Aussie-ism

Our answering machine is a little garbled.

Thus, I was caught out by a person from church leaving his phone number: I thought he said "eight seven two, five seven nine". I tried phoning that, but kept getting someone else. I finally had to phone the church secretary to get his home number.

Turned out he had said "eight double-two, five double-nine". Aussies tend to say ''double'' -- whereas those of us from Seattle just say the number twice (really, neither way is faster than the other...). So, I had heard the two (garbled!) syllables -- "dwah-bah" -- and figured it must be "seven", as all the other single digits (except for zero) are one digit.

Tricky...


--GG

Moo

My daughter has a friend at daycare named ''Moo''. However, none of the kids on the sign-in sheet had a name anywhere close.

For a while, we thought she might be an imaginary friend -- but if so, she'd be a highly specific imaginary friend, since she only existed at daycare -- and (apparently!) only attended on certain days.

Recently, they had individual and group photos posted at daycare, so we asked her to point Moo out to us. Turns out that Moo's real name is Cathy. But, my daughter says, everyone calls her ''Moo''.

We asked why she's called Moo.

And my daughter said, ''Because that's her name.''


--GG

Re-awakening interests

I'm either cursed, or blessed, with a disparate range of interests: music (playing, recording), woodworking, computers (to a finite extent), and martial arts.

For the last few years, all of them have been lying fairly dormant, as I tried to focus on finishing my Ph.D. dissertation -- which, I finally did, about a month ago.

Martial arts stuff has totally fallen by the wayside. However, when my brother visits me in about a month, I'll go check out a dojo or two with him (we used to take a kung fu class together).

Computer stuff has simmered at a low-lying but consistent level: I subscribe to a Linux magazine, and I engage in episodic, task-prompted ''reading up'' on things -- such as when I need to choose a laptop for work.

Woodworking has percolated at a moderate level: there's three woodworking blogs I follow; I usually browse through the woodworking magazines at the newsagent's, and sometimes pick one up; and I semi-frequently ''dumpster-dive'' for offcuts at construction sites -- and will spend 10-15 minutes here and there pulling nails out of salvaged wood.

However, the biggest resurgence has been in music. I'm pleased with this, as music was the original -- and central -- interest. I'm still not playing much -- but I picked up three guitar magazines at the library a few weeks ago, and I'm pleasantly surprised at how much the guitar, amp, and effects pedals reviews engage me. Jotting down a few notes on gear that I need to look in to, for (eventual!) possible purchase.


I didn't include criminology or research methodology on that list. I **am** interested in that stuff -- but as it's work-related, I'm not counting it (even though I sometimes geek out on nifty new (to me) statistical techniques.


--GG

Laudable attitude

Found Mar. 21, 2009; from Laugh Digest Magazine (Archie comics), #127, “Josie and the Pussycats” story “The Octopus and the Pesticide”, first page:


“Melody, how can you be so sickeningly cheerful on [a] Monday?”

“By practicing it every week until I’m good at it?”


--GG

Hearing test

One of the advantages of having a son with a hearing impairment is wrangling free hearing tests for yourself.

I noticed that I was tending to listen to the t.v. at loud volumes -- and watch DVDs with the subtitles turned on -- so I wondered if I was experiencing some middle-aged hearing loss. So, the next time we were in for B1's routine hearing appointment, I asked for a hearing test.

The results are pretty average for my age: all within "normal", but with the beginnings of some upper-range rolloff.

According to this, most clarity in speech comes from sounds above 1kHz (i.e. 1,000 Hz and above).

I thumbed through two of my ''home recording'' books, to see if I could find which frequency bands are most responsible for ''clarity'' or ''definition'' in speech. I didn't find a specific frequency band -- although ''s'' is around 5kHz-8kHz.

So, it's possible that some minor hearing loss has led me to jack up the volume. More likely is that the kids are noisy, and that the t.v. in a highly reverberant room (no rugs near the t.v.; lots of flat, acoustically reflective surfaces).


--GG

Aspirational relative

I'm probably getting some of the details wrong -- but the point remains:


Soon after my dad started dating my mom, he came along to a family get-together. My great-grandmother (my mom's maternal grandma) was limping: four foot seven, and 78 or 80 years old. Immigrated from Japan, didn't speak any English.

Dad felt sorry for her, and commented on her limp to my mom. My mom snorted, and replied, ''Well, we **told** her not to climb that tree!''

Turns out she'd climbed a tree to prune it, lost her balance, and sprained her ankle.


That's the sort of old person **I** want to be: eighty years old, and still climbing trees.

(Not, however, falling out of them.)


--GG

Japanese illusionist

From an e-mail forward. Worth watching.

(Note that there are several segments -- so watch the whole thing...)


--GG