, he's recently posted a list of words he learned there:

Tsushima actually boasts two dialects, one for the whole island and the other for Tsutsu, an isolated village at the very southern tip. Tsutsu-ben is so different that even other Tsushima-jin find it incomprehensible. Tsushima-ben itself is strange to the mainlanders who come to the island...the biggest distinction is that Tsushima-jin attach "cha" and "cho" to the end of damn near everything, and even use the particle "chi" in place of the usual "wa." Along with vocabulary, a woman saying she "didn't eat, I'm alright but I feel bad" can be very different:

Standard: "Tabenakatta. Daijoubu kedo astashi wa kibun ga warui."
Tsushima-ben: "Tabenakacha. Dogeemonai kedo ondo chi anbe ga warui."

Here's the list he created--just from what he knows, which is why it's not that long:

rigacho ... Arigato ... Thanks

Anbe ga warui ... Kibun ga warui ... To feel sick

Iibai ... Ii ... Good!

Osha ... Omae ... You (rude)

Ondo ... Atashi ... I, me (women's speech)

Katsu ... Tobikomu ... To dive (esp. pearl diving)

Koke ... Koko ... Here

Saen ... Tsumaranai ... Lame, boring

Se de ... Osu koto ... Pushing

Tau ... Te wo todoku ... In reach

Tawan ... Te wo todokanai ... Out of reach

Dari ... Baka ... Stupid

Chi ... Particle "wa" ... Particle marking sentence subject; is

Dogeemonai ... Daijoubu ... Alright

Nanchi ... Nani ... What

Nemaru ... Kusaru ... To rot

Yasukaran ... Takusan, ippai ... Many, full of~

Wakarancha ... Wakaranai ... Don't understand

Waya! ... Dame! ... No good, stop that!

I want to do another post about where he lived because it's a small place with a rich history. It's between Korea and Japan.

Real and cartoon people

Here's something that I've wondered about for a while: why do some commercials have both real and cartoon people in them? For instance, a woman will be in a clothing store, and then a small cartoon woman will come up to her and talk to her about how great the clothes are, etc. Or a woman will be in a grocery store, and a bunch of cartoon people will surround her, giving her advice about a fabulous bathroom tissue.

It's just a mixture of realities: is the real person the true reality, or are the cartoon people the reality? Why would they put both drawings of people and real people together in a 30-second commercial? Why isn't the real woman wondering what all those cartoon people are doing there? If commercials are supposed to make the viewer identify with the folks in the ad, then how can they think that we are going to accept the existence of cartoon people in a world that otherwise looks like ours? Is all possible humanness thus negated? I think it's strange, and it's a mystery that obviously hasn't been solved because I've seen those weird combos for a number of years, and the questions just keep multiplying.

Damaged art

Language Hat (aka the Great One, another person I'd like to meet someday) mentioned an article from the New Yorker about the follies of rich people and art:

He began to tell the story of the Picasso’s provenance. As he talked, he had his back to the picture. He was wearing jeans and a golf shirt...without realizing it, he backed up a step or two as he talked. “So then I made a gesture with my right hand,” Wynn said, “and my right elbow hit the picture. It punctured the picture.” There was a distinct ripping sound.

Another rich guy was going to pay "a hundred and thirty-nine million dollars for it, the highest known price ever paid for a work of art" but the deal was off. Then, "Later that week, Wynn’s wife, Elaine, took the painting to New York in Wynn’s jet, where she and 'Le Rêve' were met by an armored truck."

That's quite an expensive mistake.

2000 kanji

I came upon a list of The Top Two Thousand Kanji:

This list was produced by scanning over a million kanji on thousands of Japanese web pages and ranking them according to the number of times they were seen. In total, over 3200 distinct characters were encountered. However, in order to eliminate anomalous entries at the lower end of the frequency scale, the list was arbitrarily truncated at 2000 entries.

Each kanji character on this page is linked to its entry in WWWJDIC, an online Japanese dictionary that provides more information about the character and words that use it.

The list was created by a guy who's just one of many brains online (it's hard to meet such people offline). Think about it: he created a program to scan the internet to find frequently-occuring kanji. That's a lot of work! Plus, all you have to do is click a kanji to find out its info--ie, convenient programming. The only complaint I have is the font he chose--it's not the "typical" font you see in Japanese text. It looks more like Chinese, though it's not.

Great lecture

I went to an excellent lecture by David Cannadine about his latest book, Mellon: An American Life. I ended up buying the huge book--it's hundreds of pages. If he is coming to your area, I highly recommend seeing him--he's very knowledgeable and his lecture is very interesting.

He also answered the audience's questions--they were quite good. Whenever I am in a non-academic setting surrounded by intellectually curious people, I'm quite impressed because once people are out of school, they really don't "have" to be interested in different stuff--they can just turn off their brains outside of work and veg.

Another thing that was noticeable was how Cannadine was self-effacing. Even though he's a highly educated, accomplished academic and author (and whatever else that's applicable), he downplayed all the work he did and people's positive reactions to the book. He would say something that sort of was humorously apologetic, but then he'd launch into all this incredible information and how he was qualified to make certain conclusions. He's British, so maybe that self-effacement is typically British--I've heard that some Brits tend to be like that.

New era

Well, this is the first post on my new computer. It may seem overly dramatic to be so emotional and celebratory about it, but I wrote and edited a lot and did lots of translations on my old one, in addition to reading and researching a lot online, so it's really a new beginning for me. When I look at my old computer, I think about all those days and nights working in isolation, but with this new one, I can start fresh with a new attitude and new goals (or reaching those I've already set).

This new computer is really great--I don't mean to do a commercial for the company (though if they were to pay me for endorsing it, I'd gladly take the dough), but it's going to make my computer-heavy life a lot easier and more enjoyable.

The first task is to finish the thing I'm writing for Jon Konrath's zine, which I can do tomorrow since I'm not working any crazy hours. Then on Monday, I'll be doing my first translations on here, which includes trips to online dictionaries and sources.

Now if I can only get some more radio gigs, things would be even better. :)

new Mac

I was going to do a decent post tonight, but I can't because my husband is configuring my new Macbook, and I'm just quickly borrowing his computer to do this post before he has to get back on it.

I've been using a Mac Clamshell for six years--I got a lot of work done on that thing. But now it's time for a new era in my computer use. Maybe I'll get my act together to finish revising the novel I'm working on and get up the nerve to send it out. It's so easy to get sidetracked by activities where you're actually accomplishing tangible goals instead of pursing dreams that may never become reality.

Cool book

Someone sent me a very cool book called Mixtionary, which is a kind of dictionary of words that are mixed together. What they do is take a couple of words and combine them to create a new word.

For instance, they have created a word "Corpensation," which is a combination of "corporate" and "compensation", and the definition is: "Massive renumeration within corporations for high-ranking executives, while those doing the actual work are forced to produce more with far less."

It's fresh with great illustrations--the artist is a professional with tons of experience. It's just a cute book (it's also small) with interesting new words--no need to be a linguist to appreciate it. If you're into words and visuals, then you'll like it.

the Metamorphosis is depressing

Last week, I decided to read The Metamorphosis because I was thinking about how isolating modern society is, and wanted to see what Kafka had to say about it, since for some reason I was under the impression that he wrote about such a theme in that book (which I first read a long time ago).

So when I read it (you can get it for free online at the link above), I was expecting to be somehow comforted by the fact that he was from a very different time and culture, but was dealing with the same types of things we deal with in the technology-saturated 21st century.

I was wrong: the story was so depressing--the guy turned into an insect-type of creature, and nothing ever turned around from there. There were just details of his condition and the hardship the family endured. Then the guy/insect died, and his family was relieved and went on with their lives. How cynical and dark. I could go ahead and read a bunch of commentary about it, but why should I? I shouldn't have to read analyses on what the symbols and subtexts mean, I should just be able to walk away with something meaningful. That's why I like some sci-fi: we can extract meaning from it without going to a bunch of nerds to help us figure it out.

