We brought back a hamster for our daughter without realizing she was pregnant. After having a giant litter, we gave them all away…or at least we thought we did? A day or two later, I saw a wiggling in the shavings and out pops a head. Our eyes locked momentarily before she dived back down.

Definitely the runt of the litter. Had all sorts of paranoia and cowered under things for most of her life. She was maybe a year old when my daughter came running up. “Guys, you gotta see Hester!” We rushed over and there she was, hanging from the bars at the top of the cage and swinging arm-to-arm across.

We were so happy for her, finally getting past her inhibitions and leading her best hamster life. Then she was curled up dead the next morning.

I think this happens irl a lot when you have 1st, 2nd, and 3rd gen immigrants trying to communicate with each other and this kind of hybrid speak comes out of that? I’m 2nd gen so it sort of comes naturally to me.

I know some people from northern Ontario who speak a kind of English/French hybrid and it’s more than just in the family though. They speak it fluently with each other, so it seems to have taken on a life of its own? I tried to google for an example, and the first hit I got was this tiktoker and he’s exactly what I’m talking about. People really do speak like this!

Ok yeah, here’s a translation:

That’s fabulous! My mother only spoke Japanese with me, but since she passed away, I feel I have forgotten a lot of vocabulary. Once in a while, I get chances to speak but there aren’t a lot of Japanese around here so I’m pretty rusty at this point.

gggggggggggggggggggggggggggb

I think she’s trying to say date a whole bunch of girls and one boy?

I’m having more trouble with that last part.

cxz c

cee-ex-zee cee

Sexy, see?

That’s subarashii! My haha only spoke nihongo with me, but since she nakunatta, I feel I have wasureta a lot of vocabulary. Tokidoki shaberu chances ga aru desu keredomo amari nihonjin are around here so I’m pretty heta at this point. (シ_ _)シ

I guess this is rather niche, but I go to thesession a lot for fiddle tunes. They are ostensibly an Irish traditional music site, but their collection is a vast community-led effort and there’s all sorts of stuff of varying genres on there. Folk music in general is improvisational by nature, and what’s interesting about thesession is you will find multiple versions (aka settings) of a given tune as it’s played by different artists or in particular regions. None of them are “right” per se, but it gives you some ideas when trying to work out your own style.

For instance, in February 2023, the hosting giant disclosed that unknown attackers stole source code and installed malware on compromised servers after breaching its cPanel shared hosting environment in a multi-year breach.

I assumed their security for this was to keep shuffling around their web site to make that cPanel stuff impossible to find? It’s like a store that keeps rearranging their floor inventory. I dread having to do anything with cPanel. Kudos to the hackers who managed to work it out.

I think from a free advice perspective, it’s worth talking to your local pharmacist? While not a substitute for doctor visits, my experience is that their advice on minor maladies is way more on-point than what I get from relatives, co-workers, etc. And they are super well-versed on the pitfalls of off-the-shelf remedies. Yet a lot people only approach them to pick up a prescription.

I don’t know about good, but today was an unusual day for me.

With a blizzard setting in, I figured my best chance to get to work was on the bus. So I was walking up to where I could catch it passing various houses with Christmas lights and decorations, only to stop dead in my tracks at one particular house.

It’s sole decoation was an 8-ft tall Krampus on the front lawn. It had a goat head with horns and demonic eyes and sharp claws holding a gnarled staff on one side and chains on the other. It’s dark burgundy cloak had a dusting of snow on its shoulders to complete the look.

Then I was on the bus trying to digest what I had seen when who should walk on but Polar Man! He’s a local superhero with a bushy beard and a mask. He helps people in distress shovel out their driveways. At one point as the bus was passing through a residential area, he got up and yelled “Driver! Stop the bus!” and leapt out dramatically to cheering passengers.

Interesting. I had never heard of LilyPond before. I do a lot of music scoring using abc notation and even wrote myself a GUI to help with that, but it’s interesting to see that there is another script language for generating sheet music.

I always like playing the Wexford Carol on my violin around this time of year.

On Titan, you could strap on wings and fly around.

Moreover, the atmosphere is >5% natural gas, but without oxygen you can’t burn it. I suppose oxygen would be considered the fuel in that case and you’d pipeline that instead? And being able to breathe would be a nice side-benefit.

This reminds me of the first time I went to see my wife’s family long before we got married. There was a big gathering for Christmas and she had a kid sister looking totally distraught at the dinner table where a feast was laid out. “I can’t eat this! That poor 3-legged lamb!!!” And she ran off.

Same. Yeah these days, if you hear a lot of noise, that’s a good indication something is wrong like a bad mask or hose seal or the humidity chamber is not in all the way.

When I first got a cpap, I asked my wife if I’m still snoring? She looked pensive and said no, it’s more like a heavy breathing. I asked her what she meant by that and she said you know, like Darth Vader.

That was an early model though. They’re much quieter now!

I thought Salvatia must be the poorest country in the world if even their army has to go around begging for money.

I consider myself a practicing non-Catholic and a non-practicing Anglican. I haven’t attended an Anglican service since childhood but play music with my wife at her Catholic church, so I have to attend a practice for that every week.

Your first one reminds me of something that happened awhile back. I was at a donut shop staring out the window when a scruffy dude in a pickup truck slammed into a traffic light, tipping it over across the street.

Now as it happens, said donut shop was a watering hole for police officers (yes, the stereotype is real), and about a dozen buff uniforms trotted out within seconds. The guy climbed out of the truck and tried to light a cig and it fell out of his mouth as he saw them rushing up.

My favourite story like that is from my dad, who was WW2 vet. After the war, he wound up in Japan and attended a conference where someone stepped up to the podium and introduced himself as General McArthur’s Chief Advisor. Or at least he thought he did…

The word for advisor is komon. The word for asshole or anus is koumon. Basically, you just hold out the first o out slightly longer and it switches to the other word.

I used to have trouble with RPN calculators until I realized it’s better to think in Japanese.

For example, when I go:

3 enter 5 plus 2 divide

I’m thinking:

san to go tasi-te ni-de waru

It just feels more natural.