Pretty good Friday so far
Feb. 18th, 2005 10:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annathepiper+0: Canada's Prime Minister has given an extremely strong speech in favor of queer marriage in Canada--yet another reason to make me believe that our neighbor to the north is chock full of cool people. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
framlingem informs me that Canada has its share of idiots in its government, but I've got to say that I respect the hell out of their PM after looking at the speech that she quotes here.
-1: Attention, birds of downtown Seattle: if I find out which one of you feathery little bastards let fly one on me while I was at the bus stop this morning, I'm going to introduce you to my cat. My black coat really didn't need white speckles, and though I was able to decontaminate it and my gloves when I got to work, the gloves may not be dry by the time I leave. Grf. Stupid birds.
+2: I've picked up a new beta reader. Yay! I figure if I get enough people volunteering to beta read for me, it won't matter if some of them don't make it through a whole novel. ;)
+3: I have been stricken with an urge to translate "MurkNorth" and "MurkSouth" into Sindarin. I looked in my Tolkien language reference book last night and found Sindarin words for north and south--"for" and "forn" and "forod" for "north", and "har" and "harn" and "harad" for south. "Murk" is not in my book, but I did kind of like "weth" for "dimness", which gave me Forodweth and Haradweth, which I have to admit sound pretty cool. Any Tolkien geeks out there have other suggestions?
+4:boxer_ferret informs me that there are rumors of a new 30 Odd Foot of Grunts release later this year. If it includes the songs Alan Doyle has helped Russell Crowe write, I am going to be ALL OVER IT.
...
Well, okay, I'd be all over a new TOFOG release anyway, but a GBS connection makes it that much tastier. ;) And if GBS also coughs up their long-awaited all-trad album this year, too, it shall be a very good musical year for the Anna.
+/-5: Speaking of music, I picked up my octave mandolin again for the first time in a while the other night, and tuned 'er up courtesy of our freshly repaired tuner. Every single one of her strings was flat by at least half a step, which just goes to show you exactly how long it's been since I'd played that instrument. My fingers felt it, too. I didn't play long, but it was long enough for my fingertips to be really sensitive to those metallic strings!
Said strings also reminded me of a weird little ear problem I seem to have when instruments with metal strings are played near me. I used to notice this some when our jamming group was still meeting, and I had it happen again playing my mand the other night: to wit, my left ear gets this really weird vibration going on within it every time I hit a note on my mand's uppermost course (upper in terms of pitch, not in location), the only one where the strings are steel rather than bronze. It doesn't quite hurt, but it's very distracting. It doesn't happen with the bronze strings, and nor does it seem to happen with my bouzouki, where all the strings are steel (I think).
Anybody have any thoughts on what's going on with my ear?
+6: For the Firefly fans,gamera_spinning reports a three-issue comic prequel to Serenity this summer, here. Also, take especial note of this link, mentioned in one of the comments on gamera_spinning's post; it seems that Serenity made a cameo on Battlestar Galactica! Does this mean that the Galactica crew ain't gonna find squat if they make it all the way to the Sol system? ;)
framlingem informs me that Canada has its share of idiots in its government, but I've got to say that I respect the hell out of their PM after looking at the speech that she quotes here.-1: Attention, birds of downtown Seattle: if I find out which one of you feathery little bastards let fly one on me while I was at the bus stop this morning, I'm going to introduce you to my cat. My black coat really didn't need white speckles, and though I was able to decontaminate it and my gloves when I got to work, the gloves may not be dry by the time I leave. Grf. Stupid birds.
+2: I've picked up a new beta reader. Yay! I figure if I get enough people volunteering to beta read for me, it won't matter if some of them don't make it through a whole novel. ;)
+3: I have been stricken with an urge to translate "MurkNorth" and "MurkSouth" into Sindarin. I looked in my Tolkien language reference book last night and found Sindarin words for north and south--"for" and "forn" and "forod" for "north", and "har" and "harn" and "harad" for south. "Murk" is not in my book, but I did kind of like "weth" for "dimness", which gave me Forodweth and Haradweth, which I have to admit sound pretty cool. Any Tolkien geeks out there have other suggestions?
+4:
boxer_ferret informs me that there are rumors of a new 30 Odd Foot of Grunts release later this year. If it includes the songs Alan Doyle has helped Russell Crowe write, I am going to be ALL OVER IT....
Well, okay, I'd be all over a new TOFOG release anyway, but a GBS connection makes it that much tastier. ;) And if GBS also coughs up their long-awaited all-trad album this year, too, it shall be a very good musical year for the Anna.
+/-5: Speaking of music, I picked up my octave mandolin again for the first time in a while the other night, and tuned 'er up courtesy of our freshly repaired tuner. Every single one of her strings was flat by at least half a step, which just goes to show you exactly how long it's been since I'd played that instrument. My fingers felt it, too. I didn't play long, but it was long enough for my fingertips to be really sensitive to those metallic strings!
Said strings also reminded me of a weird little ear problem I seem to have when instruments with metal strings are played near me. I used to notice this some when our jamming group was still meeting, and I had it happen again playing my mand the other night: to wit, my left ear gets this really weird vibration going on within it every time I hit a note on my mand's uppermost course (upper in terms of pitch, not in location), the only one where the strings are steel rather than bronze. It doesn't quite hurt, but it's very distracting. It doesn't happen with the bronze strings, and nor does it seem to happen with my bouzouki, where all the strings are steel (I think).
Anybody have any thoughts on what's going on with my ear?
+6: For the Firefly fans,
gamera_spinning reports a three-issue comic prequel to Serenity this summer, here. Also, take especial note of this link, mentioned in one of the comments on gamera_spinning's post; it seems that Serenity made a cameo on Battlestar Galactica! Does this mean that the Galactica crew ain't gonna find squat if they make it all the way to the Sol system? ;)![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-02-18 07:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-18 09:02 pm (UTC)Elvish (because you asked)
Date: 2005-02-18 08:24 pm (UTC)In Sindarin, it's "fuin."
"For" actually means "right" in both elvish languages, and was applied to the north probably because it is to the right as you're an elf passing to the west. Sometimes it's used alone, but when referring to the north in a regional sense the forms "formen" and "forod" are used for Quenya and Sindarin respectively.
"Hyar-" (Sindarin "har-") is a stem that means "left." "Hyarmen" and "Harad" mean "the lefthand region" in Quenya and Sindarin.
To my ear, the longer forms sound more awkward and I'd use simply "for" or "hyar/har." That leaves you with Quenya Foruin and Hyaruin, or Sindarin Forfuin and Harfuin. You could also mix and match and use Foruin and Haruin, or some variation of spellings for any of the stems, according to taste. As an alternative, you could stick with "weth" and use simply "Forweth" and "Harweth."
There are other possible stems like "mor" for "dark," but I like "Formor" and "Harmor" less than the other alternatives.
Anyway, here's a good online source if you want to play around some more: http://www.rialian.com/quenya-english.htm
Re: Elvish (because you asked)
Date: 2005-02-22 03:10 am (UTC)I'd noticed the "fuin" element you mention, I think--but didn't quite like how it played in my head with the other syllables. But I didn't know the left/right distinction you're talking about--that's cool and it makes total sense from an Elvish point of view, since of course West is going to be the direction of interest.
Thanks for the link!
no subject
Date: 2005-02-19 01:23 am (UTC)At least it missed your head... I had one drop on my head once while walking into town... had to run home and wash my hair ... ewwwww
no subject
Date: 2005-02-19 02:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-19 02:56 am (UTC)This, m'lady, is why I started wearing hats :-p