So I’ve come to the realization (as have two of my travel partners here and there) that this time two weeks from now, I will be on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. As already mentioned in one of the links, when I got my visa, welcome letter, passport, etc., it hit me: I’m actually going to be walking around and rubbing shoulders IN CHINA! Not the little part of NYC, but the REAL CHINA. Not the little part of San Francisco, but the REAL JAPAN. Wow.
Chores as of late? I finally got the spare camera battery and a 2GB SD card for DIRT cheep. I also need to get the wall charger for my camera so I don’t have to schlep the cradle and cable that go with it for to synchronize it on the… how you say… computer I won’t have with me?
I spent some extra cash on some non-cotton stuff that’ll dry quicker and be easier to handle while there: some t-shirts and socks and stuff, but I’m still a little nervous about how heavy and bulky my jeans, etc. are going to be, despite that you can wear jeans more than once, drying them once seems to take days… so I’m not sure about that. I already have the world’s coolest khaki jacket with all sorts of zippers and pockets and stuff. That makes me happy.
Concerns: are H’n’B and I going to want to spend a half hour on every reddish leaf that has fallen to the concrete and a pool of water, thus making ourselves the object of hatred by every other member of our travel group? Certainly not. I guess I don’t have many concerns… or ones that can be discussed at any constructive critical length, but that phrase just solved another one…
What books will I be bringing? Hmmm. That last phrase was a quote from J.D. Salinger’s “Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction.” His books are always a joy to me, and I don’t think I’ll be reading anything like what I’m currently working on, since it’s somewhat depressing and also bulky. Seems appropriate, and somewhat cliché, I know, to bring this book along, but I always carry Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” with me when I am. I read it in California, and Savannah, and other places, and it’s enjoyable. We’ll see. Any suggestions? I was thinking “The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter” or something very character driven.
I’ve also decided I’m learning Persian at the expense of Turkish and some of my German. Someone asked me yesterday if I had considered giving up the other three I was learning to focus on just one. “No.”
Looking back, I wish this post was somewhat more organized and thoughtful. At least as succinct as H’n’B (I’ve never been succinct) or as literary as LF’s, but I’m in a hurry and haven’t had so much as a smell of coffee yet. I’ll get back to this and write some literary monologue about my thoughts and concerns on some deep level of consciousness, with a literary style matching that of James Joyce (in his early days, of course, before ‘Portrait’ or ‘Ulysses’).
Tootles.
2.27.2007
So I’ve come to the realization (as have two of my travel partners here and there) that this time two weeks from now, I will be on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. As already mentioned in one of the links, when I got my visa, welcome letter, passport, etc., it hit me: I’m actually going to be walking around and rubbing shoulders IN CHINA! Not the little part of NYC, but the REAL CHINA. Not the little part of San Francisco, but the REAL JAPAN. Wow.
Chores as of late? I finally got the spare camera battery and a 2GB SD card for DIRT cheep. I also need to get the wall charger for my camera so I don’t have to schlep the cradle and cable that go with it for to synchronize it on the… how you say… computer I won’t have with me?
I spent some extra cash on some non-cotton stuff that’ll dry quicker and be easier to handle while there: some t-shirts and socks and stuff, but I’m still a little nervous about how heavy and bulky my jeans, etc. are going to be, despite that you can wear jeans more than once, drying them once seems to take days… so I’m not sure about that. I already have the world’s coolest khaki jacket with all sorts of zippers and pockets and stuff. That makes me happy.
Concerns: are H’n’B and I going to want to spend a half hour on every reddish leaf that has fallen to the concrete and a pool of water, thus making ourselves the object of hatred by every other member of our travel group? Certainly not. I guess I don’t have many concerns… or ones that can be discussed at any constructive critical length, but that phrase just solved another one…
What books will I be bringing? Hmmm. That last phrase was a quote from J.D. Salinger’s “Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction.” His books are always a joy to me, and I don’t think I’ll be reading anything like what I’m currently working on, since it’s somewhat depressing and also bulky. Seems appropriate, and somewhat cliché, I know, to bring this book along, but I always carry Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” with me when I am. I read it in California, and Savannah, and other places, and it’s enjoyable. We’ll see. Any suggestions? I was thinking “The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter” or something very character driven.
