Automotive woes

Well, this is fun: first, I went in the ditch. Luckily, it wasn't that far from work, so the security guard helped pull me out.
The next day, I ran out of gas. I called AAA, and they got me some.
The day after that, I blew a tyre. I was close to home, so I put the doughnut on and went home, figuring I'd replace it the next day.
The next day, the doughnut was flat. I had AAA tow me to my mum's house, since everywhere was closed (you'd think the 25th were some sort of holiday, or something). The tow truck wouldn't start right, so it was all starting to sound like the premise to some Asian horror flick (the car is cursed!)
So, how were your holidays?

Translation

Just for shits 'n' giggles, I put my Xanga Page through Babel Fish. I am definitely not a fan of machine translation, so don't expect to see any of these published (if you want me to write more in Spanish, just ask. If you want any other language, you're out of luck.). I will, however, share some of the more interesting results.
First, I translated it into Japanese, just to see what my blog would look like in that language. I must admit, I liked what I saw:


It did, however, point out my spelling errors:


And, something really weird happened when it got to Spanish entries:


Now, seeing as I had it set to "English to Japanese," I didn't expect it to understand the Spanish. But adding "の" to the end of every word? I think that "の" shows possession, so... Yeah, that gets me nowhere. Oh, well.

So, next I figured I'd translate it into a language I can understand, i.e. Spanish. I haven't read the whole translation, out of fear that it will cause my eyes (or, at the very least, my Spanish skills) to melt and drain of my head on to the floor. But, here are a couple from the first two entries:
"The year of the month of the day."

And, my personal favourite:

The English title is "Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-chan." It's a show about an angel that bludgeons people (a "bludgeoning angel"). Babel Fish has decided that it's a show about bludgeoning an angel. That made my day.

Nineteen

So, Monday was my nineteenth birthday I haven't mentioned it because I was too busy with my gift. I got a Wii.
It's incredible. My mii is spot-on. I'll have to take a picture and post it. And although Resident Evil 4 at first annoyed me (I really don't like the reticule instead of laser aiming), when I first got to a part with quick knife use (especially el Gigante), it got really fun. You really get into it when you're actually slashing the knife (I hated those parts when it was pressing B).
On my birthday, I ate at a new Mexican place called "el Tequila." It was really good: nice food, friendly staff, and no-one insisted on talking to me in English (Last time I went to an authentic Latino place, no-one would believe that I spoke Spanish). I'd recommend it.

Fixed. Maybe.

I fixed Ping so that it won't be posting microblogs to my long-standing blogs. The others, maybe. So, if you see any title-less new entries somewhere they shouldn't be, please tell me.

We gotta get out of this place...

I just got my passport in the mail. Every page is watermarked with patriotic imagery and quote. Maybe that's to discourage you from ever using it. It has just the opposite effect on me.
Some interesting things to note about it:
--Everything is written in English, French, and Spanish, likely because we border Mexico and Canada. It would be more international if they replaced French with Mandarin, though (in my opinion).
--The Spanish translation is surprisingly accurate and legal-sounding (can't say for the French). However, one should note that for "surname" it says "apellidos." Plural. Now, in Spanish-speaking countries, people often have two surnames (one from each parent), but, regardless of what reactionaries may say, we are not a Spanish-speaking country, so that would only apply to a small percentage of the population. Actually, it would be better to have the English as "surname(s)," but either way, Some consistency would be nice.
--Dates are in the international standard order of "day month year," as opposed to our "month day year," with months abbreviated, instead of as numbers. I guess we're willing to make some accommodations to the standards of the entire rest of the planet.
But, at any rate, it's in my safety deposit box, and ready for whenever I decide to go. Hopefully soon: I am saddened to say I have never left the country.

Ping!

I think I have solved my blogging woes. I got an account at Ping.fm, which posts to multiple sites at once. I'll have to try it out: it doesn't seem to have tagging capabilities, so I guess I'll still have to go in and edit posts later), and it doesn't cover some of my sites (Gaia Online comes to mind), but it will make posting less daunting.
And, of course, my setting it up would not be complete without getting an account at nearly every one of the sites they support. I'll get those URL's to you later: I need to go to bed.

I've been blogged!

So, I was doing an ego search (i.e., Googling "tomensnaben"), and found that I am actually mentioned somewhere by someone else! Here, to be exact. Well, I suppose it's more so my Latin, but still, if I can be cited as an authority on something, even something so minor that contributing at all makes you an authority, I'm happy.
This calls for a celebration! Any ideas?

College! And...er...more sites.

