Mylcoti's Xanga

A New Book

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 12:43:40 GMT

Friends,

My blogging has been sparse on here, and I'm seriously considering finding a different blogging venue, something where people who aren't subscribers can leave comments too. Interesting possibility, we'll see. I think most of you have jumped ship on Xanga anyway.

So, the latest news. Since February, I've been working on a historical fiction novel called "The Go-Slinger," an idea that I pitched to a publishing company that deals in textbooks about the board game go. I've been asked to go ahead and write the book, and we'll see where that takes us. I'm on the seventh chapter already, with the publishers currently looking over the first six. I'm trying not to be too hopeful, as the project is not officially greenlighted, but this may be my chance to get into the writing market! Lots of prayers, folks.

Pax Christi,

David

Xanga + Facebook = FUN

Sun, 13 Jan 2008 01:01:55 GMT

Hey folks!

It's true... I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. I just have been rather busy lately, with school, my own personal studies, and other things and haven't really updated my Xanga as much as I should have. I invite those of you who have Facebook to certainly come looking for me on there, because I update it more than I do Xanga.

I will say this, I do love the cross-compatibility between the two mediums, as I can blog on here and it uploads within a half hour or so to my Facebook. I'm glad for that, because I really don't have the time to mess with both of these wonderful little toys, but I definitely want to make sure that no one is left out. So, I blog on here, and let Facebook do the rest of the work for me.

So, a student recently seemed surprised that I blog. Yes, Virginia, teachers do have lives outside of the classroom. In fact, our lives are so interesting outside of the classroom, that this is the only part of this blog today that I am devoting to students. So there.

I added the following quote to my Facebook today:
Hitotsu no gengo wa juubun de wa nai.
It means, "One language is never enough." It comes courtesy of Omniglot, one of the neater websites online.
(Update: I'm mad at Xanga, as it doesn't have Japanese Language support.)

I couldn't agree more. I have embarked on further language studies, trying to add Japanese to my language repertoire. I already speak/read French, and have a pretty decent grasp of basic Latin. (Enough to follow the Mass on TV.) I putter occasionally with German, as I used to speak it a very long time ago (Danke Schöen, Frau Burris...), and on a good day I can keep up with Middle English well enough to read Chaucer, especially if some of the more difficult words are glossed at the bottom of the page. So, I guess I'm rather multilingual.

What an amazing world that we live in, when all of these amazing language resources are available to us.

Here are a couple good links for anyone interested in taking up Japanese:
Japanese Language and Culture Site
The Kanji Site JPLT stuff with 4,3, and 2 level Kanji.
Jonathan Waller Filled with great resources on Japanese, as well as a Japanese TEXT EDITOR that lets you written in Hirigana, Katakana, and KANJI. Yes... you can write in Kanji, if you know what you are doing. I've already written an e-mail to a long-lost friend of mine in Japanese Kanji. I look forward to her response. (She does speak Japanese fluently, btw. She teaches it in China.)

Well, I think that'll do it for me for the day. I promise I will start blogging on here more often though. I'm starting to feel up to writing again. I had a major brain block on all writing, so to speak, after the enormous writing jag that I had back in October. I wrote more than 200 pages on my book Intelligence Quotient in about a month, and then my muse shut down from utter exhaustion. Oh well, as soon as it wakes back up, I'll be back in business! In the meantime, I'll keep up my studies.

Sayonara,

David

The Response to Liberal Episcopalianism

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 03:15:41 GMT

"We will continue to stand firm for the unchanging truth of the Holy Scriptures and the redeeming Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, whatever the costs."

-- The Rt. Rev. Jack Leo Iker Bishop of Fort Worth in his Letter to ++Katherine Jefferts Schori

David (a Conservative American Anglican)

Midterms... bye-bye! Writing... welcome back!

Tue, 30 Oct 2007 19:38:00 GMT

So, after midterms are over and done with, and I'm glad. I mean thoroughly glad that they are done with. You see, here we do these silly six week grading periods, three for an 18 week semester, which means we are doing grades of some variety every THREE WEEKS!!! It's insane, but that's what they do. I miss the old 9 week grading periods of high school, when I was at Point.

Anyhoo... now that I am finished with that, I can move on to bigger and better things, like working on Intelligence Quotient. I finally got to work on it during planning today, and I intend to write more this evening. I've missed getting to write during these past few days, but I have written about 60 single spaced pages in the past month. That's a fair bit of writing. If I keep this pace up, I should be a good ways through the book, if not done by Spring. In the meantime, I'll keep sending off stuff about my books to various publishing houses.

Here's hoping!

David

Congratulations are in Order

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 00:04:51 GMT

... to KIMI RAIKKONEN on this long-awaited F1 World Championship win! HUZZAH!

David

Billy Joel

Mon, 03 Sep 2007 21:49:50 GMT

You know the good ole days weren't always good
And tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems
Now I told you my reasons for the whole revival
Now I'm going outside to have an ice cold beer in the shade
Oh, I'm going to listen to my 45's
Ain't it wonderful to be alive
When the rock 'n' roll plays, yeah
When the memory stays, yeah
I'm keeping the faith

Latina non est mortuus lingua

Mon, 13 Aug 2007 18:46:17 GMT

Latina aeterna est!

(Trans: Latin is not a dead language... Latin is ETERNAL!)

I may have mentioned in this forum that I have taken up the study of the Latin language. It's presence in my life has truly enriched my day-to-day experience as I delve deeper into my study. So, people ask me, "Why do you study Latin?" Because not only was it the foundation of the spread of the Church, and was the language of the first universal translation of the Bible (St. Jerome's Biblia Sacra Vulgata), but it has returned to the forefront as being an alternative method of international communication in this modern informational age.

