Cooking in a foreign language

I mentioned some time ago in another blog post that I was going to write a post about cooking in a foreign language. As I found myself starting to write a really long reply to this post by Colm which would touch on the same themes, I thought it was probably about time I just pulled what I was going to say over here and waste space on my own blog.

In the course of my Masters, I keep coming across a lot of great concepts that are intended for the consideration of language teachers within classroom contexts, but I find they are informing my self-instruction quite nicely. Amongst those concepts are:

• Extensive Reading: Read as much as you can in the target language, as long as you find it enjoyable and easy enough to concentrate on the message of the text rather than the language itself


• Narrow Reading: Just like Extensive Reading, only you focus on books/texts written about one particular topic, or by one particular author


• Repeated Reading: Read smaller passages of texts several times over - while listening to audio recordings for a couple of those times if you can - so that you can read those passages fluently.


• Authentic Texts: Read/listen to texts written in the target language for native speakers/readers of the target language - in other words, "real" texts, as opposed to things written specifically for pedagogical purposes


• Adapted Texts: Read/listen to texts which have been adapted, simplified or specifically written for your level of language learning...

Hmm, those last two don't agree with each other, do they? If you read some of the literature, you'd also find that the concept of Repeated Reading, which is a form of intensive reading, doesn't fit comfortably with Extensive and Narrow Reading, which are both forms of extended reading.

Still, they don't have to agree with each other to be good ideas. I think there's probably something worth doing in each, and something that can be gained from each.

I also love the suggestions for reading material that I've been finding in the literature: Children's books, comic books, magazines, popular novels, non-fiction books about mummies or mysteries...

Whether looking at Authentic Texts or Adapted Texts, the advice is to do at least one of two things - either "read light" (texts that are a quick, enjoyable, easy read) or "get hooked" (read texts in which the subject is so interesting that you're willing to ignore the language barrier to find out what happens next). If you can do both, that's even better.

My problem, at the moment, is that I don't have enough vocabulary to make the extended reading concepts work. Ideally, one should choose books that are only a little bit beyond your reading level - you'll know 95% of the words and be familiar enough with the grammar so that you can understand what is written. The rest you'll "acquire" as you go along. Well, I have to say that my vocabulary is pretty limited and rather odd. I would say I know enough words to read a few paragraphs of text with only minimal recourse to a glossary, but those paragraphs would have to be pretty darn weird and probably wouldn't occur in Authentic Texts.

At my level, the most useful book I have at my disposal is Estonian Textbook: Grammar Exercises Conversation (written by Juhan Tuldava and translated by Ain Haas). According to everything I've been reading lately, it's wrong. I should not be getting more out of this book than anything else. For one thing, it's completely pedagogical - and in the bad way. The book is written in the style of language text books that were used in language classrooms in the 40s and 50s - and they've been out of favour for at least 40 years, if not longer. Then there's all that grammar - which I should be finding irritating and boring. Oh, and all the texts are written specifically to fit with the vocabulary given in that lesson (and all the previous lessons), which is terribly out-dated and really not authentic.

Yet, it's giving me the basic vocabulary and grammatical grounding I need to try to tackle the other texts. If I could organise myself to give the dedicated time I keep meaning to give, I'd be a lot further through the book and have a lot more of a grounding.

Mind you, I've been gleaning bits and pieces from all sorts of sources, so I know more than what's in the book, but I know the book has a lot to give.

So, after all this, the title of the blog was "cooking in a foreign language", wasn't it? Well, there's a reason for that.

It seems that one of the best things you can do to help improve your reading fluency in a language is to read more (who would have thought?). This is something I've known for years - I didn't need the literature to tell me this. So, when I first set out to learn Estonian, I bought reading material. Mostly, I randomly selected children's books based on the covers. This gave me a wide range of books aimed at different levels of readers - but not a one of them has yet managed to fall into my reading ability. I've finally managed to get my hands on some comic books, which are better as I have the support of the images to carry the plot even when I can't really read the text (more on this later), but this is fairly new.

