Today's Topic: Enigma

What is enigmatic? What is infinite? What is real? What is surreal? I think Escher and Dali did a lot to help us (or confound us) with these questions, as did other artists. Whether it is art, or a secret algorithm machine controlled by the Nazis, every day there is something else that will confuse, surprise, astound, enlighten, or befuddle us. 

Yeah, he's pretty normal.

This is how Dali felt during the Spanish Civil War.

This woman looks like Shakespeare.

I worked on a mill just like this one time.

Apparently this is infinity. You can stop searching for it.

Convex or Concave?

This building would not pass any inspection

The original 'Enigma' machine.

Close up of the 'Enigma' machine.

Random panting having something to do with endless mirrors.

Sleep much?

Who are these people that take pictures of mirrors, part of their arm, and part of their waist?

Sharing Colloquialisms with the World

I had to chuckle today (Yes, I was forced at gun point). I was looking at some of the stats for this blog and I ran down a list of all the languages people read this blog in. I find it amazing, and I don't know quite who would be responsible for translating this thing in so many languages. I guess google does it for me. Here is a list of the languages (some of which I know are distinguishable, others I don't quite get):

US English, English, British English, French, Brazilian Portuguese, German, French from France, Hungarian, Portuguese, Portuguese from Portugal, Spanish from Spain, Italian, Finnish, Danish, Dutch/Flemish, Swedish from Sweden, Swiss, Argentine Spanish, Croatian, Polish, Turkish, Chinese from Taiwan, Greek, and just straight up Swedish.

The ones I find most humorous are the US English versions versus the British English versions. Now I know I spell words like an American, and even use a lot of American events and colloquialisms as material, but how do they translate my blog into British English? When I say, "That's just right" do they translate it as "Spot on"? When I put a question mark inside the quotation do they push it to the outside? I'm curious. I think I'm going to start reading my blogs in British English. Then maybe I'll move on to Finnish. What pleases me is that I do seem to get more than just a few readers from outside the United States. I have regular readers in Java and Taiwan apparently, and plenty of French and British readers. I salute you all.

Oh, and while I'm pretty sure this is available in various Indian dialects, I haven't seen all that many Mumbai residents reading this. Pakistanis seem to like it though. I don't know what that means. But, at any rate, I wanted to share with you a list of colloquialisms I found online. And, I make this list in part because I think it would be hilarious translated into Mandarin or Swedish.

(This book is a must read)

My kitchen's so small, you can't swing a dead cat in there without getting fur in your mouth.

He has the attention span of a chicken on speed.

As busy as a one-legged man at a butt-kicking contest...

So ugly he could back a dog off a meat wagon...

As shallow as a saucer

Lower than a duck's butt

As nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs

It's rainin' like a cow pissin' on a flat rock

Time to piss on the fire and call the dogs.

Busier than a cross-eyed cranberry picker.

Tighter than a camel’s ass in a sandstorm

That's slicker than snot on a doorknob!

Couple Sandwiches short of a picnic

Not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

Doesn't know whether to scratch his watch or wind his butt.

Nosier than a mule in a tin shed.

Faster than a blind dog's tail in a meat market.

Trying to nail Jell-O to the wall

Quit running around like a fart in a bottle.

His eyes bugged out like a stomped on toad frog.

It'll work...Like a windshield wiper on a goat’s ass

(to have suffered diarrhea): "I've just spent tuppence in ha'pennies and farthings"

I'm hungry enough to eat the ass out a dead mule...

Slower than smoke off of a cool turd...

On Futility: It's like trying to herd cats.

Don't get your crank shaft all up in a two stroke!"

Quit your cryin'. You're gettin' the floor wet.

Elevators in the basement and the cords have been cut.

Obviously, you weren't spanked enough as a child.

Happier than a four-peckered goat.

Whatever blows your skirt up for ya

He's so clumsy he'd trip over a cordless phone.

He's about as handy as a back pocket on a shirt.

That's about as useful as a trap door on a canoe.

He couldn't carry a tune if he had a bucket with a lid on it.

She was so tall she could hunt geese with a rake.

She was so tall if she fell down she would be halfway home.

He was so fat it was easier to go over top of him than around him.

It happened faster than a knife fight in a phone booth.

NO!! I AM NOT FALLING ASLEEP!! I was just checking for holes in my eyelids.

I hope you enjoyed those. Although you may not think so, I did take out some of the more crass ones.



This clip is a great remix of a fabulously underused colloquialism.



And this is just funny. And, maybe it's how this blog gets translated into British English.

I think I'm turning British

Have you ever felt extremely British? I know some of my British readers have. Probably every day of their lives. Well, I've been feeling pretty British lately. 

I've been walking around with an umbrella more, using it like a cane. And, when I don't have an umbrella I feel strange. 

I also have a pension for walking at a more leisurely pace, with the posture of a Londoner on a foggy day (This fact could be very debatable). 

I fall into at least 2 British dialects a day. Whether I'm in the locker room getting gym clothes, or talking to some attractive woman I've just met, I slip into an accent (I've even been asked a couple times if I'm English). If that weren't enough, I speak with British inflection as well, with emphasis on the last part of a phrase. And, I'm really not trying to do it, it's just some subconscious habit.