I’ve also decided I’m learning Persian at the expense of Turkish and some of my German. Someone asked me yesterday if I had considered giving up the other three I was learning to focus on just one. “No.”
Looking back, I wish this post was somewhat more organized and thoughtful. At least as succinct as H’n’B (I’ve never been succinct) or as literary as LF’s, but I’m in a hurry and haven’t had so much as a smell of coffee yet. I’ll get back to this and write some literary monologue about my thoughts and concerns on some deep level of consciousness, with a literary style matching that of James Joyce (in his early days, of course, before ‘Portrait’ or ‘Ulysses’).
Tootles.
Chores as of late? I finally got the spare camera battery and a 2GB SD card for DIRT cheep. I also need to get the wall charger for my camera so I don’t have to schlep the cradle and cable that go with it for to synchronize it on the… how you say… computer I won’t have with me?
I spent some extra cash on some non-cotton stuff that’ll dry quicker and be easier to handle while there: some t-shirts and socks and stuff, but I’m still a little nervous about how heavy and bulky my jeans, etc. are going to be, despite that you can wear jeans more than once, drying them once seems to take days… so I’m not sure about that. I already have the world’s coolest khaki jacket with all sorts of zippers and pockets and stuff. That makes me happy.
Concerns: are H’n’B and I going to want to spend a half hour on every reddish leaf that has fallen to the concrete and a pool of water, thus making ourselves the object of hatred by every other member of our travel group? Certainly not. I guess I don’t have many concerns… or ones that can be discussed at any constructive critical length, but that phrase just solved another one…
What books will I be bringing? Hmmm. That last phrase was a quote from J.D. Salinger’s “Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction.” His books are always a joy to me, and I don’t think I’ll be reading anything like what I’m currently working on, since it’s somewhat depressing and also bulky. Seems appropriate, and somewhat cliché, I know, to bring this book along, but I always carry Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” with me when I am. I read it in California, and Savannah, and other places, and it’s enjoyable. We’ll see. Any suggestions? I was thinking “The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter” or something very character driven.
I’ve also decided I’m learning Persian at the expense of Turkish and some of my German. Someone asked me yesterday if I had considered giving up the other three I was learning to focus on just one. “No.”
Looking back, I wish this post was somewhat more organized and thoughtful. At least as succinct as H’n’B (I’ve never been succinct) or as literary as LF’s, but I’m in a hurry and haven’t had so much as a smell of coffee yet. I’ll get back to this and write some literary monologue about my thoughts and concerns on some deep level of consciousness, with a literary style matching that of James Joyce (in his early days, of course, before ‘Portrait’ or ‘Ulysses’).
Tootles.
2.21.2007
The Posse...
Check this out. Huge news for all of you, I’m sure. May 1 cannot come quickly enough. Bring it on
2.20.2007
Fun Filled Day
I spoke to people in five languages yesterday (yes, one of them was English). I wouldn’t call them conversations necessarily, because some of them only consisted of “Hello. How are you? I don’t speak [language]. Thank you. Goodbye,” but they were what they were. They were as follows:
1. English
2. Russian- talked to a Ukrainian waitress at a swanky bar-type Mexican restaurant in Russian, as well as another character below.
3. Turkish- cashier at Marshall’s. Name was Sima; asked if it was Persian. She said yes, but that her parents were Turkish. Started talking; she said she didn’t really speak it, but she still had an accent. Maybe she couldn’t understand me at all, so I said ‘My Turkish is bad.’ (Turkcem kötüdür.)
4. Romanian- Employee at Target speaks Romanian. Said the very little I could say, but amounted to a small teeny tiny conversation. Asked her if she spoke any other languages. She said Russian, so I all but attacked her with Russian, and then she told me that despite her having studied it for 12 years, she doesn’t like it, so she hasn’t learned it. However, she did say she speaks…
5. French, and asked me if I spoke it, and I said coolly: ‘pourquois pas?’ and finished off with the other somewhat incoherent things I could say in French, and I’m sure she saw right through it, but she smiled and that was it.