Up until this point, I've been struggling with children's books, early primary school text books... and cook books.

The cook books have been a godsend. The genre is something I'm completely familiar with. I know what sort of things the text should be telling me to do. I have a fair grasp of the vocabulary involved in the ingredients lists and the verbs are repeated so often from recipe to recipe that I've managed to "acquire" a few of them along the way.

Everything the literature tells me I'm supposed to be getting out of Extended Reading/Narrow Reading and Authentic Texts, I've been getting from cook books. I have a number of Estonian recipe books (some with side-by-side translations, but most in Estonian) and I've managed to pull off one or two recipes (had some trouble with deciphering measurements to begin with) and I'm getting better. It's not just reading the recipes, but also trying to cook them - without translating them into English first. I have the Estonian recipe in front of me, and that's what I try to cook.

It's interesting to me that I haven't encountered anything about this in the literature on Extensive/Narrow Reading. They mention non-fiction books and pictorial dictionaries, but not instructional texts like cook books and things-to-make-and-do type books. But, surely, these books should have their place. Reading and following instructions is a great way to interact with a language. I can see why people combine language courses with cooking courses.

Cooking in a foreign language. Fraught with peril, but highly recommended.

She Waits

Another sonnet from the dead of night.

I was up way past my bedtime and my mind was wandering all over the place. Eventually I got on to thinking about old maids, and ended up writing this thing.

I don't know why I start thinking in iambic pentameter when I'm overtired. I just do.

It's not quite a true sonnet, though, as there is no change in direction with the sextet.

Trumpet

It's time to face facts. I'm never going to be able to play the trumpet. Or the cornet, or any other similarly sized brass instrument.

I've always been half convinced that I could probably do anything I wanted to, as long as I was willing to put in the hard work. This means whenever I say I "can't" do something, at the back of my mind I always tack on the word "yet". I might never put in enough work to be able to do it, but I still think the potential is there.

Heck, even math related things fall into this category. I suck at anything that requires something more elaborate than adding two digit numbers, and I truly hate maths. However, I believe I could probably improve if I stopped chanting "I hate this, I hate this" and put in a bit of effort.

When my brass instructor had me switch from cornet to baritone because he felt it would be a better fit, I held to the belief that, while the baritone was easier to play, I would still be able to play the smaller instruments if I just tried hard enough. I realise now that I was wrong.

It actually is about fit, not effort - and I mean this in the literal sense: fit as size, rather than fit as feel. I can't play a trumpet anymore than I can fit into a pair of size six stilettos. I cannot physically make my mouth fit into the space needed to hit any note higher than an E above High C - and I really struggle to hit that.

It's a bit sad, really, especially since I own both a trumpet and a cornet. The trumpet is a cheap tin pocket trumpet that looks a lot better than it plays, and the cornet is a third-hand ex-Salvation Army thing that I bought from a second-hand store for $50 and an accordion years ago. Now I have to figure out what to do with them, since I know I won't be able to sell them for anything near what I paid for them...

Anyone want a pocket trumpet or a cornet? I'm happy to give the cornet away, but I'd probably be looking to sell the trumpet for about $200 (I bought it two years ago for $400).

*sigh*.

New Bike!

New bike, new bike, new biiiiiiiiiike!



I was going to wait until my birthday to assemble it, but I couldn't help myself. I just love assembling stuff. I have been known to buy furniture just so I could assemble it later. I find the occasional jigsaw puzzle can quell this need, as can the fact that I live with my mother and she won't let me bring any more furniture into the house (yet another reason to move out in ten years, after I've finally saved up enough of a deposit to buy my own place)... but a penny-farthing to assemble was just too tempting to pass up.

I had to pull all of the pieces out of the box anyway, you see, because I needed to check they were all there (actually, the guy said he'd throw in some spare spokes, and they weren't in the box, so I guess they weren't all there). Once I had those pieces laid out, and the assembly instruction in my hands... Well, what's a girl to do?







In case anyone was interested, my "workshop" consisted of leaning the thing against a disused dog kennel and holding it in place with a bucket of dirt. The bucket of dirt once had a purpose, now it seems to be taking up space for no good reason. Ah, well, at least I got some use out of it.

