Degrees of Cute.

1. I'm not quite ready to jump on the CuteOverload bandwagon... but this picture of mother and child kitty-cats is awfully cute.

2. The campus is crawling with rabbits, and mostly I think they are vermin, but that doesn't stop me from continually photographing them in all their furry glory:

3. Kiddo can toggle between cute and dreadful in mere seconds. Truly, if we could harness this energy, I'm sure we could reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. Perhaps this t-shirt is in store for her coming birthday.

4. Cute confession. Hubby and I often adopt a sickeningly sweet tone and say things like "I wubba oooo!" in an effort to make our 13 year old neice run screaming from the room.... but it always makes me smile. :)

Bad! Bad Disney!

Somehow, I missed the backlash on this if there was any last year (and there should have been) because the asshats at Disney, after acquiring the rights to distribute Hayao Miyazaki's films, decided to re-dub My Neighbour Totoro -- with Dakota "overexposed and poised for a rehab-required burnout" Fanning and her real-life younger sister Elle Fanning!! Ack.

Details are over at IMDB: Full Cast and Crew for Tonari no Totoro (1988)



TAGS: Disney, needless revision, movies, animation.

Another Language....

I have found that there is little application for Russian in my current workplace, but there is a genuine need for cataloguers who can read and understand Chinese.

To that end, I will be downloading podcasts from ChinesePod so that I can start learning Mandarin in little bite-size lessons! How cool is that? (I am however a bit concerned that there is a 7-day free trial... it is unclear whether the podcasts themselves will remain free with a basic subscription or just the transcripts.) More audio lessons are available at ZapChinese and as a general resource, Chinese Outpost looks well-organized!

There is the larger debate of Mandarin vs. Cantonese -- each is prominent in different areas of China and around the world, however, if I understand correctly, both use the same written language, so as long as I work toward the written language (which is what I would need for cataloguing) I should be OK. That said, if there are any native speakers of either language out there... I'd love your opinions. I'd be especially interested in which language would be more applicable in my region (Victoria/Vancouver/Seattle).


TAGS: language acquisition, Chinese, Mandarin, Cantonese, self-directed study.

Funny or just patheitc?

Stop! Lunch Thief! is a collection of tales about the dreaded office lunch theives. Who raised these people that they think they can just take other people's food?? I don't get it.

Tags: idiots, office humour

new media nook reviews

FYI: Hubby and I each added a new review to Medianook this week: I added Mirrormask; hubby, Eve and the Fire Horse.

I have set myself the goal of one review per week between now and the end of June... and I will likely bend the rules from time to time by doing two or three in one week and averaging it out... but ultimately the site needs more content! If you read Medianook and you notice that posts are not frequent, feel free to send me a reminder.