Lost in Translation
And English, so rich in theory, but so poor in realization, the poverty of day-to-day language and ideas.
For a few ideas that get you out of the box, try:
Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schadenfreude
and, rather the opposite: http://matadornetwork.com/life/35-untranslatable-words-describe-nuances-love/
Favorites: L'esprit de Escalier, Saudade, Koi No Yokan (that seems like 3 words to me...meh, Japanese...), Wabi-Sabi (2 words again), Aware, Mamihlapinatapai, there are more, find them and send them on...
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- Category: Link of the day
Buried Alive
A short selection of compelling first and second hand tales of those people who were buried alive. Some survived, while others were preserved only in gruesome accounts.
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Musophobia
It turned out there's a phobia for this, one I don't get, it's hard to get other peoples phobias, this fear of something reasonably cute, bright eyed with big ears, nibbling on a wedge of cheese, what's scary about this? Didn't Mickey Mouse enlighten us? It's not a spider, that alien 8 legged intelligence that can, will, give venomous bite, will drop on you from the ceiling or entangle you in webs, look what happened to Miss Muffet, no, it's just a mouse.
But the salad girls, both of them are terrified, wide eyed, they've seen it, flitting out of the corner of their eyes, Greg and A***** confirm it, they've seen it as well...me, I see nothing, or chalk it up to flashbacks or sobriety...
These girls, they do the stereotypical standing on chairs and scream quietly, muffling their mouths, summoning the men folk in from the field, armed with pitchforks and ready to do battle, but the mouse is long gone...
I should affect an air of sympathy, compassion, one is worried, it was last seen in the office where she keeps her purse, I can find no trace, "maybe it's crawled into your bag?" I suggest helpfully, her purse is open, in terror she shakes her it out onto the desk, shakes it at arms length, inspects the contents, then gingerly repacks it all up...
Meanwhile, I'm hatching a plan, I'll cure them all, I just need some cat toys, or maybe just a handful of dryer lint, a little string for a tail, cork for a body...
Synonyms: Murophobia, Suriphobia,
Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_mice
Link #2: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-06/canberra-archaeologists-discover-dog-sized-rats/6918658
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- Category: Miscellany
The Gun Show
This was a couple of years ago, a construction buddy got a couple of free passes to the gun show.
Why not? I like guns-ish, it's a bit out of my box, on a rare Sunday off we head down.
Now it's huge, and there's an amazing array of vendors, not only guns but a thousand related products, there's hunting and fishing, there are antique bayonets and knives, there's Samurai swords, canes, fur mittens, antiques of various descriptions, Nazi memorabilia, watches (I get a trifle hung up here, I confess...), antique dueling pistols, reproductions, powder flasks, umbrellas, novelty stickers and buttons, chain mail and armor, single shot muskets and muzzle-loaders, fine Italian hunting rifles, embossed and engraved with scenes from antiquity, there are zombie posters and targets, dried rations for your backyard nuclear bunker, it's a lifestyle...
The crowd...how to describe them ... more like a Comicon of people you would never in your life sell a gun to, there's the army dude, walking about all dressed up and kitted out like he just stepped of the plane from Afghanistan, there's the old Vietnam Vet, in heavily beaded biker jacket, complete with patches, there are the drag queens and perpetually angry adolescents, there's every weird fucked-up neighbor you never wanted to run into again in your life...
And I realize that if any of these people own a gun, I'd better own one too ... if only to protect me from them...
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