Category: Journal

Saw Troy last night. It was actually better than I expected. I liked the emphasis on undying glory as a motivation for the characters, and the costuming and settings weren’t too jarring. Considering that Homer is full of anachronisms, anyway, I guess you shouldn’t criticize too much.

Couple things did bug me, though: I can live with there being no literal gods, but several of the characters were rather too freethinking for the time and place, deriding signs and omens and the will of the gods. Didn’t think that was very realistic. And the CGI armies were just way too big. Fifty thousand people can fit in a football stadium, so there shouldn’t be hoplites stretching as far as the eye can see. And the fight directors were obviously torn between hero battles and phalanx tactics. But they didn’t use stirrups, so maybe it balances out :-)

Pretty decent summer flick, in my humble opinion.

A couple blasts from the past:

• An article about the dedication of the New Testament that my dad translated into Tchien Krahn. (The “t-shirt” comment is spot-on, by the way.)
• A description of Liberian English. Don’t miss the sample at the bottom of the page!

Ĉu existas rete konservatemaj esperantistaj retpaĝoj aŭ uloj? Aŭ ĉu estas ĉiuj esperantistoj liberalemuloj? Mi ĝuas esti esperantanta, sed la liberalaj sintenoj, kiojn mi observas je ĉiu esperanta retpaĝon, kion mi estas vidinta, min ofte offendetas.

Eble iu devus ekigi konservateman revuon. Ĉu ne?

The evening after I post about ignoring the signs of heart attacks, I’m with some friends, and one of them — female, late twenties, good shape — doubles over with chest pain. It subsides a bit, then starts spreading down her left arm and to her jaw. We persuade her to get it checked out, so she goes to an ER, where of course she’s perfectly fine, and all tests are negative.