I had a sad and unfortunate thought half-way through today, though. In Queensland, it's illegal to ride a bicycle on the road without at least one working break. I think that means I might have to get a break installed somehow in order to ride it anywhere other than a path...

The bike is finally here

Took two days to get from America to Australia, and over a week to get from Brisbane to Townsville. There's something not quite right about that.

Haven't taken it out of the box yet because I had to get to work.

I knew I was getting the "small" one, but it's actually a bit smaller than I expected. Could possibly fit it in the back of a station wagon without too much difficulty...

Once it's out of the box and in one piece I'll take photos.

Wonder Woman

This is sort of an amalgam of several women I know who fit the same description. If you think you're one of them and you want to claim it, you go right ahead.

Wonder Woman.

Then again, you may find it vaguely depressing, so perhaps you shouldn't read it.

Herman Brix

I think I might be falling in love with Herman Brix.

I have, in the past, mentioned my adoration for Tarzan in general, but Herman Brix has to be the best Tarzan I have ever seen.

I mean, he is clearly superior in every way to Gordon Scott, and Scott's always been my favourite.

I can't stand Johnny Weissmuller. Never could. He irritated me even before I started reading the books and realised just how far from Tarzan he really was.

I mean, Tarzan rocks. The guy managed to survive being "abandoned" by his parents shortly after birth (does dying of jungle related illnesses count as abandoning?), being raised by apes and getting into regular scrapes with gorillas, wild cats, giant snakes and the like. He taught himself to read using children's books, taught himself to speak French by imitating a French guy he found in the jungle, can communicate with almost any animal he comes in contact with and managed to learn the language of every people group he's ever encountered. He's a giant of a man with a lithe, muscular figure and incredible strength whose every sense has been enhanced by living wild in the jungle.

He's the epitome of "good breeding", being physically and mentally superb and therefore capable of surviving any adventure you could possibly throw at him. And he's an English Lord, an African Chieftain and the uncontested king of the jungle. He's certainly not some flabby, inarticulate monkey man.

And yet, when MGM took a crack at Tarzan films in the 1930s, they decided to go with the flabby, inarticulate monkey man take on things, and that's the version of Tarzan most people know today. Okay, to be fair Weissmuller wasn't that flabby to start with, but by the 40s he definitely wasn't the Olympic swimmer any more.

The 1930s period was an interesting time for Tarzan, though, as there were actually two different film franchises created by two different companies. On the one hand, there was Weissmuller (who obviously won the battle for the public's love and adoration). On the other hand, we had Herman Brix.

Born Harold Herman Brix and later working under the name Bruce Bennett, Brix played Tarzan the way he was written - intelligent, articulate and bounding with power and energy. He was tall, had a lithe, muscular physique and was completely convincing when climbing trees or bounding through the jungles of Guatemala (barefoot, no less). He did his own stunts, spoke in complete sentences and looked completely at ease with monkeys and hamfisted actors alike.

He's just perfect. I've never seen an actor better capture the Tarzan of the books. Why oh why did Weissmuller's version take off when Brix is clearly the superior Tarzan?

It was probably MGM's doing. No way an independent film company was going to beat a megacorporation at the box-office - not even in the 1930s.

The Watch

My new watch isn't as good as my old one.

Have I even mentioned how much I loved my old watch? It was a Timex from the "Expedition" series. I bought it almost completely by accident a couple of years ago from Rebel Sports. It was about a month before the Julia Creek Dirt'n'Dust Triathlon and I wanted a watch that was likely to survive dust, mud, water, sweat, sun and a whole pile of other conditions likely to completely ruin the cheap watches I usually wear.

This was the first time I've bothered paying more than $20 for a watch, and I fell head over heels in love with it. Three time zones (and at one point I actually used all three), three alarms (brilliant!), a stop watch with lap settings, a timer, a 'hydro' function that beeps every set number of minutes and an "occasion" setting for anniversaries/birthdays and the like (which I never worked out how to programme). Oh, yeah, and the light, but whatever. It probably has other features too, for all I know.