I thought I would share something with you that I found, that shows the modern importance of Latin. Most of us are at least aware of what is going on in Darfur. Barbara Haas is an author for Der Spiegel's Politik section. Her original article in German is here. For the benefit of Latin scholars worldwide, her article has been translated into the language from the original German.

Here is a sample:
IN DARFURIÂ IURA HUMANA VIOLARI

Dies, quo Ismaël in ignem coniectus est

Scripsit Barbara Hans, in Latinum convertit Nicolaus Groß

Sclopetationes homicidiales, constuprationes, mutilationes: Animo fingi non potest, quanta sit miseria hominum Darfuriensium. Organisationes adiutrices protocollis nunc describunt fortunam illorum horribilem. Inde apparet: Etiam post fugam viri mulieresque nondum sunt securi.

Hammaburgo ex urbe - Ismael habuit sex annos, cum venirent Zanzavîdi. Qui venêrunt equis et camelis vecti, fuerunt armati. Ismael coactus est, ut aspectaret, quomodo illi sclopetis necarent patrem suum; mater eius facinora atrocissima non passa paulo post mortua est. Mense ieiunii islamico finito venerunt etiam exercitûs Sudaniani machoplana (id est aeroplana pugnatoria). Quae viculum in Sudaniâ occidentali situm quamvis humiliter tranvolarent, nullas bombas in eundem deiecêrunt. Avus Ismaelis dicit causam huius continentiae esse simplicem: „Alioquin Zinzavidi non iam potuissent vicum diripere". Sed potuêrunt. Zanzavîdi omnia secum abstulêrunt, quibus potuêrunt uti: victualia, boves, asinos, mulieres iuveniles...

The rest can be read at here, located on the Ephemeris News website. The original German article is HERE.

EPHEMERIS is a Latin-Language only news site that has been operating for a few years now. I've started reading as part of my practice in the language. I hope to find more wonderful resources like this popping up as time moves on and I get better with the language.

Enjoy!

Salve,

David

A Grape-Update

Sat, 04 Aug 2007 23:39:55 GMT

Here's a new picture of my grapes! Vinnie is on my left (white grape) and Scarlett (red grape) is on my right. They are growing FAST!!!

Have a great day!

David

Ethan Haas was...

Thu, 02 Aug 2007 13:01:36 GMT

A WASTE OF MY TIME!!!

Okay, so there was this online game "Ethan Haas was Right" that was an Alternate Reality Game (ARG) with elaborate clues, hidden websites strewn throughout the web, and yes even messages in English that had been transliterated into the SANSKRIT ALPHABET. I thought this was going to be amazing, whatever it was. There were two sites, Ethan Haas was Right and Ethan Haas was Wrong, and these pages sent you on this Internetwide goose-chase concerning the mysterious Ethan Haas, a man named Van Mantra, and an opposing figure named Mezin Source. This was looking to be the most amazing media event of the year. There was huge speculation of whether or not J.J. Abram's untitled Cloverfield movie project was involved somehow, or if this was going to be the next big video game: (read BIGGER THAN WARCRAFT).

Alas... it did not happen. This is how the stupidity went down.

Van Mantra said in his final video communication that he was going to go underground until August 1st, 2007, when it would hopefully all be revealed. Thousands of fans were chewing at the bit, waiting for August 1st, then nothing happened.

Can I stress more that nothing happened??? They dropped the ball. The next piece wasn't ready. Immediately, more ideas ran across the board about how Van Mantra may have been captured, like he was afraid would happen. People dogged the "Wrong" site for more information, refreshing constantly waiting for the message from Mezin Source that something had happened to Van Mantra. No message there either. What was going on?

Then... 2:45 AM on August 2nd. A symbol appears on the blog with the following message

Our message has been heard! The followers of Van Mantra and
Ethan Haas have been scattered to the wind! We are now millions
of united voices, driven towards the(?) future.

The time is now, our brothers and sisters, the sign you have been
waiting for is here...

alphaomegathegame.com

At which moment, the entire ARG gaming world breathed a collective "huh?"

Yup... as it turns out, this linked you to a website that barely exists. The bulk of the links don't work. What you can get out of the deal, and if you've been following this very closely, it does indeed have to do with a TABLE TOP ROLE PLAYING GAME (i.e. Dungeons and Dragons, people sitting around with dice and little paper cards) called Alpha-Omega. In the first few hours after the stunning revelation by Van Mantra and Mezin Source, the "Wrong" site has been pummeled with.... you guessed it... HATE MAIL. So many people wasted this much time for a dice game that they'll never play in a million years? No one plays these things anymore folks. If it had been a new video game, I probably would have sprinted to Wal*Mart to pick it up, and I rarely have time anymore to play videos games.

Oh well, so the hype is over. Time has been wasted. Ethan Haas... was a poser.

Later,

David

Continued planting

Wed, 18 Jul 2007 00:26:39 GMT

Good evening folks:

The recent additions of plant life to our yard have continued. Monica got a shepherd's crook and two hanging plants for the yard, an angelonia and an impatien. The Angelonia is purple, white, and pink, and the impatien is a deep pink. In the meantime, I planted in a small pot a red lily. Three, actually. They came in one planter and I put the entire thing in a pot. It looks really nice, and will brighten up the yard.

We've had a lot of fun putting these little guys out. When Monica and I finally get out own house, I'm planning on landscaping the backyard with my own little backyard fruit orchard so-to-speak. We are talking about raising grapes, strawberries, blackberries, and whatnot. And I would love to have a fig tree, harkening back to a prior post concerning Micah 4:4. Besides, I really really like figs.

Well, I'm going to relax a little with some Babylon 5. Recently I bought the entire series on DVD from Amazon. Wish I had bought it from Sam's Club though... they had a great deal on it. B5... HERE I COME!

David