Yep, more cat photos. Because… cat photos! Also, why wouldn’t I show you a picture of Arwen sitting on June? Exactly. Hence, cat photos.
More Cats
Raw Dialogue
This story was an exercise in revealing character through dialogue. The lack of context is intentional, so I’m not going to add any; instead I’m just going to let you enjoy it as it is, and interpret it as you will.
“Look at the mountains! I wish we could work out here, instead of inside. Man, that overlook never gets old.”
“You’ll see it again soon, Sam.”
“I know. I just can’t believe management is giving us so much time off!”
“Enjoy it while it lasts, eh? Good night, and safe travels!”
“Good night, Jack. I’ll see you in a few weeks!”
“Jack! There you are!”
“Kristin.”
“This view really is brilliant, you know.”
“It’s been there for years.”
“I know. I suppose I’m just delaying the inevitable.”
“Don’t bother.”
“I guess this is goodbye, then?”
“Goodbye.”
“You know that I have to go, right?”
“I know you’ve convinced yourself of that.”
“What would I do if I were to stay here, Jack? Spend the rest of my days doing mindless, joyless work? And the world would be none the better for it. I would be none the better for it.”
“It could be, you could be! You’re one of the best of us and you’re throwing it away!”
“It doesn’t help anything to stay! I don’t even have to think when I’m working, I just act! How is that going to help me improve? I would be wasting so much time and potential to stay here! And … and I can’t do that Jack, you know I can’t. You said it yourself, I’m good at this. Imagine how much I could do out there! How many people I could help! This isn’t just my escape, it’s my moral obligation. I have to go.”
“You keep telling yourself that.”
“Jack…”
“You want to go live a glorious, adventure-filled life, you go and do that! We’ll be here going through the standard channels. We all know the only thing you ever liked about this place was the view anyways.”
“You know full well that’s not the case. The only reason I’ve stuck around this long is because I didn’t want to say goodbye.”
“Got over that, did you?”
“Not really. But I accepted that I had to. For the closure.”
“Good for you.”
“So much for that… well, I have to leave, closure or no. Maybe I’ll see you around sometime, Jack. I hope that by then we’ll be on better terms.”
“Goodbye, Kristin.”
“Goodbye, Jack.”
Chrononauts — But Bigger
I’ve already written about Chrononauts — a fun game of time travel, artifact collection, and screwing with timelines. But now, I’d like to introduce you to ÜberChrononauts: the ambitious combination of original Chrononauts with its prequel, Early American Chrononauts. In other words, twice the timeline, twice the cards, twice the chaos!
So what’s different? Well, besides having mixed both decks for fun variety, the end of the game is a bit different. In either game on its own, you win by completing your (one) mission, returning to the timeline of your (one) ID, or getting ten cards in hand. In ÜberChrononauts, you need to complete one of your (two) missions, one of your (two) IDs, and get ten cards in hand. Not all at once, of course, once you’ve completed one of those objectives you mark it as complete, without worrying about keeping the criteria for it intact. That would be even more confusing. Yikes. Also, rather than 13 paradoxes blowing up the universe, those 13 have to be in four consecutive rows.
Worried about sorting the two decks back out once it’s over? Don’t be! While the backs of the cards are the same, all of the Early American cards (except the timeline) have a little star in one of the top corners. The timeline is set off by, rather than the original’s coordinates of A-D, having designations of W, X, Y, and Z, allowing the few intermixed dates in the middle of the map to be returned to their own decks with no hassle.
All in all, it’s a longer, more complicated version of a brilliantly fun game. So, if you’ve got the time and the dedication to your many missions, play some ÜberChrononauts for some ÜberChaos!
Siren With A Cold
This is the last (for now) of my (fictional) prompted anecdotes. To read the other two, click here and here, respectively. They’re not connected; each story stands alone. Still, I hope you’ll give them a read!
Bette was one of those singers that could sing anything — or at least make you think she could, which was how her career got started. We were at a party during our senior year of college, messing around, as college seniors are wont to do. Most of the time, Bette had a good voice — that night, it varied whether she had a voice at all. Still, she joined in on karaoke, just like she did at every party. And it was… well, it was brilliant. The thing about Bette is it’s not her voice that makes her special, it’s her presence. She has this confidence that justs radiates, and you can’t help getting caught up in it.
