Recent Entries

gardening, family

Woohoo!!!

Dragged handsome off to look at Michaleas and tree peonies and wound up coming home with Phyllostachys vivax, Japanese timber bamboo. ( yeah! )

I was reading "Nineteen Ways of Looking at Wang Wei" yesterday and waving it at the spouse enthusiastically for national poetry month when he turned to me and said "So, if I translate the poem incorrectly, does that mean I'm doing it the wang wei?"

Weep. LOL!

need recommendations

So I need recommendations for something that can download flash video to a computer. Someone is anxious to watch Taiwan TV teen-comedy-dramas without an internet connection.

food

Instructions for baked goodies: http://wlteef.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_archive.html
I will have to figure out where to find non-gluten wheat starch locally ...

Happy New Year

新年快樂! 新年快乐!

(no subject)

I hate it when I say "I'm going to make x for dinner." and everyone continues to play console games and says "Noooo, anything but x!" for all values of x.

Happy New Year!

May your 2008 be vastly better than 2007, no matter how great 2007 was.

Entry tags:

language

(no subject)

a ditty, 'cause if I don't write it down, I'll forget it, to the tune of Silver Bells
(city sidewalks busy sidewalks dressed in holiday style in the air there's a feeling of Xmas)

-u -tsu -ru, -tte
う　つ　る　って
-bu -mu -nu, -nde
ぶ　む　ぬ　んで
-su, -shite, -ku, -ite
す　して　く　いて
-gu, -ide, that's the way of the te form
ぐ　いで

Only I'm told I have to sing it so that the 'of' is elongated and the 'the te form' fits into one note.

Clarified for those who are clueless, like me.

meme

flemmings un-tagged me.

1. List seven habits/quirks/facts about yourself.
2. Tag seven people to do the same.
3. Do not tag the person who tagged you or say that you tag whoever wants to do it.

I don't know seven people who haven't been tagged! Besides, tagging people without first checking if they wanted to be tagged would be rude. So I guess it dies here.

( seven )

(no subject)

You can calculate it. Read the label on the AC and find the watt rating (typically in kilowatts (Kw) or something similar). Read the labels on the fans. The furnace fan should have a rating on it, too. Figure out the rating x number of hours run for each device, adding together all the applicances you want to group (all fans vs AC) then compare.

useful Chinese firefox extension

Chinesepera-kun: Chinese Popup Dictionary 0.2.2
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3349

After downloading, do View->Toolbars->Customize find the little green book and drag it to your firefox toolbar. Then you can click on the little green book to toggle it on and off. As you hover over Chinese characters, it'll pop up a little box with Mandarin (putonghua) pronunciation and definition. If you hold shift as you mouse over a character, it'll also give you Cantonese pronunciation and Unihan code information. There appears to be no 'extension options' menu, in spite of instructions on how to set them.

notes on links

Personal note - Need to figure out if these are art plates or books.
Will get the books, over time. Want the art plates or art books.

http://www.uei-shiang.com/Net/Buy/ShowProduct.aspx?SelProductID=862
http://www.uei-shiang.com/Net/Buy/ShowProduct.aspx?SelProductID=863
http://www.uei-shiang.com/Net/Buy/ShowProduct.aspx?SelProductID=865
http://www.uei-shiang.com/Net/Buy/ShowProduct.aspx?SelProductID=790

books
http://www.uei-shiang.com/Net/Buy/ShowProduct.aspx?SelProductID=832

free ebooks

We have been sucked into the black hole that is military alternate history fiction. I'd picked up a random title by Ringo and enjoyed it, but not it's dominant male/submissive female sex and natural order of the world sex roles thing. Then we discovered 1632 by Flint. Sigh. All household activities (including eating, talking, etc.) have ground to a halt till we finish what exists of the series.

The book forward/postscript hypes their web site, so I went on line ... and look what I found! A perfectly rational essay about free books and copyright protection. LOL! Linked here because I think you might enjoy it.

manga recommendation

If you haven't checked out Mushishi, you should. The first volume is out in English and it's quite promising in it's own way. It puts me strongly in mind of Ima Ichiko's work.

Oh yes, and you all do know that the 1st 12 Kingdoms novel is out? Turns out the author was a Buddhist studies major ... which explains why some of the information in the novels was so detailed. link to interview

isbn2book

A handy little site, linked here for my own convenience: http://isbn2book.com/

Happy New Year!

Wishing all my friends a Happy New Year!

calendars

My father sent me a calendar! It's gold! With pigs! And gold ingots! Together! LOL!

Entry tags:

LT

Natter about LT. ( Fun and disillusionment )

(no subject)

Two complementary theories of happiness -
Gilbert: http://www.randomhouse.com/kvpa/gilbert/blog/
Haidt: http://people.virginia.edu/~jdh6n/

For most mothers "interacting with their children made them about as happy as doing housework" and napping and watching television measured higher on the happy scale. LOL!

(no subject)

My co-worker brought me an article she found while on vacation over the holidays, thinking I would enjoy it. I howled. Inner Self, Overrated The NYTimes locks their pages after a while, so if you want to read it and not register, do it soon.