aunty_marion made a Death of Rats for me! It arrived today intact, even though the letter carrier really crammed it into the mailbox.

( photos! )

I bought some new shoes. I'm fairly sure this is the first time in my life I've replaced shoes with exact duplicates. Normally you can't still get the same model by the time the old ones wear out. These fit fine, and so I now have exactly the same, only clean and not worn out.

( photo )

Via Ezra Klein, math nerd music video I Will Derive!

Also, YouTube is just amazing. Check out that "related videos" selection for yet more mathematical music videos.

Today's winner in the unwieldy category of "Languages are Confusing: Best name of a country ever (depending on which languages you speak)" is "Island."

(A few of you might have already guessed what I'm getting at.)

There is this volcanic island in the north Atlantic, just slightly south of the arctic circle. This place is the country known in English as Iceland. The name is fairly descriptive, given the weather that far north.

In German, it is called "Island." If, like me, you mostly speak English, I suppose that's pretty descriptive, too. (The German word for island is Insel. In Icelandic Iceland is Ísland or Lýðveldið Ísland.)

You see, I was reading over this list of countries, in German. Some are pretty obvious (Kanada), some I already knew (Frankreich is France), and Island, um, well, it's the sort of thing that jars the brain. Though my guess, after a bit of thought, did turn out to be correct.

Do I have cute photos from DucKon?

( Yes I do )

More joy from I Can Has Cheezburger

( lolcat )

A television show consisting of video of police arresting drunken troublemakers, with snarky narration provided by a not-really-celebrity panel? Sure, you think, it's supposed to be funny, but isn't it so dumb that no one with a functioning brain could stand to watch? Normally, yes, but I was drinking whiskey while watching, so it was hilarious. If you are going to watch drunk people, you need to be drunk.

And, really, I've tried drinking to excess, and it surely reduced my mental capabilities, but, wow, how much did these people drink? Because I've sure never had enough to behave like that.

One also has to admire the dedication to following proper procedures exhibited by police officers who know that they are being videotaped, doggedly attempting to run the sobriety tests on people who really don't need formal testing to be determined to be drunk.

One thing I've noticed is that any time I use even a few words of German in a Livejournal post, I get a bunch of comments, particularly from my German friends. What does this mean? I'm not certain, but if real life is like livejournal—and clearly LJ is just like real life, right?—then when I visit Germany, if I speak any German, I'll end up surrounded by charming and lovely German women. Who will tell me that I used the wrong article and the words are all in the wrong order and my accent is very strange cute.

We'll see in the fall :)

If you are menaced by squirrels, don't miss this at Nothing For Ungood.

No matter how much these things look like they want to cuddle up with you, keep away, as they are wild killing machines.

And on the subject of squirrels, Germans will always try to make you say their word for squirrel. Don’t do it, they are just going to laugh at you.

For more on the topic of trying to say Eichhörnchen, see Germans make fun of you when you try to say stuff:

Germans know their language is filled with sounds foreigners can’t make, so they try to get you to say certain words so that they can mock you. Such words include:

Eichhörnchen - This is the classic trap Germans set for us.

Oachkatzlschwoaf - This is the Bavarian cousin of the aforementioned.

Streichholzschächtelchen - This is the ultimate impossible German word to say.

(One of my many readers who actually speaks German will have to let me know if "Eichhörnchengefahr" actually makes sense or if I'm just messing up. And many thanks to legoline for making me aware of Nothing for Ungood.)

Do I have photos? Yes. How much does a gigabyte cost these days? Not much. So, no, I haven't sorted through all thirteen gigabytes of them and put all the good ones up. I do, however, have these two that show two different wonderful, skillful, and, most of all highly dignified musicians performing:

( photos )