Ethernet over coax. I knew there was a reason I kept these things around. :-)

For the first time in a long time, I had to pull out my other electronic dictionary. Why? Because the short essay I was trying to read was filled with place-names. On the DS, I had to write one character at a time, hope it was used at the start of some word (Kanji Sonomama doesn’t have a true kanji dictionary), and then type each one in on my Mac and look them up in Enamdict.

My other dictionary, a Sharp Papyrus, has clumsier stylus input and a generally less useful interface, but a much wider variety of dictionaries, including names and places.

Even with both handhelds and my JMdict search tools, it’s still a tough slog, because Ikuma Dan writes in colorful, literary language, using pre-war orthography. For instance, 眼 for “me”, 筈 for “hazu”, 儘 for “mama”, 未だ for “mada”, 又 for “mata”, and my favorite, 何處 for “doko” (處 being an obsolete variant of 処).

It’s been an interesting experience, but one I won’t repeat any time soon; in the time it takes me to decipher two pages of his writing, I could read thirty pages of a children’s or young-adult book.

I seem to have finally gotten my Amazon profile into a reasonable state, because the top 15 items it recommends for me are: 6 books on grilling, 7 fan-service anime DVDs, a Scalzi novel, and a Grimjack collection.

It won’t last, I know. A few days ago I had to delete 30 “classic horror” films from the list, because my purchase of the comedy film Dead Time Stories convinced it that I loved slasher flicks.

[update: I don’t know why I read 魔装 as 魔法; I guess I just assumed it was 魔法少女, and didn’t realize that it’s a created word, masou, with a meaning like “dressed as a witch” (from 和装 “dressed Japanese-style” and similar)]

A little something recommended by Amazon: 「これはゾンビですか？」 volume 1, 「はい、魔装少女です」.

25 years ago, I dropped out of a class in Mandarin Chinese. I had no problem with the tones, I just lacked the dedication and discipline to spend ~20 hours a week studying.

Our textbook was a work in progress quick-print, and I threw it away a long time ago. I lost the C-E dictionary in a move some years back. Every once in a while, though, I’ve stumbled across one last piece of evidence: an index card with the Chinese name they assigned to me: 高橋模, with the Pinyin reading Gāo Qiáo-mó, and a note that 橋 means “bridge” and 模 means “the paragon” (高 of course meaning tall/high).

Obviously, I stumbled across the card again today. If you read it as a Japanese name, the first two characters form the common family name Takahashi, and the third is usually Mo, the same sound it has in Chinese. The “paragon” meaning never got to Japan, though; there, it means imitation or copy.

A lot of characters changed meaning going from China to Japan, but this one seemed odd, so I searched through some Chinese web sites, and found a video of a group of engineering students working on a 橋模; sure enough, it was a model bridge. Technically, a paragon is a model or example of something, but it doesn’t match the actual usage.

So my Chinese teacher named me “Big Toy Bridge”. Call me Mo.

(side note: Google indexes the page with 橋, but the character actually used is 桥, the Simplified Chinese replacement)

Okay, they got me. I don’t buy a lot of instant noodles any more, but there are a few that I have a weakness for, including Donbei’s Curry Udon and Ippeichan’s Yakisoba. The last time I was in Mitsuwa, I picked up a few of each, and saw something I hadn’t noticed before:

The curry udon is now also “beppin udon”, where most dictionaries define “beppin” as an informal term for a beautiful woman. My J-J dictionary also offers “particularly fine goods” (特別によい品物). My big J-E dictionary only offers the “babe” definition and matching kanji 別嬪; Kanji Sonomama‘s J-J offers both meanings, with goods getting the more appropriate kanji 別品 (one that’s not suggested by the Mac IME); JMdict applies both kanji to the “babe” meaning in its English version, but has both meanings in German.

Turns out Donbei is playing with both meanings while creating a third: “particularly straight”. They claim this year’s dried udon and soba rehydrate into a less tangled, better-looking product.

Indirectly, this picture comes from my sister:

(from Panoramio user とも21, who has a site devoted to taking pictures of Fuji)

How I found it:

1. Nellie called me a while back to get reacquainted.
2. I flew out to Chicago to spend some time with her.
3. She took me to a used book store.
4. In the basement, I found a Japanese paperback book with an interesting title, も一つパイプのけむり (Another 'Pipe Smoke').
5. It was written by famous composer Ikuma Dan, and contained a number of short essays.
6. Many of them looked too challenging to take to my reading class, but since I missed class this week, I'm emailing the teacher a written translation.
7. The fourth essay is titled 霧 (Fog). He writes about moving to a new house on the Miura Peninsula, along the Misaki Highway, and mentions that one of the things he can see is Mt. Fuji.
8. I looked the area up in Google Earth and clicked on some pictures. This was the fourth picture I clicked.

perl -i- -ne '$s=1 if />ASCIIFilename
Yes, I really hate pasting text into a chat window and having
something like “(bug 4558)” turn into
“(bug 455”.