Are Elvish, Klingon, Dothraki and Na'vi real languages?

For anyone who missed it, the TED talk "Are Elvish, Klingon, Dothraki and Na'vi real languages?"
via Topless Robot.

 

Close Call

While I was walking into the shower/bathroom area downstairs at work, I noticed a Dickey's BBQ cup on the drinking fountain outside the doors.  Once inside, I noticed someone was taking an early morning dump.  It occurred to me that I should send a humorous (in my opinion) email to a coworker telling him that if he was going to take a big dump in a quiet area downstairs where no one could find him, he shouldn't advertise he was down there by leaving his cup nearby.

I went back to get out of my bike clothes and into my work clothes by the showers and a few minutes later I hear, "Hey Scott!"  From exactly the same person I intended to email.  It really was his cup.

Free Stuff

I noticed these things for free on Craiglist in the area.  They made me laugh.  Is this a playhouse, or just a windowless place to lock up the kids?  It seems like a fine line in this case.

I'm glad they put the woman's legs in the picture or I'd be more carefully looking for bones sticking out of the free fill dirt from someone's basement.  A particularly clever way to get rid of the bodies.

My favorite.  Free Large Kids Playhouse - $10.

Zombies

Eryn has been interested in running faster, so I agreed to train with her, despite that running on the hip with metal in it makes me extra nervous.  I asked her if she wanted to use an application to track her time and progress and suggested Zombies, Run! which I had heard was fun and had a zombie story as the impetus for running.

She was very excited about trying it out and since getting it, she's been encouraging me to go running frequently.  Unfortunately, I felt the need to understand the application and listen for adult content, so for every 30 minutes of walking and running she and I do together, I'm doing another 30 minutes by myself to understand the app better.

Some things I've learned:

1. It's mostly age appropriate.  Not always, but she took the Scoobs growing marijuana and raising urban chickens in stride and that's been the worst of it except for a bit of swearing.
2. The zombies are fast.  You need to run when they show up and you should start right away so you have as much time as possible to outrun them.
3. Zombies don't stop because you pause the application to go into target.
4. Zombies don't stop because you stop the application because you're home.  In both cases, you need to finish evading the zombies first, or it's considered a failure.
5. Running with 165 ounces of detergent in your hand is not efficient.  If it were a real zombie evasion situation, you'd just whip the heavy bottle of detergent at the zombie to slow her/him down and put on extra speed.  In real life, you're pretty sure no one at home will be happy with an extra week of dirty clothes because you were really "getting into the story."
6. Running two concurrent rounds of Zombies, Run! after not running at all in over a year and a half and not significantly since your runner's toe kicked in ten years ago is asking for a lot of very sore muscles. I have a new appreciation for how much effort is involved in truly eluding zombies.

I was excited to see that the app syncs with RunKeeper by downloading and uploading the run files (it might work more directly as well; I'm trying to figure that out).  And we've add a few cemeteries into our running options (real ones) so that it's spookier.  I learned there are Rahns buried in our neighborhood, which is who the school and roads and parks are named after.

Minnesota State Fair 2013

Almost caught up. Not that I'll be out of things to write about. I'll just be caught up on the picture heavy bits.  I suppose I could chunk things a little more efficiently, but I like to bundle my tasks for efficiency.

The State Fair marks sort of one year of being back on my bicycle.  I was on it before the end of September last year, but it was my first longer ride, and I remember how much it work me out - physically and mentally - in 2012.  It was within two weeks of the fair this year, or about 54 weeks of total tracking, that I hit 3000 miles of bicycling on RunKeeper.  Very close to 3000 miles in a year.  If only RAGBRAI had been 20 miles longer, I think I would have made it.  I set the new goal to 3500 miles in a year.  That might be wishful thinking. I was motivated to get my leg back in shape over the last year (and a half).  I might be trending toward lazy.  If I do, I'll just use Adam's excuse that I'm focusing on strength building and flexibility rather than long distance cycling.