I don't know why I thought that Kafka wrote about societal isolation. I'm sure the story is about that in a way, but it left me cold--it even made me feel isolated from the story itself, in even a repulsive way. So if it was his intention to express isolation by isolating the reader, he succeeded.

Media burn

If you are into the visual media, I highly recommend going to Media Burn.org, "the first website of its kind, created entirely from progressive nonfiction videos and television programs." I'm still using a computer that's six years old, so the videos I view there aren't downloading so fast for me. However, I ordered a new computer, and when I get it, I'm going to view a bunch of stuff there.

I went to the site's launch party--not only was I alone, but I didn't know anybody there. It seems that most of the people were from the visual arts and video/TV/film world, which I'm not a part of. But I ended up meeting a few cool people, including a couple of guys who helped set up the site. I also met some locally well-known people who were surprisingly friendly, and some others who allowed me like 10 seconds to talk to them, because they probably figured I'm not "important" enough.

But it didn't matter, really, because I ended talking with a big-time major person in the media who was very friendly and encouraging. I was so shocked that they actually wanted to talk to me, even though I'm pretty much a peon in that world, and it's not like I'm some successful lawyer or other type of professional--I'm just working my way through life. I'm often impressed when successful and/or well-known people will spend time with me, even though I'm barely at their level of accomplishment. I am still totally psyched that I met them, and am amazed that they have even responded to my follow-up emails. It sounds pitiful, but if you have ever tried to accomplish certain things and came upon folks who have made it, then you know what I'm talking about: they can either be jerky or be surprisingly friendly. And usually it's the former.

Goo is cute

I was looking up a French word, and came across the word "substance gluante" which means "goo."

The English word "goo" is a lot cuter than "substance gluante." The French word sounds so grown-up and serious. I like "goo" a lot better.

leaped or leapt?

I was reading a column by Toby Young, and he said, "I leapt on my bicycle." Which made me wonder what the difference is between "leapt" and "leaped." I figured it's a British thing to put a "t" at the end of certain words, and I think I'm right because I found a list of Spelling differences between American and British English:

Generally, the rule is that if there is a verb form with -ed, American English will use it, and if there is a form with -t, British English uses it. However, these forms do not exist for every verb and there is variation.

The British use of "t" at the end of words reminds me of German because they have plenty of verbs that use a "t" at the end. Which makes sense, because old English is scarily similar to German.

The list I found is a part of a List of American vs. British Spelling, where there's lots of good stuff, including Common Words in American and British English, and related links.

Dead French

I got this photo from Arrogant Polyglot, who speaks and reads and writes French very well, but doesn't seem to be arrogant about it. :)

Rick's new book

Rick Kogan's new book, A Chicago Tavern: a Goat, a Curse, and the American Dream is finally out, and there's going to be a book release party this Friday and Saturday at the Billy Goat.

I'm mentioning his book here because he gave me a chance, and it's because of him that I was able to get into radio (which I'm still working in part time). If (or when) I reach my goal, my gratitude will be even greater, though there's really no way to help him out because he seems to have an incredible life already.

He is also one of the few people who practices what he preaches: he has said that people shouldn't have to go to certain schools or get certain training to enter journalism--talent matters, no matter what someone's background is. When I first heard him say that, I thought, "Yeah, whatever--another successful dude doling out the usual trite advice" but I've seen him give people a shot, including me--when I met him, he didn't even ask me what I did for a living or where I was from or where I lived or anything--and then he had me on his show a few times just to offer comments about stuff. The only reason why he knows what I do or where I'm from, etc. is because I've told him--without being asked. And I still don't think he really cares. To him, what seems to matter is someone's character and their abilities (including potential).

There is another person I've met in the biz who's similar, who's given me opportunities and has been encouraging, without requiring me to prove myself or jump through hoops, and if he ever has a book or show or whatever to promote, I'll be sure to help him out too.

Internet ghetto

I was talking about MySpace with someone, and they shuddered and said it was the "ghetto of the internet." It works for some people, but it can get quite sleazy at times, especially when you log on and there are half-dressed people looking at you beneath gaudy flashing ads, or when you get invites to join murky groups or friend requests from people whose pictures do not include clothes. I think it's much easier to find quality people through blogs than to wade through the muck to reach similar people in the online ghetto.

And it's a lot easier to hack--there are predators all over trying to get your personal information by sending phony emails or posting false bulletins. I read blogs every day, but I haven't been visiting MySpace that much.

Moving vocabulary

I found a site with lots of stuff going on, including daily Japanese-English quizzes.

They have really a cool feature: moving flashcards. There are two columns of words: on the right is Japanese and on the left is English. Just drag each Japanese word on top of the corresponding English word, and it lets you know if you're correct (through cool sound effects!). There are different quizzes like this--just "Enter a number between 1 and 343" or click the "Load Next Quiz" button.

There's lots more at that site--I'll need to explore it more to find other cool stuff.

European history

Even though I haven't had a lot of time lately, I still feel like I have to make the time to catch up on European history because it will provide a context for analyzing current societal trends. It's not like I have a job that requires me to understand society better, but I just want to broaden my intellectual horizons and not readily accept others' viewpoints until I can formulate my own. So even if I agree with someone, I want it to be an informed decision, based on what I've learned.

A while ago, someone gave me the textbook Civilization in the West, which I think was written for college students for a survey course or maybe high level high school students. It seems too large and dense for a high school book, though. So far, I've read about ancient Rome and the family in 16th century Europe, and some smatterings of other info in sections that seem to be articles, which in a way are easier to read because a lot of the book is just straightforward facts, which are hard to take in a lump sum.

Even though I sometimes choose to watch TV or space out, I still feel like I have to read a lot of this book before I'll feel satisfied enough with my knowledge of European history. The problem is, it's so huge, I can't carry it around easily, but I'll continue to try to tackle it.

Interpreting gone?

I think people are not really using the word "interpreting" anymore. It seems that they're using "translating" to mean both interpreting and translating.

For instance, I told some people that I don't speak a certain language well, but I translate it. They kept asking me how I can do it, and I explained that reading it is easier than speaking it. But it still didn't make sense to them, so they kept asking me how and why. Then it dawned on me: they thought I was talking about interpreting but were using the word "translating," so I explained the difference: that I was talking about translating, ie, the written word, not interpreting, ie, the spoken word. They finally understood.

I've also heard the word "translator" when people describe someone's profession--even though they're an interpreter. I've heard this from all types of people and even in the media. It's wrong, but I think it's easier for people to use that word than think too hard about how the words apply.

I know that professional language folks know the difference, but I'm afraid that the word "interpreting" or "interpreter" are no longer going to be used that often, and eventually, I wonder if they'll be used at all.

Disappointing

Last year, I heard that Orny Adams was coming to Chicago. Actually, he told me--I emailed him about the DVD I'd seen him in and asked him if he was ever coming to Chicago, and he told me he was. (I'm always surprised when well-known people respond to my emails. Not every one has, but some have, which still surprises me.)

Well, he came and went, and the night was sort of disappointing. Not because he wasn't good, but because he wasn't the only comedian there. Originally, I think he was supposed to be the only headliner, but when I went to the club's website, I saw that he wasn't going to be alone.

I felt like I was just getting into his routine when he had to stop to make room for the other headliner, who was great. But what's weird is that between the professionals' sets, they brought a novice on stage, and he was nowhere near their level. Plus, afterwards, even though Orny said he wanted people to say hi to him in the lobby, I didn't really get a chance to say much to him because he was drained, it seemed, and it's not like I'm famous or anything, or even an acquaintance, so it's not like I have "permission" to chat.

I would've liked to hear at least an hour of his comedy, and what I ended up hearing was maybe half an hour. But at least I got exposed to another good comedian. I just wish I could have heard more from each guy.

Update: he said he's coming to Chicago in 2007. Let's hope we're all still around by then.

