Category: general

Do you ever get sidetracked trying to do something by the memory of something else? Something that was really embarrassing?

I do, all the time.

Right now I’m looking through my academic records in an attempt to gussy up my resume. Thinking back to my stint at UAH brought me to remember the history professor Chris and I both had in different semesters, Dr. Gerberding. (I can still hear Chris crying out “GERBERDING!” in my head. He loved that professor.) Something rather embarrassing happened to me in class one day.

Dr. Gerberding was talking about the relationship between men and women and how it came to be the way it is. I have this ability to see a couple steps ahead in a logical progression, and actually find it tiring to have to go through all the steps, so when he paused, I interjected, “Does this have something to do with property?”

“I love it when they figure it out!” Dr. Gerberding exulted, making me feel fantastic for all of two seconds before continuing, “Go on.”

I had no idea what the next step was, or what his conclusion would be. So I said, lamely, something like “Men started looking at women as property…?”

The disappointment practically roiled off the professor. “No, no,” he said, and went on to explain that as humans started to own property, it became important to men to know that their property was being passed to their own offspring upon death. That was why men could be promiscuous and women couldn’t–if women were promiscuous, the men would have no idea who their children were.

After he said that, it seemed so obvious that I felt like a moron ;>

What made it more annoying to me, I hate to admit, was the fact that Chris was one of Dr. Gerberding’s favorite students. Even though Chris was my best friend at the time, and I ended up dating him, I had certain stupid, unflattering opinions about him, so being beaten by him was not something I could stomach easily.

I ended up dropping Dr. Gerberding’s class. Chris told me that he remarked to the professor that I’d dropped it and so not to expect me, and that Dr. Gerberding had responded to this news with–wait for it–“Who?”

Maybe I was supposed to find this anonymity comforting, but instead I felt like a nobody.

Malaysia and Indonesia don’t seem to get along very well.

The [Bornean] border has been “moved” in spots without the knowledge of the authorities. According to Padi Indonesia, a forest protection organization, at least three national border markers were found to have been shifted up to 10 kilometers into the Indonesian side of the border in East Kalimantan province. Malaysian logging companies had “expanded” the Malaysian territory.

The Indonesian soldiers took bribes and looked the other way, according to rumor.

[…]

Sea territory disputes are just as intense as land claims. In waters east of Sebatik Island is the Ambalat region, center of a dispute between Indonesia and Malaysia in March. The area has crude oil deposits.

Malaysia gave international oil companies the go-ahead to explore the oil and gas fields there. Indonesia deployed warships and fighter jets to put a halt to the move.

Sebatik Island itself, however, seems to be free of dispute.

All 4,000 residents of the village have Indonesian nationality, and they are all Indonesian taxpayers. Administrative services are provided by Indonesia.

Sebatik Island sits just off the northeastern coast of Borneo on the Celebes Sea. And like Borneo, it is split between Indonesia and Malaysia along a border set by the Dutch and the British.

The border runs east-west across the northern end of the village, which began to expand in the late 1980s as logging operations increased.

Of about 1,000 households in the village, 20 straddle the border. The rest are mostly in Indonesian territory.

[…]

The border patrol is a relaxed group. The day I visited, Indonesian soldiers were napping at the border station, which was set up three years ago. There were no guards on the Malaysian side. There is no immigration office, no customs house, no barbed wire fence, no walls.

The only evidence of a border are the concrete piles buried every kilometer from east to west. Many are covered by dirt.

The island is an anomaly that can be easily explained.

“The difference between Sebatik Island and the (disputed) sea area? Everything depends on whether there are natural resources. We have plenty of potential flare-up areas,” an Indonesian official said.

Well, it took all day, but I got the Yatsushiro pics uploaded, captioned, and tagged. (Kyoto, Nara, Himeji, and Hiroshima still aren’t captioned and tagged, but whatever. I did tag Himeji Castle with “castle“, so now you can see it when you go to that tag, as well as Kumamoto Castle, but I haven’t done any other tags really, or descriptions.)

And now, as promised, the waterfalls:

I swam in both of those pools! And it was awesome.

There are about fifty bazillion more pictures in those eleven galleries I put up today, so feel free to browse. You’ll see beautiful mountains, forests, trails, streams, volcanoes…and a few urban things, too. (Cranes!)

And now, I think I’ll pass out.

Okay, so I’ve been pretty happy with Geneon’s translations for Kyou Kara Maou so far, but I’ve hit a couple in DVD 2 that really don’t work for me.

In episode 6, Josak says, “Come to think of it, we gave that thing to the kid. If Adalbert found out, his brain might reach a full boil.”

Wrong, wrong, wrong! There’s no “we” about it! He’s referring to the pendant! Duh!

AonE at least translates it, “By the way, that thing…you gave it to that boy, right?” It’s a little awkward, but it at least gets the correct idea across. I also like their version of the next part: “If Adelbert finds out about that, his brain will explode.” ;D

Okay, the second thing. In episode 7, when they bring Morgif back, Gunter says, “Oh, Your Majesty, I inscribed words into the back of Morgif’s sword guard.”

W…T…F?!

I thought it was completely obvious (and so, apparently, did AonE) that the words were already inscribed into the grip. Yuuri was able to read them during the battle, for unexplained reasons (that become obvious later on). That’s how he knew what to do. I mean, it’s even plainer on the DVD than it was in the fansub, because you can see the weird Mazoku script in the flashes of blue light! Come on, Geneon!

