非 - Fei1 - Not, Un-

非常 - Fei1 Chang2 - Not Common — Unusual, Exceptional

韭 - Jiu3 - Leek

Not to be confused with 漏 - Lou4 - Leak.

It’s called Computational Theology. It only took about a year!

硅 - Gui1 - Silicon

硅谷 - Gui1 Gu3 - Silicon Valley

The Simpsons are going to Silicon Valley! We’ll be in San Jose on October 19th for Trolltech Developer Days, and then in that area looking for stuff to do until the following Sunday. Any suggestions? (I think the comments are now fixed, by the way.)

濃 - Nong2 - Concentrated, Dense

濃縮咖啡 - Nong2 Suo4 Ka1 Fei1 - Concentrated Reduced Coffee - Espresso

Where would be a logical place to find a Chinese/English coffee-related-terms dictionary? starbucks.com.tw, that’s where.

彳 - Chi4 - Left Step

And of course 亍 - Chu4 - Right Step.

This is acutally kind of old, but I haven’t seen it before. It’s the distribution of Google searches over the course of a single day (August 14th, 2003).

茂 - Mao4 - Luxuriant

宮本茂 - Shigeru Miyamoto

That was as close as we ever got to Miyamoto at the Nintendo World event today. With my silver Wavebird for him to sign, we got there about 90 minutes before the event was supposed to start. We found a line of hundreds, maybe a thousand, some who had obviously stayed overnight. We took our place at the end of the line and waited.

I missed out on probably the biggest Nintendo DS wireless gaming session EVER, because I don’t have a DS. But I was eavesdropping on several people who were participating in insane PictoChat sessions, and got some information on progress at the front of the line that way. Nintendo gave out free water and pizza to everybody waiting, which was really nice.

Eventually people starting coming out who had seen him! Several had him sign Nintendo T-Shits, controllers, games, and instruction manuals. “He’s so nice!” “Good luck you guys!” “He’s still signing, you have a chance!” The line moved forward at a near glacial pace. I went to check out the head of the line, it snaked into the store and then up some stairs and disappeared into the second floor. Can’t even see him!

Around 1:30, people coming out were saying “It’s all over, he’s left already.” NOOOO!!!! I went up to the front of the line again to see what was going on. Somehow, just at that moment, MIYAMOTO CAME TO THE WINDOW! I was among the first to notice him there, waved, and he waved back! I tried to quickly get a cameraphone picture, but it didn’t really come out! The rest of the crowd realized he was there, and surged forward. He kept waving, and eventually apologetically moved away from the window.

At this point the crowd was completely out of control, blocking the street, just trying to get a glimpse. Jenny joined me, and when he came back to the window again for an encore, she got a few pretty good pictures and even a movie of him waving. He’s just as cute and goofy in real life as he looks in pictures, and seemed to really be enjoying the crowd. He waved, gave several multi-thumbs up, and pumped his fists to get the crowd going. “NIN-TEN-DO! NIN-TEN-DO!” and “REV-O-LU-TION! REV-O-LU-TION!” chants started, but eventually he did move away from the window again, and didn’t come back. I assume he left through some sort of mushroom-powered airship or possibly a green underground pipe, because we never saw him come out.

So, final tally: Almost four hours waiting. One grainy picture…. of Shigeru Miyamoto! MISSION: SUCCESS! Also, we got to try this dumpling place Jenny wanted to go to:

By the way, Joystiq has a pretty nice post covering the whole event, including a much better picture of the guy who got his Power Glove signed, which I think is pretty much the coolest thing to have him sign ever.

Four blocks long, and we’re at the end!

逃 - Tao2 - Escape, Run, Flee

The song that I thought was saying 我的心想他 - Wo3 De5 Xin1 Xiang3 Ta1 - My Heart Misses Him actually was saying 我的心想逃 - Wo3 De5 Xin1 Xiang3 Tao2 - My Heart Wants To Flee!

載 - Zai4 - Over, Carry

過載 - Guo4 Zai4 - Exceed Carry — Overload

I have now reached over 10,000 unread items in my feed reader! Specifically, I have ten thousand, two hundred and ninety-eight.

At Gmail, I have 2,179 unread messages.

At minutillo.com email, I have 1,141 unread messages.

