I've gone all genre again. Every now and then I catch a "bug" and start immersing myself in one genre or another. I spent a month in mid-20th Century apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic sci-fi, once (Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, that sort of thing). I've been mildly convinced we're all doomed ever since then - especially since I kept reading about things that didn't exist at the time, but do now. I mean, come on, people, the TV that takes up an entire wall and the device that sends an endless stream of entertainment directly to your ears where both Bad Things. They stopped us from thinking for ourselves so that an entire war could go unnoticed, so long as it didn't interrupt the TV broadcast...
Anyway, I've suddenly come down with a case of Murder Mysteries. I can't seem get enough of them. I'm reading a collection of short stories from the Strand and the first Temperance Brennan novel by Reichs, listening to an audio book of a Hamish Macbeth novel and watching episodes of Inspector Rex... Plus, there's the usual Sunday night viewing of Bones and Castle. I've even been tempted to watch Stockinger on SBS 2, but my family are barely tolerating one Austrian crime show.
I want SBS to pick up Balko, but that's largely because I *ahem* appreciate Bruno Eyron. I know the show's been cancelled for years but SBS is pretty good at repeating episodes from decades ago. That's why you can always count on the Moser episodes of Inspector Rex to come back pretty much every year. Of course, those were the good episodes, so it's perfectly okay. I just can't bring myself to follow Rex to Italy.
Anyway, I blame the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary for this current state of affairs. If I didn't want that dictionary so badly, I wouldn't have been suckered into joining the Folio Society. If I hadn't joined the Folio Society to get cheap dictionaries, I wouldn't have had to spend a fortune I books I was only mildly interested in - including Crime Stories from the Strand.
It's not the first time I've read Crime. I had a Sherlocke Holmes phase ages ago, I've read a few Christies and I used to listen to dramatisations of various crime novels all the time when the tape deck in my car still worked. But, for some reason, it's gripped me now in a way it hasn't done so before.
I wonder how long it will last...
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Monday, April 26, 2010
Knitwear Guy
One of my favourite movies is Easter Parade with Fred Astaire and Judy Garland. I think it was shown three years in a row, once, and I saw it every time. Then there was a gap of a couple of years before they screened it again, but I was waiting for it. Once of these days I'm going to have to buy my own copy.
There's one number in the movie, though, that just irks me. For one thing, it doesn't belong there - it's a showcase for some guy who isn't even in the movie. Well, he is in the movie, because he's in this number, but he isn't a character or anything. Basically, it's one of those "Hey, this is a movie musical, let's show off what kind of fancy things we can do with movie musicals and give our art-department a work-out" kind of number that peppered a lot of films of that era.
For another thing, it's really annoying. The dude-who-isn't-really-in-the-movie sings in one of those warbly tenors that always bug me, while dancers pose in "living" magazine covers before stepping down onto the sound stage floor to indulge in a really boring dance. A really, really boring dance. And the number itself? Some pointless piece of fluff called "The Girl on the Magazine Cover".
Even though I've seen the movie at least four or five times, all I can remember of the lyrics to this song are "I'm in love with the girl on the magazine cover". I've pretty much blocked the rest of it out.
Except, for some reason, it popped into my head a few days ago and refuses to leave. Just that line: "I'm in love with the girl on the magazine cover".
And for the last couple of days I've been fighting the urge to write a "response" to the song something along these lines:
I quite fancy
The fellow in the 90s knitwear catalogue
(catalogue)
The cute blonde in
The pullover with elongated rhombus stitch
(rhombus stitch)
He's ruggedly handsome
Yet looks soft to touch
Is there any wonder
I like him so much?
I'd like to go strolling
With him arm-in-arm
You could say I've fallen
For his worsted charm
For
I quite fancy
The fellow in the 90s knitwear catalogue
(catalogue)
Perhaps I haven't been fighting that urge as much as I could have...
There's one number in the movie, though, that just irks me. For one thing, it doesn't belong there - it's a showcase for some guy who isn't even in the movie. Well, he is in the movie, because he's in this number, but he isn't a character or anything. Basically, it's one of those "Hey, this is a movie musical, let's show off what kind of fancy things we can do with movie musicals and give our art-department a work-out" kind of number that peppered a lot of films of that era.
For another thing, it's really annoying. The dude-who-isn't-really-in-the-movie sings in one of those warbly tenors that always bug me, while dancers pose in "living" magazine covers before stepping down onto the sound stage floor to indulge in a really boring dance. A really, really boring dance. And the number itself? Some pointless piece of fluff called "The Girl on the Magazine Cover".
