The traditional motto of Clan Donald (MacDonald, MacDonnell, etc.) is Air Muir ‘s Air Tir (Scottish Gaelic), Per Mare Per Terras (Latin), “By Sea and By Land”. The version above, from the Gateway to the Clan Donald translates to “By Sea and By Land and Online”.
kass_rants claims to have the Best insult ever! Not sure I would go that far without further research <g>, but I do like it.
Every Monday night in Irish class we are all supposed to tell a scéal–a story about something that had happened in our lives. The idea is provide to practise composing and speaking Irish. The truth value of the scéal is not particularly important–It can be completely made up. This is personally difficult, since mistakes are inevitable and I do not deal well with making mistakes in public. But it is obviously important, so I go ahead.
In the scéal I try to talk about something that really happened, simply because I want to relate Irish to the rest of my life. Last night I said a little bit about Convergence. This may have been too ambitious, since I had to look up some specialized vocabulary. However, the work was fun. Continue reading
This was a good con. Getting there
mia_mcdavid and I are going to Convergence this weekend. Mia is already there. I will be joining her after work. James is staying home. Mia reminded me last night that it has been a long time since we went to a con without children. Our last convention before James was born was Windycon XIII, in November 1986. It was at the Hyatt Regency Woodfield, a very nice hotel in Chicago’s northwest suburbs. The world has changed a lot since then, and so have we, but we are still fans.
Our firstborn has been a Transformers fan for a long time, so this caught my attention. See BA Transformers review now online, then Review: Transformers. There was a good comment about automobiles, although others have made the same observation, and possibly before Douglas Adams (L. Sprague deCamp comes to mind).
Fuair mé turscar as Gaeilge. (I received Irish language spam today) Continue reading
From Kim Lawton of Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, interviewed at GetReligion:
In reporting on the Vatican beatification ceremony for Mother Teresa, a local news anchor said that she was being “beautified.” It made me want to check the tape for telltale Botox marks.
From Hilbert Space to Dilbert Space, and beyond 