鼻 - Bi2 - Nose

鼻子 - Bi2 Zi5 - Nose

Yet another one by Sharena! She can just rattle them off like it’s nothing. “How about nose? Or chair? Or oil?”

硝 - Xiao1 - Saltpeter

Potassium Nitrate, Potash, Saltpetre.

This is my new favorite optical illusion. Slowly back away from your monitor… stand on the other side of the room if possible.

戳 - Chuo1 - Poke, Jab

戳 (although she prefers to say 刺) is what Jenny is going to keep doing to me until I finish posting word of the day, and sleep.

術 - Shu4 - Technique, Method

魔術 - Mo2 Shu4 - Devil Techinique — Magic

奇術 - Qi2 Shu4 - Strange Technique — Thaumaturgy

姚 - Yao2 - A Surname

Yo? Yao.

澄 - Cheng2 - Clear

Never, ever, ever, EVER use ClearCase, if you can possibly avoid it.

NEVER.

Just about everything that could have went wrong on our trip did go wrong! However, in all cases, the problems didn’t actually hurt us. In fact, mostly, they HELPED us! Allow me to expound:

1) When we got to Budget in San Jose to pick up the compact car I had reserved, the nice lady at the counter saw that there were two of us and said “Would you like a nice passenger van instead of your compact?” I said “No.” She said “How about a mini-van?” I said “No.” She said “Would you like to upgrade?” I said “No.” She said “Well we’re out of compacts, you’ll have to take the van or upgrade.” I said “I just want the compact that I reserved.” A stare down ensued, I waited her out, and eventually she said “Fine, I’ll have to give you a Sebring.” It turned out to be a Sebring convertible, which came in handy a few days later driving around on Mt. Tam! Jenny and I had a lot of fun with this one, asking each other repeatedly “would you like a nice passenger van?” and making the standard jokes about being able to take the reservation but not being able to hold the reservation.

2) When we got to the Hayes Mansion, where we were supposed to stay, they told us that they had somehow overbooked the hotel and we’d have to go elsewhere! I guess they felt bad about turning us around immediately and sending us someplace else that late at night, so they let us stay in some super fancy room in the actual mansion that night (the normal guest rooms are in other buildings). The next day they sent us to the Sainte Claire in downtown San Jose, which is clearly where we should have been staying all along. The room wasn’t as nice, but was fine, but more importantly it was in walking distance to just about everyplace we wanted to go, and also was right near a VTA stop. Plus: for all our “trouble”, the entire stay was FREE, paid for by the Hayes Mansion!

Nothing at all went wrong during our actual trip (except maybe for one critically poor choice of places to eat: Zyng? More like 髒!) But on our trip home, things started going wrong again:

3) After flying back home, I looked at the big board to figure out where our luggage was eventually going to spit out and stood and waited at the carousel. It hadn’t begun to move yet, so I was occupying my time by watching a pretty girl on the other side of the carousel that Jenny had thoughtfully pointed out to me. The strange thing about this girl is that she was standing next to a suitcase that looked exactly like ours! Or was it ours? I went over to her and confusedly asked “Is that your suitcase?” She probably thought I was crazy, but said “No.” I then asked, sort of to no one in particular, “Then how did it get here?” She decided I definitely was crazy, and moved away. I checked the tag, it really was ours, so I muttered “I’m just going to take it” and took it. The question is: How did it get there? It was there from the time we arrived at baggage claim, and we got there pretty fast. Could it have been on our plane, and got some sort of special handling? Or had it gotten lost, got on the wrong plane, and ended up there BEFORE us? And if so, why weren’t we on THAT plane? Strange. Anyway, we walked out with suitcase in hand while everybody else was still waiting for the carousel to even start moving.

4) Still in a daze trying to figure out what had happened with the luggage, we arrived at the car. I remember when we arrived at the airport the shuttle bus driver was waiting for us and I remarked to Jenny that that sort of thing makes me nervous and I start to forget to do important things, like lock the car. I remember making a point to lock it and then double check to make sure the door was locked before leaving… but I apparently FORGOT TO CLOSE THE WINDOW! Amazingly, the car was still in one piece, started right up, and apparently had no ill effects, except for a slightly damp driver’s seat. Incredible!

