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Friday, July 17th, 2009
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12:44 pm - Sucky Movies
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I can't be the only one who thought Another Gay Sequel: Gays Gone Wild was a terrible terrible movie. Not that Another Gay Movie was a masterpiece, but crap, in comparison???
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| Thursday, July 16th, 2009
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4:57 pm - 鶴河狩は駄じゃれを言う
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So it's no secret that Mika exhibits favouritism. Whenever the two of us are in the same room, Mika will go to Carl, and then to me if Carl is ignoring her. Last night was no exception, as Mika went up and cuddled into Carl instead of me.
"Mika loves me more," Carl said.
"So what, she loves you and wants to kill me?" I joked.
"Well," replied Carl, "That's why there's the shi in shiba inu."
Ugh, Japanese language puns! :: groan ::
The "I don't speak Japanese" explanation: shi , し, in Japanese can be represented by a number of characters, including 死, "death", but is obviously not present in the actual writing of the breed, 柴犬, shibainu, though I suppose you could be cute and take a cue from Carl and write it as the 死場犬, the "place of death dog", which is also shibainu . That being said, people go out of their way to use an alternate pronunciation of four, 四, which is also pronounced the same as "death".
current mood:  amused
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3:55 pm - Ren Faire, Day Off, Procured Item
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Today was my mandatory "day off," now that all of the hourly employees at my company have been dropped to 32 hours per week. What did I do with my day off? Not a hell of a lot unless you include dishes and trimming dog nails as "something". Until further notice, I'm off every Monday as well as Saturday and Sunday. Oh joy. I have earned paid time off I can use (and am using this week), to help buffer the hit in the wallet, but I have that much accrued EPTO. Plus, since none of us are working 40 hours a week, none of us earn any further EPTO. Crap.
This past weekend I was at the Bristol Renaissance Faire. I initially thought that the Ren Faire Curse would happen once more (what I've called the strikes of fate that have prevented me from going to any ren faire I've actively tried to attend in the last 7 years or so!) -- I crashed with my friend Bobby and headed out on Saturday afternoon when, on 294 in the express lane, traffic came to a crawl and then stopped altogether. It seems that there was an accident three miles or so ahead. So, Bobby turned off the car and, when we started moving, he turned the ignition to start the car once more. And nothing happened. A couple more tries. Nothing. A truck eventually gave us a jump and we were on our way, but going back the same thing happened and we were stuck in the ren faire parking lot until they arrived.
But the fair itself was aesome -- I so want to go again! I loved the environment, the crowds -- so many people got so into building the environment, having procured or created some of the most beautiful costumes I've seen. Oh, and apparently big bearded men LOVE ren faires so they were in high abundance! What a horrible time to forget my camera, certainly! That being said, my friend Bobby took some (and I usurped his camera intermittently), so I should be able to post some here at some point. I was told that, apparently, there's a gay day at the ren faire, which in a way seems redundant -- at least two of the clothing makers were very obviously family, and I kept running into groups of men together in period garb (when I complimented one on his Tudor-esque outfit, he responded, "Oh then you should tell that to our seamstress here!", and pointed to a bigger bearded man behind him).
Is it bad of me that I'm finding ren faire sex to be an alluring thought? :: laugh ::
So, I picked something up there -- no, no outfits or anything. As nice as they were, I haven't that kind of money!!! Nonono, I picked up a little trinket that I've been wearing all week. I don't care what anyone says -- I quite like it! A big ogre of a man -- who was wearing two of these, incidentally -- sold them to me. Oh the things I would have done to that man ...
( What is it? Well ...I procured a bit of ... jewelry, I guess you can say ... )
current mood:  blah
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(6 comments | comment on this)
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| Tuesday, July 14th, 2009
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10:47 am - Mother fuck...
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| Monday, July 13th, 2009
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11:34 pm - Dental fun, and more!
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Multilingual Monday tomorrow. Tonight? Sleep ...
What a day. I missed half of my work day because of various appointments -- today was "Roger's Health Day." Get tested, go to the dentist -- the whole shebang.
