括 - Kuo4 - Enclose, Include

括號 - Kuo4 Hao4 - Enclose Mark — (Parentheses)

大括號 - Da4 Kuo4 Hao4 - Big Enclose Mark — {Curly Braces}

方括號 - Fang1 Kuo4 Hao4 - Square Enclose Mark — [Square Brackets]

凍 - Dong4 - Freeze

解凍 - Jie3 Dong4 - Loosen Freeze — Thaw

To the delivery guys who (apparently) turned off the freezer in our basement about two weeks ago without telling us: THANKS! We had been meaning to defrost it anyway, and who needed all that food.

擺 - Bai3 - Swing, Sway, Pendulum

Swing Girls is a movie by the same guy as Waterboys… and it shows. It’s practically the exact same movie! Well, except with girls instead of boys, and jazz instead of synchronized swimming.

意 - Yi4 - Meaning, Idea, Intention

People aren’t wearing enough hats.

忌 - Ji4 - Envy, Jealous

忌妒 - Ji4 Du4 - Jealous

Amazingly, also: 妒忌 - Du4 Ji4 - Jealous

梵 - Fan4 - Buddhist

梵文 - Fan4 Wen2 - Buddhist Language — Sanskrit

Oneaday posts Chinese sayings, one a day. I know another site like that but it isn’t anywhere near as good.

滑 - Hua2 - Smooth, Slippery, Cunning

滑雪 - Hua2 Xue3 - Smooth Snow — Ski

Also 滑鼠 - Hua2 Shu3 - Smooth Mouse — Mouse

諷 - Feng4 - Satire

諷刺 - Feng4 Ci4 - Satire Jab — Sarcastic

Jenny and her sisters went to New York today and they had just a wonderful time.

禪 - Chan2 - Buddhism, Meditation, Chant

口頭禪 - Kou3 Tou2 Chan2 - Mouth Head Mantra

A 口頭禪 is a word of phrase that a person seems to use all the time. One of mine might be “somehow”. By the way, 口頭 kind of means the same thing as “tip of your tongue”.

I was almost thinking that “chant” might be related somehow to “禪” but of course I was wrong.

滷 - Lu3 - Sauce, Gravy

Fairly cool looking one.

版 - Ban3 - Register, Edition, Version

重生版 - Chong2 Sheng1 Ban3 - Repeat Born Edition — Redux

FeedOnFeeds-Redux! Looks like some of the people who liked Feed on Feeds but really DIDN’T like the nearly geologic pace of development have gotten bored of waiting for a new version and gone off on their own. Good!

晚 - Wan3 - Late

Another late night.

書 - Shu1 - Book, Letter, Write

書法 - Shu1 Fa3 - Write Method — Calligraphy

鮮 - Xian1 - Fresh

新鮮 - Xin1 Xian1 - New Fresh — Fresh

We finally tried Chau’s Restaurant, the new Vietnamese place in Manchester. Great stuff! Goi Cuon was good, Banh Mi and Bun were both EXCELLENT. Everything seemed to be especially fresh. Next time we’ll have to try out the Pho, which their website teaches you how to eat!

鄉 - Xiang1 - Village, Country, Town

家鄉 - Jia1 Xiang1 - Home Town

弟 - Di4 - Younger Brother

哥 - Ge1 - Older Brother

Saw Grand Theft Auto: The Motion Picture. Another bad one.

蒸 - Zheng1 - Steam

蒸氣男孩 - Zheng1 Qi4 Nan2 Hai2 - Steam Air Male Child — Steamboy

I’ve been meaning to see this one for the longest time. However: not good! Sure, it has tons of giant steam powered machines, but that’s about it.

德 - De2 - Virtue, Righteousness

德國 - De2 Guo2 - Virtue Country — Germany

And I thought we had it pretty good with the whole Beautiful Country thing.

最 - Zui4 - Most

最大 - Zui4 Da4 - Most Big — Biggest, Maximum

Fact one: Grady Hendrix apparently went on one of those shows where idiots scream at each other, and sometimes reasonable people get screamed at. Fact two: From the sound of comments at his site, apparently he said the sort of things that make idiots scream. Fact three: I am currently the number one result on the web for Grady Hendrix weblog.

I’m wondering if the comments on this post are about to get very busy…

UPDATE: Grady’s story.

譫 - Zhan1 - Incoherent

譫妄 - Zhan1 Wang4 - Incoherent Absurd — Delirium

Hey! It was pretty good!

戲 - Xi4 - Play, Drama, Show

馬戲團 - Ma3 Xi4 Tuan2 - Horse Show Group — Circus

We’re going to see something kind of like a circus tomorrow.

仇 - Chou2 - Hatred, Animosity

復仇 - Fu4 Chou2 - Return Hatred — Vengeance

Sympathy for Lady Vengeance: not that good. In comparison, Oldboy: good, and Sympathy for Mr. Venegeance: we barely remember at all, so I guess it must not have been that great.

餳 - Xing2 - Molasses

Did you know that Molasses is also known as Treacle? And that it is a chelating agent? And that contrary to popular belief, it is not made from sugar cane at all, but mined?

貴 - Gui4 - Expensive, Esteemed, Noble

貴族 - Gui14 Zu2 - Noble Group — Lord, Nobleman

妙 - Miao4 - Wonderful

“Beautiful Wonderful”, as Yvonne sometimes says.

Best wasp ever!

As an adult, Ampulex compressa seems like your normal wasp, buzzing about and mating. But things get weird when it’s time for a female to lay an egg. She finds a cockroach to make her egg’s host, and proceeds to deliver two precise stings. The first she delivers to the roach’s mid-section, causing its front legs buckle. The brief paralysis caused by the first sting gives the wasp the luxury of time to deliver a more precise sting to the head.

The wasp slips her stinger through the roach’s exoskeleton and directly into its brain. She apparently use ssensors along the sides of the stinger to guide it through the brain, a bit like a surgeon snaking his way to an appendix with a laparoscope. She continues to probe the roach’s brain until she reaches one particular spot that appears to control the escape reflex. She injects a second venom that influences these neurons in such a way that the escape reflex disappears.

From the outside, the effect is surreal. The wasp does not paralyze the cockroach. In fact, the roach is able to lift up its front legs again and walk. But now it cannot move of its own accord. The wasp takes hold of one of the roach’s antennae and leads it–in the words of Israeli scientists who study Ampulex–like a dog on a leash.

The zombie roach crawls where its master leads, which turns out to be the wasp’s burrow. The roach creeps obediently into the burrow and sits there quietly, while the wasp plugs up the burrow with pebbles. Now the wasp turns to the roach once more and lays an egg on its underside. The roach does not resist. The egg hatches, and the larva chews a hole in the side of the roach. In it goes.

The larva grows inside the roach, devouring the organs of its host, for about eight days. It is then ready to weave itself a cocoon–which it makes within the roach as well. After four more weeks, the wasp grows to an adult. It breaks out of its cocoon, and out of the roach as well. Seeing a full-grown wasp crawl out of a roach suddenly makes those Alien movies look pretty derivative.

摧 - Cui1 - Destroy, Devastate

What I really meant to say is “DEVASTATING!!!!” but I can’t figure out how to translate that.

冒 - Mao4 - Brave, Bold, Risk, Rash

冒牌 - Mao4 Pai2 - Risk Brand — Fake

Don’t be fooled! Emperor of the Sea is NOT the same thing as THE IMMORTAL LEE SOON-SHIN.

佈 - Bu4 - Notify, Diffuse

分佈 - Fen1 Bu4 - Divide Diffuse — Distributed

Distributed compilation == GOOD