Bookstores and Fish Head Barometers
Apr. 29th, 2006 10:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
soc_puppetOkay, it has officially been too long since my last update. Bad socchan. No cookie.
Stopped by the bookstore today :O Saw that not only did they have T:RC volume nine, but also RSoM: UK and Ireland volume one, which I didn't know the US would be getting, as well as the officially liscenced translation of Ouran High School Host Club (one and two, then five and six; they're farther than the scanlations). About the time I saw the RSoM novel I broke down and decided to spend money. Still, I wasn't going down without a fight! I made sure to go home and print out that Borders Rewards 'personal shopping day' thing first >D It didn't hurt that they had a Buy Two, Get the Third Half Off on all paperbacks again. Ended up walking away with the aforementioned RSoM: UK and Ireland and T:RC, as well as Ouran High School Host Club volume one--mostly to compare and contrast the translation, so I could decide if buying the official translation would be worth it to me.
I'm through the first chapter of it, and it's not bad; it's just not spectacularly good, either. They've gone ahead and changed the yen value of the vase to dollars (but remembered to carry the decimal place, thank goodness) which doesn't bug me that much, but they also aren't using honorifics. (Honorifics have become a rather big thing with me lately for some reason.) Honey's name has been translated as Hunny, which I can live with, Winny-the-Pooh references aside >_O, and his stuffed rabbit's name has been translated as 'bun-bun', which makes the Sluggy fan in me laugh for all the wrong reasons. From what I can tell, they're not even treating it as a name, just as a cute way to say bunny. There's a few other odds and ends, but mostly it's ...okay.
Anyway, as far as manga translation SNAFUs go, I use ADV's translation of Tactics as my measuring stick. (This is not a series to buy the liscenced version of. Seriously. They translated Tengu as Tenko. And the furigana is right there in the book! I could've overlooked Tenku maybe, since I think it's reasonable to miss the little lines that change 'ku' to 'gu', but Tenko? When they have the furigana right there? Just... no. It does not speak well of how they did with the rest of the translation when they screw up one basic kana in two ways like that. And it's basic Japanese folklore besides! *mutters darkly* <--- rather fond of Tengu. ) While I didn't notice anything quite that bad yet, I'm still undecided on whether I want to buy the manga for myself, or just check it out from the library. *wants to get ahead of the scanlations now*
While I was checking out, Tomas asked about job openings. The woman at the counter said they only hired people eighteen and older. That was my cue to ask for an aplication, which they had this time ^^v Managed to fill it out and turn it in within two hours. She also said they'd be needing a new manga expert, which I feel I qualify for ;) I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but my expectations low.
I kept wanting to talk about the Fish Head Barometer in the back yard, but I couldn't remember how I originally wanted to talk about it. I guess one method is as good as another in this case.
See, we have three things in our back yard. (Well, we have more than three things, but I'm only going to focus on three things today.) For one thing, we have a pond. It's one of those small-ish homemade ponds for those of us who weren't lucky enough to live in a house with a pond that was there naturally. (There was a creek on the side of the house years and years ago, but it was filled in. I only have vague memories of it.) We got the kit for Dad as a gift a while ago, but didn't install it until at least a year had passed ^^; No clue as to why. It looks really nice now, though, and has one of those little fountains in it--the kind that's supposed to make a nice dome-shape out of falling water but more often than not looks lopsided or just plain messy? Yeah, one of those.
We also have a glass model head in the back yard. See, Dad collects a lot of strange things from garage sales. We've got a couple of styrofoam heads and at least one cloth one sitting places around the house as well. The glass head in question is clear, uncolored glass. It's about the size of a regular human head and hollow. It's about half an inch/one cm thick in most places, and about an inch and a half/four cm thick at the top of the head--probably something to do with how it was made. It's open at the neck, but closed everywhere else. No hair, in shape or otherwise.