The testing was the easy and stress-free part (stab, blood, negative, yay, thanks, bye). The dentist on the other hand? Egad, I haven't been in nearly four years. Somehow a tooth has a fracture, and I need to get a crown. Oh, and the "gum therapy" was a fun hour and a half of scraping and tugging -- my mouth is STILL sore. I guess this is what I get for not having gone to the dentist for so long? They were ready to give me a crown right then and there, and by that point in time it was almost noon, so the fun gets delayed until next month. I suppose I should be happy in that I'm not getting more grafting or a partial or something ...
Completely NOT health-related: I got a "EZFlash 3in1" for my DS with the idea of getting my DS Browser on flash to work, and it simply is NOT working. Nothing will recognize the memory expansion, despite my remaining hours being wasted in trying to get it to work. Bah.
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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| Friday, July 10th, 2009
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12:42 pm - Engrish Being Accurate
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So I was reading the "brog" of Engrish.com here at work during lunch and I stumbled across this entry. I kind of laughed thinking it was some sly joke, but upon reading about Andouillette, I must say: I'd never, ever eat this. I'd like to THINK I'm somewhat adventurous with my food, but this sounds just disgusting.
So -- would anyone actually try this???
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(9 comments | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, July 8th, 2009
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9:26 pm - More On Genealogy
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Okay, before I begin: I'm amazed how many people I know, who don't know what genealogy is. I'm even more amazed when, upon disclosing my Sephardic lineage, I was told today, "Whoa, sucky deal." o_O Huh???
So, I want to see how far back I can trace some of my lineage. As I said yesterday, I have family that originates from Persia (though one record says Syria!) and Russia, but where can I turn, to find Persian and Russian records of, say, birth, death, marriage, etc.? I don't think ancestry.com would let me, as there are very few non-English records, and the non-English records are all in languages that use the Roman script (like Swedish).
current mood:  contemplative
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(22 comments | comment on this)
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| Tuesday, July 7th, 2009
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7:59 am - Ancestry
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Part of the 1930's census in Chicago, showing my family at the time in the city.
I'm finding it fascinating screwing around on ancestry websites, trying to learn more about who my family was, particularly before they came to this country. It wasn't until last night that I even knew my great grandfather's name to be Karim Elia -- I knew he was from Persia, but who was he, exactly? What kind of person was Agrafina? Sadly, there's not many people I can ask anymore -- Vi and my grandfather Boris are both dead and Howard has just vanished off the face of the planet.
Can anyone tell what language is listed (the far right column) for Karim? I seriously can't read that ...
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(7 comments | comment on this)
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| Monday, July 6th, 2009
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9:55 pm - [Multilingual Monday] Euskara, You So Crazy!!
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I think every aspiring linguist, at some point in time, delves into Basque. And it's certainly understandable -- I'd convinced myself that, if I could learn Basque, then I could learn ANYTHING. After all, the language is unique in the world, and possesses a unique grammar and verb system that is unlike anything I've ever studied. But these "oh wow cool" linguistic features are also the features that eventually make a number of aspiring linguists say "fuck this" and move on to something less masochistic.
( Ooooh, Basque verbs! Y'all's so CRAZY! )
So in other news, today I've started my Mnemosyne test. What the hell is Regev going on about, you say? Well let me explain: Mnemosyne is a simple flashcard programme for the Mac and PC that allows users to make lists and then cycle through those cards, and those users in turn have to be honest and rate how well-remembered the items on the flash cards are (causing lower-ranked items to come up more frequently in an attempt to reinforce them). I'm going to give this a whirl, and see how long it will take me to memorize the 85 Cherokee syllabry characters. I admit, I'm a script junkie, but some scripts just don't come naturally to me, and Cherokee is one of them. Even the bloated Amharic fidel set has come more easily to me than Cherokee, perhaps in part because there's little rhyme or reason to the Cherokee script -- it's just 85 random characters, with unrelated syllables having lookalike characters. So the question is, will Mnemosyne actually assist me in retaining the script? If so, how long will it take? I'll keep you updated ...