Here's my favorite sight on reaching the fair.  The helmeted bear at the bike pen.  Hey.  Hey bear!  NICE HELMET!  Don't judge me.  You don't know whether the bear is Malaysian or not from this angle.



As usual, my first stop was at the Minnesota Farmer's Union, the place I learned to drink Americanos.  It was a bit too crowded to hang out this year, despite being there before things were even really open (maybe that's why), so I didn't sit and read.  Instead I went off and tried to cover most of the non-ride related fairgrounds before my wife and daughter showed up.  Usually they come pretty late, so I have time to loiter, but this time they wanted to see the Channel 9 news weatherman, so my alone time was limited.

Note the guy in the yellow shirt at the farmers' union.


Here he is in close up.  His shirt scares me.  It's scary with the caption.  It'd be terrifying without it.  Like he was a kidnapper or serial killer.


They don't really have boots for sale.  It should say "coffee".


I went to the Hamline cafeteria for breakfast.  It was good.  But it amazes me that the Chris Cakes folks on RAGBRAI can serve unlimited pancakes at the speed of pouring to thousands of passing cyclists, and the MN State Fair cafeterias have food they're keeping in warmers, there's generally a wait, and it's limited to a pancake or two.


Still, Hamline is so far ahead of the Salem Lutheran Church dicks (yes, dicks) who stopped me at the door last year and told me breakfast ended with the guy in front of me.  I'm still mad.  See that Lutheran dudes?  I'm not eating at your cafeteria!!!  I walked over there just to not eat there.  And I walked back later for a chocolate shake at the Kiwanis booth and didn't eat there AGAIN.  I think you should be surprised I didn't haul my Hamline breakfast over there to eat outside the doors.


This picture is for Adam.  When we were on RAGBRAI there were signs on the side of the road telling us Pain is Weakness Leaving Your Body.  I reminded Adam of it constantly.  He wasn't reassured by the thought. I think he preferred to be weak.


The Channel 9 news area.  I showed up just as Keith Marler, the local meteorologist, got off the golf cart. I very much enjoy getting the weather from him in the morning before work.  Kyle might tell you I also like Kelsey Soby (here, enjoy almost 3 minutes of her dancing) and her traffic reports, which is true.  But as you can see in the dancing video, Keith is a good sport and joins in the dancing frequently. I like the part around 2:11 where he's dancing to ABBA with Thor's hammer.  I was worried Eryn would miss him, but she showed up in time to catch Keith and Tom Butler and have her picture taken with each of them.  Tom was incredibly nice.  Very pleasant guy to talk to and was wonderful with kids.


All these cat pictures are for Ming.  The fair is full of cat-related art.  Cat needlepoint.


Cat needlepoint with bonus yarn.


And cat tiles, which Kyle pointed out to me first.  I find the one of the cat giving the other cat a massage on the beach particular strange.  Why?  What makes you think, I'd like to make a tile, and I've got this picture of massaging cats in my head.  Not massaging them myself.  Massaging each other.  What sort of freak do you take me for?


In the arts building.  The Minnesota Wheelmen exhibit.  A neat array of bicycles including gearless (driven by a screw of sorts), and the next one...


..with a suspension seat.  I'm not sure how comfortable that would really be.  What if it sags?  But it's got the cut out center a hundred years ahead of the newfangled open centered seats.  The headlight is interesting too.  No wires.  So it's probably powered by burning something like oil (whale or otherwise).


Pretty cool Wizard of Oz pinball machine (alt) over at the games area: "Each Oz pinball machine is the size of a casket built for a member of the Lollipop Guild. On this day in early fall, millions of dollars of parts—LED lights and emerald-green legs and a forest’s worth of anthropomorphic plastic trees—are sitting in cardboard boxes, waiting to be fished out by arcade-world craftsmen. On one assembly line, they’ll put together the machine’s heart, adding rails, rollover buttons, and magnets to the yellow-brick-road-laden playfield. They’ll also add the brains, stuffing the PC board, power supply, and other electronics inside the Wizard of Oz’s exterior shell."