Radio and language

Things haven't developed exactly how I wanted them to, but I'm not dead yet, so I still have time to attain some goals. But along the way, I've found something interesting: doing the sound board for some foreign language stations--they're all foreign languages, all the time. I haven't started working there yet because I have to actually be hired, but I've got a good chance. Unfortunately, they're languages I don't understand, such as Russian, Polish, and Korean. I asked the dude in charge how he can work a board for shows he doesn't understand, and he said they just point at you to give you cues to play whatever they've told you to play (the on-air folks are bilingual). At one point when we were talking on the phone, he had to put me on hold, and I heard a Korean song, then a commercial. The only think I could make out were the endings ("da" and "o" which are similar to "desu" and "masu" in Japanese) and I could tell that they were saying numbers. Another day I heard a Polish commercial, and guessed a similar thing--that they were saying numbers, which was probably a phone number.

So if I do end up getting some work there, it would be a good blend of two things I love: radio and languages!

San's comment

I've decided to take advantage of the multilingual feature in Blogger and use Japanese as my default language. So that means that all the directions--and everything else--are in Japanese. So when I go to publish this comment, I have to click on the button that doesn't say "publish" but something a lot more wordy.

But what's cool is when I see people's comments in this or other Blogger blogs, because instead of just showing the name of the commenter, it attaches さんのコメント (san no komento) after the name. So, for instance, if a guy named Joe leaves a comment on a blog, then it will say "Joe さんのコメント" (Joe-san's comment).

As you probably know, Japanese people use the word "san" after people's names, such as Tanaka-san or even Judy-san if the person happens to be a gaijin (they usually call foreigners by their first names, then attach "san" to it). So seeing "san" after commenters' names is really cool, and so different.

Make money

I was reading an excerpt of Ayn Rand's money "lecture" or what seems to be a character's soliloquy and saw this statement:

If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose—because it contains all the others—the fact that they were the people who created the phrase 'to MAKE money.' No other language or nation had ever used these words before...

Is that true? That sounds preposterous--there must be some language or culture in the world that has the phrase "to make money." Also, human history is so old that it doesn't seem possible that the U.S., which is a relatively young country, would be the first to create it--we speak a derivative of British English, which itself comes from a mish-mosh of other languages that have been around for a long time.

English in EU

I learned via Mad Minerva that English is the most widely spoken language in the EU--just check out the chart, where they report: "English is the language which is most widely 'spoken' in the EU. While it is the mother tongue for 16% of the European population, a further 31% of the EU citizens speak it well enough to hold a conversation."

Why did they put "spoken" in quotes? They don't believe people really speak it?

The largest language group, in terms of native speakers, is German. Which means I should start studying it again--just in case opportunities present themselves, cuz you just never know.

White, no sugar

I've never heard of this term to describe tea with milk: white. Well, I'm assuming it means tea with milk, because when someone asked Lynley if he wanted tea, he said, "White, no sugar."

I found that phrase at a BBC site underneath a picture of Prince William, who I'm assuming said that (or would, since the article was about summer jobs) because it says, "Mine's white no sugar, William."

I can't imagine anyone saying that in Da Windy City, or anywhere else in this big land.

Pile

In an episode of Inspector Lynley, he and Havers went to his family's estate, which she called a "pile." Then he told her not to use that word.

Okay, I'm American and have never lived in England (though I visited there), so I don't get what "pile" means. Plus, I don't even quite understand if what she was saying was rude, thus if he was letting her know that it was offensive.

According to my edition of the Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, pile is "a lofty or large building or mass of buildings: the noble pile of Windsor Castle."

Sounds harmless to me. But maybe in modern British English, it has negative connotations.

Untying knots

Time for some whining: I did a draft of a novel, then rewrote it, and now I have to comb through it for problems, and have realized that although it's fun to write a draft, it's painful to try to whip it into better shape. This is one of those times that I have to keep myself from falling into despair because I'm pursuing something that is difficult and solitary. It's one of those times when I think, "I wish I knew someone in the business who is waiting for or wants something that I'm writing," because I have to dig myself out of some problems, and I need some solid and constructive help that is going to have concrete results, because I'm having a hard time working by myself in this orbit out in the wannabe universe.

Right now, I'm looking at the "scenes" that I've written, and see that it was fun to write the drama and conflict, but the problem is that they're not in order, or there are clumps of scenes that are in order, and then the next clump should go elsewhere. So now I have to untie the plot knots that I've created--I've literally gone through part of the draft and have numbered scenes in the order that I think they should go and have written notes to myself where I think a scene should be created and inserted.

In other industries, you're either already working within an organization or know someone who is, so all you have to do is contact them if you need some help. But in the impossible fiction-writing world, the established/successful writers and/or editors and/or agents and whoever else is in the biz don't want to deal with you unless you're already in the system. And even then, they may not even want to talk to you because they have their own impossible dreams to fulfill in the ever-shrinking scene as they compete for readers and consumers. And besides, they have thousands of hopefuls clanging the gates around their moats, so why the heck would they want to deal with any peons?

Chinese whispers

I was listening to a sermon (in English), and a woman behind me was whispering to her kid in Chinese, probably telling him to settle down. I've heard different languages before, so it didn't strike me as surprising that someone was speaking another language in a mostly English situation. However, it made me wonder about whispering in Chinese and other tonal languages.

English and lots of other languages are easy to whisper in because all we care about are the words that are being spoken, and it really doesn't matter how we're saying them because it's the words that matter, not the delivery (unless you're asking a question or are angry or whatever).

But whispering in a tonal language is a whole other issue, because the tones convey the meaning of the words. So was the mother shifting or flattening or de-emphasizing the tones as she was whispering, or was she just partially expressing the words, thus it was up to the kid to get the context? It seems that whispering would deaden the tones because they're not uttering sounds, just punctuated breaths.

I should ask someone, and I will--next week I'm going to ask a Chinese person if whispering in their language changes the sounds of the words, thus the clarity of the meaning. Or I can ask a Thai person--who I'm sure is freaked that there's been a coup there!

Star Trek hell

Today I heard Kira say, "What the hell" when she was wondering why DS9 had disappeared. Even though I'd seen that episode before, I hadn't really questioned her use of the word because various characters say it.

But when I heard it today, I had to wonder: why would a Bajoran say it? Their spiritual beliefs do not include the concept of hell, so if there's no cultural basis for it, then her language wouldn't contain it, either.

Then my mind got going: have any other aliens used it, or is it just Bajorans, or more specifically, just Kira? Could it be that she never speaks English but only speaks in her own language, and the Universal Translator is converting her own Bajoran-based word to an English approximation, which equals "hell"? Did the writers even consider this, or does this go into one of those nerdy lists of Star Trek discrepencies (which I'm sure exists somewhere)?

This is another layer that I have yet to explore in that series, which can easily be answered if I did some online research, but I'm not obsessed enough with the show to do that.

Counting chickens

Sometimes I'm tempted to "count my chickens before they hatch," which means that I'm planning for something that hasn't happened yet, and it may never happen. Like, "What if I get a really cool gig, then I'll be able to do this and that, and I'll have a great time, and then I'll meet someone else who will give me an even better gig," etc.

Well, after I thought about that idiom, I wondered where it came from, and was surprised to find out that it was from Aesop's fable The Milk-Woman and Her Pail:

A FARMER'S daughter was carrying her Pail of milk from the field to the farmhouse, when she fell a-musing. "The money for which this milk will be sold, will buy at least three hundred eggs. The eggs, allowing for all mishaps, will produce two hundred and fifty chickens. The chickens will become ready for the market when poultry will fetch the highest price, so that by the end of the year I shall have money enough from my share to buy a new gown. In this dress I will go to the Christmas parties, where all the young fellows will propose to me, but I will toss my head and refuse them every one." At this moment she tossed her head in unison with her thoughts, when down fell the milk pail to the ground, and all her imaginary schemes perished in a moment.

Not America

A couple of Brazilians are staying with me, and when I've talked about this country (in English), I've said "America" because that's what Japanese people and other Asians and folks from some other countries say. Then it dawned on me: in Portuguese it's "os Estados Unidos" or USA (pronounced "oosa"), not "America" because they're living in America Latina.

What's interesting is that the Brazilian Times calls itself "O jornal dos brasileiros nos Estados Unidos da America"--they've literally translated "United States of America" into "Estados Unidos da America."