About those alarms... Three of them. And you could set them to go off everyday or only on weekends. I had one to remind me it was getting late and I should probably stop reading now. One to start the whole waking up process and one to mark the time when I really had to get out of bed if I was too lazy to get up when the first alarm went off. Good stuff.

Oh, and it didn't obviously look like a man's watch. I mean, it was extremely useful, so obviously it was a man's watch (nothing designed for women is meant to be useful - just pretty. After all, women don't do useful things and are meant to sit around being pretty...), but it looked nice and unisex. I didn't feel like I was wearing an obviously gendered piece of equipment (which I often do when I opt for the useful things).

I really, really loved this watch. I loved this watch more than most people love their phones. With this watch on my wrist, I felt like I could take on the world. Even when I wasn't wearing the watch, it was close by. I keep it on my bedside table when I sleep...

Sadly, for a $100+ watch, it had a fatal flaw. The same flaw most watches have - the band. After two years of being being worn all day, every day and being dragged through every weird thing I felt like doing, the band snapped. It was connected to the watch in a very peculiar fashion, so that regular watch repairing people couldn't replace it for me. I even found a shop that specialised in Timex watches, and they said it was unlikely the company made those bands any more (after two years? Who are these people?). Besides, I had no idea where my warranty was, and no one seemed interested in sending it back to the factory for a replacement band without one.

So I decided to buy a new Timex watch. One with a band I could easily replace when it failed. Which is when I discovered their nefarious scheme. You see, NONE of the watches that have the kind of functionality with which I have fallen in love have normal, easily replaced bands. The only watches that had practical bands had fewer functions. I wasn't going to fall for that trick again, so this time around I went for the band rather than the multiple alarms...

And, dammit, this watch isn't as good. I really want multiple alarms. I really, really want them. I can live with only two time zones. The fact that the timer can be set to repeat so that it can do the same thing as the hydro function is okay. I can live without the occasion function (I never used it any way). But I really, really want my multiple alarms. This watch will let me set the alarm for every day, weekdays or weekends, but what's the point of having the option to set the alarm for weekdays or weekends if you can't have a different alarm for each?

I have valiantly tried to save the old watch by stitching it onto the band for another, cheap watch, but now it just looks like some ugly franken-watch. I still have it by my bedside, but I don't feel comfortable wearing it to work - especially when I have a nice-looking non-franken-watch I could be wearing.

Just one that's not as good.

Encoding

DVD players.

You probably don't realise it, but they point out something wrong with the world. Deeply, distressingly wrong.

You may not know this (but many of you may), but the whole region coding thing for DVDs is a scam.

It's not like VHS tapes, which actually used a different technology for recording and playback in different regions. DVDs are the same the world over, but someone somewhere has decided they should be sold and used in certain countries only, so they add an encoding which tells your DVD player to reject the disc if you are in the "wrong" region.

The really cheap DVD players - you know, the ones that have trouble with dual layer discs and occasionally decide to break down with your disc inside it for no good reason - they're too cheap and nasty to handle the encoding, so they just ignore it. Thus, you can watch just about anything from anywhere.

If you get a good quality DVD player from a "reputable" brand, they'll be sophisticated enough to read and apply the encoding. But they don't have to. There is nothing in the technology itself that stops the machine from reading the disc. Just the code - deliberately and intentionally written to tell your machine to not do something it is more than capable of doing.

Then, they try to sell you an even more expensive DVD player that is, supposedly, "region free". But it has absolutely nothing to do with getting "better" technology - and everything to do with what the technology is programmed to do...

It's a scam. Nothing more than a money grubbing scam.

On the one hand, the "reputable" brands are getting more money out of you because they can make sure you don't buy a cheaper DVD from overseas - or import a DVD into the country where it hasn't been officially "released". On the other hand, the big corporations of the world have decided they want to control who watches what and where.

Not good, people. All sorts of Freedom-of-Information-Trampling not good.