All of that is great - but Toto escaping pisses me off greatly.  Every time I thought I was doing a good job Toto would run away and I'd have to save him and I'm pretty sure it takes a lot of practice to become a well versed Toto-saving Dorothy.


Me as a corndog! If you're not willing to be an idiot, I'm not sure the MN State Fair is really for you.  People would probably say the same thing about me for my limited food intake.  I had a chocolate shake, a real breakfast, previously pictured, a medium fry I ate half of, some honey-sunflower seed ice cream, and a lot of cider ice pops, on top of 50 miles of bicycling.  I didn't even make up the calories I burned.


Eryn loves the midway.  It's my least favorite part of the fair.  I like all the Minnesota-centric stuff.  This ride attempted to capture at least a little bit of Minnesota with this wonderful air brushed Prince art.


See...Minnesota-centric stuff.  I went to the rooster crowing contest while my family was at the midway.  That's right, for over thirty minutes I stood behind this guy who recorded whether his chicken was getting in the most crows.  I missed being a counter by moments, so I adopted the last chicken to get a counter, the little one in the lower left corner.


He was pretty noisy for the first ten minutes and was winning, but then he wore out and everyone surpassed him.  Early performer.  Got our hopes up and then they were gone, like the sunrise.


And I recorded it!  Twice!  Now you can enjoy all the sounds of roosters crowing in the poultry building.


In case a minute wasn't enough for you.


Ha...Polish, non-bearded, golden cock.  It was a building full of cocks.  And turkeys.  And geese.  And ducks.  At least I think there were ducks.  I didn't get further than the first three.


I took a picture of this because this plaque told me the giant slide is as old as I am.  Actually, it's a few months older than I am because it has an August birthday.


We met up with my brother and his family and my parents.  Drew didn't want to ride the slingshot with my nephew, so he asked Eryn and she was all on board.  It doesn't look scary here...


...but it does here.


More things that are better than the midway.  Lifesize mermaid art made from recycled materials.


Grace Jones made out of seeds.


A very pissed off cat made out of seeds (grains).


And grumpy cat made out of seeds.  There was a Captain Kirk with the Gorn done in seeds as well.  Nice.  The whole cat video extravaganza was at the State Fair this year.  I saw several older women standing around in grumpy cat and "humorous" cat t-shirts.


I like the corndog picture better.  This is over where the cider freezes were and the honey-sunflower ice cream.  We bumped into my wife's cousin over there and her family, so we hung out for a while and had freezes and watched the bee presentation.  Good time.  I think this picture is weird because that looks like it could be me (the body - the head obviously looks like me).  My old body - around age 21 or 22.  But semi-recognizable as about right proportionately.

To Do List

My todo list from work the other day. I got everything I intended to do on the list complete for once.  Notice all the checkmarks.  There's something to be said for putting it on a paper plate.

Nutria

I don't think I ever posted a picture of this. It's my nutria necklace from funding the documentary Rodents of Unusual Size on Kickstarter. Primarily, I'm looking forward to the documentary, rodent jewelry is just a bonus.  Eryn doesn't seem to want to wear it.  I think she's disturbed it's made out of an animal, although how not wearing a necklace in any way makes up for eating her weight in non-vegetarian burritos is beyond me.  It - the necklace, not Eryn - is made of nutria, or coypu:

"The coypu (from the Mapudungun, koypu), (Myocastor coypus), also known as the river rat, and nutria,is a large, herbivorous, semiaquatic rodent and the only member of the family Myocastoridae. Originally native to subtropical and temperate South America, it has since been introduced to North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, primarily by fur ranchers. Although it is still valued for its fur in some regions, its destructive feeding and burrowing behaviors make this invasive species a pest throughout most of its range."