(God, if this works I just might have to use the damned thing to remember all of these forms of izan in Basque!!)
current mood:  annoyed
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| Sunday, July 5th, 2009
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11:43 pm - The TimTam Club
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7:01 pm - RenFaire Cherry
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Soooo I think I'll finally get to pop my renaissance faire cherry this upcoming weekend, as Bobby has stated that he's going to the Bristol RenFaire as it opens this weekend.
I'm thinking of taking the bus up and going with him. Will anyone else be there? Have any fun tidbits for a RenFaire virgin such as myself?
(Yes, I'm amazed it's only taken me twenty years to actually go to one. No, I have no idea why this always manages to get thrwarted!)
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6:14 pm - [Memories] Not exciting whatsoever
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I suppose it's nice to not do anything, for a change, as that's just I've done in my three days off for the Fourth of July. Carl ended up having to work last night and tonight (I'm sure there was more than enough people in Peoria country that'd managed to blow their appendages off!), so there were no fireworks or outings for either of us. It's, in fact, been a number of years since I've been to an Independence Day outing -- you'd have to go back to when Carl and I were first dating for that.
It was five or six years ago, and Carl and I went to Streator's Fourth of July fireworks, which were touted as the biggest in the area. It was also what the county had spent the most money on, and it showed -- both in the fireworks and the lack of everything else in the area. :: laugh :: Carl has a number of friends and aquaintances in Streator, and one woman he knew had a younger daughter who saw Carl and I cuddle. The girl couldn't've been more than seven, and said, "You're really good friends!"
I didn't know what to say in response. "... yep. Yep, we are. He's my best friend."
"Sometimes I like to hold my best friend," she responded.
I admit, I'm a bit awkward with children and explaining my relationship. No, there's no shame that I have as to the fact that I'm with Carl, but when it comes to children? That aren't mine? What do you say? I didhn't want to get anyone in hot water -- Lord knows if Carl had asked about gay themes at 7 his dad would have raised holy hell -- so yeah, we're friends. It seems like such a copout, but really, what do you do?
I recently saw the same girl at Ron's wedding, and she's much older, wiser, and there's no question that she understands the nature of our relationship, so I suppose that's a plus. I'm amazed she even recognized me, and she's maturing into a beautiful woman. I guess I can be glad for that -- if she thinks of gay couples, or hears all the "gay marriage" rhetoric, she can say, "... but what about Uncle Carl and Roger?" That's a good feeling, and certainly is a bit of a counter for the copout feeling I had when I first met her. :: laugh ::
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| Wednesday, July 1st, 2009
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10:56 pm - Handcars
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I needed source material so I could incorporate an illustration of a handcar into something I was working on today.
You know what would have helped immensely? Actually knowing what the damned things were called. Or even working with people who know what they're called.
Instead, I wasted a huge amount of time miming the actions of people using a handcar on the railroad track and saying vague Catchphrase-esque sentences like, "You know, the thing! They use them on the train! And multiple people make it move with a handle they push up and down! THE THING!!!"
Carl can't blame this on my study of foreign languages; after all, how could they have expelled the English word from my brain, when I doubt highly the knowledge of what a handcar was called was ever there in the first place?
(Amusingly enough, my curiosity in seeing how much it would cost to buy a handcar on eBay just gave me the listing of a little cart for people to roll breast pumps on. Errrrr, what???)
current mood:  sleepy
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7:58 am - The Weekend
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It was a good weekend. Don came in from Boston and we spent the whole time together. I took off Monday and we walked around Grant Park, went to the aquarium -- it was quite fun, with some fun company.
Interestingly it was the PARADE that was the bust for me. Being crushed in crowds, going to the wrong cafe to meet ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) didiseven, having some lesbian screaming at me after I accidentally stepped on her foot, that she'd "destroy" me ... I barely saw ANY parade, and managed to get sunburned in the process. Devin's little afterparty was a nice comfortable change with just a few people but some great conversation. I was concerned that Don wouldn't feel too comfortable there but he did more than fine.
