entombed in the shrine of zeroes and ones

Kim and i think that this sounds like your kind of church.

... but i'm pretty sure this isn't right.

This sign sits by the entrance to our community garden, below another one that states, in English, that people should not water their plots between 10:00 and 16:00 (because it's too warm and the water will evaporate instead of seep into the ground) and anyone caught doing so may have their plot taken back.  The text of this sign is probably meant to be Spanish, except for the bits that aren't.  It puzzles me every time i go there.

A firm of motivational speakers named Cantú & Hellyer.

Donner party kebab

Spider Jerusalem artichoke

For the non-francophone reader, the spray-painted part of the sign says, "Drive on the right."  Thanks to David Richerby.

Pneumismatics: the study or collection of souls as currency.

In Foster City, we have an automated espresso machine, and one of those near-boiling taps.  Here, the office has a guy fetch coffee and tea with milk and sugar, once in the morning, once in the afternoon.  I wonder how much it would cost us to get a coffee service going in the US; god knows it's much nicer than having to get up, walk a few steps to the kitchen, and make my own drink.

I haven't had a carbonated beverage since i left the US.  It's very weird.  I almost opened one from my room's minibar the other night, but i stuck with water.

I've been reading my boss's grilf's short fiction.  It would've easily fit in talk.bizarre's heyday.

If George Bernard Shaw thought that England and America were two countries separated by a common language, i wonder what he'd've said about India.  Because cultural borders here happen every time you walk over a hill or cross a river, English is the lingua franca de facto, but i'm having a hell of a time understanding most people, and i wonder if someone from Chandigarh has as much trouble understanding someone from Chennai if they're nominally speaking English.  I find myself asking people to repeat themselves almost every time, and i've had to just give up and nod like an idiot a few times.  It doesn't help when people make poor assumptions; i asked my driver how much his car cost, and he replied, "5 lack."  Leg?  "Lack."  Turns out a lakh is 100000 rupees.  How am i to know that?  And spelling here is an almost Elizabethan adventure; two examples are Lakshmi/Laxmi and sari/saree.

I've just about wrapped up work here, which guarantees i'll have Friday free for, i dunno, something.

2wanda needed to record a ten-minute conversation and transcribe it for one of her classes, down to every oral wart uttered.  She's always enjoyed listening to me and palecur chatter, so i suggested that she record us, which she did two Sundays ago (3.7 MB MP3).  It is, of course, immensely ironic now that my brother starts off asking me how things are at ProTrade.  I was surprised by how much more he knew about sports than i suspected.  I was also amused by how, well, funny i speak; besides the normal tongue-twister-type mistakes (i say "shelf" instead of "self" at one point), my vowels will occasionally wander towards the Spanish side, my diction becomes at times almost painfully crisp, and of course i think my voice just sounds strange and alien.  I tried mimicking how i think my recording sounded, and it sounded close enough to me, but Kim thought i was way off.