Overall, though, avoiding the word "America" with Latin Americans isn't a politically correct decision but an obvious one, since they really are from America--just not the same kind of one Americans are from. Which reminds me that in Spanish, Americans are called "Americanos." Which really confuses the issue, actually, because the land mass "America" is huge, along with the variety of different regions of Americans.

But I'll still call myself an American, and adjust when necessary, depending on which language I'm trying to tackle.

Hebrew alphabet chart

Even though I studied Hebrew growing up (and eventually spoke it when I went to Israel, though now I can't even put two words together), I recently had a brain freeze on how to write some of the letters in cursive. So I found a good chart to help me. It's straightforward, and provides the pronunciation, print version, and cursive version of each letter, which is a lot more helpful than the typical charts that usually just have block letters.

Not undersold

Sometimes I hear the line, "We will not be undersold" to advertise a sale. For instance, I might hear an ad for a carpet store, and they'll say what types of carpets they have, the discounts, etc., then they will proudly declare: "We will not be undersold."

I've never really understand this statement. What does it mean, exactly? They want to get rid of their inventory, but why do they have to phrase it like that? It sounds like some kind of legalese. Do they think that we really care whether or not they'll be undersold? All we care about are good prices for quality products--it's the company's problem if they have to get rid of their products.

Maybe, a long time ago, someone once came up with that line and said, "That sounds Important--let's use it" and then other companies decided to say the same thing because they wanted to sound important, too.

Well, they're just selling stuff--they're declarations are not for posterity.

Remember

9/11 photo

noooooooooo!

I just had a very long day: I left at 7:30 am and got home at 9:30 pm. So I settled down, expecting to find some entertaining tv, when I saw that I had missed a fresh episode (at least in the U.S.) of the hot inspector. No! I can't believe it! I've become slack in my obsessive Lynley recording and/or watching (depending on if I'm around to see it "live" or have to tape it for later viewing). In the past, I would've sought out any important Lynley-related info and taped accordingly, but I missed it. Oh, the suffering we endure in our cushioned societies.

I just hope that some nutcase/evil people don't want to celebrate the 9/11 anniversary in some horrific way. :(

Loaf ward

I've been reading about the history of lords in England, which was sparked by yesterday's pondering, and saw that the word "lord" comes from an ancient compound:

hlaf weard, literally 'loaf ward'--the guardian of the stock of bread in a household. Since this was usually the master of the household, the word came to mean specifically that in Anglo-Saxon (in the somewhat reduced form hlaford). Hlaford was used by Christian missionaries to translate the Latin word for 'master'...

and the ancient word "[reflects] the Germanic tribal custom of a superior providing food for his followers."

I was also wondering how the Labour party deals with lords, and while I haven't fully come to understand how someone becomes a lord (besides inheritance of title), I did find out that in 1999 "The Labour government...banished the hereditary peers from the House of Lords."

That's some serious history-making! I wonder how the lords are dealing with it now?

Labour lords

I've been watching BBC Newsnight on C-SPAN, watching them talk about Tony Blair's resignation. It's weird to see them interviewing American politicians, but it's refreshing to not see all the bells and whistles that the American news has to put on to keep the attention of the masses.

There are some things I still don't get, which makes me realize that I have to read more about European history. I've been in the Asian scene for a while, and sometimes feel that I understand more about that area than Europe, since I haven't been fortunate enough to live over there or travel the Continent extensively.

I have to do some digging, or maybe someone out there can explain: why would Labour party members want to be called "Lord"? Isn't that title based on a privileged system of elite decisions? People don't earn the title, they're just given it, aren't they? And if Labour is for The People, as an MP said tonight, then are The People wondering why there are Labour Lords running around?

I guess it's one of those seeming contradictions based in a history that I have to better understand.

City shock

If I have to spend a lot of time in the suburbs for work or whatever, I sometimes get "city shock" when I go back home, especially if I have to take the "El" (what Chicagoans call the elevated train--there are trains that are just elevated and others that become subways, but for some reason, we call all of them "the El").

This is how city shock can occur: if I'm in a suburb that is far away from the city, where people mainly drive, and the streets can be easily navigated. If I spend some time driving in the 'burbs and then come back to the city, I have to weave through other cars, some that don't care about the rules of the road or with drivers that may not have licenses. Also, I may have to put on the brakes for various reasons, including guys pushing grocery carts in the streets or doors suddenly opening up, or folks sauntering against the light.

Another difference is customer service: especially in the 'burbs that are farther away from the city, the workers are nicer and simply do their job: there's not much emotional baggage because they don't have to wade through dank neighborhoods or stand in a crowded bus to get to work on time.

Also, the boony 'burbs are so clean and orderly, there really isn't much externally that can stress people out. All they have to do is wait for the traffic to move, and if they want to stop somewhere, they can just go into a number of strip malls, which are well-maintained.

Lately I've been spending a lot more time in the city, so there hasn't been much shock. But then I start to become nitpicky about stuff I see and hear. When I'm in the 'burbs, there's just a general wonderment about how people can live with such organization and not many surprises. But in the city, there's so much more to look at, the only way to process it is to attempt categorization.

Laborless day

Today was Labor Day, which was created in the 1880's as a "workingmen's holiday." But since a lot of people in different kinds of professions (not just industrial workers) have the day off, it should be called Labor-Free Day. It wasn't quite labor-free for me since I taught a class, but because it was a holiday, I stupidly forgot to finish up some stuff that's due (!) Which means that tomorrow will be filled with much labor to make up for my slackfulness. I could have also become lax because I've been preoccupied, wondering about some labor-related changes that will hopefully be coming my way, though it could just be another disappointment that can be stored with the rest of them.

Music I don't understand

Sometimes I prefer listening to college and independent radio because they play music that other stations don't--the playlists are up to the dj and the variety isn't predictable. Actually, if technology will ever allow us to run music from the internet directly in our cars, terrestrial radio is going to be in trouble.

Yesterday I was listening to a world music show and heard a lot of stuff from Zimbabwe, then music from Southeast Asia. It all sounded great, so I kept listening. I was making my way through the north side of Chicago, which has a lot of different kinds of ethnic neighborhoods, and then it hit me: what if the music I'm listening to has some bizarre lyrics? I thought about all the times I've listened to Indian music and Arabic music and Jamaican hip hop and other stuff, and I could be listening to a bunch of garbage. I remember hearing Cuban music, then watching the English subtitles on television, and realizing the music was all about admiring a woman's behind and wanting her. Great--that's really what I want to listen to [NOT]. So it made the interesting music raunchy and I just couldn't appreciate it anymore. One time, I was having dinner with a fluent Spanish-speaking friend of mine, and she was telling me what the Spanish hip hop that was playing in the background was all about. Not something that women would want to be subjected to, even though they put up with that trash all the time in English hip hop.

So I still appreciate music from different countries, but I can't help but wonder what they're really saying.

At this very moment

La Shawn tagged me to participate in a meme on how I feel right now:

1. Are you craving anything and if so, what?

I'm craving a change in my work situation.

2. What is the weather outside, and do you wish it would change?

The weather is perfect: cool, partly sunny, and comfortable--no need to change.

3. What two websites do you think you will go to next after you are finished here?

WordReference to use their French-English dictionary and Yahoo to check my mail.

4. Do you wish you were somewhere else and if so, where?

Yeah, I wish I was either traveling or at the radio station where I work part time.

5. Do you wish you were someone else, and if so, who?

I used to wish I was someone else, but at this point, I'm glad to be me. It's just the context I live in that is not so exciting. I've met some people who have really interesting lives, and I wouldn't mind being in a similiar situation as theirs.

Google as verb

Sometimes, it's illegal to make google a verb:

Google…has fired off a series of legal letters to media organisations, warning them against using its name as a verb...

Isn’t that a bit...uptight? Or does their legal team need something to keep them busy?

Google won a place in the Oxford English Dictionary, while "to google", with a lower case "g", was included last month in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary.

They should be glad they got into those esteemed dictionaries! And people often use their name, so it’s constant marketing. What’s next…arranging meetings with babies to tell them to stop saying "goo goo" incorrectly, in case their wails sound too much like "goo-gle"?

