Toonbots message board: 12/15

mouse Fri Dec 14 19:59:19 2001 Re: 12/15 > Already finished. I guess I'm on a roll or something. Six days straight. > This happened once before, in November 2000. rats! now i'll have to get up in the morning to see it (i _was_ going to sleep in and be sick all day). brute.

Michael Sat Dec 15 10:30:27 2001 Re: 12/15 > rats! now i'll have to get up in the morning to see it (i _was_ going to > sleep in and be sick all day). brute. Now I'm glad I remembered to post it -- I forgot last night, but it's three hours earlier out there, so I'm saved.

mouse Sat Dec 15 12:37:31 2001 Re: 12/15 > Now I'm glad I remembered to post it -- I forgot last night, but it's > three hours earlier out there, so I'm saved. good thing, too - 'cause the cat _never_ lets me sleep in. i'da been really irritated to have hauled myself upright for _yesterday's_ toon. verrrrrry innteressting - somehow i didn't picture you with a beard.

Michael Sun Dec 16 10:32:36 2001 Beardedness > verrrrrry innteressting - somehow i didn't picture you with a beard. I've had a beard since 1986 and I'm not shaving any time soon.

Eric Schissel Sun Dec 16 10:34:02 2001 Re: Beardedness > I've had a beard since 1986 and I'm not shaving any time soon. Hear hear ((what?) *g*)... and nice Monty Python reference.

mouse Sun Dec 16 13:21:22 2001 Re: Beardedness > I've had a beard since 1986 and I'm not shaving any time soon. i have nothing against beards - i think the main reason i didn't picture you with one is that i know you have small children - my experience with people with small children is that they (the parents) tend to quickly trim off all excess hair (long hair, beards, and the more exuberant mustaches) - before they (the children) pull it all out. however, living as you do in a cold climate, i can also see the drive to keep up the insulation.

Michael Sun Dec 16 14:39:50 2001 Re: Beardedness > i have nothing against beards - i think the main reason i didn't picture > you with one is that i know you have small children - my experience with > people with small children is that they (the parents) tend to quickly trim > off all excess hair (long hair, beards, and the more exuberant mustaches) > - before they (the children) pull it all out. I have very fast reflexes. Nor do children pull hair all that often to start with. > however, living as you do in a cold climate, i can also see the drive to > keep up the insulation. Not too cold this year -- we've only had two frosts, I believe, and right now it's in the 40's and raining. Not at all normal for mid-Deciduous.

Eric Schissel Sun Dec 16 15:28:24 2001 Re: Beardedness > I have very fast reflexes. Nor do children pull hair all that often to > start with. Children sometimes make parents pull their own hair out, instead. > Not too cold this year -- we've only had two frosts, I believe, and right > now it's in the 40's and raining. Not at all normal for mid-Deciduous. Radiating... envy... must... stop... (Quoting from the university weather site: WINTER STORM WATCH LATE TONIGHT AND MONDAY FOR FREEZING RAIN and sleet.)

Michael Mon Dec 17 12:23:09 2001 Re: Beardedness > Radiating... envy... must... stop... And now it's 52 degrees. > (Quoting from the university weather site: WINTER STORM WATCH LATE TONIGHT > AND MONDAY FOR FREEZING RAIN and sleet.) I wouldn't mind some snow, really. That's one of the perks of working at home, listening to the traffic reports and chortling in Schadenfreude.