I’m not through the whole DVD yet…I’m sure I’ll find more quibbles. It’s sad, because other than this sort of glaring problem they seem to be doing a pretty good job.

I thought there was only one, and I’d thought him killed when he strayed too close to Sean’s dinner last night and was “done in by Mexican cheese”.

But no.

There is another.

For some reason, as I was getting up just now to go to the bathroom, the brilliant thought occurred to me:

DEEP FRIED PEANUT BUTTER AND BANANA SANDWICH!

Picture my bliss, my friends, at the thought that I’d come up with something reprehensible and yet delicious. “Has anyone ever thought of this before?!” I squealed to myself, hurrying to do my business so I could check Google (and, of course, blog about it).

Well, apparently, they have. And not just anybody. Elvis. Sure, he didn’t deep fry them, but that’s a natural next step, isn’t it?

Obviously I had heard of this before at some point. Why it chose now to filter up into my consciousness like a sign from god is unknown.

I don’t even have any bananas.

Not only did I discover that I didn’t get the job I wanted, but I also found out today that Ben and Manda’s wedding reception is scheduled for August 27, the same day as a workshop Sean and I are attending concerning homeowning. Even if that weren’t the case, we’re totally broke and couldn’t afford to go to Kentucky anyway.

Everything sucks.

Well, it looks like I didn’t get that one job that I kinda really wanted, seeing as how the hours were great and it’s right up the street from me and the office was really nice and I liked the people…

They had like 100 applicants, so I guess I shouldn’t be too shocked, but I am really disappointed. I know I would have really liked working there.

The Chronicle has a piece about a “buffer zone” between the Canal and the Village at Riverwatch which will be purchased by the Augusta Canal Authority and used for boat docks and other Canal purposes. (I’m still hoping for biking trails.) The developers of the Village will provide utilities for the site and will construct a building with restrooms to serve as a gateway between the Village and the Canal buffer zone. So, for example, you could go to dinner and a movie, and then rent a boat for an evening Canal tour…all within easy walking distance.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait until October 2007.

Man, that’s too long to wait ;P

A giant waterfall has been discovered in the Whiskeytown National Recreation Area in northern California. For 60 years, park officials have been unaware of its existence, though apparently others have been there. Up until now, it’s been a secret spot for the few hardcore hikers who managed to find it, but soon it’ll probably be easy for the public to get there, via a new hiking trail.

Part of me feels bad that the secret has been revealed to the public, but another part of me is glad, because I wouldn’t have known about the falls otherwise. It’s yet another cool place for me to visit someday.

This has inspired me to finally upload my photos from the second part of my 2001 trip to Japan, the homestay in Yatsushiro. During that stay, we attended classes at a local university and took field trips around Kyushu. Some of our field trips involved hiking into the mountains, finding waterfalls, and swimming in the ice-cold water. I happen to have some pictures from those adventures, and it’s about time I shared them.

I would so love to go to this.

Described as an “entertainingly nerdy show” in a Newsday review, the “One-Man Star Wars Trilogy” which opened this week is a fast-paced romp in which [Charles] Ross plays every character from Luke Skywalker to Princess Leia, R2D2 to Han Solo.

Ross insists he hasn’t seen the films in full since around 1997 but as a teenager he used to get up early to watch them on videos day after day.

He wrote the show from memory and has been performing it for three years, starting at small venues and working his way up to a performance earlier this year for 3,500 people at a launch event for the latest “Star Wars” movie.

Apparently there’s a Friendster for the elite. I’d never heard of aSmallWorld before reading this Wired article, but it’s been around for awhile and it’s apparently quite popular and useful. You just have to be royalty, or famous, or rich, or something.

Wachtmeister’s greatest worry is that the ASW site will expand too quickly. Last fall, it was adding 1,200 people a day until he closed the door to new members. Things have relaxed since then. Social butterflies who receive networking requests from at least 50 other ASW users are now permitted to invite people to the club. And Talal bin Laden has been contacted by ASW, asking the details of his “transgression in the interests of eventual redemption.”

Any such limitations on membership would be unthinkable for a social network like Friendster or Orkut, where the goal seems to be to grow as big as possible, as fast as possible. But in Wachtmeister’s view, those sites have become bloated free-for-alls – so open and inclusive they’re useless. Or, as Cheray Unman, an ASW member and former VC living in Mill Valley, California, puts it, “If I’m trying to find someone to look after my purebred Samoyeds while I’m in St. Tropez, I’m not going to ask some naked Burning Man hula-hooper on Tribe.net.”

Amen, sister.

;P

Apparently men and women differ on what kind of websites they prefer.

Women seemed to like pages with more color in the background and typeface. Women also favored informal rather than posed pictures.

Men responded better to dark colors and straight, horizontal lines across a page. They also were more pleased by a three-dimensional look and images of “self-propelling” rather than stationary objects.

By “self-propelling” objects, I hope they don’t mean tacky animated gifs.

So all of you get up at 4:18 EDT and watch them!!

Part of that is simply because I’m getting more adept at using the software, but another reason is that I have figured out a trick. I can find pictures of things I want to incorporate into logos, and then “redraw” them! Mwahahaha.