Way way way above the fog

We made it, flight was fine, car was fine, hotel is actually NOT fine! Some sort of screwup with the bookings has effectively “bumped” us from our room tomorrow night. Tonight they put is some really fancy room we clearly don’t deserve: the room has a name instead of a number. They offered to put us up for free tomorrow night in some other hotel (nice) and then ship us back here again for the rest of our stay (a bit of a pain). I’m asking them instead to just put us in the other hotel for the rest of the time. We’ll see what happens.

I officially decide that word of the day is on vacation, by the way. Fresh words starting again on Monday!

荷 - He2 - Lotus

聖荷西 - Sheng4 He2 Xi1 - Saint Lotus West — San Jose

Since you are all clearly useless (or maybe comments were still broken on that day) we had to come up with our own stuff to do.

The normal rules apply, word of the day may or may not be on vacation, I may or may not be able to respond to email, all at the mercy of the hotel. One things for sure: we’ll be back on Sunday!

紙 - Zhi3 - Paper

Another one by Sharena! How could I have been missing such common words all this time?

椅 - Yi3 - Chair

椅子 - Yi3 Zi5 - Chair

Another one thanks to Sharena. She’s a veritable cornucopia of words of the day!

鬍 - Hu2 - Beard, Moustache

鬍子 - Hu2 Zi5 - Beard

Today’s word of the day brought to you by Sharena! Sharena says: “No! Don’t do that!”

盹 - Dun3 - Nap, Nod, Doze

黍 - Shu3 - Millet

Millet is what the world’s oldest — 4000 year old! — noodles were made of.

爐 - Lu2 - Stove, Furnace

Don’t need the 爐子 - Lu2 Zi5 - Furnace quite yet, I think the 暖氣機 - Nuan3 Qi4 Ji1 - Warm Air Machine — Heater will do.

被 - Bei4 - Blanket, By

被子 - Bei4 Zi5 - Blanket

弋 - Yi4 - Shoot

You Shoot, I Shoot - How about neither of you shoot. Or make any more movies.

詛 - Zu3 - Curse

Make sure you don’t confuse Grommet with Gromit! In Chinese “Wallace and Gromit” is akwardly translated as 酷狗寶貝 - Ku4 Gou3 Bao3 Bei4 - Cool Dog Baby … poor Wallace is dropped from the title altogether.

Starting with this perfectly good theme, headed downwards to THE BADLY DESIGNED FUTURE!!!!

Update: I hereby declare this done enough, for now.

環 - Huan2 - Bracelet, Loop, Ring

護線環 - Hu4 Xian4 Huan2 - Protect Wire Ring — Grommet

Google Reader - Google’s new web based feed reader. Feels a little clunky to me….but then again what would I know about it.

(via)

笄 - Ji1 - Fifteen Year Old Girl

What a strange word. And why no words for fifteen year old boys? Or fourteen or sixteen year old girls? Useless.

要 - Yao4 - Must, Want, Have To, Going To, Important

重要 - Zhong4 Yao4 - Heavy Important — Significant

羊 - Yang2 - Sheep

山羊 - Shan1 Yang2 - Mountain Sheep — Goat

昏 - Hun1 - Faint

Fainting goats! Their entire bodies stiffen for a few seconds when startled, even slightly. Rumored to have been bred in Tennessee as sacrificial goats to be mixed into flocks of sheep, they are now apparently big business, with shows, breeders, and even a Wikipedia article.

They’re also incredibly funny.

叉 - Cha1 - Fork

叉子 - Cha1 Zi5 - Fork

重 - Chong2 - Repeat

重整 - Chong2 Zheng3 - Repeat Rectify — Refactor

扇 - Shan4 - Fan

扇子 - Shan4 Zi5 - Fan

電扇 - Dian4 Shan4 - Electric Fan