CONTORTED PASTA

Pretty much as long as I can remember, I've been trying to learn French. There were scattershot lessons from my mum (a native speaker) when I was young; I took three years of it in middle/high school from teachers who couldn't speak it; when in officially bilingual Canada I would have fits of listening to the French-language radio station to try to improve my ear, a practice I'd return to every so often later on, when I found how to stream it online.

Around 2018 I realised that I was visiting Denmark at least once a year, and France not at all, so it was more practical to learn Danish. It ended up being more fun, too – it's similar enough to English that you can see the common roots in a lot of words and the grammar is uncannily like English from 400 years ago, so my familiarity with Shakespeare and the Book of Common Prayer put me in good stead there. ('Sted' means 'place' in Danish. See?) For having a reputation as a very difficult language to learn, I was finding it a breeze compared to French, especially when I finally tuned my ear to the lack of diction. And, weirdly, spending time on Danish was improving my French, I think because it kept the 'not-English' side of my brain awake: when learning new Danish phrases it would usually say 'Oh, I already know how to say this in not-English,' and give me the French.

I had to leave off languages entirely when I was on my Antarctic trip – mostly because my brain was full already, but also on account of McMurdo not having sufficient internet to run Duolingo – which meant a lot of remedial study when I got back; I didn't have much brain for it then either, but I did push to reacquaint myself before I went back to Denmark in March. Then all the lockdown and moving stress occupied my brain again and I fell off. I've got back to it for the last month or so, but haven't really found a groove, and just jump around the lesson board levelling up sections that have fallen behind, rather than utilising the methodical way it's laid out.

I have really enjoyed learning Danish – it's been much more fun than French which, though I was motivated, always felt like a chore – and when I'm not practising it, I miss it. Looking at the endeavour as a whole, though, I have to wonder what the point is. Most people in Denmark speak English, and would prefer to do that than listen to me struggle in Danish. I don't even know if I will be going back, or how often, given pandemic travel precautions. I intend to get back to Canada at some point, and though French is less useful than Mandarin or Punjabi or Farsi on the west coast, Danish is a chocolate kettle by comparison. However, I am within shooting distance of the end of the lessons on Duolingo, and would like the satisfaction of seeing something through. Duo's French lessons aren't nearly as methodical as the Danish ones (lesson in national stereotypes there) so even though I know more French already I find them more frustrating. So, do I push through with something relatively useless but more or less fun, or move my energies over to something ultimately more practical and rewarding?

"Looking for lodgings." I answered. "Trying to solve the problem as to whether it is possible to get comfortable rooms at a reasonable price."
    "That's a strange thing," remarked my companion; "you are the second man to-day that has used that expression to me."
    "And who was the first?" I asked.
    "A fellow who is working at the chemical laboratory up at the hospital. He was bemoaning himself this morning because he could not get someone to go halves with him in some nice rooms which he had found, and which were too much for his purse."
    "By Jove!" I cried, "if he really wants someone to share the rooms and the expense, I am the very man for him. I should prefer having a partner to being alone."

– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet

Do you live in London or Cambridge? Are you or anyone you know looking for a flatmate, sublessor, or perhaps housesitter? I am looking for a room to rent, beginning perhaps as early as July 1st, but am somewhat flexible.

A brief summary of me, should you not be a regular reader of my blog: I am a quiet decent bookish sort (textbook INTJ) who gets along best with the nerdy, fannish, and eccentric, though I've had flatmates of all sorts. Cats and I have a great rapport; dogs love me for some reason but I'm not the biggest fan of them. I don't smoke and am not much of a drinker, but like to go to the pub with friends on occasion. I am well housetrained and fairly tidy but not persnickety; I like to cook and am not ashamed to boast that I am really good at washing dishes. I'm looking for somewhere fairly quiet, as I will probably be doing a lot of work from home, so I'll be around a fair bit, but hopefully unobtrusive.

If you have a lead, please either email me via twirly noodle at gmail, or leave a private message at Dreamwidth (tealin) or Livejournal (twirlynoodle).

And for everyone else, thank you for your patience! Regular posting will resume once life has settled down a little.

Well, that was fun.

I'd be happy to keep posting Bits of Bill up here if anyone's interested – I'll be doing so for quite a while longer on the corresponding Tumblr, and it's very little work to copy over the dozens of quotes I have queued up – but I don't know if that appeals to anyone but me, so do speak up if you'd like more. Or, obviously, just bookmark the Tumblr and get more on your own.