The third thing is fish. We have a small collection of cheap goldfish in the pond in the back yard. Dad likes to keep living things in it, and the bait goldfish are cheap enough that we don't have to worry much about replacing them. We had some at the beginning of last year, but most of them were gone by the time the pond froze over. To our surprise, however, two made it through the winter; one of them even grew to be about three inches/eight cm in length. Last weekend, Dad and I stopped by the wetlands; it's looking worse for the wear, even with tornado hurlings aside ;_; Makes me wish it was taken care of better; also makes me wonder if this is what they mean by 'you can never go home'. Anyway, we had absolutely no luck catching any fish there, though Dad did find a few plants to put in the pond, so we decided to stop by a local pet store and pick up another batch of bait/feeder fish on the way home. Got ten nice ones and some duckweed. They're adjusting nicely to the pond, and the other two fish seem to have perked up from their company ^_^
What do these three things have to do with each other? Well, obviously the fish are in the pond, but what does either of those have to do with the glass head? The thing is, a little while ago my brother got the bright idea to put the head in the pond. And not just put it on a pedestal in the pond, no. He put it in the pond in such a way that the fountain is installed in it and the water runs down the inside of it. He thought it was damn cool. I thought it was kinda nifty, and then it filled over halfway with slightly murky water and I thought it didn't look as hot. I continued to think this way until a few days ago when I looked out in the back yard and saw a fish swimming in the head. I was not only fascinated, I about cracked up. I had to show Mom when she came home later and took the iguana for a walk.
At first I thought that the fish had somehow gotten stuck in there. It made sense to me, and had been one of the things I'd worried about when Tomas first brought up the head-in-the-pond idea to me. When it was gone later I figured it must have found a way to escape. Later still, though, when Tomas and Dad had come home, I had the opportunity to see a fish of a different color (prooving that it was a different one, because most of the orange ones look alike) swim up inside the head. So it turns out they can come and go more or less as they please. Dad ended up getting some nice pictures, and I hope to scan a few when he gets them developed.
That's where the fish head bit comes from. The barometer bit comes from the following day, when I noticed that most of the water that had been in the head had leaked out. Tomas and I figured it must have reacted to changes in air pressure, which makes it a home-made fish head barometer.
Let's face it, my yard has some of the coolest stuff :3
Stopped by the bookstore today :O Saw that not only did they have T:RC volume nine, but also RSoM: UK and Ireland volume one, which I didn't know the US would be getting, as well as the officially liscenced translation of Ouran High School Host Club (one and two, then five and six; they're farther than the scanlations). About the time I saw the RSoM novel I broke down and decided to spend money. Still, I wasn't going down without a fight! I made sure to go home and print out that Borders Rewards 'personal shopping day' thing first >D It didn't hurt that they had a Buy Two, Get the Third Half Off on all paperbacks again. Ended up walking away with the aforementioned RSoM: UK and Ireland and T:RC, as well as Ouran High School Host Club volume one--mostly to compare and contrast the translation, so I could decide if buying the official translation would be worth it to me.
I'm through the first chapter of it, and it's not bad; it's just not spectacularly good, either. They've gone ahead and changed the yen value of the vase to dollars (but remembered to carry the decimal place, thank goodness) which doesn't bug me that much, but they also aren't using honorifics. (Honorifics have become a rather big thing with me lately for some reason.) Honey's name has been translated as Hunny, which I can live with, Winny-the-Pooh references aside >_O, and his stuffed rabbit's name has been translated as 'bun-bun', which makes the Sluggy fan in me laugh for all the wrong reasons. From what I can tell, they're not even treating it as a name, just as a cute way to say bunny. There's a few other odds and ends, but mostly it's ...okay.
Anyway, as far as manga translation SNAFUs go, I use ADV's translation of Tactics as my measuring stick. (This is not a series to buy the liscenced version of. Seriously. They translated Tengu as Tenko. And the furigana is right there in the book! I could've overlooked Tenku maybe, since I think it's reasonable to miss the little lines that change 'ku' to 'gu', but Tenko? When they have the furigana right there? Just... no. It does not speak well of how they did with the rest of the translation when they screw up one basic kana in two ways like that. And it's basic Japanese folklore besides! *mutters darkly* <--- rather fond of Tengu. ) While I didn't notice anything quite that bad yet, I'm still undecided on whether I want to buy the manga for myself, or just check it out from the library. *wants to get ahead of the scanlations now*
While I was checking out, Tomas asked about job openings. The woman at the counter said they only hired people eighteen and older. That was my cue to ask for an aplication, which they had this time ^^v Managed to fill it out and turn it in within two hours. She also said they'd be needing a new manga expert, which I feel I qualify for ;) I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but my expectations low.
I kept wanting to talk about the Fish Head Barometer in the back yard, but I couldn't remember how I originally wanted to talk about it. I guess one method is as good as another in this case.
