I’m so mad at myself today.

I’m trying to be mature, but I could quite happily bang my head into a wall in frustration.

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I hate multiplication when one of the multiplicand or multiplier heads into double digits and beyond.  I’d rather shoot myself when both parts become larger numbers.

Fortunately, Russian peasants and the Ancient Egyptians were kind enough to impart the knowledge of how to handle these numbers and come up with an answer with very little effort involved.

Thanks to a book that I’m reading from 1955 I’ve now discovered an even easier way, however large the numbers involved happen to be, which was used by the Mesopotamians.

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Having picked up the engagement rings, it now rested on me to successfully get one on Radio’s finger without losing it in the intervening couple of days.

My plan was to drive to Radio’s, head to our favourite restaurant, then visit Stratford, where I remembered seeing ducks on the river.

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To cut to the chase, Radio and I got engaged this past Valentine’s Day

I decided that I was going to propose in early January. Radio has not been shy of the subject recently, hanging from my neck in a swimming pool in Szombathely and saying “See, they got married Babel, so why can’t we?” and writing that her ideal station in life now would be to be married.

I drove up to her parents’ house one January morning and decided that I would propose that we find out each other’s ring sizes “just in case I ever do decide to propose to you one day.”

Armed with that information, I decided to start the hunt for rings, so that I could pop the question on Valentine’s Day, at that point about four weeks away.

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Sufiĉis jam.

Mi nur malofte uzis na Facebook, tamen lastatempe pasigis pli kaj pli da tempo ĉe ĝi, pro tio, ke mi instalis iun programon Vida Librobreto, kiu necesis pli ol mia kutimo duonsekundo da atento.

Tamen pli kaj eĉ pli ofte amikoj ĝenas min per la babilada funkciilo, kiun lastatempe instalis la kreintoj de FB. Aparte du amikoj ĉiam saltas sur min tuj kiam mi malfermas la paĝon, unu el kiu neniam meritas konversacion, ĉar ŝi ne havas interesindajn diraĵojn.

Sufiĉis, do mi eltrovis kiel ŝajnigi min esti for. Pro tio, ke mi uzas la Esperantan version de Facebook, mi decidis fari tiun afiŝon en la lingvo internacia.

Do, por kaŝi vian retstaton, por ke teduloj ne interrompu vian retumadon nur pro tio, ke vi pekis per okulumado de via Facebook-paĝo, faru tiel:

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I was perusing eBay earlier whilst killing some time. My plan was to pick up a couple of small Transformers, since my nephew, all of twenty months old, loved playing with my cuddly plush of Bumblebee, which even transforms into a Volkswagen Beetle.

He enjoyed playing with his new buddy so much that I went as far as getting some friends down, this time my keyrings of Windcharger and Brawn.

So far, so good, since I’ve found a bulk lot of minibots going for a pound, so I’ll be sure to keep my eyes open there.

I used the broad search term decepticon and quickly descended on the most unusual gift, though one that is perfect for someone who meets my characteristics of being in a settled relationship that could get a little bit more serious over the next few years … Read the rest of this entry »

I was prompted to write this entry after answering a question about the subject in a language forum.

What it comes down to is what I call half-truth teaching, where something is presented to the student which is true a fair bit of the time but should, nevertheless, not be taken literally. With a bit of elaboration or better phrasing things would be better.

You know the kind of thing I’m thinking about. “You should never start a sentence with ‘and’ or ‘but’.”

But for this example, they might have had a point. And that’s not all.

The subject I have in mind today is the indefinite article.

Hands up who was taught that a becomes an before a vowel.

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I love old maps, and the sense of history, of knowledge still left to uncover, that they contain within them.  I adore sitting there thinking “You got this right, but you shouldn’t have connected Australia to China.”

I notice that in this blog entry I wrote:

69. DO YOU LIKE MAPS?
Sure, especially ones from centuries ago. I’d love to have one on a wall.

I’m happy to say that I now have one to put on the wall.  Or, more specifically, twelve.

When Radio and I were scouring bookshops in Birmingham as penance for losing her bet about the non-existence of the word onimous we visited Borders, and paid a quick visit to their bargain boxes.

I didn’t find any books that particularly interested me, but I did spot something that was most unexpected:

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For some reason I have the date remembered as the 22nd and have to constantly try not to look caught out when Radio reminds me “It’s our x-month anniversary today!” if I happen to be be with her on the 21st.

Well I didn’t forget today, the occasion of our second anniversary.  I even bought Radio some anniversary presents well in advance and presented them to her on Saturday.  Of course, I neglected to think of getting her a card to open to mark the day, but I think she ought to be used to me and her consequent reduced expectations by now

As if by pure coincidence I walked into my office today to see a photo of the two of us stuck to my monitor.  It turns out that a recently retired carer had taken some photos at a wedding reception and went out of her way to drop me off a copy.  I had every intention of scanning it and posting it, but failed miserably because the jabroni scanner is broken.

I’m not really one for soppy statements or any of the lovey-dovey nonsense, and I won’t change my spots here either, so I’ll just finish by saying that I feel very fortunate to have chanced upon someone as sweet and kind as The Radio, and am very humbled that she has offered so much to me over the course of our relationship.

She’s a nosey bugger, so I know that she’ll read this within seconds of me posting it.  I love you very much; let’s get on with getting a house, you soppy git

Radio has been making me laugh over the last six months.  In the middle of conversations she’ll drop in the line “Sounds onimous.”

I initially pointed out to her that she’d mispronounced the word, only to get back “That’s what I said: Onimous.”

“Yes, but the word is ‘ominous’.”

“‘Onimous.’  That’s what I said.  ‘Onimous.’”

Well this went on for months, every time Radio brought up the word.

She argued that if she had it wrong, a teacher would’ve corrected her.  They hadn’t, ergo she was correct.  It seemed to escape her notice that my teachers, by that logic, would also have corrected my long-time use of ‘ominous’ in that case, and that these are the same teachers who never corrected her use of ‘could of’.

Six months later things came to a head when we were walking through Biedenkopf in Germany.  The regular discussion arose when she again said that something ‘sounds onimous’.

I happened to have an English-Esperanto dictionary back at the base, so I proposed that we bet over the result.  The loser was to buy a book for the winner.

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