Fw:

Why WordPerfect annoys me: if you have some text highlighted, you can't
toggle between typeover/non-typeover with the insert key. It just doesn't
do anything

Fw:

I'm not all that fond of k.d. lang
I'm not all that fond of Leonard Cohen
I'm not all that fond of religious connotations

But I am surprisingly impressed by k.d. lang's cover of Leonard Cohen's
Hallelujah!

It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall, the major lift,
the baffled king composing Hallelujah...

Fw:

I am extremely happy with my prof's teaching methods. I find that her tests
are reasonable and she makes a good transition from topic to topic that
seems like logical building on what we know. We learn vocabulary in natural
theme-related sets (numbers, colours, foods, days of the week), and she
focuses on case endings and typical natural sentences using those cases, so
that if need be I can take the sentences she teaches us and plug in my own
words from the dictionary.

However, I seem to be the only one in the class who is happy with her
teaching. Other people complain that she teaches too much written and not
enough conversation (I thought the class was heavy on conversation and light
on writing - we don't even need to be able to spell yet!), and they fault
her for her imperfect spoken English, even though she understands us
perfectly and can explain concepts in English.

I'm wondering why I feel differently about her teaching. Perhaps it's
because I'm the only one with a background in linguistic theory? Perhaps
it's because I came into this class with the least prior knowledge? Perhaps
it's because I have spent more time studying languages than most people and
am acutely aware of what kind of information I need, and therefore am aware
that she is giving me exactly the right information?

1. Sometimes when I walk through the subway station and a busker is playing danceable music, I feel the urge to dance my way through the concourse. But that works much better if you have a dance partner, and I've yet to experience the convergence of a suitable dance partner and a danceable busker.

2. They should invent a Trillian for file-sharing programs.

3. Overheard: "That dog is so 80s!" I didn't see the dog in question.

Brinksmanship = not cool.

Really, I'd like to see a little more consensus building so we don't have to worry about government falling every time there's a disagreement. The Liberals should have actively tried to reach a compromise rather than screaming "CONFIDENCE VOTE! CONFIDENCE VOTE!" And the Tories and Bloc shouldn't be amending the throne speech just to throw their weight around.

BugMeNot

At work today, I encountered the term "carottes purees".

My first thought was pureed carrots. So I googled "pureed carrots" to see if there was such a thing. I got about 700 results. However, I noticed that most of them had to do with baby food. Since my text wasn't about baby food, I decided to google "pureed carrots" -baby to see what there was about pureed carrots for grownups. Surprisingly, I got over 5,000 results.

Logically that doesn't seem right, does it?

A Carnivore's Inquiry by Sabina Murray is a total waste of time. Read the dust jacket, read the first 12 pages, and it becomes completely obvious what's going to happen for the rest of the book. It's poorly organized, the reader doesn't react to things the way the author intends, and the plot is utterly transparent from the outset. Don't bother.

People are always talking about how renewable energy is important because we're going to run out of fossil fuels for energy sources.

It occurred to me yesterday that renewable energy is also important because we need oil to make plastics out of. I don't think we have an alternative to plastics yet, but we do have alternatives to fossil fuels. Therefore, we should be preserving our oil for plastics.

Amazon.ca is selling LOTR:ROTK extended edition for $38.47. On amazon.ca, orders under $39 ship for free. So I get this "Add 53 cents to your order for free shipping!" message. I swear, they priced it just under $39 on purpose, so they could collect the shipping fees from everyone!

What's up with U of T having all its washrooms in basements?

Things They Should Invent:

A phone number that you call to get an ice cream truck to come to your location!

I have to keep reminding myself that I have some money now, enough that money doesn't matter. Not for important things. And glasses are important. So, because the idea of never wearing these frames again makes me weep, the correct thing to do is take them to Lenscrafter's or Shorney's or whomever can do one-hour frames the cheapest, and get new lenses put in them. Then I will have my lovely frames and they will correct my astigmatism and all will be right with the world. And then if all the paint falls off or I feel like new frames, I can acquire them at my leisure.

Yeah, so if I ever start angsting about something that can be solved by throwing less than a week's pay at it, someone just smack me and remind me that I do have positive cash flow.

The very first glasses I've ever liked, and the frames have been discontinued. So I had the idea of getting new lenses in the current frames, but today I just noticed that the paint on the frames is chipping (I didn't even know there was paint on the frames!)

I think I'm going to cry.

I wish there was a way to make my cellphone beep when it was done recharging.

Concepts that exist in every language I've studied but don't exist in English (with examples in French):

- a single verb for "to do" and "to make" (faire)
- two verbs for "to know", one representing concrete knowledge of a fact or a skill (savoir) and one representing familiarity with a person, location, subject or concept (connaitre)
- two verbs for "to live", one representing being alive (vivre) and the other representing living in a particular location (habiter)


I know there are more, and I'll add them as they occur to me.

Imagine you can't talk but can still vocalize - your mouth is full, or you're at the dentist's or something. You want to express "yes", "no" or "I don't know". You would express "yes" by nodding your head and saying "mmm-hmmm" with an ascending pitch. You would express "no" by shaking your head and saying "nnnn-nnn" with a descending pitch. You would express "I don't know" by shrugging your shoulders and saying "mmm-mmm-nnn" with an ascending pitch followed by a descending pitch, the same pitch pattern that you woud use to say "I don't know."

Now take the body language, leaving only the vocalizations. Those vocalizations still communicate the concepts of "yes", "no", and "I don't know" to English speakers. What I'm wondering is whether they translate. I don't think the "I don't know" vocalization translates as well, because it's "Je ne sais pas" or "Ich weiss nicht" or "No se", all of which have different pitch patterns. But would "mmm-hmm" and "nnn-nnn" translate?

From the Brilliant Ideas that will Never Work file:

We know that there are waiting lists for some health care services. Some people have proposed permitting privatized health care as a solution to this. However, there is a great deal of concern that, since the waiting lists are generally a result of a lack of available health care professionals, any private health care service would just end up poaching professionals from the public sector, resulting in even less care being available for those who cannot afford to pay out-of-pocket.

We also know that there are quite a few immigrant medical professionals in Canada who are not qualified to work in Canada, but are perfectly qualified in other parts of the world.

Solution: allow privatized health care, but it can be staffed only by health care professionals who are not qualified in Canada but are qualified elsewhere in the world. Their credentials would be available and people who opt for privatized care could assess the risk for themselves. It would be regulated in such a way that working for the public sector is more desireable and beneficial than working for the private sector, but working as a private sector health care provider is more beneficial and desireable than, say, driving a taxi. Private-sector work would count as "Canadian experience" and help qualify the workers to work in Canada.

For my own reference, elements that were introduced in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets that I don't think have yet been used to their full potential in the series:

- House Elves (have had their uses, but don't feel fully used)
- Parseltongue (useful in the book itself, but not in the series)
- Gilderoy Lockhart
- Acromantulas (although I hope I hope I hope I'm wrong about this!)
- The Polyjuice incident, and the fact that Hermione got turned into a cat (Polyjuice itself has been used, but could have been introduced another way)
- The concept of regrowing bones
- The fact that the Sorting Hat can be used for purposes other than Sorting
- The Sword of Gryffindor
- The fact that Voldemort resembles Harry
- Colin Creevey and his camera (although the camera did have a function in that book)
- Penelope Clearwater
- The fact that Filch is a Squib