All in all, those escapades made my day. What ISN’T making my day is the STUPID issues I’m having with my media player screwing up my fauxPod. For some reason it thinks I told it to remove tons and tons of my media at random, and it isn’t getting put back into the list of ABSENT media files to sync NEXT TIME, and now my library has gaping holes in it. It ALSO saw fit to create doubles (and sometimes triples) of highly unnecessary photos I never intended to carry around with me, like one of mom’s friends wedding showers. (Good thing I had triples of 100 pictures of a bunch of women standing around candles and cake, right? Cuz that doesn’t take up 2GB of storage unnecessarily.) So now I’m (hopefully) rebuilding the stuff and filling in the holes without adding quads of stuff I’ve already got on there. Sorry, WMP 11, although you’re cool with some new awesome features, you’re also a forerunner of Vista: I just think you’re unnecessary, and it’s too bad you lost some of your totally awesome features, like the ‘jump to artist/album’ from the search function, etc. You’ve lost some awesome features, WMP 11, and some new ones that you have are about as useful as a RadioShack in an Amish village, (or redundant/useless item of choice in compromising situation of choice).
For the love o’ Pete…
1. English
2. Russian- talked to a Ukrainian waitress at a swanky bar-type Mexican restaurant in Russian, as well as another character below.
3. Turkish- cashier at Marshall’s. Name was Sima; asked if it was Persian. She said yes, but that her parents were Turkish. Started talking; she said she didn’t really speak it, but she still had an accent. Maybe she couldn’t understand me at all, so I said ‘My Turkish is bad.’ (Turkcem kötüdür.)
4. Romanian- Employee at Target speaks Romanian. Said the very little I could say, but amounted to a small teeny tiny conversation. Asked her if she spoke any other languages. She said Russian, so I all but attacked her with Russian, and then she told me that despite her having studied it for 12 years, she doesn’t like it, so she hasn’t learned it. However, she did say she speaks…
5. French, and asked me if I spoke it, and I said coolly: ‘pourquois pas?’ and finished off with the other somewhat incoherent things I could say in French, and I’m sure she saw right through it, but she smiled and that was it.
All in all, those escapades made my day. What ISN’T making my day is the STUPID issues I’m having with my media player screwing up my fauxPod. For some reason it thinks I told it to remove tons and tons of my media at random, and it isn’t getting put back into the list of ABSENT media files to sync NEXT TIME, and now my library has gaping holes in it. It ALSO saw fit to create doubles (and sometimes triples) of highly unnecessary photos I never intended to carry around with me, like one of mom’s friends wedding showers. (Good thing I had triples of 100 pictures of a bunch of women standing around candles and cake, right? Cuz that doesn’t take up 2GB of storage unnecessarily.) So now I’m (hopefully) rebuilding the stuff and filling in the holes without adding quads of stuff I’ve already got on there. Sorry, WMP 11, although you’re cool with some new awesome features, you’re also a forerunner of Vista: I just think you’re unnecessary, and it’s too bad you lost some of your totally awesome features, like the ‘jump to artist/album’ from the search function, etc. You’ve lost some awesome features, WMP 11, and some new ones that you have are about as useful as a RadioShack in an Amish village, (or redundant/useless item of choice in compromising situation of choice).
For the love o’ Pete…
2.16.2007
Addiction in kind
For those of you that haven’t been in close company with me lately, I have a new addiction as well. (This seemed an appropriate answer to H’n’B’s post about her football addiction) Mine is more substance related, though… substance sounds so shady and illegal when paired with the words ‘addiction,’ ‘abuse,’ ‘dependence,’ … you get the idea…
COFFEE!!! I’ve had coffee experiences lately, and there are too many to relate, but they involve baristas and stuff… need to know basis.
