You’ve got questions, we’ve got… I dunno

typed for your pleasure on 9 June 2005, at 10.13 pm

Sdtrk: ‘Magic twin candle tale’ by Pizzicato five

O, that Veach and his questions. Still, I asked for it.. No, literally, I asked for it.

1. Can you translate these words–and tell me how to pronounce–in Japanese: ‘Stories, Novels, Art; Personal perspectives, Entertaining rhetoric, Hypertext effluvium & Ancillary diatribes’?
Not off the top of my head, but yes.
‘物語, 小説, 芸術; 個人的な見通し, 心に抱いている修辞, ハイパーテキスト effluvium, と ancillary 大言壮語’
mo-no-gah-TAH-ri, SHOW-sets’, gay-JOOT-su, ko-zheen-teh-ki na mi-tou-shi, ko-ko-ro ni hoh-ee-tay ee-ro SHU-zhee, hai-pa-teh-ki-su-to effluvium, toh ancillary tai-ken-sou-go.
You realise, of course, I cribbed most of that from AltaVista’s Babelfish, and since I don’t recognise a lot of the kanji, I used Rikai.com, so it’s probably one-half dictionary proper, one-half blazingly wrong. The only one I translated using my very own brain was ‘hypertext’. That one was easy..
Gods, ‘effluvium’. The closest synonym I could think of in English was ‘detritus’, and Babelfish was like, ‘huh?’ Maybe ‘debris’ would’ve worked..
O yeah, as far as seeing kanji characters as opposed to a series of amusing squares, set up Firefox’s encoding (under View) to auto-detect Japanese. Unless, of course, you like those squares.

And, on Quaisi’s site, Undercover in Japan what does the bench graffiti say on his 2 Jun 05 post?
Errm.. 2005, 13 May, some line that I can’t read, one of the 2chan ASCII emoticon cats (´∀`; ), another two lines I can’t read ending in ‘kokenashii’, and the last one starts ‘Prebo (playboy?) wa, akan (baby?) waaa, A & Y.’ Between the hearts, you’ve got something-mi (a name) and amona — I assume that last character is ‘na’, as it’s half cut off.
Despite all evidence to the contrary, I do know Japanese, I just don’t know a lot of Japanese. VEACH YOU’RE TRYING TO KILL ME WITH YOUR MIND AREN’T YOU??

2. In my previous life, I was privy to an interview of a man who kept a woman’s corpse around for a few weeks for the purpose of gratifying himself with it’s oriface’s; he explained, calmly, that her immobility and constant availability were the primary reasons for his blantant disregard of her “best if used before” date. (With this attempt at dark-sarcasm in mind), what is Sidore Kuroneko’s most appealing raison d’etre?
First off, ew? Second, with Shi-chan, it’s not just the 24/7 sexual availability, but it’s just great that I have someone that doesn’t require my attention 24/7. If I’m in the midst of something, like homework or snaking a drain or whatnot, I don’t feel guilty if I’m not interacting with her, but I know she’s always there for me when I’m ready for her. Selfish? Maybe. But at least my reasons for our relationship are honest..
A fellow iDollator once equated Synthetiks with ‘adult teddybears’, in the respect that they provide comfort and well-being to their owners, among other things. I’d say that’s definitely the main reason I have Shi-chan. With her, I can be alone, but I’m never lonely.
Also, I like to think of myself and other iDollators as pioneers as well. When the day comes when Synthetiks — either inanimate RealDolls or full-fledged Androids and Gynoids — are as prevalent and commonplace as any other species, then I can sit back and say ‘yep, we were the first’.. Then I’d ask Sidore Mk VII for another backrub. 😉

3. Since the 23d parallel is actually located near the Tropic of Cancer, just below 49 US states, just above Hawaii, and I (and your devoted readers) are aware of your affination with the number; could you provide any interesting updates in which the number twenty-three has come to your attention?
Hrrm.. nothing’s really come up as regards twenty-three in quite a while. Well, nothing notable, anyway..
However, I can tell you that back when I doing my tour of duty as a specimen processor back in the late 90s, there was a certain test that we’d run, and it involved pouring off serum into a 4in tube, placing them into centrifuges, and spinning the living hell out of them for three minutes. Now, when you began working in the lab, you actually started out going round from cubicle to cubicle, collecting ready-to-be-tested tubes, and each tube had a numbered label for a different test. Before I was trained to process the specimens, I would collect all of those 4in tubes, which had the test number of 46. Collecting any of the tubes was boring in and of itself, as most of them had to go to different departments or whatever, but the tests for 46s was dead easy – gather, centrifuge, repeat. One day, something else had occurred to me: what’s half of 46? Dun dun DUUUUNN!!