Did I mention Sunday I was kilted? :: laugh ::
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| Friday, June 26th, 2009
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9:02 pm - Pride Weekend
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I'm very excited for this weekend -- I'll be up for Pride (yay parade!), and my dear friend Don will be in town, and I'll be crashing with him throughout the weekend, going home on Monday. I have been looking forward to this for a while now, and after the way work's been the last few weeks away I could use some time away.
Who am I going to see this weekend? Do let me know!
So, silly question: I'm contemplating wearing the kilt Carl bought me from TBRU's vendor market, at the parade. Does anyone happen to have any adornments lying about I could borrow for the weekend? Specifically, a chain for a sporran (my sporran is chainless) or a belt (I have no idea where mine is). Any ideas on where to procure these on super-short notice would be much obliged.
current mood: amused
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(4 comments | comment on this)
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| Thursday, June 25th, 2009
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8:11 pm - After The Explosion
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So my mother is, thankfully, okay, as is her home. I was concerned how her or her home would react to a house a block away exploding. From what my brother says, apparently the house was blown up by a construction crew who hit a gas main. Yeah, I'm sure there'll be a lawsuit before long -- there's barely anything LEFT of said house, after all.
My mother, meanwhile, had NO IDEA a house exploded. When my brother asked what she thought it was, she said that she thought the refinery down the street blew up again. My brother and I remember the explosion of the Union Refinery back in 1984, and considering how many times the thing exploded in my mother's lifetime, combined with how vividly we remember that explosion in 1984, I can totally see how my mother would not question anything and just assume it was the refinery, again.
(Good God a lot of things blow up in Romeoville!)
current mood:  relieved
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| Wednesday, June 24th, 2009
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12:47 pm - Holy shit!!
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A house blew up not too far from my mother!!
And of course she's not answering the phone ...
current mood: worried
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(7 comments | comment on this)
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| Monday, June 22nd, 2009
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11:01 pm - [Multilingual Monday] One And Only One
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Today we take a look at the number "one", which doesn't sound like much of an article, admittedly. :: laugh :: However, in different language the number "one" is distinct from other the other numerals. To clarify what I mean, we'll take a look at "one" in Hebrew. Like the other numerals, in Hebrew there are both masculine and feminine forms of the number for masculine and feminine nouns -- look at three. "Bear" is masculine, and thus "three bears" becomes שלוש דובים, shlosha dubim, and "minute' is feminine, so "three minutes" becomes shalosh dakot, שלוש דקות. Shlosha/shalosh, "three", comes before the noun they modify. However, look what happens with these same nouns, but with the number one:
דוב אחד, dov exad
דקה אהת daka axat
In this case the number one, which is considered a "true adjective", comes AFTER the noun it modifies, like all other adjectives in the Hebrew language. Interestingly, with "one" acting as an adjective, it would imply that the others are not, at least in Hebrew. This also applies in Arabic -- see رجل واحد, rajul waahid, "One man", compared to عشرون رجلاً, a3shiruun rajulaan, "twenty men", with rajul/rajulaan being "man/men". Interestingly, though Amharic is also a Semitic language, this flip-flop of word order doesn't happen here. That being said, Amharic numbers do not adjust for gender as they do in Hebrew and Arabic. All, of course, except "one" -- አንድ, and, is used for masculine nouns, and feminine nouns get አንዲት, andit.
Curiously enougjh, Basque DOES swap word-order when it comes to "one". Though Basque's word order is fairly free, thanks to noun declensions indicating all sorts of grammatical functions that are indicateed in English and various Romance languages by word order and prepositions. That being said, numbers come before the noun, except for "one", just as in Hebrew:
kafesne - mikly coffee
kafesne bat - one milky coffee
bi kafesne - two milky coffees
lau kafesne - four milky coffees
I'd love to hear about more unique features of the number "one" in all sorts of languages, be it in use, word order, or something else that makes it stand out from other digits.
current mood:  awake
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| Sunday, June 21st, 2009
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12:42 pm - It's been said before ...