That’s why, after her performance, one of the designated driver kids walked over and introduced himself as the son of a music agent. He complimented her performance, gave her his number, and offered to introduce her to his dad at some point when she was sober. He said, in effect, that anyone who could put on a drunk karaoke song and dance number, with a cold, at three in the morning, and still somehow enrapture the whole audience absolutely needed to consider a career in music.
Barrel of Monkeys
This is another of my (fictional) prompted anecdotes. If you’d like to read the first one, click here. The two brothers “I” have in this story are completely made up, for plot convenience. Enjoy!
We had a great time at Niagara Falls last weekend. Riding in that little boat that goes under the Falls turned out to be quite an adventure — I nearly slipped on the wet deck at least three times, and my youngest brother, Peter, actually did! Luckily, our other brother, Tom, has great footing, so he was there to help Pete up.
Learning some of the history of the falls turned out to be an adventure as well. Did you know someone thought it would be a good idea to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel? Even more mindboggling, she somehow survived! A replica of the barrel she rode was in the museum, and, much to our parents’ dismay when they caught up, we three unsupervised children successfully found a way to fit all of us inside it. Getting back out… well, that was another adventure entirely.
Lost in Translation
For the next couple weeks, I’ll be posting prompted anecdotes (without the prompts — those were written into the stories, so repeating them felt redundant and I like to keep you guessing). Here’s the first! As a word of warning, I really don’t speak French, so if any of the French translations, applications, or grammar are incorrect, that’s because it’s probably from Google Translate or other internet equivalents. Also, this didn’t actually happen, at least not to me. Nor did either of the other anecdotes. Just in case there was question.
Jim is such a funny guy! Our whole trip to Europe was like a big comedy show. When we got to Paris, our first destination, we stopped at one of the produce markets. That, in and of itself, wasn’t exactly surprising — we both love fresh fruit — but what happened that afternoon was. We were chatting with a local who was showing us the Bois de Vincennes when Jim asked her, “Voudriez-vous une pomme?” (“Would you like an apple?”)
She gave him a curious look, replying, “D’accord,” in a questioning tone. (“Alright.”)
Jim grinned, pulling a potato out of his pocket and handing it to her. “Une pomme,” he pronounced proudly. (“An apple.”)
She smirked a bit, shaking her head. “Une pomme de terre,” she corrected. (“A potato.”) “‘Pomme’ est… ‘apple.'” (“‘Pomme’ is… ‘apple.'”)
Jim feigned surprise. “Oh! Tu veux une ‘apple!’ Accorde moi un instant.” (“You want an ‘apple!’ Give me a moment.”) He slipped off his backpack and pretended to rummage around inside for a moment. “Aha! Vous avez ici, madam,” he said with a bow and a flourish, pulling out a pineapple. (“Here you go, my lady.”)
Similarly, whenever we met someone in Germany, he showed them a cheap sausage plushie he had bought online and said, “Isn’t it just the Wurst?”
Furry Babies
I was going to write a post, but after scrolling through a painful amount of coronavirus related material online, I thought it might be better to just post some cute cat photos. So, here you are!
Endosymbiotic Theory
This is, admittedly, more scientific and probably also shorter than my posts usually are, but I’ve been busy, so this fun micro-essay for AP Biology is what I decided to post this week. I hope that, at the very least, this encourages you to look further into the various theories and system processes in biology; it’s actually quite interesting.
The Theory of Natural Selection states, in priniciple, that the organisms with traits that are advantageous in their environments will be the ones that survive to produce offspring, or to produce more offspring than their competition, passing on the desirable trait. According to Endosymiotic Theory, eukaryotes were formed when a larger organism engulfed a mitochondria and/or a cholorplast, and, finding that it produced energy, kept it.
This, of course, makes perfect sense in explaining why eukaryotes rose in the evolutionary ladder. Where many organisms would still have been respirating anaerobically, producing only 2 ATP (adenine triphosphate) per respiratory cycle, the newly formed eukaryotes, with their mitochondria, would have been able to partake in aerobic respiration, which can produce up to 38 ATP per cycle.
With the increased efficiency of energy production, and the initial lack of competition over the oxygen necessary for aerobic respiration, the eukaryotic organisms would have had a massive advantage over their mitochondria-less counterparts, increasing their likelihood of reproduction to pass the trait on.
