Short Shots

The Hotline, a blog affiliated with the National Journal, says that "freshmen" is out and "new" is in for referring to the freshman class of electees. I've seen some pretty meaningless semantics in my time, but this one has to rank up there.

In checking around on how people found me, I noticed that one person had gone so far as to translate my page into Japanese via Google for their reading pleasure. Problem was, any time that I'd used any Japanese, it came out wholly garbled as incomprehensible gibberish. On the plus side, however, I took a look at the blog roll, and noticed that Google's translation had completely kanjified the link to the Radio Patriots, as follows: 無線の愛国者 (Musen no Aikokusha, musen being the word for wireless or radio, and aikokusha being patriots, or those who love their country).

In continuation of the above, something interesting happened on the way to translating the title tag. Hakkiri Shinasai remained unchanged, but the Please Make It Clear portion was actually translated as "Sore wo meikaku ni sasenasai".

Every time I see a story about how Americans are spending more time on the computer than they are with their family (such as this one from the Denver Post), I get the feeling that I'm skewing the curve for you all.

Just when you think you've seen everything, you find out that police in Tijuana are having their firearms confiscated and replaced with slingshots. Granted, the issue at hand is serious enough for Tijuana, but on the face of it, there's something amusing about the mental image.

Having been a sometimes writer as a hobby, I have to hand it to this guy, who managed to convince a publishing house to turn out copy of a novel done entirely as text messages, including crappy spelling and grammar. It should probably go without saying that I have no desire to read such a thing, however... (but I said it anyway, in the interest of completeness.)

For those who like shooters for the PC, I'd highly suggest this site. Demos of various games, and freebie full versions where applicable. If I might make a couple of suggestions, Perfect Cherry Blossom is, in my estimation, the best of the Touhou top-shooters. There is a fan translation patch that works on the demo here. Other worthy contenders for playtime are (though certainly not limited to these alone) Tyrian 2000, Warning Forever, and any of the other Touhou top-shooters that happen to be laying about there.