Dulce
'Dulce' is the Spanish word for 'sweet' in the sense of flavor and 'mild' or 'gentle' in the sense of temperament. While I'm at it, el dulce can also mean the noun 'candy.' It can also be used as an adverb meaning 'sweetly' or 'gently,' but that's uncommon. And, as usual, the title of this entry and this whole entire first paragraph have absolutely nothing to do with the content of this particular entry. I don't envision it being too long, though.
While we're talking about visions, I will say that my parents and I watched The History Channel's documentary entitled Nostradamus 2012. I thought it was a fun little movie going over a few of the lofty end-of-days scenarios that could (but won't) happen to the world on December 21, 2012. Alignments of celestial bodies bringing havoc to the world, solar flares, extreme weather, and societal decay combining to form a self-inflicted global apocalypse, and , Those correspondents tried their darnedest to make it understandable and, above all, believable to anybody who might be watching the movie. Unfortunately for them, I was watching it and understood their claims to be almost complete bullshit.
I was especially tickled by the solar flare theory that was brought up. Yes, they were correct about the Sun approaching the height of its 11 or 12-year cycle, which means tons of solar flares, wild amounts of radiation, and things of that nature. However, they were dead wrong about the gigantic solar flares completely reversing the polarity and positions of the north and south magnetic poles. While it can theoretically happen, it just can't happen that quickly. Can not. It takes thousands of years. Furthermore, it is indeed possible that solar flares can knock out communication satellites and power grids. It has certainly happened in the past in isolated incidents. But, it is at best merely speculative to say that all technology in our entire world will be rendered useless by the colossal solar flare rumored to be predicted as occurring on December 21, 2012. Besides, if it does happen and the damage is as bad as they say, then I guess we all have to resort to writing with pen and paper again. We'll all have to meet up in person to talk instead of using our phones. I see no downside to this. Either every thing will be fine and I'll get to gloat over some people's stupidity in an livejournal entry, or they'll be right and get to tell me "I told you so," in a letter delivered by the mailman- or perhaps smokesignal.
But they didn't stop there. These guys used Nostradamus's prediction of the sun's alignment with the galactic center (as seen from Earth) to somehow mean that the Earth would magically plummet into darkness, chaos, evil, and other very Old Testament things. Why yes, it is quite a rare event that the winter solstice sun would 'align' with the galactic center (affectionately referred to as 'The Dark Rift'), but that's all it is. An alignment. Little winged red men with pitchforks and horns aren't going to instantaneously materialize on our planet and start stabbing us in the butt. To be frank, the Sun isn't going to perfectly line up with the galactic center. It'll be off by a degree or two. I found an interesting article on NASA's website that debunks some of the scenarios I've brought up here and some I actually forgot about. Remember the rogue planet Nibiru that was supposed to smash into us? Well, it's 2012 and still no sign of her. Anywhere. At all. Maybe she got caught in traffic.
In other news, my Japanese lessons are going well. I'm still learning the phonetic alphabet slowly but surely. I've almost got all the common hiragana sound combinations for 'a' memorized. I haven't even started on the katakana yet. That will be after I get the hiragana down. All in all, it's very おもしろい omoshiroi. [oe-moe-shee-roe-ee] That means interesting. I found this nifty website that allows you to type in any language you want. All you have to do is type the way the word sounds in your language, and it will transliterate the letters in the letters of the target language. Note, there is a huge difference between translate and transliterate. It does NOT translate words. Be careful not to confuse the two. Have fun, I guess?
Finally tonight, I end with a question as always. Would you rather sneeze confetti or cough dice for the rest of your life? These afflictions would not hurt or cause internal injury. A die with enough speed behind it could thwack somebody in the eye, though. But in any case, I would go for the coughing of dice. I've had enough colds to know that you can sneeze four or five times in a row. And the last thing I want to do when I'm sick is clean a whole bunch of colored squares of paper and plastic from the floor. At least dice have a practical purpose. I would probably give them to people or just melt them in fire. Oh, and the stronger the cough, the more sides each die has. A weak cough would only yield a D4 while a strong-ass cough would result in a D20 or more! Small enough to be expelled from the throat, of course. What about you?
