LeEMS Bean

Analyze your writing style: I Write Like

Wed, 4 Aug 2010 15:27:47 -0500

Ok people. Here I am checking in just often enough that they don't delete my account...Oh wait, my steady payments probably do that. Well, I finally got to looking at things besides work and my own projects and I saw this handy/funny/interesting/whatever little analysis tool for telling you which writer you write like. Since we all love it when other people, or logarithms, tell us about us, I decided it wouldn't be in the public's best interest not to share.

So go to I Write Like: http://iwl.me/ and find out who you write like. Judging from one of the blog entries on this here very blog. I write like Ursula K. Le Guin. I have to admit I have never read her work, but I like her name. It's snazzy.

St Trinian's 2

Thu, 3 Jun 2010 12:47:49 -0500

So, have I talked about St. Trinian's? Oh yeah, 'o 'course I did. Well, I recently found out about the sequel and then recently found out that it was just recently released in DVD form across the pond, and then I recently received my PAL, region 2 copy in the mail. I don't buy many movies sight unseen, but I couldn't help myself, and no, I wasn't disappointed. 2 is just as fun and frivolous as the first. Yay!

language randomness

Thu, 3 Jun 2010 12:40:02 -0500

Did you ever wonder about these? - 'cause I have had to look it up repeatedly...

i.e.

"I.e." stands simply for "that is," which written out fully in Latin is 'id est'. "I.e." is used in place of "in other words," or "it/that is." It specifies or makes more clear.

e.g.

"E.g." means "for example" and comes from the Latin expression exempli gratia, "for the sake of an example," with the noun exemplum in the genitive (possessive case) to go with gratia in the ablative (prepositional case). "E.g." is used in expressions similar to "including," when you are not intending to list everything that is being discussed.

Mail Me Art Two!

Mon, 4 Jan 2010 13:01:36 -0500

I just remembered to check to see if my envelopes made it to Mail Me Art Two, and if you look see, you'll see that they did. That's what I saw anyway. I was lucky enough to be included among some fabulous artists in the first book that this project generated, and honestly, I had never considered dressing up my envelopes until this project, so I'm thankful for the enlightening. You'll see there, the second envelope is Levi Levi and his assistant--he's gone all international and stuff --guess I better get back to drawing him.

Blast from the Past

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 10:52:36 -0500

More past than I am actually.

"Doesn't
Kiss you
Like she useter?
Perhaps she's seen
A smoother rooster!!
Burma-Shave"

More slogans here. Why can't advertising be this comfortably corny today?

Compulsion

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 14:03:14 -0500

I had a irresistible desire to hear this quote from the movie Tombstone, and I discovered that the internet has become THE COOLEST THING EVER! I went searching, but honestly didn't think I'd find a cute, embeddable little snippet of exactly the phrase I wanted to hear.

Oh yeah, I'm still here.

Somebody just walked over your grave sound bite Tombstone sound bites

Reading dictionaries

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 09:01:13 -0500

I'm still trying my best to Japonese but, just like there is no time to write--I'm sure you noticed--there is very little time to study.

Anyway, I was digging around in Denshi Jisho (awesome Japanese online dictionary) to find all the different ways to say but--you know, like however, although, yet, in spite of-- and I came across some proverb type entries. This one really stuck with me. I mean, I suppose I like the meaning behind 'you can't judge a book by its cover' but the phrase has been so over-used, I'm kind of tired of it. So when our language gets too cliched, lets move on!

提灯に釣り鐘

(ちょうちんにつりがね) means : paper lanterns and temple bells (esp. as an example of two things looking similar on the outside, but of a completely different nature); you can't judge a book by its cover. I especially like how the whole proverb has boiled down to a grouping of two nouns unlike most of ours that are still doled out in complete sentences.

Word Worms -- a long overdue post

Fri, 9 Oct 2009 09:01:51 -0500

A little while ago I read someone else's post about Word Worms and wanted to help spread the word. Its been so long that I cannot properly attribute the credit to the wonderful person who clued me in. And I'm sorry about that, but it won't stop me from talking up this awesome blog/project. Word Worms remakes old public domain videos into educational music videos for original songs. I love story telling songs, I love the kookiness of old cartoons, and I love a good idea so of course I love Word Worms. Now you can love it too!

The Po from Word Worms on Vimeo.

Ali Baba from Word Worms on Vimeo.

fun in 7-11: bot water

Wed, 7 Oct 2009 12:31:31 -0500

So, 7-11 is becoming more and more interesting. Not only do they have sangria and tamarind sodas, they have domokun and these weirdo Bot Waters. I haven't been all that big on flavor spiked waters because most of them trade on being calorie free and achieve it by using fake sugars--which are most definitely not my bag. Bot water uses real stuff, and keeps the calorie count low. The orange was tastey--kind of like gatorade. These would be great for all those freaky people who can't stand the taste of plane water, seriously.

Carefree -- excuse me, what?

Thu, 8 Oct 2009 06:10:51 -0500

There was a time when black and white movies bothered me for no other reason than being devoid of color. I felt horrible about it because I knew there were some awesome stories out there that I was missing out on because of my strange aversion to black and white. I have since gotten over that and, with the help of TCM, have been plumbing the depths of film history to find all the gems that I was born too late to catch -- be they black and white or color.

It's hard to grow up when I did and not know of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, but I realized a while back that I hadn't actually seen very many of their movies. Enter Carefree, the story of a desperate man who talks his psychiatrist friend into analyzing his girl to figure out why she won't marry him.

Carefree is yet another old movie starring well known screen legends that steps merrily over the line of what is good and what is just plain WRONG! I worry about all of Dr. Tony Flagg's (Fred Astaire) patients. Not only does he make chauvinistic and stereotypical prejudgments but he does it on a tape machine that he leaves in his office with un-attended patients. Not only does he use local anesthetics to put patients in dream like states he leaves them un-attended so that they might wander out of the building unsupervised and trot through traffic with the goal of shattering glass on a transport truck. And even though he seems to being doing his best to romance his patient outside of the office with the precept that it is for her treatment, he doesn't realize that he has fallen just as in love with her as she him.

This brings us to the greatest psychiatric insult in the film--blatant and idiotic hypnotic suggestion. Although I have read that it's not all that unusual for patients to fall in love with their doctors--called transference, I think--I have never had offered to me the solution of simply implanting an assertion of hate into a patients brain to compensate for their love. I was aghast. I was agog. I was befuddled. I was watching as, all of a sudden, the psychiatrist who didn't know himself finally realizes that he reciprocates the love of the patient he just hypno-suggested his way out of. Bring on the crazy antics to get her unconscious once again so that he may remove his meddling.

I can't say any more. I am at a loss. This was worse than revisiting all those Elvis movies and discovering how often he played a complete jerk. But it wasn't quite as bad as Fred Astaire in blackface.