Charges, con't

Oh, and I'd just like to bring this to everyone's attention:

Import Document Fee 10%=4.80 48.00

That's $52.80 (including GST) for a document. A document. Someone has to look at a piece of paper and sign it, so I get to pay $52.80

That's more than half the cost of the Terminal fee. You know, the $88 I pay for the privilege of having my cargo turn up at their precious terminal. Which, of course, doesn't include the $49.50 I'm paying to have it taken off the plane, or the $27.50 for the Cargo Automation. I don't know what Cargo Automation is, but it sounds suspiciously like someone pressing a button and letting the machine do all the work.

Oh, how I miss the postal service.

Charges

Well, this is something I wasn't expecting:

ImportTerminal Fee 10%=8.00 80.00
CArrier Disbursement 10%=4.50 45.00
Import Document Fee 10%=4.80 48.00
Cargo Automation Fee 10%=2.50 25.00
Cartage 10%=7.80 78.00
Clearance 10%=12.00 120.00
Duty Exempt Rated 57.79
Import GST Exempt Rated 162.16
Customs Entry Charge Exempt Rated 55.20
CMR Fee 10%=1.50 15.00

That's not even counting the actual cost of getting the thing to Townsville - or GST.

You know, I buy weird and wacky things from overseas all the time and they just send it to me in the mail. Occasionally someone at customs slices it up and leaves me a note saying they were "just checking", but I don't suddenly have over $700 added to the price just because my thing turns up in the country. Why are people suddenly charging me Duty, GST and customs charges just because I want a box taken off a plane?

Where do they tell you this sort of thing will happen? How could I possibly have known about this back when I was thinking about ordering a bike from the US?

The price on the website is US$900. The custom paint job (yes, an unnecessary expense, but if I'm going to by a fancy-pants bike I may as well fork out for a red one) was less than US$200. I was quoted a price to have the thing shipped to Australia, which was fine. Factoring in the exchange rate, I thought I'd come in at under $2000AUD - which I could live with. Now, it's going to end up costing me over $2500 - probably even closer to $3000.

That's a lot of money to pay for a $899.00 bike. I don't know whether I would have gone ahead with it or not, had I known what the full price would be. Maybe. I'm just ticked off that I didn't know. I like making informed decisions, and I have no idea where I should have checked to get this information.

Caveat emptor indeed.

Tallinn on my Mind

And, once again, I've got Tallinn on my mind.

Sunshine State

It is a perfectly glorious, sunny, pre-summer day in North Queensland today.

The sun is shining, but the clouds in the sky are softening it a bit. The poinciana trees are flowering, along with those trees with the yellow flowers - the ones planted on every second street in the "middle aged" suburbs, but for which I never did find out what the name is...

They are, of course, introduced species, but they've always been the heralds of summer and, with it, Christmas.

Welcome to the Southern Hemisphere, where "it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas" when the trees burst into a glorious array of colour.

Oh, and it's not just the trees, per se. We're edging close to the time of year when the lorikeets come to town to feast on the flowers, and everything sort of explodes with life. Screeching, squawking, getting-drunk-on-nectar-and-slamming into your windows life. The galahs are already back, and the cockatoos forgot to leave during winter, so we'll all be having a Psittaciformes-y old time before you know it.

It's hot, now, but not yet really-really-really hot. That usually kicks in the week before Christmas and gets worse throughout January.

Oh, but the fruit is starting to shift, and nectarines are turning up in the shops. Very soon we'll be seeing peaches, apricots and cherries at affordable prices. Of course, the true joy of a tropical summer comes from feasting on a handful of lychees on the back stairs or trying to eat a mango without wearing the juice.

It's a brilliant thing, a tropical summer. We're all sick of it by February, but in these early stages it's a source of strange magic.

Yessirree. It's a beautiful, warm, sunny Sunday, with lots of sunshine dappling through the trees. The trees I can see from the window. The window I can half see from where I'm sitting. At work.

There are some days when working on a Sunday sucks more than usual.

Change My Mind

Helen asked me to write a song.

Sadly, I couldn't think of a new one, but an old one decided it was time to flutter into my head, so I pinned that one down instead.