 

Doctor Who and the Time Fence

How do you keep Doctor Who out of your room?  You put up a time fence!  I have less of an issue with the fact that the room is only available during a certain time span than I do with the fact that I had to go through the entire room reservation wizard with recurrence settings in order to get an error message that basically told me to start over!  My poor UI design moment of the day.

There's a little man in my head and he doesn't seem to want out; in fact, he'd like you to come in...

See him hanging out there?  That's just weird.  And Mean Mr. Mustard and Ming both know I'm not good enough to photoshop that.  The strange part is I was wearing a bright yellow bicycling vest, and this guy is in some sort of v-neck sweater just sort of lounging with his hand to the side in a "come on in" sort of gesture.  Homunculus!

The Imaginary Invalid

Last night we went to Theatre in the Round's The Imaginary Invalid (alt) by Moliere.  I was looking forward to it as I had played in Moliere's The Doctor In Spite of Himself in high school.  It was Eryn's least favorite play so far, although my wife and I suspect that has way more to do with being tired than anything about the play.  It was one of our favorites so far.  Very funny, despite what always feels like a bit of disjointedness in Moliere as far as I'm concerned.  Toinette, the maidservant, played by Katie Kaufmann was particularly enjoyable and was on character even when the focus was elsewhere.  Her vocals, facial expressions, and mannerism all made for a believable servant who exhibited a bit of wit and sarcastic humor. 

We both particularly liked the scenes where Dr. Diafoirus is trying to convince Argan, and more accurately himself, that his son is a good marital catch by providing back-handed compliment after back-handed compliment including how he appropriately waited until he was nine (9) to learn the alphabet, and where Argan is explaining to his younger daughter Louison, played by Molly Pach Johnson, that his pinky finger can tell the truth.  Their exchange became more and more humorous until Louison is arguing directly with the finger and accusing it of lying.

Thom Pinault as Beralde, Argan's brother, gave me Donald Sutherland flashbacks whenever I closed my eyes.  An excellent voice, a great actor, and a level-headed foil to Argan's flightiness.

My least favorite aspect of the play was the very strange hip hop/rap interlude.  It felt like they were trying to modern it up a bit and make it interesting, but it ripped you right out of the play and felt extremely strange.  I redlined it in my head when it was over and have been trying to pretend it didn't happen, marring what was otherwise an extremely enjoyable play.

Train Length

Both times I've gone to Dan's house recently, I've had to stand on the sidewalk for what seems like fifteen to twenty minutes while a train rolls past.  That's his apartment through the tanker.  You can just see the upper edge of the building.  What amazed me, more than the wait, and more than the insanity of renting an apartment next to a train track - I'm reminded of the Triplets of Bellville; I hope train proximity severely drives down your rent - was the number of cars rolling through on one train in St. Paul.  The second time I was certain I counted more than 100 cars, and I skipped the beginning and end of the thing.  I should have asked the trainspotter that was in the parking lot to the left on this picture.  He probably knew the count as he was there the whole time and had been waiting for it, although he seemed primarily interested in the locomotive and got back in his car with his camera to hang out after it went by.

According to GreasyJack over at the Straight Dope:
"There used to be practical limits on the length of freight trains because of the amount of force exerted on the couplers. Just like the old high-school physics demonstration with the blocks hanging from strings, the couplers in the front of the train have to handle the entire weight of the train while accelerating. Distributed power, which is a relatively new technology, allows the addition of remote controlled locomotives in the middle or at the end of a train, which can allow much longer trains. Another limiting factor was the delayed and reduced braking effectiveness near the end of the train with conventional airbrakes, which has been addressed with electronic controlled airbrakes.

The limit has recently been 12,000 feet (about 2.3 miles or 3,658 meters) for trains with electronically-controlled brakes. I'm not sure if this limit is (or was) legally enshrined or just the position of the AAR. Some of the big rail roads have been running some experimental "monster trains", such as this 3 and a 1/2 mile long one, but I don't know if any are regularly running them yet or not."