mouse Mon Dec 17 14:35:55 2001 Re: Beardedness > And now it's 52 degrees. dang - that's warmer than san diego's been some days lately. and on friday i'm off to oklahoma - just in time, my mother informs me, to meet the 'alberta clipper' (which i think is what used to be referred to as a 'blue norther' -- at any rate, a weather feature which is MUCH TOO COLD (and probably involves more ice than snow). *sigh*)

mouse Mon Dec 17 20:12:08 2001 translation pickyness > I wouldn't mind some snow, really. That's one of the perks of working at > home, listening to the traffic reports and chortling in Schadenfreude. btw, that's _not_ schadenfreude - that's pure demonic evil glee in the sufferings of others. (for schadenfreude, you have to feel at least a _little_ bit bad) (and _honestly_ bad, not that fakey 'oh, i'm sooooo sorry you skidded your shiny expensive behemoth suv into a ditch in all that nasty old weather') (not that i personally have a shiny expensive anything - just experience sliding inexorably into ditches, while others look on, helpless with laughter) (and i actually get great amusement out of suv's coming to grief - but i'm _honest_ about it, i admit to straight out freude, no schaden about it) (btw again, babelfish seems to translate 'schade' as harm - i always thought it meant more 'pity' or 'sadness' - if, as babelfish insists, 'schadenfreude' means 'harmful joy', then, to quote emily littella, 'never mind' - and serves you right)

Michael Mon Dec 17 20:52:33 2001 Re: translation pickyness > (and _honestly_ bad, not that fakey 'oh, i'm sooooo sorry you skidded your > shiny expensive behemoth suv into a ditch in all that nasty old weather') Mm. Howard Tayler's open letter of a couple weeks back comes to mind. > (not that i personally have a shiny expensive anything - just experience > sliding inexorably into ditches, while others look on, helpless with > laughter) This happened to me once, in a small car, in Austria. We were going about 10 miles an hour on the Autobahn and the coefficient of friction was roughly zero. I mean *zero*. We saw up ahead how a pair of headlights originally pointing away from us were pointing towards us, then pointing up at about an 80% angle. Then we weren't facing that direction any more. We did a complete and veeeery slooooow 360. We didn't go off into the ditch but we did stop and help the other guy. He was Bosnian. They'd just started a little revolution there and he was happy to be free to go to Austria. Didn't seem to mind being in the ditch all that much, since his family was all OK. The tow truck came, then a snowplow, and we set out again, still veeeery sloooow. This was about 4 PM but it was already dark -- winter in Europe has very short days. Along about midnight we'd made it as far as Vienna (the slick road was near Salzburg, so even under really bad driving conditions we'd made a trip in eight hours that took Mozart a couple of days). The only thing that kept me going was knowing that when we got to Budapest, we'd drive from the hills out onto the Erzsebet Bridge, with the entire incredible vista of the castle, the river, Pest, the other bridges, spread out before us. We got there about 6 AM. It was foggy. ... It's been four months since I travelled. I'm getting antsy. I feel the need for a road trip. > (btw again, babelfish seems to translate 'schade' as harm - i always > thought it meant more 'pity' or 'sadness' - if, as babelfish insists, > 'schadenfreude' means 'harmful joy', then, to quote emily littella, 'never > mind' - and serves you right) Yep. Schaden = harm. Freude = joy. Schadenfreude = joy in witnessing harm to others. At least in German. I take it the English usage is somewhat less nasty. I'd never heard it in English before I learned German, so I can't help you much on this one, mouse. (This reminds me of the time a guy wanted to tell me a joke; he asked me, "What's German for constipation?" -- The joke answer is of course "Far from poopin", like "Fahrvergnuegen", which dates the joke to the early 90's of course. So with no perceptible pause at all, of course, I answered, "Verstopfung." And wondered why he wanted to know *that*.)