It’s the same dilemma that Kleenex and Band-Aid have had: people often call any type of nose-wiping tissue "kleenex", and bandages are often called "band-aids." I hardly remember what the proper name is for those things: Brits say "sticking plaster" (or just "plaster"?) and Americans say "adhesive bandage" (officially), though I’ve never heard anyone say that. We usually say "band-aid." Sorry, Johnson & Johnson. I don’t know how that spiraled out of control.

Interactive fiction

I used to think I'd become quite nerdy, but since I've never heard of Interactive Fiction before, I think I'm still on the non-nerd side.

Interactive fiction (IF) is a broad term. Strictly speaking, interactive fiction is anything in which you influence the outcome of a story, like continuous stories you can add to or those old "Choose Your Own Adventure" books with their branching stories. But there is a more specialized meaning of interactive fiction...computer adventure games.

The first computer game was created more than 20 years ago. That means that folks who played them were really ahead of the rest of civilization since personal computers were in their infancy. Some of those guys have been playing for all those years--which means they are uber-nerds.

In general, computer adventure games are computer programs which tell you a story. In them you play a character in the story, and you move the story along through your actions. In many pieces of IF you have to solve puzzles to keep the story going, puzzles like "How do I open the locked door?" or "How can I get the bridle off the alpaca so I can return it to Barry?" In some games you also have to interact with non-player characters (NPCs) to keep the plot unfolding.

Because IF involves storytelling and puzzle-solving, it tends to emphasize thought over action...

So people using their minds to play games? Doesn't sound like they'd hang around MySpace too much. They've probably written the code for something that's way beyond it. Or they taught the founder of MySpace how to do it--while simultaneously writing the latest Mensa test.

IF comes in two flavors: graphic and text. Text adventures came first. Playing them is like reading a book in which you have to type commands to tell the protagonist what to do...Graphic adventures tell their stories through pictures rather than words.

There's an IF archive for text adventures. I tried going there, but it requires more brain power than I have room for.

Chat instantly

Here's a cute and portable chat program that doesn't require installation or downloading: Gabbly. All you have to do is paste 'gabbly.com/' in front of any URL and a chat window will pop up where you are--you can chat instantly. And if there are any spammers or obnoxious folks harassing you, you can "mute" them by clicking on their name.

Update: I have been using it to chat with a friend, and it's really great--we're across the country from each other but can chat in real time, as if there's no space between us. Gabbly also has an audio feature, though we haven't been using it. I've emailed other folks to participate, but they're too busy to jump in.

Fa'afafine

This is why I like to hang out with interesting people: my friend who lived in Samoa told me about fa'afafine:

In families of all male children (or where the only daughter was too young to assist with the 'women's' work), parents would often choose one or more of their sons to help the mother. Because these boys would perform tasks that were strictly the work of women they were raised as if they were female. Although their true gender was widely known, they would usually be dressed as girls.

As they grew older, their duties would not change. They would continue performing 'women's' work, even if they eventually married (which would be to a woman).

What's interesting about this cultural characteristic is that many cultures throughout the world are male-dominated, and women are treated more as objects or servants, but in Samoa, being a female is just another option.

Toby's done it again

I just finished reading Toby Young's latest book, The Sound of No Hands Clapping, and I highly recommend it. I really hope he writes more books like this.

I read his first book, How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, and the new book was just as good as his first, but I think the latest one is more tightly written. But neither of them are sloppy--I really didn't want them to end--how many books can you say that about?

Even though he's an upper class British dude who's successful and well-connected, I can relate to his struggles. I really don't have much in common with him, except procrastinating writing pursuits, wanting to creatively express myself, self-loathing, and trying to achieve my goals.

He's definitely one of the few famous people I want to meet.

Stuck in French

This is interesting: I've been translating French lately (sorry AP!--it's not technical or complicated), so I've been sort of French-oriented. Nothing big, I'm just eavesdropping on French people's conversations, paying attention to French words that have made it into English, trying to decifer the 19th century artists' words at the Art Institute.

But now I seem to have also made it into the French MySpace zone: yes, I have joined MySpace because my friend Jerry kept talking about it day after day, telling me to go to his page, giving me updates on how many friends he had acquired, who they were, and why they were interesting. And he kept telling me that I have to join, it's so incredible, blah blah. So I caved because he was so excited, I thought he'd die, and I didn't want to see that happen.

So if you want to see it, go to myspace.com/metrolingua. The thing is, I wandered over to the international section and chose "French" because I've been in a French state of mind, and now I see French everywhere, except for what I type because I can't write French.

Because of how I'm plugged in, I've even seen some French begging from the site: "Bienvenue! MySpace France est encore en développement (phase BETA). Tu as des commentaires ou suggestions? Clique ici. Merci :-) !"

It makes me feel special because they could care less about all those English users enough to beg, and I'm not one of the masses. Well, I am, but I'm not like the other dopes on there.

Maybe I should maintain it in a non-English language to avoid the friend requests from weirdos and creeps that MySpace seems to have an abundance of.

Stargate cancelled?

I saw a Stargate SG-1 fan, and the first thing he said to me was, "Have you heard the news?" Well, I couldn't figure out which news: there was no 9/11-type of incident occuring, and there's just so much bad news out there, I don't know what's important sometimes.

And then he told me: Stargate SG-1 has been cancelled. Wow, no surprise there: it was going downhill when some of the actors were scaling back and they added the party slut to the show--I talked about it when I noticed the decline. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to watch it for a while because Comcast yanked it from regular cable, but I doubt I've been missing much. What made the show good was the chemistry of the cast and the interesting storylines and history/mythology.

The problem is, I can't find any official information about the cancellation, which makes me wonder if it's just a rumor. But the guy I was talking to is a big fan, so he probably has acquired a good tip from somewhere reputable.

Online socializing

The future is now. What I mean is, who would've thought, when the Apple II came out, that we would develop social lives through a computer? But it's happening. I found out about a "listening party" at a message board, but had no interest in joining. Then an online friend--someone I met through the message board and chat with (via AIM) occasionally--sent me a PM, urging me to "attend" the "party," and gave me the password. So since I've got nothing else to do, I'm going to "attend". So we're going to put in a CD and discuss it via a chat room.

It's weird, but hey, I'm a social person, and this is a high-tech alternative.

Twee

Sometimes when I see something or think about a particular situation, I tell myself it's "twee." That's not an American word--it's British: "It means excessively or affectedly quaint, sentimental or mawkish, sometimes coupled with words like nauseatingly."

Tonight I was walking around with a couple of friends who were discussing ancient Greek (!) and I saw something that I thought was "twee." Then I wondered why I'm using British words in my head, when I've never lived there (though I visited) and know only a couple of British people who I not only rarely see, but who've never used that word around me.

I love it: twee! It's such a cute word, and so effective! So maybe one day I'll say it out loud--I'm sure other Americans will wonder what the heck I'm saying. Then I can snobbily explain to them, "Oh, it's British. Are you from the States?"

2 years

Well, it's official: I've been blogging here for two years. What's interesting and synchronius (a word I just made up to make "synchonicity" into a simple adjective) is that I just printed out a second draft of a pretty good novel I've been writing, which has about 45,000 words, and the number of unique visitors to this site is almost 45,000 as well. So maybe it's a sign: that even better things are to come. (Well, not really, because I don't believe in "signs"--I was just being an English major-type.)

Here's a list of the lands throughout the world that have visited this year (2006) so far--around 120.

Thanks for visiting!