Even though I've seen the movie at least four or five times, all I can remember of the lyrics to this song are "I'm in love with the girl on the magazine cover". I've pretty much blocked the rest of it out.
Except, for some reason, it popped into my head a few days ago and refuses to leave. Just that line: "I'm in love with the girl on the magazine cover".
And for the last couple of days I've been fighting the urge to write a "response" to the song something along these lines:
I quite fancy
The fellow in the 90s knitwear catalogue
(catalogue)
The cute blonde in
The pullover with elongated rhombus stitch
(rhombus stitch)
He's ruggedly handsome
Yet looks soft to touch
Is there any wonder
I like him so much?
I'd like to go strolling
With him arm-in-arm
You could say I've fallen
For his worsted charm
For
I quite fancy
The fellow in the 90s knitwear catalogue
(catalogue)
Perhaps I haven't been fighting that urge as much as I could have...
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Under Cup
It's strange how much of the Estonian I've been trying to absorb over the past year is suddenly clicking into place now that I'm learning German.
One of the first things I learnt in Estonian (thanks to a CDROM called Talk Now! Estonian) was "cup and saucer": tass ja alustass. It was part of a whole section on food related words - which are still, sadly, the words I remember best. The other day in German class we were also learning food related words and, wouldn't you know it, the German for "cup and saucer" is Tasse und Untertasse. What with the Germans occupying Estonia for a while, it makes sense that they'd have a few words crossing over.
However, the thing that suddenly clicked into place for me was the significance of the "alus" in "alustass". The "word" for saucer in both of these languages is "undercup". I finally connected "alus" with "all". It was also nice to note how often the Estonian word for this, that or the other would pop into my head when I was learning the German version. It means something is sticking in there after all.
I've been getting frustrated lately with the fact that I'm still looking up the same words in Estonian after all this time. It seems my vocabulary acquisition is just not cutting it. I'll look at a word in a reading, recognise it as something I've seen several times before - looked up several times before - and I just won't be able to pull the meaning out of my brain. I have to look it up again. It's dang frustrating.
It's probably because I'm not interacting with the language, just passively receiving it from various sources. Krashen would say that's perfectly valid, I should just keep reading and eventually it will all click into place. Which is a load of fetid dingoes' kidneys, if you ask me. Then again, he used to say that in the early 80s. He started to mellow out a bit in the 90s and may have moved on in the last twenty years.
Anyway, I've been trying to challenge myself lately by trying to create something in the language, which has been frustrating to say the least. Take the whole "square" incident. Question: How hard can it be to find the correct version of the word "square" in order to say "the circle is next to the square"? Answer: I still haven't found it. My best guess: "ringi on nelinurku juures".
I've been busy ploughing through all of these readings about things that are supposed to help language learners develop their vocabulary, and so far my attempts to apply them to Estonian have been a slog. Which is why German has been such a pleasant surprise. I borrowed a book in German that was at the same reading level as a couple of Estonian books I have been unable to crack, and I managed to follow it quite happily. I didn't have the 95% coverage that Nation and his ilk advise for vocabulary acquisition through reading, but I managed to glean a few words from the context, which turned out to be exactly what I thought they were, and I could read it through reasonably happily without the unknown words getting in the way... And yet, theoretically, I know less German than I do Estonian.
Also, the German words for things are popping into my head much more quickly than the Estonian words did. I'm wondering if Estonian is so hard in comparison to German that when I encounter the easier language my brain is just saying: "Oh, thank God, something I can actually process" and is latching onto it. It's so weird to have these "Oh, this is what you were talking about" moments with language learning after dismissing half of what I had been reading about in the literature as being irrelevant for beginners.
Maybe it's because German is a "cousin" of English. Maybe it's because I briefly flirted with German as a child, and something imprinted. Maybe it's because I took a semester of Anglo-Saxon at university and I've been immersed in Renaissance English for decades through Shakespeare and his mates (declension of verbs in Renaissance English skirts very close to the pattern in German). Or maybe it's just because the Finno-Ugric languages are insanely foreign compared to English. I don't know.
By the way, have you ever seen a flying undercup?
One of the first things I learnt in Estonian (thanks to a CDROM called Talk Now! Estonian) was "cup and saucer": tass ja alustass. It was part of a whole section on food related words - which are still, sadly, the words I remember best. The other day in German class we were also learning food related words and, wouldn't you know it, the German for "cup and saucer" is Tasse und Untertasse. What with the Germans occupying Estonia for a while, it makes sense that they'd have a few words crossing over.