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I seriously fucking hate Father's Day. Instead of being a celebration with my father, it has instead become more of a Yizkor holiday, where I think of the memories I've had of my father, and wish that I could have that again.
I only had a few "real" dad years -- despite being his namesake (in English, at least), I grew up nothing like my father, and there was quite a bit of distance between us. Sure, we had the same English name and were the same blood, but in many aspects we were strangers, and he bonded quite a bit more with my brother (who turned out quite a bit more like my father). The lack of bonding became futher exacerbated when he found out, when I was 18, that I was lying to him for nearly half a year -- I had suddenly claimed a new interest in bowling, when really I was seeing my first boyfriend, Gary, in secret.
When he found out there was physical violence for an entire month and I can honestly say, I hated no one on Earth more at that point than my father, who made me dread coming home. I felt like an even BIGGER disappointment than I already was, as my father struggled to understand how things could go so horridly wrong, and how his son could be "one of THOSE". He threatened to kill Gary, and at that point I saw a bizarre mental metamorphosis as, in my father's mind, I transformed from his son to almost a quasi-daughter.
Time heals all wounds, as they say. My father, eventually, came to accept that I was NOT some completely different person, but his son who just happened to love other men. He came to accept Carl and understood and saw the love I had for him, even if it were foreign to him. We actually started to bond -- he became proud of the fact that I pursued art despite his not having any inkling himself in the subject. He even amusingly learned about bears -- one time he had driven me to the Bear Pride host hotel and said, "Let me see your hotel room!" So fine, he sees it, tells me to be careful, and leaves, and then I get a call about an hour later. "ROGER! ROGER!!! I was in that hotel elevator going to the parking deck, and there were ALL THESE BIG MEN!! And the one was rubbing the other one's BELLY!!!" Oh it was hilarious -- it was a National Geographic episode, right there. :: laugh ::
When I moved, I came to miss how he pursued cooking to spend his time in retirement, making chateau roasts, beer stews, and the like. It was very hearty stuff that has come to be comfort food for me and, while not everything was great, a good deal of it was, and I look back at it with happiness. A Saturday afternoon with his beer stew, as we listened to old radio programmes for hours -- I was content in the fact that I was finally in that place, where I had a real relationship with my father, and I loved to come home to see him once I moved to Peoria.
I was so stupid -- I should have made him go to the doctor the moment he started acting so strangely. That Thanksgiving after I moved, when I saw him lying on the ground "to relieve the pain" -- God, I should have made him go then, and things like that had gone on a month before that at least -- he seemed so weak even when I was moving to Peoria. Maybe -- maybe -- the lung cancer he was diagnosed with on Christmas day, the lung cancer that eroded his body, the lung cancer that made my last memories of him an emaciated unconscious man with tubes in his throat, could have been stopped. I keep kicking myself, thinking: God, if we'd gotten it sooner, I might still have a father today.
I hate Father's Day, for it's just a reminder of what lacks in not just my own life, but in the lives of my family. He was the backbone of this family, and without him, my family has just eroded.
current mood: sad
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| Saturday, June 20th, 2009
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7:16 pm - Confessions, Vol. 7572
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I started going back to the gym. Yes, again. I've finally started going with some regularity but, alas, haven't gotten much in terms of gains to my chest, and I ralized one of the best exercises I could do with the equipment in my apartment's gym -- the seated cable chest pull -- is impossible because my apartment complex was too cheap to get the "optional" bench. Finally I gave in, unplugged one of the stationary bikes, and moved it to the front of the cable station and did the exercise that way.
Sometimes my beard is so ruly and uncontrollable, you know what I want to do? No, not cut it, silly. But what I HAVE had notions of doing, upon seeing commercials for the InStyler, is getting one and putting that thing to my beard. Would it even DO anything to my beard? It straightened that black lady's hair, so why not? :: laugh :: I can't say, though, that I'm vain enough to spend that much money on something for my BEARD.
I had never heard a Lady Gaga song until last week. Yes, seriously.
current mood:  busy
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