mouse Tue Dec 18 00:58:34 2001 Re: translation pickyness > Mm. Howard Tayler's open letter of a couple weeks back comes to mind. (yeah, i saw that too - _love_ his image of the taillights flashing "i'm such an idiot") > Yep. Schaden = harm. Freude = joy. Schadenfreude = joy in witnessing harm > to others. At least in German. see, my memory of this is learning german in high school. we started out learning social phrases - "guten morgen" "wie geht es ihr", etc. can't remember exactly the sequence of what we were learning - but at one point (with truly no unkind intent, just some sort of uncertainly wired rote response thing), the entire class responded to the teacher's "es geht mir gut" with "schade" (fortunately her response to this was to bust up laughing) now that i am home and have dug out my cassell's, i find that 'schade' does mean 'pity' (altho in the sense of 'what a pity!'); 'schaden' (as i am sure you will hasten to point out) is a whole different word (altho listed under 'schade') meaning 'harm or hurt'; 'schadenfreude' is defined as 'malicious pleasure or gloating' which corresponds well to webster's "enjoyment obtained from other's troubles" (altho the german does give one more a sense of delightful wickedness). i suspect now that my personal definition of 'schadenfreude' (which i seem to have defined as a sort of bittersweet joy) has to do with my memories of 'schade', and my ignorance of 'schaden' (and my reader's habit of guessing at the meaning of words i don't know) - so i am glad to learn the correct meaning (it also means some of eric's posts now make more sense) ok, i accede to your emotion. (but you gotta admit, babelfish is a trifle off).

Michael Tue Dec 18 01:19:40 2001 Re: translation pickyness > now that i am home and have dug out my cassell's, i find that 'schade' > does mean 'pity' (altho in the sense of 'what a pity!'); Well (and now you've awakened my pedantic side) the "definitions" given in two-language dictionaries aren't "meanings" -- they're usages. The word "Schade" is an obsolete form of the nominative "Schaden", and "schade" is an adjectival form of the same word. As an adjective it can't really be said to correspond to English "harm" very well, because "harm" doesn't even *have* a direct adjectival form, but rather participates in constructions like "harmful" (which would be "schaedlich" in German.) So "schade" is an adjective which is used in the same kinds of situations as in English we'd use the noun "a pity" -- which doesn't mean the same thing as "pity", after all. The way words in different languages are used can vary wildly. I think that's really neat. It's why attempts to compile multilingual lexica for computer use are doomed to utter failure. You often simply can't encode any meaning which has a single word for it in several languages at once. If I'm given English "wall" without enough context, I don't know whether it should be translated to German "Wand" (inside wall) or "Mauer" (outside wall) -- a German would be tempted to think we use the word "wall" sloppily to mean both types of wall, but in reality we don't even think of different types of wall. They're just all walls. OK, I'm done now. > (but you gotta admit, babelfish is a trifle off). That's why Babelfish is a perennial source of humor.

mouse Tue Dec 18 14:17:45 2001 Re: translation pickyness > The way words in different languages are used can vary wildly. I think > that's really neat. it _is_ pretty cool - i took one semester of russian, which was a real eye-opener, because it really has no similarities to english (unlike german and french, which, while different, do show evidence of being related) -- which gets one started on thinking about how much language does control what one can think, and makes you amazed that people of different languages manage to understand each other at all.

mouse Tue Dec 18 14:21:30 2001 re: itchy feet just came across this - doubtless you should include it on your next itinerary: "Stalin World" - http://www.travel-lithuania.com/grutas/ i absolutely have to quote the text: "In 1998, Public Organisation HESONOS KLUBAS (Hesonos club) won the tender of Lithuanian Ministery of Culture to establish centralized exposiotion of Soviet time sculptures in nature. In 1999, demontated soviet time sculptures from LIthuanian cities were brought to Grutas. The number of ideological sculptures in one exposition is very rare and unique even in world context. It is heritage of several decades of Lithuanian monumental art, despite it's ideological content. These symbols of Lithuanian nation tragical time period enclose truph about soviet occupation times to us and especially to our children." yes, translation is indeed a tricky task.

