Here's another meme floating around my flist.

One word to describe me ... just one single word. Leave it in my comments. Then post this message on your journal and see how many strange and interesting things people say about you...

In other news, I'm finally picking up AncientScripts again. Currently I'm working on creating a font that I'd be using for a page on Nabataean. I'm putting the Tangut page on the back burner because (a) very little research material is available to me despite being a pretty well deciphered writing system, and (b) it's a gigantic logographic script like Chinese with at least 6,000 characters. Not that I'm going to learn every one of them, but I'm still going to have to understand it enough to present it without simply regurgitating the source material.

And finally, music Friday. The artist is called Ronald Roybal. He is a Native American flute and Spanish guitar player. We listened to him perform during a dinner in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It was really really lovely, and we bought his CD on the spot.

Artist: Ronald Roybal
Song: Spider Woman
Album: Visions of the Fourth World
Website: http://www.roybal.bigstep.com/

Since loads of people on my flist is doing this meme, I'd figure I'd do it too. 

( Meme about me... )

I shouldn't be doing this but I needed a distraction from work, especially when I have 36 windows opened on my desktop.

Gakked from pretty much everybody on the flist.


Free-IQTest.net - Free IQ Test

I really do think I'm a Cylon. The numeric sequences made perfect sense to me.

See my new icon? yaaronet  made it for naiad8  and me. It's lovely innit?

On the bad side, right now my head is ready to explode. I've had a headache that won't go away despite a couple of Advils. Since it started pretty promptly after lunch I'm wondering if the mystery hockey-puck-like veal that I ate had MSG in it. I get pretty bad headaches from MSG so that's why lunch is a suspect, but I've been to this place countless times and never had anything like this so I have no clue what's going on.

Anyway, since I can't concentrate, I'll just do the "Six Happy Memes" since I got tagged by my dear naiad8.

The rules are easy, just post 6 things that recently made you happy! Then tag 6 people and force ask them to post this meme on their LJs. Because it is good. Everyone needs a little happiness once in a while.

1. Spending time with my wife
2. A big "Daddy's home!" from Alex
3. Cooking up a storm
4. Computer programming (I'm not a geek, I'm a Cylon)
5. Playing with my dog Ruffian
6. Rampant consumption of potato chips

Since my flist is still way too small for my liking I'm only going to tag 4 people: infrogmation, la_azteca, blackthornhiei, and luke_vilent.

Cor blimey, I taste like Tea. I am a subtle flavour, quiet and polite, gentle, almost ambient. My presence in crowds will often go unnoticed. Best not to spill me on your clothes though, I can leave a nasty stain. What Flavour Are You?

Err...who wrote this meme? Unless you drink the lowest quality stuff like Lipton, tea isn't exactly "ambient". Even the greenest of green teas have tons of flavor. I should send some Lapsang Souchong or that ginger-laden wake-up-it's-an-Indian-wedding chai I had in Texas to this meme's creator.

In other news, we had a birthday in the office today. So for lunch we went to Benihana. Christine went along too, because she's been craving Benihana for months now. We all had a good time, and Christine got to pass out her naughty moocards which went over really well with the office folks despite a lack of alcohol. I do have the coolest coworkers in the world.

And for October songs, here's something from my favorite band, Dream Theater. The song is called Fatal Tragedy and it is off their 1999 album Scenes from a Memory. It's got this slight but cool Queen vibe. And at just under 7 minutes it's one of their shorter songs. But overall it's really representative of Dream Theater's sound which combines complex music, great vocals, and crazy instrumental sections.

Since everybody's doing it, here's the etymology of my names.

English Given Name: Lawrence, Laurentius in Latin
Language: Latin
Etymology: person from Laurentum, a town in Latium (modern Lazio) just south of Rome named after the laurel tree.

Family Name: Lo (盧) in Cantonese, Lu in Mandarin
Language: Chinese
Etymology: meaning "black", 167th most common name in China. It is named after county Lu in Shandong Province in Northern China. History has it that a man named Jiang Ziya (later Jiang Taigong, or Grand Duke Jiang) became an adviser to King Wen of Zhou and helped overthrow the Shang dynasty in 1122 BC. Nine generations later one of his descendants was given the Lu county in Shandong as his fiefdom, and he took the name of his land to be his surname. Thousands of years later during the Mongol invasion of the 11th century AD massive migration from Northern China brought the Lu family name to the South, making Lu or Lo one of the most prevalent family name in Guangdong province in Southern China.

Chinese Given Name: Kwok Leung (國樑) in Cantonese, Guo Liang in Mandarin
Language: Chinese
Etymology: Chinese given names are made up from words, so they don't have an etymology but rather a meaning.  My name is a tad bizarre.  My dad was patriotic and my name consists of 國 "country", and 樑 "beam".  The metaphor is that if the country is a house then I'd be a supporting beam of it.  Yeah, whatever...