Some months ago a country-bluesy kind of tune crept into my brain. It seemed familiar, but I couldn't think of any lyrics that belong with it, so I was happy to just hum along until I remembered where it belonged.

Unfortunately, my brain has a tendency to play with patterns, so before I could remember what the real lyrics were I started to fill up the tune with words that "flowed".

Then one thing lead to another and "Change My Mind" was the result.

The sad thing is, I'm still pretty sure that tune belongs to another song, so I don't think I can use it - but now I really can't remember what that other song is, because I keep thinking of these lyrics instead.

Whatever.

What I learnt today: Puggles

I love it when new words are incredibly fabulous:

"Puggle"

It's what you call a baby echidna. According to the Macquarie English Dictionary, the name actually came from a line of toys. People thought the little naked echidna babies looked like the toys, so they started calling them puggles, and the name just stuck. The dictionary implied this is a word applied to all monotreme pouchlings, so I guess a baby platypus is also a puggle.

They didn't include a date chart, so I have no idea when this all happened, but I think it's kind of cool that the "real world" is starting to be named after toys.

Plus, the word "puggle" is just brilliant. Plus, echidna puggles look fabulously funky:



You can kind of tell they aren't really meant to be out of the pouch, yet. I tell you what: zoo personnel have the best jobs. Well, next to being a librarian, that is.

I want to find a picture of a platypus puggle, now. Well, actually I just want to find an excuse to use the words "platypus puggles" in a sentence. I think I've managed that for today.

Technology changes so fast...

The use of master tapes to operate computer databases was common practice in the middle of the 20th Century. However, by the end of the century magnetic tape had fallen out of favour with many database designers. Most began using the plant-based technology, chlorofilm, believing it was technologically superior. Indeed, chlorofilm could store larger amounts of information than magnetic tape, and the need for channels and playback speeds was eliminated, making the technology easier to use. It was also resistant to magnetic fields, meaning the information could not be damaged by proximity to speakers and telephones. Unfortunately, the chlorofilm based technology was highly biodegradable, and much of the information stored in that manner was lost within five years.

After losing several years worth of data as a result of chlorofilm based technology, companies like Microsoft and Neowolf turned to minerals to develop a more reliable method of storing information. Silicone was briefly considered, but rejected in favour of the more conductive copper. Ultrarefined Copper (URC) is currently the basis of all data storage in computers and servers in America, England, Australia and the Pacific nations. Much of Europe and Africa, however, has followed Germany’s lead with using aluminium based technology.

Pedants' Corner - homonyms

And today, in Pedants' Corner, we're going to look at a handful of nyms and a phone.

Homonyms are words with the same spelling, but different meanings. Thus "pot" (as in, "I will cook this in a pot") is a homonym for "pot" (as in, "I don't think you should smoke pot").

Synonyms are words with different spelling, but the same meaning. Thus "set" (as in "I will set this on the table") is a synonym for "put" (as in, "I will put this on the table")

Homophones are words that have the same pronunciation, but have different spellings and meanings. Thus "buy" (as in, "I think this is a good buy") is a homophone for "bye" (as in, "I think this is goodbye").

Pseudonyms are fake names used by people who don't want to use their real name. Thus "Currer Bell" (as in, "Jane Eyre, by Currer Bell") is a pseudonym for "Charlotte Brontë" (as in, "Shirley, by Charlotte Brontë").

The important message to take away from this is that homonyms look alike, but do not necessarily sound alike, while homophones sound alike but do not necessarily look alike.

It's easy enough to remember once you notice that "homophone" has the phoneme "phone" in it. "Homo" means "same", "phone" means "sound".

I mention this because I came across a website that specialises in helping people work out easily confused words... and they had accidentally used "homonym" instead of "homophone" on their own front page...

Cheeseday

By the way, after consultation with various interested parties, the official cheese week looks like this:

Colby = the first day of the working week
Feta = the second day
Edam = the third day
Jarlesburg = the fourth day
Halloumi = the fifth day
Camembert = the first day of the weekend/the Sabbath
Brie = the "Lord's Cheese"...