And Mr. Downtown refers to a picture of a train pulling 197 cars.

The interesting bit to me is that when I see a train and think, "Wow, that seems much longer than when I was a kid", I'm right, thanks to strides in coupler technology.  And when Dan'l sees the plaster falling off his roof and thinks, "That seems to go on longer than I would have ever guessed when I rented this apartment," he's not wrong given the trains of our youth.

Idolatrous Cow!

After breakfast at Junior's this morning, we stopped at the nearby thrift store  Not only did I find this cow to worship, I found him on a day when they were giving a 50% discount, so he cost $0.75.  He's my new white elephant gift, so my wife's side of the family should beware the upcoming holiday season.  He has holes in his feet, so I'm not sure that he has any real purpose other than an object d'art.  It could be argued he's a glorified pacifier holder, but the pacifier doesn't seem to come out and I don't want to ruin him.  My father in law should take note - I think there's a potential market in various colored ceramic cows with varying styles of pacifiers in their mouths. I haven't seen anything like that at Art Crawl yet.

We also found a nice jewelry box for Eryn, despite the fact that it plays The Entertainer, which gives her a headache, a new water bowl for the cat, and a fully functional multi-purpose water gun/plane launcher/dart launcher/ball launcher (with balls the incorrect size)/paint gun, with paint pellets.  All for $8.00 after discount.  And I learned where to go if I ever need a heavy duty wood desk and don't want to buy a piece of throw away from Target.

2013 Orlando - Disney's Animal Kingdom

Animal Kingdom was probably my least favorite area of Disney.  It definitely seemed aimed at younger kids.  And it didn't help that it poured for quite a while in the middle of our visit.  My niece and nephew really enjoyed the Everest roller coaster, and the woman next to me on the ride screamed like a mad woman, so it really was toned down.  Eryn perused the ride list looking for anything marked "over x inches" so she could be assured of non-kid rides.  She did enjoy Everest, however and went through the single rider line several times.

I watched a Netflix video about behind the scenes at the park when I got home in order to see what the attraction was that I didn't understand.  It's an amazingly large park when you watch the video, rather than miss half of it due to rain.

Eryn and Mom posing at the tree of life.  We went to A Bug's Life near the end of the day and didn't even realize it was sort of built into the base of the tree.  I'll admit, that was neat, both as a ride/presentation and realizing it was built into the tree (I learned that from the Netflix video).


From the dinosaur area.  Animal Kingdom did have the best food deals out of any of the parks.  Our food was much more edible than elsewhere and came with an endless supply of soda while we sat in the cafeteria.  Definitely a change from all the other parks and a refreshing perk on a very hot and humid day.  Eryn and I went on the single car roller coaster near here that purports to take you back in time to see the dinosaurs (it's a time machine) in a silly way.  As we rolled up the first hill, there's a spinning disk that indicates you're time traveling. The kid in the car with us yelled Hypnotoad! Hypnotoad!  Which would have been funny if he hadn't been non-stop talk for the prior three minutes.  When no one responded he kept yelling Hypnotoad! until he gave up and said, "I'm sure I'm the only one who understands that reference."  Poor dork.  Denied on the roller coaster.  He's like a modern geek Jesus back from the dead.  Before you feel too bad for him, he talked non-stop the entire ride.  He was even annoying Eryn, and her geek tolerance is amazingly high.


The safari ride was open, thankfully, so we got to see all the animals separated by the hidden barriers so they look like they're co-mingling.  I have a limited selection of pictures because while Eryn was in charge and took many photos, there was a family on the ride with us who kept sticking their fingers in all her pictures while pointing at the animals.  More annoying than the pointing was that every time they saw a new animal the dad would say, "Oh, , snap!"  It was funny.  Then annoying.  Then funny.  Then hilarious when we rode through a puddle near the end and he exclaimed, "Oh, water, snap!"  I told my brother in law the story later and he realized they'd met the exact same people during the downpour.  It was the wife in that family who also announced at the start of the ride, when we saw the Okapi, "Look at the cock-ee, look at the cock-pee!"  Probably close enough.