I have a hankering for tea. Or, at the very least "tea time." I stick to herbal teas for religious reasons, but occasionally call hot cocoa good at tea time too. And I guess that's another thing. I don't call it hot chocolate. I call it cocoa.

Here's the clincher: I'm a nasty cricket player. Just friday night I was meandering the corridors of a building on campus where they were having a party. The party included a lot of on-campus clubs and "free" food. Well, as I was going from the Mexican Culture Party Club to the Dodgeball Club to the Jiu-Jitsu club, I cam across two Sri Lankan guys and a cricket club. I grabbed the paddle and asked one of them to pitch to me. He started out slow, not realizing I have quite a bit of hand eye coordination, but then sped the pitches up as he saw me smashing the ball all over the place. And I hit every good pitch. Line drives, towering fly balls, whizzing grounders. Oh yeah. Cricket is my new game.

So I'm basically British. Citizenship aside. 

Do you think it was right that I voted in this year's US election? Maybe I should've written in Gordon Brown and David Cameron. 

Peter Pan Complex

Just recently it was discovered in a suburb of London that Peter Pan is in fact real. He did not get married, does not actually have a family, and the Hook movie was a nice idea, but completely false. Peter Pan is still a 12 year old boy who wears green tights and a Robin Hood attire. He was spotted last tuesday evening by a resident at 54 Kensington Street, in (name not disclosed), just outside of London. Apparently a large 'firefly' was described as having attached itself to his leg or buttocks and was tussling with him mid-air. At first, the resident said that she thought it was a ghost, but then, to her relief, she recognized him as Peter Pan.

He was said by the resident to have endorsed the lifestyle position much maligned by a majority of Christians. While watching the cheerful and infamous character, she heard him say, "Hey wench! Eat drink and be merry! Here's some pixy dust!" Thinking it was a drug reference, and having had some difficulties of her own with local law enforcement, the resident declined and said, "Grow up!" Peter Pan guffawed and flew away (supposedly to Neverneverland).

However, since news of the encounter has spread there has been a new revolutionary movement sweeping through this suburb of London. Most people tend to get excessively drunk, smashed, or otherwise incapacitated and then proceed to jump off of park benches, trees, roofs, and statues. When they are accosted by police, they generally say, "I don't want to grow up." Many have been caught making lewd gestures in public, digging holes in the middle of parks for 'buried treasure,' and having an increasingly difficult time settling down in meaningful relationships or careers. But surprisingly few have been held on formal charges, and many of the local police force have joined in the merriment.

English Diction

We as Americans, users of the english language, perhaps too often take it for granted. Some of us think of it as a slut or a mongrel because it adopts so many foreign words. Some might think it lazy not to come up with some words of its own. However, whether you like it or not, english is what we speak. It's true that it adopts a lot of words, but over 4,000 new words and uses are added to the Oxford English Dictionary every year. So while it may seem slutty, it gets the job done.

Here are some examples of adopted words: croissant, bureau, lasagna, schmuck, and garage

Some people deliberately anglicize many of these words, but in the instance with bureau and garage, it becomes difficult to do without getting strange looks from people. So here's a different take on the english language: It's flexible, versatile, and it is fairly easy to become conversational in it. Now, I don't believe it's easy to speak and write correctly (to be contrary to the thoughts of so many people), but you can learn it well enough, in a short enough period of time, to function efficiently in an english-speaking country.

Invites Around the World

Today I would like to leave you all with a list of places I have been invited to visit. I will put them in order first by number of invites, and then by desire to visit. What I ask of you, well, all I ask of you is where you think I would be best spending my time. Here they are:

1. Brazil (over 10 invites)

2. Hawaii (3 invites)

3. Australia (1 invite)

4. England (1 invite)


Desire to go:

1. Brazil

2. Australia

3. Hawaii

4. England

So I'd like to go to Brazil because I've been promising some friends down there I'd visit soon. That's an understatement. Every year I tell them I'll visit, but something comes up, and I don't have the money. With Australia, I've always wanted to go and I've loved Koalas, Crocodile Dundee, the aborigines and the outback since I was a little kid.


That, and it would be a prime surf venue. However, the invite was for Perth, and I don't know if the surfing is quite as good as the gold coast, but it has to be better than most of California. Oh, and Brazil is a good surf destination too. Hawaii of course then goes without saying. It has the best big waves in the world, and great surfing. My invites have come from missionary buddies, friends and family.

But it all comes down to cost. Right now I'm saving up for a car (because my last one was destroyed by a metrosexual. I let him and another friend borrow it while I surfed it up in San Diego. Long story.) I don't know if I'll have the necessary funds after the car purchase to go anywhere that isn't stateside, but I hold out hope. If I go on a trip with the company I work for now it could be a tax write off. That's a thought. And I didn't address England, but I'm more interested in the other three. And, don't worry I'm not really putting the decision on you, the reader's proverbial laps, but a nice comment or two of advice would be nice.