Today was my first day of junior college. Nothing much to report: just the general handing-out of syllabi and professors talking about themselves and the course. The classes seem nice enough, though.
I also got some new blogs: Vox, MindSay, and Blogster. Now, hear me out: each new blog gives me new features and opportunities to ignore. But this one sounds really fun: MindSay has a wiki. And I automatically have my own page. It requires an account to edit, so i guess it isn't a true wiki, but still. I can't wait to see what sort of stuff people say about me on it.
Oh, and I'm going to be on my own at last. Mum's moving in with her boyfriend at the end of September, and letting me stay here. I'll have to pay the bills and whatnot, but Ill be alone without having to scour the horrors of the housing market. Student loan time! (I also have to get a laptop, since my current computers are going to shit).

¡Lo cogí!

I finally got a job! I've been looking since the beginning of the summer. It's at Cragun's, as a dishwasher. Okay, so it's only a trial employment, but still. I have to trim my beard for this job, so I'd better keep it! Oh, well--at least I don't have to shave it off completely, and I've already gotten rid of my red spiked hair.

And afterwards, I saw a sign there saying "no through traffic." I was so excited to see decent, competent spelling that I almost went through it, not realising what it actually meant. Whoever decided it was alright to use "thru" should be shot. In my opinion, it's like having a sign that says "STOPZORZ LOL ;)!!1!~~" One of my dreams in life is to make a fast food place with a drive through.

At any rate, it'll be nice to have some cash flowing in, assuming I can stop myself from spending it on Transformers.

A common misconception about Minnesota...

...Is that it's always too cold. In fact, it is often too hot. We've skipped good weather entirely, going strait from the one to the other. And now it's raining--thunderstorms. They last about ten minutes, and ten later there is another. It's nearing ninety. It always irritates me to hear people saying "oh, I'd love to live in Florida--What great temperature: hundred degree days! Wouldn't that be heaven!" No, it would be hell. Have fun sweating to death!
I'm doing this to test out a new blog: tomensnaben.blog.com. Yes, against my better judgement, I got a new blog. I'm not transferring my back entries, though. I just need to post until no-one cares what the earlier posts are.

Stan Winston?

Man, everyone is dying. True, Stan Winston isn't seemingly immortal like Steve Irwin, but he is at least as godlike. Who'll be next? I dare not even think it.&

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Earlier today, I was struck by several tonnes of sheer awesome.

     My niece, whom I haven't seen in years, and her two children whom I haven't even met, are coming up here this August, along with my other niece and my sister, whom I haven't seen in the same amount of time. I don't think this news could possibly be any better.

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Graduation

    Well, I've finally graduated from high school. I don't think that it will really, fully hit me until I'm not there in the spring.
    When I got the gown, I thought that I would feel grand when trying it on. In reality, I felt fairly silly. You can definitely tell that this outfit was thought up in the Renaissance: no other time period would think of a mage's robe with a hat topped with a square.
    The actual graduation was fun. As is tradition--at least here--people snuck in beach balls and tossed them around during speeches. But one student this year had something a little more interesting: an inflatable phallus. When it flew up out of the crowd, the speaker finally said something. Unfortunately for her, that something was "You should just hold on to your balls."
    Afterwards was GradBlast, a bizarre event put on by a third party--I think. Basically, you go around playing carnival games to win funny money, with which you then gamble, and then exchange for raffle tickets for very dorm-oriented prizes (I, for example, won a "3-in-1 sandwich maker," which is really a sort of generic George Foreman grill). By the end of the night, the dealers stop caring (if they ever did), inflation runs rampant, the funny economy collapses, and they run out of tickets with you still holding BHS$50,000. Of course, the games and prizes are the fun part, and the main attraction, so no-one but the economics students notices.

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Let's get the Flock out of here.

I'm going to try and bring all of these web logs back. You see, I've lately been daunted by the idea of keeping all of my sites updated. On top of that, I haven't had the Internet at my house, and Netscape just kicked me off of itself, because it's apparently going to be discontinued.
But those seem to have righted each other. You see, Netscape pushed me on to some bizarre third-party thing called "Flock." I was less than thrilled at first, because it called itself "the social web browser," so I was worried that it would do something stupid, like allow others to use my account or something (I'm still a little worried). But, it has its own built-in blog poster, which I'm trying now. If this works, I'll be able to post to Xanga, Blogger, LiveJournal, and two new ones: Blogsome and WordPress (maybe I should stop getting random accounts) at once. That leaves only Yahoo 360°, MySpace, Gather, and Gaia Online to copy and paste to (that is, after transferring my back entries, which I may not do with these new ones.
Also, I got an account at a site called "Schola," so you don't have to worry about any more Latin entries. Spanish, I don't know about. I need a way to keep these separate, but don't know what it should be.

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