Gakked this from grownuphermione :

You Belong in Paris

You enjoy all that life has to offer, and you can appreciate the fine tastes and sites of Paris. You're the perfect person to wander the streets of Paris aimlessly, enjoying architecture and a crepe.

This is absolutely dead-on. I love Paris. We spent an all-too-short week there in 2001, staying in an apartment on Île St-Louis above a bakery. We got woken up every morning by raisin bread being baked, and by the time we got downstairs the baguettes were fresh and steaming.

Ah...the memories. Someday we'll go back. I wonder if Alex will like it.

Whew, it's been a tough week, both at work and on the home front.  The weekend is coming up and I'm hoping I'll get to relax some.  Just a little would be nice.  But it's probably not going to be case, since I got a ton of stuff to do, Christine is under the weather, and different relatives are  coming on both Saturday and Sunday.

Anyway, kind of excited that the FIFA Women's World Cup Soccer (Football to the rest of the world) is entering its quarter finals.  Unlike the men's team, the USA team is one of the best in the world.  Tomorrow we'll go up against England.  While by history the USA is better than England, it should be an exciting game because apparently England is really strong this year while the USA is not putting in 100% for some reason.  The only bummer is that it's 5am Pacific time, which means I'll have to record it and watch it when Alex has gone to sleep on Saturday night.  I'll just have to make sure to not see the score during the day.

Another thing on TV that both Christine and I have been following is Top Chef.  I know that harrysmom  watches it.  Anybody else likes it?

And finally, just for heck, here's the letter meme that's been floating around my flist:

*Use the 1st letter of your name to answer each of the following...

*They have to be real places, names, things...nothing made up!

*Try to use different answers if the person in front of you had the same
1st initial. You CAN'T use your name for the boy/girl name question. (It is harder than you think.)

Blah...

Tonight was one of those planned, quasi-emergencies at my company that supposedly fit neatly into one of those "scheduled maintenance window".  Unfortunately, we've already stepped out the window and we're free-falling.

The worst thing is that we're busy waiting.  A lot of nailbiting over a server taking its time checking its disks.  Of course, it's a few terabytes (that's 1,000 gigabytes), but still...

I just started something else that hopefully will get us back on our feet faster.  But it's going to require a lot of manual labor.  It's not going to be pretty. 

So, while I'm waiting, I'm doing this meme: 

1. Leave me a comment saying anything random, like your favorite lyric to your current favorite song. Or your favorite kind of sandwich. Something random. Whatever you like.
2. I respond by asking you five personal questions so I can get to know you better.
3. You WILL update your LJ with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and offer to ask someone else in the post.
5. When others comment asking to be asked, you will ask them five questions.

Answers for blackthornhiei:

It's Monday again and I've been staring at Java code all morning without even typing a single semicolon. Yikes. Must be Mondayitis again.

So instead I'll just do this meme that's been floating around:

1. My username is _____ because ____.
2. My journal is titled ____ because ____.
3. My subtitle is ____ because ____.
4. My friends page is called ____ because ____.
5. My default userpic is ____ because ____.

1. ancientscripts. That's the name of my website, http://www.ancientscripts.com, which is a big hobby of mine.  I've been maintaining it one and off for more than 10 years now.  It's all about ancient and modern writing systems.  We take our ability to write for granted but it was in fact an amazing achievement of our ancestors, right up there with fire and agriculture.  I am fascinated by different systems evolve and work, and how different people have come up with writing systems independently in different parts of the world (Middle East, China, and Mesoamerica) or created new ones simply by hearing of the concept of writing.  Writing must be hard-wired into the brain, a logical merger of our need to pass knowledge down and our desire to draw. 

I'm also very happy that many students from elementary school to college have emailed me telling me how the site has really helped them in their class and provided source material that were otherwise difficult to find.  I actually really enjoy teaching from the few years being a teaching assistant, and I'm absolutely delighted that I get to do the same even at long distance. 

2. it's also ancient scripts.  Boring.  See #1

3. past << present << future.  I like the ancient world, I like the present (despite all the crap that's going on), and I dream about what the future holds.  My journal combines all three, but I just don't want commas to link them together.  Instead I do some stupid computer geek thing which is to use the left shift operator <<, but as it is overloaded in C++ for output (like in cout << "a" << "b" << "c" which displays "abc") so it's like past, present, and future displayed together. 

4. friends page is still friends.  I know, boring again.  Maybe I'll think of something cool later on.