Now, the next challenge is to rename all of the months after root vegetables. I'm voting for "Beetroot" for the first month on the calendar...

That's an insult

From a Wall Street Journal Article:

"He has compared a prominent opponent of the switch to a local "avaava" fish -- a sea creature that swims in shallow waters and eats garbage, an insult in Samoan culture."

You mean, calling someone a shallow garbage eater is an insult? Go figure.

Anyway, I like it. I think I'm going to have to add "avaava" to "troglodyte" and "fustilarian" on my list of "insults that are almost as much fun to say as they are to give."

You and me, and all that jazz

Okay, people, it's not that hard. You just ask yourself, "what would I say if I wasn't sharing this sentence with someone else?"

So, if you felt compelled to write the sentence:

"I don't think this will effect the work Lynn and myself are doing with that room."

You should simply remove Lynn and see how the sentence reads without her:

"I don't think this will effect the work myself am doing with that room."

Doesn't sound right, does it?

That's because it's WRONG. Really, really WRONG. So WRONG it almost eclipses the incorrect use of the word "effect" in that sentence. Almost, but not quite.

To the person who originally wrote that sentence, I say this:

"That's not quite right."

Oh, come on, like there's any point in correcting people these days. No one cares. No one listens. No one wants to know. No one wants to hang out with you afterwards...

Why don't you all just forget there's such a thing as case in the English language (yeah, you heard me, I said the English language has cases!) and just use whatever pronouns you feel like. We all know you will anyway.

Fury

Aaaaand we're back at the bottom of the ladder.

Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

Fennecs and Pikas Alive Alive-O

I want one of these:



Anyone know where I can get a fennec?

Fennecs, by the way, start with the letter "f", not the letter "p". I mention this, because I was once involved in a ridiculously drawn out game of categories when someone said we had to come up with every animal we could think of starting with the letter "p".

There are a lot of them, and at one point the word "pika" came into my mind. Someone tried to challenge me on it, but I stuck to my guns. Sadly, I described it as a type of fox with really big ears. This not only sounded like something completely made up, but it was also quite incorrect.

A pika looks like this:



It is, as you can see, a type of lagomorph with relatively small ears, given the ear size of other lagomorphs like rabbits and hares.

"What in the Zharkian Empire is a lagomorph?" I hear you cry. "If it's some kind of rodent, why don't you just say so?"

Well, gentle readers, it turns out that rabbits, hares and pikas are not rodents at all. They belong to a completely different order of animal - lagomorpha. They bear but a superficial resemblance to members of the rodentia order. And yet, despite this, members of both orders are equally likely to pee in your hand. You get that.

So, while a pika may superficially resemble a degu:



Or, perhaps a chinchilla:



It is, in fact, nothing at all like a small fox with large ears. That would be a fennec:



That's "fennec" with an "f".

Fury vs Glory and GC United

Oh. My God.

The Fury appear to be on a winning streak. I'm so excited I don't know what to do with myself.

I meant to write a post last week about the match against Perth Glory, but I ran out of time. Let's see if I can sum it up:

"Hell, yeah!"

They gave us a show and a win. What more could you ask? a) a 2-1 win, b) second win of the series, c) first home win ever... I was so happy I bought a hat. It's now my "victory" hat, and I'll wear it whenever we win.

I briefly put it on yesterday when I read about our 2-0 win over Gold Coast. After our last match against GC United ended with a 5-0 loss, the 2-0 win was very sweet.

This is what I'm talking about, people. When you support the stuggling team, every win is "Yeah! We Won! Huzzah!", while a loss is just "eh, whatever". But if you're team is consistently at the top of the ladder, any win is just same-ol-same-ol, while any loss is devastating. It's always good when the wins mean more than the losses.

Meanwhile, the fact that the only games I can watch are the live matches totally sucks, dude. What happened to the days when at least some of the A League matches were televised free to air? I'm not going to pay for Fox Sport, dammit! SBS or Seven, get your gear into action and buy back some rights!