books and translations and fonts and other stuff

The used bookstore is still there, hooray! (I know that because I allowed myself a small side trip on the way back from the ATM. If I had really been good, I would've gone to the bookstore before the ATM, but I only spent $3, so it doesn't count as a serious indulgence.) Somebody bought the book of Rumi's poetry I had talked myself out of buying last time. Oh well. Speaking of Rumi, I've really got to write down the name of the translator who did the latest round of translations of Persian poetry. All I can ever remember is that his first name is Daniel and his last name begins with L and ends with -ski. One of the presenters at the ATSA meeting last year did a presentation involving some of his stuff, and managed to incorporate gay marriage and translation into it besides. If I remember correctly, it had to do with popularity (or lack thereof) of ideas. (I wrote down Daniel whatsisname in the notes I took, but I know I misspelled him, because I've looked him up before.)

The psychological article I'm translating is about as bad as I thought it would be. Partly because that's the nature of the scientific article (most of them use more language than they need to), and partly because I've never felt any need to read the results of psychological studies, so I don't understand what the point is. If I didn't know better, I'd think I was translating a translation back into English again. That's what we decided the jet pump instructions were; a translation into French of a set of English instructions. (It had the misprints to prove it, too.) With the article, they spend quite a while talking about how they translated the questionnaire the study is based on into French, so I'm assuming the article wasn't written in English. Anyway, I have to have seven paragraphs of rough draft done for Tuesday, and at the moment I'm about half a sentence into the fourth paragraph, so I should get back into that. Probably complete with "Damn it, I don't want to be doing this!" music, which I also use for housecleaning and other things that have to get done and aren't all that much fun.

Panther seems to be just what my computer needed. I haven't tried burning CDs yet, but that's because I've been messing around with other things. Interestingly enough, Panther seems to map fonts slightly differently than Jaguar; Times New Roman is my default font, and it looks skinnier in Panther than it used to. I wonder if there's a college professor in the world who doesn't get papers handed in in Courier when the student has run out of ideas a page or so too early? I've certainly done that. Last semester, even. I don't play with the margins and I don't go above 12-point fonts, but Courier has saved me a couple of hours a couple of times. I suspect professors know that Courier is one of the signs of a paper that's shorter than it ought to be.

I'm going to see Hero tonight. Anybody who can be in Kent by 9:00 is welcome to join me. :)

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Wow. I think Hero is the most beautiful movie I've ever seen. And I think I might have to obtain the soundtrack if such a thing exists. Taiko drumming and Itzhak Perlman. I like.

I wish they'd quit with the flying, though. I've seen martial artists do amazing things without it, and the whole "suspended in midair" thing just makes it patently faked. Granted, without the flying, Crouching Tiger would have been a completely different movie, but it bothers me all the same. Saying "impressive, but fake" is annoying.

I also wonder if the text at the end exists in the Chinese version. Somehow I doubt it. It felt like something they tacked on for American audiences so there would be at least a hint of a happy ending.

Despite the minor nitpicks, I very much enjoyed it.