The alternative is waiting around for me to post more of my own prattle. The job I'm on currently is taking up the vast majority of my waking hours, which is happy for me as it's a good job in excellent company, but not so good for the whole 'web presence' thing, and there won't be any new drawings until this tendonitis calms down. Well ... maybe some left-handed ones ... but radio links and text-based blather will predominate.

Meanwhile I hope everyone's having, or has had, a lovely Passover/Easter/Quarterly Shops-Close-Early Day. Because religious holidays are now inextricably tied up with commerce, a side question: do you have any advice on choosing a model of mobile phone which is supported by a UK carrier? I don't need anything fancy (the less fancy the better in fact), and Apple and I have a history of not getting along so I'm inclined to avoid the iPhone, but any user experience/advice would be welcome.

Hey look it's a Dreamwidth-only post! Hi there, small handful of Dreamwidth friends!

Google Reader is apparently going kaput in July. For years it has been my one defense against spending hours cycling through bookmarks seeing if any of them have updated. I knew Dreamwidth let you put RSS feeds in your Reading page, so when I had little to do on Friday I transferred all my active Reader subscriptions to Dreamwidth so I still had one place to check them all. If you are interested in what I find interesting (mainly art blogs), you can keep an eye on my reading page or check out my list of subscriptions on my profile.

Still don't know how to keep track of Twitter accounts without signing up for Twitter myself, which is a rabbit hole I want to stay well away from ... if anyone has a clue there I'd be happy to hear it. The two I've subscribed to in Reader haven't been showing up there for months and Dreamwidth won't recognise the feed.

HEY INTERNET

I need a new laptop.* Everyone I've asked says 'Dell.' So far the one that best suits my requirements is the Vostro 3560, and while external reviews are generally positive, the ones on Dell's website are a little tepid. I know this may be because that's where people go to whine, but I am still a little cautious. So I come to you! Anyone have one of these? Any other suggestions?

The specs that matter to me:
- Dedicated graphics card
- 15"-17" screen
- 3+ USB ports
- Windows 7
- Good life expectancy
- Battery life >1hr (probably standard these days but worth stating)
- WiFi (also standard, but hey)

And before you ask, no, I am not getting a MacBook: Apple and I get along well enough to be colleagues but not roommates. I like having back doors and being able to fiddle with things myself; it's hard enough letting go of XP.

*Only if I want to use the Cintiq I own and run Region 2 DVDs at full speed – the latter is a luxury, but the former is kind of a professional necessity. I love my beloved old XP-running Toshiba and it runs mostly fine, but it doesn't like the Cintiq ...

Last night my roommate and I went for groceries and ended up with something completely different. We got to the intersection before our destination and in a gap between the building and a tree, saw this:

At least, that's what it would have looked like without any of the foreground elements, if I had been standing on the roof of the grocery store, and had a telephoto lens. The mountain visible is, I believe, one side of the Newhall Pass, so whatever-it-was should have been visible to anyone going north on the 5. At first glance it looked like one row of lights on an array at the high school football field; it was only after realising the high school was much further to our left, and noticing that the parallax relative to known objects, as we moved down the street, implied it was much further away than field lights of that size would be, that the oddness of what I was seeing became clear.

Unfortunately, when we crossed the intersection, a tree got in our way, so we aborted groceries for the time being and tried to get on a road with a clearer view. This took about five minutes, and by the time we saw that part of the horizon again the lights had gone. We retraced our route, to see if it had been something more fixed that would still be visible from that angle, but it wasn't.

There are any number of perfectly reasonable things it could have been. The most likely explanation I can think of is that the Burbank Airport is directly in line between the grocery store and Newhall Pass, so if a large plane with four very bright headlights along the wingspan had been landing from the north, it would have looked exactly like that ... but planes don't usually land from the north at Burbank, and I've never seen any with a light configuration like that. I did a little research this morning and found that the C-130 Hercules sometimes has a light on each of its four engines, in the arrangement we saw, but I have never seen airplane lights this bright. Perhaps it was equipped specifically for illumination?

Has anyone seen anything similar? Any ideas?

Good morning, Internet, and a glorious 25th of May to you all!

As any regular follower of this blog will know, I am hopelessly addicted to the Independent Shakespeare Company – in fact one might even say I am dependent, ahaha, in more ways than one, as they are a substantial part of what makes living in LA worthwhile.

Their main event in the year is the Griffith Park Free Shakespeare Festival, in which they give away phenomenally fantastic theatre for free! Of course, it takes money to mount the festival, and while they do take donations during the run, there are expenses that have to be paid up front, such as directors' fees, equipment rental downpayments, licenses, etc., so they've been running a Kickstarter campaign. They aim to raise $20,000 and they are, currently, less than $200 away ... so this is me asking you to help push them over the top. At this point even the smallest contribution makes a big difference – and of course if they go over $20,000, they get to use the surplus, too.