My left leg is twitching.-
Bryan
While we're talking about visions, I will say that my parents and I watched The History Channel's documentary entitled Nostradamus 2012. I thought it was a fun little movie going over a few of the lofty end-of-days scenarios that could (but won't) happen to the world on December 21, 2012. Alignments of celestial bodies bringing havoc to the world, solar flares, extreme weather, and societal decay combining to form a self-inflicted global apocalypse, and , Those correspondents tried their darnedest to make it understandable and, above all, believable to anybody who might be watching the movie. Unfortunately for them, I was watching it and understood their claims to be almost complete bullshit.
I was especially tickled by the solar flare theory that was brought up. Yes, they were correct about the Sun approaching the height of its 11 or 12-year cycle, which means tons of solar flares, wild amounts of radiation, and things of that nature. However, they were dead wrong about the gigantic solar flares completely reversing the polarity and positions of the north and south magnetic poles. While it can theoretically happen, it just can't happen that quickly. Can not. It takes thousands of years. Furthermore, it is indeed possible that solar flares can knock out communication satellites and power grids. It has certainly happened in the past in isolated incidents. But, it is at best merely speculative to say that all technology in our entire world will be rendered useless by the colossal solar flare rumored to be predicted as occurring on December 21, 2012. Besides, if it does happen and the damage is as bad as they say, then I guess we all have to resort to writing with pen and paper again. We'll all have to meet up in person to talk instead of using our phones. I see no downside to this. Either every thing will be fine and I'll get to gloat over some people's stupidity in an livejournal entry, or they'll be right and get to tell me "I told you so," in a letter delivered by the mailman- or perhaps smokesignal.
But they didn't stop there. These guys used Nostradamus's prediction of the sun's alignment with the galactic center (as seen from Earth) to somehow mean that the Earth would magically plummet into darkness, chaos, evil, and other very Old Testament things. Why yes, it is quite a rare event that the winter solstice sun would 'align' with the galactic center (affectionately referred to as 'The Dark Rift'), but that's all it is. An alignment. Little winged red men with pitchforks and horns aren't going to instantaneously materialize on our planet and start stabbing us in the butt. To be frank, the Sun isn't going to perfectly line up with the galactic center. It'll be off by a degree or two. I found an interesting article on NASA's website that debunks some of the scenarios I've brought up here and some I actually forgot about. Remember the rogue planet Nibiru that was supposed to smash into us? Well, it's 2012 and still no sign of her. Anywhere. At all. Maybe she got caught in traffic.
In other news, my Japanese lessons are going well. I'm still learning the phonetic alphabet slowly but surely. I've almost got all the common hiragana sound combinations for 'a' memorized. I haven't even started on the katakana yet. That will be after I get the hiragana down. All in all, it's very おもしろい omoshiroi. [oe-moe-shee-roe-ee] That means interesting. I found this nifty website that allows you to type in any language you want. All you have to do is type the way the word sounds in your language, and it will transliterate the letters in the letters of the target language. Note, there is a huge difference between translate and transliterate. It does NOT translate words. Be careful not to confuse the two. Have fun, I guess?
Finally tonight, I end with a question as always. Would you rather sneeze confetti or cough dice for the rest of your life? These afflictions would not hurt or cause internal injury. A die with enough speed behind it could thwack somebody in the eye, though. But in any case, I would go for the coughing of dice. I've had enough colds to know that you can sneeze four or five times in a row. And the last thing I want to do when I'm sick is clean a whole bunch of colored squares of paper and plastic from the floor. At least dice have a practical purpose. I would probably give them to people or just melt them in fire. Oh, and the stronger the cough, the more sides each die has. A weak cough would only yield a D4 while a strong-ass cough would result in a D20 or more! Small enough to be expelled from the throat, of course. What about you?
My left leg is twitching.-
Bryan