Michael Tue Dec 18 19:32:49 2001 Re: re: itchy feet > just came across this - doubtless you should include it on your next > itinerary: > "Stalin World" - http://www.travel-lithuania.com/grutas/ There's a similar free-air museum in Budapest, or more accurately, near Budapest. We visited year before last after my constant badgering forced my wife and her family to take action. It was quite impressive, and included one of the statues I most loved. (Along with the rest of the socialist-period art, it had vanished. I found out why it had been located where it was: it was erected on top of the cornerstone of one of the largest cathedrals in Budapest, which the Party had demolished shortly after taking power....) > yes, translation is indeed a tricky task. *snort*

BoxJam Mon Dec 17 12:53:49 2001 Re: Beardedness > I've had a beard since 1986 and I'm not shaving any time soon. I would have thought it'd be longer by now.

Michael Mon Dec 17 17:20:57 2001 Re: Beardedness > I would have thought it'd be longer by now. I can't draw it very well.

mouse Mon Dec 17 20:24:03 2001 i am giving this a new heading just for variety now i'm _really_ curious -- is this a sort of arafat 'eternal three day stubble' beard, or a taliban 'hide-your-fist' special, or a full-blown, hairy-lumberjack chest-warmer type? (and do you realize that your beard has now generated more comments than anything else in the last two weeks? that says something - but i'm a little afraid to think what) (and 9just to digress further) did you notice how many taliban high muckety-mucks seemed to have beards not nearly long enough to hide fists in - and why would you want to hide your fists in your beard anyway? -- i mean, it's not like people won't know you _have_ fists.) (sorry - couldn't resist dragging in topical subjects again)

Pack of Wolverines Tue Dec 18 01:10:46 2001 ::wolverines sniff at beard hair:: ::Alaric and Guthrie suspect it tastes like mashed potatos, while Otu hopes it tastes like licorice drops::

Tirdun Tue Dec 18 09:22:16 2001 Re: i am giving this a new heading just for variet >and why would you want to hide your fists in your beard anyway? Did you ever see that episode of the Simpsons where Marge hides the XMass money in a jar in her hair? That one was funny. What was the question again?

Eric Schissel Tue Dec 18 09:30:33 2001 Re: i am giving this a new heading just for variet Of course, if _Variety_ picks up on Toonbots, the bandwidth/hit-level increase may just raise costs a bit here... So is that (viz.: subject line!!) really wise?? Kind of like slashdotting Keensp*...

mouse Tue Dec 18 14:01:32 2001 ppp pumps pix, fans follow > Of course, if _Variety_ picks up on Toonbots, the bandwidth/hit-level > increase may just raise costs a bit here... > So is that (viz.: subject line!!) really wise?? Kind of like slashdotting > Keensp*... hey - it's christmas, time of giving and all that - i was just trying to give michael a whole new fan base to grouse at.

mouse Tue Dec 18 14:32:38 2001 feline reactions to bearded men sorry, but just got around to this month's mini-AIR, and they have an update to their classic bearded men study, which (in this context) i feel obligated to post: http://www.improbable.com/airchives/classical/cat/feline-nov2001.html

Emsworth Tue Dec 18 01:21:05 2001 Re: 12/15 > Already finished. I guess I'm on a roll or something. Six days straight. > This happened once before, in November 2000. And apparently I was somehow removed from the mailing list prior to the last few updates. Also, humble source code for honorable current strip like evolutionary link... missing. Humble self would appreciate please honorable correction. Interesting to finally see images drawn entirely by the meta-cartoonists own hand in the strip, though.

Michael Tue Dec 18 10:12:36 2001 Re: 12/15 > And apparently I was somehow removed from the mailing list prior to the > last few updates. No, I just keep forgetting to post. > Also, humble source code for honorable current strip like evolutionary > link... missing. Humble self would appreciate please honorable correction. Oh yeah. See, what happened is I forgot to post the strip, and snuck down Saturday morning before we left for the day to post it -- and cut some corners. I'd forgotten I hadn't posted the source. > Interesting to finally see images drawn entirely by the meta-cartoonists > own hand in the strip, though. Well, I did use a pen.

Eric Schissel Tue Dec 18 10:28:15 2001 Re: 12/15 > Well, I did use a pen. Mit or senza ink? (Well, you have to admit. *g* )