United States, Canada, Germany, Great Britain, Spain, China, Ireland, Poland, Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland, Japan, South Korea, France, Iceland, Australia, Brazil, Thailand, Taiwan, Belgium, Sweden, Russian Federation, India, Israel, Romania, Malaysia, Austria, Singapore, Czech Republic, Ivory Coast (Cote D'Ivoire), Philippines, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Hungary, Denmark, Mexico, Finland, Argentina, Turkey, Indonesia, Norway, Portugal, Colombia, Egypt, Pakistan, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Peru, Ghana, United Arab Emirates, Iran, Lithuania, South Africa, Senegal, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Ukraine, Chile, Ecuador, Croatia, European Union, Luxembourg, Greece, Ethiopia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Estonia, Jordan, Guam (USA), Slovak Republic, Morocco, Yugoslavia, Latvia, Tunisia, Moldova, Panama, Qatar, Nepal, Nicaragua, Uruguay, Nigeria, Belarus, Cyprus, El Salvador, Palestinian Territories, Macedonia, Sri Lanka, Monaco, Bangladesh, Algeria, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Benin, Albania, Trinidad and Tobago, Armenia, Paraguay, Puerto Rico, Guatemala, Myanmar, Saint Kitts & Nevis Anguilla, Mongolia, Macau, Kazakhstan, Dominican Republic, Saint Lucia, Syria, Polynesia (French), Bolivia, Gabon, Antigua and Barbuda, Virgin Islands (USA), Libya, Bermuda, Netherlands Antilles, Madagascar, Lebanon, Andorra, Malta.

Fret wankery

I saw someone say online that they don't like guitar solos that are "fret wankery." But what does that mean? Does that mean aimless playing, without focus or style? Like a garbled mess? So, for instance, someone is just playing a bunch of notes that don't amount to anything meaningful?

Thai online laugh

People like to use "lol" to indicate laughing online, but I recommend the Thai Online Laugh: 5.

I discovered this at a Thai site that had a webcam on Koh Samui, and there was an area next to the webcam image to chat online. Everyone was chatting in Thai, and I couldn't understand any of it, but I kept seeing the number 5 everywhere. So at one point, I stepped in and asked (in English, of course) what 5 meant, and they said that 5 is "ha" in Thai, so when they want to laugh, they say "555" or however many 5's they want. So to them, "ha ha ha" is "555".

It's so cool, I use it now, and have to explain to people what I'm doing. I think it's something that we non-Thai speaking folks should adopt.

First Sox game

I'm putting this on the record: I'm going to my first White Sox game tonight. I haven't been to a baseball game in a long time, and that was the Cubs. So hopefully, I'll have a victory to report because I certainly need to live victoriously vicariously through something, since I'm not exactly having a lot of success myself. And watching a game with thousands of screaming southsiders is certainly a good way to get my mind off of self-loathing.

So tonight the Sox, tomorrow a return to a shmoe existence.

Blogs matter

Sometimes I hear writers from the MSM talk about blogs, as if they're some silly cultural phenomenon that they have to tolerate. Some think it's quaint that people want to write in their blogs, but I don't think they understand the importance of them.

First of all, we can't all be paid columnists for the shrinking print media, but we like to write. Are we supposed to wait around for someone to approve of us before we communicate with the world? Sure, we don't have the thousands of readers the print media columnists have, but we're communicating with the outside world.

I wonder if those columnists would blog if they didn't have their columns. It's easier to keep writing when you have a paycheck coming and have readers' emails and letters and editors' opinions to bounce off of, but those bloggers who don't have many commenters or emails from readers (such as me) are motivated to write, because we like to write and communicate.

What's weird is when columnists decide to set up a blog after they've had an established column. It's like they're looking at the trends, and they're thinking, "Whoa--all those youngsters are blogging, I should too." It borders on being fake and insincere, because I think they're "settling" with it, because they might as well join the commoners rather than fight against the uprising.

Blogs take the expressive and creative power away from the few folks who used to be given the platform to speak out. Only a handful of blogs have huge readerships, but at least we no longer have to wait for someone to speak to us, and we can interact with the writers. Before, if you wanted to communicate with the columnist, you'd be lucky if they even read your letter. Now we can go to a blog, leave a comment, and know that it's being read by at least a few people. And chances are the blogger will respond.

I guess it's a kind of virtual cafe where the intelligentsia are allowed to congregate away from the MSM Tower.

Radio is like...

I thought about this today, but don't know if other people have said it: Working in radio is like being in love with someone who doesn't have time for you.

That's how I would describe what I read in The Cash Cage (check out the free excerpt) before I started working in The Biz, and I've discovered that type of situation as well.

If you are even thinking of working in radio, I highly recommend the book. The author, Corey Deitz, has been through a lot, and even though other people won't have the same experiences, it still serves as a kind of warning. It's just better to go into something with your eyes open, no matter what industry you're working in.

But I think I should read the book again--I'm sure my perspective will be different.

Update: I emailed my "Working in radio is like..." statement to Deitz, and he replied: "Well said!"

French building words

I was searching for a French term and found the definition I was looking for in a French Building and Renovation Jargon Guide. It's from a site that helps English speakers survive in Languedoc-Roussillon, which is in southeast France.

So if you want to know various terms that have to do with building or renovating anything, or are just curious about what household words are in French and English, check it out. I've never been to France (though I want to go), but even if I do go someday, I doubt I'll need to know all these words. But they're handy.

the Odge

Here's something that I came across when I was looking up a French phrase online: The Odge, which stands for Online Dictionary German-English. It has more than 400,000 entries. All you have to do is enter the word that you're looking for, and it will provide the translation.

You can also add words, so if enough people participate, maybe the dictionary will exceed a million words by the end of this year.

They also offer you a way to enter letters with umlauts (ä ö ü) and an esszett (ß), so you don't have to worry about digging it up from your computer's keyboard. Just click on the letter, and it's entered into the search box. Handy!

It was odd to discover the site on the way to translating a French phrase, but hey, Europe is more united now, so it makes sense. However, I stopped at this detour long enough to forget the French phrase I was looking for. Oh well.

Give blood

I've been to a few hospitals in just over a month: one in the western suburbs, one in the northern suburbs, and one downtown. Each reason was different: I visited one person who was dying, I took another to the emergency room a couple of times, and I visited another who was suffering after I took them to the emergency room the week before.

It was the last person that made me decide to give blood, because they were getting a transfusion. Some kind soul out there decided to give blood so that the ill person could feel well again, and it worked! If it wasn't for that blood, who knows what would've happened? Many people have been helped because of other people's generosity!

If you ever see people revived because of others' blood, then maybe you'll feel inspired enough to give blood. But even if you haven't, think about doing it--it could save someone's life!

So I'm going to set up an appointment to give blood, and intend to do it regularly.

Methinks

I mentioned the word behooves, and how it's odd that people are using it today--hundreds of years after it was common in the English language.

Here's another word that I see people use, just in written form, usually in comments in blogs: methinks.

Now what is up with that? "Methinks that he should have a different policy." Why not say "I think"? Is it so difficult to do that, or do people want to sound clever? I can see a dude type out "methinks," then stroke his scraggly beard, like, "That was a good one. Let's see what they think of *that*," and then chuckle to himself before he downs another Pepsi.

Like "behooves", methinks comes from Old and Middle English, and it shows up in Hamlet:

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

Well, that's fine for Shakespeare, but come on, do people really have to resort to his language when they're telling someone they're wrong in a flame war?

Behooves

This word sounds weird and is archaic, but I've heard people use it. Why? Why resurrect such an odd word? I have a hard time listening to someone after they say, "It behooves us to take this into consideration." It just sounds so prissy and proper, as if we're living in Victorian England (though the word is a lot older than that):

Middle English behoven, from Old English behOfian, from behOf
transitive verb : to be necessary, proper, or advantageous for
intransitive verb : to be necessary, fit, or proper

I wonder if German has a variation of this word, since Old English sounds similar. I don't know German well enough to be able to pluck it off the top of my head. All I know is while people, especially Americans, are speaking in a straightforward style, the use of this word is like a stuffy anachronism.

Ottoman wisdom

One time, I was talking to a neighbor about all types of people who steal from the till, whether they're poor or not (because humans are far from perfect). Then she told me that her father, who was Armenian and spoke Ottoman Turkish, shared this saying:

"The man who works with honey will sometimes lick his fingers."

True! That's a great one--effective imagery that sticks.

Luxury withdrawal

Jane Fonda mentioned an interesting phrase in her memoir (which I've thankfully finished): luxurium tremens. She said that James Taylor created it, meaning "the sudden loss of luxury." I suppose it's a spinoff of "delirium tremens" or DT's, which is what people experience after alcohol withdrawal.

