Those Flat Chinese

Morning meditation:

Today was more focused. I think I'm up to 1.2 consecutive milliseconds of consciousness, which sounds low, but feels like an improvement.

Dream:

I'm a sailor on a semi-modern ship. I am looking for a bathroom where I can move my bowels. I find one, but it is completely unacceptable. There are two toilets, facing each other from opposite corners of the room, as if in a duel, and about fifteen people between them, just shooting the breeze (something people only do in bathrooms in dreams). I barely hesitate a second before taking my privacy-sensitive bowels in search of other accomodations. I finally find a private bathroom with a single toilet, lock myself in, and mount the beast.

Lo and behold, this must be a toilet from an amusement park. Sitting on this thing is like sitting in one of those virtual ride machines at Chucke E. Cheese's, except that I don't have a screen in front of me convincing me that I'm on runaway railcar. I try to relax, but it is impossible, my cheeks are gripping the seat with all the static friction they've been storing away for the last 22 years. It's like trying to relax a bear trap. I struggle for a while, but my needs finally give in to the consistency of my failures, and I decide that I guess I don't really need to go. As I leave the bathroom, the next contestant comes in, Brian Voorhis who I haven't seen since middle school. I give him the thumbs up sign.

After this, I teleport to the dock. The ship is leaving, and I need to get on before I'm left behind. I remember what the captain said about the really stupid things sailors sometimes do, and proceed to do one of such caliber that further speeches in this vein are assured for generations to come. Instead of just jumping onto the ship, I wrap my four appendages around some 4 foot diameter column that holds the ship's roof up. Now I'm hopelessly stuck. If I let go, I fall into the water, but there's no way I can maneuver around this thing without help. I can barely move at all. I stick one leg out as much as I can, which is about one inch, and yell for someone to drag me in by my leg. Unfortunately, the other sailors lack the necessary genie powers required to perform such a feat. I realize that my last chance is to get back onto the deck and then try to jump for it. I try and fail, and almost fall off, and then suddenly I'm on the deck in some kind fluke of teleportation. I don't hesitate for instant to thank the Gods, and execute a beautiful running long jump onto the deck. Crisis averted.

End of Dream

I was studying Chinese today, and ran across this sentence: ge1ge1 he1 ka1fei1 he1 de hen3 shao3. Now don't panic! Of course, at first sight this looks like incomprehensible gibberish, unless you're one of the enlightened few (2 billionish). But in reality, it's pretty simple.

Let me give you some brief background: The above is the romanization of the Chinese sentence 哥哥喝咖啡喝地很少. (Romanization = Chinese for Americans). Romanization tells you how to pronounce the words, unlike the authentic Chinese sentence which just hurts your eyes, not to mention your brain. The numbers in the romanization indicate the tone (what to do with your voice) to use with each vowel sound. Tone 3 is for Chinese Jedi Masters, while tone 1 is Ben Stein's permanent residence - flat tone - where your voice doesn't change pitch during the duration of the vowel.

What's special about this sentence is that the first 6 tones are tone 1. Basically this means that you're likely to say the first 6 syllables on one note. When I say it out loud, it sounds absolutely ridiculous.

This reminded me instantly of Galaxy Quest, where the aliens consistently speak in a perfect monotone, with the added benefit of residing on the precise pitch of their voice breaks. Listen to this (Blogger doesn't allow uploading sound files, I had to convert it to video):

Now back to the Chinese phrase. Expect the worst:

I sound even more retarded, but you get the gist.

Madelyn: ur awesome
Mark: wow
Mark: r u learning to notice the obvious too?
Madelyn: yeah, im not good at it
Madelyn: that's how my compliment came to you