4. Use the following four words in a paragraph, which makes any-kind of Davecat sense: conciliate, platitude, ribald, and picayune.
‘Attempting to talk his way out of a possible fight by using excessive charm, Roland’s ribald platitudes did quite a lot to conciliate the dockworker. Then, he bought him a copy of the Times Picayune.’
I’ve never actually used the word ‘picayune’ in my life before! Except in the context of the aforementioned newspaper. *looks up ‘picayune’* Ohhh!

5. (No matter how improbable) You are permitted to have the return of one inanimate item, which you owned previously, but you’ve since lost, sold, or given away. What is it? What does it’s loss mean to you? What would it’s return mean to you?
My youthful idealism. No, I’d have to say my ARP Axxe. It was the first analogue keyboard I bought, and in retrospect, I don’t think I appreciated it as much as I should’ve. Back then, I really wanted a Moog, but couldn’t find one, so I ‘settled’ for the Axxe. I got plenty of use out of it, mind, but as soon as I found a reasonably-priced Moog Rogue, I traded my Axxe for it. I love my Rogue cos of its deep mid and bass tones, but the appealing thing about the Axxe is that it had utterly screaming high-end, and if I had both of them, I think they’d work really well together.
I had one of the older versions as well, with the gold lettering and the wood cheeks. Sigh..

+ + + + + + + + + + + +

Now then, it’s your turn. Who wants me to interview them? You? Perhaps you, in the back? Or you — not you with the mullet, sit down — no, you over there with the duck hat; you want some questions, squire?
Just so you know, this all works better if you have a blog, otherwise I’ll have no idea what I should be asking you

The Official Interview Game Rules

1. If you want to participate, leave a comment below saying “interview me.”
2. I will respond by asking you five questions — each person’s will be different.
3. You will update your journal/blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview others in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Hit me squarely! Don’t be afraid

Random similar posts, for more timewasting:

it's a Link Rodeo (pronounced 'ro-DAY-oh') on August 20th, 2008

Let's hear it for Pedantry on December 16th, 2008

4 have spoken to “You’ve got questions, we’ve got… I dunno”

  1. Penda writes:

    Veach does not fuck around.

    Do me! Do me!

    Wait – ***shakes head***

    Interview me. I need to use my brain for something.

  2. SafeTinspector writes:

    Hey, interview me.

    Oh, and did you ever read the book Millenium? Had a woman with an android lover in it.
    The actual plot involved a future so heavily depopulated that they needed to kidnap people from airplanes about to crash in the past and switched the snatchees out with meat-puppets which were then allowed to crash back in the past.
    They made it into a crappy emasculated B-movie in the nineties.

  3. SafeTinspector writes:

    Dude, click on the little colored ball things, and it lets you in here.

    Why did I come into this comment thread again….oh, yeah.
    So you own a Moog? I’ve always wanted an analog synth. Even though I’m straight, Erasure gives me a woody because of their adherance to the warm retro-tech sound of analog.

  4. Davecat writes:

    Pfft. ‘Click on the balls’. Pervy insinuation aside, I shouldn’t have to do that. Blogger sometimes needs a swift kick in the balls, the way it fucks with my HTML so often.

    Yes, I own a Moog Rogue (it’s, err, back behind the Missus). It’s a fine keyboard, a fine keyboard. I think Moog Prodigies are a little easier to locate, but the pitch and mod wheels are so much fun.
    One day, I’m gonna buy me a Micromoog, and then I’ll be The Happiest Lad On The Face of the Earth…

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