I really can't overstate how wonderful this company is – not only are they excellent performers but they do a lot of community and schools outreach as well. You can see audience testimonials on their Kickstarter page – I'm right in line with the beardy man! Back when I first encountered them I made a quip in response to their signage [above] that I didn't know Shakespeare was in prison, but I didn't know at the time that, really he was, and they really do set him free! If you're within travelling distance of LA I really highly recommend you drop in on the festival, which runs Thursdays through Sundays, June 28-Sept 2 – you won't regret it!

I wrote this a few weeks ago, in an attempt to get my thoughts about, doubts on, and suggestions for the Occupy movement down in some sort of concrete form rather than buzzing around in my head. I sent it to a friend of mine who's involved with the movement for feedback and/or clarification, but she hasn't gotten back to me – understandable as it is bloody long and she has a world to save. History continues rumbling along apace, though, and I figured if I was going to share it at all, sooner was better than later. It's a little bit out of date but I hope the theory parts still stand...

I'm leaving comments open for now, because I want feedback, but the minute it starts getting hot in here I will not hesitate to lock them. I am really amazingly busy at work these days and do not have time to respond in a thoughtful way to anything, but I still read everything, so please don't let that stop you from having a say.



Before I get into the meat of the issue, I feel that I should explain myself. I have been watching the Occupy movement with a certain amount of interest since it first came on my radar. Usually I sit back and piece together information on such things as it comes my way from a number of sources, but until very recently this particular movement has been less than forthcoming in such regards. I get most of my news from international sources (the BBC and CBC, mainly) as I find American media distinctly uninformative even when it's not actively annoying me or throwing up red herrings. There are worldwide Occupations, but the movement's core is in, and will have the most effect on, the United States – foreign media doesn't have as much incentive to cover it in depth, so for the most part I've missed out on that end of things.

Growing up in a house that had Rush Limbaugh and his ilk spewing from every media orifice, I have a deeply ingrained suspicion of impassioned or emotionally manipulative oratory no matter where it's coming from,* and prefer to have the views of the people distributing ideas filtered through either an objective (or trying-to-be objective) third party, or challenged by an intelligent and skeptical interviewer. There has been shockingly little of that in this area – I heard the first really serious discussion of this nature just this past Saturday on the CBC. I may work in the arts but I am a scientist at heart, and I will not accept a theory – scientific, artistic, or political – until it's been peer reviewed and thoroughly tested by the best challenges that can be thrown at it. The Day 6 interview was a good start, but there needs to be a lot more of that.
*This is also why I try to avoid anything remotely political on this blog, because I've had enough of that thank you, and I am only posting this very hesitantly because I can think of no better way to relieve my ignorance.

A benefit of watching from the sidelines is that I've been able to see the core message of the movement coalesce from a hundred songs to the tune of 'we're pissed off' to a much more focused 'get big business out of politics and return democracy to the people,' with a sub-motif of 'share the wealth'. Part of the reason I'm especially wary of the stirring rabble-rousing coming from 'the horse's mouth' as it were, is that, as far as I can tell, I am inclined to agree with their points. As far as I can tell, it's hard for any sane and informed person not to. But that is as far as I can tell, which at present feels like not very far at all.

On a personal level, knowing that my sentiments put me at risk of getting swept up causes me to put on the brakes and try to take a closer look. Due to the lack of third-party information and the huge amount of unfiltered noise that will greet any internet search on the topic, I decided the most effective way of sorting anything out was to put down my thoughts on the movement as I see it and invite clarification from any informed person willing to read them.

( My Doubts Re: Getting Money out of Politics )

( My Doubts Re: the Modus Operandi and Potential Progression of Causality )

( Lofty Pronouncements from an Armchair Revolutionary )

And finally, because I can only remain earnest for so long:

Seriously, people, THEME SONG. Do I have to spell it out for you?

A friend of mine is coming down to work in LA for a few months and needs a place to stay. He's friendly, responsible, and quiet, but as he's supporting his young family back in Canada he can't really afford an apartment of his own, and he really only needs a place to sleep, so he's looking to rent a spare room or some such. He's got somewhere to stay for now, but it's a loooong way from where he'll be working in Culver City, so if anyone reading this has any sort of lead, please let me know and I will pass it on to him.

Does anyone out there have any recordings of Brian Perkins reading humourous clippings on an old episode of The News Quiz, or Dead Ringers clips of 'Big Daddy Perkins'? Would you be willing to share?