See, we have three things in our back yard. (Well, we have more than three things, but I'm only going to focus on three things today.) For one thing, we have a pond. It's one of those small-ish homemade ponds for those of us who weren't lucky enough to live in a house with a pond that was there naturally. (There was a creek on the side of the house years and years ago, but it was filled in. I only have vague memories of it.) We got the kit for Dad as a gift a while ago, but didn't install it until at least a year had passed ^^; No clue as to why. It looks really nice now, though, and has one of those little fountains in it--the kind that's supposed to make a nice dome-shape out of falling water but more often than not looks lopsided or just plain messy? Yeah, one of those.
We also have a glass model head in the back yard. See, Dad collects a lot of strange things from garage sales. We've got a couple of styrofoam heads and at least one cloth one sitting places around the house as well. The glass head in question is clear, uncolored glass. It's about the size of a regular human head and hollow. It's about half an inch/one cm thick in most places, and about an inch and a half/four cm thick at the top of the head--probably something to do with how it was made. It's open at the neck, but closed everywhere else. No hair, in shape or otherwise.
The third thing is fish. We have a small collection of cheap goldfish in the pond in the back yard. Dad likes to keep living things in it, and the bait goldfish are cheap enough that we don't have to worry much about replacing them. We had some at the beginning of last year, but most of them were gone by the time the pond froze over. To our surprise, however, two made it through the winter; one of them even grew to be about three inches/eight cm in length. Last weekend, Dad and I stopped by the wetlands; it's looking worse for the wear, even with tornado hurlings aside ;_; Makes me wish it was taken care of better; also makes me wonder if this is what they mean by 'you can never go home'. Anyway, we had absolutely no luck catching any fish there, though Dad did find a few plants to put in the pond, so we decided to stop by a local pet store and pick up another batch of bait/feeder fish on the way home. Got ten nice ones and some duckweed. They're adjusting nicely to the pond, and the other two fish seem to have perked up from their company ^_^
What do these three things have to do with each other? Well, obviously the fish are in the pond, but what does either of those have to do with the glass head? The thing is, a little while ago my brother got the bright idea to put the head in the pond. And not just put it on a pedestal in the pond, no. He put it in the pond in such a way that the fountain is installed in it and the water runs down the inside of it. He thought it was damn cool. I thought it was kinda nifty, and then it filled over halfway with slightly murky water and I thought it didn't look as hot. I continued to think this way until a few days ago when I looked out in the back yard and saw a fish swimming in the head. I was not only fascinated, I about cracked up. I had to show Mom when she came home later and took the iguana for a walk.
At first I thought that the fish had somehow gotten stuck in there. It made sense to me, and had been one of the things I'd worried about when Tomas first brought up the head-in-the-pond idea to me. When it was gone later I figured it must have found a way to escape. Later still, though, when Tomas and Dad had come home, I had the opportunity to see a fish of a different color (prooving that it was a different one, because most of the orange ones look alike) swim up inside the head. So it turns out they can come and go more or less as they please. Dad ended up getting some nice pictures, and I hope to scan a few when he gets them developed.
That's where the fish head bit comes from. The barometer bit comes from the following day, when I noticed that most of the water that had been in the head had leaked out. Tomas and I figured it must have reacted to changes in air pressure, which makes it a home-made fish head barometer.
Let's face it, my yard has some of the coolest stuff :3
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
You have Art!!!
Date: 2006-04-30 07:09 am (UTC)You have art! (http://pics.livejournal.com/ickaimp/pic/0004ftyd/)
Good luck with the job! ((Huggles!))
Yay, artses! \o/
Date: 2006-04-30 10:32 pm (UTC)Thank you very much ^__^ You have made me a very happy fangirl indeed ♥ *needs to be productive again now*
Thank you!
Re: Yay, artses! \o/
Date: 2006-04-30 11:29 pm (UTC)You're welcome! ((Snuggles)) Glad you like! XD
Re: Yay, artses! \o/
Date: 2006-05-01 02:45 am (UTC)*hugs* Very much so, yes ^_^
Re: Yay, artses! \o/
Date: 2006-05-01 10:08 pm (UTC)I volumes 1, 2, 4 and 5, first part of 6. No one's done volume 3 that I have found. ^^;;
Get on chat sometime! XD
Re: Yay, artses! \o/
Date: 2006-05-02 05:41 pm (UTC)I should be there the rest of the week :3 No more morning classes until the tenth!
Re: Yay, artses! \o/
Date: 2006-05-02 10:53 pm (UTC)As far as the earlier scans, those are harder to find. ^^;; Can send those to you. ^__^