Bambling On and On and On...

24 March, 2007

Morning Groove

...to the poppin *blips* and *bleeps* of Axel-F. Lovin' it!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Op57DmvPTi0

I wonder if any of the Dance Fever routines my sister and I used to imitate were ever taped. HA!

18 March, 2007

Double-Click Right-Click neq Mac

I'm watching 'Office Space' and there is one part about the movie that is extremely irritating. Wait, just thought of one more, so 2 -- there are 2 parts about the movie that irritate me.

Obviously that office used Macs. So why is it that everytime the camera shows one of the characters clicking the mouse, they DOUBLE-CLICK RIGHT-CLICK!?! To make matters worse, there is a scene done in slow-motion (where the 3 office-mates are working to install a virus) and we're forced to watch Michael double-click right-click ... on a 2-click wheel mouse ... while using a Mac. Oh, I'm feeling light-headed. Must. get. water.

The other vexing part happens at the beginning of the movie and is also Mac related. Peter is trying to leave work a few minutes early to avoid his skevvy boss. He's double-clicking to close his windows *gasp* and after the computer successfully shuts down he's taken to a DOS prompt. That poor Mac had been violated on so many levels.

*wipes tear from eye*

I need to lie down now.

Update: I need to proof my work. I totally meant right-click, not double-click. DOH!

16 March, 2007

Unexpected Visitor

Here in good ol' Columbia, MD, we get to enjoy nature beyond squirrels and sparrows. There are herons and turtles and deer and groundhogs. But there is one animal in particular that I happen to run into more often than not -- foxes. I usually see them on my morning run. I'm told they fear us more then we fear them -- hmmmm.. heard the same thing about spiders too -- but nevertheless, I prefer to keep my distance.

Not more than 10 minutes ago a fox decided to pay me a visit.

It was the freakiest and coolest thing. I'm chilling downstairs, crocheting, and suddenly I see these eyes peering through the back door -- coming awfully close to the "open" doggy door. Ollie -- in his usual manner -- had no clue what was going on. I jumped up and immediately closed the doggy door, but not after the fox and I locked eyes. It was SO CUTE!!! Big eyes, little furry head, and probably about as big as Ollie. The oddest part was that it didn't sprint away, but took off with a good trot.

Ollie just realized something happened -- a good 12 minutes later?? -- and is obessessed with the "new" smells.

11 March, 2007

Translation Gone Wrong

It's been a while since my last post. I've done quite a bit, I just have a hard time finding the energy to want to write about it. Maybe if I push myself to write more, my conversational skills will vastly improve in the process. Another item added to my 'To-Do' list.

Something I've been working on since the new year is learning to speak Italian. This isn't really a new development since I've been teaching myself the language for about 3 years -- 3 long, slow years. Considering I'm determined to be bi-lingual, I had to get serious. Classes are OK and I've gone that route, except it's hard to get a study group going so we can practice outside of the classroom. In order for me to really learn the language, I need to immerse myself in it -- and moving to Italy isn't a very viable option right now. Buggah!! So I did the next best thing -- found a pen-pal.

After receiving many interesting responses, I finally came across someone who is serious about just being friends. We've been writing for about 2 months and I'm amazed at how our English phrases doesn't translate seamlessly into Italian. Grammar is shifted round, some words don't exist in the other's language, and each languages' idioms need to be explained so that they make sense. It's been a bumpy road, but so far so good. Then today I learned something else.

Apparently, the English phrase "I'm excited!" 'doesn't mean what you think it means' in Italian. Apparently, if I were to say "Sono eccitata" (I'm excited) I just exclaimed "I'm horny!". Luckily my pen-pals wife understood that I'm learning the language and was in no way expressing anything more than "emozionata" about my upcoming holiday. I then remembered about another translation gone awry when Casey and I were in Italy. I'm sure all of my 1 reader has heard the story before.

We had gone out grocery shopping and came across a cute little shop that sold meat. Using my trusty Italian-English Dictionary, I told Casey to ask for "due seni di pollo". He does and the woman behind the counter smiled and began to laugh heartily. She says "sena" and cups her breasts to indicate that we literally asked for chicken "breasts" (of a woman!). doh!! She then told us we were probably wanting "due petti di pollo". Yeah! We did. Unfortunately, her husband wasn't born with a funny gene, and as the 3 of us were enjoying the mistranslation, he was wrapping the deli case with his hand chanting "petto... petto".

Sono emozionata vedere che cosa sara` la mia promisso traduzione sbagliato.