Unfortunately, there's nothing about it online, so this will be the first instance of it. But that shouldn't be--if he indeed did invent that phrase, then it should be somewhere.

Well, I will never suffer from it because I don't live in even a sliver of the type of luxury that rich people such as Ted Turner have. But then again, compared to the typical poverty-striken third-world inhabitant, I *am* living in luxury.

Accomplished

My goal for this week was 40,000 words of the latest draft of a novel that may never see the light: I now have more than 42,000 words. So just a few thousand more, and I'll be at my original printing goal (to print out 45k instead of the 40k I settled on a couple days ago). I reached the goal yesterday, but I was too disappointed about a non-writing pursuit to blog. Today I have overcome the disappointment, but unfortunately didn't write anything.

But at least I have made a very important decision: Captain Sisko is my favorite Star Trek captain.

A lot of people like Captain Picard, but he's quite cold. Sure, he's in charge and is sophisticated, but I like Sisko's hands-on approach. He's more down-to-earth, but he also has the strength and savvy that is needed for successful diplomacy and leadership.

I wonder if there are other people who like him. As I'm not a Trekkie or Trekker or Star Trek freak (whatever they call those folks), I'll never find out. But at least I've been able to make that decision. Now I just have to get the rest of my life in order.

Almost there

Last year, before Nanowrimo, I wrote 40,000 words of a novel that's more mainstream than my previous [unpublished] one. Then I put it aside to write 50,000 words for Nanowrimo, and after that, I took a break from writing fiction because stuff was developing on the radio front.

Then I resumed the novel a few months ago, and decided to totally rewrite it. I would've finished the rewrite sooner, but my radio life was crazy, and then my friend John died. So I resumed writing this week, and I'm almost at the 40k mark again--just a couple of days away. And that's 40,000 words of fresh stuff--pure rewrite.

I want to wait until I get to 45,000 words to print out the draft, but I'm running out of steam. The problem is that the story is out, but I have to deal with the annoying details. I don't want to dig that deep--I just want to do general stuff and move on. But I can't. And the worst part of it is that there is no one in the biz who's expecting it--I'm just going to be one of those idiotic, naive hopefuls that's going to be sending out query letters. And I can't do that until I create a decent draft.

This is one of those times when I would email John and he would email back some interesting advice or tidbits from his own writing. But he's gone for good! I can't believe it!

So I'm bummed because of his absence from this world, having writer's block, and the fact that I'm not a published writer. I'm still a wannabe.

Chrenkoff published

I decided to check out Arthur Chrenkoff's blog, just in case he'd posted something (even though he had to give it up last year because of work), and he had an announcement about his upcoming novel!

A couple of years ago, he checked out the Metrofiction site, and asked me about it. Even though it's a Chicago-based group, I invited him to be an honorary guest because he was a huge blogger and seemed like a nice guy. Plus, he had some Chicago connections via his relatives, so I considered him an "honorary" Chicagoan, even though he's an Aussie.

I remember him "telling" me (via email) that he'd tried many times to get his novel published, but couldn't. Meanwhile, his blog was read by thousands of people every day. So at least he'd found an audience for his writing that way. He was really successful.

Meanwhile, he emailed me the first part of his novel, and it seemed interesting, but I had no power to help him except through the site. So I posted an excerpt, and let it sit there all this time.

And now he's getting it published! The same story I saw! He totally deserves it!

Essplain to the Mexican

I just saw something that is not available anywhere else: a show on CAN-TV (Chicago public access) called "Essplain to the Mexican."

Unfortunately, there's no information about it online, and I think this is the first mention of it anywhere. But what makes it so Chicago and American is the variety of people who called in and the content of the show, as well as the freedom to do it.

A woman, who is half Mexican and half Guatemalan, sat in a chair and threw out questions about random things, asking the television audience to "essplain" to her what they mean and why the exist. So she asked about such things as water polo and polo, seltzer water and soda water, and other stuff. Then she waited for people to call in to "essplain" them to her.

The callers were typical of Chicago: white, black, ghetto, educated, gay, straight, single, married, and other urban variations. In between calls, she talked to her sister on her cell phone and read text messages. It was like a video blog--that's the best way to describe it.

I wouldn't be surprised if she gets more viewers. It's just so odd, it's fascinating, and something that we can't see elsewhere. Even in the 'burbs.

Word hawk

When I was looking up the word faux hawk, I came across Word Spy, a site that's "devoted to lexpionage, the sleuthing of new words and phrases. These aren't 'stunt words' or 'sniglets,' but new terms that have appeared multiple times in newspapers, magazines, books, Web sites, and other recorded sources."

If you're into the provenance of words, it's a good site that's easy to read and understand (ie, not full of linguistic-speak packaged in a complex writing style).

Food deserts

There's an article in the paper about health problems in poor neighborhoods, and they used a phrase that I would've come up with if I had the energy, brain cells, and time to observe such details: "food deserts," which are "areas with scant grocery stores and many fast-food restaurants."

They even have a map (scroll down) of those types of neighborhoods in Chicago, which are predominantly in the western and southern parts of the city.

PC-free

A while ago, when I was doing research about Incas to write something for a textbook, I decided to look at a 1969 Compton's Encyclopedia I have. Of course, I had to use newer sources to do the project, but I was curious to find out what they said about Incas more than 30 years ago to see how they described history back then. I read some good information, and then came upon this:

By the time the Spaniards arrived, however, the empire had been weakened by civil war. Its fall to Pizarro and his handful of men is one of the tragedies of history.

"How awful," I thought, so I read on:

After a few disastrous rebellions, the spirit of the people was broken, and they declined into the submissive apathy which marks the Peruvian Indians of today.

I re-read it to make sure that it really said that: "declined into the submissive apathy which marks the Peruvian Indians of today." Yes, it said it. And that's just one example of how political correctness was absent from encyclopedias back then. I can only imagine how many people would be absolutely livid to read that today. There's other stuff I've found in those old encyclopedias which I'd like to post here sometime as well.

Unfortunately, I can't provide a link to that Inca text, but I swear it's really in there. If you have one of those old Compton's, see for yourself.

Girl Friday

I've been working crazy hours, but I don't have a regular schedule. One week might look quiet empty, but then, at the last minute, I'll be given a lot of hours in the radio world or translating projects from elsewhere. When I was talking to a friend about my radio situation, he said it sounds like I'm a "Girl Friday" because they give me a bunch of diverse tasks.

Being the nerd I am, I looked the term up, and saw it means:

"An efficient and devoted aide or employee; a right-hand man." Friday is a character in the novel Robinson Crusoe. The protagonist Robinson Crusoe rescues a young native man, and calles him 'man Friday' because he met him on a Friday. 'Girl Friday' is a term, now frowned upon, for a resourceful female assistant, made popular by the classic 1940 comedy adaptation of 'The Front Page' (His Girl Friday) starring Rosalind Russell as an ace reporter and Cary Grant as her cynical editor and ex-husband.

Robinson Crusoe? I had no idea (obviously--otherwise I wouldn't have looked it up). Here's the excerpt that includes the Friday name:

...after this, made all the Signs to me of Subjection, Servitude, and Submission imaginable, to let me know, how he would serve me as long as he liv’d; I understood him in many Things, and let him know, I was very well pleas’d with him; in a little Time I began to speak to him, and teach him to speak to me; and first, I made him know his Name should be Friday, which was the Day I sav’d his Life...

If anyone wrote like that today, they would be so rejected, so fast, and if somehow it made it to print, it would bomb big-time. Just look at this "exciting" description below the title, which was in the first edition of the book, on the first page:

THE| LIFE| AND| STRANGE SURPRIZING| ADVENTURES| OF| ROBINSON CRUSOE,| Of YORK, MARINER:| Who lived Eight and Twenty Years,| all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the| Coast of AMERICA, near the Mouth of| the Great River of OROONOQUE;| Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, where-|in all the Men perished but himself.| WITH| An Account how he was at last as strangely deli-|ver’d by PYRATES.|

The suspense is killing me! It sounds like a scientific journal. Is anyone awake at this point?

