I spent hours at the end of last week trying to translate a Japanese children’s story. Tonight I am trying to write one. I decided to pick something vaguely Irish to write about though it took a while to work out what story to tell. My first thought was of the legend of Finn MacCool. This was never told to me as a proper story but more as a series of snippets – “built the Giant’s Causeway”, “created the Isle of Man” – and neither of these scenarios inspired me. In the end I decided to write a short story based on a Leprechaun I have called Seamus. This pulls in a variety of elements from Leprechaun stories including a pot of gold and a red ribbon. So far I have only managed three sentences in Japanese. I need to finish this by Tuesday morning.

I wanted to find a picture to use on my blog. I looked on flickr as I remembered that they allowed people to use Creative Commons’ licenses. But I can’t find a picture I can use. Everything I looked at was using an attribution license. The license is worded as follows:

Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

So where on flickr do the licensors state how you should make the attribution?

I was just about to subscribe to a magazine on-line when Marty asked me to check and see if there was anything he would like. I couldn’t find a way to browse their technical magazines so I ran a search for “linux”. The only result was for a magazine called “Windows IT Pro”. We won’t be buying that.

The deadline for talk submissions for YAPC::Asia is tomorrow. I won’t be submitting a talk. Usually at a YAPC I talk about communication or management – things I don’t have any experience of in an Asian context. I did think that Marty would submit a talk but he doesn’t use Perl much anymore and doesn’t think he has anything to talk about.

I am considering not speaking at any conference this year. Part of me loves to speak but the part that hates it is stronger tonight.

You can tell you’ve played too many games of scrabble when … you receive an email from your lawyer and your first thought is, “his surname would be worth a lot of points”.

Norwin drew my attention to this Wired article:

Fujita’s Pickup School for Men Who Can’t Get Any teaches geeky, insecure men of all ages how to gain confidence, score dates and get laid — all based, he says, on a proprietary “science” he discovered after a decade of careful research.

I know the Japanese like to learn new things but I wasn’t quite expecting that.

I was trying to translate one of Mint’s blog posts when I came across the following idiom, “内輪のノリ”. Google translate usually gives amusing translations and this one was no exception: “noli private”. “Noli” should really be “nori”. Nori usually refers to food that is wrapped in nori seaweed – like balls of rice or rolls of sushi. The phrase talks about the private part that is inside the nori, which seems a strange thing to put in a sentence about the organisers of London.pm. My dictionaries don’t help with idiomatic phrases but I assume that this idiom actually means a clique and is much more colourful than that English word.

When I had the flu I wanted to eat something other than toast at lunch time. I liked the idea of having a large pot of home made chicken soup but I wasn’t well enough to make it. As a compromise Marty went out and bought me tins of Campbell’s soup. Growing up I always preferred Heinz’s soups. Campbell’s soups are concentrated and I find the concept of adding water to canned soup a little odd. (I’m not sure why I think this since water is one of the main ingredients of every home made soup that I make).

I was thrilled that one of the flavours he bought was tomato. I love tomato soup. The labels on the back of the can had mostly been covered with a new Japanese label. But one thing wasn’t. It stated “contains 2 x the Lycopene of a fresh tomato”. Is that really a good thing? I have no idea what lycopene is (even though I spent three years studying biochemistry). Marty didn’t know either but decided that it would be cool if it was something that helped turn you into a wolf…

I had a look on Wikipedia and discovered that processed tomatoes are a better source of lycopene than fresh ones:

Lycopene in tomato paste is four times more bioavailable than in fresh tomatoes. This is because lycopene is so insoluble in water and is so tightly bound to vegetable fiber. Thus processed tomato products such as pasteurized tomato juice, soup, sauce, and ketchup contain the highest concentrations of bioavailable lycopene.

I like to plan things and today I planned our Valentine. I wanted it to be perfect. I planned to look good, have great food, watch a romantic film, and cuddle.

Looking Good

I was going to wear a dress and I knew that things weren’t going well when I couldn’t work out how to put it on. After three attempts just to get the stupid thing over my head, I kept getting confused with the net and petticoats, I realised that it’s one of those dresses you can’t put on by yourself. It crosses over strangely and has a zip that I can’t reach.

Then I thought that I would put on the jeans I wore on Tuesday night. They fitted perfectly only two nights ago but today they were really uncomfortable – the joys of being female and hormonal. I gave up and put on a pair of Marty’s baggy trousers and a t-shirt.

Good Food

Marty arrived home late. I was chatting to my sister on the phone when I heard someone thump the front door. I realised it was Marty when he started to yell. I had accidentally locked him out. I must have bolted the door without thinking after I got the shopping. It rather spoiled his entrance with a bouquet of roses as I dashed out and opened the door and then rushed back to finish the call with my sister.

As it was already after 8 we were both very hungry. I imagine that during a romantic dinner you don’t normally stand and eat starters in the kitchen while you cook the steak. But then you probably aren’t supposed to eat it whilst balancing a plate on your knee and sitting on the sofa either.

Romantic Film

We watched Love Actually. Not all of it though as the DVD broke just over half way through.

Cuddle

Now that the romantic film is over I am blogging, as Marty has a conference call with New York in 20 minutes.

Thankfully the only thing I actually need for a perfect Valentine is Marty.

Marty wanted to follow the Japanese traditions for Valentine’s Day. He finds it stressful buying me a present and prefers a tradition where only the women give gifts. I agreed to go with part of this tradition – the part that involves me buying him chocolate. But I still want to receive a small gift.

I was told that the shops would be busy but I wasn’t expecting to have to take a number to queue for chocolate. Nor was I expecting to be pushed out of the way by an elderly woman in her haste to get to the chocolate counter.

I wanted to buy something special and bought some expensive Godiva truffles. And then I thought that maybe I should buy some British chocolates. And then I was worried that he would have expected both these choices so I went and bought some French chocolate. At one point I ended up in a supermarket staring at the chocolate counter thinking that maybe I should buy him a different type of chocolate for every year we’ve been married! It was at that point I realised that I was getting carried away…