To reiterate, the acquisition of a mitochondria, and with it, cellular respiration, would dramatically increase an organism’s efficiency of energy intake, giving it a distinctive evolutionary advantage over other primordial life forms.
The Secret of My Success — the Musical
It should be noted that I rarely write about books, shows or movies, specifically because I find it difficult to properly express my appreciation of the works without spoiling anything. However, this musical was phenomenal, and I feel it warrants a post. Not about the plot, just a little bit of why I appreciate it. I will, as always, try to avoid spoilers.
I should start by saying that The Secret of My Success is new, and it shows. While the musical is based on a film (which I haven’t seen, so I can’t really compare the two), the casual use of (light) swearing and more traditionally “inappropriate” humor (nothing too crude, and if your children understand it’s not the musical’s fault) mark it as a modern work. So do some of its references — both Barack Obama and Prince Harry were mentioned.
One of the keys to this show is the humor. They make fun of themselves (“Is he singing at me?”) and have plenty of in-character comedic moments, so even though the story actually has a lot of deep, serious messages, you spend the whole performance laughing.
I can’t say much about the serious themes of this show, what made it so clearly modern, or the details I appreciated, because that’s spoiler territory, but I will say that I appreciated how intelligent the kid in this story is. Ernie is eight, which, it seems to me, is an age often written with linguistic difficulties and a lack of situational comprehension. Possibly because I was a precocious child, or just because I was close enough to that age to be interacting with real, live eight year-olds semi-regularly, this portrayal always bothered me. In contrast, Ernie is an intelligent, articulate young man, who, while he still (rightly) acts like a kid, is also aware of what’s going on around him. I can’t begin to pick favorite lines from this show, but Ernie definitely had some good ones.
In short, I really, really loved this musical, and I’d highly encourage you to check it out!
Owls and Multilingualism
Yep, I’m talking about Duolingo. As some of you know, I’ve already posted about Rosetta Stone — another language platform. Yes, I’ve used both, and no, I’m not going to slam either. They’re both good, for different reasons.
Rosetta Stone offers a lot of languages (I provided a list in my post). So does Duolingo. As of when I’m writing this, they have Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Italian, Korean, Chinese, Russian, Portuguese, Arabic, Turkish, Dutch, Swedish, Hindi, Greek, Irish, Polish, Norwegian (Bokmal), High Valyrian, Hebrew, Latin, Vietnamese, Hawaiian, Danish, Romanian, Czech, Welsh, Indonesian, Swahili, Klingon, Hungarian, Ukrainian, Navajo, Esperanto, and Scottish Gaelic, organized by number of learners. As you may have noticed, some of these languages are from fictional universes, like Klingon. No, that’s not a joke. Yes, they legitimately cover those.
I also made a point of saying, “As of when I’m writing this,” because Duolingo is always adding new courses. They also add them faster than Rosetta Stone, namely because, as a subscription service, Rosetta Stone has to have the full course ready before they make it available. Duolingo, on the other hand, puts it up in beta and keeps adding to it.
That’s another point — Rosetta Stone costs money, Duolingo is free. Like I said, they’re both good, but, again, for different reasons. Rosetta Stone has the breakdowns I mentioned in that post, focusing on different parts of each lesson, whereas Duolingo really doesn’t (the closest they get is Tinycards). On the flip side, because there’s not a set amount of time until your subscription runs out, with Duolingo you don’t feel pressured the same way, which allows you to pick up multiple languages without concern over money and time management. I’m currently taking five.
Duolingo lessons also tend to be, in my experience, more… bite sized, I suppose. They’re faster and have less content per lesson to memorize, which allows me to binge Hawaiian lessons without running out of steam. Rosetta Stone lessons tend to be longer, taking an estimated ten minutes for most of the exercises.
As a final note between the two, Rosetta Stone gives you words in the target language and a picture to match it, whereas Duo gives you the English translations for the words. As I said in my Rosetta post, I don’t really know how to feel about that, or which I prefer, but they both work.
Overall, I’d say if you’re seriously intending to put a lot of focus and effort into learning a language, Rosetta Stone is the way to go, but if you just want something that you can work on in your spare time, or for fun (I picked up Hawaiian on a whim, for instance) you might prefer Duolingo.