New Songs...Well, New Recordings

Yuan Yuan was out most of the day today so I took advantage and recorded some songs, four to be exact: "No," "It'll all be over soon," "Unsatisfied" and "美丽冻人." The last one isn't Wingdings, it's a Chinese phrase with a play on words. The original phrase is 美丽动人, which means "beautiful and charming." 美丽冻人, which has one character different but is pronounced exactly the same, means "beautiful, freezing cold" when interpreted literally. Add a bit of sarcasm and you get the colloquial meaning: "wear sexy/revealing clothes even though it's freezing cold," or "freeze your ass off to look hot." It's much more short and sweet in Chinese, but then again asses here are also smaller. Wait, hold up, English does just fine: "feel cold, look hot." Anyway, you can listen to them all on my YouTube page.

Based on some research I did today, I think I could complete a 30 day trial of watching an episode a day of NCIS without stressing myself out too much. The great thing is, I can watch it without actually "watching." I can do flashcards or pushups while NCIS plays in the background and though I won't have the slightest clue as to the plotline of the episode, I'll get all the little jokes. Today I left an NCIS episode streaming on my laptop at home as I took a stroll to the store and I caught myself laughing several times on the way. When I came back, I cross-checked my laugh times with the episode and they were spot on. Now that's convenience.

The knot of the day is the Rolling Hitch:


image borrowed from animatedknots.com

This one's good for tying a rope to another rope, or to a pole, provided the pull is parallel to the tie-ee (the rope being tied to)...and here I thought Russian was the only language that had a word with a triple letter.

I had a weird dream today. I don't remember all the juicy details but I was definitely the baby Harry Potter and everyone around me was trying to kill me. The twist in this fan-fiction-dream was that whoever killed me would become more powerful, maybe even MORE powerful. It was like the wizard version of eating your enemies or the visiting Captain Cooks to acquire their skills. I remember crawling around like mad, under a car at one point, trying to avoid all the power-hungry people out for my tiny little head. I wish I could remember more, I just know that it's applicable to my life somehow.