However, the thing that suddenly clicked into place for me was the significance of the "alus" in "alustass". The "word" for saucer in both of these languages is "undercup". I finally connected "alus" with "all". It was also nice to note how often the Estonian word for this, that or the other would pop into my head when I was learning the German version. It means something is sticking in there after all.
I've been getting frustrated lately with the fact that I'm still looking up the same words in Estonian after all this time. It seems my vocabulary acquisition is just not cutting it. I'll look at a word in a reading, recognise it as something I've seen several times before - looked up several times before - and I just won't be able to pull the meaning out of my brain. I have to look it up again. It's dang frustrating.
It's probably because I'm not interacting with the language, just passively receiving it from various sources. Krashen would say that's perfectly valid, I should just keep reading and eventually it will all click into place. Which is a load of fetid dingoes' kidneys, if you ask me. Then again, he used to say that in the early 80s. He started to mellow out a bit in the 90s and may have moved on in the last twenty years.
Anyway, I've been trying to challenge myself lately by trying to create something in the language, which has been frustrating to say the least. Take the whole "square" incident. Question: How hard can it be to find the correct version of the word "square" in order to say "the circle is next to the square"? Answer: I still haven't found it. My best guess: "ringi on nelinurku juures".
I've been busy ploughing through all of these readings about things that are supposed to help language learners develop their vocabulary, and so far my attempts to apply them to Estonian have been a slog. Which is why German has been such a pleasant surprise. I borrowed a book in German that was at the same reading level as a couple of Estonian books I have been unable to crack, and I managed to follow it quite happily. I didn't have the 95% coverage that Nation and his ilk advise for vocabulary acquisition through reading, but I managed to glean a few words from the context, which turned out to be exactly what I thought they were, and I could read it through reasonably happily without the unknown words getting in the way... And yet, theoretically, I know less German than I do Estonian.
Also, the German words for things are popping into my head much more quickly than the Estonian words did. I'm wondering if Estonian is so hard in comparison to German that when I encounter the easier language my brain is just saying: "Oh, thank God, something I can actually process" and is latching onto it. It's so weird to have these "Oh, this is what you were talking about" moments with language learning after dismissing half of what I had been reading about in the literature as being irrelevant for beginners.
Maybe it's because German is a "cousin" of English. Maybe it's because I briefly flirted with German as a child, and something imprinted. Maybe it's because I took a semester of Anglo-Saxon at university and I've been immersed in Renaissance English for decades through Shakespeare and his mates (declension of verbs in Renaissance English skirts very close to the pattern in German). Or maybe it's just because the Finno-Ugric languages are insanely foreign compared to English. I don't know.
By the way, have you ever seen a flying undercup?
Friday, April 23, 2010
Google says...
I usually click the "nope" button whenever Google offers to translate a page for me, but for some reason I clicked "yes" this time. I'm glad I did, because I needed the laugh.
Apparently, Google is about as bad at translating Estonian as I am:
Operating at the heart of the famous face of Estonia sakslannast presenter and journalist, a strange love affair with difficult choices, and send pictures põrkumine world. With numerous turns, and paints a colorful exercise tegelaskujudega kummastava picture chaos, which could hit one safe little country, where a handful of dangerous fanatics will pocket fists.
Hmm. Yes. I feel much more enlightened as to the meaning of the words on that page, now.
Apparently, Google is about as bad at translating Estonian as I am:
Operating at the heart of the famous face of Estonia sakslannast presenter and journalist, a strange love affair with difficult choices, and send pictures põrkumine world. With numerous turns, and paints a colorful exercise tegelaskujudega kummastava picture chaos, which could hit one safe little country, where a handful of dangerous fanatics will pocket fists.
Hmm. Yes. I feel much more enlightened as to the meaning of the words on that page, now.
Duck Wrangling
I took a week off to work on my thesis. Fat lot of good that seems to be doing me.
I've been spending days getting my ducks all in a row (I love that metaphor) based on the assumption that, once I had my ducks all neatly lined up, I'd be able to knock everything over with relative ease and efficiency.
Trouble is, it's taking an awfully long time to line up those ducks. Things I thought would take me half an hour are taking me close to three hours. And then I have to make my brain work well enough to re-write passages I couldn't write all that well in the first place.
Damn EndNote and it's promises of a better way of doing literature reviews. Damn it for being right, so I can't happily ignore it.