Eryn's picture of a rhino butt.


A giraffe attempting to hide.


Elephants doing something elephant-y.


At the end of the day, trying to stretch everything out because our shuttle wasn't due until 2 hours after the park closed, we went to the Lion King acrobat, circque-de-soleil (I don't care to look up the spelling; hope I'm close), circus, Heart-of-the-Beast type thing.  It reminded me I hate those things on so many levels, including because it's Lion King.  That may be right up there for me comparable to Ming's dislike of Avatar.  Quite a coincidence given the big tree featured at the park and in the movie (Avatar).  Maybe we have a mutual dislike of anything revolving around enormous trees.  It was impressively choreographed, but I was brutally bored.  Give me Our Town over pageantry when it comes to plays any day.  But as I've ended several of these posts, Eryn loved it, and that made me happy.

Orlando 2013 - Universal Studios (The Islands of Adventures Side)

Aha! Only two days of vacation left, and then I can get around to the State Fair.  If my pace keeps up, soon I will have a blog dedicated to things I did last quarter.  Very timely.

As we were at Islands of Adventure only two years ago, most of my photos are less happy family vacation photos and more how-do-I-amuse-myself photos.  Here's an exception.  The spires of the Harry Potter area.  The Hogwart's ride still made me somewhat ill, but overall I fared much better on the roller coasters than last time.  Which was good, because the lines weren't particularly longer.  A minute or two extra wait, but it was a quick trip to anywhere but the front of the dragon coasters.  And whatever old guy inner ear issue most of us develop at this stage of our lives that I was partially getting last time is gone.  A consistent application of roller coasters seems to be a viable cure, at least in my case.

My wife is in this photo.  I'm not sure it's possible to get a good photo on the bridge given the number of tourists that like to pose there.  I always want to just get off the bridge right away.  I'm not afraid it will fail under the weight.  I just don't like that crush of people.  Maybe it triggers my anti-zombie situation reflexes.  You don't want to be stuck in a group that large if one person goes undead.


We didn't make Eryn ride the Seuss Carousel (Seussousel?) this time because she's so cranky about being made to ride it last time.  But on the way out I did pose with one of the locals.


A second picture where I'm riding sidecar instead of behind him.  I can't keep him dry in the sidecar.


I'll confess, I'm not really spitting water.  It just looks like it.


At the Jurassic Park area.  The bronto is trying to eat what little hair I have left.  He's a hairosaurus, as opposed to a meatosaurus or a plantosaurus.  Eryn liked reliving her memories from last time at the dinosaur center.  There are times it's very obvious she wants to feel like she did during a particular event in her life, and checking out the eggs at the dinosaur center is a good example.  She was also keen to relieve the squirting of riders at the cartoon/water area that was next, but due to rain, many of the rides were closed down or not being ridden, and when we were on Popeye's boat, they shooed us off.  It looked suspiciously like a search for a reported package.  Lots of security.


I find the dichotomy of Spidey being Mommy's Angel amusing.  He's really more of an Aunty's Angel.


And this one is just labeled wrong.  That's not Jesus!


Just a nice picture.  No humor to be seen here.  Move along.


Also not humorous, but my panorama function captured a great picture of Hogwart's and Hagrid's roller coaster.  I wish someone had been going overhead on the tracks as I'd rotated that direction.
[Panoramic view]
 

Mommy's Angel riding his motorcycle.  This isn't exciting unless you're really into superheroes, but it reminds me of the Hulk roller coaster and Doctor Doom's drop nearby that Eryn and I rode while my wife hid from all the rain in the shops.  Doctor Doom's drop was pretty wild.  I think the Valleyfair Tower of Power has more variety, but Doom's Tower certainly threw you way up there.  A big smile on Eryn as we shot to the top of the park.