It all started a few hours before the Superbowl. Picture it: a nice cool afternoon before going to (what can arguably be called) an old friend’s house for the party. I’ve made plans to meet some friends at Starbucks before heading over there. I get there early and peruse the shopping center where I find a Persian restaurant. I went in to get a menu and their hours of operation, and to my pleasant surprise, they had a Persian newspaper!!! Having gotten the desired information from the (not unattractive hostess) I strolled out with my newspaper and to go menu. Seeing fit to order my coffee before they arrived, I decided to get a size that would last me long enough that I wouldn’t be finished when Affie and her friend got there late. I strolled in to order my coffee and asked what they had. My past experience with Starbucks coffee has been not so pleasant, and I never did have a taste for it, but I thought for some reason I’d give it another try (my subconscious was so right). I can’t remember how it happened, but instead of ordering a plain medium coffee or doppio, (I think it involved the mind-numbing headache I had) I decided to pull out the big guns and order the ‘bold’ brew they had. Was I ever pleased…
Incredible. It’s an Indonesian thing, and dark, heavy, and almost thick. It’s got a bite to it, and is really delightful. Funny thing is, I would have never been able to drink something like this before. I suddenly love it.
You see, black coffee has been one of those things I’ve wanted to like for a long time. (We all have things we want to like, be it social reasons, chic factor, but there are things we do not like that we try to, and for me it was coffee.) I could drink black coffee, but only with some trepidation and slow going, or a handful of sweets by my side. That’s over. I was also never able to taste the ‘aromas,’ or ‘flavors,’ or ‘hints,’ of flavor that people describe in anything, be it coffee, wine, sand… but I’m noticing them now. So, as corny as it sounds to describe the coffee above as earthy, bold, spicy, (even nutty), and almost entirely non-acidic, it’s what I get from it. Delightful.
This has started a kick for me. Like a kid in a candy store (or a linguist in an international airport), I’ve been jumping around to get my hands on all the Starbucks brews and coffees. I welcomed home my first pound of coffee last week, ground for a drip brew. It was a pound of the Komodo, mentioned above. But since then, my other favorites have been Gold Coast (awesome, but not nearly as earthy and pungent as Komodo, since it’s got more Latin and Italian blended in with it; still super bold, but a little sweeter) and especially the Sulawesi (very similar to Komodo, but more elegant, less in-your-face, and smoother; not as big, but with even less acidity; it’s amazing). The Ethiopian Sidamo tastes like a blender full o’ flowers and perfume (yuck), and I’m not impressed with the Café Verona because it’s too acidic for my taste, despite that it’s supposed to be their most popular… Estima, Guatemala Antiqua, Yukon are some others I’ve tried. I’m still waiting to try Sumatra and Kenya, as well as the Espresso and French Roasts. Obsessive? Maybe. Expensive? Sort of. Delicious? Absolutely. I realized when I dig through my pockets for change enough to buy a $1.60 coffee, it can be considered a dependency. I have been getting these afternoon headaches, though, between 2:30 and 4, and the caffeine does the trick. I don’t drink sodas or anything, and the coffee is much better, so that’s been making me happy. That is all.
(~What’s that haunting aroma?~ a la Will Ferrel in ‘Kicking and Screaming.’)
تحيات حارة
COFFEE!!! I’ve had coffee experiences lately, and there are too many to relate, but they involve baristas and stuff… need to know basis.
It all started a few hours before the Superbowl. Picture it: a nice cool afternoon before going to (what can arguably be called) an old friend’s house for the party. I’ve made plans to meet some friends at Starbucks before heading over there. I get there early and peruse the shopping center where I find a Persian restaurant. I went in to get a menu and their hours of operation, and to my pleasant surprise, they had a Persian newspaper!!! Having gotten the desired information from the (not unattractive hostess) I strolled out with my newspaper and to go menu. Seeing fit to order my coffee before they arrived, I decided to get a size that would last me long enough that I wouldn’t be finished when Affie and her friend got there late. I strolled in to order my coffee and asked what they had. My past experience with Starbucks coffee has been not so pleasant, and I never did have a taste for it, but I thought for some reason I’d give it another try (my subconscious was so right). I can’t remember how it happened, but instead of ordering a plain medium coffee or doppio, (I think it involved the mind-numbing headache I had) I decided to pull out the big guns and order the ‘bold’ brew they had. Was I ever pleased…
Incredible. It’s an Indonesian thing, and dark, heavy, and almost thick. It’s got a bite to it, and is really delightful. Funny thing is, I would have never been able to drink something like this before. I suddenly love it.
