12 Languages - "Sure!"

As I haven't posted anything for a long while, I wish to at least fill your brains with some food for thought. My goal is to someday become a polyglot, or multilingual. So everyday I'll make the effort to learn one word in 11 languages (and 1 dead language for fun). To start us off:

12 Languages - Sure!

Chinese (T): Dangran! 當然！
French: Bien sûr!
German: Sure!
Greek: Sigoura - Σίγουρα!
Hindi: Zarura ज़रूर!
Italian: Certo!
Japanese: Tashika ni! 確かに！
Korean: Mullon! 물론!
Latin: Certus
Portuguese: Claro
Russian: Koneshno! Конечно!
Spanish: Claro

Practice that! Just be careful what you're saying "sure" to.

- A Dakota Lopez blog.

A test with my new iPhone

Blah blah. Just got my new iPhone and am currently testing out how well everything comes out.

Random picture:


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Busy Busy

So, the past week has become an extremely busy time for me. I started a new blog about comic books a bit ago (not at all a daily thing, don't worry), and I've re-opened my Sonic Opus blog about music. Yesterday/today I recorded/edited my very first podcast for Sonic Opus with some great friends of mine with great opinions.

Also, a friend of mine has moved into my household, and as much as anyone can enjoy the experience, it takes away from your schedule. Today was my first day on my new job at Radio City Music Hall selling merchandise (demeaning, but it pays) and this definitely takes time.

But don't fret, when I get back to posting, oh shall I get back to posting! Three books just came in from Amazon today about the ancient chinese connection with the book of Genesis and how they actually used to be a monotheistic people. Look forward to much much more postings in the realm of the Chinese :)

Lemuria

You know, the last few days, I've been excessively busy, so my posts have been posted a little later than usual. Hopefully that doesn't persist, but we'll see. As some of you may know (those of you I actually know) a good friend of mine just moved up from Miami all the way to my basement in Scarsdale, NY. That's been keeping me really preoccupied these last few days, but hopefully I get back onto a more regular posting curriculum (not that it isn't regular enough haha).

A week back, I mentioned the ancient Roman harvest festival of Lemuria in my Origin of Halloween series. I had some trouble looking it up (it actually wasn't that hard), because something else kept popping up in the way of the festival. In fact, I found a whole series of ancient mythologies that mention how there used to be this ancient civilization or continent even. Sure, there's the myth of Atlantis, but many of these accounts say that this fictional Lemuria was even before the whole Atlantis myth.

If you'd like to check out a bit of it, I'll be drawing a map of it's approximate shape and position in the world. Today, the idea of plate tectonics and the shifting earth, debunk these myths of a fictional Lemuria, or some call it Mu, but it was believed to be in the middle of the Pacific ocean, between North and South America, Asia, and Australia, partially connecting the continents.

(EDIT)

As the myth goes, the quite large continent of Lemuria (found in the Pacific), sunk as a result of a series of super-volcanoes and earthquakes that tore it from the other continents and sent it under the ocean. As I mentioned, modern proofs of plate-tectonics have proved this myth a fallacy.

Barbershop

I was watching an Abbot and Costello movie not too long ago, and in it Costello was attempting at getting his barber license. Now, today, you generally go to barber shops to get haircuts, no? But in the movie, dating back to the 1940s, Costello was actually shaving the person. And it's not uncommon for barber shops today to offer a shave to their male customers, but it's certainly not common. This got me thinking: what if barber shops were originally meant for shaving purposes instead of cutting hair? Can I get to the bottom of this.

Well, ask yourself what the word 'barber' sounds like? Barbasol. Shaving cream. After looking it up a bit I found that, indeed, a barber is someone who shaves and/or cuts hair. The Latin word for 'beard' is actually 'BARBA', very similar to our barbers today. In our modern day, with the common use of 'safety razors', and the decreasing prevalence of beards, many barbers just specialize in cutting men's hair.

But another interesting point I found was that all the way back in medieval times, barbers were also used for surgery and dentistry. Pretty disgusting to imagine, right? Well, it's the truth. They'd pull teeth, let blood, lance boils, and even stick leeches on you to suck blood.

It's during these medieval times that the origin of the barbers' pole takes it's shape. You know, the winding white pole with the red and the (occasional) blue stripe, that twists so as to make it seem like the pole is moving upwards? Well, after a barber would do their surgeries or pulled out teeth, they would hang the bandages out to dry and the wind would make the bandage twist, red and white together. This became the symbol as to where you could find a barber. It stuck, and now it's one of those Strongly Entrenched Things!

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I promised every day, no? It's still 8 minutes before 12!

Remember, Remember, the Fifth of November

"Remember, remember, the fifth of November, gunpowder, treason, and plot. I see no reason why gunpowder, treason, should ever be forgot." So goes the very catchy poem that is said in commemoration of Guy Fawkes day, that I made mention of in the 4th part of my origin of Halloween series. It's held annually on the 5th of November in England, and since it's date is so close to Halloween the two are often celebrated together.

As the story has it, Guy Fawkes and other conspirators were Catholic militants who were conspiring to blow up the newly erected House of Parliament which was predominately of Protestant belief. This was seen as a sign of treason, but many today believe it was actually just an assassination attempt on King James, who hadn't kept his promise of putting an end to Catholic persecution at the time. But likely, we will never truly know the truth.

On November 5th, 1606, exactly a year after Guy Fawkes was hung, drawn and quartered, the King and Parliament commissioned a sermon to commemorate the event. Not to commemorate Guy Fawkes, but as a reminder to the people what exactly happens when you commit an act of treason. This practice, which they enacted annually, along with the popular nursery rhyme ensured that no one will think of committing any particularly treasonous acts again.

On this holiday, they have parades and fireworks within the streets, and they burn the effigy of a guy (Fawkes). The children, on this day, stuff newspapers into clothes and they go around asking for pennies. The kid who gets the most pennies has the best 'guy'.

Anyway, have I ever mentioned that I LOVE HIS NAME?

Ancient Chinese Character Examination: Create

Ancient Chinese character for 'create'

Now here's an interesting one. Turns out, contrary to popular belief, the ancient Chinese weren't evolutionists, but actually creationists! I'm just kidding, evolutionism in ancient China was certainly not a popular belief. But the character above is another great example that the primitive Chinese believed the events written in the book of Genesis were factual, or at least that's what we're led to assume.

The ancient form of the character meaning 'to create' is depicted at the top of the post, and then just below it, it is broken down a little. The majority of the character is a depiction of being able to 'speak'. Within the speak character are three lesser ones. I mentioned a few days ago that the 'mouth' was another way to say human. The next character, in the center of speak is used to describe 'dust', or 'mud'. The small character just to the right of dust is the simple stroke that meant 'life' or 'movement' in some translations. Those three characters create speak, but the last one, underneath speak, means 'to walk'.

So what does this all mean, and why am I comparing it to the events is Genesis? Well, interestingly enough, this character for creation depicts just what the Hebrew scriptures says about how God breathed the breath of life into man, whom he created from the dust of the ground, and he "became a living soul", capable of walking and speaking.