2002.11.29
A random note as I pack: the paradoxes of scouring ones books for the one or two you've been meaning to get back to: if the book was that great you probably woulda read it by now. And seeing a book and not remembering if you've read it or not is a very risky situation, it might be you have and it just isn't memorable.
"Which for finalkeeps in track: After Headhunter and Shenmue II the Dreamcast with Virtua tennis shows 2 its sharp play claws again. The official Virtua tennis successor convinces with still suppler animations, new impacts and a motivating season mode. Why we present Segas Filzball Spektakel with a weihnachtlichen Award, experience you in the test !" --from a babelfish translation of a German video game site
...I was trying to find the German equivalent for "Engrish" (which is a jokey term for bady translated Japanese)--Auf Englishzein? Der Englishspeeken? Englishnitzel?God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.
- There was this one lady janitor at my old company, who sang in the loveliest voice as she did her job. It occurred to me that there was a usefulness in warning people that she was cleaning a restroom before they entered.
- Back in December I was very excited about my new Braun toothbrush...it's one where the whole circle of bristles spins, not just the clusters on their own. It has a neat twangy "mouth harp" feel.
- It hits me that it shouldn't be such a big task to retrace mental steps. I think the fact that it can be that difficult tells us something about consciousness, that it isn't as strictly logical as we think.
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A man gazing at the stars is proverbially at the mercy of the puddles in the road.
- CAP Alert has become a bit of an Internet joke. They provide movie reviews for Fundamentalist Christian parents, and pick on such oddball things (like adults in underwear, or having a "take care of #1" attitude expressed) that the reviews are kind of amusing. A more balanced view for parents seems to provided by Screen It...
"Heav'n, you're pleas'd to say, has made me beautiful, and that to such a Degree, that you are forc'd, nay, as it were compell'd to love me, in spite of your Endeavours to the contrary; and for the sake of that Love, you say I ought to love You again. Now, tho' I am sensible, that whatever is beautiful is lovely, I cannot conceive, that what is lov'd for being handsome, sho'd be bound to love that by which 'tis lov'd, meerly because 'tis lov'd."
I once made a valentine quoting this, for a woman I was about ready to give up lusting after. I also found a more modern translation.- Three Really, Really Bad Reasons to Want to Be a Marine Biologist, and Two Good Ones. I like insights about the sterotypes about various professions,
- "Merry Kwanukkah". The Usenet group alt.fan.cecil-adams suggests that as an all around holiday good wish. I guess a really cool one would have found a way of working in Solstice for the Pagans, but ah well.