Damn my own tendency to put in too much detail on some days and not enough on others, so that I'm either wasting time putting in more than I need, or wasting time finding what I didn't put in.
Damn my lack of temporal awareness and poor concept of lineal time. I don't even notice how much time I'm wasting on lining up those stupid ducks until I realise I'm getting tired and finding it hard to focus - whoops, there goes another hour.
And yet, the ducks must be wrangled. If I don't waste time on it now, I'll be wasting time on it later. I know this because I was supposed to waste time on it over the course of the last six or so months, which would mean I wouldn't be wasting time on it now. But, you know, it was just so time consuming...
It's Friday, and I'm not even a quarter into what I wanted to do this week. Complete a draft? That's a laugh. I won't even clean up my first chapter by Monday.
Damn stupid ducks.
And, just for the heck of it: Damn.
I've been spending days getting my ducks all in a row (I love that metaphor) based on the assumption that, once I had my ducks all neatly lined up, I'd be able to knock everything over with relative ease and efficiency.
Trouble is, it's taking an awfully long time to line up those ducks. Things I thought would take me half an hour are taking me close to three hours. And then I have to make my brain work well enough to re-write passages I couldn't write all that well in the first place.
Damn EndNote and it's promises of a better way of doing literature reviews. Damn it for being right, so I can't happily ignore it.
Damn my own tendency to put in too much detail on some days and not enough on others, so that I'm either wasting time putting in more than I need, or wasting time finding what I didn't put in.
Damn my lack of temporal awareness and poor concept of lineal time. I don't even notice how much time I'm wasting on lining up those stupid ducks until I realise I'm getting tired and finding it hard to focus - whoops, there goes another hour.
And yet, the ducks must be wrangled. If I don't waste time on it now, I'll be wasting time on it later. I know this because I was supposed to waste time on it over the course of the last six or so months, which would mean I wouldn't be wasting time on it now. But, you know, it was just so time consuming...
It's Friday, and I'm not even a quarter into what I wanted to do this week. Complete a draft? That's a laugh. I won't even clean up my first chapter by Monday.
Damn stupid ducks.
And, just for the heck of it: Damn.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Drawing with a Mac
Okay, I had to share this.
If you have previously read this blog, you may have read my previous entry regarding my MacBook and its shocking lack of anything resembling a drawing program. I still maintain that if Windows can do it, then Mac should be doing it better, darn it - to heck with this "not at all" business.
Anyway, in my previous post (which I'm currently too lazy to link to) I made a comment about it being so difficult to try to draw something with my Mac that I may as well try to force my hand-written drawing into the computer using my amazing mental powers.
Well, a couple of days ago, I tried to do just that. You see, I suddenly had this scathingly brilliant idea: my MacBook doesn't have a drawing program, but it does have a webcam! So, I redrew my picture with a Sharpie (R), held it up to the camera and...
Well, you just have to see the result:
Yeah, the program that uses the webcam converts everything to a mirror image. I had noticed this before. I had not noticed that there isn't a single thing installed on my MacBook that will flip the image. I can rotate it any direction I like, but flipping? Not so much.
I'd be really annoyed if it wasn't so darn hilarious.
If you have previously read this blog, you may have read my previous entry regarding my MacBook and its shocking lack of anything resembling a drawing program. I still maintain that if Windows can do it, then Mac should be doing it better, darn it - to heck with this "not at all" business.
Anyway, in my previous post (which I'm currently too lazy to link to) I made a comment about it being so difficult to try to draw something with my Mac that I may as well try to force my hand-written drawing into the computer using my amazing mental powers.
Well, a couple of days ago, I tried to do just that. You see, I suddenly had this scathingly brilliant idea: my MacBook doesn't have a drawing program, but it does have a webcam! So, I redrew my picture with a Sharpie (R), held it up to the camera and...
Well, you just have to see the result:
Yeah, the program that uses the webcam converts everything to a mirror image. I had noticed this before. I had not noticed that there isn't a single thing installed on my MacBook that will flip the image. I can rotate it any direction I like, but flipping? Not so much.
I'd be really annoyed if it wasn't so darn hilarious.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Ripped from the headlines...
I have a Google gadget in my iGoogle page that's supposed to show the headlines from The Age (usually one of the few newspapers that I can read without wanting to punch a journalist). I'm not sure it's trying very hard to bring me the headlines, though. Today, the top three news headlines displayed are:
"Bashed to death"
Timeline
Factbox
Ah, "factbox", can't you stay out of the headlines for one day?
Ah, "factbox", can't you stay out of the headlines for one day?
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