You see, black coffee has been one of those things I’ve wanted to like for a long time. (We all have things we want to like, be it social reasons, chic factor, but there are things we do not like that we try to, and for me it was coffee.) I could drink black coffee, but only with some trepidation and slow going, or a handful of sweets by my side. That’s over. I was also never able to taste the ‘aromas,’ or ‘flavors,’ or ‘hints,’ of flavor that people describe in anything, be it coffee, wine, sand… but I’m noticing them now. So, as corny as it sounds to describe the coffee above as earthy, bold, spicy, (even nutty), and almost entirely non-acidic, it’s what I get from it. Delightful.
This has started a kick for me. Like a kid in a candy store (or a linguist in an international airport), I’ve been jumping around to get my hands on all the Starbucks brews and coffees. I welcomed home my first pound of coffee last week, ground for a drip brew. It was a pound of the Komodo, mentioned above. But since then, my other favorites have been Gold Coast (awesome, but not nearly as earthy and pungent as Komodo, since it’s got more Latin and Italian blended in with it; still super bold, but a little sweeter) and especially the Sulawesi (very similar to Komodo, but more elegant, less in-your-face, and smoother; not as big, but with even less acidity; it’s amazing). The Ethiopian Sidamo tastes like a blender full o’ flowers and perfume (yuck), and I’m not impressed with the Café Verona because it’s too acidic for my taste, despite that it’s supposed to be their most popular… Estima, Guatemala Antiqua, Yukon are some others I’ve tried. I’m still waiting to try Sumatra and Kenya, as well as the Espresso and French Roasts. Obsessive? Maybe. Expensive? Sort of. Delicious? Absolutely. I realized when I dig through my pockets for change enough to buy a $1.60 coffee, it can be considered a dependency. I have been getting these afternoon headaches, though, between 2:30 and 4, and the caffeine does the trick. I don’t drink sodas or anything, and the coffee is much better, so that’s been making me happy. That is all.
(~What’s that haunting aroma?~ a la Will Ferrel in ‘Kicking and Screaming.’)
تحيات حارة
2.06.2007
O The Things You Can Think
My Goodness:
- Italian is coming along slowly [read: it's not]
- I've been assigned my Romanian again.
- Hungarian is also inactive
- Someone told me they wanted to learn Persian with me, but I'm not holding my breath
- Showed off at Turkish again this weekend
- Russian is arguably taking a backburner
- German is as lively as ever
- Still don't' like Cambodian or Esperanto…
- Starting the cramming with Chinese and Japanese
Language stuff has been busy lately, and it's just too bad I can't devote my time and energy into ONE (or a few) things. Hungarian is NOT a serious endeavor (yet), and my Asian languages are only temporary (unless I fall in love with them there). Sunday before the Superbowl, I drank a golly good coffee and read a Persian newspaper at Starbucks. It was enjoyable. I was also across the street from a Steinway showroom, and the only thing keeping me from heading over there was the Superbowl (and my not so vibrant interest in Steinway).
Does anybody else think she looks like the pianess herself?
Speaking of which, there are like nine or ten some odd people that I've talked to that now want tickets to see her when she comes to town. I'm hoping she plays at some sweet venue and not at Bob's Big Carnival Saloon. Symphony Hall would be nice again. We'll see.
I don't have that much to say right now. I was going to do that concert analysis that Affie did, but I'm just not feeling it at the moment. However, I close with a combination of a few things discussed above, for those of you that watched the Superbowl and followed a few of the links above… or want to see her live. Enjoy. (I'm actually surprised at how good this is.)
(also check out my new email signature that I decided to leave on this email, just for those of you that don't get it all the time anyway)
With best regards
Mit freundlichen Grüßen
С наилучшими пожеланиями
Saygılarımla
Cordialement
تحيات حارة
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