I have so many unmoderated comments at this weblog that when I go to the moderation screen I get this:

SELECT * FROM bk_comments WHERE comment_approved = ‘0′
WordPress database error: [MySQL client ran out of memory]

Luckily for me, I’m completely caught up with my $SECRET_PROJECT at $WORK. But unluckily for all of you, I’ve let everything else slide for the time being. Sorry if I haven’t been responsive!

檯 - Tai2 - Desk, Table

檯球 - Tai2 Qiu2 - Table Ball — Billiards

Good news: The construction at the first area where I get stuck in traffic every day is almost done. They think they’ll finish at the end of this year!

Bad news: The construction at the second area where I get stuck in traffic every day will not even start until 2009… and complete in THE AMAZING YEAR TWENTY FIFTEEN which barely even sounds like a real date.

艙 - Cang1 - Cabin

艙口 - Cang1 Kou3 - Cabin Mouth — Hatch

蜂 - Feng1 - Bee

熊蜂 - Xiong2 Feng1 - Bear Bee — Bumblebee

刺 - Ci4 - Thorn, Prick, Jab

Pointy prickly things are 刺刺的 - Ci4 Ci4 De5.

賞 - Shang3 - Appreciate, Admire

賞月 - Shang3 Yue4 - Admire Moon

You can’t see it but in this picture we’re all outside eating 柚子, 月餅, and Chris’s special chocolate sandwiches while admiring the moon. Happy 中秋節!

At Chris and Ellen’s

猶 - You2 - Like, As If

猶太 - You2 Tai4 - Jewish

猶太人 - You2 Tai4 Ren2 - Jewish Person

界 - Jie4 - Boundary

世界 - Shi4 Jie4 - World Boundary — World

你好 - Ni3 Hao3 - You Good — Hello

你好，世界! - Ni3 Hao3, Shi4 Jie4! - Hello, World!

歐 - Ou1 - Europe

北歐海盜 - Bei3 Ou1 Hai3 Dao4 - North Europe Sea Bandit — Viking

丹 - Dan1 - Red

丹麥 - Dan1 Mai4 - Denmark

For the pilot episode: Wil Wheaton, Puff Daddy, Michael Madsen, and Lindsay Lohan.

I guess if you don’t see the total perfection in a dimwitted starlet who’s already washed up at the ripe old age of 19 playing Dungeons and Dragons on TV, I can’t explain it to you.

UPDATE: Truth is awesomer than fiction:

From: Wil Wheaton <wil@wilwheaton.net>
To: jwz@jwz.org
Subject: Celebrity D&D

Hey,

No joke: I helped some guys from Upright Citizen’s Brigade pitch this to Comedy Central. We did a live version for them at the Comedy Central Workspace earlier this year.

It was AWESOME, and hilarious, and I got to sit close enough to Paget Brewster to pretend that she was in love with me, but CC didn’t pick it up.

There’s a tape of it, that should /really/ find its way to the internets.

卷 - Juan4 - Roll, Sweep

卷雲 - Juan4 Yun2 - Sweep Cloud — Cirrus

Unfortunately, I’m too lazy to look up THE ULTIMATE CHINESE/ENGLISH CLOUD TRANSLATION PAGE WITH PICTURES AND EVERYTHING. Oh, wait, no I’m not.

沫 - Mo4 - Suds, Froth

泡沫 - Pao4 Mo4 - Bubble Froth — Foam

嗡 - Weng1 - Buzz (onomatopoeia)

Got a haircut today. 嗡嗡嗡~~~

Jenny and San Miao

衛 - Wei4 - Guard

衛星 - Wei4 Xing1 - Guard Star — Satellite

定位 - Ding4 Wei4 - Determine Position — Location

系統 - Xi4 Tong3 - System Whole — System

衛星定位系統 - Wei4 Xing1 Ding4 Wei4 Xi4 Tong3 - Satellite Location System - Global Positioning System

>From sleeping giant state park

甜 - Tian2 - Sweet

甜不辣 - Tian2 Bu4 La4 - Tempura

Cheesecake Tempura? What will they think of next?

靛 - Dian4 - Indigo

靛青 - Dian4 Qing1 - Indigo Blue — Indigo

Ever try doing Google image searches for colors?

費 - Fei4 - Waste, Consume, Fee

費爾菲爾德 - Fei4 Er3 Fei1 Er3 De2 - Fairfield

Fairfield is where this guy is from, where I used to go to visit Jenny during the summer, and where I work now.

豪 - Hao2 - Grand, Heroic

豪豬 - Hao2 Zhu1 - Grand Pig — Porcupine