Jump the broom

A guy asked a friend if she'd "jumped the broom" yet, and she asked me if I knew what that phrase meant. I'd never heard of it before, and neither had she. I found out it:

...originates in the West African country of Ghana...Brooms were waved over the heads of marrying couples to ward off spirits. The couple would jump over the broom at the end of the ceremony...[and it] symbolized two things. The first was the wife's commitment or willingness to clean the courtyard of the new home she had joined. Furthermore, it expressed her overall commitment to the house. The second thing was the determination of who ran the household. Whoever jumped highest over the broom was the decision maker of the household (usually the man).

And then:

During slavery, slaves were often not allowed to marry, and so an alternative ceremony for marking a couple's commitment was adopted. Most historians and curators of African-American cultural collections agree that the tradition--at least as practiced by African-Americans--originated in the southern U.S. However, that is not entirely accepted; there is still speculation about possible African ceremonial origins, one of which was for a bride to sweep the home of her mother-in-law on her wedding day.

Good joke

Whenever I see the typical Chicago scene on the street, where five over-fed guys who are working for the city are standing around, while the sixth guy is pushing around dirt or putting a rope on a nail or using a jackhammer, I think about this joke:

"How many Teamsters does it take to change a lightbulb?"

"Five--you got a problem with that?"

Tonight I walked past four guys standing around, looking down a hole in the street, blocking traffic. One guy made a joke about being part of Local Whatever, and another guy took offense. They then had to come to an agreement that it was just a joke, and even though one of them was from Indiana, he should still be able to take it, blah blah blah. And I wondered who was doing the work--were they waiting for the fifth guy to finish hanging a thread on a piece of cement, or were they trying to figure out which Local was responsible for putting the cover back over the hole?

The thing is, it's common in Chicago for outdoor city jobs, such as construction or the Department of Streets and Sanitation, to be staffed by several people who are not allowed (or willing) to multi-task: one guy drives the truck to the site, another unloads the pipes or whatever, another sets up the barriers, another unlocks the door, another puts his finger in the air to see which way the wind is blowing, etc. They're just not in the same lane as the rest of us: while a lot of jobs require you to be able to juggle different responsibilities, these guys (and some gals) take care of nothing more than their narrow tasks, collect the cushy paychecks that we furnish them through our inflated taxes, and continue to talk about who would be most offended by a joke while they stand around waiting for the day to end.

When it's daylight and I have a camera with me, I'll take a picture and post it here. It's a lot easier than trying to explain. And it's not like I won't have plenty of opportunities to get that perfect shot.

John Deaver

From the Chicago Tribune:

John W. Deaver
1953 - 2006

In free time, attorney was a novelist, actor, musician

By Joan Giangrasse Kates
Special to the Tribune
Published July 6, 2006

After being diagnosed with cancer last month, attorney John W. Deaver sent an e-mail thanking co-workers for their support and expressing the optimism and confidence they'd come to expect of him over the last two years.

"He told them that God willing, he'd be back in the office soon, and that never in his wildest dreams did he ever think he'd have such a wonderful job or that he'd find so much happiness in life," recalled his wife of three years, Barbara. "He'd just found out he had cancer, and yet he still felt so fortunate."

For nearly two years, Mr. Deaver also was an active member of the Steel Beam Theater in St. Charles, where he had played bit parts in its past four productions.

"John was one of the kindest, gentlest people I've ever known," said Donna Steele, the artistic director of the Steel Beam Theater. "He was intelligent and creative. He was also an endearing character, the type of person you rarely meet in life but are certain you'll never forget."

Mr. Deaver, 53, of West Chicago, a litigation attorney for CNA Insurance in Chicago, died Monday, July 3, in his home following a recent surgery.

Born in Wilmington, Del., Mr. Deaver grew up in St. Louis, where he received both a bachelor and law degree from Washington University. He also took graduate courses at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Oxford University in England.

For many years, Mr. Deaver was a freelance legal auditor in St. Louis before joining the legal staff at the downtown headquarters of CNA Insurance in Chicago about two years ago.

"John was the antithesis of many attorneys," said colleague David Dong, the director of legal services at CNA. "He had not a jaded bone in his body and never came to work for the almighty dollar. He'd get frustrated and angered by any injustice he saw in the legal system."

At the Steel Beam Theater, Mr. Deaver performed in productions of "Amadeus," "Christmas Story," "Jekyll & Hyde" and "Our Town."

"He had really grown as an actor over the past several months," said Steele. "No matter how challenging the role, he was always willing to jump in with both feet."

In recent years, Mr. Deaver had written many short stories and a suspense novel. He had also taught himself how to play everything from Beethoven and Bach to Pink Floyd on guitar.

"He was always busy burning the candle at both ends, but he loved every minute," said his wife.

Other survivors include his mother, Irene; a sister, Janet Smith; two stepsons, Ervin Gockley and Will Gockley; two stepdaughters, Marianne Bellot and Malinda Gockley; and seven stepgrandchildren.

Female comebacks

Somebody sent me the following:

Man: Haven't I seen you someplace before?
Woman: Yes, that's why I don't go there anymore.

Man: Is this seat empty?
Woman: Yes, and this one will be if you sit down.

Man: Your place or mine?
Woman: Both. You go to yours, and I'll go to mine.

Man: So, what do you do for a living?
Woman: I'm a female impersonator.

Man: Hey baby, what's your sign?
Woman: Do not enter.

Man: Your body is like a temple.
Woman: Sorry, there are no services today.

Man: I would go to the end of the world for you.
Woman: But would you stay there?

Farming data

I think what's frustrating about modern jobs, at least in a technologically-advanced society, is the amount of data that has to be organized (and analyzed, if you're lucky). So the result is an entire day spent in front of a computer in a cubicle in a climate-controlled environment with windows that can never open (if you're lucky enough to be near a window).

I'm not in that situation, but I have been, and when I was looking for non-teaching jobs, it seemed that a lot of them were like that. Just look at the job descriptions in the classifieds, and you'll see a lot of organizing of data. Boring. Which is why a lot of people go online to get away from the monotony.

I call it "farming data". Of course, there is farming data out there, but that refers to data about agriculture. My term "farming data" makes the "farming" a verb instead of a noun.

Think about it: if you're working in a cubicle or alone at a desk, aren't you given tasks that require you to farm data? It's inescapable today.

PC madness?

Brainy Mad Minerva sent me an article about Spanish groups saying

...that definitions relating to them in the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy are outdated and demeaning. Their complaints have created a heated dispute with the compilers of the latest version of the Diccionario de la Real Academia Española — equivalent to the Oxford English Dictionary — who have dismissed the concerns as political correctness gone mad.

Is that true? Here's what offends them:

Sinagoga (synagogue) A meeting for illicit ends

Gitano (Gypsy) One who practices deceit or who tricks

Marica (ladybird or slang for gay man) Effeminate, weak man

Ajamonarse (to become like a ham) Used to describe how pregnant women increase in size

Gallego (Galician) Dumb, stupid or deaf, in Costa Rica and El Salvador

Gone

Well, less than three weeks after being diagnosed with cancer, John Deaver passed away last night. Someone told me that he had been feeling ill since the beginning of this year, but didn't go to the doctor until last month. So who knows what would have happened if he went to the doctor earlier.

The past couple of years, he really blossomed as he was involved in various activities and had a great job, so he lived life to the fullest. A lot of people will miss him.

Idiot

I said before that I was reading Jane Fonda's memoir. The first part, which was about her early life, was interesting but screwed up. I kept an open mind when I got to her political section because she seemed reflective about her early life and the mistakes she made. So I assumed she would be similar as she talked about her trip to North Vietnam. Through her description of her trip there, I saw that she was totally used. After all, she was a rich American celebrity who was telling the US military via the radio to not fight, and she only visited the Soviet-backed north. They must have been salivating at all the media opportunities they'd have with her to help them spread their message. And she fell for it, and she still does! She even said that the POW's she met with were healthy and were really speaking from their hearts when they were talking against their own country.

There's so much more I read that pissed me off, that I can't write about it without losing my cool. So all I'll say is: what an idiot!