Productivity

I was extremely productive last night, though I didn't write a single drop of any sort of fic.

I managed to get the laptop to emulate a Mac. You boot it up and it looks and acts like Mac OS X. I am so thrilled! It's really the next best thing to having an actual Mac. I think the designer in me craves the look and the ease of that the Mac OS has. Jeff is probably going to think that I've gone nuts when he gets a good look at it. I would love to emulate my PC here at work, but then our IT department would really freak!

I also discovered a new use for my PDA. I was talking with mr_cornelius about a Japanese electronic dictionary, for improved ease at looking up terms while I'm picking my way through my Japanese-language manga. I started looking at dictionaries and wanted to cry because they were so expensive and I don't have the money for one.

Then, a little light bulb clicked on and I dug out my PDA.

I got my Sony Clie last fall for $150. It has a color screen and is a good little machine. I'd stopped using it because I preferred an old-fashioned handwritten scheduler.

Now it has a new life - as my electronic Japanese dictionary.

I discovered a really good piece of freeware software that allows me to input characters in kana and look up kanji using any one of a variety of methods. I wiped the system of the other stuff I had on it and loaded the dictionary (it takes up a good chunk of the available disk space because of the complexity.) Last night, I crawled into bed and decided to read a few pages of Inuyasha vol. 20 (where the Viz release currently stops and where I decided to begin) and it helped immensely. It took me a few minutes to figure out the best method of looking up kanji. But I managed to get through most chapter 189 and know what was going on!

Myouga-jiji is SUCH a chicken.

I'm thinking that the printed ch. 189 and the actual vol. 20 are slightly different. There's a couple of pages at the beginning that weren't in my copy of the manga. But, my translation was pretty accurate. It's a lot more generalized than the one on Chris Rjek's site (where I was double checking the translation), but I was able to get most of the same meanings. I messed up some on Ryukossei's speech, but that's because it's written in a font that's very hard to read. Also, Myouga's tough to translate as well.

missandrony ROCKS

Go read her commentary on the final debate. Simply the most wonderful, snarky thing I have read in ages. Plenty of fodder for both sides of the election.

I agree about her choice for the winner. He rocks!!!111