Sunday, April 29, 2012

Random question from my profile...

So... The question was "The children are waiting! Tell them the story of the bald frog with the wig."

As it turns out, I was supposed to keep it under 400 characters... my answer was way too long, but it made me giggle. Especially because I typed it all up on my phone. I'm rather proud of how quickly and ridiculously it spewed out. So I went into GIMP and whipped up a couple shitty illustrations to add to it. And now it is here, presented in its entirety:

The Bald Frog

Once upon a time there was a frog who realized he had no hair. He looked at all his froggy friends and saw that none of them had any hair either. He looked at the people that fished at his pond, the deer and bunnies that drank at his pond, and saw that they all had hair. He began to grow jealous, thinking that the people and deer and bunnies thought frogs to be lesser, balder creatures.

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He fashioned a wig from the nearby vegetation. But the other frogs mocked him viciously.Removing the wig, he silently vowed to obliterate all haired life.

For if everyone's bald, no one is.

The frog sequestered himself inside his lilypad laboratory and began work on the weapon which would destroy all hair on earth.

He worked and worked.

He skipped meals and sleep. So much so, that he became emaciated, skeletal, with only the baleful fire behind his eyes to propel him forward through his dark task. And finally, one day, it was complete.

He had his weapon.

A virus that would target only haired creatures and subject them to a horrible, but quick death. The frog released the virus and then slept. The frog slept for three days, oblivious to the fact that his virus, his creation, had mutated. It was now killing all life indiscriminately.

When the frog finally awoke, unaffected by the plague, he was alone. His terrible victory was far more complete than he'd dreamt.

At long last, unable to cope with the boredom, the loneliness, and the rotting carcasses of insects he was forced to subsist on, the frog fashioned a rope from some dead grass and, looking out at the barren wasteland, hung himself from the dead branch of a plague-felled tree.

As he closed his eyes against the pressure stealing his breath and kicked his legs for the last time, all life passed forever from this world.

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Thursday, April 19, 2012

I lol'd

I was just looking at the list of gadgets here and saw a "twilight breaking dawn" quotes gadget. Now, I saw that movie, and granted, it was the rifftrax version, but still... There were, like, three lines of dialogue in that whole movie. Fucking nothing happened.  And no one said anything. It was just a lot of standing around looking miserable.

It could have been edited down to a 15 minute short and you'd have missed literally nothing.

Quotes??

internettedly wasting time

I like that I can see where people are viewing this blog from. There are views from all over the world. I think that's freaking awesome. I can waste the time of people anywhere in the world from this little keyboard of mine (assuming that I can trick them into reading this blog.)

So, Hello US people as well as anyone that's popped in from Thailand, Canada, Australia, Ukraine, Colombia, Germany, Russia, France (désolé pour mon français...), and the UK. I love the internet.

Where else can you find so many naked people?? Also, resources to endlessly learn things.

There. Those are the things I care about. Naked people and learning things.

Bises !
M.

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Le Défi Super

I started a new blog for a challenge in which I'm participating!

Expect it to remain mostly on topic!

Excitement!

Mark!

!!!

Friday, April 6, 2012

Language nerdery and my beautiful kid

J'aime ma fille. Elle est si mignonne.

Aujourd'hui, c'est son anniversaire. Aujourd'hui, elle a 5 ans. Elle aime apprendre un peu des mots français. Quelquefois, elle me demande comment dit-on un mot en français. Et quand je réponds, elle dit le plus souvent "Hrmm. That sounds complicated for me."

Je l'encourage à essayer de parler le mot ou la phrase en français, mais... elle est assez timide. Elle déteste avoir tort. Donc, je l'encourage, mais je ne force jamais la question.

I want learning things to be fun for her. And I love to encourage her interest in other languages. She's starting to actually grasp that we speak one language and other people speak other languages. At her age, it's a difficult concept to wrap her mind around... that the words we use to transmit meaning aren't the same words everyone uses. But she's getting there. She knows that Spanish exists. And French, obviously. And Japanese.

We were watching a cartoon that had been translated into English. I mentioned in passing that it had originally been in Japanese. "Daddy. I'm going to learn Japanese. I'm serious." I laughed, rather delighted, and told her I'll join her in that quest after my French is (much) better.

One mountain to climb is enough for now.

In any case, Norwegian is slated to be next. Don't know why. But I like it.

So, between the time she spends with her mom, getting grounded in music, and the time she spends here with me, et les langues...

Suffice it to say, we're totally raising a polyglot musician. =D

I leave you with the sure knowledge that she's better than the rest of us.

Luuuurve,
Mark

PS... Nothing, though, beats the time she ran up to me and snarled "Je t'aime Daddy ! Merci !" She kills me.