5. the rabbit scribe.  Not only has it's been the emblem for www.ancientscripts.com from the beginning but it's also a character from one of my favorite Maya vases.  The original can be seen at http://research.famsi.org/kerrmaya_hires.php?vase=511.  It depict scenes from the royal court of the old god of the underworld, including court ladies gossiping and pouring chocolate, the old god flirting with another lady, and even prisoner execution!  Under everybody is the rabbit god, diligently recording the events happening in the court.  I have seen this vase in person in an exhibit and it struck me just how amazing the ancient scribe/painter must have been to produce such an amazing piece of art work. 

This has been bouncing around the flist so here's mine:

( LJ weirdness pie chart )

It's pretty accurate, actually. I'm weird on a scale of 15 out of 27. Just a little bit above average. I think that reflects who I am pretty well.

I got tagged...apparently somebody likes me.

Guilt	What is yours?	Explain yourself
Culinary:	Potato chips	I can't stop inhaling them
Literary:	The Belgariad	Predictable and completely ripped off from Lord of the Rings, but it's cute and cheesy and very tongue-in-cheek
Audiovisual:	Simone Simons	Purrdy redheaded heavy metal chick with a good voice...now if only her band doesn't suck...
Musical:	Dream Theater	Over-the-top musical ubergeniuses that can play 64th notes at 200bpm in polyrhythm before breakfast
Celebrity:	Steve Jobs	I want a reality distortion field too!

Now I tag:-

infrogmation  la_azteca  blackthornhiei  and luke_vilent 

This travel meme that's been going around makes me realize that there are many places I haven't been.  Fortunately, most of them aren't on this list.

Of the places on this list, I'd want to visit DC, Niagara Falls, India (but not necessary Taj Mahal), Italy, Egypt, England, and China.  And back to France of course.  But certainly not the amusement parks if I can help it.  Given what Alex likes, chances he'll just want to ride REAL trains rather than fake ones in Disney or whatever.

 

Gawked from la_azteca.  What European nationality am I?  Apparently I'm Belgian. 

I do love Belgian fries...

You scored as Belgian. Belgian 88% Turkish 75% Danish 63% German 63% Italian 63% Swiss 50% Irish 38% Spanish 38% British 38% Dutch 25% French 13% Polish 13% Molvanian 0% Russian 0% Which European nationality should you have created with QuizFarm.com

I'm taking the next two days off work so I have a huge load to dive through (especially since there is a release next Monday), but my mind wanders and meanders and I just can't concentrate.  This meme has been circulating around flist so I'd figure what the hey I'm do it too just to get my mind into some semblance of order.  Didn't help, really...

This meme is making rounds in my flist so I'd figure I'd go for it. 

It's Monday and I'm forcing myself to work because I really can't concentrate.  I ache all over after doing lots of manual labor over the weekend.  All I want to do is sleep.  So in the mean time I'm going to shelf my brain and do the movie meme.  Just so you know what a geek I am. 

( Sorry...this should've been a cut...now it is )

Here's my "Soundtrack of My Life" meme infected from my lovely wife naiad8:

Here's how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button

Opening Credits: "Vermicide" by The Mars Volta (killing worms???)

Waking Up: "Vicarious" by Tool (what a dream!)

First Day At School: "Closure" by Opeth (yes!)

Falling In Love: "Heal Me" by Fates Warning (nice)

Fight Song: "Slightly Out of Reach" by James LaBrie (good tactic in a fight)

Breaking Up: "Eriatarka" by The Mars Volta (non-sensical words are good for breaking up)

Prom: "Amanecer Andino" by Grupo Aymara ("Andean Dawn"...it's dawn already?)

Life: "Money" by Pink Floyd covered by Dream Theater (hahahah, sad but true)

Making Babies: "The Baying of the Hounds" by Opeth (that's some kinky baby-making)

Mental Breakdown: "The Darkside of Aquarius" by Bruce Dickinson (too much drugs?)

Driving: "Veinte Años" by Buena Vista Social Club (that's one commute from hell)

Flashback: "Ticks and Leeches" by Tool (what drug was that?!??!)

Getting back together: "The Great Gig in the Sky" by Pink Floyd covered by Dream Theater (go ask Roger Waters what that means)

Wedding: "Reflections" by Gordion Knot (kinda fits)

Birth of Child: "Soul Society" by Kamelot (this song has toddlers giggling in it)

Final Battle: "The One Who Help To Set the Sun" by Dream Theater (getting scifi-ish here)

Death Scene: "Reflection" by Tool (really fits)

Funeral Song: "Temples of Gold" by Kamelot (pagan afterlife here I go)

End Credits: "Lá Vem a Baiana" by Jussara Silveira (strangely interesting, as it translates "here comes the Bahian", Bahia is a region in Brazil and it translates as "bay", so in a way that's where I'm from too (San Francisco Bay Area))