Sleeeeeep.

Less than three hours of sleep last night, and less than an hour of sleep tonight. My alarm goes off in an hour. Yaarg.

I'm going to take the 6:07 AM train from Burlington, I think. It's final stop is Union Station, so I can sleep all the way there without danger of waking up in Oshawa. After pausing for a gallon of coffee, this would get me into work about 7:30ish, allowing me to leave the office early.

I'm tempted to get on the next convenient train, even, the 5:13 AM. We'll see.

In more pleasant news, I had lunch yesterday with melskunk, who was as strange and clever as ever.

Flood and Fog: Warhammer Reports

doc_mystery has provided a two-part write up of our most recent Warhammer RPG session -
Flood and Fog: Part One
Flood and Fog Part Two

Part Two has a haunted sandwich.

Thus, Kōrin...

In idle moments over the last few days I've been writing English narration for a Japanese documentary. I'm rewriting the literally translated Japanese into native English. At times, the literal translation is quite perplexing and confusing.

Other times, the clunky translation has a telegraphic poetry that seems to enhance the meaning of the words. Like so:

"To paint as the men of power loved, that was what the Kano school chose.

Thus, Kōrin parted from the Kano school's way of life.

Thus, setting the talent of Kōrin free."

I could rewrite this passage in a way that expresses the same idea with greater clarity, but I wouldn't like it as much.

Also, can't you just imagine Mako Iwamatsu reading that out loud?

"Between the time the oceans brought the Gaijin and the rise of the House of Tokugawa, there was an age undreamed of. And unto this, Kōrin..."

*nerd swoon*

Trek along with the Common People!

normanrafferty pointed me to this, which may just be the greatest thing I've seen on the Internet in the last month. Or two!

Pyat is totally high tech!

I bought a GPS today, for use when we get to Los Angeles next week, for the great 2008 summerfields visit. I had a $35 voucher for Canadian Tire, and renting a GPS with the car for a week was almost as expensive as buying a unit.

I took it out of the box in the parking lot of Canadian Tire, and turned it on. It had an 80% charge and in under a minute, it was giving me directions to my house.

I'm pleased. :)

We're renting a Hyundai Accent, because the cost of renting child seats magically makes even the Economy car rental about $100 more expensive than renting a full-size or SUV. Ah well. There's something sort of... cyberpunk? I dunno. Something... about a large Canadian noodling around Los Angeles and the California coast in a tiny little Korean car.

I intend to visit the Bradbury Building, and maybe drive past the former Ackermansion. I may look up the address where the Slan Shack relocated, if I have time! Alternately, I might grab some Raymond Chandler detective novels and see if I can locate any landmarks.